r THI:: 400 
 
 smcn OWEN brown 


 
 Press of 
 
 Hartzell, Lord Co. 
 
 190 La Salle Street. Chicago
 
 
 ^S'j^^SJB^M 
 
 e i f 

 
 The Tour of The 400 
 
 To Mexico 
 
 By 
 GRACE OWEN BROWN 
 
 MCMVII
 
 To 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Edmund Douglass Brigham
 
 
 1 INTRODUCTION 
 
 "In every work regard the writer's end, 
 
 Since none can compass more than they intend." 
 
 — Pope. 
 
 To begin with, The Tour of the 400 was a holiday 
 and not a sight-seeing" trip, therefore let it not be re- 
 garded as "the writer's end" to attempt to compass 
 anything in the nature of a description of Mexico. 
 The writer's inevitable "end" would be a foregone 
 conclusion were such her intention. Instead this lit- 
 tle work is written merely as a souvenir of their jour- 
 
 «o nev for the "400." and for the possible entertainment 
 
 o of then- friends. 
 
 The foundation of the "work" was a diary hastily 
 
 « written en route in a system of shorthand all n\\ own, 
 
 csz 
 ca 
 
 SO nearly undecipherable as to pass for Toltecan 
 hieroglyphics. In my translation therefrom I have 
 ^ formulated ideas suggested in the original journal and 
 ^ have filled out in sentences historical or other facts 
 <-3 which were briefly noted, retaining as "local color" 
 many trivial incidents not in themselves worth remem- 
 bering, in the hope that they might suggest the environ- 
 ments in which they occurred. 
 
 When I asked permission to print real names, one 
 of the "400" made the Byronic remark : 
 
 '■ 'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print," 
 refraining politely from adding 
 
 "A book's a book, although there's nothing in 't." 
 
 27r>7'S9
 
 THE TOUR OF THE 400 
 
 "Call it travel, 
 that thou takest for pleasure." 
 — Shakspere. 
 
 RAIN No. 3, 
 
 C. ^ N.-W. Ry. 
 February 9. 1906. 
 
 Midnight. 
 
 " TIS the very witching hour" when 
 even church-yards yawn." I am as 
 yawny as a church- yard, too, which is 
 certainly not promising for the com- 
 mencement of a story. But being a 
 very systematic person, as all my friends agree, I 
 like to begin always at the beginning ; therefore my 
 tales of a traveler shall start to-night, even at the 
 risk of their being as stupid reading as a cash record 
 or cook-book — either of which this new "manderan- 
 dum" book (quoting my youngest) may have just 
 missed being. Come to think of it, my account 
 books do contain accounts of doings that resemble 
 " Frenzied Finance," and I often describe stirring 
 incidents in my cook-book — but to-night my muse 
 is too sleepy to be amusing, so only a few intro- 
 ductory facts shall be chronicled. 
 
 In the first place, we (and who "we" means will be 
 continued in our next, that we may be equal to the 
 subject) are off for Mexico — eight of us, all by our- 
 selves in a private car. At this moment all my lovely 
 companions are faded and gone, being snugly stowed 
 away till morning, each in his small corner as I'm in
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 mine, mine being section 2 — a cozy little unit in a 
 sort of Wernicke system of boudoir, where in my 
 present occupation I remind myself of the aspiring 
 poets who "painful vigils keep, sleepless themselves 
 to give their readers sleep." 
 
 But whatever may be said of the beginning of the 
 journal, the journey has begun well. The day has 
 been very wintry, which is just the proper condition 
 to leave for the balmy south, for when one is going 
 to a warm climate in the middle of winter one likes 
 to realize the contrast. Then it is always pleasant 
 to have one's departure regarded as of some moment, 
 and ours was all that heart could desire. Arriving 
 at the station, we found a delegation of leading citi- 
 zens of Glencoe assembled to see us off — in tears? 
 Let us hope the same "vast substantial smile" will 
 welcome us home ! 
 
 But who could feel sad on such a night? — a full 
 moon smiled down on a white earth spread over with 
 a thick frosting, as if it were a great cake all lighted 
 up with birthday candles — the air was keen with frost 
 — the crisp snow crunched merrily under foot! In- 
 deed, it must be confessed that it was a lively party 
 that boarded the 9:09 train for Chicago — for a retinue 
 escorted us to the city to attend upon our going. 
 
 The "limited" was backed up on track 5, with our 
 car at the rear end — just a modest yellow car, but 
 with its windows radiating welcome and its lanterns 
 flashing green and red, it looked as attractive to our 
 fond imaginations as a golden chariot bejewelled with 
 emeralds and rubies. 
 
 After having carefully inspected our quarters (with 
 thoughtful concern for our welfare) the retinue, with
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 well-concealed emotion, bade us a lingering farewell. 
 
 For a few moments everybody was quiet — thinking 
 possibly of the chances we jvere taking of not remain- 
 ing the same jolly good friends after a month of the 
 close association of travel. 
 
 But the serious mood soon passed and when the 
 hands of the old familiar clock pointed to eleven, and 
 we felt the train gliding out of the station, such a 
 chorus of exclamations, such joy unconfined, must 
 have made the two colored men, who live in a private 
 car and travel all the time, think we were a lot of 
 way-backs leaving our native cross-roads for the first 
 time. But it seemed too good to be true that we did 
 all get away, there had been so much doubt about some 
 of the party 
 
 Our belongings disposed of, there were boxes of 
 flowers to be cared for and admired, and the cosy lit- 
 tle sitting room in the end of the car was a thing of 
 beauty and a picture of comfort when we were finally 
 established. But the most inviting part of it after 
 all was the section section, for we were all very tired 
 after the strenuous day of packing and preparations. 
 
 So Oliver made up the berths as soon as the lights 
 of the city had disappeared. The two young ladies 
 retired to the state-room, then there was a section 
 apiece for four, with one left to be "made up double." 
 At first it looked as if we should have to search the 
 train for some lady from Philadelphia to decide which 
 set of partners should double — it was suggested that 
 the double section might be appropriated to the use 
 of whichever couple needed a Caudle treatment, but as 
 nobody would plead guilty of conjugal infelicity, our 
 eminent counsel advised that we take turns, thus 
 avoiding all hard feeling. Judgment was confirmed
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 and our host settled the matter of precedence by claim- 
 ing the upper one-half of section five as his rightful 
 property — a sort of berth right, as it were. It hardly 
 seemed proper to put our host on the shelf like that, 
 but what could we do? Dar'st we then to beard 
 the Douglass in his own car? It is the only time any- 
 one ever saw him selfish, so we gave him his own way 
 in sheer surprise. 
 
 Everybody seems to be asleep — to judge from sun- 
 dry and divers toots that most certainly do not ema- 
 nate from the big locomotive. It is high time for me, 
 too, so I will turn out the little electric light at my 
 head, button the drapery of my section together, and 
 sustained and soothed by an unfaltering trust in the 
 C. & N. W., lie down to pleasant dreams. 
 
 En route. Iowa. 
 
 February 10. 
 
 '"Hello, folks! you ought to see such a morning!" 
 This from the healthy-wealthy-and-wise member 
 of the family (who proves the "early to rise" part of 
 the proverb) brought us from dreamland to behold 
 with surprise the hangings of a sleeping-car berth — 
 for no sound or motion had interfered with tired na- 
 ture's sweet restorer. The misty visions of the night 
 seemed to have taken material form as the lifting of 
 the little window shade revealed a world no less ethe- 
 real than that from which we had been recalled, as 
 it appeared through sunlit masses of vapor from the 
 engine, enveloping the train in a beautiful halo. 
 
 When the mists were rolled away the celestial world 
 proved to be the same old terrestrial ball — a cold 
 world, too. We were crossing la belle plaine of
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 Iowa, having come as far as Belle Plaine on one of 
 
 those remarkable bee-lines found on railroad maps, 
 marking the route from Chicago to Omaha — a round- 
 about route to Mexico, to be sure, but we are making 
 a detour westward in order to combine business with 
 pleasure — and business is Denver-ward. 
 
 Emerging one by one from behind the scenes, every- 
 body finally appeared, more or less finished as to make- 
 up, but all in their right minds and as fresh as — well, 
 as ever, and ready to take his or her part in the day's 
 performance. And let me say that when this brilliant 
 constellation of stars begins to perform its shines, 
 there is likely to be plent>' of material for a comedy 
 as full of situations as — oh, say a want-ad column. 
 
 But before we proceed with the play, the players 
 in our little company must be "traduced," as the little 
 boy said. I may be challenging libel suits — but I'll 
 be careful. I'll apologize beforehand, and if anyone 
 feels like protesting "O Sammy. Sammy, vy worn't 
 there a alleybi?" I'll furnish one "nicely engraved, 
 suitable for framing" upon application — hereby de- 
 claring this name to be fictitious, etc. 
 
 In view of any such future complications, perhaps 
 it will be well to hereby declare, as a preliminary state- 
 ment, that the caste of the characters of the '"400" is 
 of general excellence, even though that goes without 
 saying. Theatrically speaking, our troupe consists 
 of an All-Star cast, which I shall attempt to draw up 
 in proper form.
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 DRAMATIS PERSONS 
 
 INTRODUCING: 
 
 Mr. Edmund Douglass Brigham Mine Host of the 400 
 
 (By courtesy of the C. & N.-W. Ry. Company.) 
 Generally kno\\Ti as the General Freight Agent of The Pioneer Line. 
 
 Describe bim ■who can, 
 
 An abridgment of all that is pleasant in man. 
 
 Whose heart is a mint 
 
 Though the owner ne'er knows half the good that is in't. 
 
 Mrs. Brigham, as The Leading Lady 
 
 (Of the Ideal Stock Company.) 
 In pleasant paths she leadeth. 
 This dainty little Edith. 
 
 Mr. Benjamin Newhall, alias Ozark (his non cle baggage) as 
 Jonathan Spitzenburgh, alias Ben Davis. .A Northern Spy 
 (Of the F. Newhall & Sons Company.) 
 By their fruits ye shall know them. 
 
 Mrs. Newhall, in her original character 
 
 Flora, Goddess of Gardens and Orchards 
 
 The apple of his eye, though he found her "where they say only 
 
 peaches grow." 
 
 (Of the Seek-Xo-Further Variety,) 
 
 Mr. Paul Brown A Limb o" the Law 
 
 "as has got brains like the frogs, dispersed all over his 
 
 body and reachin' to the ^very tips of bis fingers." 
 (Of the Horton ifc Brown Association.) 
 
 Mrs. Brown, personifying An Abundance of Grace 
 
 O wad some pow'r the giftie gie us 
 To be oursel's as we'd have ithers see us. 
 (Kind permission Buena Fortune.) 
 
 Fanny Brigham A Rosebud 
 
 Marion Wilmeroth A Sunbeam 
 
 (First appearance in stellar r6le.)
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 These are the actors. The sequence of scenes will 
 doubtless occur as set forth in the itinerary which our 
 business manager has arranged. As for the synopsis 
 of the plot, we forgot to bring a villain, so there 
 ain't goin' to be no plot. 
 
 Among our properties may be mentioned a talking 
 machine, which we can wind up when our own are 
 run down — with musical numbers rendered by Sem-
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 brich, Eames, Plangon or Caruso, we shall have opera 
 whenever we do so. These "red seal" stars are for 
 the nonce illuminating a vaudeville stage, for they 
 appear as headliners on a variety bill. On our first 
 program the curtain raiser was a "freak-voice" bur- 
 lesque who announced herself as The Only Star that 
 Twinkles on Broadway — "all the other stars are only 
 shines," did she say ? We'll see about that ! 
 
 And last but not least comes the kinodrome, unroll- 
 ing a series of moving pictures past the windows of 
 this moving playhouse. During intermissions we can 
 forget our own part in the performance while we idly 
 sit and let the world go by. 
 
 What a comfortable feeling it is, to look forward 
 to a long journey with nothing to do but take the 
 gifts the gods provide and look pleasant. No changing 
 of cars to make, no thought of weather, no worry about 
 uncertain reservations, above all no missing of trains ! 
 While conspicuously missing will be the selfish crea- 
 tures who, as a porter once said, "done gits in de 
 dressin' room an' jis dies" — the selfish creatures who 
 sit and eat and eat and eat while you stand in line and 
 starve by inches at the very door of the diner — the 
 selfish creatures who claim perpetual squatter's rights 
 on the observation platform — to say nothing of the 
 woman with the self-winding eight-day voice, the man 
 with the coup de pied, the cranky porter, the interest- 
 ing little family of five in the next section, the poor 
 little tortured infant protesting the horrors of travel 
 in squacking wrath — dear me, and I've always loved 
 to travel, too ! 
 
 I'm humming inwardly "If you ain't born lucky, 
 don't get born at all" — if you aren't born great, it 
 doesn't matter so much ; you may have greatness thrust
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 upon you, if you are born lucky — even the greatness 
 of belonging to the "400." 
 
 There may be a flavor of sour grapes in the state- 
 ment, but heretofore it has never seemed to me a cause 
 of great sorrow not to belong to the "400." Why? 
 Noblesse oblige — to my way of thinking the top rung 
 of the ladder, while having some advantages, seemed 
 anything but a desirable position, conspicuous and so 
 unsteady one would have to hold on with his very 
 toes, like a hen on a high roost. I suppose they get 
 used to it, as the hen does, but it seemed to me it must 
 be a terrible strain. 
 
 But a change came o'er the spirit of my views when 
 we were invited to go to Mexico and it was remarked 
 that if we decided to go the 400 would be prepared to 
 make the trip enjoyable. If to be numbered with the 
 elect we need only travel, certainly we would elect to 
 be numbered, even as the lowly convict or the equally 
 vicious automobile. And while the magic number is 
 in our case only the number of the car, for the time 
 being we belong to the 400 and are as com- 
 fortably seated in the lap of luxury as the real top- 
 rungers, any day. 
 
 U. P. Ry., Nebraska. 
 
 To resume the travelogue, there has been nothing 
 very striking in scenery to-day. As far as Omaha the 
 country was all familiar — Marshalltown, Missouri 
 Valley — that place hasn't changed a bit (though it has 
 doubtless changed many a passenger) since we 
 changed there the last time we went to Deadwood. 
 It looks just as dismal. 
 
 The stock farms out here remind me of a snatch of 
 conversation I overheard on a former trip.
 
 10 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 Lady from Boston : "My, what lots of cattle ! I've 
 never seen a ranch before. My brother has been on 
 one, though." 
 
 Stranger: "That so? Where was it?" 
 
 She : "Near Sycamore, Illinois." 
 
 We crossed the Missouri at Council Bluffs and ar- 
 rived at Omaha at 5 :30. Here everybody expected a 
 telegraph messenger to be "layin' for us" with a wire 
 for somebody to come back, but no dreaded summons 
 was served. The train was switched to the Union 
 Pacific tracks and we proceeded upon the even tenor 
 of our way. "At this writing" we are somewhere west 
 of Columbus, the last daylight stop. 
 
 Our acquaintance with the 400 improves with 
 intimacy. New and surprising features have been 
 developing all day. We have even inspected the little 
 closet they call by courtesy the kitchen — a mere cubby- 
 hole off the passageway into the dining room — a little 
 cell just big enough for the range, the cook and the 
 dish pan. It seems to be really a sort of a magician's 
 booth, where a juggler we call Frank conjures up 
 "culinary triumphs" by some mysterious sleight of 
 hand, for there is nothing around to suggest a meal, 
 past, present or future. I might add that the meals are 
 equally "out of sight" when they are served. Visions 
 of my kitchen during the preparation of a dinner rise 
 before me. Shades of departed cooks ! 
 
 It is really a puzzle where the provisions and the 
 apparently unlimited supply of pots and pans, china 
 and silver and linen are kept, but I give it up. They 
 are supposedly stowed away somewhere, but it is my 
 opinion that the garden, market, grocery, dairy or ice- 
 house just appear when the white-capped Aladdin calls 
 up the genie of the lamp. Wish I knew his number.
 
 The Tour of the 400. 11 
 
 We've been having a concert all the evening. A 
 dreamy flute-and-viola duet is "on" just now — "Titl's 
 Serenade." And I came near writing it "Tilt's," hav- 
 ing had a lively tilt with somebody (he of the various 
 aliases), in re the pronunciation of said name. 
 
 Denver. 
 
 Sunday, February H. 
 
 When we took our bearings this morning, we were 
 traveling due south and were, according to a sign- 
 board on the station at Brighton, nineteen miles from 
 Denver. To my surprise, instead of the heaps and 
 heaps of mountains shown on the map of Colorado, 
 there was the same flat countr)'. Yet it was a war- 
 whoop about mountains from our watchful scout that 
 had caused the uprising of the tribe. Everybody was 
 gazing at the beautiful rosy sky and the purple clouds 
 on the eastern horizon when I joined them. "Moun- 
 tains?" I asked. "Where?" Someone said, "Don't 
 you see the humps?" And indeed I lifted up my eyes 
 and behold, the low-hanging clouds were far-off moun- 
 tains. The red glow was a reflection of Air. Brown's 
 red tie — at least the glow disappeared with the tie. 
 A general demurrer disposed of the dazzling cravat. 
 
 Our men all have a "begone-dull-care" spirit that 
 the begone-dull-color attitude of Mr. Brown quite beau- 
 tifully expressed. They seem to be all ears to the 
 "call of the wild," agreeing that the deep sense of un- 
 limited expansion, the vast prairies, the breadth of sky, 
 the floods of sunshine, the free out-of-door life of the 
 West, make the ordinary affairs of life seem but trivial 
 and useless. Perhaps it's the rest, as well as the West.
 
 12 The Tour of the 400. • 
 
 But I'm afraid if they were obliged to live in one 
 of these lonely little towns that struggle along the rail- 
 road, they would long for old bustling Chicago. There 
 is nothing on which to base a choice of building sites 
 in these little townlets, so they just shake the little 
 houses out of a dice box and leave them wherever they 
 settle. Beside each little dwelling a stack of alfalfa, 
 vividly green amid its dull surroundings, decorates 
 the landscape like an emerald rosette on the breast of 
 a brown-corduroy Paddy on St. Patrick's day. At 
 every door a gatmt-looking well-sweep proclaims the 
 iron-bound bucket, the only homey suggestion in the 
 picture. These awkward, triangular sweeps are as 
 conspicuous in all directions as the windmills in Hol- 
 land, without being as picturesque. 
 
 Car 400 having been duly side-tracked in the 
 yards in Denver, w^e of the 400, having already donned 
 our Sunday clothes, started up-town at once to see the 
 hospitable city wherein the first thing a stranger sees 
 is "Welcome" on a big iron gateway, as a sort of door- 
 mat greeting. Almost as soon, we noticed a bulging 
 of the eyes — altitude or the intense sunlight ? A Peter- 
 kin discussion failed to settle the question. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Newhall left us, to visit some friends. 
 The rest of the party, and in addition Mr. James, of 
 Denver pro tern., and Edmund Brigham Jr., who is a 
 student at the Colorado School of Mines at Golden, 
 dined at a palace whose name I am trying to forget, for 
 fear it is a poor relation. After this repast, about 
 which the least said the better, we found two automo- 
 biles waiting at the door and after the chauffeurs had 
 sized us up we were carefully assorted and packed, 
 leaving an inch or two of seat for the Newhalls, for 
 whom we called. Then after more exact calculations
 
 Tlie Tour of the 400. 13 
 
 the party was rearranged to include them and taken 
 for a "rubber-neck" trip "'seeing Denver." 
 
 There was the City Park and its buffalo herd, Capi- 
 tol Hill and the Capitol, whose corner-stone is just one 
 mile above sea level ; the distant Rockies ; the iMint, and 
 other public buildings and many fine residences to be 
 seen, and we were glad we had not exhausted our 
 enthusiasm on dinner, for we had good use for it. 
 Denver is a beautiful city and has much to boast of 
 besides her "304 sunny days in the year." 
 
 Our guests accompanied us back to the car for tea, 
 some other friends have called and we are glad to 
 spend the night in our own comfortable "palace" rather 
 than stay up-town. 
 
 The Antlers, Colorado Springs. 
 February 12-13 (bctzvixt and between). 
 
 Our two busy B's, leaving their honey B's, went buz- 
 zing around Denver all day improving the shining 
 hours stirring up drones — or maybe hornets' nests. 
 Question: Was anyone stung? 
 
 Mr. N., having no business to mind, was appointed 
 Squire of Dames (by the dames) and gallantly under- 
 took the task of amusing us, but no sooner had we left 
 the soda-fountain than we saw the prettiest little 
 "parlor" that ever you did spy, and in we walked like 
 the foolish fly, leaving our squire accompanied only by 
 noble thoughts. But really we did feel as the mos- 
 quito did about its victim, that we were boring him 
 terribly ; so it was best to leave him thus — best for him 
 and best for us, for he enjoyed a siesta in Mr. James' 
 suite in the Palace, while we enjoyed a sip at the foun- 
 tain of youth. Talk about nature wonders — three 
 Aphrodites fluttered out where three fuzzy-looking
 
 14 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 creatures had gone in. How doth the Httle busy 
 vibrator improve the shining face ! 
 
 To drop this entomological phraseology and speak- 
 in the language of the wild and woolly West, 
 the bunch rounded up at feedin' time and you shore 
 would a-thought them men was just plumb locoed 
 when they saw us wimmen-folks a-comin' along the 
 trail, with our blow-away hair an' so peachy com- 
 plected an' all — I 'low we made a hit, shore 'nuf. 
 
 I devoured a Victor catalogue while the others 
 minced some other matters equally as satisfying to 
 hunger (Frank has us spoiled, you see), and then the 
 party separated again, Sir. and Mrs. Brigham going 
 out to Golden. Fanny and Marion did some very 
 mysterious shopping, Mrs. Newhall and I attended a 
 rehearsal of brass bands and operatic tenors, and the 
 men disappeared. 
 
 Mr. Brigham Jr., dined with us in the car, and 
 later Mr. James came, to go on with the men to Hart- 
 zel. A platform promenade, moony and spoony, is the 
 last I remember of Denver ; and w^e left that interest- 
 ing city at 9:30. 
 
 Mr. James, who is a brilliant story-teller, kept the 
 party highly entertained during the evening and we 
 reached Colorado Springs at 12:30. Here we ladies 
 have stopped in search of adventures, while the men 
 go on to seek their fortunes in the Colorado Eldorado. 
 
 Our adventures have proved neither thrilling nor ro- 
 mantic so far. Finding ourselves alone and unpro- 
 tected on a darksome night in a strange place, we 
 naturally expected somebody to rob us or kidnap us or 
 frighten us or fall in love with us, but nobody did. 
 Instead, our arrival having been wired ahead, the hotel 
 'bus was waiting for us, and as soon as Mrs. Brigham
 
 The Tour of the 400. 15 
 
 conld register we were shown to four rooms, joined 
 by baths — and methinks I'm the last one up. 
 
 The Antlers. 
 February 13. 
 
 The windows of ''178" overlook a park and beyond 
 it the Rockies, with Pike's Peak just distinguishable 
 in the morning mists. It was a fine view upon which 
 I rolled my curtain, and, failing our Morning Call, I 
 must be the one to wake the family up to admire it. 
 
 For a "lone, lorn" lot of females we have managed to 
 spend our day alone in Colorado Springs very pleas- 
 antly, though to be sure we spent it elsewhere — to be a 
 little Irish. All the warm wraps were brought out 
 from the trunks and after bundling up as if for an 
 expedition to the North Pole we climbed into a three- 
 seated surrey and started off for a twenty-five-mile 
 drive. 
 
 And the first discovery was a pole as remarkable as 
 the long-sought Arctic affair — it was 14,147 feet high 
 — exactly the height of Pike's Peak. I finally man- 
 aged to get a picture of Pike's without the unpic- 
 turesque and intrusive telephone line, and then we 
 drove to Manitou and from there on took the "Temple 
 Drive" road through Williams Cafion. 
 
 This is a great deep crack in the earth's crust, and 
 the road follows the bottom of the gorge between 
 towering walls of a beautiful yellow-brown rock. 
 Great threatening tons of it, half detached from the 
 ragged clififs four or five hundred feet above, hang 
 seemingly just ready to come crashing down. One 
 place, called "The Narrows," is a fissure barely wide 
 enough for a passage, which seemed to have just
 
 16 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 split open, so perfectly would the opposite sides fit 
 together if it should close again. It gave me the 
 feeling of being a nut in a nut-cracker — but grand! 
 It just made you want to expand and shout and be 
 something big ! 
 
 After a mile of this wild grandeur we climbed a 
 narrow road that has been blasted out of the rock, 
 overlooking deep chasms, where one grows dizzy to 
 look, with the wheels so perilously near the edge, 
 finally reaching a high point where the mountain 
 opens its mouth wide to inhale the ozone. Here we 
 alighted and were urgently invited to enter the Cave 
 of the Winds — only a dollar, including guide. I was 
 so charmed with the scenery that I felt that under- 
 ground explorations would be a waste of time — be- 
 sides I remembered the Mammoth Cave and its after 
 effects. Anyway, there was a grouchy expression 
 about the mouth of this cave that was forbidding, and 
 since Mrs. Brigham felt the same lack of inclina- 
 tion for subterranean research, we enjoyed the views 
 while Mrs. Newhall and the girls followed the guide 
 on "an elfin ramble," as the advertising leaflet put it. 
 
 An ornery-looking old fossil was that elfin guide, 
 but he Avas in fact a geological librar\' incog. And 
 there seemed to be something in the atmosphere of 
 that cave that crystallized his words as they fell from 
 his lips, like those of the good little girl who uttered 
 diamonds and rubies, for those ladies had gathered 
 up so many gems of wisdom that they fairly sparkled 
 when they came out. They had brought a handful of 
 petrified fingers that grow upon the walls as thick as 
 quills upon the fretful porcupine. These fingers were 
 already amputated — there being a stringent law which 
 forbids even "accidents."
 
 The Tour of the 400. 17 
 
 But whatever may have been the phenomenal beau- 
 ties of stalactite and stalgamite, "flowering alabaster" 
 and bridal chamber, the views from "Observation 
 Point" were compensation. Mountains stretched away 
 in every direction, rolling in huge billows till they were 
 lost in the distance — a dreamy ocean of soft colors all 
 washed together into purple as they blended into the 
 blue sky. Down below great rocks lay in masses, 
 and like a path up the hillsides came the winding road 
 by which we had ascended, lost now and then amongst 
 the clumps of evergreens or behind a point of rock. 
 
 We followed the same road back to Manitou, then 
 after a cup of tea "to warm us up" we drove in an- 
 other direction to the famous Garden of the Gods. 
 
 And here Nature steps from the sublime to the 
 ridiculous, revealing in her "visible forms" an eccen- 
 tricity that is as surprising as her nobler phases are 
 inspiring. Standing up on end and rising out of a 
 soft soil are curious rock formations that resemble all 
 sorts of familiar objects — Siamese Twins, Punch and 
 Judy, a Major Domo, the great Balanced Rock. A 
 patch of great stone mushrooms is in this strange 
 garden, and there are all sorts of distorted animals. 
 Most of these formations are of a red stone which 
 when reproduced on post cards seems much too 
 bright. Others are of a gray stone — they occur hit 
 or miss, red or gray, just as they happened to be up- 
 heaved when Mother Earth, being "took with fits," 
 was in the throes of a terrible convulsion. It is cer- 
 tainly a "geological miracle," even to an ignoramus 
 like me. 
 
 Arovuid the top of one of these oddly shaped rocks 
 an enterprising photographer has built a railing, thus 
 producing a steamboat, and during the season he sells
 
 18 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 excursion rates to people who like to show their 
 friends how they look compared to other natural won- 
 ders. I can't say anythin^^ — I've sat ! One freak of 
 nature makes the whole world kin. My first and last 
 sitting- was on the back of an Arkansas burro — the 
 ugliest in Happy Hollow. But I ca)i say this for my- 
 self, that the photograph was taken under duress, both 
 on m\' part and on that of the equally stubborn and 
 rebellious party of the second part. 
 
 There are great temples in this realm of the gods and 
 some of the masses of rocks look like old ruined ca- 
 thedrals. Others form giant gates, and through these 
 we made our exit from the garden and found our- 
 selves on an open road, a sharp wind blowing and 
 snow flying. We bundled up tight, bowed our heads 
 to the biting sand that flew up from the wheels and 
 were glad to finish the trip with all possible speed. 
 
 Those three men of ours looked pretty good to us 
 when they came to-night — and we looked pretty nice, 
 too, all in our best bibs and tuckers. We spent the 
 evening around the big fireplace in the lobby, ex- 
 changing experiences. The men had a rough trip 
 over an indescribably tortuous railroad, a long, cold 
 drive across country after it, for which Mr. James 
 furnished (intentionally or otherwise) leggings, muf- 
 flers, caps and mittens, he meanwhile keeping warm on 
 enthusiasm. They lost their way and all sorts of mis- 
 haps befell them, repeated on the return trip — the car 
 fairly turned somersaults. To hear about it, we won- 
 dered that it was not reduced to kindling and our liege 
 lords to saints and martyrs. As to the "prospect?*' in
 
 The Tour of the 400. 19 
 
 South Park, the conversation fell on uncomprehending 
 ears, in my case. But I should epitomize it by saying 
 that full many a shaft at random sunk finds ore the 
 miner little — thunk. That sounds very much like 
 Rhymo the ]\Ionk. 
 
