Of these towns we cannot speak here; Guadalajara, Puebla, Oaxaca and many another invite us to their pleasing streets and ancient buildings. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, from north to south, they are dispersed over the wide area of the Republic.
The southern, or rather easternmost States of Mexico are, as regards their landscape and life, often of peculiar interest, mainly by reason of the more tropical surroundings and the large rivers, such as those that flow into the Gulf of Campeche, in Vera Cruz and Tabasco.
Typical of these rivers are the Grijalva and the Usumacinta. In places lined by dark forests, the banks elsewhere open out to permit of plantations of bananas, tobacco, maize, pineapples, rubber and so forth, and an occasional village, its white walls gleaming among the foliage, the roofs thatched with palm, gives the human touch thereto.
Ascending the river in a slow stern-wheel steamer, we remark an occasional canoe, laden with skins and other produce, or moored inshore whilst its occupants are fishing in the plentifully stocked waters. There are great trees festooned with masses of moss and with trailing lianas, where monkeys play by day and from whence at night their howling falls on the ear. The white heron and aigret, whose snowy plumage is so valuable an article of commerce, startled by the passage of the boat, sail gracefully away to the bends of the river, and flocks of parrots, similarly disturbed, scream their defiance, whilst wild ducks and cranes and birds of the brightest plumage are in sight at every moment. The alligators, large and small, that throng the shoals project their grotesque forms into the water, offering a mark to the gun of the idle huntsman.
In the flower world Nature is often gorgeously arrayed here. Pure white lilies lie at the base of flowering trees that rise in a mass of bloom for forty feet or more, of a profusion and beauty almost inconceivable. The queen of the banks, the stately coco-palm, carries its load of nuts, waiting for nothing but the gatherer of a harvest provided by Nature. Here, too, is the cinchona-tree, with its bright, smooth red trunk and branches and rich green leaves, offering its virtues of quinine bark. The arnica plant, with its daisy-like yellow flowers, and the morning glory of rich and brilliant hue abound, and the orchids—"not the dwarfed product of a northern hothouse, but huge, entrancing, of the richest browns, the tenderest greens, the most vivid reds and the softest yellow, sometimes as many as half a dozen upon one tree"—decorate the decayed trunks of the trees. There are, too, natural plantations of wild pineapples, and many fruits besides.
A good deal of land in these regions is capable of cultivation, and, extremely fertile, yields profitable returns. But means of transport are, of course, defective, although the rivers offer long lines of communication. The Indians do not love work, except inasmuch as such may fill their own small requirements, for in so bountiful a region Nature supplies them with many things necessary for life, which a very few hours' labour will supplement for a whole year. There is rivalry between the established planters for the available labour, and peonage is largely carried out.
In Yucatan, the labour system upon the plantations of the Mexican millionaire hemp-growers of the peninsula has been described as little more than slavery by some writers. But great wealth and some measure of progress have resulted from this special Yucatan industry, and Merida, the capital city, shows these elements in marked degree.
The Yucatan peninsula is a curious limestone plain, originally covered, and still covered in great part, with tropical jungle, riverless, but with underground streams. The water was used by the ancient builders of the Maya cities here, whose beautifully sculptured palaces and pyramid temples are among the chief archæological wonders of Spanish America. They constructed wells adjacent to the buildings—the curious cenotes, or sacred wells.
The lore of these silent, buried temples, over-run by the jungle, the haunt now of wild creatures, is fascinating in its mystery. Some observers have likened their details of the façades of these structures to Hindu temples, others to Egyptian, and so forth, whilst others stoutly proclaim them to be of purely autochthonous culture.[11] This culture area, we have already seen, extended into Guatemala.
To turn for a moment now to the Pacific coast of Mexico, this presents its own special points of interest. From hence may have come the Toltecs originally, with their wonderful native knowledge and stone-shaping arts, among famous objects of whose handiwork is the famous Calendar Stone, to be seen in the Museum of Mexico. This remarkable stone shows the early Mexicans to have had a more exact division and calculation of solar time than their contemporaries, the cultured nations of Europe. However, the principal Toltec remains are not upon the Pacific coast, but at Tula, on the Plateau, which appears to have been their ancient capital.