About Mexico - Past and Present/Chapter 1
ABOUT MEXICO.
CHAPTER I.
A HIDDEN CONTINENT.
UNTIL Christopher Columbus, by his voyage across the Atlantic, had proved that the world is round, no one in Europe thought of going westward to reach India. Merchants and travelers took the old caravan routes through Syria and the Valley of the Euphrates, or crossed Egypt and went by the Red Sea. Every path to the land of gold led men eastward. Marco Polo, a Venetian traveler of the thirteenth century, journeyed by these old paths so far east that he stood on the pine-clad hills of Xipangu (Japan) and looked out on the broad Pacific Ocean. He supposed that this was one of those great flat seas by which the flat world was encircled, and that if a vessel ventured too far upon it contrary winds might blow such unwary sailors over the edge of the world. Columbus, who was a student as well as a sailor, read the adventures of Marco Polo and other travelers, and came to quite a different conclusion. If the world is round, as he believed, the water which Marco Polo saw stretching far to the east was the same ocean as that which washed the western shores of Europe. Japan and India could be reached by a vessel from Europe steered due west across the Atlantic Ocean.
For eighteen long years Columbus talked and dreamed of this voyage. At last, in the year 1492, after many disheartening delays, he sailed from the harbor of Palos, in Spain, with a little fleet of vessels provided by his sovereigns, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, king and queen of the united Spains. It was on this voyage to India that Columbus discovered the little island of Guana-hane, one of the Bahamas, named by him "San Salvador." He supposed it to be one of the outlying islands of Asia, and that by pushing on still farther toward the west he would soon reach that continent. His great desire was to open up to his countrymen a new path to the Spice Islands, the pearl-fisheries and the mines of gold, silver and precious stones of which they so fondly dreamed, and, better still—for Columbus was an earnest Christian—to tell the story of the cross to its heathen people. He hoped also to build up a new empire for Spain and to become its viceroy, with power to transmit the office to his posterity. He returned to Spain with the news of his discovery, but went back once and again to pursue his search for India, expecting to find some gate through these western islands to that country. How strong was his hope is shown by the fact that on his third and last voyage he took with him Arabic interpreters, so that when he met any Mohammedans—at that time the rulers of India—he would be able to hold conversations with them in a language understood by all followers of Mohammed.
We can scarcely imagine the ignorance of those times. In 1502, Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, a Spanish explorer, climbed to the top of the mountains on the Isthmus of Darien and looked off over the vast expanse of water toward the west, never realizing that he had discovered a new ocean or that the peak on which he stood formed part of the backbone of a new world. For many years after the western shore of the Atlantic was discovered all who landed upon it supposed they were in some part of Asia. They called those countries "the West Indies," and the people of both North and South America "Indians."
In 1502, Columbus was earnestly examining the coast of Central America, hoping to find some passage like the Straits of Gibraltar which would prove to be the long-looked-for gateway to the land of gold. Indeed, so eager was he in this vain pursuit that he lost sight of everything else.
It was during this voyage that Europeans obtained their first glimpse of Mexican wealth and civilization. One party from the little squadron had landed on an island near Cape Honduras to obtain a supply of fresh water. While on the beach they saw a canoe of unusual size making its way toward the point on which they stood. Its passengers and crew made a large company; they seemed to be strangers, and to have come from a long distance. Fernando Columbus, who was with his father at the time, describes the boat as "eight feet wide and as long as a galley, though formed of the trunk of a single tree and shaped like those common in the islands. In the middle of the canoe there was an awning made of palm-leaves, not unlike those of the Venetian gondolas, which formed so close a covering as to protect whatever it contained against the rain and waves. Under this awning were women and children, goods and merchandise. The canoe was rowed by twenty-five men." The admiral gave thanks to God for having afforded him samples of the commodities of those countries without exposing his men to toil or danger. He ordered such things to be taken as seemed most valuable, amongst which were cotton coverlets and tunics without sleeves, curiously worked and dyed with various colors; coverings for the loins, of similar material; large mantles, in which the female Indians wrapped themselves like the Moorish women of Granada; long wooden swords with channels on each side of the blade, edged with sharp flints that cut the naked body as well as steel; copper hatchets for cutting wood, bells of the same metal, and crucibles in which to melt the metal. For provisions they had roots and grains, a sort of wine made of maize, resembling English beer, and great quantities of almonds[1] of the kind used by the people of New Spain for money.
