a small table back of us, and we knew from their unseemly mirth that
they weren't talking about the antiquities or improving their minds in
any way.
After luncheon we all repaired to the Pyramid of the Moon, which nobody
had the energy to ascend, going over a sidewalk made of ancient cement
still bearing traces of red color. One of the smaller mounds had been
opened by Señor Batres a few years before, and he found around and over
it a building now called the "House of the Priests."
At this special place even the most enterprising of the foreigners
began to wilt, and some polychrome frescoes are the last definite
impression I received before we started back to the buckboards. The
---- minister, sitting too near the wheel, to politely make room,
got jolted out, but we picked him up and soothed him by singing his
national anthem as we went toward the train.
It was a long day, but one to be kept in memory with its background
of obsidian, red clay masks, idols of jade, and works of a past race
against which Mexican history continues to unfold itself.
_February 29th._
It is not leap-year which is occupying our thoughts down here. Orozco
is openly in full revolt. With him are some thousands of troops and the
whole state of Chihuahua.
[37] This statue was thrown down and dragged through the city
the night of the breaking off of relations between the United
States and Mexico (April 23, 1914).
[38] Pathway of the dead.
XX
Madero shows indications of nervous tension--Why one guest
of Mexico's President did not sit down--A novena with
Madame Madero--Picture-writing on maguey--Picnic at El
Desierto--San Fernando
_March 3d._
Yesterday Mr. Taft issued a wise proclamation directing citizens of the
United States to comply strictly with the neutrality laws between our
country and Mexico till there is a change in conditions, which gave
rise to various expressions of satisfaction at a large luncheon at
Madame Simon's.
I sat by Mr. Chevrillon, a French mining expert since many years in
Mexico, and also having a wide experience of our own southwest. He
told strange mining stories; one about an ancient whip he once found
in a remote chamber in an old mine, with a lash so long that it was
a mystery how it could have been used in the small spaces. A detail,
but it gave me a sudden, shivering glimpse into the sufferings of
subject peoples. However, it's no use throwing stones at Spain for not
having practised political liberty in those centuries. As we know it
to-day, it was nowhere existent. It had not even begun to glimmer on
any horizon, and certainly Mexico has lived through a terrible century
since its light dawned on _her_.
_March 7th._
At the Chapultepec reception to-day one felt the tension.
Madero was walking up and down the terrace with his new private
secretary, Gonzales Garza, clad in some sort of a dark suit, with
a conspicuous peacock-blue vest, doubtless a family offering.
His glance was more than usually visionary and introverted, his
unacquisitive hands were behind his back; but can Mexico be governed
by a well-disposed President from Chapultepec terrace? He has a way
of avoiding facts, which, in the end, are sure to hit somebody as the
national destinies take their course. One can only hope his sterling
honesty will see him safely through the snares that are spread
everywhere.
As I talked with him on the sun-flooded terrace above the gorgeous
valley, with all Mexican creation at our feet, though he had his
usual smile, I noted many wrinkles, as he stood bareheaded, and it was
difficult to fix his eye, an honest eye.
The new Minister of the Interior, Flores Magon, took me out to tea.
He is a huge, square-faced Zapotec Indian, rather portly--which they
rarely are--with straight, black hair, a strong jaw, and observant
eyes. The foreigner on the other side of me--whether his tale be true
or apocryphal I know not--related that on his last visit to Madero, as
he was about to sink into an inviting armchair he was hastily asked not
to take it, for at that moment it was occupied by George Washington!
As his surprised person was suspended over another and was half-way
down, he was waved to still a third, for in the second was sitting Jean
Jacques Rousseau! After which, fearful of incommoding other illustrious
dead, he remained standing. _Si non e Verdi e bene Trovatore._
Madero has a certain natural inclination toward the French, fostered
by those years at the Versailles Lycée, without, however, any of
their logic or genius for facts, and he often converses vaguely, but
admiringly, about the French Revolution. They say he sleeps with _Le
Contrat Social_ under his pillow. He has not a single suspicion of the
Anglo-Saxon mind, nor of that composite and extremely personal affair
we call the national conscience; and still he is supposed to govern his
country after our pattern. The whole seemed unrelated to the situation.
