The war at the end of the world

Died one hundred and ten years ago this day, did Euclides da Cunha, a Brazilian engineer and political writer - shot dead by his wife’s lover. In 1897, he was commissioned by a São Paulo newspaper to report on the war being fought by the government against a large group of rebellious peasants which had established a settlement, called Canudos, in the remote northeast. His dispatches were in the form of a daily diary, and these are available online (in the original Portuguese). Da Cunha went on to write a book about the conflict, which became a bestseller; to this day it remains a cornerstone of Brazilian political literature. In 1981, the world famous Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa based his novel, The War of the End of the World, on the events surrounding Canudos, and included da Cunha as a prominent character.

Euclides da Cunha was born in Cantaglo, some 140km northeast of Rio de Janeiro city, in early 1866. His mother died when he was three years old, and he went to live with relatives in Teresopolis and then Rio. In 1883, he started at Aquino College, where he first encountered Benjamin Constant, an influential military and political thinker, and in 1885, he joined the Polytechnic School. The following year, he signed up for the Military School of Praia Vermelha, where he again found himself being taught by Constant. He was expelled in 1888, for protesting during a visit of the Brazilian war minister, and took up journalism, working for the prestigious A Província de São Paulo. However, he was readmitted to the military school in 1889, and then entered the Brazilian war school (Escola de Guerra) in 1891. He graduated the following year with a degree in civil engineering. Around 1890, he married Ana Emília, daughter of Major Solon Ribeiro, and their first child (of three) was born in 1893.

That same year, in 1893, da Cunha moved to São Paulo to work in the administration for the railway organisation, but then, during the so-called Naval Revolts, he was called to serve for the Directorate of Military Works, and was sent to Minas Gerais to build barracks. Subsequently, he was appointed Superintendent of Public Works of São Paulo. In 1894, da Cunha published two influential articles in the Gazeta de Notícias, suggesting a comparison between the French Revolution and the ongoing revolts in Brazil. When a new conflict arose, with the government trying to crush a large communal settlement, named Canudos, in the northeastern state of Bahia, da Cunha was commissioned, in 1897, as a war correspondent, to personally witness events as they unfolded. Returning from Canudos, later the same year, he went to São José do Rio Pardo, in São Paulo, to manage the construction of a bridge. Around this time, he started writing Os Sertões, a work he would finish in 1900, and publish in 1902 (later translated into English as Rebellion in the Backlands). In the book, da Cunha, influenced by theories of positivism and social Darwinism, used the story of the Canudos conflict to argue for political change. Eighty years later, Vargas Llosa fictionalised the events that Da Cunha had witnessed and written about for his novel The War of the End of the World - which he dedicated to da Cunha.

Os Sertões was enthusiastically received by critics and became a best-seller in Brazil. Its success guaranteed Cunha membership of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, which he joined in 1903, and also opened up opportunities to work with the government. In 1906, after returning from an official trip to the Amazon, where he chaired a committee to survey the borders of northwestern Brazil, Cunha began to write a report that became his next most important book, Contrastes e confrontos (Contrasts and Comparisons), published in 1907. He spent the last two years of his life working on his third book, À margem da história (On the Margin of History), which was published posthumously. In 1909, he was named chair of logic at Colegio Pedro II. However, at this time, difficulties in his personal life came to a climax. His wife had been having an affair for years with a much younger man, and had even born him two children (one had been accepted by da Cunha as his own, the other had died). On 15 August, he went to his wife’s lovers house intent on murder, but instead was shot dead himself. Further information can be found online at Wikipedia (though the Portuguese entry is more detailed) or Encyclopedia.com

During the time that da Cunha spent observing the situation in Canudos, he wrote a daily diary which was published in the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo. Some forty years later, the diary was edited by Gilberto Freyre and published as Canudos: diário de uma expedição (José Olympio, 1939). The diary can be found online at Literatura Brasileira (though only in Portuguese).

I have used Google Translate (with a handful of edits) for this (crude and fault-full) English translation of one entry.

20 August 1897
‘Still awaiting, awkwardly, the next departure for the backcountry, I walk - unknown and lonely - like an ancient Greek in the streets of Byzantium the old streets of this great capital, in a persistent inquiry about its beautiful traditions and retaining its interesting old-town features coming almost intact from the past to these hectic days.

And I regret that the capital and exclusive purpose of this trip prevents me from studying it better and transmitting the impressions received.

Because this cross current of strange and diverse sensations is really inevitable, irresistibly invading the subject and pre-established programs.

In one hour sometimes the most mismatched impressions assail me.

Visiting the São Bento Monastery recently, for example, where the arriving wounded now accumulate, after traversing through extensive rows of constricted beds, I descended to the lower floor.

I crossed the long aisles cautiously, with calculated steps, my eyes fixed on the ground, trying not to tread on the grave limbs on which all devotees tread indifferently and where they still read, half-erased by the persistent friction of boots, names among them - oldest in our history. And stripping me of all the purpose that led me there - bending over the slabs that appear as the undiscovered palimpsest of marble in the remotest days, I remained long, absorbed.

What a huge transition in just five minutes, in this insensitive and quick passing, as I descended a staircase, from a busy, noisy present to the silent gloom of the indefinite past.

Fortunately, as I went on, I senselessly struck the wide doorway and as I passed through it, I suddenly turned back to the present.

Assomava, forced uphill and into Castro Alves Square, in a beam of glittering bayonets, the 4th infantry battalion. It comes from far, from the south - it's the last one we wait for.

With it are twenty-five battalions of line, to which are added the police corps here, of Sao Paulo, Pará, Amazonas and contingents of Artillery and Cavalry.

I calculate with a reasonable approximation of at least 10,000 men the troop that will fight the rebellion in the backlands.

And in the face of this armed multitude, it haunts me more than the natural dangers of war, the incalculable sum of efforts to feed it through regions almost impractical by the sharp unevenness of the roads that straighten into the mountains and narrow into long gorges.

A quick calculation shows us that this 10,000-necked minotaur will be sick, fasting almost one hundred and fifty sacks of flour and two tons of meat a day.

And this excludes elementary foodstuffs that constitute a luxury under the strict conditions of war.

This fact expresses one of the most serious and difficult conditions of the campaign: it is the tenacious, inglorious and frightening combat to an enemy who dies and revives every day, involving in the same trances friends and adversaries - hunger.

The natural conditions of the terrain, making it difficult to transport quickly, creating all sorts of stumbling, have already determined, as is well known, the appearance of that in our army - living forces at the mercy of chance, from imbu roots, or damp stalks of mandacarus sap, or hunting the scapegoats of the plateaus, in bold mounts in the caatingas.

Now this unfortunate situation is only attenuated today and every train that arrives deceives it for only one day.

Imagine now the series of difficulties that will come with the greatest accumulation of men.

In addition to slow marches, the lack of freighters makes the ammunition carried very small. Because, we must say frankly, what lies beyond Monte Santo, and even beyond Queimadas, is the desert in the meaning of the term - arid, harsh, unpopulated.

The scattered surrounding populations were lost far away, hiding in the woods, populating the most remote camps, abandoning houses and possessions, terrified by the terrifying scarecrow of war. Yes, you're right.

The narrative of the journey of those who have come, however free from the primitive ambushes, striking across the roads that radiate from Monte Santo, unfold through the absolutely empty and monotonous backcountry.

Only at one point and another as a sinister variant: for a refinement of satanic wickedness the jagunços arranged serially on the two sides of the road the bones of the dead from previous expeditions.

Uniforms, caps, gallons, talines, glittering red trousers, broad cloaks, ragged shirts, saddles, and blankets, hanging from the tree limbs, sway gloomily over the head of the grounded traveler passing through two rows of arranged skulls, lined at the sides.

It is a dreadful picture, capable of disturbing the most robust soul.

The unsuccessful Colonel Tamarindo - an old jovial soldier as there were few - was recognised by his uniform in this fantastic setting; without a head, stuck in a dry branch of Angico and having on his bare shoulders, hung like a hanger, and down the skeleton, down the skeleton.

The whole first column passed in amazement at the formidable spectre of the old commander.

All of these causes justify the indescribable panic that is currently raging in the backcountry and the disorderly ebb of entire populations to the remotest points.

The army is now raging in a desert of thirty lightning bolts, and it is absolutely necessary that the action of this expedition - which will be the last - be swift and fulminating in spite of all necessary sacrifices.

I believe we leave after all these days. I will then judge, in situ, what I have known so far through narratives that do not always fit the same conclusions.

And may that wild but interesting nature, that barbaric nook of our land, under the persistent attraction of its still unknown aspect, make light and quick these hours of longing that I cannot define.’

Dark as soaring pine

Witold Gombrowicz, a Polish born writer famous for his eccentric diaries, died 50 years ago today. His translator believes these diaries can bring you wild, extravagant dreams, and revive your imaginative garden plot. He recommends you ‘let Gombrowicz rise from your garden, dark as soaring pine, translucent as a magnolia blossom.’

Gombrowicz was born in 1904 at Małoszyce near Opatów, 100km or so south of Warsaw, then part of the Russian empire, and was the youngest of four children. In 1911, his family moved to Warsaw, where he was schooled at Saint Stanislaus Kostka’s Gymnasium, before studying law at Warsaw University, earning a master’s degree in 1927. He spent a year in Paris, where he studied at the Institut des Hautes Études Internationales, before returning to Poland. In 1933, Gombrowicz published Pamiętnik z Okresu Dojrzewania (Memoirs of a Time of Immaturity), a collection of humorous stories; four years later came his first novel, Ferdydurke (which brought him some literary fame), and a year after that his first play, Yvonne, Princess of Burgundy.

