Land without chimneys; or, the byways of Mexico

by Alfred Oscar Coffin

TRANSLATED.

“The Mexican people rejoice in worshiping Thee, Holy Mother, under this miraculous image, and in looking to Thee for protection may that people through Thee, flourish in happiness, and ever, under Thy auspices, grow stronger in the faith of Christ.”

The four angels of the baldachin between the arches are occupied with allegorical bronze statues of the four cardinal virtues, Prudence, Justice, Fortitude and Temperance.

Underneath the High Altar is a crypt, the vaulted iron roof of which is capable of sustaining a weight of three hundred thousand pounds. This crypt contains four altars underneath the high altar, also urns or cinerariums for the reception of the thirty persons who contributed $5000 each to $150,000 for the High Altar.

The railing around this altar is of solid silver, and weighs fifty-two thousand pounds, or twenty-six tons. Immediately in front of the High Altar, but below the Presbyterium is a kneeling marble statue of Mgr. Labastida y Davalos, late archbishop of Mexico, and underneath the statue rests the ashes of his parents. His own are soon to be removed here.

The vaults of the roof are painted blue with gold stars in relief. The stars are of cedar, gilded over and screwed into the roof. The ribs of the vaulting are beautifully decorated in the Byzantine style, and the dome is a rich mass of gilding festooned with pink roses. The several divisions of the dome are occupied alternately by frescoes of the Virgin of Guadalupe and of angels bearing scrolls. In each division is one of the poetical avocations in which the Catholics impetrate the Virgin, such as “Seat of Wisdom,” “Mirror of Justice,” “Mystical Rose,” “Ask for the Covenant,” etc. The windows of the dome, of stained glass, were given by the College of the Sacred Heart of San Cosme.

The most striking of the interior decorations are the fine large wall frescoes. The one on the right represents the conversion of the Indians through the Virgin of Guadalupe. Groups of friars are preaching and baptizing, while hovering in the air is the figure of the Virgin. This is by the artist Felipe S. Gutierrez. The next represents the image being carried to the small chapel, December 26, 1531. This is a brilliant piece of work, and reflects great credit upon the young artist, a young Jesuit priest, Fr. Gonzalo Carrasco. The image is carried beneath a canopy, and attended by gorgeously arrayed priests and prelates. Then there are the friars and Indians and Spanish cavaliers, and acolytes bearing candles, flabelli, etc. In the lower right-hand corner is represented the first miracle alleged to have been wrought by the Virgin of Guadalupe. The Indians, in honor of the procession are letting off arrows, and one of them enters the neck of an Indian. His mother begs the procession to turn back, and as it passes her son, so goes the story, he is healed.

On the western side, nearest the High Altar, is the fresco of the taking of evidence for the Apparition in 1666. This is by Ibarraran y Ponce. The next is by Felix Parra, and is called a gorgeous poem in color. It represents the period of “Matlazahuatl,” the dread pestilence which devastated the city in 1737, when the Archbishop Antonio Bizarron y Equiarreta solemnly put the city under the protection of the Virgin and immediately the plague departed. In the foreground is an Indian stricken with the plague. The last fresco represents the presentation of a copy of the image to Pope Benedict XIV. The Pontiff is in the act of exclaiming: “Non fecit taliter omni Nationi!” Between the first two frescoes is a mural inscription in Latin: “The Mexican people, in honor of the Virgin of Guadalupe, who in old time appeared on the hill of Tepeyacac to Juan Diego, erected a holy temple, and with all piety venerated the ancient image. One of the most conspicuous in its cult, was the Archbishop Pelagio Antonio de Labastida y Davalos, a most munificent restorer of the Collegiate Church. Now at length, as all had wished, and as the Chapter of the Vatican Basilica had decreed in A. D. 1740, the famous image, with the sanction of the Supreme Pontiff, Leo XIII., was crowned with a diadem of gold, on the fourth day before the Ides of October 1895, Prospero M. Alarcon being Archbishop of Mexico, to stand forever as a shield, the protection and the honor of the Mexican people.”

The apse behind the High Altar is elaborately decorated and contains many mural paintings of popes and archbishops. In the apse is the chapel and family vault of Mr. Antonio de Mier y Celis. This chapel is a perfect gem of the decorative art and is dedicated to St. Joseph. The crypt underneath is an exact reproduction of the Escorial at Madrid. The three stained glass windows are from Munich and cost $17,000. There are in all, ten altars in the church, and its total cost is nearly four million dollars. During all the revolutions and political upheavals in Mexico, the sanctity of Guadalupe has immured it from plunder; the most reckless freebooters forbearing to invade the hallowed ground of the Virgin.

You leave this place weighed down with impressions of magnificence, wealth and beauty. Outside the door of this four million dollar church you step over a hundred naked, starving beggars, holding their skeleton fingers for coppers. One cent seems to be the regulation fee expected, and if you give a beggar five cents he returns four cents change.

