Insurgent Mexico |
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Common terms and phrases
adobe aguardiente ahead alamo Antonio arms army arroyo artillery asked Bato battle began blankets bullet Cadena Captain Carranza Casa Grande chaparral Chihuahua Colonel colorados compadre companeros Constitutionalist Corral cried cuartel dance dark desert ditch Don Petronilo door Durango dust El Oro eyes Fabela Federal feet fell Fidencio fight Francisco Villa front galloped Giiereca girl going Gomez Gringo guns hacienda hand head horse hundred Juan Juarez killed Longinos looked Lucifer Maderistas Madero meester mesquite Mexican Mexico miles morning mountains mules never night Ojinaga Orozco Pancho Villa Pascual Orozco passed peons Porfirio Diaz Puerta ragged Revolution ride rode saddle Santo Domingo senor serapes shoot shot shoulder shouted side sleep smoke soldiers sombreros squatted stood street suddenly took Torreon tortillas town track train trees troopers troops Tropa Urbina Villa Viva Villa voice wall woman women yelled
Popular passages
Page 25 - there has been some little trouble. The General has not been able to walk for two months from rheumatism.... And sometimes he is in great pain, and comforts himself with aguardiente.... Tonight he tried to shoot his mother. He always tries to shoot his mother... because he loves her very much.
Page 115 - Once or twice he yawned, but for the most part he seemed to be speculating, with some intense interior amusement, like a small boy in church, what it was all about. He knew, of course, that it was the proper thing, and perhaps felt a slight vanity that all this conventional ceremonial was addressed to him. But it bored him just the same. Finally, with an impressive gesture, Colonel Servin stepped forward with the small pasteboard box which held the medal. General Chao nudged Villa, who stood up....
Page 145 - We will put the army to work. In all parts of the Republic we will establish military colonies composed of the veterans of the Revolution. The State will give them grants of agricultural lands and establish big industrial enterprises to give them work. Three days a week they will work and work hard, because honest work is more important than fighting, and only honest work makes good citizens.
Page 273 - As our eyes became accustomed to the light, we saw the gigantic, khaki-clad figure of Don Venustiano Carranza sitting in a big chair. There was something strange in the way he sat there, with his hands on the arms of the chair, as if he had been placed in it and told not to move. He did not seem to be thinking, nor to have been working, — you couldn't imagine him at that table. You got the impression of a vast, inert body — a statue.
Page 28 - General's baggage into the coach; it consisted of a typewriter, four swords, one of them bearing the 27 emblem of the Knights of Pythias, three uniforms, the General's branding-iron, and a twelve-gallon demijohn of sotol. And there came the Tropa, a ragged smoke of brown dust miles along the road. Ahead flew a little, squat, black figure, with the Mexican flag streaming over him ; he wore a floppy sombrero loaded with five pounds of tarnished gold braid, — once probably the pride of some imperial...
Page 27 - In five minutes the house was all bustle and confusion, — officers rushing to pack their serapes, mows and troopers saddling horses, peons with armfuls of rifles rushing to and fro. Patricio harnessed five mules to the great coach, — an exact copy of the Deadwood Stage. A courier rode out on the run to summon the Tropa, which was quartered at the Canotillo. Rafaelito loaded the General's baggage into the coach; it consisted of a typewriter, four swords, one of them bearing the 27 emblem of the...
Page v - I never would have seen what I did see had it not been for your teaching me. I can only add my word to what so many who are writing already have told you: That to listen to you is to learn how to see the hidden beauty of the visible world
Page 133 - Villa would walk right up to the pawing, infuriated animal, and, with his double cape, slap him insolently across the face, and, for half an hour, would follow the greatest sport I ever saw. Sometimes the sawed-off horns of the bull would catch Villa in the seat of the trousers and propel him violently across the ring; then he would turn and grab the bull by the head and wrestle with him with the sweat streaming down his face until five or six companeros seized the bull's tail and hauled him plowing...
Page 122 - Chihuahua, and began the extraordinary experiment — extraordinary because he knew nothing about it — of creating a government for 300,000 people out of his head. It has often been said that Villa succeeded because he had educated advisers. As a matter of fact, he was almost alone. What advisers he had spent most of their time answering his eager questions and doing what he told them. I used sometimes to go to the Governor's palace early in the morning and wait for him in the Governor's chamber....
Page 226 - Now the trench was boiling with men scrambling to their feet, like worms when you turn over a log. The rifle fire rattled shrilly. From behind us came running feet, and men in sandals, with blankets over their shoulders, came falling and slipping down the ditch, and scrambling up the other side — hundreds of them, it seemed.


