To these may be added the Sinaloa and Durango, from the city of

Culiacan to the port of Altata, in Sinaloa; the Tehuantepec railway,

and Captain Eads’s ship railway across the same isthmus, to take the

place of a ship canal. The privilege to build an American railway across

Tehuantepec, it may be remembered, was secured (at the same time with

the lower belt of Arizona) by the Gadsden treaty of 1853, supplementary

to that of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The road was supposed to be needed for

the consolidation of relations with our then newly acquired territory

of California. The Pacific railroad filled its place, however, and the

project, taken up and dropped from time to time, has since had but a

lingering existence.

[Illustration: GENERAL RAILWAY SYSTEM OF MEXICO.]

Captain Eads proposes to transport bodily ships of 4000 tons, 190 miles,

by land. He will have twelve lines of rails, and four locomotives at

once; and, to avoid jarring in transit, changes of direction will be made

by a series of turn-tables instead of curves. The scheme is a startling

one, and meets with no little opposition. It is still only on paper; but

its proposer, who has abundantly vindicated his sagacity in constructing

the jetties of the Mississippi and the great St. Louis bridge, remains

firm in his conviction that he will be able to sail ships across the

isthmus on dry land.

III.

The several enterprises are succinctly divided into two classes—those on

the ground, and those on paper. It is not necessarily a disparagement to

the last that they are still in such a condition, for many of them are of

very recent origin.

The original Mexican Southern road is to run south from Mexico, by Puebla

and Oaxaca (capital of the populous state of the same name) and the

frontier of Guatemala, with branches to the ports of Anton Lizardo, on

the Gulf of Mexico, and Tehuantepec, on the Pacific. It is to connect

also with the Tehuantepec railway. It relies, as a principal resource,

upon the transport of the valuable productions of a rich tropical

country, as cotton, sugar, coffee, rice, and the like. Oaxaca is an

important small city of 28,000 people, birth-place of General Porfirio

Diaz, the Mexican power behind the throne, and undoubtedly the weightiest

person in the country. The route will be a rugged one to build. Much of

the area is high and salubrious. The Oaxacan Indians are a sturdy race,

who have followed their leader, Diaz, and others in many a hard-fought

campaign.

This company, however, has lately effected a consolidation with the

Mexican Oriental, and both will henceforth be known under the name of the

Mexican Southern.

The Mexican Oriental sets out from Laredo, on the Texas frontier, and

proceeds to the capital by way of Victoria, the capital of the state of

Tamaulipas. It claims to have a bee-line, and to be 200 miles shorter

than any other. Its mission is to occupy the district between the coast

and the Mexican National. It throws out a branch from Victoria to San

Luis Potosi; and has a coast-line connecting Tuxpan, Nautla, and Vera

Cruz. It is fed by some 12,000 miles of road under control of Jay Gould

in the United States.

The International is chartered to run from Eagle Pass, in Texas, to the

city of Mexico, occupying a field left vacant between the Mexican Central

and National; and is allowed to have also a cross-line to a point between

Matamoras and Tampico, east, and between Mazatlan and Zihuataneso, west.

The theory of each, it will be seen, is to have an interoceanic line as

well as a main line north and south.

The Pacific Coast road covers the right to a vast stretch, beginning

at a point below Fort Yuma, Arizona, and connecting the whole series

of Pacific ports down to Guatemala. The Topolobampo has also a long

extension southward, to touch at some of the same points.

The Topolobampo route (Texas, Topolobampo, and Pacific) crosses the

northern border states. It professes to be a shorter transcontinental

route to Australia and Asia than any other that can be laid down on

the map. It claims to have at Topolobampo, just within the Gulf of

California, the ancient Sea of Cortez, one of the few fine harbors of the

Pacific coast.

These harbors are spaced at wide intervals apart. That of the Columbia

River of Oregon is the highest up. Then, 600 miles south, comes San

Francisco; 441 miles below this is San Diego; 650 miles farther on, in

a direct line, or 936, doubling Cape St. Lucas, is Topolobampo; and 740

miles south of this again is Acapulco. Between them all there is nothing

worthy the name of harbor.

Topolobampo city, within the confines of the state of Sinaloa, exists

only on paper as yet, but nothing is more impressive in its elegant

regularity and finish than a paper city. It claims to be 800 miles nearer

New York than San Francisco by railroad travel, and that a person coming

from Liverpool to Sydney, Australia, would save 600 miles in laying out a

course from Fernandina, Florida, by New Orleans and Topolobampo, which is

indicated as a route of the future. If some of these representations be

correct, no doubt it will be. We live in times of a ruthless commercial

greed which is stopped by no sentimental considerations of vested rights

and convenience. We have but to see a short, through line, with possible

economies, to build it with all possible despatch.

The road in question is to start from Piedras Negras, on the frontier

of Texas, and make for Topolobampo, across the states of Coahuila,

Chihuahua, and Sonora, with branches to Presidio del Norte, also on the

Texas frontier, and to Alamos, in Sonora, and the port of Mazatlan,

down the coast. These routes pass near, and would greatly facilitate

operations in some of the large silver-mining districts, of late entered

with success by American capital and immigration. The reports of its

surveys chronicle an engaging prospect in various other ways. It passes

from belts of tropical products to those of white pine, oak, and cedar,

and others fitted for cereals, grass, and cotton, with a rich iron

mountain, and deposits of copper as well as silver.

The maxim is laid down that a railroad pays, in local traffic, in

proportion as one section of its line supplies what another lacks. If the

situation be as represented, Topolobampo seems provided with most of the

essential conditions of success.

VII.

_THE RAILWAYS AT WORK._

I.

The Sonora road is already built, and in operation as I write. It is a

stretch of three hundred miles, from the Arizona frontier, to the port

of Guaymas, near the centre of the shore line of the Gulf of California.

Its United States connection is by a branch of the Atchison, Topeka,

and Santa Fé, from Benson, through Calabasas, to the border at Nogales;

and another is proposed, from the Southern Pacific at Tucson. The

management of this enterprise, as well as of the Great Mexican Central,

is practically that of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé.

Its course is across the state of Sonora. It abolishes the old system

of ox-train transportation and the dusty stage-line from Tucson. It

will be found fault with, among others, by the savage Apaches, whose

refuge Northern Mexico has so long been. Their depredations, with their

territory penetrated by railroads, must soon come to an end once for all.

The other Indians of the state—Yaquis, Mayos, and Opatas—are docile,

and a principal reliance for cheap labor. The road taps mines, and, by

means of a branch, what is even more important for Mexico, the valuable

Santa Clara coal-fields. It has the little city of Hermosillo, with its

plantations, irrigated by aqueducts, in its course; and its port of

Guaymas is commodious and sheltered.

II.

I have purposely reserved to the last—the better, perhaps, to present

them to view—the two great trunk lines of principal importance, the

Mexican Central and the Mexican National. These two represent the bulk of

the entire movement as it is at present. Neither had many miles in actual

operation during my stay; but the works, railway stations, city offices,

and army of employés of both, were constantly in sight at the capital,

and were the principal evidences by which the manner of the railway

invasion of Mexico could be judged.

Energy of movement, ingenuity in planning, and an almost limitless

expenditure, all indicated here conscientious work, and not simply

railroad building on paper.

The Central begins at El Paso, the terminus of the Atchison, Topeka, and

Santa Fé, as well as a station on the Southern Pacific, at the frontier

of New Mexico. It extends to the capital, a distance of thirteen hundred

miles, tapping on the way a long series of the leading cities of the

republic, most of these as well capitals of states. It has also a great

interoceanic cross-line, which is to pass from the port of Tampico, on

the Gulf of Mexico, through the cities of San Luis Potosi, Lagos (the

junction with the main line), and Guadalajara, to San Blas, on the

Pacific. It is expected that the main line will be completed about July,

1884.

The first reached in the chain of leading cities is Chihuahua, with

about eighteen thousand inhabitants. The line is already running to

this point, and is completed in all three hundred and thirty-one miles

southward from Paso del Norte. The visitor by rail may already have in

Chihuahua a glimpse of a place presenting most of the typical Mexican

features. It has Aztec remains, and a large cathedral, built out of a

percentage of the proceeds of a silver-mine in bonanza. It is the scene

where the patriot Hidalgo, who first raised the standard of insurrection

against Spanish rule, was shot, having been treacherously betrayed by

his friends. This story is, unhappily, of but too frequent repetition in

Mexican annals.

Durango, three hundred miles farther, has twenty-eight thousand people.

It has been spoken of as the _Ultima Thule_ of civilized Mexico, the

barren plains to the north—which are, indeed, very common in all these

uppermost states—not having been considered worthy to be included with

the country below. There are places where water is not to be had for

two and three days at a time, but must be carried by the traveller. The

inhabitants have had to depend considerably upon themselves for defence,

as is seen in the occasional fort-like haciendas, with walls turreted and

pierced for musketry.

Zacatecas, moving onward now into a country of recognized civilization,

has 62,000 people; San Luis Potosi, 45,000; Aguas Calientes, 35,000;

Lagos, 25,000; Leon, 100,000; handsome Guanajuato, capital of the state

which is the richest of the whole interior, 63,000; Celaya, 30,000;

Silao, 38,000; Irapuato, 21,000; Salamanca, 20,000; and luxurious

Guadalajara, 94,000.

The mining of the precious metals is a leading industry over all the

area thus described, which abounds also in the agricultural products of

a gentle and temperate climate. The railroad is now running northward

from the city of Mexico to Lagos, and is completed for three hundred and

thirty-four miles from this lower end.

Lastly in the chain of cities may be mentioned Queretaro, which has a

population of 48,000. It is the site of flourishing cotton-mills, an

aqueduct which is compared with the works of the Romans, and it saw the

final resistance and execution of Maximilian. Mexico itself has 200,000

inhabitants. I have summed up here nearly a million of people; and it

would seem that a railroad along the line of which are scattered such

communities as these, grown to their present dimensions without even

tolerable means of approach, need not lack for support.

True, large numbers of the people are Indians and very poor; but I

point to the example of Don Benito Juarez, the liberator of his country

from the French, an Indian of the purest blood, and to numerous others

accessible on every hand, to show that there is nothing inherent in

the race itself to debar it from the highest development with increase

of opportunities. And if any suppose that they do not like to travel,

let him simply inspect the excursion trains where third-class cars are

supplied to them in sufficient numbers.

III.

