TRAVELING AS THE MEXICANS DO
There were some fields of corn south of Monterey, but soon dust and
thorny bushes covered the landscape again. Mountains rose all about us,
as the train climbed higher and higher. The mountains seemed to keep
crowding closer, like a circle of bandits. They also seemed to become
lower, but that, of course, was because we were going up into them. The
train made quite good speed, in spite of the steep grade it had to
climb.
Saltillo, where I stopped for a few hours, is almost a mile high. The
weather was pleasantly cool for the first time since I had left our
Great Lakes. Rain had fallen, and it was almost fun to splash through
small puddles in the poorly paved streets. I was very weary of the
bone-dry, sun-scorched country in which I had been traveling all the way
from San Antonio.
The only train from Saltillo to the next large city ran at night. I
should have been more comfortable in the sleeping-car, or even among the
few Americans scattered about the first-class day-coach. But what is the
use of traveling if you go to bed and sleep through the journey? I
decided to sit up with the Mexican passengers in the second-class car,
even if the benches were hard.
I counted a hundred grown-up passengers in that car, besides more than a
dozen children. There were all kinds of Mexicans, from city people who
were as white as I, to men and women of the fields sunburned almost
chocolate-brown. Only a few of them wore our style of clothes. Most
Mexicans still prefer their native dress, the most important part of
which is the _sombrero_, a large hat. Mexican men, like American women,
want a hat different from anyone else’s. The hats of the peons, or
workingmen, are made of straw; the others are of very thick felt,
decorated with colored tape and a kind of embroidery.
Wealthy Mexicans, and even some who are not at all rich, pay a hundred
dollars for a hat loaded with silver decorations and weighing several
pounds. The crowns of _sombreros_ are so high that they would surely
hold two quarts of fruit. Such hats are of almost any color except red.
A Mexican never looks half so impressive or picturesque with his hat off
as with it on. The rest of the costume is very much alike for everyone.
The coat or jacket reaches only to the waist, and has many more buttons
than seem necessary. Shirts are of all the colors you can think of,
without collars and neckties. A wide cloth belt of some gay color is
wound about the waist. The trousers are so tight as to make one wonder
how the owner can get into them. Some have rows of buttons down the
sides from waist to ankle.
A few of the men in our car wore shoes, but most of them had on
_guaraches_, a mere sole of cowhide tied to the foot with thongs of
leather. In place of overcoats men wore or carried _sarapes_, reminding
me of the blankets in which the Indians of our Southwest wrap
themselves. Some of these were woven with fancy patterns in colors, and
had long fringes at the ends; all had a slit in the middle to put the
head through.
None of the women wore hats. Instead of the _sombrero_ and _sarape_ they
had the _reboso_, a kind of shawl for wrapping around the head as well
as the body. Their skirts were very long. Some of them wore leather
sandals and some were barefoot. The children dressed just like their
fathers and mothers, the little boys in huge hats, gay _sarapes_, and
skin-tight trousers, the girls wrapped, head and all, in shawls.
[Illustration:
A Mexican boy of the highlands wearing a thin cotton suit and a straw
hat. The _sarape_ or _poncho_, a strip of cloth with a hole in it,
helps him to keep warm.
]
A Cold Night Ride
It was easy to see that the passengers claimed more Indians than white
men as their ancestors. Yet they were very polite, both to me and to one
another. I could not help watching one family near me. The father seemed
hardly twenty years old, and the mother was even younger. He was a very
sturdy, muscular, sun-browned fellow, as if he had worked hard outdoors
all his life and never weakened himself with the luxuries of a soft bed
and a heated house. They had a child about two years old, his black eyes
even brighter, if possible, than those of the father and mother. When we
were all struggling for seats at the beginning of the trip, the father
picked the child up by one hand and swung him clear across the car to
the mother, but the youngster never stopped smiling.
I am sure none of us could have done more to make a lady comfortable on
a hard journey than that Indian peon, who had probably never been inside
a school in his life, did for his young wife. And though the Mexicans of
the peon class seldom laugh, I am certain no American crowd would have
been so good-natured as these passengers were, huddled together on hard
benches all night long. Not once did I hear any of the children cry, or
even whimper, though it was not at all what an American would consider a
comfortable ride.
The farther south we went the cooler it grew, for we were still climbing
among the mountains. I pulled out my sweater, and finally wrapped myself
in all the clothing I had with me, but by midnight I was sorry I had not
brought an overcoat. Once or twice I dozed for a few minutes, with my
head on my bundle, but there was no room for anyone to lie down.
It seemed strange to be shivering with cold when, at about four in the
morning, we crossed the Tropic of Cancer into the Torrid Zone. As
daylight began to creep through the windows I stood in the vestibule and
watched the bare, brown landscape hurrying by toward the north. I could
see no mountains now, because we were on top of them. Scattered mesquite
bushes and cactus, some of it ten feet high, were the only growing
things. I began to think that Mexico must be a poor land for farming,
but before I left the country at its other end I learned that much of it
is very fertile. Just as the sun was beginning to cast long slanting
rays across the cold earth we arrived at a large city named San Luis
Potosí.
