# Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans/Chapter 12

Layout 4
Table of contents
XII.
CITY OF MEXICO.
LEFT standing in the station, after all the passengers had departed, no coach within hail, and with no one speaking my native tongue to advise me, I knew not which way, nor how, to go. Looking about for some straw to catch at, that might float me perchance into a comfortable hotel, I saw a group of people taking leave of some would-be passengers by the return train for the coast. Drawing near them, keeping one eye on my gun-cases and trunks, I soon ascertained that they spoke English, and were moreover Americans. Suddenly there came to my ears a familiar expression,—"O yes, I 'm right along in the procession!"—and I said to myself, "My gracious! there is Hooper." Now everybody in Mexico knows Hooper,—from his frequent visits, from his facility for making acquaintance, from his jolly good nature, and his entire willingness to impart information. In truth, I have known Hooper to convey to an unsuspicious stranger intelligence of such a character as made the hair of that individual bristle with horror; and then, again, I have known him to talk so hopefully (to ladies) about the beauty, the loveliness, and the perfect security in which life and property rejoiced in Mexico, that they would declare their determination to do the country on foot and unprotected. But then it depended altogether upon what kind of information you wanted. Hooper always gave you just what you desired; you had only to tell him where you were going, and he would contrive so many and such varied delights for that place as to fairly ravish you with joy. If you wanted a gold mine in proximity to picturesque scenery, there you had it; if you wanted to slay a brigand on the road, it was just infested with them,— ​not too many for comfort, but enough to furnish a spice of adventure and satisfy your appetite for blood; but if you were at all timid, and abhorred the thought of bloodshed, why that road was just a walk-over, there was not a robber within one hundred miles.
Well, in short, there was Hooper, just as lively as when I last left him on board ship, and with a host of friends down to see him off. The reception he gave me was most cordial, for Hooper is from Buncombe County, and he at once dragged me up and introduced me to his party of friends. In five minutes, it was arranged that I was to occupy the room he had just vacated at the hotel; I was introduced and consigned to the landlady thereof, and as comfortably settled as if I had known them a century. The train rolled out, bearing the generous-hearted Hooper, and his friends took me in charge and led the way to the hotel.
It is not always that one so easily effects an entrance into a strange city in a new country. The room assigned me was one after my own heart, a walled-off corner of a house-top, commanding a wide-spread view of stone-walls and roofs, and of the entire valley of Mexico. Moreover there was, right within a stone's throw, the grand cathedral, and the plaza that had been once adorned with the more ancient temple of the Aztecs. I was landed right in the centre of historic Mexico, in a position most favorable for studying and enjoying it, without previous care or wearisome house-hunting. Surely, it seems sometimes as though it were always best to drift with the stream, when once launched upon it. Gathering here my various "traps" about me, I intrenched myself in this stronghold, purposing to sally forth and attack the city leisurely, as Cortés did, putting behind me a portion at a time, till all should be conquered.
My room, as I have said, was secluded, on the roof. There was no other here, and access to it was by a single stairway, through the kitchen and servants' quarters. A single door and window gave abundant light and air; but there were also two small square holes,—one through the door and one through the thick stone wall. These were closed by means of sliding ​shutters. Their use was a matter of doubt to me, and I asked a friend their meaning. Then he explained: they were loopholes; I could convert my room into a regular block-house and stand a siege. My friend told me why the room had been loop-holed. When Hooper was here, some thief came and stole a fine revolver, then he came again and took away the holster, and a few nights later carried off the cartridges. Hooper was very wroth at this, though a moment's reflection would have convinced him that no thief who thought anything of himself would care for a revolver without holster or cartridges. But Hooper got angry, though he could never get sight of the robber, and various articles disappeared from time to time.
This was during a former visit of Hooper's to Mexico, two years ago. A lady was the next occupant of this room,—a woman of nerve and determination; she had the walls loop-holed, had a bell-rope, telephone, etc. attached, and calmly, awaited the robber.
He came; he shook the door gently, and tried to get it open; but this lady was ready for him. She opened fire at once, jingled the bell, and shouted through the telephone, and then sallied out, intending to surround the robber and capture him, with the aid of the party that was to come up the stairs to her rescue. During all this time she was letting off her revolver in a rather aimless way, and so the rescuing party halted beneath the stairs and inquired what she wanted. By the time they found out, after prudently waiting till her stock of ammunition was exhausted, they also found that the robber had escaped.
Information of such a character was calculated to increase my interest in the room, and to assure me of an acquaintance with a trait of Mexican character not at all desirable.
