Mexico and Its Religion / With Incidents of Travel in That Country During Parts of the Years 1851-52-53-54, and Historical Notices of Events Connected With Places Visited

by Robert Anderson Wilson

CHAPULTEPEC.

The King's Mill (Molina del Rey) is an old powder-mill, standing on elevated ground in the rear of Chapultepec. It has nothing about it to give it notoriety except the slaughter of the American troops that here took place from a masked battery, manned by a body of volunteers from the work-shops of the city. The whole affair was a military mistake. Its capture was not necessary to insure the capture of Chapultepec, for, as soon as that fortress, which commanded the mill, should be in our power, the mill would be untenable. But repeated successes had made the American officers imprudent, so that without first battering down its walls, the division of General Worth rushed up, regardless of a flank fire of the castle, to carry this old building by assault. After the sacrifice of about 700 lives, cannon were brought out and the breach made, and then the difficulty was at an end.

A mile or so by the road leading south and west from Chapultepec is Tacubaya, where are the suburban residences of the Archbishop, the President, and of divers city bankers; and where the English banker, Mr. Jimmerson, has introduced English gardening, and, in a Mexican climate, enjoys the pleasure of an English country residence.

DON MANUEL ESCANDON.

The most attractive establishment of Tacubaya is the new palace of Don Manuel Escandon, a native-born, self-made Mexican millionaire; a man whose capital has so enormously accumulated before he has even reached middle life, that he was able to propose to discount a bill for $7,000,000 as an ordinary business transaction, though ultimately government divided the bid with another house. This most remarkable instance of accumulation of wealth in modern times is deserving of a passing notice, which I give on the authority of my landlord, who had a personal knowledge of his history.

Don Manuel enjoyed, in addition to an intimate knowledge of his own countrymen, the advantages of a foreign education, which had extended to an examination of those arts and improvements that elevate Europeans above the semi-barbarous people of Spanish America. The first enterprise that brought him prominently forward was the establishment of that vast and most perfect system of stage-coaches, of which I have already spoken, on an original capital of $250,000. The wretched condition of the roads, and the heavy losses that at first always attend enterprises of that magnitude, disheartened his partners, who were glad to sell out to him $150,000 of the capital stock at a discount of 50 per cent. Afterward the late Zurutusa bought into the scheme, and ultimately became the owner of all the property, having, before his death, more than realized the highest anticipations of himself or Escandon. A hundred thousand dollars, or thereabouts, were the profits to Escandon by this establishment of a series of hotels and stages quite across the continent. By the successful running of a blockade of the coast, he realized nearly another hundred thousand dollars. The numerous enterprises open to men of superior sagacity, who fully understand the wants of a country in a state of chaos, and are familiar with the improvements of other countries, were readily embraced by him, until he found himself possessed of sufficient capital to become the principal purchaser of the extensive silver mines of Real del Monte, of which the salt-works of Tezcuco are but an outside appendage.

The tobacco monopoly had yielded to the King of Spain an average return of nearly a million annually. Under the Republic the consumption of the weed had greatly increased, but, from the prevalence of disorder in every branch of the administration, this important branch of the revenue was almost entirely absorbed by the officials through whose hands it passed, so that the sum realized by government in the most unproductive year fell off to $25,000, but finally reached $45,000, the amount at which it was farmed out by Escandon and Company. Since that time the return to government has gone on increasing, until it was advertised to be let the last year at the round sum of $1,200,000. How much more the partners realized during the years that they held the contract is, of course, known only to themselves.

The new house which Don Manuel has built at Tacubaya is decidedly the finest palace in the republic. The position is well chosen, and the sum of $300,000 has been laid out upon the house and grounds. It is a combination of an Italian villa, with the comforts and conveniences of English life. London, Paris, and New York have alike contributed to its furniture. I was told that $50,000 was invested in pictures alone. When I looked at the perfection to which the house, the grounds, and the ornamental works had been carried, my only wonder was that $300,000 could have paid for such a combination of elegance and good taste. The family, which consists only of Don Manuel and his widowed sisters, had left on account of the cholera then prevailing in Tacubaya, but the steward readily opened every door to my companion; and thus, without intruding upon the privacy of a family, or even having the honor of their acquaintance, I obtained access to one of the finest private residences that I have ever yet seen, either in this country or any other. In this house it was that the Gadsden treaty was proposed, at a dinner-party at which Mr. Gadsden and Santa Anna were present.

THE DESIERTO.

There was nothing to detain me longer at Tacubaya; but a ride upon the Tacubaya road is not well finished without being extended to the Desierto, a place now as attractive in its ruins as it was in its prosperity.