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Title: Mexico and Central America
a geographical reader
Author: Harry Alverson Franck
Release date: July 4, 2026 [eBook #79021]
Language: English
Original publication: Dansville: F.A. Owen Pub. Co., 1927
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79021
Credits: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA ***
MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA
_TRAVELS IN MANY LANDS_
A series of Geographical Readers for Intermediate Grades, written by
Harry A. Franck and published by F. A. Owen Publishing Company:
THE JAPANESE EMPIRE
CHINA
MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA
_Others in preparation_
* * * * *
Books by Mr. Franck published by The Century Company, New York:
A Vagabond Journey Around the World
Four Months Afoot in Spain
Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras
Zone Policeman 88
Vagabonding Down the Andes
Working North from Patagonia
Vagabonding Through Changing Germany
Roaming Through the West Indies
Glimpses of Japan and Formosa
Wandering in Northern China
Roving Through Southern China
East of Siam (French Indo-China)
_TRAVELS IN MANY LANDS_
MEXICO _and_
CENTRAL AMERICA
A Geographical Reader
BY
HARRY A. FRANCK
WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS, MANY FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR
F. A. OWEN PUBLISHING COMPANY
DANSVILLE, NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT 1927
F. A. OWEN PUBLISHING COMPANY
_Travels in Many Lands—Mexico and Central America_
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
PUBLISHERS’ FOREWORD
The very best way to give boys and girls a clear idea of just what life
is to their brothers and sisters of other lands is to take them through
those lands. If they cannot go in person (and of course few can), a
well-written story of travel will be a valuable substitute for personal
experience.
To be of educational value to the reader, a book of travel must first of
all be authentic. It must have been written by one who knows at first
hand the things about which he writes. A superficial knowledge gained by
flitting through a country along its main traveled routes is not
sufficient to enable a writer to tell a complete story about it.
Among the notable travelers of our time, probably none has more
thoroughly covered many countries than Harry A. Franck, the author of
this book. His travels have not been mere sight-seeing tours. He has
gone into the out-of-the-way places and lived in the homes of the common
people, to study their habits and manner of living. He has visited their
temples and schools. He has learned something of their language and
talked with them on all manner of subjects so as to become familiar with
their views of life.
From boyhood, Harry Franck had a desire to know about the great outside
world. In 1900, during his first summer vacation while attending the
University of Michigan, he set out, with only $3.18 in his pocket, to
see something of Europe. He worked his way across the ocean on a
cattle-boat, visited the principal cities of England, then Paris and the
Exposition that was being held there. He signed as an able seaman for
the return trip and reached Ann Arbor for the fall term, only two weeks
late.
Mr. Franck worked his way through college and intended to make teaching
his profession, but that first European trip gave him an appetite for
more travel. When he was graduated, he started out, with only enough
money to buy supplies for his camera, to work his way around the
world—which he did in sixteen months. After this trip he wrote _A
Vagabond Journey Around the World_, which is regarded as one of the most
remarkable books of the kind ever published. Since then he has written
many other volumes telling of his experiences. During more than twenty
years of travel, Mr. Franck has covered half a hundred countries. He has
journeyed 50,000 miles on foot and at least an equal distance by
primitive native methods. He carries equipment for obtaining the best
possible pictures. Many of the illustrations in this volume are from
photographs taken by him personally. They give intimate and unusual
glimpses of peoples and places.
_Mexico and Central America_ may be given to children as supplementary
reading with the assurance that it is based on actual facts most
carefully verified. The world to-day is not what it was even a decade
ago. Conditions, customs, the very people themselves have changed; some
greatly, some slightly. A book of this kind, to be really helpful, must
reflect these changes. It is no less true, however, that such a book
should be concerned chiefly with those characteristics and aspects of a
country and its people which have an element of permanence. For this
reason, the perplexing internal problems of the countries visited are,
for the most part, merely touched upon by Mr. Franck. To do more would
be outside the scope of a geographical reader.
As children read about our Latin-American near neighbors, we feel
confident that they will be impressed with the fact that the people of
the whole world are one great family; that what affects one nation
affects all nations sooner or later, and to a greater or less degree.
Children, like adults, must be led to see that people everywhere have
their virtues and ambitions, their trials and hardships, and that the
misfortune or the prosperity of one country is reflected in other
countries far away.
Knowledge of these facts should prompt us to work for the peace and
well-being of all peoples, particularly through the channel of our
schools. In this connection, Payson Smith, Commissioner of Education for
Massachusetts, has aptly said: “Education in all lands should lead the
youth to recognize those interests which are common to humankind, to
magnify the virtues which all men hold in common, to minimize those
differences and distinctions which divide, and to interpret the history
of race and nation in those terms that are helpful to world progress as
well as to national self-respect.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To the Century Company, New York, publishers of Mr. Franck’s _Tramping
Through Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras_, grateful acknowledgment is
made for permission to use certain of the author’s photographs which
first appeared in that volume. The illustrations referred to are on
the following pages of this book: 21, 27, 31, 33, 36, 47, 68, 69, 70,
74, 76, 79, 84, 85, 86, 96, 103, 105, 110, 111, 137, 156, 165, 166,
167, 168, 170, 176, 179, 191, 206, 207, 208, 213, 215, 217, 218, 220,
223.
For courteous and generous response in providing other illustrations,
we are indebted to the following: Mr. J. M. Bejarano, secretary of the
Mexican Chamber of Commerce of the United States, New York; Mr. C. A.
McIlvaine, executive secretary, The Panama Canal, Canal Zone; United
Fruit Company, Boston; Panama Mail Steamship Company, San Francisco;
Ward Line and Wendell P. Colton Company, New York; Resorts and
Playgrounds of America, New York (publishers of _Picturesque
America_); International Harvester Company of America, Inc., Chicago;
Pan American Union, Washington, D.C.
The proofs were critically read by Mr. J. M. Bejarano (mentioned
above), Mr. P. K. Reynolds of the United Fruit Company, and Miss Lena
M. Franck, the author’s sister. To all of these appreciation is due.
Coats of Arms of
Mexico and the Central American Countries
[Illustration:
Guatemala
]
[Illustration:
Honduras
]
[Illustration:
Salvador
]
[Illustration:
Mexico
]
[Illustration:
Nicaragua
]
[Illustration:
Costa Rica
]
[Illustration:
Panama
]
(Cuts by courtesy of Pan American Union)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I OUR SOUTHERN NEIGHBORS 11
II ON BOTH SIDES OF THE BORDER 17
III TRAVELING AS THE MEXICANS DO 29
IV SOMETHING OF MEXICO HISTORY 39
V NORTHWESTERN MEXICO 53
VI ON THE GREAT TABLE-LAND 64
VII I GO TO WORK IN A MINE 73
VIII VARIED PRODUCTS AND HOW THEY ARE SOLD 87
IX CITY AND COUNTRY LIFE IN MEXICO 95
X GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH MEXICO CITY 108
XI RECREATIONS AND SOCIAL LIFE 124
XII THE MEXICAN GOVERNMENT 134
XIII ROUND ABOUT THE MEXICAN CAPITAL 141
XIV MY JOURNEY TO THE GULF COAST 151
XV TROPICAL MEXICO 163
XVI THROUGH GUATEMALA ON FOOT AND BY RAIL 174
XVII A CONTRAST IN CIVILIZATIONS 186
XVIII IN THE DEPTHS OF HONDURAS 200
XIX A VERY PECULIAR “ROYAL HIGHWAY” 209
XX INDUSTRIOUS LITTLE SALVADOR; AND BELIZE 224
XXI NICARAGUA, AND AMERICAN “CO-OPERATION” 233
XXII COSTA RICA—THE “RICH COAST” 247
XXIII PANAMA AND THE GREAT CANAL 259
PRONUNCIATION LIST 283
MAPS
SPANISH POSSESSIONS AFTER THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE 51
PROPOSED NICARAGUA CANAL ROUTE 239
RELIEF MAP OF THE PANAMA CANAL 266–267
PANAMA CANAL AND CANAL ZONE 269
[Illustration:
Underwood & Underwood
Beautiful Mexico City, circled by mountains, as it looks from the
Cathedral clock tower. In the foreground is the National Palace.
]
MEXICO _and_
CENTRAL AMERICA
CHAPTER I
OUR SOUTHERN NEIGHBORS
The foreign land nearest to our United States of America is Mexico.
Although most of us live closer to Canada than to Mexico, we hardly
think of the Canadians as foreigners. True, they are citizens of the
British Empire, and do not vote in our elections. But any of you who
have been in Canada know how much it is like home—how very few things
are different at all.
Mexico, on the other hand, is very foreign indeed. The Mexican people
and their ways, even the Mexican scenery and climate, are as unlike us
and our ways, our scenery and climate, as if they were on the opposite
side of the globe instead of just across a shallow river. Yet close as
it is, and interesting as it would prove to be, most of us know and care
less about Mexico than we do about Europe. A thousand Americans cross
the Atlantic and travel in Europe to one who steps across the Rio Grande
and enjoys visiting our quaint southern neighbors. In school we study a
great deal about European history, but most of us never hear of Mexico
in history class, except in connection with what we call our Mexican
War.
Surely it is important to know one’s closest neighbors; so I am going to
invite you to come with me on what I think will be an interesting
journey, not only through Mexico but clear down through Central America,
with its half dozen smaller and smaller republics, until we reach our
own people again along the Panama Canal. Some of the traveling will be
rough; sometimes our lodgings will not have all the comforts of home.
But I will do all the walking and coarse eating and hard sleeping for
you, so you can give all your attention to the pleasures of the trip and
bring home a clear knowledge of the people and the land so close to us.
Some Things We Should Know First
Sometimes it is fun to visit a foreign country before we know anything
about it, but in the end it is not the wisest plan to do so. Before we
start it will be worth while to stow away in our knapsacks a few facts
about Mexico and the smaller lands beyond.
In Mexico we shall be in another _United States_, for the official name
of the country is the “Estados Unidos Mexicanos,” which means the
“United States of Mexico.” If, some day, you go on traveling with me
beyond the Panama Canal, into the great continent of South America, we
shall find still other _United States_. There are twenty-eight states in
Mexico, two territories, and a federal district. The capital is in the
federal district, which is almost surrounded by the _state_ of Mexico.
On the south it is bounded by the state of Morelos. Some people are
surprised that the name Mexico should be given to a city, a state, and a
country. They forget that, for example, part of New York City is in New
York County, and all of it is in New York State.
Mexico is about two thousand miles long. Its width varies from one
thousand miles, up near the northern border, to a mere 130 miles down at
its “wasp’s waist” of Tehuantepec. It has a coast line of nearly six
thousand miles. You will notice that this is much more than double the
length of the country, and the reason is that the Pacific Ocean all but
surrounds the great peninsula of Lower California, while the peninsula
of Yucatan stretches far out into the Atlantic to help form the Gulf of
Mexico. The country has one large lake. Very few of its many rivers are
navigable.
Some people like figures, even if they are very large ones. For them we
may say that Mexico has nearly 800,000 square miles of territory.
Perhaps most of you, like myself, will get a better idea of its size if
I say that it is almost as large as our five biggest states rolled into
one—Texas, California, Montana, New Mexico, and Arizona. Down in Central
America, however, we shall find that the country of Costa Rica is hardly
as large as Pennsylvania, and that Salvador is no larger than New
Jersey.
[Illustration:
Ward Line. Photo by Hugo Brehme, Mexico City
Miles away one can see the snow-covered head of Mount Orizaba.
]
Mexico is a land of mountains. It is really an immense table-land or
plateau, beginning far up in the Rocky Mountains. Ciudad Juárez on the
frontier is more than 3,700 feet above sea level, and within two hours’
train ride of Mexico City this great plateau is 8,100 feet high. Then it
begins to subside, running down to almost nothing in the Isthmus of
Tehuantepec. We might liken it to a great land wave (with the nation’s
capital just over its crest) topped by many snow-clad peaks as white as
foam. The Sierra Madre, or “Mother Range,” runs the whole length of the
country, as the Rockies do in ours. Besides this main ridge, nearly
everywhere more than 10,000 feet high, there are many cross ridges and
parallel ranges. Of the great peaks, always capped with snow and ice,
Orizaba is over 18,000 feet high, Popocatepetl and Ixtaccihuatl, the
“Sleeping White Woman,” are each over 17,000. None of them is as high as
Mt. McKinley in Alaska or the giants of South America. Yet there are
volcanoes in Mexico which, though as lofty as Mt. Whitney (highest point
in the United States proper) are so unimportant, compared to the others,
that we do not even know their names.
As you may already know, there are about fifteen million people in
Mexico. It would be difficult to take as accurate a census there as is
taken every ten years in the United States. About one-fifth or twenty
per cent of the inhabitants are purely of the white race. Thirty-five
per cent are Indians. The rest, or nearly half the population, are
_mestizos_, that is, mixtures of the Indians with the Spaniards who
conquered them. In one sense North America south of the United States is
not a white man’s country. Yet in another sense it is, for the white
inhabitants do most of the governing and have most of the wealth. The
_pela’os_, or “peeled ones”—those who are very poor and have no real say
in the government—make up about sixty per cent of the population.
The Central American Countries
Central America includes all the countries between the Isthmus of
Tehuantepec and Colombia. Sometimes Mexico also is considered a part of
Central America, which seems reasonable enough, for it is surely a part
of the central portion of land of the western hemisphere. The whole of
this region we are to visit has been likened to a great horn, fastened
to the United States as to a head. The horn—or the imaginary animal that
owns it!—seems to be trying to gore South America with the sharp curved
tip which we call the Isthmus of Panama.
Central America includes the countries of Guatemala, Honduras, Salvador,
Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama, and the British crown colony of
Belize, often called British Honduras. Except this last, and little
Salvador, all the countries of Central America are like Mexico in
stretching clear across the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
They somewhat resemble a family of children, lined up according to size,
with Mexico as the big brother. We shall see, too, that they have tried
several times to live together as one family, but they do not seem to be
able to do so peaceably.
Perhaps this is enough to know before we start on our journey. If we
know too much about a country before we visit it, we lose much of the
pleasure of travel. For then there are no more surprises left for us
than there are in a story of which we know the plot. Yet one other
matter should be mentioned before we start—the climate. If you think
that because Mexico is so far south you will need only summer clothing,
you will have many a day of shivering before you reach Panama. Take
along the things you wear at home in late autumn and early spring, and
remember that there will be many days, and especially evenings, when you
will need at least a light overcoat. Most of the time in Mexico we shall
be up on the high table-land, and even in Central America we shall
sometimes be as high above the sea as Denver is.
CHAPTER II
ON BOTH SIDES OF THE BORDER
For Americans, Mexico is easy to reach. If you like an ocean voyage you
can take a steamship from New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, or
almost any of our other large ports. If you prefer to go by land, you
can step into a sleeping-car and be carried all the way to Mexico City.
Not only Texas, but New Mexico, Arizona, and California border on
Mexico. In fact these last three states are closer to it than Texas is,
for the western half of the boundary—beyond the Rio Grande—is merely an
imaginary line. Along that there is no barrier to cross, though customs
officers and other officials may make you feel that there is. Americans
who are forgetful of their geography often think of the Rio Grande as
forming the entire boundary.
On the opposite sides of the frontier stand many pairs of towns—like
twins facing each other! The largest border town on the United States
side is El Paso (Texas), which means “The Pass.” It is almost in the
center of the long boundary that stretches from the Pacific to the Gulf
of Mexico, just where the Rio Grande begins to be the dividing line.
There are four bridges between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez across the
river. One of them is used by street cars that run in both countries.
Think of going to a foreign country in a street car!
[Illustration:
San Diego & Arizona Ry.
The market place and church in Juárez, across the Border from El Paso,
Texas.
]
I first entered Mexico much farther eastward, at Laredo, Texas. I might
have gone across in a train, but I decided that I would rather walk. I
wished to see the boundary shaft, with its silver sides bearing the
coats of arms of the two countries. This is in the middle of the bridge.
Besides, there was the famous river itself to be seen.
The Rio Bravo del Norte
The “Wild River of the North,” as the Mexicans call the Rio Grande,
seemed a queer name for the sluggish and dreary stream that flowed
slowly past beneath me. Its thirsty banks reminded me of the Mexican
coat of arms which, like our own national emblem, has an eagle on it,
but an eagle perched on a spiny cactus and holding a rattlesnake. Rough,
barren country, sparsely inhabited, borders the Rio Grande. Nothing
larger than a rowboat can navigate the river; there are almost no fish
in it; it turns no mill wheels or electric-lighting machinery. Its only
job seems to be to form the boundary, and even that it does not always
do properly. For one thing, it bends and twists and wanders as if it
were not sure just where it wished to go. Thus the border it marks is
more than two thousand miles long, though only about half that distance
in a straight line. It changes its mind—I mean its course—so often that
we have to have a commission in Washington to keep the farms along it
from changing nationality every time it decides to take another twist.
[Illustration:
Boundary marker on bridge at Laredo.
]
The water in the Rio Grande is often so low that people can wade across
it almost anywhere. Because it wanders most near the Gulf of Mexico,
into which it flows, the eastern part of the international boundary is
five times as long as it might have been. The river is not a very
efficient boundary because it does not keep out smugglers, of things and
of people. Gangs of bandits sometimes make raids across it, for they
have only to ride or wade through it. Men steal cattle on one side and
drive them across to the other. People who would not be allowed to enter
the United States as immigrants often find ways to get across the Rio
Grande. Our officials cannot watch every twist and corner of that
wandering, shallow river.
The Mexicans themselves come and go freely, for we do not like to shut
out our next-door neighbors. About 40,000 Mexican men come over every
year to work for us, picking cotton, repairing railroads, and doing
other hard manual labor which the native American is glad to leave to
others. Since the World War more than half the goods that Mexico imports
come from the United States and nearly eighty per cent of the things she
exports go to that country. Part of the total, of course, is carried in
steamships, but more and more of it crosses the Rio Grande.
The Two Laredos
To a large extent, the western part of our United States was once
Mexican. Not only the four states that border on Mexico have Spanish
names, but so have Nevada, Colorado, even Montana. I was not surprised,
therefore, to find Laredo in Texas almost a Mexican city. More than half
the people in the streets had the black hair and the brownish skin of
Mexico. Most of the signs in store windows were in Spanish. Even at the
United States post office the clerks spoke Spanish better than they did
English. There was soon to be an election, and I noticed how Spanish
were the names of the men running for the offices of mayor, sheriff, and
so forth.
Yet Laredo is rich and prosperous and American compared to Nuevo (New)
Laredo across the river. The moment I had crossed the bridge into Mexico
I was surrounded by Mexican scenes. Men wandered listlessly about the
streets with candy and fruits and queer biscuits for sale, some of them
carrying their wares on boards on top of their heads. Most of the
streets were not paved at all, and were deep in dust. Beggars followed
me. Down on the edge of the river women washed clothes in the muddy
stream—a kind of laundry we shall see often in our travels. The women
beating soaked clothing on rocks instead of rubbing it on washboards
reminded me of the little American boy who, soon after his family took
him to Mexico, came running into the house shouting, “Mother, come quick
and see our washerwoman trying to break stones with father’s best
shirt!”
[Illustration:
The shallow and meandering Rio Grande at Laredo, Texas, as seen from
the international bridge.
]
There is a hotel in Nuevo Laredo now, and some other modern buildings.
As we go on into Mexico we shall find, indeed, that our southern
neighbors have many fine streets and great buildings. Most of the houses
I saw in Laredo were typically Mexican. Nearly all of them were covered
with stucco once gaily painted pink, blue, orange or some other bright
color, but now much faded. They were all one or, at most, two stories
high. Like Spanish houses everywhere, they were “wrapped around the yard
instead of having the yard wrapped around the house,” as someone once
put it. On the outside they were bare and ugly, crowded against the edge
of the street and with no space between them. But inside they had little
_patios_ gay with growing flowers and other vegetation. Two words which
we must learn before we go far in Mexico are _patio_ and _plaza_. The
first is the unroofed flower garden that makes a kind of courtyard for a
house; the other is a park, nearly always with beautiful trees, shrubs,
and flowers, in the center of a city. In the daytime most of the people,
at least the women and children, live in the _patio_. In the evening,
dressed in their best clothes, they stroll about the _plaza_ near the
bandstand.
On Mexican Railroads
There was a funny little street car, hardly ten feet long, in Nuevo
Laredo. It brought me finally to the railroad station, which looked like
nothing but a shed made of _adobe_, that is, of mud-and-straw bricks.
The station was closed, but by and by two men in important-looking
uniforms came, and began selling tickets and checking baggage. Then the
train arrived, a very American train, for it had come from San Antonio
in Texas.
Before we went on into Mexico, however, some second-class cars were
added to the train. These had wooden-slat benches, two lengthwise along
the sides of the car and ten pairs of seats back to back in the middle.
They had no cushions and no elbow-rests, and would have seemed very
uncomfortable to Americans—even though they were made in Indiana! But
the fare on such cars is so much less than on the others that the great
majority of Mexicans travel second-class.
[Illustration:
San Diego & Arizona Ry.
A Mexican boy water carrier who lives near the border between Mexico
and the United States.
]
I decided to go second-class myself. Not only did it seem an easy way to
save money, but it gave me a chance to be among the real, everyday
Mexicans. As all Mexican trains burn oil, soot and cinders did not
bother us as we rumbled away across the flat and sandy country. But
every car was a smoking-car and the women were smoking as freely as the
men. Behind us were an ordinary American coach marked “first class,”
Pullman sleeping-cars, and a dining-car, carrying American and rich
Mexican passengers.
The railways of Mexico were originally English or American. On my first
Mexican trip the conductor and the engineer were white Americans, and
the fireman was a negro. The conductor did not take up the tickets, but
left that to another uniformed man called the auditor. He, like the
brakeman and the train boy, was Mexican. The Mexican word for brakeman,
by the way, is _garrotero_, which means “twister” or “choker.” In the
days before airbrakes were used on trains, he had to help stop the cars
by twisting what looked like an automobile steering-wheel on the top or
the platform of each car.
Not long after my first visit to Mexico the Mexican Government began to
operate most of the railroads in the country. Except for our Southern
Pacific, which runs down the western side of the country to Guadalajara,
Mexico’s second largest city, and the Mexican Railway from Vera Cruz to
the capital, all the lines are combined now under the name National
Railways of Mexico. The American conductors and engineers were
discharged, and later on so were the American managers and
superintendents. At present there are only about 16,000 miles of
railroad in all Mexico. New York and Ohio together have about the same
mileage.
We left Nuevo Laredo at three o’clock in the afternoon, or what would
now be called fifteen o’clock! A Mexican law did away with “A. M.” and
“P. M.” on the ground that they were confusing—and even dangerous in
railway time-tables. Some of the European and South American countries
have done the same sensible thing. Instead of stopping at twelve o’clock
noon and beginning over again with one, two, three, they simply go right
on counting. So fifteen o’clock means three in the afternoon, twenty
o’clock is eight in the evening, and so on up to twenty-four o’clock or
midnight. It is really very simple, and most people when they are used
to it decide that this is a better way of marking the time than ours.
My First Mexican Journey
General Zachary Taylor took several weeks to get from Laredo to Monterey
during our war with Mexico. Now one can cover the distance in six hours.
For the first hour or two I noticed that the land was very flat and dry,
much like southern Texas. Almost the only vegetation consisted in those
tough, spiny, worthless plants called cactus, mesquite, and chaparral.
For miles I did not see a house, or a human being, outside the train.
There were no cattle, nor even birds. The land seemed to be too dry for
them. Yet, oddly enough, there were some fences—one or two barbed wires
stretched on crooked sticks. The wind howled mournfully through the
thorny mesquite bushes, but there was not a cloud in the sky, and the
sunshine almost burned us when we stepped out into it at the stations.
Before long, hazy mountains began to appear. By six—I mean
eighteen—o’clock, big saw-toothed ranges stood near us on both sides.
Sometimes, as the shadows of the setting sun played over them, they
seemed to be running a race with the train. Still there were few people,
or cattle, or houses. Now and then we might catch sight of a
wild-looking man, dressed in sheepskins, tending a little flock of white
goats. Here and there some flat, mud-colored huts appeared. The strong
wind sifted sand from the half-desert all over us.
Then we reached Monterey, gleaming under the moonlight. It is the
largest city of northern Mexico. Behind it stands a high notched ridge
that looks so much like a seat that it is called Saddle Mountain.
Monterey (spelled Monterrey in Spanish) has the largest steel mills in
the western hemisphere south of the United States, and one of the
largest in the world. Some Mexicans complain that the city is too
_americanisado_, or Americanized. They think it has copied too much from
the United States. But to me it certainly looked much more like Madrid
than like one of our own cities. Most of the streets, I found, were very
narrow. They had such cramped sidewalks that when two people met, one of
them usually had to step down. The houses nearly all showed bare walls
close up against the street, and every window was barred with iron as if
it belonged to a prison. The Catalina River, which is supposed to flow
through the town, was so dry that mule and donkey paths wandered along
its stony bed, and sellers of fruit, vegetables, and gaudy cloth had set
up their little booths as if in a street.
Still, I could believe the people who told me that Monterey is not so
Mexican as other cities farther south. Sometimes I even heard English in
the streets. Already I had several times heard myself called “gringo.”
That is a slang word for “American” all the way from the Rio Grande to
Patagonia. Sometimes the people who use it mean to be insulting, but
most of them think it is a perfectly good, kind name for us. No one is
sure just where this nickname came from. The most common explanation is
that the Mexicans often heard American soldiers, during our war with
Mexico, singing a song by Robert Burns that began:
“Green grow the rashes, O!”
[Illustration:
The city of Monterey, with Saddle Mountain in the background.
]
You can see how, out of “green grow,” they could easily make “gringo.”
Our southern neighbors, all the way to Cape Horn, also call us Yankees
(they spell it _yanquis_) and an American from Louisiana is just as
likely to be called a _yanqui_ as one from Connecticut. Even this
nickname is sometimes used with an unpleasant meaning.
[Illustration:
Keystone View Co., Inc.
Would you think it was fun to wear a sombrero as big as this?
]
CHAPTER III
TRAVELING AS THE MEXICANS DO
There were some fields of corn south of Monterey, but soon dust and
thorny bushes covered the landscape again. Mountains rose all about us,
as the train climbed higher and higher. The mountains seemed to keep
crowding closer, like a circle of bandits. They also seemed to become
lower, but that, of course, was because we were going up into them. The
train made quite good speed, in spite of the steep grade it had to
climb.
Saltillo, where I stopped for a few hours, is almost a mile high. The
weather was pleasantly cool for the first time since I had left our
Great Lakes. Rain had fallen, and it was almost fun to splash through
small puddles in the poorly paved streets. I was very weary of the
bone-dry, sun-scorched country in which I had been traveling all the way
from San Antonio.
The only train from Saltillo to the next large city ran at night. I
should have been more comfortable in the sleeping-car, or even among the
few Americans scattered about the first-class day-coach. But what is the
use of traveling if you go to bed and sleep through the journey? I
decided to sit up with the Mexican passengers in the second-class car,
even if the benches were hard.
I counted a hundred grown-up passengers in that car, besides more than a
dozen children. There were all kinds of Mexicans, from city people who
were as white as I, to men and women of the fields sunburned almost
chocolate-brown. Only a few of them wore our style of clothes. Most
Mexicans still prefer their native dress, the most important part of
which is the _sombrero_, a large hat. Mexican men, like American women,
want a hat different from anyone else’s. The hats of the peons, or
workingmen, are made of straw; the others are of very thick felt,
decorated with colored tape and a kind of embroidery.
Wealthy Mexicans, and even some who are not at all rich, pay a hundred
dollars for a hat loaded with silver decorations and weighing several
pounds. The crowns of _sombreros_ are so high that they would surely
hold two quarts of fruit. Such hats are of almost any color except red.
A Mexican never looks half so impressive or picturesque with his hat off
as with it on. The rest of the costume is very much alike for everyone.
The coat or jacket reaches only to the waist, and has many more buttons
than seem necessary. Shirts are of all the colors you can think of,
without collars and neckties. A wide cloth belt of some gay color is
wound about the waist. The trousers are so tight as to make one wonder
how the owner can get into them. Some have rows of buttons down the
sides from waist to ankle.
A few of the men in our car wore shoes, but most of them had on
_guaraches_, a mere sole of cowhide tied to the foot with thongs of
leather. In place of overcoats men wore or carried _sarapes_, reminding
me of the blankets in which the Indians of our Southwest wrap
themselves. Some of these were woven with fancy patterns in colors, and
had long fringes at the ends; all had a slit in the middle to put the
head through.
None of the women wore hats. Instead of the _sombrero_ and _sarape_ they
had the _reboso_, a kind of shawl for wrapping around the head as well
as the body. Their skirts were very long. Some of them wore leather
sandals and some were barefoot. The children dressed just like their
fathers and mothers, the little boys in huge hats, gay _sarapes_, and
skin-tight trousers, the girls wrapped, head and all, in shawls.
[Illustration:
A Mexican boy of the highlands wearing a thin cotton suit and a straw
hat. The _sarape_ or _poncho_, a strip of cloth with a hole in it,
helps him to keep warm.
]
A Cold Night Ride
It was easy to see that the passengers claimed more Indians than white
men as their ancestors. Yet they were very polite, both to me and to one
another. I could not help watching one family near me. The father seemed
hardly twenty years old, and the mother was even younger. He was a very
sturdy, muscular, sun-browned fellow, as if he had worked hard outdoors
all his life and never weakened himself with the luxuries of a soft bed
and a heated house. They had a child about two years old, his black eyes
even brighter, if possible, than those of the father and mother. When we
were all struggling for seats at the beginning of the trip, the father
picked the child up by one hand and swung him clear across the car to
the mother, but the youngster never stopped smiling.
I am sure none of us could have done more to make a lady comfortable on
a hard journey than that Indian peon, who had probably never been inside
a school in his life, did for his young wife. And though the Mexicans of
the peon class seldom laugh, I am certain no American crowd would have
been so good-natured as these passengers were, huddled together on hard
benches all night long. Not once did I hear any of the children cry, or
even whimper, though it was not at all what an American would consider a
comfortable ride.
The farther south we went the cooler it grew, for we were still climbing
among the mountains. I pulled out my sweater, and finally wrapped myself
in all the clothing I had with me, but by midnight I was sorry I had not
brought an overcoat. Once or twice I dozed for a few minutes, with my
head on my bundle, but there was no room for anyone to lie down.
It seemed strange to be shivering with cold when, at about four in the
morning, we crossed the Tropic of Cancer into the Torrid Zone. As
daylight began to creep through the windows I stood in the vestibule and
watched the bare, brown landscape hurrying by toward the north. I could
see no mountains now, because we were on top of them. Scattered mesquite
bushes and cactus, some of it ten feet high, were the only growing
things. I began to think that Mexico must be a poor land for farming,
but before I left the country at its other end I learned that much of it
is very fertile. Just as the sun was beginning to cast long slanting
rays across the cold earth we arrived at a large city named San Luis
Potosí.
[Illustration:
Among the many forms of cactus in Mexico is the so-called “organ
cactus.” Its great stalks, covered with sharp spines, sometimes grow
twenty feet high.
]
Perhaps you have been wondering whether you could not go down through
Mexico in your own automobile. I am afraid not. The highways built there
long ago by the Spanish have become miserable trails. Even in Spain
roads are not very good, and Mexico is a true daughter of that land. The
Indians who ruled in Mexico before the Spaniards conquered them were
quite civilized in many ways. But as they had no wheeled vehicles, nor
even any domestic animals (everything being carried on men’s backs),
their descendants of to-day do not consider roads as important as we do.
The present government of Mexico is building highways, and perhaps some
day we can drive all the way to Mexico City in the old “flivver.” But we
would not get very far south of the Rio Grande in it now. For one thing,
there are many long stretches with no towns, no stores in which to buy
food, and no gasoline stations. When we reach the capital we shall find
automobiles enough. But away from the big cities and off the railroads
we must travel mostly by the old narrow, unpaved trails. Most Mexicans
are horsemen, unless they are so poor that they have to walk.
A Real Mexican City
San Luis Potosí is now one of the up-to-date cities of northern Mexico.
It lies in a great basin of mountains more than a mile above sea level,
so that its climate is always cool, and pleasant except during the
rains. Many of its buildings are well made, and it has a fine cathedral.
Its business men are so enterprising that some of them have become rich.
It is the capital of the state of San Luis Potosí, which was the first
state in Mexico to pass laws in favor of the working classes—the
“radical land reforms” about which we shall learn more later on.
When I first saw San Luis Potosí it seemed rather poor and miserable.
