# Mexico, picturesque, political, progressive/Glimpses of a New World

CHAPTER II
GLIMPSES OF A NEW WORLD
​A feeling of repose and coolness, in delicious contrast to the dusty, glaring, adobe-lined streets outside, stole pleasantly through our travel-worn senses; and one remembered with new pleasure the sentiment of Longfellow in his lines to Mad River, —
"Do you not know that what is best In all this restless world is rest From turmoil and from worry?"
Before the Governor's Palace a brace of trumpeters ushered noon in with a blare of silver bugles; in the market-place the fruit-venders were selling baskets of Indian straw with a hundred oranges for seventy-five cents, and tropical fruits of every description from the agricultural districts on the other side of the hills. The air was hot, but pleasant, always delightful in the shade; and between the months of November and April the changes in temperature had been only fifteen to seventeen degrees. If a stirring, competent Northern company should take it into their heads to build a good hotel, and utilize the mineral waters and superb climate, there is no reason why Aguas Calientes should not become one of the ​great health resorts of the world. It only needs enterprise and steadfastness, — two qualities not uncommon in the East or West of our own country.
Leon, a city of seventy-five thousand or a hundred thousand people, better supplied with water from the numerous wells, and therefore more beautiful with trees and shade, is extremely interesting, as showing the immense stride which steady employment of any form enables the people to make. Almost every house has its hand-loom, worked as in the old scriptural times, — heavy, cumbrous, and slow, but capable of producing wonderfully good results. One part of the city is given to the manufacture of zarapes, the other to that of rebosos. As nine-tenths of the population wear one or the other, the industry is well established. Although one sees telegraph-wires and telephones, sewing-machines and street-cars, even gas and electric lights, the people still cling to the old-fashioned methods of hand-work. How the amount of time and labor represented can be afforded for the small amount asked for the wares, is hard to understand. We found here, also, some good forms of pottery in the market-place. The ​beautiful Calzado — a triple avenue of magnificent trees, floored with broad red flagstones, and lined with low hedges of orange-trees in fruit and blossom — was a delightful promenade. Figs, pomegranates, and oleanders, of larger size than those even of California, made every inch of ground beautiful, and the warm air was sweet with fragrance.
In the streets here we began to see the mantilla, — the graceful black scarf, either of lace or fine wool, which is pinned over the hair and allowed to fall loosely above the shoulders. The women of all grades have an erect and graceful carriage. The dress for the street among the better classes is almost uniformly black; the Indian women wear any and every thing, but usually an embroidered white chemise and colored cotton skirt, surmounted by the inevitable blue reboso. The large market-place, with its collection of cool arches, and great splashing fountains in the centre, is always an attraction. Green pease, fresh fruits, young beets, small tomatoes, and potatoes the size of marbles, were spread about in what seemed to us interminable confusion, but which no doubt had a method of its own. We could forgive much to a ​place where we could buy roses in bunches as large as one's head for six-and-a-quarter cents.
The plazas were gorgeous with flowers, and on one side street we found a theatre which read us a moral lesson, — a fine edifice of stone, with a great open vestibule sixty feet square as entrance, filled with flower-beds, a fountain in the centre, and domed with glass, into which opened the wide galleries by four separate flights of broad stone steps. Behind every group of eight seats a latticed door gave egress to the gallery on each of the four stories, so that no possible panic could produce more than a momentary result.
Beyond Leon, the mountains, which for some fifty miles had been receding, begin to advance again abruptly. Beautiful with dusky lights and purple shadows, rising majestically into the pure, deep sky, with fertile plains under high cultivation, and groves of magnificent trees, the country has all the elements of great loveliness in its every-day aspect. Soon the hills fall away again, the perfectly flat fields return, and the track begins to wind about the steeply climbing grade which leads to Silao. The organ cactus, a kind of green New-England fence-paling continued upwards to a height ​of twenty or thirty feet, becomes more and more common, making almost the only division between the small fields of the natives; another cactus, tree-shaped and brutally ugly, begins to appear in groves, very repulsive, and with leprous-looking bulbs of pale blossoms on the ends of the spiked, fleshy leaves. Along the sides of the narrow-gauge road leading from the main line to Marfil, whence tram-cars lead to Guanajuata, mines begin to dot the mountain-sides, and the quiet hurry of a Mexican business district creeps into the scene. The roads become alive with herds of burros laden with every product of tropic or temperate zone, and shambling solemnly, earnestly, lopearedly, toward the distant market town.
