The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1886-05-07


nnents of Lava-Mountains of Mud
Picturesqueness of Strange Land-In-
habitants and Their Ways.
AS round as a soup plate, raised Just q
little i'll the middle like all well-regulated
soup plates, with just little suggestion
OF soup still in the plate out around the
deepest places, and that is the valley of
Mexico. The city is ON that highest part,
the center, where Cortez found the chill
dren of the sum- in their gorgeous flower
garden.
AS we descend the high wall to the level
valley before us we can easily trace the
formations of these great black mountains
of half-hidden lands. We can easily see
that there was once q volcano so terrific as
to almost tear the earth asunder. You
can see how the mountains were piled
back and up one after the other, till, like
some grand ediffce under the hand of a
skillful builder, the site was complete
The buildings at the little stations,
very frequent, as we descend into the val
ley, are all made of cemented pumice
stone, light as a cork almost, and these
cemented particles seem to be precisely
such little bits of pumice stone as you see
lying in great drifts like snow about the
edge of the bay of Naples any morning
after Vesuvius has had O little 1blow out ="
But this pumice stone has laid so long on
the ground, as said before, that it is
cemented together and now forms a tolera-
bly, substantial wall if put up under
shelter. | can see from some of the old
buildings in the city that rains and storms
wash it away in time.
All the pavements, all the fences, all the
more solid buildings along the approach
to the city are made Of u very poor sort Of
black lava; and this is very enduring. 1t
reminds one of the brown tuffa of which
the coliseum at Rome was built, only this
lava in Mexico is black, and also it is more
porus. Yes, we are surely descending into
the mouth ofla mighty volcano.
THE WONDERS OF A STRANGE LAND.
To the right as we descend is deep and
ugly cat Mountains of mud: an unsatis-
factory piece of engineering surely This
ls the drain. 1t was filled up once And
the city lay for years under water It
looks to be hundreds Of feet deep. Itmust
be many leagues in length. 1t seems as il
tunnel would be the only effective
means of secure operation here. Yet it
was an attempt to tunnel through this
slippery mud that filled this "cloaca max
lmO" ana drowned the city.
AS we came down into the green levels,
among the dikes, and drains and gardens,
among the people, among the donkeys and
cows and pigs and turkeys, the chickens
the cackle and crow perpetually, the thou
sands of buzzards, we see more color, more
picturesqueness-if may use the word
in one hour than whole weeks travel in
the states, or in Europe either, for that
al
strange than all the strange lands I have
yet seen.
The very atmosphere has languor, a
lazy dignity about 1T that puts you at once
at your ease and prepares you to rest The
huge brown hills are resting in their man.
ties or imperial purple this early morning.
A soft and dreamy haze hangs about the
hollows, and clefts, and canyons, so that
every outline is softened and toned to
sense of rest. There is never a sign of
storm in heaven. Bluest of all blue skies:
purple, as the sun wheels up, not bar or
scar, or sign of cloud. But away beyond
the city, at the other side of the ancient
volcano, the two still mountains stand
facing each other; holding the purple
world on their snowy shoulders; wearing
the imperial purple of unrecorded en-
pires, and of kings that have no name or
place in history. What a land for the
painter! .
PEOPLE STANDING ON THE HOUSEHOLDS.
We pass little square-built stone houses
close up to the railroad; so close that you
may almost clasp hands with the
strangely clad and most curious little peo-
pie standing on the housetops. They stand
knee-deep amidst muskmelons, watermel-
ons, corn, peppers, tomatoes, and many
other things taken from their gardens
and placed here on the housetops to ripen
in the sun. You see thousand things
here on every house that bring up Bible
pictures, and tell you in your heart that
all the stories of the Bible are true; because,
in some sort you see their counterpart
here among these simple people away out
here on the north of Mexico City, where,
until very lately, little has been done to
break up the natural tenor of their lives
for centuries.
The two women grinding at a mill" you
see here on the housetops in the sun at al
most every mile-post Why there should
be two do not know. But there are al
ways two grinding at the little hand-min
AS to whether zone is taken and the other
left, in this Aztec land, as in the}land of
old, do not know. But they are here,
ebA1u Go SebtA bCLo1C, q t1StU
are constantly bringing up Bible pictures
familiar in your youth, when your father
read the Bible by the fireside.
They rise early and are on the housetop
with the sun, these people here in the
vast, rich valley. Away up yonder ON the
purple mountains side I saw fires that
mingled with the stars as the morning
came. These are the camp fires of Indians
that still prefer hetent, the camp, the |
open air. They come down at times in the
valleys for hire, are good workers, entirely |
honest. But they love the sun as their |
ancestors loved it, and are up there to sa-
lutte him in the morning. With the hills |
behind us, the picturesque people on the
housetop ON either side of us, as we glide |
on through the lanes of trees, the gardens, |
the donkeys, the growing cocks, the yelp- |
ing dogs, the thousands of hairless and |
ugly dogs too lazy to yelp-in
the midst of and through all these, under
the full burst of the soft morning sun, |
we enter the gates of Mexico City
Joaquin Miller in Chicago Times
Portraits of the English Queen.