About Mexico - Past and Present/Chapter 22
CHAPTER XXII.
TO MEXICO BY RAIL.
THE first object which meets the voyager's eye as he approaches Mexico from the east by sea and nears the city of Vera Cruz is the white cone of snow-crowned Orizaba—"Mountain of the Star"—as it rises behind the city, the giant leader of a file of volcanoes crossing the continent in this latitude. Flat upon the beach before him lies the harborless town, the Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz—"Rich City of the True Cross"—of Cortez. Its white towers and walls and gayly-tinted roofs and domes, mingled with tufted and feathery palms, give to the picture an attractiveness not sustained upon a nearer view. The illusion is dispelled on entering the city, which is dreaded by strangers as the abode of miasms, the home of the deadly vomito. It is, however, regularly laid out, with streets crossing at right angles, and with houses two stories in height, built of coral-rock stuccoed. The buzzards perched lazily on every roof and every tower, and even on the golden crosses of the churches, seem sombre symbols of danger to the visitor. There is no true harbor here offering shelter in rough weather. From November to May the "northers" sweep the Gulf with resistless fury, often strewing the coast with wrecks. But these wild winds no sooner begin to rage than the city is cleared of the dreaded vomito, that scourge of these hot lowlands; so that, next to the buzzards, which find business all the year round as the only scavengers, the northers are the best friends of Vera Cruz.
Not far from the city, and separated from it by an arm of the sea, is the island-fortress of San Juan de Ulua. It is a picturesque old pile, said to have cost the Spanish government forty millions of dollars. This extravagance
seems to have been quite a source of vexation to Charles V., its first owner. Standing one morning at a window of his palace in Spain about the time the architect's bills came in, he is said to have pointed his field-glass toward America, and, looking through it intently for a moment, to have exclaimed with grim humor, "Surely, a building which has cost so much should be seen above the horizon." This castle was the last foothold of Spain in Mexico, having held out against the revolutionists several years longer than any other place.
The first thought of every one who comes to Vera Cruz is how to find the way out of it. Until 1806 the road from this city to the capital—a distance of over two hundred and sixty miles—was little better than a mule-path. The Mexican Railway, which now links the two cities, is one of the greatest marvels of engineering skill in the world. It was thirty-six years in building, and was opened on New Year's Day, 1873. Crossing the arid levels of the tierra caliente ("hot lands") bordering the Gulf, the road reaches a point about forty-five miles west of Vera Cruz, when it suddenly begins to climb the first terrace or the foothills of that great mountain-mass crowded into the taper-end of North America. The air grows cold and bracing and every breath is laden with the perfume of innumerable flowers. The roadside is lined with lofty palms. Morning-glories of luxuriant growth, with rainbow-tinted flowers, run riot among the trees, and orchids, or plants of the air, finding no room in the teeming soil beneath, take wings like strange bright birds and nestle on the crotches of the trees or cling to their branches.
The road lies through vast coffee-plantations as rich in fruit and flower and leaf as though they were in their own native Asia. Fields of corn overtop the low-roofed Indian huts, which, half hidden in the waving verdure, seem to be surrounded by some glittering phalanx of old-time warriors with tossing plumes and robes of green. Here perpetual summer reigns, and the fruits and the flowers of every zone flourish side by side. Four times each year the reaper may follow the sower and gather crops yielding from one hundredfold to four hundredfold. On the skirts of Orizaba there are majestic forests of mahogany, rosewood and other valuable trees. Here and there in some quiet valley or on the shelves of the mountains are some of the finest estates in the world. One of these haciendas lies eleven thousand feet above the sea. Herds of cattle feed in the pastures far from any human habitation.
