Part 4

We lunched to-day with the Iturbides. Everything was done in the best of style--with beautiful old silver and porcelain. He is a descendant of the Emperor Augustin Iturbide of tragic history, and a charming and very clever young man who would adorn any society. Señor Bernal, with his Christus head, its extreme regularity chiseled in pale, ivory tones, sat on my other side. They all seemed to fear that in view of the, to them, inexplicable attitude of the United States, the end in Mexico would be the long-dreaded intervention in some form. Not a man who was at the table, however, really occupies himself with politics. They all have handsome houses in town, but they live for the most part on their haciendas, which they work on the paternal plan, the only plan as yet productive of results here and which we in the United States don’t at all understand, not being able to put ourselves into another nation’s shoes. The actual political business here is left to the educated middle class, whose members, instead of being pillars of society, form the stratum from which the professional politician and embryo revolutionist always spring--the _licenciados_, sometimes called the curse of Mexico, and other men of the civil professions, generally venal to a degree. The peon is faithful when he has no power and the aristocrat is noble; but no country is secure whose best elements are the extremes.

I am not, however, pessimistic as to the future of the real Latin-American typified by this middle stratum, generally _mestizo_. He always forms the active part of the population, and in his hands seems to lie the future of the country. The Spaniard as typified by the aristocratic classes is apt to hold himself aloof and will always do so. The Indian, except in the isolated case of some individual possessing genius, sure to present himself from time to time, has not the qualities to form the dominant element. It is, therefore, reserved for this crossing of Spaniard and native to finally embody and present the real national characteristics.

A rumor is out to-night that, as the present banking act relative to certain reserves of gold and silver doesn’t suit Huerta, he has decided to do away with it, and we are to stand firmly (?) on paper. Shades of Limantour!

This afternoon I bought several beautiful old inlaid frames. These last words tell of one of the greatest pleasures in Mexico--prowling around for antiques. Almost every one coming down here gets the fever and spends hours turning over junk, in an almost delirious way, in the hope of unearthing treasure. In spite of the fact that for almost fifty years Mexico has been drained by the traveler, and again and again devastated by civil strife, there still remain endless lovely things, testifying to the wealth and taste of the old Spanish days.

_November 6th._

The statement in the _Mexican Herald_ that Mr. Lind had confirmed the report of an ultimatum and the probable failure of negotiations is simply astounding. Turn the light of publicity on Huerta and he is as wary as some wild animal who comes into contact with man for the _second_ time. Whatever he may have been contemplating, these special negotiations are now dead and buried.

There was a big dinner at the Belgian Legation to-night; everything beautifully done, as usual. I sat opposite my host, between von H. and Sir L. Wore the flowered black velvet chiffon, and that black aigrette with the Pocahontas effect in my hair; von H. wanted to know why this delicate Indian tribute. There was no political conversation, as, with the exception of the C.’s, von H., and ourselves, only handsome, well-dressed, and bejeweled members of the Mexican smart set were present. May is nothing if not exclusive, with a perfect _flair_ for the _chicheria_. His handsome wife is in Paris.

My drawing-room is filled with the beautiful pink geraniums that grow thick on the walls of the Embassy gardens and balconies. Juan, the gardener, who, like all Aztecs, understands flowers, brings them in every other morning, cutting them most effectively with very long stems and many leaves.

“Ship ahoy!” in the harbor of Vera Cruz no longer excites attention. Counting the French and German ships, there are about a dozen in all. Seven belong to us. There were only two--the _New Hampshire_ and the _Louisiana_--guarding the entrance to the channel when we arrived a month ago. Is the plot thickening?

IV

The “Abrazo”--Arrival of Mr. Lind--Delicate negotiations in progress--Luncheon at the German Legation--Excitement about the bull-fight--Junk-hunting--Americans in prison--Another “big game” hunt.

_November 7th._

The newspaper with the announcement that Mr. Lind had left Vera Cruz last night for Mexico City was brought up on my breakfast tray. I have had two rooms made ready for him, moving rugs and desks and furniture about, robbing Peter to pay Paul, as one does in an incompletely furnished house. He will be welcome, and I hope comfortable, as long as he sees fit to stay. I bear the memory of something magnetic, something disarming of criticism, in his clear, straight gaze, blue viking eye, his kindly smile, and his tall, spare figure, clothed, not dressed. He won’t find it easy here and I don’t think any Mexican official sporting the oak of the protocol will receive him unless he is accompanied by N.--a sort of political, Siamese-twin effect, and of a superfluity.

_Later._

When I got down-stairs Mr. Lind was in N.’s study. To greet him I had to get through a swarm of newspaper men clustering like bees around the honey-pot of “copy.” I presented him, so to speak, with the keys of the borough, and retreated to my own bailiwick to order luncheon for one o’clock. The whole town is whispering and wondering what it all will mean. Huerta remains silent. It appears that he and his generals are now _willing_ to make headway against the rebels. Why not before? A hundred years ago “dips” were sent to Constantinople to learn a thing or two they hadn’t known before. Now, I think, Mexico is as good a school for the study of other points of view.

