SAN LUIS POTOSI.
And no more satisfactory city can be visited than San Luis, situated in
the crater of a fertile valley, while its suburbs extend to the rich
silver mines of the mountains which give it name.
The mines have been worked over three hundred years, but the city is
only two hundred years old. The mines were discovered to the Spaniards
by a pious monk, who named them Potosi, because of the resemblance to
the mines of Peru.
Three million dollars annually, are mined. A very unusual thing for
Mexico, the railroad station is in the heart of the city. Seventy-five
thousand people make their home here, and the law requires all houses to
be kept freshly painted; and what a restful revelation it is, with
asphalt pavements swept clean each night, and hotels that make a
traveler glad. The only drawback to complete happiness is a lack of
water. Most cities here draw their water from the mountains in
aqueducts, but San Luis has outgrown its supply.
At the public fountains, a stream of water-carriers by hundred stand
patiently in line to fill their vessels from the tiny, discouraged
stream trickling from the Dolphin’s mouth, and the police stand guard to
see that all are served in the order of arrival. All day and all night
this pitiful waiting goes on forever. It is like buying tickets for the
Symphony concerts in Boston, where the people come before day and buy
choice places in the long line of earnest waiters. The water is free,
but the successful ones sell to those in the city who do not care to
enter the crush, or to the hotels and wealthy ones who can buy. All
kinds of vessels are used, but the preference is given to the
five-gallon cans that brought kerosene into the city.
With two of these fastened to a shoulder yoke, the men peddle the water
at three cents a can. With the women, the favorite is the large Egyptian
model earthenware called _olla_. With this poised gracefully on one
shoulder and elbow, and the opposite hand held across the head to
balance, it completes one of the most picturesque scenes so common here.
Rebecca at the Well has simply stepped out of the old picture book and
assumed her ancient calling. The feature of the profession, however, is
a man with a nondescript wheel-barrow which no man can describe.
Rainfall is quite plentiful here, but the porous amygdaloid rocks can
not hold it. At present an American citizen is boring an artesian well,
and the interest displayed by the citizens is remarkable. All day long
hundreds of anxious watchers will stand around the drill, evincing the
same interest we used to show at our boarding house when the first
strawberry short-cake of the season was cut, and the anxious boarders
were watching to see who would get the strawberry.
The burro train has lost its hold upon San Luis. For three hundred years
all the silver was carried to the sea, two hundred and seventy-five
miles away, by burros, but now, with two railroads, things have changed.
The Mexican National leads to the capital, the Mexican Central to the
bay of Tampico.
Here are many fine buildings to see; the Governor’s palace, palace of
justice, State capitol, the museum, the library with a hundred thousand
volumes, cathedral, and the churches of Carmen, Merced, San Augustin,
San Francisco, Military College, and the _Teatro de la Paz_, one of the
finest opera houses in the country.
As in all the cities, the street ears start from the main Plaza, and
from here you may visit Guadalupe, Tequisquiapan, the baths of La
Soledad, Axcala and Santiago.
In the rainy season, the street cars bear this legend: “There is water
in the river.” As a matter of course, the cars do a land-office business
as long as the water lasts. The cars lead to the _Paseo_, a beautiful
shaded avenue two miles long, asphalt pavements, and fountains at either
end, with the usual scramble for water.
At the extreme end is the church of Guadalupe, with two tall towers, and
a fine clock presented by the king of Spain, in return for the gift of
the largest single piece of silver ore ever taken from a mine--the mine
of San Pedro.
The city of San Luis Potosi is building a hall that is to be the eighth
wonder of the world. It has cost millions and will cost millions more.
Seven years ago a dozen skilled stonemasons from Pennsylvania were
imported to do the ornamental carving on the front. One Fourth of July a
member of the party got drunk and killed a Mexican. He was tried and
condemned to be shot.
