DOWN THE WEST COAST
I
On the train that carried me southward from Hermosillo I met “The
General.”
He was young--scarcely out of his teens--slender, mild-mannered, almost
feminine in voice and appearance. His large, dark eyes were shaded
with long, girlish lashes. One felt startled when, upon more intimate
acquaintance, he confided that he was an ex-bandit.
His rank, in reality, was only that of _teniente_, than which one could
not be much lower in a Mexican army, but it pleased him so much when I
first addressed him as “General” that I continued the practice.
Our meeting was accidental. Eustace and I, still traveling together,
found him in a double-seat, with his handbags spread over whatever
space he did not fill himself. As we paused before him, he looked up
in surprise, apparently feeling that the railway had not made proper
provision for so many passengers.
“Pardon, _General_, but is this bench reserved?”
He smiled. He removed his baggage most graciously. Within half an hour
he had announced himself our humble servant, and was planning gay
parties for us at the several stopping-places ahead. He knew all the
girls along the West Coast, he said, both respectable and otherwise. He
would see that we enjoyed the trip. He would be our guide and mentor
in things Mexican. And when we reached Mazatlán--the southern terminus
of the road, some three or four days distant--_his_ house would be
_our_ house. We should attend his wedding, which was to be celebrated
immediately upon his arrival, and if we remained long enough, we should
be the godfathers to his first child.
And although he impressed me as somewhat too lavish in his promises, he
proved an entertaining companion on the long journey--a journey through
a monotonous continuation of the Sonora desert, with stop-overs at
cities which, with minor variations, were replicas of Hermosillo--at
Guaymas, San Blas, and Culiacán--cities pleasant and interesting, yet
never so interesting to me as my first Mexican friend, the little
General.
II
The young _teniente_ was typical in many ways not only of the Mexicans,
but of most of the Latin-Americans.
He lived completely in the present, with scarcely a thought of the
morrow. For him _tempus_ did not _fugit_, save very rarely, and even
then there was sure to be more _tempus_ afterward.
He had unlimited time for friendliness and politeness. In his
friendliness he was prone to those professions of love which to the
Anglo-Saxon mind savor of hypocrisy; in his politeness he was inclined
toward phraseology that suggested figurative language; yet if this were
hypocrisy, it was tempered with self-deception, and the phraseology was
intended frankly as figurative language.
If he sometimes lacked veracity, it was because his code of etiquette
called not for the truth, but for some statement that would give more
satisfaction than the truth. Seldom thinking beyond the immediate
present, he apparently did not reflect that an ultimate discovery
of reality might bring disappointment greater than the original
satisfaction.
One encounters this mental habit everywhere in Latin America. If one
inquires of a fellow-passenger whether he is nearing his destination,
he invariably is assured that he is, although a half-day’s journey may
confront him. If one asks a hotel servant whether laundry may be washed
before to-morrow night, he invariably learns that it may, although the
servant knows perfectly well that the laundress will not call until the
day after to-morrow.
In Guaymas, our first stopping-place, the General was to meet us in
the Plaza at three o’clock to take us to visit his uncle. At about
five, we bumped into him accidentally upon the street.
“_Amigos!_” he cried delightedly, enfolding each of us in a Latin
embrace. “So glad I am to see you! I wish to take you to visit my
uncle.”
“You were going to do that at three.”
“So I was! So I was! I was on my way to the _plaza_, but I met a
friend, and we had two or three drinks of _tequila_, and I forgot all
about it!”
He spoke not in apology. He merely offered what he considered a
satisfactory explanation. To him, as to most Mexicans, an engagement
was merely a tentative agreement, to prove binding only in the event
that neither party forget it or happen to be doing something else at
the appointed hour. He was delightfully free from any troublesome sense
of obligation. While an Anglo-Saxon would rise each morning, taking
mental inventory of the many things to be done during the next sixteen
hours, the Mexican solved life’s problems by merely reflecting, “Here’s
another pleasant day!”
