XI
Dramatic values at Vera Cruz—Visits to the battle-ships—Our superb hospital-ship, the Solace—Admiral Cradock’s flag-ship—An American sailor’s menu—Three “square meals” a day—Travel in revolutionary Mexico.
“La Siempre Heroica,” — Vera Cruz, January 9th
I am writing in my state-room before getting up. Yesterday I sent off the merest scrap by the Monterey. We had a long and interesting day. We went with Admiral Fletcher and Commander Stirling to the Dolphin for lunch. Fortunately the admiral’s flag is flying from her instead of from the Rhode Island, which is anchored, while waiting for a good berth inside the breakwater, in the rough sea beyond the Isla de los Sacrificios.
Captain Earl is in command of the Dolphin, the despatch-boat that successive Secretaries of the Navy have used for their journeyings and which has just come from “watching” the elections in Santo Domingo. The admiral offered to put us up, but I thought it was unnecessary to trouble him, as we were already unpacked on the car. Admiral Fletcher, besides being an agreeable man of the world, is an open-minded, shrewd, experienced seaman, versed in international usage, knowing just what the law allows in difficult decisions, where to curtail his own initiative and fall in with established codes, or where to go ahead. The splendid order and efficiency of the men and matters under his command are apparent even to my lay eyes.
We sat on deck for an hour or so after lunch. The harbor is like a busy town—a sort of new Venice. Launches and barges are constantly going from one war-ship to another. It is a very different scene from the one my eyes first rested on nearly three years ago, when the Ward Line boat bringing us, and the Kronprinzessin Cecilie bringing von Hintze, were the only boats in the harbor. I sent a wireless to Admiral Cradock to let him know that we are in town, or rather in harbor, and he wired back an invitation for lunch to-day.
On leaving the Dolphin Nelson received his eleven salutes, standing up with bared head in the admiral’s barge as they thundered across the bay. We then went over to the Monterey to say good-by to Armstead, who made the journey down with us, and to see Captain Smith, who brought us first to the land of the cactus. The various boats, Spanish, French, and English, saluted as we passed in the Dolphin’s launch.
In the evening Mr. Lind had a dinner for us under the portales of the Diligencias. Admiral Fletcher, Consul Canada, Commander Yates Stirling, Captain Delaney of the commissary-ship, and Lieutenant Courts, one of the admiral’s aides, were the guests. The Diligencias takes up two sides of the old Plaza. The Municipal Palace, a good Spanish building, is on the third side, and the picturesque cathedral with its many domes and belfries embellishes the last. The band plays every night in the Plaza and the whole scene is gay and animated. Women in their mantillas and rebozos, dozens of tiny flower-girls, newspaper babes, and bootblacks of very tender years cluster like flies around soft-hearted diners.
The Mexican Herald arrived while we were sitting there, and we were most amused by the head-lines: “Five-Hour Conference This Morning Between Lind and O’Shaughnessy Resumed in the Afternoon.” “Policy Not Yet Known.”
At nine-thirty I broke up the festive gathering. The admiral, Mr. Lind, and N. went off toward the pier, and Commander Stirling and Lieutenant Courts brought me back to the car in a round-about way through the quiet streets. As half after four is a favorite breakfast hour here, they are all “early to bed.” Vera Cruz seems the most peaceful city in the world at the present moment, though no port in the world has seen more horrors and heroisms. Cortés landed there, la Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz, as he called it, and for centuries the seas around were pirate-infested. She has been sacked by buccaneers times without number; bombarded by nearly every power that has had interests here—the Spaniards, ourselves (in 1847), the French, etc.; and now her port is again black with battle-ships ready to turn their twentieth-century guns upon La Siempre Heroica (the always heroic). Two enemies she seems to have done with—yellow fever and cholera. The zopilotes (buzzards) that sail about in uncountable numbers find it rather hard to get a living. I see that the cleaning up of Guayaquil has been given to an English firm, who, however, will use our methods. Very few Latin-American contracts will be given to Uncle Sam these days.
Admiral Fletcher would like to come up to Mexico City, which he has never seen, but after all these months of not coming he could only do so now officially with his staff—uniforms, visits to Huerta and other authorities—and that is out of the question. I could put him up at the Embassy, with his two aides, and am quite keen about it, and so is he; but nothing can be done until what the newspapers call Watchington has been sounded. Mr. Lind thinks it impossible (he knows he can’t return), as it would be taken as a sign that the President might be wishing to change his Mexican policy. On the other hand, if he should wish to change that policy, such a visit could be the entering wedge, and lead to big things in the way of peace and prosperity.
Mr. Lind continues to think that the raising of the embargo on arms and ammunition in the north is the easiest solution of the problem; but I am terrified at such an issue. The last state of Mexico would be worse than the first. It might settle the Huerta dictatorship, but, alas! not the Mexican situation.
We had a most comfortable night. Practically no trains come and go in the station at night and there is none of the usual dust and dirt of travel, all the railroads burning oil instead of coal. I go at ten to visit our hospital-ship, the Solace, and I must now arise and buckle me up for a long day. I have a white silk tailor-made costume and various fresh blouses to choose from. Nelson is busy with newspaper men, who have discovered the car.