Part 18

You will remember that months ago we gave asylum for a week to Manuel Bonilla, and then conveyed him to Vera Cruz, under dramatic circumstances, on his promise not to join the rebels. Well, he joined the rebels as quickly as time and space would allow, and we read in this morning’s newspaper that he has now been jailed by Carranza for plotting against _him_. I suppose he got dissatisfied with what he was getting out of the rebels, and tried something subversive that looked promising. If Carranza gets any kind of proof against him--or probably without it--he will execute him some morning, in the dawn. Oh, the thousands of men who have walked out in the chilly, pale, Mexican dawn to render their last accounts!

_March 17th._

Yesterday I did not write. Aunt L. arrived unexpectedly, at eight o’clock, and no one was at the station to meet her. However, all’s well that ends well, and she is now up in her red-carpeted, red-and-gold-papered, sun-flooded room, and I hope will take a good rest. By way of variety, not that I have much to choose from, I put _Marius the Epicurean_ and _The Passionate Friends_ on her night-table, with a single white rose. She has ridden her own situation so courageously and so wittily all these years, that I am thankful to have her here where she can turn that charming blue eye of hers, which so makes me think of yours, on _my_ situation. When I looked into her face this morning, I quite understood why they call her the “Angel of the Isthmus.”

News from the north shows slow, but sure, disintegration of the rebel ranks. It is the old story of the house divided against itself. Also, Villa may be yielding to the Capuan-like delights of Chihuahua and hesitating to undertake a new, and perhaps inglorious, campaign against Torreon. Just how Mr. Lind takes the slump in rebels--for a slump there certainly has been--I don’t know. We are beginning to see the results of the long months of cabling his dreams to the President, who, I am sure, if he ever awakes to the real kind of bedfellows, that he has been dreaming with, will nearly die. The Washington cerebration doesn’t take in readily the kind of things that happen here. All is known about burglars, white-slave trade, wicked corporations, unfaithful stewards, defaulting Sunday-school superintendents, baseball cheats, and the like; but the murky, exotic passions that move Villa are entirely outside consciousness.

Poor, old, frightened Carranza must feel more than uneasy at the thought of that great, lowering brute in the flush of triumph, who is waiting for him on the raised dais in the government house at Chihuahua. His “cause” is dead if he listens to Villa--and _he_ is dead if he doesn’t.

I had a call from the ---- minister this morning, and a talk about the matters none of us can keep away from. He looks at politics without illusion and in a rather Bismarckian way. He says we Americans are in the act of destroying a people which is just becoming conscious of itself and could, in a few generations, become a nation; but that it never will do so, because we are going to strangle its first cry. He considers that it is a geographical and ethical necessity for us to have no armed nation between us and Panama, and if we can have the patience and the iron nerves to watch its dissolution on the lines we are now pursuing, it will be ours without a shot. But he adds that we will get nervous, as all moderns do, watching a people on the rack, and our policy will break. He added, with a smile, that nations are like women, nervous and inconsistent; and that, happily for the Mexicans and foreign Powers interested, we won’t be able to stand the strain of watching the horrors our policy would entail. I cried out against this

## parting shot, but he went off with an unconvinced gesture.

_March 19th._

Yesterday we went to Chapultepec for the _fiançailles_ of the second son of Huerta and the daughter of General Hernandez, now at the front. It was a large gathering, at which many elements of the old society were present. The powerful, wealthy, _chic_ Rincon Gaillardo clan are playing the part in the Huerta government that the Escandons did in the Diaz régime--a work of amalgamation, though they consistently boycotted the Madero régime. Of course, there were many “curiosities.” The two spinster sisters of Huerta were there with their flat, strong Indian faces and thick, dark wigs _or_ hair, naturally steered one of them toward old gold for a costume, and the other toward shot blue and red; but they were dignified and smiling. Señora Blanquet is another curiosity. Blanquet himself is one of the handsomest and most _distingué_-looking elderly men I have ever seen; but his wife, was squat, and flat-faced, and very dark, seeming to have come out of some long-hidden corner of his history. Madame Huerta looked very handsome and amiable in a good dress of white silk veiled with fine, black lace, the famous big, round diamond hung by a slender chain about her neck.

The prospective bridegroom, twenty-three, had his mother’s eyes; and the family seemed happy in a nice, simple way in the midst of their grandeur. The “tearless” old man was in high spirits, and his speech at the tea was a great success of spontaneity, with a few fundamental truths and many flashes of humor. He began by telling the young couple not to count on him, or his position, but on their own efforts to create position and honor; and to begin modestly.