Near by is the government building in which the treaty of peace was signed between Mexico and the United States. Guadalupe Hidalgo is what the treaty is called in history, out of patriotism for the memory of Hidalgo. By the little chapel is a geranium plant in full bloom. Its stem is five inches in diameter, and the top is thirty feet in the air. I suppose the Virgin exercises an influence over it as with every thing else here. Across the little plazuela is another miracle attributed to the image. At the foot of the rocky hill where the vision appeared the last time, boils up a spring of water that is a veritable geyser. It is said to have appeared after the apparition had vanished. It is covered with a pavilion, Capillo del Pocito, and is about ten feet in diameter, and about the same from the curb to the water. The dangerous pit is fenced in with an iron railing, and as you gauze into its chalybeate depths surging below, an attendant draws up a basin of water and passes it to you with a wonderful narrative of its curative properties for unfruitful women, and the large number of such women who annually resort to it for relief with the Virgin’s blessing.

This is the Indian’s Mecca, and on December 12, all Indians make a pilgrimage here in honor of Juan Diego, the only Indian saint in the calendar. The encircling town of ten thousand devotees with a permanent residence here is an earnest of the strong hold it has upon them. It is said that whoever drinks from this miraculous spring is compelled to return again, no matter how far he may wander. And so I was impelled to drink of the vile smelling water with the hope that at some time it will carry me to Guadalupe again without the necessity of a yard and a half of railroad ticket which gets punched into fragments on a ninety day circular tour. I stayed the violent eruption which the medicated water threatened within, and turned to the broad stone steps that led to the top of the hill where Juan plucked the roses. The beautiful line of steps leads up the basaltic cliff to a height of a hundred and fifty feet, and where the roses grew is a little chapel, “La Capilla de Cerrita,” crowning the summit of Tepeyacac. Though nearly four hundred years old, the chapel is in good repair, and is still the holiest shrine in Mexico. The entire walls are covered with pictures of the miraculous cures by the image.

There is a picture of a man falling from a church steeple, and afterwards brought to life by the passage of the image, and a bull-fighter impaled on the horns of the enraged bull, and a hundred similar scenes where the image had asserted itself.

It was worth much to see the adoration and utter abandon lavished upon this image. Pilgrims from everywhere stretched themselves prone upon the floor, and the look of resignation said as plainly as the words could, “Now Lord lettest Thou Thy servant die in peace.”

I shook myself up to see if I could awaken a little devotion within myself, but the only feeling I had was borrowed from that little incident on Mount Carmel, when that rugged old spokesman, Elijah, the Tishbite called down fire to consume the worshipers of Baal.

The faithful looked up as I wandered among them with note-book and pencil. They did not speak, but that look would have filled three columns of close printed small pica type if translated, about the unregenerate heathen that did not bow to the sacred image nor cross himself when he passed by the holy water. The scribe was there solely in pursuit of knowledge, and when he had all the little chapel contained, he stepped over the prostrated forms on the floor and passage-way and went out to see some more miracles performed by the Virgin.

Ten steps from the door loomed up another miracle as big as life and almost as natural. This was the old stone sail and ship’s mast, and thereby hangs a tale, to wit, namely, as follows:

“Once upon a time,” as the story-books go, a very rich family owned a ship which was long over-due at Vera Cruz, so this family went to the Virgin, or to the image rather, and laid the case before it. They said the ship’s cargo was worth almost its weight in Spanish doubloons, and if she would bring that ship to port, they would make her an ex voto offering of the ship, if she would let them have the cargo. The image listened and concluded that the bargain was fair enough, so she let the ship come to port. True to their promise, the owner had the mast, sails and cordage brought across the Cordillera Mountains 265 miles to Guadalupe and set them up in front of the church and then encased the whole in stone just as you see it today, and if any one doubts that the Virgin saved the ship, why, “there stands the mast itself to prove it.” It is useless to argue against facts. A single look of interest draws a half dozen guides who want to explain all about the Virgin and the image. I give them enough money to get drunk on and die if they will leave me alone and tell me no more about the wonder. After they are gone I turn to the Campo Santo, just behind the chapel. This is the Westminster of Guadalupe, full to running over with illustrious pilgrims, bandits and all.

At the barred gate I was met by a tall pirate who claimed my camera. I told him I had passed the custom-house with that box, and that there was nothing seditious in it but a half dozen exposures of his fellow-citizens, and from the scarcity of clothes they had on they were really exposed before I found them, and besides, I had a deed and title to that camera stretching all the way to Boston. He said that was all bueno, but he did not care a hot tamale about that, but he would swear by all the saints and the Virgin herself that I and my camera would part company before I entered that gate. “Why sir, don’t you know that you stand on holy ground, right on the Hill of Tepeyacac itself, and right in that gate is the tomb of Santa Anna?” I told him that was all bueno, too, but we had Santa Anna’s wooden leg in the Smithsonian Institution, and I was not afraid of any one-legged man hurting me, especially one that had been planted twenty-six years. And besides, I told him the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed right here February 2, 1848, and if I remembered correctly the treaty acknowledged that he got licked, and we could lick him again and tie one hand behind our backs. I did not want to trouble the Virgin to bring this gate-keeper back to life, so I gave him my camera.