 A\'e are all agreed that a prolonged sojourn at The 
 Antlers will be one of the good times coming when 
 our ships come in. Colorado Springs, wdth its fine 
 climate and scenery, is an ideal place to live ; one al- 
 most feels like adding, an ideal place to die, for many 
 are the grewsome reminders of the reason for the long- 
 rows of cottages "for rent," for the startling fre- 
 quency of doctors' and nurses' signs in so healthy a 
 place, for the furnished rooms and board waiting the 
 invalid — all telling how largely the population is made 
 up of valetudinarians — "lungers," most of them are, 
 to use the local expression. 
 
 En route. 
 February 14. 
 
 A leisurely breakfast at The Antlers, a go-as-you- 
 please forenoon, mostly devoted to repacking for a 
 warmer clime, and the "400" reassembled on the car 
 at one o'clock. !\Iiss Agnes Newhall was a guest for 
 luncheon, and we left Colorado Springs at 2 :30. 
 
 Some thoughtful soul had replenished the sweets, 
 bought a fresh supply of flowers and blooming plants, 
 and we were as comfortable and happy as the prover- 
 bial dwellers in rugs when we settled down for the 
 first 850-mile stretch of the long run to Mexico City, 
 where we go "direct." with only such stops as are 
 incidental to the trip. 
 
 We are traveling via the Hogarth Line — so I call 
 it. One would not think that a railroad across a
 
 20 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 perfectly flat country (for \vc left the mountams 
 almost at once) need describe all the scallops and cir- 
 cles and horseshoes and spirals and curlicues and other 
 snakentine wig:gle-wa,c:glcs that the dictionary does — 
 curves parabolical, h} i^erbolical, diabolical ! And the 
 wav the train scoots along looping these fearful and 
 wonderful loops ! Being on the end of the train, it's 
 like playing crack-the-whip — you wonder when you'll 
 fly loose. The speedometer is soaring around no in 
 the shade and the ends of the rails mark the time like 
 bars in music. "Lippity-clip, clippity-lip" they sing, 
 as Uncle Remus describes the wild ride of Brer Rabbit 
 on the back of Brer Fox. It occurred to me that per- 
 haps the rails made the name of the railroad company 
 in autograph, scrawling across the country, but Mr. 
 Brigham says all these sinusoidal maneuvers are on 
 account of grades, this section of country being an in- 
 clined plane — or plain, in this case. 
 
 Then he suddenly exclaimed: 'Those are bents'' — 
 imagine my astonishment at hearing slang from 
 him. He referred to the buttes, of course — ash- 
 dumps, they looked like. And finding we really did 
 seem to stay on the track of this "scenic" railway I 
 began to notice the scenery. The country was getting 
 to look like the familiar Remington drawings and 
 Owen Wister descriptions — gray, sun-parched earth, 
 stunted trees trying to grow beside the dry streams. 
 Half-tone pictures they were, with absolutely no color 
 except the blue sky. 
 
 But what had been lacking in the way of color was 
 put into one "grand pyrotechnic display" as the sun 
 finally went down, leaving a sunset splendor in the 
 heavens that certainly "declared the glory of God." 
 Trulv "the firmament showeth His handiwork."" A
 
 The Tour of the 400. 21 
 
 palette of such colors was never seen — violet and rose 
 and yellow, dashes of silver and gold, and one long- 
 streak of carmine was put on with a final bold stroke 
 of the brush, as if the artist realized that he could not 
 overdo the brilliance and might as well daub on the 
 color^ — in "squirts," as Holmes says of Turner sun- 
 shine. 
 
 When the gorgeous colors had faded and we 
 turned from the darkening landscape at the summons 
 to dinner, a surprise was waiting. The table was 
 decorated most artistically with red hearts — sure 
 enough, St. Valentine's day ; so that is why the girls 
 have been so sly all day — and the mysterious shopping 
 in Denver is explained. There was a Jack Horner 
 pie full of valentines, good and bad (mostly very, 
 very bad), surrounded by all the other red dishes 
 Frank could think of, from beets to jelly ; even the 
 last of Marion's American Beauties floated in the 
 finger bowls. It was a very swell function — quite a 
 Ladies' Home Journal affair. 
 
 After dinner Mr. Brown, who is usually a model 
 of dignity, and Mrs. Newhall, who can be, executed 
 a fandango while the Victor played "Feather Queen." 
 As for Mr. B., we must remember that he is a scion 
 of "old father Antic, the law," so he is excusable for 
 his antics. As for Mrs. N. — well, if Hammerstein 
 "gets next" and discovers her some night, she'll sure- 
 ly be "a Broadway star, all right." 
 
 Fort Worth, Texas. 
 February 15, 6 p. m. 
 
 To-day we have crossed half of Texas diagonally, 
 from Childress to this terminal, where I take advan-
 
 22 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 tage of a stop to write up. \A'e have been flying 
 along too fast to write while on the wing. 
 
 We were in the land of cotton by morning — end- 
 less acres of plantations stretching away, a great 
 ragged carpet, its background the red soil of Dixie. 
 At the stations darkies lounged on the cotton bales 
 that spread out everywhere, overflowing the platforms. 
 
 Then there were miles of barren lands, inhabited 
 only by prairie-dogs, who seemed to have preempted 
 large tracts under some kind of homestead law and 
 settled in colonies. Then followed good grazing covm- 
 try — a streak o' fat land and a streak o" lean, like the 
 kind of salt pork the old lady liked. 
 
 The people seem to have nothing to do, congregat- 
 ing at the station in the infrequent little towns — if a 
 shed, a shanty, a cottage, a barn and the depot may 
 be called a "town" — let me not forget the water tank, 
 the line of freight cars, the line of telegraph poles 
 and the line of clothes. 
 
 The groups of idlers are typically southern — though 
 a cowboy with his lariat and spurs gives a little west- 
 ern touch. The women are all in sun bonnets and 
 calico, black mammies and white dressed just alike. 
 We play southern airs when the train stops and enjoy 
 their surprise and curiosity. Xot often does the 
 "heavenly maid" visit this part of the world. 
 
 There is one tune we always set going just as we 
 pull out — "Bye-bye. bye-bye ma Eva — bye-bye, I's 
 gwine to leave yuh." All the Evas wave to the un- 
 seen "coon" singing in the yellow car. 
 
 Tinges of green begin to show in the newly-planted 
 fields and the thermometer is playing the ascending 
 chromatic scale. It is not warm enough to make 
 sunbonnets indispensable yet — cloudy too.
 
 The Tour of the 400. 23 
 
 I am wondering if this is not the railroad about 
 which the story is told that when one of the passen- 
 gers, noticing that the train was running smoothl}', 
 after a very rough trip, asked the conductor why that 
 was. "\\^e're ofif the track now," was the explanation. 
 Seeing a big locomotive lying bottom up in the ditch 
 to-day made us hope our engineer would slow up be- 
 fore we were "ofif the track," but he went faster if 
 anything; and still we reached Fort Worth too late 
 for the train with which the 400 was to connect, 
 so we have to wait here three hours for another. 
 
 Some mail was brought to the car upon our ar- 
 rival, and everybody is writing letters. Amongst ours 
 was one from the "prep, school" lad, mostly Greek to 
 me — all about the O. K. Pies and the Fli Ski Highs — 
 closing with some words of appreciation of our "un- 
 remitting kindness"' and enclosing the month's report, 
 bearing: a star ! 
 
 We walked up-town this evening, but not far. A 
 rough-looking lot of tipsy "cow punchers,'" all armed 
 to the teeth, had full possession of the streets — saloons 
 galore and the Salvation Army holding forth on the 
 corners. Let us hope they make many converts. 
 
 After starting on again two of the troupe (I name 
 no parties) gave a Punch-and-Judy show. It was a 
 benefit performance, for the benefit of Judy, who 
 really had to be punched, she was getting so effer- 
 vescent. Somebody remarked that if she got what 
 she deserved she"d be "canned, in other words pre- 
 served." She really is behaving beautifully now — but 
 she's only bottled, in other words fermenting.
 
 24 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 State of Neuvo Leon, Mexico. 
 
 Pebruary IG, .9 p, tn. 
 
 Mexico at last, though still my song shall be "My 
 country, 'tis of thee," for we have had a night and an- 
 other whole day in Texas. What a big state it is ! 
 Just think, France could come over to visit Texas and 
 bring with her little Denmark and the Netherlands 
 and have Switzerland come along to take care of them. 
 Even then, Texas could ask Massachusetts to come 
 and help entertain, and Connecticut and little Rhody 
 could come too to entertain the little foreigners, and 
 still with this house-party Texas would have a spare 
 room of over fifteen hundred square miles unoccupied. 
 I found some statistics and a pencil and figured this 
 out. 
 
 At San Antonio we learned the first thing this morn- 
 ing that the train we didn't catch last night had landed 
 in the ditch, after getting too frisky on sharp curves 
 and light rails. Moral, or as Buster Brown would 
 say, "Resolved:" 
 
 That it is sometimes a good thing to miss a 
 
 TRAIN. If you are well AND HAVE A GOOD DISPOSI- 
 TION YOU CAN ENJOY ANYTHING, EVEN MISSING A 
 
 TRAIN. Circumstantial evidence shows that by 
 
 MISSING A TRAIN PEOPLE HAVE OFTEN MISSED SOME- 
 THING WORSE. You're in a bad fix if you are part 
 OF A "horrible disaster." It is better to laugh 
 
 THAN BE SIGHING, SO WHEN AW^\Y THE TRAIN GOES 
 FLYING CHEER UP AND SMILE. It HAS MADE SOME 
 men's FORTUNES, THAT PLEASANT SMILE HAS. 
 
 The scenery and the climate have been growing 
 more and more tropical all da}'. Trees bearded with 
 the funereal Spanish moss, bunches of green mistle-
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 25 
 
 toe among the dead-looking branches, the Spanish bay- 
 onet and long stretches of "pear" thickets, all become 
 more common with every hour's progress. 
 
 We have spent the most of the day on the front 
 porch (as we call the rear platform), camped out on 
 stools, without wraps. Negroes grew beautifully less 
 and greasers more 
 numerous as we 
 reached the border 
 lands. While stop- 
 ping for the train- 
 load to lunch at 
 Choculla, one of 
 Uncle Sam's furth- 
 ermost towns, 
 Fanny and I took 
 pictures of some 
 cunning little half- 
 breed children. 
 They all say "show 
 me first your 
 penny" — in Span- 
 ish. The more 
 penny the more 
 smile. 
 
 We have left a trail of music behind us as we have 
 gone marching through Texas. A picture of the car 
 taken at any point on the day's run would show a 
 blur of notes and clefs, sharps and flats, streaming 
 out behind like the clouds of vapor and veils follow- 
 ing a motor car. But oh ! such a sorrow — we can't 
 have "Titl's Serenade" any more. Mr. Brigham has 
 put his foot down on it— now we're sorry we left it 
 on the floor. It was that pretty duet I've men- 
 tioned ; now it is two separate pieces.
 
 26 TJic Tour of the 400. 
 
 A freight wreck ahead caused a delay this after- 
 noon — the third wreck in twenty-four hours. No- 
 body can say these railroads are wreckless, how- 
 ever it may appear. But instead of growing nervous, 
 I begin to feel that a guardian angel is protecting the 
 "400." 
 
 That last remark was made in all good faith and 
 seriousness, yet I can't resist a story a propos. A 
 minister in a little Nebraska town went to call upon 
 a Swede who had lately "settled in their midst" — 
 having in fact been transported from Kansas on the 
 wings of an unusually careful cyclone, which had left 
 him with his family and other chattels "without a 
 scratch." Upon congratulating Ole on his miracu- 
 lous delivery the parson said, "Surely, the Lord was 
 with you." Said the Swede, "Ay tank he bane going 
 some." 
 
 Laredo, on the Rio Grande, was reached at six this 
 evening, with still enough sun for a photograph of 
 the river and the long bridge, in the center of which 
 a white stone post marks the boundary between the 
 realms of Uncle Sam and the realms of Mr. Diaz. 
 
 At Nuevo Laredo, on the Mexican side, customs 
 officers boarded the train. Appearing suddenly in the 
 dusk of the car, they looked so like a band of pirates 
 that we frightened women almost screamed in their 
 swarthy faces. Our men had gone out to open the 
 trunks for inspection. We collected our features and 
 adjusted our expressions hastily and succeeded in con- 
 vincing them that we were not smugglers, though the}' 
 did not understand English. We felt much relieved 
 when they left without cutting our throats. 
 
 The girls had their first lesson in Spanish from 
 some nice-looking Mexican bovs of their own age
 
 The Tour of the 400. 27 
 
 who came up on the car steps and pronounced the 
 words in the back of the guide-book, while the train 
 was waiting in Nuevo Laredo. The boys seemed to 
 be as much interested in the American Beauties as the 
 girls were in Espagnol, and the "adios" were very 
 friendly on both sides when the train started on. 
 
 Mrs. Newhall's trunk failed to appear in the Custom 
 House and upon investigation it was found that nobody 
 had a check for it — there was some mistake in Col- 
 orado Springs. Of course there is nothing in it she 
 wants, anyway, so she says ! Not even the spandy new 
 suit that was just finished in time. Like the immortal 
 Toddie, she is really glad not to be "boddered wif 
 lots of fings." Well, some people want but little here 
 below, but for my part I want that little along when I 
 travel. 
 
 It Vv^as dark by the time we were well on our way 
 again. We have had a quiet evening with books, and 
 are retiring early — my book being these memoirs. 
 
 Fortunately, Mr. Newhall brought a trunk of his 
 own. 
 
 State of San Luis Potosi, Mexico. 
 
 February 17. Noon. 
 
 Last night we traveled many miles over the old In- 
 dian trail that now forms the route of the Mexican 
 National Railway — the historic highroad over which 
 our American troops passed on their invasion of 
 Mexico. 
 
 We had passed through the valleys of Monterey and 
 of San Juan and had reached a barren table-land by 
 morning, and when we were wakened by our official 
 scene-shifter there had been a great changing of scen- 
 ery over night.
 
 28 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 Rolling up the little curtain of my window and 
 peeping out to see the fine views he was begging us 
 to behold, there was indeed a strange sight. The train 
 was steadily climbing a steep grade, already being near 
 the top of the mountains, whose summits were lost in 
 the soft, white heaps of fleecy clouds with which they 
 seemed to be playing pillow-fight for a morning frolic. 
 The slopes were covered with i)alm trees that reminded 
 me of huge pineapple tops mounted on tall posts. Some 
 were single, some double headed — some had arms up- 
 lifted — some were straight, others bent as if with age 
 and all had wild, spiky locks bristling on their heads. 
 They kept appearing, like Rip \"an Winkle's mountain 
 goblins, each more weird and fantastic than the last, 
 seeming to stare at the train, point at it and bow in 
 the most uncanny way. I wondered if last night's 
 sleep was really twenty years of oblivion, for it was 
 a vastly different world from that of yesterday. 
 
 Eager for pictures, I dressed as fast as possible, 
 but the sun was hidden behind the clouds I had been 
 admiring on the mountain tops. 
 
 There was a chill in the early morning air and the 
 groups of Mexicans who were out early repairing the 
 tracks, though wrapped in their warm, bright-colored 
 blankets, looked very shivery as to legs, having only 
 loose white cotton trousers and sandalled feet. And 
 their big sombreros suggested intense heat. 
 
 By the time the sun was bright enough for pictures 
 we had rolled down a long grade and the mountains 
 and "goblin" palms were left behind — without one 
 snap. 
 
 But there were plenty of pictures waiting, for all 
 along the route, wherever we stopped at the little 
 pueblos, the entire population was waiting at the sta-
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 29 
 
 tion to see the only event of their lives, the arrival 
 of the train — the incoming of their chief incomes, I 
 might have said, for they are all beggars ; and no 
 sooner does the train stop than every palm in this land 
 of palms is outstretched for "centavo, centavo," which 
 they ask por amor de Dios. 
 
 I said they were all at the station — at least those 
 that were not waiting would be there directly, for they 
 came running from the little cluster of adobe huts half
 
 30 
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 a mile distant in droves, old and young, "some in rags 
 and some in tags," like the beggars in the nursery 
 rhyme. Still they come, pouring out like the emptying 
 of an ant-hill, aunts and uncles and cousins, "reckoned 
 up by dozens." Where do they all sleep, for pity's 
 sake? The little cubic adobe huts are like bake-ovens 
 
 of clay, yet they seem to afford accommodation for 
 multitudes. Some of the family must be hung uj)— 
 some of them look as if they ought to be ! — but I 
 meant in hamacos.
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 31 
 
 And the costumes ! When his apparel can be called 
 other than just rags, the male Mexican's garb is a 
 combination of white "ducks," a nonedscript sort of 
 
 outing shirt, a couple (not necessarily a pair) of san- 
 dals, a big sombrero of straw or felt, and always the 
 bright striped carapc— the Mexican mantle of charity. 
 These last are a continual temptation to me, dirty as 
 they are. In fact the most soiled are usually the most
 
 32 
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 beautiful, for the colors soften like those of antique 
 rugs. These blankets the humble peon wears with the 
 grace of a cavalier in a cloak, a fringed end thrown over 
 the left shoulder. Some blankets (called ponchos) are 
 woven with a slit in the middle for the head ; these 
 are often worn under a zarape. 
 
 In these garments they seem to live and move and 
 have their being continuously, day and night. Per- 
 haps there is a time when the plumage moults — per- 
 haps the raiment matures and drops off like foliage — if 
 so, I should think that season about due. 
 
 The women, too, "wear the same clothes all the 
 
 while" — a bunch of 
 rags and a heavenly 
 smile! — but though as 
 in Robinson Crusoe's 
 Isle, they very seldom 
 change the style, as they 
 say in fashion books, 
 "great variety is noticed 
 in the colors and fab- 
 rics employed in indi- 
 vidual creations." 
 
 "Agre does not wither noi' 
 custom stale their infinite 
 variety."' 
 
 The key-note of Mex- 
 ican fashion is simplic- 
 ity, and the predomi- 
 nating style of toilette 
 is a two-piece costume 
 consisting of bodice and 
 skirt of contrasting
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 Z5 
 
 material and color, the skirt being constructed on sim- 
 ple lines, in round length or medium sweep. 
 
 With tnis costume a blue scarf of diaphanous texture, 
 called a reboao, or a black shawl, called a tapolo, is 
 worn over the head and shoulders. 
 
 For general utility nothing could surpass this grace- 
 ful adjunct to the toilette. It is used not only for pro- 
 tection, but in it is toted the baby or other weary 
 load. 
 
 Youngsters able to walk arc naked as to feet and
 
 34 
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 in various stages of decollete from the ground up. 
 As the youngest pequefio ninos (pickaninnies) are 
 wrapped in their mother's shawls as described, their 
 layettes are a matter of conjecture. Sometimes the Ht- 
 tle urchins have a layout of ragged underwear — 
 merely this and nothing more — sometimes only the 
 
 outer garments, as may be seen from the general peek- 
 a-boo effect of the visible attire. The only completely 
 covered boys I have seen wore white combination suits 
 such as we call night bloomers in Chicago — here they
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 35 
 
 bloom in the day time. In fact, all the kids in Mexico 
 seem either preparing or ready for bed, and the aver- 
 age boy could jump out of his entire vesture in one 
 yump. 
 
 Some of the young women and many of the little 
 ragamuffins are really pretty, with bright eyes and 
 rich complexions, white teeth and glossy hair. We 
 quite fell in love with one bonita to-day and she 
 thoroughly appreciated the admiration. The pretty
 
 36 
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 girls are greatly set off by the background of griz- 
 zled, mummified old women, who seem never to be 
 too decrepit or too miserable not to want to see the 
 trains come in. 
 
 ppp— ^ 
 
 Altogether they form a spectacle abject and pitiful, 
 yet so strikingly foreign that one feels as if he were 
 on the other side of the globe, rather than only a few 
 hours from our modern civilization and prosperity. 
 
 What do they think, I wonder, of the world from 
 which come the long trains filled with people as strange
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 37 
 
 to them as they are to the strangers ? For they know no 
 other Hfe than that of the desert — in ignorance they 
 are primeval. 
 
 To say that I am in my seventh heaven with such 
 subjects for snapshots is putting it several stories too 
 low. I'm in the utmost empyrean heights. Mexico is 
 a paradise for a camera fiend, for not only are there 
 abundant subjects, but the sunshine is so clear and 
 steady that photog- 
 raphy is a perfect de- 
 light. I go snapping 
 around like a Spitz 
 dog! If only the 
 camera could repro- 
 duce the wealth of 
 color in the outland- 
 ish costumes, in the 
 soft eyes and olive 
 skins of the people, 
 in the landscape and 
 wonderful sky — but 
 all this must be sup- 
 plied by the imagin 
 ation of those who 
 have not seen the 
 originals, by the 
 memory of those 
 who have. 
 
 And with the strange people there is also the 
 strange language to add to the feeling that one is 
 "in foreign "parts." The cars along the Nacional are 
 premier, scgunda or terccra clasc. They are not, how- 
 ever, like the European "classified" cars, but are Amer- 
 ican coaches of a degree of respectability in accordance 
 with their clasc distinction. Freight cars on the side- 
 
 273v'S9
 
 38 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 tracks tell the capacidad in kilos. Over the ticket 
 office in stations large enough to have a ticket office 
 (and they are few and far between) is the sign 
 "dispacho de hoi etas." A sleeping car is a coche 
 dorniitorio — well, never mind, this isn't a glossary. 
 I'm adding insult to injury, as the parrot said when 
 he was not only taken from his native land to England, 
 but made to talk the language ! 
 
 We crossed the Tropic of Cancer about eleven 
 o'clock and can fully realize that we have entered the 
 Torrid Zone, for it is very hot in the blazing sun- 
 shine. This, however, is not what is called the tierra 
 caliente, or hot country — that is on the coast. Up 
 here we are on a table land, "the backbone of ^Mexico," 
 and this region is the tierra tcmplada, or temperate 
 land. The mean temperature of this tierra is given 
 as 70°, but I think it is meaner than that to-day. In 
 my opinion Old ]\Iexico has enough temperature to 
 need ice. And, by the way, that is one of the mys- 
 teries of this car — the way the ice keeps. 
 
 It seems strange to think we are in the same lati- 
 tude in the Avestern world in which is the Desert of 
 Sahara in the eastern hemisphere — we are south of 
 the southernmost part of Egypt. 
 
 This is the highest altitude of the journey over the 
 Nacional, Catorce, the last town in the Temperate 
 Zone being 9,042 feet. Catorce means "fourteen" — a 
 queer name for a town. It was given "in honor'' of 
 fourteen outlaw^s who discovered the mines near by. 
 
 We are going like an arrow across a flat desert and 
 are almost buried alive in dust. It is no wonder if this 
 is dry reading. The view is at times completely ob- 
 scured by clouds of fine sand. We have had to abandon 
 "the porch," but there isn't much to look at now except
 
 The Tour of the 400. 39 
 
 the two glittering streaks of steel diminishing into 
 space hehind. The landscape is just "foreground 
 golden dirt," with middle distance and far distance all 
 the same, with always the far-away mountains that 
 form a rim for this big pan of sugar. 
 
 State of Guanajuato. 
 S p. m. 
 
 "Reckon you-all better come right out if you don't 
 want to eat dirt," Oliver said when he announced 
 luncheon. We-all could easily have consumed our 
 allotted peck at one fell swoop if he hadn't been so 
 careful to cover everything. And even at that the 
 dishes were gritty before the meal was over. 
 
 There were a hundred miles of that desert. We came 
 straight across it without a curve. Then gradually the 
 aspect of the country changed again and we could 
 sit outside to enjoy it. It grew hilly and there were 
 beautiful views as we passed through fertile valleys 
 where we caught glimpses of flourishing haciendas. 
 At Bocas is one of the most notable of these estates, 
 said to be worth a million dollars. As to whether that 
 means "U. S." or "Mex.," deponent saith not— it would 
 be all one to me if he did. 
 
 The place looked like a fortress, with its white walls 
 of stone, and like a green oasis with its gardens and 
 tropical plants and trees. The top of the white build- 
 ings and the spires of a chapel gleamed in the sun- 
 shine against a vivid background of foliage. 
 
 Along the green banks of the irrigation ditches that 
 bring water to these haciendas were groups of women 
 washing their clothes, the bushes around being draped 
 with garments of many hues, children bathing in 
 the shallow pools while their clothing was in the laun-
 
 40 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 dry. It would seem a useless waste of time and en- 
 ergy, if time or much energy were of any value to these 
 people, for we know from experience how impossible it 
 is to stay clean in such a dusty country. Considering 
 the scarcity of water, it is really very much to their 
 credit that the poor creatures even try to be clean. 
 Water is such a luxury that it is not uncommon to see 
 women with their alias, or earthen jugs, catching the 
 water that drains out of the waste-pipes of the locomo- 
 tive at the little towns in the desert. What they drink 
 I do not know ; we are supplied with spring water. 
 
 We reached San Luis Potosi about two o'clock. A 
 very ancient town is this, named "Saint Louis of the 
 Treasure" for its old-time silver mines, which were 
 thought to resemble the Potosi mines of Peru. There 
 was a half-hour wait here for the train passengers to 
 eat. As always, there were the throngs of natives at 
 the station, as if it were a gala day— all the types with 
 which tourists soon become familiar — the men with 
 their cigarettes, beggars with their empty palms. The 
 better looking senoras leave the silky black hair un- 
 covered, wearing the tapoio around their shoulders. 
 The poorer ones, or what appear to be so, wear the 
 blue rchozo over their probably unkempt tresses. 
 There were priests with long gowns and shorn heads, 
 and fruit venders of both sexes, the women squatting 
 on the platform or sidewalk with their goods spread 
 out around them, the men with a loaded tray on their 
 heads and carrying a folding rack like a camp-stool ; 
 at the least encouraging sign of a possible cus- 
 tomer, they transfer the stock in trade from the head 
 to the rack, and behold, a fruit store open for busi- 
 ness, with an eager salesman behind the counter and 
 your choice of fruits and dulccs of all sorts. We tried
 
 The Tour of the 400. 41 
 
 something in the dulcy Hne that looked rather good 
 — some kind of sHced meion-Hke fruit coated over 
 with crystalHzed sugar. I was glad I took a small 
 bite — it was like raw pumpkin. 
 
 There was a man selling little tortoise-shell trays 
 made of horse hoofs who, my hubby said, was the 
 same one he bought one of in '96 ; and there were men 
 with opals and women with drawnwork. 
 
 The city of San Luis Potosi is said to be very 
 interesting. Of course, we could only get the "gen- 
 eral efifect" from the station. A very old church 
 stands inside what are now railroad yards. We asked 
 a Mexican what it was, pointing to it. He crossed 
 himself and smiled politely. Mexican Rebeccas kept 
 coming with the great red urn-like jars to a water- 
 spout near the car, and having filled them, carried 
 them away on their shoulders, supporting them with all 
 the grace of a Greek statue. The very up-to-date 
 railway station looked strange, surrounded by build- 
 ings of mediaeval architecture. It is more suitable 
 for Saint Louis Missouri, than for San Luis Potosi. 
 
 And speaking of towns named after the saints, a 
 stranger in Mexico would have as much trouble to 
 locate the particular San Pedro or Jose or Miguel or 
 Francisco he wanted as one in our country would 
 have in finding a certain Smithfield or Lewistown or 
 Jacksonville or Jonesboro — each state has at least one 
 of each. The next town after San Luis is Jesus Maria. 
 Of course no brakesman shouts the names of the sta- 
 tions into the door of the 400, but suppose Evanston, 
 for instance, had been thus named — we usually stop 
 four times in Evanston and hear the name shouted 
 twice at each stop and at each start at each station at
 
 42 
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 each end of the car, and each time with a slam of the 
 door! 
 
 The country grows more and more productive and 
 prosperous looking. There are many cultivated acres 
 of the agave or maguey, which we call the century 
 plant, from which pulque, the ^Mexican whiskey, is 
 made. 
 
 The guide-book describes in detail the primitive 
 manner in which the sap is extracted from the plant. 
 It seems that when it is about to bloom, which hap- 
 pens but once in the life of the plant, the bud is cut 
 off, the sap allowed to collect in the hollow where the 
 stem was taken out and a peon sucks the juice into a 
 gourd, emptying the gourd as fast as it is filled into 
 a pigskin sack which he carries on his back. My, 
 doesn't that sound good? 
 
