«9<*ARY . RVtNE OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR: A WINTER IN MEXICO. BY GILBERT HAVEN, AUTHOR OF "PILGRIM'S WALLET," "NATIONAL SERMONS," " THE SAILOR PREACHER," ETC. " Thou Italy of the Occident, Glorious, gory Mexico." Joachim Muler. The Silver is mine and the Gold is mine, Saith the Lord of Hosts." Haggai. N E W YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, FRA KKI.1 N SQU A R E. 1875- :F - /a /o /? Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by Harper & Brothers, Id the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. TO MY MOTHER, EY THE ELDEST, AND NOW, ALAS, FOR EARTH AND TIME, THE YOUNGEST, ALSO, OF HER BOYS, ON HER EIGHTY-EIGHTH BIRTHDAY, FEBRUARY 28th, 1875, THIS BOOK IS FONDLY INSCRIBED. CONTENTS. BOOK I. — TO THE CAPITAL. I. BEFORE THE BEGINNING. The Threshold. — From Snow to Flowers. — A Character, and what made him. — Our South and its Ethiop. — The Bay and Blaze of Havana. — Off. . . .Page 17 II. A DAY IN YUCATAN. The First-born. — An Opportunity accepted. — An Index Point. — Cocoa-nut Milk. — The Market-place. — Euchre as a Food. — A Grave Joke. — The Drink of the Country. — The Cocoa Palm. — The Native Dress. — A Hacienda. — A Pre-adamite Haciendado. — Jenequen. — Prospecting. — Almost a Panic. — Done into Rhyme 25 III. THE SEA-PORT. Under the Cocoa-nut Palm. — The Plaza. — The Cathedral. — No Distinction on account of Color either in Worshiper or Worshiped. — The Watering-place of Cortez. — How the Palm looks and grows. — Other Trees of the Tropics. — Home Flowers. — July Breakfast in January. — Per Contra, a Norther. — Its Utility. — Harbor and Fort. — Size and Shape of the City. — Its Scavenger. — Its Houses. — Street Life. — The Lord's Day. — First Protestant Service. — The Railroad Inauguration 36 IV. THE HOT LANDS. From Idleness to Peril. — Solitud. — Chiquihuiti. — Tropical Forests. — The Falls of Atoyac. — Wild Beasts non sunt. — Cordova and its Oranges. — Mount Ori- zaba. — Fortin 55 V. ON THE STAGE. Our Companions. — Vain Fear. — The Plunge. — Coffee Haciendas. — Peon Life. — Orizaba City. — The Mountain -lined Passway. — The Cumbres. — The Last 8 CONTENTS. ' Smile of Day and the Hot Lands.— Night and Useless Terror.— " Two-o' clock- m-tlu -ni< uning Courage." — Organ Cactus. — Sunrise. — The Volcano. — Into Puebla and tin- Cars.— The three Snow-peaks together. — Epizaco. — Pulqui. — •• There is Mexico I" Page 65 BOOK II.— IN AND AROUND THE CAPITAL. I. FIRST WEEK IN THE CAPITAL. Hotel Gillow. — Cost of Living. — The Climate. — Lottery-ticket Venders. — First Sabbath. — First Protestant Church. — A Praise Meeting. — State of the Work. —The Week of Prayer 89 II. FROM THE CHURCH TOP. First Attempt and Failure. — At it again. — The Southern Outlook. — Popocate- petl and Iztaccihuatl. — Cherubusco. — Chapultepec. — Guadalupe. — The patron Saint of the Country. — Round the Circle 98 III. FROM THE SIDEWALK. Views from Street Corners. — Chief Street. — Shops, Plaza, Cathedral. — Pligh and Low Religion. — Aztec Calendar Stone. — The Sacrificial Stone. — The President's private House. — Hotel Iturbide. — Private Residences. — Ala- meda 1 10 IV. A NEW EVENT IN MEXICO. Palace of the President. — The President. — How he looks. — What he pledges. — Former Property of the Church. — Its Consequences. — Corruption. — Pospects and Perils 126 V. OLD AND NEW AMONG THE SILVER MINES. A Mediaeval Castle. — First Icicle. — Omatuska. — More about Pulqui. — A big Scare. — A Paradise. — Casa Grande. — A Sabbath in Pachuca. — A native Con- vert. — Mediaeval Cavalcade. — The Visitors. — Mounting Real Del Monte. — The Castle of Real. — Gentlemanly Assassin. — Silver Factories. — Velasco. — A Reduction. — Haciendado Riley. — Mexican Giant's Causeway. — More Sil- ver Reduction. — Horsemanship under Difficulties. — Contraries balancing Con- traries. — La Barranca Grande. — A bigger Scare. — A Wedding. — Miner and Mining. — The Gautemozin. — The better Investment 131 CONTENTS. g VI. ACROSS LOTS. A drowsy Beginning. — Paradise somewhat Lost. — Trees of Paradise. — A lingual Guess at the Aztec Origin. — Tizayuca. — Zumpango. — The Lake System. — Guatitlan. — Hotel San Pedro. — Into Town. — Tree of Noche Triste. — Tacuba. — Aqueduct of San Cosme. — Tivoli Page 166 VII. THE TOWN OF THE ANGELS. Warnings unheeded. — Slow Progress. — Christ in the Inn. — Why Angelic. — Bad Faith and worse Works. — First English Service. — Outlook from the Cathe- dral. — Tlascala. — The Volcano. — Inside View of the Belfry. — Inside the Ca- thedral. — Triple Gilt. — Cathedral Service. — La Destruccion de los Protes- tantes 1 75 VIII. THE MOST ANCIENT AMERICAN MECCA. On Horse. — Irrigation. — Entrance to Cholula. — Deserted Churches. — Plaza Grande, and its Cortez Horror. — A wide-awake Priest. — A wide View from the Summit. — A costly Trifle. — The Ride back 191 IX. A DAY AND NIGHT AT EL DESIERTO. A Point of View. — The Woods : their Peril and Preservation. — How we got here. — Chapultepec. — Tacubaya. — Santa Fe'. — Contadera. — Guajimalpa. — The Forest. — The Shot. — Solitude. — The Ruin. — Its Inquisition. — A Bowl of Song. — Moonlight Pleasure and all-night Horror. — Morning Glories. — Its History. — A more excellent Way. — Home again 204 X. A RIDE ABOUT TOWN. The Horse and its Rider. — Paseos. — Empress's Drive. — A Relic of Waterloo. — The Tree of Montezuma. — The Woods. — View of Chapultepec. — Baths of Montezuma. — Tacubaya Gardens. — The Penyan. — Canal. — Floating Gardens. — Gautemozin. — The Cafe 219 XI. A GARDEN IN EDEN. A Temptation. — Up the Mountains. — The Cross of Cortez. — Sight of the Town and Valley. — The downward Plunge. — A Lounge. — Church of Cortez. — The Enchanted Garden. — Idolatry. — The Market-place. — The Almanac against Protestantism. — Palace of Cortez. — The Indian Garden of Maximilian. — A Sugar Hacienda. — The latter End. — All Zones 231 IO CONTENTS. XII. A WALK IN MEXICO. The Market-place. — The Murder-place. — Mexic Art and Music. — Aquarius. — Ruins, and how thej were made. — A Funeral. — San Fernando Cemetery. — The English and American also. — Vaminos Page 248 BOOK III.— FROM MEXICO TO MATAMORAS. I. TO QUERETARO. The Start. — First and last Church in the City. — The Game-cocks. — First Scare. — Guatitlan again. — Barrenness. — Gambling and Tortilla-making. — Descent to Tula. — A Bit of English Landscape. — Tula. — Hunt for a Statue. — A sil- ver Heavens and Earth. — Juelites. — Mountains and a mounting Sun. — Vista Ilermosa. — Napola. — A stone Town. — An Interior. — The Stables. — Sombrero Walls. — Eagle Tavern. — Playing with the Children. — Gamboling versus Gambling. — Cazadero, the Bull Prairie. — Hacienda ofPalmillas. — Blacksmith Idolatry. — Misterio de la Santissima Trinidad. — 'Tother Side up. — Descent into the Valley of San Juan. — Lone yellow Cone. — Longfellow and Homer. — Elysium after much Turmoil. — A Dissertation on Beggars. — A Market Um- brella. — In Perils among Robbers. — The beautiful Valley of San Juan. — Colorado. — A Turner Sunset. — Sight of Queretaro. — The Aqueduct. — The Bed • 267 II. QUERETARO. Into the Town. — Maximilian's Retreat. — Capture and Execution. — Hill of Bells. — Factories and Gardens. — Hot-weather Bath. — A Home. — Alameda. — Sun- day, sacred and secular. — A very Christian Name. — Crowded Market, and empty Churches. — Chatting in Church. — Priestly Procession. — Among the Churches. — Hideous Images. — Handsome Gardens 285 III. TO GUANAJUATO. \ bad Beginning. — A level Sea. — Celaya. — A Cactus Tent. — Salamanca.— Irapuato. — Entrance to Guanajuato. — Gleaning Silver. — The Hide-and-go- seek City. — A Revelation 300 IV. A SILVER, AND A SACRED TOWN. Native Costume. — Reboza and Zarepc. — The Sombrero. — A Reduction Haci- enda. — The Church in Guanajuato. — Its Antipodes. — A clerical Acquaint- CONTENTS. T Y ance. — A mulish Mule. — "No quiere." — The Landscape. — Lettuce. — Calza- da. — The Town and Country. — Fish of the Fence. — The Cactus and the Ass. — Compensation. — One-story City. — High Mass and higher Idolatry. — The God Mary Page 307 V. A HORSEBACK RIDE OVER THE SILVER MOUNTAINS. Indian Dancing and Gambling. — A sleeping City. — Wood and Coal Carriers. — Mineral de la Luz. — A Mountain Nest. — Sometimes up, sometimes down. — Berrying and Burying. — The Apple-tree among the Trees of the Wood. — Off the Track. — A funereal Tread. — Lunch in the Air. — The Plunge. — A Napola Orchard. — Out on the Plains. — Valley of the Sancho 321 VI. TO AND IN SAN LUIS POTOSI. Aztec Music. — Low-hung but high-hung Clouds. — Troops and Travelers. — A big, small Wagon. — Zeal of San Felipe. — Lutero below Voltaire. — Rough Places not smooth. — Mesquite Woods. — Silver Hills. — Two Haciendas. — How they Irrigate. — Lassoing. — The Frescoes of Frisco. — Cleft Cliffs. — The Valley of San Luis Potosi. — Greetings and Letters. — The Church of Mary. — The coming Faith. — A costly and Christly Flag. — Joseph and Mary wor- shiped in vain for Rain 334 VII. OUT AT SEA. Leaving Shore. — A hot Companion. — Parallel Mountains. — Parks and Divides. — Hacienda of Bocas. — Gingerbread Tigs. — A ragged Boy Apollo. — Marriage- less Motherhood. — The Widow's Reply. — Sierra Prieto. — Mortevillos. — Rev- eling in the Halls of Montezuma. — Strife of Beggars. — Dusty Reflections. — Venada. — Chalcos. — The Worship of the dying Wafer 351 VIII. MID-OCEAN. The "Rolling Forties." — Ceral Hard-tack.— Not so Hard. — Mexican Birds. — Smoking-girls. — Laguna Seca. — La Punta. — First Breakfast in an Adobe. — Hacienda of Precita. — The Spanish Bayonet. — Mattejuala. — Birnam Wood marching on Dunsinane. — The first and last Mosquito of Mexico. — Yankee Singing. — Worse threatened 359 IX. NEARING SHORE. Preparations against a Rancho. — A golden Set. — Bonavcntura. — A Rancho : what is it? — Companions. — Aztec or Chinese? — Desolation. — Tropic Thorns and Flowers. — An Oasis. — Hacienda of Solado, and its unexpected Hospital- 1 2 ' CONTENTS. ities. — Freaks of the Spanish Bayonet — Green velvet Mountains. — The true Protector Page 366 X. INTO PORT. Sunrise. — Villa de Gomez Firias. — A lost American found. — Flowering Palms. — An unpleasant Reminder. — A charming Park. — Agua Nueva. — La Encan- tada. — La Angostura. — Battlemented Mountains. — Buena Vista. — The Battle- field. — The Result. — Why. — Saltillo. — Alameda. — Friends 375 XL MONTEREY. Songs in the Night. — Open Fields near Saltillo. — Effect of Irrigation. — "The Rosy-fingered Dawn." — Gathering together of the Mountains. — San Gregario. — A Thousand-feet Fall. — Rinconada. — Wonders of Flowers. — A Hole through a Mountain. — The Saddle Mountain. — The Mitre. — Santa Caterina. — A Tin God. — A familiar Color. — St. Peter. — No Bathing after Midday. — The Smallness of Mexican Heads. — Miss Rankin's Work. — Strife between Brethren. — Its Benefits. — The two Dogs. — The Eye of the Town. — Revolutions 387 XII. THE BEGINNING OF THE END. Rancho de Villa de General Trevina. — A Sign of Home. — A misty Escort. — Blistering Morin. — Chaparral. — The changed Face of Nature. — The Yankee- Hat and Hut. — Mesas, or Table-lands. — The bottom Rancho: Garcia. — Mier. — Comargo. — The Grand River unseen, yet ever near. — Last Night in a Rancho. — La Antigua Renosa 398 XIII. JOLTINGS AND JOTTINGS. A Creator and an Imitator. — Church-making and Carriage-writing. — The old- est Church and the youngest. — Compagnons dn Voyage. — A Brandy-sucker. — Prohibition for Mexico. — Talks with the Coachman and Mozo. — Hides and Shoes. — San Antonio. — Its Casa and Inmates* — Rancho Beauties. — Women's Rights in Mexico. — Sermonizing in the Wilderness. — A Night on Stage-top. — Fantastic Forms. — Spiritual Phantasms. — Light in a dark Place. — Mata- moras and Brownsville 403 XIV. THE FINISH. Coach, not Couch. — A new Tread-mill. — Rascality of a