The Red Track: A Story of Social Life in Mexico

by Gustave Aimard

The remainder of his journey across the Rocky Mountains, as far as Mexico, was one protracted agony, during which, suffering from constant apprehension, and extreme nervous excitement, his diseased imagination inflicted on him moral torture in the stead of which any physical pain would have been welcome.

The loss of his daughter's corpse, and above all, the death of his father's old comrade in arms, the only man in whom he put faith, and who possessed his entire confidence, destroyed his energy, and for several days he was so overwhelmed by this double misfortune, that he longed for death.

His punishment was beginning. But General Guerrero was one of those powerful athletes who do not allow themselves to be overcome so easily; they may totter in the struggle, and roll on the sand of the arena, but they always rise again more terrible and menacing than before. His revolted pride restored his expiring courage; and since an implacable warfare was declared against him, he swore that he would fight to the end, whatever the consequences for him might be.

Moreover, two months had elapsed since his arrival in Mexico, and his enemy had not revealed his presence by one of those terrible blows which burst like a clap of thunder above his head. The general gradually began supposing that the hunter had only wished to force him to abandon Sonora, and that, in despair of carrying out his plans advantageously in a city like Mexico, he was prudently keeping aloof, and if he had not completely renounced his vengeance, circumstances at any rate, independent of his will, compelled him to defer it.

The general, so soon as he was settled in the capital of Mexico, organized a large band of highly-paid spies, who had orders to be constantly on the watch, and inform him of Valentine's arrival in the city. Thus reassured by the reports of his agents, he continued with feverish ardour the execution of his dark designs, for he felt convinced that if he succeeded in attaining his coveted object, the hatred of the man who pursued him would no longer be dangerous. This was the more probable, because, so soon as he held the power in his own hands, he would easily succeed in getting rid of an enemy, whom his position as a foreigner isolated, and rendered an object of dislike to the populace.

The general lived in a large house in the Calle de Tacuba; it was built by one of his ancestors, and considered one of the handsomest in the capital. We will describe in a few words the architecture of Mexico, for, as all the houses are built on the same pattern, or nearly so, by knowing one it is easy to form an idea of what the others must be.

The Mexican architecture greatly resembles the Arabic, and as for the mode of arranging the rooms, it is still entirely in its infancy; but, since the Proclamation of the Independence, foreign architects have succeeded, in most of the great towns, in opening side doors in the suites of rooms, which formerly only communicated with one another, and hence compelled you to go through a bedroom to enter a dining room, or pass through a kitchen to reach the drawing room.

The general's house was composed of four buildings, two stories in height, and with terraced roofs. Two courts separated these buildings, and an awning stretched over the four sides of the first yard, enabling visitors to reach the wide stone steps dry footed. At the top of this flight, a handsome covered gallery, adorned with vases of flowers and exotic shrubs, led to a vast anteroom, which opened into a splendid reception hall; after this came a considerable number of apartments, splendidly furnished in the European style.

The general only inhabited the first floor of his mansion. Although most of the streets are paved at the present day, and the canals have entirely disappeared, except in the lower districts of the city, water is still found a few inches beneath the surface, which produces such damp, that the ground floor, rendered uninhabitable, is given up to stores and shops in nearly all the houses. The ground floor of the main building, looking on the Calle de Tacuba, was, therefore, occupied by brilliant shops, which rendered the façade of the general's house even more striking.

The paintings and the ornaments carved on the walls, after the Spanish fashion, gave it a peculiar, but not unpleasant appearance, which was completed by the profusion of shrubs that lined the terrace, and converted it into a hanging garden, like those of Babylon, some sixty feet above the ground. By-the-bye, these gardens, from which the cupolas of the churches seem to emerge, give a really fairy-like aspect to the city, when you survey it in a glowing sunset, from the cathedral towers.