MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA
_TRAVELS IN MANY LANDS_
A series of Geographical Readers for Intermediate Grades, written by
Harry A. Franck and published by F. A. Owen Publishing Company:
THE JAPANESE EMPIRE
CHINA
MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA
_Others in preparation_
* * * * *
Books by Mr. Franck published by The Century Company, New York:
A Vagabond Journey Around the World
Four Months Afoot in Spain
Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras
Zone Policeman 88
Vagabonding Down the Andes
Working North from Patagonia
Vagabonding Through Changing Germany
Roaming Through the West Indies
Glimpses of Japan and Formosa
Wandering in Northern China
Roving Through Southern China
East of Siam (French Indo-China)
_TRAVELS IN MANY LANDS_
MEXICO _and_
CENTRAL AMERICA
A Geographical Reader
BY
HARRY A. FRANCK
WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS, MANY FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR
F. A. OWEN PUBLISHING COMPANY
DANSVILLE, NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT 1927
F. A. OWEN PUBLISHING COMPANY
_Travels in Many Lands—Mexico and Central America_
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
PUBLISHERS’ FOREWORD
The very best way to give boys and girls a clear idea of just what life
is to their brothers and sisters of other lands is to take them through
those lands. If they cannot go in person (and of course few can), a
well-written story of travel will be a valuable substitute for personal
experience.
To be of educational value to the reader, a book of travel must first of
all be authentic. It must have been written by one who knows at first
hand the things about which he writes. A superficial knowledge gained by
flitting through a country along its main traveled routes is not
sufficient to enable a writer to tell a complete story about it.
Among the notable travelers of our time, probably none has more
thoroughly covered many countries than Harry A. Franck, the author of
this book. His travels have not been mere sight-seeing tours. He has
gone into the out-of-the-way places and lived in the homes of the common
people, to study their habits and manner of living. He has visited their
temples and schools. He has learned something of their language and
talked with them on all manner of subjects so as to become familiar with
their views of life.
From boyhood, Harry Franck had a desire to know about the great outside
world. In 1900, during his first summer vacation while attending the
University of Michigan, he set out, with only $3.18 in his pocket, to
see something of Europe. He worked his way across the ocean on a
cattle-boat, visited the principal cities of England, then Paris and the
Exposition that was being held there. He signed as an able seaman for
the return trip and reached Ann Arbor for the fall term, only two weeks
late.
Mr. Franck worked his way through college and intended to make teaching
his profession, but that first European trip gave him an appetite for
more travel. When he was graduated, he started out, with only enough
money to buy supplies for his camera, to work his way around the
world—which he did in sixteen months. After this trip he wrote _A
Vagabond Journey Around the World_, which is regarded as one of the most
remarkable books of the kind ever published. Since then he has written
many other volumes telling of his experiences. During more than twenty
years of travel, Mr. Franck has covered half a hundred countries. He has
journeyed 50,000 miles on foot and at least an equal distance by
primitive native methods. He carries equipment for obtaining the best
possible pictures. Many of the illustrations in this volume are from
photographs taken by him personally. They give intimate and unusual
glimpses of peoples and places.
_Mexico and Central America_ may be given to children as supplementary
reading with the assurance that it is based on actual facts most
carefully verified. The world to-day is not what it was even a decade
ago. Conditions, customs, the very people themselves have changed; some
greatly, some slightly. A book of this kind, to be really helpful, must
reflect these changes. It is no less true, however, that such a book
should be concerned chiefly with those characteristics and aspects of a
country and its people which have an element of permanence. For this
reason, the perplexing internal problems of the countries visited are,
for the most part, merely touched upon by Mr. Franck. To do more would
be outside the scope of a geographical reader.
As children read about our Latin-American near neighbors, we feel
confident that they will be impressed with the fact that the people of
the whole world are one great family; that what affects one nation
affects all nations sooner or later, and to a greater or less degree.
Children, like adults, must be led to see that people everywhere have
their virtues and ambitions, their trials and hardships, and that the
misfortune or the prosperity of one country is reflected in other
countries far away.
Knowledge of these facts should prompt us to work for the peace and
well-being of all peoples, particularly through the channel of our
schools. In this connection, Payson Smith, Commissioner of Education for
Massachusetts, has aptly said: “Education in all lands should lead the
youth to recognize those interests which are common to humankind, to
magnify the virtues which all men hold in common, to minimize those
differences and distinctions which divide, and to interpret the history
of race and nation in those terms that are helpful to world progress as
well as to national self-respect.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To the Century Company, New York, publishers of Mr. Franck’s _Tramping
Through Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras_, grateful acknowledgment is
made for permission to use certain of the author’s photographs which
first appeared in that volume. The illustrations referred to are on
the following pages of this book: 21, 27, 31, 33, 36, 47, 68, 69, 70,
74, 76, 79, 84, 85, 86, 96, 103, 105, 110, 111, 137, 156, 165, 166,
167, 168, 170, 176, 179, 191, 206, 207, 208, 213, 215, 217, 218, 220,
223.
