EXCURSION TO TULA.--AN ANCIENT CITY OF THE TOLTECS.--CHURCH OF THE TIME
OF CORTEZ.--MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE TOLTECS.--TOLTEC KINGS, COURTS,
AND KNIGHTHOOD.--RUINS OF THE TEMPLE AND PALACE.--JOURNEY TO
MORELOS.--INTEROCEANIC RAILWAY.--MORELOS AND HIS SERVICES TO
MEXICO.--CUAUTLA AND ITS ATTRACTIONS.--TERRIBLE RAILWAY ACCIDENT.--DOWN
THE SOUTHERN SLOPE.--IN TIERRA CALIENTE.--VISITING A SUGAR ESTATE.--TO
YAUTEPEC AND CUERNAVACA.--RIDE OVER THE MOUNTAINS.--SITUATION OF
CUERNAVACA.--OLD CHURCH AND PALACE OF CORTEZ.--A FORTUNATE
FRENCHMAN.--ROMANTIC INCIDENT IN THE CAPTURE OF CUERNAVACA.
One of the volumes in which our young friends were interested during
their stay in Mexico was "The Ancient Cities of the New World," by M.
Charnay. The perusal of this book led them to wish to visit Tula, which
is famous for having been a city of the Toltecs, and a flourishing place
at the time of the Conquest.
Leaving the city of Mexico at half-past seven o'clock one morning by the
Central Railway, they reached Tula at 9.40 A.M.; the distance is about
fifty miles, and the route is the same as already described, through the
Nochistongo cut. The returning train at 4.40 P.M. brought them back to
the city at seven o'clock, and the trio unanimously voted that they had
passed a most agreeable and instructive day. The heads of the youths
were filled with archæology, and they felt themselves almost competent
to write a history of the Toltecs and their migrations, in spite of the
obscurity of many of the traditions about this remarkable people.
Instead of a history, they acted upon Doctor Bronson's suggestion, and
contented themselves with an account of what they had seen, with a few
supplementary notes by way of explanation. From this account we will
make a few selections.
[Illustration: WARRIOR'S PROFILE, FOUND AT TULA.]
"Tula now has a population of less than 2000," said Frank in his
note-book; "but according to the histories, it was a rival of
Tenochtitlan, the ancient name of the city of Mexico, at the time of the
Conquest. The inhabitants were firm supporters of Cortez, and among the
first people to accept the new religion and become his allies. Its
ancient name was Tollan, which is said to mean 'the place of reeds,' and
also 'the place of many people.' Cortez built a church there very soon
after he conquered the place. There is a church now standing which was
begun in 1553 and completed eight years later.
"It is one of the best built churches in Mexico; at any rate, one of the
best that we have seen. Doctor Bronson thought it must have been
intended as a fortress as well as a church, as the walls in some places
are seven feet thick, and built in the most substantial manner. And it
wasn't a small building either, as it is 192 feet long by 41 wide. The
body of the church is more than 80 feet high, and it has a tower whose
top is 125 feet from the ground. The architects that came with Cortez
evidently understood how to erect substantial buildings.
[Illustration: CHURCH AND PART OF PLAZA AT TULA.]
"Exactly how many inhabitants there were in Tula when Cortez came nobody
seems to know; but it is certain, from the extent of the ruins, that the
city covered a wide area. There is a small and not particularly clean
river that winds through a plain around the base of Mount Coatepetl,
and the city stretched over this plain and was dominated by the
mountain. Great quantities of sculpture have been found here in
ploughing the fields or clearing the bed of the river, and explorers and
antiquarians have done a great deal of work with profitable results.
Some of the 'finds' have been taken to the museum in Mexico, some have
gone out of the country, and a good many large pillars and pieces of
statues remain in Tula to interest and instruct the visitor.
[Illustration: TOLTEC KING AND HIS THRONE.]
"According to the historians, the Toltecs founded Tula, or Tollan, in
the year 648. We have told elsewhere how the discovery of pulque brought
about the ruin of the nation, but whether this is really so or not the
historians cannot say positively. At any rate, the ruins of Tula are of
great antiquity, and as we walked and stood among them we tried to make
a mental picture of what was to be seen here a thousand years ago.
[Illustration: RUINS OF A TOLTEC PALACE.]
