The Story of Mexico/Chapter 1
THE STORY OF MEXICO
I.
THE SUBJECT.
The steamer stops, and we are lying off Vera Cruz, in the Gulf of Mexico. Half a mile off, the long, low shore stretches north and south, with the white town upon it, flat roofs making level lines on the houses glaring in the morning sunlight, domes and church towers rising above the rest; glimpses of bright green tree-tops are to be seen, but outside the city all is barren and waste. The plain behind rolls up, however, and the background is the peak of snow-capped Orizaba, silent, lofty, 17,356 feet above our level.
This is what we see to-day, leaning over the bulwark of our large luxurious steamer which has brought us, easily, from Havana in a few days, over the smooth, green waters of the Gulf. Our only anxiety has been the possible chance of a "Norther," which may break loose at any time in that region, sweeping over the waters with fury and driving the stoutest vessels away from the coast they would approach. Our only exertion has been to keep cool upon the pleasant deck, and to take enough exercise to be able to enjoy the frequent food provided by the admirable chef of the steamer.
The scenery is the same that Fernando Cortés looked upon, some three hundred years ago, when he, too, cast anchor about half a mile from the coast, and scanned the shore with an anxious eye, to find a suitable landing. Orizaba rose before him, as now we see it, stately, majestic, cold and forbidding, under its mantle of snow.
We must envy the adventurer, in spite of our advantages in the way of ease and comfort. He stood upon the cramped deck of his little vessel, surrounded by a handful of men, with a limited amount of provisions, and great uncertainty about the next supply. No town stretched out its sheltering walls before him; there was scarcely harborage for his ships. Yet he had the advantage of absolute novelty in his undertaking from the moment he himself, with his little band, led the way up the steep slope to Anahuac.
Every true traveller has some of the instincts of the explorer in him, and these instincts must make us envy the prospect which lay before Cortes as he approached in the Bay of Vera Cruz the real beginning of his enterprise. There was the shore of the new country, where he might plant his "rich city of the true cross." There was the cold mountain which might contain in its depths the treasure he was seeking, and beyond it was the rumored Empire he longed to conquer. At that moment, no fear, no discouragement, held back the eager steps with which he sprang into his boat, and beckoned his companions to follow him.
Cortés fulfilled his ambition, achieved his task, with what difficulties, through what straits and failures, we shall have later to see. He scaled the sides of Orizaba, reached the lofty plateau, and seized the ancient citadel of the Montezumas. Civilization has trodden smooth the rough path he first opened, and railroads now make it easy to climb the pass so arduous for him. If our journey lacks the element of constant discovery which belonged to his, we have gained that of wonder and amazement at the difficulties he surmounted. Moreover, he came in ignorance of what he was to find, with a blind desire for conquest, investing the region he approached with imaginary attractions. We know beforehand, as we begin to explore the country, that its legends and romances are as fascinating as its mines are deep; that its story is as picturesque as the lofty ranges and deep rolling valleys which make the charm of its scenery.
An inhospitable coast borders the treacherous, though beautiful, Gulf of Mexico. Its waters look smiling and placid, but at any season the furious "Norther" may break loose, sweeping with fearful suddenness over its surface, lashing its lately smiling waves into fury, threatening every vessel with destruction. Low sand-bars offer little shelter from the blast. Ships must stand off the coast until the tempest shall be past.
The country offers nothing better to its landed guests. Vomito lurks in the streets of Vera Cruz to seize upon strangers and hurry them off to a wretched grave. All the pests of a tropical region infest the low lands running back from the sea. Splendid vegetation hides unpleasant animals, and snakes are lurking among the beautiful blue morning-glories that festoon the tangled forests. Let us hasten away from these dangers, and climb the slope that leads to a purer air.
We have escaped the terrors of the custom-house at Vera Cruz, from which, by the way, Cortés was exempt, and after a doubtful night in the hotel, serenaded by swarms of Vera Cruz mosquitoes, at early dawn we creep stealthily from our chambers, not to disturb the few misguided guests who mean to stay a little longer, and follow the dusky cargadores, bearing our baggage on their backs, down into the silent street. In Mexico there is no effort on the part of an hotel proprietor to speed the parting guest. He signs the bill overnight and betakes himself to repose, undisturbed by the exodus in early morning. The cargadores who have agreed to attend to the luggage rouse their sleeping prey and lead them through a wide, straight street to the railroad station. There is no sign of breakfast at the hotel. Nobody is stirring but one sleepy innkeeper. Hard by the station, as in every Mexican town, is a café, where excellent hot coffee is furnished, with plenty of boiled milk and good bread in many and various forms. Here we may sit and refresh ourselves with cup after cup, if we like, until the short, sharp whistle of the steam-engine warns us to take the train. Heavy baggage was, or should have been, weighed and registered overnight.