In 1939, Gombrowicz was working as a journalist on board a new transatlantic passenger vessel, MS Chrobry, heading for South America, when he heard the news about Germany’s invasion of Poland. He decided to remain in Argentina until the war was over, but he stayed until 1963. During this time, he tried to establish himself as a writer in Buenos Aires, but mostly his works - including a Spanish translation of Ferdydurke - failed to bring him any success. He did, however, manage to publish in the Parisian journal Culture, and, in time, he had more books published in Polish, not least Pornografia (1960). From 1947 to 1955, he worked as a bank clerk, thereafter he was able to make a modest living from his literary output.

On his return to Europe, partly thanks to a scholarship from the Ford Foundation, he went first to Berlin - the closest he would get to his native Poland, now Communist, which had run a campaign to discredit him. But he soon moved to Vence, in France, with Rita Labrosse, a Canadian he had met in Paris who acted as his secretary. By this time, he was well known globally, his books having been translated into several languages, and his plays produced internationally. His last book, Cosmos, was published in 1965, and it won him, in 1967, the Prix International. A year later he married Labrosse. He died on 24 July 1969. Further information is available from Wikipedia, Words without Borders, the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Encyclopaedia Britannica, or Porta Polonica

Three volumes of diaries are among the most important of Gombrowicz’s literary output - indeed the Paris Review calls them his masterpiece. Three volumes have been translated by Lillian Vallee and published in English: Diary - Volume One 1953-56, Diary - Volume Two 1957-61, and Diary - Volume Three 1961-66 (Northwestern University Press 1988, 1989, 1993). A single volume compendium of the diaries is in print and available from Yale Unversity Press which says: ‘Not a traditional journal, Diary is instead the commentary of a brilliant and restless mind.’ Some pages of this can be previewed at Googlebooks.

These are not ordinary diaries by any stretch of the imagination. Entries are rarely dated, and are often more like notes; daily preoccupations are replaced by metaphysical introspection; and making any sense isn’t always the writer’s main preoccupation! Here is the concluding paragraph of the translator’s Afterword: ‘This is not a book for the pusillanimous or the pedantic. But if you want wild, extravagant dreams, if you want to reclaim every dead plant and neglected corner of your imaginative garden plot, take Diary, read it twice, dance with it in the rain, pass it on to a loony friend. Let Gombrowicz rise from your garden, dark as soaring pine, translucent as a magnolia blossom.’

And here is Pankaj Mishra assessment of the diary in The New York Times: ‘In Witold Gombrowicz’s hands, the journal became an iconoclastic polemic addressed to a small readership of fellow exiles. He began it with a nice bit of self-mockery: “Monday. Me. Tuesday. Me. Wednesday. Me. Thursday. Me.” Certainly humorless self-love, as Anaïs Nin’s diaries reveal, is fundamentally inimical to this quasi-literary form. It works best as a severe tribunal for the self that frequents the world and, dependent on fickle opinion for affirmation, is periodically injured and insulted.’

The following (dated) extracts all come from the original third English volume.

30 October 1966
’30.x.66
I must (because I see that no one will do this for me) finally formulate the main problem of our times, one that completely dominates the entire Western episteme. This is not a problem of History, or a problem of Existence, or a problem of Praxis or Structure or Cogito or Psychology or any other of the problems that have spread across our field of vision. Our main problem is the problem of the smarter, the dumber.

I return to it, although I have brushed up against it on many occasions. . .  The Stupidity that I sense is getting stronger all the time, in a way that is increasingly humiliating, that crushes and weakens me; it has gotten stronger since I moved closer to Paris, the most blunting of cities. I do not assume that I am alone in feeling I am within its reach; it seems to me that all those who participate in the great march of modem consciousness have not been able to muffle in themselves its acompanying step. . . its tearing through the undergrowth right here, right here. . . I wondered and I still wonder how to settle on a Law that would most concisely describe the specific situation of the European spirit. I see nothing except

THE SMARTER, THE DUMBER

Actually I am not talking about a certain contingent of stupidity, not yet overcome, that development will come to terms with sooner or later. This would be a matter of stupidity progressing hand in hand with reason, which grows along with it. Have a look at all the picnics of the intellect: These conceptions! These discoveries! Perspectives! Subtleties! Publications! Congresses! Discussions! Institutes! Universities! Yet: one senses nothing but stupidity.

I must warn you that I am formulating the law the smarter, the dumber without a bit of jesting. No, this is really so. . . And the principle of inverse proportionality seems to get at the very essence of this, for the more noble the quality of reason, the more despicable the category of stupidity; stupidity has become cruder thanks to nothing but its own coarseness, and it eludes the increasingly more subtle instrument of intellectual control . . . our reason, too smart to defend itself against stupidity that is too stupid. In the Western episteme what is stupid is stupid in a gigantic way - and that is why it is elusive.

I will allow myself by way of an example to indicate the stupidity accompanying our, ever more rich, system of communication. Everyone will admit that this system has been splendidly developed of late. Precision, wealth, the profundity of language in not just brilliant expositions but even in peripheral ones, bordering on publicism (like literary criticism), are worthy of the greatest admiration. But the inundation of wealth brings about a flagging in attention, therefore increasing precision is accompanied by increasing disorientation. The result: instead of a growing understanding, you have a growing misunderstanding.

And there are even cruder complications marching onto the scene. Because the critic (let us stick with this example) is, it is true, learned, saturated with readings, oriented, but also overworked, overscheduled, bored, barren; he races to one more premiere, to see one more play, and, after such a onetime look, to hurriedly dash off one more review - which will be thorough and superficial, excellent and slapdash. And, unfortunately, I don’t see that the Western episteme will be capable of solving the contradictions of the communication system, it cannot even register them, as they are beneath its level. . .  The vulnerability of the episteme when faced with the most blatant stupidity is a characteristic feature of our times.

An acquaintance of mine told me a story from before the war. They were drinking a nightcap on the veranda when Uncle Simon showed up. “What?” I asked. “Why, Simon has been resting in the cemetery for the past five years!” “Well, yes.” she replied. “He came from the cemetery in the suit he was buried in, he greeted us, sat down, drank some tea, chatted a bit about the crops, and returned to the cemetery.” 

“What?! And what did you do?! . . .” “What did you want us to do, my dear, in the face of such cheek. . .” And this is why the episteme cannot muster a riposte: it is too shamelessly stupid!

But - what luxuries!

L’ecriture n’est jamais qu’un langage, un système formel (quelque verité qui l’anime); à un certain moment (qui est peut-être celui de nos crises profondes, sans autre rapport avec ce que nous disons que d’en changer le rhythm), ce langage peut toujours être parlé par un autre langage; écrire (tout au long du temps) c’est chercher à découvrir le plus grand langage, celui qui est la forme de tous les autres. (Roland Barthes)

Hm . . . what? . . . One has to admit: they do not lack cheek!

We so-called artists are mountain climbers from birth; this kind of intellectual-verbal hike really agrees with us; if only it did not make us dizzy.’

1 January 1967
‘1.i.67
Rita and I stepped into 1967 yesterday. The two of us, without champagne, looking out our window at the silence, emptiness, our beautiful Place du Grand-Jardin, the steep roofs of old Vence, the cathedral tower, with the stony walls of the mountain far away, which the moon floods with a mystical light.

The moon was so strong that one could see a sheet of water beyond Cap d’Antibes on the other side.

Almost nothing happens to me. The unremarkable state of my health has become something of a cloister for me. I live like a monk. Breakfast at nine, then writing, mail at noon, car excursion into the mountains a stroll, we come back, lunch, newspaper, nap, correspondence, reading. . . . Most often we visit Maria Sperling and J6zefJarema, who have a lovely house and an even more beautiful garden on one of the slopes overlooking at nine, then writing, mail at noon, car excursion into the mountains a stroll, we come back, lunch, newspaper, nap, correspondence, reading. . .  Most often we visit Maria Sperling and Józef Jarema, who have a lovely house and an even more beautiful garden on one of the slopes overlooking Nice.

There is no lack of visits because this is the drawing room of Europe, someone is constantly appearing, from America, Australia, Sweden, Poland, there are scads of kings, financiers, maharajas, admirals, movie stars during the holidays. But nothing ever happens. Sometimes, with an effort bordering on self-torment, I try to unearth in my head some lost detail from years ago. For example, I wondered about this yesterday evening and right before falling asleep last night and this morning: in which courtyard, on what street, did I run for cover from the downpour then, in September 1955, in Buenos Aires, during the revolution, when I fled from my endangered apartment to Russo’s.

In spite of everything, there is a lot of bitter irony in this: that now, after an Argentine fast of many years, I have finally made it to such an elegant country, to such a high civilization, to such landscapes, to such bakery goods, fish, delicacies, such roads, beaches, palaces, cascades, and elegant things that, unfortunately, I with my television, record player, frigidaire, and dog, cat, I in the mountains, in the sun, in the air, at the seaside, that I would have to enter a monastery. But in the depths of my soul I acknowledge that the Force, which has not allowed me to consume my success too greedily, is right. I have known for a long time, from the very beginning - I was warned in advance - that art cannot, should not, bring personal gain. . . that it is a tragic business. Something else seems unjust to me: that my artistic work has furnished me so few of the pure pleasures that are allowed the artist; if writing gives me a certain satisfaction, then it is a cold, stubborn, and even reluctant satisfaction; but how often do I write like a kid at school doing his homework; and more often in terror; or in nagging uncertainty. It is true that there were times when I was on the verge of total obsession, I was in no state to tear myself away, for hours after tearing myself from the paper I would persist in a strange, barren excitement, repeating sentences and phrases just written down (I remember one such maniacal stroll in Buenos Aires, near the river, when my head was buzzing not even with sentences but with loose words from The Marriage). But this had the character of speeding, some sort of gallop, trembling, shaking, and did not have much in common with joy.