"We imagined that we saw a long line of soldiers, armed with spears,
light javelins, bows and arrows, and also with clubs studded with copper
or silver nails. They were protected by cotton tunics thickly quilted,
that must have been very warm when the wearers were marching, but
evidently made an excellent armor. They had leggings of the same
material, and they had wadded capes over their shoulders, but kept their
arms bare for greater facility in handling their weapons. We pictured
their king wrapped in a thick mantle knotted across his breast, with his
hands bare, and his feet protected by sandals. These sandals were held
in place by a thong passing between the first and second toes--exactly
after the style of the foot-gear worn by the Japanese at the present
time. His head was covered with a conical cap resembling that of the
Persians, and his ears were ornamented with heavy rings that glistened
through his long hair.
"At one side of the field where the soldiers are standing in
battle-array we see some buildings which they tell us are storehouses
where grain is laid away in times of abundance as a provision against a
period of famine. This was a custom of the Toltecs, and on several
occasions saved them from great suffering.
"One building which we cannot clearly make out is a tennis-court, so M.
Charnay says, and if we have any doubt about it now we can be convinced,
as one of the tennis-rings is still in place. Then there is a temple on
the top of a hill, and the procession that is going towards the temple
is in honor of a warrior who is receiving the honor of knighthood.
"You will be interested in learning that they had a regular system of
knighthood here centuries before Columbus discovered America. When a
candidate was to be presented the knights accompanied him to the temple
in a solemn procession. At the temple a priest pierced the cartilage of
his nose with an eagle's claw, and then twigs were inserted in the wound
to keep the flesh from uniting as the sore healed. He was clad in a
coarse tunic, and then they painted him black all over, gave him one
tortilla and a little water once a day to save him from starvation, and
compelled him to lie on a mat on the cold ground. They allowed him to
sleep only a few minutes at a time, and waked him by a prod with a
thorn. Several times a day they sat down and feasted in front of him,
called him every mean name their language contained, and heaped all
sorts of insults upon him. They kept this up for sixty days; if he lost
his temper at any time and 'talked back' at their insults, or asked for
any of their food, the ceremony stopped and he wasn't made a knight.
"If he held out bravely and patiently to the end of the sixty days, he
was then taken to the Temple again, and the whole order of the knights
received him with high honors. His mean garments were removed from him
by the oldest knight in the assemblage, and he was decorated with the
insignia of the order and dressed in fine clothes. The use of the hole
in his nose was now apparent, as the jewel that indicated his rank was
hung there. The Apache and other south-western Indians occupy the
country dwelt in by the Toltecs before their migration to Mexico. These
Indians wear ornaments in their noses, and are supposed to have derived
the custom from the ancient inhabitants.
[Illustration: THE PYRAMID OF THE SUN AT TULA.]
"So much for the past. Let us see what there is here now. Here are the
ruins of the Temple of the Sun, where the people worshipped that great
luminary; they made offerings of fruits and flowers, and sometimes of
birds, and, unlike the Aztecs, they did not indulge in human sacrifices.
The temple is now only a heap of stones partly overgrown with trees, and
it is said that a great deal of material was taken from it for building
the houses of the Tula of to-day.
"We went from the temple to the ruins of the palace. These ruins were
unearthed by M. Charnay, and cover a considerable area of ground. The
guide who accompanied us was the same that aided the author of 'Ancient
Cities of the New World,' and he pointed out the different rooms in the
palace and their probable uses. One room, he said, was supposed to have
been devoted to a sort of 'Happy Family' of wild and domestic animals,
as it was the fashion of those times for every palace to have a
menagerie attached to it. Then they had coops and cages for turkeys,
ducks, and other fowls destined for the table, yards for goats and other
domestic quadrupeds, tanks for fish, and chambers for reptiles and birds
of prey. Servants' quarters were arranged very much as in modern
palaces; and altogether the Toltec kings had a good deal of comfort
about their residences.
[Illustration: PARTS OF A COLUMN, TULA.]
"In the plaza we saw some broken columns, which appear to have been
wrought with a great deal of skill and carefully mortised together.
There was also the lower portion of a caryatid. Fred made a sketch of it
with the guide standing at one side, so that you can see the proportions
of the figure. Only the legs and feet remain, and they are more than
seven feet high. Taking this height for a calculation, the head of the
complete figure before it was broken must have been nearly twenty feet
from the ground.
[Illustration: TOLTEC CARYATID, TULA.]
"The Toltecs built their houses of uncut stone laid in mud, and covered
with hard cement; this cement seems to have been of an excellent
composition, as it is well preserved in spite of the centuries that have
elapsed since the city was built. The floors are levelled with the same
cement, and some of them are smooth enough for skating-rinks. The palace
that we visited contains thirty or forty rooms, and there is a smaller
palace in another part of the town which we did not see. One of the
Toltec stone basins is used as a baptismal font for the church, and the
ruins supplied much of the material of which the walls are composed.
