Mexico

“ Mexico owes much of its peculiar beauty to the religious or superstitious feelings of its inhabitants. At every step we see a white cross gleaming amongst the trees, in a solitary path, or on the top of some rugged and barren rock—a symbol of faith in the desert place; and wherever the footsteps of man have rested, and some three or four have gathered together, there, while the ruined huts proclaim the poverty of the inmates, the temple of God rises in comparative splendour. ”

“ Oh, not the dry, barren border country, but my Mexico, rich with jewels and gold, studded with magnificent cities, flowering with rare fruits and 222 spices, a mellow, golden, matchless land, peopled by those who are skilled in arts and science, lovers of beauty, and—Ah, you do not know Mexico. You know only the half-breed savages who run the borderland, preying on Mexican and American alike. You do not know the real Mexico of beautiful women, and brave and gallant men. ”

“ With such germs of wealth hidden in her soil, what was needed to make Mexico one of the master-nations but men? What, to crowd her ports with ships, to make her borders pleasant with the hum of industry, and to fill her storehouses with its products, but the same sagacity and energy which have made the sterile hills of New England populous, and which are now transforming the prairies of the West into one broad cornfield? Was it surprising, then, that fifty years ago men were dreaming great things of Mexico? ”

“ The Preclassical was the foundation for the development and subsequent splendor of ancient Mexico. It was almost six millennia of, forging by ourselves, one of the oldest and most important civilizations in the world, of which we are, today, undisputed legitimate heirs.
Contemporary Mexico has its deepest foundations in this formative period. Hence stems our basic diet, nature’s curative wisdom and our way of interacting with it; our unconscious relationship with education; our forms of social organization, are all deeply rooted in those nearly six thousand years of human development. ”

“ How much I would like to paint the beauties of Mexico in colors so faithful that the people in the States could see what they are losing by not coming here. How I would like to show you the green valley where the heat of summer and blast of winter never dare approach; where every foot of ground recalls wonderful historical events, extinct races of men and animals, and civilization older by far than the pyramids. ”

“ How exceedingly fortunate is Mexico in the location of her cities! If great rivers elsewhere flow by great towns, as Nature is said to condescend to man, here, for lack of great rivers, she surrounds the chief towns with superb circles of field, lake, wood, and hills—always the last, and one or more of the other three. Mexico has lakes for her chief circlet, a necklace of pearls: Puebla and Queretaro and Leon, fields of greenest green and brownest brown; Guanajuato is bound about with mountains only and closely; and San Luis Potosi with forests, a necklace of emeralds. ”

“ As has been remarked, Mexico is a land of many capital cities. From the City of Mexico, northward along the plateau and southward, eastward, and westward, we may visit a score of handsome State capitals, a hundred towns, and an endless succession of remote villages and hamlets. Their environments embrace every change of scenery—from arid plains and rocky steeps to fertile valleys; and the larger communities share the quaint—if not always hygienic—disposition and atmosphere of their especial national character. ”

“ The early study of Mexico is, to those who can view it from its romantic side, and put up with its troublesome, unpronounceable names, as attractive as the landscape of the plateau, where the two lofty volcanoes, snow-capped, are enhanced by the movement of heavy clouds, and the play of sunshine on their lineaments. In the foreground may be seen well-built cities, with the domes and towers of many a church, regular streets, pleasant plazuelas shaded with trees, bright and perfumed with flowers. ”

“ Mexico, that southern land lying stretched between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, upon the tapering base of North America, is a country whose name is fraught with colour and meaning. The romance of its history envelops it in an atmosphere of adventure whose charm even the prosaic years of the twentieth century have not entirely dispelled, and the magnetism of the hidden wealth of its soil still invests it with some of the attraction it held for the old Conquistadores. ”

“ Pretty gardens are scattered lavishly around them, and smiling villages and haciendas peep out in every direction from the groves in which they are imbosomed. But, conspicuous above all, is the city of Mexico, — containing a population of two hundred thousand souls — the most ancient, as it is the most splendid capital on the Western Continent! ”

“ There is one peculiar charm in the towns of Mexico, and that is the perfect straightness of the streets, along which the eye wanders till the point of sight terminates in the blue hills of the country. In Mexico especially I was never tired gazing upon the mountains which bound the horizon upon all sides. ”

“ On the other hand, Mexico is like a ripe pear, ready to fall into the lap of any unscrupulous adventurer who chooses to make common plunder of its churches, its church jewels, and the inordinate private fortunes of its priesthood and nobility. ”

“ The letters which form this volume were written in a period of delightful leisure, when I was receiving my first impressions of Mexico. The might and beauty of the great Spanish civilization, set in a frame of exceeding natural loveliness, kindled new enthusiasms, and to it all was added the spectacle of that most passionately personal of human games, Mexican politics. ”

“ Thus by war and literature, by ancient curiosity and political sympathy, by geographical position and commercial interest, Mexico has become perhaps the most interesting portion of the world to our countrymen at the present moment. And I have been led to believe that the American people would not receive unfavorably a work designed to describe the entire country, to develop its resources and condition, and to sketch impartially its history from the conquest to the present day. ”

“ The city of Mexico is something more than ninety miles from Puebla. The road ascends gradually through a fertile rolling country, checquered with beautiful gardens and hedges of cactus, with fields of maize and plantations of the aloe, until it reaches the tierra fria, or cold region, "the third and last of the great natural terraces into which the country is divided." ”

“ Mexico is a country in which the old predominates. The American visitor will bring back more distinct recollections of the Egyptian carts and plows, the primitive manners and customs, than he will of the evidences of modern civilization. An educated Mexican whom I met, chided the Americans for this tendency, for, said he, “all that is written of Mexico is descriptive of the Indians and their habits, while progressive Mexico is ignored.” This is to a great extent true, for it is the unique and ancient that attracts and holds the attention of the traveller. ”