From the peculiar manner of construction of the buildings of the city of Mexico, with solid walls and flat stone roofs, all connected, a person can walk from one end of a block to the other—barring such interruptions as that lady purposed to offer—without any trouble whatever. The houses of the city are built in squares, or blocks, called manzanas 200 varas, or ​660 feet, in length. The Hispano-Moriscan style of architecture is the same throughout the country, and gives to every city and town a resemblance to every other, with wide paved streets crossing each other at right angles and terminating in a great square in the centre. The houses, massively built, of stone, are also all after the same pattern. From the street, through a great doorway, closed at night by a barred and bolted door studded with nails, you enter the patio, or lower court, flagged with stone and surrounded by the stables and servants' quarters. This door is rarely wide open for free ingress and. egress, but is loosely chained, and strictly guarded by the portero, who occupies a little room on the ground floor. This court is open to the sky, and above it are usually two ranges of living and sleeping rooms, with corridors in front, ornamented with tasteful iron balustrades, gay with flowers and vines, and sometimes cooled by the waters of a plashing fountain. Except in a house occupying a corner lot, only one wall opens upon the street, and the windows of this are well guarded with iron bars, and closely curtained; so from the outside world the families are as strictly secluded as the inmates of a prison or convent. Air, light, and sunshine they obtain from above the court, and pass their days among themselves in négligé and careless freedom. Above the apartments just mentioned is the roof-top,—the azotea,—terraced, like the roof-tops of the Orient. Here the family gather at evening time to enjoy the cool breezes, the quiet, and the gleaming stars of night.
Seated upon the azotea, with cool breezes playing about you, the hum of busy life in the plaza and streets coming up from below, and with soft moonlight flooding the sea of roofs on every side,—this is the time and place to bring up again the spectres of the dead and departed conquistadores.
​and Iztaccihuatl, and from the western slope of these twin mountains first beheld the stronghold of Montezuma. The sequel is of course well known to all,—that they descended to the plains below and marched towards the great lake surrounding the capital, where they were received with magnificence by Montezuma and his nobles; entered the city, where they remained several months; treacherously made captive the great and generous monarch, who was subsequently slain in an insurrection of his people; and were at length driven with great slaughter from the valley. Their entry was on the 8th of November, 1519; their expulsion, in July of the next year. Near the pyramids of Otumba, or San Juan, they were overtaken by the enraged Indians, escaping by a miracle to Tlascala, whence, after months of recuperating, and with reinforcements, they returned to the investment of the city of Mexico, in December, 1520, finally capturing it in August, 1521.
The ancient capital disappeared, for the Spaniards only took it house by house, and stone by stone, tearing down temples and palaces and filling up the canals with the débris; but many places remain that were identified with the conquest and with the Aztecs, and which are fully authenticated. In entering the city for the purpose of observation we naturally turn our footsteps toward the plaza mayor, the great central square, for it was also the centre of the former city, and indicates the site of the Aztec teocalli, or temple of sacrifice. Recent excavations made in the summer of 1881 have brought to light the very corner stones of this sacred edifice, and have thus vindicated the statements of early historians.
According to the best authorities, this building was a pyramidal structure, truncate, built in successive stories, each of which was reached by a flight of steps only after passing around the entire pyramid. One hundred and fourteen steps led to the square platform at the summit, about one hundred and fifty feet above the ground. This was the temple of their war-god, Mexitili, or Huitzilopochtli, and their place of sacrifice. This heathen temple was razed, and on its site, in 1530, was built a church, which was demolished in 1573 and the ​present cathedral commenced, which was finished in 1667, at a total expense little short of $2,000,000. It occupies the eastern side of the great plaza, is of the shape of a cross, 426 feet long, 200 wide, and 175 feet high, with massive towers reaching an altitude of 200 feet. Joined to it is a sister church, the Sagrario, or church of the parish, the florid and almost grotesque façade of which forms a decided contrast with the grand and imposing front of the cathedral. Until very recently, these were enclosed by a line of chains hung between about one hundred stone posts, the two corner pillars opposite the plaza supporting a cross with a ghastly emblem of death at its base,—a skull skilfully carved from marble, and an entwined serpent. This enclosure, which was a favorite resort of the bird-sellers, Indians with light wares for sale, leperos, and beggars, has been converted into an attractive garden. Many a time have I seen groups of dirty men and women of the proletarians crouched at the bases of these pillars,—not in worship or adoration, but engaged in threading with their bony fingers one another's hair, in eager search for that hemipterous insect so rarely seen except on the filthiest of the human species.
