Désiré Charnay

“ The air is crisp, the sun, though hot, is bearable, and when, after three hours’ march, we reach the high mountain ridge, we pause to admire in silence the finest panorama in the world: the two great volcanoes to our right and left, the plain of Puebla on our rear, whilst before us stretches the marvellous plain of Mexico, every detail of which is distinctly visible in this clear atmosphere. ”

“ The degree of culture of a nation can be gauged from its religion, and notably its ideas of a future life. The beauty and eloquence-loving Greek discoursed upon philosophy walking under noble porticoes; the thoughts of the barbarous worshipper of Woden were of bloody fights, and of wassail in which he drank hydromel out of his enemies’ skulls; the Arab goes to sleep cradled on the lap of houris; the Red Indian dreams of endless hunting-fields, whilst the starving Bushman hopes for a heaven of plenty. ”

“ We cross a muddy river, when, with cracking of whip and galloping horses, we enter a village shaded by great ash-trees, and draw up before a respectable-looking inn, where we take up our quarters, for we are in Tula, once the brilliant capital of the Toltecs, but now reduced to a small straggling town numbering some 1,500 souls. ”

“ Now we come to a fortress-like church, formerly used as a stronghold by the Pronunciados; we notice for the first time some stunted poplars, some rare willow-trees, and by-and-by hedges of prickly pear, and now that we are in the diligence, the country somewhat changes; instead of long stretches of green maize, we have immense plantations of aloe, which to my mind, whether viewed from afar or near, are never a picturesque feature in the landscape. It is a wonder how we advance at all, for the wheels of our carriage almost disappear in the ruts of the worst road I ever travelled upon ”

“ There is hardly a soul to be met on the road, save at rare intervals some carts loaded with henequen; some natives returning from the next village, the women veiling their faces or turning their backs upon us at our approach; now a company of reserve on their way to the front or homeward-bound, for the borders are strictly guarded against a coup de main from the revolted natives.
We stop at Cacalchen; for our early start, the crisp morning air, and the jolting of the road, have sharpened our appetites. We breakfast under a shaded verandah opening into a central court planted with cocoa-trees. ”

“ The guests are arriving very fast, filling already the courtyard, and the immense open space fronting the house which has been turned into a circus. Opposite to this is the ballroom, a leafy bower of flowering shrubs and evergreens; here and there are booths supplying thirsty customers with fiery staventum and English beer; and ere long these people, usually so grave and silent, make the whole place resound with the hubbub of thousands of voices and peals of merry laughter and joyful cries. The bulls have come; the circus is invaded by an immense multitude, all eager to see the sport. ”

“ If we examine the stairways, which on both sides of the courtyard of the palace connected the two edifices, we shall find the steps unworn, the stairs new; yet communication must have been incessant, and if for long ages thousands of people descended and ascended these stairs, would not the wear and tear be traceable?
The stairs of our public buildings are worn away in no time; if we find them entire at Palenque, it is a proof that they were not long trodden. ”

“ We reach Merida after a run of three hours over a distance of ten leagues, where we learn that no hotel or house is to be found, and it is only after searching the whole place that we can at last secure a room of some fifteen feet square, in which my two companions and myself have to settle down. There is but one atrociously bad restaurant where to get any kind of food; our thoughts, however, are taken up with exploring the ruins rather than with a good maître d’hôtel; we find, besides, a small Anglo-American colony, and in their midst our abominable fare is soon forgotten. ”

“ This church is one of the finest to be seen in Mexico. The steeple, with its three orders of columns rising on three successive tiers, is striking for its elegance and fine proportions.
We alight here without much hope of being comfortable, for the only accommodation is a meson, with a courtyard giving access to bare rooms paved with bricks, devoid of any furniture, and where privacy is impossible, for anybody may come and lie alongside of you. ”

“ This remarkable legend, which was popular with all the Indian tribes, was one of the most powerful auxiliaries of the Spanish conquerors, in whom the simple Indians thought they recognised the lofty stature, noble mien, clear complexion, and blue eyes, of the deity they had so long expected.
But talking of Cholula has made us forget that the train is going to start: the guards, hurrying in every direction to look for us, summon us into our carriages, the signal is given, and we speed away. ”

