I have lost all track of days and dates. I get no papers, I receive no
letters, no one knows where I am, I hardly can locate myself.
It is a rough primitive life, and the situation necessitating a long
walk on a hilly stony track with rivers to cross has tested the
material of my four friends.
The Scotchman never came at all, we left him in the village when we
came to camp. He was invaluable in organizing our needs and dispatching
the mule train, but there was no cold beer in these regions and he went
back to Tampico.
The Mexican started with us, but turned back half way.
The Irishman is a man of affairs, he comes and goes--comes whenever he
can snatch a spare few days.
The Canadian has been able to remain.
Dick calls it “home”--and I suppose for him it is the nearest thing
approaching a “home” that he has had since we left England, or anyway
New York. For me also it has somewhat of a home feeling. It is so
primitive, so simple, so poetic. One comes to it with an appreciation
that is very nearly love.
How little one needs, if the climate is kind, a house with walls is no
longer a necessity, nor is fuel. All one needs is a roof to shade one
from sun and rain, and for furniture just books, heaps and heaps of
books. One wants all the books one has longed for time to read, and all
the books one loves that one dreams of re-reading.
Our kind hosts, the man and wife Mexican peons, are allowing us to
share their roof. It is a high thatch of palm leaves, it might be an
open barn or hayrick. And under this roof, we have pitched our tent. At
one end there is a room walled off transparently with battens like a
birdcage, this is lent to us for a storeroom and the Japanese cook and
his wife sleep in it.
Behind a screen of wattles, on a plank, sleep the owners of the roof.
I wonder if they will live all their lives in this place to die some
day on the plank bed behind the wattle screen. They are a charming
couple, so happy and devoted. He makes money by growing some sugar cane
on the island, and a few feet away from our thatched barn is another,
under it a primitive press in which they squeeze the juice out of
the cane. Under that roof another tent is pitched, and there the men
sleep. I don’t know who they all are, but they come and go, and some
remain--they are all workers in the Tampico firm.
Our island camp is like a miniature United States, composed of a
variety of nationalities, but all submerged into a family unionism.
The Irishman is the real Commandant, but he is obliged to be away most
of the time. He sends in his absence members of his firm, those who
need a rest or a holiday, and are a protective force.
These men are of varying types, most of them simple hardworking people
whose literary tastes run no further than detective stories and who do
not deeply think nor discuss the world’s problems! They have a certain
kind of humor which usually consists of teasing the cook, or telling
stories about getting drunk. The only cultured one among them is the
Irishman, who reads Schopenhauer and Ibsen.
He has just arrived for two days. This morning we walked down to the
foot of the island, crossed two rivers, by means of felled trees, and
walked back along the mainland, expecting to be able to recross the
river opposite the camp without going back the way we came. We had a
pleasant and varied walk, half in the water to our knees--so that my
top boots became like water bottles--and then to our waists, all to no
purpose, the river was unfordable. Eventually being hot and weary we
plunged in up to our necks.
It is a lovely climate that enables one to do these things, which
in England would produce pneumonia. Finally in desperation at not
accomplishing our purpose, we resolutely stepped out, into the
shallowest of the rapids to effect our crossing. I watched the man
walking rather insecurely, trying the riverbed ahead of me; at each
footmove one’s leg with great difficulty withstood the current. We
seemed to be nearly over the worst, when I had a sensation of wavering,
I put out my hand, he grabbed it, and together we were carried off our
feet and rushed like tumbling logs down-stream. Everything seemed dark
and chaotic. I was not conscious of my head being under water. The only
thing that impressed me was our utter helplessness and the futility of
his strong grasp. Very clearly I said to myself “This is the end.” It
must come some day, somehow, and this was the day and this was the way.
I wondered how long it would take and if it would hurt.
Then in the muddle when one seemed to be turning over and round, any
sort of way, a mere bundle of rubbish, I came on top, and saw the river
bank quite close--I snatched at grass, at roots, all failed, and then
something held--“I’ve got it, I’ve got it,” I shouted in triumph, and
when we regained our feet, and stood waist deep, spluttering we looked
at one another, without a word, in great surprise, and laughed, but my
laughter was very nearly tears.
We triumphed in the end, I would not return the way we came, so from
the mainland opposite our camp, the Irishman got across hand over hand,
on a wire hawser that spanned the river. It used to serve the ferry
which now lies wrecked and derelict half a mile down-stream; once
across he improvised a boat, out of a big wooden box and came across to
fetch me.
We were rather silent at supper; there seemed some food for thought.
It is a beautiful but awesome thing, this river. Higher up just around
the bend of the mountain it cascades for half a mile: thunderous and
forceful. It approaches our island, almost like a flood, diverting into
varying streams, creating islands, engulfing trees, there is not a
sight of it that does not contain a waterfall and a fast current that
pours over rapids. Everywhere there are waterfalls, usually six at a
time from every direction. Dick says all the rivers in the world have
joined us here. It is an hypnotic, wondrous, fearful thing. Sometimes
I hate it, always I fear it, several times it has tried to snatch Dick
from me. Always I think it wants to take Dick, and he loves it so,
is always in it, fearlessly going out of his depth, by hanging on the
swiftly floating logs.
The river has the spirit of a passionate irresponsible creature that
knows no laws.
It thunders and foams, roars and rages, laughs, is uncontrollable and
wild one minute, the next, gentle as a little child, a thing of moods,
untameable. There are people with the spirit of the river. They are
genius’s or revolutionaries. Some of them are mad.... I hate, I love, I
admire, I fear the river.