CUERNAVACA. TEMISCO. XOCHICALCO.
[Illustration: SPANISH-MEXICAN SADDLE AND ITS APPURTENANCES.]
Much too soon, as we thought, the day came when we had arranged to
leave Tezcuco and return to Mexico, to prepare for a journey into the
tierra caliente. On the evening of our return to the capital there was
a little earthquake, but neither of us noticed it; and thus we lost our
one chance, and returned to England without having made acquaintance
with that peculiar sensation.
The purchase of horses and saddles and other equipments for our
journey, gave us an opportunity of poking about into out-of-the-way
corners of the city, and seeing some new phases of Mexican life; and
certainly we made the most of the chance. We made acquaintance with
horse-dealers, who brought us horses to try in the courtyard of the
great house of our friends the English merchants in the Calle
Seminario, and there showed off their paces, walking, pacing, and
galloping. To trot is considered a disgusting vice in a Mexican horse;
and the universal substitute for it here is the _paso_, a queer
shuffling run, first, the two legs on one side together, and then the
other two. You jolt gently up and down without rising in the stirrups;
and when once you are used to it the paso is not disagreeable, and it
is well suited to long mountain-journeys. Horses in the United States
are often trained to this gait, and are known as “pacing” horses.
Another peculiarity in the training of Mexican horses is, that many of
them are taught to “rayar,” that is, to put their fore-feet out after
the manner of mules going down a pass; and slide a short distance along
the ground, so as to stop suddenly in the midst of a rapid gallop. To
practise the horses in this feat, the jockey draws a lino (“_raya_”) on
the ground, and teaches them to stop exactly as they reach it, and
whirl round in the opposite direction. This performance is often to be
seen on the paseo, and other places, where smart young gentlemen like
to show off themselves and their horses; but it is only a fancy trick,
and they acknowledge that it spoils the animal’s fore-legs.
After much bargaining and chaffering we bought three horses for
ourselves and our man Antonio, giving eight, seven, and four pounds for
them. This does not seem much to give for good hackneys, as these were;
but they were not particularly cheap for Mexico. While we were at
Tezcuco, Mr. Christy used to ride one of Mr. Bowring’s horses, a pretty
little chestnut, which carried him beautifully, and had cost just
eleven dollars, or forty-six shillings. It had been bought of the
horse-dealers who come down every year from the almost uninhabited
states of Chihuahua, Durango, and Cohahuila, on the American frontier,
where innumerable herds of horses, all but wild, roam over boundless
prairies, feeding on the tall coarse grass. Their keep costs so little,
that the breeders are not compelled, as in England, to break them in
and sell them at the earliest possible moment, and they let the young
colts roam untamed till they are five or six years old. Their great
strength and power of endurance in proportion to their size is in great
measure to be ascribed to this early indulgence.
It is very clear that when a horse is to be sold for somewhere between
two and six pounds, the breeder cannot afford to spend much time in
breaking him in. The rough-rider lazos him, puts on the bridle with its
severe bit, and springs upon his back in spite of kicking and plunging.
The horse gallops furiously off across country of his own accord, but
when his pace begins to flag, the great vaquero spurs come into
requisition, and in an hour or two he comes back to the corral dead
beat and conquered once for all. It is easy to teach him his paces
afterwards. The anquera—as it is called—is put on his haunches, to cure
him of trotting, and to teach him the paso instead. It is a leather
covering fringed with iron tags, which is put on behind the saddle, and
allows the horse to pace without annoying him; but the least approach
to a trot brings the pointed tags rattling upon his haunches. We bought
one of these anqueras at Puebla. It was very old, and curiously
ornamented with carved patterns. In the last century, these anqueras
were a regular part of Mexican horse-equipment; but now, except in
horse-breaking yards or old curiosity-shops, they are seldom to be
seen.
Almost all the Mexican horses descend from the Arab breed—the gentlest
and yet the most spirited in the world, which have not degenerated
since the Spaniards brought them over in the early days of the
Conquest, but retain unchanged their small graceful shape, their
swiftness, and their power of bearing fatigue. There seem really to be
no large horses bred in the country. Instead of jolting about in a
carriage drawn by eight or ten mules, with harness covered with silver
and gold—as rich Mexicans used to do, the proper thing now is to have a
pair of tall carriage-horses, like ours in England; and these are
brought at great expense from the United States, and by the side of the
graceful little Mexicans they look as big and as clumsy as elephants.
Our saddles were of the old Moorish pattern, of monstrous size and
weight, very comfortable for the rider, but, I fear, much less so for
the horse, whose back often gets sadly galled, in spite of the thick
padding and the two or three blankets that are put on underneath. These
saddles run into high peaks behind and before, so that you can hardly
fall out of them, even when you go to sleep in the saddle on a long
journey, as many people habitually do. In front, the saddle rises into
a pummel which is made of hard wood, and is something like a large
mushroom with its stalk. Round this the end of the lazo is wound, after
the noose has been thrown. All Mexican saddles are provided with these
heads in front, and have, moreover, several pairs of little thongs
attached to them on each side, which serve to tie on bags, whips,
water-gourds, and other odds and ends. Behind the seat of the saddle
are more straps, where cloaks and serapes are fastened; and in case of
need even a carpet-bag will travel there. We were in the habit of
returning from our expeditions with our horses so covered with the
plants and curiosities we had collected, that it became no easy matter
to get our legs safely over the horses’ backs, into their proper places
among the clusters of miscellanea. Our acquaintances used to compare us
to the perambulating butchers’ shops, which are a feature in Mexican
streets, and consist of a horse with a long saddle covered with hooks,
and on every hook a joint.
The flaps of our saddles, the great spatterdashes that protected our
feet from the mud, and the broad stirrup-straps were covered with
carved and embossed patterns; indeed almost all leather-work is
decorated in this way, and the saddle-makers delight in ornamenting
their wares with silver plates and bosses; so that it was not
surprising that our saddles and bridles should have cost, though
second-hand, nearly as much as the horses.
In books of travels in Mexico up to the beginning of the present
century, one of the staple articles of wondering description was the
gorgeous trappings of the horses, and the spurs, bits, and stirrups of
gold and silver. The costumes have not changed much, but the taste for
such costly ornaments has abated; and it is now hardly respectable to
have more than a few pounds worth of bullion on one’s saddle or around
one’s hat, or to wear a hundred or so of buttons of solid gold down the
sides of one’s leather trousers, with a very questionable cotton
calzoncillo underneath.