In fact, I told Aunt L., as we came away, that I didn't think the
loggias and terraces are good for his psychology. You have no need
for the firm hand when you are looking out upon a valley swimming in a
strange transparency, where the hills seem of purest mother-of-pearl,
inevitably leading to golden streets, not black heaps of earth peopled
by passionate, starving human beings.
Am now off to the Red Cross. It is temporarily stationed in a beautiful
old Spanish house, with a garden, and a large _patio_ and fountain
in the middle, and doors opening on to it, in the Calle Alamo, a once
fashionable part of town. Mexico was almost the last country to join
the Red Cross organization.
_March 11th, evening._
At the reception at Chapultepec I found I had, by a curious chance,
arranged with Madame Madero to make a novena with her to the Guadalupe
shrine. Whatever reliance she may have had on accidental spirits in the
past, I now see her having recourse to the one Great Spirit, the Cause
of Causes. I don't feel unassailable by the chances of life myself.
She has been coming for me the past three mornings in the big
presidential auto. N. and Aunt L. are thankful to see me return; they
think a bomb, aimed at the conveyance full of piety, would not be
beyond the bounds of possibility. I am sure Madame M. would do the
distance gladly on her knees, instead of in the big car; her passionate
solicitude for her husband's welfare has no limits, and she means
to compel whatever powers there be to take the kingdom of heaven
by violence, if need be. Like all people who are playing with great
chances, she is, I fancy, superstitious. She arises very early, attends
Mass, begins her day's work, and is at our house from the castle at
9.30, apparently going the rest of the day at the same high pressure.
I gather they prefer De la Barra not to return; indeed, the faces
of any darken at the mention of other possible candidates for public
favor. Jealousies and struggles of individual ambition are more evident
than struggles for principles in this most personal of all games,
Mexican politics.
There was not a hint of any political happening on her part, nor on
mine, as I got into the motor this morning. She told me about the six
children they have adopted at one time or another, according to various
exigencies; all the children too small to make an appearance, however,
on the presidential stage.
An Indian boy ran across our path and was knocked down by the auto,
just as we were going through the teeming suburb of Peralvillo. In a
moment a crowd gathered about us, giving vent to growls. We stopped
and got out of the motor. The boy, fortunately, was not injured,
and he was wearing few garments to dust. We gave him money, and the
mollified parents, pulque-eyed and battered, received him tenderly,
plus money and minus hurt, so we were able to drive on through the
soft, shimmering morning, out the broad Calzadato to Our Lady of
Guadalupe....
We came back through the old Plaza of Tlaltelolco, where the Church of
Santiago still exists, though now the yards of the National Railways
surround it, and it is used to store cotton and grain, the customs,
too, having offices there. It was formerly connected with Mexico City
by canals instead of these dusty streets, getting dustier every year,
as the volume of water decreases in the valley.
Here Cortés found the great market he described in his letter to
Charles V., and here Fray Gante taught the Indians for fifty years.
Here, too, the first Bishop of Mexico is said to have carried into
effect his unfortunate idea of gathering a pile of Aztec hieroglyphics,
on cotton, maguey, or deerskin; and piling them mountain high;
according to the historian, Ixtlilxochitl, he had them set afire. Now
there are only squalid remnants of that civilization, here and there
ancient corner-stones on which dilapidated _mesones_, lodging-houses
for men and beasts, show themselves.
But, somehow, when one peeps in at the little courtyards the life
itself doesn't seem so squalid. Any _patio_ you look into has a bit of
color in the way of a child or a flower or a bright bit of garment.
I thought of the three patrician women who, during the siege of
Mexico, stood for several days up to their necks in water with only a
handful of corn for nourishment, and of the last and noble Aztec king,
Cuauhtemoc,[39] who, at the hour of Vespers, fell into the Spaniards'
hands, and was brought to Cortés as he was standing on the terrace of
a house in Tlaltelolco, watching the operations.
Cortés asked him to be seated, but the young king put his hand on a
poignard that Cortés carried in his belt and asked him to kill him,
because, having done what he could to save his kingdom and his people,
it only remained for him to die. He was the son-in-law of Montezuma,
and was escaping in a canoe with his young wife, just emerging into
womanhood, when he was captured. History is so _evident_ here and so
in relief--I have never lived in a place where the past follows and
arrests one as here, though I doubt if Madame Madero, trying to pierce
the heavy curtain of the future, gave it a thought this morning.