Having met us upon the street, the General promptly forgot the date he
had made with some one else, and took us to call upon his uncle. His
uncle was not at home.
III
The Mexican is by nature impractical. When he makes a promise, he
usually means it. Afterwards he discovers that he has promised
something which he can not fulfill.
“To-night,” said the General, “I shall arrange a dance in your honor.”
And this time, he did meet us at the appointed hour--or soon
thereafter. He had with him the musicians, two barefooted _peons_ with
mandolin and guitar, and we started again for his uncle’s residence.
Everything was ready for the dance except that the uncle had not been
informed that he was to be the host, or that any such affair was to
transpire.
The General, however, was determined that we should have a good time.
We were duly presented to a middle-class family of a dozen or more
individuals, all eager to be friendly, but all a trifle embarrassed.
The musicians played some dance that had long since faded from
popularity north of the border--it was either “Smiles” or “Hindustan,”
which are still the rage in Mexico--and the General made the rounds
in search of a partner. In turn he offered his arm to each of his
cousins--three rather shy little olive-faced girls of thirteen,
fourteen, and fifteen--while each in turn pleaded:
“I don’t know how to dance. I wish I did.”
He finally discovered a stout, middle-aged lady who professed some
slight knowledge of terpsichore, and marched with her thrice about the
room, as is the fashion in Latin America. Then he seized her manfully,
and sped away in a two-step. The lady, taken seemingly by surprise,
did not move, and the little General came to a sliding stop. Still
determined, he recovered his balance, and sped away in the other
direction, with the same result. There was then a discussion as to
whether this were a waltz or not. That question being settled by the
musicians, who said it was a polka, both parties danced in the same
direction, until they had made a couple of flying rounds, when they
stopped, and the General offered his partner to me. It was somewhat
reminiscent of putting out the ash-barrels on Monday morning, but the
lady was willing, and for the next three hours Eustace and I and the
General took turns whirling her over the adobe floor.
“A little excitement like that,” said the General, as we finally took
our departure, “breaks the monotony of life.”
IV
As I came to know the Mexicans better, I discovered that such an
evening, although it impressed a Gringo as a trifle boresome, was quite
an event in middle-class Mexican existence.
The Latin-American had an amazing knack of not being bored. This, too,
was a product of his mental habit of living wholly in the present. He
never suffered from the Anglo-Saxon sense of a waste of time; he was
never afflicted with reflections about countless other ways of spending
his evening.
He could sit every night in the same _plaza_, looking at the same
faces. He could meet the same friends day after day, and be just as
pleased to see them, and ask them the same questions about their many
relatives, and part with the same elaborate courtesies. He could listen
hour after hour with the same enjoyment to the same pieces of music
that the village band had played for the past ten years. And he could
talk with the same neighbors about exactly the same things again and
again, and never lose his enthusiasm either as speaker or listener.
After supper, at the hotels along the way, proprietor and guests
would bring their chairs to the sidewalk, where they could see the
passers-by, and would remain there for hours, chatting with tremendous
zest about nothing at all. Inconsequential remarks, which Americans
of equal intelligence might consider unworthy either of utterance or
audience, would be offered for popular consideration with emphatic
statement, and received almost with applause. I recall the declaration
of a young _señorita_ to the effect that she considered a bath very
refreshing. This bit of wisdom, which elsewhere in the world might
have been accepted as trite and obvious, brought every member of the
circle into enthusiastic agreement. It was quite as though she had
advanced a startling new theory, which had long been hovering vaguely
in the minds of the others, but which they now heard propounded for the
first time. It stimulated cries of “Yes, indeed!” or “You have spoken
most truly!” and the discussion lasted for half an hour.