Perhaps this is unjust and a little cruel, that my lofty vocation was accompanied by such an awful lack of illusions and pitiless sobriety. The anger that mounts in me when I think about artists like Tuwim, D’Annunzio, or even Gide, would it not be connected to their being able to read someone their text without the desperate suspicion that they were boring him? And I also think that a little of that feeling we call the societal meaning of the artist would be more desirable than my certainty that socially I am a zero, a marginal being. This is quite sad, however: to devote yourself to art but at the same time to be beyond it, beyond its ceremony, hierarchies, values, charms - with a practically peasant distrust - with a peasant’s cunning and reluctant smile.

And if one were to accept that at the heart of this matter is an extremely pleasant and salutory thoughtlessness, then why, I ask, have I never known those plots and games, those artistic pranks and frolics, that the Skamandrites - or the romantics in Victor Hugo’s day - the surrealists, or other frisky young people knew? My time was bloody and raw, agreed. War, revolution, emigration. But why had I chosen this time (when I was being born in 1904 in Małoszyce)?

I am a saint. Yes, I am a saint. . . and an ascetic.

In my life there is a contradiction that knocks the plate out of my hands at the very moment it nears my lips.’

21 August 1967
’21.viii.67
I have been thinking and thinking . . . this is the third week. ... I don’t understand a thing! Nothing! L. finally arrived, looked everything over in great detail, and finally said the same thing, that it was worth at least $150,000. At least! In this dry, pine forest, a crunching underfoot, as if from Poland, with a royal panorama at the top, with princely views onto the processions of castles, St. Paul, Cagnes. Villeneuve, as if rising from the illuminated sea.

A beautiful oak hall on the first floor and three large rooms in the suite. On the first floor two more rooms with a common yet spacious bathroom. Solid verandas and . . .
Why does he want only forty-five thousand (but in cash)? Has he gone crazy? This elusive rich man. . . who is he? Could he be one of my readers? Is this price exclusively for me? The lawyer says: Such are my instructions.

???’

3 September 1967
‘3.ix
I cannot think about anything else. At any rate the twenty thousand will make things much easier. . .’

7 September 1967
‘7.ix
Should I buy it?’

9 September 1967
‘9.ix
I bought it.’

14 September 1967
‘14.ix
Now the measuring - the counting, deliberations - arguments.

I want Jarema’s wall hanging with its deep and juicy juxtapositions of black-green-ruddy texture to stand in the hall with its oak paneling, the counterpart to the goldish red tapisserie of Maria Sperling, saturated with a black net of rhythms . . . and hanging there, at the end of the suite of rooms, on the wall of my study.

An indistinct mulatto at the bottom.

And he is a maniac, maniac, maniac!

It never in my life occurred to me to have a son. And actually it is a matter of real indifference to me whether legitimate or illegitimate. My spiritual development, my entire intellectual development, were of the kind that today I am beyond the orbit of this dilemma. And the fact that some half-mulatto shows up on my doorstep with a tender “daddy” . . . from where, how, why?. . . who cares, I could get used to the idea in the end, get accustomed to it. But as far as blackmail. . .

Who gave him money for the trip from Brazil? And these constant about-faces, tricks, pirouettes with the nomenclature, with the name, what for? To shock? To stun, to weaken? Is he counting on being able to make my head spin with his multiple-name dance of a half-breed, with this dance of a warring Apache, he, the supposed (because even this is not certain) son of an indistinct mulatto, conceived of an accidental night, by way of passing, driving by, of a hotel night, which has dropped into the night of forgetfulness. . . I know nothing. . . I don’t remember.

Out of the empty blackness comes a son!

I bought Louis Philippe armchairs, have to reupholster them, in dark green.’

1 November 1967
‘1.xi.67
Rosa, Rosa, Rosa, and Henry, Henry, Henry and Rosa, Rosa, Rosa and Henry, Henry, Henry.

What Henry are you talking about!

In the rotundities of my study.’

Life at Jonestown

It was 40 years ago today that over 900 people died at Jonestown in Guyana, having been ordered by their cult leader Jim Jones to partake of a cyanide-laced drink. It was the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a non-natural disaster until the incidents of 11 September 2001. One of those who died was Edith Roller. Her diaries, though, survived and many of them are available online.

Jonestown, Wikipedia says, was the informal name for the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, a community built in northwestern Guyana by the Peoples Temple, a cult from California led by Jim Jones. The cult moved to Jonestown in the summer of 1977, and a little more than a year later, on 18 November 1978,  909 of its members died, all but two from apparent cyanide poisoning in an event termed, by Jones, as ‘revolutionary suicide’. Jones himself died of a shotgun wound to the head, probably self-inflicted. The deaths followed soon after the murder of five others by Temple members at a nearby airstrip. Those victims included Congressman Leo Ryan, the first and only Congressman murdered in the line of duty in US history, and three journalists.

Very much has been written about the cult, and the extraordinary events of that day 30 years ago. The Department of Religious Studies at San Diego State University, for example, runs a website - Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple - which aims to present information about the Peoples Temple as accurately and objectively as possible. Being objective, it says, means offering as many diverse views and opinions about the Temple and the events in Jonestown as possible.

One of the most intriguing parts of the website concerns Edith Roller, a Temple member who meticulously recorded her daily activities in a diary. At the start of the diary in 1975, she was working for the international company, Bechtel, and living in downtown San Francisco, but the diaries continue through January 1978, when she was called to Jonestown, to August that year, a few months before she died (aged 63). Don Beck and Michael Bellefountaine are credited on the website for compiling, transcribing, and analysing the journals. They say the journals were found in two locations: in Temple documents collected by the FBI and released through the Freedom of Information Act; and, in the Peoples Temple Collection at the California Historical Society. However, entries for several months are still considered missing.

Bellefountaine, in particular, has written a number of interesting articles about the journals for the website, and gives an excellent overview of their content and value. Here is part of one article entitled Roller Journals Reveal Detailed, Dispassionate Look at Temple.

‘Edith offers a detailed description of Jonestown that is rarely seen: a thriving active community of over a thousand people who are well aware that their sacrifice and hard work were paying off in the very existence of the community. . . [She] offers overviews of in-depth agricultural reports as well as gardening and livestock reports. She also records the daily diet, and the daily school and work schedules. Additionally Edith takes care to mention as many people as possible: new arrivals, births, job promotions or demotions, and those being brought on the floor for praise or punishment. Because Edith made every effort to record as many names as possible, she gave valuable information about the babies being born in the community, many of whom had gone unrecorded in the official death lists which were based on the passports issued. It is also valuable information for people who know nothing of their relatives’ lives while they were living in Jonestown.’

Edith’s journal also reveals much about the Jonestown community’s darker aspects, Bellefountaine says: ‘She writes of a suicide drill, essentially a trial run for the last day. Her description of the long lines, and the vat of juice are hauntingly familiar to the pictures from November 18th. In her writing she talks about how she did not want to die, and she did not think that the juice was really poisoned. These revelations give credence to some theories that the people of Jonestown thought the last day was just another drill, and many may have initially participated because they thought it was a loyalty test. Additionally Edith gives clear voice to those who do not want to die. Though she writes that she was willing to take the potion, the drill was called off before she got to the vat. Edith makes clear that she had too much hope for the future of the collective community, for the individual children, and for herself. She gives an understanding voice to the conflict of being willing to die, but not wanting to.’

Here are two entries from Roller’s diary in 1978.

1 August 1978
‘. . . Although it was very late Jim took up another matter: Norman Ijames, after having been gone for six months, had informed the Temple he would be returning this week, he had not communicated with his wife Judy and child, had sent no money. He had been reported with another woman, some of our people had talked to him while in Miami, though he had been offered a job at the airport in Georgetown he was flying on lines that did not bring him in to Guyana. The fact that he is a pilot may have some significance with regard to his activities in view of the aerial surveillance of Jonestown by the National Enquirer plane and reports of planned mercenary attacks on us. Many members spoke of Norm’s characteristics: spoiled by his parents, cherished as the only son, avoidance of physical labor, pride in his appearance, which made it possible that he could have deserted to our enemies. Jim said that the government had told us the CIA had a plant in our membership who might come here. . .’

Sunday 20 August
‘I was up at 8.00.

Read news from the pavilion boards. For breakfast pancakes and coffee worked on journal items.

At 12.00 I worked in the African map in the pavilion. I completed the outline for all countries, though there are some loose ends to be tied up. I still have a problem in the seacoast area where Zaire and Angola join. I plan to cut out the outlines of all the countries have a game in class in which the students looking at atlas maps can pin the outlines of the separate countries on a sheet, thus learning the position of some of them. Also we will be able then to ascertain where the map is insufficiently accurate. At the same time we can get a complete list of each country.

Had a shower and shampooed my hair.

Sewed, continuing with my skirt.

Ate dinner at 5.00 and we had rice with pork, okra, french fried eggplant in a batter.

I sewed.

Mark Gosney was giving Edith Cordell trouble; she had a cold. She turned him over to Vern Gosney.

The guest was expected tomorrow and entertainment was being prepared for him in the Pavilion. Intended to go up about 8;00, people were gathering but I didn’t hear any music so assumed he had not arrived yet. Then I heard Jim in the loudspeaker. He was annoyed because people were waiting in the pavilion instead of being in the library studying the news.

I finished sewing about 9.30. I went up to the library, read as much of the news I could over the heads of the crowd. Dick Tropp and Jack Beam were explaining the backgrounds of some of the news. As the guest had not yet arrived I went home and went to bed but I didn’t sleep.

Then we received orders to come to the pavilion. I went up. I expected to find it difficult to get a seat but Jim had earlier ordered young people to get up and give their seats to seniors. A young man led me to seat in front, asking the little boy occupying it to sit on the floor with the other children. The guest, a young looking man, was seated with those assigned to talk to him at a table in the middle of the pavilion. A musical program was given.

