♦♦♦. ♦Ivt*. ♦%♦♦ :ti:i»Sj..'i?i»?!^Mllj. .♦l^l JOURNEY E'H'BLICHFELDT ^j^ *^,«^' THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES I / -ix ,^ Mi which immediately began to grow, the waterways about it being filled up to make streets. Little by little, through the centuries, the lakes have receded, the canals have been filled, more or less successful drain- age has been effected, until it is harder to con- ceive the ancient city, with waterways regu- larly intersecting its streets, and beyond, upon the two "inland seas," one salt, one fresh, the myriad canoes bringing in their tribute, — this is even harder than to imagine Ely or some of the other cathedral towns of England as formerly upon islands. The drainage canal which makes the chief guarantee of security against flood and fever, was contemplated as early as the fourteenth century, begun in 1G07, abandoned and re- V3G SIGHT-SEEING AT THE CAPITAL begun under different authorities, including that of Maximilian, and at last finished by President Diaz, in 1896, at a cost of sixteen million dollars. It does not prevent the soil from being marshy, so that cellars are impos- sible and the death rate, though reduced from 60 per thousand to 18 per thousand, is still more than it would be if the city were on higher ground not far away. One may give only qualified belief to the theory that vagrant cows trod out the city plan of Boston; but clearly enough the site of Mexico was deter- mined when jealous neighbors of the Aztecs would not let them settle anywhere else. Why the Spaniards clung to the unwholesome choice is less clear. One viceroy in the sixteenth century asked permission of the crown to move the capital to a better situation where are now the suburbs of San Angel and Tacubaya; but by that time, so far had growth proceeded, the change would have cost $50,000,000 and it was forbidden by the ungenerous monarch as impractical. The Alameda, the other center, is a more aristocratic park, very beautiful, and associa- ted in sentiment with Carlota, who did much to improve it. Just before reaching it, on the 137 A MEXICAN JOURNEY way from the Zocalo, one sees the only mod- erately impressive though very costly post office, too much lightened and weakened in ap- pearance by broken surfaces and open spaces near the top, but really one of the best post- office buildings in the world. The interior provokes no criticism. Its superb marble, Italian bronze gratings, and richness of mate- rial throughout, together with the general plan, suggest a building for some art purpose rather than for the business of a government department ; but it serves no less well for that. The eight-million-dollar theater at the east end of the Alameda is a thing to challenge ad- miration at once. Let us hope no one will insist on gilding its statuary or otherwise ruin- ing its delicate beauty. Its curtain, a wonder- full glass mosaic picture of the mountains Popocatepetl and Ixtaccihuatl, as they loom before the city, was made by Tiffany in New York. One cannot help wondering what use will be made of so fine a theater when it is finished, seeing that Mexico has no drama worthy of the name and no native actors worth mentioning. Suggestion has been made and I think a semi-official promise been given that first-class companies from the United 138 SIGHT-SEEING AT THE CAPITAL States will be offered the use of the building free, except for the cost of lighting. If the government does this, the educative effect should be considerable. Good opera, indeed, especially Italian opera, is already heard and appreciated — I heard Tetrazzini in Mexico before she had ever sung in New York. How- ever, every Latin- American capital must have its costly national theater, so why cavil as to what shall be done with it? It is a conven- tional ornament. To speculate on what could have been done in the way of model tenements with the millions spent here is equally idle. The tenements will come; and the children of the poor will be taught to live otherwise than wallowing in filth. For the beautifully clean asphalt streets of Mexico do run close to only half-hidden wretchedness with which the worst negro alley in our own vaunted Washington is not to be compared. The people are not descended from the cleanly Mayas, but from the less scrupulous Aztecs; they have long been living in conditions alien to them, of which they are neither the makers nor the mas- ters and which give little room for dignified human life. So in looking at them one is grateful for visions of the people in the mar- 139 A MEXICAN JOURNEY ket of Tehuantepec, or even, oppressed as they are, those in the fields of Yucatan, Let us not be accused of wandering far from the Alameda, for, as just intimated, we have turned but a little aside. I was happy enough to know this lovely park when one could pass all along it without being startled, amazed, and shocked by the colossal statue of Juarez which now fronts Avenida Juarez at about the middle point of the southern edge. Colossal as is the statue, one feels what must be the instant effect when a great wreath, not of marble but of gold, is clapped down upon its head by one of the like- wise colossal angels. There are urns, also of gold, that claim at least as much attention as the central figure, and there are two lions be- ing relentlessly crushed by a weight on the small of their backs. One fancies that some enemy of Juarez must have had to do with this hideous perpetration. If the gold leaf could be all removed, the total effect would be less than half as bad. The Juarez statue is representative of many things. Mexican aptitude for drawing, design, pen-work, wood carving, painting and all allied arts, on the side of mere facility, is 140 SIGHT-SEEING AT THE CAPITAL almost unbelievable to an American. There is hardly a school where some boy cannot draw the teacher either in likeness or in carica- ture as he chooses. There is no church society or other little local group that cannot have a memorial or memento nicely engrossed with- out going outside its own membership. The love of color and of ornament is everywhere. So it is with music. Every village has its brass band. The tattered peons will stand for hours listening to music that, in the United States, would be too good to be popular. The military bands of Mexico play not only with zest, but with soul, and are acknowledged to be among the best in the world. To hear the national anthem played as they often play it is to hear a thing which will never be for- gotten. But restraint of taste seems lacking among rich and poor, ignorant and educated. Women overdress. Men make display pup- pets of themselves. Apart from the outside severity of the conventional dwelling, architec- ture tends to the ornate, the overglorified. This is not a universal indictment; it is a state- ment of general observation. The emotional susceptibility, the responsiveness, the manual dexterity, the mental ingenuity, and the tem- 141 A MEXICAN JOURNEY peramental patience being iindoiibtedl}^ pres- ent, there would seem reason to hope that increase of general culture, and a fuller liberation of the spirit of the nation as democ- racy advances, will bring in larger creative- ness than we matter-of-fact Americans have yet attained. The really superb achievements in painting at times when conditions were at all favorable, are a promise of this. Sculp- ture, of course, is a severer test, and architec- ture the severest of all. Up and down the Alameda on Sunday morning walk the "quality" of Mexico City, listening to the best band in the Republic. On Sunday afternoon the same people ride be- hind Kentucky-bred and other thoroughbred horses, though usually in quaint, comfortable carriages, out past the Alameda, along the Paseo de la Reforma, past the great bronze statue of Charles V of Spain, and that of the valiant Cuauhtemoc, through splendid avenues of trees, to Chapultepec. To Chapultepec, in a hired coach, an inexpensive thing in Mexico City, let us betake ourselves. There, at sun- down, leaning over a parapet on one of the inclined approaches to the castle, aware of its reminiscent though not dreadful shadow be- 142 SIGHT-SEEING AT THE CAPITAL hind us, aware of the sad, sempiternal great trees below, we will gaze off to the tender color and stupendous bulk of Popocatepetl and his consort, the White Lady (Ixtacci- huatl ) , as they float in the haze and last glow of evening. Here Montezuma took his ease. He must have walked often at nightfall under those same trees, which are a thousand years old. Here Maximilian and Carlota dreamed their dreams. Here, it may be, American soldier boys, in 1847, rested after a not too glorious fray and forgot to question the wherefore of present commands in musing upon "the old woe of the world." Change has written its record here as surely if not in as hard characters as on the Palatine or the Ac- ropolis. Yet the cypress trees live and grow, with a kind of melancholy vigor which proph- esies long continuance and succession of their kind to witness the coming and the passing of many another generation and perhaps still changing races of men. Those who profess to know a gay capital when they see it declare that Mexico City is not such. It has its clubs, its cafes, its showy balls, its handsome women, its glare of lights at night, its bullfight on Sunday in the 143 A MEXICAN JOURNEY largest bull ring in the world, and its various other pleasures and vices. Its people are vivacious and, in the main, happy even when a political cloud of dread omen hangs over them. Hardly any people can be more lavish in expenditure for play or more extravagantly overdressed. That a strain of seriousness, bordering on melancholy, and quite distinct from the heavy solemnity ascribed to the English in proverbs, does seem present even in their enjoyment cannot be denied. So perhaps Mexico is not a gay capital. I am sure that neither New York nor Washington is gay. Perhaps Paris or Monte Carlo, analytically considered, is not. Nothing is gay that is not naive, spon- taneous, youthful; and Mexico has memories enough to make it old. 144j XI THE GOVERNMENT IT has already been said that the national memory of Mexico before the coming of Cortez is largely tradition. The country was under the baneful domination of Spain from 1521, when the subjugation of the Az- tecs was completed, to 1821, when Augustin de Iturbide, sent to suppress a revolution, led his forces over to the insurgents and became the first head of independent Mexico. There had been uprisings before, notably one in 1910, led by Miguel Hidalgo, a priest, whose statue adorns some public square in almost every Mexican city; but the movements had succeeded only in creating and increasing a desire for independence. There had been at- tempts, too, on the part of some governors and viceroys to mitigate the condition of the people and suppress the worst abuses of the clergy. On the whole, however, the Spanish rule in Mexico, as in every other Spanish 145 A MEXICAN JOURNEY colony, was one of avarice, hardness, religious bigotry, and coercion. Perhaps the Inquisi- tion was never practised in more devilish op- position to the principles it invoked than here. In no land have the people shown more of the stuff of which martyrs are made, whether in the cause of patriotism or in that of true re- ligion. Initiative, though often strikingly shown, may at times have been lacking, but never the resolution to suffer and to persevere. With the accession of Iturbide, who became the first Emperor, the Inquisition at least passed away. Other benefits were slower in coming. China and Russia alone were greater in ex- tent than the empire of which Iturbide found himself in command. It included Honduras to the south, and to the northward set up claims on the western half of the continent even as far as the present border of Canada. There were as yet, however, neither settled principles of control, nor anj^ means of developing this almost inconceivable realm. Through massacre and war, the Aztec empire of thirty million souls had shrunk to a popula- tion of fifteen millions. Soimdness could not be attained in a moment, even liad the new ad- 14-6 THE GOVERNMENT ministration been the wisest. Disintegration began. Scarcely a year passed before Gua- temala seceded, and already a formidable re- publican movement had got under way. An- tonio Lopez de Santa Anna, who had helped Iturbide to break the Spanish rule, now pro- claimed the end of Iturbide's own power and the establishment of a republic. This was at the end of 1822. With many ups and downs and much of intermittent warfare, the Mexican republic was maintained from 1822 to 1864, when the French interfered. During this period not only had Guatemala seceded, but Texas, on account of impatience among American set- tlers with the erratic and intolerant ways of President Santa Anna, and influenced by the Southern party of the United States, had de- clared its independence. The war against the "North Americans" had been fought unsuc- cessfully, and more than a half million square miles of territory outside of Texas had been relinquished as a forfeit of the struggle. Santa Anna, after a downfall and a return to power, had sold still another fifty thousand square miles to the United States. Yet in- ternally the nation improved; Santa Anna 147 A MEXICAN JOURNEY had been thrust out at last in 1855 and the dictatorship — for so it was — gave place to an actual republic. Benito Juarez, first as Min- ister of Justice, then as President, formulated what William H. Seward called the best plan of government ever devised. True, to make his admittedly right plans effective involved a struggle, the end of which was not to be in his lifetime, nor perhaps in ours. It was part of a world struggle to establish the right of all human creatures, not only to political and religious liberty, but also to some freedom in the exercise of their own productive powers and a share in the bounty of nature. The people, however, made their loyalty to Juarez unmistakable, and no more hopeful sign could have developed than the growth of an en- lightened, consistent public sentiment, A new Constitution was adopted in 1857. The jurisdiction of ecclesiastical and military courts over civil cases was declared at an end, an evil which Iturbide's constitution had not even sought to remove. Religious toleration was guaranteed, the separation of church and state was declared, the control of the church over cemeteries was denied, the right of the church to possess landed property was abol- 148 THE GOVERNMENT ished, civil marriage was instituted. The ne- cessity for the two last-named measures may well be explained at this point. The Roman Catholic Church in Mexico, while the people still lived in abject poverty, was the richest church establishment in the world, owning then over one-third of the total wealth of the nation, or about $300,000,000 worth of prop- erty. Even Roman Catholics, outside the re- actionary group, admit that such a state of affairs is not desirable. Madame Calderon de la Barca, herself a devout Catholic, gave warning as early as 1841 that if reforms were not made by the church itself, they would be forced upon it, and that its cathedrals would perhaps be turned to "meeting houses" by Mexico's neighbors from the north. Regard- ing marriage, it is a curious reflection that this sacrament, first instituted to meet the needs of the alienated classes, to whom the old Roman law denied the right, had in Mexico and other Spanish countries been made so expensive that the poor could no longer afford it. Many thousands of children were illegitimately born because their parents could not pay the ex- tortionate fees of the clergy. The institution of civil marriage did away with this to a great 149 A MEXICAN JOURNEY extent, and to-day no marriage in Mexico has legality except the civil marriage. The church, however, dissuaded or intimidated many from availing themselves of civil marriage, as in- deed it does in many cases to-day. Similarly, the papal authorities threatened excommuni- cation to all who professed liberal ideas. Juarez answered by banishing the bishops, the Papal Nuncio, and the Spanish representa- tive. Though civil war followed, the pos- sibility of rallying the friends of liberty by an appeal to the people and of defying supersti- tion was proved. In 1861 Napoleon III, seeing the United States on the verge of civil war and unable to enforce the Monroe Doctrine, conceived a gigantic