Part 12
Two train-loads of Federal soldiers, well armed, have just pulled out of the station, where women were weeping and holding up baskets of food to them as they hung out of the windows. They were laughing and joking as befits warriors. Poor wretches! I couldn’t help my eyes filling with tears. They go to reconnoiter the track for us. I suppose it is known everywhere by now that the American _chargé_ and his wife are held up on that usually safe stretch between Orizaba and Mexico City. A group of armed men are standing in front of my window. They have black water-proof covers for their large hats, like chair covers; the hats underneath are doubtless gray felt, heavily trimmed with silver. One soldier, apparently as an incidental effect, has a poor, red-blanketed Indian attached to him by a lasso tightened around the waist. Nobody pays any attention to them; not even the women, with their babes completely concealed and tightly bound to their backs or breasts by the inevitable _rebozo_. One feels hopelessly sad at the thought of the world of chaos those little heads will, in their time, peep out upon.
A thick and heartbreaking book could be written upon the _soldadera_--the heroic woman who accompanies the army, carrying, in addition to her baby, any other mortal possession, such as a kettle, basket, goat, blanket, parrot, fruit, and the like. These women are the only visible commissariat for the soldiers; they accompany them in their marches; they forage for them and they cook for them; they nurse them, bury them; they receive their money _when_ it is paid. All this they do and keep up with the march of the army, besides rendering any other service the male may happen to require. It is appalling what self-abnegation is involved in this life. And they keep it up until, like poor beasts, they uncomplainingly drop in their tracks--to arise, I hope, in Heaven.
_3 o’clock._
There is some idea that we may start. Men with ropes and hatchets and picks are getting on our train.
_Later._
We arrived at Maltrata to be met by dozens of wet Indian women selling lemons, _tortillas_, and _enchiladas_. Each wore the eternal blue _rebozo_ and a pre-Spanish cut of skirt--a straight piece of cloth bound around the hips, held somewhat fuller in front. They are called _enredadas_, from the fashion of folding the stuff about them. Each, of course, had a baby on her back.
Long lines of rurales came into sight on horseback. With full black capes or brilliant red blankets thrown about their shoulders, their big-brimmed, high-peaked hats, with their black rain-proof covers, these men made a startling and gaudy picture with the underthrill of death and destruction. We have been moving along at a snail’s pace. In a narrow defile we came on one of the train-loads of Federals we had seen leave Orizaba, their guns pointed, ready to fire.
Well, so far, so good. We hear that it was a band of several hundred revolutionaries who attacked the train. The train officials managed to escape under cover of the darkness.
_5.30._
We have just passed the scene of pillage. Dozens of Indians--men, women, and children--are digging out hot bottles of beer, boxes of sardines and other conserves from the smoking wreck. Cars, engine, and everything in them were destroyed after the brigands had selected what they could carry away.
A white mist has settled over the mountain. Many of the Indians are wearing a sort of circular cape made of a thatch of bamboo or grass hanging from their shoulders--a kind of garment often seen in wet weather in this altitude. It is marvelous that in so few hours a new track could be laid by the old one. We are passing gingerly over it, and if nothing else happens we shall be in Mexico City after midnight. I am too tired to feel adventurous to-day and shall be glad to find myself with my babe in the comfortable Embassy, instead of witnessing Zapatista ravages at first hand in a cold, gray mist which tones down not only the local color, but one’s enthusiasm.
MEXICO CITY, _January 12th_.
We finally arrived about one o’clock in the morning, to be met by many newspaper men and the staff of the Embassy, who received us as from the wars. About fifty soldiers got out of the train when we did; and really, in the unsparing station light they had the appearance of assailants rather than of protectors. In a fight it would have been so easy to confuse the rôles. I thought they had long since given up putting forces on passenger-trains; it usually invites attack on account of the guns and ammunition.