From many points the traveler looks down into some deep gorge of the Sierra Madré, the home of a laughing mountain-stream. He sees far below him, perhaps on a level with the sea, a bit of tierra caliente dropped into a seam of the rocky mass, rejoicing in the warmth and luxuriance of the perpetual spring which is possible in such shelter. From some cabin down there the Indians come toiling up laden with luscious fruits to sell at the nearest railroad station—oranges golden bright in a pretty home-made basket which goes with the fruit, great bunches of bananas, pineapples rich and melting, at three cents apiece, and other fruits which the sunny South has so entirely monopolized that they are unknown to us. The venders make a picture to remember—copper-colored faces, heavy, straight black hair and dark, melancholy eyes. The white cotton garments of the men and their big straw hats are fashions centuries old, but the bright-colored woolen blanket (serape) over the left shoulder and the long cigar are Spanish innovations. The women wear short calico dresses and a small scarf (called a reboza) of silk or cotton, fringed at the ends, wrapped about the head and the shoulders. This is the cradle of the inevitable baby or serves as a pouch for some other heavy load. As she goes to market the Indian woman shows the industry and the patience of her race by hands busied with her knitting or in picking the chickens she has brought to sell.
But we are off the track. The Mexican Railway passes through but few large towns. Orizaba, a sleepy old place nestling picturesquely on the slope of the mountains, is a paradise for invalids, with its quaint houses, whose widespreading eaves almost elbow each other across the clean but narrow streets. Tlascala (Tlaxcalla) is left a little to the south as the train moves
on and up. In one place a rise is made of four thousand feet in twenty-five miles. As the road climbs higher and higher one stratum of climate after another is passed, till the temperate region is left far below, and the cool breeze blowing in the car window seems to come from some latitude far to the north. The road, hewn out of the solid rock, seems to cling to the bare ribs of Mother Earth. Now it runs like a slender thread along the face of a tremendous cliff, now doubles on itself till the locomotive can stare into the windows of the rear car, and now T at a dizzy height it spans some abyss with a bridge which looks like a cobweb suspended in the air. After climbing about eight thousand feet into cloud land, the track begins to dip toward the great Valley of Mexico. The air is thin and pure, the mountains are bare and bleak, with trees of stunted growth and open levels of pasture-land from whose heights are seen still loftier summits crowned with eternal snow.
One of the finest views of Orizaba the peerless is seen from these high grounds. Dr. Haven thus describes it: "How superbly it lifts its shining cone into the shining heaven! Clouds had lingered about it on our way hither, touching now its top, now swinging around its' sides, but here they are burned up, and only this pinnacle of ice shoots up fourteen thousand feet before your amazed uplifted eyes. Mont Blanc, at Chamouni, has no such solitariness of position, nor rounded perfection, nor rich surroundings. Everything conspires to give this the chief place among the mountains of the earth." Passing on and down, the City of Mexico is reached at last, from the north. The general direction of the track is westward, but it enters the capital near the famous shrine of Our Lady of Guadaloupe. The train which started at midnight from Vera Cruz passed the mountains by daylight not only to give the passengers an opportunity to enjoy the scenery, but to avoid the car-wreckers and brigands who so infest the country that a guard of soldiers is necessary on every train, besides the armed and mounted police at each station on the road. The run from the coast to the capital is now made in twenty hours. 
The famous chinampas, or floating gardens, are seldom seen—at least, they have ceased to float; but there are multitudes of well-anchored islands dotting the lakes of Chalco and Xochimilco, in the environs of the city and lining its water-ways. The fruits, flowers and vegetables which grow on their rich soil vie with those which were brought to the city markets in Montezuma's day.
Frequently the owner's humble cabin is seen half buried in the luxuriant crops, which always grudge it room, while moored to the shore or afloat on the tide is the rude scow which carries the produce to market. Crowds of these boats find their way thither by the Grand Canal, running south-east from Tezcuco to Lake Chalco, a distance of about forty miles. The level of.the latter is so much above that of the former that there is quite a swift current running toward the city, and the loaded boats have an easy time going to market; but coming back they are poled along by swarthy boatmen or women, 
The markets of Mexico are something wonderful, especially in the way of flowers. Huge bouquets of the choicest roses, pinks, geraniums, heliotrope, mignonette—the flowers of every zone, in fact—artistically arranged, sell for a trifle. Everybody buys and wears flowers. The pure smokeless air and the even temperature bring these exquisite flowers to full perfection in size, tint and color. There are fruits of all lands—apples, pears, cherries, plums, of the North, with figs, oranges, pomegranates, pineapples, bananas, of the South, with all the berries familiar to us, and some luscious productions of nature which can be known only by a visit to this highly-favored land. Everything is cheap and abundant. 'A double price is generally asked by the huckster, who expects to be beaten down and yields with Mexican politeness to the buyer's urgency.
