CHAPTER III
THE CAPITAL
The City of Mexico represents progressive Mexico. In it is concentrated the wealth, culture and refinement of the republic. It is the political, the educational, the social and the commercial centre of the whole country. It is to Mexico what Paris is to France. In fact it would be Mexico as Paris would be France. The same glare and glitter of a pleasure-loving metropolis are found here, and within the same boundaries may be seen the deepest poverty and most abject degradation.
MAP OF THE VALLEY OF MEXICO
“Wait until you get to the City of Mexico,” said an educated Mexican to me as we were crossing the sparsely-settled tablelands of northern Mexico, where the only inhabitants are Indians. The Mexicans are proud of their city and are pleased to have it likened to the gay French capital, for their ideals and tastes are fashioned after the Latin standard rather than the American. The French, they say, have the culture and can embrace a la Mexicana, which is done by throwing an arm around a friend whom they meet and patting him heartily on the back. They prefer the easy-going, wait-a-while style of existence to the hurried, strenuous life of an American city. No people love leisure and the pursuit of pleasure more than our neighbours in the Mexican metropolis. They work during the morning hours, take a noon siesta, close up early in the afternoon and are ready for pleasure in the evening until a late hour.
In appearance the capital resembles Madrid more than any other city I have ever seen. The architecture is the Moorish-Spanish style, into which some Aztec modifications have been wrought by the new-world builders. The light, airy appearance of an American city is absent for there are no frame structures anywhere. The square, flat-roofed buildings, with walls thick enough to withstand any earthquake shock, are two or three stories in height and built round a patio, or courtyard, the centre of which is open to the sky. The old architects were not hampered by such paltry considerations as the price of lots, and so they built veritable palaces with wide corridors and rooms lofty and huge. Through many of these rooms you might easily drive a carriage. There are parlours as large as public halls, and throughout all one notes the grandiose ideas of the race. The houses, of stone or brick covered with stucco, are built clear up to the sidewalk so that there is no tinge of green in front. The Mexican is not particular about the exterior of his home, but expends his thought and money on the open court within. The plainness of the outside is relieved only by the large gate, or door, which is also the carriage drive-way, and the neat little, iron-grated balconies on which the windows open from the upper stories.
THE PATIO OF AN OLD RESIDENCE