Then arose the certainty that with him in the grave there would be no
one to do the fancy carving on the City Hall, so it was decided to keep
him at work and shoot him when he had finished. Every day this workman
hangs like a fly against the great white wall and pecks away at
gargoyles and griffins’ heads, while a file of soldiers stand in the
streets looking at him.
His life ends with his job, and the Mexicans say he is the most
deliberate workman in the world. At the present rate of progress, by the
best obtainable calculations, the front of the City Hall will be
sufficiently scrolled and carved about the middle of 1950. All the
churches contain valuable paintings.
The most remarkable thing about these cities, there is no noise. There
is no steam, no manufactories, no wagons, no drays, and as the people go
without shoes, there is no noise of any kind. You may sit on the busiest
street here and close your eyes, and feel all the quiet and comfort of a
cemetery. Those who like to sleep late in the morning can better
appreciate this. The days and nights are of equal length, and you could
stop in the most populous hotel in the city and sleep until ten o’clock
in the day. No bell-boy, no breakfast bell; just quiet. The one
exception to noise is the market place; it was made for noise, and is
different from all the others in the country.
In other cities there are several market places which relieve the
congestion, but here there is but one. Before daylight the hubbub begins
and lasts till noon, and the main building is soon crowded, and its
overflow spreads to the four streets which pass it. There are no passing
vehicles, so from curb to curb are hundreds of women sitting flat upon
the ground with their gray _rebosas_ around their heads, and their
scanty wares spread about. They sell everything, and the streets are
redolent with unknown and unsavory odors from the charcoal braziers,
from which the designing maid or matron offers her concoctions to the
unsuspecting wayfarer.
Of course you try some of these experiments; you do not know what you
are eating, but it never kills. This compels me to say that very, very
few people eat at home, but go to the market for their meals, going from
one stall to the other. Another market feature, green corn is always
offered cooked, and the same is true of sweet potatoes. Some people buy
their supplies and take them home to be cooked, but green corn and
potatoes never. They are both boiled with their jackets on, and if a
vendor has a bushel, he or she boils the whole and stacks it up on the
pavement, and it may be five or six hours later, the purchaser buys an
ear and hulls the grains off and eats his dinner with no salt or
accompaniment whatever.
The market is never closed for three hundred and sixty five days in the
year. In many stalls are wholesale dealers who supply the retailers. In
unloading the corn or grain to put it in bins, there will be half a
dozen women or children in the dust under the cart, scrambling for the
grains as they fall from the sacks. When the cart has gone, they winnow
all the dust through their hands looking for the missing grain.
These market gatherings are the simon-pure article of the native
element, unadulterated by foreign influence. Here are Indians from the
mountains, peons from the haciendas and peasants from the surrounding
country and the gentry from the city, all hobnobbing together. The usual
dress of these women vendors is startling. The Indians wear a string of
beads around their necks and one or two yards of coarse cloth fastened
wherever it will fit best, and they are dressed up. The peasants wear a
string of beads and a chemise which commences too late above and stops
too soon below, and all are barefoot. The high-caste women all dress in
American or French styles, except that they wear no head gear but their
own black hair, and they wear the most ill fitting high-heel,
needle-pointed shoes that are made. The national color for Spanish and
Mexican women is black. Meet a hundred ladies at a time, and every dress
without exception is jet. I rather think it is vanity. We put salt on
watermelon to enhance its sweetness by comparison, and so with black
hair, black dress and fair skin, the contrast I think was the final end
sought.
Elite society never appears on the street here till six o’clock, unless
a fiesta or church service calls it out; and before that hour, what
careful preparation is had? The hair is usually braided and let alone. A
quantity of India ink along the eyebrows make a black _en rapport_ with
the hair, and a little belladonna in the eyes will add a sparkle that
will wither up men’s souls and scatter them prone at her
feet--metaphorically speaking, and when those cheeks have been
kalsomined--I mean whitewashed--that is--painted, if the dear ladies
will spare my life for mentioning it, and when mi-lady has thus
performed her renovation--I mean toilet, and placed her diamonds on her
neck where they will show best, and wrapped as to her shoulders with the
diaphanous mantilla and steps under the electric light, I tell you she
is--is indescribable.
