accompaniments of life in Mexico has just manifested itself--a slight
earthquake. The doors that were ajar swung quietly open and as
quietly closed themselves. The chandeliers were thrown out of plumb
in a rhythmic way; there was a sliding sound of small objects from
their position and then back. I had an unpleasant sort of depolarized
sensation. It is all over now--the _temblor_, as they call it. But I
feel as if some ghost has passed through the room, leaving me not quite
the same.
_January 20th._
The papers have the report of the five hours’ conversation between
Flores Magon and Lind at Vera Cruz. Lind is reported as saying:
“Flores Magon is a splendid gentleman, with the welfare of Mexico at
heart.”
We continually ask ourselves what is going to happen. Mexico is not, by
any means, starved out; there is plenty of food, there is money for oil
stock and bull-fights, and other necessaries. We may have to see Pancho
Villa in a dress-suit. He has collected wives, as he would anything
else, in his _paso de vencedor_ through Mexico, and I understand that
some of them are curios. I suppose accident will decide which one he
will turn up with as “first lady in the land.” A recent portrait of
one of them drove a woman we knew nearly crazy. It showed the “bride”
decked out in an old family necklace forcibly taken from our friend,
with other valuables, before her flight from Torreon.
Yesterday I went to the christening of the Corcuera Pimentel baby. The
young mother, very pretty, was still in bed, enveloped in beautiful
and costly laces, and the house was full of handsome relatives. After
I had congratulated her, Don Luis, her father, took me out to tea. The
table was laden with all sorts of delicacies, foreign and domestic. I
partook of the delicious _tamales_, appetizingly done up and cooked in
corn-husks _à la Mexicaine_, and drank _atolli aurora_, a thick, pink
drink of corn-meal and milk, flavored with cinnamon and colored with a
dash of carmine--though less exotic dainties were pressed on me.
_January 21st._
Yesterday was a busy day. To show you how difficult it often is to get
hold of Huerta,--N. was up and out at seven-thirty, looking for him.
He went to his house--gone. He went to Popotla, a place Huerta has in
the suburbs near the _Noche Triste_[8] tree. Not there. N. came home.
I was just starting down-town, so I drove him to the Palace, where one
of the aides said the President might be found at Chapultepec--the
restaurant, not the castle, which he does not affect. We again went
the length of the city, from the Zocalo, through Plateros, up the
beautiful, broad _Paseo_. Huerta was just passing through the entrance
to the Park in a big limousine, followed by two other automobiles
containing secretaries and aides. N. got out of our auto and went into
that of the President, the others keeping their distance. There is
always more or less “waiting around” on royalty. They sat there for
an hour, I remaining in our auto, during which time N. procured the
release of Vera Estañol, one of the most brilliant of the Deputies,
imprisoned since the _coup d’état_ of October 10th. Huerta also
sent one of his aides with a note to the Supreme Court, written and
signed by him, telling the judges to render a just decision in a case
affecting American interests, which is now before the court. This
case has been in the Embassy nearly twenty years, and four of our
administrations have tried, without result, to get justice done through
the Embassy, using every form of diplomatic representation. Though N.
saw him write the order, and the auto which took the note started off
in the direction of the Supreme Court, and returned, having delivered
it, no one can tell what wink may later be given the judges.
I came home and ordered a room to be prepared for Vera Estañol, as, of
course, he must remain with us until he can be shipped to the States
or to Europe. I imagine that the clean bed and the hot water and the
reading-lamp and desk will look very pleasant, after three months in
jail. N. wrote and signed a letter to Huerta, in which he guarantees
that Vera Estañol will not mix in politics and will immediately leave
the country with his family. He is one of the most prominent and
gifted lawyers in the republic, liberal and enlightened, and head of
the Evolucionista party. N. was out until midnight trying to find the
President, to get the final order for his release, but was, in the end,
obliged to give it up. The old man has ways of disappearing when no one
can track him to ground. This morning, N. is after him again, and, I
suppose, will bring Vera Estañol to the house, whence he will take the
well-worn route of hastily departing patriots to Vera Cruz.
Yesterday afternoon Mrs. Tozzer, Mr. Seeger, and I motored out beyond
Azcapotzalco, where Tozzer and Hay are excavating. Anywhere one digs
in these suburbs may be found countless relics of Aztec civilization.
