Southern Mexico

“ The southern, or rather easternmost States of Mexico are, as regards their landscape and life, often of peculiar interest, mainly by reason of the more tropical surroundings and the large rivers, such as those that flow into the Gulf of Campeche, in Vera Cruz and Tabasco. ”

“ No more interesting object will be seen than the mountain of Catorce, with its famous mining town, about which are clustered traditions of bonanzas such as few silver regions can lay claim to. San Luis will interest a traveller coming from the North as a thoroughly representative metropolis, in streets and architecture, of Southern Mexico. ”

“ Mexico is a land of ruins and the footprints of former races can be traced all over the southern half of the country. These ruins teach us that it must have taken many centuries to develop the land into the condition in which it was found by the Spaniards. It was not only the growth of a long time, but it was the product of the civilization developed by many different races and tribes. Otherwise Mexico would not be filled to-day with a hundred tribes speaking as many distinct dialects. ”

“ The several enterprises are succinctly divided into two classes—those on the ground, and those on paper. It is not necessarily a disparagement to the last that they are still in such a condition, for many of them are of very recent origin.
The original Mexican Southern road is to run south from Mexico, by Puebla and Oaxaca (capital of the populous state of the same name) and the frontier of Guatemala, with branches to the ports of Anton Lizardo, on the Gulf of Mexico, and Tehuantepec, on the Pacific. It is to connect also with the Tehuantepec railway. ”

“ In its central region it extends only five or six hundred miles from the Atlantic to the Pacific, while, at its southern end, it is swiftly crossed by means of its rivers or by railways, which, it is alleged, may be easily constructed. In the midst of this unrivalled territory, in the lap of the great plateau or table land, and far removed from unhealthy coasts, lies the beautiful city of Mexico, a natural focus of commerce, wealth and civilization. Such a picture of natural advantages cannot but strike us with admiration and hope. ”

“ The southern approaches were defended by strong works at Churubusco and Mexicalcingo, nearly five miles from the city, and at San Antonio, still farther south; while the eastern were enfiladed by the impregnable rock known as El Peñon, now surrounded by the overflowing waters. The route between the lakes of Chalco and Tezcuco was regarded as the only one practicable for the enemy, and although nature had assisted in protecting the eastern semicircle, the southern and south-eastern outworks received special attention. ”

“ The Indians of the New Mexican pueblos resemble those of Mexico in stature, physiognomy, and habits. Apparently they are the same race of people, and it is not improbable, that their ancestors built some of the magnificent edifices that remain in the southern part of the country.
Tourists, who are not specially interested in Mexican archæology, are recommended to confine themselves to visiting the ruins of Mitla, Cholula, and San Juan Teotihuacan. ”

“ There is also a third road, which the Southern Pacific are building into Guadalajara from Mazatlan, but this will not be completed for a year or two.
Every winter Mexico is filled with American tramps who come to escape the cold up north, and they are a perfect pest at times. ”

“ A grain of sand gives no conception of the earth, nor a drop of water of the sea, nor the soft breathing of an infant of a hurricane; yet worlds are made of atoms, and seas of drops of water, and storms of angry air-breaths. Though modern Mexico can boast a century more of history than the northern nations of America, as compared with the illimitable future her past is but a point of time. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ This is true not only of the influence these advance agents of progressiveness have had upon commerce, but they have enlarged the intercourse with other nations, especially with the United States. Through this means the dormant energies and ambitions of the Mexican people have been awakened, and a new era has dawned in our Latin neighbour.
The centres of population in Mexico have always been situated in the great central plateaus in the interior. Only a very small proportion of the population live on, or near the coast. ”

“ The castes were most numerous in Guadalajara, Puebla, the north-east provinces, and the mining regions, and the whites mustered in force along the same parallels, where mining and stock-raising presented opportunity for enrichment, and predominated in Nuevo Leon and Sonora. Indeed the sparsely settled north was occupied chiefly by Spaniards and half-breeds, although they assisted to swell the central group of Guanajuato, Puebla, and Mexico, which greatly exceeded the rest in population. ”

“ With the influx of negroes the coast line received in time an increase of occupants, on whom the fevers had little effect, and with their aid thriving plantations of sugar-cane and other produce drew riches from a hitherto neglected soil. The Indians maintained their preponderance at the rate of three fourths to seven eighths in Puebla, Tlascala, Vera Cruz, Yucatan, Oajaca, and Alta California, particularly in the last two. In Mexico intendencia they formed two thirds of the population. ”

“ There was no gold there, and, moreover, the inhabitants of its coasts had always given the visiting Spaniards such warm receptions that they were always glad to leave them alone after a single trial of their prowess. Anxious as they were for the bringing of these Indians under the influence of their religion, the acquisition of wealth was a matter of vastly greater concern. So the tide of conquest flowed over all Mexico, and extended even to Guatemala and the Pacific, before it more than lapped the shores of Yucatan. ”

