A Gringo in Mañana-Land by Harry L. Foster - HTML preview

CHAPTER XVII
 ADIOS!

I

A fruit steamer carried me back to New Orleans.

After several months of travel in Mexico and Central America—travel marked by many delays, by many postponements until mañana, by many controversies with petty officials, and by many struggles with the pompous formality of diminutive republics—one looked forward to landing again in an Anglo-Saxon country.

The steamer docked at eight in the evening. The immigration inspector had gone home. “How soon may we land?” the passengers inquired. “To-morrow,” was the answer. We spent the next several hours filling out an inventory of our personal baggage for the benefit of the customs’ service. Foreigners answered a lengthy questionnaire containing such queries as, “Are you an anarchist?”, “Are you a polygamist?”, and “Do you believe in the overthrow of the United States’ government by force?” The only officials that were on the job were the prohibition agents. They came aboard in search of liquor. So the captain took them to his cabin, and opened a bottle of Scotch.

II

On the Pullman that carried me northward to New York, a traveling man engaged me in conversation.

“I see you’ve been to South America. I noticed the Nicaragua label on your suit-case. How’s things down there? Pretty wild bunch, ain’t they?”

And he laid aside his newspaper, which contained accounts of one lynching, one fist fight on the floor of Congress, four fashionable divorce scandals, one Ku Klux Klan outrage, sixteen robberies, two incendiary fires, seven murders, and the innumerable charges and countercharges of bribery and corruption which distinguish a presidential campaign.

III

Perhaps, since in my first chapter my destination was Panama, I ought to mention it. I stopped there for several weeks after my first flight from Mexico.

The Canal Zone, regarded as an example of what Anglo-Saxon efficiency can do to the tropics, was quite astounding. The once fever-stricken swamp had become a well-ordered garden of palm-shaded walks lined with neat cottages. The screening which inclosed each dwelling was no longer necessary. The malaria-bearing mosquito had departed. In the big ditch steamers were handled with the regularity of clockwork. They plowed into the huge locks; giant doors swung shut behind them; water poured as though by magic into the artificial pool, raising the vessels to the higher level of Gatun Lake; the doors opened; the ships steamed away toward the Pacific. Everything in the Zone ran smoothly, with the same mechanical precision that marked the operation of the Canal.

But nowhere in the Americanized territory did one find the quiet contentment of the Latin Countries. Whenever the American employees wished to enjoy life, they crossed the boundary into the Republic of Panama, to the land of music, and tinkling fountains, martini cocktails, and dark-eyed señoritas.

IV

Among the many letters awaiting me at home, there was one with a Mexican postmark. It was from the long-lost Eustace. It said:

“I suppose you’ll wonder why I haven’t written you before. The fact is, I’ve fallen into the swing of things down here, and keep putting everything off until mañana.

“After I left you in Mexico City that day, ever so long ago, I reached Manzanillo without difficulty. There was nothing thrilling about my escape. I simply boarded a steamer and sailed away.

“For a couple of years after that I damned Mexico, and made fun of it, and talked about its many faults. I told the story of our heroic flight from Zamorra, and later from Carranza, until I was bored with it myself. The funny thing is that I presently began to hanker to go back. There’s something about Mexico. You can’t explain it. And as soon as Carranza gave place to Obregon, I went back.

“I’m cashier now at a mine in Durango. It belongs to that chap Werner we met in Mazatlán. Once in a while the peons get drunk and shoot each other up, but as a rule everything’s quiet. There’s an air of peace and calm and ease and leisure that you don’t find at home. At first it gets a gringo’s goat. Then he accustoms himself to it, and likes it. He doesn’t have to answer an alarm clock, or rush for a subway train, or reach an office at a prescribed hour, or dash out for a hasty bite of lunch between business engagements, or punch a time clock, or take efficiency tests, or come home hanging to a trolley strap. He can settle any troublesome question in the native fashion by postponing it until mañana.

“I like these people, too. There’s nothing much that a gringo can say to their credit. But when you get into their ways, they’re mighty likeable. And I’ve gotten completely into their ways. I’m married. No, it wasn’t Lolita. When I reached Mazatlán I found that Werner had married her. When he went around to break the news of our fictitious death, he got acquainted, and stepped off with my old sweetheart. So I’ve married Herminia. I’ve told her that our cablegram was sheer bunk, and that you’re still alive, but the news no longer seems to thrill her, although she would like to be remembered to you.

“It looks like I’m settled here for life. Whenever I suggest taking a trip back to California, Herminia is frightened stiff. Every one down here considers the old U. S. too dangerous a place to visit. Just as we get mostly the bandit stories from Mexico, so they get all the train robberies and lynching news from home. Just as our people regard all Mexicans as chronic revolutionists, so the Mexicans look upon us as a lot of bank-looters who, when not professionally occupied, take our diversion in chasing colored people and stringing them to lamp-posts.

“I’ve just received word that our old friend Barlow is dead. Do you remember how pessimistic he was about the dangers of Mexico? Always carrying a gun, and warning everybody to take no chances? He went home to the States last month, and died from drinking wood alcohol.

“Some time ago I met a former acquaintance of ours. It was that oily little fellow that came to our room in Mexico City—Mario Sanchez, aide to His Excellency, Venustiano Carranza. I lent him the price of a square meal. He had lost his job when Carranza ducked out of the capital with Obregon after him. We got rather chummy, and I asked him whether he really had been planning to murder us. And what do you think? Carranza himself believed that yarn about our being captured by Zamorra. He merely wanted to give us each five hundred dollars to keep quiet about it! And to think we both went scampering out of Mexico! And wondered why no one stopped us!

“But I’m pretty well satisfied with the way things have turned out. And this brings me to the main reason for coming out of my lethargy to write a letter. I do so from sheer pride. I’ve become a parent. Very much so. It’s twins. All of which goes to prove your old contention that this is a country whose charm lies in its habit of providing the unexpected.

“So good luck, and Adios!”