Pictures of life in Mexico/Volume 1/Chapter 19
CHAPTER XIX.
SCENES BEFORE THE ADMINISTRADORES.
A bench of magistrates is a somewhat imposing sight, in any country—even to a comparatively unconcerned spectator. Such an air of conscious dignity and importance sits upon the faces of those "potent, grave, and reverend seigniors," as they scrutinize a prisoner on his entrance; so portentous are their aspects as they lay their heads together and consult in an under-tone; and so awful is their delivery when "we" after mature deliberation have come to a decision! The judicial authorities of Mexico are no exception to this general remark; indeed they seem more imperious than ordinary, in proportion to the wretchedness and ignorance with which they have continually to deal.
The following are a few scenes and circumstances which came to my knowledge, on visiting a court of administradores (justices), in the Accordada of the City of Mexico.
The centre of the range of mountains west of the capital, is traversed by a highway shut in on one side by craggy cliffs, having on the other a steep declivity composed of jagged and knotted rocks. This road is very solitary and perilous, particularly where for about a hundred yards it passes over a ledge of rock only about four feet wide, overhanging a precipice, from which even sure-footed mules, too heavily laden, have missed footing and slipped to be dashed to pieces on the rocks below. There is nothing to disturb the impression which the wild and desolate character of the scene makes on the mind of a traveller, but a number of rude crosses erected at intervals along the route—mementos of unsuspecting wayfarers who have been murdered by ladrones; while on their mountain journey.
Two miserably-clad Indians—one a strongly built, short man; the other a youth about seventeen years of age—were making the best of their way over this road; at noon on a cloudy day. Both were natives of the same remote village, where from infancy they had obtained a scanty livelihood by alternately begging and working in the fields of haciendas; but having been unusually industrious for the last three months they had appropriated a portion of their earnings to take a trip to the city of Mexico; there to establish themselves in the listless occupation of léperos in the hope of living comfortably in future without laborious exertion.
On their arrival in the midst of the Sierra—just where the traveller hopes to obtain a glimpse of the city to which he is bound—the sky was lowering and overcast and some drops of a passing shower were felt; but soon the sun burst forth overhead brilliantly lighting up the road the travellers were takings and spanning with a rainbow the declivity on their right hand. The countenance of the younger shewed a faint reflection of the sunlight near them, but the face of the other lowered like the lurid pile of clouds gathered in the distance; and as they plodded on in company, the youth gazed, half in fear and half in curiosity, upon the sullen contortions of his companion's countenance.
"You are very dull and silent, all at once, Sanchez," at length he exclaimed. "For my part, our near approach to the city fills me with delight. It can't be far off now, and already I can fancy its fine towers, and splendid churches—ay, even the squares and corners where you and I shall stand to ask alms. Oh! what a glorious life! What a prospect is before us!"
"Yes! and the gaming-tables, and the pulque-stores, and the aguardiente, and the comrades we shall have!" replied his companion, quickly. "'T will be different, indeed, from the miserable life we have led in the old village. But I wish we were there, for I can scarcely command patience until our arrival."
"Think of the charitable old monks and ladies, and the rich citizens!" resumed the youth, with enthusiasm.
"Ay! and the fruits exposed to plunder, and the food that is to be had for the taking, and the gold that is to be found upon the pavements!" echoed the other, with an ill-concealed taunt in his manner.
"We must see each other, Sanchez, very often, you know: it will be so pleasant to have somebody to talk to whom we know, will it not? Oh! what a pleasant prospect!"
"Yes! it is a pleasant prospect—for me," replied his comrade. "But as to you----"
"What, Sanchez! Is my chance worse than your own? I can make myself useful in many ways."
"It is a good prospect for me, I was going to say," repeated Sanchez, "and it might be for you also, Nazas, but for one reason."
"And what is that? Tell me—oh, do tell me, quickly, that I may remove it."
"You would do well enough, I have no doubt," again said Sanchez, ferociously, "but for one reason—and that is, you will never get there!"
"Never get there!" exclaimed the poor youth, glancing in affright upon the darkening countenance of his companion.
"You will never get there, I tell you!" shouted the wretch, seeing that they were now fairly in the centre of the narrow ledge of rock already mentioned. "Down upon your knees!" he continued; seizing his comrade by the throat—"Down upon your knees! Give me every grano of the money you have in your possession, and swear to me by all the saints that you will return at once to the village and tell nobody what has happened,—or I will fling you over this rock, as I would a dead wolf.—Swear! swear!"