The dress of the men of the lower class is just a kaleidoscope, that’s
all. Some of the Indians are dressed like their women, in their long
hair and a strip of cloth hung where it hangs the best. The high top
straw sombrero or the Panama hat with a string under the chin is the
prevailing style, although the more costly woolen hat is represented.
White cotton and brown linen constitute the dress goods.
The usual cut of coat is a short jacket or jumper. Others wear a long
sack coat, and instead of buttoning it they gather the two corners
together and tie them in a knot. This distinctive style has a kind of
freemasonry importance in which I was never initiated. Then his
pantaloons are white, with the bottom widened immensely. The shepherds
have a style all their own. They have a buckskin jacket cut short, and
buckskin pantaloons cut long, with a row of buttons on the outside. Then
he takes his knife and slits the legs inside and out, from the knee
down, then he gathers up the ends and tucks them under his belt, and
depends upon his underwear for effect on dress parade. He always scores.
Some people might say he looks badly, but with his clan he is in very
correct form and why should you object?
The porters, or public drays dress in white cotton, with one leg of
their pants rolled up to the knee, leaving the leg bare.
Around his neck he wears a large badge like a policeman’s, with his
official number, showing that he is licensed to carry packages, from
express money orders to upright pianos. He is the only express wagon
here, and is absolutely reliable. He will shoulder your Saratoga and
trot a mile without resting. I recall the case of one who stumbled with
an American drummer’s trunk on his back, and when the street
commissioners gathered up his remains, they were spread over two square
yards of pavement. P. S. the trunk was not injured.
Four of these _cargadors_ will carry your piano to any part of the city.
For moving household goods, they have vans made on the plan of a
hospital stretcher, with a man in the shafts at each end, and a rope
passing over his shoulders to the shafts, and they will carry a dray
load each time. Two dozen chairs by actual count is what I have seen one
man carry. The mule has been promoted to the street car, out of respect
to the two-legged express wagon.
The dress of the cow-boy and rural police is something to admire. A high
sombrero, costing from twelve to fifty dollars, weighted down with
monograms and silver ornament.
Leather or buckskin suit with silver buttons from boots to neckband.
Silver spurs and silver bridle bits. Saddle whose every piece of
ornament is solid silver, a horse-hair lariat, and if he is a _Rurale_,
a rifle, and he sits his horse like a centaur.
The dude is in a class alone, but he counts one when on dress parade. A
tall, black sombrero with silver ornaments. Scarlet jacket, reaching to
the waist, and sprayed with silver braid in fantastic designs. Buckskin
pantaloons, flaring at the bottom and silver buttons all the way up, and
along-side a series of cross-section slashes, interwoven with a
beautiful ribbon from spur to waistband. Silver spur and bridle bit, a
saddle worth as much as the horse, and a bright nickel-plated revolver
buckled around his waist.
At the fashionable hour for promenade, he mounts his horse, and slowly
rides over the town and graciously permits the populace to admire him. I
think he ought to be knighted for his liberality. Most people who go to
that much trouble to shine, generally make you buy a dollar theater
ticket for the pleasure of looking at him, strains his constitution and
bylaws showing off, and cannot ride a horse at all.
But commend me to the Mexican dude. After he has set the town agog, he
turns up a certain avenue, which contains a certain house, projecting
from which is a balcony, in which dwells the only girl in town, and,
after he has passed in all his silent glory, he throws bouquets at
himself for the wonderful impression he has made, and then goes home to
undress. Earth cannot hold him much longer. I fear his own ardor and
faith in himself will finally sublimate him, but our loss is heaven’s
gain. The children; there are no children; they are just vest-pocket
editions of old folks. Usually they are dressed in their innocence, but
that is a quality of goods that does not last long here. When a boy is
old enough to wear anything else, it is exactly like his father’s, tall
sombrero, pants that strike his heels, and a red sash around his waist.
