# Our Neighbor-Mexico/Book 3/Chapter 11

XI.
MONTEREY.
Songs in the Night.—Open Fields near Saltillo.—Effect of Irrigation.—"The rosy-fingered Dawn."—Gathering together of the Mountains.—San Gregario.—A Thousand-feet Fall.—Rinconada.—Wonders of Flowers.—A Hole through a Mountain.—The Saddle Mountain.—The Mitre.—Santa Caterina.—A Tin God.—A familiar Color.—St. Peter.—No Bathing after Midday.—The Smallness of Mexican Heads.—Miss Rankin's Work.—Strife between Brethren.—Its Benefits.—The two Dogs.—The Eye of the Town.—Revolutions.
Though near the midnight hour, the birds in the court are singing as gayly as at dawn. Hear that clarine! deep and long and swelling and falling are its notes, with a true operatic touch. How that madcap mocking-bird is caroling! They are making a night of it, truly. The day is too hot for their work, as it is for that of men. But, unlike their bigger and featherless biped kindred, they give songs in the night. Only that watchman's whistle replies to their softer and richer note, and a hallooing somebody, who bellows as if mad or afraid, or both. What is his office? To call a revolution? The air is full of that cry.
The roomy court of this hotel is unusually luxuriant. The arcade inclosing it is spacious; flowers, as fragrant as the birds are brilliant, fill the air with odors. Every thing is for coolness and rest. Rest with the pen is a goodly rest: let us take it.
It was at day-break this morning that the coach rattled out of Saltillo with two sleepy passengers, a German and myself. The face of the country in that warm gray dawn looked changed from all behind it. America had touched it with her wand. The huge, high walls of the haciendas gave way to no fences at all. The land lay utterly open. Not the least impediment to your going ​everywhere, except such as the irrigating water afforded. It was well watered and very green, running up under the lee of the dark mountains, and spreading out in long levels of fertility. Where this water had not come, the soil lay white and dead, a corpse-like look. Where it came, it was overflowing with life.
The plains are about six miles across and ten miles in length, in sight of the white city at their south-western terminus.
A single rosy ray streamed up from behind the easternmost mountain like a finger, an index of the coming sun. Homer's figure, which Milton appropriates, as he does so much of Homer,
"The rosy-fingered dawn appears,"
was suggested to my mind by this unusual spectacle. Anon a second broad ray joined its fellow, two fingers uplifted by the coming sun. The rose soon changed to yellow, shone through the openings of the hills, and sent its lustre across the lovely plain and upon the high and gracefully moulded mountains that shut that in. The richer line of Tennyson expressed the glory that followed:
"The rosy thrones of dawn."
I looked and was glad, for I bethought me, that coming light has already risen on my own land. It is not two hundred miles to the border. This rose and gold must have just illumined that fair clime. I prayed the prayer of Alexander Smith for this magnificent land:
"Come forth, O Light, from out the breaking East, And with thy splendor pierce the heathen dark, And morning make on continent and isle, That Thou may'st reap the harvest of Thy tears, Oh holy One that hung upon the tree!"
The road is hard and smooth. Crosses appear quite frequently, and remind us of that long disease of the land, the violent death of its people, while dead mules and asses alike remind us of the late disease of its horses and their kin.
The mountains gather close to us. The open meadows ​disappear, and the pass assumes its proper place and shape. Three miles these bases stand apart, perhaps more, perhaps less; for distances are deceptive in this clear air. The walls rise a thousand feet and over, and, being so close to us, they seem five times that height. They are black and herbless in the upper portions, but of soft outline that makes verdure no necessity. So we canter slowly, comforting our still sick mules, to the first posta, San Gregario. Leaving here, we begin to descend rapidly. Soon a point is touched from which you gaze downward at least a thousand feet, and into which bottom you could easily roll—all but the easily—by just stepping to the side of the road and putting yourself into motion at the head of the gulf. Passengers usually walk, going up or down this plunge. Our light load lets us ride. The mountains roll up on either side in mighty convolutions, capping their folds with striated columns, now parallel, now perpendicular. They are not altogether lava-like here, but their black robe begins to glow with green. The heat and some moisture of the hills bring out this life.
