But it was pleasant to be in the harbour of Portate. Everything
there seemed lazy. You could lie on a bunch of sail cloth, and see
the city, the sand, and the bluffs, and the valley of the Jiron up to
the nearer Andes. You could look up the level river to some low
hills, but what happened to the Jiron there you couldn't tell from
the _Helen Mar_. Beyond were six peaks of the Andes, and four of
them were white, and two blue-black in the distance, with little
white caps of smoke over them. The biggest of the black ones was
named "Sarasara," which was a nasty volcano, so a little old boatman
told us.

"Si, senor! Oh, la Sarasara!"

His name was Cuco, and he sold us bananas and mangoes, and was
drowned afterwards. The Sarasara was a gay bird. The mule drivers
called her "The Wicked Grandmother."

It came on the 23d of November. Captain Goodwin and all the crew
were gone ashore, excepting Stevey Todd and me left aboard. Sadler
and Irish had been ashore several days without showing up, for I
remember telling Captain Goodwin that Sadler wouldn't desert, not
being a quitter, at which he didn't seem any more than satisfied. I
was feeling injured too, thinking Sadler was likely to be having more
happiness than he deserved, maybe setting up a centre of insurrection
in Portate, and leaving me out of it. Cuco come out in his boat,
putting it under the ship's side, and crying up to us to buy his
mangoes.

Stevey Todd came out of the galley to tell him his mangoes were no