 These lazy suckers have to work fast, for the liquor 
 ferments very rapidly and after twenty-four hours is 
 flat, stale and unprofitable. Mescal, a distilled liquor 
 made from the juice, is highly intoxicating. Pulque is
 
 The Tour of the 400. 43 
 
 very cheap, being worth only about fifty cents a gallon. 
 I have read somewhere that after it is imported by 
 the United States from France, bottled as cognac, it 
 sells for four dollars a bottle. 
 
 There are countless varieties of cacti in this part 
 of the world. They grow in jungles, the shrubby 
 kinds, and other varieties look like distorted apple trees. 
 They often cover acres of country, like great, weird 
 orchards. There is a tall, straight kind, the organo 
 (from its resemblance to organ pipes), that is used for 
 protection around the little huts and the great haciendas 
 — of course, covered with prickers. The commonest 
 variety, the "prickly pear," makes dense, impenetrable 
 hedges and grows to enormous size. There are sev- 
 eral varieties of the vulgaris species, promiscuously 
 called "prickly pear," 'Tndian fig," tuna, nopal ; best 
 described as the "dog-ear kind." Don't ever touch 
 the most innocent looking of them ! Mr. Newhall 
 managed to land some specimens on the platform, but 
 they were tartars and he won't try it again. The long 
 green bristles look soft and tender, but don't you be- 
 lieve them. Every cactus plant is a deadly foe stand- 
 ing on guard with "fixed bayonets." 
 
 Some varieties of cacti bear fruit that is much liked 
 by the natives. Some portions of the plants are used 
 for fodder, after singeing off the whiskers. Some are 
 used for their fibre for various purposes. When the 
 tuna is in fruit, the Mexicans care for no other food 
 and will not work during the season of plenty. 
 
 I suppose the nopal is the Nacional cactus, as it 
 figures in the national legend. We read that the 
 ancient Aztecs, during their migrations in search of 
 a suitable town site, came upon a sacrificial stone upon 
 which one of their priests had once made a burnt offer-
 
 44 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 iug of a captive hostile chief. Upon a cactus which 
 grew in a crevice in this stone there sat an eagle, hold- 
 ing a serpent in his beak. This w^as considered to be 
 symbolical of victory and interpreted as a good omen 
 to themselves, and the tribal pueblo was built upon the 
 spot. The place was called Tenochtitlan, or "place 
 of the cactus rock," but the name "Mexico," as the 
 city which was thus founded was afterward called, 
 was taken from one of the names of the w^ar god 
 Huitzilopochtli jMexitli — choosing the lesser of two 
 evils, the name Alexitli being obviously rather to be 
 chosen than Huitzilopochtli. 
 
 This is the origin of the eagle and serpent as the 
 Mexican national emblem. 
 
 They all think I'm copying the guide-book. I'm only 
 translating it, as a matter of fact — putting it into easy 
 lessons for beginners. But it is wasting time to stay 
 indoors, so here endeth the first lesson. 
 
 Gonzales Jc. 
 
 9 p. VI. 
 
 During the afternoon a grand senor, the Jmciendado 
 or proprietor of some large plantation, alighted from 
 the train. He had been away on business or pleasure 
 and was met at the flag station near the hacienda by 
 his carriage (a white-canvas-covered two-seated fam- 
 ily carry-all) and a fine team of horses. He looked 
 like a Mexican Hamlet, all in black — tight trousers 
 and short jacket and an enormous felt sombrero — 
 how heavy and hot it must have been ! He had the 
 air of a prince, but was Americanized to the extent 
 of white collar and cuflfs. 
 
 The train crossed a wide arroyo by means of a
 
 The Tour of the 400. 45 
 
 viaduct of wonderful construction just before reach- 
 ing the last important town of the day's run — San 
 Felipe. We had a striking view of the town, its tow- 
 ers and roofs shining like silver in a spot-light of 
 brilliant sunshine in the distance, across a long inter- 
 vening stretch of shadow. 
 
 It seemed a pity to see the day drawing to a close, 
 for the country was more beautiful every hour. I 
 shall never forget the last few miles of the journey, 
 through a wide broken valley, green as the promised 
 land, peaceful as a dream, quiet and lonely as the 
 vale of death. We watched the deep blue shadows 
 creep up the sides of the encircling mountains while 
 all the wide scene around us was glowing with re- 
 flections from the western sky. A river w^ound zig- 
 zag through the picture, little lonely huts nestled 
 under protecting banks and amongst the green vines 
 and shrubs. Only a solitary home-returning figure 
 now and then made the picture a reality. The charm 
 of it all made us silent. It seemed as if a word 
 would break the spell — a feeling that to me was 
 like music — like the melody of a June day, when 
 "heaven tries the earth if it be in tune" and sets all 
 the harmonies of the universe vibrating. 
 
 Softly the light faded as we watched the "shadows 
 of departing day." then all at once the train dashed 
 into a deep cut, it became abruptly dark and almost 
 as abruptly chilly. A brakesman brought the lanterns 
 for the rear end and we left the v/orld to darkness 
 and came inside, after trying in vain to see anything 
 besides the glimmer of a few early lights in Dolores 
 Hidalgo, of historic renown. 
 
 This towm is known as the birth-place of Hidalgo 
 and as the "cradle of independence," for it was hero
 
 46 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 that the patriot priest fired his countrymen, "the wild 
 hosts of Hidalgo," with the spirit of '76 — in 1810. 
 From the belfry of the little church in Dolores 
 ("Hidalgo" was added to the name later) were first 
 heard the sounds of freedom that was proclaimed by 
 the grito, the "Cry of Dolores." That bell is now the 
 Liberty Bell of the republic and rings out its jubilate 
 over the City of Mexico on every Independence Day, 
 the 1 6th of September. 
 
 We ate dinner under difficulties to-night, for the 
 glasses and cups emptied themselves as fast as they 
 were filled — plates slid all over the table and into our 
 laps — silver rattled and we were as likely to put our 
 forks or spoons into our neighbor's mouth as into our 
 own. Mr. Brigham, who knows all about railroads, 
 said he never saw such short curves in such narrow 
 cuts, nor cut around such short curves in such a short 
 time. 
 
 A half-hour stop at Gonzales for whatever they call 
 the meal at 8 :30 gives me the opportunity to finish ni}' 
 day's travelogue. I have written on the wing before, 
 but it would be useless to attempt even my shorthand 
 at this last state of joggle. 
 
 We got ofif for a few moments and stood around on 
 the platform and listened to a blind musician (?) who 
 gave a pathetic rendition of "La Paloma." accompany- 
 ing his poor old cracked voice with the "gentle strains" 
 of an old cracked harp of home-made appearance. \A'e 
 thanked him — liberally — and then played the song for 
 him on the Victor, to his astonishment and that of the 
 crowd. And, by the way, we are getting a little 
 chary about encouraging "the crowd" too close, for 
 they are an anarchistic-looking lot of ruffians that 
 gather round the train at night and it is their unfor-
 
 Tlic Tour of the 400. 47 
 
 tunate reputation that they'd rather be steaHng than 
 eat — and I am sure they would gladly eat — they look 
 as hungry as wolves. 
 
 A funny little Mexican private car has just been 
 coupled on behind us — hope it will hold us down. 
 To judge by the shadows cast before by those last few 
 miles, I am sure there are coming events in the way 
 of curves — the guardian angel will have to make a 
 record run. That is shocking, isn't it? But I was 
 thinking of another story — one of Mr. James' — about 
 a man who boastfully undertook to spend a night 
 alone in a much-feared haunted house. Being awak- 
 ened at the spooky hour by the soft touch of a furry 
 paw he opened his eyes to see a horrible creature with 
 the body of an animal and a head like a gargoyle 
 looking at him. One look was enough — it was hello- 
 good-bye-sorry-I-can't-stop ! At the end of a breath- 
 less five-mile dash he stopped, thinking he had far out- 
 stripped the creature, but only to find it beside him. 
 "That was quite a race we had." it remarked in a 
 casual way. "Yes, but not a marker to the one we're 
 going to have" — and he was gone. 
 
 Hotel Palacio, Ciudad de Mejico. 
 
 Domingo, Fcbrcro IS. 
 
 This will be a long story to tell, for it has been a day 
 brimful of sights, experiences and impressions. 
 
 To resume where I left off, in spite of the hippity- 
 hop locomotion, we all slept as soundly last night as if 
 we were being jounced to sleep on our mother's knee. 
 It is my personal belief that every member of the fam- 
 ily "went to bed with his stockings on," but of course 
 r can only speak for myself. I could have responded 
 to a 2:11 call without delav.
 
 48 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 We learned from our northern spy that we were safe 
 and sound in the City of The Conquerors when we 
 woke, the 400 side-tracked and deserted, for the train 
 had silently stolen away — at least nobody heard it. 
 
 Aiter breakfasting on the car, we put a few neces- 
 saries into suit cases and set out to see the sights. 
 
 I wonder how it would seem to be taken from noisy, 
 grimy, sky-scraping Chicago and be put down directly 
 into Mexico City on Sunday morning. Of course a 
 thousand miles of Mexico had prepared us in a meas- 
 ure for what we saw this morning, but after all it w^as 
 a strange sensation, as of being on earth before "when 
 the world was new and all," as Kipling says, for Time 
 seemed to have turned backward a few centuries and 
 the world to have turned over on the other side and 
 gone to sleep. We were in old Jerusalem or Con- 
 stantinople or were dreaming ourselves — surely it was 
 not America. 
 
 Everything was dazzlingly white and dazzingly blue 
 — the low-roofed white stone or whitewashed build- 
 ings and the vivid Mexican sky made a background 
 that intensified the gay colors on all the people about. 
 
 Of course the first thing was to find a hotel, and 
 since it was "sech a pleasant mornin' an' sech a short 
 walk," we thought we'd walk, and each began on a 
 different native to ask the way. "Sanz Hotel'" seemed 
 a very easy thing to understand, and it seemed as if 
 our pantomime would be easily comprehensible as 'T 
 want to go there." But "Sanz Hotel" is one thing — 
 "Otel Sanz" is cjuite another. But finally a small boy 
 "caught on," as it takes a boy to do, and taking a 
 jingling hint that it would pay him to do so, he picked 
 up the bags and proceeded to guide us. 
 
 It proved a long walk, but a pleasant one. We took
 
 The Tour of the 400. 49 
 
 it leisurely, remembering the altitude and finding 
 everything too interesting to want to hurry. 
 
 Long rows of stone walls with grated windows look 
 forbidding till one sees through on open portal a 
 glimpse of the courtyard around which all Mexican 
 houses are built — the patio, it is called. Here are 
 bright flowers and green palms and climbing vines, 
 roses in bloom and sparkling fountains. Add to these 
 an oriental-looking figure in a doorway, or a little 
 dusky face with bright curious eyes peeping out at 
 you from behind some friendly screen, then imagine 
 the balmy sunshine and that is the best I can do at a 
 reproduction of the picture. 
 
 We finally came to a wide, handsome boulevard, 
 the Paseo de la Reforma, where the wealthiest peoi)le 
 of the city live in more or less modified Mexican style. 
 Every now and then the avenue broadened into a 
 glorieta, or circle, where a statue or fountain was 
 placed, with great stone benches on which the pic- 
 turesque natives pose in true Alma-Tadema effect. 
 The most remarkable of these staues is an equestrienne 
 Charles IV., the largest bronze casting in the world, 
 horse and rider all one piece. It is the pride of the 
 city that this casting was done in her own foundries 
 and a tablet in Spanish is said to explain that the 
 statue is retained in this conspicuous place not to do 
 honor any longer to King Charles, but rather as a 
 wonderful piece of art. 
 
 Our way led through a beautiful park, or alamcda, 
 as it is called — and this is the Alameda of Mexico — 
 a great bower of green foliage, through which the 
 sunshine seemed to sift, falling in bright specks all 
 over the velvety green grass. Through shadowy 
 vistas were glimpses of the white walls or towers of
 
 50 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 some ancient church — there were statues and foun- 
 tains, "around which were clustered the gracefully 
 draped people, and flowers and tropical plants, both 
 great and small, while all about was the chirping of a 
 birdies' ball. 
 
 And another concert than that of the birds was in 
 preparation. Carpets Avere being spread and awnings 
 and banners stretched along the walks, for some dis- 
 tinguished personage is visiting the city and the usual 
 Sunday band concert was to be a special occasion. 
 We applied all the words of welcome (those we could 
 make out) to ourselves and felt as pleased at the signs 
 of hospitality as if the "glad hand"' was extended for 
 our reception. 
 
 Eventually The Sanz appeared, an old building, as 
 unlike a hotel in appearance as possible. It was in 
 fact an old residence and in its day had been a very 
 fine one. Like all Mexican houses, it shut out the 
 world with a solid wall on the street, with only a 
 large entrance big enough to drive through. This 
 old portal is now fitted out with ordinary doors, for 
 it is no longer used as a carriage entrance as in days 
 gone by when the horses and carriages were housed 
 with the family who lived in the casa grandc. The 
 rooms on the ground floor around the patio, now used 
 as dining room, barber shop and offices, were built for 
 stables and servants' quarters, the family occupying 
 the upper rooms, all of which open on the "gallery." 
 
 A fountain in which were goldfish and water plants 
 was in the center of the stone-paved court, and under 
 the cloister-like arches, in startling contrast to all 
 their mediaeval surroundings, were some aggressively 
 up-to-date "mission" rockers with great pudgy leather 
 cushions, fresh from the missions in Grand Rapids.
 
 The Tour of the 400. 51 
 
 But to tell the truth, they were at that moment the 
 most attractive features of the place. 
 
 Unfortunately, there were no rooms to be had at 
 The Sanz. This hostelry had been so well recom- 
 mended that the news was in the nature of a crushing 
 blow. Telephone communication was productive of no 
 better luck at the Iturbide or the Jardin, and the best 
 to be had was the Palacio. To the "400," with recol- 
 lections of former Palaces, a hotel would have smelled 
 as sweet by any other name, but the "400" cannot 
 always be choosers ; so we took some blue-flag carriages 
 to the Palacio. By ''blue flag" we mean first-class, for 
 in "The City" the style, condition and length of servi- 
 tude of public hacks is designated by little tin flags of 
 different colors displayed on the disengaged vehicles. 
 
 The Palacio is built on the same plan as The Sanz, 
 minus the fountain and plus a roof over the court, the 
 rooms above the ground floor opening on gallery hall- 
 ways. 
 
 Each chamber or suite has a little vestibule with 
 chairs for callers, and the doors are double and as light 
 as those of a wardrobe. These are supposed to be 
 fastened by bolting one to the floor and locking the 
 other to it. As there is no bolt on ours, it is somewhat 
 immaterial whether they are locked or not — it seems a 
 little more private with the key turned, though. An- 
 other set of doors in our palacial apartment (and if 
 gorgeousness of carpet and hangings is palatial, it is 
 that) opens into quite a modern bath room. In this 
 case one door is hung with the inside outside or the 
 other with the outside inside — at any rate the flange is 
 wrong-side-out-side, so they can't close. I tried every 
 which way to get the hang of them, but only got a 
 black and blue nail for my pains. We turn the key as
 
 52 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 a matter of form and after our banc play unlock it 
 again. 
 
 Being too eager to begin sightseeing to care much 
 about interiors for the present, we disposed of our bag- 
 gage quickly and sallied forth once more. When we 
 came down to the office floor we found our supposed 
 names stencilled in white chalk on a big blackboard — 
 not as a notice to the police or anything like that, but 
 to tell our possible callers and our fellow guests what 
 rooms we occupied. If the spelling was erratic, at 
 least it was taken from the signatures on the register, 
 so we forbear comment — and it was easily erased and 
 made right. Hanging conspicuously in the inner office 
 was a large photograph of our own Dowie "in full 
 pontificals," for this is where he ''puts up"" when in 
 Mexico. 
 
 First decorating ourselves with bunches of freshly- 
 gathered wood violets that were offered by women with 
 big baskets full of them, we proceeded to the post of- 
 fice, and here the girls found things sweeter than vio- 
 lets — whole armfuls of valentines and letters which 
 had wasted none of their sweetness on the desert 
 air coming south — to judge by the pleasure exhibited 
 by the recipients. 
 
 The post office is in a part of the Palacio Xacioiial. 
 one of the most notable buildings in the city. Archi- 
 tecturally it is "squat and unpretentious" — three sto- 
 ries high, the front extending along the entire east side 
 of a public square about the size of four ordinary city 
 blocks, with wings at each end extending backward 
 a block or so. Historically it is one of the most inter- 
 esting buildings in America. On the site it occupies 
 stood, at the time of the Conquest, "the new palace of 
 Montezuma." This was destroved bv Cortez, who built
 
 Th^ Tour of the 400. 53 
 
 a palace for himself on the ground. This was also aft- 
 erward destroyed and the present building is over two 
 hundred years old. From this spot Mexico has been 
 governed for nearly four centuries, President Diaz be- 
 ing the first Mexican "ruler" who did not occupy the 
 National Palace. Since his administration began it has 
 been the Capitol building, containing the Presidential 
 offices, Senate Chamber and Post Office. 
 
 The Plaaa Mayor de la Constitucion, in front of the 
 National Palace, was four hundred years ago an open 
 space in front of the great teocalli, or Aztec temple, 
 where in the dark ages of idolatry multitudes of sav- 
 ages gathered to devour ceremonially the bodies of 
 the Aactims sacrificed on the pyramid of the "temple" 
 after their beating hearts had been cut out as an of- 
 fering to their gods ! To-day this great open space 
 is the public square of the city — not a park, although 
 in the center is a garden, the Zocolo, a name by 
 which the Plaza itself is commonly called. Zocolo 
 means "foundation" and the name refers to a monu- 
 ment to Mexican independence, of which the foun- 
 dation alone was completed. The Zocolo is the heart 
 of the city. It is the point from which all street- 
 cars start and where the band plays every afternoon, 
 so it is always thronged with people. 
 
 And what a picture it makes ! Dashes of red and 
 purple and yellow and blue make a brilliant "detail" 
 which combined form a gorgeous mass of color 
 against the background of green trees, beyond which 
 are seen the towers and dome of the Cathedral, fac- 
 ing the north side of the Plaza. 
 
 Many people in the streets, carrying prayer-books 
 and rosaries, were walking to church, and there we 
 followed them, for the old cathedral is the principal
 
 54 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 sight in Mexico City, regarded as the finest edifice 
 on the American continent — not to speak of its his- 
 torical associations. 
 
 The trees in the garden of the Zocolo prevent a 
 general view of the Cathedral, which spreads over 
 such immense space that the architectural "point 
 of view" should be at some distance. From a side- 
 walk observation one cannot take in much beside the 
 solidity of the white stone walls and some of the 
 sculptural detail. Adjoining the Cathedral, seeming 
 indeed a part of it, is the Segrario MctropoUtano, or 
 first parish church. The Cathedral is described as 
 Moorish in style, the segrario as "Churrigueresque," 
 from the name of a native architect. It has an elabo- 
 rately carved fagade which contrasts strongly with the 
 severe, massive front of the Cathedral. A little chapel, 
 massive front of the Cathedral. A little chapel, La 
 La CapcUa dc la Solcdad, unites the two buildings and 
 there are more chapels in the rear. 
 
 The Cathedral is a stone-embodied history of Mex- 
 ico — a romantic history, full of thrilling chapters. It 
 is built on the site of the old pagan teocalli. On this 
 spot one place of worship succeeded another till the 
 present structure, built by the Catholic Spaniards, was 
 begun in 1573 — not, however, being completed with its 
 bell-capped towers till more than two hundred years 
 later — not exactly a mushroom growth. It took fortv 
 years to build the foundations alone. 
 
 The interior style is that of the Spanish Renais- 
 sance — how Baedeker-like that sounds ! And how 
 Baedeker-like it felt to be wandering once more in 
 an old cathedral, studying the fluted columns, the 
 gilded carving, old and lovely with the beautifying 
 touch of decav, the once brilliant but darkened old
 
 The Tour of the 400. 55 
 
 paintings on the walls, the rows of chapels along the 
 aisles, wherein knelt lone worshipers, telling- their 
 beads. 
 
 The efifect of space in this great building is lost 
 because of the placing of the choir in the middle of 
 the nave — so one is disappointed after having formed 
 an idea of the immensity of the building from the ex- 
 terior proportions. There is said to be a fabulous 
 amount of wealth inside the old walls of the Cathedral 
 — in the high altar, which is modern and therefore 
 inharmonious, and in the many other altars, one of 
 which is a replica of the famous Altar de Los Reyes 
 (the Kings) in the Cathedral of Seville, Spain. Un- 
 der this altar are buried the bones of Iturbide, the 
 heads of Hidalgo and his compatriots and other his- 
 toric "remains," and before it Yturbidc and Maximil- 
 iano were crowned — this being the only church in 
 America in which the ceremony of a coronation was 
 ever witnessed. 
 
 There are paintings by the old Spanish masters in 
 the Cathedral, but they are kept hidden away in the 
 obscurity of some chapter room ; having been pur- 
 chased for devotional purposes, they are not looked 
 upon as possessions to be exhibited merely as works of 
 art. 
 
 There are two great organs which are supposedly 
 very fine instruments. The music we heard was not of 
 a character to demonstrate any wonder of tone or 
 power, as a service was in progress for which the music 
 was low and monotonous. It seemed to be a strange 
 kind of service that had no beginning and no end. 
 People were coming and going at random, all classes 
 kneeling together wherever there was a little space 
 on the floor — a lady in silk side by side with an Indian
 
 36 
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 in a blanket, one as much at liome as the other. Men 
 and women would come in, kneel and pray, cross 
 themselves devoutly and pass out with many genu- 
 flections. 
 
 Around the doors of the Cathedral sat all the crip- 
 ples in Mexico, one would think — as repulsive as they 
 could possibly make themselves. It is said that there 
 is a smaller percentage of "professional'' beggars in 
 Mexico than there are tramps in the United States — 
 the tramps do not congregate, that is all. And the door
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 57 
 
 of a church is a favorite place for the pordioscros 
 ("for-God's-sakers") of Mexico. One could only 
 wish that some of the gold and silver in the magnifi- 
 cent Cathedral could be used for more practical Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 After the dim religious light of the church the sun- 
 shine was almost blinding as we came out into the 
 garden again, in a corner of which we found the 
 Mercado dc las Flares, which we had started out to 
 see, which is at its best on Sunday morning. And of
 
 58 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 all the Mexican scenes this flower market was the 
 brightest, for added to the bright colors of the Spanish 
 and Indian costumes were the brilliant masses of flow- 
 ers under a circular glass pagoda that sparkled like an 
 enormous jewel in the sun. There were fresh straw- 
 berries (frcsas) in baskets, and all sorts of strange 
 Mexican fruits which are never seen "up north." We 
 bought some queer brown things that looked like 
 potatoes — they were ver}- luscious, having a soft, sweet 
 pulp something like a banana, with big, flat, black 
 seeds. The man called them chico capotes. On one 
 side of the pavilion was a bird show, all sorts of 
 songsters for sale in little wooden cages ; and the meat 
 of cocoanuts was offered on big wooden trays. 
 
 Coming back through the Zocolo, we passed long 
 rows of portales along the west and south sides of the 
 sc(uare. These are arcades formed by the exter.sion 
 over the sidewalk of the upper stories of the build- 
 ings, which are supported by arches. It might be the 
 Rue de Rivoli if Parisian goods were displayed in the 
 shop windows, but the merchandise is purely Mexican 
 and of a tawdry, cheap grade. The shops were all 
 open and thronged with customers, who combine their 
 shopping with their church going. 
 
 So far we had not come "in touch" with any Mexi- 
 can cooking. When we went in to dinner at the 
 Palacio we decided to take something light — none of 
 your Mexican stuff". The menu had plenty of Ameri- 
 can dishes — how would ham and eggs do? Even a 
 Mexican chef ought to be able to cook ham and 
 eggs. So it was jamon c hiievos fritos for every- 
 body but one — never mind who. He thought he 
 would try "jellied hare." Now, if it hadn't been that 
 we had just remarked the remarkable proximity of
 
 The Tour of the 400. 59 
 
 the dining room to the barber shop I suppose I should 
 not have thought anything of an order for hare, jellied 
 or even frizzled — but under the circumstances ! I tried 
 to give no outward and visible sign of the inward and 
 invisible reminiscences of bygone days when the Mon- 
 tague bang was in flower (or in curl), but when the 
 hare came in, jellied in gum of tragacanth, it was too 
 much for the feeble appetite I had — and Mr. Blank 
 went right on eating bread, soggy though it was, and 
 sour. The ham and eggs would have been tolerable 
 on clean plates — the quality of the coffee was like the 
 quality of mercy — as Portia defines it. In fact, the 
 luncheon was not a success. 
 
 Still, 'mid pleasures and palaces though we may 
 roam, take it all in all the pleasures far outnumber the 
 palaces. 
 
 A trip to Mexico would not be complete without a 
 bull-fight. And it was to-day or never for us, as 
 these exhibitions of the naeioual sport occur only on 
 Sundays and holidays — perhaps because the better day 
 makes the deed seem better. We decided that our hav- 
 ing been to church ought to be a saving grace and ac- 
 cordingly at half-past two we boarded an electric car 
 bound for the Plasa de Toros, or "place of bulls." 
 
 This "place" is on the outskirts of the city. Along 
 the way mounted police, elaborately festooned with 
 white braid, were drawn up at frequent intervals, 
 though there was no great crowd and no sign of rioters 
 — perhaps because of the precaution. 
 
 At the entrance we met a number of Chicago men, 
 members of the Merchants' Club. Among them our 
 men found several acquaintances. They laughed at 
 each other for being caught at the bull-fight. "Just 
 came out of curiosity," they all declared.
 
 60 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 The Place of Bulls is a huge circular wooden build- 
 ing. I was unconsciously expecting something on the 
 order of the Roman Coliseum — at least something sub- 
 stantial in old-world architecture and more romantic 
 than an overgrown gas tank, and my expectations of 
 seeing something gladiatorian in such a place dropped 
 several pegs. 
 
 Each of us being supplied with a long strip of blue 
 paper, on which was a scene from the bull-fight, we 
 interviewed the ofhcial at the entrance and were di- 
 rected up a flight of stairs on the outside of the build- 
 ing. Arriving breathlessly at the top, we entered a 
 small door and found ourselves looking down into the 
 auditorium. The tickets read "Barreras sombra," 
 which meant that our localidad was on the shady side 
 of the roofless building — the desirable side. The sunny 
 side is called sol and the seats are cheaper. 
 
 The performance had begun and, in fact, one "fight" 
 was concluded soon after we were seated, but as one 
 combat follows another all the afternoon, we saw the 
 beginning and finish of one complete tournament — and 
 a highly edifying spectacle it was ! 
 
 We had missed the ceremonies with which the enter- 
 tainment begins — the "review" of the company by the 
 President (of the show, not of the republic) ; the make- 
 believe bestowal of the key to the toril (bull-pen) upon 
 the alqnazil (master of ceremonies), signifying official 
 permission to begin the sport ; the courtesies of the 
 toreadors to their lady-loves in the audience, and so on. 
 Our first act began with the blare of a trumpet and the 
 entrance into the great sand-strewn arena of a mild- 
 looking bull. Having just escaped from solitary con- 
 finement, he was half dazed with the light and wholly 
 bewildered with the smart of a wound from some un-
 
 The Tour of the 400. 61 
 
 known quarter — for as he had passed under the arch 
 leading from the dark passageway from the toril, a 
 barbed steel point, dipped in acid and with a bunch of 
 bright ribbons attached had been jabbed into his 
 shoulder, partly to torment him and partly to tell the 
 specators from what hacienda he came, there being 
 more fights in some breeds than in others. 
 
 Angered by the sting of the dart, he began looking 
 about for something to fight. There were scattered 
 around the arena, close to the high-board fence enclos- 
 ing it, a number of picadors mounted on lame, halt and 
 blindfolded caballos. The bull picked out a picador, 
 charged full tilt at the horse and was met with a stab 
 of the long lance the man carried. He made another 
 lunge at the horse and this time the picador fell ofif like 
 a toy soldier, as the horse was "done for," 
 
 White-trousered attendants — called "sabios monos" 
 (wise monkeys) because they give the performers 
 pointers — rushed to the aid of the prostrate man, while 
 the capcadors distracted the bull's attention by flaunt- 
 ing their red capes before his eyes until, thinking they 
 had some connection w'ith his distress, he made a 
 strike with his horns at the nearest cape. 
 
 The capeadors were dressed in opera houife costumes 
 of gay colors — silk stockings (or maybe mercerized), 
 knee breeches of silk (or near-silk), velvet bolero 
 jacket embroidered with tinsel and a low-crowned black 
 hat. The red capes which they wore into the arena 
 were taken off, to be used in the performance. The 
 bull was coaxed from one fluttering cape to another, 
 just to madden him. If he pursued a capeador too 
 closely, the nimble fellow capered over the fence into 
 a passageway outside the arena, and the horns made 
 splinters in the boards.
 
 62 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 The poor, stupid bull could easily have dispatched 
 the men, as they carried no weapon, but mistaking his 
 real enemy he never seemed to regard with the least 
 suspicion the men who waved the tantalizing capes. 
 
