Mérida, Yucatán

“ We have a day at Progreso, and we are planning to go ashore to visit Mérida, the famous old capital of Yucatan, and evidently most interesting. The accounts in Terry's Guide are quite alluring. It was founded on the remains of the ancient Mayan city, and has a celebrated cathedral built by one of the men who came over with Cortés, and still filled with good old things. The description of Montejo's house, with its door flanked on each side by the stone figure of a Spanish knight with his feet on the head of a Mayan Indian, shows what that conqueror thought of the situation. ”

“ The evenings at Merida are the gayest times, for then all folks, rich and poor, come out to spend the cool hours in the plaza. There is very little twilight ever in the tropics, and as soon as the sun is down and it is dusk enough, the wealthy Yucatecans have a queer habit of sitting in rocking-chairs outside their houses. A whole group of ladies will thus take the air in front of the huge doorways of the biggest houses, surrounded by two or three cavaliers. ”

“ The house of Montejo—now the property of one of the many branches of the Peon family, the wealthiest of all Yucatecans—bears the date 1541, and is thus the oldest building in Merida. The façade is fine, and the doorway is a [Pg 65] typically Spanish representation of militarism plus bigotry—two knights, armed cap-à-pie, being engaged in the congenial occupation of trampling underfoot two Indians who "take it lying down," as, alas! their descendants are still doing.
Life in Merida is as artificial as—indeed more artificial than—that of Mexico City. ”

“ The population, including Indians, is 465,800. We have given a description of Campeachy first, on account of its being the principal trading place, and formerly the metropolis. Merida de Yucatan is now the capital and residence of the intendant, who is also called captain-general. Merida is ten leagues from the coast; its port is called Sisal, being in 21° 10ʹ north latitude, 89° 59ʹ 30ʺ west longitude, with a castle and small harbour, having an immense sandbank opposite its entrance. Merida is situated in a plain almost destitute of water; the population amounts to 10,000. ”

“ In the centre of the plaza itself [Pg 69] the town band assembles, and this is a signal for a nightly promenade of the humbler Meridians. Nothing can be more picturesque or typical. The seats are filled for the most part with the older people; fat old men, linen-suited and besandalled, armed generally with an incongruous ill-rolled umbrella, smoke and doze; beside them solid-looking Yucatecan matrons with gold chains round their necks from which hang gold coins and a metal or ivory crucifix; at their feet a baby or two, dressed in the shortest of shifts, play about.
But young Merida walks. ”

“ The latter, owing, as we have said, her fashions and her veneer of civilisation to Paris and New York, is assisted by her size in still being much herself. Not so Merida. No self-respecting Yucatecan wants to be himself. All of them are pathetically striving all the time after a culture which they do not understand, and which fits them as ill as his dress suit fits the hired butler at a suburban dance. ”

“ Its remote and isolated position has prevented its participation, to any extent, in the political struggles which have marked the history of the city of Mexico; and the inhabitants appear to have availed themselves of their peace and political composure by a cultivation of letters, and general mental cultivation, to an extent certainly unsurpassed in any province of Mexico.
The streets of Merida are of a good width, laid out at right angles. The side-walks are four feet 38wide, paved with rough stone. The houses are quite uniform in their appearance, and are built of stone. ”

“ The State of Yucatan, sometimes known by the name of Merida or Campeché, occupies the greater portion of the peninsula which bounds the southern edge of the Gulf of Mexico. Its eastern side is washed by the Caribbean Sea, and touched by the settlements at Balize; on the south it is bounded by Guatemala; on the west by the Gulf of Mexico and the States of Chiapas and Tabasco, from which it is separated by the river Paicutun that falls into the Laguna de Terminos. Its northern coast extends from Cape Catoché to the Punta de Piedras, about eighty-six leagues ”

“ At nine o'clock we entered the suburbs of Izamal, but fifteen leagues from Merida. The streets had lamps, and were designated by visible objects, as at Merida. Peeping through the curtain, we rode into the plaza, which was alive with people, dressed in clean clothes for the fiesta. There was an unusual proportion of gentlemen with black hats and canes, and some with military coats, bright and flashing to such a degree that we congratulated ourselves upon not having made our entry on horseback. ”

