FROM QUERETARO TO THE CAPITAL.--PLAIN OF THE CAZADERO.--TULA.--THE GREAT
SPANISH DRAINAGE-CUT.--DISASTROUS INUNDATIONS OF MEXICO CITY.--A PUZZLE
FOR ENGINEERS.--ARRIVAL AT THE CAPITAL.--HOTEL LIFE.--RESTAURANTS, AND
THE MODE OF LIVING.--AMUSING STORIES OF HOTEL MANAGEMENT.--_FONDAS_ AND
_FONDITAS_.--MEN FOR CHAMBER-MAIDS.--_ALMUERZO_.--A MORNING STROLL ALONG
THE STREETS.--WOMEN ON THEIR WAY TO MASS.--THE MANTILLA.--SELLERS OF
SACRED THINGS.--DEALERS IN LOTTERY TICKETS.--LOTTERIES RUN BY
GOVERNMENT.--ATTENDING A DRAWING.--HOW THE AFFAIR WAS
CONDUCTED.--FLOWER-SELLERS.
From Queretaro to the City of Mexico is a distance of 150 miles. The
route of the railway lies through a region which is excellent both for
agriculture and stock raising. Frank and Fred wished to stop at one of
the cattle haciendas, but the Doctor said they would have an opportunity
to see one of these establishments at a later date; so they continued to
the capital without making a halt after leaving Queretaro.
[Illustration: COMPARATIVE LEVEL OF LAKES.]
They crossed the plain of the Cazadero, which obtains its name from an
incident of the Conquest. About the year 1540 the Indians organized a
great _cazadero_ (hunt) on this plain, to show their good-will towards
the first viceroy, Don Antonio de Mendoza. A great number of them
assembled, and the game was driven in from all directions and duly
slaughtered by the viceroy and his friends. Hunts of this sort are of
very ancient date; they are practised by aborigines in all parts of the
world, and even civilized man does not disdain them. Of the civilized
class are the kangaroo hunts in Australia, elephant hunts in Ceylon and
India, and the chase of wolves and other noxious animals in the Western
States of North America and in the Siberian provinces of Russia.
At the edge of the plain of the Cazadero the train reached the foot of
the mountain chain that surrounds the valley of Mexico. The locomotive
breathed heavily as it ascended the slope dragging its burden behind it.
The speed was materially reduced from that by which the plain had been
traversed, and the reduction showed very plainly that the grade was
steep. Every turn in the road gave a picturesque view, and the youths
thoroughly enjoyed their ride towards the famous valley.
[Illustration: THE GREAT SPANISH DRAINAGE-CUT.]
The top of the ascent was reached at Tula, of which we shall have
something to say later on. Then the train entered a gorge, which Frank
and Fred specially wished to look at. It was the Tajo de Nochistongo,
the great Spanish drainage-cut, which was intended to save the city of
Mexico from inundation.
From the windows of the car they shuddered as they looked into the cut,
and wondered if never an accident had happened from the falling away of
the earth. The cut is twelve and a half miles in length, and is the work
of human hands, not of nature. The railway enters the valley of Mexico
through this cut, and the track is laid on a shelf or bench along its
sides and high above the bottom. Our friends visited it a few days
later, and we will here include Frank's account of what he saw and
heard.
"The city of Mexico stands in a valley which has no outlet, the water
that accumulates from the rains being evaporated by the heat of the sun
or absorbed in the volcanic soil. The city is in the lowest part of the
valley, and is therefore liable to be overflowed whenever the
evaporation and absorption are not sufficient to carry off the water
that accumulates. There are several lakes that cover a tenth part of the
area of the valley. The lowest of them is salt, as it has no outlet, but
the others which discharge into it are fresh. This salt lake is called
Tezcoco. It has an area of seventy-seven square miles, and its surface
ordinarily is only two feet lower than the level of the Plaza Mayor, or
great square of the city. In the days of the Aztecs the lake surrounded
the city, but it is now three miles away from it, owing to the recession
of the waters. Lake Chalco is three and a half feet higher than Tezcoco;
while Zumpango, the most northerly of all the lakes, is twenty-nine feet
higher than the Plaza Mayor. The lakes are separated by dikes, some of
which were built by the Aztecs before the arrival of the Spaniards, but
the greater number are of more recent construction, as we shall
presently see.