However, all’s well that ends well, and I have just had my breakfast in my comfortable bed with my precious boy. They tell me he has been “good” while his mother was away. Mrs. Parker says he insisted on having the lights put out before saying his prayers at night. He was so dead with sleep when I got in that he didn’t open his eyes; only cuddled up to me when he felt me near.
The newspaper gives details of the Maltrata wrecking. The attacking band placed a huge pile of stones on the rails at the entrance to the tunnel, fired on the train, robbed the employees, took what they could of the provisions (they were all mounted and provided with ammunition), and disappeared into the night. Hundreds of workmen have been sent to repair the damage, and a thousand rurales to guard and pursue. The “Mexican” is the big artery between this city and Vera Cruz, and if that line is destroyed we would be entirely cut off. Nothing gets to us from anywhere now except from Vera Cruz. The other line to Vera Cruz--the Interoceanic--has often been held up and is not in favor with levanting families. It is about time for one of the periodical scares, when they leave their comfortable homes with their children and other valuables, for the expensive discomforts of the “Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz.”
XII
Ojinaga evacuated--Tepozotlan’s beautiful old church and convent--Azcapotzalco--A Mexican christening--The release of Vera Estañol--Necaxa--The friars--The wonderful Garcia Pimentel library.
_January 14th._
Yesterday Huerta decided to suspend payment on the interest on the national debt for six months, which will free about three million pesos a month for pacification purposes. He denies anything approaching repudiation, but says this step was forced on him by the attitude of the United States. It will make the European investors rather restive under “watchful waiting,” though they can employ the time by making large and frequent additions to the bill they intend to present to Uncle Sam, _pobrecito_.
Ojinaga has been evacuated by General Mercado, who would better look out for his head. Huerta says he is going to have him shot. Villa will use Ojinaga for strategic purposes, and the refugees, four thousand officers and soldiers and about two thousand five hundred women and children, are eventually to be interned at Fort Bliss. Uncle Sam will present the bill to Mexico later on. They have been started on a four days’ march to Marfa, where they will at last get a train. Mercado says he only surrendered and passed on to American soil when his ammunition gave out. The soldiers and generals--six of these last were in Ojinaga--will not be permitted to return to Mexico until _peace_ is effected. From the head-lines in some _Heralds_ I am sending you, you can see that that won’t be immediately.
Of course our delay on the journey made a sensation. Dr. Ryan heard that we were held up in a tunnel and was planning to get to our relief by hook or crook. He is “without fear and without reproach.” I am very glad to be safe again in this big, comfortable, sun-bathed house.
N. went to see Huerta a day or two ago. The President was most relieved to have him safely back. He asked him the results of his visit to Vera Cruz and N. told him there was no change in the attitude of his government. Huerta remained impassive, and there was no further political conversation. He promised, however, that he would attend to several matters of the United States, in regard to claims, etc., affecting rather large interests. There are some advantages in living under a dictator, if you enjoy his favor, and Huerta would barter his soul to please the United States to the point of recognition.
While not convinced of the necessity, or even advisability, of formal recognition, N. does realize that everything for Mexico and the United States could have been accomplished by diplomacy in the early stages of Huerta’s incumbency. Now the bullying and collusive and secret arrangements with his enemies, the revolutionaries, to overthrow him, must eventually succeed, and in his fall we fear Huerta will take down with him the entire fabric of state. How often he has said, “I don’t ask your help; but don’t help my enemies!”
_Sunday Evening, January 18th._
To-day we had a long motor trip to the old church and convent of Tepozotlan, with Seeger, Hay, the Tozzers, and Elim. There were pistols under the seats, of course, though the road (the old post-road to the north) is not a haunt of the Zapatistas. We drove two hours or more through the dazzling air, the road running for miles between picturesque fields planted with maguey, the Indian’s all, including his perdition. Here and there are collections of adobe huts, with bright-eyed, naked children playing by fences of _nopal_, and sometimes a lovely candelabra cactus standing guard. We passed through Cuauhtitlan--a most interesting place, with its deserted, picturesque hostelries that used to do a lively relay trade in the old coaching days. Each carved door, with glimpses of the big courtyard within, seems to tell the tale of past activities.