The Spaniards were very much struck by the modest bearing of these new comers, and considered them superior to any natives they had yet seen. Columbus ordered their canoe to be restored to them, with European goods in exchange for those he had taken. He then let them all go except one old man who was more intelligent than the rest, and who seemed to be their chief—or cacique, as such a person is called in Spanish histories of the New World. This cacique could understand the language spoken in Honduras, and through his interpreters from that country Columbus heard about the old man's home at the west. The historian adds: "Although the admiral had heard so much from the Indians concerning the wealth, politeness and ingenuity of these people, yet, considering that these countries lay to leeward, and he could sail thither from Cuba whenever he might think fit, he determined to leave them for another occasion, and persisted in his design of endeavoring to discover the strait across the continent, that he might open the navigation of the South Sea, in order to arrive at the spice countries." How absorbed Columbus was we may know when we read the whole story of this neglected opportunity; for such it proved to be. The natives of Honduras had pictured Mexico as rich and populous beyond all comparison. They dazzled the Spaniards with stories of people who could afford to wear as their ordinary apparel crowns and bracelets and anklets of gold, with garments heavy with golden embroidery; of others, who had chairs and tables inlaid with gold, and who ate and drank out of vessels of the same precious metal. They professed to be familiar with Indian coral and the spices which had made the trade with India so valuable to Spain. Everything in their own land of which the Spaniards boasted these Indians claimed would be found in that wonderful country toward the setting sun. Even the ships and cannon and horses with which they had been at first so astonished actually figured in some of these fancy-sketches of Mexico.
But, though Columbus was convinced that he was in the neighborhood of a rich and civilized people, he had no time to stop by the way until he had fulfilled his great commission from Heaven to enrich the Church from the treasures of India, and to set up the standard of Christ among its heathen people. He supposed that he was near one of the provinces of Tartary and that he would soon reach the Ganges, and he was fired with a holy ambition to be the first son of the Church who should tell the-story of redemption on the banks of this sacred river of the Hindus. He did not dream that between him and the object of his search two continents stretched their vast length almost from one polar circle to another, and that behind them rolled the widest ocean in the world.
It was with this great purpose in view that Columbus resolutely turned away from this half-opened door to Mexico and left the discovery and conquest of that country to a man who had the same idea of going westward to India, and the same desire to bring the heathen into the fold of the Church, but who had time to turn aside to take possession of all the gold-mines that opened along his way.
We need not turn our back on Mexico because Columbus did. Let us lift the veil by which it was so long hidden from the European world and look at this beautiful land as it appeared
BEFORE THE CONQUEST.
Mexico, which occupies the tapering southern end of North America, was then held by various tribes, the chief of which were called "Aztecs." Yucatan, which had recently been brought under tribute by these warlike people, was the southern limit of their conquest. Their other boundaries are unknown save that with different kindred tribes they occupied all of what is now known as Mexico,
For grandeur of scenery and variety of climate and productions this country is unsurpassed by any other on the globe. The great mountain-chain which runs along the Pacific shore of both continents widens out in this region into lofty table-lands. One of these, called 
the "Valley of Mexico," is nearly one thousand square miles in extent and from five thousand to eight thousand feet above the level of the sea. Three hundred years ago one-tenth part of this plateau was covered with lakes, both salt and fresh. These have dwindled in size since those early days, probably because the surrounding hills have been stripped by the invaders almost bare of the luxuriant forests which once covered them. Lofty hills form a rampart on three sides of this table-land. On the north it opens out on a great natural road leading along the level mountain-tops for a distance of twelve hundred miles. It was probably along this great highway that many of the early settlers of Mexico came from their homes at the North.
Rising out of this vast mountain-mass are snow-capped peaks, one of which—the highest land on our continent—is a mile and a half higher than the lofty platform on which it stands. Along the nineteenth parallel of latitude rise five volcanoes. Two of these overlooked the Aztec capital and bore the Indian names they still hold. Popocatapetl—"the hill that smokes"—has been doing its best to deserve that title ever since it received it; Iztaccihuatl—"the woman in white"—is so called from its fancied resemblance to the form of a woman lying with her face upturned to the sky, a snowy robe folded across her breast.
