and drove him down-town. I enjoyed talking English and hearing it
instead of speaking broken Spanish or listening to broken French. We
browsed about in an antique-shop and did a little refreshing haggling.
I stopped at Madame Simon’s on my way back, where I found Rincon
Gaillardo, who is, among other things, chief of the _rurales_.
He had many interesting things to say about hunting for Zapatistas,
which seems to be the biggest kind of “big-game” shooting. After
descending unexpectedly upon sleeping villages the Zapatistas retreat
to their mountain fastnesses. By the time word reaches the point
where _rurales_ are stationed, the worst has been done. The next day
innocent-looking persons are begging for a centavo or working in the
fields. They were the bandits of the night before! It needs a Hercules
to clear this mountainous country of “the plague of brigandage.” A gun,
a horse, and full power are naturally more attractive than a plow and a
corn-field.
There are rumors of a student demonstration to-morrow--it is
Constitution Day--when they propose to march the streets crying, “Death
to Wilson!” Everybody was not only polite, but even affectionate in
their greetings to me. Whatever they thought of yesterday’s raising of
the embargo they kept to themselves or expressed when I was absent.
Even Rincon Gaillardo, who is giving his _all_--time, money, brain--to
the pacifying of the country _under_ Huerta, maintained his exquisite
calm.
XIV
A “neat little haul” for brigands--Tea at San Angel--A picnic and a
burning village--The lesson of “Two Fools”--Austria-Hungary’s new
minister--Cigarettes in the making--Zapata’s message.
_February 6th._
There was no disturbance of any kind yesterday. Never were the streets
more peaceful, nor the heavens more calmly beautiful. Madame Simon had
a luncheon for the new Austro-Hungarian minister, and afterward we
all motored out the Toluca road, driving on till from a high mountain
place we could see the setting sun filling the stretches of the Toluca
Valley with translucent flame colors, mauves, reds, and browns. It was
like some new Jerusalem or any other promised glory. Every time we saw
a group on horseback we wondered if it were the redoubtable Zapatistas
who make that part of the world so unquiet. It was all carefully
patrolled, however, with armed men at intervals, cartridge-belts full,
and guns across their saddles.
Our party would have been a neat little haul for brigands: the
Austro-Hungarian minister, the Italian minister, Joaquin Garcia
Pimentel, Señor and Señora Ösi, Madame Simon, and myself. Señora Ösi
had on a magnificent string of pearls, likewise a huge diamond pin that
blazed in the setting sun. I left my jewels at home, and Madame Simon
kept hers well covered. I wonder that we _did_ get back as we went. It
was marvelous, dropping down from the heights to the glistening town,
in the mysterious Mexican half-light.
I wonder what President Wilson is going to do about the revolution in
Peru? I see they have deported Billinghurst from Callao, and Augusto
Durand, the revolutionary chief, has assumed the Presidency. There
was a price on his head a day or two before. It will take more than
one administration to cure the Latin-Americans of their taste for
revolutions. Have sent you a _Cosmopolitan_, with a story, “Two Fools,”
by Frederick Palmer; it deals with a certain burning side of the
Mexican situation, and has excited much comment.
_February 8th. Evening._
Yesterday we went out to the beautiful San Angel Inn for tea, six of us
in one motor, two empty motors following. Motoring about this marvelous
plateau is one of the joys of Mexican life. We watched the sunset
over the volcanoes until the rose-tinted “White Lady,” Iztaccihuatl,
was only a gigantic form lying against a purple sky, covered with a
blue-white shroud; then we raced in to dine with Clarence Hay and
the Tozzers, who had a box for a mild circus performance in the
evening. The night before last, so von Hintze told N. (and he is
always thoroughly informed), forty men and officers in the Guadalupe
Hidalgo barracks were shot. They were accused, probably justly, of a
plot against Huerta. For days there have been persistent rumors of
a military uprising--_cuartelazo_, as they call it. Perhaps at the
predestined hour one such rising will succeed. If Huerta is forced
into bankruptcy and can’t pay his troops, what will become of _us_,
the foreigners? He stated the full truth about elections here when he
said that conditions were such that the government of the nation must
necessarily be in the hands of the few. A thoroughgoing dictatorship is
what he doubtless thinks the best solution--from a close acquaintance
with his own people.
[Illustration:
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood.
