Part 1

Chapter 13,531 wordsPublic domain

Transcriber's Note:

Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.

BOOKS BY EDITH O'SHAUGHNESSY

A DIPLOMAT'S WIFE IN MEXICO. Illustrated. DIPLOMATIC DAYS. Illustrated.

HARPER & BROTHERS. NEW YORK [ESTABLISHED 1817]

DIPLOMATIC DAYS

BY EDITH O'SHAUGHNESSY [MRS. NELSON O'SHAUGHNESSY]

AUTHOR OF _A Diplomat's Wife in Mexico_

ILLUSTRATED

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON

CONTENTS

FOREWORD xi

First impressions of the tropics--Exotic neighbors on Page 1 shipboard--Havana--Picturesque Mayan stevedores--Vera Cruz--The journey up to Mexico City

First visit to the Embassy--Adjusting oneself to a height of Page 16 eight thousand feet in the tropics--Calle Humboldt--Mexican servants--Diplomatic dinners--Progress of Maderista forces

III

Mexico in full revolution--Diaz's resignation wrung from Page 32 him--Memories of the "King in Exile"--President de la Barra sworn in--Social happenings--Plan de San Luis Potosí

First reception at Chapultepec Castle--First bull-fight--A Page 47 typical Mexican earthquake--Madero's triumphal march through Mexico City--Three days of adoration

Dinner at the Japanese Legation--The real history of the Page 61 Japanese in Mexico--Dinner at the Embassy--Coronation services for England's king--The rainy season sets in

Speculations as to the wealth of "the Greatest Page 69 Mexican"--Fourth of July--Madero as evangelist--The German minister's first official dinner with the Maderos as the _clou_

VII

The old monastery of Tepozotlan--Lively times on the Page 84 Isthmus--The Covadonga murders--The Chapultepec reception--Sidelights on Mexican housekeeping--Monte de Piedad

VIII

Elim's fourth birthday party--Haggling over the prices of Page 93 old Mexican frames--Zapata looms up--First glimpse of General Huerta--Romantic mining history of Mexico

The Vírgen de los Remedios--General Bernardo Reyes--A Page 107 description of the famous ceremony of the "Grito de Dolores" at the palace

The uncertainty of Spanish adverbs--Planchette and the Page 120 destiny of the state--Madame Bonilla's watery garden-party--De la Barra's "moderation committee"--Madero's "reform platform"

Election of Madero--The strange similarity between a Mexican Page 127 election and a Mexican revolution--The penetrating cold in Mexican houses--Madame de la Barra's reception--The _Volador_

XII

Dia de Muertos--Indian booths--President de la Barra Page 141 relinquishes his high office--Dinner at the Foreign Office--Historic Mexican streets--Madero takes the oath

XIII

Uprising in Juchitan--Madero receives his first Page 153 delegation--The American arrest of Reyes--Chapultepec Park--Sidelights on Juchitan troubles--Zapata's Plan de Ayala

XIV

The feast of Guadalupe--Peace reigns on the Page 164 Isthmus--Earthquakes--Madero in a dream--The French colony ball--Studies in Mexican democracy--Christmas preparations

The first Christmas in Mexico City--Hearts sad and Page 179 gay--Piñatas--Statue to Christopher Columbus

XVI

Off for Tehuantepec--A journey through the jungles--The Page 184 blazing tropics--Through Chivela Pass in the lemon-colored dawn--Ravages of the revolution--A race of queens

XVII

Gathering clouds--"Tajada" the common disease of Page 198 republics--Reception at Chapultepec--Madero in optimistic mood--His views of Mexico's liabilities to America

XVIII

Washington warns Madero--Mobilization orders--A visit to the Page 206 Escuela Preparatoria--A race of old and young--The watchword of the early fathers

XIX

A tragic dance in the moonlight--Unveiling George Page 217 Washington's statue--The _Corps Diplomatique_ visits the Pyramids of San Juan Teotihuacan--Orozco in full revolt

Madero shows indications of nervous tension--Why one guest Page 226 of Mexico's President did not sit down--A novena with Madame Madero--Picture-writing on maguey--Picnic at El Desierto--San Fernando

