Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans/Chapter 20
XX.
A JOURNEY IN A DILIGENCE.
IN the week in which the ascent of Popocatapetl was undertaken, I was particularly favored, for it does not often fall to the lot of man to witness a genuine, sanguinary bull-fight, to climb to the top of the highest volcano in North America, and to attend a banquet to the highest dignitary of our country, all within the space of seven days.
Yet I accomplished them all, and to this day cannot say which I relished most,—fight, feast, or climb. I think that our Minister's reception to Grant also occurred that week, when, through the kindness of our diplomatic representative, Mr. Morgan, I had the privilege of an interesting conversation with the former leader of our armies. General Grant confessed that he too had essayed Popocatapetl, when stationed at Amecameca, during the Mexican war, and had performed the ascent only after a great deal of difficulty.
He was plain Lieutenant Grant at that time; but, though he has since climbed to grander heights than many of his contemporaries, he could not then have been more affable and delightful than we find him at the present day. Even now, I believe he would rather ride through the sombre pines of Popocatapetl, and feast his eyes upon the glorious scenery that greets one when beyond the snow-line, than attend another one of the feasts and receptions that have of late years wearied him.
Banquets and receptions are, I suppose, nearly the same the world over, the difference merely being in the men who give and the men who receive them; all, as a rule, are a "weariness to the flesh." This granted, I take occasion to hasten away from the city, and start on a little journey southward. The day of the diligence—of the good old-fashioned stagecoach—in Mexico is drawing to a close, for the railroad is pushing it from point to point, farther and farther into the wilderness and away from the larger towns and cities. But there are certain places to which, even after the advent of the engine, the coach will be preferred by travellers open to the beauty of scenery along the road, and who wish to lose none of the mountain views about the valley of Mexico. Cuernavaca is one of these: separated by mountains from the capital, the journey thither by diligence is one of the most interesting that can be made, for it is surrounded by the halo of one of the most adventurous exploits of Cortés, and lies in a valley open to the influences of a perfectly tropical climate.
At six in the morning, the diligence dashes out of the great portal of the Diligencias Generales, rattles through the streets awhile, and then takes to the open plain surrounding the city. A seat to Cuernavaca costs $4.50, and fifty cents extra for every arroba of luggage more than one. Nine mules constitute the complement to each team, and these are kept on the gallop by the driver, who cracks a very long whip with great energy, and by his assistant, who casts stones at their ears with an accuracy of aim as wonderful as it is effective.
I had secured a seat in the diligence with a special view to inspecting the scenes made famous by their connection with the ancient (Spanish) and comparatively recent (American) occupations of the valley by the respective armies of Cortés and Scott; but the jolting of the conveyance was such that I was sorely disappointed, as well as severely shaken, and we sped out of the city gate, which was menaced by the gallant Twiggs, and past Churubusco with its ruined walls, where the tide of battle surged and ebbed, and up into the foot-hills, with hardly a glimpse of most ancient Coyoacan, where Cortés held his headquarters during the siege of Mexico. Even Mexican mules must slacken their speed, however, when among the roughest of Mexican hills; and as they paused a little for breath, we craned our necks out of the windows for a backward glance at the great vale of Anahuac, which lay between us and the rising sun. Ah, glorious valley! right willingly would I be thumped and pounded by a hundred diligences, could I transport myself at will back to thy eastern or thy western brim! How sorry am I that I was not with Cortés and his knights when they first peered within its precincts, that I might give vent to my admiration; but now, coming at this late day, others have preceded me, and have exhausted the vocabulary of praise in its description.
Yet consolation comes in the thought that great minds have been quickened by these same scenes,—Cortés, Humboldt, Clavigero, Prescott, Southey. Recall, now, the poet's description of the vale of Aztlan, as it burst upon the view of the astonished and delighted Madoc:—
"From early morning till the midnoon hour
We travelled in the mountains; then a plain
Opened below, and rose upon the sight,
Like boundless ocean from a hill top seen.
