Mexico, California and Arizona/Chapter 12
XII.
CUATITLAN, AND AROUND LAKES XOCHIMILCO
AND CHALCO.
I.
THE saying is current that "Outside of Mexico all is Cuatitlan."
It shows that the capital entertains a true Parisian esteem for itself, and a corresponding contempt for the rest of the country. Cuatitlan is a little village twenty-five miles to the northward, reached by a narrow-gauge railroad, built by Mexicans, but purchased by the Mexican Central. It was at Cuatitlan that I saw my first bull- fight. It is one of the two places in the vicinity where the capital thus amuses itself, the sport being prohibited in town. In some states, as Zacatecas, it is abolished entirely.
There were five bulls killed that day, and three horses, but no
men—unfortunately, the novice in these cowardly and disagreeable representations is inclined to think. Each bull came in ignorant of the fate of his predecessor, and ran at the streamers with a playful air. You felt like scratching his back and calling him "good old fellow," instead of waiting to see presently his pained astonishment and torture, his glazing eye and staggering step, and death like that of an actor in melodrama. The horses were wretched hacks, allowed to be gored purposely as a part of the spectacle. They were driven around the ring
ENVIRONS OF MEXICO.
which the boisterous youth of Mexico, of the lower class, cried "Bello!" "Bellissimo!" in frenzied delight.
The gray old walls of the parish church, immense, and of excellent design (as they all are), rise above the amphi-theatre. Within are figures of saints grotesquely adorned, or realistically horrible, in the usual style. The devout Indians are not archaeologists, and have no idea of paying honor other than as they understand it. I have it on authority that when left to themselves they have been known to equip the Saviour of the World in a twenty-dollar hat, chaparreras (a kind of riding breeches), spurs, sabre, and revolver, sparing no expense to make him a cavalier of the first fashion.
The houses of the town, built of concrete or adobe, sometimes plastered and tinted, are of one story. There are some small portals for the use of out-of-door merchants, a few pulquerias, and thread-needle shops, and a meson, or inn, "of the Divine Providence," where enormous wheeled wagons are corralled in line, and muleteers sleep upon their packs, as in the times of Don Quixote.
This is Cuatitlan, this the Mexican village, which can be dreary enough to one who does not look at it with the
fresh interest of a new-comer. You cannot take as much comfort in the lower class of people as you would like, on account of their habits. There is no denying that in the neighborhood of Mexico at least they are very dirty. They do not clean up even for their festivals. I saw them dancing at a public ball at the Theatre Hidalgo, which, among other amusements, the municipality provided for them free, on the national festival of the 5th
of May. There were charcoal dealers and such persons, with their women, and they had not taken the pains to
remove a single smudge of their working-day condition.
Cuatitlan was the birth-place of the simple peon Juan Diego, who in 1531 saw the miraculous apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe. He was passing the barren hill where her elaborate pilgrimage church now stands, and she gave him roses which had flowered where no flower had ever been seen before. A banner with the image of this miraculous Virgin was carried all through the wars of the Independence. Guadalupe is still one of the spots to be visited, and you buy such sacred knick-knacks there as at Lourdes or Einsiedlen, but the church is stripped of its treasures now, and the surroundings have a shabby aspect.
II.
At San Angel, Tlalpam, and other similar points in the vicinity of the capital, there was formerly an extensive villa life. It has curiously decayed, even while the security of living in such a way has increased. There are no fierce heats, however, to drive people to the country. It is always comfortable in town. No watering-places nor summer resorts in our sense of the word exist. People who go to their haciendas visit them more to look after their business interests than in need or love of country life. Bills are up in the grated windows of the long, low, one-storied villas at San Angel, and the fruits fall untasted in the orange and myrtle gardens. The villagers endeavor to atone for this neglect of them by feasts of flowers, and little fairs, which last a week at a time. On these occasions, among other attractions, existing ordinances against gambling are set aside, and their small plazas are filled with games of hazard.
The Viga Canal, as far as Santa Anita, is a livelier and
SUNDAY DIVERSIONS AT SANTA ANITA.
more unique resort. Santa Anita is the St. Cloud or Bougival of Mexico. Thither go, especially on Sundays, lively persons to disport themselves on the water and pass a day of the picnic order, taking lunch with them, or depending on such cheap viands as the place offers. The wide yellow canal is more Venetian than French at first. A mouldering red villa or two on its banks, with private water-gates, might belong to the Brenta. Afterward lines of willows and poplars are reflected in the water, and then it is French again.
Flat-boats coming on, piled up with bales of hay and wood, echo each other peacefully from distance to distance. Swift, small chalupas (dug-outs) follow, managed by the Indian master in poses for a sculptor, while his wife—or it is as often an Indian woman alone is ensconced among flowers and vegetables, with which it overflows. This is the region of the chinampas, the gardens from which the markets of Mexico are most liberally supplied. They are formed by the division of what was once a marsh, by narrow branch canals, into small oblong patches. The patches are so small that the owner passes around the borders in his canoe, and keeps all portions moist with water, which he throws out upon them with a calabash. By this care, and the rich character of the redeemed soil, luxuriant crops are produced.