Azcapotzalco was once a teeming center, a great capital, and there were
then, as now, many cypress groves. One of them is still supposed to be
haunted by Marina, Cortés’ Indian love.
Built on the site of the temple, _teocalli_, is an interesting old
Dominican church of the sixteenth century; its great _patio_, planted
with olive and cypress trees is inclosed by a pink scalloped wall,
marvelously _patiné_. Here the Indians came in masses, were baptized,
had their wounds bound up, their ailments treated, their strifes
allayed, by the patient friars. As we went slowly over the broken,
neglected road little boys offered us beads and idols and bits of
pottery, which are so abundant in the fields that it is scarcely
necessary to dig for them. T. and C. H., for their work, simply chose
a likely-looking sun-baked mound, planted with maguey, like dozens of
others, and with twenty-five or thirty picturesque and untrustworthy
descendants of Montezuma (one skips back six or seven hundred years
with the greatest ease when one looks at them) they dug out an old
palace. When we demanded _regalitos_ (presents), our friends drew,
unwillingly, from their dusty pockets some hideous heads and grotesque
forms, caressed them lovingly, and then put them back, unable, when it
came to the scratch, to part with them.
[Illustration: THE “DIGGINGS” (AZCAPOTZALCO)]
[Illustration: THE PYRAMID OF SAN JUAN TEOTIHUACAN]
It is a heavenly spot. Here and there a pink belfry showed itself, its
outline broken by a dead black cypress; the marvelous, indescribable
hills, both near and far, swam in a strange transparency.
We sat long among the grubby, mixed Toltec and Aztec ruins, and made
tea, and, in what may have been some patrician’s parlor, watched the
sun go down in a blaze of colors, reappearing, as it were, to fling
a last, unexpected glory over the snow-covered volcanoes and the
violet hills. Every shaft of maguey was outlined with light, the whole
universe a soft spectrum. A mysterious, blue-lined darkness fell upon
us as we drove toward the city.
_January 23d._
N. was only able to get Vera Estañol out of the _Penitenciaría_ on
Wednesday afternoon. He didn’t come here, but was taken immediately to
the station, caught the night train to Vera Cruz, and sailed yesterday,
Thursday, by the Ward Line steamer. When N. went to the prison with
the President’s aide, carrying the order for his release and the duly
signed safe-conduct, Estañol came into the waiting-room with a volume
of Taine’s _Histoire Contemporaine_ in his hand, and the detached air
acquired by persons who have long been in jail. There was scarcely any
conversation, his one idea being to leave the building and get to the
train under American cover.
Huerta told N. yesterday that General Mercado had been bribed by
wealthy persons in Chihuahua to go to Ojinaga on the frontier, instead
of going to Jimenez, where he had been ordered. He feels very bitter
toward Mercado, who cost him 4,000 good soldiers. Mercado makes all
sorts of counter-charges against the other generals, especially
against Orozco--of cowardice, of placing drunken officers in important
positions, and of robbing their own Federal trains of provisions.
General Inez Salazar’s fate is tragi-comic. He was arrested for playing
“a little game of cards” on the Texas train, never suspecting that in a
free country you could not do such a thing. After escaping the rebels
and the American authorities he was most chagrined to be jailed and
consequently identified just as he was about to recross the border into
Mexico.
Wednesday we had a pleasant lunch at the Norwegian Legation. The
Norwegian minister is the son of Jonas Lie. He and his wife are
cultivated people of the world, and kind friends. Madame Lie always
has delicious things to eat, very handsomely served. One knows that
when things are well done here it means that the lady of the house
has given them her personal care. In the evening there was bridge at
Mme. Bonilla’s. The lights suddenly went out, as we were playing, and
remained out. As is usual in such occurrences, the cry was, “At last
the Zapatistas are cutting the wires!” Madame B. got out some beautiful
old silver candlesticks and we played on recklessly, with our fate,
perhaps, upon us. The street lamps were also dark.