We were dismissed at 2.00. A heavy rain fell.’

This article is a revised version of one first published 10 years ago on 18 November 2008.

In search of El Dorado

Walter Raleigh, one of the most colourful characters in British history and a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I, died 400 years ago today - executed, reluctantly, for treason under the orders of King James I. He twice led expeditions to South America in search of the legendary El Dorado. Immediately on returning from the first, he published a book about his adventures; but a diary he kept during the second had to wait more than 250 years to be published.

Raleigh was born around the year 1554, the youngest of five sons, near Budleigh Salterton in Devon, to parents who had both been married previously. The family was strongly Protestant, and was sometimes in trouble during the reign of the Catholic Queen Mary. Not much is known about his early life, though he left for France in 1569 to serve with the Huguenots in the so-called French Wars of Religion against the Catholics; and subsequently he studied briefly at Oriel College, Oxford, before finishing his education at the Inns of Court. In 1575, he was registered at the Middle Temple, though he later wrote that he had never studied law. By 1578, Raleigh was sailing to America, later sponsoring two expeditions to set up a colony there, though both failed.

Between 1579 and 1583, Raleigh served with the English army in Ireland fighting against Catholic rebels. His outspoken criticism of the way English policy was being implemented in Ireland brought him to the attention of Queen Elizabeth, and by 1582 he had become one her favourites. She rewarded him with vast lands in the province of Munster, including the coastal walled towns of Youghal and Lismore. Over the next two decades or so, he set up home in the area, managing the estates but with limited success in persuading English tenants to settle. Elizabeth also helped him to a tenancy in London, as well as commercial privileges (ranging from licenses for wine and the export of broadcloth to being warden of Cornish tin mines). He was knighted in 1585; and, in 1587, he was appointed captain of the Queen’s Guard.

In 1592, the queen discovered that Raleigh had secretly married one of her maids-of-honour, Elizabeth Throckmorton. Out of spite, she imprisoned the couple in the Tower of London, though they only spent a few months there. They resided mostly on Raleigh’s estate in Sherborne, and in time had two children (an earlier child had died in infancy). It was not long before Elizabeth consented to Raleigh leading an expedition to South America, beyond the mouth of the Orinoco river in Guiana (now Venezuela), in search of a fabled land rich in gold, El Dorado. Until Elizabeth’s death in 1603, Raleigh continued to serve a key role in her forces, battling the Spanish, and as a member of parliament for Dorset, then Cornwall. He was governor of the Channel Island of Jersey for three years. In 1602, he sold his lands in Ireland to Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork (see also Robert Boyle’s workdiaries).

Within months of the Catholic James I taking the throne, Raleigh was charged with treason and sentenced to death, though James commuted the sentence to imprisonment, again, in the Tower. This time he remained there until 1616, writing many treatises as well as the first volume of his Historie of the World. The following year, James granted him permission for a second expedition to Venezuela in search of El Dorado. However, some of the men under his command violated the terms of a peace treaty with Spain, so that, on his return, King James was left with no option but to reinstate Raleigh’s death sentence. He was beheaded on 29 October 1618. Further biographical information is available at Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica or Spartacus.

On his return from the first voyage in search of El Dorado, Raleigh published The Discoverie of the large, rich and bewtiful Empyre of Guiana (1596), which somewhat embellished the extent of his findings, and thus contributed to the growing El Dorado legend. The work has been much reprinted over the years: for example by the Hakluyt Society in 1848 and by the University of Oklahoma Press in 1996 (an edition transcribed and annoyed by Neil L. Whitehead). Clearly, Raleigh was in no position to author another book after his second voyage to Guiana. However, he did keep a journal during the expedition (possibly with the intention of enlarging it for publication later) - just seven sheets of paper, starting on 19 August 1616 and finishing on 13 February 1617. This was archived, along with other papers, and, for a long time, remained only in manuscript form (today it is archived with the Cotton Manuscripts at the British Library).

The diary manuscript was mentioned in the first volume (of eight) of The Works of Sir Walter Raleigh (1829, Oxford, at the University Press). The volume contains two biographies of Raleigh. One of these is by William Oldys, who, in considering Raleigh’s writings on Guiana, advises that the diary is ‘unfinished and full of chasms, seeming to contain only notes and observations for his own memory’. It was eventually published, along with Raleigh’s account of his first voyage, in 1887 by Cassel & Company, as The Discovery of Guiana and The Journal of the Second Voyage thereto. This can be read freely at Internet Archive (the source of the following extracts).

17 December 1616
‘The 17th we came to anchor at Puncto Gallo, where we stayed, taking water, fish, and some Armadillos, refreshing our men with palmetto, Guiavas, piniorellas, and other fruit of the country, till the last of December. In sailing by the south coast of Trinidad I saw in one day, to wit, the 16th of December, 15 rainbows and 2 wind gales, and one of the rainbows brought both ends together at the stern of the ship, making a perfect circle, which I never saw before, nor any man in my ship had seen the like.’

31 December 1616
‘The last of December we weighed anchor and turned up north-east towards Conquerabo, otherwise called the port of Spain, being New Year’s eve, and we came to anchor at Terra de Bri, short of the Spanish port some 10 leagues. This Terra de Bri is a piece of land of some 2 leagues long and a league broad, all of stone pitch or bitumen, which riseth out of the ground in little springs or fountains, and so running a little way, it hardeneth in the air and covereth all the plain; there are also many springs of water, and in and among them fresh-water fish. Here rode at anchor, and trimmed our boats; we had here some fish, and many of the country pheasants somewhat bigger than ours, and many of the hens exceeding fat and delicate meat.’

19 January 1617
‘The 19th of January we sent up Sir J. Feme’s ship to the Spanish port, to try if they would trade for tobacco and other things; but when her boat was near the shore, while they on the land were in parley with Captain Giles, who had charge of the boat, the Spaniards gave them a volley of some 20 muskets at 40 paces distant, and yet hurt never a man. As our boat put off, they called our men thieves and traitors, with all manner of opprobrious speeches.’

La Pérouse at Easter Island

In 1785, the French naval captain, Jean-François de Galaup de La Pérouse, was charged by King Louis XVI to undertake a scientific voyage around the world. After more than two and a half years at sea, the expedition set off from Australia, exactly 230 years ago today, to visit several Pacific islands, soon to be homeward bound - but the vessels and crew were never seen again. However, prior to departing, La Pérouse, who was a conscientious journal keeper, had dispatched his journals and letters with a British vessel returning to Europe. His papers eventually found their way back to Paris, where they were soon published in the original French, and then translated into English.

Jean François de Galaup was born in 1741 in Albi, in southern France, (though his father later added ‘de La Pérouse’ to their name after some land he owned). He was educated at the local Jesuit college, and then entered the naval college in Brest. He fought in the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763). For a while, he was stationed at Isle of France (now Mauritius) where he met his future wife, Eleonore Broudou. Around 1780, he was promoted to commodore; he gained naval successes off the Canadian coast at Louisbourg, Nova Scotia, in 1781, and Hudson’s Bay in 1782.

La Pérouse was chosen by Louis XVI and by the Secretary of State of the Navy, the Marquis de Castries, to lead a major scientific and geographic exploration around the world. With two frigates La Boussole and L’Astrolabe he left Brest in August 1785. His journey took him to Brazil, Chile, the Sandwich Islands, Alaska, California, Macao, the Philippines, Korea, Japan, and Siberia. Thereafter, the expedition sailed to the southern Pacific. Some of the crew were killed on the Samoa Islands, but the expedition made it to Botany Bay in Australia. Setting sail once more for New Caledonia and other Pacific islands on 10 March 1788, La Pérouse and all his crew were never heard of again. It seems, from evidence collected later, that they were killed on one of the Santa Cruz islands.

The Dictionary of Canadian Biography has this assessment of the man: ‘La Pérouse is representative of the most accomplished of the 18th-century sailors. An excellent navigator, a brilliant combatant, a humane leader with a mind open to all the sciences of his time, he was always able to combine to advantage prudence and audacity, experience and theory. As resourceful as he was indefatigable, as amiable as he was firm, he had a talent for making everyone like him.’ Further information is also available from Wikipedia, Spartacus or Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Throughout his voyage, starting in 1785, La Pérouse kept a journal. Fortuitously, while in Australia, he dispatched his journals, charts and letters in a British naval vessel heading back to Europe, and they were eventually brought to Paris. They were edited by M. L. A. Milet-Mureau in three volumes and published in 1797 in their original French language. This was translated into English the following year for publication as Voyage Round the World in the years 1785, 1786, 1787 and 1788 (and is freely available at Internet Archive). Much more recently, John Dunmore, a New Zealand-born historian and writer, has sought out the original papers, for a new two-volume edition published in 1994 by The Hakluyt Society as The Journal of Jean-François De Galaup de la Pérouse (reprinted by Routledge in 2011 - and on sale for £115!)

Dunmore records, in his preface, how he had some difficulty in tracking down La Pérouse’s manuscripts, but he also discusses why he persevered: ‘An expedition of such importance deserved recognition in the form of an annotated edition. James Cook had received the painstaking and devoted attention of J. C. Beaglehole, Bougainville’s journal was about to appear in a fine commemorative edition, Surville’s and J. R. Forster’s journals would soon follow: La Perouse could hardly be ignored. There was, of course, Milet-Mureau’s official publication of 1797, but there was no way to compare it with La Pérouse’s own writings. Even if Milet-Mureau had not taken the kind of liberties with the content and style that Hawkesworth had taken with Cook’s original journal, there was a dearth of acceptable footnotes. Milet-Mureau was neither a naval man nor a geographer; he was an army officer who had accepted the task of getting the manuscript ready for publication after several others, more qualified than him, had turned it down. He did his best, and the result was a credit to him, but his own style and indeed his own conclusions and preconceptions were everywhere apparent.’