​amethysts, rubies, and sapphires. The statue of the Assumption (now missing) was of gold, ornamented with diamonds, and is said to have cost $1,090,000. There was a golden lamp, valued at $70,000, which it cost at one time $1,000 to clean, but according to a French writer,—and the joke is his,—the liberal troops cleaned it out for nothing, and it has not been seen since. These treasures are merely enumerated as having once been here, for it is difficult to believe that they still occupy a place in the dazzling mass of gilding and ornament surrounding altar and choir, in a country that has passed through such trial and revolution as has Mexico. But these and much more existed, and were accumulated when bishop, priest, and monk ruled the country with a rod of iron, and possessed two thirds the entire wealth of the nation.
Enter at any time, and you may see some kneeling figure, it may be of a rich and beautiful Señora, with the purest of Castilian blood in her veins, or a miserable Indian just in from the country, with a load of vegetables, or even a coop of struggling chickens, still at his back. During the crowded attendance on feast-days and at other times, rich and poor, cleanly and filthy ones, mingle indiscriminately, and then the leperos, while pretending to great devotion, find it easy to relieve the wealthier members of society of their purses and handkerchiefs.
One day, when first in Mexico, Cortes ascended to the top of the teocalli, and Montezuma, taking him by the hand, pointed out to him the various parts of the city. In like manner, let us ascend the cathedral tower and look over the selfsame valley, from nearly the same height and point of view occupied by the Spanish conqueror and the Aztec emperor. "This is a royal place," says Bishop Haven, "to see this royal city. Never had town such grand environment. Athens has mountains and sea, but scanty plains; Rome, plains, but no water, and low-browed hills; Jerusalem, mountains, but no plains nor sea. . . . The city lies all about us, its limits being equidistant in every ​direction. Its flat roofs extend for a mile, domed with spacious churches."
Says a celebrated French traveller: "Mexico is a grand city, in the Spanish style, with an air more inspiring, more majestic, more metropolitan, than any city of Spain except Madrid, crowned by numerous towers, and surrounded by a vast plain bounded by mountains. Mexico reminds one somewhat of Rome. Its long streets, broad, straight, and regular, give it an appearance like Berlin. It has some resemblance to Naples and Turin, yet with a character of its own. It makes one think of various cities of Europe, while it differs from all of them. It recalls all, repeats none."
"The second day," says Mr. Ward, England's former Minister to Mexico, "made converts of us all; in the course of it we visited most of the central parts of the town, and, after seeing the great plaza, the cathedral, the palace, and the noble streets which communicate with them, we were forced to confess, not only that Humboldt's praises did not exceed the truth, but that amongst the various capitals of Europe there were few that could support with any advantage a comparison with Mexico."
​from, the plaza mayor,—some broad and some narrow, but all paved and straight, and lined with high buildings of stone. The structures themselves are built mainly of tetzontli a porous amygdaloid of dark color obtained from ancient quarries near the city, which, as it unites firmly with mortar, is more in request than any other for the buildings of the capital.
The cathedral occupying the northern side of the square, we have on our left, forming the entire eastern boundary of the plaza, the great national palace, over twenty-eight hundred feet long, and containing an infinite number of rooms. In a portion of this building—which is said to occupy the site of the ancient palace of Montezuma, or rather of Axayacatl, his royal sire, one room of which held three thousand persons—is situated the meteorological observatory, conducted by eminent scientific men. It is likely to be of great use to the scientific world; for, remember, we are here elevated some seven thousand feet nearer the heavens than in Greenwich or Washington; the air is consequently clearer, the stars brighter, and the moon and planets larger, than there. Add to this the fact—which must have been already observed—that there are no chimneys here, no smoke, and little dust, and we can imagine the perfect transparency of the pure ether through which these meteorologists and their brothers, the astronomers of the School of Mines and Chapultepec, gaze upon the other worlds outside of ours. Several companies of soldiers are constantly quartered here, who are paraded in front of the palace every morning as the clock strikes eight. Though sentinels stand guard at every portal, free access may be had to all portions of the great building upon application, and the admirer of relics of defunct imperialism may, for a real, look upon the state coach of Maximilian, yet preserved as a useless curiosity. The palace is the official residence of the President of the nation, and contains the offices of himself and his ministers and military commanders, and also the treasure of the nation and its archives.
In the botanical garden attached to the palace is a curious plant, called el arbol de las manitos, the tree of the little hands. It is the Cheirostemon platanifolium of the botanists, and the ​Tzapalilqui-Xochitl of the ancient Aztecs, one of whose kings went to war with another petty monarch to obtain possession of it. It bears a beautiful red flower, the centre of which is in the form of a hand, with the fingers a little bent inward. Only three trees of the kind are said to exist in all Mexico, two in the botanical garden, and one (the mother plant) in the mountains of Toluca.
