Part 15

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).

SUNDAY, AUGUST 14, 1921. _Tampico._

Spent ten hours on a small cabin launch going up the Panuco River and the Tamesi with which it junctions. At the ranch on Don Juan del Rio we stopped to bathe. It was very hot and very beautiful. We passed miles and miles of banana plantations and Indians in their frail overloaded “dugouts” who signalled to us to slow up for fear our “wash” would swamp them. Arm chairs and awnings were prepared for us, but with colored glasses to protect my eyes, I preferred sitting up in the ship’s bow all day in full glare of the sun. It beat down upon me, it burnt me, mercilessly, splendidly. I felt as if all the cold and fogs of England’s winters that had seemed so long, all the spring-times of England that had failed, all the summers of England that had been a disappointment, and all the autumns that had eaten damp into the marrow of my bones, were being burnt and branded and cauterized.

MONDAY, AUGUST 15, 1921. _Tampico._

We left Tampico by automobile for the Panuco oil field, and when we reached a point about 20 kilometers east of Panuco we had to abandon our auto in a bog and walk. Our luggage consisted of a gun, two kodaks, three coats and a heavy money bag which we have never dared to leave out of sight. The chauffeur when we abandoned him to his car, had assured us that Panuco was four miles away, “Just over the hill.” We started trustingly and full of energy, two kilometers rough walking over the sunbeaten shadeless plain was a bad start. We were overcome with thirst and Dick had to be carried on our backs in turn. The heat of the sun seemed to increase, the Kodaks became a curse, the coats a mockery. We sweated and limped and panted over the plain, and up the hill in the merciful shade of trees to the crest. No human habitation however was visible; down the hill we went and up the next. Still no sign, yet another hill. Dick became peevish and complaining, everyone too tired to carry him, and the springs in the hollows all dried up. At the foot of the third hill there was a junction of four primitive roads. Our guide left us in a heap, at the crossroads, gun loaded and full cock and with orders not to shoot at sight, but only on provocation, and he went in search of water. I took from my trouser pocket my little jade god, the one that looks like Trotzky and is 2000 years old. He is supposed to be the god who protects one from thirst. I stood him up in the sand and I begged him to send water. “Are you a curse or a blessing?” I asked him. “Never before have I carried you on me, never have I suffered from such thirst--be kind and send us, send us water!”

Half an hour later, when the sun was setting, we heard a distant sound of steps and voices and there our guide came running towards us, and a native boy with a bucket at his side. We all three got up and ran to meet him, ran stumblingly and speechlessly.

“Shut your eyes while you drink it ...” we were told. Womanlike, I looked, it was brown muddy opaque rainwater washed down from the hills ... we drank--and drank, one of us coughed up a small live fish, spat it out and drank again. Never ever had any drink tasted so good! And where was Panuco? Where the Corona Camp? 15 minutes away, said the native boy.

“Come and show us ...”

He would not.

“Five--ten pesos if you will lead us....”

“No I must milk the cows.”

“The cows won’t hurt for thirty minutes....”

“It is getting night....”

“You can find your way in the dark.”

“My father is out....”

We followed the direction he pointed out--we passed the Salvasuchi, Tampuche, Temante and Isleta fields. We passed them, I did not see them, my eyes were glued to the track, picking my way, and my mind concentrated on the effort of “getting along.” A little brandy, and even Dick shouted “no” when asked if we were downhearted. In the face of a lemon and sunset sky we were ferried in a dugout across the Panuco River from the Tamaulipas to the Vera Cruz side. An Indian at this juncture consented to escort us and carried our possessions. He said it was only two kilometers more, but we seemed to walk for two more hours along the river bank, in single silent file, through maize or cotton up to our waists, or banana plantations over our heads. At least we were not thirsty, and the sun was no more. The fire-flies danced around and before us, and the moon rose up in all her glory, making shadows among the banana leaves.

We started walking at 3:30, it was 9:30 when we tottered into the Corona camp and the Superintendent gave us his house for the night. The wife of one of the staff took us to her house to give us supper. I remember vaguely the mental effort of trying to display normal appreciation of her kindness in egg frying. But before the eggs were on the table my head was in my plate and I was fast asleep.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1921. _Corona Camp._

My bed facing the open window on the river, where the sun was rising, waked me at five. I got up stiffly and dressed at once. Found my host on the verandah and had a little conversation with him. He was a Swiss, and we talked French. Round his neck was a great scar. I learned afterwards that he had been hung by order of Carranza and was cut down just in time before he could die. We breakfasted at six and our host drove us to the railway station, three kilometres away, where we caught the 6:30 train full of workingmen; among whom in appearance we seemed quite in keeping. Dick was rather sleepy and said he felt sick, but otherwise showed no signs of the strain of the night before. He may have been carried at most two kilometers, for the rest of 18 he had walked it gallantly, and (after the sun had gone down) uncomplainingly. His powers of endurance before his sixth birthday made me extremely proud, and very hopeful of him.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 17, 1921.

