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MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 $ 
 
MEXICO 
 
 THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 BEING CHIEFLY AN ACCOUNT OF WHAT 
 PRODUCED THE OUTBREAK IN 1910, 
 TOGETHER WITH THE STORY OF THE 
 REVOLUTIONS DOWN TO THIS DAY 
 
 :: BY HENRY BAERLEIN :: 
 
 Lately Special Correspondent of ' The Times ' in Mexico 
 Author of ' On the Forgotten Road/ 'The Diwan of Abu'l Ala,' etc. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 B. LIPPINGOTT COMPANY 
 
 LONDON: HERBERT & DANIEL 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA 
 AT CHAPEL HILL 
 
I have to thank the Editors of the ' Revue de 
 Paris/ the ' Revue Bleue/ the f Fortnightlv Re- 
 view/ the 'Contemporary Review/ the f Eng- 
 glish Review/ the ' Nation/ the ' Manchester 
 Guardian/ the ' Outlook/ the f Morning Post/ 
 and the ' Westminster Gazette ' for allowing 
 me to print certain sections of this book. 
 
DEDICATION 
 
 To L. Cranmer-Byng 
 
 It pleases you to say that I compose my books in 
 order that I may sit down to write a dedication. Be 
 that as it may, one does enjoy oneself to see the 
 words come dancing from their inkpot, whence at 
 other times they have to walk so slowly and, before 
 they reach the paper, be subjected to a search so 
 troublesome — to put it mildly. There is no great 
 difference between their treatment and the practice 
 usually followed with the workers of a precious mine 
 who, coming out into the sunlight, are not only 
 stripped, but fingered in their nostrils, hair and 
 hollow teeth, so that they shall not take a lawless 
 jewel. I am much afraid that we, who institute so 
 rigorous a watch upon the words, will end by fleecing 
 them of any jewel, any radiance, any trifling beauty 
 which they somehow have acquired. Few are the 
 inkpots that resemble precious mines. But those 
 among us who are most mistakenly severe will feel 
 that in the dedication it is possible to stand aside 
 and let the words run as their nature urges them. 
 
 Our home — it has been said that only in the English 
 language is there such a word, and yet I know not if 
 the diffidence of other languages is less to be admired. 
 It may not be so simple an idea, for I believe that 
 we possess a home wherever in our thoughts we love 
 to walk again. And on that island in the Baltic, 
 
 vii 
 
viii 
 
 DEDICATION 
 
 where the cherry-dealers look like pirates, where the 
 cows are not supposed to give their milk till 6 p.m., 
 where surely at his water-mill the bibulous ex-traveller 
 continues to philosophise, where the lady of a wayside 
 inn besought us to abide with her because she never 
 had had English clients and it would be so delightful 
 to assuage us every day with beefsteaks, where the 
 fisher-maidens merely shake their heads if they do not 
 desire to dance, where you can hardly find a cave or 
 precipice without its legend, where the woods give 
 beauty even to the sea — there, on that island, you 
 and I have got a home. 
 
 Perhaps the moments of our friendship that I 
 cherish most are those, and they are numerous, when 
 we have been at Folly Mill among your growing trees 
 in Essex. A tenderness invades your face, a sort of 
 gloating is upon your eye which has at other times a 
 pensiveness or else a sudden, choking merriment — 
 I say you gloat as you bend down to touch the little 
 trees. This poplar has increased, you say, beyond 
 all recognition, and that graceful ash exhibits five 
 more leaves at least. And you are happy, if the 
 rabbit and the frost have done no damage. If they 
 have you call down curses on the venerable head of 
 Lakin, your eccentric gamekeeper. 
 
 It was otherwise as we were trudging down the 
 long, grey road when night had fallen on our Scandi- 
 navian island. You did not upbraid me, you did not 
 protest, but now and then you groaned, for we had 
 made a detour of some miles to see a whitewashed 
 church that was not even romanesque. We came 
 by woods of silver birch and lovely mountain ash and 
 fir, but you declined to look at them. Your equanimity 
 was not restored until, at our hotel, we came into 
 the presence of Miss Grete and her grizzled father, 
 
DEDICATION 
 
 ix 
 
 who was out of Potsdam and combined the functions 
 of a colliery director — I am quoting from his card — 
 with those of a lieutenant of militia in reserve. 
 Apparently he was unable, whether in the one 
 capacity or in the other, to appreciate the works of 
 Heine, and we had to be extremely strenuous before 
 his pretty daughter wavered from the faith of Pots- 
 dam. 4 People who go out into another land to write, 
 
 they are — they ' cried the parent. He was 
 
 flushed with indignation. 
 
 4 Do you think,' asked Grete very nicely, 4 that 
 you will be coming back through Potsdam ? ' 
 
 We declared that nothing could prevent us. 
 
 4 Glad to see you ! ' roared the Prussian. 4 As for 
 Heine ' 
 
 4 Dear papa ! ' She put a Bismarck-herring on 
 his plate. 
 
 4 And if,' I ventured, 4 if I write a book about this 
 island ? ' 
 
 He did not reply. 
 
 The book is still unwritten, and for fear that it 
 will never be produced I give you this one of a 
 distant country. There the trees are more gigantic 
 than upon the Danish island. Everything (save man) 
 is more magnificent, and in these pages it has been 
 deplorably reduced. Go through them as you go 
 through your plantations. 
 
 H. B. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Mexico may have been thought a blessed country in 
 that during the administration of Porfirio Diaz she 
 appeared to have no history — commercial progress 
 and the arts of peace not being usually thought 
 historical. One heard of Mexico as of a land where 
 all was tranquil, and where the regenerate inhabitants 
 had been persuaded by the greatest of the Mexicans 
 to keep the law, his law. A few who studied Mexico 
 more closely came to the conclusion that the Presi- 
 dent was mortal, and that after his decease some 
 things would happen. But they were rebuked for 
 being pessimistic and ungenerous and blind. The 
 smouldering discontent lay not five fathoms out of 
 sight. ... As long as possible the partisans of Don 
 Porfirio, the native and the foreign ones, endeavoured 
 to waylay the truth (Chapter I), even as the President 
 had in the old days (Chapter II), and in our own time 
 (Chapter III) suppressed the men who really knew 
 him. The abuses of the legal system were so flagrant 
 (Chapter IV), the semi-independence of the States 
 was so ignored (Chapter V) by Don Porfirio, whereas 
 the men he sent into the States were in their turn such 
 despots (Chapter VI), and the economical conditions of 
 the whole Republic so unsatisfactory (Chapter VII), 
 that the discontent was gathering everywhere, and as an 
 instance we may lock (Chapter VIII) on Yucatan. If 
 Mexicans had not been so long-suffering, so contradic- 
 tory (Chapter IX), the Revolution would have come 
 
 xi 
 
xii 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 far sooner. When it finally burst out (CHAPTER X) 
 
 it devastated the Republic, and although the Presi- 
 dent resisted to the last, he and his party had to 
 go. The conquerors did not alone bring certain 
 progress with them, but the promise of a progress more 
 pronounced. The partisans of Don Porfirio resisted 
 while they could, in every way, those who were 
 fighting for the Constitution and those others who 
 were trying to record events, and though one is dis- 
 posed to think about one's private ant-hill as a range 
 of craggy mountains, I will quote the words of a New 
 York review 1 : — 
 
 4 Few persons understand,' it said, 4 how rigorous is 
 the censorship in Mexico and how ample are the 
 official facilities for suppressing such news dispatches 
 as happen to displease the authorities. Modern Mexico 
 is known to the outside world mainly through volumes 
 officially inspired. . . . Even so well-equipped and so 
 competent a journalist as the correspondent of the 
 London 'Times'* has complained of the difficulty of 
 transmitting news from Mexico after it has been 
 laboriously gathered.' 
 
 Diaz having fallen, you may urge that it becomes un- 
 necessary to describe the Mexico of Diaz. Why stir 
 up the muddy water ? Yet it does not seem excessive 
 to devote nine chapters to some phases of a state of 
 things which lasted many years. . . . Chapter XII is 
 devoted to the tragedy which culminated in Madero's 
 death and to a brief consideration of what is to 
 come. 
 
 And the Mexicans ? I have been asked a thousand 
 times. Well, they are childish. One could very 
 properly explain that with a population so much 
 mixed — pure Spanish, Spanish-Indian and a score 
 
 1 ' Current Literature,' April, 1911. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 xiii 
 
 of different Indian races — it is hardly possible to 
 generalise, but if you want a comprehensive picture 
 I should say that they are childish. Have you ever 
 seen a boy tear up a living beetle and a moment later 
 say that yonder ripples of the olive tree are like his 
 mother's hand when he is lying in his bed ? So are 
 the Mexicans. I fancy that a number of the mis- 
 creants who, owing to a mere misunderstanding, 
 massacred three hundred Chinamen in Torreon not 
 long since — some were cut into small pieces, some 
 beheaded, some were tied to horses by their queues 
 and dragged along the streets, while others had their 
 arms or legs attached to different horses and were 
 torn asunder, some were stood up naked in the market 
 gardens of the neighbourhood and given over as so 
 many targets to the drunken marksmen, thirteen 
 Chinese employes of Yee Hop's General Store were 
 haled into the street and killed with knives, two hun- 
 dred Chinamen were sheltered in the city gaol, but all 
 their money was appropriated and such articles of 
 clothing as the warders fancied ; one brave girl had 
 nine of them concealed, and calmly she denied their 
 presence even when her father had gone out to argue 
 with the mob and had been shot for being on the 
 Chinese side — a number of these miscreants, I fancy, 
 are on other days delightful citizens. 1 And when 
 they wish to do a brutal deed they often go about it 
 in a way that we should smile at. Irabien, a friend 
 of mine in Yucatan, had as a nursemaid a good 
 Indian who was nearly used to being flogged and 
 otherwise maltreated and was finally abandoned by 
 
 1 ' The Mexicans are descended on the one side,' says Mr. Cunning- 
 hame Graham, ' from the most bloodthirsty race of Indians that the 
 Spanish conquerors came across, and on the other side from the very 
 fiercest elements of the Spanish race itself— elements which had just 
 emerged from eight hundred years of warfare with the Moors.' 
 
xiv 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 her husband ; he made off into the country of the 
 hostile Indians of Quintana Roo ; but one day, 
 being captured, he was carried back into his former 
 master's hacienda, and this master, wishing at all 
 hazards to increase the population of the farm, 
 commanded that the wife should come back instantly. 
 She would not go. The master had sufficient in- 
 fluence, and six-and-twenty soldiers came to fetch 
 her. Irabien put up a barricade, the soldiers looked 
 at it and marched away, and nothing more was done. 
 . . . The chapters in the second portion of this book 
 are sketches of the Mexican from several points of 
 view. They are intended to assist a trifle towards 
 an understanding of this people. Only Chapter XVII 
 is concerned with General Diaz, and although it is, 
 so far as I know, accurate in every fact, it has not 
 been included in the first part as the form of it is 
 fanciful. The other chapters are mere disconnected 
 fragments. 
 
 All men are liars, and it easily may be that portions 
 of this book will not be credited. I make, however, 
 no claim to be free from insularity, because in writing 
 of conditions in the Mexican Republic I have some- 
 times held them up against our own, and not so much 
 because these are perfection as that everything is 
 relative, and we compare with what is most familiar. 
 At the same time it has been impossible to be as wholly 
 insular as certain critics have demanded on the part 
 of other writers. I do not at every mention of a 
 deed or of a thought in Mexico request the reader to 
 remember that we are considering not England, but 
 another country. Thus, in reference to General 
 Diaz, it appears to be superfluous for me to say con- 
 tinually that his methods at the start were justified ; 
 the country was in chaos and the treasury was bare, 
 
PREFACE 
 
 xv 
 
 the Constitution could not be regarded, and in fact 
 one does not censure him, one praises him, for his un- 
 English statesmanship. And when we blame it is not 
 owing to the lapse from our ideal, but from what 
 should have been his. A system tantamount to 
 martial law was still applied to the community which 
 had progressed, and in the last ten or a dozen years 
 the autocrat was in the centre of a most corrupt and 
 most oppressive oligarchy. 
 
 Before this book was published it was necessary for 
 me to obtain an explanation of the conduct of 6 The 
 Times ' towards me while I was in Yucatan. This 
 explanation, which came out in the proceedings 
 before Mr. Justice Darling, will be found on page 41. 
 I am very sorry that in my account of Mexico's 
 grievances I have been compelled, in one chapter, to 
 refer to some of my own. 
 
 With regard to the above proceedings, it may 
 be thought, since 6 The Times,' in spite of their 
 admissions, were not found guilty of libel, that I 
 would do well, if I am dissatisfied, either to bear it in 
 silence or go to the Court of Appeal, which certainly 
 is a most protracted and may be a most costly affair. 
 It may be thought that in a book which deals with 
 Mexico and incidentally with the laughable and 
 horrible judicial methods of Porfirio Diaz, now in 
 exile, one should make no reference to the majesty of 
 British law. There are certain countries — Macedonia, 
 Mexico, Finland, and Armenia — where the inhabitant 
 is treated in a way that rouses the exasperation of 
 the British public. Sometimes they have even called 
 upon their Government to intervene. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Dedication 
 Preface 
 
 PART I : Mexico in Revolution 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 Como Tapaboca ........ 
 
 Imperfect knowledge as to Mexico, in Middle Ages and 
 now— Some reasons for this — Some books on the country 
 — The gathering of information in Yucatan — Muiioz 
 Aristegui and Ricardo Molina — The prison— 'The Times ' 
 — Mr. Justice Darling — The secret police — Yucatecan 
 priests — Bursting of the storm— Flight to Mexico. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 What Lerdo de Tejada thought of Diaz 
 
 A rare, old book of doubtful authorship— The weeping 
 of Diaz — Benito Juarez— The natives of Oaxaca — Baranda 
 and Chavero — Princess Salm-Salm — Porfirio's battles — 
 Lozada, the brigand. 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 When Don Porfirio was Candid . . . . 
 
 The Church in Mexico — The Constitution — The famous 
 Creelman interview — Democracy in Mexico— Porfirio's 
 intentions— Classes of Mexicans— As to re-election and 
 liberty. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 Porfirian Justice 
 
 Pancha Robles, the slave-dealer — The senile Minister of 
 Justice — The jefes— The strange police— The President's 
 relatives. 
 
 xvii 
 
xviii 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER V page 
 The Sovereign States . . . . . .103 
 
 Analogy of Leopoldo Batres — Abuses with regard to the 
 antiquities — The lurid politics of Yucatan. / 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 Porfirian Governors .115 
 
 The little kings — The deputies — The Constitution — The 
 dead deputy — The Indians' flight— Old times. 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 A Song of Nightingales . . . . . .127 
 
 Rich and poor in Mexico — Aztec nobles — Taming of the 
 Indians — The greatest landowner on earth — Limantour 
 and Corral — The Yaquis — Mexican women and children. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 The Slaves of Yucatan 143 ^ 
 
 1. Don Ignacio's letter : Conditions in Campeche, etc. — 
 How men are bought and sold in Yucatan — The hunters — 
 The slaves of Yaxche. 2. Don Ignacio's letter {continued) : 
 Perils of education — Mendicuti, the leper — The ancient 
 servitude — The native of British dominion. 3. Don 
 Olegario, etc. : The suggested statue — The Molinas : 
 Audomaro, Luis, Augusto, Trinidad, Ignacio and others — 
 Perez Ponce. 4. Some Documents: Flogging — Death of 
 the Indians— More flogging. 5. The Human Heart : Peon 
 and Matilde Poot — Manuel Rios and the newspaper — A 
 sad return for hospitality — Drastic treatment of Indians. 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 An Introduction to the Study of Mexican History 199 
 
 What sort of man is the Mexican? — Contradictions of 
 Mexico— Heaven and Hell— The torturers, peasants and 
 police — Villa vicencio and Cabrera — The lieutenant — The 
 reticence of Mexican historians — The little girls of 
 Zacatecas. 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Dawn After Diaz ....... 213 
 
 The celebrations of September, 1910 — Madero — Aquiles 
 Cerdan— The growing revolution — Limantour and Orozco 
 — Chihuahua — Mucio Martinez — The American shadow — 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 xix 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Mexican deputies — The country in arms — Glory of 
 the ' Daily Mail ' — Ciudad Juarez— Villa, the bandit — 
 Mexico's Joan of Arc — ' The Friends of General Diaz ' — 
 Uruapam and Cuernavaca — Resignation and flight of 
 Diaz — The interregnum — Dangers and hopes. 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 In a Field 308 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 The Soul of Senor de la Barra . . . .313 
 
 The murder of Madero — Huerta, Felix Diaz and de la 
 Barra — Death of Reyes — The future of Mexico. 
 
 PART II : The Background 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 Oaxaca's Road of Life and Death .... 329 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 Poetry in Mexico .335 
 
 The national library — The treatment of poets — Acuna, 
 Quintana Roo, Prieto, Altamirano. 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 To Chilpancingo ....... 359 
 
 Chapultepec : the fete — The trains of Mexico — Tres 
 Marias — The approach to Iguala — On the road to Chili 
 —The unstable mountain— The Indians and the motor. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 The Gamblers of Mexico ...... 378 
 
 The National Lottery — The Frenchman and Gonzalez — 
 The ritual— Philosophy — The perambulating Turk — Bulls, 
 horses and cocks— Pelota and more philosophy. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 Saint and Minstrels . 398 
 
 Saint Lawrence, his life — His worshipper in Western 
 Mexico. 
 
XX 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII PAGE 
 Diaz at the Door of Hell ..... 405 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 An Anglo-Mexican Pirate . . . . 427 
 
 Epilogue 434 
 
 Glossary ......... 437 
 
 A Few Notes on Pronunciation .... 440 
 
 (a) The Spanish language in Mexico. 
 
 (b) The Maya language. 
 
 (c) Mexican place-names. 
 
 A Note on Mexican Words in the Languages of 
 
 Europe . . . . . . . 443 
 
 States and Population of Mexico .... 444 
 
 Index 445 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Map of Mexico ..... 
 
 . inside 
 
 cover 
 
 Facsimile of a coin^ obverse and reverse 
 
 title- 
 
 ■page 
 
 
 . frontispiece 
 
 Don Enrique Munoz Aristegui 
 
 facing p 
 
 5 
 
 VJCUCial A4£JL1CH^H»F JJldV U ... 
 
 >} 
 
 5 
 
 Madero before his ascent 
 
 • )> 
 
 5 
 
 Felicista soldiers in Belem . 
 
 }) 
 
 15 
 
 A British musician .... 
 
 • >} 
 
 23 
 
 Antonio Carillo ..... 
 
 }) 
 
 23 
 
 In Merida's Penitenciary 
 
 33 
 
 23 
 
 A British Honduranean 
 
 33 
 
 35 
 
 The Marconigram .... 
 
 33 
 
 35 
 
 ' The door is locked . . . 
 
 • 33 
 
 39 
 
 In Merida's beautiful plaza . . . 
 
 33 
 
 45 
 
 Convicts sweeping the streets 
 
 >} 
 
 45 
 
 The aqueduct of Queretaro 
 
 33 
 
 63 
 
 The cathedral ..... 
 
 33 
 
 69 
 
 Peasants in the State of Veracruz 
 
 33 
 
 91 
 
 Half an hour before execution 
 
 33 
 
 91 
 
 The shooting party .... 
 
 • S3 
 
 93 
 
 An ancient stone on Monte Alban 
 
 • 33 
 
 109 
 
 The custodian of Monte Alban . 
 
 • 33 
 
 109 
 
 xxi 
 
xxii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Olive trees at Tzintzuntzan . . . facing p. 123 
 
 Colonel Prospero Cahuantzi . ... ,,123 
 
 Our special train „ 133 
 
 Building a railway in Hidalgo . . . „ 133 
 
 After a skirmish in Chihuahua . . . „ 137 
 
 A land-owner „ 137 
 
 Yucatecan horses „ 153 
 
 TomasTec „ 181 
 
 e II mondo e di chi ha pazienza . ,, 205 
 
 A saint's return „ 205 
 
 Villavicencio ...... „ 205 
 
 The market of Tuxtla Gutierrez . . . „ 207 
 
 Madero „ 213 
 
 General Mucio Martinez . . . . „ 219 
 
 General Felix Diaz „ 219 
 
 Vice-President Ramon Corral . . . „ 219 
 
 A quack at Pachuca . . . . . „ 219 
 
 New Laredo and Laredo .... „ 225 
 
 Pascual Orozco ...... „ 231 
 
 Madero „ 241 
 
 Between Veracruz and the capital . . „ 251 
 
 Diodoro Batalla . . . . . . „ 251 
 
 Dr. Vazquez Gomez . . . . . „ 251 
 
 c Los Pujos Porfiristas ' .... „ 269 
 
 Lake Patzcuaro . . . . . . „ 275 
 
 How they bombard editors .... ,,285 
 
 A'shoofly' ...... ,,285 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 xxiii 
 
 San Juan de Ulua ..... 
 
 facing p. 287 
 
 ' In full harmony ' 
 
 » 
 
 297 
 
 Zapata ....... 
 
 si 
 
 305 
 
 ' We all complain . . .' 
 
 )} 
 
 309 
 
 Ploughing ....... 
 
 Si 
 
 309 
 
 At a balcony ...... 
 
 33 
 
 313 
 
 Vice-President Pino Suarez .... 
 
 33 
 
 313 
 
 After burning for five hours 
 
 33 
 
 315 
 
 f You are taken swiftly . . .' 
 
 33 
 
 317 
 
 A street in February, 1913 . 
 
 33 
 
 317 
 
 The spot where Madero was murdered 
 
 33 
 
 319 
 
 Planning a bombardment . . . 
 
 33 
 
 321 
 
 The Minister from the Motherland 
 
 33 
 
 321 
 
 Francisco Madero, senior .... 
 
 33 
 
 323 
 
 The spectators ...... 
 
 33 
 
 323 
 
 The ruined tower ..... 
 
 33 
 
 325 
 
 Mexico, the Land of Unrest 
 
 33 
 
 339 
 
 The Alameda ...... 
 
 13 
 
 339 
 
 Guanajuato ...... 
 
 33 
 
 351 
 
 The business centre of Cordoba . 
 
 33 
 
 355 
 
 Orizaba, the extinct volcano 
 
 33 
 
 365 
 
 A blackened cocoa-nut shell 
 
 33 
 
 373 
 
 Moonlight on Lake Chapala 
 
 33 
 
 383 
 
 The old leper ...... 
 
 33 
 
 383 
 
 The National Theatre . 
 
 33 
 
 391 
 
 Plateresque facade 
 
 33 
 
 403 
 
 On the bank of the Viga canal . 
 
 ">3 
 
 411 
 
XXIV 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 f Grave nihil est homini . . 
 
 A new El Dorado 
 
 A blind man chanting his prayers 
 
 The domesticated pirate 
 
 Luncheon at Guanajuato 
 
 ' Travellers in the desert . . .' 
 
 Fishing boat on Lake Chapala 
 
 Tehuantepec . 
 
 ' Mexico City has no intention . . 
 
 Beside the church of La Soledad 
 
 facing p. 421 
 421 
 427 
 » 427 
 431 
 431 
 431 
 431 
 435 
 435 
 
 Note. — The lower illustration facing p. 91 and that which faces p. 93 
 were obtained after two hours of midnight persuasion of a grocer in 
 Tuxtepec ; that facing p. 181 was given me by a gracious and learned 
 leper in Yucatan ; the articles whose photographs face pp. 205 and 
 373 were gifts to me from the Merida Chamber of Agriculture. For 
 the lower illustration facing p. 285 I have to thank the Mexican Rail- 
 way, while the National Railway of Mexico has been good enough to 
 lend me five of the views, and three of the others were provided by 
 Senor del Paso, of the Mexican Financial Agency. The two beautiful 
 photographs facing p. 383 are by Dr. H. A. Palmer, late of Guadala- 
 jara, and are copyright in the United States. The remaining illustra- 
 tions are either taken from Mexican newspapers or are snapshots of 
 
PART I 
 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION 
 
 B 
 
I MEXICO 
 
 THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 COMO TAPABOCA 
 
 Injustice is no less than high treason against heaven. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius. 
 
 An expedition which the second Philip is supposed 
 to have equipped with the munificence of 20,000 
 ducats — seeing that his court physician, Doctor 
 Francisco Hernandez, was the leader of it — travelled 
 through the province of New Spain, made drawings of 
 the plants and animals, collected medicines and tested 
 them in hospitals. This expedition, which was 
 scarcely recognised by Philip, carried back to Spain 
 in 1577 some eighteen volumes, all but one containing 
 text and illustrations of the natural history, while the 
 eighteenth volume was devoted to the Indians* 
 customs and antiquities. Hernandez wrote in Latin ; 
 he translated portions into Spanish, and the natives, 
 under his direction, started rendering this book into 
 the Aztec language. All the copies that were left in 
 Mexico have disappeared. In Spain the volumes were, 
 with every honour, placed upon the shelves of the 
 Escorial. They were not published, to be sure, but 
 they were 4 beautifully bound in blue leather, they 
 were gilded and supplied with silver clasps and 
 
Don Enrique Muiioz Aristegui 
 
 See t>. 21 
 
 General Ignacio Bravo. 
 
 Madero before his ascent with Mr. Dyott. 
 
 It is believed that no other chief of a state has travelled in an aeroplane. See i>. 18 
 
COMO TAPABOCA 
 
 5 
 
 being noxious, and an illness called by Mexicans ' lead- 
 poisoning ' quite prevalent. Such were certain of the 
 risks they ran who wanted to make known what they 
 considered to be truth. Not that the truth was 
 always hateful to the Government in Mexico, but 
 they were even as police in many of the States who 
 are relieved when criminals do not walk straight into 
 their arms. Let truth go past upon the other side. 
 . . . Thus, if I have suppressed the names of most of 
 my informants, I shall run the risk of being met with 
 disbelief. And they would, in the days of Don Porflrio, 
 have run the risk of something even more unpleasant. 
 You may say that this is plausible, but does not 
 guarantee the truthfulness of my informants. We 
 will talk of that. 
 
 all, that they were born to hold their tongues and to obey. Let them 
 not venture to discuss, or have opinions in, political affairs.' Bravo 
 punishes the Maya and the Mexican, his officers and privates, those 
 among his army who have come there in the usual course of things, 
 and those who have been shipped for their political opinions, and 
 he punishes the native and the foreign merchant. Being angry with 
 the colonel in command of the 8th battalion, he announced that all 
 the men would be converted into beasts of burden, and with 46 kilos, 
 on their backs he made them march from Peto down to Santa Cruz, 
 which is a distance of some 40 leagues, and the battalion had to be 
 renewed. Ignacio Bravo is the civil and the military chief, he is the 
 superintendent of education and of health, and he receives the corre- 
 sponding salaries. But how shall one man serve four masters ? When 
 as military leader he has sometimes made a swift advance he has 
 forgotten that he is the Chairman of the Board of Health, and with 
 his men provided only with two spoonfuls of atole during four-and- 
 twenty hours, it has been necessary for them, so that they could keep 
 alive, to eat the mules which had not been so fortunate. But when 
 he marched with five battalions (of 600 men apiece) there died each 
 day some forty, and he buried them in such a fashion that it was not 
 difficult for hungry dogs to excavate their bodies. When it pleases 
 Bravo to dispatch his men to Okop he is neither acting as the military 
 nor as the hygienic officer, because to occupy this low ground, which 
 is dominated by a mountain range, is unstrategical, and from the 
 Lake of Okop rise such deadly emanations that the men are very 
 quickly killed. It must be said of him, however,* that he does not 
 fear to die ; he walks alone, his head bent down as if in this way to 
 avoid saluting, and with four or five companions he will ride along 
 the lonely forest paths, and he will ride upon that 18-inch gauge rail- 
 way to the coast. His wounded soldiers he sends usually overland to 
 
6 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 The writer of a book on California need only have a 
 picture of the vegetable products, and behold ! he 
 may advance with great impunity whatever social and 
 political and economic lies that please him. So 
 thoroughly has he bewildered the poor reader that the 
 criticisms of this individual will be suspended and the 
 toll-bar will be lifted up and quite a horde of mis- 
 cellaneous statements can be hurried through. No 
 doubt that with a set of monstrous photographs 
 from Mexico it would be possible for me to strike 
 your judgment, as the saying goes, all of a heap, 
 and the remainder of this book would meet with 
 credit. Certain inmates of the country would object, 
 and you would naturally say that they are interested 
 parties, either for a patriotic or financial motive. I 
 shall not, however, set to work in this way. I shall 
 beg you to preserve your faculties of criticism and 
 to weigh the value of my evidence. And I shall not 
 attempt to make this evidence seem better than it is. 
 So many paths invited me, I ran down one and then 
 
 Peto, five of them escorted by an able-bodied man, and sometimes 
 they are not assassinated by the intervening Indians. If, however, 
 he himself obtains possession of these Indian foes he burns them all 
 alive, his second in command — Blanquete — kicking back into the 
 bonfire anyone who manages to writhe beyond its reach. The 
 Territory's wholesale commerce is made over chiefly to the son of 
 Don Ignacio, who likes to give concessions for the retail trade to 
 Turkish pedlars that will bow to his caprices. He insisted on two 
 Chinese merchants being shot because they had neglected a formality 
 — the payment of a fee, or something of the kind. 
 
 One would imagine that this warrior would fall with Diaz, but the 
 last I heard of him was that he had produced a bad impression in the 
 capital of the Republic. He had been commanded to remain there 
 while his actions in the Territory were investigated. Then he dis- 
 appeared and sent a message to the Minister of Gobernacion to inform 
 him that he had repaired to his Quintana Roo, and that he had 
 resumed possession of his former office. It was apprehended that he 
 meant to take up arms against the Government, and ' as it is well 
 known,' observed El Pais, * that the insalubrious climate causes eighty 
 men to perish out of every hundred who go thither,' a campaign was 
 contemplated with abhorrence. 
 
COMO TAPABOCA 
 
 7 
 
 another, and I had no time to look at every bush. 
 For instance, when the priests of Yucatan obliged me 
 to consider them I did not follow the advice of a 
 religious Yucateco and examine each one very closely. 
 What I did was to select at hazard several parishes, 
 and in them to compare the doctor and the lawyer, 
 if there was one, and the priest. I gathered many 
 tales about the priests, but none did I believe till my 
 religious friend acknowledged it was true. The 
 Mexicans, he said, have from the time of Don Benito 
 Juarez had an education that is secular, which pre- 
 disposes them to scurrilous remarks about the 
 clergy. I could not have found an arbitrator friend- 
 lier to them than is my friend, and I have printed 
 nothing on this topic nor permitted anything which 
 he rejected to assist in moulding my opinions. Thus 
 at many points I had recourse to those who would be 
 anxious to persuade me to fling overboard that 
 special information. As I say, it was at many points, 
 because I had to mourn the loss of such a multitude 
 of stories that I could not bring myself to let them 
 all be tested so severely, and it therefore may be 
 false about the barbers of Campeche, that they shave, 
 or rather the apprentices shave, any beggar free of 
 charge on Saturdays, if he is blind. ... So far as 
 humanly was feasible, the statements of this book 
 have been subjected to a stern and cold examination. 
 It is not for me to swear that in these pages there is 
 no fierce sarcasm, like that of Mrs. Alec Tweedie. 
 ' Diaz,' she says, ' has never shown favouritism. His 
 warmest friends hold no office.' She refers, one may 
 presume, to General Ignacio Martinez, who was wont 
 to ride with Diaz every Sunday, and who does not 
 hold an office for the reason that the President com- 
 manded his assassination. Then she tells us that 
 
8 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 among the decorations of Porfirio there was the 
 Cross and Star of Constancy of the First Order. 
 Likewise, with the best will in the world, I may have 
 fallen into errors quite as serious as those of Mrs. 
 Alec Tweedie. 6 Madero, who has laid him low,' she 
 says, 6 was a man more or less put into office by Diaz 
 himself.' 1 Several of my statements will seem as 
 remarkable as this, but Mexico is a surprising coun- 
 try ; and I have been on the watch. A statement, 
 after all, need not be true because it happens to be 
 dull. 
 
 In Mexico it was not difficult to gather information 
 — printed, written, whispered — for the people who 
 were on the side of the authorities, and also those who 
 sided with the angels, had a lot to tell you. Books 
 appear to be completely favourable or completely 
 the reverse. It is a fault ; but when I studied 
 Yucatecan priests and asked continually for the name 
 of one who had some merit, I was told of Father 
 Gongora ; and when I asked again, then I was told of 
 Father Gongora ; and when I asked again, then I was 
 told of Father Gongora. So with my book ; it would 
 be more artistic and it would be more convincing if 
 I could have put more sunlight in the gloom. 2 Ap- 
 
 1 Perhaps this is a printer's error, and instead of ' office ' she wrote 
 ' prison.' Otherwise, as Don Francisco I. Madero never held an office, 
 I can scarcely understand what Mrs. Tweedie means. And she does 
 not seem to be one of those gay and sweeping writers who refuse to 
 condescend to details, for she talks of Senor Landa's 'handsome 
 spouse Sofia,' and concerning Limantour, she talks about his ' lovely 
 teeth.' 
 
 s 4 He is incongruous, injudicious, crude, and rather hysterical,' 
 said an American reader of my MS. ; ' there is an absence of charm ' ; 
 while his description of a lynching party would, I have no doubt, be 
 charming. 'The invincible animus is so exceedingly obvious.' And 
 if this gentleman had been a Mexican official under Don Porfirio, I 
 think it very probable my animus would have been roused. There 
 was a frigid, callous and inhuman school in the United States which 
 utterly declined to credit even such abuses as the Government of 
 Mexico admitted. 'He is unconvincing.' Woe is me. 
 
COMO TAPABOCA 
 
 9 
 
 parently the most repulsive circumstances can, if 
 treated properly, dissolve into the mist. Another of 
 these ladies, an American, Mrs. Marie Robinson- 
 Wright, who has for years unflinchingly attended to 
 the Mexican and such Republics, says about Cam- 
 peche that : 
 
 wild beasts and hostile Indians are not the greatest 
 perils in that tropic forest. Terrible tales are told of 
 enormous serpents which hurl themselves from the trees 
 with the force of a catapult, by one twist of their 
 sinuous coils crushing the life out of a man on horse- 
 back, and swallowing smaller animals in the twinkling 
 of an eye. Even worse than the giant boa is the small 
 vibora de sangre^ whose bite causes the blood of man 
 or beast to ooze through the pores of the skin until the 
 veins are empty and the victim dies of exhaustion. 
 There are also tiny vipers, the exact colour of the 
 leaves under which they lurk, whose sting is certain 
 death. . . . And yet life is almost ideal, and invariably 
 the stranger in Southern Mexico is astonished at the 
 magnificence in which the wealthy planters live. 
 
 But I have not sufficient Gongora for all occasions. 
 
 A facile mode of gaining credit is to spill discredit 
 on the others, but if people gave themselves the 
 trouble of composing books on modern Mexico or on 
 the President, I am compelled in courtesy to read 
 them. And if there be only few by living writers 
 in the English language that I think altogether ad- 
 mirable — the works of Saville, Maudslay, Lumholtz 
 and Flandrau — I do not wish to insinuate that I give 
 a more truthful picture than the rest. Godoy's book, 
 I can say at once, is ludicrous. He is the man whom 
 Don Porfirio had sent as Minister to Cuba, and to 
 demonstrate that he was a diplomatist he dipped his 
 pen in undiluted treacle. What he will do now I 
 know not, but so long as Mexico submitted to the old 
 
10 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 regime we had the sickly thought that if the President 
 delayed to send him as Ambassador to Washington 
 he surely would continue writing. There is a large 
 interval between this personage and Mr. James 
 Creelman, who is well known for his interview with 
 Don Porfirio and now has given us a book. I under- 
 stand that in the States he has a reputation for un- 
 swerving accuracy, and to judge him by the standard 
 of Godoy would be an outrage. Find two or three 
 mistakes when you are reading him at random and it 
 will be serious. In Yucatan he did not hear the truth 
 about the exiled Yaquis (he was handicapped, be- 
 cause in all the week or ten days that he stopped 
 there it is scarcely probable that he met any Yaqui 
 at a banquet) ; and in Mexico he clearly suffered 
 from the handicap of a prodigious sleep, so that his 
 observations could not start before the dawn, and 
 never did he hear the raucous church-bells. ' The 
 church,' he says, ' is silent save within her own walls.' 
 And I think that Mr. Creelman is much handicapped 
 by an excessive courtesy. 6 1 have so many friends,' 
 quoth Don Porfirio, and Mr. Creelman simply re- 
 produces this remark. Another handicap is one that 
 always is attached to illustrated interviews — one has 
 to go to press a long time previous to publication. 
 ' Except the Yaquis and some of the Mayas,' said 
 Porfirio Diaz in December, 1907, ' the Indians are 
 gentle and they are grateful.' The interview appeared 
 in March, 1908, and I suppose the printer set it up 
 before the 26th of January, and declined to let 
 the massacre of Orizaba be the pretext for correc- 
 tions. 
 
 So much then for the authorities who had the 
 Government's approval. On the other side is Mr. 
 Turner's ' Barbarous Mexico,' which I would sooner, 
 
COMO TAPABOCA 
 
 11 
 
 in the sultriness of Tonala 1 that I am undergoing, 
 be invited to confirm than to deny. Don Joaquin 
 Peon, a Yucatecan hacendado, wrote a letter to the 
 ' New York Times ' wherein he undertook to ridicule 
 the Yucatecan part. Some slips one does discover 
 certainly — the Yaqui couples were divided in the 
 first years of the importation, those who subsequently 
 came to Yucatan found that their purchasers had 
 gained some culture or had culture thrust upon them ; 
 also in the haciendas people are not kept away from 
 the physician any more than valuable mules are kept 
 from the veterinary surgeon ; also Mr. Turner's 
 artist gave the people Mexican instead of Yucatecan 
 costumes. But the worst 2 of Mr. Turner is — I quote 
 
 1 The saying is that when a native dies he takes his blanket with 
 him. 
 
 2 I should not have mentioned the labours of Mr. Percy F. Martin, 
 f.r.g.s., if it were not for a review he wrote in a financial paper of 
 Mr. Turner's book, reviling it. The two-volume book of Mr. Martin 
 could, I think, have been written by a careful man in Sussex ; what was 
 needed was a good collection of official papers from Mexico and from 
 a few capitalists. It is quite an interesting book, just as a directory 
 of Sussex would have been. With regard to Mr. Turner, he says 
 that some of the statements are as ignorant as they are inaccurate. 
 But later on he says that the prison system of Mexico is of a * much 
 more lenient and humane nature than that of any country in either 
 the New or the Old World. ' Most people will submit that Mr. Percy 
 F. Martin, f.r.g.s., had better not diverge from his directorial work 
 if he is going to make such statements that are of appalling ignor- 
 ance and strikingly inaccurate. And yet believing, with the sage, 
 that it is better to sit than to stand, does he regard complacently 
 the long rooms in San Juan de Ulua in which men sit all day in 
 darkness ? As you enter through the only door (there are no windows) 
 you see two long rows of eyes that glitter ; well, he may believe that 
 it is much to be preferred, more lenient and humane in fact, to cause 
 a man to lie down than to sit, and thus he may approve the floggings 
 which have this result ; he may believe that it is better to be sleeping 
 than awake — if so he will approve the slumber brought about by 
 those who have the privilege of selling drink to their companions ; 
 finally, he may believe it is better to be dead than living— and if so, 
 I follow him when he insinuates that in the Old World we are not so 
 lenient and humane as to shoot dead our Abelardo Anconas or cremate 
 alive our Emilio Ordonezes or put prisoners, one after another, into 
 the non-disinfected typhoid cells of Belem or the tuberculosis cells of 
 San Juan de Ulua, where the lot of the ' political ' in Don Porfirio's 
 
12 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 a gentleman who did not wish to be but was a Gover- 
 nor in Mexico — the worst of Mr. Turner is that he is 
 pretty full of truth. His book does not pretend to 
 be descriptive of the whole of Mexico, but merely of 
 those parts which are most infamous. Don Joaquin 
 draws an attractive picture of the lifelong idyll in 
 the haciendas, but he does not yet completely domi- 
 nate our language, and when he describes the land 
 on which the Indian is allowed to plant his beans and 
 so forth, he refers to it as of an inexhaustible fertility, 
 whereas he means the opposite, or else has an imagina- 
 tion of that same calibre. The book which Mr. de 
 Fornaro wrote on ' Diaz, Czar of Mexico,' was 
 formally denounced as an immoral thing, and was 
 forbidden the Republic. Mr. Carlo de Fornaro is a 
 British subject, born in India of Italian parentage, 
 but he acquired his immorality when he was brought 
 to Mexico to serve as the art editor of 1 El Diario,' a 
 
 day included all these items. Under the Maderist Government poor 
 Mexico (if not Mr. Percy F. Martin) was emerging out of darkness and 
 it seemed as if one's reference to such horrible iniquities need never- 
 more be couched in the present tense. If Mr. Percy Martin, f.r.g.s., 
 will take the trouble to ask, as I have asked, British employers of labour 
 in the State of Sonora, he will hear that there are no workers as good 
 as the Yaquis. ' It may be news to Mr. Turner,' he says, 'to learn 
 that the Yaquis are, and always have been, a wild horde of savages, 
 absolutely untractable and unmanageable. For years the Mexican 
 Government has been endeavouring to pacify them and to make 
 them more friendly ; all efforts, however, have been unavailing, and 
 the tribes remain absolutely unsubdued.' Yes, I believe this will be 
 news to Mr. Turner. The savages were those who sent the Yaquis 
 into exile and secured their fertile lands. One word is true in 
 Mr. Martin's sentence, for the Yaquis cannot be subdued. From 
 Guaymas to San Bias a boat was taking between 500 and 600 of 
 them, under barbarous conditions, into exile. Before they reached 
 San Bias six women had jumped overboard. Mr. Percy F. Martin 
 says that Mr. Turner almost conveys the idea that he has some 
 personal grievance to ventilate. That is what they always say, those 
 writers who lack personality. And it appears to me that it is to the 
 credit of a man if he does not regard the natives' plight as in a 
 theatre you watch a play — impersonally. ... In Mr. Martin's favour, 
 on the other hand, it may be supposed that he is ignorant of the true 
 facts of the case. 
 
COMO TAPABOCA 
 
 13 
 
 very reputable organ. He was there enabled to ab- 
 sorb much information on the government of Don 
 Porfirio, of course less moral than one could desire. 
 This was, however, not the reason why in the United 
 States — he having gone there for the publication of 
 his book — they thrust him into prison for a year, 
 with a supply of ink and paper. He had libelled 
 Don Porfirio, they said. Perhaps the next book, 
 which I understand he wrote in prison, will be 
 suave ; but an Italian artist, even if he should be 
 born in India, cannot be expected to control his 
 pen. He has much more of unembroidered truth 
 than has, for instance, Mrs. Tweedie, since that 
 virtue finds its way into the office of a journal much 
 more easily than to the dinner-parties and sublime 
 receptions which claimed all too many of that lady's 
 nights. ' Unknown Mexico ' and ' New Trails in 
 Mexico,' by Carl Lumholtz, which deal with Indians 
 of the west and north-west, are two books I cannot 
 praise without presumption. ' Viva Mexico,' by 
 Charles Flandrau, portrays the common round of 
 life in a remote plantation of the State of Veracruz ; 
 its varied pictures of the natives and the settlers are not 
 less delightful on account of being true. Those who 
 wish for an authoritative guide to the antiquities of 
 Mexico can place themselves with every confidence 
 in Mr. Marshall Saville's care. This profound and 
 brilliant scientist, Professor at Columbia University 
 of American Archaeology, is much respected by his 
 fellow-students, as one may see, for example, in the 
 pages of Carl Lumholtz. Although Marshall Saville 
 was not born till 1867, he has made his sixteen 
 expeditions into Mexico, spent several years amid 
 the ruins of Honduras and of Guatemala, has begun 
 to publish monumental works on the antiquities of 
 
14 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 Ecuador and of Columbia : only one of these impor- 
 tant volumes is in the library of the British Museum. 
 Probably the best guide that we have among us to 
 the antiquities of Southern Mexico, is Mr. A. P. 
 Maudslay, an Englishman. His reputation is among 
 the learned. 
 
 He who wrote about Porfirian Mexico could some- 
 times gather facts inside the office of a newspaper. 
 Many of them had arrived by post, because the 
 telegrams were stripped and dressed again by legal 
 bandits on the road. These gentry had so much to 
 do that, though the papers oftentimes protested, they 
 refused to hurry : a telegram, say from Chihuahua, 1 
 came into the capital, to that revising office ; there 
 blue pencils set to work and india-rubber also, loyal 
 officers were brought to life again, the wounded were 
 in flawless health and the insurgents died. The 
 telegrams on other subjects likewise underwent 
 revision, the fair copy was transmitted to the editor ; 
 but once at least — it was in February, 1911 — the 
 original, with the corrections scrawled across it, was 
 delivered. And as Mexico was then emerging out 
 of barbarism, it was going to be presented by the 
 editor to a museum. Telegrams in cypher were 
 forbidden, and it would be tantalising to have news 
 you may not publish. So the facts arrived by letter, 
 though the envelope was often steamed and then, 
 according to the paper, they were printed or with- 
 held. There was not nearly so much freedom then as 
 in the days of Maximilian or Benito Juarez. The 
 subsidised Press was bad, the Press that wanted 
 to be subsidised was worse — they treated many facts 
 as if they were insurgents. And the independent 
 papers published at their peril. When the revolution 
 1 Pronounced: Chee-wa-wa. 
 
Felicista soldiers firing from the ruins of Belem Prison, 
 
 Februarj', 19 13. 
 
COMO TAPABOCA 
 
 15 
 
 started in 1910, I believe that during ten days half 
 a dozen papers were suppressed in the capital alone, 
 and not merely were they suppressed, but the editors 
 were thrown into Belem, with such haste that there 
 was no time for a trial. Now Belem — I weigh my 
 words — is the most noxious prison in the world. 1 
 When they wanted to give punishment to a policeman 
 he was sent there to perform a little cleansing ; if 
 you bribed a man to let you pay a visit you were 
 bound to wear such garments as you would not mind 
 destroying afterwards. The slime of ages and the 
 pestilential vapours darken every cell. Two hundred 
 prisoners could be there — I will not say comfortably ; 
 as a rule it held between 4000 and 5000 — and if it 
 were not for murder and the everlasting typhus one 
 could hardly have existed. But even Belem did not 
 always put a muzzle on the truth. How often this 
 occurred, though, I could judge when I contrasted 
 what I saw in print with that which editors had told 
 me. There was least divergence, that is over any 
 length of time, with 4 El Pais,' the organ of the 
 Church. In Mexico, despite the strictest legislation, 
 there is hardly any limit to the power of the clergy, 
 and when 4 El Pais ' spoke out the truth about the 
 prison and the Revolution it was safer far than all 
 the other independent sheets. To say that, when 
 the Revolution started, these brought punishment 
 upon themselves by virulence of language is beside 
 the point — an article which caused the death of ' El 
 
 1 An authoress, Dolores Jimenez y Muro, spent several months in 
 Belem because she walked in the procession of the 11th September 
 (vide page 216) carrying a flag. In Belem certain warders made an 
 effort to assault her. With the captives, male and female, who were 
 unprovided with a pen or other means of vengeance, they accom- 
 plished their desires by using marihuana, the deadly native drug. 
 The head of the establishment was authorised to add long months to 
 any sentence on the information of the warders. 
 
16 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 Paladin ' and the inevitable Belem for its editor, a 
 gentleman who had for fifteen years preached brother- 
 hood among the Mexicans, was positively statesman- 
 like — and are they not provoked, good God ? One 
 day the Government determined that it could not 
 tolerate ' El Pais ' any longer, and they closed the 
 office several hours before a new machine was to be 
 blessed by the Archbishop, for the circulation had 
 gone up so greatly that the old equipment could not 
 cope with it. The editor was wanted, but as every 
 house of Catholics which had a secret room entreated 
 him to be their guest he stayed inside the capital 
 and he would never have been found. The reptile 
 Press anticipated that they would inherit the fine 
 circulation of their foe ; some days elapsed and ' El 
 Pais ' was in the field again, amid rejoicings of the 
 Catholics and of the Liberals and of the creditors. 
 So swiftly did the circulation rise, that in the briefest 
 time the Buenos Ayres 6 Prensa ' was the only 
 Spanish journal in America which was not beaten. 
 The chief creditors of ' El Pais ' are Messrs. Goetschel, 
 Jews from France, whose stock is registered under 
 the names of five priests. ... A journalist less 
 prosperous was Filomeno Mata, 1 who assisted Diaz 
 in the days of Tuxtepec ; he had been thirty times 
 in Belem, where he kept a bed. Another one has 
 been in the profession half a century, and Don Porfirio's 
 friend. But growing old, he seemed to have become 
 too independent. His paper was suppressed, he made 
 a personal appeal to Don Porfirio, was promised 
 
 1 ' The hardships of the last imprisonment,' says a local journal, 
 ' were too great for a man so far advanced in years.' He died, aged 
 64, at Veracruz, on 2nd July, 1911. This indomitable worker for the 
 cause of Mexican freedom had at least survived the tyranny of Diaz. 
 He who suffered many cruelties and hardships from the Government 
 was now shown every honour, and was buried at the Government's 
 expense. 
 
COMO TAPABOCA 
 
 17 
 
 justice, and the next day had a visit from the Pro- 
 curator of the Republic, who explained, while weeping, 
 that he had his orders which he could not disobey. 
 One might suppose that from this source I should 
 receive embittered information. But the victim is a 
 Mexican Montaigne. 
 
 However much I came to be prejudiced in favour 
 of those who were against the Government and most 
 of the authorities, I do not think that I accepted 
 anything of any moment till I, being fallible, had 
 satisfied myself it was more right than wrong. The 
 Government would have been much astonished had 
 they known some of my sources ; neither these nor 
 private people could I name, with one or two excep- 
 tions ; such was the Republic under Diaz. ... I am 
 quite aware that Mexicans incline to one extreme 1 
 or to the other, but if I go on protesting that I never 
 was unduly credulous, I shall protest too much. 
 Perhaps it is advisable to give some illustration of 
 the method which I followed when in Yucatan. 
 ' The Times ' had asked me to devote an article — 
 the sixth one of the series — to the native question, 
 and as there had been a good deal written on the 
 Mayas and their Yaqui comrades, it was necessary 
 that I should go down to Yucatan. The British 
 Minister, whose constant kindness to me I shall not 
 forget — he placed his knowledge and his library at 
 
 1 But often their exaggerated statements are the children of their 
 courtesy. I think they seldom sign a book or photograph for you, 
 but they apply to you the epithet ' distinguido. ' And when two or 
 three newspapers called me the ' redactor,' or the ' redactor-correspon- 
 sal ' of ' The Times,' I paid no attention to the obvious absurdity which 
 called me, as I thought, the ' editor ' or the ' editor-correspondent ' of 
 ' The Times. ' Apparently, though, this expression means nothing more 
 than a member of the editorial, as opposed to the advertising, side of 
 a paper, and one of the London editors subpoenaed by ' The Times ' 
 had asked us to ask him this question in the witness-box. But 
 unfortunately he was never put into the box. 
 
18 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 my disposal — had cherished the intention of a visit, 
 since the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection 
 Society was quite reluctant to accept his view of the 
 conditions, as he had embodied them in a dispatch 
 to Sir Edward Grey. But just about this time Sir 
 Reginald (then Mr.) Tower was promoted from the 
 diplomatic stagnation of Mexico to Buenos Ayres. 
 And he certainly escaped a world of trouble, for if 
 he had travelled to the hot peninsula he would have 
 been accompanied by Don Olegario Molina, the 
 then Minister of Fomento [Board of Trade], ex- 
 Governor of Yucatan. Don Olegario, a man who has 
 not only made himself but all his family, down to 
 the nephews and the sons-in-law of cousins, is a 
 stranger to fatigue, and Sir Reginald would have 
 found it difficult to get away from him. I, on the 
 other hand, was only called upon to get away from 
 ordinary people, those to whom Don Olegario had 
 given me benignant introductions, 1 wherein it was 
 stated that my sentiments would surely not be those 
 
 1 Such letters are not always of assistance in Yucatan, as the 
 English aviator, Mr. Dyott, found in 1912 when some of the influential 
 people to whom he had introductions took to bombarding him with 
 cocoa-nuts. His contract said that he must fly at Merida, but 
 Barbachano the impresario acknowledged that the neighbourhood is 
 ill adapted for such exercises on account of rocks and cactus. It was 
 settled, therefore, that the flying should be at Progreso by the sea. 
 The contract also said that Mr. Dyott would not be required to give 
 the show if there should be a wind exceeding 15 miles per hour ; he 
 pointed out to the Governor that the speed was nearly 45, and that a 
 neighbouring windmill would not be revolving if the wind were less 
 than 20. The Governor assured him that there was no wind at all, 
 and in the meantime sent two soldiers to prevent the windmill going 
 round. The aviator did not wish to disappoint the numerous specta- 
 tors, most of whom had come the 30 miles from Merida. He started 
 making preparations, and while he was thus engaged the mob and 
 the committee pelted him with cocoa-nuts. The contract also said 
 that when his aeroplane was ready to ascend he should be paid by 
 Barbachano. This would not have happened if the situation had not 
 been explained to the spectators, who were so desirous that a man 
 should fly in such a gale that they insisted on the impresario fulfilling 
 this part of the contract. Mr. Dyott then made several good flights, 
 
COMO TAPABOCA 
 
 19 
 
 of the conspirators who lately had been travelling 
 through Yucatan, to gratify the Yellow Press. ' Oh ! 
 the ex-Governor's farm is the worst of all. They 
 flog them to death, and of course, you see, the people 
 on the farm only have the owner of the farm to be 
 their judge.' 1 Thus in the charming, moonlit colon- 
 nades of Merida spoke one who is a British Hondura- 
 nean but can boast a language of his own, whereas 
 Don Olegario pours out mellifluent and soothing 
 periods of King's English. Those deep colonnades 
 had made me think about Don Olegario, whose hand 
 upon my shoulder had been gentle as the moon- 
 light. When he used to beam upon me at the Board 
 of Trade, this fatherly old man could not prevent 
 his eyes from blessing me. ' If,' so said the British 
 Honduranean, ' I find you in a more close place, 
 you'll be having enough from me.' There was an 
 indiscreet policeman at our side, who angrily in- 
 formed me that his duty made him be there. So we 
 two went up to my hotel, and this is what he said 
 
 and everyone was satisfied save Barbachano, who came up with the 
 police to the hotel that night in Merida — meanwhile Mr. Dyott had 
 sent all the money out of Yucatan — and charged the aviator with a 
 breach of contract on the ground that he had not flown by the town 
 of Merida, but at Progreso. It is not allowed, apparently, to have a 
 man arrested while he dines in Yucatan, and Mr. Dyott lingered at 
 the table. During the next days, when he was in the Penitenciary, 
 his food consisted of some oranges, and every afternoon at the same 
 hour came Barbachano, asking if he would return a portion of the 
 money or would fly again. At last the aviator said that he would fly, 
 he was let out — the last train having gone down to Progreso it was 
 thought that he could not escape — a special engine was in waiting, his 
 intelligent mechanic had arranged as to the aeroplane, and in a little 
 cargo boat they flew from Yucatan. 
 
 1 This and kindred passages may give one the impression that I 
 was too much addicted to those people who could speak a sort of 
 English. But I cannot reproduce the words of those who spoke in 
 Spanish. Nor is it the case that all the English-speaking Mexicans — 
 whatever was the attitude of humble British sojourners from the West 
 Indies — were the enemies of Don Porfirio's system, though they 
 should have been, for they were usually men who had been educated 
 here at Stonyhurst or in the United States. 
 
20 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 about the haciendas : 4 Those people can't come to 
 the town ' [they can. but with difficulty] ; ' each 
 farm has five or six policemen or more, so that the 
 people can't get out. There is no justice for those 
 people. When a man escapes from one of those 
 farms they seek for him as if he did a criminal crime, 
 and he is cruelly flogged and he has to work for the 
 rest of his days. The slavery will never abolish here 
 under no consideration ; the slaves on the plantation, 
 it is only the encargado who can read ; so that they 
 may not be wise, the child, when it is eight years old, 
 begins to work for twelve cents a day.' Don Olegario, 
 at all events, had not descended to such detail, but 
 my midnight guest said something which exhibited 
 his ignorance, if nothing worse. ' There was a good 
 farm,' he said, ' Dr. Palomeque's, an old man, he 
 treated the people very well.' We shall speak of 
 Dr. Palomeque. But the Honduranean's knowledge 
 was not limited to farms of henequen. - When you 
 go to Dzitas 1 and to the branch line of Espita, that 
 part of the world only grows corn and beans ; the 
 people are half naked because they have no money 
 to buy clothes, and the country is all prickly. They 
 only get If pesos a week.' 
 
 A custom which prevailed among the Persian 
 monarchs was to fill the mouth of any laudatory poet 
 with gold pieces, but when there succeeded to the 
 throne a ruler who was economical or less addicted 
 to that special sort of verse, he substituted treacle. 
 So the poet's mouth was stopped, as he declaimed 
 beside the saddle of his lord, it being usual to pave 
 the royal progress through a town with poems. 
 Como Tapaboca signifies in Spanish (tapar= to stop 
 up, boca= mouth) what is applied to-day in Spanish- 
 
 1 For the pronunciation of Yucatan place-names see Glossary. 
 
COMO TAPABOCA 
 
 21 
 
 speaking countries to non-laudatory persons ; in 
 Porfirian Mexico it was both gold and treacle. But 
 if you could not digest them other substances were 
 brought to bear. ... I went to Yucatan with no 
 intention other than to look into the slavery, if it 
 existed, but some various abuses forced themselves 
 upon my notice. Half a year ago there had been 
 trouble in the State, because at Valladolid the 
 sensuous despotism of Don Luis de Regil, the jefe, 
 could no longer be endured — the flabby, obstinate 
 governor, Munoz Aristegui, would not supersede 
 him — and he was assassinated, with some others. 
 During four days Valladolid, then the second town 
 of Yucatan and afterwards a lifeless place, was in 
 the rebels' power. Aristegui rushed twenty times a 
 day to Mr. Blake, not knowing what to do. This 
 Mr. Blake, the railway manager, an imperturbable 
 and jovial Englishman not thirty years of age, had 
 organised his service — after many obstacles — so that, 
 unlike the Governor, he could at once learn what 
 was happening in every part of Yucatan. Aristegui 
 entreated, also, that he should advise him what to 
 do, but the notorious general, who came post-haste to 
 the Peninsula, ignored the local sovereignty, for, after 
 having shot three of the rebels, he took with him one 
 hundred and sixty other citizens up to the capital of 
 the Republic. Such as had a satisfactory physique 
 were put into the army, while the rest — untried — 
 were given leave to pay their journey home ; a batch 
 of fifty others had been tried in Yucatan, had been 
 found innocent, and were, on my arrival, in the 
 Penitenciary. But all this, knowing Mexico a trifle, 
 would not have induced me to investigate the Yuca- 
 tecan wrongs more closely than the others. When I 
 gradually came to do so, my proceedings irritated 
 
22 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 not alone Aristegui, who strove for many afternoons 
 to make me listen to the voice of reason, but the 
 editor and owner of a journal, Don Ricardo Molina, 
 with whose method I had little sympathy. 1 His 
 uncle Olegario — of whom sufficient elsewhere — depre- 
 cated his ambitions to be Governor, but Don Ricardo 
 persevered ; he now and then addressed some callow 
 youths — he was less popular than wise ; in fact, he 
 was above the average of his fellow-deputies — and 
 every morning he addressed a number of Yucatecans, 
 but the ' Diario Yucateco ' did not circulate beyond 
 1100-1200 (including a large free list of officials and 
 others), whereas the independent 4 Revista de Merida,' 
 at double the cost, had a circulation of 6000-7000. 
 The ' Diario Yucateco ' not only occupied Molina's 
 time, but claimed an annual allowance of about £8000 
 (in view of the poor circulation), but Molina's wealth 
 is quite considerable and the sacred cause of propa- 
 ganda was upheld. Nor should I have complained if 
 it had not attempted to increase its owner's popu- 
 larity at the expense of me. Some who observed 
 that for a week or two I spent a large part of my time 
 with hacendados knew, by some inscrutable deduc- 
 tion, that I was an emissary from Porfirio Diaz, for 
 which reason the Society of Workmen passed a 
 resolution praying that I would hear both sides in 
 the matter of the slavery. (This may seem quite super- 
 fluous, but they remembered Mr. Creelman.) Pre- 
 sently it grew to be an axiom that I was Don Francisco 
 
 1 My lack of sympathy with those of Mr. Justice Darling may be 
 thought to be less due to disapproval of his method than to his 
 rigidly hostile summing up. But many of my friends had dreaded 
 the jocular methods of Sir Charles Darling who, over and over again, 
 laid himself open to being publicly rebuked. I had also dreaded the 
 indignity of having fault found with my writings, and the still greater 
 indignity of having them praised by a man whose attempts upon 
 literature are so deplorable. 
 
A British Musician. 
 
 In the band of Merida's penitenciary 
 
 Antonio Carillo. See * 
 
 In Merida's penitenciary. 
 
 The text, in broken Spanish, is a question put to the convict as to whether he is all complete, 
 whether he is not being devoured, say by the cat o' nine tails. He replies that he has not been 
 imprisoned in England. — From the Diario Yucaieco. 
 
COMO TAPABOCA 
 
 23 
 
 I. Madero ; he himself had been in those parts not 
 so many months before — but no matter. And a 
 third group had it that I was the secretary of the 
 Anti- Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society ; 
 for I was talking to a multitude of people on the labour 
 question, some of whom diverged from one another, 
 it appears, in politics. Then the 4 Diario Yucateco .' 
 roundly swore that I was none of these things, but 
 an evil spirit who had come in search of points, such 
 black points as I would exclusively select. But 
 though I stayed for many weeks and Don Ricardo 
 persecuted me with zeal, he did not grow more 
 popular — in fact, he fled upon the boat which carried 
 me — yet he accomplished something ; for my visit, 
 thanks to him, was far from dull. So much, then, 
 as an introduction to the mastiff-like and sallow 
 Don Ricardo. In despite of all his opulence the 
 ' Diario Yucateco ' was not independent, for it had 
 the privilege of the judicial notices and thus was 
 indirectly subsidised. 
 
 The Penitenciary is something of a show-place, 
 but when I was taken over it by the director, an 
 assassin called Bolardo, and regaled with beer and 
 with an admirable orchestra of murderers (these are 
 the inmates who stay long enough to make it worth 
 while that they shall receive instruction), I was not 
 shown everything, and it was necessary for me to 
 return at least three times before I had examined all 
 the bartolinas. The director laughed good-naturedly 
 at my attempts upon the Spanish language, for the 
 dictionary he produced for me had no such word, 
 but only calabozo (=cell). The prison had some 
 calabozos, to be sure, and they were thirteen feet by 
 nine, with a slab to sleep on, with two ventilators and 
 an opening above the door. To make a long and 
 
M MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 tedious story short, it finally transpired that bartolinas 
 are constructed out of calabozos, by moving back the 
 wooden door and taking out the bed and blocking 
 one at least of the two ventilators ; you could read 
 for three or four hours in the middle of the day, and 
 in these dungeons several suspects had been kept for 
 sixty days, they being gentlemen of the first families 
 who were accused of trying to upset the Government. 
 Aristegui, the well-intentioned boot importer, cannot 
 really be much blamed, for he was only the obedient 
 servant of Don Olegario, and had been placed by 
 him in charge of Yucatan, when Diaz, fearing the 
 enormous influence of Olegario, brought him as 
 Minister up to the capital of the Republic. Olegario 
 continued thus to govern Yucatan, and poor Aristegui 
 received the odium ; he gave commands to the 
 director, who was nothing loth, to keep these gentle- 
 men in durance and permit no exercise whatever. 
 (If it is immodest I am sorry, but I have to mention 
 that when I had agitated for six weeks they were 
 allowed one and a half hours' exercise per diem.) 
 Bolardo was accustomed to make no distinction 
 between those who had been sentenced and those 
 others who, sometimes a year and sometimes 
 longer, waited for a trial. He himself had slaughtered 
 several of his charges : some by flogging, some by 
 doing nothing. He was in the alcaldia (warders' 
 room) one day, when Dr. Avila came in to ask per- 
 mission to obtain a patent remedy for someone whose 
 condition was alarming. 8 Give him a spoonful of what- 
 ever you like,' said the director. ' I shall not spend 
 money on such people.' When the doctor said that 
 he could not have the responsibility, ' What does 
 it matter ? ' cried Bolardo, and the invalid — a big, 
 strong man of middle age called Cuitun — died in 
 
COMO TAPABOCA 
 
 25 
 
 two days. The ' Diario Yucateco ' said that it was 
 monstrous of me to search out these black points in 
 the Penitenciary, forgetting that the Governor had 
 begged me to go over it, and surely my acquaintance 
 would have been too superficial if I had not stepped 
 beyond the beer and orchestra. The journalists of 
 Yucatan, if they did not offend the Government, were 
 not admitted, and it seemed that the ' Diario Yuca- 
 teco' s ' knowledge emanated from a curly-headed 
 young reporter who had been incarcerated for a day 
 or two because he tried, when he was drunk, to set 
 fire to a circus. Now that I had started it was 
 requisite to probe the subject. 
 
 Prisoners were flogged informally, as when Bolardo 
 struck a student, Senor Arcobedo — one of the editors 
 of 6 Yucatan Nuevo ' — for not rising as he entered. 
 They were flogged as when Bolardo broke two sticks 
 and broke the head of one Isidro Castillo, who had 
 ventured to protest against the treatment which he 
 suffered from a certain foreman. The director 
 struck him in the presence of the other convicts, and 
 as it was quite impossible to let him take his wound 
 about the streets — two days alone divided him from 
 liberty — Bolardo asked the jefatura for another 
 month's imprisonment, because the man, he said, 
 was so incorrigible ; and a month inside a bartolina 
 cured the wound. Sometimes the flogging was 
 conducted with formality, as in the case of Manuel 
 Fernandez Boo, a Spaniard. He had been to school, 
 unluckily for him, with Primitivo Diaz, and they had 
 foregathered in Havana, where Don Primitivo forged 
 the tickets of the lottery and was imprisoned. Coming 
 afterwards to Yucatan, they gave him command of 
 the secret police ; but Manuel Fernandez Boo was 
 too loquacious and was locked up on a charge of 
 
c 26 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 stealing. Then for three months he was set to 
 quarry stones and turn a wheel ; if he exhibited a 
 trace of slackness he was flogged — informally. Near 
 the beginning of each month Bolardo and a member 
 of the Vigilance Committee and a Government 
 representative walked round the prison (they are 
 called the Revista de Comisario) to hear complaints 
 about the food. But when he told them that he 
 worked all day and died of hunger they refused to 
 listen, and the furious Bolardo ordered that at four 
 o'clock next morning he should have a hundred blows ; 
 the implement is the organ of a bull with a steel rod 
 in it. The prison barber 1 occupied a cell precisely 
 opposite. He saw the struggle, for the convict would 
 not lie down prostrate, and the four men, after tele- 
 phoning to Bolardo, beat him anyhow and anywhere 
 and till they could no more and till he did not struggle. 
 On the evening of that same day Bolardo suddenly 
 snapped out that he must have the hundred 
 blows ; they told him that the punishment had been 
 inflicted. 6 I know nothing of it ! Flog him now ! ' 
 retorted the director, and another hundred blows 
 were rained upon the almost lifeless body. There was 
 scanty justice then in Yucatan, but the member of 
 the Vigilance Committee, Pedro Reguera, a chemist, 
 took an active part in the elections and was sentenced 
 to nine months' imprisonment. As for Manuel 
 Fernandez Boo, he vanished. Some say that he was 
 deported to Quintana Roo, while others say he died 
 upon the morrow of a flogging. Certainly Judge 
 Solis, after having seen the man in prison, ordered 
 that he should be liberated. And Benigno Fernandez 
 
 1 This young man was charged with stealing a watch worth 
 10 pesos, whereas he said a comrade gave it him to sell. The com- 
 rade said the barber had advised the theft, and even so one thinks 
 that three years and seven months' detention is excessive. During 
 all this period he shaved 480 people a week and was unpaid. 
 
COMO TAPABOCA 
 
 Boo, a brother, who had served on board the Spanish 
 Transatlantic boats and was a burly man, killed some- 
 one in a drunken brawl at Progreso, and lest he should 
 slay the director of the Penitenciary, in vengeance of 
 his brother, he was locked for three years in a cell, 
 where he became demented. As he tried to hurl 
 himself upon the man who brought his food, Bolardo 
 punished him by giving only half the ordinary rations 
 and removing his apparel, so that he was cold o' 
 nights. He went on growing thinner till he died. 
 No doubt Bolardo had been told that herrings, in the 
 Gaelic phrase, 6 live on the foam of their own tails,' 
 and he desired to ascertain if some analagous capacity 
 lay in a sailor. Another Spanish subject whom I 
 visited, and who for three years out of the five had 
 been a lunatic — his five years' isolation was a punish- 
 ment for having made an effort to escape — was 
 Daniel Blanco. He disturbed the neighbouring 
 convicts by his intermittent, random shouts all 
 through the day and night. But Don Rogelio Suarez, 
 Spanish Vice-Consul and the son-in-law of the 
 omnipotent Don Olegario, said he had looked at 
 Blanco through the door and found him sane. A 
 friend of mine in Yucatan, a Catalonian opera-singer, 
 tried to move this consul to object at least when 
 Spanish subjects were incorporated nolens volens in 
 the army. ' But,' said Don Rogelio Suarez, twirling 
 his moustachios and flashing his fine eyes and talking 
 Spanish like a horse which prances, 4 they have not 
 inscribed themselves upon my list.' . . . These Peni- 
 tenciary abominations were excused by the authori- 
 ties, because the prison was too picturesque 1 a place 
 
 1 There was an account of such a lively spot in * El Pais,' of April 3, 
 1911. In Pachuca prison dwelt a convict, Pedro Elizalde, 'who 
 enjoys great privileges, and because of his despotic conduct is with- 
 out the approbation of his colleagues. One of the abuses which they 
 
28 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 in other days : a series of small booths were set up 
 in the patio, while you were more or less at liberty 
 to go into the town and sleep with your senora. It 
 so happened that one day I asked the Governor if 
 there was commonly a doctor present when a man 
 was flogged. He threw his hands up and entangled 
 them in his gold pince-nez cord : ' Upon my honour 
 as a caballero,' he exclaimed, ' there is no flogging ! ' 
 And impressively he bent his heavy body over 
 towards me and he placed a plump hand on my knee. 
 They flog the inmates of the poor-house, where a 
 vigorous young man (who entered on account of 
 drunkenness) was made the foreman and entrusted 
 with the task of flogging all the others : drunkards, 
 disobedient folk, the aged and the mad. As for the 
 Penitenciary, 1 I met a grave official of the custom- 
 have against him is that he exacts a contribution of from 3 to 5 
 pesos for the balls, which it is usual to celebrate in that establishment, 
 and which are nothing less than orgies. As a certain number of the 
 prisoners cannot pay, they are marked out as enemies by some of the 
 officials . Elizalde lends the convicts money, with interest at 25 per 
 cent, which is subtracted from the food allowance paid them by the 
 Government. He also has the privilege of selling seeds, at any price 
 he likes. ' 
 
 1 It compared unfavourably with San Juan de Ulua, and was only 
 less notorious for being more remote. In 1893 Don Rafael Peon had 
 trouble with the Indians, who were settled near his hacienda. They 
 asserted that he was appropriating land of theirs, and in reply he 
 ordered that they should be flogged. They waited for him with long 
 knives [machetes] and one gun, which killed a Maya. Then the 
 Government had five men shot, without a trial, and twenty-one were 
 ordered to San Juan for a period of twenty-two years. It was 
 illegal that they should be sent to Veracruz, but the authorities 
 across the water took them in return for half a peso each per diem. 
 One of them, called Justo Poot, became the private servant of the 
 chief director, Colonel Hernandez, and was thus in a position to meet 
 Yucatecans in the market-place, and send back word as to the treat- 
 ment of the others. Terrible as San Juan was made for the politicals, 
 it offered some amenities for the remaining convicts. Cigarettes 
 could be procured and books, whereas the library inside the gaol of 
 Merida was, to a great extent, in order to impress the tourist : it was 
 founded at the instigation of a writer who for his political and social 
 articles was punished with a term of four years' penal servitude. He 
 gave some fifty of the books himself, and when he chanced to be 
 
COMO TAPABOCA 
 
 29 
 
 house who, in his capacity of prefect of the convicts 
 (presidente del presidio), had seen perhaps a hundred 
 floggings. His own penal servitude was owing to the 
 fact that in the desolation of Campeche his chicle- 
 workers fell upon him, and in self-defence he killed 
 a man. Not thinking for a moment that he would 
 be punished he came up to Merida, a wearisome long 
 journey, and informed the Governor. He is an in- 
 stance, by the way, of how they used to swindle at 
 the Penitenciary : the rule was that one-third of 
 what a man might earn was for his upkeep, and one- 
 third was to be given him at the completion of his 
 sentence, and one-third was to be sent out to his 
 family — but often there was so much discount that 
 the wife did not receive a cent, and, being unable to 
 discover any other means of livelihood, was driven 
 by the Government to immorality. The chicle-owner 
 had 600 pesos in his pocket when he came, he earned 
 some hundreds by his handiwork and owing to his 
 post as prefect, but the treasurer (who subsequently 
 was jefe politico of Cuernavaca) made off with the 
 whole of it ; and when the prefect was allowed to 
 leave, the ' Diario Oficial ' announced, in a bombastic 
 paragraph, that as a recompense for his good work 
 the good authorities had gratified him with no less a 
 
 again imprisoned he was not allowed to use the library. Cheap books 
 were given by the Corporation of the city every year as prizes, and a 
 few days afterwards Bolardo used to have them piled up in a patio 
 and burned. As for the prisoners at Veracruz, when Olegario Molina 
 entered into power he looked askance upon the annual sum which 
 Yucatan was paying to San Juan de Ulua. So the twenty-one were 
 carried back, and at the station made a fine show for their families 
 and friends, because they had good clothes and books and trunks, 
 which they had either earned or been regaled with, also cocoa-nuts 
 and many knick-knacks they had carved for sale. Bolardo had the 
 clothes and books and trunks and cocoa-nuts and knick-knacks burned 
 to ashes in the Penitenciary. 'There might be epidemics,' he ex- 
 plained, 'at Veracruz.' And thinking that the convicts might be 
 discontented, he put all of them for two years into calabozos, and 
 deprived them of permission to receive their friends or families. 
 
30 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 sum than 600 pesos. . . . Something has been said 
 of the unhealthy life inside those bartolinas, and I 
 learned from Dr. Vega, chief of the Sanitary Board, 
 that he had made suggestions of reform in July, 1909. 
 Tuberculosis might be the result of a prolonged 
 imprisonment. And Dr. Vega did not know if any- 
 thing had been effected. That, he said, was not his 
 business, and the subject of tuberculosis made him 
 restless. He declined to speak another word ; he 
 banged the poor report of 1909 upon the floor and 
 read triumphantly in French a passage from a book 
 which proved that cats-o' -nine-tails are administered 
 to British convicts every day. The sanitary board 
 of Merida permits a person with tuberculosis to 
 expectorate in any tram, while they will only disinfect 
 the last house he has lived in, when he is no longer 
 dangerous. This Dr. Vega is the son of Colonel Rabia 
 — or, as we might say, Colonel Fury ; he was seldom 
 called his proper name — and now the doctor thinks 
 that he himself is unimpassioned. He had listened 
 to me, so he told the ' Diario Yucateco,' with angelic 
 patience. 
 
 One of the most urgent matters dealing with the 
 Indian race, both on and off the haciendas, was their 
 forcible enrolment in the army. This, of course, 
 would not so often be the lot of those who had a 
 master — he could buy them out or find a sub- 
 stitute — but now and then a puissant master would 
 employ this arm against a servant. Five domesticas 
 or women slaves incurred the wrath of Don Ricardo's 
 aunt in Merida, their mistress. They were flogged 
 and sent to one of the Molina farms, but in the night 
 they ran away. The major-domo, Pablo Ruiz, was 
 charged with having aided them, and, notwithstanding 
 that he had a wife and family, was forthwith sent to 
 
COMO TAPABOCA 
 
 31 
 
 fight the rebels in Chihuahua. As a rule, the press- 
 gang operates on those who are without protector : 
 sixty-six unfortunates were shipped to Veracruz 
 towards the end of January ; some of them indeed 
 were culprits and their lives were the reverse of edify- 
 ing — one rare rogue would tell his victims that he 
 was a member of the secret police force and had been 
 conducting deep investigations ; in this way the scamp 
 extracted heavy sums of money. But a number of 
 the sixty- six were men who had been charged with 
 being complicated in the 1909 revolt, and they had 
 been declared not guilty ; yet, as the Governor told 
 me, the police felt in their hearts that these men were 
 not innocent. Some others had to go, nor say fare- 
 well to anyone, because of troubles with the boundary 
 marks at Muna. They asserted that the Govern- 
 ment had sold to several hacendados property which 
 was not theirs to sell, and they tore up the boundary 
 marks. Aristegui acknowledged to me that the 
 ancient land books were in Seville ; it was very 
 complicated. But from what I knew of other parts 
 of the Republic — in the central district of the State 
 of Tamaulipas it did not avail the Indians that they 
 had the tax receipts for five-and-twenty years, while 
 only twenty are required by law ; their lands were 
 given by the Governor to a friend of his, the local 
 deputy ; and this is one example out of hundreds — it 
 was not impossible that they had been despoiled at 
 Muna. 6 But apart from that,' said the jefe politico 
 of Merida, another Molina, ' they were people of the 
 vilest disposition.' This was not the case with Aniseto 
 Tun, for instance, nor with Nicolas Romero; while 
 the Muna representative of Government could tell me 
 nothing more enormous about Pedro Segovia than 
 that he was habitually drunk on Sundays. ' We have 
 
32 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 five balls in a vessel,' said the jefe politico, ' four white 
 ones and a black one. If it is their destiny to pick a 
 
 black ball ' But an ex-jefe politico, Don Augusto 
 
 Peon, told me that, at any rate in his time, no white 
 ball was ever used. ' They leave here,' said the jefe, 
 ' with a medical certificate. The man who has a 
 physical defect is not allowed to sail.' But when the 
 sixty-six were carried to the capital of the Republic 
 and again examined, Manuel and Pedro Jimenez, 
 Moises Montero, Felipe Balam, Aniseto Tun and 
 Mauro Solis were found unsuitable — one of them was 
 incapacitated with a fistula, another had the most 
 incurable disease : Montero was near sixty years 
 of age — so they were stripped of uniforms, and in a 
 climate far less tropic than the Yucatecan, were 
 abandoned in their underclothing to their own de- 
 vices. 4 We do not know any of their names,' said 
 Aristegui, ' for it is the Minister of War who has 
 them. They are worthless Indians who may not 
 have been convicted in so many words, but of their 
 character the less you say the better.' And he was 
 offended when I asked how soon the Yucatecan 
 Government would bring them back — themselves 
 they had no money. 6 It is in the hands of the Minister 
 of War, and doubtless,' said Aristegui, ' he will 
 attend to it.' I ventured to remark that with the 
 Revolution General Cosio had enough to cope with, 
 and that if the men were not indemnified . Aris- 
 tegui jumped up and glared at me. ' Indemnified ! 
 What nonsense ! I must ask you to depart.' If 
 anyone endured a year or two of wrong imprisonment 
 the utmost he could hope for was a paper ' dejando 
 
 al Senor en buena opinion y fama ' (leaving 
 
 Mr. with a good reputation). ' No ! no ! stop ! 
 
 I beg you,' said the Governor, 'to sit down. I really 
 
COMO TAPABOCA 33 
 
 cannot authorise the State to pay.' And ultimately 
 they were brought back by a fund the public raised, 
 and I will not insinuate that as a man, apart from 
 being Governor, Aristegui refrained from helping these 
 unfortunates. He had regaled, we know, a citizen 
 who was set free from an erroneous imprisonment of 
 many months with almost five pence (twenty centavos) 
 of his private purse. 4 1 will admit you,' so he said, 
 6 into a secret. We withhold the publication of their 
 
 names ' ' Although,' said I, 4 ' 4 Well, yes, 
 
 the law demands it ; but we are benevolent, we only 
 send the evildoers, and we have to do this with a 
 certain wariness. The public are so foolish.' It 
 appeared to me that this might be the case with 
 Dr. Betancourt, a relative of Olegario, because he 
 clearly did not know what was a fistula. Aristegui 
 snatched up his telephone and agitatedly demanded 
 of the jefatura if this allegation could be verified. 
 He mopped his brow. 4 You must see Betancourt,' 
 he said, and the 4 Diario Yucateco ' had the usual 
 article describing how el ingles de inarms — a some- 
 what contemptuous phrase — was nonplussed by the 
 doctor. I did not succeed in meeting him, however, 
 since he suffered during the remainder of my visit 
 from a most insidious ailment that permitted him 
 to go about his business — studying, maybe, the in- 
 tricacies of a fistula — but would not let him undergo 
 extraneous excitements. 
 
 In the meantime Mexico was in the throes of 
 revolution, and the Government appeared to be 
 most critically situated. It was not alone the fighting 
 in Chihuahua and in other States, it was the dis- 
 affection which was palpably upon the increase. 
 And I cabled Mr. Willert, correspondent of 4 The 
 Times ' in Washington, to ask if I should send him 
 
 D 
 
34 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 telegrams. All the dispatches I had, in November 
 and December, forwarded about the Revolution 
 went through him, in order to prevent us duplicating ; 
 and the cost from Mexico to Washington is relatively 
 inconsiderable. On the next day (6th February) 
 he cabled twice to tell me to take any steps to send 
 news promptly, also that he had revived the old 
 arrangement with the Western Union at El Paso on 
 the frontier, which I was to use in case of accidents. 
 He added that, as I requested, he had put himself 
 into communication with the Director-General of 
 Federal Telegraphs in Mexico City, begging that the 
 Merida sub-office should be authorised to take my 
 messages at press rates. Not a word came from the 
 capital, and in collaboration with the Chief of Tele- 
 graphs in Merida I cabled his superior. The style was 
 more than suave. All through the night there was 
 no answer, and again I cabled (not so suavely) with 
 the rather ludicrous addition of a fee of fifty centavos, 
 due on every telegram which asks a favour from 
 officials, even if it is to do their duty. He 1 replied 
 that on the understanding I observed the guarantees, 
 whatever those might be, permission would be given, 
 and although I had not paid him for his answer he 
 was out of courtesy replying in a telegram, but this 
 indulgence was not to be taken as a precedent. 
 When I had previously cabled from the capital 4 via 
 Galveston ' there never was the slightest trouble and, 
 although the Government flew in the face of solemn 
 
 1 This Don Camilo Gonzalez was removed from office when the sun 
 of Don Porfirio had set. ' But there has been down here at least,' 
 so an American wrote recently to me from Yucatan, ' surprisingly 
 little paying of old scores.' One may urge that this Gonzalez, for 
 example* was but executing orders, but he might have followed in the 
 footsteps of Saint Genest, now the patron saint of Spanish if not of 
 all other shorthand writers : he refused to take down some abomin- 
 able rescript of the Roman Emperor and felt the consequences. 
 
A British Honduranean in Merida's Hospital. 
 
 The bearded gentleman is supposed to be Don Augusto Peon. The seated person is presumably 
 the conventional type, in those parts, of an English correspondent. —From the Diario Yucateco. 
 
 i r 
 
 The Marconigram. 
 
 In this caricature the author is depicted in the 
 act of sending a lurid message to the Times. 
 His arrows are devoted respectively to cells, 
 tortures, black balls, hospital, lack of firemen, 
 insects, very many insects, absence of cat-o'-nine- 
 tails, therefore more advanced conditions than in 
 England, floggings, locusts. — From the Diario 
 Yucateco, 
 
COMO TAPABOCA 
 
 35 
 
 contracts and prevented messages from being sent 
 for two days on the wire of the Associated Press, I 
 did not hear of any interference with the American 
 cable company. I sent a telegram, devoted chiefly 
 to Chihuahua and containing information which the 
 local papers had not been allowed to publish. They 
 would have been forced by the authorities to give 
 their correspondents' names. In five hours I was 
 told that the authorities up in the capital declined 
 to let my telegram go through. 1 This was a dis- 
 concerting business, and the message could not go 
 until a Ward Line vessel — s.s. ' Esperanza ' — stopped 
 outside Progreso on the second day. The Revolution 
 was not standing still, and with my telegram in- 
 creased and modified I went out from the harbourless 
 Progreso in a fishing boat. (I much regret I cannot 
 here describe that voyage over perilous green rollers, 
 while the captain plied his amiable Maya man with 
 economic questions as to practices prevailing in the 
 vessels of Quintana Roo.) The wireless operator 
 chose the moment of my climbing up the side of the 
 ' Esperanza ' (which means ' hope ') to cast off in a 
 little steamer from the other side, because he wanted 
 to see Merida, and so he went, not asking leave of 
 anyone. I wish that he had been as independent in 
 transmitting my dispatch, for on the next day I was 
 told a story of a broken motor, and the agent of the 
 Ward Line seemed to place no limit on my simple 
 faith. The British captain of a trading vessel took 
 my message over to Mobile. The British Consul sent 
 my envelope for Washington inside an envelope of 
 his to some New England town — three hundred citi- 
 
 1 'Telegraphing,' said Don Porfirio in the Creelman interview, 
 when he looked back upon the savage era which preceded him, 
 1 telegraphing was a difficult thing in those days.' 
 
36 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 zens of Merida (including foreign business people and 
 the Chief of Telegraphs) had recently had all their 
 letters opened at the magistrate's 1 — and my belated 
 telegram went on the next boat to Havana. 2 He 
 whose motor had been in the best of health conversed 
 about it with a friend of mine, as they were also heading 
 for Havana. The Marconi operator of another Ward 
 Line vessel told me, four or five weeks later, that the 
 captain had instructed him to send no message 
 dealing with the politics of Mexico nor anything in 
 cypher. It was necessary for the Ward Line — we 
 need not discuss the reasons — to be on the best of 
 
 1 When the Revolution was triumphant, one Manterola, postmaster 
 of the Federal District, addressed a copious letter to the Press upon 
 the subject of his honesty, the sole possession which he had to leave, 
 he said, to his descendants. Letters had been seized, but that was in 
 accordance with the law ; he stigmatised as very foolish, very lazy 
 good-for-nothings, his unintellectual subordinates. 
 
 2 Thus my message went in triplicate to Washington, en route for 
 England. ' He gave it to a mariner,' said Mr. Justice Darling con- 
 temptuously, ' and no doubt some day it will turn up in a bottle. ' 
 (Loud laughter.) 'Again they guffawed,' says 'Vanity Fair,' 'and 
 again Mr. Baerlein (who was the plaintiff) did his duty. He laughed. 
 . . . Mr. Baerlein is a great traveller. He has had his grit tried in odd 
 corners of the world. . . . Platitudes are always untrue. The latest 
 to be discredited is the one which asserts the rare adventurousness of 
 the life led outside the dead spots which we tame folk call cities. Never 
 will he forget the peril to be encountered in the mother of cities.' 
 During a case against the editor of ' The Times ' ' History of the South 
 African War,' Mr. Justice Phillimore, on taking his seat, said that 
 ' on reflection he thought that he ought to have checked laughter that 
 was heard in the Court yesterday. There must be no laughter to-day ' 
 (January 27, 1911). I hope I am not doing Mr. Justice Darling an 
 injustice, but I have searched in vain through the reports for anything 
 resembling this. When I have been present in his Court he has been 
 very willing to repeat, with an uplifted eyebrow, a facetious or a 
 jocular remark which Counsel has not heard. ' What the dickens are 
 you two fellows up to ? ' asks a Senior Counsel in 1 Punch ' (February 5, 
 1913). ' We're in old Dearie's Court to-day,' says one of the Juniors. 
 ' Brilliant idea to wear masks and save facial strain. ' . . . Of course 
 it will be said that if I criticise this Judge I am no sportsman. Judges, 
 save the very best, are not machines, the unimpassioned representatives 
 of Justice, and if you should come before a man who has the general 
 reputation of being a defendant's judge, it might have been your for- 
 tune to have Mr. Justice Grantham, who was looked on as inclined 
 to take the plaintiff's view. It was your luck to be in Darling's 
 Court ; abide by that. When Mr. Justice Grantham died, after all 
 
COMO TAPABOCA 
 
 37 
 
 terms with Don Porfirio's Government. But this 
 brave operator said that I could telegraph all night ; 
 he would defy the captain. 
 
 The ' Diario Yucateco ' was exasperated ; I 
 remained in Yucatan. And Don Ricardo printed more 
 absurdities, endeavouring in this way to be popular 
 and expedite my going. But I had by this time 
 gathered a good quantity of information on the life 
 the natives lived. It seemed to me that in a property 
 of Don Ricardo' s at Acanceh their position was 
 unenviable, since the agent of the farm and the jefe 
 politico was one and the same person ; when Aristegui 
 was superseded this man was immediately removed 
 from office. And it seemed to me that Dr. le Plongeon, 
 
 the efforts to remove him from the Bench had been in vain, the papers 
 said that he had been our worst Judge. So there was a vacancy. 
 And if you advocate that Mr. Justice Darling be removed, you have 
 but slender chances of success. His jocularity may be deplorable, 
 but he is not financially corrupt, and surely it is difficult to show that 
 by his jokes he injures anyone. We are not in Central America, 
 where judges, taking their departure, cheerfully agree that they have 
 not been quite impeccable. ' While our judges,' says a writer in the 
 ' Gentlewoman,' 'are free from those venal practices which have brought 
 the Bench of other countries into disrepute, some of them are guilty 
 of other faults which sadly retard the course of justice, and detract 
 considerably from the dignity of the law. I refer more particularly 
 to the habit which a few of the judges have contracted of making a 
 joke (sometimes funny, sometimes feeble) on every possible occasion. 
 . . . It is as seductive as the drug habit — the more it is indulged in , 
 the greater is the desire for it — and the judge in question is a hopeless 
 Joe Miller. ' This writer complains chiefly of the scandalous waste of 
 most expensive time. But I suggest that if the legal improprieties 
 of England, wholly different as they are in kind, work more subtly 
 than do those of Nicaragua, then by so much is our greater civilisation 
 a greater evil. I am told that I must refrain from wondering (in 
 print) as to what Dante would have done with such a judge. But 
 Max Beerbohm in his latest series of caricatures has one of which 
 Sir Claude Phillips says that : ' Naughty, teasing Puck suddenly 
 becomes a Juvenal, pitiless in satire, in the caricature On Circuit, 
 which delineates Mr. Justice Darling in the act of handing the Black 
 Cap to his marshal, with the instruction, " Oh, and get some bells sewn 
 on this, will you ? "' Meredith hoped to die with a racy French story 
 on his lip, and perhaps the majority of those who are condemned to 
 death do not deserve anything better than one of this judge's jokes. 
 The caricature, says the ' Nation,' ' is an example of downright, 
 public-spirited and honest personal satire.' 
 
38 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 the French savant, would have been dismayed to hear 
 about a property of Don Ricardo's called Ebnakan, 
 for the doctor had located Eden in this hot peninsula, 
 he found in Yucatan the grave of Abel and the 
 shrivelled heart of the poor victim and the knife used 
 in the deadly conflict. At Ebnakan a state of things 
 existed which it is impracticable to repeat ; much 
 worse it was than in the army, where an officer would 
 sometimes lock the door upon himself and a stripped 
 soldier, whom he then would flog and hold in his left 
 hand a pistol to be used at an emergency. A pitiable 
 — and I proved it a veracious — document came into 
 my possession, written by a carpenter who had been 
 temporarily at Ebnakan. If I could but reproduce the 
 simple, ungrammatical, detailed account of horrors ! 
 
 Don Ricardo, at a cost of sixty dollars gold, 
 dispatched a prepaid cable to Messrs. J. Henry 
 Schroder and another, asking : ' Is Henry Baerlein 
 truly your correspondent ? ' to ' The Times.' In large 
 black letters in the middle of the front page of his 
 journal he inserted the replies in English and exult - 
 ingly appended a translation and his comments. The 
 first answer said that I was not connected in any way 
 with ' The Times,' except as an occasional contributor. 1 
 
 1 ' Por consiguente,' said the ' Diario Yucateco,' ' el Mister no es cor- 
 responsal del '* Times," como se habia creido, sino un simple individuo, 
 que por su cuenta y riesgo esta recogiendo informaciones que podra 
 6 no comunicar a aquel periodico, del que es simple contribuyente de 
 ocasion, como cualquier hijo de vecino.' 'Consequently he is not 
 " The Times' " correspondent, as we were led to believe, but a simple 
 individual who on his own account and at his own risk is gathering 
 data which he may or may not communicate to that paper, of which 
 he is merely an occasional correspondent, as any neighbour's son.' 
 And it uttered a grave warning to its countrymen : ' Conviene, pues, 
 que salgan del error quienes habian considerado al susodicho como 
 todo un corresponsal del gran periodico. ' ' Therefore, let those who 
 considered him to be fully a correspondent of the great paper no 
 longer harbour that delusion. ' 4 We are almost entirely without 
 authentic news here,' Mr. Willert had written. ' Anything you can 
 get through will be extremely valuable.' 
 
— From the Diario Yucateco. 
 
COMO TAPABOCA 
 
 39 
 
 Messrs. Schroder, in obtaining this information from 
 ' The Times ' office, had told them that it was to be 
 regarded as confidential ; but the second answer, 
 which after four days' consideration was sent by the 
 Foreign Department of 6 The Times,' said merely : 
 c Not member " Times " staff, only authorised submit 
 articles.' Of this the first half was as accurate as 
 possible and I believe it will remain so ; but seeing 
 that Mr. D. Disraeli Braham, the sender, acknow- 
 ledged in cross-examination that he knew the second 
 part of his answer might be dangerous 1 for me, he 
 would have been acting more thoughtfully, I think, 
 if he had either consulted me before replying or else 
 added to his cable the words 4 not to be published.' 
 (This part of his cross-examination happens to be 
 omitted from ' The Times ' report of the case.) He 
 should, I suggest, have remembered that when the 
 authorities of a foreign country are exasperated 
 against a correspondent of ' The Times ' it may be 
 simply owing to the latter' s laudable zeal, and I do 
 not doubt that this is why he was himself expelled 
 from Russia. This cable caused me to bring an action 
 for libel, but Mr. Justice Darling actually held that 
 when the Mexican newspaper asked if I was 4 truly 
 your correspondent ' they meant 4 your own corre- 
 spondent,' that is to say the resident correspondent, 
 and if they had been told I was the 4 special corre- 
 spondent ' they would not have understood the phrase ! 
 He did not look as if he expected anyone to laugh 
 when he put forward this opinion. . . . And, with 
 his rare humour, he seized one of my weapons with 
 
 1 Everyone in Court, so far as I could ascertain, thought this a 
 very damaging admission on the part of the witness, as surely it is. 
 But not so Mr. Justice Darling. He gazed in his most frigid manner 
 from the top of his two beautiful, white, nervous hands and never 
 alluded to the admission in his summing-up. 
 
40 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 which to wound me. 6 The Times ' had always spoken 
 of me in their own columns as its 'special corre- 
 spondent,' and why, he asked rather testily, why 
 was I not satisfied with that ? A judge, it is held 
 [Law Reports, 14 Q.B.D. p. 108, Smith v. Dark], does 
 not misdirect the jury if he gives expression to his 
 opinion and not even, I presume, if it causes him to 
 make heavier demands upon the plaintiff than did 
 the defendant's counsel. But although one may 
 demand of Yucatecans that they read 4 The Times ' 
 and read it carefully — whether they will do so is a 
 matter of opinion. 
 
 Mr. Moberly Bell's successor (a Mr. Nicholson, a 
 ' Harms worth ' man) told me on my return to England 
 that they had no idea that they were causing me 
 unpleasantness, and also there was an impression in 
 the office that I called myself in Yucatan the corre- 
 spondent of ' The Times.' Yet when I was asked to 
 do that article about the treatment of the Indians it 
 had not been mentioned that I might secure facilities 
 and find more open doors by posing as the corre- 
 spondent of the 'Licensed Victuallers' Gazette.' I 
 think they might have been less ready to play into 
 Don Ricardo's hands. The paragraphs he now began 
 to print were splendidly sarcastic, or they virtuously 
 held me up to scorn as one who was exposed, the 
 merest writer who was getting access into places as a 
 correspondent of 4 The Times ' and who occasionally 
 would perhaps send part of what he culled to London, 
 seeing that he was permitted to submit. These 
 paragraphs I subsequently showed to Mr. Nicholson, 
 who scratched his head, observing he had no idea, etc. 
 4 " The Times " is very grateful for all the trouble 
 you have taken,' so Mr. Willert wrote me in December 
 from Washington. But now they took the opportunity 
 
COMO TAPABOCA 
 
 41 
 
 to ask me to refrain from corresponding, 1 and as day 
 by day e The Times ' came out to Mexico with not a 
 word about the Revolution very ugly things were said. 
 I begged them, if they still were interested in the 
 country, to dispatch another correspondent, as the 
 Revolution would increase. 6 Nobody here knows 
 anything about the situation,' so Mr. Willert had 
 written me from Washington, and apparently in 
 London they did not want to know, because a long 
 cable which by three routes I sent through Mr. 
 Willert was ignored. 4 The only thing that really 
 matters,' Mr. Willert wrote me, ' is for them to get 
 the news in London.' And this ignoring the fate of 
 several articles I had already sent with reference to 
 the Revolution. Correspondents have ere now been 
 ruffled if a Government takes steps to silence 
 them — 'To diminish the effect of the triumph of 
 the Revolution in the people's mind,' said Mr. 
 James R. Garfield, an American ex-Minister of the 
 Interior who lately had been travelling in Mexico, 
 4 the Government,' he said, 4 is concealing the news,' 
 and in order that from any lurking resentment and 
 from my too brief acquaintance with the country I 
 might not be led to misinterpret what I saw and 
 what I foresaw, I secured the very kind and highly 
 competent revision of the British Minister. But Lon- 
 
 1 The explanation which they gave before Mr. Justice Darling was 
 that they felt uneasy about me. I had obtained the usual free passes 
 on the Mexican Railways, and although they knew all about this in 
 November and said no word — indeed, how could they, since I was 
 also writing for other papers ? — they explain that in February it was 
 weighing on their mind and made them quite uneasy as to what I 
 might be doing. After my abrupt dismissal, I sent a letter by three 
 different routes to Mr. Willert, asking him to forward it to London. 
 I pointed out not only the embarrassing but the perilous position in 
 which they had placed me, and I said that as the Revolution would 
 succeed they ought to send out someone else to Mexico. But from 
 their evidence at the trial it appeared that they never had this letter. 
 
42 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 don would not print. ' More hopeful outlook,' they 
 announced on 12th March, because a New York 
 correspondent told them that the Mexican insurgents, 
 save the mere marauders, would 1 lay down their 
 arms, accept the amnesty and renew their allegiance.' 
 But on the 19th of April they were bound to say, as 
 said the 6 New York Times,' that 6 no peace is possible 
 till Diaz retires.' Let us now go back a little. On 
 tne 12th March a telegram from Mr. Willert had 
 these words : ' The state of affairs is conceded to be 
 grave, but how grave none pretends to know. Rigor- 
 ous censorship, the guerilla nature of the warfare, 
 official reticence, ignorance of the details and person- 
 alities 1 of Mexican politics all militate against 
 accuracy.' It seemed as if ' The Times ' — 6 one of his 
 [General Diaz'] oldest and firmest friends in the 
 foreign Press ' (I quote from 4 Current Literature,' 
 New York, April, 1911) — was averse from publishing 
 unpalatable truth. ' Whatever the grievances and 
 ambitions of the opponents of the Diaz Administra- 
 tion, their activities,' said 4 The Times ' on the 14th 
 March, 'are regrettable inasmuch as they threaten 
 the remarkably rising prosperity of the country's 
 trade and industries, and it is therefore to be hoped 
 that the United States Government's present demon- 
 stration or manoeuvres at Galveston and on the Texas 
 border will be accepted by the rebels as an indication 
 that their proceedings are viewed with disfavour by 
 Mexico's best customer.' So it would seem that in 
 these days the grievances and ambitions of a people 
 
 1 This was no exaggeration on Mr. Willert's part. Indeed he was 
 imperfectly acquainted with the Mexican Ambassador at Washington 
 itself, for on March 27 there was a cable saying that Senor de la 
 Barra belonged to an old and wealthy family. The facts are that he 
 is the son of a foreigner, a Chilian, who conceived the good idea of 
 taking horses up to San Francisco at the time of the great boom. 
 On the way his boat was wrecked, and that is how he came to Mexico. 
 
COMO TAPABOCA 
 
 43 
 
 are not even worth considering. And if the opponents 
 of the Diaz Administration were, as ' The Times ' has 
 since said, ninety per cent of the inhabitants, or if 
 they were far fewer it is lamentable that these words 
 should have been written. ' It is interesting,' they 
 continue, ' to observe that the Ministry of Finance 
 describes the movement as the work of certain restless 
 spirits without prestige and without any support 
 in public opinion and of a purely local character.' 
 No doubt if a newspaper has to close the ordinary 
 channel of information it is driven to collect the news 
 where best it may. But this extraordinary channel 
 was, to put it courteously, choked with lilies. ' Sin 
 novedad ' (nothing new) the Under - Secretary of 
 Finance had telegraphed to Limantour in Paris, when 
 the Revolution was in full swing (cf . 4 The Times ' of 
 24th November, 1910) and if that is how he kept his 
 
 chief informed ! They had indeed acknowledged 
 
 it would be much better for the prestige of Porfirio 
 Diaz both in Europe and America if those about him 
 could resist the inclination to indulge in rhetoric about 
 the country's freedom. ' It would be idle to deny,' 
 they said, ' that the republic is Diaz and Diaz an 
 autocrat.' But this was hardly news. Men looked at 
 one another 1 and they marvelled and they spoke of 
 the insidious Mexican diplomacy and of capitalists in 
 Mexico and of investors who in London might be 
 nibbling. 
 
 Then I was pursued by secret-service men, both 
 competent and foolish ones, but Merida contained 
 
 1 It is regrettable, I think, that in its many interesting and volumi- 
 nous Supplements on Russia, Japan, Ireland or any other country, 
 ' The Times ' should fill up a certain portion with advertisements ; 
 because with the most thorough and sincere desire to speak the 
 whole truth, there will be people always whose untutored minds 
 believe that in the circumstances it is not so easy. There is a South 
 American Supplement which appears monthly and includes Mexico. 
 