I made the trip over the section of the Central to the small city of

Tula. Its principal feature is the passage through the great Spanish

drainage cut, along one side of which it has been allowed to terrace its

track. This cut—the Tajo of Nochistongo, before mentioned, designed for

keeping the lakes from inundating the valley—was begun under the viceroys

as far back as 1607, and continued for a couple of hundred years. Such

mammoth earth-cutting—a ditch twelve miles long, a couple of hundred feet

deep, and three hundred and sixty wide—was never seen elsewhere in the

world; and it is said to have cost the lives of seventy thousand _peons_,

or Indian laborers, in the course of construction. Why this should have

been, and how they died—whether by slipping in and being buried, or

under the exactions of cruel task-masters, and whether those who passed

away simply of old age (for which it will be seen there was ample time)

are included—does not appear.

I went partly by construction train, dining in their car with a group of

jolly young engineers, and partly on horseback over the _terre-plaine_

(the graded road-bed), which makes an excellent surface for riding.

The peons, swarming on the work, in white cotton shirts and drawers,

have reddish skins, bristly black hair, and a sudden, wild-eyed way of

addressing you. They have an analogy to the Chinese type. They got at

this time two and a half reals (thirty-one cents) a day. They are very

suspicious, and have absolutely no idea of trust, or waiting over the

appointed time. Dangerous strikes have resulted from some slight putting

off of the pay-day, which usually takes place once a week. In other

respects they are very tractable.

There were said to be thirty thousand of them at work on railroads at

this date. The rate of wages, so favorable to the contractors at first,

has been gradually rising under the active demand in the mean time, and

I have heard, since my return, of a strike on one of the northern roads

for as high as $1 a day. They buy gay clothes for Sunday, and _pulque_,

and save nothing. Many will not even work steadily. Two such form a

partnership to take a single place, and one works half the week and the

other the rest. There were some who walked all Saturday night to spend

Sunday at Queretaro, and returned Monday morning. On the haciendas they

are generally in debt, and as they cannot leave when in debt, they are so

far attached to the land, like serfs. Each gang has a _Cabo_ (or head),

who is simply an enterprising one of themselves, and gets an allowance of

two cents extra for each man he controls. The Cabo is a great man among

the railway laborers, and out of cabos arise the Benito Juarezes, and

hopes indefinite for the evolution of the race.

[Illustration: THE GREAT SPANISH DRAINAGE CUT.]

I spent the night at Tula. It was the capital of the Toltecs before the

day of the Aztecs. I climbed the Hill of the Treasure, to inspect some

ruins over which archæologists have made a stir. There are no sculptures

nor carved stones, nothing but some opened cellars and heavy walls, with

patches of a red plaster, as at Pompeii, adhering to them. But we stayed

our horses, and looked down, from a thicket of organ-cactus and nopal,

upon a lovely sunset over the valley of Tula. It is a little pocket of

fertility in the hills, and it does not seem at all wonderful that the

Toltecs stopped there in their migrations southward.

My _mozo_ pointed out a ruin in the thick woods, which he declared was

Toltec, knowing that to be what I was in search of. It was picturesque

enough, its walls having been split by an irrepressible vegetable growth;

but it had the same style of battlements (a kind of Spanish horn of

dominion) as the fortress-like church in the town, dating from 1553, and

was much more modern.

I went into this cool old church—vast enough for a cathedral—next day,

when the temperature was warm without. It was entirely vacant. Fatigued

with my journeying, I sat on a comfortable old wooden bench, and dozed

till awakened sharply by the striking of a little cuckoo-clock. I seem

to have dreamed that the numerous quaint figures of saints, in dresses

made of actual stuffs, had somehow an every-day existence there, in

addition to their sacred character, and that they were taking notice of

the intruder, and offering audible comments. This is one of the ways, I

suppose, in which very good miracles have been wrought before now.

For the rest, the place consisted of a plaza, with two or three

_pulque_-shops; a shop of general traps, with the ambitious title of “Los

Leones;” a _botica_ (or drug-shop), kept by one Perfecto Espinoza; a

Hotel de las Diligencias; and a little jail, at one corner of the plaza,

where a couple of soldiers walked up and down, and the prisoners peeped

out through a large wooden, grated door.

And there was a good restaurant, kept by a little Frenchman, who moved on

with it from time to time to the head of the line.

IV.

The Mexican National, or “Palmer-Sullivan,” road is due to the same

enterprise which established the successful Denver and Rio Grande system

in Colorado and New Mexico. It is, like that, a narrow gauge, instead of

a standard gauge, line, and a connection is to be ultimately established

between the two. In some respects it may claim to be the pioneer in the

modern movement, since its agent in Mexico, James Sullivan, had obtained

a charter and begun to raise money in 1872, but was stopped in his

project by the panic of the following year.

The National takes a much shorter line to the capital than the Central,

say eight hundred miles, as against thirteen hundred. Its initial point

is Laredo, on the Texas frontier. It is running already into Monterey,

the capital of Nuevo Leon, and built below Saltillo. Of the charms

of the little city of Monterey, which has medicinal springs beside

it, travellers begin to speak in the warmest terms. It touches San

Luis Potosi and Celaya as well as the Central, and has along or near

its course other cities, well peopled, though less known to fame, as

Matchuala, the population of which is 25,000. Its eastern port is Corpus

Christi, Texas, though it will have a branch also to Matamoras. Its

westward extension (only less important than the main line) winds round

about, through the cities of Toluca, Maravatio, Morelia, Guadalajara, and

Colima, down to the port of Manzanillo.

Four of these are capitals, and all are populous, and have wide,

well-paved streets and handsome buildings, public and private. Toluca, at

a great height, 8825 feet, above the sea, is often afflicted by a rather

frigid temperature; Colima is distinctly in the tropics; but Morelia

affords the happy medium, and its whole state of Michoacan has charms

upon which the appreciative never have done expatiating. Humboldt speaks

of the lake found at Patzcuaro as one of the loveliest on the globe.

Madame Calderon de la Barca, in her journey here, could hardly refrain

from regretting the lavishing by Nature of what seemed (so few were there

then to enjoy it) almost a wasted beauty. “We are startled,” she says,

“by the conviction that this enchanting variety of hill and plain, wood

and water, is for the most part unseen by human eye and untrod by human

footstep.”

The route winds, too, on its way to Guadalajara, around the great lake

of Chapala. Truly, it seems they are to be happy travellers, those of

the immediate future, to whom the simple device of the railway is to

open up so much of the wildness and loveliness of nature, combined with

the quaintness of an old Spanish civilization. We are apt to forget, in

our preconceived impressions, what an important part Old Spain played in

the country during three hundred years, what treasures she spent there.

She had made a beginning of some of these solid, regular cities, which

surprise one like enchantment on emerging upon them from forests and

wastes, a hundred years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. Very

little, in fact, has been added to what the Spanish domination left.

The modern movement, since 1821, is to be credited with very little in

the way of new buildings. Such compliments as are paid in the course of

these descriptions to the architecture belong chiefly to that remaining

from a much earlier date. The reputation of the republic is still to be

made in all such matters when it shall have outgrown the ample legacies

bequeathed it, and have need of farther accommodations peculiarly its own.

V.

In all, the National has completed four hundred and sixty miles. It

is said of late to have been sold to an English company. We need not

forego our American pride in its early achievements, even if this be so.

Perhaps such a transfer might be of benefit, in allaying the dread of an

overweening American influence.

It was not done even to Toluca in my time. It has to face its most

arduous engineering difficulties at the very beginning, and fortunately

goes far more smoothly afterward. No less than seventeen bridges, of

solid construction, had to be thrown across the little stream of the Rio

Hondo in two or three miles of its course.

A pay-train on horseback started out from the central office every

Saturday, to convoy the silver coin for the wages of the army of hands

employed on the first section of twenty miles.

“Ride with us!” its members often hospitably urged, and I more than once

accepted the invitation.

It is an all-day adventure, and a fatiguing one. Behold us at early

morning clattering out of the court-yard to ride up into the fastnesses

of the mountains, a curious cavalcade. The treasure is packed upon the

backs of a dozen mules, which are placed in the centre. A troop of

_Rurales_ (the efficient force organized by Porfirio Diaz for the better

protection of the rural districts) takes the van. A numerous retinue of

armed _mozos_ of the company, with ourselves, bring up the rear. The

young engineers, paymasters, and contractors, well mounted, with long

boots and revolvers, present a handsome, half-military aspect.

We have presently lost sight of the city, and are upon high rolling

barrens, where the surface is volcanic and rent into an infinity of

seams, and the only vegetation is that of nopal, or prickly-pear, as

large as apple-trees with us. Here and there a cluster of white tents

is seen at a distance, and cotton-clad peons delving in gulch or on

mountain-side are like some strange species of white insects.

The whole expedition wears a most un-nineteenth-century air. We might

be some band of marauders returned from an ancient foray. The Rurales

have something in their cut—the buff leather jackets, crossed by ample

sword-belts, and wide, gray felt hats—of the troopers of Cromwell. Each

has a rifle in his holster at the saddle-bow, and a gray-and-scarlet

blanket strapped behind him. Nothing could be more spirited, in color,

than these costumes, dismounted beside a cactus-tree, or thrown out

against the blue of distant mountains. On the harness of some of the

mules are embroidered in red and blue their names, or that of some

hacienda, as “Santa Lucia,” to which they have belonged.

It is understood that an individual with a crimson handkerchief around

the back of his head, under his silver-bordered sombrero, is the titular

_cacique_ of San Bartolito by descent from ancient chiefs. He precedes

us, being employed by the company to look out for plots and ambuscades.

When we have passed what he considers the dangerous points—these are

generally in the neighborhood of elevations, whence an intending bandit

could spy the road for a distance in both directions, and where are

ravines on either side for concealment and escape—he rejoins the troop,

and converses upon the propriety of his receiving more salary for his

arduous duties. No molestation has ever yet been offered these caravans,

and there is hardly likely to be. From a considerable experience in

remote parts of Mexico I am satisfied that, however prudent ample

precautions may be in exceptional cases like this, the ordinary traveller

runs little if any more danger of robbery than at home.

[Illustration: PAY CARAVAN ON THE MEXICAN NATIONAL ROAD.]

At the pay-stations we breast our way through crowds of the peons so

thick that the horses can hardly be prevented from trampling upon them,

always with their narrow foreheads, bristling hair, staring, wild eyes,

and large, undecided mouths. Their money is jingled out to them through a

pay-window into their shabby sombreros. Venders of small commodities and

_pulque_ wait for them, and profit by the new supply of funds.

At these stations the engineers lead a kind of barrack life. The interior

contains some beds, a dining-table, and a safe; outside is a storehouse

of picks, shovels, and barrows. Whether here, in their construction-car,

or tents, they extend the stranger a cheery hospitality. They are hearty,

robust fellows—“not here for their health,” as their saying is. Many of

them have seen service in war and in other climes, and their company is

both amusing and instructive.

VI.