scheme for the re-establishment of I^atin power in the New World. He would recognize the Southern Confederacy and strengthen it by all means in his power. He even held out to the Southern party the sug- gestion that if they should set up and make firm an independent confederacy, a union of Mexico with it would be favored in Europe. A considerable party in Mexico desired this extension of what had already happened to Texas. Mexican refugees and reactionaries 150 THE GOVERNMENT in France viewed it with no favor, preferring a French protectorate; and Napoleon was treating with them while he falsely professed to favor the other plan. So the wily Bona- parte helped to precipitate the American civil war. To England he represented the desir- ability of limiting the power of the United States, but concealed his dream of a Latin and Roman Catholic empire. To Spain he revealed this dream of his but professed an in- tention that he seems never to have enter- tained — that of placing a Spanish prince on the throne. To Austria he divulged more fully the plan afterward attempted — that of com- pensating Austria for recent injuries which he had inflicted, by placing a representative of the Hapsburg line over the new empire; but even to Austria he did not emphasize his in- tention that France should control the puppet thus set up. The pretext for definite action came when Juarez, as President of Mexico, announced that nothing could be paid and that no at- tempt would be made to pay anything on the Mexican national debt for two years. This was not repudiation and financiers have de- clared it as sound a thing as, in the impover- 151 A MEXICAN JOURNEY ished condition of the country, lie could have done. Two years of peace would enable him, he thought, to resume payment. Unfortu- nately, however, the annoimcement gave a pretext for France, Spain, and England, all creditors, to pounce down upon him. The United States, also a creditor, refused a tardy invitation to join them, and announced its readiness to loan money to Mexico if desired. A military expedition started in 1861, but England and Spain almost immediately learned that they were being duped and with- drew. Juarez was able to rally a stronger support and maintain a greater resistance than had been anticipated. The United States, which had steadfastly recognized the little Indian statesman's government and re- fused to recognize the usiu'per, astounded all Euroj^e by the resources put forth in dealing with the Southern secession. Even the South itself, incensed at Napoleon's trickery, turned from him and his schemes. Certain politicians went so far as to propose that North and South make a truce till their united armies could sweep the French invaders into the sea. It was an exaggeration to declare, as has been done, that either President Davis or President 152 THE GOVERNMENT Lincoln favored this. The idea was consider- ably discussed, however, which fact in itself shows that unanimity of American feeling re- garding Mexico had come to be assumed pre- vious to Lee's surrender. The "Emperor" Maximilian, for whom, with his beautiful young wife, Carlota, an appropriation of about a million dollars a year had been made from the hypothetical resources of a dis- tracted, oppressed, and bankrupt nation, had proved equal only to the ornamental and cere- monial requirements of his office. So of all the deceived and disappointed parties to the whole scheme, barring the unhappy Maxi- milian and Carlota, no one was more disap- pointed and humiliated than Napoleon III. The civil war in the United States being at an end, and emphatic demands for the evacuation of Mexico being made by the American Secre- tary of State, he felt obliged to comply. The pretty Emperor and Empress refusing to join in this, he abandoned them. Maximilian was captured and shot at Queretaro, June 19, 1867, and Carlota, after a vain journey and appeal to both Napoleon and the Pope, went mad. The Mexican people have always re- garded the lily-fair prince and his beautiful 153 A MEXICAN JOURNEY wife as unfortunate rather than as astute and sinister figures. Now comes the most problematic turn in Mexican history. Juarez returned to the cap- ital and took up the details of government as nearly as possible where they had been inter- rupted five years before. One of his strong- est military supporters had been General Por- firio Diaz, whose patron and friend he was from the time when Diaz, as a boy, entered the law school at Oaxaca. He had trusted and befriended Diaz all along, and the younger man's loyalty up to this time seems not to be questioned. So far as the tangle of diverging stories and deliberate coloring of records will permit a foreigner easily to judge, the military service of the young man had been of highest value. He had displayed courage, foresight, astuteness, and almost in- credible vigor. Up to this time the relations of the two men were such as coming genera- tions in Mexico might have looked upon with pride and gratitude. Juarez, however, was not only an enemy of church domination and of foreign domination, he was also an enemy of military domination. Himself a repre- sentative in blood, experience, and tradition 154) THE GOVERNMENT of the class who had, perhaps, sacrificed more than any other for the maintenance of the nation, he firmly believed in their capacity, if they could have wise, patriotic leadership for a few years, to learn self-government. His critics regard him as a doctrinaire in this, and point not only to the untutored condition of the Indians, but to the fact that the mil- itary leaders who had helped to sustain the government must of course be reckoned with. They were sure, in view of their habits, to de- mand larger rewards than could accrue under a democratic government. Such demands they did in fact promptly make. What more simple and natural than that the country should be divided into military departments, that each general should be given a depart- ment from which he could farm revenues and in which he might administer government as he chose, and that the only return demanded should be unfailing payment of a quota, un- failing military support when needed, and un- failing assent to all the acts of the central government at all times? The plan of Juarez was undeniably more complex and far more difficult, one of the difficulties being that the generals would declare war on him if he did 155 A MEXICAN JOURNEY not satisfy them. He chose the harder way. Diaz refused to follow, artfully declaring that he could but sympathize with his old com- panions in arms, as years of service had un- fitted them for high place in democratic civil life. He could by no means take the sword against them, he said, and the nation was not ready for the higher course. Assuming that Juarez was right, had he been heartily supported by Diaz, there is little doubt that Diaz would in due time have been chosen president upon the same platform. He stood second to Juarez in national promi- nence, and as a military figure had no equal. Supposing that Juarez was wrong, on the other hand, it seems strange that Diaz's with- drawal and later his active opposition in arms never accomplished the downfall of the little Indian idealist. Harassed by some whose support would have comforted and enor- mouslj^ aided him, nevertheless, until he died suddenly in 1872, five years after the depart- ure of the French, fifteen years after his first elevation to the presidency, and seventeen jxars after he had announced the Juarez law concerning courts of justice, Juarez was able to maintain his government through that pub- 156 PORFIRIO DIAZ. THE GOVERNMENT lie support on which he relied. At Juarez's death, there was perhaps only one other man capable of weathering the storms to which the presidential office was subjected. In 1876, after four troublous years, in which he himself led part of the disturbances, Porfirio Diaz became president, and with the nominal exception of one four-year term, he ruled the country thenceforth for thirty-five years, till the spring of 1911. He had come in, how- ever, upon a different principle from that of Juarez, and by a different principle he ruled. The material development, which means also the exploitation of the national resources by foreign capital, was phenomenal. The main- tenance of order in spite of unsuccessful up- risings of which a censored press told little, was, on the whole, either commendable or sinister, according to the point of view, but in either case was effective. Foreign capital and foreign settlers were encouraged to partic- ipate in the wealth of the country. It was even said that an Englishman, a German, or an American could enjoy under Diaz more security in his business enterprise than any native might feel, and conduct his enterprises on better terms than any native not belonging 157 A MEXICAN JOURNEY to the official governmental group. Mean- while, the friends of the deposed ruler argue that everything possible has been done to edu- cate the masses and make them ready for what Juarez proclaimed fifty years ago — a democratic government. There is a school in every municipality of the Republic and 2,000,000 children, they declare, are in the public schools — by no means an incredible figure. Assuming that progress is being made, the foreign observer is inevitably brought to feel that after thirty-five years of military despotism, the common people have much left to desire, and even if inclined to think that the dream of Juarez was impractical, he will still wish that it might have come true. As for the people themselves, in so far as they rise to the level of intelligent belief, they are enthusiastic, persistent, and unwavering in their assertion that, given a leader of the Juarez school, they could have realized Juarez's program. Ultimately, of course, a people will obtain for themselves a govern- ment approximating what they deserve and have intelligence to appreciate. The Mexi- cans have always coveted better than they have had, and have never admitted that the 158 THE GOVERNMENT iron hand of irresponsible power was toler- able. That President Diaz, though strong, efficient, and it may be patriotic in motives, was ever in all his "unanimous" elections really the object of popular choice, has only the flimsiest appearance of verity. His final election in 1910 was a caricature. The op- position forces had been shattered by the ar- bitrary and forcible breaking up of their meet- ings, the imprisonment of their leaders, and the intimidation by soldiers at the polls of voters with the hardihood to present them- selves. The defenders of the government profess that a dignified and peaceful cam- paign would have been tolerated. Those in- terested in it, and many foreign v/itnesses as well, have declared that the campaign was notable for self-restraint under trying condi- tions. However that may be, an actual elec- tion was not permitted. The president, through members of his cabinet, had been warned that if the nation were thwarted then, revolution would follow. Uprisings did occur at once following the so-called re-election and within a few weeks took on serious propor- tions. Travel and much inquiry in pacific quarters 159 A MEXICAN JOURNEY of the country during the struggle warrant me in the assertion that discontent was almost universal. Fundamentally its cause was eco- nomic; unjust division of benefits, preposter- ously unequal distribution of taxes, and out- rageous dispossession of small land owners from their ancestral homes, being averred. But the immediate demand was for political reform. The progressive movement harks back to the little Indian legislator of 1855 as its prophet. Up to the present there is only one name in all their annals, the mention of which will bring an emotional response of pride and ven- eration among JNIexican citizens from the northern to the southern end of the country — one name that they delight to put beside that of Washington, who might have been a king, but who would not — and that is the name of Juarez. So strong has this sentiment been all along, that the president and everj'^ repre- sentative of the government, ignoring the his- toric relation of tlieir regime to his, must join with what heart they could in the annual and occasional demonstrations of it. If a second name is put with that of Juarez in any spon- taneous wa}^ it is that of the patriot priest IGO THE GOVERNMENT and first great martyr of Mexican liberty, Hidalgo. The time may come when, for a widely different service, a more qualified ap- preciation will be given to Porfirio Diaz with something like the same general accord; but the time is not yet. For better or worse he has had his day and the future will judge him. The revolution of 1911 was not directed against an old man whose control could no longer be more than nominal and whom the people would have been willing to let die in peace, it was directed against those who might pretend to be his logical successors without having demonstrated the only right that can ever justify despotism, the right of might. Such right in his years of early vigor Porfirio Diaz proved in a remarkable degree. Such right will have to be shown by his successors if he is to have any. Otherwise, and probably, a new order will prevail. That something of the rigor of the Diaz policy is needed while outlaws defy the government and terrorize peaceful farms and villages almost every one believes. It is one thing to insist on law and order, however, and quite another thing to in- sist that all shall favor the existing officers for continuance in power. This Diaz did. A 161 A MEXICAN JOURNEY change must come and be made permanent. That its definite arrival might have been vig- orously and convincingly asserted at once by the Madero government, and not have needed confirmation through the further drenching of the country in blood, is the wish of every friend of the Mexican people. In dismissing this subject a word should be said about the organic form of the govern- ment. Tlie Constitution of Juarez has never been abrogated or greatly altered. It ex- pounds the nature of the Mexican government as federal — that is, composed of free and sov- ereign individual states — as representative, and as democratic. It distinguishes three co- ordinate branches of government, adopting our own fiction that the judicial function is neither legislative nor executive. The rights of individuals are guaranteed, in some re- spects more fully than by our Constitution. The mechanism with which to carry out this scheme is provided for and has in fact been preserved — a President chosen by an electoral college, a bicameral Congress whose mem- bers are nominally elected by the people, and a system of courts like our own. The separate state legislatures correspond to ours. In 162 THE GOVERNMENT practical working, since the death of Juarez, there has been but one department of govern- ment, that is the executive. Under Diaz the governor of a state was his representative, the jefe politico of a district was responsible to the governor; and the people had nothing to do with choosing any of them. Still it is something to have had the right principles laid down in theory and acknowledged in form. It makes difficult the opposition of any argument but force against the institu- tions of democracy, and gives the progressive group an immediate basis of procedure. 