SCENES WITHIN MEXICAN HOMES.
The City of Mexico makes many bright promises for the future. As
a winter resort, as a summer resort, a city for men to accumulate
fortunes, a paradise for students, for artists; a rich field for the
hunter of the curious, the beautiful and the rare, its bright future is
not far distant. Already its wonders are related to the enterprising
people of the States, who are making tours through the land that held
cities even at the time of the discovery of America.
The Mexican Central road, although completed only five years ago,
offers every, and even more, comforts than old established eastern
roads. Many excursionists have had delightful visits here, and at
present a number of Quakers have come to see for themselves what Mexico
offers. One of the party was quizzing Mr. Theo. Gestefeld, editor of
the _Two Republics,_ on the advisability of opening a mission for the
poor and degraded of Mexico. Mr. Gestefeld is a first-class newspaper
man, formerly employed on the Chicago _Tribune,_ and has a practical
and common sense way of viewing things. His reply should be studied by
all coming to Mexico to stay. He said: "Their religion has been the
people's faith always, even before Americans lived. They are fanatics,
and trying to change or convert them is wasting time. Let their faith
alone, and go out and buy a farm on the table-lands and teach them
how to farm and how to live. You will find them ready, willing, even
anxious to learn. They will quickly imitate any way they know is better
than theirs." The Quaker is still here, but, so far as known, has
neither started a mission nor bought a farm.
Mexico is colder these last few days than the traditional oldest
inhabitant ever remembered, but it is a pleasant change to the visitors
who have left the snowbound country, even if a fire is an unheard-of
thing.
People who read history form wrong ideas of how Mexican houses are
built. They are square, plastered outside and decorated. Many are three
and four stories in height. The windows, which are always curtained,
are finished with iron balconies. Massive doors, on which are ponderous
knockers of antique shape and size, keep from view the inhabitants
of the Casa. A knock, and the doors swing open and a brown portero,
dressed in the garb of his country, sombrero, serape and all, admits
you to the lower court, where the stables are kept and the servants
live. Beautiful flowers, rare orchids, and tall, waving palms are
growing in rich profusion. Directly up through the center is a large,
open square; a stairway, decorated in the highest style of art,
leads to the different departments. Fine statuary, singing birds and
fountains mingling with the flowers aid in making the scene superb.
Just the opposite of the States, the higher up a room is the better it
is considered, and in hotels they charge accordingly, $1 first floor;
$2 second; $3 third; and so on. A room is not healthy unless the sun
shines into it; and they have no windows--just glass doors.
All the hotels in Mexico are run on the European plan. They have
restaurants attached where the waiters, as long as they smile, cannot
do too much for their customers. Mexico has several good hotels, of
their kind, and most of them equal, if they are not superior, to the
Iturbide--pronounced Eeturbeda--but Americans who run after royalty
want to stop here so they can say they have stayed at the house which
was the palace of the first emperor after Mexico was independent.
Mexico looks the same all over, every white street terminates at the
foot of a snow-capped mountain, look which way you will; the streets
are named very strangely, one straight street having half a dozen
names. Each square has a different name, or designated as First San
Francisco; the next block Second San Francisco. Policemen stand in the
middle of the street all over the city, reminding one of so many posts.
They wear white caps with numbers on, blue suits, nickel buttons. A
mace now takes the place of the sword of former days. At night they
don an overcoat and hood, which makes them look just like the pictures
of veiled knights. Their red lanterns are left in the place they
occupied during the daytime, while they retire to some doorway where,
it is said, they sleep as soundly as their brethren in the States. At
intervals they blow a whistle like those used by street car drivers,
which are answered by those on the next posts; thus they know all is
well. In small towns they call out the time of night, ending up with
tiempo sereno (all serene), from which the Mexican youth, with some
mischievous Yankeeism, have nicknamed them Sereno.
It is very easy for those unaccompanied and not speaking Spanish to
get around in Mexico. A baggage man meets the train out from the city,
who not only attends to his regular duties, but gives any information
regarding hotels that visitors may want. Numerous carriages of all
kinds and descriptions, stand around the depot. Each one is decorated
with a flag, by which the visitor may know the price without asking.
White, red, and blue--fifty cents, seventy-five cents, and one dollar.
The drivers often try to get the best of a tourist, especially if he
speaks Spanish, and charge him one dollar for a seventy-five cent
carriage. The Mexicans do not differ much from the Yankee hackman. If
any, it is in favor of the Mexican. They do not cheat so much, because
they are not sharp enough.
Pulque shops, where they deal out the national drink, are quite plenty.
These are the only buildings in the city that are decorated. They are
generally corner buildings, and the two sides have finely-painted
pictures of ladies, ballet-girls, men on gayly-caparisoned horses,
angels floating on clouds, etc. Numerous flags of black and red, or
red and white, answer for a sign, but it is against the law to use the
national flag. These saloons, or shops, as they are called, stand wide
open, with no screens to hide the dirty bar and drinkers from the eyes
of pedestrians. They are patronized by men, women, and children, and
are kept open all the time.