Down we fly into this defile, which grows more grand with every descent, until we reach the bottom of this plunge, and lift our delighted eyes upon the walls inclosing us. Getting between the banks of Niagara, if the bed were dry, would not be a dull sensation. How much more this gorge, five times at least the height of that ravine, fashioned into artistic shapes, trimmed with gay apparel, and crowned with level strata of piled-up limestone, mother of marble.
This long slide—Yankee boys would call it "coast"—comes to a halt at the hacienda of Rinconada, or Cornertown, an angle made by the mountains, which is level enough to bear culture. It is "a sweet, pretty" spot of fifty acres, poco mas y menos, with tall alamo-trees, not unlike a linden, shading its innermost and watermost corner from the intense glare pouring into this horn from that tropical sun. The breeze blows brisk, and tempers the growing heat with its warm March blasts.
A slight rise for two leagues gives us an opportunity to admire, ​and, in a few instances, to pluck, the brilliant flowers that line our path. Not much chance for the latter is afforded. Once too much, I found, was my getting out of the coach a third time, to gather, if possible, the root of a superb crimson cactus. The driver touched up his horses as I touched the ground, and seemed purposed to push on without me, although the ascent was then quite marked. But it is a law of these diligences never to stop for any thing, a law I respect, and have no desire to see abrogated or weakened. Yet these gorgeous blossoms were a temptation. Especially so were two cactuses, one a round ball, with bits of red flowers, and one a group of small and hidden balls, supporting each a large crimson cup. How can these terribly sharp balls and tubes, so full of spines, burst forth into colors so delicate and deep? For a flower is a fruit of these inner natures. Cut these bulbs, and you find them full of soft, firm, fine fibre, as of lace meshed in cream. They show that the soul of them is sweet. So some rough and thorny exteriors that are human, hide tenderest and grandest spirits. So, especially, does the thorny and self-denying life of faith and patience and sorrow burst forth into the blossoming of heaven. Other flowers abound of less grand style and color: a daisy of the tint of cream; another of yellow, streaked with brown; white daisies, larger and softer than our Northern skies produce; these stand among their cactus superiors in meek yet sweet humility.
The gorge grows in grandeur as you pass over this last ascending point, and begin a descent often leagues, almost thirty miles, to the city at its base. The sides of the cliffs are equally fantastic, now hollowed in, now rounded out, now capped with horizontal pillars, now buttressed with a bluff running a half mile out of its side, an enormous roll, but nothing to the wall it seems to support.
Soon, on the left, the steady outline is broken into three separate ranges. The first is short, not over a mile or two in length. It starts up sheer and unbroken from the bottom, a scarped wall of silver gray. On its centre and top two caps are set, of the same stratified rock, whiter than the bases below, of enormous size and ​regular shape. They look like guardsmens' hats, and well become these watchers of the vale.
The next range is not less than ten miles long, and is more varied in outline, though below, at the city, it looks so like a mitre that it bears that name. Far up its side, close at the edge of that same stratified summit, a bit of a hole lets you into a marvelous cave. But how to get to the hole is the question. It looks impossible, but a gentleman riding with me says he has done it. A safe but very steep path leads up that sheer, swart, hot wall. It was built by an American, who fell a martyr to the revolution a year ago.
The last range is before us, and back of the city, which lies hidden at its base, a huge piece, seemingly cut out of its ridge, making
SADDLE MOUNTAIN.
it look like a Mexican saddle, and hence its name of Saddle Mountain. It is a quaint feature in the scene. More quaint, however, is a hole on the opposite side. Near to the top of that ridge you see a hole clean through the face of the rock, opening to the light opposite. It looks from the valley as of the size of a hat. It is really large enough to let a yoke of oxen and their cart go through, though I have never heard of that being attempted. Whoever should attempt it would "hitch his wagon to a star," as Emerson ​advises; Charles's Wain, of course, is already thus hitched. My fellow-traveler says you can go over all the world and never see a sight like that, a hole opened through a mountain cliff. It is a hundred feet below the summit; but it is easily attained, if one seeks adventures. The hills on that side, in their ravines, show how intense is the heat; for those hollows, even up to their summits, are filled with green shrubs, and grasses, and trees. Where snow would lie in Switzerland, flowers and grasses of tropical quality grow here.