“You know how I began,” he added, with what I can only call a grin illuminating his whole face, “and look at me now!”

Of course everybody applauded and laughed. Then he became grave again. “Struggle,” he said, “is the essence of life, and those who are not called on to struggle are forgotten of Heaven. You all know what I am carrying.” He told them, also, to honor and respect each other, and to try to be models; adding, with another flash, “I have been a model, but a mediocre one!” (“_Yo he sido un modelo--pero mediano!_”)

It all passed off very genially, with much drinking of healths. Huerta has a way of moving his hands and arms when he speaks, sometimes his whole body, without giving any impression of animation; but those old eyes look at any one he addresses in the concentrated manner of the born leader. He had had a meeting of many of the big _hacendados_, to beg their moral support in the national crisis, and I imagine their attitude had been very satisfactory. They are to contribute, among other things, one hundred and sixty horses to haul the new cannon and field-pieces shortly coming from France. They are each to supply ten men, etc. He was wise enough to ask them to do things they _could_ do....

I saw a silver rebel peso the other day. It had _ejercito constitucionalista_ for part of its device, and the rest was “_Muera Huerta!_” (“Death to Huerta!”) instead of some more gentle thought, as “In God we trust.”

The stories of rebel excesses brought here, by refugees from Durango, pass all description. It was the Constitucionalistas under General Tomas Urbina who had the first “go” at the town, and it was the priests, especially, that suffered. The Jesuit and Carmelite churches were looted, and when they got to the cathedral they had the finest little game of _saqueo_[11] imaginable, breaking open the tombs of long-dead bishops and prying the dusty remains out with their bayonets, in the hunt for valuables, after having rifled the sacristy of the holy vessels and priceless old vestments. The wife of the rebel _cabecilla_ wore, in her carriage (or, rather, in somebody else’s carriage), the velvet mantle taken from the Virgen del Carmen, in the cathedral. The priests can’t even get into the churches to say Mass, and their principal occupation seems to be ringing the bells on the saint’s day of any little chieftain who happens to find himself in Durango. The orgies that go on in the Government house are a combination of drunkenness, revelings with women of the town (who are decked out in the jewels and clothes of the former society women of Durango), breaking furniture and window-panes, and brawlings. The once well-to-do people of the town go about in _peon_ clothes; anything else would be stripped from them. This seems to be “constitutionalism” in its fullest Mexican sense, and what crimes are committed in its name! Heaps of handsome furniture, bronzes, pianos, and paintings, once the appurtenances of the upper-class homes, fill the plaza, or are thrown on dust-heaps outside the town, too cumbersome to be handled by the rebels and too far from the border to sell to the Texans,--to whom, I understand, much of the loot of Chihuahua goes for absurd prices.

FOOTNOTE:

[11] _Saqueo_ (sacking).

XVIII

Back to Vera Cruz--Luncheon on the _Chester_--San Juan’s prison horrors--Tea on the _Mayflower_--The ministry of war and the commissary methods--Torreon falls again?--Don Eduardo Iturbide.

VERA CRUZ, _March 21st_.

N.’s sciatica is so bad that Dr. Fichtner told him to get to sea-level immediately. So last night we left, Dr. Ryan coming with us. At the station we found a guard of fifty of the crack Twenty-ninth Regiment to “protect” us, and a car placed at our disposal by Huerta. We had already arranged to go with Hohler and Mr. Easton, who is the secretary of the National lines, in his private car, thinking we wouldn’t put the government to the expense of one specially for us--though, as the government already owes some millions to the railroads, a few hundreds more or less would make little difference. We were half an hour late, as we insisted upon having the government car put off; but the fifty soldiers, with a nice young captain, suffering from an acute attack of tonsilitis, we could not shake.

At Vera Cruz we found a norther blowing, and I was glad to have my tailor-made suits. Mr. Lind seemed not quite so well as before. I think eight months of Vera Cruz food and monotony have told on him, besides the evident failure of his policy. He feels dreadfully about the Creelman article. He cast one look of supreme chagrin at me when I mentioned Shanklin’s disgust at being quoted as having found Huerta in the _coulisses_ of a theater, with an actress on each knee, and with another hanging around his neck, feeding him brandy. The truth being that Shanklin went to pay his respects to him in his box at some charity representation, and found Huerta, mightily bored, sitting alone with two aides. The Lind thing is not so easy to refute. He _did_ write the letter to the rebel, Medina, and he has dreamed dreams, and sent them on to Washington. His policy is a dead failure, and I think its ghost walks with him at night.

