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

the picture of the flat, miasmatic shore. There are no suburbs; the dreary, monotonous sand creeps close up to the city. But if the near foreground thus exhibits a certain repulsive nakedness, there looms grandly on the far-away horizon the Sierra Madre range of mountains, the culminating point of which is the bold, aspiring peak of Orizaba. It must be clear weather, however, to enable the visitor to see this remarkable elevation, with its hoary crown, to reach whose base twenty-seven leagues must be traversed.

The long, straight, narrow streets are laid out with great uniformity, a characteristic of all Mexican cities, and cross each other at right angles, the monotony being broken by green blinds opening on to the little balconies which are shaded by awnings. The streets have a sort of sun-baked hue, though the principal thoroughfares show a fair degree of life and activity considering that the population is so largely made up of Mexicans. The area covered by the city cannot much exceed sixty acres, the town being built in a very compact manner, a bird's-eye view of which makes it resemble the outspread human hand. The port has seen its most prosperous days, if we may judge by present appearances. The aggregate of the imports and exports amounted to about thirty million dollars annually before the completion of the railroads to the national capital and thence to El Paso, but, as was anticipated, this new facility for transportation has diverted a large portion of this amount northward through the United States. The streets of Vera Cruz are still crowded in business hours with mule carts, porters, half-naked water-carriers, Indians, and a few negroes, military officers, and active civilians. Speaking of negroes, there are a less number in all Mexico than in any one State of this Union. In the plaza pretty flower-girls with tempting bouquets mingle with fruit venders, lottery-ticket sellers, and dashing young Mexican dudes, wearing broad sombreros heavy with cords of silver braid. Occasionally there passes some dignified senora, whose head and shoulders are covered with a black lace mantilla, imparting infinite grace to her handsome figure. How vastly superior is that soft, drooping veil to the tall hats and absurd bonnets of northern civilization! Broad contrasts present themselves on all hands, in groups of men, women, and children, half clad in rags, perhaps, but gay with brilliant colors, sharing the way with some sober-clad Europeans, or rollicking, half tipsy seamen on shore-leave from the shipping at anchor in the roadstead.

The Plaza de la Constitucion is small in extent, about two hundred feet square, but it is very attractive. It is skillfully arranged, having a handsome bronze fountain in its centre, the gift of Carlotta, the unfortunate, energetic wife of Maximilian. In the evening the place is rendered brilliant by a system of electric lights. The flower plots and marble walks are ornamented with many lovely tropical flowers, cocoanut palms, and fragrant roses nodding languidly in the hot summer atmosphere under a sky intensely blue, and nine tenths of the time perfectly cloudless. The Australian gum-tree and the Chinese laurel were conspicuous among other exotic varieties. As the twilight approaches, it is amusing to watch the _habitues_, consisting of both sexes, especially in shady corners where there is obviously much love-making on the sly, but not the legitimate article of the Romeo and Juliet sort which has already been described. Here and there strolls a dude,--a Mexican dude, with his dark face shaded by his sombrero, his tight trousers flaring at the bottom and profusely ornamented at the side with silver buttons. He is jostled by a fellow-countryman, who gathers his serape across his left shoulder and breast so adroitly as to partially conceal his shabby attire, while he puffs his cigarette with assumed nonchalance, exchanging a careless word in the mean time with the gypsy-like woman who offers bananas and zapotas for sale. Dainty senoritas trip across the way in red-heeled slippers of Cinderella-like proportions, while noisy, laughing, happy children, girls and boys, romp with pet dogs, trundle ribbon-decked hoops, or spin gaudy humming tops. Flaring posters catch the eye, heralding the cruel bull-fight or a performance at the theatre. On Sundays a military band performs here forenoons and evenings. Under the starlight you may look not only among the low growing foliage to see the fireflies, which float there like clouds of phosphorescence, but now and again one will glow, diamond-like, in the black hair of the fair senoritas, where they are ingeniously fastened to produce this effect. It is strictly a Spanish idea, which the author has often seen in Havana. So brilliant are these tropical fireflies that with three or four placed under an inverted wineglass one can see to read fine printed matter in the nighttime. It is the common people mostly who use these insects as evening ornaments on their persons, though sometimes the most refined ladies wear them. The firefly has a hook-like integument on its body by which it is easily fastened to the hair or dress without any harm to itself. It seems as though nature had anticipated this peculiar use of the "lightning-bug," and so provided the necessary means for the purpose. The country people bring them to market in little wicker baskets or cages, and it is curious to see with what avidity they will consume sugar. As you gaze with interest at the picture of tropical life, you are quietly asked for a few pennies by a man so well dressed, and apparently so well to do, that it seems more like a joke than like real begging. Just so the author has been accosted in the streets of Granada, in continental Spain, with a request for a trifling sum of money, by well-dressed people. Comparatively few beggars importune one in the large cities of Mexico, being deterred by the watchful police; but in the environs of any large settlement the poverty-stricken people are sure to descend upon the stranger like an army with banners.

