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

also several elegant boulevards and spacious avenues. The better class of houses are built of stone, covered with stucco, the windows opening upon cosy little balconies handsomely ornamented and shaded by linen awnings, often in high colors. The interior construction of the dwellings follows the usual Spanish style, as seen on the continent of Europe, in the island of Cuba, and elsewhere, often displaying touches of exquisite Moorish effect, whose highest expression one sees in the Alhambra at Granada. Here and there there are seen horseshoe arches supported at the abutments by light and graceful columns, inclosing marble-paved courts. The open areas about which the houses are built often present most pleasing effects by a display of fountains, flowers, and statuary tastefully arranged. On the main thoroughfare leading from the Plaza Mayor to the alameda are several grand private residences, having the most beautiful courts, or patios, as they are called, that the imagination can conceive, lovely with tropical trees and flowers in vivid colors, and rendered musical by the singing of caged birds. Upon these areas, which are open to the sky, the inner doors and windows of the dwellings open, the second story being furnished with a walk and balustrade running round the patio. Heavy, nail-studded doors shut off this domestic area from the street at night. It is not safe to leave anything outside the house after dark that a man can lift. It is sure to be stolen, if so exposed. The lower classes all over the country are inveterate thieves. The bolts that fastened the ties to the rails of the National Railway were stolen nightly by the people, until they were finally riveted on. But then there are thieves everywhere; we chain our out-door mats to iron fastenings in Boston, Chicago, and New York, and dealers in "improved burglar alarms" do a thriving business in all our Northern cities.

The houses in this capital are very substantially built, the walls being composed of stuccoed bricks of great thickness. Fires are of rare occurrence, and, indeed, it would be nearly impossible to burn up one of these dwellings. If a fire does occur, it is almost always confined not only to the building in which it originates, but even to the room where it first makes its appearance. The roofs are nearly all flat and without chimneys; there is no provision made for producing artificial heat in the dwelling-houses. This is quite endurable even to foreigners in a climate where the temperature seldom falls below 60 deg. Fahr., and averages the year round nearly ten degrees higher. It is always warm in the middle of the day, and cool only early in the mornings and at night. The climate may be said to be temperate and the atmosphere is extremely dry. Travelers are liable to suffer considerably from thirst, and the lips are prone to chap, owing to this extreme and peculiar dryness. The warmest months of the year are April and May. It was somewhat of a surprise to the author to learn that the death-rate of the city of Mexico averages nearly double that of Boston. As to elevation, it is over seven thousand feet higher than the city of Washington, D. C., or more than a thousand feet higher than the summit of Mount Washington, N. H.

Regarding the fine residences on San Francisco Street, there is a peculiarity observable as to their location. This is almost wholly a business street, and therefore to select it for an elegant home seems incongruous. The choicest residence we can remember on this thoroughfare stands between a large railroad-ticket office and a showy cigar store. This house has a most striking facade finished in Moorish style with enameled tiles, and is on the opposite side of the street from the Iturbide Hotel.

Numerous large squares, beside the grand plaza and the spacious alameda, ornament the capital. Several of the main thoroughfares enter and depart from the Plaza Mayor, as in the city of Madrid, where the Puerto del Sol--"Gate of the Sun"--forms a centre from which radiate so many of the principal streets. Some are broad, some are narrow, but all are paved, cleanly, and straight. The street-car system is excellent. If any fault is to be found with the management, it is with the rapid manner in which the mules attached to the cars are driven through the highways amid a crowded population; and yet, we were told, accidents rarely if ever happen. They are generally run double, having a first and second class car, both of which are seemingly well filled at all hours of the day. Funerals are conducted by turning one of the street cars, made for the purpose, into a catafalque, or hearse, another being reserved for the pall-bearers and mourners. Sometimes one sees a long string of these cars occupied for this purpose gliding into the suburbs where the grave-yards are located. The use of cow-horns by the driver to warn the people who obstruct the way appeared to be a little primitive, to say the least of it, in a city so large as this capital. It seems very effective, however. The fact that all of the tramway cars start from and return to the Plaza Mayor in front of the cathedral makes it easy for a stranger to find his way to any desired point of the city or its environs, and safely to return to the starting point when he desires to do so. The Plaza Mayor in every Mexican city is not only the central park, but also the central idea. There could no more be a full-fledged Spanish city without a plaza than a cathedral without a bishop.

