Tonight is the third night of thunder storms (I am writing by torch light in the midst of it). After nights of pain and sleeplessness one begins to think stupid things: I feel as if this beautiful valley were a valley of death; I have thought for sometime that the valley meant to keep me. Even the way I came to it was strange and uncanny--almost called to it from the train window. It cast a spell on me then, a spell strong enough to enforce my return. Ever since I came it has been suggested to me that I stay forever, why go away? The suggestion first came from man. Then the beauty of the place set itself to lure me. Then the river tried to catch me. It has tried to catch Dick too. Having slipped through that, I am now poisoned unmercifully. I shall get over that but then there’s still the river, and every storm makes the water rise, and the strong current grows swifter. In the end I can only leave the island by ferry, and the river is getting more and more impassable. After a month of Paradise weather suddenly these storms, on purpose to stop me going. I must go in four days. I will be well enough to go in four days. I will go in four days whether I am well enough or not ... but, in the end there’s the river to cross. I might have known it was uncanny, this beauty. This enticing stillness, this holiness of peace--it is a trap. It is a valley of death. It is full of spirits and mysteries. I must get out--I am mad. No, I am not mad, I am sick. SEPTEMBER 11. _In Camp. Mexico._ The Irishman returned this evening for the week-end, his errand being to help us start on our way on Tuesday next. His train was late--he arrived just before daylight faded. I heard them say, “He has some one with him, who can it be...?” It was the Swede again, poor man having been prevailed upon to return. Our Mexican “Apache” went across to fetch them. Suddenly I heard screams and shouts, “They’re in--they’re in!” I leaped out of my sick bed, flung on a dressing gown and went outside the tent and saw two men in the water making for the bank. It was the Irishman saving the terrified Swede. The current had been too strong and the Texas boy was frantically trying to hold the swamping boat to the wire hawser that spanned the river, to save it from being lost. But he could not hold, and in another moment he and it were floating rapidly amid-stream, heading for the rapids. It was not until afterwards that I learned he could not swim. No one has yet understood why he was not drowned. He went over the falls and was engulfed underneath the capsized boat. The river divides here into two currents. By mercy of Providence the boat was swept along by the current that runs into shore instead of by the other, which would have carried him straight on down.