A long 



Siestas 



CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE 



i 



EXTENDING the regular holiday vacation at each 

 end, in December, 1898, and January, 1899, Mrs. 

 Jordan and I, in company with a number of friends, 

 visited the interior of Mexico. The business man- 

 agement of the trip was attended to by John E. 

 McDowell, then a Stanford senior, since for many 

 years assistant registrar, and now alumni secretary, 

 of the University. In the company were Professors 

 Dudley and John 0. Snyder of Stanford; William 

 T. Reid of Belmont ; Mrs. Leib, wife of Judge Leib, 

 and their daughter Elna, now Mrs. William H. 

 Wright; Mr. George M. Bowman, a banker of San 

 Jose, and his daughter Edna, now Mrs. Charles J. 

 Kuhn ; Charles A. Story, a Stanford student of fine 

 literary ability, whose early death cut short a 

 promising career; and Edward C. Ely, a lad from St. 

 Matthew's School, later a graduate of Yale. 



In these pages I cannot attempt to do even partial 

 J ust * ce to our var i e d impressions of the land with 

 its contrasting glories and squalor, but the trip 

 was highly interesting and instructive. Mexico's 

 teeming millions, ignorant, superstitious, and ill- 

 nurtured, with little self-control and no conception 

 of industry or thrift, lacking, indeed, most of 

 our Anglo-Saxon virtues, had yet for me a certain 

 compelling fascination. Moreover, in the mass are 

 many of pure Indian blood retaining the sturdy 

 traits of the Aztec, and others who with freedom 

 and education, especially vocational training, would 

 638 H 