Mr. Lind makes no secret of his conviction of the hostile intentions of England in the Mexican situation; but I have difficulty in thinking that to save her interests here, big though they be, England would ever do anything to jeopardize our friendship. In last week’s _Multicolor_ there was a picture of the White House, with England, Germany, and France in the act of painting it green. _Poner verde_ is to insult.

Huerta feels that he has the support of many foreign powers, especially of England. Sir L., by presenting his credentials the morning after the _coup d’état_, stiffened him up considerably.

_November 8th._

We have been busy these past two days. Mr. L. is a delightful guest, easy and simple. He goes to-morrow, but I am pressing him to return for Thanksgiving--_if_ we are here. People smile when I speak of a Thanksgiving reception. Three weeks is a long cry in Mexico City, in these days.

N. finally ran Huerta down yesterday in the _El Globo_ café. He received the usual affectionate _abrazo_,[4] and they had a _copita_ together, but Huerta never mentioned Lind any more than if he were non-existent, and shied off at the remotest hint of “business.” Instead, he asked N., “How about the girls?” (“_Y las muchachas?_”) a phrase often used for opening or closing a conversation, in these climes, much as we would ask about the weather. It has no bearing on whatever subject may be in hand.

The new elections are to be held on the 23d of this month. Huerta plays with the government in Washington in a truly Machiavellian way. They want his resignation, but for the moment there is no recognized government in whose hands to place such a resignation. After the 23d, if the elections bear fruit, he will find some other reasons for remaining. If it were not for the fact that might is always right, the Administration would be as the kindergarten class, in regard to this clever, involved, astute old Indian. “They say” he is getting rich, but there are no apparent signs. I don’t think his mentality is that of the money-loving order, though possibly his principles would not prevent his making himself comfortable if he put his mind to it. He is now, however, so under the domination of his _idée fixe_--pacification--in spite of the difficulties within and without, that I doubt if he is taking an undue interest in personal enrichment.

_November 9th._

This morning I began the day by telephoning von Hintze to come for lunch, as Mr. Lind wanted to see him informally. Then I went to the house of the Chilian _chargé_, who died yesterday. He was laid out in the center of the little dining-room, the electric bell from the hanging lamp, which he must often have pressed while eating, dangling over his poor, dead face. There is a quite particular sadness about the passing away of diplomats in lands distant from their own, their little span spun among the polite, but the unrelated and uncaring. I stayed for a rosary and litany, the priest, his pretty, childless wife, and myself, alone in the room. Great hangings of purple bougainvillæa, the glory of Mexico, darkened the window. May he rest in peace.

There was interesting conversation at lunch, only we four being present. Mr. Lind repeated to von Hintze what he has, curiously enough, said to many people here--his opinion that the crux of the matter was the Anglo-American relations, and that the United States would never allow the dominance of British interests to the injury of American or Mexican ones; von Hintze, though he listened attentively, was non-committal and most diplomatic in his answers. It is always of absorbing interest to Germans to hear of possible difficulties between England and other nations, and _vice versa_, too, for that matter. A light springs into the eye; and I dare say von Hintze made a report to his home government on returning to the Legation. He told Mr. Lind he thought we had not sufficiently respected the _amour propre_ of the Mexicans; that we were wrong in trying threats when what they needed was skilful coaxing. Mr. Lind volunteered the surprising statement that it didn’t suit us to have the elections held, anyway, as there would be concessions granted and laws passed that would render the Mexican situation difficult for us for fifty years. I really felt quite embarrassed.

The Vera Cruz elections amused Mr. Lind considerably, the “urn” being a common pasteboard shoe-box with a slit in it. This _objet de vertu_ he had actually seen with his own eyes.

The town is wild over the bull-fight this Sunday afternoon. Belmonte, _el fenomeno_, just arrived from Spain, twenty-one years old, is the object of all affections. Political matters are quite in abeyance. There was a scarcely subdued excitement among the servants as the gay throng passed the Embassy _en route_ for the Ring, and considerable dejection this evening because all hadn’t been able to stampede the house and hie them to the fray. They are like children; any disappointment seems the end of everything. A continual cloud of dust wrapped us about, stirred up by the thousands passing in motor, carriage, or on foot. During my first Mexican sojourn I went to two bull-fights, but didn’t acquire the taste. De Chambrun told me one had to go six times running, after which one couldn’t be kept away!

I saw Belmonte driving yesterday, the crowds cheering wildly. His expression of pride, yet condescension, distinguished him as much as his clothes. He wore the usual flat black hat, showing his tiny pigtail, a wide-frilled shirt under a tight jacket which didn’t pretend to meet the still tighter trousers, and he was covered with jewelry--doubtless votive offerings from adoring friends. And to-night he may be dead!

