Election of Madero—The strange similarity between a Mexican election and a Mexican revolution—The penetrating cold in Mexican houses—Madame de la Barra's reception—The Volador.

Sunday evening, October 1st.

This morning we started out in good season for a Sabbath run, shaking the election dust from our feet, or rather wheels, skimming out through the shining city, which yesterday afternoon had had what may be its last good bath till next June.

We went out the broad Tlalpan road, black with motors full of golfers, and when we got to a place called Tepepa began the magic ascent of the Ajusco hills between us and Cuernavaca, with a continual looking back. For at our feet was spread the lovely "vale of Anahuac," like some kingdom laid out in a great chart of emerald, turquoise, and jasper.

An unexpected rain-cloud was threatening from over the western hills, and across the valley columns of light and shade continually passed and repassed. Every dome and spire of the city shone, but the hill of Chapultepec was black, distinct, and solitary, only the castle a white point. At one moment we found ourselves hanging over the lovely lake of Xochimilco, with its green, lush, sweet-water shores, and the verdant band of the lake of Chalco showed itself separated from the barren white tequesquite shores of Lake Texcoco only by a narrow strip of roadway.

The two PeÑones and the hill of Guadalupe were sometimes dark and sometimes shining, and a far-off fringe of sapphire hills marked the valley's end. It was "Jerusalem the Golden," well worth sighing for.

At a place called Topilejo we found a church on a hillock by the side of the road, its large atrium up a row of grassy steps, entered by an old carved archway. Looking through it, we saw a strange sort of festival going on, having a decided Moorish touch.

What seemed to be kings were seated in a row of rush-bottomed stools. Gaudy crowns of gilded cardboard, or something stiff and glittering, crowned them, and about them were flung twisted capes, like the Arab burnoose, with the hood falling back. The play was proceeding con mucha calma except for a large Indian, evidently "stage manager," who was trying to bring about some sort of dÉnouement. Behind was the open church door. It was about twelve o'clock, and the last Mass had been said. A melancholy chanting proceeded from some Indians, their hands tied together, who stood in front of the "kings." It was all strange and unexpected on those heights.

The village on the other side of the road was in the sneezing and coughing throes of one of the bronchial epidemics so common in cold or damp weather in the hills. The children were scarcely covered; I can't bear to think of all the little brown backs and thighs in these cold waves. A dreadful, unrestrained-appearing person, in a battered hat and warm red zarape, looking as if he might have been the "father" of the village, towered above them all, everything about him bespeaking pulque. We decided that "song" was what he had given up.

Silent Indians, carboneros, inhabit these parts, and their fires could be seen high up on the wooded mountainsides. They were coming and going, bent, and almost hidden under great sacks of charcoal. We sped on till we got to a place called La Cima, the highest point, whence I wanted to make a dash for Cuernavaca, in spite of brigands, but the gentlemen and the chauffeur decided against it. Here was a huge stone cross, La Cruz del MarquÉs; solitary and moss-grown, it still stands, marking the boundary of lands once granted to CortÉs by the crown, where he passed on the venturesome march to Mexico City from Cuernavaca.

I indulged my passion for CortÉs by walking around the historic cross and picking an unfamiliar scarlet flower, while the men worried about Zapata and his brigand host, to whom these hills belong in 1911.

After some parleying we turned back. But beyond the hills lay the Hot Country, full to the south, its mysterious valleys filled with gorgeous blossoms, where vanilla, myrtle, jalap, cocoa, and smilax grow. Four hours down would have brought us into the fullness of its beauty, to lovely Cuernavaca, once the haunt of kings and emperors, where CortÉs pondered on the insecurity of princely favor and planned his expedition to the Mar del Sur.[16] Now it is the capital of Zapata, and shunned since a few months by anybody with anything on his person or anything negotiable in the shape of worldly station. A great bore. My sentiments were all for pressing on with the added thrill of danger.

The roads here, with the history of Spain cut into them, and Indian life flowing ceaselessly over them from sea to sea, from north to south, are inexpressibly appealing. They are like a string, holding the beads of Mexican life together, and what "a rosary of the road" the glories and sorrows of their history would make! I don't feel the literary call, however. My life is run in another mold. But I have undergone a violent and probably permanent impression of this race, this country—its past, its present, its uncertain future, and oh, its beauty!

October 3d.

You can't tell an election from a revolution here. It's all lively to a degree. I have now seen both.

Madero has been duly elected, and the streets rang all night to vivas for him. Groups were passing continually up and down the Paseo, spilling into Calle Humboldt. Many students were among them and Latin-American youth seemed at its noisiest. There were some decided expressions of other political opinions, voiced largely in the now accustomed sound of Pino-no-no-no, but the Madero tide will doubtless wash him into the vice-presidency. It's quite irresistible.

Madame de la B. was among my callers to-day, smiling and handsomely gowned in a new French dress. Of course, she gave no hint of what she thinks about the situation. She and her husband go abroad after Madero's inauguration, now set for November 20th. The President is finally to take the thanks of the Mexican government to the King of Italy for the special mission sent to represent him at the Centenario of 1910—which seems as remote as the landing of CortÉs.

There is no provision for heating in any of the houses here. They tell me that in December and January, if a norte is blowing at Vera Cruz, one is almost congealed in Mexico City.

Even now the late afternoons and evenings are cold, but there is a glorious warm sun every day till the afternoon rains begin, and all the Indians in the city, come out from quiÉn sabe where, are warming and drying themselves on curb and bench and against sunny walls all over town. I suppose it is the only moment of comfort they have. Often now, instead of rain, there is the most gorgeous banking of heavy, dark clouds, with hints of orange, red, and purple linings.

October 5th.

