Mere it was very hot. and both of us had removed most of 

 our clothes, bundled them up, and put them away in bags at- 

 lac+ied to our saddles: vvc were riding with bare feet My new 

 friend had a son of traditional "Chinese" moustache that had 

 long, drooping ends. He also had a huge, bladelike nose, and he 

 was of a pleasant coppery color and of magnificent physique. 

 I will never forget the shock I got when 1 first saw him wearing 

 only an improvised loincloth, for he had all kinds of intricate 

 designs on his chest and back. When we rode into the village 1 

 thought that I must be dreaming. The whole place looked like 

 .1 prepared set for a movie about pre-Columbian life in America 

 in full color — but this was genuine and perfectly natural; yet 

 ii was not tsvo hundred miles from the United States border. 



There were manufactured objects in use in this village, but 

 the people seemed to prefer their own artifacts, clothes, and 

 ornaments The knives, few guns, tin cans, clocks, and other rare 

 items were used along with their native counterparts without 

 special discrimination Above all. the people themselves lived 

 their own lives in their own way. They were interested in what 

 1 had to say about the rest of the world, as interpreted by my 

 host, who was one of only a handful who spoke Spanish; but 

 there, for the first time in many years of wandering, I did not 

 encounter any particular interest in the affairs of others, other 

 than normal curiosity, and nobody seemed to have any precon- 

 ceived notions of hostility or of friction. The word "gringo" was 

 known, and it was clearly understood that 1 happened not to be 

 of that genre; but no opprobrium was attached to that term as it 

 is so widely in most of the rest of the Americas. Gringos lived to 

 the north and did other things, and that was all there was to it. 

 Living there, in fact, were people of the olden times. They were 

 perfectly integrated with their local environment and. as far as 

 I could ascertain in my all too brief stay of three weeks, with 

 the basic precepts of nature. 



THE LAND OF VULCAN 



Just south of the twentieth parallel of latitude, the country is 

 composed of what is virtually one great volcano. The land surface 

 is almost entirely volcanic debris and outpourings, and almost 

 all the peaks are either volcanos or bits of previous volcanos. 

 The principal peaks are. from west to east: Colima. 14.235 feet; 

 the brand-new Paricutin just west of the town of Uruapan; To- 

 luca. 15.016 feet: the famous Popocatepetl. 17.893 feet: his sister 

 Ixtaccihuatl. 17.343 feet; and the mighty Citlaltepetl, otherwise 

 known as Mt. Orizaba. 18.320 feet. This range of active volcan- 

 icity is separated by four hundred miles from the Central Amer- 

 ican volcanic group to the south and by Mmost a thousand miles 

 from the New Mexican group to the north. 



Paricutin. which appeared in the form of a jet of earth in a 

 farmer's cornfield in 1943, without warning and on a piece of 

 perfectly level country, and which then grew to a height of 1400 

 feet, has become inactive; the only one of these peaks that is 

 acting up at present is Colima. He growls and rumbles persist- 

 ently, and a dull glow may be seen reflected in the clouds above 

 his head at night. He also from time to time rocks the surround- 

 ing countryside, cracking houses and sending the frightened 

 citizenry flying into the streets. The last time he blew his stack 

 in earnest was in 1940. when he spewed forth some impressive 

 lava flows that blackened the upper parts of his gently sloping 

 sides. The other great volcanic peaks are at present inactive and 

 are now snow-capped all year round; but there are forever 

 mutterings down below, and the land is often rocked gently or 



bounced up and down violently by earthquakes, while fumaroles 

 and solfalaras pump away regularly or spout periodically all 

 over the place, most notably in the Orizaba region. Then there 

 are a number of suspect peaks that are obviously no more than 

 temporarily dormant. 



Volcanos are probably the most awe-Inspiring things in na- 

 ture Their sheer power so far surpasses anything else, including 

 the greatest hurricanes, tsunamis, and even earthquakes, that all 

 things quake before them when they are in an obstreperous 

 mood. They are alive, and they have Individual characters. They 

 may sleep, or they may just lie and groan for long periods. Then 

 they may shake themselves awake by easy stages and again 

 cither lapse back into sleep, or they may suddenly blow up with- 

 out warning. The performances put on by such giants as Mt. Kat- 

 mai in Alaska in 1912, Krakatoa in the East Indies in 1883. Mont 

 Pelee on the island of Martinique in the West Indies in 1902. and 

 Vesuvius in Italy, have at various times literally rocked the earth. 

 But there is one thing about volcanos that is significant and 

 almost ultimately terrifying Except those utterly "fossilized" 

 since earliest geologic times, all of them, sleeping or awake, are 

 related, and in a manner of speaking actively in league. What 

 affects one seems to affect all, and it is now thought that from 

 time to time the infliction may be so great that they all act in 

 concert. If even half a dozen Katmais or Krakatoas blew their 

 stacks at the same time, we would be in for some very unpleasant 

 experiences, because each of these alone shot dust into the upper 

 atmosphere that took years to settle and that noticeably upset 

 the weather of the whole earth. Half a dozen would make us 

 quite uncomfortable: a dozen would herald a world-wide disaster. 



It is still not decided whether volcanos are direct outlets from 

 the layer beneath the crust of the earth — which some believe to 

 be in a state of fluidity like taffy and which is called the asthenos- 

 phere or the magmatic layer — or whether they are merely the 

 outlets of great "carbuncles" of lava contained in the crust itself. 

 Nevertheless, and in either case, the slightest shift in the earth's 

 crust — as in an earthquake caused by the buckling of some strata, 

 by its splitting apart, or by its slipping — may squeeze this quasi 

 fluid below and cause a volcano to erupt. The surface of the earth 

 is covered with a series of vast cradcs along which almost all the 

 volcanos are strung; so that, if one of these cracks suddenly 

 opens up or makes a move to close a little, a whole string of 

 them might go off at once. 



A journey westward from Mexico City, via Morelia and 

 Guadalajara, to Tepic in the state of Nayarit on the west coast 

 will demonstrate to anybody that, not too long ago geologically 

 speaking, a whole host of volcanos did so go off in this area. 

 The mountains are split and wracked on every hand, and there 

 are vast seas of black, gnarled, and 'frozen ' lava everywhere, 

 not only cascading down mountain sides but spilling out over 

 level plains, and even pushing some way up inclines. In other 

 words, there was a time not so long ago when verily "the earth 

 shook" right at the bottom of our continent. 



1 can but end our journey and my story by observing that we 

 are still literally sitting on a volcano, and that nature is not. as 

 I hope I have demonstrated, subject to the whims of man or in 

 any way immutable. This continent seems to have been wrought 

 in fiery blasts, by shattering quakes, and under the crushing 

 forces of mountains of moving ice. These mighty works are not 

 finished, for nature never builds for keeps; everything is in a 

 constant state of flux, and all that we have seen today will as- 

 suredly be changed tomorrow. There is still nothing we can do 

 about it. so let us get to know a little better this fabulous con- 

 tinent we live on. 



