Land without chimneys; or, the byways of Mexico

by Alfred Oscar Coffin

The people of Mexico do not live in the country, but in cities, towns and hamlets, and prefer to thus live and travel long distances to their work. In the Vale of Laja, it is one continual series of hamlets, where the canon has widened into a beautiful valley whose season is perpetual summer. Whatever grows elsewhere, grows here. Up the rocky slopes where cultivation is impossible, the rich lava soil still supports countless thousands of maguey and cactus plants that produce food and fuel, drink and clothing. The bushels of succulent tunas that a single cactus bears, will feed a family for weeks, and the only labor required is the picking. A stalk of maguey will furnish in its undeveloped bud an excellent substitute for cabbage. The unfermented sap is the agua miel, or honey water of commerce. When fermented, a single stalk will furnish for months a gallon a day of pulque.

Its broad leaves, which are eight feet long, furnish a thatch for the house, and when dried, an excellent fuel. It is here the natives laze their time away from sheer ennui. It is in this valley the railroad contractors never go to hunt laborers. A Mexican works when he is hungry, and why should he be hungry in this valley where his rations may be had for the picking? And what would he do with money? The saloon has no charms where every man is his own distiller, and the law gives no occasion for “moonshine” and “blind tiger.” So it is the poor plains’ people who grade the road and drive the spikes, and even here the railroad people experience difficulties. The native has an inseparable attachment for his humble home, and will not under any circumstance follow a construction gang far. When the construction train has passed his home two or three miles, he finds it too far to return home at night, and the next day he bolts for home, and the company has to hire new laborers in the neighborhood; but when the work gets too far to walk home, they throw up their jobs also. If a few are influenced to remain, the whole family joins the procession, and move their temporary residence each day. The same is true of the army. When on the march it rarely has to supply a commissary, as each soldier’s wife follows the march and cooks for him. In the midst of each hamlet in this valley is to be seen the ever-present bell tower, and, clustered among the orange trees, the little chapel. The native may have no other resting place but mother earth, but his last penny will go to build his church.

While drinking in the beauties of the valley, we suddenly turn into the equally beautiful city of Celaya, in the state of Guanajuata.

In 1570, sixteen married men and seventeen bachelors founded the town, and it increased so in population, that in 1655, by a decree of Philip IV, of Spain, it was made a city, but it was three years afterwards that the inhabitants found it out. For beauty and importance of location, Celaya has no peer. Here is a junction of the two most important railroads, the Central and National, which offer transportation in every direction for the product of its woolen mills and the extensive haciendas throughout the valley.

This is a great market for opals. As a precious stone, the opal ranks high, but on account of its reputed bad luck, there are people who would not wear one as a gift. Those of Hungary and Australia are harder than these, but the fiery, prismatic glint of the opals of Celaya surpasses any in the old country. I have heard of a fourteen carat opal in Hungary that could not be bought for five thousand dollars. In Celaya they are of all grades and all prices, but the most remarkable thing about them is, in Celaya everybody offers them for sale. It does not matter when the train arrives, in the grey of morning or the dead of night, the ragged vendors are always on hand. As the train pulls into the station, a hundred hands will be thrust through the fence pickets, and in each hand, on a piece of black cloth, lie the beautiful gems, sparkling in the artificial light.

“All Americanos are rich,” is a saying of these people, as honestly believed as the catechism, and all prices are made on that basis. If your early education has been neglected in the line of precious stones, you will do well to let these pirates pass, for they are Shylocks all, these black-eyed natives.

One will look you in the eye, cross himself and swear by all the saints that fifty dollars or nothing will move his opal.

If you know your business and the price of opals, you have the money in your hand, and as the train starts, hold the silver temptingly before his eyes, and rare is the case when this will not “fetch” him.

An opal may be precious, but to a hungry man, silver is more precious. And that little trick is good for other trades as well as opals.

Anxiety or interest on your part is as fatal as greenness in trading with these sharpers. Utter contempt and unconcern on your part, throws the burden of concern upon him, and he soon begins to make concessions by asking how much will you give. However much you may want a thing, you must impress him that it is purely a matter of sympathy for his poverty that you buy. You may slyly hear him set the price to one of his countrymen, and when you come up and ask the price, without turning a hair, he will multiply it by two.