The right of way usually given in all the concessions is for a width

of two hundred and thirty feet. Material and supplies for the road,

and connected telegraph line, are exempted from duty generally for the

period of twenty years. Neither the concession, property, nor shares can

be alienated to any foreign government, nor can a foreign government

be admitted as a shareholder. The fear of foreign domination crops out

everywhere in Mexican legislation; and perhaps the weakness of the

nation, and the sad experience of its seizure by Napoleon on the pretext

of debt, are sufficient excuse for such nervousness. At any rate, all

companies organized under its charters agree to be strictly Mexican, and

to renounce all rights and exemptions as foreigners.

[Illustration: “NOT HERE FOR THEIR HEALTH.”]

There is no great vacant public domain, as with us, and the Government

has not aided the new enterprises with land grants. Up to a recent

period, however, it has attached to each concession a cash subsidy

of $10,000 to $15,000 a mile. Both the Central and National are thus

subsidized. In order that the burden may not fall too heavily upon an

exchequer always weak, the payments are made to depend upon the pledge of

six per cent. in the one case, and four in the other, of receipts at the

custom-houses. Certificates for the several amounts as they become due

are issued to the companies, which must wait for collection till there

are funds to meet them.

The latest plan, affecting most of the great schemes still chiefly on

paper, gives no subsidy with the charter, but gives, instead, certain

privileges to atone for its absence. A less strict accountability to

Government, with a much higher tariff of charges, is permitted. It

has been questioned by some whether under these conditions a charter

without the subsidy is not better than with it. It is to be borne in

mind, however, so far as the matter of the higher rates is concerned,

that between competing points the company which can afford to run at the

cheapest rates gets the business. If but a tithe of the railroads now

covering the map like a net-work be built, there need be no fear of the

lack of a lively competition.

The stocks and bonds of railroads are not bought on the word of a

desultory traveller mainly in search of the picturesque—though I will

admit, too, that they are often bought upon less. I am not afraid,

therefore, to express a certain enthusiasm about the _ferro-carriles_ of

Mexico, which are in everybody’s mouth. It is the railways which have

made the modern world elsewhere what it is, and why should they fail of

the usual effect here?

They may be overdone, and there may be panics and shrinkages, such as

have occurred elsewhere, though this is not extremely probable, owing

to the reasons for wariness which lie very much on the surface. The

conditions to be conformed to must not be sought in a parallel situation

of things in the United States, but rather in such countries, perhaps,

as Russia and India, with a large peasant population to be developed,

instead of a new population to be created. We have built railroads in

advance of settlement, and depended upon immigration to fill up in their

wake. Mexico has but an infinitesimal immigration, and presents no great

inducements to it at present. It must depend upon the local carrying

trade and natural development of the industries and commerce of the

country. It has a population per square mile but little less than that

of the United States. These are of a natural intelligence, and capable

of the stimulus of ambition when opportunities are opened. They are to

be encouraged to be no longer satisfied with a bare subsistence for

themselves, but to produce from their fertile lands a surplus, for which

a market is now opened. They are to trade upon it and become amassers of

wealth.

No less than 10,000 miles of railways are spread over what were once

the old Mexican provinces of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado,

Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, and Texas. Railways have brought these out of the

nothingness in which they recently lay so vast and desolate. What must

they not inevitably do at last for Old Mexico itself, so fully peopled,

and scattered with centres of trade and of the arts of civilized life?

VIII.

_THE QUESTION OF MONEY, AND SHOPPING._

I.

It is perhaps thought that the work of improvement is to be effected

entirely from without, the Mexican himself remaining passive, and

allowing everything to be done for him. The view is supported by the

extent to which the business of the country is already in the hands

of foreigners. The bankers and manufacturers are English. The Germans

control hardware and “fancy goods.” French and Italians keep the hotels

and restaurants; Spaniards the small groceries and pawn-shops, and

deal in the products of the country. These latter have a repute for

somewhat Jewish style of thrift. They are enterprising as administrators

of haciendas, and often marry the proprietors’ daughters, and possess

themselves on their own account of the properties to which they were

sent as agents. Whether it be due to such rivalry or not, it is to be

noted that there are few Jews in Mexico. Finally, the Americans build the

railroads.

The Mexican proper is a retail trader, an employé, or, if rich, draws his

revenues from haciendas, which in many cases he never sees, and where his

money is made for him. These are on an enormous scale. The chief part of

the land is comprised in great estates, on which the peasants live in

a semi-serfdom. Small farms are scarcely known. For his fine hacienda

in the state of Oaxaca ex-President Diaz is said to have paid over a

million of dollars; on another the appliances alone cost a million. The

revenues of Mexican proprietors have been heretofore devoted to the

purchase of more real estate, or loaned out at interest; at any rate,

“salted down” in some such way as to be of little avail in setting the

wheels of industry in motion.

Before adopting, however, the conventional view that this state of things

is due to inferiority of race or enervating climate, considerations

on the other side are to be looked at. In the first place is the

revolutionary condition of the country, which until a recent date

subjected the citizen who ventured to place his property beyond his

immediate recall to a thousand embarrassments from one or another of the

contending parties. Such immunities and advantages as there were, were

enjoyed by foreigners alone, under the protection of their diplomatic

representatives.

Again, there have been peculiar inequalities of fortune, coming down

from the old Spanish monarchical times. There has been at one extreme

of society a class too abject, and at the other, one in too leisurely

circumstances, to greatly aspire to farther improvement, and the middle

class has been of slow formation. The difficulties in the way of travel

and communication with foreign parts for the middle class, from the bosom

of which financial success chiefly springs, have been of a repressive

sort.

The climate, of the central table-land at least, must not be considered

enervating. One must lay his ideas of climate, as depending upon

latitude, aside, and comprehend that here it is a matter of elevation

above the sea. Individual Mexicans are to be met with who, under the

stimulus of the new feeling of security, have embarked their capital,

put plenty of irons in the fire, and appear to handle them with skill.

The street railways of the capital, an extensive and excellent system,

are under native management exclusively. It is as successful in mining.

It was only when the great Real del Monte Company at Pachuca, formerly

English, passed into Mexican hands that its mines became profitable.

I should be strongly of the opinion that the backwardness of the Mexican

is not the result of a native incapacity or lack of appetite for gain,

but chiefly of the physical conformation of the country. The mule-path is

traced like a vast hieroglyphic over the face of it, and in this is read

the secret—lack of transportation.

But the zealous advocate of race and “Northern energy” objects: “How long

is it since we had no railroads ourselves? And yet did we not reach a

very pretty degree of civilization without them?”

But Mexico not only had no railways, but not even rivers nor ports. It

was waterways which made the prosperity of nations before the day of

steam. It is hardly credible, the completeness of the deprivations to

which this interesting country has been so long subjected. The wonder is,

to any experienced in the diligence travel, and the dreary slowness of

the journeys, at a foot-pace, by beasts of burden, not that so little,

but so very much, has been done. On the trail to the coast at Acapulco,

for instance—in popular phrase a mere _camino de pajaros_ (road for

birds)—have grown up some charming towns, like Iguala, the scene of the

Emperor Iturbide’s famous Plan, which, it seems to me, the Anglo-Saxon

race would hardly ever have originated under such circumstances.

Commerce and trade in such a land naturally have their peculiar aspects.

There is, in the first place, the complicated tariff, already referred

to. Americans should not let a new-born enthusiasm for a promising market

hurry them into consignments without a thorough understanding of the

premises. As to engaging in undertakings in the country itself, one who

had done so held that the new-comer should make his residence there for

six months or a year, and first acquaint himself with the people, their

customs, and language.

[Illustration: MODERN SHOP-FRONTS AT MEXICO.]

“Better make it two years, on the whole,” he said, reflectively, “and

then he will go home again and let it alone altogether.”

Without sharing this saturnine view, the importance of some preliminary

acquaintance cannot be too strongly insisted upon. The great inertia

of customs and ways of looking at things so different from our own is

appreciated more and more as time goes on.

The most promising openings at present would seem to be, for capital,

to work up into manufactures the raw material with which the country

abounds. These opportunities will increase with the growth of

transportation. Labor is cheap. The peons have little inventive but

sufficient imitative talent, and make excellent mill-hands. They work

for twenty-five and thirty-seven cents a day, and have no trades-unions

nor strikes. There is little opening as yet for persons of small means.

The government has taken but its first rudimentary steps toward the

encouragement of immigration, and the path is beset with difficulties.

A commercial treaty is now in the hands of the Senate of the United

States. It will be adopted in some form before long, and may result in

the improvement of local business opportunities, as it must in the volume

of trade, between the two countries. What we want is such a reduction of

duties as to put us on the same footing at least as England (in favor of

which there is a certain discrimination), so that our goods and machinery

can be sold in the country on reasonable terms. It is predicted that a

trade which is now about $30,000,000 per annum (including both exports

and imports) can be made $100,000,000. The Mexicans, on their side,

desire admission for their sugar and hemp. The treaty has met with its

chief opposition thus far from our Southern sugar-planters. Their fear of

competition is hardly reasonable at present. Our own product seems more

likely to go to Mexico at first. It is a matter of note that sugar has

been selling at eighteen cents a pound of late at old Monterey, in the

country which professes to raise it.[1] The total value of the exports

from Mexico for the past fiscal year has been $29,000,000. Of these

$14,000,000 came to us, and $10,000,000 went to England. Our own exports

to Mexico for 1881 were somewhat over $11,000,000.

II.

At present Mexico is perhaps the most difficult country in which to do

business in the civilized world. A customer four or five hundred miles

off, even on the best roads, is five or six days’ journey distant. In

preparing for it it is not long since he was accustomed to first make his

will. The merchant has friendly as well as commercial relations with his

customer. He is more or less his banker at the same time, not for the

resulting profit, but because it is expected of him. If he does not offer

such, accommodation some other house will. Credits are long, and it is

not expected that interest will be charged even on quite liberal overlaps

of time.

Payment is made in the bulky silver currency of the country; and this is

sent in large sums by guarded convoys, the _conductas_, which converge

upon the capital four times a year—in January, April, August, and

November. There were but two banks issuing bills at this time, and these

to but a small amount, and receivable only at short distances from the

capital. One of these was a private corporation, the other the National

Monte de Piedad, or pawn-shop.

The visitor becomes early acquainted with the Mexican “dollar of the

fathers,” to his sorrow. Sixteen of them weigh a solid pound. It is

obviously impossible to carry even a moderate quantity of this money

concealed, or to carry it at all with comfort. The unavoidable exhibition

of it, held in laps, chinking in valises, standing in bags, and poured

out in prodigious streams at the banks and commercial houses, is one of

the features of life.

Guadalajara, the supply from which unites with that from Zacatecas at

Queretaro, is the northernmost point from which money is despatched by

_conducta_ to Mexico. A portion of that even from here is despatched

to San Francisco, by the port of San Blas, just as a part of that from

Zacatecas goes to Tampico through San Luis Potosi. The country north of

San Luis to the east ships its funds to Matamoras; those of Durango are

divided between Matamoras and Mazatlan; while Puebla, Oaxaca, and the

rest of the south find their natural outlet at Vera Cruz.