With Mexican kindliness, they always included me in the conversation,
although I spoke their language abominably. Had a foreigner murdered
English as I murdered Spanish, I should not have had the patience
to listen to him. Yet they listened avidly, knitting their brows
sometimes in their effort to guess the meaning. If they smiled, their
smiles were kindly. They were pleased that the foreigner should try
to learn their language. If they disliked Americans in general, they
were quickly ready to like any individual American who would meet
them half-way. And the moment he showed a willingness to adopt their
own elaborate courtesy, they described him as _muy simpatico_--an
expression that means infinitely more than our nearest equivalent of
“very sympathetic”--and hailed him as “_paisano_”--“fellow-countryman.”
And they would promise him anything.
V
If at first impression, the elaborate Spanish politeness seems
boresome, it gradually seeps its way into the soul of the average
visitor so insidiously that within two weeks he finds himself resenting
the rudeness of Americans more recently arrived than himself.
I met one on the train that took me out of Guaymas.
He was trying to tell the conductor that this passenger coach would
have been condemned long ago in the good old U.S.A. Since the official
did not understand English, even when shouted, the newcomer was growing
a trifle peeved. He turned disgustedly to Eustace and myself:
“Damn these spigs, anyway! How do they expect anybody to come down here
and do business with them when they can’t talk like other people?”
He seemed out of place in Mexico. He belonged essentially to the
smoking compartment of an American Pullman, where his counterpart can
invariably be found with thumbs beneath suspender straps, telling the
world about the big deals which his type seems always to have “just
pulled off between trains in Detroit.”
In Mexico, he admitted failure. He was selling soap--“the best grade
of pure white bath soap on the market.” But buyers were too ignorant
to converse with him in _his_ language, and they showed a ridiculous
inclination to purchase the brilliant scarlet soaps turned out by a
German firm that catered to the native love of bright color.
“If I’d known what they were like,” he said, speaking loudly, “I’d have
laid in a side-line of perfume and bug powder.”
We suggested that some of the passengers _might_ understand English.
“What the hell do I care? Let ’em hear it. It’ll do ’em good. Let the
dirty greasers know what we Americans think of ’em! Say, I’m glad I met
you fellows. I’ve been lonesome for somebody from God’s country.”
He attached himself to us, and stuck like a leech. At Culiacán, where
we stopped over for a day, he made the discovery that “whiskey” was the
same in Spanish as in English. After imbibing freely in a little saloon
kept by an elderly lady whose manners were those of royalty, he propped
his feet on the table and expectorated with impressive accuracy at a
picture of the Madonna that hung on the wall.
We dragged him out, and led him toward the hotel.
“What do I care about her?” he growled. “Damned spig! Let ’er _call_ a
policeman. I’ll lick ten Mexican policemen!”
At the hotel, after we had persuaded him not to hit the General, he
favored our friend with another discourse on the relative prowess of
Americans and “Greasers.”
“Any time we get good and ready, we’ll come down here and take this
rotten republic and make a decent place out of it! We’ll clean up your
spig army in two weeks! All you guys can do is knife people in the
back! When you have a war, you point your rifles around the corner of
a building and pull the trigger without lookin’ where you shoot! Any
good Yank can lick ten of you--ten of you--with one arm tied behind his
back!”
The General’s face darkened. I watched him, rather hoping that the
slender little Mexican would proceed to mop up the floor with the
valiant soap-salesman. Beneath his politeness, I knew, there was a
sensitive, proud nature quick to resent an insult. Yet so ingrained
were his traditions of courtesy that--even while a tigerish gleam in
his eyes betrayed his wrath--he merely smiled.
“The _señor_,” he said, “is feeling very lively to-night.”
VI
As he walked away, we feared that he had no further use for gringos,
but on the following morning, as we sat in the _plaza_, the General
came up to embrace us with more than his usual ardor. He was feeling
“very lively” himself. He announced that he had been up all night, and
that he was now ready to wander over to the shady side of town to call
upon a few of the “girls.”