And here is the beginning of La Pérouse’s own preface (as translated by Dunmore) in which he explains why he decided to keep a diary himself rather than delegate the task: ‘I could have entrusted the writing of my journal to a man of letters. It would have been in a purer style and sprinkled with reflections which would never have occurred to me; but that would have meant presenting oneself behind a mask, and one’s natural features, whatever they might be, seemed preferable. I have on several occasions regretted, on reading accounts of Captain Cook’s last two voyages, that he had borrowed another man’s pen for his first narrative. His descriptions of the customs, practices and art of various peoples left nothing to be desired, and the details of his navigation have always provided me with the enlightenment which I was seeking in order to guide my own: such advantages no editor can retain, and often the word which he sacrifices in order to create a more harmonious sentence is the one which a navigator would have preferred to all the rest.

Anyhow one cannot be attracted by such works without, at times, wishing to be in the traveller’s shoes, but at each line one meets only his shadow; and the actor who takes his place, although no doubt more elegant and more stylish, is an imperfect substitute. His various chapters were not written as the voyage proceeded; the outline of his navigation is evenly presented, although inevitably, being so vast and covering both hemispheres, it had undergone a thousand changes. His reflections lack the variations that arise out of the slightest events. In the end the man of letters shoulders aside the voyager, so to speak, and should he have his own preconceptions he will select from the journal only those facts which are likely to justify them. It was to avoid this danger that I refused all outside assistance.’

Here is one long extract from La Pérouse’s journal, early on in the expedition when he first sights Easter Island (taken from Dunmore’s edition, but for comparison see volume I of Milet-Mureau’s edition, page 527).

8-9 April 1786
‘On 8 April at 2 p.m. I saw Easter Island bearing from me W. 5d S. distant 12 leagues. The sea was very rough, the winds N. They had not been steady for four days, shifting from N. to S. by W. I do not believe that the proximity of a small island was the cause of these changes, and it is likely that the trade winds are not constant at this time of year in 27d. The headland in view was the E. point. I was on the exact spot where Captain Davis had come upon an sandy island and twelve leagues further on a land lying W. which Captain Cook and Mr Dalrimple believed was Easter Island rediscovered in 1722 by Roggewin, but these two sailors, although very well informed, did not sufficiently analyse what Waffer reported: he says (page 300 of the Rouen edition) that Captain Davis, leaving from the Galapagos with the intention of returning to Europe by way of Cape Horn and of putting in only at Juan Fernandez, felt a terrible blow in 12d of southern latitude and thought he had struck a rock; he had constantly kept to a southerly route and believed himself to be 120 leagues from the American continent; he later learnt that there had been an earthquake in Lima at the same moment. Having overcome his fear, he kept on S. to S.1/4S.E. and S.E. until he reached 27d 20’ and reports that at 2 a.m. a sound like a sea breaking on the shore was heard from ahead of the vessel; he hove to until morning and saw a small sandy island with no rocks around it; he came up to within a quarter mile of it and saw further off, 12 leagues to the W., a large land which was taken for a group of islands on account of breaks along it. Davis did not survey it and continued on his way to Juan Fernandez, but Waffer states that this small sandy island is 500 Ls from Copiago and 600 from the Galapagos. It has not been sufficiently pointed out that this result is impossible: if Davis, being in 12d of southern latitude and 150 Ls from the American coast, sailed S.S.E. as Waffer states, and obviously this buccaneer sailed with the E. winds which are very frequent in those waters, and taking into account his intention to going to Juan Fernandez island, there can be no doubt, as the Abbe Pingré has already indicated, that Dampierre’s calculations were wrong and that Davis Land, instead of being 500 Ls from Copiago, is only 200 leagues. It is therefore likely that Davis’s two islands are those of San Ambrosio and San Felix, a little further N. than Copiago; but the buccaneers’ pilots were not fussy and worked out their latitudes roughly to the nearest 30 or 40’. I would have spared my readers this little geography lesson if I had not had to oppose the views of two men deservedly famous; I must say however that Captain Cook was still unsure and says that if he had had time he would have solved the problem by sailing E. of Easter Island. As I covered 300 Ls along this parallel and saw no sandy island I think that no doubt should now remain and the question seems to me to be finally settled.

I sailed along the coast of Easter Island at a distance of 3 leagues during the night of 8 to 9 April. The sky was clear and in less than 3 hours the winds had veered from N. to S.E. At daybreak I made for Cook’s Bay - that is the one where one is best sheltered from the N. to S. by E. winds. It is only open to the W. winds and I had hopes that they would not blow for several days. At 11 a.m. I was only a league from this anchorage; the Astrolabe had already dropped anchor. I anchored quite close to that frigate, but the undertow was so strong that our anchors did not hold and we were forced to raise them and tack a couple of times to regain the anchorage.

This setback in no way lessened the natives’ enthusiasm. They swam behind us up a league offshore, and climbed aboard with a cheerfulness and a feeling of security which gave me the most favourable opinion of their character. A more suspicious people might have feared, when we set sail, to see itself torn from its relatives and carried away far from home, but the thought of such perfidy did not even seem to occur to them. They went about in our midst, naked and with no weapons, a mere string around the waist with a bunch of herbs to hide their natural parts.

Mr Hodgés, the painter who had accompanied Captain Cook on his second voyage, has very inadequately [sic] reproduced their features. Generally speaking they are pleasing, but they vary a great deal, and do not have, like those of Malays, Chinese or Chileans, a character of its own. I made them various gifts. They preferred pieces of printed cloth, half an ell in size, to nails, knives or beads, but they greatly prized the hats of which we had too few to give to more than a very few. At 8 p.m. I took my leave of my new guests, making them understand by signs that I would be going ashore at dawn. They returned to their canoes, dancing, and jumped into the sea when within two musket shots from the shore over which the sea was breaking strongly; they had taken the precaution of making small parcels with my gifts, and each one had placed his on his head to protect it from the water.’

The Diary Junction

Texas Republic’s last president

‘Nothing since the days of the Crusades, it seems to me, has been more extravagant and foolish than the idea of Texas carrying on an offensive war with Mexico.’ This is Anson Jones, born 120 years ago today, writing in his memorandum book five years before he became president of Texas. Although he was in favour of independence, and had negotiated the possibility of recognition by Mexico, it was under his presidency that Texas was annexed by the United States, a move that triggered the Mexican-American War of 1846, soon won by the Americans, though, in 1848.

Anson Jones was born into a large family (last but one of ten children) on 20 January 1798 in Seekonk, Massachusetts, though the family moved to Great Barrington soon after. He was schooled locally, then at the Lenox Academy, but also had to work to help support the family at times. He tried teaching, then being a clerk in his brother’s mercantile business, and after further study was licensed to practice medicine. However, he still found life difficult, and fell into debt, and spent a couple of years in Venezuela, before ending up in Philadelphia in 1826, where, a year later, he was awarded a Doctor of Medicine degree. Several unsuccessful ventures followed, including a move to New Orleans, though he appeared to do well as a freemason.

In 1932, Jones found himself in Texas, settling in Brazoria, where finally he set up a medical practice that was a success. At first, he resisted becoming involved in the tensions between Texas and Mexico (Texas having ceded from Mexico in 1836), but eventually he became a supporter of Texas independence. When the revolution came, Jones served as judge advocate and surgeon to the Texas army, and after the revolution, in 1837, he was elected to the second Congress of Texas. The following year he was appointed Texas minister to the United States. Subsequently, he was elected senator from Brazoria County, but then retired, returning to his medical practice. In 1840, he married Mary Smith Jones, and they had four children.

When Sam Houston was returned as president of Texas for a second administration, he named Jones as secretary of state. The government’s main goal was to secure an offer of annexation from the United States, or a recognition of Texas independence from Mexico, but Houston and Jones pursued a complex and changeable policy. Not least, Jones was particularly keen on making alliances with Britain and France as a means toward independence. In 1844, Jones was elected president, but he misjudged the public mood, and soon found himself reviled. In June 1845, he brought an offer of recognition from Mexico to the Texas Congress - but it was rejected in favour of annexation by the US. Jones’s last act as president was to attend the ceremony, in February 1846, in which the US flag was raised over the Texas Capitol.

Mexico regarded the annexation as an act of war and moved to retake Texas. The US-Mexican war that followed was ‘bloody, costly, and as controversial as the annexation itself’, says the informative Texas State Library website. Jones failed to re-establish himself in public life, and although he became a prosperous planter, he never stopped brooding over his rejection by the Texas public. He badly injured his arm in a fall, and, in early 1858, he committed suicide. Further information is also available at Wikipedia, Son of the South, and Lone Star Junction.

Jones appears to have kept a diary for some of his life, or at least written in what he calls ‘memorandum books’. A year after his death, D. Appleton and Company published Memoranda and Official Correspondence relating to the Republic of Texas its History and Annexation by Anson Jones. It’s a long book divided into three parts: a ‘private memoir’, ‘memorandum books’ and ‘letters etc.’ This can be freely read at Internet Archive. The section on memorandum books contains extracts, many of them dated like in a diary, between 1838 and 1854, mostly of political, rather than personal, nature. Here are a few examples.

