The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-02-28

anu cnlckenS on SUNDAY, Wnlle they grow noisy
on pluque cider, and make the air pungent with
the odor Of native coffee and eternal tobacco
smoking. J. d. w,
corres,s,.s mexican Capital.
-uence of fhe Indianapolis Journal
CITY OF MEXICO, Feb. 3-The surprise Of a
trip to the City of Mexico arises from finding a
people and civilization as different from our
own as one finds in Turkey ana Egypt and a
climate peculiar in that it is temperate from al
titude and yet tropical from position, thus COM
bning the vegetables. and manners and customs
of tropical people with those of a temperate
zone Here trees are green always but greener
in spring by putting forth new shoots. The peo-
pie live with reference to the hot sun of midday
and their houses are so constructed. But I
must confess that the trip from Ell Paso to the
center of the Mexican Republic has been great
er surprise to me than any have felt mainly
because the country lay at our own boundary and
yet after reading fifty books about it, am con-
stantiy, IN gross and in detail, in people man
ners and customs surprised at the picturesque
simple and foreign aspect of all see, and gaze
upon the roads, snow-capped volcanoes tropical
vegetation, adobe huts, palm. mango, bamboo
orange, lemon, papayo, Coffee cinchona and eu-
calyptus groves, beside others too numerous to
detail surrounded by Aztec Toltec and other
peaceable Indians with their strange
social customs. in undisguised astonishment
w Wie around me bloom strange flowers. tree
dahllas. tulips. stramonums, etc. Asses are ev-
erywhere (called burros), and the great mass OF
natives live in pristine simplicity and primitive
freedom from style and luxury. The Indians
descendants of the Aztec. Toltec and earlier
races, retain the type faithfully, and are un-
changed since the days of Cortez fourteenth
century, in customs. except religion and are the
!aDorers without owning the land. They barely
live; The climate enables them to do so as
could be done in no colder country. They live
cook. eat, dress, bathe out of doors. Their
houses are artificial caves This of the ruled.
The rulers the owners of haciendas, mines.
stores and political parties ride around in gor-
geous sombreros, silvered saddles and bridles
and silver buttoned and decorated clothes cult
vate bull-hghting, etc. except the better people,
who are literary, musical, art-loving and polite.
Inc City OF Mexico is an interesting one, even
after one has visited Italy and Egypt Palaces
and caves intermingle. Dirt and health seem
| here not altogether incompatible. The grand
vegetable development seems to have dwarfed
| the mass of people. There is said to be no true
expression OF opinion of the people at the polls
they have none to express. in the juggle of theo-
| rles with wants They seem to hate the Span
ish, and are jealous of the United States. As to
morals among the lower classes. as a gentleman
said to me: There is no immortality. but there is
no resistance" Their manners are in accord
ance with nature. as l shall indicate when de-
scribe to you Agues Calientes (Hot Watersl in
my next letter.
The Indians, or native Mexicans are not like
our red men. They are a laborious, pleasant
race. pity them 1 see their patience with
their masters and entire want of physical resist
ance They will some day rise and settle all back
accounts. They have bright eyes, sun-b Drowned
black hair, and are some of them manly and
handsome. especially the children. The people
here resent the title Spanish; they say they speak
Mexican, and so alter the Spanish dialect. The
native race will soon rule the country. The
Americans and foreigners here Except the Span
ishl hope that the United States will soon rule
the country. So may it be-but only with the
consent and at the solicitation of the governed.
1t is volcanic country. Lava, old aud rotten.
Is the substrata of all have seen. 1t is the old
est country of the globe 1 verify believe, and
am more and more of the opinion that China,
and Japan, and India were settled from this
country, rather than the reverse, as is usually
believed. Imagine a vast land heaved up by
volcanic action half mile high, with all its sub
stratum volcanic. surrounded by ocean, almost,
at time when the earth's crust was FIRST con-
rracting. and so projecting mountain ranges; and
long afterward the north of America was lifted
above the waters. Successive wars have swept
away the old adobe and lava monuments largely,
but enough remains to show what has been here
in the past The whole of central Mexico looks
older than Egypt, and the people look like the
natives of Egypt Aztec Toltec Chicenic are
recent races, who have displaced the former and
commingled with them. They we're, five hun
dred years to five thousand years ago, sun-w or-
shippers. Witness the ruins of Cholula of
which l shall write more. This land awakens
thought and hope. join with one in despis-
ing the native people They have the germ OF ,
future evolution, as l saw in a poor peoples
school of two hundred brighteyed. lively chii-
dren of six to ten years old. L.D.w