Among the Indians of our country one can hardly ever get an Indian’s picture; they think you can “hoodoo” them if you once get their picture. Perhaps they think the same here, for I have never found a Campo Santo unguarded, and they all draw the line between me and my camera.

I went in and saw that Santa Anna was still dead, and his grave was covered with the same wonderful roses that the Virgin ordered here four hundred years ago. Then I began to figure out what right that old brigand had to be buried here on this holy hill.

He was five times president of Mexico, four times Military Dictator, and was twice banished to the West Indies, “For his own and for his country’s good.” “Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, February 21, 1798.” So his birth-day just lacked one day of making him Father of his Country, but seven times with the reins of government in his hands, nearly qualified him to be step-father anyway. He ought to have come to the United States and entered politics.

When the War of Independence began in 1821, he joined the Mexican forces under Iturbide, but quarreled with him the next year and put himself at the head of a new party, and seeing which was the winning side, he joined Guerrera and soon became Commander-in-chief of the army. He then overthrew Guerrera in favor of Bustamente, then overthrew Bustamente in favor of Pedraza, and in 1833 he sat down on Pedraza and modestly made himself president.

Then he told the dear people that it was time to elect a new president, and that there was only one candidate, and the first two letters of his name were Santa Anna. Incidentally, he reminded the people that he had the army to back him.

They say he was elected by a large majority, (so was Cromwell.) Having settled that little matter, he went over in Texas and chased the Texas army all over the state for two years, till he got it corraled in a bend of the San Jacinto River, and then sat down to supper, but during the night the Texans broke out and to their great surprise captured Santa Anna himself. He never forgave the Texans for that.

The Texans wanted to barbecue him just as he had done the Texans at the fall of the Alamo in San Antonio, and the massacre at Galiad, but General Sam Houston saved his neck. He went back home in disgrace and was banished, but he would not stay banished. He came back and made himself president in 1846.

When Texas entered the Union he started over to chase Texans again, but at the battle of Cerro Gordo, General Scott got his wooden leg and he had to give up the chase. When the French put Maximilian on the Mexican throne in 1861, Santa Anna was an exile in the West Indies. He wrote a letter of congratulation to Maximilian, and said, “If you want a man to wipe up the earth with General Juarez’ army I am the man to do it.” Maximilian declined with thanks. Then he wrote a letter to Juarez and said, “If you want a man to wipe up the earth with that French army, I am the man.” Juarez declined with thanks. Santa Anna had his feelings hurt, so he came home, raised an army and licked both Maximilian and Juarez for snubbing him. In 1867, Mexico got too small for him, so he was asked to consider himself banished for an indefinite period.

In 1874 he asked his country to let him come home to die, and the country graciously granted him the privilege and welcome, if he would promise to die. So he came home and met all the agreement and died, and here he is.

His grave-stone had R. I. P. and the boy said it was, “Let her rip,” but a few had “perpituidad” which meant that they had paid their rent till the final resurrection. The others were, “Rest in Peace,” for five years, and if the rent is not paid, the resurrection takes place immediately.

At Saltillo, the cemetery has two heaps of grinning skulls and bones that will measure 25,000 cubic feet of dead people who did not pay rent and were evicted.

A hundred dollars will buy the little word “perpituidad” on your tombstone, which will protect you till Gabriel sounds the final reveille.

I went back to my gate-keeper and said: “Now my good fellow, laying aside all jokes, what has Santa Anna done so noble as to give him a grave on this hill?”

He said this hill was a regular boom in real estate and that all his renters paid gilt-edge prices for beds, and as S. A. had the shekels, he got the bed. “And sir, if you have got the rocks, you can get lodging here.”

I declined with thanks, and told him I always carried a Coffin with me.

The road from Mexico to Guadalupe is three miles long, and has twelve stone shrines to commemorate the stations of the cross. All the pilgrims venerate these shrines on the march to Guadalupe. When Maximilian was meeting with such cool reception by the Mexicans, he walked the whole distance barefooted, in December, to win the good will of the Mexicans by apparent conformity to their customs. The Mexicans took him down to Queretaro and shot him.

I have gone thus minutely, and perhaps tediously, into the details of this legend to “find a moral and adorn the tale;” to expose the fraudulent practices and glaring deceit which the priest-hood has foisted upon the ignorant people. Whenever their hold upon the people seems to weaken, a cock-and-bull story like the one just told will awe the superstitious people by thousands to the rescue. Think of that humbug when the water was four years falling, and then the image getting the credit for it!

As a matter of fact, Mexico City was built upon an island only two feet higher than Lake Texcoco, a salt lake with no outlet, and both lake and city are in a crater, and all the water that falls in that forty mile valley must remain until evaporated, even though it takes four years to lower the height of a broken cloud-burst. After the water has evaporated to its usual level, why, the “Virgin lowered the water.”

