Anahuac : or, Mexico and the Mexicans, Ancient and Modern

by Edward B. Tylor

To make the account of the journey from the coast to Mexico somewhat clearer, a few words must be said about the formation of the country, as shown in a profile-map or section. The interior of Mexico consists of a mass of volcanic rocks, thrust up to a great height above the sea-level. The plateau of Mexico is 8,000 feet high, and that of Puebla 9,000 feet. This central mass consists principally of a greyish trachytic porphyry, in some places rich in veins of silver-ore. The tops of the hills are often crowned with basaltic columns, and a soft porous amygdaloid abounds on the outskirts of the Mexican valley. Besides this, traces of more recent volcanic action abound, in the shape of numerous extinct craters in the high plateaus, and immense “pedrigals” or fields of lava not yet old enough for their surface to have been disintegrated into soil. Though sedimentary rocks occur in Mexico, they are not the predominant feature of the country. Ridges of limestone hills lie on the slopes of the great volcanic mass toward the coast; and at a still lower level, just in the rise from the flat coast-region, there are strata of sandstone. On our road from Vera Cruz we came upon sandstone immediately after leaving the sandy plains; and a few miles further on we reached the limestone, very much as it is represented in Burkart’s profile of the country from Tampico upwards towards San Luis Potosi. The mountain-plateaus, such as the plains of Mexico and Puebla, are hollows filled up and floored with horizontal strata of tertiary deposits, which again are covered by the constantly accumulating layers of alluvium.

Our heavy pull up the mountain-side has brought us into a new scene. Every one knows how the snow lies in the valleys of the Alps, forming a plain which slopes gradually downward towards the outlet. Imagine such a valley ten miles across, with just such a sloping plain, not of snow but of earth. There has been no rain for months, and the surface of the ground is parched and cracked all over. There is hardly a tree to be seen except clumps of wood on the mountain-sides miles off,—no vegetation but tufts of coarse grass, among which herds of disconsolate-looking cattle are roaming; the vaqueros, (herdsmen) are cantering about after them on their lean horses, with their lazos hanging in coils on their left arms, and now and then calling to order some refractory beast who tries to get away from the herd, by sending the loop over his horns or letting it fall before him as he runs, and hitching it up with a jerk round his hind legs as he steps within it. But the poor creatures are too thirsty and dispirited just now to give any sport, and the first touch of the cord is enough to bring them back to their allegiance.

From the decomposed porphyry of the mountains carbonate of soda comes down in solution to the valleys. Much of this is converted into natron by the organic matter in the soil, and forms a white crust on the earth. More of the carbonate of soda, mixed in various proportions with common salt, drains continually out in the streams, or filters into the ground and crystallizes there. This is why there is not a field to be seen, and the land is fit for nothing but pasture. But when the rains come on in a few months, say our friends in the diligence, this dismal waste will be a luxuriant prairie, and the cattle will be here by thousands, for most of them are dispersed now in the lower regions of the tierra templada where grass and water are to be had.

My companion and I climb upon the top of the diligence to spy out the land. The grand volcano of Orizaba had been hidden from us ever since that morning when we saw it from far out at sea, but now it rises on our left, its upper half covered with snow of dazzling whiteness,—a regular cone, for from this side the crater cannot be seen. It looks as though one could walk half a mile or so across the valley and then go straight up to the summit, but it is full thirty miles off. The air is heated as by a furnace, and as we jolt along the road the clouds of dust are suffocating. We go full gallop along such road as there is, banging into holes, and across the trenches left by last year’s watercourses, until we begin to think that it must end in a general smash. We came to understand Mexican roads and Mexican drivers better, even before we got to the capital.

Before us and behind lay wide lakes, stretching from side to side of the valley; but the lake behind followed us as steadily as the one before us receded. It was only the mirage that tantalizes travellers in these scorched valleys, all the long eight months of the rainless season. It seemed beautiful at first, then monotonous; and long before the day was out we hated it with a most cordial and unaffected hatred.