For courteous and generous response in providing other illustrations,
we are indebted to the following: Mr. J. M. Bejarano, secretary of the
Mexican Chamber of Commerce of the United States, New York; Mr. C. A.
McIlvaine, executive secretary, The Panama Canal, Canal Zone; United
Fruit Company, Boston; Panama Mail Steamship Company, San Francisco;
Ward Line and Wendell P. Colton Company, New York; Resorts and
Playgrounds of America, New York (publishers of _Picturesque
America_); International Harvester Company of America, Inc., Chicago;
Pan American Union, Washington, D.C.
The proofs were critically read by Mr. J. M. Bejarano (mentioned
above), Mr. P. K. Reynolds of the United Fruit Company, and Miss Lena
M. Franck, the author’s sister. To all of these appreciation is due.
Coats of Arms of
Mexico and the Central American Countries
[Illustration:
Guatemala
]
[Illustration:
Honduras
]
[Illustration:
Salvador
]
[Illustration:
Mexico
]
[Illustration:
Nicaragua
]
[Illustration:
Costa Rica
]
[Illustration:
Panama
]
(Cuts by courtesy of Pan American Union)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I OUR SOUTHERN NEIGHBORS 11
II ON BOTH SIDES OF THE BORDER 17
III TRAVELING AS THE MEXICANS DO 29
IV SOMETHING OF MEXICO HISTORY 39
V NORTHWESTERN MEXICO 53
VI ON THE GREAT TABLE-LAND 64
VII I GO TO WORK IN A MINE 73
VIII VARIED PRODUCTS AND HOW THEY ARE SOLD 87
IX CITY AND COUNTRY LIFE IN MEXICO 95
X GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH MEXICO CITY 108
XI RECREATIONS AND SOCIAL LIFE 124
XII THE MEXICAN GOVERNMENT 134
XIII ROUND ABOUT THE MEXICAN CAPITAL 141
XIV MY JOURNEY TO THE GULF COAST 151
XV TROPICAL MEXICO 163
XVI THROUGH GUATEMALA ON FOOT AND BY RAIL 174
XVII A CONTRAST IN CIVILIZATIONS 186
XVIII IN THE DEPTHS OF HONDURAS 200
XIX A VERY PECULIAR “ROYAL HIGHWAY” 209
XX INDUSTRIOUS LITTLE SALVADOR; AND BELIZE 224
XXI NICARAGUA, AND AMERICAN “CO-OPERATION” 233
XXII COSTA RICA—THE “RICH COAST” 247
XXIII PANAMA AND THE GREAT CANAL 259
PRONUNCIATION LIST 283
MAPS
SPANISH POSSESSIONS AFTER THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE 51
PROPOSED NICARAGUA CANAL ROUTE 239
RELIEF MAP OF THE PANAMA CANAL 266–267
PANAMA CANAL AND CANAL ZONE 269
[Illustration:
Underwood & Underwood
Beautiful Mexico City, circled by mountains, as it looks from the
Cathedral clock tower. In the foreground is the National Palace.
]
MEXICO _and_
CENTRAL AMERICA
CHAPTER I
OUR SOUTHERN NEIGHBORS
The foreign land nearest to our United States of America is Mexico.
Although most of us live closer to Canada than to Mexico, we hardly
think of the Canadians as foreigners. True, they are citizens of the
British Empire, and do not vote in our elections. But any of you who
have been in Canada know how much it is like home—how very few things
are different at all.
Mexico, on the other hand, is very foreign indeed. The Mexican people
and their ways, even the Mexican scenery and climate, are as unlike us
and our ways, our scenery and climate, as if they were on the opposite
side of the globe instead of just across a shallow river. Yet close as
it is, and interesting as it would prove to be, most of us know and care
less about Mexico than we do about Europe. A thousand Americans cross
the Atlantic and travel in Europe to one who steps across the Rio Grande
and enjoys visiting our quaint southern neighbors. In school we study a
great deal about European history, but most of us never hear of Mexico
in history class, except in connection with what we call our Mexican
War.
Surely it is important to know one’s closest neighbors; so I am going to
invite you to come with me on what I think will be an interesting
journey, not only through Mexico but clear down through Central America,
with its half dozen smaller and smaller republics, until we reach our
own people again along the Panama Canal. Some of the traveling will be
rough; sometimes our lodgings will not have all the comforts of home.
But I will do all the walking and coarse eating and hard sleeping for
you, so you can give all your attention to the pleasures of the trip and
bring home a clear knowledge of the people and the land so close to us.
Some Things We Should Know First
Sometimes it is fun to visit a foreign country before we know anything
about it, but in the end it is not the wisest plan to do so. Before we
start it will be worth while to stow away in our knapsacks a few facts
about Mexico and the smaller lands beyond.