"I do swear!" cried Nazas, sinking in terror upon his knees. "I swear by all the saints; by the blessed Virgin, by St. Peter, St. Lazarus; and———but spare my life! I swear!"
"Swear that you will never disclose to any one what has now happened you, or, trust me, I shall still have the means of following you, even at the village!"
"I do—by St. Paul, and St.-Matthew, and St. Clara, and St. Anthony, and St. Bridget, and St. Barbar——"
"Now then for the money. Every grano! or over you go this instant. Is that all? Have you no more? I must search for myself.—There! Now thank your stars you have got off so easily—and beware!"
The poor, plundered youth turned, with a sinking heart, to retrace his steps to his native village; bemoaning his ruined hopes, and heartily regretting that he had left his home with such a companion.
He had not proceeded far before he unwittingly turned to take a last look in the direction of the city; and as he did so he felt a sudden chill creep over him, as if in apprehension of impending danger. He looked up at the sky above him—it had become bright and tranquil; then at the earth at his feet: it was true he was upon the narrow pass; but then he clung closely to the rocks on his side, and thought he had nothing to fear on that account. Just at this instant, the scoundrel Sanchez, his old companion, also turned; and seeing that his victim hesitated and looked back, he raised his hand with a threatening movement, hastily advancing a few steps and shouting.
This action, and the apprehension it excited proved too much for the young Indian's presence of mind; he quitted his hold upon the rock; and began to fly from his fancied pursuer—his foot slipped—he fell over the precipice— —and before he could reach the bottom, he was a crushed and mangled corpse. His late comrade returned to the spot where he fell; glanced for a moment at the body as it lay beneath; and then, without betraying the slightest emotion or compunction, hurried on his way, and arrived in due time before the city gates.
Little as he suspected it, however, and unfrequent as detection is in this country, Sanchez had been watched by an arriero on the same route, from the moment of his returning to the precipice; and was in consequence apprehended immediately on his arrival. The particulars here related were elicited in the course of his examination before the administradores, which ended by the prisoner being remanded for further examination.
The next case that claimed the attention of the magistrates was a truly pitiable one. The prisoner was a miserably feeble object, scarcely covered by fluttering many coloured rags, and his sunken face was almost blackened by heat and excessive exposure to the weather. The accusation against him was two-fold,—he had feloniously introduced himself, a foreigner, into the country, without license, or carta del seguridad; and, having subsisted in a precarious manner on charity during many months, had satisfied his hunger at length, unlawfully, at the expense of others. I was deeply moved by his appearance, and still more by the faltering accents and tone of anguish in which the details of his defence were delivered.
"I am a native of Quito," he said (I give his story in a more connected form than his own in relating it), "and would to Heaven I were in my native country at this moment; for I love it dearly, tempestuous and dangerous as it is. Time there passed joyously with me; I was prosperous and independent: I had my one-story cottage (all the houses there are low, having the whole of their apartments on the ground) and it was well stored both with tenants and provisions. Health and friends, family and position, fields, orchards, and cattle, all were mine. But I must not allude to them, or my heart will burst!
"The land of my birth—as perhaps you know, Señores—is nearly ten thousand feet above the level of the sea, and is liable to the most awful earthquakes and tornadoes. The hamlet in which I resided had several times suffered from these causes: often had our dwellings been unroofed, and partially scattered to the winds, and our fruit-trees torn up by the roots; and even whole woods of trees, huge rocks, and entire houses, had altogether disappeared. It was long, however, since such an occurrence had taken place amongst us, and we lived on without apprehension of coming evils.
