The following is from my preservation journal ..it is short ..please download
to sayour printer and read at your leisure ,,,if not delete my friend
delete...

Hello ...from the Deep South..
...more specificically the broad Southern Mississippi Delta plain of North
America..
Unlike the Nile delta ..the Mississippi Delta is vast in its terrain.
Sparcely populated it streaches for thousands of sq miles of the states of
Mississippi
Louisana Arkansas and Texas.
 It is  rich  in deep black  bottomland  and littered with impenatrable
swamps of bald cypress
and aligator sloughs so numerous it is impossible to count.The rate of
decomposition in this
enviroment is quick .Unless it is made of steel or cypress there is no record
of man having ever
been here. It is the same as it was and will be.
...
..few people ever get to experience the vastness of the Mississippi here.
The first known European was the brutal conquistordor Hernando Desoto.
A  sadistic lieutentant of  the infamous Pizzaro. Desoto was given rights to
the Floridas as a
reward for his stealth over the Incas. Las Floridas to the coqistadors
existed  well beyond its
present state encomposing the Mississippi Delta and most of East Texas.
The Desoto expedition (1542-47) was chronicled by one of his officers known
only to us as..The
gentleman from Elvis.There was nothing gentlemanly at all about this bunch.
 Desoto terrorised the 5,000 yr old Woodland Culture for the  lost cities of
Gold.

His first method of endearment was trinket trade. Small forged Bells parsoned
off by the jesuit
militants were highly prized by these tatooed face painted pagan wariors of
the woodland
culture.
Colored beads bought some foods but little gold.

Frustrated ..his second endearment was enslavement and torture.
His victims  much to their credulity always recounted the gold was just to
the next river.
 Deeper into the terrain Desoto  would go....and the people would just melt
into the forrest and
swamp.... bushwacking the mounted Spainards with stone tipped spears and
poison arrows as
they passed . The years passed ; and the conqistordors became increasingly
brutal in tactics
and bewilderment.
The enviroment despite his warfare technology swallowed him whole
He became reckless in 100 de heat and sleepless with infestations of
mosquitos and poisonous
snakes.
Finally after 3 years of fruitless struggle DeSoto found himself weak with
fevers and infections.
He had lost half of his command  to disease and indian attacks; and now he
was succumbing
himself and knew he would never see Spain again.Fever took Desoto in Dec of
1545  near what
is now Clarkesdale Mississippi. his body was interned in the Mississippi
river in a lead coffin
which has never been found.
.
Remnants of his expedition escaped down river pursued day and night by 150
large war canoes who left any of  the straggling spainards with their heads
on wood  pikes
....teeth chattering in the wind..
. as a warning  and an homage to their enemies and gods

Out of 350 men ten survived.No gold of any substace was ever recovered.

 In another 200 yrs the woodland culture would also all but disappear into
tribes like the
Alabamu ...the Natchez... and the...Choctow...Chactchumas the Arkansaws and
dozens of others
lost to history.
In  another 200 yrs they too would disappear.. into  complicated historic
patterns as the sons of
former slaves from Africa and the sons of former  slave owners.

The beauty of this area is that little has changed.Technology never really
conquered it.
Like Desoto we all feel a little victorious at first;  then gradually we all
one by one begin to fail and slip into the ooze with no trace of our ever
being there. There is something  actually fresh wonderful about that.......

The weather has been harsh as of late.
 Delta.temps here have been ranging 103-109 for two weeks
in  a row..Not since working in the Sahara have I experienced such vicious
heat
Spring time Saraha temps  were 120 -130 We scheduled our work days from 4:30
am till 10 am
then siesta until 3 pm then until 7 pm.
.In such temperatures The mind becomes disorientated as the blood wants to
boil.
.Your patience is short.... you; become argumentative and distrustful and can
pounce on the slightest infraction.There is a breakdown of morale even among
the strongest of
men.
Thirst is a major issue; politeness gives way to desperation and you become
insensitive to
others suffering around you.
Once after a horiffic sandstorm we uncovered a German Panzer tank  from the
infamed Afrika
Korps.....completely intact ..although missing its treads. this was at the
Ghisa pass
bordering Lybya. The following two days were miserable with sandstorms and
the tank was
recovered by sand  and lost once more  to another time.
Fortunately the Delata is less define but equally as harsh. Insanity cannot
be ruled out.

We have had only one case of madness and that's where a prankster placed a
large rat snake in the bog of the porta -john.in wait of Jean- Louis who is a
stonemason that
hails from Britanny.
Now jean -louis is a fearful man and never travels the swamp without his 410
pistol.It is a clumsy affair that takes the eqivilent of doubble 00
birdshot.Excellent for varmits
and snakes.
 It wasn't long after jean-louis entered the porta -john
there followed several loud reports from the pistol
 with jean -louis caught backing out of the toilet with his britches around
his ankles firing away
into the seat.
While the entire crew  went  into histerics  behind the bald cypress.Jean
-Louis went
bare=assed into a frenzy  of fear and rapid fire.
 Needless to say he destroyed the entire porta john and the snake and we all
had to suffer his
simmering anger  and the
indecency of an open latrine until its replacement....
Stinking of you...Michael
all rts 2000 MDD