Perhaps that was partly because rain fell nearly all the time I spent
there, and because I still had American cities in mind. The dull skies
made it seem very dreary, and the only way to keep warm was to walk or
to stay in bed. I could not help laughing at the idea most Americans
have of the climate of Mexico. It should be as warm as Florida, they
think, because it is as far south. They forget that most of it is a
table-land high above tropic sea level.
[Illustration:
The public market of San Luis Potosí overflows along the cobbled and
often muddy streets. Each family has its few cents’ worth of produce
to sell.
]
There seemed to be at least a hundred ragged men and boys at the
station, clamoring for a chance to earn a few cents by carrying
someone’s baggage. Hundreds more of them wandered about the town looking
for some way to earn their food. Their tight trousers and short jackets
and collarless shirts, even their leather sandals, were ragged and torn.
Their clothing might be patched with half a dozen different faded
colors. Some had only a strip of old carpet as a _sarape_ wrapped around
their thin bodies. They wandered dismally about in the cold rain. There
seemed to be as many poor women and girls as men and boys. In fact they
seemed poorer, for most of them did not even have _guaraches_, but
splashed about in bare feet. Nearly all the poor people were trying to
sell something or other. There was a covered market, but only a small
part of the great throng could find room in it. Every narrow little
muddy street all about the market was lined on both sides with sellers
squatting over their wares. Most of them had hardly ten cents’ worth of
stuff to sell, and the buyers were so poor that many bought only a
cent’s worth at a time. There were little piles of six peanuts, sickly
little apples, tiny cones of muddy-looking sugar, turnips cut in two
because people could not afford to buy whole ones. It would take pages
just to mention all the things to eat that were for sale in tiny
quantities. Then there were baskets and earthenware jars of every kind
and size, scraps of calico, and long strips of leather for making
sandals. Now and then a woman dressed better than usual went along
making purchases, always followed by a ragged man or woman carrying what
she had bought. To any Mexican above the peon class it is a terrible
disgrace to carry the smallest package in public.
All the people of San Luis Potosí are not poor, by any means. In the
daytime most of the homes looked poor, because one could see only their
bare outer walls. But when they were lighted, I got many a peep into
richly furnished rooms and flowery _patios_. In the great churches and
in the best shops there were men and women, and children, too, fully as
well dressed as any I had seen in my own land.
My hotel room had a fine view of the mountains, but I was supplied with
no water, no mirror, no towel. When I went downstairs to wash, I found
the landlady sitting on the floor shelling peas into the only washbasin!
I am sure you will be interested in what I had to eat. Mexican
breakfasts are very light, nothing but a cup of coffee or chocolate, and
a roll or a corn cake. For dinner and for supper we always had a very
thin soup, squash, boiled beef, and hot corn _tortillas_ that looked
much like our pancakes. Then came a plate of rice and peppers, tripe,
and a peppery dish of beans (_chile con carne_). Every real Mexican meal
includes red or black beans, served just before dessert. Since pies and
cakes are not native to Mexico, we usually had as our last course a bit
of fruit and the blackest coffee you ever saw.
Of course there are better hotels in Mexico than the one I have
described. Even San Luis Potosí has a better one now. But some of the
beds I slept in were not much more comfortable than the wooden benches
in a second-class Mexican railroad car. Who minds such things, though,
if he can travel in strange foreign lands?
[Illustration:
Photo by H. L. Summerville, San Antonio
At San Antonio, Texas, one may visit four Franciscan missions built by
the Spanish monks. La Concepción, the first, was erected in 1713.
Then came San José and San Juan, and in 1730 San Francisco (or
Espada) Mission which is shown here.
]
CHAPTER IV
SOMETHING OF MEXICAN HISTORY
Perhaps we ought to know a little about the history of Mexico before we
go farther into the country. Hundreds of years before Columbus came to
America, two tribes of the Nahua nation of Indians came down from the
north into what is now Mexico. They were energetic and enterprising, as
people from a bracing climate usually are compared to those who live in
tropical countries. But gradually the first tribe, called Toltecs, seem
to have lost some of their ambition and fighting spirit. It is said that
in the eighth century the capital of the Toltecs was at a place now
called Tula, just north of the Valley of Mexico, in which the capital of
to-day is situated. They were excellent architects, as we can easily
believe from the ruins of many of their buildings that remain. They knew
how to fuse metals, to cut and polish the hardest stone, to make
earthenware and fabrics (cloth), and they invented a calendar and a kind
of writing. Although it was hardly writing as we understand it, being
more nearly picture drawing, the Toltec emperors wrote in it a kind of
poetry and philosophy.
About the end of the twelfth century, three hundred years before
Columbus sailed, the Aztecs moved southward and drove the Toltecs before
them. Although they belonged to the same race, the Aztecs were more
ferocious and gloomy than the Toltecs, and they had a very cruel
religion. They finally established their capital, Tenochtitlan, where
the City of Mexico is to-day. It is said that they waited for a sign to
show where the capital should be located. This sign was the sight of an
eagle perched on a cactus with a rattlesnake in its claws; from it comes
the coat of arms of present-day Mexico.
Meanwhile, for many centuries, a tribe called the Mayas had been living
still farther south. They also seem to have come down from the north,
but much earlier than even the Toltecs. Some scientists believe that all
the original inhabitants of the western hemisphere came from Asia by way
of Bering Strait and Alaska. This is not at all impossible. I have seen
Mongolians of the Gobi Desert and Indians of the New World who could
hardly have been told apart except by their clothes. Perhaps wave after
wave, or tribe after tribe, of people who were originally Asiatic swept
down across the two Americas until there were inhabitants even at the
southern tip of South America. These original settlers are generally
spoken of as Indians, but they might better be called Amerinds to
distinguish them from East Indians.
The Mayas of Yucatan were never conquered by the Toltecs and the Aztecs,
but in the eleventh century famine and pestilence broke out among them.
Those who survived went on to what are now Guatemala and Honduras. They
took their civilization with them, and as we shall see when we come to
the ruins of their cities, they were far more civilized than the Indians
who lived in wigwams and roamed our western prairies shooting buffaloes.
In fact, they probably reached a higher state of civilization than any
other inhabitants of America before Columbus’ day. The ruins of the
Mayas at Uxmal and Chichenitza in the Mexican state of Yucatan, at Cobán
and Quiriguá, Guatemala, and at Copán, Honduras, are still being
explored, mostly by Americans, and we are learning more and more about
this remarkable people.
The Aztec Religion
By the time the Spaniards came to Mexico, the Aztecs had spread their
rule from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They had adopted or thought out
for themselves a civilization like that of the Toltecs, and in their way
were as far ahead of the nomad Indians of our plains as the Europeans
were above the savages of Africa. But the Aztecs were a curious mixture
of mildness and ferocity. This is not so surprising as it may sound; in
my travels I have found many wild tribes that in some ways were as
gentle as children. The laws of the Aztecs were severe, and their taxes
were heavy.
The priesthood were rich, powerful, and very numerous. The chief god of
the Aztec religion was the god of war, who was called Huitzilopochtli!
As if it were not bad enough to have so dreadful a name, he had to be
kept pleasant by human sacrifices. If a week went by without someone’s
being killed in his honor, he was likely to grow peevish and do the
whole Aztec nation great harm. There were altars to him all over the
country, and they were constantly drenched in human blood. In a museum
in Mexico City you may see an elaborately carved stone of sacrifice
which the Aztecs had in their capital.
[Illustration:
Keystone View Co., Inc.
On this stone the Aztecs used to offer human sacrifices to their war
god. It is now in the National Museum, Mexico City.
]
Every year the most nearly perfect young man in the nation, after being
given twelve months of feasting and high living, was sacrificed on this
stone before a multitude of people. Gladiators fought, as in Rome, in
honor of the bloodthirsty god. Men armed only with wooden spears for
protection were attacked by other men carrying weapons made of
obsidian—a black stone as hard as flint and sharpened to a razor edge.
The people really enjoyed the thrills they got from sacrifices and
contests, but they pretended, and perhaps really thought, that the gods
demanded these. Babies and beautiful girls were sacrificed to appease
the rain god. The Aztecs, besides sacrificing hundreds of their own
people every year, made war against their neighbors in order to get
victims—men, women, and children—for the sacrifices.
The Spaniards Arrive
There was a saying or legend in Mexico that some day the mild gods of
the Toltecs would return. According to the legend these gods had white
skins. When the Spaniards came, they found the conquest of the Aztec
nation made easier by the fact that many of the Indians thought the
Toltec gods had arrived.
Hernando Cortés landed in 1519 at a place now called Tabasco, near the
present Vera Cruz, with about two hundred men. After sending a message
to the Aztec emperor, Montezuma, commanding him to submit to the king of
Spain, Cortés forced a thousand Indians to carry his baggage, and
started for Tenochtitlan. The swift Indian runners (who took fresh sea
food to the royal tables in the capital every day) met him with the very
proper answer that Montezuma would continue to rule his own country
without help from a king he had never heard of before.
[Illustration:
Keystone View Co., Inc.
The Aztecs used this stone as a calendar. It is now in the National
Museum, Mexico City.
]
Cortés pushed on over the mountains toward the capital. But he might not
have conquered Mexico and given Spain what was for a long time her
richest colony, if it had not been for three advantages. One was the
legend already referred to. Another was the simple honesty of the
Indians, who did not then know how tricky these people from Europe could
be. But perhaps Cortés’ greatest advantage lay in the quarrels among
various tribes of Indians. If all the people of Mexico had stood
together, they probably could have driven out the Spaniards—in which
case Mexico might have been Aztec to this day.
The kingdom or republic of Tlaxcala, now a poor little state southeast
of Mexico City, long warred with the Aztecs. At first its people fought
Cortés, but later they became his allies against their Aztec enemies.
Near Mexico City is still an ancient tree which is called the Tree of
the Sad Night because under it Cortés sat all one night and watched his
beaten soldiers retreating. But he reorganized among the friendly
Tlaxcalans, and finally came back to Tenochtitlan and overthrew
Montezuma. By 1540 all the territory from Panama to what is now our
state of Washington was called New Spain.
In a way the Spaniards may be regarded as the “more gentle” gods of the
legend, but in some respects they were just as cruel as the Aztec war
god. Cortés had the bloody sacrifice stone cast down, and destroyed the
dreadful blood-spattered temples, driving out the priests. But the
people were distributed as slaves among the Spaniards. The Spanish
priests destroyed many of the native art treasures and inscriptions, so
that the record of Aztec civilization was largely lost. These priests
considered anything that had to do with the Aztec religion or culture as
wickedly superstitious. The conquerors thought of Mexico simply as a
mine to be worked for the benefit of Spain, without any attempt to be
fair to the Mexicans themselves. Commerce with other countries was
forbidden on pain of death.
[Illustration:
Underwood & Underwood
Tree of Noche Triste (“Sad Night”), Guadalupe, under which Cortés is
said to have wept as his defeated soldiers passed by.
]
[Illustration:
In the central _plaza_ of Dolores Hidalgo stands a statue of the
priest Hidalgo, the “Father of Mexican Independence.”
]
For three centuries Spain ruled Mexico in this stern way, through
viceroys sent out by the king. Finally, in 1810, when the Spanish at
home were busy fighting Napoleon, a priest named Hidalgo rose against
the viceroy then in office and tried to overthrow Spanish rule in
Mexico. But Hidalgo was captured and executed the next year. There are
statues to his memory, and streets named for him, all over Mexico. He is
often called the father of his country, or the Washington of Mexico.
Later the revolt was taken up by another priest, named Morelos, who was
executed in 1815, and for whom one state and the capital of another
state are named. In 1821 Mexico City was surrendered by the last Spanish
viceroy. His name, by the way, was O’Donojú—can you guess where his
ancestors came from? A Mexican named Iturbide proclaimed himself
emperor, but he was banished, and when he came back to Mexico again he
was shot. Since 1824—except for the short-lived empire of Maximilian
(1865–7)—Mexico has been a republic.
Mexico as a Republic
Since it was largely the example of the United States that caused Mexico
to proclaim her independence, it was natural that she should form her
constitution and laws very much after ours. But Mexico’s history as a
republic has not been as happy as our own. Our people had long had town
meetings and colonial assemblies; the people who had been ruled by
Spanish emperors and their viceroys for three centuries, and before that
by Aztec emperors, had little idea of how to govern themselves. After
the revolution in Mexico there was chronic civil war and disorder until
1876. While there were only fifty-seven viceroys in the three hundred
years that Mexico was a Spanish colony, there have been, in the century
since the revolution, sixty-six presidents, two emperors, and a regency.
Frequently the presidents have been killed while in office. One of them
ruled for thirty-four years, but another was president for only
forty-six minutes!
Even to-day many Mexicans and other people of Spanish-America cannot
understand any kind of political change except a violent one, resulting
in the death of the ousted leader. I remember being in South America
when Woodrow Wilson was elected president of the United States. You know
that he was a Democrat and that the man in office when he was elected
was a Republican. Even some of the educated Spanish-Americans showed
great surprise that the Republican Taft let the Democratic Wilson take
over the office. They would say to me: “Is not President Taft the
commander-in-chief of the army? Then why does he not order the army to
drive this Wilson out of the country, and keep the office himself?” How
dreadful such a state of affairs would seem to us!
[Illustration:
Photo by H. L. Summerville, San Antonio
The Alamo is often called the birthplace of Texan independence. It was
the scene of a heroic defense against the Mexicans in 1836.
]
We must not overlook our own war with Mexico during that country’s years
of disorder, for it is a more important part of our neighbor’s history
than of our own. Many Americans now think that the war was more our
fault than Mexico’s. There was bitterness and misunderstanding on both
sides. Texas, then a part of Mexico that was being settled more and more
by Americans, had won its independence in 1836. In 1845 it asked to be
admitted as a state of the United States and it was annexed in spite of
the protest of Mexico. A dispute as to the boundary increased the
antagonism between Americans and Mexicans, and the slavery question was
also involved. After about a year and a half of fighting, Mexico City
was taken by General Scott, who came up to it from the coast just as
Cortés had. By the treaty of peace signed in 1848, Mexico ceded to us a
large territory that included the present California, Nevada, Utah, most
of Arizona, and parts of New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming.
[Illustration:
Rare carving was used in decorating the Spanish missions. This window
is in San José Mission, San Antonio, Texas.
]
During our own Civil War there was foreign intervention in Mexico.
France wished to get a foothold in the New World, despite the Monroe
Doctrine; so she sent the brother of the emperor of Austria, a
well-meaning but weak man named Maximilian, over to be emperor of
Mexico, with a French army to support him. But the Zapotec Indian
Juárez, with the help of the half-Indian Porfirio Diaz and others,
defeated Maximilian after the French had abandoned him. They had him
shot, and that was the last time Europe tried to introduce royalty into
the western hemisphere.
[Illustration:
A map showing possessions remaining in the hands of Spain after the
Louisiana Purchase.
]
Porfirio Diaz
Porfirio Diaz was the greatest of the sixty-six presidents Mexico has
had since the revolution. He remained in office for thirty-four years.
As already mentioned, Diaz was partly of Indian blood. He was born a
backwoodsman, in the state of Oaxaca. After studying law he fought in
the war between Mexico and the United States. He remained in the army
for a while after the war, went back to law, and gained increasing
prominence until he was elected president in 1876. He united the various
chieftains by convincing them that if they did not stop fighting among
themselves the United States would intervene. He organized the
_rurales_, a kind of country police on horseback who made Mexico safe
for travel. He persuaded foreigners to invest money in industrial
developments, increased the number of schools, and improved Mexico in
many other ways. But he was a very stern ruler, and did not allow the
mass of the people much individual liberty.
Diaz was elected president for the eighth and last time in 1910. By then
he had become a deaf old man, so that a rich landowner named Madero was
able to drive him out. He went to Europe to spend his last years, and we
are glad that he, unlike most presidents of Mexico, was not killed. With
all his faults he did much for his country. Indeed, as soon as Diaz’
dictatorship was over, Mexico fell back into its old state of civil war.
Madero was assassinated two years later. Among the men who since that
time have ruled Mexico, as president or by some other name, was
Carranza, who defeated the bandit generals Villa and Zapata and was
recognized as president in 1915. He was actually elected president the
following year, but was driven out of office and shot in 1920. Then came
Huerta, then Obregón, then Calles.
The new Mexican constitution allows a man to be president only once, for
a four-year term.
CHAPTER V
NORTHWESTERN MEXICO
In entering Mexico by the railway through Laredo, near the eastern end
of the boundary, we took the shortest route. If we had entered through
El Paso, we should have gone down through the immense state of
Chihuahua, with its huge cattle ranches. Since Boquilla Dam in Chihuahua
stores up the largest reservoir of water in North America, that state
will become, with irrigation, fertile and very important. But the
landscape now is much the same as that farther east—dreary, spiny,
dry—with mountains to be climbed. On the El Paso route we should have
crossed the state of Durango, with many mines. Between this line and the
one on which we are traveling lie Coahuila, much like southern Texas,
and Zacatecas, a mining state. In the end this route would have brought
us to the same place that we shall reach through San Luis Potosí.
Instead of taking either of the lines of the Mexican National Railways,
we might have come down by the Southern Pacific from the western end of
Arizona, and found ourselves in the state of Sonora. That, too, is much
like the other states bordering on the United States. The Southern
Pacific goes down through the slender west-coast states of Sinaloa and
Nayarit (formerly the territory of Tepic) to Guadalajara, capital of
Jalisco, which we shall reach by the other route.
[Illustration:
Keystone View Co., Inc.
In the state of Durango some of the silver mines are located in very
rugged country. Did you ever see a suspension bridge like this?
]
There are many Chinese along the west coast, and now a few in other
parts of Mexico. Most of them are merchants; others are market
gardeners, and in the capital we shall see Chinese restaurant keepers.
Some people think that Japan wishes to control Mexico, because there are
Japanese colonies on the west coast, just as there are on our Pacific
slope. But Japanese holdings in Mexico are really much smaller than
ours. Some of western Mexico is very fertile. In one recent year 2,048
carloads of potatoes left Mexico by the west-coast line. Cantaloupes,
tomatoes, and other fruits and vegetables are sent by the trainload to
the United States just when winter makes them high-priced and hard to
get in our own land.
We must not forget Lower California. It is one of Mexico’s two
territories. The other is Quintana Roo, far away on the eastern side of
the peninsula of Yucatan. Some day perhaps both these territories will
become states. Long, slim Lower California, though it is about as long
and half as wide as our own California, has no railroads. Its entire
population is only 60,000. The northern part of the peninsula is better
developed than the rest and more nearly like the United States. The
middle part is dry and not very useful. The southern end is fertile, but
less developed than the north. It produces cotton, oil, pearls, and
other valuable things, but it needs railways and roads to take them to
the world markets.
The Yaqui Indians
In the state of Sonora are the very interesting Yaqui Indians. Some
members of this warlike tribe live in Arizona; they are closely related
to the fierce Apaches of our Southwest. But most of them, at least those
still untamed, are in the southern part of Sonora. Ever since the white
man came to Mexico the Yaqui have fought to keep him off their lands.
Most American Indians did that, of course, but the Yaqui are famous
because as a tribe they have never been conquered. In all the western
hemisphere, the only primitive peoples equally independent are the San
Blas Indians in Panama, and others far up the Amazon.
The Yaqui believe themselves to be descended from a wolf. They live to
fight. “Centuries of semi-starvation, of tyranny, of exposure to burning
heat, desert thirst, mountain storms, constant fighting and suffering
have produced men as tough and brutal as the cactus, as swift of foot,
wild, and canny as their brother the coyote.” They can run ten miles an
hour for hours at a time. Hidden among their mountains, they are
terrible enemies and hard to defeat. The state government of Sonora pays
them money every month to keep them from going on the warpath. Even
though a bounty of a hundred Mexican dollars has been offered for any
Yaqui alive or dead, they are still independent.
Porfirio Diaz, who pacified all the rest of Mexico, could never make the
Yaqui recognize the Mexican Government. He sent expeditions against
them. His soldiers killed many of them; thousands were taken prisoner
and shipped to far-off Yucatan. There they were made to labor almost as
slaves on the henequen plantations of the _tierras calientes_, the hot
country, and many died from brutal treatment or because of the climate,
or by suicide.
But the brutality of the Diaz soldiers only made the Yaqui hate more
bitterly those who wished to rule over them. If a little kindness had
been tried, there might perhaps have been better results. Now and then,
within recent years, the Yaqui have made peace with the Mexican
authorities. Many of them, known as _mansos_ (“tame ones”), may now be
found in every Sonoran village, and even in neighboring Arizona. As
soldiers in the Mexican army they are among the bravest, though they are
too independent to be very well disciplined. They make hard-working
laborers, better than most of the Indian tribes. But the _bravos_ (“wild
ones”) in the hills of southern Sonora continue to stir up trouble. The
Calles government, tired of trying to make peace with them, decided to
conquer or exterminate them.
Strange as it may sound, the Yaqui call themselves Christians. Long ago
Spanish missionaries went back into the deserts of Sonora where soldiers
feared to go. Though they were unable to talk with the Indians, they
told them by signs the story of Christ. Naturally, the Indians did not
understand all of it, and so to-day, when they try to present a Passion
Play at Easter time, they distort it queerly. They carry about a rag
doll to represent Jesus, and there are half a dozen others meant to
stand for Judas. It is a very barbaric ceremony, with many gaudy colors,
strange Indian music, and other semi-savage features. Most of the
participants get drunk on maguey whiskey.
The Tame Indians
There are Indians living in Mexico who have never seen a white man.
Parts of the states of Michoacán and Guerrero have never been explored
by white men. But the great majority of the Indians of Mexico are
peaceful and even timid. Although it is about one-fourth as large as the
United States, Mexico has only one-seventh as many people; but of the
fifteen million about six million are full-blooded Indians, and among
the eight million _mestizos_ (half-breeds) there is more Indian than
European blood. These tame Indians of many tribes, breeds, and tongues
are quite different from the unconquered Indians of the Sonora desert.
The Indian of the Mexican plateau is a farmer, not a hunter. He is
quiet, very solemn, so peaceful as to be almost servile. He dreads
responsibility, and really likes to be a kind of half-slave to his
employer, to whom he brings his problems and troubles. He seems to have
been suppressed so long, under Aztec emperors, Spanish viceroys, and
dictators like Diaz, that he is unable to decide things for himself,
preferring to have someone always tell him what to do.
If we compare the crowd at a Mexican railway station with our
recollection of one at a station in Texas, the people of the two regions
do not seem at all of the same stock, though to quite an extent they
are. The “Texicans” look hopeful, as if they expected to be successful
in life. The Mexican Indians and peons, in contrast, have either a
hopeless expression or one as stolid and indifferent as that of the
pack-animals they drive. Most of the male population of the smaller
towns sit upon the station platform, “wrapped in blankets and
meditation, waiting only for another day to pass,” as one traveler has
said. Of course we have stolid, blanket-wrapped Indians in our
Southwest, but they are the exceptions rather than the rule. The women
at the Mexican stations seem to be somewhat more energetic than the men.
They stroll past the train windows offering food and other things for
sale. But even they are easily discouraged.
Although they do seem so sad and hopeless, most Mexican Indians and
part-Indians are, in a way, good natured. In all my wandering in Mexico
I hardly ever had an unkind word from them, in spite of the fact that
many of them do not like foreigners, especially “gringoes” or _yanquis_.
There are beggars in Mexico, but the poor people do not thrust forward
their miseries and misfortunes as much as is done in some other
countries.
[Illustration:
Rochester Photo, Mexico City
The humble donkey is the best friend of the Mexican peon.
]
Differing Characteristics
The Mexican masses differ in many ways among themselves. We must
remember that the people, except the small percentage who are entirely
white, are a mixture of Indian with Spanish blood. The great majority,
therefore, have much the same characteristics as the pure Indians. But
we notice that while the plateau inhabitants are timid and morose, those
of Tehuantepec and the tropical coast lands are gay and almost carefree
in their manner. A bare landscape always seems to have a depressing
effect on people, while a region that is full of trees and plants cheers
them.
Mexicans, even of the poorest class, are musical, and are as fond of
flowers as the Japanese. Along almost any miserable trail that I
traveled I found morning glories, geraniums, patches of dark purple
blossoms, huge masses of bougainvillea. There are Mexican bands in small
as well as in large towns, belonging usually to the police or the fire
department. They all play quite well, though they may know few pieces
and actually be unable to read music! They are naturally rhythmical. In
prisons there are bands made up of the convicts.
Many Indians and peons of the plateau take only one real bath a year.
Yet I cannot blame them much. Down in tropical Mexico there is plenty of
bathing; but up on the plateau where there is no natural heat, and very
little artificial heat, the water is generally cold. On St. John the
Baptist’s Day, however, all Mexicans bathe. On that day (June 24th) the
rivers and the public bathhouses are crowded from daylight until long
after dark. There are almost no bathtubs in Mexico except in the hotels
of the capital. Shower baths are more common, and in the warmer regions
the nearest river does very well. But only a brave man would bathe in
the rivers of the high table-land.
[Illustration:
Underwood & Underwood
At Aguascalientes the women and girls bathe and do their washing in
the stream fed by hot springs.
]
Speaking of baths, there is a Mexican state named Aguascalientes, which
means Hot Springs. Its capital, bearing the same name, is honeycombed
with tunnels of unknown origin and purpose. In this city, famous for its
hot sulphur baths, it is said that the Aztecs many centuries ago had
elaborate baths for their emperors and nobles.
Sometimes the Mexican Indians seem to us quite stupid. I have seen one
of them carry a long beam across his shoulders, and be unable to get
through a gate with it because he did not know enough to turn sidewise.
These people seem to have almost no imagination or initiative, but must
copy from others or be told by them what to do. However, they are not
physically weak. I have mentioned already that when Cortés came to
Mexico he found Indian runners carrying fish from the coast to the
capital daily. They ran in relays, but even so, great strength and
endurance were required. The distance of two hundred miles, including
mountain ranges 7,500 feet high, was covered between afternoon and
Montezuma’s dinnertime next day. Recently two Mexican Indians ran a
hundred kilometers (about sixty-three miles) in nine hours and
thirty-seven minutes. Their course from Panchuca to Mexico City was from
a mile and a half to two miles above sea level, at an altitude where
many people find it hard to breathe even when walking. Yet these two men
of the Tarahumare tribe (a name that means “foot racing”) were so fresh
at the end of the run that they looked as if they could turn around and
start back again.
The Aztecs had no horses or oxen, or any other four-footed beasts of
burden, not even the llamas found in Peru. That was such a handicap to
trade that we wonder the Aztec civilization rose as high as it did.
Mexican Indians of to-day are all used to carrying loads on their backs,
in baskets with a strap across the forehead. Indeed, American engineers
building the first railroad in Mexico had to prevent the Indians from
taking the wheels off the wheelbarrows and carrying the loaded barrows
on their backs.
[Illustration:
Photo from Janet M. Cummings
A Mexican girl spinning wool. After being carded, so that the fibres
will lie in the same general direction, the wool is worked into
pieces of uniform thickness, forming strips about four inches wide
and seven inches long. These strips are lengthened and twisted
together as they are wound upon a distaff. After many unwindings and
rewindings, a fluffy piece of cord is produced. In the picture you
see fluffy strips of wool extending from the basket to the girl’s
hand. The wool is spun later into a finer thread.
]
CHAPTER VI
ON THE GREAT TABLE-LAND
South of San Luis Potosí there was some dry and shriveled corn, standing
in shocks. The first planted fields of maguey appeared. As we rose to
the mile-and-a-half altitude this source of Mexico’s chief beverage
became more and more frequent, until maguey lined the railway and
covered the rolling plains to the distant mountain rim. Sometimes the
long, straight, emerald-green rows climbed broad high ridges, and
vanished. Near at hand each plant resembled a huge artichoke, more blue
than green, thus adding another color to the landscape. The maguey and
cactus belong to related families.
When the maguey plant is about seven years old it flowers and
dies—though its roots live and develop into another plant. Just before
blossoming time, the base of the plant is cut out in the shape of a
great bowl. The sap or juice runs into this rapidly, five or six quarts
a day, and flows for three or four months, giving barrels of a milky
fluid. The Mexicans call this _agua-miel_ or “honey water.” Hawkers go
about the streets and along the platforms of railroad stations shouting
“Agua-miel!” For the twelve hours before it begins to ferment, this
juice of the maguey is sweet and clear, and can do no one any harm.
In some of the maguey fields along the railroad I saw peons with
untanned pigskin sacks over their backs, trot from plant to plant, part
the pulpy leaves, and bend over the central pool in the hollow of the
maguey. Each carried a long gourd, and when he had sucked this full of
the sap he poured it into the pigskin sack. As soon as the sack was
full, he trotted away to the plantation house with it.
The Best-Known Mexican Beverage
A little of the fermented “honey water” is added to the fresh juice,
which then ferments very rapidly, and quickly becomes what the Mexicans
call _pulque_. If left to ferment naturally, the maguey juice, for a day
after the process begins, looks like skim milk and tastes rather like
buttermilk. During that time it becomes more and more intoxicating.
After thirty-six hours it is fit only to be thrown away. In some cities
_pulque_-vendors are not allowed to sell it after it is twenty-four
hours old. But most of them disobey the law and keep it much too long.
When it is highly fermented, _pulque_ becomes a poison that makes those
who drink it want to go out and kill someone—unless they first fall
stupefied in the gutter. A blind man could find a _pulquería_ (_pulque_
saloon) by the sour stench of _agua-miel_ that has been kept too long,
and only a man with the taste of a Mexican peon could drink it after it
has reached that stage.
[Illustration:
Keystone View Co., Inc.
The Mexican extracts _agua-miel_ from the maguey by sucking it up into
a gourd. It is this juice which ferments and becomes _pulque_.
]
Early-morning trains loaded with _pulque_ roll into the capital and the
other large cities of Mexico. They are like our milk trains, but seem
even more numerous. Two hundred thousand gallons of _pulque_ are drunk
in Mexico City every twenty-four hours. That means an average of six
glasses a day for every man, woman and child in the capital; and as few
foreigners or well-to-do Mexicans drink it, those who do must surely
drink more than six glasses.
Every day more than $10,000 in Mexican money, all from the pockets of
the poor, passes over the counters of Mexico City’s two thousand
_pulquerías_. The saloons have gaudy fronts, crude paintings, and vulgar
or blasphemous names, such as “The Rest-House of St. Peter.” About them
gather ragged Indians who look as if they had not had a real meal for
weeks, but had spent for _pulque_ everything they could earn, beg,
borrow or steal.
Luckily _pulque_ comes only from the highlands, and sours too quickly to
be transported very far. It spoils even more quickly than milk, so that
it is unknown in the lowlands, and even in some parts of the plateau.
The contrast between the gloomy people of the Mexican highlands and the
more cheerful ones of the tropical regions is not due entirely to the
difference in natural surroundings, but is accounted for partly by the
fact that the former have _pulque_ and the latter do not.
The Mexicans made _pulque_ before the Spaniards came. Drunkenness was
not unknown even then; it is very common now. If _pulque_ cannot be
widely distributed, the Mexicans know how to make other liquor that can
be. They boil the lower leaves of the maguey and distill from them
_mescal_ or _tequila_. This drink, a stimulant as strong as whiskey or
brandy, is held responsible for most of the acts of violence committed
in Mexico.
[Illustration:
A street stand where _pulque_, the Mexican maguey beer, is sold. In
the background is an election poster.
]
There has been some agitation for prohibition in Mexico. All the efforts
are directed against _pulque_, the poor man’s drink. The big
_hacendados_, or landowners, are nearly all opposed to what they call a
“fool reform” because they make their fortunes from the _pulque_ which
they send to the capital. A recent law makes it illegal to plant any
more maguey, and perhaps the time will come when the stuff that
befuddles the people of the Mexican highlands will be as unknown there
as it is elsewhere.
My First Tramp in Mexico
I left the train one morning at the station of Dolores Hidalgo. The town
itself, I found, was several miles from the station. A tiny mule-drawn
street car covered the distance, but I preferred to walk. On the way I
met a beggar riding a donkey. He answered my “Buenos dias” (“Good
morning”) with a whine of “A little alms, _caballero_.” As _caballero_
is the Spanish word for horseman (though it has come to mean
“gentleman”) it seemed strange to me to be called that by a man who was
riding while I was on foot.
[Illustration:
In this house in the town of Dolores Hidalgo lived the priest who in
1810 started the revolution against Spanish rule.