"Now, it is evident that an unusual flood of water could raise Tezcoco
so that it would flood the city, and this is what has happened on five
different occasions--in 1553, 1580, 1604, 1607, and 1629. The last
inundation continued for five years, and caused an immense amount of
suffering and loss. The city was covered to a depth of three feet, and
the waters were finally carried off by an earthquake, which allowed them
to run away through the crevices that it formed.
"Here's where we come to the history of the great cut of Nochistongo.
The Spanish Government consulted all the celebrated engineers of the
day, and they presented numerous plans for draining the city and
keeping it out of danger from inundations. Enrico Martinez presented the
plan which was adopted. It was to drain Lake Zumpango so that its waters
would not be poured into Tezcoco, but would run to the Gulf of Mexico by
way of Tula. For this purpose he proposed to make a tunnel through
Nochistongo, to carry off the superfluous water of Zumpango, or, rather,
of the river Cuatitlan, which flows into it.
[Illustration: YOUNG GIRLS OF TULA.]
"The tunnel was commenced in November, 1607, but when completed it was
found insufficient to drain the lake, and a new plan was needed. A Dutch
engineer was then brought in, and he naturally proposed a system of
dikes, similar to those of his own country and the dikes already built
by the Aztecs. He was allowed to carry out his scheme until the arrival
of a new viceroy in 1628. The new viceroy would not believe the accounts
which he heard of the floods that had occurred, and he ordered Martinez
to stop up the tunnel and allow the waters to take their original
course. He was soon convinced of his error, and ordered the tunnel to be
reopened. It was reopened and continued in use until the following June,
when Martinez found that it was being destroyed by the pressure of the
water, and he therefore closed it to save it from ruin. A disastrous
flood followed, and this was the one that lasted five years."
"How did the people get around in that time?" Fred asked.
"They were forced to use boats," was the reply; "but the getting about
was the least part of the trouble caused by the flood. Most of the
houses were of adobe, and these soon crumbled and fell. The loss was so
great that the Spanish Government ordered the site of the city to be
changed to higher ground, but on representations by the City Council of
the value of the permanent structures which would thus be rendered
useless, the order was countermanded. The city was restored after the
subsidence of the waters. It has been threatened several times since,
but though it has been in great danger the cut and the dikes have saved
it."
"But how about the making of the tunnel into a cut?"
"They put Martinez in prison as soon as the flood came, and he was kept
there for several years. Then it was determined to change the tunnel
into a cut, and he was released and put in charge of the work. It took
150 years to make it, and though nominally finished in 1789, it has
never been entirely completed. Thousands of Indians died during the work
of digging this enormous ditch. It was the greatest earthwork of its
time, and in fact the greatest down to the cutting of the Suez and
Panama canals. Here are the figures:
"Length of the cut, 67,537 feet; greatest depth, 197 feet; greatest
breadth, 361 feet. The original tunnel of Martinez was four miles long,
eleven and a half feet wide, and fourteen feet high. Portions of the old
tunnel, or rather of its ruins, are visible to-day. There is a monument
to the memory of Martinez, which was erected a few years ago in one of
the public squares of the capital city; it might possibly console him
for his five years in prison if he could only come around and look at
it."
[Illustration: ENVIRONS OF MEXICO.]
As Frank paused, Doctor Bronson took up the subject and said that even
with the waters of Zumpango drained away there was still a liability of
the overflow of the lower lakes. He added that numerous projects had
been proposed. Some engineers were in favor of drying up Tezcoco
altogether by turning away the waters that flow into it; others advised
draining the waters into a lower part of the valley, if such could be
found; and others again proposed a long and large tunnel through the
mountains at so low a level that Tezcoco and the city could be
thoroughly drained. To this should be added a canal from the upper lakes
to flow through the city and wash out its sewers.