Every priest in Mexico knows the geography of the valley and why the lake is salt, and why inundations take place even today in the principal streets of the city. In the light of this knowledge, their duping practices seem more reprehensible. Such is their hold, however, that since the church and state have been separated by law, several revolutions have been threatened because the state has attempted to interdict some of the senseless customs of the fiestas. Even within the last six years, the state proposed to put restrictions upon some of the ceremonies of Guadalupe, and had to recall the proposition to prevent a revolution.

It is encouraging to know that you never see an intelligent Mexican making a door-mat of himself before these shrines. He knows it is not worship as well as the priest, but there are thousands who are yet in the dark and the only hope of the priest-hood is continual ignorance of the masses, but education is weakening that every year. It is said that when an Indian earns two dollars, he gives one to the priest, forty-five cents for pulque, and supports his family with the remainder. As bad as that may look in print, I can say it is not far from an actual fact. Stand in front of that four million dollar church with all its useless finery, and then gaze at the thousands of beggars that crowd its steps and overflow to the street, who have to sit down to hide their nakedness and to better support their weak stomachs, and draw your own conclusion. And who ever heard of a Mexican church supporting a charity or raising a poor fund? Not I, and I have seen all of it. If these people had one tenth of the intelligence of the French Communes, they would walk into those churches and have a grand lottery drawing with no blanks.

As I have seen it, the whole thing is a whited sepulcher. I mingled with ten thousand French on July 14 when they celebrated the fall of the Bastile, and sang with them the Marseillaise, not because I was French, but because it was an effort and a successful one of establishing individual freedom; and it pleased me, and I wondered when I might join with Mexico and help them sing La Golondrina and celebrate the Fall of Guadalupe.

Old Cato’s climax in his Roman speech-making could well be paraphrased for the nineteenth century, and when thinking of the incubus of Mexican progress, would fit well with a change of one word when we say:

“Carthago delenda est.”

CHAPTER IX.
PUBLIC BUILDINGS.

WHERE once stood the Palace of Montezuma, now stands the national Palace. It occupies the entire eastern side of the Plaza Mayor, with a frontage of 675 feet, and was built in 1692. It is open to the public all day long.

On the ground floor of the plaza front are the barracks. On the second are the President’s chambers and those occupied by the Spanish Viceroys and the Austrian usurper, Maximilian.

At the extreme front is the Ambassadors’ Hall, so long that the President at one end in his chair of state seems but a pigmy, and so narrow that three persons with outstretched hands can touch either wall. The idea of spacious halls seems never to have entered the Mexican’s head. Huge buildings they have, but they are only a succession of rooms whose dimensions depend upon the usual length of building timbers, which is never over twenty feet. It seems easy to connect the joists on supporting pillars and enlarge the room, but, “We have always done this way.” So the Ambassadors’ Hall has a probable length of 300 feet, and an actual width of about twenty.

At the Southern end is a raised dais where the President presides; at the other, under a canopy are two magnificent state chairs. One was the property of Cortez, and has his name on the back in pure gold, and the date 1531. It is in excellent repair, since its construction was entirely of metal covered with brocade, and one might doubt its antiquity were not the ear marks of old Spain everywhere visible in all its workmanship, even in its coat-of-arms. The other is covered entirely with pure gold and is the chair of state of the President, and must be worth $20,000 if appearances comport with the actual value of gold. Just opposite this chair is a painting fifteen by thirty feet, depicting the great battle of Puebla when President Diaz first won his spurs in defeating the French army. An old grizzled veteran who fought in the battle will point out the notables in the picture, not omitting his own which stands to the left of the President.

On the same wall hang the pictures of George Washington and the leaders of Mexican Independence, Iturbide, Hidalgo and Morelos. There is no room closed to the visitor, so we visit the President’s barber shop, reception room, library and the Hydrographic office where maps and charts are being made. All these rooms are furnished differently, and are as elegant and comfortable as even a president could wish. Nearby is the treasurer’s office, and how my feet clogged when I tried to go by! I just want to change money all the time; I know of no better way to get rich than to change money. Hand over one of Uncle Samuel’s ten-dollar bills, and get eighteen dollars and sixty cents back, is just doubling your money as fast as you can stow it away. It beats the lottery business all to pieces. So when I passed by the treasurer’s office I wanted to change money, but I was loaded down at that moment and could not. When you step into a restaurant and give a U.S. dollar for your dinner and get your dinner and another dollar in change, you want to eat some more.

In the courtyard is a curious plant that has a flower exactly in imitation of the human hand with all its fingers. It is the cheirostemon plaxanifolium or hand tree. Only three specimens exist in Mexico. As all the public buildings are under one roof, we soon find ourselves at the Post Office with its seven days wonders. No one goes to the window and inflicts upon the unoffending young lady that much abused old legend, “Is there a letter here for me?” O no, that is not the style. When the mail arrives, the letters are arranged alphabetically and numbered consecutively, then the list is typewritten and posted on the bulletin board, where he who runs may read. Beginning with No. 1 on the first day of the month, the numbers run to the end of the month and start over. The foreign list is published separate from the native. If you find your name on the bulletin you pass to the window and call for date and number only, and a book inside has a duplicate list. The letter is handed you, and you sign your name opposite the number of the letter, giving street, number and hotel. At the same time a policeman stands at your elbow, scrutinizing all persons and their handwriting, and qualifying himself to find you again if necessary in case of forgery. To an American the system may seem cumbersome, but he must remember that he is in a country where letters to the United States cost five cents, and I have seen domestic letters from one state to the other cost ten cents, as much as many people earn, so there is not much letter writing.