In Mexico we shall be in another _United States_, for the official name
of the country is the “Estados Unidos Mexicanos,” which means the
“United States of Mexico.” If, some day, you go on traveling with me
beyond the Panama Canal, into the great continent of South America, we
shall find still other _United States_. There are twenty-eight states in
Mexico, two territories, and a federal district. The capital is in the
federal district, which is almost surrounded by the _state_ of Mexico.
On the south it is bounded by the state of Morelos. Some people are
surprised that the name Mexico should be given to a city, a state, and a
country. They forget that, for example, part of New York City is in New
York County, and all of it is in New York State.
Mexico is about two thousand miles long. Its width varies from one
thousand miles, up near the northern border, to a mere 130 miles down at
its “wasp’s waist” of Tehuantepec. It has a coast line of nearly six
thousand miles. You will notice that this is much more than double the
length of the country, and the reason is that the Pacific Ocean all but
surrounds the great peninsula of Lower California, while the peninsula
of Yucatan stretches far out into the Atlantic to help form the Gulf of
Mexico. The country has one large lake. Very few of its many rivers are
navigable.
Some people like figures, even if they are very large ones. For them we
may say that Mexico has nearly 800,000 square miles of territory.
Perhaps most of you, like myself, will get a better idea of its size if
I say that it is almost as large as our five biggest states rolled into
one—Texas, California, Montana, New Mexico, and Arizona. Down in Central
America, however, we shall find that the country of Costa Rica is hardly
as large as Pennsylvania, and that Salvador is no larger than New
Jersey.
[Illustration:
Ward Line. Photo by Hugo Brehme, Mexico City
Miles away one can see the snow-covered head of Mount Orizaba.
]
Mexico is a land of mountains. It is really an immense table-land or
plateau, beginning far up in the Rocky Mountains. Ciudad Juárez on the
frontier is more than 3,700 feet above sea level, and within two hours’
train ride of Mexico City this great plateau is 8,100 feet high. Then it
begins to subside, running down to almost nothing in the Isthmus of
Tehuantepec. We might liken it to a great land wave (with the nation’s
capital just over its crest) topped by many snow-clad peaks as white as
foam. The Sierra Madre, or “Mother Range,” runs the whole length of the
country, as the Rockies do in ours. Besides this main ridge, nearly
everywhere more than 10,000 feet high, there are many cross ridges and
parallel ranges. Of the great peaks, always capped with snow and ice,
Orizaba is over 18,000 feet high, Popocatepetl and Ixtaccihuatl, the
“Sleeping White Woman,” are each over 17,000. None of them is as high as
Mt. McKinley in Alaska or the giants of South America. Yet there are
volcanoes in Mexico which, though as lofty as Mt. Whitney (highest point
in the United States proper) are so unimportant, compared to the others,
that we do not even know their names.
As you may already know, there are about fifteen million people in
Mexico. It would be difficult to take as accurate a census there as is
taken every ten years in the United States. About one-fifth or twenty
per cent of the inhabitants are purely of the white race. Thirty-five
per cent are Indians. The rest, or nearly half the population, are
_mestizos_, that is, mixtures of the Indians with the Spaniards who
conquered them. In one sense North America south of the United States is
not a white man’s country. Yet in another sense it is, for the white
inhabitants do most of the governing and have most of the wealth. The
_pela’os_, or “peeled ones”—those who are very poor and have no real say
in the government—make up about sixty per cent of the population.
The Central American Countries
Central America includes all the countries between the Isthmus of
Tehuantepec and Colombia. Sometimes Mexico also is considered a part of
Central America, which seems reasonable enough, for it is surely a part
of the central portion of land of the western hemisphere. The whole of
this region we are to visit has been likened to a great horn, fastened
to the United States as to a head. The horn—or the imaginary animal that
owns it!—seems to be trying to gore South America with the sharp curved
tip which we call the Isthmus of Panama.
Central America includes the countries of Guatemala, Honduras, Salvador,
Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama, and the British crown colony of
Belize, often called British Honduras. Except this last, and little
Salvador, all the countries of Central America are like Mexico in
stretching clear across the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
They somewhat resemble a family of children, lined up according to size,
with Mexico as the big brother. We shall see, too, that they have tried
several times to live together as one family, but they do not seem to be
able to do so peaceably.
Perhaps this is enough to know before we start on our journey. If we
know too much about a country before we visit it, we lose much of the
pleasure of travel. For then there are no more surprises left for us
than there are in a story of which we know the plot. Yet one other
matter should be mentioned before we start—the climate. If you think
that because Mexico is so far south you will need only summer clothing,
you will have many a day of shivering before you reach Panama. Take
along the things you wear at home in late autumn and early spring, and
remember that there will be many days, and especially evenings, when you
will need at least a light overcoat. Most of the time in Mexico we shall
be up on the high table-land, and even in Central America we shall
sometimes be as high above the sea as Denver is.