“THE WOMAN IN WHITE”--FROM SAN JUAN HILL]
This morning, after Mass at nine o’clock, I started with Seeger, Hay,
the Tozzers, and Elim for Texcoco. It was marvelous, speeding through
the soft, yet brilliant, air, each turn of the wheel bringing us to
historic spots. Texcoco was the “Athens” of Mexico in Aztec days,
and the whole length of this now so-dusty road was done in canoes
and barques. There is a great column near Chapingo which points the
spot Cortés started from in his brigantine, in his last desperate and
successful attempt at the conquest of the City of Mexico. It was from
the ridge of hills beyond that the conquerors first looked down on the
marvels of Tenochtitlan, set among its shining lakes and its myriad
gardens.
We found it was market-day at Texcoco, and Indian life was beating
its full around the old plaza with its Aztec sun-dial, palms, and
eucalyptus. Here the Indians set up their innumerable booths with
their potteries, baskets, blankets, fruits, and vegetables. We were
most amused watching a crowd gathered about a steaming caldron. In it
a pig, his outline still quite intact, was converting himself into
soup as fast as fire and water could assist him. Cortés, in one of the
famous letters, gives as detailed an account of an Indian market as
if he were a modern traveling agent sending back data to the firm. In
the near-by old church his venturesome heart lay for long years. Now
only unlettered Indians crowd in and out of the place. There is a huge
adjacent seminary of the Spanish period, unused since the “Laws of
Reform.” The most visible results of the “Laws of Reform” seem to be,
as far as I have discovered, huge, dusty waste spaces, where schools
had once been. All over Mexico there are such.
Texcoco doesn’t offer many inducements to modern picnickers, so we
motored back a short distance and stopped at the hacienda of Chapingo,
formerly belonging to Gonsalez, President of Mexico before Diaz’s
second administration. _He_ was allowed to leave the country. As Dooley
remarks, “There is no such word as ‘ix-Prisidint’ in Mexico. They are
known as ‘the late-lamented,’ or ‘the fugitive from justice’; and the
only tr’uble the country has with those who remain is to keep the grass
cut.”
Beautiful avenues of eucalyptus adorn the entrance to the gaudy
clap-clappy house, and the dozens of _peon_ dwellings surrounding it.
The _administrador_ allowed us to have our luncheon in the grounds,
and we sat around the dry, flower-grown basin of an old fountain. Hay
recited; we picked bunches of violets without moving an inch, and
watched cheerful lizards darting in and out. Coming home, great spiral
pillars of dust reached up, with a regular rotary motion, to the sky
over the lake, the results of the drainage works of the lake and valley
of Texcoco.
As we passed the _Peñon_ and got into the straight home road, some one
remarked, “Nothing doing in the Zapatista line this time.” A moment
afterward, however, volleys were heard in the direction of Xochimilco,
and puffs of smoke could be seen. Then about forty _rurales_ galloped
up. The sergeant, a fresh-complexioned, dull-witted fellow, stopped us
and asked if we knew from where the firing came. We apparently knew
more than he, little as it was. He continued, in a helpless way: “Those
are Mauser shots, _pero no hay tren, no hay telefono. Como vamos a
hacer?_” (“but we have no train, we have no telephone. What are we to
do?”) When we asked him the name of the village (_pueblo_) where it
was going on, he shrugged his shoulders and answered, “_Quién sabe?_”
Finally we left the _rurales_ to their own devices and came upon a
group of women running for their lives and virtue. They all learn
to get out of the way of the soldiers, as they are obliged to hear
dreadful _groserías_, if nothing worse. A pink- or blue-skirted figure
being chased in the maguey-fields is no uncommon sight.
We came back to the Embassy and had tea, learning that a huge fire
we had seen burning on the side of a not-distant hill, and which we
thought might be from a charcoal-burners’ camp, was a village the
Zapatistas had pillaged and set on fire at two o’clock, while we were
peacefully picnicking in “violet-crowned” Chapingo.
The Tozzers and Clarence Hay leave for Oaxaca and Mitla, to-morrow
night, for a week’s trip. I would have loved to go, but “No traveling”
is our motto. We must keep out of possible troubles. Later Kanya de
Kanya, the new Austro-Hungarian minister, came to call. He has been
ten years in the Foreign Office in Vienna, and is glad to be out of
the turmoil of Near-East politics. For him Mexico is relatively quiet.
