A STEAMER took us down to Acapulco. It is probably a thriving port now.
When we were there, a few native huts and two or three stone buildings at
the edge of the jungle constituted the ‘town.’ We bought some horses,
and hired two men—a Mexican and a Yankee—for our ride to the city of
Mexico. There was at that time nothing but a mule-track, and no public
conveyance of any kind. Nothing could exceed the beauty of the scenery.
Within 160 miles, as the crow flies, one rises up to the city of Mexico
some 12,000 feet, with Popocatepetl overhanging it 17,500 feet high. In
this short space one passes from intense tropical heat and vegetation to
pines and laurels and the proximity of perpetual snows. The path in
places winds along the brink of precipitous declivities, from the top of
which one sees the climatic gradations blending one into another. So
narrow are some of the mountain paths that a mule laden with ore has
often one panier overhanging the valley a thousand feet below it.
Constantly in the long trains of animals descending to the coast, a slip
of the foot or a charge from behind, for they all come down the steep
track with a jolting shuffle, sends mule and its load over the ledge. We
found it very difficult in places to get out of the way in time to let
the trains pass. Flocks of parrots and great macaws screeching and
flying about added to the novelty of the scene.
The villages, inhabited by a cross between the original Indians and the
Spaniards, are about twenty miles apart. At one of these we always
stayed for the night, sleeping in grass hammocks suspended between the
posts of the verandah. The only travellers we fell in with were a party
of four Americans, returning to the Eastern States from California with
the gold they had won there. They had come in our steamer to Acapulco,
and had left it a few hours before we did. As the villages were so far
apart we necessarily had to stop at night in the same one. The second
time this happened they, having arrived first, had quartered themselves
on the Alcalde or principal personage of the place. Our guide took us to
the same house; and although His Worship, who had a better supply of
maize for the horses, and a few more chickens to sell than the other
natives, was anxious to accommodate us, the four Americans, a very
rough-looking lot and armed to the teeth, wouldn’t hear of it, but
peremptorily bade us put up elsewhere. Our own American, who was much
afraid of them, obeyed their commands without more ado. It made not the
slightest difference to us, for one grass hammock is as soft as another,
and the Alcalde’s chickens were as tough as ours.
Before the morning start, two of the diggers, rifles in hand, came over
to us and plainly told us they objected to our company. Fred, with
perfect good humour, assured them we had no thought of robbing them, and
that as the villages were so far apart we had no choice in the matter.
However, as they wished to travel separate from us, if there should be
two villages at all within suitable distances, they could stop at one and
we at the other. There the matter rested. But our guide was more
frightened than ever. They were four to two, he argued, for neither he
nor the Mexican were armed. And there was no saying, etc., etc. . . .
In short we had better stay where we were till they got through. Fred
laughed at the fellow’s alarm, and told him he might stop if he liked,
but we meant to go on.
As usual, when we reached the next stage, the diggers were before us; and
when our men began to unsaddle at a hut about fifty yards from where they
were feeding their horses, one of them, the biggest blackguard to look at
of the lot, and though the fiercest probably the greatest cur, shouted at
us to put the saddles on again and ‘get out of that.’ He had warned us
in the morning that they’d had enough of us, and, with a volley of oaths,
advised us to be off. Fred, who was in his shirt-sleeves, listened at
first with a look of surprise at such cantankerous unreasonableness; but
when the ruffian fell to swear and threaten, he burst into one of his
contemptuous guffaws, turned his back and began to feed his horse with a
corncob. Thus insulted, the digger ran into the hut (as I could see) to
get his rifle. I snatched up my own, which I had been using every day to
practise at the large iguanas and macaws, and, well protected by my
horse, called out as I covered him, ‘This is a double-barrelled rifle.
If you raise yours I’ll drop you where you stand.’ He was forestalled
and taken aback. Probably he meant nothing but bravado. Still, the
situation was a critical one. Obviously I could not wait till he had
shot my friend. But had it come to shooting there would have been three
left, unless my second barrel had disposed of another. Fortunately the
‘boss’ of the digging party gauged the gravity of the crisis at a glance;
and instead of backing him up as expected, swore at him for a ‘derned
fool,’ and ordered him to have no more to do with us.
After that, as we drew near to the city, the country being more thickly
populated, we no longer clashed.
This is not a guide-book, and I have nothing to tell of that readers
would not find better described in their ‘Murray.’ We put up in an
excellent hotel kept by M. Arago, the brother of the great French
astronomer. The only other travellers in it besides ourselves were the
famous dancer Cerito, and her husband the violin virtuoso, St. Leon.
Luckily for me our English Minister was Mr. Percy Doyle, whom I had known
as _attaché_ at Paris when I was at Larue, and who was a great friend of
the De Cubriers. We were thus provided with many advantages for
‘sight-seeing’ in and about the city, and also for more distant
excursions through credentials from the Mexican authorities. Under these
auspices we visited the silver mines at Guadalajara, Potosi, and
Guanajuata.
The life in Mexico city was delightful, after a year’s tramp. The hotel,
as I have said, was to us luxurious. My room under the verandah opened
on to a large and beautiful garden partially enclosed on two sides. As I
lay in bed of a morning reading Prescott’s ‘History of Mexico,’ or
watching the brilliant humming birds as they darted from flower to
flower, and listened to the gentle plash of the fountain, my cup of
enjoyment and romance was brimming over.
Just before I left, an old friend of mine arrived from England. This was
Mr. Joseph Clissold. He was a schoolfellow of mine at Sheen. He had
pulled in the Cambridge boat, and played in the Cambridge eleven. He
afterwards became a magistrate either in Australia or New Zealand. He
was the best type of the good-natured, level-headed, hard-hitting
Englishman. Curiously enough, as it turned out, the greater part of the
only conversation we had (I was leaving the day after he came) was about
the brigandage on the road between Mexico and Vera Cruz. He told me the
passengers in the diligence which had brought him up had been warned at
Jalapa that the road was infested by robbers; and should the coach be
stopped they were on no account to offer resistance, for the robbers
would certainly shoot them if they did.
Fred chose to ride down to the coast, I went by coach. This held six
inside and two by the driver. Three of the inside passengers sat with
backs to the horses, the others facing them. My coach was full, and
stifling hot and stuffy it was before we had done with it. Of the five
others two were fat priests, and for twenty hours my place was between
them. But in one way I had my revenge: I carried my loaded rifle between
my knees, and a pistol in my belt. The dismay, the terror, the panic,
the protestations, the entreaties and execrations of all the five, kept
us at least from _ennui_ for many a weary mile. I doubt whether the two
priests ever thumbed their breviaries so devoutly in their lives.
Perhaps that brought us salvation. We reached Vera Cruz without
adventure, and in the autumn of ’51 Fred and I landed safely at
Southampton.
Two months after I got back, I read an account in the ‘Times’ of ‘Joe’
Clissold’s return trip from Mexico. The coach in which he was travelling
was stopped by robbers. Friend Joseph was armed with a double-barrelled
smooth-bore loaded with slugs. He considered this on the whole more
suitable than a rifle. When the captain of the brigands opened the coach
door and, pistol in hand, politely proffered his request, Mr. Joe was
quite ready for him, and confided the contents of one barrel to the
captain’s bosom. Seeing the fate of their commander, and not knowing
what else the dilly might contain, the rest of the band dug spurs into
their horses and fled. But the sturdy oarsman and smart cricketer was
too quick for one of them—the horse followed his friends, but the rider
stayed with his chief.