The railways running from the United States into the interior of Mexico and the capital convey passengers thither in less than five days from New York. They have naturally brought much Anglo-Saxon American influence into the country, and until recent years this would have offered some danger of the nation becoming an English-speaking land, as its former States, Texas and California, have done. The new national spirit and pride of race, which now justifiably stirs Mexicans, will in future make such an eventuality improbable. It is, indeed, much more likely that in the end the boundaries of a powerful, prosperous Mexico may extend to the group of small and slowly-developing Central American Republics that join it on the south, and that a vast Spanish-speaking confederacy will under an enlightened system of government ensure for all time the domination of this axis of the world's trade to the descendants of the original Conquerors whose blood has mingled with that of the peoples they subdued. This eventuality is rendered the more probable by the advance of the Pan-American railway which is being pushed southwest from the Tehuantepec line towards Guatemala, and will when completed link North America with the southern continent, and establish a continuous system from New York to the Argentine Republic. This, however, is a dream of the future: for the present be it said that a regenerated Mexico has saved Central and South America from being finally swamped by Anglo-Saxondom, and has ensured the perpetuation in "The Land of To-morrow" of the Spanish tongue and Latin traditions. For this relief much thanks.
MARTIN HUME.
MEXICO
CHAPTER I
A FIRST RECONNAISSANCE
Romance of history—Two entrance ways—Vera Cruz—Orizaba—The Great Plateau—Fortress of Ulua—Sierra Madre—Topographical structure—The Gulf coast—Tropical region—Birds, animals, and vegetation of coast zone—Tierra caliente—Malaria—Foothills—Romantic scenery—General configuration of Mexico—Climatic zones—Temperate zone—Cold zone—The Cordillera—Snow-capped peaks—Romance of mining—Devout miners—Subterranean shrines—The great deserts—Sunset on the Great Plateau—Coyotes and zopilotes—Irrigated plantations—Railways—Plateau of Anahuac—The cities of the mesa central—Spanish-American civilisation—Romance of Mexican life—Mexican girls, music, and moonlight—The peones and civilisation—American comparisons—Pleasing traits of the Mexicans—The foreigner in Mexico—Picturesque mining-towns—Wealth of silver—Conditions of travel—Railways—Invasions—Lerdo's axiom—Roads and horsemen—Strong religious sentiment—Popocatepetl and Ixtaccihuatl—Sun-god of Teotihuacan—City of Mexico—Valley of Mexico—The Sierra Madre—Divortia aquarum of the continent—Volcano of Colima—Forests and ravines—Cuernavaca—The trail of Cortes—Acapulco—Romantic old haciendas—Tropic sunset—Unexplored Guerrero—Perils and pleasures of the trail—Sunset in the Pacific Ocean.
Mexico, that southern land lying stretched between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, upon the tapering base of North America, is a country whose name is fraught with colour and meaning. The romance of its history envelops it in an atmosphere of adventure whose charm even the prosaic years of the twentieth century have not entirely dispelled, and the magnetism of the hidden wealth of its soil still invests it with some of the attraction it held for the old Conquistadores. It was in the memorable age of ocean chivalry when this land was first won for Western civilisation: that age when men put forth into a sunset-land of Conquest, whose every shore and mountain-pass concealed some El Dorado of their dreams. The Mexico of to-day is not less interesting, for its vast territory holds a wealth of historic lore and a profusion of natural riches. Beneath the Mexican sky, blue and serene, stretch great tablelands, tropic forests, scorching deserts, and fruitful valleys, crowned by the mineral-girt mountain ranges of the Sierra Madres; and among them lie the strange pyramids of the bygone Aztecs, and the rich silver mines where men of all races have enriched themselves. Mexico is part of that great Land of Opportunity which the Spanish-American world has retained for this century.
There are two main travelled ways into Mexico. The first lies across the stormy waters of the Mexican Gulf to the yellow strand of Vera Cruz, beyond which the great "star-mountain" of the Aztecs, Citlaltepetl,[1] rears its gleaming snow-cap in mid-heavens, above the clouds. It was here that Cortes landed, four centuries ago, and it is the route followed by the tide of European travellers to-day. Otherwise, the way lies across the Great Plateau, among the arid plains of the north, where, between the sparsely-scattered cities and plantations of civilised man, the fringe of Indian life is spread upon the desert, and the shadowy forms of the coyote and the cactus blend into the characteristic landscape. Both ways are replete with interest, but that of Vera Cruz is the more varied and characteristic. Here stands Ulua, the promontory-fortress, where more than one of Mexico's short-lived rulers languished and died of yellow fever, and which was the last stronghold of Spain. Beyond it arise the white buildings and towers of Vera Cruz, a dream-city, as beheld from the Gulf, of interest and beauty; and to the west, are the broad coastal deserts, bounded by the foothills and tropic valleys of the tierra caliente of the littoral. Piled up to the horizon are the wooded slopes and canyons of the great Sierra Madre, topped by the gleaming Orizaba, towering upwards in solitary majesty. We stand upon a torrid strand, yet gaze upon an icy mountain.