“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.