“ By this single abstract from the history of Mexico at that period we may see that, while the British colonies in America were struggling for independence, the Spanish colonists of America were delving in the mines to furnish the mother country with money to carry on her wars. While our forefathers were fighting to free our country from tyranny the Mexicans were riveting yet more strongly the golden chains that bound them to their oppressor! ”

“ SANTA ANNA.
The story of Mexico becomes so confused after the fall of the Empire of Agustin I. that it is difficult to understand. "Plans," pronunciamentos, revolutions, restorations, followed each other in quick succession. Generals, dictators, presidents, sprang from the soil ready-made, to exercise for a few days their brief authority, and vanish as quickly.
A few prominent names constantly recur, clinging to the wheel of fortune, which turned at that time in Mexico with singular swiftness. ”

“ Revillagigedo was calumniated and persecuted by certain enemies, and withdrew to Spain in 1794.
Mexico during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries offers no picturesque situations to describe at length. In fact, the history of the country is like some pictures with admirable background and sky full of clouds and light, the foreground crowded with emotional detail, all of great interest, but absolutely lacking in middle distance. ”

“ For look again at Mexico. A country full of noble possibilities. A land which, ruled by a strong hand and a sagacious mind, may be the fruitful source of all useful commodities. And if he can keep it, what a giant stride he makes to girdling the earth with his posts! Count them: France, Martinique, Vera Cruz, Acapulco, Tahiti, Saigon, his new ports at the mouth of the Red Sea, Algiers, and France again. ”

“ The enormous rate of duty charged between this country and Mexico is something stupendous. Naturally, in a strange land, one likes to pick up here and there some memento of the new people, some trifles of dress or adorning, to make large the wondering eyes of the little tribe at home, and dissipate a little of the obscurity hanging about this far-away world. ”

“ Then, by the moonlight, the kneeling figures on the pavement seem as if carved in Stone. The city of Mexico by moonlight—the environs of Mexico at daybreak—these are the hours for viewing both to advantage, and for making us feel how
"All but the spirit of man is divine." ”

“ The lord of Cempoalla, and all the nation of Totonacs, desire to acquaint you that from the quarters of the East there are arrived in our country in large ships certain bold and adventurous heroes, by the assistance of whom we are now freed from the tyrannical dominion of the King of Mexico. They acknowledge themselves the subjects of a powerful monarch, in whose name they come to visit you, to communicate intelligence to you of a true God, and to assist you against your ancient and inveterate enemy. ”

“ With sash, long and ample, tied about the loins, collars, bracelets and anklets of gold-embroidered leather richly adorned with precious stones, and gaudy pendants from ears, under-lips, and sometimes the nostrils, we have a picture of the Indian brave of Mexico which would quite rouse the envy of his less-cultivated red brother of our own Western frontier. The chiefs, as we have seen elsewhere, had other finery, belonging to them exclusively. The festival array of an Aztec was sometimes a beast mask or in skins flayed from human victims, in which young men dressed themselves to dance. ”

“ To achieve fame he must take up some old theme, and present it in a form likely to rouse attention by its contrast. Thus it was that he selected the thrilling episode of the conquest of Mexico, with the determination to rescue it from the unskilful arrangement and repetitions, the want of harmony and consistency, the dryness and faulty coloring, to which it had hitherto been subjected, and to expend upon it the effects of elegant style and vast erudition. ”

“ The country round Mexico, if not always beautiful, has the merit of being original, and on the road to Tacubaya, which goes by Chapultepec, you pass large tracts of country, almost entirely uncultivated, though so near the city, or covered by the mighty maguey plant, the American agave, which will flourish on the most arid soil, and like a fountain in a desert place, furnishes the poorest Indian with the beverage most grateful to his palate. ”

“ Mexico had become a large and beautiful city. The mining districts were extraordinarily prolific, and no year of his government yielded less than eleven millions of dollars;—the whole sum that passed through the national mint during his term being one hundred and fourteen millions, two hundred and thirty-one thousand dollars of the precious metals! The population of the capital amounted to fifty thousand families composed of Spaniards, Europeans and Creoles,—forty thousand mestizos, mulattoes, negroes,—and eight thousand Indians, who inhabited the suburbs. ”

“ Mexico, a generation ago, was in a condition through which many a country has passed. She had a great extent of territory and a sparse population. She had great natural resources, which her people knew not how to develop and which they could not have developed rapidly even if they had known how, without the help of capital from outside the country. ”

“ To sum up in a word, the Republic of Mexico has within her limits resources of wealth and comfort unbounded, and the day will come—I trust it may not be far distant—when she will be regarded, with reason, as the Paradise of the world. ”

“ Many years ago, when Mexico was almost wholly without the Bible, a Mexican gentleman who owned a large hacienda in one of the northern provinces became acquainted in a very remarkable manner with the saving truth of the gospel. He was wealthy, and employed so many to serve him that he might be said to own a village. He was proud of his Spanish ancestry, and delighted to tell of the time when those of his family who first came from Spain to America became the fortunate possessors of an image of wood called San Roman, said to have been found floating in the water in mid-ocean. ”

“ Here the good citizen of Mexico resorts at least once a day for a walk, the nurse with her charge, and the omnipresent policeman, the student with his book, and the lawyer with his client. This most charming spot, where once apostates were punished with fire,—for heretics were burned here by the Inquisition,—is but the beginning of the city westward and southwestward, towards the hills that approach the valley from that direction. ”