XXI

Mexico's three civilizing, constructive processes--A typical Page 245 Mexican family group--Holy Week--"La Catedral" on a "canvas" of white flowers--Reply of the Mexican government

XXII

The home of President Madero's parents--Señor de la Barra Page 254 returns from Europe--Zapatistas move on Cuernavaca--Strange disappearances in Mexico--Oil--The President and the railways

XXIII

The "Apostle" begins to feel the need of armed forces--A Page 269 statesman "who is always revealing something to somebody"--Nursing the wounded at Red Cross headquarters

XXIV

One Indian's view of voting--Celebrating the King's birthday Page 279 at the British Legation--A single occasion when Mexican "pillars of society" appear--Reception at Don Pedro Lascurain's

XXV

Orozco and his troops flee toward the American border--A Page 295 typical conversation with President Madero--Huerta's brilliant campaign in the north--The French fêtes--San Joaquin

XXVI

Balls at the German Legation and at Madame Page 310 Simon's--Necaxa--A strange, gorge-like world of heat and light--Mexican time-tables--The French trail

XXVII

A luncheon for Gustavo Madero--Celebrating the _Grito_ at Page 316 the Palace--The President's brother explains his philosophy--Hacienda of San Cristobal--A typical Mexican Sunday dinner

XXVIII

Good-by to Mexico, and a special farewell to Madame Page 333 Madero--Vera Cruz--Mexico in perspective

ILLUSTRATIONS

HILLSIDE HOUSES AND CHURCH TOWERS IN THE Frontispiece ZAPATISTA COUNTRY

THE REVOLUTIONARY CAMP, MAY 5, 1911 Facing p. 10 (In front, Francisco I. Madero, behind him, José Marcia Suarez. Next him, Gustavo Madero. At left front, Abram Gonsalez. All are dead)

FRANCISCO I. MADERO " 24 (From a photograph taken in 1911)

MADERO AND OROZCO IN 1911--MADERO AT THE " 34 LEFT

MEXICAN WOMEN SELLING TORTILLAS " 42

NELSON O'SHAUGHNESSY " 46 (Secretary of the American Embassy, 1911-1912)

PAUL LEFAIVRE " 46 (French Minister to Mexico, 1911)

FRANCISCO LEON DE LA BARRA " 46 (President _ad interim_ of the Mexican Republic between Diaz and Madero)

A ROAD-SIDE SHRINE " 56

VON HINTZE, GERMAN MINISTER TO MEXICO (1911 " 74 to 1914)

MEXICAN WOMEN WATER-CARRIERS " 88

A TYPICAL GROUP OF CORN-SELLERS " 108

ELIM O'SHAUGHNESSY, MEXICO, JUNE, 1911 " 134

MADAME LEFAIVRE, WIFE OF THE FRENCH MINISTER " 134 TO MEXICO, 1911

XOCHIMILCO " 154

BOATS ON THE VIGA CANAL " 200

AT EL DESIERTO, APRIL 29, 1912 (Mrs. O'Shaughnessy and Elim in the foreground) " 234

LUNCHEON AT THE VILLA DES ROSES " 234

(In front row, left to right, Mr. de " 234 Vilaine, Mlle. de Tréville, Ambassador Wilson, Madame Lefaivre, Mr. J. B. Potter, Mr. Rieloff (German Consul-general), Mrs. Nelson O'Shaughnessy, Von Hintze, Mr. Kilvert, Mr. Seger)

A BEAUTIFUL OLD MEXICAN CHURCH " 262

MEXICAN NUNS GOING TO MASS " 304

FOREWORD

The letters which form this volume were written in a period of delightful leisure, when I was receiving my first impressions of Mexico. The might and beauty of the great Spanish civilization, set in a frame of exceeding natural loveliness, kindled new enthusiasms, and to it all was added the spectacle of that most passionately personal of human games, Mexican politics.

Though I was standing on its threshold, I had little prescience of the national tragedy which later I was to enter into completely, beyond the feeling of mysterious possibilities of calamity in that rich, beautiful, and coveted land.