The horses’ bits are made with a ring, which pinches the under-lip when
the bridle is tightened, and causes great pain when it is pulled at all
hard. At first sight it seems cruel to use such bits, but the system
works very well; and the horses, knowing the power their rider has over
them, rarely misbehave themselves. One rides along with the loop at the
end of the twisted horse-hair bridle hanging loose on one finger, so
that the horse’s mouth is much less pulled about than with the bridles
we are accustomed to in England. When it is necessary to guide the
horse, the least pressure is enough; but, as a general rule, the little
fellow can find his way as well as his rider can. We used continually
to let our reins drop on our horses’ necks, and jog on careless of pits
and stumbling-blocks. I have even seen my companion take out his
pocket-book, and improve the occasion by making notes and sketches as
he went.
[Illustration: SPANISH-MEXICAN BIT, with its ring and chains. Length
9 inches, width 5½ inches.]
The distance from Mexico to Vera Cruz is about two hundred and fifty
miles, and what the roads are I have in some measure described. Rafael
Beraza, the courier of the English Mission at Mexico, used to ride this
with despatches regularly once a month in forty hours, and occasionally
in thirty-five. He changed horses about every ten or fifteen miles; and
now and then, when, overcome by sleep, he would let the boy who
accompanied him to the next stage ride first, his own horse following,
and the rider comfortably dozing as he went along.
As for our own equipment, Mr. Christy adopted the attributes of the
eastern traveller when he came into the country, the great umbrella,
the veil, and the felt hat with a white handkerchief over it. As for
me, my wardrobe was scanty; so, when my travelling coat wore out at the
elbows and my trousers were sat through—like the little bear’s chair in
the story, I replaced the garments with a jacket of chamois leather,
and a pair of loose trousers made of the same, after the manner of the
country. Then came a grey felt hat, as stiff as a boiler-plate, and of
more than quakerish lowness of crown and broadness of brim, but
secularized by a silver serpent for a hatband; also, a red silk sash,
which—fastening round the waist—held up my trousers, and interfered
with my digestion; lastly, a woollen serape to sleep under, and to wear
in the mornings and evenings. This is the genuine ranchero costume, and
it did me good service. Indeed, ever since my Mexican journey I have
considered that George Fox decidedly showed his good sense by dressing
himself in a suit of leather; much more so than the people who laughed
at him for it.
In the country, all Mexicans—high and low—wear this national dress; and
in this they are distinguished from the Indians, who keep to the cotton
shirts and drawers, and the straw hats of their ancestors. In the
towns, it is only the lower classes who dress in the ranchero costume,
for “nous autres” wear European garments and follow the last Paris
fashion, with these exceptions—that for riding, people wear jackets and
calzoneras of the national cut, though made of cloth, and that the
Mexican hat is often worn even by people who adopt no other parts of
the costume. There never were such hats as these for awkwardness. The
flat sharp brims of passers-by are always threatening to cut your head
off in the streets. You cannot get into a carriage with your hat on,
nor sit there when you are in. But for walking and riding under a
fierce sun, they are perhaps better than anything else that can be
used.
The Mexican blanket—the serape—is a national institution; It is wider
than a Scotch plaid, and nearly as long, with a slit in the middle; and
it is woven in the same gaudy Oriental patterns which are to be seen on
the prayer-carpets of Turkey and Palestine to this day. It is worn as a
cloak, with the end flung over the left shoulder, like the Spanish
_capa_, and muffling up half the face when its owner is chilly or does
not wish to be recognized. When a heavy rain comes down, and he is on
horseback, he puts his head through the slit in the middle, and becomes
a moving tent. At night he rolls himself up in it, and sleeps on a mat
or a board, or on the stones in the open air.
Convenient as it is, the serape is as much tabooed among the
“respectable” classes in the cities as the rest of the national
costume. I recollect going one evening after dark to the house of our
friends in the Calle Seminario with my serape on, and nearly having to
fight it out with the great dog Nelson, who was taking charge of his
master’s room. Nelson knew me perfectly well, and had sat that very
morning at the hotel-gate for half an hour, holding my horse, while a
crowd of leperos stood round, admiring his size and the gravity of his
demeanour as he sat on the pavement, with the bridle in his mouth. But
that a man in a serape should come into his master’s room at dusk was a
thing he could not tolerate, till the master himself came in, and
satisfied his mind on the subject.
As I said, the equipment of ourselves and our three horses took us into
a variety of strange places, for we bought the things we wanted piece
by piece, when we saw anything that suited us. Among other places we
went to the Baratillo, which is the Rag-Fair and Petticoat Lane of
Mexico, and moreover the emporium for whips, bridles, bits, old spurs,
old iron, and odds and ends generally. The little shops are arranged in
long lines, after the manner of the eastern bazaar; and the
shopkeepers, when they are not smoking cigarettes outside, are sitting
in their little dens, within arms-length of all the wares they have to
sell. Here we found what we had come for, and much more too, in the way
of wonderful old spurs, combs, boxes, and ornaments; so that we came
several times more before we left the country, and never without
carrying away some curious old relic.
Mexico, as everybody knows, is decidedly a thievish place. The shops
are all shut at dark, after the _Oración_, for fear of thieves. Ladies
used to wear immense tortoise-shell combs at the back of their heads,
where the mantilla is fastened on; but, when it became a regular trade
for thieves to ride on horseback through the streets, and pull out the
combs as they went, the fashion had to be given up. These curiously
carved and ornamented combs are still preserved as curiosities, and we
bought several of them.
While we were in Mexico, they knocked a man down in the great square at
noon-day, robbed him, and left him there for dead. The square is so
large, and the sun was so hot, that the police—whose head-quarters are
under the arches in that very square—could not possibly walk across to
see what was going on!—_moral_, if you will have the distinction of
having the largest square in the world, you must take the consequences.