Sub-treasurer. — The same Country, but another Driver. — Live-oak versus Mesquite. — A sandy Desert as large as Massachusetts. — Not a complete Desert. — A dirty, but hos- CONTENTS. j 5 pitable Rancho. — Thousands of Cattle on no Hill. — A forty-mile Fence. — A Patch of four hundred square Miles. — Mr. King's Rancho and Pluck. — Perils. — Mr. Murdock's Murder. — Corpus Christi. — Indianola. — Good- bye Page 418 XV. CHRISTIAN WORK IN MEXICO. Not yet. — The First Last. — A Telegram and its Meaning. — Perils and Perplexi- ties of Church purchasing. — Temptation resisted. — Success and Dedication. — Cure Hidalgo and his Revolution. — Iturbide and Intolerance. — Beginning of the End. — The Mexican War, and its Religious Effects. — The Bible and the Preacher. — The first Revolt from Romanism. — Abolition of Property and of Institutions. — Invasion of the Papacy through France and Maximilian. — Ex- pulsion thereof through America and Juarez. — The Constitutionalists the first Preachers. — The first Martyr: "Viva Jesus ! Viva Mexico !" — Francisco Aguilar and the first Church. — The Bible and his Death. — First Appeal abroad. — Response. — Rev. Dr. Riley and his Work. — Excitement, Peril, Prog- ress. — President Juarez, the first Protestant President. — The chief native Apostle, Manual Aguas. — His Excommunication by and of the Archbishop. — A powerful Attack on the Church. — His Death. — The Entrance of the Amer- ican Churches in their own Form. — Their present Status. — The first Ameri- can Martyr, Stephens ; and how he was butchered. — San Andres. — Govern- mental Progress. — The Outlook. — Postfatory 424 Appendix A 455 Appendix B 456 Appendix C 461 Appendix D 466 ILLUSTRATIONS Page Cathedral and Plaza by Moonlight Frontispiece The Bay of Havana 23 Governor's Palace at Vera Cruz 37 Vera Cruz 45 Fountain at Vera Cruz 50 Old Bridge of Atoyac 59 Orange Grove, Cordova 61 A Peon's House 66 Great Bridge of Mathata ' 67 View of Orizaba 69 River at Orizaba 71 The Organ Cactus 77 Maguey Plant 82 The Valley of Mexico, from the American official Map faces 89 Mexican Flower-girl 91 First Protestant Church 94 Chapultepec 101 Church of Guadalupe faces 102 The Lottery-ticket 104 Iztaccihuatl '. 106 The Dome 108 The Market-place, City of Mexico 112 San Cosme Aqueduct, City of Mexico 117 The Palace of Mexico 119 The Aztec Calendar Stone 122 The Sacrificial Stone faces 123 Interior of a modern Mexican House 124 The Palisades of Regla 153 A Mexican General 158 Tree of Triste Noche 171 Garden of the Tivolis, San Cosme 1 73 Street View in Pucbla 177 X 6 ILL USTRA TIONS. Pagb Ruins of the covered Way to the Inquisition 179 The Cathedral of Puebla 182 Convent of San Domingo, City of Mexico 186 Prisoners of the Inquisition 188 Church built by Cortez 195 Pyramid of Cholula 198 View from the Pyramid of Cholula , 200 The Tree of Montezuma 222 The Baths of Montezuma 225 The Canal 227 Floating Gardens 229 Saw-mill 245 Planting Corn 247 Scene in Market 249 A Water-carrier 255 Soldiers' Monument in the American Cemetery 261 Cactus, and Woman kneading Tortillas 270 Mexican Beggar 280 Aqueduct of Queretaro 284 Queretaro 288 A Cotton Factory, Queretaro 291 Church of San Diego, Guanajuato 305 Mexican Wash-house faces 317 Funeral of Governor Manuel Doblado 317 Mexican Muleteer 336 The Virgin 348 Joseph 349 Buena Vista 381 Saddle Mountain 391 Bishop's Residence, Monterey 393 Alameda, Monterey 397 The Itinerary — from Vera Cruz to Matamoras 415 Church of San Francisco, City of Mexico 425 First Methodist Episcopal Church, City of Mexico 430 A distant View of the Church of the Ex -convent of San Francisco, City of Mexico 437 Church of San Jose de Gracia 442 Manuel Aguas 444 John L. Stephens " 448 Tower and Castle of Acapulco, Mexico — Scene of the recent Massacre. ... 451 BOOK I. TO THE CAPITAL. OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR. I. BEFORE THE BEGINNING. The Threshold. — From Snow to Flowers. — A Character, and what made him. — Our South and its Ethiop. — The Bay and Blaze of Havana. — Off. There is properly a path to the front door of a house, or at least a few steps ere its entrance is reached. So every voyage has a preliminary, a before -the -door -step experience. This is some- times excluded entirely from the journal of the journey, sometimes inserted in the preface — a proper place for the preliminaries (a fore -talk best occurring at the fore -threshold), sometimes made into Chapter First. The latter course is here adopted, though every reader is at liberty to skip the chapter, leap over the thresh- old, and press instantly into the centre of the house, that is, the volume. The nearest things are often the farthest off, the farthest off the nearest. This is true of places as well as of peoples. We know more of Bismarck than of our next-block neighbor, of Paris than of many an American town. This law is verified in our knowl- edge, or ignorance rather, of our nearest national neighbor, Mexico. Few books are written, less are read, upon the most novel land on our continent, and one of the most attractive on any continent. Prescott's "Conquest" is esteemed a sort of historical romance, the very charm of his style adding to the unreality of his theme. And if it be reckoned strict history, it is still history ; not a living, breathing power, as is England or Italy, Germany or Russia, but T 8 OUR .XEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR. a vivid fact of three centuries and over ago, a mediaeval story of marvel and mystery. In fact, Prescott's "Conquest" has made that of its subject, Cortez, to fade. And one is half tempted to be- lieve that the real conquistador was not the strong-brained, strong- limbed, strong-souled Spaniard, but the half-blind and wholly med- itative Bostonian. The Achilles and his Homer are worthy of their several fame. Yet the land on which, or out of which, each won his chief glory is still superior to them both. A run along some of its chief paths of interest may make this fact patent to other eyes. Just as our North was putting on its winter night-robes, which it did not take off for four long months, I packed my valise, three of them, as became a " carpet-bagger," and moved southward. Snow chased me as far as Richmond ; moist, mild June met me at Montgomery; oranges, in clusters, plucked fresh from the boughs, were passed through the cars near Mobile ; and New Or- leans welcomed me to summer skies, and showers, and flowers. A Northern touch of sharp and almost icy weather made the steamer for Havana less unwelcome. So a glimpse at good friends, and a coming and going grasp of hands, including a coming but not going grasp of hearts, and the steamer and I are off. A character that I met on the steamer, by its strangeness re- lieved the sea -qualms, and, if for no other reason, deserves a sketch. He was a type of a vanishing class — few, I hope, at any time, but not without existence. He was a Havana planter, who had come to New Orleans to sell his crop, and was returning brim- ful of cash and whisky ; nay, not brimful of the latter, or, if so, with great capacity of enlargement — worse than some prolix preachers possess over their text. When the captain entered the cabin, he greeted him with a shower of oaths — not in rage, but in good hu- mor — that being almost his only vocabulary. He called constantly for every sort of liquor — beer, gin, wine, whisky. He drank all the three days and nights like a fish, if a fish ever drinks. It never drinks such stuff as he constantly poured down his inflamed throat. The stuff that went in and that came out were alike horrible. A FREE RELIGIONIST. I9 A clever colored lad from Philadelphia was the special object of his contemptuous detestation. He ordered him to get the liquors and hot water every few minutes until near midnight. When the fires were out, and hot water was not to be had, and the bar shut, and the liquors also absent, then he raved at the lad for not waking up steward and purser, and securing the delectable elements. If the boy went slowly to his impossible task, how he cursed him ! how he blasphemed his people ! how he cursed the Abolitionists for setting them free ! declaimed against Massachu- setts in particular for her share in this matter, and declared their incapacity for liberty, though the boy was tenfold more capable of freedom than himself. Yet he was as shrewd as any other Yankee, and said that slavery was as good as dead in Cuba, and he had persuaded his wife, and sold off all his "niggers" when he could get something for them. I am sure they were glad to get away from the lash of his tongue and arm, and I pitied the hired hands on whom he voided the rheum of an arrogant disposition, a trained contempt and hatred, a false theory, and a fearful appetite. Nay, his wife must suffer often from that scourge. He was a good Romanist withal, though without any of the orthodoxy of his Church. He said that he prayed nightly to the Virgin, but he did not believe in her, or Christ, or the Bible, or any thing but God. I said, "If you believe in God, you believe in Christ, for Jesus Christ is God." "Jesus Christ !" he broke forth; " Jesus Christ!" It was the worst oath I had ever heard. I called him quick to his senses, and he halted a moment in his mad and profane career. He was a Free Religionist, like three others whom I have met on this trip, two of whom were also European Roman Catholics, one a Bostonian, showing that there is no distinction of clime or race in this anti-faith. Like the others, he showed his free religion and modern theology by most outrageous swearing. It is the true creed of that churchless church, and shows that men who profess to deny damnation, hell, Christ, and even God himself, are most profuse in using terms which show that these are the profoundest beliefs of their real nature. 20 OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR. I pitied the poor rich man, and the system of religion and so- ciety that had turned such a creature of holy possibilities into a demon j and I prayed all the more earnestly for the abolition of the devil of drink, and that it might speedily follow to eternal de- struction its kindred demon already slain. What wonderful blessings has Abolition brought to all those who were held, like this rich victim, fast in more slavish chains ! Our white brethren will rejoice as much over the liberty it has given them and their sons as in that which it has given their darker brothers. It has made such characters as this impossible. Men may drink yet, and curse Christ and his Church, but they can not be developed into such frightful specimens of diseased humanity. He made me think of a like character I met on the road from Suez to Cairo. He was a genteel, well-dressed Turkish merchant, with his nice silk jacket "all buttoned down before" and behind, and tasteful silk breeches. He was bringing some Nubian boys to the Cairene market. He kept tormenting the poor lads by touch- ing their arms, cheeks, and legs, anywhere, with the burning end of his cigar. He laughed at their silent cringes, and looked at us as if expecting reciprocal smiles. Had we known his language, we would have cursed him to his face. If such were his jokes, what must have been his treatment of them when roused to mad- ness, as he undoubtedly often was ! He was very devout withal, and at the sunset station was first from the cars, and on the wilder- ness gravel, in sight of all, was making his prostrations and mut- tering his prayers. It is this frightful exception that proves the rule, an exception not so infrequent as it ought to have been, as the Rev. Mr. Bleby shows in his late most interesting book, entitled " Romance without Fiction ; or, Sketches from the Port-folio of an Old Missionary," in which he gives thrilling illustrations of hardnesses of heart and cruelties of conduct in the English West Indies, and by English gentlemen, and clergymen even, that are harrowing after almost a century has passed since their enactment. All our Sunday-schools, North and South, should read this vivid record of modern martyr- FINDING THE ETHIOP. 