Land without chimneys; or, the byways of Mexico

by Alfred Oscar Coffin

Then there is another Fiesta de los Flores, a fiesta, but not a feast. This is the “Combate de Flores.” This is designed especially for the aristocracy and is held on Paseo de La Reforma. It is a custom borrowed from Cannes or Nice, and is exactly what the name implies, a combat of flowers. The line of battle extends from the statue of Charles IV to the gates of the castle of Chapultepec, over two miles. The carriages are all decorated with flowers, and as they pass and repass each other the occupants pelt each other with flowers. The ladies in the balconies along the Paseo also take part. The hour for assembly is 4 p. m. A double line of cavalry extends clear to Chapultepec. At each glorieta is a military band. The sidewalks are jammed by an admiring multitude who watch the carriages pass with their occupants resting literally on a bed of roses with which to pelt each other, to finally stop at the statue of Cuauhtemoc, where the prizes are to be given to the best decorated carriages. The prizes were escritoires in ebony, bronze vases, statuettes and diplomas of honorable mention. The carriages were transformed into crystallized dreams.

One lady, whose name was Concha, had a carriage body of an immense white shell of eglantines and white and cream roses. Another was a cornucopia of sea-weed and palms interlocked with flowers of every hue. President Diaz and his wife appeared in an undecorated carriage, possibly to save the embarrassment of the jury in distributing prizes. And what more esthetic and harmless recreations could we have than the utter abandon with which these people enjoy the blessings of life and nature? Our lives have little enough of sunshine sifted into them, and we might learn some valuable lessons from these tropic people how to get our quota of real joy out of three hundred and sixty-five days. The fountain of youth which Ponce de Leon sought in vain is here discovered, happiness.

The drainage of the city is not good, and were it not for the altitude, the death rate here would be terrible. Imagine yourself in New Orleans, and find yourself suddenly lifted a mile and a half in mid air, and you are in the City of Mexico. The air is rare and pure. A corpse could be left out of ground any length of time and would not decompose, but would only dry up. Fresh meat never spoils, and vegetables simply grow old and refrigerators are unknown. There is no winter, no summer, but the rainy season from May till September is followed by the dry season. During the rainy season you may expect a shower once a day, lasting perhaps an hour, perhaps ten minutes, and then the sun shines again. The nights are glorious with southern constellations, and Polaris and the Southern Cross are both seen, but the handle of the great dipper is broken off below the horizon.

You wear the same clothes the year round, as the climate is the same. After four o’clock you must put on wraps, for the nights are always cool enough to require blankets every night in the year. The Mexican made shoe is an instrument of torture which nobody would endure but a Mexican, because he has never seen a better. High heel and tooth-pick toe, throws all the weight in a pointed toe which must hold twice its normal capacity. The unsightly gait the women make with this uncomfortable shoe is distressing, and to add to the torture they do not wear stockings—so I am told. My own shoes wore out and I tried in four cities, without success, to buy a pair of low-cut shoes. We wear them for the comfort they bring in hot weather, but they have none, so they do not make low-quarter shoes. You never see perspiration on a person’s face here, no matter how violent the exercise.

The Mexican chews tobacco—never. He smokes tobacco, always, men, women and children, on the street, in the theater, at the table—everywhere is the deadly cigarette, and they inhale the smoke and emit it from the nostrils. The Pullman car is the only place where it is necessary to display the sign “No se permitir fumar.” The matches are wax tapers and double enders. When a person asks for a match, he lights one end and puts it out, and always returns you the unused end. Such a match will hold a blaze a minute. High caste ladies do not smoke in public. The floors of the cars and other public places are pitted as though they have had the small-pox where smokers have thrown their half-burned matches which burn long enough to scorch the floor.

The theaters are built after our style except that every tier of seats is divided into boxes holding six chairs. Everything goes well until the last act, when a porter calls upon you politely for six cents for the use of the chair, and then you learn that the price of the ticket does not include a seat, and that a seat concession goes with every theater. You may stand if you prefer, but a Spanish play is no shorter than an English one. In the front center of the stage is the prompters stand. Through a trap-door in the stage near the foot-lights his head projects above the floor and is concealed from the audience by a tin cornucopia opening toward the stage, so he can be seen as well as heard by the actors, but he can also be heard by the audience as he prompts their half-learned lines.

Kerosene at fifty cents a gallon is the universal public illuminator, and the empty five-gallon cans with the U. S. brand are met with everywhere.

Sept. 16 is Independence Day in Mexico, and its observance is worthy of note. Its birth was similar to our own, and the child of oppression from the mother country. Spain prohibited the Mexicans any trade whatever with any other country but Spain under penalty of death. No schools whatever were allowed except in charge of the priests, who suppressed every branch of useful knowledge. No manufactures of any kind were allowed if Spain could produce and sell the article, and nothing was allowed to be planted in the rich soil that Spanish farmers in Spain could sell in Mexico. In 1810, a patriotic Catholic priest, Maguel Hidalgo y Castella (Hidalgo his father’s name, Castella his mother’s) with a desire to benefit his starving countrymen, introduced the silkworm and planted vineyards. These industries were promptly destroyed by the Spanish officials, and thus were the seeds of rebellion and liberty planted.

Hidalgo had been among his countrymen and organized a rebellion. On the night of Sept. 15, 1810, it was whispered to Hidalgo that his plans were discovered and the government forces were marching on him. With swift decision he had the church bells of Dolores to sound the danger signal, and when the alarmed population reached the plaza, they found their priest with torch and musket. With burning words he told them of their wrongs and discovered plans, and at that strange hour and in the darkness where one could not distinguish friend or foe he gave the famous grito, Mexico’s Declaration of Independence: “Long live our Mother, most holy Guadalupe! Long Live America! Death to bad Government!”

Thus, in that modest hamlet, now known as Dolores Hidalgo, was set on foot the revolution which eleven years later gave Mexico her independence, after three hundred years of oppression and cruelty never equalled before in any other country. And now, on the night of Sept. 15, you may witness the most remarkable celebration among liberty-loving people. Before night the tri-color is displayed from every building, and across the streets are hung innumerable Chinese lanterns ready for lighting.