It was at the close of the week succeeding that of the little journey
across the mountains that the Koshare held their last Saturday evening
session. To punctuate the finality of this gathering, a variation from
the usual programme was proposed by the Antiquary. Members of the Club
were requested to supplement his brief paper by giving such written or
verbal statements, along the same line as their own research might
enable them to make. To this proposal many of the Koshare had agreed,
and had come well primed for lively discussion.
The attendance was unusually full, nearly all the boarders, in addition
to the regular Club members, being in attendance.
The Antiquary led with the following interesting paper, which, as he
explained, was, in a way, supplementary to those on the Aztecs.
"As the Tezcucans were of the family of the Aztecs," began Mr.
Morehouse, "and are said far to have surpassed them in intellectual
culture and the arts of social refinement, some slight notice of their
civilization may not prove irrelevant.
"Ixtilxochitl is the uneuphonious name of the native chronicler,
purporting to be a lineal descendant of the royal line of Tezcuco, who
has given us his highly colored narrative of the Tezcucan civilization.
It may be prefaced with the information that Ixtilxochitl (who
flourished so late as the century of the Conquest) has had his
reputation so torn to tatters by the critics of later years that he has,
figuratively, 'not a leg to stand on.'
"But as Prescott commends his 'fairness and integrity,' and says 'he has
been followed, without misgiving, by such Spanish chroniclers as could
have access to his manuscripts,' without attempting to settle the vexed
question of the probability of its details (which are a combination of
'Munchausen' and 'Arabian Nights'), we also will follow his marvellous
story of the Tezcucan Prince Nezahualcoyotl. Passing lightly over the
fascinating chapter of that prince's romantic adventures,--his
marvellous daring, his perilous escapes from the fierce pursuit of the
usurper Maxtla, and the dethronement and violent end of that
bloody-minded monarch,--we come to the time when Nezahualcoyotl,
restored to the throne of his fathers, is firmly established in the love
and fealty of his people, and may turn his attention to the production
of the odes and addresses handed down in Castilian by his admiring
descendant Ixtilxochitl. This admirable monarch was, we are informed,
'the Solon of Anahauc.' His literary productions turn, for the most
part, on the vanity and mutability of human life, and strikingly embody
that Epicurean poetic sentiment, expressed, at a later time, by our own
English poet, Herrick, in such verses as 'Gather ye rose-buds while ye
may.'
"'Banish care,' sings the royal Tezcucan bard; 'if there be bounds to
pleasure, the saddest life must also have an end. Then wear the chaplet
of flowers, and sing thy songs in praise of the all-powerful God; for
the glory of the world soon fadeth away.
"'Rejoice in the green freshness of thy spring; for the day will come
when thou wilt sigh for these joys in vain. Yet the remembrance of the
just' (piously adds the poet) 'shall not pass away from the nations; and
the good thou hast done shall ever be held in honor.' And
anon,--returning to his _Epicurean_ 'muttons,'--he sings: 'Then gather
the fairest flowers in the gardens to bind round thy brow, and seize the
joys of the present ere they perish.'
"An English translation of one of Nezahualcoyotl's odes has been made
from the Castilian. It harps upon the same old string, as also do his
prose essays, which have less literary merit than his verse. We are told
by his panegyrist that not all the time of this incomparable monarch was
passed in dalliance with the muse, but that he won renown as a warrior,
and in the interests of peace also fostered the productive arts that
made his realm prosperous, as agriculture, and the like practical
pursuits. Between times he appears to have looked well after the
well-being of his children, who, in numbers, rivalled the progeny of our
modern patriarch, Brigham Young. It is recorded that by his various
wives this monarch had no less than sixty sons and fifty daughters. (One
condones his disgust with life!) The Tezcucan crown, however, descended
to the children of his one legal wife, whom he married late in life. The
story of his wooing and winning this fair lady is almost an exact
counterpart of the Bible account of King David's treacherous winning of
Uriah's beautiful consort.
"It is related of Nezahualcoyotl, that having been married for some
years to this unrighteously obtained wife, and not having been blest
with issue by his beautiful queen, the priests persuaded him to
propitiate the gods of his country--whom he had pointedly neglected--by
human sacrifice. He reluctantly consented; but all in vain was this
mistaken concession. Then it was that he indignantly repudiated these
inefficient Pagan deities.