It is but six o'clock as we move out of the station. A big sun is slowly rising over the dry, hot chapparral outside the city. Although it is early April, all is parched like midsummer. Soon, however, we begin to climb, and, as we ascend, pass through forests of wonderful growth. Sugar-cane and coffee plantations now appear; and the trees are hung with orchids, tangled with vines bright with blossoms, many of them fruit-trees now in flower, one mass of white or pink. The road crosses water-falls, winds round ravines, under mountains, through tunnels, climbing ever higher and higher, until Córdoba is reached at an elevation of over 2,000 feet. This town is surrounded and invaded by coffee plantations and orange groves. At the station baskets of delicious fruits are offered us—oranges, bananas, grenaditas, mangoes. Here we bid farewell to the tropics, and forget the snakes and the fear of vomito.
The climate we are seeking is not a tropical one. Whoever associates Mexico with the characteristics of heat, malaria, venomous reptiles, has received a wrong impression of it. Such places, with their drawbacks, exist within the geographical limits of the country, but it is wholly unnecessary to seek them; for the towns of historical and picturesque interest are above the reach of tropical dangers, for the most part, while there are seasons of the year when even the warmer portions can be visited with safety and delight. At Orizaba the climate is temperate, fresh, and cool, beginning to have the elements of mountain altitudes. It is well to stop here for a day or two to become accustomed to the rarer air. It is a summer place of recreation for the inhabitants of Vera Cruz, while in winter it is a favorite excursion from the places higher up on the plateau.
As we are travelling only in imagination, we may safely, without pause, press upward to the great plateau where most of the scene is laid of our story. For Mexico, with the exception of the narrow border of sea-coast we have just crossed, is a lofty table-land between two oceans, a mountain ridge continued up from the Andes in South America, contracted at the Isthmus of Panama to a narrow chain of granite, to grow broad in Mexico as it stretches to the north-west, until it spreads, at an elevation from 4,000 to 8,000 feet, almost from ocean to gulf. This is Anahuac, the so-called table-land of Mexico, a broad plateau upon which the picturesque romantic drama of Mexican history has been played. Upon this high plateau, which is by no means level, rise the crests of the great volcanic ridges, of which the highest are Popocatepétl and Istaccíhuatl. The table-land rolls off northward at first, keeping its high level, growing narrower, gradually sinking as it approaches the Rio Grande, until at the boundary line of the United States it has fallen to 3,000 feet.
Thus Mexico possesses three well defined climates, due to variation in altitude: the tierra caliente, or hot lands of the coast; the tierra templada, or temperate region; and the tierra fria, the cold regions of the mountain tops, more than 6,000 feet above the level of the sea. These climates, moreover, are modified by the latitude, so that between the cold altitudes of the northern portions, and the warm tropical levels of the south, there is a vast range of atmospheric change.
Our story has its stage, for the most part in the tierra templada, where the year is divided into two seasons: the dry season, from November to May; the rainy one, from June to October. The pleasanter one is the rainy one, in spite of its name. The rains are not continuous, but fall usually late in the afternoon and during the night, leaving the morning bright and clear, and the air deliciously fresh and cool. All the year roses bloom in the city of Mexico, and there are places where you may eat strawberries every day in the three hundred and sixty five.
Spreading over the greater part of this lofty region, there are broad, level plains of rich verdure, bright with all imaginable wild-flowers growing in profusion; large lakes, as picturesque as those of Northern Italy, surrounded by hills that are mountains, reckoning from the sea level; lofty mountain peaks, eternally snow-covered, barren and rocky below their snow-summits, then clothed with pine, and nearer at hand with fine oaks and other trees of temperate climates. Brawling streams water the valleys, and at the edge of the plateau make deep barrancas, whose depths reach to the lower level, their dangerous chasms hidden by rich growths.
