Chapter 6 VI TO SOUTH AMERICA AND BACK

Accompanied by daughter Aura May (alias Sugarfoot), Pap embarked on a two-month land, sea and air tour of Latin America in late November, 1949. This journey, extraordinary for the time, was recorded in a series of letters printed in successive editions of the weekly Putnam County Graphic, Greencastle, Indiana.

Each letter was hand-written, in pencil, on yellow, ruled tablet paper, and then mailed to the paper, where they would be set into the equivalent of two to five full columns of type. The touring was extensive, and the letters were inclusive, giving conjecture to just how Pap found the time to do all this writing? Aura May said that other than during the cruise down, he did it all at night after she had gone to bed. She remembered one time in particular when he awoke her at 2 a.m. to ask how to spell the name of the highest peak in the Andes-Aconcagua.

At first there was only a two-week delay between the writing and the publication, but these intervals grew longer as the tourists progressed from country to country, demonstrating the limits of postal departments and/or carriers of the day. By the time the final letter was printed, Pap and Aura May had been home approximately three months.

EMBARKING FROM NEW ORLEANS

At Sea, Nov. 27, 1949

To the Graphic:

We will start with Mattoon, Ill., where my daughter, Aura May

Durham, and I went to catch the Illinois Central's "Panama

Limited" for New Orleans.

This is a thoroughly-modern, diesel-powered all-pullman train. Among other things it has a folding removable ladder for all night access to each upper berth, which does away with the porter and his wooden stepladder and small washrooms at each end of the car, which permits the car to add two full sections. Time will tell whether this feature proves popular with the traveling public. The train is fast, the roadbed good. She was on-the-dot into Mattoon and about five minutes ahead at destination.

Our reservations were at the Roosevelt Hotel . . . centrally located a block and a half off Canal St., reputed to be the widest street in the world. The warm, soft dialect we generally attribute to the south is lacking. New Orleans has its own. I can't describe it. You have to hear it.

Well-suited to hospitality

Hospitality here, as well as in about all of New Orleans, is most cordial and unusual. Here is an example of what I mean: I thought it best to get another tropical suit-a rayon and cotton affair made by Haspel of New Orleans. I called the manufacturer's office to locate a retail store carrying the Haspel line. I was connected with the manager, A. Haspel himself. I stated my case.

He answered: "We are mighty proud you like our clothes. Tell you what you do. You go to such and such a store almost across the street from your hotel, call for Mr. A. or Mr. B. and tell him what you want. This is an off season for hot weather clothes. He may not have them. If not, tell him to measure you and call us and we will send down four or five to choose from."

"But," I said, "I want only one suit and in Indianapolis it would cost $25.50 and that is too much trouble for both of you for that money."

He said, "No amount of trouble is too much trouble for us to go to for a man who came all the way from Indianny to get one of our suits of clothes."

And that was what happened. The store was out, but I got the clothes.

THE PILOTS UNION

That evening we went to the Roosevelt Blue Room for 8 o'clock dinner and floor show. I noticed a modestly, yet well-dressed bald headed, rather heavy-set man of about 60 eating alone at the next table. The waiters all knew him as did many of the customers who passed.

I said to him, "You are alone this evening. Why not come over and join us in dessert?"

He replied, "I shall be delighted, and consider it an hon'r to be asked to join you and this charmin' young lady, but you must excuse me from dessert." Turning to his waiter, he said, "Bring the bucket over here if you will, Pierre." The bucket was a bucket of Burgundy, fairly well gone. Naturally he asked us to share it, and showed no resentment at our refusal.

It took only a few minutes to discover that our new friend was a "trifle high," and gaining rather than losing altitude, as time went on. He was a river pilot of long standing, and simply superb at modest elevation.

Putnam County is a bit shy on pilots, but not New Orleans. If I get the facts right, outbound and inbound ships have three pilots-river, bar and the ship's regular pilot. The last takes charge only when the ship is at sea. . . On leaving the wharf, the river pilot is in charge until the bar of the Mississippi is reached-the narrows or jetties where the river empties into the Gulf some 90 miles below New Orleans. . . The "bar pilot" steers the ship through the narrows and out into the Gulf. It is then that the ship's regular pilot takes charge.

It is these bar pilots who have a unique organization, virtually a family affair. To become a bar pilot you must either be born into the family or marry into it. Talk about your tight little corporations and monopolies! Bricklayers and other trade unions are accused of limiting memberships and daily numbers of bricks to be laid in order to hike wages. This "union" does the same thing by means of a sort of birth control feature. It's a honey of a trust. These bar pilots, I hear from pretty reliable source, get from twelve to fifteen thousand per year and work about six months of the year.

Last Tuesday morning, the Director of Commerce of the Board of Commissioners of the Port of New Orleans called to invite us on a tour of the harbor, along with some eight or 10 shippers. . . New Orleans shipping is tremendous, second only to New York. I casually mentioned San Francisco and was told that New Orleans had more shipping than the combined West Coast. Generally speaking, it draws the territory drained by the Mississippi River. New Orleans has 10 to 12 miles of wharves. On the trip we surely saw more than 100 ships, barges, ferries and other big water craft. Two ships were unloading thousands of cases of pineapples, so our local A&P store should be stocked with pineapple for you by now.

TIME IS A SEASONING AT ANTOINE'S

That evening the director and his wife took a local Democratic official and his wife and Aura May and me to Antoine's for dinner. Antoine's is an institution. Established in 1840, it has served food uninterruptedly, and is now owned and operated by a grandson of its founder.

The building, tableware and linen are severely plain. The waiters are noiseless and speak many languages. No bands, orchestras or entertainers-"You go to Antoine's to give your palate an undisturbed treat." No bar-"It is people who drink without eating who become paralyzed by alcohol." Yet it has a narrow wine cellar a block long, containing well over 5,000 bottles. The oldest wines date back to 1884, the oldest brandy to 1811.

Its gallery of celebrities contains over 2,000 autographs and pictures of distinguished visitors. Besides the main dining room, it has 15 others. One room's floor, the Mystery Room, is covered with sawdust. Guests have included Marshall Foch, Sarah Bernhardt, Will Rogers, Jenny Lind, Caruso, Edwin Booth, "Gentleman Jim" Corbett, General Pershing, down to enough U.S. Senators and Congressmen to ruin anybody's country.

The present head waiter has been there 40 years, his predecessor 50 years. Bus boys must serve an apprenticeship of 10 years. Time is a necessary element in the proper preparation of food at Antoine's. If you are in a hurry, Antoine's recommends you go to the corner drug store.

But let's get back to dinner before it gets cold. We started off with a cocktail of something. I think our host said it contained applejack, champagne and some other ingredient. It had a white collar like the beaten white of an egg. Then came "Oysters Rockefeller," so named because of the richness of the sauce . . . The recipe for this sauce is a closely guarded family secret. The dish consists of six oysters on the half shell. A much used pie tin is filled with rock salt to hold the heat indefinitely. The oysters covered with the sauce are imbedded in this salt and baked. The concoction, pie tin and all, is served on a plate.

Due to the salt, the oysters and sauce will remain hot for perhaps a half hour. Many a worthy brother's and sister's tongues have been blistered. Since 1899, the management has given with each order a post card showing the number of your order. Mine was 1301744. And so, figuring six oysters to each order, we find that the actual number of oysters used to date has been near eight million.

I had fish-Pompano en papillote-pompano served in paper bags (rumor hath it that the paper bag retains all the flavor), with Pommes Soufflees, or a glorified branch of fry or potato chips blown up like large flat pea pods with peas removed.

Dessert consisted mostly of Cherry Jubilee. Large, fat cherries are put in a metal bowl and covered with brandy. The lights are turned off over your table. The brandy is lighted with a match. The waiter stirs the cherries, flames and all, until thoroughly hot and the alcohol in the brandy is exhausted. Then he takes them to the kitchen, pours them over ice cream and something and brings back the portions, hot and cold. A Presbyterian deacon could eat Cherry Jubilee without a twinge of conscience.

All this took from 8 to 12 p.m., followed by a ride around the old French section, listening to the music of jazz bands as we passed the dance halls, winding up the evening's entertainment about 1 a.m. at the Morning Call-another New Orleans institution in a class of its own. Here rich and poor, young and old, meet on a common level and eat delicious doughnuts and drink cups of combined hot milk and hot coffee poured together simultaneously.

Nov. 24th, we sailed on the Del Mar. The ship's management distributed brightly assorted paper tape to the passengers gathered at the rails of the different decks and the farewells and bon voyages began. A Negro jazz band assembled on the wharf. One dancer was as nimble at catching coins tossed from the decks in an old plug hat as he was on his feet. The ship sailed at 4:20 p.m.

SHIPBOARD AND ST. THOMAS

To The Graphic,

Greencastle, Indiana

So we approached Charlotte Amalie, the only sizable town in the Virgin Islands, all white and gleaming in the sun and closely following the narrow shore lines. The high hills start almost abruptly from the shore. St. Thomas Island has a population of perhaps 12,000. Of these, Charlotte Amalie has well over half.

Taxis-good enough taxis-took those of us who wanted to go into town. . . When we met another taxi head-on at the top of a hill, he was on his left side, and so were we on ours. Woe is me, I thought. Here is where one of Russellville Bank's oldest directors gets directed to the nearest hospital, if any. . . During the time I rode taxis there in Charlotte Amalie I never got used to left-hand driving. What makes 'em do it? Even Aura May flinched. And I-I pushed the driver's seat forward some three inches or so.

HOTEL 1829

One Walter J. Maguire owns and manages Hotel 1829. He and his wife "Pete" are natives of New Jersey, living in C.A. for some 10 to 12 years, since acquiring Hotel 1829. Yes, you have guessed it. The hotel was built in 1829, and it shows it. Stucco, brick and some frame. All doors and windows remain wide open. At least until a hurricane comes. The original tile floors remain, showing considerable wear. It has a mammoth combination kitchen, bar and dining room, with built-in ovens and walls hung with quart to five gallon shining copper cooking utensils. All cooking is done with charcoal and gasoline stoves. The second floor sills are closely spaced and exposed from the first floor. I don't know the dimensions of these sills, but if one loosened and fell on one, one would never know.

The hotel has a honey of a patio, like you see in travel bureau literature. All first floor doors are double and fasten from the inside with glorified gatehooks that look like the twisted lightning rods on Mrs. Bridge's brick house west of Greencastle, only bigger and heavier. The one hanging on the inside of one of the front main double doors was about three feet long and the "staple" it hooked into was three-quarter inch solid iron. Hurricane insurance, probably.

Hotel 1829 has a maximum capacity of 24, although if remodeled for efficiency and waste spaces done away with, it could accommodate 124. Reservations are required and one hour notice for lunch and three hours for dinner. Rates: $10 per day per person, and up.