The houses of the village are generally of bamboo, and without windows, sufficient light penetrating through the
interstices. The first business of the participants in the Sunday festivities here is to provide themselves with large,
thick wreaths of lovely poppies and blue and white corn-flowers, which are sold for the merest trifle. They wear these upon their heads, in their caperings, with a highly classic effect. A general frizzling sound is heard, where eatables, of which peppers form a large ingredient, are
prepared on little charcoal furnaces without and primitive fire-places within. "Come in!" the busy venders cry; "come in, señors, señoras, and señoritas, and be seated! Aqui los niños! Here is the place for the children! Here is the place where they are appreciated, and no means considered a nuisance!"
"Tamales calientitos! dear little tamales, very nice and hot!" they cry. In the same caressing way a cabman in want of a job will call you patroncito, "dear little patron," though you may be as large as a grenadier. They decorate their little stands with turnips and radishes cut into ingenious shapes of flowers, and with a profusion of little birds in wax, and the Mexican Goddess of Liberty astride of an eagle. A swarm of flat-boat men cluster at the edge of the canal, bidding for your patronage. Dancing is going on in almost every court-yard; the ballad-singers strike up lazy refrains; and in the Carcel, in a dirty little plaza, by a fountain, a single prisoner monotonously rattles his wooden grating, and glares out at the gayety like a madman. No self-respecting American prisoner could be induced to stay in a place so easy to escape from. But there is no accounting for tastes.
III.
But are there no real chinampas, no gardens that actually float, according to the tradition? Was all that, then, a myth?
Not at all. The soil hereabouts is solidified now, anchored down, as it were; but it has in its time floated, and in that condition borne crops. Farther on whole expanses are found only kept in position by stakes, with four feet of water below, and yet strong enough to sustain grazing cattle, An expedition was organized, in which I was privileged to set off, under the hospitable guidance of the Director of the Drainage of the Valley, to witness these marvels in person. We had a large row-boat, rowed by five oarsmen; and in our party was an amiable English traveller, who has written a book about Mexico,* and described, among others, this very expedition.
We started about seven o'clock in the morning from the garita of La Viga, an old Spanish water-gate, at which toll is taken from the market boats. The current was against us. The canal of La Viga, a stretch of about sixteen miles, is the outlet of Lake Xochimilco into Texcoco. Chalco and Xochimilco are practically the same lake, being separated only by a narrow causeway of ancient date, which is open at the centre and spanned by a little bridge.
There are numerous hamlets along the way, built like Santa Anita, and each with a few venerable palm-trees in its plaza. The Jefe Politico of one embraced our Director of the Desagüe and kissed his hand. At another a solid little bridge had lately been thrown across the canal, and we heard of a banquet that had been given on the
occasion. The orator of the day had delivered a resounding address on human progress, and declared that he was proud to be a resident of a village which could accomplish such a feat. We lunched at a fort-like hacienda at Ixtapalapa, the point where the canal issues from the
lake, and there found horses awaiting to take us to the top of the Hill of the Star. Upon this eminence, according to Prescott, were rekindled the extinguished fires and the beautiful captive sacrificed at the end of each of the cycles of fifty years, when the Aztecs thought the existence of the world was to be terminated.
* Brocklehurst's "Mexico To-day." John Murray: London, 1883. We found nothing on the summit but a few heavy foundation stones, possibly remains of a sacrificial altar. Our horses had to be walked actively about, to prevent their taking serious cold from the rapid evaporation. It is chiefly memories that are found on such places. I plucked there, however, to send in a letter, a dark-red common flower, and pleased myself with the fancy that it might have drawn its sanguinary hue from the ground so steeped in slaughter.
Though at the entrance of the lake, no shining expanse of water was visible. The greater part of the surface, in fact, is covered with a singular growth of entwined roots and débris, supporting a verdant meadow. Passage through it is effected by canals and shifting natural channels, which change with the wind.
Two of our men after a time got out and towed the boat. The ostensible terra firma sank under their weight like the undulations of "benders" in thin ice. Now and then one floundered and went in waist-deep, whereat the others laughed. The margins are kept in place along the permanent channels by pinning them down with long stakes.
We fell in with wandering strips of growing verdure, called cintas (ribbons), and larger ones, bandoleros (bandits), drifting about at their own sweet will. Our host told us, though this he would not guarantee as of his own experience, that in the earlier times a garden of flowers and vegetables was now and then wrecked along-shore after a gale of wind, as if it had been a bark. Contra-bandists, robbers who occasionally beset the market-boats, and political refugees have sometimes found this a favorable place of refuge, and escaped pursuit by diving under the illusive area and coming up elsewhere.