44 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 about 700 (for a population of 50,000), so that all of 
 them could not be brilliant. (For one's English 
 conversation there was usually a Chinaman.) They 
 received from thirty to one hundred and fifty pesos a 
 month, while others — the most dangerous — were paid 
 by piecework. Now and then I took a photograph : 
 the mestizo (half-breed) standing by the bench is 
 probably a thirty-peso man, but in the other view 
 we have a celebrated villain, who was glad to let me 
 photograph his stick. Antonio Carillo started his 
 career by hunting runaways from haciendas, and at 
 Ticul he attempted to assassinate with bombs. His 
 talent, therefore, was not to be wasted in a little 
 town, they summoned him to Merida, equipped him 
 with a uniform and gave him captain's rank, because 
 he was a dashing fellow. He was posted at the Santa 
 Ana police-station. Later on he was discharged for 
 having made it an assembling place for women and 
 for wealthy youths, whom he exploited with a game 
 of so-called chance. But he retains the privilege of 
 keeping an immoral house which does not pay the 
 legal tax, his fame as ' bravo ' still abides with him, 
 he is respected and will do whatever the authorities 
 suggest, including murder. Yet, after all, these 
 biographical particulars prove little as to his acumen 
 in the secret service. Merida the beautiful was 
 riddled with this kind of gentry — la terre paraissait 
 orgueilleuse de porter tant de braves ! — even private 
 persons having retinues of silent feet, to know what 
 happens and ingratiate themselves, maybe, with the 
 authorities. Thus Avelino Montes, Olegario's son-in- 
 law and partner, paid three thousand pesos monthly 
 for his private service ; and when Delio Moreno 
 Canton, the candidate for Governmental honours, 
 lay concealed, it was a Montes man who ran him down, 
 
COMO TAPABOCA 
 
 45 
 
 and Montes had the glory of informing Aristegui. 
 . . . The manager of my hotel, a Frenchman, urged 
 me to shake off the dust of Yucatan ; he could not 
 even guarantee that no untoward item would be 
 lurking somewhere in a dish below his roof. 4 The 
 Times ' had publicly disowned me, and I was no more 
 protected than the journalist Abelardo Ancona, who 
 was searched on entering the gaol, was interviewed 
 from midnight until two o'clock by Olegario and at 
 three o'clock he died — a shot resounded, and, although 
 the explanation which they gave was suicide, a certain 
 Villamil of the police, a dreadful person, was promoted 
 and promoted. Those who took the management of 
 these affairs were very thorough. When Fernando 
 Sanchez, President of a committee of the workmen, 
 occupied himself with politics he found the prison so 
 unhealthy that he died the second day. The Govern- 
 ment, invited to deliver up his body to impartial 
 doctors, did not wish to cast aspersions on the 
 Government's practitioners and Dr. Palomeque, the 
 devoted servant of Don Olegario, was placed in charge. 
 The whole internal system, which had turned a 
 blackish red, he excavated and returned the shell to 
 poor Fernando' s relatives, informing them — to their 
 astonishment — that death had taken place through 
 heart disease. The relations argued that he never was 
 afflicted by this malady, but, on the other hand, it is a 
 fact that the internal organs will assume this colour 
 if the action of the heart be stopped, say with potas- 
 sium cyanide. But as the Frenchman's fears were 
 groundless and I have survived there is no reason why 
 I should approximate myself to Sanchez or Ancona. 
 Yet I think that when we are inflated with the surfeit 
 of our knowledge we should not forget that for a long 
 time we were in another and maybe more blessed 
 
46 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 state ; and I admit that for the student of psychology 
 it is delicious if you feel a qualm or two about your 
 boon-companion. 
 
 In the haciendas and the towns, with natives so 
 addicted to the Church, it is a potent influence for 
 good or evil which the Church possesses. Look you 
 down, if so it pleases you, upon the natives who can 
 apprehend so little of the Christian dogma — what the 
 Tarahumares have, for instance, in north-western 
 Mexico reposes chiefly in the words Senor San Jose 
 and Maria Santissima ; for their Father Sun they 
 have adopted the words Tata Dios (Father God) who 
 is husband of the Mother Moon (the Virgin Mary) — 
 but the missionary priests were useful and heroic in 
 so many ways, their flock had such a healthy joy in 
 its religion — even now they dance in places round the 
 Christian emblems in a church at midnight with the 
 zeal of bygone generations dancing round the bygone 
 gods and for the selfsame purpose : to acquire 
 material benefits and health. Contrast that picture 
 with the Yucatecan church of Tecoh, which is often 
 empty, since the people have refused to worship under 
 a lascivious old man. That he should lead a patriar- 
 chal life, with children and with children's children 
 all about him, would not so much scandalise 1 a people 
 which is used to seeing priests come over with their 
 mistresses from Spain ; but he does not observe a 
 precept which was hanging until recently in a Cam- 
 peche Church — the Bishop took it down because of 
 the attention it attracted from the tourists — ' While 
 
 1 The Danish peasants, we are told by Von Raumer ('Geschichte 
 der Hohenstauffen,' Pt. VI, page 180), made themselves the cham- 
 pions of the humble priests against the bishops when, in the year 
 1190, it was mooted as to whether concubines should be dispersed. If 
 one allowed the priests to have their consorts, then, the peasants 
 argued, they would be less anxious to abuse the wives and daughters 
 of the peasantry. 
 
COMO TAPABOCA 
 
 47 
 
 in the confessional,' it said, 4 the priest shall not 
 solicit either sex.' The priest of Tecoh has the 
 ministration of some haciendas ; for example, at the 
 one called Pixyah, when a girl would not confess before 
 her marriage, they discovered why the priest excited 
 in her such repugnance. He remains because he speaks 
 the Maya language ; if the careworn Austrian 
 Archbishop could induce more estimable Yucatecans 
 to enroll themselves in this profession he would clear 
 the whole Augean stable. 1 As it is he cannot do 
 without the Spanish importations — in his palace 
 there is only one (a secretary) who is not from Spain — 
 and these are sometimes moral, seldom have they any 
 application, and the Maya language with its very 
 limited vocabulary is not often mastered. In the 
 haciendas if there is a priest he is too frequently an 
 agent of the hacendado, preaching as his mouthpiece 
 on a special point of discipline and telling him what 
 he has learned in the confessional. So they can 
 scarcely be ignored when you are dealing with the 
 Indian's life. As an example they are wretched : 
 Father Mir of Tizimin believes, like certain Indians 
 in some other parts of the Republic, that one should 
 not tamely go into a shop and buy religious candles. 
 The devoted Indian climbs into the tree-tops to collect 
 what has been left there by the wild bees ; sometimes 
 for a lump not worth two pennies he will hew a cedar 
 down which is worth twenty pesos. Father Mir 
 blows out the lighted candles at the earliest 
 opportunity, arranges them and sells them quickly 
 to another devotee. The corner which he makes in 
 candles, so that in the whole of Tizimin there is no 
 
 * The instances have been restricted to as small a number as appear 
 to justify this accusation. 'From Mexico southwards,' says a writer 
 in 'Blackwood's Magazine' (November, 1911), 'the disorders of the 
 clergy, secular or regular, are notorious.' 
 
48 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 other salesman, has been celebrated in a previous 
 book on Yucatan. Him and the priest of Tecoh I 
 have met, and they are not inspiring spectacles. The 
 custom with this Mir is to bequeath his mistresses 
 to the mestizo sacristans. A girl, whose mother was 
 a member of the sisterhood of Saint Vincent of Paul, 
 did not wish to marry one Antonio Puig, Mir's nephew 
 and chief sacristan ; she was obliged to do so and to 
 live in Mir's great house, which used to be a convent. 
 But one night Antonio, after a terrific scene, removed 
 his wife. A girl, Luisa Sosa, also was an inmate of the 
 convent, and her husband, a good mason but a 
 worthless man, allowed himself to be placated with 
 one hundred and fifty pesos, after he had come back 
 unexpectedly and witnessed his dishonour. Tizimin 
 has now become quite anti- Catholic, since they have 
 had this Mir for eighteen years, and his parishioners 
 from time to time bombard him with French breakfast- 
 rolls. But both the wealthy and the poor among them 
 are continuously urged by thirty-two most earnest 
 ladies of the sisterhood to give a contribution towards 
 the upkeep of — a saint ! In Valladolid was a priest, 
 by name Castillo, who raised up two families, the 
 mothers being sisters ; but they quarrelled. And a 
 gentleman (marked X), with whom I had been talking 
 when I photographed the secret-service man, informed 
 me how the priest of Tixkokob, by name Ancona, had 
 declined to let him marry a most lovely girl, the grand- 
 child of Ancona' s sister. Though the girl was just 
 as anxious to be married they were kept apart, and it 
 was only by the kindness of old General Canton, the 
 Governor, that the man was ultimately sent to 
 Tixkokob as stationmaster, and about this time the 
 girl — whose letters had been intercepted — had a son. 
 Ancona was then sixty-seven years of age ; he is now 
 
COMO TAPABOCA 
 
 49 
 
 eighty-nine. She ran away, fell into some financial 
 difficulties, and the priest ' forgetting and forgiving 
 all that she had done ' presented her with 4000 pesos 
 and received her back into his house. Varela, priest 
 of Baca, vaunts the beauty of the local maidens, and 
 if you will come at fair-time he will see that you are 
 entertained. The doctor of a rich man called Mez- 
 quita, who had lately died at Izamal, told how the 
 priest would not communicate him on his death-bed 
 if he did not pay the Church a sum of 3500 
 pesos (one centavo for each 25 lbs. — an arroba — of 
 hemp). Mezquita always had refused to pay the 
 Church's impositions ; so they bargained now, and 
 finally 100 pesos were accepted. But the Church is not 
 endowed, and if you want her services it seems to me 
 that one centavo per arroba is no very grievous tax. 
 There is this much excuse for the commercial spirit 
 in the priests of Yucatan — their congregations never 
 would support them. 8 In a town towards Campeche, 
 twenty-seven leagues from here,' an English-speaking 
 hacendado said, 8 the priest leaves out of the convent 
 every Sunday morning with a game-cock, going to 
 fight in the open parade. After he goes into any rum 
 shop that is near and has his drink equal to anyone. 
 He says he is only a priest when he is in the church ; 
 outside he is like any other man.' Mendoza, priest of 
 Tizimin, had four children ; Aguilar, who succeeded 
 him, misled the fourteen-year-old daughter of his 
 cousin, living with her very openly ; Ortiz, a priest in 
 Merida Cathedral, had two children by a cousin, but 
 this happened when he was a village priest. The 
 children and the mother lived with Don Eusebio 
 Escalante and the priest made monthly payments. 
 Now, in virtue of his eminent position, he has totally 
 abandoned them. And this is only Yucatan we have 
 
 E 
 
50 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 considered, for I will not speak of what I do not know. 
 But in two other States, far distant from each other, 
 when the Bishop and the priest go travelling round the 
 villages a handsome girl is put aside for each of them ; 
 she is much better dressed than she has ever been 
 and she is covered with a certain perfume. On the 
 other hand, the well-beloved Bishop of Tabasco could 
 not, on account of his exceeding poverty, go from the 
 capital to see his dying father. 1 And in many other 
 parts of Mexico the priests are, doubtless, very worthy 
 men, and I suppose that it is natural that one should 
 hear about the reprobates. But if the upper classes 
 who concern themselves in things ecclesiastical could 
 be more often pious than what in schoolboy's English 
 is called ' pi ' — that is beato, if they struck themselves 
 less often on their breasts I think the priests, by their 
 activities and their example, would less often strike 
 the Indians to the mud. In Mexico the picturesque 
 is always round the corner : as the bell of Angelus 
 tolls in the watch-tower of an ancient farm you may 
 perceive the master and his Indians kneeling in the 
 long verandah, in the yards where precious hemp is 
 drying and among the twilit meadows ; when the 
 ceremony is concluded the grave Indian moves 
 towards his master, wishing him a happy night, 
 whereat the master gravely bows and wishes him the 
 same. Two hours later you may see a vast procession 
 
 1 However, it is not my business to compile a list of admirable 
 bishops. Or shall anyone whose roof lets in the sky be bound to 
 listen to the landlord when he demonstrates that this is quite unusual ? 
 There are, I do not doubt, a number of archbishops and of bishops 
 in the Mexican Republic who permit the sky to filter through them. 
 And it is, I hope, still less my business, to declare that I do not 
 attack the Church of Rome. 4 At the risk of appearing prejudiced, ' 
 so write two recent travellers, ' we must say that the Catholicism of 
 the country is so decadent that its disgraceful services would be best 
 done without.' I do attack the Church of Mexico which calls itself 
 Roman Catholic, as it might call itself Wesleyan. 
 
COMO TAPABOCA 
 
 51 
 
 serpentining through the darkness, with a crackling 
 and a flash of fireworks, white-clad men supremely 
 happy, bent old women-slaves and women with the 
 rapture of Madonnas giving sustenance to babies who 
 resemble apes. 
 
 And now the discontent exploded. It was like the 
 sudden and complete upheaval of a house of cards. 
 This town was trembling at the near approach of 
 desperate ex-slaves, that town was utterly deserted, 
 here the agent of a farm was done to death and rail- 
 way trains were overturned and Aristegui tearfully 
 prayed for advice from Mr. Blake, the imperturbable. 
 The governor tried, indeed, to be a man of iron ; for 
 he summoned the two editors and told them, with a 
 meaning glance, that it would be unpatriotic if they 
 did not publish lies. (To the 'Diario Yucateco' it 
 would have been rather uncongenial.) And at 
 Catmis, where the valiant Yaquis and the Mayas 
 had entrenched themselves, the soldiers of the Cuerpo 
 de Seguridad Publica took to their heels with small 
 delay — poor peasants, many of them had been made 
 to serve a second time in this militia. They departed 
 now so rapidly that as they burst into a station and 
 began to set a waiting train in movement it was 
 necessary for the doctor to abandon all his baggage 
 and run feverishly after them. It was like seeing lions, 
 said the Press. Two officers were told that they would 
 be court-martialled. In a few days Aristegui saw that 
 everything was lost, he telegraphed to Mexico for 
 troops, and when they came they were but numerous 
 enough to guard the banks of Merida and certain of 
 the public buildings. No hacendado with an unclear 
 conscience dared to show himself outside of Merida, 
 except to go down furtively to where a ship was. So 
 the despotism of Don Olegario and the boot-importer 
 
52 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 went the way of despotisms. Merida was on the eve 
 of being captured, when a temporary Governor came 
 from Mexico, one General Curiel, who was received 
 with wild rejoicing. Thirteen members of the local 
 congress met that night, on the 13th of March, after 
 Aristegui had been actual Governor during thirteen 
 months and thirteen days. ' I venture to suggest,' 
 said the presiding gentleman, 6 that Sefior Aristegui' s 
 
 application for a leave of absence ,' but the rest 
 
 was drowned in laughter. And the other members of 
 the Congress swayed upon their rocking-chairs and 
 vainly searched for inspiration in the ceiling and were 
 silent, even as a tongueless chicken in the old days 
 when a hacendado would have met his death if he had 
 been detected in his camp by Mayas whom he had de- 
 spoiled. The members of the Congress merely nodded, 
 as they had so often done before. . . . And two days 
 later, with a certain feeling of relief, I left the State. 
 And yet it had been glorious to march beside the 
 brave battalions and at last to see my dear and long- 
 afflicted friends triumphant. But with even such high 
 thoughts I could not keep myself from thinking, 
 pleasurably, of my own survival. If the hostile powers 
 never meant to slay me, they at all events had taken 
 to themselves this extract out of Arthur Hugh 
 Clough's Decalogue : — 
 
 Thou shalt not kill, but needst not strive 
 Officiously to keep alive. 
 
 And I was now disturbed by nothing, save to know 
 how much the secret- service men would want in tips. 
 
 It was a clear and cold March evening when we all 
 sailed out together from Progreso towards the setting 
 
COMO TAPABOCA 
 
 53 
 
 sun. Our boat moved imperceptibly, and if it had 
 not been for the pale streak we left behind us I should 
 not have thought that we were moving. In the boat 
 came the dethroned one, Munoz Aristegui, now 
 looking like a weary grandmamma, and his alert 
 young secretary who directed Public Works in 
 Yucatan. This person, Medina Ayora, put a bold 
 face on the business, but was forced at frequent 
 intervals to wipe his pince-nez with his handkerchief. 
 And on the boat, with the appearance of a burglar 
 who has had too much to eat, came likewise Don 
 Ricardo Molina. ' Our beloved editor,' so the 
 6 Diario Yucateco ' had proclaimed that morning, 
 ' travels to the capital of the Republic, there to occupy 
 his seat in Congress.' And though Congress was not 
 to assemble for another fortnight, he had come from 
 Merida by special train, out to the steamship by a 
 special tender, so consumed was he with passion to 
 begin his duties. And I think he was considering the 
 black points of his Fatherland, which as a legislator 
 he must help to rub away. At all events, Ricardo in 
 the yellow shooting-cap was very glum. He strode 
 about the deck and scowled, what time poor Munoz 
 querulously spoke into Medina's ear. For those three 
 comrades it was a most miserable world, this world of 
 ours ; the pallor which had fallen over it was universal 
 surely, and would surely last for ever. And behind 
 the boat was spread the pallid streak of foam upon the 
 dark waves that were laughing, laughing. 
 
 Far to the left of us were palms, and they were 
 bowing us farewell. The clumsy little tender rolled 
 across the purple waves ; not this black vessel on our 
 left and not the sun to which we steered could inter- 
 rupt the solemn laughter of the sea. That sun was 
 golden, with a lower part of red, as if the gold were 
 
54 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 being manufactured in the crucible. And suddenly 
 the crucible was emptied of its treasure and red-hot 
 had fallen down on to the water's rim. Beyond it was 
 a region which had opalescent and frail clouds upon 
 the frontier — and the sun attempted to set fire to 
 them. Not so impregnable to mourners is the 
 boundary of the land of dream and less alluring is the 
 frontier of the gracious meadows of the dead. Some 
 birds, black messengers, fly upward out of sight. . . . 
 A greyness overwhelms the sky, save where a spatter- 
 ing of red and yellow stains it and recalls the flag 
 which has now utterly been banished — at my side 
 the yellow shooting-cap — has Spain been banished 
 utterly ? But now the shore of Yucatan is nothing, 
 is a shadow on the margin of the sea. There, to the 
 south and east and west, the slaves have gone to sleep. 
 And one or two of them, the Mayas, dream about the 
 men who raised the pyramid at Chichen Itza ; one or 
 two of them, the Yaquis, dream about their brothers 
 in the mountains of Sonora. (Now the deputy is 
 talking to me.) One of them, perhaps, will rise up 
 from his dream and make it flash against the world's 
 indifference, as yonder lighthouse flashes on the 
 greyness. Presently we veer a point, the wind is 
 blowing at us straight from Mexico — what is it that 
 the deputy was saying ? Then the clouds upon the 
 frontier change to lilac, and they are not so much cloud 
 as they are lace, from heaven falling on the sea. 
 
 My friend the sea ! It was on the next afternoon 
 that someone overheard the Public Works Director 
 and our deputy Ricardo as they plotted. But the 
 Yucatecan friend who overheard them was a sorry 
 negligible sight upon a deck-chair, and Ricardo, 
 clinging to the rail, informed the other that he would 
 reward him more than handsomely if he could 
 
COMO TAPABOCA 
 
 55 
 
 penetrate into my cabin and secure the documents. 
 It would be such a good thing for the country, quoth 
 Ricardo. How he meant his comrade to proceed I 
 know not, and apparently such enterprises are not 
 in the province of a Public Works Director ; this one, 
 anyhow, was waiting for instructions. And the sea 
 grew very playful and Ricardo wanted to hear nothing 
 more about my documents. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 WHAT LERDO DE TEJADA THOUGHT 
 OF DIAZ 
 
 There fell into my hands one day in Mexico the 
 charming little book of Don Sebastian Lerdo de 
 Tejada. It was written 1 in New York in 1889, but 
 I suppose that there are fewer copies of it now extant 
 than there have been good Presidents in Mexico. 
 Assassination was the lot of those who printed it and 
 tried to publish it abroad. The second part ' In 
 Exile ' (En el Destierro) I have not as yet secured ; 
 the myrmidons of Don Porfirio have had the start 
 of me. But in the meanwhile I will give some ex- 
 tracts from the former volume, and its author was a 
 philosophic person very qualified to deal with such 
 a subject. He preceded Don Porfirio in office, having 
 come there automatically on the sudden death, in 
 1872, of the great Zapotec Benito Juarez. They did 
 
 1 I have reason to believe that Don Sebastian did not write this 
 little book himself, but that another exiled Mexican composed it from 
 the scraps of conversation, documents and letters he was able to 
 collect. If anything be fanciful one cannot for that reason say that 
 it is wholly destitute of value ; we must try to separate the wheat 
 and chaff. Don Trinidad Sanchez Santos, editor of ' El Pais,' and 
 the most able publicist, perhaps, in Mexico, was of opinion that what- 
 ever is most intimate comes straight from the ex-President. It may 
 be added that the man who generally is reputed to have edited this 
 book asked Don Porfirio, four years ago, if he might come back after 
 twenty years of exile. Diaz answered that he had got no objection, 
 but that he could not say what the attitude would be of Justice. And 
 the editor is very credibly reported to have stayed in the United 
 States. 
 
 56 
 
WHAT LERDO DE TEJADA THOUGHT 57 
 
 not in those days have Vice-Presidents in Mexico ; 
 the man who by the law succeeded was the head of 
 the Supreme Court of Justice. Lerdo de Tejada's 
 brother Miguel was one of the most eminent of Mexi- 
 cans, and as for him himself, a political opponent — 
 an Imperialist — has told me of an interview which 
 happened in Jalapa. 1 For an hour my friend was 
 pouring out his arguments with something more than 
 vigour, while Sebastian, walking up and down the 
 cloisters, occupied the next hour in corrosive criticism, 
 point by point, of all the arguments, and he had 
 made no single note. When he was President he 
 carried all his business in his memory. And he knew 
 how to write ! 
 
 4 If there is any sting,' he says, ' in certain of the 
 pages, may my loyal and my faithful fellow-citizens 
 forgive me : fruits which to the fingers are most 
 rough are most delightful to the palate. This is not 
 a diatribe, it is no satire, no complaint ; but merely 
 some impressions which I should not like to die with 
 me. In exile I have altered my ideas on men, but 
 notwithstanding this the men have undergone for 
 me no alteration : that is to say, that I shall judge 
 them as before my glorious disaster of 1876/ 
 
 He met Porfirio Diaz in the first days of the 
 restoration of the Republic ; but he had already 
 heard of him from Juarez at the time of the Vidaurri 
 execution. ' He is a man,' said Juarez, 6 who weeps 
 when he is killing.' And a few days later he was 
 seeing off some traitors at the station. He had 
 wished to have them shot, and now was breathing 
 words of consolation, while his handkerchief was 
 
 1 Capital of the State of Veracruz. Also spelled : Xalapa, and 
 pronounced almost like Ha-lappa. But of course we have retained 
 our own pronunciation — jalap — of the root of that plant which was 
 brought from there and is employed in medicine as a cathartic. 
 
58 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 soaked with tears. He railed at the Republic for 
 this unjust sentence, and on the departure of the 
 train he waved his kepi and he wept. ' Are you 
 aware,' said Don Sebastian to Juarez, 4 that he is 
 eccentric ? ' 4 What ? Has he been shooting some- 
 one else ? ' the President demanded. 4 Not a bit of 
 it. He has been seeing off the traitors at the station.' 
 ' Yes,' quoth Juarez, ' either he is shooting people 
 or is bidding them farewell. . . . He is original ! ' 
 
 It may be urged that Presidents in exile are not, 
 when they write of their successors, as dispassionate 
 as one would wish ; but Don Sebastian was too 
 humorous, too cynical, too wise to let his feelings 
 carry him away. 4 In order to convert,' he says, 
 4 a friend into an enemy one look is all you need ; to 
 make an enemy your friend you will shed all your 
 tears in vain.' The prejudice with which we regard a 
 Latin- American, saying that he must be always at the 
 one extreme or at the other, and that cool apprecia- 
 tion is beyond his reach — I think our author was not 
 so much tainted as are many Anglo-Saxons. Member 
 of an old colonial family, he knew his Mexico, and 
 treating of Oaxaca 1 (on whose soil a public man is born 
 as often as a public woman in Jalisco) he observes 
 that most of the celebrities, political and economical, 
 of Mexico have had their cradle in the southern State. 
 4 Every baptism of a little Oaxacanian,' he remarks, 
 ' is but another cypher added to the burden of the 
 Budget ; every wedding is a threat against the 
 Treasury. The education of a little Oaxacanian is 
 achieved as easily as crying : after he has read the 
 proclamations of General Diaz, the economic notes 
 of Don Matias Romero, and the diplomatic notes of 
 Mariscal he can obtain the first diploma and the first 
 1 Pronounced : Wa hacca. 
 
WHAT LERDO DE TEJADA THOUGHT 59 
 
 public employment. It is said that these children 
 do not weep nor suckle, but all the Oaxacanians 
 weep. . . .' They choose, he says, the sword or else 
 the law for their profession, and they are so morbid 
 that when they are not for killing someone — they do 
 not commit suicide. 4 Cunning and hypocrisy are 
 qualities inherent in a Oaxacanian, and he cultivates 
 with nice attention both these attributes of Nature. 
 His mission in the world is this : to last as long as 
 possible — and nearly all of them arrive at being 
 centenarians ! — to work as little as possible and to 
 live, to live well. . . . His determination is inflexible : 
 the courage of Juarez in the wilderness, and the 
 tenacity (by fits and starts) of Diaz, the heroic 
 patience of Don Matias piling up his nonsense, these 
 are three different manifestations of perseverance. 
 In whatever way it shows itself, this virtue elevates 
 the Oaxacanian : in a century of little muddy men 
 the men of bronze impose themselves. The Oaxa- 
 canians are men of bronze. . . .' Louis XI., of unholy 
 memory, was wont to use a Latin proverb which we 
 may translate : Who knows not how to feign, he 
 knows not how to reign. And this, says Don Sebas- 
 tian, ' is the strong side of the estimable Oaxacanians. 
 There is nothing we can call fictitious about Don 
 Matias : I conceive of him as being one of the most 
 famous fools in Mexico. But he is a bona-fide fool : 
 he thinks he is a man of talent. . . . And he has a 
 special tact : to lawyers he will talk about finance 
 and to financiers of the law, to diplomats he will 
 discourse on architecture and to architects upon 
 diplomacy. And if no person understands him, 
 everyone cries out his fame. Ah, yes ! if General 
 Diaz is a wonderful comedian, Don Matias as trage- 
 dian is sublime.' And we are told how Don Matias, 
 
60 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 the bronze lion of Washington society (when he was 
 Minister), found that his melancholy countenance 
 was sometimes inconvenient, as when Lord Paunce- 
 fote at a reception took him for a lackey and gave 
 over to him hat and coat and stick. 
 
 Our author meditates upon the Yucatecans and 
 their neighbours of Campeche, who are given less to 
 politics, 4 but when the Lord our God commands that 
 they should walk this road they do it with the utmost 
 energy. I do not know if they were friends of mine 
 or of my presidency, but I had a couple of Campeche 
 friends : Pedro and Joaquin Baranda. This Don 
 Pedro was a personage, theatrical and smart, such 
 as we only meet with nowadays, alas ! in the vignettes 
 that decorate the " History of Frederick of Prussia " ; 
 without having found himself in a single battle he 
 possessed the rank of General and (which is still more 
 tremendous) the reputation of a gallant fellow. . . . 
 Some days after the distracted flight of General Diaz 
 on the plains of Icamole this magnificent Don Pedro 
 spurred the Palace carpets and addressed me, " If 
 you authorise me, Senor Lerdo, I engage myself to 
 bring the head of Don Porfirio Diaz." . . . 
 
 4 " General," said I, "do not molest yourself. It 
 is sufficient if you bring his ears." . . . 
 
 ' On the day after the action at Epatlan the same 
 Senor Baranda said to me, " I should desire to sally 
 to Campeche, Mr. President." 
 
 4 " But the revolutionary Diaz," I replied, " ad- 
 vances by Oaxaca ! " 
 
 4 44 That is true, and I am anxious to demolish him 
 upon the sea." 
 
 4 4 4 All right. Remember, you are going to bring 
 his head ! " 
 
 4 44 His ears, Mr. President, his ears." . . . 
 
WHAT LERDO DE TEJADA THOUGHT 61 
 
 4 " Oh, very well ; whichever causes you least 
 inconvenience." 
 
 4 And he vanished, with a clink of spurs.' . . . 
 
 The memories of Don Sebastian have their varied 
 facets, and, although it does not deal with General 
 Diaz, we may quote the following adventure with a 
 dramatist. Chavero's snuff-box was more perilous 
 than many hostile cannons, so the Army Secretary 
 used to say, and thus one gathers an idea of Don 
 Sebastian's manfulness. ' One night in February, 
 1874,' he says, ' a little person who was swathed up to 
 his eyebrows in a black and flowing mantle, with an 
 air of one of the fantastic folk of Hoffman, moved 
 towards me and : " I come," he said — his voice was 
 melancholy — " Don Sebastian, I come to speak with 
 you upon a grave and private matter. . . . Are the 
 doors all locked ? " 44 They are." 44 No one can 
 interrupt us ? " 44 No one ! not a fly, nor flea." . . . 
 Then the muffled person showed himself : it was 
 Don Alfredo Chavero ! Nervously he started fingering 
 a manuscript. Some idol that he has exhumed, I 
 thought. 44 The tempest of a kiss," quoth he. 44 1 
 beg your pardon ? " 44 That is what my work is 
 called : The tempest of a kiss." 44 Dear me, that's 
 good." 44 You think so, Senor Lerdo ? " 44 Certainly, 
 and it is most original. I have seen tempests in the 
 sky and tempests in a lover, even tempests in a glass 
 of pulque; but the tempest in a kiss . . . ah, what 
 originality ! " 44 So I have come," he was most 
 solemn, 44 1 have come to read my drama to you. It 
 is worthy of great Calderon, says Dr. Peredo." . . . 
 44 1 am very sorry, but I have no time." . . . 44 In 
 that case, Sehor Lerdo, let me read the first act to 
 you . . . hardly more than two hours." 44 It is 
 impossible, Sefior Chavero ! " 44 Nor the argument ? 
 
62 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 In two words I will tell it you. The niece of an aunt 
 falls in love with a cousin ; the cousin of the cousin 
 falls in love with the niece ; the tutor intervenes and 
 marries the apple of discord. The two cousins fight 
 and kill each other. The aunt of the niece dies of 
 anguish ; the niece dies also in giving a kiss to the 
 cousin number one. What a simple drama, what a 
 moving plot ! Do you not think so, Mr. President ? " 
 " Sublime ! only that . . ." " Yes ? " "I should 
 also kill the tutor." "Ah, but how?" "By 
 burning the drama." . . .' 
 
 And he gives the picture of another interview, 
 between Benito Juarez and the Princess Salm-Salm, 1 
 which has not been always truthfully depicted. ' The 
 Salm-Salm had about her nothing of romance : 
 American by birth and education, of the Anglo-Saxon 
 race, so cold and positive . . . she came twice to 
 San Luis to see Juarez; but these unexpected visits 
 had been instigated by the thoughtfulness of General 
 Diaz, who was eager to get rid of the Princess and 
 found no better way than that of sending her to us 
 at San Luis, assuring her that Juarez would forgive 
 the Archduke. But as all the acts of General Diaz, 
 
 1 This lady died in December, 1912. Miss Agnes Leclerc, as she 
 then was, met Prince Felix Salm-Salm in the early sixties when she 
 was a bareback circus-rider. Fascinated by her beauty, he married 
 her one morning at five o'clock, and the couple became two of the 
 most popular and most talked of people in America. The Prince 
 raised a volunteer regiment, and, her training having made her 
 absolutely fearless and a perfect horsewoman, the Princess was often 
 at the head of the regiment on the field of battle. Governor Yates 
 gave her a Captain's commission and pay in addition, but she gave 
 all the money for the wounded. In 1863 the Prince took part in the 
 Mexican Revolution, assisting the Emperor until 1867, when they 
 both were captured and sentenced to death. The Princess managed 
 to obtain from Juarez an order for her husband's release. He returned 
 to Prussia and died on the battlefield in 1871. She, for her services 
 as nurse in the same campaign, was awarded the Iron Cross, being 
 the only woman upon whom this coveted distinction had ever been 
 bestowed. 
 
WHAT LERDO DE TEJADA THOUGHT 68 
 
 even those that are most insignificant, are bound up 
 with duplicity, he gave to the unfortunate Princess 
 the letter of Pausanias. 1 As she only spoke German 
 and English, she employed the latter in her interviews, 
 and Don Jose Iglesias was the interpreter. These 
 interviews were not at all dramatic : Don Benito's 
 face was like a mask.' 
 
 It is not necessary that we should repeat the several 
 tales about the childhood and the youth of Diaz. 
 Other tales, of an heroic nature, have been told us 
 pretty often, and we have to cast aside so many 
 splendid adjectives that have been showered on his 
 later years, we have to come to think of such a 
 different man that we should be quite dazed if we 
 could not preserve at least those early stories. Don 
 Sebastian, doubtless, took enormous pains to make 
 investigations — he had little else to do when he was 
 exiled — his ability is undisputed, but he may have 
 been deceived when he gave credence to these most 
 ferocious tales. When he refers, however, to the 
 celebrated skirmish of the 2nd of April and the birth 
 of Don Porfirio's widespread popularity he gives the 
 figures and we have to listen. Thirteen thousand 
 desperadoes, he asserts, flew down upon 4000 wretched 
 people, and it is a fact that fifty-six officers, captured 
 by treason, were dispatched at the command of Diaz. 
 There is some discrepancy between the various 
 historians. ' The Republican forces swept everything 
 before them,' says the Mexican ' Year Book,' and 
 that is what usually happens when 4000 are attacked 
 by 13,000. 6 Their losses were cruel,' says the ' Year 
 
 1 This, of course, refers to the King of Sparta, who sent a letter to 
 Artabazus, a Persian Satrap in Asia Minor. The letter was treason- 
 able and the postscript said 'Kill bearer' (cf. Thucydides i. 132). 
 The passage in Homer about Bellerophon, who went to the King of 
 Lycia bearing a similar message, is in Iliad vi. 160, etc. 
 
64 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 Book,' which is really a most handsome volume 
 issued ' under the auspices of the department of 
 finance ' and published in two different shades of 
 red and gold in London at a guinea. 4 Their losses 
 were cruel,' says the ' Year Book,' whose 700 pages 
 are so full of pleasant information that I think it 
 is the price alone which has prevented it from being 
 on the shelves of every family which knows our 
 tongue. An optimistic writer is the one who revels 
 in a circulation ; here we have a band of writers who 
 are all of them and all the time magnificently opti- 
 mistic. Those of you who have some sorrow in the 
 world, come buy this gorgeous book, and if you have 
 4000 wretched sorrows they will be annihilated surely. 
 In that part which is devoted to the blinding grandeur 
 of Porfirio Diaz it observes that 'their losses were 
 cruel,' and apparently 'tis not intended to have 
 reference to the fifty-six officers. ' The heroic 
 Mexicans,' so says another writer (and I do not think 
 that he is subsidised), 4 captured one entrenchment 
 after another, and daylight saw them in possession 
 of the place.' Now what says Don Sebastian ? 
 ' Everything,' he assures us, ' was in favour of General 
 Diaz : superiority in numbers, moral superiority, 
 and topographical superiority : there was no battle 
 and no strategy : the Imperialists fired a few cart- 
 ridges and deserted, especially the members of the 
 foreign legion, who had asked already for an armistice 
 from Don Porfirio.' It likewise is a fact that when 
 I was in Mexico some of the bolder spirits ventured 
 to protest against the naming of a street 6 Dos de 
 Abril.' Says Don Sebastian, ' The rout of Marquez 
 and his retreat to the capital were due to General 
 Toro : the siege of Mexico is the most humiliating 
 page in the campaigns of Diaz. Not only did he 
 
WHAT LERDO DE TEJADA THOUGHT 65 
 
 prolong the siege at the instance of Marquez, but he 
 allowed him to escape, protecting him as far as 
 Veracruz. Afterwards, when the Republican Govern- 
 ment was re-established, wishing to balance his 
 military errors with an act of theatrical probity, he 
 gave back 300,000 pesos, which remained when he 
 had paid the troops.' 
 
 Perhaps, indeed, this reimbursement was not made 
 without an object, but we surely must believe 
 that Don Sebastian goes too far when he accuses 
 Don Porfirio of treating with Bazaine. 6 On 15th 
 August, 1865,' he says, 4 1 sent a circular at the 
 command of Juarez to the chiefs of the Republicans, 
 announcing that the National Government would 
 never quit the country. These circulars came to the 
 hands of Escobedo, of Regules, of Corona, of Porfirio 
 Diaz ; in a note appended to them by the Minister 
 of War those leaders were required to read the 
 circulars to their respective corps in the Order of the 
 day, since it was well that all the people should have 
 knowledge of these patriotic resolutions. General 
 Diaz did not read the circular, although he was 
 commanded twice to do so. This unpardonable act 
 was not explained to us when we were in Chihuahua, 
 whether it was owing to the difficulties of transit or to 
 the prevalence of warring bands, but in San Luis news 
 was brought to Juarez, indicating that the motive of 
 the disobedience of Diaz was that he was in active 
 communication with Bazaine. ... In truth, the 
 traitor of Sedan in his attempt to grasp at Mexico 
 was, as is well known, treating with some chiefs of 
 the Republicans. Who were those chiefs ? Until 
 now all is conjecture and induction in this dark 
 affair ; and it is by conjecture and induction that 
 the crime may be explained. . . . Diaz was a prisoner 
 
 F 
 
66 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 of the French ; could his escape from Puebla be 
 feasible, when he was looked on as a dangerous man ? 
 There should be still in Mexico a Frenchman of the 
 
 name of M , who carried several secret notes 
 
 from Diaz to Bazaine. . . .' 
 
 But after all we have the 6 Year Book,' which is 
 published by McCorquodale and Co. Ltd., 40 Coleman 
 Street, London, E.C. (all rights reserved), and there 
 we learn that Diaz 6 was destined to play so tran- 
 scendent a part, not only during the remainder of the 
 war against the French and against the Empire, 
 but . . .' and so forth. And besides, he is a patriot. 
 Did he not prove it when in 1876 at Palo Blanco he 
 gave out a proclamation to the poor, downtrodden, 
 outraged Mexicans ? The patriot (in Article 10) 
 promised ' to deliver the country from the oppression 
 of foreign enterprises.' This alone would seem to 
 indicate that he was not the sort of man to parley 
 with Bazaine, whose enterprise assuredly was foreign. 
 If, however, we give ear to Don Sebastian, we can 
 argue that men are not born to virtue, it must con- 
 stantly be thrust upon them, and one can become a 
 patriot in course of time. Eleven years divide these 
 incidents ; perhaps the General in 1876 had recently 
 become a patriotic person. He was very fine just 
 then; he undertook (in Article 11) that lotteries should 
 be abolished, as they were immoral, and if you still 
 doubt his patriotic fervour look, I pray you, at the 
 next Article, wherein he says he will not recognise the 
 English debt. . . . One has to bow to circumstance, 
 and Don Porfirio has not been able to fulfil these 
 promises in their integrity ; he said, for instance 
 (Article 1), that freedom of election should no longer 
 be a farce, and furthermore he promised (Article 7) 
 that the Public Power would not slay its enemies. 
 
WHAT LERDO DE TEJADA THOUGHT 67 
 
 However, we may recognise that his intentions were 
 profoundly patriotic. 
 
 Don Sebastian remains the devil's advocate. ' One 
 of the most valuable qualities,' he says, 6 of General 
 Diaz has been the ability to clothe himself in every 
 manner of disguise : he is the man of transformations, 
 physical and moral. In the former Garrick, Talma, 
 Coquelin are left behind, and as for moral metamor- 
 phoses — the chronic rebel has become an ardent 
 friend of peace ; the incendiary of '71 favours the 
 formation of a fire brigade in '88 ; the cattle thief of 
 '74 advises on the rearing of black cattle in '87 ; the 
 tireless foeman of the railway from Mexico to Vera- 
 cruz in '75 hands out concessions in '77 ; he who in 
 '73 writes to a fellow-soldier and insults the Bar by 
 calling it a hospital of ink will presently preside at 
 meetings of these juris-consults. . . 
 
 But our latest extract from the little book shall 
 treat of something picturesque. A letter from Tepic 
 was sent in May of 1872 to Lerdo telling how in April 
 General Diaz, ' in the disguise of an ecclesiastic and 
 accompanied by one General Galvan, arrived at San 
 Luis, to beseech the help and the protection of Lozada. 
 It was no easy matter for Diaz to secure an audience ; 
 at last, after a thousand humiliations, he was received. 
 Lozada was standing up and had his hat on ; Diaz 
 entered and was followed by the insignificant Galvan. 
 His hat was in his hand ; he smiled most sweetly, as 
 he always does with hacendados whom he asks for 
 money. He wanted to embrace Lozada, but was 
 forced to be contented with an icy hand. Somewhat 
 disconcerted, Diaz then began to adulate the Tiger 
 of Alica, swearing that he burned to know him and 
 that he was honoured by the grip of such a hand. 
 He concluded his renowned harangue in this way : 
 
68 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 " Persecuted everywhere, I come to find a refuge in 
 this land of liberty ; what a difference between Juarez 
 the despot and Miguel Lozada the hospitable and 
 magnanimous ; Miguel Lozada, whom those calum- 
 niate who know him not, and whom / feel bestows 
 on me an honour with his hand." Was the hero's 
 lying repugnant to the bandit ? Anyhow, a follower 
 of his commanded, on the next day, that the General 
 should leave the territory. . . [On the day after 
 receiving this singular letter, Don Sebastian went to 
 talk about it with the President.] ' I had already 
 unfolded the letter to show him, when he stayed my 
 hand and said : "I am certain it concerns our great 
 vagabond . . . my countryman, Porfirio Diaz." 
 
 ' " Exactly. Have you had a presentiment ? " 
 
 ' " He has written from Tepic and promised to 
 prepare an ambush for Lozada, on the understanding 
 that I recompense him with ..." 
 
 ' " But he has eaten bread and salt at the chieftain's 
 table ... he can never be so treacherous. . . ." 
 
 '"No? read. 
 
 So much for Don Sebastian's story. Whether it be 
 true or false I will not say, but I have met an erst- 
 while friend of Diaz who was never elevated to the 
 rank of General 4 because,' said Don Porfirio, 4 he 
 would not lend me money, and I was obliged to make 
 myself so humble to the robber-chief Lozada.' 
 
CHAPTER 111 
 
 WHEN DON PORFIRIO WAS CANDID 
 (A Translation) 
 
 [This interview, like that with Mr. Creelman, is the sum of various 
 conversations, only with the difference that he who wrote it has been, on 
 and off, a friend of Don Porfirio' s for more than 60 years. He has 
 been good enough to let me take this chapter from a book that will be 
 published. Under Don Porfirio it would have been impossible to give 
 his name, without imperilling, perhaps his life, and certainly the publica- 
 tion of a very valuable and authoritative book. Now I am free to say 
 that it is Don Ireneo Paz, the venerable editor of 4 La Patria. '] 
 
 11th February, 1909. At this moment, in the 
 clamour of the rockets, bombs and chimes and 
 motor-cars, amidst a multitude of the devout, they 
 celebrate the consecration of the new Archbishop of 
 Mexico, Senor Mora, in whose honour this imposing 
 festival is being held in the Cathedral that is at the 
 side of the National Palace. In this latter building is 
 the national Supreme Executive, General Porfirio 
 Diaz, who had possessed himself of the Government 
 at Tecoac, his third and successful revolution. 
 
 Exactly at a quarter past twelve, in the middle of 
 the day, when all the central streets were being 
 shaken with the fury of the bells and fireworks, an old 
 Liberal entered the Palace. He was one of those whom 
 nowadays we call contemptuously Jacobites, who 
 notwithstanding were accustomed in the early days 
 to fling themselves into the struggle with no personal 
 ambition, with no wish for lucre ; on the contrary, in 
 
 69 
 
70 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 dissipation of their meagre fortune, of their health 
 and their domestic comfort, risking their lives at every 
 turn in order that they might give utterance to the 
 ideal which was rooted in their hearts, to form a people 
 of free men. The foundation of the Mexican Republic 
 is the work of these Liberals, as is the Constitution 
 promulgated in 1857, the separation of Church and 
 State, the independence which was secured at 
 Queretaro. 
 
 4 What noise may that be, Mr. President ? ' asked 
 the old Liberal, in perfect innocence. 
 t^tSeneral Diaz raised himself majestically from his 
 seat, walked to the balcony and glanced into the 
 street. Then he replied, in off-hand fashion, 4 It 
 appears the new archbishop is being consecrated in 
 the temple there.' 
 
 4 But surely the Constitution was not celebrated, 
 six days ago, with such enthusiasm.' 
 
 4 It was not celebrated with any.' 
 
 4 But the Constitution which has been our 
 
 laborious ' 
 
 Do not deceive yourself, my friend. The Constitu- 
 tion has been no more than a pretext, so that we, the 
 revolutionaries, could take Power by assault. We 
 invoked the Constitution, we fondled it like a pretty 
 child, but really it has not been of the slightest 
 practical importance for a single President of those 
 who proclaimed it.' 
 
 4 At all events, it has assisted them in sustaining 
 their authority, since from the time of Comonfort 
 they have not ceased to call themselves Constitutional 
 Presidents.' 
 
 4 And ever since then it has been a mere obstacle ' 
 
 4 Very well, General, we will talk of that. We have 
 known each other for too long, and we have always 
 
WHEN DON PORFIRIO WAS CANDID 71 
 
 been too candid with each other to be able now to hide 
 our thoughts. But apropos the consecration of this 
 new archbishop and all the turmoil they are making, I 
 permit myself to ask this question : Is it lawful to 
 be ringing all those bells and to burn all that powder 
 and to deafen us with the noise ? ' 
 
 ' Heavens ! Don Pancho, it's not for you to ask me 
 such things, when you know as well as I do what the 
 people are who lead the Government. You know 
 that the Governor, the sediles, the police, all those 
 who have to do with public order, are the monks' 
 own servants. How can they rise up in opposition 
 to the ceremonies that are being made for an arch- 
 bishop ? ' 
 
 ^-Perhaps the Reform Laws are not in operation ? ' 
 
 4 That is another scarecrow which should not be 
 touched by those who know as well as we do both 
 the Mexican people and its Governors.' 
 
 ' Then let us leave these questions for the present. 
 Besides, I have been wanting to ask you if that 
 interview which the papers published a few months 
 ago was authentic, that one which is said to have 
 occurred between yourself and one Creelman, an 
 American journalist 1 ? ' 
 
 ' What surprises me is that sagacious men like you 
 should have been capable of giving credit to such 
 folly ' [d seme j ante paparrucha]. 
 
 ' Because I did not believe it, I asked you if it was 
 authentic' 
 
 ' It's as true as a dead child ! You know me too 
 well to believe that I could stroll for hours upon the 
 terrace of Chapultepec, exhibiting the white of my 
 eyes and opening my nostrils excessively in order 
 
 1 * Un de ses plus energiques et de ses plus habiles avocats,' says 
 the Review * Le Correspondant ' (Paris) of August, 1911. — H. B. 
 
72 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 that the Yankee reporter may be able to give wings 
 vJ^his fancy. What happened was this : a friend of 
 mine, a member of my Cabinet, came to read me the 
 article which was already manufactured [confeccion- 
 ado] for an American publication. It didn't seem 
 bad to me, or rather it seemed very good, because 
 without compromising me much it lent a lustre to my 
 antecedents and put me on a good footing for the 
 future, so that it gave me all the facilities which I 
 desired, whether to continue sacrificing myself for the 
 Fatherland or to shake off the dust thereof [zafarme] 
 in time if things should blow into a whirlwind [d 
 ponerse turbias]. I acknowledge to you that I thought 
 the writing was so well dressed up, so much in confor- 
 mity with what are not but should be my profoundest 
 thoughts, so seemly for our luckless proletariat, that 
 I accepted it unhesitatingly as if it had been inspired 
 by me myself, not making more than a very few 
 modifications on some entirely Yankee points of 
 view which would have put me in a very ridiculous 
 position, and I gave my consent to two things : that 
 it should be published in English and Spanish, and 
 that it should be amply paid for/ 
 
 6 About how much was the cost of this work ? ' 
 
 ' Some fifty thousand pesos.' [Como unos cin- 
 cuenta mil pesos.] 1 
 
 ' So that you approve of everything which is here : 
 that you are the most romantic figure, an unreadable 
 mystery, the foremost figure of the American hemi- 
 sphere ? ' 
 
 ' Who will weep if you give him bread ? They 
 serve up eulogies to me, let them continue. In the 
 first place, the size of political figures depends on the 
 eyes which look at them ; and in the second place, they 
 
 1 Surely this is a mistake on Don Porfirio's part.— H. B. 
 
WHEN DON PORFIRIO WAS CANDID 73 
 
 are always immense when they pay fifty thousand 
 pesos.' 
 
 4 Then did you not use those words with which the 
 conference begins : " It is a mistake to suppose that 
 the future of democracy in Mexico has been en- 
 dangered by the long continuance in office of one 
 President. I can say sincerely that office has not 
 corrupted my political ideas, and that I believe 
 democracy to be the one true, just principle of govern- 
 ment, although in practice it is only possible to 
 highly developed peoples. I can lay down the 
 Presidency of Mexico without a pang of regret, but 
 I cannot cease to serve this country while I live " ? ' 
 V—tHbw could I have ever uttered such a series of 
 absurdities [seme j antes barbaridades], when certainly 
 I could not have kept my countenance while I was 
 saying them ? In the first place, this Creelman was 
 not so much of an imbecile as to believe the contrary 
 of what he saw and, moreover, those I govern, though 
 they are foolish enough [bastante estiiyidos] as a 
 whole, are not so foolish as to think that I have now 
 got half a drachm [un adarme] of democracy in my 
 body. What democracy should I be going to have ? 
 And what should I want it for ? ' 
 
 ' But formerly you were a scarlet democrat.' 
 
 * Yes, formerly, not now. It is not the same thing 
 to be a shopkeeper and a merchant. I should like 
 some of those flaming democrats who spout in the 
 clubs to come and occupy my place for a couple of 
 years, and the same thing would happen to them as to 
 me and Gonzalez : in the first year, with the best 
 intentions, we wanted to have freedom of election, 
 freedom of debate, freedom of the Press, freedom of 
 all kinds, because we were also just as overflowing 
 [rebosantes] with democracy as all the theorists who 
 
74 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 hear the cock crow and know not whence ; but each 
 of us began to see that this people is of those that 
 know nothing else than to fawn upon [encaramdrsele] 
 the man who treats them with a certain gentleness 
 [dulzura]. Here in this Palace we have proved the 
 truth of the proverb which says : " He who is of 
 honey will be eaten by the flies." ' 
 
 4 And, General, surely that is why you thought that 
 it was best to rule with a cudgel ' [garrote], 
 
 4 Or with the slayer [matona], as the funny papers 
 call the sword I usually wear ? ' 
 
 While he was saying this there shot from under his 
 eyelids one of those luminous looks which made 
 such an impression on Mr. Creelman. 
 
 Then he concluded, with something more of 
 serenity : ' Without having a firm hand, no President 
 will keep in power for four years in these Latin- 
 American countries.' 
 
 ' Seeing that we are such intimate friends, would 
 it be possible for you to tell me with entire frankness, 
 with that frankness which you have employed in this 
 interesting conversation, whether it is true that you 
 desire to be re-elected for the period 1910-16, despite 
 the fact that you begin it with more than eighty years 
 upon you, an age which some imagine to be incom- 
 patible with the delicate business of governing a 
 nation ? ' 
 
 ' I will tell you, Don Pancho, that I hardly ever 
 speak the truth to friends or others when they ask 
 me questions about things I look upon as com- 
 promising [que considero comprometedoras] ; but this 
 time I assure you that I am speaking with entire 
 sincerity, because you are my old friend, because I 
 know you are discreet and because I feel the 
 necessity of throwing off the burden of this reticence 
 
WHEN DON PORFIRIO WAS CANDID 75 
 
 which I have had to keep within me during more than 
 thirty years, while I have had this Government 
 beneath my sway. Very well, yes — only those who 
 are very short-sighted [muy meopes] cannot see that 
 I consider this position as my inseparable comrade. 
 I shall be very old next year, and older still in the 
 year that will follow. Even now I can scarcely hold 
 myself erect [erguirme] in front of certain people who 
 must see me whole and strong. God knows the 
 trouble which I go to so as not to give my hand to be 
 squeezed and to prevent a groan escaping me each 
 time I put myself to some unusual exertion. If they 
 do not re-elect me, a thing which has not passed 
 through my imagination, not even as a dream, I 
 should die the next month, because power has become 
 my second nature. I shall enter the Palace faltering 
 [gateando, lit. walking like a cat], but I shall enter at 
 the age of eighty years just as I shall enter at the 
 age of ninety-two, which is the maximum age I 
 promise myself, according to the strength of will I 
 feel within me and the calculation which I make in 
 order to preserve my best faculties, which are the 
 energy to defeat obstacles and the good eye to choose 
 my servants.' 
 
 ' So that you are already thinking of an election 
 after that one organised for 1910 ? ' 
 
 ' I am thinking of all those that can follow while 
 I preserve an atom of life, and I found myself on this 
 that nobody attempts to let me go [pretende dejarme ir] 
 and for no other reason than that everyone is horribly 
 afraid of the man who may come, and, so that there 
 may not come another whom they know not of, 
 neither the Mexicans nor the foreigners allow me to 
 go ; and as I want to go just as little, the result is 
 that my re-elections must be indefinite. Inquire of 
 
76 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 anyone, with the exception of some few who have 
 ambitions such as Zuniga y Miranda, 1 ask any 
 Mexican or foreigner there in the street if he does not 
 wish that I should convert myself into another 
 Jupiter, and they would — I know it — answer you that 
 they would like me to become immortaL Why ? 
 Because although I do not give them all those 
 frivolities [fruslerias] that they call public liberties, 
 I keep the peace for them, the friendship with other 
 nations, and a regime which is neither Republic nor 
 Monarchy, but which is useful to many people of your 
 acquaintance; they make their harvest, and those 
 who live on the budget have security for to-morrow's 
 bread and the others can work in tranquillity. They 
 throw it in my face, these few politicians, I know it 
 well, that I drown the aspirations of talented youths, 
 that I let no one rise up, not so much as raise his head 
 to put me in the shade, that with this peace it seems 
 a shame that orators cannot surpass themselves, nor 
 literary men, nor politicians, nor any of the intellec- 
 tuals of any profession, because I do not give them 
 a theatre in which they can shine, because I have 
 converted the legislators into mutes and the Press I 
 have put in a bag [en la picota]. . . . And what ? 
 What is the value of this weight in the balance when, 
 on the other side, there is the whole nation developing 
 itself, progressing, making itself strong to assure its 
 autonomy in the future, and for a life perhaps full 
 of the grandest prosperity ? ' 
 
 ' I must praise again the candour with which you 
 are speaking, dear General. It is for me a novel and 
 complete revelation, this mass of ideas that you have 
 
 1 A gentleman interested in astronomy. His candidature, many- 
 years ago, was not taken seriously. And to-day the playful under- 
 graduates are fond of calling him ' Mr. President. ' — H. B. 
 
WHEN DON PORFIRIO WAS CANDID 77 
 
 been exposing for me, because I see behind them an 
 entire system of Government which I did not believe 
 you had so well considered. Now I am going to allow 
 myself to ask you a question : When do you think 
 that the people will be ready for democracy — that is, 
 to change the personnel of its Government at every 
 electoral period, without fear of economic and political 
 upheavals ? ' 
 
 ' Those who come after us will know. As far as I 
 -am concerned, democracy did not suit me, and 
 therefore I suppressed it totally. It is easier to 
 govern an idiot people [un pueblo idiota] which does 
 not know how to elect, than whosoever mingles in 
 elections, because, even counting with the majority, 
 there always remain discontented fractions among 
 those who are beaten. When there are no votes there 
 are no victors and no conquered, and that is why I 
 have been able to keep myself in power for so long, 
 because this is a Republic which does not vote, does 
 not know how to fight [luchar], which has no candi- 
 dates, which has left everything to me as readily as 
 one gives other folk a troublesome burden.' 
 
 4 Is it a fact, Mr. President, that you believe that 
 the middle class is the fountain from which democracy 
 is to be hoped for ? - 
 
 4 In the first place, I will tell you that I do not 
 believe that democracy exists or can exist among us, 
 and the reason is that we have no one who hankers 
 for it, save a person here and there. Everyone who 
 has what he wants flings democracy to the devil. And 
 as far as concerns the classes which compose society, I 
 have no idea that some of them are better than others 
 in political activity. The classes are three, according 
 to what they say : the high, the middle and the low. 
 Well now, look here, this is what I think of the three, 
 
78 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 notwithstanding that I have belonged to all of them. 
 The high class is that of the rich, that of the aristo- 
 crats, and as they say that extremes meet, this one 
 elbows the lowest class, having the same ignorance, 
 the same abjectness \bajeza\ and the same dull and 
 vile [torpes y soeces] passions. Now that I have seen 
 from a very small distance [de cerca] all their hoggish- 
 ness, I am terrified, knowing that it is not there that 
 virtue thrives, nor intelligence, nor patriotism, nor 
 anything. All these people, counting as they generally 
 do on very great fortunes, which allow them to want 
 for nothing, are nevertheless those who make them- 
 selves most humble to the men in power, and also they 
 are those who know how to be the lowest in their 
 adulations. Very often a man of the people has more 
 dignity than a millionaire, and in the bosom of exalted 
 families one sees more horrors than among the people. 
 I repeat that I have been struck with horror as I 
 learned of things that never had passed through my 
 \S imagination. All this together, the immoral life of 
 the high class, their absolute ignorance of science and 
 the arts, their idle customs, their indifference to 
 politics, their nullity in every sense, their incapacity 
 even to know what sort of a thing is democracy and 
 where it is to be found. The low class has three layers : 
 a lowest one, which is upon the mud of depravity and 
 misery ; that which is a little higher and is formed 
 of the poor artisans who are equally vicious and do 
 not know of any government except that of their 
 employers who pay them for their work and punish 
 them when they do not accomplish it ; and there is 
 the class of the factory hands who already know what 
 a strike is, who are on the same level as others living 
 on their own little occupations, who know how to 
 read newspapers and argue about public matters, but 
 
WHEN DON PORFIRIO WAS CANDID 79 
 
 in the most disorderly fashion [mas desalinada], those 
 who have no more idea that there is a Constitution 
 and that in conformity with it they could, if they 
 desired, elect their authorities. And there remains 
 for us that which they call the middle class, which is 
 almost entirely suckled on the treasury. Apart from 
 artists, shop assistants, heads of workshops who have 
 not got wealthy and have not yet passed into the 
 aristocracy, hairdressers, pulque dealers, innkeepers 
 and sacristans, the rest are employes, and that is 
 where one really finds the intellectuals, and I count 
 as being such employes the men who are ministers 
 down to those who are deputies and schoolmasters. 
 Now tell me, Don Pancho, whether this is where 
 [en ese gremio] we can look for democracy. In 
 consequence I have hoped neither little nor much, 
 despite the assurance of Mr. Creelman that our people 
 will acquire education and will become democratic, 
 and as far as touches me it suits me to keep them in 
 an everlasting statu quo, so as not to be molested with 
 electoral tickets, which only those would use who 
 have some private benefit in view. Standing as we 
 are on the ground of sincerity, I confess to you that 
 democracy is of no more importance to me than a 
 serenado cuerno, 1 when once all those who count in 
 this country are disputing among themselves for the 
 honour of proposing, of entreating, of begging me to 
 go on in the Presidency, although many of them b&e- 
 their teeth [de dientes para afuera] and do it so as not 
 to be behind the rest, because they think they can 
 be certain that I am an old and useless thing. Look 
 for example at the personages who have formed the 
 aristocratic re-electionist club in which there are 
 
 * A term of contempt, which at any rate is forcible. Lit. a horn 
 which has been left out over night. — H. B. 
 
80 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 more than a dozen who would like to meet me at a 
 dark corner. You will tell me, Don Pancho, if those 
 ^.whom they call 6 cientificos ' can be my partisans in 
 good faith when I am not a ' cientifico,' not even 
 secretly.' 
 
 ' So that if an opposition party should be 
 formed . . . ? ' 
 
 * I would not be two hours in flattening it out, 1 as 
 I have flattened out all those who have wanted to be 
 hostile to me in whatsoever form. I should be a pretty 
 fellow to consent to little oppositions [oposicioncillas] 
 in Congress or in any part. At least in Congress you 
 have seen that as for those who have ruffled me [des- 
 templado] a little, I have taken their seats away from 
 them, and if some of them have come back it is 
 because they have come to offer me, almost on their 
 knees, together with repentance, the most absolute 
 obedience. Even these heterogeneous clubs that are 
 now being formed, notwithstanding that the first 
 thing they propose is my re-election, whether they 
 call themselves Liberals, Democrats or Jews, these 
 innocent clubs I do not let out of my sight, because 
 when they are allowed to take wings some of them 
 fly further than is convenient. There you have, as 
 examples, the Governments of Juarez and Lerdo who 
 got many headaches on account of the clubs and the 
 
 1 And if, like Nicholas of Montenegro, he had settled to allow an 
 opposition party, it is probable that much the same fate would have 
 happened to the leader of it as befell M. Radovich, the husband 
 of King Nicholas' niece, who has for years been kept in chains. There 
 is an island prison on Lake Scutari which has, except in size, a good 
 deal of resemblance to that island prison of San J uan de Ulua ; in 
 the former I found only six-and-thirty dungeons (all occupied), and 
 the prisoners fight not against tuberculosis but malaria. Another 
 point in which these picturesque and shrewd old gentlemen, Porfirio 
 and Nicholas, resemble one another is the praise which has been 
 showered on them by some ardent lovers of romance, of heroism and 
 of liberty.— H. B. 
 
WHEN DON PORFIRIO WAS CANDID 81 
 
 little oppositions. No, Don Pancho, with me the 
 politicians either knock their heads against each other 
 [cabrestean] or drown themselves or remain quiet and 
 submissive or they have to pay me for it. With me 
 they have not got more than one of the two soups 
 that you know of. . . .' 
 
 The General laughed at his sharpness and proceeded 
 in an airy fashion : 
 
 4 They made me say that I consented that one 
 might suppose I had said of the opposition parties 
 that I would be glad to see them formed, as if people 
 would be so foolish as to fall into the trap ; but as they 
 knew me pretty well it was only arfew who were so 
 stupid. As a rule, there is no one who opens his mouth 
 except in order to extol me, to applaud me, to deify me, 
 and all this is the result of my politics, that permit 
 everything except that someone should attempt to 
 put himself in front of me. While it is I who give 
 the orders, there is not going to be any other but 
 myself in the candlestick ; this is the only way 
 whereby we all of us can keep the feast and not be 
 interrupted. Every head is bending now, and God 
 deliver him who tries to raise up his.' 
 
 4 Would you cut it off ? ' 
 
 4 There would be no help for it. And I should at 
 once repeat that good paragraph which Mr. Creelman 
 supplied me with and did it very well : 44 It was 
 better that a little blood should be shed that much 
 blood should be saved. The blood that was shed was 
 bad blood, the blood that was saved was good blood " 
 — my blood, which always has been the principal.' 
 
 4 And is it a fact that you give preference to the 
 school over the army ? ' 
 
 4 That is what they made me say, but I am not so 
 foolish. Neither the boys, not the masters, nor my 
 
 G 
 
82 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 Minister of Public Instruction, nor the whole collection 
 of books would help me to squash an insurrection 
 in Guerrero or a mutiny of the Flores Magon,hvhile 
 with my soldiers and my cannons and my officers 
 who are got up now like Germans, I can make the 
 land tremble, above all, on every 16th of September 
 when they see the new elements of destruction filing 
 pompously through the streets of Mexico. Public 
 instruction has been of no use to me and never will 
 be ; while the less the Mexicans know how to think 
 the more will they be inclined to maintain me, 
 without suspecting, though, that I have carried off 
 their liberties and that I have made myself their 
 dictator. The slower they are in learning the longer 
 they will leave me in peace to govern them, believing 
 that I am the Most Holy Trinity.' 
 
 4 But returning to a point we omitted, Mr. President, 
 about the re-election for the period after 1916, do 
 you think that you can preserve your old energy in 
 the six years following the Centenary ? Formerly 
 you used to give three audiences a week, and these 
 are already reduced to Mondays only, and not all the 
 Mondays ; your hunting-parties are less frequent, and 
 in fine, your application to business tends to cause 
 you more fatigue every day, and even illness. Are 
 you not afraid of seeing yourself deprived one day 
 or another of all participation in the Government ? ' 
 
 4 1 am strong, but supposing that I cease to be so, 
 the only thing that will happen is that my secretary, 
 Chousel, will seize the opportunity to build another 
 house or two, like that one he has already in the 
 Colonia Juarez 1 and my Ministers will do the rest. 
 l That which matters is that the whole world should 
 know I am at the front even though I do not govern. 
 
 1 A fashionable part of the capital. — H.B. 
 
WHEN DON PORFIRIO WAS CANDID 83 
 
 The Mexicans will keep their fear for the God Moloch, 
 and the outsiders will keep high our funds.' 
 
 6 Exactly. I do not want to abuse your kindness 
 further, General, and I am going to stop now that the 
 bombs are bursting and the bells out there have gone 
 back to this ringing. But let me ask you : is it true that 
 the Government has made some arrangement with 
 the church bodies in virtue of which these corporations 
 can break the Reform Laws, establishing convents on 
 all sides and making public scandals such as the 
 recent coronation at Oaxaca and this one now with 
 the consecration of the new archbishop ? ' 
 
 ' Look here, Don Pancho ; you must pardon me if 
 I regard your question as impertinent, and here are 
 the reasons : a public man, as you know, who controls 
 a Government like mine cannot frame contracts of 
 this kind, either expressly or tacitly. In this last 
 form perhaps there is something which consists 
 solely in dissimulation, in tolerance, and which can 
 also call itself the method of true liberty. So long as 
 L-theacts of the clergy do not cause harm to the Govern- 
 ment, why should they be stopped ? The Reform 
 Laws, like all others, must be a little flexible : one 
 can use them, according to circumstances, by making 
 them tighter or slacker. At the present it has been 
 arranged to slacken them so that we may all be in 
 peace. If it cheers them up, the priests and their 
 satellites, to crown a virgin or to consecrate a new 
 archbishop, why not ? Whom do they harm with 
 these innocent entertainments ? . . .' 
 
 They harm the Liberal creed,' exclaimed Don 
 Pancho as he roughly interrupted the first magistrate ; 
 ' they harm the ignorant by keeping back their moral 
 progress ; they harm the credit of the whole nation in 
 the eyes of foreigners who think that we are forming 
 
84 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 here a people of fanatics 1 . . . and these same 
 fanatics grow so arrogant as to believe that they are 
 governed by Santa- Anna or by Miramon.' 
 ^>4Jtiiet yourself, my friend, and above all consider 
 what is the result of throwing broadcast these stale 
 [rancias] ideas which are out of harmony with the 
 present age of evolution. Nowadays the men of 
 science, the really clever men, are laughing at our 
 old Jacobitism which has become inadequate in face 
 of modern methods of experimentation. . . 
 
 Don Pancho opened his eyes enormously and fixed 
 them in terror on the President, saying at the same 
 time to himself — he was amazed : 6 But is this the 
 same Porfirio whom I have known for more than 
 sixty years ? ' 
 
 1 We may note that certain foreigners were not repelled by this fanati- 
 cism. On the contrary — and as an illustration of their enterprise, if 
 nothing else, we have Lord Cowdray's firm which tried to float upon 
 the top of the fanatic wave. Three or four years ago they brought a 
 mighty poster out, adjuring Mexicans to use their oil, and saying that 
 His Holiness the Pope advised this course of conduct. When that 
 poster came into the hands of the ' Petroleum World' of London they 
 addressed it to an influential and trustworthy correspondent at the 
 Vatican. Perhaps in Mexico it had been some small parish priest who 
 told his congregation that he liked this oil and, on the other hand, 
 perhaps it was not so ; but what is certain is that from the Vatican 
 came the reply one would expect, which poured cold water on the 
 troubling oil. 
 
 However I would not suggest that business and religion should be 
 strictly kept apart. There is, in Mexico again, the case of Mr. Stilwell, 
 a most ardent Christian Scientist, who is constructing a great railway 
 down from Kansas City to the State of Sinaloa. He is in the habit of 
 conducting parties of Americans and other magnates through the 
 country, and when they are sitting round him in his private car he 
 will discourse upon the future of his railway very glowingly and after- 
 wards give very lucid answers to financial problems. After this he 
 gives them each a book of Christian Science hymns, and with his 
 secretary playing the harmonium he leads the voices ; and it is 
 delicious when those corpulent old gentlemen take from their mouths 
 the fat cigars and warble. Sometimes one of them at the conclusion 
 of a hymn or even, prematurely, of a verse, will have financial doubts 
 as to the railways. He will ask a question and he will be satisfactorily 
 answered. Then the singing is resumed. . . . Unfortunately, since I 
 wrote these words, the railway has gone into liquidation. — H. B. 
 
WHEN DON PORFIRIO WAS CANDID 85 
 
 The President continued quietly : 
 
 ' We have no pact whatever with the clergy. 
 We let them pray, we let them build and decorate 
 their temples, we let them foster clandestine associa- 
 tions, we let them peal their bells and make some 
 processions so long as they do not interfere in any 
 way with us, except if it is to preach a blood-curdling 
 sermon or so in exchange for the gory articles that 
 the Liberal sheets devote to them.' 
 
 4 But also they are heaping up treasure — a menace 
 for the future.' 
 
 ' There will be someone there who will compel them 
 to disgorge again ' [la segunda desamortizaciori]. 
 
 And as the President arose to stretch his hand out 
 to one of his Secretaries of State who had arrived by 
 appointment, the interview concluded. As Don 
 Pancho left the room he stumbled against the door 
 and against the adjutants, and presently his pointed 
 silhouette vanished . . . into the distance. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 PORFIRIAN JUSTICE 
 I 
 
 It may sometimes be bad business if you kill a man. 
 Well, I have written all that sentence very carefully ; 
 one has to be so careful when one writes of Mexico. 
 For instance, there appeared a rather scathing book 
 which dealt with one particular division of the country. 
 I do not say the book was free from all sensationalism 
 or from all exaggeration, neither can I say that I am 
 a complete admirer of the tone of it. Still there 
 was truth, and damning truth, on many of the pages, 
 but a Mexican who lived for years in England was 
 disgusted. He denounced the book as being so much 
 libel, garbage, treachery and malice. He was on the 
 point of writing to the papers so that nobody in 
 England should believe a word of what this book 
 contained, because there was a sentence in it saying 
 that the President attired himself in plain blue serge. 
 But fortunately this good patriot desisted. He did 
 nothing more than tell to all and sundry that the 
 book was quite untrue and that he was prevented 
 by official prudence from displaying in the papers 
 how absurd it was. I shall attempt to be meticulous. 
 Of course, if a mistake should be discovered in this 
 chapter, I might avail myself of the argumentum ad 
 hominem and an example which occurs to me is that 
 
 86 
 
PORFIRIAN JUSTICE 
 
 87 
 
 of Valladolid. But this I will not do. I will believe 
 what I was told by the Porfirian authorities ; they 
 said that of their soldiers eight were killed by the 
 insurgents of the frontier-town. Some thirteen 
 carts were needed for the Government's dead servants; 
 but no matter — I will be as accurate as in me lies. 
 And having said that it may sometimes be bad 
 business if you kill a man, I am prepared to give the 
 figures : it is bad sometimes to the extent of rather 
 more than forty dollars Mexican. This is the price 
 you will have paid, and one must calculate the interest 
 on capital. At other times a man is quoted at a price 
 much higher, but I am not going to be sensational. 
 What Pancha Robles usually pays at Tuxtepec is 
 forty dollars, and she sells the contract-labourers, 
 the enganchados, more or less at sixty-five dollars, 
 delivered in the hacienda. She is thoroughly notorious, 
 a woman who engages in this lamentable traffic. 
 Agents whom she has in the large cities go about 
 collecting people, and if there should be a shortage it 
 is made up in the gaol of Tuxtepec, which like the 
 other gaols of Mexico one enters with a fatal ease. 
 Of course, the contract does not mention that the 
 men are sold for life, but when the six months period 
 is over they are usually well in debt and may not 
 leave before it has been paid. A hacendado, with a 
 shrugging of the shoulders, will deplore his country- 
 men's improvidence. As owner of a reputable hacienda 
 he could not have tolerated any of the dirty clothes 
 in which the slave arrived ; he gave him others — at a 
 certain price — and these were of such good, enduring 
 stuff that very often one could sell them — at the same 
 fair price — to four or five or six successive slaves. 
 Thus would the debt begin ; a man should really take 
 more trouble to arrive with decent clothes. The 
 
88 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 hacendado who is called Don Jose Sanchez Ramos 
 has a manager defective in the science of arithmetic. 
 The workmen are obtained, at fifty cents a day, from 
 villages about El Faro. When the week is done they 
 ask for six times fifty cents. The manager reminds 
 them with a curse that ere they came they had two 
 dollars; with another curse he says that nothing else 
 is due, and if they will not work, the hacienda will be 
 made unpleasant for them. These practices, I have 
 been told, did not prevail a little time ago when 
 Senor Ramos had the President of the Republic as a 
 partner, but there is just now some difficulty in 
 securing workmen for El Faro, and if the officials of 
 the villages did not oblige the people to present 
 themselves, a myriad of coffee plants would go to 
 rack and ruin. Should a labourer escape, he has to 
 pay the sum of fifty cents a day for each of the 
 policemen who pursue and catch him. So the debt is 
 always mounting up. The slave may not be sold for 
 life, but when he is allowed to leave there is not, as a 
 rule, much life left in him — I have been inside the 
 hospital at Tuxtepec. An enganchado from the 
 capital, I readily admit, is not among the most robust ; 
 he has been undermined by pulque 1 and disease. 
 Nor do the two small cups of aguardiente every day 
 (their value is a little under two cents each, and he 
 pays six) improve his health. The diet is frijoles and 
 tortillas. There are folk in Mexico who tell you with 
 considerable indignation that it is a curse when 
 tourists bribe an editor to put their articles into his 
 
 1 An alcoholic liquor which is got, all over Mexico's high central 
 plateau, from a cactus. It is said to taste like sour buttermilk and 
 certainly it smells like nothing else, but is consumed in frightful 
 quantities. Another beverage, procured in certain parts of the States 
 by roasting cactus roots and leaves, is mescal. The late governor of 
 Sinaloa told me that his first (and last) year of office saw 188 murders 
 — the total population is 296,701 — and mescal is the common cause. 
 
PORFIRIAN JUSTICE 
 
 89 
 
 magazine ; they rush through the Republic and are 
 so misguided as to talk of the employers who provide 
 no sustenance but beans (frijoles) and small cakes of 
 corn (tortillas). If the tourist were to live, as they 
 have done, for twenty years in Mexico, perhaps then 
 he would come to know that grouse and salmon are 
 not what the lower classes look for. Beans and corn 
 cakes are the dishes of the great majority — what 
 would you more ? I would, for my part, like to have 
 the beans in a condition not so adamantine, and the 
 tortillas likewise would be far less formidable if they 
 were not nearly raw. ' It makes me sick,' said an 
 American to me, 4 yes, sick when I am reading all that 
 nonsense of frijoles and tortillas. I can stand a lot, 
 
 but really ' Well, I do not know if he had seen 
 
 the kind of women who are set to make tortillas, each 
 one for a dozen enganchados. From their looks you 
 would imagine that they never have been anything 
 but sick ; a few of them are on the eve of motherhood, 
 not one of them has strength enough to break the 
 corn. So it would not require a connoisseur to see 
 that even six months has reduced the enganchado's 
 value to a sum far less than sixty-five dollars, while 
 the rustics who have been retained for various weeks 
 at the plantation of El Faro could, one fancies, 
 hardly get the manager to promise them a larger sum 
 than thirty-five cents daily if they were to stop. 
 But when the enganchados march away from Tuxtepec, 
 with Pancha Robles riding near them and a pistol at 
 her side, she probably is thinking that it is a good 
 investment, and she must have been annoyed at 
 losing seven whom her son was taking to the hacienda 
 of a Spaniard or a Mexican. He killed them — bang 
 went seven times forty dollars and the interest on 
 capital. Moreover, when young Robles had been 
 
90 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 unmolested by the judge of first instance he was put 
 in prison at the order of the jefe, and he is in prison 
 at this moment. Pancha was away on business 
 when I called ; and the attractive woman with the 
 brilliant eyes, who is her housekeeper, invited me to 
 wait until the evening of that day. Herself she walked 
 across the leafy road towards another house, picked 
 up a pig and took it in with her, while I was at the 
 window of the modest house of Pancha, looking through 
 the iron bars. There is not much to see : at one side 
 of the room is nothing, at the other side a humble bed 
 around which, on the wall, are hung a scarlet box, a 
 bunch of telegrams, an English shooting-cap. There 
 is a little shelf above the bed, and there, illuminated 
 by a flame which dances on a saucer full of oil, one sees 
 a picture taken from an illustrated paper. I am 
 anxious, as I said, to stick meticulously to the facts, 
 and if the picture is not one of ' The Good Shepherd ' 
 — I am too short-sighted to be positive — it represents 
 a bishop with his crosier and a flock of sheep. Ah, 
 Pancha mia ! 
 
 At this point I will assume that he who reads this 
 chapter cannot tolerate me anymore. 'Fancy making all 
 this bother,' he exclaims, 1 about the town of Tuxtepec 
 and its vicinity. 1 As if one could not find an evil spot 
 in every land ! How can I write on justice, I that am 
 unjust ? There is no difference between me and those 
 wretched people who for some dark purpose have 
 invented lies about the country, saying that the Press 
 enjoyed no freedom, that there were no juries. All 
 these statements have been utterly denied, and it 
 may be that any others would have been denied by 
 the sagacious Council of Administration of the 
 American Colony, assembled in the club-room of the 
 1 Herald.' They assembled there perhaps because 
 
Peasants in the State of Veracruz. 
 
 Half-an-hour before execution. 
 
 The camera had to be held under the photographer's coat, and 
 he only succeeded in snap-shotting three of the five men. 
 
PORFIRIAN JUSTICE 91 
 
 there was no other room available. But I protest 
 that it was cruel. We might just as well meet in the 
 dungeon of a prisoner and talk so gaily of the freedom 
 of the world. 'Tis said that money talks ; 1500 
 dollars, I believe, were laid each month upon the 
 4 Herald's ' pen — I hope they will excuse me if it was 
 2000. And I am so grieved to have to contradict the 
 Council of Administration, but there really were no 
 juries anywhere in Mexico save in the Federal District. 
 I thank God that Mexico is not entirely destitute of 
 juries, for the Council and myself have something still 
 in common — I can utterly deny the statement that 
 there were no juries. Yet the subject is of small 
 importance, as it happened very often that there was 
 no trial. Those two who were dealt with in Colima, 
 for example — what was it to them if juries or no 
 juries throve in the so-called Republic ? Having 
 been suspected of a crime their house was entered by 
 gendarmerie and one of them was in the kitchen when 
 they slew him, while the other citizen succeeded in 
 escaping to the church. He begged the priest to save 
 him, but gendarmerie arrived and shot him straight- 
 way through the head. Police in other countries 
 have been guilty of excess of zeal, but here the Gover- 
 nor of Colima shielded them, and if the priest had not 
 moved heaven and earth the jefe would not have 
 received his punishment of eighteen months in prison. 
 But I am unjust again. It is so easy in a land the size 
 of Mexico to find some evil spots, if one goes search- 
 ing here and there and everywhere ! Yes, that is true ; 
 I will return to Tuxtepec. There, in the neighbour- 
 hood, five men suspected of the crime of theft were 
 shot, nor was it long ago. The trial took place on the 
 previous day, when they were hung up by a certain 
 portion of their bodies, in the hope that they would 
 
92 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 satisfy the jefes conscience and confess. 1 You will 
 declare that I am merely putting down a series of 
 abominations, with no object other than a sordid one, 
 and if it be conceded that my object has a different 
 character — oh, surely, surely, it is a mistaken object, 
 for the Government of Mexico was doing what it 
 could to set its house in order. That is what they said, 
 and who am I that I should disbelieve them ? For 
 the moment it was necessary to hang up a lot of people 
 (I give verse and chapter elsewhere), to suspend them 
 by their thumbs, etc., since they were obstinate with 
 their confessions. But one should have the politeness 
 to believe a Government if it is civilised. Yes, then 
 I might, I would at all events have made an effort to 
 believe. It was a Government of force. Themselves 
 they did not make the slightest effort to induce us to 
 believe that they were anything more modern. Those 
 eight soldiers who were killed, as we have mentioned, 
 in the Valladolid battle, are a proof, because the State 
 acquired their rifles from the Federal Government. 
 These rifles numbered ninety-six, and who will say 
 that such a Government did not arm its retainers to 
 the teeth ? 
 
 II 
 
 Let us begin at the beginning. Over those who sit in 
 justice was the Minister of Justice, one Fernandez, 
 uncle to the wife of Don Porfirio. Far be it from me to 
 insinuate that in a flock of white sheep he was black 
 or grey. No ; on the contrary, he was a most affec- 
 tionate old man who had forgotten totally that he 
 
 1 It will be seen upon the photograph that two or three musicians 
 were included in the shooting party. 'Pompa mortis, ' says Bacon, 
 ' magis terret quam mors ipsa.' 
 
g 
 
 ft -2 
 
 O « 
 o "2 
 
PORFIRIAN JUSTICE 
 
 93 
 
 was Justice. And it would be ludicrous to lay the 
 Pita question or a hundred other questions at his door. 
 'Tis true that he made the report on those who were 
 condemned to death, which does not mean the 
 murderers, but still a goodly number of the population. 
 Then the President considered his report, and from 
 the tenor of it, I presume, gave out the final sentence. 
 In this life of ours there is no weapon that is half as 
 strong as luck — you would perceive the truth of this 
 supposing that your life depended on the words of one 
 who babbles, who does not remember that there are 
 such things as words. But, bless you, he would not 
 hurt a lamb. . . . This Pita was a pretty fellow, 
 who was not so much oppressed by multifarious duties 
 — he was Jefe Politico at Puebla — but that he could 
 ride a hobby which is taken from the ways of Rome. 
 We have forgotten many things we learned at school, 
 but Pita had remembered beautifully how the Romans 
 used to farm their taxes ; and he paid the Govern- 
 ment of Puebla certain pesos every year so that he 
 might collect and keep the fines. He also was the 
 person who inflicted them, and it would seem that the 
 Poblanos were addicted much to finable offences, 
 since whatever be the sum that Pita had to give the 
 Government we did not hear of him lamenting that 
 the fines were insufficient. By the way, some foreigners 
 might urge that if a jefe be permitted to avail himself 
 of this old, classic system and he be unscrupulous — 
 well, well ! to show that the position of a jefe is not 
 such a gold mine, I have merely to adduce the 
 instance of a gentleman who went about among the 
 four or five rich people of a Jefatura in Oaxaca over 
 which the Government had asked him to preside. 
 One of the wealthy folk, an English manufacturer 
 long domiciled in Mexico, was willing to assist the 
 
94 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 future jefe with a hundred pesos every month, another 
 person undertook to give his 60 pesos, and in this way 
 some 300 pesos were collected in the district. That 
 was not enough ; the gentleman was forced to tell 
 the Government that he could not accept the post 
 because the contribution of the Government (150 
 pesos) would but bring the total up to 450, while the 
 candidate had settled to refuse the offer if he could 
 not have 500. Clearly he did not look forward to 
 receiving even 50 pesos from the fines, that peaceful 
 region of Oaxaca being different from Puebla. Here 
 at any rate we have a good example of the scrupulous : 
 a person who declined an office rather than that he 
 should be obliged to be unjust towards his flock to the 
 extent of 50 pesos yearly, 50 pesos if the worst should 
 come to the worst and there be not a single finable 
 offence. Those of my readers who have not been 
 domiciled in Mexico may think uncharitable thoughts 
 about the English manufacturer and all the rest who 
 were prepared to help the jefe, in whose hands the 
 local justice would have been deposited. Of course, 
 it is quite admirable that a Minister of Justice should 
 be dedicated to high thinking and plain living, but if 
 this ideal had been carried by the Government to an 
 extreme and the official ran the risk of starving 
 swiftly, then the moneyed people of the neighbourhood 
 would have been uncharitable had they let the tragedy 
 enact itself before their eyes. Poor jefes ! Sometimes 
 you would see one stepping of his own desire out of a 
 place of splendour, as did Primitivo Diaz, chief of 
 Merida's police, who had himself transferred from all 
 the fascinations of the capital of Yucatan, because he 
 said that in Progreso he would have much more to do. 
 And let me tell those happy persons who are un- 
 acquainted with Progreso that it is a settlement of 
 
PORFIRIAN JUSTICE 
 
 95 
 
 wooden houses partly buried in the raging sand. Far 
 out at sea there will be one or two or several ships, and 
 sometimes, when the sea is fairly calm, the passengers, 
 or what is left of them, are landed with the help of 
 tugs and barges in just under half a day. Progreso 
 is the port of Yucatan. A great amount of merchan- 
 dise comes through the custom-house, and for a long 
 time under Diaz this amount would have been greater 
 still if, in the complicated act of disembarking, it were 
 not the fate of merchandise to pass through many 
 hands. The traders up in Merida discovered that a 
 large — unduly large — proportion of the goods evapo- 
 rated in the journey from the vessel to the shore ; they 
 told their agents at Progreso, but these people, aided 
 by the chief of the police, discovered nothing. Merida 
 began to be dissatisfied with Primitivo ; at his own 
 request he had been taken to the port, and the 
 condition of the port was worse than ever. Primitivo 
 was a clever man, no doubt ; a man who could without 
 the least asceticism save a handsome fortune out of 
 his restricted pay. Another Diaz — but that is another 
 story. ' Primitivo's cleverness,' said those of Merida, 
 c has been of no avail to us.' 6 Have patience for a 
 time,' said Primitivo ; 4 1 shall run the fellows down, 
 cost what it may.' So Merida endeavoured to be 
 patient, and he finally did run them down, four of his 
 own subordinates. It must have cost him dearly in 
 his innermost emotions when he spread abroad the 
 infamy of these four men, since they were joined to 
 him first by the link of being his subordinates and 
 secondly because they were, without exception, from 
 his native province of Galicia. Sundry persons at the 
 time remained dissatisfied with Primitivo, saying that 
 the stoppage of the leak had cost him dearly. But a 
 merchant, both in Merida and London, goes about 
 
96 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 asserting that he has no time for gossip ; a subscrip- 
 tion was begun, and Primitivo got a golden watch. 
 . . . But we are giving way to gossip, which is not the 
 method for approaching an austere and elevated 
 subject. We committed the initial fault in our 
 assumption that there could exist both justice 
 and ' Porfirian ' justice, whereas the special features 
 of the latter which we have recorded can most 
 probably be matched a hundred times in the great 
 book of 6 Justice.' Let us hope so, for it is by the 
 digressions from your cold, inexorable, written justice 
 that the soul of what is human enters in, and justice 
 after all exists for human beings. Some of the 
 digressions will be good, and others, many others, bad. 
 The principle is excellent. And if in this account the 
 bad digressions have been given greater prominence it 
 certainly is not because there are no good ones. 
 Justice would not lay upon the impresarios of Mexico 
 the burden of those 30 pesos per performance which 
 they send to Spain. She is the Motherland, of course, 
 and many of the pieces are from Spanish pens, but 
 it was infinitely better than mere justice ; it was 
 overflowing generosity which prompted Mariscal, a 
 recent Foreign Minister of the Republic, to arrange 
 than any piece of Shakespeare or Puccini should make 
 equal tribute. Some will say — have said — that by this 
 generosity the drama is not benefited, since the 30 
 pesos are a handicap for struggling, little theatres ; 
 but Spain was grateful, and conferred on Senor 
 Mariscal a decoration. There we have an instance 
 where there is more generosity in ' Porfirian ' justice 
 than in justice. And if I have laid more stress upon 
 the questionable phases of the former it is owing to 
 the curious and sorry fact, methinks, that we — you, I 
 and most of us — prefer the sorry side of life. What- 
 
PORFIRIAN JUSTICE 
 
 97 
 
 ever be the reason for it, we go naturally to the shade, 
 we have a greater sympathy with what is in the shade. 
 So it must be acknowledged that our picture is 
 distorted, since we have not paid enough attention 
 to the admirable features of 4 Porfirian ' justice and of 
 its servants. These confess that they have imper- 
 fections, and they sometimes make enormous progress 
 in a little space of time. For instance, I was staying 
 with a friend of mine, a Frenchman, in the capital. 
 He lost his cook, to whom he had entrusted 20 pesos 
 for the purchase of supplies. And the police were 
 absolutely honest, saying that it was beyond their 
 power to find the man. But if my friend would point 
 him out to a policeman at a railway station, just 
 as he was thinking to escape, then the policeman 
 certainly would apprehend the villain. Thus my friend 
 will be excused for his comparatively low opinion of 
 Porfirian police. A few days later we were in the 
 thick of insurrection ; those who came into the open, 
 armed with rifles and machetes, could be easily 
 distinguished, but it did not seem to be a simple task 
 for anyone to drag the hundreds of conspirators into 
 the daylight. Yet the Mexican police accomplished 
 this, and very rapidly. They settled in their mind 
 that So-and-so was a conspirator, they flung them- 
 selves into his house, they seized the mattress, 
 galloped off with it to the police-station, and behold, 
 when they had ripped the vile thing open, it was 
 always full of compromising documents. My friend's 
 opinion of the Mexican police was changed completely; 
 and we never, never heard of one mistake. No mat- 
 tress which they ripped was destitute of documents. A 
 warning flew round all the rebel camp — henceforward 
 mattresses shall not be utilised. But it was all in 
 vain ; the Mexican police continued to discover 
 
 H 
 
98 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 documents in every mattress. . . . But I am not sure 
 if by the piling up of illustrations I shall paint a real 
 picture. And we are assuming that it is a subject 
 profitable for a foreigner to study. In the books upon 
 these more or less exotic countries it appears to be the 
 custom to devote a chapter to the glories of the 
 pasture-land on which the beef of Britain will be 
 some day grown, another chapter to the glories that 
 are hidden, more or less securely, in the mines, another 
 chapter to the glories of the railway that will soon 
 return a dividend — a glorious surprise for those who 
 have the shares — another chapter to the swarthy 
 rulers of the country, veritable statesmen, with a 
 retrospective and reproving chapter on the country's 
 efforts, from the Spanish days, to rule itself. But 
 there is nothing said about the 4 justice ' of the country, 
 though the subject seems to cry for some investigation. 
 It will give most valuable data to the student who 
 sets out to study race-ideals. Take, for instance, 
 honour as it is defined among the schoolboys of 
 England, the officers of Germany, the lawyers of the 
 State of Veracruz. From time to time this special 
 point of view of honour clashes with the country's 
 justice, and it is instructive to observe what happens. 
 At Jalapa lived a wealthy man, with mistresses and 
 children. He repented of his ways and did the best 
 he could by marrying one mistress. She, the youthful 
 mother of a boy and girl, had got a brother who did 
 not concern himself with these domestic questions 
 until he had legally become the rich man's relative. 
 A lawyer — F. Gonzalez Mena — had ideas of honour, 
 and he inculcated them into the youth. According 
 to his notions it was contrary to honour what the 
 wealthy man had done, it was high time to rub away 
 the blot. And in the courtyard of the ancient, flower- 
 
PORFIRIAN JUSTICE 
 
 99 
 
 buried house in which I stayed, when I forgot the 
 whole world and its grandeur in Jalapa, he gave 
 his disciple shooting lessons. Other people might 
 have his ideas of honour ; that which merits our 
 consideration is the attitude of Justice. We learn 
 something of the Germans' character from knowing 
 how far they let loose the hounds of justice after 
 an official has exhibited his honour, been perhaps 
 compelled to do so, in a ruthless fashion. When 
 the rich man had been murdered and his widow 
 had secured her legal portion of the millions, when 
 the young man's elongated trial was concluded and 
 the lawyer likewise had secured his portion, then the 
 justice of the country did not quarrel with this lawyer's 
 sense of honour and it saw no reason why he should not 
 be, as he was under Don Porfirio, a member of the 
 House of Deputies. . . . And so the study of 'Porfirian' 
 justice may be profitable, and it might once have 
 been profitable in the common meaning of that word. 
 Don Abelardo's post of judge was vacant, for he could 
 not carry out the Government's instructions. And he 
 told me that the salary was adequate. Well, they may 
 charge me with excessive optimism, but I think that if 
 the Government had not been overturned the number 
 of such vacancies would have increased. And some- 
 times there were opportunities for advocates, if it should 
 be against the Government. I personally knew some 
 independent advocates of Merida, but these might 
 all be exiled simultaneously, and when a Russian 
 engineer, at work upon the circus cupola, fell out with 
 Avelino Montes, who was over him and was the 
 Governor's son-in-law, the post of advocate was 
 vacant until one could be imported from the capital. 
 But if I seem to hint that in the execution of his duty, 
 whether as a judge or advocate, a man was liable to 
 
100 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 interference, if I have deterred some enterprising, 
 rather briefless comrade from the law in Mexico as a 
 profession, I would duly place on record that the 
 Government and town official was, in the majority of 
 cases, screened from interference. When the House 
 of Deputies was burned, a citizen who lived beside it 
 was prevented from an interference with the firemen. 
 There is this much to be said for him — he was 
 impatient, as the fire brigade had not been able to 
 drive up for something like an hour and twenty-five 
 minutes ; possibly, too, he was patriotic and did not 
 wish the house with all the archives and the sacred 
 Act of Independence to be swallowed by the flames. 
 What he said was, 6 Here is water.' And they 
 threatened him with Belem if he interfered. Some 
 people say that it was very fortunate for Don Porfirio 
 Diaz that the archives were destroyed, but if a 
 compromising document or two was really there could 
 he not have removed them in a quiet way or else 
 promoted the custodian to another office ? 
 
 Ill 
 
 There was no justice in Mexico. I do not say there 
 was no mercy, for if you should haply be a general or 
 a bull-fighter they would be merciful. Suppose you 
 found it needful to commit a murder, as did General 
 Maas, who in a suburb of the capital fired point-blank 
 at the unarmed brother of his mistress. You can 
 plead that Maas was sent to prison for some months 
 and then was reinstated on the active list, maybe 
 because he proved himself a better shot than most of 
 them. You would have mercy if you were a general ; 
 and a bull-fighter not long since killed a woman on a 
 
PORFIRIAN JUSTICE 
 
 101 
 
 Saturday. They put him into prison, but the populace 
 would have been furious if he had not appeared, as 
 advertised, the next day in the ring. So the police 
 allowed him leave of absence for that afternoon and 
 he prolonged it by escaping into Texas. Someone 
 had to meet the charge ; his brother was arrested and 
 examined duly and found innocent and set at liberty. 
 . . . God help you if you were a Mexican and had not 
 taken the precaution to become a general or a bull- 
 fighter. 
 
 There was more justice for the foreigner than for the 
 Mexican, but it was rather scant. This may seem 
 disputable, since the President was well aware that 
 intervention, not to speak of smaller worries, could be 
 brought about in this way. But if foreigners were 
 sure of justice, why did Inigo Noriega give his 50,000 
 pesos to the judge ? He must have felt uneasy, though 
 he is an influential Spaniard and a partner of Porfirio. 
 His method was denounced in heated words by his 
 opponent, who was Senor Romero Rubio. * We must 
 expel him,' said this gentleman, ' as a pernicious 
 foreigner.' And Diaz was affected, though he was not 
 then Romero Rubio's son-in-law. He remonstrated 
 with Don Inigo and learned that as a foreigner who 
 wanted justice (being in the right) it had been neces- 
 sary for him to put up the 50,000 pesos, as Romero 
 Rubio had put up 40,000. 
 
 There was no justice in Mexico. The highest court 
 was subject to the President. For instance, when the 
 owner of a well-known bar, which occupies the corner 
 of San Juan Letran in the capital, was told to leave his 
 premises on which he had expended 40,000 pesos, he 
 objected. Those who wanted him to leave declared 
 that he had built some rooms for servants on the 
 second floor. He proved by documents and witnesses 
 
102 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 that these rooms had been built before his time, while 
 there was nothing in the contract which prohibited 
 such building. In the court of first instance he was 
 quite victorious, as also in the Superior Tribunal. 
 His antagonists then took the case to the Supreme 
 Court of the Nation. He had shown his proofs to the 
 Superior Tribunal, who had recognised them ; but the 
 Supreme Court said that they did not exist. The 
 judges said that he must leave the house within ten 
 days, but as it was so flagrant all the business houses 
 of the capital, both Mexican and foreign, threatened 
 to put up their shutters for a day. This naturally 
 could not be permitted, and the President, while saying 
 that he could not interfere with justice, promised to 
 exert his private influence. He was surprised to hear 
 that ' Chato ' Elizaga, his brother-in-law, had spoken 
 to the judges of the Supreme Court. He was surprised 
 that the Sehora Elizaga was thirsting for the house. 
 He said he would exert his influence, and though the 
 owner in July was told to quit he made another 
 contract in December, and he has not yet been 
 summoned for contempt of court. 
 
 Where justice was in this condition, we may say 
 that it did not exist. In China and Siam we have 
 our own courts for our countrymen. Not long ago 
 that was the system in Japan, but then we showed 
 our confidence in the Mikado's justice by removing 
 our own courts. They should have been removed to 
 Mexico. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE SOVEREIGN STATES 
 
 Few readers in this country will be agitated when 
 they learn that General Diaz was unconstitutional 
 and would not let the seven-and-twenty States of 
 Mexico enjoy their lawful liberty. We have in 
 England to concern ourselves with such a multitude 
 of luckless countries that we really have no leisure 
 to regard the details when the pity and the terror 
 and the picturesqueness of them do not capture our 
 attention. Vainly has the pundit tried to buttonhole 
 us with a story of the constitutional restrictions in 
 Lorraine, when Macedonia has been the stage of 
 some unspeakable atrocity. Could we attend to 
 everything in this disjointed time we should be 
 gravely exercised about the seven-and-twenty States. 
 Their need of independence was withheld, their 
 Governors were not elected by the people, and their 
 local deputies — for in each so-called Free and Sovereign 
 State there is a Congress — were elected by the Gover- 
 nor, sometimes by the benevolence of Don Porfirio, 
 and there they sat so long as they conformed with 
 Don Porfirio' s idea of parliamentary behaviour. 
 Then Madero wished them to assert their quasi- 
 freedom, and we were inclined to sail towards another 
 subject with the pious hope that he would have suc- 
 cess. However, to obtain some notion of how far the 
 sovereignty was scorned it may be profitable if we 
 
 103 
 
104 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 contemplate the Chief Inspector of Antiquities, Don 
 Leopoldo Batres, who was not removed until the 
 Revolution had been consummated. 1 He travelled 
 down to Uxmal, one of the sublimest ruins, and with 
 dynamite blew up a lovely arch, so that a statue, 
 which was injured in the process, could be extricated 
 and conveyed to Mexico. His friend, Professor Seler, 
 who is German, stands accused of having wrought 
 irreparable damage at Palenque, and we are assured, 
 by Batres, that the matter will be sifted. 
 
 Palenque ! seat of Kings ! as o'er the plain, 
 
 Clothed with thick copse, the traveller toils with pain, 
 
 Climbs the rude mound the shadowy scene to trace, 
 
 He views in mute surprise thy desert grace. 
 
 At every step some palace meets his eye, 
 
 Some figure frowns, some temple courts the sky. 
 
 But Mr. Seler, the Director of the School of 
 Archaeology in Mexico, would not be satisfied with 
 Southey's catalogue. In order to observe some 
 paintings he is said (by Senor Aguirre, who was on 
 the spot) to have destroyed a portion of the great 
 room of the palace. And if it is urged that these two 
 exploits hardly bear upon the question of State 
 sovereignty, the fact remains that if the charge 
 against the German savant is substantiated, Don 
 Benito Lacroix, Inspector of the Monuments of 
 Chiapas, will be probably deprived of his position for 
 not having been a faithful guardian. This Federal 
 Inspector has, or is supposed, to reckon with a State 
 Inspector, who was thrust aside, at any rate he stood 
 aside in these two cases, just as in the realm of 
 politics the Governors and deputies have stood aside 
 for Don Porfirio. We have supped full of politics, 
 and, though we would not for the world balk the 
 
 1 Then he came to Europe, but the 1 Monna Lisa ' in a little under 
 two months was reported to have sailed for Mexico. 
 
THE SOVEREIGN STATES 105 
 
 consideration of this problem, it may be permitted us 
 to do so with an archaeologist as villain. 
 