Got up at 5:30 A. M. Waked Louise and Dick, breakfasted at 6:15 and then proceeded in a car to catch the seven o’clock train. We started a little late and half way the car stopped in a perfectly deserted street. The panic and agitation in which I finally arrived at the station, to catch the only Mexico City express of the day is indescribable. My destination was not Mexico, but Micos, about ten hours away where I had contrived (as I planned) to camp by the falls. All the camp gear had gone on ahead, but waiting for me at the seven o’clock train were my four friends. Each of them director, superintendent, or some occupation of the sort in a Tampico firm. One an Irishman, one a Scotchman, one a Canadian and the other a Mexican. They were arranging for me, and organizing my camp, and joining it for a holiday. They greeted me at the station by the calming assurance that although it was seven o’clock, the train would not leave for an hour. As a matter of fact it did not start for two hours and a half. I had gotten up at five to catch a train that left at 9:30. Meanwhile we were turned out of our compartment while it was hermetically sealed and fumigated--the enforced legislation for every train from a bubonic plague district. Dick walked around in the pouring rain with a friend and bought a baby parrot without a cage. The flies were such as Tampico alone can boast. When we did start, the engine broke down six miles out. It was nightfall when we reached Micos, a primitive little country station, in the middle of a village street. Here we were met by one who had gone ahead to select our camp. He said he had not had time to get things fixed, and that meanwhile he was renting for us a house in the village. Leaving the others to go to the house I walked back along the railway line with the Irishman to view the falls, and select a site. It was not easy, as the bank goes sheer down from the railway to the falls and sheer up from the falls to the mountain top, both sides densely covered with virgin vegetation. In this place there are no roads, peasants load their donkeys and mules and drive them along the single file tracks. There are no churches. The Spaniards never penetrated into this wilderness, the blood of the people is pure undiluted Indian. The railway has brought to them whatever they know of civilization. At the top of a stony track leading down to the valley, two natives, man and wife, bade us “Buenos Noches.” We asked them where they lived. They pointed way down below to a thatched roof and in gallant native fashion “There is _your_ house” they said to us, assuring us that if we pitched our camp there, we could get eggs, fresh milk, a child for Dick to play with, and moreover a boat to ferry the river. We took some cigarettes from them and walked back, reaching our village house after nightfall. It stood on a bank above the railway. It was, of course, unfurnished. Three beds had been put in one room for Dick, Louise and myself. The walls were of dried mud, whitewashed. The floor was of wet mud into which the legs of the bed sank unevenly. Our mosquito nets hung from a transparent ceiling of bamboo through which one could see the thatch. The next room was full of beds for our friends and across a patio, that was like the yard of a pig pen, we walked on duck boards to the kitchen and dining room. I slept with my front door wide open, the moon streaming in, the largest cockroach I have ever seen on the wall, and an upturned cube box next to me with my clock and Margaret’s photograph. The conditions were so novel and interesting that one forgot the discomfort. Every man in the next room (there was an open doorway over which I hung a sheet for privacy) snored like two men each. The village dogs held concert in the night and woke up all the cocks. Two trains came in to the station whistling and the mountains re-echoed. The insects made an unceasing sound, as of machinery, and at five the next morning I got up.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 1921. _Micos._

The village consists of a main street, mud houses, thatched roofs and three ‘open’ stores, a ‘cake shop’ and a drinking house. At the store I bought leather sandals, straw hats, scarlet neckerchief, red fringed sash, loosely woven scarlet wool material by the yard and a six shooter. While thus absorbed an Indian fell through the doorway onto the floor, drunk. His face was pathetically imbecile. He pawed the air and emitted noises and grunts like a frightened animal. The Storekeeper picked him up and led him gently out just so far as the cake store, and he tumbled headlong into that doorway.

In the mire of the street stood two immovable oxen, a burro, dogs, chickens, pigs and tied up a door was a black shiney nosed big eyed gazelle, it had been lassoed and captured in the woods.

It was a great day. The villagers were at their doors watching the packing of our stuff onto 16 mules; beds, matresses, stove, suit cases, stores. One mule gave a tremendous heave with his back and started off at full gallop down the street, scattering his pack on his way. He was caught and a red handkerchief tied over his eyes, a noose tied round his upper lip, and pulled tight, and he was repacked.