Quaintest spot and most delightful in the wide world! The little city of Guanajuato — may its name be written in letters of gold! — has succeeded in charming away the small remnant of common-sense which Mexico has left us. Squalor and poverty, open sewers and the highest death-rate on the continent, were powerless to dim its delightsomeness. A walled city among the mountains, a fortified place set upon the side of heights so steep that the houses seem to be ​fastened to the rock rather than resting on it, and that a misstep on the dizzy uppermost level of the narrow, high-pitched streets would precipitate the unlucky one into the midst of some plaza three or four hundred feet below. A lovely, bewildering spot, full of lanes and archways, and winding, twisted market-places; with a rabble of picturesque people, selling every oddity under the sun, and a screen of matting; with a crossing and interlacing of narrow, paved ways, which give at every ten steps the effect of a kaleidoscope, with a vista of infinite beauty and novelty at each turning. The upper balconies of the many really beautiful houses were gay with bright awnings and marvellous flowers; the old church of the Jesuits was magnificent in fine arches of soft, pink stone, and wonderful carvings fine as strips of lace-work; the overhanging hills toppled against the deep blue sky wherever one turned, and through a hundred different arches, some vision of softly frescoed, slender-pillared inner courts, bright with blossoms and fresh with greenery, flashed out, no matter how swiftly one passed. From the flat roof of the castle or citadel, where long ago the beloved head of the ​patriot Hidalgo was perched, ghastly and gory, on the scene of his first triumph, a most exquisite view of the city was to be had. The celebrated reduction works of the fifty mines, which have made the place rich as well as beautiful, — great massive, fortress-like structures of gray stone, perched here and there, far up the mountain-sides, with masses of buttresses and arches and loop-holed, stern walls, — filled the background of each picture, look which way one would. Underneath, and around, and above, — for, high as it was, the climbing city climbed higher still, — the fine network of paved streets ran between softly colored masses of buildings, some like pale green malachite, some of delicate pink, some of deep red sandstone, some of creamy white. The amphitheatre of the bull-ring was just beneath us; a large pottery, where immense piles of red glazed ware caught the sun's rays like so many mounds of rubies, was next; the small flower - decked plazas shone like emeralds. It was a collection of precious things.
​Such a mixture of commodities running through every class of merchandise, such a strange grouping of effects, such mingling of sharp cries and liquid voices and strange noises, with the chant of the young boys singing in the prison chapel above all, and the deep, wonderful sky looking down to listen! While we were in the plaza, a beautiful flight of birds, a thousand swift-winged atoms, with a dash of warm red on the dark breasts, wheeled and dipped and rose through the clear air with a rhythm of motion that set the scene to music, and so I desire to remember it.
Into this ravishing spot we were whirled without any more warning than the corners of a few sharp mountains spurs could give us; by one of the fiery little mule tram-cars, that tore at a swinging gallop up four miles of steep hillside, around curves as sharp as a thin woman's elbow, with a swarthy conductor blowing his horn like a bronze Triton on the front platform. It was partly its unexpectedness that charmed, and we forgive even the smells of its carceleria for the delight it brought us.