The city is still partially supplied with water from the famous old spring at Chapultepec for which so many battles have been fought. Aztec supremacy began with its capture and ended after a desperate resistance when Cortez cut the aqueduct in 1520. Its health-giving streams are now flowing again. The aquadors, or water-carriers, throng to fill their earthen pots just as they did in the days of Cortez, and the bent figures with their loads strapped on their backs look as though they had just stepped out of the pictures on some old Egyptian monument.
There are no more beautiful objects in the city than the public fountains. One is built of hewn stone richly decorated with carvings and statuary and polished until it reflects the sunlight like some bright metal. The 
The centre of the city is the Grand Plaza, a plot of ground about a thousand feet square with a beautiful little garden in the centre. There are pleasant seats among the tall old trees, statuary and fountains tossing their bright spray into the air. There is a music-stand about which the crowd gather in the evenings.
It is not yet a hundred years since the streets of this city were lighted at night, and scarcely twenty-five since a moonlight walk was safe for either ladies or gentlemen. They are as orderly now as those of any city in America. The policemen stand with lanterns, about a hundred yards apart, all over the city.
Leading away from the western side of the Plaza is the San Cosme avenue, along which Cortez and his discomfited army fled through the darkness and the rain of that sad night in 1520. The palace he built is still owned by his descendants.
On the way to the Paseo Nuevo is the Alameda, a beautiful forest-park of ten or twelve acres surrounded by high stone walls and a moat. It is the chief promenade of the city. Well-kept walks and carriage-roads wind about under the grand old beeches, and a massive fountain plays in the centre. Here the birds have built their nests and reared their young undisturbed for generations, and the place is vocal with twitter and song and merry shouts of children.
There are sad memories haunting almost every corner of Mexico, and this beautiful Alameda is no exception. Long ago, when Rome was mistress here, the fires of the Inquisition blazed in this spot, and here, in the sight of assembled thousands who came as for a summer holiday, fifty victims were burned in a grand auto da fé. In the square on which stands the convent of San Domingo were the Inquisition buildings, under the care of Dominican friars; this is now occupied by the Methodist mission. In this square not long ago was an iron post, known as "the burning-post" where heretics were dealt with by the Holy Office. The latest public execution was in 1815, when General José Morelos was put to death here. The old Jesuit church in this square is now used as a custom-house.
One hundred years ago Mexico was a city of monasteries and churches. Full one-half the space enclosed within its walls was covered with these various buildings, some of them occupying from five to twenty acres of ground. They were magnificent structures, the abodes of luxury and ease. As the Church increased in wealth and influence the monasteries and the convents are said to have been hotbeds of vice and sedition. When Comonfort was in power, it was found that many of these buildings were interfering with public improvement, and he began the work of demolition by ordering a street to be cut through the convent of San Francisco, one of the most elegant in the city. In a part of the monastery thus divided we find another Protestant church worshiping. Some of the exquisitely-polished stones of this edifice are said to have been preserved from the wreck of Montezuma's house, and many of the pillars are known to have been the work of Aztec hands. This vast monastery was one of the finest buildings of its kind in America. It was more honored than any other, as the place where the body of Cortez lay in state. The grandest church-building on this continent is the cathedral, facing the Plaza. Its white towers, two hundred feet high, overtop every building in the city. Its mere shell cost two millions of dollars, and that, too, in a land and an age when labor was very cheap. Scarcely a church interior in the world can surpass this in rich and costly decoration. The wealth of "the golden realm of Mexico" was poured out here without stint. Heavy marbles carved by the best masters of Europe were brought over the sea and carried by surefooted mules over the dizzy heights of the sierras. The elaborately carved choir was made in Mexico, and is estimated to be worth a million of dollars. This edifice was begun in 1573, by order of Philip II., and finished in about a hundred years. It is of the Doric order, with three entrance-doors on the principal façade, flanked by two square open towers and crowned with a dome of fine proportions. At the base of one of these towers is the celebrated Aztec calendar, an enormous granite monolith, which was removed in 1790 from the place in the Plaza where it had been buried by the orders of Cortez.