Descending on each side from this rocky platform to the sea, the traveler passes over three great natural terraces, each of which has a different climate and productions differing with the elevation. In the Aztec country, which lay entirely within the tropics, the whole scale of vegetation could be found. Forests of evergreen oaks and pine flourished on the mountains, below the snow line, with wheat and other northern cereals. Below these, in richer variety, were the flowers and fruits of the temperate zone. Maize, which is found everywhere in Mexico, attains its most luxuriant growth in this milder climate. The cactus family grows in almost endless forms, the maguey with its rich yellow clusters of flowers, and other trees and plants native to this soil.
The mountains are often cleft by deep ravines in which Nature revels in moisture and warmth and brings out her richest vegetable treasures. Magnificent trees rooted far below lift their heads into the sunshine, and flowering vines clamber everywhere in a wilderness of beauty and fragrance. Gay butterflies glance in the sunlight like blossoms on the wing. Air and earth are alive with myriad insects, while birds as rich in flashing plumage as any gem in all the mines of Mexico enliven the woods with songs unheard in other tropical countries. Some of the most beautiful garden-flowers came from this land. They were first carried to Europe by visitors to Mexico, and thence, after being domesticated in the old gardens of Spain and France, they have found their way back to their native continent as emigrants from the Old World. All the dahlias can trace lineage to some gay beauties that once grew on these.mountain-top meadows of Mexico. It was years before they could be civilized enough to dress in double sets of petals, and the gardeners of this day have only to let them alone for a while, and they go back to their wild Mexican singleness.
It is in the low lands along the sea that we find the luxuriance and variety of tropical vegetation. "Even the sand-dunes," says a recent writer, "blaze in color, lupines in high waving masses of white, yellow and blue, great mats of glittering ice-plants with myriads of rose-colored umbels, lying flat on the white sand, while all the air is sweet with fragrance."
Here were multitudes of plants which are at home only in Mexico. Among them was the cacao, from which the natives prepared their delicious chocolate, and whose seeds passed from hand to hand instead of coin. The vanilla, which grew only on the seashore, was used then as now for flavoring. The cochineal was also raised on the coast; it was the insect which fed on the leaves of a cactus-plant. From the dried body of the female was procured a brilliant red color much used by the Aztecs in dyeing their cotton cloth.
Next to the bamboo, there is probably no plant which can be used in so many ways as the Mexican agave, or maguey. Of its bruised leaves were made broad sheets of paper, on which the most of Mexican history was written. Prepared in another way, these leaves thatched the poor man's cottage. Its thorns served for pins and needles; its delicate fibres, for thread; and those which were heavier were twisted into cords or ropes. From its roots a palatable and nutritious food was prepared, while its juices, when fermented, made an intoxicating liquor on wich the old Aztecs were accustomed to get drunk.
On the coasts there were also forests of mahogany, Brazil-wood, iron-wood, ebony, Campeachy-wood, with numberless varieties of the palm tree. These forests swarmed with small animals, such as tapirs, porcupines, ant-eaters, sloths, monkeys and armadillos, with alligators in the streams. Scorpions, centipedes and other venomous creatures abounded everywhere. The silkworm also is indigenous to many parts of the country.
Mexico has few rivers of great length, and these are navigable only where they cross the narrow belt of lowland to reach the sea.
The mineral wealth of Mexico exceeded that of any other land, not excepting Peru, so famed for its precious metals. Gold was once the staple production of the country, as silver is now. It was found in placers, and was more easily worked than silver. With all that natives and foreigners have taken out of the earth, it is supposed that many valuable mines remain to be discovered. Of iron the natives knew nothing, though mountains of solid ore were found when the Spaniards opened this great mineral storehouse. Tin is abundant in Michoacan and Jalisco. Copper is very common, and lead is found in almost every silver-mine. In Oajaca are found amethysts, agates, turquoises and carnelians.
The beautiful marbles of Mexico have been used for building purposes from time immemorial. The natives employed porphyry and jasper in decoration. Various kinds of greenstone resembling emeralds were found, and were in great demand for ornaments. Amber came from Yucatan, and pearls from California. The salt-lakes of the table-land yielded abundance of that precious commodity, which formed a chief article of commerce between the people of that region and less favored tribes.
- ↑ Cacao-beans, of which chocolate is made.