 Take one of those pleasant volumes of the British 
 poets that were published nearly half a century ago ; 
 the chances are that it will open at a page on which 
 there is a steel engraving of a nymph about to swim. 
 The pamphlets that have been devoted to Don 
 Leopoldo Batres usually open, I believe, at an 
 exposure of the way in which he interfered at Mitla. 
 Some amount of interference is quite proper, seeing 
 that he is the chief custodian of the ancient glories, 
 just as Don Porfirio was the custodian of the nation's 
 honour. We would not be so pedantic as to criticise 
 them always for an undue interference ; local bodies 
 are not always very capable and have not such a 
 grasp of things as Don Porfirio and Senor Batres. 
 Grasp of things ! ' It is probable,' said 6 El Imparcial,' 
 ' that all the commission given to Sanchez [a domestic 
 servant whom Don Leopoldo sent to Mitla] was to 
 gather in the objects found — this being the sole pre- 
 occupation of the Inspector of Monuments. ... In 
 the present case this is not only a question of 
 scientific interest, but one which involves Mexico's 
 good name. We therefore hope that, with all activity 
 and energy, steps will be taken to avoid the ridicule 
 that threatens us and the loss of the data which may 
 be obtainable from said discovery.' But since these 
 words appeared, in May, 1910, we have had no more 
 announcements with regard to the discovery, and it 
 must be inferred, as Mrs. Nuttall says, that ' the 
 grave, which is surely that of a Zapotec high-priest 
 and ruler, and may be that of the builder of Mitla, 
 has simply been plundered by order of the Con- 
 servator of Public Monuments, with the sanction of 
 the Ministry of Public Instruction, by a domestic 
 
106 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 who, when not entrusted with such archaeological 
 work, serves at the table of the Batres family.' And 
 it was at a table in Oaxaca that Don Leopoldo said, 
 by no means in a whisper, that his salary was such- 
 and-such a sum, while he required an altogether 
 larger one to live in gentlemanly style. I fear that 
 those who overheard him did not make the obvious 
 retort ; he certainly continued to augment his in- 
 come. Mrs. Nuttall, from the depths of her American 
 enthusiasm, and because she loves and understands 
 the relics which to many people are the chief thing in 
 the two Americas, would have made his income up to 
 the desired amount from her own pocket, I believe, if 
 he would not again have listened to his predatory in- 
 stincts. As many scientists and tourists are prepared 
 to testify, he was for years a wholesale and a retail mer- 
 chant of the antiquities of Mexico, such as the idols ema- 
 nating from the Pyramids of Sun and Moon at San Juan 
 Teotihuacan ; he has received payment for ' affording 
 facilities ' whereby these objects could be taken from 
 the country, though its laws forbid their exportation. 
 It will be remembered that it was this man who had 
 the savage altercation with the Due de Loubat at the 
 New York meeting of the International Congress of 
 Americanists, where the latter justly reproached him 
 for his methods. ' It is very curious,' said an old 
 peasant woman of San Juan, 6 for the Senor Batres 
 has been working in the Pyramids and has got out 
 of them two automobiles.' So the cunning Toltecs 
 worked in porphyry and made a golden breastplate 
 for their statue of the Sun, and with consummate skill 
 inlaid the pea-green jadeite on their teeth — so that 
 Don Leopoldo Batres might maintain his large 
 expanse of body. They have not contributed with 
 much success, it seems, towards the upkeep of his 
 
THE SOVEREIGN STATES 
 
 107 
 
 mind, for the authorities have settled to reject his 
 mode of classifying the Museo National and to adopt 
 the system urged by Mrs. Nuttall. 4 It was my 
 privilege some months ago,' she writes, 4 to accompany 
 Bishop Plancarte when he visited the museum for the 
 purpose of showing me certain specimens in his collec- 
 tion, of a type that we had both been studying and 
 discussing.' The Bishop of Cuernavaca is the most 
 scholarly and distinguished of living Mexican 
 archaeologists. ' To our profound regret we found 
 that the numbers on the specimens, which enabled 
 the student to make use of the instructive catalogue 
 of the Plancarte collection, had entirely disappeared. 
 Obliged, for the purpose of comparative study, to 
 refer to three objects which Bishop Plancarte had 
 discovered together in a single tomb, we ascertained, 
 after a prolonged search, that Senor Batres had 
 assigned each of these objects to a different locality 
 and to a different civilisation ! ' But if all the ex- 
 militiamen — Don Leopoldo is no more than that — 
 can scarcely be expected to be archaeologists, they 
 can, at any rate, be reasonably honest. Codexes — 
 illuminated documents of fibre-cloth — are now so 
 rare as to possess enormous value. He disposed of 
 one, the codex Sanchez Solis, to the German Minister. 
 And if Mexican antiquities were going, one regrets 
 that most of them were sent to the Berlin Museum. 
 Mr. Seler, who appears to be the most unworldly of 
 professors, may have left it to his wife (a celebrated 
 banker's child, and Seler was the tutor) to obtain for 
 Senor Batres the Red Eagle, so that the Museum in 
 Berlin received an annual supply of wonders. But 
 the Conservator had been looking out for other fields. 
 To Monsieur Capitan, the representative of France 
 at the Americanist Congress of 1910, he confided that 
 
108 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 he had not yet received the Legion of Honour. ' Ah, 
 pensez done ! ' said Monsieur Capitan. And in the 
 8 Mexican Herald ' of 29th June, 1911, it is stated 
 ' a large lot of idols and archaeological specimens 
 have just been discovered ready to be shipped to 
 Guatemala by a person who had given his name as 
 Leopoldo Batres. . . . The secretary [of the museum] 
 began an investigation at once, inasmuch as there is 
 a strict prohibition against the sending of archaeologi- 
 cal objects out of the Republic' But the German 
 colony in Mexico, which has a number of most righteous 
 merchants who will not be gratified with eagles, have 
 been ostracising Mr. Seler at the German Club. And, 
 by the way, there are in Mexico three scientific 
 societies, but Leopoldo Batres was not member of a 
 single one. If he confined himself to selling imitations 
 to the foreigner, his countryfolk would listen to the 
 plea that it is patriotic, for the foreigner is human — 
 sometimes even feminine — and will insist on the 
 illicit booty. You will not succeed in turning them 
 away with mere soft words, and it is patriotic, there- 
 fore, to provide them with the imitations. Batres was 
 supposed to make these objects in the cellar of his 
 house — 4 we will say nothing about the individual 
 . . . for he is known well enough,' says 1 El Tiempo,' 
 the conservative and Catholic organ, ' as is also the 
 damage he has done to the science of archaeology by 
 means of his proceedings, his ignorance and his 
 audacity, which is that of an improvised savant ' — 
 but these imitations have been known to find their 
 way to Mexico's museums, for the stranger cannot 
 always be deceived. But he can be discouraged, as 
 was Mr. A. P. Maudslay, whose researches in the 
 Guatemalan field are so well known and valued ; 
 Mr. Maudslay was unable to secure permission to 
 
The Custodian of Monte Alban 
 
 With his machete. 
 
THE SOVEREIGN STATES 109 
 
 investigate the mounds on Monte Alban, and as no 
 domestic servant seems to have been willing to ascend 
 the mountain it is left in peace, and probably it will 
 be left until a butcher's bill of one of Mexico's Don 
 Leopoldos must be settled. 
 
 When he was accused of something flagrant he 
 defended himself by printing letters from the local 
 guardians, who were under him and as subservient as 
 were the Governors to Don Porfirio. In politics and 
 archaeology there may not be sufficient able men in 
 every State of the Republic, but the 4 one-man 
 system ' has been found a ghastly failure. Even if 
 Porfirio and Leopoldo had a myriad eyes and honest 
 eyes they could not cope with all the country, and 
 they stifled everywhere the men who con amove would 
 devote themselves to these two occupations. As to 
 why the ruins have been ever supervised by Batres, no- 
 body can tell ; his ethnological-anthropological books 
 merely show his ignorance, and the reason given by 
 some Mexicans (that he is the natural son of Don 
 Porfirio' s late father-in-law, who also did his best to 
 educate him) is not adequate. O Reuter, if you had 
 but paid your agent a more princely fee, so that he 
 had dedicated wholly his activities to you, then every 
 archaeologist would have bowed low before you. 
 
 And yet the policy of riding rough-shod over all 
 the separate States was so disastrous to the local 
 politicians, who were thrown aside, and in the end to 
 Don Porfirio Diaz, who was also thrown aside, that 
 we must contemplate the subject rather closely. 
 And it happened that in San Luis I met a man who 
 once had figured in the politics of Yucatan. He is a 
 member of a learned profession, which he studied 
 
110 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 during several years in the United States and Canada. 
 Thus he was able to relate in English what he knew, 
 and as the words fell from his lips I give them here. 
 ' It is not totally a lie,' said he, whereby he meant 
 that it was true, and it is more convincing, I believe, 
 than are the vagaries of Leopoldo : 
 
 6 Foolishly believing the interview Diaz-Creelman, 
 a group of persons belonging to the best families in 
 Yucatan got together in order to found, how do you 
 say ? to establish — no ? — a political party with 
 democratic ideas. This interview Diaz-Creelman 
 that I have referred to was an interview granted by 
 President Diaz to an American journalist, in which 
 Diaz expressed himself saying that he would dedicate 
 the last years of his life — the last years of his life — to 
 teach the people of Mexico the true democracy, and 
 thought, therefore, that they would, that they should, 
 take more interest in politics and would establish 
 clubs of opposition to the Government. . . . So, as 
 I said, we established the Centro Electoral Inde- 
 pendiente ; it began its work with the publication of 
 a political platform that would have to be accepted 
 by whoever was elected candidate of the club, I mean 
 candidate for the office of Governor and any other 
 office. After that we began the publication of a paper 
 called " El Sufragio," and sent commissions to the 
 different towns of the State to propagate our ideas 
 and establish clubs dependent of the central club in 
 Merida. Two or three weeks after the club was 
 established we noted great enthusiasm in the mass 
 of the people and began to receive letters — there is a 
 word in Spanish — of adhesion ; before five or six 
 months we had 5000 in our books — 5000 in a State of 
 300,000 inhabitants and where 75 per cent of the 
 people do not know how to read nor write. The 
 
THE SOVEREIGN STATES 
 
 111 
 
 date — I don't remember the exact date. Well, now ! 
 all these works involved the expenditure of money 
 that we collected among our friends and apparent 
 supporters. We might say that most of this money 
 was collected among the rich classes, that is, among 
 the hacendados, in the haciendas, who some contri- 
 buted believing in the exit, I mean success of our 
 campaign, and some on account of — before you put 
 it — on account of friendly relations with the directors 
 of the movement, and very few because they thought 
 that — that the movement would be, if nothing else, 
 a means of educating the people in the true demo- 
 cratic ways — is that right, is that the way to say it ? 
 But you ought not to believe that these farmers, the 
 hacendados, had the — how do you say ? — the valor 
 de sus ideas, because we have proofs to the effect 
 that if they gave us 50 pesos they at the same time 
 gave the Government — the Government party — 100. 
 There was one of them who offered us 1000 pesos 
 under certain conditions that were not accepted — 
 acceptable. Everything pointed to our success ; 
 there was great enthusiasm manifested among the 
 people. The whole State seemed to be with us when 
 we decided to have a private election in the club, 
 among all the people who had signed that adhesion 
 to our club, in order to elect the candidate. Before 
 this election was held we sent a commission to inter- 
 view President Diaz and put the facts before him and 
 get — what do you say ? — his reaffirmation of the 
 interview with the journalist Creelman. As we knew 
 beforehand that the people had two or three names 
 in mind for candidate, the commission told President 
 Diaz the names of these three men, saying that 
 probably our candidate would be elected among the 
 three. President Diaz answered that he was glad to 
 
112 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 hear that the opposition party was working with 
 success and was in the law, that he knew one of the 
 men who figured in the list and knew him as a good 
 man and a man that he would be glad to see elected. 
 This man was General Curiel. The commission came 
 back from Mexico and a splendid reception was made 
 to it — no ? — by the people. There were about 5000 
 waiting for them in Merida, and a special train of 
 twenty cars went to Progreso to greet them. 
 
 ' By this time the Yucatan Government had begun 
 to hinder us in all our movements. All the members 
 of the — the Directiva ; all the principal officials of the 
 club were followed, day and night and openly, by 
 members of the detective force, the secret police, 
 I mean. Our club had been invaded every night by 
 twenty or twenty-five policemen and two or three 
 police officials. The school opposite the club had its 
 roof guarded by armed force, and several of the minor 
 officials of the club had been put in gaol. We had 
 reports daily to the effect that a lawyer, Amabilis, and 
 others of the Government party had been looking 
 over the criminal records and looking out desespera- 
 demente, desperately for the means of involving us in 
 a criminal process. Also the effect that the Govern- 
 ment, the Yucatan Government, would use force 
 against us if necessary to make us abandon our ideas. 
 Several telegrams were put to Diaz explaining the 
 situation. Diaz did not deign answer them. Order 
 of prison was given against our candidate — yes, I 
 tell you — who was elected by 10,000 votes in our 
 convention. This candidate's name is Delio Moreno 
 Canton. We had — how do you call ? — to get together 
 the officials of the club ? — in order to discuss the best 
 way of making front to the situation. Somebody 
 proposed, somebody said that the only way of making 
 
THE SOVEREIGN STATES 113 
 
 front to armed force, when all guarantees had been 
 apparently suspended, was with armed force. Nobody 
 accepted the idea of what would be looked as a 
 revolution. It was dangerous — nobody was partisan 
 of shedding blood, and, even if everybody had been 
 so, there was no money, time, nor — nor people expert 
 in a movement of that sort. So it was decided unan — 
 unanimously to keep on working as we had done and 
 until it was materially impossible to continue. By 
 this time Indians from the farms and small towns, and 
 National Guards were brought to Merida and made 
 to march into a parade in honour of the Government 
 candidate. As this people were brought by force, 
 and most of them were partisans of our candidate, 
 the results of the parade were what ought to be 
 expected : lots of hurrahs for Delio Moreno Canton, 
 and mueras, the yell opposite to hurrah, for So-and-so, 
 mueras for Munoz Aristegui. The night of this parade 
 there were 3000 soldiers kept at their garrisons and 
 the police greatly reinforced. At the plaza opposite 
 the Governor's palace, where Munoz Aristegui, the 
 Governor, was to receive the hurrahs and compli- 
 ments of the paraders, the scandal became enormous, 
 and the members of the detective force began to 
 strike to whoever they encountered in their path. About 
 fifty persons were arrested and condemned in the 
 next day to spend thirty days in the Penitenciary 
 as seditious people and under only one witness — the 
 police. After this parade matters became worse for 
 the officials and followers of the opposing party. Our 
 sympathisers were imprisoned daily on more or less 
 fictitious charges, and the bomb exploded when an 
 accusation was presented by the State Attorney to a 
 criminal court against all the officials and many of the 
 followers for revolutionary — let me think — for con- 
 i 
 
114 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 spiration. More than a hundred orders of prison were 
 let out, and those who could not escape were locked 
 in the Penitenciary, and kept isolated in some cases 
 for more than sixty days. The charge was for a 
 revolution which they said was to start the 14th of 
 October of 1909. This was the end of the patriotic 
 but rather dangerous political movement. We have 
 only to add that the principal leaders of the club who 
 appeared in the criminal proceedings as leaders of 
 the revolutionary movement have been condemned 
 to two years' imprisonment for a revolution that 
 appears in said proceedings that was to be started 
 14th of October. . . . There is another thing. After 
 having been from November, 1909, to January, 1911, 
 in prison, seven of them were let out because the 
 authorities said they were innocent. But they had 
 no opportunity of enjoying this liberty, for at the 
 Penitenciary door the police took them and arrested 
 them at the police-station, and from there forced for 
 five years into the army.' 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 PORFIRIAN GOVERNORS 
 
 In Mexico one naturally went against the Governor. 
 The twenty-seven States have each of them a 
 Governor, and so has the Federal District, which 
 answers to the District of Columbia in the United 
 States. The power vested in these twenty-eight 
 persons is extensive, they are — as one of them told me 
 — little 'kings,' and it is natural that many of them 
 be unfitted for a post of such importance. Thus one 
 was compelled to be against them. Naturally also 
 there were some exceptions. I know one who had 
 ideals that will not be realised outside Utopia, and he 
 gave expression to them in a language that can only 
 be described as 'decorated' English. Nor must I 
 forget another Governor 1 who paid a visit to his 
 criminals when they were on the eve of execution, 
 gave them a magnificent cigar, and usually educated 
 their children at his own expense. But many of the 
 Governors should have embarked upon a different 
 occupation, not in every case the one which served 
 them ere they rose to govern States — here I am think- 
 ing of the individual who used to be a bandit and not 
 even a moral bandit. They should have been removed 
 immediately. One must acknowledge that the 
 
 1 As, in the story of the Revolution, it is necessary for me to 
 include this Governor's name, let it be given a more honourable 
 mention here — 'tis Don Diego Redo, and his colleague who was kind 
 to criminals was Don Guillermo de Landa y Escandon. 
 
 115 
 
116 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 President was hampered in his choice ; the men had 
 seldom undergone a training. Whom was he to take ? 
 A number of his old companions, white-haired 
 generals, were in want of house and home. Of course, 
 the ranks of these were getting thin. Whom else was 
 he to take ? Sometimes a gentleman who owned 
 much property inside the State, at other times a 
 gentleman who would not own it till his term of 
 office was concluded. It was seldom requisite for any 
 one of them to have to claim a pension. And they 
 were not wholly wrapped up in providing for them- 
 selves : with several of them it was most advisable 
 that if you brought a lawsuit you should have their 
 son or son-in-law for counsel ; you must run the 
 risk that he had been approached by your opponent. 
 Not to make a tedious list of it I will adduce one other 
 only, under whose administration there was built a 
 gorgeous clock -tower in the capital of his unhappy 
 State. He had a nephew who some years ago began 
 to build this tower ; he started by informing certain 
 quarry-owners that it would be patriotic if they 
 made the town a present of an adequate supply of 
 stone. This celebrated mining town has got no water 
 installation, but one cannot think of everything at 
 once, and possibly a clock-tower was essential. Any- 
 how, the splendid stone was given, and the nephew 
 left it in the plaza for a long, long time, but possibly 
 he was considering between a multitude of plans. 
 The clock-tower was to be (and is) so much more 
 grandiose than any building which the town possesses 
 that it could not be decided on so readily. Meantime 
 a bank was needed, and the nephew sold his splendid 
 stone to the contractors — there it stands to-day, 
 below the shadow of the clock-tower. Then the 
 nephew had to ask the quarry for a new supply of 
 
PORFIRIAN GOVERNORS 117 
 
 stone, since he was being regularly paid as builder 
 of the tower, and if he did not build it, surely he 
 would be dishonest. Splendid stone was brought 
 into the plaza and the building was begun. For years 
 it was continued, while the nephew could not say 
 when he would hand it over. In the year of the 
 Centenary of Independence it occurred to General 
 Diaz that the tower might well be finished for the 
 culminating day, the 16th September, and at all 
 events the town is saving what it used to pay the 
 nephew. It would dearly like to have some water 
 in its houses, but the uncle has a pulque hacienda, and 
 will tell you that it is a wholesome beverage. . . . 
 I am not an out-and-out admirer of the little * kings ' 
 of Mexico, and yet I thought that one 1 of them, who 
 spoke to me with candour of his colleagues, was a 
 man on whom I could rely. It was not his own per- 
 sonal integrity that we discussed, but politics as they 
 are in a State. He told me that the Federal deputies, 
 those who sit in the capital, are selected by indirect 
 voting, and that the deputies of a State are selected 
 by direct voting. He gave me a book where this is 
 to be found. After that he told me the executive, 
 the legislature and the judiciary are separate and 
 independent in each State ; he, the executive, was 
 not above the other two — a circumstance which might 
 bring complications if it were so. Thus I was unable 
 to secure a good account of the internal politics of 
 his own State from this, one of the most intelligent 
 and sympathetic of the Governors. I shall have to 
 try to give my own account. 
 
 When somebody became the Governor of a State, 
 the whole of the judiciary and the legislature of his 
 predecessor was not called on to resign, although the 
 1 Don Teodoro Dehesa. 
 
118 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 Governor had many friends who must be given some 
 position. He would not be able to request the others, 
 all of them, to step from office — certain ones would 
 have the President's support, and these could not be 
 ousted. Even when the Governor had rilled his place 
 for many years he was not free from Presidential 
 interference. There was, for example, one young 
 man in want of money as he recently had married, 
 His father-in-law was one of the cientiftcos, a great 
 plunderer ; he asked the President to put the young 
 man in the way of earning money since a husband 
 should support his wife. And so it happened that he 
 was presented with the post of deputy — that is, with 
 £25 a month. If he had been a deputy in Mexico 
 itself the sum would have been £30 ; but, as it was, 
 he took up the position in a State of which the 
 Governor was the determined foe of all the cientificos. 
 The President had settled the affair ; that was the 
 end of it. Apart, though, from the President, there 
 was not much with which the Governor had to 
 combat. His predecessor's legislature and judiciary 
 had set free many situations for his friends. And 
 then they settled down to govern : the executive, 
 which was the Governor, the legislature, which was 
 mostly nominated by the Governor, and the judiciary, 
 which was mostly nominated by the Governor. You 
 may recall that I was told that in the case of States 
 the voting was direct, and so it was — the Governor 
 voted. 
 
 There are other countries just as backward as was 
 Mexico and just as barbarous, but there it is not 
 customary to adorn the nakedness in feathers. They 
 do not believe in European institutions, which may 
 be most excellent for Europe, but will scarcely be 
 adapted for all other continents. Such a philosophy 
 
PORFIRIAN GOVERNORS 119 
 
 must recommend itself to us, because it is not only 
 wise, but honest. In the so-called Mexican Republic 
 there appeared to be no doubt — no honest doubt — but 
 that the European institutions were to be imported 
 wholesale. And a book is printed which contains a 
 number of these institutions ; it is the book whereby 
 the Government of the Republic is to be conducted. 
 Many other books are printed which contain a quan- 
 tity of these imported institutions ; these are for 
 the Government of individual States. I do not know 
 by whom these books were studied — not, I think, by 
 many people in the so-called Mexican Republic. 
 Yet the constitutions, as embodied in these books, 
 were not ignored. It is the custom for the chief 
 square of a town to have the name of Plaza de la 
 Constitution ; it is the custom, I am told, in drinking- 
 booths for patriotic peons to exclaim, ' Viva la Con- 
 stitution ! ' and it was the custom for their Governor 
 to be styled El Gobernador Constitutional. From 
 time to time these constitutions were improved. It 
 was a crying scandal that the men who governed 
 Mexico — that is, the circle which surrounded the ex- 
 President — should be the same as those who had a 
 great part of the industries in their possession. It 
 would need some self-denial for this group to put 
 aside its opportunities. You can't have everything ; 
 this sentiment is not in their possession. That a 
 member of the governmental ring should as a broker 
 use the knowledge he obtained, or that as manu- 
 facturer he should have the advantage of a tariff he 
 obtained, or that as agriculturist he should have the 
 assistance of an Irrigation Bank he had been in- 
 strumental in obtaining, or that as concession-dealer 
 he should sell to foreigners or eke to Mexicans those 
 public works whose building he obtained by his 
 
120 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 position in the Government — all these activities 
 were unopposed except by the opinion of the people, 
 which, as readers will have gathered, was of quite 
 exiguous importance in the so-called Mexican Re- 
 public. But they passed an article not long since in 
 a certain State which laid it down that deputies 
 while they are such may not without permission of 
 the legislature take upon themselves a public office 
 or employment under Government or State or Town. 
 However useless be this article, it showed a laudable 
 desire. And yet one cannot keep oneself from think- 
 ing that, before the constitutions had a series of new 
 articles affixed to them, some steps should have been 
 taken to enforce the old ones. In the constitution of 
 the State to which we have alluded they went into 
 some refinements on the voting question. 4 The 
 members of the Legislature, those of the Superior 
 Tribunal, those of the municipalities, the Governor, 
 and the judges, shall be chosen by the people in direct 
 election. . . . For the election of deputies the State 
 shall be divided into districts of 60,000 inhabitants. 
 The fraction which exceeds 30,000 shall also be a 
 district. ... In all kinds of elections it shall be 
 sufficient for a man to get a mere majority, with the 
 proviso that in this majority there shall be not less 
 than a fourth part of the votes which are recorded. 
 If no individual secure so many votes there shall in 
 consequence be held a second election of the same 
 rsort as the first one, with the candidates restricted 
 to those two who get the larger number of the votes.' 
 In Puebla, not so long ago, the man — the interventor — 
 who should have been behind a table to receive the 
 votes of those who dwelt inside a block of houses, 
 this official did not put in an appearance, and his two 
 subordinates, who were Maderists — as were other people 
 
PORFIRIAN GOVERNORS 121 
 
 in the block — set out in search of him at nine o'clock, 
 when he should have been sitting at the table for an 
 hour. They learned that he was still in bed. At ten 
 o'clock, while he was breakfasting, he told them that 
 he had resigned, and any further information could 
 be got from the authorities. Immediately his visitors 
 proceeded on their way, and, after interviewing various 
 officials, found that he had spoken truthfully and that 
 he had indeed resigned at midnight. It was clear 
 that if the block was not to be disfranchised there 
 should be no time lost ; it was noon instead of eight 
 o'clock. So, in default of interventor, his subordinates 
 sat down behind the table, ready to receive the votes, 
 the direct votes of the people. After they had been 
 there ten minutes the interventor appeared, foaming 
 with rage. They were usurpers, he shouted, they 
 were men of incredible effrontery. After eighteen 
 minutes came the jefe politico, and after thirty-five 
 minutes both the Maderists were in prison and the 
 table had been removed. But Puebla, though a town 
 of 100,000 inhabitants, the seat of an Archbishop, and 
 a place of wealth, was not the whole Republic. And 
 the President had spoken : ' It is praiseworthy on 
 the part of the Mexican people,' said he, when he 
 opened Congress in September, 1909, 4 that they 
 should always take a greater interest in the exercise 
 of their electoral rights.' In Yucatan, 300 of the 
 leaders of the party which desired to vote for someone, 
 who was nephew of a previous Governor and a man of 
 liberal ideas, were flung into prison. Probably the 
 President considered that the people's interest should 
 be restricted to the men of not such liberal ideas, and 
 even though the Governor of every State is called 
 progressive when you write of him or to him — El 
 progresista Senor Gobernador — it may be said that 
 
122 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 this is but a ceremonial epithet. Now we have given 
 two unpleasant instances of that which overtakes 
 a voter in the so-called Mexican Republic. We must 
 have the fairness to adduce a third example — and 
 from one of the Pacific States. The President had 
 also made the observation in September, 1909, that 
 the people's greater interest ' is necessary for the 
 sake of designating its future Governors under the 
 beneficent rule of peace.' He had determined who 
 should be the Governor, and on a certain day the people 
 were electing him. A citizen of San Francisco, who 
 was staying with the future Governor, walked round 
 the town, which has no sights wherewith to entertain 
 a tourist. He was therefore suffering from boredom, 
 and, for lack of occupation, went into a polling-room 
 and voted. In seven other polling-rooms he voted ; 
 always, naturally, for his friend. When I was 
 challenged by a Mexican official to give any single 
 illustration of the freedom of a voter being interfered 
 with, I refrained from Puebla and from Yucatan and 
 many others, thinking that this instance from the 
 shores of the Pacific would be less offensive. But he 
 was indignant. 6 You must not believe it for a second ! ' 
 he exclaimed. ' No, you must not believe it that they 
 let him vote. We are so courteous. They would 
 never tell him that he was ineligible. No, they 
 certainly would not, for that is not what they are 
 wont to do. But when he had withdrawn himself 
 from each of those eight places, then they took his 
 voting-paper and they tore it into little pieces.' 4 But 
 it was not for the opposition candidate,' I murmured. 
 4 Mexicans,' quoth he, 4 are very courteous.' 
 
 So the Governor and his satellites came down upon 
 a State. The process was not half as picturesque as 
 when the cavalry of Mexico is going into other 
 
Olive trees at Tzintzuntzan. 
 
 They were planted by the founders of the Franciscan convent (closed in 1740) and are perhaps the oldest 
 
 olive-trees in America. See {>■ 125 
 
 Colonel Prospero Cahuantzi, 
 
 the somnolent Governor. 
 
PORFIRIAN GOVERNORS 
 
 123 
 
 quarters : first the soldiers jog along, their sombre 
 uniforms all dusty, then a multitude of women, some 
 of them with children fastened to their backs, and all 
 of them with pots and pans. They try to keep up 
 with the soldiers, but it is a weary business. At their 
 heels and very wretched are a quantity of mongrels. 
 Soldiers, women, children, mongrels — fighting with 
 the dust ; and in the Governor's train were deputies 
 and judges, jefes and secretarios, who gradually come 
 into the light of day. And when the Governor's term 
 was over he was very often reappointed, and the 
 satellites rejoiced. The population of the State is 
 unconcerned. They decorate the streets a little, since 
 it is requested of them ; and they let off a supply of 
 fireworks, since it is their pleasure, and they are as 
 keen to send them heavenward (not that they go 
 very far, these native products), they are just as keen 
 to send them up in honour of the Virgin or a Saint 
 or any Governor. Some of these small 6 kings ' ruled 
 over territories most extensive — Chihuahua is a 
 State of 227,468 square kilometres, and Sonora of 
 more than 199,000 — others had a small dominion, 
 such as that which a delightful Aztec gentleman 
 administered. He was of such obesity that it was 
 quite impossible for him to keep awake (if he was 
 being spoken to or not) for more than fifteen minutes 
 at a time. However, if the operatives of a local 
 cotton-mill were out on strike he took the field in 
 person, on a horse, and after that the strike was never 
 serious. Be they Governors over large or little States 
 they would refer you to the constitution if you asked 
 them how it was that the executive and legislature 
 and judiciary are independent of each other. ' It 
 must lead to awkwardness,' you said. ' Sefior, but 
 it is in the constitution.' ' I have an affair,' you said ; 
 
124 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 4 the judge is so-and-so. If only it could be arranged, 
 
 I ' ' Yes ? ' And you conclude the sentence. 
 
 ' Well, well ' said the Governor, ' I must have a 
 
 conversation with him. He is a good lad. Yes, who 
 knows ? ' And in the conversation he brought up 
 your case and recommended it to the judge. ... As 
 for the legislatures, there was recently in one State 
 an unheard-of opposition of three people. 6 It is the 
 end of all things,' said the others. And who were 
 these who represented 60,000 ? Sometimes they 
 were wealthy hacendados, for which reason they were 
 not attracted to the office, and they let their substi- 
 tutes [suplentes] sit and earn the salary instead of them. 
 .... I think I have conveyed the general impres- 
 sion that the deputies of Mexico — both of the Central 
 Government and of the States — were able to accom- 
 plish far less than their brethren in most other coun- 
 tries. But there was a deputy who took no part in 
 the proceedings of the first two weeks of Congress ; 
 it was noticed, since he did not come to take his salary ; 
 and at the ending of the second fortnight it was 
 noticed once again that he did not come for his salary. 
 Was he ill, was he in Europe ? Then another fort- 
 night and, on pay day, not a sign of him. Perhaps 
 he was too altruistic to receive a salary. They got 
 impatient with him at the end of the succeeding 
 fortnight, so they sent an urgent messenger and 
 ascertained that he had died eight months before he 
 ever was elected. 
 
 On reading through this chapter I perceive that I 
 have used an adjective to which objection will be 
 taken. Foreigners and Mexicans say frequently 
 that the Republic is not backward. It has made 
 colossal strides, they say, in these last thirty years. 
 The railways and the banks, the manufactures — I 
 
PORFIRIAN GOVERNORS 
 
 125 
 
 admit that they exist, and even if the Mexicans would 
 have done next to nothing by themselves, yet cer- 
 tainly the railways and the banks and manufactures 
 are in Mexico. Before this period of thirty years the 
 land was in an everlasting turmoil — I admit that for 
 the foreigner and for his money Mexico became far 
 safer than of old. The Yaqui Indians, settled in a 
 rich part of Sonora, struggled vainly to resist the 
 Mexican invasion, but the Mexicans in their rich 
 country have been wise enough to let their names be 
 put upon the foreigners' prospectus sheets. It has 
 seemed well to Providence to lead the Mexicans into 
 a country where the climate is delicious and the soil 
 is often rich and underneath it is a treasure-house of 
 jewels. Therefore you would fancy that the Mexican 
 would thank his God — he desecrates the temple and 
 he desecrates the land. At crumbling Tzintzuntzan, 
 to which we sail to see the Titian in the church, there 
 is a notice which entreats you that ' for love of God ' 
 you will not spit ; all over Mexico there should be 
 notices commanding the inhabitants to make them- 
 selves more worthy of the land. It is not of the In- 
 dians that I speak ; they gave to Mexico the greatest 
 of her sons, the last great Mexican — Benito Juarez — 
 and in contemplation of their sufferings we stand in 
 silence. I am speaking of those people who are more 
 or less of Spanish blood. So few of them deserve to live 
 in Mexico ! And it is fashionable to deplore that all 
 the Indian population should be backward. Leave the 
 Indians whom you have exploited ! Look upon 
 yourselves as one of your good men, the aged Agustin 
 Rivera, looks upon you. ' In theories the boldness 
 of Don Quixote, and in practice the pusillanimity, 
 the inability to conquer obstacles, and the phlegm of 
 Sancho Panza. . . . We are given,' says Rivera, ' to 
 
126 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 scholastic disputes, to beautiful discourses, pretty 
 poems, enthusiastic toasts, proclamations, projects, 
 laws, decrees, programmes of scientific education, 
 plans of public improvements, in Andalucian style 
 and well-rounded periods. ... In the department 
 of physics in the College of Santo Tomas in Guadala- 
 jara were taught the first cause, the properties of 
 secondary causes, supernatural operations, the sacra- 
 ment of the Lord's Supper, eternity — everything, 
 in fact, save physics.' He says that you were back- 
 ward in viceregal times, and in the year you pensioned 
 him, in 1901, he said that you were backward still. I 
 say that you were going backward, for the poorer 
 classes under Diaz found themselves in a position 
 which compared unfavourably with that of thirty 
 years ago. It is most difficult to enter into such 
 comparisons, but after taking all the circumstances 
 very carefully into account it seemed to me that even 
 if the old times were as bad as they are painted we 
 must grieve for their departure. I could never leave 
 off mourning the old brigands. They were swept 
 away from all the roads and mountain passes. They 
 — but we will talk of them no more : not of Porfirian 
 cientiftcos, not of the secretario, not of Porfirian 
 jefes, and not of his progresista Senor Gobernador. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 A SONG OF NIGHTINGALES 
 
 A swarthy woman goes towards the market with a 
 little coffin balanced on her head ; a younger woman 
 staggers out into the glaring sunlight with the cavalier 
 who lay between her and the cold for several hours in 
 that foul meson, where the rats apparently disdained 
 the rags which flutter round the couple, and, instead, 
 have nibbled at their toe-nails ; they would not have 
 lurched so quickly from the door if it had not been 
 for the placid-looking, yellowish, blind beggar whom 
 perhaps the landlord, and perhaps a merry comrade 
 of the meson, had propelled into the street. That 
 younger woman's friend turns round to strike the 
 human avalanche, when she, with her bad feet, rolls 
 up against him with a laugh such as an Andalucian 
 fan is wont to hide, and so the couple laugh and blink 
 to watch the coffin in the sunlight. Rarely do they 
 hear a song of nightingales. The street is pictur- 
 esque : green wooden balconies and faded sun-blinds 
 hang irregularly from those buildings which are 
 washed, at certain seasons like their inmates, by the 
 rain. One guesses at the colour which was first 
 exhibited by each of these old walls, and as for the 
 strong, iron bars fantastically intertwined — have they 
 not grown more twisted and awry through laughing at 
 the grimness of their lot : affixed by some hidalgo to 
 protect him from light-fingered folk and now this folk 
 
 127 
 
128 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 is dwelling in the dead hidalgo's palace ? Wayfarers 
 and loungers of the slimy street, they edge towards 
 the footpath as two members of the rural guard, alert 
 in grey and silver, ride along the cobbles and will scowl 
 when it so happens that their horses' feet, accustomed 
 to the treacherous mountain paths, go sliding on the 
 vegetable debris. These two fellows listen regularly 
 to the song of nightingales. A milkman rides behind 
 them with his jars suspended, military fashion, from 
 the saddle ; and two wardrobes, on the contrary, are 
 carried on the shoulders of a fragile-looking Aztec, 
 with the ankles of a woman. 6 Angel's hair ! ' exclaims 
 a busy vendor of that delicacy. 4 Who demands my 
 angel's hair ? ' and he disposes of the silken threads, 
 which are not more nor less than finely shredded 
 melon boiled in sugar. Furtive, tangled carboneros 
 from a distance pick their way among the various 
 objects of the street, their thin arms hanging at their 
 sides, while they walk, bending almost double, under- 
 neath the sacks of charcoal. Desperate, emaciated 
 dogs are nosing what has been flung out upon the 
 cobbles, and a curious traveller goes by, towards the 
 station, a white handkerchief tied round his neck 
 and in his hand a European, decorated coal-scuttle, 1 
 whose contents are prevented by a piece of cord from 
 
 1 Even when the higher classes travel, you will be astonished at 
 their baggage. In Charles Flandrau's ' Viva Mexico,' there is a 
 gentleman who has a bird-cage full of boots ; a banker's widow — 
 Madame Scherer — told me as we came from Europe that she had a 
 quantity of boxes : 37 items, and with her husband, 38. She dis- 
 approved of the delicious 4 Viva Mexico ' because it does not worship 
 the authorities. And as for her, she had perceived the errors of the 
 Jewish faith and worshipped God in Catholic cathedrals, just as He 
 was worshipped by her and her husband's potent friend, Don Jose 
 Limantour, Minister of Finance, whose inclinations it was well to 
 share. 'Tis said in Mexico that Limantour's French father was a Jew 
 . . . but in a lyric book which Diaz Dufoo, of the staff of 'El 
 Imparcial,' once wrote about the son, I see this is not mentioned ; 
 and if it is not true the comedy evaporates. 
 
A SONG OF NIGHTINGALES 129 
 
 falling out. The traveller's destination and his trade 
 are mysteries. A man goes by with offal from the 
 slaughter-house, not heeding whom he may collide 
 against ; a sweating water-carrier in leather jacket, 
 leather apron and a broad strap round his forehead to 
 support the jar between his shoulders, on the brass 
 plate which he wears in front he has a number ; then 
 the man with offal steps into a wider street just round 
 the corner, caring not whom he may roll against. The 
 loungers — here they call them lizards — block the 
 footpath and two lines of vehicles block up the road, 
 what time the lizards and the driven hold their hands 
 up at each other, twiddling the first two fingers. 
 Women of the upper classes who might profitably 
 patronise the water-carrier instead of trying to conceal 
 their Indian pedigree with powder — 18 per cent alone 
 of Mexicans have undiluted Spanish blood — and 
 young men also of the upper classes greet each other 
 with an air of satisfaction as they tool enormous 
 motors at a snail's pace up and down. ' Buy angel's 
 hair ! Who will buy angel's hair ? ' Sometimes a 
 week of two before they marry these young men will 
 hire a flock of angels and one room which has a table 
 in the centre ; they will start by drinking gallons of 
 champagne — for they have listened far too often to 
 the song of nightingales. The sweetest nightingale, 
 so says the proverb, is the money in one's purse. 
 
 There was 4 hardly a connecting link between the 
 blankets and the satins, the poppies and the 
 diamonds ' in Madame Calderon de la Barca's day 
 (about 1840). The middle class, if it attempted 
 to exist, was plundered by the Government or 
 by the other bandits. And the rise thereof is a 
 phenomenon of recent years, the years of peace. 
 But for this middle class there would have been 
 
130 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 no Revolution. 4 It is the middle class,' said Don 
 Porfirio to Mr. Creelman, ' that concerns itself with 
 politics and with the general progress. Hitherto 
 our difficulty has been that the people do not occupy 
 themselves enough with public matters.' When the 
 small Chihuahua farmers and the tradesmen did 
 concern themselves with such affairs they had against 
 them in the battlefield and elsewhere both the upper 
 and the lower classes. 4 Something which is most 
 injurious to Mexico,' said Senor Limantour to me in 
 London, ' is that our vast Indian population is so 
 easily contented. We can sell them next to nothing.' 
 And I found that it was so ; the average Indian, grave 
 and childish, was content to march in Don Porfirio' s 
 army, while the average member of the upper classes 
 was content to march with what they deemed the 
 strong battalions. That the wealthy should not be 
 disposed to change is normal, and in Mexico the upper 
 classes have — so far as I could ascertain — one family, 
 that of Cervantes, which is ancient ; while the others 
 usually hark no further back than to a Spanish mule- 
 teer who managed to obtain concessions in the nine- 
 teenth century, or to a soldier or a skilful smuggler of 
 the same dim epoch, or a priest — at all events in 
 Yucatan. These pious founders had enriched them- 
 selves and their descendants, in default of others — 
 the remaining Aztec nobles in Cholula and Tlaxcala 
 are unrecognised, unrecognisable except by their own 
 race ; the Spanish nobles crossed the seas again when 
 Independence was declared — so that the lucky 
 offspring of these various professions we have 
 mentioned formed the upper classes. They had 
 not had time to lose the knowledge of how 
 wealth is gathered, and the great majority were still 
 engaged in this pursuit, nor did they often look in vain 
 
A SONG OF NIGHTINGALES 131 
 
 for some facilities from Don Porfirio. On the con- 
 dition that they left the politics to him and those 
 whom he selected, General Diaz — zealous for no other 
 thing than power (until the cientificos persuaded him, 
 a very old man, to bethink himself of gold as well) — 
 was ready to assist the wealthy classes to be wealthier, 
 and most of them were naturally partisans of his. 
 They were content. But with the lower classes it was 
 to a large degree their disposition. Nearly all the 
 stars, apparently, must in their courses fight against 
 them ere they yield to discontent : the miners at a 
 certain camp were forced to jump across a stick while 
 they ejaculated 4 Ave Maria!' One of them was silent 
 while he jumped. ' Now,' cried the foreman, ' say 
 your prayers.' Out came the amalgam, and the miner 
 was invited to explain. ' I will tell the truth,' he 
 said ; ■ they pay me half a peso every day, and on that 
 sum I must support my wife and seven children, my 
 wife's mother and my aunt and my mistress.' Had 
 he been a trifle less domesticated he would have 
 been satisfied to live inside an empty cement barrel, 
 which is considered quite respectable ; it does not 
 give much shelter, but one has a post-office address. 
 And they will even, if it be demanded of them, stop 
 outside the church : a woman of the Zambos — that 
 repulsive negro -Indian mixture — was requested by 
 the priest to stay at home, as she distracted the 
 attention of the faithful. Circumstances must be very 
 difficult if ordinary Indians allow themselves to 
 disobey : a mediocre circus was performing in a 
 village near to Guanajuato, and the manager, afraid 
 lest there should be a tumult of dissatisfaction, went 
 into the ring before the programme started and 
 informed the audience that all expression of emotion, 
 whether favourable or unfavourable, was entirely out 
 
132 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 of order. So the programme was enacted till a 
 lamp upset ; the circus was in flames and stolidly 
 the audience walked away. These Indians are 
 obedient : in Tepic it was commanded that no 
 man with those white, flimsy, cotton drawers should 
 come into town, but that he should array himself in 
 trousers. Comfortable drawers were duly put away 
 and often at the entrance of a town, the native carry- 
 ing the trousers in his bundle ; also he would some- 
 times hire the trousers cheaply for a day. It is their 
 nature to be satisfied and trouserless ; it also is their 
 nature to adorn themselves and thus ascend the social 
 scale if they are pushed. An Englishman beyond 
 Lake Patzcuaro, the manager of a great lumber works, 
 refuses to increase a peon's wages if he will not put 
 on boots in place of sandals and equip himself with 
 trousers. Grave and gentle and contented as they 
 naturally are, they have been made still more so by 
 the centuries (pre-Spanish and Colonial and Mexican) 
 of miscellaneous oppression. But within them, 
 deeply buried, is the faculty of the divinest discontent. 
 In many of the tribes a desperado will at once walk off 
 to justice at the heels of some small boy who carries in 
 his belt a cane of red Brazil wood, called a vara, with 
 the reddish ribbons hanging down ; it is the vara, not 
 the man, which they respect. And with a docile 
 perseverance they bore arms for Don Porfirio, despite 
 the cruelty and hardships that a dog would have 
 resented. And at last they can be capable of showing, 
 very clearly, that they are dissatisfied : a native of 
 Oaxaca, a poor fisherman, forgave his wife her first 
 few infidelities and then he put a stake through her 
 body and in the centre of a piece of blazing sand he 
 took his steps against the lover, whom he buried to the 
 neck and near him lay a gourd of water. In Hidalgo 
 
Building a Railway in Hidalgo. 
 
 The man between the rails is a murderer and a good workman. 
 
A SONG OF NIGHTINGALES 133 
 
 was another husband, a mechanic on a half -completed 
 railway, who was patient with his wife, the cook, 
 until she had deceived him thrice ; he warned the 
 lover that it must occur no more, and when it did he 
 slew this man, was flung into Pachuca prison, and 
 would surely not have been allowed on bail, a per- 
 manent condition, if his engineering prowess had been 
 mediocre. Maybe in the central districts of Jalisco 
 this catastrophe would not have happened, since the 
 woman — she was such an admirable cook — would 
 have conformed with local habits and would have set 
 down before the husband she intended to dishonour a 
 good soup of donkey's ear ; as an alternative she 
 would have been obliged to hold the little finger of her 
 left hand in his drinking-water. . . . Even as the 
 proletariat in Mexico have got it in them to rebel at 
 home, so will they, under heavy provocation, show 
 their discontent in public matters : Chato [pug-nose] 
 Diaz, brother to the President and father, it is said, 
 to General Felix Diaz, was treated like our Indian 
 lover, only worse. To punish him for a detestable 
 existence — now and then, because of ennui, he would 
 shoot a sentry — Juchitan arose and cut the soles from 
 his feet and made him walk a mile or two across the 
 sand. (Porfirio's revenge was such that now the wind- 
 swept town of Juchitan looks like the suburb of its 
 cemetery.) When the tireless propaganda of Madero 
 and the triumph of his followers had driven home, 
 at last, to Don Porfirio's army that there was indeed 
 much cause for them to be dissatisfied, they started 
 to desert and the Diazpotism was a doomed affair. 
 This blind servility, which had been manifested for 
 so long, was thought by Don Porfirio's adherents to be 
 unassailable : you were compelled in opening the 
 Congress to address His Excellency with enormous 
 
134 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 periods of vast magniloquence, and there is a humane 
 provision that the Speaker varies every month — the 
 business man Macedo, who performed this function 
 in September, 1910, acknowledged ruefully, behind 
 the scenes, that he was bowing to the precedents — 
 but if you had occasion to address a nameless Indian, 
 say a Huichol, you could call him anything you liked ; 
 for instance, 4 de la Cruz ' [of the Cross], which he 
 would understand 1 and henceforth this would be the 
 fellow's surname. Very often, Lumholtz tells us, they 
 would not remember what the name was which had 
 been bestowed upon them, and if they could not afford 
 the fee of 25 centavos they were not encumbered with 
 a Christian name at all and they were perfectly con- 
 tent. The Huichols are but one division of the Indian 
 race in Mexico, but this ingrained inherited indiffer- 
 ence to fortune has been found to dwell among the 
 larger number. Let them have or not have any name 
 or rights or prospects, they were always more disposed 
 to bear the burden, be it great or small : the execution 
 of five people (see p. 91) on suspicion or withholding 
 from a man the power to celebrate a humble feast 
 when he has had a child of his baptised — a lowly 
 citizen begged for an audience with the post-Porfirian 
 jefe politico of Merida, Senor Camara y Camara and 
 amazed him by soliciting permission for the feast. 
 As thus the Indians were inclined to be submissive 
 they were more and more repressed, but that which 
 irritated them to danger-point was the increasing gulf 
 between themselves and those who battened on the 
 song of nightingales. Without affirming that the 
 
 1 Their folk-lore has its worship of the Perfect Man ; it has a figure 
 of the Greek and Latin cross which represents the human figure with 
 its arms outstretched ; while if they trace a second cross on cliffs or 
 sand or, as a medicine, on the patient's body it is there to represent 
 the moon ; and if a third cross it is probably the morning star. 
 
A SONG OF NIGHTINGALES 135 
 
 gorgeous fetes in honour of the Revolution against 
 Spain a hundred years ago stirred up the recent 
 Revolution, it is safe to argue that the poorer classes 
 were as much exasperated as their English brethren 
 by the Coronation, which — I think we could perceive 
 without great inroads on our perspicuity — contributed 
 a bitterness into the feelings of so many who partici- 
 pated in the Strike of 1911. That prolonged display 
 of opulence, that circus in the streets of Mexico, was 
 incommensurate with the amount of bread — in place 
 of this old Roman policy, the more dilapidated of 
 the mob were locked away, while those who lined the 
 pavement were prevented from encroaching on the 
 road by means of the policemen's dog- whips and 
 the hind legs of policemen's horses. That prolonged 
 display was incommensurate with the position of the 
 country : ' Mexico,' said the 4 Mexican Herald,' 4 is the 
 second of the world's Republics.' On the next day 
 this diverting Yankee journal had an article which 
 very seriously put the claims of France, but Manuel 
 Acuna had extolled this very people with a view to 
 pouring greater glamour round his own : 
 
 Of those who march to the drum, 
 In the seas of whose triumph the sum 
 Of all triumph beside is immersed. 
 Panic-stricken and rudely dispersed 
 Three times he was flung into flight 
 By the people who rose in their might 
 And, Fatherland^ came to thy need, 
 Gave a soldier for each of thy seed, 
 For each soldier a lord of the fight. 
 
 Serenely did the Government of Mexico proclaim its 
 grandeur. . . . To assert that every man of wealth 
 was in or with the Government would be too sweeping . 
 Don Francisco I. Madero stood against them and among 
 the foreigners who temporarily opposed them was the 
 
136 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 Signor Dante Cusi, for he spent some half a million 
 pesos on an irrigation work and wanted to employ the 
 water of his own estate. The Minister Molina would 
 not hear of it, and ultimately gave permission if the 
 legal paper was drawn up by Casasus, a friend of his, 
 the ex-Ambassador in Washington — the fee was 
 30,000 pesos. But the men who governed Mexico 
 were, generally speaking, those who had control of 
 her finance and industries ; they had the power and 
 wealth, tremendous opportunities, and little sense of 
 a responsibility towards the people. Oh, the lower 
 classes — if the economic state of Mexico produced in 
 them a sentiment of agitation, it would be advisable 
 to drink the liquor of boiled humming-bird, which is, 
 they say, effectual for heart disease. 
 
 The middle class began to thrust themselves 
 between the hammer and the anvil. As a rule this 
 intermediate class, in order to preserve itself, looks 
 forward to alliance with the hammer. But in Mexico 
 the upper ranks were very much inclined to keep 
 themselves apart and some of those who were con- 
 spicuous among the leaders hardly were conspicuous 
 for probity. The middle class had therefore, on 
 account of self-preserving reasons and of altruistic 
 ones, to seek alliance with the anvil. In Chihuahua, 
 for example, the entire, enormous State was in the 
 hands of General Luis Terrazas and his family of 
 millionaires and some few other favoured persons. 
 Not alone had they become proprietors of most of the 
 material resources, but the Government was likewise 
 in their hands — they seemed to be so indispensable 
 that when an aged tool of theirs, the Governor, was 
 deposed by Don Porfirio in the turmoil of the Revolu- 
 tion, when Chihuahua was most critically situated 
 and the family of General Terrazas were as popular 
 
After a Skirmish in Chihuahua. 
 
 A Land-owner. 
 
 General Luis Terrazas, whose estate is, or was, nearly as large as Holland and Belgium together. 
 
A SONG OF NIGHTINGALES 137 
 
 among the people as a red rag with a bull, then a 
 particularly hated son of his — so dissolute that he 
 seduced his own niece before he married her — was put 
 into the vacant office, not because it was believed that, 
 in a rough-and-ready manner, he would cause the two 
 opposing factions to lay down their arms and drink 
 away, with him, perhaps at his expense, their griev- 
 ances ; no, it had been in contemplation for some 
 years that he should be appointed Governor 6 to 
 steady him.' Those who were anxious for improve- 
 ment in his character did not delay to point out to the 
 others that, as he had never been entrusted with a 
 post, the highest post of all would have a tendency to 
 occupy his time. And he misgoverned poor Chihuahua 
 for a month or two. The middle class of that high 
 northern State is vigorous ; there came a time when 
 the Terrazas tyranny — each jefe "politico a little tyrant 
 — was no longer to be borne. If anyone is permanently 
 in possession of a post and if he is a demi-god unani- 
 mously re-elected, there will not be wanting those 
 who nourish the belief in their equality, to say the 
 least of it, with him. Don Jose Limantour, the 
 famous Minister, would therefore smile on being told 
 that he possessed another critic. He repaired perhaps 
 into his famous garden and endowed it with another 
 rose tree. Did not all the world resound with his 
 achievement of establishing the national finances on a 
 gold foundation ? He was certainly a competent, a 
 more than competent financier. But the middle 
 class regarded him with no enthusiasm : the statistics 
 which he flaunted, for example of the imports, saying 
 that from 18,000,000 pesos in 1876 they had increased 
 to something like 200,000,000 — these required an 
 explanation ; for the former figures in a totally dis- 
 tracted land were destitute of any value. Mining in the 
 
188 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 same years yielded 20,000,000 pesos and 150,000,000; 
 but how many of them stayed in Mexico ? And 
 foreign companies derided the proposal to subject 
 them to the mining laws of the Republic. Then the 
 middle class could show that by the tariff it was 
 certain of the foreigners and of the wealthy Mexicans 
 who profited. And Limantour's transaction with the 
 railways had, maybe, strategic value, though this has 
 been doubted, but financially was far too beneficial 
 for a wealthy group : a sum of 50 million pesos van- 
 ished in the process 1 ; there was an unseemly squabble 
 as to several millions of the spoil between the widow 
 of del Rio on the one hand and the Minister upon the 
 other. It is not to be contradicted that the schemes 
 of Limantour in many cases changed the chaos into 
 order ; but again it was a firm of foreign bankers 
 (Messrs. Scherer) which bought up the I O U's 
 [alcances] of the Government employes at a discount 
 of from 40 to 50 per cent, and these were paid by 
 Limantour. Julio Limantour, his late brother, was 
 a partner of Messrs. Scherer. 
 
 We have in Don Ramon Corral, the late Vice- 
 President, a fair example of a man who by his own 
 exertions raised himself into the upper class, while 
 Limantour had the advantage of a father, a shrewd 
 Frenchman, who acquired the capellanias in 1867, 
 when the Church was separated from the State and it 
 was cheap to get control of these foundations which 
 the pious had established, either for a Mass to be 
 perpetually said or for the education of the impecuni- 
 ous. (There was, of course, an option for descendants 
 of the founder to regain the gift, but this was generally 
 
 1 The Government bought the various American lines for 150 
 million dollars gold = 300 million pesos. Bonds were issued for 
 350 million pesos. 
 
A SONG OF NIGHTINGALES 139 
 
 looked upon with prejudice.) Now Don Ramon Corral, 
 apart from politics, was hated by the middle class 
 because he was successful and did not concern himself 
 in making life more pleasant for the others, and because 
 he was disreputable. Many members of the wealthy 
 class, no doubt, were hard on those who were less 
 fortunate, but Corral, Senor Izabal and General Torres 
 had Sonora in their grasp ; it was a long triumvirate 
 of tyrants. Those who felt compassion for the 
 Yaquis had to execrate these miserable Governors. 
 Forsooth, they said the Yaquis were not law-abiding 
 persons, for this people showed resistance to the law 
 of Corral, Izabal and Torres. Land of great fertility 
 should not be Yaqui land, so the triumvirate per- 
 suaded General Diaz to dispatch an army. Peace 
 had been prevailing for quite long enough, nearly 
 150 years, and the nefarious land-registration law 
 which Diaz fathered — anybody could lay claim 
 to lands to which the actual possessors could not 
 prove recorded titles — this was ample to provoke 
 the conflict, for the Yaquis knew no more of titles 
 than their ancestors, through all those centuries, had 
 known of Spaniards or of Mexicans. An explanation 
 never was vouchsafed to them and a protracted war 
 began. The soldier who could kill a Yaqui warrior — 
 no such simple business, they discovered — and could 
 show his victim's ears, obtained a bounty of a hundred 
 pesos. So the war was profitable to the soldiers, who 
 could get their trophies, after all, from any Yaqui 
 farmer at the plough ; was profitable likewise to the 
 gentlemen who sold the guns and ammunition to the 
 Yaquis and inherited their lands. That many were 
 deported to the Yucatan peninsula is common 
 knowledge. I am glad to say that the authorities 
 who triumphed in the Revolution would not have this 
 
140 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 blot to stay upon the honour of their country. 
 Apropos of honour, I believe the writers in the Mexi- 
 can Republic looked askance upon a colleague who 
 contributed a book about Corral and did not say one 
 single word of how that person, ere the age of twenty, 
 forged his benefactor's name and was imprisoned. 
 But Corral had one good quality, besides his business 
 aptitude : he loved his children very much. A father 
 whom I knew in Mexico was so devoted to his little 
 children that when he returned at nine or ten o'clock 
 for supper he insisted on their presence, and they used 
 to go to bed for several hours before he came. Corral, 
 when he was going to a brothel, did not leave his son at 
 home. 
 
 These were the kind of people whom the middle 
 class were up against. These were the upper class. 
 They did not, it is true, behave like the Apaches of 
 the Sierra Madre, who would come down from their 
 mountain strongholds at a certain month — 4 the moon 
 of the Mexicans ' — which they had set apart for 
 plunder. No, there was not any special month. Of 
 course, in every country those who have the wealth 
 and those who have the power which emanates from 
 the political organisation will entrench themselves in a 
 commanding place, but there was not another country 
 which was civilised and which displayed so grossly 
 this phenomenon. The mediaeval mode of life per- 
 sisted, they had not advanced as much as Spain — for 
 instance, in the Jockey Club a grandee from the 
 Motherland who would, if anybody, be received with 
 open arms, announced that he had found it necessary 
 to frequent a brothel as he would not otherwise have 
 met a lady. And this segregation was enforced not only 
 with the foreigner — the diplomatic body, one by one, 
 gave up the vain attempt to move in Mexican society ; 
 
A SONG OF NIGHTINGALES 141 
 
 for if the native ladies deigned to answer invitations 
 to a dinner and, an hour before the time, sent round 
 a servant with a note to say that after all they would 
 not come, there was the placid consciousness among 
 these ladies that they had dispensed the cream of 
 courtesy. The intercourse between them and the 
 gentlemen of Mexico was very slight, but on the other 
 hand they were upon the best of terms with all the 
 saints, except if now and then the saints were bearish : 
 one young lady vowed her necklace to a figure of the 
 Virgin if she was invited to a certain party. She was 
 not invited ; if she had been she would have adorned 
 the figure and removed the necklace only when she 
 wished to wear it. Little girls were dressed up stiffly 
 for a month to represent the Virgin of Lourdes, and 
 little boys three years of age could be discerned in 
 tramcars dressed in the unhealthy habit of St. 
 Francis — ' Oh, the darling little Franciscito ! ' was 
 the cry. Nor did the convents which illegally existed 
 differ much from mediaeval ones in Spain. The inmates 
 even had the custom of adorning waxen dolls, now as a 
 priest, now as a canon or a doctor, with a wig or gold- 
 knobbed stick. ' Is he not beautiful, my little Jesus ? ' 
 asked the girls in a Puebla convent of a foreign lady 
 whom I knew there. And in Spain, at Pampeluna, 
 are preserved the relics of a holy child of wax, which 
 had belonged to Juan de Jesus San Joaquin, a monk 
 when Philip IV. was on the throne. That doll is said 
 to have accomplished many miracles. This social 
 and religious medievalism joined itself most naturally 
 to the economic privileges of the upper class. In other 
 mediaeval countries there was not the same material 
 progress, not the same great chances of enrichment. 
 So the middle class had obstacles more serious than 
 elsewhere ; they themselves were children of the past 
 
142 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 and this infected chiefly their religion. As they 
 struggled to emancipate the country, as they brought 
 about at length the Revolution, they were pushing to 
 a place between the stolid classes over and above 
 them. ' This transcendental work,' said ' El Correo 
 Espanol ' in August, 1892, reviewing the account which 
 Dr. Fortunato Hernandes recently had published on 
 the Indian races — Don Porfirio's Government com- 
 missioned him to study them — ' this transcendental 
 work shows us the people with their melancholy look, 
 with all the past of their pride of demi-gods, of the 
 burden of their unspeakable present and all the 
 sadness of the slavery to come.' The middle class were 
 battling with this phalanx and that other and with 
 other days. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE SLAVES OF YUCATAN 1 - 2 
 I 
 
 Don Ignacio' s letter 
 
 In Yucatan the masters are particularly kind to their 
 dependents, for the reason that there is a scarcity 
 of labour. Should a slave exhibit symptoms of 
 disease he is provided, free of charge, with medical 
 attendance on the hacienda, or is carried to the 
 master's house in Merida, no charges being usually 
 made for board and lodging. People who insist on being 
 cynical may say that this is how the mules are treated 
 and that if you are the owner of a mule or slave you 
 naturally will prevent the creature's body from 
 becoming inefficient. You will know precisely where 
 
 1 For the pronunciation of Yucatan place-names, see Glossary. 
 
 2 ' Instead of describing the hacienda system of Yucatan,' said an 
 American reader of my MS., ' the author goes into hysterics over the 
 peons and their practical slavery. ' If you believe a person is hysterical 
 you certainly will not believe him if he should deny the charge. ' Of 
 the terrible outrages he speaks of as if they occurred daily, one took 
 place fourteen years ago.' But as the murderers are still at large 
 the blot on Yucatan grows larger. And if I were to give all the cases 
 which have happened recently — some people will assert that I give 
 quite enough — the reader I have quoted would be justified in repri- 
 manding me. The hacienda system is described most adequately, I 
 believe, by Don Ignacio Peon, and I am at a loss to supplement his 
 information. Some haciendas (such as his) have a resident priest, 
 others have not ; in some of the haciendas it is customary for the 
 master to appropriate a portion of the wild stag which his slave has 
 shot ; in others this does not obtain. . . . But I believe that the whole 
 hacienda system is an outrage, since it is dependent on the hacendado. 
 Where, like Don Ignacio, he is a good man life is quite endurable for 
 those upon his farm, and where he is a bad man life is unendurable. 
 
 143 
 
144 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 to draw the line, since, if the body has upon it certain 
 wounds or scars got in the ordinary course of things, 
 it can continue to produce the same amount of labour. 
 Well, suppose we let the cynics have their way; 
 suppose we do not give the master credit for exalted 
 motives, it remains a fact that he is careful of the 
 body of his slave. In Yucatan he is more careful 
 than in parts of the Republic where the labour market 
 is so crowded that it is as though one passes through 
 a field of corn, and if from time to time you knock a 
 head off — will the Government have people watching, 
 or will Governments of other countries watch ? For 
 instance, if you have a hacienda in Campeche you will 
 not, from all accounts, be harried by the public 
 servants, though one might suppose that these would 
 serve the public which remunerates them. Let a 
 native of Jamaica talk : ' Somebody went to 
 Jamaica,' were his words, ' and made a contract, and 
 they carried down here about 200 men for the cutting 
 of dye-wood. When they came here they sold them 
 to the farmers, 2 dollars each ; and they were compelled 
 to work for any wages that was offered to them. I 
 lived to witness the skulls of eighteen men, natives of 
 Jamaica, that were buried in one grave. They were 
 murdered because they refused to work as slaves. 
 They were flogged to death at a place called San 
 Ignacio. Those who were yet alive could not inform 
 the British Consul, because, if they wrote, the letter is 
 searched and torn to pieces. Some of them are there 
 to-day ; they get a little more wages and a little 
 liberty, but they can't leave the place. ... In 1903 
 I came in a contract from Havana with 140 men ; I 
 went as an interpreter. The contractor did not know 
 that I knew the Republic before. They carried us 
 to the same spot, San Ignacio, and they treated us just 
 
THE SLAVES OF YUCATAN 145 
 
 the same as those men formerly. As I speak the 
 Indian language I got a chance to run away, escape 
 from the place, myself and six others. After travelling 
 for ten days in the woods, among tigers and snakes, 
 we find ourselves in the nearest town, Laguna, and 
 present ourselves to the British Consul. He also was 
 a shareholder in the company and he gave us no 
 satisfaction. Hahn is his name, a German. 1 They 
 put us in gaol and they compelled us to return to the 
 same spot. There we remained with the rest for three 
 months. We had to steal a boat in the night and make 
 an escape.' All this is the statement of a negro ; but 
 a neighbouring hacienda, San Patricio, was described 
 to us by an American who was anxious to conceal the 
 worst abuses out of loyalty to previous employers. 
 They are Americans who get their men by contract 
 from the colder parts of the Republic, and they usually 
 do not live long enough to get acclimatised. So many 
 women are imported with each lot of men, these 
 women being told that they will be expected to 
 prepare the food. Sometimes they really do not think 
 that any other thing will be expected from them, and 
 indeed it was not in San Patricio's schedule when a 
 native foreman made a number of these women, in 
 whose contract there was absolutely nothing said of 
 dancing, go through dances in his presence, having 
 been deprived of their apparel. . . . The conditions 
 of Campeche are inferior to those of Yucatan, the 
 haciendas being less accessible. Where telegraphs and 
 roads are wanting, where the overseer makes out the 
 certificates of death, he being the assistant justice 
 [juez auxiliar], where it is the custom to oblige the 
 hands to work gratuitously (en fagina is the phrase) 
 all Sunday, every Sunday, for the owner, and where 
 
 1 Now dead. 
 
 L 
 
146 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 hacendados are not seldom in financial straits, so that 
 for some months they sublet the shop and he who 
 takes it as a speculation does not try to keep the prices 
 down — you will not charge me with exaggerating if I 
 say that sometimes in Campeche labourers are poorly 
 off. They have a chance of greater happiness in 
 Yucatan, and if I deal with those comparatively 
 pampered people I shall not be charged by owners with 
 injustice. To describe the fortunes of a slave in 
 Mexico I might avail myself of evidence collected by 
 a friend of mine while he was in the service of a famous 
 pulque company whose operations are in several 
 States upon the central tableland. But there the 
 workers are not lacking, and in consequence are not 
 so petted as in Yucatan. And since it is important 
 that the owners should not say I am unjust I will not 
 mention any of the sordid, pitiable cases which that 
 gentleman has given me. Perhaps he has too sensitive 
 a temperament — I must admit that he has now 
 become an artist — and he thinks these pulque 
 workers are the most unhappy people in the 
 world. I could avail myself of evidence collected 
 by my erudite and indefatigable friend Don 
 Carlos R. Menendez, who is President of the 
 Associated Press of Mexico and editor of one of 
 the few papers you can read. He wrote a mono- 
 graph upon the Indians of the whole Republic, 
 showing that the wild ones have decreased deplor- 
 ably in number — from about 10 millions in the Spanish 
 era to about 2| millions — showing also why it is that 
 they are in so grievous a condition : wrongs they 
 suffered from their own 6 nobility ' before the con- 
 quest, terrible exactions of the conquerors, most 
 devastating plagues, a lack of hygiene, alcohol, 
 premature marriage and marriage between parties 
 
THE SLAVES OF YUCATAN 147 
 
 that do not love each other and sometimes (as I will 
 instance) do not even know each other. This de- 
 population and this degradation have attacked the 
 native races of the whole Republic ; only in Oaxaca 
 are they adding to their numbers, and in that State 
 have, like vicious tourists, to be under observation 
 when they tread the lovely courts of their ancestral 
 Mitla. Maya, Zapoteco, Nahuatlan and Tarascan, 
 they are in a sorry plight ; the efforts which are 
 being made on their behalf are moderate. If they 
 are not among the outcasts then they are among the 
 slaves, and those of Yucatan, the Mayas, ought to be 
 the happiest. They do not know, however, what a 
 life it is of which their cousins die, nor do they know 
 what special slavery subsists among the half-breeds of 
 Campeche, of the central tableland, the Valle Nacional, 
 and other parts. Judged as a whole, they seem to 
 have a happier existence than the other pure-blood 
 races or the toiling half-breeds, but out of considera- 
 tion for the owners of all Mexico I will in the remainder 
 of this paper on ' The Slaves ' allude to none except 
 the Mayas. 
 
 I did not discover Yucatan. Fierce battles have 
 been waged already over the remarks of those who 
 came before me, hacendados (owners of the haciendas 
 and of slaves) asserting that the books, if rigorous, are 
 written after an absurdly brief experience. Some- 
 times they say that Anglo-Saxon residents in Merida 
 amuse themselves at the expense of poor and un- 
 suspicious writers. I have got no doubt but that I 
 shall be charged with something heinous, only it 
 will have to be with something new ; because I stayed 
 for many weeks in Yucatan, I was not unsuspicious 
 and I got one of the ablest and the most respected 
 hacendados — Don Ignacio Peon — to state his point 
 
148 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 of view. I then proceeded to reply to his remarks, 
 he listening with great forbearance. In the first place 
 he does not agree with me that they are slaves. 
 ' Some people,' I may thus translate his written 
 words, c have gone so far as to assert that Indians 
 can be bought and sold. If this were so I would agree 
 that there is slavery in Yucatan ; but it is such a base- 
 less charge as not to be worth contradicting.' Now 
 suppose you want a man to leave a hacienda, you will 
 give him the account of what he owes (the carta 
 cuenta) and with this the man will walk about until 
 he finds another hacendado who will pay the sum, 
 that is to say, will buy the slave. He does not crudely 
 give 100 dollars or 200 dollars or 500 dollars for the 
 man; he gives that money for the chains. It has 
 been known to happen that a man throws off the 
 chains and gets his liberty, but hacendados do not 
 think it worth while taking this into account when 
 purchasing. 1 Their slave can pay the debt, and cases 
 have been known — a man of Don Ignacio's not only 
 paid this money, but gave several hundred pesos for 
 a church bell — yet as their emolument is 75 centavos 
 (Is. 6d.) to a peso (2s.) daily and the family must be 
 supported, and the Indian has no more idea of thrift 
 than any butterfly, it follows that he does not fre- 
 quently endeavour to release himself by paying. He 
 can run away ; ah yes, but very probably he will 
 come back a broken butterfly. All over Yucatan 
 are people who go hunting for the fugitives and who 
 are dedicated solely to the chase ; one of the biggest 
 of these hunters is an erstwhile Government official, 
 Benigno Palma Moreno, whose head office is in Merida, 
 near that of the jefe politico. Just as it is not custom- 
 
 1 ' I must expect to beat hemp in Bridewell all the days of my 
 life.'— Terence's ' Phormio,' Act II. ; translated by Echard. 
 
THE SLAVES OF YUCATAN 149 
 
 ary to employ the Spanish words for ' buy ' and 
 e sell ' and 6 slave,' so is the word for 6 hunter ' not 
 applied to this Benigno. He is called ' cohechador, 
 which means the ' briber ' and appears to indicate 
 that he does not use violence. He enters any house 
 without an order from the magistrate, although this 
 is illegal and the law says that the magistrate must go 
 himself and take his secretary. Yucatan is ill-adapted 
 for a refugee ; there is no fruit for him upon the trees, 
 there are no springs, no rivers, and except if he can 
 cross into Quintana Roo, where the wild Indians will 
 assist him, he will certainly be caught. Suppose he 
 passes through a town, he runs the risk of being shot 
 by a policeman (as occurred at Motul, for example, 
 while I was in Yucatan — and as the reputable 
 newspaper made only one allusion to the matter we 
 may surmise that the Governor was not inactive) ; 
 now the shooting was illegal, and because in Mexico 
 there is no law against a refugee, nor can you be 
 imprisoned for non-payment of a debt. Well, if our 
 fugitive is not illegally seized by the hunter and is 
 not illegally shot by policemen he may still be 
 captured by the servants of the hacienda, as occurred 
 some fourteen years ago near Tekax when the slave 
 resisted, was decapitated, had his body flung on one 
 side of the road, his head upon the other, and his head 
 at all events escaped the last indignity of being eaten 
 by the zopilotes, for a charitable dog was passing by 
 and rescued it and brought it into Tekax. By the 
 laws of Mexico this treatment of the slave was 
 reprehensible, and I can testify that Seiior Manuel 
 Cirerol, his owner and destroyer, was not left un- 
 punished. Cirerol's own person stayed intact, save 
 from the million tongues that do not think the person 
 should be loved unwisely by the daughter of a former 
 
150 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 mistress who in her time never gave herself to anyone 
 but Cirerol. He flourishes his green old age in 
 Tacubaya near the capital, and, in Cromwell's 
 phrase, 'we should not hear a dog bark at 
 his going.' He secured a palace from Ignacio 
 de la Torre (son-in-law of Diaz), who — but I 
 decline to wallow any longer in this sexual mud. 
 Now that two of the sons of Cirerol are slain I will not 
 speak of their peculiarities except to mention that 
 they were unbending to the slaves. One of their 
 haciendas rose against them, all the sugar-fields were 
 burned, the farm was ravaged and one half the 
 Yucatecan troops which had been sent to save them 
 showed, by their behaviour in the field, their sympathy 
 with the maltreated slaves. Another hacendado owns 
 a slave called Chi who has forgotten those long, weary 
 fourteen years in which he waited for his father's 
 death to be avenged. ... So much for refugees. 
 It will be taken as a truth that they have little chance, 
 and it is only the courageous and more desperate 
 who try. They know what punishment awaits them, 
 not alone from hunters and policemen, but from 
 people of a higher grade : the Cirerols allow 300 
 pesos (£30) a month to the jefe politico of the district 
 and he does their will. Suppose the refugee is haled 
 off to the hacienda, he is flogged. I have so great a 
 pile of documents that I will not select one hacendado 
 who is no worse than his brethren. Let me mention 
 that the slaves of Yaxche, which is quite a show farm 
 near to Merida, are flogged if they go into Merida 
 without permission from the major-domo. These men 
 have no wish to fly, but those who have and win to 
 Merida do not find all their troubles ended. I will 
 give one from a multitude of cases, rendering as far 
 as possible the simple language of the document :■ — 
 
THE SLAVES OF YUCATAN 151 
 
 On the 19th of October, 1910, it being nine o'clock at 
 night, there came into my house which is marked with 
 the number 330 of the street number 59, the citizen 
 Miguel Burgos, labourer of the hacienda San Isidro. 
 The motive which made him tramp to the city at these 
 hours was because the overseer, Senor Vicente Aguilar, 
 had beaten him from six o'clock. As this overseer is 
 accustomed to maltreat the wretched people of this 
 hacienda and afterwards to have them locked up in the 
 neighbouring village of Conkal, with the knowledge of 
 his master Senor Pablo Aguilar, and even if they should 
 be wounded the authorities won't listen to the poor 
 who are complaining of their wounds, and the masters 
 in their turn do nothing but give the authorities bad 
 information of the slave, and so you have the unjust 
 punishment which they receive with aching of their 
 soul. Referring to what was done to Burgos to be able 
 to obtain justice, and seeing that he had three wounds 
 in the head, various blows on the shoulders and arms, 
 and more on the fingers, he had to fly in these hours ; 
 and as he is my brother-in-law, as soon as it was day 
 that which I did was to take the necessary steps to 
 present him to justice. With the help of a generous 
 advocate we succeeded in presenting him to the criminal 
 judge, Senor Don Joaquin Patron Villamil. This judge 
 gave us justice and there went by fifteen days without 
 us being able to clear up the deed, as it was necessary 
 to have several witnesses the judge was asking for. And 
 as these witnesses were slaves of the hacienda they were 
 notified and threatened cruelty so that they should not 
 speak the truth, and thus they got no punishment what- 
 ever. And we could not get justice on account of this. 
 When there had gone by two months from when he left 
 the hacienda, Burgos was pursued ; the owner asked the 
 help of the authorities, and with one who is thought to 
 be a secret officer he could see where and in what part 
 Burgos was working and they got so far as to extract 
 him from the very house where he was working. And 
 at once the captain and other helpers came to find him 
 and to take him to the Mejorada police-station, and on 
 
152 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 the next day he was passed into the station of San 
 Sebastian where he was after a week drafted into the 
 National Guard. And with the activity of our gene- 
 rous advocate we gained, though late, his coming out. 
 And in this style are many cases in our State. 
 
 We have established then that slaves who run 
 away, although they have a perfect right to do 
 so, have to face considerable risks. The other 
 door to liberty is to pay off the debt, and this, 
 as we have shown, they can but rarely do. In 
 former days, before the rise in henequen, the 
 slave had greater leisure and more opportunities 
 for gaining money. Nowadays he will be well 
 advised if he is reconciled to bear this burden all his 
 life. It starts with the poor fellow's marriage, which 
 he is persuaded to embark on at a very early age, as he 
 will thus be in the owner's debt and also keeping up 
 the population of the hacienda. As expenses rise he 
 asks the owner always for more money, and up to a 
 certain point he finds him very willing. I heard of a 
 hacienda where the men owe very little, so that they 
 can leave when they desire and do not have to run 
 away ; but this is as exceptional as is the case of one 
 who is a foreman on the farm of Dona Carmen Perez 
 and who has a capital of 8000 to 10,000 pesos, a house 
 in Muna, maize (although his latest harvest has been 
 eaten by the locusts), other vegetables, cattle and a 
 family of sons who are entirely free. The over- 
 whelming rule is for the slaves to be in debt and to 
 regard it as a part of their existence. Thus they are 
 restrained from leaving. If they were not so ridicu- 
 lously honest they would leave, regardless of the 
 debt which has been forced upon them. Workers who 
 come into Yucatan from the interior of the Republic 
 
THE SLAVES OF YUCATAN 153 
 
 know that by the laws they need not honour such a 
 debt, and as they would not do so the proprietors of 
 haciendas will not lend them a centavo. But the 
 Maya 4 is an honest man,' writes Don Ignacio Peon, 
 ' and very rarely will deny his debt.' ... I may 
 have most peculiar ideas, but I believe that if you 
 do your utmost to keep all your slaves in a condition 
 of most abject ignorance so that they do not know 
 the value of their labour, and accept, without the 
 shadow of a question, whatsoever pittance you bestow 
 — well, I believe that you are coming perilously near 
 to stealing. ' And the Indian is aware,' writes 
 Don Ignacio, 6 that by the law he can deny the 
 debt. He is convinced, though, that he would be 
 stealing.' 
 
 So the slaves we buy when we secure the chains 
 are not in the least likely to escape us. If you fear 
 that they will disregard the debt and if your scruples 
 will not let you chase them should they go, then 
 you had better keep them posted as to the militia 
 [guardia national], which they detest and which they 
 can avoid by staying on the hacienda. You might also 
 mention that if they should brave the horrors once, it 
 easily may happen that they will be called upon to 
 brave them once again, as the authorities do not pay 
 overmuch attention to the card which certifies that 
 so-and-so has done his duty. Then there is another 
 weapon which is for the boys who are not yet indebted, 
 are not slaves. A hacendado told me how he had 
 prevailed upon the parents of a boy whose inclination 
 was to be a blacksmith in the city. ' He will earn 
 much more,' the righteous hacendado said, 6 but then 
 he will look down upon his father and his mother.' 
 And they hung their heads. ' But more than that,' 
 the hacendado added, c I can tell you something 
 
154 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 more which he will do. The hacienda is a moral place, 
 but Merida is not. How would you like your son to 
 have three women ? ' And they shook their heads. 
 Of course, there was the possibility that he would 
 not look down upon his parents and that he would be 
 contented with his wife. ' But I was doing well,' the 
 hacendado said to me, ' and now the fellow is at 
 work upon my hacienda very happily.' There is 
 another weapon still, a splendid weapon, and that is 
 the love our Indian feels towards his birthplace. 
 Where the bones of his beloved lie there does he want 
 to live and even if the bones of his own body have 
 been dislocated by a flogging. . . . Sometimes, if the 
 man is lazy or in other ways incorrigible, it will be a 
 good idea if you let him go and tell the people who 
 are interested in such things that every year a certain 
 number leave your farm — whatever be the case with 
 other farms — quite unmolested. You will thus have 
 something to reply if they should form a bad impres- 
 sion of you, having heard that you are one of those 
 who will not let an Indian pay his debt and leave. . . . 
 You have your human purchase as securely as the 
 cattle. With regard to those who sell, they either give 
 the carta cuenta to the man so that he may himself 
 look out for buyers — this is naturally not a common 
 system, as the hacendados will be most reluctant, save 
 if their finances force it on them, to deplete the farm 
 — or else they will dispose of all their men, together 
 with the farm. It is not usual to say that on a property 
 there are a hundred men who will perhaps remain, 
 but in the many brokers' inventories which I saw, it 
 stated that there was so much of henequen, so many 
 head of cattle and so many servants and so many 
 boys (not yet enslaved). There is no hacendado who 
 would buy a farm except he could also buy the men. 
 
THE SLAVES OF YUCATAN 155 
 
 He takes a quantity of guns and cloth to make his 
 entry smooth, but if the people should not stay he 
 would set the machinery in motion : hunters and 
 policemen and the higher Government officials and 
 the faithful of his slaves. . . . We have seen that 
 Indians do not move with readiness from that place 
 where they first beheld the glaring light of Yucatan. 
 It is the habit of a certain man of law, Don Juan 
 Molina (Olegario's brother), to put down the slaves 
 when he is making out a mortgage and by law 
 you can have in a mortgage only that which is im- 
 movable. 
 
 So much for buying and for selling, whose existence 
 I believe that I have shown, securing thereby Don 
 Ignacio's approbation when I say that there is slavery 
 in Yucatan. Moreover, I believe that working 
 en fagina, as prevails in many parts of Yucatan, in 
 haciendas and in towns and other places — that is, 
 being forced to give your work for several hours a 
 day without remuneration — I believe that by the 
 Anti- Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society, as 
 well as by most other people, this will be considered 
 slavery. Moreover, I believe that if an adult lets 
 himself be flogged illegally, maybe because he has not 
 kissed the hand of his employer's clerk — I learn from 
 Don Ignacio that this is what has happened to some 
 people who declined to kiss the hand of Senor Manuel 
 Rios, clerk of Don Ignacio's tyrant brother — I believe 
 that if a man submits his body in this fashion to 
 another man he is a slave. 
 
156 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 II 
 
 Don Ignacio' s letter (continued) 
 
 Don Ignacio is not a blind supporter of the present 
 system — which has turned the Mayas into cattle. 
 Yucatan is full of famous ruins, but the crumbling 
 caracol of Chichen Itza and the colour which is fading 
 quickly from that splendid wall at Acanceh do not 
 inspire in me as much resentment ; no, nor does the 
 lamentable state of Uxmal where a section of the 
 House of Turtles fell to dust the other day ; the plight 
 of these extraordinary ruins does not cause as much 
 resentment as the pitiful condition of the Mayas, 
 the descendants of the builders. 4 What the Indians 
 want,' says Don Ignacio, ' is a little education.' He 
 himself would be prepared to educate if all the other 
 hacendados were obliged by Government to do so. 
 As it is, the Indian on a farm of Don Ignacio' s is 
 instructed in the Christian doctrine, nothing else. 
 Some other farms, whose owners are religious, 
 inculcate the same course of study, but the editor of 
 ' La Verdad ' ( ' The Truth ' ) — an organ which is pub- 
 lished somewhat furtively out of the basement of the 
 Austrian archbishop's so-called Palace — tells me that 
 in far the greater number of the farms there is a total 
 lack of education. Not that they are made to toil 
 until they drop, as I remember seeing in a somewhat 
 lurid picture that would have been more convincing 
 if the people had been clad as Mayas, not as Mexicans 
 of the interior. No ; when they have done their daily 
 work they are allowed to go a-hunting or, if they 
 prefer, they can go hunting with the moon. Of course, 
 no guns are given to the stalwart Yaquis who were 
 carried from the valleys of Sonora and are prisoners of 
 
THE SLAVES OF YUCATAN 157 
 
 war (men, women, children and the child unborn — all 
 prisoners of war). These cannot be allowed to have a 
 gun. When possible they seize one, to the uncon- 
 cealed dismay of all the local troops who, being 
 brought down in the train, have had the first firing 
 practice of their lives en route out of the window — so 
 that Yaquis after they have done their work have 
 usually nothing else to do than dream about their 
 distant valleys that, alas ! were all too fertile. They 
 can watch the Mayas going in pursuit of deer or 
 mountain pig — the Mayas who have had three 
 centuries of servitude and certainly would not have 
 made such violent resistance to the introduction of 
 new landlords, modern landlords in Sonora. And 
 these gentle Mayas are not unsuccessful in the chase ; 
 it is indeed the chase, for they will follow deer or bird 
 until they sit them down, and then — then the poor 
 creature is in peril. Many hours are thus employed, 
 not only to the Indian's satisfaction but the hacen- 
 dado's, since the Maya is in this way kept from mis- 
 chief. ' Once,' writes a Yucatecan artisan — I cannot 
 give his name — 4 once I had occasion to be in one of 
 these haciendas in which there was a Mexican who 
 did not know much, but at least how to read and 
 write, though not correctly. This Mexican bought a 
 book, one of those children's reading-books, and with 
 it he began to give lessons to one of these poor 
 wretches with whom he had some friendship. When 
 he began to read the first lessons he had the mis- 
 fortune that the master noticed it, and immediately 
 and in a very cruel manner he put the Mexican out of 
 the hacienda, so that he should not go on teaching.' 
 
 From Isidro Mendicuti I have heard a ghastly case — 
 one of a multitude. This Don Isidro, a most brilliant 
 person, was within a fortnight of his death when I first 
 
158 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 met him. Leaning on his elbow, with his battered 
 head thrust out towards me from the hammock — he 
 kept swaying in the hammock to and fro. After a 
 few minutes it was not the scaly hands you noticed, 
 nor the scaly feet ; you did not wonder how the man 
 could speak with such a rigid, artificial jaw ; you 
 ceased to wonder how the nostril which no longer was 
 a nostril could retain so large a piece of pendent 
 cotton- wool ; you did not speculate on how much he 
 could see through his dark glasses, for above them was 
 a shade which hung from half-way up the forehead and 
 the forehead's other half was loftier than that of many 
 men. Isidro Mendicuti, dying in his pale brown ham- 
 mock, speaking with a fire all afternoon, swaying to and 
 fro — poor leper. He maintained that we have liberty 
 if we have chances to improve, and as the Maya has 
 no chance he is deprived of liberty. A boy had been 
 entrusted to him by his mother-in-law, who had some 
 business with a hacienda. She was there acquainted 
 with a woman who, on dying, gave the boy to her, and 
 she in turn delivered him into Isidro's hands. This 
 boy was taught to read and write; he learned so 
 rapidly and with such eagerness that he detested 
 Sundays, when there was no teacher. With a few 
 centavos that they gave him he acquired a flute, and 
 in two days could imitate the birds. The hacienda 
 changed proprietors ; the new one — I am glad to say 
 he lost his money, though he still looks prosperous — 
 began to search for the ex-hacienda boy. He traced 
 him to Isidro, asked for him and was refused. He then 
 began to persecute the mother-in-law, so that she 
 finally besought Isidro to send back the lad. He did 
 so. Six months later he was sitting at his mother-in- 
 law's, the boy was in the house, he was brought to see 
 his former patron, he had turned into a perfect 
 
THE SLAVES OF YUCATAN 159 
 
 savage. He that might have been an artist was no 
 doubt a skilful cutter of the leaves of henequen. 
 
 It will be understood that I do not insinuate that 
 every hacendado is iniquitous. Some here and there 
 consider that the human beings under them are 
 capable of cultivation. They have schools for boys 
 and girls. In one large farm I visited the girls' class 
 was in operation, and among them, making letters, was 
 a small Corean child. 1 Some hacendados are as good 
 to their own Mayas as they have to be to the Coreans. 
 They establish schools, and in one farm I know there 
 is a band, while this remarkable establishment is not 
 run by the major-domo in so far as punishing the 
 Mayas is concerned. These people vote themselves 
 for one man, usually an old man, who with two 
 assistants has to judge the sinners, and the most 
 sagacious sentence is that for his drunkenness — the 
 usual fault — the culprit shall be made to do some 
 work for the benefit of the community. But altogether 
 on the haciendas it is far too much a question of the 
 owner's temperament or that of his administrator. 
 If these happen to be disagreeable the slave will have 
 a vista of sad days before him ; if they happen to be 
 pleasant then the Indians if you ask them whether life 
 is good will not say ' Yes,' for they have suffered so 
 much that they are afraid to talk and they will not 
 commit themselves to such a downright answer. 
 
 1 Her father probably would spend his leisure moments with a 
 wooden sword attacking some imaginary Japanese. Large bodies of 
 Coreans used to practise for the coming contest and assume the most 
 ferocious attitudes, whereas at other times they are the mildest people. 
 For example, those who have turned Protestants in Merida live nearly 
 next door to the Pagans, and there is no anger lost between them. 
 Now that they are under the dominion of Japan the government of 
 that great country keeps an eye upon them, sending secret agents in 
 the guise of ice-cream vendors (who observe if any youth is being 
 trained with wooden swords into a possible assassin of another Ito), 
 and, moreover, sending diplomats who cause the hacendados to be good 
 to their Coreans. 
 
160 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 What they say is 4 Biz huale, 1 which means 6 It will 
 be so.' 
 
 s The laws of Mexico have always striven against 
 slavery,' says Don Ignacio, 4 and the Indians enjoy the 
 same rights as the whites, and have the same property 
 rights as any other citizen.' The laws of Mexico are 
 excellent, and far too excellent, it seems, for daily use. 
 Not Indians alone but all the people have to lead a 
 lawless life. 4 The judges, though one hears the 
 contrary,' says Don Ignacio, 4 do pay attention to the 
 Indians' complaints, because they have judicial 
 responsibility and if one often sees them sending 
 back complainants to the hacienda it is not because 
 they were not heard in justice, but because they are 
 disarmed by guarantees of better treatment which 
 the owner offers them and they desist from the com- 
 plaint.' . . . But never has a judge been punished 
 for neglect of duty, rather for excessive conscientious- 
 ness has he been frowned upon by his superiors. And 
 these authorities in little towns, the jefes politicos, 
 are they so often conscientious ? Don Ignacio 
 informed me that a certain one in southern Yucatan 
 was very good, they had been colleagues long ago at 
 school. A fortnight later I had ascertained that this 
 official took 300 pesos monthly from a neighbouring 
 hacienda, and of course complied with all the hacen- 
 dado's wishes. Don Ignacio was not astonished ! 
 
 The morality, no doubt, as Don Ignacio says, is 
 better on a farm than in the town, where living is too 
 indiscriminate. In a monogamous society the way- 
 ward instincts of a man should be restricted, but 
 his instincts should not absolutely be repressed. 
 Near Izamal, on Miguel Gonzalez Soso's farm, a boy 
 became enamoured of a girl who lived on the adjacent 
 farm, the property of Quintin Canto. As the custom 
 
THE SLAVES OF YUCATAN 161 
 
 is, the lad, his father and his mother went with 
 presents to the other farm. But the major-domo, 
 when he learned that they intended to deprive his 
 farm of one who might bear many slaves, distrusted 
 them [et dona ferentes] and commanded them, as 
 well as the bride and her family, to the lock-up 
 [calabozo], one of which there is on every farm. 
 Subsequently they were haled to Merida and stowed 
 away in Senor Canto's city calabozo, which the private 
 mansions of that pretty town are often furnished 
 with. A lawyer set to work, withstood the offer of a 
 bribe from Senor Canto, and the jefe politico insisted, 
 under threat of an exposure, that the boy and girl 
 should be allowed to marry. And how many boys 
 and girls have been divided ? Wealthy houses in 
 the town have usually got some thirty female slaves 
 [domesticas] who are not servants as we understand 
 it, because they are not paid. They are fed, of course, 
 and clothed ; beyond that they receive no wages 
 and they have no liberty. They may not leave the 
 house except to go to Mass, when they are under a head- 
 woman's charge. They naturally do not speak to any- 
 one while they are going to and from the church, 
 and so they spend their lives. Within the house they 
 do the customary work, and when their owner thinks 
 it opportune they travel to the hacienda and are there 
 provided with a husband. Those alone who serve 
 a master who is not a hacendado have some liberty 
 to choose their mate. And Don Ignacio assures me 
 that the Indian is not abject, nor degraded. I prefer 
 to think that these three centuries of slavery have 
 left an imprint. Once the Mayas were a noble race. 
 And now the hacendado says that they are indolent, 
 that the prosperity of Yucatan would vanish if the 
 Mayas were not forced to labour ; they would live 
 
 M 
 
162 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 on sunlight and a patch of beans. Not so when they 
 were dragging stones up the gigantic pyramid of 
 Chichen Itza. Who would not be indolent when there 
 is never any hope of better things ? . . . They are 
 a gentle people, from the Spanish conquest they have 
 been imposed upon. And sometimes, out of despera- 
 tion, they imposed upon their conquerors. The friar 
 Motolinia (in the ' Historia de los Indios de Nueva 
 Espana') tells how they were forced, by means of 
 blows, to bring their idols that were putrifying and 
 forgotten underground, and certain Indians ' were 
 so much tormented that in truth they made new 
 idols, which they gave up to the Spaniards so that 
 they should be no more maltreated.' ... I am 
 much afraid that Spain does not export such estimable 
 priests to-day as was the friar Motolinia. Rarely do 
 they learn the Maya language, though it has a very 
 limited vocabulary and is not more unpronounceable 
 than are the Kaffir dialects. In consequence, the 
 clergy that attend the haciendas have, in almost 
 every instance, to be natives, and the more 
 exacting class of Yucatecos do not lean to this 
 profession which is unendowed. The priest is 
 at the orders of the hacendado and will fulminate 
 against the wickedness of theft if it so happens 
 that the owner has been missing an unusual amount 
 of property. ' You must obey your master,' says 
 the priest, 6 or you will go to Hell.' No doubt 
 this is a dark allusion to the neighbouring hacendado, 
 who will be prepared to shelter refugees. And when 
 I say the priest is at the orders of the hacendado, I 
 should mention — it is only fair — that hacendados will, 
 at the request of priests, give half a dozen blows to 
 anyone who has not learned his Christian doctrine. 
 It is wrong to steal, and even if it only be a piece of 
 
THE SLAVES OF YUCATAN 163 
 
 wood each country has its penalties, and Yucatan 
 rewards this crime with eight years of incarceration. 
 But a man to whom this happened was invited to 
 become a servant in the hacienda and he might have 
 chosen that alternative. 
 
 4 The slavery — oh, I shouldn't like it to be known 
 who told you this ; they'll punish me cruelly and 
 make my burden ten times heavier than it was — you 
 see if a man, if a poor man that has no money ' (a 
 native of British dominion, as he called it, was 
 speaking to me), 6 you go to one of these rich men in 
 the town and ask him to lend you 200 or 300 dollars ; 
 while you are a young and strong man he quickly 
 give you — lend you — that portion, whatever you ask 
 for, and after that you are taken to one of the hemp 
 plantations and they give you a wife. As soon as you 
 get to the farm he give you a woman, that is for those 
 who are slaves on the farm. I have never been 
 indebted.' He who told me this was not a model of 
 respectability. 4 1 did escape from prison twice,' he 
 said, 4 here, just here. The first time they take me 
 because I was drunk, the second time because the 
 constable wanted me to remove from the spot where I 
 was standing, so that he may have the chance to 
 ravish a woman, and I would not. That time they 
 didn't ask me anything, but only sentenced me for 
 ten days. It was very easy to get away ; they take 
 me out to work and the constable was drunk — oh, yes, 
 each time. You see the custom is if you behave 
 yourself quite good they take you out in the street to 
 work ; they give you facilities. ... I speak the 
 language pretty clean. I speak the Spanish language 
 from end to end.' . . . But I regret to say that this 
 man proved to be a liar. He informed me that I should 
 find two men in the hospital who had been flogged 
 
164 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 next door, inside the Penitenciary, and now could 
 only lie in the position of a sleeping soldier, and there 
 was a soldier over each of them. What I discovered 
 was a man who had tuberculosis, and a boy from the 
 correctional school — each of them, being criminal, was 
 guarded by a yawning soldier. But if this F. A. 
 MacDonald of the dusky countenance was tropical 
 in his imagination, I am not compelled, I think, to 
 put him wholly overboard, since I have solid evidence 
 for certain of his statements. The proprietor of one 
 of Mexico's big journals says he has been told 
 repeatedly of villages wherein the representative of 
 Government maintains the olden custom of the 
 jus primce noctis, frequently securing it by sending 
 off the bridegroom 1 on a trumped-up charge to prison 
 or the army. ' The rule is,' said MacDonald, ' that 
 at four o'clock in the evening those slaves have to 
 go and kiss the hand of their master or mistress that 
 is in the farm. Otherwise, who does not present him- 
 self is entitled to six lashes, with the exception of 
 those farms I told you about. J. M. Guerra — he 
 gives very good treatment, and the second good farm 
 is Alvaro Peon's; he has got many farms. The next 
 thing, the rule of the farm is that the encargado 
 [manager] and the master himself take the girl and 
 later on he calls a young fellow and marries him to the 
 girl.' In continuation of what he said with regard to 
 new-comers : ' The owner of the farm give you a 
 woman — 6 6 This is your wife," as they would say. The 
 woman is born on the farm, you see — is to that owner 
 as a horse or cow. They take you to the house where 
 she is living.' 
 
 1 So the lover of a nursemaid in Tampico was deported, since the 
 family in which she served were anxious not to lose her, and were 
 influential. 
 
THE SLAVES OF YUCATAN 165 
 
 But the natives' servitude is not of yesterday. 
 There are extant some letters to the kings of Spain, 
 in which the monks denounce as an excessive toil the 
 carrying by natives of Campeche wood down to the 
 sea ; the kings prevented it. Some other letters 
 caused the kings to stop the exploitation of the 
 indigo ponds, which produce fevers and a plague of 
 flies ' so that no man can eat his bread in peace.' 
 Then the monks declared that another system had 
 been found — by offering the Mayas houses and some 
 more inducements in the haciendas — which would 
 cause the natives to recognise the owner as their 
 master, and this would produce a kind of slavery. ' I 
 was trying to sell to this gentleman a gas-engine,' said 
 to me a merchant in Merida, who had some English, 
 4 and I was speaking always with the manager, trying 
 to sell to Mr. X a gas-engine, and I was always trying 
 to show him the benefit, the economy of the gas-engine, 
 and I was always after him. The manager told me 
 one day that it was useless to insist, because to this 
 man, to the proprietor, the wood consumed in the 
 steam-engine did not cost him anything, because the — 
 the — the Indians of the plantation had the obligation 
 to bring a certain quantity of lumber or wood for the 
 engine without receiving any pay, and that was the 
 reason why he was not interested in looking at the 
 economy of the gas plant. That's how I knew about 
 this, his procedure.' 
 
 But however much the Maya be imposed upon, 
 however little of the wealth of Yucatan — a wealth 
 which would not be without him — comes into his 
 pocket, he prefers, says Don Ignacio, to have the 
 right to cultivate his patch — his milpa, as they call it. 
 ' Twice a year the hacendado stops the work upon 
 his farm so that they may have time for private 
 
166 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 labour. ... In his gun and in his milpa lies the 
 Indian's happiness.' Sometimes, though, it is not 
 permitted that he sell the beans and maize and chile 
 without having his proprietor's consent. Thus at 
 Chilip, in a farm I know of. Usually when the farm 
 is near to Merida, in the henequen zone, there is not 
 land enough for any milpa save that of the owner ; 
 and where all the Mayas have their holding, as for 
 instance at Chacmay, Don Ignacio's fine old hacienda, 
 the delight with which they cultivate it is a proof, if 
 that were necessary, that they are not fond of their 
 accustomed labour — call it slavery or labour — in the 
 fields of heneque'n. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Don Olegario, etc. 
 
 There is a movement to set up a statue in the pretty 
 town of Merida to Dona Isabel Molina. You may 
 leap to the conclusion that she has directed, as it 
 were, the wind ; beneficently blowing on to Yucatan 
 this memorable wind has done in recent months a 
 work most marvellous, for it has penetrated to my 
 lady's chamber. Into that part of the house where 
 nothing ever happened save the toil of making 
 Amurath succeed to Amurath, where nothing was 
 discussed save that which indirectly or directly had 
 to do with this procedure, whose value is less certain 
 than its age, a wind has blown. Madero's revolution 
 sang a vigorous, brave message from Chihuahua, and 
 there was no Mexican so listless and no Mexican so 
 much preoccupied as not to hear the waking of their 
 people. Someone had to be Madero's minister among 
 
THE SLAVES OF YUCATAN 167 
 
 the Yucatecan women. But it was not Dona Isabel. 
 The statue is to be erected since she is the only wife 
 of a Molina who has had no child. 
 
 This is one of my most disagreeable chapters and, 
 I shall be told, among the most unnecessary. Pecca- 
 dillos, doubtless, can be seen in the Molina family, 
 but can they not be seen in other families of Yucatan 
 and elsewhere ? It was in poor taste when Don 
 Audomaro, hunting for a slave who had escaped to 
 Merida, knocked at a certain lady's house and 
 threatened her — Dona Mauricia Esquivel — that if 
 the slave was not forthcoming she would be consigned 
 4 d las recogidas,' that is to say, she would be gathered 
 to the herd of prostitutes where they were expiating 
 their profession. On the next day, at four o'clock in 
 the morning, he came back, and in the presence of his 
 coachman shouted to the lady what her fate would 
 be. ... I will not affirm that Audomaro is unique ; 
 several other men on earth have in these circum- 
 stances had the same idea, two or three of them have 
 even uttered it, but he — the brother of Don Olegario 
 — could have it put in execution. Thus it is with all 
 the family. As men go in this makeshift of a world, 
 they are perhaps not absolutely of the lowest, but 
 in Yucatan they occupy positions of the highest, 
 and for these they are unfit. Not members of the 
 ruling class, Don Olegario has elevated them to high 
 positions where they have done damage. If we should 
 recount the less endearing traits of the wife of so-and- 
 so, then our words, having been read, would be flung 
 upon the dustheap as mere negligible gossip. We 
 are dealing, though, with Caesar's wife. And some 
 of the Molinas, such as the young doctor Don Ignacio, 
 who have not been lifted to a high position, probably 
 are only waiting for a leisure moment of Don Olegario. 
 
168 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 For instance, you may not be much disturbed by 
 two of Don Luis Demetrio Molina's crimes. The 
 point, however, is that he (Olegario's nephew), having 
 failed in private undertakings, was created jefe 
 politico of Merida. (1) In the village Tixcancal were 
 some thirty or forty Indians who had lived there 
 many years, after having been pacified. Molina 
 wanted people at a farm of his, and swore these 
 Indians were the allies of a village that had risen in 
 revolt ; he took them forcibly to Kankanba, a maize 
 farm, and when by the treatment there they had 
 grown tame enough he took them to a farm of hene- 
 quSn, a league from Merida. He subsequently was 
 obliged to sell the farms, and certain of the Indians 
 fled. Their village, Tixcancal, they could not go to, 
 for the jefe would have sent them back to whosoever 
 bought Molina's farms. And probably they joined 
 the hostile independent Indians of the south and told 
 them of the ways of Yucatan. (2) A man to whom 
 Molina owed 100 pesos for some lime requested that 
 an aged person who had accidentally been taken for a 
 soldier in the State troop should be liberated. This was 
 done, and afterwards Molina said he was astonished 
 that in view of his good services in this affair he 
 should be asked to pay the 100 pesos. Again, you 
 may not be indignant over the ineptitude of Doctor 
 Don August o Molina (Olegario's brother). We will 
 not concern ourselves with his technical errors, 
 although they are said to be within the comprehension 
 of a layman ; but those people who would be in the 
 good graces of Olegario beseech this doctor to attend 
 them. He is pious. 6 We have to thank the Blessed 
 Virgin or one of the Saints, I know not which one,' 
 he said in my hearing, and the father of a sick child 
 whom he was addressing said that he would like to 
 
THE SLAVES OF YUCATAN 169 
 
 have some details of her convalescence. Don Augusto, 
 with his hands held up as if he were a Moslem praying, 
 edged towards the door. ' Perhaps it is an inter- 
 cession of a larger Saint,' he said. The sick child's 
 father, rolling in his hammock, cursed a little. 4 1 
 can tell you,' quoth the doctor as he stood upon the 
 threshold, ' it is owing to some act of virtue.' And he 
 vanished. It may well be said that if this kind of 
 doctor is employed, one should either be susceptible 
 to this kind of treatment or have a sturdy constitu- 
 tion. Maybe he will not damage such a patient, but 
 as Olegario appointed him to be Director of the School 
 of Medicine and Surgery, one would suppose that he is 
 causing general damage. By the way, both he and 
 the aforementioned Don Luis were put by Olegario 
 into the local Congress, which does nothing and is 
 paid for it. Perhaps this doctor will not rouse your 
 wrath, but it is only Yucatecos who will be invited 
 to subscribe to Dona Isabel's monument. Apropos 
 of piety, there is Don Jose Trinidad Molina (also 
 Olegario's brother), who was, until recently, the 
 President of the Railways of Yucatan. He could not 
 bear to have a Presbyterian in his employ, and when 
 the station-master of Motul adopted that religion, 
 after having been for many years a blameless station- 
 master, Don Jose Trinidad retired him instantly. 
 A member of the Church of Yucatan confesses, and 
 the priests of Yucatan are usually at the service of 
 the man's employer. This may seem a monstrous 
 thing to say, but the proven sins of Yucatecan priests 
 are still more heinous, and as I have spoken of them 
 elsewhere, and I quite appreciate the difficulties 
 which surround the excellent Austro-Spanish Arch- 
 bishop, let this be enough. . . . Many hacendados 
 would, in this particular, behave as did Don Jose 
 
170 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 Trinidad ; and he may have been such a brilliant 
 man of business that the railways would have reaped 
 advantage from his supervision. But he was put in 
 through Olegario, and was so harmful that the General 
 Manager (who is the coolest Englishman in the 
 tropics) would have resigned if Don Jose had been 
 continued in his office — and so a friend of Olegario' s 
 was substituted. 
 