There are only about five or six hundred of his nationals in the whole
country, as there has been little or nothing here for them since
the Maximilian tragedy. Kanya is a Hungarian. He will be a pleasant
colleague, and I certainly hope the Magyar will show itself. He is said
to be very musical.
In the evening Seeger came back for dinner; also Burnside, who is up
from Vera Cruz for a day or so. We had a “political” evening. Going
back over things, it does seem as if the United States, in conniving at
the elimination of Diaz, three years ago, had begun the deadly work of
disintegration here.
But all the time I kept before my mind’s eye the enchanting background
of blue hills and lakes shining in the slanting sun, millions of wild
ducks flying across the Lake of Chalco, and, above it, the smoldering
village, the reverberations of the Mauser rifles below!
_February 9th._
There was a pleasant luncheon at the Lefaivres’ for Kanya. They--the
Lefaivres--are both worn out with their long Mexican sojourn, five
years, and the heavy responsibilities entailed by the ever-increasing
French material losses, and are planning to go on leave in March. They
are good friends and I shall miss them greatly, but I have learned to
be philosophic about partings. Life keeps filling up, like a miraculous
pitcher.
The newspapers have been getting the details of the horrible disaster
in the Cumbre tunnel in Chihuahua, a few days ago. A bandit chief,
Castillo, set fire to it by running into it a burning lumber-train.
A passenger-train came along, collided with the débris, and all that
has been recovered is a few charred bones. It is near the frontier,
and it is said that Villa allowed the rescue-party to have an escort
of American soldiers. There were a number of American women and
children on the train; but it is a momentous step--or may be--for
American troops to get into Mexico. Castillo did the thing, it is said,
to revenge himself on Villa. This latter is getting a taste of the
responsibilities success entails. He has Chihuahua, and Juarez, and a
long line of railway to protect, and I am sure he doesn’t find guerilla
warfare a recommendable pastime, when it is directed against himself
and his ambitions.
_February 10th._
This morning we went over the magnificent Buen Tono
cigarette-factories. Pugibet, who sold cigarettes in the street forty
years ago, is the founder and millionaire owner. The factory is a model
in all ways, and a testimony to his brains, energy, and initiative.
He showed us over the vast place himself. In one of the rooms he had
refrained from installing machinery, as it meant taking work from
hundreds of women.
Oh, the deftness and skill of those beautiful Indian hands! Their
motions were so quick that one hardly saw anything but the finished
article. He loaded us with cigarettes and many souvenirs, and we drove
home after a visit to the big church he had built near by. On arriving
home, I found the words, “Papa,” “Mama,” “Elim,” and “Kuss,” written
in white chalk, in high letters, on the entrance-door. I hated to have
them removed.
N. has protested to the Foreign Office regarding the scurrilous
language the _Imparcial_ has used about the President, the _Imparcial_
being a government organ. “Wicked Puritan with sorry horse teeth,”
“Exotic and nauseous Carranzista pedagogue,” are samples of its style.
_Evening._
I have had a stone for a heart all day, thinking of the horrors that
are to be multiplied. Nelson went to see Gamboa this afternoon.
Incidentally the raising of the embargo was mentioned, and Gamboa
said he thought Huerta might declare war. Like all the rest, he is
doubtless ready to desert the old man. _Après moi le déluge_ and “the
devil take the hindmost” are the sentiments governing people here. Mr.
Jennings just rang up to ask if we had heard that the letter-bag of the
Zapatistas had been seized. In it was a letter to President Wilson from
Zapata, saying he upheld and was in perfect accord with his (Wilson’s)
policy toward Huerta. A smile on the face of every one!
I went to the Garcia Pimentels’ at four o’clock, where we sewed till
seven for the Red Cross. The women there were all wives or daughters
of wealthy _hacendados_. They asked me if there was any news, and as
usual, I answered, “Nothing new,” but I felt my eyes grow dim. This
measure will strike them hard. The _hacendados_ in this part of the
country have made great sacrifices to co-operate with the Federal
government (it is the only visible thing in the shape of government) in
the hope of preserving their properties and helping toward peace.
There were crowds before the Church of the Profesa in “Plateros” as I
drove home. The church had been gutted by fire the night before, its
second misfortune since we arrived. Its great dome was rent during the
terrific earthquake of the 7th of June, 1911--that unforgetable day on
which I saw Madero make his triumphant entry into Mexico. At half past
four in the morning the town was rocked like a ship in a gale, with a
strange sound of great wind.