]
Dolores Hidalgo is named for the priest who began the Mexican revolution
against Spanish rule. He lived in this quiet little town with its two
enormous churches, and travelers may still see his house, where most of
the furniture is just as he left it when he was captured and executed by
the Spaniards. From Dolores Hidalgo I struck off across the country
toward the important city of Guanajuato. There was no road except a
trail or path that now and then seemed to lose itself. Fences are almost
as unknown in Mexico as they are in China, and when I heard bulls
bellowing savagely not far from me, I looked about for a tree to climb
in case of need. However, the region resembled China in its treelessness
as well as in the scarcity of fences. There were forests of cactus
almost as big as trees, but it would have been a painful job to climb
one of those spiny things.
[Illustration:
A Mexican village in which I spent a night. Such _adobe_ (mud-brick)
houses roofed with thatch are found in many parts of Mexico.
]
I saw that the ground along the way was dotted with tunas, which we call
cactus apples. These are bright red when ripe, very full of seeds, but
quite juicy and rather good, at least for thirst. But you must not
forget to peel off the thick outside rind, or you will think you are
eating a cushion full of pins. Before it is peeled the tuna is harder to
handle than a porcupine, leaving the fingers full of little spines that
are very hard to remove. A curious thing about the cactus apple is that
it grows on the edge of the plant’s leaves, sometimes a dozen apples
encircling one leaf.
A Cold Lodging
That night I slept in an Indian hut made of _adobe_ (mud and straw
bricks baked in the sun) and grass. My lodging cost me three Mexican
cents. The Mexican dollar and cent, by the way, are worth only half as
much as our own. My bed was a reed mat about three feet long, and my
room was really the family barnyard, with chickens and donkeys all about
me. For supper the woman served me a bowl of _sopita_ (called “little
soup” because it is so thin), corn _tortillas_, white cheese, and boiled
peppers. The boy of the family wandered about eating cornstalks as if
they were sugar cane. I shivered nearly all night, though I was far down
in the tropics.
Long before daylight the woman of the house got up and began making
_atole_. She took some shelled corn and sprinkled it in the hollow of a
large stone. Then she crushed it with a stone rolling-pin, strained it
through a sieve, and threw it into boiling water. It took her a whole
hour to make the _atole_, and it certainly was not worth the trouble. It
was hot, but it tasted like water in which corn husks had been boiled.
That was even sadder than the ordinary scant Mexican breakfast. But my
bill for supper, lodging and breakfast was only six cents!
All that morning and half the afternoon I tramped along a trail that was
sometimes deep in sand or sticky mud, and sometimes a slope of
cobblestones thrown together on a steep hillside. I met or overtook many
donkeys, loaded with crates of cactus-fruit, railroad ties, ears of
corn, and sometimes with women and children. By and by peons or workmen
in American overalls began to appear.
Most of them were quite friendly, but some had been drinking, and acted
as if they wanted to pick a quarrel. Once, when I sat resting at a high
spot on the trail, three drunken peons came stumbling over toward me.
One of them, about forty years old, thrust his _pulque_-scented face
into mine and demanded a cigarette. But I was watching one of the
others, a ragged youth who slowly walked in my direction, with one arm
held behind him. He had a very wicked gleam in his eye. Suddenly I
jumped up and snatched the hidden hand into sight. It held a large,
sharp-pointed piece of broken rock. I knocked this out of his hand, but
instead of trying to fight he let his two companions drag him away down
the trail. I strolled on after this incident and a few minutes later
came out high above the famous mining city of Guanajuato.
CHAPTER VII
I GO TO WORK IN A MINE
Some people, thinking of the shape of Mexico and Central America, have
called it a great horn into which United States citizens pour immense
sums of money. While it is true that we have many large investments in
that region, the horn is rather a horn of plenty, pouring out upon us
dividends, silver, gold, copper, and oil.
There are more than five thousand mines in Mexico, between the northern
border and Oaxaca, where mountains and mines begin to subside. Some of
these mines produced for Montezuma, then for the Spaniards, and now for
Americans, who own eighty per cent of the mines of Mexico. The Aztecs of
to-day are still delving in the depths of the earth, but for American
stockholders rather than for native or Spanish rulers. Of many valuable
minerals within Mexico, silver is the most important. Mexico is the
largest producer of this metal anywhere; it gives us three-fourths of
our silver, and in most silver ore there is more or less gold. Much of
its copper and lead also are sent to us. An iron mountain rises in the
city of Durango. Mexico is second only to the United States in the
production of oil, and in time it may produce more. Even now we import
oil from our southern neighbor.
I was so much interested in the subject of mining in Mexico that I
decided to go to work in a mine. Agriculture, the other important
Mexican industry, I could see while walking about the country; but to
learn much about mining and the ways of miners, I should have to go down
_into_ Mexico in a different way from that followed by most travelers.
There was no better place to do this than Guanajuato, a great mining
center. A schoolmate of mine was superintendent of the most important
group of mines there. When he heard of my desire, he quickly offered me
a job, advising me to start with the mine named Pingüico.
[Illustration:
The city of Guanajuato is surrounded by mountains containing many
valuable mines. The Alhóndiga, once the Spanish headquarters and now
a prison, rises above the other buildings.
]
The Sights of Guanajuato
Before I mounted a horse and rode out to the mine, 8,200 feet above sea
level, I roamed all about Guanajuato city. Its name, meaning Hill of
Frogs, seems to fit it. Gigantic carved stone frogs are found in one
part of the city. With its population it lies huddled down in a great
basin, a blue labyrinth of mountains heaped up on all sides. The main
street is like a stream at the bottom of the hollow, and many of the
side streets are as steep as stairways. The roof of one house is
sometimes below the doorstep of the one behind it. The climate is almost
perfect. The year round there are brilliant days such as Lowell
celebrated in his lines on June, and cool, mosquito-less nights.
A famous old Spanish fortress called the Alhóndiga bulks above
everything else, like a huge packing box in the center of a toy city. On
one corner of it the head of Father Hidalgo, the “father of Mexican
independence,” hung for years, as a warning to others not to try to
overthrow Spanish rule. Now the Alhóndiga is a prison. I spent two hours
there—though only as a visitor! Inside the building the prisoners seemed
to have much freedom. Some lay in the bright sunshine in the stone-paved
_patio_, others washed themselves and their clothing at a huge fountain.
During the day many of them worked at weaving hats and baskets, making
brushes and similar things. These they sold for themselves, so that they
could buy food from outside. The cells were much larger than most prison
cells, because they were once the chambers of the colonial government.
[Illustration:
Prisoners in the Alhóndiga in Guanajuato wash their clothing in one of
the great basins left by the Spanish.
]
Guanajuato is full of color. There are flowers everywhere, even inside
the prison. The houses are painted pink, cream, blue, green, or whatever
hue the owner fancies. The blankets of the lower-class men, the garments
of the women, and the motley array of things in the market streets all
make a jumble of colors.
In Guanajuato there are mummies which are not embalmed and purposely
preserved, like the mummies of ancient Egypt, but corpses that are
naturally preserved by some queer quality in the soil. I went down into
a high vaulted corridor where there were more than a hundred bodies
shrouded in sheets but looking much as they did in life.
What I Saw at the Mine
From the veranda of the mine building at Pingüico we could look down two
thousand feet to a great plain of the Mexican table-land. We could see
half a dozen towns, some more than twenty miles away, and many trails
like brown threads winding off across the plain and up into the
mountains. The travelers plodding along them seemed no larger than ants.
With one or two other Americans I jumped upon a little square platform
hanging just below a huge iron bucket that was full of Mexican miners.
Someone blew a whistle and down we went, at the end of a steel cable,
into a kind of well or shaft drilled in the rocky mountain, a thousand
feet deep. Some of the shafts were still deeper. Once in a while, during
the descent or the ascent, the hoist engine would get out of order and
for ten minutes (which seemed as many hours) we would hang suspended in
the inky blackness.
At the bottom of the shaft we stepped out in a long low gallery with
walls of solid rock. Far back at the end of this gallery, or some of its
smaller branches, miners were digging away at a _veta_, or ore vein. It
was very hot in most parts of the mine, and the Indian and peon miners
wore only a loin cloth, a pair of leather soles, and a huge straw hat. I
wondered what they could need the hat for, with two thousand feet of
earth and rock between them and the sun, until I saw a great piece of
jagged rock come tumbling down on a man’s head as he picked at the vein
of ore.
Some of the men worked in pairs. One held an iron bar like a huge chisel
and another struck it all day or all night long with a sledge. There
were two or three sets or shifts of miners, and one set came to work
when the other left, so that the mining continued all the time. When a
deep enough hole had been made, dynamite was thrust into it, someone
lighted the fuse and shouted a warning to everyone to keep back, and
with a “bang!” down would come a mass of rock ore. However, most of the
mining in Pingüico was done with automatic drills, which made holes in
the rock much sooner than the hand chisels, but with a terrific noise.
The miners were so careless in handling the dynamite that it was no
wonder some of them had only one arm or one eye, or were covered with
great scars.
My own work was to take samples. Whenever one of the little iron cars
filled with ore passed me on the tiny railroad that was laid along each
gallery, I snatched a handful of the ore and put it into a sack. The
samples were sent up to the office to be assayed (examined) to see how
much gold and silver and copper each “heading” or vein was giving. Later
I had to go down many hundred feet more, worm my way through small
holes, and with a hammer chip rock samples off the top of a gallery. It
was terribly hot in such “pockets.” Perspiration ran in streams down the
naked brown body of the miner who, holding a big straw hat under my
hammer, caught most of the samples I chipped off. Some of the samples
dropped into his thick hair and stayed there until he picked them out.
[Illustration:
Cutting ore by hand in one of the galleries in Pingüico mine. The
miners could not stand the heat if they wore clothing.
]
The miners were very religious. They set up empty dynamite boxes as
altars or shrines, and placed in each either a cross or a cheap picture
of the Virgin Mary. They always kept at least one candle burning in such
a shrine. When I was ready to leave a part of the mine that was not
lighted with electricity, some miner was sure to beg my piece of candle
for a shrine. In the morning several of the miners would bring bunches
of freshly picked flowers to set before the image. Most of the men wore
about their necks a rosary or a charm, such as a prayer written on paper
and folded up into a little wallet. Some of them chanted a prayer when
the cage was dropping down into the earth. Many of them swore
dreadfully, but they stopped it for a moment whenever they passed one of
the dynamite-box shrines, and snatched off their hats. Yet they did not
care at all if one of the American mine bosses stopped to light his
cigarette at one of the candles burning before the Virgin’s image.
It was always very pleasant to come out into the sunshine again after a
day down in the mine. There was a hot and cold shower bath for the
Americans, but the Mexicans never seemed to bathe. Afterward, we men
from the north gathered around a table for a big American-style meal
prepared by the Chinese cook. At night the mountain world was very
still, but we could always hear the rumble of the hoist engines and the
other machinery of the mine, as if a great giant within the earth were
grumbling because he could not get out.
Following the Ore
I spent a month at Pingüico mine. During the last half of this time I
was a car boss. My work then was to keep constantly after the miners and
see that they did not hide one of the ore cars in a dark side passage,
or tip a load over, or do any other mischief in order to loaf while we
straightened things out or found more cars. At the end of October, I
drew my wages and set out to see what became of the ore when it left the
mine.
After being hauled to the surface in the great iron buckets which were
used as elevators by the miners themselves, the ore was thrown out on a
“gridley”—a kind of screen or gridiron made of railroad rails. There it
was broken up, and the rocks that had no “values” in them were thrown
out on a great hill. This hill, which rose far above a little native
hamlet, was entirely made up of waste. A small train carried the rest of
the ore to the noisy stamp mill. This was built on the side of a hill,
so that when the ore was dumped into the bins at the top, gravity
carried it on down until nothing was left but some whitish sand from
which all the values had been extracted.
Big stones were broken up by hand. Middle-sized stones, spread by
machinery on broad leather belts, moved past several peon women, who
picked out the worthless stones and threw them away. Small stones went
directly under the stamps, and the others followed as soon as they were
ready. Each of the great iron stamps weighed several tons, and struck
several blows a second. Water was poured in as the stones were being
broken up, and the resulting mixture, smelling much like mortar or wet
lime, was run into huge iron cylinders, rolled and rolled, and poured
out upon zinc platforms. Over the platforms, which were constantly
shaking, water flowed. Finally the heavier, valuable stuff ran into huge
vats, in which it was stirred and watered for several days, until the
values had settled and could be drawn off at the bottom. That left in
the vat only worthless white sand which two peons kept shoveling out and
carrying down to the valley below.
[Illustration:
Rochester Photo, Mexico City
The outdoor part of the Pachuca mine in Mexico. The ore starts at the
top of the stamp mill and is reduced to almost pure silver or gold
by the time it reaches the bottom.
]
The last samples I took in the mine showed nine pounds of silver and
twenty-three grams of gold to the ton of ore. From this you see that a
great deal of work has to be done to get a small amount of valuable
metal. The Aztecs and the Spaniards had very crude methods of working
out the ore. One way was to spread it over a stone-paved _patio_, mix it
with mercury, and drive mules and donkeys round and round in it for days
at a time. The American methods are so much more thorough that any of
the old “dumps” of the Spaniards are worth sending through a stamping
mill for the values left in them. In fact I know of one great stone
house, a superintendent’s home, that was torn down and sent through the
stamp mill. It yielded silver and gold enough for a good profit over the
cost of building a new house. When the values have finally been run down
into smaller vats and treated with zinc shavings, there comes out a dark
metal that is about half pure, silver and gold. This is put into melting
pots inside a padlocked room and run into large molds, then melted again
and finally turned into dark-gray blocks that look like paving bricks.
One of these blocks, so heavy that only a strong boy can lift it, is 85%
pure and worth about $1,250. Two or four such blocks are tied on the
back of a donkey and taken down to the town office or the railway
station under guard.
“High-Graders”
At the mine I had found that whenever a set of miners came up out of the
shaft, they were required to stand one by one on a wooden block, with
their arms stretched out, and be searched for stolen ore. Workmen toward
the bottom of the stamp mill, where the material becomes quite valuable,
are locked inside rooms walled with chicken wire. A mere handful of
metal, or a flat sliver of it that can be hidden between the sole of the
foot and the leather sandal, may be worth several dollars. In some of
the mines about Guanajuato there are real gangs of bandits who carry
revolvers and take “high-grade” (valuable ore) by force. But most of the
“high-graders” are regular miners or workmen who hide a little precious
metal on their persons and attempt to get home with it. They try to
justify themselves in doing this on the ground that Mexico, with the
precious metals inside it, more rightfully belongs to them, the
descendants of the Toltecs and the Aztecs, than to the foreigners who
own the mines.
[Illustration:
Indian miners of Peregrina mine being led off to prison because they
had tried to steal pieces of silver and gold ore.
]
On the day I went to the stamp mill, the American manager had planned a
special search for stolen ore. When it came time for the workmen in the
zinc room to leave, the _jefe político_, or chief Mexican official of
the district, was there to search them. These workmen have to have two
sets of clothing, one for outdoors and one to wear while at work. When
they come to work, or when they leave, they strip in one room and walk
into the next to dress in the clothes they have left there. But even so,
they manage to steal scraps and slivers of silver and gold, such as the
chips knocked off when the metal is cast in molds. Of the five men
searched that day, three had some “high-grade” concealed about them. One
wore a pair of shoes, which seemed a strange thing for a Mexican peon to
have; a lump of silver was discovered in each toe. Another had a piece
of silver about as big as a dollar in the little wallet intended for a
paper prayer or the picture of some saint. The third had a scrap of pure
metal tucked into the top of his hat.
[Illustration:
Mexican soldiers in a mining district have plenty of cartridges and
most of their rifles are modern, but their uniforms are much like
the clothes of civilians.
]
One of the two innocent men was sent running to town for policemen.
These officers of the law wore very shoddy uniforms, carried clubs, and
had enormous revolvers sticking out through their short coat-tails. But
they were so much like the poorly paid and hardworked peons that it
seemed very unbrotherly of them to tie ropes about the waists of the
thieves and drive them away to prison. Some Mexican prisons are well
built and almost too comfortable. But the cold, stone-floored, bedless
calaboose in one of these small mountain towns is not a pleasant place,
and poor prisoners are kept waiting weeks and perhaps months until the
judge is ready to call them for trial.
[Illustration:
Mexico may have been the original home of Indian corn. It is the staff
of life of the people. One sees great valleys filled with it.
]
CHAPTER VIII
VARIED PRODUCTS AND HOW THEY ARE SOLD
To the average stay-at-home American, Mexico is only a sun-scorched
desert. He usually knows only about the northern section of it, so much
like the thirsty parts of Texas and Arizona. His imagination pictures
great stretches of half-desert framed in purple mountains.
In reality, Mexico has a great variety of natural features and
corresponding variety in climate and products. It has great snow fields
which never melt, sandy wastes, highlands swept by cold winds,
delightful temperate valleys, tropical jungles dense with vegetation.
Although snow falls on the mountain tops, there is really no winter.
There are two seasons, the wet and the dry. The dry season (during our
winter months) is generally the pleasanter. But the rainy season is not
unpleasant, for it seldom rains long at a time. From June to September,
there is a shower almost every night, and in the morning the sky is a
brilliant blue, every leaf and flower fresh and fragrant, as if the
whole universe had been freshly washed. From October to May there is
almost no rain. The great plateau has a kind of perpetual spring, except
that the nights are cold. After sunset the policemen of Mexico City, and
many other inhabitants of the high places, wrap a cloth about their
throats and over their mouths, believing the night air to be bad for the
lungs. A visitor from the north enjoys the air, day or night.
[Illustration:
Rochester Photo, Mexico City
A collection of the wonderful fruits of Mexico—oranges as big as our
grapefruit, luscious figs, bananas, and some other fruits which we
in the United States never see.
]
Mexico Has Many Products
Almost everything can be grown in Mexico, because its elevation varies
from sea level to a height of more than two miles. Wheat is grown in the
highlands, two crops a year in some places. Most of it is brought to
threshing mills in great fiber mats, usually on men’s backs. But corn,
rather than wheat, is the Mexican “staff of life.” Some scientists think
that Mexico is the original home of the maize or Indian corn; certainly
this is Mexico’s chief agricultural product. It grows not only in the
highlands, where there are evergreens and oaks, but also in the hot
lands. Beans and barley, tobacco, cotton, sugar cane, coffee, sisal
hemp, cacao, and many kinds of tropical fruit are grown in Mexico.
Cattle and sheep are raised, timber is cut, precious metals and oil are
obtained from the ground.
From sisal hemp, which grows best in Yucatan, are made ropes, hammocks,
and much of the binding twine used in our wheat fields. Cacao comes in
the form of large, flat, brown beans contained in pods that hang from
the lower branches of a big bushy plant. The beans are dried in the
sunshine, ground up, and mixed with sugar to make chocolate and cocoa.
Like the Chinese, the Aztecs used no wool until they learned to do so
from Europeans. But they grew and used cotton, and they wove henequen,
maguey and cactus fiber centuries before the Spaniards came. Henequen, a
variety of sisal hemp, has the longest fiber and is therefore used for
binding twine. From the cactus Mexicans take a thorn, with a long fiber
attached, to use for rough sewing. Such a natural needle and thread has
been common since before the days of Montezuma. Even after they learned
the advantages of wool, the Mexicans wove by hand cactus fiber or hemp
_sarapes_ and blankets with strange designs and colorings, as did the
Indians of our Southwest. Now such things are rarely handmade, even in
Mexico.
In the tropical parts of Mexico are great forests containing enough
mahogany to make that wood as cheap as oak, if it were not so difficult
to transport. The most valuable hardwood logs are too heavy to float
downstream, and building railroads to bring them out is expensive. On
the coasts are many kinds of palm trees, and large plantations of
coconuts. The coconut meat, called copra, gives us a valuable oil.
Excellent oranges are grown in the valleys; bananas, olives, indigo, and
the chicle from which we make chewing gum are produced in the hot parts
of the country.
In the United States we can buy the same things in cities and towns
which are far apart. That is because we have great companies sending
their products all over the country. But in Mexico, as in China, each
village has its particular product, which sometimes cannot be bought
anywhere else. Irapuato is noted for strawberries. Celaya makes a kind
of fudge, which is sold in tiny wooden boxes. At Querétaro opals from
the mines near by are peddled on the streets and at the station. Lariats
and ropes are the specialty of San Juan del Río. The bad roads prevent
towns from exchanging products, and so does the _acabala_. This is a tax
levied by local officials on what is brought into a town to be sold.
The Spaniards taught the Mexicans, partly or entirely, how to make many
things. But one art that is genuinely Indian is the making of pottery.
Coming down directly from Aztec times, Mexican pottery to-day has almost
the same forms and colors as the pottery found in prehistoric mounds.
Much skill is shown in the modeling of _tipos populares_, little painted
earthenware vases shaped like the human figure and often as small as our
smallest dolls. They are complete, even to the tiny sandal thongs.
A Land of Markets
Many Mexican products are sold in public markets. When Cortés came to
Mexico, he and his followers were amazed at the size of the Mexican
markets; and so is the traveler of to-day. The tiniest village has its
marketplace, where business is sometimes still carried on by barter,
that is, by trading one thing for another without using money. In
Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, where Mexico City now stands, Cortés
says he saw sixty thousand people in the markets four days out of five
and on every fifth day a hundred thousand.
[Illustration:
Rochester Photo, Mexico City
A warehouse in a Mexican sugar mill. The juice of the sugar cane is
boiled down and run into molds of this shape, after which it may be
refined until it becomes the snow-white sugar that we use on our
tables.
]
Native markets are interesting sights in any part of the world, and very
decidedly so in Mexico. Though there are stores much like ours in all
the larger towns and cities, the common people do most of their buying
in the market. This is usually a stone-paved yard covered by a
sheet-iron roof. As it is seldom big enough to hold all the sellers and
buyers, especially on the chief market day (often Sunday), the streets
all about the market swarm with queer-looking people. One sees much
vivid color and all manner of goods.
Ragged men and women squat on the narrow sidewalks or even in the
street. Spread out before them are gay blankets, _sarapes_, clothing,
old shoes, new sandals, rawhide thongs, lassos, native saddles,
drygoods. For block after block are displayed sweetmeats, fruits, food
(cooked and uncooked), native fabrics, precious stones and other stones
that are merely pretty, matting, shells, feathers, baskets with colored
designs, native herbs and medicines. Sections of the cobbled floor and
street are covered with Indian pottery—jugs, pots, earthenware kettles.
There are big round cakes of what looks like maple sugar, though it is
really ordinary sugar—what the Indian gets when he boils down sugar-cane
juice in one of his crude kettles. We see a coarse kind of flour (it
looks as if it had been mixed with gravel!), lumps of rock salt, a kind
of native spaghetti, red and green peppers, red and black beans, ears of
corn, shelled corn, corn meal, corn cakes, slabs of meat, fish which
looks none too fresh. Chickens, their wings broken or their legs
hobbled, lie forlornly on the stony ground. Ducks and turkeys are tied
to the posts that support the roof. The turkey, by the way, is a native
of Mexico. The Aztec name for it was _guajalotl_, a word which, as you
might guess, came from the sound made by the gobbler. The Mexicans still
call it _guajalote_ instead of using the Spanish name.
Every market has its babies, crawling about under foot or carried
papoose-fashion on the mother’s back. Dogs, flies, noises, confusion do
not increase the visitor’s pleasure, but the Mexican of the lower
classes does not mind. He loves excitement. Everything is sold by count
or measure instead of weight, just as in Aztec days, when almost the
only money consisted of transparent quills filled with gold dust,
T-shaped pieces of tin and copper, and cacao beans. Bundles of corn
husks are used as wrapping paper. Many of the purchases are very
small—ten peanuts bought for a cent, a handful of tiny potatoes, slices
of squash and pumpkin, a cent’s worth of cabbage, eggs by the _mano_ (or
“hand”) which means five at a time. If you wish to buy five dozen eggs,
you will have to buy a dozen “hands,” paying for each “hand” at a
time—for the Indians are not good at arithmetic.
About the streets wander peddlers of fowls, almost hidden beneath a
dozen or more cages of chickens. Gamecocks are carried in little
cigar-shaped baskets so that they cannot get hurt or hurt one another.
Other peddlers have parrots, screeching parakeets, and canaries; still
others oranges, bananas, mangoes, pineapples, pomegranates, and the
large, oblong, pulpy fruit called papayas.
An Indian, driving his flock of turkeys to market with a long whip (much
like the whip used by a Chinese duck herder), may sell one or two
turkeys along the way, but he will not sell them all at once, even in
the market. He seems to feel that this would cheat him out of his day in
town. I know an American who tried unsuccessfully to buy all the broom
corn in a market, at a higher price than the sellers could get for the
finished brooms. They said that if they sold it all they would have no
work to do for the coming month!
The Mexican Market Is a Queer Place
If you stop to buy a _tortilla_, all the other _tortilla_ sellers will
begin to shriek that the _tortillas_ you are looking at are very poor
ones, and that theirs are better. Beggars wander about. An old woman
stoops to pick up three or four grains of corn that someone has dropped,
and tucks them carefully away. You stop at an open-air restaurant in the
market, where you perch on a narrow wooden bench and eat from a very
rough table. But being a foreigner, you attract so much attention that
you decide to dine thereafter at a hotel.
Then there are “readers.” Because most of the people cannot read, men
and women who can are scattered through the crowd to do so. They read
very fast indeed, usually from strips of cheaply-printed colored paper.
Sometimes the strips are political arguments, sometimes poetry,
sometimes stories. The readers are paid for their work by selling copies
of each sheet after they have read it. Now and then a couple of
musicians, one with a rude harp, another striking a steel triangle, sing
mournful songs.
CHAPTER IX
CITY AND COUNTRY LIFE IN MEXICO
November had come when I took the train at Guanajuato and traveled down
to Silao through broad plains of corn. So late in the fall it seemed
strange to find dozens of women at the Irapuato station selling
strawberries, but one can buy strawberries at Irapuato every day in the
year. The basket I bought was a foot in diameter and cost only a
quarter, so I was only amused to find all the largest berries carefully
arranged at the top, with smaller and smaller ones toward the bottom. I
still had some left when I reached Guadalajara after dark the next day.
All three of the main railroads carry their passengers to Guadalajara,
the second largest and, in some respects, the finest city of Mexico. It
is the capital of Jalisco, one of the richest states in the country. At
an altitude of five thousand feet, Guadalajara has a better climate than
lofty Mexico City. With its twenty _plazas_ and many splendid buildings,
it reminds the traveler of a southern European city. In fact, it is
often called the Athens of Mexico. In the business part of town the
sidewalks are covered with _portales_, great stone or _adobe_ archways
that form arcades along the edge of the street. One can stroll from
store to store without stepping out into the hot sunshine. Guadalajara
is noted for its _porrónes_, or porous clay jars in which water will
remain cold even on the warmest day.
[Illustration:
Delicious strawberries are sold at the station of Irapuato every day
in the year.
]
One of the reasons that Guadalajara is so fine a city, and that its
people are above the average in Mexico, is that there is no _pulque_ in
the state of Jalisco. Although its soil is very fertile, the maguey does
not grow well. Drunkenness is rare, and there are no _pulquerías_ to
offend the traveler’s nose. Almost every night the band plays in the
beautiful central _plaza_, and there are even occasional big electric
advertising signs that remind one of large cities in the United States.
[Illustration:
Underwood & Underwood
Looking down upon the market house at Guadalajara, Mexico.
]
[Illustration:
Keystone View Co., Inc.
As one looks across the city of Guadalajara, he can easily understand
why Mexico has been called the country of domes.
]
Almost the only thing that keeps Guadalajara from being a favorite
resort for rich American invalids is that its nights are too noisy. The
Mexicans, like other Latin-Americans, do not seem to mind noise and
uproar as much as we do. In fact, most of them seem to enjoy it. The
policemen of Guadalajara all blow their whistles about every ten minutes
from midnight until daylight, as if they were trying to keep up one
another’s courage. All night long, electric street cars pound over the
rails, creak at the switches, their gongs ringing constantly. Young men,
who enjoy life too much to go to sleep, gather under a window to
serenade some beautiful maiden, or wander through the streets, singing
(or trying to sing) and playing guitars. About four in the morning, when
the other noises die down, all the church bells in town begin ringing.
They waken hundreds of dogs and roosters, who join the uproar, and soon
afterward the peddlers begin to shout their wares. By this time the
traveler is convinced that he will get no more sleep.
Round about Lake Chapala
[Illustration:
Keystone View Co., Inc.
The Falls of Juanacatlan are sometimes called “the Niagara of Mexico.”
]
Not far from Guadalajara are the Juanacatlan Falls which furnish
electric power and light for the city. Five hundred feet wide and
seventy feet high, they are often called “the Niagara of Mexico.” The
Santiago River in which these falls occur flows into beautiful Lake
Chapala, the second largest body of fresh water between Lake Michigan
and Lake Titicaca, far down in South America. One lake in Nicaragua is
larger. Lake Chapala is seventy miles long and twenty miles wide. Birds
from as far north as Labrador come to spend the winter about it—and so
do many wealthy people from the United States! It seems strange to find
so large a body of water almost a mile above the level of the ocean.
Like our Lake Erie, it is quite shallow, and violent storms often sweep
across it. Fishermen, before setting out, almost always step into the
Chapala village church to pray that St. Peter, their patron saint, will
grant them a safe return. At this church, on the morning I left, the
waves were dashing as if angry with it for cheating them of their prey.
Yet the evening before, in water that was calm and friendly, I had a
splendid moonlight swim that I shall never forget.
[Illustration:
I take a horseback ride about Guanajuato. The picture shows several
forms of cactus.
]
I had intended to have one of the fishermen take me down the lake in a
small open boat, but the storm was so high that none of them would go.
So I had a very pleasant summer walk to a great _hacienda_, or estate,
owned by an American, at the other end of the lake. Along the way the
roads and trails were not hard-paved and crowded, but soft and
wandering, as if they were meant rather for walkers than for
automobiles. Mud fences or walls lined some of the trails, but most of
them had only open fields on either side, with clusters of _adobe_
houses here and there. I met hundreds of Indians carrying on their backs
pottery and earthenware figures wrapped in hay or grass. They were on
their way to Guadalajara, for the next day, Sunday, was a great market
day in that city.
One of the pleasures of life in Mexico is horseback riding. Nearly all
the Mexicans, except the poorest class and those who live in large
cities, have horses, and so do most of the Americans and some other
foreign residents. (At last count, by the way, there were about 100,000
foreigners in Mexico.) I had had many a ride over the mountains about
Guanajuato, and I rode all over this fine American _hacienda_. For miles
in every direction vast fields were being plowed by oxen. The white
garments of the drivers spotted the brown landscape. In the clear air of
the Mexican table-land one can see much farther than in most places. At
night there seem to be several times as many stars in the sky as we can
see at home.
Once I stopped at the _adobe_ home of a bee-keeper, and his wife hurried
out with a big bowl of clear honey, and some _tortillas_. The bees lived
in hollow logs having little thatched roofs. Out in the bushy foothills
where land was not worth cultivating, we met the herdsman who was
responsible for the _hacienda_ cattle. His face was sunburned almost to
the same color as his leather clothing. He knew by name all the animals
under his charge, while the American owner did not even know how many
there were, unless he looked the matter up in his office records. Once I
climbed so high that I could see all of Lake Chapala, and range after
range of the mountains not only of Jalisco but of Michoacán across the
lake. To reach again the lake-front plantation house took my horse more
than an hour. He had to pick his way down stony trails through almost
perpendicular cornfields.
A Walk across Michoacán
The next morning my American hosts sent me across the lake in their
launch. I found a trail, and walked all day across the state of
Michoacán. The scenery was beautiful. There were birds by the thousand.
Lazy _zopilotes_, big ugly vultures, sat sleepily in the sunshine or
circled slowly about overhead. Snow-white herons stood in the marshes,
looking for frogs and other prey. There were birds red, blue, green,
purple, golden, even lilac-colored. Wild ducks hovered about every reedy
pond. Eagles did aviator stunts in the sky. Great flocks of small
blackbirds flew close to the ground. The air was full of bird calls.
Almost all that day’s walk was on a single estate, called the Guaracha
_hacienda_. It was one of those huge tracts of land owned by the same
Mexican family for many generations. Just as my shadow was beginning to
look very long and ungainly I reached the headquarters of the estate.
Hundreds of white-clothed workmen, their day’s work done, were coming
toward it from every direction. They all lived in a village of huts
clustered about the owner’s residence and offices. I passed through
several big gates and crossed three or four cobblestone-paved yards. In
one of the outer courtyards were dozens of clumsy two-wheeled carts and
in another were at least two hundred mules. The inmost yard was a garden
of flowers, and at last I came to the great cement-floored veranda of
the owner’s house, its roof supported by immense pillars.
