Hereafter, I shall positively refuse all gifts, and sell off about twenty hotels and villas and haciendas which I have accumulated beyond my needs. That much wealth actually interferes with a man’s rest and the color of his hair.
While in this state of mind and also in San Luis Potosi, I will discourse on the Bill of Fare. I know a Boston friend who would have said William of Fare, but I never could talk Bostonese, and just plain bill of fare will do me, when I am traveling. The Texas lingo just says “Hash.”
CHAPTER IV.
THE BILL OF FARE.
IF Cicero was right in his De Senectute that old age can be enjoyed only by those who in youth preserve their vigor, then the blessings of Nirvanah are the rightful inheritance of Mexico, and she will never lose that inheritance if bustle and hurry will forfeit it.
The hotels are run to suit the guests. When you arrive, you register, and when you next enter the corridor, you see upon the large blackboard your name, room, title, residence, destination, past history and future prospects and whatever else that will be of interest to the public. Now all of that is a labor-saving machine, and saves nerve tissue and wear and tear.
When the newspaper reporter wants news, he steps into the hotel corridor, and the proprietor silently points to the blackboard and goes to sleep again. The reporter reads the bulletin board and goes off and writes a two-column “interview” upon what Mr. A. thinks of Mexico, and you are saved all unnecessary prevaricating. The system is also very helpful to the police in search of lost friends for whom they have formed strong attachments, and for the custom house officials who have word that you passed a certain station and will bear watching. The bulletin board is a very diverting study in black and white for ordinary people, who look for the names of chance friends whom they do not expect, but who might be there. And the porters and curio vendors scan the list and patiently await your arrival on the street and tell you all about yourself. It is a regular bunco steer, but he is different from the genuine article. The g. a. will enveigle you somewhere and beat you on the sly. The Mexican artist stops in the broad sunlight, right in front of your hotel and beats you to your teeth.
He will sell you curios three hundred years old that he made last month, and has been waiting every day since for a person of just about your state of greenness and inexperience to sell to. As soon as he fleeces you, he kindly offers to find other rare bric-a-brac for you that he does not deal in, and will take you to his pal who is working other pastures. After you return to your friends and proudly show your acquisitions, some one who knows, will solemnly diagnose your head for phrenological knowledge. When he has diagnosed to his satisfaction, he will painfully tell you that your bump of Jack-assedness is abnormally developed. He will advise you to learn that little line of Shakespeare, or some other authentic writer that says: “I was a stranger and ye took me in.”
The hotel Bulletin is a great convenience. When you have found your room, you take an inventory, which will serve you in every other city. If you are in the city of Mexico, the inventory includes glass windows (elsewhere, it will be windows with iron bars) an iron bedstead built for one—which may or may not be inhabited—an iron washstand with iron enameled bowl and pitcher, chair, table, half a candle and candlestick. Kerosene is fifty cents a gallon. The scarcity of wood makes itself felt everywhere. The table, door and chair are the only things made from that precious article. Stone floors forever, which may be or may not be carpeted. The walls are decorated with printed placards giving the price per day, week, or month, sin o con comida—without or with board.
The marvel of the establishment is the door-key. A man with such a piece of iron on his person in the States would be arrested for carrying concealed weapons. It is so heavy they have made arrangements to relieve the lodger from carrying it. In the corridor is a keyrack with numbers, and a man stands all day to receive your key when you go out and to return it to you when you come back. The servant goes to him for it to clean up the room, and I have never known a lost or misplaced article under this system. The lock and key are made by hand at the blacksmith shop, and I think are sold by the pound. They are usually fastened upon huge rough doors made in the carpenter shop, and put together with three-inch wrought iron nails, with an inch or more of the point clinched on the opposite side from which they are driven. Of course there are neither fireplaces nor stoves in any hotel, but one, in the whole country.
The hotels are arranged in quadrangles, with the four sides facing an open court, redolent with flowery fragrance and fruits and bird music. Usually a fountain plays in the center, and in fair weather the table is spread here. Every story has an open veranda which looks upon this court. In the City of Mexico, the thermometer hesitates between 65 and 75°F, so when the rainy season is not on, meals can be had in the patio the year around. In the morning you rise at six or ten or any other hour that suits your fancy. No bells rung, no doors shaken, no noise made—you are simply let alone, and when you come, no frowns for your delay.