Simpson and all the luxurious hospitality of the _Minnesota_, Commander
Moody and the officers of the day wishing us “Godspeed.” Just as we
were leaving Captain Simpson told us that he had been signaled to
send five hundred rations to San Juan Ulua. As we pushed off across
the water, accompanied by Ensign Crisp, the boat officer of the day,
great patches of khaki colored the shores of the town. They were
squads of our men, their tents and paraphernalia, the color coming
out strong against Vera Cruz, which had an unwonted grayish tone that
afternoon. The _Yankton_ was lying in the outer harbor, surrounded by
battle-ships, dreadnoughts, and torpedo-boats--a mighty showing, a
circle of iron around that artery of beautiful, gasping Mexico. It was
about quarter before six when we reached the _Yankton_. As I looked
about I seemed to be in a strange, gray city of battle-ships. Shortly
afterward Admiral Badger put out from his flag-ship, the _Arkansas_,
to say good-by to us. He came on board, greeting us in his quick,
masterful way. Such power has rarely been seen under one man as that
huge fleet represented in Vera Cruz harbor, and the man commanding
it is fully equal to the task; he is alert, with piercing blue eyes,
very light hair gone white, and a clean, fresh complexion--the typical
mariner in a high place. I think he feels entirely capable of going
up and down the coast and taking all and everything, even the dreaded
Tampico, with its manifest dangers of oil, fire, disease, and all
catastrophes that water can bring. He spoke of the thirty thousand
Americans who have already appeared at our ports, driven from their
comfortable homes, now destitute, and who can’t return to Mexico
until we have made it possible.... I imagine he strains at the leash.
He loves it all, too, and it was with a deep sigh that he said,
“Unfortunately, in little more than a month my time is up.” But all
endings are sad. Great bands of sunset red were suddenly stamped across
the sky as he went away, waving us more good wishes.
Captain Joyce, who had gone into town to get us some special kind of
health certificate to obviate any quarantine difficulties, came on
board a little later, and soon after his return we were under way. The
quick, tropical night began to fall. What had been a circle of iron by
day was a huge girdle of light pressing against Mexico, as potent under
the stars as under the sun. My heart was very sad.... I had witnessed a
people’s agony and I had said an irrevocable farewell to a fascinating
phase of my own life, and to a country whose charm I have felt
profoundly. Since then I have been dead to the world, scribbling these
words with limp fingers on a damp bit of paper. This jaunty yacht is
like a cockle-shell on the shining waters. Admiral Fletcher and Admiral
Cradock sent wireless messages, which are lying in a corner, crumpled
up, like everything else.
I said to Elim, lying near by in his own little sackcloth and ashes,
“Yacht me no yachts,” and he answered, “No yachts for me.” Later,
recovered enough to make a little joke, he said he was going to give me
one for a Christmas present.
I said, “I will sell it.”
He answered, “No, sink it. If we sell it dey’ll invite us--dey always
do.” He looked up later, with a moan, to say, faintly, “I would rather
have a big cramp dan dis horriblest feeling in de world.”
This is, indeed, _noblesse oblige_! I have suffered somewhat, perhaps
gloriously, for _la patria_, and I suppose I ought to be willing to
enact this final scene without bewailings; but I have been buried
to the world, and the divine Sarah’s cabin is my coffin. If such
discomfort can exist where there is every modern convenience of
limitless ice, electric fans, the freshest and best of food, what
must have been the sufferings of people in sailing-ships, delayed by
northers or calms, with never a cold drink? I envelop them all in
boundless sympathy, from Cortés to Madame Calderon de la Barca.
_U. S. S. “Yankton.” May 4th. 3.30._
Awhile ago I staggered up the hatchway, a pale creature in damp white
linen, to once more behold the sky, after three cribbed and cabined
days. A pilot’s boat was rapidly approaching us on the nastiest,
yellowest, forlornest sea imaginable. I felt that I could no longer
endure the various sensations animating my body, not even an instant
longer. Then, suddenly, it seemed we were in the southwest passage of
the great delta, out of that unspeakable roll, passing up the “Father
of Waters”--the abomination of desolation. Even the gulls looked sad,
and a bell-buoy was ringing a sort of death-knell. Uniformly built
houses were scattered at intervals on the monotonous flat shores, where
the only thing that grows is tall, rank grass--whether out of land
or water it is impossible to say. These are the dwellings of those
lonely ones who work on the levees, the wireless and coaling stations,
dredging and “redeeming” this seemingly ungrateful land, stretching out
through its flat, endless, desolate miles.
