Part 13
Mexico City is lighted from Necaxa, nearly a hundred miles away, and one of the loveliest spots in the world. In a day one drops down from the plateau into the hot country; the train seems to follow the river, which flows through a wild and beautiful _barranca_, and at Necaxa are the great falls supplying the power for this wonderful feat of engineering. In my mind it is a memory of blue skies, enchanting vistas of blue mountains, myriads of blue butterflies against falling water, bright singing birds, and the most gorgeous and richest of tropical vegetation, vine-twisted trees, orchids, morning-glories of all kinds, and countless other magnificences. I sometimes think that it is because Mother Earth is so lavish here, asking only to give, demanding nothing of her children, that they have become rather like spoiled children. Every mountain oozes with precious ores. On the coast, any accidental hole in the earth may reveal the oil for which the world is so greedy; and each green thing left to itself will come up a thousandfold. Marvelous, magical Mexico! A white moon is shining in through the windows of the front _salon_, making my electric lamp seem a dull thing. At this altitude the moonlight cuts out objects as if with a steel point.
Yesterday, Mr. Prince, Aunt Laura’s friend, and brother-in-law of Mr. C., came to lunch. Mr. C. died during the bombardment, and in his last illness was moved from house to hospital, and from the hospital, when that was shelled, to another house, opposite the Embassy. During the armistice Mr. P. was able to go out for a coffin, and to take it himself on a cab to the cemetery. This was the only way to dispose of it, the town being under fire at the time. That same week one of the little boys had his foot crushed by the tramway, and it had to be amputated while shot and shell were falling and his father was lying dead. Emma, the child who fell through my glass roof, two years ago, has never since walked. A chapter of tragedies! Mrs. C. is now in the States, trying to recuperate.
Hanihara, the bright secretary from the Japanese Foreign Office, who is here to look into the conditions and, doubtless, the possibilities of the Japanese situation in Mexico, turned up yesterday; we used to know him in Washington. He speaks English perfectly, and is Europeanized, externally, to an unusual extent, but, of course, he remains completely Japanese at bottom. I shall give a luncheon for him at Chapultepec, with his minister, the retiring Austrian _chargé_, and the new Italian minister, who fell at my door, the day before yesterday, and was laid up with a bad knee. I had him bound up by Dr. Ryan.
I saw a man yesterday who had known Villa in his purely peon days; he said some mental, if not moral, evolution had been going on; among other things, he generally keeps to the regulation amount of clothing, but a collar gets on his nerves almost as much as the mention of Porfirio Diaz--his pet abomination. He keeps himself fairly clean, and has shown himself clever about finding capable agents to whom he is willing to leave the gentler mysteries of the three R’s. We wonder who is getting out certain polished political statements appearing under his name. What he once did to an official document, on an official occasion, instead of signing his name, pen cannot relate. He evidently has military gifts, but remains, unfortunately, one of the most ignorant, sanguinary, and ruthless men in Mexico’s history, knowing nothing of the amenities of life, nothing of statesmanship, nor of government in any form except force. And he may inhabit Chapultepec.
D’Antin brought home a beautiful _saltillo_, a hand-woven, woolen sort of _serape_, about a hundred years old, that he got from an Indian at a price so small I hate to think of it. He saw it on the Indian on the street, one cold night, and his clever eye realized what it was. I am not quite happy about it; but I have had it disinfected and cleaned. I can only bring myself to use it because some one said the Indian had probably stolen it.
Elim is singing at the top of his voice the popular air, “_Marieta, no seas coqueta porque los hombres son muy malos_” (“Marieta, don’t be a coquette, because men are very wicked”).
_January 23d, Evening._
I spent a quiet evening reading the fascinating book Don L. Garcia Pimentel sent me yesterday, _Bibliografia Mexicana de lo Siglo XVI_. I am impressed anew with the wonderful work done by that handful of friars, Franciscans and Dominicans, who came over immediately after Cortés and began with the Conquistadores the work of Spanish civilization in the new world. Their first acts, as they made their way through the country, were to do away with the bloody sacrificial rites which disgraced and discredited the Aztec civilization. They built everywhere churches, hospitals, and schools, teaching gentler truths to the Indians, who gathered by thousands for instruction in the beautiful old _patios_ to be found in front of all the colonial churches.
