The Gulf and Gulf ports have always been unfriendly to colonization. Again and again attempts were made before a settlement would stick. Humans are not much wanted on the Peninsula. But at La Paz the pearl oysters drew men from all over the world. And, as in all concentrations of natural wealth, the terrors of greed were let loose on the city again and again. An event which happened at La Paz in recent years is typical of such places. An Indian boy by accident found a pearl of great size, an unbelievable pearl. He knew its value was so great that he need never work again. In his one pearl he had the ability to be drunk as long as he wished, to marry any one of a number of girls, and to make many more a little happy too. In his great pearl lay salvation, for he could in advance purchase masses sufficient to pop him out of Purgatory like a squeezed watermelon seed. In addition he could shift a number of dead relatives a little nearer to Paradise. He went to La Paz with his pearl in his hand and his future clear into eternity in his heart. He took his pearl to a broker and was offered so little that he grew angry, for he knew he was cheated. Then he carried his pearl to another broker and was offered the same amount. After a few more visits he came to know that the brokers were only the many hands of one head and that he could not sell his pearl for more. He took it to the beach and hid it under a stone, and that night he was clubbed into unconsciousness and his clothing was searched. The next night he slept at the house of a friend and his friend and he were injured and bound and the whole house searched. Then he went inland to lose his pursuers and he was waylaid and tortured. But he was very angry now and he knew what he must do. Hurt as he was he crept back to La Paz in the night and he skulked like a hunted fox to the beach and took out his pearl from under the stone. Then he cursed it and threw it as far as he could into the channel. He was a free man again with his soul in danger and his food and shelter insecure. And he laughed a great deal about it.
This seems to be a true story, but it is so much like a parable that it almost can’t be. This Indian boy is too heroic, too wise. He knows too much and acts on his knowledge. In every way, he goes contrary to human direction. The story is probably true, but we don’t believe it; it is far too reasonable to be true.
La Paz, the great city, was only a little way from us now, we could almost see its towers and smell its perfume. And it was right that it should be so hidden here out of the world, inaccessible except to the galleons of a small boy’s imagination.
While we were anchored at Espiritu Santo Island a black yacht went by swiftly, and on her awninged after-deck ladies and gentlemen in white clothing sat comfortably. We saw they had tall cool drinks beside them and we hated them a little, for we were out of beer. And Tiny said fiercely, “Nobody but a pansy’d sail on a thing like that.” And then more gently, “But I’ve never been sure I ain’t queer.” The yacht went down over the horizon, and up over the horizon climbed an old horror of a cargo ship, dirty and staggering. And she stumbled on toward the channel of La Paz; her pumps must have been going wide open. Later, at La Paz, we saw her very low in the water in the channel. We said to a man on the beach, “She is sinking.” And he replied calmly, “She always sinks.”
On the Western Flyer, vanity had set in. Clothing was washed unmercifully. The white tops of caps were laundered, and jeans washed and patted smooth while wet and hung from the stays to dry. Shoes were even polished and the shaving and bathing were deafening. The sweet smell of unguents and hair oils, of deodorants and lotions, filled the air. Hair was cut and combed; the mirror over the washstand behind the deckhouse was in constant use. We regarded ourselves in the mirror with the long contemplative coy looks of chorus girls about to go on stage. What we found was not good, but it was the best we had. Heaven knows what we expected to find in La Paz, but we wanted to be beautiful for it.
And in the morning, when we got under way, we washed the fish blood off the decks and put away the equipment. We coiled the lines in lovely spirals and washed all the dishes. It seemed to us we made a rather gallant show, and we hoped that no beautiful yacht was anchored in La Paz. If there were a yacht, we would be tough and seafaring, but if no such contrast was available some of us at least proposed to be not a little jaunty. Even the least naive of us expected Spanish ladies in high combs and mantillas to be promenading along the beach. It would be rather like the opening scene of a Hollywood production of Life in Latin America, with dancers in the foreground and cabaret tables upstage from which would rise a male chorus to sing “I met my love in La Paz—satin and Latin she was.”
