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

by C. Reginald Enock

THE VALLEY OF MEXICO: THE GREAT DRAINAGE CANAL.

The position of the City of Mexico near Lake Texcoco, which receives the waters of all the other lakes of the system, has ever rendered it liable to inundation, and to a saturated and unhealthy subsoil, conditions which, were it not for the healthy atmosphere of the bracing uplands whereon the valley is situated, would undoubtedly make for a high death-rate. The drainage and control of the waters of the valley have formed matters of thought for Mexico's successive Governments for more than four centuries. Work to this end was begun under Montezuma in 1449, nearly three-quarters of a century before the Conquest. During the colonial régime further works were undertaken, in 1553, to replace those destroyed by Cortes, followed by other works in 1604 and 1708. But only after the Republican régime was established was the work carried to completion, upon a plan brought forward by a Mexican engineer. These works, which were mainly carried out during the closing years of last century by English firms of engineers and contractors,[28] consist of a canal and tunnel. The canal is thirty miles long, flowing from the city and bearing its sewage and storm-waters, and taking the overflow from Lake Texcoco: and discharging thence into a tunnel, perforating the rim of the valley, about six and a half miles long. This in turn empties into a discharge conduit and a ravine, and the waters, after having served for purposes of irrigation and for actuating a hydro-electric station, fall into an affluent of the Panuco river and so into the Gulf of Mexico. This work, which is the climax of the attempts of four hundred years or more, reflects much credit upon its constructors and the Government of Diaz, which financed it at a total cost of sixteen million Mexican dollars.

28 S. Pearson & Sons, Ltd., London, and Read, Campbell & Co.

An Aztec hydraulic work of the Valley of Mexico is the Viga Canal, which leads from the Indian quarter of the city, crossing swamps, plantations, and waste lands to Xochimilco, the "Field of Flowers." Along this canal ply daily primitive canoes and punts laden with vegetables, flowers, and other produce for the native market. The floating gardens, or chinampas, far-famed of Mexico, are encountered upon this canal. But, alas! the "floating gardens" do not float, nor is it possible to prove that they ever did, in plain, prosaic fact. They consist of areas of spongy soil intersected by numerous irrigation ditches, where the traveller may observe the Indian owners industrially watering them and tending their profuse array of flowers and vegetables. New "floating gardens" are sometimes made by the method of driving stakes into the shallow bottom of the lake, winding rushes about them and filling in with the fertile mud.

The city itself is surrounded on all sides, except that leading to Chapultepec, by miles of squalid streets, where dwell the poor and outcast of the community—and their name is legion. Yet these surroundings, if squalid, are less painful than the frightful East End dens of London, or the appalling Bowery and east side of New York. American cities, whether North or South, have produced nothing in their boasted march towards "liberty," which is an alleviation for the proletariat, above the cities of Europe. These mean yet picturesque streets give place as we enter to those inhabited by the better class, whose dwellings generally exist side by side and interspersed with the shops and commercial establishments, after the general fashion of Spanish-American cities. This is indeed a notable feature of their regimen. Here is the old home of a former viceroy or of a modern grandee, cheek by jowl with a little bread or liquor shop; its handsome doorway, worthy of study, but a few paces away from the humble entrance of the tienda aforesaid. The names of some of Mexico's streets and squares are reminiscent of the past or of fanciful story and legend and heroic incident. Here is the puente de Alvarado, formerly the Teolticalli, or Toltec canal; here the street of the Indio triste, or that of the Niño perdido; the "sad Indian" and the "lost child" respectively. Redolent of the Mexico of the viceroys, of political intrigue, of love and liasons, of the cloak and the dagger, are some of the old streets, balconies, and portals of Mexico. Here the Spanish cavalier, with sword and muffling cape, stalked through the gloom to some intrigue of love or villainy, and here passed cassocked priest and barefooted friars, long years ago. Here sparkling eyes looked forth from some twilight lattice what time from the street below arose the soft notes of a serenading guitar. As to the sparkling eyes and the serenading lover and the balconies, these are not gone; they are imperishable in Mexico. Here is a description of Mexico of years ago—the Mexico of the viceroys—which I will translate freely from the description of a Mexican writer of to-day, and which in some respects might almost describe the city at the present time: "Hail, mediæval city, redolent of sentimental recollections and romantic impressions such as well might be the creation of fantastic romance! Clustered with monasteries and convents, turreted dwellings and sombre monuments, bathed in an atmosphere of orisons and melancholy, threaded by foul and ill-paved alleys, made for crime, intrigue, and mystery; where buried in the profundity of night love and wickedness both stalked forth; strange temples and niches lit by twinkling lamps before the images of saints; recollections of diabolical Inquisitorial rites—a romantic and fantastic shroud, dissipated now, torn into shreds by the iron hand of destiny, and banished or transfigured by the torch of progress!"

THE CATHEDRAL OF THE CITY OF MEXICO.

As has been said, the construction of the houses of Mexico was of solid type, with walls such as might serve for fortresses rather than dwellings, and when from necessity, some old building is demolished it can only be performed by the aid of dynamite. So builded the Spaniards, and their work will outlast the more ephemeral structures of to-day. Indeed, at the beginning of the colonial period and throughout the sixteenth century, the buildings actually were constructed both as dwellings and fortresses. At the end of that century a greater refinement of architectural art appeared—as a natural outcome of corresponding conditions in Spain—in the colonies. The great cathedral of Mexico was constructed, due to a mandate of Philip II. It was dedicated in 1667, but not concluded until the beginning of the nineteenth century, and into its façade enter the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian orders. It is an exceedingly handsome building, both interiorily and exteriorily, and it stands upon the spot where the great Aztec teocalli stood—the shrine of the abominable war-god of the early Mexicans. The edifice stands upon the soft subsoil of which the city's foundation is composed, softness which has caused the subsidence of other buildings; but the cathedral, although it has suffered somewhat from earthquake shocks, stands firm and solid as ever. Valuable art treasures exist within, among the pictures being a Murillo, and possibly a Velasquez. So numerous are these old pictures that they overlap each other upon the walls. The cathedral is nearly 400 feet long, and its interior rises upon twenty splendid Doric columns for 180 feet, whilst the apices of the great towers are 204 feet above the pavement. But this splendid temple—as is often the case with the cathedrals of Spanish-American capitals—is not the fashionable or aristocratic resort of Mexico's religious people. Nevertheless, its aisles are generally thronged, and the highborn and expensively attired lady and the poor peon woman, with her modest rebosa, or shawl, may be seen side by side kneeling upon its knee-worn floor, whilst before the images in the seven chapels of its aisles there are never wanting supplicating figures, nor the numerous little written supplications pinned upon their altar rails.

It would be endless to describe the other numerous ecclesiastical buildings and temples of the City of Mexico. Their number and beauty are indicative of the strength and rooted persistence of religion and monastic orders in New Spain. Among the principal of these Orders and the dates at which their corresponding habitations were erected, were those of the Franciscans, 1524; Dominicans, 1526; Augustinians, 1533; Jesuits, 1572; Carmelites, 1585; and various others, with numerous convents.