Still the East and always the East! The marvellous resemblance between this tropical world ​and the Orient is a constantly new surprise. The sandalled feet, the white garments, the bright wrappings, the public fountains, the walled streets and roads, the low, flat houses, the stone balconies, the deep sky, the dark, grave, silent people! Yesterday, at the hotel of Zacetano, the landlady under the upper arches of the inner court clapped her hands thrice, and a dark-eyed muchacho came noiselessly to her side, received her message, and sped away again through the shadows as silently as if he were a shadow himself. For the outer world and the street, there is the blank wall, the grated window, the bolted door; inside, for the household, the sunny courtyard gay with fountains and flowers, the large open arches throwing grateful shadows over vast, cool rooms, the cordial family life with its treasures hidden from the prying eyes of the multitude. Street-criers calling their wares; fruit-sellers with great trays of luscious unknown sweetness upon their heads; water-carriers with earthen jars slung across the backs of shaggy donkeys; the strange, soft, liquid tones of a foreign language, — is it all near our own land and our own people? Is it not Damascus or Syria, or Constantinople, with the muezzin ​ready to call to prayer from the gallery of the mosque, and the wandering venders crying through the narrow lanes, "First blush of the hillsides, oh, strawberries!" Out on the haciendas the laborers draw water from shallow wells by means of a long pole balanced across two high-forked sticks, and furnished with a bucket at one end. Poured into the narrow furrows which divide all the land into garden-beds, the water flows at will wherever irrigation is required. The farmer ploughs with a primitive implement that is little more than a sharply pointed stick, fastened to the horns of his oxen by an equally primitive arrangement of ropes. The great lumbering wagons, whether made of wood or of closely joined stems of cactus, roll on solid, cumbrous wheels made from a single round of a tree-trunk, and fashioned into shape by hard labor. The bronze-skinned, bare-legged beggar dozing against some crumbling corner of a white adobe wall; the mule-teams with jingling bells, clattering harness, and shouting driver; the horsemen dashing across the glaring plains, swarth and picturesque in their brilliant riding-scarfs, — what is there to remind us of the staid, sober American life, as ugly as it is comfortable? ​It is all Oriental, even to the barking dogs that howl through the dark streets by night to quicken the footsteps of the wayfarer.
Now and again, amid this bewilderment of romantic effects, some fine example of practical prosperity is found, as in the Industrial School of Guadelupe, a suburb of Zacatecas. This institution was designed for the training of orphan boys, and is supplied with the means necessary for turning out finished workmen in any one of sixteen different trades. The two hundred and seventy pupils are given a good common-school education, together with practical instruction which places the means of livelihood in their hands from the moment of leaving school. Masons, bootmakers, tailors, printers, farmers, carpenters, telegraph operators, were being here prepared for active life, under care of the Government; a primary department, a school for the deaf and dumb, and a general training in music, also entered into the programme of the institution; and the plan as a whole was in such successful and happy operation, as made it the most satisfactory proof of promise for the future we had yet met in Mexico. The children's faces were bright and animated: ​employment invariably lifts the people out of the sad and resigned aspect which otherwise seems habitual to them. Indeed, a very short time in the country is sufficient to convince one of the falsity of American views regarding it. We have heard of the people as lazy, which is an absolute mistake. They are often idle from want of occupation; but where idleness may be only a question of circumstances, laziness is an inherent vice. They are not only ready for employment, but anxious to procure it. They work with an earnestness and honesty that shame our slovenly Northern laborers, whose chief anxiety seems to be to accomplish the smallest amount in a given time. Digging in the fields, carrying water, bearing burdens, the Mexicans work without ears, eyes, or concern for aught save the object in hand: they spare themselves no more than if they were burros or horses. We were told that they were dirty, and their towns filthy. We found them dirty, as regards personal cleanliness, in towns like Chihuahua and Zacatecas, where water has to be dipped with a gourd from the basin of a stone fountain, with scores awaiting their turn, or bought from a carrier. But in ​Aguas Calientes, where the warm waters which give the place its name run through the ditches, the population was constantly bathing, or washing clothes; and there was no suspicion of uncleanliness. Under the circumstances, a similar leaning toward dirt would be found among our own poor people; while the bath of the rich Mexican is as much a necessity as his morning coffee. The bare, poor houses and narrow cobble-paved streets are always perfectly clean. Every city of any size in the republic is swept each morning with whisk-brooms and dust-pans. Imagine New-York's Broadway or Boston's Washington Street subjected to a like process! But there is unfortunately absolutely no knowledge of sanitary conditions to supplement this fine wholesome sweeping away of abuses. Drainage and health departments are yet in swaddling-clothes. We have been warned about their thieving propensities, and the ingenuity of their devices to obtain unlawful possession of others' goods and chattels. After visiting twenty cities, and wandering at will through strange and crowded quarters; after displaying in market-place and arcade sums of money, which, though small enough in themselves, ​were relatively large to these primitive people, we have yet to find the first instance of cheating or of theft. Not only this, but some examples of most stubborn and improbable honesty have appeared in our own set of experiences, which in a party of seventy-five must be reasonably large. Is New York or Chicago, where the inhabitants are obliged to chain door-mats to steps, and fasten burglar-alarms to windows, where pickpockets throng the city thoroughfares, and shoplifters prowl about counters under the dazed eyes of detectives, — is New York going to throw the first stone? Or Boston, where sneak-thieves snatch weekly washings from the lines in back yards, and a bundle left for sixty seconds on the seat of a horse-car is gone from sight forever, as completely as the lost Pleiad? Why should we point a blunt moral in Mexico, which could be given a sharper tip in any large city of our own beloved Union?