The Profesa, which has only just been repaired, was built late in
the sixteenth century, and was a center of Jesuit activity. In the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries all the great marriages, baptisms,
and functions took place in it. One can see in one’s mind the array of
proud viceroys and their jewel-decked spouses and all the glittering
functionaries, and last, but not least, the inevitable accompaniment
of the Indian population, wandering in and out. Yesterday, at San
Felipe, Mass was celebrated by a priest with a pronounced Spanish
eighteenth-century ascetic face of the Merry del Val type. As he turned
to give the blessing, I thought of the many elect and beautiful priests
of Spain who had in bygone days turned with that same gesture and
expression to give the same blessing to like throngs of uplifted Indian
faces. The Indians crowd the churches and I am thankful that Heaven can
be foreshown to them, somewhere, somehow. They are but beasts of burden
here below.
XV
Departure of the British minister--Guns and marines from Vera
Cruz--Review at the Condesa--_Mister Lind_--The Benton case--Huerta
predicts intervention--Villa at Chihuahua.
_February 12th._
Sir Lionel Carden is leaving next week. He feels (I think not without
reason) very bitter about his experience down here. He is going to
London _via_ Washington. I suppose he means to tell the President a lot
of things, but when he gets there he won’t do it. Something in the air
will make him feel that nothing is of any use....
The protest Nelson made to the Foreign Office over the abusive language
of the _Imparcial_ was in big head-lines in the newspapers yesterday.
The Spanish language lends itself exceedingly well to abuse. Miron,
the man who wrote the articles, now goes about declaring that he will
shoot Nelson at the first opportunity. I don’t think anything will come
of this, however, though it keeps one a little uneasy in this land of
surprises.
_February 13th._
This morning we received a telegram that Nelson’s father is seriously
ill (pneumonia) and all day I have been broken with agonies of
indecision. Ought I to go to New York, possibly in time to close those
beautiful old eyes? Or ought I to stay here?
N. intends to have six marines come up from Vera Cruz. We could lodge
them here. This house was built for two very large apartments and
was joined by doors and stairways when taken for an Embassy. The very
large dining-room on the bedroom floor could easily hold six cots
and the necessary washing apparatus. It is now used as a trunk-room,
pressing-room, and general store-room. Personally I don’t feel that
anything will happen in Mexico City, beyond having a premonition that
we may be giving asylum to Huerta some of these days. The scroll
bearing his hour still lies folded upon the lap of the gods.
_February 17th._
I decided this morning not to go to New York, though Berthe had my
things in readiness for to-morrow night. I was afraid that when I
wanted to return I might not be able to get up to the city from Vera
Cruz.
I went to see von Hintze this morning about the circus performance on
Friday night for the Red Cross. He had already sent out invitations for
a big dinner for that night, but he will postpone this until Saturday.
He thinks there will be trouble here, and _soon_, and that I would
never have time to go and return. So are destinies decided. Suddenly
it was clear to me that I was to stay with my boy and Nelson and await
results. Von Hintze considers the situation desperate and has sent out
a circular telling his nationals to leave the country. In that story,
“Two Fools,” you will see some of the disadvantages of leaving, faced
by people whose all is here. Von Hintze is having Maxim quick-firing
guns up from Vera Cruz. Three good mitrailleuses and the men to work
them would be ample protection for any of the legations in case of
riots.
Diaz Miron, who is threatening Nelson’s life, has already killed three
men. Another man he shot limps about town, and he himself has a bad
arm. He is a poet, a neurotic, but wrote in his young days some of the
most beautiful Spanish verse that exists. Now he is old, violent, and
eccentric. I hardly think anything will come of his threats. Huerta has
other Diaz Mirons; he has but one American _chargé d’affaires_; and if
necessary Diaz Miron can be put in the _Penitenciaría_ or Belem. I only
fear some fool may catch the idea and do what Miron wouldn’t do.
A very nice cable came from Mr. Bryan this afternoon, saying that the
President was deeply concerned at the threats against Nelson, and that
we should arrange for secret-service men to follow him when he goes out
of the Embassy; and also, if necessary, have a military guard at the
house. There has been a secret-service man walking up and down outside
for several days, and a dull time he must be having.
