ALONG THE ROUTE.
"Thirty minutes to dress for breakfast," was our good-morning in
Mexico. We had fallen asleep the night previous as easily as a babe in
its crib, with an eager anticipation of the morrow. Almost before the
Pullman porter had ceased his calling, our window shades were hoisted
and we were trying to see all of Mexico at one glance.
That glance brought disappointment. The land, almost as far as the eye
could carry, which is a wonderful distance in the clear atmosphere of
Mexico, was perfectly level. Barring the cacti, with which the country
abounds, the ground was bare.
"And this is sunny Mexico, the land of the gods!" I exclaimed, in
disgust.
By the time we had completed our toilet the train stopped, and we were
told to got off if we wanted any breakfast. We followed our porter to
a side track where, in an old freight car, was breakfast. We climbed
up the high steps, paying our dollar as we entered, and found for
ourselves places at the long table. It was surrounded by hungry people
intent only on helping themselves. Everything was on the table, even to
the coffee.
I made an effort to eat. It was impossible. My mother succeeded no
better.
"Are you not glad we brought a lunch?" she asked, as her eyes met mine.
We went back to the car and managed to make a tolerable breakfast on
the cold chicken and other eatables we found in our basket.
But the weather! It was simply perfect, and we soon forgot little
annoyances in our enjoyment of it. We got camp chairs, and from morning
until night we occupied the rear platform.
As we got further South the land grew more interesting. We gazed in
wonder at the groves of cacti which raised their heads many feet in the
air, and topped them off with one of the most exquisite blossoms I have
ever seen.
At every station we obtained views of the Mexicans. As the train drew
in, the natives, of whom the majority still retain the fashion of Adam,
minus fig leaves, would rush up and gaze on the travelers in breathless
wonder, and continue to look after the train as if it was the one event
of their lives.
As we came to larger towns we could see armed horsemen riding at a 2:09
speed, leaving a cloud of dust in their wake, to the stations. When the
train stopped they formed in a decorous line before it, and so remained
until the train started again on its journey. I learned that they were
a government guard. They do this so, if there is any trouble on the
train or any raised at the station during their stop, they could quell
it.
Hucksters and beggars constitute most of the crowd that welcomes the
train. From the former we bought flowers, native fruit, eggs, goat
milk, and strange Mexican food. The pear cacti, which is nursed in
greenhouses in the States, grows wild on the plains to a height of
twenty feet, and its great green lobes, or leaves, covered thickly
with thorns, are frequently three feet in diameter. Some kinds bear a
blood-red fruit, and others yellow. When gathered they are in a thorny
shell. The Mexican Indians gather them and peel them and sell them to
travelers for six cents a dozen. It is called "tuna," and is considered
very healthy. It has a very cool and pleasing taste.
From this century-plant, or cacti, the Mexicans make their beer,
which they call _pulque_ (pronounced polke). It is also used by the
natives to fence in their mud houses, and forms a most picturesque and
impassable surrounding.
The Indians seem cleanly enough, despite all that's been said to the
contrary. Along the gutters by the railroad, they could be seen washing
their few bits of wearing apparel, and bathing. Many of their homes are
but holes in the ground, with a straw roof. The smoke creeps out from
the doorway all day, and at night the family sleep in the ashes. They
seldom lie down, but sleep sitting up like a tailor, strange to say,
but they never nod nor fall over.
The whirlwinds, or sand spouts, form very pretty pictures on the barren
plain. They run to the height of one thousand feet, and travel along
the road at a 2:04 gait, going up the mountain side as majestic as a
queen. But then their race is run, for the moment they begin to descend
their spell is broken, and they fall to earth again to become only
common sand, and be trod by the bare, brown feet of the Indian, and the
dainty hoofs of the burro.
Some one told me that when a man sees a sand spout advancing, and
he does not want to be cornered by it, he shoots into it and it
immediately falls. I can't say how true it is, but it seems very
probable.
We had not many passengers, but what we had, excepting my mother and
myself, were all men. They all carried lunch-baskets. Among them was
one young Mexican gentleman who had spent several years in Europe,
where he had studied the English language. He was very attentive to us,
and taught me a good deal of Spanish. He had been away long enough to
learn that the Mexicans had very strange ideas, and he quite enjoyed
telling incidents about them.
