Those who know Bustamante best, even those who most blame him for indecision and want of energy, agree on one point; that the true motives of his conduct are to be found in his constant and earnest desire to spare human life.
LETTER THE FORTY-SIXTH
Santa Monica—Solidity—Old Paintings—Anachronism-Babies and Nurses from the Cuna—Society—Funds—Plan—Indian Nurses—Carmelite Convent— Midnight Warning—Old Villages and Churches—Indian Bath—San Mateo—The Lecheria—Fertility—Nolino Viejo—Dulness—Religious Exercises—Return to Mexico—Mexican Hotel—New Generals—Disturbances—General Bustamante— Inconvenience—Abuses in the name of Liberty—Verses—Independence celebrated.
8th.
The Revolution has lasted upwards of thirty-five days; and during that time, though I have written of little else, we have been taking many rides in the environs of this hacienda, some of which were very interesting. We are also making the most of our last few days of Mexican country life. On Thursday we went on horseback with a large party to visit the mill of Santa Mónica, an immense hacienda, which tradition, I know not with what truth, supposes to have been in former days the property of Doña Marina; a gift to her from Cortes. At all events, at a later period it belonged to the Augustine monks, then to a Mexican family, who lost their fortune from neglect or extravagance. It was bought by the present proprietor for a comparatively trifling sum, and produces him an annual rent of thirty-five thousand dollars upon an average. The house is colossal, and not more than one-third of it occupied. The granaries, of solid masonry, contain fourteen thousand loads of corn—they were built about two hundred and fifty years ago. From all the neighbouring haciendas, and even from many distant estates, the corn is sent to this mill, and is here ground, deposited, and sold on account of the owner, a certain portion deducted for the proprietor of Santa Mónica. It seems strange that they should have no windmills here, in a country colonized by Spain, where, according to Cervantes, they were common enough. The house is in a commanding situation, and the views of the mountains, especially from the upper windows, are very grand. In some of the old, unoccupied apartments, are some good copies of old paintings, the copies themselves of ancient date. There is the Angel announcing to Elizabeth the birth of Saint John; a Holy Family, from Murillo; the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, which is one of the best; particularly the figures in the foreground, of Lot and his family. Lot's wife stands in the distance, a graceful figure just crystallized, her head turned in the direction of the doomed city. I looked into every dark corner, in hopes of finding some old daub representing Doña Marina, but without success. There is the strangest contrast possible between these half-abandoned palaces, and their actual proprietors. We had beautiful riding-horses belonging to the hacienda, and enjoyed everything but the exceeding heat of the sun, as we galloped home about one o'clock….
As a specimen of rather a remarkable anachronism, we were told that a justice in the village of Tlanapantla, speaking the other day of General Bustamante, said, "Poor man—he is persecuted by all parties, just as Jesús Christ was by the Jansenists, the Sadducees, and the Holy Fathers of the Church!" What a curious olla podrida the poor man's brain must be!
In the midst of the revolution, we were amused by a very peaceful sight—all the nurses belonging to the Cuna, or Foundling hospital, coming from the different villages to receive their monthly wages. Amongst the many charitable institutions of Mexico, there appears to me (in spite of the many prejudices existing against such institutions) none more useful than this. These otherwise unfortunate children, the offspring of abject poverty or guilt, are left at the gate of the establishment, where they are received without any questions being asked; and from that moment, they are protected and cared for, by the best and noblest families in the country. The members of the society consist of the first persons in Mexico, male and female. The men furnish the money; the women give their time and attention. There is no fixed number of members, and amongst them are the ladies in whose house we now live. The President is the Dowager Marquesa de Vivanco. When the child has been about a month in the Cuna, it is sent, with an Indian nurse, to one of the villages near Mexico. If sick or feeble it remains in the house, under the more immediate inspection of the society. These nurses have a fiadora, a responsible person, who lives in the village, and answers for their good conduct. Each nurse is paid four dollars per month, a sufficient sum to induce any poor Indian, with a family, to add one to her stock. Each lady of the society has a certain number under her peculiar care, and gives their clothes, which are poor enough, but according to the village fashion. The child thus put out to nurse, is brought back to the Cuna when weaned, and remains under the charge of the society for life; but of the hundreds and tens of hundreds that have passed through their hands, scarcely has one been left to grow up in the Cuna. They are constantly adopted by respectable persons, who, according to their inclination or abilities, bring them up either as favoured servants, or as their own children; and the condition of a "huérfano," an orphan, as a child from the hospital is always called, is perfectly upon a level with that of the most petted child of the house. The nurses in the Cuna are paid eight dollars per month.
Upwards of a hundred nurses and babies arrived on Sunday, taking up their station on the grass, under the shade of a large ash-tree in the courtyard. The nurses are invariably bronze; the babies generally dark, though there was a sprinkling of fair English or German faces amongst them, with blue eyes and blonde hair, apparently not the growth of Mexican land. Great attention to cleanliness cannot be hoped for from this class, but the babies looked healthy and contented. Each nurse had to present a paper which had been given her for that purpose, containing her own name, the name of the child, and that of the lady under whose particular charge she was. Such as-"María Josifa-baby Juanita de los Santos-belonging to the Señora Doña Matilde F——, given on such a day to the charge of María Joséfa." Constantly the nurse had lost this paper, and impossible for her to remember more than her own name; as to who gave her the baby, or when she got it, was entirely beyond her powers of calculation. However, then stept forward the fiadora Doña Tomaso, a sensible-looking village dame, grave and important as became her situation, and gave an account of the nurse and the baby, which being satisfactory, the copper was swept into the nurse's lap, and she and her baby went away contented. It was pleasant to see the kindness of the ladies to these poor women; how they praised the care that had been taken of the babies; admired the strong and healthy ones, which indeed nearly all were; took an interest in those who looked paler, or less robust; and how fond and proud the nurses were of their charges; and how little of a hired, mercenary, hospital feeling existed among them all….
A judge in the village, who comes here frequently, a pleasant and well-informed man, amused us this evening by recounting to us how he had once formed a determination to become a monk, through sudden fear. Being sent by government to Toluca, some years ago, to inquire into the private political conduct of a Yorkino, he found that his only means of remaining there unsuspected, and also of obtaining information, was to lodge in the convent of the Carmelite friars. The padres accommodated him with a cell, and assisted him very efficaciously in his researches. But the first night, being alone in his cell, the convent large and dreary, and the wind howling lugubriously over the plains, he was awakened at night by a deep sepulchral voice, apparently close to his ear, tolling forth these words:
"Hermanos, en el sepulcro acaba,
Todo lo que el mundo alaba!"