Then it has its advantage. Every time a clerk is called to the window, she knows there is a letter needed, and it saves the endless “yes, no, yes, no” all day long, and the sorting of hundreds of letters to look for the name of a person who is not expecting a letter at all, “but just thought I would ask you.” The system is infinitely better than that in Texas towns with a Mexican population. No Mexican signs his name without a flourish which obscures the name entirely sometimes, and besides, the Mexican names have a way of spelling themselves different from the pronunciation.

The Texas post-mistress lumps all Mexican mail in one box, and when a Mexican shows his head at the window she hands him all the Spanish literature on hand, and he takes what he wishes. If he is dishonest, he can purloin any mail he sees fit. The Mexican officials are very kind, and always try to keep a clerk who knows English. Of course she is always out when you need her most, but that does not detract from their good intentions; but the Spanish language is so easy a person can learn a hundred words a day, and if he knows Latin he has nearly half the language to start with.

Next door to the Post Office is the National Museum, the most wonderful repository in America, where ancient Mayan, Aztec and Toltec relics lie side by side with the civilization of today. Here are gods without number and idols by the thousand.

Strangest among these symbols is the ever-present serpent, that subtile being that has left its stamp in the mythology of the old world. Wherever native religions have had their sway, this symbol is certain to appear. It appears in Egypt, Greece, Assyria and among the superstitions of the Celts, Hindoos and Chinese, and here upon these ancient idols he is carved upon porphyry and granite in natural size and heroic dimensions, but always in coil, with the rattlesnake fangs and tail conspicuous.

Here is also the Aztec sacrificial stone of basalt, nine feet in diameter and three feet thick, within whose bloody arms, from Spanish authority, twenty-thousand victims were annually offered up. All of the Spanish under Cortez would have been killed upon that awful retreat of Noche Triste, were it not for the zeal of the Mexicans to capture them alive to offer as sacrifice rather than kill them in battle. The central figure of all this interesting collection is the calendar stone upon whose mysterious records the scholars of Europe and America have labored with only partial success. The stone is circular, is hewn from a solid piece of porphyry, and weighs fifty tons. How it ever reached this island is a mystery, when the people had no beasts of burden; how it was carved is a mystery as the people did not know iron. The greatest wonder is the inscription which accurately records the length of the solar, lunar and siderial year, calculated eclipses, and is a more perfect calendar than any European country possesses.

From this stone we learn that the Aztecs divided the year into 365 days; these were divided into 18 months of 20 days each, and, like the ancient Egyptians, they had 5 complementary days to make out 365. But the year is composed of six hours more than 365 days, and in America we add the six hours every four years and make leap-year. The Aztecs waited 52 years, and then interposed 13 days, or rather 12½, which brought the length of their tropical year to within the smallest fraction of the figures of our most skillful astronomers. Like the Persians and Egyptians, a cycle of 52 years was represented by a serpent, so prominent in mythology.

This interpolation of 25 days in every 104 years showed a nicer adjustment of civil to solar time than that presented by any European calendar, since more than five centuries must elapse before the loss of an entire day. Their astrological year was divided into months of 13 days each, and there were 13 years in their indications which contained each 365 periods of 18 days each. It is also curious that their number of lunar months of 13 days each were contained in a cycle of 52 years with the interpolation of 13 days (12½) should correspond exactly with the Great Sothic period of the Egyptians, viz: 1461. By means of this calendar, the priests kept their own records, regulated the festivals and sacrifices, and made all their astronomical calculations. They had the means of setting the hours with precision; the periods of the solstices and equinoxes and the transit of the sun across the zenith of Mexico. This stone was dug up in the great square in 1790 where it had lain buried since the Conquest in 1520, but its high scientific deductions are out of all proportion to the advance of the Aztec in other branches of learning, since the stone is more exact today than any European calendar in existence, therefore it must have been made by another race. The characters are in the Toltec language, but there are many points of it which the Toltecs copied from the Mayas of Yucatan, and the Mayas seem to have copied from the Egyptians, of which we shall speak in another chapter.

There are other relies more ancient than the Calendar Stone, and others more recent. There is the ideographic picture-writing, through which we learn the history of the race previous to the Conquest. Here is Montezuma’s shield, the armor worn by Cortez in the Conquest, his battle-flag, the statue of the war god Huitzilopochtle, Tula monoliths, the Goddess of Water, Palenque cross, Chacmol, and the finest carriage in the world, built by Maximilian for his Mexican capital. The body is painted red, the wheels are gilded, and the interior is lined with white silk brocade, heavily trimmed with silver and gold thread.