A beautiful and populous plain it was;
Fair woods were there, and fertilizing streams,
And pastures spreading wide, and villages
In fruitful groves embowered, and stately towns,
And many a single dwelling specking it
As though for many a year the land had been
The land of peace. Below us, where the base
Of the great mountain to the level sloped,
A broad blue lake extended far and wide.
Its waters dark beneath the light of noon.
There Aztlan stood, upon the farther shore;
Amid the shade of trees its dwellings rose,
Their level roofs with turrets set around,
And battlements all burnished white, which shone
Like silver in the sunshine."
I do not wish to administer doses of Cortés ad nauseam; but this journey has as its special object a visit to the country-seat of the famous conquistador, acquired after he had subjected the Aztecs and had been created Marquis of the Valley. The scene of his most remarkable exploits lies before us, not only in the city we have just left, but at the foot of the hills we are now climbing. Nearest to us now is the town of Xochimilco, on the borders of the lake of the same name, where the brave Mexicans once came near making the general a prisoner, and all but succeeded in carrying him off captive to the temple of sacrifice, where the great drums of serpent-skin were already beating in anticipation of the event. Ah, if they had! But then 
ON THE WAY TO THE MARKET. there would have been no conquest, and we should have been left without an object for this little journey. Perhaps it was as well for all concerned that he was not taken.
It was noon, and we had climbed up from the valley to an altitude which placed us well inside the zone of tierra fria; we had passed gray and gnarled olive orchards,—successful witnesses to their introduction from Spain,—vineyards, pulque plantations, and scattered villages, and as the sun attained a position directly above the valley we halted for breakfast. Not to seem disrespectful, I will call La Guardia a hamlet, though one house and half a score of huts comprised hamlet and hotel. Chile con carne and chicken, frijoles and tortillas,—the reader most assuredly knows what these are by this time,—washed down by pulque, was the breakfast here given us, for the sum of fifty cents. The hut was rough, dirty, thatched, its only adornment being pottery of various patterns and colors, the meal was hustled on to the table in a most unceremonious manner, and the driver drew his sustenance from the fire before it reached us; yet we grumbled not, for the table-cloth was clean.
As we went on we were met by numerous Indians, bearing heavy loads upon their backs, on their way to the market at Mexico. They were cheerful, though taciturn, and they excited my wonder at their endurance, some of them making a distance of sixty miles to market. When arrived at their destination they sell their burdens for a few reales, scarcely ever more than a dollar or two, and trudge home contented, after filling their skins full of pulque. The loads they carried were crates of tomatoes and pumpkins; one had a couple of dozen fowls, another a load of parrots, fifteen in number, for which he asked two reales each. Some of these carriers have made (without burdens) the distance from Acapulco to Cuernavaca, eighty leagues, in seven days.
The last view of the valley of Mexico is cut off just before La Guardia is reached, and about two leagues beyond is the famous Cruz del Marques, the stone cross marking the boundary line of the former possessions of Cortés; and this landmark is at a point 9,700 feet above the sea. A great pine forest mantles the ridge, through which the coach bowls merrily, accompanied by the guard,—for "road agents" here watch their opportunity with an eye to business,—and said "guard," of four soldiers, in straw hats and ragged cotton garments, carrying rusty and antiquated muskets, is forced to shuffle along on foot at a lively gait, or get left behind to the tender mercies of the bandits.
The pine forests of these mountains are all alike, resembling the "parks" of Arizona and New Mexico, with great trees, cloud reaching, and a soil thinly covered with grass. Not far beyond the Cruz del Marques, the descent begins into the valley of Cuernavaca and towards the western coast. This descent, from the plateau to the tierra caliente, is more abrupt than on the eastern slope, and consequently we dash at once from one zone into the other, and through the pines, while yet in the mountains, gain glimpses of fields of sugar-cane and the fresh verdure of a foliage that frost never injures. We rattled down the hills, crossing more streams than on the eastern side of the range, the heat growing stronger, though the afternoon was waning, and reached the town at four.
