Anahuac written by Edward Burnett Tylor

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We walked home past the old Bull-ring, now replaced by a new one near
the new promenade, and found, to our surprise, that in this quarter of
the town many of the streets were under water. We knew that the level
of the lake of Tezcuco had been raised by a series of three very wet
seasons, but had no idea that things had got so far as this. Of course
the ground-floors had to be abandoned, and the people had made a raised
pathway of planks along tho street, and adopted various contrivances
for getting dryshod up to their first floors; and in some places canoes
were floating in the street. The city looked like this some two hundred
years ago, when Martinez the engineer tried an unfortunate experiment
with his draining tunnel at Huehuetoca, and flooded the whole city for
five years. It was by the interference, they tell us, of the patroness
of the Indians, our Lady of Guadalupe, who was brought from her own
temple on purpose, that the city was delivered from the impending
destruction. A number of earthquakes took place, which caused the
ground to split in large fissures, down which the superfluous water
disappeared. For none of her many miracles has the Virgin of Guadalupe
got so much credit as for this. To be sure, it is not generally
mentioned in orthodox histories of the affair, that she was brought to
the capital a year or two before the earthquakes happened.

Talking of earthquakes, it is to be remembered that we are in a
district where they are of continual occurrence. If one looks carefully
at a line of houses in a street, it is curious to see how some walls
slope inwards, and some outwards, and some are cracked from top to
bottom. There is hardly a church-tower in Mexico that is not visibly
out of the perpendicular. Any one who has noticed how the walls of the
Cathedral of Pisa have been thrown out of the perpendicular by the
settling down of the foundations, will have an idea of the general
appearance of the larger buildings of Mexico. On different occasions the
destruction caused by earthquakes has been very great. By the way, the
liability of Mexico to these shocks, explains the peculiarity of the
building of the houses. A modern English town with two-or-three-storied
houses, with their thin brick walls, would be laid in ruins by a shock
which would hardly affect Mexico. Here, the houses of several storeys
have stone walls of such thickness that they resist by sheer strength;
and the one-storey mud houses, in the suburbs, are too low to suffer
much by being shaken about. A few days before we arrived here, our
friends Pepe and Pancho were playing at billiards in the Lonja,[8] the
Merchants' Exchange; and Pepe described to us the feeling of utter
astonishment with which he saw his ball, after striking the other,
go suddenly off at an absurd angle into a pocket. The shock of an
earthquake had tilted the table up on one side. While we were in
Mexico there was a slight shock, which set the chandeliers swinging,
but we did not even notice it. In April, a solemn procession goes from
the Cathedral, on a day marked in the Calendar as the "Patrocinio de
Senor San Jose", to implore the "Santissimo Patriarca" to protect the
city from earthquakes (temblores). In connection with this subject
there is an opinion, so generally received in Mexico that it is worth
notice. Everybody there, even the most educated people, will tell you
that there is an earthquake-season, which occurs in January or
February; and that the shocks are far more frequent than at any other
time of the year. My impression is that this is all nonsense; but I
should like to test it with a list of the shocks that have been felt,
if such a thing were to be had. It does not follow that, because
the Mexicans have such frequent opportunities of trying the question,
they should therefore have done so. In fact, experience as to popular
beliefs in similar matters rather points the other way. I recollect
that in the earthquake districts of southern Italy, when shocks were of
almost daily occurrence, people believed that they were more frequent
in the middle four hours of the night, from ten to two, than at other
times. Of course, this proved on examination to be quite without
foundation. To take one more case in point. How many of our
almanack-books, even the better class of them, contain prophecies of
wet and fine weather, deduced from the moon's quarters! How long will
it be before we get rid of this queer old astrological superstition?

We made a few rough observations of the thermometer and barometer
during our stay in Mexico. The barometer stands at about 22-1/2 inches,
and our thermometer gave the boiling point of water at 199 degrees. We
could never get eggs well boiled in the high lands, and attributed
this, whether rightly or not I cannot say, to the low temperature of
boiling water.

[Illustration: GROUP OF ECCLESIASTICS, MEXICO.]

CHAPTER IV.

TACUBAYA. PACHUCA. REAL DEL MONTE.