I saw as in a glass darkly dim forms whose outlines I could not distinguish, and I heard as from a distance the confused cries of a people about to undergo a supreme national crisis, where the greatest delicacy and reserve were necessary on the part of the neighboring nations.

Since then all has happened to Mexico that can happen to a land and permit of its still existing. Even as individuals bear, they know not how, the unbearable, so has Mexico endured.

It is not easy for those who witnessed her great years of prosperity and peace to be reconciled to the years of chaos which have followed, unable as they are to distinguish any good that has resulted to compensate for the misery undergone.

All theories have been crushed to atoms by the tragic avalanche of facts, and above it the voice of the prophet has been heard, "Let that which is to die, die; that which is to be lost, lose itself; and of them that remain, let them devour one another"--until the time comes for new things.

_EDITH COUES O'SHAUGHNESSY._

PARIS, September, 1917.

DIPLOMATIC DAYS

First impressions of the tropics--Exotic neighbors on shipboard--Havana--Picturesque Mayan stevedores--Vera Cruz--The journey up to Mexico City

Off the Florida Keys, On board the _Monterey, May 1, 1911_.

Precious mother: From the moment of arrival at the docks I began to have a suspicion of the tropics, which, however, with everything else, was in abeyance as we rounded Cape Hatteras. During that period an unhappy lot of passengers spent the hours more or less recumbent.

We left New York on a day beautiful and sunny overhead, but uncertain and white-capped underneath, and I don't want to repeat Cape Hatteras in any near future. However, sea evils are quickly forgotten, and I am "taking notice" again.

When we got down to the docks strange equatorial-looking boxes were being unloaded, and there were unfamiliar odors proceeding from crates of fruits, with spiky green things poking out, and something aromatic and suggestive about them. Unfamiliar people more highly colored and less clear-cut than I am accustomed to were gesticulating and running about and talking in Spanish, with quantities of strange-looking luggage, countless children, and a great deal of very light-yellow shoe.

It was twelve o'clock as we left. N. had our steamer chairs arranged, and we went down to lunch to the sound of the loudest gong that ever invited me to refresh. The _comedor_ (dining-room) had its menu printed in English and Spanish, and, of course, I lapped up the Spanish names with my lunch, which gave a charm and a relish to the otherwise uninteresting food. Table decorations in the shape of paper palms were rather disillusioning. The merest scrap of any growing exotic thing would have satisfied me, though N. said I was probably expecting to find the _comedor_ smothered in jasmine and mimosa, with orchids clinging to the walls. Well, perhaps I was. You know I am romantic.

I am now ensconced on deck. Low, yellow stretches in the distances are the "Keys," and I am beginning to feel a slow firing of the imagination as we slip into these soft, bright waters--into the Caribbean. Our old Lamartine quotation comes to mind, "_Ainsi toujours poussés vers de nouveaux rivages_," etc.

A Mérida family occupies the state-room nearest mine--five children, mother, father, and a beetling-browed Indian maid. I stumble over details of their luggage every time I go out of my cabin--a pea-green valise, a chair for one of the younger children, a large rocking-horse, a great, round, black-and-white cardboard box from some hat-shop in Fourteenth Street--they don't seem to mind what they carry.

Their parrot I had removed early in the game; none of them ever went near it to give it food or water, though they had gone to the immense bother of traveling with it. It was evidently pleased to be going back to where it had come from, and its liveliest times were between 4 and 6 A.M. and 2 and 4 P.M.

They have an awful little boy they shriek at, called Jenofonte (in toying with my dictionary I see it is Zenophon in English). He "hunts" with a quiet, bright-eyed little sister called Jesusita, whom I have several times found in my state-room investigating things. It seemed at first like having them all in with me. The state-rooms have only the thinnest partitions, with about a foot of nothing at the top for ventilation.

The steward tells me they get off at Progreso. "Papacito" is a wealthy henequen planter. "Mamacita" boarded the ship wearing huge diamond ear-rings and molded into the tightest checked tailor-suit you ever saw. This morning she is perfectly comfortable in a lace-trimmed, faded lavender wrapper--doubtless inspired by the warm air. I can see her in sack and petticoat on the plantation.

