He came ashore having displayed great calm and courage. When his safety was realized the next problem was how to get the other two across the river, the terrified Swede could not swim, the Irishman had gone back to the mainland for him. They could come across without much difficulty and risk, half in, half out of the water hand over hand on the wire hawser. The Swede stood shivering on the bank, he would not contemplate it. The Irishman accomplished it, went back and forth three times to fetch him--two men from our side went across with ropes to help him. He was immovable. Rather would he return all the long hard weary way to Micos in the dark and take his chance of village hospitality, and catch a train for Tampico in the morning. I think if I were a man I would rather drown, than admit before so many people that I was afraid to attempt what the others proved could be done with safety. After such a journey, to be so near home, to see the goal just across the way--to be so tired--so hungry and so wet, and not to make the final effort to get there. Well--he went back. The evening seemed to me a strange corroboration of my last night’s musings. The river rises, and it rises--and in four days time, I have to cross it by the ferry. SEPTEMBER 12. _Mexico._ My fears were unwarranted: In the end, the river was kind and calm and let me pass--I said goodbye regretfully, lingeringly, even I have to admit tearfully. I am quite sure I shall never return to the island that has been my world for a month. It is a closed chapter, but a very definite chapter, and I have learnt many things. I have learnt that nature, with her camouflage garb of beauty, is merciless, cruel, pitiless and hostile. The unpolluted virgin forest contains poison and disease. Civilization which I have always scorned is fighting Nature all the time. The wonder is that anyone survives Nature. Cruelty is primitive, not decadent, as I used to believe. Nevertheless, long after I have forgotten the hurt of Nature, I will remember a thousand beautiful things that are indelible. I have been happy--on the whole tremendously happy. A happiness that is pure and abstract and did not depend on a human being. But if I lived in this country I should weary of the seasonless sameness. There are things that the blood of my race would cry aloud for. I should miss:-- --The turn of the leaf in Autumn. The frosty crispness of an early dawn. Twilight. My footprints in the dew. Pheasants fluttering to roost. Green beechbuds in the Spring. Mist of bluebells in a leafless wood. The robin’s song. A wood fire crackling. And the pleasant sight of children in clean white pinafores on their way to school. SEPTEMBER 15, 1921. _Nuevo Laredo, Mexico._