163 XII XOCHIMILCO THE valley of Morelos lies close to the valley of Mexico, though at a lower level and with a high wall between. It is possible, if one has pneumonia and hours are precious, to take a train in the unhealth- ful capital at daybreak, arrive in balmy Cuer- navaca by noon, and be declared on the way to recovery next day. Under usual condi- tions, however, the valley of Mexico is not to be so eagerly left. While the nights are often chilly, the climate is otherwise almost irre- proachable and the natural charms of the val- ley are worthy of some large-visioned poet of outdoors. It should not be discredited because it had one piece of lowland whose open drain- age the Spaniards could stop and upon which a somewhat miasmic though beautiful city could be built. So even if one cannot tarry for months to etch in the picture of maguey fields on the drier flat lands, of cypress trees, 164 XOCHIMILCO of dome-crowned villages, and of encircling mountains, at least one can pay the respect of a slow departure. This may be done by way of the Viga, the one Aztec canal that still remains in use, leading south toward Cuerna- vaca as far as Xochimilco. There are those who will tell you that they have seen this canal, so extravagantly described in books, and that it is no more than a slimy ooze. They have seen the miserable diminu- endo at the city end that is finally lost in a sewer ; but they do not know the Viga. What stream, even the mightiest, without very spe- cial protection, can make its way through a city of 450,000 inhabitants and still remain "undefiled for the undefiled"? Even at the city end of this ancient canal our friends, if alert, might have seen something to describe other than the excrements of obscene brew- eries along the banks, and unlimited oceans of mud; they might have seen the people, one of the superlatively clean tribes, thank Heaven! propelling their dugouts up and down, and in the dugouts enough vegetables for a thousand tables, besides flowers in quantities really ex- citing to think of. For thirteen miles as one goes out along the 165 A MEXICAN JOURNEY Viga there are no tributaries. There is only one channel of nearly uniform width, arched by quaint bridges and enlivened by an unend- ing succession of barges going to market with garden truck, and of little canoes that dart along upon other errands. Gradually the water becomes purer till it is void of offense. Then begins perfect enjoyment. The re- moter plain may be somewhat brown in the dry season, varied only by the maguey, cousin to our old friend the henequin plant, while near by on either hand are luscious green fields with cattle wading or grazing at will. The canoe moves easily, propelled not by oars or paddles but by a long, light pole thrust to the bottom. In places this is varied by toss- ing a rope to one of the boatmen, who leaps cheerfully ahead with it over his shoulder, now in water, now upon a tow path, his muscular though not heavy limbs bare to the thigh. Boys fish from the banks. New things are constantly appearing, not to tease the eye and the mind as on a railway journey, but to be- guile the imagination. At last, after about four hours, the canal resolves itself into a great number of smaller canals which are fed by springs in themselves worth a visit, and are 166 XOCHIMILCO conducted in and out among the so-called "floating gardens" so as to make every gar- den an island. Within the memory of men still living much of this area was a lake and some of the gardens were actually floating; but now the little oblong patches of soil rest upon bottom. The willows that grow straight up like Lombardy poplars were once only stakes to keep the unique real property from moving off. Masses of water plants buoyed up by air chambers on their stalks float upon what remains of the lake and show how land began to form. As would be guessed from such an origin, the gardens have the richest mold, they never lack water, and the sun smiles upon them as only a southern sun can. Each is as large as a good town lot and any of them if actually afloat would sink from the weight of vegetables and flowers. The poppy, the sweet pea, and the bachelor's button are favorite flowers, though carnations and mar- guerites also abound and roses are by no means uncommon. All these and other blos- soms hang down and are reduplicated in the water. They scramble over the tops of the houses. In daylight or in moonlight they make incomparable pictures at every turn. 167 A MEXICAN JOURNEY The graceful, brown-armed figures gliding about in their canoes strike no jarring note. Nothing annoys. The most appropriate ex- clamation at the crystal springs of Xochi- milco is, "I did not believe there was such a place in the world! " Barges go down heavy with the current to Mexico and come back light. Few large cities have sources of so abundant supply for vegetables and flowers, with means of trans- portation so cheap. Xochimilco was a source of supplies for the Aztec capital in the old days, and, unless scholars have wrongly trans- lated, an occasional source of victims for the Aztec sacrificial stone. Whoever lived here at any time, if he had marauding neighbors, must have been an easy prey, for gentleness and soft confiding in the loveliness of an idyllic world are as natural here as a square front to all comers must be in a country of highland blasts. A friend of mine had a quarrelsome retainer who chose to follow him from one locality to another and always man- aged to involve himself and his master in trouble. They Avent to Xochimilco and Gabriel fought with no one. It seems he could find no one to fight with. 168 XOCHIMILCO It cost three Mexican dollars ($1.50) to bring out seven of us in a large covered canoe, with enough luggage to burden four or five carriers in transferring from the canoe to the house. A canal ran very near the house occu- pied by our friends, the only foreign family in the village, by whom we were to be enter- tained. A canal runs near everybody's door in Xochimilco; there are a hundred miles of them at least. Fish abound and come in fine condition from the cold water. We saw many goldfish of no diminutive size, and bought for fifty centavos a wriggling carp that weighed about six pounds. This American friend, at whose house we stopped, an engineer, was in charge of work installing a new plant to increase the water supply of Mexico City. He took us along a small canal until suddenly it widened, deep- ened, and came to an end. We were floating upon a basin seventy-five feet in diameter, twenty-five feet deep, and filled with gushing pure water. It was one of the marvelous springs at Xochimilco, flowing about eight million gallons in twenty-four hours. There are several others, not so large, but still of great output and all of the same pure water, 169 A MEXICAN JOURNEY fed probably by the melting snow and ice of Popocatepetl. A feature of every landscape hereabout is the little church. Above the fringe of green vegetables or of glorious bloom, over the thatch of the hut, between the willows, against the bulk of the mountains, there is certain to be a church in the view. We must have seen twenty, all commanding because of the low- ness of the houses round about, all venerable- looking and harmonious with the feeling of the place; never, on any of them, a "steeple." The spire with its call to upward pursuit of the unattainable, is no part of Mexican church architecture. The dome seems to suggest contemplation and repose. True, the Span- iards were restless enough, but their restless- ness was not upon the side that churches represent. Concerning religion they leaned back upon authority, and came easily to that perfectness of satisfaction which must have expressed itself powerfully at times to any one who has traveled in Mexico, the land of domes. There are said to be more of these, chiefly of the media naranja (half orange) form, than in any other country in the world. And if the Anglo-Saxon cannot adopt this 170 XOCHIMILCO form as his emblem, for he is self-conscious, he can be happy in visiting a land whose tem- perament it suits. "Xochimilco," our engineer friend declared, "is only the beginning of the most beautiful part of the canal system, for you can travel a full day beyond. I never did get to the end, though on a trip some time ago I went through a string of towns for over thirty miles. I was fascinated with some of the old places — splendid they must have been once; but they had gone down and down as the more intelligent sons of the families were drawn off to the cities, till some fine haciendas were altogether deserted and others occupied only by peons. It was impossible not to build air castles when I thought of what a progressive trained man could do there on some places to be bought almost for the song that he might sing. Cattle of the best breeds would thrive on his wide level fields, vineyards and orchards would spring up at his touch in this perfect climate, water power and streams for irriga- tion would come from the hills to work magic for him, native labor would offer itself cheaper than he ought to wish, and paddle wheels on the canals would carry all his produce to a 171 A MEXICAN JOURNEY great market. This will come true for some- body, but for whom? I think it will come true most largely and remain true the longest for Americans, Europeans, or intelligent In- dians, according as one or another of them has most spiritual depth and force — most desire to give and to teach among the poor natives and not merely to exploit them. In the end I think all JNIexico will be the heritage of those, w^hoever they are, who come with a will to help. The other sort of thing goes to seed and to rot, as it has once done in this valley; and in the long run social forces among the common people, the allies of the man who helps, will destroy the parasite. As neigh- bors of Mexico we Americans have great pos- sibilities at our doors; the question is. Are we big enough?" ]My friend the engineer is an idealist, and grows very enthusiastic at times. From Xochimilco it is not far to Eslava where, only a day late because of our little journey into a primitive world, we can take the train from Mexico to Cuernavaca. One gets almost a bird's eye view of the region of Mexico City from the top of the range at a height of 10,000 feet. 172 XIII CUERNAVACA, CUAUTLA, PUEBLA CUERNAVACA, though not inviting comparison with the little Indian Ven- ice, is in its own way the loveliest spot yet visited. At Xochimilco one rubs one's eyes and looks again to make sure that the scene really belongs to the world of wide- awake. At Cuernavaca one settles forthwith into a conviction of always having known the place, and a feeling that everything here is the normal by which things elsewhere may be tested. With an altitude of only 4500 feet, more than two thousand feet lower than the valley of Mexico, and with a southern ex- posure among sheltering hills, this other val- ley has no cold winter, no cold nights and no hot ones, no droughts, no inconveniences of climate, hot or cold, wet or dry. The town of 7000 inhabitants is all clean, orderly, thrifty, reposeful, and old. The steep and narrow streets, which often become stairways 173 A MEXICAN JOURNEY of rock, the thick walls, the heavj^ doors, the elaborate latches and hinges, all bear the testi- mony of age. It is a place of running water, and fountains are numerous. Of course the town has its cathedral, this one founded in 1.529; and of course, being of sufficient antiquity, it has a palace of Cortez. We visited his residence in Oaxaca, and an- other in Coyoacan, a suburb of Mexico City, this latter being the oldest structure erected by any white man on American soil. Now we must by all means pay our respect to the Cuernavaca palace, the more because it has been made the state government building and because it commands from the roof a sujDcrb view of the green valley and the peaceful mountains. It was begun by Cortez in 1530. The chief exhibit of Cuernavaca is the Borda Garden, established about the middle of the eighteenth century bj^ Joseph le Borde, a Frenchman who had made enormous for- tunes in Mexican silver mines. It is said to have cost a million pesos then, but time has added much that the owner could not buy, both in definable beauty and in the pervasive charm of imaginative suggestion. There are old walls, built high and solid enough to en- 174 CUERNAVACA, CUAUTLA, PUEBLA dure; trees grown old bvit of unfailing vigor; old Moorish fountains that have become weathered and flawed but lost nothing of their airy Saracenic grace; walks that Carlota trod many a time, when Cuernavaca was the sum- mer capital, and when old Joseph, their first owner, had been long sleeping in a poor man's grave; benches on which she must have sat; roses and oleanders that she may have tended, and mangoes whose fruit she may have eaten. You will think more of Carlota in the garden than you will of its original owner whose name it bears; and many other thoughts you will have which you will never convey unless to some one at your side under the shade of the tropical trees with their unfamiliar names and their delicious fruits. Cuautla, in climate and general character, needs no description to one who has visited Cuernavaca. It is not quite so old, not quite so large, and not quite so full of romance; but having famous hot sulphur springs is rather more haunted by invalids and Testers. Not in the state of Morelos, where we have been lingering, but in a state whose name it shares, Puebla has a little more altitude, a little cooler climate, yet the same quality of 175 A MEXICAN JOURNEY softness in the air, the same sulphur water that flows so ahundantly in Cuautla, and a degree of the same popularity with those need- ing to be cured. Puebla, however, is more of a city, and can assimilate these latter visitors as Cuautla cannot. Moreover, Puebla has some charming suburbs and rest spots to which, being a city, it dispatches many of the impotent or the indisposed. With a popula- tion just under one hundred thousand, it nar- rowly misses being the second city in size of the republic; and if it must yield to Guadala- jara in this respect, it still claims second place in the consideration of the visitor. It has the name of being conservative as to taste and social customs, anti-foreign, Romanist in re- ligion, reactionary as to politics. Certainly it is not progressive in many of the usual im- plications of the word; but without being so it would seem to have made progress in what- ever contributes to its charm. The capital of the richest state in Mexico, it has a look of comfort and of competence. In architecture, in landscape, in the equipages upon its clean asphalt streets, in the dress of its well-to-do citizens, one is reminded that essential har- monies may be preserved in more than one 176 CUERNAVACA, CUAUTLA, PUEBLA style. Piiebla society is accused of being ex- clusive, and perhaps this is confirmed rather than otherwise by the eagerness that I ob- served in the daughter of one of its prominent families, when visiting in another town, to make acquaintance with the American and English colony, including the Protestant church there. If so, when their opportunity for reciprocating came the family were gener- ous beyond expectation in making a little glimpse of their own life possible. I was in- vited to call at the house, which does not hap- pen to a young man in their own set unless he is an accepted suitor. They were meeting an American in his own way. The daughter whom I knew greeted me first, after the servant. I was conducted to where the maternal head of the household and her old- est daughter sat to receive their callers, and was introduced. Then for a few moments I sat in a second parlor with Miss Maria, as I shall name her — an impossible departure from their conventional etiquette — till the younger sisters began to come in one after another, down to a little toddler of four years. Puzzled at first by a stranger whose speech was for- eign, she ended by sitting on my lap. Whether 177 A MEXIC.