Mexico / Its Ancient and Modern Civilisation, History, Political Conditions, Topography, Natural Resources, Industries and General Development

by C. Reginald Enock

THE MEXICAN PEONES: STREET SCENE AT CORDOVA.

The upper class Mexican is often a well-educated and well-informed man of the world, and in appearance and habit differs little from the European. His wealth has permitted him to be educated in the best establishments his country affords, or often abroad, in France, England, and in a less degree the United States, and to spend years in Europe and live a life of ease, preferably in Paris—that true Mecca of the Spanish-American people. The Mexican gentleman is generally courteous and punctilious, and gives much attention to dress and matters of ceremony, after the general manner of the Spanish-American, and the frock-coat and silk hat form his indispensable exterior whenever possible. His courtesy pervades his business relations generally, as well as social affairs. And, indeed, this pleasing quality permeates the whole social régime from the highest official or wealthy citizen down to the poorest peon or to the Indian labourer. The matter of courtesy, in addition to being native both with the Spanish progenitor and the native race, is, it might be said, part of the political Constitution. The republics of Spanish-America at least regard all men as equal in this sense, a condition which is far from existing in the Anglo-Saxon Republic of the United States, where brusque assertion of even the meanest authority is evident, in the present development of that country. Nor is it to be supposed that Mexican politeness is a mere veneer, or mask, to be put on and off as occasion dictates, for it arises from native kindliness—a species of Quixotism of a laudable nature.

The Mexican largely shares the spirit of hospitality of the Spanish-American race, and this, besides being a native characteristic, was strongly implanted in colonial days by the very exigencies and circumstances of the times. In some parts of the country, until recent years, hotels or inns were unknown; and it was sufficient for the traveller to knock at almost any door to ask and receive food and shelter for himself and his retainers and beasts, even though the people of the place might be ignorant of his name or business: and the best that was forthcoming was put at his service. Something of practical patriarchal simplicity governed life in regions more remote from main routes of travel, which held, and indeed still hold, much of charm for the traveller from lands whose hospitality—as Britain or the United States—is the result often of ostentation or social necessity rather than that of native kindliness. This amiable trait of more or less pastoral communities, as Mexico and South America, tends naturally to disappear before the influence of the commercial element which is invading the country, and it is not to be expected that it will survive always.

The Spanish-American possesses an ineradicable element of Quijotismo—he will tell us so himself—and this element seems to have become stronger in the New World than in Spain, which gave it origin. The Mexican has it to the full, like the Peruvian; doubtless it arises largely from the conditions of caste brought about by the existence of the Mestizo and the Indian. Trembling on the verge of two races, his eyes looking towards the land of his progenitors, the enshrined Spain of his dreams, with something of race-nostalgia—if we may be permitted to coin the term—yearning for the distinction of the white skin and traditions of European civilisation, yet bound to the life of and race of his own patria by reason of the native blood within his veins, the Hispanic Mexican has cultivated a sensitive social spirit which tinges his character and action in every-day life. From this largely arise his courtesy and spirit of hospitality—although these are undeniably innate—and principally his love of pomp and externals, the keeping up of appearances, and his profound eloquence. The Mexican is intensely eloquent. His speakings and writings are profuse in their use of the fulness of the Spanish language, and teem with rich words and phrases to express abstract ideas. Indeed, judged by Anglo-Saxon habit, they would be termed grandiloquent and verbose. He indulges in similes and expressions as rich and varied as the vegetation of his own tropical lands. The most profound analogies are called up to prove the simplest fact, not only in the realm of poetry, or description, but in scientific or business matters at times, and whether he is writing upon some deep social problem or reporting upon the condition of the parish pump he will preface his account with an essay! This, whilst it betrays often an attractive idealism, is prone at times to lead to the sacrificing of exact information to elegance of style or diction. The Mexican is never at a loss for words; his eloquence is native, and whether it be the impassioned oratory of a political speaker or the society small-talk of a young man in the presence of ladies, he is never shy, and his flow of language and gesture is as natural to him as reserve and brevity to the Englishman. Indeed, the Anglo-Saxon, especially the Briton, seems repellant in comparison with the Spanish-American, and to cultivate selfishness rather than ceremony in his own social dealings.