 There are people just as ignorant of Mayan ruins 
 as is Don Andres Solis, but he (though he was merely 
 the son of a cousin of Olegario' s) became the In- 
 spector. A year or two ago he informed a couple of 
 English travellers that he had never been to Chichen 
 Itza, but that he had satisfactory photographs. And 
 meanwhile Chichen Itza, the marvellous, is crumbling 
 to the ground. For lack of some intelligence (not 
 much) the fragile portions are left unsupported. If 
 the Inspector wishes to keep up-to-date he will soon 
 have to be supplied with other photographs. There 
 are people just as clever as Don Avelino Montes 
 (Olegario's son-in-law), but he is able with the help 
 of Olegario to damage Yucatan. It was resolved, 
 five years ago, in order to improve the price of 
 henequen, that for a time the hacendados should not 
 sell — by far the greatest buyer is the International 
 Harvester Co. of the United States. This company 
 has contracts which oblige it to deliver henequen, 
 so that the hacendados were not only tending to 
 increase the cost, but they were also placing the 
 International in a dilemma. Then the Yucatecan 
 banks, who are among the most important hacendados, 
 were commanded by the Minister of Finance to hold 
 their henequen no longer. Thus they sold, and all the 
 others had to sell. The Minister of Finance was, 
 through the President, performing what Don Olegario 
 
THE SLAVES OF YUCATAN 171 
 
 (then Minister of Trade) requested, and Don 
 Olegario was doing what the International requested, 
 for he is their agent and the partner of his son-in-law, 
 Don Avelino. . . . There are people still at large 
 who have done just as much financial damage to a 
 country as the Spanish Vice-Consul, Don Rogelio 
 Suarez, has done to Yucatan. He also is a son-in-law 
 of Olegario. It was his method to refuse to discount 
 bills at the official rate ; the applicant would then 
 repair to Don Rogelio' s residence and any bill what- 
 ever would be taken (at another rate). The bank it 
 was that died. In other cases when a man has acted 
 in this fashion and has been detected he must pack 
 up for another field ; but Don Rogelio has been con- 
 soled with two monopolies. (Of course, as son-in-law 
 of Olegario he could not go to prison.) He imports 
 such superlative cattle that the slaughter-houses 
 cannot patronise another merchant — not that the 
 other merchants made no effort, but they did not 
 happen to be relatives of Olegario. The Spaniard 
 was rewarded, too, with the monopoly of dynamite. 
 His firm (M. J. Sanchez and Co.) possess in Yucatan 
 what the cientificos possess in other parts of the 
 Republic. These made a law which put upon imported 
 dynamite a duty of about 3 pesos for every 25 lbs. ; 
 because, they said, the manufacture of this article 
 should be in Governmental hands. They built a 
 factory in Torreon, and Don Porfirio's son was one 
 of the directors. At the same time it was settled 
 that if for any reason they should not be making 
 dynamite, then they should have permission to 
 import it, free of duty. When the place in Torreon 
 exploded — evil tongues, of course, said that it was 
 done purposely ; but this has not been proved, 
 because the newspapers preserved a silence, not 
 
172 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 reporting even whether anyone was slain. Since this 
 occurred, the cientificos (represented in Yucatan by 
 Sanchez and Co.) have imported dynamite. As bread 
 in France, so dynamite in Mexico — they said the 
 public must be protected ; at first the price was low, 
 but it has risen. Suppose that a competitor imports, 
 they kill him by lowering of prices. 
 
 But, after all, the most injurious to Yucatan have 
 been the late Don Audomaro and Don Olegario 
 himself. Don Audomaro was the guardian of the 
 welfare of all the Indians of Chuburna, Cholul, 
 Chablekal, Cenotillo, Dzitas, etc., and with the object 
 of becoming a more potent guardian he consulted 
 with Don Olegario as to the nomination of the jefe 
 politico, the military chief, the municipal judge and 
 so forth. He was strongly of opinion that his way 
 of dealing with the Mayas was the best, and as some 
 other men were strongly of a different opinion he was 
 always in an atmosphere of controversy. Sometimes 
 he would use the pen, as in his letters to 4 El Penin- 
 sular,' more often he would use the sword — the sword 
 of injustice. Being the brother of Don Olegario he 
 would not permit his name, as occasionally happened 
 with the names of other hacendados, to be any way 
 connected with the sufferings or death of slaves. 
 When a paper called 6 El Universal ' made exposure 
 of the sort of life which, on the farm of Don Manuel 
 Casares, was the lot of five contracted labourers, then 
 it did not occur to anyone to put the editor in prison. 
 On the contrary, these men were liberated. The 
 Supreme Court, in this instance, let the counsel for 
 these five illegally contracted men say what he had 
 to say. But when this counsel (Don Tomas Perez 
 Ponce, who has suffered much for his opinions) tried 
 to help a slave, the victim of Don Audomaro, he was 
 
THE SLAVES OF YUCATAN 173 
 
 charged with being insolent, and straightway was 
 thrown into prison. Both the third criminal judge 
 and the Honourable [sic] Revising Court, who each 
 of them violated several articles of the Constitution, 
 lent themselves to Audomaro ; and as it chanced 
 that Olegario was at this time a candidate for re- 
 election to the post of Governor, the tyrant family 
 was not displeased at knowing that Don Tomas 
 Perez Ponce, who considered that this candidature 
 was most poisonous for Yucatan, would be removed 
 from the electoral campaign. The result he would 
 not alter, as he would not count the votes, but possibly 
 he might arouse the people to some lawless act. The 
 slave, Antonio Canche, was not treated worse than 
 all the thousands under Audomaro ; he simply was 
 not paid enough to live on ; he was compelled to work 
 gratuitously during two or three hours every day, 
 and he was not allowed to go beyond the hacienda s 
 boundaries. He and his family escaped to Merida, 
 where he besought Don Tomas Perez Ponce to assist 
 them ; in a few days he came back to Perez Ponce, 
 saying that Don Audomaro had discovered him and 
 had been twice to seize him. Perez Ponce therefore 
 took the man into his house. Canche dictated to 
 him an exact account of what had been the life at 
 Xcumpich, and as Audomaro naturally had not given 
 him an education and he could not sign his name, 
 Don Tomas signed on his behalf. The document was 
 published — Audomaro flew to several lawyers for a 
 way in which to punish Perez Ponce ; but they told 
 him that the document was only signed at the request 
 of Canche, neither was there in it one offensive word, 
 not one immoderate expression. Finally Don Audo- 
 maro had recourse to the third criminal judge, 
 Ignacio Hernandez, who proceeded to give all the 
 
174 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 necessary orders, as, for instance, that the printing- 
 house of Senor Escoffie should be searched, and that 
 his wife, the cashier and the bookkeeper should be 
 examined. After this he put Don Tomas Perez Ponce 
 into prison, saying that he had been insolent to 
 Audomaro. And from prison Perez Ponce wrote a 
 letter wherein he pointed out that according to Article 
 151 of the Criminal Code it is the duty of a judge 
 of first instance to apply the necessary zeal in order 
 to lay bare the truth and ascertain the guilty parties 
 when it is alleged that a transgression has occurred. 
 This judge did not take any notice of the document 
 arraigning Audomaro ; when at last he did take 
 notice — two months after it was published — he said 
 merely that it was an insult to Don Audomaro. And 
 the higher court confirmed his judgment. This is not 
 to say that judges can be always bought in Yucatan. 
 When Don Buenaventura Herrera published a long 
 letter in the 4 Revista de Merida,' denouncing certain 
 employes of the hacienda San Antonio, in the dis- 
 trict of Tixkokob, for having flogged and imprisoned 
 an unfortunate native, then Don Buenaventura was 
 not cast into prison. San Antonio did not belong to 
 a Molina. . . . ' Oh, but you have let your mud- 
 rake show one incident of Audomaro's life. Now, 
 
 really ! ' I can hear them say. If they will not 
 
 believe that Audomaro was a miserable person I 
 invite them — as in Mexico I heard a deputy invite 
 his irrepressible critics in the strangers' gallery — to 
 meet me in the street ; I will regale them with the 
 documents I hold concerning Audomaro — when they 
 have a week to spare. In this place one example 
 more will, I believe, be thought sufficient. The 
 labourer, Francisco Tuyim, left the farm of Tzabcan 
 or San Angel, before it passed into the hands of Don 
 
THE SLAVES OF YUCATAN 175 
 
 Audomaro ; and Gertrudis Tuyim, his brother, a 
 one-armed man, left the farm in Don Audomaro' s 
 time, in order, like Francisco, to work in the 
 orchard of Don Raymundo Camara ; and there 
 he stayed some time, while his previous employer 
 would not send the wages that were due to 
 him. The ancient father of the Tuyims, who was 
 at Don Audomaro' s farm, became so seriously 
 ill that his two sons begged Senor Camara to 
 let them have such money as their father owed to 
 Don Audomaro, as they wanted to withdraw him 
 from that farm and care for his last days ; but 
 Molina's major-domo would not have them set foot 
 in the hacienda, nor would he accept the money 
 which they brought ; they then resolved to take 
 their father out by night, and this they did, inside a 
 hammock. Molina made complaint to Don Ray- 
 mundo Camara, who in reply sent him an invitation 
 to the orchard, where the old man lay in agony and 
 where he died that night. Molina used this oppor- 
 tunity to urge upon Gertrudis Tuyim that he should 
 return to Tzabcan. He declined. ... So far as I 
 can see, the one good point about Don Audomaro is 
 that he is dead. 
 
 Why should this family be so unpopular ? They 
 have been generous. Don Olegario did not accept 
 a salary for being Governor, and now there is the 
 doctor, Don Ignacio Molina, who attends the in- 
 digent for almost nothing. Yet when Yucatecos talk 
 about this hated family they never seem to make 
 allowances because of this good attribute ; and it 
 would be impossible for them to plead that they are 
 ignorant, as Senor Olegario Molina made no secret 
 of his beautiful idea, and Don Ignacio goes to the 
 expense of several pesos so that everyone may learn 
 
176 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 about his prodigality. The common patient is 
 supposed to pay, but when this is impracticable he 
 may write a letter, and the lucky comrade has no 
 further obligation. He does not, as we have hinted, 
 pay the newspaper ; and the physician generally 
 even writes his letter for him. Here is the translation 
 of a notice which appeared on 7th March, 1911, in 
 the ' Revista de Merida ' : — 
 
 [Communicated] 
 
 OBLATION OF GRATITUDE 
 
 To the Senor Dr. Don Ignacio Molina C. 1 
 
 On writing these lines, symbols of thankfulness for 
 the grand paladin of science, I feel that in my soul 
 there is engraving itself with gilt letters the profound 
 thankfulness which from the happy moment when he 
 made me cross without difficulty the lake of Acheron 
 I came to him professing and shall follow him professing 
 to eternity. This titan, this exalted one to whom to- 
 day I am directing these sentences, enigmas of gratitude, 
 is the most illustrious Senor Dr. Don Ignacio Molina C, 
 he who with his inexhaustible science saved me from a 
 premature death, wherefore to-day making use of this 
 opportunity I take the liberty to recommend him to 
 the indulgent public which knows how to appreciate all 
 that which has enough of the noble and elevated. 
 
 Petrona S. Salazar de B. 
 
 1 This is a good opportunity for explaining the system of surnames 
 in Mexico. The late Vice-President was Jose Maria Pino Suarez, 
 so that his father's surname was Pino and his mother's Suarez. He 
 could have omitted the latter or have used merely the initial, as does 
 the above Ignacio Molina C. (Usually it depends upon the name's 
 renown.) The wife of a man whose father's surname begins with B. 
 signs with her maiden name and the addition * de B.,' or else say ' de 
 Balsas.' This latter method is the most common, and then the maiden 
 name shrinks usually into an initial. Thus the wife of Francisco 
 Madero was formerly known as Sara Perez and, after her marriage, 
 Sara P. de Madero. 
 
THE SLAVES OF YUCATAN 177 
 
 Whether or not her dissolution would have been 
 premature, Petrona — if, indeed, she wrote this letter 
 — has not yet arrived at arranging her thoughts. 
 On the other hand, she may not be entirely con- 
 valescent. ... So the Molinas can be generous. I am 
 quite aware that people will inform me that I am 
 deceived, that even if Don Olegario, with musical 
 accompaniment, gave up his salary, he turned the 
 Palace into a gigantic home for geese and he persuaded 
 most of them to lay him golden eggs. As an example, 
 he acquired the two or three large haciendas of Ayala, 
 the philanthropist, who died and left the proceeds 
 of them to the poor. When they were auctioned, 
 nobody was rash enough to bid against the Governor, 
 and he secured them at a price that was so low that 
 other people would have paid it for the contents of 
 the orchard — this is not the truth, but it is nearer 
 than one usually gets. Ayala, the philanthropist, 
 would have been sorry, for the poor were not enriched. 
 . . . Don Olegario gave up his Governmental income, 
 and if you are in a carping mood you will be saying 
 that he did not merit a centavo, since he made his 
 Congress pass a law restricting lotteries ; and now 
 the National, which is the only lottery in Yucatan — 
 except, of course, Don Olegario' s own flourishing 
 concerns — is subject to the grievous tax imposed on 
 all that were established after Congress made the law. 
 I know not if the law was passed unanimously ; 
 but a little time before I disembarked on Yucatan, 
 two members of the local legislature actually differed 
 from their colleagues and — and said so. The Republic 
 saw these things reported in the newspapers and 
 rubbed its eyes. ' Where are we going to ? ' it gasped. 
 One was expected to reply, ' Chaos ' or 4 Revolu- 
 tion ! ' Well, and was it not revolting that a man, 
 
 N 
 
178 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 two men, selected by the Governor in preference to 
 thousands, that these men should have the salary 
 and venture to oppose their patron ? Was it not to 
 be a bandit ? How could any Governor be asked to 
 keep his State in good condition if the very members 
 of the Congress thwarted him ? But Senor Olegario 
 Molina had no reason to resent the measures that 
 were passed affecting lotteries. Thus he could easily 
 afford, the critics say, to send his Governmental, 
 moderate emoluments to hospitals. Yet as a 
 proof that he is generous I give upon the title- 
 page a photograph of nickel money (obverse and 
 reverse) which circulates or circulated at his hacienda, 
 Sacnicte. You will observe from the device O.T. 
 that in this farm he and his prudent brother 
 Trinidad were partners. 6 So that Audomaro,' you 
 
 may say, 6 did not indulge in all the sins. He ' 
 
 But you are wrong. A broadsheet was issued in 
 Merida by one Felipe Rivera of Chuburna, telling 
 how Don Audomaro stopped outside his shop and 
 bitterly reproached and drove away some of the 
 hacienda labourers who happened to be buying from 
 Rivera when Don Audomaro had himself a shop 
 inside the hacienda. So indignant was he that his 
 slaves should patronise a cheaper shop that he abused 
 Rivera, and in such unmeasured language that the 
 shopkeeper withdrew into his house. Don Audo- 
 maro, more exasperated, came in after him, and 
 disregarding that his wife and family were present — 
 or, maybe, infuriated when he saw a woman who, to 
 quote the broadsheet, ' so vigorously had sustained 
 her rights against the iniquitous pretensions ' (some 
 of the French pre- Revolution customs have been 
 carried over the Atlantic) — he poured out a furious 
 tirade. His wrath against Rivera had in some degree 
 
THE SLAVES OF YUCATAN 179 
 
 arisen at his inability to make the civil judge, Her- 
 nando Ancona, say that the property and garden of 
 one Bernabe Argaez y Milanes, Rivera's stepson, 
 was, in fact, the property of Audomaro. He had 
 let this Bernabe live peacefully for several years and 
 make his land more valuable ; then Don Olegario 
 became the Governor — but in this case the judge did 
 not allow himself to be affected. 
 
 As for Olegario and Trinidad, they did not wish to 
 have their servants handle ordinary coins which are 
 never disinfected and may pass through hands that have 
 tuberculosis. So they went to all the inconvenience 
 of making money which would not go forth into the 
 tainted world, as only one shop, that of Sacnicte, 
 would accept it. What the shop accepts it for I 
 cannot say, because there is no value stamped upon 
 it. Still, it is impossible to think of everything, and 
 maybe while they were arranging the design they 
 were a trifle harassed by the thought that it was 
 not a legal operation. And a Governor should do 
 his utmost to be in the law. They have a way of 
 telling you in Yucatan that there was nothing for it 
 but to coin money, since the Government did not 
 provide them with sufficient of the low denomina- 
 tions. And the hacendados often used to bore a hole 
 into the Government's pesos, for if one has got into 
 the way of seeing the more humble coins have a 
 limited but healthy circulation — why should there 
 not be some supervising of the vagrant peso ? This 
 is merely prudence, but when I applied the epithet 
 to brother Trinidad I had in mind a notable economy 
 for which they have to thank him at the hospital. 
 He being head of the committee, it did not seem 
 right to him that so much milk should be consumed, 
 and he reduced the quantities. He is no doctor, but 
 
180 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 he said that it was common sense that sick men 
 should not drink so much. 
 
 IV 
 
 Some Documents 
 
 Out of my collection of the documents which deal 
 with certain aspects of the Yucatecan slavery I shall 
 not publish any that the hacendados might with reason 
 call superfluous. To certain folk an accusation if it be 
 repeated fifty times is stronger than if it be merely 
 stated once. To folk whom we may think more 
 valuable and whose time is of greater value such a 
 repetition is a weakness. They will ask for one 
 authentic instance, under the proviso that it is not of 
 a freakish, isolated character. Now with regard to 
 flogging, which is practised on by far the greater 
 number of the haciendas and is quite illegal, I shall give 
 one case which happened in a hacienda then belonging 
 to Rogelio Suarez, Vice-Consul of Spain and son-in- 
 law of the all-powerful Molina. Elsewhere I have 
 dealt with Senor Suarez, showing that a slave upon 
 his hacienda is not to be pitied less than are the 
 Spanish slaves of circumstance. I hope the Spanish 
 Foreign Minister will soon select a better representa- 
 tive. 
 
 Here are the details of the flogging (translated as 
 closely as possible) : — 
 
 Jose Andrade, Notary public of the State of Yucatan, 
 in the Mexican Republic — 
 
 I certify that at three o'clock of the afternoon of 
 this day, before the witnesses who will sign at the foot, 
 7?as present the citizen Tomas Tec, to which name I 
 
1 
 
 V 
 
 Tornas Tec. 
 
THE SLAVES OF YUCATAN 181 
 
 answer, declaring that I am 21 years of age, married, 
 an inhabitant of Noh-nayum, and I say : that on 
 Saturday the seventh of this month, when I was work- 
 ing in the drying yard of the hacienda Noh-nayum, 
 Canuto Tec gave me notice that I must immediately 
 present myself in the agent's office, an order which I 
 obeyed at once ; and when I was in the office I was 
 insulted by the agent ; when I asked the reason for 
 these insults the agent answered by assaulting me and 
 whipping me in the face with a soga vaquera, with which 
 he wounded the upper lip, and even now this is much 
 inflamed ; then I was locked up in the dungeon of the 
 hacienda, where I stayed from eight in the morning until 
 midday, when I was taken out and again conducted to 
 the office ; there the agent went on reviling me and 
 threatening me, saying that Senor Rogelio Suarez, owner 
 of the hacienda, had given the order that they should 
 flog all those who did not obey the commands with 
 docility. Thereupon the agent, taking a soga which had 
 been soaked, rang his bell for one of the cowherds of the 
 hacienda and there came Marcelino Chim, half-brother 
 of me the declarer. That the said Marcelino Chim 
 received an order to keep down his brother with his 
 hands, and I was ordered to place myself on my knees, 
 whereupon I was given twenty-five lashes, whose marks 
 can still be seen very easily although 2 days have 
 passed. I, the declarer, affirm that all this was done 
 in the presence of Dionisio Chuc and a native of the 
 Canary Islands, whose name I do not know, but who is 
 the Administrator of this hacienda Noh-nayum. 
 
 These deeds I have related, declaring that I cannot 
 sign, this being done at my request by the citizen Don 
 Jose G. Corrales, before the witnesses, the citizens 
 Higinio Febles and Eusebio Gonzalez, neighbours who 
 are present and adults. 
 
 And at the request of him who is interested, for the 
 purposes that may suit him, I deliver this at Merida on 
 the ninth day of October of 1905. 
 
 [Here follow the signatures of Corrales, the witnesses 
 and Andrade.] 
 
182 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 The photograph was taken at the same time, two 
 days after the flogging. It may be surmised that as 
 this example dates from 1905 I have no later instances. 
 I have selected this one as the hacendado is a man of 
 standing and the slave was photographed. These two 
 conditions are fulfilled in other cases, but they do not 
 often come together. When a Maya has been flogged 
 he does not (in a thousand cases once) resort to the 
 photographer and to the notary public. He does not 
 do so for the reason that he is accustomed to this 
 treatment, and another reason is that notaries are 
 seldom so courageous as to help the Maya in defiance 
 of the hacendado : one or two have been humane 
 and have been ruined. As for natives not resenting 
 such a treatment after all these centuries of servitude, 
 it has become so much a part of their existence that 
 they even spare the hacendado any little pain he might 
 be caused by giving the command. An ancient Maya 
 came one Monday night to Manuel de Irabien, a friend 
 of mine, who had come down to supervise his brother's 
 hacienda for a week or two. The Maya said that 
 having given way to drink on Sunday he had not done 
 any work on Monday and must therefore have a 
 flogging. But he perfectly agreed with Irabien that 
 it would be more rational if on each of the other five 
 days of the week he did a fifth of that which he had 
 left undone, receiving payment as if he had worked 
 on Monday. You may say that hacendados who 
 prefer the flogging system are uneconomic. Well, 
 they are. But, on the other hand, in graver cases, if it 
 is a question of delivering the man to justice and of 
 losing him perhaps for several weeks, they naturally 
 do their utmost to support the old belief that the 
 punishment to fit the crime is flogging. Mayas have 
 become entirely servile, but the Mexicans from the 
 
THE SLAVES OF YUCATAN 183 
 
 interior of the Republic are opposed to flogging and 
 prefer incarceration. So they are unpopular among 
 the hacendados. Sometimes it will happen that a 
 hacendado has the strength of will to flog the Mexican, 
 as, for example, Juan Torres, who for ten days got, for 
 having once been drunk, his five-and-twenty lashes 
 every day at Cat mis, where the Cirerols had planted 
 sugar and reaped bullets. It would serve no purpose 
 if I should enlarge upon the variations in the details. 
 * They flog them,' — I am quoting from a man who 
 frequently was of assistance to me. He had had great 
 opportunities for observation, seeing that he was for 
 years employed in the capacity of visitador, a kind 
 of registrar who goes from farm to farm. ' They flog 
 them in the middle of the labourers,' he said, ' so that 
 they may take notice. The rule is that the man kneel 
 down, otherwise they stretch him over one of the 
 bales of hemp, and after he is flogged they put on 
 salt and lime or sour orange and put him in the prison 
 until he is better. Sometimes they flog them to 
 death.' But surely this is quite a rare occurrence, as 
 there would be one slave less. And — who knows ? — 
 there might be a justice-loving Mexican who would 
 in some way force the hacendado to give monetary 
 compensation to the relatives, without it being such 
 a large amount as in the case of Miguel Verde. This 
 man stood in an exceptional position, for his name 
 ere they translated it was Michael Green and the 
 present American Consul at Veracruz (in which State 
 he was beaten to death about eleven years ago) exacted 
 retribution. But we are talking of Yucatan and : 
 ' Some time ago,' this is an English-speaking merchant 
 whom I quote, ' one of Dr. Palomeque's servants died 
 on account of a terrible — how you call that ? — terrible 
 whipping the manager of the plantation gave him 
 
184 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 by the order of one of his [the Doctor's] sons. Well — let 
 me see, when the manager of the plantation was — was 
 whipping the servant this — let me see — he notified by 
 telephone that the servant was getting in very bad 
 fix on account of the whipping and that he may die on 
 account of that. He answered by telephone to con- 
 tinue the whipping anyway. A few days afterwards the 
 servant died. It is about one year and a half ago. 
 Everyone was conversing about that. . . . He's 
 intimate friend of the Governor.' It is not germane 
 to this affair, but these were his next words : 1 This 
 man, Palomeque, has very bad sense, very bad way of 
 conducting himself. On the 11th of August some 
 years ago, in the Government of Don Carlos Peon, the 
 people were shot in the square by the advice of this 
 man, that was Don Carlos's particular friend.' It 
 would serve no purpose to go into details of the 
 floggings, nor to speak especially about the women, 
 who are sometimes beaten as if they were men and 
 sometimes on the shoulder by a foreman who stands 
 facing them, another foreman holding them at arm's 
 length at their back. To prove that it is contrary to 
 law we have the case of Baeza, a young man who said 
 that he had flogged an Indian in self-defence but was 
 put into prison for a period of seventy-two days. He 
 was upon the opposition side in politics. 
 
 Another document will give an insight into several 
 phases of the life on Yucatan farms : — 
 
 Licenciate Galbino Puga y Sosa and Licenciate 
 Camilo Man zan ilia, notaries public of the State, we 
 certify : That sitting in the house n r 477 of street n r 64, 
 at the request of the Licenciate Don Tirso Perez 
 Ponce, there were presented to us the day-labourers 
 Miguel Canche, Asuncion Esquivel, Pedro Pech, Anas- 
 tacio Pech, adults and dwellers in the farm Xcum- 
 
THE SLAVES OF YUCATAN 185 
 
 pich, which belongs to Don Audomaro Molina. The 
 said labourers declared : that they had just left the 
 said farm and have no desire to continue working there, 
 because every day they were obliged to work at what 
 is known as faghia, which lasts for two hours every 
 day and is never paid for : because their task which 
 is pointed out to them after the fag'ma is very badly 
 paid, also this payment being made in a form that they 
 dislike. At this point there presented themselves like- 
 wise Gertrudis Castillo and Evaristo Chacon, also 
 adults, dwellers at Xcumpich, who made precisely 
 the same declarations as the previous persons with 
 respect to fagina and the pay, also how they served 
 in the said farm until yesterday and have no desire to 
 return. All these labourers declare that they were 
 frequently flogged, there having been flogged of those 
 present Asuncion Esquivel, because he asked the agent 
 for his carta cuenta, Anastacio Pech for having allowed 
 his son Loreto to go to work outside the farm, which 
 action he believed was in his rights as father ; that he 
 was not only flogged but also locked up for eight days 
 in one of the three dungeons which are on that farm, 
 compelling him at last to bring his son to work with 
 him on the farm. For cutting a thousand leaves of 
 henequen they are paid 25 centavos, for 1500 they 
 are paid 62 centavos, and one peso for cutting 2000 
 leaves : that very rarely could they exceed 2000, which 
 necessitates severe exertions, seeing that it is demanded 
 as an indispensable condition that each leaf should 
 measure six cuartas [=126 centimetres] and only those 
 are considered which have this measurement : that 
 those which have not got this measurement are not 
 paid for ; that if by an oversight or by the necessity 
 of working quickly they leave on a plant less than the 
 twenty leaves that had been settled, then as a punish- 
 ment they are not paid, and if this is repeated they are 
 also flogged. That several have asked for their carta 
 cuenta without being able to get it and the others, on 
 account of this, have refrained from asking. That 
 the cleaners [weeders] receive for one mecate fifty cents 
 
186 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 and for two mecates a peso ; but if, as frequently occurs, 
 they clean more than one mecate but less than two, 
 they are always paid fifty cents, the remainder being 
 for the benefit of the owner of the hacienda ; they add 
 that when Don Felipe Rivera had a shop at Chuburna 
 they were prohibited from buying there, under penalty 
 of being flogged ; that both the agent Antonio Pinzdn 
 and Don Audomaro Molina ordered them to purchase 
 only at the shop of Desiderio Dzib, the local judge. 
 That when they want to sell eggs, poultry, etc., the 
 agent or the owner does not pay what the servants ask, 
 but a lower price which they themselves fix. That 
 there still exists in the corridor of Xcumpich a piece 
 of wood with a chain attached and this was used by the 
 major-domo to keep in subjection any of the servants 
 who committed a fault ; although this is no longer used 
 since the dungeons were built, one of those present, 
 Pedro Pech, declares that he has been chained up. All 
 those present affirm that the price paid for their work 
 was never fixed by them, seeing that he who arranges 
 the price is Don Audomaro Molina. They conclude 
 by saying that they left the hacienda to-day. 
 
 And at the request of the Licenciate Don Tirso Perez 
 Ponce, we deliver this in Merida on the sixteenth of April, 
 1905, making it clear that the individuals who said 
 they had the above names belong to the native race and 
 all of them speak Spanish with more or less perfection. 
 . . . Being witnesses the citizens Miguel Gonzalez Sosa, 
 Isidro Sierra Jimenez, Juan de Dios Hernandez and 
 Jose D. Gomez, neighbours, here present and adults, 
 who as agents sign with ourselves the notaries. 
 
 [There is a footnote which recounts some of the 
 other exploits of Don Audomaro. Most of them refer 
 to the imprisonment which happened to those many 
 persons who did not agree with him on land questions. 
 He does not seem to have imprisoned the local school- 
 master. Perhaps he took into consideration that for 
 nineteen years that functionary had been at his post, 
 
THE SLAVES OF YUCATAN 187 
 
 with honourable mention of the municipal authorities. 
 He was discharged. ... I am sorry that we have to 
 deal so much with Don Audomaro, who has for some 
 months been occupying not more than six feet of land.] 
 Another document will show what liberty falls to 
 the share of citizens of this Republic : — 
 
 Jose Andrade, notary public of the State, I certify : 
 That it being two o'clock of the afternoon of this day 
 there was present before me Maria Jesus Pech, to which 
 name she answers, being adult, an inhabitant of the 
 town of Motul, and she said : that it will be two years 
 ago since there came to her house at daybreak several 
 soldiers of the National Guard and they seized her 
 grandsons Feliciano and Valentin Alonso, taking them 
 to the hacienda San Juan, near the said town of Motul. 
 A few days later they were removed from there and 
 taken to the town of Merida for the following reasons : 
 Valentin Alonso, a minor then, of 10 years of age, was 
 accustomed to go from the hacienda San Juan to Motul, 
 with the object of seeing the said Maria Jesus Pech, 
 his grandmother, who had been very ill since the 
 morning when those two were taken from her. This 
 disgusted the Administrator and he was sent to the 
 Correctional School of Merida. Feliciano Alonso 
 received from the Administrator a punishment of 
 flogging, which caused him to come to his grandmother's 
 house, where he was apprehended in order to be sent to 
 the same Correctional School. The former has been an 
 inmate of that establishment for L Z years and the latter 
 for 8 months. The complainant asserts that these 
 minors are held against the will of their father, Carlos 
 Alonso, to whom they are subject ; he is a worker at 
 the hacienda Chichi, which belongs to Senor Don 
 Olegario Molina. She also declares that Feliciano 
 Alonso, whose age is now fifteen, has been promised his 
 freedom if he consents to contract matrimony with 
 some woman who is in the employ of the said hacienda 
 Chichi. The complainant says that she knows that 
 these minors are entered in the Correctional School as 
 
188 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 having been placed there at their father's request, 
 which is false. She manifests that her object in relating 
 these occurrences is simply with the hope of finding a 
 charitable person who will take pity on her and her 
 grandsons and will help her in having them liberated. 
 
 Yes ! Mexico is a Republic. . . . We have had a 
 brief but a sufficient glance at Yucatan slavery as 
 pictured in the documents. Maybe that my collec- 
 tion is imperfect — it would anyhow make Sancho 
 Panza feel as sympathetically sore as he was after 
 witnessing the knight's unfortunate encounter with 
 the Yangliesian carriers — but I cannot find therein a 
 single paper which a slave in gratitude has dedicated 
 to the hacendado. And by this I do not mean that 
 all of them are situated in the same unhappiness. But 
 those who chance to be more fortunate do not leave 
 written records. If I had one I should print it, and 
 without misgivings. I should not believe that it had 
 been extracted in the fashion followed by a certain 
 jefe. This official was deciding what to do with 
 someone who had walked in a political procession, 
 and had been arrested as he was the enemy of a 
 policeman. ' You will go to the Penitenciary for 
 thirty days,' said the jefe politico, ' or else you may 
 sign this paper which says that you are fond of the 
 Government.' ' I am neither for the Government,' 
 was the answer, ' nor against it. I will go to the 
 Penitenciary.' 
 
 The slaves who are contented do not testify, and 
 of the others very few. ' Let there be darkness,' say 
 those hacendados. Now and then we see a hand 
 that reaches out to them. 
 
THE SLAVES OF YUCATAN 189 
 
 V 
 
 The Human Heart 
 
 A woman called Matilde Poot was hoping that 
 Augusto L. Peon, the largest landowner in Yucatan, 
 would be the godfather [padrino] of her little boy, as 
 he had been of hundreds. To be the padrino of a 
 child is not a matter which the Mexicans consider 
 lightly ; a relation which is of the first importance — 
 which is sacred — is set up between the child, his family 
 and the padrino. In this woman's case Senor Peon 
 did not accept the honourable office for himself but 
 gave it, as in many other cases, to his confidential 
 clerk, a man who serves him very blindly, Manuel 
 Rios. This poor woman Poot had been abandoned 
 by her husband ; she thought that in the battle of 
 our life it would be well to have a potent friend. And 
 one day Rios told her that she was not paying 
 adequate attention to his godchild and that therefore 
 she must go to live at Yaxche, Don Augusto' s noble 
 hacienda. She was taken down by force, and in the 
 hacienda was presented to a man to be his wife. In 
 Yucatan there is a scarcity of labour. Well, it was 
 two months ere she was able to escape, and then she 
 ran to Merida, was seized by the police, delivered to 
 this Rios, flogged, and sent to one of Don Augusto' s 
 other farms, near Uxmal, and provided with another 
 husband. This occurred four years ago, but Rios has 
 forgotten all about it. Don Augusto's brother tells 
 me that he thinks the woman was a drunkard ; and 
 assuming this, then surely she was not subjected to 
 
190 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 a proper treatment. Rios found he could not trace 
 her, and he has forgotten all about the boy, which is a 
 thing padrinos rarely do. And there is something 
 which a Catholic would never do, says Rios, and 
 that is to give a woman first to this man, then to that 
 one, all within ten weeks. He has assured me that 
 he never could have done it, since he must conform 
 to Don Augusto's notions, and he adds that Don 
 Augusto is a Catholic. . . . But I should not be hard 
 on Rios for his memory. We have our imperfections, 
 all of us, and Rios has acknowledged to me that his 
 memory is bad. He scarcely could remember an 
 appalling incident which had occurred five months 
 ago, when one Ramirez, serving at the hacienda 
 Yaxche, had committed suicide. ' El Dictamen,' the 
 independent newspaper of Veracruz, gave all the 
 details, and one may observe that the authorities of 
 Yucatan have no affection for this paper. They have 
 put the agent into gaol and probably he will be 
 sentenced to a year or two, the pretext being that he 
 is responsible for some insulting paragraphs in 
 6 Yucatan Nuevo,' a paper whose existence and whose 
 purpose (a Diaz and Dehesa candidature for the two 
 chief offices of the Republic) have alike been long 
 forgotten. In 4 El Dictamen ' I read how this Ramirez 
 could not clear a certain area of land, which had 
 been given him to do ' en fagina.' The ground was 
 heavy, and in the allotted time Ramirez had not 
 managed to remove the trunks of several trees. 
 So he was flogged — twenty-five lashes, says ' El 
 Dictamen ' — and he was told that if he did not on 
 the next day clear that area and another of an 
 equal size he would receive another twenty-five. 
 The wretched fellow, who was ill besides, made his 
 escape and was discovered, after several days, a 
 
THE SLAVES OF YUCATAN 191 
 
 corpse. 1 'Ah, yes,' said Rios, 'he had killed him- 
 self. Perhaps for a caprice, who knows ? I think 
 he was an alcoholic' 
 
 ' Did the coroner say that ? ' 
 
 ' Who knows ? What is a coroner ? ' His forehead 
 was a map of wrinkles. 
 
 ' Is there some examination ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, I dare say ; but I really don't remember what 
 they do. You see, it has nothing to do with us. He 
 killed himself outside the farm. His body was found 
 there. Yes, it was dead.' 
 
 ' And if he had died on the farm ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, that is a different thing.' 
 
 ' It would not have got into the papers ? ' 
 
 Rios frowned. ' Who knows ? ' he said. . . . 
 ' But we never pay attention to what the papers say. 
 You know as well as I do — lies ! lies ! lies ! ' he 
 waved his arms about, ' oh, they are dreadful. Didn't 
 the " Diario " say that you listen to the bad, old 
 music of the band, here in the nights ? ' 
 
 ' But don't they sometimes by accident have some- 
 thing which is true ? ' I ventured. 
 
 ' Vile, abominable things ! If I could have my 
 way with them ! ' He looked ferocious. 
 
 I reminded him that one could have a paper stopped 
 in Mexico by merely charging it with having uttered 
 libel. Such had been the fate of 6 El Pais,' the most 
 important paper of the capital, because a minor 
 Government official said that it was libellous to 
 
 1 J'ai perdu tout mon bonheur, 
 J'ai perdu mon serviteur, 
 
 Colin me delaisse. 
 Helas ! il a pu changer ! 
 Je voudrois n'y plus songer ; 
 J'y songe sans cesse. 
 But Rousseau was no flawless prophet and only the second and 
 fifth lines are applicable here. 
 
192 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 publish that he had been put in prison for a theft. 
 (But he did not persist in this denial.) ' If you are 
 unwilling to proceed to such extremes,' I said, 
 4 you ' 
 
 ' May they all be taken to the devil ! 9 
 
 4 You can bring an action, I presume, and get them 
 to pay heavy damages — 5000 or 10,000 pesos. Then 
 they would be much more careful.' 
 
 4 Lies ! lies ! lies ! ' He took me by the arm. 
 4 What did they say of you — that you had watched 
 a fire in Merida, when you were three hours distant 
 by the railway ? After that one can't believe a word.' 
 
 It seemed to me that he was not an expert on the 
 subject of mendacity, and so I tried to show him that 
 there is a difference, sometimes, between two state- 
 ments that diverge from accuracy. 4 Your employer, 
 Don Augusto,' I observed, 4 was of opinion that mere 
 folly one need never contradict, but if they touch 
 
 one's honour ! ' And I don't think that I need 
 
 have quoted Don Augusto. 4 Come, why don't you 
 get the paper fined 5000 pesos ? ' 
 
 He expressed contempt — I cannot say sublime 
 contempt — in face and shoulders. 4 But why should 
 I hurt the paper ? Let the poor thing live,' he said, 
 4 if that is what it wants to do.' 
 
 I should have liked to take the photograph of 
 Manuel in that great moment. 4 And although this 
 article is up against the honour of yourself and Don 
 Augusto, I suppose it is a rare event for people of 
 the farm to kill themselves ? ' 
 
 4 Oh, let them be. Besides, we have enough to do 
 with other things.' 
 
 I recognised that I was in the presence of a quite un- 
 usual man. 4 If someone in the office here,' I said, 
 4 insults you ? ' 
 
THE SLAVES OF YUCATAN 193 
 
 ■ Pooh ! I pay his wages and discharge him.' 
 
 4 If you are insulted by a man who is not your 
 subordinate ? ' — I mentioned one of his acquaintances 
 — ' what would you do ? ' 
 
 ' Well, what is there to do ? ' 
 
 I shall be subject to some criticism for alluding thus 
 to Don Augusto and his clerk. They were of much 
 assistance to me. I believe at one time Don Augusto 
 came to my hotel, while I was breakfasting, for half 
 a dozen mornings in succession. He would talk 
 philosophy for something like an hour and then escort 
 me in his motor to some institution. We went out to 
 Yaxche and another farm, Tetzitz, which he had lately 
 bought ; a rumour came to me that certain years ago 
 a woman of the farm had told the overseer that her 
 husband was too ill to work and if he were compelled 
 to do so she would go to Merida, to the authorities. 
 On this the overseer was reported to have hung her up 
 and syringed her with water mixed with chile. Don 
 Augusto said it was a story he could not believe, but 
 he was very willing to investigate. So one day we 
 went out by tram, with several relays of mules who 
 cantered most of the 26 miles. And at the hacienda 
 we unearthed a venerable Maya who spoke Spanish 
 very well and told us that the overseer used to treat 
 the women always in that fashion, save that he did 
 not put chile in the water, and the usual offence for 
 which he treated them was drunkenness. . . . 
 
 It would be palpably unjust on my part if 
 I were to speak my mind about the smaller 
 hacendados and say nothing of the largest one 
 because he had assisted me. I saw a letter in the 
 • Mexican Herald ' written by a foreign cigar-merchant 
 o 
 
194 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 of Orizaba ; this peculiar person said that it was most 
 ungentlemanly for a writer to examine the conditions 
 of the Valle Nacional's tobacco fields, accept a 
 hacendado's hospitality, and then denounce his evil 
 conduct. What he should have done, no doubt, in 
 order to comply with the cigar man's sense of etiquette, 
 was either to remain a score of miles away at Tuxtepec, 
 in the hotel, or else to mention blandly to the hacendado 
 what was his design. I found it quite embarrassing, 
 but I discussed Matilde Poot and others both with 
 Don Augusto and his faithful clerk. And I reiterate 
 that Don Augusto was most helpful, not only in 
 opening official doors — he was a kind of god in Merida 
 — but with his conversation. Of the Governor, Don 
 Enrique Munoz Aristegui, he used to say that he was 
 most laborious and honest, but was ignorant of human 
 hearts. 1 No conoce el corazon humano.' This he said 
 repeatedly, in English and in Spanish, fearing that I 
 would not understand. It is a breach of confidence 
 that I should write this down, but Don Enrique very 
 probably has something similar to say of Don Augusto, 
 and what could be better basis for a real friendship ? 
 Don Augusto, by the by, knows English very well, but 
 not so perfectly as to be destitute of sudden jewels. 
 He was anxious to translate one day the Spanish 
 phrase for ' I am an enlightened person ' [soy 
 hombre ilustrado] and he said, ' I am an illustrated 
 man.' 
 
 From one who formerly in Southern Yucatan had 
 served as jefe politico I heard that, consequent upon a 
 wish of Don Augusto, he had sent out five-and-twenty 
 soldiers to secure a dozen Yaqui men and women and 
 an unborn child who had escaped. Two women and 
 three men were captured by the troops, while the 
 remaining refugees crossed over to Campeche. Subse- 
 
THE SLAVES OF YUCATAN 195 
 
 quently Don Augusto asked this jefe to perform 
 another service and to send up to his farm the two 
 sons of a slave, who both of them were living in the 
 jefe's village. 4 Don Augusto made it known to me,* 
 so said the ex-official, ' that these two were minors 
 and should therefore not be separated from their 
 parent who was on the farm. I answered that the 
 age of one was twenty-four, the other twenty-nine. 
 But he desired that I should send them. I refused ; 
 the young men as a punishment were put into the 
 Guardia Nacional and Don Augusto got the Governor 
 to name another jefe. 9 
 
 I wondered if this was the Governor of whom he 
 said : 4 No conoce el corazon humano. 1 
 
 Here is the translation of a document drawn up by 
 Jose Andrade, a notary public : — 
 
 I certify and give it on my faith : that at the request 
 of the Licentiate Don Tirso Perez Ponce I sat in union 
 with the witnesses who at the end of this declare them- 
 selves, in the house n r 477 of the street n r 64, it being 
 half past three in the afternoon, and there were present 
 before me the citizens Juan Pablo Can, married, day- 
 labourer and adult, and David Gutierrez, married, day- 
 labourer and adult, living at Yokat, and the afore- 
 mentioned Can living at Ticul, according as they did 
 manifest and say : the former, Juan Pablo Can, who for 
 a long time living in the same place, served as a day- 
 labourer in the farm Yokat of which the owners were 
 respectively Don Felipe Peon, Don Eusebio Escalante, 
 Don Raymundo Camara, and Don Rafael Hernandez 
 Escudero, whose persons he was wont to serve in the 
 farm Yokat on the ordinary working days, withdrawing 
 for repose to the town of Ticul, where he always had 
 maintained his home, living in union with all his 
 family, which is formed of his wife and sons Manuel 
 Can, Santiago Can and Juan Pablo Can y Leon, all 
 under age. — On the farm being bought by Don 
 
196 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 Augusto Peon, he who makes the declaration was un- 
 well, remaining in his house where he was being medi- 
 cally treated, and when for a week he had not been in 
 a position to assist in the accustomed labour of the 
 farm Yokat, the agent Senor Felipe Herrera gave order 
 to Senor Don Cosme Solis to make it known to him 
 that he should go, despite his illness, to the farm, and 
 on the next day Senor Don Ricardo Ferraez, adminis- 
 trator of Yokat, conducted him to the residence of 
 Senor Don Augusto Peon in this city of Merida, where 
 he stayed for a term of 10 days and was taken to the 
 same farm Yokat by the administrator Senor Ferraez, 
 and on the same day he was given notice that he must 
 transfer his residence to the aforesaid farm, which 
 obligation had in Merida been laid upon him by Senor 
 Don Augusto Peon and his commissioner Don Manuel 
 Rios. — That a little time after buying the farm and 
 in conformity with the strict orders whereby Juan 
 Pablo Can and his family should establish themselves 
 in Yokat, the agent Felipe Herrera and the adminis- 
 trator Senor Ferraez, personally, came with carts 
 belonging to the same hacienda to fetch the furniture 
 of Can which was in his house at Ticul and transferring 
 it to the house which had been appointed for him in 
 the farm. That on Saturday the 11th inst. Senor Manuel 
 Rios arrived at Yokat by train and gave notice to Juan 
 Pablo Can and David Gutierrez to prepare themselves 
 because they had immediately to go to Merida in ac- 
 cordance with the wish of Senor Augusto Peon, which 
 order was obeyed when the train returned at six in the 
 evening, Senor Rios conducting them to this city to the 
 house of Senor Peon, where they arrived at 1 0 at night, 
 because the train, which was a special train to fetch 
 them, suffered a delay. That on arriving at the house 
 of Senor Peon neither David Gutierrez knew the where- 
 abouts of his brother, the minor Mateo Gutierrez, nor 
 did Juan Pablo Can know the whereabouts of his son, 
 the minor, Manuel Can Leon, and they received notice 
 that these persons were in Merida by means of the 
 minor Santiago Can who came to the house of Senor 
 
THE SLAVES OF YUCATAN 197 
 
 Peon and gave information of the house in which they 
 were, and after permission which they got from Senor 
 Peon, without saying what for, they went out in search 
 of Mateo Gutierrez and Manuel Can Leon, whom they 
 found. — In this state were brought before me the 
 minors Mateo Gutierrez and Manuel Can Leon and in 
 the presence of David Gutierrez and Manuel Can, their 
 representatives, they deposed the following facts : that 
 it is more or less 15 days ago since the Senores 
 Cristobel Carrillo, Transito Escamilla and his father 
 Juan Escamilla apprehended them in the town of Ticul 
 and brought them to the barracks of that town, in which 
 they were detained from 6 in the evening for a time of 
 2 days and during these, on a Sunday, at 7 in the 
 morning, they were conducted to the jefe politico and 
 he warned them that they had to go back to serve in 
 the farm Yokat and if they did not do so they would 
 be consigned to serve in the army for 5 years ; and 
 they replying to the warnings of the jefe politico 
 said both of them that they would not go to the farm 
 Yokat because they had never lived there and always 
 had been settled in the town of Ticul. Immediately 
 they were taken to the prison and placed in one room 
 there, together with 4 others who are called Santiago 
 Can, 17 years of age, Santiago Esquivel, Pedro Coh, 
 and Liborio Uc, and when it was Monday at half past 
 seven in the morning when the train arrived for Merida, 
 they were brought to the house of Senor Don Augusto 
 Peon by Senores Juan Escamilla, Manuel Rios and the 
 chief of police, Don Cristobal Carrillo, in uniform ; when 
 they arrived at the house all 6 were locked in a stable 
 under the care of a person whose name they do not 
 know and they know him to be a salaried servant of the 
 house. When they had been imprisoned for 4 days in 
 the house of Senor Peon, the Senor Ricardo Ferraez 
 took them to the farm Yokat, and on arriving there, 
 not believing themselves servants of the farm, they got 
 away at once to the town of Ticul, where they remained 
 some days and on hearing that new orders of apprehen- 
 sion had been dictated against them they came to 
 
198 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 Merida in search of an advocate to represent their 
 rights. Thus they have expressed themselves, manifest- 
 ing that they cannot sign their names, which has been 
 done at their request by the Senor Francisco Buenfil 
 R. before the witnesses citizens Jose A. Vadillo and 
 Pedro P. Peraga, here present, of this town and adults, 
 before whom those who make the declaration manifest 
 that they have no wish to give services of any sort to 
 Sefior Peon nor in any farm which he possesses. — Given 
 on my faith — Merida, March 13th, 1905. 
 
 One may add that the Senores Cristobal Carrillo, 
 Transito Escamilla and his father, Juan Escamilla, are 
 members of the police who are employed specially to 
 hunt for ' refugees,' as they have taken to calling those 
 free citizens ' who refuse to go on suffering bad 
 treatment in certain haciendas which belong to those 
 who have high sway in politics.' I have not met this 
 Cristobal Carrillo or his comrades, but perhaps I do 
 them no injustice if — presuming from their occupation 
 — I assert that they are ignorant of human hearts : 
 ' No conocen el corazon humano.' 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY 
 OF MEXICAN HISTORY 
 
 It is regrettable that I should have to write this 
 chapter, not alone because it will be passing dull — a 
 pile of facts — but on account of what Carlyle has 
 said : ' Wilt thou know a man, above all a mankind, 
 by stringing together beadrolls of what thou namest 
 facts ? ' But they will merely be presented for the 
 purpose of evolving out of them an atmosphere. The 
 dusky potentate who squats immovable upon a throne 
 of ivory in Timbuctu does not, in our imagination, 
 differ from the King of Guinea — they are objects in a 
 deadly vacuum, whereas if they would live for us they 
 must have atmosphere. So far as I can recollect the 
 lamentable day when I was not more versed in Mexico 
 than most of you who read these lines, it was to me 
 a land of Aztec battlefields on which the modern 
 desperadoes skulked behind the cacti when they were 
 not killed by Diaz. Possibly I thought he was a grim 
 and necessary person, but my information went no 
 further. It was rather like the bald announcement 
 in the ' Morning Post ' that Lord and Lady So-and-so 
 have gone into the country, as compared with the 
 more detailed information of the Press in Mexico 
 which tells you that the same thing has been done by 
 Senor Don Fulano and his virtuous Senora. Thus we 
 
 199 
 
200 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 have a state of ignorance to be dispersed before the 
 Mexicans stand out for us as real men and women. 
 But the process of distilling atmosphere from facts is, 
 in the case of Mexico, peculiarly difficult. You look 
 upon this picture and on that — a lion lying down 
 beside a lamb, another lion who is not unnatural, 
 and what deductions will you make ? We are not 
 now concerned with other peoples who no doubt are 
 far from simple, but the Mexican, indeed, is com- 
 plicated. And it is upon the reader, I rejoice to say, 
 that the successful brewing of this atmosphere depends. 
 I merely shall provide the facts and try to ascertain 
 in what proportion are the lion's natural to his 
 unnatural proclivities. And from this medley of the 
 colours — much of some, of others little — you will paint 
 yourselves a picture. Even as the postal service out 
 in Mexico is to a large extent effective in proportion 
 to the care bestowed upon it by the public, so will you 
 in this case have responsibilities. An enterprising old 
 Dutch engineer was occupied in Mexico with some- 
 thing in the nature of a text-book and the data 
 were supplied to him in Spanish by the various 
 departments. The Director- General of the Post 
 Office provided him with many details, and 6 although,' 
 said he, ' the working of the postal service does 
 depend a great deal on the employes, yet if it is to 
 be conducted with efficiency and to the satisfaction of 
 the public, then there is a heavy burden on the 
 shoulders of the public. We have instituted, for 
 example, with some foreign countries the arrangement 
 of the postal order. Certain countries, on the other 
 hand — for instance, Spain and Portugal — have not 
 arrived at any such arrangement with ourselves ; 
 and it is urgently impressed upon the public that they 
 should be careful not to ask at any post office for 
 
THE STUDY OF MEXICAN HISTORY 201 
 
 orders payable in Spain or Portugal, as they might 
 inadvertently be issued.' 
 
 Mexico is full of contradictions : in Morelos on the 
 sugar haciendas we would swear that patience of a 
 most extraordinary, not to say excessive, character 
 is in the master's bosom — 30 cents a ton he pays for 
 cutting cane, and after they have cut two tons, which 
 is no heavy task, the men go home to idleness — and 
 worse than that. They are contented, for they 
 cherish no ambitions, and the local discontent which 
 made them join Madero's revolution was occasioned 
 chiefly by disputes regarding water-rights ; and when 
 the water is at their disposal, as I found in one 
 important district, they are apt to let it run to waste, 
 and to continue with the maize instead of starting 
 with the much more profitable sugar, which necessi- 
 tates a certain energy at the beginning. So the peasant 
 does not rise. In Yucatan he does not rise, but on 
 account of other reasons. The Morelian labourer — 
 if so he can be called — will go away if he is dis- 
 contented, but the Yucateco scarcely goes until his 
 poor, exploited body — no, when he is dead it can be 
 still exploited. There is not much hilly ground in 
 that Peninsula, but there is one small village half-way 
 up a hill ; it has a graveyard underneath it and 
 another one above. ' I shall be pleased to bury him,' 
 the priest has said a hundred times, ' wherever you 
 desire, and at no cost at all if it is in the cemetery down 
 below. But I must warn you that a person who is 
 buried there will probably go down to Hell, whereas 
 the happy ones, who are interred above — it is a 
 first-class cemetery, and we have to charge a fee 
 — will, I have got no doubt, become good citizens of 
 Heaven.' 
 
 Those who have not been good citizens on earth will 
 
202 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 also suffer from what seems to us the waywardness 
 of Mexico. Behind a double door, securely bolted, 
 in the famous Alhondiga de Granaditas, we discovered 
 an emaciated boy. He hung his head when we 
 inquired for what foul deed he had been so severely 
 punished, while the rest of Guanajuato's prisoners — 
 assassins and the perpetrators of whatever has been 
 recognised and of such things as have no recognition 
 in the Decalogue — were strolling round the sunlit 
 galleries, a little too much crowded to be absolutely 
 comfortable, but a prisoner is after all a prisoner. 
 4 What have you done ? ' we asked the miserable lad, 
 and while we waited for his answer we had too much 
 time to see the terrible condition of the walls and 
 floor, to feel that we had died a thousand deaths from 
 the most evil stench. At last he murmured, 1 I have 
 been accused, they have accused me of the crime of 
 theft.' But no, he had not stolen all the silver in the 
 State of Guanajuato. And, talking of thieves, there 
 was the Governor of Guanajuato, Senor Obregon 
 Gonzalez, who did a merry trade with his tienda de 
 raya, the shop from which his miners were compelled 
 to buy, although the less-expensive village shop is 
 near at hand. 
 
 Nor is the system of police less contradictory. The 
 men who have occasion to commit a murder in 
 Chiapas need not always fly across the frontier into 
 Guatemala. If they want to be completely safe they 
 do so — with the reigning President of Guatemala 
 in possession it would really be too great an irony if 
 steps were taken to molest an alien murderer. But 
 the policemen of Chiapas are, I found, extremely 
 tolerant. Not far from Tapachula, in the lovely 
 mountains, lies a coffee hacienda, and it is the only 
 one that is not German or American. I could not 
 
THE STUDY OF MEXICAN HISTORY 203 
 
 learn if the proprietor was to be found or not, as he 
 had lately killed his wife and taken the precaution also 
 to assassinate the book-keeper. He would have told 
 the judge that, as an outraged husband, he was fully 
 justified — but the authorities did not disturb him, 
 and perhaps he was in Guatemala and perhaps he was 
 at home with his deceased wife's sister, whose 
 equivocal position had induced him to destroy his 
 wife. And in Chiapas the police can be as energetic 
 as you please. 4 Not long ago,' I quote from ' El Pais ' 
 of 18th April, 1911, ' some unfortunate labourers in 
 the department of Chilon (where slavery exists with 
 all its horrors, with its cruel punishments and tributes 
 that are worse than death) attained their liberty and 
 fled, with thousands of precautions ; they were not in 
 debt, they wanted nothing more than to be free ; but 
 they were followed by the agent of the farm ; and three 
 of them, a woman and a new-born child were stretched 
 upon the ground ; their life was taken by the Mausers 
 of the amateur police. As this produced great 
 indignation in the hearts of honourable people, it was 
 necessary for the judge to make inquiries ; those 
 who had been culpable were lodged not in the prison, 
 but in the municipal building. Presently they were 
 declared innocent. What had happened ? . . . And 
 another Indian, a refugee, was dragged into the 
 agent's presence,' I am quoting still from ' El Pais,' 
 1 and this ferocious animal commanded that his legs 
 should be cut off, as warning to the others, and that 
 they should plant him in the ground ' — the upper 
 portion of his body being left to the ferocious sun. 
 He did not die for two whole days. ■ The municipal 
 agent of a village that was in the grip of smallpox 
 ordered that the victims should be driven out and 
 banished to the mountains if they could not pay the 
 
204 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 sum of 20 pesos for an adult and 10 pesos for a 
 child.' We read in Dr. Dillon's book on 6 Russian 
 Characteristics ' that some villages in which this 
 malady was rampant were consumed by fire, the 
 population being kept inside a ring of soldiers. Then 
 it was no question that a money payment would 
 exempt you, and at Monterrey, in northern Mexico, 
 the doctors, who not long since tried to save as many 
 of the people as they could, gave such a medicine to 
 their smallpox patients that they at the same time 
 gave an order to the undertaker's men, and I did not 
 hear that any of them ever compromised for money. 
 Poor Chiapas ! which in 1822 came of her own free will 
 into the Mexican Republic. It were almost better 
 that she had remained a province of disastrous 
 Guatemala. . . . We have said that Mexico is 
 contradictory, but with regard to the police there is 
 not much excessive kindliness to balance the excessive 
 zeal. And if I could unearth some facts relating to 
 this kindliness, how many should I want in order to 
 obliterate the cruel facts ? Villavicencio, Commissary 
 of Police, requires a number of indulgent colleagues 
 ere the scales of Mexican police administration can 
 be thought of as approximately level. He is one of 
 those who torture. Hipolito Olea, a barrister, de- 
 nounced him in the School of Jurisprudence for the 
 treatment that was given to one Astilleros, who had 
 murdered his old mistress, Marie Poucel, and would 
 not confess. The method used in this case was 
 unspeakable, and seeing that the Commissary had a 
 full supply of instruments in his police-court, one does 
 not suppose that Astilleros was the only criminal or 
 political suspect on whose person they were brought 
 to bear. With many, on the other hand, he has 
 employed the milder variation of suspending by the 
 
Villavicencio. 
 
THE STUDY OF MEXICAN HISTORY 205 
 
 thumbs. And he has certain cells made of cement in 
 which he feeds the prisoners on cecina, a dry, salt 
 meat ; he will not give them anything to drink. If 
 any girl should enter his police-court it is probable 
 that, as they say in Mexico, there will be still another 
 soldier for the President of the Republic. This Villa- 
 vicencio was one of the police who killed the wretched 
 and half-witted man Arroyo, after his abortive effort 
 to assassinate the President in 1897. Villavicencio, 
 Cabrera and Velasquez slew the man in prison, so 
 that it was natural for them to be rewarded : we 
 have spoken of the licence 1 which the former now 
 enjoys, Cabrera was promoted to be chief of the police 
 in Puebla. Both of them, for form's sake, were 
 condemned to death for having killed Arroyo ; and 
 there is no doubt that such a sentence and analogous 
 promotion would have fallen to Velasquez if he had 
 not wanted to confess the crime. He was prevented 
 by the judge, and later on the news was circulated 
 that he had committed suicide in prison. And the 
 newspaper 6 El Mundo ' printed an account of how 
 he died when he had still three days to live. This is 
 the same Velasquez who desired to marry Senorita 
 Ricoy, but was balked by her confessor, Padre 
 Tortolero, who did not approve of the police official 
 and advised the girl to have no more to do with 
 him. The Padre thereupon was seized and bound 
 at the police-court, where they went on pouring 
 alcohol into his throat until he died. . . . The Mexi- 
 can is naturally cruel and one therefore would suppose 
 
 1 One of the first acts of the de la Barra Government was to arrest 
 this man with two of his confederates. They were accused of having, 
 by the use of torture, got a false confession from some people in the 
 city of Chihuahua, where a bank had been despoiled. The torture 
 lay in putting guiltless people into coffins, with a menace that if they 
 did not confess they would remain there permanently. It is said a 
 former manager of this same bank is filled with the desire to travel. 
 
206 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 that he is something of a coward. But the purely 
 Indian population of the south is slothful even more 
 than it is cowardly. That overwhelming climate and 
 the centuries of hard oppression have induced a kind 
 of artificial sleep. You can do whatsoever operations 
 you desire and probably they will not waken. Let us 
 go no further than Chiapas : it is several years since 
 he of whom I speak was Governor, but he will not 
 be soon forgotten. He was always thinking that he 
 would (deservedly) be shot, and when one day a 
 miserable Indian soldier of a guard of honour started 
 fumbling with his gun and sent it off into the ceiling, 
 lo ! the Governor swore that it was an attempt to do 
 away with him. He therefore had this Indian 
 suspended from the ceiling and precisely in the fashion 
 we have indicated. Yet there was no rising of the 
 natives ; they cannot be aroused so easily from 
 their prolonged, unhealthy sleep. No doubt it then 
 became the duty of their more enlightened brethren 
 to protest, but in their eyes this very Governor had 
 merits, for he was much less addicted than his average 
 colleague to the game of graft. Suppose you wanted 
 a concession for a tramway or a sanitary work, then 
 you would not be favoured much if you could claim 
 to be his cousin ; he preferred that you should go to 
 him accompanied, if she was comely, by your daughter. 
 Just outside the chief town of Chiapas, 140 kilometres 
 from the station of Jalisco, is the house of the conces- 
 sions. 4 While the highways,' says Terry's guide-book, 
 ' are said to be safe, the prudent traveller will travel 
 in the company of someone.' As for Indians who 
 inhabit the less tropic regions, as for example the 
 Huitchols, we are told by Lumholtz that they have 
 no personal courage and they also seem to be devoid 
 of cruelty, for if a man is ailing for a longish period, 
 
THE STUDY OF MEXICAN HISTORY 207 
 
 that is from three weeks to four months, they will not 
 let his sufferings continue, but with his consent they 
 squeeze the life out. Jars of corn and beans are 
 scattered round the room, a fire is lighted and the 
 patient is deposited upon a mat ; then he is pressed 
 with hands and knees. But if we make a study of the 
 diverse Indians of this large Republic — Mayas, 
 Zapotecs, Tarascans and the rest of them, we certainly 
 shall find few vices and still fewer virtues that they 
 have in common. They are merely rather better than 
 the other Mexicans, but as they hitherto have played 
 so small a part in the affairs of the Republic we may 
 pass to those of Spanish and of mingled blood. They 
 will themselves acknowledge they are cruel to the 
 lower animals and human beings. As for cowardice : 
 an operatic company was travelling by train towards 
 Irapuato in October, 1910. Six military prisoners were 
 being carried in the same long, second-class saloon, 
 their arms securely fastened and the feet of some of 
 them tied also. As a guard, there was a youthful officer 
 with half a dozen men. The officer was pleased to 
 dally with the chorus-girls. And when a member of 
 the escort asked him for permission to supply tequila 
 to the prisoners he carelessly gave his consent, and 
 soon this local product of the maguey plant was being 
 poured from beer-bottles down six receptive throats. 
 It was not long before the prisoners forgot themselves 
 and started quarrelling ; indeed, so dire was the effect 
 of the tequila on a certain one that he broke through 
 the officer's preoccupation, for his words of ribaldry 
 began to make inaudible the words of love. 6 Carajo, 
 bind that fellow tightly ! Draw his cursed arms 
 together ! ' cried the youth, and as the soldiers 
 executed his command the victim screamed for very 
 pain. He begged that mercy should be shown him, 
 
208 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 but the chorus-girls did not believe that he was really 
 suffering ; at all events they laughed, and their 
 companion rose to put a stop to the discordant 
 screaming. First he had the luckless one securely 
 gagged, a process that one would have thought 
 entirely adequate, and afterwards he struck him in 
 the face until the blood rushed forth all over his 
 white garments. But before the train arrived at 
 Irapuato, the unsightly, helpless prisoner was taken 
 to the lavatory, washed, ungagged and put in clean 
 apparel. The young officer was not inclined to give 
 more punishment, for he ignored the fellow's exclama- 
 tions when he had been put again upon the seat among 
 the other prisoners : ' I am unfortunate, you are the 
 criminal ! Take off your epaulets ! I am unfortunate, 
 by God but you disgrace the army ! ' And the atti- 
 tude of all the other travellers, all those civilians who 
 looked calmly on throughout the dastardly proceeding, 
 was the attitude of cowards. . . . On the strength of 
 this abominable story, to put down the Mexicans as 
 over-prudent, does, I will acknowledge, savour of 
 injustice and caprice. Far stronger would be my 
 indictment if I were to take a census of the seven -and- 
 twenty States of Mexico in order to reveal that they 
 possess so many cowards. But I am not anxious to 
 indict this people and I am not even anxious to assure 
 you that my diagnosis is correct. The Englishman 
 who undertook a journey to Boulogne, espied a girl 
 with flaming hair and travelled back at once to tell 
 his countrymen that such was the delightful property 
 of all the girls of France, perhaps he could be routed 
 by statistics. Yet we give you our impressions, he 
 and I ; we saw the ruddy damsel and the cowards. 
 It is possible that if you really want to know how 
 Nature painted all the girls in France you will decide 
 
THE STUDY OF MEXICAN HISTORY 209 
 
 to put your faith in the statistics ; it is possible that 
 you will be misled. 
 
 In Cuba nowadays one hears a great deal of the 
 prevalent corruption. Let us not forget the past of 
 Cuba ; she, like Mexico, was educated by the noble 
 Spaniards, and the aim of this curriculum was to 
 produce such marvellous, transcendent beings that 
 one cannot wonder if it failed. The people of the 
 colonies were either left in their own native state of 
 ignorance and knowledge or — if they were members of 
 the ruling class — it was proposed to send them on 
 Icarian flights, and after they had shown conclusively 
 and often that they were the sons of earth and 
 earthly they were blamed for being so corrupt. This 
 mode of education did not vanish with the Spaniards. 
 For example, in the charming little library of Zaca- 
 tecas they have got some copies of the ' Registro 
 Oficial,' and one of them, whose date is 19th of 
 September, 1830, has the following announcement : 
 ' Jose Fernandez de Leon, citizen, professor by 
 examination in the praiseworthy art of first letters 
 and academician of the same, participates that he 
 has opened his establishment and pupilage at number 
 3 in Damas Street, and that he may accomplish all 
 his duties to the full he must confine his teaching to 
 the branches of orthology, caligraphy, arithmetic, the 
 Christian doctrine and orthography, urbanity, Cas- 
 tilian grammar — which deserve the first attention and 
 in which he teaches boys according to their age and 
 capability. Thus he is given credit, since the honour- 
 able people are sufficiently content with him for 
 having kept his burden and received so many children. 
 He has now the satisfaction of beholding numbers of 
 them in illustrious careers, an honour to the State. 
 He takes this opportunity to make it public that the 
 
210 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 help and kindness, cleanliness and food provided for 
 the children are the best, and for a moderate sum.' 
 As in the Spanish days and as in 1830 it is usual that 
 pedagogues propose ; but if they would confine 
 themselves to the arithmetic — so that their pupils 
 who embrace a public office will not be accused of 
 graft — then Mexicans would still be charging one 
 another with corruption. There is that old, ingrained 
 disposition to suspect their rulers, and political 
 experience was not enjoyed by many. We should 
 therefore, when we learn on unimpeachable authority 
 in Mexico that Mexicans are bad, believe that they 
 are not so bad as they are painted, and if haply there 
 does not seem an excuse which we can find for them, 
 we shall have less for those who came before and 
 made of politics a close monopoly. 
 
 The facts which have been stated in this article 
 would seem to disengage our love from that which is 
 the quality of being Mexican. It even may be that 
 you will prefer the Count who was si jeune et deja si 
 Moldo-Valache. And you may argue that the pupils 
 of the Senor de Leon, citizen, can scarcely have 
 achieved ' illustrious careers.' But we forget that 
 Sefior de Leon dwelt in a land of sunlight where a 
 person's foibles are not hidden and where any slight 
 disfigurement upon the face does not, as in some 
 other countries, hide the face that is behind it. 
 Aye, the Mexicans do not expect a man to be a flawless 
 creature. Let him have the spots of cowardice and 
 cruelty and fickleness and of corruption — he is not 
 disqualified from an illustrious career. Sometimes, 
 of course (but only when the man is dead or is a 
 matador), no single spot will be admitted ; no 
 derogatory word is to be ever used in speaking of 
 the early patriot Hidalgo, that enthusiastic priest 
 
THE STUDY OF MEXICAN HISTORY 211 
 
 who butchered many, or of Don Benito Juarez, who 
 is great enough to stand within the light of truth. 
 Approach a Mexican (not an Imperial relic) and 
 inform him that it is your wish to talk about the 
 slaying in the citadel of Mexico, the Ciudadela. After 
 you have made it clear to him that you refer to the 
 terrific act of Don Benito he will utterly deny that 
 such a thing took place, and when his rage has passed 
 away he will be grieving that they should have told 
 you such a quantity of lies. The savage slaughter in 
 the Ciudadela has, indeed, been treated to the 
 reticence of Mexican historians ; among the few that 
 speak of it is Don Ireneo Paz, the famous publicist, 
 who did not only write ' Algunas Campanas ' [fourth 
 edition, 1910], but participated in them as a soldier 
 and a writer — he composed, for instance, the whole 
 Plan of Tuxtepec at the request of his unliterary 
 friend, Porfirio Diaz. . . . We who pride ourselves 
 upon our fairness will be apt to be impatient with a 
 people that is always going to extremes. Nor is it 
 possible for us to get approximately at the truth by 
 not believing any figure till we have divided it by 
 ten ; our old idea was that the Latins of the New 
 World could not but exaggerate. In ' El Pais,' a 
 paper which was, like Iago, nothing if not critical, I 
 saw a notice of four men, rurales, who arrived at a 
 Chihuahua station last December in pursuit of rebels ; 
 they descended from the train, and on the platform 
 were assassinated by the foe. This article was called : 
 ' A disagreeable occurrence.' 
 
 They are contradictory, these Mexicans ! I came 
 out of the library at Zacatecas to revive myself with 
 oranges, because the reading of those musty journals 
 makes one see that there is something in the Mexicans 
 which we shall never understand. About their evil 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 THE REVOLUTION WHICH BEGAN IN 1910 
 The Evolution of Mexico 
 
 DRAMATIS PERSONS 
 
 Presidents of Mexico 
 
 Vice-Presidents of 
 Mexico 
 
 Prominent Ministers 
 
 Generals in the Field 
 
 Brigands 
 
 Porfirio Diaz (Old Regime) 
 
 Francisco L. de la Barra (Interregnum) 
 
 Francisco Madero (New Regime) 
 
 /Ramon Corral (Old Regime) 
 t Pino Suarez (New Regime) 
 
 I J. Y. Limantour (Old Regime), Finance 
 Vera Estanol (Dying days of Old Regime), 
 
 Public Instruction and Interior 
 Emilio Vazquez Gomez (Interregnum), In- 
 terior 
 
 Dr. Vazquez Gomez (Interregnum), Public 
 Instruction 
 
 Ernesto Madero (Interregnum and New 
 Regime), Finance 
 
 Navarro (Old Regime) 
 Luque (Old Re'gime) 
 Garcia Cuellar (Old Regime) 
 Victoriano Huerta (Every Regime) 
 Orozco (New Re'gime) 
 Ambrosio Figuera (New Regime) 
 Pancho Villa, ex-brigand (New Regime) 
 Viljoen, the Boer (New Regime) 
 Luis Moya (New Regime) 
 
 Mucio Martinez, Governor of Puebla (Old 
 Regime) 
 
 Reyes Spindola, Editor of e El Imparcial ' 
 
 (Old Regime) 
 Zapata, ex-groom of Son-in-law of Diaz 
 (New Regime) 
 
 213 
 
214 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 Chief of Police General Felix Diaz (Old Re'gime) 
 
 Orators /Bulnes and Batalla (Dying days of Old 
 
 \ Regime) 
 
 Exiles (voluntary and j General Bernardo Reyes (Old Re'gime) 
 otherwise) \ Many of the above 
 
 (Teodoro Dehesa, Governor of Veracruz 
 Friends of PorfirioJ (a very wise friend) 
 Diaz J G. de Landa y Escandon 
 
 v. Lord Cowdray 
 
 Underneath a shower of roses Don Porfirio Diaz 
 made a progress through the capital of his Republic 
 on the 16th of September, 1910, and they were 
 celebrating the heroic priest Hidalgo whose enthu- 
 siasm, as it were, had been the first stone of the new 
 Republic. On the 16th of September, 1910 — one 
 hundred years from Hidalgo's rising — Mexico was 
 far from being a complete Republic ; even Rome, 
 however, was not built within a hundred years, and 
 Rome did not waste any of her time in arguing that 
 she possessed no slaves. And whatsoever Mexico had 
 left undone, she had at any rate expelled the Spanish 
 Viceroy, she had executed Agustin de Iturbide her 
 dashing son, when he assumed Imperial dignities, and 
 she had executed Maximilian the stranger. All these 
 actions would have had the strong approval of 
 Hidalgo, since there could be no Republic while such 
 men were in the Palace. It would have been irony 
 to eulogise Hidalgo if his aspirations had been wholly 
 disregarded. But the dashing Iturbide and Maximilian 
 had been slain, and that was something. ' Viva la 
 Republica Mexicana ! ' Surely good Hidalgo would 
 have frowned on Iturbide when he locked the 
 opposition members out of Congress ; such a thing 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 215 
 
 could not be done by Diaz, for there was no opposition 
 party on the 16th of September, 1910. And if 
 Hidalgo had been in the streets on that excited day 
 he surely would have thrown some flowers (for the 
 President was driving past), and if a man asserts for 
 more than thirty years that he is the Constitutional 
 President, how can one contradict him ? I do not 
 think Hidalgo would have called him a Dictator ; 
 for Hidalgo was a simple old enthusiast. 
 
 4 Viva la Republica Mexicana ! Viva Don Porfirio 
 Diaz ! Viva el General Diaz ! ' and his carriage 
 slowly passes onward. At his side, of course, is Don 
 Ramon Corral, Vice-President, a younger man though 
 pretty old in vice. The President looks like a gallant 
 soldier coming back from a campaign : he waves his 
 arm continuously, gracefully — as if he would bestow 
 on every one of us a laurel leaf — and roses fall upon his 
 arm. Corral is looking at us with his eyes half-shut — 
 as if it were a microscope that he were looking through, 
 to study little creatures of repulsive morals. By the 
 carriage and behind it is the Presidential Staff on 
 horseback. They are beautifully clad, they are a 
 handsome corps — oh, one hopes that they will never 
 be defiled by cannon smoke. A lady on our balcony 
 has conceived a weakness, as have many people, for 
 the bonhomie of Colonel Samuel Garcia Cuellar. She 
 exclaims and he salutes her — in a month or two his 
 right hand will have been shot off by the insurgents. 
 
 ' Viva Don Porfirio ! ' The windows of his private 
 house were broken on the 11th of September ; it 
 was done by anti-re-electionists. But politicians 
 who express themselves in such a way ! . . . No 
 doubt they are disgruntled voters who have not 
 been able to elect Francisco I. Madero. They 
 should have the decency to hang their heads, for 
 
216 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 it is due to their untoward intervention that 
 the President has only got ninety-eight -hundredths 1 
 of the votes and by depriving him of the re- 
 mainder they have shown themselves unpatriotic. 
 And they want it to be thought that they are patriots ! 
 With flags of the Republic they have gone in a 
 procession to the monument of Cuauhtemoc, the 
 noble Aztec. Yes, a band of ordinary citizens who 
 happened to be marching down the road to lay some 
 flowers at the feet of Cuauhtemoc, which Hernan 
 Cortes burned, allowed these anti-re-electionists to 
 join them. One thing they had all in common : 
 detestation of Corral, because he was Corral and 
 because he was a member of the scientific party, the 
 cientificos, 2 a guild of clever men whose principle was 
 to exploit the country. They protested that they 
 
 1 ' There can be no doubt,' said 'The Times ' on October 27, 1911, 
 ' that, had Senor Madero been allowed a fair field in the Presidential 
 election of 1911, his success at the polls would have been as decisive 
 as the success of his subsequent appeal to arms.' But this is an ex- 
 aggeration, as — if we except the Northern States of Coahuila and 
 Chihuahua — those who would have voted at this moment for Madero 
 were the so-called intellectuals and their adherents. * It is estimated 
 by competent observers,' so 1 The Times ' continues, ' that 90 per cent 
 of the population of Mexico were at the time of the Centennial celebra- 
 tions last year utterly hostile to the administration then in power.' 
 But the prestige of Don Porfirio would have prevailed ; it wanted 
 something more than noble words for Don Francisco to inflame the 
 populace. 
 
 2 * He governs,' says Senor F. Garcia Calderon, ' with the aid of 
 the "scientific" party— a group which believes in the virtue and 
 power of science, exiles theology and metaphysics, denies mystery 
 and confesses utilitarianism as its practice and positivism as its 
 doctrine.' Of course, 4 cientificos ' was a nickname which the party 
 did not apply to itself. The above description of them by the young 
 Peruvian writer is taken from his admirable book, ' Latin America : 
 its Rise and Progress,' of which an English translation has recently 
 appeared. At the other end of the scale is a ridiculous book by an 
 American, Mr. Nevin O. Winter, who claims to be complete and 
 accurate. His book is published in 1913, and he is so certain that 
 Porfirio Diaz is the President that he repeats the official story of his 
 life, which has been told before. Mr. Winter says that it has not 
 been his aim ' to advance radical views.' 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 217 
 
 were not politicians, and it is quite true they only 
 interfered in politics when their own interests could 
 be promoted. For a dozen years, as Don Porfirio 
 grew older, they had gradually grown more powerful, 
 and now they were surrounding him as with a tightly 
 woven palisade of gold. He had not suffered any 
 party to concern itself with politics, a subject that 
 was his and only his ; but he was unsuspicious of the 
 cientificos : lawyers, deputies and business-men and 
 bankers — friends of his. The chief of them was 
 Limantour, who was no politician but his faithful 
 man, a man sent down from heaven to arrange the 
 Mexican finances. All these cientificos were estimable 
 people, friends of his. They had founded a newspaper, 
 ' El Impartial,' which was to support his Government. 
 One day it called him ' the divine.' . . . And so, 
 as Don Porfirio grew older, the cientificos waxed 
 powerful. Their private fortunes flourished most 
 amazingly ; they helped each other, and while they 
 were always swearing fealty to Don Porfirio they saw 
 to it that all the Governors who were appointed 
 should be cientificos. These servants of the party 
 were, of course, good Porfiristas — everybody who was 
 anybody had to be a Porfirista — but they were also 
 cientificos. And in September, 1910, there were only 
 three Governors, I believe, out of the twenty-seven, 
 who were unadulterated Porfiristas, relics of another 
 day. As for Corral, when he became Minister of the 
 Interior and Vice-President, he was not yet a cientifico, 
 but the party put in Miguel Macedo as his Under- 
 Secretary and he was won over. This Macedo and his 
 brother Pablo, wisely sent by Limantour to London 
 to be Financial Agent, 1 are two little valetudinarians 
 who are said to have inherited their brains and their 
 
 1 This appointment has been cancelled. 
 
218 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 Jesuitical qualities from a Portuguese ghetto. They 
 are fascinating men. . . . But all the citizens who 
 marched along with flowers for Cuauhtemoc abhorred 
 the cientificos and felt that Corral was a burden on 
 their necks ; those anti-re-electionists went further 
 in the business and opposed the President because he 
 had not freed the nation from Corral. And now, on 
 the 11th of September, the President was going to 
 unveil a Pasteur monument. These enemies of order, 
 said their enemies, must instantly be scattered to 
 the winds or to Belem. So General Felix Diaz, 1 
 the chief of the police, rode with his followers 
 into their midst; unluckily the horses trampled 
 on the flags of the Republic and on those which 
 had Hidalgo's portrait — which produced among the 
 citizens a feeling of exasperation. Some of them 
 were bold enough to make for the police, and with 
 chrysanthemums, their only weapons, to lash out 
 upon them. Who knows what these desperadoes 
 would have done to Don Porfirio ? The citizens were 
 just as wicked as the anti-re-electionists. Let all of 
 them be haled to Belem. . . . Ah ! if some had not 
 escaped and run into the centre of the town, with an 
 unheard-of cry : ' Viva Madero ! ' Lounging at the 
 entrance of the Jockey Club a gentleman, well versed, 
 presumably, in other animals than horses, said that 
 this was madness which would have been interesting 
 to Pasteur. 4 Viva Madero ! Viva Madero ! ' The 
 gentleman curled his lip. ' He is a madman,' he 
 observed, 4 that Pancho Madero.' 
 
 1 He is either the nephew or the illegitimate son of Don Porfirio. 
 As a chief of police he was efficient, and he claims to be able to fill a 
 loftier post. He is said to resemble Don Porfirio in his perseverance ; 
 whether he possesses any of the other attributes of his successful 
 relative we cannot say. When he and Huerta slew Madero he was 
 grim enough, but has he anything of Don Porfirio's grim humour and 
 his organising power ? 
 
General Mucio Martinez. 
 
 See £.226 
 
 General Felix Diaz. 
 
 See i>. 218 
 
 Vice-President Ramon Corral. 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 219 
 
 4 Yes,' replied another lounger, 4 he has written a 
 book.' 
 
 Headlong ran the citizens, the anti-re-electionists. 
 
 But on the 16th of September there was not a sign 
 of them. As Don Porfirio in triumph drove along 
 the streets he made you think about the driver of 
 the horses of the sun. How many of us noted 
 Corral, grimly sitting at his side ? The day was 
 glorious and few of the spectators but were blinded. 
 In the ten or twelve cablegrams which every member 
 of an embassy could send without payment — the first 
 experience of cabling for a number of them — it is 
 probable that Don Porfirio did not find anything 
 worth being censored. Mexico was lavish and the 
 diplomats were given what they wanted, save 
 a moment for reflection. They made speeches on the 
 grandeur of the country. Don Porfirio, they said and 
 thought, is of all Presidents the most secure, since he 
 is almost worshipped by the citizens. Those dread- 
 fully important diplomats were so much occupied in 
 finding adjectives to deck their speeches that they 
 could not find the time to visit Calle Bucareli, where 
 the Governor of the District was detaining those 
 whom he did not consider ornamental. If they had 
 been ambassadors he would have bought them 
 clothes, for when the delegates of the Republic of 
 Honduras made it known that they possessed no 
 evening clothes the Foreign Office told them of a 
 tailor, whom they patronised and whose account the 
 Foreign Office duly settled. They were gratified, 
 these delegates, and forthwith ordered a supply of 
 shirts and socks, for which again they sent the bill 
 to the mistaken Foreign Office — I, if I had been a 
 taxpayer, would have objected to this covering of 
 Honduranean nakedness while fellow- citizens of mine 
 
220 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 were put aside because they were so ragged. And the 
 diplomats were so much taken up with looking at 
 their portraits in the Governmental papers — hardly 
 one of them had ever been considered such a prophet 
 in his own country — that they could not read the 
 discontented Press. If they inquired about Francisco 
 I. Madero they were told that he was an idealist, a 
 visionary who was rich, a grandson of Don Evaristo 
 Madero, the multi-millionaire. ' Besides, you know 
 he never wrote that book of his.' 
 
 ' In fact,' said a diplomatist who knew one of the 
 three Porfirista Governors, namely, Don Teodoro 
 Dehesa of Veracruz, ' in fact he followed the example 
 of Corral, who copied from a dictionary — you remem- 
 ber, doubtless.' 
 
 ' Well, Madero is not foolish. He is good at 
 business, but he never wrote the book himself.' 
 
 So much one learned about the man who had come 
 into prominence by making speeches up and down 
 the country with the kind consent of Don Porfirio, 
 and who was locked up in a prison on the 16th of 
 September. Once his propaganda had been thought 
 to be so harmless. He was merely echoing the 
 Constitution when he advocated an effective suffrage 
 — oh ! a very splendid thing — and when he was 
 opposed to re-election of the President was he not 
 merely echoing the words of Don Porfirio ? * No 
 matter what my friends and supporters say,' quoth 
 Don Porfirio at the end of 1907, ' I retire when my 
 present term of office ends, and I shall not serve again.' 
 But the President imagined that his voice and that 
 of Don Francisco were both crying in the wilderness. 
 He looked with some indulgence on the younger man, 
 who coming back from France and luxury had settled 
 to drink water like his peasants and to eat their food ; 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 221 
 
 the President had never been unfaithful to the simple 
 diet of his ancestors. But notwithstanding Don 
 Porfirio' s attitude, the Governors and the police 
 were far less gracious and they put as many obstacles 
 as they could think of in Madero's path. They told 
 the President that everywhere the pilgrim was 
 arousing popular enthusiasm. 4 It is for the grand 
 old Constitution,' said the President. 
 
 4 But he wants to introduce purity into our 
 politics ! ' 
 
 ' We have all been young — — ' 
 
 And several of the Governors sighed, particularly 
 he of Aguascalientes, who was at the time of life when 
 certain people love to spend their days in organising 
 questionable fetes ; he of green Tabasco, Abraham 
 Bandala, who had come to be so aged that he had no 
 time to give his prisoners a trial ere he shot them ; 
 he of beautiful Michoacan — a territory almost virgin 
 still — who was too old to do anything but stroke his 
 beard. 
 
 4 We have all been young,' said Don Porfirio, 4 and 
 I have not forgotten the reforms that I desired so 
 fervidly.' 
 
 4 But would it not be safer — — ? ' 
 
 4 1 have thought of that,' said Don Porfirio, 4 but 
 I don't want to permit an accident if I can help it. 
 He belongs to a powerful family. And just because of 
 that I tell you it is better he should beat the drum and 
 not an upstart lawyer. Don't you think that I am 
 right ? ' 
 
 But afterwards Don Pancho agitated more severely, 
 stood for Presidential honours — failing any other 
 candidate — and thus he was imprisoned, first at 
 Monterrey, where the Madero influence is strong 
 and where his proclamations, written in confinement, 
 
222 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 showed that he was author of his book. Then they 
 transferred him to San Luis Potosi. ' I am quite 
 disappointed in the man,' said Don Porfirio. 4 Who 
 knows ? I might have put him in as Governor of the 
 State of Coahuila, if he had behaved himself ; we 
 really must have young men here and there. In 
 Sinaloa I selected, on account of this, Diego Redo, and 
 although the voters were absurd and had to be 
 imprisoned. In Jalisco I have also settled on a clever 
 youth, because I liked his father. If the people say 
 his cleverness will, like Diego's, be employed for his 
 own benefit at their expense, I answer them that even 
 those who are the youngest of us may have learned 
 too much.' 
 
 And thus October came. Such diplomats as had 
 survived the hospitalities went back, and I presume 
 that those who ultimately paid the bill, poor Mexicans, 
 were swept away from each side of the railway track. 
 As for the Government it was contented, thinking 
 that the country had been advertised. Now Mexico 
 would be admitted to the brotherhood of cultured 
 peoples. She had opened a new powder factory and 
 had enlarged the prison. 1 Now the fame of Don 
 Porfirio would be established. He would never be 
 regarded like Cabrera, President of Guatemala, who 
 persists in clinging to his office despite the sixty-six 
 ingenious and dull attempts which people made upon 
 
 1 Not to be unjust I should say that in this month a University- 
 was founded and the first stone of a charming legislative palace laid, 
 and the supply of drinking-water made more copious. As for the 
 ephemeral delights, such as a ball in the Palace with 30,000 electric 
 stars in the ceiling and among the roses of the specially constructed 
 room — no other would have held an orchestra of 150 ; a fairyland 
 entertainment on the rock of Chapultepec, a mimic battle on a lake with 
 all the fireworks from Paris, a banquet in a cavern by the Pyramids of 
 the Sun and Moon— and so forth and so forth — in a bewildering multi- 
 tude, they must have taken months of work, and, verily, each one 
 appeared to be the work of artists. 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 223 
 
 his life before he shut himself up permanently in the 
 Palace, and has now to face no peril but electric 
 currents that have so far failed to satisfy the engineers 
 who put them on the telephone and in his bath. 
 No ; Don Porfirio was President by the desire of nearly 
 all the Mexicans. ' I have so many friends in the 
 Republic,' he said to Mr. Creelman, ' that my enemies 
 seem unwilling to identify themselves with so small 
 a minority.' And indeed there was no party but 
 Madero's which opposed his re-election. Both the 
 Democratic and the Reyist parties were against Corral, 
 these latter having the calamitous desire to make 
 Bernardo Reyes the Vice-President. He is said to 
 have been loved when he was Governor of Nuevo Leon 
 — in his first term of office he was not unpopular. If 
 you desired to win a suit you had to have his son-in- 
 law for counsel, but it must be remembered that we 
 are talking of Mexico. In his second term, after Diaz 
 had dismissed him ignominiously from the War Office, 
 he was cursed by passing peasants in the streets of 
 Monterrey. He had come back like a beaten hound. 
 He was said to be popular among the troops ; how 
 many of them knew that when he was commanding 
 at San Luis he assassinated a couple of drunken 
 soldiers who were lying on the floor of the barracks ? 
 He looked in as he was going home from the casino 
 and he shot them. If he had become the President 
 of Mexico he would with difficulty have been 
 hindered from embroiling the Republic with her 
 northern neighbour, not merely because he dis- 
 liked Americans — when Mr. Elihu Root, Secre- 
 tary of State, went down to Mexico he was 
 the only Governor en route who would not go to 
 meet him at the station — but his popularity, like his 
 appearance, was of the cowboy order ; his impulsive- 
 
224 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 ness was only held in check by fear of Diaz. It was 
 rumoured that no peso of his money need have any 
 shame about its origin, but that alone is not an 
 adequate equipment for a high official. When he was 
 commanded to transfer his energies to Europe he 
 informed the Reyist party that he was a soldier and 
 must go. He went by night. A demonstration had 
 been planned, but the electric current once again was 
 on the side of the authorities, and so the town was 
 plunged in darkness and the sudden exit of Bernardo 
 Reyes was not noticed. Diaz would not let this kind 
 of man become Vice-President and occupy a portion 
 of the limelight. And Madero's party, I am glad to 
 say, had resolutely set itself against the lofty aspira- 
 tions of this General. 
 
 One might suppose the word mahana is not in 
 the Mexican vocabulary, since Madero's rise became 
 so rapid. When he got away from San Luis and 
 crossed the frontier at Laredo in disguise, the Govern- 
 ment was laughing at him. He had made himself 
 ridiculous. He would be simply adding one more to 
 the band of Mexicans who dwelt perforce in the 
 United States, whence he would undermine the 
 Government as much as any of the other discontents ; 
 as much, for instance, as the brothers Flores Magon 
 by their eloquent socialist tirades had undermined 
 it from Los Angeles. . . . But the Madero movement 
 was preparing for a long time in the dark. One may 
 compare it with those gases that assemble slowly and 
 then bring about an earthquake. 
 
 Yet it so befell that certain of the shocks were 
 premature. When everything was highly charged a 
 Mexican had the misfortune to be burned alive in 
 Texas, and this mode of death was urged by his own 
 countrymen — the crime was heinous. Then the mob 
 
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 5.5 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 225 
 
 of Mexico's capital seized on the opportunity for an 
 anti-American riot ; they destroyed some windows 
 and pulled down a little flag that was suspended from 
 a toy-shop. But the whole affair was mild, especially 
 in view of the hostility felt always for Americans. 
 That people has itself to blame : the dignity of the 
 United States is not so much resented as the impu- 
 dence of individuals ; the great Republic does not 
 usually send the better class of its inhabitants to 
 Mexico, and very striking is the contrast when a 
 courteous Indian peasant stops to pass the time of 
 day with you. 'Tis said that the Americans are busy 
 people, but in Mexico they don't subsist, like those 
 islanders, by taking in each other's laundry ; they 
 are far more often taking in each other. 1 And this 
 does not earn them the respect of the natives. There 
 was a similar riot in Guadalajara, where the Americans 
 made painful exhibition of their nerves : they filled 
 their houses both with food and guns, nor would 
 emerge into the pleasant streets ; and there was only 
 one life lost, that of a local boy whom an American 
 shot accidentally. The riot in this town of gardens 
 was produced directly by the lynching, as Rodriguez 
 the sinner was a child of this fair city. But in Mexico, 
 the capital, there was among the rioters more 
 than a single motive. It was animosity against the 
 Government which broke the windows of ' El Im- 
 parcial.' 
 
 And thus in several towns of the Republic those 
 Maderists who should not have come as yet into the 
 open were impelled to do so by the sound of turmoil 
 
 1 And so there is a story that in such and such a year when the 
 uproarious festivities of Thanksgiving were at their height in the 
 American Club of Mexico City, one of the young members rose to 
 make the great suggestion that all present should announce their real 
 names, for fun. 
 
 Q 
 
226 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 that was in the air. A large supply of arms and 
 ammunition was discovered at Pachuca, while at 
 Puebla an adherent of Madero fired for six hours on 
 the soldiers and police. Aquiles Cerdan, grandson 
 on the maternal side of a former Governor of Puebla, 
 will go down to history as a misguided but a valiant 
 man. He was assisted only by a friend or two and by 
 his family, the ladies shooting at the soldiers and 
 haranguing the spectators with the greatest zeal. 
 His little son was loading for him all the day, regard- 
 less of the fact that he exposed himself. And on the 
 roofs and the adjacent church were several hundred 
 of the foe. But Mucio Martinez, the disastrous 
 Governor of Puebla, stayed all day inside the barracks, 
 making military dispositions, so we are told. The 
 fight was furious, and when Cabrera the policeman 
 tried to force an entrance Cerdan' s sister shot him 
 through the heart. 1 She had been picking off the 
 soldiers with remarkable success, and Miguel Cabrera 
 was a lucky man to meet his death in such a way 
 instead of in one of the mediseval methods which he 
 had revived for his profession. Cerdan had no wish 
 to kill for killing's sake — a colonel who burst in upon 
 them was bound up with ropes and locked into the 
 bathroom. Ultimately soldiers stormed the house, but 
 Cerdan was not found until some hours later, in the 
 middle of the night, when he disclosed himself ; he 
 had been hiding underneath the floor. A soldier hap- 
 pened to be in the room and Cerdan gave himself up 
 to him, a prisoner. But he was doomed : the military 
 man put up his gun and shot him dead. The corpse 
 was taken to the barracks ; presently in the blue 
 
 1 This lady, with a view to doctoring a weakness of the heart, 
 accompanied Madero and his family when, in September, 1911, they 
 set sail for Yucatan. 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 227 
 
 garments of a labourer it was displayed outside the 
 barracks' door, to serve as an example. He had 
 fought against a despotism, like Hidalgo. 
 
 We are now in the second half of November. The 
 authorities are called upon to stifle certain bands that 
 have appeared in old Tlaxcala, in the State of Hidalgo 
 and in the neighbourhood of Rio Blanco, Orizaba, 
 where the French cotton-mill proprietors are not in 
 fear of any Truck Act and where consequently it is very 
 simple to persuade the men to be Maderists. But the 
 factory, since that affair of 1908, has always got 
 sufficient soldiers on the premises, and there it seems 
 that Don Porfirio is executing — that is just the word 
 — those drastic notions of the traveller who said that 
 Mexico would be a fine place if it were not for the 
 Mexicans. . . . These premature uprisings are de- 
 feated ; many luckless fellows go to prison and the 
 Government congratulate themselves that all has 
 ended well. ' The plans of Madero have utterly 
 failed,' says the 'Mexican Herald,' a subsidised 
 newspaper written in American. ' The Government 
 of to-day is strong, rich and efficient, besides having 
 the support of the immense majority of the country's 
 inhabitants and the moral weight of an enlightened 
 public opinion in its favour.' The ' Mexican Herald ' 
 is a sheet which rubs one the wrong way ; forty years 
 ago the country inns had always got a pile of news- 
 papers against the coming of a coach whose pas- 
 sengers the brigands had entirely stripped. The 
 ' Herald ' was not in existence then, no more was I, 
 but what a destiny it would have been to find oneself 
 enveloped in a paper such as that ! ' As for Senor 
 Madero,' it says on 19th of November, 1910, ' if his 
 share in this affair is as represented, he will lose what 
 little credit remained to him in the judgment of all 
 
228 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 right-minded persons.' Unluckily for the Govern- 
 ment and its insincere acolytes, Madero had a good 
 deal of credit at the banks. And this egregious 
 4 Herald ' also says that : ' We do not, however, 
 attach undue importance to this aberration, to this 
 so-called Maderist conspiracy. ... Is Madero in his 
 right mind ? ' I believe the ' Herald ' did discover 
 that he had a liberal mind and would allow them to 
 continue to endanger their immortal souls if so it 
 pleased them. But, on the other hand, if they 
 resolved to say what they believed, they certainly 
 had got no ground for hoping that he would reward 
 them with a subsidy. The Government was in 
 November as mistaken as the ' Herald,' but it erred 
 through folly and the fools have got a certain right 
 to be forgiven. Among those people who are 
 taken up in Mexico, to gaol, are a number of poor 
 peasants and a number of more educated men, such as 
 an engineer 1 who had been nominated by Madero 
 as provisional Governor of Tlaxcala. This gentleman, 
 Manuel Urquidi, employed his time in learning 
 German and translating from that tongue a book on 
 electricity. The man who has misgoverned poor 
 Tlaxcala for some four-and-twenty years is not too 
 brilliant in Spanish. The educated captives are 
 retained for months without a trial, in accordance 
 with the customs that have hitherto prevailed in 
 Mexico ; the helpless peasants when they are found 
 innocent are told that they may go. Suppose they 
 come from Orizaba and do not possess the rail- 
 way fare — well, they will not get home quite so 
 quickly. 
 
 1 When the Revolution triumphed he became an Under-Secretary 
 of State. 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 229 
 
 About this time the northern States of Coahuila 
 and immense Chihuahua showed that they would 
 want some pacifying. But the Government was not 
 uneasy. It would drive the Coahuila rebels into the 
 inhospitable mountains that contain 4 40 species of 
 mammals, 16 reptiles, 5 batrachians, 4 fishes and 
 almost numberless insects.' ' In Chihuahua, Senores,' 
 said General Diaz to a deputation from his native 
 State, ' it is a thing of no importance. If they ever 
 reach five thousand I shall take the field myself, 
 despite my years.' When they passed that number, 
 reaching far beyond it, they were over all the country, 
 and perhaps he thought that it was better if he stayed 
 at home and moved the little flags about upon the 
 map which he had on the billiard table. To this 
 deputation from Oaxaca he said also that the whole 
 revolt was with the object of depressing Mexican 
 securities. If this were true it would be needful for 
 us to revise our sentiments regarding the idealism of 
 Madero. That the stocks were kept comparatively 
 motionless was due to the activity of Mexican financial 
 agents in the Old World — buying, buying, buying. 
 I do not believe that Cerdan or Madero had this kind of 
 impulse. Certainly it seems peculiar that any man 
 should for six hours be facing certain death in order 
 that the Mexican securities should fall. Perhaps the 
 President believed what he was saying and the simple- 
 minded populace is always ready to ascribe to the 
 financiers that which otherwise is dark, inscrutable. 
 Of course, it is the work of those nefarious financiers ! 
 And at this time Senor Limantour in Paris was 
 attempting to convert the other half of the Mexican 
 debt. He found, however, that financiers were not 
 buying, buying. I am told that he denied in the 
 ' Figaro ' that there was any truth in certain cables 
 
230 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 then appearing in ' The Times.' 1 But the financiers 
 would not buy. 
 
 Meanwhile there was much activity among the 
 rebels of Chihuahua, and they were not disconcerted 
 when the Government denounced them as so many 
 bandits. It is true that there and elsewhere they 
 would liberate the prisoners, but these were often 
 held in custody for a political offence or the suspicion 
 that they were acquainted with the family of a 
 political offender. Pascual Orozco, junior, who now 
 appeared as military chief of the insurgents of 
 Chihuahua, was resolved to punish without mercy 
 those who should give way to brigandage. This 
 Pascual Orozco used to convoy silver from the mines 
 into the city of Chihuahua, being very much re- 
 spected. 2 His adherents were not in the field exclusively 
 to fight for Don Francisco's plans concerning suffrage 
 and no re-election. They had been so thoroughly 
 exasperated by the local Government, the jefes 
 politicos, who were not more arbitrary in Chihuahua 
 than in other parts, but the inhabitants of those wild 
 
 1 But when you are in Paris and discourse about a distant country you 
 have not the means or inclination and the leisure always to be accurate. 
 'The Press in Mexico,' said Limantour, 'is never censored.' I could 
 laugh at such a thought ! At six o'clock each evening a gentleman 
 came from Chapultepec to ' El Pais.' He did not say, ' Thou shalt not 
 print this telegram, ' but as a friend who had peculiar access to the 
 truth, he deprecated the appearance of an un veracious message. On 
 the true ones he was wont to put his imprint, ■ O.K.,' in blue ink. 
 
 2 He returned to this career when the new Government, which he 
 so greatly helped to bring about, was well established. As he reached 
 Chihuahua city in the flush of triumph nothing less could satisfy his 
 worshippers than to demand for him the Governorship. He took, 
 however, the command of the State rural forces at a salary of 8 pesos 
 a day ; it was he who listened to the multitude who had complaints 
 to bring, and thus his popularity increased still further. He remained 
 to quell disturbances which the elections might produce, then he 
 withdrew to private life. . . . And then he took the field again, 
 Madero being President. Perhaps Orozco simply was dissatisfied 
 because of the delay in settling the agrarian question, and perhaps he 
 could withstand his worshippers no longer. 
 