In Ethnology and Zoology the exhibits would require days to see. The museum is open every day but Saturday, and is thronged ever. The Indians never tire gazing on the scenes which recall the times when they were masters. In the midst of the quadrangle is a beautiful garden of rare plants and tall palms.

Soldiers guard the entrance and police welcome you and ask for your camera and umbrellas, and as your party starts, a uniformed lad will fall in at your heel, attach himself to your shadow and never leave you till you descend the steps to the exit. He does not seek your companionship necessarily for publication, “but as an evidence of good faith.” He is not intrusive nor garrulous; his duty is simply to be ever present. With tens of thousands of valuable relics in easy reach, probably they are acting wisely upon past experience.

The next door leads to San Carlos, the National Art Gallery. Here are the famous paintings of “Padre Los Casas,” “The Deluge,” and Murillo’s “San Juan de Dios” and “The Lost Sheep.” In the fourth and fifth salons are the works of native Mexicans, and their love to old Spain is shown by their paintings; whole sides of the salons are given to the cruel tale of the Conquest and the Inquisition: Spanish Cavaliers, holding up the cross in one hand and the drawn sword in the other, and cutting down the ignorant natives who would not confess the Virgin; the death of Montezuma, surrounded by heaps of gold so gluttonously hoarded by the Spaniards; the fate of his brother, Guatemotzin, the last of the Aztec chieftains, whose feet are held in the fire by his Christian torturers, to disclose his hidden treasures, and the haughty chieftain still kept his heroic mien without a murmur.

One of his generals who was similarly tortured appealed to him. Turning a look of scorn upon him Guatemotzin replied: “And say, am I on a bed of roses?” There is a weird fascination about the paintings that makes you feel that the paintings have just stepped from the pages of Prescott’s Conquest of Mexico. It is the Chamber of Horrors where the Spanish Inquisition is depicted by men who knew. Overhead are scores of medallions of famous men of Mexican birth, and beneath each a famous picture. Leaving this salon we come to a well lighted hall with several hundred easels and folding stools. This is the instruction room, and is filled with students and models and casts and charts, where lessons are given to all who apply without regard to creed or race or color. The Color Line has no place in Mexico. Beneath the salon are halls filled with statuary, where clay modeling and sculpture is taught, and as you leave with weary limb you are convinced that it is in truth a National Academy.

Then there is the Mineria, the School of Engineering and Mines, on San Andres and Betlemita streets. It cost a million and a half of dollars, and was the work of the sculptor and architect, Tolsa. It contains rich collections of geological and minerological specimens, and a meteorological observatory, also a fossil of the Pleiocene horse of three toes. The mint on Apartado Street struck its first coin in 1535, and since then the coins of republics, empires and dictatorships have run from it in a constant stream of gold and silver to the enormous sum of $2,200,000,000.

Then there is the National Library and the Preparatory School on San Ildefonso Street, with a thousand students and fine equipment and botanical garden. Public instruction is free and gratuitous in every respect, without regard to race or religion.

Just beyond the Cathedral is a National Pawnshop, Monte de Piedad, “Mountain of Mercy.” It was founded more than a hundred years ago by Count Regla, the owner of the famous silver-mine of Real de Monte, who gave three hundred thousand dollars for the purpose, so that the poor and needy could get money on their belongings at reasonable interest. Any article deposited is valued by two disinterested parties, and three-fourths of its value is promptly advanced. If the party ceases to pay interest on the loan, the article is kept six months longer, and then exposed for sale. If not sold in the next six months, it is sold at public auction, and all that is realized from the sale above the original pawn, is placed to the borrower’s credit. If this money is not called for in a specified time, it reverts to the bank of the institution. This is a government institution, and has entirely broken up the small pawn-shops that charge unreasonable interest. The rate of interest is never raised, and it lends a million dollars a year, and has fifty thousand customers. One dollar is the smallest sum loaned, and ten thousand the largest, and the loans are about three hundred daily. About one-third of the articles pawned are never redeemed, and tourists can find some wonderful bargains here. The Diamond snuff-box presented Santa Anna when he was Dictator is here. $25,000 will buy the little trifle.

In all the wars and revolutions this old city has seen, all parties have respected this grand institution, with one exception: When Gonzales was president in 1884, he ran so short of money, that to keep the National credit, he levied upon its treasury. An English syndicate with a capital of $25,000,000 has recently bought the institution for one million, and will still carry on the banking business.

Chapultepec, “The hill of the Grass-hopper,” is the president’s White House and the West Point of Mexico. It is three miles from the city, and is situated upon a perpendicular rock, two hundred feet high, and was a veritable Gibraltar in war times when cannon were unknown. This castle was the pride and ambition of Carlotta, the wife of Maximilian, and she spent half a million dollars on the interior furnishings. The interior is remodeled on the Pompeiian style. The castle is reached by a winding road around the hill, and also by a secret cavern through the hill. On the rock in front are the engraved pictures of Montezuma I. and his successor. In the rear is the immense park of ahuehuete or cypress trees, next in size to the redwoods of California. One of these venerable monarchs is fifty feet in circumference and one hundred and seventy feet high, under which was Montezuma’s favorite seat. This park measures two miles in length, and reaches to Molino del Rey, “The King’s Mill,” which figured in the war with the United States. It is now the National Arsenal.

