We left Tampico by automobile for the Panuco oil field, and when we reached a point about 20 kilometers east of Panuco we had to abandon our auto in a bog and walk. Our luggage consisted of a gun, two kodaks, three coats and a heavy money bag which we have never dared to leave out of sight. The chauffeur when we abandoned him to his car, had assured us that Panuco was four miles away, “Just over the hill.” We started trustingly and full of energy, two kilometers rough walking over the sunbeaten shadeless plain was a bad start. We were overcome with thirst and Dick had to be carried on our backs in turn. The heat of the sun seemed to increase, the Kodaks became a curse, the coats a mockery. We sweated and limped and panted over the plain, and up the hill in the merciful shade of trees to the crest. No human habitation however was visible; down the hill we went and up the next. Still no sign, yet another hill. Dick became peevish and complaining, everyone too tired to carry him, and the springs in the hollows all dried up. At the foot of the third hill there was a junction of four primitive roads. Our guide left us in a heap, at the crossroads, gun loaded and full cock and with orders not to shoot at sight, but only on provocation, and he went in search of water. I took from my trouser pocket my little jade god, the one that looks like Trotzky and is 2000 years old. He is supposed to be the god who protects one from thirst. I stood him up in the sand and I begged him to send water. “Are you a curse or a blessing?” I asked him. “Never before have I carried you on me, never have I suffered from such thirst--be kind and send us, send us water!” Half an hour later, when the sun was setting, we heard a distant sound of steps and voices and there our guide came running towards us, and a native boy with a bucket at his side. We all three got up and ran to meet him, ran stumblingly and speechlessly. “Shut your eyes while you drink it ...” we were told. Womanlike, I looked, it was brown muddy opaque rainwater washed down from the hills ... we drank--and drank, one of us coughed up a small live fish, spat it out and drank again. Never ever had any drink tasted so good! And where was Panuco? Where the Corona Camp? 15 minutes away, said the native boy. “Come and show us ...” He would not. “Five--ten pesos if you will lead us....” “No I must milk the cows.” “The cows won’t hurt for thirty minutes....” “It is getting night....” “You can find your way in the dark.” “My father is out....”