Pascual Orozco. 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 231 
 
 regions are not so long-suffering as many of their 
 brothers. Also in Chihuahua was the question of 
 gigantic haciendas, which, besides the direct damage 
 that they do to the small farmers, have an evil 
 reputation in the matter of tax assessment, while 
 they are apt to leave great stretches of the country 
 undeveloped : Limantour came back from France 
 with land legislation on his programme. . . . Well, 
 Orozco showed himself a competent guerilla chieftain. 
 There was sent against him General Navarro, who is 
 not adapted to this kind of warfare. He is elephan- 
 tine, moving with enormous care, and with an over- 
 whelming army. He did not wish to experience the fate 
 of one of his commanders in the gorge Malpaso. Thus 
 he travelled carefully and saw no rebels. Towns and 
 villages along the Mexican North- Western Railway 
 and as far west as the borders of Sonora were con- 
 tinually being taken. 6 In a little time,' the Govern- 
 ment declared, ' we shall surround them. Have no 
 fear.' But those who knew how formidable was the 
 nature of the country said that it would be as well 
 to come to terms by changing some of the detested 
 jefes. Those who knew how bitter was the feeling 
 and how wide a sympathy was felt for the insurgents, 
 thought that Don Ramon Corral, whose health was 
 shattered by his mode of life, should not become 
 Vice-President. If only Don Porfirio had recognised 
 his grand mistake of having forced the people to 
 accept this man ! He knew the feeling, for about the 
 20th of June, 1910, he had had a conference with 
 Dr. Vazquez Gomez on this subject, and he said, 
 ' I am convinced that if I go away and Corral serves 
 as President for two months there will be a revolu- 
 tion.' But though he did consult the famous doctor 
 for his deafness, he was deaf to his political advice. 
 
232 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 And Vazquez Gomez, afterwards elected to the Vice- 
 Presidency of the Anti-Re-electionist Club, informed 
 him that his own continuance in office could perhaps 
 be tolerated, but that Corral's resignation was essen- 
 tial. Diaz thought that he would live through this 
 term and the next, wherefore it did not matter 
 in the least who was Vice-President. He had the 
 comfortable feeling that he would attend the 
 funeral of Corral [he did so, but in Paris] — in the 
 meantime let him be Vice-President, because he did 
 what he was told. If people hinted that it was 
 unpatriotic to have such uncertainty attached to the 
 succession, he replied that he knew best. . . . Many 
 Governors and others have since then been incapaci- 
 tated by an illness so persistent that it has obliged 
 them to retire to Paris 1 or at least to Mexico City. 
 And Corral was in a dreadful state. (The specialists 
 whom he frequented afterwards, in Paris and in 
 Berlin, could not help him.) But Don Porfirio 
 did not propose to let himself be dominated by the 
 followers of mad Madero. He himself was not 
 distressed at all, but like a war-horse in the meadows 
 he was young again. For several years he had not 
 felt like this. And on the first day of December he 
 and Corral took the oath : he with a hoarse, loud, 
 jovial voice, Corral as one who scarcely knows what 
 he is saying. Don Ramon himself had begged the 
 President to let him go back into private life, to 
 supervise his vast possessions in Sonora ; but the 
 President was obdurate and Corral took the fatal oath. 
 If only Don Porfirio had listened ! And if he also had 
 resigned he would have put a crown on his career. 
 
 j, 1 This wealthy colony is called * Colonia de la Bolsa.' One of the 
 parts of Mexico City, the haunt of pickpockets and others, is known 
 by this name. (Bolsa = purse.) 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 233 
 
 But when he tentatively bruited this, at once the 
 flatterers, the courtiers, the 4 Society of Friends of 
 General Diaz ' rushed round to Chapultepec and 
 begged him as a patriot to reconsider — and I do not 
 say that they were under the necessity of bringing 
 forward many arguments. For one thing he would 
 not have heard them, as he sobbed so loudly. 1 
 
 So the beginning of December found things rather 
 doubtful in Chihuahua, though that misnamed organ 
 6 El Imparcial ' said every day that Pascual Orozco's 
 forces had in the last four-and-twenty hours been 
 decimated and disheartened. 2 Things were likewise 
 dubious in many regions of the country and in the 
 capital. These oaths should have been taken in the 
 newly built chamber, which was furnished down to 
 the spittoons. It is a place from which the public 
 cannot be excluded. We were told that it was 
 incomplete and that the ceremony would take place 
 inside the School of Mines, a venerable and exclusive 
 
 1 The fount of tears in Don Porfirio was never dried. On these 
 occasions when he let himself be nominated once again he used to 
 weep, and when he paid his annual official homage at the tomb of 
 Juarez, though he is reported to have subsidised a book which 
 ineffectually tried to drag the great man from his pedestal. ' Oh, my 
 great teacher ! ' Don Porfirio would cry, * oh, my great teacher ! ' 
 And in the proclamation which he issued once at Huajuapan, he in- 
 vited Mexicans to choose between himself and Juarez — ' Juarez 
 who has dreamed he is a prince, Juarez the coward with his insensate 
 despotism, Juarez with his mob of vile Cubans and of cringing para- 
 sites.' He urged the Mexicans to choose between this Juaraz 'who 
 by Machiavellian wiles has managed to implant a poison in your 
 hearts ' and Diaz who is ' your sincere friend, your brother. Let 
 them choose between a disloyal, tyrannical and parricidal government ' 
 and Diaz. Then he used to weep beside the tomb, but ' the tears of 
 penitents,' says Saint Bernard, 'are the wine of angels.' 
 
 2 If only we could feel as much confidence in this official chronicler 
 as in old Bernal Diaz, the conquistador, who, for example, when he 
 writes about the battle of Otumba, says that certainly on this occa- 
 sion it was owing to the presence of St. James astride his milk- 
 white courser that the victory was with the Spaniards. ' I myself,' 
 he says, ' did not behold him, and this was, no doubt, because of my 
 innumerable sins.' 
 
234 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 structure that is sinking into the uncertain ground. 
 The President came by a route that was changed at 
 the last moment, and though Mexicans are undemon- 
 strative on these occasions it was strange that we, the 
 foreigners, should be the only ones to greet the old 
 man on his way. ... It would be wearisome to give 
 the marches and the countermarches of Chihuahua, 
 when this town or village was acquired by the 
 insurgents, how they burned the archives — and their 
 past, as by the tyrant jefes it had been recorded ; 
 how the cumbersome Navarro made his progress 
 through the district and how some of his subordinates 
 achieved distinction. How the villagers did all that 
 in them lay to help Orozco, firing on the Federals from 
 roofs and hill-tops, not providing them with any food. 
 How small were the demands of the sombre-clad 
 troops ! Such food as the soldaderas, their resourceful 
 female comrades, could collect, and such medical 
 attendance as the soldaderas could bestow, and they 
 were satisfied. I met a doctor in Chihuahua City 
 who had offered to betake himself to any part where 
 Federals were operating ; this was not accepted, as 
 they had one doctor with the troops. 1 There is a 
 Mexican Red Cross Society, but as it waited until 
 April, 1911, before it said that under certain circum- 
 stances it would take the field — we shall postpone 
 discussing it. How faint was the enthusiasm for this 
 war, among the Federals ! ' They are our compadres,' 
 
 1 Before we are indignant with Navarro let us have the fairness 
 to examine how the native invalid was being treated in the towns. At 
 Cuernavaca, which is something of a show-place, a resort of pleasure, 
 there was at this time and for long afterwards one hospital in which 
 4 the beds have strong iron frames, but plain boards take the place of 
 a mattress. There are no sheets, no clothing for the sick or wounded, 
 and when a patient is carried to the hospital . . . the clothing in 
 which they arrive is never changed, and the only protecting cover is a 
 blanket . . . and, despite it all, some are known to have recovered. 
 The only precaution ever credited to the place seems to be con- 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 235 
 
 so they said ; and yet in spite of everything these 
 men of Don Pornrio, gaol-birds mostly and political 
 prisoners, did not en masse go over to the rebels. It 
 is true they went in small detachments, jumping from 
 the trains if there was not an officer with a revolver 
 at the door ; and four of them in uniform came to the 
 hacienda of an Englishman, requesting some employ- 
 ment. As the war prolonged itself, this kind of thing 
 became more common : soldiers could be seen at 
 Ciudad Juarez actually pulling off their stripes as 
 they descended from the train ; nor could the officers 
 be totally impassive to the glamour of the Liberating 
 Army, as Madero with good reason styled his forces. 
 General Luque 1 suffered most severely ; he promoted 
 a young Yucatecan officer called Pino not alone for 
 his deserts, but owing to the vacant places. One day, 
 near to Juarez, eighty federals were sent to give their 
 horses water ; sixty of these men evaporated. But 
 the Government, who took precautions not to let 
 these incidents be known, believed that this was 
 natural if Mexican met Mexican. That there was any 
 widespread sympathy for this Madero they did not 
 believe. He had proclaimed himself 4 Provisional 
 President,' and been inaugurated on his property in 
 
 nected with a man suffering from what is believed to be leprosy. He 
 has a room apart from the others and is kept under heavy guard. In 
 the general ward patients with open wounds were bunched with those 
 suffering from infectious diseases. Two convalescent patients, one 
 suffering from black smallpox and the other from erysipelas, took 
 their meals from the same dish. The only desire of the patients who 
 have any interest in life is to escape. At night it is necessary to 
 place heavy locks on the doors, and in the daytime a guard is neces- 
 sary to keep a watch on those who are able to crawl or walk. ' 
 
 1 Luque is the man who, several months before, when Yucatan had 
 some domestic troubles, urged his soldiers to possess themselves of 
 Valladolid by promising rewards that are not usually given nowadays. 
 He let them sack the town, a Mexican town ! But some of the 
 victims were not Mexicans ; some of them were Turkish women whose 
 ear-rings were pulled roughly out, and a Turkish girl of twelve who 
 was so treated that she died on the following day. 
 
236 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 Coahuila at the same hour as Porfirio Diaz spoke the 
 formula in Mexico City. Oh ! he was a mountebank. 
 But it would be as well to stop his wretched escapade 
 — the eyes of all the world seemed to be veering round 
 to Mexico. And Diaz thought about 1 The Tiger of 
 Santa Julia,' one Negrete, who had slain his seventeen 
 men and was himself now to be shot. The good 
 old days, the good old days in which the Government 
 would have employed this fearless, indefatigable 
 personage in Coahuila, with the promise of free pardon 
 if he did the job. Aye, Diaz thought about the Tiger 
 very wistfully. This was what they had to pay for 
 being so much civilised. He sent commissioners into 
 Chihuahua with an offer, but the rebels who remained 
 in arms would have the punishment of death. These 
 overtures were not accepted, and the rebels went 
 about their business doggedly. They were not paid, 
 but care was taken of their families. And when they 
 rode into a village for provisions they would either 
 pay for them or give a note that would be honoured 
 when the cause had triumphed. Many foreigners, in 
 mining camps and so forth, who exchanged supplies 
 for notes were rather under the impression that 
 they had been robbed. And other foreigners were 
 disinclined to put their money on the rebels. 
 ' This affair will be forgotten in a month,' Lord 
 Cowdray said to me when I returned from 
 Chihuahua before Christmas ; and during one 
 and a half hours he tried — in such English as he 
 commands, which at all events is superior to his 
 Spanish — he tried to induce me to send a certain 
 cablegram to ' The Times.' ' You can write or cable 
 that you stake your reputation on it.' I demurred, 
 but he was positive. And as he had known Mexico 
 for many years and many parts of Mexico, I suggested 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 237 
 
 that it would be well to give his name and say that he 
 would stake his reputation that within a month, etc. 
 He hesitated, on account of modesty. But afterwards 
 he said that he was willing. 1 4 Ask him,' writes 
 Mr. T. P. O'Connor, who admires in him the 
 man of action, 'ask him why President Diaz 
 outlived his power in Mexico, and he will 
 say a few words.' And, alas ! on 7th of May, 
 1911, Don Porfirio said in a proclamation that 
 4 it is impossible to foresee when the disturbances 
 will end.' Perhaps Lord Cowdray thought the 
 rebels' strength had been exaggerated ; anyhow, the 
 Government was strong enough to spare him 250 of 
 their most competent warriors — the rural police. 
 At a distance of 25 feet from each other they had to 
 prevent the irritated Indians from approaching too 
 near to an oil-polluted river and igniting it as a 
 revenge for having their supply of water ruined. 
 ' The President is intensely loved and admired,' said 
 Lord Cowdray, 4 throughout the length and breadth 
 of the country.' And if Don Porfirio had followed 
 good advice he would have known that there are 
 times when you should not press down your system 
 so profoundly on the people. You may go so far that 
 of a sudden with resistless violence they hurl them- 
 selves into the air, destroying your machinery ; 
 and as they fall upon your fields and rivers change 
 them utterly. 
 
 With the new year no assistance came to Don 
 Porfirio from the inferior officials, those who are in 
 
 1 I have not singled out his firm to make remarks upon ; it 
 simply forced itself, beyond all others, on my notice. When Lord 
 Cowdray, for example, aired himself as to Madero, and was urging me 
 to send that optimistic cable to ' The Times,' I had not asked for his 
 opinion ; and now, looking back with wisdom that comes after the 
 event, he must be glad that I did not dispatch the cable. 
 
238 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 closest contact with the people everywhere. c The 
 smaller saints,' says a Bulgarian proverb, ' will be the 
 ruin of God.' Yet if wisdom travels slowly to the 
 Governors of Mexico (except Don Teodoro Dehesa) 
 it cannot be expected to go very hot-foot to the jefe 
 'politico of an outlying district. For so many years 
 the country has enjoyed a sort of peace, and Don 
 Porfirio has said that anyone who breaks it shall be 
 drowned in his own blood. The jefes, therefore, made 
 no effort to conciliate the Revolution ; on the contrary, 
 they were fomenting it, as they saw nothing but 
 Maderists and Maderists, whom, of course, they had 
 to crush. Their private enemies assumed the shape 
 of damnable Maderists, but if you did anything at all 
 or nothing it was always at the heavy risk of being 
 branded. In the State of Puebla, for example, dwelt 
 an idle jefe who made over his administration to a 
 lady friend. She mulcted people, put them into 
 prison, just as if she were the jefe. One day, after 
 having listened to a husband's story, she commanded 
 that the lover of his wandering wife should be 
 imprisoned. She did not inquire the name, but when 
 this gentleman was in the lock-up he sent word to her 
 that he was grieved, and then she knew that she had 
 dealt with a dear friend. ' Yes, yes,' he said when 
 he was talking to her after his release, ' but now the 
 husband is at large and it is inconvenient.' So forth- 
 with she gave orders that the husband should be taken 
 to the cell from which the lover had been rescued. 
 ' God above me ! What have J done ? Why should 
 J be here ? ' exclaimed the husband. And the lady 
 answered, 6 You are a Maderist.' . . . Revolution- 
 aries were thus manufactured in all parts of the Re- 
 public, only two small States, Colima and Queretaro, 
 both very backward States, not coming into line. 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 239 
 
 With the suspension of the guarantees a little later, 
 those who fell into official clutches were disposed of 
 very swiftly. And where one was slain a dozen rose. 
 It then began to exercise the Government as to the 
 money of their foe. This could not emanate entirely 
 from the pocket of Madero. What proportion came 
 from the United States ? A good deal, certainly. 
 Madero said that he would write a book to demonstrate 
 that nothing was received from the Americans. But 
 among the very large number of Mexicans who lived 
 in the United States — owing to their President and 
 owing to the desperate condition of the labourer — 
 much sympathy was felt with the insurgents. Of all 
 the twenty-seven Republics in America there is but 
 one from which the people emigrate. A labourer in 
 Mexico is the most patient of all animals ; yet he 
 will turn. Between his master and the law's caprice 
 he is not to be envied. Possibly he finds that the 
 United States are paved with other things than gold ; 
 however, he will have enough to send a contribution 
 even if it be not more per week than what his village 
 schoolmaster could earn in Mexico, about 4s. 6d. 
 It may be thought that this is not a princely wage for 
 pedagogues, but in the State of Zacatecas it would be 
 appreciated, for the Governor sent out a document 
 not long ago which stated that there were no funds 
 available for such a purpose and advising all the 
 schoolmasters to seek another occupation. Zacatecas 
 is supposed to be a wealthy mining state. When 
 Luis Moya, the insurgent chief, began to take it and 
 Durango under his control, he forced the banks to 
 pay him what was standing to the credit of the tax- 
 collectors, while he paid a schoolmistress, and I 
 presume the schoolmasters, whose salary had not 
 been given them. 
 
240 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 This digression shows that the official Mexico was 
 somewhat barbarous and that if the Revolutionaries, 
 save those who were with Madero and Orozco, were 
 such bandits as the Government declared, it would 
 have been to the general benefit if the supply of them 
 could have been multiplied. . . . The contributions 
 of expatriated Mexicans were not the only ones that 
 came from the United States, for it was by this route 
 that opulent and more enlightened landowners of 
 Mexico contributed. Although no money was received 
 from the Americans, Madero could not close his ranks 
 to volunteers, who were impelled by love of freedom. 
 In America, that is to say among the population of 
 the street and plain, the government of Don Porfirio 
 was anything but popular : they had perceived that 
 it was a burlesque Republic, while the presence of 
 political offenders and the publication of a certain 
 set of articles were influencing many. Whether the 
 young volunteers were animated by a love of freedom 
 or adventure, or even booty, one could not expect 
 Madero in each case to ascertain by an examination. 
 If he had rejected them they would have joined an 
 independent band, such as the one which worked in 
 Lower California. The aim of these opponents of the 
 baited Government was to establish there a socialistic 
 State, and while at the beginning of the year Chihua- 
 hua and Oaxaca and Tabasco gave the Government 
 enough anxiety, this Calif ornian problem was unique. 
 So they availed themselves of 4 El Imparcial,' which 
 called the wrath of God and man upon the daring 
 rascals. I do not think that I pay undue attention to 
 this paper, since there would have been no revolution 
 if the sinister activities of Reyes Spindola, 1 its editor, 
 
 1 So that he should not be interfered with all the paper which the 
 Press of Mexico required was only to be had from an expensive factory. 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 241 
 
 had been discouraged. But the cientificos had put 
 him there, had put him more or less at Don Porfirio's 
 service, and had given him carte blanche to try to ruin 
 everybody else's reputation. Until he was obliged to 
 run away from Mexico he wielded a pernicious 
 influence. But on the Lower Calif ornian business he 
 was almost funny, saying this attempt to found a 
 socialistic State could not be adequately censured ; it 
 was horrible, it was immoral. But the movement 
 came to nothing. . . . We have alluded to Americans 
 who at this time were fighting for Madero. General 
 Diaz remonstrated through the Embassy in Washing- 
 ton, requesting also that a keener watch be kept upon 
 the frontier, since the rebels were importing arms and 
 ammunition and supplies. The frontier is of an 
 enormous length, and the Americans, not aided over- 
 much by colleagues opposite, did what they could. 
 But Don Porfirio should have remembered that it was 
 the help of the Americans, against Sebastian Lerdo de 
 Tejada, whereby he was elevated to the Presidential 
 chair. And when with Juarez he was fighting Maxi- 
 milian, 6 we saw and touched projectiles of war of 
 American manufacture, marked U.S.A.,' says A. F. 
 Casoni, who was a captain in the Imperial army at 
 the capitulation of 20th June, 1867, and afterwards 
 wrote ' Le Drame Mexicain.' Madero had some other 
 foreigners among his troops — of course, a Garibaldi, 
 grandson of Giuseppe ; some Australians, they say ; 
 
 Their charge was 18£ cents per kilo, which was more than double the 
 price in England, and the duty hindered importation. As the cost of 
 producing a book was thus made most exorbitant I fancied that 
 if Don Porfirio had heard of this he would have put an instant stop to 
 a monopoly which was antagonistic to the Progress that has ever found 
 in him its chief support (vide Edicts). What was my surprise to see 
 that Porfirito, his son, is a director of this paper factory and he 
 himself a stockholder. And as such one can onlv congratulate him, 
 since it pays 8 to 10 per cent on over seven million pesos of capital. 
 
 R 
 
242 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 and Viljoen the wily Boer, one of the members of 
 a Boer colony which had been set up in Chihuahua 
 and, whatever be the causes, had not nourished like 
 the similar endeavours of the Mormon. 
 
 For a time we have not spoken of Navarro. It was 
 better, for he has been occupied in bayoneting 
 wounded insurrectos. Even in this lurid book I 
 cannot reproduce the photograph I saw when in 
 Chihuahua. But it left no doubt, because the bayonet 
 could not have entered so unless the victim had been 
 lying down. And then Navarro left all else and 
 marched due north to save Ciudad Juarez, which 
 Orozco was besieging. All the bridges on the railway 
 line between Chihuahua and Juarez were destroyed, 
 and as Navarro went with infinite precautions it was 
 thought that he would not relieve the place. Orozco 
 found himself unable, having poor artillery, to seize 
 this celebrated little town, and he retired. Our old 
 friend General Luque could not be dislodged from 
 Ojinaga, which is a small town in Chihuahua's 
 wilderness. He had no opportunities to bayonet the 
 wounded, since he could not venture from the town, 
 his forces adding up to ninety-eight. There had 
 arrived with him the remnant of a full battalion 
 of 600 ; such as could escape had joined the rebels. 
 Luque knew that they would not dislodge him, for 
 he made the women and the children walk about the 
 plaza and the streets and so there could be no bom- 
 bardment. 
 
 In February it was clear to Don Porfirio that some- 
 thing must be done ; so General Mucio Martinez, 1 
 
 1 The inhabitants of Puebla City flew to put their shutters up and 
 flew to arms one February afternoon because a shot was fired by a 
 policeman at a mad dog. Mucio Martinez had incensed the people 
 so profoundly that an outbreak was expected every moment. In his 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 243 
 
 Governor and scourge of Puebla during twenty years, 
 got ill. He struggled hard against it, taking train on 
 two occasions for the capital, where he consulted with 
 the President most anxiously, because he had not 
 yet done all that he could do in Puebla. But the 
 President informed him that he had done quite enough, 
 and that he should resign himself to sickness. Other 
 functionaries would be failing soon ; a veritable 
 plague was looming over them. Whereat Don Mucio 
 cursed roundly. 
 
 4 Mucotito ! ' quoth the President, 6 if you knew all 
 that I know ' 
 
 4 Shoot the devils ! ' 
 
 6 It has gone too far. In fact we may be shot 
 ourselves. The soldiers ' 
 
 1 Oh, you talk as if the Federals were like the dirty 
 troops of Puebla State. It isn't over all the army 
 that you have to keep a guard of Zacapoaztla Indians. 
 By the way, we have them now in Puebla at the 
 barracks and the prison and in other places ; and I 
 must confess I like to see those fellows with their 
 scarlet blankets.' 
 
 6 What ! Perhaps you do not know that we have 
 
 amorous affairs he was a grisly satyr, using Pita the jefe politico as 
 his confederate. He was the real owner of the twelve or fourteen 
 gaming-houses which the law prohibited entirely and in which a 
 country farmer would be drugged and robbed. He ruined countless 
 people through his machinations with the Pulque Trust and always, 
 always he preserved the favour of the President — it is said for an 
 annual consideration of between 30,000 and 50,000 pesos (after the 
 seducing of the German Consul's daughters). Finally, it was 
 apparent that he could no longer be sustained. In ' El Pais ' a couple 
 of instructive articles were printed : ' El Canto del Cisne ' — the Swan 
 Song. Let us merely note that to provide the funds for paying 
 interest on the enormously increasing debt, it was not pulque which 
 was made to pay, but water ! Could a sacrilegious hand be laid on 
 pulque or on meat or any other article whereof Don Mucio and his 
 friends had the monopoly? But now I understand that nearly all 
 the fine possessions of Don Mucio, for which he could not show a 
 title, have been passing into other hands. 
 
244 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 had our troubles with the officers ; yes ! the officers 
 of the regular army.' 
 
 4 Shoot them ! Have them tried at night and shot 
 at daybreak. But I surely needn't tell you this ? ' 
 
 The Presidential face remained immovable, save 
 that his eyelids slowly fell. ' And they are usually 
 very young,' he said. ' Who knows ? Who knows ? ' 
 
 ' Man ! you should have more faith in your old 
 comrades.' 
 
 ' Young ... so young.' The blue eyes of the 
 President were full of tears, as when he wept at his 
 defeat upon the plain of Icamole. ' But it was of 
 you, my friend, that we were talking. Go back now 
 to Puebla and have your secretary to compose the 
 proclamation.' 
 
 4 Carajo ! but I am not ill.' 
 
 ' Then someone of your family is ill and you must 
 go with her to Germany or France.' 
 
 ' And I can't appoint an acting Governor ? Don't 
 you think that in a few months ? ' 
 
 The General stamped his foot impatiently, and in 
 the proclamation Mucio announced that he must go to 
 Europe. What he did was to deprive himself of his 
 moustache and, thus disguised, continue in the town 
 of Puebla, which is called the City of the Angels. 
 
 This was the beginning of the end. The President 
 recognised that he was now on the defensive. 
 And the rebels naturally were encouraged. Colonel 
 Ahumada, who had ruled Jalisco with intelligence, 
 became the Governor of Chihuahua. But the gleams 
 of sunlight for the Federals were very fitful, almost 
 like the visits of the President to gay Guadalajara, 
 the capital of Mexico's chief state, Jalisco, whither he 
 has been but once in all the years that have elapsed 
 since he had General Corona murdered. Now the 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 245 
 
 Federals had given up as hopeless the repairing of the 
 railroad from Chihuahua City to Juarez and the rebels 
 notified that elsewhere any train with soldiers would 
 be fired on. This was not an idle threat, and after- 
 wards, long afterwards, the Government had the 
 brutality to send their soldiers by the common trains 
 and sometimes with a load of dynamite. What can 
 you do with such a Government but blow it up ? 
 
 On 6th March at Washington the War Department 
 (as in June, 1908, September, 1908, and July, 1909) 
 issued mobilising orders ; on the 16th it was said that 
 20,000 were in camp at San Antonio, Texas. I was 
 told by competent authorities at San Antonio that it 
 was rather more than half this number 1 — let it pass. 
 The Mexicans do much the same ; for now the stand- 
 ing army has been found to be much smaller than on 
 paper — one of the most extraordinary features of the 
 fall of Diaz was that on his arrival in Spain he said he 
 had been under the impression that his army consisted 
 of 28,000 men, whereas it was precisely half as numer- 
 ous — while it is a fact that General Torres, 2 fighting 
 Yaquis in Sonora, telegraphed down to the capital 
 for such and such supplies. They could not well be 
 sent from Mexico — not alone because communications 
 were so bad — and therefore money was dispatched, 
 so that the soldiers should be properly equipped, and 
 Torres with that money could have given them two 
 
 1 The particularly well informed correspondent of the ' Morning 
 Post ' in Washington, Mr. Maurice Low, said in the issue of May 5th 
 that the American army was in no better condition to undertake a 
 serious campaign than she was at the beginning of the Spanish war. 
 He added that even to secure the 11,000 men at San Antonio the 
 authorities had found it necessary to include more than 1000 raw 
 recruits. 
 
 2 When the Revolution was triumphant, this notorious ex-Governor 
 fled into the United States and issued the announcement that he did 
 not purpose to return to Mexico, ' because,' he said, 4 1 have no friend 
 there.' 
 
246 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 kits apiece. . . . Now were these troops at San 
 Antonio to intervene ? Mr. Wilson, the American 
 Ambassador in Mexico, was rather apprehensive, but 
 his Government knew well that even if they should 
 assist some of their countrymen they would endanger 
 many others, and the mob of Mexico would not draw 
 fine distinctions between ' los Yanquis,' as they call them, 
 and the English and the Germans and the French. Also, 
 there is a strong feeling in America that Mexicans them- 
 selves should settle their disputes and that Americans 
 who live there cannot claim a treatment better than 
 is given to the natives. Both the Federals and Insur- 
 rectos had displayed consideration for the foreigner, 
 and he, for his part, if he had a stake in Mexico was 
 usually on the side of Diaz. He remembered the 
 concessions which he had received, the bribing was 
 so common that it was accepted like the sunlight, and 
 forgotten. They had grown accustomed to the 
 system, and Madero certainly had paralysed all 
 business. Don Porfirio requested that the troops 
 should be withdrawn and he was answered that they 
 had come down to execute 4 maneuvers.' It was 
 well to choose a district every year which had not 
 previously been utilised ; and if they were more 
 numerous this time than they had ever been, was 
 that not natural in the United States ? The general 
 opinion there was hostile to an expedition, which 
 they also knew would be no promenade. Why had 
 the troops been sent ? Did General Diaz ask for 
 them ? He had a precedent, since Sefior Izabal, 1 
 when Governor of Sonora, quelled an outbreak at the 
 mining camp of Cananea with the help of military 
 
 1 But Sefior Izabal was too eccentric, possibly, for us to use him as 
 an illustration. He was photographed at Hermosillo with eleven 
 Yaqui heads behind him in a semicircle, stuck on rifles. 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 247 
 
 from the States. If General Diaz, feeling insecure, 
 did not invite them, were they really aimed against 
 the Japanese ? A story runs that Don Porfirio has 
 been perfidious, has made a treaty with Japan and 
 that the document was photographed by somebody 
 from Washington. This is not probable : Japan has 
 naught to gain by such a treaty. If she gets her 
 vessels into Magdalena Bay 1 before the enemy, then 
 Mexico can utter protests, but that is all that she 
 can do by way of making her neutrality respected. 
 There is another party, though, which may have 
 brought about the sending of the troops, for have the 
 cientificos not numerous and influential business 
 friends in the United States ? And could this not 
 be an ingenious attempt to stop the war by thus 
 exploiting the insurgents' patriotism ? 
 
 Madero's army was not yet in a position to attack 
 important towns ; they rode about Chihuahua, taking 
 little places and becoming every day more skilful. 
 Had they had the arms of their opponents they would 
 not have been so long about this Revolution. But the 
 time was near when they were to receive a good 
 supply of Mausers, often with a man attached. And 
 every day the Government was losing in prestige. 
 Not only that, but foreign money would not enter 
 the Republic. And commercial life became more 
 
 1 After San Francisco, this is the best harbour on the whole Pacific 
 coast of both Americas. The six years' lease by the United States 
 came to an end in 1910 and has not been renewed. In the event of 
 war between Japan and the United States its value to either side 
 would be inestimable. Mexico herself, if she were not reminded by 
 these two great Powers of the bay's existence, would have occupied 
 herself with it no more than she has done with all the rest of Lower 
 California. ' The jefe politico of Ensenada, L.C — said the ' Mexican 
 Herald' of December 16, 1911 — 'has advised the Department of 
 Gobernacion that for lack of a print shop the publication of the official 
 paper has been stopped since last March, but they hope to resume 
 later.' 
 
248 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 stagnant. As to manufactures, nothing seemed to 
 flourish save the powder factory which had been 
 opened in September and whose products were 
 considered bad, although the Army Secretary, General 
 Gonzalez Cosio, told the army more than once that 
 they were good. 1 The other implements of war 
 cannot be made at home ; and uniforms are wanted 
 rarely, as the soldiers strip their dead companions 
 and are subsequently stripped themselves of their 
 excessive garments. . . . Then it was that Senor 
 Limantour came over the Atlantic. On arriving at 
 New York he said that all the troops in Texas had 
 been sent there for some exercises, but he did not 
 understand the movements of the Yankee warships 
 that were cruising off the coast of Mexico. How can 
 these ships, he said, co-operate with the troops in the 
 general manoeuvres at so great a distance from the 
 natural base ? It was not clear to him ; and then he 
 made a fine courageous speech, wherein he said that 
 if there should be intervention all Mexico would be 
 united to hurl back the foe. This caused him to be 
 popular in Mexico. His journey, mile by mile, was 
 
 1 On the 23rd of June, when the war was over, it transpired that 
 General Mondragon, chief of artillery and furnisher of some of the 
 supplies, was inaccessible. The Mexicans are not averse from spread- 
 ing rumours, and the deadly ones on foot regarding Mondragon were 
 numerous as were the bullets of the Civil War — on every one of which, 
 so it was said, he made a profit of a cent. Besides, they were, so 
 it was said, of such bad quality that more than anything they caused 
 Navarro to hand over Ciudad Juarez to the rebels. Also the artillery, 
 which Mondragon himself perfected, is alleged to have been rather 
 futile and the bills of the contractors very swollen. It was always 
 isuch a goodly sight, the handsome fellow with his waving, black 
 moustache, his endless decorations and the strut which seemed to go 
 so well with his heroic name. Would it be possible for any Mexican 
 again to revel in the sight ? Or, in the lines of Lewis Carroll on the 
 father being photographed, shall we in this uncertain world assure 
 the Mexican of one thing which is certain, namely, that he would 
 contemplate the distance with a look of pensive meaning ? . . . On 
 the formation of Huerta's Cabinet in February, 1913, General Manuel 
 Mondragon was made the Minister of War. 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 249 
 
 telegraphed down to the capital, and when he got 
 there he was splendidly received and for about — about 
 a week he was quite popular. They spoke of him as if 
 he was the one man who could patch things up, 
 although he has said always that he is a mere financier 
 and no politician. But he was a shrewd observer, 
 said the people — and with reason. Had he not laid 
 down a programme of reforms, such as the sub- 
 dividing of the large estates ? 1 Had he not said that 
 there was much improvement possible among the 
 
 1 The problems in connection with the land in Mexico, the size and 
 the legality of many holdings, call aloud for an inquiry. But one 
 ventures to suppose that many Mexicans were quite prepared to let 
 Madero have his chance — the task was hard enough— and many of the 
 working-class of Mexico would, I believe, regret that Mr. Honore J. 
 Jaxon, of Chicago, visited this country and on their behalf addressed 
 the 44th Annual Congress of the Trades Unions of Great Britain. This 
 enthusiastic French-Canadian — he took a part in Riel's revolution and 
 is still an amiable firebrand— spoke with much severity about Madero 
 to the Congress, and informed them that it was impossible to stop 
 the firm determination of the working-class of Mexico to ' abolish 
 private ownership of land and of the instruments of production and 
 exchange.' I was not present at the reading of this manifesto, which 
 concludes : ' Fraternally and sincerely, The Working Class of 
 Mexico — by Honors J. Jaxon, Special Envoy to Europe on behalf of 
 the Insurrectos of Mexico.' But when I had an opportunity in 
 London, at the end of January, 1912, of meeting Mr. Jaxon I did not 
 so much deplore the sentiments of this great document ; how could 
 one shed cold water on this kind of thing? — ' As an immediate sequence 
 to the success of this their heroic struggle for land and liberty the 
 workers of the entire world are freely invited to participate as indi- 
 viduals in the material benefits of this expected victory. But I was 
 grieved that Mr. Jaxon, whose sincerity I do not doubt, should have 
 apparently been drawn into this matter by the brothers Flores Magon, 
 the implacable foes of the Mexican President. Their journal, printed 
 at Los Angeles, he calls in his address ' our newspaper ' — and I believe 
 that if the Special Envoy had found time to go to Mexico it would 
 have been a course to recommend. He talks of the 'enlightened 
 attitude of these workers who in every quarter of Mexico are refusing 
 to give up their weapons and are reoccupying and cultivating their 
 lands without regard to the parchment titles held by the financial 
 ring. The latter gentlemen are now busily engaged in bargaining 
 for the invasive support of their inequitable claims by the Govern- 
 ments of Germany and France and other foreign powers. In fact> 
 it is stated that nearly half a billion of money is already pledged 
 for this purpose.' One is astonished that he can refrain from being 
 in the midst of such tremendous business. 
 
250 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 jefes ? Yes, in Paris he had spoken like a lion, in 
 New York as if he were a lion's whelp, in Texas — 
 nearer to Porfirio — he spoke as if he were a man, 
 while in the capital of Mexico he spoke as Ministers 
 are wont to do. The President made much of him, 
 and with his help did an unprecedented act — re- 
 organised the Cabinet. Except for Limantour him- 
 self and General Gonzalez Cosio, who had had his 
 teeth drawn years ago, none of the Old Guard were 
 retained. A telegram was sent to Reyes bidding him 
 return, but he had lost his glamour. With regard to 
 the new Ministers, one must recall that they are 
 merely secretaries of the President, appointed and to 
 be dismissed by him. They are in no way under 
 Parliamentary control. Moreover, in the present 
 case they none of them had taken part in politics and 
 their opinions were unknown, save those of Senor de 
 la Barra. As Ambassador in Washington he had not 
 raised his voice ; he merely made himself the tube 
 by which the Government of Mexico discoursed to 
 that of the United States. He celebrated conferences 
 there with Dr. Vazquez Gomez, and returning to his 
 native country brought the reputation of a careful, 
 cultivated, unoriginal official. The other Ministers 
 were worthy men : for instance, he of Public Instruc- 
 tion, Jorge Vera Estanol, had worked himself from 
 indigence and absolute obscurity to the position of a 
 leading lawyer. He was educated by the State, and 
 in return for this he never ceased from teaching 
 at the School of Jurisprudence, though, of course, 
 he could have spent those hours more lucratively. 
 One portfolio, which had been held by Don Ramon 
 Corral, was vacant, and Dehesa travelled up to Mexico. 
 For twenty years this philosophic statesman had been 
 ruling Veracruz. He made a good part of his fortune in 
 
Between Veracruz and the Capital. 
 
 See p. 250 
 
 Dr. Vazquez Gomez. 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 251 
 
 the custom-house, but honestly, since it was he who 
 had the perquisite of taking a proportion of the value 
 of the goods improperly declared, and it was long before 
 the merchants could get used to making candid declara- 
 tions. Then Dehesa, who reminds one (in appearance) 
 of a mediaeval cardinal, invested profitably both in 
 houses and Murillos. He was much admired, and 
 when he took the road to Mexico the country said that 
 they would have an excellent new Minister of Gober- 
 nacion, which has no exact equivalent with us : he is 
 the link between the State Governors and the Federal 
 Government, he has authority over the Federal 
 District and the various territories ; perhaps one 
 might call the post a glorified Ministry of the Interior. 
 Dehesa was a strong man — he received the Yucatecan 
 exiles and rewarded them with good official posts ; 
 he is a meditative man who can be roused to passion if 
 you speak to him about the cientificos. His animosity 
 against their chief, Don Jose Limantour, has been 
 notorious ; he thinks, moreover, that he could make 
 just as shrewd a Minister of Finance. Well, maybe 
 it was Limantour who sent him back to govern Vera- 
 cruz, for Limantour could threaten that he would 
 resign, and he possessed the confidence of Europe. 
 But Dehesa may have seen that this new Cabinet 
 would not live long, and Don Porfirio most probably 
 obtained from him the perspicacious notion to win 
 over Dr. Vazquez Gomez with this bait. And so the 
 Ministry of Gobernacion stayed unoccupied. How- 
 ever, it was not for one portfolio that the insurgents 
 had been fighting. And at last the admirable Indian, 
 Vera Estanol, took this post also. 
 
 On the 1st April Congress reassembled, and the 
 President, amid the deepest expectation, read his 
 message. He was all in favour of the principle of non- 
 
252 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 re-election as well as of the other requirements, so 
 far as they were known, of the rebels. He rebuked 
 them, of course, for having taken arms against a 
 President [he had risen against two], but he appeared 
 to be inclined to give them 60 cents for every 50 they 
 demanded. By this time the popularity of Limantour 
 had waned from its abnormal height. They look at 
 him askance in Mexico because of two things : on the 
 one hand, he is punctual, accurate and energetic ; 
 on the other hand, to put the matter with a due 
 regard to the conventions, he has not grown any 
 poorer on account of his official post. All eyes were 
 turned on Don Porfirio. Would it be peace or war ? 
 
 The next few days saw the beginning of a Parlia- 
 ment in Mexico. Theoretically there had been one for 
 these many years, but nobody had noticed it. The 
 members, nominated by the President or chosen under 
 his auspices, had done no more than stand up, every 
 now and then, to wave their hands — which is the way 
 in which they vote. Apparently the subjects that 
 engrossed them always were the minutes of the last 
 meeting and a quiet ruminating as to whether this or 
 that Republican should be allowed to waive his natural 
 antipathy of orders, ribbons, stars and so forth, in 
 consideration of the merits which the Chinese Emperor 
 had somehow seen in him. But now they suddenly 
 began to legislate, and on the largest questions, while 
 the public swarmed to listen. There is room for 
 several thousand, since the House is built in what was 
 once a theatre and the construction has not varied. 
 Stalls and stage are occupied Jby deputies, all the 
 remaining parts by audience. On the 1st April 
 cavalry and a battalion of detectives were employed 
 without the Chamber and within, but for the ordinary 
 sittings they dispensed with cavalry, and the detectives 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 253 
 
 are discreet. But most discreet of all is an attendant 
 who brings water to the deputies ; he puts a glass 
 beside the speaker, who has soared excessively into 
 the sky ; the speaker gazes at it and descends to earth. 
 They talk of re-election and Porfirio. One gasps to 
 hear the kind of things they say. Will not the 
 President chop off their heads to-morrow ? But the 
 public yell with joy. When, on the other hand, a 
 deputy who is suspected of a leaning towards the 
 President desires to speak, they hiss him as he rises 
 from his desk and as he walks in the direction of the 
 tribune. When he speaks, with sarcasm, a member 
 of the audience shouts, ' Fuera! ' ['Out with him ! '] ; 
 the cry is taken up, 6 Oh ! Fuera ! Fuera ! 9 but the 
 deputy who is presiding issues no commands. A 
 youthful law-maker, who speaks like Romeo at the 
 break of day, is cheered deliriously when he urges that 
 non-re-election should become the rule for deputies. 
 4 The people,' he exclaims, ' do not love us for ever ! ' 
 He would have the judges relatively permanent, but 
 no Governor should be succeeded by a relative — no ! 
 not unto the fourth degree of consanguinity. The 
 next gentleman I could not hear because a most 
 vigorous debate was being conducted in the Press 
 gallery. However, he may not have been worth 
 hearing. From another gallery a clarion voice sang 
 out, ' We are losing our time ! ' And the next speaker, 
 one Lozano, a pugnacious person and a follower of Don 
 Ramon Corral, was forced to shout like any sailor in a 
 storm. He said Madero was unpatriotic, and when 
 this was loudly questioned he replied that he would 
 meet his interrupters afterwards, outside the House. 
 But Lozano was unreasonable. 4 Tell me, is it so ? ' 
 he asked, 4 Yes or no ? ' 4 No ! ' shouted someone. 
 4 You are drunk ! ' screamed back Lozano. The 
 
254 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 alluring subject brought at least two orators into the 
 fray : Diodoro Batalla of Veracruz and Francisco 
 Bulnes, the historian. Here we can ask again — was 
 it going to be war or peace ? Not war, as Don Porfirio 
 was beaten. Hitherto the deputies unfavourable 
 to the President had been a little crude, but these 
 two men spoke, in their different ways, for what is 
 best in Mexico. ' All those who have reached office 
 here,' Batalla said, 4 have clung to it. Santa- Anna was 
 continually making trips abroad and apocryphal 
 visits to the corners of the earth, but he returned 
 precisely after the completion of the period of the 
 acting President and he resumed supreme command. 
 The figure crowned with a halo of glory, the most 
 exalted figure in our history, Benito Juarez, lost at his 
 last re-election a portion of his hold on the people 
 through his wish to continue in power. Lerdo greatly 
 risked his popularity, weakened his prestige and 
 cooled the love of his fellow-citizens when he accom- 
 plished, against wind and tide, his re-election.' Then 
 Don Diodoro declared that with the country a mixture 
 of illiterates [30 or 40 per cent] and a great mass of 
 egotisms, with no adequate number of citizens to 
 march as vanguard of the laws — even Tolstoi would 
 have tried to be re-elected. ' Some say that laws are 
 neither good nor bad, but depend on the people 
 behind them to defend them. If we are going to wait 
 for good laws until we have made good citizens with 
 bad laws we will never arrive at the desired point. . . . 
 Let us pass laws for education, let us not delay their 
 passage till all Mexicans are educated.' He held up 
 to scorn the flatterers of Don Porfirio. ' Upon their 
 heads,' he cried, ' be the blood of Chihuahua ! ' His 
 denunciations and his raillery and his amusing 
 gestures make of him an idol. Not while he speaks 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 255 
 
 does the audience exclaim, as to another deputy, 
 4 Talk with more reason ! ' Don Diodoro — whose 
 bedroom 1 is the crowded scene of great political 
 activity while he rolls to and fro in bed till it is time 
 for lunch — Don Diodoro can please himself. He can 
 even be malicious with regard to Bulnes, the admired 
 historian who sits for Lower California and probably 
 has never been to that abandoned, inaccessible 
 domain. Then Bulnes, with a learned discourse, 
 answers him. The public is not so delighted with his 
 exposition of democracy, for he is too profound and 
 too allusive. But his wisdom, aided with the tricks 
 of oratory, gradually conquers them. He paints the 
 desperate condition of the country during seventy 
 years of independence and the means whereby the 
 President and his advisers brought about, from 1880 
 onwards, a more placid state. His picture of the Peace 
 of Diaz, that has been so much extolled from hemi- 
 sphere to hemisphere, is hardly calculated to appeal to 
 foreigners, those foreigners whose interest in the 
 advancement of the Mexican has not been equal to 
 their vested interest. And when this famous peace 
 was being broken it was natural that they should echo 
 the emphatic hope of Lord Cowdray that Madero 
 would be seized and shot. 4 Never, never had there 
 been a work,' said Bulnes, 4 so sincerely patriotic and 
 so cleverly concocted to prevent us being traversed by 
 a single wave of that old bellicose, light-hearted 
 nightmare. They wanted Mexico to play the most 
 bucolic of the symphonies, producing notes that 
 should be a mere tumult of the meat and bone.' The 
 articles of 4 El Imparcial ' were sedative : (a) 4 What 
 is the influence of cold upon the Russian character ? ' 
 (b) 4 Investigations as to the industrial activity of 
 
 1 I grieve to say that he died suddenly on June 3rd, 1911. 
 
256 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 ant-hills.' (c) ' Progress of the botanic science in 
 Manchuria.' . . . Down upon the dreamy, romantic, 
 tremulous, audacious spirit of youth was turned a 
 shower-bath of statistics, physical statistics, com- 
 mercial statistics, criminal and matrimonial statistics ; 
 a literature of numbers, the formidable eloquence of 
 the treasury reserve ; a theatre without buskins, a 
 honeyed history without criticism, a science without 
 daring. . . . And public opinion applauded enthusi- 
 astically, with immense sincerity, a spectacle which 
 it had never seen nor dreamed of seeing, namely, a sky 
 without clouds ; but it is such a sky that freezes up 
 your harvest ; . . . and applauded most particularly 
 when they found themselves in vessels ornamented 
 with rich garlands, gliding on a waveless sea ; but as 
 there existed no free Press the lighthouses were all ex- 
 tinguished. Then the hurricane was feared no longer, 
 since the atmosphere had been made thermally uni- 
 form ; but let them not forget the dreadful quiet of the 
 reef. . . . 4 We took,' said he, 4 no thought of the people, 
 on whose head the bureaucrats were dancing ; finally 
 we thought there was no people, until they rose in 
 resentment, dazzled by a light of gold and grandeur 
 which was cast upon them by the ruling classes and 
 was not the sun's light.' . . . The orator reminded them 
 that on 21st June, 1903, he had said in the Liberal 
 Convention that if Mexicanism be contrary to 
 Porfirism he voted for the Fatherland. 4 And not one 
 of you who are listening to me, not one of you deputies 
 would be here,' said Bulnes, ' if he had avowed 
 himself as anything but a Porfirista.' He reminded 
 them that General Diaz had his merits and that in this 
 hour when the dictatorship was passing they did not 
 do well to fling contempt and nothing but contempt 
 upon him. ' It is true he has committed errors and, 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 257 
 
 I grant, all sorts of crimes against our democracy ; 
 but it is also true that this democracy so foully treated, 
 was one that could not live, for we have never been 
 able to be democrats, and no tribunal has punished or 
 can punish those who violate and who demolish 
 phantoms.' With regard to Don Porfirio's merits, 
 4 you cannot demand,' he said, 4 that a personal 
 Government should have two independent Chambers, 
 Sovereign States in the Federation, a Press so free as 
 to build up among the people an acquaintance with 
 the whole depravity of anarchism, professors who 
 officially may damn the Government, immaculate 
 tribunals that will put a stop to all injustice. The 
 function of a dictatorship is to give peace and wealth, 
 to give protection to science, art and literature, to 
 give the time wherein the people of itself can, slowly 
 or swiftly, create the foundations of its freedom ; and 
 this has been done by General Diaz in a way that few 
 could imitate. . . . The great mistake was when we 
 emerged from the infernal chaos of the demagogues 
 to enter into the chaos of silence, the chaos of the 
 social formula, the chaos of a peace which smothered 
 our insensate dogmas, our romantic follies and our 
 mighty talk, our turbulence that was so ruinous, our 
 wretched quarrels, but also at the same time our old, 
 easy licence which in many ways resembled freedom. 
 There lay the great error, in having overlooked the 
 people's rights through being taken up in a magnifi- 
 cent and brilliant work, whose object was to sacrifice 
 all things and souls unto material improvements ; so 
 that there should be but one sensation — that of the 
 gasoline penetrating into the motor's cylinders ; but 
 one sole thought, the moral and the intellectual 
 abdication of the race ; but one phenomenon, the rise 
 of a plutocracy. And this great error,' said he, ' causes 
 s 
 
258 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 us to stand here naked like a bacchanalian woman ; 
 it is certain that the peace has been assisted by the 
 railways, telegraphs and port works, telephones and 
 aeroplanes, and what you will ; but these benefits 
 are different portions of the structure which as it 
 becomes more vast requires cement more strong, 
 and the appropriate cement was in the definition of 
 Benito Juarez : " Peace is the regard for others' 
 rights." That is to say, peace is justice ; this was 
 the cement and we did not remember it ; here is the 
 secret why the whole work seems to be upon the eve 
 of toppling over.' He concluded with this sentence : 
 ' Gentlemen, I have great hopes that when these 
 various reforms held out to us are realised, the people 
 will profit by them. Should it not be so, the people 
 would be lost ; for they would go on giving their 
 adherence to the cursed law of the Latin- Americans : 
 To destroy when you are weary of obeying and obey 
 when you are weary of destroying.' 1 
 
 Don Porfirio, as we have shown, had not been 
 helped by the behaviour of the small officials when 
 the Revolution was more critical. Now, when he 
 stood a beaten man, all his concessions and his army 
 impotent to stop the tide, one looked in vain for his 
 great friends — the ' Society of Friends of General Diaz.' 
 They were very quiet. As they thought about the 
 nasty situation it occurred to one of them that they 
 were not political but merely private friends. 'Tis 
 true that they had urged him to continue in his office, 
 
 1 So much for the apologists of General Diaz who have sought to 
 justify his tyranny by sneering at the Chamber. * Mexicans,' they 
 say, ' are quite incapable of legislating ' : just as if the ludicrous — 
 which I have not in this account by any means slurred over— were 
 eschewed by legislative bodies. And the journalists and deputies of 
 Mexico would find it hard to be so little Latin-American, so little 
 human, as to rise from thirty years of stern repression and refrain 
 from being somewhat irrepressible. 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 259 
 
 and it was a thousand pities they had stepped on 
 to the field of politics. A thousand pities — they 
 would never go beyond their sphere again. Of course, 
 if Diaz in his private life had need of friends they 
 would immediately present themselves ; but he had 
 not been murdered yet. The shameful President of 
 this Society, Don Guillermo de Landa y Escandon, 
 was glad to think that as the Governor of the Federal 
 District he had raised around himself a wall of 
 popularity. The large amounts which he had given 
 to the poor, those plans which he had propagated for 
 amelioration of the workman's lot — would they not 
 tell ? He had been virtuous, not joining in the 
 pulque trust because he was the Governor. Well, 
 he made more money from outside the trust ; that was 
 an accident. And if he sold this poison to the poor, 
 did not the others sell it ? And if as Governor he 
 benefited certain companies which gave him wealth, 
 did others act in other ways ? No ; he was popular, 
 and popular he would remain. And Governor he 
 would remain. Poor, strutting Don Guillermo really 
 does believe that he means well. 
 
 By this time it was not the President but Limantour 
 who was in supreme command. This Revolution 
 had astonished Diaz so completely, had bewildered 
 him, had left him dazed. The programme he had 
 cherished in September was to be the President of 
 Mexico for ever and for ever. People might say that he 
 lusted after power, but they had spoken evil things of 
 Miguel Hidalgo whom they now were celebrating with 
 such fervour. In a hundred years, if by that time he 
 were dead, the many books which vowed that he was 
 great would surely win the day against those few 
 perverted books. So in September he was well at ease 
 and Don Ramon Corral was at his side. Perhaps it 
 
260 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 was unwise to leave the world, unpatriotic to leave 
 Mexico in such uncertainty regarding the succession, 
 for he surely would survive that dissipated fellow. 
 Should he take unto himself a young and vigorous 
 Vice-President who would attract the country ? 
 What ! there might even be some resignations from 
 the ' Society of Friends of General Diaz.' . . . 
 
 In December, eleven days after he and Corral took 
 the oath, he was consulting with a merchant as to 
 how the people could be brought back to their old 
 docility. This merchant, a Tabascan, told him that 
 with such and such reforms it would be possible, he 
 thought, to blunt their anger if it was too late to win 
 their love. Tabasco and Chiapas had been smoulder- 
 ing, he told the President, for many years : in both 
 of them a great deal has been done by Nature and a 
 great deal of iniquity by man. So Don Porfirio 
 requested him to make a memorandum of the 
 remedies, however drastic, which he thought were 
 wanted. And in due course it was written and a 
 copy sent to Limantour in Paris ; when this Minister 
 returned to Mexico he met the merchant and, not 
 knowing how the memorandum had been instigated, 
 he remarked that the propounding of such plans 
 made him quite eligible for Belem. And by the time 
 when Limantour came back the harried President was 
 in a whirlpool of conflicting memoranda, being pulled 
 to this side and to that, and with no prospect that he 
 would emerge into the quiet water. He would never 
 see again, so much he knew, that method of paternal 
 Government. This changing Mexico would never 
 tolerate a repetition of the tactics of the railway 
 merger when it was arranged by him and Limantour 
 and others, the country only hearing of it afterwards 
 — to some extent. Nor would it now be possible for 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 261 
 
 him and Limantour to let the country learn by 
 telegram from London that one half the debt had been 
 converted — if, indeed, it ever was ; yes, if, indeed, it 
 ever was on those conditions. All was changing, and 
 the changes that he made on his part did not stop 
 the runaway chariot, simply brought him near enough 
 to swallow up the dust. He was bewildered, baffled, 
 and he threw himself into the arms of the sagacious 
 Limantour. 
 
 Meanwhile the fighting still continued. Luis Moya, 
 the large, bearded farmer who was subsequently slain 
 upon the field of battle near a village in which his 
 betrothed, a schoolmistress, was living, had the 
 revolutionary forces of Durango and of Zacatecas. 
 Many tales are told of this heroic, simple man ; one 
 evening he left his thousand followers and in a motor 
 came to Torreon, the seat of many industries, where 
 Chinamen particularly thrive. He left his motor in 
 the suburbs, took a cab and drove about the place, to 
 study where it might most easily be captured. Then, 
 although his photograph had been in all the papers, 
 he beguiled an hour or so at a saloon, and, wishing 
 always to improve his stock of information, visited a 
 cinematograph. At Agua Prieta, on the northern 
 frontier, and at Cuernavaca, the umbrageous haunt of 
 tourists, in Morelos, and throughout Guerrero, the 
 wild mountain-state, resounded cries of death and 
 panic. In Guerrero it was Don Ambrosio Figueroa 
 and his stalwart brothers with La Neri, a most 
 vehement young Joan of Arc, who marched to victory. 
 They took the capital, that Montenegrin sort of place, 
 poor Chilpancingo, and the Governor, Don Damian 
 Flores, made his exit in a packing-case. It had been 
 the ambition of this really honourable man to build a 
 a road to Acapulco, and he realised, he told me, how 
 
262 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 the State was backward. But in his too-short adminis- 
 tration he had made small headway ; there was 
 general discontent, and the authorities did not 
 resemble Flores half as much as they resembled the 
 white-haired commandant at Iguala, who displayed 
 a flag of truce — displayed it from the church's tower, 
 and when Don Ambrosio Figueroa came unarmed 
 across the plaza with some five or six companions to 
 confer with him, a volley rattled from the church and 
 nearly all of them were shot. This ancient sinner, 
 in an hour or two, was duly executed ; as for Flores, 
 who had been a schoolmaster in Mexico, the capital, 
 and was at all events an earnest man, I hope that in 
 his packing-case he was not shipwrecked, as were we, 
 on our return across the broad and raging Balsas. 
 It was as the Liberating Army of the south that Don 
 Ambrosio' s insurgents swept from the Pacific, from 
 the mountains. . . . On the Arizona frontier, oppo- 
 site the town of Douglas, there was much manoeuv- 
 ring, for the rebels wanted to compel the garrison of 
 Agua Prieta to fire over into Douglas, which they did, 
 to the undoing of American spectators. This small 
 town capitulated, and Porfirio Diaz, who was always 
 wont to pay the soldiers regularly so that they would 
 still be faithful — ' What had I done,' he said once at 
 Chapultepec in answer to a toast, 1 what had I done 
 to obtain this generous and self-denying sacrifice, 
 that voluptuous sacrifice, to shed their blood for my 
 blood ? ' — Don Porfirio thought it was opportune to 
 give the soldiers now one peso daily. That is what 
 he advertised, but whether they received it is another 
 matter, for the Serjeants take advantage of the gam- 
 bling habits of their men, and as they make advances 
 always calculate so much commission. It is to be 
 doubted whether during all these hundred years there 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 263 
 
 was the least improvement in the soldier's lot. A 
 comrade of Hidalgo, Don Gregoris Melero y Pina, 
 says : ' And Ximenes had not one peso for 
 the journey to Saltillo ; and I told him not to be 
 afflicted on account of my battalions and that he 
 should give them not the smallest piece of money till 
 we came into the said Saltillo, and that with his mess 
 alone and with two boxes of cigars which I preserved 
 we should be rich ; my soldiers thought that all which 
 I had done was good, and as for the remainder of the 
 army I went out to search for funds (which not a few 
 were willing to provide, in view of interest) and in a 
 little time we got 4000 pesos.' 
 
 Clouds were gathering on every side when Don 
 Porfirio secured an armistice. It was to last for five 
 days from the 23rd April, but this did not prove to be 
 sufficient. As the spokesman of the Government, a 
 judge was ordered to proceed to Juarez, and a couple 
 of unauthorised ambassadors — Esquivel Obregon and 
 Oscar Braniff — tried their hand at treaty making. 
 Obregon had been the unsuccessful candidate for the 
 Vice-Presidency of the Anti-re-electionists, when Dr. 
 Vazquez Gomez beat him, and he now was anxious 
 to be prominent ; while Oscar Braniff had his 
 eye upon the governorship of Guanajuato. But the 
 Braniff brothers are the progeny of a most clever 
 Irish-American mason who became a multi-million- 
 aire, and a clever French maid who survives. From 
 this good ancestry they have descended far enough ; 
 when they attempt to play a part they usually are 
 like that one who excited merriment by posing on an 
 airship and ascending to a height of several yards. 
 Another one composes songs, alas ! and yet another 
 one endeavours to make Mexicans be peaceable. 
 He was quite angry with Madero when his efforts 
 
264 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 failed. The Government, of course, had no alterna- 
 tive but to accept whatever terms Madero gave them, 
 yet they would not swallow the initial one, the 
 resignation of Porfirio Diaz. Don Porfirio, that is to 
 say, would not accept it, though a number of his 
 officers declared that quite enough had now been done 
 to save his face. ' I shall resign,' quoth Diaz, ' when 
 I am assured that I can do so without injuring the 
 country. If I go at present it would be to let loose 
 anarchy, and if I fix a date it would deprive the 
 Government of all stability. No ! when my conscience 
 tells me that the land is pacified I shall depart.' 
 And so the fighting was resumed. ' I will,' said Don 
 Porfirio, 4 pour out the last drop of my blood, if it is 
 wanted, for my country.' Hundreds of his country- 
 men were yet to feed the Revolution. ' But I promise 
 I will go,' said Don Porfirio, the man who made all 
 those promises at Tuxtepec in 1876. Upon a Yuca- 
 tecan hacienda I was shown a tree with scarlet flowers 
 which is popularly called the Tree of Tuxtepec, 
 because the fruit that one seems justified in hoping for 
 is not produced ; in place of it there is a harvest of 
 discoloured, knife-like objects. Possibly the ' Daily 
 Mail ' knew all about these attributes of Don Porfirio, 
 when, as the triumphant foreign editor informed me, 
 they requested him to be their Special Correspondent. 
 But in this respect, at all events, 6 The Times ' was 
 not, as Mr. Garvin has called it, the sad associate and 
 victim of the 6 Daily Mail.' 
 
 While the peace negotiations were in progress, the 
 Maderists and the Federals of all that part of the 
 Republic which was not included in the armistice 
 had been continuing the struggle. Those who 
 sympathised with Don Porfirio thought it was oppor- 
 tune to sneer at his opponent for the insubordination 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 265 
 
 of the rebels in the rest of the Republic ; and it would 
 have been much more agreeable to Don Porfirio if 
 all the discontented Mexicans had rested on their 
 arms awhile, until he could get General Reyes back 
 into the country. Even if the armistice were not to be 
 extended to the minor leaders, and in the Madero dis- 
 trict were to last a fortnight, it was felt that General 
 Diaz, Special Correspondent of the ' Daily Mail,' would 
 thus recuperate himself, and with his enemies dis- 
 organised, their zeal relaxed, he would be able much 
 more easily to bring about the perfect peace which he 
 had ex cathedra been announcing to the world. If, 
 on the other hand, Madero' s armistice was broken in a 
 week, then it was quite inevitable that Porfirio would 
 fall, since the official status of the revolutionaries 
 had been recognised and the United States would have 
 no reason for not following the Government's example. 
 Don Porfirio' s ambassador, Judge Carbajal, made 
 every effort to prolong the talking, and on the 3rd 
 May Madero yielded him another period of three 
 days armistice. Madero was quite ready to give up 
 his own position ; he would not — except by popular 
 election — take an office, and his relatives would also 
 step aside, if General Diaz would be equally a patriot. 
 The Constitution had been disregarded during many 
 years, and now the rebels were determined to enforce 
 it ! They would not allow the Government, which 
 had been vanquished on the field of battle and was 
 utterly discredited, to get the better of them in 
 diplomacy : five members of the Cabinet and fifteen 
 Governors must be Maderists till the time of the elec- 
 tions, and the rebel army must be paid. A rumour had 
 already circulated that Madero owed twelve millions 
 and a half of dollars to the Standard Oil Company ; he 
 was indebted, and incalculably, to his followers' 
 
266 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 enthusiasm, to the tyranny of Don Porfirio' s regime. 
 These questions of the Governors and Cabinet were 
 on the table, but the stubborn President refused to 
 think about his resignation while the country was 
 disturbed. The Papal envoy, prompted by the wife 
 of Diaz, tried if he could not cajole him, but ' I came 
 into my seat,' the old man said, ' among a shower of 
 bullets. That is how I shall depart.' Four thousand 
 students of the capital requested him to go, a deputa- 
 tion of the working-men besought him not to be the 
 cause of further bloodshed. He pretended to be 
 adamantine and extremely patriotic. He could point 
 to Puebla, where the bandits, so he said, were murder- 
 ing the Spaniards ; but a wealthy Spanish hacendado 
 had invited some insurgents to a banquet, rendered 
 them incapable, and telephoned for Federals. Is it 
 surprising that a vengeance was exacted ? At 
 Pachuca, the great mining camp, it was impossible 
 for even Don Porfirio to label the insurgents as so 
 many bandits ; they were in possession of the town 
 and in the plaza and with great formality they 
 executed one of their own men for looting. Every- 
 where the rebels marched to victory and showed that 
 they were worthy of it. In the north and in the centre 
 and the south they were prevailing ; Don Porfirio 
 was in a plight as hopeless as was Mazatlan, the 
 western port, whose tax-collector, Federal officials, 
 and the postman had escaped on to a gunboat, with 
 the funds. And then Madero, grieving that the blood 
 of Mexicans should still continue to be shed, an- 
 nounced that he would waive some of the peace 
 conditions, while Porfirio should for the moment not 
 resign. This resolution was, of course, unpopular 
 among his warriors, but he could probably have kept 
 them from attacking Ciudad Juarez if one Colonel 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 267 
 
 Tamborrel — reputed to have been an adept in the ways 
 of mathematics, but the mathematics he employed 
 as usurer were very simple — if this Tamborrel had not 
 sent messages which taunted them with cowardice. 
 
 Ciudad Juarez, with the custom-house and with 
 huge stores of rifles, ammunition and quick-firing 
 guns, fell on the 10th of May, but not until 180 men, 
 including Colonel Tamborrel, had been killed and 
 250 had been wounded. It was Colonel Viljoen's 
 opinion that this large proportion of men shot was 
 owing to the closeness of the range of fire. Navarro's 
 army had been beaten 1 by small farmers and by 
 tradesmen. He himself with many of his officers was 
 seized, and unlike many of them he did not break 
 his parole. The dour old soldier, in the riddled town 
 which had resisted during three long days, sat in the 
 jefatura, now become the Palace of Madero's Govern- 
 ment, the meeting-place of his new Cabinet. In vain 
 the rebels shouted for Navarro's head ; they still 
 remembered what his bayonets had done on those 
 Chihuahua battlefields, and they were for avenging 
 Cerro Prieto, in which place, when guarantees were 
 not suspended, he had ordered thirty peasants to be 
 taken round the corner of a house and murdered, as 
 they could not prove — at all events were quite in- 
 capable of satisfying him — that on the previous day 
 they had not been in arms against the Government. 
 Madero had enough to do without the task of shielding 
 his late enemy ; he therefore drove him in his motor 
 to a place at which he could wade through the Rio 
 
 1 The subsequent court-martial of Navarro, when his late opponents 
 had come into power, was a good but not by any means a solitary 
 instance of Sir William Gilbert's vogue in Mexico. It is a very rare 
 occurrence, even in Central and South America, for a President to 
 behave as did Comonfort on 19th of December, 1857, when he joined 
 a revolution against his own Government. 
 
268 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 Grande into Texas. Some of the Americans among 
 Madero's men had looted in the streets of Juarez, 
 Villa, 1 one of his assistants, jealous of the foreign 
 legion, tried to murder Garibaldi in a restaurant 
 across the border, and was finally disarmed by 
 American Secret Service agents. So much for the 
 local difficulties, and the pedestal to which he had 
 ascended and from which he could dictate to Diaz 
 was not made securer by the fighting which continued. 
 As the Army of the South came through Guerrero it 
 was pointed out that they were disobeying Don 
 
 1 The career of this eminent bandit and general officer is typical 
 of Mexico, where cotton mills and Pullman cars and thousands of 
 industrious foreigners have not by any means expelled Romance. 
 The parents of Pancho Villa had a small farm, in the State of 
 Durango, to which he succeeded. With his mother and his sister — 
 a girl of great beauty — he looked after the farm, leading a most 
 active, hard and healthy life. His sister had a number of suitors, 
 among them a local magistrate ; and one day when she vanished 
 Pancho fetched a priest and rode with him across the mountains in 
 pursuit. They caught the couple, whom the priest immediately 
 married ; then the husband was compelled to draw up his own death 
 certificate, the brother-in-law killed him and the priest prayed over 
 him. The others then returned and Pancho would have lived quite 
 peacefully upon the farm if the rurales had not tried to capture him. 
 For fifteen years he roamed the mountains with two faithful cowboys 
 and although there was a prize of £2000 on his head. He pillaged 
 farms, he robbed the travellers and helped himself to cattle. In his 
 more than eighty combats with rurales, forty-three of these were 
 killed, while he himself was eight times wounded. . . . Then Madero 
 rose and Villa saw that as an active politician he might take an 
 honourable place again among his fellow-countrymen. And in fact 
 he did become a sort of national hero, a hero of the Revolution. He 
 became a General of Rurales. Now and then he lapsed into his 
 brigand habits, for example at Parral, where he is said to have 
 gathered from the Banco Minero and other banks the sum of £18,600, 
 out of which he handed over to the Revolutionary funds exactly 
 £13,600. This happened after he had been devoting himself for a 
 long time to Madero's cause — Raoul Madero, the President's young 
 brother, was one of his most ardent admirers — and by this time 
 Pascual Orozco was in arms against the cause. General Pancho 
 Villa made out a receipt for the money which the Banco Minero gave 
 him and he added that it was booty of war, so that it would not be 
 repaid by the Federal authorities. He pointed out that the Bank had 
 for too long been furnishing money to Orozco in the north ; now for a 
 change they must give a little to the south. 
 
LOS PUJOS PORFIRISTAS 
 
 ~~Senor expresidente:-no le quepa d Ud. </u da; el unico 
 camino que nos queda para volver d\colar es la gate- 
 ja, 6 sea da evolucion. 
 
 Porfirian Yearnings. 
 
 This, from the Impartial, represents Don Porfirio being told by one of his Ministers that evolution 
 (hence the tail) is the only system which offers them a dog's chance (gatera, lit. a cat's door-hole) of 
 
 returning to power. 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 269 
 
 Francisco, while the very act of having taken Juarez 
 was held up as proof that he could not restrain his 
 men. ' While there is any fear of anarchy, ' quoth Don 
 Porfirio, ' I shall remain.' But now, with Juarez in 
 their hands, the revolutionaries would not listen. 
 Many of them thought their leader had been far 
 too patient with the foe. 
 
 Now while the Revolution, which undid so much 
 of wrong, was near its close, there came to Mexican 
 affairs a much-belated evolution : Don Porfirio' s 
 new Minister of the Interior submitted a new suffrage 
 law, which had two fundamental principles, viz. : 
 the publicity of all acts connected with elections, 
 from the preparatory registration to the actual polling 
 and the computation of the votes, as also the inter- 
 vention, subject to given rules, of political parties 
 legally organised in the country for the purpose of 
 sustaining given principles and supporting given 
 candidates for office. Hitherto all parties, save the 
 President's, had had a most precarious existence ; 
 and, as we shall see, the parties that came gradually 
 into prominence were often hostile to Madero, but 
 with him it was to be an era of free speech. When 
 several ladies started to harangue the insurrecto 
 troops at Juarez in an effort to procure adherents for 
 the filibusters, Mexican and eke American, whose 
 socialist Republic was not faring well in Lower 
 California, Madero let them have their say, though he 
 was hotly urged to have them silenced. This and 
 many other proofs he gave of the progressive spirit, 
 but the good proposals that Porfirio was making were 
 but golden pieces offered to his judges. By the system 
 which prevailed throughout his thirty years the 
 polling officers committed all the fraud and violence 
 he wanted ; now the different political parties were 
 
270 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 to have the right of vetoing officials when the nature 
 of their occupations made their independence doubt- 
 ful. We were not again to have the edifying sight — 
 which I had — of an Indian voter 1 handing in his card 
 to four men sitting round a table who, whatever may 
 have been their humdrum occupation, were just at 
 the moment swindling one another at a game of 
 monte, and on the reverse side of the Indian's card 
 they put their score, and when they had used the card 
 they tore it up. . . . Another bill, long overdue, 
 which now was placed before the deputies dealt with 
 the distribution of small tracts of land among the 
 people. Limantour himself had said in France that 
 the possession, not to speak of the acquiring of, 
 those vast estates in Mexico was pregnant with 
 abuses. 
 
 Since the north was clearly settling down — the 
 captive Federals were sent to reconstruct the 
 railway — it became imperative for the Red Cross 
 
 1 Yet when the Revolution had aroused the Indians and their 
 brothers it was not so long before they all went back again to sleep. 
 At the beginning of December, 1911, the municipal elections in the 
 capital were marked by glacial indifference. Some of the polling 
 places were not installed at all and others not until half-past twelve 
 o'clock. ' The Government candidates,' we were told, ' have won an 
 easy victory.' So then the Revolution has not by itself sufficed to 
 give the Mexicans their freedom, if the sovereignty is abdicated to 
 the public power. It has been urged that Mexico must have com- 
 pulsory democracy, that if the people do not wish to exercise their 
 rights they must be forced to. But it is the public power alone 
 which has the necessary force at its disposal. When the people will 
 not vote, then someone votes on their behalf. And that someone 
 else is always the same. 'Tis useless to disguise the fact. These 
 things occurred when Diaz was the President and they continue. . . . 
 But the axolotl — Mexico's strange reptile — can grow up. For many 
 years it was supposed that these inhabitants of Lake Texcoco (who 
 are called thus from the Aztec atl — water and xolotl— slave) were 
 never able to transform into adults, who would have soon become 
 extinct if at the age of six months they had not been infant prodigies. 
 However, it has now been ascertained that this repulsive-looking 
 larval salamander can develop, under favourable circumstances, lungs 
 and tail. But those who do this and embark upon a new existence 
 as lizards are not many. 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 271 
 
 Society to do or die. They died. For months they 
 had been saying that the country was too mountain- 
 ous, and also that the army guns were better than 
 the insurrecto weapons, so that Federals were seldom 
 hit, and with the others they could scarcely sym- 
 pathise ! Then, in a night, a new Society — the White 
 Cross — sprang upon the world, its chief an energetic 
 Texas lady, granddaughter of General Mejia who was 
 shot with Maximilian. This Society went out into 
 the field at once, begged money everywhere in every 
 manner possible and otherwise, and was enabled to 
 accomplish a good deal. . . . Down in Guerrero's 
 pine-clad mountains was a lady of the utmost energy, 
 the leader of a formidable band of rebels. She — La 
 Neri was her name — had operated near the ancient 
 port of Acapulco ; now she turned towards the capital, 
 and it was understood — a letter being intercepted — 
 that she with her own fair hands was anxious to 
 decapitate Porfirio. They say that he, with his bluff 
 humour, spoke about Guerrero as the State in which 
 an erring woman started the disease of pinto, 1 through 
 cohabiting with a crocodile. The leader of the Army 
 of the South, Ambrosio Figueroa, had in vain sent one 
 of his three stalwart brothers to make terms with Diaz. 
 He had seen him in the capital and told him that it 
 was no other than himself who was responsible for 
 all the Revolution. ' You have made,' said he, ' this 
 Revolution.' 4 Como ? I ? What do you mean ? ' 
 cried Diaz. And the leader of 8000 troops explained 
 that it was owing to Corral's appointment. ' I 
 have many cannons. I shall put you down ! ' so said 
 the President, and Don Francisco travelled back into 
 
 1 A species of leprosy which is prevalent in parts of Guerrero and 
 Chiapas. Black spots emerge on the face and spread until the entire 
 face is covered with a blue-black blotch. 
 
Tl% MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 the mountains. There his brother made a proclama- 
 tion which could leave no doubt but that this army 
 was quite loyal to Madero. 4 The Government,' he 
 said, 4 will make arrangements with us after we dis- 
 card our noted chief,' and this 4 would weaken the 
 force of the armed protest which all the sons of Mexico 
 have settled to maintain.' One of the reasons why 
 the war must be continued was 4 because when we 
 asked through our peace representatives for the 
 resignation of General Diaz, he answered categorically 
 that he would not resign, and only promised in his 
 manifesto that he would retire when his conscience 
 indicated to him that peace was firmly established. 
 The revolutionists put no faith in the performances 
 of his conscience, but only in truth and justice.' 
 Figueroa's force was larger than Madero' s, better 
 armed and infinitely better trained, although the 
 Boer who was Madero's chief-of-staff had inculcated 
 much of his experience. If Don Porfirio complained 
 that they were bandits, though they did keep perfect 
 order, though the army's business was conducted in 
 a large house with a set of books and clerks and type- 
 writers and the essentials of a well-established business 
 venture, if the chief of that half-convict army made 
 complaint — well, who would listen ? In the State of 
 Puebla was a force of 15,000 rebels who had seized 
 3000 Mausers from the Federals and six machine-guns. 
 
 There was only one bright spot for Don Porfirio, 
 since he received a declaration of unaltered loyalty 
 and great respect from the 'Society of Friends of 
 General Diaz.' If he waved this valuable document 
 he would be able, doubtless, to send all the insurreclos 
 running home. The ' Friends ' were, many of them, 
 taking steps to leave for Europe, but they made such 
 mighty flourishes — it is the custom — underneath 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 273 
 
 their autographs. . . . However, let it not be thought 
 that all the richer folk, except Madero, stood — if that 
 word is appropriate — beside the President. He had 
 won favour with capitalists, he had maintained the 
 public credit and what looked like order, by the 
 disregard for human rights ; and yet some of the 
 wealthy class had always been in opposition. Now 
 from Aguascalientes came the stirring news that 
 two or three young gentlemen who had been nothing 
 more than members of the jeunesse doree were 
 upon the warpath, and, indeed, they did not go light- 
 heartedly, for when they found that a Maderist had 
 been giving way to brigandage they had him shot. 
 And fighting for the cause were General Tapia, 
 commander in Atlixco, who a month before had been 
 a shoemaker with daily wages of a dollar, and Jalisco's 
 General Aragon, who was a barber. 1 This was just 
 like dear old times, when soldiers were impromptu ; 
 for example, General Zaragoza of the 5th of May, 
 and his subordinate Porfirio Diaz. . . . While the 
 Government was swiftly losing ground the country 
 was emerging from the shades of barbarism. A 
 proposal came before the Congress — and in three 
 days was, with some improvements, made a law — 
 to set free those who were imprisoned on account of 
 politics. The Revolution had been everywhere 
 triumphant in a military sense and a political . . . 
 and if the Government commanded that whole 
 States should be delivered over to the rebels, it was 
 certainly unreasonable to continue holding in con- 
 finement the unarmed adherents of the Revolution. 
 Just at this time Cuernavaca was evacuated and the 
 
 11 The native colonels of the eighteenth century were not endowed, 
 says Humboldt, save with gorgeous uniforms and royal decorations 
 by King Charles the Third of Spain, and thus equipped one could 
 perceive them at the counters of their little shops. 
 T 
 
274 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 Army of the South replaced the garrison and the 
 police, who silently departed in the night of 20th of 
 May. There was no semblance of disorder ; when 
 the rebels had been in this lovely and historic town 
 for thirty minutes they arranged for patrols and 
 forbade the furnishing of liquor to their men. The 
 riotous examples of Pachuca and of Uruapam were 
 not followed ; at the first of these, before the rebels 
 shot a man for looting and thus calmed the more 
 exuberant companions, all the prisoners had been 
 released, the prison burned, the archives also — in 
 accordance with the general custom — burned, and 
 many things blown up — the miners being perfectly 
 familiar with the use of dynamite. Meanwhile the 
 Governor was concealed, and after he had been 
 unearthed and put into a temporary cell he wrote 
 enormous letters to the Press, because he wanted to 
 explain that he had been abandoned by his men — 
 the Revolution being all too popular — and so he was, 
 he said, no coward. Uruapam of the tiled, squat 
 houses in the middle of her coffee trees and negligent 
 banana trees and all the flowers of Paradise, was made 
 the victim of her prefect's cowardly behaviour. 
 6 Its people,' says a guide-book, 4 are pleasant,' and 
 they probably would have remained so if the prefect 
 with the soldiers had not run away ; these ninety 
 men had sallied forth to meet a body of Maderists 
 who were said to be upon the outskirts of the town, 
 and as the prefect changed his mind and led them 
 back into the plaza he was greeted by some boot- 
 blacks who exclaimed, ' Viva Madero ! ' He was 
 quick to gather the significance of such a demonstra- 
 tion, and he made a speech in which he said that he 
 was sorry to be so unpopular. The less deserving 
 Indians of the neighbourhood — it was a Sunday, 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 275 
 
 they were idling in the pretty plaza — shouted with 
 the bootblacks, and immediately the prefect, Salvador 
 Gutierrez — let his name be known — went off escorted 
 by the soldiers. Merchants and the leading citizens 
 besought him to allow the troops to stay, but he 
 required them for his personal protection. Then the 
 rougher element felt their own courage rise amazingly, 
 and as the military disappeared they hurried off 
 to storm the gaol. They gave 300 prisoners their 
 freedom. It was all that Manuel Coria, an old 
 gentleman, could do to ride among the angry mob 
 and to dissuade them for a time from plundering 
 the stores. At last they came with knives and axes, 
 would have murdered him (the prefect-substitute), 
 and started looting. While the men were thus 
 employed the women and the children from the age 
 of four were waiting in the street to carry off the 
 goods, and when this method was too slow the mules 
 were brought and loaded and were driven to a place 
 of safety in the woods. Not only were the public 
 records used for bonfires, but the ledgers were all 
 taken from the stores and burned. On Monday night 
 Maderist soldiers reached the town, declaring that 
 when they had found the worst offenders they would 
 shoot them, and it has been said that three score men 
 were executed. Such a lamentable orgy was avoided 
 by the citizens of Cuernavaca ; seeing that the prison 
 guard had been removed while it was dark they had 
 the prudence to collect a lavish breakfast for the 
 prisoners and thus to keep them occupied — while other 
 citizens got ready flowers and flags and painted out 
 the name of Diaz everywhere — and then the rebels 
 came, flung would-be rioters into the prison, issued 
 an announcement that the price for looting and for 
 gathering in crowds was death ; this had a tendency 
 
276 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 to quiet the more restless ones, and soon the civil 
 Government was being well established. 
 
 4 Adaptiveness,' quoth Emerson, 4 is the pecu- 
 liarity of human nature,' which would seem to prove 
 that there is something human in the 4 Mexican 
 Herald,' for it was engaged at this time in assuming 
 a convenient attitude with all the speed that it 
 considered decent. During these last weeks it had 
 allowed a jeweller to advertise upon the page that 
 once was kept for leading articles, and on the inter- 
 vening space they talked about Hawaii. Yes, when 
 they announced that Diaz would resign, the 4 leader ' 
 was a calm discussion of the labour problem in the 
 Sandwich Islands. The resignation of Porfirio was 
 in the peace agreement of the 21st of May, when it 
 was settled also that Corral should vanish and that 
 de la Barra, Foreign Secretary, should become the 
 President ad interim. ' Henceforward the hostilities 
 which have existed in the entire national territory of 
 the Republic shall cease,' it said, ' between the forces 
 of the Government and those of the Revolution, those 
 forces to be dismissed in proportion as in each State 
 the necessary steps are taken to guarantee tranquillity 
 and public order.' Some time would elapse before 
 the rebels of the whole Republic could be notified. 
 And as in many States the Revolution had been due 
 to hatred of the Governor-despot, the retention of an 
 armed force till new Governors could be installed 
 would constitute a guarantee. It was impossible to 
 trust Porfirio Diaz, though we cannot say that it was 
 he who instigated the attempts to bribe Orozco, and 
 — by means of one de Villiers — lure Viljoen, and 
 assassinate Madero. 4 When the peace is finally 
 secured,' so said Madero to his soldiers, 4 you will 
 have the privilege of leaving, if you like, the army. 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 277 
 
 There will be no conscription. The army which in 
 future will uphold the liberty as guaranteed by the 
 Constitution will be made of soldiers who come in of 
 their free will and who receive good pay.' As for 
 the Government which, after Don Porfirio's depar- 
 ture, would be constituted, it was evident the rebels 
 had no real plans ; they had a genius for makeshifts, 
 and in no round hole was there the spectacle of any 
 square peg being harboured. It was truly wonderful 
 how the Maderists bore themselves, and though we 
 must not imitate that book of Bourget's which 
 depicted all the Protestants as scoundrels and the 
 Catholics as angels, we were justified, I think, in 
 claiming that Madero, Dr. Vazquez Gomez, and the 
 rest of them were more than men of promise. We had 
 got their conduct in adversity to guide us, and when 
 they were taking over the Republic it was at an 
 hour of such high chaos that the very fact of their 
 survival was a wonder. In Guadalajara there was such 
 rejoicing at the news of peace, the bells were rung and 
 happy citizens with flags and branches in their hands 
 assembled in the plaza — five of them were shot by 
 the rurales, and, in consequence, the rash young 
 Governor resigned. In other days he could with 
 absolute impunity have checked the demonstration, 
 but the people's character was changing. Hard by, 
 in Colima, forty bandits — fifteen of them carried 
 arms — knew very well who was Porfirio's governor. 
 In that unlucky little State some sportsmen had, a 
 week or two before, been shooting birds ; the soldiers 
 thought that they were rebels and incontinently 
 shot a couple of them dead ; the other one escaped, 
 but on the morrow he returned with both his hands 
 held up as a precaution, and the soldiers shot him in 
 the back. Such was the bravery of Senor Don Enrique 
 
278 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 O. de Lamadrid, the Governor ; he did not hesitate 
 a moment in delivering Colima to the bandits, though 
 the garrison was better armed and much more 
 numerous than they. But it is questionable whether 
 any bandit could be more nefarious than Don Enrique, 
 under whose administration you were punished more 
 severely if you stole a bean than if you killed a man ; 
 indeed, a murderer had only to become the servant 
 of a wealthy hacendado. Don Enrique's term of office 
 was approaching its conclusion ; in a certain night 
 some years ago another sort of a conclusion had been 
 probable, when he had staggered from a banquet — 
 walking, quite exceptionally, unassisted — to the 
 chamber of the hacendado' 's wife. Just as preposter- 
 ous as these two Governors were other representatives 
 of Diaz. We have seen at Uruapam how the rebel 
 troops were summoned for the maintenance of order, 
 and the whole Republic would have fallen into 
 anarchy if they had been less vigilant. The mob — 
 maliciously excited by the old regime — was eager to 
 avail itself of golden opportunities. 'If I go at 
 present it would be to let loose anarchy.' Yes ! 
 Don Porfirio delayed his going. On the 24th of May 
 the Chamber overflowed with citizens, who took by 
 storm the seats of diplomats and Press and the 
 Supreme Tribunal. Swaying to and fro, they hardly 
 could await the message of Porfirio's resignation. 
 It was not to come, a handbill circulated through 
 the crowd announcing that the people were deceived 
 again, that Diaz did not purpose to resign. The 
 crowd was in a wild confusion instantly, and the 
 police, who tried to clear the galleries, were impotent. 
 Amid the howling tempest one could hear a bell, but 
 not the chairman's voice. 4 Viva Madero ! Muera 
 Diaz ! The resignation ! The resignation ! * Finally 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 279 
 
 Don Manuel Calero (afterwards a Minister) yelled out 
 the news that it would be to-morrow. 4 No ! no ! to-day ! 
 Now ! We demand the resignation ! ' Other voices 
 could be heard : 6 People, you have been deceived ! 
 They are not going to resign ! Quick — to Cadena I ' 
 Sweeping out into the daylight they bombarded with 
 a shower of rocks the building of 4 El Imparcial,' and 
 there would probably have been no bloodshed if a 
 member of the secret police had not flung an insult or 
 let his revolver off — the stories vary — at a working- 
 man. Then the offender fled into a hat-shop and was 
 there besieged. A large detachment of reserves 
 came dashing to the Zocalo with their revolvers 
 drawn ; they rained a shower of bullets into the 
 retreating, struggling mass. The Zocalo or Plaza 
 Mayor or Plaza de Armas is the spot whereon, in 1325, 
 the migrant Aztecs laid the city's first foundations, 
 since they there beheld a royal eagle of extraordinary 
 size and beauty with a serpent in his talons and his 
 broad wings open to the rising sun — this picture was 
 emblazoned on the flag of the Republic. Grisly scenes 
 took place upon the Zocalo in Aztec and in Spanish 
 times ; the 24th of May — if details were related — 
 would be held as not inferior to those. The house of 
 Diaz in Cadena was protected very well by soldiers 
 and police, but such as were within — the President 
 himself lay stricken with an ulcerated tooth — could 
 hear the frenzy of the people crying, 4 Viva Madero ! 
 Muera Diaz ! ' He had been their President through- 
 out another day. And on the next day he resigned ; 
 between the bedroom where he tossed in agony and 
 that luxurious apartment where the Cabinet was 
 gathered Limantour went to and fro. 4 Not once,' 
 said Limantour, 4 did he think of himself. Every 
 thought he expressed was for the future of his country. 
 
280 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 His resignation must for ever silence those who could 
 not find another criticism than that he perpetually 
 lusted after power.' Tricoloured flags without the 
 royal eagle and the serpent fluttered everywhere. 
 
 And let us see what Diaz wrote : 1 Senor ' — it was 
 the chairman of the House of Deputies whom he 
 addressed — 1 The Mexican people which has so 
 generously lavished honours upon me . . . which 
 seconded me patriotically . . . that people, sir, has 
 risen in armed bands, declaring that my presence at 
 the head of the executive is the cause of the insurrec- 
 tion. I know of no act imputable to myself that could 
 warrant this charge ; but, over and above the fact that 
 I may have offended without knowing it, I am not the 
 person to be a judge as to the merits of my own case. 
 Therefore, respecting, as I have always respected, the 
 will of the people, I come before you now, in accord- 
 ance with Article 82 of the Federal Constitution, to 
 resign unreservedly the high office of President of the 
 Republic, to which I was elevated by the vote of the 
 nation, and I do it the more readily in that by retain- 
 ing the office in question I should be exposing the 
 country to further bloodshed, to the loss of its credit, 
 to the destruction of its wealth, to the extinction of 
 its activities, and the risk of international complica- 
 tions. . . . An ampler and more dispassionate survey 
 will lead to a true estimate of my acts, allowing me 
 when I die to carry with me the consoling sense that I 
 have in the end been understood by my countrymen,to 
 whose welfare I have devoted and will continue to 
 devote my entire energies.' The populace, in large 
 bodies of 5000 and in smaller ones, paraded joyously 
 through all the streets ; some had a military band and 
 some an orchestra of violins to lead them — it was like 
 a merry picnic. And the total list of casualties 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 281 
 
 numbered thirty-eight — one unidentified person dead 
 and thirty-seven wounded, among whom there were 
 eleven injured by bullets. Great activity was shown 
 by the White Cross Society, and by the Red Cross, 
 which had taken a new lease of life. The services of 
 these benevolent associations were appreciated, so 
 that motors and the members decorated with the 
 badges of the two societies were heartily applauded 
 as they sped along. I hear that comments of the most 
 favourable character were made all over the town. And 
 demonstrators went unhindered through the suburbs, 
 to the music not alone of military bands or riddles ; 
 there was that which is evoked from empty cans — 
 mtisica de petroleo, they call it — and one cannot 
 surmise what the natives in this hour of triumph would 
 have done without the precious Standard Oil tins. 
 So the feared and famous Trust did, after all, partici- 
 pate in Mexico's good Revolution. 
 
 No one will deny that under Diaz Mexico had made 
 a notable advance ; the Government was even 
 patriotic in a way. But it pretended to derive its 
 power from the people's will, whereas it stifled the 
 expression of such will, it was a military oligarchy. 
 Such a system must involve subservience and 
 ignorance, while at the same time nowadays a ruler 
 has to feign at least that he is on the side of education ; 
 and with even such a semi-education as Porfirio 
 provided such a Government becomes impossible. 
 When, as the 6 New York Evening Post ' observed, 
 the repressed millions are able to read their own 
 history and laws and to think about them and to know 
 what the democratic movement is in the world outside, 
 their demand for a share in the Government can no 
 more be restrained than can their intellects. And 
 it was the new generation, which Diaz for very 
 
282 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 shame could not refuse to help create in Mexico, which 
 proved his undoing. Political ideas had been let loose, 
 and their ferment in the popular mind made the 
 usurping of government by a clique no longer possible. 
 Education, as John Morley has said, cannot deny its 
 own children. If in Mexico, or India, or the Philippines 
 we venture to open closed minds and teach to young 
 men liberty and self-government, we must not be 
 astonished if the lessons are applied even to our own 
 discomfort. Diaz did not merely fall because the army 
 proved a vain thing, but because the people had it in 
 their hearts that he should fall. In August, 1909, a 
 most serene and loyal article appeared in 6 El 
 Imparcial,' whose object was to show conclusively that 
 revolutions had become impossible in Mexico. This 
 odious journal, subsidised by those who held the 
 country, was among the foremost causes of the 
 Revolution. Now they published a long, clever 
 editorial — ' Ni amigos, ni enemigos ' — wherein they 
 said that for the future they would be serene, the 
 kindly critics, not the friends and — for the best of 
 patriotic reasons — not the foes of Don Francisco. 
 As for being subsidised — had they committed errors ? 
 They were human, and the very day-star does not 
 always shine with equal radiance. The subsidy had 
 been employed in lotteries and gifts to the subscribers 
 of the paper; partly it had been directed to the 
 forwarding of social and artistic works, and partly to 
 the publication of a handsome supplement (which 
 now they would perhaps not be in a position to 
 continue) ; partly it had been employed in paying for 
 a period of fifteen years the hundreds of mechanics 
 and those other workers and the thousands who had 
 lived by selling this most popular of journals. 
 4 Ni amigos, ni enemigos.' Some days later ' El 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 283 
 
 Imparcial ' replied to certain scoffers whose male- 
 volence or absence of sagacity had given a distorted 
 reading to the manifesto. But by penetrating, so they 
 said, into the Mexican psychology they found that the 
 misguided conduct of their critics had been owing 
 to the novelty in Mexico of a pure, independent paper. 
 They would be not of Porfirio Diaz nor of Don 
 Francisco I. Madero, but of all the people ; they 
 would place themselves upon a lofty seat, and be 
 impartial, loyal and serene. Some others who had 
 been the tools of Don Porfirio did not desire to operate 
 with any new regime, for Coahuila's legislative body 
 put itself against the man who was appointed by 
 Madero to be Governor ad interim. This Don Venus- 
 tiano Carranza, who had come into the war like any 
 feudal prince, with cohorts of retainers, was accom- 
 panied by insurrecto soldiers to his new position. In 
 the previous elections, to be sure, he was if not the 
 popular at least the opposition candidate, and it was 
 Don Porfirio' s party which had given office to the 
 legislative body. Then a law relating to elections was 
 not ratified by the assembly of Tabasco, though the 
 Chamber in its recent strivings after evolution had 
 approved. With the prevailing notions as to freedom 
 and the fearless hunger for reforms which permeates 
 society, this action of Tabasco — in upholding, as it 
 does undoubtedly, the legal right of States — is capable 
 of serious developments. But those who then 
 succeeded Don Porfirio would not, like him, lay the 
 foundations of their house amid the pestilential 
 meadows where no rivalry can rear its head. And 
 of the parties that were to participate in Mexican 
 affairs, perhaps the most important, after the Maderist 
 party (and in union with it), was the Church. Men 
 and money are at her disposal, both the willing and 
 
284 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 unwilling peasants whom the hacendados can control, 
 and money to a greater sum than the capitalisation 
 of all the Government banks. For years the Church 
 has been obliged to wield a rather subterranean 
 influence, but now, with formal programme and with 
 admirable candidates, it has emerged into the day- 
 light. We who stood and watched might well be 
 fascinated by the situation : in the days of Diaz, who 
 officially opposed the Church, it was in ' El Pais ' and 
 6 El Tiempo,' organs of the Catholic party, that the 
 politics of Diaz were subjected to the most efficient 
 and relentless criticism ; if they could assail that 
 Government with something like impunity — Don 
 Trinidad Sanchez Santos of 1 El Pais ' was, as we have 
 mentioned, offered an asylum in almost every house 
 which has a secret chamber when he was compelled 
 to hide himself in February, 1911 ; the most pompous 
 little journalist who owns and edits 4 El Tiempo ' has a 
 secret chamber on the premises — how would they not 
 assail the liberal, milder Government ? Madero was 
 inclined to place them in the same position as they 
 have in the United States, and that is a position 
 which the Catholics of Lower Canada are now assert- 
 ing is ideal. Where you have, as in the Mexican 
 Republic, such a number of illiterates (a good deal 
 more than half the adult population), it is question- 
 able whether such a freedom can be granted, and it 
 is not certain that the grant of it would satisfy the 
 Church. Yet under the Australian ballot and the 
 broader franchise it is probable that she, far better 
 organised than was Madero' s party, would — if there 
 had been no bargain — have defeated him at the 
 elections. 
 
 ' I will,' said Don Porfirio, ' pour out the last drop 
 of my blood, if it is wanted, for my country.' But 
 
A " Shoofly " built round a Train 
 
 wrecked by revolutionaries near Huamantla, on 24th May, 1911, two days before the flight of Diaz. 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 this grievous want did not arise, it seems. At any 
 rate, on the 26th May, just as the grey wings of the 
 dawn were gliding over that high mountain ridge, the 
 famous warrior stole away. The bullets which, he 
 told the Papal envoy, would be needed at his going 
 were, as far as possible, dispensed with, and to guard 
 himself against them he had two whole trains of 
 soldiers under General Huerta : a battalion of the 
 Zapadores in a train preceding his, part of the twenty- 
 fifth battalion in the train behind him. Thus he 
 hurried down to Veracruz, and though the bullets 
 came en route at Tepechualco — for he thought it was 
 expedient to take the narrow-gauge, less ostentatious 
 line — his escort only lost some six or seven killed. 
 6 1 will pour out the last drop of my blood,' said Don 
 Porfirio when he was thinking of his faithful army and 
 police — the number of assassinations they and others 
 had committed in compliance with his will has been 
 put down by good authorities at, roundly, 30,000. 
 When at last he came to Veracruz he was in such a 
 state of — shall we call it toothache ? — that he had to 
 be extracted from the car by two attendants, and 
 removed upon their shoulders. Veracruz, for reasons 
 dating back to 1879, is not the place where Don 
 Porfirio would come in search of health, and these 
 few necessary days before the boat could sail were 
 spent in Messrs. Pearson's house, with many soldiers 
 guarding him, the British flag above. On the 28th 
 May a sea-breeze, so they tell us, made the torrid 
 port more bearable ; perhaps it was not strong enough, 
 this breeze, to carry from the dungeons of the island- 
 gaol, San Juan de Ulua, the complaint of sixty 
 prisoners to the ears of Don Porfirio. It had been 
 necessary for Lord Cowdray (of Messrs. Pearson) to 
 obtain some lands upon the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, 
 
286 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 where he has built a railway which will have an 
 interesting competition with the Panama Canal. A 
 most handsome price was offered for the lands that 
 were in the possession of the family of Madame Diaz ; 
 and the President, when it was paid, disposed of other 
 lands at Acayucan to Lord Cowdray's firm. The native 
 owners of the soil did not agree to this arrangement. 
 Whether, as I hear from one source, 1 the land was 
 Government property, or, as the other sources say, 
 the land was native property, it is a fact that when 
 it was transferred to Messrs. S. Pearson and Son, the 
 natives rose — they surely could not think this firm 
 would be a more nefarious landlord than the Govern- 
 ment which then prevailed — and when the troops 
 came down a number of the natives fell (again this 
 number varies greatly with the source of informa- 
 tion), — * Lord Cowdray is like Napoleon . . . when 
 his plan is thought out,' says Mr. T. P. O'Connor, 
 'he is certain of the results, and has all the joy 
 and none of the terrors of battle ' — and it seems 
 from all accounts that some 300 were dispatched 
 to prison, where they stayed without a trial. 
 The tuberculosis in San Juan, which removed 
 Rosado, an aggressive kind of lawyer, played such 
 havoc on the men of Acayucan that, with the assist- 
 ance of some other causes, only sixty of them — I have 
 got these figures from the doctor — still survived. Their 
 land is not the best for grazing, but is used for that ; 
 and even if the natives who remain upon it have 
 declined to pay their rent it gives a healthy occupa- 
 tion to some English cowboys. At San Juan de Ulua 
 
 1 Somewhere Mrs. Alec Tweedie tells about the water-sprite 
 Malinche, saying : ' Tis a pretty legend, and one of, oh, so many ! ' 
 Yes, when Don Porfirio was flying she declares that * unarmed the 
 ex-President descended from his car ' [the rebels being round about it] 
 ' and took part in the engagement.' 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 287 
 
 also — but I fear that Don Porfirio did not remember 
 this — was one Sarabia, a youthful journalist, a Madero 
 who had failed. You should not take arms against the 
 ruler of your native land — if you have got no chance 
 of winning; and Sarabia has paid the penalty with 
 three years of unmitigated darkness. When Porfirio 
 arrived at Veracruz he was in the enjoyment of a 
 lamp, and now he has, of course, been liberated. . . . 
 Whatever may have taken place at Acayucan it is 
 certainly the fact, as Mr. Hugh Pollard said recently 
 in the 'Daily Graphic,' that corrupt officials have 
 sold large portions of Mexican land to foreign com- 
 panies. The Indians living on the land have protested, 
 but as they could produce no title deeds — how should 
 natives have title deeds ? — their land has been sold 
 to white companies, who in turn have sold it to 
 ranchers, who enclose the water with wire fences, or 
 to agricultural companies, who only employ contract 
 or convict labour. No wonder the white man is 
 disliked. 
 
 Illegal honours 1 were accorded on the 31st May to 
 General Diaz, who should not have heard the nation's 
 anthem play at his departure. And perhaps his old 
 companion, General Huerta, was affected by the 
 situation when he made a speech, declaring that, 
 whatever people might assert, these troops would 
 always be at his disposal. ' They are the only portion 
 of the country,' so he blurted out, 4 which has not 
 gone against you.' The ex- President, in black, a 
 
 1 How much better was he treated than, a hundred years before, 
 the Virgen de los Remedios ! This image, brought across by Cortes, 
 was the object of much veneration, and was ultimately, on the out- 
 break of Hidalgo's movement, clothed in general officer's apparel and 
 invoked as Patroness of Spain. The rival image, the Virgen de 
 Guadalwpe, proved to be the more efficient, and a revolutionary 
 general pulled the general's sash from off the Spanish Virgin and 
 made out a passport so that she should leave the country. 
 
288 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 Panama hat in his hand, stood like a soldier on parade. 
 The soldiers who were facing the veranda of that 
 barn-like, wooden house — some wearing sandals, some 
 with shoes, their garments more or less dilapidated — 
 were the men who had protected him at Tepechualco, 
 where some sort of plan — not well matured — was in 
 existence to prevent his flying from the country ere 
 he had disgorged his wealth. 6 If Mexico should be 
 involved in difficulties, then,* he said, replying to his 
 grim old friend, General Victoriano Huerta, ' then I will 
 return with pleasure. I would place myself there at 
 the head of all the loyal forces, and beneath the shadow 
 of that flag I would know how to conquer once again. 
 ... If the Fatherland should ever want my services, 
 then solemnly I undertake, as a gentleman and 
 soldier, to be always at the soldiers' side and under- 
 neath their flag, so that I may defend the cherished 
 soil of Mexico until I have poured out my latest drop 
 of blood.' Among those who went with him on the 
 German boat was General Fernando Gonzalez, son of 
 that Gonzalez who was nothing but a simple soldier 
 and had been preferred by Diaz to a hundred abler 
 men, in 1880, to succeed him, with the subtle plan that 
 Mexico should be so smitten by the contrast as to call 
 back in despair its former President. Fernando, 
 sailing on a German boat, had been until a week ago 
 the Governor of the State of Mexico, but had resigned 
 one day and rushed across the mountains on his car ; 
 he hoped the situation which he left behind him would 
 be dominated. This Fernando, when he was elected 
 to the office by the President — he used to chuckle as 
 he told the story — travelled to his capital, Toluca, 
 on the day of the election by the local Congress. An 
 officious personage demanded whether Don Fernando 
 had some property or had been born within the limits 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 289 
 
 of the State, and on receiving negative replies he said 
 that it was awkward, as no man could, by the 
 Constitution, be elected who should not be qualified 
 in one of these two ways. Another personage perceived 
 that they had got three-quarters of an hour before 
 election time ; he speedily went out and on behalf of 
 Don Fernando bought a house. That evening, when 
 the election had been held, the house was sold again, 
 and at a profit of 300 pesos. Tempora mutantur — I 
 hope that Don Porflrio will pardon me this Latin tag — 
 for Diaz was constrained to steam away from Vera- 
 cruz on board the s.s. ' Corsica ' in 1875 with him 
 who afterwards became the President — Gonzalez pere. 
 . . . You could not, at the time and later, be quite 
 positive of open roads for either your own person or 
 dispatches out of Mexico. The prostrate power 
 behind the throne, chief of the cientiftcos, Rosendo 
 Pineda, tried with a nom de guerre to steal from 
 Veracruz. 4 But we,' so said the 4 Daily Mail,' ' to be 
 quite sure of getting good dispatches, we took the 
 precaution of securing Diaz as our Special Correspon- 
 dent.' Was it not a master-stroke ? And when the 
 searchlights of the fortress struck the s.s.' Ypiranga' as 
 she glided out into the darkness of the gulf, a man was 
 seen close by the rail, apart from other passengers, and 
 gazing through his glasses. ' Embittered,' so we read, 
 4 and disappointed he may be, but that he will keep 
 altogether to himself throughout the trip is not 
 anticipated by his friends.' The moonlight fell upon 
 the brazen instruments which had been playing at the 
 wharf, it fell upon the white apparel of the peasants 
 who were clustered there behind the soldiers. And 
 the vessel glided out into the darkness. Quickly in 
 the fort of Santiago, after having fired a salutation to 
 this traveller, the guns were growing cold, and in the 
 u 
 
290 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 captain's quarters, with a tropical rapidity, the gar- 
 lands of the girls of Veracruz were fading. So 
 departed from the shores of Mexico the Special 
 Correspondent of the ' Daily Mail.' 
 
