The Second Time This Happened
They, Having Arrived First, Had Quartered Themselves On The
Alcalde Or Principal Personage Of The Place.
Our guide took
us to the same house; and although His Worship, who had a
better supply of maize
For the horses, and a few more
chickens to sell than the other natives, was anxious to
accommodate us, the four Americans, a very rough-looking lot
and armed to the teeth, wouldn't hear of it, but peremptorily
bade us put up elsewhere. Our own American, who was much
afraid of them, obeyed their commands without more ado. It
made not the slightest difference to us, for one grass
hammock is as soft as another, and the Alcalde's chickens
were as tough as ours.
Before the morning start, two of the diggers, rifles in hand,
came over to us and plainly told us they objected to our
company. Fred, with perfect good humour, assured them we had
no thought of robbing them, and that as the villages were so
far apart we had no choice in the matter. However, as they
wished to travel separate from us, if there should be two
villages at all within suitable distances, they could stop at
one and we at the other. There the matter rested. But our
guide was more frightened than ever. They were four to two,
he argued, for neither he nor the Mexican were armed. And
there was no saying, etc., etc. . . . In short we had better
stay where we were till they got through. Fred laughed at
the fellow's alarm, and told him he might stop if he liked,
but we meant to go on.
As usual, when we reached the next stage, the diggers were
before us; and when our men began to unsaddle at a hut about
fifty yards from where they were feeding their horses, one of
them, the biggest blackguard to look at of the lot, and
though the fiercest probably the greatest cur, shouted at us
to put the saddles on again and 'get out of that.' He had
warned us in the morning that they'd had enough of us, and,
with a volley of oaths, advised us to be off. Fred, who was
in his shirt-sleeves, listened at first with a look of
surprise at such cantankerous unreasonableness; but when the
ruffian fell to swear and threaten, he burst into one of his
contemptuous guffaws, turned his back and began to feed his
horse with a corncob. Thus insulted, the digger ran into the
hut (as I could see) to get his rifle. I snatched up my own,
which I had been using every day to practise at the large
iguanas and macaws, and, well protected by my horse, called
out as I covered him, 'This is a double-barrelled rifle. If
you raise yours I'll drop you where you stand.' He was
forestalled and taken aback. Probably he meant nothing but
bravado. Still, the situation was a critical one. Obviously
I could not wait till he had shot my friend. But had it come
to shooting there would have been three left, unless my
second barrel had disposed of another. Fortunately the
'boss' of the digging party gauged the gravity of the crisis
at a glance; and instead of backing him up as expected, swore
at him for a 'derned fool,' and ordered him to have no more
to do with us.
After that, as we drew near to the city, the country being
more thickly populated, we no longer clashed.
This is not a guide-book, and I have nothing to tell of that
readers would not find better described in their 'Murray.'
We put up in an excellent hotel kept by M. Arago, the brother
of the great French astronomer. The only other travellers in
it besides ourselves were the famous dancer Cerito, and her
husband the violin virtuoso, St. Leon. Luckily for me our
English Minister was Mr. Percy Doyle, whom I had known as
ATTACHE at Paris when I was at Larue, and who was a great
friend of the De Cubriers. We were thus provided with many
advantages for 'sight-seeing' in and about the city, and also
for more distant excursions through credentials from the
Mexican authorities. Under these auspices we visited the
silver mines at Guadalajara, Potosi, and Guanajuata.
The life in Mexico city was delightful, after a year's tramp.
The hotel, as I have said, was to us luxurious. My room
under the verandah opened on to a large and beautiful garden
partially enclosed on two sides. As I lay in bed of a
morning reading Prescott's 'History of Mexico,' or watching
the brilliant humming birds as they darted from flower to
flower, and listened to the gentle plash of the fountain, my
cup of enjoyment and romance was brimming over.
Just before I left, an old friend of mine arrived from
England. This was Mr. Joseph Clissold. He was a
schoolfellow of mine at Sheen. He had pulled in the
Cambridge boat, and played in the Cambridge eleven. He
afterwards became a magistrate either in Australia or New
Zealand. He was the best type of the good-natured, level-
headed, hard-hitting Englishman. Curiously enough, as it
turned out, the greater part of the only conversation we had
(I was leaving the day after he came) was about the
brigandage on the road between Mexico and Vera Cruz. He told
me the passengers in the diligence which had brought him up
had been warned at Jalapa that the road was infested by
robbers; and should the coach be stopped they were on no
account to offer resistance, for the robbers would certainly
shoot them if they did.
Fred chose to ride down to the coast, I went by coach. This
held six inside and two by the driver. Three of the inside
passengers sat with backs to the horses, the others facing
them. My coach was full, and stifling hot and stuffy it was
before we had done with it.
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