SPANISH-MEXICAN BIT,
with its ring and chains. Length 9 inches, width 5½ inches.
The distance from Mexico to Vera Cruz is about two hundred and fifty miles, and what the roads are I have in some measure described. Rafael Beraza, the courier of the English Mission at Mexico, used to ride this with despatches regularly once a month in forty hours, and occasionally in thirty-five. He changed horses about every ten or fifteen miles; and now and then, when, overcome by sleep, he would let the boy who accompanied him to the next stage ride first, his own horse following, and the rider comfortably dozing as he went along.
As for our own equipment, Mr. Christy adopted the attributes of the eastern traveller when he came into the country, the great umbrella, the veil, and the felt hat with a white handkerchief over it. As for me, my wardrobe was scanty; so, when my travelling coat wore out at the elbows and my trousers were sat through—like the little bear’s chair in the story, I replaced the garments with a jacket of chamois leather, and a pair of loose trousers made of the same, after the manner of the country. Then came a grey felt hat, as stiff as a boiler-plate, and of more than quakerish lowness of crown and broadness of brim, but secularized by a silver serpent for a hatband; also, a red silk sash, which—fastening round the waist—held up my trousers, and interfered with my digestion; lastly, a woollen serape to sleep under, and to wear in the mornings and evenings. This is the genuine ranchero costume, and it did me good service. Indeed, ever since my Mexican journey I have considered that George Fox decidedly showed his good sense by dressing himself in a suit of leather; much more so than the people who laughed at him for it.
In the country, all Mexicans—high and low—wear this national dress; and in this they are distinguished from the Indians, who keep to the cotton shirts and drawers, and the straw hats of their ancestors. In the towns, it is only the lower classes who dress in the ranchero costume, for “nous autres” wear European garments and follow the last Paris fashion, with these exceptions—that for riding, people wear jackets and calzoneras of the national cut, though made of cloth, and that the Mexican hat is often worn even by people who adopt no other parts of the costume. There never were such hats as these for awkwardness. The flat sharp brims of passers-by are always threatening to cut your head off in the streets. You cannot get into a carriage with your hat on, nor sit there when you are in. But for walking and riding under a fierce sun, they are perhaps better than anything else that can be used.
The Mexican blanket—the serape—is a national institution; It is wider than a Scotch plaid, and nearly as long, with a slit in the middle; and it is woven in the same gaudy Oriental patterns which are to be seen on the prayer-carpets of Turkey and Palestine to this day. It is worn as a cloak, with the end flung over the left shoulder, like the Spanish capa, and muffling up half the face when its owner is chilly or does not wish to be recognized. When a heavy rain comes down, and he is on horseback, he puts his head through the slit in the middle, and becomes a moving tent. At night he rolls himself up in it, and sleeps on a mat or a board, or on the stones in the open air.
Convenient as it is, the serape is as much tabooed among the “respectable” classes in the cities as the rest of the national costume. I recollect going one evening after dark to the house of our friends in the Calle Seminario with my serape on, and nearly having to fight it out with the great dog Nelson, who was taking charge of his master’s room. Nelson knew me perfectly well, and had sat that very morning at the hotel-gate for half an hour, holding my horse, while a crowd of leperos stood round, admiring his size and the gravity of his demeanour as he sat on the pavement, with the bridle in his mouth. But that a man in a serape should come into his master’s room at dusk was a thing he could not tolerate, till the master himself came in, and satisfied his mind on the subject.
As I said, the equipment of ourselves and our three horses took us into a variety of strange places, for we bought the things we wanted piece by piece, when we saw anything that suited us. Among other places we went to the Baratillo, which is the Rag-Fair and Petticoat Lane of Mexico, and moreover the emporium for whips, bridles, bits, old spurs, old iron, and odds and ends generally. The little shops are arranged in long lines, after the manner of the eastern bazaar; and the shopkeepers, when they are not smoking cigarettes outside, are sitting in their little dens, within arms-length of all the wares they have to sell. Here we found what we had come for, and much more too, in the way of wonderful old spurs, combs, boxes, and ornaments; so that we came several times more before we left the country, and never without carrying away some curious old relic.
Mexico, as everybody knows, is decidedly a thievish place. The shops are all shut at dark, after the Oración, for fear of thieves. Ladies used to wear immense tortoise-shell combs at the back of their heads, where the mantilla is fastened on; but, when it became a regular trade for thieves to ride on horseback through the streets, and pull out the combs as they went, the fashion had to be given up. These curiously carved and ornamented combs are still preserved as curiosities, and we bought several of them.
While we were in Mexico, they knocked a man down in the great square at noon-day, robbed him, and left him there for dead. The square is so large, and the sun was so hot, that the police—whose head-quarters are under the arches in that very square—could not possibly walk across to see what was going on!—moral, if you will have the distinction of having the largest square in the world, you must take the consequences.