"'These idols of wood and stone,' said he, 'can neither hear nor feel;
much less could they make the heavens, and the earth, and man, the lord
of it. These must be the work of the all-powerful unknown God, creator
of the universe, on whom alone I must rely for consolation and support.'
He thereupon withdrew to his rural palace, where he remained forty days,
fasting and praying at stated hours, and offering up no other sacrifice
than the sweet incense of copal, and aromatic herbs and gums.
"In answer to his prayer, a son was given him,--the only one ever borne
by his queen. After this, he made earnest effort to wean his subjects
from their degrading religious superstition, building a temple, which he
thus dedicated: 'To the Unknown God, the _Cause_ of _Causes_.' No image
was allowed in this edifice (as unsuited to the 'invisible God'), and
the people were expressly prohibited from profaning its altars with
blood, or any other sacrifice than that of flowers and sweet-scented
gums. In his old age the king voiced his religious speculations in hymns
of pensive tenderness.
"In one of these, he thus piously philosophizes: 'Rivers, torrents, and
streams move onward to their destination. Not one flows back to its
pleasant source. They must onward, hastening to bury themselves in the
bosom of the ocean. The things of yesterday are no more to-day, and the
things of to-day shall cease to-morrow. The great, the wise, the
valiant, the beautiful,--alas, where are they?'"
"The compositions of Nezahualcoyotl," observed the Grumbler, as the
Antiquary folded away his finished paper, "though strictly founded on
fact, are not exhilarating. His family was too large; and the wonder is,
not that his odes and hymns are depressing, but that he should have the
heart to 'drop into poetry' at all!"
"We are told," rejoined the Journalist, "by his descendant with the
unpronounceable name, that once in every four months his entire family,
not even excepting the youngest child, was called together, and orated
by the priesthood on the obligations of morality, of which, by their
exalted rank, they were expected to be shining examples. To these
admonitions was added the compulsory chanting of their father's hymns."
"Poor beggars!" pitied the Grumbler; "how they must have squirmed under
this ever-recurring royal 'wet blanket!'"
"You forget," said Leon Starr, coming to the rescue of the poet-father,
"that in view of their inevitable mortality the bard had already advised
them to 'banish care, to rejoice in the green freshness of their spring;
to bind their brows with the fairest flowers of the garden, seize the
joys of the present, and'--in short, had given them leave to have no end
of larks, which, of course, they naturally and obediently did."
"It is a noteworthy fact," observed Mr. Morehouse, "that many
aborigines--though but scantily supplied with clothing, as the natives
of Samoa and the Sandwich Islanders--take great delight in adorning the
body with flowers. To this liking the Tezcucan king especially appeals
in his odes and hymns. The Mexicans have from time immemorial doted on
flowers. This taste three hundred years or more of oppression has not
extinguished."
"Do you remember, dear," asked Mr. Bixbee, turning to his wife, "the
flower market in the Plaza at Mexico?" (The pair had, a year or two
earlier, explored that city)--"that iron pavilion partly covered in with
glass, and tended by nut-brown women and smiling Indian girls?"
"Shall I ever forget it?" was her enthusiastic response. "The whole
neighborhood was fragrant with perfume of vases of heliotrope, pinks,
and mignonette; and such poppies, and pansies, and forget-me-nots I
never elsewhere beheld!"
"One can believe in absolute floral perfection," said the Journalist,
"in a country which embraces all climates. 'So accurately,' observes
Wilson, 'has nature adjusted in Mexico the stratas of vegetation to the
state of the atmosphere, that the skilful hand of a gardener might have
laid out the different fields, which, with their charming vegetation,
rise, one above another, upon the fertile mountain sides of the
table-land.'
"Along with many other important vegetable growths, the cotton-plant is
supposed to be indigenous to Mexico, as Cortez, on his first landing,
found the natives clothed in cotton fabrics of their own manufacture.
Its culture continues to the present day, but with very little
improvement in method since the earlier time of the Spanish Conquest."
"And now," asked the Harvard man, "since we are on the subject of
Mexican natural floral products, may I speak my little piece, which I
may call, 'What I have learned about the Cactus'?"