21 dom, not less horrible and holy than that given by Fox, and exe- cuted by false Christians upon the true in the Middle and the later ages. The evil that wrought it has ceased — thanks be to God ! — in most lands, and will soon cease in all. All this conduct was simply because this comely lad was color- ed. I thought I had escaped from caste and all its effects. When I mounted the Yazoo I did not expect to see colorphobia in any shape until I had gotten back to our beloved country, when I again expected to see it everywhere, in every shape. But the presence was not to be put by. It seemed even providential ; for the first Sunday that I spent in the South, only the week previous, I opened my Testament and lighted upon the passage, " The angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, 'Arise and go into the south coun- try.' " The next verse says, " He arose and went, and lo ! a man, an Ethiop." It was, seemingly, a surprise to him that he was sent to this black Gentile. But he was without prejudice of color, though tempted, as a Jew, by that of blood and faith. For these lat- ter reasons he may have hesitated a little, for the Holy Spirit has to enforce the order of the angel, and he says to Philip, " Go and glue thyself to this chariot." As the Testament was being read in course, I can hardly say the passage was selected by lot or of the Lord ; yet it struck me very forcibly, and I fancied (was it fancy?) that the ordering in this case was providential. I had arisen and gone into the South country, and had found there the Ethiop, and now heard the Spirit say, "Glue thyself" — this the original means — "to him." I saw in his conversion the regenera- tion of all our South land and North land, too ; for the Lord will uplift the whole nation only as we uplift our long down-trodden brethren into Christian oneness with ourselves. The Ethiop is riding already in his chariot, and as Lowell wittily somewhere, for substance, says, " The white man will be willing enough to run along by his side, and accept a seat with him, when the black man rides in his own chariot." But our South country was not sufficiently South. So I am sent yet farther into the South country — the " mid country," as the orig- 2 2 OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR. inal hath it — till I find myself where our "Sunny South" is far away to the north, and where even our country is printed on the map "the United States of the North." Much as some of our good neighbors may dislike to be called Northern people, they are compelled to endure that affliction from Mexican lips. This proud and sensitive nation calls itself" the United States of Mexico," and it will not allow another body of commonwealths on the continent to call itself "the United States of America." If our brethren had achieved their independence they might have been compelled to conform to this nomenclature, and called their country the Central United States. Fortunately, they can and will yet rejoice in the continental title which includes centre and circumference in its all-embracing area. This experience on the steamer has led to all these musings. Better these than that dreary heaving of the stomach and the sea. How the outside and the inside miserably harmonize ! The gray I get glimpses of through that bit of a hole in the side of the ship, as the berth tips over, lets me sickly see a like sick sea. The waves toss wearily on their bed, and I am glad, in a miserable way, that I have even this sort of communion with nature. The Yazoo carries us to Havana and to midsummer in sixty hours. The hot bay seems hotter than New York's hottest. Its round rim is ablaze with direct and reflected burnings. The gold- en sand-hills shoot back the golden rays in increased fervor and brilliance. The palm gives a shadeless shade, as would an um- brella stuck on the top of a twenty-foot pole. The catcus, least lovely and not least useful of tropical plants, thick sets its quoit- like leaves with thorns. Deep sheds cover the quays, protecting from the fiery blaze both man and beast : which is which, is yet un- decided, since both are beasts here, the mule often less so than the man. Under their broad roofs goes ceaselessly on the busy load- ing of sugar and oranges and'bananas, the busy unloading of bales and barrels of Northern fields and mills. The slave is still here. He is a vanished institution northward across that blue gulf, and already in his last stages of serfhood PROSPECTIVE LIBERTY AND POSSIBLE CULTURE. 2 3 here. He exhibits, in this decay of brutehood and beginning of manhood, some traces of both natures. Here is a big, oily fellow, lifting freight out of the New York steamer. He is as lithe as a Greek wrestler, and, like him, anointed with fresh oil, his own oil, extracted by the Adamic curse, not from his brow alone, but from his back and breast and legs and arms, even the whole body. Like the precious oil on Aaron's head, it flows down to the bot- tom of his garments, or would if he had any on, a convert alone composing his wardrobe. THE BAY OF HAVANA. He will make a good Touissant, give him education, or a bad one if he has not soon given him liberty. This he is soon to have ; and some future visitor may see him clothed and in his right mind, well cultured, sitting in the council chamber or standing in the pulpit, serving in high places as he now serves in low. This glimpse from the bay is all I can enjoy ; for the steamer City of Merida is in, and will leave before night for Vera Cruz. The vessel must be off before sundown, or it can not leave for two 24 OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR. days ; for this is the night before Christmas, and the Church au- thorities forbid all leaving of ships or doing of any other work on this holiday, except on payment into their palms, professedly into her treasury, of double fees of doubloons ; so, to escape commit- ting the sin or paying the price of bribery, the captain is deter- mined to get outside the Castle before sunset vespers ring. The hot streets are touched ; the collector and commandant are paid their demanded and needless fee ; the filth and fever of the narrow streets about the wharf are duly interviewed ; a coachman lashes his sick horses from officer to officer ; a cup of coffee is drank at those best saloons of Spanish-speaking countries ; and some ten dollars are spent for the privilege of entering the port and exchan- ging steamers. Then the black sides of the goodly steamer are scaled, and Havana is left almost or ere it is reached. " Out to sea the streamers fly." We leave the port left three centuries and a half ago by a dar ing soldier- farmer, with his small accompaniment of ships and soldiers, for the land, whisperings of whose wonders had allured the commandant of Cuba to embark his treasures in its dis- covery and subjugation ; and who also, less wisely for himself, but not for the world, had been induced to give command of the fleet to a reconciled foeman, who had made peace with his adver- sary, that he might thus gain over him the greater victory. Velasquez, however, began to fear him before he sailed, and had •revoked his commission. But Cortez, before he had received of- ficial knowledge of the revocation, hoisted anchor and sail, and fled in the night. We follow after at not far from the same hour. The city lights glimmer along the shore ere we lose sight of it and them, and we skim all night along the way that adventurer sailed. FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 2 ^ II. A DAY IN YUCATAN. The First-born. — An Opportunity accepted. — An Index Point. — Cocoa-nut Milk. — The Market-place. — Euchre as a Food. — A Grave Joke. — The Drink of the Country. — The Cocoa Palm. — The Native Dress. — A Hacienda. — A Pre-adamite Haciendado. — Jenequen. — Prospecting. — Almost a Panic. — Done into Rhyme. Every thing is affected by first impressions. Sometimes they can never be overcome. That like or dislike often abides incura- ble. The first sight of a foreign shore is a love or a hate forever. How perfect Ireland is in my memory, because it looked so beauti- ful, rising, a green wave of stillness and strength, out of that sick and quaking sea, over which I had been rolling so long ! Egypt is not a river of verdure so much as a strip of blazing sand, for Alexandria, and not Cairo, is its first-born in my experience. Mexico has its first picture in my gallery. Whatever grandeurs of mountain or glories of forest it may unfold, its first impression will always be that first day in Yucatan. I never dreamed a month before of seeing Yucatan. Even if Mexico itself had crossed the mind as a possibility of experience, Yucatan had never been in- cluded in that concept. That prettily sounding name was as far off as Cathay or Bokhara. Yucatan was, to me. Central America ; a museum of ancient monuments ; an out-of the-world corner. In fact, it did not belong to Mexico till Maximilian's time. He annexed it, and they hold together still. We often strike an unknown rock in our sail through life, and Yucatan was the unexpected shoal on which we first stranded. It happened in this wise : The City of Merida makes a landing as near as possible to the 2 Q OL'R NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR. city after which it is named. This city is twenty miles from the shore, in the peninsula of Yucatan. It has sixty thousand inhab- itants, and is the centre of a vast hemp-producing country. This hemp finds a ready market in New York. Hence the pause at this spot j hence the name of our vessel. It is to land stores for the big city, and to take hemp for the bigger country. The steamer lies four miles from shore. Wearied with its close confinement, three passengers, two of whom are General Palmer, president of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, who, with General Rosecrans, is seeking the extension of that system in Mexico, and Mr. Parish, their European financial representative, propose to spend on shore the day in which we are to remain here. We are met with protestations from various quarters. We are told that we will be sun-struck ; will get the calentura, or fever ; that the fleas will take possession of us ; that a Norther will arise, and we can not get back to the steamer; and thus hobgoblins dire are piled on our path. The American minister, returning home, grand and genial, adds his preventive persuasions. But none of these things move us. We go. The captain of the boat which is rowing us ashore enlivens our depressed spirits with encouraging stories about the abundance of monkeys and parrots, of lions and tigers, and deer and wild boars, and every such terror and delight — none of which we see. We land at a wharf covered with bales of hemp, and brown-skin- ned natives in their white suits. On it stands a small, pale-faced gentleman, whom we find to be Mr. Tappan, of Boston, the con- sular agent, and grandson of the minister who wrote the plaintive and pretty verses beginning, "There is an hour of peaceful rest." It is almost always fortunate for an American abroad if the United States official be an American. He knows his language, the first important consideration, and he knows what the visitor wants to know, the second and not less important consideration. Our Bos- ton friend is expert in these two excellences. He takes us across THE COLLECTOR'S FAMILY. 