Just returned from Madame de la B.'s reception. She does the "first lady in the land" very well. The President came in later, to the sound of the national anthem. He is of infinite tact in these strange days. He was clad, as usual, in an immaculate gray frock-coat, and showed no trace of the Procrustean bed he sleeps in. All his Cabinet were there and the Corps Diplomatique, and several well-set-up competent brothers, who, doubtless, will get some sort of foreign post. After all, I am rather a believer in nepotism, not too exaggerated. But if one does not do for one's own, who will?

De la Barra has been a sort of suspension-bridge between Diaz and Madero, and that he and the republic are still "suspended" is testimony indeed. The disbanding of the famous Liberating Army, financially and morally, continues to be the great difficulty, as from it have sprung all these flowers of banditry whose roots lie too deep, apparently, for plucking.

I met, at the reception, Don Alberto GarcÍa Granados, an elderly man of long political experience, with a clever, perspicacious look, accentuated by deep lines above the prominent brows, showing that his eyes had often been raised in surprise or remonstrance. He is a great friend of De la Barra, and resembles statesmen I have met in other climes. He is now Minister of GobernaciÓn (Interior).[17]

I had a luncheon to-day for Mrs. Wilson and her sister, Mrs. Collins, who look very well together—handsome, slim-figured, small-footed, carefully dressed women. The table was really charming, with heaps of yellow chrysanthemums. The dining-room is sun-flooded, flower-vistaed whichever way you look, and its pale-yellow walls, and good old pieces of porcelain in handsome old cabinets, and fine old engravings on the wall, all picked up as occasion offered by the Seegers during their long Mexican years, take the light most charmingly.

Baroness Riedl, Madame Lie, Madame Chermont, and some American friends, Mrs. McLaren, Mrs. Kilvert, and Mrs. Harwood made up the guests. There are several menus that the cook produces very well, and Elena and Cecilia serve quietly and quickly, in neat black dresses, white aprons, cuffs, and collars.

Some vigilance is needed as to their collars. They loathe them in their souls, being of the casual, rebozo race, after all, and though they bow to this especial inevitable, I imagine it comes hard.

I don't often penetrate to the kitchen regions; I couldn't change anything if I wanted to, and I am not endowed with culinary talents. But I did see, as I passed through not long ago, fish being broiled on the beloved brasero, which the cook was fanning with the beloved turkey wing.

One can't change the washing processes, either. Some time ago Gabrielle noted holes appearing in all our new linen. I told her to investigate and let me know the result, which she did. I then ascended to the roof from which all creation, lovely Mexican creation, is stretched out to view, and the linen floats in the purest, bluest ether.

I found the two washerwomen sitting on their haunches, pounding and rubbing the linen between stones. I let them know I thought washboards were what the situation required, but no signs of enthusiasm were visible. They told me, with an air of complete finality, es el sol (it is the sun), when I pointed out various and obvious signs of damage.

Just sent off an Atlantic Monthly with a most interesting contribution, "Within the Pale," by a young Russian Jewess, Mary Antin. I haven't been seeing the Atlantic for some years and I am glad they keep their good old historic cover instead of allowing themselves to be seduced by art nouveau, with the usual dreadful consequences.

Elim is climbing all over me as I write. He has been promised a cat by the drug-store clerk, but, fortunately, there has been some hitch in the proceedings. You know my feelings toward the felines. Elim can fling the quiÉn sabes and the maÑanas with the best of them, and evidently takes in Spanish through the pores; he is very little or not at all with the Mexican servants.

He told me the other day that he could count better in Spanish than in English, and when I asked him to show me he did very well up to four, which he replaced by the word "pulque," getting quite argumentative. I thought it worth while to investigate the intricacies of the infant mind. I find four is simply the magic hour when the cook leans over the railing and sings out "pulque" to call the expectant concierge contingent upstairs, for its afternoon refreshment, as fixed as the laws that govern the hours.

Saturday noon.

Just home from the volador (thieves' market), with "goods" upon me. Toward the end of the week it gets increasingly aromatic, as it is only swept and garnished Saturday afternoon, and it is traditional and expedient for the foreigner to patronize it on the Sabbath rather than other days. But having been to "La Joya," a very nice and expensive antique-shop in the Avenida San Francisco, where I got a frame of dark wood with ivory inlay, just the size for my Ravell photograph of the Church at Guanajuato, also a love of a little tortoise-shell petaca (miniature valise) with silver clampings, I thought to strike an average in prices at the volador, where the sun was shining brilliantly on purely Indian commercial life.

The "commerce" consisted more than usual, it seemed to me, of the refuse of ages, collected under irregular rows of booths, canvas- or board-covered, or simply piled on spaces marked out on the uncomfortable, hot cobblestones. It all covers what once was the site of the new Palace of Montezuma, and is named volador after a sort of Aztec gymnastic game. For a long time it belonged to the heirs of CortÉs, from whom the city finally bought it, and it is close behind the Palacio.

As I entered the gate there was the usual collection of Indians of all sizes and colors, but with the same destinies. Many were passing by with their huacales (crates) filled with bananas and oranges and various green things, for near by is the great fruit-market of the city. Some women were selling long plaited strings of onions, and by the gate was standing a superior-looking individual with a stick twice as high as himself, on which were stuck white, pink, and blue toy birds.

Instead of abandoning hope as one goes through these portals, one finds oneself immensely expectant, one's eyes darting hither and thither in search of treasure, the eternal something for nothing!

Mexico is called the land of the sombrero (hat), but when I go to the volador I feel it should be called the land of the candlestick. There are so many candlesticks in every variety of shape and kind, and occasionally of great beauty.

ELIM O'SHAUGHNESSY, MEXICO, JUNE, 1911