We went one morning to the house of our friend Don Pepe, and were
informed by the servant as we entered the courtyard that the nino, the
child, was up stairs waiting for us. "The Child" seemed an odd term to
apply to a young man of five and twenty. The young ladies, in the same
way are called the ni-as, and keep the appellation until they marry.

We went off with the nino to his uncle's house at Tacubaya, on the
rising ground above Mexico. In the garden there we found a vegetation
such as one would find in southern Europe--figs, olives, peaches,
roses, and many other European trees and flowers--growing luxuriantly,
but among them the passion-flower, which produces one of the most
delicious of fruits, the granadita, and other semi-tropical plants. The
live creatures in the garden, however, were anything but European in
their character. There were numbers of immense butterflies of the most
brilliant colours; and the garden was full of hummingbirds, darting
backwards and forwards with wonderful swiftness, and dipping their long
beaks into the flowers. They call them chupa-mirtos--myrtle-suckers,
and the Indians take them by blowing water upon them from a cane, and
catching them before they have recovered from the shock. One day we
bought a cage full of them, and tried to keep them alive in our room by
feeding them with sugar and water, but the poor little things pined
away. In old times the Mexicans were famous for their ornaments of
humming-bird's feathers. The taste with which they arranged feathers of
many shades of colour, excited the admiration of the conquerors; and
the specimens we may still see in museums are beautiful things, and
their great age has hardly impaired the brilliancy of their tints. This
curious art was practised by the highest nobility, and held in great
esteem, just as working tapestry used to be in Europe, only that the
feather-work was mostly done by men. It is a lost art, for one cannot
take much account of such poor things as are done now, in which,
moreover, the designs are European. In this garden at Tacubaya we saw
for the first time the praying Mantis, and caught him as he sat in his
usual devotional attitude. His Spanish name is "el predicador," the
preacher.

We got back to Mexico in time for the Corrida de Toros. The bull-ring
was a large one, and there were many thousands of people there; but as
to the spectacle itself, whether one took it upon its merits, or merely
compared it with the bull-fights of Old Spain, it was disgusting. The
bulls were cautious and cowardly, and could hardly be got to fight; and
the matadors almost always failed in killing them; partly through want
of skill, partly because it is really harder to kill a quiet bull than
a fierce one who runs straight at his assailant. To fill up the measure
of the whole iniquitous proceeding, they brought in a wretch in a white
jacket with a dagger, to finish the unfortunate beasts which the
matador could not kill in the legitimate way. It was evidently quite
the regular thing, for the spectators expressed no surprise at it.

After the bull-fight proper was finished, there came two or three
supplementary performances, which were genuinely Mexican, and very well
worth seeing. A very wild bull was turned into the ring, where two
lazadores, on beautiful little horses, were waiting for him. The bull
set off at full speed after one of the riders, who cantered easily
ahead of him; and the other, leisurely untying his lazo, hung it over
his left arm, and then, taking the end in his light hand, let the cord
fall through the loop into a running noose, which he whirled two or
three times round his head, and threw it so neatly that it settled
gently down over the bull's neck. In a moment the other end of the cord
was wound several times round the pummel of the saddle, and the little
horse set off at full speed to get ahead of the bull. But the first
rider had wheeled round, thrown his lazo upon the ground, and just as
the bull stepped within the noose, whipped it up round his hind leg,
and galloped off in a contrary direction. Just as the first lazo
tightened round his neck, the second jerked him by the leg, and the
beast rolled helplessly over in the sand. Then they got the lazos off,
no easy matter when one isn't accustomed to it, and set him off again,
catching him by hind legs or fore legs just as they pleased, and
inevitably bringing him down, till the bull was tired out and no longer
resisted. Then they both lazo'd him over the horns, and galloped him
out, amid the cheers of the spectators. The amusements finished with
the "colear." This is quite peculiar to Mexico, and is done on this
wise. The coleador rides after the bull, who has an idea that something
is going to happen, and gallops off as fast as he can go, throwing out
his hind legs in his awkward bullish fashion. Now, suppose you are the
coleador, sitting in your peaked Mexican saddle, that rises behind and
before, and keeps you in your seat without an effort on your part. You
gallop after the bull, and when you come up with him, you pull as hard
as you can to keep your horse back; for, if he is used to the sport, as
almost all Mexican horses are, he is wild to get past, not noticing
that his rider has got no hold of the toro. Well, you are just behind
the bull, a little to the left of him, and out of the way of his hind
legs, which will trip your horse up if you don't take care; you take
your right foot out of the stirrup, catch hold of the end of the bull's
tail (which is very long), throw your leg over it, and so twist the end
of the tail round your leg below the knee. You have either got the
bridle between your teeth or have let it go altogether, and with your
left hand you give your horse a crack with the whip; he goes forward
with a bound, and the bull, losing his balance by the sudden jerk
behind, rolls over on the ground, and gets up, looking very
uncomfortable. The faster the bull gallops, the easier it is to throw
him over; and two boys of twelve or fourteen years of age coleared a
couple of young bulls in the arena, in great style, pitching them over
in all directions. The farmers and landed proprietors are immensely
fond of both these sports, which the bulls--by the way--seem to dislike
most thoroughly; but this exhibition in the bull-ring was better than
what one generally sees, and the leperos were loud in their expressions
of delight.