27 the blazing sands of this holiday season to the cool arches of the collector's house. That gentlemanly official welcomes us to Pro- gresso, the name of this new town. This name shows its newness, and also, possibly, that a Yankee had something to do with its christening ; for the Mexican has hardly yet learned that there be such a thing as progress, much less that it can be concentrated into a town, though he indulge in titular progress, and put into names what his Northern brothers put into fact. Our gentlemanly collector leads us through his official rooms into the domestic apartments, and introduces us to his family. He is a Spaniard, his wife a Cuban, and his three adopted daughters are representatives of the three races, so called, that hold harmoni- ous possession of this soil. They consist of a white young lady of Anglo-Saxon lightness of complexion, seemingly of a Northern Eu- ropean origin, her adopted parents being dark to her ; another, slightly her junior, whose tint is of that Afric sort that Mrs. Kem- ble Butler deemed richer than any European, and whose opinion our former aristocracy confirmed by their conduct ; and the third was a pure Indian belle, none the less beautiful in contour and complexion, a half-way house between these two extremes of human colors. We did not see the Pocahontas of the family, but the Cleopatra and Boadicea were among our agreeable entertainers. They were dressed just alike, in neat, light, brown-checked mus- lins, with girlish modesty of array and manner that was cultivated and charming. Our ignorance of Spanish put a barrier between us, but their bearing was sisterly and filial ; and we accepted this index of the New America as a token of the superiority of Yucatan over the United States, and a proof of the fitness of the name of the town. Had many an American father recognized, not his adopted, but his actual family, a like variety would have been visi- ble about the paternal board. It will yet be, and without sin or shame, as in this cultivated circle. The host offered us the milk of the cocoa-nut in large goblets, and grapes preserved in their natural shape. One cocoa-nut makes a tumbler of limpid water sweet and agreeable. His open apart- 28 OUR XEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR. ments let the cooling breezes blow through, and we rejoiced an hour in the shelter from the July heat of December, and the stim- ulus of a Long Branch July breeze. Then comes a walk through Progresso. This city, like our new Western enterprises, is better laid out than settled. It has its Straight, broad streets running through chaparral, its grand plaza, with scarcely a corner of it yet occupied, its corner-lots at fabulous prices. That corner opposite the custom-house they hold at two thousand dollars. Others a little outside of the centre you can buy as low as fifty dollars. That is better than you can do on the North Pacific, where on a boundless prairie they will stake out a lot twenty-five feet by a hundred, and charge you hundreds of dol- lars for the bit. The market-place is a projecting thatched roof over the side of a one-story edifice. On mats sit brown old ladies with almost equally old-looking vegetables. Here are oranges, bananas, black beans, squash seeds boiled in molasses, a sort of candy, and other esculents, to me unknown. Among them is one called euchre. Never having known what that too-familiar word means in the no- menclature of the States, I thought I would find out its meaning in Yucatan, so I invested a six-and-a-quarter-cent bit in this game of chance. I received a piece of the root— for so I judged it to be— looking like a cross between a turnip and a carrot. It was white, of various shapes, round, square, long. My piece was about as large round as a child's wrist, and as long as its hand. I tasted it, and was satisfied with euchre as an article of diet. If others, on one taste of their sort, would as quickly discard it, they might safe- ly be left to make the experiment. But even my friend, the Rev. Mr. Murray, can not effect the prohibition of that appetite in that way. It is likely this would grow with tasting, as the other does, for it was sweet and not disagreeable, being like the turnip and carrot in nature as well as in looks. If it could replace the fatal fascination of its synonym, I should be glad to see it introduced into our country. The houses of Progresso are of one story, of mortar or thatch, MONTEZUMA AND CHOCOLATE. 29 covered with a high roof of thatch. This high roof is open inside, and makes them shady and cool. The sides are also often of thatch, and they look like a brown dwarf with a huge brown straw sombrero pulled over his eyes. Some of those built of mortar have ornamental squares in the sides, where shells are carefully set in various shapes in the mortar, and which make a pleasing effect, the diamonds and other shapes giving the walls a variety that is really artistic. Why could it not be imitated in larger buildings at home? One house had the word " Sepulcro " in large letters chalked along its front. " What does that mean ?" asks one of the party. The occupant was sick a long time, and the boys thought it was about time he had died, so they chalked that word along the door to express their conviction of his duty. He ought to be dead — dead he shall be called. A grave joke, that. Here I first tasted the sort of chocolate of which Montezuma was so fond, and which he took so thick as almost to make it an edible. A brown, brawny woman made us a cup of the same in a bamboo - sided, rush - roofed cafe'. It was worthy Montezuma's praise : Parisian chocolate takes the second place hereafter, and a good way below the first. It is prepared in milk, and is a thick, soft liquid that melts on your tongue and "goeth down sweetly, causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak." That dame would make her fortune by such a cafe in New York. But, then, she probably wishes for no fortune, and her secret, the secret of all the dames of the country, may never be revealed outside the land itself. You must come to Mexico to know how "chocolatte" can taste. The fields about Progresso have chiefly shrubs of the cactus order. Beautiful flowers of purple, yellow, and crimson abound. Here grows wild the heliotrope, the fragrant purple flower that is scattered so generally at funerals. The sweet-pea and other cul- tivated delights of the Northern hot-house and garden are blos- soming abundantly. The cocoa-palm throws out its long spines, deep green, thrust straight out from a gray trunk, that looks as if wrapped in old 3 o OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR. clothes against the cold. This gray bark is a striking offset to the dark, rich leaves, which are the branches themselves. Where these leaves push forth from the trunk, from ten to fifty feet from the ground, a cluster of green balls, of various sizes and ages, are hanging. This green rind is an inch thick. Then the black shell known to us is reached, and inside of that, not the thick white substance we find on opening it, but a thin soft layer, or third rind, the most of the hollow being filled with milk. Later in the season the milk coagulates to meat, and the cocoa-nut of com- merce is completed. It is cultivated extensively here, both for home use and the Northern market. The people are chiefly Indians, not of the Aztec, but Toltec va- riety. This is a nation hundreds of years older than the Aztecs, and who are supposed to be the builders of the famous monuments of Central America, and to have been driven from Mexico southward about a thousand years ago. They are of the usual Indian tint, but, unlike our aborigines, live in comfortable houses, are engaged in industrious callings, and dress in a comely manner. Both sexes wear white, the men and boys having often one leg of their trowsers rolled up, for what purpose we could not guess, unless it be for the more cleanly fording of the brooklets and mud- lets that occur. It was a token of neatness, if that was the reason, that was very commendable. The women wear a skirt of white, and a loose white waist sepa- rate from the skirt, and hanging sometimes near to the bottom of the under-garment. This over-skirt, or robe, is ornamented with fringe and borders worked in blue. The head-dress is a shawl or mantle of light cotton gauze, of blue or purple, thrown gracefully over the head and shoulders. One lady, evidently thinking well of herself and her apparel, had a ring on every finger of each hand, and gold ornaments hanging profusely from her neck. I have seen many ladies who, if they distributed the rings singly on each finger, would not find both hands sufficient for their display. This light- brown laughing madam had her limits seemingly, beyond which she would not go — eight rings and no more. A COCOA-NUT ORCHARD. 3I As a proof of the industry and intelligence of these natives, let us go to a hacienda, or farm, a mile out of town. Though it is a short walk, yet having ordered a fly for a longer ride, we employ it on this excursion. We did not take the carriage of the country, which is a basket on two wheels, about the size of a cot-bed, which cot-bed itself lies on the bottom of the basket, and on which sit the passengers. A wicker covering bends over about two - thirds of this bed ; the rest is open to sun and rain. Three mules abreast make this fly fly. Our three little mules drag a sort of covered coach on high springs, narrow and jolty. They run under the whip and scream of the muleteer. The gate of the hacienda is soon reached. A lazy Indian boy opens it. We rush between a green wall of co- coa-trees a score of rods to a thatched - built house, large, well- floored, high-roofed, clean. The brown lady of the mansion wel- comes us, and I try to buy a hammock. She asks three dollars. I have no gold, and she despises greenbacks, whether of Wash- ington or Havana. So the bargain fails. The same thing I have since seen offered in Boston for less money. It is cheaper some- times to buy your foreign curiosities after you get home. Her boys take us to a cocoa-nut orchard, pluck off the nuts, split them with a sharp cleaver, and pour their milk into a glass. We drink in honor of the host. An old man runs up to us, with nothing on him but a pair of white pants, a cleaver stuck in his girdle behind, and a straw hat. He offs hat with both hands, and bows low to the ground. Had Darwin seen him he would have protested that he was the man primeval, built ages before the En- glish Adam, who is (to Darwin) the height of attained, if not attain- able, civilization. His face looked very like a monkey's, and his posture also. Yet this ape of modern false science was a gentle- man of fortune, and industry, and sagacity, who had subdued five hundred acres of this wild land, and made himself a property worth six thousand dollars even here, many times that in the States. He raises hemp and cocoa-nuts, and is rich. His manners were gra- cious, and when he found he could not talk with us, he bid us 3 32 OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR. good-bye politely, and hastened away as fast as if he had a note to pay, and only five minutes more left to pay it in, and no money to pay it with. His boys remained, and waited on us. One of our party ottered him a couple of cigars, which he passed over to a little girl of his tenant's, being too much in a hurry, if not tQO much of a gentleman, to smoke. So our primitive gorilla disappears in a farmer of to-day. So will all scientific humbugs disappear. The chief business of this place is the raising of jenequen, or hemp, pronounced heneken. It has the thick, green, sharp leaf of the cactus. A large traffic has sprung up in it at this port ; not less than five thousand bales are exported annually to New York, or two million pounds. It is used in making ropes, and has a grow- ing and extensive value. It is worth six cents a pound here, and pays about ninety-five per cent, on its cost of culture, so that it is a very valuable article of commerce. Its finer varieties are as soft as silk. It is destined to be more and more a source of union be- tween Yucatan and the United States. We roll in the warm surf of the sea — a Christmas luxury not enjoyed at Newport and Long Branch, but which was delightful at Progresso — and dine at our friend, the collector's. There is no church in the place, and this chief man, though a Romanist, invites me to establish our church here. The chief cor- ner of the grand plaza is still unoccupied, and the Methodist ca- thedral can be built there. It shows our opportunities, at least, and the liberality of this people, though perhaps it is too much like the sort we find in Western towns, where they will give any body a church lot in order to make the other lots the more valuable. Yet these simple-hearted natives ought to have a Sunday-school and Christian teachings, songs, and ordinances ; and we hope some time to see the offer accepted, and such a church flourishing at Progresso. Some Christian body will undoubtedly take posses- sion of the field, as a preliminary to the city near by, which is white unto this harvest. Whoever enters into this inheritance will find a pleasant possession. Our day's delights have kept us beyond the hour appointed by RETURN TO THE STEAMER. 