Every thing unforeseen is possible here. We are walking through the days that follow the Arabian Nights. Each class of the population wears the garb which is the uniform of its occupation. The water-carrier, in armor of leather, bears ​his heavy jar suspended from a band around the forehead; the ochre-man, stained like a terra-cotta image from head to foot, carries his package of brick-colored clay above his matted, gory locks; the fruit-vender, crying his luscious wares in sudden, shrill monotone, balances his enormous pannier on his head, and steps as airily as if he were beginning a fandango. Under the open arches of the portales the crockery merchant sits before his pile of Guadalajara jars and brightly glazed pottery; Indian women carry their double load of baskets and babies with the superb indifference to fatigue which marks their race; dealers in "frozen waters" call their sherbets in prolonged, piercing notes like those of a midsummer locust; sidewalk cooks squat on their haunches beside small fires of mesquite, over which bubble earthen dishes of stewed vegetables, frijoles, or crisp tortillas; and flower-girls surrounded by piles of glowing poppies, pyramids of heliotrope and pansies, baskets of scarlet cactus blossoms, and tangled heaps of superb roses magnificent in color and perfume, fill the atmosphere with brilliant beauty. No wonder the winter world at home looks pale and cold by contrast! ​We shall remember Irapuato with love and delight, when the memory of perhaps better places has faded, because there, one hot, dusty midsummer afternoon of March, we bought Indian baskets of woven grass full of luscious strawberries, and reached refreshment and coolness through the base medium of dos reales, vulgarly known as a quarter. The state of business enterprise in the country may be gauged from the fact, that while the little town and its surrounding district overflow with this delicious fruit, and are within ten or twelve hours' distance of Mexico, it never has entered any original mind to establish connection between the two points, and bring the country product into the city market. So that while strawberries go begging for customers at Irapuato, customers go begging for strawberries in the capital, and neither finds what it wants. The guide-books speak of Queretaro as having forty-six churches. If you should chance to be there on Sunday morning, you will think it has at least a hundred and forty-six; that every church has three towers, every tower three bells, and that every bell is cracked. It would be beyond human endurance elsewhere, but the lighter air of this ​high altitude makes the sound so faint and tinkling that one is more amused than annoyed. Only the clapper is moved in the act of ringing; and one is haunted all through Mexico by a constant vibrant clatter from these petulant tongues, that reminds one of the "damned iteration" of the old poet.