[Illustration: THE “PORTALES” AT MEXICO.]

The importance of the great _conducta_ in these times is diminished

by the growing safety of the transport of money by private hands. Its

days are numbered with the progress of the railways, nearing so rapidly

the central cluster of cities in which it has its origin. Even now it

no longer came wholly to town, but took the Central train at the first

feasible point, at Huehuetoca, the Spanish cut for the drainage of the

valley. Its place as a spectacle is filled by the pay _conductas_ of the

railroads.

A revision of these accounts is needed almost from moment to moment as

I write, to keep pace with the rapid changes in affairs. A National

Bank and banks of foreign incorporators have been established in the

mean time, with authority to issue large amounts of but inefficiently

secured paper. The Mexican National Bank may now issue bills to the

amount of $60,000,000, upon a capital of $20,000,000. They are legal

tender from individuals to the government, but not from the government

to individuals, nor between individuals. One of the arguments in favor

of this bank, our minister was assured, was that it would counteract in

some sort the influence of the United States: the usual patriotic leaven

cropping up, it will be seen; though how it should accomplish the purpose

in view it is by no means easy to understand. A flood of depreciated

paper is driving the solid coin out of circulation; so that, while the

traveller may be now able to carry his money comfortably about him, there

may be much worse in store for the Mexicans themselves than the handling

of bags of unwieldy dollars. It is not pleasant to see also that the

government shows some unusual pecuniary embarrassment. Its expenditures

for the last fiscal year exceeded its revenues by ten per cent., and

a loan is talked of. Should a spirit of recklessness enter into the

management of the finances, in all this whirl of novelties, complicated

by the issues of paper, a crisis might be precipitated, which would, of

course, have to be counted among the retarding influences on the railways.

III.

Shops and shopping in Mexico follow much more European than American

traditions. A fanciful title over the door of the shop takes the place of

the name of a firm or single proprietor. You have no Smith & Brown, but,

instead—on the sign of a dry-goods store, for instance—“The Surprise,” or

“The Spring-time,” or “The Explosion.” A jeweller’s is apt to be called

“The Pearl,” or “The Emerald;” a shoe-store, “The Foot of Venus,” or “The

Azure Boot.”

The windows are tastefully draped, after the way of shop-windows. Within

stand a large force of clerks, touching shoulder to shoulder. They seem

democratic in their manners, even by an American standard. They shake

hands over the counter with a patron with whom they have enjoyed a slight

previous acquaintance; ask a mother of a family, perhaps, after the

health of “Miss Lolita” and “Miss Soledad,” her daughters, who may have

accompanied her thither. One of them, they hear, is going to be married.

Perhaps this is accounted for by the presence among the minor clerks of

some of considerable social position—some of the class you meet with

afterward at the select entertainments of the Minister of Guatemala, for

instance. But a limited choice of occupations has been open to the youth

of Mexico, and those who cared to work have had to take such places as

they could. They apply now with great eagerness for the positions of

every sort offering under the new enterprises.

It was not etiquette of late for ladies of the upper class to do shopping

in public, except from their carriages, the goods being brought out to

them at the curb-stone. Now they may enter shops. A considerable part of

the buying, as of furniture and other household goods, is still done by

the men of the family. Nor was it etiquette for ladies to be seen walking

in the streets, even with a maid, except to and from mass in the morning.

The change in both respects is ascribed to the horse-cars. The point of

ceremony, it appears, was founded somewhat upon the difficulty of getting

about.

Americanism now appears in the streets with increasing frequency, in

the signs of dealers in arms, sewing-machines, and other of our useful

inventions. Our insurance companies, too, are a novel idea, to which the

Mexicans seem to take with much readiness. The principal shopping hours

are from four to six o’clock of the afternoon. From one till three, or

even four, little is done. Even the horse-cars do not run in the middle

of the day. There is a general stoppage of affairs for dinner. It is but

a short time since that enterprising person, the commercial traveller,

was unknown in the country, but now he begins to flourish here as

elsewhere.

The profits of favorably situated houses, in the absence of keen

competition, have been very large, and methods of doing business

correspondingly loose. The Mexican merchant does not go into a fine

calculation of the proportionate value of each item of a foreign invoice,

but “lumps” the profit he thinks he ought to receive on the whole. Some

articles, in consequence, can be bought at less than their real value,

while others, in compensation, are exorbitantly advanced.

It is the smaller trade, and that most removed from metropolitan

influences, which is the gayest and most entertaining as a spectacle. How

many picturesque market scenes does not one linger in! Each community has

its own market-day, not to interfere with others. The flags of the plaza

and market-houses, which are commodious and well built, are hidden under

fruits, grains, cocoa sacks and mats, striped blankets and _rebosos_,

sprawling brown limbs, embroidered bodices and kirtles, as if spread

with a thick, richly colored rug. A grade above the open market is the

_Parian_, a bazaar of small shops, in which goods, sales-people, and

customers alike might all be put upon canvas only with the most vivid of

hues.

[Illustration: A “MERCERIA” AT PUEBLA.]

I give some examples of the street architecture of the more important

shops. The approach to many is under the welcome _portales_, shady in

sunshine and dry in the wet. Not a few of the shops have been old Spanish

palaces before being adapted to their present use. I transferred to my

sketch-book a bit from the leading _merceria_ (dry-goods store) of the

important minor city of Puebla which I thought particularly interesting.

It was called, after the prevailing fashion, “The City of Mexico.” The

entire front—upon which still remained the carved escutcheon, showing

that it had been the residence of a family of rank—was faced up between

carvings, in a gay pattern in tiles, the figures glazed, the rest an

unglazed ground of red.

IX.

_SOCIAL LIFE, AND SOME NOTABLE INSTITUTIONS._

I.

The persons who once lived in these old Spanish palaces, and descendants

of the titles of nobility existing before the Independence, are still

much esteemed in a certain small circle in the country. There are pointed

out to you those who should by right be marquises and counts, and the

titles are occasionally given them. The Mexican nobles, from the time of

Cortes down, lived in magnificent style in their day. The Count of Regla,

who has left his trace after him in many directions, must have enjoyed

almost the state of royalty. A single hacienda of his in Michoacan was

thirty leagues in length by seventeen in breadth, and, sloping down from

the temperate plateau to the tropic, comprised in its extent the products

of almost every clime. He fitted out two ships of the largest size,

building them of mahogany and cedar, and presented them to the King of

Spain. Inviting his majesty to visit the country, he assured him that his

horse should tread on nothing but ingots of silver from the coast to the

capital.

A remnant of the old _noblesse_ rallied around Maximilian when he came to

assume the Emperor’s crown. With this, and what remains of Maximilian’s

court, and some few other families of a peculiarly exclusive turn, a

circle is constituted somewhat corresponding to the Parisian Faubourg

St. Germain. They are sometimes stigmatized as “Mochos,” literally

hypocrites. They are rich, pass much of their time abroad, protest

against the sequestration of the Church property, and exhibit a refined

horror at the vandalism of these later times.

“The government,” they tell you, “is in the hands of the _populacho_, the

rabble; the _gente honrada_, respectable society, has nothing to do with

it.”

In a novel which I have by a Mexican writer, Cuellar, a secretary of

legation at Washington, the scene is laid in this faction or clique.

“Chona,” or Incarnacion, the heroine, or leading feminine character,

“had been brought up from childhood more to abhor than admire. The

conversations in the family continually turned upon the utter antipathy

which the men and things of Mexico inspired.”

“They had for visitors Church notables and those of the wealthy who

still retained the parchments of their ancestry. If they made any new

acquaintance it was some Spaniard lately come into relations with them

through the business of their estates.”

The fashionable men in the story have been educated at Paris, and

become elegantly _blasé_ there as well. In contrast to these is shown

one Sanchez, a vulgar, pushing fellow, upheaved from the depths by the

revolutions. He has the “gift of gab,” which he has utilized to make

himself a figure in politics; has enriched himself with the spoils of the

Church establishment, and secured a good place under government. He more

than hints, however, when he is found to have finally lost it, that he is

ready to engage in upsetting “Don Benito”—it is now under the _régime_ of

President Juarez that the scene is laid—or in any other convulsion that

may promise to again mend his fortunes.

II.

I do not quite know which side the writer himself is on, in this

satirical work; it is so bitter all around. It is certainly interesting

as showing two such boldly distinct types, one of them at least

picturesque, evolved out of the peculiar conflicts of the country. Let us

hope that there are few of the dangerous Sanchez pattern in the present

juncture of affairs. The Mochos cannot now be numerous nor dangerous,

with the wholesale victory of middle or lower class republicanism around

them. They have taken little part, voluntarily, in the successive

revolutions since their own overthrow, leaving them rather to be fought

out by professional soldiers of fortune. They temporize a little; attend,

perhaps, the wedding of some rich railway contractor’s daughter, in

order, as they say, not to draw upon themselves a direct enmity; but they

do not open their own houses in return; they do not “entertain.”

Don Sebastian Lerdo, spoken of as the most scholarly President the

country ever had, is conceded to have been to a considerable extent “in

society.” He was expelled by Porfirio Diaz, and is now in retirement

at New York. The political class since that time has either not been

well received in the circle spoken of, or, perhaps too busy with other

affairs, has not greatly cared for it.

Such being the case, there are few reunions, and these of an informal

character. Nor do the officials give entertainments themselves. Social

gayeties, as we understand them, can hardly be said to exist in Mexico.

It is only under the neutral roofs of the foreign ministers that they

take place with some satisfaction. I had the good fortune to be at

the capital during the visit of General Grant, and to see a social

movement which, by the general testimony, was quite phenomenal. There

was, among the rest, a fashionable wedding, attended by the President

and his cabinet. A “reception” and banquet were given in the evening on

the occasion of the signing of a civil contract between the parties. The

religious ceremony took place at church next day. The interior courts of

the house were wreathed with flowers, and lent themselves palatially to

the festivity, as they always do. The banquet was spread along the bases

of the columns of the arcade.

The young Mexican women are still kept apart from the other sex, and made

love to chiefly on their balconies in the good old-fashioned, romantic

style. Their manners when met with in public, however, are not so unusual

as might be expected. They seem neither more nor less diffident than

elsewhere. They are allowed to take part at balls in a slow waltz called

the _danza_—so slow as hardly to be a dance at all—which is chiefly an

opportunity for conversation.

