U. S. S. “Yankton.” May 4th. 3.30
Awhile ago I staggered up the hatchway, a pale creature in damp white linen, to once more behold the sky, after three cribbed and cabined days. A pilot’s boat was rapidly approaching us on the nastiest, yellowest, forlornest sea imaginable. I felt that I could no longer endure the various sensations animating my body, not even an instant longer. Then, suddenly, it seemed we were in the southwest passage of the great delta, out of that unspeakable roll, passing up the “Father of Waters”—the abomination of desolation. Even the gulls looked sad, and a bell-buoy was ringing a sort of death-knell. Uniformly built houses were scattered at intervals on the monotonous flat shores, where the only thing that grows is tall, rank grass—whether out of land or water it is impossible to say. These are the dwellings of those lonely ones who work on the levees, the wireless and coaling stations, dredging and “redeeming” this seemingly ungrateful land, stretching out through its flat, endless, desolate miles.
The water is yellower than the Tiber at its yellowest, and no mantle of high and ancient civilization lends it an enchantment. The pilot brought damp piles of papers on board, but I can’t bear to read of Mexican matters. Whether Carranza refuses flatly our request to discontinue fighting during the mediation proceedings, or a hasty New York editor calls Villa “the Stonewall Jackson of Mexico,” it is only more of the same. My heart and mind know it all too well.
I have a deep nostalgia for Mexico; even for its blood-red color. Everything else the world can offer will seem drab beside the memory of its strange magic.
A radio came from Mr. Bryan at six this morning requesting N. to observe silence until he has conferred in Washington. But N. had already made up his mind that silentium would be his sign and symbol. Unless we get in at the merciful hour of dawn he will be besieged by reporters. A word too much just now could endlessly complicate matters for Washington.
We are slipping up broad, mournful, lake-like expanses of water. From time to time a great split comes, and it seems as if we had met another river, seeking another outlet. More white and gray houses show themselves against the tall, pale-green, persistent grasses and the yellow of the river. They are lonely, isolated homes, wherein each family earns its bread in the sweat of its brow by some kind of attendance on the exacting “Father of Waters”—mostly, trying to control him.