[Illustration:
Making roof tiles on a big Mexican estate. There are few wooden houses
in Mexico and shingles are almost never used. Tiles, made of clay
and sand much as we make bricks, cover most of the roofs.
]
The owner was not at home. In fact he had not been there for years. Like
many of the rich landowners of Mexico, he preferred to live elsewhere—in
Mexico City, New York, or Paris. The estate was managed by an
_administrador_, or manager. He appeared, wearing a white jacket and
skin-tight trousers, with an immense revolver strapped on his left hip.
Welcoming me with Mexican politeness, he ordered the servants to prepare
dinner and a bed for me. Although he was more courteous than most
Americans, I felt at the time, and still feel, that he did not like
“gringo” visitors. He sat with me awhile, but would not join me at
supper, saying he was afraid of getting too stout if he ate more than
twice a day.
Such immense estates as this, with owners who live like kings on what
their peons produce, are the ones which the Mexican Government is
attempting to divide among the people who do the actual work. (You will
find more about this in Chapter XII.) One front corner of the Guaracha
_hacienda_ house was used as a store, and the other as a church. Many of
the peons were in the store, buying on credit against their future
wages. After evening church service (held every night) the priest sat
with us on the veranda and told amusing stories. He had on a huge black
Texas hat and what seemed to be about half a dozen long robes. The
Indian workmen, their wives and children came up now and then to kiss
his hand.
I Continue to Tramp
The _administrador_ insisted on lending me a horse for the rest of my
trip across his estate. He seemed to think that the white or upper class
would be disgraced if the common people saw me walking. The horse and
the _mozo_, who was to take him back, landed me at a railroad station.
But I left the train at Zamora and set out on foot again.
[Illustration:
The interior of a Mexican hut. The cookstove consists of three stones
laid together, with a little fire between them. In this very humble
home the family and the family cat are quite contented.
]
It was barely daylight when I started. Hundreds of Tarascan Indians,
going down to town for market day, crowded the narrow, winding trail for
the first few miles. They were not exactly friendly, but they showed no
desire to harm me, though an American who lived near Zamora had told me
it was dangerous to take a walking trip among them. The trail stumbled
over long stretches of jagged rocks, wandered in the bed of a mountain
stream, then climbed through thin pine forests, the wind whistling
mournfully. There were many cornfields. Suddenly I remembered what I had
heard about these Indians. Although they had not welcomed me with open
arms, all had said “Adiós” or some other Mexican form of “Good day,” if
I spoke to them first. But when I stepped into a field to photograph a
man guiding a wooden plow, to which were hitched a donkey and a cow, he
shouted, “No, señor, I don’t want it.”
“Why can’t I take your picture?” I asked.
“Because I don’t want it taken,” he replied.
On my travels, I have often met people who objected to being
photographed. Many tribes and races are superstitious about photography,
as this Indian evidently was. They think that a man who has their
picture can harm them by harming the picture. However, very few of them
are as determined as this Tarascan Indian, who picked up a kind of
ax-hammer and strode toward me swinging it threateningly. Having already
decided to oblige him by not taking his picture, I went on my way before
the argument grew more personal.
In the straggling towns, with their buildings of thatch and rubbish,
there was no objection to my camera. Indeed, the people were eager to be
photographed, but they always wished to see the picture the moment I had
snapped it. I never could make them understand that there would be
nothing to see if I opened the camera and showed them the film. One
friendly old woman let me photograph the interior of her hut, with her
cat sitting on the earth floor beside the “hearth”—a fire built between
three stones. Then she brought out a tiny photograph of her dead son and
asked me to make a life-size picture from it!
The Dangers of the Trail
Late that afternoon I was reminded again of the American’s warning. Just
at sunset I heard half a dozen peons singing and shouting as they came
over the top of the hill ahead. I was sure they had been drinking
_mescal_ or _tequila_, and knowing how quarrelsome the peons can be when
drunk, I was not surprised at their inviting me to a duel. I carried a
revolver, but it was too small to do much harm. Besides, I wanted to
keep out of trouble. I acted as friendly as possible; but the biggest
and most intoxicated man in the group had a large new revolver which he
seemed bent on trying out on me. Fortunately it took him some time to
get his courage up, and while I kept my boy’s weapon pointed at him I
backed away down the road. Finally he fired four shots at me, but his
aim was poor. All the men, women and children traveling in my direction
gathered close about me, hoping I would protect them from their drunken
fellow-countrymen!
The next day’s walk through a great pine forest was delightful, although
my early morning start was a cold one. At last the trail, unraveling
like a broken shoestring, went swiftly down a great mountain into the
town of Uruapan. It was as different from the town where I had spent the
preceding night as Florida is from Illinois. The houses were set in
banana groves, and many of them were lightly made. The people,
surrounded by flowers, seemed more cheerful than those up on the bleak
plateau, and I should have liked to stay longer among them.
CHAPTER X
GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH MEXICO CITY
THE only train out of Uruapan left long before daylight. There was such
a crowd of peons about the tiny waist-high ticket window that by the
time I got my ticket I felt as if I had played through a championship
football game. After traveling for an hour or two across a land of
cornfields pink with cosmos flowers, the train began to climb. It went
up in great loops to a high station from which I had a wonderful view,
and then raced down the other side to beautiful Lake Pátzcuaro. The town
of the same name is very old, and lazy, and delightful. The grass grows
up between the cobblestones of the streets, but no one seems to care.
The people look and act as if they were asking, “What is the use of
doing to-day what we can put off until to-morrow?” This philosophy of
life seems, to keep them happy, but most of us would hardly be contented
to imitate them.
On the edge of Pátzcuaro is a hill called Calvary, the summit reached by
a steep and stony trail along which are fourteen “stations of the
cross.” The pious people of this region often go up there to pray. From
that height the landscape with its mountains and plains looks like a
huge brown sun-faded tapestry. In the center, as if it were a great
ragged hole in the fabric, lies Lake Pátzcuaro. Sandy promontories and
tongues of mountains give it a very strange shape. On the shore of the
lake, a few miles from Pátzcuaro town, lies what is left of the ancient
capital of the Tarascan Indians.
Tzintzuntzán and Morelia
Tzintzuntzán was the residence of the chief of the Tarascan kingdom of
Michoacán, which was not conquered until ten years after Montezuma’s
empire fell. To reach it I started out early one morning, while
Pátzcuaro was still blanketed with fog. On the way I met long
processions of Tarascan Indians with red pottery, of every size from
cups to immense water jars, carried in nets on the backs of horses,
donkeys, men, and women. Even small children carried loads. Here and
there I picked up shining black obsidian, a hard stone used in olden
times in place of steel. Some of the pieces were in the form of
arrowheads and crude knives.
I had hoped to have a swim in Lake Pátzcuaro. But though the trail often
touched the shore, this was so muddy that I should have had a mud bath
trying to get in or out of the clear water.
Tzintzuntzán was once an important city, but even the splendid ruins
which travelers saw there a hundred years ago have almost disappeared.
Now it is really only a poor Indian village, with pigs roaming in the
cobble-paved or muddy streets. The bells of the ancient church are hung
in near-by trees so that they will be less likely to be shaken down by
earthquakes. Inside the church there is a picture, supposed to have been
painted by the great artist Titian, which is famous the world over. A
queer out-of-the-way place to find a masterpiece!
[Illustration:
In the church of the little old town of Tzintzuntzán, former capital
of an important Indian empire, is this famous painting, said to be
by the great Italian painter Titian.
]
The modern capital of Michoacán is the city of Morelia. It lies in a
broad rolling plain, 6,200 feet above the sea. Across the town stretches
an ancient aqueduct, some of its high arches covered with masses of
purple bougainvillea. High above everything else stand the two beautiful
towers of the cathedral. Morelia is warm for all its height, and brown
with dust, while the country about it is almost treeless. If it were not
for _pulque_, the city might be as splendid as Guadalajara, for the
region is very fertile. As a matter of fact, the people are so slow and
backward that Michoacán is often called “the torpid state.”
[Illustration:
The stone chapel erected on the spot where Maximilian, the Austrian
archduke who tried to be emperor of Mexico, was shot by order of the
Mexican president Juárez.
]
On to Mexico City
The railroads from Morelia to Mexico City make a great half-circle
through the candy-city of Celaya and the opal-town of Querétaro. The
latter is famous as the place where Maximilian was captured and ordered
shot by Benito Juárez. Out on a bare stony hillock at the edge of town
where the ill-fated emperor faced a firing squad, is a stone chapel
dedicated to him. There are fields of corn all about it, as if it were
no more famous than any other spot in Mexico.
[Illustration:
Photo by Hugo Brehme, Mexico City
The great Spanish aqueduct that brings water to the city of Querétaro.
The huge spiny cactus leaves in the foreground are the kind on which
grows the tuna or cactus apple.
]
At Querétaro I caught a south-bound express train. We zigzagged up
through bare, stony country to reach the higher plateau of Mexico City.
There were still fields of maguey in long rows, with men gathering
_pulque_ in pigskin bags. But the maguey was the only green to be seen,
for the great cornfields had dried up that year for lack of summer rain.
I should have preferred to enter Anáhuac, as the Aztecs called the
Valley of Mexico in which they built their capital, during the day. But
by the time we reached the highest point on the line, 8,237 feet above
the sea, the red sun was sinking behind the great peaks ahead of us. The
weather was like that of late October in our northern states, and almost
the only vegetation was scrub oak. When we reached Tula, ancient capital
of the Toltecs, it was black night. Even so, the light of the train gave
me glimpses of the great cut in the hills by which modern engineers
drained the ancient valley of Anáhuac. The train raced on down into the
valley, and soon I found myself struggling with a mob of passengers at
Buena Vista Station in the City of Mexico.
In the Mexican Capital
In 1925 Mexico City celebrated its sixth centennial. It was founded in
1325, almost three centuries before the first English settlement in
North America. I have already told how, according to the legend, the
Aztecs saw an eagle perched on a cactus and holding a rattlesnake in its
claws, and there built the city they called Tenochtitlan. Thus the
capital of Montezuma was founded more than a hundred and fifty years
before Columbus crossed the Atlantic, and nearly two centuries before
Cortés landed in Mexico. The Spaniards tore down most of the Aztec
buildings, but they built their own capital on the same spot.
Mexico City is 7,347 feet (nearly a mile and a half) above the sea, yet
it was built on a swamp, much of which has now been drained. It stands
in a beautiful valley surrounded by mountains. The snow-clad peaks of
Popocatepetl and Ixtaccihuatl seem to reach into the sky almost above
it. Mexico City has about the same population as Pittsburgh. It is the
only really large city in Mexico. Guadalajara, the next in size, has
about as many people as Albany, N. Y.
The principal thoroughfares of the Aztec capital radiated from a central
point, an immense square in which towered the temple of Huitzilopochtli,
the Aztec Mars or god of war. This main _plaza_, now called the Zócalo
(an Arabic name brought to Spain by the Moors centuries ago) still
contains the main religious building of Mexico, for the great cathedral
takes the place of the old _teocalli_. The people to-day worship on the
same spot where their ancestors watched the dreadful Aztec priests
perform sacrifices. This is the oldest cathedral in North America,
having been built between 1573 and 1657. Its walls form a cross 426 by
206 feet.
All about the Zócalo are government buildings flying the Mexican flag,
which is red, white and green, and bears the eagle-and-rattlesnake coat
of arms. We see many soldiers near these buildings. They look rather
boyish and poorly disciplined compared to our soldiers. Military
service, by the way, is compulsory in Mexico. Every young man in the
country is supposed to serve either in the active army or in the
national guard; but many youths manage to get out of it. Among the
government offices we find the telegraph department as well as the post
office, for in Mexico, as in continental Europe, the government handles
telegrams as well as mail. New buildings are still being added by the
government. The Legislative Palace on the Plaza de la República will
cost millions of dollars. All Latin-American countries have a tendency
to spend a great deal on their capitals and little in their provinces.
[Illustration:
Underwood & Underwood
The Zócalo, Mexico City’s great central square, on which front the
Cathedral and other important buildings.
]
Although Mexico City is large and modern, with inhabitants of many
nationalities, few of its business buildings are more than three or four
stories high. Of churches, there are fifty or more. All, except a big
American Episcopal church and a few small ones of other denominations,
are Roman Catholic.
The principal streets are broad, well paved, brightly lighted and clean.
There is an excellent electric street-car service. This will carry us
along beautiful _paseos_ (raised roads lined with double rows of old
trees) through the _colonias_ (rich suburbs) out into the country. There
are many automobiles also. As the drivers are reckless, and the traffic
rules and police are more lenient than in the United States, we must be
very careful in crossing a street.
Stores and Streets
[Illustration:
Looking across Mexico City one sees no skyscrapers, though there are
some large buildings. Most of the houses have flat roofs, which are
often used in the evening as family sitting rooms.
]
Most stores in Mexico City are open from eight to one and from three to
seven. During the two hours that they are closed, the town seems almost
dead. As everyone goes home for lunch and a _siesta_, or afternoon nap,
the traffic is very heavy four times a day, instead of merely morning
and evening. In front of many of the stores are _portales_, arcades.
Foreign as well as Mexican goods are sold. The latest men’s hats from
New York or London may be seen in the same window with immense plush or
leather _sombreros_. There are bright yellow _sombreros_, trimmed with
silver, costing a hundred dollars; there are huge gray hats, hats as
green as the hillsides of Ireland, hats weighing several pounds and
worth their weight in silver. The wealthy men of Mexico, especially
those who ride horseback in the country, think they are not well dressed
unless they wear the most huge, elaborate, and costly hats.
[Illustration:
Photo by Hugo Brehme, Mexico City
“Fifth of February Street” in Mexico City. It is so narrow that the
sun shines into it for only a few minutes each day.
]
Many of the stores have fancy or romantic names. The sign on the front
almost never gives the owner’s name or any hint as to the kind of goods
sold inside. A clothing store belonging to José Caballero may be called
“The Eden of the Poor Man,” or “The Ideal of the Future.” You must look
inside a store to see whether it sells vegetables or pottery, and
inquire of a clerk if you wish to know who owns it. Yet the shop names
are easy to remember, and are a kind of trademark.
In the stores all the people, except high-class ladies, smoke if they
wish. Even the clerks do so when waiting on customers. Mexican
cigarettes being very strong, the air in a busy store soon becomes hard
to breathe. In all but the best department stores and foreign-style
shops there is bargaining over prices. A clerk who can sell something
for more than the fair price gets a part of the extra profit. But we
have not always had fixed prices in our own American stores.
In Mexico, and the other countries south of the United States, the
streets sometimes bear names that seem fantastic to us. We would think
it very strange to find a “Fourth of July Street” or “Labor Day Avenue”
in an American city. But our southern neighbors often name a street for
their independence day, or for some other holiday or saint’s day.
Another interesting feature in Mexico City is the “Mount of Piety.” This
is a municipal pawnshop, where those who need money can borrow it at one
per cent a month interest by pawning what they can spare.
City Houses
We have seen the _adobe_ huts that Indians and peons build in the colder
parts of Mexico; we shall see reed and branch hovels in the warmer parts
of the country; and you will recall that in passing through Laredo we
glanced at some typical houses. (Chapter II.) It will be interesting to
explore a better-class house in Mexico City. It is two stories high. The
stone or mud-brick walls are three or four feet thick, and tinted a
bright color. The inside walls are not papered, but are painted or
kalsomined. About the _patio_ or courtyard, which is the daytime living
room, is a tile-floored, covered walk or half-open corridor. The front
door is a heavily-built, metal-studded affair, secured with enormous
iron bars and huge padlocks.
[Illustration:
The great Cathedral which faces the central square in Mexico City is
one of the oldest, largest and finest churches in the New World.
]
The owner lives on the second floor. The ground floor is occupied by the
servants and may contain a stable or garage; or it may be rented as a
store. The family rooms open on a balcony overlooking the _patio_. The
ceilings are very high. The roof, thick, heat-proof, is flat and paved
with bricks. This style was brought to Spain by the Moors of sunny
northern Africa. The roof is used as a playground and is the place where
the family gathers in the evening. As a flower garden it rivals the
_patio_ below. A parapet guards the roof’s edge, but neighbors may step
from roof to roof. Water runs off through tiles that project beyond the
walls, emptying directly into the street or the _patio_. During a
shower, if you are not careful, you may find yourself beneath a small
Niagara.
[Illustration:
Photo by Hugo Brehme, Mexico City
This splendid old house in Mexico City was built by Rodrigo de Vivero
y Velasco about 1596. Its many _azulejos_ or colored tiles have made
it known as the Tile House. The builder’s father once said to him,
“My son, you will never build a house of tiles.” He meant that the
boy would never succeed. However, the young man did prosper and
built this residence which is now the Jockey Club.
]
The house, no matter how fine in other respects, has few modern
conveniences. The brick floors are very cold in the morning, though they
may be warm enough by noon. Sometimes there are rugs, but very rarely
carpets. In Mexico City even millionaires seldom have their houses well
heated. There are probably not a hundred homes in all Mexico with
furnaces or other central heating plants. Since we Americans often go to
the opposite unhealthful extreme of over-heating, the Mexican way seems
especially uncomfortable to us. An American family who wish to live in
Mexico as they do at home have almost to reconstruct their house to
install stoves, perhaps running pipes out the windows. Few Mexican
houses have chimneys.
Mexicans Have No “Servant Problem”
Servants have always been so plentiful in Mexico that only the poorer
Mexican women ever do any cooking, though they are all excellent workers
with a needle. Cookstoves are usually crude, even in the best houses.
They are often made of mud-bricks, with small charcoal holes to cook
over. As the servants will not use American ranges or other
“new-fangled” things, the old style still prevails even among the rich.
Servants in Mexico are much like those in China. Four or five can be had
at the cost of one American servant. As a matter of fact, one _has_ to
have four or five servants. The cook will do no washing or sweeping, and
even the _mozo_, or “man of all work,” has very limited duties. The
_mozo_ usually serves as _portero_, a combination of doorman, guard, and
janitor. He sleeps, often on the floor, just inside the big front door.
Knowing that the _mozo_ will open the door, the family, when they go out
for the evening, do not have to carry any of the huge old Spanish keys.
Unlike the custom in China, Mexican servants are given either their food
or an allowance of money for board. The cook often feeds all her own
family from the household supplies of her employer. The lady of the
house usually does not go to market, but sends her cook or another
servant. Just as in China, the servant entrusted with this duty often
“squeezes” a few cents on each purchase; that is, he takes a little
commission for himself.
[Illustration:
Mexican 20-peso bill, issued in 1914 by the Provisional Government
from its headquarters in Vera Cruz. Notice that although the word
“peso” is used, the dollar sign is given interlocked with “20.”
]
CHAPTER XI
RECREATIONS AND SOCIAL LIFE
The Mexican National Theater in Mexico City is one of the most costly
and elaborate in the world. Among other things, it has a glass curtain,
made at a cost of thousands of dollars by a great jewelry firm in New
York. But the theater has never been finished. The tendency of the
government recently has been to regard schools and lecturers on
agriculture as more important than places where the rich may enjoy
themselves in the evening. Yet nearly every important Mexican city has a
magnificent municipal theater, supported by taxes on the people.
The same play is not given week after week, as in the largest United
States cities. Stock companies present a different play every few days,
or even every day. One reason they can do this is that in Mexico, as in
continental Europe, a prompter is used. He sits in a little box at the
front of and half under the stage, and reads the lines to be repeated by
the actors. Sometimes he can be heard all over the house, but this does
not seem to bother a Mexican audience at all. Actors who are used to
having a prompter can seldom remember their lines without one. I
remember a very funny performance of _Hamlet_ given in New York City by
a foreign company which had just come up from Mexico. As there are no
prompters’ boxes in New York, except in the opera houses, this company’s
prompter had to stand in the wings at one side of the stage. The
prompter had bought a huge Mexican hat, which he wore through the entire
play, and as there was a light behind him, the shadow of a man in modern
clothing topped by a huge cowboy hat was thrown on the stage among the
actors, who were garbed in medieval doublet and hose. You can imagine
how odd was the effect.
Most plays in Mexican theaters do not last a whole evening. _Zarzuelas_,
Spanish one-act farces, are more common. You may buy a ticket for one
_tanda_, a single play, or for the whole evening. But if you pay for
only a _tanda_ and then decide you would like to see the whole show, you
may find that you have to go out or take another seat because your seat
has been bought for the next _tanda_.
Popular Sports
Among other Mexican recreations are bullfights and cockfights, always
with much gambling. In fact, gambling itself is one of the chief
recreations. Lottery tickets are sold everywhere, even by peddlers who
call the numbers as they wander along the streets. During a ball game
the noise of betting often drowns out the umpire’s voice.
There are bull rings in most Mexican cities. The one in the capital,
probably the largest in the world, is a huge steel structure. Great
crowds gather there for the most important bullfights, which are usually
offered on Sunday. Sometimes as many as 30,000 spectators—men, women and
children of all classes—see a fight. Yet even such a crowd is small by
comparison with that at one of our championship prizefights—and the
admission fee to a bullfight is a great deal less.
[Illustration:
Keystone View Co., Inc.
Mexico’s chief sport is the bullfight.
]
Of the cruelties of bullfights, where horses are gored to death and
bulls worn out with painful teasing before they are butchered—or of
cockfights, where the roosters gouge out each other’s eyes with their
sharp spurs, and perhaps both die of their wounds—I will say little.
After all, we cannot fairly criticize such sports so long as brutality
and gambling are allowed at our crowded prizefights.
Horseback riding used to be quite general in Mexico, and many Mexicans
ride well. There is almost no tennis or golf, except among foreigners.
In mining districts, and in other places where Americans live, there is
some baseball. One of the most amusing things in Mexico is to hear our
baseball terms translated into Spanish, or mispronounced in English.
Sometimes, on a Sunday, a “gringo” and a Mexican team play a game—and
the Mexicans do not always lose.
[Illustration:
A Mexican boy who likes to play baseball.
]
However, baseball is rather strenuous for the Mexican climate and
temperament. Because of the plateau altitude, it is hard work even for
Americans to run bases. There is gymnasium work in most city schools,
and the young men of the cities are fond of fencing. One of the most
interesting games played in Mexico City and a few other places is
_pelota_ or _jaí alaí_. This game was invented by the Basques, who live
in the Pyrenees Mountains on the border between France and Spain. There
are two players on each side. On the right hand they wear a long
_cesta_, a kind of trough woven like a basket. With this they play a
game that reminds one of handball. At the end of the long, high room is
a slate wall against which the ball is struck. A constant uproar of
gambling goes on among the spectators at a _jaí alaí_ game. Since this
is a very violent game, for which the players must be in the pink of
condition, it has become almost entirely professional, like
bullfighting, which also was once engaged in by amateurs.
The Plaza Promenade
The mildest and pleasantest, as well as most general, recreation in
Mexico and in almost all the countries south of the United States is the
promenade. The central _plaza_ is the center of social activity. During
band concerts the people walk slowly round and round the _plaza_. The
single men go in one direction, and the girls and young women in the
other. They smile or stare at one another each time they meet. In some
places there are four lines, two lines of the upper class inside and two
of the poorer people outside.
The _plaza_ is where most courtships begin. In Mexico boys and girls do
not mingle freely. A young lady may not appear in public with any man to
whom she is not related. After she is married, her husband, father, or
brother must always go with her. An elderly Mexican woman is expected to
have at least one servant along when she shops. The “women of the
people,” as the wives and daughters of the peons are called, are more
free in their movements. The girls and women of the middle class have
not long worked in stores and offices, but now thousands of girls are
employed in such places in Mexico City. An unmarried woman, if she does
not enter a convent, lives with her father or brother.
[Illustration:
Photo by Hugo Brehme, Mexico City
An old house in Mexico City, showing a paved _patio_. The rooms all
open on this court.
]
An Odd Kind of Courting
Mexicans of marriageable age have rather a poor chance of becoming
acquainted. A young man perhaps catches a glimpse of a girl in church,
or at her window, and wishes he knew her. He probably finds her in the
evening _plaza_ promenade. Even there he does not speak to her, but they
may gradually begin to smile when they meet.
After this has gone on for several evenings, the young man follows the
girl home. She, of course, is with an older relative, and the suitor
stays well behind, pretending he is not following. The girl looks out
through the iron bars of a high window and sees the young man leaning
against the wall of the house across the street. But at first she
pretends not to see him. Later, if he comes every night, she begins to
let him see that she is watching him. But he must be sure to come, even
in bad weather. If he is afraid of a wetting he will be considered a
poor prospect, a “fine-day lover” only. By and by the two begin to talk
through the bars of the parlor window. This coming to a girl’s window
every evening is called “playing the bear,” though it is really the girl
rather than the young man who is inside the “cage”! If the window is
high above the street, sometimes the man may bring a small hand
telephone, such as can be bought in the best Mexican stores. But you may
be sure that some older member of the young lady’s family listens and
keeps an eye on her, so that she will not overstep the bounds prescribed
by Mexican custom.
Finally—provided the young man has not decided to “play bear” somewhere
else, or the young lady has not stopped coming to the window—the father,
or uncle, or a school friend of the young man calls on the father of the
girl. After many preliminaries this go-between explains the suitor’s
prospects, tells how much money he has, and asks that he be allowed to
court the girl formally. If the family is willing, the same relative or
friend brings the young man and presents him, first to the father, then
to the mother, the brothers, sisters, aunts, and cousins who may live in
the house—and finally to the girl herself. Everyone pretends that until
then the young man has never seen her! After that he may call upon her
every evening, though always with some member of the family in the room
or at least within hearing. Marriage usually follows quickly after the
“introduction.” The groom has to pay all the expenses of the ceremony
and must even provide the bride’s trousseau! Usually he tells his future
mother-in-law how much of his money she may spend on the bride; or
perhaps his own mother, sister, or aunt buys the bride’s outfit.
However, the girl often brings a dowry, money or other property, and so
does her share to establish the new household.
Other Mexican Customs
Mexicans are noted for their formal politeness. Almost everyone I met
along the road in the country said “Adiós,” which really means “May God
be with you,” just as our “Good-by” originally did. Even the peon lifts
his hat and says “Con permiso” (“With your permission”) when he wishes
to get past you. A whining beggar can be driven off with a “Pardon me,”
more easily than with rough words.
When people move into a new town the strangers are expected to call on
the old residents, which is the reverse of the custom in most parts of
the United States. Anyone you call on will be very, very polite, even
though he may not like you. A Mexican seldom invites a friend to his
home, and not often to his club. To be sure he may offer you his house,
saying it is yours, or he may seem ready to give you anything of his
that takes your fancy, but you had better accept nothing—though I know
of cases where the owner saw something precious carried off rather than
be discourteous. Saying “My house is yours” is really only a formality,
like our “Dear Sir” in a letter.
Because many of the sidewalks of Mexico are very narrow, it is not
customary always to keep to the right, as we do. A woman, or the older
of two men or women, or the social superior, expects to be given the
side nearest the wall. The person on the outside may have to step off
into the mud.
In introducing one person to another a Mexican begs permission of the
more important person to present the less important one, or of the older
to present the younger. If a man is introduced he responds by giving his
full name, very clearly—“Juan Miguel Calles, servidor de usted” (“your
servant”)—and then the older or more important person does the same.
This is surely better than our way of letting the introducer pronounce
(or mispronounce!) the names. Persons introduced usually bow low without
shaking hands. Men friends when they meet fairly hug each other, shaking
hands when the _abrozo_ or embrace is broken. If two Mexican friends, or
even old acquaintances, meet a dozen times a day, they shake hands, talk
a little, and then shake hands again as they part. Women do not repeat
their names when they are introduced, and instead of embracing each
other, they kiss.
[Illustration:
Rochester Photo, Mexico City
A Mexican barber who attends to his customers wherever he can find
them. He charges very little, but then, he has no rent to pay!
]
Christmas is celebrated for a week or more in Mexico. On Christmas Eve,
and sometimes for several evenings before Christmas, there are
celebrations in the homes. Instead of the Christmas tree, and “stockings
hung by the chimney with care” there are _piñatas_. These are small
earthenware jars stuffed with candy, games, toys and even money and
valuable presents. They are hung from the ceiling of a room or from a
tree in the _patio_, and each child is blindfolded and given three
chances to break the jar with a stick. When at last it is broken, the
children tear the bandages off their eyes and shout and laugh as the
entire company scrambles for the sweetmeats and presents.
CHAPTER XII
THE MEXICAN GOVERNMENT
The capital of a country is usually the best place to learn about its
form of government, though it may not be the best place to find out how
the government really works. The government of the “United States of
Mexico” is in many ways like our own. The Mexican constitution, like
many others, is modeled on ours. The action of the English colonies in
America in declaring their independence of the mother country gave
Mexico and other tyrannically ruled colonies in the New World courage to
do likewise.
The young republics, naturally, found that what suited us did not
altogether suit them. In general, they have made new constitutions,
instead of trying to keep the old ones up-to-date by amendments. Still,
the framework of government remains much like our own. In Mexico there
are two senators from each state, as with us, but there are also two
from the Federal District. Instead of calling the larger legislative
branch the House of Representatives, Mexicans use the European term,
Chamber of Deputies. Like our representatives the Mexican deputies are
elected on a basis of population, one for each 60,000 inhabitants. All
men can vote. A married man may vote at eighteen years of age, a single
man at twenty-one.
In theory the president is elected by popular vote, for four years, and
cannot be re-elected. He must be a Mexican by birth and at least
thirty-five years old, and his father and mother must also be native
Mexicans. Instead of waiting, like our presidents, until March 4, four
months after election, the new Mexican president takes office December
1. In practice, however, most Mexican presidents have obtained office
not by election but by force, gathering a small army and driving out
whoever is president at the moment. Therefore the more intelligent and
independent Mexicans often do not have a chance to vote, and so many of
the others are told how to vote that there are seldom any real
elections. The Supreme Court is supposed to be an independent body, like
ours, but a dictator-president usually has so much power that he
controls both the legislative and judicial branches of the government.
The Constitution of 1917
There has been so much talk about the Mexican constitution of 1917 that
we must not pass on without glancing at it. It is much longer and more
detailed than ours, and certain of its provisions are novel. Some people
say that it is a Bolshevik constitution; others claim that it at last
gives the ordinary people a fair chance, instead of letting the rich
have everything. It provides that every Mexican who wants a piece of
land shall have it. Any village that petitions will be given, from the
neighboring big estates, enough land so that each family shall have
twelve and a half acres of irrigated land or fifteen acres of inferior
land. More than two million acres have already been distributed in this
way. In some parts of the country the landowning families are allowed to
keep from five to ten thousand acres. If they do not divide the rest and
offer it for sale within a year, the government takes the property and
divides it, giving government bonds in payment.
As about seventy per cent of the fifteen million inhabitants of Mexico
make their living from the soil, this is an important reform. Until 1857
every village did have land for its people to cultivate. Then Juárez
drafted a new constitution dividing the land and allowing the people to
sell their property for very little to the big landowners. When they had
foolishly done this, the peons had to work for the big _hacendados_ at
any wage offered them. Many spent so much in advance at the _hacienda_
stores and for weddings, funerals, and other ceremonies presided over by
the _hacienda_ priest that they were practically debt slaves.
Can Mexico ever be a country of small independent farmers? Some
observers say no. Machinery and big irrigation works are needed. The
great Boquilla Dam in the state of Chihuahua was built not by Mexicans
but by an American company. The peons have no capital to invest in
improvements, and they are not progressive or energetic. Near as they
are to the United States, most of them have very primitive agricultural
implements. Moreover, the peon does not want responsibility. He prefers
a master who will tell him what to do. The best way to keep him at work
is to keep him in debt. His reasoning seems to be: “If I am in debt to
an _hacendado_ I am sure of my job. Therefore I do not wish to be out of
debt and have land of my own.”
[Illustration:
This plow was made by the farmer himself. It is entirely of wood
except for a little iron point, and it does not plow deep enough to
prepare the ground for really good crops.
]
Under Diaz, foreigners owned much in Mexico, especially the mines. The
new constitution says a foreigner cannot own land or water within a
hundred kilometers (about 62 miles) of the frontier or of the coast. If
he was already owner of any such property when the new constitution went
into effect, he was allowed to go on holding it until he died, but he
could not will it to his children unless they were Mexican citizens. In
order to own land anywhere else in Mexico a foreigner must promise not
to claim the protection of his home government; so far as concerns his
property, he must be a Mexican.