We dined al fresco at Mas Arriba, a place named quite
in the American style, literally Farther On. The margins were full of yellow
water-lilies, and the clear spaces
reflected distant mountains. Evening drew on, and then night. The frogs and crickets waked up their lonesome refrain, and fire-flies twinkled brightly in the morass. A few drops of rain fell, which increased in time to a shower.
IV.
We reached the long causeway between the two lakes late at night, in pitch darkness and torrents of rain, and
screened ourselves a while under the little bridge, which barely accommodated the boat. Here was Tlahuac, an ancient island town or village, at the centre of the cause-way. Waiting was useless. We landed in the rain, bought candles at a wretched tienda kept by Indians as solemn as statues, and set out in search of a lodging. A mozo preceded us, like a great fire-bug, sheltering a burning
candle under a straw mat as best he could, to aid us in keeping out of the deeper puddles.
We were recommended to the Padre, as the only person capable of entertaining visitors of our distinction, and found him in an ancient Dominican convent looming up in the darkness. He received us with many apologies, gave us a good supper, manifested an interest in the late gossip of Mexico, and put us to sleep on the church carpets on the floor of a vast, bare room, provided with a few old religious pictures and bits of furniture.
Any temporary discomforts of this night of adventure were amply atoned for by the beautiful bright morning of the next day. We found Tlahuac a kind of Venetian
island, a Torcello, as it were, on which some population of New Zealanders might have put up their thatched huts. The church rising in the centre had one of the usual shin-
ing tiled domes, and was preceeded by a court and arched gateway. Its outer walls were covered with a large pattern of quatre-foils in red and yellow. I do not recollect just such a design again till I came later to the old Spanish mission of San Juan Capistrano, in Southern California. The island has sunk, or rather the lake has risen, in course of time, and the basis of the columns in the church are some four feet below the level of the ground.
Near by was the village school, and, as we got under way, we heard the shrill little voices of the children reciting their spelling in concert. All the shock-headed adult residents, in their garments of white cotton, looked as stupid as possible; but it is not always safe to judge by appearances.
From here the view of the two great snow-clad volcanoes is uninterrupted and glorious. We were told to feel with the oars at one place in the canal the pavements of a submerged Aztec city. Cortez mentions such a one in his letters. In 1855 the rumor of a new Pompeii spread abroad, based upon the finding of a few submerged Aztec huts in Lake Chalco, but no remains of any real importance have ever come to light.
V.
On this day, in Lake Chalco, we took our mid-day meal at the base of Xico, a little island volcano now extinct. It is of solid granite, without so much as a blade of grass externally, and the ascent is smooth and difficult. The boatmen sometimes see
"Will-o'-the-wisps" on its summit, which, they say, are kindled by the witches. We
climbed it, notwithstanding, and found a gently sloping crater, filled with
maize-fields, which could easily have
been approached from the other side.
The water began to be charmingly clear, and the bottom was full of a red weed like coral. We gathered ferns, lilies, the fragrant little white flower of St. John—flor de San Juan, sold in large bunches in the market—and other flowers, yellow, purple, and vivid scarlet, of unknown names.
The clouds still hung threateningly about, and gave us now and then a slight sprinkle of rain. But as we drew near to Chalco and the end of our two days' voyage they cleared away.
The prospect from this point is the subject for a landscape painting of the grand order. The town of Chalco, with an ancient and noble church edifice, supplies the element of human interest. In front is the blue water in spaces, with their reflection, and a wealth of marsh plants, arrow and lance heads, ferns, and flowers. In the distance are the great snow-clad mountains, upon which wreathing mists throw changing lights and shadows. Ixtacihuatl, the White Woman, though the lesser, I continually find the more picturesque of the two, in its sharp and rugged outline. Popocatepetl, in the more perfect symmetry of its cone, is a little monotonous, like Orizaba.
We came, by a short branch canal, to the station of La Compañia, on the Morelos railway, and took the train back to town. We were just in time to hear of a disturbance near by by General Tiburcio Montiel, and his arrest by the Government forces. It was said that he had headed a communistic uprising of Indians for the
recovery of their lands. He declared through the press afterward that he had but gathered a posse to aid him in the execution of some legal process. Quaint risings of a communistic sort, however, have not been uncommon. Demagogues have more than once told the simple-minded
peons that the lands of the country were theirs—had been
wrested from their ancestors by the Spanish conquerors—and it was high time to get them back. An ingenious hacendado, waited upon by such a delegation, admitted their view, but met it with another.
"Yes," said he, "the Spaniards took your lands, it is true; but before that you Aztecs took them from the Toltecs. Find me first, therefore, some Toltecs; I will yield my title only to them."