Happily it was dry and hot when we started off, passing first of all through the camps and tanks of the Huesteca Oil Company, which is Doheny’s. Wherever the Huasteca has oil stations the roads in that vicinity are good, and the houses of the engineers and employees are well built and nicely situated, lawned and planted, in strong contrast to the surrounding jungle, and the Indian grass huts and their squalor. Every twenty kilometers along the way, there is a camp, most of these are built by the Foundation Company, a firm that builds railways, that lays pipelines, or restores Cathedrals. There seems to be in fact no building job in the world that the Foundation Company does not take on! At these camps there are steam heated coils to heat the oil and thin it so that it passes more readily through the pipe line and gigantic pumps to urge it along its course. All of which was a great surprise to me, as I thought the oil flowed by gravity from the wells to the tank ships! Our road displayed at intervals rows of pipes of various sizes, mostly belonging to separate companies, and the spirit of competition was in the atmosphere even of the jungle. Here and there where a pipe had leaked, a black oil pool had oozed through to the surface. In places, such a leakage had rotted the road and made it impassable, so that one had to drive in a detour through the shrub. We went through every kind of scenery, but the woods, of which there were miles and miles, were luxuriantly tropical. I never saw such a variety of flowers, and bush. There were gnarled tall trees on the stems of which scarlet orchids had seeded themselves, and from the branches of which dry grey moss hung down in long festoons. This moss is a particular industry for the peasants, who use it to stuff their mattresses. We lunched at Camp 80, in a wooden mosquito-protected building, where the primitive, hardworking Americans gave of their hospitality. The roads having been indescribable, and the car ill sprung, the day sweltering hot, we were tired and hungry. Dick humiliated me by complaining loudly that the omelette was only “skin” and had no inside. It certainly was not the omelette of a French chef, and I was surprised that Dick knew what an omelette should be like. He is shaping into the proverbial Englishman, who cares what he eats. After lunch I gave him a lecture on manners, and on the art of accepting hospitality, threatening as I did so not to take him with me on my next trip to Russia! At 4:30 we dined, washed and rested before pushing onto Zacamixtle. This bit of the trip in the dark was the roughest of all. The roads were worse and wet. We got stuck in a village street, the mud being above the axle, and up hill. We had to be pulled out by another car.