Alfred Oscar Coffin

“ Two engines are hitched to the train and we begin to climb the Sierra Madres. We stop at the little town of Ocoyocac, and in a half hour the train returns on the horse shoe curve one thousand perpendicular feet above the town. Not a bush nor a blade of grass interrupts the vision as we nervously look down one-fifth of a mile upon the toy-looking houses we could drop a stone upon. You instinctively hold your breath as we creep around this narrow trail blasted from the solid granite and marvel at the engineering that could ever dream of such possibilities. ”

“ And yet there lives just such a people at our very doors; just across the Rio Grande, in that strange land of romance and fiction, where the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries go hand-in-hand and never unite; where the variation in temperature is less than at any other place on the globe; where an ancient race live among the ruined temples and pyramids of a race they know not of; where the traveler finds mouldering ruins of hewn stone engraved with figures and animals that have no likeness anywhere else, except amid the ruins of Egypt; it is here you find the Land Without Chimneys. ”

“ From the river and from wells dug in the valley irrigation makes this unusual fertility possible, and the old-time well-sweep is everywhere, with its long see-saw pole with a weight at one end and a bucket tied to the other. A ride of a mile on the horse-car is worth while. You will see what you see in almost every Mexican town, not a shade tree on the streets, and the brown, flat-roofed adobe houses without windows are anything but inviting. Of course there are fine churches, what town has not its Carmen and Merced and San Francisco? ”

“ We are now nearing the rim of the plateau and pass through miles of rich mining country until we leave the state of Puebla and enter the state of Vera Cruz. We are a hundred miles from the sea and eight thousand feet above it on the backbone of the Cordilleras. Around us is white frost, and in four hours we shall be in perpetual summer. We are above the clouds and everything is invisible. The clouds envelop the train like a pall, and we are conscious of only one thing; we are plunging down the mountain with breaks down, and with the descent of one hundred and thirty-three feet to the mile. ”

“ Should the man succeed in planting the banderillas, the crowd shower cigars and flowers and fans upon him and shout bravo! bravo! Should the bull succeed in thrusting his horns through the man’s equatorial region and toss him in the air, the crowd shout bravo torus! just the same and cheer and whistle. They paid their money to see blood and what does it matter if it be man or bull’s? At this point it is proper for the American ladies to faint and come to and hurry out, while the Mexicans laugh at people who leave before the fun begins. ”

“ Caste distinctions are drawn as tight as steel wires, and a peon would no more resent an insult from a Spaniard than if he were a superior being. They are fatalists, and accept their lot as their portion. Before the law they are all equal, but if the aristocracy should appropriate a particular park or street or sidewalk, the rabble would cower and huddle near the edge but would no more trespass than if it were an enchanted spot. ”

“ The little proprieties which most people attach to a bath do not seem to trouble these innocent people, especially when an orthodox bath-house charges a quarter of a dollar for what the city gives free gratis for nothing. If cleanliness is next to godliness, these people must be away up in the line of promotion, for from sunrise to sunset, I have seen every rod of this canal a moving panorama of black-haired swimmers, men, women and children, while the banks were white with drying laundry. ”

“ We were looking at the statue of the patriot, Hidalgo. My young Mexican friend said: “Hidalgo is our patron saint, he freed us from Spain; who is yours?” I said that I was a protestant and had no patron saint. “But,” he said, “you must have one. We were subjects of Spain, and Hidalgo started the revolution that made us free. Therefore he was canonized and became our patron, and now we pray to him when we want favors. Your people were once slaves and got your freedom from the Americans, and you must have had a leader, else how could ten million slaves vanquish sixty million Americans?” ”

“ Leather and straw hats and baskets were all done by hand, and what a busy city! For squares and squares, every doorway revealed a hive of busy workers, for Guadalajara must supply the country a hundred miles around, and forever, and forever, the pack-trains from the Pacific country and the mountains come and go with the exchange of commerce. It is the busiest city I have yet found here and the people are happy. Saddles and hats and hammocks and baskets and pottery and shoes are made by the thousand tons and all by hand or the crudest of foot-power machinery. ”

