Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1888-06-03
MEXIC MARVELS.
Peculiar People Amid Scenes and views
of Surprising Grandeur.
CITY OF MEXICO, May "a.

| travel IN foreign country.
believe my last letter left me at Sialo,
whose sixteen steeples and domeS stud a
broad mesa of fields and vineyards. Our
train pulled up in the evening at Quere-
taro. Through a delightful park of broad
and paved avenues our entire party walk
desover to the town, which we found so
quiet and silent that but for the thous-
ands of gliding figures everywhere might
| have been taken for a cemetery. The
streets of this place for miles and miles
are paved with black cobble stones, over
which no vehicle heavier than carriage
ever rolls. The water is brought to the
place from the mountains a few miles
| away in an acqueduct, whose fine mas
| sive arches are sustained full fifty feet
high. where they cross the valley.
Before reaching the central plaza the
| iangling of great bell suddenly caught
our ear. In an Instant all else was
/ hushed into silence which was strange
| ly impressive, while upon every street
and sidewalk the moving crowds of men,,
women and children fell to their knees,
with their faces to the east, in solemn
prayer. 1t was the bell of the last sacra-
ment. A soul was passing to the beyond.
There were some Dig eyes among our
own party, who Involuntary halted in
the presence of a SO strangely solemn
scene.
Just as vespers from hundred bells
We're ringing we reached the central
plaza, whose sombrous shades seemed
only dimly lighted by the hundreds upon
hundreds of twinkling lamps. The
aroma of flowers and plants, the playing
fountain, the boy voices of a cathedral
choir near by and the low murmur of
the voices of the hundreds and hundreds
of darkly yelled figures who stole in and
out among the wayering shadows, all
conspired to make one feel-weil, here
you will perceive my English fails me
and as my feaders, unfortunately, do
not understand the Spanish, in which [
only delight to revel, it is all left to their
imaginations, hoping that they will not
forget, however, that it was seen and eX-
perienced in most solemn earnest by their
humble writer
Everybody having loaded themselves
down with opals-for as our readers
doubtless don't know that the great opal
mines Of central Mexico are located here
some state carriages, low-swung and
ponderously heavy concerns, pulled by
mules, were secured and we all drove
out to the hill where poor Macmillan
and his two generals fell a sacrifice to
the ambition of his family. Three little,
unpretentious monuments mark the
spots where each stood and each fell
when his heart received the fatal bullet
of the MeXicans.
But we promised we would let all his
tory alone. Like every good vandal, we
Clipped. off peice of Max.s plainly
sculptured stone for our sanctum cabl-
down upon the city at our feet, now
quietiy-so quietly-sleeping in the glori
Gus light Of a semi-tropical moon, the
aspirations, ambitions and history of
whose quiet, inotfensive inhabitants the
great, wide-awake world OF the nine
teenth century knows nothing, nothing,
since the foundations Of its moss-grown
cathedral and numerous churches were
laid and the mighty columns and arches
which support its acqUeduct were reared
and fashioned by men whose names are
as effectually lost to the world as are
those of the hosts of Pharaoh swallowed
up by the deep Red Sea three thousand
years ago.
AS we rolled out of our berth
this morning the first thing that
caught our eve was the mighty
form of Popocatapefl 3, rdbed in his ever
lasting mantel of white. And this, at
At our right, upon whose brink our
train was running, stretched away as far
as the eye could reach, the deep chasm
dug by the AztecS in the fifteenth CEN
tUry to drain the lake which even vet
mandates this city, work only sur
passed by the erection of the Pyramids.
all done by hand, the dirt and stone be-
ing carried away in baskets, but which
work was brought to sudden conclu-
II
feet high, for a long distance in one
sickening moment suddenly caved in,
burrying between five and six thousand
of the patient delivers. But that's more
history.
For sixty miles down to the city we
ran through what is undoubtedly one of
the charming spots of all this earth, for
sixty miles through and by ever succeed |
ing fields and meadows, gardens and |
groves of such pastoral delights as
painters only depict and poets only tell |
But everywhere, and only few miles |
apart. dotting the beautiful expanse, are
the ever present dome and steeple Tie |
Attic has absorbed, utterly, has con- !
queror, the Spaniard, but the Spaniard's |
tongue and the Spanlard's religion re-
main dominant. Not for an hour is the
Mexican, III city or village, in field or in
mine, permitted to forget the demands of
the church which gave him his architec-
ture-his present civilization. Forever.
upon every passing breeze, floats the voice
of the tongue of iron and the mouth of
bronze vibrating across every bid and
through every valley of this broad land. !
Towns and towns everywhere, churches
and churches in every town. and bells
and bells in every church. The labor, |
the accumulations and savings of ten
millions OF people for hundreds of years. |
the products of all their flocks. mines
and fields seem to have gone steadily and |
forever in the one direction. INTO a sinrle /