 After butting the fence, the infuriated bull, bellow- 
 ing with rage, made for another of the raw-boned 
 horses, sinking his horns into the poor old bag o' bones 
 and ripping it open. Down went the horse, with the 
 rider pinned under him. He was pulled out, mounted 
 again on another old nag and the battle proceeded. The 
 bull attacked another horse, goring him fearfully, but 
 as he did not drop he was ridden around the ring until 
 he did — and here detail is too "puffickly disgustful" for 
 words. 
 
 With three or four horses dead or dying, the specta- 
 tors had had enough of this kind and the bugle an- 
 nounced the banderiUeros. These gentlemen of the 
 jaw-breaking designation carried in each hand a wood- 
 en stick about two feet long, a banderilla, gayly decor- 
 ated with tinsel paper, a double-pointed barb in the end 
 like the prongs of a great fish-hook, ^^lthout means of 
 defense, the bandy-ril-laro (that's easier) walked out 
 in front of the bull, tempted him with the pretty sticks 
 as you would coax a child with candy, and when the 
 bull approached he thrust a rosetted dart into each 
 shoulder, where they hung as if for ornament, the 
 double points gouging into the flesh and goading the 
 poor bleeding beast into the desired frenzy. It is ''a 
 rule of the game" that the bajideriHas must be planted 
 while the bull is in action and on the shoulders, but not 
 back of them. As the bull closes his eyes when he 
 strikes, the skill in placing the darts is in being on the 
 alert to know at just what instant the attack will be 
 made and in Jack being nimble and Jack being quick
 
 The Tour of the 400. 63 
 
 in jumping away when he's planted the stick. There 
 were two bandcriUcros and each one placed two sets of 
 the cruel ornaments, four hanging" from each shoulder, 
 a crimson stream flowing from each wound. 
 
 Next the bugle called the matador, the bright par- 
 ticular star of the bull-ring, to kill the tortured animal, 
 who, though lacerated almost beyond endurance, was 
 "still in the ring," fighting with all his diminishing 
 strength and unfailing courage — and by this time we, 
 who had until now held our breaths with fear for the 
 toreadors, would have liked to see a few of them "get 
 theirs." 
 
 The matador flourished his plumed hat in theatrical 
 fashion as he bowed to the audience and the president, 
 exhibiting as he bared his head a long queue of plaited 
 hair wound around it. This coleta is a mark of honor 
 which the toreador loses if he is ever found guilty of 
 any offense against the ethics of the sport. If his 
 career is above reproach, it i b cut oft' "with a golden 
 scissors" when he retires from the profession. Ap- 
 proaching the bull, he drew from its scabbard a long, 
 keen-edged sword. In his left hand he adjusted on a 
 short spiked stick a iiiuleto, the "reg rag" of the bull- 
 fight. Waving this, he managed to get the bull, as he 
 followed the rag, into position for a right-handed sword 
 thrust. It was a sensational moment — when he had 
 succeeded in posing the bull as he wanted him, as a pho- 
 tographer would do, he threw his full weight on the 
 sword, driving it to the hilt just behind the bull's horns. 
 The bull staggered an instant and toppled over dead — 
 "butchered to make a Roman holiday." The sickening 
 thud was drowned in a burst of martial music and 
 "loud and continued" applause. The audience show- 
 ered cigars, silver, anything, into the ring — even their
 
 64 
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 hats and canes, which were afterward returned to the 
 owners. When a matador is clumsy there are hisses 
 instead of cheers, it is said, and in that case an at- 
 tendant dispatches the bull with a "stroke of mercy" 
 dealt with a cachctcro, or short dagger. 
 
 As soon as the bull dropped, teams of mules, three 
 abreast with traces dangling, galloped into the ring- 
 to drag out the dead horses and the bull. Men with 
 brooms and shovels and weelbarrows cleaned up the 
 blood-stained arena and in another few moments an- 
 other fight began.
 
 The Tour of the 400. 65 
 
 This is not a thrillling description — it was not a 
 thrilling experience. As a matter of fact, in this at- 
 tempt at description I have aided a confused memory 
 by reference to the guide-book, which accounts for all 
 the Spanish words. During the performance I was 
 so intent upon getting kodak snaps that I really saw 
 the bull-fight in minature in my little "bull's-eye," 
 doubtless remaining in my seat longer for that reason 
 than I should otherwise have cared to do, for things 
 "all bluggy'' do not appeal to me quite as they did to 
 Toddie. Mrs. Brigham went out "early in the game." 
 Mrs. Newhall remained only because she was rooted 
 with horror. 
 
 Considered only as a spectacle, a bull-fight is like a 
 great open-air grand opera, with the gay costumes, 
 the Carmen music, the grouping of striking tableaux, 
 the "star" who might be Canpanari singing the Can- 
 zione del Toreador— ihe bull-fight being a reality in- 
 stead of just a racket behind the scenes. But it is a 
 sight no one would wish to see twice. Without doubt 
 there is a certain brute courage displayed by the torea- 
 dors, but it is brute courage and the whole affair is 
 brutal beyond words. 
 
 Many of the 20,000 seats in the great ampithea- 
 tre were vacant today and more eyes were shaded 
 from the sun by American derby hats than by Mexi- 
 can sombreros. It is said that the better class of Mexi- 
 cans do not as a rule patronize the bull-fight, but there 
 were enough of the Mexican upper-ten in evidence in 
 today's assemblage to prove that all rules have ex- 
 ceptions. 
 
 The afternoon's program was not half over when 
 we left, feeling like accessories to a cold-blooded 
 crime. Our one impulse was flight. There were hun-
 
 66 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 dreds of vehicles waiting for the matinee to be over — 
 all sorts, tine modern carriages, "hacks" of all grades, 
 automobiles and a long line of empty street cars. We 
 were spotted by an English-speaking chauffeur and a 
 lively spin in a big motor-car soon put the bull-fight 
 behind us, to leave only a "bad taste in the mouth." 
 
 We went via the Paseo de la Re forma out to the 
 park and castle of Chapultepec, two miles from "The 
 City." This boulevard is the Champs Elysees of Mex- 
 ico, laid out at the suggestion of the "unfortunate" 
 Carlotta (who unfortunately had no machine to drive 
 over it in), and Sunday afternoon is the time to see it, 
 when all the fine turnouts in the city have turned out 
 on it. 
 
 There are great trees along either side, statues and 
 the fragments of old acjueducts. The first statue of 
 Columbus erected on the continent he discovered is the 
 most notable. 
 
 From the Paseo there is a fine view of the two great 
 snow-capped volcanoes, Popocatepetl and Ixtaccihuatl. 
 the former nearly 2,000 feet higher than the highest 
 peak of the Alps, the latter 250 feet higher than 
 Mount Blanc and with a name two hundred and fifty 
 times harder to speak, though its meaning is much 
 the same. Ixtaccihuatl — "a name you all know by 
 sight very well, which no one can speak and no one can 
 spell" — is from the Aztec Yztac-cihuatl, "white wom- 
 an" — the form of the mountain is supposed to be like 
 that of a woman stretched on a bier under a white pall. 
 Popoca-tepetl, according to an Aztec legend, was the 
 royal lover of the "white woman" ; the name means 
 "smoky mountain," the volcano having been in a state 
 of eruption when discovered — a state it hasn't been in 
 for more than two centuries now. The twin peaks are
 
 The Tour of the 400. 67 
 
 twenty miles from the city and can only be ascended on 
 foot, so we were very well satisfied to admire them 
 at a distance — a distance that indeed lent enchantment, 
 for they were a beautiful sight, with their white crowns 
 of everlasting snow looming majestically against the 
 deep blue sky. They are considered the two finest 
 snow peaks of North America. 
 
 The Castle of Chapultepec stands aloft on the "Hill 
 of the Grasshopper," which is what the name signi- 
 fies. The traditional (but only traditional) castle of 
 Montezuma, the vice-regal palace for successive ad- 
 ministrations, the home of Maximilian and Carlotta, 
 it is today the summer residence of Porfirio Diaz and 
 "Carmelito, the idol of Mexico" — the Mexican White 
 House and the seat of a National Military Academy. 
 A grand old castle it is, rambling as a visionary castle 
 in Spain, having had many additions and improvements 
 during its history. 
 
 Groves of old moss-draped cypress trees (alme- 
 huetls) surround the base of the hill and overhang the 
 winding driveways that lead to the summit. Many of 
 them were enjoying a green old age in the days of 
 Montezuma. Among them is one called The Tree of 
 Montezuma, which the guide pointed out and told us 
 about, as merrily we rolled along. At the feet of this 
 hoary old monarch of the forest the old monarch of the 
 Aztecs is reported as having wept over defeat. We 
 may have our doubts about the womanly way ''Angry 
 Chief" accepted defeat, but we cannot doubt the an ■ 
 tiquity of the tree, since it measures 46 feet in circum- 
 ference — but whether its great size is due to the copi- 
 ous watering is another question, for it is really not 
 conspicuously larger than its fellows. The guide con- 
 tinued to narrate how the tears were immortalized
 
 68 TJic Tour of the 460. 
 
 and became inexhavistible springs, from which the wa- 
 ter was conveyed to Mexico City by the great aque- 
 ducts (tear ducts, maybe he said), but by this time I 
 didn't beHcve much that he told. Still, his words were 
 so mingled with the chug-chugging of the machine as 
 it panted up the hill that perhaps I didn't understand 
 him quite perfectly. I'll give Jiiiii the benefit of a 
 doubt, while I'm about it. 
 
 An American visitor finds a page of his own coun- 
 try's history open before him at Chapultepec — a battle 
 monument commemorates the gallant defense of the hill 
 by the young cadets of the Academy during the "North 
 American Invasion," and the view from the terraces 
 includes the battle ground of Molino del Rev and 
 the field of Cherubusco, where were fought the "un- 
 necessary battles" of the "unjust and unholy" war. 
 
 To a student of ancient history there are many pages 
 to review, as imagination peoples these scenes with 
 shades of the past — Indian warriors, Spanish conquer- 
 ors, barefooted soldiers of the Cross, patriotic soldiers 
 and invading armies — all have played their parts in the 
 drama of Chapultepec. 
 
 Since our invasion of Chapultepec was unpremedi- 
 tated, we hadn't the necessary permit from somebody 
 or other to enter the old "palace of the kings." It is 
 said to be very elegant, both the public salons and the 
 private apartments of the President. 
 
 Everybody in Mexico City drives out to Chapultepec 
 on Sunday afternoons. We were told that it was the 
 proper thing for tourists to hire the chairs along the 
 driveways and watch the turnouts go by. So the chauf- 
 feur was dismissed and we "lined up'" with other sight- 
 seers under the trees near the band pavilion. 
 
 I've seen Derby Day parades, circuses, soldiers,
 
 TJie Tour of the 400. 69 
 
 Knights Templar, Fourth o' July, Saint Patrick's, and 
 what not, but never an^^thing so unique as this ve- 
 hicles of every name, nature and description drove 
 round and round and round in endless procession, re- 
 peating the circuit of the drives over and over. A shin- 
 ing Victoria with clanking chains and champing steeds 
 carrying elegant silk-hatted seiiors and seiioras of de- 
 gree, whose splendid Parisian "habit" was costly as 
 the purse could buy — sometimes rich and always gaudy 
 — followed pompously along behind a red, blue, or 
 yellow-flag "hack" with a load of tourists or natives, 
 the old nags ambling along quite unconscious of any 
 disparity between their appearance and that of the 
 high-steppers prancing impatiently behind them — for 
 on this occasion every horse must walk, regardless of 
 his speed record. Even the ambitious auto has to be 
 patient behind some sorry old Rosinante, without even 
 having the satisfaction of honking its dissatisfaction. 
 
 And the same promiscuous mingling of high and low 
 saunters along the walks. Victor Hugo in Lcs 
 Miscrahlcs says, "if crrare is human, to saunter is 
 Parisian." I beg your pardon, Mr. Hugo, but to saun- 
 ter is Mexican. And it does not take a close observer 
 like Hugo to notice another characteristic that is 
 Mexican, and that is the way the women paint. If to 
 err is human, to paint is ^Mexican, and therein does the 
 feminine jMexican err egregiously. She makes no 
 pretense at nature-faking, but just frankly paints. 
 
 A real stage make-up looks strange in the streets, 
 to say the least, but these are stage people to Ameri- 
 can eyes — the pretty Spanish sefioritas, with their black 
 tresses and lace mantillas, the humble Indian maidens 
 in their graceful blue rehozos, the sandalled peasant in 
 his gaily-striped zarape, un lagartijo (the dude) in
 
 70 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 his little high-heeled shoes, tight trousers, embroid- 
 ered bolero, red sash and great ponderous felt som- 
 brero, heavy in itself and loaded with silver, all make 
 a stage ensemble which, with the band playing as only 
 a Mexican band can play, gives one the feeling that he 
 is himself participating in some great carnival of 
 nations. 
 
 Indeed, from the Alexican point of view, the Ameri- 
 canos are not the least part of the show. They eyed 
 the "400" from the States with as much interest as 
 we did the Mexican "400" and seemed to think our 
 "costumes" just as strange as theirs seemed to us. 
 Mrs. Brigham in mauve broadcloth might have been 
 a wax figure in a window on the Rue de hi Paix and 
 Marion's wealth of blonde hair is very conspicuous in 
 this land of raven locks. 
 
 In gloomy contrast to this gay scene was a funeral 
 cortege of street cars that passed while we were 
 waiting for a Tacubaya car back to the city. Dolores 
 Cemetery is just beyond Chapultepec, and there seem 
 to be funerals any time of the day, making this thor- 
 oughfare a veritable Via Dolorosa. A platform car 
 painted black and capped with a cross carried the coffin 
 on a bier and following behind, as "trailers," were two 
 or three closed cars marked "especiale," carrying the 
 mourners in this second-class funeral. In Mexico 
 hearses are only for the rich. 
 
 We decided to have a change of menu for dinner, so 
 at the suggestion of Mr. Brown we took a change of 
 venue to the Sanz — we could at least eat there, if 
 their rooms zvere all engaged. x\nd blessed is he who 
 recommended the Sanz — he is hereby tendered our 
 grateful thanks, tied up with ribbon and offered on a 
 tray of filigree silver. We dined sumptuously — all but
 
 TJic Tour of the 400. 71 
 
 one. He wasn't hungry, after all that lunch. The 
 rest of us had "table d'hote all round," but Mr. Name- 
 lessforevermore ordered ice cream and sauterine ! he 
 scorned to look upon the wine when it was red, like 
 ours. 
 
 After dinner we of the weaker sex wxre politely 
 handed into a carriage and the driver received an order 
 to deliver us at the Palacio, prepaid. But it came to 
 pass — to that pass — that we walked home after all, 
 for the driver, who had lately resigned from the "wa- 
 ter wagon," seemed to have lost his compass, and when 
 Mrs. Newhall (who has the map of Mexico photo- 
 graphed on her eyelids so she can see it with her eyes 
 closed and in the dark) discovered that this tipsy indi- 
 vidual was contentedly jogging aivay from the Palacio, 
 '^he paradoxically called him up short and then called 
 him down in broken Spanish -but for once words 
 failed her and it ended in our walking several more 
 blocks than the original distance from Sanz to Palacio. 
 
 While waiting for our wandering sprites to return 
 from their walk we beguiled a half hour in Mrs. Brig- 
 ham's room admiring the wall paper ( !), then I came 
 to my room and, after exercising my Spanish for the 
 benefit of a maid whom I believe knows nothing of the 
 language, I have exercised my pencil till I have writer's 
 cramp. And as my wanderer has returned, hncnas 
 no dies. 
 
 Hotel Palacio. 
 
 Feb. 19. 
 
 The English-reading residents of Mexico City were 
 informed this morning through the press that Mr. 
 Brown's in town, also that he's a prominent banker of
 
 72 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 Chicago. It also appears that one Mr. Bringum has 
 brung his family and a party of friends to Mexico, that 
 Mr. and Mrs. Newhall are taking an "outing" (they 
 are such shut-ins!), and that Miss Marion Wellworth 
 was regarded as well worth bringing. Yesterday's 
 bull-fight was reported as a good one, seven bulls and 
 five horses having been numbered with the slain after 
 the battle. Some American tourists were referred to 
 as having been absorbed with photographs during the 
 performance. All this we read while at breakfast at 
 the Palacio. 
 
 We ladies knew by this time just where to go shop- 
 ping, so leaving our senors to shift for themselves, W'e 
 made a dash for the big joyeria we had seen — which is 
 Spanish for jewelry store. We looked at diamonds the 
 size of the Koh-I-Noor, examined opals and turquoise 
 with the air of connoisseurs — and bought a spoon, 
 which the salesman handed me as politely as if it were 
 a joyeria forever to wait upon such good customers. 
 
 The streets in Mexico City have a new name for each 
 block. If it happens that they run out of names, as 
 will sometimes occur in the best regulated families or 
 cities, they number the blocks first, second, third — as 
 "la San Francisco," etc. The Calle San Francisco is 
 the State street of Mexico, extending from the Alame- 
 da to the Plaza ]\Iayor. It, like many of the streets, is 
 so called from the church of that name which fronts 
 upon it. These sometimes make rather shocking names 
 for general use — for instance, what would we think in 
 Chicago if someone should ask, "Where shall I go for 
 the Love of God?" or, "Where 'bouts is the Holy 
 Ghost?" But one would simply be referring to the 
 Calle Amor dc Dios. Bsf'iritii Sanfii. or something 
 pqually saintly.
 
 The Tour of the 400. 73 
 
 All the streets not named for churches have names 
 that mean something. Calle Cinco de Mayo means the 
 fifth of May — the date of a battle fought not in this 
 street, as one might suppose, but at Puebla. The Calle 
 de Revillagigedo was named in honor of Don Juan 
 Vicente de Guemes Pacheco de Padilla, Conde de 
 Revillagigedo, a viceroy who won fame not only for 
 his collection of immediate jewels of the soul, but for 
 the good work he did in improving the streets of the 
 city. Would he had lived in Glencoe ! Before his 
 regime Mexico City had fitful sidewalks and spasmodic 
 pavements, as we do. Just to illustrate the peremptory 
 methods of this "terrible man with the terrible name," 
 it is said that one night, finding that this particular 
 calle was a "blind alley" ending in a cluster of hovels, 
 he ordered that a wide street be opened in time for him 
 to pass through it on his way to mass next morning! 
 And it was done. 
 
 A stranger could do nothing here without a map. 
 Mrs. Newhall, having studied hers so religiously (and 
 it is good pious reading) we have chosen her our of- 
 ficial (I might say our spiritual and temporal) guide. 
 We have also constituted her our official interpreter, 
 for she has discovered that to speak Spanish like a 
 native one need only to add idad, cria or to the Eng- 
 lish word. A milliner's establishment is a honneteria, a 
 porter a portero, a society is a sociedad. With a little 
 practice in fitting on the best-sounding suffix and weav- 
 ing the words together with a fetching little coo in 
 one's most dulcet tones, one has Spanish "on the tip 
 of the tongue." 
 
 To be sure, in most of the stores patronized by 
 Americans there are English-speaking salesmen, but
 
 74 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 even then a little cooing does no harm, and Mrs. New- 
 halleria has developed such a capacidad in the gentle art 
 of persuasion that she has also been constituted our 
 officio bargain makero. Even the guide-books say 
 "never give the first price quoted.'' Of course the 
 shop-keepers have not become "wise" and doubled 
 their prices ! 
 
 At some of the stores prices are "in plain figures" 
 and no deviations therefrom are made — this for the 
 benefit of American visitors. But deviations are the 
 rule in our favorite shop, a place called "The Hole in 
 the Wall" — for what reason nobody knows, unless pos- 
 sibly the wall itself — and not being a Midsummer 
 Night's Dream kind of a wall it cannot explain. Cer- 
 tain it is that the only "crannied holes or chinks" in 
 that wall are a common door and two ordinary win- 
 dows "to blink through with mine eyne." 
 
 Once inside that "Hole," one almost has to be 
 drowned out like a gopher, so distracting is the place. 
 It is like some cave wherein old-time Spanish pirates 
 secreted their spoil, and a thirst for plunder overcomes 
 the most righteous soul who enters there. The Hole 
 is filled with everything Mexican — blankets and scarfs, 
 silver, pottery, drawnwork and jewels, Spanish laces 
 and antiques and curios and relics from every place 
 under the sun ; and under the tables and shelves are 
 heaps of dusty old brasses and copper and all sorts of 
 contraptions which customers are permitted — nay, ex- 
 pected — to haul out, clean off with their hankerchiefs 
 or gloves and buy at (in the end) their own price. To 
 be sure, in the beginning the dealer wouldn't touch a 
 centavo less any more than the purchaser would give
 
 The Tour of the 400. 75 
 
 a cent more, but the end is understood from the first 
 by both parties to the transaction. 
 
 "It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer; but when he 
 hath gone his way, then he boasteth." 
 
 It is fun to see how fast one can make money by 
 spending it in Mexico — you buy something for sixty 
 cents and give the salesman a five-dollar gold piece ; 
 he gives back nine big silver dollars and a handful of 
 small change. It is like the miracle of the loaves and 
 fishes. But that is only when you have gold, for an 
 American silver dollar is only worth ninety cents 
 "Mex." But even then an accommodating salesman 
 will "call it a dollar" (having allowed for the discount 
 in fixing his prices) and you will pay for a "two-dollar 
 Mex." purchase with one of Uncle Sam's dollars. We 
 have become so accustomed to dividing by two in our 
 minds that if someone speaks of his weight, we in- 
 stinctively ask, "150 Mex.?" 
 
 We met our men-folks at the Sanz for luncheon and 
 sampled some of the Mexican fruit. One of the wait- 
 ers wrote for me (in a most legible and graceful hand) 
 the names of some, which he als.o pronounced for us — 
 the chiriinoUo, which looks like a little green water- 
 melon and has a mushy pulp and the flavor of raspber- 
 ries ; the granadito, a little egg-shaped, orange-skinned 
 fruit with an interior like a pomegranite — both very 
 delicious. 
 
 We spent the afternoon speeding in an automobile 
 and seeing the city. Speeding, by the way, is speed- 
 ing in Mexico, and if you are foolish enough to get in 
 front of a "benzine wagon" it is your fault and the 
 merry chug-chug is "not liable." And, by the way, 
 you'd better keep off the railroads, too, for if you get
 
 76 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 in the way of a train you may find yourself defendant 
 in an action for trespass — supposing, of course, the in- 
 cident terminates in your favor. 
 
 When our men drove up to the curb at the Hole, 
 we noticed a careworn expression on the usually cheer- 
 ful countenance of Fra Benjamin — something was 
 surely amiss, but what? It seems he had been trying 
 to raise the wherewithal to pay for Florocio's drawn- 
 work and turquoise and copper on some worthless pa- 
 per known as travelers' cheques, which he had been as- 
 sured could be converted into gold anywhere at any 
 time. But not being an alchemist nor yet possessing 
 the touch of Midas he was forced to try another kind 
 of touch — and touching is a habit to which he is not 
 addicted. We all began to sing, "A-i-n'-t it funny, 
 when-vou look for money, all you ^{?/-am sv-vm-pa- 
 thy?"' 
 
 But the "400" liad not only sympathy, but "money 
 to burn," or to lend (which is sometimes the same 
 thing), and he soon cheered up and was as rich as a 
 steel "magnet" — to quote our youngest. 
 
 The first place we visited was the Thieves' Market, 
 in the shadow of the National Palace, so-called because 
 it was once a rendezvous for lawless characters and the 
 place where they disposed of their stolen goods. There 
 was originally a building there which was a pawnshop, 
 called "The House of Inexhaustible Treasure," but 
 nowadays the place is a market consisting of booths 
 made of matting or old sheet iron or anything handy, 
 and the inexhaustible treasure has degenerated into an 
 inexhaustible collection of junk which a self-respecting 
 thief would scorn to touch. It is a sort of open-air 
 rummage sale mostly of hardware — old saws and 
 "modern instances" of mechanical genius in the way of
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 77 
 
 burglars' kits and rat-traps. There are antiques, valu- 
 able or not, and curios which are at least curious. 
 There are old books, old pictures (leastwise they pass 
 as such), old brasses, old dishes, old furniture. Occa- 
 sionally there is a rare "find," but for the most part the 
 
 merchandise is not of much intrinsic value. It is said 
 that a Mexican will steal anything — it would seem that 
 he will also buy anything, for one cannot conceive any 
 use for much of the stuff in the Thieves' Alarket. The 
 place is well worth a visit, for it is a strange sight —
 
 78 The Tow of the 400. 
 
 a little World's Fair village of rude booths in an in- 
 closiirc framed with buildings as picturesque as those 
 of the "White City." The people are always pic- 
 turesque and at no place more so than here. 
 
 Having developed a mania for second-hand curios, 
 we started next for the Monte de Piedad, which is a 
 national pawnshop, conducted by the government, but 
 it was closed. Why a pawn shop should be called a 
 "Mount of Piety" I cannot say. 
 
 Mexico is a city of great wealth and of great pov- 
 erty, elbowing each other. In some portions of the city 
 the poverty, if not so picturesque, would be too loath- 
 some to be interesting. We drove through some of the 
 most squalid streets, finding an occasional historical 
 landmark in some old building forgetting its yesterdays 
 as it stands surrounded by the miserable hovels of the 
 "civilization" of to-day. 
 
 A national medical college, still called The Inquisi- 
 tion, was one of these, and something of its history was 
 given to us in snatches from the front seat as we passed 
 what appeared to be a very old church. Here were 
 held the deliberations of the Tribunal of the Inquisi- 
 tion, an institution that originated with the good 
 "Saint" Dominick in 1570 and continued a reign of 
 terror till suppressed in 181 3. This great Christian 
 Tribunal had but one charge — heresy ; but one verdict 
 — guilty ; but one punishment — death by fire. In thi- 
 building poor wretches falling under the ban of the 
 church were tried and condemned to be fried, the 
 actual sacrifice {auto de fc) taking place on a stone 
 platform in what is now the Alameda. I find in the 
 guide-book that there was another burning place "for 
 minor crimes like murder and highway robbery" at an- 
 other place. One feels like making caustic remarks
 
 The Tour of the 400. 79 
 
 about these good old days of religious zeal till one 
 happens to think of his own country's history of the 
 corresponding period — of the heathenish way our col- 
 onists whipped and branded and be-eared and be-nosed 
 and otherwise snubbed the Quakers, and hung poor old 
 women for being too bewitching and a few other little 
 minor crimes — then the dweller in a house of crystal 
 feels like keeping his caustic remarks to himself. And 
 at least the Spanish "colonists" in Mexico were all this 
 time building churches and maintaining missions to 
 convert the Indians. 
 
 By the time we had heard the story of the auto de fv 
 and declared it a burning shame, we were a mile be- 
 yond the place, scooting along in our auto de gasoline, 
 and had reached the historic old causeway leading out 
 to Gaudalupe, passing little shrines and little pulque 
 joints that were hobnobbing" together in the most neigh- 
 borly way, and donkeys and people ditto, the donkeys 
 laden with everything marketable — coops of live chick- 
 ens, panniers of wood, baskets of vegetables. 
 
 At the time of The Conquest, when Tenochtitlan 
 was a Mexican Venice, these old causeways, "two 
 spears' length in width," connected the city with the 
 main land. Over these roads came Cortez with his 
 army, and the thrilling horror of Waterloo was iden- 
 tical with the disaster that occurred in the fiercely re- 
 pelled attack by the Spaniards, many of whose men 
 and horses fell through broken bridges that spanned 
 the gaps in the causeway, many were being thus cut 
 off from retreat. 
 
 In after years these old Calrjodas were improved, and 
 one of the two leading northward was made a paseo 
 for religious processions, with the stations of the cross 
 at intervals. This is now the rieht-of-wav of the
 
 80 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 Vera Cruz railway. It was along the other that we 
 went in our very modern vehicle. I wonder what 
 Cortez would think of a "Mercedes" of to-dav ! 
 
 Along this road were great pepper trees, with grace- 
 ful drooping boughs and scarlet pendants — ofif in the 
 distance the white volcanoes — and two and a half miles 
 from the city was the sanctuary we had come to visit, 
 the church of Our Lady of Guadalupe. This is the 
 "national shrine" of Mexico, built in obedience to di- 
 vine command, according to a legend in which the 
 Mexican people so entirely believe that it has become 
 the principal article of faith in their religion. 
 