“ BURIED in the wildernesses of Yucatan, ruined cities await in silence the coming of the traveller,—cities that had their birth so far back in the twilight of time that not a tradition even remains to tell who built them. Within a radius of one hundred miles from Merida are such magnificent ruins as Mayapan, Aké, Chichen-Itza, Kabah, and Labná, and scores of others. But none is more interesting than UXMAL, which is also very accessible, being within forty miles of the capital, in a straight line, and sixty miles by road. ”

“ No Yucatecan woman of position must ever walk in public: that would be a social faux pas far more serious than to have a child before marriage. The exalted women of Merida very rarely leave their homes till dark, when they drive round the plaza. Occasionally they go shopping, when they remain in their carriages, and the goods are brought out to them by obsequious shopmen. The life they lead is of the most empty and vapid nature. Surrounded by dozens of Indian servants, they loll all the day in their hammocks, listening to such gossip as their women friends or their servants can tell them. ”

“ The millionaire henequen growers are so rich that they really do not know what to do with their money; and so it came about that the ex-Governor Señor Molina conceived the idea of reupholstering Merida till its founders would never recognise their handiwork. The shape of the city is much what it was, planned on a vast chessboard system, all the streets running at right angles and parallel to one another, forming nine square miles of squat stone-built houses, almost all one-storeyed, their long windows heavily barred instead of glazed. ”

“ The population was about five thousand, of which about three hundred families were vecinos, or white people, and the rest Indians. Fresh meat can be procured every day; the tienda grande, or large store of Guzman, would not disgrace Merida. The bread is better than at the capital. Altogether, for appearance, society, and conveniences of living, it is perhaps the best village in Yucatan, and famous for its bull-fights and the beauty of its Mestiza women.
The church and convent occupy the whole of one side of the plaza. ”

“ But she is what perhaps is better—a clean city. Cleanliness is next to godliness. Merida thinks it comes first, and she has let the other virtue lag a very bad second in her civic race.
But she has not always even been clean. Five years back her streets were Saharas of ill-smelling dust to your boot-tops in the dry season, and sloughs of despond in the wet. No one who has not visited Yucatan can realise the Aladdin-like results of the showers of gold which have fallen upon this Danaë land as a result of her staple product, henequen ”

“ We carry a large company of cabin passengers for Progresso, the chief port of Merida, in Yucatan. Among them I have noticed a group of gentlemen who upon the train seemed to be suffering greatly from the cold. I learned that they are rich planters from Merida. One is a senator in the Mexican National Congress. He is a large, thick-set man, with high cheek bones, blue eyes, light-brown hair, a white man much burned and browned by tropical suns. I thought he might possibly be a German or Scandinavian. Imagine my astonishment when I am advised that he is a full-blooded “Yucataka Indian!” ”

“ The eastern coast of Yucatan is so shallow and muddy, that large vessels cannot approach within four leagues [Pg 262] of the shore. The chief productions of this peninsula are maize, cotton, indigo, and logwood.
The governor resides at a small inland town called Merida, situated on an arid plain, and containing about six thousand inhabitants. The principal sea-port is Campeachy, near the north-west extremity of the peninsula. This town has a good dock, and a fort which protects both the place and the harbour. The houses are chiefly built of stone. ”

“ There exist, in the deserts of Yucatan, at about 36 leagues—108 miles [77] —from Mérida, some very notable monumental ruins, known by the name of Chichen-Itza, whose origin is lost in the night of time. Their situation, in the hostile section of revolutionary Indians (Sublivados) , caused them to be very little visited until, to the general astonishment, an American traveller, the wise archæologist and Doctor, Mr. Augustus Le Plongeon, in company with his young and most intelligent wife, fixed his residence among them for some months towards the end of 1874. ”

