The Chinampas or Water Gardens.--Laws of Nature not set aside.--Mud
will not float.--The present Chinampas.--They never could have been
floating Gardens.--Relations of the Chinampas to the ancient State of
the Lake in the Valley.
All the world has heard of the floating gardens (_chinampas_) of
Mexico, but all the world has not seen them. I have not seen any
floating gardens, nor, on diligent inquiry, have I been able to find a
man, woman, or child that ever has seen them, nor do I believe that
such a thing as a floating garden ever existed at Mexico. Humboldt
admits that they do exist; says that he has seen floating earthy masses
of great size in the tropical rivers, and then describes the manner of
the construction of the chinampas, but in such a way as to satisfy the
careful reader that he does not intend to say that he saw them himself,
and evidently makes his statement upon hearsay; and takes it up as an
admitted fact, without having his mind called to the physical
impossibilities of floating a mass of earth that was of a greater
specific gravity than water.
FAITH AND TESTIMONY.
When the historians of the Conquest wrote their marvelous narratives of
alleged adventures and of the new empire, it was a question for the
Emperor and the Inquisition solely, whether their writings should pass
for history or be condemned as fabulous. With this question the people
had nothing to do but to believe as it suited those in authority. The
question being settled that the publication of the letters of Cortez as
a verity would redound to the glory of the Church and the king, then it
was also settled that there should be no contradiction published; and
as these marvelous tales were spread abroad throughout Europe, with the
masses of silver from the newly-discovered mines, men were prepared to
believe almost any thing--even that rich vegetable mould, when
saturated with water, could float.
It not being lawful to promulgate the facts of the Conquest, the memory
of events that really transpired ultimately passed from the
recollections of men, so that the letters of Cortez were taken for
truth, even in their most minute details; so that, in a subsequent
century, we find a vice-king employing an engineer to search for and
clean out the hole in the bottom of the Tezcuco! for, from the
vice-king down to the most insignificant official, all assumed that the
letters of Cortez gave a correct picture of affairs at that time; and
all showed the greatest embarrassment in accounting for the magnitude
of the changes that are supposed to have occurred without a
sufficiently adequate cause. It is a common difficulty in all purely
Catholic countries, for there the rule of evidence is an unnatural one.
The people have been taught to believe from their infancy that the laws
of nature can be set aside upon every trifling occasion, at the
momentary caprice of any one of the multitude of saints "who are to
govern the world;" and on proof that any mortal has set aside the laws
of nature or wrought a miracle, he at once becomes a saint. With these
"dutiful children of the Church" there can be no fixed laws of
evidence; the only ground of belief is, and ever must be, Has the
statement been sanctioned by the highest authority? If so, it is true;
if not, it is to be doubted, however positive the proofs may be. A
difficulty that the traveler every where encounters is that he can
believe nothing that he hears, even on the most trifling subject,
without careful examination and weighing of testimony. As he can not
examine every thing himself, he is constantly liable to be imposed upon
by taking for granted that which is every where affirmed. Humboldt for
once, with all his caution, seems to have fallen into the common trap,
and credited, without examination, the story of the floating gardens.
THE CHINAMPAS.
The chinampas are formed on the fresh-water mud on each side of the
canal of Chalco, from the southeast corner of the city to a point near
the ancient village of Mexicalzingo, and for a part of the way they are
on both sides of that beautiful but now neglected _paseo_, Las Vegas;
there are also a small number near the causeway of Tacubaya, and in
other parts of the marsh; their number might be extended without limit
if it was not regulated by the demands of the vegetable market of
Mexico. Chinampas are formed by laying upon the soft mud a very thick
coating of reeds, or rather rushes, in the form and about the size of
one of our largest canal scows. Between two chinampas a space of about
half the width of one is left, and from this open space the mud is
dipped up and poured upon the bed of dry rushes, where it dries, and
forms a rich "muck" soil, which constitutes the garden. As the specific
gravity of this garden is much greater than that of the water, or of
the substratum of mud and water combined, it gradually sinks down into
its muddy foundation; and in a few years it has to be rebuilt by laying
upon the top of the garden a new coating of rushes and another covering
of mud. Thus they have been going on for centuries, one garden being
placed upon the top of another, and a third placed over all, so soon as
the second gives signs of being swallowed up in the all-devouring mud.