"We dined fairly well at the Hotel de Diligencias, having taken the
precaution to order the dinner as soon as we arrived. We allowed
ourselves scant time for the meal, as we wished to utilize our stay as
much as possible in seeing the sights of Tula. If we ever turn
excavators of ruins, we will come to Tula and see what can be found. Our
interest is somewhat stimulated by the story that an Indian boy once
found a jar here containing 500 gold coins; he was ignorant of their
value, and sold the entire lot for a few coppers. If you hear of our
doing anything of this sort, please let us know."
On their return to the city Doctor Bronson found at the hotel a letter
which contained an invitation to visit a sugar plantation in the State
of Morelos; the invitation included the youths, and was accepted at
once. Immediate acceptance was necessary, as the proprietor of the
estate was to leave the city on the following morning, and wished the
visitors to accompany him, and on their part they desired the pleasure
and advantage of his company on the road.
The party took the morning train on the Interoceanic Railway, the line
by which they went to Amecameca on their excursion to Popocatepetl.
Their destination was Cuautla (pronounced Kwat-la) or Cuautla-Morelos,
as it is officially designated.
"It was named in honor of the patriot Morelos," said Señor Domingo, the
gentleman whose sugar estate our friends were going to visit.
"I have seen his name in the list of Mexicans who have made their names
famous," replied Fred, "and must refresh my memory concerning him."
[Illustration: NATIVE HUT ON A SUGAR ESTATE.]
"I will save you the trouble of consulting the histories," the gentleman
answered, "by giving you a brief sketch of his life."
The youths bowed their acknowledgments of his courtesy as Señor Domingo
continued:
"You doubtless know about the insurrection led by the priest Hidalgo, in
1810, which was the beginning of the War for Independence. Well, Morelos
was one of the curates under Hidalgo, and when the insurrection began he
joined in it, and raised a force of patriots to oppose the Spaniards and
drive them from the country. He began with five negro slaves as the
nucleus of his army, and soon had a following of several thousands. He
was successful at first, and his defence of Cuautla was one of the most
heroic affairs known in Mexican history.
"Morelos had taken his position in the town, and was attacked by the
Spanish general Calleja, in February, 1812. He repulsed the attack, and
then the Spaniards laid siege to the place. For more than two months the
siege was kept up; provisions grew very scarce and the besieged were
near the point of starvation. Rats sold for one dollar each, and a cat
was worth five or six dollars. Lizards became valuable, and a fair-sized
one was worth two dollars, and could not be readily obtained at that
price."
"Was the patriot army forced to surrender?" Frank asked.
"No," was the reply, "it held out for sixty-two days, and then Morelos
managed on a dark and rainy night to evacuate the place and retreat. He
fought several other battles, but was finally captured. He was tried for
treason, and condemned to death, and it is notable that his conviction
was one of the last acts of the Inquisition in Mexico. Morelos was shot
in December, 1815; his memory is preserved in the name of the State we
are about to visit, and also in that of his native city, Valladolid,
which is now called Morelia."
[Illustration: HENEQUIN PLANT.]
"To be shot for treason seems to be the fate of the majority of Mexican
leaders," one of the youths remarked.
"Yes," was the reply. "An intimate friend of Morelos, and one of his
ablest officers, was the priest Matamoras. He was captured and shot by
Iturbide, in 1814, and in revenge for his execution Morelos is said to
have butchered 200 Spanish prisoners. And Iturbide, as you know, was
disposed of in the same way, when he set foot on Mexican soil after his
banishment. It may seem strange to you to see the portraits of Iturbide,
Morelos, and Matamoras side by side in the public hall at Cuautla, and
to know we revere them all as heroes; but it shows you the ups and downs
of Mexican history better than anything else I know of."
The conversation just related occurred as the train was wending its way
from Mexico to Amecameca. Beyond that town there were numerous curves in
the railway line, and the youths were interested in studying the rapidly
changing panorama as the train wound among the mountains in its descent
from Ozumba to Cuautla. Before the ride was ended they declared that
they had nowhere seen a more crooked railway, and expressed unfeigned
admiration for the engineer that built it.
But their admiration was checked when Señor Domingo pointed out the
scene of one of the most terribly fatal accidents known in the history
of railway management.
[Illustration: FIGHT BETWEEN REGULARS AND INSURGENTS.]
"This is the place," said he, as they reached the deep barranca of
Malpais. "The railway was opened on the 18th of June, 1881, and there
was an excursion from the city, with a grand banquet at Cuautla.