\X JOraVEY the entry of this beautiful troop was also contrary to established rules I do not know. Some very wise persons will say that of course such special favors were tantamount to a matrimonial acceptance; but they certainly had not the shadow of such meaning. I was not only an American, but I was an American from another city, in Puebla for no more than three or four days, and they had decided to treat me according to American ways of hos- pitahty so far as they knew them. If in any particular they happened not to know, they would err on the side of kindness. On a sec- ond call to take leave, I did not see the chil- dren till I was croing out. but then found them, all four, in the corridor in a row wait- ing to bid me good-by. It is years since then and I have never met one of the family since ; but this pretty and gracious picture, together with others that I remember of the luxurious and beautiful home and perfectly managed household, is stiQ a source of enjoyment. Puebla has more ^Mexican history than any other city except the capital. Xot founded till 1532. when the Spaniards felt the need of a city halfway between and more healthfully located than either Vera Cruz or the Aztec 178 CUERNAVACA, CUAUTLA, PUEBLA capital oil Lake Texcoco, it nevertheless has a Diiraculous story of its location, two angels having pointed out the spot to Fray Julian Garces. So it Mas called Puebla de los Angeles. It soon outgrew the neighboring Indian toMTi of Cholula as 3Iexico City did its ancient neighbor Xochimilco. Leaping over to modern times, it was captured in 1821 by Iturbide, the fii'st ruler of independent ^lexico, was occupied by the Americans in 1847, and was besieged and taken by the French in 1862. A little later, :May 5, 1862, its recapture by General Zaragoza was the most brilliant victory in all the history of Mexican arms, and ]May 5 has been as great a national holiday ever since as the Fourth of July is with us. The French regained the town again next year and held it till 1867, when it was captured by General Porfirio Diaz, and the French garrison were made prisoners. Zaragoza's victory in 1862 changed the name of the town to Puebla de Zaragoza. Xo longer a "city of the angels," Puebla is still a city of churches. Any commanding view of it will show from fifty to seventy domes, agreeing in outline with those other domes, Popocatepetl and Orizaba, on either hand, and 179 A MEXICAN JOURNEY in color showing all the v^ariety of tiles for the manufacture of which Puebla is noted. Popocatepetl is accompanied by his consort Ixtaccihuatl and also in this case by a strange figure, that of the pyramid of Cholula, nearer at hand. To the north is Malintzi, almost as towering as the other two giants, so that there is always an enclosing rim to the region, and everywhere the land has its bounty of grow- ing crops. Of all the churches, the cathedral is the most notable. Not so large as the cathedral in Mexico City, it is still very large — 323 feet by 101 feet. If not quite so rich upon the exterior, it is generally felt to be even more harmonious; and within it has not onlj^ the same advantage but has also fortunately kept more of the opulence of decoration and fur- nishing that history associates with both these buildings. The interior is even "gorgeous" as described by one waiter. It is not only in broad general effects that it gives the impres- sion of richness; whether one examine the onyx and marble altars, columns, and pave- ments, or the wondrous old Gobelin tapestries of extremely pagan subjects given by Charles V of Spain, or the statuary, or the paintings 180 CATHEDRAL AT PUEBLA. CUERNAVACA, CUAUTLA, PUEBLA by European and Mexican masters, or the wood-carving and inlay work in ivory, the effect remains throughout of unstinted devo- tion of rich materials, of labor, of ingenuity, and of art. Some discriminating critics re- gard the Puebla cathedral, taking it all to- gether, as more worthy of study than any other church in America, not even excepting that at Mexico. Again, curiously, like the cathedral at the capital, it is not the fashion- able church. 181 XIV A TOLTEC PYRAMID FROM Piiebla it is less than two hours to Cholula, the town of the pyramid. I speak of going by tramcar and not by that contrivance out of due time, the Inter- oceanic Railway. Not that progress need be lamented, even by the sentimentalist, for it is by innovation, so often deplored as an enemy of romance, that romance is made perpetual. Not till a thing has passed out from daily habit and commonplace utility may fancy be- set it with a glamor of things past; but the consecration is one in which epochs are not finely observed. This quaint and dingj'' con- veyance, and the tiny mules in front, now tugging pitifully over a hard place, now at a level jog, and again scampering away down some slope before the piu'suing car — these might have belonged to any age not ours — so they do not offend. On either side as we pass, grain fields show that the earth yields willing increase, and at 182 A TOLTEC TYRAMID intervals are reapers who thrust in their sickles and turn with tedious movement to lay the grain in sheaves, as was the manner of reap- ing long ago. Such oxen as these that plod along, with yokes rudely bound upon their horns, labor steadily forever on imperishable old Greek bas-reliefs. Somewhat as now we see them, asses went burdened in the time of Mary and Joseph. The jars that are borne on dark and graceful shoulders are of a form long familiar before Rebekah came out from Nahor to draw water. As for the women and girls who are washing at many pools by the way, they are types from the age when Nau- sicaa spread her new-whitened garments by the shore of the sea. It was in the afternoon that I arrived at this town so variously celebrated, and found in it neither a remnant of the great and splen- did city which the scribes of Cortez lyingly represented, nor a mere "town of one-story whitewashed mud huts" which was all one mole-eyed modern writer could discover. I found under the dominant shadow of the giant mound a sleepy and romantic-looking village in which the signs of former Spanish domi- nance are plain, in which the hues of venerable 183 A MEXICAN JOURNEY towers and domes seem dissolving under the breath of decay to mingle with the softer air, in which the tones of bells in harmony still call a simple people to worship at unthrifty hours, and in which balconies and grated windows suggest man}'' a fancy of love-making in years gone by. In short, Cholula is a provincial Mexican town. There two civilizations met, the older was nearly obliterated by the other, and that in turn was left to slacken when the usurpers who brought it had been driven out. The impulse of new Mexican life has not been much felt there, so Cholula dreams on in its valley. Within five minutes two ragged boys at- tached themselves to me for better or for worse. They first helped me to buy and eat some bananas and mangoes at the market place where a canvass of everj^ booth had to be made before the woman could return change for my dollar, and then it came all in centavos. They pointed out an old sacrificial stone and were able to hint vaguely that it had a fearful history. In fact, it was doubt- less wet many a time with human blood. At each of the churches they informed me as to how much money I should give the sacristan, 184. A TOLTEC PYRAMID having a care, I think, lest my stock of cen- tavos should unduly lessen hefore they had re- ceived their part. One advised the use of my field glass for looking at a picture in the con- vent; and the other thought me an ill-fur- nished Americano because I had no camera. They sold me for ten centavos — so far had we advanced in friendship — a clay head that is muy antiguo (very ancient) and for which they had at first asked a dollar. They even became confidential regarding their family affairs. Both father and mother were dead, and their only dependence was an aunt, who was at times very abusive. When I remarked that they did not seem imhappy, both at once, with the most aggrieved tone possible, ex- claimed, "Como no, Senor?" ("Pray, why not?") Together we sauntered out to the pyramid. This is larger than any other such — about two himdred feet high and more than a mile in circumference. The latter measurement is greater than that of the largest Egyptian pyramid, though in height some of the Egyp- tian structures are greater. It must also be said that while the Egyptian monuments were built of natural stone, this thing of little honor, 185 A MEXICAN JOURNEY as our iinpoetic friend would describe it, was built of mud. Tbat is to say, it was built of sun-dried bricks, the junctures of which can still be seen, and was faced with stone and jjlaster which have either crumbled away or been removed. Its form, however, must have been at one time strikingly like the Egyptian, though truncated. This teocalU of Cholula is not the best preserved in Mexico. The Pyramid of the Moon and the Pyramid of the Sun, the two principal ones at Teoti- huacan, noticed on our first journey to the capital, are more perfect specimens. But the one at Cholula is more famous, and the vege- table growth of a milder climate has made it more beautiful. Its flat top, about an acre in extent, and with a stone parapet all around, is not so empty as theirs, but is surmounted by a Spanish church which takes the place of the once splendid temple, and with which also the hand of time has been at work. Nor is the spot without an added charm of pathos to the imagination of most visitors, probably, because of that valiant resistance and bloody massacre which have been noted since the con- quest. When I asked my guides and instructors 186 IT'- PYRAMID AT CHOLULA, WITH CHURCH ON SUMMIT. PYRAMID AT CHOLULA FROM FARTHER SIDE. A TOLTEC PYRAMID who built the pyramid, they said, ''hos Az- tecas/' Other authorities have disagreed, thinking the pyramid older than Aztec occu- pancy, and ascribing it to that gentler and more civilized people, the Toltecs. Indeed, faith in the general accuracy of my informants was somewhat shaken at this point; for when I asked who built Popocatepetl, they again answered, "Los Aztecasf I tried to bring them to a worthier notion of the old giant towering in the distance, wrapped about just then with the whiteness of two distinct cloud- levels below, and above with his monk's cowl of eternal whiteness. The attempt may have been lost. They seemed to take my correc- tion at once ; but ready agreement is a finished dCrt with them, and I am not sure of their thoughts. On the summit of the mound one commands a fine view of the country round about for many miles, broken here and there by a moun- tain and bounded at last by the crests that make the limit of the valley. One does not think it strange that here the ancient god of agriculture bade his last farewell to Mexico. Should he ever return — as some natives still hope with well-nigh Hebrew fondness, seeing 187 A MEXICAN JOURNEY that the Spaniards by no means broiiglit hhn on their arrival — should he ever come again to this valley of Puebla, he will find that meanwhile he has not been wholly without devotees. Rude enough is their devotion; but Heaven seems to acknowledge it with har- vests. Cortez declared that from this eminence he counted four hundred pagan temples; and it is of record that as he destroyed them he set the natives, however unwilling or little able, to replace each by a building for Catholic worship. It would seem that in this instance Cortez may have told the truth, for churches stand as close everywhere as lighthouses on a rocky coast. If so many can be seen from one point anywhere else in the world, it would be interesting to know where. They lend them- selves so to beauty in the landscape, and look such perfect sj^mbols of peace and simple piety, that one is not willing to regard them otherwise. One accuses oneself of imgrate- fulness when the thought occurs that blood was wrung from an unhappy people in the demand for tribute to these sacred buildings — a demand from whose impoverishing effect they have never recovered. 188 A TOLTEC PYRAMID Having taken a farewell glance at the panorama in the slanting light, there was nothing to do but go my way. A native ran after me, offering an arrow-head for sale and declaring with great emphasis that it was genuine. I assured him of my implicit belief, and said that I had seen pecks of such curios found in the Connecticut Valley. He turned back in no ill humor, apparently less vexed than amused. At the railway station, for I confess I left by railway, we three friends justly divided the now lighter burden of cen- tavos, and said a cordial good night. I hoped that for once the dreaded aunt would be rea- sonable. 189 XV HIGHER THAN THE ALPS EITHER Cholula or Amecameca around to the west will serve as a way station for one who means to climb Popoca- tepetl. It happened that I went up on the west side from Amecameca. This account of my experience will lack the distinction of a first ascent. The summit, though two thou- sand feet higher than the highest Alp, has been scaled many a time since a companion of Fernando Cortez braved its then unprece- dented height. The yawning mouth of the drowsy volcanic monster, which we entered, has become a place of industry for human pygmies like ourselves; the sulphur that it spits out as venom is an article of commerce; and stolid Indians, going every day to bring this down, think the ascent as commonplace as any other hard day's toil. Yet if you ever make it you will prol)ably not do so with in- difference. Eighteen thousand feet above the sea, ten thousand feet above the surrounding 190 HIGHER THAN THE ALPS plain, and shaped for all the world like the crown of a high sombrero, with snow covering all above the top of the broad band, the "smoking mountain" will never be lightly ap- proached by a stranger, it is safe to say, un- less the threatened railroad is built. Even if limbs are good, and lungs are sound, and heart proves equal to the strain, you will find the task one to be reckoned with. The first thing is to get on speaking terms with the giant. "Popocatepetl" it is written, but that is not enough to know. The natives call it Popo'ca taypet'tle, and, as has been hinted, it means "smoking mountain." It be- longs to the primitive tongue of the Indians and has no more to do with Spanish, the lan- guage of Mexico to-day, than old Welsh names in Wales with the modern language of Great Britain. If you cannot manage it in its full bulk and weight, call it "Popo," as tourists do. A letter of introduction sent forward to the ranch some five thousand feet above, brought the overseer down at a smart jog with pony and pistols. He found us all eating in a res- taurant. The moment he appeared and ad- dressed us in tolerable English, we knew that 191 A MEXICAN JOURNEY if our troubles did not soon begin it would not be his fault. Sufficiency was marked all over him. He helped to find horses and guides, fix prices, and arrange for supplies. The typical JNIexican ranchman, by the way, is a gentleman, a born fighter, ambitious, patri- otic, and resoiu'ceful. He will figure largely as the animating spirit of any change that may come, either by moral influence or by force of arms. Next morning, the women of the party hav- ing spent the night packed awaj^ in a hotel that was too small for them, and the men hav- ing slept on the earth floor of the railway sta- tion, our young rancher o with his odd cos- tume, wiry figure, light air, and gay songs led the way out of town, the guides trotting along ))ehind and occasionally making short cuts. We had several hours of travel thus, women and men alike riding our beasts in the way that nature intended. About four o'clock we reached the shanty, whose hospitality we were glad to find. Senor Perez, for our guide now became our host, announced that here we were to lodge. And indeed night already began to settle upon that side of the mountain. Such is the angle that the sun seemed scarcely to 192 POPOCATEPETL. IXTACCIHUATL. HIGHER THAN THE ALPS have entered the western half of the sky be- fore it hid itself. We had seen the mountain from the top of the old Toltec pyramid of Cholula; we had seen it through notches among the hills where only goats and Mexican donkeys could keep footing upon the trail; we had viewed* it in morning and in evening light from Chapul- tepec and from the arches of Cuernavaca. Some of us were to look down upon its great siu'face from the rim at the top. But never did it make the breath stop and the heart grow sick with a feeling that could not be con- trolled, as when we looked, straight up it seemed, at the terrible cold height in the last glow of that afternoon sun, and knew that it did not hang over us more nearly than did the adventure for its conquest on the morrow. Nineteen of us, and Perez with a partner and friend, making twenty-one in all, slept as best we could packed around one small room with heads toward the many chinks in the wall and with feet toward the center. The circle was not complete; for at one corner was a rough fireplace discharging most of its smoke into the room. The chinks, though they ad- mitted enough cutting blades of air, seemed 193 A MEXICAN JOURNEY not to let much of the smoke escape. We lay in our clothes, of course, and in whatever extra blankets we had, for at that height of 13,000 feet the air at night is cruel to one who has spent months in the mild climate of the plateau. Our shoes only we removed, as no one wished to awake with swollen and aching feet. At three in the morning we rose, and at five were started. Should any one be curious as to how the two hours between had been spent, some of our party could answer for the employment of them. In the numbing, blis- tering, altogether strange cold of that lofty air, we had spent most of the time helping to catch a stray horse, identifying horses and saddles that each person as far as possible might have his own of the day before, adjust- ing