Tepozotlan is celebrated for its beautiful old church, with a fine carved façade, built by the Jesuits at the end of the sixteenth century. It was suppressed in 1857, under the Juarez laws of reform, and is now neglected, solitary, and lovely. Cypresses guard the entrance to its grass-grown _patio_, adorned by a few pepper-trees, with here and there an occasional bit of maguey. It was all sun-baked and radiant, receiving the many-colored light and seeming to give it forth again in the magic way of the Mexican plateau. We wandered through the church, which preserves its marvelous altarpieces in the Churrigueresque style, and admired the gilded, high-relief wood carvings, to which time has lent a marvelous red _patiné_. Some of the old chapels are still most beautifully adorned with rich blue Puebla tiles, now loosened and falling from neglected ceilings and walls. The adjoining _seminario_, with its endless corridors and rooms, is dim and deserted, except for spiders and millions of fleas; I thought at first, in my innocence, that these were gnats, as they settled on my white gloves. We lunched in the enchanting old _patio_ of the cloisters, where orange-trees and a _Noche Buena_ tree, with its brilliant red flowers, were growing around an old stone well in the middle. For those hours, at least, we felt that all was well with the world. Afterward we climbed the belfry and feasted our eyes on the beauty unfolded to our sight. East, west, south, and north other pink belfries pressed themselves against other blue hills, repeating the loveliness until one could have wept for the beauty of it all. The almost deserted village, straggling up to the _patio_ of the church, is where Madre Matiana was born at the end of the seventeenth century. She made, on her death-bed, the celebrated prophecies which have been so strangely confirmed by subsequent events in Mexican history.
The Ojinaga refugees, garrison, and civilians are just arriving after the four days’ march through the desert to Marfa and Fort Bliss. This affair has cost $142,000 up to date, and $40,000 were spent for new equipments for officers. I think every officer in Mexico will contemplate, for a brief moment, the idea of crossing the frontier. There will be a good deal of disillusionment and suffering in the detention camp, however, if the soldiers are called on to comply with the hygienic rules of the American army.
[Illustration:
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood
HUERTA’S SOLDIERS WATCHING THE REBEL ADVANCE]
[Illustration:
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood
A GROUP OF OJINAGA REFUGEES]
Jesus Flores Magon, whom we knew as Minister of Gobernación under Madero, a strong and clever man of pronounced Zapoteca Indian type, is going to Vera Cruz at N.’s suggestion, to see Mr. Lind. Flores Magon, who knows his people, says there is no use in “trying out” another government here. Though he was in Madero’s cabinet, he is now for the sustaining of Huerta. He thinks another government would only mean another set of traitors, who would, in turn, be betrayed. N. asked him if he were convinced that Huerta had other aims in view than the graft and personal aggrandizement his enemies credit him with. Though not unreservedly enthusiastic, he answered that he thought he had within him the elements necessary to control in Mexico, but that, like all Indians, he was cruel. Lind is out-and-out for recognizing the northern rebels, or, at least, raising the embargo on arms and ammunition. A terrible policy, it seems to me. Taking from the possessors to give to those desirous of possessing can hardly mend things--here or anywhere. Nothing that Mr. Lind has seen or heard has modified in the slightest the ideas with which he arrived.
_Delendus est Huerta_ is the _mot d’ordre_, and I find myself assisting at the spectacle. I am dazed at this flying in the face of every screaming fact in the situation. N. went to see Moheno yesterday, with the usual bundle of claims against the government, and M. said, in a wild, distraught way: “My God! When are you going to intervene? You are strangling us by this policy.”
We hear from a railroad man (they are always informed) that there are two thousand well-armed men in Oaxaca, doing nothing--simply awaiting orders. They are Felicistas. Everybody is waiting to betray everybody else.