C.A. is a free port. Silverware, souvenirs, straw hats and sandals, cigarettes, wines and liquors and vegetable markets are predominant, but the greatest of these are wines and liquors. Old Gold cigarettes and the other three or four principal brands retail at 90 cents per carton, no tax. French champagnes like Moet and Somebody, $3.50 per bottle.

By the time we got there, the market was about closed. It is quite a place. It occupies a short block for length. The market has a roof; the sides and ends are open and the stalls are made of cement. A few stragglers remained with odds and ends of oranges, bananas, limes (4 for 5 cents), lemons, potatoes, peppers and things of that sort.

WATER SHORTAGE

Probably the biggest problem for Charlotte Amalie is that of good water, particularly drinking water. It is scarce and during the dry season, very scarce. Mr. Maguire told me drilling for wells is out of the question. They are either dry, or salt water. St. Thomas has no lakes, natural ponds, rivers or streams. It is even said that women sometimes wash their hair in the ever-present Coca-Cola. As a result of the water shortage, large patches of steep mountainside are cemented with water catches at the bottom for the rains when they do come.

All the police, the woman behind the window at the post office and the school children were Negroes, neatly dressed. No race problem here that I could see. A very few women carried loads balanced on their heads. When the ship docked about five or six rowboats of boys gathered on the bay side. The idea was to throw pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters down and they would dive for them. They rarely missed. . . They stayed from 10:30 a.m. to 3:40 p.m., when the ship sailed. One of the ship's officers told me the average take was three to four dollars.

Since leaving the island of St. Thomas we have moved steadily on. The ship averages something in the low 20's of our land miles- per-hour. . . Now we are far past the eastern hump of South America, have crossed the Equator, turned back southwest and are running along the coast of Brazil, and tomorrow we dock in Rio. The ship has a tiled swimming pool, well-patronized. The cabins, dining room, bar, latticed verandah, etc., are air conditioned, and well need be.

This is a fine way to rest and eat. Other than the ship's activities, all you see is a very few cargo ships, five miles to invisibility away, porpoises, flying fish, a gull or so, occasional low, dim landheads, the sky, the stars and moon-and water, reasonably calm but still as restless as a candidate on election night.

SAILING DOWN THE 'RIVER OF JANUARY'

To The Graphic

Greencastle, Ind.

We are southbound out of Rio de Janeiro (River of January, because I am told it was discovered in January). . . We docked early on the morning of Dec. 7th and sailed out at 6 p.m. next day.

I was standing at the rail when we docked. I have had feelings of helplessness many times, and more or less acute. But when I looked down some 30 feet and saw that crowd of coated, black haired and hatless men, and saw those upturned faces ranging from swarthy to ebony black, and heard that strange Portuguese as it came up in increasing volume along with its accompanying pantomime . . . I wondered and wondered what I was going to do and how.

By that time passengers were descending the accommodation ladder and strangers had come up. Shortly, the cabin boy came with a short, thin, wiry, coal black haired young fellow. He said, "You are Mr. Durham?"

"Yes," I said.

He handed me a card bearing the name of a well known American firm doing business in South America and said, "We received word you and your daughter were arriving and I am down to ask you to be our guests so we may have the pleasure of entertaining you while here. May we have that pleasure?"

"Son," said I, "you most certainly may-and before you have time to change your mind." And I meant it.

He looked a trifle puzzled. We went inside the Verandah Cafe and right there another less swarthy and older man accosted me in like manner, for a like purpose, and handed me a card of another well known American firm.

We sat down and ironed it out: the answer was most simple-and most satisfying to both hosts. We saddled ourselves on the young fellow the first day and on the older man the second day.

Come to think it all over carefully, that thing could have been rehearsed by said parties of the first part. Things fit in too well.

UNIQUE TRAFFIC PATTERNS

In Rio they drive cars mostly by horn. The balance of it is done by guess. The din and confusion is terrific. Added to this, pedestrians pay no attention to cars and drivers give no heed to pedestrians. The latter cross and re-cross the streets wherever and whenever they get the notion.

The first day in Rio we spent driving the downtown congestion along the beaches, and other sight-seeing. The big percent is one way traffic. To get a block or so away from where you are you execute some geometric figures they didn't have in the books when I took geometry.

This day we had an accident. Driving in the downtown congestion a car from the lane to our right pulled into us, tearing off the right hind fender of our almost brand new convertible. Traffic stopped momentarily only. You would think the two owners were exchanging pleasantries. They gathered up the pieces and pulled out what was left of the fender to keep the tires from scraping, and away we went. No cops, no report, no exchange of license numbers, no fight, no profanity, no nothing. It was a bit discouraging.

At noon we gathered at the head office, collected some more officials and our host took us to lunch at the Jockey's Club. . . With the aid of all present I ate those things for which Rio and Brazil are most noted. Some most excellent, some so-so. The famous coffee at the Jockey's Club, and elsewhere for that matter, must have bitter root and paint remover in it.

That afternoon, we drove to Petropolis, the summer capitol, about 40 odd miles up in the mountains over one of the few good highways. The paved highways of Brazil, a country larger than the U.S., have a total mileage of 450 miles. That wouldn't reach from Greencastle to Topeka, Kansas. Petropolis must be a half-mile above sea level. At places, where the highway ran near the cliff's edge, you could look down and see where you had been some 15 or 20 minutes before, but you'll never know how you got from there to where you are now.

CAVERNOUS EX-CASINO

On the way is the Quintandinha (or some such spelling) Hotel-the biggest I ever saw. Here is where the Pan-American Conference was held. There it was on the mountain side, all quiet, no one about and just beginning to look a bit like our cattle barn east of Russellville, or "Happy" Cal's derby hat. The hotel is closed. The reason? It depended on its casino to keep it going. The new president of Brazil was instrumental in enacting a law making casinos illegal. So now the gambling element of Brazil is thinking of getting a new president. So you see, the world is pretty much the same all over.

We drove up under whatever it is that great big hotels have in front of them and there stood six or seven cars. Most of them held Del Mar sightseers. Nobody could get in. Our host disappeared somewhere and came back directly, saying we would get in. I asked, "How." He said, "Folding money." So you see, we are still pretty much the same, all the way around.

Did you ever see a whale of a big hay loft with all the hay left out? When we stepped through the front door into the dimness of that hotel, that was my thought. No lights and total silence. Everything on a tremendous scale and everywhere in semi-darkness. That conference room must be the size of our court house lawn, hitch rack and all. The flags of all the nations still hang. Hundreds of thousands of cruzeiros changed hands nightly under, and surrounded by those flags. Inside, I saw a swimming pool 25 feet deep at the deep end. The fellow who I think took the folding money told me in broken English the dome of the hotel was bigger than that of St. Peter's in Rome. I doubt that. I said to him, "It certainly would hold a pile of clover hay." That went clear past and beyond him. But who am I to tell a Brazilian how big his dome is?

DOM PEDRO AND HIS MANY FANS

In Petropolis we went through the Palace of Dom Pedro. I'll not try to tell you just who Dom Pedro was, and how he came to be, because I don't know. I should, after all the Dom Pedroing I went through that afternoon, but I got confused. But Dom Pedro had to be some boy. Between him and his wife or wives and his sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters, and their activities, there wasn't much left to say about anybody else.

At the front door pious looking attendants slip felt slippers, open at the heel, over your shoes, and from there on through the palace you slide your way along the highly polished wooden floors (original). Dom Pedro, his wife (let's give him credit for only one) and their get were everywhere, in oil, bronze and marble, horseback and on foot. But Dom himself seemed to take pretty much to horses for the big pictures the big scenes. We saw the throne room, bed rooms, dining hall, nursery and its cradles, uniforms, swords, state dresses, black-hair combs a foot high, old china and glassware and ladies fans.

Let me tell you about the fans. My Aunt Jennie Black was a fan fan-the kind that folded up-and the art was to fold and unfold them gracefully. Remember? In a way, cigarettes are to our coeds what fans were to Aunt Jennie and her era. Well, don't think Dom Pedro's queen and women folk weren't in there fanning hard with their fans, and long, long before Aunt Jennie and hers. A room the size of Crawley's pool room was full of them in glass cases. Hundreds, yes almost thousands of them: Wood, bone, ivory, tortoise shell, amber and whatever else that could be made into fans. Delicate filigree, gold, silver, mother of pearl, inlay of superb workmanship and so fine it should be magnified to show it is really hand work. Yes, they had fans in Dom's day, and just as many as Brooklyn has now.

And away back behind was a small cubby hole room where Dom and his Senators, or Cabinet, or advisers, or whatever it was he had, met and considered matters of state. Then Dom, after being duly advised, would go out and make his own laws. Up home you had Huey Long and some others I mustn't name out loud do about the same thing, so you see, we are pretty much . . .

BRIGHTENING PROSPECTS

Two full days in Rio is hardly enough to get much idea of a foreign city of a million and a half to two million in population. One man expressed it this way. "Rio has a limited number of rich to big rich, and a world of poor to very poor. We lack a middle class. We are very short on middle class. After the war people of Brazil flocked to Rio, and, far far oftener than not, left a position and life much higher than the one they attained, or could ever attain, in Rio."

Right now, they are slowed down almost critically by reason of a shortage of American dollars. They want and badly need to buy from us, but have no stable currency to pay with. Added to this, it would appear to the average outsider, they have some unfortunate and crippling legislation that doesn't help this situation.

We went to a cocktail party at the Copacabana Hotel. And there we met some 20 to 25 men from the States in various commercial and financial activities in Rio. It was the general opinion that the financial and industrial situation is rather bad. No impending panic seems evident, but a ripple of pessimism exists. As the evening advanced and the cocktails expanded, that pessimism dissipated. By the time some of us got to where a cock's tail blended into the rest of his feathers and where the cocktail party blended into the dinner party, it appeared a boom was about to start.

LABOR AND CLIMATE

Sailing out of Rio at 6 p.m. Dec. 8th, next morning early we docked at Santos. We loaded 400 tons of rather inferior bananas for Montevideo and Buenos Aires, all hand work except for the crane that lifted the sling of loaded bananas off the dock and lowered them into the hold. When they wanted to move a car up or down the track, about 50 men would surround it and push, and slowly she would begin to roll. At 11 a.m. the city siren blew and everybody quit work right then and there until 2 p.m. That gave us two full daylight days in Santos.

I had been told in Rio that another representative of one of the companies would meet and take care of us at Santos. The first day we drove to Sao Paulo, referred to by Brazilians as the "Chicago" of Brazil. To me, that is a Churchillian understatement. It is the manufacturing city of Brazil, some 50 odd miles up in the mountains from Santos. The two cities have rail and truck connections. I asked our host how come manufacturers would unload raw products or knockdown parts onto railroad cars or trucks, make the haul up to S.P., manufacture or assemble it there, then rail or truck it back down to Santos or Rio. Why not do it at Santos or Rio and cut out all that haul and extra handling?