When we suggested that it was too early in the day, and advocated
rest rather than recreation, he was agreeable, as always. He was even
tractable. He would allow us to lead him back to the hotel; at the door
he would embrace us again, promising to go straight to bed; fifteen
minutes later he would come strolling up to us in the _plaza_, falling
upon our necks as though it were our first meeting, and repeating his
suggestion about calling upon the girls.
“How about your fiancée in Mazatlán?” Eustace inquired.
He shrugged his shoulders.
“But she is in Mazatlán! And I am in Culiacán!”
“Don’t you love her?”
“Love her! Ah, _señor_, who would not love her! So good, so pure, so
true, so beautiful, so like an angel in Heaven! For two whole years I
have dreamed of her! Throughout the two years that I was _Villista_ in
Chihuahua!
“Listen, _señor_. Two years ago I left Mazatlán. She promised that she
would marry me. But I was penniless, _señor_. And in Mexico, the man
must buy his bride’s trousseau. I was mechanic, and I went to Sonora
to work in the mines. I was in the village of San Pedro when the
_Villistas_ came through. Some youths from the town fired upon the
rear-guard, killing Villa’s cousin. And Villa ordered that every man
in San Pedro should die in punishment. They herded me with the others
in the public square, and took us out, twenty at a time, to the church
wall, where our youths were slaughtered with pistol and machine-gun.
But they spared me, for I was mechanic, and Villa had use for mechanic.
“Of course, I became _Villista_. Who, _señor_, would not? And I fought
Carranza with the others. Why not? Who was Carranza but a general
more fortunate than Villa, who captured Mexico City, and made himself
president? I fought with Villa all through Chihuahua. Yes, I helped to
fire upon Columbus, in your own New Mexico, but I liked Americans, and
I fired in the air. I would have come home, but I had no money for the
journey. There came a day when we took Juarez. I was lieutenant then. I
captured a building with my men. It was gambling house. There was gold
upon the tables, and I filled my pockets. Why not, _señor_? Some one
else would have taken it. I ran away from the _Villistas_. I rode four
hundred miles--four hundred miles, _señor_--through the mountains and
across the Yaqui desert.”
Unconsciously he struck a dramatic pose.
“Would I have done that, _señor_, if I did not love the girl?”
Then he climbed into a coach, and rode away toward a questionable
destination with a gay little wave of his hand.
VII
I was inclined to doubt the General’s story.
He was manifestly a poseur. He possessed, among other qualities, an
inordinate desire to attract attention. He knew, for instance, that he
was handsome, and would spend hours combing his dark hair, or powdering
his face. He loved to be stared at by the young girls in the _plaza_.
He basked in admiration and reveled in adulation or flattery.
His vanity manifested itself also in a desire to be photographed. If
I wished to snap a landscape or a street scene, Eustace had almost
to hold him, lest he arrange himself artistically in the immediate
foreground. Upon his return from the red light district that morning,
he announced that he had promised its inmates to bring us there with
our camera for a group picture.
He led us to the outskirts of town to a region where several slatternly
brown females sat upon the curb in negligée, smoking cheap cigars, and
introduced us in a speech which seemed more elaborate than such an
informal occasion required. The ladies, surprised as Mexicans always
are when some one keeps an agreement, begged that we wait while they
beautified themselves, and we waited for over an hour. They appeared
eventually, in silk finery, with an eighth of an inch of powder laid
upon a facial coating of glycerine.
Then ensued the difficulties that confront every photographer in Latin
America. They protested against venturing into the sunlight. Sunlight
would ruin the complexion! When, in response to explanations, they did
step out from the shade, they kept raising their hands to shelter their
faces. And finally, when we had them properly grouped with the General
in the center, some one exclaimed that she must be holding her doll,
and while she searched for the doll, the group broke up and scurried
out of the sunlight.
At length, the picture being taken, they all clamored to see it at
once. To my statement that it had to be developed by a photographer,
they listened with suspicion. Their familiarity with the itinerant
tin-type man had bred a distrust of my slow methods. Yet they, with the
politeness that extends in Latin America even to the underworld, did
not voice the suspicion. And when, in the afternoon, we returned with
what we considered an excellent picture, they rushed excitedly to view
it.