The Koshare graciously assenting, Roger Smith thus began:
"In Mexico the cactus is an aboriginal and indigenous production.
Several hundred varieties are identified by botanists. A beautiful sort
is Cereus grandiflora. As with us, this variety blooms only at night;
its frail, sweet flower dying at the coming of day. The cactus seems to
grow best in the poorest soil. No matter how dry the season, it is
always juicy. Protected by its thick epidermis, it retains within its
circulation that store of moisture absorbed during the wet season, and
when neighboring vegetation dies of drought is still unharmed. Several
varieties of cactus have within their flowers an edible substance, which
is, in Monterey, brought daily to market by the natives. That species
of cactus which combines within itself more numerous uses than any known
vegetable product is known as the maguey, or century plant.
"Upon the Mexican mountains it grows wild as a weed; but as a domestic
plant it is cultivated in little patches, or planted in fields of
leagues in extent. Its huge leaf pounded into a pulp makes a substitute
both for cloth and paper. The fibre of the leaf, when beaten and spun,
forms a silk-like thread, which, woven into a fabric, resembles linen
rather than silk. This thread is now, and ever has been, the sewing
thread of the country. From the leaf of the maguey is crudely
manufactured sailcloth and sacking; and from it is made the bagging now
in common use.
"The ropes made from it are of that kind called manila. It is the best
material in use for wrapping-paper. When cut into coarse straws, it
forms the brooms and whitewash brushes of the country, and as a
substitute for bristles it is made into scrub-brushes, and, finally, it
supplies the place of hair-combs among the common people. So much for
the cactus leaf; but from its sap arises the prime value of the plant.
"From this is made the favorite intoxicating drink of the common people
of Mexico. This juice in its unfermented state is called honey water.
When fermented it is known as pulque. The flowering maguey, the 'Agava
American,' is the century plant of the United States.
"In its native habitat the plant flowers in its fifteenth year, or
thereabout; and we are assured that nowhere, as is fabled, does its
bloom require a long century for its production. The juice of the maguey
is gathered by cutting out the heart of the flower of the central stem,
for whose sustenance this juice is destined. A single plant, thus
gingerly treated, yields daily, for a period of two or three months,
according to the thriftiness of the plant, from four to seven quarts of
the honey water, which, before fermentation, is said to resemble in
taste new sweet cider.
"Large private profit accrues to the owner of maguey estates, and the
government excise derived from the sale of the liquor is large. Pulque
is the lager of the peon. It was the product of the country long before
the time of the Montezumas; and Ballou tells us that 'so late as 1890
over eighty thousand gallons of pulque were daily consumed in the city
of Mexico.'
"It is said to be the peculiar effect of pulque to create, in its
immoderate drinkers, an aversion to other stimulants; the person thus
using it preferring it to any and all other drinks, irrespective of
cost."
The Minister followed Roger Smith with an account of a famous tree of
Mexico.
"It was at Papotla," said this much-travelled invalid, "a village some
three miles from that capital, that we saw this remarkable tree, which
is called 'The Tree of the Noche Triste' (the Dismal Night), because
Cortez in his disastrous midnight retreat from the Aztec capital is said
to have sat down and wept under it. Be that as it may, the Noche Triste
is undoubtedly a tree of great age. It is of the cedar family, broken
and decayed in many parts, but still enough alive to bear foliage.
"In its dilapidated condition it measures ten feet in diameter, and
exceeds forty feet in height. Long gray moss droops mournfully from its
decaying branches, and, taken altogether, it is indeed a dismal tree.
"It is much visited, and held sacred and historic by the people, who
guard and cherish it with great care."
"It calls up singular reflections," commented the Journalist, "to look
upon a living thing that has existed a thousand years, though it be but
a tree. Though so many centuries have rolled over the cypresses of
Chapultepec, they are yet sound and vigorous.
"These trees are the only links that unite modern and ancient American
civilization; for they were in being when that mysterious race, the
Toltecs, rested under their shade; and they are said to have long been
standing, when a body of Aztecs, wandering away from their tribe in
search of game, fixed themselves upon the marsh at Chapultepec, and,
spreading their mats under these cypresses, enjoyed in their shadow
their noontide slumber. Then came the Spaniards to people the valley
with the mixed races, who respected their great antiquity, so that
during all the battles that have been fought around them they have
passed unharmed, and amid the strife and contentions of men have gone
quietly on, adding many rings to their already enlarged circumference.