The boat is full of children, and how they squabble! The various parents come up and talk in loud, harsh voices, and gesticulate and scream what seem maledictions on one another, and one thinks there is going to be a terrible row, when suddenly everybody walks off with everybody else as pleasant as you please, and it is all over till the next time.

More or less sophisticated literature was sent me for the voyage by various well-wishers. To-day I have been reading _Les Dieux ont Soif_, but with a feeling that this is not a setting for Anatole France, and that I would do better to wait in spite of all the cleverness. He can't compete with this sea-preface to the Mexican book I am to read.

I have an exotic neighbor in the chair next mine who attracted me the first day out by her steamer rugs, which seemed to be white lace bedspreads with wadded linings, now not as fresh as they were before we all disappeared during the rounding of Cape Hatteras. I have only been wont to travel in directions where steamer rugs _are_ steamer rugs. I was further interested by the pillows embroidered with large pink-and-blue swallows and the word in Italian, _Tornero_, reminding me of the things one used to buy at Sorrento or Naples or in the Via Sistina.

A large, fierce-mustached, chinless man sits by her--husband, manager, protector, or devourer, I know not. She is an Argentine dancer going to do a "turn" in Havana, a good soul with a naturally honest look out of her sloe-black eyes and the most lovely lines from waist to feet; for the rest getting top-heavy. I imagine she is "letting herself go," as large boxes of chocolates and candied fruits are always by her side, which she presses on Elim every time he appears. He is sitting by me and says to tell you that he has you _zucker-lieb_.

He runs the deck from morning till night, and I think his little alabaster legs are taking on a brownish tinge. It is getting very warm, but there is always one side of the boat where a breeze is to be had. He has been divested of most of his clothing, and is wearing a little pale-blue linen suit, short above his sweet, white knees. He looks like the fairest lily among all these dark blossoms.

_Later._

Between six and seven o'clock the sea was a marvelous mauve and blue; myriads of little white-winged flying-fish were springing out of the water; over us was a green-and-orange sky in which a pale crescent moon was shining. Tell Elliott these wondrous seas seem to belong to him. My thoughts enfolded him tenderly as a soft darkness fell.

Early to-morrow morning, about 6.30, we get into Havana. The Jacksons cabled us before we left New York to lunch with them at the Legation.

The _Monterey_ has been taking strange, unrelated assortments of passengers to Mexico for decades, and her only resemblance to the big ocean liners is that she floats. The cabins have hard, narrow berths with a still harder shelf of a sofa, and when I add that a bit of cloth was tied round the stopper of my basin to prevent the water from running out, you will quite understand. I used half of my bottle of listerine on the stopper, and then removed the cloth, with the result that I have to be quick about my ablutions. But when one is running into a blue-and-mauve sea with a rainbow-colored sky above, it does not matter; one is bathed in a gorgeous iridescence. The captain tells me that on the last trip they ran into a hurricane, with the water suddenly slopping and washing about in the famous _comedor_, everybody wet and trying to stand on chairs and tables, screaming and saying prayers.

_May 3d._ Between Havana and Progreso.

Yesterday we had a pleasant day with the Jacksons. You know they are always handsomely established, and we found them in a very beautiful old Spanish house opposite an old church with a pink belfry, and a tall palm pressed against it--the sort of silhouette I had dreamed of and hoped for. My eyes received it gratefully as we drove up to the door.

Once in the house, dim, cool, large spaces enveloped us, and Mrs. Jackson, very dainty in the freshest and filmiest of white dresses, received us. We had not met since the old Berlin days. Mr. Jackson, also in immaculate white, was coming down the broad stone stairway from the chancery as we got there.

