The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1900-02-07
LATIN DION I WORK
Vic Murdoch Ordered Water
and Got Onions.
PEN PICTURE OF ZACATECAS
Its Ancient Ways and OppreS-
Sive Silence.
PEN PICTUREOF ZACATECAS

some The train Is American. You are
separated from the Mexioans. You, with
the atmosphere of the United States
about YOU, view the Mexicans you see
! curiously and with the easy grace and
irrepressible superiority felt by all
Anglo-saxons away from home rubber
necking. But you get on a mental turn
table here and are yanked around in
about two seconds, so that you are not
| dead sure but what America is mist
draped dream. But to give to you just
as you would get it if you were here
| TONIGHT.
You step off the train. Eighteen peo-
pie grab you, all yelling different things.
none of which you understand. You
have been told the best hotel is the
Zacatecano. That looks easy in the way
OF pronunciation, but is it Zacatecayno,
or Zacatecahno? You look around at the
faces, and hold on for dear life to your
valises. Finally you catch 'zacatecahno
and YOU locate it, in the mouth Of an
! elderly man, and you grab him and say:
| ''Zacatecahno. That's what we want
The same moment a Mexican boy makes
a flank attack on you and wrests your
valise away. The elderly man assures
| you the boy is all right, and leads you
to three street cars. Talk about our sys-
| tenn at home. 1t isn't in 1t with this
| They are so disreputable that you insist
on walking. The elderly man says 1t Is
mile. but We tell him to ride and we Will
walk He is afraid of losing US, and in
sists on walking with US. SO on we go,
the boy with the valise on his back
And we hit off down a zig-zag street,
dropping six inches at every step. And
what do we see?
Streets that are so paved that you think
you are walking on loose cannon-balls.
Street cars, narrow-guaged, passing,
three men on the front platform, one
holding the lines, the other cracking a
whip at lone mule, and a third blowing
his gizzard crooked on tin horn.
Houses. painted all colors Of the rain
bow. frescoed, decorated and splashed
with pigments. Low door-ways crowded
with children; grated windows high'
very high porticoes, holding fairly pref
ty women.
Smells. smells that get under your ap-
petite and turn it over smells that make
you hold your breath with the idea that
you will find the air at the next corner;
smells that would make hand at glue
factory turn and run for his life.
The halt, the lame, the blind, the
wretched the squalid, the pock-marked'
all damned together.
The city built on two sides of valley,
a city seemingly endless with its streets,
rising terrace on terrace, lodging in here
and out there. leading you into alleys
which end in blank walls: streets which
rear up and plunge down, narrow, tor
turous and picturesque.
And now the sun slants a ray across
the red valley and lights up the calcined
convent abovethe town, perched on rock
500 feet above the town, with perpen-
dicular path leading to it, over which
thousands in four hundred years have
crawled on their hands and knees to do
pennance, and some do yet.
| And nearer you the curved tcNTer of
the cathedral. carved so completely that
It looks Ieathery, catches the last gay Of
the DAYS sun, and there floats down
over the city, the soft, muffied tones OF
the vespers, you suppose, chimes anyway
! and down the street you see majority
! of the tall hats come off.
A beggar, crippled in every limb, drag
| ging himself before you and mumbling
''centavo," which you have not. Centavo
Is the cent-copper.
We don't know what wretchedness Is
! in Grand old United States. The people
! on the first street we struck in Zacatecas
were so poor so very, very poor You
can see poverty in the big cities OF the
! United States, Of course. but not this
kind Although you are 5000 feet above
sea level. and that with the terrible
pavements makes walking hard, you rush
| forward and ask eagerly when you will
get into the main street.
| Policemen. a squad of them, retiring, IN
a body for the day. dressed in deep blue;
| night force marching out each to his
| station. each armed with a lantern; Ian
tern looks like the American kind
Cathedral. high. gloriously high, with a
! front carved from the ground to the
highest pinnacle. carved as completely
and infinitely as 4 highly ornate wooden
picture frame Beltry chock full of pc
cuHarly shaped bells, long narrow bells.
Men and Women kneeltng in the portals
their sombreros as they pass.
Long vistas leading you know not
whittier. colonade leading to a market
place full Of strange wares and fruits
and vegetables; curious doors everywhere
leading into vindowless walls.
Stores Ike street fair booths. drug stores
with stone bottles. Opaque and none
transparent; barber shops with big easy
chairs. with no head or foot rest; cob
BILE shops with men inside making, not
shoes. but sandals the postoffice with a
group in front. reading the list, for all
letters received are listed out in front;
governors house with two soldiers stand
ing in front, with guns; man, standing in
window; people tip their hats to him;
maybe ne Is the governor.
Plaza, well-pave6. strange green trees
growing in II, with a thousand or more
birds twittering above. and a thousand
curious men and women beneath, men
| with brilliant Indian red shavlS. sers pas
| drawn up over their faces women with
blacks shavls reb osas, over their heads;
most OF the men in sandals. all in very
high hats. What it all looks ike IS q
highly coIored painting. II has the mo-
tionless attitude OF unresiuess that you
feel in locking 81 q panorama 1t Is 3
good imitation, but It Is not life.
Well. we reach our hotel A great Gig
white building with tEo immense cupol4s
Tou know at once that II has rot been
always a hotel Il was an Augustiniar
Aavent. conhscsted by the government ir
1851. II was built shout three hundred
and City years ago. You 80 up = h3g1t
OF about eighteen steps. and coma into :
large court. IN the center OF which ara
tropical pixnt.. Towering most a. them