Having a letter to the chief missionary of the Protestants, from my good friend Mr. Patterson of Mexico, I set out in quest of him, and it surprised me to learn that hardly any one in this very small city could direct me to the mission. At last I found el templo, the mission building, a long and low structure built around two sides of a square, and the kind pastor insisted that I should at once take up my quarters with him. A "shake-down" was provided, at the expense of a visiting missionary from the country, who slept on two benches wrapped in his sarape, and, though warned of the scorpions of Cuernavaca, which delight in dropping upon a sleeper unawares, I was at an early hour asleep in the hot country again. The mission here, purchased with much difficulty by Mr. Patterson, is a valuable property, and includes not only a lovely garden, and a fountain fed by a perpetual stream, but a large field of alfalfa and plantains. The devout and earnest Mexican minister in charge had collected a flock of some seventy sincere converts, and was laboring, under many disadvantages, to add to the number from among his neighbors and fellow-countrymen. None of them spoke English, but that did not seem to render them unhappy, and they had acquired the good old Methodist fashion of calling one another brothers, hermanos, and sisters, hermanas, and of praying with an unction that was all the more impressive from being in the sonorous Spanish tongue.
Now I was not on a religious mission, although my lines were for the nonce cast with the missionaries; but was quite well satisfied with much smaller game than that afforded by the genus homo; for while my friends were directing their efforts towards bagging the Mexican, I was merely hunting birds and butterflies. But they graciously relaxed their pursuit of the larger quarry long enough to accompany me on mine of the smaller, and hence I was never without a "brother,"—un buen hermano,—to guide me to the haunts of the denizens of the fields.
Fair Cuernavaca! It well merits the ancient name, Cuauhnahuac, or Flower-surrounded. The casual visitor sees few of its charms, for they lie concealed in the suburbs, and in gardens enclosed by formidable walls; its architecture is not of the finest, and only the convents and churches are in any wise remarkable. The town lies about four thousand feet above the sea, built on a spur of land jutting out from the mountains, between two barrancas, or ravines, of great length and dizzy depth. With heat and water at command, its vegetation is luxuriant, and its suburbs are one continuous garden.
At five in the morning of the 31st of May, I was awakened by the singing of the wrens in the roof, and shortly after Pastor Pastrana, with two of the ever-faithful brothers, guided me to the southern barranca. It cannot be less than two hundred feet deep, and between its narrow walls a thread of a stream tumbles to the gravelly bottom, which we reached by cautiously stealing along the cliff, and looked out through the fleecy veil from a deep cave worn by the water behind it. Empress Carlotta has been here, and astonished the natives by walking along a narrow shelf of rock beyond, where it was very risky; above were the towering walls of basalt, below the gravelly bowl, fifty feet across, into which the stream fell. We wandered through corn-fields, and along a side-hill covered with plantains and guava trees, their roots watered by gentle streams, and peered up through their branches at the blue sky beyond, but without getting many birds, or even moths or butterflies.
Two great barrancas, as I have said, run down from the mountain, and, meeting below Cuernavaca, enclose it in their embrace. It thus occupies an almost impregnable position, so far as danger from assault is concerned, and was one of the most difficult of captures during the Spanish invasion. Coming up from the lake of Chalco, in the spring of 1521, while preparations were going on for the investment of Mexico, the Spanish army attacked Cuernavaca. For a long time they could make no headway, so well protected was the town by these deep ravines. At last, while searching for a bridge, some of the soldiers found a spot where two trees had fallen across the narrow, though abysmal chasm, and over these, at the risk of their lives, the brave fellows crawled, rallied on the other side, and captured the town. I could never credit this
achievement, as given by the old chroniclers, until I myself had viewed the very ravine, perhaps at the same spot crossed by the conquerors; then I readily believed it, and saw that it was possible, though hazardous, for them to accomplish it, and do not wonder that some fell, through dizziness, and were killed. It is the eastern chasm that is narrowest, being about seventy feet in depth and not over thirty (I should think) in breadth; and it is spanned by the quaintest structure of masonwork for a bridge that ever leaped across a ravine, being a double arch, one of which carries an aqueduct, from which the water trickles down the steep, fern-hung walls of stone, and patters far below into the water beneath. Among many rough sketches of Mexican scenery contained in a portfolio stolen from me in the city of Mexico, was one of this old bridge; and the only consolation I ever got from this loss was the reflection that among other papers then lost was a particularly caustic description of the Mexican himself, drawn as from the standpoint of a decided pessimist.