'Heedless,' says Wilson, 'of the gunpowder burned over their heads and
the discharge of cannon that has shaken their roots, as one ephemeral
Mexican government succeeded another, these cypresses still remain
unharmed, and may outlive many other dynasties.'"
"Apropos of the subject," said the Antiquary, "Nezahualcoyotl, according
to his descendant, the native historian, embellished his numerous villas
with hanging gardens replete with gorgeous flowers and odoriferous
shrubs. The steps to these charming terraces--many of them hewn in the
natural porphyry, and which a writer who lived in the sixteenth century
avers that he himself counted--were even then crumbling into ruins.
Later travellers have reported the almost literal decay of this
wonderful establishment. Latrobe describes this monarch's baths (fabled
to have been twelve feet long by eight wide) as 'singular basins,
perhaps two feet in diameter, and not capacious enough for any monarch
larger than Oberon to take a ducking in.'
"The observations of other travellers confirm this account. Bullock
tells us that some of the terraces of this apparently mythical palace
are still entire; and that the solid remains of stone and stucco
furnished an inexhaustible quarry for the churches and other buildings
since erected on the site of that ancient Aztec city.
"Latrobe, on the contrary, attributes these ruins to the Toltecs, and
hints at the probability of their belonging to an age and a people still
more remote. Wilson, on the other hand, positively accords them to the
Phoenicians."
"In reading up on this famous empire, Tezcuco," said Leon Starr, "one is
inclined to believe that every vestige of this proud magnificence could
not possibly have been obliterated in the short period of three
centuries, leaving on the spot only an indifferently built village,
whose population of three hundred Indians, and about one hundred whites,
maintain themselves in summer by gardening, and sending in their canoes
daily supplies of 'herbs and _sullers_' (whatever this last may be) to
Mexico, and, in winter, by raking the mud for the 'tegnesquita,' from
which they manufacture salt."
"Wilson," said the Grumbler, "tells us that 'the Tezcucan descendant of
an emperor "lied like a priest."' However that may be, one cannot quite
swallow his own relation 'in its entirety.'"
"Right you are," responded the Harvard man; "and now here is Miss
Norcross, waiting, I am sure, to cram us still further with Mexican
information."
"It is only," said this modest little lady, "some bits that I have
jotted down about Mexican gems;" and shyly producing her paper, she thus
read:
"In enumerating the precious stones of Mexico,--the ruby, amethyst,
topaz, and garnet, the pearl, agate, turquoise, and chalcedony,--one
must put before them all that wonder of Nature,--the Mexican fire opal,
which, though not quite so hard as the Hungarian or the Australian opal,
excels either of them in brilliance and variety of color. Of this
beautiful stone Ballou has aptly said, 'It seems as if Nature by some
subtle alchemy of her own had condensed, to form this fiery gem, the
hoarded sunshine of a thousand years.' He tells us that, in his Mexican
travels he saw an opal, weighing fourteen carats, for which five
thousand dollars was refused. 'Really choice specimens,' he goes on to
say, 'are rare. The natives, notwithstanding the abundance of opals
found in Mexico, hold tenaciously to the price first set upon them.
Their value ranges from ten dollars to ten hundred.'
"In modern times, as we all know, a superstition of the unluckiness of
the stone long prevailed. Now, the opal has come to be considered as
desirable as it is beautiful, and, endorsed by fashion, takes its
rightful place among precious gems. A London newspaper states that a
giant Australian opal, oval in shape, measuring two inches in length, an
inch and a half deep, and weighing two hundred and fifty carats, is
destined to be given to King Edward the Seventh; and that Mr. Lyons, the
giver, a lawyer of Queensland, desires that it should be set in the
King's regalia of the Australian federation. The London lapidaries
believe it to be the finest and largest opal in the world.
"Its only rival in size and beauty is the Hungarian opal, possessed by
Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria. This gem is known as the 'Imperial
opal,' and is said, in its rainbow beauty, to display the blended colors
of the ruby, the emerald, and the amethyst.