President Diaz and nearly all the notable men of Mexico were on the
excursion and banqueting party; in fact there was hardly any government
left in the capital on that day. The banquet was given in an old
convent, which had been converted into a railway-station, and a very
good station it makes.
"There was a regiment of soldiers at Cuautla at the time, and just six
days after the excursion and the opening of the line it was ordered to
the city. The soldiers were placed on platform cars, and several other
cars loaded with barrels of aguardiente were attached to the train.
[Illustration: RAILWAY CROSSING A BARRANCA.]
"It was dusk when the train started, and the night came on very dark and
rainy. The soldiers broke open some of the barrels of the fiery liquid,
and drank heavily to keep out the effects of the rain. The foundations
of the bridge at this barranca had been badly built, and were made
unsafe by a flood; when the train came along, the bridge gave way and
the cars were thrown into the abyss. The barrels of aguardiente took
fire, the cartridges in the belts of the soldiers exploded, the men who
were not killed outright or stunned by the fall were crazy with drink
and excitement, and shot and stabbed each other; many were swept away by
the torrent, and altogether the accident was the most horrible ever
known upon a railway, so far as I have read or heard. More than three
hundred lives were lost, and many persons think the real number was not
much below five hundred."
[Illustration: A PRODUCT OF CUAUTLA.]
Frank and Fred shuddered as they looked from the windows of the car
into the deep barranca, where the stream was rushing along in its wild
fury. The fallen train, inky darkness, the tropical storm, men crazed
with drunkenness, burning aguardiente, exploding cartridges, knives,
bayonets, and loaded rifles combined to make a picture terrible to
contemplate.
[Illustration: TRAVELLERS RESTING.]
The change from the Valley of Mexico to the warm country south of the
encircling mountains is very perceptible in the distance between Ozumba
and Cuautla, and more so where the line continues to Yautepec, fifteen
miles farther on. Cuautla is eighty-five miles from Mexico City, and
before the railway was opened it was very difficult of access.
The railway, as before stated, is entirely Mexican in character; it is a
narrow-gauge line, and owes its existence to the owners of the sugar
estates in the region of which Cuautla and Yautepec are the commercial
centres. Through the political influence of these men a Government
concession and subsidy were obtained, with extra subventions for speedy
constructions. To the insecure character of the work, owing to the speed
with which the line was built, may be attributed the accident at the
Malpais barranca.
Cuautla has about 12,000 inhabitants, and is 3500 feet above the level
of the sea; the rapidity of the descent of the railway will be realized
when it is remembered that Amecameca is nearly 5000 feet higher up in
the air, and less than fifty miles away. That the region is tropical a
glance from the car windows as the station is approached will readily
show.
Cuautla contains a very good and venerable church, and a well-built
town-hall; the alameda is pretty, and when these have been seen the
stranger has practically finished with the place. Señor Domingo did not
allow our friends an opportunity to inspect the town, as his carriage
was waiting at the station and they were off in a few minutes. They did
not see the sights of Cuautla until their return.
[Illustration: OVER THE HILLS.]
They had breakfasted lightly before starting in the morning, and
substantially at Ozumba; it was half-past three in the afternoon when
they ended their railway ride, and the drive to the sugar estate
occupied fully two hours. The drive was along roads lined with tropical
trees and plants, and among plantations of bananas, sugar-cane, oranges,
and other products of the warm region. The air was dense and hot, and by
no means an agreeable change from the pure atmosphere of the Valley of
Mexico.
Sugar is the chief product of the State of Morelos, the annual yield
being over 60,000,000 pounds, or 30,000 tons. Next to sugar comes corn,
the value of the corn product being nearly two-thirds as much as that of
the sugar. Coffee, rice, wheat, and fruits are the remaining yields of
the soil; and there are several silver-mines in Morelos, but they are
not of great repute. The story is that they swallow up a great deal more
than they produce, and are only worked when a capitalist happens along
who has a few hundreds of thousands he is willing to part with.
[Illustration: A SCORPION OF CUERNAVACA.]
A late and bountiful dinner was served at the plantation, and after a
pleasant evening with the family of their host the strangers retired to
rest. They were out early the next morning, ready for an investigation
of the sugar-making process as it is conducted in Mexico.
Here is what Fred wrote on the subject:
"We have seen sugar-making in several parts of the world, so that there
is nothing particularly new to us here. They have the most improved
machinery for crushing, boiling, and refining, and there is a portable
railway for transporting the sugar-cane to the mills. This railway is
shifted from one part of the estate to another as it is wanted, and the
saving of horse or other quadrupedal power is very great. The peons
appear to be well fed and happy; but it must be remembered that it takes
very little to support this class of the population. Nearly all the
sugar consumed in Central Mexico is grown in the State of Morelos and
the tropical region which immediately borders it. It is said that the
business is less profitable now than in former times, owing to the low
price of sugar.