 Briefly (and though I must refer to the guide-book, 
 I will avoid following the text as much as possible) the 
 tradition is of the miraculous appearance of the Holy 
 Virgin to a pious Indian, Juan Diego. This poor In- 
 dian, whose "untutored mind" saw God in clouds and 
 heard him in the wdnd (as some poet says), saw a vi- 
 sion of the "Queen of Heaven" in the mountain of 
 Tepeyacac one morning in December. 1531. Knowing 
 he was on his way to mass (the good Indians were not 
 all dead ones then), the lady of the vision asked Juan 
 to tell his bishop that she wished him to build a church 
 on the spot upon which she then appeared. The In- 
 dian delivered the message, but the bishop thought it 
 was too visionary. Juan returned, found the lady 
 waiting, was bidden to come to the same place on the 
 following day, did so and was sent again to the in- 
 credulous bishop with the same message. This time, 
 impressed with the earnestness and persistence of 
 Diego, the bishop listened — still, not being quite sat- 
 isfied with the truth of the story (coming from an In- 
 dian), he demanded proof of the reality of the vision, 
 secretly sending two of his servants to "shadow" the
 
 The Tour of the 400. 81 
 
 man. But lo ! the poor Indian became invisible and his 
 meeting with the vision could not be reported. When 
 he told the lady of his bishop's continued lack of faith, 
 she promised to meet Juan the next day, with a token 
 for the bishop. When Juan reached home he found an 
 uncle heap sick with cocolixtU — symptoms very alarm- 
 ing. The next day, so swift was this dread disease, it 
 was believed the patient could not recover, and fearing 
 he w^ould die unconfessed Juan decided to give up 
 his appointment, the sooner to fetch a priest. To avoid 
 meeting the vision he took a different way to Tlaltelolco 
 — but she appeared just the same, and insisting that 
 the uncle was well, bade Juan go again to the bishop. 
 (There is a good deal of repetition in this story.) 
 However, to vary the monotony, this time the 'nes- 
 senger was told to gather some flowers, as the desired 
 token for the bishop, and at that moment some beauti- 
 ful roses bloomed in the barren rocks — December 12th. 
 "With trembling fingers" Juan picked them, putting 
 them into his tilma, a cloak made from fibre of the 
 maguey. When the wonderful roses were dropped at 
 the feet of the astonished bishop, a life-sized portrait 
 of the lady was found photographed in beautiful colors 
 on the tiUna. Of course the bishop was at last con- 
 vinced. When the Indian returned home he found 
 his uncle had recovered his normal temperature and 
 pulse at the precise moment that he had been declared 
 well — and he lived happily ever after. 
 
 The story of the miracle spread, the people believed 
 and within two weeks a chapel was built on the spot 
 where the vision first appeared, and the sacred tilma 
 was enshrined therein. Here Juan Diego was after- 
 ward buried beneath the original altar. 
 
 Now, it may be that in my effort to avoid the possi-
 
 82 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 ble charge of plagiarism I have written my version (or 
 perversion) of the story in too hght a vein. It really 
 has not been my intention to discredit it. "God moves 
 in a mysterious way his wonders to perform." To me 
 this "wonder" is not in the least incredible, for we must 
 believe that to the great Inhnity that created a uni- 
 verse in which our solar system is but an incident "all 
 things are possible." Still, it occurs to my finite mind 
 that the building of this temple might have been ex- 
 pedited had the vision appeared to the bishop directly, 
 omitting the Indian — or why not have caused the 
 church, instead of just flowers, to spring from the 
 rocks? And the vision might have appeared above the 
 altar to be worshiped instead of her picture — but any- 
 way she didn't. 
 
 However, far be it from me to repudiate what great- 
 er men have accepted. For the miracle has the "sanc- 
 tion" of Rome, the feast of the 12th of December hav- 
 ing been established by Pope Benedict XIV in 1754. At 
 that time the "Mother of the Mexicans" had been wor- 
 shipped for more than two centuries, but it was not 
 until after her power was believed to have overcome 
 a siege of matlan.'^ahuatl (an ancient affectation of the 
 word "plague") that she was officially proclaimed 
 Patroness and Protectress of New Spain, 
 
 During all this time the sacred tilnia has been pre- 
 served first in one church and then another on the same 
 spot, except for a brief period when it was taken to 
 Mexico City as a protection during an inundation. The 
 present great temple was dedicated in 1709, but only 
 completed in 1896. It is of white stone, its most inter- 
 esting exterior feature being reliefs in sculpture above 
 the main entrance, descriptive of the story of the mira- 
 cle. The interior is a lavish display of decoration, a
 
 The Tour of the 400. 83 
 
 deep blue vaulted roof, studded with big gilded stars, 
 being very striking. The walls are covered with paint- 
 ings representing the various scenes of the miracle. 
 There are priceless silver railings and the magnificent 
 high altar of Carara marble contains in a frame the 
 treasured tilma. Over this is a crown of jewels of 
 fabulous value, each separate jewel (and it is said there 
 are more gems than there are stars in the firmament — 
 not meaning the above-mentioned blue sky) having 
 been contributed by the women of Mexico in individual 
 gifts. The workmanship alone is said to have cost 
 thirty thousand dollars (Mex., I suppose). This 
 crown was placed over the tilma only ten years ago, 
 which is substantial evidence that the belief in the 
 legend continues. 
 
 Though the tilma has now been preserved for nearly 
 four hundred years, it still retains its color and it is 
 claimed that experts who have examined it have de- 
 clared that it was not painted in any known vehicle and 
 that it was not printed by any known process.* 
 
 There were groups of people scattered through the 
 church, bowed in adoration before the beloved image : 
 solitary figures knelt at the different shrines, others 
 were passing in and out, some bearing lighted candles 
 and making signs on their own foreheads and on those 
 of their companions. Priests were hearing confessions 
 from kneeling penitents, two to a priest in one case, one 
 on each side of the confessional box. Put together, 
 
 [*Charles F. Liimmis says of "the famous myth of tlii.' 
 Virgin of Guadalupe": "It sprang from a comedy writtenby 
 Antonio Valerianc, for the representation of which the Indian 
 Marcos painted upon a blanket what is now the 'miraculous 
 image.' The episode is a magnificent type of the origin and 
 spread of primitive hero-myths."]
 
 84 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 their doubled troubles ought to have been sufficiently 
 interesting to keep him awake. 
 
 There is a cluster of chapels and convents around the 
 big basilica. Up on a hill, on the spot where the roses 
 bloomed, is the Capella del Cerrito ("chapel of the lit- 
 tle hill"). To this we did not go, owing to a lack of 
 energy on the part of some of us. On the spot hal- 
 lowed by the last appearance of the Virgin a spring of 
 water gushed from the rocks. Over this fountain is 
 the circular tile-domed Capella del Pocito ("chapel of 
 the well"). The well is in an ante-room of the chapel 
 and is covered with a grating of wrought iron, to 
 which is attached a box w-ith a slot, into which you can 
 drop something if you feel disposed. And if you feel 
 indisposed you can drink of the healing water, which 
 is believed to be a panacea for all human ills — and said 
 to be "brackish." It was "deeply, darkly, beautifully 
 blue," Hke rinsing water, and the rust-covered cup that 
 hung in the well was deeply, darkly, beautifully sug- 
 gestive of the un rinsed Diegos continually taking the 
 cure, so as none of us were suffering with cocoUxtli or 
 matlanzahiiatl. or even plain thirst (except after 
 righteousness — and sightseeing), we passed out into 
 the chapel, where a most extraordinary collection of 
 pictures and painted images suggested (unintention- 
 ally) the comic side of the life of San Diego. Then 
 we passed out again into the ante-room del Pocito, 
 where a most extraordinary collection of post cards, 
 paper weights and rosaries suggested (unintentionally) 
 the teaching of the gospel in regard to the purging of 
 temples — the overthrowing of the "tables of the money- 
 changers and the seats of them that sold" — post 
 cards ? 
 
 I sincerely hope my frivolous comments do not make
 
 The Tour of the 400. 85 
 
 me appear as remaining to scoff where I should come 
 to pra}' — really, my bump of veneration is well devel- 
 oped, but I should be a Pharisee and a hypocrite in- 
 stead of the truthful scribe I am if I pretended to feel 
 awe for things that only belittle a Deity whose power 
 and glor}' are forever and ever. 
 
 However, it's bad enough to be descriptively dragged 
 to church, without being forced to listen to a poor 
 sermon, so let us leave the church and join the groups 
 of people in the plaza outside. 
 
 And here is where the color-love of the Mexican peo- 
 ple runs riot. Everywhere were the typical scenes 
 which make such fine studies for a painter — venders of 
 tortillas, frijoles and tamalcs, sugar-cane sticks (which 
 the Mexicans chew), and all the strange native fruits 
 and vegetables had their commodities spread out in lit- 
 tle heaps on matting, sometimes under awnings, some- 
 times only sheltered from the sun by a wall. ]\Iy en- 
 thusiasm for the picturesque is always at par, but such 
 pictures as these would make a clam enthuse. 
 
 There were booths where women sat surrounded by 
 the primitive pottery, feeding their babies at the primi- 
 tive font of nature. There were groups of women 
 squatting around a rude sort of grill, cooking some- 
 thing you could buy if you were tempted; others frying 
 some unwholesome looking cakes on most unsanitary 
 griddles. Grouped against the soft gray tones of the 
 stone buildings, they formed pictures that just begged 
 for palette and canvas. I didn't even have my camera 
 along. 
 
 We have not attempted any of the cookery which we 
 are continually urged to try — perhaps the ^Mexican deli- 
 cacies are like the singed cat, "better'n they look." All 
 I can sav is that their looks are "agin 'em." I know
 
 86 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 what some of them are made of— guess I know beans 
 — that's frijolcs. Tortillas are loaves of unleav- 
 ened bread made of ground corn. Taiiialcs, 'most 
 everybody knows, are chicken-meat, corn, tomato cat- 
 sup and the Spanish rodicr pimicntos boiled in corn- 
 husks previously padded with corn-meal mush. Chili 
 con came is chilli with meat. 
 
 Near the group of churches are many sloppy pulque 
 shops. It is certainly true in Mexico that "wherever 
 God erects a house of prayer" the devil "always builds 
 a chapel" in the form of a piilqueria there — "for the 
 debbil's always lurkin' 'round just to catch the kind 
 that never hasn't nothin' else to do." A glimpse into 
 a doorway is disgusting — half-drunken women quar- 
 reling over the cup that cheers not but inebriates, men 
 taking the flowing bowl literally and children "lurkin' 
 'round." Pulque is a milk-and-watery liquid that looks 
 like koumiss and smells sour — our men were not 
 tempted. 
 
 We peeped into the windows of a school room where 
 a lot of funny little Indians were studying their les- 
 sons, with one black-eyed youngster perched up in 
 front on the dunce stool. I suppose the poor little kid 
 couldn't mention the Mexican rulers in their order — 
 Xolotl, Nopaltzin, Quinatzin, Tecotlalla. Ixlilochtli. 
 Netzahuatcoyotl, Nezhualpilla, Cacamatzin. Cuitcuit- 
 catzin, Coanacotzin, and so on. Or perhaps he missed 
 spelling some little word like Tetlepanquetzaltzin — no 
 wonder Cortez thought it best to hang that last fel- 
 low! It is perfectly plain why young Americans are 
 not taught much Mexican history. English is com- 
 pulsorv in Mexican schools. It's well for our boys and 
 girls that Uncle Sam doesn't care to return the com- 
 pliment! About all we learned of IMexico in school
 
 The Tour of the 400. 87 
 
 was when it was discovered and about the boundary 
 quarrel with Uncle Sam — the war which was "settled" 
 by the document signed in this very ])lace, the treaty 
 of Guadalupe-Hidalgo. 
 
 We bought some little pieces of the*pottery made in 
 Guadalupe — each district in Mexico has a different va- 
 riety, some with better glaze than others, some of more 
 durable quality, some of more artistic shape or decora- 
 tion. It is used by the poorer class of people for all 
 household purposes, and the best is very cheap. I 
 bought some pieces at the "Hole" which we greatly 
 admired for their quaint shapes and queer colors and 
 designs, the most expensive not being more than 
 seventy-five cents "Mex." — half that in our money. A 
 very much prized olla was thirty-five "Mex." 
 
 The feature of Mexico City that strikes a foreigner 
 most forcibly is the primitive life going on in so great 
 a metropolis. The character of the country accounts 
 easily for the lack of advancement in the rural dis- 
 tricts, but to see people existing in aboriginal simplic- 
 ity within a stone's throw of the most modern ele- 
 gance is incomprehensible. The mass of native Mexi- 
 cans live in no greater comfort than in the old tribal 
 or even- prehistoric times. Yet in the midst of this 
 condition are the ancient remains of magnificent 
 achievements in building and in arts and crafts — struc- 
 tures made while our forefathers were building log 
 cabins, filled with treasures of the most skillful work- 
 manship. One naturally asks. Why did Christianity 
 prosper in our part of the continent and not here? 
 And it seems as if the answer to the question would 
 justify the subjugation rather than the "civilization" 
 of the Indian. Still, from the point of view of the na- 
 tives, perhaps they are as well off in their present
 
 88 TJie Tour of the 400. 
 
 condition of poverty and ignorance as they would be in 
 the condition of extermination at present enjoyed by 
 most of the northern tribes ! And after all,, what's the 
 odds so long as you're hapi)y? Their wants are few — 
 if their little is eiK)ugh, they are as rich as their betters 
 and freer from care. And we must not forget that 
 from the ranks of the native Mexican Indians have 
 risen many able and scholarly men, one ''shining ex- 
 ample" at present occupying the presidential chair. And 
 what would we think of Sitting Bull, for instance, a-sit- 
 ting in such a seat ! 
 
 During our whirl around the city we stopped at sev- 
 eral dry goods emporiums that were strictly of the peo- 
 ple, by the people and for the people. Our guide, who 
 had heard us express a yearning for zarapes, thought 
 he could buy them to advantage for us in these places, 
 where the merchants had not learned to "do" the 
 American. This quest for bargains gave us some in- 
 teresting bits of interiors that we should not otherwise 
 have seen, but we weren't looking for that grade of 
 blankets. So to the better shops in the portalcs around 
 the Zocolo Mrs. Xewhall and I wended our way after 
 the long ride, and while the rest were resting at the 
 hotel, we dazzled our eyes with literal heaps of gor- 
 geous colors, and after seeing multitudes of prismatic 
 sins and bales and bales of things of beauty we event- 
 ually found something that satisfied our philharmonic 
 souls and a ''deal" was negotiated. 
 
 I came to my room and like the good little Curly 
 Locks that I am not, sat on a cushion and sewed a fine 
 seam, thereby closing up a gap in my skirt, made by a 
 nail I met at the bull-fight. Then as a reward of my 
 industry I "feasted on strawberries, sugar and cream." 
 We dined at the Sanz and the berries — well, God
 
 The Tour of the 400. 89 
 
 doubtless might have made better but He doubtless 
 never did. They were very different from the half-ripe 
 February berries of Chicago markets. 
 
 During the walk back to the Palacio we passed sev- 
 eral notable buildings with which we have become fa- 
 miliar in our frequent passings to and fro between our 
 divided headquarters. 
 
 One of these is the old church of San Francisco, 
 which is all that remains of the old monastery of Santa 
 Brigida, the most important of the missions which 
 laid the foundation of the Catholic religion in New 
 Spain. From this convent missionaries went to 
 all parts of the country and the work of the monastery 
 was closely connected with the political history of the 
 country. At one time there were seven different 
 churches constituting the mission, and the order was 
 possessed of great wealth. But all that remains today 
 is the old buildings with the solid front of sclupture, 
 on 1st San Francisco street. 
 
 The interior has been despoiled of all its treasures, 
 until aside from its tombs, it is only "a horror of white- 
 wash and desolation." Cortez gave the land on which 
 the church was built and provided the building fund. 
 Here he heard mass from the altar under which his 
 bones were afterward entombed — for a while. He 
 seemed to have felt it in his bones that there would be 
 strife over his mortuary remains, and sure enough he 
 was buried in all six times. In his will he directed that 
 if he died in Spain his body should after ten years be 
 taken to Mexico. This was done, but there was no rest 
 for the wicked in Mexico. His first grave in the land 
 he conquered was in Texcoco, where he stayed seventy- 
 two years. Then he lay a-mouldering in this Church 
 of San Francisco one hundred and sixty-five years,
 
 90 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 was preserved in a mausoleum in the Church of 
 years, was preserved in a mousoleum in the Church of 
 Jesus Xazareno thirty years and hidden from the revo- 
 lutionists in some secret spot in the same church a few 
 years more, till at last they secretly shipped him off to 
 Italy and interred him for the sixth time — let us hope 
 he requiescats i)i pace at last. Whatever eventful life 
 he led, he has certainly had an eventful after life. That 
 last was not spoken of the soul. 
 
 The first Emperor of Mexico, Iturbide. is still 
 buried in this church. Here Carlotta prayed. Since 
 i860 the church has been a Protestant cathedral, the 
 property has been divided, streets opened through it and 
 at present a livery stable occupies the old refectory and 
 the Hotel Jardin occupies the infirmary and lodging 
 house. 
 
 The Iturbide Hotel, so called because it was occu- 
 pied as a palace during that Emperor's brief reign, 
 was also built on lands that once belonged to the con- 
 vent of Santa Brigida. Since 1855 it has been the 
 best and is today the best known hotel in Mexico. It 
 is one of the finest old buildings, its patio opening 
 on four streets, the front one being 1st San Francisco. 
 A venerable-looking structure it is. massive and with 
 old carving in the stone. The coat of arms of Iturbide 
 is over the door and an atmosphere of past grandeur 
 is felt when one steps inside the great portal, ^^^e 
 have used the passage ways frequently as a short cut 
 to the "Hole" in Gante street. 
 
 Another early eighteenth-century building that has 
 attracted our attention is the famous Casa dc Azulejos, 
 or House of Tiles — -a building covered entirely with 
 bright colored, modern looking tiles. It is now the 
 seat (should I say?) of the Jockey Club.
 
 The Tour of the 400. 91 
 
 A landmark by which we find the Palacio is another 
 old church, with a little jardin at the side, on the cor- 
 ner of 3a San Francisco and Calle San Jose Real — a 
 sixteenth-century Jesuit mission called La Profesa for 
 short — La Casa Profesa de la Campania de Jesus is 
 its full title. 
 
 What a city of churches this is. We were told that 
 even the calaboco is an ex-church. We shall probably 
 not visit the Calabozo if our good behavior con- 
 tinues. 
 
 Our young ladies have been much interested in the 
 little casement window-balconies on the Mexican resi- 
 dences. They are heavily grated like a cage and per- 
 haps it is for this reason that the custom of courting 
 a la Romeo and Juliet is called "playing bear" — Jia- 
 ciendo del oso, in Spanish. But, unlike the Shaks- 
 perian lovers, the Mexican "bears" are barred from 
 the privilege of hugging. In this peculiar wooing the 
 lover must behave like a bear a year or two, then if 
 he can bear it that long he may call on the lady — with 
 a chaperon present. After all, it's only a matter of 
 education — what do you suppose the Alexican senorita 
 would think of her sister from the States should she 
 meet her on the street "playing bear" with her Teddy 
 and her beau ? 
 
 My bear has finished his daily box of cigars. The 
 room is fragrant with tobacos exquisites. It is a won- 
 der we are not turned into herrings. He smokes a 
 negro down here with as little efifect as he feels from a 
 "mild," up north. Says it's the air. And he smokes a 
 "twenty-five-cent straight" Bscepcionale with prac- 
 tically no pecuniary effect — it costs seven or eight cents 
 and smokes like sixtv.
 
 92 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 En route. 
 
 February i9. 
 
 The Brownidads were the first ones astir for once. 
 We went out and bought fihiis before anybody else 
 came dow^n. Then after scenting a few near-by res- 
 taurants we all followed the old trail to the Sanz for 
 breakfast. 
 
 Then we ladies took our loves to the Alamo — or the 
 Alameda, whichever you please — there is one in every 
 town in Mexico. Then we found a phonograph hos- 
 pital, for the Victor was suffering with bronchitis. 
 Mr. Brown asked the interne in charge if he would 
 send a specialist down to the car to examine the pa- 
 tient and remove the larynx or do something. Oh, 
 they couldn't think of taking surgical instruments 'way 
 down to the station. Well, would they get a cab and 
 bring the invalid to the doctor? No, the expert 
 laryngotomist was out on a case and wouldn't be in till 
 mafiana. Just then he came in. He was consulted. 
 Why, most likely there was something broken and they 
 hadn't the necessary part to replace it. Finally, when 
 we insisted that there was probably only a little dust 
 in the wind pipe, they agreed to "see," but it would be 
 pretty expensive. After we had hanged the expense 
 and expressed ourselves thoroughly on the subject of 
 Mexican business methods, they decided to go after 
 the machine. 
 
 A final raid on the Hole in the Wall resulted in the 
 delivery at the Palacio of a wagon-load of pottery and 
 brass, after which we met our sefiors for luncheon at 
 the usual trysting place. 
 
 Then they took us to the Mexico School of Mines, 
 La Mineria. This is one of Mexico's fine buildings,
 
 The Tour of the 400. 93 
 
 erected in 1777, but looking very modern, with massive 
 stone stairways leading out of the large stone-paved 
 patio to galleries with heavy stone columns. As the 
 exhibition rooms were closed we failed to see the fine 
 collection of minerals it is said to contain, but we felt 
 repaid for the visit in seeing the building. 
 
 Just outside the college are three large meteoralites 
 that have been found in Mexico — the largest weighed 
 14,142 kilos. That "figures up" to fifteen and a half 
 tons plus. By way of comparison, the one in the Smith- 
 sonian Institute in Washington, considered very won- 
 derful, weighs seven tons, while the one at Yale Col- 
 lege weighs less than one ton. I am certainly glad it 
 does not hail these big stones often — even a gentle 
 meteoric shower would be rather unpleasant, I should 
 think — worse than raining pitchforks. 
 
 A few drops of rain just then looked ominous and 
 we hurriedly hailed a street car, guessing at the right 
 direction for the National Museum, but we only rode 
 a few blocks, for two reasons — one was we changed 
 our minds about going to the museum, and the other 
 because it stopped raining and the streets are much 
 more interesting when one walks. 
 
 Finally the party divided into brethren and sisters, 
 and while the brethren went to call on the Vice-Presi- 
 dent we sisters, drawn as by a magnet to that same 
 old block in Gante street, shopped till we could shop 
 no more, but must go back to the hotel to pack up. 
 
 It had been arranged that we should all gather at 
 the Palacio at 5 :45, ready to start at once for the car 
 for dinner. We ladies ''got our clothes upon our 
 backs — got our trunks and satchels packed" — and 
 waited. No men — worse yet, owing to the laundry
 
 94 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 man's unfeeling plans, not one word had yet been 
 heard from the Ozark's missing "laundry." 
 
 Six o'clock arrived — no men, no laundry, and worst 
 of all, no baggage-man to take the trunks to the sta- 
 tion. 
 
 6:15 — the men arrive. I am unceremoniously 
 bundled into the carriage in which the men arrive, 
 together with my spouse, three suit-cases, an over- 
 coat, an umbrella, a basket of crockery, a water jug, 
 the talking machine box and its big brass horn, and 
 my hand bag. We drove off looking like the night 
 before Christmas, Santa Claus disguised in a big som- 
 brero and zarape. 
 
 We called at The Sanz for the last mail and there 
 added to our equipment a bundle of violets made up 
 into a huge nosegay as big as a washtub. Then on to 
 the Buena Vista station at a lively trot. 
 
 Arriving there, nobody knew where to take us to 
 the car and, this being the Central and not the Na- 
 cional where we had come in, we had no idea where 
 to look. There was no one about who could speak 
 English, so we couldn't ask and of course we had no 
 tickets to show for enlightenment — and nobody was 
 looking for enlightment if we had. With the small 
 impedimenta before enumerated we could not rush 
 hither and thither and dodge the gate man and all 
 that; and it being pitch dark we could only see the 
 length of our noses into the yards — and our noses are 
 not the de Bergerac kind. 
 
 Well, it was decided to anchor me in the waiting 
 room to the three suit-cases, the overcoat, the um- 
 brella, the basket of crockery, the water jug, the talk- 
 ing machine and the big megaphone, the nosegay and 
 my handbag — why didn't I bring a bird cage or a
 
 The Tour of the 400. 95 
 
 baby? — and I was left to ruminate over the situation 
 while the spouse, the only useful article in my collec- 
 tion, went to investigate. 
 
 There was an interminable wait, during which my 
 neck took on a spiral form in my ceaseless effort to 
 keep my eyes on the chattels and the thievish-looking 
 people all at once. In the meantine I accosted any- 
 body and everybody who looked at me, hoping some- 
 body, by chance, would understand — but nobody did. 
 But all things come to them that wait. I was begin- 
 ning to think I would take the big horn and shout for 
 English-speaking Help ! when finally the spouse re- 
 turned in the wake of the biggest, blackest, smilingest, 
 most adorable porter I ever saw, who talked our 
 blessed English and knew the railroad yards from 
 track A to track Z. 
 
 With the aid of a posse of Mexicans, each armed 
 with a chattel, we finally struck our car like an ava- 
 lanche, making Frank and Oliver wonder, no doubt, 
 if we hadn't left something. But we hadn't — except- 
 ing a little something for that angel darkey. 
 
 After a while in came tumbling the others ; and such 
 a tale of woe was never told with such peals of laugh- 
 ter. They had waited and waited and waited for the 
 laundry boy, likewise for the express wagon. Finally 
 the boy, with a leisureliness that was reminiscent of 
 bridal processions trying not to get ahead of the march, 
 brought a parcel of clothes. Not a garment had the 
 Ozarks ever worn or ever would wear. So back he 
 must go to the laundry. This time there must be 
 no mistake — time was precious and so were clothes, 
 for Mrs. Ozark's wardrobe is limited, as we have ex- 
 plained. So she must go along to identify her lingerie 
 — and Mrs. Brigham would go along to help.
 
 96 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 They were conducted to the rear of the building and 
 up some stairs to a sort of roof back-yard. Here a 
 divinity of the tubs, a lavendera of high degree, robed 
 in long traiHng breadths of crimson plush, received 
 them in truly Palacial style. Not being in just the 
 mood for court ceremonies, they demanded and pro- 
 ceeded to search for the lost garments, and they fished 
 first in this tub and then in that till they found the 
 shirtwaist that had been misplaced, the white vest and 
 all the rest nestling closely in the suds. Poor Mrs. 
 Ozark — with first her trunk lost and then to have the 
 rest of her clothes in soak! 
 
 rt would wring tears from a mummy ; but not from 
 that placid, plush-upholstered goddess in red. She 
 wouldn't even wring the clothes, so the ladies wrung 
 them out and, with a basketful of the precious linen 
 twisted up in soggy rolls, they returned to the office. 
 
 Here they found Mr. Ozark trying to swear and Mr. 
 Brigham trying desperately to raise cl diablo or some- 
 body who would deign to handle the trunks that were 
 still waiting for the expressman. Of course, none of 
 those Palace noblemen could so demean themselves — 
 and why should they fret about a loitering express- 
 man? 
 
 When the wagon did at last arrive, those elegant 
 personages watched their guests help the man to load 
 the trunks and were staring after them as they piled 
 the ladies into a carriage in something of the san-te 
 hasty manner they had used with the trunks, jumped 
 in after them and dashed ofif. 
 
 In order to make sure that the expressman did not, 
 upon reflection, decide to wait till manana to deliver 
 the trunks, they made their driver follow close behind 
 and they finally all pulled up at the station in time and,
 
 The Tour of the 400. 97 
 
 after seeing the baggage put aboard the train, they all 
 came falling into the car in hysterical exhaustion. 
 
 We left The City at eight' o'clock. Mrs. Newhall 
 has metamorphosed the 400 into a laundry dry-room. 
 Unblushing bifurcated garments and various ghost- 
 like draperies startle our eyes and clammy cuffs and 
 collars lurk in unexpected corners. 
 
 She has just reported her umbrella forgotten and 
 her slippers stolen ! Verily, from her that hath not 
 shall be taken away even that which she hath ! 
 
 En route. 
 
 February 20. 
 
 "Brite and fare," as the Real Boy says in the Real 
 Diary. 
 
 The day's sights began with a picture of Santa 
 Maria — not a madonna, but a poverty-stricken little 
 pueblo in the state of Jalisco. Nobody was up to take 
 the picture — " 'tis pity, 'tis," said I, and forthwith 
 routed my sleeping spouse from the opposite section, 
 convinced him that he could aim a "finder" and click a 
 trigger if he could shoot ducks and loons the way he 
 tells about and in response to his "Just as I am?" an- 
 swered, "without one plea" — so ofif he- went. Presently 
 some one, not the Victor this time, sang out "Who's 
 dat knockin' at ma do'? Who's dat, I should like to 
 know?" and who indeed but a blue pyjama-clad gen- 
 tleman of chest-fallen mien was "a-knockin' with so 
 much vim" for some one to come and let him in — 
 for he was too flustrated to remember that private 
 cars have door-bells and porters, with the astonished 
 eyes of Santa Maria staring holes in the blue stripes. 
 
 We are speeding northward at a good lively tempo —
 
 98 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 about allegro, as indicated b\' the metronome — as T 
 call the speedometer. We passed through Queretaro, 
 famous for its opals and its history, during the "wee 
 short hours ayont the twal," also Irapuato, that mouth- 
 watering place where strawberries ripen every day in 
 the year. 
 