The new constitution has also affected religious organizations in
Mexico. The church laws that are now being enforced were also in the
Juárez constitution of 1857, but they are regarded by the Roman
Catholics, especially, as unjust. Many Mexicans believe that the Church
and the government should be quite separate. Certain priests formerly
exercised political influence and owned immense tracts of land. The 1917
constitution forbids the Church to own real estate. Under Calles the
church buildings were taken over by the government, and the priests were
allowed to use them only under certain conditions. Outdoor religious
processions and other ceremonies were forbidden, and priests and nuns
might not appear in public in their vestments.
Improving Agriculture
The “revolution,” as the Mexicans call the years of trouble and fighting
that followed the downfall of Diaz, was directed against the big
landowners. The new government policy is sympathetic toward labor, and
gives advantages to the working people. An agricultural college has been
established in Mexico City for men from every state. There are other
similar schools elsewhere. The government sends out agricultural experts
to give advice in even the remotest districts. They lecture in theaters,
abandoned churches, public squares; they use the radio, the movies, and
printed circulars to teach the people better farming methods. The
federal government gives or sells seed and helps farmers to buy
machinery. In most of Mexico’s twenty-eight states there is a National
Bank of Agriculture in which both state and federal governments are
interested.
The trouble is that while seventy per cent of the Mexican population
lives on the land, only about one acre in ten is cultivated. Some soil
is so fertile that it will yield three crops a year, even with the crude
old methods and no fertilizing. But less than half the country is now
useful for farming. The government is working hard on an irrigation
program, and in time Mexico will probably have enough fertile land to
support all its people.
[Illustration:
Underwood & Underwood
Haying time in Mexico means the use of a two-wheeled oxcart. In most
parts of the country farming methods are still very primitive.
]
[Illustration:
Courtesy “Picturesque America”
The castle of Chapultepec near Mexico City, the summer home of the
president, is surrounded by a very beautiful park.
]
[Illustration:
Photo by Hugo Brehme, Mexico City
Among the “floating gardens” of Xochimilco, near Mexico City.
]
CHAPTER XIII
ROUND ABOUT THE MEXICAN CAPITAL
Chapultepec, on the outskirts of Mexico City, was the summer home of
Montezuma. Now it contains the president’s handsome summer palace. There
is a wonderful park, and along the _paseo_ or boulevard between it and
the capital are fine statues of famous Aztecs and Mexicans. For a
century Chapultepec was the West Point of Mexico. Many of the cadets
were killed when American soldiers captured the place during the war
with Mexico. Now there is a larger military academy at San Jacinto.
The Valley of Mexico in which the Aztecs and the Spaniards built their
capitals was once a great lake, and there are six small lakes in it now.
When the Spanish _conquistadores_ first entered Anáhuac they found the
whole valley a network of canals and waterways. Tenochtitlan they
reached across a great causeway, a raised road with water on either
side. Some remnants of these great works still remain. In the days of
Montezuma what is now Mexico City was practically on an island, with
more traffic by water than by land.
On the lakes about Tenochtitlan floated rafts of interlaced branches,
covered with rich soil and blossoming flowers. The last survival of that
Aztec floral paradise is Xochimilco, a kind of picnic lake a few miles
outside the capital. Xochimilco means “Where the Flowers Are” and the
place is well named. Mexicans of all classes are so fond of flowers that
every day in the year great quantities of roses, carnations, double
violets, and other products of the floating gardens of Xochimilco are
sold in the capital.
The gardens do not really float now, or at least they do not move about,
as they did in Aztec days. But many of them bob up and down when one
steps on them. They are made of mats of interlaced branches covered with
a thin layer of rich soil in which plants are set out. Tiny huts for the
gardeners are built on the islands. Anchored with willow poles thrust
into the mud bottom, the islands often become fixed when the willow
takes root. Flat-bottomed boats are poled about by the Indian
descendants of those who established this watery kingdom in the
thirteenth century. Some boats are loaded with flowers or vegetables
until they look like floating farms; some carry whole families (as in
China); others are filled with picnickers, for Xochimilco is a favorite
outing place. Guitars and other instruments may be heard there any
moonlight evening. Peddlers of _tamales_, _tortillas_, _pulque_, and
other things to eat and drink move about in boats. The Indians who live
and work in the floating gardens are full-blooded Aztecs, still speaking
the ancient tongue. They are a cleaner and more independent people than
the city half-breeds, and are very proud of their ancestry.
The Famous Volcanoes
[Illustration:
Courtesy Ward Line. Photo by American Photo Co., Havana
Mt. Popocatepetl, the most famous mountain in Mexico, as seen from the
side of the Pyramid of Cholula. An ancient _adobe_ mound is in the
right foreground.
]
The springs which supply the lakes in the Valley of Mexico have their
source in the snows of the two great volcanoes that lift their white
heads into the sky above it. One of these mighty peaks, Popocatepetl
(17,543 feet), is known the world over. Its name means “Smoke Mountain.”
There have been a number of eruptions of this volcano since Cortés
reached Mexico; the most recent was in 1802. The mountain still smokes,
however, and some day it may again belch forth lava and ashes. Although
it is one of the mountain wonders of the continent, being surpassed in
height by only four mountains in North America, Popocatepetl belongs to
a Mexican general and has often been offered for sale! Perhaps if he
offered to deliver it wherever the purchaser wished, he could more
easily sell it. “Popo” furnishes ice, sulphur, and great parks. The
whole floor of its crater, which is a mile wide at the top and a
thousand feet deep, is covered with pure sulphur. It throws this out at
the rate of about a million tons a year; a hundred million tons of
sulphur have been taken from its crater in the period since the
Spaniards came. As the mountain produces more sulphur than the world can
use, and the United States obtains an ample supply from Texas, and
Louisiana, the general will probably have trouble in selling his
mountain.
[Illustration:
Courtesy “Picturesque America”
A wonderful view of Ixtaccihuatl, the “Sleeping White Woman,” as this
famous volcano appears from Amecameca.
]
Alongside Popocatepetl stands—or rather lies—Ixtaccihuatl, an extinct
volcano almost as high and nearly as beautiful as the other. We say
“lies” because the name means the “Sleeping White Woman.” The snowy
mountain does actually look much like a woman lying with her head
pillowed on one arm. A Mexican legend says that Popocatepetl was a god
and Ixtaccihuatl a maiden with whom he fell in love. She was not
faithful to him, however, so he turned her into a mountain. But “Old
Popo” himself froze with grief, though he still shows his anger now and
then by belching forth smoke and sulphur.
For the traveler there are few more beautiful sights in the world than
these two great snow and glacier-capped volcanoes, as seen from anywhere
in Mexico City. In the clear air of highland Mexico they seem almost
near enough to touch. They stand forth from any point in the Valley of
Mexico, and even from far beyond, though on the opposite side they do
not resemble the mythical characters.
It is not very difficult to climb to the top of “Old Popo” or the “White
Woman”—and it is very easy to come down again. The ascent takes about
three days, fifty dollars, strong shoes, warm clothing, and good guides.
A railroad carries us to Amecameca, a mile and a half above sea level
and about forty miles from Mexico City. Horses may be used up to the
first rest house. From there the climb is on foot, first in loose
shifting black sand, then in snow and ice. On a clear day the view of
the Valley of Mexico, with its great capital and its lake-dotted basin,
is worth walking many a mile to see. In every direction lie those great
hills that are the most striking feature of the Mexican plateau. For a
time we struggle upward in the clouds, which move about as if they were
living things. The wet snow grows harder; the glare of reflected
sunshine hurts our eyes. At last we drop down exhausted at the mouth of
“Popo’s” crater.
Its walls, we see as soon as we are rested enough to peep over, are of
black obsidian, that flint-hard stone of which the Aztecs made
arrowheads and knives. Far below are acres of yellow sulphur, and gases
rise from the crevices in the crater floor. It is so very cold up here,
more than three miles high, that we soon decide to go down again. Once
we have made up our minds, that is easy. We sit down on a straw mat,
with a guide who carries an iron-pointed staff as a rudder and brake,
and away we go! It is the toboggan slide of a lifetime. Rocks and
crevices must be dodged while coasting at a rate that carries us farther
in a minute than we could climb in an hour. The sulphur is brought down
in this same speedy way.
There are many other volcanoes in Mexico, the highest among them Orizaba
(18,654 feet) which is the third highest mountain in North America. Most
of the volcanoes seem to be extinct, but one can never be sure.
Earthquakes are quite frequent.
A Place of Pilgrimage
Mexico has almost numberless churches. It has been called the land of
domes, because most of the Mexican churches are built in a style of
which the dome is a conspicuous feature. In olden days men who became
rich, especially in the mines, erected churches as thank offerings. In
some old towns there almost seems to be a church for each inhabitant!
Perhaps the most famous church in Mexico, and certainly the one
considered most holy by the Mexican masses, is Guadalupe. It is three
miles out of the capital. One can cover the distance by street car or
automobile, or, better still, on foot. Thousands of pilgrims come to
pray at this greatest shrine in Mexico, and often they have to camp in
the streets of the holy village. Guadalupe is to the Mexicans what
Benares is to the Hindus, Mecca to the Mohammedans, and Jerusalem to the
Jews and Christians.
To reach the church we climb a stairway cut in solid rock. On the way we
pass the stone-carved sails and mast of a vessel—a memorial erected more
than two centuries ago by sailors who, having prayed to the Virgin of
Guadalupe during a storm, had been saved. This is the most important of
many similar thank offerings. Some grateful people send crude pictures,
showing themselves being dragged out from under the wheels of a train or
a truck, or they donate the crutches they no longer need after a
miraculous cure. The church and its chapels are hung with rich offerings
of draperies and banners given by the wealthy, and the life-size image
of the Virgin glitters with jewels and precious stones. The chapels are
crowded from morning until night, every day in the year. The Indians and
peons of Mexico are very religious; they almost always raise their hats
when they pass a church door. I have seen all the people of a town
kneel, their hats laid on the cobblestone pavement before them, when a
bishop went by. But the Indians cling so closely to tradition that even
after four centuries many old pagan rites remain and form part of their
Christian worship. A Catholic visitor would not recognize all the rites
performed by the pilgrims at Guadalupe.
Whatever else they do, all drink the waters of a certain spring that
flows down the sacred hill. It is a sulphur spring that boils and
bubbles and has a very unpleasant odor. There are no individual cups;
instead there are copper dippers, chained to a rail. It is a very rare
pilgrim who does not carry home some of the holy water for his family
and friends, or even to sell; and as most of the pilgrims are too poor
to bring worthy receptacles, many of them use old bottles.
[Illustration:
Keystone View Co., Inc.
Devout Mexicans climbing the stone stairs at Guadalupe. The famous
stone sails mentioned in the text stand beside the stairs.
]
According to a legend, the Virgin appeared to a poor Indian named Juan,
and commanded him to build a church where she left a bunch of roses. The
priests and the people accepted his story, and joined forces to erect a
church that has become the pilgrim center of Mexico. In it may be seen
candles of every size, burning before the altars at which pilgrims have
prayed for some blessing. To reach the shrine many crawl on hands and
knees all the way up the stone steps cut in the rock hill where Juan
found the roses.
[Illustration:
Underwood & Underwood
Interior of the famous Cathedral at Guadalupe. Around the altar is a
silver railing.
]
CHAPTER XIV
MY JOURNEY TO THE GULF COAST
The narrow-gauge railway that carried me away from Mexico City passed
close under the walls of Guadalupe. I had hoped to go straight on down
through the center of the country, on foot and perhaps sometimes on
horseback. Then I might have visited the pleasant old city of Cuernavaca
and the quaint little state capital of Oaxaca on the way to Tehuantepec.
Near Oaxaca, at Mitla, there are wonderful ruins of great buildings
which the Zapotec Indians of ancient times probably used for religious
and burial purposes. Mitla means “Place of the Dead.” I did not visit
Mitla or its neighborhood because just then civil war and bandits made
the region a bad one for the “gringo” who wished to get home again some
day. Instead, I took the railway down to the Gulf coast, intending to go
south on another line. After all, this would bring me to as many
interesting and historic scenes as the other route.
Soon we came to the famous pyramids of Teotihuacán looming above the
plain. No one knows just when or by whom these two great artificial
hills were built, but it was before the Toltecs came. The larger pyramid
had recently been cleared of the trees and bushes that had found root in
the soil deposited by winds over a long period of years. Cement-colored,
it rose in four terraces, with a low monument on the summit. Although it
has as much material in it as the great pyramid of Cheops in Egypt, this
Mexican pile does not look so imposing, because the proportions are
different. It is much larger at the base and not nearly so high.
[Illustration:
Underwood & Underwood
In the Hall of Mosaics at Mitla are marvelous relics of prehistoric
builders.
]
The train made a mighty curve to the northward in finding its way out of
the Valley of Mexico. I got off it in the famous little state of
Tlaxcala. You remember that Cortés was helped in the conquest of Mexico
by the Tlaxcalans, a tribe at enmity with the Aztecs. After his final
victory the people of Tlaxcala were given certain special privileges
because of their assistance. Their lords were baptized and required to
swear allegiance to the king of Spain, but they were left in command of
their domains. Even during viceroy days the Tlaxcalans were treated
better than the other Indian tribes.
[Illustration:
Underwood & Underwood
Pyramid of the Sun at San Juan Teotihuacán, seen across the maguey
fields from the Pyramid of the Moon.
]
[Illustration:
Underwood & Underwood
The low pyramids at San Juan Teotihuacán have given this region the
name “the Egypt of America.”
]
[Illustration:
Underwood & Underwood
Detail of the strange carving on one of the pyramids at San Juan
Teotihuacán.
]
Tlaxcala is the Rhode Island of Mexico, the tiniest of the twenty-eight
states. Its name means “Land of Corn.” The fact that it is almost
completely hedged in by mountains was both a hindrance and a help to
Cortés in his conquest of Mexico. With the two great volcanoes of
Popocatepetl and Ixtaccihuatl gazing down upon it, Tlaxcala is one of
the most striking regions in Mexico. However, one might think it had
been punished at last for joining the white invaders against the rest of
the Indians. It is really rather miserable, by no means prosperous.
Although the capital of a state, Tlaxcala town has only about three
thousand inhabitants. It is several miles from the railway, being
connected with the station and the outer world by a few wretched mule
cars. I decided it would be more fun to walk than to ride. Tlaxcala is
several hundred feet higher than Mexico City, and it is cold and dreary
and almost treeless. Its ancient church of San Francisco is said to be
the oldest structure in North America built for Christian worship. Many
of its stone buildings are mere ruins, where grass and flowers grow as
they do among the cobblestones of the streets. Yet Tlaxcala has a
complete state government, with all the customary officials and features
of a capital.
The “City of the Angels”
Puebla, the next state capital on the way to the coast, is called the
“City of the Angels.” There was no city at this place when the Spaniards
came. A legend says that angels appeared to a priest in a dream and
helped him lay out the city they said should be built there. But while
it is cleaner and in some other ways better than most Mexican cities,
Puebla did not look exactly angelic. It is a city of churches, many of
them having domes decorated with the bright-colored tiles that are a
Puebla specialty. Some have carvings, paintings, and other precious
things that compare with the possessions of old European churches.
Puebla is also an important manufacturing city, producing much flour,
soap, glass, paper, and cheap pottery.
[Illustration:
The marketplace of Tlaxcala has a dozen or more buildings to shelter
the sellers. As the weather is never cold, walls are not needed.
]
Some of the old houses of Puebla have their fronts covered with tile
mosaics of birds, animals, and saints. Such buildings are all low, so
that a view across the city shows little besides flat roofs and church
domes. Most of the outer walls are cream white, but some are tinted more
gayly. Puebla resembles Tlaxcala in being even colder than Mexico City
and in being watched over by “Popo” and the “White Woman.” Far away to
the west stands Orizaba, highest peak in Mexico. There was music in the
_plaza_ that evening, but the air was so chilly that I soon hurried back
to my hotel. Even there the only warm place was in bed. People in Puebla
do not build fires for comfort, but merely heat up a little charcoal to
cook with.
[Illustration:
Courtesy Ward Line. Photo by American Photo Co., Havana
From the summit of the ancient pyramid at Cholula one obtains a
splendid view of Popocatepetl and Ixtaccihuatl. The shrine dates
from the year 666, when it was erected by Cortés after he had
ordered the destruction of the Aztec temples in the vicinity.
Cholula being the sacred city of the tribe, this action resulted in
the natives’ troubling Cortés constantly and finally securing his
downfall.
]
The next morning I was ready to get up at dawn, though I found it cold
work. A three hours’ walk from the central _plaza_ of Puebla warmed me
and brought me to the top of one of the greatest pyramids in the world.
This is at Cholula, eight miles from Puebla. It was built of sun-dried
bricks, limestone, and clay, by some tribe that arrived before the
Aztecs. When Cortés came, there was on top of it a great temple to the
Aztec god Quetzalcoatl. The Spaniards pulled down the ancient images and
overthrew the altar on which so many people had been sacrificed to the
bloodthirsty god. Now there is at the summit a great church to which
many pilgrims come. The ancient pyramid has crumbled a good deal and is
so covered with grass, flowers, and trees that it looks almost like a
natural hill. Through a great gash that has been made in it runs the
street-car line to Puebla.
Down to Vera Cruz
Though it is called the Mexican Railway, the line from Mexico City down
to Vera Cruz belongs to the English. Descending from the great Mexican
plateau, it zigzags back and forth, often on the brink of precipices. At
one point we could look down upon the town of Maltrata, more than two
thousand feet below, as directly as if we had been in an airplane. The
train, behind a double-header engine, twisted about until it seemed as
if it must be lost, but finally we reached our destination.
For the first time since my second day in Mexico I was less than a mile
above sea level. High above all else, and much farther away than it
seemed, was the symmetrical snow-capped top of Orizaba. This was first
climbed by American officers during our war with Mexico. The cold peak
looked still stranger from the town of Orizaba where I spent the night.
Orizaba has one of the largest cotton mills in the world, and a big
brewery; but although it is really an industrious place, it is just near
enough the tropics to be rather sleepy and careless in its manner.
[Illustration:
Photo by Hugo Brehme, Mexico City
Along the Mexican Railway, the oldest railroad in Mexico, leading from
the high plateau of the capital down to Vera Cruz.
]
It took eighteen miles of winding and tunneling to get down from Orizaba
to Córdoba, almost directly below. The train skirted yawning precipices,
passed through dense vegetation, banana plants without number, coffee
plantations, and uncultivated jungle. It seemed very hot after being on
Mexico’s plateau, though we were still higher than the tops of our
Alleghanies.
[Illustration:
Photo from Janet M. Cummings
A fine _hacienda_ house on a coffee plantation near Córdoba, Mexico.
]
Two Gulf Ports
Tropical Vera Cruz, where the Mexican Railway finally ends at sea level,
is the greatest port of Mexico. Ever since the days of Cortés it has
been the country’s front door. In a sense, entrance by railroad from the
United States is by the back door. Most travelers to and from Mexico,
and most imports and exports, except oil from Tampico, go through Vera
Cruz. Cortés, landing there on Good Friday, which the Spanish call “The
Day of the True Cross,” gave the place that name. A hundred years before
the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, Cortés claimed all Mexico in the
name of the king of Spain. He built a fortress which still covers a
small island a mile from shore and bears the marks of many a battle.
Ever since Cortés traveled the road from the coast to Tenochtitlan, Vera
Cruz has been both a door to power and a way of escape for the defeated.
It is the favorite place for beginning revolutions against the
government in power at Mexico City. The American General Scott took Vera
Cruz before he started on his way to capture the capital.
Vera Cruz is one of the most Spanish cities in Mexico. There used to be
much yellow fever there, and travelers hurried through it as fast as
possible. But now it is fairly healthful, though very hot. The wharves
have every modern docking facility.
[Illustration:
Underwood & Underwood
The harbor of Vera Cruz is a busy one. This city has had an important
part in the history of Mexico because it is one of the country’s few
fine ports.
]
Some distance up the coast is another important city, Tampico, more
important perhaps to Americans than to the Mexicans. Most of the oil
from Tampico is finally used in American automobiles, and many of the
oil wells belong to Americans. Tampico and the great oil fields about it
are so American that the Mexicans themselves often call the region
“Gringolandia.” Being close to the coast, the oil fields cannot legally
continue to be held by foreigners, according to the 1917 constitution.
The matter is under discussion by the Mexican and United States
governments. Although it is an important city to those who think in
terms of oil, Tampico is not as interesting or as pleasant a place as
most Mexican cities.
[Illustration:
© Burton Holmes, from Keystone View Co.
The oil wells at Tampico sometimes catch fire and send a great cloud
of smoke high into the air.
]
CHAPTER XV
TROPICAL MEXICO
Returning to Córdoba, I was taken by a Mexican railroad down to the
Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The train was a kind of way-freight. All day we
rambled along through tropical vegetation so dense that gangs of men had
to labor constantly to keep it from covering the track. Oranges were so
plentiful that they were left to rot on the trees. Pineapples were sold
through the train windows at two cents each. Beautiful palm trees of
many striking and always symmetrical shapes stood forth from the jungle.
But it was not all jungle. After the mountains died down to mere hills,
came broad meadows dotted with cattle, the herdsmen on horseback. There
were prairies almost like our own, and fertile bottomlands. At several
of the stations, I saw white men of much larger build than the tropical
Mexicans. The older of these men had long beards. The younger ones, who
made me think of American farmer boys, caught the cars for short rides.
Later I learned that they were Mormons, a number of whom went to live in
Mexico years ago.
[Illustration:
Photo by Hugo Brehme, Mexico City
Down near Orizaba, Mexico’s splendid tropical vegetation begins.
]
Long after dark we reached Santa Lucrecia. Although it is important as
the junction of two railways, it is only a straggling village of
sheet-iron and thatch—a station and a few huts amid banana groves. The
houses are perched on piles as a protection against dangerous animals
and high water. Here, in this narrowest part of Mexico, the great chain
of mountains stretching from Alaska to southern Chile becomes so low
that Santa Lucrecia is less than a hundred feet above sea level. I found
the air damp and depressing, the night hot and heavy. The moon seemed to
be trying to throw off the clouds that were smothering it. The
inhabitants usually sleep on their porches, in hammocks, but travelers
are not so lucky. I spent a bad night in the Mexican hotel for which a
place had been hacked out of the jungle. Thin wooden partitions between
the rooms reached only halfway to the roof, so that I could hear every
sound made by the other guests; and it was too hot to sleep much beneath
my big mosquito-net canopy.
The Isthmus of Tehuantepec
[Illustration:
Houses on the tropical Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The canoes are big
jungle trees burned and carved out into craft that slip easily
through the water.
]
Here and there on the way westward across the isthmus were open-work
houses, almost like woven baskets. But much of the time the railroad was
the only evidence that anyone had been through the jungle before us. The
telegraph poles were old rails, set upright; wooden poles rot or are
eaten by ants. Now and then we saw a man toiling along behind a crude
wooden plow, the yoke fastened to the oxen’s horns in the Spanish
fashion. In some of the cornfields, instead of scarecrows were wooden
crosses set up to frighten away “devils.” Palms and immense trees of
other kinds, with masses of smaller trees and bushes between, made me
feel as if we were surrounded by an endless green curtain.
[Illustration:
In Tehuantepec the houses are very flimsy, often with walls of reeds.
Do you see the earthenware water jar, placed in the shade and breeze
so that the water will keep cool? Shelves and cubbyholes have been
dug in the earth bank that fences in the yard on one side.
]
The Indians of the hot lands were different from those of the plateau.
They appeared to be much more contented, more serene and happy. Fewer
clothes, fewer troubles! It took very little effort to build their crude
houses, and anyone who did not want to work could almost pick all his
food in the jungle.
[Illustration:
A Tehuantepec woman wearing her _huipil_ or white starched headdress.
The big bowl she carries is made of a gourd decorated with carved or
painted flowers and figures.
]
In the crowded thirdclass coach were some of the far-famed women of
Tehuantepec. They are spoken of as very handsome, though American taste
might prefer a different type. They are of splendid physique, dignified
yet not haughty, and have a charming smile. They wore a gay square of
cloth wrapped about the waist, and a sleeveless upper garment. Almost
all of them had a few red flowers in their jet-black hair, and many wore
necklaces of American five-dollar gold pieces.
These women are not so simply dressed when they have on their national
headdress, the _huipil_. This is a white contrivance of lace and
ruffles, starched stiff, which hangs down the back like the war bonnet
of a Comanche chief. In this regalia a woman of Tehuantepec looks very
gay indeed as she stalks along, barefooted, balancing on her head a big
bowl decorated with painted flowers.
The Town of Tehuantepec
[Illustration:
In the market of Tehuantepec town. The women, who wear a very queer
costume, carry on business with little help from the men.
]
The town of Tehuantepec, which is the largest town on the isthmus, is
merely a big Indian village. Some of its streets are cobbled, but most
are very sandy. Through a wide fertile valley runs a shallow river in
which there is much bathing. The natives all know one another and one
another’s business, which seems to be mostly the selling of tropical
products among themselves. Tehuantepec has a very large and lively
market. So many of the buyers and sellers are women that one traveler
said he felt like a musical comedy star surrounded by the chorus. For a
long time, after most of the men of the isthmus were killed in local
warfare, there were five women to one man. The women learned to do
everything for themselves and became very independent. They are still
“head of the house” in their homes.
[Illustration:
Underwood & Underwood
Cutting and carting sugar cane on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
]
A big _fiesta_ or celebration was held in Tehuantepec the night I was
there. A band played and fireworks were set off. One piece represented a
huge duck, another a mammoth turkey, and two others a man and a woman of
gigantic size. Each piece was worn over the head and shoulders of a man
who capered about while it blazed away above him until nothing but the
wooden framework was left. Fireworks of one kind or another provided
light and noise during most of the night, and left me little chance for
sleep.
[Illustration:
Up on the cool table-land the _peons_ wear huge hats, but down where
the sun is hot and tropical the hats, queerly enough, are quite
small!
]
But there were other sounds too. I had hardly dozed off when, directly
under my ground-floor window, men and women began singing, accompanied
by a sort of banjo. They sang the same mournful two lines over and over
again. Sometimes there was laughter, too, and the sound of good-natured
disputes. At midnight I looked out and saw about fifty people sitting on
the ground with their backs to the wall, all smoking and drinking. A
dozen times I drifted into troubled sleep, only to be wakened again.
About three o’clock the noise stopped; but just as I drew a long sigh of
relief the _fiesta_ band burst out right beside my window! The terrible
racket lasted until daylight, when I got up to catch my train.
No, Tehuantepec had not been serenading me! When Juan, the little brown
waiter, brought my breakfast, I asked him what all the noise meant.
“Oh,” he answered, “yesterday the man next door died, and those were his
friends celebrating the wake.”
“And keeping all the rest of us awake,” I answered, so sleepy that I did
not realize how much my words sounded like a pun.
“Ah, yes, señor,” replied Juan, “it is very sad. But what can we do?
People will die, you know.”
On to Guatemala
I walked over to the town of San Jerónimo to reach a railroad that calls
itself, without very good reason, the “Pan American.” There was one
passenger car, divided into two classes, at the end of a very slow
freight. In a long day of traveling we covered 112 miles. Sometimes the
walls of vegetation were so close as to scratch the sides of the car.
Gay-plumaged parrots and cockatoos screamed at us from bamboo thickets.
But most of the way the country was dry and sun-baked, cactus and
mesquite the only growing things. Down here where the huge _sombreros_
of the Mexican highlands would seem to be so much more necessary, the
people had narrow-brimmed straw hats that made me think of a circus
clown’s comic hat.
[Illustration:
International Harvester Co.
Sisal leaves being loaded on a flat car.
]
[Illustration:
International Harvester Co.
Sisal fibre as it looks when it comes from the machine called the
decorticator.
]
After a night spent in a hot and sandy little town, the same train
carried us off again at dawn, and for another tropical day we dragged
along southward, so close to the west coast that once we caught a
glimpse of the Pacific. In the evening we crawled into Mariscal on the
Mexico-Guatemala border.
The Great Peninsula of Yucatan
Northeast of this route to Guatemala lie four big states of Mexico and
one of its two territories, jutting far out into the Gulf of Mexico in
the peninsula of Yucatan. This is a hot, fertile country, producing
important Mexican products. Its henequen or hemp gives the world rope
and twine; its cacao bushes furnish us much of our chocolate and cocoa.
The capitals of Campeche and Mérida are interesting towns, quite up to
date in some ways. At the base of the peninsula is the state of Tabasco
with its capital of San Juan Bautista (“St. John the Baptist”).
On the peninsula of Yucatan are to be found remains of the Mayan
civilization. Centuries ago (no one knows exactly when) the Maya Indians
came to this part of the world, spreading all the way from Yucatan to
Salvador. They had a calendar that was more exact than that of the
Aztecs, more exact even than ours is, and they seem to have been the
most highly developed people on the North American continent before the
white men came. Carved stone ruins and picture-writing on paper made of
cactus fibers were found by men searching for chicle, the pitch-like
substance from which chewing gum is made.
CHAPTER XVI
THROUGH GUATEMALA ON FOOT AND BY RAIL
My entrance into Central America was rather amusing. I had fallen in
with two other Americans, and after a night spent at Mariscal on the
border, we started to walk across a wooden bridge into Guatemala. The
rails of the “Pan American” line ran across it—but the trains did not!
We had scarcely set foot on the bridge when we heard a great shrieking
across the river. Three very ragged Guatemalan soldiers, barefooted and
wearing calico uniforms and straw hats, had run out of a palm-leaf hut
and were waving three weapons. One was a very aged musket, another a
rusty bayonet, and the third a piece of wire that looked like a ramrod.
These “three musketeers” had one whole gun among them, though probably
no cartridges.
“Don’t cross the bridge!” they yelled. “No one is allowed to cross the
bridge!”
“Why not?” we shouted back. “We are not very heavy!”
“You must come across in a boat!” they ordered. “The Pope himself cannot
cross that bridge; Guatemala does not wish it!”
[Illustration:
The central _plaza_ of a Guatemalan village—just bare ground with palm
trees here and there.
]
By this time they themselves had nearly crossed it in running toward us.
As we turned back to find a boat, the guard sought again the shelter of
their palm-leaf hut. A very ancient and leaky rowboat soon carried us
across to the southern bank of the shallow Suchiate River. A dozen
childish-looking shabby soldiers surrounded us and led us to the
_comandancia_. There an officer whose dignity and uniform were worthy of
a general got out a big ledger and wrote down in it answers to all sorts
of questions. Name, birthplace, business, religion, reason for coming to
Guatemala, and a great many other points that seemed even less
important, interested him. At that time Guatemala had a stern dictator,
Estrada Cabrera, who required his officials to keep close track of all
foreigners entering the country. Since then political conditions in
Guatemala have become much more stable.
[Illustration:
Down in Central America there is usually no better transportation than
crude two-wheeled oxcarts. Spanish-speaking people always fasten the
yoke to the top of the oxen’s horns.
]
The little baggage we carried having been carefully examined, we swung
it over our shoulders and set out to walk to a railroad station nearly
fifty miles away. There was a little narrow-gauge railway from the sandy
jungle town of Ayutla, just beyond where we landed, but no train would
run on it that day. The sun was blazing hot, and when we were not
ankle-deep in sand we were wading rivers or pushing through tunnel-like
openings in the dense jungle. My companions fell behind but I went on
and at night I reached Coatepeque, where I found a hotel run by an
American. The place was hardly up to the level of, let us say, the
Waldorf-Astoria, yet my bill for lodging and breakfast was fifteen
dollars—or, to use the Spanish term, fifteen _pesos_.
However, do not let this keep you away from Guatemala. One can often get
sixty Guatemalan dollars for one American dollar. The two Americans who
crossed the border with me had only three American dollars with them
then, yet next morning when they arrived at Coatepeque they had more
than a hundred dollars left! Meanwhile they had paid five dollars to
ride all night in a two-wheeled bullock cart that made them feel as if
they had been through a threshing machine.
The owners of big estates often send a peon a hundred miles or more to
some town where there is a bank, to get the money for paying off
workmen. The peon, carrying a grain sack full of the ragged, dirty paper
money, walks back all the way alone. At night he tosses the sack into a
corner of the hut where he is to sleep, and no one ever seems to think
of robbing him.
Where Coffee Grows
Guatemala is a land of volcanoes, some of them still active. All over
the country great sharp-pointed peaks, cinder-colored, reach into the
sky. In a way the volcanoes of Central America are a blessing, for if
their eruptions sometimes bring along an earthquake and shake down a
city, the lava dust makes the soil very rich, and a few good coffee
crops usually pay for all the damage.