The high-contracting parties to the marriage above-mentioned were by

no means young, and in general the exceeding precocity of development

and early age of entering into the marriage relation supposed to be

characteristic of the tropics were not apparent. It was said that

mercenary considerations were not frequent, and claim was laid to a

good deal of simplicity and honest affection in the settlement of these

matters; though how the parties get at each other, under the restrictive

system, sufficiently to enter upon a simple and honest affection, is one

of those things that remain a mystery. It is said that the young woman

who remains single is not stigmatized for it in the common way as “old

maid.” They say very charmingly instead: “She is difficult. She is hard

to suit.”

[Illustration: INTERIOR COURT-YARD OF MEXICAN RESIDENCE.]

In the country the match-making is often taken charge of by the village

priest, who brings the parties together finally at dinner.

As a general remark, the manners of the lower class of the country

are much better than ours, and those of the upper are not as good—not

as often based upon real kindliness of heart and genuine desire to

be of service. The Mexican promises a hundred things which he has no

intention, often no ability, of performing. The American is not without

his faults—the more’s the pity—but in a general way he aims to do as he

agrees. He will often make against the Mexican the reproach of a certain

slipperiness—a lack of appreciation of the importance of adhering to his

word.

III.

Each considerable group of foreign residents, as the French, Germans, and

Spaniards, has its handsome casino, or club-house, which is a standing

resource for the diversion of members.

A French traveller as far back as 1838 complains of the unsociable

conduct of the Mexicans. If something of the kind be still observed,

therefore, it is not new. “They abound,” he says, “in a superfluity of

fine phrases, and it is in this easy way that they discharge themselves

of their obligations.”

All who know European life, however, are aware that the theatre and the

café, with people of the Latin race, largely take the place of the social

visiting and entertaining at home prevailing among Anglo-Saxons. Our

next-door neighbors, after all, may only have followed, making a little

more severe, the traditions of Old Spain. Ladies do not often appear at

the cafés, but they are often at their boxes at the theatres, to which

they subscribe by the season; and they would go more frequently yet, no

doubt, were the pieces as a rule better worth their consideration. There

are three large, well-built theatres, the Nacional, Principal, and Arbeu,

and minor ones for the working-class.

[Illustration: MEXICAN COURTSHIP.]

The entertainments esteemed of chief importance are those of the French

opera companies which come over from Havana, on their rounds. A native

Spanish opera-bouffe and ballet, called _zarzuela_, is much given at

other times. For the rest, the theatrical pieces presented are the

works, in prose and verse, of the Spanish dramatists current at home, or

occasionally of some native dramatist, announced with an extra flourish

which his production does not usually justify. They are all announced

with a sufficient flourish, so far as that is concerned. There is always

going on some especially _Gran Funcion_, as, for example:

“The grand Drama of Customs, Entirely New, in three acts and verse, by

the distinguished poet, D. Leopoldo Cano, author of the precious comedy,

‘La Mariposa,’ entitled ‘LA OPINION PUBLICA.’

“This sublime work of the distinguished poet, D. Leopoldo Cano,” the bill

goes on to say, “was received at Madrid with an astounding acclaim. The

Spanish Press has lavished upon it a thousand eulogies.... In choosing it

for the second subscription night, we feel that the public will know how

to value it as it truly merits, and to value at the same time the skill

of the Company in their most finished studies and essays.”

I do not recollect any of this as very novel, or likely to be of interest

if translated, apart from some portions depending upon such a difference

of manners and customs as to be hardly intelligible to an American

audience. My acquaintance with the theatre began with a piece at the

Nacional, called “The First Patient.” There was a young doctor on the

stage, and an acquaintance of his had fallen in love with his wife, and

put a note in her work-basket by way of telling her so. The note was

conveyed to the husband, who, instead of shooting the imprudent writer,

took occasion presently to assume a look of horror, and pretend that the

latter had gone blind. Before the Lothario could protest, a bandage was

clapped over his eyes, medicaments given to make him believe in his own

misfortune, and he was put under a course of onerous treatment.

After a series of absurd situations he was finally released, persuaded

by degrees that he was cured. The patient raised the bandage. “_Veo!

veo!_”—“I see!”—he exclaimed, in wild delight.

“Very well, then—see that!” said the husband, thrusting the offending

letter under his nose.

This was amusing enough, but I was quite as much amused all the time

with the studious efforts of a companion who had come with me—the French

engineer sent out to examine mines, before mentioned—who proposed to

turn the theatre into a school of languages. He grasped at every word

a semblance of which he seemed to catch, and dived for verifications

of it into his grammar and dictionary. He resented in his ambition any

interpretation of passages which he did not himself originate, and

constructed such a theory of the play as its author would by no means

have recognized. When the _dénouement_ came, in the bold “_Veo!_” he

seized upon it with avidity.

“_‘Veo,’ c’est bien trouvé ça—‘veo,’_” he said, reflectively, digesting

it at his leisure. “_Je vais le retenir ce ‘veo;’ vous-allez voir._”

And so he did, and proceeded to use it vigorously in the restaurants and

the like on the following day.

IV.

Though so much more be still proposed, there are certainly some reasons

for self-complacency in the country even from the American point of view.

Education is found to be provided for in a manner that awakens admiration

and surprise. The primary schools are least looked after, but the pupils

who pass through these with a disposition to go farther have an array of

advantages open to them at the capital superior to anything of a parallel

sort in the United States. The Government maintains national schools

respectively of engineering, law, medicine, agriculture, mechanic arts,

and trades (for both sexes), a conservatory of music, an academy of fine

arts, and a library, provided with an edifice that New York well might

envy. It maintains a museum, institutions for blind, deaf and dumb, and

insane, for orphans, and young criminals, and a long list besides of the

usual charities of enlightened communities. The schools are open without

money and without price to all, and there are even funds to provide

board, lodging, and pocket-money for students from a distance, who are

selected on certain easy conditions.

The students in agriculture pass some months of the year at the haciendas

to observe different crops and climates. The graduates of the School of

Arts and Measures go out into the world prepared to make their living

as carpenters, masons, photographers, electro-platers, and at numerous

other trades. Before an opinion is passed upon Mexican civilization the

accommodations and neat uniforms of the pupils of the blind institute

should be seen; the noble building erected in the last century for

the School of Mines; the beautifully clean, wide corridors, sunny

class-rooms, embroidery-rooms, dormitories, and drawing-rooms of the

_Viscaynas_, the national college for girls; and the arcades and charming

central garden of the National Preparatory School (in the professions)

for young men.

There was a fountain spouting among tropical plants in the garden of the

Preparatory School the day I went there, and by the fountain was a young

panther, or lion, of the country, as they call it, confined in a cage.

The students, young fellows, who did not differ so greatly from Yale and

Harvard undergraduates in aspect, except for the dusky Indian complexions

among them, came now and then and stirred up the lion a little,

making him play with a ball in his cage. They seemed to prepare their

recitations walking around the garden or sitting in the ample corridors.

The principal text-books are studied in French or English, in which

languages they are apt to be written, and the recitations are conducted

in the same languages; so that, what is so rare with us, graduates emerge

from these schools very tolerable linguists without ever having been out

of their own country.

All these institutions are housed for the most part in the vast ancient

convent edifices, which furnish ample quarters to whatever is in need of

them—to barracks, hospitals, post-offices, prisons, railway stations,

iron founderies, and cotton-mills.

Each state of the republic, again, has its free college. Judging from

that of the state of Hidalgo, however, which I saw at Pachuca—its

internal arrangements in a very filthy condition—all do not follow very

closely the example of the capital.

In the department of jails, unhappily, there is a deficiency. As at

present arranged, they can present but moderate terrors to evil-doers.

The really fine penitentiary at Guadalaxara is the only one in which

modern ideas of penal discipline are followed. There is by law no death

penalty at present. The number of nefarious criminals is kept down by

semi-official lynchings, shooting on capture, into which nobody ever

inquires. Others are transported to Yucatan. There still remain enough,

however, to make one look with uneasiness on the slightness of the means

of restraint employed. The bolts and bars are often only lattices of

wood instead of iron. At the city prison of Belen some two thousand

persons are confined. It seemed to me that a large part of them must

be much more comfortable than at their own squalid homes. They made a

strange spectacle indeed, looked down upon in their large courts. Of all

ages, and for sentences of all durations, they eat, sleep, and work at

various light occupations together. No attempt is made to prevent their

communicating or staring about. They have good air, light, and food, and

are allowed a part of their own earnings. They take a siesta at noon,

play checkers, gossip, and even bathe luxuriously in a central tank.

The liberality toward education spoken of is the more creditable since

the Mexican treasury is not flourishing, and a yearly deficit is more

common than a surplus. These expenses appear to be regarded as essential,

whatever else may suffer. It is the more creditable, too, since the heads

of the government do not indulge themselves in expensive surroundings.

The American legislator is not himself without his marble colonnades

and his furniture of black walnut upholstered in Russia leather; but

President and Cabinet ministers here walk upon threadbare carpets in the

National Palace. The chamber of the Senate is a modest little hall; and

the Deputies sit in shabby quarters in another part of town, which were

once simply a place of amusement, the Theatre Iturbide.

The museum, chiefly of Aztec antiquities, to which one turns with

interest, is not of the extent or informing character that may have

been expected, and is under by no means brilliant management. Its

greatest attraction is the arrangement of some of the larger fragments,

particularly the great sacrificial stone from the ancient temple of the

war-god, in the court-yard. There is a setting of shrubbery and vines

about them, and the sunlight striking in among these upon the gray old

remains, produces some charming effects.

X.

_THE FINE ARTS AND LITERATURE._

I.

The school of fine arts, on the other hand, the Academy of San

Carlos—which was to celebrate with a special exhibition the one hundredth

anniversary of its foundation—produces, both in its collections and the

ability of its directing professors, a most satisfactory and agreeable

impression. You enter galleries which carry you back again to the Louvre

and Uffizi. They used a great deal of bitumen, the old painters here.

In its darkening it has left now and then only isolated lights upon a

face or bits of drapery to glimmer out of a midnight gloom. It is an

artificial taste, no doubt, to like it, and “caviare to the general;”

but like it one does, at its most artificial, after a long absence from

anything of the kind.

The walls recall such galleries as that of Bologna in the liberal scale

of the works displayed. With such models before them, there is no reason

why students should fall into a niggling and petty style. As a matter

of fact, they do not. They seem to excel in a bold, large composition

and the rendering of grandiose ideas. This, rather than color, is their

strong point. If our New York schools of art are able to equal the

portfolio of drawings I saw as the result of a fortnightly exercise,

they are certainly not in the habit of doing so. Nor were they at all

equalled by those of the prize competition of the students of the

British Royal Academy which I saw in the first year of the presidency

of Sir Frederick Leighton. This devotion to large academical ideas—the

fortunes of Orestes, Regulus, and Belisarius—it is true, is a source of

weakness rather than strength from the money point of view. The market of

the time demands a domestic, _genre_, realistic, and not a grandiose art.