“ In Tlalpam you walk a block between high walls to the cross street, and do the same to the next and the next, and you can imagine how delightful it is, “Straight without scenery.” You must not forget that none of the streets have shade trees. So after I had admired all the beautiful stone walls and stone pavements, a wicket was suddenly opened to pass someone in, and I got a flashing glance of languid señoras and señoritas taking their siesta in hammocks swung between lime trees redolent with fragrance and—some one shut the gate. ”

“ When a purchaser is found, down goes that right hand, fingers and all to the bottom of the jar, and as it comes up full, the white, ropy fluid frescoes with its sticky streamers everything in reach. In their anxiety to out-sell each other, the anxious eyes are scanning every window for engagements while the right hand mechanically is immersed to the wrist in the larger vessel. At one cent a drink, and often as many vendors as purchasers, two or three cents is the average revenue these people make from a train that passes only twice a day. ”

“ It knows no mercy and no emotion of charity ever nerves the stony heart of the priesthood, which, with an avarice that knows no limit, filches the last penny from the diseased and dying beggar, plunders the widows and orphans of their substance as well as their virtue, and casts such a horoscope of horrors around the death-bed of the dying millionaire, that the poor, superstitious wretch is glad to purchase a chance for the safety of his soul in making the church the heir of his treasure. ”

“ Montezuma’s favorite cypress tree, which measures fifty feet in circumference, is as green today as any tree in the beautiful park of Chapultepec, and nowhere outside the pages of the Arabian Nights is there such an enchanting, living story as can be seen every day in the City of Mexico. ”

“ The servants are models of their kind. With their sandaled feet they glide about without noise and do their work without murmur. You leave your soiled linen in their charge and find it on your bed as white as snow. They receive your gratuity with a thousand thanks and profound obeisance, stumble over their own feet to do you some unnecessary service, and as soon as off duty they offer to guide you about the city. ”

“ If the stroke is successful, the sword flashes a moment in the air and the next its hilt is resting against the shoulder blades, and the bull falls as if struck by lightning. Then the air is rent with shouts and dollars and fans and handkerchiefs, and with one foot upon the dead animal, the matador bows his appreciation. The bugle blows, the two lazadores gallop in, throw their lariats over the two hind legs of the bull, and without checking their gallop, drag him out and prepare for another. A bull is killed every fifteen minutes as regular as the clock. ”

“ Still down the Lerma from Acambaro is the Hacienda de Robles extending thirty-three kilometers on each side of the river, and which furnishes hundreds of peons, and still further is the city of Irapuata, the perpetual home of the strawberry. For three hundred and sixty-five days in the year no train has ever passed Irapuata without strawberries being offered for sale, for in this rich valley it is perpetual seedtime and harvest. The whole year is springtime, and the energies of all the people are devoted to strawberries. ”

“ If your early education has been neglected in the line of precious stones, you will do well to let these pirates pass, for they are Shylocks all, these black-eyed natives.
One will look you in the eye, cross himself and swear by all the saints that fifty dollars or nothing will move his opal.
If you know your business and the price of opals, you have the money in your hand, and as the train starts, hold the silver temptingly before his eyes, and rare is the case when this will not “fetch” him.
An opal may be precious, but to a hungry man, silver is more precious. ”

“ Stretching across the fertile valley the shadows point to Popocatapetl, only six leagues away, but the diaphanous atmosphere would make you believe it only one. The ancient capital is now a compact village of six thousand people, as silent and bereft of enterprise as though it dwelt under the spell of the Enchanted City in the Arabian Nights. ”

“ You have climbed to a height of 8,000 feet and see no indication of a city until the train crosses the crest. At night when the city is a blaze of light it surpasses anything seen outside of Fairyland, as the train winds in{284} a spiral down into town, dropping 136 feet to the mile. At the station the mules have pulled up the street cars and gone back to town, and as you get aboard the driver loosens the brake and lets the car roll into town by gravity. Like the nests of swallows clinging to the cliffs are the houses of Zacatecas, perched far up where it seems only a goat could climb. ”

“ It is said that when an Indian earns two dollars, he gives one to the priest, forty-five cents for pulque, and supports his family with the remainder. As bad as that may look in print, I can say it is not far from an actual fact. Stand in front of that four million dollar church with all its useless finery, and then gaze at the thousands of beggars that crowd its steps and overflow to the street, who have to sit down to hide their nakedness and to better support their weak stomachs, and draw your own conclusion. ”