"What is termed the 'fire' of the gem appears to burn in its remotest
depths, with a glow and fervor which at times seem to convert the stone
from the opaque to the semi-transparent."
"We have in our own family," said Miss Paulina Hemmenshaw,
supplementing this account, "a rare Mexican opal. Long, long ago, it was
given as an engagement ring to my mother's youngest sister, by her
lover, who, while travelling in Mexico, had secured this exquisite stone
for a betrothal pledge. On the very eve of her wedding-day my beautiful
Aunt Margaret died of an unsuspected heart-disease. The old superstition
of the unluckiness of the opal being then dominant, my aunt's superb
ring was laid by as a thing malignant as beautiful.
"As a child I was sometimes allowed to take this sad memento of my dead
aunt from its nest of cotton wool and admire its harmful splendor. At my
mother's death it descended, along with all her own jewels, to me, her
only daughter. Now that we have outlived the foolish superstition in
respect to this precious stone, I have made up my mind," said the good
aunt, beaming kindly on her niece, "to take this ring from the Safety
Vault, on our return to Boston, and make it one of my wedding gifts to
this dear child."
"Many thanks, dear ladies," said Mrs. Bixbee, as Miss Paulina ended,
"for your talks about the opal. It is my favorite among precious stones.
I even prefer it to the diamond, as something warmer and more alive. I
am glad that its character is looking up in these days."
"All the same," said Mrs. Fairlee, complacently turning on her slim
white finger a superb Hungarian sapphire, "nothing would tempt me to
wear a stone even suspected of uncanniness. Trials and crosses, of
course, will befall one, but it seems to me foolhardy to wear jewels
supposed to attract misfortune, and, for my part, I am still suspicious
of opals; and were I King Edward, I shouldn't thank my loyal Australians
for the gift of an ill-omened jewel, however costly and beautiful."
"Well," commented the Journalist, "every one for his fancy; mine, I
confess, is to 'mouse round' among musty book-shelves. Looking over my
portable store of odds and ends for something relevant to this evening's
discussion, I came upon this extract from the 'Voyages of one "Thomas
Page,"'--a black letter copy of whose long-forgotten book, printed in
London, in 1677, is still extant. As a curious picture of the times, it
is not without an especial value; and, with your approval, I will now
read it:
"This account must be prefaced with the explanation that Thomas Page was
an English Dominican, who, as a missionary-monk, with his brother
Dominicans travelled to his destination in Manila, by the road across
Mexico, landing, by the way, at Vera Cruz, and there depositing some
illustrious fellow-voyagers.
"'When we came to land,' says this quaintly circumstantial writer, 'all
the inhabitants of the city had congregated in the Plaza to receive us.
The communities of monks were also there, each one preceded by a large
crucifix,--the Dominicans, the San Franciscans, the Mercedarios,--in
order to conduct the Virey (the Viceroy) of Mexico as far as the
Cathedral.
"'The Jesuits and friars from the ships leaped upon the shore from the
ships. Many of them (the monks) on stepping on shore, kissed it,
considering that it was a holy cause that brought them there,--the
conversion of the Indians, who had before adored and sacrificed to
demons; others kneeled down and gave thanks to the Virgin Mary and other
saints of their devotion, and then all the monks hastened to incorporate
themselves with their respective orders in the place in which they
severally stood. The procession, as soon as formed, directed itself to
the Cathedral, where the consecrated wafer (called in the English
original the bread God) was exposed upon the high altar, and to which
all kneeled as they entered.... The services ended, the Virey was
conducted to his lodgings by the first Alcalde, the magistrate of the
town, and judges, who had descended from the capitol to meet him,
besides the soldiers of the garrison and the ships. Those of the
religious orders that had just arrived were conducted to their
respective convents, crosses, as before, being carried at the head of
each community.
"'Friar John presented us [his missionaries] to the Prior of the Convent
of San Domingo, who received us kindly, and directed sweetmeats to be
given us; and also there was given to each of us a cup of that Indian
beverage which the Indians call chocolate. "This," the good friar tells
us, "was but a prelude to a sumptuous dinner, composed of flesh and fish
of every description, in which there was no lack of turkeys and capons.
