delegation--The American arrest of Reyes--Chapultepec
Park--Side lights on Juchitan troubles--Zapata's Plan de
Ayala
_November 8th._
I was planning to start for Tehuantepec to-morrow, when a letter came
from Aunt L. saying that the general in charge of the Federal troops
was giving orders to his army from her porch, the Pan-American Railway
was damaged, bridges were destroyed, and cannon were being dragged into
town by oxen and placed in front of her garden.
Everybody has been going to bed dressed, with papers and valuables
close by, ready for flight at a moment's notice.
I was disappointed, and would still have carried out the program,
my heart was ready for her, and things were cut off here, but I
was obliged to take the advice of the ambassador, to whom N. showed
the letter, as the risk might not be simply personal. There seems a
fatality about my getting down there. A telegram also came from her
through Mr. Cummings, always so kind, saying for me not to leave till
things had quieted down.
The trouble is in the form of an uprising in the district of Juchitan
against the state government (Oaxaca). The Governor, Don Benito Juarez
(a son of the great Juarez, I think), had tried to separate the _jefe
político_, Che Gómez, from his office, a thing not lightly done. The
result was that the Juchitecos, who dearly love a fight, gladly rose
with "Che" against the Federals, who have been bottled up in the
Juchitan church and barracks for days with no rest and no food; there
must have been heavy losses. The firing can be heard from San Gerónimo.
A few soldiers have arrived, but not enough for their relief.
The mother of the army surgeon with the troops is staying with Aunt
L., and is in the greatest anxiety about her son, a fine young man, a
typical Spanish _hidalgo_. As long as he could he sent messages, but
they have had nothing from him for several days, and, of course, at any
moment the Federals may be wiped out. There are at least three thousand
Indians against a couple of hundred "regulars."
The government has sent down more troops. Two brigades went this
morning, the Foreign Office announces, and "order is expected shortly
in Oaxaca and on the Isthmus." There is already a general undertone of
pessimism about Mexico in general and the new régime in particular.
The first delegation Madero received yesterday was the Society for
Occult Sciences, followed by something even more tangibly intangible,
the spiritualistic society. It makes one gasp. He will need all the
help he can get to grapple with the situation here, but one has one's
doubts about the spirits being consecutively and exclusively occupied
with the destinies of Mexico, which seem to need the iron hand of
flesh--and not in any glove, either.
[Illustration: XOCHIMILCO
Photograph by Ravell]
Last night we dined at the new Chilian minister's, Hevia de Riquelme.
Mr. Wilson was seven years in Chili as minister at the time Señor
Riquelme held a Cabinet position, and has a great affection for him.
They have just come from Japan. The dinner was very elaborate and
expensive, and afterward we danced in the large hall and in and out of
the big salons. Mrs. Wilson looked lovely in a white-lace dress with
pale-blue touches, and seemed to reappear again as she might have been
when she was the mother of babes in Chili, rather than of these grown
sons in Mexico.
_November 11th._
News this morning from the Isthmus is still more disquieting. Many
buildings were dynamited in Juchitan, and many people were killed that
way as well as by bullets and machetes. The wounded are being brought
into San G. for treatment, as when some doctors of the White Cross
arrived on the scene from Salina Cruz the Juchitecos refused to allow
them to enter the town.
The splendid young Doctor Arguello was assassinated by the rebels while
going the rounds of a hospital in Juchitan, where he was treating
_their_ wounded. His mother has lain moaning, "_Mi hijo! mi hijo!_"
for twenty-four hours, and refusing all comfort. The new _jefe_, the
tax-collector, and other "instruments of the law" were killed. This
is how the inauguration of Madero was celebrated on the Isthmus of
Tehuantepec. Fortunately San G. is loyal and could be a refuge for the
peaceful inhabitants of other towns. General Merodia is there with four
thousand troops.
_November 14th._
Yesterday a large afternoon reception was held at the Foreign Office
by Calero, now Minister of Foreign Affairs, and who has, incidentally,
a great understanding of the United States. He presented his pretty
wife formally to the _Corps Diplomatique_. She is delicate-looking, and
life with Calero, with his ambitions and rather American strenuosity,
will keep her going at quite a pace. The handsome rooms are having
an unwonted vogue--the second time they are thrown open in a month!