Dick rode a thin burro with a Mexican saddle and stirrups that looked like tin cans, two Indian boys accompanied him: one to pull the burro and the other to push it. With the baby parrot under my arm I walked ahead of the cavalcade for two miles along the railway track. We expected a good deal of trouble, but only one mule fell over the embankment with a bed on his back, and had to be dragged up on the end of a rope by another. How they ever did the journey down the rocky footpath through the wood into the valley without mishap is a miracle. But they fetched up at the riverside in perfect order and were there unloaded, while a bridge was being built to enable the men to carry the stuff across the rapids. This took time, but two palm tree trunks eventually spanned the rapids to a small island, and from there a dugout ferried us across to the big island, which is our camp.

At eight o’clock I went to bed dead tired, my bed was next to the tent flap, tied back so that the moon could shine in upon me, and I could look out and see the fire-flies. I fell asleep to the sound of water falls that roar like a great mill wheel on either side of the island.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 21, 1921. _At Camp._

What is the use of describing it?

I am never going to forget. It is mirror’d deep down into my soul, forever. And who else cares?

I am so happy and so completely at peace. It is less than a year since I went to Russia, and it has been the fullest year of my life. During that year I have hardly at all been alone, and I am very very tired.

Peace, (the most beautiful word in the English language) “the Peace that passeth all understanding” is mine at last.

When I die my Heaven will be like this. It will be warm and sunny, full of butterflies, flowers and water falling, water rushing and water pools that trickle. How I love water and the sound of it! I have found a little secluded place that I come to all alone. When I left the camp, crossing the river and the rapids, I walked half a mile and then I came to a wide shallow rivulet. Amidstream there is a tree and a big shady rock. I reach it by stepping stones. It is my castle. The stream tumbles from one pool into a lower one. The water is clear as crystal. I can see the shoal of big trout as they swim together against the current. There seems to be a myriad butterflies of every description. They hover quite near me, as though they had never seen a human, and so were unafraid. There is an irridescent one of sapphire blue as big as a bat. It is luminous in the sunlight, it dances around me tantalizingly like some great living jewel that I may not touch. I have heard of golden butterflies, but I thought it was an exaggeration of speech, but I have found one here. It settled on my foot and opened wide its wings, they seemed to have been cut out of gold tinsel and sewn together with an orange thread. On the branches of the tree over my head there are clumps of white orchids, and a pair of wild green parrots shriek noisily in their flight. I have loved spring days in England, with their mist of bluebells in the woods, and brimstone butterflies the color of the primroses, but this seasonless country, that has never known frost, this Heaven of eternal Sunshine and riot of beauty, is almost too wonderful to enjoy. It is as if one had picked all the best things from every corner of the Earth and put them here, and made a composition picture.

Last night I came back by moonlight across the island among the sugar cane. In the distance the lights glimmered from our thatched roof beneath which, at the foot of the mountain, our tents are pitched. On one side of me were bamboo, palm trees and tall feathery reeds and the moon caught the flat of the leaves and turned them to silver. I threw my arms out wide as though to embrace it all. I seemed not to be a mere stranger, a passerby. I, who have no sense of “home” suddenly felt that I “belonged.” My father had a ranch in Wyoming before I was born, and perhaps something hitherto untouched had awakened in me. I have no sense of possession. I do not desire to own. I know that these mountains are as completely mine as some man’s garden for which he has paid. I may climb the mountain, shoot, live, cut fuel, build a house, just as I may fish in the stream, build bridges over it, dam it, treat it in fact as though I had a title deed, but I do not feel that I own them so much as they own me. I belong here ... I do not belong to London, New York, Paris or Mexico City. I do not belong to people or to any social community. I belong to this garden that God has planted. This is not Mexico, it is just Arcady. It is not anywhere in particular, it is just a place “somewhere on God’s Earth.” I may live here all my life if I please. I can afford to live here without ever doing another day’s work. I need make no further effort so long as I live. I need never worry about food, fuel, roof nor raiment. I need never again see the misery of civilization, the poverty, the crime, the sordidness, the ugliness. I need never hear of wars, and the sufferings of humanity. I have strayed into a garden of Peace.

But Vasconselos said the truth: if humans are content, they are no better than the brutes, if they have imagination, they suffer always. And I know, that although I have found beauty and my dreams have been outdreamed, and although I have free choice, my decision will not keep me here. I know this may only be a rest by the wayside; that some day I must arise, strengthened, rested, and get back into the fray. I have an ambition, the task is set, I may not give up. This is self-indulgence. No one has a right to continue to live and leave no foot print. One may do some good, or one may do some harm, but one _must_ do something in the world, or forfeit the right to live.

My children, what would they become, brought up “in Heaven?” It may not be. They have to pass through the maelstrom to become worthwhile.

But this is good, surpassing good, and my heart is full of a deep gratitude. Perhaps some day when the work is done, my soul may rest in “Peace.”

IN CAMP--_Date unknown._