The greatest attraction in town, save one, is the "Garden of Laborde." In the year 1743, a poor youth named Laborde came to Mexico, where eventually he gained immense wealth, twice making, and once losing, a vast fortune, which at his death he gave to the Church. In Cuernavaca he built a buen retiro, a pleasure garden, on a more magnificent scale than any since the time of the Aztec and Tezcocan monarchs. This magnificent work of a century ago is still in good preservation here, and is shown to visitors, who are admitted at the cost of a real each. The grounds adjoin a church and convent, founded by Laborde, that now are going to ruin, and run back from one of the principal streets of the town to the brink of the western ravine. At the angles of the high and massive walls bellevues arise, commanding extensive and beautiful prospects, directly above the barranca, overlooking its winding course and the great sweep of mountain and plain to the south and to the west. To these bellevues broad stone ways lead up from the centre of the garden, covered with hard plaster, painted in red and white, bordered with stone pillars supporting vases of flowers. The grand feature of this garden, with its palms and ferns, its choice exotics and profusest vegetation, is the central lakelet in a stone basin five hundred feet long, with artificial islets containing magueys and tropical plants. There is water enough stored here for the supply of a small town; it gushes out everywhere, in fountains, into reservoirs of hewn stone, and is guided in rivulets to the feet of golden-fruited mangos and oranges. What a paradise it must have been in the time of its owner, the fortunate miner, and what a delightful retreat for the unctuous padres who subsequently came into possession of it! Above the trees towers the dome of the old church, and alleys covered over by giant roses and grape-vines lead up to the refectory of the convent, where once the good monks regaled themselves.
After the subjugation of its original possessors, Cuernavaca attracted to itself many Spaniards, but none was so successful as the Marquis, Cortés the Conqueror, who here built his country residence,—in fact, established himself here, devoting himself to agricultural pursuits with an ardor only equalled by that with which he had pursued the Indians a few years before. Go down the street leading to the eastern part of the town, and there you will find El Palacio de Cortés, the Castle of Cortés, the veritable building which he built for his own dwelling, and in which he planned the cultivation of his ample estate, and later the discovery of the Gulf of California and the peninsula. To him the planters were indebted for the introduction of Merino sheep, it is said, and for the first sugar-cane that ever lifted its tasselled head beneath the sun of Mexico. It was right here, in this vale of Cuernavaca, that these things transpired, three centuries and a half ago; and not only the old castle, with battlemented roof and arched entrances, remains, yet in good preservation, to remind us of the industry of Cortés, but the valley plains are waving billows of green and succulent cane. The castle itself, now occupied as a municipal building, rises directly above the eastern barranca, and from the upper corridor, where are the halls of justice, is a grand view of the town, with its three large churches, its stone houses, and its gardens. Eastward are many lovely cabins, just peeping out of gardens of fruit trees, a varied carpet of green from which a dome protrudes here and there, and the plains sweep away below. This was a well-chosen spot, for it commands not only the valley and the mountain passes, but views extending away east to Popocatapetl.
There are vast sugar estates below the town, some of the haciendas dating from the period of the conquest, and producing a million pounds each of sugar annually, it is said, besides coffee and cacao. These haciendas have great mills equipped with the best machinery known for crushing the cane, evaporating and crystallizing the juice, and distilling rum therefrom. In themselves, they do not cover a great stretch of territory, but monopolize all the fertile land in the entire region. What I would say is, that there is not the faintest show of an opportunity for foreign capital or energy to work to advantage in or near the valley of Cuernavaca. And this statement will apply in a measure to nearly every portion of Mexico, especially as regards operations in agriculture.