[Illustration:
Among the many forms of cactus in Mexico is the so-called “organ
cactus.” Its great stalks, covered with sharp spines, sometimes grow
twenty feet high.
]
Perhaps you have been wondering whether you could not go down through
Mexico in your own automobile. I am afraid not. The highways built there
long ago by the Spanish have become miserable trails. Even in Spain
roads are not very good, and Mexico is a true daughter of that land. The
Indians who ruled in Mexico before the Spaniards conquered them were
quite civilized in many ways. But as they had no wheeled vehicles, nor
even any domestic animals (everything being carried on men’s backs),
their descendants of to-day do not consider roads as important as we do.
The present government of Mexico is building highways, and perhaps some
day we can drive all the way to Mexico City in the old “flivver.” But we
would not get very far south of the Rio Grande in it now. For one thing,
there are many long stretches with no towns, no stores in which to buy
food, and no gasoline stations. When we reach the capital we shall find
automobiles enough. But away from the big cities and off the railroads
we must travel mostly by the old narrow, unpaved trails. Most Mexicans
are horsemen, unless they are so poor that they have to walk.
A Real Mexican City
San Luis Potosí is now one of the up-to-date cities of northern Mexico.
It lies in a great basin of mountains more than a mile above sea level,
so that its climate is always cool, and pleasant except during the
rains. Many of its buildings are well made, and it has a fine cathedral.
Its business men are so enterprising that some of them have become rich.
It is the capital of the state of San Luis Potosí, which was the first
state in Mexico to pass laws in favor of the working classes—the
“radical land reforms” about which we shall learn more later on.
When I first saw San Luis Potosí it seemed rather poor and miserable.
Perhaps that was partly because rain fell nearly all the time I spent
there, and because I still had American cities in mind. The dull skies
made it seem very dreary, and the only way to keep warm was to walk or
to stay in bed. I could not help laughing at the idea most Americans
have of the climate of Mexico. It should be as warm as Florida, they
think, because it is as far south. They forget that most of it is a
table-land high above tropic sea level.
[Illustration:
The public market of San Luis Potosí overflows along the cobbled and
often muddy streets. Each family has its few cents’ worth of produce
to sell.
]
There seemed to be at least a hundred ragged men and boys at the
station, clamoring for a chance to earn a few cents by carrying
someone’s baggage. Hundreds more of them wandered about the town looking
for some way to earn their food. Their tight trousers and short jackets
and collarless shirts, even their leather sandals, were ragged and torn.
Their clothing might be patched with half a dozen different faded
colors. Some had only a strip of old carpet as a _sarape_ wrapped around
their thin bodies. They wandered dismally about in the cold rain. There
seemed to be as many poor women and girls as men and boys. In fact they
seemed poorer, for most of them did not even have _guaraches_, but
splashed about in bare feet. Nearly all the poor people were trying to
sell something or other. There was a covered market, but only a small
part of the great throng could find room in it. Every narrow little
muddy street all about the market was lined on both sides with sellers
squatting over their wares. Most of them had hardly ten cents’ worth of
stuff to sell, and the buyers were so poor that many bought only a
cent’s worth at a time. There were little piles of six peanuts, sickly
little apples, tiny cones of muddy-looking sugar, turnips cut in two
because people could not afford to buy whole ones. It would take pages
just to mention all the things to eat that were for sale in tiny
quantities. Then there were baskets and earthenware jars of every kind
and size, scraps of calico, and long strips of leather for making
sandals. Now and then a woman dressed better than usual went along
making purchases, always followed by a ragged man or woman carrying what
she had bought. To any Mexican above the peon class it is a terrible
disgrace to carry the smallest package in public.
All the people of San Luis Potosí are not poor, by any means. In the
daytime most of the homes looked poor, because one could see only their
bare outer walls. But when they were lighted, I got many a peep into
richly furnished rooms and flowery _patios_. In the great churches and
in the best shops there were men and women, and children, too, fully as
well dressed as any I had seen in my own land.
My hotel room had a fine view of the mountains, but I was supplied with
no water, no mirror, no towel. When I went downstairs to wash, I found
the landlady sitting on the floor shelling peas into the only washbasin!
I am sure you will be interested in what I had to eat. Mexican
breakfasts are very light, nothing but a cup of coffee or chocolate, and
a roll or a corn cake. For dinner and for supper we always had a very
thin soup, squash, boiled beef, and hot corn _tortillas_ that looked
much like our pancakes. Then came a plate of rice and peppers, tripe,
and a peppery dish of beans (_chile con carne_). Every real Mexican meal
includes red or black beans, served just before dessert. Since pies and
cakes are not native to Mexico, we usually had as our last course a bit
of fruit and the blackest coffee you ever saw.
Of course there are better hotels in Mexico than the one I have
described. Even San Luis Potosí has a better one now. But some of the
beds I slept in were not much more comfortable than the wooden benches
in a second-class Mexican railroad car. Who minds such things, though,
if he can travel in strange foreign lands?
[Illustration:
Photo by H. L. Summerville, San Antonio
At San Antonio, Texas, one may visit four Franciscan missions built by
the Spanish monks. La Concepción, the first, was erected in 1713.
Then came San José and San Juan, and in 1730 San Francisco (or
Espada) Mission which is shown here.
]