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

by Edward B. Tylor

A little further on we came to the “Ahuehuete.” The name means a deciduous cypress, a common tree in Mexico, and of which we had already seen such splendid specimens in the grove near Tezcuco, and in the wood of Chapoltepec. This was a remarkable tree as to size, some sixty feet round at the lower part where the roots began to spread out. A copious spring of water rose within the hollow trunk itself, and ran down between the roots into the little river. All over its spreading branches were fastened votive offerings of the Indians, hundreds of locks of coarse black hair, teeth, bits of coloured cloth, rags, and morsels of ribbon. The tree was many centuries old, and had probably had some mysterious influence ascribed to it, and been decorated with such simple offerings long before the discovery of America. In Brittany the peasants still keep up the custom of hanging up locks of their hair in certain chapels, to charm away diseases; and there it is certain that the Christians only appropriated to their own worship places already held sacred in the estimation of the people.

Oculan is a dismal little place. We found the great man of the village standing at his door, but our letter to him was dishonoured in the most decided manner. He read the epistle, carefully folded it up and pocketed it, then pointed in the direction of two or three houses on the other side of the way, and saying he supposed we might get a lodging over there, he wished us good-day and retired into his own premises. The landlord of “over there” was very civil. He had a shed for the horses, and could give us palm-mats to sleep upon on the floor, or on the shop-counter, which was very narrow, but long enough for us both; and this latter alternative we chose.

We walked up to the top of a hill close by the village, and were surveying the country from thence, keeping a sharp look-out all the while for Mexican remains in the furrows. For a wonder, we found nothing but some broken spindle-heads; but, while we were thus occupied, two Indians suddenly made their appearance, each with his machete in his hand, and wanted to know what we were doing on their land. We pacified them by politeness and a cigar apiece, but we were still evidently objects of suspicion, and they were quite relieved to see us return to the village. There, an old woman cooked us hard-boiled eggs and tortillas, and then we went tranquilly to bed on our counter, with our saddles for pillows, and our serapes for bed-clothes.

All the way from Cocoyotla our height above the sea had been gradually increasing; and soon after we started from Oculan next morning, we came to the foot of one of the grand passes that lead up into the high lands, where the road mounts by zig-zag turns through a splendid forest of pines and oaks, and at the top of the ascent we were in a broad fertile plain as high or higher than the valley of Mexico. It was like England to ride between large fields of wheat and barley, and to pick blackberries in the hedges. It was only April, and yet the grain was almost ready for the sickle, and the blackberries were fully ripe. Fresh green grass was growing in the woods under the oak-trees, and the banks were covered with Alpine strawberries.

We are in the great grain-district of the Republic. Wheat is grown for the supply of the large towns, and barley for the horses. Green barley is the favourite fodder for the horses in the Mexican highlands, and in the hotter districts the leaves of young Indian corn. Oats are to be seen growing by chance among other grain, but they are never cultivated. Though wheat is so much grown upon the plains, it is not because the soil and climate are more favourable than elsewhere for such culture. In the plains of Toluca and Tenancingo the yield of wheat is less than the average of the Republic, which is from 25- to 30-fold, and in the cloudy valleys we passed through near Orizaba it is much greater. Labour is tolerably cheap and plentiful here, however; and then each large town must draw its supplies of grain from the neighbouring districts, for, in a country where it pays to carry goods on mules’ backs, it is clear that grain cannot be carried far to market.

In the question of the population of Mexico, one begins to speculate why—in a country with a splendid climate, a fertile soil, and almost unlimited space to spread in, the inhabitants do not increase one-half so fast as in England, and about one-sixth as fast as their neighbours of the United States. One of the most important causes which tend to bring about this state of things is the impossibility of conveying grain to any distance, except by doubling and trebling its price. The disastrous effects of a failure of the crop in one district cannot be remedied by a plentiful harvest fifty miles off; for the peasants, already ruined by the loss of their own harvest, can find neither money nor credit to buy food brought from a distance at so great an expense. Next year may be fruitful again, but numbers die in the interval, and the constitutions of a great proportion of the children never recover the effects of that one year’s famine.

We left the regular road and struck up still higher into the hills, riding amongst winding roads with forest above and below us, and great orchids of the most brilliant colours, blue, white, and crimson, shining among the branches of the oak-trees. The boughs were often breaking down with the bulbs of such epiphytes; but as yet it was early in the season, and only here and there one was in flower. At the top of the hill, still in the midst of the woods, is the Desierto, “the desert,” the place we had selected for our noon-day halt. There are many of these Desiertos in Mexico, founded by rich people in old times. They are a kind of convent, with some few resident ecclesiastics, and numbers of cells for laymen who retire for a time into this secluded place and are received gratuitously. They spend a week or two in prayer and fasting, then confess themselves, receive the sacrament, and return into the world. The situation of this quiet place was well chosen in the midst of the forest, and once upon a time the cells used to be full of penitents; but now we saw no one but the old porter, as we walked about the gardens and explored the quadrangle and the rows of cells, each with a hideous little wood-cut of a martyr being tortured, upon the door.

Thence we rode down into the plain, looking down, as we descended, upon a hill which seemed to be an old crater, rising from the level ground; and then our path lay among broad fields where oxen were ploughing, and across marshes covered with coarse grass, until we came to the quaint little town of Tenancingo. There we found the meson; and the landlord handed us the key of our room, which was square, whitewashed, and with a tiled floor. There was no window, so we had to keep the door open for light. The furniture consisted of three articles,—two low tables on four legs, made of rough planks, and a bracket to stick a candle in. The tables were beds after the manner of the country; but, as a special attention to us, the patron produced two old mattresses; the first sight of them was enough for us, and we expelled them with shouts of execration. We had to go to a shop in the square to get some supper; and on our return, about nine o’clock, our man Antonio remarked that he was going to sleep, which he did at once in the following manner. He took off his broad-brimmed hat and hung it on a nail, tied a red cotton handkerchief round his head, rolled himself up in his serape, lay down on the flags in the courtyard outside our door, and was asleep in an instant. We retired to our planks inside and followed his example.

The next afternoon we reached Toluca, a large and prosperous town, but with little noticeable in it except the arcades (portales) along the streets, and the hams which are cured with sugar, and are famous all over the Republic. Our road passed near the Nevado de Toluca, an extinct snow-covered volcano, nearly 15,000 feet above the sea. It consists entirely of grey and red porphyry, and in the interior of its crater are two small lakes. We were not sorry to take up our quarters in a comfortable European-looking hotel again, for roughing it is much less pleasant in these high altitudes—where the nights and mornings are bitterly cold—than in the hotter climate of the lower levels.

Our next day’s ride brought us back to Mexico, crossing the corn-land of the plain of Lerma, where the soil consists of disintegrated porphyry from the mountains around, and is very fertile. Lerma itself is the worst den of robbers in all Mexico; and, as we rode through the street of dingy adobe houses, and saw the rascally-looking fellows who were standing at the doors in knots, with their horses ready saddled and bridled close by, we got a very strong impression that the reputation of the place was no worse than it deserved. After Lerma, there still remained the pass over the mountains which border the valley of Mexico; and here in the midst of a dense pine-forest is Las Cruzes, “the crosses,” a place with an ugly name, where several robberies are done every week. We waited for the Diligence at some little glass-works at the entrance of the pass, and then let it go on first, as a sop to those gentlemen if they should be out that day. I suppose they knew pretty accurately that no one had much to lose, for they never made their appearance.