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Show T oaring Mexico BY JOSEPH IL WESTON Mexico Mexicans and Americans Ameri-cans have co-operated to build this place into a boomtown, in about five years, from almost nothing. And it really is booming. Among its manyfold activities are a large commercial fishing industry, and an equally big sport fishing activity. ac-tivity. There's a thriving shipyard where boats are built of wood by skilled Mexican craftsmen for American owners. And there's a lot of blasting, excavating, and hauling of rock and dirt fill for huge wharves and docks where a big copper smelter is being erected with capital from the United States. Certainly not the least interesting interest-ing thing about the place is the 28-foot (yaas, twenty - eight foot) rise and fall of the tide. The rise and fall are not added together to get that figure, either. There's a 28-foot rise, and then there's a 28-foot fall. My first sight of Pen-asco, Pen-asco, proper, was obtained when I waked there one morning after having sneaked in under cover of darkness the night before. No one had warned me about this tide business, so you can imagine my surprise when I gazed out from the dock, to see a very sizeable flock of ships careened over, lying high and dry on their bellies on the bottom of the bay, with a five-mile five-mile stretch of seashell - dotted sand between them and the gulf waters, which seemed to be ebbing still further away. Not counting aviation, there are three regular ways to reach this newly built winter sport fishing heaven near the top of the fabulous fabu-lous Gulf of California. The one and only highway connects con-nects with the American border at Sonoyta, about midway between Tucson and Yuma. This is the route that thousands of Americans have taken, in their search for a (Continued on page 6) enchiladas. The night was cold. Two young !.!exican infantrymen, train guards, who couldn't have been more than IS years of age, obligingly oblig-ingly posed while I took their picture pic-ture with a flashlight. They were muffled in their heavy woolen overcoats, and carried rifles slung over their shoulders. A man with a rubber-tired pushcart an aristocrat among the vendors was doing a thriving business in hot tea. He had only three china-ware china-ware teacups, and his customers patiently waited their turns while he carefully wiped the cup after each time it was used. Further down the track was a row of outdoor restaurants, with nothing above them but the velvety vel-vety blackness of a desert winter sky. Each of these had a big square table covered with oilcloth. It .was lighted by the yellow rays cf a kerosene lantern that reminded re-minded me of my boyhood farm days back in Arkansas. The main stock in trade at this restaurant was a huge pot of hot turtle soup, , made from "cauhauma," giant seaturtle of the Pacific coast and of the Gulf of California. I reluctantly left this hive of midnight activity and took a taxi past the folorn, barren- looking graveyard on the side of a bleak desert hill, down into the town of Penasco, and here I made the acquaintance of a wonderful friend, the widowed, respectably elderly, Tecla Bustamente, owner of the Rocky Point Hotel. But Tecla is worth a column all to herself! (Continued from page 5) seaport to relieve them of the monotony of desert life in southern south-ern Arizona. The sea route can enough of the gods that they can own a fishing or pleasure boat or be a passenger or crewman on some such craft. be enjoyed only by those favored That leaves only the railroad, by means of which Penasco's crowded Mexican quarter daily becomes be-comes more and more packed with more and more Mexicans, from farther south. On my first trip to Penasco, only last January, this journey by rail proved to be one of the high spots in a lifetime that has taken me tr much adventure in many far and interesting places. This railroad traverses about four hundred miles of the famous Sonora desert beginning at the border town of Mexicali at the far - southeastern tip of California, and ending at a junction with the main north-south rail line at the town of Benjamin Hill, to the east. The railroad is the main means of hauling out the wonderful long staple cotton grown in the Altar River Valley, and of taking thousands thous-ands of cattle to market from the Sonora grazing lands, which become be-come progressively better as you approach the foothills of the Sierra Madre mountain range, where rainfall normally supports a heavy jrass crop. A passenger train crosses the desert each way, veiy sensibly, at night. The trip thus is comfortable cvea in tht hett of summer, but ome of the finest scenery in the world is missed. Whenever I have sketched and painted the fantastic lorms of saguaro and organ-pipe actus, which abound in this area, I have been forcefully reminded of some of my more violent and impossible nightmares. I boarded the train at Mexicali, early in January, and it began its eastward journey just after dark. Passengers crowded every car on the train. These were divided into first - and second-class coaches, with the added attraction of a sleeping car that had been part of the train only since mid-December. Customs officials, of which Mexico Mex-ico seems to have more than any other kind of people, started working work-ing through the train soon after :t was under way. Mexico very jealously guards the entry into the main part of their country of all merchandise that is brought by their own nationals who return from the border towns, most of vhich are "free ports." A junior customs employee reached me first and thought, for sure, he had made a richly taxable discovery in my "machina de escribir," or just plain portable typewriter to us home folks. However, when his superior discovered this contraption contrap-tion was being toted by an American Ameri-can tourist, its case quickly was re-closed and shoved back to me with a toothy grin and the explanation, explana-tion, "Everything okay, Meester! Everything okay!" There is a rail switching yard and depot on a large level plain just outside Penasco, and it is here that the customs officers really have a field day. Trains from both directions meet at midnight, mid-night, more or less, and there is a tour-hour wait, mostly more, while train crews rest, and the chief of sector. of the customs boyi sees that his minions take a fine-tooth fine-tooth comb to aay part of the trains they might have missed theretofore. It's a weird scene, this two-hour wait in the middle of tht light in the desert! The high-pitched, almost wailing voices of the Indian In-dian women vendors and the snoring, snor-ing, whistling sounds of steam locomotives lo-comotives at rest form a musical accompaniment to midnite drama that isn't easily forgotten. The women peddled many things to eat: hot popcorn, boiled or roasted ears of green corn, "sandwiches," |