This feast," he naïvely apologizes, "was not set out for the purpose of
worldly ostentation, but to manifest to us the abundance of the
country."
"'The Prior of Vera Cruz,' he informs us, 'was neither old nor severe,
as the men selected to govern communities of youthful religious orders
are accustomed to be. On the contrary, he was in the flower of his age,
and had all the manner of a joyful and diverting youth. His fathership,
as they told us, had acquired the Priory by means of a gift of a
thousand ducats, which he had sent to the Father Provincial. After
dinner he invited some of us to visit his cell, and then it was we came
to know the levity of his life....
"'The cell of the Prior was richly tapestried, and adorned with feathers
of birds of Michoacan; the walls were hung with various pictures of
merit; rich rugs of silk covered the tables; porcelain of China filled
the cupboards and sideboards; and there were vases and bowls containing
preserved fruits and most delicate sweetmeats.
"'Our enthusiastic companions did not fail to be scandalized at such an
exhibition, which they looked upon as a manifestation of worldly vanity,
so foreign to the poverty of a begging friar....
"'The holy Prior talked to us only of his ancestry, of his good parts,
of the influence with the Father Provincial; of the love which the
principal ladies and the wives of the richest merchants manifested to
him, of his beautiful voice, of his consummate skill in music. In fact,
that we might not doubt him in this particular, he took the guitar and
sung a sonnet which he had composed to a certain _Amaryllis_. This was a
new scandal to our newly arrived _religious_, which afflicted some of
them to see such libertinage in a prelate, who ought, on the contrary,
to have set an example of penance and self-mortification, and should
shine like a mirror in his conduct and words.... In the Prior's cell of
the Convent of Vera Cruz' (concluded this character sketch) 'we listened
to a melodious voice, accompanied with a harmonious instrument, we saw
treasures and riches, we ate exquisite confectioneries, we breathed
amber and musk, with which he had perfumed his syrups and conserves. O,
that delicious Prior!' exclaims our English monk, the humor of the
situation overcoming his horror of the scandalous behavior of the
ecclesiastic."
"And now," said the Minister, producing some leaves of sermon-like
script, "may I call your attention, my friends, to the striking
analogies found in the religious usages and belief of the
Aztec,--correspondent with those of the Christian,--some of which I have
considered in this little paper?
"One of the most extraordinary coincidences with Christian rites may, I
think, be traced in their ceremony of naming their children,--the Aztec
baptism. An account of this rite, preserved by Sahagan, is thus put into
English:
"'When everything,' says the chronicler, 'necessary for the baptism had
been made ready, all the relations of the child were assembled, and the
midwife, who was the person that performed the rite of baptism. After a
solemn invocation, the head and lips of the infant were touched with
water, and a name was given it; while the goddess Cioacoatl, who
presided over childbirth, was implored that "the sin which was given to
this child before the beginning of the world might not visit the child,
but that, cleansed by these waters, it might live and be born anew."
This,' continues the narrator, 'is the exact formula used: "O my child!
take and receive the water of the Lord of the world, which is our life,
and is given for the increasing and renewing of our body. It is to wash
and purify. I pray that these heavenly drops may enter into your body
and dwell there, that they may destroy and remove from you all the sin
which was given to you at the beginning of the world.
"'She then washed the body of the child with water. This done, "He now
liveth," said she, "and is born anew; now is he purified and cleansed
afresh, and our Mother Chalchioitlyene (the goddess of water) again
bringeth him into the world." Then taking the child in both hands, she
lifted him towards heaven, and said, "O Lord, thou seest here thy
creature, whom thou hast sent into the world, this place of sorrow, and
suffering, and penitence. Grant him, O Lord, thy gifts and inspiration;
for thou art the Great God, and with thee is the great goddess." Torches
of pine illuminated this performance, and the name was given by the same
midwife, or priestess, who baptized him.'