29 July 1838
‘I shall be surprised at no one’s committing suicide after hearing of Col. Grayson’s doing so. It is the first time in my life that any one in the circle of my acquaintance has done such an act; and it has shocked me more than the death of a dozen others would have done in the usual course. I believe party abuse has been the cause, acting upon some predisposition to morbid melancholy. Col. Collinsworth’s drowning himself was a thing in course. I had expected it, as I knew him to be deranged, and, when excited by liquor, almost mad. In all the annals of suicide, perhaps no parallel to these two cases can be found. Two years ago they were in this house, and on their way to Washington together, as Commissioners on the part of Texas to procure recognition, &c.; and, at the time of their deaths, both candidates for the highest office in the republic. Both committed suicide about the same time, and at the distance of 2,000 miles from each other; both at the time holding high and responsible offices in the Republic of Texas.’

6 November 1838
‘Dined with Mr. Poinsett, (Secretary of War;) party very similar to that at the President’s. Mr. Poinsett agrees with me on the impolicy of offensive operations against Mexico. He says that Mexico will not invade Texas, unless Texas, invading, should meet with a reverse, when Mexico, enheartened, would follow. All the northern States of Mexico, now disposed to be friendly, would also become hostile in case of their country being attacked, and give great annoyance to Texas. Texas should act on the defensive by land; if on the offensive at all, it should be by sea. The northern Mexican States are in favor of the Constitution of ’24; the southern, more inclined, and better adapted to centralism.’

3 December 1839
‘The framework of the Government has been and is being shattered, weakened, and wasted so completely, that we shall have to abandon it, and by and by remove the rubbish and wreck, and begin to build anew from the foundation, if happily we shall have the means. We may patch up the shaking concern for a year or two, but it is a discouraging and a thankless task. I have no patience with the authors of the country’s ruin.’

6 December 1839
‘Nothing since the days of the Crusades, it seems to me, has been more extravagant and foolish than the idea of Texas carrying on an offensive war with Mexico.’

13 March 1842
‘Woke up at night with the alarm of “Indians.” The suburbs of the town were plundered of all the horses, and Ward and Hedley killed and scalped; heard the cries of the latter while under the hands of the Indians.’

14 March 1842
‘The town was again thrown into a panic by another alarm.’

22 March 1842
‘News came in from San Antonio of the destruction of the Comanches, who came in for the purpose of celebrating a treaty, and of the death of eight of our most valuable citizens, whose lives appear to have been most wantonly sacrificed.’

A day of anguish

‘A day of anguish. At times it seemed as if it would be our last. At dawn we brought up water and then Luis and Willy went out immediately to scout for another possible descent to the canyon. They returned at once as the entire hill in front was traversed by a road and a peasant on horseback was riding on it. At 10 a group of 46 soldiers with their knapsacks passed by, taking ages to get out of sight. At 1200 another group, this time of 77 men, passed by. At this moment a shot was heard. The soldiers immediately took their positions.’ This is from the diary of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, the great Latin American revolutionary hero. Having been a key figure in the Cuban revolution and then in Fidel Castro’s communist state government, he left Cuba wanting to take up arms again for the revolutionary cause elsewhere, first in the Congo, and then in Bolivia where 10 days after the above diary entry, and half a century ago today, he was executed by Bolivian forces.

Guevara was born into a middle-class family in Rosario, Argentina, in 1928. From 1948, he studied medicine at the University of Buenos Aires but undertook two substantial and formative journeys during his undergraduate years: a solo trip through northern Argentina on a motorised bicycle, and the more famous trek through the rest of South America with his older friend Alberto Granado on a Norton motorbike. Granado remained in Venezuela but Che returned to Buenos Aires to finish his medical degree, which he did in 1953. By then, he had become determined to do something about the poverty and poor conditions he had witnessed across the continent. He went first to Bolivia with a friend, but soon ended up in Guatemala, where he saw an opportunity to battle against capitalist exploitation. He joined the pro-communist regime until it was overthrown; he then fled to Mexico, where he met Fidel Castro. He joined Castro’s revolutionary group and began training for an invasion of Cuba.

Che served as Castro’s chief lieutenant soon after the invasion of Cuba in 1956, playing a prominent role in the two-year guerrilla war. With the fall of the dictator, Fulgencio Batista, Guevara served in many key roles for the government, guiding Cuba towards alignment with the Soviet Union, instituting agrarian land reform, helping improve literacy, becoming president of the national bank, and acting as a diplomatic representative abroad for Cuban socialism. In the first half of the 1960s, he served as Cuba’s minister for industry. He was married twice, to Hilda Gadea in 1955, and to Aleida March in 1959, with one child by Hilda and four by Aleida. In 1965, Che left Cuba, first to foment (unsuccessfully) revolution in the Congo, and then in Bolivia where he was captured by the Bolivian army and executed on 9 October 1967.

Wikipedia offers this assessment of the man: ‘Guevara remains both a revered and reviled historical figure, polarized in the collective imagination in a multitude of biographies, memoirs, essays, documentaries, songs and films. As a result of his perceived martyrdom, poetic invocations for class struggle and desire to create the consciousness of a “new man” driven by moral rather than material incentives, Guevara has evolved into a quintessential icon of various leftist movements. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century, while an Alberto Korda photograph of him [above], titled Guerrillero Heroico, was cited by the Maryland Institute College of Art as “the most famous photograph in the world” ’ Further information is also available at NSA archives, companero che, and World Affairs.

As well as several political books, Guevara also left behind diaries. One, about his youthful journey by motorcycle, has been turned into a famous book and film - The Motorcycle Diaries. But there are others less well known - The African Dream: The Diaries of the Revolutionary War in Congo; diaries that Che kept during the Cuban guerrilla war; and the Bolivian diaries first published in 1968 - The Complete Bolivian Diaries of Ché Guevara as edited by Daniel James. This latter was reissued by Cooper Square Press in 2000 with an introduction by Henry Butterfield Ryan.

Ryan, indeed, provides a fascinating insight into how, in the 1960s, the Bolivian diaries themselves ‘entered the tumultuous world of revolution, counter-revolution, and espionage’. And he has this to say about the contents: ‘Shortly after the Bolivian diaries became public, Guevara’s supporters began to speak of them as works that threatened “imperialism,” calls to revolution. They are far from that. They are the very frank and personal journals of a man trying desperately, and against great odds, to do something that proved impossible. He records all the irritation, pain, and disappointment of his mission. There are no heroic phrases, no ringing cries to rush to the barricades. The diaries comprise, whatever else, a poignant story, courageous but sad; they chronicle the increasing hopelessness of Guevara’s undertaking, and end only on the day before the inevitable disaster, which one can foretell almost with certainty by the middle of the written entries.’

The following extracts from the Bolivian diary have all been taken from the 2000 edition. (See also Che’s last days about the Bolivian government’s decision in 2008 to publish a facsimile edition of the Bolivian diaries.)

23 February 1967
‘A black day for me; I made it by sheer guts, for I am very exhausted. Marcos, Braulio, and Tuma left in the morning to prepare the path while we waited in the camp. There we deciphered a new message announcing that mine had been received at the French letterdrop. At 12:00 a.m. we left under a sun that melted the stones and shortly thereafter I had a fainting spell as we reached the top of the highest hill; from then on I walked by forcing myself. The highest point of that area has an altitude of 1,420 meters and overlooks a vast area including the Rio Grande, the mouth of the Nacahuasu, and part of the Rosita. The topography is different from that which is marked on the map. From a clear dividing line it descends abruptly to what looks like a wooded plateau 8 to 10 kilometers wide, at the end of which flows the Rosita; then there rises another ridge with altitudes equivalent to those of this chain. We decided to go down through a practical but very steep path in order to follow a stream which leads to the Rio Grande and from there to the Rosita. Contrary to what the map indicates, there appear to be no houses along the banks. We camped at 900 meters after a hellish journey, without water, and the night falling upon us. Yesterday morning I heard Marcos cursing at a comrade and today at another one. I will have to talk to him.’

26 June 1967
‘A black day for me. It seemed as though everything was going along quietly and peacefully and I had sent 5 men to relieve those in the ambush on the road to Florida, when shots were heard. We went quickly on our horses, and came upon a strange spectacle. In the midst of an intense silence, in the hot sun were the bodies of 4 soldiers lying on the sand of the river bank. We couldn’t find the weapons as we didn’t know the enemy’s position. It was 1700 hours and we waited for nightfall to effect the rescue. Miguel sent word that he could hear sporadic firing on his left. It was Antonio and Pacho, but I gave the order not to shoot without being sure. Immediately, one could hear shots that seemed to come from both sides, and I gave the order to retreat as we could lose under those conditions. The retreat was delayed and news arrived that Pombo had been wounded in one leg and Tuma in the stomach. We took them quickly to the house to operate on them with the instruments that we had there. Pombo’s wound was superficial and he only had a headache and was still mobile; but Tuma’s wound had destroyed his liver and punctured his intestines, and he died during the operation. With his death I lost an irreplaceable truly loyal comrade of many years standing, and I miss him as I would a son. He had asked that his watch be given to me, but while I was still attending him the others gave it to Arturo. He agreed that it be sent to Tuma’s son, whom Tuma had never seen, as I had done with the watches of the other two comrades who had been killed earlier. We loaded the body on one of the animals and took it some distance away for burial.

We took two new prisoners: a carabinero lieutenant, and a carabinero. We gave them a lecture and we let them go in just their undershorts. Because of a misinterpretation of my orders, they were stripped of everything they had. We came out of it with 9 horses.’

10 July 1967
‘We left late because we lost a horse which turned up later. We went over the highest altitude, 1900 meters, via a route that was rarely used. At 1500 hours we reached an abandoned house where we decided to spend the night, but a disagreeable surprise awaited us, for the path ended right there. Some abandoned footpaths were explored, but they also led nowhere. Some huts which might make up the village of Filo can be seen in front of us.

The radio announced a skirmish with guerrillas in the El Dorado area, which is not shown on the map but it is located between Samaipata and Rio Grande; the Army reported that one of its members was wounded, and attributed two deaths to our force.