 And so a thoroughly carnivorous old gentleman 
 had been succeeded in the despotism by a water- 
 drinking, undersized, pacific vegetarian. Madero — 
 de la Barra's unofficial adviser — was, in fact, the Lord 
 of Mexico, and if it were not for his opposition to the 
 re-electing of a President, one would have reason to 
 consider with anxiety if he could bear the strain of 
 adulation for so long a period as did Porfirio Diaz. 
 Don Porfirio, of course, in 1876, proclaimed that he 
 would never let himself be re-elected ; but there is not 
 any Indian blood in Don Francisco I. Madero, and 
 whatever be the virtues of the Indian he is mon- 
 strously conservative : he will, if it is in his power, 
 destroy new-fangled implements of agriculture, seeing 
 that he likes the old ones ; he will not deny devotion 
 nor centavos to a saint who recently was deaf to him, 
 and whose wood image at the time was subject to 
 indignities ; he will not be disposed to go from public 
 into private life. The man who made the promises at 
 Tuxtepec was not of purely Indian blood, as, for 
 example, was the daughter of a poor old man who 
 was bewildered by the swift and excellent Canadian 
 tramways of the capital. Half-way to Guadalupe, an 
 adjacent shrine, the countryman was caught by this 
 electric innovation, both his legs were torn from off 
 him, and as he was lying on the road his daughter 
 knelt beside him, stroked his head, and softly asked 
 him, 1 Papaito — does it hurt you ? ' But there was 
 enough of Indian in Porfirio Diaz to account for the 
 resistance which he offered during thirty years to 
 anyone who tried to pull him down. . . . What of 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 291 
 
 the Indians who climbed into the temporary Cabinet ? 
 Emilio Vasquez Gomez and the better-known Fran- 
 cisco come from Tamaulipas. They were born to 
 poverty, so that the elder studied for the law and 
 subsequently was enabled to support his brother, 
 who from 1880 until 1889 was learning medicine. 
 Four of the five examiners, in March, bestowed on 
 him a white ball, and in May the young man beat the 
 fifth examiner in open competition for the chair of 
 pathology. He practised in the State of Veracruz at 
 Coatepec, he studied in some European towns, he 
 represented the Republic at a Moscow Congress and a 
 Congress of the deaf and dumb in the United States. 
 He wrote a book to prove how in the very heart of 
 the Republic, in the Federal District, one was only 
 offered a defective education ; he became the 
 President of the Academy of Medicine, and then, in 
 April, 1910 — not having taken any part in politics — 
 he was elected by the anti-re-electionists to be Vice- 
 President. Emilio, a week before, was thrust into 
 Belem because the Government believed he was the 
 manager of these elections. They accused him of 
 provoking what was, at the time, undreamed of — 
 Revolution, and it was November when the brothers, 
 like Madero, settled temporarily in Texas. Don Emilio 
 became the Minister of Gobernacion, Don Francisco 
 Minister of Education. They and other Ministers have 
 made mistakes, but, to repeat the words of Limantour 
 on the 30th May, 1911 — and I fear he was disposed 
 to be sarcastic — ' these gentlemen will do a great deal 
 better than we have done, and I wish them well.' 
 Both the brothers suffered disappointments in the 
 period of de la Barra's Presidency. Don Emilio was 
 not considered a good Minister because he settled 
 every question out of hand with a supreme indiffer- 
 
292 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 ence to all red tape. If anybody told him, for example, 
 that he had been fighting for the Revolution and was 
 
 pesos out of pocket, Don Emilio — perhaps the 
 
 frankest and most sympathetic person whom I met in 
 Texas — straightway gave an order on the national ex- 
 chequer for the money ; so that, with Madero's strong 
 approval, he was asked to send in his resignation ; 
 thereupon his followers of the ' Pure Liberal ' party 
 chose him as their Presidential candidate. He was 
 defeated. His brother's claim to be Vice-President on 
 the Madero ticket did not prosper ; at the National 
 Convention, and with the approval of Madero, he was 
 set aside for Pino Suarez, who is said to have given 
 proofs of discretion, moderation and statesmanship 
 at the Juarez Peace Conference. He was for many 
 years a publicist in Yucatan, where he enjoyed 
 general esteem, and in 1909 was occupying the 
 dangerous post of president of the local opposition. 
 Dr. Vazquez Gomez was exasperated by his brother's 
 fate, and as, by taking on the leadership of what is 
 known as the Central Anti-re-electionist Party, he 
 displayed an inclination to assist Madero's enemies, 
 it was considered by the future President that Pino 
 Suarez would be more adapted to be second in com- 
 mand, while, as Minister of Public Instruction, ' Dr. 
 Gomez,' said Madero, ' can continue to lend great 
 service to our party. I am only sorry that he does not 
 accept graciously the result of the Convention which 
 was adverse to him.' The Central Anti-re-electionist 
 Party — which consisted of the original Anti-re- 
 electionists who refused to be merged in the Pro- 
 gressive Constitutional Party, as the followers of 
 Senor Madero then called themselves — selected Dr. 
 Vasquez Gomez as their Presidential candidate. 
 Some have criticised Madero for appointing his own 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 293 
 
 uncle 1 Don Ernesto to the office held so long by 
 Limantour, and the reply that Diaz recognised the 
 competence of Don Ernesto and desired him to accept 
 this very post is not such a complete reply as that the 
 foreigners in Monterrey, which is commercially the 
 most important town of the Republic, cannot think of 
 anyone more fitted than their fellow-citizen, the 
 banker, for the charge of this portfolio. And, by the 
 way, Don Rafael Hernandez, Minister of Justice, has 
 been criticised, and on the ground that formerly he 
 followed Don Porfirio ; to this the answer is that 
 everyone who gave his service to the State was bound 
 to follow Don Porfirio, and seeing that Hernandez 
 was a man of brains [these have since been blown 
 out by some followers of Felix Diaz in the streets 
 of Mexico] — it was more profitable that he should be 
 utilised than that the whole administration should be 
 drawn from that minority which was Madero's family, 
 or from that scantier minority which was in opposition 
 always to Porfirio Diaz. With regard to Manuel Calero, 
 Minister of Industry, ' he is,' said Don Francisco I. 
 Madero, ' not alone no member of our party, but a 
 Porfirista, and he has been for a long time. As we 
 thought that he possessed ability to fill the place, he 
 was appointed.' And in answer to some observations 
 by the Senor Vera Estanol, ex-Minister, he said that 
 ' many Governors who are not of our party have been 
 put in office : the States of Morelos, Queretaro, 
 Guanajuato and others have executives that were not 
 named by the anti-re-electionist party ; the Governor 
 
 1 And the nephew of Porfirio Diaz, General Felix Diaz, who was 
 chief of the police, a man of some ability, is not frustrated in his 
 efforts to become the Governor of Oaxaca. He addresses to the 
 citizens a manifesto, humorous in parts, on the promises which oft 
 are made by candidates and on the destiny of these fair promises. 
 Oaxaca puts her faith in Senor Juarez, Don Benito's son, who has 
 inherited not only a great name, but likewise no great humour. 
 
294 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 of the State of Mexico, for example, I did not even 
 know by name, while the chief executive of Nuevo 
 Leon is the president of the Superior Court, and was 
 named under the Diaz Government.' As to the task 
 they had in front of them, Madero and his friends 
 were under no illusion save that which was owing to 
 their youth. ' Confidence,' once said the great Lord 
 Chatham, ' is a plant of slow growth in an aged 
 bosom.' The conditions were both new and strange. 
 An electoral system had to be contrived and put in 
 working order. By the side of these electoral colleges 
 the country stood in direst need of numerous 
 political kindergartens. Mexico's best orators were 
 wanted to inform a people then embarking on self- 
 government what are the limits set to legislation, 
 and how time is wanted, even by the most impatient 
 of us, to establish large reforms, and how — in Don 
 Benito Juarez' oft-repeated, oft-forgotten words — 
 peace is the respect for others' rights. We could not 
 prophesy in Mexico. But while there would be dangers 
 consequent upon the Revolution — peaceable pursuits, 
 divested of an alien excitement, would not all at once 
 attract each member of the rebel army ; some of them 
 would be reluctant to forgo their free cigars and drinks 
 and tram-rides, and their swagger, and revolvers, and 
 their double and their triple cartridge belts — and 
 while there would be dangers consequent upon the old 
 regime and others of a character more deeply founded, 
 such as the disintegrating movement, we thought that 
 we were not injudicious in believing that the country 
 had a happy future, both for natives and for capital. 
 Supposing, for the sake of argument, we said that the 
 majority of Mexicans would always be, as often in the 
 past, incapable of ruling the Republic, State or village. 
 Yet the wrong they do would be corrected or restrained 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 295 
 
 by greater criticism of the Press and of the National 
 Assembly. . . . ' Soy Fronterizo,' says the son of those 
 bleak uplands in Chihuahua that sustained the Revo- 
 lution ; ' soy Mexicano,' says the dweller in the central 
 valleys, who is more inclined to wait in war and peace 
 until he knows that his adventure will not be too 
 speculative; 4 soy Yucateco,' say the slave and the slave- 
 owner of that curious peninsula which is too busy to 
 pay much attention to the rest of the Republic. 1 And 
 
 1 In 1848 Yucatan was reincorporated with the Mexican Republic. 
 Until then and from the time when they were liberated from the 
 Spaniards, these two had not always been united. After three years' 
 reluctance on the part of Yucatan they were joined together in 1824. 
 In 1829, 1832 and 1834 their relations were extremely strained, and in 
 1840 Yucatan set up an independent Republic. (It was in October of 
 that year when the ' True Blue,' a British schooner, was seized by the 
 Yucatecans for alleged smuggling, and ' in insolent and peremptory 
 terms,' says Rafael de Zayas Enriquez, the encyclopaedic patriot, did 
 H.B. M. corvette ' Comus ' cause the Republic of Yucatan to deliver the 
 ship, to pay an indemnity of 8000 pesos, and to 'swallow the outrages.') 
 Texas was the foreign state to which the Yucatecans were attracted. 
 In a pamphlet of 1842 (* Protesta de Yucatan contra las violencias del 
 Gobierno provisorio de Mejico '), we find them declaring that the three 
 Texan warships were only with them for defensive purposes and that 
 even if they cruised off Veracruz and Tampico, it was only to observe 
 whether an expedition against Yucatan was being prepared. By the 
 way, on the title page of this pamphlet there is a group of American- 
 artisans, agriculturists, soldiers and sailors underneath a flag on 
 which is the word 'Constitution' (in English), while in the clouds 
 above there is a temple on whose architrave is the word ' Liberty. ' 
 Don Andres Quintano Roo, the renowned statesman and poet, was 
 sent on a mission from Mexico to his native Yucatan, in order to in- 
 duce it to resume the old connection. After various vicissitudes this 
 came about in 1848, when the ruling class in Yucatan was forced to 
 call in the assistance of the Mexicans against the Mayas, who were in re- 
 volt and were taking a complete revenge for everything which they had 
 ever suffered from the whites. The panic-stricken Yucatecans made an 
 offer of the sovereignty of their country to the Spanish or the British 
 or to any other foreign Government which was prepared to send them 
 speedy and effective help. An envoy was dispatched to the United 
 States, but James Buchanan, the Secretary of State, would do no 
 more than recognise Yucatan's independence. He declined emphati- 
 cally to support its annexation. So there was no help for it and 
 Yucatan, which at this time included Campeche, was compelled to 
 come to terms with Mexico. . . . But if a non-Yucatecan were to be 
 appointed governor of Yucatan he would have a situation as uncom- 
 fortable as the Banus of Croatia who is sent from Budapest. 
 
296 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 there is a danger that in this way the United States of 
 Mexico will break into three separate republics. As the 
 Revolution terminated there was vast enthusiasm for 
 Madero. ' If I were a poet I would write poetic eulo- 
 gies,' said Mr.Elihu Root; 'if I were a musician I would 
 compose triumphal marches ' — to the greater glory of 
 Porfirio Diaz. And there would be many like this 
 acolyte of Mr. Roosevelt, eager to rejoice with him 
 who had achieved success. The large majority of 
 Mexicans would be sincere, because it was a change 
 from Don Porfirio' s prolonged regime, and, on the other 
 hand, because it was a change ; the large majority of 
 foreigners would do their best to seem sincere, and thus 
 assist their business. If it once is bruited round the 
 world that Mexico is on the eve of many revolutions, 
 that it will relapse into the state of Honduras or 
 pitiable Nicaragua or mediaeval Guatemala, then the 
 work of many years will be undone. The confidence 
 with which most of the foreigners in Mexico regarded 
 Don Porfirio Diaz was needs outwardly transferred to 
 one whom they would willingly have shot a little time 
 ago from motives of pure business. ... As for 
 General Bernardo Reyes, the theatrical old hero of 
 the army — well, we were not always told of what 
 occurred at Orizaba — as, for instance, when a dozen 
 of the more loquacious mill-hands were shot dead 
 in March, 1911, and the editors of all the journals 
 kept a corresponding silence — but we do know that in 
 Orizaba, Reyes, who had been permitted to return, 
 embraced the revolutionary chief, Rafael Tapia. 
 Those who were so fond of dreaming that Bernardo 
 Reyes would assemble round his banner the remains 
 of Don Porfirio 's army and of the discredited political 
 machine perhaps did not realise as keenly as did 
 Reyes that the militarist day was over, that the army 
 
The Interregnum. 
 
 From the Mexican Herald. 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 297 
 
 had been beaten by the nation. A proposal that the 
 army should be merged in the insurgents for the 
 purpose of restoring order was, by many critics, called 
 fantastic and impracticable. But with Reyes' help, 
 it was a problem to be solved. The elevation 1 of the 
 lucky volunteers above the men who have attended 
 military colleges and been promoted chiefly by the flux 
 of time is always and in every country much resented 
 by these latter. In the United States, when General 
 Wood was thus promoted after the campaign of 
 Cuba, such a storm arose that even now, from time 
 to time, the darkness reappears. And Reyes, if he 
 could have satisfied the rebels and preserved the 
 honour of his old companions, would indeed have 
 powerfully aided to upbuild the country. He had 
 long been nourishing a plan to make the army 
 popular and democratic by conscription. Formerly, 
 in easy times, he won the adoration of his troops ; 
 and now he prayed that during the uncertain times 
 
 1 At all events Don Agustin del Pozo, rebel leader in the State of. 
 Puebla, issued on the 20th of June a statement saying that ' in several 
 newspapers I see they have bestowed on me the rank and style of 
 "General." Our noble Army is an institution which I honour most 
 profoundly, and this rank, I feel, is inappropriate for anyone except 
 the soldiers who by studies and a long career have gained it, after 
 many steps, or those who in campaigns, like Pascual Orozco, have 
 become renowned for heroism and for military genius. But as for 
 me, I am not dedicated to a soldier's life and I was not so fortunate as 
 to defend upon a battlefield the liberties of my dear country which a 
 despotism had disdained for thirty years ; some trifling work I under- 
 took, to help the Revolution which was headed by the liberator, 
 citizen Francisco I. Madero, caused me to be nominated chief of all 
 the revolutionary forces in the State of Puebla ; and when I accepted 
 this responsible and high commission it was only on account of 
 patriotic duty which demanded all my power and the absence of all 
 selfish interest whatever. Since it may be cruel irony to call a man a 
 " General " when he has got no right to the distinction, I would beg 
 that you do not apply to me this title, for I say that I am no more 
 than an honest citizen who strives and hopes, so far as it is given him, 
 to serve his country, now that he is called upon to serve. The 
 Revolution has been made to conquer freedom and not military rank. 
 Let us abandon this and use our energies to make us free.' 
 
298 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 he might conduct himself in such a way as to achieve 
 the admiration of the world. His country in a few 
 months had gone back to where it was some five-and- 
 twenty years ago, for the reforms of Diaz often did 
 not penetrate below the surface. We must judge the 
 former President by the material at his command, 
 if we are ready to assume that he availed himself of 
 all the good his country had to offer — and in that case 
 also we acknowledge that a house deficient in founda- 
 tions is, before aught else is done, to be destroyed. 
 Reculer pour mieux sauter — and with de la Barra, 
 Reyes and Madero working side by side, another and 
 more stable house, employing certain features of the 
 fallen structure, was begun. A few months would not 
 be sufficient ; but if five-and-twenty years are wanted — 
 then we may lose hope in Mexico. 
 
 New brooms sweep clean, and if Madero could not 
 make a clean sweep of the devastating lotteries and of 
 the bull-fights — de la Barra had not witnessed such a 
 fight until, as President, he was at one which they 
 arranged to help the widows of both Federal and in- 
 surrecto soldiers — yet Madero would assuredly be more 
 consistent with his old idealism than the Socialists 
 had been in Lower California, for just 600 dollars 
 were sufficient to persuade the sixty last surviving 
 Socialists to go their way. What Mexico requires is 
 not alone a larger portion of the light : to raise, for 
 instance, the indigenous and varied people into citizens 
 of a republic. (While in 1911 the debt of Mexico per 
 head was only 14 dollars, and much less than that of 
 Argentine, the prosperous republic of the south is in 
 the presence of an infinitely smaller native burden.) 
 Mexico requires that ancient evils should not, in the 
 present dispensation, worm their way to power again : 
 the cientiflcos, who are the shrewdest of intriguers, 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 299 
 
 must have no recuperation as they once had from 
 another rout. It happened that in 1897, when 
 Macedo was the President of the Casino Nacional and 
 the notorious Pineda sat on the committee, these and 
 other cientificos were dispossessed. Macedo grew 
 quite truculent before he would exhibit the accounts, 
 although when they were seen at last his attitude was 
 not surprising — for he has a reputation as financier, 
 he was designated by Porfirio Diaz to be the financial 
 agent here in London. And the plate of the Casino 
 was discovered in a house of prostitution which 
 Pineda patronised. A dividend was paid by the 
 Casino in that period — and that alone — in which the 
 cientificos were ousted ; for when they resumed 
 authority this institution failed. What Mexico 
 requires is that, as Governor Gonzalez of Chihuahua 
 said, there should be no extension or renewal of 
 monopolies. ' We shall not take away the riches of a 
 foreigner who holds them legally, but we are up 
 against the Diaz system of the granting of con- 
 cessions, with the ruinous emoluments demanded by 
 our politicians. Mexico has been exploited by the 
 foreigners for many years, until the people, as a whole, 
 have nothing. (The industrial advancement has not 
 benefited 20 per cent.) We were on the verge of 
 becoming a nation of paupers, but the special 
 privileges 1 shall be stopped, if we can do so. Foreign 
 
 1 Let it not be thought disingenuous of me if I now quote from the 
 pages of the 'Mexican Herald.' But the new regime enabled it to have 
 a column which it called ' Free Speech.' On Friday, June 23rd of the 
 year before last : ' The demand that a thorough investigation must be 
 made,' it said, ' of Mexico's big business concerns, particularly those 
 that worked under Government concessions and with which members 
 of the old administration were directly or indirectly allied, is growing 
 not only among members of the new regime, but also, it seems, among the 
 business element here in the capital. . . . Forming themselves into an 
 organisation body for the purpose of giving moral and, if necessary, 
 financial assistance in the movement of the new body politic in 
 
300 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 capital we shall invite, but it must enter into competi- 
 tion with our own. Undoubtedly the foreigners who 
 profited so greatly by the Diaz system will be hard hit 
 by the new regime, which is determined to build up 
 the country and ameliorate the sad condition of her 
 people.' [This Governor was executed summarily 
 when Felix Diaz and Huerta came into power.] 
 
 ridding this country of graft and corruption, a committee of business 
 and professional men is said to be not only contemplated, but actually 
 launched in this city, and is preparing to give every assistance possible 
 in cleansing the political, commercial and financial life of the re- 
 public. ' 
 
 On June 25th, Francisco I. Madero authorised the publication in the 
 ' Herald ' of a statement that it was his purpose to investigate closely 
 and faithfully the conditions of all Corporations which had dealings 
 with the Government, as well as all Government officials against whom 
 charges might be brought, based upon adequate evidence of corrup- 
 tion or of wrong-doing. ' There has been considerable speculation,' 
 said the 'Herald,' 'as to the reason why the Aguila company was 
 selected as the first one to be investigated by Madero agents, and an 
 explanation may be found in the report that has reached Madero to 
 the effect that Lord Cowdray when he left Mexico last April went to 
 Washington and New York and, after conferences with Henry W. 
 Taft and John Hays Hammond, induced Hammond to see President 
 Taft repeatedly and urge upon him the necessity of American inter- 
 vention in Mexico to protect big interests here and suggesting the 
 probability that England would intervene if the United States did not. 
 It was reported yesterday that in line with the investigation of other 
 big companies, concessions, contracts and methods of doing business 
 here that Lord Cowdray's other interests in Mexico would be included, 
 not only the Tehuantepec railway, but his big contract work as well.' 
 Soon after this Lord Cowdray, who had hurried back from England 
 to New York, was said to be endeavouring to sell his oil interests to an 
 American company. ' The report had it,' said the ' Herald ' on July 
 15, ' that there was every probability that the sale would be made in 
 the near future, but it may be stated on good authority that those who 
 are conversant with the plans of the Maderos do not share this belief.' 
 It quoted from a personage who was in close touch with the situation 
 and who said that the Maderos did not wish American capitalists to 
 buy possible lawsuits in Mexico and for that reason and that alone 
 they were doing everything in their power to prevent this proposed 
 sale. Lord Cowdray went to Mexico and in the ' Nueva Era,' the 
 semi-official mouthpiece of the Maderos — the editor, Juan Sanchez 
 Azcona, being the man who was appointed Madero's confidential 
 secretary — it was written that ' after a campaign of several weeks 
 dedicated to an unsuccessful attempt to transfer his immense oil 
 properties in Mexico to the Texas Oil Company and the Gulf Refining 
 Company, Lord Cowdray has left New York for Mexico. . . . Now 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 301 
 
 Foreigners the most benevolent may say that in 
 the people likewise there must show itself this good 
 determination, which has often been to seek. And 
 with regard to making it more easy for them by 
 the abolition of monopolies, it seems to me, for 
 instance, that consideration should be given to the 
 Monterrey Iron and Steel Works. There is duty of 3 J 
 
 it is known by everybody in Wall Street that the representatives of 
 the two companies mentioned were convinced that the oil concessions 
 of the Pearson Company are not a good investment and that they have 
 been advised by lawyers that the concessions are in danger of being 
 revoked if put to the test in court. It is said in Wall Street that these 
 two cientificos [Landa y Escandon and Limantour, who helped Lord 
 Cowdray, as did others of the discredited cientifico group, to obtain 
 his colossal concessions from the Diaz Government] have exercised 
 pressure on the American companies through European financial 
 interests to persuade them to take the oil properties of Lord 
 Cowdray. ... In Wall Street it is said that Lord Cowdray told 
 two or three of his associates there that he would soon control the 
 new Government of Mexico as easily as he had that of General Diaz. 
 Both his friends and enemies in Wall Street (he has both) await with 
 considerable interest news of the activities of Lord Cowdray in the 
 City of Mexico.' When he called upon Madero, ' I assured him,' 
 wrote the latter in the ' Nueva Era,' ' that if he has duly complied 
 with the respective contracts he has nothing to fear, as my Govern- 
 ment will respect contracts and concessions which have been formu- 
 lated with the late Government and which have been effected in due 
 form and in compliance with all legal requirements. ' . . . ' That 
 Congress, when the present body ... is succeeded next year by a 
 more Liberal Chamber, may order investigations,' said ' The Times ' in 
 a very interesting article on 21st November, 1911 , 4 is possible. But there 
 would be much surprise if such action lead to anything more than 
 minor alterations in the terms of a few concessions and perhaps to the 
 inauguration of a campaign against certain Trusts. ' . . . At the fall of 
 Madero's Government, in 1913, Senor Manuel L. Lujan, agent to the 
 United States of General Orozco, declared that when Senor Gustavo 
 Madero, brother of the President, was in New York he made arrange- 
 ments with the Standard Oil Company to ' kill ' the competition of the 
 Aguila [Eagle] Oil Company in Mexico. Senor Lujan directed the 
 attention of the Senate's Sub-Committee to the fact that three days 
 after the Madero Government was established a Bill was introduced 
 in the Mexican Congress annulling concessions granted by President 
 Porfirio Diaz to the Eagle Oil Company. And on 17 February, 1913, 
 the New York correspondent of the 4 Daily News,' in referring to the 
 reported resignation of Madero and succession of de la Barra, cabled 
 that ' the news was official, for it came from the British Legation and 
 was inspired by Lord Cowdray, whose immense Mexican interests 
 were backing the ex-Provisional President [de la Barra].' 
 
302 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 to 5\ 1 cents Mex. a kilo on I beams, which in Liver- 
 pool or Antwerp cost say £7 a ton ; on rails, which 
 cost in England about £5 a ton, there is duty of 2 J 
 cents a kilo. On a steel building at about £18 a ton 
 (laid down in Mexico) the duties, taking into account 
 the galvanised iron and the bolts, come to about £7 
 a ton ; so that when a man erects a sugar factory of 
 average size it costs him 21,000 dollars Mex. more 
 than he should pay — the total cost being 600,000 
 dollars. It appears to me that Mexico does not derive 
 an ultimate advantage from a tariff on the jute 
 productions, and the British Minister was wont to 
 chaff Lord Cowdray, who in England advocates free 
 trade while for the Orizaba jute mill he must have 
 protection. All the jute is from Bengal, and the 
 resulting sacks are more expensive than if they could 
 be imported. When I asked the manager for a 
 defence of his position he explained that 1800 
 Mexicans were given employment. But it is extra- 
 ordinary, it is shameful, that for at least three years 
 the country has been buying maize from Argentine 
 and elsewhere. Let the 1800 men be put to agricul- 
 ture. And as we are on this subject we encounter 
 what is Mexico's most urgent need : the need for 
 patriots. When the fraternal strife was over and the 
 Government began receiving claims for compensation, 
 there would step into the office Senor Don Fulano, 
 with a business-like expression. ' Practically all my 
 farm has been destroyed.' 
 
 ' Ah, what misfortune ! And at how much do you 
 place the value ? ' 
 
 ' Half a million pesos.' 
 
 4 Many thanks. Will you be kind enough to 
 
 1 The lower price is for steel beams in the rough, as they leave the 
 mill ; the higher price is for beams cut to the correct size and drilled. 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 303 
 
 come in several days ? The documents shall be 
 prepared.' 
 
 The second conversation, as a rule, was not so long : 
 4 Here are the documents. I trust that you will 
 find them accurate. Of course, one's memory is 
 human and my clerks are here to help you. They 
 inform me that the value of the property, as you 
 assessed it for the payment of your taxes, 1 is precisely 
 20,000 pesos.' 
 
 It was not sufficient that, for Mexico's salvation, de 
 la Barra, Reyes and Madero should have striven with 
 united effort : de la Barra, the most prudent diplomat, 
 and Reyes who was like a meteor, and Madero who 
 was like a star. The people from the highest to the 
 lowest had so much to learn, so many years they 
 should forget. And it is not enough if they congratu- 
 late themselves for having more than followed 
 Emerson's advice to hitch your wagon to a star. Let 
 them remember that the conduct of Bernardo Reyes, 
 opportune as it might be, would possibly give way to 
 his impulsive nature, though one must acknowledge 
 he secured some victories against himself that are a 
 marvel, he the hope of the Porfirian remnant, of large 
 vested interests and of a portion of the beaten army ; 
 while Madero — with a halo from the field of battle — 
 sane, clean-handed, resolute, courageous, was backed 
 
 1 It is worth recording that this system which establishes the tax 
 on land is, as it were, the poor relation of the system of New 
 Zealand, and New Zealand prides herself on being, in such things at 
 all events, a good deal in advance of other countries. There the 
 valuation is conducted by State valuers, and if the owner is dissatisfied 
 he may appeal to the Assessment Court, and if he still believes that it 
 has been too highly valued and the valuer refuses to reduce it, then he 
 can require him to purchase the property at the assessed value. On 
 the other hand the valuer, if he thinks that the Court has made an 
 unfair reduction, may require the owner to consent to what he con- 
 siders a fair selling value or else he will purchase the property at that 
 value on behalf of the Government. These are two points in the 
 * Valuation of Land Act, 1908. ' 
 
304 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 up by partisans enthusiastic and fanatical, by followers 
 who brooked no opposition, and by money. Towards 
 October, when the President was to be chosen, this 
 triumvirate did not continue to be perfectly har- 
 monious. De la Barra, to be sure, went on the even 
 tenor of his way ; so shrewdly had he weathered 
 all the difficulties of the interregnum that his stern 
 refusal to be nominated was the cause of much regret, 
 not only to the neutral men and to the Catholic party, 
 whose repeated efforts could not make him change 
 his mind. It was his business, so he said, to see that 
 the elections were conducted properly, and then he 
 would retire from politics. But on some future day, 
 perhaps, the country would not look to him in vain. 
 Madero's friendly attitude to Reyes, whom he had been 
 once accustomed to hold up as a mere slave of Diaz 
 and a firebrand, this new amicable attitude was most 
 unpopular among the Maderistas. They were up in 
 arms against Madero's promise to have Reyes in the 
 coming Cabinet as Minister of War. Then, driven 
 from the side of Don Francisco, Reyes let himself be 
 nominated for the Presidency, but his followers were 
 not so numerous as were the Maderistas, with the 
 consequence that there was trouble, and before the 
 time for the elections he was forced to fly from 
 the Republic. Thus Madero, who became the chief 
 executive, was not in the preliminary period so 
 strong and so consistent as one might have wished. 
 Sometimes it is the cruel fate of an idealist to be 
 idealised ; but if Madero's compromise with Reyes 
 had the object of alleviating ancient sores and of 
 promoting general welfare — after Reyes undertook to 
 be the opposition candidate, Madero charged him in 
 a speech at Veracruz with having planned to steal 
 from him the fruits of victory and having acted as a 
 
EL MODELO "EMILIANO' 
 
 Zapata. 
 
 From Multicolor, 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 305 
 
 criminal — no small proportion of the Mexicans ap- 
 peared to wake up from their blind idealising when 
 Madero, by a compact with the Catholics, got their 
 support. And when he showed some weakness with 
 the miscreant ex-groom Zapata, who was terrorising 
 the green valleys of Morelos, then the Mexicans 
 began to think of Don Francisco as a person whom 
 they had not understood. 1 But when a man is 
 President of Mexico it is not requisite that he should 
 be all things to all voters. General Reyes, in disguise, 
 fled from the country, and in his turn settled down at 
 San Antonio, in Texas. 6 Do not think,' he wrote to 
 his adherents, 4 that the good cause is not near my 
 heart. But Mexico is now no longer safe for me. 
 Remain, dear faithful followers, and fight.' The 
 Governor of Texas charged him with conspiring to 
 foment a revolution. He and certain of his followers 
 were then arrested, but the fiery old commander cried 
 that he had never listened to an accusation so absurd ; 
 he was a simple soldier, nothing else, who would fight 
 face to face with anyone, but was not able to defend 
 himself against intrigue. Then he was liberated, and 
 a few weeks later at Linares he surrendered to a body 
 of the Mexican police, admitting frankly that his 
 dream of a successful revolution would remain a dream. 
 6 I called upon the army and the people,' so he said, 
 4 but none responded.' We could hope that, with 
 Madero as a temporary necessary despot, the Re- 
 public would continue to evolve, and into something 
 
 1 It is said that Madero, an ardent spiritualist, believed that 
 Zapata's death would be followed, on the next day, by his own Per- 
 haps, however, he was influenced by humanitarian motives in sparing 
 the brigand's life. He gave him a considerable sum of money on the 
 understanding that his outrages against villages and towns and trains 
 and plantations should come to an end. But this Jacquerie, with 
 60,000 men at its beck and call, survived Madero. It was a method 
 of protesting against the inadequacy of the late President's Socialism. 
 
 x 
 
306 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 very different from her small southern neighbours. 
 And in foreign policy towards Japan and the United 
 States, it will be well if she leaves well alone. But, 
 as we are reminded by Moliere : 4 Le monde, chere 
 Agnes, est une Strange chose.' 
 
 Much has been omitted from this baneful story of 
 the Revolution. I confess I have not mentioned all 
 the plots against Madero and not all the deeds of 
 violence which Mexicans committed on the foreigners : 
 at Cuautla, for example, the emporium of Monsieur 
 Caire was looted of its contents, save a mattress, 
 which did not appeal to them and therefore it was 
 dragged into the middle of the street and burned ; 
 from the Hotel Morelos, also of French ownership, the 
 looters even stole the gold-fish in the fountain ; they 
 compelled a Spanish merchant's wife to kneel down at 
 their feet and under penalty of instant death to kiss 
 the ground, while they compelled a Spaniard to 
 embrace a corpse which had been lying in the street 
 and was half -decomposed ; some hundreds of Chinese 
 were massacred in Torreon, because the rebels, having 
 drunk a dozen bottles of suspected brandy that were 
 in a court-room waiting for analysis, had breakfast at 
 a Chinese restaurant and died. I have not mentioned 
 all the deeds of violence which usually mark a so-called 
 civil war. But rather than invite you to give ear to 
 an account more dreadful, I would have this tale 
 regarded not so much as a complete and perfect 
 history, more as a drowsy after-dinner entertainment. 
 He who will provide you with the perfect entertain- 
 ment must be such another as the splendid French- 
 man, Jean Froissart, whose tale was written for 
 this worthy object. Jean was infinitely careful, and 
 
DAWN AFTER DIAZ 
 
 307 
 
 he could not always reach the scene of action until 
 thirty years had flown away — that is indeed how 
 he secured the facts relating to the fight of Crecy — 
 and if anyone would disentangle all the truth in such 
 a land as Mexico he scarcely could pretend to do it 
 under thirty years. And meanwhile I endeavour, very 
 humbly, to sit on the chair of this new Froissart, until 
 his arrival. Then he will be read, like his great 
 predecessor, for at least five centuries, when it is 
 probable that I am not remembered even in a Mass, 
 since they are held — I quote from an announcement 
 in a paper of the capital — ' for the repose of English- 
 speaking dead who live in Mexico.' 
 
 Dear, future Froissart ! When you march into the 
 heavy silence of the jungle, when you loiter in the grey 
 dust of a cactus village to converse with him who 
 placidly endeavours to look after school and shop, 
 when you are taking counsel with a wizard child of 
 Montezuma or with the diluted children of the merry 
 towns, will you consider that the natives have a charm 
 so wild, so delicate, that one is well advised to listen to 
 the music of their Spanish tongue and also to the 
 music of who knows what winds which whistle in the 
 Sierra Madre and what dreaminess of the Tabascan 
 waters gliding darkly to the sea ? 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 IN A FIELD 
 
 In a field, not very far as birds would fly from Mexico 
 the capital, I met Prisciliano ploughing with a wooden 
 plough. He came towards me, white against the 
 greyish sky, and in the evening wind his large, white 
 drawers flapped like sails. He did not hurry, though 
 the darkness was approaching. Then I saw that he 
 was middle-aged, a weather-beaten man ; he smiled. 
 ' Very good night,' I said. 
 
 4 That you may pass it well.' He stood there, 
 leaning on the plough, and with an undecided look. 
 He did not speak, but studied me as thoroughly as 
 if he were a child. 
 
 And his intentions seemed to be pacific. 
 
 c Senor,' he said, 4 1 should be glad if you could 
 play the flute. I have one.' He removed his large 
 hat carefully, and from the inside he produced this 
 instrument. 6 It will be good if you can play,' quoth 
 he. 
 
 So primitive a thing it was that, as I held it in my 
 hand, I wondered how it could produce coherent 
 music. 
 
 ' With permission,' said Prisciliano, as he sat him 
 down upon a rock. He put the huge sombrero on his 
 head again, so that I who was standing over him 
 could not observe his face. He sat there very 
 patiently. How could I disappoint him ? 
 
 308 
 
"We all complain of the shortness of time." Seneca. 
 
 Ploughing. 
 
IN A FIELD 
 
 309 
 
 Looking up and down the long, grey road I saw no 
 possible suplente. These in Mexico are people who 
 will do things for you when you happen to be in- 
 capacitated. All the deputies, for instance, have 
 suplentes, who sit in the Chamber, legislating when 
 the deputies are sick. The road was edged with trees 
 that fluttered in the wind. 
 
 4 It is a pretty flute,' said I. 
 
 4 Ah ! ' said Prisciliano. He clasped his knees and 
 slowly see-sawed on the rock. Then presently he 
 took his hat off, fumbled in it till he found some 
 cigarettes, and reached a packet up to me. 6 Perhaps 
 before you start to play ? ' he said. From his ex- 
 pression one would have imagined that I had already 
 played to him for several hours. I sat down at his 
 side, and while he held his useful hat against the wind 
 I lit my cigarette. 4 With your permission ' — he had 
 borrowed it to light his own, and then he put it back 
 between my lips. For some few minutes we said 
 nothing, but there was a pleasant music in the trees. 
 
 4 You have been living here,' I asked, 4 a long 
 time ? ' He was so completely in the picture. 
 
 4 I have lived here always. ... I am Prisciliano 
 Guerra, at your orders.' 
 
 It was restful to gaze out across the wide, brown 
 field to where the mist was gathering. Beyond, 
 there rose the dead volcano with the fingers of the 
 red-gold sun laid on the snowy peak of it. And 
 thus it was as if a blazing torch was lifted up into the 
 sky. The shadows underneath it were as tender as 
 the sky ; they knew that in a little moment they 
 would overwhelm the torch and all its bravery, as 
 Time had overwhelmed that other blaze of the 
 volcano. Very tender were the shadows as they 
 closed upon the mountain's glory. 
 
310 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 My friend expectorated. 4 You are thinking that 
 one cannot live here always,' so he said, ' since there 
 is naught that happens.' 
 
 4 But, Prisciliano ! ' 
 
 4 As for me, I do not care,' he said. 4 It does not 
 touch me.' And he let a smoky column rise up from 
 the corner of his mouth. It did not live long in the 
 wind. 
 
 4 At all events, to stay here for a little time,' I said, 
 4 would be delicious.' 
 4 1 am nothing, nothing.' 
 
 4 If it were so peaceful everywhere in Mexico ! ' I said. 
 
 4 Ah ! well,' observed Prisciliano, 4 the pulque does 
 a lot of harm.' 
 
 4 It was the Revolution I was thinking of.' 
 
 4 What revolution ? When ? ' he asked. 
 
 4 Madero's — surely you have heard of it ? For 
 months it has been going on, all over Mexico.' 
 
 4 You speak the truth ? A revolution ? And there 
 was some killing, tell me ? It is sad,' he mused, 
 4 yes, very sad that men will not be satisfied. You 
 do not know the village over there ? ' He pointed 
 with his hand to the horizon. 4 Pues, I have heard 
 things . . . and, who knows ? if I were living in that 
 place perhaps I also should not be well satisfied. 
 Who knows ? ' 
 
 4 Madero was not satisfied,' I said, 4 with Don 
 Porfirio.' 
 
 He scowled. 4 But Don Porfirio,' he said, 4 is Don 
 Porfirio. . . . And what succeeded ? ' 
 
 4 This will all be a Republic now, with free elections 
 
 and ' 
 
 4 What did he do with Madero ? Ha ! I see him 
 hanging from a tree, or did they do it in a prison ? 
 He is very great, our Don Porfirio. He is the greatest 
 
IN A FIELD 
 
 311 
 
 man of all the Republic. Truly he is a man.' Pris- 
 ciliano gazed at me with some defiance. ' Si, senor,' 
 he said. ... 4 But it is cold. I am detaining you.' 
 
 The fiery colour had all vanished from the dead 
 volcano. Everywhere the same grey mist was being 
 spread ; the last of all the flame had tried to find a 
 refuge in the windy sky. 
 
 Prisciliano rose. ' With your permission,' he 
 remarked, ' and over there you have your house. 
 But it is cold, is it not ? ' 
 
 4 Until another time,' I said. 4 We have been 
 talking much — and we have had no music' 
 
 He put back the flute inside his hat. 
 
 4 1 wish I could have played for you,' I said. 
 
 4 Many times I thank you,' said Prisciliano, 4 for 
 when there is anyone who plays to me I am more 
 pleased than any drunkard. I am going.' And he 
 started with his wooden plough and as if he would 
 continue all the night. 
 
 He travelled down the field with even steps, 
 apparently not looking to the left or right. He was 
 the very spirit of the Indian race — indomitable, 
 persevering, slow. One fancied that he had been 
 ploughing and would plough for ever, and that if this 
 wind became the voice of sirens he would not be 
 interrupted. 
 
 Then suddenly he stopped. By this time he was far 
 away, but as the great sombrero moved a trifle one 
 could know his head was sinking forward. Thus he 
 stayed, a lonely figure, while the wind was playing 
 with his flimsy garments. Against the sombre back- 
 ground of the earth and air he was a motionless, white 
 statue. Yes, for he was the belated statue of the 
 armies of the soil that have conferred their monu- 
 ments on kings and captains. 
 
312 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 While the shadows, like a flock of friendly birds, 
 were gathering about him, at his feet and on his 
 shoulders, he remained as if he were oppressed by 
 grievous or inextricable thoughts. And then he 
 grasped the plough once more and strode away into 
 the darkness. 
 
In a balcony — Madero and Huerta. 
 
 " He kissed my hand, he looked into my eyes, ( 
 And love, love came at end of every phrase." 
 
 —Browning s " In a Balcony.' 
 
 Vice-President Jose Maria Pino 
 Suarez. see^.su 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE SOUL OF SENOR DE LA BARRA 
 22nd February, 1913 
 
 During the good days of 1911, when the President, 
 Porfirio Diaz, saw revolt on every side and hurled 
 against it every man (except himself) and all the 
 instruments which he controlled, it was the task 
 of Don Francisco de la Barra, the Ambassador in 
 Washington, to circulate more downright lies in 
 several months than, one presumes, he bargained 
 for when he became a diplomat. Sefior de la Barra 
 is a man of education and refinement, he is Chilian by 
 origin and therefore something better than the usual 
 Mexican. So we were very much concerned that he 
 should thus endanger his immortal soul by uttering, 
 and not unwittingly, the foulest lies and hundreds of 
 them. Everything would soon be for the best, he 
 said, beyond the Rio Grande. . . . On the 22nd 
 February, 1913, Madero was murdered, and Senor 
 de la Barra, then the Foreign Secretary, told the 
 countries of the world that it was owing to his effort 
 to escape while he was being driven from the palace 
 to the Penitenciary. I dare say General Huerta (the 
 wealthy cattle-exporter who was much opposed to 
 Madero's land policy) and General Felix Diaz, the 
 assassins, made a similar explanation, but they 
 (especially Huerta) are merely Mexican savages in 
 blue uniforms, who would be astonished if we stayed 
 
 3i3 
 
314 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 to listen to them. It is much to be regretted, 
 though, that Senor de la Barra's soul should have 
 this grievous burden placed upon it. I am not sure 
 whether he began to give his explanation during 
 dinner on the Saturday evening or whether he waited 
 until after the event had taken place near midnight. 
 Anyhow, he seems to have been quite impatient 
 to observe how the Legations had received his 
 uncouth lie, and so he begged the diplomatic 
 corps to give him the honour of lunching with him 
 on the Monday. He stands in need of a considerable 
 amount of honour. The diplomats 1 declined his 
 invitation, saying that Madero's death and that of 
 Pino Suarez, the Vice-President, must be accounted 
 for. That is why de la Barra toils in the beautiful 
 Foreign Office — trying, trying all day long — with the 
 assistance of the Under-Secretary and of the First, 
 Second and Third Introducers of Ambassadors, to write 
 a story which shall be considered plausible. And in 
 the meantime, at the palace, Huerta's evil countenance 
 is leering at the stolid Felix. 
 
 1 During the terrible days when Maderistas and Felicistas were con- 
 ducting a civil war, with artillery and sharpshooters, in the very heart 
 of the capital, when thousands of non-combatants were killed, when 
 the doors of Belem were thrown open and thousands of convicts made 
 their escape (one who had been there for twenty years preferred to 
 stay and two remained for several hours endeavouring to force the 
 prison safe), when the Zapatistas plundered and assassinated in the 
 very outskirts of the city and when the position of the American 
 Ambassador was naturally much more arduous and much more 
 delicate and much more perilous than that of his colleagues, then it 
 seems that members of the British colony complained both of their 
 Minister, Mr. Stronge, and their Consul-General, Mr. Stringer, and 
 their Vice-Consul, Mr. Milne. The latter is said, perhaps not of his 
 own free will, to have vanished ; Mr. Stringer went no further than 
 the Country Club, about eight miles from the capital, where you can 
 play golf ; and the Minister, an elderly gentleman, is said to have 
 devoted himself to the care of his parrot, so that many of his com- 
 patriots preferred to take refuge in the American Embassy. The 
 German Minister also, Admiral von Hintze, was according to all 
 accounts most energetic and helpful. 
 
THE SOUL OF SENOR DE LA BARRA 315 
 
 ' What are you smiling at ? ' says Felix. 
 
 4 Quien sabe ? . . . It goes well with us, dear 
 friend,' says Huerta. 
 
 Felix also smiles a little. 4 I have got no doubt,' 
 says he, ' that you looked just like that when you 
 received his wife in audience and told her that his 
 fate would be decided by the Congress of the nation. 
 Huerta, you are splendid ! ' 
 
 4 We have got the country ! Blood and iron ! ' 
 
 4 Yes, that is the only way — he was unutterably 
 weak. At Veracruz when I revolted last October 
 and he took me, why did he not have me shot ? ' 
 
 4 Yes, yes — I mean ' He stops, in great 
 
 embarrassment. 6 By all the saints, Don Felix, I gave 
 no advice ! ' 
 
 ' Of course not, compahero ! We are friends.' 
 Don Felix laughs in the most hearty fashion. 
 
 ' Never shall we separate, I swear it. If I could, my 
 dear Don Felix, I would breakfast with you, I would 
 work beside you, I would lunch with you, I ' 
 
 ' Gustavo won't ! ' 
 
 4 Ah ! ' His Excellency glances at the Commander 
 in-Chief, because he is not sure if he is sound on this 
 point. 4 Really, it was needful,' he begins, 4 I would 
 not ! ' 
 
 4 1 don't blame you.' 
 
 4 He was vile. He was unpopular. I thought it 
 quite a good idea to have some soldiers hidden in 
 the restaurant when he invited me to lunch. Those 
 foreign papers — you have seen them ? ' 
 
 4 Don't be angry, my dear friend. What can they 
 do ? It is the Yankees only we must think about, 
 and they have said so often they will come that they 
 will never spoil my sleep.' 
 
 6 1 heard a little story yesterday,' says His Excel- 
 
316 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 lency the Provisional President. ' It happened in a 
 pulque shop. There was a fellow who had drunk too 
 much, he shouted that he was a champion — soy un 
 valiente. One could hear him over all the din, and 
 he persisted with his boastful shouting. Then some 
 other fellow elbowed through the crowd and stood 
 defiantly in front of him and told him that he also 
 was a champion — soy tambien un valiente. He stood 
 with his fingers in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, 
 and although he swayed a little he looked formidable. 
 "Now," his whole expression seemed to say — "now 
 what do you intend to do ? " The first one smiled 
 and said, " Well, then, my friend, we are two 
 champions — somos dos valientes." ' 
 
 Madero lay dead and his regime was over. It had 
 ended after a pitiless battle, which took place in the 
 streets of Mexico City and caused the death of 
 thousands and a vast destruction of property. Felix 
 Diaz, having, with Reyes, been released from prison 
 by cadets, had held the arsenal, Madero and Huerta 
 the palace. Bernardo Reyes was shot through the 
 head at the first onslaught. And Madero was betrayed 
 by Huerta to Don Felix. The Republic was again 
 beneath the despotism of a Diaz ; there was very 
 little light and one could say that those who had 
 announced the dawn were stultified. Once more the 
 Government was ruthless, savage and implacable ; 
 once more the country dreaded it. ' Freedom has 
 been won,' said Madero to an English interviewer a 
 few days before his assassination, ' and when the people 
 get a little more accustomed to it they will make good 
 use of it, and then it will be ordered freedom. Your 
 great essayist Macaulay in his essay on Milton, shows 
 that " till men have been some time free, they know 
 not how to use their freedom." ' But when the 
 
You are taken swiftly 
 
 to every part of the capital and to the most distant suburbs by the excellent electric trams, which 
 have two classes and express, non-stopping services. They have well-appointed funeral cars, on 
 which the employees are shaved and have their boots blacked free of charge. " This traffic," says 
 Mr. Percy F. Martin, " proves highly remunerative to the Tramway Company." 
 
 A street in the capital, February, 1913. 
 
THE SOUL OF SENOR DE LA BARRA 317 
 
 treacherous Huerta, whom Madero always had 
 protected, and General Felix Diaz, whom Madero 
 would not execute at Veracruz, when these two 
 patriots determined that the reign of blood and iron 
 should return and when they saw with satisfaction 
 that the sky itself was shot with blood, they certainly 
 did not believe that this had anything to do with 
 dawn. Well, I think there will be a period of greyness, 
 and that afterwards the day will come — and from the 
 north. Before Porflrio Diaz and before Madero it 
 was destined to surge up in this way. What alone 
 was doubtful was the moment when the darkness 
 would be dissipated, and the passage of Madero is the 
 cause why it will go more quickly. It is stated 
 officially by Huerta and Felix Diaz that 6 from now 
 peace and prosperity will reign in Mexico.' What 
 they will not be able to stamp out will be the recollec- 
 tion of Madero' s honest and heroic efforts, his high 
 principles, his pitiful endeavour. For a time the 
 Mexicans will struggle with each other, " then they 
 will struggle desperately against the United States, 
 and then their country will be known as Mex. (The 
 cry of ' Mexico for the Mexicans ' was heard a good 
 deal during 1912. The foreign engine-drivers on the 
 National Railways, to give only one illustration, were 
 dismissed. What then resulted was unfortunate: 
 not only did the native drivers strike — and each time 
 get what they demanded — but large numbers of the 
 locomotives were so treated that they also struck. ) In 
 California it is said that there is a considerable amount 
 of graft, and there are labour troubles which involve 
 the dynamiting of the office of a newspaper. But 
 California has not, for a long time, yearned to be again 
 a Mexican dominion, as it was till 1848 ; and in a 
 century or so this will be more or less the attitude of 
 
318 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 Mex. From the days of Juarez this was bound to 
 come, for he neglected his own people and did not 
 make Mexico an Indian Republic, which would have 
 possessed a real strength. But this was also bound 
 to come from that day when it pleased Almighty God 
 to make these two be neighbours. 
 
 No doubt it is a part of the great process that a 
 quantity of blood — and more blood — and of ink has 
 yet to flow. With the Mexicans it is largely a matter 
 of personal ambitions and hatreds ; some soldiers, 
 for example, were standing outside one of the Lega- 
 tions during the conflict between Madero and Felix 
 Diaz. 6 From which side,' they were asked, are you 
 protecting us ? Are you for Diaz or Madero ? ' 
 ' Pues, sefior/ they replied, 6 our officer will be back 
 soon and then we shall know.' The Mexicans will 
 murder one another, while Vazquez Gomez will 
 occasionally run a yard or two across the frontier, 
 will exclaim that he is President, and will run back 
 to Texas. Then the Mexicans will strive against 
 their fate, will do their uttermost to keep away from 
 the Americans ; they will invoke the hatred of the 
 days of Diaz when his interview with Mr. Taft, 
 suggesting secret treaty or agreement, brought such 
 criticism on his head ; they will invoke the hatred of 
 Madero' s day, for he was said to be too well disposed 
 towards the neighbours. These on their side will 
 resist with all their strength the irresistible. 1 Officially 
 
 1 The Mexican sociologist, F. Bulnes, writes in his book, ' L'Avenir 
 des nations Hispano-Americaines ' : ' It is more than probable that by 
 1980 the United States will hold a population of 250,000,000 in- 
 habitants. They will then scarcely be sufficient for the needs of this 
 population, and will no longer be able to supply the world with the 
 vast quantity of cereals which they supply to-day. They will there- 
 fore have to choose between a recourse to the methods of intensive 
 culture and the conquest of the extra-tropical lands of Latin America, 
 which are fitted by their conditions to the easy and inexpensive 
 production of excellent cereals.' 
 
The Spot where Madero was Murdered 
 
 in the Muy Leal, Insigne e Imperial (very loyal, notable and imperial) town of Mexico, 
 according to Charles V. 
 
THE SOUL OF SENOR DE LA BARRA 319 
 
 they will declare, like the Ambassador in Mexico, that 
 the assassination of Madero was an accident ; they 
 will repeat to Europeans that the Monroe Doctrine 
 does not call for them to supervise the social and 
 political morals of the Mexicans ; and they will hope 
 that no Ambassador will fall a victim to Madero' s 
 accident of being shot by those who want to set you 
 free. They will acknowledge, as the 4 Spectator ' has 
 very well put it, that they may have assumed the 
 honourable position of trustee without any means of 
 performing the work of the trust. Logically, they 
 should either guarantee life and property throughout 
 the Western World or should modify the Monroe 
 Doctrine so as to admit the co-operation of other 
 Powers who may be interested in the affairs of Central 
 and South America. They will be thinking of the 
 fate of the Americans and Europeans who may chance 
 to be in Mexico when war begins and they will think 
 of all the difficulties of that war, the tortuous length 
 of frontier, the raiders who will creep into the frontier 
 towns, the difficulties of their transport in a country 
 mountainous and desolate, the fact that 200,000 
 warriors will be wanted, and over a period of at least 
 two years, the fact that all the Mexicans will be 
 united then. 1 Of course it would be foolish to assert 
 
 1 Maximilian found that in the presence of a common foe the 
 Mexicans are not to be divided. Naturally it is the Americans to-day 
 who are the only people capable of causing such a union, but the 
 natives of less culture have the haziest ideas of what precisely is 
 the difference between Americans and English, or between Americans, 
 Dutch, Germans, French, Italians and English. The Spaniards — for 
 whom they have a term of contempt — are the only foreigners they 
 really can distinguish, and they usually do not love them, for they 
 often are usurious and haughty and they have the lisp. Otherwise, 
 in time of peace, there is no more general hatred of the foreigner 
 than there was when Mr. Ward, the British Charge d'Affaires, wrote 
 in his very thorough, very interesting book [* Mexico,' by H. G. 
 Ward] that * Zacatecas is the only part of Mexico in which I am 
 aware that, at the end of 1826, a bad feeling towards foreigners in 
 general prevailed.' 
 
320 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 that arguments which move the Government and the 
 majority of the Americans are not opposed by various 
 important bodies. President Madero could not raise 
 a loan in Wall Street, and it was announced a few 
 days after his removal that the Huerta Government 
 had been successful in arranging for a loan of 
 $30,000,000. It is obvious that, even with the best 
 security, you want much more than a few days to 
 regulate the mere formalities of such a loan. And 
 one concludes that Wall Street knew beforehand of 
 the coup d'etat and was in league with the assassins 
 of the President. Even while Huerta was shelling 
 Diaz in mock warfare and waiting for the right 
 moment to betray Madero, the pair were probably 
 in communication with their Wall Street confederates. 
 Wall Street is the fiscal agent of the land and indus- 
 trial concessionaires of the old Diaz. Intervention 
 means intervention for them. If great financial 
 forces are in willing league with these Mexican 
 butchers, one can scarcely doubt but that they will 
 connive at any crime in order to back up their 
 investments with American soldiers. As to whether 
 the Ambassador, Mr. Henry Lane Wilson, in white- 
 washing the murderers was obeying orders from 
 Washington and whether such orders were inspired 
 by Wall Street will possibly be ascertained ; a 
 large number of his countrymen are now demanding 
 that the truth be known. His appeal for a more 
 kindly consideration of the murderers and his very 
 quick acceptance of the official version of Madero' s 
 death are indeed to be regarded as an insult to 
 American intelligence. At the same time one cannot 
 say, as yet, whether his Government, being reluctant 
 to interfere (and voicing in this the large majority of 
 the people), told him to make the best of the fait 
 
Planning a Bombardment of the National Palace. 
 
 Generals Mondragon and Felix Diaz. 
 
 The Minister from the Motherland. 
 
 How the Spanish Minister went to and fro in order to patch up a peace between Maderistas 
 and Felicistas. Here he is holding a white-handled umbrella. 
 
THE SOUL OF SENOR DE LA BARRA 321 
 
 accompli or whether they have been the slaves of those, 
 the American and Mexican financiers, who will not, 
 if they can help it, let the Mexicans shake off their 
 slavery. It is a fact that the Ambassador's relations 
 with Madero had for a long time been very strained, 
 that although he was the doyen of the diplomatic 
 corps it was not he but other diplomats who, towards 
 the end, communicated with Madero, whereas on the 
 Sunday and Monday before Madero 's fall General 
 Huerta came several times to the American Embassy. 
 However, Mr. Wilson is a professional diplomat, 
 having previously served in Chili and Belgium ; he at 
 any rate had not the personal connection with Wall 
 Street as had one of his predecessors, a very impossible 
 gentleman, who busied himself in securing the Pan- 
 American railway concession and in constructing the 
 line, what there is of it, more with an eye to quantity 
 (he obtained so much per kilometre) than to quality. 
 
 We hold that the idealist, Madero, has by no 
 means lived in vain, but if we turn our gaze from 
 what he brought into the sky and look at what he did 
 on earth, we may confess that his idealism did not 
 serve him well. He seems to have forgotten that the 
 average Mexican is far less interested in political ideals 
 than he is moved to wrath if there is interference 
 with his pleasures. The firm attitude towards the 
 lotteries, which if Madero could not stop, he limited, 
 was altogether different from the usual policy of Diaz, 
 who would grant the governor of a State, in many 
 instances, the sole right of establishing a local lottery ; 
 and many people had been hoping that Madero would 
 extend this right to them. His gentle methods caused 
 the Indians to be insolent, to do less honest work than 
 ever and to spend more time in pulque shops. Madero 
 could not solve the land and many other troubles 
 
322 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 which he had inherited from Diaz, and he was too 
 amiable to stop his partisans and some of his own 
 family from plundering the State. He wanted to be 
 constitutional, and therefore he was ineffective. His 
 very uprightness was a source of embarrassment 
 among a people saturated with the spirit of corruption 
 and without the smallest conception of the meaning 
 of self-government. 6 It is the folly of nations,' says 
 the Abbe Coignard, 6 to found vast hopes upon the 
 fall of princes.' People thought in Mexico that, 
 Diaz having been expelled, earth would become as 
 heaven. That the whole of the abuses under Diaz 
 would be instantly removed was no less credited 
 than that the burden of all Mexicans would either 
 be much lighter or would actually be removed from 
 off their shoulders. On Madero's side had been the 
 animosity against Porfirio Diaz, and against him was 
 the deep resentment which was cherished by the 
 partisans of Diaz, who contributed from Paris and 
 New York large sums for any rebel movement. And 
 against him were the clericals, their leader being de la 
 Barra. Against him were the great landowners and 
 the larger part of the Press. He was mild, so that the 
 average Mexican regarded him quite coldly ; when 
 this mildness left the country in a turmoil then the 
 Mexicans who had supported him began to fall away. 
 Such army officers and men as still were loyal had 
 apparently no reason other than the flattering praise 
 which in the newspapers and proclamations of the 
 Government was showered upon them and which 
 they seemed anxious to deserve. Madero disregarded 
 all the rules of Mexico : he spared the lives of his 
 opponents when he had them in his power. There 
 might have been some hope for him if he had followed 
 this old custom, even as Porfirio Diaz would have 
 
February, 1913 : The Spectators. 
 
THE SOUL OF SENOR DE LA BARRA 323 
 
 certainly fared better had he followed the advice of 
 a most beautiful young girl, the daughter of a Senator 
 and granddaughter of a very liberal President, whose 
 English education and long residence in London did 
 not stop her from insisting with great eloquence that 
 the young orator and author, Francisco I. Madero, 
 Presidential candidate, who at the moment was in 
 prison, should be killed. 1 It would appear that 
 Don Victoriano Huerta's party know that such 
 
 1 The Ley de Fuga [lit. Law of Flight] enables the authorities to 
 rid themselves of those whom it is inconvenient to place on trial. 
 Sometimes the prisoner is really given a chance of escape ; for 
 instance, if he is a spy, against whom there is no particular resent- 
 ment ; an attack is apprehended on the part of his employers, and 
 perhaps a man could not be spared to watch him. He is therefore 
 told to ride away — sometimes he is given his choice — and as he darts 
 from side to side the bullets whistle round him. Sometimes the 
 prisoner has no chance ; for instance, when Porfirio Diaz was about 
 to fall, a man went round the State of Aguascalientes, scattering 
 broadsheets in favour of Madero. ' We have such disagreeable work 
 to do,' said the Lieutenant of Rurales, to an Englishman. When 
 Mercado, the old Governor of Aguascalientes, was informed of the 
 Maderist he was much distressed. He said that he had always been 
 a father to his people — Aguascalientes has one school for every 3103 
 inhabitants — and now in his old age he was to be disturbed in this 
 way. But he was relieved to get a telegram from the Governor of 
 the adjacent State of San Luis Potosi, requesting him to have the 
 agitator, who had lately been in San Luis, returned by train. The 
 Colonel of Burales also got a telegram from Don Porfirio's private 
 secretary, saying that a man would on the morrow make an effort to 
 escape between two given stations ; this must be prevented. When 
 the train on the next morning was between these stations it went 
 slowly and more slowly, while the officer who was with the Maderist 
 urged him to escape. ' Not I ! ' cried the Maderist ; ' I have heard of 
 that trick long ago. Here I remain ! ' And he clung fiercely to the 
 seat. The end of it was that the officer, assisted by the escort, pulled 
 their prisoner away and threw him out, so that he rolled down the 
 embankment, just where the Lieutenant and his men were stationed. 
 ' I was warned you would escape,' said the Lieutenant. * But they 
 flung me off the train ! ' cried the Maderist. ' I am sorry, but you 
 have three minutes for your prayers,' said the Lieutenant, and he 
 told the Englishman that while his prisoner was saying them he shot 
 him through the back. ' We have to do such disagreeable things,' 
 said the Lieutenant. . . . When Madero 's Government was overthrown, 
 we were told that a good many of his numerous brothers and uncles tried 
 to escape, but only those were lucky who, with his widow and his 
 father, managed to achieve a Cuban man-of-war at Veracruz. 
 
324 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 indulgence is mistaken. One of Huerta's nephews, 
 Senor Enrique Zepeda, knew that four Maderist ex- 
 governors, who were in the Penitenciary, should die. 
 He took a squad of mounted men — this happened 
 after General Huerta had been President about a 
 month — and he demanded of the warden that these 
 four should be produced. The warden would not 
 hand them over and Zepeda went on to Belem, where 
 he requested that they should deliver to him one 
 Gabriel Hernandez, ex-commandant of Rurales and 
 his enemy. In this case he was not denied, and when 
 Hernandez was pushed out of prison the squad 
 murdered him without delay. And then Zepeda 
 had the body placed upon a pyre and burned. 
 Zepeda' s friends, aware that foreign nations may not 
 know how it is best to treat one's captive enemies, 
 asserted that Zepedo was not sober. . . . From friends 
 of Don Porfirio Diaz I have heard — but whether it is 
 true I cannot say — that he was anxious to destroy 
 Madero when he lay in prison at San Luis Postosi, 
 but that the beautiful and merciful Senora Diaz 
 begged him for Madero' s life. She prayed her 
 husband not to sully his last years with such a crime. 
 He told her, so they say, that it was policy. But 
 she insisted that he had upon his head the murder 
 of too many Mexicans. And in a day or two 
 he is alleged to have consented, saying that he 
 would not kill Madero, but that he was much 
 afraid he would some day repent this deviation 
 from his ordinary practice. . . . With Madero there 
 could be no stable Government (although the traders, 
 manufacturers and business men, as opposed to the 
 concession-hunters and the favourites of Diaz, be- 
 lieved that, on the whole, he represented the best 
 chance of achieving this), and those who think that 
 
of the church at Catnpo Florido, from which the Maderistas dislodged their opponents. Inset is a 
 portrait of the sole Felicista survivor. 
 
THE SOUL OF SENOR DE LA BARRA 325 
 
 it is not too late to build up a strong central Govern- 
 ment and then improve the Diaz system will, I fear, 
 be disappointed. Between 1821 and 1876 Mexico 
 had 52 Presidents, 2 Emperors and a Regent — not 
 4 all murthered,' as Shakespeare's Richard II says of 
 his fellow-monarchs. But it is probable that the 
 Republic will be soon as thinly populated as was 
 California in 1848. 
 
PART II 
 THE BACKGROUND 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 OAXACAS ROAD OF LIFE AND DEATH 1 
 
 As the riders came before the dawn across the silent 
 courtyard of the hacienda they could see not all the 
 ring of mountains, but the summits only which pro- 
 jected from the clouds. There was beyond the 
 hacienda gate a world of cloud and gloomy peak and 
 stars. From this high place it was a matter of some 
 twenty leagues of trail to Tuxtepec ; they wanted to 
 arrive there in the twilight, so they started when the 
 gorgeous forest underneath the clouds was growing 
 weary for the hours of sleep, the long and painful 
 hours of day. This mountain path descended rapidly, 
 the travellers rode in the clouds, and when at last 
 there came a rift in them so that our comrades could 
 behold the sky they saw one silver star about to 
 vanish in a little lake of blue. And for a time the 
 clouds endeavoured to be grim and blank, to have no 
 dealings with their foe — the sun. But when the 
 childish fingers of the sun were stretched towards 
 them how could they resist from offering a store of 
 
 1 Francis Latouche, one of the most promising of literary men, was 
 killed in Paris by a slipping motor-bus in January, 1913. His 
 4 Sonnets Paiens ' and his ' Antinoiis " will preserve him in the hearts 
 of those who know when beauty is a dawn. He was the private 
 secretary of the well-known critic Henry D. Davray, who has written 
 of him in the ' Mercure de France.' Other memoirs have appeared in 
 French and foreign papers ; I may also be allowed to bring my tribute, 
 since Latouche had published in the ' Revue Bleue,' only four days 
 before his death, a rendering of this Mexican sketch. It is a delicate 
 and exquisite translation. 
 
 329 
 
330 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 opalescent toys ? And when they had been slain the 
 riders could perceive among the tumult of gay vegeta- 
 tion here and there a bamboo hut, a clearing for tobacco, 
 and again the giants of the forest with their long, 
 green nets upon their shoulders, gazing like so many 
 monstrous fishermen towards the sky. At intervals 
 the path would disengage itself from all those trees, 
 would mount an eminence, and you would have before 
 you the wild garden spreading this way, that way, 
 and assuredly containing under the fantastic waves 
 of emerald a lonely town which echoed long since to 
 the feet of men. There was a shimmering haze above 
 the garden, and it was the ghostly company of our 
 dead clouds ; ridge beyond ridge they ran distracted, 
 up and up towards the sapphire dome, the pitiless, 
 unshadowed and unseeing dome of heaven. 
 
 The forest was asleep : above the tree-tops, pressing 
 down upon them, was a canopy of sunlight and the 
 yellow bells of the convolvuli which had laboriously 
 striven upward to that airy region, for a wind to shake 
 the music out of them, were silent. Underneath the 
 tree-tops as the ribbons of the sunshine penetrate 
 they build a labyrinth, a greenish-golden palace of 
 uncounted habitations, with the corridors that 
 have no end and with the dazzling chambers 
 lost in the recesses of the leafy chambers. Further 
 down it is a world of magic, since the more 
 mysterious sunlight mingles with the rising vapours 
 and still further down in the direction of our friends 
 the riders even the adventurous sunlight has the 
 look of one who yearns for sleep ; the greyness 
 from the jungle's moisture almost overpowers it, and 
 upon the walls of the dark passages through which 
 the riders come it scarcely has the strength to paint 
 the jasmine a dim golden hue, the liquid amber green. 
 
OAXACA'S ROAD OF LIFE AND DEATH 331 
 
 From such a tunnel they emerged on to the bank of 
 the broad Rio Papaloapam, the River of Butterflies ; 
 they forded it, their feet upon the saddle, for the 
 cumbrous iron stirrups were submerged. And when 
 at last they reached the other side they also lay them 
 down to sleep. A bird which had a sort of human 
 voice, the solitary creature that appeared to be awake, 
 sang from the greenish-golden thicket. 
 
 And the riders in their sleep observed a fine 
 procession : first a troop of ragged and unshaven 
 Spanish cavaliers, their helmets flashing to the sun, 
 their horses with reproachful eyes — the path is 
 difficult and heavy baskets are suspended from the 
 saddles, baskets full of golden idols. As the cavaliers 
 advance they barely look into the jungle, for it is not 
 long ago since certain ambuscaders had their lesson. 
 But behind them, with his frock-coat tightly buttoned, 
 walks the stern and ugly Zapotec, the President of 
 Mexico, Benito Juarez. He is thinking of the Spanish 
 Church, and with his stick he slashes at an orchid, 
 lays it low, and instantly there surges up from the 
 amazing ground a multitude of red-tongue orchids. 
 Down the road an ox-cart rumbles, taking back its 
 sodden inmates from a fair ; one glance below the 
 awning tells you that they are oblivious to the world, 
 but near the cart a thinly bearded, agitated person 
 strides along, declaiming in falsetto how he lost his 
 money, and the pale brown oxen flap their ears. 
 Inside another cart are several rotund matrons, 
 loosely clad in white, exhibiting to one another little 
 sky-blue spangled slippers which — most wonderful to 
 say — their feet can wear, and necklaces of twenty- 
 dollar golden pieces from beyond the Rio Grande. 
 While they puff at cigarettes they have their children, 
 three or four years old, at nurse, and for these latter 
 
332 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 they will vary the monotony by giving them from time 
 to time a smoke. And older boys, among them not a 
 few with curly European hair, come three or four upon 
 each donkey, beating it with boughs of jasmine or 
 with terrible bejuco canes with which the slaves are 
 flogged ; these urchins come back laden from the fair 
 with imitation watches or with cloying sweetmeats 
 that are generally eaten with their envelope of 
 newspaper, and some of them have managed to 
 appropriate a door-mat or a fascinating section of 
 barbed wire, which they temporarily employ as 
 necklace ; some of them stalk down the road majestic 
 in their nakedness and some of these are taking dust- 
 baths with the scraggy chickens. Afterwards, a 
 wandering musician, a Chatino, saunters by with his 
 guitar, as if it were a child, upon his hip ; and he will 
 sing heroic melodies or ponderous, indecent ones in all 
 solemnity and those who listen, on their haunches, 
 will regard him with a solemn gaze. Two nondescript 
 policemen from a hacienda, with their dusty toes 
 projecting from their boots and with an armoury of 
 weapons hanging round them, amble onward in 
 pursuit of some emancipated labourer, and as they 
 ride they munch at formidable bars of sugar-cane. 
 And then a white-clad bride and bridegroom, hand in 
 hand, pass down the road. If she had wanted to 
 conceal her charms she would have ridden, doubtless, 
 in a volan ; but she is so happy, and her children and 
 her children's children all about her are so numerous, 
 and two of them have risen to the rank of briefless 
 barrister and to the glory of a black suit and a black 
 felt hat. These gentlemen had instigated the belated 
 ceremony, and they kneel them down (upon their 
 handkerchiefs) with all the humble members of the 
 family before a wayside shrine. The two contracting 
 
OAXACA'S ROAD OF LIFE AND DEATH 333 
 
 parties had desisted from a marriage less because the 
 fees were heavy — one could have it done for two mere 
 pesos — but because they were haphazard Mexicans. 
 And presently a miscellaneous crew of forty men 
 lurch down the road with crimson blankets on their 
 shoulders, for they are from Mexico's high central 
 plateau. They are powdered by the glimmering dust, 
 and yet there seem to be as many dabs of vivid colour 
 on them as upon the gory Christ, whose absence would 
 leave such a blank in every church of the Republic. 
 Brownish white and crimson, they are enganchados — 
 men who bring such muscle as they have into the 
 south : a verminous and sloping-shouldered, narrow- 
 chested, skimpily-clothed crew of labourers. They 
 have engaged themselves to work for half a year on a 
 tobacco finca, and they laugh to think how during all 
 that time they will not have to search for either board 
 or lodging or a woman. Several pesos jingle in their 
 pockets, and they shout lascivious jokes to Dona 
 Pancha Robles, who conducts them and who gurgles 
 at the jokes. 
 
 Her voice was that of the peculiar bird which called 
 the riders out of sleep again. And all the forest was 
 awakening for the revels of the night. Across the 
 gliding river one could hear the merry mocking-bird ; 
 a rustle told one of the birds and insects that were 
 undertaking once again their functions. And a longer 
 rustle heralded the coming of Oaxaca's old Arch- 
 bishop, carried in his chair by four lithe Indians. The 
 most illustrious Senor Dr. Don Eulogio G. Gillow, the 
 most jovial semi-Irishman, one of the most successful 
 planters in the country, is not very much concerned 
 about the beautiful facade of San Jose in Puebla, for 
 they grow some of the grandest wheat in that impor- 
 tant region. He is smiling now because of the reports 
 
334 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 which have been sent him from his agents, and the 
 lovely beetles of the forest which have lit their lamps 
 and whirl about his head are not more radiant. And 
 along the road to Tuxtepec these tiny beings all of 
 light show to the riders that which otherwise they 
 would not see ; for now the main road has been joined 
 by that one from the Valle Nacional, and in the shadow 
 of the dusky jungle one descries a refugee, a miserable 
 enganchado, who was put to work at last among the 
 mountains so that he should fly without demanding 
 his poor wages. Hollow-eyed and all a-tremble 
 underneath his crimson blanket, he plods onward to 
 the town ; and further on a second enganchado lies, a 
 very helpless mass beneath the branches of a patri- 
 archal tree. His face is in the shadow, he is dying — by 
 the myriad little lanterns one can see the paper which 
 he clutches : ' Se da su libertad,' it says, 6 a Manuel 
 Garcia' He is free ' because he has accomplished with 
 his work the term of his contracted time in this 
 plantation. And this paper has been given him so 
 that he be not stopped upon the road.' He vaguely 
 moves an arm, because the whirring beetles now 
 appear to him to be a congress of the vultures. But 
 the luminous, delightful insects dance around him and 
 alight upon his matted locks, to chant the marvel of 
 a breathless beauty there, to stay as if among the 
 tresses of a forest maiden they were prisoned in a 
 veil of gauze. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 POETRY IN MEXICO 
 
 The other day, in Mexico, I penetrated to the rather 
 frigid hall in which the Library, the Biblioteca 
 National, is housed. Two lines of tables, down the 
 centre of the room, accommodate the readers, and 
 behind them, raised on little platforms, are the desks 
 of the officials, while behind these gentlemen are 
 sundry giant statues made to represent Descartes and 
 Saint Paul (in very vivid attitude) and Dante and the 
 rest of them. Behind these two white rows of giants 
 are the bookshelves and some books. Unfortunately 
 I began by running counter to the rules, for one of 
 those officials limped across and pointed at my hat. 
 He did not speak a word, and when I pleaded that the 
 room was very cold, he said, ' Sombrero, 1 which is 
 ■ Hat.' He was a puny, wall-eyed Indian. 4 But you 
 would not desire that I should take an illness ? 
 
 Nature has denied me ,' and I showed him what is 
 
 underneath my hat. However, there was no com- 
 miseration on his face. ' Then you will be respon- 
 sible,' said I. 6 Sombrero,' said the man. By this 
 time all the readers — eight adults, and two placid boys 
 who happened to be chewing something — all the 
 readers had their eye on us, and I perceived that this 
 convention of the hat was generally followed, and the 
 fact that I was sitting underneath the statue of Saint 
 Paul had naught to do with it. I took my hat off, 
 
 335 
 
336 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 while the lame but satisfied official limped away. I 
 followed him to ask if he would get me certain books 
 of poetry. He bore me no ill-will. ' Catdlogo,' said 
 he. This catalogue is at the entrance of the room, 
 beneath the Humboldt statue, and I should not care 
 to know what Humboldt thinks of it. Although it is 
 extremely small it baffles even those who are in charge, 
 and my official started at the first page and labori- 
 ously let his black-nailed finger move down half a 
 dozen pages. ' Bring me any one of these four poets,' 
 I observed. ' Then you had better occupy your seat,' 
 quoth he. They do not give you ink or pen or 
 blotting-pad or paper-knife, and there is nothing 
 that will serve for a distraction, save a printed notice 
 which is put in front of every reader. ' Those of the 
 readers ' — so we may translate it — 4 who are smokers are 
 entreated to be good enough to make proper use of the 
 spittoons, so as not to soil the boards and to prevent a 
 fire which the cigar ends might originate. Equally they 
 are recommended not to place cigars, once they are 
 lighted, on the tables' 
 
 Well, at any rate the library was careful of its 
 treasures, and a functionary at the Foreign Office had 
 discoursed to me upon this topic, saying very plausibly 
 that armies and that navies do not demonstrate the 
 culture of a people ; it appeared to me that he was 
 anxious to belittle navies, and especially his own, 
 because forsooth it had transpired that many of the 
 sailors suffer, when they put to sea, from Nelson's 
 sorriest frailty, and that a recent storm had brought 
 the stokers reeling on to deck with exclamations that 
 the boat would founder since the engines had begun 
 to roll about. They should have known that this was 
 not the kind of thing to get the better of their 
 Scottish engineer, and anyhow the boat was built in 
 
POETRY IN MEXICO 
 
 337 
 
 Italy. But if the Foreign Office gentleman disparaged 
 navies, he was, like some others of his colleagues, great 
 on poetry. ' This demonstrates,' he said, ' our 
 culture : that we cherish poetry.' And it is not to be 
 denied that they are adepts in the Foreign Office. 
 Constantly while I was making my researches into 
 the Republic's literature I was advised to question 
 this or that official of the Foreign Office, and I never 
 went in vain. The functionary I have quoted was 
 assuring me that Mexico was civilised because of the 
 attention which she gave her poets, and I wondered 
 if she really did preserve them, dead or living, so 
 religiously. 4 She slaughtered Covarrubias,' I said. 
 
 ' But that was on account of politics,' the function- 
 ary answered. ' No, they did not shoot him dead 
 because he was a poet." 1 
 
 Could it be, then, that this land was so exceptional ? 
 Did she refuse to have her poets wither, like so many 
 other poets, in the shade ? I could not instantly 
 believe it, and I went into the library in order that I 
 might inquire into the lives of some of Mexico's 
 regarded poets. As I watched the wall-eyed fellow 
 toiling at the catalogue a feeling of oppression came 
 upon me, for it augured very badly that in their 
 own temple it should be so difficult to find them. 
 
 1 Senor Don Miguel Covarrubias, the respected Minister of Mexico 
 at the Court of St. James, tells me that his cousin the poet, who like- 
 wise was a medical student, had a death of a peculiarly tragic kind. 
 He was shot and killed in the course of an affray at Tacubaya, near 
 the capital, on the 11th April, 1859, while he was in the act of 
 amputating the leg of one of the Conservative officers. General 
 Leonardo Marquez, known as the " Tiger of Tacubaya " (cf. pp. 64, 65), 
 and whose career of cruelty was almost unexampled, had command 
 of the Conservatives. The Liberals (fighting, we are told, for en- 
 lightenment and freedom from the thraldom of the Church) were 
 defeated and many of them executed, but in so brutal a manner that 
 the place was thereafter called La Ciudad de los Mdrtires — the city of 
 the martyrs. The anniversary of this battle is celebrated with great 
 solemnity. 
 
 Z 
 
338 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 Surely my acquaintance of the Foreign Office had 
 exaggerated when he said that here they are not 
 treated with contempt. It would be an unparalleled 
 occurrence if the mention of the name of poet did not, 
 in the vulgar mind, evoke indifference or worse. 
 The wall-eyed one approached me, mumbling that the 
 poems of Acuna, one of Mexico's chief writers, were 
 not in the library. Well, in a guide-book I had read 
 that Manuel Acuiia' s poems were enshrined in every 
 patriotic heart from El Paso to Yucatan, so that it 
 was possibly thought futile, with the space so limited, 
 to have his book inside the library. 
 
 ' Which,' I asked, ' are his best poems ? ' 
 
 ' Quien sabe ? ' 
 
 ' But you must have an opinion,' I persisted. 4 It 
 is Manuel Acuna we are talking of.' 
 
 ' Look then, I would say,' replied this man, ' that 
 often they are good and often they are not so good, 
 and often they are quien sabe J 
 
 Then, because he had maybe more urgent business, 
 he abandoned me. I had wanted to read something 
 of the poet, and in front of me was nothing but these 
 words : 4 Those of the readers who are smokers are 
 entreated to be good enough to make a proper use of the 
 spittoons.' . . . However, it was not long ere another 
 of the library's officials, one of higher standing, came 
 to have some conversation with me. Don Jacinto 
 had resemblance to the poet of the picture-book : his 
 shirt was ragged and it had been blue ; his haughty 
 face was furnished with a Vandyck beard and he was 
 passing dirty. But he leaned upon my desk and 
 hearing that I was in search of poetry he did not 
 hesitate to utter one of his unpublished works. The 
 sound of it was quite sonorous and he undertook to 
 give it me in writing. As he did not do so I have not 
 
Mexico the Land of Unrest. 
 
 The Alameda, Mexico's beautiful park, in February, 1913. 
 
POETRY IN MEXICO 
 
 3S9 
 
 been able to translate it. On the subject of Acufia he 
 did not desire to speak ; he told me that it would be 
 well to go back to the Foreign Office. But I hasten 
 to inform the lofty Mexican officials who will read 
 these lines that all the subsequent long talks on 
 literature I celebrated with the functionary were 
 enacted in the Alameda or some other place, and out 
 of office hours. 
 
 On a December evening when our feet made music 
 in the Alameda's fallen leaves, and when the wind was 
 rolling through the eucalyptus and the yellow ash 
 trees, it was natural that we should talk of Manuel 
 Acuna. In December, 1873, on such an evening, he 
 was walking with his dear friend, Juan de Dios Peza, 
 and the book which they were reading was Hugo's 
 6 Les feuilles d'automne.' Presently Acufia picked 
 a leaf up from the ground to serve them as a book- 
 mark, and he saw that it was one which had been 
 thrown down by the wind before its time. He was 
 preoccupied, but not, apparently, more sad than 
 usual when in the street of Santa Isabel he left his 
 friend. " To-morrow come at one o'clock,' he said ; 
 
 ' come punctually.' ' If I should be a little late ? ' 
 
 6 Then,' said Acuna, 4 1 shall go and shall not see you.' 
 Peza asked him whither he was going. 6 I am going on 
 a journey,' he replied ; 6 . . . yes ... a journey 
 . . . you will know about it later.' And the words 
 fell on the soul of Peza as if they were drops of fire. 
 Acufia left him and he stayed for some time in the 
 street, well knowing that a chronic ailment of the poet 
 might be near its crisis. And he went back very sadly 
 to the Alameda, which is now a pleasure-ground 
 and was the place in which the Inquisition used to 
 burn its victims. As for Manuel Acufia, he did not go 
 to his chambers in the School of Medicine till it was 
 
340 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 late. He tore up and burned many papers. On the 
 next day he put all his room in order, and it is a 
 curious coincidence that Juan Covarrubias, the poet 
 who was shot at Tacubaya, had inhabited this very 
 room which in the Inquisition days had been a cell, 
 the present School of Medicine having been erected 
 for the Holy Office. We may quote a stanza from 
 Acuna's poem on his predecessor : — 
 
 Where earth provides a meagre hele 
 Your venerated shadow dwells 
 And, weary of its ancient spells, 
 The broken harp that is your soul. 
 No longer do the strings unroll 
 A song to love or fatherland, 
 But now your cenotaph is fanned 
 By wailing winds and by the long 
 Swell of the greatest in your song : 
 Those silences which understand. 
 
 It was the last day of Acuna's life. He went out 
 to the bath. At twelve o'clock he came back to his 
 room and with a firm hand wrote these words : 6 The 
 least important matter is to enter into details of my 
 death ; but it is nobody's concern, I think. Sufficient 
 if I make it known that I am culpable and no one 
 else.' He went into the corridors, conversing casually 
 with his friends. And Peza reached the place some 
 minutes after one ; a comrade had delayed him at 
 the door. He found Acuna lying on his bed, as if 
 asleep, a lighted candle near him. He had taken 
 poison. Vainly did the doctors try to bring him back 
 to life, but when he lay in state and the enormous 
 crowd was paying homage he appeared to weep, and 
 this may have been due to the embalming or the 
 tightness of his shroud. He always wept for the 
 unfortunate, as we may see from ' La Ramera ' 
 [' The Prostitute '], a poem that begins in this way : — 
 
POETRY IN MEXICO 
 
 341 
 
 O, pigmy race of man, 
 
 You that proclaim the truth and Jesus Christ, 
 
 With many lies, pretending charity ; 
 
 You that have got your heart inflamed with pride, 
 
 Gaze up, ah ! gaze away 
 
 From what is underneath your feet : 
 
 You that say tender words, 
 
 And spit upon the gipsy and the beggar, 
 
 And because one is a beggar, one a gipsy ; 
 
 Look, there is that woman who is grieving, groaning, 
 
 For she has the burden of the women 
 
 Who march on through life, march on through darkness — 
 Spit there, too. . . . 
 
 Beside Acuna's grave one of the chief orators was 
 Justo Sierra, whom the dead man loved profoundly. 
 Sierra's verses were indifferent, but he was full of 
 humour always, laughing at the verses and himself. 
 He and Acuna had been wont to look into the distant 
 days. 6 What will the world be doing,' sang Acuna, 
 1 with my dreams ? ' [Que hard este mundo de los 
 suenos mios ?] Sierra's dreams, so far as they were 
 printed, we shall not repeat, for they were bad, and 
 probably the reason why the President promoted 
 him to be the Minister of Public Instruction was to 
 ascertain whether a bad poet would make a good 
 Minister. The experiment was interesting, and one 
 hoped that Don Porfirio was not discouraged. 
 
 Over Manuel Acuna's corpse they uttered words 
 that should not be allowed to die : 6 The brain of 
 light, the heart of fire.' ... 4 It is no common mourn- 
 ing,' said another, 4 but humanity's despairing cry at 
 having lost a great apostle.' It was not alone among 
 the literary men — such as the club which he had 
 founded, the Netzahualcoyotl — that his merits were 
 acclaimed. All men who loved a song in Mexico vied 
 with each other, so it seemed, in loving Manuel Acuna ; 
 and Saltillo where he had been born, Saltillo the chief 
 town of the inhospitable northern State of Coahuila, 
 
342 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 built a theatre and called it after him. They have a 
 splendid way of doing honour to a man in Mexico. 
 No decorations are suspended round his neck, for it 
 is thought to be undemocratic to have decorations. 
 (True, they are willing to accept these things from 
 foreign countries, but they do so, I presume, out of 
 politeness.) What prevails is, either in the lifetime 
 of the patriot or afterwards, to add his name to that 
 of any State or town which may be thought appro- 
 priate. Thus, in official documents, Campeche is 
 entitled Campeche de Baranda after a distinguished 
 magnate of that name, and if the person to be hon- 
 oured was, in the opinion of his countrymen, a factor 
 necessary to the building of what some of them 
 believe is a Republic, then his name is given pure and 
 simple to a State, such as Hidalgo. They did not 
 add 8 de Acuna ' to Saltillo or to Coahuila, but they 
 built his monument, the theatre, in the form of a lyre. 
 ... So much of reverence and admiration were his 
 lot that scarcely any favourable attribute could be 
 imagined but was fastened to his chariot. And one 
 really cannot blame the critics if in their exasperation 
 they allowed themselves to imitate the injudicious 
 worshippers, if they rushed to the opposite extreme, 
 if when they saw that everything was claimed for 
 him they did not, as calm Anglo-Saxon critics do, 
 permit the poet to remain in undisturbed possession 
 of his real merits. Not that in the end it matters, as 
 there are at least two ways of annexing an island : one 
 of them is to annex an island and another way is to 
 seize an archipelago and be content to lose it all 
 except one island. If all sublimity did not belong to 
 Manuel Acufia, if at times he was of the materialists, 
 yet we may not describe him as a hope-forsaken poet. 
 He had something of the sublime, something of the 
 
POETRY IN MEXICO 
 
 343 
 
 material, and more of hope than many of us. In his 
 poem ' Esperanza ' [' Hope '] these lines occur : — 
 
 It is the hour when you should fain 
 
 Make for the blue with haughty wing ; 
 It is the hour for you to live again ; 
 
 It is the hour for you to sing. 
 Oh, take your torches that are cold, 
 
 Renew their pallid flame, set them above 
 Your altar and unlock the temple's gate 
 
 For one who stands there in the name of love. 
 
 Depose, aye fling aside the load 
 Of tears, the bitter fruitless dew, 
 
 And in the gladness slanting from the sky, 
 There in the light of solace, your abode, 
 
 Salute the future that awakens you. 
 Now stand up confident beneath the sky, 
 No longer in the gloomy places grope ; 
 Bid the supreme farewell to sorrow's state 
 And once again with garlands decorate 
 The ruins of the altar of your hope. 
 
 Let suns invade your Night, 
 
 Your face let smiles begem 
 Whereof the angels have had ne'er a sight 
 
 Since from the cradle you did talk to them. 
 
 Perhaps the truth about him — but how can we 
 select a better critic than a Latin-American of Saxon 
 or of Celtic origin, Senor MacDonall ? ' If in the search 
 for truth his spirit sometimes doubted,' says Mac- 
 Donall, ' he was ready always to face the world with a 
 noble, loving and compassionate heart. He was a 
 poet of the heart, wounded by memories of childhood. 
 His images are novel, and his thought audacious ; from 
 the suave he leaps to the satiric, from the beautiful 
 to the jocose. And as in his ideas he is advanced, so 
 in the form he gives to them is he courageous.' He 
 has been held up, in fact, to odium because he does 
 not see to it that the ccesura is invariably where the 
 metre wants it. He was as impatient of restraint as 
 was Lassalle, whom in appearance, with the lofty 
 
344 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 brow, the pioneer's undaunted aspect, he resembled. 
 He was ever burning to inquire the cause of things, 
 he pulled up by the roots those artificial flowers of 
 pietists, he doubted. Here is one of the short poems 
 of the series called ' Dry Leaves ' : — 
 
 It is your wish that I believe. 
 
 Ah, what else would you have me do ? 
 When I behold you then I cleave 
 
 To God, for I believe in you. 
 
 But if he doubted it is very far from true to say 
 that he despised what other men believe in and respect. 
 He knows that if a people have no education they 
 do not deserve their freedom, they cannot be free. 
 He venerates the teacher, while he utters words of 
 exhortation for the pupil. Many of his songs are 
 consecrated to the family, the home, to recollections 
 of early childhood. Thus in ' Lagrimas ' [' Tears '], 
 which he wrote in memory of his father, we may take 
 these lines : — 
 
 You fell . . . the parchments of the night 
 I cannot read ; 
 
 And in the tomb, your dwelling-place, 
 
 I know not whether love can dwell . . . 
 
 I know not if the dead 
 
 Can stretch their hands towards the sun ; 
 
 But in the gloomy coil 
 
 Of serpents prisoning my heart 
 
 I know that somewhere is a little flame 
 
 That stretches out for you and lives for you . . . 
 
 I know that of all names the sweetest name 
 
 Is that I call you by, 
 
 And you — you are the god whom I adore, 
 In the religion of my memory. 
 
 The Foreign Office functionary and myself were 
 walking up and down the Alameda ; but the evening 
 had faded quickly into night, as it is wont to do in 
 Mexico, and where the fallen leaves had been red, 
 brown and yellow, they were black. 6 And do you 
 
POETRY IN MEXICO 
 
 345 
 
 think,' I asked, c that Manuel Acufia is remembered 
 still ? ' 
 
 The functionary turned his head and through the 
 darkness stared at me. 
 
 It was twenty-eight years from the poet's death, 
 and his old mother in Saltillo was about to die. The 
 theatre called after him had been destroyed by fire, 
 and she had lived to see another one erected in its 
 place, beside a plaza where the trees are thickly 
 crowded, and you positively have to shout, so gorgeous 
 is the singing of the birds. This other house was not 
 called after Manuel but after the proprietor, who 
 takes his ease at sunset just outside the theatre and 
 listens to the birds. 
 
 6 1 am very sad to hear it,' said the functionary. 
 
 But this naming of the theatre was settled by the 
 townsfolk. Many of them voted for Acuna and a large 
 number for the other man. 
 
 My functionary threw his hand out. ' Be so kind 
 as to reflect,' said he. ' Saltillo does not own our poet. 
 And have you forgotten what he says about the 
 gipsy and the beggar, whom so many people spit on ? 
 That is how the miserable place Saltillo treats her 
 poet. What does it matter ? ' 
 
 And I had not forgotten the library, the Biblioteca 
 Nacional, from which the poet's works were absent, 
 and if no attention was paid to him a great deal was 
 paid to the people who spit. 
 
 4 We have some other parts of Mexico,' said my 
 companion, ' which do greater honour to the great. 
 The Territory of Quintana Roo, for instance, whom 
 is it called after but Don Andres ? ' 
 
 4 Who was a statesman. Every child knows that 
 he fought against the Spaniards from his chair ; that 
 he presided at the Congress of Chilpancingo, where the 
 
346 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 country's independence was declared ; that he became 
 a deputy, a senator, a diplomat and president of the 
 Court of Justice. He did all that for the nation.' 
 
 4 Very well, and he wrote poems. Of course,' said 
 the functionary, in a tone of voice which made me 
 listen ; ' they were not native poems such as the 
 General Riva Palacio recommends. You know the 
 General was a good writer, and once, when he was 
 satirising a friend of his, he said that our poets ever 
 speak of nightingales and larks, gazelles and hyacinths 
 without venturing to give place in their doleful ditties 
 to the cuitlacoche, nor to the zentzontl, nor to the 
 cocomitl, nor to the yoloxochitl. The poems of Quintana 
 Roo are classic. Have you never seen his portrait ? ' 
 
 4 1 would sooner see his poems.' 
 
 • He was like an old Norwegian farmer, stern and 
 steadfast, only that there was a mocking laugh about 
 his lips. And of the poems which he wrote I think 
 the best one is the 4 Diez y seis de Septiembre.' 1 
 Even in a translation ' 
 
 And this is what I make of some of it : — 
 
 ' Of what avail that in Dolores he, 
 
 ' The unloyal shepherd, gave himself to shout, 
 
 ' Forsooth, for freedom, and the surging rout 
 
 ' Of idiots echoed him so tediously ? 
 
 ' The valour of his ignorance, 
 
 f The sacrilegious valour, stood 
 
 ' Aghast, as it were turned to wood, 
 
 c At seeing sunlight on our lance. 
 
 ' The worthless horde 
 
 ' Delivered up their necks to the avenging sword. 
 
 'As when the rainy Pleiads leap 
 
 ( From out the bosom of the sky, 
 
 ' As when the waves are driven high 
 
 ' Which other winds have rocked to sleep, 
 
 1 The sixteenth of September, on which day in 1810 the revolu- 
 tionary army started from the village of Dolores under the command 
 of Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, the parish priest. 
 
POETRY IN MEXICO 
 
 347 
 
 ' So do the remnants of the crowd 
 
 ' That were full venturous recoil, 
 
 e And if our indignation boil, 
 
 e And if our voice be loud, 
 
 1 They recollect the awe 
 
 ' Of Amerigo when such loveliness he saw. 
 
 ' Oh, that sedition's lip to-day 
 
 e Should open for the wheedling word, 
 
 { This liberty that is absurd 
 
 ' In spite of its new-fangled way ! 
 
 ' Down from the gallows tree 
 
 i It shall be hurried to the indifferent grave, 
 
 ( A warning there to be 
 
 e For such as would rebellion wave, 
 
 ' Aye, wave at the domain 
 
 ' Whose building was the work of old, unconquerable Spain. ' 
 
 So fiercely did the vandals cry 
 When that our hero, the august, 
 Was brought by fortune to the dust. 
 
 Father of love, O sing what thou hast wrought 
 And which of all thy toil was the sublime, 
 Singing of liberty, so shalt thou climb 
 Into the spaces where death is naught — 
 Dost thou not see the world 
 Mourning the loss of thee, 
 Under the banner hurled 
 Of those who madly 
 Destroying thee came 
 
 And come now with honours for thy sweet name ? 
 
 ' So,' said my friend, ' he had an elevated style, 
 you see. He was a good example.' 
 
 And perhaps that is why they gave his name to 
 the territory. Judging from the works that were 
 produced when he was living, his example was 
 essential to the welfare of the country. Not to 
 mention more than one of these, we may pick some- 
 thing from the pen of Jose M. Moreno y Buenvecino, 
 who composed his fdbulas with the object of 
 censuring feminine defects and to give advice to 
 women. He also wrote invective against the bad 
 poets, etc. At Puebla, in 1823, he published his 
 
348 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 4 America Mexicana libre,' an allegoric drama in two 
 acts, and in verse. The characters are five in number, 
 viz. America, Victory, Echavarri and Moran (Mexican 
 generals), and Despotism. There is a chorus of ladies 
 and soldiers. 
 
 But it is deplorable that patriotic verse should 
 sometimes be so bad. All writing cannot always be 
 spontaneous, yet surely Pegasus should not be 
 whipped when he is on a patriotic errand. How was 
 Guillermo Prieto to continue for a matter of eight 
 hundred pages and be unf atigued ? The heroes of the 
 Independence called to him, as they were lying in 
 neglect, but he was nearly seventy years of age. 
 Hidalgo and Morelos and their comrades had been 
 sung, indeed, while yet the noble blood was racing 
 through their veins, but all the songs were rude, rough 
 numbers, chiefly written by the lower clergy, and it is 
 now many years since even in the mountains of 
 Guerrero, the last refuge, they were lost. As for the 
 higher clergy, they in common with the merchants 
 leaned to Spain, and we who look at their activities 
 can hardly think that they were instruments of the 
 Supreme Wisdom. Nobody knows more than we do 
 that it is a facile business to be judging people after 
 the event, but had we nourished at the time we 
 surely would have asked the merchants if it was 
 advisable to fight for union with a country which 
 prevented them from trading with all other countries ; 
 temerarious as it may sound, we hope we should 
 have asked the higher clergy if in their opinion it was 
 prudent to have no restraint upon the Inquisition : 
 that enthusiastic body charged Hidalgo with com- 
 mitting every crime it knew of — such as sorcery, 
 seduction and polygamy. . . . So, too, the move- 
 ment which took place in 1821 was not unanimous 
 
POETRY IN MEXICO 
 
 349 
 
 enough for epic poetry ; more ink indeed was spent 
 than blood, but both of them were doled out by the 
 aristocracy. There was, among the leaders of this 
 second movement, little tenderness for the surviving 
 champions of the first revolt. Quint ana Roo was 
 persecuted and Guerrero killed, and poets would have 
 found it perilous to celebrate the days of 1810. And 
 thus it was until the coming of the Emperor, who 
 commonly is charged with having been a pampered 
 person, one who did not know and did not wish to 
 know the people's heart. In September, 1864, he 
 solemnised the grito, that is to say the war-cry, of the 
 patriot Hidalgo from the very window in Dolores, just 
 as now the President of the Republic celebrates it 
 annually from a window of the National Palace. 
 In 1865 the Emperor put up a statue to Morelos, it 
 being his centenary, and he himself delivered the 
 oration. But unluckily the poets still refused to sing ; 
 they said that they could not forget how cruel and 
 how impious had been the pioneers. 1 If such a stan- 
 dard, though, had been erected by all other poets we 
 should be the poorer far. Achilles dragging Hector 
 three times round the walls of Troy assuredly was 
 impious, and Camoens did not think that he could 
 reasonably be requested not to write the 6 Lusiad ' 
 because there was some cruelty about the glorious 
 achievements of Vasco da Gama. This hero's 
 expedition was unpopular in Portugal, as were the 
 actions of Hidalgo and his comrades in the Mexico of 
 Maximilian, and I do not put in a claim that the com- 
 manders should be quite exonerated from the odium 
 attaching to the Guanajuato slaughter — for example, 
 
 1 This is very much the attitude of modern Mexicans to Cortes and 
 his comrades, who are far less popular than the deceived, humiliated, 
 tortured natives. 
 
350 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 when 247 defenceless Spaniards were assassinated — as 
 the leaders of an army are not slow to take the credit 
 for some gallantry their nameless followers accom- 
 plish, and they cannot have it both ways. In 1865 
 Hidalgo was regarded by the poets as unclean ; in 
 1885 Prieto wrote the ' Romancero Nacional,' and 
 nowadays — thanks partly to Prieto, partly to the 
 Latin- Americanism which will either travel all the way 
 or stop at home — Hidalgo is regarded nowadays as 
 something near to the divine. Guillermo Prieto has been 
 called the laureate of Mexico, and not because he was 
 the greatest poet but the most national. His ' Musa 
 Callejera' ['Curbstone Idylls '] has preserved for us 
 the picturesque and lurid types of yesterday. In prose 
 or verse Prieto was voluminous, and after toying with 
 a playful fancy he would write upon finance. But 
 being old he turned aside his steps from both these 
 charming groves, and lived laborious days in order to 
 produce that which a brotherhood of burning poets 
 should have given to their country, a collection of 
 eight hundred pages of patriotic verse. All honour 
 to the man, who with his white hair and his lofty brows, 
 his eyes that looked so keenly through the spectacles, 
 would have presented the appearance of a German 
 savant if the lips had been less bulky. Pushing out 
 between the small beard and the cavalry moustache, 
 they lent the lower portion of the face a sensual 
 aspect, while the upper part expressed intelligence, 
 and over both of them there was a veil of suffering. 
 Eight hundred pages ! — and the first and second 
 poem seem to promise that he will not lack in vigour, 
 since he starts by telling Bonaparte that he is full 
 of infamy and guile, proceeding to address him as 
 ' aborto del inferno' It is rather impious and cruel if 
 we quote a weaker passage in the old man's volume, 
 
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POETRY IN MEXICO 
 
 351 
 
 one of those when he was palpably fatigued. So let 
 us have it done as soon as may be and translate some 
 lines out of the ' Second Romance of San Miguel the 
 Great ' :— 
 
 Then Hidalgo on arrival 
 Put up in Landeta's dwelling, 
 Ordered them to seize Isasi, 
 As for Barrio to seize him. 
 In the streets the military 
 Give themselves to creature comforts, 
 And Hidalgo j not maintaining 
 Order, is charged with imprudence. 
 But some argue that with order 
 You do not make revolutions. 
 Some are anxious to have fighting, 
 But with precepts and a compass ; 
 Others think that it is easy 
 To command a raging tempest. 
 All of us are good at hissing, 
 Very few will face a bull. 
 