Santa Caterina is the name of the village at the base of this true "hole in the wall." In a shop in this rancho I find on the counter a picture of the Virgin, framed in tin, for sale, tin and all, for two reals. The engraving puts a crown on her head, and in its corner drawings make her alike crowned, and men her worshipers. I tried my broken Spanish on the vender, saying, "Non Maria, pero Jesu Cristo solo" (Not Mary, but Jesus Christ only). This picture is one of many proofs of the reigning idolatry; for idolatry complete it is; none more so in India. The very term, which this picture recalls, "Queen of Heaven," was the exact ascription given to Astarte, the wickedest goddess of history, lustful as Venus, wrathful as Moloch—that bottom of hell, a fallen woman. Yet her boastful title is given to the sweet, humble, modest "Mother of our Lord." How the mountain views disappear before the condition of this people, revealed in that twenty-five-cent goddess. These also shall perish; they shall not endure; they shall be wrapped together as a scroll, and melt away as these hills have here once melted and stiffened. But of the poor souls that perish here for the lack of knowledge, it is said, they shall never be destroyed—dead, lost, perhaps, but never destroyed. We should forget all sight of earth in the passion for the souls of men.
Here is one at this rancho door, whom I met with at San Gregorio, that I have hopes may yet be brought to serve this people. He is quite black, was once a slave in Kentucky, who fought in our war as a soldier, was transferred to the border at its close, and ​deserted to Mexico. He is very intelligent and comely; has good employment by the diligence company in shoeing their mules, for which he gets sixty dollars a month. He wears the wide sombrero, silver-mounted and tasteful. He is quite a favorite here, and was promised a captaincy in the last revolt if he would serve Diaz. He was born near Lexington, Kentucky, and his name is Charles Smith. His parents were Methodists, and he ought to be. He can not read or write, because of his early condition. How little his master thought that boy would be riding about in a sombrero, silver-banded and bound and gayly set off, the pet of the owners and passengers of the route.
BISHOP'S RESIDENCE, MONTEREY.
We now pass along the side of the Valley of St. Peter, a very handsome wooded and meadowed plain under the western mountains, among the wild chaparral, the terrible mixture of thorn-bushes of every sort, through which our soldiers climbed to the top of this low hill on our left, where they stormed the bishop's residence on that hill, which is now a ruin. In this charge, Lieut. Grant got his first promotion, but declined it, because another was also promoted, saying, "If Lieut.——— deserves promotion, I do not."
​The road still glides downward, amidst blossoming orchards, tall and fragrant, gardens and flower-beds, into the city, down its still slight incline to the plaza and my pleasant quarters.
The heat is intense. It is in a tunnel of mountains that draws all the rays. But the largest and coolest of the hotels of the diligence company refreshes me. This hotel concludes our sojournings of such sort; for only ranchos await us nightly between this city and the Gulf. Its wide porches, and flower-full patio, and plumed and singing birds surpass Saltillo's and all before.
It is Saturday, and the last Sunday in the country is to be passed here. A bath seems the first necessary preparative. So I go to the shop of my German co-traveler, a sombrero manufacturer, and get as near his chamber as a huge dog permits. He tells me, what I tell you, never to take a bath in this country in the afternoon. A gentleman, he says, came up from Matamoras, took a bath after his arrival, and died before the next morning. I content myself with a hand-bath, which is as good as the more formal ablutions.
This same gentleman gives me another bit of information more in the line of his business, yet having an inference wider even than a sombrero brim. He says the Mexican heads average six and three-quarters and six and seven-eighths, hatters' sizes; Americans average seven and an eighth. I had noticed the difficulty of getting hats, in the capital and elsewhere, large enough for the heads of American travelers, and called his attention to it. This fact was given in reply. That is the size of the heads of our boys at twelve. Does it mark, then, a type of civilization, and their relation to the bigger-headed and bigger-brained races of the Teuton type?