girths that stiffened fingers refused to manage, and calling down blessings on the guides, no one of whom was more useful for such matters than a sheep. On the whole perhaps they were worth what they received; each member of our party was to pay, for horse and guide during three days, the sum of eight dollars, Mexican money, or four dollars in our own. 194 HIGHER THAN THE ALPS Finally we mounted. Those of us who had been martyrs for the rest were chattering with cold. More than half had been sickened by the smoke or some other cause. No one had eaten much breakfast, as it is against all ad- vice. Yet some, of course, were more cheer- ful than others. Part of these were to be among the first "quitters." We rode our horses to the snow line, four- teen thousand feet high in the month of Janu- arj% and there left them. Some were almost exhausted, so that they had been brought along only by leading and coaxing. All suf- fered from the cold, as they were accustomed to the plains below. Persons who knew said that going much beyond this point would be fatal to them. Henceforth it was to be real climbing. The zigzag path was easy to follow with the eye, but painfully hard for already lagging feet. However, we kept along. I myself felt no other distress than this sensation of labor and a continued rebellion in my stomach. After what seemed a very long time of our starting and halting, the sun came up out of the low country and showed itself. The angle from us was as if we viewed a cartwheel from 195 A MEXICAN JOURNEY a church steeple. Such a phenomenon in itself would have been curious enough to pay for some effort. But we were bent upon other things, those who still held out, so we gave it very brief attention. Adjusting our colored glasses, for we had been warned against the glare of a tropical sun upon the snow, we thrust our sandals into the path and kept on. By this time it was pure doggedness with the best of us, and we had reached an altitude of some sixteen thousand feet. As the snow began to melt, the difficulty was increased. Often our foothold gave way so that the des- perate climbing of a full long minute was lost by a single slip. The need of stopping to rest became more and more frequent. One man, indeed, a physician, about fifty years old, had been obliged from the first to lie down every few feet. Now he was far below most of us and it seemed useless for him to think even of reaching where we were. Yet he kept on. When we were two-thirds of the way up my nausea, which I had attributed to the smoke, left me. The chief cause of this feel- ing is doubtless inequality of pressure upon the organs, and particularly failure of the heart to adjust itself to lessened resistance 196 HIGHER THAN THE ALPS upon the arteries. One authority saj^s that bubbles form in the blood-vessels. With some climbers mere weariness probably accounts for more than they are aware. Whatever had been the cause of my own ills, they were all forgotten when the break in the everlasting curve was actually seen; and when we had won the battle I felt like a war- horse. Others apparently were as much elated, though some postal cards that we wrote did prove rather shaky. Most of us carried our own blankets, barometers, and lunch-boxes all the way. After mere "Oh's!" and "Ah's!" of general admiration, we attended first to the lunch- boxes, and afterward to the barometer and similar matters. The crater of Popocatepetl is at the very middle of the perfect dome. Its rim is un- broken all around and is of nearly equal height, though the side at which we looked over is a little lower than the other. It was topped then by a smooth abrupt wall of hard snow about six feet high. From side to side it is fully six hundred yards — surprisingly large. It is more than five hundred feet deep and some two hundred yards wide at the bot- 197 A MEXICAN JOURNEY torn, where there is a sulphur lake. The color of this is green — not greenish like sea water, but green. At several points in the side of the old crater are little holes as large as a man's wrist, from which sulphur smoke issues with an unpleasant hissing noise. All the sides of the crater are decidedly warm, though not too hot to touch. We went down some little dis- tance. We measured, guessed, commented, gazed, and wondered. Then we started toward the world again. When we were ten minutes do^vnward, which would mean a good hour's distance in the op- posite direction, we met Perez with the doctor and a school teacher in tow. He afterward succeeded in landing them at the top, though not within the hour. Thus far scenic effects have hardly been mentioned. During the grim effort to get up we took little notice of them, beyond mar- veling at the sunrise so far below us. When at the summit, we could see less than must at times be possible, for there were cloud masses lower down. The impression of distance is not so great as on one New England moun- tain of local celebrity which rises a thousand 198 POPOCATEPETL — ASCENT. POPOCATEPETL — DESCENT. HIGHER THAN THE ALPS feet above its surroundings. From such a petty height every distance and bulk is appre- ciated, and level fields seem to be very far be- low. They are not too far to seem far. But from old Popo the eye cannot measure by anything. Everything is gigantic and in equality of proportion, for the things below which are not gigantic are lost altogether. Yet the clouds and the snow, and the colors upon both, and the shapes of mountains, and the blue of the upper sky (for there is a lower sky also, to one who climbs) — all this gives a feeling not easily to be described nor soon forgotten. Two other snow-capped mountains stood in view above the vapors: Orizaba, a few feet higher than Popo, and Ixtaccihuatl, not quite so high. The valleys were so full of dense, perfectly white and level-lying clouds that it seemed every time we looked as if we could sit upon a straw mat and slide down the snow, across the snowy cloud reaches, and up the other side. Most of the party did slide down on the snow crust, but two of us were obliged to walk for lack of a man with an iron-bound stick to steer the craft. We walked when we did not run or sprawl, the guides calling after 199 A MEXICAN JOURNEY US, "Bcspacito" ("A teeny bit slow!") at ever}' jim^P ^i' slip. Their caution was wise, no doubt, but we had lost all respect for them. We brought on oiu'selves more local soreness of muscles from this coming down than from going up; but we enjoyed the descent and ar- rived at the snow line soon after those who slid. In another half-hour we were at the shanty. The only visible mementos of the ascent that I took with me were my sandals, which weeks afterward I threw away in despair for the bad odor of the native-tanned leather, and a small piece of sulphur, which I had the pleasure of giving to Mr. William Jennings Bryan next day in a railway train. For cir- cumstantial evidence that our party did make this journey, therefore, I can now point only to the mountain itself. Any investigating person will find that it stands there in actual- ity, just as I have said. Our goggles had not prevented some cases of inflammation from the glare, and sunburn is a mild word for what we suffered; but on the whole the hardships and difficulties were not so great as we had thought possible, for they were all such that we got over them. 200 HIGHER THAN THE ALPS Popocatepetl, smooth, even dome that it is, is doubtless one of the easiest mountains on the globe upon which to reach so great a height. There are no glaciers, no treacherous ravines, none of the special terrors that attend moun- tain climbing elsewhere. One's trying experi- ences are likely to arise for the most part from within. However, he must be a hard- ened climber indeed to whom the ascent would appear commonplace. 201 XVI TOWNS AND MORE TOWNS IT would be resented by enthusiasts for each town if I should say that Morelia, to the northeast of Mexico City, in the state of Michoacan, and Guadalajara, three times its size, in the state of Jalisco, look in any way alike; that there are no differences worth noting between Guanajuato and Queretaro, capitals of two neighboring states of the same names to the north of the Federal District; or that between Aguas Calientes and San Luis Potosi, similarly related to two states in the next tier northward, though still four hun- dred miles from the border, one might be at a loss to distinguish. There are differences in setting, altitude, latitude, mean temperature, numerical population, and chief industries. Guadalajara has for sale its famous pottery, and Aguas Calientes its even better known Mexican drawn- work on linen. Guanajuato has its mint and its mines which do add land- W2 TOWNS AND MORE TOWNS marks to the surrounding hillsides, its really- splendid theater, and its gruesome catacombs. In Queretaro they will show you a chapel on the site of Maximilian's execution, and the church of Santa Rosa which claimed the en- thusiastic praise of Charles Dudley Warner for its unsurpassed wood carving, its wealth of gold leaf decoration, and its beautiful paintings. There are the features of local pride and interest; but after all a description of one town, as seen by a northerner, would read very much like the description of an- other. One tires of those worthies, Cortez and Maximilian, after a time. If, as in the Queretaro church, one learns that a superb altar piece was burned, not from public neces- sity, as Juarez ordered many things de- stroyed, but by the French in mere greed and wantonness, one's flagging interest revives. It is always stimulating to have something that one can resent. On the whole, even the tourist is likely to imbibe something of the quiescent mood of the country. It is not inherent and peculiar to Mexicans; the animals have it. Though very little of a horseman, I have ridden young stallions in Mexico as unhesitatingly as I 203 A MEXICAN JOURNEY would ride old Dobbin on the New England farm, and with as little danger. I have gone through yards full of mules, and suffered no harm. They clatter in strings along the high- ways without a strap except the girth of the pack saddle, and driven by one small boj'^ for a dozen or twenty mules. I never saw one show signs of viciousness. One will kick, naturally, if he gets his leg over a chain trace. Bulls are driven along the roads by children; at different times, on foot or on horseback, I have passed scores and they always gave me the road. The explanation I have never heard. One man says it is in the breeding; but why should breeding have happened to affect them all so — horses, mules, cattle? An- other asserts that it is in the fodder — one feed- ing a day of barley and barley straw will not make an animal very spirited, he says. But on this same fodder the animals show remark- able strength and endurance and keep in con- dition if otherwise well treated. Neither do they show absence of life in its harmless demonstrations. The peculiarity is not due to uniformly humane treatment I can vouch, nor can animals be cowed by any cruder treat- ment there than some receive in the United 204 TOWNS AND MORE TOWNS States. Rattlesnakes around Lake Chapala almost never bite. It must be "the Mexiean habit," which, contrary to the usual idea, is non-aggressive. The tourist gets it, and be- comes willing to sit in the central park of any typical Mexican town — the park is always there — and let life pass by for his delectation or enlightenment. This experience is about the same in any of the places mentioned. There is a town, Pachuca, that deserves special description as unique. It has a park, but it has an almost perpetual cold wind, and frequent storms that make sitting in the park an uneasy enjoyment. It is in the bottom of a cup, with only one low side, toward Mexico City, from which three railroads come out the sixty miles and terminate. Down the sides of this cup, in the rainy season, the water rushes till the streets, flooded from all sides, become rivers. Through a little gap in the high wall the northern winds drive with violence. In the dry season only a few years ago men killed each other quarreling over a bucketful of water. Now the water of a beautiful moun- tain lake has been piped into town and the poor who cannot have it in their houses may draw it from public hydrants, except when 205 A MEXICAN JOURNEY the Governor has diverted too much to his private fields and gardens. Still, in the dry- season there is cause enough to look eagerly for rains. Every wind bears clouds of blind- ing and pestilential dust, and the whole sur- rounding of the place is a desert. In the rainy season, from May to Septem- ber, visited with the other extreme, people pray for the freshets to cease. Every morning is an amethyst above and an emerald under foot; but every afternoon the clouds blacken and the floods come. Market women have been drowned in the streets. Forty thousand people live here, including perhaps a hundred Americans and the rem- nants of a colony of Cornish miners — tin miners they were in Cornwall — who lived here for thirty or forty years. One by one the Cornish families are going back home now to live henceforth on what Mexico has bestowed. And what makes the place? Silver. Silver and pulque. The only crop grown with any large success in the immediate neighborhood is the maguey, from which the national intoxi- cant is made. One English millionaire owes a large part of his fortune to his activity in pulque, and there are several members of his 206 TOWNS AND MORE TOWNS familj^ personally the worse for too much use of it. Maguey was grown by the Indians be- fore the Spaniards came, but silver is the chief local interest. There are about three hundred mines in the vicinity and some of them have been worked since early in the six- teenth century, till the output must be esti- mated in billions of dollars. The claim marks, the piles of tepetate (refuse), the yawning mouths of tunnels, and the curious mine build- ings lend variety to the precipitous hillsides. The silver that they yielded, until a few years ago, went the sixty miles to Mexico by stage or mule train. As late as 1901 there was no bank, and paper money was unfamiliar. The Mexican silver dollar, the peso, then worth about forty-three cents, was almost the only familiar unit of value, and a man who had a month's salary about him, unless poorly paid, was grievously burdened. It was no uncom- mon sight to see a servant accompanying some one on his way to a business appoint- ment literally staggering under a load of dol- lars. It is not quite true to say that this dol- lar was or is the only familiar unit. It is the official unit, the unit in business. But the market women cannot reckon in pesos nor in 207 A MEXICAN JOURNEY centavos. They hold by the old Spanish scheme of real (shilling), hdli-real, and quar- iev-real, which runs into fractions. This, however, little irks them, for they sell only a 7'eaVs or a cuartillo's worth at a time. If you want five times the amount, you repeat the transaction five times. It is forbidden to buy or sell merchandise by any but the metric units or to reckon money by other than the decimal system. A weighing scale cannot be imported unless with whatever other markings it may have it bears the metric scheme of grammes, kilogrammes, etc. In the markets the law is relaxed, seeing that it is hard for the common people to change, but in shops it is usually enforced. An inspector of weights and measures was in a small drygoods place when a boy asked for a vara (about a yard) of cloth. "We sell it by the meter, thirty centavos'' said the proprietor. "But I don't know meter," protested the boy; "how much would a vara be?" "Well, a vara would be about twenty-five centavos," vouchsafed the man. The boy asked for a vara, paid twenty- five centavos, and went out. "You are fined," said the inspector, "for selling cloth by the vara." "How much am I fined?" asked the 208 TOWNS AND MORE TOWNS shopkeeper. "Twenty reales," pronounced the inspector, half severely, half indulgently. "But you have imposed my fine in reales" ex- claimed the shopkeeper, "and therefore you also are fined." Both men laughed, neither fine was paid, and the inspector afterward told me the story on himself. 