One morning—it was the 1st of June—my clerical friend and myself went down among the coffee groves, and were directed to search for birds in a near plantation, to reach which we passed through a nicely cultivated field of sweet potatoes, and then followed a wall and an irrigating ditch to the banana and plantain forest. Ah, the beauty of these gardens of plantains, which fully realize one's idea of an Eden in the tropics! Nothing else grows beneath them,—nothing there but their great silken, banana-like leaves, hanging from the smooth stems, arching over you, and perhaps trailing on the ground.
We crossed, later, a deep barranca, and came to a village hidden in trees, where streamlets gurgled through the streets, and the gardens were full of flowers. In the yard of one of the cabins we beheld a phenomenon which we could not account for,—a tree with bare limbs ejecting fine streams of water which fell in spray. I wondered at it, but accepted the fact that the tree did it, and was about putting it down in my notebook,—"Great discovery; wonderful weeping-tree of Cuernavaca." But just as we were going away, I thought I saw something move, and by attentive examination made out an insect called there the chicharra (Cicada spumaria, or harvest-fly). The tree was covered with them, squirting in all directions, and giving to it the strange appearance that had attracted our attention. There was something that might have been published as a botanical curiosity changed into merely an insect phenomenon! These insects were old acquaintances, after all, as I had seen them in abundance in the island of Tobago, near the coast of South America, where they make a noise so much like the distant whistle of a locomotive that I have often jumped from some solitary path, on hearing one suddenly start up, thinking a steam-engine was close behind me.
In directing our steps toward a chapel called Chapultepec, we had to cross a field in which some men were working, and waded through a rich crop of alfalfa. A dog barked at us, but the owner did not "sing out," as a Northern farmer would have done, "What ye doin' in that grass?" He saluted us politely, and kindly pointed out to us the road to take. And so we went on, through lanes bordered by flowering trees, until we reached the chapel, into the tower of which we climbed for a view, and found a stone there with the date año de 1739,—pretty old for the United States, but recent for Mexico. I gave some boys there a centavo each, at which a smile rippled all over them, and when we came to leave, they bade us a most affectionate good by. I remarked that they seemed like very good boys, but my friend the missionary objected, saying that they were muy fanaticos; that the priest was their only god,—El padre es el dios del pueblo; that it was a bad place, where they frequently killed the Protestants,—Ellos mataron los Protestantes. It may have been so, though I saw nothing but peace and good will; or it may be that he, being a Protestant Mexican, is prejudiced. But he said they threatened to kill him, only a year ago, and I suppose I might feel the same, if they had offered to kill me.
My friend risked his life pretty freely, at all events, in going about with me, for there was scarcely a place of interest which we did not visit. On June 2d we set out for the famous, yet little known ruins of Xochicalco, about the locality of which my guide knew as little as myself, yet he confidently engaged to pilot me to the spot.
The road we were following was the famous "Acapulco Trail," leading from that part of the Pacific to the city of Mexico, and which has been worn by the feet of countless mules and burros for three hundred years and over. It is a twelve-days journey from the capital to Acapulco, and one must procure his entire outfit in the city he leaves, unless he chance to fall in with a conducta on the route, which is of rare occurrence. That picturesque port of Acapulco has of late years fallen into disuse, since new ways have been opened across the continent, but in olden times it was a busy and a celebrated maritime city: To it went, and from it sailed, all those grand old galleons, which performed their portion of the voyage between the Indies and Spain, six months, sometimes, on the voyage between Manilla and the Mexican coast. Arrived there, the rich freightage was transported overland by a thousand mules and donkeys, and such portion as was not sold in Mexico reshipped at Vera Cruz for Spain. Sometimes the cargo reached the value of two million dollars; and as but one ship arrived in the year, it was looked for by merchants and mariners along the entire coast of Mexico. It brought calicoes and muslins, silks, jewels, and spices, and carried back silver, cochineal, cacao, and monks and priests as passengers. Bret Harte gives the best picture of those golden days in his "Lost Galleon":—
"In sixteen hundred and forty-one.