The answer was "labor conditions and climate differences-mostly the former." After seeing those 50 men gingerly moving that banana car of half the capacity of one of Sir Herbert Martin's box cars, I began to catch the idea.

We had lunch in a super class French restaurant. For some unknown reason our host and his sprightly wife wanted to take us to The Jungle-a real, for sure Brazilian jungle some 140 kilometers on beyond Sao Paulo. We started, but long, long before The Jungle we practically ran out of road. They were improving and re-locating the highway. We held a caucus. Our host was as game as they come. . . Open revolt came when our host said he had inquired and was assured the road would get better farther on and that he would have us back aboard ship by midnight, perhaps before that time. A vote was taken. Three were for returning then and there, with one not voting. We turned around and headed back for Sao Paulo.

On the way out toward The Jungle we met truck after truck loaded high with sacked charcoal enroute to Sao Paulo where it sells as high as a doctor's bill back home. It is used in cooking. There seemed to be no coal. Gasoline is expensive and oil men tell me it is not as good as our "regular." No Ethyl.

Our host, knowing we had driven from Rio to Petropolis, at the day's end told us we had traveled almost half of the total good road mileage of Brazil.

NO MINK SOUTH OF KEY WEST?

At Rio and Santos we lost upward of a third of our original passengers. Newcomers filled all the vacated cabins, Portuguese or Spanish speaking peoples. Most of them were business men and not tourists out for a lark. Talk started about going through customs at Buenos Aires, and how many cigarettes and how much liquor we could take in. For some reason opinion on number and volume differed. . . As to liquor, the question centered around whether it was liters or number of bottles that counted, and if so what size bottles. All of which didn't help those who had it in jugs. I never will know how the jug crowd came out.

Sugar Foot's problem is something else. It has to do with a neck piece Mummy or someone else in the family besides me is sending to Ann Drew in California. Now you know why it is taking this roundabout way of getting to California, so why ask me that simple a question? But so far on the trip there has been no place for the display of furs, and the only way that comes to me now that we can achieve that air of affluence is for the hot water system of the flying machine to give out when we are 2,000 feet in the air going over the Andes to Santiago. But let's hope it doesn't. I don't want anything to happen to anybody that high up, much less Sugar Foot and me. I wouldn't want that to happen even to a Republican-provided there are any of them left up there by this time.

I see I started out telling you about Aura May's problem and wound up in politics. Her problem is this: she didn't declare said alleged mink neck piece on leaving the States. Now some low fellow tells us we will have trouble getting "back-in" with it. My hope is there are no mink south of Key West. And besides, the more I get the few glimpses of that neck piece the more I am convinced they're house cats made up to look like anything that has to pay a duty.

INTERVIEWED BY THE URUGUAY PRESS

To The Graphic

Greencastle, Ind.

The evening of Dec. 10th we sailed out of Santos, redolent of coffee, and the next morning docked in Montevideo, to be met by another "angel" from one of those heaven sent Companies we've been blessed with so far. . . With the aid of an interpreter, we were to have our pictures taken and give an interview to a reporter for one of the newspapers.

They wanted to know how we liked Uruguay and Montevideo.

Naturally, we didn't know, not having set foot on either yet.

Well, where were we going and what were we going to do-business, pleasure or diplomatic? And all this time I was repeatedly asked what advice I had to give to the people of Uruguay. You bet I had none-none whatever.

When this filtered to the reporter, he looked amazed and puzzled. He was thinking. The next perplexed question that came through the strainer was, "But you are a lawyer, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am a lawyer, but a lawyer is the last fellow you want to go to up home for advice-except politicians, veterinarians and undertakers."

They caught the "politician" part of it, but I don't think the reporter ever did unravel the rest of it.

He was a persistent pressman, however, and kept firing the advice question at me.

I finally said, "I have no advice whatsoever to whomsoever," etc. (using other big sounding words lawyers use when they don't know) "to give you splendid sovereign peoples of Uruguay. If I had to give something, it would be this: observe International Law and your Treaties to the letter, and then run your own country in your own way and without let or hindrance from anybody outside."

The interview was an unqualified success judged from the nods, gesticulations and shaking of hands. I got so I thought it was pretty good myself.

But alas. You should read what came out in the paper next morning. . . I was quoted to have said Uruguay had a most forward and socially stable government, or something like that.

LIVESTOCK-REAL AND BRONZED

Our friend, the manager of the company, proved to be most capable. . . We drove over the city after picking up his wife. . . Montevideo is much cleaner and more mechanized than is Rio or Santos, or so it seemed to me. The docks were less littered up. Perhaps people and business moved faster and more orderly. . . Saw a world of sheep. Sheep is a big industry in Uruguay-perhaps its biggest. There were also pen after pen of cattle. I never saw a steer there as good as Oscar Clodfelter's worst one.

If I have worked kilos into pounds and pesos into dollars correctly, prime steers are selling on the hoof there at the market at five to six cents per pound, our money. But always remember they're probably grassers and not the way the Hazlett boys or Jude Grimes corn feeds them.

Another thing in Montevideo. I've seen a real piece of art, a bronze piece of statuary "of heroic size." It sets in a park. It is called La Carreta, and depicts an early settler on a horse beside a two-wheeled pioneer cart with one big wheel sunk in the mud plumb down to the axle pulled by one bull and seven steers or oxen all yoked together, and with a spare ox tied on behind. I looked to see about that ox. He was an ox and the only possible criticism I have is that he should have been a cow tied on behind. Otherwise the thing is perfection to me. The cart slopes just right, the oxen look hard-worked, the bull like a bull, thick neck and all, the horse like a thin, tired horse ought to look, and the man like some men up on Raccoon I've seen in my time. Only he had on some local trappings my men never had. But there they are, the man yelling, the bull and oxen set and straining for every ounce, and all trying like hell to get out.

Maybe that cow was following behind a half quarter or so, and I failed to see her.

CLEARED FOR BUENOS AIRES

We sailed out at 6 p.m. Dec. 13 for Buenos Aires. In the meantime the Argentine doctors had come aboard to look us over and sort out the rots and specks. They, along with our ship's doctor and some of the officers were in the bar when Sugar Foot and I came back to ship. One man who had traveled before said they were being mellowed-up so they wouldn't be too technical with us. If they were, it took a long time. . . The Purser handed in Sugar Foot's passport. The doctor found the right page, took one look at her and stamped her "sound", remarked something about the beautiful senorita. They are good at that down here-mighty good. I don't know how many men have kissed her hand to date on introduction. . .They stamped me next and we were off.

A man from one of those blessed firms met us at B.A., and got us through customs in record time. Not only that, he got us and our luggage to a waiting car, and said, "This car and the chauffeur are at your disposal day and night during your stay in Buenos Aires, which we hope will be most pleasant. . . Don't hesitate to ask us for any information."

And here I had been worrying about two extra cartons of cigarettes all the way from St. Thomas.

We first got settled at the Plaza Hotel and then drove to see many of the sights. In B.A. they also drive pretty much by horn. I am told it is the second sized city in the Western Hemisphere- bigger than Chicago even. Anyway, it is big.

The sights of Buenos Aires are many and varied. About like any other S.A. city, only bigger. . . The shops are elaborate. . . Prices are reputedly relatively higher in B.A. than at home. I sincerely doubt this. I positively do. Especially if you get your money changed into pesos at what some are willing to give for American dollars. It may be a bit shady, but it is done rather openly. Never go to a bank. The banks are pegged. They can give you 9.3 pesos per dollar. Our blessed friend at the dock warned us. He told us to have our (get that possessive) chauffeur stop at one of the cambios, I think they call them, and go in-just like that. . .We got 15 for 1.

Due to the number of us arriving via S.S. Del Mar, we were not required to go to the police station to register. The authorities detailed a man to come to the Plaza Hotel and do the job. . . He had a big sign, "Silence," on his desk; also a typewriter. He assumed a very important look, much the same as the one I took on when the lobbyists began calling me "Senator." The job was soon over. We received our tourist cards with instructions to carry them at all times-or else.

JOCKEY'S CLUB-WHERE THE BEEF IS

Beef is the staple food, killed that morning. No self-respecting Argentine would touch ripened meat or chilled or deep freeze stuff. He wants it right off the hoof. And yet, I am inclined to think they want it fairly well-done. Sugar Foot has been having trouble getting hers rare enough.

The best meat I have had was at the Jockey's Club. Every town down here seems to have a Jockey's Club. . . All of them are owned and operated by the same people. Who started them? The farmers of the Argentine. Away back there these beef growers began to get rich. Then they got feudal. They were the Aristocracy of hereabouts. Big holdings and immense herds. Then they moved to town and took over. Now some of them have gone to Monte Carlo and Cannes and New York while the overseers and hired men run the place back home. That is the way I am told. . . To be a member you have to be one of those farmers. Or else a descendant of one of those farmers-you've got to have Hereford blood somewhere in you.

The Club has all the dignity it is possible to have. Marble floors, big well-spaced tables with large roomy chairs, heavy dark polished woodwork, immense wide stairways and steps with low risers, an enormous library with old men in dignified dress asleep here and there, kinda like English clubs, say.

On Sunday we went to the races at Palermo track. . . We had as our guests Captain Jones and Purser Stricker of the Del Mar and a Mrs. Somebody who operates a girls' school in Buenos Aires. The captain and Mrs. Somebody go to bet on the races, and bet they did, on every race. I said above that we were hosts. That's wrong. The good captain had the big thing-access to the Jockey's Club part of the track, the stand right at the wire. In my innocence I had asked them as guests. They had accepted as such. Having sat at table with the good captain for about three weeks, he had long since gotten my number and what I knew about Palermo and everything else south of the Putnam County line. He just bided his time and then let me down as easy as possible. He's that way.

EVALUATING THE WOMEN

I remember what Claud Smith (now a pious, sedate lawyer and ex- judge down at Princeton) said once when we had gathered in a room at Indiana U for the usual talk. In his blunt, matter-of-fact way, Claud spoke up first. He said, "Well, shall we begin talking about the girls right off the bat, or gradually lead up to them like we've been doing?"

So let's talk about these beautiful women down here. They know how to dress in a striking way. Black-eyed, black-haired with smooth swarthy complexions. Some are as sinuous and graceful as all get out. But my observation is that the majority are from trifling bulky to good and bulky. But you must bear in mind that I do not see much of the younger set. It is the older women I get to see most. . . I do not understand Spanish. That is a terrible handicap. But if they talk as intelligently as they do animatedly and rapidly, they're honeys.

