Mexican Plateau

“ In fine, and ever due, wholly or in part, to the atmosphere, the Mexican of the Central Plateau—and so much the less as the altitude of the region where he lives is greater—has never been able to count upon the future, either for his life, or for his health, or for his fields, or for his mines, or for his daily bread ”

“ The interior of Mexico consists of a mass of volcanic rocks, thrust up to a great height above the sea-level. The plateau of Mexico is 8,000 feet high, and that of Puebla 9,000 feet. This central mass consists principally of a greyish trachytic porphyry, in some places rich in veins of silver-ore. The tops of the hills are often crowned with basaltic columns, and a soft porous amygdaloid abounds on the outskirts of the Mexican valley. ”

“ Compared with the age of this large, deep valley, which is sufficiently old to have what were once the precipitous bounding walls of a great cañon now rounded off into sloping mountains, the Mexican plateau, of hundreds of miles in extent (at an altitude of eight thousand feet more or less) , which is dissected for a distance of only forty miles, is of great age. Here again the elevation of the tableland has been too recent to have been converted into rugged mountain ridges and deep valleys. ”

“ A large Mexican "hacienda", or farmhouse.
The climate of the plateau is delightful. No fires are needed to keep one's house warm, roses and violets bloom, and green peas are in season all the year. Most of the people of Mexico live here. ”

“ Four-wheeled wagons can travel from Mexico to Santa Fé. The plateau whose levelling is here described is formed solely by the broad undulating flattened crest of the chain of the Mexican Andes; it is not the swelling of a valley between two mountain chains, such as the Great Basin between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada of California in the Northern Hemisphere; or the elevated plateau of the Lake of Titicaca, between the eastern and northern chains of Bolivia ”

“ The greatest part of this territory has never been occupied or even explored by the Mexicans, and the thin population in the settled parts of it proves that they never had put great value upon it. The greater inducements which the South of Mexico offered on account of mines, climate, commerce, etc., have concentrated there the seven or eight millions of inhabitants that compose the Mexican nation, allowing but a small portion of them for the northern provinces. One half of this northern territory may in fact be a desert, and entirely worthless for agriculture ”

“ Half way up the stony slope, facing the lovely city which lies on the opposite side of the valley, rich in brilliantly colored domes and towers, with sunny fields and shaded avenues stretching about the course of the small Rio, and the pale, shadowy mountains filling the blue distance, stand the three stone crosses marking the scene of the tragedy whose shadow rests yet on many hearts. On the quiet plain between, in that June dawning, the Mexican army was drawn up to see the last act of the short drama. ”

“ Bold explorers, guided by intelligence received from the Indians, had even penetrated the interior of the isthmus, and from the summit of the central mountain barrier had [Pg 19] gazed with delight upon the placid waves of the Pacific. But the vast indentation of the Mexican Gulf, sweeping far away in an apparently interminable circuit to the west, had not yet been penetrated. The field for romantic adventure which these unexplored realms presented could not, however, long escape the eye of that chivalrous age.
Mexico is discovered.
Arts and sciences of the Mexicans. ”

“ It is an unquestionable fact that the Mexican robbers, whose exploits have become a matter of world-wide notoriety, all belong to the cold region of the plateaus, the tierra fría. Once down in the tierra templada, or the tierra caliente, the temperate or the hot regions, you hear no more of them; or at least this is the case in the parts of Mexico we visited. The reason is clear; it is only on the plateaus that the whites, preferring a region where the climate was not unlike that of Castile, settled in large numbers ”

“ To the stay-at-home American, Mexico is only a sun-scorched desert. In reality, it is a land of everything—of sandy wastes, of rugged mountains, of rank tropical jungles, of temperate valleys—of lowlands bathed in moist tropic heat, of midlands where strawberries are always ripe, even of highlands swept eternally by chilling winds. Yet always there is some intangible spirit about it that makes it unmistakably Mexico, especially upon the bleak plateau. ”

“ 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? ”

“ But, if the remains on the Mexican soil are so scanty, they multiply as we descend the southeastern slope of the Cordilleras, traverse the rich Valley of Oaxaca, and penetrate the forests of Chiapa and Yucatan. In the midst of these lonely regions we meet with the ruins, recently discovered, of several ancient cities, Mitla, Palenque, and Itzalana or Uxmal, [429] which argue a higher civilization{259} than anything yet found on the American continent ”

“ The great Saxon wave that is now sweeping over Mexico is of course irresistible, and the Mexican's recognition of it, and of his own impotency in arresting it, tends to enrage and exasperate. But though it will be impossible to stay the progress of that southward-sweeping deluge, which threatens to obliterate race distinctions and even the autonomy of Mexico, yet it is most absurd for any American to go there thinking to wrest a living from the soil. ”

“ The great central plateaus of Mexico, with their extensive level plains and gently undulating elevations, afford unusual facilities for the rapid construction of long trunk lines connecting the south of Mexico with all important points on the United States frontier. Three such lines have been planned; namely, the Mexican Central, the Mexican National, and the International. Of these the main line is the Mexican Central, traversing the great dorsal ridge of the high table-land. ”

“ Gathered round the shores of their Alpine sea, these petty communities continued, after their incorporation with the Aztec monarchy, to maintain a spirit of rivalry in their intercourse with one another, which—as with the cities on the Mediterranean in the feudal ages—quickened their mental energies, and raised the Mexican Valley higher in the scale of civilization than most other quarters of Anahuac. ”