"When the Mexican Railway was being built," he said, "wheelbarrows
were imported for the native laborers. They had never seen the like
before, so they filled them with earth, and, putting them on their
backs, walked off to the place of deposit. It was a long time before
they could be made to understand how to use them, and even then, as the
Mexicans are very weak in the arms, little work could be accomplished
with them.
"You would hardly believe it," he continued, "but at first the trains
were regarded as the devil and the passengers as his workers. Once a
settlement of natives decided to overpower the devil. They took one of
their most sacred and powerful saints and placed it in the center of
the track. On their knees, with great faith, they watched the advance
of the train, feeling sure the saint would cause it to stop forever in
its endless course. The engineer, who had not much reverence for that
particular saint or saints in general, struck it with full force. That
saint's reign was ended. Since then they are allowed to remain in their
accustomed nooks in the churches, while the natives still have the same
faith in their powers, but are not anxious to test them."
"Come, I want you to see the strangest mountain in the world,"
interrupted the conductor at this moment.
We followed him to the rear platform and there looked curiously at the
mountain he pointed out. It rose, clear and alone, from the barren
plains, like a nose on one's face. It seemed to be of brown earth, but
it contained not the least sign of vegetation. It looked as high as the
Brooklyn bridge from the water to top, and was about the same length,
in an oblong shape. It was perfectly straight across the top.
"When this railroad was being built," he explained, "I went with a
party of engineers in search of something new. Through curiosity alone,
to get a good view of the land, we decided to climb that strange
looking mountain. From here you can not see the vegetation, but it is
covered with a low, brown shrub. Can you imagine our surprise when we
got to the top to find it was a mammoth basin? Yes, that hill holds in
it the most beautiful lake I ever saw."
"That seems most wonderful!" I exclaimed, rather dubiously.
"It is not more wonderful than thousands of other places in Mexico," he
replied. "In the State of Chihuahua[1] is a Laguna, in which the water
is as clear as crystal. When the Americans who were superintending the
work on the railway found it, they decided to have a nice bath. It had
been many days since they had seen any more water than would quench
their thirst--in coffee, of course. Accordingly, some dozen or more
doffed their clothing and went in. Their pleasure was short-lived, for
their bodies began to burn and smart, and they came out looking like
scalding pigs. The water is strongly alkaline; the fish in the lake are
said to be white, even to their eyes; they are unfit to eat."
I give his stories for what they are worth; I did not investigate to
prove their truth.
"We do not think much of the people who come here to write us up," the
conductor said one day, "for they never tell the truth. One woman who
came down here to make herself famous pressed me one day for a story. I
told her that out in the country the natives roasted whole hogs, heads
and all, without cleaning, and so served them on the table. She jotted
it down as a rare item."
"If you tell strangers untruths about your own land can you complain,
then, that the same strangers misrepresent it?" asked my little mother,
quietly.
The conductor flushed, and said he had not thought of it in that light
before.
While yet a day's travel distant from the City of Mexico, tomatoes and
strawberries were procurable. It was January. The venders were quite up
to the tricks of the hucksters in the States. In a small basket they
place cabbage leaves and two or three pebbles to give weight; then
the top is covered with strawberries so deftly that even the smartest
purchaser thinks he is getting a bargain for twenty-five cents.
At larger towns a change for the better was noticeable in the clothing
of the people. The most fashionable dress for the Mexican Indian was
white muslin panteloons, twice as wide as those worn by the dudes
last summer; a _serape,_ as often cotton as wool, wrapped around the
shoulders; a straw sombrero, and sometimes leather sandals bound to the
feet with leather cords.
The women wear loose sleeveless waists with a straight piece of cloth
pinned around them for skirts, and the habitual _rebozo_ wrapped about
the head and holding the equally habitual baby. No difference how
cold or warm the day, nor how scant the lower garments, the _serape_
and _rebozo_ are never laid aside, and none seem too poor to own one.
Apparently the natives do not believe much in standing, for the moment
they stop walking they "hunker" down on the ground.
Never once during the three days did we think of getting tired, and it
was with a little regret mingled with a desire to see more, that we
knew when we awoke in the morning we would be in the City of Mexico.
[Footnote 1: Pronounced Che-wa-wa.]