Nevertheless and notwithstanding, I think I know where the prettiest women on earth are to be found in the greatest numbers, and I'll tell you where to see them. Go sit on the Boulder in East College campus when classes let out and you'll see them. You'll see more per square inch there than you'll see here per square rod. If you are too self-conscious or too dignified now to go sit on the Boulder, then I'll tell you, . . . if we had brought Miss Bess Robbins and Miss Sedelia Starr down here some time ago they would have won 99 out of 100 of all the beauty contests hereabouts. I'll add my sister, Mrs. Margaret D. Bridges. I thought she was the prettiest girl I ever saw.

OVER THE ANDES BY AIR

On a certain bright morning at 11:15 we started my biggest trial by fire or whatever the poets call it-going over the Andes in a flying machine. To me the plane didn't look any too new, or the paint any too fresh, or the pilot and crew any too much like I thought high-flying Andes pilots ought to look. The passengers looked pretty heavy, and there was a world of baggage.

The takeoff was the usual one. We got higher and higher. The literature on the back of the seat just in front of me was none too assuring. It said, "If you feel yourself getting sick just use the strong paper bags in the pocket on the back of the seat in front of you. Don't feel ashamed. Others before you have used them," or words to that effect.

We climbed and climbed. From time to time I thought I heard the engine sputter. We would hit bad going occasionally, the wings would dip up and down, and my seat would sort of try to get fully out from under me.

The best way I know to describe the scene is . . . rectangular straight sided patches of land of varying sizes and colors as far as one could see: green, purple, dirt color, straw color. Sometimes I thought there were streams of water. Houses or barns were mere ballot-sized squares, evidently surrounded with trees in full leaf. . . Inevitably each town had a plaza with spokes running out like those of a wagon wheel.

At the foot of the Andes the ground was closer and looked like the crinkled hide of an elephant. Then came the Andes. Soon there was plenty of snow. Eventually we passed to one side of Mt. Aconcagua, the highest peak in South America, 23,000 and some feet. We must have been 21,000 feet up. Then we saw its glacier, blue-green and cold. Up there we saw lots of blue-green ice.

In short order we circled over Santiago and landed. Gosh-a- mighty! Was I glad! We landed at 1:15 p.m., one hour change of time. It had been a three hour trip. And right there at the airport was a representative of one of those Heaven-sent U.S. corporations I've been talking about, ready and willing to take us and our one remaining jug of St. Thomas rum through the customs and to the Carrera Hotel.

And now we are going on our big adventure into and among the unknown. Daughter Joan and her husband, Bill, met a couple in Paris, France, last whenever it was who are from Nehuentue, in southern Chile, near the lakes and volcano region. Sight unseen they have asked us down over Christmas, and sight unseen we are going. They are of French extraction. Speak Spanish fluently, but no English. Sugar Foot speaks and understands considerable Spanish. But what am I to do? How am I to learn where the bathroom is even-if there is any.

IN CHILE: ROCKY ROADS, BIG 'FARM'

The train from Santiago to Temuco, where we were to meet our unknown host, is a three or four car diesel train. In English, it is "The Arrow." All seats are reserved and it is probably an extra fare train, all first class. The train left at 7:45 and arrived in Temuco, about 450 kilometers away, at 6:10 p.m.

Going south toward Temuco, we kept in the valley with fair sized mountains on each side, quite a distance away. Garden truck, fruit trees and wheat, cattle of European breeds, considerable dairy stuff, but nary a Hereford. Huasos (Chilean cowboys, corresponding to the Argentinean gauchos) in their mantas (cloth blankets with slits in the middle to put the head through) became common.

Temuco is the biggest city in south Chile, about 65,000. On the platform we met our host, a clean-cut, energetic young fellow about 32 years old, and another young fellow who turned out to be a schoolmate of our host in Paris. Our hostess was home with a slightly ailing four-month-old boy.

The two men were to take us southeast to Pucon in the lake and volcano country, 50 kilometers away. The road was a bit rough and we must hurry because we should see the scenery enroute and then spend the night in the fine resort hotel at Pucon. Then back next day to Temuco and thence due west another 80 kilometers or so to mine host's fundo (farm) near Nehuentue. It was all arranged.

We got in a 1947 Chevrolet that had taken a beating since it left the factory and started over the road described as "a bit rough" . . . Man of Samaria! Was that road rough! And did the loose round rock fly. . . Our car had a special network of steel bolted to the frame to keep flying rock from damaging the underside. And 7-ply tires-I never heard of them. And most of the time our speedometer ranged from 45 to 80 kilometers per hour, depending on how the road looked to our host. He mis-guessed many times.

We had three blowouts on that road to Pucon, and the first one tore the inner tube all to the devil. We never saw the valve stem. Our friends donned overalls, spread a piece of thick material and got under.

The blowouts caused us to change plans. We couldn't make Pucon and its splendid resort hotel that night, because we might run out of tires. We would have to stop short about 25 kilometers, at Villarrica, near a tremendous volcano of that name. Our host knew a French woman who ran a hotel there. Not much of a hotel for looks and all of the comforts, but the food would be exceptionally good. It was.

That late evening was the last time we were to see Villarrica. A mountain of a volcano, snowclad, it stood high above everything else, cold, white and still. It appeared shaped like one of the pyramids of Egypt, except that the top didn't come to so acute an apex. It erupted last year after a long period of dormancy. It awed me something like the Grand Canyon of Arizona does. Next day brought a big haze.

QUEST FOR HOT WATER

That hotel is something to write home about. The evenings and nights were cold. We wanted a room with twin beds and bath. By golly, they had it-such as it was. We wanted heat, but that they didn't have. The bed was too short for me, even sleeping crosswise.

Next morning I turned on the hot water faucet for shaving. No hot water. My interpreter, Sugar Foot, was asleep, so I thought I'd try to make myself understood. I asked the first girl I saw about hot water. She spoke and gesticulated rapidly, which opened the flood gates, and five or six more came running. Thus reinforced, we all ventured back to our room.

They must have forgotten all about any daughter being along. She was asleep and covered up, head and all. I called her. When she got unraveled and that head emerged, framed in all those aluminum and tinware bobby pins, the nearest girl gave a wild-eyed half shriek. When the baby of the family unwound some more, the girls, seeing no blood, finally consented to listen. With a something in Spanish or French that evidently meant, "Oh, that was what he wanted," the girls filed out. Aura May, in a tone they don't teach in finishing school, said, "They will bring some hot water as soon as they can make it."

She gave me a crab-apple look, turned over and wound up again.

In far longer than due time, a long-eared boy brought a pint container of water. It was just enough to take the chill off the bottom of the lavatory. And the rubber plug leaked, to boot.

The trip on to Pucon was uneventful, concerning tire trouble. We were never to have any more. The hotel looked all it was represented to be. There were few guests. The beach was as bare as our dry lots after a year of feeding. One motor "put-putted" out on the lake-30 miles long-but the occupants looked like they'd prefer being somewhere where steam heat was on. It is true that the season was just begun-hardly that.

We all four had had enough. We started back to Temuco over that same road. The day was cold with very poor visibility. Some of the volcanoes were no doubt smoking like they had for hundreds of years. We couldn't see them.

Something keeps telling me the weather south of Chile will have to change to make that hotel a good go. I want none of its stock. I'd rather have mine in Russellville Bank, and the Lord knows some of the stock holders think that is bad enough.

TREE FENCES AND OX CARTS

But we did see sights I never knew existed. I'll tell you how they built fences 50 to 75 years ago. The country was full of big timber. They wanted less timber and more fences. They cut the trees into 9 to 10 foot lengths, split the timber into 9 inches to a foot for thickness, squared the sides, dug long trenches three to four feet deep, and set these timbers side by side, close and tight, and then filled in and there was your fence, horse high, bull strong and pig, yes, chicken-tight, unless they flew. There are thousands of miles of that kind of fence still down there, old and moss-covered but still pretty sound and serviceable. Think of the work and loss of timber that involved.

Another big sight is the oxen and their carts. On this trip most of them were hauling timber of one sort or another, logs or sawed stuff. We saw hundreds of oxcarts and oxen. Some carts had spokes, steel tires, steel axles and metal fellers, or whatever it is the axles fit into. Many of them had wheels made of round logs with no metal tires or other metal about them. The axles ran through holes in the bare wood. They were the primitive kind, but there were hundreds of them.

WORLDS OF CASTE

All the time we were passing huasos in their mantas astride their horses-hundreds of them. There were so many they almost got monotonous. Never was a "hello" said, or an arm lifted in salutation. We were in a car, and that was enough. Worlds of caste separated them from us.

The back track to Temuco was about the same. We missed a few of our original boulders but made up for it with new ones. To be sure, much of the little stuff, say from four inches down, we had shot from under the tires out into the wheat fields and pastures, so it was out of our way, but that was only a fraction of the available material.

We headed west from Temuco toward the Pacific. The road was to be about like it had been for some 55 kilometers and then get "rather bad at times from there on." The "bad roads" turned out to be dirt roads with big chuck holes.

We entered the Mapucha Indian country. They live in thatched shanties and lean-tos, some in sort of caves they had dug in steep banks along the roadside. There were plenty of dogs and children. Once, at some distance, I saw a lot of smoke coming out all over a roof. I thought the place was on fire, but our host, by way of our interpreter, Aura May, said roofs are made to let out smoke. An Indian builds his fire on the floor in the middle of the house. I suppose the rain comes in the same way the smoke goes out.

A WHALE OF A FUNDO

The big moment came: We were at the home of our host and hostess. The big white house sits on a round natural knoll, the top of which is about 100 feet above the surrounding ground. Flower gardens practically surround the house and are about as well kept and beautiful as any you will see anywhere; some mighty tall eucalyptus trees; a fine cement tennis court with a judge's stand and seats all around for spectators; double garage; a long, turning, bowered walk leading from the base of the hill up to the front door, the bower made of trimmed and trained small sycamore trees.

A fundo in Chile corresponds to an Argentinean estancia-a big farm to a whale of a big farm. This fundo has some 3,000 acres. He has another down the road back toward Temuco. Fundo No. 1 has a big Delco lighting system, so you know what that means-three or four all time men.

I shall not try to account for the army of men and women this "fundoist" (let's just coin another new word) employs, but I'll give you a rough idea. He pays off through a window of his office in the house. From about one or two p.m. to five o'clock that Saturday, when he and his overseer knocked off for tea, they had paid 62 men and women. After tea they went back at it and then again after dinner. I was never told the full count.