"The difficulty of obtaining anything like a faithful report of these
rites from the natives," said the Minister, "was complained of by the
Spanish chroniclers, and no doubt led them to color the narrative of
these (to them) heathen rites and observances with interpolations from
their own religious belief. 'The Devil,' said one of these bewildered
missionary monks, 'chose to imitate the rites of Christianity, and the
traditions of the chosen people, that he might allure his wretched
victims to their own destruction.' Leaving these monkish annalists to
their own childish conclusions, and absurd interpretations of the Aztec
religious analogies, we pass on to the tradition of the Deluge, so
widely spread among the nations of the Old World, the Hebrew account of
which was thus travestied by these semi-barbarians. Two persons, they
held, survived this historical flood,--a man named Coxcox, and his wife.
Their heads are represented in ancient paintings, together with a boat
floating on the waters.
"Another tradition (which is credited by Humboldt) affirms that the boat
in which Typi (their Noah) weathered the flood was filled with various
kinds of animals and birds, and that, after some time, a vulture was
sent out by Typi, to reconnoitre,--as was done in the Hebrew flood,--but
remained feeding on the dead bodies of the giants which had been left on
the earth as the waters subsided. The little humming-bird,
Huitozitsilin, was then sent forth, and returned with a twig in his
mouth. The coincidence of this account with the Bible narrative is
worthy of remark.
"On the way between Vera Cruz and the capital stands the tall and
venerable pyramidal mound called the temple of Chulola. It rises to the
height of nearly one hundred and eighty feet, and is cased with unburnt
brick. The native tradition is that it was erected by a family of giants
who had escaped the great inundation, and designed to raise the building
to the clouds; but the gods, offended by their presumption, sent on the
pyramid fires from heaven, and compelled the giants to abandon their
attempt.
"This story was still lingering among the natives of the place at the
time of Humboldt's visit to it. The partial coincidence of this legend
with the Hebrew account of the tower of Babel cannot be denied. This
tradition has also its partial counterpart in the Hebrew Bible.
Cioacoatl, 'our lady and mother, the first goddess who bringeth forth,'
who is by the Aztecs believed to have bequeathed the sufferings of
childbirth to women as the tribute of death, by whom sin came into the
world, was usually represented with a serpent near her, and her name
signified the 'Serpent-woman.'
"This fable, as will be seen, reminds us of the 'Eve' in the Hebrew
account of the Fall of Man. The later priestly narrators, minded to
improve upon this honest Aztec tradition, gave the Mexican Eve two sons,
and named them Cain and Abel.
"In this Aztec rite, coming down to us through tradition, the Roman
Catholics recognized a resemblance to their especial ceremony of
Christian Communion. An image of the tutelary deity of the Aztecs was
made of the flour of maize, mixed with blood; and after consecrating by
the priests, was distributed among the people, who, as they ate it,
showed signs of humiliation and sorrow, declaring it was the flesh of
the deity.
"We are told by a Mexican traveller, Torquemeda, a Spanish monk, that,
later on, when the Church had waxed mighty in the land, the simple
Indian converts, with unconscious irony, called the Catholic wafer 'the
bread-God.'"
Here the discussion was, for a moment, interrupted by the withdrawal of
Miss Mattie Norcross and her invalid sister, who, wearied with long
sitting, had dropped her tired head upon her sister's shoulder and gone
quietly to sleep.
As the Grumbler rose to open the door for the two, all present might see
the courteous air of protection and kindly sympathy which accompanied
this simple bit of courtesy. Evidently, the Grumbler had met his fate at
Alamo Ranch.
"And now," said the star boarder, coming finally into the talk, "since
Mr. Morehouse has kindly condensed for us the history of the aboriginal
Mexican from the far-off day of the nomadic Toltec to the splendid reign
of the last Montezuma,--treacherously driven to the wall by the crafty
Cortez, when the Spaniard nominally converted the heathen, overthrew his
time-honored temples, rearing above their ruins Christian churches, and,
intent to 'kill two birds with the same stone' filled his own pockets,
and swelled the coffers of far-off Spain with Aztec riches,--I have
thought it not irrelevant to take a look at the humble native Mexican as
he is found by the traveller of to-day.
"First, let me say that it has been asserted of Mexico that 'though
geographically near, and having had commercial relations with the world
for over three hundred years, there is probably less known of this
country to-day than of almost any other claiming to be civilized.' 'To
the Mexicans themselves,' declares an observing traveller, 'Mexico is
not fully known; and there are hundreds of square miles in South Mexico
that have never been explored; and whole tribes of Indians that have
never been brought in contact with the white man.'