"What will be done about it no one can safely predict," the Doctor
remarked. "The city is badly drained, its sewage is only partially
carried away, and such of it as the water removes is accumulated in Lake
Tezcoco, which is becoming dirtier and more shallow every year. No plan
has been proposed that has been pronounced successful, or to which there
is not a serious objection. Of course almost anything could be done with
unlimited money, but Mexico, like other cities and countries, has a
limit to the amount that might be expended for any given purpose."
The smells that greeted the nostrils of the youths on their arrival at
the capital convinced them that the drainage of Mexico is little better
than no drainage at all. Fred remarked that if it were anywhere else
than in the very high region where it is (7602 feet above the sea), it
would have no need of drainage, as all the inhabitants would die of
pestilence.
Emerging from the famous earth-cutting, our friends had their first view
of the snowy peaks of Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl, the great volcanoes
which lie to the east of the city of Mexico. They had read and heard
much of these famous mountains, and had formed many mental pictures of
them. To the credit of the volcanoes, it is proper to say that they
fully came up to the expectations which had been formed of them.
The train sped on over the comparatively level region of the valley. For
several miles the Mexican Central Railway lies parallel to the Mexican
National line, and as there happened to be a train on the other track,
the passengers had the exhilaration of a race as a concluding feature of
their journey.
They had left Queretaro a little before noon; it was seven o'clock in
the evening when the train rolled into the Buena Vista station outside
the city, and the journey over the Mexican Central Railway came to an
end.
Doctor Bronson had telegraphed for a courier from the Hotel del Jardin
to meet them at the station, and the man was there in accordance with
his request. The key of one of the trunks was given up to meet the
requirements of the local custom-house, after the manner of the _octroi_
of Paris and other Continental cities. Our friends had found this
regulation at all the towns where they had stopped on their route, but
the trunks had invariably been passed without being opened, on the
assurance that they contained no merchandise.
The Hotel del Jardin proved to be quite satisfactory, so far as the
rooms were concerned, but there was not much to be said in favor of the
supper to which the travellers sat down, after removing the dust from
their garments and making themselves generally presentable. The boys
ascertained on inquiry that the hotel was built around the garden of an
old convent, and that a portion of it was really the convent edifice.
Some of the rooms are the former cells of the monks, and the youths
concluded that the monks were very comfortably lodged.
[Illustration: A MEMBER OF THE CHURCH PARTY.]
If all stories, or even a quarter of those that are told, are true, the
Mexican monks had an easy life of it whenever so inclined. No one doubts
that there were many honest and conscientious men among them, but there
is also little, if any, room for doubt that a great many men entered the
monasteries with hardly a spark of religious feeling about them, solely
for the purpose of getting a living without working for it. The number
of idlers among them was fully equal to the proportion to be found in
the ministry of the Church of England. A union of Church and State,
whether Protestant or Catholic, is certain to develop a large number of
adherents, who live in idleness at the expense of others, and bring
discredit upon honest and zealous workers.
During their stay in the city of Mexico our friends found that it was
the better plan not to stipulate to take their meals in the hotel where
they had their rooms. They breakfasted, dined, and supped wherever they
pleased, and found the arrangement very satisfactory. In this way they
tried all the restaurants, from the most pretentious to those of the
second and third grades, and found the experiment an interesting one.
Here are Fred's notes upon hotel life in the capital:
"We have visited all the hotels, and find them pretty much alike. As far
as we can ascertain, we could not improve our condition by changing from
the Hotel del Jardin, and so have concluded to stay where we are. We
have dropped somewhat into the fashion of the country--you know we
always do so when it is at all possible--but not altogether. We rise
about six in the morning, and have chocolate and a roll or two at seven,
and then we go out sight-seeing, shopping, or write letters until
eleven, when we have _almuerzo_, which is a solid meal corresponding to
the French _déjeûner à la fourchette_. So far we are in the line of the
Mexicans; this is their only solid meal, and late in the day they have
chocolate and some light refreshment just before going to theatre or
opera. We have so long been accustomed to at least two meals a day that
we take a second one similar to the almuerzo somewhere about six
o'clock. They tell us that it would not have been easy to obtain this
second meal ten or fifteen years ago, but so many foreigners have come
here of late that the restaurants are accustomed to it, especially those
patronized by foreigners.