When we had been a week or two in the city of Mexico, we decided upon
making an excursion to the great silver mining district of the Real del
Monte. Some of our English friends were leaving for England, and had
engaged the whole of the Diligence to Pachuca, going from thence up to
the Real, and thence to Tampico, with all the pomp and circumstance of
a train of carriages and an armed escort. We were invited to go with
them as far as Pachuca; and accordingly we rose very early on the 28th
of March, got some chocolate under difficulties, and started in the
Diligence, seven grown-up people, and a baby, who was very good, and
was spoken of and to as "leoncito." On the high plateaus of Mexico, the
children of European parents grow up as healthy and strong as at home;
it is only in the districts at a lower elevation above the sea, on the
coasts for instance, that they do not thrive. Mr. G., who was leaving
Mexico, was the head of a great merchant-house, and it was as a
compliment to him and Mrs. G. that we were accompanied by a party of
English horsemen for the first two or three leagues. Englishmen take
much more easily to Mexican ways about horses than the Mexicans do to
ours, and a finer turn-out of horses and riders than our amateur escort
could hardly have been found in Mexico. There was our friend Don
Guillermo, who rode a beautiful horse that had once belonged to the
captain of a band of robbers, and had not its equal in the city for
swiftness; and Don Juan on his splendid little brown horse Pancho,
lazoing stray mules as he went, and every now and then galloping into a
meadow by the roadside after a bull, who was off like a shot the moment
he heard the sound of hoofs. I wonder whether I shall ever see them
again, those jovial open-hearted countrymen of ours. At last our
companions said good-bye, and loaded pistols were carefully arranged on
the centre cushion in case of an attack, much to the edification of my
companion and myself, as it rather implied that, if fighting were to be
done, we two should have to sit inside to be shot at without a chance
of hitting anybody in return.

The hedges of the Organ Cactus are a feature in the landscape of the
plains, and we first saw them to perfection on the road between Mexico
and Pachuca. This plant, the Cereus hexagonus, grows in Italy in the
open air, but seems not to be turned to account anywhere except in
Mexico for the purpose to which it is particularly suited. In its wild
state it grows like a candelabrum, with a thick trunk a few feet high,
from the top of which it sends out shoots, which, as soon as they have
room, rise straight upwards in fluted pillars fifteen or twenty feet in
height. Such a plant, with pillars rising side by side and almost
touching one another, has a curious resemblance to an organ with its
pipes, and thence its name "organo."

To make a fence, they break off the straight lateral shoots, of the
height required, and plant them closely side by side, in a trench,
sufficiently deep to ensure their standing firmly; and it is a curious
sight to see a labourer bearing on his shoulder one of these vegetable
pillars, as high as himself, and carefully guarding himself against its
spines. A hedge perfectly impassable is obtained at once; the cactus
rooting so readily, that it is rare to see a gap where one has died.
The villagers surround their gardens with these fences of cactus, which
often line the road for miles together. Foreigners used to point out
such villages to us, and remark that they seemed "well organized," a
small joke which unfortunately bears translation into all ordinary
European languages, and was inflicted without mercy upon us as new
comers.

We reached Pachuca early in the afternoon, and took up our quarters in
the inn there, and our friends went on to Real del Monte.

