all the streets through which Madero is to pass. All Mexico seemed
afield, despite the fact that we may have another "quake" at any
moment. At the corner of the historic Church of La Profesa great crowds
were gathered, looking up at the ancient dome and nave, rent in several
places. Police were standing in front of the carved doors, in the
Calle de Motolinia, to prevent the foolish, as well as the pious, from
entering. It is very much out of plumb, anyway, having suffered from
other earthquakes in other centuries, when, I suppose, the same sort of
crowd gathered about it.
Everybody had a sickly, surprised, pale look, and many, it appears,
suffer acute nervous attacks after such an experience. It is the
biggest earthquake they have had here in several generations. Mexico
City being built on boggy, spongy land is what alone has preserved it
from complete destruction on various occasions.
Some speak of Madero's being heralded in by this convulsion of nature
as a bad augury: others see in it a sign from heaven. I say, _qui
vivra, verra_.
Madero was supposed to reach Mexico City at ten o'clock, and begin
his triumphal march from the station through the great thoroughfares,
down the Paseo, the Avenida Juarez, the Avenida San Francisco, to the
palace; but it is now 2 P.M. and he has not yet come. As the day wears
on the earthquake begins to be interpreted solely as a manifestation
of Divine Providence in his favor. No soldiery out. This, I am told, is
to show the mob that they are trusted by their champion and savior. It
strikes me as a bit too trusting; if any excitement does arise among
the mob, already unsteadied by the earthquake shock, how will these
people be controlled?
_Evening._
At three o'clock Madero passed down the Paseo. Our enthusiasm had
somewhat abated after the long wait, but we stood up in a motor in
front of our door, and could see the immense concourse acclaiming him.
There was a great noise of _vivas_, mingling with shouts of all kinds,
tramping of feet, and blowing of motor horns.
I could just get a glimpse of a pale, dark-bearded man bowing to the
right and left. I kept repeating to myself: "_Qui l'a fait roi? qui l'a
couronné?--la victoire._"
It appears that his departure from his ancestral home in Parras,
and the journey down, have been one of the most remarkable personal
experiences in all history. There were three days of continual plaudits
and adoration, such as only the Roman emperors knew (or perhaps
Roosevelt when he went through Europe).
People came from far and near, in all sorts of conveyances or on foot,
just to see him, to hear his voice, even to touch his garments for help
and healing. It appears he had a wonderful old grandfather, Evaristo,
founder of what promises to be a dynasty, who died just before we came
to Mexico, and who, it is said, had misgivings about the strange turn
of the family fortunes.
Well, it is a curious experience to see a people at the moment of
what they are convinced is their salvation, to see the man they hail
as "Messiah" enter their Jerusalem. I can think of no lesser simile.
The only thing they didn't shout was "Hosanna." The roofs were black
with people along his route. Many threw flowers and green branches as
he passed. As for the equestrian statue of Charles IV., in the Plaza,
it was alive with people, who clung all over it, climbing to the top,
sitting on Charles's head, hanging to his horse's tail.
Madero could make no speech on his arrival here--loss of voice and sick
headache, I see by the evening newspaper. The journey and this climax
of his entry into the capital doubtlessly overwhelmed his mortality.
The crowd, however, was too intent upon its own experiences to feel any
lack. The "redeemer" was with them and his mere presence seems to have
been sufficient.
_June 8th._
It is after dinner; N. has gone back to the chancery. All doors and
windows are open, and a cool, thin, dry night breeze, most lovely, is
blowing in.
I sent a _Mexican Herald_ about the _temblor_ and the entry of Madero.
The streets are not yet quiet, though the _vivas_ for Madero have
somewhat died down.
Even that crowd had its physical limits. I can't understand why, when
the streets are burst open, great rifts everywhere, especially in the
neighborhood of the Embassy, that there not a vase or a photograph was
upset, though some heavy bookcases filled with books, in the basement,
were thrown to the ground.
I am reading _The Relations of Bernal Diaz_, companion and chronicler
of the Cortés expedition. It is quite the most romantic, realistic
bit of literature I ever got hold of, and has, here on the spot, a
double-distilled charm. I was interrupted for a day by the arrival of
that other conqueror.
