of any _gringo_ (contemptuous term for American) lest the newcomer
turn out to be their casual guest or his representative.
After leaving Cuyaco, we met constant indications of minerals along
the road. I also noted flocks of parrots, multitudes of jays,
flycatchers, brown and black vultures and many Caracara eagles, all of
these birds being new to me; and I saw also several fine butterflies,
_Papilios_ and _Colias_, small white and orange and yellow ones. But
nowhere did I see any wild flowers--the season was now too hot for
these.
Toward ten o’clock, we stopped at an _hacienda_, that of San Pedro de
Castrejon, where the Castrejon brothers live, owners of copper
properties near those we go to see. They are the grand _señores_ of
the Valley; they also gave us letters of introduction. Black birds,
big boat-tailed grakles, grey and white jays, and scores of wild doves
were here walking tamely among our horses. Swarms of parrots were
clamoring in the trees. For a few _centavos_, we here bought delicious
bananas, small finger size, and others three times as big, and oranges
and cocoanuts.
By eleven o’clock we began to see the steam from the power house of
the Inguran mines and were soon there. They are ancient copper mines,
now being opened by the French Rothschilds, over four million _francs_
having been thus far spent. Extensive copper deposits are here
exposed. The managers are all Americans; one is from Virginia, one
from California. There is not a Frenchman employed.
[Illustration: RANCHO DE SAN PEDRO]
We are installed in the private bungalow of the general manager, of
Mexico City, from whom we brought a letter of introduction. We are
half way up the foothills; we have a superb view, the beds are
comfortable and the fare is good.
This morning we have gone through the mines. Fuel and transportation
are here the two problems. This whole region of several hundred miles
square is rich in copper and silver, is full of ancient mines, once
worked by Indian slaves but now abandoned, since Spanish expulsion and
the dawn of liberty.
XII
Antique Methods of Mining
MINA LA NORIA, MICHOACAN, MEXICO,
_December 4th_.
We left the mines of Inguran early Saturday morning. We were up at
four-thirty, and by five-thirty had packed and breakfasted,
_desayuno_, and _almuerzo_ combined. The traveling Mexican eats early
and, while he may take a midday snack, it rarely rises to the dignity
of the _comida_, and when the day’s journey is over, like the two
morning meals, the _comida_ and _cena_, are united into one. Our
breakfast consisted of fried chicken and rice--rice so delicately
fried that each grain was encased in a crisp and dainty shell, and
each mouthful cracked with relish between your teeth. Eggs are always
to be had. In Spain and Cuba an egg is called _huevo_, in Mexico the
refinement of language substitutes the word _blanquillo_ (little
whitey). It is a courtesy to ask your hostess for _blanquillos_. It
would be ill-bred to ask her for _huevos_. It is also a courtesy, to
say, when you address her, _señorita_. If she protests she is a
_señora_, mother of a family and long past the age of a _señorita_,
you exclaim “it is impossible,” for since she looks so young, she must
be a _señorita_. The blunt American manner which calls an egg a
_huevo_, and a dame a _señora_, is regarded as unpardonably rude.
[Illustration: IN FLIGHT FROM MY KODAK]
By 5:45 we were climbing down the three hundred feet of mountain side,
through the mining village, over an ancient paved roadway about four
feet wide, the paving stones set in so firmly between the curbs that
the floods and wear of the centuries and seasons have left it as
intact and solid as when first laid. The Spaniards built many such
roadways to their mines, when they worked the Indians as slaves,
centuries ago. The mining village was picturesque. The miner, when he
goes to work, builds his own house and pays no rent. The walls are
upright poles and the roof is a palm leaf thatch. When he quits his
job he abandons his house, although he sometimes carries away the
roof. Near each dwelling is built a sort of Dutch oven of clay, making
an oven and stove combined. In it the bread is baked; upon it most of
the cooking is carried on. Housekeeping is a simple process in this
tropical land.
The mines of Inguran are situated at an altitude of about two thousand
feet above the sea, and the dry air, not too light nor too heavy,
seems to agree perfectly with the Americans there at work, and
restored me to a vigor which the thin air of the highlands had partly
relaxed. We were entertained, of an evening, at the delightful
bungalow of the superintendent of the inside work, a Mr. O’Mahondra, a
member of the distinguished family of that name of Richmond, Virginia.