The two principal products of Central America, at least so far as
concerns the rest of the world, are coffee and bananas. Some of the
largest coffee plantations in Guatemala are along the road we followed
after leaving Coatepeque. Coffee bushes, about as high as a man’s head
and so compact that they look almost like little green haystacks, grow
best at about two thousand feet above sea level in tropical countries.
The coast lands are too hot and moist for coffee, and highlands like the
Mexican plateau are too cold and dry. Plantations, made up of long
parallel rows of bushes, may be found in most of the foothills of
Central America, and because coffee requires some protection from the
blazing tropical sun it is planted in the shade of banana groves or thin
forests.
Coffee bushes are covered with bright red berries. Inside the red skin
of each berry we find two white beans, each having a flat and a rounded
side. The flat sides face each other. Indian women and girls pick the
berries, putting them into baskets and then into sacks, which men carry
to the center of the estate. There, among the buildings where the owner
or manager and nearly all the plantation people live, the sacks are
emptied upon outdoor floors. The berries are shoveled over and over in
the hot sunshine and old women hull them in the shade of their huts.
When the separated berries are well dried they are ready for market but
they must be roasted and ground before they are in a form to use for
making the coffee we drink.
Many of the plantations belong to Germans, and most of the others to
rich Guatemalans, who perhaps live in Paris or New York and never see
their estates. The Indians who do the work, picking or shoveling or
carrying coffee from daylight until dark, with only an hour or two off
for food and perhaps a short nap, are paid less than ten cents a day in
our money, though they receive a monthly allowance of fifty pounds of
corn and beans and half a pound of salt.
Guatemalan Indians
[Illustration:
An Indian boy of Guatemala carrying his small brother on top of a
heavy load he is taking to market.
]
We met thousands of Indian carriers. Most of the trails of Guatemala are
so poor that the best way to carry goods over them is on men’s backs.
Our road being a little better, we met some oxcarts. The yokes were so
tightly strapped to their horns that the oxen could not even shake off
the flies. There were donkeys under huge packs, men riding mules, even
an occasional automobile where the road was especially good. But the
procession of Indians loaded with freight was almost continuous—not only
strong young men, but old men, boys, women and even little girls who
early learn to carry big earthenware jars of water. In the evening we
passed groups of these carriers squatting around little fires cooking
their suppers.
The Indians of Guatemala are short but very sturdy. There are so many of
them that Guatemala might almost be called an Indian republic. Clothed
in their ancient costumes, homespun and colored with crude dyes, they
look picturesque and very interesting at first sight. On closer view
they appear rather stupid. Perhaps that is not their fault. They have
been much abused ever since Alvarado, a cruel lieutenant of Cortés,
conquered Guatemala four hundred years ago. Even now they are forced to
accept a job from anyone who will pay them low wages, though no one can
require them to carry more than a hundred pounds or go more than two
days’ walk away from home.
Only one-third of the people of Guatemala claim to have any European
ancestors. Six out of ten persons are pure Indian, and eighteen or
twenty different tribes are said to be represented among them. Many are
probably descendants of the Toltecs who, between the seventh and twelfth
centuries, were driven out of Mexico by the Aztecs. Many more are Mayas,
of the tribe that left splendid ruins in Yucatan, Guatemala, Salvador
and Honduras. Is it not sad to think that these people now are unable to
build anything better than a thatched _adobe_ hut unless someone tells
them how?
[Illustration:
Panama Mail Steamship Co., San Francisco
These blanket venders of Guatemala offer a fine study in the more
intelligent type of Indian found in that part of Central America.
]
One very dark-skinned tribe, who worry little about clothes, build their
homes in palm trees, on platforms thirty feet above the ground. Since
such platforms can be reached only by climbing the notched tree trunks
that serve as ladders, the children learn to walk up and down tree
trunks almost before they learn to walk on the ground. The natives’
large toes are very much overdeveloped by constant climbing. Members of
this tribe use bows and arrows.
[Illustration:
Panama Mail Steamship Co., San Francisco
A picturesque group of Guatemalan pottery venders.
]
Most of the Guatemala Indians are very docile, obeying even a white
child. They are small in stature, the men averaging hardly five feet in
height, and the women being even shorter. However, an American who could
carry for an hour on a good level road what these Indians can carry all
day, and day after day, over steep and difficult mountain trails, would
be considered a wonderful athlete. Carrying heavy loads gives them very
erect soldierly bodies, but often their complexions are bad because they
eat a yellow earth mixed with sulphur, which they think will cure
disease. Some of the men have thin beards, in contrast to the naturally
smooth faces common among American Indians.
Queer clothes in bright colors are so much liked that a group of
Guatemalans resemble an opera chorus. The women wear no hats, but have
three garments—a loose waist, a thick cloth skirt, and a gaudy sash.
They wear as much jewelry as they can get, especially necklaces of
silver coins. They are very expert at such handicrafts as weaving cloth
for garments and making ropes and hammocks of maguey fiber or cactus
hemp.
We Reach the Capital
We had hoped to reach Retalhuleu by the end of our second day of walking
and to take a train for Guatemala City at six the next morning. But the
trail was so bad that we finally stopped at a little thatched village,
ate a supper of native bread, cheese and coffee, and stretched out for a
few hours’ sleep. I got up again at two in the morning and for six miles
stumbled along the trail through the darkness. Bands of dogs dashed out
at me from every hut, barking savagely; fortunately their bark was worse
than their bite. By trotting the last few miles, I just caught my train.
It is barely a hundred and thirty miles from Retalhuleu to the capital,
but the train took twelve hours for the journey. We made a large number
of stops. Many of the passengers were yellow and listless with fever,
and did not seem to enjoy life much in this land of perpetual summer.
[Illustration:
Panama Mail Steamship Co., San Francisco
Mount Agua, Guatemala, one of the volcanoes which has caused so much
trouble near the country’s capital.
]
About noon, at Escuintla, our train turned eastward and began climbing
from the coffee-growing Pacific slope to the pine-tree heights of
central Guatemala. We spent an hour winding along the shores of
beautiful blue Lake Amatitlán, then crossed part of it on a stone
causeway. There are several such gem-like lakes of sparkling blue water
in settings of towering mountains. On the larger ones are steamers, as
well as the Indians’ dugout canoes. Most of the steamers—like the hotels
and the sugar, cacao, and coffee plantations of Guatemala—are owned by
Germans.
We passed close to two cone-shaped volcanoes that can be seen from
almost any part of the country. It was getting dark when the first
houses of Guatemala City began to appear among the trees, and half an
hour later we dragged into the station. A barefooted policeman in a
straw hat had already gone through the train writing down facts about
the passengers, so we were free to make our way through a shouting mob
and try to find supper and lodging.
CHAPTER XVII
A CONTRAST IN CIVILIZATIONS
There have been three capitals of Guatemala. Ciudad Vieja (“Old City”),
now a poor village with about three thousand Indian inhabitants, was
founded by Pedro de Alvarado soon after he took possession of the
country. He brought the best architects and workmen from Spain and
planned to make this the metropolis of the New World. For a time it was
the most magnificent city in the western hemisphere. But in 1541 it was
suddenly destroyed by a flood when the lake in the crater of the volcano
Agua (“Water”) broke through its banks.
The people then moved their capital two miles northeast and built
another fine city. Long before any white men came to live in what is now
the United States, the Guatemalan capital had tens of thousands of
inhabitants. There were palaces and cathedrals there when we had only
log cabins. Would you have imagined that in the heart of Central America
a great city existed at the time the Dutch bargained with the Indians
for the purchase of Manhattan Island?
The Spaniards had chosen a beautiful site, but nature again violently
protested. This time the great volcano Fuego (“Fire”), quite as properly
named as its destructive companion Agua, belched forth a flood of hot
lava and destroyed the second capital. This city, now called Guatemala
la Antigua (“the Ancient”), is famous for its ruins of great churches
and palaces, but it has a population of only about seven thousand,
mainly poor Indians. The volcanoes seem to be never satisfied, for the
old capital has been devastated again and again by other eruptions, as
well as by earthquakes, floods, and avalanches. It has also been visited
by terrible epidemics of disease.
In the same year that our Declaration of Independence was written, our
Central American neighbors built Guatemala la Nueva (“the New”), or
Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala. This city they located twenty
miles from the second capital; but though it remains the capital, it
also has been very badly treated. Some superstitious persons think that
evil spirits live inside the earth and cause volcanoes and earthquakes.
One might readily imagine that such spirits wanted to drive everyone
away from that beautiful region about the foot of Agua and Fuego. Is it
not queer that people insist on living again in places where they have
been overtaken by disaster?
The present capital was to have been a copy of the old ones, but it has
never equaled, in magnificence or population, Guatemala la Antigua.
However, it has about 120,000 inhabitants and is the most important city
of Central America. It stands on a small plain about 4,900 feet above
sea level and seventy-two miles from San José, its port on the Pacific.
Wool, cotton, leather goods and earthenware are manufactured, and there
is quite an important commerce.
[Illustration:
United Fruit Company
A bird’s-eye view of Guatemala City. What a contrast this flat-roofed
town is to one of our skyscraper cities!
]
Guatemala City is laid out in a checkerboard of wide but poorly paved
streets. Most of its buildings are very low, because of the constant
danger of earthquakes. The houses are covered with stucco, gaily
painted. The main entrance door of a dwelling is often so large that a
smaller door is cut in it for common use. The big door is opened only to
admit the owner’s carriage or automobile, which goes through to the
stable or garage at the back or side of the _patio_. Brass and iron
knockers, beautifully wrought in the form of a human head or hand, take
the place of bells at many of the best houses, and the great doors
themselves are studded with iron or brass nails.
The shops which so often occupy the lower floor of a residence, instead
of being in “business blocks,” have no glass windows, but only a big
wide-open door. Goods are poorly displayed, and in most places prices
are not fixed, so that one must do much bargaining before buying. In the
public markets we see Indians who have walked many miles with
merchandise on which they will make but a few cents’ profit. Indian
women, in gaudy homespun garments, smoke big black cigars. Their heads
are covered with masses of blue-black hair, and their skin shines like
polished copper. The market, filled with the products of both tropical
and temperate climates, gives one some idea of the richness of the
country.
[Illustration:
United Fruit Company
The Cathedral in Guatemala City, damaged by the earthquake in 1917.
]
Even this third and present capital of Guatemala has been several times
destroyed. Indeed, it has been completely laid waste once since I first
saw it. For a month following Christmas Day, 1917, it was shaken by a
long series of earthquakes. Government buildings, schools, and hospitals
were destroyed or damaged, as were the National Institute, with its
laboratories, the museum, the meteorological observatory, the national
theater, the metropolitan cathedral and other churches. Many of the
buildings have been restored, but they have lost their old beauty as
examples of Spanish art. The residence section has moved farther out
into the country.
A Country inside Its Own Capital
So far as I know, Guatemala is the only country in the world of which
one can see every nook and cranny by merely going to its capital. How?
By means of a great relief map covering several acres, laid out inside
the Guatemala City race track. It is made of cement, plaster and stone.
There is a high platform on which one may walk clear around the map,
studying it in detail. Turning a crank causes water to flow through the
rivers, fill the lakes, and form the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Although I intended to see the rest of the real Guatemala, the map
showed me all of its physical characteristics. Every mountain, every
lake, river, valley, city, even the trail I intended to take out of the
country, was there. If I had flown 230 miles across the country, between
the two seacoasts, and from the Mexican border to Honduras and Salvador,
I could not have learned more about the make-up of Guatemala than I did
in my half-hour stroll around the relief map.
I could see that Guatemala is all mountains and high valleys, except for
two strips of lowland along the coasts. Its highland scenery entitles it
to be called the Switzerland of Central America. However, Switzerland is
often snow-covered, while Guatemala, wherever vegetation can grow, is
green all the year round. Among its mountains are twenty-eight
volcanoes, some of them as perfect cones as Fujiyama in Japan. As most
of these are still active, and many of them throw out lava and ashes
frequently, part of the country is very bare. On the big relief map I
could see the volcano that blew its head off in 1902, ruining the city
of Quezaltenango and covering valuable coffee lands several feet deep
with volcanic ash. I could locate all of Guatemala’s beautiful blue
lakes. Over there, nearest the Pacific, is Lake Atitlán, filling the
crater of an extinct volcano five thousand feet high, and almost in the
shadow of three very active cones. This lake is twenty-five miles long,
with eighteen green islands in it; and it is so deep that its bottom has
never been found. Eighteen miles from the capital is Lake Amatitlán;
along its shore and across part of it runs the railroad from the Pacific
coast.
[Illustration:
Inside the race track at Guatemala City is a big relief map of the
entire country. Every mountain peak, every stream, every trail is
shown. Water can be turned on to fill the rivers and lakes.
]
Through Guatemala
Although I obtained from the big relief map at Guatemala City a clear
idea of the lay of the land in the most important country of Central
America, the map, of course, did not show me the people and their ways,
and I was chiefly interested in these. So I took the train again a few
days later, this time toward the east. After crossing a range of
mountains, we started down toward the coast beside a racing river.
Rather than go on to Puerto Barríos, the chief port of Guatemala on the
Atlantic, I left the train sixty miles inland in order to visit one of
the former centers of Mayan civilization.
Great civilizations almost always spring up in valleys, and here in the
valley of the Motagua River the most advanced Indians in North America
had their home. The Mayas flourished for some fifteen hundred years,
beginning about the time of Christ. Quiriguá, the ruins of which I had
stopped to visit, was probably built in the fifth century and abandoned
more than a thousand years ago. No one knows why the Mayas left this
part of the country and moved northward into Yucatan. Earthquakes,
pestilence, human enemies, or even superstition may have driven them
out. Or they may simply have decided to move, though most people would
not have abandoned, without good reason, such splendid stone cities as
they left behind.
[Illustration:
United Fruit Company
At Quiriguá, Guatemala, is this strange example of the carving left by
the Mayas.
]
The ruins of Quiriguá, lost for centuries, were discovered in 1839 by
John Lloyd Stephens, an American. Later, when Americans built the
railway through Guatemala, great mounds and mammoth stone ruins were
found. But the largest uncovering of ruins was done by the United Fruit
Company in 1910. Where the Mayas once had a great city, there is now a
13,000-acre banana plantation. However, the company has left
seventy-five acres, on which are the best ruins, free from planting.
Fifteen of these acres have been cleared of jungle, but one who wishes
to visit all the ruins must chop his way through dense tropical
vegetation.
[Illustration:
United Fruit Company
A great stone left by the Mayas at Quiriguá.
]
Ants and decay have destroyed all the woodwork in the ancient Mayan
cities, not only at Quiriguá but at Cobán, at Copán in Honduras, and in
many parts of Salvador and Yucatan. The stonework remains, and recent
American expeditions have uncovered statues and curiously carved stones,
some of them enormous, and whole buildings that must have been very
splendid when new. Some of the carved stones you may see in American
museums. Half above and half below the ground are great monuments,
resembling those of Egypt, and bearing hieroglyphics that the
archeologists are still trying to read. Some of the stone-carved faces
look so much like the figures at Chinese imperial tombs that many people
think the Mayas were Tartars who made their way from Asia across Bering
Strait and down into Central America.
Like the Chinese, these Central Americans seem to have considered the
turtle sacred, and to have used it as an emblem of long life. One of the
largest monuments I saw at Quiriguá was a turtle eight feet high and
said to weigh twenty tons. It was completely covered with carvings and
hieroglyphics. Enough of the writing has been translated to show that
here was once a great city, with _plazas_, temples and palaces. Great
forests have overgrown the pyramids and mounds of the Mayas. As there is
no natural stone in this region they must have brought from a distance
the immense blocks of sandstone which they used. But how? Perhaps they
floated them down the Motagua River on rafts. Yet how did they lift them
to the places they now occupy?
At the height of their power the Mayas were as good architects and
builders as the Aztecs, and their calendar, cut in stone, was better
than the one in Mexico City. But about the fifteenth century they seem
to have begun to weaken, and their downfall was hastened by the Spanish
conquest. At first they fought stubbornly against the conquerors. But
the Mayas of to-day are docile, almost childish, only half civilized;
and they scarcely realize that their forefathers were once the most
advanced people on the North American continent.
“Bananaland”
I spent a night with the American overseers of one of the banana
plantations that cover the country between Quiriguá and the Atlantic.
Many miles of private railroads run through the region that was formerly
jungle-covered swamp, and from there millions of bunches of bananas go
to the United States and Europe. Nearly all the hot lowlands of Central
America grow bananas for us, most of the plantations belonging to
Americans. Shiploads of bananas leave Puerto Barríos and other
east-coast ports every week.
In the morning my hosts lent me a hand car having a seat, and two
muscular West Indian negroes pumped me for miles through “bananaland.”
This plantation of Quiriguá is one of the smallest in Guatemala, and
there are much larger ones in other countries, yet as far as I could see
were waving banana leaves, very green and very large, with here and
there a huge hardwood tree. Banana fruit grows not on a tree but on a
great plant having a fleshy rootstock or rhizome. Large buds or “eyes”
develop on the rootstock. What looks like a trunk is really a mass of
overlapping leaf-sheaths. Pieces of the rootstock are planted, and, if
these fail to sprout, shoots are cut and stuck in the ground to grow.
Only one bunch of bananas grows on a plant. It hangs over at the top,
about ten feet from the ground, and at first glance it looks as if it
were growing upside down. As a matter of fact the bunch is hung upside
down later on when displayed in fruit store or grocery, and we are used
to seeing it in that position.
[Illustration:
United Fruit Company
A fully developed bunch of bananas ready for harvesting.
]
A burly negro, carrying a long pole at the end of which is a knife,
nicks the plant, just below the middle of the “trunk”; the upper half
swings down and a helper severs the bunch with his machete. The fruit is
laid carefully on the ground, for if a single banana is bruised, the
whole bunch and perhaps many others around it will spoil before the
destination is reached. In a few minutes a train comes along, and each
bunch is laid on a cushion of leaves in one of the open cars. The men
know how many bunches will fill a car and how many carloads will fill a
ship, and they know, too, just when each bunch should be cut so as to
reach the American market in good condition. Bananas going to England
have to be cut earlier. At the wharf the fruit is carefully carried
aboard either on wide endless belts or on negroes’ heads. It is put in
the ice-cooled hold of the ship, which is kept at just the right
temperature.
[Illustration:
United Fruit Company
Bananas are carried to the railway by a steam tram which runs through
the plantation.
]
After the old stalk has been cut down, another banana plant grows up
rather quickly from it. Before long a big flower, usually purple in
color, appears at the top of the plant, and slowly the tiny bunch of
bananas beneath it grows to its full size and is ready, in its turn, to
be cut. A banana plantation is more or less perennial, though it takes
plenty of labor and watchfulness to keep it producing its best.
A _ripe_ banana is never seen in a banana plantation, unless someone has
been careless. If the bunches were not cut down and shipped before a
single banana turned yellow, the fruit would be completely decayed
before it reached us. Its flavor is best when it is cut from the tree in
a green condition and allowed to ripen slowly. The Central Americans fry
and bake bananas, especially the species called the plantain which is
never eaten until cooked. The natives dry bananas as we do grapes, they
grind them up for flour, and they even make banana wine and vinegar.
[Illustration:
United Fruit Company
A banana steamship is quickly loaded by use of machinery.
]
As nearly all plantation workers are negroes, and the bosses almost all
Americans or Englishmen, English is much oftener spoken than Spanish in
the banana lands of the Caribbean.
CHAPTER XVIII
IN THE DEPTHS OF HONDURAS
Just south of Guatemala is Honduras, nearly as large and in many ways
much like it. But while Guatemala has a population of two and a quarter
million, Honduras has only a third as many inhabitants. It has about as
many people as Pittsburgh, but is larger than Pennsylvania. The Keystone
State would be very thinly populated if 600,000 men, women and children
were scattered through it. It is not strange, therefore, that during
long stretches of my tramp across Honduras I saw not a single soul.
Except for a narrow strip of swampy land on either coast, Honduras
consists in a series of elevated plateaus and rows of mountains. The
cordillera, or main range of mountains, runs from northwest to
southeast, parallel to and only about fifty miles from the Pacific
coast. The slope toward the Atlantic is longer and more gentle than on
the opposite side. Unlike Guatemala, Honduras has no active volcanoes,
and no lakes. It is watered by many streams, but most of them are swift
and stony, and none are really navigable. Because the smallest country
of Central America crowds into Honduras on the west, its Pacific coast
line is only sixty miles long as compared with an Atlantic coast line of
four hundred miles.
Columbus discovered this country in 1502, on his fourth voyage to the
New World. He called it Honduras, which in Spanish means “Great Depths,”
because of the difficulty of getting anchorage in the deep waters along
its Atlantic coast. But it is a land of great depths in another way
also, for between its mountain ranges are immense valleys which
sometimes seem to have no bottom. Peasants plant their patches of corn
on slopes as steep as a church roof. Walking through the country is much
like forever going up and down stairs.
In the higher parts of Honduras there are many pine and oak forests, and
down on the narrow coasts the banana is much at home. Though tropical
fevers are common, up on the table-land two blankets feel very
comfortable at night. Near as Honduras is to the equator, frosts are
frequent. The banana is the most important product, then come coffee,
coconuts, rubber, tobacco and hides. There is considerable silver, mixed
with a little gold, and some other valuable minerals. The American-owned
mines of Rosario at San Juancito, twenty-five miles from the capital,
are the largest silver mines in Central America. When I was there they
employed about eight hundred men.
Social and Political Conditions
The early explorers found not only ancient rich mines but numerous
pyramids and carved stones showing that there was once a real
civilization in what is now Honduras. To-day the population is largely a
mixture of Indian and Spanish blood. The people seldom weave their own
garments, since they can buy foreign cloth with the profit from products
that almost grow themselves. There are some negroes on the north coast,
among the banana plantations, and on the Mosquito Coast there are
Caribs, descendants of fierce Indians who once inhabited the West Indies
and gave their name to the Caribbean Sea. Once the favorite refuge for
runaway slaves from the West Indies, the Mosquito Coast even to-day has
one of the most mixed populations in Central America.
[Illustration:
Pan American Union
The famous Rosario mines in Honduras, showing ore being sorted by
native boys.
]
From 1539 until 1821 all Central America was one Spanish colony. In 1822
Honduras was a part of the Mexican Empire; from then until 1839 it was a
member of the Central America Federation. Since 1839 it has been
independent, though it has tried several times to join with the other
small republics in forming a Union.
I Plan to Walk
The only public railway in Honduras is a little line that starts out
bravely from Puerto Cortés toward the capital, 250 miles distant. Puerto
Cortés is a squalid village of wooden buildings in a hot swampy region
on the low _north_ coast. (The link between the American continents
swings almost due eastward below Guatemala.)
The railroad’s old wood-burning locomotive somehow manages to crawl
thirty-eight miles to Potrerillos in the foothills. There, as if it were
afraid to venture into the real mountains beyond, the daily train turns
back again. Tegucigalpa and Bogotá (in Colombia) are the only American
capitals that have no rail communication with the outside world. Beyond
Potrerillos the rest of the journey consists of five rough hours in a
very aged automobile, then four or five days on mule-back.
I might have taken the Guatemala railroad down to Puerto Barríos, where
I could easily have crossed the Bay of Honduras, or followed the hot and
swampy shore, to Puerto Cortés. There I might have taken the little
Honduras railroad, later an automobile, and finally a mule to the
capital. But I decided that it would be more interesting to go right
down through the country to Tegucigalpa. That meant a long walk, for the
trails of Honduras are so bad that in many places an animal cannot get
over them. In such a country a man’s own legs are his surest means of
transportation.
A Lonely Trail
Instead, therefore, of descending to the coast, I went back up the
Motagua River from Quiriguá and left the railway at Zacapa. There I
exchanged my ragged paper money for Honduran dimes (called _reales_ and
worth only a nickel) and for some silver dollars from half a dozen
near-by countries. Almost any kind of silver money can be used in
Honduras but paper money is often quite worthless. Besides a full
knapsack, I took with me a hammock to sleep in. Made of a kind of grass
by the Indians of Guatemala, it weighed only three or four pounds, and
cost but thirty cents!
The journey began with a hard afternoon walk over dry hills. I crossed
four ranges and spent the first night in a narrow valley dense with
vegetation. The home of the man who took me in was made of poles set up
to form four walls, with roof of thatch. It would have looked to
Americans like a poor tool shed. Such huts would be very unpleasant
places to sleep in without a hammock. I hung mine between two posts and
was soon asleep. I was not yet in Honduras, for I did not pass the
unmarked boundary until the next day, but this was typical of my
lodgings on the trip through that country.
Sometimes I had to hang my hammock from rafters so high that I could get
in only by “chinning myself” and swinging over as if on a trapeze.
Sometimes I swung from the porch of a cowshed, sometimes in a dirty hut
where all the doors and windows were tightly closed. The price for such
lodgings was usually five cents. One night when I occupied the corner of
a _hacienda_-house veranda, if I had fallen out of my hammock I should
have dropped eight or ten feet to a flagstone floor or twice that
distance into a cobbled farmyard. At other times I hung so low that pigs
wandering about in the night looking for something to eat lifted me up
as they crawled under me; and several times children or grown people
with blazing torches came to wake me up and look me over. Once in a
while the night might be fairly quiet, but there was nearly always a
great hubbub of roosters, dogs, cattle and pigs, or of people snoring.
As my hammock was merely a net, and the mountain nights were chilly, I
was often too cold to sleep much. It was not always possible to find a
house by nightfall, and several times I slept out under the trees, not
knowing but that some wild animal would take it into his head to attack
me. I remember one such night when a group of drunken peons wandered
along the trail not far away, but they did not catch sight of me. Once I
spent the night high up on a mountain in the hut of an old woman who was
ill. A girl kept a fagot fire burning all night and smoked me like a ham
hanging from the rafters. Yet how much filth that simple little
thirty-cent hammock kept me out of! The country people of Honduras
seldom have beds, and their houses have no floors. Once I tried sleeping
Honduran fashion on a sun-dried oxhide thrown down on the uneven earth,
with two empty grain sacks as mattress and covering, but I never tried
it again!
Honduran Food
Each morning I folded up my hammock and set out again, nearly always
without breakfast. The people got up late and I seldom had patience to
wait for them to cook food for me. Yet if I did not wait, it might be
half a day before I came to another hut. Often I almost lived on water,
and none too good water at that, for the people of Honduras, lacking
wells, use any near-by stream or pond. The traveler simply kneels at the
water’s edge and drinks.
[Illustration:
Two women of Honduras shelling corn and getting a meal ready for me.
Many Honduran houses have even poorer kitchens.
]
[Illustration:
A boy of Honduras with his father’s yoke of oxen. They do not plow
much land in a day, but the family raises only a little corn and a
few vegetables—just enough to live on.
]
There was no milk, butter, or cheese, though I saw plenty of cattle.
Sometimes I was offered stale bread, but not often. Beans and Indian
corn, and corn _tortillas_ that were heavier than those of Mexico, made
up nearly every meal. Occasionally tough strips of sun-dried beef hung
from the rafters; but even that kind of meat was rare. Once in a while
there might be tomatoes as small as cherries; and always there was very
bad black coffee. Even if roosters had kept me awake all night, the
people would usually assure me that all the chickens had died or that
they “belonged to someone else.” So I seldom got chicken—but when I did,
an entire spring chicken never cost more than ten cents. I had better
luck with eggs. However, the women insisted on breaking a hole in the
egg before boiling it, and as neither cooks, water, nor dishes were
clean I did not like the custom. The people of Honduras seem to have a
superstition that an egg will not cook unless the boiling water gets
inside it. Even if I offered to pay more for eggs without holes, the
holes would be there and the cook would tell me that the eggs “broke
themselves.”
[Illustration:
One of the carved stones left by the Mayas at Copán, Honduras.
]
CHAPTER XIX
A VERY PECULIAR “ROYAL HIGHWAY”
I was told that Tegucigalpa was fifteen days’ journey from Zacapa by
mule, perhaps a little less on foot! I wanted to reach the capital in
time to see an old friend before he left for the United States, but if I
had been the richest man in the world I could have gone no faster. To
realize this made me feel very helpless, yet I knew that our own country
must once have been much like Honduras. How different our life would be
now without railroads, or even roads!
There was not a yard of real road on all of my two weeks’ tramp from the
border to the capital. Trails through forests and mountains in the
United States are smooth and easy in comparison with this ancient route
between Guatemala City and Tegucigalpa. Yet it is called the _camino
real_, that is, the royal highway! I saw nothing either royal or
highway-like about it.
Often I climbed for hours, sometimes by stone steps cut in the mountain,
only to come down on the other side. My clothes were worn out, and the
American paper money in my pocket was almost ruined by perspiration and
the tearing jungle. Within a few hours midsummer heat would change to
the chill of late autumn. For miles I stumbled among loose stones where
there was always danger of spraining an ankle. I waded and swam through
rivers; I splashed through mud; now and then I got soaked by a sudden
shower. After losing time at two streams in undressing and dressing
again, I decided thereafter to plunge in, shoes and all. At times I had
to follow the bed of a stream, wading across it and back, or scrambling
up its steep bank and down again. Now and then I lost my way, and had to
stop to get my bearings; there was seldom anyone to ask. For the most
part the trail seemed to have built itself, without human aid, and it
had a habit of falling into deep gullies and struggling out again like a
drunken man.
At least there was often the pleasure of drinking from a clear cool
mountain stream; and I must admit that occasionally the trails of
Honduras give the finest walking in the world. What could be more
pleasant than to wander along grassy upland paths, with magnificent
forest vistas on either side, or through the forests themselves, range
after blue range of mountains spreading away to the horizon? For miles
at a time I did not see a human being.
Crooked telegraph poles, on which was strung one lone sagging wire, were
often useful in showing me the way. The telegraph lines of Honduras
belong to the government, and one can send a message anywhere in the
country for a nickel. The mail of Honduras is usually carried by a lazy
barefoot youth wearing faded khaki and an ancient straw hat. He may have
a pack mule, but whether he has or not he takes very long indeed to get
from one town to another.
Valuable Forests
Mahogany and other valuable hardwoods are found in the great forests of
Honduras, but there is no such thing as a mahogany forest. Trees of this
species grow far apart; it is considered good luck to find sixty
mahogany trees in 25,000 acres. Tree “hunters” recognize a mahogany tree
by its great size and its brightly colored leaves. They bring in
cutters, who may have to build a road to reach the tree or to haul it
out. It is a day’s work for two men to cut down a tree.
[Illustration:
Panama Mail Steamship Co., San Francisco
Immense mahogany timbers ready for shipment.
]
A single log of genuine curly mahogany may sell for $10,000. In our
country an inch board is often cut into sheets as thin as paper, for
veneering other wood. Much of our “mahogany” furniture is really
mahogany veneer and some of it is perhaps not even that, but an
imitation, for real mahogany comes only from the lands of the Caribbean.
Yet in Honduras mahogany logs are used not only to make tables but even
rail fences! On a hillside that might produce food for many people I
often saw a _milpa_, or tiny cornfield, fenced off with mahogany slabs
that to a furniture manufacturer would be worth ten times all the corn
produced by the patch in a lifetime. But as I have already said, the
great problem is to get the wood to market. Like ebony, rosewood,
cocobola and snakewood—other valuable hardwoods of Central
America—mahogany will not float, and there are no railways or roads.
Scenes along the Way
The first sizable Honduras town I saw was Santa Rosa. Four thousand feet
above sea level, with fine scenery all about it, the place looked very
pretty from a distance with its white church bulking above the low
houses. But the people are not very industrious or progressive. There
were no hotels, restaurants, electric lights, carriages or automobiles.
When I asked for lodging, the people sent me to the drugstore, where an
American doctor had a “room” made by curtaining off with canvas a part
of the public hallway to the _patio_. The doctor was away from home, and
I slept in his bed that night.
Tobacco grows about Santa Rosa, and every native hut is a cigar factory.
Men, women, and even children smoke the rather crude cigars, and
quantities of these are sent, on men’s backs or on pack animals, to
other parts of Honduras.
[Illustration:
A street corner in Santa Rosa, Honduras. The men in the foreground are
soldiers, and the store behind them is one of the best.
]
The doctor whose room I had used came home next day and proved to be a
huge man from Texas. He worked very hard, for the people of Honduras
have almost no doctors, and he received very little pay because his
patients were all so poor. The great majority of the natives live and
die without any medical attention whatever, except for what relief they
may get from a rare wandering pill peddler. Most of them think any
“gringo” is a doctor, so they were always calling upon me to prescribe
for them. As I had a small medicine case with me for my own use I
sometimes did try to help them. They were always astonished that I would
accept no payment, and now and then an old woman insisted on paying me
by refusing to take money for my lodging or a meal. Hookworm, cancer,
and other dreadful diseases were very common; smallpox was raging in one
town I passed through.
