Zacatecas.--Sand-Spouts.--Fertile Lands.--A Silver Mining Region.--Alpine
Scenery.--Table-Land of Mexico.--An Aged Miner.--Zacatecas Cathedral.
--Church and People.--A Mountain Climb.--Ownership of the Mines.--
--Want of Drainage.--A Battlefield.--Civil War.--Local Market.--
Peculiar Scenes.--Native Beauties.--City Tramway Experience.--Town of
Guadalupe.--Organized Beggars.--A Noble and Successful Institution.
--Market of Guadalupe.--Attractive Senoritas.--Private Gardens.
The first place of special interest on the line of the Mexican Central
Railroad after leaving Torreon is Zacatecas, the largest town between
the Rio Grande and the city of Mexico, being nearly eight hundred miles
south of the river and four hundred and forty north of the capital. Its
name is derived from the Indian tribe who inhabited this region long
before the coming of the Spaniards. Between Torreon and this city, for a
distance of some three hundred miles, as we have described, the country
is lonely, prairie-like, and almost uninhabited, forming a broad plain
over a hundred miles wide, with ranges of the Sierra Madre on either
side. On these dry and sterile plains sand-spouts are frequently seen;
indeed, half a dozen were counted at the same time from the car windows.
These are created just as water-spouts are formed on the ocean, and to
encounter one is almost equally serious. One must visit either Egypt or
Mexico to witness this singular phenomenon. As Zacatecas is approached,
large flocks of sheep and herds of mules and horses are grouped in the
fields, overlooked by picturesquely draped horsemen. The cultivation of
the land and its apparent fertility improve, and many one-handled
ploughs, consisting of a crooked stick, sometimes shod with iron, are
being used. The marvel is that anything satisfactory can be accomplished
with such an awkward instrument, and yet these fields in some instances
show grand results.
We expressed surprise to an intelligent citizen at seeing long lines of
burros laden with freight beside the railroad, and going in the same
direction, remarking to him that the railway ought to be able to compete
with the jackasses. "You must take into consideration," said our
informant, "that a man who owns a score of these cheap animals can
himself drive them all to market or any given point. His time he counts
as nothing; his burros feed beside the way, and their sustenance costs
him nothing. Wages average throughout the country something less than
thirty cents per day, and the cost of living among the peons is
proportionately low. A railway is an expensive system to support, and
must charge accordingly; consequently the burros, as a means of
transportation for a certain class of goods, are quite able to compete
with the locomotive and the rail." Of course, as other avenues for
remunerative employment are opened to the common people, this antiquated
style of transportation will gradually go out of use, and the locomotive
will take the goods which are now carried by these patient and
economical animals.
Zacatecas is the capital of the state of the same name, and has a
population of nearly fifty thousand. This is one of the oldest and most
productive silver mining regions in Mexico. The town seems actually to
be built on a huge vein of silver, which has been penetrated in scores
of places. Eight or ten miles below the city the cars begin to climb
laboriously a grade of one hundred and seventy-five feet to the mile,
presenting some of the most abrupt curves we have ever seen in a railway
track. Here we are in the midst of Rocky Mountain scenery. One can
easily imagine himself on the Northern or Canadian Pacific road, among
their giant peaks, hazardous roadbeds, and narrow defiles. The huge
engine pants and trembles like an animal, in its struggle to drag the
long train up the incline and around the sharp bends, until finally the
summit is reached. To mount this remarkable grade a double engine has
been specially built, having two sets of driving wheels; but it is often
necessary to stop for a few moments to generate sufficient steam to
overcome the resistance of the steep grade.
Here we are on the great table-land of the country, about eight thousand
feet above the level of the sea, in a narrow valley surrounded by groups
of hills all teeming with the precious ore. These rich mines of
Zacatecas have been worked with little intermission for over three
hundred years, and are considered to be inexhaustible. "There is a
native laborer," said an intelligent superintendent to us, "who is over
seventy years old," pointing out a hale and hearty Indian. "He entered
the mines at about ten years of age, so he has seen sixty years of
mining life, and he may be good for ten years more." These men
constantly climb the steep ladders, bearing heavy loads of ore upon
their backs, for which hard labor they are paid about thirty-five or
forty cents a day. The most productive districts, as relates to mineral
products, especially of silver, lie in the northern part of the
republic, but metalliferous deposits are found in every state of the
confederation.