Of course, where thieving is so general, the market for stolen goods
must be a place of considerable trade, and this Baratillo is one of the
principal depôts for such wares. One may realize here the story of the
citizen, in the old book, who had his wig stolen at the beginning of
his walk through London, and found it hanging up for sale a little
further on. Here the deserter comes to sell his uniform and his
ricketty old flintlock. Small blame to him. I would do the same myself
if I were in his place, and were compelled to serve under one rascally
political adventurer against another rascally political adventurer—to
say nothing of being treated like a dog, half-starved, and not paid at
all, except by a sort of half license to plunder. “Those poor soldiers!
we can’t pay them, you know, and they must live somehow.”
I have abused the Mexicans for being thieves, and not without reason,
though, as regards ourselves personally, we never lost anything except
a great brand-new waterproof coat which my companion had brought with
him, promising to himself that under its shelter he should bid defiance
to the daily rain-storms of the wet season. As we dismounted from the
Diligence in Mexico, in the courtyard of the hotel, some one relieved
him of it. We did not know of the Baratillo in those days, or would
have gone to look for it there. At the time of our visit it was too
late, for if it ever had been there, the Mexicans understand too well
the value of an English “ulli,” as they call them, to let it hang long
for sale. “Ulli” is not a borrowed word, but the genuine Aztec name for
India-rubber, which was used to make playing-balls with, long before
the time of Columbus.
I mentioned the water-bottles as part of our equipment. They are
gourds, which are throttled with bandages while young, so as to make
them grow into the shape of bottles with necks. Then they are hung up
to dry; and the inside being cleaned out through a small hole near the
stalk, they are ready for use, holding two or three pints of water. A
couple of inches of a corn-cob (the inside of a ear of Indian corn)
makes a capital cork; and the bottle is hung by a loop of string to the
pummel of the saddle, where it swings about without fear of breaking.
One may see gourds, prepared in just the same way, in Italy, hanging up
under the eaves of the little farm-houses, among the festoons of red
and yellow ears of Indian corn; and indeed the gourd-bottle is a
regular institution of Southern Europe.
We sent Antonio on with the horses to Cuernavaca, and started by the
Diligence early one morning, accompanied by one of our English friends,
whom I will call—as every-one else did—Don Guillermo. It is the regular
thing here, as in Spain, to call everybody by his or her Christian
name. You may have known Don Antonio or Don Felipe for weeks before you
happen to hear their surnames.
The road ran at first over the plain, among great water-meadows, with
herds of cattle pasturing, and fields of wheat and maize. Ploughing was
going on, after the primitive fashion of the country, with two oxen
yoked to each plough. The yoke is fastened to the horns of the oxen,
and to the centre of the yoke a pole is attached. At the other end of
this pole is the plough itself, which consists of a wooden stake with
an iron point and a handle. The driver holds the handle in one hand and
his goad in the other (a long reed with an iron point), and so they
toil along, making a long scratch as they go. A man follows the plough,
and drops in single grains of Indian corn, about three feet apart. The
furrows are three feet from one another, so that each stalk occupies
some nine square feet of ground. When the plants are growing up they
dig between them, and heap up round each stalk a little mound of earth.
We passed many little houses consisting of one square room, built of
mud-bricks, with mud-mortar stuck full of little stones; without
windows, but generally possessing the luxury of a chimney, with a
couple of bricks forming an arch over it to keep out the rain. Glimpses
of men smoking cigarettes at the doors, half-naked brown children
rolling in the dirt, and women on their knees inside, hard at work
grinding the corn for those eternal tortillas.
At San Juan de Dios Mr. Christy climbed to the top of the Diligence,
behind the conductor, who sat with a large black leather bag full of
stones on the footboard before him. Whenever one of the nine mules
showed a disposition to shirk his work, a heavy stone came flying at
him, always hitting him in a tender place, for long practice had made
the conductor almost as good a shot as the goat-herds in the mountains,
who are said to be able to hit their goats on whichever horn they
please, and so to steer them straight when they seem inclined to stray.
But our conductor simply threw the stones, whereas the goat-herd uses
the aloe-fibre honda, or sling, that one sees hanging by dozens in the
Mexican shops.
We pass near Churubusco, and along the line by which the American army
reached Mexico. The field of lava which they crossed is close at our
right hand; and just on the other side of it lie Tisapán and our friend
Don Alejandro’s cotton-factory. On our left are the freshwater-lakes of
Xochimilco and Chalco, which had risen several feet, and flooded the
valley in their neighbourhood. Between us and the great mountain-chain
that forms the rim of the valley, lies a group of extinct volcanos,
from one of which descends the great lava-field.
Passing in full view of these picturesque craters, now mostly covered
with trees and brushwood, we begin to ascend, and are soon among the
porphyritic range that forms a wall between us and the land of
sugar-canes and palms. Along the road towards Mexico came long files of
Indians, dressed in the national white cotton shirts and short drawers
and sandals, made like Montezuma’s, though not with plates of gold on
the soles, such as that monarch’s sandals had. Some of these Indians
are bringing on their backs wood and charcoal from the pine-forest
higher up among the mountains, and some have fastened to their backs
light crates full of live fowls or vegetables; others are carrying up
tropical fruits from the tierra caliente below, zapotes and mameis,
nisperos and granaditas, tamarinds and fresh sugar-canes. These people
are walking with their loads thirty or forty miles to market: but their
race have been used as beasts of burden for ages, and they don’t mind
it.
Bright blue and red birds, and larger and more brilliant butterflies
than are seen in Europe, show that, though we are among fields of wheat
and maize, we are in the tropics after all. As the road rises we get
views of the broad valley, with its lakes and green meadows, and the
great white haciendas with their clumps of willows, their
church-towers, and the clusters of adobe huts surrounding them—like the
peasants’ cottages in feudal Europe, crowding up to the baron’s castle.
Our mules begin to flag as we toil up the steep ascent; but the
conductor rattles the stones in his black bag, and as the ominous sound
reaches their ears, they start off again with renewed vigour. We pass
San Mateo, a village of charcoal-burners, where a large and splendid
stone church, with its tall dark cypresses, stands among the huts of
reeds and pine-shingles that form the village.
[Illustration: INDIANS BRINGING CHARCOAL, &C. TO MEXICO.]