He always has a long list of potential employees. He is good pay. And yet I know a smallish man back home who gets exactly 10 times the money that this man pays his overseer per month. Now maybe you can begin to account for those beautiful gardens, those precision trimmed hedges, that spick and span house, those neat walks, weedless lawn, splendidly cooked meals faultlessly served, and so ad infinituma seeming inexhaustible supply of fabulously cheap man and woman power by our standards. Not so much down here by Chilean standards, in Chilean money, made in Chile.

Our room in the Carrera Hotel in Santiago with twin beds, tub and shower, service galore, large, airy and well-appointed in every way, on the 14th floor with French windows and magnificent view- a splendid room in probably the biggest and best hotel in town- cost us 606 pesos per day, sales tax and tips included. In our money, as we exchanged it, that means $6.06. Even a Durham wouldn't kick on that.

We will get back to the fundo and go out the front door, make a right angle and have a look. Below and directly in front are the barns, barn lots, drives, pens, slaughterhouse, enormous two story wheat granary, potato houses, stables, sheds, blacksmith shop, lumber room and sawmill pretty well equipped to make any wooden thing a farm needs, the Delco building, the flour mill, the cheese factory and probably a lot of other "small stuff' like that.

He had six riding horses in one stable when I looked in. Two of them were thoroughbred Chilean horses he seemed rather proud of, although he is extremely modest about what he owns. Aura May went riding to the nearby Indian town and back on the big hills, taking a look at the Pacific Ocean off there to the west about two miles.

Beyond the aforementioned barns and so forth is the highway, and beyond that is near 2,000 acres of about the finest bottom land in all Chile. It is supreme. It extends over a mile to the river and almost three miles up and down, to a very small town, Nehuentue, his post office. The river is rather narrow, but deep and navigable-salt water up past him, and with a small tide, say two feet. He has his own private dock on the river where he loads his wheat, potatoes, cattle, sheep and whatever else he may want to ship.

He appears to think his livestock is a small part of the fundo. And yet, when he got the idea I thought a good deal of cattle, he took Sugar Foot and me into a pasture of an excellent sort of strange grass where he had 50 or 60 grassers he expected to weigh 1,000 pounds by cold weather-next July or August. They were of all colors and duo colors, but good boned, uniform, and in good flesh-the best I had seen. I saw perhaps another 300 animals, 40 or 50 good-sized hogs and a good many sheep. And still, he isn't in the livestock business-much.

THE MISSING PURSE

Early Christmas Day afternoon, we started to Temuco to catch the train back to Santiago. We had one of the four compartments on that long steam locomotived train, which arrived in Santiago the next morning at 10 a.m.

We stepped jauntily into a well worn taxi and started for the Carrera Hotel when Aura May jumped straight up. Where was her purse, her passport, over $300 in U.S. currency, about 3,000 pesos in Chilean money, the ship tickets to Panama, the flying machine tickets to Los Angeles, her hair tinware and other feminine goods and wares too numerous to mention? We got the driver turned around and back. The train was still standing in the shed. I had to watch the baggage to save what we had left. Aura May took off like a teal at Le Pas, Manitoba, five days after opening day. She flew past the gate man like he wasn't there. Gate men seem to know when women mean business. The last I saw, she was headed down the right platform.

To me a long time elapsed. . . Then here she came-with the purse, shoulder sling and all, intact except for a few hundred pesos she, in her gratitude, had scattered to whomsoever would take them.

The porter had promptly taken the purse to his superior. . . If you ever again hear me speak ill of Chilean porters, call my attention to this item of my experience.

SHIPBOARD TO LIMA

The train ride to Valpariso, first down the valley, then over and through mountains took something over three hours. We arrived shortly after 11 a.m. Grace Line representatives at Santiago had assured us our ship, the Santa Cecilia, would not sail until 2 p.m. or later. On arrival . . . at the accommodation ladder, three coated officers said the ship sails at noon. We sailed almost immediately, headed for Callao, port city of Lima. We were first going south to San Antonio to pick up some copper, 44 tons (not gallons) of whiskey and 8 tons of brandy.

I knew we were to spend New Year's day on shipboard, but didn't think it would take that much.

This ship accommodates only 50 passengers approximately, and is more of a cargo ship than a passenger. Her length is just about 450 feet. The accommodations are excellent.

That evening at dinner found us again safely ensconced at the captain's table, only this time it is a table for four, whereas the Del Mar accommodates six. Capt. Tierney of San Francisco and New York presides.

We headed back north. Our first stop was Antofagasta, Chile, north of Valpariso. We arrived in the early morning. We were to take on 1,900 tons of Anaconda 99+ percent copper for New York. It would take all day. We were to sail at 6 p.m. New Year's eve. We were free for the day.

TOO MUCH MONEY

By miscalculation of some sort we were hundreds of pesos too much. Here was our last chance to get rid of them. Sugar Foot and I footed it around to the main part of town to buy most anything worthwhile, small and light, and to mail some letters.

The mailing of letters, with reasonable assurance of their arrival at destination, is a real chore. You must go to the post office. So far as I know, post offices are always crowded down here. In the confusion of a foreign language you must first select the correct windows in the correct order, especially if you want to register and air mail your letters. If you send by regular mail, the addressees will be confined to wheel chairs ere the arrival of such mail.

We looked and looked to spend all those extra pesos. She saw nothing whatsoever. We did buy the Dec. 26th Latin-American edition of Time in English for 35 pesos, but that didn't make a dent in our sheaves of Chilean money.

Then she had a brilliant idea. "Tonight is New Year's Eve. Let's buy some Chilean champagne and burgundy for the table tonight. We still have three more nights on shipboard to use any surplus."

Two fairly heavy packages and two boys to carry them about solved our peso problem.

Well, about 9 p.m. it was announced-just like that-the captain was giving a dance and New Year's party.

New Year's Day, 1950, our first and only stop was Ilo, Peru, where we took on 47 tons of canned tuna fish. Some five miles out, going to Ilo, I saw drove after drove of . . . guano birds. I had seen the snowlike tops of the rocks on shore in the distance. Guano is a fertilizer and big business down here. If it hadn't been for the guano birds there would have been no Grace Lines, now 100 years old.

Most of the west coast of South America is a desolate place. Mountains of brown bare earth and rock rise and stretch inland, parallel to the coast. It just never rains. The cold Humboldt stream sees to that. The sun shines hot, but the air is cold, even in mid-day. The towns and cities look dusty and worn, like the dry sections of the U.S. Lots of adobe-looking buildings. The whole country is drier than a rambo apple.

WHERE INQUISITION 'RELIEVED' THE RICH

We docked at Callao about 6 a.m. Jan 2 for a week's stay in Lima.

The Tagle Torre must have been a sort of Foreign Ministry. It was built about 1735, as it had tile of that date in the walls. There is a lot of brown spindled wood in its make-up, both inside and outside. All about are tremendously large heavy gold leaf mirrors. A big oil painting of Pizarro, conqueror of Peru, hangs on the wall. Just inside the patio is a monster reared-up lion's head with a beam at the top. From this beam scales were suspended to weigh gold and silver they took from the Indians, or the subjects, or both, to send to Spain. Anyway, every thing of value that was loose or could be pried loose, went to Spain.

The next stop was the Palacio de la Inquisicion. Here is where they held the inquisitions. The idea was to "inquisite" rich men, the richer the better, and the more the "take" would be. They never let facts or the truth interfere in the least. Not in the slightest degree. And so they fabricated charges out of thin air and without element of truth whatsoever, against any man, provided he was rich. . . Cut off his head, confiscate his lands, sell off the Herefords and the old mule team, take their 10 percent "cut" and send the balance to Spain. They never fooled with poor people. They were like Robin Hood, only far more so.

A VISIT TO THE INCA RUINS

The city has a museum of Inca civilization and it is a honey. Many original big long pointed stones with their carvings have been removed from in front of the temples, brought down and set up here. Big and little stones of very hard structure were worked into human heads, dogs, cats and so forth. Mummies, burial sacks, elaborate and fine fabrics of wearing apparel are everywhere. There are thousands of square feet of pottery of every shape, and still showing the original delicate colors. It would take weeks to even take a rather hurried look at the things that museum contains. Incas were a great and cultured people.

The closest ruins to Lima are the Pachacamac ruins, 32 kilometers away. We drove there one afternoon. High up was what was left of the Temple to the Sun. They are always on the highest ground as the sun cut more of a figure with the Incas than anything else. . . We drove through the narrow streets of the town, with the stone walls of the stores or houses rising high above us on either side as far as cars were permitted, or could go, almost to the walls. There was our temple in a pretty bad condition of decay. These ruins had long been sacked. Part of the findings was in the museum I told you about. The crumbling walls and stairways and moats(?) were of stone carefully and symmetrically made and laid.

The main stairway would allow five or six to go abreast. It had sharp angles every so often, and high walls, the better to protect and defend in case of attack, probably. Higher up it had no walls, just steps after steps and paths always leading higher. We got to the top-acres of it. Sand and ruins.

Over toward "town," and to one side and much lower were the ruins of the Temple to the Moon. It is being restored. . .You can see the original round wooden poles in perfect preservation. It never rains. But there is so much restoration there is little original left. Inside the temple is the original square bath(?) made good and tight of shaped stone. It holds muddy water with fish flopping now and then.

I suggested driving to the big Inca ruins-about like I'd suggest driving to Shawnee Mound near Wingate-but it is considerably over 1,000 kilometers from here, eight or nine thousand feet up in the mountains toward Bolivia. You either take a train, which is a very hard ride, or go by plane. In any event, it takes about a week if you want to see any considerable part of the ruins- there is something about plane schedules that interferes. And so, I shall never get to see the great big Inca ruins.

We were introduced to a young lady who was born right at the big Inca ruins. This young lady, who has lived here since she was seven, has a father who manufactures some kind of the finest of all fine wools, I think up there at the ruins. Anyway, he goes back and forth about every 15 days. Our young lady herself has found some minor pieces of Inca stuff. Her father has found many. And her grandpa got pretty well off finding and peddling Inca stuff, like Mutiny's Grandpa Wells did making and peddling wheat fans at black market prices.

STREET NOISES AND GAMES

Our "fleet" of rooms is the noisiest place in town. And that is saying something. One night long after midnight I sat at one of these windows in my sleeping outfit looking at the crowd (yes, a crowd), thinking and trying to count the different noises. I was also thinking about my creditors, and how I was now getting closer and closer to them, and sooner or later, I'd have to face them. Well, what I have remaining in money value is getting pretty low. As to the noises, I got up to 14 but there are lots more than that. The honks, street cars and newsboys drown out the culls and low grade noises.

As Aura May has disappeared more and more from her father's side, he has ventured more and more in the marts of trade and commerce. About the first venture here was into the banana situation. I had seen push carts of fruit everywhere. Close observation, at a discreet distance, disclosed customers bought, peeled and ate the fruit and then dropped the peels in a receptacle on the cart. I could do that. I did.