"Sabe que es pulque--
Licor divino?
Lo beben los angeles
En vez de vino."
Know ye not pulque--
That liquor divine?
Angels in heaven
Prefer it to wine.
Pulque is the fermented juice of the agave, or so-called century plant,
which matures in from five to fifteen years, instead of one hundred
as generally believed. It grows wild here, but large plantations of it
are cultivated. Just before the plant is ready to blossom the natives
gather the big fat leaves together, around the bud, forming a sort of
basin. The bud is then cut out and the juice from the stalk collects in
the leaf-formed basin. One stalk will yield as high as two gallons a
day for six months.
The pulque is collected in jars that the gatherers carry suspended from
their shoulders. It is sucked out of the basin through a hollow bamboo
or reed, and squirted from the mouth into the jar. A knowledge of this
fact does not render the stuff any more palatable to foreigners. It is
awfully nasty stuff, but they say that when you get acquainted with it
you like it real well.
Mescal is a sort of brandy distilled from pulque, and will paralyze
almost as promptly as a stroke of lightning. Metheglin--honey and
water--is made from the honey ant; they are placed in a piece of
bolting cloth and the honey squeezed out of them.
The street-car system here is quite unique. But first a few statistics
may prove interesting; they run on ninety miles of rails, and carried
last year nine million passengers; the company owns one thousand five
hundred mules and horses, one hundred and thirty-nine first-class
coaches, sixty-five second-class, forty-six platform or freight cars,
and twenty-six funeral cars. They pay an annual dividend of six
per cent, on a capital of $5,000,000. The Chairman of the Board of
Directors, Senor Castillo, speaks Spanish and English; they are very
particular about free passes, and so far this year have only issued six.
First-class cars are exactly like those in the States, and the
second-class look just like the "Black Maria," except the wheels. Cars,
just like open freight or truck cars on railroads, are used for hauling
instead of wagons, and a dozen of these, loaded with merchandize, are
drawn by one team. Movings and everything are hauled in this manner;
the price charged is comparatively small. Cars do not run singly, but
in groups of four and five. Even on the first-class cars men smoke as
much as they wish, and if the women find it unbearable they go out and
stand on the platform; there are two conductors on each car; one sells
the tickets, the other collects them.
When the line was first opened an enterprising stockholder bought up
all the hearses in the city and had funeral cars made. The coffin is
laid on one draped car; white for young and black for old, and the
mourners and friends follow in street cars hired for the purpose. A
stylish funeral will have a dozen or more cars, the windows of which
are hung with white crepe, and the doors with black; the drivers and
conductors appear in black suits and high, silk hats; the horses are
draped, and have black and white plumes on their heads. The cost of
funerals ranges from $20 to $1500. A stylish one is a beautiful sight;
the poor, by making application to the police, are given the funeral
car and passage for two persons free; the low and poverty-stricken
class also hire the coffins, and when they reach the cemetery the
corpse is taken out, wrapped in a serape and consigned to a hired
grave--that is, they buy the grave for five years, at the end of which
time the bones are lifted and thrown in some corner, exposed to the
gaze of the public, in order to make room for new-comers, and the
tombstones--then useless--are laid in one heap by the gate. The people
are no respecters of human bones; Americans always want to go back to
the States to die.
Street car drivers, of which there are two on each car, are compelled
by law to blow a horn at every crossing to warn pedestrians of their
coming; the horns are similar, in tone and shape, to those used by
fish peddlers in the States. Drivers of every kind of vehicles use the
long lash whip of plaited leather exclusively, and they ply them quite
vigorously on their animals; they also urge them to faster speed by a
sound similar to that which the villain on the stage makes as he creeps
upon intended victims when asleep, with his finger on his lips. It
sounds like a whip lash cutting through the air.
The carts in use here are of the most ancient shape and style; two
large, wooden wheels support a big square box. One mule is hitched next
to the wagon, and three abreast in front of that, and one still ahead;
the harness baffles description. Drivers very seldom ride, but trot
along beside their team with rope lines in their hands; they can trot
at the speed of the mules with apparent comfort.
Mexico does not breakfast. When people go into the restaurants and
order a breakfast the waiters look at them in wonder, and inform them
in the most polite terms in the world that they have but coffee and dry
bread for breakfast. It is asserted that to eat breakfast will cause
a heaviness and dullness for the entire day, but whether this is true
or otherwise, it cannot be stated, for since our arrival in Mexico we
have been unable to find any other than as before mentioned--and black
coffee at that. Every family takes their coffee in their bedrooms. It
takes at least two hours to get through an ordinary dinner.
A description of dinner in a private family will, no doubt, prove
interesting to most readers, especially if they understand the
difficulty of obtaining admission into a family. A Mexican will be all
politeness, will do anything for you, will place his house at your
service, but he and his family will move out. He will do anything but
admit you to the secrecy of his house. So this experience is rare.