They showed us the interesting house, a type fast disappearing, alas! Mostly they are being turned into cigarette-factories or being torn down to make room for entirely unsuitable buildings, such as are in vogue in the temperate zone. Large suites of rooms are built between a wide outer veranda and a large inner corridor giving on a courtyard. During the season of rains, it appears, the water rushes down the broad stairway, and the furniture in the huge, window-paneless rooms is piled up in the middle. Nobody keeps books or engravings in Havana, on account of the dampness. There is not a first edition on the island. Even shoes and slippers left in the closets get a green mold in no time. Mr. Jackson says they have a lot of work at the Legation, and everything in Havana costs the eyes of the head.

An hour or so after lunch, with its "Auld Lang Syne" flavor spiced with our hot, tropical inquiries, we took a drive along the deserted Malecón, the entire population evidently at the business of the siesta. But Havana should always be seen, indescribably beautiful, from a ship entering the port in the pearly morn, as I saw it.

About four o'clock, when we were driving to the landing, the town began to wake up. There was much coming and going of a many-colored population, with the dark note dominating, and much whistling and humming, and many knowing-looking, pretty, flashing-eyed, very young girls were walking about. We had been refreshed with one of the national beverages--shredded pineapple in powdered ice--most delicious, before leaving the Legation. It helped us over the blaze of water to the _Monterey_.

After getting back I walked about the deck, watching the beautiful little harbor filled with all sorts and conditions of ships, hailing from the four winds of the earth. The _Kronprinzessin Cecilie_, with the new German minister to Mexico aboard, was just going out of the harbor, and I was shown where they were busy dredging for the _Maine_. A part of her historic form was to be seen and "gave to think."

About six o'clock fiery clouds began to pile themselves up in the heavens with a lavishness I am unaccustomed to. One could not tell where the sun was actually setting. The whole horizon was red and pink and saffron and vermilion, and the rose-tinted Cabaña fortress and Morro Castle cut sharply into it. The waters of the harbor slowly became a magnificent purple, and as the ships began to hang their masthead lights, and the throb of coming night was over everything, we steamed out. For long after we could see the jeweled lights of the lovely isle. So far, so good.

We have a day at Progreso, and we are planning to go ashore to visit Mérida, the famous old capital of Yucatan, and evidently most interesting. The accounts in Terry's Guide are quite alluring. It was founded on the remains of the ancient Mayan city, and has a celebrated cathedral built by one of the men who came over with Cortés, and still filled with good old things. The description of Montejo's house, with its door flanked on each side by the stone figure of a Spanish knight with his feet on the head of a Mayan Indian, shows what that conqueror thought of the situation.

Captain Smith, very rotund and quite blasé about the thrills of passengers, who has not been ashore at Mérida for three decades, though he passes by many times a year, recommended us to stay on the boat, saying Mérida was always "hotter than Tophet," too hot to see anything. "I know," he added. "I have seen 'them' go and seen 'them' return."

Some spectacled German travelers quite enlivened the deck to-day. When they first hove in sight I thought they were professors or scientific men of some sort, each having a large, flat valise under his arm. The valises, according to the modest yet piercing glance I cast, proved, however, to be filled with underpinnings for the female form divine, that they are going to introduce into Yucatan--coarse embroidery and lace-trimmed articles, with machine-stitching you could see the length of the deck, and both men simply dripped with samples. Dots, stripes, and checks, with the prices attached, seemed to be their whole existence.

Awhile ago, however, the largest and most florid one leaned against the railing under the warm starry sky, as we steamed through a phosphorescent sea, and sang Walther's "Preislied" in a beautiful tenor voice, with the purest, smoothest phrasing. The other, regretting at intervals that he had not brought his _geige_ with him, hummed a delightful second part to _Wie ist es möglich dann dass ich dich lassen kann_. It was all as natural as breathing, and as close.

_May 4th._ Between Progreso and Vera Cruz.

The voyage is drawing to an end. A peace which doesn't pass understanding has fallen on my part of the ship as the Mérida family and their rainbow luggage were taken off to the sound of the shrieks of the parrot, the screams of the family, and endless running back to get things.

We did not go ashore, after all, as we had planned. From the direction of Mérida came a strange heat enveloping like a garment, a heat unknown to me, and a dazzling glaze of light, which seemed to bore holes through the eyes. Later on at sunset, red as blood, there was a spongy crimson ambiency about each figure on deck.