I spent the rest of the day in hunting up some of these big-headed brothers. The first I found was as small of head and body as the people among whom he dwelt. He was the missionary of the American Board, the Rev. John Beveredge, a slim, sickly gentleman, whose lungs had driven him first to South America, and then to this everlasting summer. The Master has modes to-day of scattering His apostles, and so increasing His Church, less terrible, but not less certain, than those which prevailed in the earliest ​times. Then Herod drew his sword, and the Church fled hither and yon, carrying the Word. Now He draws the sword Himself, sends piercing blasts through sensitive lungs and feeble frames; and lo! these saints fly to more genial climes, preaching the Word. Thus the Gospel gets planted in Monterey.
Miss Rankin was its real planter. She came up here from Matamoras, led by love of souls. She had gone to Brownsville, for family reasons. When there she visited Matamoras, and saw the ignorance that settled, a thick cloud, upon the people. She gathered some children into a school, and began to teach them and their elders the way of the Lord the more perfectly. She finally found herself drawn three hundred miles into the country, and Monterey became her chosen seat. She succeeded in establishing over a dozen schools and preaching places, which she supplied with native assistants. The best of bodies break down under such labors, and she had to retreat. She left her work in charge of the American and Foreign Christian Union, and they in turn transferred it to the American Board. Mr. Beveredge was superintending this work. He had several helpers, who came and heard him in the morning, and in the afternoon preached the same sermon in the villages round about. Much good was being done by these efforts. But he had his warfare in his own Protestant household.
A Baptist preacher had come thither and organized his church. He had done his work efficiently, and therefore differences had sprung up among the few and feeble Protestants. A discussion had been going forward between Messrs. Beveredge and Westrup in the form of letters, which had been collected by the former into a pamphlet, and entitled "En Cristo o en Agua" (In Christ or in Water). This title looks like begging the question. Being, as one has remarked, of "impartial bias" in this contest, I visited both meetings. About the same number, not far from twenty-five, were present at each. The Baptists held a Sunday-school, their preacher being out in the villages. After service I talked with them, and found them well watered. They were none the less good Christians for that, and none the more. One lady walked my way ​homeward. I conversed with her in my broken Spanish, and found her a Close-communion Baptist of the first water. Some complained of this contest. But I went into a Roman Church, and heard the most eloquent preacher I had seen in the country, declaiming with great passion to a crowded house against Protestantism. Mr. Beveredge told me he was very active and violent in his opposition. This conflict of creeds caused his zeal. It showed that somebody in that city was interested in other forms of Christian faith. These despised sects were like two dogs, who might trot along the streets in equal contempt and neglect; but if they stopped and began to fight, a ring was instantly formed, a crowd interested, and the dogs themselves arise in dog rank in their own judgment and in those of their enemies. So Protestantism is growing in and by its own internal and fraternal feuds.
There is need enough of it. The Sabbath is the best business day of the week. The churches, save where the inflammatory priest preaches, are deserted of men, and well-nigh of women. There is no spiritual life in all the people. Surely any breathing is better than death.
In the heart of the town is a fountain of rare abundance, clearness, and sweetness. The Eye of the Town it is called, and those who drink of it, it is said, can never get away from the city. It was near midnight, and the coach was to start in three hours; but I risked it, drank, and got away. It was delicious enough, though, to make me long for it still, and may yet bring me back to its lip.
The Alameda of this city is not equal in rural beauty to that of Saltillo, but as it is the last we shall see, it is not unworthy of praise. Nor is it unworthy in itself. A walled park, with drives, shrubbery, trees, and flowers, well kept, it is one of the loveliest of its sort I have seen. It will be a new and improved era when all our cities have such pretty drives and gardens.
ALAMEDA, MONTEREY.
the scene of such military settlements of political quarrels. That blotted wall bespeaks another trait of the city. It is a fertile field for revolutions.
The air of Monterey was full of revolution. Diaz had held out a year against the government of Juarez and Lerdo, and many were looking and longing for another outbreak. This does not propose to take the old form, but to follow that of Texas: "Independence and Annexation." But Texas warns them that that is submission to the American; and they hesitate, and will. Better work their destiny out in their own lives and language under the guidance of the American faith.