_June 9th._
Knowing how anxious you would be, I cabled on the 7th; now comes your
cable asking for news and an announcement from the cable office here
that my cable has been returned. It appears the employee just omitted
Zürich; the address, Waldhaus, he explained in the note, he thought
would be enough--the effect of the earthquake on _his_ brain, I
suppose.
It appears the New York newspapers said Mexico City was nearly
destroyed. You must have been on the _qui vive_ for two days. If the
earthquake had been up to the newspaper account, you would doubtless
not have heard.
People holding property here are not worrying about natural phenomena.
The ever-increasing banditry all over the country, murders of people on
isolated haciendas, and general dislocation of business and lawlessness
are what worry them. A swift sliding down into the old pre-Diaz
brigandage is feared. The slopes are so attractive to the dissatisfied
and uncontrolled. _Facilis est descensus._
Madero has publicly announced that he will encourage American
investments, but that he will oppose all trusts and unjust concessions.
It sounds almost too reasonable to be true. He made these statements
from some place in the north when he promised to liberate all political
prisoners and all prisoners of war. This revolution in Mexico has
been full of contrasts, to say the least. Has any one ever seen such
an anomaly as we witnessed here? The heads of a solid, recognized
government turning over their offices to a relatively few armed
opponents. I put it all on _Anno Domini_, not because so-called
democratic principles have suddenly won a miraculous victory. The old
dictator's hand was weakened by the stronger hand of time--and a "man
with a dream at pleasure," etc.
Found your letter of May 26th on returning from a motor drive
with Dearing and Mr. S. to a beautiful old town, Texcoco, where
Nezahualcoyotl, the Marcus Aurelius of Mexico, lived.
Except the ancient sun-dial in the palm-planted Plaza, however, there
is little to recall that civilization. A big church, built by the
friars on the spot of the old temple, was filled with the usual Indian
population, sitting and kneeling with their children and their burdens,
and as mysterious as that Cortés found worshiping Huitzilopochtli,
or any of their other gods. The Indians are religious, rather in the
Oriental sense, it seems to me, than in any way resembling ours. It
is certainly not given to the lower-class Anglo-Saxon to kneel with
intent, uplifted eyes, outstretched arms, motionless, before some
reminder of an invisible God. It does not take us that way. It seems
to be as much a part of the Indian's life, that going in and out
of churches, as eating or drinking, and just as essential, and why
that habit, which seems to compensate for so many things obviously
lacking, should be a reproach to those who instilled it I can't see.
It's all most interesting to me, fresh from Prescott and Bernal Diaz.
A crumbling, picturesque monastery and inconceivably desolate, dusty
seminary join the church where the friars used to teach. Oh, the poor
friars! There is so little account taken of their ceaseless activities,
of how they found a wilderness, dotted it with churches, schools, and
hospitals, stamped it with a seal of matchless beauty, brought it out
of the worship of greedy gods, human sacrifices, and abominations,
counting no cost, and showed as best they might dim shapes of more
benign powers. I can't see what all the hue and cry is about, all the
revilings. We couldn't match the record. We have disfigured Mexico
wherever we have set _our_ seal. Frankly, I'm for the friars.
[Illustration: A ROAD-SIDE SHRINE
Photograph by Ravell]
One enters Texcoco by a broad, broken street leading into the Plaza.
Interspersed too liberally between the once handsome low dwellings
are the pink-and-blue pulque-shops, with their fringes of colored
tissue-paper. The names of these depositories of the _licor divino_
are often curiously bound up with the history of Mexico, and make you
feel you have got hold of the "real thing." _La Hija del Emperador_[4]
and _La Reina Xochitl_, a beauteous patrician, married to a Toltec
king, go back to prehistoric days. _El Gran Napoleon_, with cocked hat
and hand in his breast, painted almost life-size on a corner shop,
was more picturesque than the one that had a hand in the making of
their history. _La Mujer del Moro_ gives the Moorish touch, and _La
Estrella del Mar_ recalls the buccaneers as well as the ages of faith.
There was a very good one near the little viceregal bridge, with
its battered coat of arms, just before we got into Texcoco, called
_Las Bergantinas_, in memory of the spot where Cortés launched his
brigantines in his attempt to take Mexico City, which then was only
reached from Texcoco by water. I feel on quite intimate terms with the
conqueror. It is Cortés here, and Cortés there, and Cortés everywhere.