Trains of mules are continually passing with their heavy loads of wood
and charcoal, bales of goods and barrels of aguardiente de caña, which
is rum made from the sugar-cane, but not coloured like that which comes
to England. The men are continually rushing backwards and forwards
among their beasts, which are not content with kicking and biting, and
banging against one another, but are always trying to lie down in the
road; and one of the principal duties of the arriero is constantly to
keep an eye on all his beasts at once, and, when he sees one preparing
to lie down, to be beforehand with him, and drive him on by a furious
shower of blows, kicks, and curses. Certainly, the Mexican mules are
the finest and strongest in the world; and, though they are just as
obstinate here as elsewhere, they are worth two or three times as much
as horses.
Our road lies through a forest of pines and oaks, which reaches to the
summit of the pass, where stands a wretched little village, La Guarda.
There we had a thoroughly Mexican breakfast, with pulque in tall
tumblers, and endless successions of tortillas, coming in hot and hot
from the kitchen, where we could see brown women with bare arms, and
black hair plaited in long tails, kneeling by the charcoal fire, and
industriously patting out fresh supplies, and baking them rapidly on a
hot plate. The _pièce de résistance_ was a stew, bright red with
tomatas, and hot as fire with chile; and then came the _frijoles_—the
black beans—without which no Mexican, high or low, considers a meal
complete. The walls of the room were decorated with highly coloured
engravings, one of which represented an engagement between a Spanish
and an English fleet, in which the English ships are being boarded by
the victorious Spaniards, or are being blown up in the background.
Where the engagement was I cannot recollect. People in Mexico, to whom
I mentioned this remarkable historical event, assured me that there are
still to be seen pictures of the destruction of the English fleet by
the French and Spaniards in the Bay of Trafalgar!
Mexico was always, until the establishment of the republic, profoundly
ignorant of European affairs. In the old times, when the intercourse
with the mother-country was by the great ship, “el nao,” which came
once a year, the government at home could have just such news
circulated through the country as seemed proper and convenient to them.
We see in our own times how despotic governments can mystify their
subjects, and distort contemporary history into what shape they please.
But in Spanish America the system was worked to a greater extent than
in any other country I have heard of; and the undercurrent of popular
talk, which spreads in France and Russia things and opinions not to be
found in the newspapers, had in Mexico but little influence. Scarcely
any Mexican travelled, scarcely any foreigner visited the country, and
the Spaniards who came to hold offices and make fortunes were all in
the interest of the old country; so the Mexicans went on, until the
beginning of this century, believing that Spain still occupied the same
position among the nations of Europe that it had held in the days of
Charles the Fifth.
While my companion was outside the Diligence, Don Guillermo and I were
left to the conversation of an Italian fellow-passenger. One finds such
characters in books, but never before or since have I seen the reality.
He might have been the original of the great Braggadoccio. His
conversation was like a chapter out of the autobiography of his
countryman Alfieri.
He had accompanied the Italian nobleman who was killed in an affray
with the Mexican robbers, some years ago, and on that occasion his
defence had been most heroic. He himself had shot several of the
robbers; till at last, his friend being killed, the rest of the party
yielded to the overwhelming numbers of the brigands, and he ran off to
fetch assistance!
Whenever he was riding along a Mexican road, and any suspicious-looking
person asked him for a light, his habit was to hand him his cigar stuck
in the muzzle of a pistol; “and they always take the hint,” he said,
“and see that it won’t do to interfere with us.” Alone, he had been
attacked by three armed men, but with a pistol in each hand he had
compelled them to retreat. But this was not all; our champion was
victorious in love as well as in arms. Like the great Alfieri, to whom
I have compared him, in every country where he travelled, the most
beautiful and distinguished ladies hardly waited for him to ask before
they cast themselves at his feet. Refusing the rich jewels that he
offered them, they declared that they loved him for himself alone.
Weeks after, we were talking to our friend Mr. Del Pozzo, the Italian
apothecary in the Calle Plateros, and happened to ask him if he were
acquainted with his heroic countryman. Whereupon the apothecary went
off into fits of unextinguishable laughter, and told us how our friend
really had been in the skirmish he described, and had nobly run away
almost before a shot was fired, leaving his friends to fight it out. An
hour or two after, he was found shaking with terror in a ditch.
To return to our road. The forest is on both sides of the Sierra; but
it is on the southern slope, over which we look down from the pass,
that the pines attain their fullest size and beauty; for here they are
as grand as in the Scandinavian forests, with all the beauty of the
pine-trees on the Italian hills. The pass, with its deep forest
skirting the road, has been a resort of robbers for many years; and the
driver pointed out to my companion a little grassy dell by the
road-side, from which forty men had rushed out and plundered the
Diligence just ten days before. With his mind just prepared, one may
imagine his feelings when he caught sight of some twenty wild-looking
fellows in all sorts of strange garments, with the bright sunshine
gleaming on the barrels of their muskets. A man was riding a little in
front of us, and as he approached the others they descended, and ranged
themselves by the side of the road. They were only the guard, after
all, and such a guard! Their thick matted black hair hung about over
their low foreheads and wild brown faces. Some had shoes, some had
none, and some had sandals. They had straw hats, glazed hats, no hats,
leather jackets and trousers, cotton shirts and drawers, or drawers
without any shirt at all; and—what looked worst of all—some had ragged
old uniforms on, like deserters from the army, and there are no worse
robbers than they. When the Diligence reached them, the guard joined
us; some galloping on before, some following behind, whooping and
yelling, brandishing their arms, and dashing in among the trees and out
into the road again. Every now and then my friend outside got a glimpse
down the muzzle of a musket, which did not add to his peace of mind. At
last we got through the dangerous pass, and then we made a subscription
for the guard, who departed making the forest ring again with
war-whoops, and firing off their muskets in our honour until we were
out of hearing.
The top of the pass is 12,000 feet above the sea, but the clouds seemed
as high as ever above us, and the swallows were flying far up in the
air. Three thousand feet lower we were in a warmer region, among oaks
and arbutus; and here, as in our higher latitudes, the climate is far
hotter than on the northern slope at the same height. Bananas are to be
found at an elevation of 9,000 feet, three times the height at which
they ceased on the eastern slope, as we came up from Vera Cruz. This
difference between the two slopes depends, in part, on the different
quantity of sunshine they receive, which is of some importance,
although we are within the tropics. But the sheltering of the southern
sides from the chilling winds from the north still further contributes
to give their vegetation a really tropical character.