Lightning calculation disclosed I was paying about two cents American each for the biggest ones. A young Indian had preceded me. I offered him one. He accepted. Word got over the grape vine. My clientele increased, and there we stood blithely peeling and eating and aiming at the waste basket. Aura May would have been ashamed for me. When a client missed, I cut him off the list. They caught onto that easily although no English was spoken except by me. The adventure cost me a full 90 cents. Try having fun buying 90 cents worth of bananas back home.

FALSE CROSSES ABOUND

The Grace Line decided to sail the Santa Margarita a day early (Jan. 9). That can be accounted for in that these ships are for cargo first, and secondarily for passengers. We sailed at 8 p.m. promptly. No, my friends. We are not at the captain's table, but we are doing our level best.

In my opinion to date, the Southern Cross is among the most overestimated sights down this way. Counting all three ships, I have been shown four or five Southern Crosses, all different, and at least a pair of False Crosses. From our patio outside the French doors of the hotel in Buenos Aires, I had picked out what I thought was the real thing, and was pretty well satisfied. Now I'm not so sure.

Last night, for instance, I was out alone and had selected my Southern Cross for the evening. . . Along came one of the seamen and I asked him to show me the Southern Cross. He said, "It is below the horizon now. It might be visible just before daylight."

Today the sea was calm and it is that way tonight. Today, by Act of Providence I won a shuffleboard game from the steward. That is about the first since the man with heart trouble who voted for Garfield defaulted to me off Brazil somewhere.

We arrived at Paita, Peru, Jan. 11, and anchored off shore about a half mile in 160 feet of water. We began loading from a sizable ship bearing the U.S. flag, named Washington Star, 40 tons of decapitated frozen tuna, weighing 20 to 60 pounds each, and cotton from the interior. Around us are row boats peddling bananas, mangos, alligator pears, wool blankets, silverware, leather boots, and "authentic Inca relics made down the coast," the owner of the Washington Star tells me. Some of the "art" figures are not to be found in D.A.R. collections. Two New Jersey doctors bought out the entire stock.

SHIP'S WHISTLE MARKS CROSSING OF EQUATOR

At Sea

January 13, 1950

We are just now crossing the Equator northbound. One long blast announced our crossing. The temperature of the sea water is 78 degrees.

The 40-mile trip "up the river" to Guayaquil, principal port of Ecuador, was made in a Grace Line yacht, Santa Rosita, formerly a submarine chaser powered by a General Motors diesel capable of 27 knots. She is fast. She has to be. The Guayas River is not only fast but seems to cover about all outdoors hereabout. It takes power to buck the river's current. And when the tide is running out it takes still more power.

Guayaquil is a pretty rusty looking city to me. The population is about 250,000. The rain had stopped before our arrival. The day was cloudy, but it was very, very hot and humid nonetheless. The town was full of pushcart and sidewalk salesmen, all sorts of outdoor food sales and the ever-present Coca Cola. Our hats are off to the Coca Cola people. Perhaps in only one or two places in far south Chile were we without the jurisdiction of a "refreshing pause."

Here were bananas and pineapples galore. A vendor would take an 18 to 20-inch pineapple by the stalk, pare off the outer shell quite deftly, slice it crosswise, and sell it by the slice at the end of a long sharp butcher knife. I don't know the price, probably two slices for a cent. Foreigners are told to lay off food here on the streets.

Practically all shops and stores are open air affairs. You just walk in and there you are among the dry goods. All have more or less useless trinkets. The small rooms are crowded to suffocation, with no room to turn around in. Panama hats are a staple. . . On the other hand, all shopkeepers and salesmen were courteous, attentive and tried to help. No high pressure salesmanship anywhere as you and I know it.

In one shop, a woman was carefully watching me. I thought it was to keep me from filching one or more articles. But no. She finally had the audacity to touch me lightly where the old wallet should be, and the proprietor spoke up, "My wife wants to know if the senor will tell us where he got his suit of clothes, and how much he paid for it?" Seeing my chance to try to repay Haspel, the maker, who had gone to the trouble to send several different styles to the store across the street from the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans, I peeled off my coat and wrote down everything in the label except the number of the patent. And so, Messrs. Haspel up there in New Orleans, if a prepaid order comes from Guayaquil at the retail price of $22.50, please remember I am your "drummer" without portfolio and that I am not adverse to an unreasonable commission.

Coming back down the river to the ship, the passengers got into a general discussion of what they had seen and what they enjoyed. Some liked one thing and some another. But the consensus seemed to center on the beautiful, graceful and elaborate marble tombstones and mausoleums at the cemetery. So next time when in Guayaquil, go out and have a look at its No. 1 attraction.

Of the present passenger list, one of the most interesting to me is a piano playing timber buyer, or let us say, a timber buying piano player. I have seen a great many piano players and lots of timber buyers in my time, but this, I think, is the first combination of the two professions in any one man I have had the good fortune to encounter. The load he carries must be Herculean. At one time I was a piano player. That was after father and I decided the life of a pool expert was not the life for me. At the zenith of my interpretation and rending of the masters I was also enrolled in college, but even my best friends on the faculty were unanimous in agreeing I was not both a student and a piano player.

My new friend buys balsa by the ship load and sends it to the U.S. and England. We talked about walnut, oak, mahogany and then some Brazil and South American heavy woods. He got red oak mixed up with California redwood. We got that straightened out. Some enterprising Californians had inveigled him into buying some big red oak (redwood) wine casks and selling them to Chilean vintners. He got run out of Chile for that. "Baad taazt. No goot."

I finally worked out his pedigree. He was a Czech. A real pianist, he had played in Prague, Zurich, Vienna and all around. When World War II started, he started looking for a new home. He became a refugee and finally wound up in Guayaquil, where he expected to teach piano. That was optimism supreme.

COFFEE BY THE TON, NOT CUPFUL

Buenaventura, Colombia

Jan. 14, 15, 16, 1950

We have gone into the coffee business in a rather big way. We are to take on 43,000 bags, about 150 pounds to the bag. That makes over 3,200 tons, or more than enough to run Margaret and Frances over Labor Day.

This town has perhaps 30,000 population. Some tell me it has 65,000, some as low as 10,000. You guess. I went around into town. It is about like Guayaquil on a smaller scale. A native who is employed by Grace Line told me he was half Indian-his mother a full-blooded Indian-I don't know what the other half is. Colombia, according to him, is 60 percent Negro and 10 percent white. Spanish is the language.

It happened here in Buenaventura, of all places, and on shipboard. Something was said about Greencastle, Ind. A young Mrs. Burt and her husband were returning to the states after six years with the Kennicott Copper Co. in Chile. Mrs. Burt heard the remark and said her father and mother were both born in or near Greencastle. His name was Jack Reeves. He taught in the grade school in Greencastle. His mother was a Schafer. We knew her uncle, Frank Schafer.

We are tardy. We were to have sailed last evening (Sunday) at 6, then 9 p.m., then 6 a.m. today, then 9 a.m. The reason for the delay was too much coffee to load-and rain. I am told it rains here every day and that the annual rainfall is 360 odd inches.

We got away at 10 a.m. We are now on the high seas headed for where the Pacific discovered Balboa.

HOT TIMES IN THE CANAL ZONE

Canal Zone Jan. 18-21, 1950

To The Graphic,

Greencastle, Ind.

The ride to the Canal Zone was uneventful. Enroute, the question arose whether to stay with the ship and ride through the locks and canal to the east side to Cristobal, or to get off at Balboa and hunt our way to the Tivoli Hotel, as originally planned.

Two New Jersey doctors and their wives, the timber buying piano player and his wife and some of the ship's officers advised staying with the ship and then coming back here by train or bus, as suited best. Mr. and Mrs. Burt (nee Reeves) were also for sticking with the ship. All the women were going shopping on the Atlantic side for linens, ivory and oriental silks, etc. "at wonderful prices" (and they were-Tiffany prices). Then after dinner everybody was to go to a night club the two doctors' wives knew about. The ship's officers were ignored as to sailing time and matters of other unimportance to Grace Line stockholders.

We reversed ourselves and stayed with the ship.

TO THE ATLANTIC BY SHIP

I shall not try to describe the feats of engineering the building of the Panama Canal involved: Ridding the place of mosquitoes and malaria; damming the outlet of a river so the mean level of the new, partly man-made lake would be about 87 feet above the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans; making cuts of 100 feet or more in solid rock; dredging the channel so our ship drawing almost 30 feet could steam through.

Three giant locks on the Pacific side lifted us almost 30 feet per lock, so at the third lock we could sail out into first a winding canal and then into that tremendous lake whose new level left thousands of islands of its former jungle hill tops in size all the way from a few square feet to hundreds and probably thousands of acres. Studded all along were thousands of dead bare tree trunks and forks still sticking up out of the water, and some of those trees went by us not any too far off.

Entering an approach to the first lock, six electric "mules" (three on each side) would take hold of us by heavy wire cables, get us midway from the sides of the giant cement walls. We would creep along into the lock proper. There we were, way down there below the surface of the lock, with a monster set of double steel doors ahead barring our further progress. Another pair of steel doors would close behind us. No way to get out. Then the water below started bubbling and we started rising.

The way that lock filled with water was a marvel. All the Baptists in the Southern jurisdiction pumping simultaneously wouldn't have raised us the first foot in an hour. A young fellow standing at the rail with me said it took eight or 10 minutes and, after a rapid mental calculation, three million cubic feet of water. I made it 20 minutes and three billion cubic feet of water. The young man said he worked at the locks. Let's give him the benefit. So when I get home don't come bringing me a lot of authentic figures.

We got out into the canal and on into the lake and to the Atlantic locks, where the process was reversed and we were lowered about 87 feet. We docked after 7 p.m. We had started in about 9:30 a.m.

Now, for my advice. Go through it once by all means. Then never repeat. It becomes very monotonous and very hot. At times we only crept. The high temperature yesterday was 89. The low last night 77.

We went down the gang plank alone and unattended and into the early night and the arms of customs. He slapped on five blobs of glue, five stickers at the few remaining places for stickers and added five banker's initials and pronounced us pure and undefiled.

A Grace Line representative called and made a reservation for us at the Washington Hotel. An eager taxi cab driver loaded us and off we went.

All along I had been amazed at the size of the linen in South American hotel rooms. Some bath towels were as long as I was. At the Washington Hotel we got out of the 5x6 foot bath towel area. The cotton manufacturers hereabouts must have lost control over the Legislature.