Suspenders are not worn here. When a girl is no longer innocent, she
dresses in a _rebosa_. By wrapping it around her head it reaches her
feet. They don’t have much time to be little for they marry at eleven
and twelve. The upper class men, of course dress as Americans, but Paris
sets the fashion in Mexico always. All these things you see at the
market in San Luis Potosi, but you see them in hundreds, while I have
only described them as individuals, and have not half turned the
kaleidoscope yet.
The streets must be all vacated by eleven o’clock at night, and when the
hour for closing has arrived, nothing is locked up. The thousand and one
vendors have no care for their goods. A piece of canvas is spread over
them and a brickbat placed on to keep the wind from interfering, and
they go home.
The policeman does the rest--he never sleeps. Crime does not pay in
Mexico. The laws are as swift as a bolt of Jupiter. A person is arrested
this morning, tried and shot before night. They waste no sentiment on
criminals and they are too expensive to feed.
Another curious custom is, the money received during the day must always
be in sight. A wooden tray on top of a pile of goods holds the receipts
of the entire day and not a piece is hidden. The taxation law is very
rigid, and a certain per cent. of all sales is collected by the city,
and the inspector must be always free to look at your sales and figure
on his per cent.
As hard as the law is on poor people, you never hear them complain. They
respect the laws even though they do not like them. Just imagine an
American counting up square and even with a tax collector on a day’s
sale! When Bellamy gets his colony in working order and invites me to
come and see the wonder of the twentieth century, that is the sight I
want to see.
The wearing of pistols here is not a sign of revolution. Probably it is
not loaded, and a Mexican would not shoot you for anything. If his liver
was out of order to the extent of wanting your blood, he would take his
knife and reduce you to sausage meat, but shoot you, never. That is not
his style. A pistol is as much an article of full dress as a pair of
gloves would be in America, or a tin sword is to our military
organizations.
When Mexico had her monthly revolution, and when bandits used to come in
and take the town, every man had to go armed in order to find himself
after the cyclone; but she has comparative peace now, yet wearing
pistols for a hundred years has made it quite a habit. I went on an
excursion with a party of harmless looking Mexicans, and we tried to sit
down on a bench, and every man and boy of them had to unload his cannon
pocket before he could sit down--and the other fellow too.
At your work, the law supposes you to be unarmed, but in making a
journey, though it be the length of a street, you are allowed to arm
against bandits. On every first and second-class car, ten out of every
dozen men will carry huge revolvers, but you might live there for
months and never hear of a person getting shot.
In this great city, everything is so quiet you are constantly enquiring
if anything has happened, or is happening, or has any likelihood of
happening; you cannot understand the absence of noise and bustle.
It finally dawns upon you that the native never hurries. He has mastered
the ethics of rest, he never exerts himself. He does so delight to sit
himself down long and often and ponder over the wear and tear of the
foreigner. The state feels as he does about it, so it has placed
comfortable seats everywhere, where the native can rest. Just rest. He
never “Hellos” to an acquaintance across the street; if he wishes to
speak, he motions with his hand. All this saves wear and tear, and by
this means, the nation has saved vast stores of conservated energy to
use in the next world. He has been saving energy for four hundred years
and has never let any of it out.
There is no “hello” on the street, and no vehicles, and everybody is
barefooted, so there is no noise. They don’t “hello” in the telephone.
They talk some sweet, musical Spanish in it that is a real pleasure to
listen to. Instead of thundering back “Who’s that?” he sweetly says
“_Quien habla?_”--Who speaks?
The national watchword is, “Never do to-day what you can possibly put
off till to-morrow.” An excursion agent went to a large hotel and asked
what were the rates per day. “Four dollars,” said the major-domo. “But
my party contains seventy people, what rates do we get for the party?”
“Four dollars and a half each, more trouble.” The same in buying goods.
The man who buys wholesale quantities has to pay for the extra trouble
he causes the clerks.