We felt the heat becoming more and more intense as we descended, and
when we reached Cuernavaca we lay down in the beautiful garden of the
inn, among orange-trees and cocoanut-palms, listening to the pleasant
cool sound of running water, and looking down into the great barranca
with its perpendicular walls of rock, and the luxuriant vegetation of
the tierra caliente covering the banks of the stream that flowed far
below us. We could easily shout to the people on the other edge of the
ravine, but it would have taken hours of toiling down the steep paths
and up again before we could have reached them.
Here our horses were waiting for us; and an hour or two’s ride brought
us to the great sugar-hacienda of Temisco, where we were to pass the
night, for towns and inns are few and far between in Mexico when one
leaves the more populous mountain-plateaus. So much the better, for my
companion had provided himself with letters of introduction, and we had
already seen something of hacienda life, and liked it.
As we approached Temisco, we saw upon the slopes, immense fields of
sugar-cane, now grown into a dense mass, five or six feet high, most
pleasant to look upon for the delicate green tint of the leaves that
belongs to no other plant. The colour of our English turf is beautiful,
and so are the tints of our English woods in spring, but our fields of
grain have a dull and dingy green compared to the sugar-cane and the
young Indian corn. In this beautiful valley we cannot charge the
inhabitants with entirely neglecting the irrigation of the land.
Indeed, the culture of the sugar-cane cannot be carried on without it,
and the cost of the watercourses on the large estates has been very
great. Unfortunately, even here agriculture is not flourishing. The
small number of the white inhabitants, and the distracted state of the
country make both life and property very insecure; and the brown people
are becoming less and less disposed to labour on the plantations.
It is true that most of these channels were made in old times; little
new is done now, and I could make a long list of estates that were once
busy and prosperous, giving employment to thousands of the Indian
inhabitants, and that are now over-grown with weeds and falling to
ruin.
Entering the iron gate of the hacienda, we found ourselves in an
immense courtyard, into which open all the principal buildings of the
estate, the house of the proprietor, the church—which forms a necessary
part of every hacienda—the crushing-mill, and the boiling-houses. Into
the same great patio open the immense stables for the many
riding-horses and the many hundreds of mules that carry the sugar and
rum over the mountains to market, and the tienda, the shop of the
estate, through which almost all the money paid to the labourers comes
back to the proprietor in exchange for goods. A mountain of fresh-cut
canes stood near the door of the trapiche (the crushing-mill); and a
gang of Indians were constantly going backwards and forwards carrying
them in by armfuls; while a succession of mules were continually
bringing in fresh supplies from the plantation to replenish the great
heap. The court-yard was littered all over, knee-deep, with dry
cane-trash; and mules, just freed from their galling saddles, were
rolling on their backs in it, kicking with all their legs at once, and
evidently in a state of high enjoyment. Part of one side of the square
was a sort of wide cloister, and in it stood chairs and tables.
Here the business of the place was transacted, and the Administrador
could look up from his ledger, and see pretty well what was going on
all over the establishment.
It is very common for the owners of these haciendas to be absentees,
and to leave the entire control of their estates to the administradors;
but at Temisco, which is much better managed than most others, this is
not the case, and the son of the proprietor generally lives there. He
was out riding, so we sent our horses to the stable, and lounged about
eating sugar-canes till he should return. Presently he came, a young
man in a broad Mexican hat and white jacket and trousers, mounted on a
splendid little horse, with his saddle glittering with silver, every
inch a planter. He welcomed us hospitably, and we sat down together in
the cloister looking out on the courtyard. Evening was closing in, and
all at once the church-bell rang. Crowds of Indian labourers in their
white dresses came flocking in, hardly distinguishable in the twilight,
and the sound of their footsteps deadened as they walked over the dry
stubble that covered the ground. All work ceased, every one uncovered
and knelt down; while, through the open church-doors, we heard the
Indian choir chanting the vesper hymn. In the haciendas of Mexico every
day ends thus. Many times I heard the Oración chanted at nightfall, but
its effect never diminished by repetition, and to my mind it has always
seemed the most impressive of religious services.
Then the Administrador seated himself behind a great book, and the
calling over the “raya” began. Every man in turn was called by name,
and answered in a loud voice, “I praise God!;” then saying how much he
had earned in the day, for the Administrador to write down. “Juan
Fernandez!”—“_Alabo a Dios, tres reales y medio_:” “I praise God, one
and ninepence.” “José Valdes!”—“I praise God, eighteen pence, and
sixpence for the boy;” and so on, through a couple of hundred names.
Then came, not unacceptably, a little cup of pasty chocolate and a long
roll for each of us. Then Don Guillermo and our host talked about their
mutual acquaintances in Mexico, and we asked questions about
sugar-planting, and walked about the boiling-house, where the
night-gang of brown men were hard at work stirring and skimming at the
boiling-pans, and ladling out coarse unrefined sugar into little
earthen bowls to cool. This common sugar in bowls is very generally
used by the poorer Mexicans. The sugar-boilers were naked excepting a
cotton girdle. These men were very strong, and with great powers of
endurance, but they did not at all resemble the strong men of Europe
with their great muscles standing up under their skin, the men in
Michael Angelo’s pictures, or the Farnese Hercules. They are equally
unlike the thin wiry Arabs, whose strength seems so disproportionate to
their lean little bodies.
The pure Mexican Indian is short and sturdy; and, until you have
observed the peculiarities of the race, you would say he was too stout
and flabby to be strong. But this appearance is caused by the immense
thickness of his skin, which conceals the play of his muscles; and in
reality his strength is very great, especially in the legs and thighs,
and in the muscles that are brought into action in carrying burdens.
Sartorius used to observe the Indian miners bringing loads of above
five-hundred-weight up a hundred fathoms of mine-ladders, which consist
of trunks of trees fixed slanting across the shaft, with notches cut in
them for steps.
As I have said before, it is not the mere training of the individual
that has produced this remarkable development of the power of carrying
loads. The centuries before the Conquest, when there were no beasts of
burden, had gradually produced a race whose bodies were admirably
fitted for such work; and the persistency with which they have clung to
their old habits has done much to prevent their losing this
peculiarity.