The market for art of any kind in Mexico is extremely small. There are no

government commissions farther than an occasional portrait or two, and

enlightened patrons hardly exist. There are no pictures of consequence in

the best Mexican houses. The predictions at Havana were not verified. The

abundance of native talent receives little encouragement. Many a bright

genius is forced to paint his inventions on the walls of _pulque_ shops,

and finally to quit the profession for lack of support.

The subjects are, for the most part, severely religious, in consonance

with the taste of the wealthy convents, the patrons of art for whom they

were originally painted. The series is in a declining order of merit

chronologically. The earliest Mexican masters are the best. They came

from Europe, contemporaries of Murillo, Ribera, the Caracci, trained in

the splendid Renaissance period at its acme, and they left here works

which do it no discredit. Mexico was a hundred years old already, and it

was high time that art should arise when Baltazar Echave began, somewhat

after the year 1600. There is a romantic tradition that it was his wife

who first taught him to paint.

The genius of this early school is very decorative, and marked at once

by refinement of sentiment, breadth, and vigor. It delights in rich

stuffs and patterns, in the glitter of plate and weapons. It fills up all

portions of the canvas symmetrically, and colors with a subdued richness.

I recall a St. Ildefonso, by Luis Juarez, as an exquisite work. The

saint, in a rich red mantle, by a praying-desk and chair, both draped in

the same color, is receiving from angels the paraphernalia of a bishop.

The mantle of the nearest angel is in burnt sienna, and these warm red

hues, relieved by cool whites, are repeated throughout. There is a group

of six angel heads composed in an ellipse, and, in the air, a Virgin,

with that bevy of fluttering angels about that take the place of clouds

in landscape. The minor heads, painted chiefly from the same model, are

full of sweetness and intelligence.

Arteaga has a noble St. Thomas; José Juarez, a quaint couple of child

martyrs, Saints Justo and Pastor, who trudge along hand-in-hand like a

pair of burgomaster’s children (the scenes of their martyrdom shown in

the background), while angels rain down upon them single pinks, roses,

and forget-me-nots, carefully painted. A younger Baltazar Echave, and

Juan and Nicolas Rodriguez, are of almost equal force.

A second period begins with Ibarra and Cabrera—the latter very much

the better—at the end of the same century. They are without the same

distinction. Their figures have a bourgeois air. They aim to be pictorial

instead of decorative. The crude red and blue garments with which we

are monotonously familiar in religious art come in with them; and the

draperies, in smooth, large folds, are apparently made up out of their

heads.

The foreign gallery boasts many excellent works of the school of Murillo,

and an original each of Murillo, Ribera, Carreño, Leonardo da Vinci,

Teniers the elder, and Ingres, with also probable Vandycks and Rembrandts.

A collection has also been formed of works of merit, contributed to the

regular biennial exhibitions, and purchased by the Academy to illustrate

modern Mexican art. The religious tradition still prevails to a large

extent, though the subjects are now taken from the Scriptures instead

of the Bollandists. They are Hagar and Ishmael, the good Samaritan, the

Hebrews by the waters of Babylon, and Noah receiving the olive-branch,

and the like.

[Illustration: THE DEATH OF ATALA. [By Luis Monroy.]]

There is in this contemporary work the general fault of an over-delicacy

and smoothness of painting, and a lack of realism, while the design is

excellent. These voyagers in the ark have not experienced the woes of

a deluge, and the shepherds have the complexion of Lady Vere de Vere.

Rebull, who studied at Rome under Overbeck, repeats here the dove-colors,

violets, and lemon-yellows of the modern decorations of the Vatican done

under that school.

The works of the latest period, under the able direction of Señor Salome

Pina, a pupil of Gleyre, are much more virile, and the subjects more

secular. We have now Bacchus and Ariadne; the death of Atala; the slaying

of the sons of Niobe; an arch and dainty Cupid poisoning a flower, by

Ocaranza; a charming fisher-boy, by Gutierrez. Some of the artists have

had the advantage of study also abroad. The strongest of them all, Felix

Parra, now enjoying a grand prize of Rome, produced the masterpiece,

a great canvas representing the friar Las Casas protecting the Aztecs

(from slaughter by the Spaniards)—a work in sentiment, drawing, and color

worthy to hang in any exhibition in the world—before he had seen any

other country than his own.

Velasco has set a powerful lead in landscape. He is especially a master

of great distance. His favorite theme is the curious, sienna-colored

Valley of Mexico, which he paints to the life.

There are some scattered works of the early school, besides, in the

houses of a few _dilettanti_ at the capital and Puebla; and some few in

the cathedrals of the same places, though scarcely to be seen, from their

disadvantageous positions. Good pictures need not be looked for in the

churches. No doubt they were once numerous, but they have been sacked

from the country by invaders and others, and found a profitable market

abroad.

II.

In sculpture there is talent corresponding to that in painting. The

stately system of burial, in the _panteons_, lends itself to sculpture

and furnishes opportunities which with us are relegated to the

commonplace tombstone-makers. The _panteon_ is a solid city of the dead,

walled in, paved, and with courts and arcades like a city of the living.

The monument of greatest note is that, by Manuel Islas, at the Pantheon

of San Fernando, to Benito Juarez, “the second Washington” of his

country, old Padre Hidalgo having been the first. His effigy in marble,

so realistic and corpse-like that it seems to have been modelled from

an actual cast in plaster, lies upon a mausoleum, with a figure of Fame

bending over it. The realism of the principal figure is almost repulsive,

but it is redeemed by the grace of the angel, and nobody can deny to this

large work great vigor and dignity.

The bodies are not buried, but sealed up in mausolea, or in niches

in a wall, which present somewhat the aspect of a Roman columbarium.

Some of the monuments are of the lovely Mexican onyx, with letters in

gilt. I noted one bearing only the initials M. M. They were alluring to

the curiosity, and on inquiring I found that it was that of Miramon,

general-in-chief of Maximilian, who fell by the executioners’ bullets,

with his master, and General Mejia, at Queretero.

There were no flowers on this one to-day, but the tombs of the patriots

were elaborately decked, for it was the great festival of the Cinco de

Mayo.

I walked out and stood in the round-point by the colossal bronze statue

of Charles IV. The Paseo de la Reforma and the causeways glittered

with bayonets; the cadets were coming down from the Military School

back of Chapultepec, and the garrison from the Citadel, to join in the

procession. The troops were reviewed in front of the National Palace—as

troops in smaller numbers seem always being reviewed there. They are

mainly of Indian blood, and small in stature. The cavalry especially

had a rusty look in their outfit, and did not compare with the dashing

_Rurales_. The officers, on the other hand, are trimly uniformed and

quite French in aspect. There were patriotic speeches in the Zocalo;

the main thoroughfare was strung with lanterns; and our Iturbide hotel

was very picturesque, with its three tiers of balconies draped in the

national colors—green, white, and red.

From time to time, as the procession moved, cannon were fired in the

Plaza, and the bells of the cathedral turned over and over, like the

wheels of machinery. I never saw a better-conducted crowd. There was no

fighting, no inconvenient elbowing, no drunkenness. In the evening the

lanterns were lighted, and the great square was filled with venders of

fruits and knick-knacks, around little bonfires of sticks, where they

would bivouac for the night. Later, red lights were kindled in the towers

of the cathedral, and every detail within stood out upon a lurid ground

as if they were burning. One could imagine the camped venders in the

square to be the ancient Aztecs resting upon their arms, in order to

attack Cortez in his quarters on the morrow.

III.

Scarcely the same improvement is to be got from Mexican literature as

from Mexican art, but it is not without its interest, both in itself and

as an aid to knowledge of the people.

Journals are very numerous. They are started upon slight provocation, and

as easily disappear. They attain, as a rule, but a circulation of a few

hundred copies. It is thought that the _Monitor Republicano_, by far the

most important, may circulate from six to eight thousand. The problem

of existence for many of them would be difficult without government

aid. Subventions are given, without public objection, so far as I have

observed, to the greater part of those managed with ability. The system

of subventions to the press was begun by our old friend of school

history, Santa Anna, and has been continued ever since by governments

which could not afford to have anything more than the truth told about

them, at any rate. It is an encouraging sign, however, that the _Monitor_

is not a subventioned organ, yet speaks its mind temperately and without

apparent malice.

There is no efficacious law of libel, since extreme violence of language

is often indulged in by the periodicals in their controversies with each

other and outsiders. The duel, which still survives, is somewhat of a

corrective upon this. The newspaper is about such a one in appearance

as at Paris, and includes a daily section of a serial story. A Sunday

edition is published, with literary selections, and particularly poems,

in large supply.

Actual literature as such is poorly paid. The reading public is small.

A thousand copies is a good edition even for a popular book. The chief

literary lights are found, as a rule, not of the shy, scholastic order,

but possessed of talent for oratory and bustling affairs. They take

posts in Congress, and are appointed as cabinet ministers. General Riva

Palacio, Juan Mateos, Prieto, Paz, Altimirano, Justo Sierra, Peza, are

deputies; Payno, a senator; Cuellar, who wrote under the pseudonym of

“Facundo,” a secretary of legation. These are the native writers whose

works are more frequently in the hands of the public than any others.

Prieto, who is chiefly a poet, however, has written a book of his travels

in the United States, in which some amusing things will be discovered. He

finds that with us “the totality [_lo colectivo_] is grand and admirable,

but the individual egoistic and vulgar.” He saw Booth’s Theatre, which is

all of white marble (_el Teatro de Both, todo de marmol blanco_); and,

besides our hotels, the establishment which we call a “Boarding” (_el

Boarding_). The Hudson and East rivers, he says, are two arms of the sea,

which freeze in winter, and even the immense quantity of ice collected

from these does not suffice for the demands of the summer.

The poetical talent, of which we had a premonition in Cuba, is that

which principally abounds. There is plentiful skill in versifying, with

here and there a strain of something very much higher, in the volumes of

the numerous authors. Prieto, above-mentioned, is found principally a

poet of “occasions.” He writes for the unveiling of statues, to steam,

electricity, and the like. Juan Mateos strikes a fierce patriotic note.

Altimirano, a fiery Indian orator, who models himself in Congress

rather after Mirabeau, chooses as his themes for poetry bees, oranges,

poppies, morn, the pleasures of rural life. They are excellent subjects

in themselves, but it is an artificial, and not a real, existence he

describes. He would like to be Horatian, summons nymphs to disport with

him in the shade, and abounds in florid terms, without thought.

Carpio is inspired more or less by Biblical subjects, as Pharaoh and

Belshazzar. In De Castro, Zaragoza, Gustave Baz, and Cuenca are found

charming conceits, of pensive cast, and bits of description of a limpid

purity. Jewellers in words they may be called at their best, affiliated

to the Venetian school.