Dinner was announced and the gentlemen, in the most courteous manner,
offered their arms, and we walked along the balcony to the dining-room.
The lace-hung doors were swung open, and there before us was the table
with plate, knife and fork, and a penny loaf of bread at each place.
We sit down, take our napkins, and the waiters--always men--fill our
glasses from the elegant water bottles that grace each end of the
table. One dish, containing, perhaps, cold meat, salad, red pepper,
radishes, and pickled beans, is served on plates, and the first ones
taken away from us, although not used. After endeavoring to swallow
some of this nauseating stuff, which the natives devour with relish,
the servant removes the dish, our plates, knives and forks, and another
equally strange and equally detestable dish is brought on. Thus the
feast continues, meanwhile breaking the penny loaf in bits and eating
without a spread.
Butter, which commands $1 a pound, is never seen from one year's end
to another, and jelly is an unheard-of dish. The last dish, and one
that is never omitted from dinner or supper, is frijoles--pronounced
free-holies--consists of beans, brown ones, with a sort of gravy over
them. If a Bostonian were but to visit this country his intellectual
stomach, or appetite, would be sated for once. Sliced orange, covered
with sugar and cinnamon, is dessert, after which comes chocolate or
coffee; the former superb, the latter miserable. With the coffee the
ladies and gentlemen smoke their cigarettes.
Children are really good here, their reverence for their parents being
something beautiful. When entering the dining room each one kisses its
mother's hand, and when she asks them if they wish such and such to
eat they reply: "With your permission." Although all are smokers they
could not be persuaded to take a cigarette in their mother's presence.
The pulque, which is also given around with the coffee, they refuse
through respect to their mother; but they drink when she is not by, and
of course she is aware of the fact, and has no desire to prohibit them
from it. It is just their form of respect to refrain in her presence.
A Mexican could not be compelled to eat of two different dishes from
one plate. Even the smallest child is proof against persuasion on this
point.
The frijoles, or beans, are served on a tortilla, a sort of corn-cake
baked in the shape of a buckwheat cake. Another tortilla is folded
together, and answers for a spoon. After finishing the beans it is not
considered proper or polite unless you eat your spoon and plate.
Every family has at least half a dozen servants. They are considered
excellent when they receive five dollars a month, and board themselves.
Sometimes they are paid three dollars a month, and allowed six cents a
day to furnish what they want to eat. This sum is called the retainer.
Women do the cooking, and the men wait on the tables, make the beds
and nurse the babies. Contrary to the usual report, they are very,
very cleanly. Every room in the house is swept daily; balconies and
uncarpeted rooms scrubbed as often. Beds, which are always single iron
cots like those used in hospitals, have board or iron bottoms, and the
hardest of hard pillows.
Brooms are an unseen article, notwithstanding the country furnishes the
most beautiful broom corn in the world. It is bought in bunches and
tied to a short stick, and used in that manner, forcing the sweeper to
bend nearly double. Scrub brushes are but a bunch of coarse straw tied
around the top with a string, but they make the floors perfectly white.
There is a fortune here awaiting some lively fellow who will bring
machinery and make brooms and brushes for the natives: the straw costs
comparatively nothing, and is of the very best quality.
Lotteries swarm here, and are a curse to the poor. Men, women, and
children sell the tickets along the streets, and the poor have such a
mania for buying that they will pawn their clothing in order to obtain
a ticket.
There are no newsboys in this country. Occasionally a boy is seen with
a package of papers, but he does not call out like they do in the
States. Women generally sell papers, which they fold and hold out
toward passers-by, never saying a word.
The people appear just the opposite of lazy. They move along the
streets with a trot, equal in speed to the burro; they never turn their
heads to gaze at a stranger, but go along intent on their own affairs
as if they realized the value of time and shortness of life.
Ladies in the States should import their servants from Mexico. Their
hire is a very little sum; they furnish their own food; they are the
most polite, most obedient people alive, and are faithful. Their only
fault--and a very common one with servants--is that they are slow,
but not extremely so. To children they are most devoted; as nurses
they are unexcelled; their love for children amounts to a passion, a
mania. As a common thing here, a girl of thirteen is not happy unless
she has a baby; but with all that they are most generous with them.
Much amusement was caused the other day by an American asking a pretty
little black-eyed girl if the bouncing babe tied to her back was hers.
"Si, senor, and yours, too," she replied, politely.
The men share the troubles of nursing with the women, and the babies,
tied on their mother's or father's back, seem as content as if they
were rocked in downy cradles. Babies, as soon as born, are clad
in pantaloons and loose waist, irrespective of sex. There are no
three-yard skirts on them. Boys retain this garb, but girls, when able
to walk, are wrapped twice around the body with a straight cloth which
serves for skirts.
If you ask a native in regard to the sex of a baby he will not say
it is a boy or it is a girl, but "el hombre" (a man) or "la mujer"
(the woman.) All efforts fail to make them say "hijo" (son) or "hija"
(daughter).