There are a number of important edifices in the city, among which is the
municipal palace, the cathedral, and the mint. The courtyard of the
first-named forms a lovely picture, with its garden of fragrant flowers,
tropical trees, and delicate columns supporting a veranda half hidden
with creeping vines. Both the interior and exterior of the cathedral are
extremely interesting and worthy of careful study, though one cannot but
remember how much of the wages of the poor populace has been cunningly
diverted from their family support to supply this useless ornamentation.
For this object indulgences are sold to the rich, and the poor peons are
made to believe their future salvation depends upon their liberal
contributions to support empty forms and extravagance. In his "Through
the Heart of Mexico," lately published, Rev. J. N. McCarty, D. D., says:
"If ever any people on earth were stripped of their clothing and starved
to array the priesthood in rich and gaudy apparel, and to furnish them
the fat of the land, these poor Mexicans are the people. Where the
churches are the richest and most numerous, as a rule the people are the
poorest. Their earnings have gone to the church, leaving them only rags,
huts, and the cheapest and coarsest of food."
An ancient stone aqueduct supplies the town with excellent water, but it
is distributed to consumers by men who make a regular business of this
service, and who form picturesque objects with their large earthen jars
strapped across their foreheads, one behind and one in front to balance
each other. We are struck with the aspect of barrenness caused by the
absence of vegetation. The nature of the soil is such as not to afford
sustenance to trees, or even sufficient for the hardy cactus. The
grounds are honeycombed in all directions with mines; silver is king.
Mines in Mexico are individual property, and do not, as we have seen
stated, belong to the government, unless they are abandoned, when they
revert to the state, and are very promptly sold for the benefit of the
public treasury. In order to keep good the title, a mine must be
absolutely worked during four months of the year. If this rule is in any
way evaded, the government confiscates the property and at once offers
it for sale, so that those on the lookout for such chances often obtain
a good title at a merely nominal price. But there are mines and mines in
this country, as in our western districts; some will pay to work and
some will not. As a rule it depends as much upon the management of such
a property as upon the richness of the native ore, whether it yields a
profitable return for the money invested in the enterprise.
In climbing to the level of the city from the plain below, the railroad
sometimes doubles upon itself horseshoe fashion, like a huge serpent
gathering its body in coils for a forward spring, winding about the
hills and among the mines, affording here and there glimpses of grand
and attractive scenery embracing the fertile plains of Fresnillo, and in
the blue distance the main range of the Sierra Madre. The color of these
distant mountain ranges changes constantly, varying with the morning,
noon, and twilight hues, producing effects which one does not weary of
quietly watching by the hour together.
Vegetables, charcoal, fruit, and market produce generally are brought
into the town from various distances on the backs of the natives. These
Indians will tire the best horse in the distance they can cover in the
same length of time, while carrying a hundred pounds and more upon their
backs. Mules and donkeys are also much in use, but the lower classes of
both sexes universally carry heavy burdens upon their backs from early
youth. Some of the Indian women are seen bearing loads of pottery or
jars of water upon their shoulders with seeming ease, under which an
ordinary Irish laborer would stagger. Comparatively few wheeled vehicles
are in use, and these are of the rudest character, the wheel being
composed of three pieces of timber, so secured together as to form a
circle, but having no spokes or tire, very like the ancient African and
Egyptian models. To such a vehicle a couple of oxen are attached by a
wooden bar reaching across their frontlets and lashed to the roots of
the horns by leather thongs. The skins of animals, such as goats, sheep,
and swine, are universally employed for transporting and storing
liquids, precisely as in Egypt thousands of years ago. The daily supply
of pulque is brought to market on the natives' backs in pig-skins, the
four legs protruding from the body in a ludicrous manner when the skin
is full of liquid. Everything in and about the city is quaint, though
the telephone, electric lights, and street tramways all speak of modern
civilization. The insufficient water supply is the cause of much
inconvenience, not to say suffering, and partly accounts for the untidy
condition of the place and the prevalence of offensive smells. The
latter are so disgusting as to be almost unbearable by a stranger. No
wonder that typhoid fever and kindred diseases prevail, and that the
death rate exceeds, as we were told is the case, that of any other
district in the republic.
There is an article of pottery manufactured in this vicinity, of a deep
red color, hard-baked and glazed inside and out, having rude but
effective ornamentation. Almost every large town in Mexico has one or
more pottery manufactories, each district producing ware which is so
individualized in the shape and finish as to distinctly mark its origin,
so that experts can tell exactly whence each specimen has been brought.