We assembled on top of the deckhouse, the Coast Pilot open in front of us. Even Tony had succumbed: he wore a gaudy white seaman’s cap with a gold ornament on the front of it which seemed to be a combination of field artillery and submarine service, except that it had an arrow-pierced heart superimposed on it.
We have so often admired the literary style and quality of the Coast Pilot that it might be well here to quote from it. In the first place, the compilers of this book are cynical men. They know that they are writing for morons, that if by any effort their descriptions can be misinterpreted or misunderstood by the reader, that effort will be made. These writers have a contempt for almost everything. They would like an ocean and a coastline unchanging and unchangeable; lights and buoys that do not rust and wash away; winds and storms that come at specified times; and, finally, reasonably intelligent men to read their instructions. They are gratified in none of these desires. They try to write calmly and objectively, but now and then a little bitterness creeps in, particularly when they deal with Mexican lights, buoys, and port facilities. The following quotation is from H. O. No. 84, “Sailing Directions for the West Coasts of Mexico and Central America, 1937, Corrections to January 1940,” page 125, under “La Paz Harbor.”
La Paz Harbor is that portion of La Paz Channel between the eastern end of El Mogote and the shore in the vicinity of La Paz. El Mogote is a low, sandy, bush-covered peninsula, about 6 miles long, east and west, and 1½ miles wide at its widest part, that forms the northern side of Ensenada de Anpe, a large lagoon. This lagoon lies in a low plain that is covered with a thick growth of trees, bushes, and cactus. The water is shoal over the greater part of the lagoon, but a channel in which there are depths of 2 to 4 fathoms leads from La Paz Harbor to its northwestern part.
La Paz Harbor is ½ to ¾ mile wide, but it is nearly filled with shoals through which there is a winding channel with depths of 3 to 4 fathoms. A shoal with depths of only I to 8 feet over it extends northward from the eastern end of El Mogote to within 400 yards of Prieta Point and thus protects La Paz Harbor from the seas caused by northwesterly winds.
La Paz Channel, leading between the shoal just mentioned and the mainland, and extending from Prieta Point to abreast the town of La Paz, has a length of about 3½ miles and a least charted depth of 3¼ fathoms, but this depth can not be depended upon. Vessels of 13-foot draft may pass through the channel at any stage of the tide. The channel is narrow, with steep banks on either side, the water in some places shoaling from 3 fathoms to 3 or 4 feet within a distance of 20 yards. The deep water of the channel and the projecting points of the shoals on either side can readily be distinguished from aloft. In 1934 the controlling depth in the channel was reported to be 16 feet.
A 9-foot channel, frequently used by coasters, leads across the shoal bank and into La Paz Channel at a position nearly 1 mile south-southeastward of Prieta Point. Caymancito Rock, on the eastern side of La Paz Channel, bearing 129°, leads through this side channel.
Beacons—Off Prieta Point, at the entrance to the channel leading to La Paz, there are three beacons consisting of lengths of 3-inch pipe driven into the bottom and extending only a few feet above the surface of the water. They are difficult to make out at high tide in the daytime, and are not lighted at night [here the hatred creeps in subtly].
Light Beacons—Three pairs of concrete range beacons, from each of which a light is shown, mark La Paz Channel. The outer range is situated on the shore near the entrance to the ch
annel, about 1 mile southeastward of Prieta Point; the middle range is on a hillside about ¼ mile south-southeastward of Caymancito Rock; and the inner range is situated about ¾ mile northeastward of the municipal pier at La Paz....
Harbor Lights—A light is shown from a wooden post 18 feet high and another from a post 20 feet high on the north and south ends, respectively, of the T-head of the municipal pier at La Paz....