The cathedral occupies the site of the great Aztec temple,[1] and is five hundred feet long by four hundred and twenty wide. "The first object that presents itself to one entering it is the altar, erected on a platform in the centre of the building; it is made of highly-wrought and highly-polished silver and covered with a profusion of crosses and ornaments of pure gold. On each side of this altar runs a balustrade, enclosing a space about eight feet wide and eighty or a hundred feet long. The balusters are about four feet high and four inches thick in the largest part; the hand-rail, from six to eight inches wide. Upon the top of this hand-rail, at the distance of six or eight feet apart, are images, beautifully wrought and about two feet high, used as candelabras. All of these—the balustrade, the hand-rail and the images—are made of a compound of gold, silver and copper, more valuable than silver. It is said that an offer was once refused to take this balustrade and replace it with another of exactly the same size and workmanship, of pure silver, and to give half a million of dollars besides. As you walk through the building, on either side there are different apartments filled from floor to ceiling with paintings, statues, vases, huge candlesticks, waiters and a thousand other articles of gold and silver."[2] The jeweled vestments of the Virgin enshrined in this magnificent building are said to have cost three millions of dollars, while the garments of the priests who minister to her on state occasions are proportionate in worth, and so heavy that the wearers can scarcely stand under their weight when pronouncing the benediction. The cathedral was but one of seventy or eighty churches in the City of Mexico whose wealth and splendor made them remarkable in an age when the Church claimed a monopoly of the treasures of the world.
When Cortez was demolishing old Tenochtitlan, as the city was then called, it was found to be impossible to break up some of the heathen monuments with which it abounded, and he therefore ordered them to be buried in the great square. . Besides the calendar stones, the old stone of sacrifice, with a heavy yoke once used in holding fast the victim, was dug up in 1790, also a huge stone image of Humming-Bird, with some of the carved capitals of the massive pillars of his temple. These relics are now on exhibition in the National Museum with many other relics of that day, such as Montezuma's feather-shield and cloak and the silken banner once borne before his conqueror. The Mexican government has forbidden the exportation of the relics with which the
land abounds, but antiquarians can still easily reap a rich harvest on this historic ground.
The houses of Mexico are seldom more than two stories high. They are built about a patio—an interior open square surrounded by verandas. The entrance from the street is into this court, from which the upper stories are reached. The style of architecture is Moorish, and each block presents a solid front, with windows and one door opening into each separate dwelling. The soil is very spongy, and, what with floods and earthquakes, many of the foundations have sunken; so that
church-towers lean and doorways may be a foot below the pavement. During the heavy rains of September, Lake Tezcuco is apt to overflow and the city to be flooded. Indeed, the sidewalks are always damp upon the shady side. The lower story of the houses being damp and dark, it is the custom to leave it to the ser servants, while the family are domiciled in the second floor, and in fine weather betake themselves to the roof.
All the substantial buildings in Mexico are bright with color. Those which are not white stucco are tinted in gray, buff or pale green enlivened with various shades of red. Some of the churches could be called pink. With blocks built with one solid front, it is quite a relief to the eye to see a gray house adjoining one faced with blue encaustic tiles or pale green. Massive carvings and decorations in mosaic-work, balconies and latticed windows are also quite effective and do much to vary the otherwise sombre architecture.
The houses in the suburbs are gay with flowering vines, and almost any open doorway in the city will give a glimpse of the patio, or courtyard, with its cool verandas and bright flowers and shrubbery around a plashing fountain.