We lunched on the _Chester_ with Captain Moffett, who is most discriminating about the whole situation, and, after an hour on the wind-swept deck, came back to the car, where we found delightful, spontaneous Captain McDougall, of the _Mayflower_, come to ask us if we wouldn’t transfer our bags and ourselves and servant over to his ship. The annoying part of the whole trip is that Admiral Fletcher is in Mexico City. We did not tell any one of our coming down to Vera Cruz, nor did he announce that he was coming up, with Mrs. Fletcher and his two daughters. However, it is simply one of those annoying _contretemps_ for which there is no help. They went up by the “Interoceanic” route as we came down by the “Mexican.” I would have returned myself, leaving N. on the _Mayflower_; but he feels that he must carry out the plan of returning to-morrow night, as he has correspondence that he wants to show the admiral.

_Sunday._

Last night we dined on the _Essex_, to which Admiral Cradock has transferred his flag, the _Suffolk_ having gone to Bermuda for a new coat of paint and other furbishings. Admiral Cradock is always the same delightful friend and companion. I played bridge till a late hour, with the admiral, Hohler, and Captain Watson. Watson has just come from Berlin, where for three years he was naval _attaché_. I saw many photographs of old friends--the Granvilles, Sir Edward Goschen, the Grews, the Kaiser. After a rather uncertain trip back to the shore, Hohler, Nelson, and myself threaded our way along the dark interstices of the Vera Cruz wharves and terminal tracks to the car--I, in long dress and thin slippers, bowed to the _norte_.

We can’t get out to the _Florida_, Captain Rush in command, on account of the high sea. I went to Mass with Ryan in the cathedral, which they have painted a hideous, cold gray, with white trimmings, since I saw it last. Then it had its _belle patiné_ of pinkish-brown, that shone like bronze in the setting sun, and it was beautiful at all hours. However, the winds and the storms and the hot sun will again beautify man’s hideous work.

_In the Car. Sunday Evening._

We had lunch for Admiral Cradock and several of his staff in the car, to which we had also asked Captain Moffett and Captain McDougall--a rather “close,” but merry company of nine officers and myself, in the little dining-room. After dinner we started out to San Juan Ulua.

_Monday, 10.30_ A.M.

I am comfortably writing in my state-room. We are not yet near Mexico City. My beloved volcanoes are a little unradiant, a dusty veil hangs over everything. It is often that way a month before the rains begin.

When we got to the station at seven, last night, we found that the train, which, according to schedule, was to leave at 7.20, had departed, with our private car and the servants, at 6.55. The servants had begged at least to have our car uncoupled, but no! You can imagine the faces of the _chargés_ who _had_ to be in Mexico City Monday morning. The upshot of it all was that a locomotive was finally got ready, sent to catch the train and to bring back our car. After the telegraph and telephone, the whole station, and the town, for that matter, were up on end, we got off at ten o’clock. If the car had not come back, we intended to board a locomotive and to chase the train through the tropical night. The locomotive we finally secured broke down later on. On one of the steep, dark, flower-scented inclines, strange, dusky silhouettes gathered silently to watch the repairing, which was finally accomplished in the uncertain light of torch and lantern. Now we are due at the city at 12.30, the locomotive, our car, the car containing the fifty soldiers, and the poor officer who hasn’t had even a drop of water since he left Mexico City, Friday night. We sent pillows and blankets out to him and tried to make him comfortable, but of the good cheer, wine and viands he could take none.

I must tell you about the visit to the prison of San Juan. After lunch, Dr. Ryan, Captain McDougall, Dr. Hart, Mr. Easton, and I got into the _Mayflower’s_ boat and were taken to the landing of that most miserable of places. A strong wind was blowing from the purifying sea, which must help, from October to April, at least, to keep San Juan from being an unmitigated pest-hole. It is a huge place, composed of buildings of different periods, from the Conquerors to Diaz, with intersecting canals between great masses of masonry. To get to the commandant’s quarters we were obliged to skirt the water’s edge, where narrow slits of about three inches’ width, in walls a meter and a half thick, lead into otherwise unlighted and unaired dungeons. Human sounds came faintly from these apertures.

Entering through the portcullis, we found ourselves in the big courtyard where the official life of the prison goes on, overlooked by the apartments of the colonel and the closely guarded cells for big political prisoners. Good-conduct men, with bits of braid on one arm, solicited us to buy the finely carved fruit-stones and cocoa-nuts. To us these represented monkeys, heads, and the like; to the men that make them they represent sanity and occupation for the horrible hours--though God alone knows how they work the fine and intricate patterns in the semi-darkness of even the “best” dungeons.