On this elevated plateau, which with all its variety seems a world of its own, until within the period of modern inventions all but inaccessible to the lower country and the ocean beyond, we find the traces of an ancient civilization, reaching backward until it is lost in legend. Long before the invasion of Anahuac by Cortés, it was inhabited by intelligent races of men. The mystery which hangs about these people makes the search for their history full of interest. In the present native population, we seek to find some clue to the manners and customs of the first inhabitants, by which to read the meaning of the monuments they have left. They are gone, their institutions overthrown by a power stronger than they were, by reason of the resources of advancing civilization, their idols and temples overturned by the zealots of another belief.
Outraged by the human sacrifices of the Mexican tribes, Cortés destroyed, with a reckless hand, all the evidences of what he regarded heathen worship. In so doing, the records of the race were lost, together with carved images of gods. It is unfortunate that his zeal was not tempered with discrimination, for it is now difficult, through the clouds of exaggeration surrounding the Spanish Conquistadores, to find out what sort of people they were, who preceded them on Anahuac.
Empires and palaces, luxury and splendor fill the accounts of the Spaniards, and imagination loves to adorn the halls of the Montezumas with the glories of an Oriental tale. Later explorers, with the fatal penetration of our time, destroy the splendid vision, reducing the emperor to a chieftain, the glittering retinue to a horde of savages, the magnificent capital of palaces to a pueblo of adobe. The discouraged enthusiast sees his magnificent civilization devoted to art, literature, and luxury, reduced to a few handfuls of pitiful Indians, quarrelling with one another for supremacy, and sighs to think his sympathies may have been wasted on the sufferings of an Aztec sovereign dethroned by the invading Spaniard.
Yet perseverence, after brushing away the sparkling cobwebs of exaggerated report, finds enough fact left to build up a respectable case for the early races of Mexico. Visible proofs of their importance exist in the monuments, picture writings, and, above all, their traditions, which, at all events, remain a pretty story, with a sediment of facts the student may precipitate for himself. These traditions make of the early settlers of Anahuac a very interesting study, all the more from their shadowy nature, leaving still much margin for fancy.
They were overwhelmed by the Spaniards, but not destroyed, for the descendants of the conquered races still form a large proportion of the population of Mexico. Their teocallis and hideous carved gods gave way to Roman Catholic cathedrals and images of the Holy Virgin. Spanish viceroys, after the first atrocities of military discipline, ruled the gentle descendants of the Aztecs with a control for the most part mild and beneficent. The Catholic fathers who crossed the ocean to labor for the spiritual welfare of the natives, wisely engrafted upon the mysteries of their own faith the legends and superstitions of the older belief. Thus we find in many of the religious ceremonies in Mexico, a wild, picturesque element, which is lacking in the church festivals of the Old World.
When the Conquistadores took possession of the New Spain in the name of their royal master, the Emperor Charles V., he was one of the most powerful of earthly monarchs. His son, Philip II., received the country as a part of his inheritance, along with realms which made him even greater than his father. But the successors of Philip II. knew not how to hold the possessions their fathers had won. Piece by piece their distant provinces were lost to them. Mexico, after two hundred years of neglect and mismanagement, shook herself free from Spanish rule; since the early part of this century she has called herself independent, with the exception of the two brief periods when the ambition of two men, differing widely from each other in their antecedents and aims, caused them to attempt the rôle of "Emperor of Mexico." Iturbide was the former of these; the latter, the ill-advised Maximilian. For the last twenty years, since the fall of Maximilian, Mexico has been a republic, with all the varying fortunes that attend a young institution struggling with inexperience and difficulty. A native population with an inheritance of superstition, prejudice, and oppression, mixed with a race whose traditions are all in favor of arbitrary government, supplemented by immigrants from every other nation who have come, often with lawless intent, seldom with disinterested motives, and never inspired by any feeling that could be called patriotism, must wait long for that unanimity of public opinion and harmony of interest which ensure good government.
At times it has seemed that no good could emerge from such opposing elements; yet nature has furnished to Mexico material for a long siege; broad territory with a faultless climate, mountains rich in every mineral resource, valleys well adapted for cultivation and grazing, a land where every industry may, under a stable government, be pursued with success. The character of the descendant of the Aztecs is mild and docile, capable, as many people think, of high development by education; such bad qualities as Mexicans have developed from Spanish inheritance are, it is hoped, giving way before the progress of civilization and education.
The past of the people who live upon Anahuac is wrapped in mystery. So is their future. Both are interesting problems, to be worked out from the legends of old time, and the narrative of the present.