On the other hand, the statements made by Debray and El Pelado were not good; above all they should not have admitted the existence of a plot to form an intercontinental guerrilla group.’

28 September 1967
‘A day of anguish. At times it seemed as if it would be our last. At dawn we brought up water and then Luis and Willy went out immediately to scout for another possible descent to the canyon. They returned at once as the entire hill in front was traversed by a road and a peasant on horseback was riding on it. At 10 a group of 46 soldiers with their knapsacks passed by, taking ages to get out of sight. At 1200 another group, this time of 77 men, passed by. At this moment a shot was heard. The soldiers immediately took their positions. The officer ordered them to go down to the ravine which seemed to be ours. Anyway [illegible word]; they communicated by radio and seemed satisfied, and continued their march. Our refuge has no defense against an attack from the height, and the possibilities of escape are remote if they discover us. Later a soldier who had been delayed passed by with a tired dog he had to pull along. Later still, a peasant guiding another straggling soldier went by. In a short time the peasant returned and nothing finally happened. But the fear when the shot was heard was really serious.

The soldiers all passed with knapsacks, which gives the impression that they are retreating, and we saw no fires in the little house that night, nor did we hear the gunfire with which soldiers usually welcome the evening. Tomorrow we will scout the whole day, all over the ranch. A light fell on us, but I do not think it was sufficient to erase our tracks.

The radio reported that Coco has been identified and gave some confused news about Julio; Miguel was confused with Antonio, whose duties in Manila were mentioned. At first they reported my death, then later denied it.’

The Diary Junction

Massacre in Ecuador

The American missionary Jim Elliot, massacred along with four colleagues by members of a remote tribe in the Ecuadorian jumble, was born 90 years ago today. He was only 28, had recently married and had one daughter, yet his religious fervour lived on in his wife, who eventually befriended and went to live with the same indigenous tribe. Many years later, she published her husband’s diary, which contained entries right up until ten days before his death.

Elliot was born in Portland, Oregon, on 8 October 1927 to a Plymouth Brethren preacher and his wife. While at high school, he developed a skill at public speaking, alongside other interests, such as in the school newspaper, acting and wrestling. In 1945, he entered Wheaton College, Illinois, a Christian residential arts college, where he nurtured an ambition to become a missionary. He graduated in 1949 with a degree in Greek, and returned to Portland. The following year, he moved to Oklahoma to attend the Summer Institute of Linguistics where he learned how to study unwritten languages. There he met a former missionary to the Quechua people, who told him about a group of Ecuadorian indigenous people - the Huaorani - who were considered violent and dangerous to outsiders.

In early 1952, Elliot travelled with a missionary colleague, Peter Fleming, to Quito, with the aim of evangelising to the Quechua Indians. While at Wheaton, he had begun a friendship with a fellow student, Elisabeth Howard. She followed him out to Quito, where they married in 1953, and lived in Shandia, in the rainforest of eastern Ecuador. They had one daughter in 1955. While working with the Quechua, Elliot was also preparing to reach the Huaorani - a project he and four other missionaries called Operation Auca (Auca being another, somewhat pejorative, name for the indigenous tribe).

In the second half of 1955, the missionaries began making contact by dropping gifts from their plane. In early January 1956, they landed on a sandbar in the Curaray River and established a camp. A few days later, the five missionaries were speared to death. Elisabeth continued missionary work with the Quechua, and then, in fact, went to live among the Huaorani (with her three year old daughter). Later, she published two books about her husband, and returned to the US in 1968, where she went on to write many other Christian books. Further information on Jim Elliot can be found at Wikipedia and Inspirational Christians. A detailed account of Operation Auca can also be found at Wikipedia.

In 1978, Elisabeth - by then married for a third time - edited and published The Journals of Jim Elliot (published by Fleming H. Revell in the US). They have stayed in print ever since. According to the publisher: ‘Jim Elliot was an intelligent thinker and strong writer in these personal, yet universal, musings about faith, work, and love. The Journals of Jim Elliot is a wonderful account of the life of a man who yearns to know God's plan for his life, details his fascinating missions work, and loves Elisabeth first as a single man, then as a happily married one. The Journals of Jim Elliot will intrigue fans of Jim and Elisabeth Elliot, readers interested in missions, and young people struggling to find God’s plan for their lives.’ The journals begin when Elliot is still at Wheaton College and continue until just a few days before his death. Here are several extracts (form the UK edition published by Pickering & Inglish), including Elliot’s very last entry (all brackets, square and round, are as found in the book).

6 July 1950
‘Spent the evening with Dave Cooper who described the Quichua uplands as the neediest, roughest place in Ecuador. He has worked with Tidmarsh on the Shandia station, is burdened for the yet unreached Ecuadorians, Aucas, Cofanes, Sionas. Gave us sketch map of the area describing need.’

7 August 1950
‘Received word today from brothers Gill and Doane [leading brethren of the Portland assembly] that I should feel the assembly is behind me 100 percent in my going to Ecuador. God has set His seal.’

7 May 1952
‘Near full moon found us above Arias’s [an Ecuadorian family with whom I lodged], under a sparse stand of eucalyptus, after heavy rain. Sky was broken with clouds, and flashed stars, but the horizon was sufficiently clear to see Cayambe, Antisana, and Cotopaxi by moonlight. No night like it so far here in Ecuador. Someone tried to scare us off with gunfire, not knowing what we were doing there - finally came out in a troop with rifles, led by a senora who queried angrily, “Que pasa?” [What's happening]. Explaining that we were “amadores, no mas,” [only lovers] we obtained our “desculpe” [pardon]. Laughable, really.

It was one of those “asked for” times with her, depending on weather conditions which God openly controlled for us. He seems so much “for us” (two) these days. I have not lost one nameable thing by putting her and our whole affair in the simplest way possible into His hands. There has been no careful analyzing, no planning, no worrying over details in the matter. I have simply recognized love in me, declared it to her and to Him and as frankly as I could, told Him I wanted His way in it. There has been no leading thus far to engagement, but the symptoms of a beautiful courtship prevail - not perhaps a routine, or “normal” one, but a good one nonetheless, and withal, a deep sense that it is God directed.’

14 February 1953
‘Just came in from Otavalo. Gwen was tired so left us with supper and dishes alone. I am waiting for Rob to come home (he has gone to some school affair) having just kissed Betty good night at the door of her room. She was sleepy tonight - went dozing off while I was reading in this diary and then in my arms and later in my lap. She surprises me sometimes as a lover - a gay ardency, a girlishness I see in her few other times. And oh, how glad I am she knows just how much of herself to give. I could still ask that she be more aggressive with my body, but from what I already know, she will in time do very acceptably. The other night, Tuesday, I believe, we had a lunch together at the bodega and afterward a long discussion about limits to engagement relations -  everything from touching her breasts to intercourse. And when I came home so I spoke, “A garden shut up is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed” (Song of Sol. 4:12). She is that until marriage, by her present attitudes. The following night at the bodega she told me that we would not lie down again, choosing a variant restriction I had suggested. We came home, and at the gate she cried - for not having had enough of me that day. We walked up to the fountain and wall above Guápalo and sat on the steps. Thursday we went to Tingo with McCullys and Emma, and in the evening she and I bought wine together. I know I cannot live without her now.

Pondering downtown Romans 1:1: “Set apart unto the gospel of his Son.” Paul was separated from a family (wife and “play loving”), a business, the church fellowship in Antioch, and who knows what else, for the progress of the Gospel. How far am I “separated unto the Gospel”?

31 December 1955
‘A month of temptation. Satan and the flesh have been on me hard. How God holds my soul in His life and permits one with such wretchedness to continue in His service I cannot tell. Oh, it has been hard . . . I have been very low inside me struggling and casting myself hourly on Christ for help. Marriage is divorce from the privacy a man loves, but there is some privacy nothing can share. It is the knowledge of a sinful heart.

These are the days of the New Year’s believers’ conference on the Sermon on the Mount. Yesterday I preached and was helped on “whoever looks on a woman . . .”!

“Let spirit conquer though the flesh conspire.” ’

Miscegenation and lusotropicalism

‘Could this odor really be from a burned black man? I don’t know - but this definitely gave me the chills. I never thought that such horror could be possible at this time in the United States. But it is. Here there is still lynching, killing, and burning of blacks. This is not an isolated incident. It happens often.’ This is from the diary of Gilberto de Mello Freyre, a much respected Brazilian sociologist and the originator of Lusotropicalism, who died 30 years ago today. He kept a diary only when young, and decided to publish it nearly half a century later. One researcher, though, believes Freyre considerably revised the diary entries over time ‘for the sake of impressive self-presentation’.

Freyre was born in 1900 in Recife into an old Brazilian family descending from the first Portuguese colonisers. He started school at a Baptist missionary school run by Americans. This led him to converting from Catholicism to Protestantism, and also to a scholarship at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. After graduating, he enrolled at Columbia University where he studied for a masters in political and social sciences. While at Columbia, he moved away from religion and, influenced by the pioneering anthropologist, Franz Boas, became enthused towards the cultural anthropology of his own country. His thesis, Social life in Brazil in the Mid-Nineteenth Century, was translated and published in English (see Internet Archive).

After travelling in Europe for a year or so, Freyre returned to Brazil in 1922. He worked as a journalist but also organised the first northeastern regionalist congress in Recife and created a Regionalist Manifesto for the encouragement of local novelists, poets, and artists. In 1927, he was appointed as head of cabinet for Estácio Coimbra, governor of the State of Pernambuco; but with the 1930 revolution, headed by Getúlio Vargas, both Coimbra and Freyre went into exile. Freyre went first to Portugal where he worked as a translator, and then to the US where he travelled and found work as a visiting professor at Stanford.

