Climate of Guadalajara—American tramps—Courtship under
difficulties—Influence of the priesthood—The _Metayer_ system.
During June and July the average mean temperature in Guadalajara is
68.85° F. in the sun; the average maximum for these months is 88.52°,
the average minimum is 56.48°, and the highest recorded temperature was
95° on 1st July 1908. All these records are officially taken on the top
of the Degollado Theatre. In August the mean for the month is 69.26°.
During November it ranges from 63.5° to 72.8°. During December and
January the average mean is 57.5°. It sometimes freezes in the winter,
but never enough to hurt flowers or fruit if protected from the wind.
Violets grow out-of-doors all through the winter. Except during the
rainy season it seldom rains, though we do have occasional showers in
the spring. The country is truly a paradise, and if only the big
holdings were broken up among small farmers, all Mexico could be
supplied with food grains, instead of having, as now, to import them.
The reason for this is that the _hacendados_, like squatters in
Australia, hold tracts of from one thousand to one or more million
acres, and of this they only cultivate probably one per cent. The
Government of Madero is at present trying to borrow $100,000,000 for the
purpose of buying out these large holdings and selling them on long-term
annual payments to the actual cultivators. If the plan succeeds, the
country is bound to go ahead at a wonderful rate. As in India, the chief
industry is agriculture, but Guadalajara, Aguas Calientes, and Celaya
are noted for drawn-work lace and embroidery; the work is certainly
beautiful. The Mexicans also are no mean decorative painters, sculptors,
and builders. In buildings they put in “flat arches,” which never sag or
crack when the supports are removed, and they can hang masonry stairways
up in the air, apparently without supports, if they can build them in a
long curve. I have asked American builders how it is done, and have not
received any clear answer yet.
There are at present but two ways of getting to Guadalajara by
rail—either by branching off at Irapuata from the main line of the
Mexican Central, which runs from El Paso, Texas, to Mexico City, or
coming by steamer to Manzanillo, and from there by rail, passing _en
route_ the volcano of Colima, which is in eruption. This latter route,
from the Pacific coast, is by far the best and pleasantest, as you
thereby miss the northern desert of Mexico, and see, besides, some
beautiful wild scenery. There is also a third road, which the Southern
Pacific are building into Guadalajara from Mazatlan, but this will not
be completed for a year or two.
Every winter Mexico is filled with American tramps who come to escape
the cold up north, and they are a perfect pest at times. The Mexican
police will never touch them unless some American or Englishman makes a
complaint, in which case they run them out of town. Seven years ago we
had such a bad lot here that the colony made complaint, and the police
cleaned them up. Two of the most impudent, who returned, I had the
pleasure later of seeing do some honest work on the city streets. In
Mexico City the Saxon colony has a committee whose business it is to
investigate the case of every tramp who arrives; if he is a good man in
hard luck he is helped; if, on the other hand, he is a professional
tramp, the police are at once notified, and he has to move out.
One of the things that strike a visitor to this country is the method of
courtship. A Mexican girl of good family is never seen on the street
with a man till she is married to him. When a young man wishes to court
a girl, he walks up and down daily before the windows of her house. If
she reciprocates, she comes to the window after a decent interval, the
length of which is according to how highly she values herself, and
smiles on him. As he gets bolder he comes nearer and nearer, till
finally they get on speaking terms. All this may have taken some weeks.
When matters have progressed far enough for the couple to arrive at an
understanding, he makes a call on the family, and if they approve of him
he is invited to call again. After this he calls as frequently as he
can; the girl is present at these state calls, but it is not considered
etiquette for him to speak to her directly till they are officially
engaged. He must converse with the other members of the family so that
they can size him up. Imagine what intellectual conversation a man would
“get off” under the inspection of the whole family, and what endurance
the family must have to stand it night after night. As soon as he has
stayed the length of time that etiquette demands (or as long as the
family can stand him), he retires to the street, she comes to her
window, and they talk nonsense through the bars for the rest of the
evening. It is amusing to take a walk through the residential district
from eight till ten P.M. and see the hundreds of young fellows hanging
on the bars courting their lady-loves. But it is still more amusing when
the lady happens to live on the second storey and he has to shout all
his pretty speeches up to her! In most Mexican houses the first floor is
one abode and the second floor a separate one, with different entrances
and owned by different people. I often wondered what they would do when
they built five and six storey flats, till I went to Puebla and saw
small telephones in use, which the lady let down to her Romeo. In the
case of the idle rich this form of courting goes on all through the day,
the young fellow only going home for his meals.
In the evenings the band plays in the Plaza de Armes, the central garden
in front of the governor’s palace, and all the young folk turn out. The
girls all walk in pairs in a long line one way, and the young men in
pairs also walk in an outer ring the other way, so that at every round
they can see and make eyes at the particular fair one. Only in Chihuahua
is this rule relaxed, and the young men and women are allowed to walk
together. But then Chihuahua is near the American border, and most of
the boys and girls are placed in American schools, so that it is almost
an American city with American customs. The architecture of the new part
of the city is American, and the houses of the rich are built on large
plots surrounded by gardens and trees. As the Mexican law does not
recognise a religious marriage, it is always necessary to have two
ceremonies—one before the judge and one before the priest, but the only
binding one is that performed by the judge. Another custom which I think
is peculiar to this country, at least I have never seen it in Catholic
Canada, is that of kissing the priests’ hands on the street. This is not
only done by the poor but by almost all classes.
The church, though not recognised by law in this country, has yet an
enormous power, especially amongst the poorer classes. Our labourers are
always willing to work on a national holiday in case of necessity, but
they cannot be persuaded to do so on any saint’s day, and the number of
these days is considerable. One reason for this hold that the clergy
have on the Indian is the way that they have grafted the Catholic faith
on the superstitions and beliefs of the Indians, instead of combating
them. For instance, you can always tell the advent of a feast day,
because the evening preceding it bombs are fired from all the church
towers. Ask any Indian what it is done for, and he will tell you it is
to drive away the devil. On All Souls’ Day images of Judas Iscariot,
filled with powder, are sold by thousands, and at midday are all blown
up. Few Indians can tell you who Judas was, and they believe it is the
devil who is being so treated. Whatever the cause, the government has
failed in its object of breaking the hold of the priesthood over the
country.
I wrote before of a thirty-acre farmer who makes $5000 net per annum in
strawberries and alfalfa. Another with only three acres of strawberries,
near Guadalajara, cleared in 1901 $1500 as his half share of the sale of
the produce (on the _metayer_ system) from April to August. There are
seven wells on the farm, with an average lift of fifteen feet, and ten
cultivators, on half shares, plant, water, tend, and sell the crop.
Agricultural labour is cheap—thirty cents per day—but land is dear, as
the great landholders stick to it, and it is only gradually coming into
the market. To get it, one has to know the owners and be familiar with
the language, the country, and local circumstances. The system of
cultivation is everywhere _metayer_; the great landholders furnish the
stock, implements, and seed to their Indian peons (the “ryot” of British
India), and make advances for their maintenance. The peon takes half of
the crop that he raises, less the amount he has borrowed for maintenance
while raising it, and is cheated at every turn and transaction. Of
course on such terms much of these great estates remains uncultivated,
and no doubt the owners will gradually be persuaded to sell land.