Outside the city, in the pleasant sabbath silence, the fine trees of the Alameda tempered the hot air with shadows; and along all the paths, leading as is customary toward the central fountain, hedges of pale pink roses, with the richest perfume we ever found, even in the regal Jacqueminot, lined each side with luxuriant beauty. The courtesy which had made our way easy so far followed us here, and allowed us to revel in great handfuls of these beautiful things, which scarcely showed a gap in their full ranks after the party had satisfied their cravings. We found ourselves, in rambling about, tired enough to rest upon one of the carved stone seats which have been a source of such delight to us in every town and city so far. Soon one of the uniformed police on duty near by approached, saluted, and in voluble, respectful, sweet Spanish, endeavored to make us ​comprehend that we were in some way transgressing rules. Unable to reach our understanding through the medium of the tongue, he had recourse to pantomime; and it dawned slowly upon our night of ignorance, that the kindly little man desired us to walk about under his guidance to look at the attractions of the spot. He loaded himself with our wraps and impedimenta, lifted his hat again with the bow of a born courtier, and, silent but eloquent, drew our attention to this or that effect, led us here and there through shaded alleys, picked for us now and again an unusually gorgeous rose, and followed with persistent helpfulness to the door of the Pullman. Even the natural conclusion of a "tip" had to be forced upon him instead of being waited for, and we spent a half-hour of deep mental introspection in trying to comprehend how this product of a semi-civilized state should so outrank his prototype at home in every outward sign which goes to mark the gentleman. Imagine the manner in which two plainly dressed, travel-worn, and commonplace foreigners would be hustled out of some prohibited spot in New York or New England, —— say, for instance, a seat on the grass in Boston Common, —— ​and contrast it with the delicacy which made us appear as if we were conferring a favor instead of infringing a law. Truly we have much to learn.
Within the city, the sabbath silence was not so apparent. The native shops, booths, and markets were doing their full business; perhaps a little gayer than usual with branches of flowers and fringes of green palms, but otherwise the same. The crowd on the plazas had a more holiday look; the men's white trousers and shirts fresh and clean, the women's skirts starched and ironed, and all the humble, contented, happy world chewing sticks of fresh sugar-cane, or a tlaco's worth of the small sweet cakes which meet you at every hand's turn through the kingdom. At every door a group of dusky babies, and above it the inevitable mocking-bird in his rustic cage; from the open church porches, the rolling diapason of the organ, and chanting voices of the choir; in the small stone balconies of the windows, crowds of mischievous, chattering, bright-eyed senoritas, gay in the lightest summer dresses, floating ends of ribbon, and softly fluttering fans. The same look of thrift and bright cheerfulness that distinguishes here always town from country life, solely, we are now quite ​convinced, from its greater opportunities for employment, shows itself clearly. The nature of the people is industrious, but circumstances are against them. We found palms and bananas for the first time growing in the squares, and among the flowers an occasional tree of scarlet hibiscus, like large lilies, absolutely glowing with color. The houses are of more stories and greater architectural pretension on the street side than in any city before; but, while this adds to the appearance of wealth and comfort, it takes away some of the great novelty which has such a fascination to sentimental travellers. The aqueduct, always a beautiful feature in every town, is finer here than usual; the arches, as the level plain dips into the valley, being of remarkable height. The celebrated mills of the Rubio family, which are the only ones of any note in the country, are the boast of the town, and really of great interest from the odd combination of business and beauty, of peaceful employment and martial law, which their walled territory offers. The most notable remembrance they have left with us, however, is that of the young heir of the house, as he came riding across the plain from the town, at sunset, on a beautiful Arabian horse, with ​saddle and bridle so richly wrought in silver that it scarce belonged to every-day life, and an embarrassment of luxury in the way of trappings that would have weighed upon a less noble-spirited animal. The boy himself, in silver trimmed sombrero, yellow buckskin costume with its precious tassels and fringes of shining metal, impassive, handsome face, olive skin, great dark eyes, and small foot high arched as a girl's, looked like some young prince riding through a fairy tale in search of adventure. The dagger-hilt in his silken sash, and the swarthy groom with his belt thrust full of pistols and cartridges riding behind, gave glimpses of some other happenings which, thank Heaven, are rare as fairy tales in our quiet lives, and well nigh as possible. But, if tradition can be believed, they have been only too common here.
​The great advance which has been made during the last few years in the principles and policy of the ruling party, especially since the accession of President Diaz, seems to possess elements of staying power as well as of good judgment; but one cannot help feeling that such an honorable solution of the problem of self-government would have been possible much sooner if the people had known some earlier training in self-respect and the authority of well-meaning rulers.