“ Francisco de Montejo, who founded Merida, had occupied Chichen in 1527, but had been compelled to abandon it and seek reinforcements in Mexico. On his return he was enabled,Pg 270 through a traitorous cacique, to establish himself here, and built Merida in 1542. The conquest of Yucatan was longer and beset with greater difficulties than that of Mexico; here the Spaniards were continually threatened by a warlike population, ever on the alert to raise the standard of rebellion. ”

“ There are two kinds of brigands in Yucatan. There is the honest fellow who cuts your throat without apology or waits behind a tree and puts a bullet into your back at a ten-yard range; and there is the oily-tongued "con permiso" (detestable phrase! ever on Yucatecan lips) rascal who, permission or not, will see to it that your last centavo is his, if he can manage it. At Valladolid, whither we went from Chichen, we made our first serious acquaintance with the latter. One or two pleasant little episodes had occurred at Merida, but they were only in the nature of dress rehearsals. ”

“ Aside from its Indian population, however, Merida had only one hundred citizens. Cogolludo (p. 137) gives a complete list of the first Alcaldes and Regidores.
On March 13, 1542, Montejo made arrangements for the founding of the city of Valladolid, a task which he intrusted to one of his relatives. In May of the same year he himself set forth from Merida to subdue the Cocomes of Zotuta or Sotuta, while at the same time another relative went to conquer the province of Choaca, the inhabitants of which were very warlike. ”

“ For the first half-century or so after the founding of Merida, the Spanish vandals were far too busy, in their ruthless Christian zeal, with the destruction of the Mayan towns and palaces, with the butchering of men and the outraging of women, to give much thought to the past of the unfortunate race which they were bent on degrading and enslaving. Bishop Landa, one of the earliest of the Catholic bishops of Yucatan, bears terrible evidence on this point. The Indian chiefs were burnt alive in many instances ”

“ The manner of doing business is simple. Nothing of that stir and bustle is seen that is to be observed in cities and towns of the United States; nor do you find the care-worn and anxious look that is so often to be noticed with us. Speculation, kite-flying, lame ducks, bulls and bears, and all those curses with which large mercantile communities are usually visited, are entirely unknown in the province of Yucatan.
During my stay in the city of Merida, a ball was given at the Governor’s house, apropos of some political event, which I did not esteem of moment enough to remember. ”

“ The village of Jalacho lies on the main road from Merida to Campeachy, and, next to that of Yzamal, its fair is the greatest in Yucatan, while in some respects it is more curious. It is not attended by large merchants with foreign goods, nor by the better classes from Merida, but it is resorted to by all the Indians from the haciendas and villages. It is inferior in one respect: gambling is not carried on upon so large a scale as at Yzamal. ”

“ Ternaux-Compans declares that from the fall of Mayapan to the coming of the Spaniards, the country had no general name, but was severally called after each province, as district of Choaca, Bakhalal, Campeche, etc.; but there is little doubt that the name of Yucatan, at the coming of Europeans and afterwards, was Maya. However that may be, we will turn to the monuments, which afford a far surer guide whereon to construct a history of this country so rich in works of “los antiguos.”
PANORAMIC VIEW OF MERIDA.
Progreso is a miserable hamlet surrounded by low-lying swamps ”

“ He has ever occupied a prominent{107} position in Merida as a successful lawyer, as teacher in the Seminario, as professor in the Law School, as journalist, and as author. In literature he has largely confined himself to history—especially the history of Yucatan. His Historia del Descubrimiento y Conquista de Yucatan con una reseña de la Historia antiqua de esta Peninsula (History of the Discovery and Conquest of Yucatan with a Summary of the Ancient History of this Peninsula) is a standard authority. ”

“ Morton on the Archæology of Yucatan—Other Ruins—Reptiles and Insects—A Concealed Nation—The Brothers Camachos.
My reception at Campeachy was extremely gratifying. There is evidently a class of society here which contrasts favorably with any to be found in the other cities of the province. The streets are narrow and irregular; and have a natural pavement of flat stone, which is much broken, and makes an exceedingly rough route for carriages. The buildings have not the clean appearance of those of Merida, owing to the extreme humidity that accompanies the sea winds ”