We held a letter of introduction to Your Excellency explaining who we were and what we hoped to do, but on arrival in Mexico City we were dissuaded from presenting it and were referred to your Minister of Public Instruction.
We had much desire to see Your Excellency and present our respects in person, for in recent years there has been a growing interest taken by the English in Mexico owing to the publication of two books by an English lady, Mrs. Alec Tweedie, Mexico As I Saw It and Your Excellency's own biography, which books have made much stir. Being, however, strangers in a strange land, we yielded to advice and saw Señor Justo Sierra. He was courteous and gave us letters to Señor Olegario Molina, then Governor of Yucatan, to General Bravo, and passports satisfactory, but scarcely generous.
On landing in Yucatan we immediately presented the letter of Señor Sierra, together with a most courteous letter from ourselves, at the House of the Governor. Not only did Señor Molina do nothing for us; he had not even the courtesy to acknowledge the letters; a breach of manners for which there could be no excuse.
We regret to tell Your Excellency that during the subsequent months we spent in Yucatan we met with discourtesy, inhospitality and neglect from the officials such as would be impossible here in England if one of your people visited us. We went among the Yucatecans with no feelings but those of kindliness, and an enthusiastic interest in the attempt we were making to throw fresh light upon the problem of Mayan archæology. But for those foolish enough to take an interest in their country's past, Yucatecans, rich and poor, appear to have no feelings but that of a pitying contempt combined with an eager desire to share in "plucking" them.
The only kindness we received was from Spanish Cubans attached to the plantations, and Señores Aristegui and Augusto Peon, the latter apologising to us for the gross rudeness of Señor Molina, whom he declared to be an ill-bred parvenu.
We liked the Indians as much as we disliked the Yucatecans, and we deeply regret the terrible cruelties and massacres which we know have been and we fear still are being perpetrated in your name in Quintana Roo. The state of that Territory, as we told Señor Peon and reported by letter to Señor Sierra, could not possibly be worse. General Bravo, who behaved to us in a singularly discourteous and shuffling way, declares the war to be over. This is absolutely untrue.
we lived some time on the east coast and in Cozumel, and we know that the war can never end except by a brutal policy of extermination entirely unworthy of Your Excellency's great record and of Mexico if she is to retain her place among civilised Powers. General Bravo has no effective control over the country, as we are prepared to and shall prove in the book which we are about to publish.
Last, but not least, so-called civilised Yucatan is rotten with a foul slavery, the blacker because of its hypocrisy and pretence. We have gathered facts which make truly a sad story. The girls and women on the haciendas are treated like cattle, a prey to the detestable lusts of the haciendados and their sons; Indian workmen are flogged, even to death, and in one case which came to our knowledge those who attempted to expose such foul murder were put into Merida prison without trial, and, as we are informed, are still there. For the Indian there is no justice, and at his expense the great henequen growers daily increase their millions, some of which they lavishly used in their attempts to hide from Your Excellency the utter rottenness and degradation of Yucatan's social system. If Your Excellency desires particulars we shall gladly give ourselves the honour of sending names and details.
We have the honour to avail ourselves of the opportunity which now offers of expressing to you our sentiments of the highest consideration and respect.
We have the Honour to Remain
Your Excellency's
Obedient and faithful Servants and Admirers
(Signed) C. A.
F. J. T. F.His Excellency
Señor General Don Porfirio Diaz,
Chapultepec,
Mexico.
[CHAPTER XXI]
THE GREEN GOLD OF YUCATAN
Eight hundred million Mexican dollars!
Eighty million pounds sterling!
These are the profits which the score or so of Yucatecan henequen growers are said to have divided in the last fifteen years. What then is this Pactolus-plant from which has been crushed this river of wealth? It is true enough that half the world does not know how the other half lives, and this is a good example, for there is probably not 1 per cent. of Englishmen, and scarcely more than 10 per cent. of Americans (though the States is the main market for the staple product of Yucatan) who could tell you to what botanical family it belongs, or indeed that it is a plant at all.