A diplomats wife in mexico

Page 349

DIPLOMAT'S WIFE IN MEXICO

A

some of value, some without.

I don't think she lost a even to my big writing-desk, where I had sat for seven months. You can imagine all the things that were left there, the acctmiulations of these historic months. All my bibelots were left about the salon, the manias and serapes, the signed photographs that have accompanied me for years, my beautiful old frames. But pin.

I didn't get

in the face of the national catastrophe, and the leaving of our people to God knows what, I seemed to lose all sense of personal possession or to feel that objects could

have a value.

We have just passed Paso del Macho. Many people, motley groups, were standing near the train, crying Viva la Independencia de Mexico! Rowan says he wants to hear more "Mueran los Gringos!" We are about '

'

'

'

from Vera Cruz, and the heat, seems intense; though it is not disagreeable to feel the dissolving detente of the sldn and nerves after the dry tenseness of many months at eight thousand feet. forty-five kilometers after the plateau,

SOLEDAD, LIS.

A

We

blaze of heat, merciless, white. find Mexican rifles stacked at intervals along the station platforms, and there are groups of young voluntarios looking proudly at their first gims or drawing long, cruel knives from their belts. Some are eating small, green limes, not nourishing at best, slashing at them with their machetes.

The lack of a commissariat is what prevents the Mexican army from being in any way efficient. (Think of the full stomachs and comfortably shod feet of our men.) Flatcars with cannon and automobiles are on the sidings. General Gustavo Maass, whom I have not seen since our trip to Vera Cruz in January, is here in command. He will not prove efficient a blue-eyed Mexican,

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