Originally he began the practice of law in Chicago, when, his wife
being threatened with consumption, he fled with her to El Paso. There
she gained nothing and he carried her further south and, abandoning
the law, took this post at Inguran. She was tall, fine looking and the
picture of robust health. A clever American woman, she had acquired
the art of assaying and, as official assayer of the mines, received a
handsome salary. “The only drawback to living in Inguran,” she said,
“is that I am so delightfully healthy.”
Our way lay down and then across the San Pedro valley toward the
southwest. The valley is a mile or two wide. The trail we followed ran
through dense tropical foliage. The air in the early morning was cool
almost to coldness. The birds were everywhere astir and all their
notes were new to me. There were many doves, the little brown ground
dove that merely stepped out of our way; a bigger dove, slate gray in
color, which flew among the higher branches of the thickets. The
large gray jay was numerous and there were many magpies and rusty and
yellow-headed grakles. Along the watercourses we again came constantly
upon bands of the big brown and small black vultures, as well as
Caracara eagles which were fishing in the stream. Parakeets,
resplendent in green and scarlet and gold, were abundant, and flocks
of gray and green parrots tumbled clumsily in the air. I saw also my
first big green Military macaws,--birds as large as chickens or small
turkeys, the body a brilliant green, the head capped with red and
yellow. I have never seen these splendid birds in captivity, nor among
those brilliant macaws from the Amazon and from Australia which are so
often exhibited in collections. These macaws were very tame, and a
flock of them settled upon a mimosa tree under which we drew rein. I
might have shot them with my pistol, and should have brought some of
them home with me, if I had had any way to preserve the skins. In the
thickets I also noticed flycatchers and several sparrows I did not
know, but I saw no ravens as I did the other day upon the highlands.
[Illustration: THE ANCIENT STAMP MILL]
After five or ten miles down the valley, winding through the forest,
crossing open clearings, passing here and there a native hut,
frequently fording the river, we left the main trail and turned up a
shaded ravine, following it to its head, where we passed through a low
gap with high mountains on either hand, and then descended toward the
river again, thus cutting off a great bend and saving fifteen or
twenty miles. As we came down toward the main valley, the timber grew
smaller, the persistent mesquit more and more possessed the land, and
the sun fell full upon us. The heat was intense. No living thing now
seemed anywhere to exist; only the multitudes of little brown lizards,
countless thousands of them scurrying on the sand; and _iguanas_,
black as night, sleeping in the crotch of a tree, or on the heated top
of a stone near the wayside. Nor did any sound now stir the midday
silence except the hum of millions of cicadas, which the fierce sun
rays seem only to nurse into active life.
Six hours in the forepart of the day brought us to the Hacienda de
Oropeo, on the borders of the Rio de San Pedro. Here we halted for the
noontime rest, lying-by beneath an Indian shelter, a wide-thatched
roof of palm leaves, under which we could tie our horses, and where we
might ourselves repose. Here an old Indian woman cooked for us
_tortillas_ and _frijoles_. We watched her make the _tortillas_,
little cakes of corn meal as thin as sheets of paper. The dry kernels
of the corn are first soaked in lime water until the enveloping
shell readily comes off. It is then much like samp. The swelled and
softened grain is then rubbed to a pulp between two stones, the
moistened pulp is patted between the hands to the thinnest sort of a
wafer, and these thin wafers are laid upon the top of the clay oven to
be slowly dried. The _tortilla_ is said to be the most nutritious of
all foods prepared from maize. It is the staff of life of the Mexican
peon, and the making of _tortillas_ is the chief vocation in life of
his wife and daughters. As soon as the little girls are big enough
they begin to pat _tortillas_, and they continue to pat _tortillas_
throughout their lives. If you travel through an Indian village your
ear will be struck by the pat, pat, pat, of hundreds of pairs of
hands. The Indian women are patting _tortillas_. They are always
patting _tortillas_, when not specially occupied in other toils.
[Illustration: COPPER ORE DUMPS--LA CHINA MINES]
Toward 4:00 P. M. Izus, our _mozo_, repacked the loads, again we
mounted, and in an hour were across the river, where we ascended a
small creek a couple of miles to these ancient mines. It was while
resting at noontime, that we noticed a group of thirty or forty men
bearing on their shoulders the palm-thatched roof of a moving mansion.
