N. was only able to get Vera Estañol out of the Penitenciaría on Wednesday afternoon. He didn’t come here, but was taken immediately to the station, caught the night train to Vera Cruz, and sailed yesterday, Thursday, by the Ward Line steamer. When N. went to the prison with the President’s aide, carrying the order for his release and the duly signed safe-conduct, Estañol came into the waiting-room with a volume of Taine’s Histoire Contemporaine in his hand, and the detached air acquired by persons who have long been in jail. There was scarcely any conversation, his one idea being to leave the building and get to the train under American cover.
Huerta told N. yesterday that General Mercado had been bribed by wealthy persons in Chihuahua to go to Ojinaga on the frontier, instead of going to Jimenez, where he had been ordered. He feels very bitter toward Mercado, who cost him 4,000 good soldiers. Mercado makes all sorts of counter-charges against the other generals, especially against Orozco—of cowardice, of placing drunken officers in important positions, and of robbing their own Federal trains of provisions. General Inez Salazar’s fate is tragi-comic. He was arrested for playing “a little game of cards” on the Texas train, never suspecting that in a free country you could not do such a thing. After escaping the rebels and the American authorities he was most chagrined to be jailed and consequently identified just as he was about to recross the border into Mexico.
Wednesday we had a pleasant lunch at the Norwegian Legation. The Norwegian minister is the son of Jonas Lie. He and his wife are cultivated people of the world, and kind friends. Madame Lie always has delicious things to eat, very handsomely served. One knows that when things are well done here it means that the lady of the house has given them her personal care. In the evening there was bridge at Mme. Bonilla’s. The lights suddenly went out, as we were playing, and remained out. As is usual in such occurrences, the cry was, “At last the Zapatistas are cutting the wires!” Madame B. got out some beautiful old silver candlesticks and we played on recklessly, with our fate, perhaps, upon us. The street lamps were also dark.
Mexico City is lighted from Necaxa, nearly a hundred miles away, and one of the loveliest spots in the world. In a day one drops down from the plateau into the hot country; the train seems to follow the river, which flows through a wild and beautiful barranca, and at Necaxa are the great falls supplying the power for this wonderful feat of engineering. In my mind it is a memory of blue skies, enchanting vistas of blue mountains, myriads of blue butterflies against falling water, bright singing birds, and the most gorgeous and richest of tropical vegetation, vine-twisted trees, orchids, morning-glories of all kinds, and countless other magnificences. I sometimes think that it is because Mother Earth is so lavish here, asking only to give, demanding nothing of her children, that they have become rather like spoiled children. Every mountain oozes with precious ores. On the coast, any accidental hole in the earth may reveal the oil for which the world is so greedy; and each green thing left to itself will come up a thousandfold. Marvelous, magical Mexico! A white moon is shining in through the windows of the front salon, making my electric lamp seem a dull thing. At this altitude the moonlight cuts out objects as if with a steel point.
Yesterday, Mr. Prince, Aunt Laura’s friend, and brother-in-law of Mr. C., came to lunch. Mr. C. died during the bombardment, and in his last illness was moved from house to hospital, and from the hospital, when that was shelled, to another house, opposite the Embassy. During the armistice Mr. P. was able to go out for a coffin, and to take it himself on a cab to the cemetery. This was the only way to dispose of it, the town being under fire at the time. That same week one of the little boys had his foot crushed by the tramway, and it had to be amputated while shot and shell were falling and his father was lying dead. Emma, the child who fell through my glass roof, two years ago, has never since walked. A chapter of tragedies! Mrs. C. is now in the States, trying to recuperate.
Hanihara, the bright secretary from the Japanese Foreign Office, who is here to look into the conditions and, doubtless, the possibilities of the Japanese situation in Mexico, turned up yesterday; we used to know him in Washington. He speaks English perfectly, and is Europeanized, externally, to an unusual extent, but, of course, he remains completely Japanese at bottom. I shall give a luncheon for him at Chapultepec, with his minister, the retiring Austrian chargé, and the new Italian minister, who fell at my door, the day before yesterday, and was laid up with a bad knee. I had him bound up by Dr. Ryan.
I saw a man yesterday who had known Villa in his purely peon days; he said some mental, if not moral, evolution had been going on; among other things, he generally keeps to the regulation amount of clothing, but a collar gets on his nerves almost as much as the mention of Porfirio Diaz—his pet abomination. He keeps himself fairly clean, and has shown himself clever about finding capable agents to whom he is willing to leave the gentler mysteries of the three R’s. We wonder who is getting out certain polished political statements appearing under his name. What he once did to an official document, on an official occasion, instead of signing his name, pen cannot relate. He evidently has military gifts, but remains, unfortunately, one of the most ignorant, sanguinary, and ruthless men in Mexico’s history, knowing nothing of the amenities of life, nothing of statesmanship, nor of government in any form except force. And he may inhabit Chapultepec.
D’Antin brought home a beautiful saltillo, a hand-woven, woolen sort of serape, about a hundred years old, that he got from an Indian at a price so small I hate to think of it. He saw it on the Indian on the street, one cold night, and his clever eye realized what it was. I am not quite happy about it; but I have had it disinfected and cleaned. I can only bring myself to use it because some one said the Indian had probably stolen it.
Elim is singing at the top of his voice the popular air, “Marieta, no seas coqueta porque los hombres son muy malos” (“Marieta, don’t be a coquette, because men are very wicked”).