He put his seal on the whole country, and one walks quite intimately
and enthusiastically with him. He was such a human sort of person,
and with all his adventurous spirit very _grand seigneur_. Bernal Diaz
tells how well and smartly he dressed, being very particular about his
linen, under dark, rich garments, and inclining to a fine gem somewhere
on his person, and how pleasantly he played cards, with little jokes
running through it all. It reminds me of bridge evenings with the
_chers collègues_. But all is historic on this lovely plateau. They can
pull down everything and wash it in the most modern of blood, and the
scent of ancient and adventurous deeds will hang round it still.
The valley was swimming in a sort of gauzy luminosity, not just light;
the volcanoes, well washed yesterday afternoon, were at their most
beautiful. We could not bear to turn homeward and went out through the
old town, which had also enjoyed a viceregal popularity, as fine old
doors and glimpses of vistas into large courtyards showed.
These _patios_ of Mexico are most attractive. One is forever peeking in
through doorways of strange houses, where flowers, children, washing,
mattresses, water-jars, dogs, sometimes a palm or a cypress, contrive
to make something always alluring and mostly lovely. We lunched late in
the auto, under the shade of some eucalyptus-trees, and then pressed
on through the lovely hills and over meadow-bounded roads till we got
to the little village of Magdalena, where an indescribable melancholy
mingled with the slanting bronze afternoon light filtering through
the shade of the old trees. A grassy Plaza, planted with cypresses and
patterned with sunken escutcheoned grave-slabs, led to the pinkish-gray
church with its lovely old Spanish doors. A crumbling, broadly
scalloped pink wall, with flowers, vines, and spiky green things
clinging to it everywhere, surrounded the whole. The warm, lustrous air
fell about us like a lovely garment. It was a place of enchantment,
where we seemed to clasp hands, for a moment, with a past age of
exceeding beauty.
_June 11th._
Now that the political excitements have calmed down, the dinners have
begun again. The Italian Legation on Tuesday, the Japanese on Thursday
(Madame Horigutchi is a Belgian), the Belgian minister the next day,
and there is a dinner at the Embassy on Saturday. On the 22d the
British chargé gives a coronation house-warming in the new Legation,
which is not yet finished enough for him to really move into.
Yesterday was again Mr. Wilson's day, and very pleasant. The handsome
rooms were filled with roses in their last blooming. The rains wash
them out at this season, and indeed at any season they must be plucked
at sunrise or they quickly fade at this altitude. The buffet was
lavishly spread, Mrs. Wilson dedicated a becoming blue dress, just
arrived from Brussels, and I had on what the _Mexican Herald_ kindly
called this morning an "exquisite creation of painted chiffon."
The first visitor was Madame de la Barra, with her sweet manner and
amiable, unstudied expression, also freshly and Frenchily garbed. I
think she would like to branch out and do some entertaining during
their short and uncertain tenure. The great castle, with its ravishing
terraces, its large spaces, calls for functions. Mrs. Bedford made
affectionate inquiries for you. Many of the colleagues came, and many
Americans. There was a pleasant coming and going all the afternoon. Mr.
James Brown Potter and Mr. Butler, who lives with him, came in late,
further enlivening things, as seems to be their wont, and last the
ambassador and N., just in from Saturday golf, which, at this season,
politically and from the point of view of weather, is a more than
usually uncertain game.
The murder of three hundred and three Chinamen at Torreon has made a
great row. We were surprised and faintly amused to learn that China
demands an indemnity of one million from Mexico. Has Chinese life
ever been so high? The whole thing was a horror, however. Terrible
atrocities were committed by the troops under Emilio Madero. The
Chinamen were mostly market-gardeners peacefully cultivating vegetables
in gardens back of their little houses, through which they were hunted
and shot down like so many rabbits. There are other horrors related
of tying them to horses headed in different directions, of babies on
bayonets, etc. It is a most regrettable little fling on the part of the
"Liberating" Army. Madero, very averse to shedding blood, is said to be
horrified at the occurrence.