We hied ourselves to the shopping rendezvous, with Aura May in the lead. With true feminine instinct and bird dog accuracy she never faltered a step as we hotfooted it down to the "shopping district" of a strange town. She said, "They should be right along about here." And sure enough, there, three doors on down, they were-every one of them-the two doctors' wives buried under the two biggest tablecloths. . .

Trading slowed down. The ship's passengers went back to stow packages and get ready to night club. They were to come to the Washington and pick up A.M. Nothing was said about me. They never came. The Santa Margarita, faithful to the winds of commerce, sailed at midnight.

The night before we had been put to sleep by the gentle roll of the Pacific. That night we went to sleep with the Atlantic beating at the foundations of our hotel-almost.

TO THE PACIFIC BY RAIL

I knew the general manager of the Panama Railway. Met him through a college friend. . . The railroad people gave us passes. They would send the railroad "jitney" to our hotel to pick up the baggage and us to catch the 12 o'clock train for Balboa. They would have a van at Balboa to take us to the Tivoli hotel.

The train ride of 30 miles took about one and a quarter hours- diesel power. We came first class. The right-of-way was bound by wild banana, reed and semi-jungle. The road had a good many bridges, cuts, curves, considerable grade and evidently cost a good deal of money. No featherbedding, I was told, like our roads unfortunately have.

We stepped off the train at Balboa and into a car chauffeured by a cap with three letters on it; drove four or five blocks and when we got out at the Hotel Tivoli we were in Ancon. And right down there a block at the foot of the hill is Panama City-the relatively new Panama.

Where oh where have our two-letter corporation guardians gone? Those alleged evaders of the anti-trust laws, who have so faithfully shepherded us these thousands of miles through the mazes of Portuguese and Spanish gyrations and possible malefactions?

We registered and A.M. asked for mail. There was none.

"Are you sure."

"Yes!"

"Haven't we had a reservation here for two months?"

"No."

"Sure?"

"Yes!"

Later I came down and went through the same procedure with another man, with the same results. Not satisfied, I tackled another clerk. He went through the books. Yes, we had had a reservation, but hadn't shown up the proper day. "Any mail?" He rummaged around and threw out a handful, all but one for A.M., . . . also a card noting we had not arrived as per schedule and if we should arrive later to call a certain number.

We did. He was the faithful manager of one of our two faithful conservators. He came around and took us sight-seeing: Through the slums, good residential sections, up and down narrow crowded one-way streets and the Broadway of Panama (Fifth Avenue) past the Oriental stores.

RUINS OF OLD PANAMA

He took us out to the ruins of old Panama-the original Panama. It is on a bluff seven or eight miles up the Pacific to the left of present Panama. The monks who laid it out had an eye to safety. Up there the Pacific deepens very slowly from the shore. The bottom is mud and a sort of quicksand. You can drag one leg after another out nearly a half mile before you get over your head. Invasion ships would have to anchor a long way out, and that would give the town more time to get ready for the assault. On each side and in back was impenetrable jungle.

In about 1560 they built a wooden church. It burned down. They built another and it burned. Then they really built a church-of stone. The walls of one part of that church still stand, say 60 feet high. Then a convent. Things were really going good. The town prospered and everybody was safe.

In 100 years or so here comes Henry Morgan. He really knew how to set a fire. He pillaged, killed, sacked and burned things- completely. He did such a complete job the monks lost heart and came to the present Panama and set out building again.

Old Panama is a shambles. Pieces of stone wall stand out everywhere, as do crumbled stone pillars of foundations. All is desolation. The ruins, I am told, extend far back into the present jungle. Nobody seems to care to preserve what is left. We drove the car into the convent. There were the square holes where floor supports of wooden beams used to enter.

We don't particularly like this hotel. It is a mammoth sort of a wooden building. Big rooms, high ceiling, big doors, big windows, big halls, big slow elevator, big bathrooms, all of wood and everything could stand painting. Somehow I feel if the termites would let go hands, the place would crumble. We are on the third floor and I hope no Henry Morgan comes along.

Sightseeing, we passed government buildings, government tile-roofed homes for canal workers and PXs. Whenever you see government property you see order and paint. You fellers up there are paying for it.

We went to the San Jose Church, one of the oldest in Panama. It contains the gold altar the priests painted black on the occasion of an invasion. The invaders thought it had no value and left it alone. It looked to me like it had a lot of gold leaf somebody had overlooked intentionally.

We went to where "Congress" was in session. Senators in white suits had their heads stuck out windows and were conversing in low important tones. Inside, one Senator was gesticulating and yelling at the top of his voice how he had saved and now was again saving the glorious country of Panama from bankruptcy and ruin. Our host, who knew heated Spanish, said the oratory had something to do with another sizable raise in salary.

HUNTING FOR SHOE LACES

Our last day, A.M. decided to do some shopping on foot and by herself. I made final preparations for our flight early in the morning to Mexico City. This done, I also went out on my own but not for the same purpose.

I had the National City Bank of New York branch bank in mind as one of my objectives; a bowl of Yardley's shaving soap as another; a shoe shine and a pair of shoe laces as two others. It is remarkable how many stores you can get into with good grace with that combination, if you are always careful to ask for the thing you feel sure they don't have. That opens the way gracefully for a pleasant conversation.

I gained friendly entrance to a world of places looking for the shaving soap, before I unexpectedly found it. That left the bank and the shoe laces to attain. The bank was a certainty, but in due time I actually became worried about brown shoe laces. I had asked in vain at too many places. Then all of a sudden my troubles were over-on ahead half a block was a sign, Florsheim Shoes.

I went to about where I thought shoe laces were located and asked the man for a pair of brown shoe laces. He answered he had none. He had black and white laces, but no browns. Brown shoes were outdated and always had been outdated. They were a thing a man of today was not using. The truth, so help me.

Shortly thereafter, still shoelaceless, I came to the National City branch, went in, introduced myself as a banker representing a bank that had had an account with the parent bank for over 50 years. The manager, a Mr. Cramer, was originally from Vermont, and therefore a hard man to crack, but the 50 years and the brown shoe lace trouble did the trick. He took me to lunch at the Union Club, a pretty nifty club quite near his bank and right against the Pacific Ocean. When we arrived the tide was out and the city's big cement sewer tiles were exposed for a quarter of a mile out. After lunch, which was delayed by three or four different kinds of rum, the rum or something had pulled the tide in and all the tiles were covered with water.

We got the brown shoe laces at a cobbler's shop, but they did have to dig under a big pile of old scrap leather and shoe shop saw dust to get them.

THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL

In late mid-afternoon our big corporation host and his wife came to take us to one of the nearby jungles about 20 miles out. Not big like the Brazilian jungles, but thick as a new bride's potato peelings. The new highway now crosses the old Spanish Trail, which is in a part of that jungle. The Trail was laid out to cross the isthmus to get to the Atlantic. And there it was, round rocks and all. Not in good repair, of course, but a trace of what it once was.

The Trail was made for a purpose. The Spaniards would go down to Peru and rob the Incas. Then they would make slaves of some of them and bring them and the gold and other loot by ship to Panama. Then make the slaves carry the booty over that Trail to Puerto Bello on the Atlantic side, where the king's representatives would take their "cut". The balance went to Spain, as I have heretofore told you.

Our host wanted us to try some coconut water when we got back to town. The proprietor took two green coconuts out of the box, cut the ends off of each with a hatchet, reamed out a core into the hollow inside where the water is, set the nuts on the table and stuck soda water straws in the holes. The rest was up to us. . . It isn't particularly bad. There isn't much taste to it. Sort of insipid, like water in southwest Kansas in summer.

WEST POINT CONNECTION

Our host took us to his home. I knew all along there was a good deal to this young fellow. His conversation was too bright and keen. His wit was too original, and to the point. . . But the house! Holy Nellie, what a house!! I presume it was his father's. However that may be, our host and his wife also lived there. Wrought iron grillwork, tile floors, furniture, rugs, silver and china tableware, oil paintings.

I shall try to describe just one item-a heavy, closely and beautifully woven wool rug that hung on one of the big walls. It had to be about 20x14 or 16 feet, and perhaps two inches thick. It was a reproduction of the Seal of West Point-eagle, arrows, colors and all. The names of the father and three boys were woven in the rug. It was made by Ecuador Indians who had only a post card to guide them, together with dimensions supplied by the father. Those Indians could not read and were otherwise as primitive as could be. But they knew how to weave and they knew their colors and keen eyes gave them the proportions.

Let me give you a part of the fellow's pedigree, verified by a banker of good repute-if the latter is possible. He, his two brothers and his father are all graduates of West Point. His father was ambassador to the United States from Ecuador. And his paternal grandfather was a former president of the Republic of Ecuador.

THE HAZARDS OF FLIGHT

Yesterday (Jan. 21) we flew from Panama City. It took all day. The going was bad enough all along, but over high ridges and mountains or deep valleys it overdid things way too far. Somebody said wind currents caused it.

Then too, I saw what I thought were three loose screws sticking up on the wing on my side. I watched them closely, what time I wasn't getting things back level or watching that infernal electric sign up ahead that advised, "Tighten seat belt." It was the only honest thing about the ship-it never overstated.

The loose screws worried me considerably, so I went over and looked at the other wing, but they had them over there too. All looked of the same size, spaced alike, and equally rusted, so I didn't move over. One side was as good as the other.

GUM FOR THE EARS

Going up and coming down they gave us gum to chew. In a place such as I was, I always obeyed the stewardess or anybody in a blue suit and white cap. Chewing gum would, along with yawning, keep our ears from stopping up-maybe. Something went wrong. All of a sudden it came to me that everything had become absolutely quiet, like walking around in new snow. I listened for the roar of the motors. They had stopped. We were in a pickle. I turned to Aura May and said something, but I couldn't hear what I said.

It took a lot of gum chewing, yawning and calisthenics at the next stop to get partially unstopped. And my jaws are tired and sore. I'm not a regular gum-chewer.

We got off the ground early in the morning, circled over Panama City and the ocean, then back over land and a densely forested area. The tree tops looked like closely packed mushroom buttons, only the colors were varying shades of green. I couldn't see a field, road or house, and only rarely a stream.

Our first stop was at Managua, capital of Nicaragua. We went over

Lake Nicaragua, a big lake.

We set down next at San Salvador. We approached it over comparatively level terrain. Thatched houses and cultivated fields were thick. The airport was as neat and nice as I have seen. It served coffee and shoeshines free. But I almost got caught.

Alligator bags are the vogue there. Aura May rather liked one. Just to test the man I asked the price. To my amazement he said $18. I said too much. He said, "What you give?" I said, $10. Before it was over, he was down to $12.50 and I was getting panicky. He was too close. I shook my head. He shook his. I left without looking back and never did go around that part of the building thereafter.