[Illustration: TRANSCONTINENTAL PROFILE OF MEXICO.]
"They tell some funny stories about the hotel customs here. One is that
the advance agent of an excursion party went to a hotel and asked the
price of rooms.
"'Two dollars a day,' was the reply.
"'I have a party of sixty people,' said the agent; 'what terms will you
make?'
"'It will be two dollars and a quarter a day for each one,' said the
landlord; 'sixty people will make a great deal of trouble.'
"Another story was told by a gentleman who came to the city some years
ago and met a friend who had arrived one day before him. They left
together, and when they came to settle their bills the one who came
first, and had been there fourteen days, was charged for two weeks, at
ten dollars a week, twenty dollars. The other was charged two dollars
per day for thirteen days, twenty-six dollars. He protested, and in
reply to his protest the landlord explained that when a patron was there
fourteen days or more he was allowed weekly terms, but under fourteen
days he must pay by the day. 'Stay here another day,' said the landlord,
'and your bill will be twenty dollars.'
"'Very well,' the stranger answered; 'I'll hold my room till to-morrow,
but as I have the money in my hand I may as well pay you now.'
"The landlord accepted the money, made out a bill for twenty dollars,
and receipted it. But when he found the gentleman was really going away
immediately, he protested that the stranger would not be entitled to
weekly rates unless he actually occupied his room that night!
[Illustration: INTERIOR COURT-YARD OF A MEXICAN HOTEL.]
"All the chamber-maids here are men; we have an Indian mozo to look
after our rooms, and have not seen a woman about the house since we came
here, either as house-keeper, chamber-maid, or laundress. On each floor
there is a _muchacho_, who takes charge of the keys and is supposed to
be responsible for the safety of our belongings; and I'm glad to say we
have lost nothing during our stay. The mozo and muchacho both expect a
financial remembrance, and so do the waiters in the restaurants. Their
expectations are very reasonable, and they receive their gratuities with
a quiet dignity that is far preferable to the manner of the attendants
of hotels and restaurants in London or Paris.
[Illustration: STREET VIEW IN THE CAPITAL.]
"The almuerzo, which I mentioned as the heavy meal of the day, is so
important that the business houses and banks close from noon till
half-past two or three o'clock,' when everybody is taking breakfast,
dinner, and supper all in one. It is necessary to transact in the
forenoon any business that you have to do, as it is not at all certain
that men will get back to their offices again in the afternoon. The
leisurely ways of the Mexicans are not at all satisfactory to the
impetuous citizen from the Northern States of the Union.
"The prices of the restaurants seem to us not much, if any, behind those
of Europe and of New York and Chicago. The _table-d'hôte_ dinner at the
best restaurants is one dollar, and sometimes more; but we have found a
restaurant, the Café Anglais, where the head-waiter speaks English, and
the manager seems to be specially desirous of attracting American
custom. At this restaurant the charge is one real for the seven o'clock
breakfast of chocolate and bread, and five reals for the eleven o'clock
breakfast; dinner is five reals; and all three of the meals are
furnished for thirty dollars a month, or one dollar a day. Of course we
do not want board by the month, nor to go among Americans, whom we did
not come here to see; we have been eating Mexican dishes at the
_fondas_, and for four reals have had excellent meals. _Fonda_ means
restaurant, and _fondita_ means café; fonda also means hotel, and a
hotel for travellers only. There is another kind of hotel or inn, for
horned cattle and horses as well as for human beings; establishments of
this kind are called _mesones_ or _posadas_."
[Illustration: ON THE WAY TO MORNING MASS.]
Bright and early on the morning following their arrival the youths were
out to see the sights of the Mexican capital. They did not wait for the
early breakfast, but on hearing the bell from a neighboring church tower
they sallied forth in time to see the streets filled with people on
their way to morning mass. Fred made note of the fact that women seemed
to be very much in the majority, and he was not surprised to learn
afterwards, in conversation with a gentleman who resided in the city,
that religion in Mexico has its greatest hold upon the women. "The men
are negligent of, or, as a general thing, indifferent to, religious
subjects," said his informant; "and were it not for the women of Mexico
the Church would have very little hold upon the population."
