We rode on to Regla, soon finding that our guide had never been there before; so, next morning, we kept the two horses and dismissed him with ignominy. A fine road leads from the Real to Regla, for all the silver-ore from the mines is conveyed there to have the silver separated from it. My notes of our ride mention a great water-wheel: sections of porphyritic rocks, with enormous masses of alluvial soil lying upon them: steep ravines: arroyos, cut by mountain-streams, and forests of pine-trees—a thoroughly Alpine district altogether. At Regla it became evident that our letter of introduction was not a mere complimentary affair. There is not even a village there; it is only a great hacienda, belonging to the Company, with the huts of the workmen built near it. The Company, represented by Mr. Bell, received us with the greatest hospitality. Almost before the letter was opened our horses and mozo were off to the stables, our room was ready, and our dinner being prepared as fast as might be. What a pleasant evening we had, after our long day’s work! We had a great wood-fire, and sat by it, talking and looking at Mr. Bell’s photographs and minerals, which serve as an amusement in his leisure-hours. The Company’s Administrador leads rather a peculiar life here. There is no want of work or responsibility; he has two or three hundred Indians to manage, almost all of whom will steal and cheat without the slightest scruple, if they can but get a chance; he has to assay the ores, superintend a variety of processes which require the greatest skill and judgment, and he is in charge of property to the value of several hundred thousand pounds. Then a man must have a constitution of iron to live in a place where the air is so rarefied, and where the temperature varies thirty and forty degrees between morning and noon. As for society, he must find it in his own family; for even the better class of Mexicans are on so different a level, intellectually, from an educated Englishman, that their society bores him utterly, and he had rather be left in solitude than have to talk to them. Well, it is a great advantage to travellers that circumstances fix pleasant people in such out-of-the-way places.
One necessary part of a hacienda is a church. The proprietors are compelled by law to build one, and pay the priest’s fees for mass on Sundays and feast-days. Now, almost all the English one meets with engaged in business, or managing mines and plantations, are Scotch, and one may well suppose that there is not much love lost between them and the priests. The father confessor plays an important part in the great system of dishonesty that prevails to so monstrous an extent throughout the country. He hears the particulars of the thefts and cheatings that have been practised on the proprietor who builds his church and pays for his services, and he complacently absolves his penitents in consideration of a small penance. Not a word about restitution; and just a formal injunction to go and sin no more, which neither priest nor penitent is very sincere about. The various evils of the Roman Catholic system have been reiterated till the subject has become tiresome, but this particular practice is so contrary to the simplest notions of morality, and has produced such fearful effects on the character of this nation, that one cannot pass it by without notice. If the Superintendent should roast the parish priest in front of the oxidising furnace, till he confessed all he knew about the thefts of his parishioners from the Company, he would tell strange stories,—how Juan Fernandez carried off sixpennyworth of silver in each car every day for a month; and how Pedro Alvarado (the Indian names have almost disappeared except in a few families, and Spanish names have been substituted) had a hammer with a hollow handle, like the stick that Sancho Panza delivered his famous judgment about, and carried away silver in it every day when he left work; and how Vasco Nuñez stole the iron key from the gate (which cost two dollars to replace), walking twenty miles and losing a day’s work in order to sell it, and eventually getting but twopence for it; and plenty more stories of the same kind. The Padre at Regla, we heard, was not given to preaching sermons, but had lately favoured his congregation with a very striking one, to the effect that the Company paid him only three dollars a time for saying mass, and that he ought to have four.
Almost every traveller who visits Mexico enlarges on the dishonesty which is rooted in the character of the people. That they are worse now in this respect than they were before the Conquest is highly probable. Their position as a conquered and enslaved people, tended, as it always does, to foster the slavish vices of dissimulation and dishonesty. The religion brought into the country by the Spanish missionaries concerned itself with their belief, and left their morals to shift for themselves, as it does still.