“ It extends south about eleven degrees from the eighteenth parallel of north latitude, and is therefore entirely in the tropics. The geographers give it an area of 175,000 square miles, and a population of something less than three millions, the greater portion being native-born Indians. The whites and creoles are nearly all of Spanish descent, as the country was conquered and occupied by the Spaniards soon after the Conquest of Mexico. ”

“ We find the population distributed in a somewhat different manner from that of South America and the United States, not along the coasts, which are here low-lying and malarious, but mainly on the interior plateau, where culture and wealth had ever centred, notably along a narrow strip embracing Puebla and Mexico, and two other towns of from 35,000 to 130,000 inhabitants, and only one or two days' journey apart, while elsewhere great stretches of fine country lie almost uninhabited. ”

“ Many of the best men in modern Mexico trace with pride their descent from Aztec kings and nobles. A uniform and rich language with its system of phonetic writing, the introduction of horses and beasts of burden, the use of iron and leather, improved systems of mining and agriculture which have brought under civilisation vast tracts of land, and increased the variety and quality of crops — these and countless other resources, unknown and unknowable to the Mexicans, have revolutionised the conditions of their existence beyond anything their ancestors could have dreamed. ”

“ It is now clear that the greatest development in Mexico may take place from the coast and through her oil wealth. From the Rio Grande to Tampico the Gulf coast of Mexico is largely an unpenetrated jungle, rich in natural resources and capable of maintaining a population of many millions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A new era is dawning in Mexico. The advent of railways is opening a wide field; her people are rousing from their slumber. The government is extending her protection over the poor as well as the rich classes, and rapid progress is witnessed on every side. The wealthy and powerful of the Mexican Republic owe it to themselves to let the spirit of freedom and independence find full growth in the bosoms of all, from the toiling peon on the hacienda to the wild, dark Indian in the fastnesses of his mountains. ”

“ This grueling fight also occurs in the hearts and minds of all Mexicans, most of the times unconsciously, plunging us into the dark swamps of our solitude labyrinth.
"The peoples of the profound Mexico create and continually recreate their culture, adjust it to the changing pressures, reinforce their own and private environment, make cultural elements of others their own for their benefit, cyclically reiterate the collective acts which are a way of expressing and renew their own identity; keep quiet or rebel, according to a strategy tuned by centuries of resistance." ”

“ In short, any link to the past before the invasion.
These last five centuries, of the more than eight thousand years of existence of our civilization, are just a long and dark night. Mexicans have five strengths to build the Mexico that we all want: "the spiritual sense for life, moral and ethical values surrounding family, our harmonious relationship with nature, our continuing optimism for life, despite the most terrible adversities and our tireless constructor spirit". ”

“ In the land of Anahuac settled a roaming people whose story we can only dimly guess. If they came from the wintry north, this country, which is now called Mexico, must have seemed a paradise on earth. Between two high mountain ranges stretches a lofty plateau, beautiful alike in scenery and climate. Lying a bare twenty degrees north of the equator, it would be hot as the plains of India if it were not for its altitude. ”

“ Mexico, with regard to her agricultural resources, were they fully developed, would be found to be unsurpassed by any land, possessing, as she does, capabilities for the growth of almost every production of tropical and temperate climes. Her physical conformation bestows upon her three distinct climatic zones, designated as the tierra caliente, the tierra templada, and the tierra fria, meaning, respectively, the hot, temperate, and cold regions. And in them every want and luxury of man can be supplied. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Some originated with the Spanish crown, through its viceroys, and have been handed down from generation to generation; some came from Mexico, through its governors or political chiefs; while, over a not inconsiderable part of all the good land of the country, the titles of the Church, although not recognized by the Government, are still, to a certain extent, respected. As agricultural land generally upon the Mexican plateau, has little or no value apart from the use and control of water, it has come to pass that in various communities the title to land is vested in the water-right ”

“ Americans in Northern Mexico, especially in Chihuahua, have been charged with a want of due respect for the local authorities. They have invested largely in mines and ranches, and are unwilling to be controlled by the laws of the country. On August 1, 1883, a dispatch from Paso del Norte to a New York journal disclosed a new scheme for the acquisition of a part of Mexico by the United States. ”

“ Rarely does a visitor to Merida, or indeed to any portion of Mexico, obtain an inside view of life there; but, fortunately for me, while there, society was turned inside out by the occurrence of the carnival. It was near the middle of that memorable sixteenth century that witnessed the conquests of Cuba, of Mexico, and of Peru, that the Spanish invaders founded, upon the ruins of the Indian city of T'ho, this now ancient metropolis, the capital city of Yucatan. Probably no one of the old cities of Mexico has so faithfully preserved its old-time characteristics as this. ”