"Mexico may well be called the country of revolutions, having passed
through thirty-six within the limit of forty years. In that
comparatively short period of time no less than seventy-three rulers,
'drest in a little brief authority,' have played their parts upon the
Mexican stage until the curtain dropped (too often in blood) upon their
acts, and they were seen no more.
"Humboldt, in the seventeenth century, pronounced the fairy-like
environs of the city of Mexico 'the most beautiful panorama the eye ever
rested upon.' On the table-land of this country the traveller is, at
some points, eight thousand feet above the level of the sea. At such
heights the air is so rarefied that the least physical effort well-nigh
deprives the traveller of breath. 'Through this rarefied atmosphere all
the climates and productions of the world,' it has been affirmed, 'are
embraced within the scope of a single bird's-eye view.' In portions of
the country the _vomito_ renders the climate especially unkindly to the
alien.
"We are told that three quarters of the present Mexican population can
neither read nor write, possess little or no property, and can form no
intelligent ideas of political liberty, or of constitutional government.
"The degraded condition of the laboring classes is imputed in a measure
to the constitutional inertia of a race who have no climatic conditions
to contend with in their life-struggle; whose simple wants are easily
satisfied, and who (it may be inferred) never know that 'divine
discontent' which is the fulcrum on which the higher civilization turns.
The manner of living, among this class, is thus described by Wells:
"'Their dwellings in the cities are generally wanting in all the
requirements of health and comfort, and consist mostly of rooms on the
ground-floor, without proper light or ventilation, often with but the
single opening for entrance. In such houses there is rarely anything
answering to the civilized idea of a bed, the occupants sleeping on a
mat, skin, or blanket, on the dirt floor. There are no chairs or tables.
There is no fireplace or chimney, and few or no changes of raiment; no
washing apparatus or soap, and in fact no furniture whatever, except a
flat stone with a stone roller to grind their corn, and a variety of
earthen vessels to hold their food and drink, and for cooking, which is
generally done over a small fire within a circle of stones outside, and
in front of the main entrance to the dwelling.
"'Their principal food is _tortillas_,--a sort of mush made of soaked
and hand-ground Indian corn, rolled thin, and then slightly baked over a
slow fire. Another staple of diet is boiled beans (_frijoles_). Meat is
seldom used by laborers; but when it is attainable, every part of the
animal is eaten. Should one be so fortunate as to have anything else to
eat, the _tortilla_ serves as plates, after which service the plates are
eaten. When their simple needs are thus satisfied,' says this observing
traveller, 'the surplus earnings find their way into the pockets of the
pulque or lottery-ticket sellers, or into the greedy hands of the
almost omnipresent priest.'
"These lotteries are, we are told, operated by the Church, and form one
of its never-failing sources of income, proving even more profitable
than the sale of indulgences.
"The idolatrous instinct, inherited from far-off Aztec ancestors,
decidedly inclines the native Mexican to a worship that has its pictures
and images, and its bowings before the Virgin and countless hosts of
saints, and the priest finds him an easy prey.
"'While we were in the country,' says Ballou, 'a bull-fight was given in
one of the large cities on a Sunday, as a benefit towards paying for a
new altar-rail to be placed in one of the Romish churches.'
"Religious fanaticism takes root in all classes in Mexico, even among
the very highest in the land. It is recorded of the Emperor
Maximilian--a man of elegant manners, and of much culture and
refinement--that he walked barefoot on a day of pilgrimage to the shrine
of the Virgin of Guadaloupe,--distant some two or three miles from the
city of Mexico, over a dusty, disagreeable road.
"It is but fair to add, in conclusion," said Leon Starr, "that it is
asserted of the cultivated classes of Mexico that they are not at all in
sympathy with the extortions and other irregularities of their
priesthood."
With these interesting statistics ended the last effort of the New
Koshare to combine improvement and entertainment.
Hard upon this more solid delight-making followed the last afternoon
tea, the lighter Thursday evening entertainment, and the final
shooting-match. All these gatherings took on a tinge of sadness from the
certainty that the little winter family, brought together by Fate at
Alamo Ranch, were so soon to separate.