33 the captain, and we pull for the steamer with fears that she will pull away from us before we can reach her. The wind is contrary, the rowers weary, the night deepens, the waves roll, the lantern on the ship becomes a star. We fire pistol-shots and kindle paper, and they send up colored lights and fire the cannon. Our fires and shots they do not see or hear. Two hours of fear at being deserted, of questionings as to what to do in such extremity, of yet greater fears that the big black waves rolling high about and beneath us will roll bigger and blacker above us, of tests of in- ward quality of courage and faith, in which the most believing do not always prove the most courageous, and we come up at last, with great rejoicing, to the huge ship, with its many lights and warm cheer, looking like the palace of home and heaven, riding upon the waters of death. So may that palace yet welcome us all ! The stay-aboard company are thoroughly alarmed at our long absence. But when the fear and congratulations at our safety are over, they follow the example of the Irish mother and her lost child, so affectingly depicted by Hood, whose wailings over him lost are speedily replaced by scoldings at him found. To protect ourselves against their retorts, the rhymist of the party prepared, on the rolling deck, a defense, which, like all poetry, has permitted exaggerations mingled with its truth — a sort of wine-and-water fic- tion and fact that can be easily separated. As a memento of a lazy moment it may be worth inserting here. If one seeks to sing it, he can employ the tune of " My Maryland," which is the old college air of " Lauriger." " The scoffer's boat is off thy shore, Yucatan, my Yucatan ; Our feet are on the collector's floor, Yucatan, my Yucatan. His cocoa-milk and grapes are sweet, The cooling breezes gently greet, His household dames are mixed and neat, Yucatan, my Yucatan. 34 OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR. " The dinners that we find in thee, Yucatan, my Yucatan, Surpass all else in luxury, Yucatan, my Yucatan. There 're monkey tongues and lizard steak, And parrot's brains and chocolate ; What cdrne strange and delicate, In Yucatan, my Yucatan. " The jenequen is growing fine In Yucatan, my Yucatan, To make the hemp for rope and twine, Yucatan, my Yucatan. The hacienda, with its trees Of cocoa fluttering in the breeze, Whose fruit is tossed us by monkeys, That's Yucatan, my Yucatan. " There Darwin finds his primal man, In Yucatan, my Yucatan, Of monkey looks, but sharp as Yan', Yucatan, my Yucatan. He makes his bow with double grace, His pants alone are in their place, His gait is a Chicago pace, Yucatan, my Yucatan. " Rings on each finger and each toe, Yucatan, my Yucatan ; The ladies ornament them so, Yucatan, my Yucatan. White robes and thin to ankles go ; Night wrapped in day, a pleasant show j Such are the dames of Progresso, In Yucatan, my Yucatan. " Oh, 'tis a pleasant land to see, Yucatan, my Yucatan, Lying along that summer sea, Yucatan, my Yucatan. GOOD WISHES. 35 Long will its memories linger sweet Of flowers and shells, and mules so fleet, In our far-off and cold retreat, Yucatan, my Yucatan. " May churches, schools, and enterprise, Yucatan, my Yucatan, Gladden thy golden sands and skies, Yucatan, my Yucatan. May railroads, built by Palmer Co.:, Carry great crowds to Progresso, And Parish into parishes grow, In Yucatan, my Yucatan !" 3 OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR. III. THE SEA -PORT. Under the Cocoa-nut Palm. — The Plaza. — The Cathedral. — No Distinction on account of Color either in Worshiper or Worshiped. — The Watering-place of Cortez. — I low the Palm looks and grows. — Other Trees of the Tropics. — Home Flowers. — July Breakfast in January. — Per Contra, a Norther. — Its Utility. — Harbor and Fort. — Size and Shape of the City. — Its Scavenger. — Its Houses. — Street Life. — The Lord's Day. — First Protestant Service.— The Railroad Inauguration. My friend, Theodore Cuyler, has written many a racy talk for The Evangelist, with the heading "Under the Catalpa." He is outdone this time — a hard thing to do. He can not write " Under the Cocoa-nut Palm ;" nor can he write, as I might also, " Under the Tulipan," whose great scarlet blossoms are now blushing over my head ; nor " Under the Chinese Laurel," which a slight change in my seat would enable me to do; nor "Under the Australian Gum-tree," a tall elm-like tree, first brought here by Maximilian, and which rushes up to forty and sixty feet in a few years, in this hot air and soil. I have made a point on him, though it took many a point by sea and land, and many a mile from point to point, to gain even this slight advantage. I am sitting on a green slat-wood and iron lounge, such as are scattered about the Public Garden of Boston and the Central Park of New York, though they are not much occupied there after this fashion on this New-year's-day. The Plaza de la Constitu- tion, the only plaza of Vera Cruz, is where this bench is located, a square of about three hundred feet to a side, which is well filled with trees and shrubs of every sort of tropical luxuriance, with flowers of many hues and odors, a large bronze fountain in its cen- THE GOVERNOR'S PALACE. 37 tre, and benches girdling its circumference. Carlotta's gift is this, they say, to the city. The sun lies hot on the house-tops, and wherever it can strike a pavement. The general costume consists of a shirt and pants : the shirt white, short, plaited all around, and worn often by the peasantry on pleasure-days as an outer garment — a not unseemly arrangement. Every body is in gay costume, for is it not the first clay of the year ? And, in addition, does not the daily morning paper, named El Progresso, on the ground, probably, that it never 3$ OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR. progresses, declare that it is an extra festival-day, because on this day occurred the circumcision of Saint Odilon, and the birth of Saint Euphrosyne the Virgin ? Who these are, it does not deign to declare. But that sun creeps round the corner of the church on this seat, and blazes so fiercely that I must fly or be consumed. Another cocoa-nut palm welcomes me ; really another angle of the great church on the opposite side of the street. That church has just concluded its service — a service without song, or preaching, or audible prayer, or aught else but genuflex- ions and osculations, and mutterings and millinery. Yet it was filled with women and children dressed in their best attire, and in one respect was ahead of any church I have ever seen in America : all classes and colors meet together. On the same bench sits the Beacon Street lady, in her silks and laces, and the poor beggar in her blue tunic, with her mantle carefully brought up on her head in the church, " because of the angels." The Indian, Negro, Span- iard, all are here, often rolled together in one. Not the least dressed and genteel are these Indian dames of high degree. When shall our better type of faith and worship equal this in its one grand principle, " Ye are brethren ?" How hideous a mock- ery must a white and a colored church appear to the Lord, who is Maker and Saviour of us all ! The Romanist is putting this fact assiduously before the mind of our Southern caste -bound brothers. It is their only stronghold ; God give us strength to sur- pass them in this grace, as we have in all else. Not doing thus, we shall find our excellent ointment sending forth an offensive savor, and their offensive ointment surpassing ours in sweetness. Among the wax virgins of this sacristy is a negress, the adaptation of this Church to its votaries being thus signally marked. I have just returned from an excursion to Medillin, some twelve miles into the country, the summer watering-place of Vera Cruz. It is winter now, and out of season. From March to June that Saratoga reigns. The consul-general of Mexico, Dr. Skilton, and the consul of the port, Dr. Trowbridge, were my companions — two FRUITS AND FLOWERS. 39 physicians who won a high name in the army, and deserve and honor the stations they occupy. The air was soft as June, and our thin clothes, even to seersucker and linen, were all that we needed, and more. Flowers of every hue and fragrance blossomed along the way. The cocoa-nut palm abounded, of all heights and ages. The older ones had a smooth bark, made of its own dead leaves, crown- ed with long, bending branches, made up of spines like ribs going out of a backbone. It begins in these spines, and they seem to grow together as new ones shoot out, so that the trunk is itself a leaf. These leaves hang dead and loose in their upper edges, ragged and gray, but bind the trunk at their juncture. Every new burst of leaves gives a new cincture and a new raggedness. The rains wear off the rags, and the old trees stand smooth in bark, with the rings marked upon the bark of these successive growths of leaves. They are of every height, from a few feet to a hundred. You see on the ride many tall, wide - branching trees of the acacia tribe, with a light gauze leaf; others of deepest green, and wonderful for shade, which are not unlike the maple in shape, but are denser of color and shade. That is the mango, whose apple even the foreigners put as the front fruit of the world, and which, therefore, may have been the very apple that tempted Eve and ruined Adam. I have not yet followed the example my first mother and father set me, if this be the fruit, and I can not therefore say how strong was their temptation ; for though the leaf be green exceedingly, the time of the mango is not yet. The banyan, orange, banana, and other trees, too numerous to mention, especially when you do not know their names, throng the road to Medillin. The convol- vulus, or morning-glory, of every color covers the roadside, with its running vine and flowers. And there, on a little marsh, raises its sweet and lovely cup, the water-lily, blooming here just as de- liciously, and just as superior to all rivals, on this January the first, as it will blossom unrivaled in the ponds of New England the July following. 