This little town of Pachuca has long been a place of some importance in
the world, as regards mining-operations. The Aztecs worked silver-mines
here, as well as at Tasco, long before the Spaniards came, and they
knew how to smelt the ore. It is true that, if no better process than
smelting were known now, most of the mines would scarcely be worth
working; but still, to know how to extract silver at all was a great
step; and indeed at that time, and for long after the Conquest, there
was no better method known in Europe. It was in this very place that a
Spaniard, Medina by name, discovered the process of amalgamation with
mercury, in the year 1557, some forty years after the invasion. We went
to see the place where he first worked his new process, and found it
still used as a "hacienda de beneficio" (establishment for extracting
silver from the ore.) So few discoveries in the arts have come out of
Mexico, or indeed out of any Spanish colony, that we must make the most
of this really very important method, which is more extensively used
than any other, both in North and South America. As for the rest of the
world, it produces, comparatively, so little silver, that it is
scarcely worth taking into account.

We had forgotten, when we went to bed, that we were nearly seven
hundred feet higher than Mexico; but had the fact brought to our
remembrance by waking in the middle of the night, feeling very cold,
and finding our thermometer marking 40 degrees Fahr.; whereupon we
covered ourselves with cloaks, and the cloaks with the strips of carpet
at our bedsides, and went to sleep again.

We had hired, of the French landlord, two horses and a mozo to guide
us, and sorry hacks they were when we saw them in the morning. It was
delightful to get a little circulation into our veins by going at the
best gallop our horses would agree to; for we were fresh from hot
countries, and not at all prepared for having our hands and feet numbed
with cold, and being as hoarse as ravens--for the sore throat which is
the nuisance of the district, and is very severe upon new comers, had
not spared us. Evaporation is so rapid at this high altitude that if
you wet the back of your hand it dries almost instantly, leaving a
smart sensation of cold. One may easily suppose, that when people have
been accustomed to live under the ordinary pressure of the air, their
throats and lungs do not like being dried up at this rate; besides
their having, on account of the rarity of the air, to work harder in
breathing, in order to get in the necessary quantity of oxygen.

Coughs seem very common here, especially among the children, though
people look strong and healthy, but in the absence of proper statistics
one cannot undertake to say whether the district is a healthy one or
not.

For a wonder we have a good road, and this simply because the Real del
Monte Company wanted one, and made it for themselves. How unfortunate
all Spanish countries are in roads, one of the most important first
steps towards civilization! When one has travelled in Old Spain, one
can imagine that the colonists did not bring over very enlightened
ideas on the subject; and as the Mexicans were not allowed to hold
intercourse with any other country, it is easy to explain why Mexico is
all but impassable for carriages. But if the money--or half of it--that
has been spent in building and endowing churches and convents had been
devoted to road-making, this might have been a great and prosperous
country.

For some three hours we rode along among porphyritic mountains, getting
higher at every turn, and enjoying the clear bright air. Now and then
we met or passed a long recua (train) of loaded mules, taking care to
keep the safe side of the road till we were rid of them. It is not
pleasant to meet a great drove of horned cattle in an Alpine pass, but
I really think a recua of loaded mules among the Andes is worse. A
knowing old beast goes first, and the rest come tumbling after him
anyhow, with their loads often projecting a foot or two on either side,
and banging against anybody or anything. Then, wherever the road is
particularly narrow, and there is a precipice of two or three hundred
feet to fall over, one or two of them will fall down, or get their
packs loose, and so block up the road, and there is a general scrimmage
of kicking and shoving behind, till the arrieros can get things
straight again. At last we reach the top of a ridge, and see the little
settlement of Real del Monte below us. It is more like a Cornish mining
village than anything else; but of course the engine-houses, chimneys,
and mine-sheds, built by Cornishmen in true Cornish fashion, go a long
way towards making up the resemblance. The village is built on the
awkwardest bit of ground possible, up and down on the side of a steep
ravine, one house apparently standing on the roof of another; and it
takes half a mile of real hard climbing to get from the bottom of the
town to the top.

We put up our horses at a neat little inn kept by an old Englishwoman,
and walked or climbed up to the Company's house. We made several new
acquaintances at the Real, though we left within a few hours, intending
to see the place thoroughly on our return.

