water and grabbled roots for the liberation of Guatemala. Of nights we would build smudges in camp to discourage the mosquitoes, and sit in the smoke, with the guards pacin’ all around us. There was two hundred men workin’ on the road—mostly Dagoes, nigger-men, Spanish-men and Swedes. Three or four were Irish.
“One old man named Halloran—a man of Hibernian entitlements and discretions, explained it to me. He had been workin’ on the road a year. Most of them died in less than six months. He was dried up to gristle and bone, and shook with chills every third night.
“‘When you first come,’ says he, ye think ye’ll leave right away. But they hold out your first month’s pay for your passage over, and by that time the tropics has its grip on ye. Ye’re surrounded by a ragin’ forest full of disreputable beasts—lions and baboons and anacondas—waitin’ to devour ye. The sun strikes ye hard, and melts the marrow in your bones. Ye get similar to the lettuce-eaters the poetry-book speaks about. Ye forget the elevated sintiments of life, such as patriotism, revenge, dis-