The water is yellower than the Tiber at its yellowest, and no mantle
of high and ancient civilization lends it an enchantment. The pilot
brought damp piles of papers on board, but I can’t bear to read of
Mexican matters. Whether Carranza refuses flatly our request to
discontinue fighting during the mediation proceedings, or a hasty New
York editor calls Villa “the Stonewall Jackson of Mexico,” it is only
more of the same. My heart and mind know it all too well.
I have a deep nostalgia for Mexico; even for its blood-red color.
Everything else the world can offer will seem drab beside the memory of
its strange magic.
A radio came from Mr. Bryan at six this morning requesting N. to
observe silence until he has conferred in Washington. But N. had
already made up his mind that _silentium_ would be his sign and
symbol. Unless we get in at the merciful hour of dawn he will be
besieged by reporters. A word too much just now could endlessly
complicate matters for Washington.
We are slipping up broad, mournful, lake-like expanses of water.
From time to time a great split comes, and it seems as if we had met
another river, seeking another outlet. More white and gray houses
show themselves against the tall, pale-green, persistent grasses and
the yellow of the river. They are lonely, isolated homes, wherein
each family earns its bread in the sweat of its brow by some kind
of attendance on the exacting “Father of Waters”--mostly, trying to
control him.
_6.45_ P.M.
We have just slipped through quarantine like a fish. Our own
extraordinary orders and two or three telegrams from Washington,
with orders not to hold us up, made it an easy matter. We saw the
_Monterey_, which had arrived in the morning, with six hundred and
twenty-three passengers aboard, moored at the dock. The women and
children were to sleep in screened tents on land. Many of them were
refugees from Mexico City itself, and they cheered and waved, as we
passed by, and called “O’Shaughnessy! O’Shaughnessy!”
The refugees, according to the copy of the _Picayune_ the health
officers left us, are loud in praise of Carden, saying their escape
is due to him and not to the State Department, and giving incidental
cheers for Roosevelt. Dr. Corput is a martinet; but though he was hot
and decidedly wilted about the collar when his six-foot-two person came
into the saloon where we were dining, he looked highly competent. It
will be a bright microbe that gets by him. He, with his yellow flag, is
lord and master of every craft and everything that breasts this river.
The whole question of guarding the health of the United States at this
station is most interesting. It is one of the largest in the world, but
is taxed to its utmost now by the thousands of refugees from Mexico,
most of them cursing the administration, as far as I can gather, during
the hundred and forty-five hours of travel since leaving Mexico. The
quarantine station itself, under the red, late afternoon sun, looked
a clean, attractive village, supplemented by rows of tents. There are
immense sterilizers in which the whole equipment of a ship can be
put, huge inspection-rooms, great bathing-houses, and a small herd of
cattle. It is sufficient to itself. Nothing can get at the inmates, nor
can the inmates, on the other hand, get at anything. I should say that
the wear and tear of existence would be materially lessened during the
one hundred and forty-five hours. The great ships that pass up now are
laden with people who have been exposed to every imaginable disease in
the Mexican _débâcle_. You remember the small-pox outbreak in Rome, and
how _that_ microbe was encouraged! Well, _autre pays, autre mœurs_. The
Indian, however, thinks very little more of having small-pox than we
think of a bad cold in the head.
_10_ P.M.
We have been going up-stream very quietly, in this dark, soft night,
zigzagging up its mighty length to avoid the current. Sometimes we were
so near the shores we could almost touch the ghostly willow-trees;
while mournful, suppressed night noises fell upon our ears. The
mosquitoes are about the size of flies--not the singing variety, but
the quiet, biteful kind. My energies are needed to keep them off, so
good night; all is quiet along the Mississippi. We have ninety miles
from quarantine to New Orleans.