 The pity of it that when Prieto's pen was working thus 
 he did not happen to be occupied upon a dissertation 
 in finance. But there are many pages of the patriotic 
 volume that reveal the poet. Here, for instance, is a 
 passage from the ' First Romance of Guanajuato ' : — 
 
 Darksome labyrinths and caverns, 
 Mountains tops and viewless valleys, 
 Such are Guanajuato's streets. 
 And the houses are suspended 
 In the sky, there is no passage 
 Forward, backward ; only two ways 
 Can you travel : up hill, down hill. 
 Going up hill you must clamber, 
 Going down the city curving, 
 Winding, is like such a person 
 Who is ever undecided 
 Whence to gaze upon a picture. 
 
 Anyone who has seen Guanajuato will acknowledge 
 that this is an excellent description. But before we 
 take our leave of the old singer of the glories and the 
 hopes of Mexico, the popular and fertile poet, we must 
 
352 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 give as best we can some lines out of an ode of his 
 that were recited at a blind school at the distribution 
 of the prizes. Dealing with a man who wrote so 
 much, and who could sometimes be so flat as when 
 (resembling a notorious line of Wordsworth) he pro- 
 duced his Don Jose de Bustamante, 
 
 we shall be more worthy of the name of critic if, as 
 with the English poet, we refuse to look at a con- 
 siderable portion of his work. If these two minstrels 
 in their long, productive lives came out into the public 
 air at times quite heedless of their singing robes, we 
 have, it seems to me, the right to call them both 
 ridiculous if we do not cut a ridiculous appearance 
 with a robe like theirs upon our shoulder. We who 
 cannot build an ark should have the decency to turn 
 aside from Noah's nakedness. When Guillermo 
 Prieto spoke in plazas or upon a hill they listened to 
 him always with attention, and it is unlikely that he 
 ever had an audience more grateful than was that to 
 whom he spoke these lines : — 
 
 Ye orphans of the light, raise up your heads. 
 
 O that a sun may dawn in your uneuding night ! 
 
 Behold the darkness that is furled 
 
 About you and that seems to cling 
 
 To you and to divide you from the world ! 
 
 It is a veil that angels bring, 
 
 With solemn mystery, 
 
 To guard and keep you free 
 
 From earth, to keep you close to heaven where you belong. 
 Dark is the void 
 
 Wherein the orders of the Eternal roll, 
 And wisdom august, unalloyed, 
 Even as the sun illuminates the soul. 
 
 Like to the kisses of the dew 
 That sparkle on the lips of you, 
 Such is the light. A delicate melody, 
 The song of children or a dirge, 
 They speak of what shall always be 
 And make the breast of lovers surge 
 
POETRY IN MEXICO 
 
 353 
 
 With infinite content — 
 
 Such is the light. As of a wandering scent 
 
 The mild caress, 
 
 Or as a dove's long lullaby 
 
 That is to lovers all the tenderness, 
 
 As there will reach into your stormy soul 
 
 A rumour of the waves in play, 
 
 Such is the light . . . and those who walk the way 
 
 Of man but in a darker gloom 
 
 Shall see more clearly from their tomb 
 
 The light of everlasting day. . . . 
 
 We have spoken of Prieto in connection with an 
 English poet. His biographer, Altamirano, meditating 
 on the fact that literature did not have to be born in 
 Mexico when she achieved her independence, as the 
 art of what they called New Spain was subject all 
 through the colonial period to conditions not so 
 different from those prevailing in the motherland, to 
 drive his point well home Altamirano says that the 
 essentially American verse of Longfellow does not 
 differ from Chaucer and Shelley. But although I see 
 it stated that some people have exceeded this Guerrero 
 Indian in erudition, he surpassed them all in the 
 ability to hand on his acquirements to his pupils. He 
 was an extraordinary man, who, till the age of fourteen, 
 had no Spanish. Of the humblest origin, he ranged 
 the woods of Tixtla, stoning birds and fighting with 
 the species he belonged to. This was not considered to 
 include the Spanish boys, los de razon or seres de 
 razon [reasonable beings], whereas he was one of the 
 gente intratable [intractable folk]. And in the school 
 to which he went at last, the Spanish and the native 
 boys were separated and were given different instruc- 
 tion. He was made acquainted with the catechism 
 and with reading, which is more than many of his 
 countrymen are taught to-day, but notwithstanding 
 is inadequate. He had to thank his father for per- 
 
 2 A 
 
354 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 mission to be educated with the reasonable beings, 
 for his father rose to be alcalde and the schoolmaster 
 was bubbling over with congratulations and was in 
 the mood for granting this or any other favour. 
 Presently a law was passed which summoned Indian 
 boys of application and ability to have their education 
 finished at Toluca in the Literary Institute. He went 
 in 1849, took many prizes and became librarian, began 
 to write in prose and verse, and was ejected, with some 
 others, on account of being Liberal in politics. He 
 found a refuge in a private college at Toluca, where 
 he gave French lessons in return for roof and board. 
 And after this began a life of wandering, full of 
 vicissitudes ; now he would charge himself with teach- 
 ing village louts, to-morrow he would be a dramatist 
 (presenting on a small, provincial stage for one 
 performance his ' Morelos en Cuautla ' ; in response 
 to the applause he thrust his head — an ugly head at 
 best — out of the prompter's box), and then retiring 
 to the mountains he was lost in love's first (and 
 unhappy) dream. He was secretary to Don Juan 
 Alvarez, that venerable firebrand, most immaculate 
 of Liberals ; and then he came to Mexico, the capital, 
 where, in the college of Letran, he set himself to legal 
 studies. This was in 1857, and his rooms became the 
 office of a newspaper, of a reforming club and of a 
 literary group. He used to listen in the Congress 
 while they made the Constitution ; as he listened he 
 would suffer all the gamut of despair and hope. And 
 all this for the present Constitution, which is studied, 
 I presume, by students of the history of Mexico. Our 
 indefatigable friend had time to write ' The Bandits of 
 the Cross,' in Alexandrines, and to improvise with 
 Manuel Mateos, on a fountain's rim, tremendous 
 verse against the Government. He took himself off 
 
POETRY IN MEXICO 
 
 355 
 
 to Guerrero when the war broke out, and in 4 El Eco 
 de la Reforma ' fought the clergy with his pen, while 
 with the sword he was engaged in several successful 
 actions. He was made, for his disinterested services, 
 a deputy, and in a celebrated speech stood up against 
 the amnesty. This wild-haired orator, a man of 
 twenty-seven years, seemed terrible and menacing. 
 He cried in a storm of passion for the punishment of 
 two of the enemy, 4 whose skulls should now be white 
 upon their staff.' About this time he wrote ' Las 
 Amapolas ' ['The Poppies'], wherein a youth gives 
 such a charming picture of the scenery that she who 
 listens to him merely answers with a smile : — 
 
 All the world is sighing, sighing, 
 
 It is in a languid case, 
 Drowsily the world is lying, 
 Bird and wave and wind are dying 
 
 In the desolated place. 
 
 Now the butterflies do keep 
 
 To the river-bank, their bed ; 
 Roses fold themselves in sleep, 
 While the shadows love to creep 
 
 Round each rosy, hanging head. 
 
 Now the floripondios fainting 
 
 Beg the mango trees for shade, 
 But the cruel sun is tainting 
 Green woods with her yellow painting, 
 
 Woods of lime and myrtle made. 
 
 See, the poppies are so white 
 
 From the poniards of the sun, 
 Yet they will be clothed in light, 
 They bathe where crystals taking flight, 
 
 Across the sleepy waters run. 
 
 The boy who speaks these words and she who listens 
 lose themselves among the palms and come out as 
 the day is fading : — 
 
356 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 All in the tranquil eve 
 Returns again to life ; 
 Amid the merry noises 
 Of the south wind rushing past 
 One hears harmonious music 
 Of the waves that rise and fall. 
 
 ' I am a son of the mountains of the south and I 
 descend,' the poet cried — his audience of deputies was 
 trembling — ' I descend from those old men of iron 
 who preferred to live on roots and dwell amid the 
 savage animals than to incline their brow before the 
 tyrants. ... I have not come here to bargain with 
 reactionaries or to grow more mild amid the softness 
 of the capital.' His fame was in all people's mouth. 
 This Danton of America was banished, since his fiery 
 eloquence proved too exciting for the citizens. He 
 took part, as a colonel, in the War of Intervention. 
 Thus he gained a victory in 1866 at Tierra Blanca, 
 when he took a convoy and three hundred prisoners. 
 A few days later he inflicted a defeat upon Carranza, 
 the imperialist. He won much glory, so they tell us, 
 at Queretaro in 1867, and he was hailed in the 
 dispatches as a hero. When the war was over he 
 established, with his pay, a newspaper, ' El Correo de 
 Mexico,' and subsequently about five other papers. 
 He was president of the Supreme Court of Justice, he 
 organised the 4 Normal School,' at which he worked 
 so hard that he contracted his last illness. As it 
 settled down upon him he withdrew from his activities 
 and took the post of Consul- General at Barcelona. 
 When he came before a great assemblage of the poets 
 and the writers, taking leave of them he was so 
 deeply moved that 4 Here,' he said, 4 here is an orator 
 you have exalted, one who cannot speak.' But he 
 could sing : — 
 
POETRY IN MEXICO 
 
 357 
 
 Ten years ago, when that I bade farewell 
 
 To you, my mother, I was but a child, 
 
 And now my sorrows are beguiled 
 By dreaming how your kisses fell — 
 
 They were the music of the dew, 
 
 They were the singing soul of you. 
 
 Upon my knees I fling me forward and 
 From here I worship the delightful land, 
 
 The lofty palm, the manglar's gorgeous dome, 
 The birds that sing me and the flowers awake, 
 
 The cataracts of careless foam 
 
 Which on the river's bosom break, 
 
 And the magic-scented breeze 
 
 That wanders from the shadow of your trees. 
 Now, very soon, my mother, I shall be 
 
 With you on that dark hill, if God desire. 
 
 And near the Cross we love I shall aspire 
 To pray, as once, in sweet humility. 
 
 I shall forget the fury of my dreams, 
 
 And one by one there will be the trooping back 
 My childish fancies — and how near it seems, 
 
 The little house by yon remembered track ! 
 Then with my head upon your shoulder, love, 
 
 I shall disclose to you the broken day, 
 My weary waiting you will watch above, 
 
 My tears will be bright bubbles for your play. 
 Then my grey doubts, my fearing will depart, 
 
 The relics of the sorrowed life I bore — 
 Oh, that I were beside you, gentle heart, 
 
 Unhappy woman — woman I adore. 
 
 He stayed for several months in Barcelona and was 
 ill, so that he was removed to Paris. He was ailing 
 constantly and ailing on account of all the miles of 
 land and water which divided him from his beloved 
 Guerrero. When he died, in February, 1893, he left 
 instructions that his body should be burned, as 
 was the custom of his Aztec ancestors. He left his 
 poems to the manglars of Guerrero and the careless 
 cataracts, so that it is not needful for them to be in 
 the Library. 
 
358 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 TWO POEMS BY EL DUQUE JOB 1 
 I 
 
 THE OCEAN DWELLERS 
 
 Now nearer and nearer 
 And swift is he coming ! 
 With chains of wet coral, 
 Red coral about him — 
 Now comes the beloved, 
 Ah, now comes the poet 
 To his own dominion 
 For ever and ever. 
 Has he not bestowed on us 
 Riches uncountable ? 
 Breathe it him, sing it him, 
 Beautiful dreams ! 
 That here the dim ocean 
 Is full of his poems, 
 A shell is each volume, 
 Each poem a pearl. 
 
 II 
 
 FOR THAT DAY 
 
 O take me, death, when falls the sun 
 
 At sea, my face turned to the sky, 
 Where the last weakness is undone — 
 
 My soul a bird which now at last may fly. 
 
 To be alone with sky and sea, 
 
 Nor have to listen at the last 
 To lamentations, let there be 
 
 No bell save what the breakers cast. 
 
 To die when fading dusk retires 
 
 Her nets of gold from the green wave, 
 
 Be like the sun, whose grandest fires 
 Advance as heralds of the grave. 
 
 To die before the mob of years 
 
 Rebel against my rosy crown, 
 When life is laughing and her tears 
 
 Laugh as the dew which trembles down. 
 
 1 [Translated from the lines of Manuel Gutierrez Najera, a Mexican 
 poet who wrote in the latter half of the nineteenth century, under the 
 pseudonym El Duque Job.] 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 TO CHILPANCINGO 
 I 
 
 The two Americans, from Arizona and from God 
 knows where, had told me that it was delightful to go 
 camping out among the pine woods of Guerrero. It 
 was not so much with eloquence that they succeeded 
 in convincing me, for he that came from Arizona's 
 desert — let me call him Westall — was a man who on 
 his own confession was addicted to geology. He said 
 that there was nothing in the world so interesting as 
 the world's formation. This, I understood, was not 
 why he was going to the wild State of Guerrero ; he 
 was Petleigh's friend. This Petleigh was a flagrant 
 company promoter, and his company was going to 
 flourish in Guerrero, where the lumber operations, etc. 
 etc. . . . He was like to a prospectus in his language, and 
 he frequently alluded to the wonderful resources. 
 While he did so he would fix me with his cold, blue 
 eyes as if he scented in me something hostile, and, 
 indeed, the way in which he put his accent on the 
 word ' resources ' was enough to give one goose-flesh. 
 In Guerrero, so he said, were forests of enormous oak 
 and pine. He showed me photographs, and I believed 
 that they were taken in Guerrero. I believe it still. 
 . . . And so we started on the expedition. Our 
 supplies had gone by railway to Iguala. What they 
 were I knew not ; in the capital a good American had 
 
 359 
 
360 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 sold me a serape, woven beautifully by the natives 
 and impregnable to rain. Moreover, I had bought a 
 certain kind of soap which you require — I hate to have 
 to say it — if you should accept the hospitality of 
 Indian huts. At times, on other expeditions, I have 
 reached a house of branches or a house of mud as night 
 was falling and the natives would not let us sleep 
 except upon their private beds — they gave us all they 
 had. . . . We started on this expedition, which 
 involves a railway journey of the most magnificent. 
 No sooner out of Mexico than the ascent begins, and 
 we are winding upward to the valley's southern 
 barrier. We pass Chapultepec, where the cadets in 
 1847 are said to have behaved like heroes in with- 
 standing the Americans. And they are honoured in 
 September, every year, when President and Cabinet 
 and diplomats and green-sashed generals and sombre 
 deputies and other folk assemble in the grove. 
 They are addressed by barristers — the art of oratory 
 contains no secrets for the gentleman whom I was 
 privileged to hear — and afterwards a hatless lady 
 speaks with fervour and a young cadet with his 
 becoming nervousness, and then a Spanish poet 
 dropped his eye-glass and declaimed an ode, which 
 very shrewdly ended with allusions to Pelayo and to 
 Covadonga, so that he was thunderously applauded. 
 Then a choir of girls sang patriotic lines which they 
 repeated twice at least, and then another poet 
 climbed into the tribune. He was frail, a school- 
 master from Puebla, and his poetry was exquisite. 
 Whenever it assumed a tinge of rhetoric the deputies 
 would elbow one another and exclaim in ecstasy. 
 And I was wondering how Diaz could have all this 
 patience ; many, many times he must have listened 
 to the selfsame sentiments, and yet he sat there like 
 
TO CHILPANCINGO 
 
 361 
 
 an aged lion. Then I did not know how deaf he was. 
 It is a tax on all of them — except upon the poets, who 
 are not supposed to be original. So long as they say 
 pretty things of youth, things that were old when 
 Homer wrote, so long as they work in a metaphor 
 about a river — Mexico, save in Tabasco, is some- 
 what destitute of rivers — and so long as they 
 reiterate the word 4 sublime,' it will go well with 
 them. Of course, they must not criticise the 
 heroes. Petleigh said that many of them lost their 
 lives by falling from the rocks in their desire 
 to leave Chapultepec. But he was prejudiced, no 
 doubt. I have alluded to the part which poetry is 
 made to play in Mexico. And it is not alone at such 
 brave anniversaries. But when, as not unfrequently 
 occurs, a statue of Benito Juarez is unveiled, there, 
 sure enough, is the gesticulating poet, telling lies 
 about the fine old Indian. When the House of 
 Congress was equipped with a foundation-stone the 
 ceremony was so long drawn out, so futile — surely 
 not an omen — everyone who somehow had secured 
 admittance was requested to append his signature to 
 certain rolls of parchment which were subsequently 
 sealed up in the stone, and for a Mexican to write his 
 signature is no such easy business, seeing that a 
 complicated flourish is essential. Maybe when a larger 
 number of the population have acquired the art of 
 writing they will not make so much fuss about it. 
 We were getting bored, I say, on that uncomfortable, 
 lofty platform, when at last a poet came upon the 
 scene and gave his version of the beauties of a House 
 of Congress. He perspired extremely, but was not 
 applauded. And before the trouble with the signing 
 we had had our ears divinely tickled — we had been 
 tickled, the Americans would say, to death — by one 
 
362 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 of Mexico's fine orators. His periods could certainly 
 not reach the native workmen, presumably the 
 builders of the House, who stood far underneath us 
 on the ground, and in another sense his words were 
 much above them ; but they clapped their hands. 
 Whenever we applauded on the platform there was 
 this pathetic rumble of applause below. 
 
 ' The forests of Guerrero,' Petleigh said, ' are 
 wonderful, and we have got enormous tracts of land. 
 I'll tell you how we get it. There is someone who 
 discovers that a man owes such and such a sum for 
 taxes. He is pressed to pay immediately. He cannot 
 and we offer him that sum, with an additional amount, 
 for all his property. When they are down,' said Petleigh, 
 4 it is not an easy matter for them to arise.' 'There's 
 nothing that succeeds,' he told me, 4 like success.' 
 
 I mentioned how the orator was deeply gratified 
 by the applause from those poor workmen ; how, in 
 fact, he finished up his peroration with a reference to 
 what the proletariat were going to do. They had, as 
 he quite truthfully observed, not taken hitherto what 
 you might call a part in politics ; and this was no 
 injustice ; they had not displayed an interest which 
 you might call intelligent. But standing here, upon 
 the future House of Congress, he had listened with 
 emotion to the spirit of a people waking up. And 
 when the House was built they would be ready too. 
 Then some of us upon the platform cheered, and from 
 the ground a cheer ascended. 
 
 ' I like Chapultepec for one thing,' Petleigh said ; 
 4 it has some splendid trees. Of course, it isn't what 
 you will be seeing in Guerrero, but I like Chapultepec' 
 
 In case the reader has these sentiments, he may 
 forgive me if I keep him there another moment, to 
 relate a grief which in the minds of many spoiled that 
 
TO CHILPANCINGO 
 
 363 
 
 special hero-function I have mentioned. He who 
 should have read the leading poem was no less than 
 Ruben Dario, the delegate from Nicaragua, and held 
 to be the greatest living poet 1 of Latin- America. He 
 dwells in Paris. When he sailed for Mexico all 
 promised well, but soon the President who had 
 appointed him — a President whom the United States 
 held in aversion — fell, and his credentials as a delegate 
 for the centenary were useless. It was thought that 
 he would come to Mexico as if he were an ordinary 
 citizen, and there was formed a club, the Ruben Dario 
 Society, which issued proclamations and arrayed 
 itself in the attire of mediaeval Spanish students. 
 When the train from Veracruz was nearly due, the 
 club drove to the station in a bunch of taxi-cabs, but 
 Ruben Dario did not arrive. He went up to the 
 chief town of the State of Veracruz, Jalapa, where 
 he lingered in the sun-bathed cloisters and he issued 
 proclamations also. In a little time he left the country 
 saying that he would betake himself to the United 
 States. I have been told that in his poems he is up 
 against the States, but in so far as I have read him 
 he confines himself to beauty. 
 
 There is one thing to be said for these digressions, 
 since they give a rough idea of the rapidity with which 
 the trains proceed in Mexico. The scenery is often 
 very grand, and in these parts it is not only most 
 desirable, it is most requisite, that there should be a 
 limit to the speed, as you acknowledge when you see 
 the locomotive though the train is of the shortest and 
 you do not lean out of the window. Sometimes in the 
 course of, say, ten miles one has to mount three 
 thousand feet. 
 
 1 He is one of the greatest lyric writers of all time in the Spanish 
 language. A band of disciples, which he discourages, has joined 
 itself to him. A revolutionary, in ten years he transformed Spanish 
 poetry. His grace, suppleness and learned complexity are unequalled. 
 
364 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 II 
 
 And sometimes it will happen that the train divides 
 itself in two and has to be united with a rope. But they 
 are well prepared : ' Three long whistles is the signal,' 
 say the regulations [Section I, Article 89], 4 that the 
 train has divided itself, and this signal will have to be 
 repeated till the flag or lantern answers it.' That 
 whistling is, it seems to me, a fair example of the 
 adage that to know is to forgive. Through many 
 nights I would have furiously raged, I'm sure, if, 
 lying on a hard, hygienic bed of Mexico, I had 
 been forced to hear the varied language of the 
 locomotives and remain in ignorance of what they 
 meant. It made my joy to count the number and 
 the length of all the whistlings, for I knew when- 
 ever we had some of them in quick succession 
 that a person or an animal should be upon the 
 track ; and four long whistles served to call the 
 guard, and four long whistles followed by a short one 
 was to call him to protect the front part of the train. 
 
 Sometimes, where the land is marshy, there is 
 even climbing to be done inside the stations. Thus 
 a locomotive may be resting at a certain level while 
 the third or fourth compartment is a good ten feet 
 beneath it. And at less diverting stations the 
 imaginative creatures of the neighbourhood do what 
 they can. With chicken pies they seek to please you, 
 lifting up the edges to display the veritable chicken ; 
 or they offer fruits, which are delicious sometimes — 
 granaditas, prickly pears and mangoes, little pine- 
 apples and miniature bananas — then there will be the 
 misguided comrade who entreats you to acquire the 
 paper that you happily avoided in the capital two 
 weeks ago, an illustrated paper which attempts, and 
 not without success, to pass by on the other side of 
 
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 3T3 
 
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 S.S 
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TO CHILPANCINGO 
 
 365 
 
 decency. You can have silver spurs and hectic sweets 
 and walking-sticks and opals of a dubious origin and 
 other local products. A man who plies his trade about 
 four stations out of Puebla wishes you to buy his dogs 
 of earthenware, and certainly the chances are that 
 you have come out unprovided. Often there is raised 
 the cry of 4 Una caridad por el amor de Bios ! ' and 
 it is appalling that a person should be blind and live 
 among such scenery. 
 
 But Westall, the geologist, was never made for 
 scenery. As we went curving round the valley 
 from Chapultepec he looked out of the window of the 
 train. ' That is volcanic,' he would say, or, ' That is 
 not volcanic' We were passing by long orchards, and 
 between the branches and the whitewashed walls the 
 plain of Mexico was visible. We curved among the 
 hills, so that the great expanse of valley took on the 
 appearance of a map, and Westall, who restrained his 
 observations to a line of rocks that were not more than 
 eight yards from his nose, observed : ' That is 
 volcanic' We rose up beyond the sphere of agave 
 plants, we had the pines, and down beneath us lay the 
 rolling land, the pallid waters of Texcoco and the 
 capital, a brownish blot. All round the valley stood 
 the chain of mountains, and the capital where many 
 thousand mortals had been killed was nothing but a 
 dirty patch upon the quilt-work of the valley. 
 Straight in front of us, magnificent and armoured in 
 the morning light, were Mexico's extinct volcanoes 
 with their helmets of eternal snow : Popocatepetl, 
 white brother of the Matterhorn, and his near sister 
 Iztaccihautl, who is known as ' Sleeping Woman. 9 
 Westall said : ' That is volcanic' 
 
 The plateau which divides this valley from that of 
 Cuernavaca is inhabited by sober woodcutters and 
 
366 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 charcoal-burners. At a place called Tres Marias 1 they 
 have tried to overcome the general bleakness, for the 
 station building, which appears to act as an hotel, 
 is of two stories and is painted red. The population, 
 wrapped in blankets, crouches round the structure 
 that is at an altitude of two miles from the Thames. 
 They regard the train with some indifference and do 
 not even rise to beg. One has been told, by people 
 of the knowing south, that virtue is to be considered 
 geographically ; for which reason it may be the 
 climate that is answerable for this manliness. But 
 on the other hand, the climate may sweep generosity 
 and kindly thoughts from those who travel, and the 
 people of the neighbourhood may have discovered 
 that it is in vain to ask for alms at Tres Marias. Still 
 we look askance at human beings who can live without 
 assistance from their fellows — one would not have 
 fancied that the world can hold such people, but that 
 they themselves assure you that it is a fact, and one 
 would not suppose that virtue can remain immaculate 
 in any man if there be not some pressure brought to 
 bear. It is unnatural for us to dwell in virtue, and 
 there would be little hope for us if we did not address 
 ourselves to scale a fortress that is like a Pelion piled 
 upon Gibraltar. 
 
 Suddenly we find ourselves upon the ridge — that 
 intervening stretch of highland has been traversed — 
 and instead of one mere valley we have two beneath 
 us, with a town in each of them. Well, it is Nature, 
 dignified in protest ; we have said a million times 
 that in the tropics she is prodigal, and now she wants 
 
 1 The other unattractive Tres Marias of Mexico consist really of 
 four small islands in the Pacific. One of them, Man'a Madre (about 
 9 miles by 4), is a penal colony and usually shelters more than two 
 thousand pickpockets and minor criminals who are set to work in the 
 salt-pits under the guard of a hundred soldiers. The more serious 
 criminals of Mexico are enrolled in the army. 
 
TO CHILPANCINGO 
 
 367 
 
 to bring it home to the meanest understanding 
 that she can be prodigal wherever she desires. We 
 have already passed La Cruz del Marques, an enormous 
 cross of stone which marks the territory granted by the 
 Crown to Cortes, as Marquis of the Valley. In the 
 splendid panorama we can see two towns at once, but 
 the domain of Cortes held a matter of some thirty 
 towns and villages. And it has not been all dispersed ; 
 away beyond the towers of Cuernavaca we discern, as 
 we go zigzag down the mountain's side, a patch of 
 brilliant green, which is the sugar land of Atlacomulco. 
 This belonged to Cortes and is owned by his direct 
 descendant, the Duke of Terra Nova y Monteleone. 
 We have passed the sphere of pines and now the fields 
 that we are gliding down have lilac, pink and yellow 
 flowers, the lilac ones appear to spread a sort of haze. 
 Down — down we go ; that other valley vanishes and we 
 approach the level land of this the garden State of 
 Mexico, which is called after one of her great revolu- 
 tionary patriots, Morelos. It is like the sua vest carpet, 
 and it rolls up to a wall of hills, pale blue and purple. 
 On their western side, between them and the ocean, 
 is Guerrero. We shall soon be carried from this 
 summer landscape to the forests of Guerrero. 
 
 Ill 
 
 For many kilometres after leaving the luxuriance of 
 Cuernavaca we are going through a fertile country 
 where the people live, as other lowly Mexicans, in 
 ventilated houses, seeing that the walls consist of 
 wood and air, the quantities approximately equal. 
 We may spend ourselves in remonstrating with the 
 Mexicans of other parts, because when it is cold they 
 shiver. Thus it has been, thus it will be, and they 
 
368 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 listen to our words as much as to the wind. But in the 
 vale of Cuernavaca it is probable that all those flowers, 
 flying to the breach, afford an adequate protection. 
 Sugar mills and peaceful huts and flowers — till we 
 reach the stern land of Guerrero. 
 
 It may be remembered, possibly, that there were 
 three of us who undertook this expedition. I do not 
 feel the necessity for writing much of Westall, as he 
 did not alter. What is the use of change of scene if in 
 ourselves there is no change ? And Petleigh did not 
 cease to talk about Guerrero, so that long before we 
 disembarked at one of Mexico's historic towns — you 
 find them everywhere, and that may be why Mexico 
 is not more happy — long before we pulled up at 
 Iguala I was wishing that Guerrero could be wiped 
 from off the map — or Petleigh. And the solitary deed 
 of violence we saw was carried out upon a person who 
 was too flamboyant in his praise. The car was 
 boarded, at the station just before Iguala, by a couple 
 of most active boys who started to enlarge upon the 
 glories of their two hotels. We listened for a time, 
 and then it seemed to us that, really, if we chose the 
 one or if we chose the other we should fall upon our 
 feet. I say we listened, but it was to a duet, for these 
 two boys insisted on a simultaneous unfolding of their 
 stories. It was evident that they were on the best of 
 terms, and probably they had it thus arranged 
 between them that they should exhort the passengers 
 together and so modify the deadliness of competition ; 
 they would not be called upon to exercise their wits 
 in paying their attentions to us in a certain order, 
 they did not make any study of us, and if either of 
 them got an angel — well, it was unawares. We 
 promised to put up with them, and they set out in 
 search of other clients. But a sallow Mexican became 
 
TO CHILPANCINGO 
 
 369 
 
 exasperated, he arose and knocked their heads 
 together. It was treatment, clearly, which they were 
 unused to, for until the train was at Iguala they 
 remained completely dazed. And there our luggage 
 and our persons were enveloped by a score of helpers 
 who transferred them to a shaky carriage ; and within 
 ten minutes we had taken rooms at an hotel. 
 
 Iguala is the place where Iturbide and other 
 patriots, against whom he had lately fought, united 
 for the promulgation of that instrument known as the 
 Plan de Iguala. There have been many plans in 
 Mexico, but this of 1821 is among the most famous and 
 among the best. Iguala likewise is the place where 
 they evolved the present flag. To-day the town is 
 something of a centre for Guerrero. Peasants wander 
 in from forty miles away to do their marketing, and 
 by a line of motors, recently established, one can 
 penetrate to Chilpancingo de los Bravos, the dreamy 
 capital. When it was dark, at seven o'clock, the car 
 appeared ; they undertook to start with us at break- 
 fast-time, so that we could have all the afternoon at 
 Chilpancingo, talking to the Governor, hiring mules or 
 buying them, arranging as to routes and so forth. 
 ' And to-morrow evening,' said Petleigh, ' you will 
 
 camp among the trees. You never saw ' It was a 
 
 feeble way for getting out of it, but I remarked that 
 we had never seen the market-place and that it was 
 high time to go. A lucky thing we did, because it was 
 entirely picturesque. The square enclosure, open 
 to the night, contained a crowd of ghostly people who 
 were passing to and fro between the stalls, and on 
 the stalls were wind-blown lamps. It was fantastic, 
 verily, when this unhastening, quiet congregation 
 had the whiteness of its raiment shown in flashes. 
 They were strolling like so many patrons, but from 
 
 2 B 
 
370 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 time to time they bought a painted bowl, a strip of 
 sun-dried meat, a glass of shaven ice and syrup, or 
 they very seriously listened to Caruso on the gramo- 
 phone, or they would sit upon their feet — no other 
 words describe the attitude — while they were handed 
 little saucerfuls of something by a comfortable- 
 looking woman who presided at the brasier, and 
 instead of kitchen apparatus used her ringers. 
 
 We were given every chance of seeing what Iguala 
 has to offer, since an alteration had to be effected 
 on the car and it was five hours after breakfast -time 
 when we began to load. The mail for Chilpancingo 
 and beyond was in some thirty bags, which filled the 
 car. It seemed to us to be a pity that the Government 
 prefer to send their bags for the Pacific ports of South 
 America by this peculiar way. There is the railroad 
 to Salina Cruz where vessels call, for I have seen 
 them ; but, lo ! the bags are carried in erratic motors 
 up to Chilpancingo, then on horseback for a hundred 
 miles to Acapulco, where they wait for boats. You 
 therefore seem to run a certain risk if you send 
 correspondence from this part of Mexico to Chili, but 
 our young American chauffeur assured us that the 
 damage which a letter might receive from climate was 
 of no importance. If these fellows, so he said, can 
 read at all they do it well. He had the same high 
 faith in the capacity of his machine, for when he took 
 his seat he did not trouble to look round, much less to 
 ask the weight of any of the pieces that were piled 
 upon the bags. And on the top of them sat Westall, 
 up above the roof, if there had been one ; also Petleigh 
 with his gun. My place was at the chauffeur's left, 
 and at my left, astride of a portmanteau that with 
 several others and our cooking outfit had been 
 fastened to the car with ropes, astride of my port- 
 
TO CHILPANCINGO 
 
 371 
 
 manteau was Ramon, the gentle mozo. Nothing 
 happened for the first half-mile, but then we punctured 
 and it started raining, though it was not then the 
 rainy season. We were glad, at all events, to have 
 Ramon, because the chauffeur said that he himself was 
 in the grip of fever and incapable of much exertion. 
 Still, he took us at a great old pace through Perth- 
 shire scenery, by waterfalls and mountain fields until, 
 as it was growing dark, we reached the Balsas river 
 and contrived to get across two slimy planks into 
 a ferryboat. They had to pull us up a hundred yards 
 or so, the current being powerful, and then we 
 navigated to the other side. Again we got across the 
 slimy planks, received another mail-bag and resumed 
 our journey. In the rainy darkness we discerned but 
 little of the road when it was heading straight through 
 a ravine, at other times it hugged the mountain. 1 
 Swiftly it would turn aside, then back again, then 
 almost make a circle round a rock. We should have 
 liked to see the road, because it is not often that you 
 find one that is but a few months old and is so 
 thoroughly equipped with ruts. We slided in and out 
 of these, not knocking anywhere against the mountain. 
 As we rose and skirted round a fearsome precipice we 
 only slided over once. 
 
 IV 
 
 At the beginning of our precipice we found a quantity 
 of mud, sufficient to arrest the motor's downward 
 course. There in the storm-swept darkness it was 
 
 1 That there should be a road at all is praiseworthy. ' It would be 
 money thrown away,' says Dr. Gadow in his book 'In Southern 
 Mexico,' which does not charm the naturalist alone, 'it would be 
 money thrown away to construct a cart-road, as every rainy reason it 
 would be washed away.' He travelled through these parts as recently 
 as in the years 1902 and 1904. 
 
372 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 hardly opportune to moralise, but we should live a 
 very happy life if we could bring ourselves to think, 
 as we are told to do, that all our trials are, in truth, 
 so many blessings : we had reviled the rain which 
 made the mud. A quarter of an hour of delicate 
 manceuvrings and we were back upon the road. 
 It was a far cry yet to Chilpancingo. which my two 
 American companions had been calling Chil. as if by 
 such familiarity to make themselves and all of us 
 believe that it was not so distant. And their country- 
 man, our fever-stricken chauffeur, was astonishingly 
 cheerful. He was wet from coat to skin, because it 
 had been his belief that it was not the rainy season. 
 Destitute of overcoat, he whistled merrily. He found 
 it possible to joke (despite our gloomy silence), and 
 the sole precaution which he took against the weather 
 was to keep his left hand at the turned-up collar 
 of his coat, while with his right he undertook to 
 steer the slipping motor. We drove high above a 
 valley which contained a camp of lighted huts and 
 round them a stockade. A little later on we overtook 
 the soldiers with a ragged crew of convicts ; they 
 had been at work all day upon the road, 1 and now 
 
 1 The roads of many parts of Mexico are in deplorable decay, so 
 that the produce of a farm will be allowed to rot a few leagues from 
 the market. West of Uruapam, where no railway runs, the finest 
 coffee in the world has little value ; sugar-cane, tobacco and vanilla 
 and enormous crops of cereals have caused Jalisco to be known as the 
 Republic^ granary, but often one has heard the farmers sigh for roads 
 and often heard the little farmers wish the railways could be turned 
 to roads. The Spanish highways, such as that which goes to Xochi- 
 calco, have in many cases turned into moraines, where everything — 
 except his horse's acrobatic skill — is calculated to depress the traveller. 
 And sometimes in the middle of the towns, as in the wealthy mining 
 town Pachuca. you will find that roads are furnished not with 
 mountains only, but with valleys, here a pile of building-stone that was 
 abandoned years ago and there a lake of mud eight inches deep, and 
 as for width — in front of a Pachucan plutocrat's abode the lake, 
 although it had not rained for some three days, extended fifty feet. 
 But in addition to the ordinary taxes there had been imposed upon 
 that State a tax of 2 per cent on salaries and wages— this would have 
 
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TO CHILPANCINGO 
 
 373 
 
 were trudging back. From their demeanour one 
 supposed that they were as indifferent to fortune as 
 to us ; a single one, a giant, shook his fist at us, and 
 he was brought to reason by a tiny soldier reaching 
 up and boxing both his ears. We did not come past 
 any people who were on the road for choice. Ramon, 
 the gentle mozo, who was clinging to the car at my 
 left elbow and who was as thinly clad as the American 
 — poor Ramon merely shuddered. 6 Br — r — r — r,' 
 said he. The mountain had been at the side where he 
 was ; when we swerved across a bridge and he was 
 hanging more or less above the precipice he did not 
 speak. The ruts were always growing more pro- 
 nounced ; whatever else the convict labourers can do, 
 they cannot build a flawless road, and parts of it were 
 flying in a constant shower above the two Americans 
 who occupied their seats of peril on the baggage, 
 perched behind us. After two or three more kilo- 
 metres we descended to a marshy place where, at an 
 Indian settlement, we halted, and Ramon got water for 
 the car. These native dwellings were so rickety that 
 we could witness their domestic operations through 
 the walls. We saw the menfolk mostly squatting 
 round the fire, whereas the women at the outside of 
 the circle knelt in front of stones and pounded corn 
 to make tortillas for the evening meal. That woman 
 who supplied us with the water stood outside the hut 
 
 filled up the Governmental purse, if there had been no Governmental 
 purses. And upon the famous road between Pachuca and Real del 
 Monte one could see how Don Porfirio's Government acknowledged 
 that a road could have considerable value. Just before arriving at the 
 hill-top we encountered an old man, a servant of the Government, who 
 asked for 29 centavos. It appeared to us that 7 pence was too much 
 of a burden for a drive of four miles on a public road. The cost of 
 building it, however — and it is a veritable engineering feat — was very- 
 large, our guide observed, and it was built by the Old Taylor Company 
 (from England) at the beginning of the nineteenth century. ' The 
 upkeep of it must involve,' we said, * a great deal of expense.' * That 
 is so,' said the guide, ' it costs the Company a lot of money.' 
 
374 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 and gazed at us, with several children at her skirts. 
 She was not comely, but the lighted raindrops, falling 
 on her forehead, were as if a chain of rivers had 
 been flung by Providence across a country that was 
 parched and brown. 
 
 Again we took the road, though more than one of 
 us, I do believe, was hoping for an instant breakdown, 
 so that we, the victims of a most malicious sprite, 
 could well ask for a place beside the Indians' fire. We 
 rolled into the darkness that was drenched with rain ; 
 it made us feel as if we were the citizens of some deep 
 ocean's floor. ' Br — r — r — r,' sighed Ramon, 1 Oh ! 
 what barbarity ! ' The chauffeur knew that winding 
 road by heart, but after three more wretched kilo- 
 metres, which he did most gallantly, he stopped all of 
 a sudden in his whistling, for between the mountain 
 and the precipice were two enormous boulders and 
 some smaller ones. This also had been brought about 
 by the unending rain. They must have fallen down 
 the mountain side within the last half-hour, as we 
 were presently informed by someone of the village 
 who had been that way on business, as he told us 
 when he came at last with Ramon, whom we had 
 dispatched in search of any help. He and four 
 other villagers arrived with crowbars and with 
 torches to assist us — in default of implements, we had 
 been able to do nothing but lay hands upon the 
 boulders. The commander of this band, which 
 Ramon found for us, turned out to be a personage of 
 forty with a weedy beard — he looked as if he was a 
 carpenter — and he could wield his crowbar very 
 shrewdly, he insinuated it beneath a boulder and 
 persuaded this unwelcome visitant to move towards 
 him. His companions stared in admiration, more 
 especially an aged fellow who was lavish with en- 
 
TO CHILPANCINGO 
 
 375 
 
 couragement and praise. But the boulder's progress 
 was not swift, and we had ample reason to desire to 
 leave : above us from the mountain issued noises that 
 were ominous. Yet, as it happened, they were never 
 followed by a scattering of rocks ; they scattered us, 
 indeed, because we could not know if it would always 
 be a case of shingle and of harmless stones. We fled 
 as the reverberating noise began ; we waited till the 
 mountain had discharged itself and then we came 
 back through the mud and rain. For want of crow- 
 bars most of us did nothing, save that from time to 
 time we gave advice. When we had watched the 
 weedy carpenter and his assistants move the boulder, 
 maybe half a foot in half an hour, it seemed to us that 
 if we turned our steps — the car we could by no means 
 turn — towards the Indian settlement, this action, 
 fraught with ignominy, would at any rate be prudent. 
 They would take us, to be sure, inside the circle. 
 We were partly reconciled already to the losing of our 
 baggage, since the motor was in constant jeopardy of 
 being crushed, but now the chauffeur thought he 
 could advance. He moved his hind wheel sideways 
 with the jack and then he charged into the narrow 
 space between the mountain and the boulder, so that 
 he became completely jammed. There surged in us a 
 dreadful feeling that the denizens of Acapulco would 
 not have their mail in time and that some luckless 
 people of the South American republics would be 
 absolutely disappointed in their news of Mexico. The 
 cotton bags provided by their Governments in lieu of 
 canvas ones were scarcely looking as if they would 
 answer expectations. We were jammed, I say, 
 between the mountain and the boulders. 
 
 Some of us have recollections of the talk around a 
 camp-fire when the stars come nearer so that they 
 
376 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 may listen. We have had our comrades, lying on the 
 ground in glorious fatigue, who spoke, one fancied, to 
 eternity. The silence of the wilderness fell back before 
 them. On our hazardous, high path to Chilpancingo 
 we had motor-lamps in place of dying embers, and the 
 scented torches of the Indians were the stars. And 
 thus we spoke : 
 
 Ramon, the gentle mozo (as he marked time in the 
 mud) : 4 Br— r— r— r. O God ! O God ! What end 
 do we go to see ? ' 
 
 The Venerable Indian : e O Candelario ! That thou 
 mayestlive! It moves. Thou art more strong than ' 
 
 The Mountain : ' M — m — attle — m — m — m — 
 achchch ' 
 
 The Chauffeur (at his wheel) : ' Suppose you want a 
 change of air. . . . Jesus, can't it rain ? . . . Say ! If 
 you're better now you might as well come back.' 
 
 The Weedy Carpenter (as he advances) : ' Let us do 
 the work. We have begun it.' 
 
 Ramon (advancing from the other side) : 4 O my 
 mother ! Here we are, indeed.' [He laughs hysteri- 
 cally.] 
 
 The Weedy Carpenter (to those behind him) : 8 1 am 
 smiling. They cannot do without us others.' 
 
 The White-clad Indians (lit up by the motor-lamps) : 
 * We others.' 
 
 Ramon : ' Br — r — r. But it is cold. Carajo ! I 
 do swear that it is cold.' 
 
 The Venerable Indian : ' Boy ! Be you even as our 
 Candelario. What is the good of you ? Tell me. 
 Be still.' 
 
 A Mournful One (who stands and contemplates) : 
 ' Would that to God we had not come. And yet 
 perhaps they will be paying as we do deserve, by God. 
 . . . But who knows ? ' 
 
TO CHILPANCINGO 
 
 377 
 
 The Venerable Indian : ' O God, may you be 
 exalted ! ' 
 
 Parts of the Motor : 6 Gl — gl — gl — o — o — gl — gl — 
 shshgl ' 
 
 Chorus of Indians : ' What shall we do ? We are 
 here to be destroyed. O thou machine, and may thy 
 days be short ! And may the hand of God be on thee ! ' 
 
 The Weedy Carpenter : 4 It is pleasant that the 
 lamps are hot.' 
 
 There is no justice in the world (except, I have been 
 told, in Mexico ; because when it was bruited that a 
 Minister of Justice was retiring and a most laborious but 
 uninspired official would be chosen, the appointment 
 certainly encountered much approval for the reason 
 that in Mexico you want a man who conscientiously 
 will have the laws administered ; to make improve- 
 ments, they asserted, is impossible) — if justice were 
 allowed to flourish we should not curtail the story of 
 the moving of those boulders. Manfully and ably did 
 the Indians toil, so that we went upon our way. 
 Those other five -and -thirty kilometres shall not here 
 detain us and the fact is that we were so much inured 
 to the deplorable conditions as to — I could almost say 
 be merry. It may not be in accordance with the 
 precepts of a Church, but when afflictions, like so 
 many vultures, seem to blacken every quarter of your 
 sky, there is a solace in the thought that you have 
 roused a splendid foe. We were indifferent when 
 something happened to the steering apparatus, and 
 we laughed when it began to hail. We shrugged 
 our shoulders at the lightning, just as if we dwelt in 
 gay Valencia, where it has been ordered by St. 
 Vincent Ferrer not to fall. But there was something 
 pitiable when the car, which had been rolling through 
 so much of rain and mud, was in distress for lack of 
 water. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE GAMBLERS OF MEXICO 
 
 A gentleman connected with Mexico's State Lottery 
 was good enough to tell me how and why the thing 
 is carried on. I never thought that it was other than 
 an honest institution, and so much more honest than 
 some other forms of local business that it would be 
 quite regrettable if it were done an injury by mis- 
 construction or by inadvertence. So I told the 
 lottery official that his information would become the 
 basis of an article, and he, to spare me trouble, wrote 
 the article himself. ' In our columns we have always 
 managed to discuss,' he says, 4 those matters which 
 are of collective or of public interest. Certain papers 
 of the capital have occupied themselves, from time 
 to time, in leading coarse attacks upon the lotteries, 
 and have pretended to esteem them as pernicious 
 as all other games of hazard. We, for our part, do 
 not now propose to deal with all the lotteries es- 
 tablished here, since they are private enterprises — 
 with a very few exceptions ; and on this account 
 we must consider that they have a transitory life, 
 so that it is not needful to discuss them, all the more 
 as they conduct the chief part of their operations in 
 the capitals of some of the Republic's States or in 
 some towns of the interior ; for which reason a correct 
 account of their security, their method and whatever 
 else there is to learn about them would be truly 
 
 378 
 
THE GAMBLERS OF MEXICO 379 
 
 difficult. We consequently shall restrict ourselves 
 to studying the National Lottery of Mexico, which 
 is, from every point of view, a most respectable 
 affair, and which, unlike all others, is protected, 
 organised and guaranteed by the Federal Govern- 
 ment ; there cannot be a doubt but that it will in- 
 volve you in far less than average risk, 1 because not 
 only of the purity but the lawfulness of its drawings. 
 We have made our calculations and have verified 
 them, so that we can say it is the one which is supreme 
 in the proportion of its funds allotted to the prizes. 
 While those lotteries which are most liberal give 
 back in prizes up to 60 per cent of their takings, our 
 National Lottery usually yields 64, 65, 66 and even 
 70 per cent, according to the importance of the 
 drawing, and this liberality is not attained by any 
 similar establishment in all the world, save those of 
 universal fame such as the National Lottery of 
 Madrid.' Perhaps the good man has not seen one of 
 those luring papers which are sent from Budapest, 
 and which attempt to dazzle us with a reward more 
 grand than even 70 per cent in cash ; they tell how 
 it has been the lot of many families to gain, in this 
 way, riches and respectability. 
 
 But do not run away with the idea that in the 
 lottery we are describing there is no beneficent or 
 admirable feature other than the 70 per cent. 6 The 
 
 1 In Peru, if in no other of the sister countries, you appear to run 
 a risk of making terms with the authorities about your prize. At 
 some manoeuvres in the mountains of Peru the attache from France 
 remarked that every morning one stout general officer was called ex- 
 tremely late, and that when he had breakfasted at leisure and had 
 smoked a good cigar he turned his field-glass on the troops. Where 
 lay the explanation ? ' You must understand,' the general said, ' that 
 I was once a grocer. Then I won the million-dollar prize. The 
 Government informed me that they could not pay ; but they could 
 pay one half, and for the rest they would confer upon me this posi- 
 tion. I accepted.' 
 
380 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 National Lottery,' he continues, 6 is a Public Office, 
 which depends directly from the Ministry of Finance 
 and Public Credit ; this department takes upon itself 
 to regulate whatever touches the aforesaid lottery. 
 Moreover, the committee of directors is composed 
 of honourable men, whose names alone give to the 
 devotees of our establishment a feeling of security. 
 He who officiates just now as president is Don 
 Gabriel Mancera, the engineer and senator who is 
 so distinguished for his altruistic gifts. With him 
 are some illustrious men of business and some of the 
 most conspicuous among the members of Society.' 
 Oh, to be sure, the days are distant when a lottery 
 in Mexico could be conducted by a single man. There 
 was a person, once upon a time, a most iniquitous 
 Parisian, who distracted many with his so-called 
 lottery of animals. His stock-in-trade consisted of 
 two dozen cardboard animals, of whom he put one, 
 every morning, in a box. It then became the busi- 
 ness of the players to select their beast, to bet so 
 many dollars and await the opening of the box, which 
 ceremony of an evening was attended by enormous 
 multitudes. In fact, the concourse grew to be so vast, 
 the street so crowded, that it was impossible for 
 the inhabitants to leave their houses, and the public 
 nuisance of a Frenchman had to seek another sphere 
 for his activities, but not until he had accomplished 
 his gigantic coup. One day as he was putting in the 
 box that piece of cardboard which was fashioned in 
 the image of a serpent he became aware that there 
 was someone at the keyhole, and behold it was a 
 youth who had adopted this device for getting stable 
 information. Quickly haled into the room, he was 
 rebuked for acting in a manner so equivocal, but after 
 having promised that he would not breathe a word 
 
THE GAMBLERS OF MEXICO 381 
 
 of his ill-gotten knowledge, he was told by the pro- 
 prietor that he could run away. Of course he 
 whispered of the serpent to a thousand people, and, 
 of course, the Frenchman put a tiger in the box. . . . 
 We do not need to be persuaded that the Loteria 
 Nacional would have to-day no such manipulations. 
 4 Owing to its righteous directorate, owing also to 
 unwearied study of the wants and fancies of the 
 public, it has not been left behind while other business 
 in the Mexican Republic has developed ; on the 
 contrary, it has obtained among the public always 
 more and more prestige.' One only need be present 
 on a Monday, Wednesday or Friday afternoon at 
 three o'clock to know immediately that the adminis- 
 tration of to-day is altogether different from that 
 of 1883. Suppose that he who then was President 
 of the Republic, General Don Manuel Gonzalez, were 
 to ride back from the grave, unchastened, and re- 
 sume the reins of power, then surely Senor Gabriel 
 Mancera would withstand him to the uttermost. 
 Those venerable citizens whom I saw at the table 
 would have nothing done that is irregular ; they 
 would not even take into account Don Manuel's un- 
 lucky temperament, ' beyond whose grasp,' says 
 Terry's guide-book (p. ccxxxiii), 6 were the high 
 principles of Diaz.' It became a habit with Gonzalez 
 to send down an adjutant who told the lottery 
 officials very plainly what the number was which 
 on the next day would secure the prize. Of course, 
 when such events are toward there is a responsibility 
 attaching to the people, and it seems as if they were 
 in that dim era not less apathetic at the drawing 
 function than they are to-day, when, as we have 
 by this time gathered, there is not the slightest call 
 for scrutiny. It was another portion of Don Manuel's 
 
382 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 financial programme which aroused his fellow- 
 countrymen and almost brought him headlong to 
 disaster, for he could not inundate the country with 
 his nickel pieces. 
 
 No doubt, upon the 16th of September last there 
 was a scene of tremulous excitement at the drawing 
 of the prize for 500,000 dollars Mex. (say, £50,000). 
 The gentleman whom I have hitherto been quoting 
 is as cool as one expects : 6 That lottery,' he says, 
 e has left a trait of pleasing memories, because it 
 was divided into fractions and distributed among our 
 people of the middle class [how fine are his investi- 
 gations !], who should now be having the enjoyment 
 of unhoped-for and desirable tranquillity.' But on 
 a Friday afternoon, when I, as Frenchmen say, 
 assisted, it was at a very somnolent affair. 'Tis true 
 the major prize was not more than a thousand 
 dollars, while the second largest prizes were con- 
 siderably less, but so decrepit was the audience of 
 thirty that the chance of gaining such a sum ought 
 to have kept them on perpetual tenterhooks. Maybe 
 they were exhibiting the gambler's legendary calm, 
 and as there was in them more Indian blood than 
 Spanish one would not care to deny the possibility 
 of this inhuman conduct. However, it appears more 
 probable that they were dulled by constant failure. 
 Many of them had been trying, I could swear it, to 
 recuperate their fortunes every Monday, every 
 Wednesday, every Friday, for a chain of years, and 
 I should be surprised if they had known the frigid 
 satisfaction of acquaintance with a winner. It was 
 curious that such a ragged crew should have the 
 wherewithal to play — they cannot surely be so morbid 
 as to want to listen always to the victories of other 
 people — and the wanton days of Elagabalus have 
 
THE GAMBLERS OF MEXICO 383 
 
 vanished, what time two lotteries were instituted : for 
 the people one, and one for the comedians. There 
 was no need to buy the tickets, and the prizes, ranging 
 from a pound of beef up to a hundred gold or thou- 
 sand silver pieces, were provided by the well-beloved 
 Emperor. 
 
 So far as I can recollect there was, that Friday 
 afternoon, an individual — and only one — who made no 
 secret of it that he was attracted by the comfort of 
 the chairs ; he slept profoundly. But with him it 
 was quite palpable that he had drifted in by chance 
 and was by no means an habitue, for he exhibited 
 an ignorance of the prevailing customs. When he 
 sank into the chair and fell asleep he failed to take 
 his hat off ; a policeman who was standing at the 
 door approached him, tapped him on the shoulder, 
 half awakened him and pointed at the hat. Our 
 friend removed it with a gesture of apology, he bowed 
 to the policeman and replaced the hat upon his head 
 and fell asleep. So it was necessary to awaken him 
 again, which the policeman did with tenderness, and 
 in a little time the hat came permanently off. As 
 for the other members of the audience — bedraggled 
 women and a postman (but I must say that he did not 
 wear the guilty look of one who plays the truant), 
 and a blue-lipped Indian wastrel, boys with unsold 
 tickets for the lottery, and one small urchin whose 
 equipment would have needed scarcely other change 
 than the addition of a bow and arrows if he had 
 desired to be an artist's model in the usual array of 
 Cupid — all these people looked with more or less 
 attention towards the platform. Nearest to them, 
 just behind the railings, were three pretty page-boys, 
 neat in blue and gold ; behind these, at a table, were 
 two busy clerks, and finally behind this pair sat the 
 
384 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 presiding gentlemen, who certainly would not have 
 found it easy to look more respectable. It is their 
 presence that is wanted, I suppose, and if they like 
 to sleep, as one did intermittently and one through- 
 out the seance, after he had patted all his colleagues 
 on the back, it is their own concern. Just after three 
 o'clock the little page-boy to the right of us took up 
 a wineglass and a bodkin, so too did the left-hand 
 page-boy, while the other one stood at the table with 
 a wooden frame in which were ribs of metal ; one end 
 of the frame was off. The right-hand page-boy 
 marched — you cannot otherwise describe his progress 
 — to a globe that was on his side of the platform and 
 was larger than himself. An employe was turning it 
 first one way then another, so that every ball which it 
 contained should fly about among its comrades. 
 At the one side of the globe there was a shutter which 
 the page-boy opened, took a ball out on the bodkin, 
 held the wineglass over it and marched back to the 
 table. In the meantime, from a smaller globe, the left- 
 hand page-boy likewise had procured a ball and came 
 back to the table. Then the first boy glanced upon 
 the white ball he had captured, and in shrill and rapid 
 accents cried a number three times (though I could 
 not understand him once), and he was followed by the 
 left boy, on whose ball was written 4 4.' He cried : 
 4 Cuatro pesos ! cuatro pesos ! cuatro pesos ! ' There- 
 upon they gave their balls up to the third boy, who 
 transfixed them, opposite each other, on the metal 
 ribs, and so for something more than half an hour 
 the process was continued, being varied only when 
 the left-hand boy brought back the ball which had 
 4 1000 ' on it. There was in the audience the flutter 
 of some sighing, and a clerk went over to a blackboard, 
 where he wrote the number and the town in which it 
 
THE GAMBLERS OF MEXICO 385 
 
 had been sold, this being Mexico the capital on that 
 particular occasion. As he chalked it in his orna- 
 mental writing he appeared with every flourish to 
 be stabbing at the wretched audience. Presently, 
 when all was over, they went out into the sunlight, 
 and the sleeper was awakened once again by the 
 policeman. In a corner of the room a list of the 
 successful numbers was in course of being printed on 
 a hand-press, and again the good policeman had to 
 tap upon the sleeper's shoulder. Each of the pre- 
 siding gentlemen received his paper, leaned back in 
 his chair, and let the middle boy declare the numbers 
 as they stood inside his frame. The one who hitherto 
 had slept was gradually waking up, and as the busi- 
 ness terminated he arose and patted his three col- 
 leagues on the back and patted an adjacent page-boy 
 and made off. Then the policeman sat him down 
 beside the sleeper of the audience, persuaded him to 
 leave the room, and out they went together, arm in 
 arm. As they were walking through the passage 
 towards the street they brushed against the women 
 and the stalwart men who waved the tickets for the 
 next approaching function to and fro. ' Some thou- 
 sands of our countryfolk,' says the historian who 
 never fails us, ' are unfortunately in a state of destitu- 
 tion on account of physical defects, or illness or the 
 weight of years ; they have discovered a commodious 
 livelihood in offering our tickets. If they were to be 
 deprived of this good trade then it is certain their 
 serenity would vanish and they would perforce have 
 to submit themselves to taking up the life of mendi- 
 cants, instead of being able to adapt themselves to 
 honourable methods such as that which we are now 
 discussing.' . . . Ah, well, perhaps it would be in- 
 tolerant to think of deprecating the persistent traffic 
 2 c 
 
386 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 which these people ply in all the most frequented 
 parts of Mexico. ' Diez mil pesos ! Sorteos de hoy ! 
 Diez mil pesos ! Diez mil pesos ! ' and one day in 
 the Street of the Holy Ghost I listened to a famous 
 bull-fighter who was exasperated. 6 Do you think,* 
 said he, 4 that God created money so that I should 
 spend it thus ? ' 
 
 And now we come to the philosophy of all this 
 matter. One may argue that there is none, and that 
 people gamble in the Mexican Republic for the self- 
 same reasons as they gamble elsewhere. But accord- 
 ing to a certain school, the Mexicans demand con- 
 sideration that is quite peculiar. They are given, 
 so 'tis said, to gambling on account of imperfections 
 in their agricultural economy. Wide stretches of the 
 land are always rushing from the one extreme into 
 the other, from extreme fertility to unproductiveness. 
 In four-and-twenty hours the people pass from wealth 
 to misery ; their wheat is all destroyed, their flocks 
 are dying, and underneath the wheel of fortune 
 they are helpless if it does not take another turn, 
 which consummation is not to be brought about 
 except by gambling. Mexico is vast, and on the one 
 hand there are tracts of country which unroll a 
 savage fruitfulness — such as the part of Coahuila, 
 where it is sufficient for the cotton to be planted 
 once in ten years, and the district near to Irapuato, 
 where, a mile and more above the sea, one has 
 throughout the year crop after crop of strawberries ; 
 and so the jungle round a rubber clearing where the 
 tentacles of vegetation try to choke all human effort 
 and if they are cut will grow again and at the rate of 
 half an inch a day. Then, on the other hand, we 
 have the desert places, where the summer's heat or 
 ghastly whirlwinds or the dust goes dancing, but 
 
THE GAMBLERS OF MEXICO 387 
 
 where cactus grows and nothing else. In either sort 
 of territory you will know what is to be expected ; 
 it will surely happen ; but a great deal of the land is 
 subject to the vacillations we have mentioned. And 
 the causes are less difficult to find than to prevent. 
 It is so much a question of the rain and wind. If 
 there should be a scarcity of rain then will the river- 
 beds be dry (from 1887 to 1895 the north of Nuevo 
 Leon was afflicted with a drought, as was the llano 
 district of Chihuahua), and if the north wind blow 
 too strongly in the months of August or September 
 then the cornfields will be devastated. But the very 
 agents that would bring the rain and temper the 
 ferocious wind, those noble slaves have been re- 
 moved, for, as in their own country so in Mexico, the 
 Spaniards never put a check upon deforestation, and 
 a great part of the central plateau is denuded. Wind 
 and rain, they come and go, nor can the flying of a 
 snipe be more capricious. What a country ! Portions 
 of it change so little that we have the tale of a Chicago 
 woman who came down to live in this eternal spring, 
 and as the mercury of the barometer did not so much 
 as tremble, she was certain that the instrument was 
 out of order and she broke it. In those other regions 
 that we have described, a labourer would formerly 
 have chosen one of three professions : brigandage, 
 rebellion, gambling. Now the former — 
 
 Passant, ne pleure point son sort, 
 Car s'il vivait tu serais mort — 
 
 has been more or less blotted out by the rurales, that 
 ubiquitous and celebrated corps (and, by the way, this 
 6 blotted' is a rather suitable expression, as the brigands, 
 so we learn, are frequently absorbed into the grey ranks 
 of their quondam foe) ; rebellion does not always offer 
 
388 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 the antique inducements, and the disappointed labourer 
 falls back on gambling. He is not restricted to the 
 lottery. 
 
 There is said to be a time for all things, and in 
 Mexico it is the local feria [the fair] when every 
 gambler is supposed to let his instincts revel. He 
 can start to play soon after sunrise, and, if he should 
 be unfortunate, can visit now and then the image in 
 whose honour all the festival is being held. I need 
 not say that with so many pilgrims at the shrine — 
 San Juan de los Lagos, for example, welcomes more 
 than 60,000 in November — it will be demanded of 
 each person that his attitude should be correct. If 
 he attempt to imitate the farmer who, despairing 
 that the rain would ever come, precipitated the 
 poor image to the ground and smashed it (after which 
 the rain fell), then he would himself be torn asunder. 
 Mexico is thickly populated with these images, but 
 as the wonder-working reputation of them all is 
 irreproachable, this would be no excuse. The feria 
 possesses also a commercial side, and surely gamblers 
 ought to recognise that there they have another 
 chance of getting water from the rocks. So strange 
 a mingling is there of celestial and mundane busi- 
 ness. But whichever of these two, or if it should be 
 gambling, that has more adherents in the villages, 
 'tis natural that gambling and the kindred pleasures 
 should predominate in towns which have a larger 
 quantity of temples dedicated to the other two pur- 
 suits, and thus throughout the year have given 
 people opportunities to satisfy their appetite. Appeal 
 is made to all the gamblers — there be games for men 
 who want to make a use, comparatively speaking, of 
 intelligence, and there be games for men who have 
 no such desire. And these are the divisions of the 
 
THE GAMBLERS OF MEXICO 389 
 
 people, for if the most woebegone pelado came to 
 join the table of the Governor's son (i.e. of intellect) 
 he would not be rejected, if he had some money. 
 There is animation in the booth and in another one 
 there is a fine repast (considering that it is gratis), 
 in another one is music. 
 
 It so happens that a Turk, who is amongst the 
 most renowned proprietors of the Republic, walked 
 across the frontier of Chihuahua many years ago with 
 a performing bear. Now he has risen into making 
 people dance. His wealth is said to be terrific, but he 
 does not cease to drag his corpulence through North 
 and Central Mexico, while he is having both his sons 
 brought up at college. And he does considerable 
 good, not only by the money which he pays into the 
 town's exchequer—for, like Monsieur Bergeret's 
 sagacious sister, he is apt to find that space, if there 
 be such a thing or not, is very dear — but is a bene- 
 factor also in that he provides employment for a 
 troupe of acrobats or minstrels. In the Mexican 
 Republic there are numerous fine theatres but 
 seemingly no actors, and the consequence is that we 
 patronise the deadly cinematograph. I vow that I 
 would rather see the worst of men and women take 
 the stage than have mechanical devices, for, despite 
 themselves, the men and women are a noble order of 
 creation. And this may be stretched into applying 
 to the prompter, on the rare occasions when the 
 stage is occupied by flesh and blood, although he will 
 insist on smoking palpably throughout the whole 
 performance. As he takes the part of every person 
 in the play, from faithless lover to the girl, this 
 smoking is deplorable. It would be too much to 
 expect that he should make the necessary altera- 
 tions in his voice, as he, regardless whether on the 
 
390 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 stage they have been said or not, reads out the words 
 — your poet will remind you that the words are more 
 important than the voice in which they happen to be 
 spoken — but one does protest against the smoke of 
 those cigars. It will be seen that the dramatic art 
 is at an ebb in Mexico, and certainly I would not 
 like to say that it will be improved by building in the 
 capital that gorgeous theatre which never will be 
 filled, and round the corner there are many, many 
 folk whose stomachs never have been filled. In 
 Mexico the art of acting does not flourish, and the 
 man who fosters acrobats is worthy of much praise. 
 So may the Turk continue to perambulate the 
 country, building an oasis with his dirty awnings and 
 his lamp-lit booths and his guitars. If there is 
 immorality about the piles of money that are whisk- 
 ing back into the lamplight, who would not prefer 
 to be immoral in a gambling booth than moral at a 
 cinematograph ? Far be it from us to complain that 
 cinematographs in Mexico do not, like those in 
 France, give a display of ladies' underclothing — we 
 have it on the word of Madame Calderon de la Barca 
 that the diamond-bepowdered ladies often had this 
 part of their apparel, if existing, torn and dirty ; 
 and it is the superficial things that have been changed 
 in the Republic — but these cinematographs commit 
 the gravest crime of all ; they are untruthful, since, 
 according to their showing, virtue is triumphant 
 always. 
 
 Monte, roulette, lotto are the chief games ; it is 
 curious to see a circle of adults, though of the poorer 
 classes, solemnly seated at their lotto cards and 
 wait until the fish or bird is called. However, there 
 be other games which foreigners less reputable than 
 our Turk have introduced — and to the wrath of 
 
THE GAMBLERS OF MEXICO 391 
 
 Mexicans. A newspaper — ' La Lima de Vulcano ' 
 [Vulcan's File] — in its issue of the 25th April, 1838, 
 was righteously indignant, saying that — 
 
 The devil goes about endeavouring to tempt the 
 Mexicans ; when families are at their poorest then the 
 greater spectacles are given so that money should be 
 spent on them which is required for nourishment ; and 
 as the spectacles are new the public want excessively 
 to see them. The foreigners, whose grand and unique 
 object is to get our money, are preparing for next Sun- 
 day the pageant of a formidable tiger that will struggle 
 with a bull whose horns are blunted and will tear the 
 bull to pieces in the ring. . . . No doubt the fight will 
 be unequal, very much to the advantage of the owners 
 of the tiger, since it will receive no wound whatever. 
 The Government, for moral and political reasons, should 
 forbid this kind of horrid spectacle, because in this 
 way people grow to be familiar with scenes of horror. 
 ... If Mexicans have been endowed by God with 
 sweetness of character and with compassion that is 
 boundless, why shall this most happy nature be effaced 
 by that which turns it into something barbarous and 
 sanguinary ? 
 
 I believe it was the bull which proved success- 
 ful, as he did at San Luis Potosi seven or eight 
 years ago when he was matched against a circus 
 lion. In the bull-ring of the capital, about as long 
 ago, there was a similar engagement : each of the 
 two animals was slightly scratched and then the 
 lion laid him down beside the bull in perfect 
 friendliness. If ' Vulcan's File ' were still at large, 
 delivering shrewd cuts, it possibly might rage at 
 foreigners for having first insinuated this idea into 
 the sweet minds of the Mexicans. When we turn to 
 less exotic animals — to horses — it will gratify you to 
 be told that on the other side of the Atlantic is a 
 
392 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 blessed nation which has laid upon its shoulders one 
 of the great missions of the English, for in Mexico 
 there have arisen some of those enthusiasts who do 
 not spare themselves the trouble of long afternoons 
 upon a racecourse solely to improve the breed of 
 horses. One can see the day draw near when such 
 considerations will be smothered by the ruling passion 
 of this people, but as yet the sport remains in almost 
 English purity. Some few regard the horses as mere 
 counters in a gamble. One may see, however, at a 
 meeting that as yet the sportsmen have been barely 
 touched by this most evil and outlandish parasite of 
 an idea, for when two favourites (both owned by 
 favourites) were beaten by a sheer outsider at the 
 first race in the 6 Derby Mexicano ' there was an 
 extraordinary demonstration of delight : the people 
 darted in and out, ran hither, thither, flung their 
 hats into the air and uttered incoherent cries, for 
 they were glad that Mexico contained a breed of such 
 fair horses. With regard to cocks, the men who write 
 of bygone Mexico are half inclined to show their 
 grief because the cock-fight is no longer tolerated. 
 s It was picturesque,' they say, ' to see the cognoscenti, 
 wealthy men and poor men — clustered round the ring, 
 all eager for the battle. It was fine to see the two 
 cocks being held, their beaks not further from each 
 other than the width of half a dozen hairs. Indeed, 
 it was a spectacle ! And then a great man would 
 come driving past, and leaning from his carriage he 
 
 would register a bet. Now everything is changed ' 
 
 However, if these writers would omit to go to church 
 for one sole Sunday morning they would never more 
 be so despondent, since the custom does not seem 
 to be in any danger of neglect. The towns and 
 villages of Mexico support it most religiously, and so 
 
THE GAMBLERS OF MEXICO 393 
 
 do certain strangers. One would think, without 
 referring to a blue-book, that the articles imported 
 from the British Isles would take the shape of hard- 
 ware and machinery ; but there is a demand for 
 fighting-cocks, and whether it was due to consular 
 advice or private inspiration, anyhow, there landed at 
 Tampico recently a British gentleman with fifty 
 cocks. He must have been replete with prudence, 
 for he would not live upon the country ; to sustain 
 himself he carried many hundredweight of the com- 
 modities of Messrs. Fortnum and Mason. Such a 
 man would probably not need to be exhorted by a 
 Consul that he should go through the world with open 
 eyes. The cock-fight in itself is unattractive, being 
 but a matter of some seconds. As the one bird flies 
 across the other he brings into play the fearful spur 
 that has been fastened to his leg ; a mass of feather 
 tumbles down and many pesos change their owner. 
 People who do not object to gambling but to foolish 
 gambling may denounce the rashness of this kind of 
 bettor, since the first appearance of a combatant is 
 all too probable to be the last, and one can scarcely 
 have enjoyed the chance of learning the good qualities 
 of any bird. Yet this is not the case, for each of them 
 was put through trials ere he came into the ring, and 
 some of them have happity survived a full-dress 
 battle. 
 
 Who can say that cock-fights are immune from 
 fraud ? It seems to be established that the graceful 
 Basque game of 'pelota' is like a religion — not 
 precisely what its Founder meant that it should be. 
 One is sufficiently disturbed by those who in the 
 scarlet headgear cf the Basque pace up and down 
 between the audience and the athletes, strenuously 
 shouting what they are prepared to lay. One is still 
 
394 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 more disturbed by knowing that, besides the gods, 
 there are some mortals who could tell you which of 
 these fine-looking men will score the thirty aces. 
 Thus the game is not as dignified as racquets, neither 
 does it call for so much skill, because one side- wall's 
 place is taken by the bookmakers and audience, 
 while insufficient use is made of the remaining side- 
 wall. But it is a pretty sight to see the players catch 
 the ball inside the sort of basket fin that is attached 
 on to their arm by thongs. And having caught it 
 with extreme adroitness they will jerk it back towards 
 the end- wall. There is now only one court in the 
 whole Republic, yet I had a lodging in the very street, 
 and frequently at midnight when the uproar made me 
 lie in bed and think, I used to speculate as to the 
 quantity of irrigation which will have to be before 
 pelota gamblers sink to rest. That philosophic 
 reason for the prevalence of gambling can perhaps not 
 move us if we are not anxious to find any reason for 
 the prevalence and possible decay thereof, but we are 
 dealing with a land in which the Government is apt 
 to recommend philosophy. On a December night, 
 a little over seventy years ago, there was a session of 
 the governmental council when the country, they 
 concluded, had arrived at such a pass that radical and 
 most extraordinary measures had to be adopted, 
 measures that would seize on the imagination of the 
 public and distract them from their civil strife, so 
 that all Mexicans in order to unite against the common 
 foe should give each other an embrace both philo- 
 sophic and fraternal. 
 
 But there are for Mexicans so many different 
 modes of gambling that it will be arduous to stop 
 them all, and whether they are due to agricultural or 
 other causes. The apologist whom we have quoted 
 
THE GAMBLERS OF MEXICO 
 
 £95 
 
 says that it is difficult, if not impossible, for anyone 
 to land the biggest prizes in successive drawings, so 
 that every time there is a shower of fortune sprinkled 
 on a multitude of homes. He does not think the 
 lottery should be suppressed, whatever happens to 
 pelota or the cock-fight or the horse-race or the 
 splendid Turkish enterprise. The lottery distributes 
 more than half a million sterling every year, from 
 which, he says, it follows that a lot of well-placed 
 families in the Republic owe the basis of their fortune 
 to a prize. And very often they would be unable to 
 secure this wealth by working for it, even at the cost 
 of great exertions — d pesar de grandes esfuerzos. Here 
 we can afford to smile in a superior fashion, seeing 
 that some of our ducal families, who owe the basis of 
 their fortune to a foundress, can maintain that work 
 and much exertion were required. Of course, he does 
 not say that fortune always favours estimable folk ; 
 this theory would have been absurd. He says that as 
 the drawings multiply themselves indefinitely, it is 
 clear that on the transpiration of a certain time all 
 those or nearly all who buy the tickets will have 
 changed their social sphere por medio de un premio 
 [by means of one prize]. We may say that if the 
 sudden wealth accruing to a family be vast, there is 
 the fear that they will not be equal to the new 
 responsibilities; but as one prize in Mexico's State 
 Lottery is, as a rule, four pesos (rather under 8s. 6d.), 
 the social sphere of the successful family will not be 
 revolutionised. Our friend sees so much benefit 
 come for so many people in this manner that he longs 
 to see societies begin to form themselves whose object 
 would be to contribute quantities of money for the 
 periodical advantage of the members. One may urge 
 that all the quantities would have been paid by 
 
396 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 members, and our friend acknowledges with perfect 
 candour that it is so. Let them pay, says he, to make 
 the fortune of the lucky ones, and let them persevere 
 until they all or nearly all have had some luck. 
 Sooner or later it must come about. And if there be 
 objections that some people vitiate themselves by 
 sacrificing all or nearly all their wages or emoluments 
 or income to the purchasing of tickets animosos de 
 obtener uno de los grandes premios [in a spirited 
 attempt to gain one of the largest prizes], well, that 
 which results in other hazardous diversions could 
 not, he submits, occur in this one ; if it should do, 
 then it would be truly wonderful and rare. All those, 
 he says, who buy the tickets know quite well that 
 there is no luck in the number of the tickets, but in 
 the proprietor ; and if one take a single ticket or two 
 tickets or three, yet always will the big prize be 
 secured by that man who of all the buyers has the 
 greatest luck. I do not think we can discover any 
 flaw in this remark ; it is extremely sound. And 
 very soothing, for the big prize is not conquered by 
 the big battalions. If you want, says he, to have 
 the big prize, then one ticket is enough, and if you 
 persevere with tickets, he has said, then you may 
 win a prize. What therefore seems to be the fruit of 
 his experience is that one should play frequently and 
 humbly. He disdains to waste a word upon the 
 philosophic school, and it will be confessed that even 
 though the irrigation works are of importance — 
 at the Yaqui river, for example, it is calculated that 
 the water will be dammed back for a distance of 
 40 miles, that the breast-wall of the dam will be of 
 concrete and 185 feet high, that 400,000 barrels of 
 cement will be made use of, that 1000 men will be 
 employed for over two years in construction of the 
 
THE GAMBLERS OF MEXICO 397 
 
 dam and ditches — much water will have need to 
 flow across the land before the Mexican declines to 
 gamble. And there are parts of Mexico, the very 
 fertile and unfertile parts, to which this philosophic 
 theory cannot be applied. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 SAINT AND MINSTRELS 
 
 Any saint who has been sacrificed upon a gridiron, 
 as befell Saint Lawrence, will look sorrowfully down 
 from his abiding-place if they who worship at a shrine 
 of his come with a sacrifice. Saint Lawrence suffers 
 pain enough to see that every wooden, stucco, 
 leaden, brazen, plaster and more precious image of 
 him has a little gridiron in its hand. Who knows if 
 some fanatic devotee will not be moved thereby to 
 slaughter ? And Saint Lawrence, gentle youth, 
 looks down and wrings his hands. That martyrdom he 
 underwent in Rome has been so much exaggerated. 
 To be sure, while he was undergoing it, he ceased 
 to live ; but Publius Licinius Valerianus, Roman 
 Emperor (253-260) was no less outwitted by the 
 lonely saint than by the King of Kings of Iran and 
 non-Iran, the triumphant Shapur. The majority of 
 men, to whom it is not given to accomplish mighty 
 deeds on earth, complain that they were born too 
 early or too late ; and it is only the minority of these 
 who put away their gloominess and always hope by 
 some fine death to compensate for a comparatively 
 fruitless life ; and of these cheerful ones it is but one 
 or two in every thousand who obtain the glorious 
 departure. Publius Licinius Valerianus had no reason 
 for suspecting that the young Archdeacon Lawrence 
 had a mortal ailment, for he was distinguished, so we 
 
 398 
 
SAINT AND MINSTRELS 
 
 399 
 
 read, not by the flower of his youth alone, but by the 
 beauty of his age. The vigorous old Emperor did not 
 inquire if he was not so beautiful because he was 
 consumptive, and we are not even told that a suspicion 
 came into his ancient, heathen breast when that the 
 spirit of the saint ascended from the harmless gridiron 
 into heaven. To prolong the victim's torment, very 
 little fires had been placed beneath him, and he died — 
 we may presume of a consumption — when his body 
 had been scarcely damaged. The cathedral of Nancy 
 has a rib ' which was preserved all through the 
 Revolution; it was recognised,' so say the records, 
 1 and approved by Mgr. Ormond on the 30th June, 
 1803. The Church of Bouxieres-aux-Dames, near 
 Nancy, has a fragment of a rib of the same saint.' 
 Then at Rome 6 his ribs are at St. Peter's, at the 
 Church of Twelve Apostles, at the Church of Holy 
 Cross ' — whose nave appears to be supported by 
 invisible columns, since we read that 6 the nave was 
 originally borne by twelve antique columns of granite, 
 of which eight only are now visible ' — ' at the churches 
 of St. Mary at the Gate and St. Mary of the Angels 
 and St. Praxedis. A rib of Saint Lawrence is at 
 Montreuil sur Mer,' and most of his body, of course, 
 reposes in the patriarchal church that Constantine 
 built over it beyond the walls of Rome. Well might 
 Saint Lawrence have a smiling face upon the gridiron 
 when he taunted the rough soldier. He was going 
 up to heaven by a splendid gate, and he would be 
 depicted in a hundred thousand monuments and 
 windows, while it was reserved for Publius to have 
 his portrait and the portrait of his royal captor hewn 
 — oh, the humiliation ! — hewn by Roman subjects on 
 the rocks of Persis. 
 
 Saint Lawrence used to have a good, sardonic 
 
400 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 humour, like his country-fellow Goya ; for he told the 
 Emperor Valerianus that in three days he could bring 
 him a supply of what he wanted, namely, treasures of 
 the Church. Saint Lawrence did not only help the 
 Sovereign Pontiff and dispense the sacred mysteries 
 and cherish the infirm, the indigent and consecrated 
 virgins — which are duties appertaining to a common 
 deacon — but he managed the ecclesiastical domains 
 and treasures, the oblations and the houses of the 
 Church, since these were at the time the recognised 
 archidiaconal functions. 'Bring the treasures to 
 me ! ' cried the Emperor, and Lawrence gathered all 
 the blind, the lame and other wretched folk together. 
 At the palace, ' August Prince,' he said, ' behold our 
 treasures ! These be everlasting treasures which have 
 increase always and may be discovered everywhere 
 and be possessed by everyone.' This was immediately 
 before they laid him on the gridiron. With his 
 notable supply of humour he was yet a kindly saint, 
 an altogether pleasant comrade. He would always 
 intercede for men and women if it was with bloody 
 sacrifice or with a song that they approached his 
 image. Notwithstanding that he loathed the former, 
 he invariably did his utmost for the supplicant, let 
 him be blind as was the person whom he once had 
 cured at Rome inside the lodging of Narcissus, let the 
 supplicant have chronic headaches even as the widow 
 whom he long ago had cured inside the catacomb and 
 let the supplicant be sore afflicted as were they to 
 whom he once had meted out encouragement beside 
 the Cloaca Maxima. What he regrets now most of 
 all in the celestial habitation is that very frequently his 
 intercession is of slight avail. And then he thinks of 
 his imperfect life ; that he deceived the rough, old 
 Emperor has not, so far as one may surmise, been put 
 
SAINT AND MINSTRELS 
 
 401 
 
 down against him, since Valerianus had backslided 
 terribly : ' His palace,' says Eusebius, ' was full of 
 worshippers of the true God ; you would have taken 
 it rather for a church with its different ministers than 
 for a profane dwelling. About the year 257 he was 
 obliged to march towards the east, as the barbarians 
 invaded all that part of his demesne. It was his 
 fortune also to behold his army and some goodly 
 provinces made desolate by plague, so that his mind 
 was much affected.' But the tribulations which you 
 have to suffer will not warrant you to step aside from 
 Christian virtue ; they should, on the contrary, but 
 fortify your faith. To one believer there shall be 
 allotted fiery furnaces, while to another one there 
 falls a trial of the spirit, and if he should be a Roman 
 ruler of Valerian's time it is with haughty Persians 
 and the plague that he may hope to be confronted. 
 Even if the trial had been grievous, if the Persians 
 had been still more haughty and the plague more 
 virulent, the Emperor should not have had recourse 
 to magic and to the divines of Egypt. Their pre- 
 scriptions, which he gradually followed, sent him into 
 the pernicious path and always further, so that — we 
 can only judge with human understanding — it would 
 scarcely be unpleasant to the true God if a worshipper 
 deceived him. But Saint Lawrence brooded on his 
 other flaws, on those which might account for the 
 complete and painful lack of issue which attended 
 many of his intercessions. When the Pope, his master, 
 happy Sixtus, stood upon the eve of martyrdom he 
 had importuned him. 4 Where do you go, my father,' 
 he exclaimed, 4 without your child ? What have you 
 found in me that angers you ? Can you believe me 
 capable of cowardice or feebleness ? Oh, try me of 
 your grace, and you will see that I am no unfaithful 
 
 2 D 
 
402 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 servant. You withhold from me to-day that honour 
 which is the supreme one, of mingling my blood with 
 yours. Oh, father, have you no misgivings that if men 
 will praise the courage of your martyrdom they yet 
 may blame your conduct for abandoning in this way 
 your disciple ? Verily, the palm which in your 
 presence I shall gain shall be an ornament for you, and 
 this my triumph shall be yours.' Aye, thus he had 
 importuned Sixtus and he had deserved the holy one's 
 reproof, which is reported unto all men by Saint 
 Ambrose. ' I do not abandon you, my son, but the 
 faith is calling you to greater combats. I am broken 
 by the years, but you are in the flower of youth and 
 in the beauty of your age. So you shall have a 
 triumph far transcending mine in glory. Cease then to 
 bewail your lot.' It was deplorable that he should 
 not have been resigned to whatsoever was prepared. 
 And had he not deceived the blissful Pontiff, in that he 
 refrained from laying bare to him, as to Valerianus, 
 that he was afflicted with a mortal malady and that 
 the soul would leave his frame before the little fires 
 could burn it, yes, before they had consumed a single 
 rib of him ? 
 
 We have a way of thinking that the saints are never 
 visited by gloomy, introspective thoughts ; but now 
 perhaps as we reflect upon the ex-archdeacon as he 
 wanders to and fro in constant agony of mind, we 
 shall regard him with a fellow-feeling. And it is as if 
 a little fire burned always in his heart, because the 
 pious supplicant on earth, if he be disappointed in a 
 prayer, takes the blame upon himself, acknowledging 
 that if he were a better and less faulty man the inter- 
 cession of the saint would probably have been 
 successful. 
 
 Poor Saint Lawrence ! But when he was looking 
 
Plateresque Facade 
 
 of the old convent church of Santa Monica at Guadalajara. 
 
SAINT AND MINSTRELS 403 
 
 down, the second Friday morning of last May, into a 
 church of Western Mexico at nine o'clock, he was 
 oppressed by none of these dark ruminations. He 
 was but the kindly saint, the humorous observer, and 
 it did him all the good to see a man with bird-cages 
 inside the church. This man was rather squat, a 
 placid peasant, middle-aged and plain, a modest 
 person ; when he wanted to suspend a cage upon a 
 nail beside the altar of Saint Lawrence he could not 
 have done so but for standing on a chair. He also 
 took the chair into the middle of the nave, climbed 
 on to it and hung another cage upon a wire which had 
 been fastened to the ceiling. As he awkwardly 
 adjusted it a stream of water fell against him and the 
 pale canary started singing, heedless of the wasted 
 water. When the peasant stepped on to the floor again 
 the cage swung sideways, but the bird did not sing 
 any bitter notes. The meadow-lark inside the first 
 cage sang divinely. And it was not long before the 
 cages had, all five of them, been lifted to their hooks 
 or nails. They differed from each other, and the 
 minstrels differed, but a leaf of lettuce and a bowl of 
 water were in each of them. Maybe three women 
 knelt at various altars ; I do not know how they were 
 affected by the music, if it mingled with their 
 customary adorations, for they did not seem to notice 
 anything. The placid peasant put the chair into its 
 proper place and limped away. 
 
 He told me, outside in the church's garden, that he 
 hung the birds up always on the second Friday and 
 he left them singing till the twilight. 
 
 ' Has the saint,' I asked, 4 been very kind to you ? ' 
 
 ' The intercessions of him have assisted all of us.' 
 
 ' And you,' I said, ' have you been doing this for 
 many years ? • 
 
404 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 ' I am not married.' He picked up the brown sheath 
 which had fallen from the trunk of a banana tree and 
 threw it into one of the large, broken urns which stood 
 upon the moss-grown pavement, underneath the 
 orange trees and thorny vines and the untidier banana 
 trees and miscellaneous shrubs. ' When I am not 
 here,' he said, ' my sister does the business for me. 
 I go travelling, with earthenware, in many parts of the 
 Republic' 
 
 His name ? — but in the unkempt garden were some 
 graves between the moss. 4 Senorita M. F. L.,' said 
 one of them ; ' Senorita C. R. F.,' the next one. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 DIAZ AT THE DOOR OF HELL 1 
 
 4 Pardon me,' said Satan, ' but you understand that 
 
 if I don't observe the rules ' 
 
 Porfirio bowed. He thought that it was safer to be 
 silent. 
 
 ' We shall run through this examination,' said the 
 Devil. 4 Just a form, you know. It is so difficult to 
 draw the line and even those who are thought worthy 
 of a place on the committee have to be obedient to 
 the rules. We have our Constitution, like the rest of 
 them.' 
 
 Porfirio stood more erect. 4 Aha ! ' said he. 
 
 Now Satan, being of a perfect beauty, cannot grow 
 more beautiful, not even for a moment. Otherwise 
 you would have been inclined to say that some fair 
 thought had lent his countenance a greater glory. 
 4 Well ' — he gave a little laugh — 4 1 really am quite 
 charmed to see you. Let me mention that I don't 
 receive all aspirants myself. No, they must be 
 distinguished. But to business ' 
 
 He had heard the hoof-steps of Malured, an assistant 
 devil. 
 
 4 1 am ready,' quoth Porfirio. 
 
 1 Whether to review the life of General Diaz we prefer to have 
 the scene inside a law-court or beside the gate of hell is much the 
 same. But since it is less probable that he will be arraigned before 
 the first of these I choose the second, and although it may be inartistic, 
 for the local colour has not been observed. 
 
 405 
 
406 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 4 Look here,' said Satan to the new arrival, who was 
 fixing his asbestos spectacles, 4 look here, must we 
 begin at the beginning ? ' 
 
 4 Yes, we must,' said Malured. 
 
 4 But this is Don Porfirio Diaz ! ' 
 
 Malured gave one of his stiff bows. 4 1 have the 
 ''Book of Actors." 5 
 
 4 But I am a military man ! ' cried Diaz. 4 You are 
 taking me for someone else.' 
 
 4 No ! no ! ' said Satan, 4 my good friend Malured 
 is infallible.' 
 
 4 But I am not an actor ! ' 
 
 4 Sit you down, I beg,' said Satan, 4 and reply to 
 what he asks.' 
 
 Then Diaz came out with an Oaxacanian oath. 
 4 What of the medals on my breast ? ' (He did not 
 see that they had melted all away.) 4 A player would 
 not ' 
 
 4 Talking of Oaxaca,' said the Devil, 4 is it true that 
 when Benito Juarez was its Governor and had the 
 wish to give you some promotion in the army ? ' 
 
 4 Oh, I know what you are going to say.' 
 
 4 Be more respectful, if you please,' said Satan. 
 
 Don Porfirio threw out his hand. 4 All right,' he 
 said ; 4 but how can one exist without some money ? ' 
 
 4 It depends,' said Satan. 
 
 4 In that army no one got his wages,' said Porfirio. 
 
 ' And that is why you wished to have a civil post ? ' 
 
 4 1 thought that so I could be of more service to 
 the fatherland.' 
 
 4 Dear fellow ! ' Satan put his hand, his delicate, 
 almost transparent hand, on Don Porfirio' s shoulder. 
 4 Come now, do you think our Books are subsidised ? ' 
 
 Malured coughed, removed his spectacles and 
 wiped them carefully. 
 
DIAZ AT THE DOOR OF HELL 407 
 
 'In Mexico,' said Satan, 'you have got three kinds 
 of truth. Suppose a man says : " It is truth," then 
 surely he is lying. If he says : " It is the truth of 
 truth," then sometimes he is lying. If he says : "It 
 is the truth of God," then it may be he does not lie. 
 As for the truth of Satan, I assure you,' Satan said, 
 8 that it is very true. No person who invokes it in 
 sincerity can tell a lie.' 
 
 4 Well, well, the truth is that I didn't want to be a 
 soldier,' said Porfirio. He frowned. 
 
 4 And they made you a captain, because ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, yes, because I came to Oaxaca with a con- 
 tingent of fifty men.' 
 
 4 Exactly ; and you were talking of your medals. 
 Do you mean that they were given you for military 
 exploits ? ' 
 
 4 Some of them,' said Diaz; 4 when a man is chief 
 executive for any time the monarchs have to decorate 
 him as a compliment.' 
 
 4 You wear one of those German eagles ? ' 
 
 4 The Red Eagle, monseigneur. It was a compli- 
 ment.' 
 
 The Devil seemed to be perplexed, and Malured 
 approached and whispered in his ear. 4 Of course it 
 has more to do with him than with Porfirio,' said 
 Satan. 4 But these compliments can't surely be 
 sarcastic ? ' 
 
 4 By no means,' said Malured, 4 they are given on 
 account of something.' 
 
 4 That is it, precisely. When the two daughters of 
 the German Consul were seduced by the Governor of 
 Puebla, this man did nothing. And when a little 
 German girl called Noecker was seduced by a bull- 
 fighter, his brother and a third companion, this man 
 did nothing.' 
 
408 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 Malured did not care much for a digression, and 
 with the object of stopping this one he rapped out an 
 answer : 4 As you say, the man did nothing. If he 
 had done either of those deeds he surely would not 
 have obtained the slightest eagle. Now, with your 
 permission, I should like to see what there is in this 
 Book.' 
 
 4 Oh, very well, the "Book of Actors,"' said the 
 Devil, 4 and you might have little Red- Washer at 
 work.' 
 
 Malured placed that large volume on the ground, 
 and lying prostrate by the side of it he turned the 
 pages. Satan sat down comfortably on his tail, but 
 Don Porfirio Diaz stood erect, as if he were offended. 
 He did not appear to notice the arrival of Red- 
 Washer, with a sponge and bucket ; no, not even when 
 this little energetic devil took possession of his hand 
 to rub it. 
 
 1 Here we have him,' Malured observed. His nail, 
 in contact with the page, emitted sparks of violet. 
 
 4 Of course,' said Satan to Porfirio, 4 you will 
 remember that this is the truth, and it will not be well 
 if you deny it.' 
 
 4 I protest against this kind of treatment,' quoth 
 the erstwhile ruler. 1 1 am not accustomed ' 
 
 4 Ah,' said Satan meditatively, 4 you will discover 
 that the truth has got a certain charm which custom 
 cannot stale.' 
 
 4 A man in my position ' 
 
 4 Let me see,' quoth Malured, 4 you had some fame 
 for having kept the peace. 'Twas said that your 
 assassinations were beneficent, for they secured those 
 thirty years of peace. Now what have you to say to 
 that ? ' 
 
 The Devil put one leg across the other, and his 
 
DIAZ AT THE DOOR OF HELL 409 
 
 beautiful, all-seeing eye was serious with sympathy. 
 4 Do not think you are unwelcome here,' he said, ' and 
 
 if it bores you to relate your sins No, do not 
 
 interrupt me ! ' 
 
 6 They were needful ! ' 
 
 ' As, for instance, at Miahuatlan, when your com- 
 padre, who was on the other side, an officer, gave up 
 his sword to you and you transfixed him with it. 
 Pray, remember, Don Porfirio, the Devil is a gentle- 
 man.' 
 
 4 All that is long ago. What is it that you want of 
 me?' 
 
 4 One cannot blame you wholly for the adulation 
 you received. Those Mexicans and foreigners ' 
 
 4 Well, Heaven knows ' — Porfirio pulled a grimace 
 — 4 Heaven knows what they are saying of me now.' 
 
 4 And I know too,' said Satan. 4 But it was to be 
 expected.' 
 
 4 1 who paid a yearly visit to the tomb of Juarez. 
 I who wept there, calling him my august teacher ! ' 
 
 4 Page 200, section 3,' said Malured from where he 
 lay upon his stomach. 4 1 have it reported that he 
 subsidised a book ' 
 
 4 The fine arts have to be supported, surely,' said 
 Porfirio. 
 
 4 This volume could not undermine Benito's fame.' 
 
 4 The plague fetch all those writers ! ' 
 
 4 1 have also got an English writer,' said Malured, 
 ' one who did not deprecate Benito Juarez, but 
 addressed you as the greatest person of the nineteenth 
 century.' 1 
 
 4 You think I urged that book ? And how could 
 Mrs. Tweedie write of me or Mexico ? I tell you, she 
 could not speak Spanish.' 
 
 1 * Of course,' she admits, ' there were other great men.' 
 
410 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 ' Yes, my friend,' said Satan, ' but we are not 
 talking of her book on Mexico, whose very title — 
 "Mexico As I Saw It" — is disarming. Oh, for five 
 minutes of Madame Calderon de la Barca ! What we 
 want to know is, did you subsidise ? ' 
 
 ' Canastos ! recanastos ! why, she laughs at me ! 
 She says that I advanced to Icamole and defeated 
 there a larger force under General Fuero. Everybody 
 knows I was defeated and received a nickname from 
 the tears I shed. Forsooth ! I subsidised the book ! ' 
 
 ' Look here,' said Satan, 4 Mrs. Alec Tweedie tells 
 us that she was acclaimed in Mexico as having real 
 literary talent and a vast amount of solid common 
 sense.' 
 
 But Don Porfirio was rude. His language, for a 
 moment, was that of his ancestors. And we will not 
 repeat it. 
 
 ' I shall place her writings on that Index of the 
 Volumes to be read in Hell,' quoth Satan. 
 
 Then Malured, who made a speciality of books, 
 explained : her publishers demand so many illustra- 
 tions ; that, for instance, in her book on Mexico there 
 was a picture of Chihuahua horses at a ranch, and 
 that this picture also served to illustrate Porfirio' s 
 childhood in the other book. 
 
 4 Ah, well,' the Devil said, ' if one were writing on 
 the youth of Nelson it would be agreeable to have a 
 picture of some Shetland ponies. As for literature, I 
 am not so profoundly versed in prose as in my Milton, 
 but I think this lady — — ' 
 
 ' Her name,' said Malured, 4 is either Mrs. Alec 
 Tweedie or Mrs. Alec-Tweedie. She uses both forms.' 
 
 4 Well, it seems to me her writing is not so dis- 
 tinguished ' 
 
 Don Porfirio stepped forward. 4 Those triumphal 
 
DIAZ AT THE DOOR OF HELL 411 
 
 arches we erected ! She brought out a letter saying 
 that she was a representative of " The Queen," and how 
 could you expect us to know that it was the sixpenny 
 " Queen " and not Queen Victoria ? When we called her 
 a distinguished authoress it did not mean we guaran- 
 teed that in her writings you would vainly look for 
 something undistinguished. I remember ' 
 
 4 Say no more about it,' quoth the Devil. 4 Tell me, 
 don't you feel him rubbing you ? ' He pointed at his 
 aide-de-camp, Red- Washer, who was in a perspira- 
 tion. 4 Are you quite aware,' the Devil said, 4 that 
 he is rubbing blood marks from your hand with his 
 sulphuric acid ? You are brave, I know ' 
 
 4 I have only got away two layers of blood, as yet,' 
 observed Red- Washer. 
 
 Satan murmured that Porfirio was certainly an 
 acquisition. 4 1 was going to tell you,' he remarked. 
 4 A few of your important sins are all you need confess, 
 and then you are of this Society.' 
 
 4 I slew ' 
 
 4 But what we want from your own lips,' said 
 Malured, 4 is whether it is not ridiculous to call you the 
 preserver of the peace ? ' 
 
 The candidate for Hell stared at the bookish devil, 
 but his gaze did not work havoc, as of yore. He 
 laughed good-humouredly. 4 1 could not help myself, 
 you know. When Don Benito was the President ' 
 
 4 And all the country wanted peace,' said 
 Malured. 
 
 4 I really had to break it, and when Don Sebastian 
 was President it was the same, and when Iglesias was 
 President by law — but surely it was better that they 
 should have me ? ' 
 
 4 The country wanted peace,' said Malured. 
 
 4 1 gave it them. If anybody showed a sign of 
 
412 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 damaging the peace — my peace — I drowned him in 
 his blood.' 
 
 4 All that is very well,' said Satan. 4 It reminds me 
 of a story. When the blight came down upon the 
 orange trees, it put a stop to all the merry singing 
 of the juice. That is what you have done, Porfirio ; 
 you gave the blight of peace.' 
 
 ' I never heard of such a phrase, and I have had to 
 listen to a lot of eloquence,' said Don Porfirio. 
 
 Then Satan told him that there are some things 
 more splendid than peace. ' I never shall persuade 
 them on the earth,' he said, 4 to have the true 
 democracy which is established here.' If he had not 
 been gazing pensively upon the ground he would have 
 noticed that the fingers of the candidate were moving 
 slightly ; strange to say, they were making the sign 
 of the cross. 4 Porfirio,' he said, 4 you gave them 
 peace, and by the ruin of two generations. Not alone 
 the democratic spirit did you flout, and not alone the 
 country's culture and advancement, but you stifled 
 all the independence, all the manliness of Mexico.' 
 
 4 Now this is too much ! ' exclaimed Porfirio. 4 You 
 are the Devil, and you seem to talk ' 
 
 4 1 know what you are going to say,' said Satan, 
 4 that I talk as if I were the teacher of a Sunday 
 school. Perhaps it is so, and at all events I yield to 
 your expert opinion. Are you not an honorary 
 member of the World's Sunday School Association ? 
 But as for my own sentiments, you should remember 
 that I have officially to act in certain ways, whereas 
 my head contains entirely different ideas. It is most 
 tragic' 
 
 4 Anyhow,' said Don Porfirio, 4 the state of things 
 
 in Mexico before I got into the saddle ' 
 
 4 We have been told that peace hath got her 
 
DIAZ AT THE DOOR OF HELL 413 
 
 victories no less than war,' said Satan, ' but she hath 
 humiliations more disastrous than what a war can 
 ever bring.' 
 
 4 That famous peace of his,' quoth Malured, 4 is 
 down here in the "Book of Actors." ' 
 
 4 And your acting,' said the Devil, 4 was quite good 
 enough for many of the foreigners. They really 
 thought that your preserving of the peace was excel- 
 lent. And some of them were English Liberals, who 
 get as hot as in my hottest chamber when they talk 
 about the Macedonians or the Finns. I shall inquire 
 of them, when they arrive, how they can give an 
 explanation. They will say, of course, that Mexicans 
 are neither Finns nor Macedonians, nor Congolese nor 
 yet Armenians.' 
 
 4 Some of the foreigners will be quite sorry I have 
 gone,' declared Porfirio. 
 
 4 Their deeds of partnership,' said Malured, 4 are 
 open to inspection here gratuitously.' 
 
 4 Carajo ! I do not refer to those few houses. I 
 mean those with whom I had no private under- 
 standing, all those hundreds, thousands who invested 
 in the country and whose fortunes were dependent 
 on my peace.' 
 
 The Devil smiled a little sadly. 4 Even as an actor, 
 you are brave,' he said. 4 But what you have as- 
 serted now ' 
 
 4 1 really can rub off no more ! ' It was Red- 
 Washer whose sulphuric acid had produced no 
 adequate result. 
 
 4 Then you can go. Leave him to us, my boy,' said 
 Satan, and while this assistant picked his apparatus 
 up the Master gazed at Don Porfirio and finally : 
 
 4 Oh, well, if you will spare me no confession,' cried 
 Porfirio, 4 1 must acknowledge, I suppose, that peace 
 
414 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 was wanted by them all. It was the people's over- 
 whelming wish.' 
 
 ' Proceed,' said Malured. He made a circle with his 
 toes, which he had lifted high above his head. 
 
 ' No one broke the peace but I.' 
 
 6 And it was difficult for you,' said Satan, 4 not to 
 add that it was quite dishonourable.' 
 
 4 1 preserved the peace by shedding copious blood 
 and afterwards by stifling all my people's indepen- 
 dence, all their manliness.' 
 
 4 Go on,' said Malured. 
 
 ' Well, business people dread a change ; and those 
 who got concessions from me hope for more con- 
 cessions. Those who want to interest the European 
 and American investors want to have it thought that 
 Mexico is perfectly secure. Perhaps it will be some 
 day, but my system was a despotism which depended 
 on a single man.' 
 