Professor Castillo, at the grand piano in the big room, vied with the
police band stationed in the _patio_. Large American Beauty roses were
everywhere (a delicate tribute, _quién sabe?_), and we stood at small
buffet tables.
I was between Riedl and Lie, and though less gorgeous to the outward
eye, I was more _en pays de connaissance_ than when last I refreshed
myself in company with the Flowery Kingdom. The nice woman reporter
from the _Mexican Herald_ minutely inspected the women's clothes, as
you will see by the clipping I send.
I must get ready for my luncheon to-day. I love to do the flowers
myself, and a great solid bunch of forget-me-nots, a foot and a
half across, in the big blue bowl, has been lifted onto the table
by Elena and Cecilia. Bouquets of deepest purple pansies are at each
place. The sun is flooding the _patio_, the flowers are blooming and
shining--_enfin_ all the delights of the tropics! It is not without
reason that they have a lure. The luncheon is for the Riedls. The
Lefaivres, von Hintze, Leclerq, and others are coming.
We tried the theater again last night. I had expected to go for the
Spanish whenever N. had a free evening; but, really, I have not the
physical strength, and last night we were thankful to get out of
the boredom of the interminable _entr'actes_ and the unbreathable
devitalized air, which at this altitude has an exhausting effect
unknown at sea level.
The _apuntador_ read all the parts so loudly, now sometimes ahead, now
sometimes behind the actors, that one couldn't decide which to follow,
him or the artists, and we gave a sigh of relief as we sped out of the
city toward Tlalpan, beloved of the viceroys.
An immense white moon, that seemed to lose its shape in its own
flooding light, was rising over the valley. Not only the heavens,
but the earth irradiated light, and we seemed to be motoring through
a dully brilliant blue-whiteness. The night was dry, with no hint
of mist, but still a milky ambience that gave an effect of gleaming
wetness was over all.
Out of the earth came what seemed to me the psychic miasms of nameless
but potent and persistent races. The Ajusco hills, for reasons known
to themselves, were dead-black masses as they jetted into the sky,
but their outlines were scalloped with an indescribable embroidery of
the same fluid whiteness. I felt a chill sort of magic envelop me,
penetrating through the thickness of that long Viennese motor coat;
I was even a little afraid with that nameless fear one sometimes has
here. I think it is the unknown quantities. Everything seems to equal
X.
_November 20th._
Reyes has been arrested at San Antonio by a United States marshal,
charged with violating the neutrality laws. He was doing only what
Madero did, but what is sauce for the gander isn't sauce for the goose.
Diaz had his Madero, Madero his Reyes. How easy it would have been to
have made a friend of Reyes, who was the idol of the army!
Madero now talks about crushing all revolutionary movements with an
iron hand; but his hand, alas! has no likeness to iron or anything that
can crush. It appears that Madero and Reyes made a pact according to
which each was to have a free hand at the presidential nomination. But
the Maderistas either got nervous or impatient, or did not want to take
chances, and Reyes was persecuted and threatened until he resigned his
commission in the army and left the country. The military element might
have been conciliated with Reyes as Minister of War or in some other
capacity after being defeated at the polls; but that would have been by
far too reasonable a _modus operandi_ for these climes.
Reyes found himself obliged to withdraw his candidature a few days
before the election of Madero, and left the country as speedily as
he could, among other things giving the New York _Sun_ a chance for
a gorgeous alliterative sentence, "Rebellion, riot, and Reyes mar the
calm of Madero's Mexico."
The Simons are very handsomely installed in a house on the Paseo,
and have sent out cards for a series of dinners. We dined there
last night. Simon, it appears, is a banking genius of incorruptible
probity--a second Limantour. They have what few here possess, a French
chef, imported specially. Besides several diplomats, there were some
Frenchmen whom I had not met, Armand Delille,[23] a banker, and an
agreeable man, Parmentier.[24] In the drawing-room are many photographs
relating to the Simons' Belgrade _étape_, an interesting one of
Pasitch's clever old face, the Serbian Crown Prince, the old King,
Countess Forgasch, and others, who struck the Balkan note.
The first reception at Chapultepec, where the Maderos have taken up
permanent habitation, is to be held on Friday.
_November 24th._
Last night there was a brilliant dinner at the Embassy in honor
of Calero, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and his wife. I inclose a
clipping. Mrs. W. looked very handsome in a white-lace gown with
gold-wheat embroideries.
