To sum up a mental impression of Mexico City, there rise before us the old and the new on the threshold of change; the antique, the quaint, and the refined, pressed close by the modern, the commercial, and the cheap: the hand of a haughty Castilian hidalgo-spirit held forth to the "cute" and business Yankee. But there is a great breach yet between the Chicago "drummer," or the American land-shark; and the Mexican gentleman. Here is a rich and developing soil, with—perhaps—some benefit for the masses: a new civilisation in the making; a new people being fashioned from an old; a plutocratic bulk trailing off into a mass of white and red-clothed poor peones and swarthy Indians. Beautiful women, serenatas, bull-fights, courtesy, azure sky—all have inscribed upon the traveller's mind a pleasing and semi-romantic impression, a conjunto, whose interest and attraction, with perchance a regretful note, time does not easily dispel.
CHAPTER XI
MEXICAN LIFE AND TRAVEL
Travel and description—Mexican cities—Guadalajara—Lake Chapala—Falls of Juanacatlan—The Pacific slope—Colima—Puebla—Cities of the Great Plateau—Guanajuato—Chihuahua—The Apaches—The peones—Comparison with Americans—Peon labour system—Mode of living—Houses of the peon class—Diet—Tortillas and frijoles—Chilli—Pulque—Habits of the peon class—Their religion—The wayside crosses and their tragedies—Ruthless political executions—The fallen cross—Similarity to Bible scenes—Peon superstitions—The ignis fatuus, or relacion—Caves and buried treasure—Prehistoric Mexican religion—The Teocallis—Comparison with modern religious systems—Philosophical considerations.
The City of Mexico, typical as it is of Mexican people and their life, by no means embodies or monopolises the whole interest of the country, and the mere tourist who, having paid a flying visit thereto, thinks thereby to gain much idea of the nation as a whole, will naturally fall short in his observations. We must depart thence, and visit the other handsome and interesting centres of Mexico's life and population, and sojourn for a season among her people, and observe something of the "short and simple annals" of her labouring classes. During the several years which it fell to my lot to pass in this interesting land the various phases of Spanish-American life as portrayed in Mexico were often brought vividly before me, and indeed it is only after arduous journeyings in a land of this nature that pictures of its life and topography can be truly portrayed.
| CITY OF GUADALAJARA: INTERIOR OF THE CATHEDRAL. |
The general type of Mexican cities has been set forth in the former chapter: their distinctive Spanish-American character and atmosphere. The city next in importance to the capital is Guadalajara, in the State of Jalisco. This is a really handsome community, with fine public buildings; and it forms a centre of Mexican civilisation and education of which its inhabitants are proud: not without sufficient reason. The people of Guadalajara love to term their city the "The Queen of the West," for the city lies upon the Pacific watershed, although the Western Sierra Madre intervenes between her and the great ocean. The population of Guadalajara numbers rather more than 101,000, and the city is famed for its public monuments and institutions, religious and secular. The elevation above sea-level of 5,175 feet insures an equable climate, tending to a spring-like warmth, yet of an exhilarating character, due to the breezes which sweep over the broad valley in which it is situated. The region around the city is one of varied topographical interest. To the south-east is the great Lake Chapala, eighty miles long—a sheet of water of marked scenic beauty—and from its broad bosom the Santiago river flows upon its two-hundred-mile journey to the Pacific, near Tepic, of Toltec fame, but first forming the well-known falls of Juanacatlan. Surrounding this region are great plains of wheat-growing capacities, and indeed this State has been termed the "Granary of Mexico." The railway carries us westwardly to Ameca, a picturesque town, and thence the saddle is our means of conveyance. Far down towards the Pacific coast, and southwardly, one of my journeys took me, over vast stretches of plains and among timber-clad hills: timber-clad, as the devouring wood-burning locomotive has not yet reached so far, and the stump-studded lands as along the railway are not encountered. Further on are the abrupt precipices of the Pacific slope, and above them rises the high volcano of Colima with its everlasting crest of smoke, breaking in leaden spirals against the sky by day, and illuminating the night scenery of haciendas and palm groves with its fitful flames. Colima is the only active Mexican volcano at present.