Aztec Land - Maturin Murray Ballou (universal ebook reader .txt) 📗

dwellings have glass in the windows, but nearly all have these openings barred with iron in more or less ornamental styles. There are a few central situations where two-story houses prevail. Besides the churches, there are the governor's palace, the casa municipal, and the stores and dwelling-houses which surround the Plaza Mayor, the latter having open arcades, or _portales_, beneath the first story. People come from various parts of Mexico to enjoy the baths of Aguas Calientes, and one sees many strangers about the town. The place has, in fact, been the resort of people from various sections of the country from time immemorial, on account of the presumed advantages to be derived from the hot springs. Mineral waters, hot and cold, abound on the table-land of Mexico.

It is said that by digging almost anywhere in this neighborhood, one can exhume pottery and other articles concerning whose manufacture there is a profound mystery, the shapes and style of finish being quite different from what is now produced. These articles are reputed to antedate the Toltec period, though the natives, finding that the antique shapes are most popular with European and American tourists, imitate them very closely. When "antiquities" are offered to one in a foreign country, he should be very wary in purchasing, as the artificial manufacture of them is fully up to the demand. The writer once saw an article sold at Cairo as an antique for ten pounds sterling which was afterwards proved, by an unmistakable mark, to have been made in Birmingham, England. So Aztec and Toltec remains are produced to any extent in the city of Mexico; and the enterprising English manufacturer, we were told, has even invaded Yucatan with his "antique" wares.

Fruit is abundant, cheap, and delicious in the market-place of Aguas Calientes. Fifty oranges were offered to us for a quarter of a dollar, or two for a penny. Sunday is the principal market-day, when the country people for miles around bring in fruit, vegetables, flowers, pottery, and home-woven articles for sale. Men and women, sitting on the ground, patiently wait for hours to make trifling sales, the profit on which cannot exceed a few pennies, and often the poor creatures sell little or nothing. The principal market is a permanent building, occupying a whole block, or square. The area about which it is built is open in the centre; that is, without covering. Here a motley group displayed baskets, fruits, flowers, candies, pulque, boots, shoes, and sandals. White onions mingled with red tomatoes and pineapples formed the apex to a pyramid of oranges, bananas, lemons, pomegranates, all arranged so as to present attractive colors and forms, being often decked with flowers. Green sugar-cane, cut in available lengths, was rapidly consumed by young Mexico, and gay young girls indulged in dulces (sweets). Hundreds of patient donkeys, without harness of any sort, or even a rope about their necks, stood demurely awaiting their hour of service. Beggars are plenty, but few persons were seen really intoxicated, notwithstanding that pulque is cheap and muscal very potent. Red, blue, brown, and striped rebosas flitted before the eyes, worn by the restless crowd, while occasionally one saw a lady of the upper class, attended by her maid in gaudy colors, herself clad in the dark, conventional Spanish style, her black hair, covered with a lace veil of the same hue, held in place by a square-topped shell comb.

The public bathhouse, near the railroad depot, is remarkable for spaciousness and for the excellence of the general arrangements. It is built of a conglomerate of cobble-stones, bricks, and mortar, and might be a bit out of the environs of Rome. In the central open area of these baths is a choice garden full of blooming flowers and tropical trees. Oleanders, fleurs-de-lis, flowering geraniums, peach blossoms, scarlet poppies mingling with white, beside beds of pansies and violets, delighted the eye and filled the air with perfume. The surroundings and conveniences were more Oriental than Mexican, inviting the stranger to bathe by the extraordinary facilities offered to him, and captivating the senses by beauty and fragrance. There is a spacious swimming-bath within the walls, beside the single bathrooms, in both of which the water is kept at a delightful temperature. The luxury of these baths, after a long, dusty ride over Mexican roads, can hardly be imagined by those who have not enjoyed it. In the vicinity of the Plaza Mayor, ice-cream was hawked and sold by itinerant venders. We were told of a mysterious method of producing ice, which is employed here during the night, by means of putting water in the hollowed stalk of the maguey or agave plant, but we do not clearly understand the process. The volatile oil of the century plant is said to evaporate so rapidly as to freeze the water deposited in it. At any rate, the natives have some process by which they produce ice in this tropical clime; but whether it is by aid of the maguey plant, from which comes the pulque, or by some other means, we cannot say authoritatively. In the cities and on the Texan border, ice is largely manufactured by chemical process aided by machinery, a means of supply well known in all countries where natural ice is not formed by continued low temperature.

