Explore "The Land of the Hibiscus Blossom" by Hume Nisbet on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
HECTOR and Collins were, after all, fated to get their vessel towed into the river as they had hoped, not an easy task in this land of cruel surprises, when, for all they knew to the contrary, their landing may have been watched by unseen crafty eyes; however, as far as their short survey entitled them to judge, this portion of the river was a low-lying, swampy, fever-infested, but uninhabited jungle.
Mud was the most plentiful provision of nature--mud, black and slimy--from which the scrubby mangroves cropped up and swarmed about in a serpentine fashion, with a barren level behind, devoid of any larger tree than low, unwholesome-looking bushes.