"But in one night, without any warning beyond an unusual redness in the sky, the horrible and destroying tempest burst upon us. All that was ever told of the loudest thunder, all that was ever seen of the most vivid lightning, would fail to picture the terrific visitation of that night! The earth shook and groaned, and opened wide, beneath us and around us! Forests of gigantic trees were uprooted and tossed high in air, to meet in fearful shocks, and be driven down again upon the ground! Rocks were riven and swallowed up in yawning chasms, or scattered into fragments and dispersed like hail before the tearing wind. Fields of spreading corn were cut to pieces, and set on fire by the lightning; while the thunder of the clouds seemed to find an echo in the vibrating earth below! Cattle were lifted from their feet and dashed down precipices, or were hurried off before the blast to perish in the sea, far away! Sheds and buildings were scattered about on every side, or crushed by falling rocks, and, together with their inmates, were ground to dust in the convulsion! Human bodies were hurled into the air and driven from point to point, until they found a grave fathoms deep below the ground! Blue and yellow flames burst from the edges of sinking-rocks; while hot springs of water gushed upwards from sulphureous caverns! Shrieks and howls from dying animals, awful in themselves, were drowned in the overwhelming uproar. Rain poured down in torrents, and pillars of steaming vapour seemed to unite both earth and sky! Thick darkness reigned but for a moment as sheet after sheet of vivid lightning made the horizon visible, and cast a burning distinctness over the whole scene! Oh! what a time it was! Mother of Heaven! what an awful time it was!
"My own house was one of the first destroyed: it was shivered to pieces in an instant and the whole of its inhabitants were either buried among its ruins, or violently precipitated on the rocks. I was whirled into a yawning cavity, where I long lay insensible: I felt it rock and tremble fearfully when I recovered, but fortunately it closed not. No other member of my family survived. On the morning of the next day, when the earth had ceased to vibrate, and the storm had spent its strength, I feebly rose from my retreat, and searched with a stricken heart among the ruins and bodies around me. Judge of my feelings at discovering no trace of any one who had been dear to me, and that I was the only human being who had been preserved alive!
"Since that period, I have been desolate and a wanderer. As an alleviation to my misery, I resolved to travel to other countries. I have kept my vow; I have toiled on, in difficulty and destitution, ever northwards, to this place—and here I think my wanderings will soon be ended."
Of the remainder of this poor wayfarer's defence,—how he accounted for having eluded the officers at the city gates, and pleaded guilty to the charge of theft while in want,—I took no notes; nor how the tears fell in torrents from his cheeks in the course of his narrative, insomuch that the administradores themselves were visibly affected. The scene closed by his committal to the prison of the Accordada; and he would have but little cause—remembering the wretched and uncertain life he had so lately led—to regret the circumstance.
I might have remained to make myself acquainted with the unpleasant incidents of another case; but being already acquainted with the existence of such perpetrations, I withdrew on its commencement. The delinquents were two vagrant Indians, male and female, charged with throwing a quantity of vitriol over the clothes and persons of two ladies, who had refused to bestow upon them their charity. The prisoners were among the most callous and ruffianly I had ever seen; the countenance of the man appeared hopelessly reckless and brutal; and the indifference of the woman was almost as great: she refused to make reply to the questions put to her, and very composedly smoked a cigarrito during the proceedings.
This atrocious practice of vitriol-throwing is so rife in Mexico, that its appalling evidences are frequently visible in the streets.
Passing through a narrow lane in the city a few days ago, I beheld a sight which horrified me while yet at a distance. Beside a stall for the sale of oranges, cream, and other trifling refreshments, stooped a figure bearing some faint resemblance to a human being—apparently, a female—whose head and face were completely covered with a tightly-fitting, reddish brown reboso. As I drew nearer, my eyes rested upon what ought to have been the face of a fellow-creature, but which was so no longer: in the place of human lineaments, was an awful void; nearly every vestige of the image in which man was created being obliterated. There remained only some dim indications of eyes, and a bleared cavity supplied the place of a mouth; but forehead and cheeks, nose and chin, lips and ears, were mingled into one hideous, shapeless mass; even the hair and eyebrows seemed to have shrunk away, and the remaining skin was seamed and barred with red and black. Still the wretched being moved in her place at the table, and her appearance in other respects resembled that of storekeepers near her in the street. I could not endure to look at her long, but hurried on: strive against it as I would, however, the revolting object haunted me for the remainder of the day and in the night.
Two days afterwards, before the impression just described had sufficient time to wear away, my attention was attracted by a richly dressed lady promenading a fashionable quarter of the town, and leading a little boy by the hand, both followed by a well-attired domestic. The child wore a light blue mantilla, of the same fashion as the lady's, closely drawn around his face; beautiful locks of light brown hair clustered upon his shoulders, and there was something very interesting in his slight and graceful figure. As my way lay in the same direction, therefore, my curiosity led me to notice them still more attentively. They stopped from time to time to look at the shops and stores; but I had no opportunity of observing the concealed face of the little boy, until the lady at length entered a jeweller's shop, leaving the child outside in the care of the servant. As I drew near, the little fellow somewhat impatiently threw off the mantilla from his head for a minute, to see the glittering trinkets; and I turned towards him to look in his face. There was no face!—it was a miniature reproduction of the hideous, formless blank which had so lately haunted me. The skin had the same scorched and bleared appearance; the features were obliterated in the same way; and the head, upon the whole, presented a similar ghastly mass. Shuddering at the sight, I turned quickly away; less able than before to account for the horrid spectacle by any conceivable explanation.
