CHAPTER XIV
THE REVOLUTION (continued)
In the vortex of lawlessness and political disorder which Mexico had become, it is perhaps not surprising to find a bandit occupying a place of supreme importance Zapata.in its history, building up governments and setting them aside, holding absolute sway over a vast tract of country, terrorising the populace like some fabled giant of mediaeval times.
Emiliano Zapata is essentially a product of Mexican conditions. Once a common bandit, although a landowner, with a dozen desperadoes at his heels, he has gradually extended his dominion over the whole country, and has grown so powerful that no President or faction dare venture to dispute his authority. One by one, successive governments have broken a lance with him, but have had to admit defeat.
Against a background of rebellion and intrigue, Zapata stands out as a unique if scarcely admirable figure. Utterly unscrupulous, presenting the characteristics of the race at its lowest level, he is aptly designated by his nom de guerre, "El Atila del Sur"—"The Attila of the South.” No gleam of chivalry, no single spark of honour, can we trace in all his triumphant career. He is a breaker of treaties throughout; a scorner of truce and amnesty; avid for wealth; looting, sacking, spoiling wherever he goes. The brutality of his methods of warfare contemporary records may equal, but can hardly surpass.
The story of his career—successful though it be—is unrelievedly sordid and inglorious. The son of a farmer of Indian extraction, he early began to plunder, with the assistance of a dozen followers. For these petty depredations, he was arrested and conscripted into the army of
