THE CITY OF THE ANGELS.
La Puebla de Los Angelos is the authorized version of the sacred city,
but “Puebla” serves for all ordinary uses. This city is seventy-five
miles southeast of the capital. It is not on account of its transcendent
beauty or rare virtue that it is called the City of the Angels, but from
its wonderful history, woven into mystic legends by the zealous priests.
And for the story:
“Once upon a time,” as all good stories should begin, the Indians saw
angels hovering over the place when it was an Indian village, before the
Conquest, and hence its name. Another version is that one of the good
bishops was looking for a site on which to build a town, and in his
dream saw a vision of two angels measuring town lots on the border hills
of a beautiful plain, and went right out and found the place where
Puebla now stands to agree with his dream, and forthwith founded the
city. Still a more recent explanation is given, that when they were
building the church, angels built as much wall by night as the workmen
built by day; and if you are disposed to doubt the statement, why, they
show you the church itself, which ought to convince the most skeptical.
The cathedral is built of massive basalt, and is thought by many to be
much finer than the cathedral of the capital. It fronts the Plaza Mayor,
and is built upon a platform of porphyry with Doric and Ionic
superstructure. The inside is bedizened with glitter and tawdry
jimcracks as usual, entirely out of keeping with the beauty and
magnificence of the building. The main altar is gilded with gold to the
value of a hundred thousand dollars, and before Maximilian’s time there
hung from the ceiling a famous chandelier of pure gold, also valued at a
hundred thousand dollars. The church party was backing Maximilian, so
the lamp was melted into coin to pay the army. In the towers are
eighteen bells, the largest weighing ten tons. Why these churches have
so many bells that are not rung, and have no chimes is another of the
unanswered questions, and must remain so until the last call. The pulpit
is of pure onyx, and the floor of glistening marble, and over the
door-way is the insignia of the Golden Fleece. The two grand organs are
encased and decorated with as fine work of sculpture as can be found
anywhere, and the walls are lined with costly paintings. Of course here
is shown a piece of the original crown of thorns.
In the church of San Francisco is a doll brought over by Cortez and
carried by him through all his campaigns. It is an image of the Virgin,
and the benighted natives venerate it as though it were a god, and this
is but an index to the christianity of the country. The name of Christ
is rarely heard, and the name of Jesus is so secular that you may go
into a hotel corridor and say$1‘Jesus!’ and a half dozen men will answer
and come to you. Go into any crowd and say the same word, and there will
always be some one named Jesus, and possibly several. It is rather
painful to your piety to have some bandit try to pass a pewter quarter
on you or to keep the odd cents in a trade, and then to know the rascal
is named Jesus Maria Magdalene. There is not a Christ Church to be found
in all this land of churches, and as a means of saving grace, Christ is
not counted. In the Mexican Catholic Church, the people pray to the
powers in the order of their importance; first to the Mother of God,
“Most Holy Mother,” second, to the saints, and lastly they mention the
name of the Infant Jesus as being the son of Mary. In the prayers and in
the sermons and in the paintings he is always figured as an infant in
the arms of the Virgin, or the Man of Sorrows with his heart on the
outside of his anatomy. After looking at a thousand such pictures one is
tempted to believe that the X-ray is not such a modern innovation after
all. In the case of the twelve stations on the march to Calvary, with
the aid of red paint all the horrors and mental anguish that the human
frame can endure are displayed in life-size as a scourge to the laggard
believer.
I do not fancy the poetry of Burns, but these grewsome images of wax and
papier mache with the real thorns on his head and the red paint gore
dripping everywhere, always recall the lines:
“The fear o’ hell’s the hangman’s whip,
To haud the wretch in order.”
The impression it always makes on me is that the threat is always
implied: “If you do not repent, you will be treated in the same
manner,” and I honestly believe the Indians so interpret it. In the nave
of these churches are hung the twelve apostles, in all stages of ancient
martyrdom and modern dilapidation. Statues with broken or missing legs
and streams of red paint gore pouring in congealed rivulets from Roman
scourges and spear-points savor more of the bull-ring than of a
sanctuary. On the altar is a copy of the Holy Bible containing the Old
and New Testaments, translated out of the original tongues, and with the
former translations diligently compared and revised; but out of its lids
of solid silver bedecked with ribbons and symbols, they hear not a word
of christian living, nor of the beautiful life of Christ, nor of their
duty to their fellow man, but prostrate before these gory statues the
worshipers go round and round, counting their beads and crossing
themselves and gazing upon the ghastly anatomies before them, and this
is their worship. If they are oppressed with the weight of earthly sins
they are told to pray to the Holy Mother of God to intercede with St.
Peter in behalf of the afflicted one, and in addition to burn candles
upon the altar of Saint Francis or Saint Xavier, who have the contract
to use their good offices in behalf of the sinner, said sinner
guaranteeing to burn so many candles in acknowledgement, which candles
can be had from the church commissary two doors to the rear on the
right. And this is the substitute the Aztecs got by renouncing their
idolatry. They asked bread and received a stone.
Puebla is called the City of the Angels, but it ought to be called the
City of Churches. This was always the bulwark of the Church of Rome in
the New World and was the last to succumb to the new order of things
under Juarez. This is the city that backed Maximilian in his fight
against the patriots and quartered the French army for seven years, and
where the _auto-de-fe_ of the Inquisition was pushed with all the zeal
of Torquemada. When Juarez destroyed the church party, Pueblo had a
dozen nunneries and as many monasteries, with all their concomitant
cess-pools of vice, as Maria Monk so vividly describes in her Montreal
experience. Under the liberal educational crusade of President Diaz, the
people are becoming too enlightened to ever revert to the old regime.