There was a disappointed silence. They did not intend to be rude, but
their grief escaped them.
“I’m not smiling!”
“My face came out dark!”
My camera, being a _Gringo_ camera, had insulted them by its blunt
frankness. But they tried to conceal their disappointment. They thanked
us profusely. And they carried away the film, to destroy it as soon as
our backs were turned.
“You were very foolish,” said the General afterwards. “You did not have
to take a real picture. You should have pointed the camera and clicked
something else. It would have pleased them.”
VIII
Strangely enough, the more hypocrisy one discovered in the little
General, the more one liked him.
It was a hypocrisy leavened by kindliness and humor. And to him, as to
other Latin-Americans, it was not hypocrisy at all, for his was a code
of life wherein our Anglo-Saxon standards were completely inverted.
Each race has developed its own ideas as to what is important in human
conduct. The Anglo-Saxon, being by nature blunt and frank, regards
truth as a supreme virtue. When he discovers something wrong, he sets
about correcting it. The Latin-American, being by nature suave and
courteous, regards truth as an irritating and offensive bad habit. When
he discovers something wrong, he politely ignores it.
From our viewpoint, the Latin-American appears shallow and superficial.
He lives a life of pretense, completely satisfied so long as outward
effect is properly maintained. He lies cheerfully and gracefully as
a matter of good form. He offers one short change with a knightly
gesture. If reminded gently that he has made an “error” in his count,
he is extremely grateful for the correction. If informed that he has
cheated, he becomes highly indignant that his honor has been so rudely
questioned. He wears handsome clothes and shabby underwear. He usually
lets the tailor wait indefinitely for payment, and when pressed to
settle a bill, he says with impressive dignity, “Because you insult me
in your implication that I am not to be trusted, I shall not pay you
for another month!”
He is inordinately fond of parading himself in public. He deliberately
caters to theatrical taste. He is by nature no more impulsive than an
Anglo-Saxon, but upon the right occasion, since it attracts attention
and distinguishes him as a temperamental creature, he indulges in
great emotion. He makes a wild demonstration of enthusiasm over
friends. He affects much grief over the death of his mother-in-law. He
grows furious at times, but usually in the absence of the enemy, in
the presence of an enemy whom he believes he can lick, or under the
influence of alcohol. He is courageous enough--frequently to a point
of recklessness which the Anglo-Saxon seldom equals--but usually when
he believes the object worth the risk, or when vanity overcomes his
judgment, to lure him into a dramatic scene before an admiring audience.
He understands the shallow pretenses of his fellows, but he accepts
them as real, just as they accept his. He professes unlimited faith
and confidence in their loyalty and integrity, although he suspects
that they can be trusted only so long as it is to their advantage. He
knows them to be--like himself--indolent, undependable, and potentially
dishonest, yet he makes eloquent speeches to them, extolling their
energy, reliability, and general uprightness. By a process of
self-hypnotism, he convinces himself momentarily that he means these
lavish professions. When they respond with similar praises of his own
worth, he glows all over with a very much gratified self-satisfaction.
Generalizations of this sort, I admit, are always unjust. Out of the
mass of the Latin-American population stand many splendid individuals
to whom this character analysis does not apply. Even in the mass,
the various characteristics are subject to variation from country to
country. But on the whole, from an Anglo-Saxon viewpoint, these people
appear idealists in speech and materialists in action. One hand counts
the rosary while the other scratches fleas. Judged by the Anglo-Saxon,
they have few real virtues. Yet one must remember that each race has
its own standards, created out of an unconscious desire to glorify
itself by worshiping as virtues the qualities which it happens to
possess. Judged by their own standards, their vices are virtues, and
our virtues are vices.