The morning was soft, yet brilliant, when I walked down to von
Hintze’s. It seems strange that blood and tragedy should be woven in
such a beautiful woof. Von Hintze is not an alarmist, but by telling me
to go to New York, on the theory that everybody that can should leave,
he certainly decided me to stay. I _can’t_ be away if anything happens
here. So now I am calm again. Having been ready to go, not dodging the
hard duty, makes me able to remain in peace.
_February 18th._
We have a new Minister for Foreign Affairs, a gentleman, to replace
Moheno, the joyful bounder who has been in during the past few months.
Portillo y Rojas, the new minister, is also supposed to be that white
blackbird, an honest man. He has held various public offices without
becoming rich, even when he was governor of the State of Jalisco. He,
like all the rest, however, will do as Huerta dictates.
Maximo Castillo, the bandit responsible for the awful Cumbre tunnel
disaster, was captured by American troops yesterday. Twenty-one
Americans perished in the disaster. I wonder what Washington will do
with him? To which of the two unrecognized governments can he be turned
over? He was making a big détour around a mountain range, with a few
followers, when he was caught, trying to avoid Villa. This is another
piece of good luck for “the tiger.”
Huerta continues to believe in himself. N. says that unless von Hintze
had information of a precise nature that Blanquet (Huerta’s intimate
friend and his Minister of War) is going to betray him, the end is by
no means in sight. But treachery is as much a part of this landscape as
the volcanoes are.
Had a wearing sort of day, full of corners and edges; also the first
real dust-storm of the season, which helps to make nerves raw. The
government sends down three Gatling-guns, which Nelson is to get into
the country “anyway he thinks best.” It will not be a simple matter.
Everything is in a combustible condition here, needing but a match to
ignite the whole.
_Evening._
Just returned from Chapultepec from Señora Huerta’s reception. It
was her first in two months, as she had been in mourning for her
brother. The “court” wore black. I found myself next to Huerta for
tea, having been taken out by the Minister of Communicaciones--the
Minister of “Highways and Buyways,” he might be called. I had a little
heart-to-heart talk with the President--unfortunately in my broken
Spanish. He gave me some flowers and all the good things on the table,
and in return I gave him a red carnation for his buttonhole. He called
for _enchiladas_ and _tamales_--pink jelly and fussy sandwiches don’t
appeal to him--but the majordomo, with a grin, said, “_No hay_.”
A few of the _gens du monde_ were there. It seems cruel for them to
boycott their own government as they continually and consistently do.
Huerta has promised to put a larger house at our disposition for the
Red Cross, and I begged him to come, if only for a moment, to the
benefit circus performance on Friday. He has some military engagement
for that night. I think we will be able later to get up a really
productive bull-fight for the Red Cross, if he will sanction it. There
is always money for bull-fights in this country. If the bull-fighters
didn’t come so high, and if the bulls were not so dear, a bull-fight
would be a wonderful way of putting any organization on its feet!
Huerta sat with Nelson the whole time after tea, in the bedroom next to
the big _salon_, and Nelson broached to him the subject of the guns. He
said he could bring in any blankety thing he pleased, or the Spanish
equivalent, but he warned him to do it quietly. We were almost the last
to leave and Huerta took me on his arm down the broad, red-carpeted
stairs, telling me that Mexicans were the friends of everybody, and
offering me a pony for Elim. When we got to the glass vestibule, in
front of which the autos were waiting, he made us take _his_ auto.
“_Your_ automobile,” he insisted, when I said, “Oh, but this is yours!”
What could I do but get in, to the salute of officers, our empty car
following us. All his courtesies make it a bit hard for us. I felt like
a vampire in a churchyard or some such awful thing, when I was sitting
there in the big _salon_, knowing that Huerta is up against the world
and can’t but slip at the end, no matter how he digs in his feet. He
needs fidelity. It is nowhere to be had, and never was to be had in
Mexico, if history is to be believed. When Santa Ana left Mexico City
with twelve thousand troops in 1847 to meet and engage Scott at Puebla,
he finally arrived with a fourth of that number--the others vanishing
along the road a few at a time.
There was a good deal of uniform up there this afternoon. I looked at
those gold-braided chests with mingled feelings--pity at the thought of
the uncertainty of life, and a sickening feeling of the undependability
of the sentiments that fill them when the constitution is in question.