Among the improvements projected by Maximilian was the rebuilding of Mexico on a more healthful site. The city is still growing westward, according to his wise plan, and the high grounds in the suburbs have quite a modern appearance. Thousands of new houses are going up and old ones have been remodeled, while real estate has almost doubled its value since the life-blood from the world's great centres began to pulsate through the railroads—those great continental arteries.
The lumbering diligence will soon disappear from city and country, with the picturesque brigand, and the multitude of beggars who from time immemorial have infested the capital will vanish in that happy day when Yankee ploughs and Protestant Sunday-schools shall be domesticated throughout the land. These paupers have already been set to work on railroads and other public improvements, and a house of correction for young delinquents is helpful in reclaiming some of the less hardened villains.
From statements recently published we learn that "primary education has been declared compulsory, but the law is not enforced. In 1884 there were in Mexico 8986 public elementary schools, with nearly 500,000 pupils, and 138 for superior and professional education, with an attendance of 17,200. The government spent on education in 1884 more than $3,000,000." Thus we
see that education has made slow but steady progress since the separation of Church and State, in 1857. At that time the University of Mexico—entirely a Church institution—was abolished by the republicans, and a number of special schools took its place for law, medicine, art, science, agriculture, mines, military and civil engineering, etc. In these institutions nearly four thousand students are now pursuing their studies. Besides these are asylums for the blind, the deaf and dumb, and other charities which are supported by private individuals. With all these opportunities, however, it is still true that six-sevenths of the people of Mexico can neither read nor write. The business enterprise of the country is in the hands of a very few, and those mostly foreigners. The higher classes are not inferior in intelligence and culture to cultivated people in the most favored lands. The Mexican is fluent in conversation and urbane in manner, but the wide gap between the
aristocracy and the lower orders reveals Mexico's great need of a middle class prepared by education for those blessings of constitutional liberty which the masses are yet trampling under their feet for very ignorance.
Most of the two hundred and thirty thousand residents of the capital are Indians. The kneeling crowd in the churches on some saint's day is largely aboriginal in its make-up, and as democratic as in ancient days. The dark-eyed señora of Spanish blood wrapped in the ample folds of her silken reboza bows on the stone floor close beside an Indian from the country on the way to market with a hen-coop on his back, and the cackling, crowing inmates of the coop in no wise disturb the prayers of either devotee. Perhaps half the crowd remembered to throw a kiss to their old deity, the sun, as they entered the shrine where the one true God is professedly worshiped. There is no Sabbath in Mexico. The sanctity of the Lord's day has been given to seasons devoted to the adoration of his disciples, and there are so many more of these saints' days than of Sabbaths in the year that if they had no other reason to obey man rather than God this would be sufficient for this pleasure-loving people. Formerly they went in the morning to mass, and then in the afternoon to a bull-fight—an institution that might seem to have come down from the bloodthirsty Aztecs did we not know that it was brought from Spain. Mexico has done better than the mother-country, for these disgusting exhibitions have been suppressed by the government.
Mexico is the paradise of equestrians; even the beggars formerly went on horseback.
The Paseo de la Riforma is a fine avenue three miles long, leading out to the famous castle of Chapultepec, beside the Chalco Canal. A ride in one of the pleasure-boats on the latter is a favorite pastime. These boats are fitted up with cushioned seats in the middle, protected by an awning, for passengers, while the boatmen use their long poles at either end. On land the way is thronged from seven to nine o'clock in the morning aud from six to seven in the evening with equestrians and gay carriages filled with ladies. The magnificent housings of the steeds, rich with trappings of gold and silver and silken embroidery, form one of the finest sights of the metropolis, to be surpassed in splendor only by the dress of their riders. The amount of flashing buttons and gold-lace a Mexican gallant can wear is to be measured only by the size of his person. His wide sombrero, feathered and laced, his spurs and other martial accoutrements, make him a fine object of observation in the row of horsemen who stand together to be gazed at by every passer-by.