Directly opposite the cathedral, at the southern side of the plaza, is the municipal palace, supported, like the buildings bounding the greater portion of the western, upon the picturesque portales, or arcades,—a feature in the architecture of the public buildings of this country, as we have seen in Yucatan. Here the tide of human life flows at the full; every available corner is occupied by some huckster, beggar, or pedler, and all the native products of the land are displayed for sale outside and in the adjacent shops. Everything manufactured in Mexico is before us here, from a sombrero, with a brim a yard wide, loaded with silver, and costing fifty dollars, to a sarape, or Mexican blanket, of gay colors, and equally expensive.
Lifting our eyes from the scene of animation spread below, and letting them wander over the stone walls that surround us on every side, like a coral plain rent into chasms, we note another verdant square to the westward. This is the alameda the forest garden of Mexico, which is older than the zocalo, and has larger trees, finer flowers, grander fountains, and more elaborate walks and garden plots. Here the good citizen of Mexico resorts at least once a day for a walk, the nurse with her charge, and the omnipresent policeman, the student with his book, and the lawyer with his client. This most charming spot, where once apostates were punished with fire,—for heretics were burned here by the Inquisition,—is but the beginning of the city westward and southwestward, towards the hills that approach the valley from that direction.
Letting our gaze wander on, we look beyond the brown plains and green fields, intersected by lines of trees, roads, and aqueducts, and dotted with the white walls of scattered villages,—beyond all these, to the hills that enclose us on every side. It ​is a view too grand for simple description, too vast, even, for an artist to grasp and depict on a single canvas; and I hesitate to attempt more than separate portions of it at a time.
We occupy the central portion of a valley in the Cordilleras of Anahuac, fifty-five miles in length by thirty in breadth, and enclosed by a wall of mountains two hundred miles in circumference. This rugged barrier circumscribes our view in every direction; amethystine hills of lovely hue, without a break or change in color except far to the southeast, where the two great volcanoes raise their snow-covered peaks to heaven. Between us and them is spread every variety of surface that ever rejoiced the eye of an admirer of nature, in the hills crested with groves, the plains and valleys gemmed with lucent lakes. The great Lake Tezcoco, which formerly surrounded the city, lies now at a distance of three miles from it, sleeping in the sunshine, with the haze of distance enwrapping its farther shore. This is the salt-water lake; farther south are the fresh-water bodies of Xochimilco and Chalco. The hills nearest us are those at the base of which the church and chapel of Guadalupe are built on the north, and of Chapultepec, lying to the west. Both points are historic, the one in the comparatively modern days of the conquest, the other in its connection with ancient peoples and scenes of recent days.
In looking over this vast valley, and the wide area of denuded meadows that surrounds the city, we cannot avoid the conviction that the early chronicles were truthful in their descriptions of Mexico as having been built upon an island. Various doubters have affected to disbelieve this fact, even though every proof is present that the surroundings could afford, aside from the statements of many writers. The Aztec chronicles state that they made their permanent stay on an island, or group of islands, northeast of Chapultepec, and the writings of the Spaniards who were eyewitnesses to the events attending the destruction of the old city and the founding of the new positively assert that both were upon an island intersected ​by canals. The circumstances attending the entry of the Spaniards are narrated at length by Bernal Diaz. After descending the mountains and passing through Amecameca and Chalco, they skirted Lake Tezcoco by the base of the line of hills southeast of the city, and approached from the direction of Lake Chalco. After having been met by Montezuma in great state, with his nobles, they were conducted to the city. "We then set forward," says the old soldier, "on the road to Mexico, which was crowded with multitudes of the natives, and arrived at the causeway of Iztapalapa, which leads to the capital. When we beheld the number of populous towns on the water and firm ground, and that broad causeway running straight and level to the city, we could compare it to nothing but the enchanted scenes we had read of in 'Amadis of Gaul,' from the great tower and temples, and other edifices of lime and stone which seem to rise out of the water."
Humboldt says that the ancient city communicated with the continent by the three great dikes of Tepejacac (Guadalupe). Tlacopan (Tacuba), and Iztapalapa. Cortes mentions four dikes, because he reckoned, without doubt, the aqueduct (and causeway) which led to Chapultepec. To simplify the position, imagine a causeway reaching the city from the southeast, another leading out of it to the north, and another west, besides the aqueduct to Chapultepec (a little south of west), which may have been built upon another causeway.