 When Brownidad (we call it the other way round 
 at home) was in Queretaro in '96 he was not so for- 
 tunate as to have any nice warm pyjamas along — they 
 hadn't been occidentalized as yet. And I remember a 
 startling red and yellow flannel shirt he brought home 
 and the story he told of the trouble he had to get it. 
 finally obtaining the garment by pointing out the words 
 "woolen," "shirt" and "night" in a Spanish-English 
 phrase book. Even at that, "night" in connection with 
 a shirt meant nothing to the Mexican shop-keeper. 
 
 My recollections of Queretaro also include a box of 
 December roses sent me from there and a doleful-look- 
 ing but very funny letter in black-bordered stationery 
 (the hotel proprietress being in mourning), telling of 
 a visit to the place where Maximilian was shot. Of 
 cotirse there is nothing mirthful about that incident, 
 but there was a fun-loving friend along on that visit 
 and a chance acquaitance from "Oshkosh" who 
 "couldn't see it," and the combination was decidedly 
 humorous. 
 
 At Agua Calientes, where the train stopped for 
 breakfast, we held an impromptu auction of drawn- 
 work, opals and horse-hair baskets and toy sombreros 
 from the back platform, the bidders occupying the plat- 
 form. It is said that all the inhabitants of Calientes 
 who are not at home making drawn-work are at the 
 station selling it and they find a ready and a steady 
 market, for many people, like ourselves, wish they
 
 The Tour of the 400. 99 
 
 had more by the time they are started north, and many 
 who are posted wait to buy it there at their own price. 
 
 It was a Hvely twenty minutes, as the Mexicans 
 crowded close along the railroad holding up their most 
 tempting pieces for a hurried examination. A picture 
 of it would look like a clothes-line full of linen, with 
 knuckles for clothes-pins and only the eager eyes of 
 the owners visible above their white squares. When 
 the conductor called "vaiuaiios!" and the train pulled 
 out, there was a frantic making of change, the buyers 
 and sellers not able to exchange a word except "yes" 
 and "no" and "dollars" and "cents." 
 
 While this was goinig on on one side of the train, 
 the Mexican passengers were acting as greedy about 
 breakfast on the opposite side. There were tables 
 spread with hot dishes and something was steaming in 
 great earthen jugs which would be standing in state 
 in the iialls of the "400" if they could be got there, 
 and the chili con came and frijoles were being served 
 directly from the manufacturers to the consumers. We 
 are neither hungry enough nor courageous enough to 
 taste the Mexican dishes. 
 
 Agua Calientes is, as its name indicates, a place of 
 hot water. The guide-book states (wrongfully) that 
 the open baths may be seen from the station and that 
 the natives may be seen bathing therein in broad da}'- 
 light, "with no other protection than the blue sky of 
 heaven and the republic of Mexico." The book also 
 states (truthfully, corroborated In- Mr. Brown) that 
 certain baths are named after the twelve disciples and 
 that over the door of each bath house is the name of an 
 apostle and his temperature. Mr. B., of course, al- 
 ways patronized St. Paul, his patron saint. 
 
 Although perfectly flat, the city of hot water has an
 
 100 
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 elevation of 6,179 feet, and has a most salubrious cli- 
 mate, which, with the springs and other attractions, 
 makes it a favorite health resort. The town lies back 
 of a grove of trees across a level space of some dis- 
 tance. A toy street car drawn by one small mule was 
 waiting for whoever came on the train to take the 
 baths, but was rewarded b}- only one or two passen- 
 gers. 
 
 Besides drawn-work, one of the best grades of 
 
 pottery is made in Calientes — and the worst grade of 
 opals, as we had plenty of evidence. Those we ladies 
 bought in "The City" by the karat instead of by the 
 quart were opals. 
 
 From Agua Calientes there was a steady up-grade 
 all the forenoon, through a good agricultural country, 
 becoming more rocky as we reached the mountains. 
 The train wound in curve after curve around the 
 rough hillsides, passing almost directly over many
 
 The Tour of the 400. 101 
 
 ore-reduction works. This region was once one of 
 the greatest mining districts in the world. Tons of 
 the precious metal have come from the treasure-vaults 
 of these hills, but the old bonanza mines are no longer 
 worked, the ore being down to too much water to be 
 taken out by mule power, and the scarcity of fuel 
 makes other power impracticable. 
 
 Higher and higher the engine climbed, till an alti- 
 tude of a mile and a half was reached. Then a broad 
 panorama spread out around us — brown, barren hills, 
 dotted here and there by white tombstone-like rocks 
 that had once marked the boundaries of mining claims. 
 
 All at once there appeared the vision of the Holy 
 Land which we had been promised in the guide-book 
 — two cities with flat-topped houses and Moorish 
 domes lay away off in the valley beyond among the 
 brown hills — how like they were to pictures of Da- 
 mascus or Bagdad ! It was easy to imagine ourselves 
 traveling the way to Jericho or over some other Bible 
 road. 
 
 These two oriental-looking cities were Zacatecas and 
 Guadalupe. After a little they disappeared as if they 
 had been only a vision as we passed into some dee]) 
 cut. Then after a zigzag flying through cuts and 
 around sharp curves we came once more in sight of 
 Zacatecas and presently reached the station. 
 
 The scene from the car was as beautiful as it was 
 foreign — a symphony in blue and brown. The city lies 
 encircled in the red-brown hills, up which it seems 
 trying to climb, and the buildings are all one color, 
 a soft terra-cotta. And, as if painted with the same 
 brush, a bright blue streak on the side of a building, 
 exactly the color of the sky, was the only bit of other
 
 102 
 
 TJie Tom- of the 400. 
 
 color in all this prevailing tone of brown. It was so 
 harmonious an effect, so unusual and impressive, it will 
 remain a lasting mental picture. 
 
 We stopped long enough to take some kodak pic- 
 tures, but not long enough to overcome the feeling 
 that we were looking at stereopticon views of eastern 
 lands. Just in time for my first snap, stepping into 
 the finder as I sprung the shutter, came a veritable lit- 
 tle Jerusalem donkey, pannier-laden like those we see 
 in Bible illustrations. 
 
 The quaint old city lies under the shadow of a pe- 
 culiarly shaped hill, Ccrro dc la Biifa, popularly sup- 
 posed to mean the "hill of the bufifalo." Bufa is a 
 Biscayan word and really means "pig's bladder," and 
 pertainly the hill looks much more like a bladder than
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 103 
 
 a buffalo. Just discernible in the distance on the crest 
 of this hill was a cross, which caps a Httle chapel to 
 which for two hundred years suffering pilgrims have 
 crawled on their knees over a rough, steep path 
 hedged with bristling thorns, to do penance. 
 
 Zacatccas means "phice where grows the grass." 
 The valley in which it lies is fertile and grass grows — 
 an uncommon thing in this country. The city is as old 
 as the hills around — races have come and gone, pros- 
 perity has come and gone, in its day. Once a busy
 
 104 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 center of wealth, it is only a deserted town in our day, 
 full of relics of times gone by — for the industry that 
 gave it life is no more. 
 
 Four miles from Zacatecas is Guadalupe, the sister 
 city in the vision, not visible from Zacatecas but con- 
 nected with it by a "gravity" railroad. I learn from 
 Mr. Brown, who once dropped into town via the grav- 
 ity, that it is the force of gravity which takes the car 
 down hill that gave the name to the system. A serio- 
 comic little donkey pulls the car back to Zacatecas — he 
 alone sees the real gravity of the situation, for to him 
 it is decidedly uphill business. 
 
 Without meaning to present my modest other half 
 in the character of the human encyclopedia usually 
 found in tales of travel, I am going to leave a space 
 here to insert part of a letter I have at home, describ- 
 ing his arrival in this city ten years ago, because his 
 experience was so unlike that of a private-car trip. 
 He was traveling with a friend who has since jour- 
 neyed to "the undiscover'd country from whose bourn 
 no traveller returns," and Zacatecas was their first 
 stopping place in Mexico. Here will follow Paul's 
 epistle. 
 
 ["We arrived here at 12 o'clock Friday night, in company 
 with two traveling salesmen (a Frenchman and a Jew) whose 
 acquaintance we made coming down. The railroad station 
 is about a mile and a half from the town, but we saw a 
 mule-car apparently waiting for us, so we climbed in and 
 presently four IMexicans climbed in after us and the car started. 
 The Mexicans gazed at us as steadily as we did at them, and 
 if they are travelers away from home (which they certainly 
 are not) they are now writing to their wives about the 
 Americanos as I am writing to you about them. They be- 
 longed to the lower class, which includes 11,800,000 of the 
 12,000,000 people of Mexico, and wore as few articles of 
 clothing as I should think the law would allow — though I
 
 The Tour of the 400. 105 
 
 am not making a study of the laws of Mexico. The afore- 
 said articles considered as essential were trousers, blanket 
 and sombrero. In this not altogether delightful company we 
 rode to the town and through streets so narrow that we 
 could almost touch the houses on either side from the car 
 windows. I saj^ 'houses' — one-story adobe huts, rather. 
 
 ■'Finally the car stopped and we fell out and found our- 
 selves within about three feet of a two-story wall of adobe, 
 painted white. In the center of the wall was a great double 
 door built of heavy planks like a barn-door and strongly 
 braced. The Frenchman (who has been here often) picked 
 up a cobblestone from the paving in the street, and with this 
 primitive knocker pounded on the door. After he had almost 
 battered the door down, it opened a little waj^ and a sleepy 
 Mexican stuck his head out. The Mexican and the French- 
 man held a very short but very animated conversation, the 
 head disappeared, the door closed, we heard a bolt thrown 
 into place on the inside and the Frenchman announced to us 
 that the Central had no rooms vacant. Thereupon we climbed 
 back into the car, which had accommodatingly been waiting, 
 and we rode another block, then climbed off again. 
 
 "This time the Mexicans climbed off too and took our 
 baggage, and we all proceeded by wa_\- of a narrow street 
 paved with cobblestones and lined with buildings close to 
 the street line and lighted by the moon, up a steep hill 
 until our further progress was stopped by a structure very 
 similar to that called the 'Central Hotel." Here the French- 
 man again despoiled the street of a cobblestone and made 
 his presence known by the pounding process. Again a heavy 
 wooden door opened, another sleepy Alexican thrust his 
 head out and he and the Frenchman conversed, but this time 
 the door was opened just wide enough for us to enter single 
 file, and the party, following Messieur, marched into the 
 Zacatecano, an old two-story building, originally an Augus- 
 tinian convent, with rooms facing an open court. 
 
 ''The Frenchman registered, Mr. Broat and I were as- 
 signed to 'double-room-having-two-beds-No.-44,' and I was 
 handed an iron key about a foot long. Preceded by a Mexi- 
 can clad in shirt and trousers, and followed by the afore- 
 said Mexicans who had accompanied us from the depot, we 
 climbed the stairs to the gallery. The first [Mexican pointed 
 to room 44^1 opened it by means of the bar of pig iron and
 
 106 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 we entered. The 'double room' consisted of two connecting 
 vaults with whitewashed walls and stone floors, the stones 
 all worn hollow, many of them loose. In the corner of one 
 cell a prison-like window, heavily iron-barred, overlooked the 
 tops of other buildings. Each room was furnished with a 
 single iron bedstead, a washstand, some reed-bottomed chairs, 
 an iron pitcher and bowl and a copy of the 'regulations' 
 printed in Spanish, French and English. 
 
 "The Mexican, who had come up with us from the office, 
 lighted two candles, placed one on each washstand and pro- 
 ceeded to make up the beds with a quantity of bedding which 
 he had brought with him. When he had finished he placed 
 a cake of soap and two towels on each washstand and with- 
 drew. 
 
 "All this time we were too much interested to notice the 
 other two Mexicans, who were still standing in the room 
 holding our grips. I finally asked them if they intended to 
 sleep with us. Evidently thinking my question a command, 
 they put the grips on the floor and said something which 
 Broat said meant 'twenty-five cents.' We gave them each 
 that amount in Alexican money, they said something includ- 
 ing Sehor, and went out. We then locked the door, sat down 
 on one of the beds and wondered whether we were in a safe, 
 a hotel, or in jail."] 
 
 North of Zacatecas the railroad follows a trail 
 through gaps in the Sierra jNIadres and the train 
 went flying from one horseshoe to another at a 
 furious speed. During these tortuous windings around 
 the hills I attempted a picture of the forward half of 
 the train from the rear end, but I am afraid the speed 
 was too great for a success. 
 
 Gaunt chimneys of old smelters were the only signs 
 of man in these mountains. Solemn and gloomy they 
 stand, like monuments to dead industry, bearing 
 silent witness as they crumble and decay, of the insta- 
 bility of man and his works in contrast to the stead- 
 fastness of "the everlasting hills." 
 
 rt was very hot by noon, and all the rest of the day 
 we were suffocated in dust as we traveled steadilv
 
 The Tour of the 400. 107 
 
 down grade across a flat sandy desert covered with 
 sage and cactus — a country which somebody re- 
 marked, "needed only water and good society to make 
 it a fit place for a human being to live." With the ex- 
 ception of our little Leading Lady, who is of the band- 
 box order of creation, we are as brown and dirty and 
 as careless of it as the Mexicans, having utterly aban- 
 doned ourselves to our fate. 
 
 There were the same little villages, where every- 
 thing below the sky was of one color, the adobe huts 
 being made of sun-dried cakes of the same soil on 
 which they stand, red or gray as the location hap- 
 jiens to be. The train seems to come upon these 
 little pueblos quite unawares — no sign of life, then 
 all at once the swarm of beggars, for "the poor always 
 ye liave with you" in Mexico, and begging is the lead- 
 ing industry. 
 
 Mrs. Newhall has taken up the vocation which 
 goes with the dirt, and she does the begging herself 
 whenever we stop. She holds out her hand appeal- 
 ingly and murmurs "ceiitavo, ccntavo'' with a most 
 touching and pathetic voice, to the utter bewilderment 
 of these people of the desert. Then she smiles and 
 they "tumble." There is always a chorus of "adois! 
 adios':" when we leave the excited groups counting 
 up their gains. 
 
 The country Ijecamc more and more sterile with 
 every mile. Someone has called the desert "liic land 
 God forgot" — I should say "forsook" — for nothing 
 could illustrate the word "God-forsaken" like this flat, 
 endless stretch of nothingness. Fanny gave a small 
 urchin a potted plant today on which was a faded 
 blossom. She had meant to throw it away, but thought 
 one of these desert waifs might like it — like it ! We
 
 108 
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 left the child hugging the poor little flower, a waif like 
 herself, as if it had dropped from Paradise. She was 
 at once the center of a group wondering, admiring and 
 excited, for the desert had suddenly "blossomed as the 
 rose." 
 
 Each little settlement seemed if possible more primi- 
 tive. Instead of adobe huts, there were j'acals built of 
 old boards, discarded railroad ties or anv wreckage
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 109 
 
 that would make a shanty, set upright Hke a backyard 
 fence — "palisade,"' to be technical, and "chinked" with 
 adobe. They are as comfortable and homelike as a 
 pigsty. There are no windows in Mexican huts, and 
 
 seldom a chimney. What little fire is used is made 
 in a charcoal pan or bakeoven. 
 
 As we journeyed further into the wilderness the 
 people showed increasing evidence of poverty and
 
 no The Tour of the 400. 
 
 greater lack of water. At a little pueblo called Calero 
 I posed a group of them, touching their shoulders in 
 so doing. "Unclean ! unclean !" was the cry, as if 
 they were lepers. I had to sterilize my hands imme- 
 diately. 
 
 On the railroad maps cities and towns appear to be 
 thickly scattered along this route, but a "city" in 
 larger type proves to be only the usual row of jacals 
 with a corral back of them fenced with brush or a 
 cemetery thus enclosed as a protection against coy- 
 otls. Fresnillo on the map is the last "city" in the 
 Torrid Zone, coming north. But Fresnillo on the 
 railroad, like many of the towns named on the time- 
 tables, consists entirely of the section house, and that 
 is so small that it reminds you of the joke about the 
 man who came to the freight station to get a chicken- 
 coop and went off with the station in his wagon. 
 Guterez, another large-type city on the map, is a clus- 
 ter instead of a row of adobe huts, with an extra 
 number of beggars, indicating a larger population. 
 
 Not only do iNIexican towns and streets have re- 
 ligious (or sacrilegious) appellations, but the people 
 seem to bear names that must have made Dowie, as 
 Elijah, feel very much at home among them. I read 
 "Jesus y ]Manuel Fernandez" above the door of the 
 only business establishment in one small village today, 
 and if the head of the establishment was the man under 
 the sign his looks belie his Christian name. 
 
 The sky has been glorious today — fleecy clouds float- 
 ing, the blue intense. The sun plays all sorts of tricks 
 with our eyes. Mrs. Brigham called us to look out at 
 a wonderful mirage, this afternoon. The wide stretch 
 of sand was like sparkling water, and in the remote
 
 The Tour of the 400. Ill 
 
 distance trees fringing the shores of this phantom 
 lake were reflected with the mountains at whose feet 
 it lay. It was only a marvelous optical illusion — 
 
 — "as the magic Fata Morgana 
 Showed them her lakes of light, that retreated 
 and vanished before them." 
 
 We finish every day with a beautiful sunset. This 
 particular one ended with a vision of Heaven, nothing 
 less. A radiance without color, except the gleam- 
 ing silver that was so luminous as to suggest cherubim 
 and seraphim and the glimmer of their wings. It 
 was like a glimpse of some celestial realm through 
 pearly gates. A poet could not describe it — an artist 
 could only dream it. It is no wonder this country 
 is called The Land of the Sun — no wonder the sun 
 god was worshipped of old, for all the evidence of 
 any world beyond this barren desert above which the 
 sun, morning and evening, works wondrous miracles 
 to dazzle the eyes of his subjects, is revealed in these 
 glimpses of "the land that is fairer than day" which 
 thus we can see afar. 
 
 Mr. Halloway, a friend of Mr. Brigham's, a pas- 
 senger on the train, dined with us tonight. 
 
 Last daylight stop Torreon, "the newest town in 
 Mexico." 
 
 State of Chihuahua. 
 
 February 22. 
 
 There was nothing but a vast expanse of sand for 
 our purveyor of scenery to announce to their majes- 
 ties, the "400," this morning, so he wound up the 
 Victor and the classic strains of "Jasper, Don't Yon
 
 112 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 Hear Me Calling, Calling You?" started a chorus of 
 "Yes, birdies" from behind the curtains. We had 
 passed through a hilly section of country during the 
 night, so the party had been somewhat restless. Some 
 slept the sleep of the just, others had too much dust. 
 If it is true that He giveth his beloved sleep, then 
 I am surely of the blest. 
 
 Jiminez — what a name for a town. Spanish for 
 jiminy? No, not Jim at all, but Himinez, you must 
 say. He was one of Hidalgo's compatriots. And, by 
 the way, Hidalgo means "son of somebody as is some- 
 body," from higo de algo. 
 
 Next came Chihuahua, just after breakfast. Pro- 
 nounced to rhyme with bow-wow — since here is bred 
 the only bony fido Chihuahua dog- — the hairless kind 
 that made Chihuahua famous. With his nose so sharp 
 and his toe nails long, where, oh where can he be? 
 There wasn't a bow-wow in sight — too early, prob- 
 ably. 
 
 However, the name does not mean "funny little dog" 
 — it means the "place where things are made," not 
 born, for this is the greatest manufacturing city in 
 Mexico. 
 
 To us Chihuahua means "the place where travelers 
 shave," for we have been traveling too fast lately to 
 trust ourselves with razors, especially on our own faces. 
 "We" is masculine in this sentence. To the passengers 
 not of the 400 Chihuahua means a place for break- 
 fast. The city is 999 miles from Mexico City — 
 arid desert almost every steppe of the way. From 
 Chihuahua to the Rio Grande there are 200 miles 
 of what the books call "chaparral" — the most desolate 
 country, covered sometimes with sagebrush, some- 
 times with the stunted, ugly varieties of cacti, and
 
 The Tour of the 400. 113 
 
 only broken with an occasional ditch that looks like 
 a crack in the dry soil. We crossed one of these on 
 a temporary bridge, where a big iron structnre had 
 been destroyed in a washout. There had been a cloud- 
 burst and a sudden fall of water does great damage 
 to bridges that are "built upon the sand." When the 
 rain descends and the floods come and beat upon that 
 bridge, it falls — and great is the fall of it. Stone abut- 
 ments were turned endwise where the ground caved 
 in, iron beams twisted like reeds. 
 
 With all its desolation, there is to me an ever-increas- 
 ing charm in the great endless desert. /With all its 
 monotony, there is yet a continual changing, a mingled 
 beauty and wildness, that grows always more fascinat- 
 ing — the wide leagues of sand, glistening like silver, 
 the mountains that rise from it, purple or brown as 
 they are far or near, the distant ranges that lay 
 vaguely against the horizon in soft cloud-like softness. 
 
 "And over all is the sky, the clear and crystalline heaven. 
 Like the protecting hand of God inverted above them." 
 
 Today we are having all these changes. Just now 
 I am looking upon great stretches of sand-dunes, where 
 the sparse vegetation is half buried in drifts of white 
 sand like snow. 
 
 In some places cattle are browsing on "bufifalo 
 grass," which looks like poor picking, but is said to 
 be very nutritious. It grows in straggly clumps that 
 sometimes form figures or letters and so is often 
 called "alphabet grass." T wonder if the animals 
 make imaginary words as they eat, as the children do 
 with alphabet sotip. 
 
 Wherever there is stock there are bones bleach- 
 ing in the sun. And wherever there are pools of
 
 114 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 water along the railway there are carcasses (I was 
 about to write it "carci") of steers recently killed by 
 trains. There are no fences along the right-of-way 
 in these sections and the cattle cross the track in front 
 of trains when going to water. We run slowly through 
 these places. When there are likely to be cattle to 
 pay for if killed, it pays to be careful. 
 
 The water in these little pools looks like milk, it is 
 so saturated with alkali. I suppose our dumb friends 
 say to each other "Come on and get a soda" when 
 they visit these fountains. 
 
 Between the bovine watering-places we make up 
 for lost time by going at breakneck speed. It has 
 been too rough for music — the needle goes jumping 
 all over the record, making the most unexpected re- 
 peats and the most fearful caterwaulings, like a Chi- 
 nese orchestra. 
 
 For lack of music to soothe our savage breasts we 
 have the most deadly combats in "flinch." Friendship 
 ceases and there is no flinching about getting the best 
 of each other. The losers are made to wipe ofl^ the 
 table, to signify that their antagonists have "wiped 
 the floor" with them, for somebody has to dust be- 
 tween each deal. It was the duster for mine today, 
 but Thursday always was my unlucky day. 
 
 Whoever is not engaged in this absorbing amuse- 
 ment (what a word!) is reading "The Clansman." 
 Every member of the family is "just looking it over" 
 unless everybody else is busy. In that case, with con- 
 science at ease, he or she is trying to finish it while 
 nobodv else wants it. It certainly is a compliment to 
 Mr. Dixon. 
 
 With these exciting diversions we manage to dis- 
 pose of "the long, tedious days crossing the desert."
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 115 
 
 My goodness, each one is so full of interest it is gone 
 before it is well begun, as someone remarked. "My 
 days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle," and one 
 feels like a shuttle, flving across the world so fast. 
 
 The train is packed with Mexicans, three to a seat, 
 in first, second and third-class cars. They all have 
 oranges, which they eat without ceasing. Some of 
 them have lunches along, but the most of them dined 
 al fresco, there being tables "spread on the lawn," so 
 to speak, at Moctezuma, to which the nimble and
 
 116 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 hungry Mex. made a running procession, Indian file 
 — "first come first served" being the watchword. 
 
 Meanwhile I took the opportunity to photograph at 
 close range the most pretentious of the little "pigsty" 
 jacals of which the city of Moctezuma consists. The 
 people were all assisting at the law'n fete except one 
 white pig, which I snapped before he escaped into the 
 "sty." 
 
 This is Washington's birthday and w^e celebrated 
 with a chicken pie that would have been a credit to 
 ]\lt. Vernon's best cook. \\e dined in the afternoon, 
 it being a holiday, under a canopy of red, white and 
 blue made of two great flags. Now, how did it hap- 
 pen tliat there were flags in the car? 
 
 El Paso. 
 
 9 p. m. 
 
 We reached the old town of Paso del Norte, now 
 called Ciudad Jaurez, at about seven o'clock, crossed 
 the Rio Bravo del Norte, now called Rio Grande, and 
 came into Uncle Sam's dominion at El Paso wdth our 
 national colors displayed in most patriotic fashion. 
 When the emigrant officer came aboard to inspect the 
 ship to see if there were any Chinese concealed, he w^as 
 so impressed with the flag decoration that he re- 
 marked that people so conspicuously patriotic were 
 above suspicion, and politely withdrew. Then came 
 the health officer to see if we had any germs concealed, 
 and he was so impressed with Mrs. Newhalleria and 
 Mrs. Brownidad that he remarked that people so con- 
 spicuously healthy were above suspicion, and he po- 
 litely withdrew. Then the customs ofificer appeared, to 
 see if we had any contrabrand goods concealed, and 
 he was so impressed with the open display of Mrs.
 
 1 lie Tour of the 400. 117 
 
 Brigham's brass candlesticks and pans that he re- 
 marked that people so conspicuously brazen were above 
 suspicion, and he politely withdrew. Uncle Sam has 
 men of rare discrimination on the border. 
 
 However, let me insert a word of advice to pros- 
 pective travelers in Mexico who might not meet with 
 such unsuspecting suspectors. Besides your wearing 
 apparel our government allows souvenirs to the extent 
 of one hundred dollars, free. (No cigars included.) 
 If you should wish to bring home more than that 
 amount in gifts for friends without paying duty, they 
 must be either zarapes, hoop poles, skeletons, sauer 
 kraut, bologna or joss sticks. Since good zarapes are 
 expensive, and so many families have skeletons, and 
 hoop poles are so clumsy to carry, and sauer kraut, 
 though fine, is so easy to obtain at any delicatessen, 
 and bologna is a little passe, most people consider joss 
 sticks as almost Hobson's choice. But a hundred dol- 
 lars will buy a good many brass kettles and earthen 
 jugs — all you'll probably want to carry. 
 
 We are back in our ain countree but not home- 
 ward bound. It is necessary to cross the border to 
 make railroad connections for our last Mexican des- 
 tination. Black Mountain — that wonderful plum-pud- 
 ding of which we all own a little slice — in the extreme 
 northwestern corner of Mexico. 
 
 This evening we formed an agreeable impression 
 of El Paso from the up-to-date ice-creamery we dis- 
 covered and from the very up-to-date people we 
 watched dancing in the ballroom of a prominent hotel. 
 
 The men are out transferring baggage to another 
 road and arranging to leave some of it here in storage 
 till our return on the way home. We are to spend 
 the night in our own hostelry in the yards. We have
 
 118 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 become so accustomed to the rumble of trains that 
 it disturbs us no more than the customary snore beside 
 us at home — the screeching of locomotives is as un- 
 heeded as the striking of the clock on the mantel, the 
 clanging of bells makes no more impression than the 
 morning call-bell. If we hear it we just think "ye-es!" 
 and doze off again. 
 
 Arizona. 
 
 February 23. 
 
 It was announced last night that only the early birds 
 could catch their trunks for a hurried exchange of 
 plumage before leaving the said trunks at El Paso, 
 and with the usual luck of the early worm I most 
 wished I hadn't been so smart when I found myself 
 unexpectedly detained on the car steps and three 
 whole breadths of that ill-fated black taffeta trailing 
 in my wake. The greedy "Mex." who purloined the 
 rubber floor-covering from the platform neglected to 
 take the tacks. 
 
 As ye rip so shall ye sew — but with my character- 
 istic cabbage-patch philosophy I am consoling myself 
 with the thought that in this land of animated rag- 
 bags we are eminently respectable though we look our 
 darndest — so I have darned the torn skirt once more, 
 and who cares whether the hem is fagotted on or prop- 
 erly stitched. 
 
 From El Paso we started west on an all-day race 
 with the sun over the "Sunset Route," flying along 
 with the indicator on the speedometer hesitating be- 
 tween sixty and seventy all day. 
 
 We are like the woman who began her dinner in 
 the State of Rhode Island, had a course or two in the 
 State of Connecticut and finished in a State of Indi-
 
 The Tour of the 400. 119 
 
 gestion — for we had fruit in Texas and cereal in New 
 Mexico this mornin"-. We recrossed the Rio Grande 
 during the change of courses, but not into Mexico. 
 The rio at that point is not the renowned dividing Hne 
 between the sister repubhcs. the United States of 
 America and los Estados Unidos de Mejico. 
 
 It happened again a few hours later that we began 
 luncheon in New Mexico and used finger-bowls in ^^.ri- 
 zona, according to a sign-post to that effect on the 
 boundary line. This reads like the account of a wed- 
 ding tour I once read in which the happy couple were 
 described as breakfasting here, lunching there and 
 dining yonder, as if they were wholly occupied with 
 meals — but it is a little unusual to change states with 
 one's plates, so we may be excused this time. 
 