Madame Lefaivre had on a gray gown with her nice diamonds, and a
beautiful old lace scarf about her shoulders. Baroness Riedl wore a
clinging yellow dress with pearl fringe, and all her war-paint in the
shape of her pearls and diamonds. After dinner we sat around the big,
glass-inclosed _patio_ which forms the center of the house.
I had a little talk with Calero. He is astonishingly clever. His mind
reflects a perfectly clear mental image of the facts that come before
it, and in any argument he is straight to the point. For the rest,
it is _terra incognita_ to me, though doubtless the land is perfectly
charted with the roads so necessary for arriving at Latin-American ends
(and not unnecessary to successful politicians anywhere).
Side-lights on the Juchitan troubles continue most interesting
and instructive. Che Gómez, the man who stirred up the apparently
quite-ready inhabitants, is part Indian, part negro ("zambo" as this
special _mélange_ is called), and had set his heart on remaining _jefe
político_ of the turbulent town. When he began a similar agitation
some years ago, Diaz wisely kicked him "up-stairs" by sending him in
that capacity to some small place in Lower California. Now he is back,
making things lively.
What remains of the Federal authorities, notaries, banking agents,
industrials, _et al._, are still cooped up in the barracks there, or
hiding in the woods and distant ranches. The situation was tragic
till the long-looked-for Maderista troops arrived--a motley crowd,
boys strapped to guns larger than themselves predominating over the
_rurales_ mounted on scrawny little crow-baits, looking like bandits
in comic opera. They were accompanied by their womenkind, of course,
and wandered aimlessly about. It was such a farce that even the natives
laughed.
Che Gómez is said to be supported by some sort of powerful influence,
and his forces directed by some one having knowledge of military
tactics. The dove of Madero's new peace is evidently not hovering over
that portion of Mexico. The unrest is like an epidemic.
I must now get into the black-velvet dress to go to the first reception
of the new régime at Chapultepec.
_November 24th, evening._
Madero's expression this afternoon was extraordinary. There was a
kind of illumination of the plain, indefinite features, and he seemed
scarcely to be walking with the sons of men. He had a smile which,
without being fixed, was always there, and he talked a great deal, and
quite freely, to various receptive plenipotentiaries.
Madame Madero was simple and dignified, but under it all I fancy
something passionate and resolute. The diplomats were out in force, but
there was very little else to the reception. A few unlabeled outlying
Mexican nondescripts came, and some of the Cabinet ministers. Carmona,
_chef du protocole_, and Nervo, the Second Introducer of Ambassadors,
did what they could; but it was only too apparent that various
essential elements of the national body-politic were lacking.
Madame Madero had on some sort of somber brocade with a hint of jewel
sparkling in her lace jabot, and received in the big _Sala de los
Embajadores_. After greeting her, however, we went out to the terrace,
where such wonders were going on in the heavens that man for the moment
seemed indeed dust. Great bodies of clouds in the form of a vast
rose-colored throng, which Madero ought properly to have been with,
were taking their way across the western sky, and purple shadows began
to come up from the valley, enveloping the city as we watched what
I can only call the "orb of day" disappear behind the hills. Madero
strikes me as being rather a type apart, not specially Mexican, but
such a type as appears in strange moments of the history of the nation
to which it belongs.
_November 25th._
Waiting for lunch after a most delightful morning in the park with
Baroness R. and the French and Belgian ministers. I don't know if it
was Marina's[25] spirit, which, according to the Indian tradition,
still slips among the cypresses, or other unrecorded ghosts; but as
we walked through the Calzada de los Poetas and los Filósofos, the
matchless sun filtering through the branches of the old _ahuehuetes_,
their bronzy hue the only sign of winter one can note here, we all
succumbed to some enchantment.
There is a moss-hung cypress near one of the little lakes, called the
_Arbol de Moctezuma_. It, with the _Noche Triste_ tree, witnessed the
fall of the Aztec Empire. There still remains an old inscription on
a walled-in spring, marking the terminus of the Aztec aqueduct which
brought drinking-water to Montezuma's capital from Chapultepec. The
inscription, which I have sometimes dallied by, says the aqueduct
was renovated in 1571 by the fourth viceroy. It faces the dustiest of
tramway lines now, but one is thankful for any writing on any wall that
gives a clue to the past.