The manufacture of pottery is most frequently carried on by individuals,
each Indian with his primitive tools turning out work from his mud
cabin sometimes fit to grace the choicest and most refined homes. The
accuracy of eye and hand gained by long practice produces marvelous
results.
Overlooking the city, on a mountain ridge known as the Buefa, is a quaint
and curious church, Los Remedios. From this point one obtains a very
comprehensive view of the entire valley and the surrounding rugged
hills. One of the most bloody battles of the civil wars was fought on
the Buefa in 1871, between a revolutionary force under General Trevino
and the Juarez army, which resulted in the defeat of the revolutionists.
"Both sides fought with unprecedented frenzy," said a resident to us.
"From those steep rocks," he continued, pointing to the abrupt
declivities, "absolutely ran streams of blood, while dead bodies rolled
down into the gulch below by hundreds." We ventured to ask what this
quarrel between, fellow countrymen was about that caused such a loss of
life and induced such a display of enthusiastic devotion. "That is a
question," he replied, "which the rank and file of either army could not
have answered, though of course the leaders had their personal schemes
to subserve,--schemes of self-aggrandizement." It was Lamartine who said
significantly, "Civil wars leave nothing but tombs."
It is the custom for a stranger to descend one or more of the silver
mines; indeed, it may be said to be the one thing to do at Zacatecas,
but for which only the most awkward means imaginable are supplied, such
as ladders formed of a single long, notched pole, quite possible for an
acrobat or performer on the trapeze. It is up and down these hazardous
poles that the Indian miners, in night and day gangs, climb, while
carrying heavy canvas bags of ore weighing nearly or quite two hundred
pounds each. The writer is free to acknowledge that he did not improve
the opportunity to explore the bowels of the earth at Zacatecas, having
performed his full share of this sort of thing in other parts of the
world.
Zacatecas has its plaza; all Spanish and Mexican towns have one.
Probably, in laying out a town, the originators first select this
important centre, and then all other avenues, streets, and edifices are
made to conform to this location. In the middle of this plaza is a large
stone fountain, about which groups of native women are constantly busy
dipping water and filling their earthen jars, while hard by other women,
squatting on their haunches, offer oranges, pineapples, figs, and
bananas for sale. How these Mexican markets swarm with people and glow
with color, backed by moss-grown walls and ruined archways! Long burro
trains block the roadway, and others are seen winding down the zigzag
paths of the overhanging declivities. Close at hand within these low
adobe hovels, pulque is being retailed at a penny a tumbler. It is the
lager-beer of the country. Poverty, great poverty, stares us in the
face. No people could be more miserably housed, living and sleeping as
they do upon the bare ground, and owning only the few pitiful rags that
hang about their bodies. At the doors of these mud cabins women are seen
making tortillas with their rude stone implements. These little flat
cakes are bread and meat to them. Now and again one observes forms and
faces among the young native women that an artist would travel far to
study; but although some few are thus extremely handsome, the majority
are very homely, ill-formed, and negligent of person. The best looking
among the peons lose their comeliness after a few years, owing to hard
labor, childbirth, and deprivations. Few women retain their good looks
after twenty-five years or until they are thirty. Another fact was
remarked, that these Indian men and women never laugh. The writer was
not able to detect even a smile upon the faces of the lower grade of
natives; a ceaseless melancholy seems to surround them at all times, by
no means in accordance with the gay colors which they so much affect. In
contrast to the hovels of the populace, one sees occasionally a small
garden inclosed with a high adobe wall, belonging to some rich mine
owner, in which the tall pomegranate, full of scarlet bloom, or a
stately pepper tree, dominates a score of others of semi-tropical
growth.
One practice was observed at Zacatecas which recalled far-away Hong
Kong, China. This was the prosecution of various trades in the open air.
Thus the shoemaker was at work outside of his dwelling; the tailor, the
barber, and the tinker adopted the same practice, quite possible even in
the month of March in a land of such intense brightness and sunshine. We
wandered hither and thither, charmed by the novelty and strangeness of
everything; not an object to remind one of home, but only of the far
East. The swarthy natives with sandaled feet, the high colors worn by
the common people, the burnous-like serape, the sober unemotional
manners of the peons, the nut-brown women with brilliant eyes and
half-covered faces, the attractive fruits, the sharp cries of the
venders, the Egyptian-shaped pottery,--surely this might be Damascus or
Cairo.
