The Story of Mexico/Chapter 43
XLIII.
PHYSICAL ADVANTAGES.
The physical advantages of Mexico are favorable to its future prosperity. Of its great range of climate, the temperate one of the plateau may be said to be almost perfect. By descending towards the coast all the delights of the tropics may be enjoyed, while its lofty peaks afford adventure for the enterprising climber, ice for lower regions, and all the attractions of mountain scenery. Large lakes enhance the beauty of the landscape; rivers, though not large, answer the purposes of irrigation and boundary lines; an extended coast-line on the Pacific and that of the Gulf of Mexico offer opportunities, not yet much developed, for admirable harbors.
There is every variety of vegetation in this varied climate. Forests of valuable woods, such as mahogany, ebony, and rosewoods, extend over the tierra caliente; higher up, oak and pine in abundance furnish supply for any demand. It is safe to say that any thing may be cultivated somewhere in Mexico. Corn, beans, wheat, rice, sugar-cane, tobacco, cotton, cocoa, indigo, vanilla, are at present raised; above all, coffee, which has a high reputation—that of Córdova and of Uruápam especially. The latter is considered by experts to be not only equal to the best Mocha, but similar to it in flavor. It is possible that it belongs to the same variety, brought from Arabia by unknown hands. The medicinal plants of Mexico have long been well known. Spanish historians at the time of the conquest all speak of the knowledge of herbs possessed by the native doctors. They believed that all the ills that flesh is heir to, might be cured by proper use of the herbs of the field; and they acquired in the course of generations great skill in adapting the remedy to the disease. Many of the drugs in general use all over the world were made known by Mexican research, such as sarsaparilla, jalap, and rhubarb; the number of emetics, antidotes, infusions, decoctions, ointments, balsams, known to the Aztecs, was enormous. To be sure, they attributed much of the power of these drugs to the prayers and ceremonies they offered up while they were applying them.
The flora of Mexico is equally varied and beautiful. Growing by the roadside as common weeds, are to be recognized blossoms which are the pride of northern green-houses. Many ornamental Mexican plants became first known in the United States, after the war of 1848. Humboldt, half a century before, had described the wealth and profusion of Mexican vegetation. As for fruits, every variety may be cultivated, in the hot lands; many tropical kinds grow wild. Any market in any Mexican town is a delight by reason of the display of various fruits, heaped up, to tempt the customer, in little pyramids, and made bright with flowers. Not only in the large cities, but even smaller towns, travellers should be sure to visit the market-place. Generally one day in the week is market-day, when all the population swarms to the plaza, either to sell or buy, or both. It is the same in many towns in Europe; but Mexico, at present, surpasses Europe in the picturesque costumes of the common people, the primitive fashion in which they display their simple wares, and the entertaining activity of the busy population.
Each booth is a small enclosure, built of low tables, shaded by a huge rectangular umbrella made of matting with four sticks only. A whole Indian family sits within at the receipt of custom. The old grandmother, her white hair smoothed down over her wrinkled old brown cheeks, with skinny trembling hands, but a glance like a hawk's, is taking pay or making change. Her daughter, the efficient business woman of the establishment, is young and active. Her long black hair is braided down her back, her eyes are bright, her teeth flash white when you make her smile by a joke about her prices. The father of the family lolls against the central post of the booth, tipping up his chair, after a custom not inherited from the Aztecs, but borrowed from a neighboring nation. The tables are heaped with little piles, like cannon-balls, of red ciruelas, yellow apricots, or green abogatos; in their season, delicious grenaditas, whose cup-like rind contains a juicy draught of luscious flavor. Oranges and bananas are on the table, under the table, over the table, everywhere. If you are very friendly, the old lady selects you as a gift the very best of all the bananas. Let not the wanderer from the north be surprised to find it is, according to his estimation, far gone in decay. The natives eat bananas only dead ripe, when they are beginning to grow soft,—not as they are found in the northern market, hard and indigestible after a long voyage without ripening influences. Hens and chickens are straying about, and a tough old rooster, tied by the leg, awaits the pot, after his purchaser shall have been found.
You select such little heaps of fruit as please your inexperienced eye; a small cargador, all eyes and teeth, springs up from the earth at your feet, with a big loose basket on his back. Every thing you buy is tumbled into it; he follows you from stall to stall, accumulating such treasures as you select. You will not be able to resist several specimens of native pottery. This is generally spread out on the ground, while the vendor sits behind it. Manufacture of coarse pottery is carried on everywhere, and different regions have their distinctive varieties, influenced by different colored clays and methods of treatment. The ware of Guadalajara is perhaps the most esteemed; it is of a soft gray in tint, polished but not glazed, and often delicately decorated with color and gold. But every village has its characteristic pottery, simple in form, pleasing in color, and although the pots and jugs are so fragile that it is hopeless to think of packing them securely, it is impossible to resist their attractions compared with the trifling sum demanded for them.
The basket of your cargador, well filled with fruit and figs, and heaped high with sweet peas and poppies, the little fellow runs before you to the hotel where he deposits his burden, and goes away fully content with a medio in his hand—6¼ cents.
