Sayula was a little lake resort; not for the idle rich, for Mexico has few left; but for tradespeople from Guadalajara, and week-enders. Even of these, these were few.
Nevertheless, there were two hotels, left over, really, from the safe quiet days of Don Porfirio, as were most of the villas. The outlying villas were shut up, some of them abandoned. Those in the village lived in a perpetual quake of fear. There were many terrors, but the two regnant were bandits and bolshevists.
Bandits are merely men who, in the outlying villages, having very often no money, no work, and no prospects, take to robbery and murder for a time—occasionally for a life-time—as a profession. They live in their wild villages until troops are sent after them, when they retire into the savage mountains, or the marshes.
Bolshevists, somehow, seem to be born on the railway. Wherever the iron rails run, and passengers are hauled back and forth in railway coaches, there