The nineteenth century makes itself manifest on some of the roads leading out of the city in the shape of "horse-cars"—which are crowded most of the time—drawn by mules. There are two classes of these cars, with the names on the outside. The conductors blow a horn at the crossings or to hold up.
The present castle of Chapultepec was built in 1785 by the viceroy Galvez on the site of one of the old summer-houses of the luxurious chiefs of Mexico, the foundations of which still remain, and also one of the bathing-pools cut in solid rock. It is approached by an avenue of gigantic cypress trees. The city is in full view from the windows, with its domes and towers, its softly-tinted houses interspersed with forest trees. The great valley with its embracing mountains, whose tall sentinel-peaks rise far to the east, are all reflected in the mirror-lakes below from the very base to the summit. Popocatapetl and Iztaccihuatl are giant gate-posts in the granite wall which surrounds this great plateau. Seen through the wonderfully pure and rarefied atmosphere of this high table-land, these summits seem closer than they really are, being thirty miles apart. Between them Cortez made his way, and centuries later General Scott followed. Popocatapetl, five thousand feet higher than Mont Blanc is a perfect cone. Now and then a smoke-wreath
tells of the fires which rage far below its rocky foundations, but there has been no eruption within three hundred years. Such was the dread of this smoking mountain that no Mexican ever scaled it until the Spaniards came. Since these adventurous spirits seized Mexico, Popocatapetl has been turned into a vast sulphur-quarry. A jet of vapor of twenty horse-power rises about eight hundred feet below the edge of the crater, and it is proposed to use this natural force to hoist the sulphur to the top of this vast cavity, instead of employing men to climb up in that rarefied atmosphere with heavy loads.
Over against Popocatapetl is Iztaccihuatl—the "Woman in White." Its resemblance to a human figure is perceived more readily than that of the Man in the Moon. One needs a strong imagination in both cases. The giantess lies in her snowy robes, with her feet toward her husband and her cold face upturned, her hair being simulated by one of the dark forests which mantle the lower slopes of these mountains. Recent enterprise has found a way of making money out of both these old people. Since Popocatapetl produces sulphur, his wife has been called upon for ice, of which she has enough and to spare. The city of Puebla is supplied in this way, and a few years more may see its white mantle dealt out by piecemeal to cool other heated communities farther away.
The Virgin Mary is the tutelar deity of all Mexico; more than two-thirds of the people worship her in the form of an Indian maiden. About ten years after the surrender of Guatemozin, and while the people were still maintaining, though under great difficulties, their old tribal relations, it became evident that the religion which they had been forced to adopt was growing more and more hateful to them, and that unless something was done to win their hearts even the compromise with heathenism which passed under the name of Christianity would be shaken off altogether: Christians had made the name of Christ so odious that his beloved message lost all its power.
In the suburbs of the city was a place whither the Aztecs once resorted to pour their sorrows into the ear of their ancient idol Tomantzin—a sweet word in their ears. The last syllable is a title given to persons of high rank, but the first part of the name has a meaning which is dear to every human heart. It is "Our Mother." Tomantzin attracted the attention of the dignitaries of the Church as they studied the Indian question of that day, and soon she was formally adopted by the conquerors, and with some changes in dress and the development of her history to suit the times she took her place in the Church as the queen of heaven. Tomantzin was introduced in her new character to her old friends with an ingenuity admirable if not commendable. One December night in 1531 a converted Indian—Juan Diego by name—was praying alone on the hill of Guadaloupe, about two miles from the city gate, where the people had always worshiped Tomantzin. As he knelt under the starlit sky the Virgin Mary appeared to him robed in white, a great light shining about her. Yet, wonder of wonders! she was no longer white, but appeared as an Indian woman and spoke of his people as her own people and in their mother-tongue.
"Go," she said, "to the bishop of Mexico and tell him it is my wish that a church should be built for me on this spot."