Mexico City is lighted from Necaxa, nearly a hundred miles away, and
one of the loveliest spots in the world. In a day one drops down from
the plateau into the hot country; the train seems to follow the river,
which flows through a wild and beautiful _barranca_, and at Necaxa
are the great falls supplying the power for this wonderful feat of
engineering. In my mind it is a memory of blue skies, enchanting vistas
of blue mountains, myriads of blue butterflies against falling water,
bright singing birds, and the most gorgeous and richest of tropical
vegetation, vine-twisted trees, orchids, morning-glories of all kinds,
and countless other magnificences. I sometimes think that it is because
Mother Earth is so lavish here, asking only to give, demanding nothing
of her children, that they have become rather like spoiled children.
Every mountain oozes with precious ores. On the coast, any accidental
hole in the earth may reveal the oil for which the world is so greedy;
and each green thing left to itself will come up a thousandfold.
Marvelous, magical Mexico! A white moon is shining in through the
windows of the front _salon_, making my electric lamp seem a dull
thing. At this altitude the moonlight cuts out objects as if with a
steel point.
Yesterday, Mr. Prince, Aunt Laura’s friend, and brother-in-law of Mr.
C., came to lunch. Mr. C. died during the bombardment, and in his
last illness was moved from house to hospital, and from the hospital,
when that was shelled, to another house, opposite the Embassy. During
the armistice Mr. P. was able to go out for a coffin, and to take it
himself on a cab to the cemetery. This was the only way to dispose
of it, the town being under fire at the time. That same week one of
the little boys had his foot crushed by the tramway, and it had to be
amputated while shot and shell were falling and his father was lying
dead. Emma, the child who fell through my glass roof, two years ago,
has never since walked. A chapter of tragedies! Mrs. C. is now in the
States, trying to recuperate.
Hanihara, the bright secretary from the Japanese Foreign Office, who is
here to look into the conditions and, doubtless, the possibilities of
the Japanese situation in Mexico, turned up yesterday; we used to know
him in Washington. He speaks English perfectly, and is Europeanized,
externally, to an unusual extent, but, of course, he remains completely
Japanese at bottom. I shall give a luncheon for him at Chapultepec,
with his minister, the retiring Austrian _chargé_, and the new Italian
minister, who fell at my door, the day before yesterday, and was laid
up with a bad knee. I had him bound up by Dr. Ryan.
I saw a man yesterday who had known Villa in his purely peon days; he
said some mental, if not moral, evolution had been going on; among
other things, he generally keeps to the regulation amount of clothing,
but a collar gets on his nerves almost as much as the mention of
Porfirio Diaz--his pet abomination. He keeps himself fairly clean, and
has shown himself clever about finding capable agents to whom he is
willing to leave the gentler mysteries of the three R’s. We wonder who
is getting out certain polished political statements appearing under
his name. What he once did to an official document, on an official
occasion, instead of signing his name, pen cannot relate. He evidently
has military gifts, but remains, unfortunately, one of the most
ignorant, sanguinary, and ruthless men in Mexico’s history, knowing
nothing of the amenities of life, nothing of statesmanship, nor of
government in any form except force. And he may inhabit Chapultepec.
D’Antin brought home a beautiful _saltillo_, a hand-woven, woolen sort
of _serape_, about a hundred years old, that he got from an Indian at
a price so small I hate to think of it. He saw it on the Indian on the
street, one cold night, and his clever eye realized what it was. I am
not quite happy about it; but I have had it disinfected and cleaned. I
can only bring myself to use it because some one said the Indian had
probably stolen it.
Elim is singing at the top of his voice the popular air, “_Marieta, no
seas coqueta porque los hombres son muy malos_” (“Marieta, don’t be a
coquette, because men are very wicked”).
_January 23d, Evening._
I spent a quiet evening reading the fascinating book Don L. Garcia
Pimentel sent me yesterday, _Bibliografia Mexicana de lo Siglo XVI_.
I am impressed anew with the wonderful work done by that handful
of friars, Franciscans and Dominicans, who came over immediately
after Cortés and began with the Conquistadores the work of Spanish
civilization in the new world. Their first acts, as they made their way
through the country, were to do away with the bloody sacrificial rites
which disgraced and discredited the Aztec civilization. They built
everywhere churches, hospitals, and schools, teaching gentler truths to
the Indians, who gathered by thousands for instruction in the beautiful
old _patios_ to be found in front of all the colonial churches.