209 XVII A RIDE TO REGLA AT ten one morning, though six would have been a better time, we left Pa- chuca on two hired horses, bound for Regla. An hour's riding over the famous road to Real del Monte, along which many a fabulous fortune of silver has gone bj' mule- cart and whose sharp turns have witnessed many a bold bandit adventure, then a short canter across a flat, and we came to "the Real." A little wa)^ back we had seen a man wear- ing a blanket that we coveted for its rich colors and its characteristic Mexican design. Now, as we dismounted, he was coming into sight, and I went to greet him, with some com- pliments regarding the blanket. He was soon prompted to offer it for ten pesos (five dollars) and to explain how an old woman among the mountains of Puebla had woven it for him. For eight pesos, after some argu- 210 A RIDE TO REGLA ment, the blanket was bought. It was well bundled and well wrapped, as its condition required, but we were sure that after thorough washing it would come out as beautiful as an Oriental rug, nor were we to be disappointed. Perhaps we ought to have paid the ten jjesos, but we were not clear about it and there was no one to arbitrate. Having greeted the native Protestant pas- tor and his wife, we went up the street a few doors to take dinner with "Aunt Mary," a good soul whose title of affection had become so familiar among English and American miners for fifty miles around that she was scarcely known, even at the post office, by any other name, and all the shopkeepers had learned to call her by the Spanish equivalent, "Za tia Mariay More than twenty years she had remained in this place, ten thousand feet high, where husband and brothers, miners all, had lost their lives, and where she was soon to end her own, though we did not know that the present meal was the last we should have with her. So, here and there, no doubt there are manj'' solitary foreign women who stay to do good in a land where they have suffered. The hottest two hours of the day being 211 A IMEXICAN JOURNEY over, we took leave of "Aunt Mary," made our little contribution toward the charities that she was dispensing every day from slen- der means, and joined the friendly minister, who was going toward Regla as far as Ve- lasco. Pleasant chatting carried us through Omitlan to his destination, a little farm vil- lage among the mountains. Cornish "pasties," strong tea, and saffron cake full of plums, all pressed upon us by the bountifid ''tia Maria" at noontime, now in- clined us more to repose than to exertion. Rain, also, began to threaten, and we hesi- tated. Soon, however, wt were to leave the republic, and Regla, so long heard about, might remain by us forever unvisited. So we kept on through San Antonio, turning to the right from that hamlet to an interesting and beautiful blue lake, the Ojjo dc Agua. We retraced to San Antonio and took the op- posite direction to Regla, arriving there at a quarter before five o'clock. When we reached the gate of an old haci- enda it was with half a feeling of distrust tliat we entered, being told that so we could best see the noted falls. Inside and at the left of the entrance is a venerable chapel. At the 212 A RIDE TO REGLA right of the entrance is an exceedingly quaint garden with steps leading up to a quainter balcony, which runs along the side of a great nondescript building and terminates in some- thing like a conservatory. Clearly there are living apartments beyond that, and pleasant they must be. From the office a courteous Spanish-looking young man came out, invited us to dismount, and told us that we could reach the falls only by walking. He fur- nished us a guide with keys and we started along a way which presently became a tunnel, then an arched and vaulted succession of underground chambers where smelting ap- pears to have been done, then, emerging again after we had despaired of it, opened into a path along the edge of a ravine. Our guide told us naively that the subterranean passage was haunted, but that he himself had never seen anything ghostly. He assured us, however, that it is ''una cosa muy espantosa* (a very frightful thing). Moving along the ravine, we came at last to a sight of two high natural walls, approach- ing each other at an angle; and gurgling and plunging down between them at their point of greatest nearness, a waterfall. This, though 213 A MEXICAN JOURNEY not wonderful in size or height, is a joj^ful thing to look at, and would in itself have re- paid us for the journey. What attracted our attention most was the columns that form the two rocky converging walls. They are nearly perfect hexagonal prisms, basaltic in the popular sense, whether or not in the mineralogist's definition, and about three and one-half feet in diameter. Their height was not easy to determine, but I judged it to be some hundred and fifty feet. Most remark- able, I think, is a broken formation by which at one place not the sides but the smooth ends of the prisms are exposed to view, though con- siderably inclined upward. To the right and left of these are columns that stand erect, and above them are short stumps that are also per- fectly upright. The hacienda, church, and connected dwell- ings were built about a hundred j^ears ago by the famous Count of Regla. The cost of construction may have been millions of dol- lars. Hours would be well spent in exploring the place, for which we had onlj^ minutes. This Count of Regla was the rich man who en- dowed the National Pawn Shop of Mexico. He it was who lent the Spanish crown a mil- 2U A RIDE TO REGLA Hon pesos and offered if the king would visit him to pave the coach road with silver for his coming. Again on horseback, having given our thanks to the Spanish-looking young man and our peseta to the guide, we started homeward. The country from Regla to Omitlan is as unlike the barren Pachuca plain and hillsides as could well be. Cattle are grazing, crops are growing luxuriantly, the road has a con- sistency of genuine earth under foot, and there is green everywhere. The peasants' huts are cleaner and much more comfortable, the simple costumes of carriers and donkey driv- ers give signs of acquaintance with water, here and there are little shady groves where rabbits skip; and all is a picture of simple, rural prosperity. Velasco and Omitlan, but for the Indian blankets and wide hats and the low style of buildings, are like contented, hill- surrounded farm villages at home. One slope as we came along startled us by what seemed to be multitudes of glaring lights. They proved to be the points of a thousand maguey plants, wet with a little shower that was all the outcome of earlier cloudy threatenings, and now all aglow with 215 A MEXICAN JOURNEY red reflection from the setting sun. I had seen windows lighted up so, but never any- thing in nature. The flash of a thousand polished spears could not have been more brilliant. A maguey field has other beautiful phases. One that I must mention belongs not to the cultivated field but to the native growth on many a hillside. It occurs when a sprout twenty to thirty feet high has shot up from the heart of each mature plant and burst into wonderful bloom, when the morning damp is on them all, and when thousands of humming- birds of different varieties, like small animate jewels, dart to and fro among them. The field that we were now passing was, of course, not under cultivation for beauty ; and its yield would be taken before it could ever blossom. Still later, for night was approaching, we looked through the notch in the mountains be- yond which we knew was Real del JNIonte, and saw framed between their dark masses that beautiful constellation, the Southern Cross, which has an additional charm for the fancy because from our latitude at home it is never seen. This cluster of beacons was before us continually as we galloped along the shadowy 216 A RIDE TO REGLA roads for an hour, finally slacking rein and breath within a few moments' ride of "the Real." On Saturday night there is just enough chance of slightly unpleasant encoun- ters to make a spice in the after recollection. Twenty years ago all this neighborhood was thoroughly infested by bandits. Babes have grown to manhood in the villages since then, however, without knowing any worse fear than of some drunken miner who might give trouble. True, this argues that the hand of Diaz at his prime was steady and strong; but it argues more than that. It is proof that the rank and file of Mexican citizens in places like this desire order and quiet, and given proper firmness in controlling the few unruly spirits that always appear in a mining coun- try, they will live together as peacefully as good citizens anywhere. A little before eight o'clock we were again with our friends in their pretty flower-hidden parsonage, where we were to spend the night. An incident of one trip to Real del Monte has always returned to me with peculiar pathos. On a high hill overlooking "The Real," where it can be seen for miles around, is the cemetery of the English people of Pa- ^17 A MEXICAN JOURNEY chuca and Ileal del Monte, enclosed by a white wall. It has been there now for more than a generation, and there are graves enough to keep each other company. I happened along as a child's funeral was approaching and waited to attend. From the foot of the hill the coffin is always carried up by two sets of bearers, alternating as often as they need. No hired person ever touches a shovel to a grave. All such labor is performed by friends and neighbors, which is peculiarly significant in this country where no white man does manual work. On this particular occasion all the children of the colony, between fifty and a hundred, attended, dressed in black and white and carrying wreaths. While no lover of funerals, I have remembered this one as sig- nifying the group unity of fellow-countrymen in a strange land. I felt as if something al- most traitorous were being done when last spring, ten years later, I found all the pros- perous families of the colony going home. A rather melancholy fact for the less prosperous who remain ! They will become identified w^ith the new American colony that is growing up, and as a consoling tie some of their former neighbors will still be represented by sons and 218 A RIDE TO REGLA daughters to whom England Is not home, and who, though jealously claiming citizen- ship as Britons, find that they cannot be happy away from the land of their birth. Strange ramifications of interest and senti- ment indeed, come of life in a foreign country. 219 XVIII THE WEST AND NORTH f "T^WO young friends of mine who were J_ going from eastern New York to Mex- ico thought California so httle out of their way that they would be foolish not to include it in their journey, which they did. They got a check cashed in San Francisco and made a new beginning; a railway ticket to Mexico City costs more from San Francisco than from Toronto. To infer that Mexico has a long coast line on the west will not be going astray. Those who are fresh from school geography will disdain the weakness of mere inference here; and you may feel about equally superior if you have lately referred to a map. My friends were describing almost an equilateral triangle, so that after three thousand miles of travel they found them- selves little nearer their destination than before. Maps and other sources of indirect knowl- 220 THE WEST AND NORTH edge are likely to play a larger part in our acquaintance with the rest of the republic. Whoever has gone over as much ground as we have now covered and does not find his allotted time well toward its end, is no mere winter tourist. He may be the prospective author of some first-hand studies among the aborigines of "Unknown Mexico," or of inves- tigations concerning the economic and social conditions which have lately been character- ized under the strong phrase, "Barbarous Mexico," or of learned disquisitions on fauna and flora, on geology, or archaeology, or what not. He may be an intending settler, a pros- pector or a dawdler. Whatever he is, he may be well enough in his way; but to the brisk and somewhat careless traveler he is of course no companion. Toward home then we shall be gradually making our way, alert for any thought of somebody else that may help us to generalize, sympathetic and intelligent now toward many things that a little while back we dismissed simply as barbarous, by an insidious process turned students of prosaic books of reference during odd hours upon train or in hotel, find- ing nothing dull which broadens our acquaint- 221 A MEXICAN JOURNEY ance with this country of our travel. It has become the way of the three months' visitor *'to love that well which he must leave ere long." Western Mexico has two beautiful lakes which might have been named along with the cities of Morelia and Guanajuato some time ago. One is Patzcuaro, dutifully described by almost every writer because of the paint- ing of the Descent from the Cross at Tzin- tzuntzan attributed to Titian, Cabrera, Ibarra, and other great or lesser artists. The second lake, Chapala, is the largest in Mexico and the most popular for vacations. Both lakes are full of fish and haunted by game and song birds. Both are high and have a delightful climate. Among the sierras of the west live tribes of Indians acknowledging no allegiance to the Mexican government, little touched by any re- ligion except that of their forefathers, little altered in customs or life by contact with white men, and thousands of them unable to speak Spanish. They differ markedly in type, one tribe from another, there being one pop- ularly called Ckhios by the Mexicans because of their Mongolian appearance. 222 LAKE CHAPALA. CHIHUAHUA. THE WEST AND NORTH The map and the giiide-hook — for we must resume our journey — will tell us that even more than our own coimtry, Mexico has been slow to develop along its western slope. Aca- pulco, some three hundred miles north of Salina Cruz, has a harbor generally conceded to be the best natural port in America, and one of the finest in the world, offering without man's effort advantages for which substitutes have been so costly at Vera Cruz and Tam- pico. Acapulco is completely land-locked, with high protecting hills, and amid charac- teristic tropical scenery. Some dredging is needed to make it of use for the largest steam- ers. Here the galleons of the old Spanish trad- ers used to put in, and the buccaneers that pursued them. Fortifications were built in the seventeenth century, and for more than a hundred years this was the entry port for all the traffic of Spain, not only with her Philip- pine possessions, but also with India. Cargoes were unloaded, packed across the isthmus about four hundred miles to Vera Cruz, and reshipped. But of late a port without a rail- road could not flourish, so Acapulco has not greatly prospered. The Cuernavaca division of the Mexican Railway is being extended, 223 A MEXICAN JOURNEY and when it reaches the coast Acapulco will assume importance. Manzanillo, already hav- ing railway connections over the "Central" by way of Guadalajara, but lacking complete harbor protection as yet, is another port des- tined to grow. San Bias, yet a little to the north, then Mazatlan, and last, halfway up the east side of the Gulf of California, Guay- mas, make a succession of harbors most of which are too shallow for large vessels, but all such as can be deepened, all well protected, or capable of being made so, all extremely beautiful. Absence of railroad facilities, which are just now being provided, has left undisturbed in these towns a great deal that is quaint, while being on the coast, they have slowly gathered strange accretions of life from every quarter of the globe. You may sit in the plaza and study them. There are more various breeds of people than in the in- terior and more variously mixed. Over there is a Chinaman with the bundle of linen that seems the attribute of a Chinaman the world over; and those girls just beyond moving along with a gait that is half glide and half waddle might be his daughters. They are more probably the daughters of some Chinese 224 THE WEST AND NORTH shopkeeper who plainly has a Mexican (In- dian) wife. Of complexion they have rather more than either of their parents are likely to have had — a decided pink with a waxy cream color. You do not know after looking twice whether to call them pretty or repellent; hut they look clean, healthy, and satisfied with life. The negroes that pass now and then do not differ much in appearance from those to be seen in the Carolinas, though most of them, if you listen, are talking Spanish. This mother with three children is a mon- grel-looking female — one may say it with slight shame and not unkindly since no