 For the first time on the trip we are placed in the 
 forward part of the train today, thereby missing 
 much dust, but also missing our little "front piazza." 
 However, there is little to see in this lonely, silent 
 wilderness. For miles and miles there have been no 
 human habitations — no sign of man or beast, for in 
 all the length and breadth of this vast ocean of sand 
 there is not enough water to make a mud pie. Such 
 far-reaching distance we have not seen before, for 
 here there are no mountains. It is like a great ball- 
 room floor, so hard is the crust of sand. 
 
 Deming, New Mexico, one of the few cities on the 
 "Sunset Route," is a strange looking place — not a 
 tree in sight for what seemed like a million miles. 
 Instead, the houses are scattered through a grove of 
 windmills, of the lank, unpicturesque American type. 
 They looked liked a lot of electric fans whirling to 
 keep the town cool. And they surely must have a hot 
 time of it in the old town with no shade but that of
 
 120 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 the whispering windmills — for living or dying, they 
 must take their ease under the windmills, not under 
 the trees. 
 
 "How blest is he who crowns in shades like these 
 A youth of labor with an age of ease." 
 
 How blest is he who in his age of ease in these 
 shady bowers can recah the happy hours when toil 
 remitting lent its turn to play and all the village train, 
 from labor free, led up their sports beneath the spread- 
 ing windmills ! 
 
 I can't help thinking of the mute, inglorious Mil- 
 tons and Bryants and Longfellows that may perchance 
 be born in Deming to die unknown and unsung for 
 want of inspiration, and I thank my lucky star for let- 
 ting me be born in the land of the tree. How a poetic 
 soul would shrivel on a diet of sky and sand and wind- 
 mills ! For under no tall ancestral tree in this pleas- 
 ant land are poets born; mothers aren't rocking the 
 dreamland tree, for there are no trees in this land for- 
 lorn. "Rock-a-bye baby, up in the tree, when the 
 bough breaks the cradle will fall," and "bending twigs 
 t' incline the tree" mean in Deming just nothing at 
 all. In the shade of the old apple tree they know no 
 pleasure of mossy bed — neither the joy of a hollow 
 tree with liberty and a crust of bread. No lover be- 
 neath von crimson tree to list'ning maid doth breathe 
 his flame ; not even under the bamboo tree sing they 
 "we lak-a-both the same." Beneath the oak. that 
 shadv old tree, they know not how they'd like to 
 spoon ; no owl up in the sycamore tree says, "Woo 
 Sue !" as he hides from the moon. For the wedding 
 day no orange tree am a-bloomin' on de sandy shore ; 
 no man sits under his own fig tree, no bonnie brier
 
 The Tour of the 400. 121 
 
 beside his door. Nor under the spreading" chestnut 
 tree does the smith begin his work at dawn ; he can 
 not come to the sunset tree when his day of toil is 
 past and gone. They say not "O woodman, spare 
 that tree !" at the foot of yonder nodding beech ; and 
 "flourishing- Hke a green bay tree" is a meaningless 
 figure of speech. They dream not under the green- 
 wood tree ; 'neath no rugged elm or yew tree's shade 
 or anv other kind of a tree can they even be "forever 
 laid."' 
 
 I could jingle these rhymes all day, but I don't want 
 to harp on the subject. So I'll hang my harp on a 
 willow tree, for they that brought me captive to this 
 desolation require of me mirth — yea, even a game of 
 flinch. 
 
 The evening of the same day. 
 
 At Benson we finished the race with the sun, Old 
 Sol still having an hour to shine. 
 
 Connection was made at Benson with the Sonora 
 Railroad and we are once more headed south for 
 Mexico. For want of exercise we had a dance after 
 dinner — an impromptu sort of reel, to the tune of 
 "Monnie Musk," played on real fiddles in the "Straths- 
 pey Medley." 
 
 We are due at Nogales at nine, where Mrs. Brig- 
 ham expects to find another Mrs. B. waiting, to go on 
 to Magdalena in the 400 — the wife of one of the Black 
 Mountain "Jack Horners." 
 
 Cerro Prieto. 
 February ^4. 
 
 Nine o'clock came, but not Nogales. At that hour 
 we were stalled a few miles north of there with a 
 disabled engine. We expected every moment to
 
 122 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 move on, but finally we ladies retired, leaving the 
 gentlemen to do the honors in case Mrs. B. should 
 be still waiting at Nogales. 
 
 What followed I repeat from what I gathered of 
 a fragmentary conversation between two very sleepy 
 gentlemen this morning. 
 
 The engine was patched up sufficiently to haul the 
 train into Nogales, where it could be laid oft for fur- 
 further repairs. When we arrived there — about mid- 
 night — nobody was waiting for us, not even the train 
 with which we expected to connect. 
 
 It seems that there is a law in Mexico whereby 
 a railroad company is fined fifty dollars if a mail train 
 does not start on time, and this conductor being ever 
 mindful what it cost to break the law, had departed 
 according to schedule. 
 
 When passengers coming down from "the States" 
 are willing to make up a purse to pay this fine, they 
 wire ahead and the conductor tarries. But of this 
 simple method of adjusting matters nobody happened 
 to have been informed. 
 
 And great was the wailing and gnashing of teeth 
 when these facts became known. For, besides a whole 
 train load of greater or lesser disappointments, there 
 was a baseball team on board w^ith a lot of "fans," 
 billed to play an important game to-day at Hermosillo, 
 and the mishap meant a twenty-four-hour stopover, 
 which of course prevented the ball game. 
 
 Now there is nothing insurmountable in a problem 
 of railroad manipulation to Mr. Brigham, and as he 
 did not feel inclined to submit quiescently to being 
 tied up a day in Nogales with that alluring mine so 
 near and yet so far, he determined to find some way to
 
 The Tour of the 400. 123 
 
 get to Magdalena. So, accompanied by Mr. Brown, 
 he started out to see what he could do. 
 
 The first individual they encountered was a small 
 boy "about so high," who ought to have been a-bed at 
 such an hour. He asked them in English where they 
 expected to stay? Well, certainly not in Nogales if 
 there was an engine to be hired to go to Magdalena. 
 With the air of a man of affairs, this small ways and 
 means committee announced that he reckoned he could 
 fix them up some way ; and, proceeding to take the 
 strangers in tow, he led them into the station to confer 
 with the train dispatcher. 
 
 This gentleman was not, however, of the obliging 
 type. There was no extra engine, there would be none 
 along before morning, and the one just in could not 
 be made fit for the trip before mariana. Mr. Brigham 
 asked where he could reach Mr. Naugle, the general 
 manager of the road? He was "up in the States," a 
 place which seemed to be as vague to him as up in a 
 balloon. 
 
 Well, where was the superintendent? Here the 
 small Bureau of Information could answer. "He's 
 just left for Guaymas on that train, but you can get 
 him by wire at Agua Zarca." Whereupon, he dic- 
 tated a message to the operator. But the answer came 
 back "gan agin — Finnigin," or words to that effect. 
 
 In the meantime ]\Ir. Brigham had assumed a pre- 
 occupied expression, which gradually changed to one of 
 anxiety, and ignoring the further plans of the boy and 
 the remarks of Mr. Brown, he began writing rapidly 
 on a pad he picked up from the operator's table. "Any- 
 thing the matter down the road ?" he asked the opera- 
 tor. "No." "I thought there was a wreck, but prob- 
 ably I misunderstood — they must have changed the
 
 124 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 code since I handled the key," said Mr. Brigham, an- 
 swering the inquiring look of the operator by handing 
 him the pad on which he had been taking messages 
 from the clicking instruments. During the next few 
 moments he was busily engaged doing some telegraph- 
 ing himself, with the result that he located the wreck 
 south of Magdalena (out of our way) and eventually 
 procured orders for a crew to be made up in Nogales 
 and an engine to be had from somewhere to haul the 
 400 to Magdalena. 
 
 The Boy read the order, suggested some correc- 
 tions, which the dispatcher obediently made, and then 
 this resourceful little Relief Corps skirmished around 
 and routed out an engineer, fireman and whatever else 
 constitutes a "crew" from their various homes in the 
 town. 
 
 Then it occurred to him that the customs inspector 
 would have to "o. k." the car before it could cross the 
 line. This line, by the way, is the principal street in 
 the town. 
 
 He escorted the strangers to the inspector's quar- 
 ters, where Mr. Inspector was found asleep on the 
 floor, wrapped in his blanket. But now it developed 
 that in so irregular a piece of business as this, it would 
 be necessary to have a permit from the chief inspector 
 and, after taking his weary charges to an "open all 
 night" place where they could fortify the inner man. 
 he left them to recuperate while he fetched the oflicer. 
 
 The description of this cafe was such a jumble of 
 unfamiliar words that I shall not try to repeat it. But 
 I gathered that the place was a rendezvous for a variety 
 of Mexican and border "types" who were playing 
 games of the nature of which our men were quite
 
 The Tour of the 400. 125 
 
 ignorant. They had coffee and sandwiches by way of 
 refreshment. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Httle Rehef and Aid Society found 
 the chief inspector; a cursory examination of our ef- 
 fects took place under our unconscious (and let us 
 hope inaudible) noses, our passport was signed and at 
 last we reached ]\Iagdalena at about daybreak, most of 
 us in blissful ignorance of the way we got there. 
 
 Mr. Brigham says that Boy ought to be made presi- 
 dent of that road. 
 
 We awoke in Magdalena. and lo! the time of the 
 singing of birds was come. The feathery choirs were 
 practicing their Easter carols in the feathery green 
 trees. And such a treat were the green trees, after 
 that treeless yesterday! They were greener in Mag- 
 dalena than they had been even further south — the 
 shimmery green of spring. No wonder they call this 
 climate "eternal spring." It was such a morning as 
 Browning describes, when the year's at the spring, 
 the day's at morn, morning's at seven, the lark's on 
 the wing, God's in his heaven and all's right with the 
 world ! We all fell in love at once and forever with 
 green, balmy, bird-haunted Magdalena. 
 
 We lost no time in getting out to enjoy it all, and 
 found first of all a pretty stream tumbling and frolick- 
 ing under the trees. This little stream is so respect- 
 fully regarded in Mexico as to be called a river, the 
 Rio Magdalena. And it is so respectfully regarded by 
 our practical Americans as to be called excellent wa- 
 ter power, and they have shown their respect by build- 
 ing, as a temple in its honor, a great big mill to man- 
 ufacture electricity. This power, in its turn, will be 
 transmitted across the mountains to operate the ma- 
 chinery in the Black Mountain mining works.
 
 126 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 In spite of their having been up all night, the two 
 busy B.'s were all business. The first thing was to 
 inspect the new plant, in which the last of the ma- 
 chinery is being installed. So we descended in a body 
 upon the works, and these experts began their inspec- 
 tion. First they turned on some current and pro- 
 ceeded to try the relative phase relation of the alter- 
 nating circuits of a couple of the lightning machines, to 
 see if they were sure to run synchronously, noting the 
 quick responsiveness to control and the instant drop in 
 the compensator, corresponding — as it should — to the 
 ohmic drop in the line. Then they threw on the rotary 
 converters, which allow the possibility of throwing the 
 machines in multiple, and found that an extra shunt 
 transformer was needed to properly connect the bus 
 bars with the multiple disc. Noticing, with their acute 
 mechanical sense, that one of the volt meters skipped a 
 watt every little while, they tried the effect of cutting 
 out the potential sneak current. They looked over the 
 tachometers to see if they were properly 'tached to the 
 gearing of the rotary shafts, commenting favorably 
 upon the improvement which the nev\^ detachable point 
 with the inflexible end fitting the spindle afforded over 
 the old method, acting as it does as a safeguard ; they 
 readjusted some bushings and listened carefully to the 
 working of the noiseless anti-hum buzzers ; looked into 
 the loricated conduits and switched on the solenoid- 
 controlled switches; and especially remarked the mer- 
 its of the 670 h. p. turbo generators. They tested the 
 three-point motor-supports (which are of chromatic 
 alembic steel), and having finally ascertained that the 
 starting rheostats were in order and properly cali- 
 brated (calling each other's attention to the way the 
 ammeter, by using a steel-point suspension, altogether
 
 The Tour of the 400. 127 
 
 does away with torsion), they made a final short cir- 
 cuit around the air-cooled building and with one more 
 suggestion to the foreman in regard to the best man- 
 ner of connecting up the 200-ampere fixed-terminal 
 kicking coils (which are 1,000 horse power), they 
 complimented him upon the success of his labors 
 and themselves upon having had the perspicacity to 
 choose the jump-spark-ignition principle for the sys- 
 tem, and then these men "of infinite-resource-and-sa- 
 gacity" declared themselves well pleased with their 
 inspection of the plant, which fulfills their wildest 
 dreams. 
 
 And we ladies kept a tight grip on the gravity 
 clutch ! 
 
 In all seriousness Mr. Brigham asked me if I didn't 
 think things were in fine shape. I frankly admitted 
 that I was hardl}^ more than a push-button electrician, 
 but that the machinery did seem to be functioning ad- 
 mirably. Often a wise answer turneth away suspicion. 
 
 Then someone announced that the "rigs" were wait- 
 ing to take us to the mine, the visit which was the 
 principal object of the trip to ]\Iexico. The "rigs" 
 were a ramshackle stage-coach hitched to five very 
 small and exceedingly shaggy burros (to put the cart 
 first) and a two-seated democrat wagon with a team 
 of correspondingly democratic horses. 
 
 We three ladies and Mr. Newhall chose the stage, the 
 two Mr. B.'s voted for the democrat and invited the 
 young ladies to go with them ; and off we started. 
 
 We drove first to the post office, which is one of a 
 row of little abode blocks in a narrow, typically Mex- 
 ican street. The city of Magdalena numbers four thou- 
 sand souls. It is a noted Mecca for pilgrims from 
 both republics who come each year on the fourth of
 
 128 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 October to pray to an image of San Francisco which 
 is enshrined in the parish church. They travel for miles 
 on their knees, we were told, so very sacred is the 
 image. There is, of course, a story about it of some 
 miracle, but I know it not. 
 
 We ahghted and looked into the church, but a service 
 was in progress and the place was filled to the very 
 doorsills with kneeling worshippers, so of course we 
 gave up the quest of the holy image. The church is 
 quaint and Spanish and old, and faces a pretty park, 
 where February roses were in bloom and oranges ripe. 
 
 I took my customary snap, reloaded the kodak and 
 we reloaded into the "rigs."' Now for the mine, as 
 Mr. Brigham said. 
 
 In spite of a deal of bouncing, which was like the 
 pitching of a ship in a high sea, our spirits were 
 pitched "way up in G." The rickety old chaise 
 creaked and groaned and seemed on the verge of pros- 
 tration ; we expected it would collapse like the deacon's 
 famous "masterpiece" any moment. But wasn't it 
 great (bump!) not to be rushing through all this 
 (bump! thump!) on a train! Conversation was in 
 broken English. 
 
 We're from Glencoe, therefore accustomed to bumps ; 
 but when the tonneau of your machine leaves so much 
 to be desired in the way of padding, it's different. It 
 would be better if we had more ballast^so Air. Brig- 
 ham came back to add his mite to our load; and our 
 cushioning. 
 
 Coaching is always a delight, but to be near to the 
 heart of nature in Mexico is a novel and charming ex- 
 perience. The country was covered with all the varie- 
 ties of cacti we have seen before and many new ones, 
 some of them in blossom. The great saquaros, grow-
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 129 
 
 ing sometimes sixty feet high, are most singular. 
 Some of them look like gigantic cucumbers standing 
 on end. Some throw out branches that grow up like 
 fingers, making the tree look like a great bonv hand. 
 
 others are multiplied till tliey form great branching- 
 candelabra. 
 
 The road was a zigzag trail, for there are no fenced- 
 ofif, square-cornered farms to pass between. We forded 
 many little streams, more or less navigable to stage-
 
 130 
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 coaches. Of course there are no bridges on a road that 
 is here today and there tomorrow ; for the roads change 
 with the rivers, and they are more erratic than the Mis- 
 sissippi. A dry river bed which is apparently forever 
 abandoned often becomes a seething rapids all in the 
 twinkling of an eye, for in the wet season a rain storm 
 following a drouth causes sudden and often disastrous 
 inundation of all the drv channels. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Brigham had an exciting experience 
 on a previous visit to Sonora during the rainy summer 
 season, being unexpectedly overtaken by a flood. They 
 showed us the very place, but assured us that since 
 the dry season is between October and May we need 
 feel no alarm. 
 
 The road followed the dry water-courses for much 
 of the distance. Sometimes, as if the water had been
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 131 
 
 carelessly turned off at the end of the season, a little 
 stream would be left trickling — it would run along be- 
 side us, chattering over the stony ways and babbling 
 on the pebbles, as if glad of our company and eager 
 to show us the road. 
 
 Sometimes we would interrupt a group of Indian 
 women washing their clothes on the flat stones in the 
 water. Occasionally we would meet sober little bur- 
 
 ros trudging along the road, sometimes one or two, 
 sometimes in pack trains, pannier-laden with bundles 
 of faggots cut from the scraggly brush of the mesquite, 
 which we would call rubbish for bonfires. It is all the 
 wood obtainable, and scarce at that, as the tree is only 
 a low-Sfrowine shrub.
 
 132 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 Little huts were here and there, the people and their 
 donkeys abiding in close quarters — the hut and the 
 donkey shed often shared a party wall in a fraternal 
 spirit that said to the passer-by, "Behold, how good and 
 how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in 
 unity." 
 
 At first it seemed awful, the way Ferdinand (our 
 Yaqui Indian coachman) kept continually lashing with 
 his long whip at the heads of the poor little burros. 
 He seemed a most unrighteous man who disregard- 
 ethed at least the feelings of his beasts. But it grad- 
 ually appeared that they were used to the tender 
 mercies of the wicked driver and instead of thinking 
 them cruel, being smitten on the right cheek did they 
 turn to him the other also. Gradually I grew to forgive 
 Ferdinand — they n'crc aggravating, for they were ex- 
 ceedingly lazy. They would poke along, poco a poco 
 ritardando, then they would rest. United they stood, 
 divided they went, pushing each other and pulling or 
 not ad libitum. Occasionally an impulse would seize 
 them and they would have a game of tag — then they'd 
 rest again. Finally they took it into their long-eared 
 heads to hold a contest to see which could go slowest 
 and not stop, like a bicycle "slow race." 
 
 Ferdinand kept up a steady whip lashing and an 
 even more abusive tongue lashing, but to no avail. 
 When the rawhide descended upon their calloused 
 flanks (raw hide also, for the hair was all worn off 
 from overmuch smiting) they seemed to like being 
 petted and only shook their long ears playfully. An 
 extra sharp cut they considered only a would-be-cruel 
 jest — it just tickled them. "You're a wag" they would 
 say, with their tails. The most unkindest cut of all only
 
 The Tour of the 400. 133 
 
 made them dance in glee, for this playful driver hadn't 
 hit it yet — meaning the sensitive spot. 
 
 If Ferdinand could have understood me, I should 
 have told him about the English cabby who, upon being 
 told to whip up his lazy horse, replied : "I've 'it the 
 hanimal all over 'is body except 'is left hear, and I'm 
 savin' that for the last 'ill." 
 
 As the 'ills grew more rocky and steep the hanimals 
 grew more tired and sleepy. The more the road in- 
 clined up the more the burros inclined down and they 
 meandered along in their wobbly, irregular way, 
 wherever their vagrant fancies led. 
 
 Finding the whip so utterly ineffectual, Ferdinand 
 reached under the seat and brought forth a heavy log- 
 chain he had been reserving for this last 'ill and began 
 savagely to belabor the tough little animals. Like a 
 mighty Samson (as he was) he smote them "hip and 
 thigh." It seemed as if they would burst with such 
 awful smites — whack! — whack! — you just expected to 
 see them squash out of their skins like baked potatoes ; 
 but pounding them numb only made them less sensi- 
 tive and more stubborn. "You may break me but 
 you can't bend me," said their sturdy-looking backs. 
 "Well, then, take that!" yelled Ferdinand, (I suppose) 
 and he smote them "under the fifth rib" (under the 
 belt, that means — in the solar plexus), trying to find 
 a vulnerable spot. Then they did seem to feel hurt 
 a little, and looked around reproachfully as if to say, 
 like Balaam's ass, "What have I done unto thee, that 
 thou hast smitten me these three times?" Then they 
 would jog along, as absent-minded as before. 
 
 The hills grew steeper and steeper. The burros 
 waxed meaner and meaner. When into the narrow- 
 ness of their understanding it did finally percolate what
 
 134 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 Ferdinand was driving at, they declared a strike. 
 
 At last, when the mutinous little rebels altogether 
 refused to pull and went straggling up the cliff or down 
 the precipice or anywhere else than straight ahead, 
 Ferdinand burst into speech of a yet more unrighteous 
 sound and, to the consternation of at least one of the 
 occupants of that coach, jumped out, handed the reins 
 to Mr. Newhall (who shared the front seat with him), 
 and proceeded to throw rocks — not stones, but great 
 rocks — at the obstinate little creatures. 
 
 Then away we sailed, Mr. Newhall at the helm, 
 Ferdinand at the wheel heaving rocks, chunks of clay, 
 torrents of language, in reckless abandon — for when 
 their donkeyships did decide to go they stampeded 
 around sharp walls of rock, dashing along narrow 
 shelves to fly over the jumping-off place into the bot- 
 tomless abyss that waited below ! 
 
 I confess I'm a bit timid. My trembling heart first 
 sunk into my boots and then jumped into my throat, 
 while my trembling lips faltered "Oh, Lord, if you can't 
 help us for goodness' sake don't help those wicked 
 mules !" 
 
 The creaking old coach gave first a lunge to this side 
 and then a lurch to that, as the flying wheels bowled 
 over the rocks. I could just feel myself being dashed 
 to smithereens. 
 
 "What if we do tip over? It wouldn't hurt us any," 
 calmly announced Sister Sereno Newhall. As a theory 
 that was undoubtedly interesting. Wouldn't hurt us 
 any ! Well, I fancy myself going bumpety-bump down 
 a few hundred feet of jagged rocks, along with the 
 debris of a three-seated-canopy-top stage-coach at- 
 tached by a league or so of galling chains to the highly 
 animate and kicking carcasses of five little brute burros,
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 135 
 
 in company with five other people all frantically clutch- 
 ing the ambient air, and with both eyes scratched out 
 in bramble-bushes, finding myself at the end of my 
 downfall impaled on a Spanish bayonet — and not hav- 
 ing it hurt me any ! Well, perhaps she meant I would 
 never know what happened ! 
 
 But, even so, though I would not live alway thus 
 fettered by sin, still e'en the rapture of departing from 
 this world of woe would (I admit) be mingled with 
 fears if the journey began in a doivnivardly direction. 
 And again, though these things are matters of indi- 
 vidual taste, I have some cherished notions about my 
 demise, and for one thing my couch would not, from 
 choice, be a downy bed of cactus boughs. Oh death, 
 how sharp would be thy sting ! Give me instead my 
 own delicious bed, with heavenly music, hovering an- 
 gels, etc. — and above all a kindly light shining — the 
 white light of the elevator going up. 
 
 However, this is irrelevant. 
 
 When we had coached fifteen miles, we stopped for 
 a picnic luncheon, which we enjoyed under the shade 
 of an old cypress tree — a mid-Avinter "Maying," warrn 
 as summer.
 
 136 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 While we were packing up the dishes another con- 
 signment of fresh burros (as if the others were not 
 fresh enough) was hitched to the stage and we drove 
 off in a fashion that would have made John Gilpin, 
 Tarn O'Shanter, Paul Revere et al. feel like thirty 
 cents — "Alex." It was like the driving of Jehu the 
 son of Nimshi, for we "driveth furiously." These 
 burros were even more fiendish than their hateful little 
 predecessors, and the road was worse than ever. 
 Heavens, and we still had twenty-five miles of it be- 
 fore us ! 
 
 The most exciting experience of this exciting trip 
 was the meeting in close quarters of long wagon- 
 trains hauling structural iron for the work at Black 
 Mountain. These were going in the same direction 
 as ourselves (unless they were stalled), but of course 
 too slow, so we were obliged to pass. Some of the 
 iron girders required a double set of wagon-trucks at 
 each end, and there were from ten to twenty mules 
 to a load. If one can comprehend the utter chaos 
 produced by the indecision, stupidity, stubbornness, 
 irresponsibility, pure cussedness and other idiosyn- 
 crasies of twenty-five mule intellects ( !), each a law 
 unto itself and all working at cross purposes, with 
 each and every individual mule changing his feeble 
 mind at least twice a minute, perhaps one might form 
 some faint idea of the relief one felt when the en- 
 counter was successfully maneuvered and a few yards 
 of straight road lay ahead. 
 
 Whenever we met one of these trains, whether a 
 single pair of mules or a borax outfit, the drivers al- 
 ways smote each other's animals as they passed, quite 
 as a matter of course, on general principles. And the
 
 The Tour of the 400. 137 
 
 favor was always appreciated by the respective drivers 
 and acknowledged with a courteous salutation. 
 
 Once we met the "sister" coach of this rural mail 
 line, returning to Magdalena with a load of male pas- 
 sengers — "Mex." It was in a lonely spot. Both 
 coaches stopped and Ferdinand held a conversation 
 with the other driver in Spanish. And here is where 
 r was brave and the usually serene Mrs. Newhall had 
 conniptions and imperturbable Mrs. Brigham quaked. 
 They were sure it was a hold-up. They had heard that 
 the bloodthirsty Yaqui Indians dwelt in this state of 
 Sonora — they remembered the recent outbreak. Ferdi- 
 nand was a full-blooded Yaqui — it was an ideal spot 
 for an ambuscade — the desperados all had guns in 
 sight and nobody knew what concealed. Thus they 
 reasoned. "S'pose they do shoot us — 'why kick ye at 
 the sacrifice ?' " quoth I, quoting Scripture uncon- 
 sciously. Now, ciifrc nous, I am as much afraid of 
 wild Indians and g.uns as of other things, but one 
 bosom could hold no more fear than mine already con- 
 tained, hitched to those impish burros; so it may be 
 that my bravery w^as somewhat negative — but so may 
 theirs have been about mules ! 
 
 When we stopped to change mules for the final ten 
 miles, to quote Mr. Newhall (instead of Scripture, for 
 a change), "Mrs. Brown in her great relaxing act 
 occupied the stage." I would gladly have given up 
 my stage career at that moment — and when I saw that 
 last installment of viciousness, I would have given, or 
 at least hypothecated, my kingdom-come for any old 
 Dobbin of a horse ! This time the mules had to be 
 corralled while you waited and blindfolded to be har- 
 nessed — good big fellows they were and after they had 
 been fastened to the coach by strong chains and by
 
 138 The Tour of -the 400. 
 
 dint of strong muscles and stronger language, they had 
 to be held by the muzzle, still blinded, till Ferdinand 
 could jump into his seat. 
 
 "Vamose !" he yelled, and let out the whip. "Vamose" 
 means "let us go." Up flew the heels of the off mule 
 like the cow jumping over the moon! It was all over 
 for me — I knew "the canon" was to come and I knew 
 my time was come, too. 
 
 Now, I ought to like mules. My first birthday gift 
 was a cute little baby mule that happened to make his 
 mulish advent into this world just a year later than I 
 made mine. (Our characters are sometimes thought 
 to resemble each other, I may add as a coincidence.) 
 He was a nice little mulie, as I have implied, and I 
 named him "Winkie." He grew up to be a useful (if 
 unintelligent) member of muledom, while I — well, "I 
 haven't created any wery surprisin' sensation here as 
 yet." 
 
 This is not intended, however, to be a biographical 
 sketch of either of us — but I mentioned Winkie be- 
 cause until now he was almost the only mule I ever 
 knew — with four legs. But my kind of mules are evi- 
 dently extinct. The present-day type is of a less 
 phlegmatic and more mecurial disposition. This last 
 specimen was of the genus "Maud" and all that was 
 needed in the tableau as we left that last relay station 
 was the signature "F. Opper" in the lower right-hand 
 corner to make a comic picture for a Sunday paper. 
 You could fairly see the scroll saying "Hee Haw!" 
 coming out of her mouth. But 1 didn't see the humor- 
 someness of the situation at that moment. 
 
 But the man handling this particular Maud was no 
 Old Si. He was a driver to whom Ben-Hur would
 
 The Tour of the 400. 139 
 
 modestly have handed his laurel crown. After that 
 first hilarious outburst of Mexican independence the 
 obstreperous Maud, realizing the uselessness of re- 
 bellion, subsided and proved the steadiest traveler we 
 had had, and we settled down to quite a respectable 
 pace, so moderate that we could, between jolts, ad- 
 mire the scenery as we passed through it. 
 
 The road was fringed with bushes of some bright 
 yellow flowers, as profuse and brilliant as our golden 
 field flowers in August. Pink verbenas grew wild, 
 peach trees were in bloom, and the great saguaros tow- 
 ered up like grotesque vegetable totem poles. 
 
