my suggestions.

Tony Preblesham had proved an invaluable find. Never the type to whom
authority in the largest matters could be delegated, nevertheless he was
extremely handy as troubleshooter, exploiter of new territory or
negotiator with competitors or troublesome laborleaders. The pioneers
who had fled to the north had little to offer in payment for the vast
quantities of food concentrates they required, but the land was rich in
furs, timber, and other resources. With permission of the Danish
authorities I sent Preblesham to Julianthaab. There he established our
headquarters for Greenland, Iceland, and all that was left of North
America. From Julianthaab immediately radiated a network of posts where
our products were traded for whatever the refugees could bring in.

But the Americans who had gone into the icy wastes were not seeking
subsistence. They were striving mightily to reach some place of
sanctuary where they could no longer be menaced by the Grass. Beyond the
Arctic Circle? Here they might learn to imitate the Innuit, living on
fish and seals and an occasional obligingly beached whale. But could
they be sure, on territory contiguous or very nearly contiguous to that
supporting the weed, that they could count on immunity? They did not
believe so. They filled up Newfoundland in the hope that the narrow Gulf
of St Lawrence and the narrower Straits of Belle Isle might offer
protective barriers. They crossed on sleds to Baffin Island and in
homemade boats to Greenland. Before the Grass had wiped out their
families, and their less hardy compatriots left behind in Nova Scotia
and Prince Edward Island, these pioneers abandoned the continent of
their origin; the only effect of their passage having been to
exterminate the last of the Innuit by the propagation of the manifold
diseases they had brought with them.

In the south the tempo was slower, the striving for escape less
hysterical and more philosophic. When the Mexican peon heard the Grass
was in the next village he packed his few belongings and moved farther
away. From Tampico to Chiapas the nation journeyed easily south, not
regretting too loudly the lands left behind, not crowding or jostling
rudely on the highways, not failing to pause for siestas when the sun
was hot, but traveling steadily in a quiet resignation that seemed
beyond resignation--the extension of a gracious will.

_66._ But the rest of the world, even in the lethargy which had come
upon