Near the great tree is "Montezuma's Bath," where the water still
bubbles up, only now the sprucest and most modern of flower-beds
encircle it. This is the special haunt of Marina, but it is said that
when an Indian has seen her at the _ahuehuete_ pond he himself is seen
no more.
We sauntered about for a while listening to the music, and then the
gentlemen proposed rowing Baroness R. and myself about in the tiny
boats that are for hire. Once out from under the trees, one became
modern and completely objective, and Mr. Lefaivre and I discussed
European diplomatic appointments of his and my governments as we rowed
about on the shallow, artificial lakes under the hottest of suns,
between the made lands of the new section of the park.
But every time we passed under the little bridge into the dimness of
the narrow, tree-and-vine-grown banks of the little stream leading from
two sides of the duck-pond, even though the band played a waltz from
"The Balkan Princess," and a selection of "Lohengrin," and children
were shouting and motors coming and going, that magic fell upon us.
I didn't know if it were Aztec or Spanish ghosts, or spirits of the
heroes of 1847, who assailed me.
One thing is sure. Those old _ahuehuetes_ keep everything that was ever
confided to them and trap the unwary with it. At this season, too, one
begins to see familiar migratory birds come to pass the cold season
in Mexico, recalling with a note of homesickness the distant land of
one's birth. A "ruby-crowned kinglet" was perched on a low branch by
the water--and some kind of a "warbler" was warbling New England lays
all over the ancient park.
_November 30th._
Zapata has just given some more building material to the new republic,
in the shape of what he calls _El Plan de Ayala_, of the date of
November 25th, written for him by one of the Vasquez Gómez brothers.
To our surprise, the brilliant editor of _La Prensa_ has spoken not
unfavorably of it.
I don't know if it is bowing to the inevitable, or expediency, that
makes him advocate the use of the aforesaid material, which provides
for the division of the lands of the state of Morelos, the only state
in which, for climatic reasons (not political), the distribution
of land could be undertaken without installing gigantic irrigation
processes impossible for the Indians.
All through Mexican history revolutionary leaders have launched these
Plans.
Iturbide published the _Plan de Iguala_, February 24, 1823, known as
_Las Tres Garantías_, Porfirio Diaz the _Plan de Noria_, 1869; Madero's
_Plan de San Luis Potosí_ is what we are now living and breathing (and
sometimes panting) by.[26]
[23] Armand Delille distinguished himself; at the battle
of the Yser and on the bridge of Steenstraete was decorated
with the Légion d'Honneur. He was sent to hold it with three
hundred men, and it _was_ held; but when he was relieved, of
the three hundred men only thirty remained.
[24] Maurice Parmentier fell at Dieuze, November 28, 1914.
[25] Marina, the daughter of a _cacique_ of Painalla, had been
sold into slavery, and after the famous battle of Ceutla,
when Santiago appeared in the heavens above the Spanish
hosts (the chronicler of the event says that he, miserable
sinner, was not worthy to see the apparition), she fell
into the hands of the Spaniards. She was first allotted to
Puertocarrero, but her abilities speedily raised her to the
tent of Cortés. She became his interpreter, his Egeria, his
love, the instrument of fate, holding Indian and Spanish
destinies alike in her hands. All historians of the epoch
extol her virtues, and Bernal Diaz says they held her to be
like no other woman on earth, because of her intelligence and
her devotion to the Spanish cause. By the Indians she is held
eternally restless--malign--for having leagued herself with
the Spaniards.
[26] Carranza's _Plan de Guadalupe_, March 19, 1913, contains,
among other oddities, the statement of this "Everlasting Idol
of Free Peoples," that "as our Constitution forbids us to
confiscate, we have decided to do without our Constitution for
a while."
XIV
The feast of Guadalupe--Peace reigns on the
Isthmus--Earthquakes--Madero in a dream--The French colony
ball--Studies in Mexican democracy--Christmas preparations
_December 1st._
A pinching, cold snap, the result of a _norte_ of long duration blowing
from Vera Cruz. The heat quickly goes out of the body, and at this
altitude is not easily made up again. I have been penetrated to my soul
as if by a thin knife. The air is so attenuated that there is nothing
to it except cold, no exhilaration. The oil-stoves, I have discovered,
are not lighted with impunity. They have a way of suddenly emitting a
long, high column of black smoke, after which something detonates, and
the room and the people in it are covered by a fine, black soot. One
rings, the source of trouble is removed, and one stays cold.
