Face to Face with the Mexicans/Adios

by Fanny Chambers Gooch Iglehart

ADIOS.

My task is ended, my mission is accomplished. To show how dissimilar are the two republics in character, customs and traditions has been my aim; to lead to a fraternal regard, the one toward the other, has been my hope.

Vividly, while portraying them, have the scenes so varied and the strange characters with whom I mingled, floated in my mind. Scenery and characters are associated with friends whose names are linked with a thousand tender memories.

While there were so many ties that bound me to Mexico, there were others of a national and friendly nature ten-fold stronger, and my heart turned again to my native land.

I was leaving the brilliant Mexican capital. The leave-takings of my friends may all be concentrated in one typical adios that still lingers unfading in rich vividness. Little Alfonzo, an ideal for a painter, passionately clung to me, his great liquid eyes looking lovingly into mine as he whispered his broken adios between his sobs. He was the child type of the warm friends of maturer years whom I was leaving.

The sun was setting behind the distant blue mountains; strains of sweet minstrelsy floated on the evening breeze; the panorama of singular characters passed me on their accustomed rounds. As the train moved gently along, I peered back and saw the distant lights gleaming in the city, and heard the long-drawn sweet tones of the evening bugle call, that seemed, as it dwelt on its last notes, to hold me bound in sweetest music, bidding me a yet more sorrowful farewell.