PALACE AND MARKET

We next set down at Guatemala, with a two and a half hour wait. We hired a taxi and went to town. Enroute we passed two small coffee plantations. The driver told us Guatemala coffee was the finest in the world. They said the same thing at Santos and everywhere else, particularly Buenaventura and its mocha coffee.

We went to the presidential palace and got in. It's a fine place for the size and wealth of the country. Particularly the tile and stained glass murals depicting historical scenes of Guatemala. Splendid features were enormous glass chandeliers with prismatic glass tassels, and mahogany woodwork and floors of the banquet and reception rooms. The outside walls and windows had considerable bullet marks depicting the various revolutions the country had undergone. Also something to see is the one-piece table-top, sides, lower shelf and legs, with its intricate carvings, behind which the dictator of the day presides, listening to the wham of bullets outside.

The hillside Indian market took my eye. I yelled, "Whoa," and jumped out and got right in among them-kids, dogs, squatting women, tied-up hens, herbs, overripe bananas and other fruits, baskets, blankets, dolls, piles of yams, some pretty bony meats and a world of other things. To progress, you had to step over, through or around whatever was in front of you. I was making fair progress when our wild-eyed driver caught up and told me it was no place for me to be. My English caught the ear of a nearby fellow who had lost his wife and kid somewhere in the market. He was a House of God missionary from near Abilene, Texas, and had been down almost a month. We hit it up fine. The driver shrugged his shoulders and followed along. For my part, I had a pretty good time. The trip cost me five dimes and three nickels. I kept the quarter, had a good following, and everybody was on my side except the driver.

JUST SIGN ON THE LINE

At the airport I ran into more trouble. The manager was paging me in an accent I never heard before. Aura May caught it. He told me a bottle of whiskey had broken in one of our bags and had leaked all over everything near. They didn't know what damage had been done or how I had broken the bottle.

"How I had broken the bottle?" I said. "Besides, I had no whiskey in any bag. Are you sure it was whiskey? Where is the bag?"

"It smells like whiskey," he said. "The bag has been transferred to the Mexico City plane. It is about time to leave. We admit the liability. We have made out the form. Just sign here."

"What amount did you fill in for the damage?" I asked.

"We left that blank to fill in later. We will do that for you."

We finally agreed he would radio their representative in Mexico City, and when we go through customs there we could all have a look.

Up from Guatemala we ran into higher and higher mountains and rougher and rougher land below. In time, Mt. Popocatepetl, 17,500-odd feet high, loomed in the distance, as did Mt. Ixtaccihuatl, a trifle lower. Now, you don't pass old Popo like you do an unattended traffic light on a bright Sunday morning. She stays in sight for a long time.

We grounded just before dark. In customs we opened up for all to see and smell. People would go by, catch a whiff and raise their eyes just like they were experiencing a sensation of "My Sin" toilet water. It was a broken bottle of Chilean wine some stranger had put in the wrong bag-maybe.

Years ago, I learned something. Our railroads never kill anything except thoroughbred stock. That bottle of wine was nestled inside my brand new tuxedo, next to my brown suit and one of the Haspel tropicals and two or three of Aura May's dresses. Kindly tell Central Insurance Agency.

BACK TO "COLD" WEATHER

Saturday, we flew say 1,500 miles here from intense heat to comparative cold. We are 7,500 feet up. This room in the Geneva Hotel is none too hot. It has heat of course, but they don't turn it on enough. Electricity is rationed or something.

Today, Sunday, Aura May went to see the people she lived with when in school here three or four years ago, and they had quite a reunion. These Mexicans are that way if they like you.

I hunted up another native market and had another good time. Two or three blocks of sidewalk have been partly boxed in with old corrugated metal roofing and partly left open to walk along. Hot tamales, fruits of all kinds, women cooking rather dirty looking meats and foods over rusted, greasy home made charcoal burners. I saw sheep heads with the wool on at one place and stood around to learn what disposition of them was being made, but no customers came along.

We had been warned to drink no water or milk and to eat nothing like lettuce or strawberries, in fact to eat nothing that does not have a peeling on it. Anything out of a corked bottle is all right.

INSIDER TOUR OF MEXICO CITY

To The Graphic,

Greencastle, Ind.

In Mexico City, we thought our string of rare good fortune had at last run out. But no. On Monday morning the manager of one of those heartwarming two corporations called to say he had just returned to town, and that a car and driver were at our disposal day and night for the one-week period of our stay.

That was the third time I had heard the combination "day and night" inserted in the conversation. It made me wonder whether some of my predecessors-old buzzards in their late 30s like me- had come down and vainly attempted to rejuvenate their youth with a pop gun burst of night life activity, or whether it was just a Latin American way of expressing an all out attitude toward guests. I found them a good deal that way as I went along.

DRIVER KNOWS HIS WAY AROUND

That afternoon our driver showed up-capless and uniformless-but whatever he may have lacked in uniform, he made up for in ability, knowledge and intelligence. He was a wonder. He seemed to know everybody and what their weaknesses were-custodians, policemen, lottery ticket vendors, car watchers and parking place attendants. Known and liked by everybody, he probably hadn't a single enemy in town.

For instance, the cap of my shoe and the rest of the shoe had parted company. Did he know where a shoe sewing machine could be found? That may sound trite to you as we were in a city of 3 million people, but in Mexico City machines are as rare as bad women in Greencastle. Everything is hand work. All he said was, "We go." We did, a mile or two. The price was 50 centavos-a trifle over five cents in our money.

10% OFF ON 60 ROOSTERS

We looked around a big jewelry store. I happened to see a little sterling silver fork, the sort of thing you use to spear out olives and cherries or jab into canapes. The thing that caught my eye was that on the end of the handle was a rooster-good old Democratic stuff. It seems that a rooster in Mexico means something national-at least not political as we know it. I asked the saleswoman the price. She told me. I asked how much by the dozen. She multiplied by 12. Six dozen? She multiplied the last figure by six. I said, "Thank you," and turned to go.

Back at the car, we were talking about the forks and the design on them. Our trusty driver evidently caught the drift, because he said, "I think I know silver factory, Cheaper. We go?"

We did. How could I pass up a silver factory? There they were by the hundreds-roosters and all. Our driver went in with us. The price? It was considerably less for one than the other place. How much for a dozen? It was some less than 12 times the price of one. How much for five dozen? Some less than five times the dozen price. Fortunately, some people from Evansville came along just at the right time and I moved off.

In due time our faithful driver sidled up and said, "I get you 10% off your price."

My main idea had been to see a silver factory, but there is always a time to quit bluffing, even though you started out more or less in fun. I said, "Go buy them."

And so, I have 60 roosters. Even so, they're much cheaper than 60 roosters on the hoof.

Enrique is the name of our driver. He is a Colombian. Where and how and when he acquired his knowledge and information is probably a mystery even to his employers. Enrique is a philosopher too. His hobbies are art, fine homes and buying lottery tickets.

CHURCHES AND PYRAMIDS

Enrique is thoroughly up on his churches, and there are lots of them in Mexico as well as all South America. He said the Basilica of Guadelupe was the richest in the New World, and one of the oldest. It is in the old part of town. We arrived during Mass. Hundreds were attending that afternoon. The altar is a massive structure, and evidently of tremendous value. In back is a mural the Pope gave the church for its success in extending the faith. Enrique got hold of a boy who unlocked the doors of a big wall case and showed us the gold service of the church.

We had parked the car at the side. When we left, Enrique gave some money to a man, not exactly a policeman, but somehow connected. I asked what it was for. He shrugged and said, "Graft. If I had not given him money he would have spotted the car and the next time he would have damaged it in some way. These fellows are bad that way."

We drove next day to the pyramids-quite a distance from town. The temple or shrine to the snake gods is something to see. Made entirely of stone masonry, the outside is adorned with those famous protruding gargoyles, still in a reasonably good state of preservation. The masonry is excellent. On top was a sacrificial altar where Enrique told us thousands of human beings, mostly women, were beheaded from time to time to appease the snakes. Troughs led down and to each side, where two sizable wells at last stopped and held the flow of blood.

The high stone walls of the fort enclosed an area of a good many acres. The walls are more or less hollow because the priests lived inside and thought up new and more vicious ways and means of torturing a simple people.

No one seems to know who built the pyramids, or when. They were erected prior to the advent of the Aztecs, 1,500 to 3,000 years ago. The Pyramid of the Sun is 200 feet high and big around in proportion. Its building entailed millions of man hours. The Temple to the Moon is much lower and smaller, but at that was no after school hours chore.

THIEVES MARKET, PRIVATE SERENADE

One afternoon Enrique suggested he show us some fine homes, but I suggested we go out among the Indians and the poorer peoples' markets.

He said, "Maybe you like to go to the Thieves Market, where they sell stolen goods and pick your pockets." . . . We could drive slowly, and stop now and then, and see from the car. . .

The street was crowded. Everything that wasn't old was shoddy. If all that stuff had been stolen goods, it would have taken the entire population months to have actually stolen the articles, and when they got done the value of the whole thing would have been in the low thousands of dollars. No the Thieves Market in my opinion is a part of the "dress" of Mexico City. The words sound mysterious and dangerous, and give the tourists a shot in the arm. Still I was glad I had taken Enrique's advice and kept to the car. Six or eight dirty hands in my pocket could have left enough germs to have contaminated everybody west of Stilesville.

We also encountered a singer and serenader and his band who assembled around our car and played for us for five pesos (less than 60 cents) a song. We had five fiddles, one cornet, three whopping big guitars, two regular size guitars and one mandolin. I was asked what I wanted. I suggested "The Fire Scene" from Wagner or Lilly Pon's latest song, but they didn't know those so I told them anything purely Mexican. . . It was what I would call a big Carnegie Hall success. We left amid profuse thanks.

TREASURED HOMES

I thought a change might not be a bad idea. We drove into what he said was the finest residential district-very fine and elaborate homes. The proportion will not equal that of any American city. The proportion of poor and poverty stricken people is high here. The most striking feature of these homes to me is the extravagant use of wrought iron grillwork in the openings in the walls surrounding the premises and the framing of all windows and gates. The designs are intricate. These homes are built with the idea of exclusion. It is hard to see the grounds unless a gate or doors are left open. Enrique would stop very candidly where there was an opening. What we saw was always immaculately kept. Labor is cheap.

Enrique saved "the three finest homes in Mexico" for last. They were really fine homes. And they were big of course. One was built by a rich Spanish merchant, the other two by politicians, both of whom at one time or another had been connected with the Treasury of Mexico. Quite a coincidence I thought-best two out of three.

End of:

Title: Epistles from Pap: Letters from the man known as 'The Will

Rogers of Indiana'

Author: Andrew E. Durham. Compiled by J. Frank Durham, Edited by

Douglas Hay. Copyright 1997. Permission granted to Project