_March 12th._
The Blair Flandraus are here now, visiting Madame Bonilla. He is the
"brother" in that delightful book, _Viva Mexico_, that I sent you,
and meeting him made me remember a line where one brother says to the
other brother, "What very agreeable people one runs across in queer,
out-of-the-way places," meaning themselves, and quite warranted, as I
have discovered.
I had a luncheon to-day for Mrs. Flandrau, and Madame Bonilla, Madame
del Rio, Madame Simon, and Madame Scherer came. In the afternoon bridge
at Madame Bonilla's, at which husbands and also the unattached and
solitary appeared. In Mexico, when you have spent one part of the day
with people, it isn't, as in more conventional climes, a reason for
avoiding them the other hours.
We are all rather amused by the visible romance of a young _querido_
(lover) who stands for hours leaning against the garden rail of a big,
handsome house in the Calle Liverpool, wherein his _inamorata_ dwells.
The irate father has just built a trellis above the wall, gardeners are
busy, and the quickly growing vines will soon make it a rather bootless
pastime for the young man to _pelar la pava_. The girl is watched every
moment, quite in the way of old dramas concerning unwelcome lovers,
determined _Dulcineas_, and vigilant _duennas_.
_March 14th._
Went to the French Legation this afternoon, where one of Madame
Lefaivre's pleasant "days" was in full swing. I met there the Marquis
de Guadalupe (Rincon Gallardo), very polished and agreeable, and we
looked at a most interesting old book of picture-writing on maguey,
which shut up like a folding screen, with a piece of wood at each end
to hold it fast. We opened it out on Mr. Lefaivre's long study table.
It was of silky, papery fiber, as smooth to the touch as to the eye.
Across strong, blue-black grounds were pictures of hunting scenes,
or scenes of vengeance--hounds let loose from the leash, springing at
Indians whose eyes bulged with terror. Forests were depicted and dark
men entering them, and footmarks; a babe was being held to the heavens,
and groups of Indians were selling and buying, bending over mats on
which their wares were laid out, as to-day.
The Marquis thought it wasn't Aztec, but must have belonged to the
period immediately succeeding the Conquest, as there was a Moorish
touch to head-dress and garments. Mr. Lefaivre thought it was perhaps
one of the cunningly wrought impostures of the sixteenth century. It
was for sale for some thousands of pesos and in excellent condition.
Life sometimes seems like it here.
Secretary Stimson has poured oil on the troubled waters by saying there
is no thought of intervention in Mexico for pacification and otherwise,
but it's all a playing with fire--and a good many American and Mexican
fingers are like to be burnt. It would seem 'twere better to let the
Mexican revolutions quietly simmer till they boil dry--_we_ can't do a
little; all or nothing.
I must say I have some sympathy with Madero, for, having allowed him to
"use" the border for equipping and organizing his revolution, he now
naturally wonders at our coldness. It's all a puzzle, whichever way
one looks. I keep thinking of Don Porfirio's watch on Mexico; what he
knew would happen _is_ happening. Prophets may not only be stoned, but
justified, in their own country.
The Senate has wisely adopted a resolution authorizing the President to
prohibit shipments of war materials into Mexico--at least _we_ won't be
feeding fuel to the Mexican fires.
_March 16th._
This afternoon I went out late with Madame Lefaivre; she had come to
inquire for Elim, who has had some mysterious ailment which has kept
me hanging over his bed in terror for two days. We drove up the Paseo
in her victoria, and by the statue of the "Independencia" got out and
walked about the broad space surrounding it.
Night was near, though not yet fallen, and the sun had disappeared
behind Chapultepec. In the changing light the stars shone in the
heavens with a brilliancy I have scarcely ever seen in deepest night.
They illuminated a pale-blue dome which had a sort of faded sunset
lining. I looked up and saw the Southern Cross, the glory of these
skies, hanging just above the horizon, and came home touched and
quieted by the beauty of it all, to find my babe awake, in a gentle
moisture, the fever gone. So often in Mexico the natural changes bring
personal help.
_March 17th, evening._
To-day a delightful picnic at the famous "Desierto," the old Carmelite
monastery, deep in one of the splendid forests of the Ajusco hills off
the Toluca road.