One might almost say that Mexico was civilized by that handful of
friars, sixteen or seventeen in all, who came over during the first
eight or ten years following the Conquest. Their burning zeal to give
the true faith to the Indians dotted this beautiful land with countless
churches, and an energy of which we can have no conception changed
the gorgeous wilderness into a great kingdom. Padre Gante, one of the
greatest of them, who arrived in 1522, was related to the Emperor
Charles V. He had been a man of the world, and was a musician and an
artist. He had his celebrated school at Tlaltelolco, now the Plaza de
Santiago, which, shabby and shorn of all its ancient beauty, is used
as the city customs headquarters. He wrote his _Doctrina Christiana_
and baptized hundreds of thousands of Indians during his fifty years’
work. He not only taught them to read and write, but started schools
of drawing and painting, at which he found them very apt. They already
possessed formulas for all sorts of beautiful colors, and had their
own arts, such as the glazing and painting of potteries, the making
of marvelous garments of bright birds’ feathers, and of objects in
gold and silver, of the finest workmanship. In the museum one can see
beautiful old maps of Mexico City when she was Anahuac, the glory of
the Aztecs, painted on cloth made from the maguey.
Fray Bartolomé de las Casas worked with Fray Gante, and they were
greatly aided by the first viceroys. Fray Motolinía came later, and
his _Historia de los Indios_ is the reference book of all succeeding
works on _Nueva Espagna_. The friars tried by every means to alleviate
the miseries of the Indians, and hospitals, homes for the aged and
decrepit, orphanages and asylums of all kinds were established. The
generation which immediately succeeded the Conquest must have been a
tragic spectacle, exhausted by resistance and later on by the pitiless
work of rebuilding cities, especially Mexico City, which was done in
four years--to the sound of the whip. The viceroys were responsible
only to the _Consejo de las Indias_, in far-away Spain, and their
success came naturally to be judged by the riches they secured from
this treasure-house of the world, at the expense, of course, of the
Indians, though many of the viceroys tried honestly, in conjunction
with the friars, to alleviate the Indian lot. Seven or eight volumes
of hitherto unpublished works are waiting for me from Don Luis Garcia
Pimentel, to one of whose ancestors, Conde de Benavente, Motolinía
dedicated his _Historia de los Indios_. I have simply steeped myself in
_Mexicana_--from the letters of Cortés, the recitals of Bernal Diaz,
who came over with him, down to Aleman and Madame Calderon de la Barca.
Well, it is getting late and I must stop, but the history of Mexico is
without exception the most fascinating, the most romantic, and the most
improbable in the world; and the seed of Spanish civilization implanted
in this marvelous land has produced a florescence so magnetic, so
magical, that the dullest feel its charm. All that has been done for
Mexico the Spaniards did, despite their cruelties, their greeds, and
their passions. We, of the north, have used it only as a quarry,
leaving no monuments to God nor testaments to man in place of the
treasure that we have piled on departing ship or train. Now we seem to
be handing back to Indians very like those the Spaniards found, the
fruits of a great civilization, for them to trample in the dust. Let us
_not_ call it human service.
_January 24th._
Von Hintze came in for a while this morning. Like all the foreign
representatives, he is weary of his work here; so many _ennuis_,
so much waiting for what they all believe alone can be the outcome
now--American supremacy in some form.
Shots were heard in town last night. Dr. Ryan, who is making his
home with us, thought it might be the long-threatened _cuartelazo_
(barracks’ revolution), and went out to see, but it turned out to be
only a little private shooting. The Burnsides have gone to live at Vera
Cruz.
_January 26th._
Only a word before beginning a busy day. I must go out to Chapultepec
to see that the luncheon of twelve, for Hanihara and Cambiaggio, is all
right. The town is filling with Japanese officers from the _Idzuma_,
lying at Manzanillo. There will be a veritable demonstration for them,
indicating very completely the anti-American feeling. There is an
enormous official program for every hour until Friday night, when they
return to their ship.
_Evening._
My luncheon for Hanihara went off very pleasantly, at Chapultepec.
