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

by Edward B. Tylor

Weeks after, we were talking to our friend Mr. Del Pozzo, the Italian apothecary in the Calle Plateros, and happened to ask him if he were acquainted with his heroic countryman. Whereupon the apothecary went off into fits of unextinguishable laughter, and told us how our friend really had been in the skirmish he described, and had nobly run away almost before a shot was fired, leaving his friends to fight it out. An hour or two after, he was found shaking with terror in a ditch.

To return to our road. The forest is on both sides of the Sierra; but it is on the southern slope, over which we look down from the pass, that the pines attain their fullest size and beauty; for here they are as grand as in the Scandinavian forests, with all the beauty of the pine-trees on the Italian hills. The pass, with its deep forest skirting the road, has been a resort of robbers for many years; and the driver pointed out to my companion a little grassy dell by the road-side, from which forty men had rushed out and plundered the Diligence just ten days before. With his mind just prepared, one may imagine his feelings when he caught sight of some twenty wild-looking fellows in all sorts of strange garments, with the bright sunshine gleaming on the barrels of their muskets. A man was riding a little in front of us, and as he approached the others they descended, and ranged themselves by the side of the road. They were only the guard, after all, and such a guard! Their thick matted black hair hung about over their low foreheads and wild brown faces. Some had shoes, some had none, and some had sandals. They had straw hats, glazed hats, no hats, leather jackets and trousers, cotton shirts and drawers, or drawers without any shirt at all; and—what looked worst of all—some had ragged old uniforms on, like deserters from the army, and there are no worse robbers than they. When the Diligence reached them, the guard joined us; some galloping on before, some following behind, whooping and yelling, brandishing their arms, and dashing in among the trees and out into the road again. Every now and then my friend outside got a glimpse down the muzzle of a musket, which did not add to his peace of mind. At last we got through the dangerous pass, and then we made a subscription for the guard, who departed making the forest ring again with war-whoops, and firing off their muskets in our honour until we were out of hearing.

The top of the pass is 12,000 feet above the sea, but the clouds seemed as high as ever above us, and the swallows were flying far up in the air. Three thousand feet lower we were in a warmer region, among oaks and arbutus; and here, as in our higher latitudes, the climate is far hotter than on the northern slope at the same height. Bananas are to be found at an elevation of 9,000 feet, three times the height at which they ceased on the eastern slope, as we came up from Vera Cruz. This difference between the two slopes depends, in part, on the different quantity of sunshine they receive, which is of some importance, although we are within the tropics. But the sheltering of the southern sides from the chilling winds from the north still further contributes to give their vegetation a really tropical character.

We felt the heat becoming more and more intense as we descended, and when we reached Cuernavaca we lay down in the beautiful garden of the inn, among orange-trees and cocoanut-palms, listening to the pleasant cool sound of running water, and looking down into the great barranca with its perpendicular walls of rock, and the luxuriant vegetation of the tierra caliente covering the banks of the stream that flowed far below us. We could easily shout to the people on the other edge of the ravine, but it would have taken hours of toiling down the steep paths and up again before we could have reached them.

Here our horses were waiting for us; and an hour or two’s ride brought us to the great sugar-hacienda of Temisco, where we were to pass the night, for towns and inns are few and far between in Mexico when one leaves the more populous mountain-plateaus. So much the better, for my companion had provided himself with letters of introduction, and we had already seen something of hacienda life, and liked it.

As we approached Temisco, we saw upon the slopes, immense fields of sugar-cane, now grown into a dense mass, five or six feet high, most pleasant to look upon for the delicate green tint of the leaves that belongs to no other plant. The colour of our English turf is beautiful, and so are the tints of our English woods in spring, but our fields of grain have a dull and dingy green compared to the sugar-cane and the young Indian corn. In this beautiful valley we cannot charge the inhabitants with entirely neglecting the irrigation of the land. Indeed, the culture of the sugar-cane cannot be carried on without it, and the cost of the watercourses on the large estates has been very great. Unfortunately, even here agriculture is not flourishing. The small number of the white inhabitants, and the distracted state of the country make both life and property very insecure; and the brown people are becoming less and less disposed to labour on the plantations.

It is true that most of these channels were made in old times; little new is done now, and I could make a long list of estates that were once busy and prosperous, giving employment to thousands of the Indian inhabitants, and that are now over-grown with weeds and falling to ruin.

Entering the iron gate of the hacienda, we found ourselves in an immense courtyard, into which open all the principal buildings of the estate, the house of the proprietor, the church—which forms a necessary part of every hacienda—the crushing-mill, and the boiling-houses. Into the same great patio open the immense stables for the many riding-horses and the many hundreds of mules that carry the sugar and rum over the mountains to market, and the tienda, the shop of the estate, through which almost all the money paid to the labourers comes back to the proprietor in exchange for goods. A mountain of fresh-cut canes stood near the door of the trapiche (the crushing-mill); and a gang of Indians were constantly going backwards and forwards carrying them in by armfuls; while a succession of mules were continually bringing in fresh supplies from the plantation to replenish the great heap. The court-yard was littered all over, knee-deep, with dry cane-trash; and mules, just freed from their galling saddles, were rolling on their backs in it, kicking with all their legs at once, and evidently in a state of high enjoyment. Part of one side of the square was a sort of wide cloister, and in it stood chairs and tables.

Here the business of the place was transacted, and the Administrador could look up from his ledger, and see pretty well what was going on all over the establishment.

It is very common for the owners of these haciendas to be absentees, and to leave the entire control of their estates to the administradors; but at Temisco, which is much better managed than most others, this is not the case, and the son of the proprietor generally lives there. He was out riding, so we sent our horses to the stable, and lounged about eating sugar-canes till he should return. Presently he came, a young man in a broad Mexican hat and white jacket and trousers, mounted on a splendid little horse, with his saddle glittering with silver, every inch a planter. He welcomed us hospitably, and we sat down together in the cloister looking out on the courtyard. Evening was closing in, and all at once the church-bell rang. Crowds of Indian labourers in their white dresses came flocking in, hardly distinguishable in the twilight, and the sound of their footsteps deadened as they walked over the dry stubble that covered the ground. All work ceased, every one uncovered and knelt down; while, through the open church-doors, we heard the Indian choir chanting the vesper hymn. In the haciendas of Mexico every day ends thus. Many times I heard the Oración chanted at nightfall, but its effect never diminished by repetition, and to my mind it has always seemed the most impressive of religious services.