Land without chimneys; or, the byways of Mexico

by Alfred Oscar Coffin

The mines have been worked over three hundred years, but the city is only two hundred years old. The mines were discovered to the Spaniards by a pious monk, who named them Potosi, because of the resemblance to the mines of Peru.

Three million dollars annually, are mined. A very unusual thing for Mexico, the railroad station is in the heart of the city. Seventy-five thousand people make their home here, and the law requires all houses to be kept freshly painted; and what a restful revelation it is, with asphalt pavements swept clean each night, and hotels that make a traveler glad. The only drawback to complete happiness is a lack of water. Most cities here draw their water from the mountains in aqueducts, but San Luis has outgrown its supply.

At the public fountains, a stream of water-carriers by hundred stand patiently in line to fill their vessels from the tiny, discouraged stream trickling from the Dolphin’s mouth, and the police stand guard to see that all are served in the order of arrival. All day and all night this pitiful waiting goes on forever. It is like buying tickets for the Symphony concerts in Boston, where the people come before day and buy choice places in the long line of earnest waiters. The water is free, but the successful ones sell to those in the city who do not care to enter the crush, or to the hotels and wealthy ones who can buy. All kinds of vessels are used, but the preference is given to the five-gallon cans that brought kerosene into the city.

With two of these fastened to a shoulder yoke, the men peddle the water at three cents a can. With the women, the favorite is the large Egyptian model earthenware called olla. With this poised gracefully on one shoulder and elbow, and the opposite hand held across the head to balance, it completes one of the most picturesque scenes so common here. Rebecca at the Well has simply stepped out of the old picture book and assumed her ancient calling. The feature of the profession, however, is a man with a nondescript wheel-barrow which no man can describe.

Rainfall is quite plentiful here, but the porous amygdaloid rocks can not hold it. At present an American citizen is boring an artesian well, and the interest displayed by the citizens is remarkable. All day long hundreds of anxious watchers will stand around the drill, evincing the same interest we used to show at our boarding house when the first strawberry short-cake of the season was cut, and the anxious boarders were watching to see who would get the strawberry.

The burro train has lost its hold upon San Luis. For three hundred years all the silver was carried to the sea, two hundred and seventy-five miles away, by burros, but now, with two railroads, things have changed. The Mexican National leads to the capital, the Mexican Central to the bay of Tampico.

Here are many fine buildings to see; the Governor’s palace, palace of justice, State capitol, the museum, the library with a hundred thousand volumes, cathedral, and the churches of Carmen, Merced, San Augustin, San Francisco, Military College, and the Teatro de la Paz, one of the finest opera houses in the country.

As in all the cities, the street ears start from the main Plaza, and from here you may visit Guadalupe, Tequisquiapan, the baths of La Soledad, Axcala and Santiago.

In the rainy season, the street cars bear this legend: “There is water in the river.” As a matter of course, the cars do a land-office business as long as the water lasts. The cars lead to the Paseo, a beautiful shaded avenue two miles long, asphalt pavements, and fountains at either end, with the usual scramble for water.

At the extreme end is the church of Guadalupe, with two tall towers, and a fine clock presented by the king of Spain, in return for the gift of the largest single piece of silver ore ever taken from a mine—the mine of San Pedro.