Anchorage—Vessels waiting for a pilot can anchor southward of Prieta Point in depths of 7 to 10 fathoms. Anchorage can also be taken northward of El Mogote, but it is exposed to wind and sea....
The best berth off the town is 200 to 300 yards westward of the pier in a depth of about 3½ fathoms, sand....
Pilotage is compulsory for all foreign merchant vessels. Pilots come out in a small motor launch carrying a white flag on which is the letter P, and board incoming vessels in the vicinity of Prieta Point. Although pilots will take vessels in at night, it is not advisable to attempt to enter the harbor after dark.
This is a good careful description by men whose main drive is toward accuracy, and they must be driven frantic as man and tide and wave undermine their work. The shifting sands of the channel; the three-inch pipe driven into the bottom; the T-head municipal pier with its lights on wooden posts, none of which has been there for some time; and, last, their conviction that the pilots cannot find the channel at night, make for their curious, cold, tactful statement. We trust these men. They are controlled, and only now and then do their nerves break and a cry of pain escape them thus, in the “Supplement” dated 1940:
Page 109, Line 1, for “LIGHTS” read “LIGHT” and for “TWO LIGHTS ARE” read “WHEN THE CANNERY IS IN OPERATION, A LIGHT IS.”
Or again:
Page 149, Line 2, after “line” add: “two piers project inward from this mole, affording berths for vessels and, except alongside these two piers, the mole is foul with debris and wrecked cranes.”
These coast pilots are constantly exasperated; they are not happy men. When anything happens they are blamed, and their writing takes on an austere tone because of it. No matter how hard they work, the restlessness of nature and the carelessness of man are always two jumps ahead of them.
We ran happily up under Prieta Point as suggested, and dropped anchor and put up the American flag and under it the yellow quarantine flag. We would have liked to fire a gun, but we had only the ten-gauge shotgun, and its hammer was rusted down. It was only for a show of force anyway; we had never intended it for warlike purposes. And then we sat and waited. The site was beautiful—the highland of Prieta Point and a tower on the hillside. In the distance we could see the beach of La Paz, and it really looked like a Hollywood production, the fine, low buildings close down to the water and trees flanking them and a colored bandstand on the water’s edge. The little canoes of Nayarit sailed by, and the sea was ruffled with a fair breeze. We took some color motion pictures of the scene, but they didn’t come out either.
After what seemed a very long time, the little launch mentioned in the Coast Pilot started for us. But it had no white flag with the letter “P.” Like the municipal pier, that was gone. The pilot, an elderly man in a business suit and a dark hat, came stiffly aboard. He had great dignity. He refused a drink, accepted cigarettes, took his position at the wheel, and ordered us on grandly. He looked like an admiral in civilian clothes. He governed Tex with a sensitive hand—a gentle push forward against the air meant “ahead.” A flattened hand patting downward signified “slow.” A quick thumb over the shoulder, “reverse.” He was not a talkative man, and he ran us through the channel with ease, hardly scraping us at all, and signaled our anchor down 250 yards westward of the municipal pier—if there had been one—the choicest place in the harbor.
La Paz grew in fascination as we approached. The square, iron-shuttered colonial houses stood up right in back of the beach with rows of beautiful trees in front of them. It is a lovely place. There is a broad promenade along the water lined with benches, named for dead residents of the city, where one may rest oneself.
Soon after we had anchored, the port captain, customs man, and agent came aboard. The captain read our papers, which complimented us rather highly, and was so impressed that he immediately assigned us an armed guard—or, rather, three shifts of armed guards—to protect us from theft. At first we did not like this, since we had to pay these men, but we soon found the wisdom of it. For we swarmed with visitors from morning to night; little boys clustered on us like flies, in the rigging and on the deck. And although we were infested and crawling with very poor people and children, we lost nothing; and this in spite of the fact that there were little gadgets lying about that any one of us would have stolen if we had had the chance. The guards simply kept our visitors out of the galley and out of the cabin. But we do not think they prevented theft, for in other ports where we had no guard nothing was stolen.