It is the Latin-American’s many faults that make him likeable. His
own defects, which he understands but refuses to admit, have made him
extremely tolerant toward the defects of others. Being supersensitive,
he is considerate of a stranger’s feelings. Loving flattery, he
is lavish in its bestowal. Being vain, he is eager to make a good
impression, and frequently proves generous and hospitable. Being
indolent, he has infinite leisure for entertainment. At all times he is
friendly, agreeable, and courteous.
To-day, several years after my first visit to Mexico, when I have lived
among the natives of twenty-six different lands, and met travelers from
many others, there is no people whose company I have enjoyed more than
that of the Latin-Americans. And no one individual who proved a more
pleasant companion than the little Mexican General.
IX
He was still with us when Eustace and I set out upon the last stage of
our railway journey to Mazatlán.
So, incidentally, was the soap-salesman.
The train brought us to the end of the long stretch of desert that
extended from Sonora far down into Sinaloa. An occasional palm tree
rose among the cactus. Adobe huts gave way to structures of cane and
thatch. A delicious balminess in the air heralded the approach of the
tropics. A tang of salt came from the Pacific breezes, and the sea
itself loomed presently before us, a glorious blue beneath a cloudless
sky.
The little General leaned from the window, his eyes shining.
“Home! Home at last, _señores_!”
Then the eyes darkened, with a somber melancholy that came at times
into their depths. I suspected, as often I had suspected, that he was
playing his dramatic rôle to gain our sympathy.
“You are worrying about the authorities?” I asked.
But he spoke without effort at effect:
“There is danger. I have informed them of my coming. But I can prove
that Villa took me prisoner--that I could not help myself.”
“The girl will be waiting for you, of course?”
“I have not informed _her_. It will be a surprise! Such a surprise,
_señores_!”
He did not know that she had already married a rival. He never did
know. Somewhere at the edge of the desert, the train stopped, and a
party of federal soldiers came aboard. A _Carranzista_ officer walked
quickly up the aisle, scanning the faces of the passengers. Before the
little General, he paused.
“Ramón Vásquez?”
“_Sí, señor._”
“Come with me.”
The General rose. He was strangely calm. He seemed suddenly to have
gained in stature. There was a quiet pride in his bearing--a poise--a
distinction. He shook hands with each of us, even with the American who
had insulted him.
“There is an army post here, _señores_. I had hoped to go home to-night
to see the girl. But it is better, perhaps, that the investigation come
first. Remember, _señores_, in Mazatlán _my_ house is _your_ house.”
X
There was no investigation.
The soldiers cast a noose about his neck, and threw the other end over
the limb of a tree. A horseman made it fast to his saddle. For the
moment, so unbelievable was the proceeding, I was stunned. Then, my
heart pounding as though the noose were about my own neck, I hurried
with Eustace to the scene, protesting.
The General smiled at us.
“You are good friends,” he said. “I am grateful. But you can
not help me, and you may invite trouble for yourselves. If in
Mazatlán you should meet the _Señorita_”--and he whispered her name
reverently--“please to tell her that I would have come. Good-by, my
friends.”
He glanced toward the car window, where the other American stared with
blanched face. And he laughed. Then, with characteristic vanity, he
stroked back the hair from his forehead.
“If any one shoots,” he said, “please not to shoot at the face.”
The horseman dug his spurs into the beast, and the rope tightened. The
tree was not high enough. The little General reached earthward with
his toes, barely touching the ground with them, balancing there in an
instinctive effort to preserve life, even for a moment. The officer
gave an order. The men unslung their rifles, and fired a scattering
volley.
XI
As the smoke cleared away, the train crawled slowly onward toward
Mazatlán. For a long time, no one spoke. When Eustace finally broke the
silence, it was in a futile effort to turn our minds to another subject.
“We’ll get there just in time to catch the boat south.”
The soap-salesman came out of his reverie with a start.
“I don’t know as I’ll go south. I think I’ll catch a boat north to
Frisco. You can’t do business with these spi--with these Mexicans.”