[Illustration: A CHURCH GOING TO DECAY.]
"The process of making sugar has been described so often that it would
be superfluous to give it a place here. Some of the estates date from
the time of Cortez, and we were shown a building that was erected about
1540, if the tradition concerning it is correct. Of course the processes
for obtaining sugar from the cane have greatly improved since that time,
and the sugar-makers of three hundred years ago would be very much
astonished if they could wake up and see what is going on here now."
Doctor Bronson and his nephews spent two or three days around Cuautla,
and then continued on to Yautepec, where they took horses for a five
hours' ride to Cuernavaca. They took the advice of Señor Domingo, and
spent the night at Yautepec, so as to make the horseback journey in the
early hours of the day, and thus escape the heat of noon.
"We had a rough ride," said Frank, "but were amply repaid for it, not
only by the scenery along the way but by the quaint and picturesque
position of Cuernavaca. It has a commanding site on a promontory
projecting into the Valley of Cuernavaca, several hundred feet above it.
The valley is exceedingly fertile, and so is the ground on which the
town, with its twelve or fourteen thousand inhabitants, is located.
There was a town here when Cortez came to Mexico, and it was captured
and converted to Christianity before the siege of Tenochtitlan was
begun.
[Illustration: MEXICAN HOUSE WITH TILED ROOF.]
"There is a wonderful supply of tropical fruits, and also, we regret to
say, of tropical insects, the scorpion having a prominent place among
them. The widest street is the Calle Nacional, and the most interesting
buildings are the church and the palace of Cortez. The conqueror had a
grant of land from the King, which included the Valley of Cuernavaca; he
established his private residence here, and had a large estate, where he
introduced the cultivation of the sugar-cane and other useful growths of
the hot lands. His palace is now used as the public building of the
State of Morelos, which has its capital here; it has been changed a good
deal since his time, and we had some doubt as to the veracity of the
guide, who pointed out the different rooms and told the uses which the
great warrior made of them.
"The church is well worth seeing, and according to the historians it was
founded in 1529, along with a convent of the order of San Francisco.
There is another church, which was built by a Frenchman who came to
Mexico a poor boy and was so successful in mining enterprises that he
accumulated a fortune of $40,000,000. He spent a million dollars in
building the church, and another million in making a garden which is one
of the finest in Mexico, though it is far from being what it was in its
best days. We went through it and were fairly enraptured with what it
contains. The whole flora of the tropics seem to have been gathered in
this garden, and not only that of the tropics, but also of a large part
of the temperate zone.
"This fortunate Frenchman was named Joseph de la Borde, which is changed
in Spanish into José de la Borda. Lest you might think of coming here to
make his acquaintance, I will add that he was born in the year 1700, and
therefore isn't around very much just now.
"Cuernavaca means 'cow's horn,' but we looked in vain for something to
remind us of the weapon of the favorite animal of the farm-yard. It was
explained to us that the word is a corruption of Quauhnahuac, which
means 'where the eagle stops.' This was a better definition, as the site
of Cuernavaca is one which an intelligent eagle might select for
building his nest, provided there were no human beings around to molest
him. The ill-fated Maximilian followed the supposed example of the
eagle, as he was fond of coming here; it was his favorite dwelling-place
whenever he could snatch a few days from the cares of state. Most of the
houses are roofed with red tiles, which make a fine contrast with the
foliage of the tropical and semi-tropical trees.
"We visited the springs of Guadalupe which supply the town with water,
and found some charming scenery among the neighboring hills. Cuernavaca
lies between two barrancas, with very steep sides, and thereby, or
therein, hangs a bit of history. The barrancas offer an excellent
protection against assault, and when the army of Cortez came here there
seemed to be no point of access. You must remember that Cortez had no
Krupp or Armstrong cannon with which he could lie off at his ease to
batter the town to pieces and care nothing for the intervening chasms.
"The Spaniards were at bay for some time, till at last some of the
soldiers found a place where two trees had fallen across the barranca,
and made a perilous but possible bridge. Over this passage-way they
crept, one by one, some of them growing dizzy and falling off, to be
dashed to death on the rocks below. Silently they effected the transit,
formed their ranks on the other side, and then, with the blare of
trumpets and the fire of musketry, they dashed forward and captured the
town. How it must have astonished the people when the position they had
considered impregnable was thus captured by the white men from beyond
the sea!"
[Illustration: CLIMBING THE HEIGHTS.]