I had to stop writing for a few minutes; one of those strange accompaniments of life in Mexico has just manifested itself--a slight earthquake. The doors that were ajar swung quietly open and as quietly closed themselves. The chandeliers were thrown out of plumb in a rhythmic way; there was a sliding sound of small objects from their position and then back. I had an unpleasant sort of depolarized sensation. It is all over now--the _temblor_, as they call it. But I feel as if some ghost has passed through the room, leaving me not quite the same.
_January 20th._
The papers have the report of the five hours’ conversation between Flores Magon and Lind at Vera Cruz. Lind is reported as saying: “Flores Magon is a splendid gentleman, with the welfare of Mexico at heart.”
We continually ask ourselves what is going to happen. Mexico is not, by any means, starved out; there is plenty of food, there is money for oil stock and bull-fights, and other necessaries. We may have to see Pancho Villa in a dress-suit. He has collected wives, as he would anything else, in his _paso de vencedor_ through Mexico, and I understand that some of them are curios. I suppose accident will decide which one he will turn up with as “first lady in the land.” A recent portrait of one of them drove a woman we knew nearly crazy. It showed the “bride” decked out in an old family necklace forcibly taken from our friend, with other valuables, before her flight from Torreon.
Yesterday I went to the christening of the Corcuera Pimentel baby. The young mother, very pretty, was still in bed, enveloped in beautiful and costly laces, and the house was full of handsome relatives. After I had congratulated her, Don Luis, her father, took me out to tea. The table was laden with all sorts of delicacies, foreign and domestic. I partook of the delicious _tamales_, appetizingly done up and cooked in corn-husks _à la Mexicaine_, and drank _atolli aurora_, a thick, pink drink of corn-meal and milk, flavored with cinnamon and colored with a dash of carmine--though less exotic dainties were pressed on me.
_January 21st._
Yesterday was a busy day. To show you how difficult it often is to get hold of Huerta,--N. was up and out at seven-thirty, looking for him. He went to his house--gone. He went to Popotla, a place Huerta has in the suburbs near the _Noche Triste_[8] tree. Not there. N. came home. I was just starting down-town, so I drove him to the Palace, where one of the aides said the President might be found at Chapultepec--the restaurant, not the castle, which he does not affect. We again went the length of the city, from the Zocalo, through Plateros, up the beautiful, broad _Paseo_. Huerta was just passing through the entrance to the Park in a big limousine, followed by two other automobiles containing secretaries and aides. N. got out of our auto and went into that of the President, the others keeping their distance. There is always more or less “waiting around” on royalty. They sat there for an hour, I remaining in our auto, during which time N. procured the release of Vera Estañol, one of the most brilliant of the Deputies, imprisoned since the _coup d’état_ of October 10th. Huerta also sent one of his aides with a note to the Supreme Court, written and signed by him, telling the judges to render a just decision in a case affecting American interests, which is now before the court. This case has been in the Embassy nearly twenty years, and four of our administrations have tried, without result, to get justice done through the Embassy, using every form of diplomatic representation. Though N. saw him write the order, and the auto which took the note started off in the direction of the Supreme Court, and returned, having delivered it, no one can tell what wink may later be given the judges.
I came home and ordered a room to be prepared for Vera Estañol, as, of course, he must remain with us until he can be shipped to the States or to Europe. I imagine that the clean bed and the hot water and the reading-lamp and desk will look very pleasant, after three months in jail. N. wrote and signed a letter to Huerta, in which he guarantees that Vera Estañol will not mix in politics and will immediately leave the country with his family. He is one of the most prominent and gifted lawyers in the republic, liberal and enlightened, and head of the Evolucionista party. N. was out until midnight trying to find the President, to get the final order for his release, but was, in the end, obliged to give it up. The old man has ways of disappearing when no one can track him to ground. This morning, N. is after him again, and, I suppose, will bring Vera Estañol to the house, whence he will take the well-worn route of hastily departing patriots to Vera Cruz.