Statistics show that there are nearly, or quite, five hundred miles of streets in the Mexican capital. These, intersecting each other at right angles, are so strangely alike as to be not a little puzzling to the uninitiated. It is also somewhat awkward at first to find one continuous avenue bearing many names, each block being individualized by a fresh appellation. This subdivision of the large avenues, we were told, is gradually to be discarded. The admirable boulevard called the Paseo de la Reforma, leads out of the city to the castle of Chapultepec, and is over two miles in length, with a uniform width of two hundred feet, forming the fashionable afternoon drive and promenade of the town. It has double avenues of shade trees to the right and left, with stone sidewalks and convenient seats for those who desire them. On either side of this grand boulevard are seen an occasional chateau with handsome gardens. At certain intervals the avenue widens into a _glorieta_, or circle, four hundred feet in diameter. The first of these contains Cordier's Columbus, one of the most admirable and artistic modern statues which we remember to have seen, though there appeared to be some confusion in the extraordinary amount of detail which is crowded upon the base. Other appropriate monuments ornament the several circles, including an equestrian statue of Charles IV. of colossal size; thirty tons of metal was used in the casting, and, if not the largest, it is the second largest that has ever been cast. Still another represents Guatemozin, the last of the Indian emperors. It is a little singular that Montezuma II. is not remembered in this connection, he whose life was so intimately interwoven with the history of the Aztec race in the time of Cortez. Humboldt is said to have declared that the statue of Charles IV. had but one superior, namely, that of Marcus Aurelius. There are six of these _glorietas_, which beautify the long line of perspective ending in the elevated palace-castle of Chapultepec, with its snow-white, picturesque walls clearly defined against the blue sky. When Maximilian planned and completed this charming driveway, he named it the Boulevarde Emperiale; but on the establishment of the republic the more appropriate title which it now bears was adopted. Some people persist in calling it the Empress's Drive, in honor of Carlotta.

One never wearies of sitting upon the well-arranged benches of the paseo in the afternoon, and watching the motley throng of people driving, riding on horseback, or promenading: the ladies with piercing black eyes and glossy dark hair shrouded by lace mantillas; the dashing equestrians exhibiting all the gay paraphernalia of a Mexican horseman; stately vehicles drawn by two snow-white mules; tally-ho coaches conveying merry parties of American or English people; youthful aristocrats bestriding Lilliputian horses, followed by liveried servants; while here and there a mounted policeman in fancy uniform moves slowly by. In the line of pedestrians are well-dressed gentlemen in black broadcloth suits, wearing silk hats and sporting button-hole bouquets, mingled with whom are a more common class of the people in picturesque national costumes. The women of the middle class add gayety of color by their red and blue rebosas, sometimes partly covering the head, at others thrown carelessly over the shoulders, or tied across the chest securing an infant to the back. The general effect of the constantly moving throng is kaleidoscopic, while the mingled groupings are delightfully entertaining. Nothing more peculiar and striking in its line is to be seen this side of the Maidan, Calcutta. Here, as in that Asiatic Champs Elysees, now and again one sees a light American trotting wagon or a heavy-wheeled English dog cart, with a dude at the reins and a liveried flunky behind holding a flaring bouquet!

The carriages go out towards Chapultepec on one side and return on the other, during the popular hours for driving, leaving the central portion of the roadway exclusively for equestrians. Every man who can afford it owns a saddle horse in this city, and the men are universally good riders. The horses are broken to a certain easy gait called the _passo_, a sort of half run, very easy for the rider, scarcely moving him in the seat. These horses average about fifteen hands in height, and are taught to stop, or turn back, at the least touch of the bit. They are both fast and enduring, with plenty of spirit, and yet are perfectly tractable. The enormous spurs worn by the riders, with rowels an inch long, are more for show than for use. Mexican or Spanish ladies are hardly ever seen on horseback, though both English and American ladies are often met in the saddle, dashing gallantly through the throng upon the paseo at the fashionable hour. Something of oriental exclusiveness and privacy is observed by Mexican ladies of the upper class, who drive on the paseo even in close carriages, not in open barouches, like those of European cities. In shopping excursions they do not enter the stores; but the goods are brought to the door of the vehicle, in which they retain their seat while examining the articles which are offered. It is a Sunday scene which we are describing; but it is all the gayer for that reason. The pulque shops drive a lucrative business; the billiard saloons are all open. Children ride hither and thither in little fancy carriages drawn by goats; donkeys covered with glittering ornaments are ridden by small boys, and led by their owners; clouds of highly-colored toy balloons float in the air, tied to the wrists of itinerant venders; gambling stands do much abound; while candy-sellers, with long white aprons and snow-white paper caps, offer candy and preserved fruits on all sides. The class of women whom we meet as pedestrians are quite Parisian in the free use of rouge for lips and cheeks, not forgetting indigo-blue with which to shade about their dreamy-looking eyes. Ladies belonging to the aristocratic class are rarely, if ever, seen walking in the streets. They only drive in the paseo. For a couple of hours in the closing part of the day, the paseo is a bright, giddy, alluring scene. A