is clasping the famous cow Mrs. Townsend gave him two years ago. It
has resisted all assaults, all displacements, and is still the best
beloved. Three hoofs, a horn, and all its trappings are gone, but it is
still a "fine animal." He has just said, "I am so glad on my mama," so
you see his English is progressing. We have come from a morning walk in
beautiful Chapultepec park with Baroness R. He loves to pick the wild
flowers or run over the grass with his butterfly-net. The whole park is
a garden of children as well as green things.
Yesterday a considerable portion of the festive _Corps Diplomatique_,
in its European branches, was poisoned with mushrooms at the ----
Legation. Reports began to come in, disquieting at first; but it became
a screaming farce when it was discovered that no one was going to die,
except probably the _galopina_ at the aforesaid Legation.
I am sending a post-card to-day of the Hotel del Jardin. As you will
see, it is a place for a lot of "local color." Unfortunately they are
building over half the old garden with newfangled high constructions.
Sir Fairfax Cartwright[18] stopped there ten years ago. With its big
rooms opening on the veranda facing the garden, it was, in the old
days, the favorite resting-spot of travelers and arriving diplomats,
and a vast improvement on the colorless, uncomfortable, "modern"
hotels which spring up like mushrooms, and are about as permanent.
At the Hotel del Jardin the cozy fashion still prevails of having the
partitions between the bedrooms reach up only half-way.
But the old order is certainly changing. In what was once the vast
area of the Franciscan church and monastery, built by Fray Pedro de
Gante, where schools flourished, and councils took place during several
hundred years, now arise great, steel-framed office-buildings on the
"American plan."
In the old days the Church of San Francisco was entered from the
street of San Juan de Letran, in which the Hotel del Jardin is. The
monastery, seminaries, etc., were suppressed, in 1856, by Comonfort.
Since then the ground has been steadily cut up into streets and for
city buildings, until only the Church of San Francisco itself remains,
with its perfectly charming façade, entered immediately from the busy
Avenida San Francisco, through a little palm-planted garden with
a broad, flagstoned walk. It was once the most important church in
Mexico, but now its large spaces are empty of treasures and worshipers,
and the strong light coming through the lantern of the dome shines in
on bare walls. The tide of worship of our day sets to San Felipe next
door. Cortés heard mass in San Francisco, it is said, and there his
bones were laid in 1629, the date of the splendid interment of his last
descendant, Don Pedro Cortés.
This was the occasion of a gorgeous military and religious procession
headed by the Archbishop of Mexico. The coffin containing the
Conqueror's body was enveloped in a great black-velvet pall, borne by
the judges of the royal tribunal. On either side was a man in a suit
of mail. One bore a banner of sable velvet, on which was blazoned the
escutcheon of Cortés. The other carried a standard of shining white,
with the arms of Castile in gold. The viceroy and the members of his
court followed, in splendid array, with an escort of soldiers, their
arms reversed and banners trailing, all moving to the beat of muffled
drums.
In 1794, the body of Cortés was removed to the hospital of Jesus
Nazareno, one of his foundations, in a crystal case with crossbars and
rivetings of silver, also in solemn state, under the greatest of the
viceroys, Revillagigedo.
In Cortés's most interesting and very human will he had ordered that
wherever he might die, his body was to be laid to final rest in the
convent at his beloved Coyoacan. His bare bones, however, seem as
restless as when clothed with living flesh, and after his death in
Spain, when his remains were brought back to Mexico, the authorities
placed them first in the Church of San Francisco at Texcoco, where his
mother and one of his daughters lay. Now there is no certain record of
their resting-place. Does not romance and tragedy hang about it all?
A long letter comes from Marget Oberndorff. Her husband has just been
appointed to Norway, and they are thankful to be in Europe for their
first ministry.
[16] Gulf of California.
[17] The final fate of Don Alberto García Granados, also
Minister of Gobernación in Madero's Cabinet, was to be taken
by Carranzistas to the Escuela de Tir and there shot. He was
ill in bed when the summons came, and it is recorded that
he was given salt injections and tied to a post to make it
possible for him to stand before the firing-squad, which
achieved the death of the aged statesman only after _several_
volleys.
[18] British ambassador to Vienna at the time of writing.
