I wondered how anybody could be so homesick for such a
God-forsaken place. I asked her if she had ever seen a tree, or
green grass (for I could talk with her quite easily now). She
shook her mournful head. "But don't you want to see trees and
grass and flowers?"
Another sad shake of the head was the only reply.
Such people, such natures, and such lives, were incomprehensible
to me then. I could not look at things except from my own
standpoint.
She took her child upon her knee, and lighted a cigarette; I took
mine upon my knee, and gazed at the river banks: they were now
old friends: I had gazed at them many times before; how much I
had experienced, and how much had happened since I first saw
them! Could it be that I should ever come to love them, and the
pungent smell of the arrow-weed which covered them to the water's
edge?
The huge mosquitoes swarmed over us in the nights from those
thick clumps of arrow-weed and willow, and the nets with which
Captain Mellon provided us did not afford much protection.
The June heat was bad enough, though not quite so stifling as the
August heat. I was becoming accustomed to climates, and had
learned to endure discomfort.
