To while away our waiting moments, Dick and I, in company with a representative of the Baldwin Locomotive works, went to an amateur bull-fight in celebration of the Centenario. A feeble amateur affair it was. Nothing illustrative of Mexico bull-fighting. A bedraggled show, neither decorative, spectacular nor well fought. Mercifully the bull’s horns were sawn off at the tips so we were spared the sight of horses ripped up and trailing entrails. But I saw enough of blood and brutality. The audience cheered, laughed, sang, shouted. Almost it sounded like a baseball game. The more blood flowed, the more they shouted with joy. The bulls were young ones, too young to be very fierce. They would not face the horses at all, and to enliven them, the bandolaria were charged with a time fuse and exploded like a firework with loud detonations, and burnt interiorly. For some time after the explosion, smoke emanated from the burnt, black, bleeding wound in the bull’s back. One animal in terror jumped the paling. The killing with the sword at the end was bungled every time. The sword missed the vital spot and was plunged up to the hilt in the brute’s shoulder, to be withdrawn, on the first opportunity, dripping with blood, and restruck again, and again. The mob cheering the while. When the last bull was killed the crowd flooded the ring, and the dead bull was mutilated by people who carried away bits of it as souvenirs. When the carcass had been finally dragged away on a rope by two mules and a pool of blood marked the spot, boys besieged it, dipped naked feet in it, seemed hypnotized and enthralled by the sight and touch of blood. The horrible thing is that after the sixth bull had been tormented to death, one’s own feelings as regards the sight of blood were almost blunted. Frankly I longed to see a man killed for a change, instead of the bull. There was something ridiculous about these swaggering men with their long lances, astride horses that could hardly stand up, and that had to be urged towards the bull by men who lashed them from behind. Chiefly the bull seemed to be pursued more than pursuing. SEPTEMBER 27, 1921. _San Antonio, Texas._ My appeal to Washington met with a response that has been a revelation to me of American chivalry. We passed the border yesterday at dawn. I faced it with some trepidation, but we received the greatest courtesy and consideration. After reexamination of Dick (who is much better) they retracted the verdict of trachoma. Six weeks accumulation of mail has met me here. My head is buzzing with taking it all in. The reading did not cheer me. From England, on all sides gloomy accounts politically and privately. They ask me to return to their gloom. Of course one has occasional moments of homesickness when the desire to see one’s own world is overwhelming. But one is happier away here. There is daylight instead of darkness. There is air to breath. There’s life. Everything and everyone is young, vital, active, hopeful.