Burnside and Ensign H., of the _Louisiana_, who accompanied Lind as body-guard, return with him to Vera Cruz. The Embassy is to engage a compartment for him in the evening, but he will go in the morning. Just as well to be prepared against “accidents.”

_November 11th._

We lunch at the German Legation to-day, with Mr. Lind. He hasn’t any clothes, but as he doesn’t work along those lines I suppose it doesn’t matter. There is no question of the tailor making this man.

A heavenly, transforming sun, for which I am giving thanks, shines in at my windows. I am going out to do some “junking” with Lady C. With exchange three for one, every now and then some one does unearth something for nothing. The Belgian minister, who has money and _flair_, makes the most astounding finds. He got for a song what seems to be an authentic enamel of Diane de Poitiers, in its original frame--a relic of the glories of the viceroys.

Something that developed in a conversation with Mr. Lind has been making me a bit thoughtful, and more than a little uneasy. He has the idea, perhaps the plan, of facilitating the rebel advance by raising the embargo, and I am afraid he will be recommending it to Washington. We had been sitting, talking, after dinner, shivering in the big room over a diminutive electric stove, when he first tentatively suggested such action. I exclaimed: “Oh, Mr. Lind! You can’t mean that! It would be opening a Pandora box of troubles here.” Seeing how aghast I was, he changed the subject. But I cannot get it out of my head. The Mexican

## book is rolled out like a scroll before him; can it be that he is

not going to read it? Any measures tending to undermine the central authority here, imperfect though it be, can only bring calamity. I witnessed that at first hand in the disastrous overturning of the Diaz rule and the installation of the ineffective Madero régime. I think Madero was more surprised than any one that, after having taken so much trouble to help him in, we took so little to _keep_ him in. The diplomats are forever insisting that Diaz’s situation in 1877 was analogous to Huerta’s now, and that after a decently permissible delay of ten months, or whatever it was, we recognized him. So why not Huerta? He, at least, is in possession of the very delicate machinery of Mexican government, and has shown some understanding of how to keep it going.

_Later._

The lunch at the German Legation was most interesting. Lind, Rabago, the Belgian minister, and ourselves were the guests. Rabago doesn’t speak a word of English, and Mr. Lind not a word of Spanish, so there was a rather scattered conversation. Everybody smiled with exceeding amiability--all to show how safe we felt on the thin ice. The colleagues are always very polite, but none of them is really with us as regards our policy. Standing with von Hintze by the window for a few minutes after lunch, I used the word intervention, and von Hintze said something about the unpreparedness of the United States for war. This, though true, I could not accept unchallenged from a foreigner. I answered that if war were declared, we would have a million men at the recruiting offices between sunrise and sunset. It sounded patriotic and terrifying, but it was rendered rather ineffective by his reply, “Men, yes, but not soldiers. Soldiers are not made between sunrise and sunset.” He added something about the apparent divergence in public opinion in the States, and threw a bit of Milton at me in the shape of “not everybody thinks they serve who only stand and wait.” Ignoring this quotation from the blind bard, I said that whatever the divergence of public opinion might be _before_ war, the nation would be as one man with the President _after_ any declaration. I also told him we did not regard the Mexican situation so much as a military situation as a police and administrative job, which we were unwilling to undertake. I then made my adieux, leaving the “junta” in full swing, the Belgian minister’s agile tongue doing wonders of interpretation between Lind and Rabago. The result of the palaver, however, as I heard afterward from the various persons who took part, was _nil_.

Mr. Lind keeps me on the _qui vive_ by predictions of a rupture in the next few days. He is naturally becoming impatient and would like things to come to a head. I have not drawn a peaceful breath since landing.

Runs on the banks to draw out silver in exchange for paper have complicated matters. When I went this morning to the Banco Internacional I saw people standing at the paying-teller’s desk, with big canvas bags in which to carry off silver. Since the law to coin more silver has been passed, I should say that each patriot intends to do his best to line his own cloud with that material.

_November 12th._

A telegram came from Washington last night. Rupture of diplomatic relations unless Huerta accedes to our demands. N. has taken it to the Foreign Office, to Rabago and to Garza Aldape, to prove to them that, though they may not believe it, we are ready to take strenuous measures. It is all more like being on a volcano than near one. Neither the Mexican nation, nor any other, for that matter, believes we are ready and able to go to war; which, of course, isn’t true, as we may be called upon to show. War is not, to my mind, anyway, the greatest of evils in the life of a nation. Too much prosperity is a thousand times worse; and certainly anarchy, as exemplified here, is infinitely more disastrous. We ourselves were “conceived in wars, born in battle, and sustained in blood.”