“_Poco tiempo_,”--wait a little, is the national leveler for all
difficulties and broken contracts. You order a suit of clothes to be
delivered tomorrow. Tomorrow never comes--neither do the clothes, You
get down your dictionary and hunt up all the cuss words you can command,
and hurl them at that tailor, and expect to see him shrivel up before
you. Does he? Not a shrivel! He offers you a cigarette, carefully rolls
one for himself and forces wreaths of smoke through his nostrils, and
turning to you says: “_Poco tiempo_”--what’s your hurry? _Manana_ will
do, tomorrow, tomorrow, _manana_ comes, and also another _poco tiempo_.
You engage a guide and want to go see a place you have come a thousand
miles to see, and want to start this afternoon. “Well, why not _manana_?
You _Americanos_ do hurry through life so!” He works two days, carving a
wonderful cane he sells for a quarter. His two days _tiempo_ count for
nothing. He lives in yesterday and today, but never in tomorrow. He will
wait for the millennium but will never go to meet it. He will never
hurry from the comforts of today into anxieties of tomorrow. _Manana_,
the panacea for all ills, the _Nirvanah_.
The language of gesture has a new meaning here. When a person wants you
to approach him, he frantically motions you away. When you see your lady
acquaintance across the street, and she motions with her fingers and
thumb for you to come to her, you must read it backwards because she
does not mean it, she is simply recognizing you.
When ladies meet and re-enact the great American humbug of miscellaneous
kissing, it is always given and received on the cheek. When two
gentlemen meet, they rush into each others arms and rapidly pat each
other on the back with the right hand, and finally shake hands, and if
they meet each other a dozen times a day, they effusively shake.
At the railway station, the departing friend embraces, pats, shakes, and
jumps aboard, If the train is delayed, he gets out again and talks until
the conductor cries, “_Vamanos!_” then he goes through the same
performance again with each of his dozen friends, and when half a dozen
lugubrious groups are similarly engaged, the conductor simply waits
until they have finished.
Indeed, to such an extent does this leave-taking interfere with business
that signs are placed up asking the people not to delay business by
their long salutations.
At Guanajuato the following sign is tacked up:--“_Se suplica a los
pasajeros eviten las despididas y saludos prolongadosque retarder la
marcha de los carros._”
In all places the innate politeness and courtesy of the people show a
study for your comfort. In walking, your Mexican friend insists that you
walk on the inside next the wall, while he walks next the street. In
accepting an invitation for a carriage drive, you must enter first and
accept the rear seat; but if a lady invites a gentleman he is not
supposed to accept the rear seat when offered. After the drive your host
will alight first and assist you. In the street car, the gentlemen
always offer their places to ladies, and salute all passengers when
entering and leaving the ear. People have said they also shake hands
with the driver, but I do not believe all I hear.
When you are introduced to a gentleman, he tells you his house and all
his belongings are yours, giving you the street and number, and says:
“Now you know where your house is.” If you admire his horse or his
paintings or his wife, he says: “Take them, they are yours.” To be sure
you are not expected to take him too literally, but it shows that the
French are not the only people who claim politeness as a national trait.
If you are invited to his house for refreshments, you are to precede
your host on entering, but he will precede to the door when you signify
your readiness to depart.
The salutation on the street is “_adios_,” the equivalent of the French
_adieu_, but “_buenos dias_,” “_buenos tardes_,” and “_buenos noches_”
are also used for good morning, etc., and are always used in the plural.
Why, the deponent sayeth not. One of the adjuncts of an introduction, is
for the native to offer his cigarette case; and to refuse the invitation
to smoke, is to also refuse the introduction, and this little custom
nearly brought trouble upon the writer’s head. His early education had
been sadly neglected, and the manly art of smoking had never been taught
him, so he was forced to practice deception on his kind friends to keep
the peace. The deadly cigarette is rolled in the thin innershuck of the
Indian corn, and holds its shape whether filled or not, so I filled my
pocket with empty cases. When my new-made friend asked that I smoke
with him the pipe of peace, I replied cordially, “_Sí Señor_,” and took
the proffered cigarette, and with the same hand felt in my pocket for a
match and exchanged the loaded cigarette for a harmless one, and,
presto! I am in good form and all goes merry as a marriage bell. He
tells me his house, his sisters and all he has are mine for ever, and I
quietly add another item to my million dollar possessions. In one summer
I have acquired more wealth and real estate and beautiful maidens by
actual gift, than Jay G. and Brigham Y. acquired in a lifetime.