Afterward we went up on the great parapets, the _norte_ blowing fiercely--I in my black Jeanne Hallé hobble-skirt and a black tulle hat, as later we were to go to tea on the _Mayflower_. We walked over great, flat roofs of masonry in which were occasional square, barred holes. Peering down in the darkness, thirty feet or so, of any one of these, there would be, at first, no sound, only a horrible, indescribable stench mingling with the salt air. But as we threw boxes of cigarettes into the foul blackness there came vague, human groans and rumbling noises, and we could see, in the blackness, human hands upstretched or the gleam of an eye. If above, in that strong norther, we could scarcely stand the stench that arose, what must it have been in the depths below? About eight hundred men live in those holes.

When we got back to the central court, our hearts sick with the knowledge of misery we could do nothing to alleviate, the prison afternoon meal was being served--coffee, watery bean soup, and a piece of bread. Oh, the pale, malaria-stricken Juans and Ramons and Josés that answered to the roll-call, carrying their tin cups and dishes, as they passed the great caldrons. They filed out, blinking and stumbling, before the armed sentinels, to return in a moment to the filthy darkness! Captain McDougall, a very human sort of person, tasted of the coffee from one of their tin cups. He said it wasn’t bad, and he gave the men a friendly word and packages of cigarettes as they passed.

We bought all the little objects they had to sell, and distributed among them dozens of boxes of cigarettes. But we, with liberty, honors, opulence, and hopes, felt the foolishness of our presence, our blessing of liberty being all that any one of them would ask. The prisoners are there for every crime imaginable, but many of the faces were sorrowful and fever-stamped, rather than brutal. _All_ were apparently forgotten of Heaven and unconsidered of man. We also visited the little, wind-swept cemetery, with its few graves. The eternal hot tides wash in and out of the short, sandy stretch that bounds it. About the only “healing” worked here is what the salt sea does to the poor bodies raked out of those prison holes. There is a stone to mark the place where some of our men were buried when they took the fortress in 1847. Dr. Ryan discovered a foot in a good American boot--evidently the remains of an individual recently eaten by a shark.

That fortress has been the home of generations of horrors, and there is no one in God’s world to break through that oozing masonry and alleviate the suffering it conceals. It was one of the cries of Madero to open up the prison, but he came, and passed, and San Juan Ulua persists. I haven’t described one-tenth of the horrors. I know there _must_ be prisons and there _must_ be abuses in all communities; but this pest-hole at the entrance to the great harbor where our ships lie within a stone’s-throw seems incredible.

Afterward, the contrast of tea, music, and smart, ready-to-dance young officers on the beautiful _Mayflower_ rather inclined me to stillness. I was finding it difficult to let God take care of _His_ world!

_March 24th._

I am sitting in the motor, jotting this down in the shade of some trees by the beautiful Alameda, waiting for N. to finish at the Foreign Office. Afterward he goes to “_Guerra_” and I to shop.

Yesterday afternoon, on our return from Vera Cruz, N. dashed to the telephone and communicated with the Fletchers. They came to tea at four. Later Nelson went out with the admiral, and I drove to San Angel with Mrs. Fletcher and her two pretty daughters. She is most agreeable. Her appreciation of the sunset on the volcanoes, which were in their most splendid array for the occasion, was all my heart could have asked. They return to Vera Cruz to-night.

I am feeling very fit, after a good night’s rest; the air envelops me like a luminous wrap, and the sun is softly penetrating.

The arms and ammunition are not yet delivered. Nothing was done in N.’s absence, of course. He didn’t want them, anyway; of what use are they in civilian hands?...

The War Ministry is just off the _Zocalo_, in one side of the great, square building of the Palacio Nacional. From where I am sitting I see the soft, pink towers of the cathedral, in their lacy outlines. On the left is the Museo Nacional--a beautiful old building of the pink, _tezontle_ stone the Spaniards used to such effect in their buildings. It contains all the Aztec treasures still remaining after centuries of destruction, and has a cozy, sun-warmed _patio_ where the sacrificial altars and the larger pieces are grouped. Most of them were found in the very site of the cathedral, which replaced the _teocalli_ of the Aztecs--the first thing the Spaniards destroyed, to rear on its site the beautiful cathedral. I am surrounded by an increasing crowd of beggars, drawn by a few indiscreet centavos given to an old Indian woman, who too loudly blessed me; cries of “_Niña, por el amor de Dios!_” and “_Niña, por la Santa Madre de Dios!_” make me feel that I would better move on. The name of God is invoked so unceasingly by the beggars here that the word _pordiosero_ (for-Godsaker, beggar,) has passed into the language.

_At Home, before Lunch._