The Aztec calendar, the stone of sacrifice, and the manuscripts in hieroglyph much interested the great man, but more the natural attractions of the city. One of his favorite haunts was Chapultepec, then in good order, as it was left by the Viceroy Galvez, who first made a pleasure-house there, where Humboldt delighted in the broad view of plain and volcano. He loved to go, as every one does now, to the market-place, to see the stalls of the Indians all hung with verdure. No matter what they sell—fruit, roots, pulque—their booths are ornamented with flowers. He describes the hedge a yard high of fresh herbs and delicate leaves built around the fruit-stalls, and the garlands of flowers, which divided the alleys of the market, spread upon the ground with little nosegays stuck at intervals, making a sort of carpet of flowers. The fruit, in small cages of wood, was ornamented on top with flowers. He describes the pretty sight, at sunrise, of the Indians coming along the Viga Canal in boats loaded with fruits and flowers, from Istacalco and Chalco; and gives an account of the chinampas, or floating gardens, on the marshy banks of these lakes. This invention is attributed to the early Aztecs, who cultivated the ground on loose tracts of earth, bound together by roots which were either driven about by the winds or moored to the shore. Similar ones, he says, are to be met with in all the zones. In our day the chinampas do not float, but have the appearance of low, wet gardens, intersected by many channels of water; they are, however, pretty patches of gay flowers cultivated, with vegetables, for the city market, and a trip to Santa Anita, over the still waters of the Viga, must not be omitted from the excursions around Mexico; the scene is charming in itself, and haunted moreover by the long succession of gentle Indians, who for centuries have heaped their boats with flowers, and floated over the dark water chanting low songs.
Humboldt went to inspect the pyramids of the sun and moon at Teotihuacan, and afterwards gave a prolonged study to mines, visiting first Moran and Real del Monte, northeast of the capital, and afterwards Guanajuato. Long before the arrival of the Spaniards, the natives of Mexico were acquainted with the working of subterranean veins to find metal. Cortés says that gold, silver, copper, lead, and tin were all sold in the markets of Tenochtitlan. They either collected grains of native gold in small baskets of slender rushes, or melted the metal into bars, like those now used in trade, represented in Mexican paintings. Humboldt found the methods of mining not advanced from the sixteenth century, without any of the improvements known in his time. The hard work was performed by Indians, the beasts of burden of the mines. They carried out the metal in bags on their backs, going up and down thousands of steps, in long files of fifty or sixty, men of seventy years old, and children of ten or twelve.
The mine of Valenciana, in Humboldt's time the most celebrated of Guanajuato, and the richest then known in Mexico, was not much wrought until the end of the eighteenth century, although it had been somewhat worked by the early Indians and the first Spanish settlers. In 1760, a poor man named Obregon, a Spaniard, began to explore a new vein. As he was a worthy man, he found friends willing to advance small sums from time to time to carry on his work. For several years the cost was much greater than the produce, but the pit grew rich as it became deep, and at last yielded quantities of sulphuretted silver. When Obregon, or, as he came to be called, the Count of Valenciana, began to work the vein, goats were browsing over the hill-tops all about the ravine of San Xavier. Ten years after, on the same spot, the climbing streets of Guanajuato sheltered a large population; and at present it is a flourishing city, surrounded by a region all rich in minerals. The produce from the mine at Valenciana has fallen behind that of other later veins, and scarcely covers the outlay.
Humboldt went from Guanajuato to Valladolid, which had not yet changed its name in honor of the mule-driver, Morelos, who had, however, already begun to study in the Colegio of San Nicholas. Valladolid was a small city of eighteen thousand inhabitants. Humboldt says it contained nothing worthy of notice, but an aqueduct and a bishop's palace. He could not fail to admire the lofty picturesque arches of that aqueduct of warm yellow stone, whose long lines vanish in perspective, shaded by great ash trees. He does full justice to the beauty of Patzcuaro, which he declares would alone have repaid him for his voyage across the ocean. Humboldt spent some time there, and his memory of his visit is still preserved in the name of a lofty hill overlooking the lake, named Humboldt's mountain. The hospitable, courteous citizens of Patzcuaro still point out with pride his favorite points of view. They fully appreciate, as he did, the attractions of their lovely lakes.
The volcano Jorullo, twenty leagues south of Patzcuaro, was first made known to men of science in Europe by Humboldt's account of it.
In the middle of the eighteenth century the site of this volcano was covered with peaceful fields of sugar-cane, cotton, and indigo, watered by artificial means, belonging to the plantation of San Pedro de Jorullo. In June, 1759, for the first time, hollow noises from under the ground began to make themselves heard, and in September a tract of ground three or four square miles in extent humped up like a bubble. Thick vapors, smoke, and flames were seen to issue from this area, which rose and fell like the ocean. Large masses of rock and earth sprung up as if from a chasm, and the highest of these developed into a volcano, which burned steadily, throwing up lava and hot ashes for several months.
The Indians were greatly terrified by such a spectacle, as well they might be. Flames were seen at Patzcuaro, and even at Querétaro, many miles away. The roofs of houses were covered with ashes, and the rich plantations of San Pedro reduced to a barren plain. They believed that some missionary monks who were ill received at the plantation poured out horrid imprecations upon the fertile spot, and prophesied that it should be swallowed up by flames rising out of the earth. Whether these vindictive monks had anything to do with it or no, the hacienda of Jorullo was destroyed, all the trees thrown down and buried in sand and ashes from the volcano. The field and roads were covered with sand, crops destroyed, and flocks perished, unable to drink the infected water.
The eruptions grew gradually less and ceased during the following year, but the mountain, with its extinct crater, remains in the place of the once fertile hacienda.