In the mining-districts stealing is universal. Public feeling among the Indians does not condemn it in the least, quite the contrary. To steal successfully is considered a triumph, and to be found out is no disgrace. Theft is not even punishable. In old times a thief might be put in the stocks; but Burkart, who was a mining-inspector for many years, says that in his time, some twenty years ago, tins was abolished, and I believe the law has not been altered since. It is a miserable sight to see the Indian labourers searched as they come out of the mines. They are almost naked, but rich ore packs in such a small compass, and they are so ingenious in stowing it away, that the doorkeepers examine their mouths and ears, and their hair, and constantly find pieces that have been secreted, while a far greater quantity escapes. It is this system of thieving that accounts for the existence of certain little smelting-sheds, close to the works of the Company, who look at them with such feelings as may be imagined. These places profess to smelt ore from one or two little mines in the neighbourhood, but their real object is no secret. They buy the stolen bits of rich ore from the Indian labourers, giving exactly half the value for it.
Of course, we must not judge these Mexican labourers as though we had a very high standard of honesty at home. That we should see workmen searched habitually in England, at the doors of our national dock-yards, is a much greater disgrace to us. And not merely a disgrace, but a serious moral evil, for to expose an honest man to such a degradation is to make him half a thief already.
People who know the Indian population best assure us that their lives are a perpetual course of intrigue and dissimulation. Always trying to practise some small fraud upon their masters, and even upon their own people, they are in constant fear that every one is trying to overreach them. They are afraid to answer the simplest question, lest it should be a trap laid to catch them. They ponder over every word and action of their European employers, to find out what hidden intrigue lies beneath, and to devise some counter-plot. Sartorius says that when he has met an Indian and asked his name, the brown man always gave a false one, lest the enquirer should want to do him some harm.
Never did any people show more clearly the effects of ages of servitude and oppression; but, hopeless as the moral condition of this mining population seems, there is one favourable circumstance to be put on record. The Cornish miners, who have been living among them for years, have worked quite perceptibly upon the Indian character by the example of their persevering industry, their love of saving, and their utter contempt for thieves and liars. Instead of squandering their wages, or burying them in the ground, many of the Indian miners take their savings to the Banks; and the opinions of the foreigners are gradually—though very slowly—altering the popular standard of honesty, the first step towards the moral improvement of the Mexican population.
In the morning we went off for an excursion, having got a lively young fellow from the hacienda in exchange for our stupid mozo. There was hoar frost on the ground, and the feeling of cold was intense at first; but the sun began to warm the ground about eight o’clock, and we were soon glad to fasten our great coats and shawls to our saddles. Three leagues took us to the town of Atotonilco[[9]] el Grande, which gives its name to the plateau we were crossing. Here we are no longer in the valley of Mexico, which is separated from this plain by the mountains of the Real del Monte. We rode on two leagues more to the village of Soquital[[10]] where, it being Sunday, we found the inhabitants—mostly Indians—amusing themselves by standing in the sun, doing nothing. I can hardly say “doing nothing,” though, for we went into the tienda, or shop, and found a brisk trade going on in raw spirits. Tienda, in Spanish, means a tent or booth. The first shops were tents or booths at fairs or in market-places; and thence “tienda” came to mean a shop in general; a derivation which corresponds with that of the word “shop” itself. Such of the population as had money seemed to drop in at regular intervals for a dram, which consisted of a small wine-glassful of white-corn-brandy, called chinguerito. We tasted some, while the people at the shop were frying eggs and boiling beans for our breakfast; and found it so strong that a small sip brought tears into our eyes, to the amusement of the bystanders. It seemed that everybody was drinking who could afford it; from the old men and women to the babies in their mothers’ arms; everybody had a share, except those who were hard up, and they stood about the door looking stolidly at the drinkers. There was nothing like gaiety in the whole affair; only a sort of satisfaction appeared in the face of each as he took his dose. It is the drinkers of pulque who get furiously drunk, and fight; here it is different. These drinkers of spirits are not much given to that enormous excess that kills off the Red Indians; indeed, they are seldom drunk enough to lose their wits, and they never have delirium tremens, which would come upon a European, with much less provocation. They get into a habit of daily—almost hourly—dram-drinking, and go on, year after year, in this way; seeming, as far as we could judge, to live a long while, such a life as it is. As we mounted our horses and rode on, we agreed that we had seldom seen a more melancholy and depressing sight.
[9] Atotonilco, “Hot-water-place,” so called from the hot springs in the neighbourhood.
[10] Soquital, “Clay-place,” from the potter’s clay which abounds in the district. Earthenware is the staple manufacture here.