That restaurant is the knife with which I have cut the gordion knot
of entertaining. The new Italian minister was there, the Norwegians,
Mr. E. N. Brown, president of the National Railways, Parra, from the
Foreign Office, and others. We reached home at four o’clock, and I
drove immediately to the Garcia Pimentels, where Don Luis was waiting
to show me some of the special treasures in his library. Up-stairs,
the handsome daughters and their equally handsome friends, married and
single, were sewing for the Red Cross. We meet there every Tuesday.
Each daughter had a beautifully embroidered _rebozo_ thrown over her
smart Paris gown _à la Mexicana_--heirlooms of the family.
The house is one of the noble, old-style Mexican edifices, with a large
_patio_, and a fine stairway leading up to the corridor that winds
around its four palm- and flower-banked sides. Large, handsome rooms,
with pictures, rare engravings, priceless porcelains, and old brocades,
open from the corridor. I merely put my head in at the door of the big
drawing-room where they were working, as Don Luis was waiting for me in
his library down-stairs. I spent a couple of delightful hours with him,
among his treasures, so lovingly guarded through generations. Oh, those
fascinating title-pages in reds and blacks, that thick, rich-feeling
hand-woven paper, that changeless ink, fit to perpetuate those romantic
histories and the superhuman achievement of the men of God! I could
scarcely put down the beautifully written letter of Cortés to Charles
V., wherein he tells of the Indians as he found them. They so closely
resemble the Indians as _I_ have found them.
Many of Don Luis’s most valuable books and manuscripts were found in
Spain, and his library of _Mexicana_ embraces everything obtainable
down to our own time.[9] His wife is a charming woman, very _grande
dame_, cultivated, and handsome. She and her daughters are always busy
with countless works of charity. Just now they are busy making up
little bundles of layettes for the maternity home. It does make one’s
fingers nimble to see Indian women obliged to wrap their babies in
newspapers!
I had just time to get home and dress for dinner at the British
Legation, but we came away at half past nine, leaving the rest of the
party playing bridge. I had on again the gray-and-silver Worth dress,
but I feel sad without my black things.
_Evening, January 27th._
This afternoon I went with de Soto to see Mme. Lefaivre at the Museo
Nacional, where she is copying an old Spanish screen. It is always a
pleasure to go through the lovely, sun-baked _patio_, filled with gods
and altars of a lost race. Many of them, found in the _Zocalo_, have
made but a short journey to their resting-place. De Soto is always an
agreeable companion for any little excursion into the past--though it
isn’t the _past_ we are dreaming about, these days. And as for his
looks, put a lace ruff and a velvet doublet on him and he would be a
“Velasquez” of the best epoch.
Mme. Lefaivre, enveloped in an apron, was sitting on a little
step-ladder before the largest screen I have ever seen, its eight
mammoth leaves representing various amorous scenes, lovers, balconies,
guitars, etc.--all most decorative and truly ambassadorial. I told her
that nothing but the Farnese Palace would be big enough for it, and
the light of dreams--the kind of dreams we all dream--appeared in her
eyes. The big sala was getting a bit dim, so she left her work and we
started for a turn through the museum. When we found ourselves talking
of Huerta by the “Morning Star,” a mysterious, hard-faced, green god
(his little name is Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli), I thought we might as well
take a turn in the motor; so we went up to Chapultepec and continued
the discourse under the cypresses, which are growing, though slowly,
with the living events that alone really interest one. The past is for
those with peace and leisure.
_Evening._
A quiet day, but we are distressed beyond words at the renewed reports
of a lifting of the embargo on arms and ammunition for the rebels.
I feel as if I couldn’t stand it, and N. even felt that he ought to
resign if it happens. The ship of state is going so inevitably on the
rocks. He will make some sort of protest to Washington against the
advisability of this move. Villa’s cry is “On to Mexico,” and he may
get there, or rather, here--if we decide to carry him.
It appears that he is becoming daily more intoxicated by the favors of
the United States. No one is more surprised than he at his success with
the powers that be, and as for the vogue he has with the confidential
agents, they tell me his face is one broad grin whenever their names
are mentioned. However, this doesn’t mean he is going to try to please
them. Just now he wants Huerta’s head, but that foxy old head can
have asylum here. Shouts and shots were heard an hour or so ago, but
probably only from some Zapatistas near town.
FOOTNOTES: