Rambles by Land and Water; or, Notes of Travel in Cuba and Mexico

by Benjamin Moore Norman

In addition to this, the learned philologists, who have investigated the languages of the Aboriginal nations, with a view to tracing their origin, have found, in the names of places and things, many striking correspondencies with the language of Japan. And Barton, one of our own countrymen, has published a very elaborate treatise on the subject, in which he undertakes, and, as he thinks, successfully, to prove, that the language originally spoken in both the Americas, are radically one and the same with those of the various nations, which are known by the general name of Tartars.

Having got my hand in, and feeling somewhat encouraged by the singular success of the above triumphant philosophical disquisition, I am strongly tempted to trespass upon the patience of the reader, while I proceed to inquire into the probable reasons why the worshippers of idols, who have the choosing of their own gods, so generally delight in those of grotesque and ugly shapes, and unseemly proportions. Since our fellow-creatures, even our wives and our children, are loved and cherished in proportion as they are rendered lovely to the sight by the graces of form, feature, complexion and expression, how happens it that those objects of adoration, who are supposed to preside over and control the interest and destinies of men, in all their relations to each other, and the dearest objects of their affections, should be clothed in forms of the most unnatural and disgusting appearance? But I forbear.

I had passed several days among the ruins of Panuco. They were days of unusual mental excitement, and bodily fatigue. There was enough around me to occupy and interest me many days longer. But I was unprepared for the investigation. I had gratified, but by no means satisfied, my curiosity; and my attention was now necessarily turned from the sepulchres of the dead, towards the dwellings of the living. I gathered up my little stock of relics, consisting chiefly of idol images, found among the dilapidated temples and dwellings of the departed, and, with no little difficulty, conveyed them in safety to "the lady's room." Taking a last farewell of this apartment, and of the friends who entertained me there, I betook myself again to my canoe, bestowing my little demons carefully in the bottom, and covering them, with my hammock, and other travelling apparatus. The voyage down the river was as quiet and beautiful as can be conceived. The greater part of it was performed at night, under favor of a full moon, through fear of being surprised by the natives, who, in that event, either from superstition or jealousy, would, no doubt, have deprived me of my small collection of idols.

TRAVELLING BY NIGHT.

I arrived at Tampico in the early part of April. Mine host of the French Hotel was as ready to receive me, as on my first arrival in the city, and his "accommodations" were equally inviting. The city was in a state of considerable excitement, in consequence of the daily expectation of the declaration of War by France. The Mexican Congress had, sometime before, passed a law, forbidding any foreigner to carry on a retail business in Mexico, after a certain specified time, on peril of confiscation. This law deeply affected the interests of a considerable number of Frenchmen, who, under the protection of the previous statutes, had established themselves in the country, investing their little all in the retail business. It was, in fact, a decree of banishment, without any alleged fault on their part, and with the certain sacrifice of all their property.

The day arrived when the invidious law was to go into effect. The French retailers, acting under instructions from their government, and a promise of protection in any event, took a careful inventory of their goods, locked up their stores, placed the keys, with the certified inventory, in the hands of their Consuls, and waited the result. It was a quiet and dignified movement on the part of France, a sort of silent defiance which could not be misunderstood. But it was amusing to witness the different effects of this state of things, upon the different classes of French residents. Some of them, with an air of perfect nonchalance, as if fearing no power on earth, and knowing no anxiety beyond the present moment, improved the season as a holyday, a sort of carnival extraordinary, devoted to visiting, dancing, and all kinds of sports. Others, of a more mercurial temperament, blustered about the streets, flourishing their arms with the most violent gesticulations, scowling fearfully, swearing huge oaths of vengeance, and seemingly taking the entire affairs of the two nations into their own hands. It was a windy war. And sure I am, if the Mexican rulers had seen the fuming, and heard the sputtering of all these miniature volcanoes, they would have felt the seat of power tremble beneath them.

The result of this movement proved, as thousands of similar movements have done before, that "wisdom is better than weapons of war." The Mexicans were completely non-plus'd. The offensive law was not violated in any case, and they had no handle for a further act of oppression. The foreign residents only stood on the defensive, and thus put the government in the wrong. They felt their position, and made a precipitate retreat. After a few days of awkward dalliance, they issued new instructions to the local authorities, informing them that they had misinterpreted the law, and misunderstood its purport. It was thus virtually abrogated, and the business of foreigners has since been suffered to flow on in its ordinary channels.

It is not, perhaps, quite as awkward a matter for a nation to back out from the position it has deliberately taken with reference to another, as for an individual to find himself compelled to do the same thing with reference to his antagonist. The responsibility is divided among so many—the body politic having no soul of its own—that there can be little, if any, personal feeling in the matter. And patriotism, which is a personal virtue wherever it exists, has generally so little to do with such movements, that we leave it out of the question altogether. But, agreeable or disagreeable, backing out is the only safe course, where the weak have given offence to the strong. It is a position and a movement that poor, divided, distracted Mexico, has become quite familiar with. And there is good reason to apprehend that she will yet have more experience of the same kind. Her present relations to the United States, and the ground she has taken in reference to the independence and annexation of Texas, leave little room for doubt, that she will, ere long, take another lesson in the tactics of retreat. As long as private ends are to be promoted by it, or the interests of a political clique advanced, so long she will bluster and threaten. More than this she will never even attempt to do. For the most selfish of her political leaders, and the most violent of her blustering patriots, knows too much to stake his all, and the all of his country, upon the cast of a die, which might, by possibility, turn up a war with the United States.