“ Moreover, the existence of Aztec civilization, an organized empire with cities built of stone and rich in gold and gems, burst upon the Old World as a thing almost beyond belief.
The purpose of the present work is to afford some connected account of this pre-Spanish culture, and to correlate the accounts of eyewitnesses and early visitors with the material remains which the investigations of later times have revealed. But in order to obtain a proper view of Mexican culture it is necessary to transcend the limits of Mexico itself. ”

“ New Mexico, it must be remembered, is more Indian and Mexican than American by a proportion of three to one, and includes a sprinkling of negro and Chinese. The Indian lends a touch of the primitive; the Mexican brings Spain into the picture. In doorways painted sky blue or lavender, swarthy women gossip, in mantilla and fringed black shawl. Against a shady wall, in sash and sombrero, all but too lazy to light the inevitable cigarette, slouches a Mexican who should be working. ”

“ We now ascend the steep upper zone of the Sierra Madre, and cross it, descending thence to the Great Plateau or mesa central, the dominating topographical feature of the country. Here lies the real Mexico of history, and here is the main theatre of the new land of industrial awakening. Within the mountain ranges—that which we have crossed, and those which intersect this vast tableland and bound it on three sides—lies the great wealth of minerals—gold, silver, and others—which have attracted men of all races and all times since Cortes came. ”

“ Afterwards I became accustomed to this unusual formation, when I found that mountains always grow that way in the Far West, and particularly farther on in New Mexico and Arizona. All their ranges seemed like elongated "Wrekins" set in a plain of gigantic dimensions.
At Aguilar, half-way on the road to Trinidad, I met the first really Mexican town. It will be remembered that all the south-western States once belonged to Mexico and one by one they have been ceded or bought or otherwise appropriated until Mexico now is only a shadow of its former self. ”

“ There is no people who take less interest in the rare features of their beautiful country than the Mexicans. Nature charms them not. A Mexican dwelling with a garden around it is a rarity—a lawn or a shrubbery is never seen ”

“ The rock-formation of Mexican landscape gives rise to exceedingly picturesque and romantic scenery in places, and to diverse configurations of striking beauty, among which we shall often draw rein as we journey, or which will attract us continually to the observation-point of our Pullman car as the train winds along. Upon the Gulf of Mexico or the Pacific slopes the territory is grand and broken in the extreme, and presents curious and beautiful examples of rock-scenery. The natural monoliths of the barrancas of the State of Hidalgo are strange examples of scenic geology ”

“ It was not long that this quarrelsome people could live together without fighting amongst themselves, and ten or fifteen years after the founding of the city the two parties—the Mexicans and the Tlatelolcans—separated, the latter going to a still smaller island near the main one. The Mexicans, however, kept the god, and, though their neighbors were more progressive at first, were in the end triumphant. Though for a while each faction had a separate government and its king, the Mexican is the one that finally absorbed the other, and whose history we shall mainly follow. ”

“ As to the peculiar phase of Mexican art, and whatever other evidence of progress Mexico supplies, they appear to me no more than natural products of the first successful intrusion of the barbarians of the northern continent on the seats of tropical civilisation. Certain it seems, at least, that if an earlier civilisation had ever existed in the north, or if the representatives of any Old World type were present there in numbers for any length of time, some traces of their lost arts must long since have come to light. ”

“ Though the ancient history of Mexico commences with the annals of the Toltecs, it is believed the country was inhabited by a wild people before this race came into prominence. There were the Olmecs and Xicalancas, the Otomies and Tepanecs—we are speaking now of the Mexican valley. Then, also, if we may believe the traditions, there were giants in those days. But we may find that the history of every people begins with fables and traditions regarding giants, and a great flood that may have occurred before or after the arrival of the giants upon the earth. ”

“ After the Indians had tendered their submission, they were shown the horses, and when struck by their neighing were told that these wonderful creatures were angry because they had fought against them. The innocent natives then craved their pardon, and offered them turkey-hens and roses to eat, as did the Indians of Peten some years later. By sailing up the river Tabasco, a point may be reached, in the season of high water, whence a journey of two days overland will bring one to those grandest of Mexican ruins, the group of Palenque; and it is but a few days' travel to Chiapas and the Pacific. ”

“ The Spanish chroniclers mention Iztapalapán, and many other towns, as built in this way. Like the Swiss tribes, the early inhabitants of Mexico depended much upon their fishing, for which their position gave them great facilities.
If you look at the arms of the Mexican Republic, on a passport or a silver dollar, you will see a representation of a rock surrounded by water. On the rock grows a cactus, and on the cactus sits an eagle with a serpent in his beak. ”

“ A crowd of women follow close in the rear of a Mexican army; almost every soldier having some woman who belongs to him, and who carries a heavy load of Indian corn and babies, and cooks tortillas for her lord and master. The number of these poor creatures who perished in the war was very great.
We spent much of our time at Tisapán in collecting plants, and exploring the lava-field, and the cañada, or ravine, that leads up into the mountains that skirt the valley of Mexico. ”

“ Numberless manuscripts have been rescued from monastic limbo, the caked dust of centuries has been scraped away from scores of volumes in the public archives, and the searchlights of modern scientific investigation have been turned upon places that once seemed hopelessly dark. As if this were not enough, explorers from many lands have plunged into the depths of the Mexican forests, and penetrated the quebradas of the Andes, in{xvi} attempts to wrest from them the secrets of their ancient history. ”