WHEN NIGHT COMES TO WATER 



chapter I have tried to present only a few high- 

 lights, which, after all, are almost wholly dimmed 

 by the vast shadows of ignorance. 



The last night of my stay I worked and watched 

 on the gangway until I could drive my muscles 

 and eyes no longer, then switched off the light and 

 went to my tent. At midnight, in the blackest 

 darkness, I turned on the light again for a single 

 instant, and there were the multitudes still milling 

 about, — searching, fleeing, fighting, mating. And 

 I tried to imagine the centuries and millenniums 

 that this had been going on before Haiti ever rose 

 above the waters; and my mind went ahead to 

 the ages when it would still be in full sway, eons 

 after the last human being had completed his span 

 of life, and I gave it all up. But I knew that as 

 long as I could strive to take in the sweep and 

 swing, the warp and woof of things, cosmically 

 and universally, I need fear no touch of conceit 

 for anything I might ever achieve. 



97 



