Beef, pork, chicken, frogs and armadillos are all known to the trade, and dark hints or innuendoes to that effect, say that the fat prairie dogs and the Chilhuahua pups make prime tamales. The prairie dog is always fat. The Chilhuahua pup is only a vest-pocket edition of dog that weighs about two pounds, and the other genus or species of Mexican dog that I know has a blue skin and no hair except on the end of his tail. The ordinary tamale is anonymous, and it is well, for, like the boarding house hash, it is better in cog.
The tunas from the prickly pear and the algæ from the canals and irrigating ditches also enter into the bill of fare. With conscious pride in my ability to grapple with the unknown, I made a foolish boast that there was nothing in the Mexican market that my stomach had bolted at, although my taste and my stomach had some pretty lively debates concerning the editorial fitness and filthiness of certain things.
But in an evil hour I boasted. I believe the good book says pride goeth before a fall. I was proud. I had bearded the Mexican lion in his den and had eaten through the lines. I had met the enemy and “they were our’n,” and I boasted of my cast-iron stomach.
My friend said: “Have you eaten any Gusanas de la Maguey? No? Well, come with me.” Now gentle reader, “If you have tears prepare to shed them now.” You have seen a tomato-worm. Well! the word gusana means worm, and this particular gusana is built on the order of a tomato worm, but he lives in better pasture on the maguey plant, and grows a little larger and a little fatter than your middle finger, or say the size of a cannon fire-cracker.
As we approached the market my knees got weak. I had had my pride, and was now going for my f—gusanas.
I felt that a volcanic eruption was about to take place in my immediate neighborhood, and remarked that nature was very kind to these people. My friend neither stopped nor made a shadow of turning, but marched straight to a sorcerer he knew and said, “Señora, my friend is anxious for some gusanas de la maguey at my expense.”
She slowly fished up a dozen stewed, and I fainted! (Curtain.)
CHAPTER V.
IN THE VALLEY OF THE LAJA.
BEYOND San Luis we come to Villa Reyes with the immense Hacienda of Jaral, which at one time controlled 20,000 peon laborers, and during the Revolution of 1810, furnished a full regiment of cavalry to the Viceroy to fight the patriots. Beyond is the town of Dolores Hidalgo, “The Sorrowful Hidalgo,” where was born Hidalgo, the George Washington of Mexican Independence. Sept. 15, 1810, he set the watchfires burning which dimmed not till Spanish misrule was ended in 1820. Still nearby, is the city of San Miguel De Allende, also named for Allende, another patriot priest who, like Hidalgo, suffered martyrdom for Mexican liberty.
Here are the famous baths, with the water gushing from the mountain side, through the baths to the evergreen gardens and fruits and flowers in the valley. This city is situated on the enchanted Cerro de Moctezuma, and overlooks the beautiful valley of the Laja (Lah-hah.) The Hotel Allende was once the palatial home of a wealthy and pious man, Señor Don Manuel Tomas de la Canal and his wife who donated the chapel of the Casa de Loreto. Here is a beautiful Gothic church, the only one in Mexico, and was the work of a native architect who drew his plans with a stick in the sand, and this was the only guide his workmen had. A dozen miles from San Miguel is the town of Atontonilto, famous as the place where Allende and Hidalgo started with the Banner of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and marched with it to San Miguel and opened the Revolution. Here we leave the plain and enter the Vale of Laja, 250 miles north of the city of Mexico. Before us is a frowning gateway of solid rock, but following the shimmering little river, the beautiful valley breaks upon the view like a panorama. Everywhere is the pepper tree, loaded to the tips with the beautiful berries that look so much like our cherries. Dame Nature here is at her best. Bananas, oranges, lemons and pomegranates everywhere shade the peaceful homes whose acres in the rear are covered with maize and pepper and fruits and flowers.