​inundation. It has passed through several floods, the severest of which was that of 1629, which great inundation lasted till 1634; boats passed through the streets as of old, and, though the most holy image of the Virgin of Guadalupe was brought into the city for the purpose of drying up the waters, it was a long while before they subsided, and chiefly through the influence of earthquakes. At the corner of the street of San Francisco and the Callejon del Espiritu Santo—Alley of the Holy Ghost,—there is the golden head of a lion, grim and dumb, that marks the height, about six feet, reached by the waters in 1629.
There was a physical cause for these periodical floods in the comparative levels of the city and the lakes that occupy a goodly portion of the valley of Tenochtitlan, or Mexico. In the Plaza de Armas you may find to-day a monument (that was only unveiled in the summer of 1881) to one of Mexico's great hydrographers, containing on its four sides the heights of the lakes of the valley, the stage of the water in Lake Tezcoco, and other information of a hydrographic nature. There are six of these lakes;—Chalco and Xochimilco, the southernmost, whose levels are ten feet above that of Tezcoco, the largest and nearest, but six feet below the pavement of the city at ordinary stages of water; San Christobal, a small lake north of Tezcoco, and Xaltocan and Zumpango, in the northern end of the valley, at an elevation of twenty-five feet above the city. In order to save the city, it was considered necessary to divert the waters of Lake Zumpango—which flowed into Tezcoco, a lake without an outlet, and were a perpetual menace to the capital—in another direction, through the mountain wall ​that enclosed the valley, into the River Montezuma, which empties eventually into the Gulf of Mexico. A great tunnel was commenced, in 1607, with 1500 Indians, and completed within a year, its length being more than 6,600 metres (21,650 feet). The falling in of the tunnel was the cause of the great inundations that submerged the city, and attempts were made to convert it into a trench; but this latter undertaking was not finished until 1789, nearly two centuries after its commencement.
The great trench is from 30 to 160 feet in depth, and in some places 300 feet broad, and is known as the Desagüe de Huehuetoca, or the Tajo (Cut) de Nochistongo. Instead of carrying away the waters of the lower lakes, the great canal only drained Zumpango and a river which was diverted into it, leaving Tezcoco and Chalco unaffected directly by the drainage. It, however, relieved the city from apprehension regarding the danger that would have resulted from a sudden overflow of the upper lake into Tezcoco; and by taking away the main ​tributary of the latter, in conjunction with its great evaporation, its area has been greatly diminished, so that, instead of surrounding the city as in former days, its nearest shore is three miles from it, measuring from the plaza.
For three hundred years the sewers of the city have attempted to discharge into the lake; and though the latter has gone on evaporating all this while, yet the flow of filth has never ceased, and the level of the lake still remains but six feet below that of the city. The sewers are constantly charged; beneath the pavement of the city of Mexico is the accumulated filth of near five hundred years! As a consequence, despite the rarity of the atmosphere at this high altitude, malaria spreads itself upon the air, and fevers of a mild type prevail here.
Numberless plans have been submitted to the government for draining the lake and relieving the city of its surcharge of corruption; some have been accepted, but none have been attempted, though a fund for the purpose was started years and years ago. A wealthy American company was the latest to bid for this contract, and even went so far as to obtain a liberal concession from Congress and the Executive. Through the city of Mexico, by this plan, sewers are to be constructed flushed by the waters from the lakes, which are carried to a common conduit, where the sewage is purified by deposition, the solid matter to be used for fertilization and the water carried away in the canal. The whole length of the canal would be about fifty miles, the expense about $7,000,000.
Having now a period of peace and prosperity, with a friendly nation kindly building all her railroads necessary to develop internal commerce, Mexico will undoubtedly turn her attention to the purification of her capital, that it may become in future years the Mecca of pilgrims in search of health, as well as of those looking for magnificent scenery.
* ↑ A manzana is a square measure of 100 x 100 yards.
* ↑ "The teocalli was in ruins a few years after the siege of Tenochtitlan, which, like that of Troy, ended in the almost total destruction of the city."—Humboldt.
* ↑ See Frontispiece, for an accurate engraving of Anahuac, or the historic Valley of Mexico.
* ↑ The curious reader will find many particulars of historic information, such as dates of arrival of the tribes which successively invaded the valley of Mexico, etc., in the author's "Young Folks' History of Mexico," the later edition of which is carefully indexed.
* ↑ Written Tezcoco, or Texcoco, and pronounced Tesh-có-co
* ↑ The city itself has been seven times inundated, in 1446, 1553, 1580, 1604,1607, 1617, 1629; and five times partially submerged, in 1620, 1630, 1748, 1819, and 1865.