On turning the corner of the same street, I came upon a troop of prisoners from the Accordada, chained two and two, and employed in the capacity of scavengers. I stopped for a while, noting the unwilling way in which they stooped to their labour, and speculating upon the different degrees of villany exhibited in the countenances before me. The avaricious propensities of one little man, with a keen, restless eye, and a puckered mouth, and the brutality stamped upon the coarse and repulsive features of another, had alike struck me; when an individual in the background raised his head from the earth, and turned his face in the direction I was standing. His face, do I say? No:—he, too, had neither features nor expression. His front displayed the same blighting appearance that had already shocked me. I could scarcely restrain an exclamation of horror at the sight; and after exchanging a word with the officer who guarded the prisoners, I beat a hasty retreat, endeavouring to banish all these revolting impressions from my mind.
Subsequently meeting this official from the Accordada; I inquired the cause of such awful appearances. With an indignant look and a fierce stamp upon the ground, he assured me that the persons I had noticed were the victims of vitriol-throwers—infamous wretches who thus prosecute their schemes of vengeance and malignity! He told me the crime was a very common one in the republic, and that the most cunning contrivances were resorted to by the miscreants, to insure the utter destruction of their victims' features. Vitriol, he said; had been poured, by demons in human form, even upon the faces of sleeping children and the countenances of vigorous men and beautiful women had been actually burned away by its repeated application: wretches had thus wreaked their malice upon those whom they considered enemies.
A most heinous case of this description he related, as having himself witnessed its results. It is almost too horrible for recollection; but I must not shrink from alluding to what is unhappily too characteristic of the lowest classes of the Mexican community.A gentleman named Commaña had admitted a poor Mestizo into his household in the capacity of servant; and had treated him with infinitely more indulgence and consideration than usually falls to the lot of domestics in this country. By-and-bye, however, he found that the Mestizo was in the habit of stealing in and out of the house from time to time; and it was at last discovered that he had taken many portable articles of value with him. He was arrested on suspicion; tried upon several charges, which were proved against him; and imprisoned for many months in the Accordada.
He occupied himself during his long incarceration, in scheming to revenge himself upon his prosecutor; and being a most malignant and determined villain, he resolved to employ the most dreadful means of vengeance at his command.
On his liberation, he joined a crew of miscreants but lately released from prison, who frequented a dirty street in one of the worst quarters of the town, and arranged with them to rob the mansion of his late master—for profit; and to use vitriol in disfiguring the inmates—for revenge. They, therefore, procured every requisite for their purposes, and fixed upon a time when it was known that Señor Commaña himself would be absent, for the execution of their plan.
The family retiring somewhat earlier to rest, in the absence of their head, the ruffians effected their entrance about midnight. A female domestic, who slept in a small room adjoining that of her mistress, happened to be awake at the time, and hearing a noise, rushed out; but was seized and silenced by the robbers ere she could give the alarm. They then proceeded to the sleeping apartments of the lady and her children; gagged the mother immediately on her awaking, and poured the vitriol copiously over her face and neck! So extreme was the pain that even the gag was insufficient to stifle her cries of agony. All the children were pinioned and dealt with in the same manner; and then the house was ransacked of everything valuable. The servants were intimidated in the mean time; and eventually the ruffians got safely away with their booty. The wretched mother suffered in such a degree from the pain and terror she had undergone, that she became insane; each of the children was permanently disfigured, and the youngest child—the favourite of the heart-stricken father—was completely blinded, by the burning liquid finding its way into his eyes.
"I have the satisfaction, however, of saying," added the officer, "that this gang of infamous wretches was apprehended, in a great degree through my instrumentality; and that they were summarily executed for their crimes. I wish something could be done to put an end to such fiendish atrocities: but at present the number of persons, throughout the country, charged with using vitriol in many dreadful ways, is very great."