other phrase describes a jaded creature in whom the Aztec, the African, and the Iberian are all mingled, and if not badly mingled have still not fortified her to make more than sad, per- severing battle with life and frequent mater- nity. But do you notice how immaculate are the starched clothes of the three children and how almost pathetically clean her own cheap garments? Have you any notion how much work is involved to make the integuments of four as clean as that? Your laundry bills may at times have given you a hint that did 225 A MEXICAN JOURNEY not belittle it. ^Vrid this woman has either devoted such an amount of work for to-day's outing or paid some one yet poorer to do it. Smile if you will as she sends one of her prog- eny back to the dulce man with a goody that he has already begun to enjoy, but which she fears i.s not wholesome, and the dulce man, with the universal complacency of the land, submits to an exchangee. So vou rnvAii smile if you could witness the housekeeping of this mother of a family. More scrubbing will be done in a week than we might think necessar}' for a month; but the tolerance of all kinds of filth within arm's length of the door, unless some public authority looks after it, is a thing to admire. .She is cleanly, but she does not know what sanitation means. .She has a crav- ing for beauty, as the personal bedeckments of the family attest; but she has neither cul- tured tastes nor the unspoiled instinct for simplicity of some of her ancestors. She has a spark of aspiration after various things if only her aspiration were well directed and she were not so fragile a piece of yellow clay. That peon on the other side of the walk is horracho, which being interpreted means drunk — ver\' drunk. The well meaning 226 THE WEST AND NORTH young fellow of his own class who shakes him and is greeted with a muddled but emphatic protest, wishes to save him if possible from being helped away by a policeman. "You don't want a trip to the Valle Nacional, do you?" he inquires in answer to the protest; and the name has a sobering effect. Unless you have been reading books you will not know what the Valle Nacional is; but the horracho has an idea. The name is burned in on his mind so that even an excess of pulque or other drink does not wholly obliterate it. It is the place, so he believes, where a fellow arrested for being disorderly may find him- self consigned to help raise some of the best tobacco in the world, under such climate and conditions that he will not last for more than one crop. The poor people have their bug- aboos, many of which are unsubstantial, and Valle Nacional is one of them. The army is another, and the army has shovm itself de- cidedly unsubstantial on occasions. Why not, if composed of men to whom it was a bug- aboo until it became an unwelcome reality? This woman with the powder so thick on her face and the ludicrous grandee air is the wife of some small merchant of European or ^2T A MEXICAN JOURNEY mixed blood, and the young Indian girl, so much superior to her in physique, in comeli- ness, and in apparent interest in life, is her servant. On paper, that is in books planned so as not to need revision for two or three years, railroad connection is complete from Guana- juato all the way up the coast through the ports and beyond to Nogales, Arizona. In fact there are gaps as yet in the southern part. For the immediate present the tourist will choose a route farther eastward. There are three principal routes from the capital to the United States: one bj^ Zacatecas, Torreon, and Chihuahua to El Paso, Texas; one turn- ing a little eastward at Torreon to Eagle Pass, Texas; and one still farther to the east by way of Monterey, entering the United States at Laredo, Texas. Each of the Amer- ican border cities has its neighboring Mexican town just over the line: for Nogales, Arizona, Xogales in Sonora; for El Paso, Texas, Juarez in Chihuahua; for Eagle Pass, Texas, Ciudad Porfirio Diaz in Coahuila; for La- redo, Texas, Nuevo Laredo in Tamaulipas. Mention ought to be made of Durango, a fine city of 40,000 inhabitants, which is 228 THE WEST AND NORTH reached by a side trip of six to seven hours southwestward from Torreon, which with an altitude of six thousand feet has a dehghtful climate, and about which is an interesting region but little developed. The country is mountainous and full of mineral deposits. Fish and game abound. Zacatecas, hidden in a ravine between sil- ver-bearing mountains, has a population of thirty-five thousand and is noted for mining, for churches, and for nearness to some inter- esting ruins, La Quemada. The climate is not one of the attractions though the scenery has a barren beauty. A trip to a mine is some- times made part of a visit here. My o^vn ac- quaintance with silver mines happens to have been made at another famous camp, but essen- tials would not differ. A tram car drawn by mules is the most likely conveyance from town. Stone or plastered and whitewashed monuments on the hillside indicate the bound- aries of the "claim." When the actual build- ings are reached, the departments working above ground are too numerous to mention — offices, assaj'-ing rooms, sorting, grinding, washing, packing rooms, blacksmithing and repair shops, smelters, etc. Many cripples 229 A MEXICAN JOURNEY of the industry find employment in these sii- perterranean departments. The man who drives nails in that "skip" is blind of one eye, the man who turns the wheel over there at the bellows is totally blind, and yonder you may notice a poor fellow standing on a wooden prop which serves as a leg. These are natives. But here comes a young Englishman from the chief office who lost his arm only six months ago through some mishandling or im- perfection of a machine. You have bespoken a pleasure about as grim as visiting the forge of Hephaestus. Along with the blind and the cripples, you look every moment for dwarfs and giants. Now enter through the long tun- nel where you see the little flat cars issuing drawn by mules, and keep close to your guide. The walls of the tunnel are part masonry, part natural rock. When you reach the far end of this nearly horizontal tunnel, you are already far under a hill. The elevator or "cage" will take you up the shaft to the sur- face, or down to lower and lower levels. No- tice the great pumping engine lifting thou- sands of gallons of gray mine water per min- ute, night and day, and always under careful watch, to keep the whole enterprise from be- 230 THE WEST AND NORTH ing submerged. In some places you would still find only bull hides, roughly sewed and used as buckets, strings of them being hauled to the siu'face; but you are visiting a some- what modernized establishment. There are sixteen different levels, one below the other, to which you may plunge in this cage of yours, till yoiu* technical friend tells you you are only a petty two or three thousand feet above sea level and your sensations tell you that hell cannot be far below. Along every level run narrow shafts, broadened wherever rich ore has appeared in quantity. Along every shaft crouch men and little children, half naked, under their dripping loads. Over each group of Indian laborers is a Mexican, an English, or quite possibly an American boss, his lamp, a candle, stuck upon his hat with soft clay. He himself does no work except in emergency — no white man in Mexico above or below ground does manual work — but even so his position does not provoke envy. Heat, blackness of thick darkness, strange half- muffled, reverberant sounds, a sense of pres- sure in the ears and of deadly weight upon the lungs, a saturating drip, drip at every turn, and confused glimpses now and then of 831 A MEXICAN JOURNEY human figures at toil — this is about all that the casual visitor to a mine can record. Above ground again you may watch to see how the workers emerge and will observe them riding upon an open "skip" — not a "cage" this time — some standing upon the low edge and reach- ing over to cling to the rope by which the car is hoisted. Deaths, you are told, are only moderately numerous, the greatest numbers being on Mondays or following feast days when pulque has been imbibed. The Mexi- can laborer is not lazy on a work day, but if free to do so he will observe all the festivals and memorials, for he is a creature of custom. The mules that you see mixing the great torta (cake) of amalgam out there are not crea- tures of custom and do not observe holidays nor die with incontinent suddenness ; but they have shockingly sore legs from the effect of vitriol in the mixture. They are relieved, when too much affected, and used by way of change to turn the great rolling stone that grinds the ore. You may console yourself that modern stamp mills are displacing this invention of 1557 as well as some of the uses of human labor just shown you. And yet there are to this day also mines where peons 232 THE WEST AND NORTH toil to the surface upon notched tree trunks for ladders, denied even the perilous aid of the "skip." By means thus widely varying, Mexico leads the world as a source of silver, with forty million dollars' worth annually, stands well up in the list of gold-producing countries, with twenty-four million dollars' worth, is second to the United States in cop- per production, with an annual yield of thir- teen million dollars' worth, and is third for output of lead, though for this the figure seems small — three and one-half million dol- lars' worth. Silver, gold, copper, and lead are very commonly found two or three to- gether, a mine being operated for the pre- dominant metal, while assays are made for the others as by-products. The subject of min- ing would repay further discussion if we were either investigators or formal students. Torreon, with a population of fourteen thousand, has its chief distinction in being a railway junction as already indicated. An accident to our train made me acquainted with it, and I found it a good deal American- ized. Chihuahua is even more so, being nearer the border, and is twice as large. Silver smelters — for still we are in the region of 233 A MEXICAN JOURNEY rich silver mines — iron foundries, and fac- tories give it a modern air. Hidalgo, the "Author of Mexican Liberty," was put to death here in 1811. Though the citj^ of Chi- huahua is chiefly famous for the raising of a useless and sickly kind of dog, it is the capital of a state larger than Ohio and Pennsylvania combined. This area is sparsely populated by Tarahumare Indians, the best runners in the world, and by miners and ranchmen, many of whom are Americans. It is the old sister state of Texas, and like it in having vast regions devoted to cattle raising. Lumber- ing and silver mining are also among the in- dustries. 234 / TORREON. MONTEREY. XIX TIDES THAT MEET A WRITER in a religious weeklj^ not long ago spoke of the twentietli century as being on one side of tlie Rio Grande, and the sixteenth on the other. No one would expect this altogether to be the case, and yet one is constantly surprised to find how far it is from being so. Monterey is about as American a city as San Antonio, and San Antonio lacks little of being as Mex- ican as Monterey. The baggage man, the customs agent, and lately, by reason of a de- cree, the train conductor also are of quite dif- ferent types on the two sides of the line; and from these one might easily generalize. But an article by Charles Moreau Harger in the Outlook for January 25, 1911, apropos of the admission to statehood of Arizona and Xew Mexico, reveals that on the American side from Brownsville, Texas, to San Diego, Cali- fornia, the "twentieth century" is only 235 TIDES THAT MEET blended with the sixteenth. From the Gulf to the Pacific, the quiet, non-official popula- tion who have nothing to do with large affairs but are so important in any prophecy regard- ing the future character of a region, has a considerable residue of the Mexican to whom the whole southwest once belonged. He is the "native," here as in Mexico itself. Forty- one per cent, of the population of New Mex- ico are Spanish American; there are 135,000 of them in this one state. How many more are of mixed blood would be hard to guess, but the number is certainly large. The Mexican, as a rule, is without strong national or racial antipathies. Says a friend of mine who has studied the subject for years: "They are the amalgamators of all races. Large numbers of the poorer Mexicans are coming to the United States now and by in- termarriage will do much to solve the negro problem and the Indian problem. What the final race will be I cannot predict, but my ob- servation makes me think it will be good. There are at present about as many Mexicans as there are American negroes in this south- ern strip; and the amalgamation can be seen all along the border, especially in San An- 236 A MEXICAN JOURNEY tonio, Texas. There is a city by itself in San Antonio where all the breeds may be studied by any one who will take the trouble." As well as the poor, some Mexiean families of means and eultiire have always remained in the United States since the border was shifted southward to include them. On the other hand, the aggressive Amer- ican is in evidence on the southern as well as the northern side of the border, occupying the positions in which initiative and the ability to manage would naturally place him. Nor is he the only modifying influence. "From all these colonies in the United States INIexicans and mixed bloods who have got a little Amer- ican education are constantly going back to Mexico along with the Americans who go looking for land. The flow southward will increase now that the free land in the United States is nearly all taken. The Roosevelt Dam and other projects, and the statehood of Arizona and New INIexico, will hasten the movement. The national line has little effect to stop it." In Torreon, you will remember my saying, I experienced one of the delays that still oc- cur from time to time on Mexican railroads, 237 A MEXICAN JOURNEY or on our owii, for that matter. I entered a barber shop and asked to be shaved, putting the request as well as I could in Spanish. "Beg pardon, sir! What did you say?" was the rather sharp response. "Oh, then you speak English?" said I. "Yes," answered the man, "and it's lucky, for I don't speak anything else." This man was an American, plying his trade over two himdred miles from our bor- der, yet without knowledge of any tongue but our own; and the incident occurred ten years ago. There was a young Texan in our party who was on his way homeward to repair ill health, and who could not eat buffet rations. I had tried repeatedly to get him some Amer- ican crackers or English biscuits — quite sim- ilar articles under a different name, — but the Mexican shops that I entered could not supply either. I asked my barber friend if he could help me to what was wanted. "There is an American grocer three or four doors be- low," he replied. In this grocery, also, Eng- lish was of course the language of trade, though Spanish may have been used on occa- sion. I found that one could do better with 238 TIDES THAT M 1:1 71^ good English than vvitli laiiit- Castilian in tlir town generally. In the "Pullman," whicli was to go as Far as Mexico City, the cai^ital and very heart of the repuhlic, I heard a party of JNIexicans try- ing to make their wants understood. "Oh, I don't comprcndc what you quierc!'" (don't know what you want!) was the exclamation of the negro porter. The number of Amer- icans traveling by Mexican railroads is ])ro- portionately larger than would be supposed, if third-class passengers be left out of reckon- ing. Particularly is this true in sleeping-cars. So our porter had a not unaccountable feel- ing that English was the language o\ his realm, and that aliens ought to learn Englisli before coming in. The steward in the same train called upon some passenger to interpret, when he wished to buy watermelons of a native. All Pullman conductors in ^lexico, so far as I have ever observed, speak English. Most of them are Americans, by birth or adoption. It is true that they all speak Spanish. There has lately been made a law that porters also must know Spanish; but the need of sucli a law explains itself. Fancy a law requiring 239 A MEXICAN JOURNEY similar officials in the United States to know English ! It is not surprising that English should make some way southward over the boundary. So does Spanish penetrate northward, for the matter of that. But