Later, we rode past the new domicile, the roof was already set upon
the corner posts, and the family were already moved into their
habitation.
We are bivouacked in a building where once lived the lord of the
mines,--mines now filled with water and abandoned, although none of
the workings go down more than one hundred feet. The building is
chiefly constructed, both the floor and walls, of sun-baked clay. High
above the walls rests the palm-thatched roof. There are no frames in
the window openings, no frames in the doorways. Walls and roof being
only a protection from the sun heat, the air may blow through where it
listeth. Our cots are taken from the back of “Old Blacky,” unrolled
and set in the breezy chamber; upon them we sit and sleep.
Our only terrors are the ants, but we set the legs of the cots in
little earthenware pans of water and are safe. An Indian family,
living in the distant end of the rambling, abandoned buildings across
the courtyard, provides us with boiled rice and stewed chicken. Izus
has brought us an abundance of bananas and oranges, fresh, fragrant,
and luscious. We buy several oranges for a _centavo_, and a _centavo_
is worth less than half an American cent. The Indian keeps poultry and
also gamecocks. These latter are tied by the leg near his door. They
are his pride, and he fights them on Sunday after church. When the
priest has closed the services the neighbors, who have all brought
their chickens, form in a circle, and there the week’s wages are
staked and lost upon the issue of the fights. I send you a snap shot
of a battle.
[Illustration: MOVING A MANSION]
When dining, we sit on improvised stools around a homemade table and
just back of us crouch a group of attentive admirers--the famished
family dogs, rough-haired, cadaverous, wolf-eyed, silent dogs they
are. They watch with furtive intentness each morsel we put into our
mouths, they instantly pounce upon each crumb and bone which falls
within their reach. They never bark--only a shrill melancholy howl I
sometimes hear breaking the stillness of the night; they never wag
their tails, for these are always tucked between their legs. When we
have finished, we toss to these wistful watchers the refuse of our
meal. There is a silent scuffle, a hasty crunching and then each dog
sits up as hungry and observant as before. Thus our friends breakfast
and dine and sup with us, and so filled with suspicion and fear of man
are they, that they never by any chance allow us to approach. “_Veni
aqui perro_” (come here, dog) an Indian boy calls out, and immediately
_perro_ slinks out of sight. Descended originally from the wild
_coyote_, which they much resemble, these dogs seem to have acquired
little taming by contact with man.
Next up the creek above us lie the Azteca mines, long since abandoned,
and then come the China (pronounced _cheena_) mines, the only
group now being worked, the present _superintendente_ being a member
of the Castrejon family to whom they belong. The vein is a
porphyry-and-quartz carrying copper, and is about three hundred feet
wide and almost vertical. It is nearly with the watercourse, about one
degree to the west, and how deep it may go no one knows. This whole
region is full of holes, generally, say, four feet to six feet square,
from which for centuries the copper ore has been taken. The rich
pieces were carried away and the balance was thrown upon the ground.
The entire country is filled with innumerable piles of this abandoned
copper ore carrying two and three per cent of copper, and waiting for
that distant day when railroads, modern machinery and efficient labor
shall make this natural wealth profitable to modern enterprise. As it
is, the present primitive Indian methods of mining and transportation
on mules, unventilated pits, and awful trails climbing stupendous
heights, destroy the possibility of profit even in working the richest
ores.
Sunday we spent in riding over the hills which rise from three to five
hundred feet above the stream. Up their easy, rounded slopes a horse
can clamber almost anywhere. It is a country where cattle roam and
where the Mexican _vaqueros_ (cowboys) are the only human beings. In
the afternoon, we went down to the San Pedro River, now a small
stream, and bathed in the tepid water, where I surprised an old
familiar friend, also watching the limpid water, a Belted Kingfisher.