The regular yearly galleon,
Laden with odorous gums and spice,
India cotton and India rice,
And the richest silks of far Cathay,
Was due at Acapulco Bay.
••••
The trains were waiting outside the walls,
The wives of sailors thronged the town,
The traders sat by their empty stalls,
And the Viceroy himself came down;
The bells in the tower were all atrip,
Te Deums were on each father's lip,
The limes were ripening in the sun
For the sick of the coming galleon."
More ancient than the institution of trade between Mexico and the Indies was the object of our search that morning in early June. "Six leagues from Cuernavaca," says a writer of forty years ago, "lies a cerro, three hundred feet in height, which, with the ruins that cover it, is known as Xochicalco, or the 'Hill of Flowers.' The base of this eminence is surrounded by the very distinct remains of a deep and wide ditch; its summit is attained by five spiral terraces; the walls that support them are built of stone joined by cement, and are still quite perfect; and at regular distances, as if to buttress these terraces, there are remains of bulwarks shaped like the bastions of a fortification. The summit of the hill is a wide esplanade, on the eastern side of which are still perceptible three truncated cones, resembling the tumuli found among many similar ruins in Mexico.
The Castillo, on the top of the last terrace, is a rectangular building, measuring above the plinth sixty-four feet long by fifty-eight deep on the western points, and faces in exact correspondence with the cardinal points."
At a little hamlet called Xochitl, we found Senor Carpentero, a brother Methodist, who lived in a thatched hut with the eaves but three feet from the ground, and who furnished us with a guide for the pyramid. The guide demanded fifty cents for his services, expecting, apparently, that I would be deterred from my purpose by such an exorbitant price; but I closed the bargain at once, and he mounted his jackass, hung a calabash of water to his saddle, and led the way to the sugar hacienda of Xochitl, whence we took a path among the hills of Xochicalco. All the fields were thickly covered with volcanic débris, and the open shaft of many a mine showed that silver had been found here in small quantity. The heat was intense, and I was in agony from it for nearly two hours, until we reached the great hill, and slowly climbed the terraced slopes.
As this hill commands the whole valley, save for another cerro to the east, a glorious prospect is spread around, but chiefly of barren hill and plain, with two lovely lakes lying to the south, and barrancas everywhere dividing the surface. This cerro is directly north from the valley of Mexico, and the lights of the people who occupied it must have guided the ancient Aztecs as they came from their capital, going south, for it is in full view from the mountains. "The stones of the crowning structure are laid upon each other without cement, and kept in place by their weight alone; and as the sculpture of a figure is seen to run over several of them, there can be no doubt that the bassi rilievi were cut after the pyramid was erected." Stones seven feet in length by nearly three in breadth are seen here, and all the great blocks of porphyry which composed the building, and perhaps encased the entire cerro, were brought from a distance, and borne up a hill three hundred feet in height.
As a ruin little visited, and standing apart from every other group in Mexico, not only isolated by position, but unique in its structure and carvings, this Castillo of Xochicalco deserves minute description. It was mentioned by Humboldt, perhaps visited by him, as he came up to the Mexican valley from Acapulco, and must have passed within a few leagues of it on the road; but the last writer who refers to it wrote over thirty years ago. He says:—
"Who the builders of this pyramid were, no one can tell. There is no tradition of them, or of their temple. When first discovered, no one knew to what it had been devoted, or who had built it. It had outlasted both history and memory. . . . . No one who examines the figures with which it is covered can fail to connect the designs with the people who dwelt and worshipped in the palaces and temples of Uxmal and Palenque."