 The much-dreaded caiion proved a delight, for the 
 road was in the bottom of it most of the way and the 
 great walls of rock made a grandly beautiful sight. 
 
 As we approached the end of the journey the road 
 gradually wound up on the overhanging" shelves of the 
 cafion till we finally emerged from it into the center 
 of a group of hills. The day was fading, a peaceful 
 quiet seemed brooding over the place. Like a dusky 
 naiad in the twilight, a Mexican woman was washing 
 her hair in a little pool beside the way. With a last 
 hard pull uphill we entered the strange little village 
 of tents and miners" cabins and drew up safe and 
 sound at the door of the rooming-house on Ccrro 
 Prieto, the pretty Spanish name that means "Black 
 Mountain." 
 
 The little adobe house is used by the men of the 
 mining company while they are in Mexico. It was 
 turned over to the "400'' and we made ourselves pre- 
 sentable in the little whitewashed bedrooms, neat as 
 a convent, and supper was announced by the time we 
 were ready.
 
 140 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 This was served in the "eating-house" near by, on a 
 round table, the center of which was elevated and 
 made to revolve. On this most practical whirligig 
 contrivance were placed the salt and pepper, sugar and 
 cream, and all the other couples that one is continually 
 passing. .V more time-saving, labor-saving, help-your- 
 self device was never invented. 
 
 "Hello! tea? coff?" said something behind me. A 
 funny little Chinaman, trying to talk Melican — as im- 
 possible a feat as for the other one in the kitchen to 
 cook Melican. 
 
 It hardly need be said that every one of the party 
 is so tired that we are retiring early. Mrs. Newhall, 
 Marion and I have a room together. Mrs. N. still 
 fears Spanish brigands but must have open windows 
 and door, so we have built a stockade of furniture 
 and are prepared to resist a siege. 
 
 Fanny feels quite ill. She has not regained her 
 strength since her typhoid fever in November and the 
 sun and the long shaking up were too much for her. 
 
 I am writing by electric light, the current of which 
 is generated in Magdalena, forty miles away. It 
 seems very much out of place in an adobe cabin — an 
 oil lamp of Bible times would seem more in keeping. 
 
 Cerro Prieto. 
 
 February 25. 
 
 The Cerro Prieto mining camp is on the brow of a 
 hill, across from the big Black ^Mountain. The room- 
 ing-house stands on a terrace overlooking the entire 
 mining works. There is the new unfinished stamp- 
 mill, which has the furniture all in, waiting for the
 
 142 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 house to be built around it ; the cyanide plant and vari- 
 ous mills and shops. The three tunnels at different 
 elevations are in full view, each with its "dump" be- 
 low. It is like watching a kinetoscope to sit out on the 
 terrace and watch the people at work and the steady 
 stream of pack animals laden with the crooked sticks 
 of wood lazily following the crooked path up the hill 
 to the crooked wood-pile, where a crooked little Mexi- 
 can relieves them of their crooked burden and starts 
 them on their crooked way again for another crooked 
 load. The wood is used for fuel pending the electric 
 power, which so far only furnishes light. It seems 
 to take a lot of fuel, even though at present there is 
 practically no machinery w^orking — which accounts for 
 the unwonted stillness in a mining camp. When the 
 stamps are pounding night and day it is said the noise 
 reverberates through the hills for miles. 
 
 I understand the Cerro Prieto company boasts of 
 much that is remarkable in this mine, but to me the 
 most wonderful part of it is that anybody had the cour- 
 age to attempt what has been accomplished in the 
 building of the "plant," since every ounce of building 
 material and tons and tons of machinery have been 
 brought forty miles across the hills by mules over 
 these dreadful roads. No wonder the men of the com- 
 pany wTar expressions like that of a new daddy with 
 his first boy! 
 
 This is the day of rest for us, but work goes on in 
 mining camps regardless of the fourth command- 
 ment. We have some rockers out on the terrace and 
 are enjoying the shade and the balmy air, drawing in 
 inspiration with every breath. I have been so inspired 
 as to grow poetical and as my mind still runs on the
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 143 
 
 events of yesterday, I find myself composing an epic, 
 in a style similar to Tennyson's. It is always easy 
 to write prose, but I admit that when it comes to shap- 
 ing ideas into poetry I have to use a pattern. With 
 apologies to the ghost of the laureate, here is my 
 poem : 
 
 Half a league up the cliff. 
 Half a league downward, 
 Along the sharp precipice 
 
 Rode the Four Hundred. 
 "Forward, the Mule Brigade ! 
 "Vamose!" the Yaqui said; 
 Holding their very breath 
 
 Rode the Four Hundred. 
 
 "Forward, the Mule Brigade!' 
 Was there a soul dismaj^'d? 
 The reins to Ben* he threw — 
 
 What if he blunder'd ! 
 Theirs not to make a crj-, 
 Theirs not to reason why, 
 Theirs but to wait and die. 
 Into the valley of Death 
 
 Gazed the Four Hundred. 
 
 Canon to right of them, 
 Caiion to left of them, 
 (Cactus in each of them), 
 
 Onward they thunder d ; 
 vStormed at with shout and yell 
 Bolder the burros — well. 
 Into the jaws of Death, 
 Fearing a prickly hell. 
 
 Rode the Four Hundred. 
 
 *Familiar address is a poet's license. 
 
 (Ilka poet has Iter license- - 
 Though nane, they say, hae 11)
 
 144 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 Lash'd till their hides were bare, 
 Lash'd as they reared in air, 
 Sobering the people there, 
 Charging like devils, while 
 
 All of us wonder'd ; 
 Plunged along — holy smoke, 
 What if the harness broke ! 
 Donkey and burro 
 Reel'd from the goading stroke, 
 
 Shatter'd and sunder'd. 
 Quickly revived — but not — 
 
 Not the Four Hundred. 
 
 Whacking to right of them, 
 Swearing to left of them, 
 Stoning behind them, 
 
 Ferdinand thunder'd; 
 Storm'd at with rock and yell, 
 Over each other fell, 
 Burro and mule pellmell ; 
 Thus thro' the jaws of Death. 
 Back from the mouth of Hell, 
 All that was left of them — 
 
 Weary Four Hundred. 
 
 When can that mem'ry fade? 
 At the escape we made 
 All of us wonder'd. 
 Fearful the charge they made. 
 Perish the Mule Brigade, 
 Live the Four Hundred ! 
 
 The only trotible with this is that the gestures would 
 be hard to make in a realistic declamation, for no hu- 
 man elocutionist, however acrobatic, could possible- 
 imitate those burros without making- an awful donkey 
 of himself. 
 
 I am glad dreams go by contraries, for last night I 
 dreamed of riding on the tail of a comet dra\\n by
 
 The Tour of the 400. 145 
 
 fiery-eyed dragons, the devil driving. I told his Sa- 
 tanic majesty that I considered his chariot very slow, 
 whereupon he asked me to suggest something faster. 
 I told him to get an 1850-model Mexican stage-coach 
 of five-mule power if he really wanted excitement. 
 ''Oh," he said, "I already possess all the burros in 
 Mexico, but they are such wicked little brutes I'm 
 afraid of them." 
 
 Mr. Newhall was the first of the "weary 400" to 
 get out this morning. He climbed to the very tip- 
 top of Black jMountain before breakfast. Xobody saw 
 him, but we all believe it — first because we trust his 
 veracity, second because we know his early-to-rise hab- 
 its, and third because he brought a little round "devil's 
 pincushion" from the very highest heap of dirt, and 
 everybody knows that to find cacti in Mexico one must 
 climb to the very apex of a mountain. 
 
 Fanny was too ill to leave her bed this morning — 
 a sore throat and fever. The young American doctor 
 was called to see her — a Kentuckian who reminds us 
 of Ralph Connor's men, and I imagine Dr. Wooley has 
 the field for his work here that Connor's heroes find 
 "out west." 
 
 After a cup of "cof" and something else (nobody 
 knows what except the Chinaman), we made a raid on 
 the store for straw hats ; the sun is so blinding — fine 
 for photographs. 
 
 I took the camera and went hunting and had some 
 mighty good sport. There were brown-skinned boys 
 bathing in a pool down in the ravine, challenging the 
 camera (literally, in Spanish). There were the hill- 
 sides with the mining works ; the ceaseless procession 
 of pannier donkeys ; there were the little Mexican 
 cabins and, best of all, I shot a cherub ! Yes, like Mr.
 
 146 
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 Peter in "Cranford," who shot "a. cherubim" on the 
 highest peak of the Himalayas. A h'ttle Isronze 
 cupid — of all the captives of my bow and spear he 
 is the prize trophy. Like Solomon in all his glory, he 
 
 
 Mi^.- 
 
 
 
 ■HBb-m^> 
 
 
 -'THBI •■^" S^ 
 
 ^"1 
 
 *r-' ■ ■ 
 
 1 
 i 
 1 
 
 "was not arrayed," as the anthem declares. The little 
 creature tried to fly when he saw me aiming at him, 
 but he hadn't even his wings on ! 
 
 Imagine swimming in pools and posing ''in the al- 
 together" outdoors, the 25th of February !
 
 The Tour of the 400. 147 
 
 Writing this date reminds me of Mrs. Newhall's 
 remark when she saw the February magazines on the 
 table in our room. With that benevolent madonna 
 look of hers, she said: "It must be very dull for the 
 men down here — they're even reading old magazines. 
 We must send down the latest when we get home." 
 When Mrs. Ijrigham reminded her that the February 
 ''Everybody's" was the current number, she thought 
 she was crazy ! 
 
 The fatted calf, in the shape of a little woolly lamb, 
 was slain for the "400" to feast upon. Those who saw 
 the pretty creature gambolling on the green hillside 
 this morning did not care for lamb for dinner. I had 
 not witnessed the sacrifice and, with no tender recol- 
 lections to bother me, I took lamb. And now my recol- 
 lections of that lamb never will be tender. 
 
 It is the custom in Mexico to kill meat as it is need- 
 ed, as ice is scarce, in most places unknown. They have 
 a peculiar method of selling meat, too. The flesh is 
 stripped from the bones and sold by the length of the 
 pieces instead of being cut and sold by the pound. 
 Water is cooled for drinking by siphoning into porous 
 jars, through which it filters, cooling in the process. 
 
 I have to-day had the pleasure of meeting Mr. 
 Stuart, the president of the Black Mountain company, 
 who has hitherto been a sort of will-o'-the-wisp. Wc 
 followed him through the Irish lx)gs last summer, till 
 I knew his signature on visitors' registers well enough 
 to have detected a forgery. 
 
 We paid a visit to the mines during the afternoon, 
 under the guidance of Mr. Cox, the superintendent, 
 lighting ourselves with candles a thousand feet into 
 the mountain in a straight horizontal tunnel. At that 
 distance the speck of light at the mouth of the tunnel
 
 148 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 disappeared and it seemed uncanny and the air grew 
 close, so we ladies retraced our steps to daylight. 
 
 At the end of one of the branching tunnels was a 
 little shrine, with a devotee praying before a wooden 
 cross which they tell us was on the top of Cerro Prieto 
 when the present owners took possession of the prop- 
 erty. It was decorated with paper flowers, and a can- 
 dle is always kept burning before it. The cross is 
 supposed to bless the mine and the miners, who have a 
 devotional service before it once a year on the holy 
 day for their particular patron Saint. 
 
 Mr. Cox gave us a lot of information about ores, 
 the principal thing I remember being that all is not 
 gold that glisteneth. But these men of ours seem quite 
 in their "native element" talking the language of 
 mines and mining. I always knew that husband of 
 mine had a logical mind, but he is developing a geo- 
 logical and lithological and mineralogical and mineral- 
 ological one, as he concentrates it more than ever on 
 rocks. As for Mr. Brigham, high grades of ore 
 knowledge are running in his veins in quartz, and to 
 judge by the outcroppings in his speech, conglomerate 
 formations of lore are stratified in the cavities of his 
 skull — it must be a great lode on his mind. Although 
 you'll never find him in the dumps, even Islr. New- 
 hall talks about how gneiss it will be when some of 
 these sedimentary deposits of pay dirt, as they call 
 the filthy lucre, are deposited in their pockets, ^^'e 
 ladies are beginning to be a little refractory — they 
 talk so much about free gold. If we were treated 
 properly and had a few more stamps, they don't know 
 what crushers we'd be ! 
 
 The long row of stamps in the new mill looked as 
 if they would chew up as much of the mountain as
 
 The Tour of the 400. 149 
 
 one generation of Mexicans could feed them. Like 
 the mills of God, these great molars grind slowly but 
 exceeding small — I forget how many mesh. The cya- 
 nide tanks suggested Mrs. Luetgert, and w'e left them 
 with a shudder. 
 
 After supper we all went down to the store to see 
 the Mexicans do their weekly Sunday-night shopping. 
 The store itself is a long, low building of adobe blocks 
 — a capacious cavern inside, filled with everything ever 
 seen in a country "general" store — which means a de- 
 partment store on a small scale. There were smells 
 and all — a pungent aroma of coffee, herrings, rubber, 
 tobacco, leather, kerosene, cheese, molasses — thor- 
 oughly American. 
 
 Mr. Cox and Mr. Whipple entertained us the rest 
 of the evening while we surrounded a funny little 
 drum-stove in the hall that runs through the little 
 adobe lodge — for evenings are chilly in Mexico — 
 even in February. 
 
 r am trying not to think about getting back to Mag- 
 dalena. Oh, that I had wings like other angels ! 
 
 Magdalena. 
 February 26. 
 
 (This shows we did get back.) 
 I dreamed I was Betsy Trotzvood and w^oke myself 
 shouting, "Janet ! — Donkeys!" 
 
 Fanny was much improved and able to undertake 
 the return trip. A covered carriage was substituted 
 for the "democrat" and i\Ir. and Mrs. Brigham took her 
 in it, the rest going in the stage. We started from Cerro 
 Prieto early, without any very pleasant anticipations 
 as far as one member of the party was concerned.
 
 ISO' The Tour of the 400. 
 
 But if my faith in burros was small, my faith in 
 Ferdinand had increased, having heard great tales of 
 his skill as a driver. He is known as "Negra" by the 
 Mexicans — Spanish for negro, from his swarthy com- 
 plexion and black Indian hair. 
 
 The road was down grade instead of up, so there 
 was less need of rock throwing and profanity. And 
 having been over the road there was less dread of the 
 jumping-off places, so on the whole the drive was 
 really delightful. Some persons ascribe my peace 
 of mind to the fact that a certain strong right 
 arm was always ready to support my drooping form 
 in the "she-tottered-and-would-have-fallen" crises — I 
 shouldn't wonder. Anyway, we had the back seat. 
 
 While the first change of mules was being made at 
 the corral where we had first seen Maud, Mr. New- 
 hall and Mr. Brown and I tramped on ahead to a 
 place where we had seen the largest sagiiaros, that we 
 might take some pictures without having to stop the 
 impetuous burros in case they should happen to be 
 feeling frolicsome when passing that point. The two 
 men posed as yard-sticks measuring the height of the 
 trees, and by the time we had filled the camera with 
 sagiiaros and our clothes with "pear" prickers the 
 stage came whirling up in a cloud of dust. Ever seen 
 Bufifalo Bill's Deadwood stage come whizzing in? — it 
 was like that. Guess we wouldn't have had any 
 saguaros along that level strip of road if we hadn't 
 walked. Ferdinand began stopping when we first 
 hove in sight in the distance. 
 
 We took a last look at Cerro Prieto ten miles away 
 through a gap in the hills and were beginning to think 
 a hucna forfuna was putting all the Avagon trains in
 
 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 151 
 
 easy places to meet when we came to the worst adven- 
 ture of this kind we had had. 
 
 The road was along a narrow shelf around a square, 
 rocky, perpendicular hillside, turning a right angle 
 at a point where some recent repairs on the road had 
 
 heaped a bank of soft powdery earth on the outside 
 edge. Just beyond and approaching this sharp turn 
 was a wagon-train of long iron beams, with about 
 twenty mules struggHng desperately up hill. Of 
 course they could not take the outer side on that un-
 
 152 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 certain footing. There was no place for us to alight 
 except into a herd of mules, so with our hearts in our 
 throats, our hair on end, our faith pinned on Ferdi- 
 nand, our eyes shut, we clutched each other and the 
 canopy supports and prepared for the worst. We all 
 gasped as we balanced on two wheels for an instant 
 on the ridge of that mound of loose dirt, knowing 
 one misstep on the part of one of those five erratic 
 mules meant a toboggan slide to unknown depths of 
 woe and cactus. We were almost too limp to smile 
 our gratitude to Ferdinand after it was over. 
 
 We stopped again for luncheon on the old camp 
 ground — uneedas and cheese and cervesa and sardines 
 and various other kinds of package food from the 
 store were much relished after the Chinese cuisine of 
 the last two days. 
 
 It was in the group of hills surrounding this picnic 
 place of ours that Geronimo and his band of Apaches 
 found a hiding place during the summer of '86, when 
 both the American and Mexican troops were scouring 
 the country, moving heaven and earth to capture them. 
 The Mexicans engaged the hostile redskins in a com- 
 bat near this spot shortly before Geronimo surren- 
 dered to General Miles. Indeed, most of the Indian 
 raids on the Mexicans were made in the State of So- 
 nora, it being directly south of Arizona, the center of 
 their depredations in "the states." 
 
 With the most sensible consignment of beasts of 
 burden yet received, we made the last and easiest third 
 of the trip, where the country was level for most of the 
 distance and the road comparatively smooth. 
 
 There was but one memorably bad place in that 
 part of the road, where in going the other way we 
 had been obliged to take a leap off a perfectly per-
 
 The Tour of the 400. 153 
 
 pendicular embankment cut by a river during high 
 water. He had somehow managed to land right-side- 
 up instead of turning turtle, as so many machines 
 would have done. It was really more of a wonder 
 how we were to scale that wall going back, but here 
 again this particular hill-climber proved itself supe- 
 rior for this kind of country and we were not even 
 spilled out. 
 
 Finally we came in sight of ^Slagdalena and after 
 stopping at an orange grove on the edge of town 
 while the girls picked some of the fruit w^e clattered 
 through town as gaily as we started out and landed 
 at last at the car — this old familiar car that is so con- 
 spicuous everywhere for its unusual color. It was 
 standing alone in all its }-ellow glory on the tracks 
 near the green fairyland, like Cinderella's coach. 
 My, didn't it "look good to all the family!" — and 
 Frank and Oliver had had a good housecleaning while 
 we were gone. 
 
 After we had given ourselves a good scrub we took 
 our camp-stools out on the "verandah" and enjoyed 
 the balmy air, and as the day waned, our last in this 
 Land of the Sun, we felt a keen delight in watching 
 the rosy glow fade into twilight till the new moon 
 began to gleam in the still-tinted sky. The part of 
 Mexico that will linger most steadfastly in my mem- 
 ory is the sky and its beautiful transformations. 
 
 The men are "up-town" this evening calling on the 
 leading citizen of Magdalena — banker, capitalist, 
 millionaire and a very pleasant gentleman withal. He 
 came down to the car this morning. 
 
 We ladies have been treating the rest of the popu- 
 lation to a concert — probably the first good music 
 manv of them ever heard — certainlv the first errand
 
 154 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 opera. The Mexicans are all music-lovers and these 
 were very appreciative. One woman outstayed all 
 the others as they one by one departed for home, lis- 
 tening to Sembrich and Calve and Eames as if spell- 
 bound — it seemed a revelation to her. I dare say she 
 will never forget the visit of the yellow car to Magda- 
 lena, and we shall not forget her rapt expression as 
 she crouched on the car steps, drinking in the music — 
 who knows what a soul of music may have slumbered 
 in her breast ! 
 
 Tucson, Arizona. 
 February 27, 
 
 After we ladies retired last night, before our hus- 
 bands returned, we had a visitation, perhaps meant 
 for a call or a serenade, from some tipsy Mexicans 
 who had been over-imbibing pulque and who insisted 
 upon coming in. Finally Oliver managed to convey 
 the idea that it was time to go by saying, "Adios, 
 adios" to them. He was quite proud of his Spanish 
 when he saw how it worked. 
 
 We were once more across the border when we 
 woke this morning. A north-bound train picked us 
 up in Magdalena at about one a. m. 
 
 Benson was reached too late for the eastern con- 
 nection planned, so we came to Tucson rather than 
 spend the day there, for here the men could do some 
 business and the Newhalls visit old friends. 
 
 Mr. Larsen, an agreeable and interesting young 
 man seeking climate for his health, took luncheon with 
 us to-day. 
 
 We reached Tucson at 12:30 — an intensely hot 
 place. Mrs. Brigham and the girls and I read and
 
 The Tour of the 400. 155 
 
 tried to keep cool in the car, while Mr. and Mrs. 
 Xewhall and the men were away. At four the two 
 Mr. B's returned with a carriage and we took a drive 
 around the city, seeing many beautiful homes, all in 
 Spanish architecture. The University of Arizona has 
 beautiful grounds — a cactus park, with hundreds of 
 varieties of cacti in ornamental groupings. We drove 
 on the campus of an Indian school just as the boys 
 were sitting down to supper — watched them say 
 grace, through the windows. Please excuse ambiguity. 
 This evening we went up town to buy Indian bas- 
 kets and curios at the attractive stores that we had 
 noticed while driving, but everything closes at six in 
 Tucson. 
 
 El Paso. 
 
 February 28. 
 
 Before we were up we were once more en route. 
 with two engines to pull us up the heavy grades till 
 we reached Benson. We are again in the forward 
 part of the train, for this train has an observation car 
 of its own. 
 
 The country is rough and barren of anything ex- 
 cept alkali and Arizona cactus. This variety has a 
 withered blossom on a stalk as long as a fish-pole. I 
 believe it is one of the many members of the Yucca 
 family — all of whom carry daggers. 
 
 The day has been pleasantly spent, but with no 
 special incidents or new features to record. After 
 dinner to-night we walked through eleven sleepers and 
 sat for a change in the "observatory" — it only made 
 us realize more fully what a different journey we 
 should have had without our homey "private 400." 
 
 Arrived at El Paso at 7 :30. Here we found our
 
 156 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 trunks and once more changed our apparel for a 
 change of climate, bringing forth the winter coats and 
 furs for the winter we shall find up north. We wait 
 here for a late train which will pick us up before 
 morning. 
 
 En route. 
 March 1. 
 
 March it certainly is — came in like a lion, too, roar- 
 ing a fierce cold roar. For the first time since leav- 
 ing Colorado Springs for the south we have heat in 
 the car. 
 
 Our day's itinerary includes New Mexico, the ex- 
 treme northwestern corner of Texas and the pan- 
 handle of Oklahoma. It seems as if we had been 
 days and days on the same level space between the 
 same blue-veiled mountains. How we shall miss their 
 changing tints and always beautiful suggestions. 
 Sometimes the great w'aste rolls away into long 
 ranges of foot-hills that look like waves, as if the 
 desert had once been an ocean and it had suddenly 
 turned into sand just when the breakers were ready 
 to dash into spray. Then for hours it will lie like 
 a placid summer sea, reflecting the sunshine of 
 heaven as in a mirror. To-day it is a stormy sea where 
 winds "their revels keep." 
 
 It seemed a sea of dangers when we saw another 
 wreck to-day — one that we should have been a part of 
 had we made the expected connection yesterday at 
 Benson. I'm not joking any more about the guardian 
 angel — this is twice we have been kept from the path 
 of danger by some destiny. A temporary track was 
 built around the mass of twisted iron and splintered 
 boards for us to pass — Pullmans, diner, mail car, bag- 
 gage and coaches were all piled up together.
 
 The Tour of the 400. 157 
 
 To-night the world is Hterally a howling wilderness. 
 It is almost impossible to heat the car and we are 
 going to bed trusting in Providence and a young 
 brakeman who, because the wind blows out the rear 
 lights faster than he can light them, is to sit inside 
 the car to keep watch for following trains, and signal 
 in case of danger. I hope he keeps awake. Also I 
 hope he isn't Irish, for he might prove to be like the 
 Irishman who refused a job on the railroad because 
 shure, he niver could trust himsilf to wave a red flag 
 if there was a green wan handy ! 
 
 Some friends of Mr. and Mrs. Brigham from Du- 
 luth, passengers on the train, called this morning. 
 
 March 2. 
 
 The first place to-day was McPherson, Kansas. I 
 am afraid I agree with the man who said Kansas 
 was a good state to travel through— quick. But this 
 is not the season to see Kansas — last year's corn 
 shocks in wet fields are not picturesque, neither is the 
 Kansas, or rather the typical American, farm house. 
 
 A dismal gray sky after all our bright blue sun- 
 shiny heavens is perhaps the reason we are not en- 
 thusiastic about our home coming. 
 
 Topeka early in the afternoon — then Kansas City 
 at 3 130. We stayed in the car. I looked for old land- 
 marks around the Union Depot. Many a time have I 
 taken the cable up the bluff — or rather, it took me. 
 
 The only sad event in our journey occurred this 
 afternoon. Oliver came in with the napkin rings on 
 a tray, ceremoniously offering each his or her own. 
 It was a breaking-home-ties episode that was very 
 affecting.
 
 158 The Tour of the 400. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Kriefgen (the Duluth people) dined 
 with us and spent the evening. We all put on our 
 company clothes, except Mrs. Newhall, whose com- 
 pany clothes are traveling by another road. She put 
 on her company manners instead, but showed irre- 
 pressible symptoms of mischief underneath. Mr. 
 Brownidad seemed to feel this restlessness more than 
 the rest of us (he sits next to her) and it made him 
 uneasy and somewhat preoccupied. But though mo- 
 mentarily expecting something to upset his dignity 
 he managed to preserve an outward calm. Mr. and 
 Mrs. Brigham were extremely entertaining — the rest 
 of us endeavored to make a good impression and the 
 guests were very interesting and agreeable. 
 
 After they left we did what packing we could. The 
 train is making the most sensational speed of any part 
 of the trip. The rear brakeman reassures us by say- 
 ing that the engineer is a freight-engine driver and 
 as the train is an "off-schedule"' put on to haul some 
 empty cars wanted in Chicago, he is seeing what he 
 can do with a plaything like a passenger train. He 
 also remarks that the engine is of an unpopular top- 
 heavy style. I wonder if he is jus' kiddin' — as our 
 kids would say. 
 
 Glencoe. 
 
 March S. 
 "Nothing now is left 
 But a majestic memor}-.'' 
 
 It was not the fault of the cold, damp, gray morn- 
 ing that we felt depressed when the train pulled into 
 the Chicago station early this morning. We were 
 waking from a beautiful dream and none of us wanted 
 it dispelled.
 
 The Tour of the 400. 159 
 
 We bade good-bye to the two faithful men who 
 added so much to our comfort and pleasure on the 
 long journey, and to the dear old yellow car 400. 
 
 Then the ci devant "400" disbanded, the men going 
 to their offices, the ladies to old haunts on State street. 
 
 At 1 1 130 we ladies met again at the Northwestern 
 station and shortly afterward found Glencoe where 
 we left it and getting along as well as could be ex- 
 pected. 
 
 There is nothing more to record except a few words 
 of thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Brigham, but words can 
 not express my deep sense of gratitude for the kind- 
 ness and thoughtfulness shown by the most genial of 
 hosts and the most gracious of hostesses. In think- 
 ing over the trip I appreciate more and more how 
 quietly everything was managed for our comfort and 
 happiness and begin to realize something of what 
 it meant to arrange and manage a journey of thou- 
 sands of miles in such a way that not one i:)lan mis- 
 carried, and not one unpleasant incident occurred. 
 
 As we recall the happy, idle, care-free days we spenr 
 together, they will always remain a delightful remem- 
 brance. And when we think of that wonderful land 
 so unlike our own to which we journeyed, we shall 
 see visions of a land of beauty, of romance and of sun- 
 shine. 
 
 What a chain of memories springs up at the men- 
 tion jf that magic number, 400! 
 
 "Awake but one, and lo ! what myriads rise! 
 Each stamps its image as the other flies." 
 
 Adios!
 
 L'ENVOI. 
 
 "Mother, that would be punishment for 159 naughty- 
 marks if I had written that many pages in school," 
 said our small son, looking over my shoulder as I 
 finished this manuscript — "and it would have to be 
 written swell." 
 
 (If the lad writes all his "naughty-mark" work 
 "szuell;' he'll be a great author some day — or at least 
 an expert penman ! ) 
 
 My friends, I admit these pages are not, in any 
 sense, "written swell." But if in their perusal one 
 among you should find a tithe of the pleasure thq,t has 
 been mine in the writing, "the play needs no excuse." 
 
 So, with the greatest faith in your charity, I send 
 my work to press with only this message : 
 
 "Go, little booke, God send thee good passage, 
 And specially let this be thy prayere : 
 Unto them all that thee will read or hear. 
 Where thou art wrong, after their help to call. 
 Thee to correct, in any part or all."
 
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