[Illustration: A MODERN STREET FRONT.]
The ladies were in mantillas, which are the rule of society for morning
mass, though not for promenades at later hours of the day. Since the
influx of foreigners, in the last decade or so, the fashions of Mexico
have undergone a change, and steadily approach the Parisian. But the
mantilla still holds its place for morning mass, and will probably do so
for a long while. Of course the priests might change it if they desired
to do so, but they are opposed to innovations, and were, speaking
generally, bitter opponents of the railway and telegraph. The mantilla
is a very becoming outside garment for a pretty woman whose brunette
complexion harmonizes with what she wears. Frank and Fred carried with
them for hours, if not for a longer period, the recollection of some of
the faces that came within the range of their vision on that morning
walk.
They were frequently accosted by the sellers of crucifixes, rosaries,
and other things appertaining to the religion which was represented by
the people on their way to mass. Evidently the morning is the best time
for these venders to dispose of their wares, and they endeavor to make
the most of it. Rather incongruously, these dealers in sacred things
were jostled by the sellers of lottery tickets; these gentry pursue
their avocations at all hours and in all places and are very persistent.
They offer to sell you the ticket that will be sure to draw the highest
prize, and in every way possible exercise their ingenuity to persuade
you to buy. The tickets are of all prices, and one can invest much or
little, according to his means and inclination.
Frank investigated the subject of lotteries in Mexico, and found that
they were a regular institution of the country; in fact, they are to be
found in pretty nearly all the countries of Spanish America. The
Government gives charters to certain associations, and very often runs
the lottery itself; the profits are large, and the Government makes a
handsome revenue from the business. The sale of tickets amounts to about
$3,000,000 a year in Mexico; and after deducting the value of the prizes
and the expense of conducting the enterprise, the net revenue to the
Government is not far from $800,000.
[Illustration: MEXICAN LOTTERY TICKET.]
Frank did not invest in the lottery, but he went to witness one of the
drawings. It took place in public, and seemed to be perfectly fair. The
numbers were drawn from the boxes by blind boys, who were brought from
one of the hospitals for the blind, and were accompanied by the
professor in charge of that institution. Sometimes, when a blind boy or
man cannot be easily obtained, the drawing is made by an Indian who
cannot read; and he is carefully blindfolded, so that there can be no
suspicion of fraud.
Judging by the large attendance at the drawing, it is evident that the
lottery is very popular in Mexico. Nearly everybody seems to speculate
in the tickets, and when the drawing is made and the lucky number
announced, there is intense excitement. There is an old adage that
lightning does not strike twice in the same place. It would seem as if
the proverb should be reversed, as the story goes that Señor Manuel
Garcia, the owner of a hacienda near Manzanillo, won the highest prize
in the great National Lottery three times in succession.
Flower-sellers were out in goodly number when the youths took their
morning walk, and the wares they offered were fresh and attractive. We
have already seen the fondness of the Mexicans for flowers, as shown at
Monterey and elsewhere in the north. The city offered no exception to
the rule, and the size and beauty of the bouquets, combined with their
low price, were calculated to astonish the visitors. For twenty-five
cents Frank bought a bouquet, which he sent to Doctor Bronson's room. It
was about two feet high and the same in diameter, and was composed
principally of roses of a dozen varieties. While Frank was paying for
his purchase Fred sniffed at it, and was surprised to find that in spite
of their beauty the roses had hardly any perfume. On inquiry, he learned
that this was the case with nearly all flowers in the Valley of Mexico,
and was supposed to be due to the rarity of the air.
"We had some difficulty at first," said Fred, "in finding our way about
the city, for the reason that the names of some of the streets change at
each block. This plan, which is very annoying to a stranger, and even to
a resident, is being given up; and they told us that in a few years they
hoped to abandon it altogether. Just think what New York or Boston would
be with such a system as this!"
[Illustration: FLOWER-GIRL.]