The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1888-06-15
AN INVASION OF MEXICO,
Still At Queretaro-A Little History
And Some Tradition-The Val.
ley of Mexico-Popo-
catapetl-The City
of the Monte.
zumas.

The full moon shining from a cloud
less sky,is casting glamour about the
white.walled, fat-roofed houses, ard
the round-domed, airy-towered church.
es. while the shadows hide the ugli-
ness and the poverty, a. we enter car
risges to be driven to the scene of the
tragedy that gives the town its histor.
ical interest. 1t is on the brow of q
low-lying hill, half mile from the
northern outskirts of the city, that we
stop and look with mournful interest
on the square stone pillar which marks
the spot where Macmillan, Arch Duke
of Austria, Emperor of Mexico, scholar
and gentleman but not soldier nor a
statesman, was shot to death some
twenty years ago. By his side on that
fatal day, stood his faithful generals,
Miramon and Mejia, and similar pillars
tell the tale Of their sacrifice also. It
was wild and hair-brained scheme, to
set up a foreigner, European prince,
as ruler over these people, and it fail.
ed as it deserved to fail, as it had to
fail. Nevertheless it was so honestly
undertaken by the victim of it, and it
ended 80 sadly, the Emperor shot to
death.and the Empress in mad house,
that the story must always have a
deeply pathetic interest. Standing
here in the still moonlight, by these
silent pillars, on the spot where the
last act ofthe drama was played, where
the crack of the rifles was the signal to
drop the curtain, we realize more
than ever the pathos of the
pitiful story and yield ourselves to the
spirit of the hour and the place.
~
The next morning the train is cling
ing to the verge of what seems to be a
natural gorge, 800 feet wide, or more,
and 200 feet deep. Somebody remem.
beers. however, that it is ditch cut by
the Spaniards two hundred years ago
with view of draining the City of
Mexico. Many miles of the great ditch
had been cut when one day the walls
caved in and killed some 5000 of the
peon workmen. The effort was then
abandoned and the city remains un-
drained to this day.
~
In q little while we are at the top of
the hill we have been climbing, and
our eyes are drinking in the glories of
the "Valley of Mexico" landscape
that poets and painters and worldwide
travellers have declared unequalled by
any other upon this earth. And it is
to one who has seen
Kansas. All the way around i. rises
the protecting wall of the noun tains,
shat the winds Of heaven may not
visit its face too roughly" Away off
to the south, and q little eastward as
We enter from the north, the chief of
these mountains, Popocatapetl, "looms
lone like an island" lifting its snowy
head in towering majesty high above
the peaks that surround it, the lOrdliest
in the new world. At our
feet, groves and fields and plowed
lands and little villages. In the dis
lance, but growing every moment
more distinct, the flat roofs and lofty
domes and towers of the City, that we
have come all these thousands of miles
to see.
-
The City of Mexico! One is almost
overcome by the flood of associations
that surges in upon him as he enters
for the first time upon its historic
streets. Streets that witnessed the
gentle rule of the Montezumas over a
docile, yet atrociously blood-thirsty
people; streets that the followers of
Cortez piled high with innocent dead
''for Jesus sake" and in the name of
the cross; streets that echoed to the
tread of American soldiers
gloriously victorious in a shameful and
needless war; streets that resounded
One year with Viuas for Macmillan,
Emperor of Mexico, and went wild the
next year over Juarez, the deliverer of
the people; streets through which am
bilious rebels or successful revolution.
sts without number, have led their de.
voted followers to shame and death or
10 glory and reward. The temptation
10 dwell on these things is strong; but
Are they not already written where
he who wills may find and read? Let
me rather, give as briefly as may be |
and with no attempt at logical connec-
ion, the general impressions which
he City of Mexico as it exists to-day,
caves upon the mind of an ordinarily |
,bservant American citizen after q |
visit of less than week.
~ ~ I
In the first place the city is European
md not American. 1t is European in
Is architecture, European in its lam
yuage, European in its ideas and hab-
ts oflife. You can hire a room at a
lotel, but you must furnish your own
'oap and towels and you must go
else for your meals. Sup-t
lose that somewhere else to be one of
he principal restaurants of the city,
md you will find the meal-if it be