[Illustration: BRINGING OUT THE ORE LA CHINA MINES]
Monday, we spent from seven o’clock to ten, going through the China
mines, which are worked by the Mexicans in the old primitive way. We
went into the side of the hill by a short tunnel, which led to a black
hole up out of which stuck a slippery pole. On one side of this pole
notches are cut, and into these notches, if you want to descend, you
must sidewise set your feet. Our guide clasped the pole with one arm,
holding aloft his flickering light with the other, and slowly sank
from sight into the blackness below. We all went down, not knowing
what might be beneath us. At first, my feet would not hold in the
notches, but it was a matter of setting in my feet or falling into
unlimited darkness, so I clung tight and came slowly down. The
distance was only about twenty feet. Here there was an off-set of
eight or ten feet, and then another pole and more notches, blackness
above as well as below, and the notches had grown slick through years
of contact with shoeless Indian feet. Thus we went down and down,
descending some two hundred feet to where the air lay hot and heavy
and our breathing became stertorous and slow. We then followed a long
narrow tunnel, and came to where naked Indians with steel wedges were
sledging out the ore. The Indians descend in the morning, they work as
long as the foul air permits, then they gather up all the rock they
have dislodged, put it into a bull hide sack, load this on their backs
and climb up the notched poles again to daylight. On issuing from the
mines they stagger to an ore pile, under a thatched roof set on high
poles, and dump their loads. Around this pile of ore squat twenty or
thirty Indians, each holding a stone in his hand. Each has before him
a large flat piece of rock. He reaches for the ore pile, takes from it
a lump which looks fairly good and cracks it to powder between the two
stones. The mean ore is thrown on a dump pile, the rich ore is all
cracked up. This is the original of the modern stamp mill, and it is
the only stamp mill the Indian-Mexican will probably ever know. The
ore, after it is pulverized in this way by hand, is put into a wooden
trough into which water is poured which has been carried up in bull
hide sacks from the stream below, and the ore is thus washed and
concentrated. It is afterwards put into sacks, about two hundred
pounds to the sack, and taken fifty or sixty miles, over the frightful
precipitous trails, to the railroad at Patzcuaro, whence it is shipped
to the smelter.
[Illustration: WASHING COPPER ORE]
It is a wonder that even the Mexicans can thus work these mines, year
after year, and make the smallest profit. The most efficient
American manager would find this to be impossible. The Mexican
_superintendente_ lives on nothing and his Mexican employes live on
less. Eighteen to twenty cents a day Mexican (less than ten cents a
day in American) is the miner’s pay. On this amount he must support
himself and often a large family. The Mexicans follow the old Spanish
theory, that human labor is cheaper than machinery, if you can crush
down the human labor to a sufficiently low wage. Hence, the Mexican
employing classes discourage both the use of machinery and the
education of the _peon_. Ignorance and the abject poverty of the
working class is the Spanish-American ideal. The day laborer in Mexico
is little better than a slave. The wealthy mine owner, who lives in
luxury in the distant Capital, or in Paris, or Madrid, may exhibit the
evidences of culture and refinement, but Mexico can never greatly
advance until the masses of the common people shall be enlightened and
by modern statesmanship be lifted from this condition of industrial
servitude.
Some of the types among these Indians are curious. One man has a head
that runs up straight behind his ears, nor has he much brain in
front. Another looks like a Japanese. These Indians--they are called
Indians, but are many of them half-breeds, for there is much Spanish
blood mixed in among them--are pitifully poor and are hopeless in
their poverty. They have been hammered and battered for so many
centuries by the merciless Spanish overlord, that they have had all
spirit long ago knocked out of them. They seem to be unable now to
rise. Nor are they a hardy race. When sickness prevails they are too
poor to employ a doctor, but rely upon charms and religious rites. I
have just acted the part of a physician. I have brought with me a
small box of selected medicines sufficient for the common ailments of
this land of semitropics. I am now prescribing quinine for _Doña_
Caldina, calomel for _Señor_ Perez. I hear that a crippled man is
coming to-morrow to see me and ask whether the white _señor_ can cure
him and make him walk. There is a certain childlike quality about
these peones. How humbly they accept the superiority of the white man,
whom they do not love!
I see many instances of what might be called degenerates, misshapen
heads, ill-shaped and deformed bodies, signs of a race too much
inbred. They wear white cotton clothes, peaked straw hats and rawhide
sandals. The men generally carry blankets (_zerapes_) folded across
the shoulder which they wrap up in, as do their brothers on the
highlands, when the air grows cold.