One might almost say that Mexico was civilized by that handful of friars, sixteen or seventeen in all, who came over during the first eight or ten years following the Conquest. Their burning zeal to give the true faith to the Indians dotted this beautiful land with countless churches, and an energy of which we can have no conception changed the gorgeous wilderness into a great kingdom. Padre Gante, one of the greatest of them, who arrived in 1522, was related to the Emperor Charles V. He had been a man of the world, and was a musician and an artist. He had his celebrated school at Tlaltelolco, now the Plaza de Santiago, which, shabby and shorn of all its ancient beauty, is used as the city customs headquarters. He wrote his _Doctrina Christiana_ and baptized hundreds of thousands of Indians during his fifty years’ work. He not only taught them to read and write, but started schools of drawing and painting, at which he found them very apt. They already possessed formulas for all sorts of beautiful colors, and had their own arts, such as the glazing and painting of potteries, the making of marvelous garments of bright birds’ feathers, and of objects in gold and silver, of the finest workmanship. In the museum one can see beautiful old maps of Mexico City when she was Anahuac, the glory of the Aztecs, painted on cloth made from the maguey.
Fray Bartolomé de las Casas worked with Fray Gante, and they were greatly aided by the first viceroys. Fray Motolinía came later, and his _Historia de los Indios_ is the reference book of all succeeding works on _Nueva Espagna_. The friars tried by every means to alleviate the miseries of the Indians, and hospitals, homes for the aged and decrepit, orphanages and asylums of all kinds were established. The generation which immediately succeeded the Conquest must have been a tragic spectacle, exhausted by resistance and later on by the pitiless work of rebuilding cities, especially Mexico City, which was done in four years--to the sound of the whip. The viceroys were responsible only to the _Consejo de las Indias_, in far-away Spain, and their success came naturally to be judged by the riches they secured from this treasure-house of the world, at the expense, of course, of the Indians, though many of the viceroys tried honestly, in conjunction with the friars, to alleviate the Indian lot. Seven or eight volumes of hitherto unpublished works are waiting for me from Don Luis Garcia Pimentel, to one of whose ancestors, Conde de Benavente, Motolinía dedicated his _Historia de los Indios_. I have simply steeped myself in _Mexicana_--from the letters of Cortés, the recitals of Bernal Diaz, who came over with him, down to Aleman and Madame Calderon de la Barca.
Well, it is getting late and I must stop, but the history of Mexico is without exception the most fascinating, the most romantic, and the most improbable in the world; and the seed of Spanish civilization implanted in this marvelous land has produced a florescence so magnetic, so magical, that the dullest feel its charm. All that has been done for Mexico the Spaniards did, despite their cruelties, their greeds, and their passions. We, of the north, have used it only as a quarry, leaving no monuments to God nor testaments to man in place of the treasure that we have piled on departing ship or train. Now we seem to be handing back to Indians very like those the Spaniards found, the fruits of a great civilization, for them to trample in the dust. Let us _not_ call it human service.
_January 24th._
Von Hintze came in for a while this morning. Like all the foreign representatives, he is weary of his work here; so many _ennuis_, so much waiting for what they all believe alone can be the outcome now--American supremacy in some form.
Shots were heard in town last night. Dr. Ryan, who is making his home with us, thought it might be the long-threatened _cuartelazo_ (barracks’ revolution), and went out to see, but it turned out to be only a little private shooting. The Burnsides have gone to live at Vera Cruz.
_January 26th._
Only a word before beginning a busy day. I must go out to Chapultepec to see that the luncheon of twelve, for Hanihara and Cambiaggio, is all right. The town is filling with Japanese officers from the _Idzuma_, lying at Manzanillo. There will be a veritable demonstration for them, indicating very completely the anti-American feeling. There is an enormous official program for every hour until Friday night, when they return to their ship.
_Evening._
My luncheon for Hanihara went off very pleasantly, at Chapultepec. That restaurant is the knife with which I have cut the gordion knot of entertaining. The new Italian minister was there, the Norwegians, Mr. E. N. Brown, president of the National Railways, Parra, from the Foreign Office, and others. We reached home at four o’clock, and I drove immediately to the Garcia Pimentels, where Don Luis was waiting to show me some of the special treasures in his library. Up-stairs, the handsome daughters and their equally handsome friends, married and single, were sewing for the Red Cross. We meet there every Tuesday. Each daughter had a beautifully embroidered _rebozo_ thrown over her smart Paris gown _à la Mexicana_--heirlooms of the family.
The house is one of the noble, old-style Mexican edifices, with a large _patio_, and a fine stairway leading up to the corridor that winds around its four palm- and flower-banked sides. Large, handsome rooms, with pictures, rare engravings, priceless porcelains, and old brocades, open from the corridor. I merely put my head in at the door of the big drawing-room where they were working, as Don Luis was waiting for me in his library down-stairs. I spent a couple of delightful hours with him, among his treasures, so lovingly guarded through generations. Oh, those fascinating title-pages in reds and blacks, that thick, rich-feeling hand-woven paper, that changeless ink, fit to perpetuate those romantic histories and the superhuman achievement of the men of God! I could scarcely put down the beautifully written letter of Cortés to Charles V., wherein he tells of the Indians as he found them. They so closely resemble the Indians as _I_ have found them.
