He planned to create a handsome park of Chapultepec, with lakes and streams and drives, with deer and swans and all the other nice things. What was done he paid for out of his own civil lists, and he intended to pay for it all and present it to the city. The Mexican people could not brook a European Emperor, but they all loved “Poor Carlotta,” and as she planned the Paseo, every year they add some new improvement until it has now become the glory of the republic. Every addition is an evidence of good taste, and Carlotta’s park idea is already planned. From the last glorieta two roads branching to Tacubaya and Tlaxpana are being prepared, and the park grounds will then extend from Molino del Rey to the Exposition building, three miles.
One never tires of sitting on this boulevard and viewing the motley throng as it passes in review, driving, riding or promenading. Ladies in Parisian bonnets and Spanish mantillas; the dashing equestrian rigged in the paraphernalia of Mexican horsemanship, or breeched and booted after the manner of Rotten Row itself. Stately vehicles drawn by snow-white mules; four-in-hands tooled along in the most approved European style; youthful aristocrats astride Lilliputian ponies, followed by liveried servants; here and there mounted police with drawn sabres, giving an air of old world formality to the whole proceeding. In and out among them flash the bicycles ridden by men, women and children from all civilized countries; the kaleidoscope of the pedestrians, dressed in their peculiar garb with red and gray and black rebosas, raven black hair exposed to view, and the Indians from the mountains in their severe simplicity. The procession passes up the right, with here and there a light American buggy, or a heavy-wheeled English mail phaeton with a real live dude at the front holding the reins, and a liveried flunkey facing behind and holding a flaring bouquet, and, after reaching Chapultepec, it comes back on the other side, leaving the center to the horsemen, and to the latter’s disgust, the bicycles.
And we must not forget the centaurs, the Mexican horsemen; rigged out in all the silver ornaments of bridle and saddle worth more than the spirited horse, and ten thousand people to admire them, they never appear to better advantage than when exhibiting on the Paseo. Spanish and Mexican ladies rarely ride, and when they do, they are so very exclusive they ride in closed carriages. At the glorietas are stationed military bands with from forty to eighty pieces in each, and the procession always exhibits to “slow music.”
Poor Maximilian, at heart a great man, but the dupe of Europe, planned this city as a king and died as a king. Could he return now, what might be his feelings to see his plans carried out? And poor Carlotta! the idol of Mexico, a victim of circumstances, has never forgotten that fatal day when Maximilian was shot at Queretaro and the flash of the rifles left her a queen without a throne and a wife without a husband. To this day she drags out a miserable existence at the Austrian capital, a maniac that has spent thirty years murmuring and jibbering his name. There is in America a miserable lack of respect to kings, be they never so good and kind and great, and Mexico was only true to the free air of the mountains when she refused Maximilian. Mountain-born men will always be free.
BULL-FIGHTING.
The Aztec in his palmy day offered human sacrifice. He daily made war upon his neighbors to secure the victims, and washing his hands in gore has been his profession for six hundred years; this is why bull-fighting with its fascination and danger and death is to him so dear.
Every Sunday afternoon and every feast-day is given up to this bloody pastime and everybody goes. The foreigner goes once, sometimes twice, but rarely three times, but he never forgets what he sees. Four dead bulls, three dead horses, from one to three maimed or dead men is the possible result of a Sunday’s sport. Each city has its plaza de torus or bull-ring, just as we have theaters, and the bull-fighters go from town to town as our opera companies. The stars of the company are the swordsmen. The bull-ring is a circular amphitheater, after the manner of the Roman Coliseum, and will seat from four to twenty thousand. The government takes a strong hand in lotteries and bull-fights, and in the latter, receives twenty-one per cent. of the gate receipts. In the federal district, the secretary of the republic presides at the fight.
Four different haciendas are licensed by the government to breed bulls for fighting purposes, Durango and Cazadero being the most noted. Poncama Diaz, a nephew of the president, is called the star matador of the world, and owns the Bucarelli bull-ring in the city, which is capable of seating 20,000 people. The arena is a circle 200 feet in diameter, and open to the sky. Around this is an eight foot wall to protect the people, and at intervals along this wall are “escapes” for the fighters when the bulls decide there is not enough room in the ring. Receding from the ring are the tiers of seats arranged in the manner of a circus. Those on the shady side usually selling for a dollar, while the “bleachers” sell for 25 or 37 cents. Over these seats are the private boxes, and above all the gallery for the olla podrida.
An ordinary troupe consists of two matadores or swordsmen, four banderilleros or dart stickers, two or four picadores or lancers, and the lazadores who lasso and drag the dead animals from the ring. The program usually consists of the killing of four bulls in an hour, with sometimes an extra. The president of the function, (every thing here is a function) may reject any part of the performance or fine any member who commits a breach of ring etiquette. The performance is set for four o’clock and is always the same. The crowd waits, grows impatient, the band plays. The crowd grows more impatient, the band plays again—plays all the time. Finally the judge appears, (every function must have a mediator between the people and the event) and is seated in his decorated box, and the band plays again.
The judge makes a sign to the bugler who blows the opening of the gates, through which comes a snow-white horse bearing a rider dressed in green and gold, with knee pants and silver buckles, flowing cape, cocked hat and waving plume. This is the president of the company, and he begs the permission and approval of the fight. The judge assents and throws him the keys of the bull-ring, (what else is he there for?) and the rider retires. Again the bugler blows and the company enter in full force, and the costume of each is worth a thousand dollars in gold. No two are dressed alike as to color. Silk jackets that reach the waist, knee pants and silk stockings and a cockade hat, all present the prismatic colors of the rainbow. Around each is a Spanish cloak, held around the waist with the left hand. As they make their bow to the audience, the cloak is let loose with the left hand and swings around gracefully pendant from the left shoulder.