A Mexican market is interesting, apart from such simple purchases as the traveller may be inclined to make on his own account, because the people are all so absorbed in their own affairs. They scarcely give a thought to the few foreigners with European clothes and staring manners poking about among them. This good Indian mother has come to buy the daily food of her family. Some dreadful viand is dipped for her out of a deep dish, and transferred to her little pottery bowl. A violent discussion ensues about the price to be paid, and neighbors gather round to offer their opinions. The rebozos of the women slip off their heads and show their white shirts—not always white—and their brown well-formed arms. The men look on idly and let their better halves fight it out. A compromise is effected, and the excitement subsides as suddenly as it rose. The contested sum was probably a tlaco—small, but much-beloved coin, worth one cent and a half.
Besides the manufacture of pottery, the Indians make themselves all the wearing apparel they use, such as cotton and woollen cloth, including serapes and rebozos, the two picturesque garments in constant use. The serape is a woollen blanket which every man winds about him whenever the air is a little chilly. It serves him many a time for not only blanket, but sheet and bed as well, since his sleeping place is often a sheltered door-way, and no more. Certain towns are famous for their serapes—those of San Miguel are especially good, and some of them are very pretty. Travellers buy them and carry them off to serve as portières or afghans at home. The Indian taste for colors, though gaudy, is naturally controlled by a good perception of harmonious effects. Unluckily in late years, the aniline dyes of recent discovery have brought into the country a facility for making intense purples, magentas, and violent blues, which have dazzled their untrained eyes. For this reason, many modern serapes are too violent in coloring; and æsthetic collectors must seek for old fabrics, among which some examples are lovely in tone. The rebozo is a long broad scarf, generally blue, worn by every woman over her head, instead of hat or bonnet. It protects her shoulders also, and conceals whatever deficiency of style or cleanliness may exist underneath. It is made of cotton, but has some warmth in its soft folds. The dexterity is wonderful with which even little girls wind these wraps around their heads, in such a way as to keep firm, while the ends fall in not ungraceful lines over one arm laden with a basket, a bundle, or a baby, while the other arm and hand are free. A large quantity of cotton is grown in Mexico, and upwards of fifty thousand families, Mr. Janvier says, are supported in its manufacture. The cotton mills are provided with English machinery of approved type, and the business is carried on by a few operators upon a large scale. The Indians show ready intelligence in understanding their work in the mills, and remarkable aptitude in acquiring methods of handling whatever improvements in machinery may be from time to time introduced.
A large establishment for the manufacture of cotton cloth not far from the city of Mexico, which has been in operation for years in the hands of an English house, is like a little city in itself. Its large enclosure is surrounded by strong walls, upon which are still the cannon necessary in the troublous times of the young Republic to protect the place. Paved streets within the great gate of entrance lead to the extensive buildings, the home of the families of the proprietors, hung with vines and possessing a beautiful garden, where superb roses blossom all the year round, while from beneath the shade of ancient trees one may look through a gate-way over fields of alfalfa to the snow-peaks of the two volcanoes. More than two hundred workmen are employed in this establishment. They are all natives of Mexico, and, for the most part, the superintendents as well as the operators are of Indian blood. Every means is taken to educate and improve the condition of these people and their families, who lead happy, intelligent lives, encouraged by the favor of their employers to do their best for the success of the mill and the mutual well-being of all. It is a little community of interests.
Of late, a large unoccupied room, by permission of the owner, has been converted into a theatre; and here, wholly by the exertions of the operatives themselves, a stage has been erected, where plays are acted once a week—the men themselves taking all the parts. Among the audience are the families of the employers, readily giving encouragement to the exhibition, for whom a large box is reserved. The Indians of the neighborhood, on the opening night of the new entertainment, flocked to see what it was like, had free admission, and the house was crowded with an amazed and delighted audience. Enthusiasm was great, especially when the national banner was waved to the stirring strains of the fine national march of Mexico.
It is to such influences as these that Mexico will owe her success. The native race requires good masters, good examples, and the opportunity of good intellectual training, to enable it, in future, to walk alone up the steep path of national progress.
The great source of wealth in Mexico is her mineral productions, which have been renowned from the early period when they allured Cortés and his companions to endure hardship and risk defeat on their difficult passage up to Anahuac. The most sanguine dreams of the Spanish conquerors have yet to be realized in the possible amounts to be yielded from these mines in the future, when stable government shall have increased the population of the widespread mining districts to an extent capable of developing all the riches they contain.
The mines of Guanajuato, which have been the most worked, and which have already yielded enormously, as yet give no signs of being exhausted. The soil of the state of Guerrero has been pronounced to be one extensive crust of silver and gold. The northern states of the Republic contain inexhaustible veins of gold and silver in their mountain ranges. Silver and gold are the metals most worked.
aqueduct in the city of mexico
while other metals and mineral substances are almost neglected, although present in proportion. The volcano Popocatepetl is said to be one vast pile of sulphur. In every state there are quarries of white and colored marbles—those of Puebla especially remarkable for their rich veins of variegated colors, which, properly worked, would make beautiful decorative columns and other architectural ornaments. At present, the specimens of this "Puebla onyx" are limited to paper-weights, pen-handles, and other small articles, which, without any solid value, serve to show the variety and beauty of the material. Precious stones are not unknown in Mexico; opals, with fickle rainbow hues, now brilliant, now vanished, are found in many places, and counterfeited in many others. Turquoise, garnet, topaz, and amethyst are among the native jewels of the Mexican mines.