It makes me sad to think that, after a century of blood, all is still
before the Mexican people, who have left the seemingly solid land
of the dictatorship and are headed straight for the mirage of an
impossible equality.
_June 14th._
Last night was the big dinner at the Italian Legation. Countess
Massiglia is an American. I sat between Von Hintze, whom I like
very much, and Mr. Brown, president of the National Railway. Dear
Mrs. Harriman sent us a letter to him, saying we might need "sudden
transportation."
Mr. B. is a power here, one of the twentieth-century conquerors and
civilizers. Brains, energy, courage, have taken him far along his
successful career, and, incidentally, helped to cover Mexico with
railways. It was most interesting hearing at first hand how the curtain
had been rung down on the Diaz epoch, for it was he who had arranged
for, and been witness to, the tragic departure of Don Porfirio, in
those dim, early hours of the 26th. A military train, in charge of some
trusted general (Huerta), followed, escorting the illustrious chief
from the earthly heights of destiny, in every sense of the word, down
the declines of sorrow and old age, out to the great sea.
[4] "The Daughter of the Emperor," "Queen Xochitl," "The Great
Napoleon," "The Wife of the Moor," "The Star of the Sea," "The
Brigantines."
V
Dinner at the Japanese Legation--The real history of the
Japanese in Mexico--Dinner at the Embassy--Coronation
services for England's king--The rainy season sets in.
_June 16th._
Last night dinner at the Japanese Legation. A very elaborate and
beautiful centerpiece arrangement of tiny lake and grove decorated the
table, and the food was very good. That was the Belgian touch. They are
used to _la bonne chère_. All the dinners now are a sort of hail and
farewell for Von Hintze and ourselves newly arrived, and the departing
Romeros, who have been here some time and are very popular.
There is always a lot of talk about the Japanese in Mexico, but their
real history here, as I have discovered, is not disquieting. Some
Japanese statesman (of course I forget his name) first conceived
the idea in 1897 of starting coffee-plantations on a large scale in
Chiapas. The pioneers were called "colonists," and were followed by
"immigrants." All had bad luck with the enterprise at first, but by
economy and industry finally got prosperous.
As for Horigutchi himself, amiable and intelligent and, of course,
unusually intimate with the French language, it is said he knows
how the Emperor of Korea died, _pués quién sabe_? At any rate, he is
peaceful and smiling now, his Belgian wife is dressy and hospitable,
and he has an interesting little daughter. The house is the usual
compromise between good Japanese things and expensive European ones,
always painful to our esthetic sense, and doubtless to theirs as well.
Again I have waked up to this wondrous sun and these open windows,
and the shining, flower-planted _patio_. Am having a little luncheon
here. Von H. Stalewski, the Russian minister, Martinez del Campo, third
introducer of ambassadors (he of the charming English), and the Simons
and the French chargé. A magnificent blue Puebla bowl, such as were
used in olden days for baptismal feasts, now very difficult to find,
decorates the center of the round table, filled with red and purple
sweet-peas--_guisantes de olor_ they call them; fifty cents for the
whole glory. All our cakes, ices, etc., are ordered from the Café de
l'Opéra, kept by French people in the Avenida Cinco de Mayo, where the
Mexicans drop in between five and eight for tea or chocolate or some
sort of consummation.
Von H. is finding himself out of his natural orbit here. His eyes
filled with tears when he said to me at dinner at the Italian Legation
the other night: "I miss my friends." We were having a little exchange
of sentiments and illusions. I imagine he is _un sensitif_, and it
_is_ a far cry from what we have had and known before. He has the
world manner, varied official experience, and an unexplained personal
equation.
There had been no diplomatic dinners for six months here on account of
the troubles, and when everybody has had one things will settle down
again.
_June 18th._
Your letter saying you were thinking of the Pentecostal fires on the
Umbrian hills, has come. I forget all pains, if pains there were, and
am glad of that and all other experiences life has given us together.
Mrs. Wilson goes to the United States next week for several months
until her boys are settled in school and college. I shall miss her very
much. Besides being one of the most admirable women I have known in
public life, she is a pearl of a _chefesse_.