40 OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR. A stumpy old man brings a bouquet of roses, common blush and white, for which we pay two reals, or twenty-five cents, and that is as much again as he expected. In this we count thirty- eight large double roses in blossom, with buds many. Had that been bought for a New York table on this New-year's-day, it would hue cost nearer ten dollars. The country people are coming to town ; for it is somebody's feast-day, and the railroad opening too. This modern secular and ancient ecclesiastical holiday, joined together, is too much for the Aztec. So he has donned his spotless white, and she her spot- less gray ; for the female human bird, like the feathered biped, is here less gorgeously arrayed than its male. Off they tramp to the city. His shirt, plaited and polished before and behind, depends over like-lustrous trowsers, well buttoned on the side with tinkling bell-buttons that rattle, if they do not ring, to the music of his go- ing. Some are on horseback. Two trotting near the track get frightened at the cars, and back their steeds from the path. A broad ditch is behind the narrow way, and one of the horses plunges therein and tips his clean rider over into the black mush. A loud laugh is all the consolation he gets for the splash and its ruin of his holiday costume. Medillin is a town of sheds, roofed with thatch, and a few houses of brick or wood, with broad arcades for drinking, dancing, and gambling. The season not being on, none of these were going on, except a breakfast or two, which were excellent. It certainly- seemed out of place to wander round that open garden, full of roses and oranges and all manner of hot -house plants, on this New-year's morning, and to sit in the open hall, eating as delight- ful breakfast as my " International Moral Science Association " brother of Ireland ever got up at somebody else's expense. But the cool hall was a pleasant refuge from the heat, and we found the watering-place refreshing in January. A river, used for bathing, makes it the favorite resort of Vera Cruzians. Cortez frequented it, and built a chapel there. He seems to have done that every- where ; piety and impiety being nearly equal in him. THE "NORTHER." 4I As we go to the cars, I measure the leaves of lilies growing wild along the track. From the central joint to the tip, I could lay my arm from the elbow to the tip of the finger — just a cubit, or a foot and a half. The whole leaf was over two feet in length, and of corresponding breadth. This was the size of nearly all of them. An Indian and his wife were gathering oranges. Huge fruit, as big as small pumpkins, hung from bushes not unlike the quince. Such is this land; are you not home-sick for it? If so, let me make you contented to stay where you are, by trying to de- scribe that indescribable horror which you must or may encounter to get here. I had heard of simoons and cyclones, and hurricanes and Hat- teras storms, but till I touched this Gulf steamer I had never heard of a "Norther." I began to hear hints about its possibil- ity, and how, when it raged, no ship could leave Havana or land at Vera Cruz ; that it occurred about every four or five days this season of the year, and that every seaman disliked and even dreaded it. Our vessel had pushed on a swift and even keel to the last day but one. I was about concluding that the semi - qualmish state would not develop any more violent stages, and was even getting ready to follow Byron, and stroke the mane of this wild beast of the world, that rages and devours from shore to shore — even as a scared child, holding firmly to the parental arms and legs, may rub its tiny hand on the neck of the huge dog that has frightened it — when, lo ! at five o'clock in the morning, after leaving Progresso, I was slung violently up and down, clinging in desperation to the door of the room, which was, fortunately, fastened back to my berth. The ship seemed on its beam -ends. Up and down she rlung herself in a rage of fear or madness. Up and down we fol- lowed, sick and scared. After much ground and lofty tumbling, the berth is abandoned, with great reeling and sickness, for the deck. Perched among the shrouds that lash the base of the mast, or reeling along the side of the drunken vessel, I enjoy the Norther. The sea is capped with 42 OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR. foam ; the waves leap short and high ; the boat goes down these sharp and sudden hills of water, and is hurled back on its haunch- es by trying to mount the hills coming up on the other side of the hollow. How she staggers and falls down, and picks herself up and is knocked down again, and blindly rears and as blindly falls ! Her freight has been chiefly left at Havana and Progresso, and so she behaves worse than she might have otherwise done. I had never seen so crazy a creature on the sea. I thought the long swells of the Atlantic, the short surges of the Mediterranean, and even the chopping waves of the English Channel and the Huron Bay bad enough, but this Mexican Norther excelled them all. Do you wish to pay that toll to see this garden ? It will pay ; for sea- sickness, like toothache, never kills. There was not much done that day except to lurch with the lurching ship. " Now we go down, down, downy, and now we go up, up, uppy." Now on your back, and now on your face. Still we contrived to sit it through, and to have a good talk on religion with a Boston gentleman, who, like so many of his city, had no religion to talk about, being not Christian, nor even Pagan, not so much infidel, as faith-less: not anti-believing as non-believing. Like that ignorant backwoodsman who, being asked if he loved the Lord Je- sus, honestly replies, " I've nothing agin him." Yet he that is not for Him, having known of Him, is against Him, and so non-Chris- tianity is anti-Christianity. How much is Christian faith needed in that Christian town ! And what a record have they to meet who have taken away our Lord, and given the people a stolid self-reliance, or more stolid fatalistic indifference as their only religion ! But our lively friend could sing— what Bostonian can not, since the Jubilee? — and he mingled " Stabat Mater," "Coronation," and camp -meeting mel- odies in a pure Yankee olla-podrida. May this song-gift yet lead the singer to the grace it springs from and to ! Toward night the winds and waves abated slightly, and after midnight they lulled to sleep. But long after the Norther had blown itself away, the waves rolled slow and steady but deep and A GOOD WORD FOR THE NORTHER. 43 long, as if they themselves were tired out, and the steamer swung to and fro evenly and weariedly. As the storm is gone, so -that more violent one of sin shall blow over, and the race of man, like a convalescent but tired child in the arms of its mother, shall rock itself to sleep in the arms of its Saviour, God. Cowper's words, so befitting that sick and weary ship-company, are not an unbefitting prophecy. I was comforted with them as I lay in that tossing berth : "Six thousand years of sorrow have well-nigh Fulfilled their tardy and disastrous course Over a sinful world; and what remains Is merely as the working of a sea Before a calm that rocks itself to rest." Are our present waves the passing away of this Norther of sin ? Is the level sea of universal grace and goodness appearing? It is ; but perhaps many a Norther must yet rage before the heavenly and perpetual calm prevails. A good word may be said for most of God's creatures, and the Norther has its bright side. But for it, Vera Cruz could not exist. It may create qualms on shipboard, but it drives away the yellow fever on shore. Its coming concludes that pestilence, though it is said to also conclude the lives of all prostrated with the disease at its coming, their relaxed system succumbing to its over-tonical force. So we may accept the lesser evil in view of the greater blessings that it brings, and rejoice that Northers rage in the Gulf of Mexico. The reason why this storm prevents a landing is that there is no real harbor here, and the situation of the port is such that the north wind drives the waves straight on and over the mole, its only dock, which is a few hundred feet long. The waters rise and roll over this wharf, and prevent all landing. Indeed, the waves could hardly allow a boat upon them, were a landing possible, so high they mount. When it is on, communication ceases, and visit- ors to the ship, or sailors on the shore, have no means of getting to 44 OCA' NE XT-DOOR NEIGHBOR. their own place. Yet all this could be cured by a few score thousand dollars. The castle lies two miles, perhaps, from the shore, and reefs extend a third of the way toward it on the north- ern side. A breakwater could easily be built over the rest of the way, and the harbor of Vera Cruz laugh at the peril of the north wind, and enjoy its refreshment. Some time the government will make this' improvement. Yet " manana" (to-morrow), they would say here : their word for all enterprises and duties. Our Norther has subsided, and we enter the sunny bay, on the last Saturday morning in December, as warm and delicious a morning as ever broke over New York Bay in June, as George L. Brown's painting of that city superbly represents. The walls of the city of the True Cross break on the eye — a speck of superior white- ness amidst the glittering sand-dunes that inclose it, but a white- ness that does not increase as you approach. Small palms scant- ily scatter themselves among the sand-hills, and thin grass and a parched vegetation, though far-away hills lift a solid terrace of green to your fascinated eyes, and, towering over all, Orizaba raises its snow-capped spear, a peak of unequaled beauty. All the zones are around and before you, from Greenland to Abyssinia. The harbor is empty of shipping ; only four or five vessels lie on its dangerous sea. The famous castle, San Juan d'Ulloa, is a large, round fortress, of a dingy yellow. A castle impregnable, it is said, except to assault, which was never attacked that it was not taken. Cortez professed to expend thirteen millions upon it ; and Charles the Fifth, once calling for his glass, and looking through it, west- ward, was asked what he was looking for. " San Juan d'Ulloa," he replied. " I have spent so much on it, that it seems to me I ought to see it standing out on the western sky." We anchor off the costly folly, and are greeted by officials and friends. Boats soon put us on the mole, and we are in the sea-port of the United States of Mexico. This city consists of sixty acres, be they more or less, inclosed with a begrimed wall, from ten to twenty feet in height. Boston Common is not far from the size of Vera Cruz ; its burned district STREETS AND ARCADES OF VERA CRUZ. 4? considerably larger. It has one principal street running back from the shore a single block. A horse railway passes down this Cade Centrale once a half hour or so, and for a real, or twelve and a half cents, takes you the near a mile that street extends. But it takes no one, as ail who have money have no desire to leave the block or two about the plaza; and all who are obliged to go from centre to circumference have no money. So the Spanish Yankee fails of success in this enterprise. One street runs parallel with the Centrale the entire length of the city, and two shorter ones fill out the arc that the rear wall makes. Eight or ten cross these at right angles. That is all of the True Cross, viewed geographically. Numerically, it has fifteen thou- sand inhabitants, of whom over one thousand are foreigners, and only about five thousand can read or write. The Indian popula- tion predominates in numbers, and the Spanish in wealth and in- fluence, though the Mexican is a conglomerate of both, and each in its separate or blended state is without social degradation or dis- tinction. Its chief street has two arcades, with little markets and tables for brandy or coffee sippers. It has a score or two of stores, some