The gardeners navigate the open space between their islands with light
boats; and during the short hours of the morning, the market-boat
alongside each island is loaded with a cargo of vegetables, fruits, and
flowers, which are to be displayed in the great market of Santa Anna.
More pleasing than a drive on the _paseo_ is a boat-ride down the canal
of Chalco at eventide, when the proprietor of each of these little
estates is seen standing in the canal alongside, and throwing upon his
thirsty plants a plentiful supply of the tepid canal water, which, from
every leaf and flower, reflects back the rays of a setting sun, that
have penetrated the long shadows of the trees of Las Vegas. Some of the
chinampas have small huts upon them, where a gardener lives, who
watches over two or three of these little properties. Sometimes also
shrubs, and even trees, are planted along the edges, which yield both
fruits and flowers, and serve to keep the dry earth from falling into
the water. When looking at one of the largest and best cared for
chinampas, the beholder can hardly divest himself of the idea that it
is a floating island, and might well have been the residence of
Calypso.
This is the whole of the story of the chinampas, the most fertile and
beautiful little gardens upon the face of the earth. A correct picture
of them would be poetry enough, without the addition of falsehood; for
whether it is the rainy season or the dry season, it is always the same
to them. They know no exclusive seed-time, and have no especial season
for harvest; but blossoms and ripe fruits grow side by side, and
flowers flourish at all seasons. As market gardens they are unrivaled,
and to them Mexico is indebted for its abundant supplies.
The evidence that Humboldt[35] produces in favor of floating gardens,
viz., that he saw floating islands of some 30 feet in length in the
midst of the current of rivers, amounts to little in this case; for
every one that has traveled extensively in tropical lowlands has seen
vegetation spring up upon floating masses of brush-wood. Where earth
torn from the river bank is so bound together by living roots as to
form a raft, it will always float for a little while upon the current,
provided that its specific gravity does not materially exceed that of
the water; and those grasses that flourish best in water will spring up
and grow upon these islands. Peat, too, in bogs, will float and form
islands, for the simple reason that it is of less specific gravity than
water; and vegetation will also spring up on these peat islands. But
all this furnishes no evidence that the invariable law of nature, which
carries to the bottom the heaviest body, has been suspended at Mexico.
Had the floating gardens been built in large boats made water-tight,
they might have floated. But, unfortunately, the Indians had not the
means for constructing such boats. Even timber-rafts would have become
saturated in time, and sunk, as rafts of logs do if kept too long in
the "mill-pond," waiting to be sawed into lumber.
There is another law of nature, which must not be lost sight of, which
is at war with the idea of a garden floating on a bed of rushes; and
that is capillary attraction, which would raise particles of water, one
by one, among the fibres of the rushes until the frail raft on which
the earth rested was saturated; and still pressing upward, the busy
drops would penetrate the superincumbent earth, moistening and adding
to the specific gravity of the garden by filling the porous earth until
it became too heavy to float, if it ever had floated.
Nearly three hundred years had passed away before men ventured to
question the truth of the statement that the gardens along the canal of
Chalco ever floated, and then it seemed like temerity to raise the
question, even if it were only a popular fallacy. It has therefore been
treated by all modern writers as a well-established matter, and one of
not sufficient importance to justify its minute investigation. With me
the question was a far different one. I had, after careful inquiry and
observation, come to the conclusion that the marshes of the valley of
Mexico were, in the time of Cortez, substantially in the condition in
which we find them at the present day; that the filling up they had
undergone in that time was counterbalanced by the relief they had
gained by the canal of Huehuetoca. The chinampas constitute an
important link in the chain of proofs to establish this fact. If I have
succeeded in showing that these gardens of the Aztecs, instead of
floating upon the water, rested upon the muddy bottom, it follows as a
matter of course that the depth of the water in the laguna could not,
in the day of the Aztecs, have been materially greater than it now is.
[35] _Essai Politique_, vol. ii. p. 61.