The Military Academy is at Chapultepec, and the whole hill is a military camp. From the citadel a view can be had of the whole valley of Mexico, forty miles long and thirty wide. To the left of the road leading up to the castle is a cave, closed with an iron gate. This is said to have been the treasure house of both Montezuma and Cortez. A stairway leads up through the hill to the castle. A large collection of animals are in the park and a beautiful flower garden. From here leads an aqueduct that supplies the city with water, just as it did before the Conquest. Here was made the last stand against the American army under General Pillow, and U. S. Grant was one of the first to mount the hill, and the flower of the cadet army was slain here, and they were only boys. The occasion has been remembered by the government, and at the foot of the hill stands a large monument with the names of all the boys who fell. On one side is this inscription:

“DEDICATED TO THE STUDENTS
WHO FELL
IN DEFENDING THEIR COUNTRY AGAINST
THE AMERICAN INVASION.”

CHAPTER X.
THE PASEO AND BULL-FIGHT.

THE City of Mexico with its 350,000 inhabitants is a disappointment to the foreigner. The business portion looks just like an American city. All the Mexican cities are paved with cobble stones, with the street lowest in the center, which is the gutter. Here the streets are broad, cross at right angles, high in the middle with gutters next the sidewalk, and are paved with asphalt. The houses are four story, and the shops have glass show windows, very unusual in Mexico. The reason is, this is not a Mexican city. It was built by foreigners and is now run by foreigners.

On July 14, when the French celebrated the Fall of the Bastile, four-fifths of the business houses were draped in the tri-color of France. With twenty-five foreign consuls, six vice consuls, and fourteen foreign ministers, each with its attaches and dependencies, it is no wonder the city’s local ear-mark is lost in this assembly of foreigners; and, were it not for the languages of Spanish and French which fall so musically on the ear, the scene would not be very different from a street in Chicago, if we eliminate the vehicles. It is due the foreign element that the city has the finest boulevard in America.

LA PASEO DE LA REFORMA.

The Latin American races are very fond of carriage-driving, and one of the first signs of wealth is the laying out of the promenade where the “four hundred” may drive at the fashionable hour. Before the present Paseo was built, the fashionable drives were Paseo de La Viga and Paseo de Bucareli. Every afternoon, then as now, were to be seen two long rows of carriages with crowds of gentlemen on horse-back and multitudes of foot passengers.

The Paseo de Bucareli, or Paseo Nuevo, is in the southwestern part of the city. It was opened Nov. 4, 1778, by Don Antonio Maria de Bucareli, the viceroy. It has the same starting point as La Reforma, the circular plazuela in which stands the statue of Charles IV. and extends half a mile almost due south to the Garita de Belem. In the glorieta near the city gate, is what was once a handsome fountain, surmounted by a statue of Victory, erected in 1829 in honor of Guerrero, and which was originally gilded. For promenading, the Paseo is now practically deserted, but is becoming a fashionable residence section.

The glories of Paseo de La Viga have indeed departed. The once famous and fashionable drive is almost deserted, save during Lent when an old custom prescribes that fashion shall air itself there. It traverses the bank of La Viga canal for many miles, past the chinampas or floating gardens, through a double avenue of shade trees, where continual processions of Indians are seen from the Lake country, paddling to market with canoes laden to the guards with vegetables, fruits and flowers.

But Fashion is a tyrannical mistress, and she decrees that Paseo de La Reforma be the only place to see and be seen. It leads from the statue of Charles IV. to the gate of Chapultepec, two miles and a half. It is laid with smooth asphalt, and has a uniform width of two hundred feet.

It has double avenues of shade trees on each side, with broad foot ways on the side, lined with seats for the weary. At certain intervals, the street widens into glorietas, or circles, four hundred feet in diameter. The street passes on each side of these glorietas and leaves them as green islands with beautiful flowers and statuary. There are six of these glorietas and more are to be added.

All along the curbing of the Paseo, are statues of men famous in Mexican history, and are contributed by different states. At the entrance to the Paseo is the equestrian statue of Charles IV. of colossal size.

Thirty tons of metal were used in the casting, and it is the largest single casting in the world. Humboldt says it has but one superior, that of Marcus Aurelius.

A royal order issued Nov. 30, 1795, granted to the Viceroy Marquis de Branceforte to erect this statue in the Plaza Mayor. The commission was given to the sculptor Don Manuel Tosta, and the casting in bronze to Don Salvador de la Vega. The mold and furnaces were made ready in the garden of San Gregorio, and after two days spent in fusing the mass, the cast was made at 6 a.m. Aug. 4, 1802. The casting, remarkable alike for being in a single piece, and for being the first important piece of bronze executed in America, came out of the mold complete and without defect. In 1803, it was erected in front of the cathedral where now is the bandstand of the Zocalo. Here it remained till 1822 when the Mexicans had achieved their independence, and the feeling against Spain was so bitter it was encased in a wooden globe and painted blue, but was finally placed for safety from the mob in the patio of the university, a comparatively out-of-the-way place. Here it remained in obscurity till 1852 when it was set up in the commanding position it now occupies. The height of horse and rider is fifteen feet nine inches. The king is dressed in classic style, wearing a laurel wreath and raising aloft a scepter.