We met, about fifteen merrymakers, in front of Mr. Potter's house, in
the Calle Durango, one of the newest of streets in the newest of the
"colonias." All were loudly congratulatory when we appeared, about "St.
Patrick's Day in the morning." After a careful packing in of baskets,
bottles, and other paraphernalia which always flow most lavishly from
Mr. Potter's house, we started out in a long line--where, however, the
disadvantages of companionship were soon apparent, as the dust got the
hindmost with a vengeance.
It being more necessary to keep the ambassador dusted than lesser
objects, he led off, arriving with his luster undimmed. As we passed
through Tacubaya, the Sunday market was going its usual picturesque
pace, and the trail of equality and fraternity we left behind dimmed
many eyes and wares. Once on the high Toluca road we could spread out
more, distance lending a decided enchantment.
At Santa Fé, in the great ravine where there has been a powder-factory
for a hundred years or so, were unwonted signs of activity. After
a stiff bit of steep, broken road, we left the motors in a blessed,
grassy, dustless spot, and began a long and lovely walk, through a
forest of magnificent oaks and pines. The loveliest of ferns grew
beneath them, and there were thick carpets of green and gray mosses,
patterned with bright, flowery patches. There was the sweet sound of
rushing waters, so rare on the plateau, and occasionally there was a
sudden rustle to show that we had surprised some wild living thing, and
twice we saw some deer.
[Illustration: AT EL DESIERTO, APRIL 29, 1912
(Mrs. O'Shaughnessy and Elim in the foreground)]
[Illustration: LUNCHEON AT THE VILLA DES ROSES
In front row (left to right) Mr. de Vilaine, Mlle. de Tréville,
Ambassador Wilson, Madame Lefaivre, Mr. J. B. Potter, Mr. Rieloff
(German Consul-general), Mrs. Nelson O'Shaughnessy, Von Hintze, Mr.
Kilvert, Mr. Seger]
One scarcely ever hears of the Mexicans hunting their game, though
there are occasional shooting parties toward the lakes where the
wild duck abound. Some one remarked they would seem to be too busy
stalking one another. The Riedls, the Bonillas, Von Hintze (who is not
much given to picnicking on Sunday, generally spending the holy day
hunting the perpetrators of the Covadonga outrage of last July), Mr.
Potter, Mr. Butler, their English friend Mr. Leveson, Mr. Seeger, the
ambassador and ourselves, made rather an imposing array as we proceeded
through the wilderness, which, however, was "paradise enow."
As you know, when picnickers get hold of a joke nothing but separation
or annihilation causes them to let it go, and Mr. Potter started a
gentle but persistent one as we walked along, about not fearing snakes,
as the presence of the O'Shaughnessys in a forest on St. Patrick's Day
could not do less than rid the paths of them or analogous reptiles. I
was sorry we didn't meet a boa-constrictor, so that he might have said
his neglected Sunday prayers. It was so delightful, under the shade of
the great trees, the sun filtering through with such a fresh warmth,
and the birds singing so sweetly upon what seemed, indeed, a snakeless
paradise that we were positively sorry to come upon the deep, flat
space that holds the old monastery, near whose walls a long table,
evidently known to generations of picnickers, was waiting to groan with
our twentieth-century edibles.
After we had bestirred ourselves with the unpacking, festivities
proceeded as if on a stage. We were almost immediately surrounded
by dozens of Indians, men, women, and children, who furtively and
fortuitously inhabit various parts of the old cloister. During and
afterward they received the overflow from "Dives's table." Several
little tots found pieces of ice, which they carried off in the greatest
excitement--doubtless never seen before, and overrated as to nutritive
qualities.
We refreshed ourselves to the usual accompaniment of quips about
life in general, and in particular what each would do, especially
the fair sex, if surprised by Zapatistas--who give a spice of danger
to festivities in these parts--as "Emiliano's" capital is only over
the near-by blue hills. There was an exceedingly knotty and delicate
question hovering in the air, as to whether, in the event of the
Zapatistas performing their usual rites of removing garments, "would it
be better to be with friends or strangers."