The guards, big pleasant men armed with heavy automatics, wore uniforms that were starched and clean, and they were helpful and sociable. They ate with us and drank coffee with us and told us many valuable things about the town. And in the end we gave each of them a carton of cigarettes, which seemed valuable to them. But they were the reverse of what is usually thought and written of Mexican soldiers—they were clean, efficient, and friendly.
With the port captain came the agent, probably the finest invention of all. He did everything for us, provisioned us, escorted us, took us to dinner, argued prices for us in local stores, warned us about some places and recommended others. His fee was so small that we doubled it out of pure gratitude.
As soon as we were cleared, Sparky and Tiny and Tex went ashore and disappeared, and we did not see them until late that night, when they came back with the usual presents: shawls and carved cow-horns and colored handkerchiefs. They were so delighted with the exchange (which was then six pesos for a dollar) that we were very soon deeply laden with curios. There were five huge stuffed sea-turtles in one bunk alone, and Japanese toys, combs from New England, Spanish shawls from New Jersey, machetes from Sheffield and New York; but all of them, from having merely lived a while in La Paz, had taken on a definite Mexican flavor. Tony, who does not trust foreigners, stayed aboard, but later even he went ashore for a while.
The tide was running out and the low shore east of the town was beginning to show through the shallow water. We gathered our paraphernalia and started for the beach, expecting and finding a fauna new to us. Here on the flats the water is warm, very warm, and there is no wave-shock. It would be strange indeed if, with few exceptions of ubiquitous animals, there should not be a definite change. The base of this flat was of rubble in which many knobs and limbs of old coral were imbedded, making an easy hiding place for burrowing animals. In rubber boots we moved over the flat uncovered by the dropping tide; a silty sand made the water obscure when a rock or a piece of coral was turned over. And as always when one is collecting, we were soon joined by a number of small boys. The very posture of search, the slow movement with the head down, seems to draw people. “What did you lose?” they ask.
“Nothing.”
“Then what do you search for?” And this is an embarrassing question. We search for something that will seem like truth to us; we search for understanding; we search for that principle which keys us deeply into the pattern of all life; we search for the relations of things, one to another, as this young man searches for a warm light in his wife’s eyes and that one for the hot warmth of fighting. These little boys and young men on the tide flat do not even know that they search for such things too. We say to them, “We are looking for curios, for certain small animals.”
Then the little boys help us to search. They are ragged and dark and each one carries a small iron harpoon. It is the toy of La Paz, owned and treasured as tops or marbles are in America. They poke about the rocks with their little harpoons, and now and then a lazing fish which blunders too close feels the bite of the iron.
There is a small ghost shrimp
which lives on these flats, an efficient little fellow who lives in a burrow. He moves very rapidly, and is armed with claws which can pinch painfully. He retires backward into his hole, so that to come at him from above is to invite his weapons. The little boys solved the problem for us. We offered ten centavos for each one they took. They dug into the rubble and old coral until they got behind the ghost shrimp in his burrow, then, prodding, they drove him outraged from his hole. Then they banged him good to reduce his pinching power. We refused to buy the banged-up ones—they had to get us lively ones. Small boys are the best collectors in the world. Soon they worked out a technique for catching the shrimps with only an occasionally pinched finger, and then the ten-centavo pieces began running out, and an increasing cloud of little boys brought us specimens. Small boys have such sharp eyes, and they are quick to notice deviation. Once they know you are generally curious, they bring amazing things. Perhaps we only practice an extension of their urge. It is easy to remember when we were small and lay on our stomachs beside a tide pool and our minds and eyes went so deeply into it that size and identity were lost, and the creeping hermit crab was our size and the tiny octopus a monster. Then the waving algae covered us and we hid under a rock at the bottom and leaped out at fish. It is very possible that we, and even those who probe space with equations, simply extend this wonder.
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