When Diego recovered from his surprise, he hastened to the bishop's palace with his strange news. It was received with suitable incredulity and passed by. But Diego went back to the spot hallowed by the beautiful vision, and, to his great joy, the Virgin appeared again, repeating her commands to the bishop, and adding that the Church would never prosper in Mexico until her message was obeyed. To give weight to her words, a fountain burst forth from the spot where she stood. Again Juan Diego went to the bishop, who still doubted. He wanted some sign to prove that the story was true. When the Indian again visited the hill, he saw the Virgin near the spring, but this time she bade him take to the faithless bishop a quantity of full-blown roses as a proof of her creative power. The barren rock now burst forth in bloom, though it was the Mexican winter, when roses did not nourish in those cold uplands. With the miraculous roses in his blanket the Indian hastened back to the bishop, when, lo! as he opened his treasure, he saw imprinted on the coarse woolen fabric the face that had thrice appeared to him on the hill. This was accepted as convincing proof that the Virgin had espoused the cause of the Indians. Belief in Our Lady of Guadaloupe now became universal among her countrymen, although the fraud of the whole story is frankly acknowledged by many intelligent and loyal Roman Catholics in Mexico.
On the spot was built a church which became the richest in this land of rich churches. Its great wealth is not derived from the mines, but from the earnings of the abject poor, in whose behalf the Indian Virgin came. Half the women in Mexico, and thousands of the men, are named after this lady, and scarcely a house in the land lacks her blanket-image enshrined in the most honored place. Hundreds of chapels have been erected in her honor in every city and town in Mexico.
The anniversary of the Virgin's appearance is still celebrated by a great pilgrimage to her shrine. Along the road from the capital to this spot were constructed fourteen beautiful shrines, each commemorating some fact in the history of Christ. Thousands of devotees can be seen crawling on their bare knees on the hard pavement, saying their prayers as they go painfully along. The highest dignitaries in the land were wont to join in this celebration. As many as one hundred thousand people came on foot from the surrounding country to join in the ceremonies and to bring their offerings. Those who were too poor to pay for lodgings would sleep on the sacred soil, and thousands thus camped out rolled in their blankets, acres of sleeping humanity. This pilgrimage is falling into disuse. The great neglect the occasion, and the poor have less time to spend thus than in ante-railroad times. In fact, the Mexican Railway has usurped the road over which bare-kneed pilgrims traveled, and the shrines are falling into decay since, with Maximilian and Carlotta, clerical rule passed away.
There has always been a great rivalry between the Virgin of Guadaloupe and the Virgin brought over from Spain, Nostra Señora de los Remedios. The latter is an ugly wooden doll about a foot long. It is said to have once belonged to Cortez, and to have been set up by him in the old heathen temple of Mexico. Some of the Spaniards rescued the image at the time of their conflict with the Aztecs, and it was taken away with other valuables and lost in the wreck of the noche triste. When, some time afterward, it was found in the heart of a huge maguey-plant on the top of a bare hill, it was claimed that the Virgin had saved her image by a miracle, and henceforth she was shrined in a golden maguey-flower and worshiped as divine. Many a time the wooden Virgin, seated in a gilded coach and drawn by a nobleman of the highest rank, has been carried through the streets of the capital, while the viceroy humbly walked behind.
The political opinions of these rival Virgins are supposed to be very marked. The republicans were shrewd enough to win the Lady of Guadaloupe to their side at the beginning of the contest, while the Lady de los Remedios was counted upon as a true Spaniard in her sympathies. Each of them had a general's dress and marched with her party when they paraded the streets.
At one time, when the conservatives were despairing of their cause, they began to threaten the Lady de los Remedios for her indifference to their entreaties. They told her that if she would hear their prayers she might keep her situation in the cathedral and wear her jeweled petticoats in peace; if she still continued deaf to their prayers, they would put her in plain clothes and ship her to Spain. At last ruin stared them in the face. The wooden doll was taken down, and bearded men, like children in a pet with their toy, bought a passport for her to her native land. She was actually on her way there in disgrace when the authorities came to their senses and ordered the disgraced image to be returned to the church.