To complete the description of the Indians which I have been led into
by speaking of the sugar-boilers,—they are chocolate-brown in colour,
with curved noses, straight black hair hanging flat round their heads
and covering their wonderfully low foreheads, and occasionally a scanty
black beard. Their faces are broadly oval, their eyes far apart, and
they have wide mouths with coarse lips. Not bad faces on the whole, but
heavy and unexpressive.
At ten o’clock came a heavy supper, the substantial meal of the day,
and immediately afterwards we went to bed, and dreamt such dreams as
may be imagined. We were off early in the morning with a wizened old
mestizo to guide us to the ruins of Xochicalco, which are on this very
estate of Temisco. The estate is forty miles across, however, and it is
a long ride to the ruins. After we leave the fields of sugar-cane, we
see scarcely a hut, nor a patch of cultivated ground. At last we get to
Xochicalco, and find ourselves at the foot of a hill, some four hundred
feet in height, extraordinarily regular in its conical shape, more so
than any natural hill could be, unless it were the cone of a volcano.
At different heights upon this hill, we could see from below broad
terraces running round and round it. A little nearer we came upon a
great ditch. The sides had fallen in, in many places; sometimes it was
quite filled up, and everywhere it was overgrown with thick brushwood,
as was the hill itself. It seems that this ditch runs quite round the
base of the hill, and is three miles long. Climbing up through the
thicket of thorny bushes and out upon the terraces, it became quite
evident that the hill had been artificially shaped. The terraces were
built up with blocks of solid stone, and paved with the same. On the
neighbouring hills we could discern traces of more terrace-roads of the
same kind; there must be many miles of them still remaining.
But it was when we reached the summit, that we found the most
remarkable part of the structure. The top has been cut away so as to
form a large level space, which was surrounded by a stone wall, now in
ruins. Inside the inclosure are several mounds of stone, doubtless
burial-places, and all that is left of the pyramid. Ruined and defaced
as it is, I shall never forget our feelings of astonishment and
admiration as we pushed our way through the bushes, and suddenly came
upon it. We were quite unprepared for anything of the kind; all we knew
of the place when we started that morning being that there were some
curious old ruins there.
The pyramid was composed of blocks of hewn stone, so accurately fitted
together as hardly to show the joints, and the carving goes on without
interruption from one block to another. Some of these blocks are eight
feet long, and nearly three feet wide. They were laid together without
mortar, and indeed, from the construction of the building, none was
required. The first storey is about sixteen feet high, including the
plinth at the bottom. Above the plinth comes a sculptured group of
figures, which is repeated in panels all round the pyramid, twice on
each side. Each panel occupies a space thirty feet long by ten in
height, and the bas-reliefs project three or four inches. There is a
chief, dressed in a girdle, and with a head-dress of feathers just like
those of the Red Indians of the north. Below the girdle he terminates
in a scroll. In the middle of the group is what may perhaps be a
palm-tree, with a rabbit at its foot. Close to the tree, and reaching
nearly to the same height, is a figure with a crocodile’s head wearing
a crown, and with drapery in parallel lines, like the wings of the
creatures in the Assyrian bas-reliefs. Indeed this may very likely be a
conventional representation of the robes of feather-work so
characteristic of Mexico.
[Illustration: SCULPTURED PANEL,
From the ruined Pyramid of Xochicalco. (_After Nebel_.)]
Above these bas-reliefs is a frieze between three and four feet high,
with another sculptured panel repeated eight times on each side of the
pyramid. This remarkable sculpture represents a man sitting barefoot
and crosslegged. On his head is a kind of crown or helmet, with a plume
of feathers; and from the front of this helmet there protrudes a
serpent, just where in the Egyptian sculptures the royal basilisk is
fixed on the crowns of kings and queens. The eyes of this personage are
protected by round plates with holes in the middle, held on by a strap
round the head, like the coloured glasses used in the United States to
keep off the glare of the sun, and known as “goggles.” In front of this
figure are sculptured a rabbit and some unintelligible ornaments or
weapons. “Rabbit” may have been his name.
The frieze is surmounted by a cornice; and above the cornice of the
second storey enough remains to show that it was covered with reliefs,
in the same way as the first There were five storeys originally: the
others have only been destroyed about a century. The former proprietor
of the hacienda of Temisco pulled down the upper storeys, and carried
away the blocks of stone to build walls and dams with.
The perfect execution of the details in the bas-reliefs and the
accuracy with which they are repeated show clearly that it was not so
much want of skill as the necessity of keeping to the conventional mode
of representing objects that has given so grotesque a character to the
Mexican scriptures. Certain figures became associated with religion and
astrology in Mexico, as in many other countries; and the sculptor,
though his facility in details shows that he could have made far better
figures if he had had a chance, never had the opportunity, for he was
not allowed to depart from the original rude type of the sacred object.
Humboldt remarks that the same undeviating reproduction of fixed models
is as striking in the Mexican sculptures done since the Conquest. The
clumsy outlines of the rude figures of saints brought from Europe in
the 16th century were adopted as models by the native sculptors, and
have lasted without change to this day.
It is evident that Xochicalco answered several purposes. It was a
fortified hill of great strength, also a sacred shrine, and a
burial-place for men of note, whose bodies, no doubt, still lie under
the ruined cairns near the pyramid. The magnitude of the ditch and the
terraces, as well as the great size of the blocks of stone brought up
the hill without the aid of beasts of burden, indicate a large
population and a despotic government. The beauty of the masonry and
sculpture show that the people who erected this monument had made no
small progress in the arts. We must remember, too, that they had no
iron, but laboriously cut and polished the hardest granite and porphyry
with instruments of stone and bronze; we can hardly tell how.
The resemblances which people find between Assyrian and Egyptian
sculptures and the American monuments are of little value, and do not
seem sufficient to ground any argument upon. When slightly civilized
races copy men, trees, and animals in their rude way, it would be hard
if there were not some resemblance among the figures they produce. With
reference to their ornamentation, it is true that what is called the
“key-border” is quite common in Mexico and Yucatan, and that on this
very pyramid the panels are divided by a twisted border, which would
not be noticed as peculiar in a “renaissance” building. But the model
of this border may have been suggested—on either side of the globe—by
creepers twined together in the forest, or by a cord doubled and
twisted, such as is represented in one of the commonest Egyptian
hieroglyphs.