“ With regard to my theory on the relatively recent period of American civilisation and its Toltec origin, I am far from being the first in upholding it, since Stephens and Humboldt affirmed it some fifty years ago, whilst all the ancient chroniclers implied it. Is ancient Egypt less interesting because her MSS. are now read and her origin known? Why then should the people who raised the American monuments be less deserving of our regard, because they built them ten centuries sooner or ten centuries later? Does it alter the character of the monuments, or destroy an art unknown to us hitherto? ”

“ We give here the drawing of a diminutive ancient temple in terra-cotta, to be seen in the Trocadéro, and which we found on the Uplands of Mexico. It consists of a pyramid with three or four stories, and a temple crowning its summit, with projecting cornices surmounted by a decorative wall, pierced by holes exactly like the temple at Lorillard, at Tikal, and the Pigeon House at Uxmal. The most prejudiced mind cannot but acknowledge the resemblance and similarity of design in the religious architecture of the plateaux, and that of Chiapas, Tabasco, Yucatan, and Guatemala. ”

“ There is positively nothing worthy of remark with regard to our road, save here and there a palm or cedar-tree towering like a giant over the thick underwood overrun with flowering lianas, peopled with great sky-blue butterflies, whose wings are tipped with black; for the whole country to the east and south of Citas is a vast scene of desolation. Pisté, where we arrive, stands on the extreme border of the state; it has been so often sacked and burnt by the revolted natives, that the only building left is the church, occupied by a company of twenty-five men. ”

“ The sea is like an immense sheet of glass, the heavens radiant with stars; our boat draws very little water, so that we skirt close to the shore, and are able to follow the graceful panorama which unfolds before us; and in the morning early we cast anchor four miles off Campeche because of the high surf, but the outline of which is plainly visible. ”

“ Moreover, by far the largest proportion of these granite or porphyry beads, whether owing to their great antiquity or their having lain in a very destructive soil, crumbled away at our touch. Broadly speaking, the tombs which had not been disturbed were two to one; the dead had been buried without any regard to their position.
We are not yet inured to our life at an altitude of 13,000 feet, and our daily ascensions are painful in the extreme; our faces literally peel in this sharp wind and hot sun, whilst our hands are frightfully chapped, and almost paralysed. ”

“ Vera Cruz, to those who are used to its climate, is a very pleasant abode, and though in some respects not so desirable as many European cities, life here, on account of the great heat, is easier, fuller, more satisfying. Wines are not dearer than in Paris; fish is both plentiful and excellent; tropical fruit of every kind is to be found in the market, as well as all the feathered tribe, varying from the laughing-bird and the parrot to the beautiful red and green Aras of Tabasco. ”

“ The Toltec is the only one whose aspirations beyond the grave are free from grossness and cruelty; his heaven is a resting-place for the weary, a perpetual spring, amidst flowers, fields of yellow maize, verdure and flowers.
From these graver matters we will pass to the legend, told by Veytia, which makes Papantzin the inventor of pulque ”

“ A deplorable change for the worse is already observable in the character of the Indians of Tabasco and Chiapas since the Suffrage Bill, which by making them partly independent of the whites, has also made them idle, insolent, treacherous, and depraved. A sad look-out for times to come. But even granting that all happens for the best, is there much probability that the Indian will have time to develop his natural resources before the Anglo-Saxon invasion shall have confined him for ever to the lower ranks in the social scale? ”

“ The hacienda is no longer the dismal habitation of former days; on its site is reared an imposing pile of building, containing lofty apartments, surrounded by open cloisters. A sugar factory gives employment to a large number of hands, while a tramway connects it with the sugar plantations, and facilitates the transport to the mill. All is bustle, movement, and noise; but the place is now as unhealthy as ever, and the mayor-domo himself is a martyr to fever and ague.
The ruins are some two thousand yards beyond. ”

“ They are not pleasant to look at, presenting to the eye nothing but distortions, funeral piles and dislocations; all the tortures, in fact, which the perverted ingenuity of man has devised to harass his fellow-creatures. Among them, some are lifting to heaven their gory heads, whose blood is streaming down to their feet, whilst others are stretching out their freshly-stunted arms and calcined limbs. At no time can the priests of Huitzilopochtli have sanctioned more harrowing suffering, or consented, in their religious frenzy, to more revolting practices. ”