We hope the _Louisiana_ went to Tuxpan last night, and that she will shell out the rebels there who are in full enjoyment of destruction of life and property. It would give them all a salutary scare. There are huge English oil interests there. The owners are all worried about their property and generally a bit fretful at the uncertainty. Will we protect their interests or will we allow them to? _Our_ government gave warning that it would not consider concessions granted during the Huerta régime as binding on the _Mexicans_. It makes one rub one’s eyes.

_Later._

Things Mexican seem approaching their inevitable end. At three o’clock to-day N. showed Rabago the telegram from Washington about the probable breaking off of diplomatic relations. He turned pale and said he would arrange an interview with the President for six o’clock. At six o’clock N., accompanied by Mr. Lind, presented himself at the Palace. Neither President nor secretary was there. Rabago finally telephoned from some unknown place that he was looking for Huerta, but could not find him. Some one suggested that he might at that time be closeted with the only “foreigners” he considered really worth knowing--Hennessy and Martell.

Mr. Lind came for a moment to the drawing-room to tell me that he leaves to-night at 8.15. He thinks we will be following him before Saturday--this being Wednesday. The continual sparring for time on the part of the government and a persistently invisible President have got on his nerves. He hopes, by his sudden departure, to bring things to a climax, but climaxes, as we of the north understand them, are hard to bring about in Latin America. The one thing not wanted is definite

## action. Mr. Lind said, in a convincing manner, as he departed, that he

would arrange for rooms for us in Vera Cruz. He knows it is N.’s right to conduct any business connected with the breaking off of relations, which he seems sure will be decided on at Washington, and he realizes that N. has borne the heat and burden of the Mexican day. He seems more understanding of us than of the situation, alas! I said Godspeed to him with tears in my eyes. Vague fears of impending calamity press upon me. How is this mysterious and extraordinary people fitted to meet the impending catastrophe--this burning of the forest to get the tiger?

An American citizen, Krauss, has been put without trial in the Prison of Santiago, where he has come down with pneumonia. N. has sent a doctor to him with d’Antin, who has been for years legal adviser and translator to the Embassy, and is almost, if not _quite_, a Mexican. They found the American in a long, narrow corridor, with eighty or ninety persons lying or sitting about; there was scarcely stepping-room, and the air was horrible; there were few peons among the prisoners, who were mostly men of education--political suspects. One aspect of a dictatorship!

Garza de la Cadena, the man I wrote you about (who seized the priest at the altar and threw him into the street in Gomez Palacio), was shot yesterday, by his own rebels, for some treachery--a well-deserved fate. He was taken out at dawn near Parral, placed against an adobe wall, and riddled with bullets.

This morning I was reading of the breaking off of our relations with Spain in 1898. Most interesting, and possibly to the point. History has a way of repeating itself with changes of names only. I wonder will the day come when N.’s name and Algara’s figure as did General Woodford’s and Polo de Bernabé’s? Various horrors take place here, but no one fact, it seems to me, can equal the dwindling of the population of the “green isle of Cuba” (indescribably beautiful as one steams along its shores), which dropped from 1,600,000 to 1,000,000 in ten months--mostly through hunger. Mothers died with babes at their breasts; weak, tottering children dug the graves of their parents. Good God! How could it ever have happened so near to us? However, _they_ are all safe--“_con Dios_.”

Now we take a hurried dinner, at which Mr. Lind, Captain B., and Ensign H. had been expected, and then N. goes “big-game hunting” again. It bids fair to be a busy night.

FOOTNOTE:

[4] The _abrazo_ has been described by some one as the “Oriental and scriptural embrace, whereby men hold one another for a moment and, bending, look over one another’s shoulder.” It is both dignified and expressive.

V

Uncertain days--The friendly offices of diplomats--A side-light on executions--Mexican street cries--Garza Aldape resigns--First official Reception at Chapultepec Castle--The jewels of Cortés.

_November 13th._

The President was not trackable last night, though N. kept up the search until a late or, rather, an early hour. It certainly is an efficient, if not satisfactory, way of giving answer--just to subtract yourself from the situation.

N. will not present himself at the convening of Congress on Saturday, the 15th. His absence will make a big hole in the _Corps Diplomatique_.

Several reporters were here early this morning to say they had positive information that Huerta had fled the country. But Mexico City as a rumor factory is unexcelled, and one no longer gets excited over the _on dits_. Moreover, nothing, probably, is further from Huerta’s mind than flight. From it all emerged one kernel of truth: Mr. Lind had left for Vera Cruz without satisfaction of any kind.

The Belgian minister came in yesterday just as Mr. Lind was leaving. He begged him not to go, to refrain from any brusque action calculated to precipitate a rupture that might be avoided. But I can’t see that any one’s coming or going makes any difference. The abyss is calling the Mexicans and they will fall into it when and how they please.