3 O’Clock
There is some idea that we may start. Men with ropes and hatchets and picks are getting on our train.
Later
We arrived at Maltrata to be met by dozens of wet Indian women selling lemons, tortillas, and enchiladas. Each wore the eternal blue rebozo and a pre-Spanish cut of skirt—a straight piece of cloth bound around the hips, held somewhat fuller in front. They are called enredadas, from the fashion of folding the stuff about them. Each, of course, had a baby on her back.
Long lines of rurales came into sight on horseback. With full black capes or brilliant red blankets thrown about their shoulders, their big-brimmed, high-peaked hats, with their black rain-proof covers, these men made a startling and gaudy picture with the underthrill of death and destruction. We have been moving along at a snail’s pace. In a narrow defile we came on one of the train-loads of Federals we had seen leave Orizaba, their guns pointed, ready to fire.
Well, so far, so good. We hear that it was a band of several hundred revolutionaries who attacked the train. The train officials managed to escape under cover of the darkness.