with quaint names, such as " El Pobre Diabolo " (The Poor Devil), over a neat dry-goods house, whose merchant thereby humbly con- fesses he does not make over " one per shent " on every two. An- other has B. B. B. as his initials : " Bueno, Bonito, Barato " (good, pretty, cheap). The streets are narrow, as they should be in hot countries. Tiny rivulets trickle down their centres, and disinfectants in the sickly season nightly cleanse these open sewers. Another and a more important source of its cleanliness is the buzzard. I had been taught to detest the buzzard, perhaps be- cause it was black. I had heard how unclean a thing it was, and was exceedingly prejudiced against it. But I find, to my surprise, that here this despised and detested creature is the sacred bird, almost. It darkens the air with its flocks, roosts on the roofs, towers, steeple-tops, everywhere. A fine of five dollars is levied 4 4 S OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR. against one who shoots one of them. It is the most privileged in- dividual of the town. The reason why? It is the street -cleaner. It picks the offal from gutter or sidewalk, and nothing escapes its hungry maw. Its business may not be cleanly, but its person is. li never looks soiled, but its black wings shine, and its beak is as white as "store teeth." It looks like a nice house-maid whose service does not make her soiled. It is a large bird, looking like the turkey, though of a different species, and of a broad, swift wing, that sustains it in long flights. It appears very solemn, the priest of the air, especially when it sits on the cross of the churches, one on each arm frequently, and one on the top. Once I saw two thus sitting on the top, one on the other, as quiet and churchly as though each were carved in stone. Hood says, "The daw's not reckon'd a religious bird, Because it keeps a-cawing from the steeple." But the buzzard comes nearer that desert, and by its solemn air, clerical garb, and sanitary service, may claim a place in, as well as on, the sanctuary. Perhaps some foes of the cloth might say its greediness and determination to have the last mite, if alive, was also a proof of this relationship. At any rate, unlike the daw, it is the protected if not the petted bird of the city, and helps keep off the pestilence, which has a blacker hue and more horrible na- ture than the worst of its enemies ever attributed to it. Honor to this faithful black servant of man, as to those featherless bipeds of like hue, that are more worthy of our praise for their more excel- lent service. The houses hug the narrow sidewalks, each with a large portal opening into a roofless court, and with windows scantily piercing their second story. They very rarely go higher. Not a building inclosing the chief plaza is above this height. Hotel, warehouse, and governor's residence close with the second story. The third occasionally appears ; but fourth and fifth, up to seventh and eighth, with Mansard roofs — two stories more — these Paris and New York luxuries are here unknown. Why? Because the earth gets THE HORSE-CAR THE ONLY VEHICLE. 49 sea-sick here. Ex-President Hill's theory, that a fire is fed from below, and must be put out by pouring water on its base, and not on its summit, obtains here in regard to earthquakes. The earth shakes from below, and would topple down these towers on the haughty heads that dared to lift them. up. So the city well-nigh reaches the Sybarite perfection Edward Everett Hale approves, and is hardly ever over two stories, and is much of it of his perfect perfection of one story. These houses are of mortar or stone, all of them, and very broad of base and thick of wall. They hug the earth so close that she can not throw them off. She must tip her- self clean over, before she can turn these houses on the heads of their builders. Those builders' heads were level, and their works are also. The wind flows through the open windows, cool as the midsum- mer sea-breeze — never cooler. The streets have donkeys, carrying water in kegs, milk in bottles, charcoal (their only fuel) in bags, grasses for thatch, and other burdens. A carriage I have not yet seen. One is said to exist here, but it is not visible to the naked eye. A few horses are used, chiefly by the haciendados, or farmers, riding into town. Even the ladies turn out on foot to the grand reception to the President on the opening of the railway to the capital. The horse-car is the only vehicle, and that is useless. The city is a Venice, but for its mules and asses. The fountain at the head of Calle' Centrale is a favorite resort for these few beasts, and for many water-carriers. There is abun- dance of water ; and nowhere in this country, or any country, are there cleaner streets or superior baths. Yet buzzard and bath, free fountain and washed street, do not keep off the yellow fever. The walls, some think, cause it, as they shut out the winds — the only thing they do shut out, every foe easily subduing them. They should be leveled, if they kill thus those they pretend to pro- tect. The business of the city is quite large. Some houses do a mill- ion and a half a year ; for here come about all the goods of Europe and America that enter Mexico. Put the houses that get the trade 5° OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR. FOUNTAIN AT VERA CRUZ. are foreign, and chiefly German, so lhat the people of the country are still poor, poorer, poorest. The Lord's Day is an unknown institution in Vera Cruz. The Spaniards have given it the right name, properly distinguishing between the Sabbath, which they give to Saturday (Sabbato), and the Lord's Day (Domingo). We could follow their example. It would save much debate, and clarify and steady many a con- science, if we could see the Lord's Day in our nomenclature. We should then perceive its sacred delight and obligation. Yet if it turned out with us as with these, the name had better be left un- changed. Stat nominis sacri umbra ; and only that shadow stands. All else is gone. The shops are open, the workmen busy. The church is attended once, as in the mummeries this morning. Then the circus came riding down the street ; the clown and two pretty A VISIT TO THE CEMETERY. 5 , boys ahead, preparatory to performing outside the walls. It was the first band of music I had heard on Sunday since that which awoke me in Detroit last summer. How sad and striking the re- semblance ! Shall our German infidelity and mis-education make our land like Mexico ? Or shall a holy faith and a holy life make this land like the New England of our fathers ? As Mr. Lincoln said, "Our nation must be all slave or all free ;" and as One infinitely greater said, "A house divided against itself can not stand ;" so America, North and South, the United States and Mexico, must be all Christian in its Sabbath sanctity, or all dia- bolic. I walked out in the afternoon to the cemetery, feeling that the best church and congregation were to be found there. The way led over the alameda, or a short bridge across a tiny stream, which is lined with young cocoa-nut palms, and stone seats for loungers. Here Cortez once built a bridge ten feet or so long, for which he charged the government three millions of dollars, making even Tweed lower his haughty front before this Castilian grandeur of thieving. The Church of Christ stood a little beyond, with huts of the poor near it — a church where funeral services are mostly performed. A poor old man was kneeling on a bench near the door, with arms outspread, and agonized face, muttering ear- nestly. Oh that he could have been spoken to, so that he might have been taught the way of life more perfectly, and might have gone down to his house justified and rejoicing in the Lord Jesus, to whom not one of his muttered prayers was addressed ! The Street of Christ leads out half a mile to the Campo Santo. Well-named is that street, if lowliest people are nearest him, and if the grave is his triumphant goal. The walls of the grave yard are high and deep. Tall obelisks stand at either corner. The dead sleep not in the open area, which is unoccupied, but in the walls. Tablets cover the recess that incloses the coffin, and words of tenderness rather than of faith bedew the marble. Not the highest faith. No such beautiful words as are found on the monuments of the saintlv dead of Prot- 52 OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR. estant climes shine forth here. Northampton has no rival here, that choicest of grave-yards in its simplicity of elegance and rich- ness of Scriptural and Christian quotation. Mount Auburn is sur- passed, however. I heard the Misses Warner once say they had found scarcely any motto of Scriptural faith and hope in that cem- etery. It is as stony in its faith as in the hewn and polished walls that engirt each tiny lot. It has marble dogs, and granite sphinxes, and bass-relief expressmen, wreathed pillars, and statues of men of renown, but rare is a monument or a line of faith. It will strike others thus. Edwards, and Fisk, and Wayland ought to stand in marble among its statues, and Christianity speak from its faithless, glittering graves. Let those whose believing dead are buried there make them preach their faith from their sepulchres. Yet in the Campo Santo itself I found food for meditation, if not in its inscriptions. I gathered its flowers, growing wild and beau- tiful over its area, and returned as from a Sabbath-day's journey, strengthened in the Gospel truth and work. That evening, through the kindness of the American consul, a congregation of nearly thirty gathered in his rooms, and held a Christian service. " Rock of Ages " and " Jesus, lover of my soul," were sung, and the word spoken from " To you that believe, he is precious." It was the first service the Holy Catholic (not Roman) Church ever held in that city. It was good to be there, as many felt. We found young men at work on the railroad who were members of the Baptist Church. Those who were, in order or education, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Episcopalians, were also present. It seemed as if the day-star was about to arise over this long-darkened soil. If schools were established here by Christian teachers, and a service held regularly in English, the nucleus of a church would be organized, and the work soon be extended to the native population. This first Christian service has not proved the last. Already the Presbyterians have a flourishing mission. Oth- ers will doubtless follow. The city is putting on its best bib - and - tucker, for to-morrow President Lerdo de Tejada is to arrive, and great is to be the re- NON-ARRIVAL OF THE PRESIDENT. 