XII
Dia de Muertos--Indian booths--President de la Barra
relinquishes his high office--Dinner at the Foreign
Office--Historic Mexican streets--Madero takes the oath
Dia de Muertos, _November 2d_.
The black-hung churches and the streets are full of those mindful of
their dead. I, too, of my "dead in life" as well, thinking how of such
are the Kingdom of Heaven.
I went to the little Church of Corpus Cristi, opposite the Alameda,
walking through the booths the Indians have spread there since
generations, during three days at this season. It's all as picturesque
and busy as possible, and of an informality as regards family life.
I bought some really lovely baskets, and a bright-eyed little Indian
boy, belonging to some dull-eyed parents, took home for me a lot of
the fragile pottery. Some of it is very decorative--soft grays with
red and black designs, polished greens with flowers in two tints, and
a black-lustered ware with ornamentations of scrolls and figures. I
selected quite a menagerie of tiny animals, very perfectly modeled in
clay and brittle to a degree, as passing as the hands that made them.
There were "toys" in the shape of small coffins, black or white,
skeletons, devils of various frightfulness, even funeral cars in
miniature. At one corner, as a last touch of _memento mori_, an Indian
was offering candy coffins, which seemed to have quite a run.
I am writing at the Country Club, which is a most lovely spot at all
times, but now is wrapped in a continual, superlative Indian summer.
Elim said to me the first thing this morning, "Oh, I do love dat gontry
clove," so here I am with him. He met me with Gabrielle, outside of the
Church of Corpus Cristi, on the Alameda.
That church has a curious history. Though now shrunken and tawdry,
it was one of the most important and gorgeous in the viceregal days,
and had a convent attached to it for Indian maidens of patrician
birth. There is an old memorial over the door recording that it was
inaugurated under the 36th viceroy, Don Baltazar de Zuñiga, for
the daughters of Christian caciques alone. For the ceremonial of
the taking of the veil the most gorgeous of Indian costumes were
worn--feather-work mantles, aigrettes sewn with pearls and emeralds,
and underneath-wrappings of fine cotton.
Now the treasures of the convent are dissipated to the four winds, and
as for the patrician maidens, _oú sont les roses d'Antan?_ The only
thing of interest remaining in the church is an old copy of a picture
of Nuestra Señora del Sagrario, from the Toledo Cathedral, supposed to
have been taken to the Rio Grande by the venturesome _hidalgo_, Juan
de Oñate, being brought back to Mexico City only after a couple of
centuries of travel and vicissitude.
The veranda of the club-house looks toward the shining volcanoes and
the blue, blue hills, their beauty indescribably enhanced, seen through
the brilliant glass-like air. The house itself, in the Spanish-mission
style, is very fine, and the links the most beautiful of many I have
watched and waited on. There are eighteen holes, with a favorite
"nineteenth" in the _cantina_. Some of the mounds over which the
golfers play are the graves of those who fell in 1847. General Scott
approached the capital from Vera Cruz by way of Puebla, and there was
a big battle on what is now the golf links, then the Hacienda de la
Natividad, and the near-by church and monastery of Churubusco. There
is, facing the very colorful and interesting old monastery, built by
the Franciscans in the seventeenth century, a colorless, uninteresting
monument, put up by President Comonfort in memory of the Mexicans
who lost their lives here, and there are occasional ceremonies "in
memoriam" by a grateful country.
_November 3d._
Yesterday I ended by staying at the club all day and having dinner
there. Elim was taken home, and N. came out after chancery hours. It
was a beautiful and peaceful day, and we drove back about nine o'clock,
under a young moon. As we got into town, there seemed more than the
usual number of little booths, dimly lighted by small hanging lanterns,
the owners and their progeny sitting about.
How large families can live on the proceeds of these small stands is a
mystery. Everything is dust-covered, handled and rehandled, cut into
small bits and then into still smaller ones. I always marvel at the
self-restraint that prevents the Indians from falling on their own
goods and devouring them.
One drives over what was once an Aztec causeway, through a squalid
suburb, San Antonio de Abad, to get back into town, where the day
of the dead was celebrated by an unusually lively attendance at the
pulque-shops. That _licor divino_ had so incapacitated an Indian lying
on the road that we nearly lost our lives in the sudden swerve the
chauffeur made to avoid running over him.
There are numberless accidents to Indians, falling on the third rail
of the tramways running out the Tlalpan road, though it is wired off.