Very pleasant lunch here yesterday; the only way to get warm is to eat,
drink, and be merry, especially this last. The luncheon was for the
Belgian minister, who had been appointed to Copenhagen. Can't you hear
us telling him about the Rabens and the Frijs, Klampenborg, and the
Hôtel d'Angleterre? The Lefaivres brought a friend who is staying with
them--Vicomte de Kargaroué, a Breton of the _vieille noblesse_, who is
that anomaly, a French globe-trotter.
I am sending you in the form of Christmas cards some samples of
present-day feather-work; a pale relic of the _plumaje_ the Aztecs used
to be so famous for, persisting through the ages. It doesn't at all
resemble the beautiful feather-work mantle, said to have belonged to
Montezuma, that I saw among the treasures in the Hofburg at Vienna.
_December 4th._
Society is agog here; it is the first appearance on any scene, since
my arrival, of the _erste Gesellschaft_. A young man shot and killed
another at a famous club, and then died as the result of an accidental
wound to himself. He was married on his death-bed to the mother of his
children; the whole is a story for the pen of Ibañez or Echegaray. For
hours the streets were filled with carriages and autos taking floral
tributes to the stricken mother. Oh, the hearts of mothers! So many
crimes, social, civil, and national are being committed all over the
world, but everywhere some souls are yearning for perfection--to keep
it all going!
_December 6th._
My little luncheon for American women went off very well. The dishes
Teresa knows--the classic _huachinango_, cold and "well presented,"
with a good mayonnaise sauce, the small, fat-breasted ducks with peas,
that every one is serving at this season here, were the "chief of our
diet."
Mrs. Kilvert, Mrs. C. R. Hudson, Mrs. Paul Hudson, the wife of the
editor of the _Mexican Herald_, Mrs. McLaren, Mrs. Beck, Mrs. Bassett
and the ambassadress and her sister came.
This is just a word while waiting for Mrs. Wilson to come back for me
to go on a calling bout with her. She goes home to spend the holidays
with her boys, so I shall have to do what Christmas honors are done--a
tree and incidental tea.
I inclose a little verse by Joaquin Miller that I cut out of the
_Herald_ this morning. Though outrageously bad, the line "glorious gory
Mexico," is unforgetable.
MEXICO
Thou Italy of the Occident,
Land of flowers and summer climes,
Of holy priests and horrid crimes;
Land of the cactus and sweet cocoa;
Richer, than all the Orient
In gold and glory, in want and woe,
In self-denial, in days misspent,
In truth and treason, in good and guilt,
In ivied ruins and altars low,
In battered walls and blood misspilt;
Glorious gory Mexico.
_Evening._
Among our visits to-day was one on Madame Creel. They have a very large
and handsome house in the Calle de Londres, not yet quite finished.
Everything French. In the drawing-room where Madame C. received were
two splendid Sèvres vases, and great French-plate mirrors and French
brocades cover the walls. Mr. Creel, fresh-complexioned, white-haired,
speaking English very well, and liking to recall ambassadorial days
in Washington, took us over the uncompleted part of the house. The
large ball-room is awaiting special bronze electric-light _appliques_,
door and window fastenings, now on their way from Paris, where all the
woodwork of the house was executed.[27]
_December 11th, evening._
This afternoon Madame Lefaivre and Mr. de Soto and I went out to
Guadalupe to see the preparations for to-morrow's feast, the greatest
in Mexico.
Indians were arriving from all directions, bivouacking close up against
the church. They seemed to have brought not only all their children,
but all their furniture in the shape of _petates_ and earthen bowls,
and any incidental live-stock they possessed in the shape of goat or
dog. It was quite cold, and in the dusk they seemed like their own
ancestors coming over the hills for the worship of dreaded and dreadful
gods.
Nothing except the Deity and the temple has changed since the old days;
they themselves are unmodified, and seemingly unmodifiable. I dare say
one would give a gasp if one could really see what they thought about
the Virgin of Guadalupe, or the "Cause of Causes."
They come in from hidden mountain towns, where images of other gods
are still graven, and where charms and incantations are used, which
doesn't at all affect their devotion to "Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe."
Often they are many days en route, and all night until dawn they will
be arriving at the great shrine.