and did the victims get frightened and squirm! The "baking mills", besides 
quinine, had epsom salts in it, and when the dentist got through he squirted 
a generous shot of engine oil out of a large oil can in the victim’s mouth. 
The dog they have for a mascot here was also put through or over the barber 
chair and dumped into the tank. The pollyvrogs outnumbered the shellbacks three 
to one, but were not organized and so did not gang up on the shellbacks as has 
happened on other ships and at other times. A few pollyvrogs who tried to get 
tough got shoved around a bit, but there was only one casualty of the day. 
In some preliminary scuffling one man’s head got banged up against an iron 
plate; painful, but he'll survive said the doctor; and he’ll get his certifi¬ 
cate, too. Colored mess boys went through like everybody else and Filipino 
cook and captain's boy, too. The royal barber cut out very generous chunks 
of hair from every head, some worse than others. 
Tomorrow, April 4th, we arrive off Salinas for some survey work and 
to take oil at La Libertad;just one day only, but we’ll get a chance to 
get off a few letters and little else. As in all Navy outfits, we have movies 
each night. Saw "The City" or "Big City" last night and "Alias the Deacon" 
tonight. Was funny, a gambler who unwittingly does a lot of good in a small 
country town with money he gets away from the wicked town banker, etc. 
And now after movies I am wincing up this scrawl. 
Got the first eleven drift bottles fixed up for casting overboard 
the day we leave Ecuador, one each noon position until the 24 are over. Hope 
I get some returns from them. 
What haven't I covered that you want to know about? Coming down 
airplane certainly cramped my style, as I have no collecting gear whatever 
and I miss some of the books I'd like to have—"Birds of the Ocean" for one. 
Pickens said he had collected land shells for Bartsch before. 
