The hotel bedroom was high, floor tiled and almost empty of furniture except for two double beds. Long windows opened on to a balcony overlooking the square, full of green tropical trees and flowering shrubs. A great gnarled fire-tree, with its scarlet blossom dominated all other trees, and in the background was the old Spanish Cathedral, its dome covered with buzzard birds, and its tower full of bells. I could have spent hours at my window, feasting my eyes on this scene. I had to share this one and only precious room with Louise and Dick. We had planned to stay for two nights. I have come to Mexico in the same frame of mind with which I went to Russia, prepared for every adventure and discomfort. At bedtime I said to Louise: “I suppose we ought to draw lots as to which sleeps with Dick, but I don’t mind telling you that you can have him!” (I have vivid recollections of the terrible kicks administered by Dick all through the only night I ever spent with him!) Louise replied that she would bear it and we went to bed congratulating ourselves that we had coincided with a storm at Vera Cruz, which was less unpleasant than being baked alive. I had not been long asleep, however, when the rain leaking through the roof over my bed waked me, I pushed my bed into another part of the room. No escape, however, before long the entire ceiling was dripping, and there was only one small dry corner of the room. Into this corner I pushed Dick and Louise. Then, barefooted, I paddled about on the streaming floor, rescuing luggage and clothes. Finally I retired to my damp bed, wrapped in my rug, and with an umbrella open over my head. It seemed but a few minutes before the dawn broke and with it, awakened all the buzzards and all the blackbirds in the square. They shrieked, they whistled, they sang shrill tunes like noisy canaries. It was as if one had one’s bed in the parrot house at the Zoo, and the parrot house leaked. Dick thoroughly awakened, got the giggles and my irritation accentuated the absurdity. What a night! No further sleep being possible, we dressed and went down to breakfast on the sidewalk under the arcade. Here native boys came hovering round with their shoe-shining paraphernalia, which is quite a flourishing trade. Vendors with baskets full of native wares, postcard sellers and newspaper boys; blind beggars and deformities, all were part of our kaleidescopic “entourage,” besides the sombrero’d Mexicans of every type, who walked by us in the street, as spectacular as any passing show.
At the neighboring and opposite tables, men stared glad-eyed and even signaled: one hardly dared to let one’s eyes rest anywhere except on the birds in the trees!
When the rain cleared we engaged a Ford car and told the driver we would start in a quarter of an hour; but when we were ready to start our car was surrounded by a crowd and a policeman arrested the driver and led him away. Another was substituted. My Spanish being nil, I was unable to ascertain what had happened. Our drive was rather like going across country, and for the first time in my life I realized the value of a Ford car. No other car could or would have driven through the ponds and streams, over the boulders and rocks and negotiated the bumps and ruts that we did! This native drove his car as though it were accustomed to go anywhere; in fact, there was no direction that one pointed to, that he was not prepared to go to, road or no road! No wonder we finally punctured a tire, but happily we were near home and so walked. At tea time the two reliable Americans fetched us and we went by tramway to the bathing beach. The waves were high and the sea was warm and only the Americans knew how to swim. Dick got wildly excited and almost panic-stricken as each big wave rose up and came towards him. That night, my bed being soaking wet from the drips that had fallen all day, I threw off the mattress and slept soundly wrapped in my rug on the bare wire springs; also it was cooler.
Wednesday, June 29, 1921. Mexico City.
Those blighted birds in the square waked us again before 5 A.M., so I got up immediately, and we were down on the sidewalk at 5:30 having breakfast. Later we were joined by our Americans and together drove to the station for the 6:20 A.M. Mexican train. On arrival we were refused a ticket, being informed by the office that already more tickets had been sold than they had accommodations for. We pushed by the barrier, and boarded the train, it was obvious we must get there somehow. Many of our fellow shipmates were on the train and kindly offered to take turns, sharing their seats. Heaps of people were standing. The compartment was like a tramcar, even with the luxury of a seat it was not a 15-hour journey that promised any comfort. As the day grew hotter, I found the best place was to sit on the platform of the last coach and dangle my feet overboard. Dick and Louise joined me. Three or four men stood up behind us and on the steps of the platform right and left sat armed guards, rifle in hand. Rumor had it that the train had been known to be attacked by bandits in lonely places. Most of the time our armed guard slept, and one of them fell off, but run as he would he could not catch up the train. We climbed and climbed up through the mountains to a height of 10,000 feet until we were cloud enveloped—the train couldn’t go very fast, and some of the youths of the party did actually jump off and run behind.