When you look into the awful pink and blue dens, and smell the still
more awful smell of the _licor divino_, and see the Indians saddened
and melancholy, or suddenly wild and completely irresponsible, coming
out of _La Encantadora_, _Las Emociones_, or _El Hombre Perdido_,[19]
you realize that the maguey is, indeed, bound up with the destiny of
the Mexican nation.
As we passed through the Calle de Flamencos, the celebrated palace
of the Conde de Santiago seemed once more splendid, rising above
the squalor of the pulque-shops. It was built by a cousin of Cortés,
immediately after the Conquest, in what was then a noble quarter of
the town. Later, when the Conde de Santiago bought it, he surrounded
it by a beautiful park, known as the Parque del Conde. Now in the great
courtyard, alas! only merchandise of a tenth-rate quality is stored and
old trucks encumber and disfigure it. There is a majestic stairway,
seen through a wide, carved entrance still possessing its antique
wooden doors of some wonderful resisting wood from the Hot Country.
The roof-line is just as good as the rest, for great stone gargoyles,
representing half-cannon, show themselves against the sky. There is a
huge Aztec corner-stone of a single piece, representing a tiger, which
tradition says was placed there by Cortés himself. It is the sort
of house the government ought to buy; in this dry climate, properly
preserved, it would be good for a thousand years.[20]
_November 5th._
Yesterday an event unique in the troubled political history of Mexico
took place. President de la Barra calmly read the report of his
incumbency before the Chamber of Deputies and as calmly relinquished
his high office.
About five o'clock I drove down the Avenida San Francisco, already
brilliantly illuminated, though great bands of red still hung in the
sky behind Chapultepec. The crowd was immense, the streets flagged,
and there were squads of mounted police keeping order, and sounds
of drum and clarion. Shouts of, "_Viva de la Barra_," "_Viva el
Presidente Blanco_," mingled with various expressions of satisfaction,
not unmixed, I imagine, with surprise, that the high power could be
relinquished in so orderly a manner, and that a President could or
would give accounting of his office. A hint of the millennium.
_November 5th, 10.30._
We are just home from the big dinner offered to-night by Carbajal y
Rosas to the members of the _Corps Diplomatique_ and contiguous Mexican
officials. The Foreign Office is, as you know, in the Plaza at the head
of our street, and it was a blaze of light as we approached.
The music of a magnificent military band in gala uniform--the Mexican
brass is most inspiring--was echoing through the _patio_ and halls as
we went up the broad stairs, flower- and palm-banked and covered with
a thick, red carpet, into the big rooms on the first floor overlooking
the Plaza.
Here the various officials, according to their rank, have their
offices--handsome rooms, with large pieces of Louis XV. furniture done
up in blue and gold, and some paintings of Juarez, Diaz, and others. It
was almost too brilliantly illuminated, with great festoons of green
and white and red electric bulbs, in addition to the usual lighting.
All were out in their bravest. Mrs. Wilson had on a white-and-gold
satin gown, that she had worn at court in Brussels, and I wore the
pink-velvet brocade I had for the Buda-Pesth court ball.
This sounds very magnificent, but when the time came to move into the
banqueting-room and a personage much more richly gowned than any of
us dream of being approached to give me his arm, a grin overspread the
faces of the _chers collègues_ near by. It was the Chinese minister, in
the most beautiful lavender-and-gold costume I have ever seen. Useless
to compete with the Celestials, when they are really in form. On his
gorgeous arm, feeling decidedly diminished, I went to the great front
hall where a long, narrow banquet-table was spread. Some official, a
small, dark, youngish man, who did not speak English, or French, or
German, or anything in which I could lightly communicate, was on the
other side.
I had a chance to "choose" between Spanish or Chinese, and, being
under the necessity of saying something, began with my Mexican friend
about the weather, which you get through with quickly here at this
season when it is always fine. Then the conversation got onto the usual
subject of _niños_ (children). He said, with the air of one not having
yet abandoned hope, that he had _only_ nine. I asked, thoughtlessly,
what was the distance between their ages, and he answered, quite
simply: "_El tiempo regular_"--ten months.
