Mexico and Her People of To-day / An Account of the Customs, Characteristics, Amusements, History and Advancement of the Mexicans, and the Development and Resources of Their Country

by Nevin O. Winter

To those who know them the tropics are not so terrible, treacherous though they may seem. Some enter this zone with a feeling of creepiness as though they were entering a darkened sick-room sheltering some malignant disease. They hesitate to breathe for fear that the very air is poisonous and they may take in the germs of some malady with an unpronounceable name. They shrink from nature as though she had ceased to be the kind mother to which they were accustomed in the colder climates. It is true that there is something horribly creepy and uncanny about this inevitable tropical growth, which is so frail and fragile outwardly but seems possessed of an unconquerable vitality. And yet in many of the so-called unhealthy places, there is scarcely more danger to health than elsewhere, if one but observes the same rules of right living. Continuous hard labour, such as the northern farmer is accustomed to devote to his little farm, is not possible. Exposure to the intense heat of the sun at midday and the heavy rains will bring on fevers and malaria just as surely as it produces the luxuriant vegetation. For this reason the tropics will probably never be suited for colonization by the small farmer who is fascinated with the possibilities offered by land capable of producing two or three crops in a single year.

In general, Mexico is poorly supplied with rivers. However, along the Atlantic coast they are very numerous and large, although not navigable for any great distance, or for vessels large enough to be of much aid to commerce. The size of the rivers is due to the great amount of rainfall, which varies from seventy to one hundred and eighty inches annually. When this is compared to an annual rainfall of twenty to forty inches in the northern states of the United States, the conditions in the tropics are better understood. This excessive rainfall washes down earth from the higher ground and this, together with the layers of vegetable mold, have formed soil from eight to fourteen feet in depth thus making it practically inexhaustible. The temperature varies from 70° to 100° Fahrenheit. The Pacific coast has a higher temperature and less rainfall than the Gulf coast. However, there is a stretch of land extending north of Acapulco along the coast and from eight to thirty miles wide that is unrivalled for tropical beauty and productiveness. There are many rivers and streams that traverse this land on the way from the great mountains to the Pacific.

There is a charm about the life in the hotlands that is missing in other parts of Mexico. Of all the inhabitants of that country, the life of the people in the hot country is the most interesting. This is probably due to the fact that these people have always had more freedom than the Indians on the plateaus who were practically slaves for a couple of centuries. The great estates there required sure help and the natives were reduced to serfs. In the mines they were worked with soldiers set over them as guards. In the hotlands it was easier to make a living, for a bountiful nature supplied nearly all their wants. And yet many employers of labour say that the peon from the hot country makes the most satisfactory workman. These Indians seem like a superior race. For one thing they are scrupulously clean which, in itself, is a pleasing contrast to the daily sights in Northern Mexico. Water is abundant everywhere; the extreme heat renders bathing a great comfort and their clothes are kept immaculate. They are fond of social life and almost every night groups can be seen gathered together in some kind of entertainment.

AN INDIAN HOME IN THE HOT COUNTRY

Their homes are different from those in the colder lands. The houses of the middle and lower classes are built of bamboo or other light material found in the tropical jungles, and thatched with palm leaves. The upright bamboo poles are often set an inch or more apart thus giving a free circulation of air. An Indian village generally consists of one long, winding, irregular street lined on each side by these picturesque huts, and bearing a strong resemblance to a village in the interior of Africa. Down these streets swarm in equal profusion half-naked babies and children long past the childhood stage dressed in the same simple way, and hungry looking dogs. The hot country is sparsely populated in comparison with the plateaus and there are no large cities, although archeologists tell us that the earliest civilization seems to have been located there. It could support a population many, many times larger with ease.

The most productive parts of the world are found in the tierra caliente which instead of being given up to impenetrable jungles, the homes of reptiles and breeding place of poisonous insects, should be made to produce those luxuries and necessaries which contribute to make civilized life tolerable. All over the world the fruits and other articles of the tropics are coming into greater demand each year. In the year 1906 the United States imported fruits and other food products of tropical countries, not including coffee, to the value of more than $150,000,000, or nearly two dollars for each man, woman and child in the country. Of the purely tropical products, sugar was by far the largest item on the list. Bananas to the amount of $11,500,000 were brought in, and were second on the list with cacao a close rival for this place.

As yet Mexico supplies but a small portion of these articles to the United States. Yet the possibilities of agriculture here are equal to those of any similar lands, and this, together with superior transportation facilities and a stable government, ought to greatly increase the trade. In addition to the above items, this soil is well adapted to the following fruits and useful products, all of which are native to the soil: oranges, lemons, limes, pineapples, grapefruit, vanilla bean, indigo, rubber, coffee, tobacco and many drug-producing plants. It is difficult for the small farmer to succeed, as he cannot do all his own labour in that climate and cannot get satisfactory help just when it is needed. He could not afford to hire a force of labourers by the year. Successful farming in the tropics can only be done on a large scale with a regular force of labourers maintained on the plantation. The title to the soil can be purchased cheaply but the first cost of the land is probably not more than one-third of the ultimate cost by the time it is cleared, planted, and the necessary improvements made. Furthermore many tropical plants such as coffee, rubber and cacao require several years of care before there is a profitable yield.

Coffee and banana culture go hand in hand, for the broad leaves of the banana provide the shade so necessary to the young coffee trees. The banana also furnishes a little revenue during the four or five years before the coffee trees have fully matured. The coffee region is very extensive, for it will grow at a height of from one to five thousand feet, and flourishes best at an altitude of two to three thousand feet. It requires plenty of warmth and moisture. The coffee, which is a tree and not a bush, is set out in rows several feet apart, and will grow twenty feet tall if permitted, but is not allowed to grow half that height. The tree is flowering and developing fruit all the time but the principal harvest is in the late fall. It is not allowed to ripen on the tree, for when the green berries have turned a bright red, they are gathered, dried in the sun, hulled and then marketed. The states of Vera Cruz and Chiapas produce the choicest coffee, but it is cultivated all over the republic where it is possible. Coffee was introduced into this country from Arabia by Spanish priests and was found to be adapted to the soil. The best grades are sent to Europe, for it is a common saying throughout Mexico and Central America that only the poor grades of coffee are sent to the United States. This is rather a slur on the tastes of the American people, but such is our reputation down there.

“Looking at it from my point of view—the lazy man’s outlook—I can see nothing so inviting as coffee culture, unless it be a fat ‘living’ in an English country church,” says a writer. For myself, the one thing that appealed to me above all others was the cultivation of the banana. The returns are quick, the income regular and the profits large. I travelled through the banana region of Honduras, where for thirty miles the railroad passed by one plantation after another of the broad-leaved banana plants growing as high as fifteen feet. Great fortunes have been made by the banana-growers of that country and Costa Rica. This fruit flourishes best in the lowlands. The preparation of the ground is very simple, for the young banana plants are set out among the piles of underbrush left after clearing and which soon decay in that climate. After nine months or a year the plants begin to bear, and each stalk will produce one bunch of bananas. The stalk is then cut down and a new one, or several, will spring up from the roots and will bear in the same length of time. Thus a banana plantation that is carefully looked after will produce a marketable crop each week in the year, so that there is a constant revenue coming in to the owner. The cultivation of this delicious fruit, for which there is an ever-increasing market, brings the quickest return of any tropical product.