The cornice which finishes the first storey of the pyramid is a
familiar pattern, but nothing can be concluded from these simple
geometrical designs, which might be invented over and over again by
different races when they began to find pleasure in tracing ornamental
devices upon their buildings. Upon the tattooed skins of savages such
designs may be seen, and the patterns were certainly in use among them
before they had any intercourse with white men. This is the view
Humboldt takes of these coincidences. That both the Egyptian king and
the Mexican chief should wear a helmet with a serpent standing out from
it just above the forehead, is somewhat extraordinary.
Now, who built Xochicalco? Writers on Mexico are quite ready with their
answer. They tell us that, according to the Mexican tradition, the
country was formerly inhabited by another race, who were called
_Toltecâ_, or, as we say, _Toltecs_, from the name of their city,
_Tollan_, “the Reed-swamp;” and that they were of the same race as the
Aztecs, as shown by the names of their cities and their kings being
Aztec words; that they were a highly civilized people, and brought into
the country the arts of sculpture, hieroglyphic painting, great
improvements in agriculture, many of the peculiar religious rites since
practised by other nations who settled after them in Mexico, and the
famous astronomical calendar, of which I shall speak afterwards. The
particular Toltec king to whom the Mexican historians ascribe the
building of Xochicalco was called Nauhyotl, that is to say, “Four
Bells,” and died A.D. 945.
We are further told that just about the time of our Norman Conquest,
the Toltecs were driven out from the Mexican plateau by famine and
pestilence, and migrated again southward. Only a few families remained,
and from them the Aztecs, Chichemecs, and other barbarous tribes by
whom the country was re-peopled, derived that knowledge of the arts and
sciences upon which their own civilization was founded. It was by this
Toltec nation—say the Mexican writers—that the monuments of
Xochichalco, Teotihuacán, and Cholula were built. In their architecture
the Aztecs did little more than copy the works left by their
predecessors; and, to this day, the Mexican Indians call a builder a
_toltecatl_ or _Toltec_.
If we consider this circumstantial account to be anything but a mere
tissue of fables, the question naturally arises—what became of the
remains of the Toltecs when they left the high plains of Mexico? A
theory has been propounded to answer this question, that they settled
in Chiapas and Yucatan, and built Palenque, Copan, and Uxmal, and the
other cities, the ruins of which lie imbedded in the tropical forest.
At the time that Prescott wrote his History of the Conquest, such a
theory was quite tenable; but the new historic matter lately made known
by the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg has given a different aspect to the
question. Without attempting to maintain the credibility of this
writer’s history as a whole, I cannot but think that he has given us
satisfactory grounds for believing that the ruined cities of Central
America were built by a race which flourished long before the Toltecs;
that they were already declining in power and civilization in the
seventh century, when the Toltecs began to flourish in Mexico; and that
the present Mayas of Yucatan are their degenerate descendants.
What I have seen of Central American and Mexican antiquities, and of
drawings of them in books, tends to support the Abbé Brasseur de
Bourbourg’s view of the history of these countries. Traces of
communication between the two peoples are to be found in abundance, but
nothing to warrant our holding that either people took its civilization
bodily from the other. My excuse for entering into these details must
be that some of the facts I have to offer are new.
A bas-relief at Kabah, described in Mr. Stephens’ account of his second
journey, bears considerable resemblance to that on the so-called
“sacrificial stone” of Mexico; and the warrior has the characteristic
Mexican _maquahuitl_, or “Hand-wood,” a mace set with rows of obsidian
teeth.
A curious ornament is met with in the Central American sculptures,
representing a serpent with a man’s face looking out from between its
distended jaws; and we find a similar design in the Aztec
picture-writings, sculptures, and pottery.
A remarkable peculiarity in the Aztec picture-writings is that the
personages represented often have one or more figures of tongues
suspended in mid-air near their mouths, indicating that they are
speaking, or that they are persons in authority. Such tongues are to be
seen on the Yucatan sculptures.
One of the panels on the Pyramid of Xochicalco seems to have a bearing
upon this subject, I mean that of the cross-legged chief, of which I
have just spoken.
In the first place, sitting cross-legged is not an Aztec custom. I do
not think we ever saw an Indian in Mexico sitting cross-legged. In the
picture-writings of the Aztecs, the men sit doubled up, with their
chins almost touching their knees; while the women have their legs
tucked under them, and their feet sticking out on the left side. On the
other hand, this attitude is quite characteristic of the Yucatan
sculptures. At Copan there is an altar, with sixteen chiefs sitting
cross-legged round it; and, moreover, one of them has a head-dress very
much like that of the Xochicalco chief (except that it has no serpent),
and others are more or less similar; while I do not recollect anything
like it in the Mexican picture-writings. The curious perforated
eye-plates of the Xochicalco chief, which he wore—apparently—to keep
arrows and javelins out of his eyes, are part of the equipment of the
Aztec warrior in the picture-writings, while Palenque and Copan seemed
to afford no instance of them; so that in two peculiarities the
remarkable sculpture before us seems to belong rather to Yucatan than
to Mexico, and in one to Mexico rather than to Yucatan.
It is not even possible in all cases to distinguish Central American
sculptures from those of Mexican origin. Among the numerous stone
figures in Mr. Christy’s museum, some are unmistakably of Central
American origin, and some as certainly Mexican; but beside these, there
are many which both their owner and myself, though we had handled
hundreds of such things, were obliged to leave on the debatable ground
between the two classes.
So much for the resemblances. But the differences are of much greater
weight. The pear-shaped heads of most of the Central American figures,
whose peculiar configuration is only approached by the wildest
caricatures of Louis Philippe, are perfectly distinctive. So are the
hieroglyphics arranged in squares, found on the sculptures of Central
America and in the Dresden Codex. So is the general character of the
architecture and sculpture, as any one may see at a glance.
It is quite true that the so-called Aztec Astronomical Calendar was in
use in Central America, and that many of the religious observances in
both countries, such as the method of sacrificing the human victims,
and the practice of the worshippers drawing blood from themselves in
honour of the gods, are identical. But there were several ways in which
this might have been brought about, and it is no real proof that the
civilization of either country was an offshoot from that of the other.