the exchange is not equal in amount, as the Mexicans emigrate less and travel less than we. There are several thou- sand resident Americans in Mexico City alone, to say nothing about the multitude of tourists. If the linguistic movement south- ward continues to be more than the counter movement, plainly the line of contact will it- self gradually be moved. There is hardly a Mexican urchin selling fruit or papers along the railroads within fifty miles of the Rio Grande who does not know at least some colloquial phrases of English. This becomes less and less true, indeed, as one progresses southward. But one is never surprised to be asked by some russet - faced tatterdemalion, "You want the paper?" "You want some fruit?" and — this is a parenthesis — English reappears more prominently than ever at the capital. Ask a Mexico City policeman in very simple English where some important building is, and quite probably he will tell 240 TIDES THAT MEET you. Walk into any large shop and ask for what you want, and if the elerk does not understand "United States" he will call some one who does. Let me suggest a few reasons for the spread of English among our neiglibors on the south. The first shall be a negative rea- son. Hating Spain as they do, and with more cause, historically speaking, than ever es- tranged us from our British cousins, Mexi- cans have no great tenacity for the Spanisli language. I am not wholly accoimting for the fact; but at least it is a fact. Before I have ended, this will have become more ap- parent. A second reason for the tendency men- tioned is the dearth of modern writing in Spanish upon scientific and technical subjects. If a young man expects to go far in the study of architecture or engineering, he must read English, because enough books in Spanish do not exist, original or translated. Frencli works are all that could be desired for tTsthetic treatment, but not as touching practical ques- tions of construction. German is learned only with difficulty, being more purely Teutonic. If the student turns his attention to medicine, mi A MEXICAN JOURNEY he must do his reading in either French or Enghsh. French has been preferred, but EngHsh is displacing it. The same is true of any theology save that of the Roman church. The most important school of Protestant the- ology in the republic prescribes its reading courses in English throughout, most of the teachers being Aiuericans. The inadequacy of Spanish was smartly alluded to once by a young Englishman of my acquaintance. At a dinner party where no other foreigner was present, he sat next a young woman who lacked the usual courtesy of her nation and who was disposed to humiliate him. Having noticed his difficulty in Span- ish, she made him confess that he knew but little French or German. "Then, sir, pray what do you speak?" asked she. "Senorita, thanks be to Heaven, I speak English very well," came the retort. "One who can do that need not learn all the other languages. English will take me wherever I wish to go, and whatever I wish to read I can read in English." Blunt as was the answer, their Mexican host applauded it. The commercial aggressiveness of Amer- icans and English is recognized as one cause 242 TIDES THAT xMEET of the great strides made by our laiifriiage the world over, and not less in Mexieo than else- where. Already English is, more than Span- ish, the medium of large business transaetions in the capital. This is more easily understood the more one looks at statistics. iVccoidiiig to estimates something like a billion of Amer- ican dollars is invested in INIexico. Our linguistic stupidity and obstinacy may be regarded as a cause of our linguistic tri- umphs. In Mexico, Germans are considered the best foreigners because of their quickness to acquire both speech and customs, while English and Americans are universally known as the worst. Any of us who is even a little instructed has frequent occasion to blusli for the ignorance and regardlessness of his coun- trymen. Hence it follows, though the aigu- ment brings us doubtful credit, that those who will treat with us must learn our ways and our speech. Most Frenchmen and practically all Germans in Mexico speak English as well as Spanish. Mexicans know the significance of these facts, and every intelligent Mexican who does not speak English is anxious to learn. I knew well a teacher of scores of them, some 243 A MEXICAN JOURNEY of whom can now use English almost as a native tongue; and many more would have become pupils if time could have been given them. There were two other private teachers of English in the same town, whose popula- tion, excluding illiterates, would not be more than ten thousand; and both teachers were continually refusing work. Besides this pri- vate instruction to adults, regular work in English is required of all children in public schools. From two to five years of English is given in all state institutions of higher grade, and practically the same is true of pri- vate schools. On one occasion the American teacher men- tioned was invited to call upon the principal of a large school for boys and asked to name a price for certain hours of English. The principal made some objection to his charge, whereupon the Mexican friend who intro- duced him declared: "The patrons of the school paj'^ more than that for music, which is a mere ornamental accomplishment for most children. By and by, when the Yankees have finished their pacific conquest of Mexico, we shall learn which is more necessary, English or music." 244 TIDES THAT .MEET The pacific conquest is ^oiii"^ on, thou^li it does not look at all toward political union. To prophesy that in a few generations English will be the universal language of Mexico, w^ould be to prophesy overniucli. Spanish has never become a universal hui- guage there. Thousands of Indians in tlic remote villages still retain the primitive speech of their ancestors. But in a few gen- erations, possibly not more than two or tlu'ee, English seems destined to become the lan- guage of Mexican schools and the language of Mexican society generally. We have seen that it has points of superiority as among the Mexicans themselves. I have hinted at a more potent reason for such prophecy; multi- plied and growing interrelations make it in- creasingly desirable that we and they shall have a common speech. And when a com- mon speech is established, it will be no arti- ficial Esperanto, but a language that shall naturally have become the medium because of having proved itself, of the two now used between us, the more vigorous and practical for modern needs. Barring a catastroplie, that language will of course be English. At present it shows marvelous increase. 245 A MEXICAN JOURNEY Some who have studied general movements and tendencies in the western world recog- nize that more than Mexico and our border states are concerned in the interplay of which we are speaking. Without any thought of political aggression the Latin influence presses outward from the strong and growing republics of South America, while the Anglo- Saxon influence, so called, just as constantly bears down from the north. Where the two tides will definitely come to a balance is not sure — that will depend on the outcome of many material and moral factors; but the Anglo-Saxon dominance appears not likely to be eliminated north of the Isthmus of Pana- ma. All of North America will some day, we are thus constrained to believe, be one in language and civilization, one in the funda- mentals that concern society, just as all South America promises to be one; and just as Can- ada and the United States are already one, geographers and f)oliticians alike to the con- trary. It is not government but the broader social facts that this implies. We chose the ocean route southward to begin with, you will remember, partly be- cause the Rio Grande looks so much alike on 246 INDIAN WOMEN. TIDES THAT MEET its two banks; and we proposed not to be cheated of contrasting the twentieth century with the sixteenth. You may have it in mind also that for five hundred miles the border is not marked even by this puny stream, which barring times of freshet may be forded at will. We are divided only by a line on the maj). Why should we not intermingle and take on each other's ways more or less, we and our so near neighbors? 247 XX CUSTOMS AND COMPARISONS THERE is very much, we discover, that we would like to have got at first hand, but must now gather in these secondary ways. Familiarit}^ with the bullfight will not be one of them, for whoever wants to see a bullfight has opportunity enough. I myself am unacquainted from choice. Those to whom the romantic traditional associations ob- scure the actualities of the thing and who can think back to the old tournament jousts during a performance may enjoy it. Those who wish to read about it are advised to take Mr. Arthur M. Huntington's "Notebook in Northern Spain," JNIiss Katharine Lee Bates's "Spanish Highways and Byways," or any one of a number of books in which it figures, including the Mexican guide-books. To some it is only an exhibition of a poor old horse being impaled or having his entrails gored out by a tortured animal that would gladly be let 248 CUSTOMS AND COMrAKISONS alone — sickening and revolting. Many Anicr- ican men who carry an air of bravado on llicir travels and want to see what is to be seen are unable to sit through one killing. Mexicans apologize for the institution even while tlicy admit they enjoy it, and say that it is sure to disappear, though its death is slow. Tlic mor- bid curiosity of foreigners helps to perpetuate it. I never heard a Mexican silly enough to argue that it is "less brutalizing than foot- ball," though some Americans have so argued. The infliction of bodily injury or pain is no object in football unless to some player un- worthy of the game — certainly not to the spec- tator — while in bullfighting the glee of the whole matter is the glee of killing. If the bullfighter himself suffers, the sport is all the better for that. Many comparisons of various kinds at first made to the detriment of Mexico are after- ward revised. With writers about Mexico the "palm shack" and the "mud hut" are fa^ - orite objects of contempt. The bamboo and paper house of the Japanese is appreciated, but the Mexican palm shack, which may be a cousin to it, is still treated with derision or disgust. Yet the palm shack has its merits. 249 A MEXICAN JOURNEY It affords excellent ventilation where ventila- tion is desirable; and if it is not always of marked cleanliness, neither are the places where men and women starve among us at home. At its best it may be very inviting. The "mud hut," that is the adobe house, is certainly the kind I should build in Mexico if I could spend only two or three thousand dollars on a dwelling. It is fire-proof, earth- quake resisting, warm in winter, cool in sum- mer, highly durable, and, when plastered, capable of being colored and recolored to suit the taste of the occupants, at small expense. I have mentioned one in Oaxaca that is two hundred and fifty years old and still good. Whoever speaks of Mexico as a benighted country does not refer to the method of light- ing her towns. A direct change from the candle lantern to the electric arc took place there while only the most progressive Amer- ican towns had as yet adopted electric light- ing. As Mexico had no natural gas, no known supply of native coal from which to make gas, and no oil except what was imported, there was every stimulus to develop her many slender but high waterfalls from which abundant elec- tric current could be generated. Part of the 250 CUSTOMS xVND COMPARISONS lacks named above have since been filled; though domestic coal is still not abundant, and so iron, of which there are considerable de- l^osits, especially in Durango, is smelted at a disadvantage and in limited quantities. Mon- terey has the largest and most modern plant, where even heavy Bessemer steel rails are made. The Mexicans as a people are artistic in temperament and intellectual when given a chance. In an imitative way they are clever at all sorts of handicrafts. They have less mechanical ability than Americans, less busi- ness invention or initiative, and less general practicality. The representative INIexiean physician, I believe, knows as much of the theory of his profession as the American physician, and has done more reading aside from his profession; but for a^jplying his knowledge to cases commend me to the Amer- ican. I have known of some unfortunate ex- periences with Mexican doctors, and ])artic'u- larly surgeons, for whom as men of culture and of intellect I had great respect. The same characteristics appear in the trades. A Mexican carpenter can do nothing for you which requires ingenuity; but if he makes you 251 A MEXICAN JOURNEY a plain cliest lie will insist on making it better than the American carpenter would think worth while. Mexicans on their part are as likely to think us better than we are as to think us worse. A native preacher of really admirable attainments after spending a winter in New York gave an account of his impressions. It was extremely interesting but also amusing to some American hearers because of the way in which he lauded us for merits that we do not possess. The extreme courtesy of everybody in New York was one subject of comment with him. New York policemen, he observed, are not armed, excej)t with a stick, and have no need to be. That there are some speakers and writers who regard Americans as mere exploiters of their country cannot be denied, and while un- balanced, their view has an element of truth. Americans own some of the henequin planta- tions of Yucatan, control mines where labor is as much oppressed and safety of life as little regarded as ever under Spanish manage- ment, and hold large areas of unimproved land which an iniquitous system long made exempt from taxation. /American policy of 252r CUSTOMS AND COMPARISONS finance compelled a constant apology or de- fense of the Diaz administration when it was indefensible, and so made ns enemies of prog- ress among our southern neighbors) It is de- clared, let us hope falsely, that the counter- revolution and attempt to overturn INIadero's progressive government was partly financed ^ from Wall Street. J There are, of course, no end of customs and objects in Mexico which do not lend them- selves to any comparison at all but which one remembers and would like to describe. One is the celebration of Christmas. The imestos or special Christmas markets are interesting, but I have reference more to the Posada, which translated means "the inn." A shrine is set up, and the manger, the divine babe, Mary, and Joseph are represented as well as other figures or incidents pertaining to the life of Christ. Some of the company remain inside while others forming a procession out- side sing or chant their supplication for ad- mittance. This is denied, also in song, nine times, symbolizing the failure of Mary and Joseph to find lodging, but on the tenth time it is granted, after which the remainder of the solemnity is held before the shrine. A 253 A MEXICAN JOURNEY less serious part of the ceremony comes with the giving of gifts, which are likely to be figures in the forms of dancers, clowns, or animals, filled with candy or other dainties. Larger figures of earthenware are hung from the ceiling, and blindfolded members of the party hit at them with sticks, the aim being to make sudden distribution of the contents. Another curious custom belongs to the Easter season. On Saturday of the semana santa (Easter week), at an appointed hour, Judas the betrayer is burned with great demonstration. I saw him suffer, representa- tively, in front of several pulque shops on the day which I recall. Announcement before- hand will have gathered a considerable crowd at each place. From the roof or upper win- dow of the shop, a rope is made fast to some opposite building. In proper time the man who is to manage the affair shows himself and slackens the rope so that it is within reach from the ground. Then Judas is borne out and greeted by shouts and the waving of manj'^ small paper banners which have been distributed by some merchant, perhaps the keeper of the shop, and which bears an ad- vertisement of his wares. 254j CUSTOMS AND COMrAllISONS Judas makes plain at once that some hmiior is admitted to the occasion, lie is sure to have grotesque features, usually with a !ar(| of War. l!l. lluinboltll, A. v».n,