Yesterday afternoon Mrs. Tozzer, Mr. Seeger, and I motored out beyond Azcapotzalco, where Tozzer and Hay are excavating. Anywhere one digs in these suburbs may be found countless relics of Aztec civilization. Azcapotzalco was once a teeming center, a great capital, and there were then, as now, many cypress groves. One of them is still supposed to be haunted by Marina, Cortés’ Indian love.
Built on the site of the temple, _teocalli_, is an interesting old Dominican church of the sixteenth century; its great _patio_, planted with olive and cypress trees is inclosed by a pink scalloped wall, marvelously _patiné_. Here the Indians came in masses, were baptized, had their wounds bound up, their ailments treated, their strifes allayed, by the patient friars. As we went slowly over the broken, neglected road little boys offered us beads and idols and bits of pottery, which are so abundant in the fields that it is scarcely necessary to dig for them. T. and C. H., for their work, simply chose a likely-looking sun-baked mound, planted with maguey, like dozens of others, and with twenty-five or thirty picturesque and untrustworthy descendants of Montezuma (one skips back six or seven hundred years with the greatest ease when one looks at them) they dug out an old palace. When we demanded _regalitos_ (presents), our friends drew, unwillingly, from their dusty pockets some hideous heads and grotesque forms, caressed them lovingly, and then put them back, unable, when it came to the scratch, to part with them.
[Illustration: THE “DIGGINGS” (AZCAPOTZALCO)]
[Illustration: THE PYRAMID OF SAN JUAN TEOTIHUACAN]
It is a heavenly spot. Here and there a pink belfry showed itself, its outline broken by a dead black cypress; the marvelous, indescribable hills, both near and far, swam in a strange transparency.
We sat long among the grubby, mixed Toltec and Aztec ruins, and made tea, and, in what may have been some patrician’s parlor, watched the sun go down in a blaze of colors, reappearing, as it were, to fling a last, unexpected glory over the snow-covered volcanoes and the violet hills. Every shaft of maguey was outlined with light, the whole universe a soft spectrum. A mysterious, blue-lined darkness fell upon us as we drove toward the city.
_January 23d._
N. was only able to get Vera Estañol out of the _Penitenciaría_ on Wednesday afternoon. He didn’t come here, but was taken immediately to the station, caught the night train to Vera Cruz, and sailed yesterday, Thursday, by the Ward Line steamer. When N. went to the prison with the President’s aide, carrying the order for his release and the duly signed safe-conduct, Estañol came into the waiting-room with a volume of Taine’s _Histoire Contemporaine_ in his hand, and the detached air acquired by persons who have long been in jail. There was scarcely any conversation, his one idea being to leave the building and get to the train under American cover.
Huerta told N. yesterday that General Mercado had been bribed by wealthy persons in Chihuahua to go to Ojinaga on the frontier, instead of going to Jimenez, where he had been ordered. He feels very bitter toward Mercado, who cost him 4,000 good soldiers. Mercado makes all sorts of counter-charges against the other generals, especially against Orozco--of cowardice, of placing drunken officers in important positions, and of robbing their own Federal trains of provisions. General Inez Salazar’s fate is tragi-comic. He was arrested for playing “a little game of cards” on the Texas train, never suspecting that in a free country you could not do such a thing. After escaping the rebels and the American authorities he was most chagrined to be jailed and consequently identified just as he was about to recross the border into Mexico.
Wednesday we had a pleasant lunch at the Norwegian Legation. The Norwegian minister is the son of Jonas Lie. He and his wife are cultivated people of the world, and kind friends. Madame Lie always has delicious things to eat, very handsomely served. One knows that when things are well done here it means that the lady of the house has given them her personal care. In the evening there was bridge at Mme. Bonilla’s. The lights suddenly went out, as we were playing, and remained out. As is usual in such occurrences, the cry was, “At last the Zapatistas are cutting the wires!” Madame B. got out some beautiful old silver candlesticks and we played on recklessly, with our fate, perhaps, upon us. The street lamps were also dark.