By 1932, Freyre had returned to Brazil. The following year he published what would become his most famous book Casa-Grande & Senzala (The Masters and the Slaves). Where many Brazilians had been anxious about their lack of identity, he argued that Brazil’s cultural mixture or miscegenation, resulting from immigration and interbreeding, was precisely what made Brazilians distinctive. He was the prime mover in organising the first Congress of Afro-Brazilian Studies with the goal of studying African minorities. In 1936, he was appointed chair in sociology at the University of Brazil; further books followed. 

In 1941, Freyre married Magdalene Guedes Pereira, and they had two children. Following the coup which deposed Vargas, Freyre was elected to the federal Congress, where he contributed to the negotiations on a new constitution. He was instrumental in launching social research institutes, the first of which was established in 1949. A year later, he became director of the Regional Center for Educational Research in Recife, where he promoted policies attentive to Brazil’s diversity. At the invitation of Portugal’s government, he travelled to Portuguese provinces in Africa.

Freyre is particularly remembered for Lusotropicalism, a name he gave to the distinctive character of Portuguese imperialism overseas which, he considered, to have been better than that of other European nations. This was due, he argued, to Portugal’s hot, tropical environment and from it having had much experience of previous European empires and cultures. In 1962, he was awarded the Prêmio Machado de Assis of the Academia Brasileira de Letras, one of the most prestigious Brazilian literature awards; he received numerous other awards, both in Brazil and abroad. He died on 18 July 1987. Further information can be found at Wikipedia, a Gilberto Freyre tribute site, or Encyclopaedia Britannica.

In the mid-1970s, Freyre decided to publish a diary he had kept as a young man: Tempo Morto e Outros Tempos: Trechos de um diário de adolescência e primeira mocidade, 1915-1930 (J. Olympio, 1975). A few (undated) extracts in English can be found in Luso-American Literature: Writings by Portuguese-speaking Authors in North America, edited by Robert Henry Moser, Antonio Luciano de Andrade Tosta (Rutgers University Press, 2011), parts of which can be previewed at Googlebooks. The extracts, translated by Jayne Reino, are included in the chapter entitled The Dead Season and Other Occasions.

However, Maria Lucia G. Pallares-Rurke argues - in an essay The Creative Memories of Gilberto Freyre in Literature and Cultural Memory (Brill, 2017) - that the text of Tempo Morto e Outros Tempos ‘was written and rewritten over the years’. Although she quotes other examples of how Freyre adapted past writings ‘for the sake of impressive self-presentation’, her essay focuses on the published diary. Here is part of her argument (taken from Literature and Cultural Memory available online at Googlebooks):

‘In his preface, Freyre noted that the published text was “extremely incomplete”, since the manuscript had been left in an old chest and was eaten “pelo cupim” (by termites). He also claimed that the revision “had been minimal”; respecting the words of the adolescent and the young man that Freyre had been at that time. However, as I discovered, Freyre did not tell the whole truth and Tempo Morto is not so much a diary as an autobiography in the form of a diary. In fact, the text was written and rewritten over the years. In 1948, for instance, 18 years after the text comes to an end, Freyre wrote to his friend, the novelist José Lins do Rego that “I have added various things about you to the diary. It is becoming a book”.

It scarcely seems an exaggeration, then to describe Tempo Morto as a masterpiece of self-presentation or self-fashioning (to employ the now famous phrases of Erving Goffman and Stephen Greenblatt) or, following Coffman’s dramaturgical approach to everyday life, to describe Freyre’s text as a dramatization of his youth - and it is no accident that Tempo Morto was adapted for the theatre in 1981, six years after its publication. As in the case of Yeats and Gandhi, it may be suggested that the text of TM tells us more about the later Freyre who was writing or rewriting it, and perhaps writing with nostalgia about a time long-passed, than about the young man of the years 1915-1930.’

And here are several excerpts from Freyre’s diary as in Tempo Morto e Outros Tempos (taken from Luso-American Literature).

‘Aboard the “Curvelo,” 1918.
I travel full of saudade. But I am also filled with great curiosity: to know what awaits me in the United States. What will my studies be like? How will I adapt to the Yankee lifestyle? It is true that my brother has already paved the way. But though we are brothers, we are not exactly the same. In various respects we are different.

I practice my English with an English family that, unable to return to England, is going to the United States: the Joyces. She’s a widow. The daughter is a pretty young British girl with whom I’ve been conversing a lot along the way.

Mr. J. was a missionary in Bahia, it seems. Or in Espirito Santo. He died from a chigger flea wound. The vermin was poorly removed. The poor Englishman’s foot couldn’t withstand the infection.

I think about the fact that no Brazilians die from chigger fleas. On the contrary: it’s hard to find a Brazilian who hasn’t had chigger fleas as a child. It’s an initiation into becoming Brazilian that few children escape. The vermin enters the foot of the Brazilian child: it installs itself there and begins to itch. It’s extracted with a hot pin, lime is rubbed on the little wound, and that’s all there is to it. The itch does leave behind a certain saudade. But if the foot is that of an Englishman, things can transpire like they did with Mr. J.: infection, fever, delirium, death.

Getting a chigger flea is like having yellow fever on a much smaller scale: it does no harm to a Brazilian but it can be fatal to a foreigner. What a shame for that girl’s poor father.’

‘Waco, 1919.
I seldom receive any letters from Brazil. One here or there. Almost all of them are from my family. I rarely receive one from a friend. Meanwhile, here, all of the students receive word from their hometown, not only from their families, but also from their friends; numerous letters per week.
Could it be that we Brazilians don’t have a spirit of friendship, but only that of camaraderie? That’s how it seems to me sometimes. It’s safe to say that Brazilians are far from rivaling Americans from the United States in their epistolary friendships. Here, correspondence is something sacred among friends.’

‘Waco, 1919.
I had imagined that Waco’s “black neighborhood” would be some kind of terrible place. But it was even more horrible than I had foreseen. Filthy. Squalid. A disgrace for this philistine civilization that, in the meantime, is sending missionaries to the “pagans” of South America and China, India and Japan. Such missionaries, before crossing the seas, should take care of these domestic horrors. They are violently antichristian.

As a matter of fact, since my first contacts with the United States, I have been losing respect for their Evangelical Christianity. It seems to me that this country needs to be Christianized, evangelized, and purified of its sins, in order to have the right to give lessons about “Romanism” and “papism.”

I have already spoken with various blacks. Bitter people, but resigned. A young black woman approached me. She was pretty, though in no way as alluring as a Brazilian woman of color. “Baylor University?” she asked me. Yes, I responded. We talked a lot. I asked her several questions. One of her female friends became impatient: “Do you boy want jig-jig?” At least that’s what I understood. She was convinced that the only thing that had brought me to that dive was my hunger for a loose woman.’

‘Waco, 1919.
The trip I just made to Dallas was truly macabre. I went with some of Professor Bradbury’s other Biology students to the University Medical School in Dallas. They tell me that the school has the reputation of being, or at least of becoming, one of the best in the United States. Old Brooks is Baylor’s President and the Medical School is the apple of his eye.

We, the Biology, pre-Anthropology students, went to observe how quasi pre-medical students dissect cadavers. The cadavers gave me fewer chills than I had expected. Green. Incredibly green; they seemed like dolls to me. They didn’t give me the impression that they had once been men or women, instead they seemed like dolls that had been made to be studied, examined, and taken apart in extremely white, antiseptic rooms.

What did give me the chills was the intense smell of burnt flesh that we sensed on our return, as we were passing by a city or village called Waxa-haxie (I believe that is how this complicated name is written; the word is American Indian, I suppose, just like Waco). We were informed with relative simplicity: “It’s a black that the boys have just burned!” Could this be true? Could this odor really be from a burned black man? I don’t know - but this definitely gave me the chills. I never thought that such horror could be possible at this time in the United States. But it is. Here there is still lynching, killing, and burning of blacks. This is not an isolated incident. It happens often.’

‘Montreal, 1921.
There is something that I recognize here, something that I find familiar and similar to Brazil. It must be the Latin allure left behind by the French Catholics, who, to some degree, still resist assimilation to Anglo-Saxon ways and Protestantism. It is a country that welcomes a Neo-Latin from Brazil. The fraternal spirit originates from two influences that were common in the developing civilization of America: the Latin and the Catholic traditions.

At the same time, Canada is a civilization, a people, a landscape, already very influenced by the Anglo-Saxons: at times there is the feeling that one is still within the United States. But it is only an impression.’

‘New York, 1921.
A few days ago, I saw sailors from the Brazilian Navy walking through the snow in Brooklyn. To me, they seemed small and fragile, lacking the physical vigor of authentic sailors. Is it mal de mestiçagem, the malady of racial mixing? Nonetheless, the wise John Casper Branner admired the racial mixture of Brazilians - even those who are not at all athletic or robust - in an article that I requested he write for El Estudiante, a magazine for Latin American students that I co-edit with the Chilean Oscar Gacitua. Branner tells of an occasion when he was traveling by train through the interior of Brazil and the locomotive broke down. There was dismay among the passengers: they wouldn’t be leaving any time soon from that desolate area where the engine had stopped. The engineer didn’t inspire any confidence at all: he was one of those feeble and clumsy mestiçozinhos [diminutive persons of mixed race] that are indistinctly referred to in Brazil also as caboclos [persons of indigenous and European ancestry). Or, in Portuguese that is even more Brazilian, amarelinhos [little yellow fellows]. He was, however, a marvelous mechanic and technician. He fixed the engine in no time. It was as if the engine’s clamour held no mystery for him. For Branner, it wasn’t an isolated case. The mestizo, the cabodo, the amarelinho - perhaps this is the best description of a type that many Brazilians today call the Brazilian Jeca [a rustic type or hick] - is, in fact, intelligent and capable, despite his unfavorable appearance at times.’