The argument of Zaragoza’s “Armonias” (Harmonies) is briefly as follows:

“When the flowers are dead, and spring is over, the swallows take their

flight; and when again the flowers of spring adorn the mead, they, too,

return, bringing blessings on their wings.

“But when the illusions depart and leave behind them only the thorns

of the passions, in vain we invoke and wait for them to return. The

illusions, the swallows of the heart, return, alas! never.”

So Gustave Baz, brooding in the sere winter over some heavy sorrow,

reflects upon the return of spring. But the very contrast of its

joyousness, the fresh rippling of the brooks and melody of the birds,

will but render his sadness the heavier. “Then most keenly,” he laments,

“will break forth my grief. Then weightiest will the air be laden with my

sighs.”

The gem of the Lyra Mexicana is undoubtedly a certain fugitive sonnet,

“A Rosario,” by an unfortunate young man, Acuña, who ended by taking

his own life. The poem expresses the charming ideals in love and the

bitterness of its disappointment, in a youth of fine and sensitive

nature. It has a poignancy and realism which have, perhaps, never been

surpassed. He returned from a long journey, as the story is told, and

found his betrothed the wife of another. The shock proving unendurable,

he committed suicide, leaving to the faithless one the poem, a part of

which may be thus rendered:

“Well, then, I have to say that I love you still, that I worship you

with all my being. I comprehend that your kisses are never to be mine,

that into your dear eyes I am never to look.... Sometimes I try to sink

you into oblivion, to execrate you.... But alas, how vain it is! my soul

will not forget you. What will you, then, that I should do, oh, part of

my life? What will you that I should do with such a heart?... Oh, figure

to yourself how beautiful might have been our existence together!... But

now that to the entrancing dream succeeds the black gulf that has opened

between us—farewell! love of my loves, light of my darkness, perfume of

all flowers that bloomed for me! my poet’s lyre, my youth, farewell!”

IV.

If one try to select the most obvious trait in the native fiction it is

undoubtedly patriotism. This patriotism is rampant in the press, and

in the forms of official life. The authorities are Citizen President,

Citizen General, and the like, as in the first French Republic, and they

conclude their official documents with the formula: “Liberty In The

Constitution.” The usurpation of Maximilian served to bind the country

into a certain unity and awake this feeling to its utmost.

Two romancers, General Riva Palacio, and Juan Mateos, have made use of

the events of the French invasion in a curious class of bulky novels,

to call them so, which have scored a popular success. “The Hill of Las

Campañas,” and “The Sun of May,” of Mateos, are respectively more or less

authentic accounts of the final defeat and execution of Maximilian, and

the defence of Puebla, slightly disguised. The “Calvary and Tabor,” Riva

Palacio, treats of the career of the Army of the Centre in the same wars.

Numbers of the characters therefore are persons actually living, to be

met with every day, which gives to this fiction a singular effect.

Thus, in “El Sol de Mayo,” Manuel Payno, Altimirano, and Riva Palacio

himself are mentioned and their manners described in the debate on the

financial measure which brought on the Intervention. Lerdo, long since an

exile, resident in New York, was at that time “_el profeta inspirada de

nuestra nacionalidad_” (the inspired prophet of our nationality).

I pick out from the same book this paragraphic mention of our own civil

war: “And Edmundo Lee shone like a star in the victories of Springfield

and Bull Run.” Perhaps the friends of General Robert E. Lee would have

some difficulty in recognizing him under such a description.

These novels are printed with each sentence as a separate paragraph, for

easier reading. They first began to rival somewhat the popular Fernandez

y Gonzalez, by some called “the Spanish Dumas,” whose works are printed

in the journals, together with translations of those of Gaboriau and

Dickens. Another flimsy series, in covers of green, white, and red,

called “_Episodios Nacionales_,” aim to sugar-coat a didactic exhibition

of the events of the War of Independence. One individual after another

tells a long, dreary narrative about what happened; these fall in with

somebody else who tells more, and so it goes.

These stories are read chiefly by the middle and lower classes, the upper

class, as in most provincial states of society, preferring books from

abroad. Their favorable reception may be accounted for in part by the

lack of regular histories and of newspaper intelligence, so that the

populace may to some extent be getting their information for the first

time.

Riva Palacio has written also, with Manuel Payno, a large work

appropriately called _El Libro Rojo_ (The Red Book). It gives an account

(and graphic illustrations) of the heroes and other notables in Mexican

history who have come to violent ends. This is a fate that has overtaken

aspirants to distinction quite regularly, and the plates from the book,

hung up at the book-stalls in the Portales, are a ghastly chamber of

horrors. The three fighting curates of the early insurrection, Hidalgo,

Morelos, and Matamoras begin the series; and Maximilian, Mejia, and

Miramon, standing with bandaged eyes at the Hill of las Campañas, for the

present conclude it.

Several minor writers have feebly essayed the Aztec material for fiction.

Riva Palacio has availed himself also of the picturesque life under the

Spanish viceroys. Of him it is to be said that, though of the sensational

school, and careless in plan, he has, not unfrequently, passages of

genuine force, and unhackneyed incidents that enchain the attention.

XI.

_SOME TRAITS OF PECULIAR HISTORY, AND THE MEXICAN “WARWICK.”_

I.

It would seem that history in Mexico might be a somewhat confusing study;

and so, in fact, it is. There have been fifty-four Presidents, one

regency, and one Emperor, in fifty-six years, and a violent change of

government with nearly every one.

Picking up the little volume by Manuel Payno, used in the schools, and

opening it at random, I find—

“_Question._—What events followed?

“_Answer._—Truly imagination is lost, and memory confounds itself, among

so many plans and _pronunciamentos_; but we will follow the thread as

best we can.”

The period referred to is that of the revolt of Texas, which proceeded to

constitute itself “The Lone Star Republic.” Looking a little farther with

interest to see how this is accounted for, we find:

“The settlers were North Americans, a portion, as we have said, colonized

by Stephen Austin. They set up the pretext that they were not permitted

to sell their lands, and, later, that the Federal Constitution had been

violated; and they rose against the Government. The latter felt it

necessary to put down the rebellion, and took measures to assail that

remote and sterile State.”

These dispositions, as we know, ended in the defeat and capture of Santa

Anna at San Jacinto. There is always a fascination in being behind

the scenes, and I confess that this little opportunity of finding out

what was thought of itself by a country which has jarred so much with

our own was one of the attractions of being in Mexico. The American war

is accounted for as a wicked attempt to sustain and annex the revolted

province of Texas; and equally good solutions are found for the various

other invasions by foreign powers.

What! is there no absolute right? Are all combatants alike striking for

their altars and their fires, and resisting wanton aggression? Will

not these Mexicans even yet admit, though beaten, and though it has

passed into history, that they terrorized our frontier, and oppressed

an industrious and enterprising province? Why, then, perhaps both sides

were wrong; and let us aspire for the day when all such quarrels may be

settled by an international arbitration.

II.

The young Mexican learns first about his Aztec ancestry, the mild

semi-civilized aborigines, who built cities and temples, and were ruled

by luxurious Montezuma and scholarly Nezhualcoyotl. The latter, at

Texcoco, was a maker of verses and stoical maxims like another Marcus

Aurelius.

Cortez conquered the Aztecs in 1519. Then followed a government of

nearly three hundred years by sixty-four Spanish viceroys. A rebellion,

of eleven years’ duration, marked by many of the features of a servile

uprising, drove out the Spaniards in 1821. Grasping and inconsiderate in

their colonial management as their way has always been, the Spaniards had

probably only themselves to thank for it.

Iturbide, who commanded the revolt at the end, made himself briefly

Emperor. His generals, notably the irrepressible Santa Anna, who first

here comes into view, rose against him, and proclaimed a Federal

Republic. Santa Anna, when the opportunity offered, made himself

Dictator, and changed the Federal Republic to a centralized republic,

and the states to departments. Santa Anna had numberless ups and downs,

having obtained possession of the supreme power no less than six times,

with intervals of overthrow and banishment.

The Federal Republic was reconstituted in time, with twenty-seven states,

one territory and a federal district, pretty much on the model of our

own, and it still retains this form, as it is likely to. There is no

doubt about the democratic tendency of the people, but perhaps it is

something in the impulsive blood of the Latin race which has prevented

the leaders from conceiving a republic on the Anglo-Saxon plan. They

have been inspired almost without exception by a craving for the sweets

of power. Their rampant patriotism has been like the religion of those

persons who would die for a cause, but will not live in accordance with

the least of its dictates. There seems to have been no conception until

lately of that larger patriotism which educates the people in their

duties, and constitutes a state of society where the rights of all are

guaranteed and people go about their avocations without interference.

III.

Would you recall, by-the-way, what became of Santa Anna? He, who had

so indignantly shaken off the yoke of Iturbide, wrote a missive of

congratulation, while living in banishment in the West Indies, to

Maximilian, and endeavored to take service under him. His aid was

rejected, whereupon he turned to Juarez, only to be repulsed again. In

a rage at both sides, he fitted out an expedition on his own account,

landed in the country, and was well-nigh being shot, after the model,

and almost on the same ground, as that Iturbide whom he had pronounced

against forty-two years before. The court-martial, however, spared his

life, “in consideration of the ancient services done to his country in

Texas, at Tampico, and Vera Cruz,” and sent him again, superannuated and

poor (for he had squandered an ample fortune in this attempt), to finish

his days in banishment.

I cannot forbear going a little farther into the questions and answers of

the little history. Of the gallant generals who fought so well for the

Independence, Victoria was the first President. Bravo pronounced against

him, and was exiled to South America. Guerrero, defeated as a candidate

for the succession by Pedraza, took up arms and seized it by force. He

repelled, while in office, a new attempt by the Spaniards to recover the

country.

“_Question._—I suppose that with this triumph the government of Guerrero

was firmly established?

“_Answer._—This was to have been hoped, but that happened which always

happens in Mexico—just the contrary.”

Bustamente, in fact, pronounced against Guerrero; and when the latter

would have returned to the capital from an expedition designed to

put down the revolt, he found it closed against him, and in favor of

Bustamente also.

“_Q._—What end had this revolution?

“_A._—The most terrible that can be imagined. The Government at Mexico,

feeling that it could not overcome Guerrero ... bought over, for $70,000,

a Genoese named Picaluga, who commanded a vessel anchored in the harbor

of Acapulco. Picaluga invited Guerrero to dine on board, and this

manifestation of hospitality was accepted in good faith. When they had

dined the Genoese signified to Guerrero that he was a prisoner, and set

sail with him to the port of Huatulco and delivered him into the hands of

his enemies. This great and good man, valiant and worthy of the respect

and gratitude of the nation ... was shot in the puebla of Cuilapa, on the

15th of February, 1831.”