San Luis Potosi is situated about one hundred miles to the eastward of Aguas Calientes, on the branch road connecting the main trunk of the Mexican Central with Tampico on the Gulf. It is the capital of the State of San Luis Potosi, and has, according to estimate, over forty thousand inhabitants. The city contains many fine buildings, the most notable among them being the state capitol, the business exchange, the state museum, the mint, and the public library. This last-named contains between seventy and eighty thousand volumes. There is here a larger proportion of two-story buildings than is seen in either Saltillo or Monterey. There are also a college, a hospital, and a theatre. It has several plazas and many churches. The cathedral is quite modern, having been erected within the last forty years; it faces the Plaza Mayor, where there is a bronze statue of the patriot Hidalgo. We are here fully six thousand feet above the sea level, in a wholesome locality, which, it is claimed, possesses the most equable climate in Mexico, the temperature never reaching freezing-point, and rarely being uncomfortably warm. There are several fine old churches in San Luis Potosi, containing some admirable oil paintings by Vallejo, Tresguerras, and others of less fame. The city is three hundred and sixty miles north of the national capital, and is destined, with the opening of the railroad to Tampico, which has so recently taken place, to grow rapidly. Its tramway, or horse-car, service is particularly well managed, and facilitates all sorts of transportation in and about the city. In the Sierra near at hand are the famous silver mines known as Cerro del Potosi, which are so rich in the deposit of argentiferous ore that it is named after the mines of Potosi in Peru. There are valuable salt mines existing in this State of San Luis Potosi, at Penon Blanco. The city has always been noted as a military centre, and a large number of the regular army are stationed here. When Santa Anna returned from exile, at the beginning of the war with this country, in 1846, it was here that he concentrated his forces. When defeated by General Taylor at Buena Vista, he marched back to San Luis Potosi with the remnant of his thoroughly demoralized army, where he again established his headquarters. On the Sabbath, as in other Mexican cities, the grand market of the week takes place, when cock-fighting, marketing, praying, and bull-fighting are strangely mixed.

About a hundred miles south of Aguas Calientes we reach the important manufacturing city of Leon, State of Guanajuato, a thrifty, enterprising capital, containing over ninety thousand inhabitants. It is considered the third largest and most important city of the republic. We have now come eight hundred and thirty miles since leaving the International Bridge, by which we entered Mexican territory at Pedras Negras, and find ourselves in the midst of a fertile, well-watered plain, intersected by the small river Turbio, two hundred and sixty miles northwest of the city of Mexico. Rich grazing fields are spread broadcast, many of which exhibit the deep, beautiful green of the alfalfa, or Mexican clover, which is fed in a fresh-cut condition to favored cattle, but not to burros, poor creatures! They feed themselves on what they can pick up by the roadside, on the refuse vegetables thrown away in the city markets, on straw; in short, on almost anything. There is a theory that they will live on empty fruit tins, broken glass bottles, and sardine boxes; but we are not prepared to indorse that. The fields and small domestic gardens hereabouts are often hedged by tall, pole-like cacti of the species called the organ cactus, from its peculiar resemblance to the pipes of an organ. This forms a prevailing picture in the wild landscape of southern Mexico. Leon is nearly six thousand feet above the sea.

As the railroad depot is a mile from the city proper,--a characteristic of transportation facilities which applies to all Mexican capitals,--we reach the plaza of Leon by tramway. The place has all the usual belongings of a Spanish town, though it contains no buildings of special interest. The plaza, the market-place, and the cathedral are each worthy of note. The first-named has a large, refreshing fountain in its centre, whose music cheers the senses when oppressed by tropical heat. The plaza is also shaded by thick clusters of ornamental trees. There was a grand annual fair held here before the days of railroads in Mexico, which was an occasion attracting people from all the commercial centres of the country. While talking to a local merchant he said to us: "Certain circumscribed interests were at first unfavorably affected by the establishment of the railroad, and people grumbled accordingly; but we have come to see that after all it is for the universal good to have this prompt means of transportation. It was the same," he continued, "as regards the tramway; but we could not do without that convenience now."

On one side of the plaza is the governor's palace, a long, plain, two-story building of composite material,--stone, sun-dried bricks, and mortar, colored white. On the other three sides is a line of two-story buildings, beneath which is a continuous block of _portales_, or arches, crowded with shops and booths; the first story of these houses being thus devoted to trade, the second to dwellings. The general effect of this large business square, with the deep greenery of the plaza in the centre, is extremely attractive. Strolling about it in the intense sunshine are many beggars and grandees; women in bright-colored rebosas; others in rags which do not half cover their nakedness; fair senoritas with tall, red-heeled boots pointed at the toes, and poor girls with bare limbs and feet; cripples and athletes; beauty and deformity; plethoric priests and cadaverous peons. Now a horseman in theatrical costume, sword and pistol by his side, and huge silver spurs on his heels, seated on a small but beautifully formed Andalusian horse, passes swiftly by, and now a score of charcoal-laden donkeys, driven by an Indian larger than the animal he bestrides. All the men who can afford it wear broad-brimmed sombreros richly ornamented with gold and silver braid; the poorest, though otherwise but half clad, and with bare limbs, have a substitute for the sombrero in straw or some cheap material. The broader the brim and the taller the crown, the more they are admired. It is a busy, ever-shifting scene presented by the Plaza Mayor of Leon, such as one may look upon only south of the