One man with whom I spent a night insisted that I take a photograph of
his sick wife, showing her bed and “even the color of her face,” so that
he could send the picture to the Virgin of the Remedies at a distant
shrine. He imagined that in that way she could be cured. Some of the
people were afraid of a camera, but many of them wanted their pictures
taken. As I had only a few films, and those who wished to be
photographed insisted on spending two or three hours in dressing up for
the occasion, I often refused; but I had a hard time explaining matters.
Along the trail, I would frequently pass a crude wooden cross showing
where someone had died from disease, had been killed accidentally, or
had been murdered. There is no capital punishment in Honduras, unless a
military chief orders an execution, and as prisoners are usually
released each time there is political revolution, murder is not
considered a very serious offense. To remember this when passing a
wooden cross up on a lonely mountain top was never very pleasant.
Meeting Strange People
I saw several bands of soldiers wandering, rather than marching,
northward. They were ragged and barefooted, and were followed by their
bedraggled women and children. All were on foot and carried all they
owned on their backs and heads. The soldiers of Honduras are usually as
badly disciplined as they are clothed. They carry their rifles at all
angles even when on parade. They are fond of being officers—indeed,
there are almost as many generals and colonels as there are privates.
Now and then some of them were rather impudent, but I could always pay
them back. I would show their commander my letters and passes from
important officials and have him make the troops line up and drill so
that I could take pictures of them.
[Illustration:
The women of Honduras, as well as the men, smoke the black cigars of
Santa Rosa. They weave their own skirts, often working in words
having a religious meaning.
]
There were many prisoners also, working in gangs. Sometimes they were
chained together, yet they did not seem badly treated. I remember
passing one group who were supposed to be working on the road but who
were all loafing in the shade and smoking. They laid their fingers on
their lips as a sign to me not to waken the guard, who was sleeping on
his back with his rifle lying across him.
One day I met a pair of pure-blooded Indians carrying oranges in big
nets. They sold me “two hands,” or ten fine oranges, for a Honduras
nickel. Later I met larger bands of them going to market, each carrying
a load on his back, partly supported by a strap across the forehead. It
was five or six days before I saw the first vehicle, a two-wheeled cart
with solid wooden wheels, the greaseless axle screaming so loudly that I
could hear it a mile away. The cart was drawn by two oxen having the
yoke bound to their horns.
Honduran Hospitality
Except for an occasional soldier, all the Hondurans were very courteous.
To be sure, like most Spanish-speaking people, they often said “My home
is yours” without really meaning it. A man who was my companion one day
gave me to understand that he lived in a palace and wanted me to come
and stay with him that night. But when we reached his home it was just a
miserable hut, and his family would not let me in until I offered to pay
the usual price for a lodging. The man who had invited me went out to
get a candle, and I had to try a dozen houses before I could buy food
enough for a supper. The country people of Honduras depend entirely on
candles for light, and as they do not read in the evening—or, for that
matter, much at any time—they often have no light at all.
[Illustration:
A company of soldiers in a Honduras town.
]
There seemed to be at least two _chuchos_ (yellow mongrel dogs) for
every human inhabitant. Often they kept me awake most of the night. The
people do not feed their dogs, or their pigs either, but leave the
animals to pick up what they can.
About sunset on the last day of the year I came to Comayagua, second
largest “city” of Honduras and formerly the capital. No sort of hotel
was to be found in the town; the central _plaza_ was a sheep pasture;
the _tiendas_, little den-like stores, sold almost nothing to eat. The
mongrel _chuchos_ were more numerous than the people, and so hungry that
if you did not watch they would grab a _tortilla_ out of your hand. It
was a very languid place, as if everyone were suffering from the
hookworm disease which makes people feel lazy and good-for-nothing.
[Illustration:
The central _plaza_ of Tegucigalpa, capital of Honduras. Bright purple
bougainvillea covers the arbor.
]
The “City of the Silver Hills”
On New Year’s Day—a very hot one!—I started out on the last lap of my
journey to the present capital. In the afternoon I had a chance for a
fine swim in a river of clear water. (At such times I sometimes washed
my clothing, which soon dried in the bright sunshine.) The next morning
just at sunrise I came in sight of my goal, Tegucigalpa, the “City of
the Silver Hills.” When I walked into the central _plaza_ I showed that
I had been fifteen days on the road. But there were still some clothes
in my knapsack, and at the post office I found a pair of American shoes
which I had mailed to myself at that address months before.
[Illustration:
Pan American Union
The President’s palace at Tegucigalpa, Honduras, is rather an imposing
and romantic-looking building.
]
With its 40,000 inhabitants, the capital is really the only important
town in the country, yet it is not a very bustling place. I stopped at
the Hotel Jockey Club, which might have been worse and might have been
much better. The only bath was in the basement—a stone vessel into which
trickled cold water. The bare rooms were furnished with sagging cots.
Barefooted servants fed us in the dining room on the usual Honduran
food, while a variety of barnyard creatures looked on.
[Illustration:
A corner of Tegucigalpa, showing Picacho, the hill from which the
capital has often been captured during revolutions.
]
Sleepy little shops, frequently owned by foreigners, put up their wooden
shutters at dusk, and after that there was not much left for a visitor
to do but to roam the dark cobbled streets. On Sunday evenings a band
played in the central _plaza_ while the population promenaded. To be
fair to Tegucigalpa, I should say that I found some very nice people
there, and I will testify that it has one of the finest climates in the
world.
Honduras has almost no policemen except in the capital. I arrived just
in time for the first official inspection of a new police force. It had
been organized by General Lee Christmas, a famous American
soldier-of-fortune who was once a conductor on the railroad in Guatemala
and later was a general in the Honduran army. Not only he and I but the
president and all the diplomatic corps were there. The Indians who had
been made into policemen looked scared. Very solemnly each stepped
forward when his name was called, saluted the chief, and then fell back
into rank.
From Picacho, a long ridge of mountains ending in a blunt nose close
above Tegucigalpa, one gets a good view of the city. There is a saying
that anyone who captures Picacho may sleep in the palace. Most of the
frequent revolutions in Honduras begin and end when someone with a few
hundred soldiers captures that hill. From it one can look down into the
_patio_ of nearly every home. Most of the buildings are one story high,
roofed with red tile. Above them stands a whitewashed cathedral with
twin towers. Mountains roll away on every side, and over them wind two
ribbon-like roads.
Down to the Pacific
Of the two routes the traveler may take out of Tegucigalpa (except for
the hard trail by which I had come) one goes through Comayagua and on to
the short railway from Puerto Cortés; the other and shorter goes down to
Amapala on the Pacific. An American who had been working in the mines of
San Juancito took my things on his horse, and I walked down to the coast
in a day and a half. The night I spent at Pespire, far below the
capital, on the edge of the blazing tropics, but I started out again at
three in the morning, for there was a fine moon. As soon as the hot sun
appeared, lizards came out to warm themselves on the rocks. Natives
wearing spurs on their bare feet rode past. Mule trains coughing in the
dust, and creaking wooden carts, carried freight.
With the fantastic ranges of the interior and even the last low
foothills left behind, I plodded across a dusty plain covered with
withered grass and mesquite, where cattle panted for water. The owners
of the American mines have helped the government build a road for
automobiles, which climbs 2,000 feet out of the central valley and
descends 5,000 feet to the coast. But much of the traffic is still of
the old-fashioned kind.
[Illustration:
Soldiers of Amapala, the Pacific port of Honduras. They look rather
lazy, but probably they are suffering from the hookworm disease
which takes away a person’s energy.
]
On the Atlantic side of Honduras there are many ports, but Amapala is
the only one on the Pacific. It is not on the mainland but on the island
of Tigre, twenty-four miles out in the Bay of Fonseca. From the top of
an extinct volcano that rises above Amapala one can see three
countries—Honduras, Salvador, and Nicaragua. Barefooted soldiers wrote
down many facts about us as we landed from our launch at the narrow
wooden wharf. Then we settled down in a not very comfortable hotel to
wait until a steamer on the San Francisco-Panama route came along to
carry us southward.
[Illustration:
Amapala is on a volcanic island in the ocean, twenty-four miles from
the mainland. From the top of this island one can see three
countries.
]
CHAPTER XX
INDUSTRIOUS LITTLE SALVADOR; AND BELIZE
Tucked away on the Pacific side of Honduras lies Salvador, the smallest
republic between Hudson Bay and the Golden Horn. In size it is just a
big farm, 140 miles long by 60 miles wide. There are single estates
larger than that, in Mexico and in several other countries. Yet it has
more inhabitants than any other Central American country except
Guatemala. In area not much larger than Vermont, it has five times the
population of the Green Mountain State. The 1,700,000 people who live in
its 7,225 square miles make Salvador the most crowded country in the
western hemisphere, with the single exception of the “black republic” of
Haiti in the West Indies. In fact, few countries in the world are more
thickly populated.
Where people are crowded, the struggle to earn a living is harder; and
where it is hard to earn a living, people cannot afford to be lazy. So
it is not surprising to find that the Salvadoreans have more energy and
industry than their neighbors. Hillsides that would remain untouched in
Honduras are cultivated to their very summits. Nowhere can you look down
into a valley without seeing it well planted. Salvador has less forest
and fewer wild animals than the other Central American republics, and
with the possible exception of Costa Rica it is the most progressive
country in that group.
Perhaps there are other reasons for its progressiveness besides a large
population. There are few Indians, and these are more advanced than the
Indians of the neighboring countries. They all speak Spanish. Most of
the upper class are of pure European descent. Perhaps the inhabitants of
Salvador have always been of better stock than their neighbors.
Certainly Alvarado found it a hard job to conquer Cuscatlán, as this
region was called in early days.
There are very few foreigners in Salvador; they do not own much of the
country, as the Germans do in Guatemala. Nearly every Salvadorean has
his own piece of land, instead of working for a huge estate, and this
condition naturally makes the people ambitious and willing to work.
Like Guatemala, Salvador is a land of volcanoes. On the way to the
capital you can count several peaks; from the ocean you can see a dozen.
Mount Izalco has been in such constant eruption for more than a century
that sailors call it the “Lighthouse of Salvador,” and for a long time
volcanoes were the only lighthouses along the coast. The postage stamps
of Salvador once bore the picture of a volcano.
As I said earlier, the damage done by eruptions and accompanying
earthquakes is often balanced by the fact that volcanic ash enriches the
soil. Salvador is a fertile country. Its narrow seaboard, its low
alluvial plain, and its level plateau, about two thousand feet high,
furrowed by river valleys and broken by smoking cones, grow splendid
crops. Its rivers, flowing toward the Pacific, water the country well.
In some regions there are three crops of corn a year. But coffee is the
principal product. It was introduced in 1840 by a Brazilian school
teacher, and to-day there are hundreds of thousands of descendants of
the coffee tree he planted in his garden. In fact, eighty per cent of
the exports of Salvador consists in coffee, which goes mostly to France
and Germany.
[Illustration:
Panama Mail Steamship Co., San Francisco
Mount San Miguel in Salvador still smokes. The lava in the foreground
rolled down the mountain side a century ago.
]
Indigo, which grows in many parts of the country, was once the chief
export, but aniline dyes made it a less important crop. Did you know
that indigo when under cultivation looks like a field of willow
switches? The switches and leaves are soaked in water to which chemicals
have been added, the resulting fluid being boiled down later into a
paste. Indigo is used to dye cloth as well as to make the blueing for
wash day. In Salvador cattle abound and there are many minerals, but it
is an agricultural rather than a grazing or a mining country.
[Illustration:
Panama Mail Steamship Co., San Francisco
Coffee being dried on a plantation in Salvador.
]
The Usual Way to Enter Salvador
Almost all visitors to Salvador come by sea. It has several ports along
its single coast. At Acajutla steamers anchor a mile out. Sometimes
passengers have to be transferred to the shore boat in a big basket,
lifted by a steam winch on board the ocean vessel. La Unión, down at the
southern border of the country on the Bay of Fonseca, has a good harbor
and better docking facilities.
A railroad runs from Acajutla to San Salvador, the capital; altogether
there are now about 250 miles of railway. It is hoped to make connection
with the railways of Guatemala and Mexico so that the people of Salvador
can go all the way to New York by rail. This little country has good
roads between the chief cities, and the government is building new ones.
On them one sees some automobiles but more oxcarts. There are other
fairsized towns besides the capital, the largest being Santa Ana. In
addition, one passes through a number of pretty villages.
[Illustration:
Panama Mail S. S. Co., San Francisco
Sacks of indigo, product of Salvador, ready for shipment to San
Francisco. The straw man at the top of the pile shows that these
workmen were as fond of a joke as ours would be.
]
I hope you have not made the mistake of thinking that this country is
the San Salvador where Columbus first landed. That was a small island in
the West Indies; this is a continental country bordered by the Pacific.
Besides, its name is merely Salvador, though the capital is called San
Salvador. This capital, by the way, is one of the most beautifully
located cities of Central America, a warm, sunny place about two
thousand feet above sea level. It stands in a fertile plateau, among
green hills, at the base of a volcano 8,360 feet high. Deep ravines are
worn in the plain by streams rushing down from the highlands. As these
are crossed only by narrow tracks they protect the city in time of war.
However, Salvador is quite a peaceful state compared to its neighbors.
It has not had a revolution since 1903. Its presidents are legally
elected and they are not dictators.
[Illustration:
Panama Mail Steamship Co., San Francisco
Wouldn’t it be fun to have a ride in this kind of swing? At La
Libertad, Salvador, the water is so shallow that passengers have to
be transferred from the ocean vessels to shore boats.
]
The Capital and Its Troubles
The capital, however, has had its troubles. Founded in 1528, it has been
ruined several times by earthquakes. It was completely destroyed in a
single night in 1854, and there have been many severe shocks since then.
Once it was rebuilt twelve miles southwest of the original site, but it
was moved back in 1858. As recently as 1917 a great earthquake did heavy
damage to five towns including the capital.
No wonder, then, that the houses of San Salvador are nearly all of one
story, with very thick walls built to withstand earthquakes. There is a
handsome government building, and a cathedral. The streets are straight,
the sidewalks paved with rock and cement, the water supply a good one.
There are more automobiles in San Salvador than in any other Central
American place except the city of Panama. In general it is perhaps the
most modern and progressive city of that region, outside the Canal Zone.
One sees many pretty _señoritas_, many priests in black robes. The
120,000 people of the capital, all white or _mestizo_ (Spanish and
Indian mixture) do not wear gaudy garments, and there is little that is
picturesque.
Salvador possesses a good telegraph system, and better schools than
those of its neighbors. In theory the schools are all free and every
child is obliged to attend. But this is true only in the towns. The
country people and the lower classes have little education. Since even
in the United States many people cannot yet read or write, we must not
be too critical of conditions in Central America.
[Illustration:
Panama Mail Steamship Co., San Francisco
In the city of San Salvador there are handsome buildings in the
shopping district which surrounds Duenas Park.
]
A few queer old customs remain. Men ringing bells go along the streets
and through the markets with little boxes containing tiny images of the
Virgin, to which people may bow if they pay a penny. Horse cars rattle
leisurely through the streets with a great cracking of the drivers’
whips. There is music almost every night in the central _plaza_, and
flirtations under the palm trees. In almost every town an official looks
after the people’s health. Sanitary conditions are better and there is
less sickness than in most tropical countries. Salvador, lacking an
Atlantic coast, is free from the diseases that are common in the
fever-infested hot lands.
England’s Central American Colony
Belize (British Honduras) is one region in Central America that we are
likely to forget or overlook, for it is not a republic. Yet it is larger
than Salvador, being of much the same width but nearly forty miles
longer. We find that its area is about that of Massachusetts. Tucked
away on the eastern side of Guatemala and the Mexican peninsula of
Yucatan, much of Belize is low country bordering on the Caribbean.
Besides the more usual tropical products, such as mahogany and chicle,
it has tortoiseshell and sponges for export.
Of its 45,000 people only about a hundred are pure white. Most of the
inhabitants are negroes from the West Indies, and English is the
language spoken. The river Belize runs through the middle of the colony.
The capital, of the same name, has a population of about 13,000.
Belize seems to be a Spanish corruption of “Wallis,” the name of an
early British settler. Buccaneers or pirates first occupied it, then
came logwood hunters. Off the coast, the British settlers were attacked
by a Spanish fleet, but they repulsed it and landed a force of two
thousand men. In 1798 Spain acknowledged the occupation. Belize has been
an organized British colony since 1862.
CHAPTER XXI
NICARAGUA, AND AMERICAN “CO-OPERATION”
The morning after we sailed from Amapala in Honduras our steamer stopped
at Corinto, the chief Pacific port of Nicaragua. A railroad runs from
there to Managua, the capital, and beyond, touching the principal towns.
Except for some private tracks, it is the only railway in Nicaragua; yet
it is barely 175 miles long—a very small mileage, considering the
country’s size. Nicaragua’s area of nearly 50,000 square miles makes it
the largest country in Central America, though Guatemala really has more
land. Including its two big lakes, Nicaragua is about as large as the
state of New York. It extends from ocean to ocean, but most of its
650,000 people live in the western third of the country, which is higher
and more healthful. The central cordillera, or main mountain range,
between four and five thousand feet high, is only twelve to thirty miles
from the Pacific. As most of the country, east of this, is low,
unpleasant, and unhealthful, all the cities and big towns are on the
Pacific slope.
The railroad goes inland a short distance, then turns south. It skirts
the mountains, including smoking Momotombo. In this region are frequent
eruptions. Thirty miles from Corinto the train reaches León, formerly
the capital, then crawls on southward to Managua, the present capital,
on the southern shore of Lake Managua.
[Illustration:
Corinto, the principal Pacific port of Nicaragua.
]
León and Granada both wanted to be the capital. The dispute was settled
by giving the honor to neither, but to Managua. This city, unimportant
then, now has 40,000 inhabitants. It is not a pleasant place. For one
thing, it is only 140 feet above sea level, which is far too low in a
tropical country. Despite occasional breezes from the lake front, it
swelters in heat nearly all the time. Like Corinto and León, it is a
city of sand. A barren expanse of desert faces the old cathedral.
Vegetation sprouts from a fallen spire. Dust covers the grassless
central _plaza_; it is two inches deep in the main avenues; it settles
on the low roofs and seeps in everywhere.
[Illustration:
Panama Mail Steamship Co., San Francisco
This large and well-built school is in the city of Managua, Nicaragua.
]
There is no water fit to drink. When the Spaniards established
themselves in America they were usually careful to build their capitals
up in the mountains. But they did not bother so much about water. In
those days most of Europe thought bathing unhealthful, and as the people
drank wine to quench thirst, water was needed only for cooking and for
the horses. Nearly all the old Spanish capitals still have a very poor
water supply.
It is not strange that Nicaragua, being low and hot, with the least
invigorating climate in Central America, is one of the most backward
countries south of the United States. Nearly all of its people have the
hookworm disease, which makes them feel tired all the time. A big
American charitable foundation has been fighting this disease throughout
Central America; but it will probably remain as long as the people go
barefoot, for the parasites that cause it work their way in through the
skin.
Recreations of the People
However, there are some energetic Nicaraguans in the cities. Managua has
taken up baseball and even boxing—though that sport has long been
opposed in Latin-America as a brutal amusement of the barbaric
“gringos”! The aristocrats of Central America are very fond of
theatrical entertainments, and there is a national theater in nearly
every capital. But as the expense of bringing actors from Europe is
high, performances are rare in such little places as Managua, even
though the government helps to pay for them. Those who want amusement
usually fall back on the evening concerts in the _plaza_.
It may seem queer to speak of the composition of verses as a favorite
“indoor sport,” but that is just what it is among the educated young
men. In Spanish-America nearly everyone who knows how to write tries to
be a poet. The newspapers print many amateur poems, but do not pay for
them. However, the authors consider the honor of appearing in print
before all their friends sufficient reward. Occasionally a real poet is
discovered among the crowd, like one pearl in a ton of oysters.
Nicaragua gave to the world Rubén Darío, considered by some critics the
greatest modern poet writing in the Spanish language.
[Illustration:
Panama Mail Steamship Co., San Francisco
Loading coffee at a plantation in Nicaragua.
]
This country, with all its handicaps, has many natural advantages—good
rivers and thick forests, minerals in the ranges, and a large amount of
land suitable for cultivation. Men who should know say that it could
develop wealth greater than that of any other Central American country.
It has almost all tropical products. Mahogany, rosewood, logwood,
sandalwood, and other valuable hardwoods grow in its forests, in which
gums, dyes, and medicinal products also are found. The rich soil of the
western cultivated region grows splendid maize. Coffee, sugar and
bananas are produced. In the little-cultivated eastern and central parts
of the country, there are many herds. But the Nicaraguans do not make
the most of their opportunities. Their country is almost as undeveloped
as Honduras, and its exports and imports are less than those of the much
smaller Salvador.
[Illustration:
Panama Mail Steamship Co., San Francisco
A glimpse of Lake Nicaragua, famous in the history of attempts to open
a passageway between the Atlantic and the Pacific.
]
The Nicaraguan Canal Question
Lake Nicaragua, which bears an important relation to the history of the
country, is the largest body of fresh water between our Great Lakes and
Lake Titicaca in the Andes. It is 115 miles long and 45 miles
wide—almost as large as all Salvador. A little north of this lake and
twenty-five feet higher is Lake Managua, thirty-five by twenty miles in
extent. When gold was discovered in California, many Americans went
there by way of Nicaragua, before the Panama Railroad was built.
Commodore Vanderbilt ran steamers across Lake Nicaragua to a low place
in the mountains and he had stagecoaches carry the prospectors from
there to the coast, where they embarked for California. Many of them saw
gold in the rivers, and on their return from California some stayed in
Nicaragua. Thus Americans came to control the mines in that country, as
they do in other parts of Central America and in Mexico.
[Illustration:
Map showing proposed Nicaragua Canal route, with opening cut between
Lake Nicaragua and the Pacific. The San Juan River connects Lake
Nicaragua with the Caribbean Sea (Atlantic Ocean).
]
For a long time Nicaragua was considered a better location than Panama
for a canal between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Lake Nicaragua is only
110 feet above sea level, and drains into the Caribbean through the San
Juan River. Moreover, the cordillera, between Lake Nicaragua and the
Pacific, is quite low. Dredging the San Juan River would allow ocean
vessels to come up to the lake, and from there a canal could be dug to
the Pacific, only eleven miles away.
The possibility of a Nicaraguan canal was discussed in the United States
Congress as early as 1826, and Henry Clay was sent to investigate. The
principal disadvantage of a canal in that location would be the long
distance between the two oceans. Much dredging would be required, for
most of the San Juan River is so shallow that only small launches can
navigate it. Yet if ever traffic outgrows the Panama Canal, which is
quite possible, Nicaragua will furnish another steamer road between the
Atlantic and the Pacific. In 1916 the United States paid Nicaragua
$3,000,000 for an option of ninety-nine years on this canal route. This
gives us first rights there until the year 2015. As a matter of fact,
the $3,000,000 never left New York. It was paid to the bankers who had
loaned money to Nicaragua.
An Interesting History
The history of Nicaragua is especially interesting to us, because the
United States Government and individual Americans have had so large a
part in it. Like the countries north of it, Nicaragua was once a center
of Indian civilization. There are stone sculptures and ruins of an early
civilized race, and remains of ancient Indian dialects. Columbus sailed
along the Mosquito Coast in 1502; Granada was founded in 1524. During
the three centuries of Spanish rule Nicaragua was part of the one
Central American colony, with its capital at Guatemala City. Two years
after it became independent in 1821, Nicaragua joined the Federation of
Central America, which lasted for sixteen years. Then came civil war,
followed by war not only with Honduras and Costa Rica but with England.
The English claimed all the Mosquito Coast, but gave up their claim,
except to Belize, in 1860. Since then there has been the usual Central
American story of one dictator after another, with not very many
presidents getting their office legally. From 1893 to 1909 Nicaragua was
ruled by José Zelaya, a dictator much like Diaz of Mexico. He began
well, but soon became a great tyrant. Because the illiterate peons, who
made up so large a part of the population, took no interest in political
matters, he could run the country much as he pleased. Zelaya helped
Nicaragua to make some progress, but he took away from the people what
little political self-confidence they had gained.
Our Relations with Nicaragua
Americans as individuals had already been much interested in Nicaraguan
affairs before official United States “co-operation” began in 1909. As
in Mexico, large investments had been made by American capitalists.
Zelaya had been having himself re-elected over a period of seventeen
years when a revolution was started by General Juan Estrada at
Bluefields, an isolated port on the Caribbean. Zelaya incurred the
displeasure of the United States, through the execution of two
Americans, and he was finally forced to resign and flee to Mexico.
American Marines were landed at Bluefields to protect our interests.
In 1910 Estrada was elected president by the Nicaraguan Congress and his
government was recognized by the United States; but he resigned after a
few months. In 1912, when Adolfo Diaz was president, another revolution
broke out, and again American forces were landed. As a result, Diaz’
position was strengthened. Thereafter a “legation guard” of a hundred
Marines was retained at Managua for a number of years. By keeping
political conditions stable under several administrations, the presence
of these troops was of benefit to American bankers and others whose
money was being used to develop the country’s resources. After the
withdrawal of United States troops in 1925, political unrest and
intrigue again appeared. In 1926 when, after an interval, Diaz had again
taken office as president, his election was contested by a former vice
president, Juan B. Sacasa. Diaz, recognized by the United States and
other leading nations, asked for American aid. Again Marines were landed
to help preserve order.
[Illustration:
Panama Mail S. S. Co., San Francisco
Loading coffee at San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua. It has to be carried
out from shore in a lighter and then transferred to the ocean-going
vessel.
]
Some European and American newspapers, and some of our members of
Congress and public speakers, criticize the United States Department of
State for its Nicaraguan policy, speaking of it as unjustified
“intervention” rather than beneficent “co-operation.” The policy is not
popular, either, with all the people of Nicaragua. The wisdom of doing
as we have is too debatable to go into here. I have given an outline of
the facts because our policy has been affected not only by the need to
protect American lives and property, but also by the possibility that
some day the United States may wish to take up its option on the
Nicaragua route for a new canal.
The Results of “Co-operation”
Unsettled conditions led American bankers to take charge of the huge
Nicaraguan national debt, and to arrange to manage the railroad. They
came, in time, to control nearly everything of value in the republic. It
is undoubtedly true that Nicaragua made some progress under American
supervision, but not much is visible to the hurried visitor. Managua is
in no better repair now than when the Marines first came; most of the
cities and towns are more dilapidated than those of Honduras. But the
national debt was reduced from $32,000,000 to $9,000,000, and the
_córdoba_, or Nicaraguan dollar, was brought up to the same value as our
dollar.
In the old days anyone who thought he was important expected at least a
pass on the railroad, and if he was very influential he expected a
private car. The car would be attached to a regular passenger train, and
this train would have to stop and wait several hours while the
private-car man paid visits along the line. This was all changed under
American “co-operation.” The railroad began to run on a schedule and to
pay a profit. The Nicaraguan Government proceeded to buy back control of
both the railroad and the national bank.
The Adventurous William Walker
It would be too bad to leave Nicaragua without telling the story of
William Walker. That most notorious filibuster in Central American
history was born in Tennessee. In his youth he studied medicine in
Edinburgh and Heidelberg. Later he worked for newspapers in New Orleans
and San Francisco. Public attention was first attracted to him in 1853
when he attempted to conquer the state of Sonora, just across the
Border, and was nearly killed by Mexicans.
Believing that some day the North would force the abolition of slavery
in the United States, Walker decided he would establish a slave monarchy
in Nicaragua. When the two political parties of Nicaragua, the
aristocrats and the democrats, were fighting tooth and nail in 1855,
this American adventurer landed with fifty-eight blue-shirted men who,
though carrying few weapons, soon captured Granada. Walker had himself
appointed secretary of war and commander-in-chief of the Nicaraguan
army. By the end of the year he had induced the United States Government
to recognize his puppet president. Not long afterward, accusing this
president of conspiracy, Walker ordered him shot and declared himself
president. Then he fought a war with Costa Rica, and proclaimed English
the official language. Nicaragua did not allow slavery, but Walker had
the anti-slavery clause in its constitution annulled, and offered
American slave owners a land of refuge.
However, his rule led to an insurrection. He had taken Commodore
Vanderbilt’s steamers on the Nicaraguan lakes and sold them to another
American capitalist. By way of reprisal, Vanderbilt loaned money to
Walker’s enemies and helped to get him defeated. Walker surrendered to
the commander of an American naval vessel and was taken back to New
Orleans. From there he went on a lecture tour!
Always restless and ambitious, he returned to Nicaragua in 1857 with a
following of American adventurers. The Nicaraguans drove him out, and he
turned his attention to Honduras. On his first attempt to invade that
country he was shipwrecked. Later he took the city of Trujillo, but he
could not hold it. In time he was captured by a British warship, handed
over to the Honduras Government, courtmartialed, and shot.
[Illustration:
United Fruit Company
Old Spanish church in Trujillo, the Honduras coast city once captured
by William Walker.
]
CHAPTER XXII
COSTA RICA—THE “RICH COAST”
If we travel by the shortest and most comfortable route from Nicaragua
to Costa Rica—the “Rich Coast”—we shall take a steamer on the Pacific
from Corinto to Puntarenas (“Sandy Point”) where we can get a train for
the capital. Or we can take a boat at Granada and sail down Lake
Nicaragua to the border of Costa Rica. Let us, however, go down the
Atlantic coast—called the Mosquito Coast from the Misskitos or
Mosquitos, a race of mixed African and Indian blood.
Weather-blackened old San Juan del Norte, otherwise known as Greytown,
will be the Caribbean terminus of the Nicaraguan Canal, if it is ever
built. It is a typical east-coast town, low, swampy, ill smelling, with
black inhabitants in the majority. In the days of the gold rush to
California it was a thriving city. Then this coast, from Yucatan to
Costa Rica, was a part of the British Mosquito Kingdom, of which only
British Honduras (Belize) now remains. To-day the whole population of
Greytown rush to their doors to stare at any new white man who lands
there.
We take a boat from Greytown to Port Limón, the principal port of what
many people consider the most charming land in America. Limón harbor is
bounded by a white crescent beach fringed with graceful coconut palms.
Several million bunches of bananas a year are shipped from Limón to the
United States and Europe. The Caribbean shore is noted also for its
turtles, which furnish us soup and tortoise shell. On the Pacific coast
pink pearls and mother-of-pearl are obtained.
[Illustration:
United Fruit Company
Coffee picking on a plantation not far from San José.
]
Limón is the eastern terminus of the short transcontinental railway
which passes through the capital, San José. One of the three railroads
in Spanish-America most famous for scenic beauty, it carries us inland
through an ever-changing panorama of banana plantations, cane fields,
thatched villages, dense jungles and forests. We pass magnificent trees,
festooned with moss and vines, as we make our way through rugged gulches
and beside foaming rivers. In the distance lofty mountains tower toward
flimsy white clouds that float in the bluest of skies. From Port Limón
to San José the railway is owned by an English corporation but it is
leased by the Northern Railway Company, a subsidiary of the United Fruit
Company. From San José to the Pacific coast the railway is owned and
operated by the Costa Rican Government.
[Illustration:
Panama Mail Steamship Co., San Francisco
A cart full of coffee beans delivering its load.
]
Into the Highlands Once More
The train climbs mountain sides until the stream it has been following
becomes a mere ribbon far below. It crawls along winding cliffs that
look out upon endless vistas of waving palm-tree tops. Soon we are up in
the exhilarating coolness of the highlands, among rolling hills. The
banana lands and the uncomfortably hot weather have been left behind at
the foothills. Up to an altitude of three of four thousand feet, we pass
many coffee plantations, the red berries glistening in the morning dew.
The bushes climb hills so steep that the planters and pickers would seem
to need ladders. Costa Rica coffee, which is considered excellent, is
sold mostly in the European countries. To the Costa Ricans it is one of
their most important products.
[Illustration:
Panama Mail Steamship Co., San Francisco
One of the processes in preparing coffee for the market consists in
washing it.
]
Other products of this rich land are tobacco, sugar, cacao, rubber,
vanilla, and hides; but all these are of small account compared to
bananas and coffee. Costa Rica has minerals, too, but its agricultural
products are more important. Columbus rightly named the region “Rich
Coast.” Yet fertile as it is, and despite its name, it was very poor
until it had been opened up by foreign capital.