[Illustration: AN ANCIENT DUMP OF COPPER ORE]
The coldness of the nights and the burning heat of the day are
strange. I slept last night in flannel underwear, a woolen jersey over
that and flannel pajamas still outside; then two thick wool blankets
and a rubber _poncho_ over all. Early, toward one or two o’clock I
woke up chilled to the bone. I put on my corduroy coat. I was just
warm, for an icy wind was blowing down from the lofty altitudes of the
_Tierra Fria_. This morning when the sun rose about six o’clock, the
air was still cold. In an hour it was pleasantly warm, birds were
singing and flying from tree to tree. By nine o’clock the sun blazed
like a ball of fire. I am now, at half past nine, going about in
slippers, in linen trousers and my thin pajama coat, and even then I
hide from the sun. By ten o’clock a silence lies upon the land
profound and overwhelming, not a living thing is astir, except only
the lizards and the cicadas. The daylight ends precipitately. The day
lasts only as long as the sun is up. By half past five the sun hangs
above the mountains on the west. Suddenly it is gone. In fifteen
minutes it is dark, the stars are out, and such white stars they are!
The cold air of the highlands then settles down upon us for the
night.
XIII
Some Tropical Financial Morality
CHURUMUCO, MINA EL PUERTO, ON THE RIO DE LAS BALSAS,
_December 6th_.
We were up before the day, our horses and mules having been fed with
grain a little after midnight. Thus the food is digested before the
journey of the day is begun. It was dazzling starlight with a gleaming
streak of white moon. Our two pack beasts had been loaded, we had
breakfasted and were in the saddles a little after four. A keen wind
which cut like a knife-edge blew steadily down from the highlands
behind us. I had kept on my warm clothes of the night. We traveled
rapidly by the brilliant starlight and passing down the _aroyo_ along
which we camped, turned down the San Pedro River toward the south. We
crossed the stream frequently, traveling in single file. By seven
o’clock the sun was peering over the hills and I began to shed my
clothes. By half past eight I retained only my thinnest underwear, my
pajama coat, my linen trousers and slippers. By ten o’clock the sun
was scorching, our great Mexican _sombreros_ alone saving us from its
fierce rays. Our way lay for twenty miles almost due south down the
valley of the San Pedro, then turning to our left, we followed a
slightly-traveled trail, crossing a succession of low hills, until
after four long hours we came to immense plains or _llanos_ stretching
flat as a table for twenty miles toward the Balsas River. The streams
were dry, the leaves were falling from shrubs and trees. It was the
dry season. Mesquit and cactus and mimosa were the only vegetation,
except the blistered stalks of the sun-dried grasses. No water was
visible anywhere. The ground was parched and cracked. A light breeze
which followed us all day and a few highflying clouds, which now and
then hid the sun, alone saved us from being almost broiled alive. The
watch in my pocket became burning hot, I could scarcely hold it in my
hand; the metal buttons on my clothes almost burned themselves loose;
only the dryness of the atmosphere made it possible to have made this
journey during the day.
[Illustration: THE LLANOS. HAWK POISED UPON AN ORGAN CACTUS]
The great _llanos_, stretching south and southwest, were crossed by
many well-beaten trails, where the horses and cattle, which roam here
in thousands, have worn the paths they take to reach the distant
water. It is said that these animals, which wander at large, have
schooled themselves to cross the wide plains beneath the stars in the
cool of the night.
We reached the mines of El Puerto about half past one o’clock,
crossing the plain for several hours toward the mountain on whose side
the mines are perched. The only living things we met upon these
_llanos_ were the jack rabbits and an occasional roadrunner, which
birds were very tame. Although his rabbitship has attained a
reputation for lightning leg-velocity upon the sagebrush plains of our
own far-west, yet surely his Mexican cousin has him outclassed. A
_vaquero_, followed by a couple of lean and seasoned hounds, had met
us on the borders of the _llanos_ and kept with us almost across the
plain. The dogs, despite the fact that they must well have known the
power of the jack rabbit, would often come upon one crouched in the
grass, and so nearly within their reach that they quite forgot their
lessons of the past, and started full cry upon his trail. It was
almost laughable to see the hounds’ despair, so quickly did the
rabbits shoot out of sight, quite beyond all dog power to keep the
pace. The pair would regularly return with their tails between their
legs, the picture of disorganized defeat.