Already I have become a bloated aristocrat, and daily receive and give
away haciendas that cover nine square leagues of land.
The custom-house officials already have their eye on me, and are even
now figuring on the dividends they will declare when I attempt to leave
the country, but every bitter has its antidote, so I am congratulating
myself on the change of dates. A few years ago I was in this country
when each state collected its customs’ duties from every other state,
and that sometimes meant two or three inspections daily. Now things have
changed and they inspect only on the border, so I shall have fewer
bribes to offer the officials from my newly-acquired millions.
This people’s generosity runs them into bankruptcy. Once a kind friend
introduced himself to me, said he always did like my country and people,
said he had a beautiful sister named Inez and she was mine. “Take her,
señor, she is yours,” also a whole block of buildings. I thanked him
profusely and began to take stock of my new possessions, when he said
in excellent English, “Have you a loose quarter about your clothes you
could lend me to buy a supper?” We had reached a part of the street
where there was no light when he made his modest request, and he had his
hand on a very persuasive looking knife. I had my eye on him and my hand
on a good revolver, so in very choice Texas language I told him I had
the drop on him.
After reflecting that he had nearly impoverished himself by enriching me
with all his possessions, I took pity on him and gave him a pewter
quarter that some of my dear friends had passed on me that very morning.
Instinctively his native politeness came to the front, and with hat in
hand he _kotowed_, and in the softest of Spanish he thanked me a
thousand and one times, and incidentally let the quarter fall to the
pavement to catch the ring of it. Proving counterfeit money here is a
regular trade which they all learn.
Hereafter I shall positively refuse all gifts, because I am going to
call upon the president, and when I admire the national palace he will
of course say: “Take it, it is yours,” and it will appear ungrateful in
me to refuse it and mean in me to accept it, because all new presidents
have to start a revolution; and then he might not appreciate my motives,
and sometimes they do not understand American jokes till a week after
their perpetration. This is due to British influence at the embassy.
In the Capital I went once to a hotel, and before the carriage could
stop, three flunkies fell over themselves grabbing for my baggage, they
were so glad to see me. One got an umbrella, one a camera and one a
valise, and ran up stairs to my room to welcome me, and this welcome
only cost me twenty-five cents.
The proprietor wrung my hands and then wrung his own, and then spreading
them out with a magnanimous gesture said: “This hotel is yours señor,
and all my servants; just make yourself at home.” I blushed profusely
and told him I certainly appreciated a four-story stone front on San
Francisco Street, and I would remember him in my prayers.
After a week of his hospitality, when I offered to treat him to a cigar,
he incidentally mentioned that I owed him sixteen _reals_ for each day
of my pleasant sojourn. I asked him what for. “Your room, señor.” I told
him very forcibly that he told me to make myself at home. “So I did,”
said he. “But I never pay board at home,” said I, but the point was lost
on him. He was wearing a British hat, impervious to jokes. Next summer
he will ask me what I meant.
This is the second time I have got into trouble by accepting largesse,
and for the first time I understand what the old Trojans meant when they
said: “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.”
Hereafter, I shall positively refuse all gifts, and sell off about
twenty hotels and villas and haciendas which I have accumulated beyond
my needs. That much wealth actually interferes with a man’s rest and the
color of his hair.
While in this state of mind and also in San Luis Potosi, I will
discourse on the Bill of Fare. I know a Boston friend who would have
said William of Fare, but I never could talk Bostonese, and just plain
bill of fare will do me, when I am traveling. The Texas lingo just says
“Hash.”