“ The Paraïsians are perfectly satisfied with their condition in life; their wishes are few, and such as the fertility of the soil will easily meet; want is unknown, life easy, the climate admits of but the scantiest clothing, and if they have more than their share of rain, they are troubled with fewer mosquitoes than most of their neighbours. In fact, these charming people are fully convinced that all is for the best in this best of worlds, and that if Paraïso is not heaven itself, it is not far from it. ”

“ The coast along the Atlantic is a vast sandy plain, diversified by marshes peopled with herons, wild ducks, iguanas, and serpents, which are almost impervious from thickets of aromatic shrubs and wild flowers, in the midst of which tower magnificent trees; but the sound of no voice ever breaks on this wilderness in which lurks the malaria, save the hoarse cry of a wild animal, the passing of an eagle-fisher, or the whirling of a vulture in quest of some easy prey. ”

“ The civility I experienced with regard to my mission was very welcome and flattering to my self-respect, the good canon presenting me with an obsidian sceptre, a marvel of workmanship, now to be seen in the Trocadéro. This people, unlike the Mexicans of the Uplands, are good men of business, and what trade or industry the country possesses is entirely in their own hands. They have the characteristics of a race in its manhood, enduring, self-possessed, patient, and industrious. ”

“ Jajalun stands on the declivities of the Cordillera, sloping down towards the Pacific; the hills are clad with dark forests of pines, whilst fields show signs of careful cultivation, where black beans intervene with golden harvests of maize. The population has a good sprinkling of half-castes or meztizos, who speak Spanish and live like the ancient aborigines, in houses built with mud coated over with plaster; their manners are those of the villages of the Mexican plateaux, rather than of the settlements we have just visited. Anteburros, “tapirs,” people the forests and the streams. ”

“ The Indian is fond of money, his delight is to hoard, yet he is no better for it, as regards his daily life; he has all the instinct of a miser without its benefit; for your miser enjoys his money, he visits it by stealth, spends his time in counting, in contemplating it, whereas the Indian buries his hoardings out of sight; the satisfaction of knowing that he is rich is all-sufficient for him, and he does not care for the things which his gold would procure. The Valley of Oaxaca, which for generations supplied the world with cochineal, is supposed to have millions of money buried underground. ”

“ A gallery, extending over the whole length of the building, is reached by twenty steps, where a hammock, comfortable arm-chairs, and a writing-desk raised on a platform are found, from which the mayor-domo can watch unobserved the proceedings of the establishment. This hacienda works its own henequen, employing some 1,200 hands; a strict discipline is observed, and apart from the monotonous chant of the youngsters, the low murmuring of the women, no sound is heard save that of the machinery or the wheel at the Noria, in constant movement for the requirements of the whole establishment. ”

“ The ancient capital of Chiapas rises on a narrow plateau more than 7,000 feet above the level of the ocean, with a population of some 12,000 inhabitants; its climate is colder and damper than that of Mexico, and if we except the church of S. Domingo, possesses no edifice of interest. The houses are all built on the same pattern, and few are more than one story high, with no outer ornamentation of any kind. It looks what it really is, a poor, miserable place.
The market of S. Cristobal is the only one in Mexico where bags of cocoa are still used as currency, as in the time of Montezuma. ”

“ We were up at early dawn, when we found under the thatched verandah a number of Don Peon’s servants, with hatchets and machetes, awaiting our orders for clearing the main pyramid, and while so engaged, we proposed to visit a cenoté lying on the other side of a thick wood containing various ruins. This hacienda is stocked with horned cattle, and we were warned to provide against garrapatas, the most terrible wood-lice in existence. We had taken, or fancied we had taken, all the precautions which the ingenuity of man, alarmed at the approach of danger, could devise. ”

“ Some look quite pretty, with their glorious eyes, their long hair reaching below the waist in two long plaits, with glass or stone beads around their necks; their scanty costume leaving uncovered their shapely arms, necks, and ankles. On looking at them, I seem to myself to be carried back a thousand years amidst that grand old race whose ruins I am here to study. ”