Of course Dick has not got trachoma--the doctor who has lived in Mexico
20 years recognized it at once as the most ordinary Mexican eye disease
prevalent among children. I shall probably get it too. Meanwhile here
we are, recuperating. The Hotel has at least got baths and hot and cold
water. One is so reduced in spirits, so humbled, so unspoiled, one
hardly dreams of higher bliss than this!
I had not even the energy to get into the Plaza and see the Centenary
procession. Dick and I got up on to the deserted and neglected roof
garden.
There one views the jagged mountain ranges by which the town is
surrounded. It is really rather beautiful, but my spirit is across the
border, I am existing here under protest; sullen, bored, inactive. I
have an affection for the United States. I want to get back there.
Though they treat me like a steerage emigrant it makes no difference,
and after all, what am I but an emigrant? A first class, specially
reserved saloon, emigrant--but none the less a simple homeless
emigrant, asking humbly for admittance.
The American industrial magnates here have been ever so kind and
helpful. The American Smelting and Refining Works especially have done
more for me than I can ever repay. Their practical and volunteered
help and great thoughtfulness cannot be described nor appreciated in
mere words. I rather suspect the channel through which this help was
contrived, although his name has not been mentioned to me.
To while away our waiting moments, Dick and I, in company with a
representative of the Baldwin Locomotive works, went to an amateur
bull-fight in celebration of the Centenario. A feeble amateur affair
it was. Nothing illustrative of Mexico bull-fighting. A bedraggled
show, neither decorative, spectacular nor well fought. Mercifully the
bull’s horns were sawn off at the tips so we were spared the sight of
horses ripped up and trailing entrails. But I saw enough of blood and
brutality. The audience cheered, laughed, sang, shouted. Almost it
sounded like a baseball game. The more blood flowed, the more they
shouted with joy. The bulls were young ones, too young to be very
fierce. They would not face the horses at all, and to enliven them, the
bandolaria were charged with a time fuse and exploded like a firework
with loud detonations, and burnt interiorly. For some time after the
explosion, smoke emanated from the burnt, black, bleeding wound in the
bull’s back. One animal in terror jumped the paling. The killing with
the sword at the end was bungled every time. The sword missed the vital
spot and was plunged up to the hilt in the brute’s shoulder, to be
withdrawn, on the first opportunity, dripping with blood, and restruck
again, and again. The mob cheering the while. When the last bull was
killed the crowd flooded the ring, and the dead bull was mutilated by
people who carried away bits of it as souvenirs. When the carcass had
been finally dragged away on a rope by two mules and a pool of blood
marked the spot, boys besieged it, dipped naked feet in it, seemed
hypnotized and enthralled by the sight and touch of blood.
The horrible thing is that after the sixth bull had been tormented to
death, one’s own feelings as regards the sight of blood were almost
blunted. Frankly I longed to see a man killed for a change, instead of
the bull. There was something ridiculous about these swaggering men
with their long lances, astride horses that could hardly stand up,
and that had to be urged towards the bull by men who lashed them from
behind. Chiefly the bull seemed to be pursued more than pursuing.