We were awakened at 6:00 A.M. by the sound of men whistling as they
dressed, and finally the gramaphone on the other side of the partition
played “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” and I got up, looked around for
water to wash in. Outside on the verandah (where the men have their
wash-stand!) I found it in gasoline tins. We had breakfast at the
“dining room” to which we motored across an open muddy space. The
breakfast, fried eggs, dried bacon, tinned butter, and canned milk was
excellent, after which we started homeward, with a feeling of great
appreciation for the simple hospitality of these splendid, hardworking
men. They had not much to offer, and it is rare indeed that a woman
intrudes upon their lives (I believe only about five have done so) but
they offer ungrudgingly all they have and make one welcome. I felt
badly that two people had been obliged to give up their room to me for
the night, and never learnt who they were to thank them.
Passing by daylight the hills with their drilling towers that we had
only seen dimly the night before made of the journey a new one.
As we passed through Amatlan we stopped, and got out into the mud to
photograph lot 162. This is the hillside with the twelve drilling
towers, “derricks” as they are called. 162 is the most prolific lot.
It was at this point that the field was threatened by the recent
fire, and it is estimated that from 500,000 to a million barrels of
oil were lost. I was interested to hear how an oil well on fire can
be extinguished, but in order to understand, we first stopped at the
Huasteca well, known as Amatlan No. 6, in lot 228, and watched it being
drilled. They had reached a depth of 1700 feet and expected to strike
oil at about 2,000 feet. A well is drilled by means of a bit. As the
hole is bored in, it is filled up by steel casing pounds up and down,
worked by a wooden wheel. When a depth of 1800 feet below sea level is
reached in a proven territory, the gas is encountered and the drillers
know they will soon strike the oil. After drilling through the final
strata, the oil dome is reached at about 2,000 feet below sea level.
When the well “comes in” the drillers first let her “clean herself
out.” This means that the gas is allowed to flow freely out of the
well. With the roar and rush of gas come pebbles and stones, in many
cases with sufficient force to throw the drilling tools out of the
hole, and wreck the derrick. The gas is very inflammable and not even
an automobile is allowed to pass within a radius of 300 metres during
an in-coming of a well. After the tools are thrown out, a great black
spray of oil comes up, and then the well is “in.”
The difficult part is closing in the well. A valve is set on the casing
with a stem about 30 feet running at right angles to the casing, and
usually the wheel that turns the valve steam is covered by a small hut.
A pressure gauge indicates the pressure of the oil, and from this the
engineers calculate the estimated daily flow.
When the big fire was raging in Amatlan, the only method of closing the
well was to tunnel to the casing, cut the casing and insert a valve so
as to shut off the supply of oil that was feeding the flame. This was
accomplished by one man, who, by means of an asbestos suit, and tunnel,
successfully accomplished the greater part of the work himself. It is
claimed that the Oil Companies had about 5,000 men at work, throwing up
earthen dykes to prevent a spread.
Craving for information, with the earnest desire of the ignorant person
to become knowledgable, I asked if the oil from these wells reached
its base through common pipe carriers, as in the United States. But
this is not the case here. Each individual company runs its pipe lines
at enormous expense, a procedure which is well afforded by the big
companies, but which is paralyzingly detrimental to the smaller ones.
Only the very rich can afford the luxury of enriching themselves.
From Amatlan we proceeded some miles, to the great crater known as Las
Bocas, which took fire and burnt for nine years. In those days the
means of extinguishing a burning oil well had not been evolved. The
narrow neck had burnt and burnt until it had converted itself into a
crater the size of a lake. From the surface of the sluggish waters,
gas was still rising and the water bubbling and hissing in eddies.
All round the crater the trees stood grey and lifeless, as in some
districts of the battlefields in France. This, as in France, being
caused by poisonous gas which has killed all vegetation, and left a
wood standing like a bare skeleton.
Near this place we met a native, with a gun dragging along a baby
coyote. He had wounded it in the hind legs, and the animal unable to
walk, was being towed along the ground by means of a willow branch
tied round its neck. We asked the man why he did not kill it. He
answered that he wanted to bring it “alive to the village, to show to
the people.” We argued that it was dying. The native was smiling and
unmoved. We offered him a peso to shoot it immediately. He continued to
smile. We offered him five pesos, he remained unmoved. “It will be dead
in an hour, and you will be without your five pesos.” But he smilingly
went on his way, dragging the bulging eyed, panting, dying baby coyote
with its limp broken legs. It wasn’t that he was cruel, he was merely a
brute with no understanding.
We pushed on to the camp known as Kilometer 40, for lunch, and here,
one of the first things they showed me in the Superintendent’s
quarters, was a Hearst magazine of July 12th, with a review and long
quotation of Clare Sheridan’s Russian diary with photographs of self,
with right and lefts of Lenin and Trotzky! I was sure well known by the
staff at this point.
During our trip from Kilometer 40 to Kilometer 80, we passed the worst
of the road, and I counted six cars bogged! The same fate did not
befall us, because we had an extremely brilliant driver, but we had
to halt for some time owing to the stoppage congestion. The car in
front of us contained a Mexican family moving--on the back of their
car, uncaged, sat a little green parrot. It looked so wise and talked
so much and laughed heartily. It sat on my shoulder for some time
and stroked my cheek with its yellow head, and said things to me in
Spanish. And when I answered it in English, it put its head on one side
and with the most entrancing Latin accent said “Right-o!” I made up my
mind that I must have a parrot, a green one with a yellow head. They
grow wild here.
The trip was without further incident until we reached Kilometer 80,
where we had a bucket full of lemonade and some thick cheese sandwiches
and from there in the dark we made for the Huasteca Terminal, crossed
the river in a motor and got back to Tampico about 9:30 P.M.
During these two days, I passed through the oil wells of the following
companies, operating in the Southern fields:
Huasteca Petroleum Company (Doheny Company).
Mexican Eagle, /or what is known in Mexico as “Cid Mexicana de
Petroleo, El Aguola” (English interests).
La Corona, or what is known in Mexico as “N. V. Petroleum
Maatschappij La Corona” (Royal Dutch Shell--Dutch Interest).
Mexican Gulf Oil Co. (Mellon Bros., Pittsburgh).
Island Oil Company (Leach & Co.).
International Petroleum Company (John Hays Hammond).
The Texas Company.
Transcontinental Petroleum Company (owned by the Standard Oil
Company--J. D. Rockefeller).