He found his way to San Pedro, which, with its rolling topography and adjacent harbor, bore a certain resemblance to a more sunbaked County Cork, a quality that attracted more than a few Irish, many of whom worked unloading cargo from around the world.

You know the type: We'll officially forbid torture but if you—soldier or law enforcement officer or intelligence agent—engage in it illegally with the intent of protecting me and mine and it turns out that you just might have protected us then we'll pardon you. Then we can feel clean and safe and pure and virtuous and still be properly grateful. Despicable moral cowardice; that's what that is. Someone (Michael Kinsley, I think) called all this, salami slicing. He was right, of course, it often is salami slicing.

The Yün-nan T'ung-chih, ch. 189, fols. 2a-5a, states that the P'u 獛 savages had a tail several inches long, and that they lived in nests in the mountains and forests. Their land adjoined the Ai-lao 哀牢, or the present Pao-shan 保山 of Yün-nan.

He said nothing, rousing himself once in a while to go through his hunting gear or repair a packstrap, and he even hollowed out a punky log with a hatchet for some use I couldn't divine.