“ The land of Montezuma; the spoil of Cortez; the treasure-house of Spain; the modern Mexico, where fact and fancy so mingle with romance and fable, that we hardly know when we have reached historical data. ”

“ Everywhere, for miles and miles of landscape, the eye meets only the bare rock and brown earth, with here and there the ever-present cactus and its kind.
What wonder is it that nearly all these plateau people are beggars, when the water for their very existence must be drawn from the locomotive tanks each day as the train passes? Far across the treeless plain they see the smoke of the locomotive, and from every adobe hut and{13} straw-thatched jackal swarm the eager-eyed women, carrying the empty five-gallon cans of the Standard Oil Company, or their smaller ollas of burnt earthenware. ”

“ A country with such a prohibitive tariff shuts out her only source of revenue on imports, and exports nothing of importance but money, so how can she survive except by robbing the people? The country is very poor, the State of South Carolina producing two and a half times as much as the entire northern half of Mexico, and if you compare them by proportionate areas, twenty-five times as much. The interminable system of taxation is the most despicable system on American soil. ”

“ Saltillo as seen from the rear is disappointing. Most towns are painted white, but here the dull, wearied-looking sun-baked adobe houses are not pleasing. We visit a high school for young ladies and wonder that all this youthful beauty can bide this dull town, and that reminds me that there is not a mixed school in all Mexico, even the kindergartens being separate. You do not need to visit the primary schools, as you can hear all you wish a block away. The noise that first greets you will remind you of the last inning at the base-ball park when everybody is asking who killed the umpire. ”

“ LA VIGA CANAL. ON the side-walk adjacent to the western entrance to the cathedral is an iron and glass Kiosk. This is Mexico’s flower market. Every morning in the year from daybreak until eight o’clock, the sidewalk and the adjoining street is one mass of fragrance and color. Every flower you know and as many as you do not know are spread in the greatest profusion possible, which fact suggests an inexhaustible supply-house somewhere. ”

“ The sun was shining upon a landscape over which clouds never hover. You pull your overcoat around you on this cold July day, and look through your closed windows for the other canard—the landscape. The landscape is all there according to the book, and for that you are thankful, but how changed! As far as the eye can reach and ten times farther are beautiful rock-colored rocks, and dust-colored dust and thorny thorns and dust-hidden sky. ”

“ The usual method is to take a crow-bar and dig a hole among the rocks and give it just enough earth to hold the roots and it will do the rest. There is nothing more beautiful than a maguey farm on the plains of Tlaxcala, with the plants set ten feet each way and spread over the plain for forty or fifty miles. The plants are so green they seem to have a blue tint, and the rows are so symmetrical, no matter which way you look, your vision will focus to a point in the distance where all rows converge to the vanishing point like the rails of a railroad on level ground. ”

“ The Indians make a good living by gathering the pods and selling them in Jalapa, which is the chief market for vanilla. They also gather from these woods sarsaparilla, which has its home here. All druggists keep on their shelves a drug called Jalap, which grows here and gets its name from the old town of Jalapa. With pine-apples and plantains and limes and apricots and pomegranates and bread fruit and sugar and coffee and tobacco all growing at their doors, what wonder is it that the people all say, “Jalapa is a bit of heaven dropped down to earth.” ”

“ I can think of no American equivalent, except a corduroy log bridge, or driving across the railroad tracks in a switch-yard.
The gutter is always in the middle of the street, which is a foot or more lower than the rest. An American has gained a concession to lay one street with Texas vitrified brick, and let us hope it is a fore-runner of others. But, come to think of it, it might work a hardship to a time-honored custom; an innovation to some might prove an iconoclast to the church. ”

“ In the families of the Spanish and French, pulque is never taken, but wines, champagne and sherry, are the household drinks, and the great national drink of America, lager beer, is slowly adding the dignified William goat and the overflowing schooner to the pictorial decorations of the Mexican house-fronts. The amount of liquid refreshments these people, especially the women, can embrace within their anatomy is astonishing. ”