Many of Don Luis’s most valuable books and manuscripts were found in Spain, and his library of _Mexicana_ embraces everything obtainable down to our own time.[9] His wife is a charming woman, very _grande dame_, cultivated, and handsome. She and her daughters are always busy with countless works of charity. Just now they are busy making up little bundles of layettes for the maternity home. It does make one’s fingers nimble to see Indian women obliged to wrap their babies in newspapers!
I had just time to get home and dress for dinner at the British Legation, but we came away at half past nine, leaving the rest of the party playing bridge. I had on again the gray-and-silver Worth dress, but I feel sad without my black things.
_Evening, January 27th._
This afternoon I went with de Soto to see Mme. Lefaivre at the Museo Nacional, where she is copying an old Spanish screen. It is always a pleasure to go through the lovely, sun-baked _patio_, filled with gods and altars of a lost race. Many of them, found in the _Zocalo_, have made but a short journey to their resting-place. De Soto is always an agreeable companion for any little excursion into the past--though it isn’t the _past_ we are dreaming about, these days. And as for his looks, put a lace ruff and a velvet doublet on him and he would be a “Velasquez” of the best epoch.
Mme. Lefaivre, enveloped in an apron, was sitting on a little step-ladder before the largest screen I have ever seen, its eight mammoth leaves representing various amorous scenes, lovers, balconies, guitars, etc.--all most decorative and truly ambassadorial. I told her that nothing but the Farnese Palace would be big enough for it, and the light of dreams--the kind of dreams we all dream--appeared in her eyes. The big sala was getting a bit dim, so she left her work and we started for a turn through the museum. When we found ourselves talking of Huerta by the “Morning Star,” a mysterious, hard-faced, green god (his little name is Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli), I thought we might as well take a turn in the motor; so we went up to Chapultepec and continued the discourse under the cypresses, which are growing, though slowly, with the living events that alone really interest one. The past is for those with peace and leisure.
_Evening._
A quiet day, but we are distressed beyond words at the renewed reports of a lifting of the embargo on arms and ammunition for the rebels. I feel as if I couldn’t stand it, and N. even felt that he ought to resign if it happens. The ship of state is going so inevitably on the rocks. He will make some sort of protest to Washington against the advisability of this move. Villa’s cry is “On to Mexico,” and he may get there, or rather, here--if we decide to carry him.
It appears that he is becoming daily more intoxicated by the favors of the United States. No one is more surprised than he at his success with the powers that be, and as for the vogue he has with the confidential agents, they tell me his face is one broad grin whenever their names are mentioned. However, this doesn’t mean he is going to try to please them. Just now he wants Huerta’s head, but that foxy old head can have asylum here. Shouts and shots were heard an hour or so ago, but probably only from some Zapatistas near town.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] The celebrated _Arbol de la Noche Triste_ is an old, weather-beaten cypress, which has been cherished and doctored by botanical commissioners and outraged by mobs. Under it Cortés is supposed to have sat and wept as he saw defile before him the tattered remnants of his army after the terrible retreat from Tenochtitlan, July 2, 1520. There are three of these especially historic trees which survived the horrors of the Conquest--the others are the _Arbol de Montezuma_, in the Chapultepec park, and the great Tree of Tule, in Oaxaca, which sheltered Cortés and his venturesome company on their way to Honduras.--E. O’S.
[9] This noble house has since passed into alien hands, and the great library is scattered. Señora Garcia Pimentel was, fortunately, able to send a few of the most valuable manuscripts to England--the Cortés letters, the famous Motolinía manuscript, dedicated to the Conde de Benavente, a first edition of Cervantes, the “Dialogos” of Salazar, and a volume or two of Padre de la Vera Cruz and Padre Sahagun. She and her unmarried daughter took these away, concealed under shawls, when they were obliged to leave the house. There had been a sudden loud knocking at the door in the dead of night, followed by the entry of Carranzista officials. Madame Garcia Pimentel and her beautiful daughter were alone in the house at the time; the father and sons, in danger of their lives, had been secretly got to Vera Cruz, some time before.
The far-famed library of Casasus has also been scattered, its treasures destroyed. Sometimes a priceless volume has been bought for a few cents from a street vender, by some one on the lookout, but mostly these treasures have forever disappeared.--E. O’S.
XIII
Gamboa--Fêtes for the Japanese officers--The Pius Fund--The Toluca road--Brown, of the National Railways--President Wilson raises the embargo on arms and ammunition--Hunting for Zapatistas.
_January 29th._
Yesterday the handsome Mexican set came for bridge, and in the evening we went to dine at Señor Pardo’s house. He is the clever attorney for the “Mexican” railways. Federico Gamboa and his wife were there. Gamboa is most amusing, with one of those minds that answer to the point in conversation, what the French call _le don de la réplique_. He was Minister for Foreign Affairs last summer, and resigned to run for President, as choice of the Clerical party. Huerta said, quite frankly, of him to N. a few days ago, “I told him I liked him and wished him well, but if he had been elected President I should have had him shot.”