The architecture of Vera Cruz is of the old Spanish style, with a dash of Moorish flavor in it, recalling Tangier and other cities of Morocco. The governor's palace is a building of some pretension, two stories in height, with a veranda on each, and a tall square tower at one end of the edifice. Having visited the plaza, the alameda, with its fine array of cocoa-palms, the municipal palace, the custom-house, the public library, and the large church fronting the plaza, one has about exhausted the main features of interest. This latter structure is an imposing building, but it will in no respect compare with the cathedrals of the other cities which we have described. There are a fair number of public schools in the town, two well-endowed hospitals, public baths, and a few other institutions worthy of a progressive people. A thoroughfare, called the Street of Christ, leads out to the Campo Santo, half a mile away. This burial-place is an area surrounded by high walls, built very thick of rubble-stones and adobe, in which the tombs are made to receive the bodies instead of placing them in the ground. This neglected city of the dead has been taken in hand by Nature herself, and wild flowers are seen amid the sombre and dreary surroundings, rivaling in beauty and fragrance many cultivated favorites.

The city houses are built of coral limestone, stuccoed. The roofs, when pitched, are covered with tiles of a dull red color, but they are nearly all flat. The interior arrangements are like those elsewhere described. Each house of the better class has its square inner court, or patio, round which the dwelling is constructed, and this is ornamented more or less prettily, according to the owner's taste, potted plants always forming a prominent feature, together with an array of caged singing birds. The long windows are guarded by significant iron bars, like the dwelling-houses throughout this country and in Havana. Sometimes on the better class of houses this iron work is rendered quite ornamental. The narrow streets are kept scrupulously clean, and are paved with cobble-stones which we were told were brought by ships from the coast of New England, and have a gutter running down the middle. There is an abundance of active, keen-eyed scavengers waddling about, always on the alert to pick up and devour domestic refuse or garbage of any sort which is found in the streets. These are the dark-plumed, funereal-looking buzzard, or vulture, a bird which is protected by law, and depended on to act in the capacity we have described. They are two feet and over in length of body, and measure six feet from tip to tip of the wings, or about the size of a large Rhode Island turkey. Employing these birds for the removal of refuse is a remedy almost as bad as the disease, since the habits of the huge, ungainly, ill-omened creatures are extremely disgusting. Clouds of them roost upon the eaves of the houses, the church belfries, and all exposed balconies, and would invade the patios of the dwellings were they not vigorously driven away and thus taught better manners. The cathedral facade on the plaza is sometimes black with them, the rays of the bright tropical sun being reflected from their glossy feathers as from a mirror. It seems there is one mystery which appertains to these unpleasant birds; namely, as to their breeding places. No one knows where they go to build their nests and to raise their young. The imaginative stranger is perhaps inclined to regard them as tokens of danger to the newcomer. All things considered, many a northern city has a less efficient street-cleaning department.

For a striking picture of strong local color, we commend the stranger to watch for a short half-hour the picturesque old fountain at the head of the Calle Centrale. Here he will find at almost any time of the day scores of weary burros slaking their thirst; busy water-carriers filling their red earthen jars; the street gamin wetting his thirsty lips; the itinerant fruit peddler seeking for customers; the gay caballero pausing to water the handsome animal he bestrides; while the tramway mules seek their share of the refreshing liquid. Dark-hued women are coming and going with earthen jars poised upon their heads, wonderfully like their Eastern sisters at the fountains of oriental Cairo. Here are men with curiously trimmed fighting birds in their arms, wending their way to the cruel cockpit. On the edge of the sidewalk close at hand, women are cooking dough-cakes of corn-meal over charcoal in tiny earthen braziers,--the universal tortillas. A sand-covered muleteer, just arrived, is testing their quality while his burros are drinking at the fountain.

Though Vera Cruz has suffered more than any other capital with which we are acquainted from bombardments, change of rulers, ravages of buccaneers, hurricanes, fevers, and other plagues, yet it is still a prosperous city, always spoken of with a certain degree of pride by the people of the republic as Villa Rica de Vera Cruz, that is, "the rich city of the true cross." A brief glance at its past history shows us that, in 1568, it was in the hands of pirates, and that it was again sacked by buccaneers in 1683, having been in the interim, during the year 1618, swept by a devastating conflagration which nearly obliterated the place. In 1822-23, it was bombarded by the Spaniards, who still held the castle of San Juan d'Ulloa. In 1838, it was attacked by a French fleet, and in 1847, was cannonaded and captured by the American forces. In 1856, it was nearly destroyed by a hurricane. In 1859, civil war decimated the fortress and the town. The French and Imperialists took and held it from 1861 until 1867, when the cause of national independence triumphed. Since this latter date Vera Cruz has enjoyed a period of