The excursionists walked, stretched in a chain, looking like a procession of monks in a Max Reinhardt production.

Before emerging from the caves, the guests were seated on a stalagmite barrier formed in one of the caverns, and our guide in green uniform read a three-minute lecture interspersed with figures. A few figures in support of the wonders of nature we had just seen—that is something Americans always appreciate. The lecturer informed us how old the stalactites were, how big was the biggest of them, and how much it cost to build the elevator ($175,000). After that he announced the territorial composition of the excursion. Today, seventy-two persons participated in it. Of those, four were from the state of Montana, two from North Dakota, fourteen from New Mexico, nine from California, and so forth. Almost all the American states were represented. We had already noted that at the entrance to the caves. The automobiles parked there bore blue, green, yellow, brown licence-plates, thereby disclosing that they hailed from various states. The lecturer finished his speech with the information that among the excursionists were two Russian gentlemen from Moscow. Since of the four of us the Adamses appeared to be the most venerable, all eyes turned on them.

Then another employee, the one who brought up the end of the procession, went into the adjoining hall, put out the light and in the darkness sang a sad song in order to demonstrate the acoustics of the caves. The employee sang four hundred feet away, but we heard even his breathing— so amazing are the acoustics.

Tired, we got into our trusty automobile, which again raced off with us. We were driving to El Paso, a city on the Mexican border. The quiet roar of the motor and the measured roar of the gravel under our fenders lulled us to sleep. We drowsily shook our heads, and even Mr. Adams became thoughtful.

We awakened from the silence that suddenly overtook us. The machine was standing. Mr. Adams was looking at us quizzically. We discovered that a hitchhiker was asking us to take him. We took him, and were sorry at once. He talked like a drunkard. In spite of that, he proved to be quite sober. Such was unfortunately his original impediment of speech. He told us his views on life quickly and willingly. They were as battered as his old grey coat and his decrepit black trousers covered with fuzz.

"War is coming," he announced, stuttering uninterruptedly, swallowing phrases and syllables. "The young people want to fight; they've got to have something to do. They need some kind of work, work and fame. There is no work, the machines have taken it away from people. It wouldn't be a bad thing to destroy at least a part of those accursed machines."

We had heard this many times by now. To set things right, it was a good thing to kill part of the people in war and to destroy a part of the machines. Then everything will again go smoothly.

When we were driving past the Mexican hovels, with their broken windows and their torn blankets hanging on ropes, our pauper fellow traveller cast a contemptuous glance at a group of Mexicans assembled on the porch of one of these hovels. They were dressed in worn-out mackinaws, made of tent canvas, with sheepskin collars.

"Mexicans," said our fellow traveller in his drunken voice, "like to live in dirt. No matter how much money they earn, they will always be dirty. That's the kind of people they are. Give them five dollars a week, give them even five dollars a day, it will do no good."

It was easy for our hitchhiker to live with such views. Everything was easily solved. Part of the people must be killed, part of the machines must be destroyed. And if there are any poor people, it's because they are a special kind of people—they like to live in poverty—all these Mexicans, Negroes, and Poles.

"Pay them even six dollars a day," he repeated with the stubbornness of a drunkard. "They will live like this anyway—like paupers. They like it."

41 A Day in Mexico

EL PASO, a city on the south-western tip of Texas, impresses one as a kind of trick. After a desert of incredible size, after endless and peopleless roads, after a silence broken only by the roar of our motor, suddenly a large city, a hundred thousand people at once, several hundred electric signs, men dressed just exactly as they dress in New York or Chicago, and girls so painted as if beside them instead of the desert was an entire continent full of motion-picture theatres, manicuring establishments, lunchrooms, and dancing academies.

Yet we had just crossed this desert! Although we raced across it at the rate of fifty miles an hour, it took us several days to cross it, so vast is it. We yielded to its enchantment, and at times muttered under our nose something about " the desert harks to God." But in El Paso we did not even think about the vastness of the desert. Here people were busy with their affairs. Here was the rattle of cash registers and calculating machines, here flashed advertising lights, and the radio cooed as plaintively as a dove whose tail has been set on fire.

Having refreshed ourselves in the first restaurant with fat little pieces of meat called "baby beef," we went on foot to Mexico, It was located right there, on the outskirts of El Paso. It was necessary only to cross a bridge over the Rio Grande, which was half dry because it was winter, and there was Mexico—the city of Juarez.

We were afraid to go to Mexico. Because of this: On our passports was a one-year visa for staying in the United States issued to us by Mr. Ellis A. Johnson, the American vice-consul in Moscow. But every visa ends automatically as soon as you leave the country. What would happen if upon returning from Mexico to the United States we should be told that the government of the States regards its duty of hospitality fulfilled and no longer insists that we remain its guests ? Horror possessed us at the very thought that the remainder of our days we should have to pass in the city of Juarez, located in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. On the other hand, we wanted very much to be in Mexico. In such trepidation of the soul we arrived at the bridge which connects El Paso and Juarez, and entered the dwelling of the border customs.

The proximity of Mexico made itself known by the depressing odour reminiscent of carbolic acid or formalin with which the small customs house was permeated. The immigration official, shifting a cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other, looked at our passports for a long time with interest. It must be supposed that Soviet citizens appear very rarely on the El Paso border point.

The official unexpectedly became quite gracious. Just as unexpectedly can such an official be quite pedantic. You never can tell about them! This is a profession which seems to be entirely dependent on the emotions, moods, and similar elusive shadings.

Our official delivered a loud speech, from which we gathered that the two Russian gentlemen may venture without any apprehension into Mexico. Their visas will continue in force. The two Russian gentlemen need have no qualms about that at all. After that, he walked out with us on the bridge and told the man sitting at the booth:

"These are two Russian gentlemen. They are going to Mexico Let them pass."

The cautious Mr. Adams asked whether our talkative benefactor would be here when we returned to the United States.

"Yes, yes," replied the official. "I shall be here all day. Tell the Russian gentlemen not to disturb themselves about it. I'll be here and I'll let them back into the United States."

We paid two cents of some sort of tariff, and a minute later were on Mexican soil.