To consider it as such would be like arguing that the negroes of Cuba
and the Indians of Yucatan had derived their civilization one from the
other, because both peoples are Roman Catholics, and use the same
almanac. On the whole I am disposed to conclude that the civilizations
of Mexico and Central America were originally independent, but that
they came much into contact, and thus modified one another to no small
extent.
At the risk of being prosy, I will mention the _a priori_ grounds upon
which we may argue that the civilization of Central America did not
grow up there, but was brought ready-made by a people who emigrated
there from some other country. There is a theory afloat, that it is
only in temperate climates that barbarous nations make much progress in
civilizing themselves. In tropical countries the intensity of the heat
makes man little disposed for exertion, and the luxuriance of the
vegetation supplies him with the little he requires. In such
climates—say the advocates of this theory—man acknowledges the
supremacy of nature over himself, and gives up the attempt to shape her
to his own purposes; and thus, in these countries, the inhabitants go
on from generation to generation, lazily enjoying their existence,
making no effort, and indeed feeling no desire to raise themselves in
the social scale. Upon this theory, therefore, when we find a high
civilization in hot countries, as in the plains of India, we have to
account for it by supposing an immigration of races bringing their
civilization with them from more temperate climates. This theory of
civilization favours the idea of the Central American cities having
been built by a people from Mexico. The climate of the Mexican
highlands, which may be taken in a rough way to correspond with that of
North Italy, is well suited to a nation’s development. But the cities
of Yucatan and Chiapas, though geographically not far removed from the
Mexican plateau, are brought by their small elevation above the sea
into a very different climate. They are in the land of tropical heat
and the rankest vegetation, in the midst of dense forests where
pestilential fevers and overwhelming lassitude make it almost
impossible for Europeans to live, and where the Indians who still
inhabit the neighbourhood of the ruined cities are the merest savages
sunk in the lowest depths of lazy ignorance.
If this climate-theory of progress have any truth in it, no barbarous
tribe could have raised itself in such a country to the social state
which is indicated by the ruins of such temples and cities. They must
have been settlers from some more temperate region.
While wandering about the hill of Xochicalco we came upon a spot that
strongly excited our curiosity. It was simply a small paved oval space
with a little altar at one end, and, lying round about it, some
fragments of what seemed to have been a hideous grotesque idol of baked
clay. Perhaps it was a shrine dedicated to one of the inferior deities,
such as often surrounded the greater temples; for, in Mexico,
astronomy, astrology, and religion had become mixed up together, as
they have been in other quarters of the globe, and even the
astronomical signs of days and months had temples of their own.
Xochicalco means “In the House of Flowers.” The word
“flower,”—_xochitl_,—is often a part of the names of Mexican places and
people, such as the lake of Xochimilco—“In the Flower-plantation.”
_Tlilxochitl_, literally “black flower,” is the Aztec name for vanilla,
so that the name of that famous Mexican historian, Ixtlilxochitl, whose
name sticks in the throats of readers of Prescott, means
“Vanilla-face.” Why the place was called “In the House of Flowers” is
not clear. The usual explanation seems not unlikely, that it was
because offerings of flowers and first-fruits were made upon its
shrines. The Toltecs, say the Mexican chroniclers, did not sacrifice
human victims; and it was not until long after other tribes had taken
possession of their deserted temples, that the Aztecs introduced the
custom by sacrificing their prisoners of war. It seems odd, however,
that one of the Toltec kings should have been called Topiltzin, which
was the title of the chief priest among the Aztecs, whose duty it was
to cut open the breasts of the human victims and tear out their hearts.
The Indians always delighted in carrying flowers in their solemn
processions, crowning themselves with garlands, and decorating their
houses and temples with them; and, while they worshipped their gods
according to the simple rites which tradition says their prophet,
Quetzalcoatl, (“Feathered Snake,”) appointed, before he left them and
embarked in his canoe on the Eastern ocean, no name could have been
more appropriate for their temple. This pleasant custom did not
disappear after the Conquest; and to this day the churches in the
Indian districts are beautiful with their brilliant garlands and
nosegays, and are as emphatically “houses of flowers” as were the
temples in ages long past.
Since writing the above notice of the Pyramid of Xochicalco, I have
come upon a new piece of evidence, which, if it may be depended on,
proves more about the history of this remarkable monument than all the
rest put together. Dupaix made a drawing of the ruins at Xochicalco in
1805, which is to be found in Lord Kingsborough’s ‘Antiquities of
Mexico,’ and among the sculptures of the upper tier of blocks is
represented a reed, with its leaves set in a square frame, with three
small circles underneath; the whole forming, in the most unmistakable
way, the sign 3 Acatl (3 Cane) of the Mexican Astronomical Calendar.
Now it must be admitted that Dupaix’s drawing of these ruins is most
grossly incorrect; but still no amount of mere carelessness in an
artist will justify us in supposing him to have invented and put in out
of his own head a design so entirely _sui generis_ as this. It does not
even follow that the drawing is wrong because the sign may not be found
there now; for it was in an upper tier, and no doubt many stones have
been removed since 1805, for building-purposes.
If the existence of the sign 3 Acatl on the pyramid may be considered
as certain, it will fit in perfectly with the accounts of the Mexican
historians, who state that Xochicalco was built by a king of the Toltec
race, and also that the Aztecs adopted the astronomical calendars of
years and days in use among the Toltecs.
It was afternoon when we left Xochicalco and rode on over a gently
undulating country, crossing streams here and there, and had our
breakfast at Miacatlán under a shed in front of the village shop, where
all the activity of the little Indian town seemed to be concentrated.
By the road-side were beautiful tamarind-trees with their dark green
foliage, and the mamei-tree as large as a fine English horse-chestnut,
and not unlike it at a distance. On the branches were hanging the great
mameis, just like the inside of cocoa-nuts when the inner shell has
been cracked off. It appeared that Nature was not acquainted with M. De
La Fontaine’s works, or she would probably have got a hint from the
fable of the acorn and the pumpkin, and not have hung mameis and
cocoa-nuts at such a dangerous height.
[Illustration: AZTEC HEAD IN TERRA-COTTA. (_From Mr. Christy’s
Collection_.)]