During the first part of our journey we passed through a chaotic riot of tropical vegetation. Everything grew everywhere, under giant trees were dense bushes, and on the tree trunks and branches grew countless other species of plant, as though a gardener had grafted one onto another in profuse experiment. There were banana, cocoanut, coffee, maize and so many new and bright-colored flowers that I was bewildered. There is not a flower or a fruit of any color or shape that any Futurist could invent, that does not grow in Mexico. We stopped at wayside stations, where the villages were built of grass huts and the natives in bright colors were like flowers among the green. Mexicans on bucking ponies, over which they had perfect control, were all part of what seemed almost a stage scene. As we climbed higher, however, the luxuriant vegetation ceased, but the effects of sunlight and shadow as we looked down from the damp clouds onto the sunlit valleys below, really was grandiose. After that it became so cold we were forced to return inside the coach. For hours we endured closed windows, over-crowded seats, smoking and spitting, and eventually the smell of primitive oil lamps. Outside one looked for miles and hours onto plains covered with cactus. One’s back ached and one’s head was heavy, but no sleep was possible, and there was nowhere to rest one’s head. Dick sat on my knee, and was astonishingly good. I have, in fact, never known him so before. He seemed to realize that our nerves were as tense as possible. He stroked my cheek and said he could see by my eyes that I was tired, he was caressing and gentle.... Oh! those miles and miles of cactus, how one grew to hate them, and the Chinaman who would spit and the Mexican who would stare, and the baby who would cry, and the man who would smoke a cigar, and the woman who would close the last window! At 8:30 P.M. the lights of Mexico City proclaimed our journey ended, and just in time, for there comes at last a moment when one’s courage and sense of adventure just crumple and one has to cry. I was terribly near it, when our American friends came and joined us. I declare if there had been more room I would have laid my head on the shoulder of one. They were gallant to the end, and saw us safely installed in the Imperial Hotel, before saying good-bye, and then: We slept, we slept, we slept....
Thursday, June 30, 1921. Mexico City.
We awoke, very late, in a town that is wide avenued, full of motors, and disappointingly civilized. The civilization may be only skin deep, and may not extend beyond the town limits, who knows...? But for people who looked for and hoped for something primitive, disordered and tropical, to find order, dullness and coolness, is ridiculous. Louise and I, comparing notes as to our expectations and realizations, simply laugh. Vera Cruz wasn’t very civilized, and the journey yesterday was as primitive as one could look for, but Mexico City appears to be cosmopolitan and up to date. In the morning, on our way back from shopping, we passed through a very pretty little garden, called “Alameda,” and there a band was playing. “Who’d work?” said Louise, as we seated ourselves on comfortable chairs under an awning, with matting under our feet. Certainly the people could have worked, who preferred, like us, to loaf and listen! Dick sailed an improvised boat in a fountain pond. The man who sat opposite came and sat next to us, otherwise all was harmony.
After lunch we drove to Chapultepec, a more beautiful or well-cared-for park I have never seen. It positively outdoes the Bois de Boulogne. In comparison with Central Park, where one is so aggressively over-guarded by men with whistles, in spite of which the place is littered with paper, this park is as neat as a private garden. Everyone seems to behave with taste and decorum, and there seem to be no guards to keep order. One or two mounted police in gray and red, wearing large sombreros and riding gaily caparisoned ponies, added to the picturesqueness. We hired a boat for an hour and rowed on the lake, but the effort of rowing made one’s breath short, and one’s heart did a variety of irregular movements. I had heard that the high altitude effected one this way. On a hill close to us stood the castle of Chapultepec, with its distant background of mountains. A beautiful situation to live in, but the most unenviable of positions. I think I would prefer almost any fate on earth except that of President of Mexico. Like the Roman Rulers, one after another, doomed to destruction.
Friday, July 1, 1921. Mexico.