Gamboa’s answer to Mr. L. last August, though not satisfactory to _us_ when laid by Mr. Wilson before Congress, remains a dignified, clever, and unimpeachable _exposé_ of the Mexican situation from _their_ point of view, which is that the United States, by every international law, is unwarranted in interfering in their interior affairs, as these, however unfortunate, are those of a sovereign state. They never got over the fact that the communications Mr. Lind brought with him were tactfully addressed to no one in particular, and referred to the government as “the persons who at the present time have authority or exercise influence in Mexico.” They consider that if they even once allowed such counsel from the United States they would compromise indefinitely their destinies as a sovereign state.
As for the phrase “the United States will not hesitate to consummate matters, especially in times of domestic trouble, in the way that they, the United States, consider best for Mexico”--it is graven on the mind of every Mexican who can read and write. Concerning our professions of friendship, which left them decidedly cold, Gamboa neatly said that never could there be a more propitious time for displaying it, that we had “only to watch that no material or military assistance of any kind be given to the rebels who find refuge, conspire, and provide themselves with arms and food on the other side of the border.” He further quietly states that he is greatly surprised that Mr. Lind’s mission should be termed a “mission of peace,” as, fortunately, neither then nor to-day had there existed any state of war between Mexico and the United States. The whole document is the tragic and bootless appeal of a weak nation to a strong.
Gamboa has had numerous diplomatic posts. He was minister to Brussels and to The Hague, and special ambassador to Spain to thank the King for
## participation in the Centenary of 1910....
After the Pardo dinner, two bright-eyed, clear-voiced Mexican girls, one of them Pardo’s daughter, sang Mexican songs with the true beat and lilt to them. Hanihara was also there, listening to the music in the usual detached, Oriental manner. The Japanese officers are being tremendously _fêted_, fed by each and every department of the government, till I should think their abstemious “little Marys” would rebel.
After dinner we walked home, a short distance, in the mild night, under a strangely low and starry sky. It seemed to me that by reaching out I could have had a planet for my own. The streets were deserted, save for an occasional Mexican, hurrying home, with his scarf across his mouth. There is a tradition here about not inhaling the night air. Here and there a _guardia_ shivered in the shadows, as he watched his lantern, which he always places in the middle of the four crossings. One can walk with jewels gleaming, and without fear, under the Dictator.
Dr. Ryan left last night for Washington. I don’t like to interfere with any one’s _premier mouvement_, but I know it for an expensive, bootless trip. No one will care what he thinks about the certain consequences of the raising of the embargo.
The rebels have just destroyed twenty-two huge tanks of oil near Tampico, destined for the running of the railroad between San Luis Potosí and the coast. I think I told you Mr. Brown said that the gross receipts had never been so big on his lines as last month, in spite of the danger in traveling, but that they could not keep pace with the immense damage going on all the time. Mr. Brown is the self-made man of story. He began at the foot of the ladder and is now the president of the “National Railways”; quiet, poised, shrewd, and agreeable. Mexico owes him much.
_Evening._
The Mexican papers come out with the statement that President Wilson can’t raise the embargo on arms and ammunition without the consent of Congress, which, if true, removes it as an immediate calamity.
This morning they rang up from the American grocery to say that the stores ordered yesterday had not arrived, as the man who was delivering them was taken by the press-gang, with all the provisions. A nice way to popularize a government!
Nelson has been requested by the powers that be to use his influence about the release of a certain American, the suggestion being added that he should not be too cordial with Huerta in public, as the United States was on official, _not_ friendly terms with Mexico. The old man would shut up like a clam and never raise a finger for N., or any American, or any American interests, if N. did not treat him with _both_ public and private courtesy. In these difficult days the position here is almost entirely a personal equation. N. has danced the tight-rope, up to now, to the satisfaction of almost everybody, in spite of the inevitable jealousies and enmities. It is entirely due to N.’s personal efforts that the Pius Fund of $43,000, has just been paid; due to him that many prisoners have been released, and that many material ends have been gained for the United States.
I think history will testify that Huerta showed much tact in dealing with us. His latest remark is, “If our great and important neighbor to the north chooses to withhold her friendship, we can but deplore it--and try to perform our task without her.”
Elim asked me, yesterday, “Where is our Uncle Sam, that everybody talks about?” He thought he was on the track of a new relative.
_Later._
A military revolt is brewing here--Felicista. N. got wind of it. If it comes, they must give us Huerta, and have so promised. We have had comparative, very comparative, quiet for a few weeks, and now things are seething again.
There is a room here always ready, which we call _nacht asyl_, and various uneasy heads have rested there in the famous “bed of the murderess.” Yesterday I bought a lot of lovely dull blue-and-white _serapes_ for the floor and couch.