Soon a new appearance attracted our attention. First, clouds of dust, which gradually took a well-defined shape, and formed themselves into immense pillars, rapidly spinning round upon themselves, and travelling slowly about the plain. At one place, where several smaller valleys opened upon us, these sand-pillars, some small, some large, were promenading about by dozens, looking much like the genie when the fisherman had just let him out of the bottle, and saw him with astonishment beginning to shape himself into a giant of monstrous size. Indeed I doubt not that the story-teller was thinking of such sand-pillars when he wrote that wonderful description. You may see them in the East by thousands. As they moved along, they sucked up small stones, dust, and leaves; and our driver declared that they had been known to take the roofs off houses, and carry flocks of sheep into the air; “but these that you see now,” said he, “are no great matter.” We estimated the size of the largest at about four hundred feet in height, and thirty in diameter; and this very pillar, walking by chance against a house, most decidedly got the worst of it, and had its lower limbs knocked all to pieces.

When the sun grows hot, the bare earth heats the air that lies upon it so much that an upward current rises from the whole face of the valley; and to supply its place the little valleys and ravines that open into it pour in each its stream of cooler air; and wherever two of these streams, flowing in different directions, strike one another, a little whirlwind ensues, and makes itself manifest as a sand-pillar. The coachman’s “molino de viento,” as he called it, may very well have happened, but it must have been a whirlwind on a large scale, caused by the meeting of great atmospheric currents, not by the little apparatus we saw at work.

There seems to be hardly a village in the plain; and the only buildings we see for miles are the herdsmen’s houses of stone, flat-roofed, dark inside, and uninviting in their appearance, and the great cattle-pens, the corrals, which seem absurdly too large for the herds that we have yet seen; but in two or three months there will be rain, the ground will be covered with rank grass, the corrals will be crowded with cattle every evening; the mirage will depart when real water comes, dust and sand-pillars will be no longer to be seen, and all the nine horses and mules of the diligence-team, floundering, splashing, and kicking, will hardly keep the heavy coach from settling down inextricably in the mire. And so on until October, and then the season of water, “la estación de las aguas,” will cease, and things will be again as they are now.

In the usual course of travel to the capital, the second night would have been passed at Puebla. This is the second city of the Republic, and numbers some 70,000 inhabitants. As it was then in revolt, and besieged by the President and his army, we made a detour to the north when about 20 miles from it, in order to sleep for a few hours at Huamantla, a place with a most evil reputation for thieves and vermin; and about ten at night we drove into the court-yard of a dismal-looking inn. Three or four dirty fellows stood round as we alighted, wrapped in their serapes—great woollen blankets, the universal wear of the Mexicans of the plateaus. One end of the serape was thrown across from shoulder to shoulder, and hid the lower part of their faces; and the broad-brimmed Mexican sombrero was slouched over their eyes; we particularly disliked the look of them as they stood watching us and our baggage going into the inn. A few minutes after, we returned to the court-yard to complete our observation of them, but they were all gone.

A party of Spaniards and Mexicans were at the other table in the sala when we marched in, and as soon as we had taken off the edge of our fierce hunger, we began to compare notes with them. “Had a pleasant journey from Mexico?” They all answered at once, delighted to find an audience to whom to tell their sorrows, as men always are under such circumstances. It appeared that they had reached Huamantla an hour or two before us, and to their surprise and delight no robbers had appeared. But between the outskirts of the town and the inn, the cords behind the diligence were cut, and every particle of luggage had disappeared. At the inn-gate they got out and discovered their loss. They set upon the Administrador of the diligence-company, who sympathized deeply with them, but had no more substantial comfort to offer. They declared the driver must have been an accomplice, and the driver was sent for, for them to wreak their fury upon. He appeared with his mouth full of beans, and told them, as soon as he could speak, that they ought to be very thankful they had come off so easily, and, looking at them with an expression of infinite disgust, returned to his supper; they followed his example, and seemed to have at last found consolation in hot dishes and Catalan wine. It was wonderful to hear of the fine things that were in the lost portmanteaus,—the rings, the gold watches, the rouleaux of dollars, the “papers of the utmost importance.”