Land without chimneys; or, the byways of Mexico

by Alfred Oscar Coffin

Until a month prior to this writing, all boats paid custom duties on whatever merchandise they brought to the city. When the duties were paid the smaller boats were admitted through a small gate-way, which necessitated the lowering of the awnings, while the large ones had to discharge their cargoes.

On the up-stream side of the romantic old bridge is always a blockade of boats of every description, from mud scows to steamboats, waiting for a transfer. The first town beyond the Garita is the quaint little town of Santa Anita, the Coney Island of the Canal. It is essentially a Mexican town of thatched reed houses, nearly every one a restaurant for the sale of those unnamable dishes one meets with so often, which have a far-off smell, but fill a long-felt want. After hearing their names called, you are no wiser, but feel better. There are also liquid and semi-liquid refreshments to suit the taste, provided your sense of taste has been destroyed before coming here. The insidious and seductive pulque mixed with the firey tequila and mescal are all loaded with malice præpens, and are better left to the lava-scarred throats that have met them before. All the fruit drinks are excellent, but the drink par excellence is the pina. It is made from grated pine-apple, sweetened with sugar and cooled with the snow just brought from Popocatapetl that morning.

When Horace sang of the wine of Brundusium cooled with the snows of Hymettus, he had not heard of the pina of Santa Anita backed up by Popocatapetl. Here are games, and all manner of games peculiar to the people, and flower-booths where the people buy flowers and garland each other, where even the humblest may wear a crown woven of fragrant flowers woven by the hand of Romeo or Juliet, only they call each other Ramon and Inez. Here is a fine old church with a beautiful tower and a diminutive plaza with restful seats and entrancing music.

Be sure to stop at the hacienda of Don Juan Corona. He was a retired bull-fighter, and in his old age became antiquarian, and his house is a vast museum of costly and rare antiquities. When he died he left a legacy to found a school for the poor, and if you have any pennies to bestow upon the señora who shows you around, they will be well spent.

We leave the merry-makers and proceed on our search for las chinampas, after our boatman has mulcted us for coppers enough to tank up at a pulque joint. The thick ropy liquid has loosened his tongue in a marvelous manner, and the flood gates of his information bureau are raised, and for an hour he gives us chapters of unwritten history and legends of the country. That which I knew, he gave in Spanish, and that which neither of us knew he gave in Aztec, and he justified his claim of being the best informed guide on La Viga. Henceforth I call him Ananias. The two snow-clad volcanoes were close by on our left and I asked him which was Ixtaccihuatl and which Popocatepetl. “This is Esclaéwa and that is Popocaltepay,” he promptly answered. I said: “Man, your pronounciation is bent a little bit to starboard; everybody else says Popocatepetl.” “Of course they do,” he said, “which only proves that everybody else is wrong. I say it is Popocaltepay.” That scored one more for that designing pulque, and added to the title of Ananias, that of Geographer with a pedigree only three removes by blood from some people Baron Munchausen once knew.

The next town reached was Ixtacalco, where the people seem to have sobered down, and the burg showed less bent for pleasure and more for business. Here a fine old stone bridge crosses La Viga, and a discouraged old chapel with its portals wandering down to the water’s edge, where, in the good old days gone by, the boatman muttered an ave and deposited his offering to the saint in whose honor it was consecrated, in the hope that good luck might attend his market voyage. In front of the church, dedicated to Saint Matias, and which is a Franciscan foundation of more than three hundred years ago, is a little plaza with a fountain of running water. Along the lane from this plaza and marked by a palm-tree, is the ruin of what was once the chapel of Santiago, which is used as a dwelling.

In the midst of these inhabitants is the remnant of what was once a most gallant image of Santiago himself, now galloping to defend the faith on a headless horse, another relic of the romantic past, the work possibly of some cavalier of Spain, under the leadership of that prince of brave men, Hernan Cortez—for cruel as he was, we cannot withhold from him the meed he justly earned in bearding the lion in his den, though The New World Venice was buried in his blood-reeking canals. Who knows whose work it was, least of all the inhabitants of Ixtacalco, or the mutilated image itself, or if it knows, it discloses not its secret. We told Ananias to drive on, but that worthy assumed an electrocuted countenance that was wonderful to behold. The long distance had already paralyzed one side, and “He barely had strength enough to take him back to the city, and the Lake is fifteen kilometers. You will have to hire another boatman from here, and señor, by all the saints I could not pass that bridge, it is beyond my territory, and besides, señor, how much more will you give me to carry you to the next town?”

There! at last we see him in his true light, a pirate! Three well-earned titles in one day and it was not a very good day for titles either, and he had no appearance of aristocracy either. Certainly he did not belong to the Order of the Bath. “Here,” said I, “I will give you three cents to get drunk and drown yourself.” Off came his sombrero and down came a salaam almost to the prow of his boat. “Señor, I think I heard you say you wanted to see the chinampas.” “Chinampas! why of course, that is what I left the city to see, where are they?” “Well señor, we passed the floating garden a mile back at Santa Anita.” Caramba! Here was the title of knave to add to his already long list. With the hope of “holding me up” at the bridge for a raise in wages, he had silently passed the chinampas for fear I would stop.

My admiration began to grow for this Captain Kidd, and I was anxious to know how many cards he yet held up his sleeve, but it was expensive, so telling him to soak his head, I crossed the bridge and struck out upon the causeway, and for miles and miles there was nothing but chinampas! They could have been seen from Ananias’ boat had it not been for the bank of the canal. This then was the mint where the flowers and vegetables were coined for the great city. Floating garden is now a misnomer. In years gone by they really floated on rafts, but as the French say “Nous avons change tout cela.” Since the lake was drained they are all stationary and are likely to remain so unless “Popocaltepay” resumes business again.

The Chinampas are a net-work of islands—Venice moved from the city to the lakes. The land-owner simply taps the canal with a ditch, leads it around three sides of a square and brings it into the canal again, making a rectangular island of any dimension he chooses. His neighbor beyond taps to his canal, and the system is extended for miles and miles just like the streets of a city, the business blocks answering for the islands. Through these canal streets dart thousands of boats that harvest the crops that grow here forever. Surrounded and saturated with water the chinampas are always moist and fertile and as there is no winter it is one perpetual seed time and harvest. The accumulated humus and vegetable matter make it unnecessary to even fertilize.