On both sides of the Paseo at its entrance, are colossal figures on high granite pedestals said to represent Aztec warriors. The work must have been done by Spaniards, in ridicule, for a more hideous pair of warriors never went to battle.

The first glorieta contains Cordier’s Columbus, one of the most admirable and artistic modern statues to be found in the world. This was the work of the French sculptor, Cordier, and was erected at the cost of Don Antonio Escandon. The base is a platform of basalt, surrounded by an iron railing, above which are five lanterns. From the base arises a square mass of red marble with four basso-relievos; the arms of Columbus with garlands of laurel; the rebuilding the monastery of La Rabida; the discovery of San Salvador; a fragment of a letter from Columbus to his patron Raphadi Sauris; beneath which is the dedication by Señor Escandon.

Above the basso-relievos and surrounding the pedestal, are four life-size figures in bronze, of monks and missionaries, and crowning the whole upon the top of a pedestal of red marble is the figure of Columbus, drawing aside the veil which hides the new world.

In the next glorieta is Cuauhtemoc, a worthy companion of Columbus, and is the work of Don Francisco Jiminez. The statue of the great warrior king is magnificent, as he appears hurling defiance at his country’s enemies. The base contains some fine basso-relievos, one representing the torture of Cuauhtemoc (also spelled Guatemotzin) by the cruel Spaniards. The fretting around the structure is all after the old Aztec pattern, and the trophies of Indian arms and insignia are all intensely appropriate to the warrior who preferred death of his whole people to the surrender of his city to the Spaniards. Facing the Paseo is the following inscription: “A la memoria de Cuauhtemoc y de los Guerreras que Combatieron Heroicamente en Defensa de su Patria M. D. XXI.”

Mexico is indebted to Maximilian and his wife Carlotta for this Paseo. She had set her heart upon a “Paseo Imperaliz,” and Maximilian entered heartily into the scheme, but he did not live to complete it. His idea was to establish a court that should rival any in Europe, and he had already introduced titles of nobility.

He planned to create a handsome park of Chapultepec, with lakes and streams and drives, with deer and swans and all the other nice things. What was done he paid for out of his own civil lists, and he intended to pay for it all and present it to the city. The Mexican people could not brook a European Emperor, but they all loved “Poor Carlotta,” and as she planned the Paseo, every year they add some new improvement until it has now become the glory of the republic. Every addition is an evidence of good taste, and Carlotta’s park idea is already planned. From the last glorieta two roads branching to Tacubaya and Tlaxpana are being prepared, and the park grounds will then extend from Molino del Rey to the Exposition building, three miles.

One never tires of sitting on this boulevard and viewing the motley throng as it passes in review, driving, riding or promenading. Ladies in Parisian bonnets and Spanish mantillas; the dashing equestrian rigged in the paraphernalia of Mexican horsemanship, or breeched and booted after the manner of Rotten Row itself. Stately vehicles drawn by snow-white mules; four-in-hands tooled along in the most approved European style; youthful aristocrats astride Lilliputian ponies, followed by liveried servants; here and there mounted police with drawn sabres, giving an air of old world formality to the whole proceeding. In and out among them flash the bicycles ridden by men, women and children from all civilized countries; the kaleidoscope of the pedestrians, dressed in their peculiar garb with red and gray and black rebosas, raven black hair exposed to view, and the Indians from the mountains in their severe simplicity. The procession passes up the right, with here and there a light American buggy, or a heavy-wheeled English mail phaeton with a real live dude at the front holding the reins, and a liveried flunkey facing behind and holding a flaring bouquet, and, after reaching Chapultepec, it comes back on the other side, leaving the center to the horsemen, and to the latter’s disgust, the bicycles.

And we must not forget the centaurs, the Mexican horsemen; rigged out in all the silver ornaments of bridle and saddle worth more than the spirited horse, and ten thousand people to admire them, they never appear to better advantage than when exhibiting on the Paseo. Spanish and Mexican ladies rarely ride, and when they do, they are so very exclusive they ride in closed carriages. At the glorietas are stationed military bands with from forty to eighty pieces in each, and the procession always exhibits to “slow music.”

Poor Maximilian, at heart a great man, but the dupe of Europe, planned this city as a king and died as a king. Could he return now, what might be his feelings to see his plans carried out? And poor Carlotta! the idol of Mexico, a victim of circumstances, has never forgotten that fatal day when Maximilian was shot at Queretaro and the flash of the rifles left her a queen without a throne and a wife without a husband. To this day she drags out a miserable existence at the Austrian capital, a maniac that has spent thirty years murmuring and jibbering his name. There is in America a miserable lack of respect to kings, be they never so good and kind and great, and Mexico was only true to the free air of the mountains when she refused Maximilian. Mountain-born men will always be free.