After the repast, which began with _bouchées Romanoff_ and
finished with _coupés à la Brésilienne_, touching delicately
at other international points, there was more or less
talking, with presentations to various persons of the incoming
régime--surprised-looking ladies in high-necked gowns, and
eager-looking men. We disbanded about ten o'clock to the sound of more
really gorgeous martial music echoing through the big _patio_, stepping
across the plaza to our house in a great flood of moonlight. The "Iron
Horse," the bronze equestrian statue of Charles IV., giving the note
of other times and other rulers, was shining with a dim radiance.
Humboldt found it in the Plaza Mayor in 1803, _vis-à-vis_ the cathedral
and the palace of the viceroys, set in a large space paved in squares
of porphyry, inclosed by a richly ornamented, bronze-gilt railing and
placed on a pedestal of Mexican marble. Thirty-five years afterward
Madame Calderon de la Barca, in 1838, found it in the courtyard of the
university. Now I find it in the Plaza de la Reforma, and an excellent
spot it is, if they will only leave it there, instead of trotting it
about the town. It is placed where one can see Chapultepec Castle
at the end of the Paseo, where one can look down the broad Calle
Bucareli--still named after that enlightened viceroy (they periodically
change the names of the streets here), and which in its day was one of
the most beautiful avenues in the city, having a large fountain, with
a gilt statue, where now we have a very ugly clock-tower on artificial
stucco stones. The whole street was planted with beautiful trees, which
modern claptrappy houses have crowded out. It now ends in the dusty,
trolley-laid, modern avenue of Chapultepec.
The Calle de Rosales, a short street of handsome dwellings mostly of
the epoch of Calle Humboldt, gives another vista looking toward San
Fernando and San Hipólito; down still another one can see the iron
frame of the new Palacio Legislativo, planned to cost ten million
pesos. Work has lagged on it since the Diaz government was overthrown,
and experts are beginning to say that the great iron frame, so long
exposed to rain and air, is corroding.
Now I must put out my light, a poor thing, anyway. There is a shaft of
moonlight on the wall, a "purest ray serene," that shames it.
_November 6th, Inauguration Day._
Just home from the Cámara, where Madero took his oath of office.
Immense crowds were thickly formed about the building, and among
the _vivas_ for Madero were growls, here and there, of "_Abajo los
gringos_."[21] A few mounted _rurales_ only were out, the "Messiah of
the peons" having put the crowd on its honor.
I went with Mrs. Wilson in the Embassy motor, which came back for us
after having deposited the ambassador and his staff at the Palace in
evening clothes, where the gentlemen of the _Corps Diplomatique_ were
assembled to take leave of President de la Barra before coming on for
the inaugural ceremonies at the Chamber.
We arrived on the scene to find the little plaza in front of the
Chamber solidly packed, and the steps leading to the doors presenting
a conglomeration of peaked hats and zarapes, interposed with black
coats and "derbys." We finally got out of the motor at a side door,
to the sound of more "_abajos_," and once within, it really seemed
very comfortable to be sheltered from the noise and the various
potentialities of the crowd.
A big, solemn-faced Indian growled, "_abajo_," as I tripped from the
motor, but when I answered him, "_Viva Mexico_," his face lighted up
in a most friendly way. They need so little to change their moods, and
that is one of the dangers here. The wife of the Japanese minister
said she had to fight her way in. Her sleeve was torn and her hair
dishevelled, and she looked as if she had given battle.
A door, wide open, led from the room where the _Corps Diplomatique_
laid off their wraps, into a very large one, the office of the
Protocol, where there were great sealed bundles of ballots bearing
the postmarks of the towns whence they had been shipped--unopened,
uncounted, intact.
It appears the "counters" got discouraged early in the game; there were
so many ballots having no connection with 1911, such as that of Hidalgo
(executed in 1811), Benito Juarez (dead in his bed in 1872), and
unknown names of various _jefes políticos_ in various remote places,
with an occasional bit of unexpected color appearing in the way of
remembrances of favorite bull-fighters.
Well, Madero, the man of promises, is President of Mexico, and what
difficulties lie before him! After taking his oath, in a firm voice, he
ended the speech which followed, rather suddenly, by saying if he did
not keep his promises they could send him away.
The extreme pallor of his face was accented by his pointed, black
beard, already the delight of the caricaturists, but his mien was grave
and his gestures were unusually few. Across his breast was the red,
white, and green sash, the visible sign of the dream come true.