Puebla is a city of a hundred thousand inhabitants and ranks as the
fourth city in importance. It is the market for the beautiful onyx which
is mined near the city. It is in a fertile valley, and for miles and
miles to the rim of the mesa lies one of the most beautiful scenes
within the Republic. Three volcanoes and three other snow-capped peaks
overlook the city. From Mount Malinche the city I think gets its pure
water brought by aqueducts. Puebla is the key to the country in time of
war as it commands the approach to the sea. It was captured by Iturbide,
Aug. 2, 1821; by Scott, May 25, 1847; occupied by the French, May 5,
1862; captured by the French, May 17, 1863; Recaptured by the Mexicans,
Apr. 3, 1867. The old fort on the Hill of Guadalupe must be visited.
Here the Mexicans under Porfirio Diaz defeated a veteran French army May
5, 1862, and earned their right to the national holiday of “Cinco de
Mayo.”
Though the city is over seven thousand feet above the sea, the valley
produces everything, wheat, rye, cochincal, maize, cotton, sugar, rice,
tobacco, coal and iron, stone quarries, and lime and kaolin for
porcelain, dye woods, and all kinds of tropical fruit in luxuriance, and
the valleys of alfala feed the finest beef steers it has ever been my
good fortune to see. The city was built in 1532 and is a model of
neatness, and as no animal matter decomposes at this altitude the
presence of disagreeable odors is unknown. Six railroads enter the town
and the tramvias lead to many interesting suburbs. Twenty-five miles
away is Popocatapetl, but with no forest or hill between the city and
the volcanoes to proportionate the distance, it hardly appears five
miles. If you wish to ascend the volcanoes, the Inter-Oceanic train
stops at the small station of Amecameca at the foot, where guides and a
two days’ supply of provisions are furnished.
Here upon the second highest mountain in America, and the third highest
in the world, you may sit in the snow and cool yourself off after the
exertion of the climb. I cooled off at the bottom and climbed it by
proxy. My proxy said the view from the crater was magnificent and I felt
satisfied. The street-car line that leads to Cholula passes over the
Atoyac near the city across a very quaint, old arched bridge, built when
the city was born. About five hundred yards to the right of the track is
the natural wonder of Coxcomate. From the car window it looks like a
pile of white stones or a well bleached haystack, but on a nearer
approach it proves to be a tumulus of white calcareous stone, evidently
of water formation, about fifty feet in height and a hundred in
diameter at the base, and the form is that of a truncated cone. At the
apex is an elliptical opening, twenty-five feet along its minor and
fifty along its major axis. It is a bell-shaped cavity and lined with
ferns of various descriptions. The depth is about a hundred feet, and
its width along the bottom about sixty. On one side of the bottom is a
mass of gorgeous ferns, and on the other a pool of water.
Of course Coxcomate has it legends. One is that the Aztecs were wont to
worship the genius of this spot, and occasionally to throw in human
victims to appease his subterranean majesty. It is also said that the
Spanish Inquisition used to cast in heretics and leave them where they
could calmly meditate upon the controverted points of doctrine. Whatever
its former use, it is a curious freak of nature, situated in the midst
of a level plain. It seems to have been a volcanic bubble, of which
there are many in this country.
From Puebla a branch road takes us to Santa Ana, and a tram-way from
there to ancient Tlaxcala, the capital of Tlaxcala. Tlaxcala was a
republic in ancient times, as were also Cholula and Huexotzinco, and
these were life-long enemies of the Aztecs; and it was by fanning this
blaze that Cortez united them to conquer the Aztecs, and to the
Tlaxcalans is due the credit of the Conquest. They were faithful to the
uttermost to the Spaniards, and in the first defeat gave Cortez a home
and haven until he could collect another army, and again followed him,
this time to victory. Cortez always appreciated this kindness, and it is
here in squalid little Tlaxcala, degenerated into a village of five
thousand diminutive people, that more relics of Cortez are found than at
any other place.
The municipal palace contains four oil paintings bearing the date of the
Conquest, and the banner of Spain which Cortez carried throughout his
conquering career. The material is of heavy brocaded silk which sadly
shows its age. It is nine by six feet, cut swallow-tail and is nearly
perfect, though approaching four hundred years old. The iron spear-head
bears the monogram of the rulers of Spain, and the original staff, now
broken, is kept with it. Immense sums have been offered for it from
Spain, but the Tlaxcalans refuse all offers. Here are also the arms of
Tlaxcala, illuminated on parchment, and bearing the signature of Charles
V., and the standards presented to the chiefs by Cortez, as well as the
robes in which the chiefs were baptized. Here also are a collection of
Tlaxcalan idols and the treasure-chest of Cortez, which was locked by
four different keys and could be opened only when all four guardians
were present together. Here is to be seen the oldest church in Mexico,
San Francisco, built three hundred and eighty years ago, under plans
furnished by Cortez himself. The roof is supported by carved cedar beams
brought from Spain, and in a little chapel is the original pulpit from
which the Christian religion was first preached in the new world.
Here of course you see the crude figures of bleeding saints and
sublimated martyrs and harrowing crucifixions, painted in all their
mangled horrors to hold in awe the superstitious native. As the Greek
boasts forever of Marathon and Thermopylæ, so with the Tlaxcalans in
their departed glory. A more squalid lot cannot be found than upon the
sun baked mesa of Tlaxcala. Living in adobe huts and filth and rags, it
requires the light of history to convince you that these were once
warriors second to none in the valley, who boldly met the Spaniards in
open battle when first they saw each other.
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