 ' So much for your grand peace,' said Satan. ' Let 
 us talk no more of that.' 
 
 4 Will you admit him now ? ' asked Malured. 1 1 
 have a good deal more about him, but as we have 
 shown that in this peace capacity he was a most 
 unmitigated actor (hypocrite, I should say) he is 
 eligible.' 
 
 4 But I am rather interested in the man,' said Satan, 
 4 and who knows when I shall have the time to speak 
 to him again ? ' He took a yellow notebook from his 
 pocket. 4 There is no one coming for an hour or two,' 
 he said, 4 that is to say none who demands my personal 
 attention. There are six or seven parricides, the 
 founder of a new religion, the destroyer of a harmless 
 old illusion, a batch of traitors chiefly from the Latin 
 countries, and some Anglo-Saxons who did love 
 themselves not wisely but too well, and someone 
 
DIAZ AT THE DOOR OF HELL 415 
 
 who has also had to do with Mexico, a Yankee who 
 was luring many of his country-people to a place 
 called Valles in the State of San Luis Potosi. That 
 he bought the land for 38 cents an acre, which it was 
 hardly worth, and sold at 7 J to 20 dollars an acre ; 
 this, I fancy, is no more than business. But he 
 circulated pictures of the town of Valles, showing 
 street cars and a bank, and all prosperity ; it is a 
 miserable Indian hamlet. Do you think I ought to 
 see the man myself ? ' 
 
 ' Why not see this Porfirio about the matter ? 
 Not so long ago he had a force of sixty secret-service 
 agents watching his brave enemy Madero at a town in 
 Texas. Could he not spare one of them to keep a 
 watch upon these pictures that were circulated in 
 Arkansas and that ruined many simple-minded 
 farmers ? This is only one example of American — 
 what shall I call it ? ' 
 
 Satan started walking up and down. Then sud- 
 denly he stopped in front of Don Porfirio. ' That 
 question of industrial advancement, what of that ? ' 
 he said. 
 
 ' It has gone pretty well,' said Don Porfirio. 
 
 4 And ? ' Satan raised an eyebrow. 
 
 s It would have gone better still without me.' 
 
 ' That is right. I am so glad,' said Satan, 6 that you 
 honour my devotion to the truth. Have you got that 
 about the industries ? ' he said to Malured. 
 
 ' Oh, let us look into his murders, they are pictur- 
 esque and sordid, they are numerous,' was the reply. 
 
 6 Do what I tell you,' said his chief. 
 
 The prostrate devil therefore ran his pointed finger 
 down the page until a spark flashed out. ' Here is 
 the section of the industries,' he said. 6 " It is not 
 worth our while investigating how some other 
 
416 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 countries of America have in these thirty years 
 advanced more rapidly than Mexico — for instance, 
 Argentine and Chili and Brazil. It is a matter of the 
 men and the resources. Mexico has fertile parts and 
 others that will not support a crow. But if the total 
 of resources is not anything more marvellous than 
 elsewhere, they are, certain of them, undeveloped 
 owing to the men. Those Mexicans fly always to 
 extremes — I talk of Mexicans who are in a position 
 to develop property — they sit and wait for other 
 folks' experience or they are gifted with such shrewd- 
 ness that the pies are few which can escape them. 
 So you can't depend, as yet, upon the Mexicans ; they 
 have too much or insufficient enterprise ; and those 
 responsible for Mexico's industrial advancement, 
 such as it is, are mostly foreigners." ' 
 
 4 1 was of assistance to them,' ventured Don Porfirio. 
 
 'You are indeed an actor,' said the Devil; 'could 
 you help yourself ? ' 
 
 4 1 did.' 
 
 The Devil, being wise, is fond of laughter. And he 
 seized this opportunity. 1 Yes, yes, but not yourself 
 alone,' he cried ; ' your little son, for instance, was 
 director of a good few companies.' 
 
 Porfirio was understood to say that if it pleased so 
 
 many people to provide for Porfirito ! 4 He is 
 
 amiable, my son, he is an engineer, an architect, an 
 officer, but I am much afraid when I am gone ! ' 
 
 4 A Richard Cromwell manque, and you will excuse 
 me,' said the Devil, 4 but I really hope for your sake 
 that they will not ask him to construct your monu- 
 ments. Most probably it would be sharper than a 
 serpent's tooth for you. But let us back to business. 
 Do you think the foreigners were more attracted by 
 your help or by the favourable prospects ? ' 
 
DIAZ AT THE DOOR OF HELL 417 
 
 ' They must always be encouraged,' said Porfirio. 
 
 4 Be careful. Was it on account of aid you got 
 before you were the President that you allowed 
 Americans to build the railway lines ? Was it 
 Americans who, when you were not President, 
 encouraged you ? ' 
 
 He seemed to be reflecting, and Malured informed 
 his chief that he was in possession of the facts. 
 
 ' I do not live outside the world entirely,' said the 
 Devil, ' and it seems to me that if new countries have 
 their openings the foreigners will enter them and take 
 their chance of instability. The profits which they 
 hope for will be solid in proportion.' 
 
 ' Then,' quoth Porfirio, ' the peace and progress of 
 the country are not due to me.' He rubbed his 
 chin. 
 
 4 We can't admit you, though,' said Satan, ' nega- 
 tively, as it were, just on the ground that you are not 
 possessed of your two vaunted virtues. If we let you 
 in like that we should be following the poor example 
 of your own official at a place called Inde in Durango. 
 When a man was murdered there, not long since, 
 he came with a mounted guard to Inde, and as the 
 murderer had vanished he produced a list of the 
 inhabitants whose characters were bad and then in 
 alphabetic order he shot the first five, and an English- 
 man called Baring, a spectator, remonstrated vigor- 
 ously. It is wrong, as I remarked just now, to do a 
 favour to a man because he is deprived of certain 
 virtues, and I fancy Mr. Baring must have thought it 
 was absurd to give indulgence merely for the reason 
 that the client's name began with Z in place of the 
 good letter B.' 
 
 ' Shall we let him in,' asked Malured, 6 because of his 
 assassinations ? ' 
 
 2 E 
 
418 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 4 As I worked against the peace and progress of the 
 country I do not see how my efforts can be classed as 
 purely negative,' said Diaz. ' Let me in, I beg you.' 
 
 Satan thought a moment ere he made reply. 4 You 
 interfered with justice in your time,' he said. 
 
 ' Yes. Let me in.' 
 
 ' Suppose I have to use the same expression that 
 was on your judges' lips : " There is a higher order " 
 — " Hay consigna " ? ' 
 
 4 You are making fun of me. I like a seemly joke — 
 have you not heard of that one which I said to old 
 Sebastian Camacho ? He was marrying his third 
 wife 1 and I said that it was wonderful to do a thing 
 like that at eighty, and he told me he was eighty-five, 
 and then I asked him what his object was.' 
 
 4 There was once a green wave which I coveted,' 
 said Satan, 6 in the South Pacific, and I would not 
 let her fall into annihilation. She was to be my green 
 wave for ever, and I broke into the Law to keep her 
 mine. And now that for all ages I have separated 
 her from her companions I shall listen to that crying 
 when all sound is still.' 
 
 ' Do let me enter now,' said Don Porfirio. He 
 thought that he was being swindled, for they had 
 extracted from him those admissions and did not 
 appear yet to be satisfied. He would complain — but 
 where could he direct himself ? Some kind of 
 
 1 Those who care for a coincidence may like to know that when 
 she married him this lady's name was Martinez del Campo, and that 
 in a piece which one Camacho y Martinez wrote (Madrid, 1749) — 
 a tragi-comedy entitled 'Koulikan, Rayo del Assia — there is this 
 
 passage : — 
 
 El alma es libre, y el cuerpo 
 Es quien contrata servidumbre. 
 
 (The soul is free, whereas the body 
 Doth submit to servitude. ) 
 
DIAZ AT THE DOOR OF HELL 419 
 
 questioning he had awaited, but this really was 
 abominable. From the doorway he perceived a lane 
 of fallen stars which lighted you to the recess of Hell. 
 They seemed to beckon you and, if it had been in his 
 power, he would have put them out. 
 
 4 Maybe that it is better,' quoth the Devil, 4 if I go 
 through some of your assassinations. Will you fetch 
 the " Book of Gore " ? ' he said to Malured, who rose 
 with great alacrity. The Devil sighed. 
 
 4 I fear that I am troubling you,' said Don 
 Porfirio. 
 
 ' It is like this,' said Satan. 4 1 had hoped to spare 
 myself the pain of talking blood. But evidently there 
 is nothing else that I can do. Man Diaz, you have 
 made me sad.' 
 
 The candidate was tart in his reply. 4 It is a little 
 strange,' he said, and then he recollected that it 
 would not be advisable to be on bad terms with his 
 future host. 4 If you will look again into the 44 Book 
 of Actors," ' he suggested, 4 you will find sufficient 
 things before your friend returns. I never was a 
 great commander, but I think it may be said I was 
 a brave and active person.' 
 
 Satan nodded. 
 
 4 1 was lucky and I can't object to what they called 
 me : El gran chiripero. 1 Often I was beaten, but 
 my two great victories have put all else into the 
 shade.' 
 
 The Devil shook his head. 4 And your assassina- 
 tions ? ' 
 
 4 Oh, General Corona, who had got too many friends 
 — I had him murdered as he came out of the theatre, 
 and the policeman after doing it was met just round 
 the corner by some soldiers and was instantly 
 1 The great fluker. 
 
420 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 dispatched. 1 Then General Ignacio Martinez, who 
 had saved me in a battle with his 1500 men and after 
 he fell out with me was in Laredo, Texas, where he 
 practised as a doctor and thought well to write against 
 me — I gave orders for him to be murdered. Also General 
 de la Cadena, whom I ordered to be killed at Zacatecas.' 
 
 6 Yes, on that day the telegraph was cut,' said Satan, 
 ' and you summoned to the Palace, when the train 
 arrived, a German passenger, and asked him if he had seen 
 anything occur at Zacatecas . You were terribly excited . ' 
 
 6 May I enter now ? ' said Diaz. ' If you give as 
 much time to the others ! ' 
 
 Malured appeared. He had with him the c Book 
 of Gore.' And as you looked at Satan you imagined 
 that the weight of that huge Book was being borne 
 by him and not by Malured. ' Ah, when I think of 
 others ! ' he made a gesture of despair. 
 
 ' I have the two great victories of Diaz ! ' cried the 
 new arrival. 
 
 ' Oh, I am so weary of it all,' said Satan, and he 
 strode towards a rock whereon he sat him down. 
 He seemed the very god of grief. 
 
 Then Diaz, with his eyes a-glitter, put his hand upon 
 the arm of Malured, and he besought him whether by 
 the victories he meant those of the 5th May, at Puebla, 
 and that other one of 2nd April. 
 
 1 These men must have been very carefully selected, since it is the 
 custom for a Mexican policeman to require more shots than one 
 before he downs a quarry. As I passed on one occasion through the 
 port of Veracruz a Spaniard was arrested, and was taken by his 
 thirsty captor to a public-house. He there became obstreperous, 
 maybe through having no refreshment offered him, and the policeman 
 had to whistle for assistance. When a colleague hastily arrived upon 
 the scene and fired a shot he slew policemen No. 1. At Catmis when 
 the Cirerols attempted to win back their hacienda from the Yaquis 
 and the Mayas, one of them succeeded, it is said, in firing 150 shots, 
 and two into the bodies of the enemy. We make allowance for the 
 wooded nature of the district, but it seems to argue that a man has 
 little skill who lets so many of his bullets knock against the trees. 
 
A New El Dorado, 
 
 which is near the Guatemalan frontier. 
 
DIAZ AT THE DOOR OF HELL 421 
 
 But Malured was in a mocking mood. ' The 5th 
 May, which General Zaragoza gained, not you — and 
 seeing that the scornful French charged up a hill 
 which had no cover and the Mexicans were on the top 
 of it inside a fortress, I do not think it appropriate 
 to celebrate this anniversary, O Diaz ! and to have a 
 street called " Cinco de Mayo " in every town. What 
 you may pride yourself upon is that the native troops, 
 more skilled in throwing stones than firing guns, were 
 not afraid of standing up against the veterans of 
 Solferino. . . . Yes, the victory was won by Mexicans 
 and won against themselves, and that is not a little 
 thing for anyone.' 
 
 Porfirio was very pale. 4 Which of my victories 
 have you got there ? ' he whispered hoarsely. 
 
 4 Veracruz and Orizaba.' 
 
 4 Hombre ! let me off. Oh, I have suffered here. 
 You have been hard on me. It is unjust that I 
 should be selected for this torment. Satan there 
 acknowledged that I was a brave and active man. 
 I had good qualities, and you regard me as a devil, as 
 a Oh, be just ! dear Malured.' 
 
 4 One must have faith in justice, as you said to 
 Colonel Cota when his son, a brave man and an 
 officer, was lying under sentence. He had killed 
 another officer who took his wife. One must have 
 faith, you said, in justice, and a few hours later you 
 had Claudimiro Cota shot.' 
 
 4 Now, listen.' Diaz was much whiter than his hair. 
 He glanced at Satan, who was still in the same attitude 
 of sorrow. 4 Do not read of Veracruz and Orizaba — 
 I will give you ' 
 
 4 But you cannot bribe me. Sir, ' he said, 
 
 addressing Satan. 
 
 Don Porfirio was desperate. 4 A million pesos ! 
 
422 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 Take a million pesos or the care of any custom-house.' 
 He scarcely knew what he was saying. ' I will give 
 you all the wealth of every church in Mexico ! Be 
 good to me. And I will give you fifty villages of 
 independent Indians. I will make you colonel in 
 my army.' 
 
 4 Thanks,' said the assistant devil. Then, quite 
 placidly, he started reading on the page marked 
 Orizaba. As he read he saw that Don Porfirio and 
 Satan, both of them, were sitting on the rocks, and 
 both of them had the appearance of the men whose 
 fate it is to have been born for better things. And 
 Malured was reading : — 
 
 ORIZABA 
 
 ' How many people did you kill ? ' demanded General 
 Martinez. 
 
 4 None,' replied Herrera, the philanthropist who 
 had been ordered several days before to give up his 
 position as the jefe politico of Orizaba. It had seemed 
 to him a wrong that the proprietors of Rio Blanco 
 should oblige the men to buy provisions in the shop 
 established at the mill, and pay for them a price above 
 that which prevailed at Orizaba. When the men came out 
 on strike Herrera's sympathy was practical : he bought 
 large quantities of food and gave them to the people. 
 
 6 Oh, you had police ! You should have made them 
 shoot. You should have killed, as an example for the 
 rest. Where is the head of the police ? I want him,' 
 cried Martinez. 
 
 4 Very well. But shooting was impossible, if only for 
 the reason that against some hundreds of the strikers I 
 had five police.' 
 
 ' Where is the chief of them ? I want him. Call 
 him instantly." 
 
 6 He comes. And afterwards it was not needful. I 
 stood up before the strikers, reasoned with them, and 
 they promised to refrain from violence."' 
 
DIAZ AT THE DOOR OF HELL 423 
 
 4 1 want the chief of the police. Ah, that is he ! 
 Now, why did you not fire on them ? Come, answer 
 me ! ' He stamped his foot. 
 
 6 To shoot the strikers ? 1 said the chief. 6 With all 
 respect, my General, I would have sooner fired on them 
 with loaves of bread.' 
 
 Martinez gasped. 6 So you are insolent ? You 
 
 But it shall not happen any more."' 
 
 The man saluted. 
 
 ' You and your companions will be shot immediately. 
 And as for you,' he said, addressing Don Carlos 
 Herrera, 'you shall be a deputy, so that we have you 
 up in Mexico and under observation. But if you should 
 ever speak a word of these events or of what I am going 
 to do to-night and for some other nights, then you will 
 travel,' 1 and his forefinger was pointing upward, fc you 
 will travel — see that you do not forget my words — to 
 somewhere that is further than Mexico.' 
 
 Satan lifted up his head. 6 How many people fell in 
 that fine victory ? ' he asked. 
 
 ' Two hundred and forty-three,' answered Malured. 
 4 Their feet were counted as they drove away upon 
 the freight-cars. He did not send such an envoy 
 down to Veracruz. He sent a telegram : " Mdtalos en 
 caliente" 1 Some have dared to say that no such 
 telegram was sent. I would refer them to Eduardo 
 Pankhurst, Minister of the Interior, and particularly 
 to Limon, who then was secretary of the President 
 and was promoted to be consul in Paris. I will read.' 
 . . . This was the passage : — 
 
 VERACRUZ 
 
 6 A ruler who believes sincerely that he should remain 
 in office for the people's sake is justified in taking steps 
 that will prevent the loss of him. Conspirators may 
 
 1 'Kill them red-handed.' The original telegram is still in the 
 possession of the Governor's widow, who now lives at Orizaba. 
 
424 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 be imprisoned. And it may be necessary to destroy 
 them, but in either case the guilt must be determined 
 at a trial. If there is no trial you are running risks, 
 for some of those whom you imprison or destroy may be 
 quite innocent. Suppose that you have killed them and 
 you have no proof that they are guilty, then you run 
 the risk of being called a coward and a murderer."* 
 
 ' Look here,' said Diaz, ' we have all agreed that I 
 was brave.' 
 
 'In the middle of the night these men were taken 
 from their beds, were dragged into the Governor's pre- 
 sence and were murdered. Yes, there was a judge, 
 Rafael Zayas Enriquez, who arrived when nine of them 
 were slain, and all that he could do was to protect the 
 others. Also they had mourners, for the cart was fol- 
 lowed by the vagrant dogs who licked the blood up as 
 it fell, and mourned that it was not more copious. The 
 Governor of Veracruz, an instrument of Diaz, who pre- 
 sided at this orgy, ended in a madhouse. Don Porfirio 
 was made of sterner stuff.' 
 
 ' I can't help interrupting you,' said Diaz. 1 1 
 admit that some of them were innocent and I was 
 very grieved. What restitution I could make I 
 made ; for instance, Dr. Albert's son obtained a 
 governmental post.' 
 
 ' More shame to him,' cried Malured, ' for taking 
 it.' 1 
 
 ' And some of them had really plotted. How can 
 one permit such dangerous opponents of the public 
 weal to be at large ? ' 
 
 ' Not only Mucio Martinez did you leave for twenty 
 
 1 It is also most regrettable that the widow of Emilio Ordonez (the 
 journalist whom Don Porfirio's friend, the Governor of Hidalgo, 
 burned alive) accepted from the Government of Don Porfirio a 
 situation in the normal school for lady teachers, as ' prefecta ' — one 
 who is entrusted with the maintenance of order and decorum. 
 
DIAZ AT THE DOOR OF HELL 425 
 
 years in Puebla, but the Craviotos you permitted to 
 misgovern — nay, to devastate Hidalgo — for the reason 
 that they had been at your side in battle, if that affair 
 of 2nd April can be called a battle. Mucio Martinez 
 and the Craviotos you let loose upon the people, and 
 Canedo of the State of Sinaloa was another of this 
 kidney. Diaz, if you be not judged by any other acts 
 of evil, if your services to Mexico be all remembered 
 and whatever else there be against you be forgotten, 
 you shall be condemned.' 
 
 4 1 shall not interrupt again,' said Diaz. 
 
 1 I continue ' : — 
 
 4 Don Porfirio was made of sterner stuff. If he him- 
 self had been at Veracruz inside the barracks he would 
 probably have breakfasted next morning with an admir- 
 able appetite. His faithful soldiers in the barracks had 
 been given brandy, and the scene was this : A high- 
 walled courtyard, wherein at the left and at the bottom 
 piles of dung were decomposing. In the centre lay 
 three corpses, of Cueto, Ituarte, and Gutierrez. And 
 the darkness of the night was broken only by four 
 lanterns : one of them was in the Governor's hand, his 
 other held a smoking pistol which he had discharged 
 into Ituarte's ear. The lantern's light was dancing on 
 the pools of blood, while those who were the authors 
 of the hecatomb stood in the dark. Then, Dr. Albert, 
 like the others, in his night apparel and with soldiers 
 round him, stepped into the courtyard. Savage in 
 delirium, the governor rolled forward, struck him 
 brutally upon the shoulder. " Ah, my little doctor, is 
 that you ? " And turning to the soldiers he exclaimed, 
 " Now, on this one, Christians. Load ! " The miserable 
 youth had grasped the Governor by the knees, implor- 
 ing pity ; panic-stricken he flung out a stream of dis- 
 connected phrases, mad entreaties. After struggling 
 with his victim for a time, the Governor freed himself 
 from those convulsive arms, ran towards the soldiers, 
 
426 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 and when Albert raised himself he was surrounded by 
 the rifles ; at his feet were those three corpses. Shout- 
 ing words at random ' 
 
 Suddenly he stopped his reading. Don Porfirio 
 looked up. 
 
 ' Where has he gone ? ' asked Malured. 4 You see 
 my lord has disappeared. It is most strange. . . . 
 Did you observe how your examination worried him, 
 poor Devil ? I have never seen him take a case as he 
 took yours. No, never. . . . He is naturally sensitive. 
 His temperament is quite at variance with his official 
 character. But while we have had you before us I 
 was noticing that he could hardly bear the strain. 
 And he has left us. I must follow.' Malured arose, 
 the volume underneath his arm. He walked away. 
 
 ' Hold on ! ' cried Diaz. ' What shall I do now ? ' 
 
 Malured stopped for a moment. ' I am sorry,' so 
 he said, ' I can't advise you.' 
 

 mm 
 
 L . - 
 
 
 A blind man chanting his prayers 
 
 in the fierce heat of Tehuantepec. He is paid by the passers by. 
 
 The domesticated pirate. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 AN ANGLO-MEXICAN PIRATE 
 
 It is true. The man is living in Tehuantepec, inside 
 the long, low, azure house — he and a portion of his 
 multitudinous family. But how shall this Canadian 
 sea-dog, this uncommon sort of pirate, be made 
 credible to British readers in the British Islands ? 
 How would those around me, for example, on this 
 weather-beaten island of South Harris in the Outer 
 Hebrides, who during the dark season of the year 
 devote themselves so much to legends and to books, 
 how would they knit their brows at being told about 
 a pirate ! If our specimen were not extant, if he did 
 not inhabit the new Mexico but old mythology, then 
 I suppose that these descendants of the Norsemen 
 would believe in him. And as on this October after- 
 noon we walk along towards the Sound of Harris, 
 with the rock-strewn meadows or a darkening glen 
 beloved by the deer upon our left and with the 
 crumpled sea upon our right, ah well ! we are in- 
 vaded by the old enchantment of the Scandinavians. 
 Those waters felt the keel of sea-kings who would 
 never sleep below a sooty rafter, who would never 
 drink beside the hearth. And when they landed on 
 this narrow island it was but as if they leaped from one 
 ship to another. Where is now the lonely burial- 
 ground of Uig ? In the rising meadow they would shake 
 the white foam off their bodies, having run up thither 
 
 427 
 
428 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 from the surf and with their swords held high above 
 their heads. And it may be that where the little 
 kirk is standing, by the shelf of creamy sand, there 
 was a fisher settlement, a place in which the joyous 
 pirates kissed the girls and sailed away — wherein 
 they differed from our friend in Mexico, whose 
 domesticity has almost risen to a vice ; and as their 
 children grew to manhood they were drawn towards 
 the unseen fathers, drawn to battle like their fathers, 
 with the distant wave, and on the other hand they 
 felt a chain which bound them to the silken grasses 
 of the motherland. Aye, through the generations 
 which succeeded to the Norsemen's landing there has 
 been a grievous conflict in the bosom of this people, 
 hearing now the plaintive land-voice, now the surging 
 water- voice : it is as on this afternoon when land and 
 sea are intermingled with a net of driving mist. The 
 foam clouds and the mist are swept across to land- 
 ward, charging up the grey rocks of the shore, across 
 the ragged road and up the meadows. Then the sea 
 cloud falls behind his comrade, whom the wind blows 
 up, blows up the emerald hill as if it were a curtain. 
 And it is so closely drawn that one would think we 
 mortals may not look upon the other side of it — and 
 then a ray of sunlight shows that there is nothing — 
 and the mist, once more impenetrable, thrown 
 athwart this island, makes one feel that it is keeping 
 from us a profounder mystery. And for a time the 
 land on every side was blotted out ; in place of it 
 arose a magic house, a temple built by wind and 
 water ; as the furtive sunlight made an entrance by 
 the roof it soon suspended on the pearl-grey walls a 
 tapestry of unimaginable brilliance, just as if the 
 turquoises and amethysts were strung upon a thread 
 of laughter. Presently one saw, far off upon the 
 
AN ANGLO-MEXICAN PIRATE 429 
 
 right, a darker, unilluminated wall, the promontory 
 of Rudha Mas a' Chnuic which extends into the 
 shadowy sea. 
 
 And so we come to Obbe with its scattered dwellings 
 and its elementary small harbour on the Sound of 
 Harris. Here they surely tell each other some such 
 legends as prevail upon the outskirts of the land : 
 here when the gloomy tide in rolling out between 
 two islands bears upon its surface unaccountably a 
 streak of white, not passing swifter than the shadow 
 of a cormorant, they will relate that in the vessel 
 which has just gone by there went the souls of foreign 
 merchants and of sailors who were drowned in this 
 lone region ; here when sleet is driven up from the 
 Atlantic and across the archipelago of desolation, 
 it is said by some to be the pirates clad in surplices, 
 for having mocked at holy Church ; here when the 
 moaning and the lamentations pierce the night it is 
 the shipwrecked mariners who float up from the seas 
 and ask for burial in the darkness where the dear 
 delights of their old life will not disturb them. Surely 
 now the people who give ear to these and other 
 legends, surely they will not reject my story of the 
 venerable pirate ? Those two Scandinavian-looking 
 fishermen who loiter on the quay — but over there, 
 that large white building is the school, and near to 
 such a place one cannot talk of pirates, no, not even 
 of retired ones. 
 
 But whatever be the deadening effect of schools, it 
 is absurd to throw this charge at every modern 
 institution. The demure young lady of the wind- 
 blown locks, for instance, who assists in the ad- 
 ministration of the little wooden post-office of Obbe 
 is a vestal at the shrine of strange romance. There 
 you may learn how difficult it was to find a Pabbay 
 
430 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 postman — Pabbay is that island which the ocean 
 has enticed away from all the others — and how the 
 courageous postman undertakes this voyage once a 
 month, a futile journey very often till the shepherdess 
 of that old couple on the island took unto herself a 
 lover ; you may learn how frequently the mail-boat 
 does not stop at Rodel, which is certain miles away 
 upon the outermost extremity of Harris, and the 
 letters will be carried past you to the south, and on 
 the morrow when the ship returns they will be carried 
 past you to the north, and in the meantime, in the 
 post-office of Obbe, Mrs. Galbraith, the demure young 
 lady's mistress, is prepared to tell you savage stories 
 of the deep. Her memory goes back for sixty years, 
 when she was brought from Ireland to instruct the 
 boys, 4 and if you wish to go back further ' — through 
 her spectacles she blinked at me — 6 to go back further, 
 is it ? Then you need to go to Rodel and address the 
 green old warrior. He's the oldest one of any of us. 
 And you'll find him there upon his back,' she said. 
 
 I thought her tone of voice betokened an imperfect 
 sympathy with the afflicted gentleman. Her eyes 
 were positively dancing. But I was myself delighted 
 when she told me that he throve before the school. 
 . . . Well, on the gusty way to Rodel I was thinking 
 of the pirate whom this uncontaminated islander 
 would like to hear of. I would tell how the Canadian 
 pirate — not that he admits he was a pirate — came 
 to Mexico in 1856. 4 No, before that,' said the pirate ; 
 4 1 was up and down the coast for four or five years 
 before that. I cut Brazil wood, dye-wood, and sent 
 it to Europe. I made money round the Horn, with 
 six or seven vessels at a time.' Then one might tell 
 of the political adventures of the pirate, when the 
 Liberal soldiers tried to shoot him ; how on one 
 
AN ANGLO-MEXICAN PIRATE 431 
 
 occasion he was sending arms to Acapulco to the 
 Church's soldiers — whom he thought would be 
 successful — how the captain of a Liberal ship, a ship 
 of Diaz, took his two large boats, which had a value 
 of three thousand pesos each. ' And I accused the 
 man of piracy. The consequence,' said he, 4 was 
 that my captain, an Italian, was arrested and brought 
 back a prisoner. I told him that I had not anything 
 against him, and that if he wanted to load dye-wood 
 I would pay him well, and he was very glad. The 
 other one said no, and then I had him four or five 
 months in the prison ; afterwards I let him out. . . . 
 Those were the revolutionary times. Tehuantepec 
 was fighting Juchitan ; my name was prominent, but 
 Matos saved my life. They had 800 or 1000 men, by 
 God, and never took this place. We used to fight 
 like devils. Very few of them are living now — yes, 
 very few.' One would relate how an importer of the 
 period contrived to get his goods, per s.s. 4 El Mos- 
 quito,' to La Union, the port of Honduras, in which 
 you had to pay no custom dues ; it was a harbour of 
 deposit where they charged you twelve centavos for 
 a parcel ; as the custom-house officials were unpaid 
 you paid them and they went their way ; from La 
 Union the goods were fetched by little sailing ships. 
 One day, though, Maximilian's Government had got 
 possession of a ship of our particular importer ; it 
 was destined to bring arms from San Jose de Guate- 
 mala, and, the Liberals coming into power, a horse- 
 man was dispatched to San Jose to warn them not 
 to bring these arms. And the importer put a boat 
 behind a yellow cliff ; the vessel came, but as the 
 surf was bad one could not go aboard. For nearly 
 two days there was no news from the captain. The 
 importer went to see the military chief, Porfirio Diaz, 
 
432 MEXICO, THE LAND OF UNREST 
 
 told him that his vessel might be bringing arms, and 
 if the General paid for them and paid the freight 
 then he could have them. 4 We shall see to that,' 
 said Diaz. Then the captain and four other men 
 came off the ship at night and hid their little boat 
 inside a wood. They were arrested, but the captain 
 had not brought the arms, and then the Liberals 
 were angry, and they let the vessel go upon the rocks. 
 4 And I have never yet been paid for it,' said the 
 importer. 4 Well, I happened to have in my house 
 about forty or fifty bottles of poisoned brandy and 
 mescal, because a force was coming up from Juchitan. 
 Another body under General Teran of Veracruz 
 came to protect the house, and so I didn't like to 
 leave the stuff about. I never killed a man,' he said. 
 4 But poisoning is very rare. It was the only thing 
 which I could do, you know. I lived here in a corner 
 house, it's torn down now. And when the Empire 
 caved in I was at Oaxaca, and they took at least 400 
 cartloads of stuff from me. When General Diaz came 
 down to Tehuantepec, forty years later, to open the 
 railway, he sent over somebody for me, because he 
 said that all his other old acquaintances had called 
 on him. I told the messenger that I would like to 
 kick him, and they said I was unwell. Yes, yes, the 
 Empire would have been successful but for the 
 United States. My books and papers were destroyed. 
 I was the only British subject ; the American 
 Consul came to my house, but he was summoned to 
 the Civil War at home. He left his archives and his 
 books, and they were all destroyed.' 
 
 The church of Rodel stands upon a rocky eminence 
 beside the sea. The Norman tower has been lately 
 struck by lightning, so that angels who may wish to 
 enter at a distance from the ground are not required 
 
AN ANGLO-MEXICAN PIRATE 433 
 
 to fold their wings completely. And within the tower, 
 as we enter from a sudden fusillade of wind and rain, 
 a bat swerves upward. In the church a broken 
 window has admitted all the sea-birds, and the damp 
 sea air has coated with a greenery of moss that ancient 
 warrior who lies in his recess of curious and lovely 
 carvings. 
 
EPILOGUE 
 
 TO A LITTLE ENGLISH GIRL 
 
 When you begin to read, dear Isabella, it may be 
 that you will read this book, and as you are a lady 
 I must have your name upon the page you will be 
 sure to look at. Once upon a time the Puebla post- 
 man did not bring me any letters, and you said — do 
 you remember? — that I must have two of yours as 
 you had six inside the cupboard. Well, now you must 
 let me give this page, the epilogue, to you. The 
 postman wouldn't come, and so we spent the time — 
 you, John and I — in dancing up and down the patio 
 of that old hospital of the Dominicans in which your 
 parents used to live. We danced each morning round 
 the mulberry, although there was no mulberry, we 
 played a German game of Fraulein's which I never 
 understood, we played at oranges and lemons which 
 all people understand, for someone is a beautiful 
 sweet orange and the other person is a bitter lemon, 
 and the person whom they catch as he is walking in 
 between their arms, he has to choose the orange or 
 the lemon ; and as I was going you were sad, because 
 if John and you would have to play this by your- 
 selves one person would be walking and the other 
 would be standing still, and that one, so you said, 
 would have to be an orange and a lemon, both of 
 
 434 
 
Beside the church of La Soledad in Oaxaca. 
 
EPILOGUE 
 
 435 
 
 them, both sweet and sour, and that is difficult. But, 
 Isabella, all you have to do is to be sweet. 
 
 I think a lot of people will be saying that there is 
 no Isabella, and that I have made it up about her, 
 and pretended that there is one, so that I could use 
 the nice word ' Epilogue.' It isn't true, though, and 
 to let them see that you are real I was wanting to put 
 in your photograph. There are so many things, you 
 know, that will make people angry when they read 
 this book ; I should have had one little thing to 
 make them pleased. 
 
GLOSSARY 
 
 [With a few exceptions there have not been put into this 
 glossary such words as are found only once. These are 
 translated in the text. When the word has several meanings 
 in English, that one which it has in this book is usually given 
 alone.] 
 
 aborto del infierno, abortion of hell. 
 alcaldia, office of an alcalde or jailer. 
 alcance, balance of an account , an IOU. 
 arroba, Spanish weight of 25 lbs. 
 
 atole (Mex. or Cuba), a gruel made by boiling Indian corn or 
 
 maize, pounded to flour, in water and also in milk. 
 bartolina, cell. 
 
 bejuco, pliable reed, rattan. The bejuco tree grows on the 
 mountain side. Its wood is like leather and with one 
 of the long, lithe bejuco canes, that will bend but 
 not break, it is said that forty men can be beaten to 
 death. 
 
 cabo, sergeant. 
 
 calabozo, cell. 
 
 canasto, large basket. Canastos ! int. denoting surprise or 
 
 annoyance, 
 capellania, pious foundation. 
 carbonero, charcoal-burner. 
 caridad, charity, alms. 
 carta cuenta, account of what a man owes. 
 cecina, dry, salt meat. 
 
 chicle, glutinous substafice produced by the chicozapote tree and by 
 the brown apple-shaped fruit of the zapote itself Chewing 
 gum. In Colima it is used to make small statues and 
 curious figures. 
 
 chile, American red pepper [capsicum annuum]. 
 
 cohechador, lit. briber. 
 
 437 
 
438 
 
 GLOSSARY 
 
 compadre, co-godfather, a relation of importance and scrupu- 
 lously observed. 1 
 companero, comrade, compeer. 
 cuatro, four. 
 diez mil, ten thousand. 
 directivo, adj. directive. 
 domestica, female house-servant. * 
 duque, duke. 
 
 encargado, agent, attorney, commissioner. 
 en fagina, obligatory and unpaid labour. 
 enganchado, contract labourer. 
 enganchador, contractor of labourers. 
 fabula, fable, a feigned story, a legend, rumour. 
 finca, farm, landed property. 
 
 floripondio, magnolia. A tree of great beauty with very large 
 
 white fragrant flowers, 
 frijoles (Amer.), kidney-beans [phaseolus vulgaris], 
 granadita, thejruit of the pomegranate tree. 
 hacienda, plantation, farm. 
 hacendado, owner of a hacienda. 
 henequen^fere of the agave plant. 
 
 ingles de marras, lit. Englishman oj long ago, contemptuous 
 
 expression : that Englishman. 
 interventor, comptroller, supervisor. 
 jefatura, office (in both senses) of ajefe. 
 
 jefe politico, political head, chief ; an officer subordinate to the 
 
 State governor. 
 juez auxiliar, assistant judge. 
 llano, adj. plain, 
 
 machete, long knife, cutlass, cane-knife. 
 manglar, plantation of mangrove trees. 
 
 mecate, rope or cord made of the maguey or American agave. 
 mescal, intoxicating liquor made from the maguey. 
 meson, inn. 
 
 mestizo, half breed (though to be accurate it should only be 
 
 1 ' As a mark of regard,' says Carl Lumholtz in ' Unknown Mexico,' 
 ' one of the customs-officers invited me to be godfather of his child. 
 I had to support the baby's head during the ceremony, while an 
 elderly woman held the little body. According to custom I gave 
 25 centavos to every member of the party, and a more adequate 
 present to the child. From now I was called "compadre" by most 
 of those in the village, and that sacred relation was established 
 between myself and the baby's family which is deemed of so much 
 importance in Mexico. ' 
 
GLOSSARY 
 
 439 
 
 applied to a person whose father is white and whose 
 
 mother is Indian), 
 milpa (Mex.), maize-field, planted or implanted. Has come to 
 
 mean the agricultural labourer's private patch of land, 
 
 which he cultivates at certain seasons, 
 mozo, youth, lad, man-servant. 
 muera ! may he die ! an exclamation, 
 padrino, godfather. 
 papaito, little father (colloquial). 
 
 patio, courtyard, open space in front of a house or behind it. 
 pelado, lit. plucked (colloquial), to be penniless, a nobody. 
 peon, day-labourer, peasant, foot-soldier, pawn. 
 peso, silver coin in value about 2s. and containing 100 centavos. 
 
 Usually translated as dollar Mex. 
 presidente del presidio, head of the house of correction, prefect 
 
 of the convicts. 
 pues, well then, an interjection, 
 pulque, native liquor (see p. 88 n.). 
 
 revista de comisario, examination by a delegate, a commissary. 
 serape (Mex.), a narrow blanket worn by men or thrown over the 
 saddle. 
 
 soga vaquera, cowherd's rope. 
 
 soldadera, female companion of soldier, in various capacities, 
 sorteos de hoy, drawings of to-day (at the lottery), 
 soy tambien, / am also. 
 suplente, substitute. 
 
 tienda de raya, lit. shop within bounds ; shop of the estate where 
 
 purchase is obligatory. 
 tortilla (Mex.), pancake made of Indian corn, mashed and baked 
 
 on an earthen pan. 
 valiente, gallant, champion. 
 vara, rod, staff, emblem of authority. 
 vibora de sangre, species of viper. 
 vistador, travelling registrar. 
 viva ! may he live ! an exclamation. 
 
 volan, a box on four wheels, a Yucatecan carriage. The wheels 
 on one side or on both may with impunity be climbing 
 over boulders and making the box assume an angle of 
 45 or more degrees. 
 
 zopilote (or sopilote), buzzard, a species of hawk [vultur 
 aura]. 
 
A FEW NOTES ON PRONUNCIATION 
 
 (a) THE SPANISH LANGUAGE IN MEXICO 
 
 The pronunciation of Spanish is different in Mexico from 
 what it is in Spain. e Colombians and Mexicans do presume 
 to speak in general terms and among educated people,' I am 
 told by Don Federico Gamboa, the notable novelist, who has 
 been for some time the Mexican Minister at Brussels, 'a 
 better Spanish than the one spoken in Spain.' Nowadays 
 one hears a good many people in the Motherland who go 
 back to the old pronunciation of f c ' and f z ' before certain 
 vowels ; but the lisp with which the Emperor Charles V. was 
 burdened, and which first the courtiers and then all the 
 country imitated, is as yet considered by the Spanish- 
 Americans to be the universal practice of the Spaniards, 
 while they have themselves not swerved from the old method 
 of pronouncing f zarzuela' and e Cervantes' just as they are 
 spelled, instead of 'tharthuela' and 1 Thervantes.' Also the 
 * 11,' which generally in Spain has the sound of 1 Hi ' in the 
 English word e million,' is in Mexico, as in Andalucia, pro- 
 nounced like a double y, e.g. caballo = cabay'yo and polio = 
 poy'yo; and 'regarding the pronunciation,' says Senor Gamboa, 
 'of the letter " x," the dispute has not been settled yet, and 
 we in Mexico insist on pronouncing it as in the olden times, 
 i.e. like the " j " or your English " h," for instance Oaxaca, 
 Xalapa. . . . There is another great difference,' he says : 
 'the far sweeter pronunciation of the language among us. 
 The Spaniards speak more roughly and close. . . . Our local 
 pronunciation differs between the States as in Spain between 
 the Provinces. I think the reason of it is an ethnological 
 one, on account of the various races and tribes which origin- 
 ally populated them.' In the State of Chiapas alone there 
 may be heard, according to Manuel Orozco y Berra in his 
 excellent 'Geografia de las Lenguas de Mexico' (Mexico, 
 1864), the Maya, the Lacandon, the Chafiabal, the Choi, the 
 
 440 
 
A FEW NOTES ON PRONUNCIATION 441 
 
 Punctunc, the Chiche, the Mame, the Tzotzil, the Tzendal, the 
 Zoque, the Mexican and the Chiapaneco languages, whereas 
 the Casdal, the Trokeck, the Quelen and the Zotzlen have 
 disappeared. Some of these are aboriginal, some were 
 carried by invading hosts of Mayas, some — the Tzotzil and 
 the Tzendal — were the fruit of the Toltec invasion from 
 Mexico to Guatemala, which in Chiapas found the Quelen, 
 and from that produced the other two, while the Mexican 
 language was introduced by Ahuizotl's army and the Chia- 
 paneco is perhaps the offspring of Toltec and Chiche, perhaps 
 it is indeed the oldest language of the new world, the 
 language of some colonising Nicaraguan tribes who were 
 governed by two military men selected by the priests. It 
 is apparent that the Spanish language, in so far as it is 
 spoken by the natives of Indian blood, has been superimposed 
 upon a great variety of languages, so that it will vary from 
 district to district. On the one hand it is thus altered from 
 the Spanish of the Motherland, while it is unaltered also 
 from the mediaeval and correcter Spanish. The variety of 
 people who have, more or less, adopted this old Spanish will 
 be understood if only from the vast divergence in develop- 
 ment between their native tongues ; at one end of the scale 
 are those which have considerable stores of folk-songs and of 
 sacred songs, whereas at the other end is that language of 
 Oaxaca to which the Illustrious Bishop Lorenzana alludes in 
 his pastoral of the year 1770. f It can only be spoken,' he 
 says, ' by day, for each word is helped out by gestures which 
 cannot be observed when the light fails.' 
 
 (6) THE MAYA LANGUAGE 
 
 With regard to the pronunciation of this language, certain 
 sounds occur that we, with the Latin alphabet, can scarcely 
 reproduce. It is sufficient for the purpose of this book to 
 note in the first place that, answering as closely as possible 
 to the pronunciation, the form e Dzitas' is employed for 
 that railway junction and not e Qitas ' with an inverted C, as 
 in the local guide. The inversion of the letter f e,' by the 
 way, is used by Dr. Jakob Schcembs of Dortmund in his 
 monograph ('Beitrage zur Kenntniss der Mayasprachen,' 
 1 906) in order to represent a sound which is midway between 
 the German 4 6 ' and 4 e.' Secondly, the 4 x ' in Maya is pro- 
 nounced 4 sh,' so that Uxmal becomes Ushmal, and Xcumpich, 
 
442 A FEW NOTES ON PRONUNCIATION 
 
 Shcumpich. This allusion to the Maya language is, of course, 
 no more than touching the fringe of a subject upon which 
 I am not competent to write, but for those who wish to 
 pursue it one may recommend the ' Chrestomatie Maya ' by 
 Comte H. de Charency (in the ' Actes de la Societe Philo- 
 logique,' Vols. XIX and XX, Paris, 1891). f De toutes le 
 langues,' he says, f de l'Amerique Precolombienne il n'en 
 est guere dont 1' etude presente autant d'interet que le 
 Maya.' It is only in Yucatan, where Maya prevails, that it 
 is a general custom for the Spanish-speaking classes to 
 acquaint themselves, usually in childhood, with the native 
 language. 
 
 (c) MEXICAN PLACE-NAMES 
 
 As was noted on their first occurrence in this book, 
 Chihuahua is pronounced as an Englishman would pronounce 
 Che-wa-wa, and Oaxaca as he would pronounce Wa-hacca. 
 With regard to other place-names mentioned here, the 
 ordinary mediaeval Spanish rule, whatever be the derivation 
 of the name, is applicable. Guanajuato, for instance, is 
 derived from Guanaxhuato, a Tarascan Indian word signify- 
 ing ' Hill of the Frogs ' ; in a pronouncing handbook for 
 English readers I suppose it would be spelled Gwanachato 
 (the e ch ' being as in the Scottish ' loch '). It was the custom 
 of Spaniards to convert the native names by catching rather 
 at the sound than at the sense ; thus with the Nahuatl word 
 Cuauhnahuac — ' place of the eagle,' — for they altered that 
 to them unpronounceable name into Cuernavaca, which in 
 Spanish means ' cow's horn.' The town is situated very 
 picturesquely on a narrow ridge, so that neither of these 
 names is inapposite. . . . The name of the whole country 
 and of the capital is pronounced in accordance with the 
 spelling ' Mejico,' that is to say what an Englishman would 
 spell phonetically Mechikko, the ' ch ' again being as in the 
 word f loch.' 
 
A NOTE ON MEXICAN WORDS IN THE 
 LANGUAGES OF EUROPE 
 
 It may not be generally known that in the European 
 languages a certain number, perhaps eighteen, fairly common 
 words have come from Mexico. ' Tomatl ' is the origin of our 
 tomato, while our word jalap is, of course, from the town 
 Jalapa, or Xalapa. [White jalap from Michoacan, the root of 
 the Convolvulus Michoacan, is usually called Michoacan.] 
 And the most common of these words is chocolate, whose 
 derivation can be found, with a great deal of other fascinating 
 material, in the { Diccionario de Aztequismos ' by Cecilio A. 
 Robelo (published by the author in 1904 at Cuernavaca). 
 Chocolate comes from .roc0 = sour, acrid, and atl = water, 
 because cocoa with water and without sweetness is very 
 bitter, and thus the Mexicans take it. They also call it 
 cacauatl = water of cocoa. The cocoa tree, whose origin is 
 in tropical America, is itself derived from cacahua — cuahuitl : 
 cacahuatl {cuahuitl = tree), in distinction from cacahuate = tlaca- 
 cahuatl or cocoa of the ground. 
 
 443 
 
STATES AND POPULATION OF MEXICO 
 
 STATES AND TERRI- 
 
 
 ELEVATION 
 
 ABBREVIATIONS 
 
 POPULATION 
 OF STATES 
 1910. 
 
 TORIES. 
 
 STATE CAPITAL. 
 
 OVER SEA. 
 
 OF STATES. 
 
 
 
 feet 
 
 
 
 Aguascalientes . 
 
 Aguascalientes . 
 
 6280 
 
 Ags. . 
 
 118,978 
 
 Campeche . 
 
 Campeche . 
 
 sea-level 
 
 Camp. . 
 
 85,795 
 
 Chiapas 
 
 1 uxtla Gutierrez . 
 
 1776 
 
 Chis. 
 
 436,817 
 
 Chihuahua . 
 
 Chihuahua . 
 
 4600 
 
 Chi. 
 
 405,265 
 
 Coahuua 
 
 Saltillo 
 
 5000 
 
 Coah. . 
 
 367,652 
 
 Colima 
 
 Colima 
 
 1538 
 
 Col. 
 
 77,704 
 
 Durango 
 
 Durango 
 
 6207 
 
 Dgo. . 
 
 436,147 
 
 Guanajuato . 
 
 Guanajuato . 
 
 7000 
 
 Gto. 
 
 1,075,270 
 
 Guerrero 
 
 Chilpancingo 
 
 3659 
 
 Gro. 
 
 605,437 
 
 Hidalgo 
 
 Pachuca 
 
 8000 
 
 Hgo. . 
 
 641,895 
 
 Jalisco 
 
 Guadalajara 
 
 6100 
 
 Jal. 
 
 1,202,802 
 
 Mexico 
 
 Toluca 
 
 8761 
 
 Mex. . 
 
 975,019 
 
 Michoacan . 
 
 Morelia 
 
 6200 
 
 Mich. . 
 
 991,649 
 
 Morelos 
 
 Cuernavaca . 
 
 4500 
 
 Mor. 
 
 179,814 
 
 Nuevo Leon 
 
 Monterey . 
 
 1500 
 
 N.L. 
 
 368,929 
 
 Oaxaca 
 
 Oaxaca 
 
 5067 
 
 Oax. 
 
 1,041,035 
 
 Puebla 
 
 Puebla 
 
 7100 
 
 Pueb. . 
 
 1,092,456 
 
 Queretaro . 
 
 Queretaro . 
 
 5947 
 
 Qro. 
 
 243,515 
 
 ban Luis Potosi . 
 
 San Luis Potosi . 
 
 6290 
 
 S.L.P. . 
 
 624,748 
 
 Sinaloa 
 
 Culiacan 
 
 120 
 
 Sin. 
 
 323,499 
 
 Sonora 
 
 Hermosillo . 
 
 675 
 
 Son. 
 
 262,545 
 
 Tabasco 
 
 San Juan Bautista 
 
 80 
 
 Tab. 
 
 183,708 
 
 Tamaulipas . 
 
 Ciudad Victoria . 
 
 1473 
 
 Tam. . 
 
 249,253 
 
 Tepic (Ter.) 
 
 Tepic . 
 
 3069 
 
 Tepic . 
 
 171,837 
 
 Tlaxcala 
 
 Tlaxcala 
 
 7500 
 
 Tlax. . 
 
 183,805 
 
 Veracruz . . • 
 
 Jalapa 
 
 4609 
 
 Ver. (orV.C.) 
 
 1,124,368 
 
 Yucatan 
 
 Merida 
 
 25 
 
 Yuc. . 
 
 337,020 
 
 Zacatecas . 
 
 Zacatecas . 
 
 7500 
 
 Zac. 
 
 475,863 
 
 Lower California (Ter. ) 
 
 La Paz 
 
 sea-level 
 
 B.C. . 
 
 52,244 
 
 Federal District . 
 
 City of Mexico . 
 
 7434 
 
 D.F. 
 
 719,052 
 
 Quintana Roo . 
 
 Santa Cruz de 
 Bravo 
 
 
 Q.R. . 
 
 9,086 
 
 
 
 
 15,063,207 
 
 444 
 
INDEX 
 
 (The names of books and ne? 
 A 
 
 Abelardo's post, 99 
 Acanceh [Yuc], 37, 156 
 Acapulco [Gro.], 261, 271 
 Acayucan [Ver.], 285, 286 
 Acuna (Manuel), the poet, 135, 338 
 et seq. 
 
 itgua Prieta [Son.], 261, 262 
 Aguascalientes, her pitiful governor, 
 221, 323 n. 
 
 — her young men, 273 
 
 Aguila Oil Co., 84 n., 237, 300 n., 
 
 301 n. 
 Aguilar, the priest, 49 
 
 — (Pablo), the master, 151 
 
 — (Vicente), the flogger, 151 
 Aguirre on Seler, 104 
 Ahumada (General), 244 
 Albert (Dr. ), 424 et seq. 
 Algunas Cam/pafiaSy 211 
 Alhondiga de Granaditas, its 
 
 inmates, 202 
 Alonso (Carlos), the father, 187 
 
 — (Feliciano), the minor, 187, 188 
 
 — (Valentin), the minor, 187, 188 
 Altamirano, the poet, 353 et seq. 
 Alvarez (Juan), the firebrand, 354 
 Amabilis, the lawyer, 112 
 American ambassador {see Wilson) 
 
 — Army, 245 and n., 319 
 
 — Consul at Veracruz, 183 
 
 >apers are printed in italics. ) 
 
 Americans in Mexico, 225, 246 
 
 Ancona (Abelardo), his swift end, 
 11 second n., 45 
 
 Ancona, the affectionate priest, 48 
 
 Andrade (Jose), notary public, 180, 
 181, 187, 195 
 
 Angel's hair, 128, 129 
 
 Anti-re-electionists, 263, 291, 292 
 
 Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Pro- 
 tection Society, 23, 155 
 
 Apaches, The plundering, 140 
 
 Aragon (General), 273 
 
 Archbishop of Yucatan, his diffi- 
 culties, 47, 156 
 
 Archives, Destruction of, 100 
 
 Arcobedo, an editor, 25 
 
 Argaez y Milanes (Bernabe), his 
 garden, 179 
 
 Argentine's debt, 298 
 
 — maize, 302 
 
 Aristegui (Enrique Munoz), his 
 
 flabbiness, 21 
 
 and the voice of reason, 22 
 
 his subservience, 24 
 
 forcible enrolment, 32 
 
 generosity, 33 
 
 departure, 52, 53 
 
 and the election, 113 
 
 the human heart, 194 
 
 Army, Forcible enrolment in, 21, 
 
 30 et seq. 
 
446 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Army, the soldaderas, 123, 234 
 Arroyo, the half-witted, 205 
 Astilleros, his torture, 204 
 Atlixco [Pueb.], 273 
 Avenirdes nations Hispano-Arneri- 
 
 caines, 318 n. 
 Avila (Dr.), 24 
 
 Ayala, the philanthropist, 177 
 Ayora (Medina), his bold face, 
 
 53 et seq. 
 Axolotl, The, 270 n. 
 Aztec governor of Tlaxcala, 123 
 — nobles at Cholula, 130 
 
 B 
 
 Baca, 49 
 
 Bacon, quoted, 92 n. 
 Baeza, his self-defence, 184 
 Balsas River [Gro.], 262, 371 
 Bandala (Abraham), the aged 
 
 governor, 221 
 Baranda (Pedro), 60 
 Barbachano, the impresario, 18 n., 
 
 19 n. 
 
 Barbarous Mexico, 10 etseq. 
 Baring (Mr.), 417 
 Batalla (Diodoro), the orator, 254, 
 255 
 
 Batres (Leopoldo), inspector and 
 manufacturer of antiquities, 104 
 et seq. * 
 
 his qualifications, 109 
 
 Bazaine, 65, 66 
 
 Beerbohm's caricature, 37 
 
 Belem, 11 second n., 15, 16, 
 314 n. 
 
 Betancourt (Dr.), Inaccessibility of, 
 33 
 
 Blackwood's Magazine, quoted, 47 n. 
 Blake, railway manager, 21, 51, 
 170 
 
 Blanco (Daniel), his madness, 27 
 
 Blanquete (Colonel), and the burn- 
 ing Mayas, 6 n. 
 Bourget, Reference to, 277 
 Braham (d.d.), his awful admis- 
 sion, 39 
 
 his experience in Russia, 
 
 39 
 
 Braniff (Oscar), 263 
 Bravo (General Ignacio), 4 n. et seq., 
 21 
 
 British Charge d 'Affaires, 319 n. 
 
 — Consul at Laguna, 144, 145 
 Merida, 35 
 
 General, 314 n. 
 
 — dominion, Native of, 163, 164 
 
 — Honduras, Native of, 19 
 its neighbour, 4 n. 
 
 — Minister, 17, 41, 302, 314 n. 
 
 — sea captain, 35 
 
 — ships and Yucatan, 295 n. 
 
 — Vice-Consul, 314 n. 
 Buchanan (James), of U.S.A., 
 
 295 n. 
 
 Bullfighter, Advantage of being a, 
 100, 101 
 
 Bulnes (Francisco), the historian, 
 
 254, 318 n. 
 Burgos (Miguel), Pursuit of, 151, 
 
 152 
 
 C 
 
 Cabrera (Estrada), of Guatemala, 
 202, 222, 223 
 
 — (Miguel), of Puebla, 205, 
 226 
 
 Cahuantzi (Colonel Prospero), 228 
 Calderon (F. Garcia), 216 second n. 
 Calderon de la Barca (Madame), 
 
 129, 390, 410 
 Calero (Manuel), 279, 293 
 California, 6, 317, 325 
 | Camacho (Sebastian), 418 and n. 
 
INDEX 
 
 447 
 
 Camara (Raymundo) and his 
 orchard, 175 
 
 — y Camara, 134 
 
 Campeche, alleged custom of her 
 barbers, 7 
 
 — her fauna. 9 
 desolation, 29 
 
 — Notice in a church of, 46 
 
 — Barandas of, 60 
 
 — 144 et seq., 342, et passim 
 
 Can (Juan Pablo), his deposition, 
 195, 196 
 
 — (Santiago), his information, 
 195 et seq. 
 
 Cananea [Son.], 246 
 
 Canche (Antonio) and the refugee, 
 
 173 
 Canedo, 425 
 
 Canto (Quintin), opposed to 
 marriage, 160, 161 
 
 Canton (Delio Moreno), the candi- 
 date, 44, 112, 113 
 
 — (General), his kindness, 48 
 Capitan (Monsieur), 107, 108 
 Carbajal (Judge), 263, 265 
 Carillo (Antonio), his career, 44 
 Carlyle quoted, 199 
 Carranza the imperialist, 356 
 
 — (Venustiano), 283 
 
 Carrillo (Cristobal), the hunter, 
 198 
 
 Carroll (Lewis), 248 n. 
 Casasus, the Ambassador, 136 
 Casares (Manuel), the unprotected, 
 172 
 
 Casoni (A.F.), quoted, 241 
 Castillo, his families, 48 
 
 — Isidro, his head, 25 
 
 Catmis [Yuc], Life at, 51, 183, 
 420 n. 
 
 Cemetery, higher and lower, 201 
 Censorship, 14, 35, 41, 42, 230 
 first n. 
 
 Centro Electoral Independiente, 
 
 110 et seq. 
 Cerdan (Aquiles), 226, 229 
 CerroPrieto [Chi.], 267 
 Cervantes, an old family, 130 
 Chacmay [Yuc], fine old farm, 
 
 166 
 
 Chapultepec, 222, 360, 361 
 Character of Mexicans, x et seq., 
 391 
 
 Charles III. (King), 273 n. 
 
 — V. and the language, 440 
 Chatham (Lord), quoted, 294 
 Chavero (Alfredo), his drama, 61, 
 
 62 
 
 Chi, the avenged, 150 
 Chiapas, Monuments in, 104 
 
 — tolerance of her police, 203 
 
 — 260, 271 n. 
 
 Chichen Itza [Yuc], 156, 170 
 Chichi [Yuc], property of Molina, 
 187 
 
 Chihuahua, her size, 127 
 
 — land of Terrazas, 136 
 
 — her peculiar governor, 137 
 
 — 31, 65, 211, 216 first n., 229 et 
 seq. , 236 et passim 
 
 Children, their absurd treatment, 
 141 
 
 Chilip [Yuc], a farm, 166 
 Chilon [Chis.], Atrocities at, 203 
 Chilpancingo [Gro.], 261, 345, 369 
 Chim (Marcelino), the cow-herd, 181 
 Chinese in Torreon, their plight, 
 xi, 306 
 
 — in Quintana Roo, their plight, 
 6n. 
 
 Cholula [Pueb.], 130 
 
 Chousel, secretary to P. Diaz, 82 
 
 Church in Mexico, its disgrace, 50 n. 
 
 its power, 70 et seq. 
 
 283, 284, 322, 331 
 
 — in Yucatan, its condition, 46 
 
448 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Cientificos, 80, 131, 171, 172, 216 
 and second n., 247, 289, 298, 299 
 
 'Cinco de Mayo,' 421 
 
 Cirerol (Manuel), the destroyer, 149, 
 150 
 
 Ciudad Juarez [Chi.], 235, 242, 
 
 248 n., 263, 266 et seq., 292 
 Ciudadela, 211 
 Classes in Mexico, 77 et seq. 
 Clough (A. H. ), quoted, 52 
 Coahuila, 216 first n., 222, 229, 
 
 236, 283 
 Coatepec [Ver.], 291 
 Cock-fighting, 49, 392, 393 
 Coignard (Abbe), quoted, 322 
 Coliraa, her police, 91 
 
 — and her governor, 277, 278 
 
 — 238 
 
 Comonfort (President), 70, 267 n. 
 Confession in Yucatan, 169 
 
 — Unheard, of Velasquez, 205 
 Congress, Mexican House of, 251 et 
 
 seq., 278 et seq., 354, 361, 362 
 Conkal [Yuc], 151 
 Constitution, Invoking of the, 119, 
 
 221 
 
 — long disregarded, x, xiii, 265 
 
 — at elections, 289 
 
 — being made, 354 
 Constitutional, 70, 79, 119 et seq., 
 
 215 
 
 Contradictions in Mexico, 201, 211 
 Convent life {see Puebla) 
 Coreans in Yucatan, 159 and n. 
 Coria (Manuel), the old gentleman, 
 275 
 
 Corona (General), 65, 244, 419 
 Corral (Ramon), his exertions, 138 
 et seq. 
 
 and the brothel, 140 
 
 his unpopularity, 215 et seq., 
 
 232, 271 
 his mode of life, 231 
 
 Corral (Ramon) and Diaz, 259, 
 260 
 
 Vanishing of, 276 
 
 Correo Espanol, El, quoted, 142 
 Correspondant, Le, quoted, 71 n. 
 Cortes, how considered, 349 n. 
 Cosio (General), 32, 248, 250 
 Cota (Claudimiro), 421 
 
 — (Colonel), 421 
 Covarrubias (Miguel), 337 n. 
 
 — the poet, 337 and n., 340 
 Cowdray (Lord) and the Pope's 
 
 advice, 84 n. 
 
 — his reputation, 236, 237 
 
 — his firm, 237 n. 
 
 — his hope, 255 
 
 — and Acayucan, 285, 286 
 
 — and the slaughtered Indians, 286 
 
 — his colossal concessions, 300 n. , 
 301 n. 
 
 — and Madero, 301 n. 
 
 — and his convictions, 302 
 Cravioto, 425 
 
 Creelman (James), of U.S.A., 10, 
 22, 69, 71 et seq., 81, 110, 111, 
 130, 223 
 
 Croatia's Banus, Analogy of, 295 n. 
 Croix (Viceroy Carlos Francisco de), 
 4 n. 
 
 Cromwell, quoted, 150 
 Cuauhtemoc, 216, 218 
 Cuautla [Mor.], Looting at, 306 
 Cubans, their corruption, 209, 
 297 n. 
 
 — their alleged vileness, 233 first n. 
 
 — man of war, 323 n. 
 
 Cuellar (Colonel Samuel Garcia), 215 
 Cuernavaca [Mor.], 29, 107, 234 n., 
 
 261, 273 et seq. 
 Cuitiin the Maya, 24 
 Cunninghame Graham, quoted, 
 
 xi n. 
 
 Curiel (General), 52, 112 
 
INDEX 
 
 449 
 
 Current Literature, quoted, x, 42 
 Cusi (Dante), the Italian, 136 
 
 D 
 
 Daily Graphic, quoted, 287 
 Daily Mail and The Times, 264 
 their special correspondent, 
 
 265, 290 
 
 their master-stroke, 289 
 
 Daily News, quoted, 301 n. 
 Danish peasants and their priests, 
 
 46 n. 
 
 Dante, Surmise as to, 37 
 Dario (Ruben), of Nicaragua, 363 
 and n. 
 
 Darling (Mr. Justice), his method, 
 xiii, 22 
 
 some of his critics, 36 
 
 second n. , 37 n. 
 
 — and the bottle, 36 second n. 
 
 his jokes, 36 second n., 
 
 37 n. 
 
 Chances of removal of, 
 
 37 
 
 his appearance, 39 n. 
 
 De Charency (Gomte H. ), 442 
 
 De la Barra. (Francisco), 42 n., 
 
 205 n., 250, 276, 301 n. , 303, 304, 
 
 313 et seq., 322 
 De la Cadena (General), 420 
 De la Torre, the profligate, 150 
 De Lamadrid (Enrique O ), 278 
 De Villiers, 276 
 Debts of the Indians, 148, 153 
 Decorations, 8, 108, 342, 407 
 Dehesa (Teodoro), 117, 190, 220, 
 
 238, 250, 251 
 Del Pozo (Augustin), his statement, 
 
 297 n. 
 
 Del Rio, Widow of, 138 
 Democracy in Mexico, 73 et seq., 
 223, 257, 270 n., 281 
 2 G 
 
 Deputies, Burning of House of, 100 
 
 — and suplentes, 309 
 Deputy, The dead, 124 
 Diario, El, its art editor, 12, 13 
 Diario OJicial, its bombast, 29 
 Diario Yucateco, El. its circulation, 
 
 22 
 
 and the evil spirit, 23 et.seq. 
 
 its acquaintance with 
 
 prison, 25 
 warning and exulta- 
 tion, 38, 38 n. 
 
 beloved editor, 53 
 
 ' absurdities, 191 
 
 Diaz (Bernal), 233 second n. 
 
 — (Carmen R. de), 266, 286, 324 
 
 — ('Chato'), 133 
 
 — (General Felix), 133, 218 and n., 
 293 n., 313 et seq. 
 
 — (President Porfirio), generally, 
 ix et seq. 
 
 and Bravo, 4 n. 
 
 his favouritism, 7 
 
 and Creelman, 10, 71 et seq. 
 
 rebukes Yaquis, 10 
 
 'Czar of Mexico,' 12 
 
 and Mata, 16 
 
 his system, 19 n. 
 
 and O. Molina, 24 
 
 on telegraphing, 35 n. 
 
 and The Times, 42 
 
 his prestige, 43 
 
 considered by Lerdo de 
 
 Tejada, 56 et seq. 
 
 and Justice, 56 n., 101 
 
 Oaxaca, 58 et seq. , 229 
 
 his tears at station, 58 
 
 at Icamole, 60 
 
 233 first n. 
 
 head and ears, 60 
 
 promises, 66 
 
 and re-election, 66, lAetseq. 
 
 foreigners, 66, 75 
 
450 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Diaz (President Porfirio), and the 
 
 Church, 70 et seq. 
 
 democracy, 73 et seq. 
 
 on the different classes, 77 
 
 et seq., 130 
 compared with King of 
 
 Montenegro, 80 n. 
 and the cientificos, 80, 
 
 131 
 
 as hacendado, 88 
 
 and the archives, 100 
 
 an election, 110 et seq. 
 
 governors, 115 et seq. 
 
 Dehesa, 190 
 
 how imagined, 199 
 
 and Paz, 211 
 
 the revolution, 214 et 
 
 seq. 
 
 Madero, 221, 222, 322 
 
 et seq. 
 
 his ' friends,' 233, 258 
 
 et seq., 272 
 
 Corral, 231, 232 
 
 the troops, 245, 262 
 
 merchant, 260 
 
 his resignation, 264 et seq. 
 
 and Figueroa, 271 
 
 his letter to the Chamber, 
 
 280 
 
 his flight, 285 et seq. 
 
 and Huerta, 287 et seq. 
 
 his deafness, 361 
 
 principles, 381 
 
 career, 405 et seq. 
 
 and Woolrich, 431, 432 
 
 — (Porfirito), 241, 416 
 
 — (Primitivo), 25, 94 et seq. 
 
 — Dufoo, 128 n. 
 Diccionario de Aztequismos, 443 
 Dictamen El, on Yucatan, 190, 192 
 Dolores [Gto.j, 346 and n., 349 
 'Dos de Abril,' Discussion of vic- 
 tory of, 63, 64 
 
 Douglas, U.S.A., 262 
 Drame Mexicain, Le, 241 
 Durango, 239, 261, 268 n. 
 Dynamite, Importation of, 171, 172 
 Dyott (G-. M.), the aviator, 18 n., 
 19 n. 
 
 Dzil (Desiderio), shopkeeper and 
 
 judge, 186 
 Dzitas [Yuc], 20 
 
 E 
 
 Eagle Oil Co. {see Aguila Oil Co.) 
 Ebnakan [Yuc], 38 
 Education, 209, 281, 282, 353 
 
 — at one's peril, 157, 158 
 El Faro, 88, 89 
 
 El Paso [Chi.], 34 
 Elagabalus, his days, 382, 383 
 Elizaga ('Chato'), his attempt, 
 102 
 
 Elizalde (Pedro), his enterprise, 
 
 27 n., 28 n. 
 Emerson, quoted, 276 
 Emigration from Mexico, 239 
 Enganchados, Hiring of, 87 et seq. 
 
 — Life of, 87 et seq. 
 
 — Death of, 333, 334 
 Ensenada [B.C.], 247 n. 
 Epatlan, Action of, 60 
 Escalante (Eusebio), 49 
 Escamilla (Juan), the hunter, 197, 
 
 198 
 
 — (Transito), the hunter, 197, 
 198 
 
 Escoffie, his printing house, 174 
 Espita [Yuc], 20 
 
 Esquivel (Asuncion), why flogged, 
 185 
 
 — (Mauricia) and the threat, 167 
 Evidence, Value of author's, xii, 
 
 6 et seq. 
 Exaggeration, Courteous, 17 
 
INDEX 
 
 451 
 
 F 
 
 Fernandez, senile Minister of Jus- 
 tice, 92, 93 
 
 Fernandez Boo (Benigno),the sailor, 
 26, 27 
 
 (Manuel), the convict, 25, 26 
 
 Ferraez (Ricardo), the administra- 
 tor, 196, 197 
 Figaro, Le, 229 
 
 Figueroa (Ambrosio), 261, 262, 271, 
 272 
 
 Flandrau (Charles), his humorous 
 
 book, 9, 13, 128 n. 
 Flogging, Orgy of, 26 
 
 — Governor on, 28 
 
 — for not having kissed, 155, 164 
 
 — at San Antonio, 174 
 
 — at Noh-nayum, etc., 180 etseq., 
 190 
 
 Flores (Damian), 261, 262 
 
 — Magon, 82, 224, 249 n. 
 Forced labour, 143, 155, 165 et 
 
 passim. 
 
 Foreigners in Mexico, 66, 75, 76, 
 102, 122, 299, 300, 319 and n., 
 391, 416, 417 
 
 Fornaro (Carlo de), 12, 13 
 
 ' Friends of General Diaz,' 233, 258 
 et seq., 272 
 
 Froissart, his methods, 306, 307 
 
 Fuero (General), 410 
 
 G 
 
 Gadow (Dr.), 371 n. 
 Galicia, Natives of, 95 
 Galvan (General), 67 
 Gamboa (Federico), 440 
 Garfield (James R.), quoted, 41 
 Garibaldi (Giuseppe), 241, 268 
 Garvin (J. L.), on The Times, 264 
 Garza Bolardo (Leonardo), 24 et seq. 
 Gas-engine, Attempted sale of, 165 
 
 Genest (Saint), 34 n. 
 Gentlewoman, The, quoted, 37 n. 
 Geographia de lasLenguas de Mexico, 
 440 
 
 German Club, Ostracism at, 108 
 
 — Consul's daughters, 243, 407 
 
 — Minister, 314 n. 
 
 Gilbert (Sir William), Reference to, 
 267 n. 
 
 Gillow (Dr. Eulogio), the successful 
 
 Archbishop, 333 
 Gobernacion, Minister of, 6 n., 251 
 Godoy, his absurdity, 9, 10 
 Goetschel (Messrs.), 16 
 Gongora (Father), his merits, 8, 9 
 Gonzalez (Abraham), of Chihuahua, 
 
 299 
 
 — (Camilo), of the Telegraph, 34 
 and n. 
 
 — (Fernando), the governor, 288, 
 289 
 
 — (President Manuel), 73, 288, 
 289, 381, 382 
 
 — (Obregon), the thief, 202 
 Governor, Somnolence of a, 123 
 Governors, how chosen by Diaz, 
 
 115 et seq. 
 
 Grantham (Mr. Justice), 37 n. 
 
 Green (Michael) and the retribu- 
 tion, 183 
 
 Grey (Sir Edward, k.g.), 18 
 
 Guadalajara [Jal.], 225, 244, 277 
 
 Guanajuato [Gto.], the circus, 131 
 
 its thievish governor, 202 
 
 the prisoners, 202 
 
 263, 293, 349, 351 
 
 Guardia National, 113 
 
 Guatemala, place of refuge, 202 
 
 — (see Estrada Cabrera) 
 Guerra (J. M.)» praised, 164 
 Guerrero (the State), 261, 271 and 
 
 n., 348, 353 et seq., 359 et seq. 
 
 — (General), 349 
 
452 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Gutierrez (David), his deposition, 
 195 et seq. 
 
 — (Salvador), the prefect, 274, 
 275 
 
 — Najera (Manuel), 358 and n. 
 
 H 
 
 Hahn, late British Consul, 144, 
 145 
 
 Havana, 36, 144 
 
 Henequen, how price affects 
 labourers, 152 
 
 — Payment for cutting, 185, 
 186 
 
 Hernandes (Dr. Fortunato) on 
 
 the Indians, 142 
 Hernandez (Colonel), director of 
 
 prison, 28 n. 
 
 — (Dr. Francisco), 3 
 
 — (Gabriel), 324 
 
 — (Ignacio), 173, 174 
 
 — (Rafael), 293 
 
 Herrera (Buenaventura), the de- 
 nouncer, 174 
 
 — (Carlos), the jefe, 422, 423 
 
 — (Felipe), the agent, 196 
 Hidalgo (the State), 425 
 
 — the patriot, 132, 210, 211, 214, 
 215, 218, 227, 259, 263, 346 n., 
 348 et seq. 
 
 Historia de los Indios, 162 
 Honduras, Clothing of delegates 
 from, 219 
 
 — British, its neighbour, 4 n. 
 
 its natives, 19, 163, 164 
 
 Honour, Legion of, 108 
 
 — Aristegui's, 28 
 
 Hospital at Cueinavaca, 234 n. 
 Hospitality, Unavoidable requital 
 
 of, 193, 194 
 Huajuapam [Oax.], 233 first n. 
 Huamantla [Tlax.], opp. 285 
 
 Huerta (Pro v. President Victori- 
 ano), 218 n., 285, 287 et seq., 313 
 
 et seq. 
 Huichols, 134 
 Humboldt quoted, 273 n. 
 
 I 
 
 Icamole [Oax.], 60, 410 
 Iglesias (President de jure Jose), 
 63, 411 
 
 Ignorance of Mexico, 199, 200 
 Iguala [Gro.], 262, 359, 368, 369 
 Impartial, El, 105, 128 n., 217, 
 
 233, 240, 241, 255, 256, 279, 
 
 282, 283 
 In Exile, 56 
 
 In Southern Mexico, 371 n. 
 Inde [Dgo.], 417 
 
 Independence, Destruction of Act 
 of, 100 
 
 — Impending loss of, 317 et seq. 
 Indians (see also Slaves) 
 
 — Social ambitions of, 130 
 -- the nobles, 130, 146 
 
 — their trousers, 132 
 
 — Docility of, 132 et seq. 
 
 — Morality of, in Yucatan, 133 
 
 — investigated by Men end ez, 146 
 
 — their conservatism, 290, 311 
 
 — and Madero, 321 
 
 — Poet of the, 353 et seq. 
 Indigo ponds, Exploitation of, 165 
 International Harvester Co., 170, 
 
 171 
 
 Irabien (Manuel de), xi, xii, 182 
 Irapuato [Gto.], 207, 386 
 Irrigation, 396 
 Ituarte, 425 
 
 Iturbide, the Emperor, 214 
 Izabal of Sonora, 139, 246 and n. 
 Izamal [Yuc], 49, 160 
 Iztaccihuatl, 365 
 
INDEX 
 
 453 
 
 J 
 
 Jalapa [Ver.], 57 n., 98, 99, 
 363 
 
 Jalisco, 58, 133, 222 
 
 — [Chis.], 206 
 
 Jamaica, Labourers from, 144, 
 145 
 
 Japan, Consular courts in, 102 
 Japanese and the Coreans, 159 n. 
 
 — and a treaty, 247 
 
 Jaxon (Honore J.), the firebrand, 
 249 n. 
 
 Jefe politico, An upright, 90 
 
 A venal, 93, 150, 160 
 
 his amazement, 134 
 
 A good, 193, 194 
 
 and the minors, 194, 195 
 
 Jiminez y Muro (Dolores), the 
 
 assaulted authoress, 15 n. 
 Jockey Club, 140, 218 
 Journalists in Mexico, passim 
 Juarez (President Benito), 7, 14, 56 
 
 et seq., 211, 233 n., 241, 254, 
 
 258, 294, 331, 405, 409 
 
 — (Benito), the son, 293 n. 
 Juchitan [Oax.], 133, 431, 432 
 Justice in Nicaragua, 37 n. 
 
 — Diaz uncertain as to, 56 
 
 — Porfirian, Precautions against, 
 101 
 
 Foreigners protest against, 
 
 102 
 
 — and Burgos, 151, 152 
 
 — her minister, 377 
 Juvenal, A modern, 37 n. 
 
 K 
 
 Kankanba [Yuc], where Mayas 
 
 were tamed, 168 
 Kansas City, Mexico and Orient 
 
 Railway, 84 n. 
 
 L 
 
 Lacroix (Benito), inspector of 
 monuments, 104 
 
 Laguna [Camp.], 145 
 
 Land problem, 249 n., 270, 287, 
 303 n., 313, 318 n. 
 
 Landa y Escandon (Guillermo de), 
 8 first n., 115 n., 219, 259, 301 n. 
 
 Laredo, Texas, 224, 420 
 
 Lassalle, Resemblance to, 343, 344 
 
 Latin America : its Rise and Pro- 
 gress, 216 second n. 
 
 Latouche (Francis), 329 n. 
 
 Law Reports quoted, 40 
 
 Leon (Jose Fernandez de), pro- 
 fessor, 209, 210 
 
 Lerdo de Tejada (Miguel), 57 
 
 (Sebastian), 56 et seq., 241, 
 
 254, 411 
 
 Lima de Vulcano, La, quoted, 212, 
 391 
 
 Limantour (Jose Yves), Mrs. 
 
 Tweedie and his teeth, 8 first n. 
 
 in Paris, 43 
 
 as to his father, 130 
 
 the financier, 137, 138, 
 
 217 
 
 and the revolution, 229, 
 
 230 first n., 231, 248 et seq., 259 
 etseq., 270, 280, 281,291,301 n. 
 
 — (Julio), 138 
 
 Limon, former secretary of Diaz, 
 423 
 
 Linares [N.L.], 305 
 Lorenzano (Bishop), 441 
 Lotteries, 177, 282, 298, 321, 378 
 et seq. 
 
 Loubat (Due de) and Batres, 106 
 Louis XI, quoted by Lerdo, 59 
 Low (Maurice), 245 n. 
 Lower California, 240, 241, 247 n., 
 
 255, 269, 298 
 
 — class, The, 77 et seq. 
 
454 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Lozada, Tiger of Alica, 67, 68 
 Lozano, the deputy, 253 
 Lujan (Manuel), 301 n. 
 Lumholtz (Carl), 9, 13, 206 
 Luque (General), 235 and n., 242 
 
 M 
 
 Maas (General), in the suburb, 100 
 Macaulay, quoted, 316 
 MacDonald (F. A.), of British 
 
 dominion, 163, 164 
 MacDonall, the critic, 343 
 Macedo (Miguel), 217, 218 
 
 — (Pablo), 217, 218, 299 
 Madero (Ernesto), the Minister, 293 
 
 — (President Francisco) and Mrs. 
 Tweedie, 8 and n. 
 
 his propaganda, 23, 220, 
 
 238, 239 
 
 and the States, 103, 135 
 
 and the women, 166 
 
 Voting for, 215, 216 first n. 
 
 Enthusiasm for, 218 
 
 personal habits, 220 
 
 his escape, 224 
 
 his plans, 227, 228 
 
 proclaimed Provisional 
 
 President, 235 
 
 and volunteers, 240 
 
 and the resignation of 
 
 Diaz, 264 et seq. 
 
 and the Church, 284 
 
 and his Ministers, 292 
 
 et seq. 
 
 and concessions, 300 n., 
 
 301 n. 
 
 and Lord Cowdray, 301 n. 
 
 his prestige, 303 
 
 and Reyes, 304 
 
 and the Catholics, 305 
 
 his murder, 315 
 
 and freedom, 316 
 
 Madero (President Francisco) 
 summed up, 321 et seq. 
 
 — (Gustavo), 315 
 
 — (Raoul), 268 n. 
 Magdalena Bay [B.C.], 247 n. 
 Malpaso [Chi.], 231 
 Mancera (Gabriel), 380, 381 
 Manterola, the postmaster, 36 first 
 
 n. 
 
 Manzanilla (Camilo), notary pub- 
 lic, 184 
 
 Marcus Aurelius, quoted, 3 
 
 Marihuana, 15 n. 
 
 Mariscal, Foreign Minister, 58, 96 
 
 Marquez (General Leonardo), 64, 
 337 n. 
 
 Martin (Percy F.), his ignorance, 
 
 11 n., 12 n. 
 Martinez (General Ignacio), his 
 
 death, 7, 420 
 
 — (General Mucio), 226, 242 et 
 seq., 424 
 
 — the Under-Secretary of War, 
 422, 423 
 
 Mata (Filomeno), the old writer, 
 
 16 and n. 
 Mateos (Manuel), the improvisor, 
 
 354 
 
 Maudslay (A. P.), 9, 14, 108, 109 
 Maximilian, 14, 214, 319 n., 349, 
 431 
 
 Maya {see also ' Slaves ' and 
 1 Indians ') 
 
 — how treated by Bravo, 4 n. et 
 seq. 
 
 — language, 162 
 
 — servility, 182 
 Mazatlan [Sin.], 266 
 Melero y Pina, 263 
 
 Mejia (General), his granddaughter, 
 271 
 
 Mena (F. Gonzalez), Jalapa's law- 
 yer, 98 
 
INDEX 
 
 455 
 
 Mendicuti (Isidro), the leper, 157, 
 158 
 
 Mendoza, the priest, 49 
 
 Men^ndez (Carlos R.), his investi- 
 gations, 146 
 
 Meredith's hope, 37 n. 
 
 Merida, 18 n., 19 n., 44 et passim 
 
 Mescal, what it is, 88 n. 
 
 Mexican Herald, The, its pro- 
 Diaz protests, 90, 91 
 
 quoted, 108, 135, 247 n., 
 
 299 n., 300 n. 
 
 Letter to, 193 
 
 considered, 227, 228, 276 
 
 Mexico, her reputation, 222 
 
 progress, 281, 282 
 
 debt, 298 
 
 future, 317 et seq. 
 
 Mexico, by Ward, 319 n. 
 
 Mezquita, the rich man, 49 
 
 Miahuatlan [Oax.], 409 
 
 Michoacan, her senile governor, 
 221 
 
 Milne (Mr.), 314 n. 
 
 Middle class, The, 77 et seq., 130 
 
 Mir (Father) and the candles, 47 
 
 Bombardment of, 48 
 
 Miramon, 84 
 
 Mitla [Oax.], 105, 106, 147 
 Mobile, 35 
 Moliere, quoted, 306 
 Molina (Audomaro), 167, 172 et 
 seq., 185 et seq. 
 
 — (Dr. Augusto) and the saints, 
 168, 169 
 
 — (Dr. Ignacio), 167, 175, 176 
 
 — (Isabel), her statue, 166, 167 
 
 — (Jose Trinidad), 169, 178 et seq. 
 
 — (Juan), the lawyer, 155 
 
 — (Luis Demetrio), the jefe, 31, 
 32, 168, 169 
 
 — (Olegario), 18 et seq., 51, 136, 
 166 et seq. 
 
 Molina (Ricardo), his ambitions, 22 
 
 his flight, 23, 53, 54 
 
 aunt, 30 
 
 cables, 38 
 
 gold, 38 
 
 sarcasm, 40 
 
 Mondragon (General), his activi- 
 ties, 248 n. 
 
 Monks, Spanish, and the natives, 
 165 
 
 Monroe Doctrine, 319 
 
 Monte Alban [Oax.], Buried antiqui- 
 ties on, 109 
 
 Montero, the old man, 32 
 
 Monterrey [N.L.], 221, 223, 293, 
 301, 302 
 
 Montes (Avelino;, 44, 45, 99, 170, 
 171 
 
 Mora the Archbishop, 69 
 Morelos, the State, 201, 293, 305 
 
 — the patriot, 348, 349 
 
 Moreno (Benigno Palma), the 
 hunter, 148, 149 
 
 — y Buenvecino (Jose M. ), 347 
 Morley (John), quoted, 282 
 Motolinia (Friar), quoted, 162 
 Motul [Yuc], 149, 169, 187 
 Moya (Luis), 239, 261 
 
 Muna [Yuc], 31, 152 
 Mundo, EL, Premature announce- 
 ment in, 205 
 Murder, Exact price of, 87 
 
 — in Sinaloa, Common cause of, 
 88 n. 
 
 Murderers, Orchestra of, 23 
 Museum, Berlin, Advantage of, 107 
 
 N ~ 
 
 Names, how given to Indians, 134, 
 176 n. 
 
 Napoleon and Lord Cowdray, 286 
 Nation, The, quoted, 37 n. 
 
456 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Navarro (General), 231, 234, 242, 
 
 248 n., 267 and n. 
 Navy of Mexico, 336 
 Negrete, Tiger of S. Julia, 236 
 Neri, La, 261, 271 
 New Trails in Mexico, 13 
 New York Evening Post, quoted, 
 
 281 
 
 New York Times, quoted, 11, 42 
 New Zealand, Analogy of, 303 n. 
 Nicholas of Montenegro, 80 n. 
 Nicholson (Mr.), of The Times, 
 40 
 
 Noecker, the German girl, 407 
 Noh-nayura, home of Tec, 181 
 Noriega (Inigo), the briber, 101 
 NuevaEra, 300 n., 301 n. 
 Nuevo Leon, 223, 387 
 Nuttall (Mrs. Zelia), 105 et seq. 
 
 0 
 
 Oaxaca, 58, 59, 93, 94, 132, 293 n., 
 
 406 et passim 
 Obregon (Esquivel), 263 
 O'Connor (T. P.), 237, 286 
 Ojinaga [Chi.], 242 
 Okop, Lake of, 5 n. 
 Old Taylor Co., 373 n. 
 Olea (Hipolito), the barrister, 204 
 Opposition, Amazement at, 80, 
 
 81 
 
 — Fate of leaders of, 80 n., 
 283 
 
 Opulence in Mexico, 129 
 Ordonez (Emilio), 11 n., 424 n. 
 Orizaba [Ver.], 10, 193, 194, 228, 
 
 296, 302, 421 et seq. 
 Orozco (Pascual), 230 et seq., 240, 
 
 242, 268 n., 276, 297 n. 
 
 — y Berra (Manuel), 440 
 Ortiz, the eminent priest, 49 
 
 P 
 
 Pachuca [Hgo.], 27 n., 28 n., 226, 
 
 266, 274, 372 n. 
 Pais, El, quoted, 6 n., 27 n., 203, 
 
 211, 243 n. 
 
 its power, 15, 16 
 
 its editor, 56 n. 
 
 temporarily suppressed, 191, 
 
 192 
 
 The censor and, 230 
 
 Attitude of, 284 
 
 Paladin, El, its suppression, 15, 
 16 
 
 Palenque [Chis.], 104 
 Palo Blanco [Oax.], Proclamation 
 at, 66 
 
 Palomeque (Dr.), 20, 45, 183, 184 
 Pankhurst (Eduardo), 423 
 Panza (Sancho), recalled, 125, 188 
 Paper, its price, 240 n., 241 n. 
 Parral [Chili.], 268 n. 
 Patria, La, 69 
 
 Patzcuaro [Mich.], Lake of, 132 
 Pauncefote (Lord) and Romero, 60 
 Pausanias, Letter of, 63 
 Paz (Ireneo), ex-friend of Diaz, 69, 
 211 
 
 Pearson and Son, Ltd., 285, 286 
 Pech (Anastacio), why flogged, 184, 
 185 
 
 — (Loreto), 185 
 
 — (Maria Jesus), the grandmother, 
 187, 188 
 
 — (Pedro), chained up, 186 
 Pelote, 393, 394 
 Peninsular, El, 172 
 Penitenciary in Yucatan, 19 n., 23 
 
 et seq. 
 Peon (Alvaro), 164 
 
 — (Augusto) and the balls, 32 
 and the human heart, 189 
 
 et seq. 
 
INDEX 
 
 457 
 
 Peon (Carlos), 184 
 
 — (Ignacio), 143 et seq. 
 
 — (Joaquin), champion of Yucatan, 
 11, 12 
 
 — (Rafael), his Indians, 28 n. 
 Perez (Carmen), the farmer, 152 
 Perez Ponce (Tomas), the lawyer, 
 
 172 et seq., 184 et seq., 195 
 Peru and her lotteries, 379 n. 
 Peto [Yuc], 6 n. 
 
 Petroleum World, The, and the 
 
 Pope, 84 n. 
 Peza (Juan de Dios), 339, 340 
 Philip II. of Spain, 3 
 Phillimore (Mr. Justice), 36 secondn. 
 Phillips (Sir Claude), quoted, 37 
 Pineda (Rosendo), 289, 299 
 Pino, promoted, 235 
 Pino Suarez, 292, 314 
 Pinto, horrible disease, 271 and n. 
 Pita, the jefe, 93, 243 n. 
 Pixyah [Yuc], Indignant girl at, 47 
 Plancarte, Bishop of Cuernavaca, 
 
 107 
 
 Plongeon (Dr. le), his discoveries, 
 37, 38 
 
 Police, Dullness of Mexican, 97 
 
 — Great improvement in, 97, 98 
 Pollard (Hugh), quoted, 287 
 Poot (Justo), 28 n. 
 
 — (Matilde), and her husbands, 
 189, 190 
 
 Popocatepetl, 365 
 Post Office and the public, 200, 201 
 Praise, Reward for, 21 
 Presbyterian, The, and Molina, 169 
 Priests in Yucatan, 7 et seq., 162 
 
 — and the Press, 15 
 
 Prieto (Guillermo), the poet, 348 
 et seq. 
 
 Progreso [Yuc], 18 n., 19 n., 35, 
 
 52 et passim 
 Progress in thirty years, 124 et seq. 
 
 Protesta de Yucatan, 295 n. 
 Protestants, Corean, 159 n. 
 Puebla [Pueb.], its jefe, 93, 238 
 
 — Voting in, 120, 121 
 
 — Convent life in, 141 
 
 — 226, 238, 266, 272, 297 n. 
 Puga y Sosa (Galbino), notary 
 
 public, 184 
 Puig (Antonio), his marriage, 48 
 Pulque, 84 n., 117, 146, 243 n., 259 
 Punch, quoted, 36 second n. 
 
 Q 
 
 Queretaro [Qro.], 70, 238, 293, 356 
 Quintana Roo, the territory, xii, 
 4 et seq., 26, 149, 345 
 
 (Andres), 295 n., 345 et seq. 
 
 Quixote (Don), recalled, 125 
 
 R 
 
 Radovich, his Mexican fate, 80 n. 
 Railway affairs, 138 and n., 231, 
 260, 321 
 
 — and religion, 169 
 
 — in warfare, 245 
 
 Ramirez, his suicide, 190 et seq. 
 Ramos (Jose" Sanchez), the hacen- 
 
 dado, 88 
 Raumer (von), quoted, 46 n. 
 Real del Monte [Hgo.], 373 n. 
 Red Cross, Mexican, 234, 270, 271, 
 
 281 
 
 Redo (Diego), 115 n., 222 
 Re-election, 66, 74 et seq., 215, 218, 
 
 220, 251 etseq., 290 
 Regil (Luis de), 21 
 Reguera (Pedro), a chemist, 26 
 Reuter, his late correspondent, 109 
 Re vista de Comisario, 26 
 Bevista de Merida, La, 22, 174, 176 
 Reyes (General Bernardo), 4, 223, 
 
458 
 
 INDEX 
 
 224, 250, 265, 296 et seq., 303 et 
 
 seq. t 316 
 Ricoy (Senorita), her lover, 205 
 Rio Blanco [Ver.], 227, 422 
 Rio Grande [Chi., etc.], 313 
 Rio Papaloapam [Oax.], 331 
 Rios (Manuel), the clerk, 155, 189 
 
 et seq. 
 
 Riva Palacio, cultivated general, 
 346 
 
 Rivera ( Agustin), his criticism, 125, 
 126 
 
 — (Felipe), the shopkeeper, 178, 
 179, 186 
 
 Roads, 371 n. et seq. 
 
 Robelo (Cecilio A.), 443 
 
 Robinson -Wright (Mrs. Marie), her 
 optimism, 9 
 
 Robles (Pancha), the lady slave- 
 dealer, 87 et seq., 333 
 
 — her son, 89, 90 
 
 Romero (Matias), the economist, 
 58 et seq. 
 
 — Rubio and the judges, 101 
 Rosado, the lawyer, 286 
 Root (Elihu), 223, 296 
 Rousseau, quoted, 191 n. 
 
 Ruiz (Pablo), the major-domo, 30, 
 31 
 
 Rurales, 268, 323 n. 
 Russian Characteristics, 204 
 
 S 
 
 Sacnicte, its currency, 178, 179 
 Saint Bernard, quoted, 233 first n. 
 
 — Lawrence, 398 et seq. 
 
 — Vincent Ferrer, 377 
 
 Salazar de B. (Petrona), her letter, 
 
 176, 177 
 Salina Cruz [Oax.], 370 
 Salm-Salm (Princess), 62 n. 
 Saltillo [Coah.], 263, 341, 342, 345 
 
 San Antonio, Flogging at, 174 
 Texas, 245, 305 
 
 — Ignacio [Camp.], 144 
 
 — Isidro [Yuc], 151 
 
 — Juan [Yuc], 187 
 
 de los Lagos [Jal.], 388 
 
 de Ulua, 11 second n., 28 n., 
 
 29 n., 80, 285 et seq. 
 
 — Luis Potosl [S.L.P.], 62, 65, 66, 
 109, 222, 223, 323 n. 
 
 — Patricio [Camp.], 145 
 Sanchez (Fernando), his fate, 45 
 
 — the servant, 105 
 
 — Ancona (Juan), 300 n. 
 
 — Santos (Trinidad), 56 n., 284 
 
 — Solis, codex, 107 
 
 Santa- Anna (President), 84, 254 
 Santo Tomas, Teaching at College 
 
 of, 126 
 Sarabia, the failure, 287 
 Saville (Marshall), his monumental 
 
 books, 9, 13, 14 
 Scherer (Madame), her luggage, 
 
 128 n. 
 
 — (Messrs.) and the IOU's, 138 
 Schroder (Messrs. J. Henry & Co.), 
 
 38, 39 
 
 Scutari prison and S. Juan de Ulua, 
 80 n. 
 
 Secret-service men, 43 et seq., 415 
 Seler (Prof. ), the German, 104e£ seq. 
 Sierra (Justo), 341 
 Sinaloa, 84 n., 88 n., 222, 425 
 Slaves in Yucatan, 144 et seq., 153, 
 154, 161 
 
 — procured by Pancha Robles, 87 
 Smallpox, its treatment in Mexico 
 
 and Russia, 203, 204 
 
 Society of Workmen, 22 
 
 Soldaderas, 123, 234 
 
 Soldiers, how enrolled, their ineffi- 
 ciency in Yucatan, 21, 30 et seq. , 
 51 
 
INDEX 
 
 459 
 
 Soldiers, their pay, 261, 263 
 Solis (Andres), the inspector, 170 
 
 — (Judge), 26 
 Sonora, 231, 232 
 Sosa (Luisa), 48 
 
 Soso (Miguel Gonzalez), the farmer, 
 
 160, 161 
 Southey on Palenque, 104 
 Spain, Theatrical tribute to, 96 
 Spaniard, the grandee, 140 
 Spaniards in Yucatan, 27, 46, 47 
 
 — in Puebla, 266 
 
 — in Mexico, 319 
 Spectator ; The, quoted, 319 
 Spies in Merida, 44 
 Spindola (Reyes), 240, 241 
 Standard Oil Co., 265, 281, 301 n. 
 Stilwell (Arthur E.), 84 n. 
 Stringer (Mr.), 314 n. 
 
 Stronge (Mr. F. W.), 314 n. 
 Suarez (Rogelio), the son-in-law, 
 
 27, 171, 180 et seq. 
 Sufragio, El, 110 
 Surnames in Mexico, 176 n. 
 
 T 
 
 Tabasco, 50, 221, 260, 283, 361 
 Tacubaya [D.F.], 150, 337 n. 
 Taft (President) and intervention, 
 
 300 n., 318 
 Tamaulipas, 31, 291 
 Tamborrel (Colonel), the usurer, 
 
 266, 267 
 
 Tampico [Tam.], Nursemaid's lover 
 
 at, 164 n. 
 Tapachula [Chis.], 202 
 Tapia (General), 273, 296 
 Tarahumares, their religion, 46 
 Tec (Tomas), his flogging, 180, 
 
 181 
 
 Tecoac [Tlax.], 69 
 
 Tecoh [Yuc], its priest, 46, 48 
 
 Tehuantepec [Oax.], 285, 286, 427 
 et seq. 
 
 Tekax [Yuc], Decapitation near, 149 
 Telegraphing, Difficulties of, 14, 
 34, 35 
 
 — Diaz on, 35 n. 
 Telegraphs, Absence of, 145 
 
 — Officials of, 34 
 
 Teotihuacan, Pyramids of, 106, 
 222 n. 
 
 Tepechualco [Ver.], 285, 288 
 Tepic, 68, 132 
 Terence, quoted, 148 n. 
 Terra Nova (Duke of), 367 
 Terrazas (General Luis), the 
 millionaire, 136 
 
 — the son, 137 
 
 Terry's Mexico, quoted, 381 
 Tetzitz, Syringing at, 193 
 Texcoco [D.F.], 270 n., 365 
 Thucydides, quoted, 63 
 Ticul [Yuc], 44, 195 
 Tiempo, El, 108, 284 
 Tierra Blanca [Ver.], 356 
 Times, The, x, xiii, 17 n., 38 et seq., 
 216 first n., 236, 237 n. 
 
 — Omission from, 39 
 Tixcancal [Yuc], Procedure at, 168 
 Tixkokob [Yuc], 48, 174 
 
 Tixtla [Gro.], 353 
 Tizimin [Yuc], 47 et seq. 
 Tlaxcala, 130, 227, 228 
 Tolstoi and re-election, 254 
 Toluca [Mex.], 288, 354 
 Tonala [Chis.], 11 
 Toro (General), 64 
 Torreon [Coah.], xi, 171, 261, 306 
 Torres (General), 139, 245 and n. 
 
 — (Juan), the Mexican, 183 
 Tortolero (Padre), his punishment, 
 
 205 
 
 Tower (Sir Reginald, k.c.m.g.), 17, 
 18, 302 
 
460 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Tres Marias [Mor. and Tep.], 366 
 and n. 
 
 Truth, Mexican Government and 
 the, 5, 41, 313 et seq. 
 
 — as to Yaquis in Yucatan, 
 10 
 
 — and Mrs. Tweedie, 13 
 
 — Unpalatable, and The Times, 
 43 
 
 — Various sorts of, 407 
 Tuberculosis, Where to catch, 
 
 30 
 
 Turkish pedlars, 6 n. 
 
 — showman, 389, 390 
 
 — women, 235 n, 
 
 Turner, his Barbarous Mexico, 10 
 et seq. 
 
 Tuxtepec [Oax.], 16, 87 et seq., 211, 
 
 264, 329, 334 
 Tuyim (Francisco and Gertrudis), 
 
 174, 175 
 
 Tweedie (Mrs. Alec), her fierce 
 
 sarcasm, 7, 8 
 her approximation to the 
 
 truth, 13 
 and the water - sprite, 
 
 286 n. 
 
 discussed, 409 et seq. 
 
 Tzabcan [Yuc], home of Tuyims, 
 174 
 
 Tzintzuntzan [Mich.], 125 
 
 U 
 
 Universal, El, 172 
 Unknown Mexico, 13 
 Upper classes, The, 77 et seq. 
 Urquidi (Manuel), the engineer, 
 
 228 and n. 
 Uruapam [Mich.], Orgy at, 274, 
 
 275 
 
 Uxmal [Yuc], 104, 156 
 
 V 
 
 Valladolid [Yuc], 21, 48, 92, 235 n. 
 Valle Nacional [Oax.], 147, 194, 
 
 334 
 
 Valles [S.L.P.], 415 
 Vanity Fair, quoted, 36 second n. 
 Varela, the entertaining priest, 49 
 Vazquez Gomez (Emilio), 291, 292 
 (Dr. Francisco), 231, 232, 
 
 250, 251, 263, 277, 291, 292, 318 
 Vega (Dr.), his patience, 30 
 Velasquez, his unheard confession, 
 
 205 
 
 Vera Estanol (Jorge), 250, 251, 269, 
 293 
 
 Veracruz [Ver.], 65 et passim 
 Verdad, La, 156 
 
 Verde (Miguel) (see Michael Green) 
 Vidaurri execution, 57 
 Viljoen, the Boer, 242, 267, 272, 
 276 
 
 Villa (Pancho), his career, 268 
 and n. 
 
 Villamil (Joaquin Patron), the good 
 judge, 151 
 
 — of the police, 45 
 Villavicencio, the torturer, 204, 205, 
 
 aud n. 
 
 Virgen de Guadalupe, 287 n. 
 
 — de los Remedios, 287 n. 
 Viva Mexico, 13, 128 n. 
 Voting, 118, 120 et seq., 216, 270, 
 
 and n. 
 
 W 
 
 Wall Street, 301 n., 320, 321 
 Ward (H. G.), 319 n. 
 Ward Line, Methods of, 35, 36 
 White Cross, 271, 281 
 Whitewashing of Mexico, American, 
 
 8 n., 320 
 Willert (Arthur), 33 et seq., 40, 41 
 
INDEX 
 
 461 
 
 Wilson (Henry Lane), American 
 Ambassador, 246, 314 n., 319 et 
 seg. 
 
 Winter (Nevin 0.), his ridiculous 
 
 book, 216 second n. 
 Women, Segregation of high-class, 
 
 140, 141 
 Wood (General), of U.S.A., 297 
 
 X 
 
 Ximenes, 263 
 
 Xumpich, hacienda, 173 et seq., 
 
 184 et seg. 
 Xochicalco [Mor.], 372 
 
 Y 
 
 Yaquis, 10 and n., 12 and n., 125, 
 
 139, 156, 157 
 Yaxche [Yuc], 150, 189 et seq. 
 Year Book, Mexican, considered, 
 
 63, 64 
 
 Yokat [Yuc], 195 et seq. 
 
 Yucatan, Adventures of nursemaid 
 in, xi, xii 
 
 — the priests, 7 et seq. 
 
 — Flying in, 18 n., 19 n. 
 
 — Slaves of, 142 et seq. 
 
 — Morality of, 154 
 
 — Inaccuracies as to, 156 
 
 — and El Diet amen, 190 
 
 — her historic independence, 295 n. 
 Yucatan Nuevo, a forgotten journal, 
 
 25, 190 
 
 Z 
 
 Zacapoaztla Indians, 243 
 Zacatecas, 209, 211, 212, 239, 261, 
 
 319 n., 420 
 Zambos, The repulsive, 131 
 Zapata, the ex-groom, 305 and) n. , 
 
 314 
 
 Zaragoza (General), 273 
 Zayas Enriquez (Rafael), 295 n., 
 424 
 
 Zepeda (Enrique), 324 
 Zocalo, 279 
 
 Zimiga y Miranda, 76 and n. 
 
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