Costa Rica, with its 23,000 square miles, is about half as large as
Pennsylvania. Except Salvador, it is the smallest republic in the
Americas. Everywhere but on the east coast it is very mountainous, with
many volcanoes. Not only is the scenery beautiful; the climate is
splendid at all but the lowest levels. Most of the country is so
healthful that Canal Zone doctors recommend it to convalescents, and
many American employees go to Costa Rica for their yearly vacations
instead of returning to the United States.
The railroad reaches a height of almost five thousand feet at the top of
the pass some ninety miles from the Atlantic. The mountains seem to roll
over one another in all sorts of shapes, like a school yard full of boys
playing rough and tumble. Here are great gorges, there hollows or plots
of almost level land covered with small farms. Some of the peaks are two
miles high, and from the top of one of them both oceans can be seen.
[Illustration:
Panama Mail Steamship Co., San Francisco
Both coffee and rosewood are shipped from Puntarenas, Costa Rica.
]
From the summit, the train descends two thousand feet toward the
capital. On the way we stop at Cartago, the old capital and seat of
Spanish rule, picturesque with its red-tiled roofs. It was named for
Carthage, famous city of antiquity. When independence was declared, some
of the people of Cartago refused to join the revolutionists, and the
latter made San José their capital. Many wealthy Costa Ricans still
prefer to live in Cartago. It lies on the slope of the volcano Irazú,
which has a number of worn-out craters. Mt. Poas makes more trouble for
the region. In April, 1910, an earthquake was felt throughout the
plateau, and in Cartago one thousand people, one-tenth of the
population, perished in the ruins of their city. To-day there are still
signs of this disaster, but most of the wrecked area has been rebuilt.
The visitor who wanders about Cartago on a summer evening (the only kind
of evening the city has) and sees the gay crowds at the outdoor band
concert or coming from the movies or the theater, finds it hard to
realize that it has been the scene of a great tragedy.
[Illustration:
United Fruit Company
The National Theater at San José, Costa Rica, is a very costly and
handsome building.
]
The Delightful Costa Rican Capital
The train goes on down into a fertile valley dotted with little farms
and puffs into San José, the most delightful capital in Central America
and one of the most interesting small cities anywhere below the Rio
Grande. It lies in a natural amphitheater of mountains that are always
green, their heads often lost in clouds. It is a city of quaint Spanish
architecture, yet with every modern comfort, a city of the loveliest
climate, a quiet, peaceful city slumbering beneath a warm sun that never
burns, with the most attractive _plazas_. and, some people think, the
most beautiful women in the world.
The most delightful thing about San José is that, though it is so
up-to-date in some ways, it remains as picturesquely charming as a city
of old Spain. Nearly every woman one meets wears a very large shawl.
Even among the lower classes this wrap is often richly embroidered,
though the wearer may be barefoot. It is often of silk, in brilliant
colors, with a fringe a foot long. The one- or two-story houses squat
contentedly about the big cathedral, like chicks about a hen. Oxen plod
slowly through the narrow Moorish streets behind the driver’s goad—for
the Spanish way is to walk ahead and coax the animals to follow by
goading them in the neck. Their noses almost touch the ground, their
massive shoulders swing from side to side in unison, because of the yoke
bound to their horns. In the coffee fields just outside the capital, the
peons laugh and chat as they fill their baskets with the red berries
that will some day cheer the café customers of Paris and Berlin.
A Progressive Land
Columbus discovered the “Rich Coast” in 1493, and by the time of his
fourth voyage, in 1502, it seems already to have been settled. Fortune
favored it from the beginning. As it had few gold mines, it did not
attract to its shores those swashbuckling adventurers whose descendants
still keep so many of the neighboring countries in turmoil. It was not
settled by _conquistadores_ from hot-blooded Andalusia, bent on
enslaving the Indians and doing no work themselves, but by people from
Galicia in the northwestern corner of Spain. Although other Spaniards
consider the Gallegos (people of Galicia) rather stupid, they are the
hardest-working farmers in Spain. Those who came to America did not
intermarry with the Indians of Costa Rica but took the country away from
the native tribes. To-day, once we have passed the black fringe along
the Caribbean coast, we find few Indians and not many half-breeds, but a
race that is eighty per cent pure Spanish, even among the lowly peons.
It is no wonder that the people of Costa Rica seem happier than most
Central Americans. Their country is not only fertile and charming, but
usually it is one of the most peaceful of the Latin-American lands. The
two smallest republics on the American continents, Salvador and Costa
Rica, are among the most progressive.
The Costa Ricans are paying off their national debt. They have enough
primary and grammar schools for all the children, and colleges in the
chief cities. The law requires all children to go to school. Not being
troubled by constant civil wars, Costa Rica has had time to progress.
The land is fairly divided; most of the people own their own farms and
are contented. Nearly every countryman has his own little estate, with a
patch of bananas, a fruit garden, and a place to grow vegetables.
Costa Rica refused to join the other countries of Central America in a
federation, because it knew that it could get on better alone than by
combining with its quarrelsome neighbors. True, in 1872 it had its ninth
constitution which, for the next ten years, was almost suspended by a
dictator of the Diaz type; and since then the constitution has often
been changed. But on the whole it has had a peaceful history. Its
president and members of Congress are elected for four years. It has a
small standing army of five hundred soldiers in time of peace, but as
all men between the ages of eighteen and sixty are in the militia, it
can quickly call upon 50,000 reserves if war breaks out.
Costa Rica has a population of about 500,000, of whom only 3,500 are
Indians. Most of its people live on the central plateau, in an area of
about 3,500 square miles, so that nearly five-sixths of its territory is
still covered with forest and jungle. The four principal cities are in
the one mountain district, and are so close together that they are
connected by a wagon road barely thirty miles long. Most of its roads
and forms of transportation are still quite primitive. Away from the
railroad nearly all travel is on horseback, or in oxcarts. The small
horses are almost all singlefoot—that is, their gait is an amble—which
makes them easy to ride. Nearly every traveler carries saddlebags across
his shoulders, instead of a suitcase in his hand, and horses are seen at
almost every station.
Although San José is a city of only about 40,000 inhabitants it boasts a
two-million-dollar national theater which is as richly decorated as any
in the United States. This theater was badly damaged by an earthquake in
March, 1924, but it has been almost entirely rebuilt. It really benefits
only the rich and the well-to-do, since most of the people cannot afford
to attend it. Often it is closed for a whole year. Yet everyone is
required to help pay for it, because it is maintained by the government.
[Illustration:
Canal Zone. Photo by E. Hallen, Official Photographer
The city of Panama from Ancon Hill, looking out across the Pacific’s
broad expanse.
]
CHAPTER XXIII
PANAMA AND THE GREAT CANAL
The slender connecting link between the two Americas is sometimes not
considered a part of Central America. But surely it should be, now that
it is a separate republic and not a part of Colombia in South America.
Formerly called the Isthmus of Darien, it is the narrowest part of the
Americas, at one point being only thirty-five miles wide.
Porto Bello, on the Atlantic coast of Darien, and now of little
importance, was the first place on the American continents settled by
white men. On September 1, 1513, the Spanish explorer Balboa set out
from there with an expedition of 190 white men and a party of Indians,
to see whether there was truth in the rumor that a great sea lay to the
westward. Until then the men who followed Columbus across the Atlantic
thought the land he had discovered was a part of Asia. Balboa fought his
way through unfriendly tribes and difficult country for twenty-five days
before he reached a hill from which, as Keats says,
“He stared at the Pacific, and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise,
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.”
(The poet made the curious mistake of crediting this discovery to “stout
Cortés.”)
[Illustration:
Balboa, after discovering the Pacific, went down to the shore and took
possession of the ocean for the Spanish crown.
]
We say that Balboa discovered the Pacific, and in a sense he did, though
in reality millions of people had seen it and men had sailed upon it for
centuries before that. Erecting a crude cross on the hill from which he
first viewed the ocean, he pushed on down to the coast, which he reached
four days later. Rushing into the water, he claimed possession of the
ocean and all the lands bordering on it in the name of the king of
Spain. Of course Balboa did not know that this ocean washed the shores
not only of North and South America, but of Asia, Australia, and
hundreds of islands.
[Illustration:
A ruin at Porto Bello, supposed to have been the Custom House during
Spanish rule.
]
[Illustration:
Canal Zone. Photos by E. Hallen, Official Photographer
The Panama Railroad’s handsome station in Panama City. How sharply it
contrasts with the picture above!
]
In 1519 Panama City was founded on the Pacific side of Darien, and
became the outfitting base for expeditions to Peru, the first one led by
Pizarro, who began the conquest of South America for Spain. The
Spaniards built, between Porto Bello and Panama City, a road that for
many years was one of the richest trade routes in the world. All the
gold and treasures sent from Peru to Spain passed over it. When the
natural wealth of Peru declined, Panama slumped. No new settlers came
and many of its old residents died from malaria and yellow fever.
Finally it became so unimportant that it lost its rank as a separate
dependency of Spain and was made a province of the viceroyalty of New
Granada, which included the present republic of Colombia.
During the gold rush to California, Panama again became important. Many
men chose to go by way of Panama rather than make the long, dangerous
journey across the United States. Three Americans, seeing their
opportunity, secured from Colombia a concession to build a railroad
across the Isthmus. The first rails were laid in 1850, and five years
later the Atlantic and Pacific were joined by the first continental
railway, forty-seven miles long. By the time it was finished it had
taken in $2,000,000. It carried 1,200,000 passengers in one year, beside
much freight, including $50,000,000 worth of uncoined gold, sent from
California to New York. The fare for that forty-seven miles was
twenty-five dollars, and passengers had to pay extra for their baggage
and mining outfits. To-day one can cross the isthmus in about four
hours, as comfortably as if going from New York to Baltimore, and at
about one-tenth the fare of the early days.
[Illustration:
Canal Zone. Photo by E. Hallen, Official Photographer
Balboa from Ancon Hill, showing Canal Zone administration building in
right foreground, schoolhouse (left foreground), baseball park, and
harbor.
]
[Illustration:
Culebra Cut in 1913 when the canal was being dug.
]
[Illustration:
Canal Zone. Photos by E. Hallen, Official Photographer
Gaillard Cut at Gold and Contractor’s Hills.
]
[Illustration:
Gatun Locks, with Gatun Lake beyond.
]
[Illustration:
Canal Zone. Photos by E. Hallen, Official Photographer
A steamship in the Middle East Chamber, Gatun Locks.
]
Building the Canal
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
Canal Zone. Photo by E. Hallen, Official Photographer
A relief map of the Canal Zone shows mountainous region through which
the canal passes.
Long before the railroad was built, people had begun to think of digging
a canal across the narrowest part of the Americas. By such a short cut,
ships could save thousands of miles between the two oceans. The French,
who had recently finished the Suez Canal, started this job in the New
World. But they soon discovered that Panama, with a rocky mountain chain
running through it, was not Suez, where they had only to dig a ditch
through a desert, in ground so soft and flat that they could simply
throw the earth up on the banks. One assessment after another was levied
on the French stockholders, until thousands of them had lost the savings
of a lifetime. Ferdinand De Lesseps, engineer of the enterprise, was
arrested, charged with stealing the stockholders’ money. But the
difficulties of the task were chiefly to blame, and the French gave it
up. Mosquitoes killed thousands of workmen by transmitting malaria and
yellow fever. The French did not realize that it would be necessary to
exterminate the mosquitoes before men could live long enough on the
Isthmus of Panama to dig a canal.
Many Americans still thought the Nicaraguan route better for a canal
between the two oceans, but the United States finally took over the
French rights to the Panama Canal. We paid the French $40,000,000 and
gave the new Republic of Panama $10,000,000 for the privilege of running
the canal across its territory. We also promised to pay Panama $250,000
a year rental forever (beginning in 1913 when the canal was expected to
be finished) for a strip of land ten miles wide across the isthmus and
extending three miles into the sea at either end. The fact that Colombia
earlier refused to sell or rent this land to us led the people of Panama
to declare their independence. Finally, after years of argument, we gave
Colombia $25,000,000 for the loss of her isthmian province.
[Illustration:
Canal Zone. Photo by E. Hallen, Official Photographer
The Great Gatun Spillway Dam, Panama Canal, which takes care of the
overflow of water.
]
On May 8, 1904, we took over the Canal Zone and what the French had left
there. For ten years that small strip of land was the busiest place on
earth. As a member of the Canal Zone police force I spent six months
there when the canal was nearing completion. One of my tasks was to help
take a census of Canal Zone residents. We found 62,810 people, of whom
37,428 were employees of Uncle Sam, and helping in one way or another to
dig the canal. Only 5,228 of the residents were Americans; nearly half
were British subjects, mostly black people from the West Indies; the
others came from more than fifty different countries.
[Illustration:
Map of the Canal Zone showing plainly that the Pacific end of the
Canal is farther east than the Atlantic end.
]
[Illustration:
In the Canal Zone, Americans live in such houses as these.
]
[Illustration:
Photos from Ford Educational Weekly
American children at Balboa attend school in this fine building.
]
[Illustration:
Natives of Panama outside the city live in such huts as this.
]
[Illustration:
Photos from Ford Educational Weekly
A street of native houses in the old City of Panama.
]
Some of the men ran huge steam shovels that gnawed their way through the
cordillera or “backbone” of the Americas, which here is only a few
hundred feet high. To dig through those comparatively low rock hills was
a formidable job. A miniature state grew up along the canal, with
everything from ice plants to office buildings. There were dozens of
towns, and thousands upon thousands of comfortable two-story screened
bungalows to house American and other employees. We spent $43,000 a year
just to keep down the mosquitoes that had driven out the French.
Hundreds of trainloads of rock and earth were carried to the end of the
Zone every working day and dumped in the sea or in out-of-the-way
places. All this went on until the canal was opened in 1914, and even
after that there was still digging and dredging and other work to do.
The successful completion of the canal was made possible only by the
energy and devotion of Colonel Goethals, General Gorgas and their
associates. From the very beginning it was realized that the canal was a
medical as well as an engineering problem. Without sanitation and
preventive medicine the enterprise would surely have failed.
Ideal Living Conditions
The Panama Canal Zone has become a wonderful place in which to live. The
American Government runs everything, even the stores, the laundries, the
restaurants, the hospitals, the rebuilt railroad. The several thousand
Americans and many workmen of other nationalities who remain there to
look after the canal do not use money in the stores, but pay with
tickets issued to all government employees. The Canal Zone now has a
lower death rate than the average American city or the United States as
a whole. The thousands of American children who are born and live there
have splendid schools, magnificent playgrounds, and a perpetual summer.
They become wonderful swimmers, for they can swim outdoors every day in
the year.
[Illustration:
Canal Zone. Photo by E. Hallen, Official Photographer
In the Canal Zone outdoor swimming is possible all the year round.
Some splendid swimmers have been developed there, and they begin
early. This picture shows the youngest members of the famous Red,
White and Blue Swimming Troupe at the Balboa Pool.
]
American women in Panama keep house rather differently from those in the
United States. They have plenty of servants. There are no stoves, except
for cooking, but electric lights burn day and night in clothes closets
to keep the clothing from mildewing. Light and power come from the
Spillway, over which flows the surplus water from Gatun Lake.
Electricity costs the government very little and the employees nothing
at all. The air from the land is like that of July at home, but almost
always a soft, cool, refreshing breeze blows in from the ocean. There is
a yearly rainy season, yet even that is not so very unpleasant.
A trip across the Canal Zone is like a ride through botanical gardens.
Strange trees, many of them enormous, often with air plants and orchids
growing on them, stand forth above the dense jungle. Clumps of feathery
bamboo wave like huge ostrich feathers in the breeze. There are
delicious alligator pears, papayas that look like muskmelons, mangoes.
Some of the finest pineapples in the world grow on Taboga, one of the
several small islands at the Pacific end of the canal, a favorite place
for picnics and short vacations. There are few more delightful places in
the world than the Canal Zone, and if you ever have a chance to go
there, by all means do so.
[Illustration:
Canal Zone. Photo by E. Hallen, Official Photographer
Delicious pineapples grow in the Canal Zone.
]
Not long ago I had the pleasure of visiting the Canal Zone again. It was
hard to realize that the great cut had been made by steam shovels.
To-day it looks like a natural valley. From fifty to seventy vessels can
be passed through the canal in a single day, depending on their size.
Electric locomotives known as “mules” draw ships through the three locks
at each end of Gatun Lake, which is eighty-five feet above the oceans.
Huge steel doors, high as a ten-story building, open and shut
noiselessly. Water rushes in or pours out through enormous concrete
pipes, and quickly lifts or lowers a ship. Then another gate ahead
opens, the “mules” tow the ship into the next lock, and the process is
repeated. Great liners or war vessels are handled as easily as the
smallest sailboats.
The Republic of Panama
The Canal Zone is only a very small part of the Republic of Panama,
though to Americans and to the world at large it seems far more
important than the rest. Panama has 32,400 square miles and about
400,000 inhabitants, outside the Canal Zone. There are numerous streams,
one of them navigable for a hundred miles. Much of the republic is
mountainous. Outside the limits of the Canal Zone it is the least
developed of any Central American country. There are no cities of any
size besides Colón and Panama City, at the two ends of the canal.
Although these are inside the ten by fifty mile strip, they are not
governed by the United States, though our government exercises its
influence to keep them cleaner than most Central American cities.
Colón was long known as Aspinwall. “Colón” being Spanish for Columbus—a
far more important man than the Englishman Aspinwall who once lived
there—Colombia long ago refused to receive letters addressed to
Aspinwall or to harbor ships whose papers used the offending name. So
that name died out, and only now and then does an “old-timer” still use
it. Colón is rather a commonplace city, with checkerboard streets and
wooden shops and houses, but it is much more up-to-date than most cities
of Central America.
[Illustration:
Papaya fruit is very large and grows in clusters. These trees are on
Bracho Plantation, Panama.
]
[Illustration:
Canal Zone. Photos by E. Hallen, Official Photographer
Cacao trees, Las Cascadas Plantation, Panama. The flat cars carry
drying trays.
]
Panama City, capital of the republic, is a more interesting place. Its
history alone makes it worth visiting. Old Panama City was founded more
than a hundred years before the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock. In
1671 it was destroyed by the famous English pirate Henry Morgan, who
killed and tortured many people and carried off 175 donkey-loads of
treasure. (Some of the valuables he left behind have been discovered
recently.) Later Morgan bought his pardon from King Charles II, was
knighted, and became governor of Jamaica. The present city was built in
1673, about five miles from the old one. The ruins of the first city are
a favorite place for Canal Zone picnics.
The Panama City of to-day is built on a rocky projection almost
surrounded by the sea. A huge stone wall thirty feet high nearly
encircles it. It has well-paved streets, trolley cars, water and
sewerage systems. On one side of the central _plaza_, where both
Panamanians and Americans promenade, is the bishop’s palace, and on
another the cathedral, its twin towers covered with mother-of-pearl. The
best buildings in the town were erected after Panama declared its
independence. Some of its stores and customs remind one of the United
States. Yet many of the people still do their work out on shaded
sidewalks, in the old Spanish-American fashion. Women sit there sewing,
and so do tailors. If we stop in the _plaza_ to rest, men, women, and
even children offer us lottery tickets. It is forbidden to sell them in
the Canal Zone, but they may be had in Panama City or Colón.
[Illustration:
Canal Zone. Photo by E. Hallen, Official Photographer
A San Blas Indian climbing a coconut tree.
]
One of the amusing things to see at Panama is the sun _rising from the
Pacific_. “The Pacific!” you exclaim. “Why, only people in Japan or
Hawaii could do that.” However, if you look carefully at the map on page
269 you will find that a person at Panama City actually could see the
sun come up out of the Pacific Ocean. Since South America lies far east
of North America, the land connecting them has to run east-west more
than north-south. But it does not run straight at all. The outline of
Central America makes one think of a roller coaster, with a number of
loops that form gulfs. On one of these gulfs is Panama City. It is
twenty-three miles farther east than the Atlantic entrance to the canal,
and it is so placed on the Gulf of Panama that one looks eastward across
the water.
Products and People
The Republic of Panama has the usual tropical products. Chiriquí
Province, much of which is 3,000 feet above sea level, is noted for its
grazing lands and its excellent cattle. “Panama hats,” by the way, were
never made in Panama, but in Colombia and Ecuador. They got their name
from being carried across the isthmus on their way to the United States
and Europe. Panama Republic has only the beginning of a railway system
and practically no roads at all. More than half its territory is
uninhabited, and only a small part of the rest is cultivated. The
average Panamanian works only enough to procure the bare necessities of
life. His food, shelter, and clothing are of the simplest. Yet the
country has large areas of very fertile land, and other valuable
resources, and in time it may become a wealthy member of the family of
nations.
The most interesting people in the Republic of Panama are the San Blas
Indians, whose territory begins about fifty miles below the Canal Zone
and continues to the border of Colombia. They are small but very sturdy,
with remarkable chests and shoulders, and are expert boatmen and
swimmers. They navigate the Atlantic coast in fifteen-foot dugouts, and
sometimes bring fish and fruit to Colón. Although they treat white men
politely in the daytime, the San Blas Indians seldom allow strangers to
stay in their territory after dark. Having preserved their tribal
identity through four centuries since the white man’s arrival, they
propose to remain independent just as long as possible. Therefore they
never intermarry with the whites, and no one has been successful in
persuading them to give up the primitive life of their forefathers.
[Illustration:
Canal Zone. Photo by E. Hallen, Official Photographer
A San Blas Indian family standing in front of their home.
]
* * * * *
Here we are at the end of Central America! It has been a pleasant and an
interesting, if sometimes a rather rough, journey. Those of you who
wish, may start for home, boarding a fast comfortable steamer at Colón
or Panama City; but I am going on to South America, and I shall be glad
to have anyone come along who would like to visit the countries of that
great continent.
[Illustration:
Canal Zone. Photo by E. Hallen, Official Photographer
Ruins of old Panama—Cathedral tower, showing rounded opening in which
there was once a spiral staircase to the belfry.
]
PRONUNCIATION LIST
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The pronunciation of Spanish will not be found
difficult, as the number of sounds is few, and there is little
variation. There are some differences between Spanish as spoken in
Spain and Spanish as spoken in Latin America, and since this book
relates to Mexico and Central America it seems best to indicate sounds
as they would be given there. Some words in this book, also, are of
Indian origin, and are therefore pronounced somewhat differently. One
who is interested to go more deeply into the matter will find
information under “A Guide to Pronunciation” in _Webster’s New
International Dictionary_. The symbols of that dictionary have been
used in the following list.
abrazo (ä-brä´sō)
acabala (ä-kä-bä´lä)
Acajutla (ä-kä-hoot´lä)
adiós (ä-dē-ōs´)
administrador (äd-mē-në-strä-dôr´)
adobe (ä-dō´bā)
Agua (ä´gwä)
agua-miel (ä-gwä-myĕl´)
Aguascalientes (ä-gwäs-käl-yĕn´tās)
Alhóndiga (ä-lôn´dē-gä)
Alvarado (äl-vä-rä´dō)
Amapala (ä-mä-pä´lä)
Amatitlán ( ä-mä-tē-tlän´)
americanisado (â-mā-rē-kän-ē-sä´dō)
Anáhuac (ä-nä´wäk)
Antigua (än-tē´gwä)
Atitlán (ä-tē-tlän´)
atole (ä-tō´lā)
Ayutla (ä-yoot´lä)
Belize (bĕ-lēz´)
Bogotá (bō-gō-tä´)
Boquilla (bō-kē´lyä)
Bracho (brä´chō)
bravos (brä´vōs)
caballero (kä-bä-lyā´rō)
Cabrera (kä-brā´rä)
Calles (kä´lyās)
camino real (kä-mëē´nō rā-äl´)
Campeche (käm-pā´chā)
Carranza (kä-rrän´sä)
Cartago (kär-tä´gō)
Celaya (sā-lä´yä)
cesta (sĕs´tä)
Chapala (chä-pä´lä)
Chichenitza (chē-chĕn-ët´zä)
Chihuahua (chē-wä´wä)
chile con carne (chē´lā kôn
kär´nā)
Chiriquí (chē-rē-kē´)
Cholula (chō-loo´lä)
chuchos (choo’chōs)
Ciudad Juárez (syoo-däd’ hwä’rās)
Ciudad Vieja (syoo-däd’ vyā’-hä)
Coahuila (kō-ä-wē’lä)
Coatepeque (kō-ä-tā-pā’kā; _Eng._, kō-ä’tā-pĕk)
Cobán (kō-bän’)
Colón (kō-lôn’)
colonias (kô-lō-nē’äs)
comandancia (kō-män-dän’-syä)
Comayagua (kō-mä-yä’gwä)
conquistadores (kôn-kēs-tä-dō’-rās)
Copán (kō-pän’)
Córdoba (kôr’dō-vä)
Corinto (kō-rēn’tō)
Cortés (kôr-tās’; _Eng._, kôr’-tĕz)
Cuernavaca (kwĕr-nä-vä’kä)
Cuscatlán (koos-kät-län’)
Darien (dä-rē-ĕn’; _Eng._, dä-rĭ-ĕn’)
Darío, Rubén (dä-rē’ō, roo-bĕn’)
Diaz (dē’äs)
Dolores Hidalgo (dō-lō’rās ē-däl’gō)
Durango (doo-räng’gō)
El Paso (ĕl pä’-sō; _Eng._, ĕl pă’sō)
Escuintla (ĕs-kwēn’-tlä)
Estados Unidos Mexicanos (ĕs-tä’dōs oo-nē’dōs mĕx-ē-kä’nōs)
Estrada (ĕs-trä’dä)
fiesta (fyĕs’tä)
Fonseca (fōn-sā’kä)
Fuego (fwā’gō)
Gallegos (gä-lyā’gōs)
garrotero (gä-rrō-tā’rō)
Gatun (gä-toon’)
Guadalajara (gwä-dä-lä-hä’rä)
Guadalupe (gwä-dä-loo’pā)
guajalote (gwä-hā-lō’tā)
guajalotl (gwä-hä-lōtl’)
Guanajuato (gwä-nä-hwä’tō)
Guaracha (gwä-rä’chä)
guaraches (gwä-rä’chās)
hacendados (ä-sĕn-dä’dōs)
hacienda (ä-siĕn’dä; _Eng._, hä-sĭ-ĕn’dä)
Hidalgo (ē-däl’gō)
Huerta (hwĕr’tä)
huipil (hwē-pēl’)
Huitzilopochtli (hwēt-zēl-ō-pôch’tlē)
Irapuato (ē-rä-pwä’tō)
Ixtaccihuatl (ēx-täk-sē’hwätl)
Izalco (ē-säl’kō)
jaí alaí (hī ä-lī’)
Jalisco (hä-lēs’kō)
jefe político (hĕ’fā pō-lē’tē-kō)
Juanacatlán (hwän-ä-kät-län’)
Juárez (hwä’rās)
Laredo (lä-rā’dō)
Las Cascadas (läs käs-kä’däs)
La Unión (lä oo-nē-ōn’)
León (lā-ōn’)
machete (mä-chā’tā)
Managua (mä-nä´gwä)
mano (mä´nō)
mansos (män´sōs)
Mariscal (mä-rēs-käl´)
Mérida (mā´rē-dä)
mescal (mĕs-kăl´; _Mex._, mexcalli—mĕks-kä´lyē)
mesquite (mĕs-kē´tā; _Eng._, mĕs´kēt)
mestizos (mĕs-tē´sōs)
Michoacán (mē-chō-ä-kän´)
milpa (mĭl’pä)
Misskitos (mĭs-kē´tōs)
Momotombo (mō-mō-tôm´bō)
Montezuma (mŏn-tĕ-zoo´mä)
Morelia (mō-rā´lyä)
Morelos (mō-rā´lōs)
Mosquitos (môs-kē´tōs)
Motagua (mō-tä´gwä)
mozo (mō´sō)
Nahua (nä´wä)
Nayarit (nä-yä-rēt´)
Nueva (nwā´vä)
Nuevo Laredo (nwā´vō lä-rā´dō)
Oaxaca (wä-hä´kä)
Obregón (ō-brā-gōn´)
O´ Donoju (ō-dôn-ō-hoo´)
Orizaba (ō-rē-sä´bä)
Pachuca (pä-choo´kä)
paseo (pä-sā´ō)
patio (pät´yō)
Pátzcuaro (päs´kwä-rō)
pela ’os (pā-lä´ōs)
pelota (pā-lō´tä)
Peregrina (pā-rā-grē´nä)
Pespire (pĕs-pē´rā)
Picacho (pē-kä´chō)
piñatas (pē-nyä´täs)
Pingüico (pĭng-gwē´kō)
plaza (plä´sä; _Eng._, plä´zä)
Plaza de la República (plä´sä dā lä rā-poo´blē-kä)
Poas (pō´äs)
Popocatepetl (pō-pō-kä-tā´pĕtl)
porrónes (pō-rrō´nās)
portales (pôr-tä´lās)
portero (pôr-tā´rō)
Port Limón (pôrt lē-mōn´)
Potrerillos (pō-trā-rē´lyōs)
Puebla (pwā´blä)
Puerto Barríos (pwĕr´tō bä-rrē´ōs)
Puerto Cortés (pwĕr´tō kôrtās´)
pulque (pool´kā)
pulquería (pool-kā-rē´ä)
Puntarenas (poon-tä-rā´näs)
Querétaro (kā-rā´tä-rö)
Quetzalcoatl (kāt-zäl-kō-ätl´)
Quezaltenango (kā-säl-tā-näng´gō)
Quintana Roo (kēn-tä´nä rō´ō)
Quiriguá (kē-rē-goo-ä´)
reales (rā-äl´ās)
reboso (rā-bō´sō)
Retalhuleu (rā-täl-oo-lā´uh)
rhizome (rī´zōm)
Rio Bravo del Norte (rē´ō brävō dĕl nôr´tā)
Rio Grande (rē´ō grän´dā)
rurales (roo-rä´lās)
Sacasa (sä-kä´sä)
Saltillo (sāl-tē´lyō)
San Blas (sän bläs´)
San Jacinto (sän hä-sēn´tō)
San Jerónimo (sän hā-rō´nē-mō)
San José (sän hō-sā´)
San Juan Bautista (sän hwän bou-tēs´tä)
San Juancito (sän hwän-sē´tō)
San Juan del Norte (sän hwän dĕl nôr´tā)
San Juan del Río (sän hwän dĕl rē´ō)
San Luis Potosí (sän loo-ēs´ pō-tō-sē´)
Santa Lucrecia (sän´tä loo-krā´syä)
Santa Rosa (sän´tä rō´sä)
Santiago (sän-tē-ä´gō)
sarapes (sā-rä´pās)
señor (sā-nyôr´)
señoritas (sā-nyō-rē´täs)
servidor de usted (sĕr-vē-dōr´ dā oo-stĕd´)
Sierra Madre (sē-ā´rrä mä´drā)
siesta (sē-ĕs´tä)
Silao (sē-lä´ō)
Sinaloa (sē-nä-lō´a)
sombrero (sôm-brā´rō)
Sonora (sō-nō´rä)
sopita (sō-pē´tä)
Suchiate (soo´chē-ä´tā)
Tabasco (tä-bäs´kō)
tamales (tä-mä´lās)
Tampico (täm-pē´kō)
tanda (tän´dä)
Tarascan (tä-räs´kän)
Tegucigalpa (tā-goo-sē-gäl´pä)
Tehuantepec (tā-wän-tā-pĕk´)
Tenochtitlán (tĕn-ôch-te-tlän´)
teocalli (tā-ō-kä´lyē)
Teotihuacán (tā-ō-tē-wä-kän´)
tequila (tā-kē´lä)
tiendas (tyĕn´däs)
tierras calientes (tyā´rräs kä-lyĕn´tās)
Tigre (tē´grā)
tipos populares (tē´pōs pō-poo-lä´rās)
Titicaca (tē´tē-kā´kā)
Tlaxcala (tläs-kä´lä)
tortilla (tôr-tē´lyä)
Trujillo (troo-hē´lyō)
Tzintzuntzán (tsĭn-tsoon-tsän´)
Uruapan (oo-roo-ä´pän)
Uxmal (ooz-mäl´)
Vera Cruz (vā´rä kroos´; _Eng._, vĕr´ä krooz´)
veta (vā´tä)
Villa (vē´lyä; popularly, in Mexico, vē´yä)
Xochimilco (hō-chē-mēl´kō)
yanqui (yäng´kē)
yaqui (yä´kē)
Zacapa (sä-kä´pā)
Zacatecas (sä-kä-tā´-käs)
Zamora (sä-mō´rä)
Zapata (sä-pä´tä)
zarzuelas (sär-swā´läs)
Zelaya (sā-lä´yā)
Zócalo (sō´kä-lō)
zopilotes (sō-pē-lō´tās)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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