I have dwelt much on my easy, pleasant days here, surrounded by new
beauty and new interests, books, companions--on this experience of
an unknown land with nothing of the "pace that kills," nothing of the
wearing "concurrence" of the great cities. In fact, I am experiencing
to the full, in Elliott's phrase, "the comforts of the tropics."
Elim has been enticed into the tiniest and darlingest of pajamas on the
ground of being ready for the next earthquake. For some reason or other
he had clung passionately to his little nighties.
_June 21st._
A delightful dinner at Mrs. Wilson's last night, everything bearing
the special dainty touch of the _embajadora_. The table was a mass of
La France roses and violets, and the pink-shaded silver candelabra
emerged from light clouds of pale-pink gauze. Large and deliciously
prepared _langoustes_, very difficult to get here, formed the _pièce de
résistance_ of the dinner, which was most lavish throughout.
On Mrs. Wilson's right was Rafael Hernandez, first cousin of Madero,
a very handsome man of about thirty-five, with dark eyes and flashing
white teeth and brilliant coloring. Every now and then you come across
some one here with what we could call a "complexion," and you never
forget it.
I am interested in seeing the members of the coming dynasty appear on
the political stage. Hernandez, a lawyer of repute, is now Minister of
Justice. I sat between Mr. Lie, the Norwegian minister, who is a son of
the author, Jonas Lie, and we talked a bit of Scandinavian literature.
I read only last winter his father's great, sad book, _Les Filles du
Commandant_. I had known him slightly in Berlin, when he was military
attaché, before what we used to call the "divorce" of Sweden and
Norway. Hohler was on my other side, and between courses we did quite a
tidy bit of confidential journeying on the political chart. He is ready
to crown King George and Queen Mary to-morrow at the new Legation.
_June 22d._
This morning we went to the coronation service for the King of England
and Emperor of India in the English Church. The thought of the same
prayers going up everywhere for him on whose dominions the sun never
sets was solemn and imposing. The _Te Deum_, preceded by the Litany
beseeching the Lord to have mercy on miserable sinners, alone kept it
in the note of mortality. The town is flagged, and, though we had no
king in person, we had the most royal weather.
Several hundred people were at the reception, all the _chers
collègues_, various members of the government, and the British colony,
of course, with a certain number of curios, such as all colonies
produce on national occasions. The Legation is not yet furnished,
though the chancery is in full blast, and Hohler has his study most
comfortably arranged with a lot of his own good things. He has just
found an old Spanish cabinet--a mass of ivory, mother-of-pearl, and
silver inlay--that makes you wish you were a burglar.
At five o'clock President de la Barra, very smiling and spick and span,
arrived, accompanied by his staff. He was welcomed by the national
hymn played with much spirit by an excellent orchestra. Others of the
government were Emilio Vasquez Gomez, Ministerio de la Gobernación
(Interior), and Mr. and Mrs. Pimentel y Fagoaga (Mr. P. is a banker
and president of the city council). Mr. Creel, former ambassador to
Washington, white-haired, pink-complexioned, un-Mexican-looking, I also
met.
Later General Reyes appeared, once, possibly still, the idol of the
army. You can never know here, for between sunrise and sunset the
victorious hero can become a hunted fugitive. There is something about
General Reyes, with his upstanding mien, long, white beard, shrewd
eye and air of experience, which would not have fitted badly into the
presidential frame. I am told there was a psychological moment when
fate was ready for him, but now it is too late; other forces have
crystallized.
Everybody was making the rounds of the Legation, which is going to be
most attractive and convenient, the only fly in the ointment being the
garden. During the building large quantities of lime and all sorts of
unproductive refuse were left about, and Hohler thinks he will have
to change the whole soil. Up to now nothing save the irrepressible but
beautiful pink geranium has been willing to grow.
I was borne, with the French chargé, on a steady tide, setting
through the long, unfurnished dining-room, to a temporary grotto-like
inclosure, the walls of which were lined with palm-trees and hung with
the Union Jack, where the refreshments were served. I heard a little
joke going around with the punch among the somewhat homesick colony,
"Can you hear the crowns settling on the brows of King George and Queen
Mary?" It mingled harmlessly with the congratulations and hand-shaking
and health-drinking of a very pleasant and, one hopes, auspicious
occasion. In London the sun had long since set on the actors in a new
page of England's history.
_June 25th._