Suppositions about Mexico's future bind every assemblage together, and
Riedl insisted on conversing only in a strange and ingenious language
of his invention, composed of Portuguese, picked up in Rio, Italian in
Rome, and Spanish in Madrid and here--too amusing and clever for words,
and something new to the echoes of that spot.
As he said, "What's the use of traveling if you don't learn something?"
And he insisted on sitting near part of his own contribution to the
picnic, a long and very special kind of _salami_ (sausage) from his
native land, to be taken with some equally celebrated schnapps, called
_Slimbowitz_, also from his native land, and contributing to cordial
relations.
After lunch we walked about the old ruined monastery, inexpressibly
lovely in that solitary spot. Trees grow from what once were cloisters
and cells; the mother-church in its midst is crumbling, pink,
vine-grown, delicious. Thomas Gage, an English monk who visited Mexico
in 1625, found it then in full blast. The old retreat is a mass of
lovely, unexpected details, long galleries, carved lintels, bits of
sculptured vaulting, romantic inclosures, and everywhere some natural
growth to fling a living charm about it all.
The pink belfry still has its old bell, but now when it rings it warns
Zapatistas of the approach of gendarmes instead of calling monks to
prayer. Supporting it and the church behind, roofless and overgrown,
are low, very broad flying buttresses, and several small chapels are
still domed and cupolaed. Fine trees grow everywhere, and the whole is
inclosed by pink, flower-grown, old walls.
The large _patio_, filled with bits of columns, stone beams, and
crumbled mortar, was made lovelier still by some young and beautiful
cherry-trees in full blossom, that rose gently but persistently against
the background of decay.
About five o'clock the sun began to come slanting through the trees,
bringing a warning of night with it, so we regretfully had the things
packed to leave the snakeless paradise, the day done instead of before
us--and there is always a difference. We found ourselves going rather
quietly through a blackly purple forest, though overhead the sky was
still pale blue.
When we got out into the Toluca highway we saw that a great dust-storm
was blowing over the valley. There was no sight of the city; Lake
Texcoco and the hills were veiled. We and the motors were shortly
all of a light, yellowish-gray tinge. The fine earth of the road has
not had a drop of moisture since last September, so you can imagine.
We didn't even try to wave farewells when we got into town, but each
rolled off in the direction of his own roof, to remove the marks of
pleasure. Certainly the six or eight motors must have been a scourge to
the dusty villages through which we passed.
I do enjoy the evenings so, after these long outings, in a tea-gown,
with writing-pad or book on my comfortable sofa, knitting the little
thread to cast across the waters....
_March 18th._
De la Barra is now in Paris and preparing to return. I notice a further
darkening of faces at the imminent prospect.
A Latin-American said to me, _à propos_ of this, "It is a sign of
degeneracy when nations arrive at a point where they are willing
to rend their country into a thousand bits rather than tolerate the
personal success of another." Our beloved maxim, "There's always room
at the top," could be changed here into "there's never room at the
top."
However, everything is interesting, and even the pamphlet I have just
looked over concerning the celebrated Tlahualilo case has the usual
color to it. The river Nazas flows down through the lands of the
Tlahualilo claim, the _aguas baldías_ overflow the banks at certain
seasons and are used for the irrigation of the Laguna district.
The T. Co. had contracted with the Mexican government regarding
its development, including irrigation-works, placing of colonists,
buildings, etc. The Mexican proprietors round about wanted the water,
too, and the T. Co. found itself in the impossibility of fulfilling its
contracts, because it could not get the water necessary to the cotton
crops.
Lack of water is a terrible question in Mexico, cursed with irregular
rainfalls, and rivers few and far between. The Madero family own much
territory in this part of Mexico, and wanted water for themselves.
This is an example of the complications arising when the interests of
a family are the same as the interests of the government over against
foreign capital, without which, however, Mexico cannot exist. The case
was pending during the Diaz régime, and now apparently it is _frito_
since the Madero incumbency, with the inevitable judgment that they had
had sufficient water to fulfil their contract, but had failed to do so.
Humboldt, with his usual up-to-dateness, said, "_Tout devient procès
dans les colonies espagnoles_." There is certainly no change between
his time and mine.... One has an impression that Cortés knew what he
was about when he asked the king not to send him lawyers, but monks
and priests, and of these latter he did not want _les chanoines_. The
separation of Church and State is certainly a blessing to the Church.