_May 5th._ _In the train, going through Georgia and North Carolina._
We got into New Orleans yesterday at 6.30 A.M., under a blazing sun.
There were reporters and photographers galore at the dock to meet us
and the good ship _Yankton_. They did not, however, get fat on what
they got from N., who refused to discuss the Mexican situation in any
way. But we _did_ lend ourselves to the camera. We were photographed
on the ship, on the blazing pier, in the noisy streets, near by,
among a horror of trucks and drays rattling over huge cobblestones,
and a few more terrors in ink will be broadcast. I then went to the
nearest good shop and got a black taffeta gown (a Paquin model with
low, white-tulle neck), and began to feel quite human again. Then we
motored about for several hours with one of the officers, through a
city of beautiful homes, interesting old French and foreign quarters,
driving at last over a magnificent causeway. On one side was a swamp
filled by all sorts of tropical vegetation, and, doubtless, inhabited
by wet, creeping things; on the other side, a broad canal. We reached
a place called West End, on Lake Pontchartrain, where we lunched on
shrimps, soft-shelled crabs, and broiled chicken, quite up to the
culinary reputation of New Orleans. Afterward we went back to the boat
under a relentless afternoon sun and over more of those unforgetable
cobblestones.
I was completely done up. They were coaling as we got back to the ship,
but the sailors hastily shoveled a way for me, and I threw myself on
my bed in a state of complete exhaustion. When I came on deck again
at 5.30 the hideous coaling was done, the decks were washed, and
everything was in apple-pie order. Crowds were again on the pier, and
the photographers got in more work. The golden figure of Cleopatra
that decorates the prow was blood-red in the afternoon sun. At six
we started out with Captain Joyce, who had literally “stood on the
burning deck” all day, overseeing the coaling process. We wanted to
show him a little of the city in the sudden, beautiful, balm-like
gloaming. We stopped a moment at the St. Charles, where I mailed my
long _Yankton_ letter, and found it overflowing with Americans from
Mexico, with smiles or frowns upon their faces, according as they were
going to or leaving a bank account. We then went to Antoine’s, which
has been celebrated for seventy-five years. There we had a perfect
dinner, preceded by a mysterious and delightful appetizer, called a
“pink angel,” or some such name, most soothing in effect. (It proved to
be made of the forbidden absinthe.) Also there were oysters, roasted
in some dainty way, chicken okra, soft-shelled crabs again, and frozen
stuffed tomatoes.
New Orleans still retains a certain Old World flavor and
picturesqueness. One might even dream here. Everything is not
sacrificed at the altar of what is called efficiency--that famous
American word which everywhere hits the returning native.
Some of the newspapers were quite amusing, and all were complimentary.
One congratulates N. on being relieved “from the daily task of
delivering ultimatums to, and being hugged by, Huerta.” Others are very
anxious to know if “Vic Huerta” kissed and embraced Mr. O’Shaughnessy
on his departure. The _abrazo_ is certainly not in form or favor in the
more reticent United States of America.
_Richmond Hotel, Washington, D. C._
We got in at seven o’clock, and, accompanied by the usual press
contingent, came to this hotel. The proprietor had telegraphed to us to
New Orleans, saying that N. was the greatest diplomat of the century,
American patriot, and hero. We thought we’d try him, he sounded so
_very_ pleasant, and we have found comfortable quarters. Now, while
waiting breakfast, ordered from a Portuguese, I have these few minutes.
An amusing letter from Richard Harding Davis is here, inclosing
newspaper head-lines two and a half inches high--“O’Shaughnessy Safe.”
He adds, “Any man who gets his name in type this size should be
satisfied that republics are not ungrateful!”
A pile of letters and notes awaits me; the telephone has begun to ring.
How will the Washington page write itself? _Adelante!_
THE END
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
Footnotes have been moved to the end of each chapter and relabeled
consecutively through the document.
Illustrations have been moved to paragraph breaks near where they are
mentioned, except for the frontispiece.
Punctuation has been made consistent.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in
the original publication, except that obvious typographical errors have
been corrected.