One peculiarity of the Casa Grande--the great house of the Company--was
the warlike appearance of everybody in it. The clerks were posting up
the ledgers with loaded revolvers on the desk before them; the
manager's room was a small arsenal, and the gentlemen rode out for
exercise, morning and evening, armed to the teeth. Not that there is
anything to be apprehended from robbers--indeed I should like to see
any of the Mexican ladrones interfering with the Cornish miners, who
would soon teach them better manners. I am inclined to think there is a
positive pleasure in possessing and handling guns and pistols, whether
they are likely to be of any use or not. Indeed, while travelling
through the western and southern States of America, where such things
are very generally carried, I was the possessor of a five-barrelled
revolver, and admit that I derived an amount of mild satisfaction from
carrying it about, and shooting at a mark with it, that amply
compensated for the loss of two dollars I incurred by selling it to a
Jew at New Orleans.

We rode on to Regla, soon finding that our guide had never been there
before; so, next morning, we kept the two horses and dismissed him with
ignominy. A fine road leads from the Real to Regla, for all the
silver-ore from the mines is conveyed there to have the silver
separated from it. My notes of our ride mention a great water-wheel:
sections of porphyritic rocks, with enormous masses of alluvial soil
lying upon them: steep ravines: arroyos, cut by mountain-streams, and
forests of pine-trees--a thoroughly Alpine district altogether. At
Regla it became evident that our letter of introduction was not a mere
complimentary affair. There is not even a village there; it is only a
great hacienda, belonging to the Company, with the huts of the workmen
built near it. The Company, represented by Mr. Bell, received us with
the greatest hospitality. Almost before the letter was opened our
horses and mozo were off to the stables, our room was ready, and our
dinner being prepared as fast as might be. What a pleasant evening we
had, after our long day's work! We had a great wood-fire, and sat by
it, talking and looking at Mr. Bell's photographs and minerals, which
serve as an amusement in his leisure-hours. The Company's Administrador
leads rather a peculiar life here. There is no want of work or
responsibility; he has two or three hundred Indians to manage, almost
all of whom will steal and cheat without the slightest scruple, if they
can but get a chance; he has to assay the ores, superintend a variety
of processes which require the greatest skill and judgment, and he is
in charge of property to the value of several hundred thousand pounds.
Then a man must have a constitution of iron to live in a place where
the air is so rarefied, and where the temperature varies thirty and
forty degrees between morning and noon. As for society, he must find it
in his own family; for even the better class of Mexicans are on so
different a level, intellectually, from an educated Englishman, that
their society bores him utterly, and he had rather be left in solitude
than have to talk to them. Well, it is a great advantage to travellers
that circumstances fix pleasant people in such out-of-the-way places.

One necessary part of a hacienda is a church. The proprietors are
compelled by law to build one, and pay the priest's fees for mass on
Sundays and feast-days. Now, almost all the English one meets with
engaged in business, or managing mines and plantations, are Scotch, and
one may well suppose that there is not much love lost between them and
the priests. The father confessor plays an important part in the great
system of dishonesty that prevails to so monstrous an extent throughout
the country. He hears the particulars of the thefts and cheatings that
have been practised on the proprietor who builds his church and pays
for his services, and he complacently absolves his penitents in
consideration of a small penance. Not a word about restitution; and
just a formal injunction to go and sin no more, which neither priest
nor penitent is very sincere about. The various evils of the Roman
Catholic system have been reiterated till the subject has become
tiresome, but this particular practice is so contrary to the simplest
notions of morality, and has produced such fearful effects on the
character of this nation, that one cannot pass it by without notice. If
the Superintendent should roast the parish priest in front of the
oxidising furnace, till he confessed all he knew about the thefts of
his parishioners from the Company, he would tell strange stories,--how
Juan Fernandez carried off sixpennyworth of silver in each car every
day for a month; and how Pedro Alvarado (the Indian names have almost
disappeared except in a few families, and Spanish names have been
substituted) had a hammer with a hollow handle, like the stick that
Sancho Panza delivered his famous judgment about, and carried away
silver in it every day when he left work; and how Vasco Nunez stole the
iron key from the gate (which cost two dollars to replace), walking
twenty miles and losing a day's work in order to sell it, and
eventually getting but twopence for it; and plenty more stories of the
same kind. The Padre at Regla, we heard, was not given to preaching
sermons, but had lately favoured his congregation with a very striking
one, to the effect that the Company paid him only three dollars a time
for saying mass, and that he ought to have four.

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