It was not till 1848, for the first time, that the Presidency was

transferred without violence, and under the law. The incumbent was

General Herrera, and he was succeeded peaceably by General Arista. These

two administrations “will forever place themselves before historians,

both Mexican and foreign,” says the history, “as models of honor,

economy, and order.” But Arista was deposed in two years, and in the next

three months there were four Presidents, the last of them Santa Anna, on

one of his periodic returns.

Thus the turmoil of revolutions has continued down to recent times.

A certain Don José Maria Gutierrez Estrada directed a letter to

the authorities in 1840, proposing, as a measure of relief, that a

monarchical government should be established in Mexico; and the idea, in

the distracting state of things we have seen, cannot be considered wholly

without reason. It caused great scandal nevertheless, but Gutierrez

Estrada stuck to it tenaciously, and, by a very singular coincidence, he

was one of those who, twenty-four years after, went to Miramar to present

the imperial crown to the Archduke Maximilian.

If I cite a number of such events from the past it is not for the purpose

of being disagreeable or arguing that the same state of things is to

last. It is partly because they are amusing, and partly to obtain a

more encouraging point of view for the present. It will be seen that

the later administrations, though not without their faults, are a vast

improvement upon their predecessors, and do not constitute a declining

ratio.

[Illustration: GENERAL PORFIRIO DIAZ, EX-PRESIDENT OF MEXICO.]

General Porfirio Diaz occupied unmolested a full term, from 1876 to

1880, and handed over the place to General Manuel Gonzales, who holds

it at present in the same security. Diaz began the current career of

improvement by his liberal chartering of railroads, and Gonzales follows

in his track. Both must be considered to have made a most exemplary

and promising use of their powers. But, since we have arrived at “Don

Porfirio,” let us see how he entered upon office in the beginning.

IV.

Since he is, by general admission, the power behind the throne, the

Mexican “Warwick,” the President who has been, is, and is to be, let us

inquire a little also who he was. “His influence in the country,” says

the _Monitor_, “is decisive, incontestable. Something more than Benitez

in the past, he is not only the great commoner, but the one man of the

present.”

Porfirio Diaz was born in Oaxaca, in 1830. His family destined him for

the law, but he took to soldiering instead. Beginning as a private,

he entered the city of Mexico as general-in-chief of the forces which

wrested it from the French. Once in these wars, when a prisoner at

Puebla, he let himself down by a rope from a tower and made his escape.

His career is studded with romantic incidents, but the career of what

Mexican leader is not?

The Latin race admires the military type, and “Don Porfirio,” or more

familiarly “Porfirio,” as the people delight to call him, bethought him

to turn his prestige in the field to account. He offered himself for the

Presidency against Juarez, on the platform of no re-election, in 1871.

Lerdo de Tejada, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was also in the

field as a third candidate. Let the figures in this remarkable election

be noted, as an indication of the acute interest the Mexican voters take

in their own balloting. In a population of 8,836,411 a total of only

12,361 votes were cast. Juarez received 5837, Diaz 3555, Lerdo 2874, and

95 are recorded as “scattering.”

“_Q._—Relate to me what happened thereafter.

“_A._—General Porfirio Diaz issued, from his hacienda of La Noria, a

manifesto, hence called the _Plan of La Noria_, repudiating the existing

powers, and proposing to retain military command until the establishment

of a new order of things.”

A bloody war of more than a year followed, in which the Porfiristas

were utterly routed. Diaz, amnestied, presented himself at the capital,

and was affably received by Lerdo, who assured him, on the part of the

Government, that he might live tranquil without fear of persecution or

harm. “Nothing,” breaks forth our historian, in enthusiasm about these

times, “gives a better idea of the constancy and elevation of the Mexican

character, a heritage from its Spanish ancestry, than what passes in

our wars, both civil and foreign. It appears that defeats but serve as

stimulus and fresh aliment to the fray.”

Upon what possible theory these ambitious chiefs have always made their

partisans so ready to be slaughtered for them, is a speculation which I

shall not go into. Porfirio now remained quiet till 1876, when he issued

the _Plan of Palo Blanco_, and rose against Lerdo, who had succeeded

Juarez. He captured Matamoras by a bold stroke of strategy; was himself

captured on shipboard; and escaped from the Lerdists by leaping into the

sea, through the connivance of the French captain, whom he afterward

made consul to St. Nazaire. After a series of such-like adventures his

persistence won the day, and Lerdo took to flight. “Don Sebastian” Lerdo

is spoken of as probably the most scholarly and accomplished President

the republic ever had. He had been a school-master, however, and tried

to govern the country in the pedagogue spirit to which he had been used.

He lost favor, too, by his lack of military talent, and fled when his

fortunes were by no means desperate. The country people were strongly

on his side at first, but this singular thing happened—that, finding

him unable to protect them against the roving bands of revolutionists

favoring Diaz, they joined them in disgust, and went on with them to the

capital.

It is upon such original guarantees that the authority which Porfirio

has devoted to the extension of law and order and the benefits of

civilization reposes.

V.

The subject of these remarks is a person neither talkative nor taciturn.

He is of commanding height, a swarthy, half-Indian complexion, a figure

stalwart but not heavy, and of a military yet somewhat nonchalant

bearing, all of which may form a part of his attraction. He knows how to

utilize the arts of peace as well as war. Perhaps he believes a little in

the motto, “Let me make the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes

its laws;” for the ballad-singers at Santa Anita, on the Viga Canal,

whither the populace swarm on Sundays to indulge in dancing, _pulque_,

_tamales_, and flowers from the floating gardens, have many a long-drawn

refrain to the praises of Don Porfirio Di-i-i-az. It is hardly fair,

perhaps, to suggest that these are subsidized, since they may rest upon

pure admiration of his merits, after all.

The Mexican law prohibits re-election, except after an interval of four

years, and Porfirio Diaz was too ardent a one-termer to be able to

overstep this prohibition with any consistency. He has placed his friend

and fellow-soldier Gonzales in office as his _locum tenens_. He will

assume it himself for the next term, dating from 1884. After that—so the

plan is supposed to be arranged—he will give it to General Treviño, his

companion in arms and strong auxiliary in his pronunciamentos. Treviño

has married the daughter of an American general, Ord, and it may be

supposed that American interests will not suffer in his hands.

[Illustration: GENERAL MANUEL GONZALES, PRESIDENT OF MEXICO.]

Porfirio is romantic even in his Machiavellianism. The only source from

which he might have had anything to fear was perhaps a lingering Lerdist

sentiment. It represents, or represented, a conservative element, of

better social position than the rude democratic force in power. He set to

work to conciliate this Lerdist sentiment. He has been able to take of

late the effectual means of marrying into the very midst of it, having

chosen for his third wife the daughter of Senator Romero Rubio. Romero

Rubio was the right-hand man of Lerdo, and his companion in exile. He is

now president of the Senate, and the official who is empowered by law to

call and control a new election, in case of a vacancy in the Presidency

of the nation. Gonzales suffers from an old wound, received at Puebla,

and it has been thought by some that Diaz might need to be called to the

chair even before the appointed limit of time.

Nor could he have had any personal repugnance to overcome in this

match. His usual good-fortune attends him. The young lady is under

twenty, accomplished, and of a high-bred air. She will be recollected by

Americans as among the prettiest of the belles who took part in the round

of festivities given in honor of General Grant at his last visit. This,

too, will be pleasing to the people. Don Porfirio means that the people

shall be pleased. When General Grant, on his first visit to the country

in his tour around the world, was the curiosity and hero of the hour,

Porfirio was his inseparable attendant and courteous host. A certain

resemblance was traced between them. Both had been illustrious generals,

both presidents. When Grant returned a second time, and was now less

popular, on account of his interest in the railway concessions, and a

jealousy which had meantime arisen of American aggression, Don Porfirio

was unfortunately obliged to be far distant, distributing charity to

sufferers on the northern confines of the republic.

The work of conciliation has long been going on. Old functionaries have

been reinstated in place; veteran army officers have been approached and

offered new commands. One of these latter told me that President Gonzales

had sent for him, after having kept an espionage on his conduct for some

time, and asked him, in a bluff way,

“Why do you continue to talk against the Government, and pass your time

in idleness—you who were once so good a soldier?”

“Sir,” he replied, “you know my sentiments, and the cause for which I

fought. I cannot deny that I hold them still. I take the consequences. I

have pawned my valuables and clothing for food. If I rust in idleness it

is because I have no occupation to turn to.”

“I admire your manliness,” the President replied. “Here is your

appointment to the command of a regiment. Your cause is dead, as you

know, and cannot be revived. I ask of you no political services. I ask of

you only to be as before—a soldier.”

It is needless to say that after this there was at least one Lerdist the

less.

I do not wish to be understood as finding fault with this policy of

astute conciliation; far from it. The hammer-and-tongs method has been

so long in vogue that it is a delightful relief. The chicanery of

matrimonial alliances, and assumption of frank and soldierly manners,

will be welcomed by all the foreign capital in the country as a great

improvement upon throat-cutting.

From vast estates in Oaxaca, which with a commendable economy he has

amassed meantime, the Mexican Warwick, controls the destinies of his

country with an ease like moving one’s little finger. He pleases himself

in the interim to be governor, and commander of the forces, of this

fighting state. In the absence of any efficient electoral system the

country is under his absolute dictatorship; while, with the ostensible

division of powers, there is no way of tracing the responsibility to its

source.

Not that there is the least danger of anybody’s trying to do so. There

are apparent Brutuses in both Houses of Congress, orators and poets

who have turned off many a diatribe and many an ode to freedom on the

best classic and French republican models, but they have nothing to say

against this Cæsar. They are not very free agents, to tell the truth.

They are really sent by the governors of the respective states, and these

governors have been manipulated in advance. Porfirio can undoubtedly make

threats as well as promises; and an unlucky representative, if content

to forego a better place, may even lose the one he has. He cannot depend

upon adequate support, either, should he have a notion to resist. The

“boys” are much given to “going back” on one another in Mexican history.

I shall be found fault with by some persons, as likely as not, for undue

severity. He is a beneficent Cæsar, after all, compared with former

times; he has brought back something like a Golden Age; he oppresses

nobody, at least, not the foreigners, and gives a stimulus to every

worthy enterprise.

So be it; and probably there is no more genial government than a Cæsarism

of the beneficent sort, fairly established. But it is too full of

dangers. Porfirio is doing nothing to educate the nation. “In effect,”

one of his own papers says to him, “it is not alone with railways that

a nation so disorganized as ours can reconstitute itself; not alone

the locomotive and the telegraph that can make us happy. There should

emanate from the regions of power something like an impulse of obedience

to the law and observance of the institutions upon which the social and

political well-being of the country rests.”