"The great red hills stand desolate, and the earth has torn away like flesh. The lightning flashes over them, and the clouds pour down upon them, the dead streams come to life, full of the red blood of the earth. Down in the valleys women scratch the soil that is left, and the maize hardly reaches the height of a man. They are valleys of old men and old women, of mothers and children. The men are away, they young men and the girls are away. The soil cannot keep them anymore."