53 joicing. The government residences are being tastefully arrayed, and coats of white, yellow, and blue wash are spread over all the buidings surrounding the square. I never knew before how easily and cheaply one can renew the face of a soiled wall. That cathe- dral looks as if built yesterday. True, if it should rain to-night, it would be badly streaked, but it can not rain, for "To-morrow will be the happiest day of all the glad New-year ; To-morrow will be, of all the year, the maddest, merriest day ;" For Vera Cruz is joined to Mexico, and Lerdo comes this way. This last line is not in Tennyson. To-morrow came, but not the President. Every body dressed himself in his best : the streets were trimmed with lanterns ; a green pavilion was arranged at the station ; but he came not. Announced at ten, re-announced at five, the soldiers marched down the streets, all colors, officers and privates, and all mixed together, just as they ought to be in the United States. The people fill the balconies, house-tops, and walls. The boys jeer, and hoot, and whistle, as if they were Yankees. Still he comes not. Somebody drops a real in the passage-way, kept open for him by the soldiers, and a bit of a black boy, very pretty and very prettily dressed, is pushed out for it by older boys, white and olive, who dare not risk the attempt themselves. A soldier holds him back. His mother, a bright, comely lady, stands behind him, watching him with mingled fear and admiration. She is afraid those olive- colored gamins, of fourteen years or thereabouts, full of roguery and rascality, will burn her boy's fingers in pulling that most de- sirable silver chestnut out of the martial fire. While all, officers, soldiers, lads, and loungers, are intent on that shining mark, a bright boy, dirty and brown, in the employ of the street lamp-lighters, comes down the path to help locate some tem- porary lamp-posts, sees the real, catches it, and is off, amidst the lauerh of the crowd. So the successful man is often the last on the field of conflict. It grows dark, and we give it up, and so do many others. At 54 OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR. eight he comes, but nobody sees him, and Vera Cruz has spent a day in waiting, and spent it in vain. The sound of the vesper bells Moats sadly into my ears, as I write close under the towers of the Cortez Cathedral. How long before more Christian bells shall sweetly summon more Christian disciples to a more Christian worship ? How long ? The opening for Christian work is not surpassed by that of any city. It should be taken possession of by the true Church of the True Cross. The foreign element alone would make a large con- gregation. They can all understand English. The natives are horribly neglected, and would respond to earnest missionary effort. It is the sea-port of the country, and many sailors visit it. The danger from yellow fever is not great. Gentlemen who had re- sided there fifteen years laughed at the fear of strangers. It is certainly no greater for ministers than for merchants. It is a good centre of influence and departure. It should be speedily oc- cupied. Let Cortez's dream be fully answered, and Vera Cruz preach and practice the perfect gospel of Christ crucified. DANGERS OF STAGING. 55 IV. THE HOT LANDS. • From Idleness to Peril. — Solitud. — Chiquihuiti. — Tropical Forests. — The Falls of Atoyac. — Wild Beasts non sunt. — Cordova and its Oranges. — Mount Ori- zaba. — Fortin. Vera Cruz soon wearies. Even the generous hospitality of our consul, whose table and couch have been mine for days, could not make it lovely long. The mountains draw like the Loadstone Mountain of the "Arabian Nights." The consul-general comes from the capital, and by due persuasion is enticed not to wait for the president's return, but to climb back after the old fashion, the stage-coach and the robber ; for though the railroad is finished, that does not insure one a ride over it. Until the president re- turns over it, no one can, except he gets passage in a dirt-car, and takes the mountain morning coldness, without shelter, and almost without a seat. How long we may have to wait for his return, quien sabel — (who knows?) — the universal answer here to all in- quiries, as manana is to all orders. So we get as far as is allowed us on the railway, and then take to the stage. There are several reasons prompting us to this course. The stage is a vanishing institution. A week or two hence there will be no staging between the sea-port and the capital. We must in- dulge it now or never. Then we are told it is exceedingly dan- gerous. Robbers abound, and they will not fail to lose their last opportunity to black-mail the coach. So it will give the romance of peril essential to a first-class excitement. It is also a horrible road, and men affirm that they would endure any torment they or their friends could be subject to, especially the latter, rather than make the trip again — and then go and make it. Why not we? 5 6 OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR. It has, too, the cumbres, or mountain precipices, so steep that we are led to imagine the stage will tumble off by sheer pull of gravitation and centre of motion ; the passengers rolling down, back first, faster by much than they rolled up. The peril of those " who gather samphire, dreadful trade," must be encountered, or Mexico is not truly done. And, lastly, the ride all night in a crowded coach full of garlic and tobacco and pulqui, and all abominable stenches, is set forth to frighten the novice from the attempt. But it only whets his appetite. The water feeds the flame, which has got so hot. " The more thou dam'st it up the more it burns." The ride in a coach full of dirty and offensive natives, over horri- ble roads, up precipices that incline the other way, they are so steep, among robbers, all night long — it shall be taken, and it is. Any thing to get out of Vera Cruz. That orange is sucked thrice dry. My companion attends the governor's soiree in honor of the president until two of the morning, and I turn him out of bed at three to take the unwelcome trip. We start at about four, sleepily and snugly tucked away in the luxurious cushions of an English rail-carriage. For night-riding, or any other, this sort is superior to the low-backed seats of the American car, though inferior to our sleeping-coaches. A nice nap, and the day wakes up, and so do we. The landscape stands forth in its summer warmth of color. We are out on the Tierras Calientes, or Hot Lands. Thev are mod- erately level, seemingly thin of soil, but probably more dry than thin. The dog-tree abounds, and is in full blossom. Its white flowers look lovely, and make one fancy that something like peach- trees are growing wild over all the country. Solitud, some twen- ty-five miles out, is a station where coffee, cakes, bananas, and or- anges are disposed of to the half-sleepy passengers. It was at this place that the French, English, and Spanish ambassadors held the convention which resulted in the invasion of Mexico by Maxi- milian. They made but little, in pocket or fame, by that attempt to TROPICAL VERDURE. 57 resist the Americanizing of America. It will be the last effort put forth by Europe for the colonizing of this continent. From Isabel- la to Victoria, for nearly four hundred years, the attempt has been kept up. The seed is well sown. Its future growth must be from our own soil. The crowned heads must lay their crowns at the feet of this crownless one, on whose head are many crowns. The land lies idle and desolate for fifty miles. It is undoubtedly susceptible of culture, for rich tropical trees, with their heavy foliage, are not infrequent, and the open pastures are fit for grazing, and occasion- ally feed a few cattle. But the insecurity of property blights all the land. You can hardly cultivate bananas close to your door with- out fear of losing your crop through the wild marauders of the region. Life is of no consequence to them, compared with a few oranges or cocoa-nuts, and so the region is almost without inhab- itant. At the distance of about fifty miles the mountains draw near, the first terrace above the plains of the sea. Chiquihuiti (pronounced Chee-kee-whee-tee) rises along the land- scape, cutting the edge of the lowlands as sharply as a house-front cuts the land out of which it arises. This is the beginning of the table-lands of Mexico, and of the snow-capped volcanoes of Popo- catepetl and Orizaba. We wind up into it, and are astonished by the profusion of its tropical verdure. The scanty gleanings of the lowlands had not prepared me for this superabundance. The gorges are deep, the heights lofty, and from lowest depth to top- most height there is a flood of green. Such trees and leaves I had not imagined possibre in midsummer, and this was midwin- ter. The trees were compact together, some of familiar forms, such as oak and birch, but of unfamiliar richness. Others among them were new members of the family. The acacia-tree was the largest and the most prolific in species, and it spread itself in huge branches, and towered above its fellows as by natural mastery. Yet it is light of substance, and some of these iron-like woods un- doubtedly and justly despise their vain brother. Many sorts of these hard woods are here, awaiting the horrid steam saw-mill that 5 8 OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR. shall eat them all up, and ship them to New York, and make this green, grand wilderness a desolation. How sorry I am to be compelled to think that some Yankee speculator in lumber from Bangor to Brainerd will read these lines, and be up and off in the next steamer for Vera Cruz and the splen- did woods of Chiquihuiti ! Cortez did not sigh more for Mexican silver than these lumbermen will for these mahoganies, and rose- woods, and other equally polishable delights. Black-walnut will be of no account when the Mexican lumber reaches the Northern market. Give us a good fill, dear ancient forests, of your green de- lights, for the Yankee wood-sawyer is coming, and you will soon be no more. The roadside is lined with immense palms, whose leaves are each themselves almost a covering for the body, while the castor- oil-tree spreads its broad wing along the way, hated of all youth, loved of not all doctors. Convolvuli of every hue throw their vines and flowers over these palms and taller trees. Our old morning-glories were growing wild, and make our path a perpetual "pleached bower" of beau- ty. The orchids hang on the taller trees, or sit in nests in the crotch, parasitic plants of every color making the tree into nose- gays. They are a fungus, and seem to prefer decayed trees ; per- haps themselves decay them. Some that are stripped of leaf and bark glow like a June rose-bed in the radiance of these curious plants. There are hundreds of varieties, and have attracted of late much attention from botanists, and have even got into litera- ture. About ten miles up, the road winds round a gorge that sinks hundreds of feet below, and whose upper side comes together in the Falls of Atoyac. This is one of the most beautiful water-falls I have ever seen ; I might say the most beautiful. It is not stripped of its trees, as is Minnehaha, who sits shivering in her nakedness, as unhappy as the Greek Slave. Nor does it come, like that, from a level land- scape. The hills rise all around it a thousand feet and more. THE FALLS OF A TOY AC. 59 The sides of these hills from base to peak are densely covered with trees, whose leaves are almost a solid mass of green. The white water leaps from this green centre a hundred or two feet, into a curling, foaming river, and into a darkling mirror of a pool. The whole scene is embraced in one small circumference, and you seem to pause trembling on the bridge that spans a side of the ravine, before you plunge into a tunnel, hanging hundreds of feet OLD BRIDGE OF ATOYAC. above the lovely spectacle, with an admiration that is without par- allel in any small fragment of American scenery. May the Mexi- can Government preserve the balls of Atoyac and their enchanting- surroundings from the knife and the factory of the spoiler. Are there monkeys or wilder beasts in these woods, or parrots, or birds of paradise ? Of course they will all tell you that they abound. I3ut when you ask one if he ever saw any, he shrugs his shoulders. 60 OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR. One gentleman says : " I ate armadillo steaks in a cabin on top of that mountain overhanging the Falls of Atoyac ;" but he did not kill the choice lizard, and so I receive his assertion with some in- credulity. Every body says monkeys are here, but nobody says he has seen them. They say that they have retreated away from the railroad, a sad reflection on Darwin's theory ; for should they not accept the higher life to which their posterity have attained, and be