No sooner had we
made fast than we were boarded by a shabby customs officer who, when he
had seen our passports, bowed politely and invited us to land. We leaped
ashore, gained the gravelled walk on the levee, and looked about us.
Squalidity first met our eyes. Below us, crowded between the levee and
the row of houses, were dozens of squalid market-stalls tended by
cotton-clad negroes. Beyond, across the bare Place d'Armes, a blackened
gap in the line of houses bore witness to the devastation of the year
gone by, while here and there a roof, struck by the setting sun, gleamed
fiery red with its new tiles. The levee was deserted save for the
negroes and the river men.
"Time for siesta, Michie," said Xavier, joining us; "I will show you ze
inn of which I spik. She is kep' by my fren', Madame Bouvet."
"Xavier," said Nick, looking at the rolling flood of the river, "suppose
this levee should break?"
"Ah," said Xavier, "then some Spaniard who never have a bath--he feel
what water is lak."
Followed by Benjy with the saddle-bags, we went down the steps set in the
levee into this strange, foreign city. It was like unto nothing we had
ever seen, nor can I give an adequate notion of how it affected us,--such
a mixture it seemed of dirt and poverty and wealth and romance. The
narrow, muddy streets ran with filth, and on each side along the houses
was a sun-baked walk held up by the curved sides of broken flatboats,
where two men might scarcely pass.
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