We awoke, very late, in a town that is wide avenued, full of motors,
and disappointingly civilized. The civilization may be only skin deep,
and may not extend beyond the town limits, who knows...? But for people
who looked for and hoped for something primitive, disordered and
tropical, to find order, dullness and coolness, is ridiculous. Louise
and I, comparing notes as to our expectations and realizations, simply
laugh. Vera Cruz wasn’t very civilized, and the journey yesterday
was as primitive as one could look for, but Mexico City appears to
be cosmopolitan and up to date. In the morning, on our way back from
shopping, we passed through a very pretty little garden, called
“Alameda,” and there a band was playing. “Who’d work?” said Louise,
as we seated ourselves on comfortable chairs under an awning, with
matting under our feet. Certainly the people could have worked, who
preferred, like us, to loaf and listen! Dick sailed an improvised boat
in a fountain pond. The man who sat opposite came and sat next to us,
otherwise all was harmony.
After lunch we drove to Chapultepec, a more beautiful or well-cared-for
park I have never seen. It positively outdoes the Bois de Boulogne. In
comparison with Central Park, where one is so aggressively over-guarded
by men with whistles, in spite of which the place is littered with
paper, this park is as neat as a private garden. Everyone seems
to behave with taste and decorum, and there seem to be no guards
to keep order. One or two mounted police in gray and red, wearing
large sombreros and riding gaily caparisoned ponies, added to the
picturesqueness. We hired a boat for an hour and rowed on the lake,
but the effort of rowing made one’s breath short, and one’s heart did
a variety of irregular movements. I had heard that the high altitude
effected one this way. On a hill close to us stood the castle of
Chapultepec, with its distant background of mountains. A beautiful
situation to live in, but the most unenviable of positions. I think
I would prefer almost any fate on earth except that of President of
Mexico. Like the Roman Rulers, one after another, doomed to destruction.