After we had rested and had examined the massive structure at the summit, myself and the missionary crept over the hill by a narrow path, through thick bushes, and found a black hole leading underground into a great cavern. This cavern, or series of vaults, was partially explored by order of government, nearly fifty years ago; but the superstitions of the Indians (who believe them haunted by the spirits of their ancestors) prevented a thorough examination. We investigated the chambers as far
as we could by the aid of a sputtering candle, and were lost in wonder at their height and extent. The old explorers mention a "cupola" of cut stones, diminishing gradually in size as they neared the top, and forming a beautiful mosaic, with an aperture through the roof of the cavern, which was supposed to lead to the temple above. This we found in the centre of the main saloon, said to be ninety feet in length, but it was divested of its cut and wrought stone. Instead, we found that the walls and floor were covered with a very hard and smooth cement.
Although these crypts may have connection with the temple on the summit of the hill, yet the caves we entered, two in number, were in a cerrito, at a little distance from that supporting the Castillo. Chill and damp were these caverns, though outside was the terrible heat of a Mexican midsummer noon. Scorpions and serpents were said to lurk here,—this is the excuse the Indians gave for not wishing to explore the dark passages,—yet we saw none. Doubtless, some one could find here sufficient to reward him for a week of arduous labor. We had not the time nor the money for exploration, and so we turned away from these grand ruins with reluctance.
Of the journey back to Cuernavaca I recall little that would seem of interest, except a solitary Indian village, where the people seemed to shun us, and an ancient stone bridge, spanning a deep ravine by a single arch, and just wide enough, without an inch to spare, for our horses to walk across it. My guide said it was made by the very ancient Indians, the same who built the Castillo, and was used by them on their pilgrimages to the valley of Mexico. It is not improbable, as its arch was not the true arch of the present day, but nearly approaching that seen in the Maya ruins of Yucatan, and its every aspect indicates great age, and a workmanship entirely different from Spanish or modern Mexican.
It was a matter of great regret that I could not visit the great cave, called Cacahuamilpa, situated to the southwest of Cuernavaca some thirty miles, which is of unknown extent, though it has been explored for a distance of three or four leagues. Its existence was unknown previous to 1835, when a criminal used it as a place of refuge, and it was subsequently explored. Celebrated travellers have visited this famous cave, and only a few years ago a great cavalcade of Mexican notables, headed by the President, made a journey to the place, and met with numerous accidents and incidents. The entrance to this enormous cavern is about one hundred feet in width, the passage descending to a vast gallery divided fantastically into different salas, or halls, to which the different fancies of travellers have given different names. The first is the Sala del Chivo, or the Goat Saloon, from an agglomeration of stalactites in the shape of an enormous goat, which was the terror of all the Indians until some one broke off and carried away its head.
Next is the Sala del Muerto, or Saloon of the Dead, because in it was found the skeleton of a man partially covered with a crystalline deposit. The Saloon of the Palm, El Tronca de la Palma, contains a glorious stalagmite of a palm white as alabaster, and thence a flight of natural steps lead into the Saloon of the Cauliflowers, or the Chandeliers. In the Organ Gallery, Sala de los Organos, there is "an amphitheatre with regular
benches, surmounted by a great organ, whose pipes, when struck, give forth a deep sound." And—it has been declared by every one who has been there—all these glorious galleries are adorned by nature's hand with objects of such beauty that no description can do them justice.
Forms of bewildering beauty greet the gaze of the explorer everywhere, and to one who delights in the strange and weird, the trip to Cacahuamilpa, difficult though it is, would be an extremely profitable undertaking. Guides can be obtained at the neighboring village, with various colored lights and fireworks to illuminate the crystal walls, and scanty information may sometimes be extracted from the innkeepers of Cuernavaca. The best account of it I have been able to find is contained in Madam Calderon's "Life in Mexico," and in Una Excursion a la Caverna de Cacahuamilpa, by Señor Antonio Cubas. The last named author is a faithful and picturesque writer, a geographer and statistician. He makes mention of Cuernavaca as one of the loveliest retreats of the tierra caliente, and calls attention to the gardens of Maximilian, within a league of the town.