I could not but ask myself, as I looked about the vast assemblage
and heard the roar of the Indian throngs outside, what have they
had to prepare themselves for political liberty after our pattern?
But then, you know, I have always had a natural inclination for the
strong hand and one head. _L'appétit vient en mangeant_, and a taste
for revolutions may be like a taste for anything else. Many of these
millions have nothing to lose, and hope, mixed with desire, is rampant
during the periods of upheavals.
Some sort of a new day is rising in Mexico, but Madero would seem to
be President, not because he is a good and honest man and a well-wisher
to all, but simply because he is a successful revolutionary leader, and
what has been can be. There was, however, a general effect of everybody
patting himself on the back. Were they not seeing, for the first time
in their history, the high power relinquished without bloodshed? I
fancy they felt quite like "folks" as the "Presidente Blanco" gave it
over to the _Apóstol_ with nothing redder and warmer than a handshake.
The town was brilliant under the perfect sky, and the
green-and-white-and-red flag of the _Tres Garantías_ (Three Guarantees)
waved from every building. It bears within its folds the history of
Mexico since its adoption in 1823. The white represents religious
purity, red symbolizes the union of Mexicans and Spaniards in the bonds
of brotherly love, and green is for independence.
Iturbide's army was called "the army of the _Tres Garantías_," the
colors then running horizontally from the staff. After Iturbide was
shot they changed the stripes to the present vertical arrangement.
From my rather cursory glance at Mexican history it would seem that
governments have always come into power here through revolutions. It
seems the normal thing, the inevitable, preordained way for men to come
into power, but, that being the case, they ought to take it a little
more quietly. Of course, for a pure Aryan like myself it's startling,
it's disconcerting to a degree![22]
_November 7th._
Late yesterday afternoon ex-President de la Barra, accompanied by
his family and the staff of his mission, left for Vera Cruz to take
_La Champagne_ for France, _en route_ to Rome. There was a great
demonstration at his departure. The _Corps Diplomatique_ was out in
full force, and all Mexico besides, it seemed, as we got down to the
station, around which mounted soldiery with difficulty kept a free
space, pressing the crowd back to let in the carriages and motors, one
by one.
The most interesting thing about it all, to me, was the group
that at one time formed itself on the rear platform of the special
train--President Madero, ex-President de la Barra, and Orozco, the
military genius of the moment, the type of the trio so distinct as
they stood there. Orozco is a very tall man, head and shoulders over
the other two, the northern Mexico ranchero type--prominent nose, high
cheek bones, with a dark mustache that doesn't at all conceal a cruel,
determined mouth.
De la Barra, international, immaculately dressed, suave, smiling, was
entirely the diplomat departing on a special mission, showing no trace
of the difficult and anxious months of office.
Between these two stood the President of but a few hours, with his
broad, high, speculative forehead, his dreamy, impractical eyes and
kindly smile--"one man with a dream at pleasure."
Madero is naturally generous toward his enemies, of which the crops,
however, hourly increase. He is averse to shedding blood, but I sigh
for the difficulties of his position, between various upper and nether
mill-stones, with the destinies of fifteen millions of people like to
be ground between.
All the _revolucionarios_ who came in with him seem to have dreamed
some of his vague dreams, to which they add, however, very determined
desires to settle in comfortable nests built by others on the
extraordinarily simple plan of "see a home, take it." The upper
classes, what little one sees of them, shake their heads, cast up their
eyes, and throw out their hands. It's all very uncertain, but most
interesting to a lady from the temperate zone.
We would all have liked to see De la B. Vice-President instead of
"Pino-no-no-no." It might have steadied things, especially abroad, but
"might have been" should be the Mexican device. For some reason I felt
saddened as the train moved out in the twilight, leaving the Indian
world to darkness and Madero.
[19] The Enchantress. The Emotions. The Lost Man.
[20] The Casa de Manrique in the Calle Donceles is another
example of old seigniorial houses. It belonged to the Conde
de Heras, and was built late in the seventeenth century. Now,
alas, it is the office of the Wells Fargo Express Co., but
there is a note of protesting splendor about it.
[21] Down with the gringos.
[22] Every government, since the days of the viceroys,
appointed inexorably but quietly from Spain, has come into
power like the government of Huerta or Madero or Diaz, through
a revolution by a military _coup_. No foreign ruler till our
day thought it a reason for bringing the whole nation to ruin.
XIII