This tendency towards idealism becomes exaggeration often, though not intended for such, and the prefixing of superlatives is very noticeable in ordinary language. Thus glory is generally "immortal glory"; knowledge "profound knowledge"; every person partaking in public affairs, if a friend of the speaker, is ever "enlightened and patriotic," and his intelligence becomes "vast intelligence." "Our distinguished and universally beloved Governor" would be the customary reference to such a functionary; and "an era of glorious progress" would be the only way of characterising his administration. Indeed, a glance over a Mexican book or article or speech seems to show that the writer has made use of every elegant and abstruse word in the dictionary. In a dissertation upon any subject he seems called upon to begin from the very beginning of things, desde la creacion del mundo—"from the beginning of the world," as the Spanish-American himself sarcastically says at times. Perhaps this is a habit acquired from the early Spanish chroniclers, who often began their literary works with an account of the Creation! The love of linking together the material and the poetic is, of course, at the basis of this striving after effect, and no philosophical observer would pretend to hold it up to ridicule. Anglo-Saxon civilisation grows material and commercial; the Spanish-American preserves and cultivates some poetic and cultured imagery; and perhaps Nature intends the one to affect the other in the future amalgamation of the world's races.

Less lovable a characteristic of the Spanish-American is the tendency to fulsome adulation of public or powerful personages in the hope of winning patronage. The tendency to pander to each other's vanity, however, shows up in marked contrast to the harshness and abuse of authority often employed in political matters. The Spanish character, amiable and courteous in friendship or equality, tends to become arbitrary when vested with some brief authority, and this has been at the bottom of much of the political disturbance and bloodshed of the past. It is characteristic of this race to show a certain "Oriental" trait—that which gives rise to an acquiescence in successful guile, rather than an admiration and self-sacrifice for abstract truth. This is, of course, a characteristic both of individuals and nations before they reach a certain standard of civilisation. The readiness to follow the successful cause among the upper class, and the easy regard of the unpunished criminal, are the outcome of these qualities. In business matters the Spanish-American, the Mexican, Peruvian, Chilean, Brazilian, or other has a much less sense of rigid observance of agreements, and a far greater latitude of expediency and mental juggling than the Anglo-Saxon. And this insinuation embodies one of the main defects of the race. Ideas of "mine" and "thine" are much less strong than with the Briton or American. It has been said of the Spaniard that he makes excellent laws, but ever considers that he personally has a right to break them. This sentiment becomes very evident in America: yet not only with the Spanish-American, for it is a marked characteristic of the United States, and of all American republics, where licence is often indulged in under the name of liberty.

The Mexican character must be summed up as that of a people in the making. The fact is stamped upon their physiognomies even. Let us turn over the pages of any book issued in Mexico and observe the portraits of public men and of their biographies, for it will generally be full of these, often pandering to their vanity. The features are strongly pronounced, and at times verge upon the grotesque—we mean it in no offensive spirit. A high intelligence runs riot, and an idealism untempered by sobriety and practice, with strong passions, and love of show. But they mark a people, not decadent, but evolving. The Mexicans are at the beginning, not the end, of their civilisation; the rise, not the fall, of their life. Here is the material of a vigorous and prolific race which may be destined to bulk largely—like the whole of Spanish-America—in the future régime of the civilisation of the white man.

A FAMOUS MINISTER OF FINANCE: SEÑOR LIMANTOUR.	A FAMOUS GENERAL AND MINISTER OF PUBLIC WORKS.
AN ARCHBISHOP.	A STATE GOVERNOR.
TYPES OF MEXICANS OF THE UPPER CLASS.

The "era of glorious progress"—to use the Mexican term—which the long dictatorship of the present famous President of Mexico inaugurated is a theme which occupies the Mexican mind and pen very largely. The European writer ungrudgingly records it, and the much-used adjective has much of truth for its constant use. General Porfirio Diaz has been wise and fortunate, and has been able to surround his administration with the talented men of his time—una pléiade incontable de hombres conspicuos, to quote from a Mexican description of his colleagues—"an innumerable pleiades of conspicuous men!" in their own grandiloquent phrases. As for the President, it might be supposed that the tendency to deify him by his contemporaries, and the constant pouring out of adulation and flattery upon him for the last twenty years, has made him proof against the workings of vanity. He well deserves this praise, both from his countrymen and from foreigners; but so long and varied a course of it must prove unpalatable, notwithstanding that the Spanish-American, as a rule, is capable of absorbing an infinite amount of praise. Porfirio Diaz has brought his country up from chaos, and for this fortunate work he has to thank his own staunch character and the fact that a time had arrived in the natural evolution of America when even the most turbulent States are called upon to perform their function and carry out their destiny. The man and the hour arrived together, and Diaz deserves to rank among the historic statesmen of the world.