An excursion by tramway was made to the neighboring town of Guadalupe,
six or eight miles away, nearly the entire distance being a sharp down
grade, over which the cars pass at top speed by their own gravitation;
no animals are attached. So steep is the descent that it may be compared
to a Canadian toboggan slide. It requires six mules to draw each car
back again, the animals being harnessed three abreast like the horses in
the Paris and Neapolitan omnibuses. Though this tramway is now admitted
to be an indispensable adjunct to the business of the place, when it was
first resolved upon by some of the residents more enterprising than
their neighbors, it was considered to be a serious innovation, open to
great objections, the local priesthood bitterly opposing it. Even the
moneyed mine owners and others who instituted the project had no fixed
idea how to operate a tramway of this sort, and an American overseer was
from the beginning and is to-day in charge. The cars were ordered from
Philadelphia, and while they were building, the steel rails, which came
from Liverpool by way of Vera Cruz, were laid down from one end of the
route to the other. Finally, when the cars arrived from the United
States, it was found that they would not run on the track, the fact
being that the rails had been laid on a gauge three inches narrower than
the cars were designed for. What was to be done? The Mexicans at first
proposed to rebuild the cars,--make the bodies narrower, and cut off the
axle-trees to fit the gauge of the rails. In their hopeless ignorance
this was the only way they could see out of the difficulty. The present
superintendent, a practical American engineer, was at the time in
Zacatecas, and took in the position of affairs at a glance, offering for
five hundred dollars to show the owners how to get out of the trouble
without changing an article upon the cars. The money was paid, and with
twenty men and some suitable tools the American took up a few rods of
the track, made a proper gauge for the rest, and had the cars running
over the short distance in one day. It was the old story of Columbus and
the egg, easy enough when one knew how to do it. The managers of the
road promptly put the American in charge, and he has filled the position
ever since.
Guadalupe is an interesting town of some six thousand inhabitants, not
counting the myriads of dogs, which do much abound in every part of
Mexico. As a rule these are miserable, mangy-looking, half-starved
creatures, with thin bodies and prominent ribs. The poorer the people,
the more dogs they keep, a rule which applies not only here, but
everywhere, especially among semi-barbarous races. The people seem to be
very kind to pet animals,--though they do abuse the burros,--cats
especially being of a plump, handsome species, quite at home, always
sleeping lazily in the sunshine. If they do purr in Spanish, it is so
very like the genuine English article that its purport is quite
unmistakable. The persistency of the beggars here attracted attention,
and on inquiry about the matter, a resident American informed us that
these beggars were actually organized by the priests, to whom they
report daily, and with whom they share their proceeds, thus enriching
the plethoric coffers of the church. This seems almost incredible; but
it is true. The decencies of life are often ignored, and the open
streets present disgusting scenes. Men and women lie down and sleep
wherever fatigue overcomes them, upon the hard stones or in the dirt.
The town is generally barren of vegetation, though a few dreary cactus
trees manage to sustain themselves in the rocky soil, with here and
there a yucca palm.
There is a famous orphan asylum in Guadalupe which is designed to
accommodate a thousand inmates at a time, and there is also a
well-endowed college. The former of these, the Orfanatorio de Guadalupe,
is one of the most important charitable institutions in the republic.
The old church of red sandstone, with its somewhat remarkable carvings,
as exhibited upon the facade, has two graceful towers and is elaborately
finished within. The church contains a half dozen oil paintings by
Antonio de Torres, which bear the date 1720. The finest of these is that
of "The Last Supper." The very elegant interior of the chapel of the
Purisima was not completed until so late as 1886, and is justly
considered the finest modern church structure in Mexico. As one passes
out into the surrounding squalor and obtrusive poverty, it is impossible
not to moralize as to the costly, theatrical, and ostentatious road
which seems to lead to the Roman Catholic heaven.
The little market-place of Guadalupe presents a scene like a country
fair, with its booths for the sale of fruits, pottery, vegetables,
flowers, bright-hued serapes and rebosas, all combining to form a
conglomerate of color which, mingled with the moving figures of the
mahogany-hued Indian women, is by no means devoid of picturesqueness.
One must step carefully not to tread upon the little mounds and clusters
of fruits and vegetables spread upon the ground for sale. The careless,
happy laugh of a light-hearted group of senoritas rang musically upon
the ear as we watched the market scene. Their uncovered, purple-black
hair glistened in the warm sunlight, while their roguish glances, from
"soul-deep eyes of darkest night," were like sparks of electricity. Was
it their normal mood, or did the presence of a curious stranger, himself
on the _qui vive_ to see everything, move them to just a bit of
coquetry?