EXTRACTS FROM MY MEXICAN JOURNAL.
Mexico—Procession of Nuestra Señora de los Remedios—Visit to the Country—Society and Manners in Mexico—Climate.
20th June, 1825. Since our arrival on the 25th May, my occupations have been such as to prevent my seeing many of the lions of Mexico. I have, however, walked through the principal streets, and visited most of the churches, of which some are very rich and splendid—some are ancient and venerable—others are fine and gaudy—while a few of the more modern are extremely neat and handsome. The churches are numerous: these, with the convents, occupy almost every alternate square of the city; but with all this show of religion, there is a proportionate degree of vice among its population.
The city is, indeed, magnificent; many of the buildings are spacious. The streets are not wide, but well paved—clean in the most frequented, but excessively filthy in the more remote parts, and thronged with dirty, diseased, deformed, and half naked creatures. Disgusting sights every moment present themselves. At the corners of every street—each square is called a street, and bears a distinct name,—at the doors of the churches which you must be passing constantly in your walks—and sometimes in the areas of the private residences, you are importuned by miserable beggars, some of whom, not satisfied with a modest refusal, chase you into charity, which you are not assured is well bestowed.
We meet in the streets very few well dressed people; the ladies seldom walk, except to mass early in the morning, when some pretty faces are seen.
Such is the character of the street-population of Mexico. So much filth, so much vice, so much ignorance are rarely found elsewhere combined. Those who have seen the lazzaroni of Naples, may form a faint idea of the leperos of Mexico.
The leperos are most dexterous thieves—none can be more expert in relieving you of your pocket handkerchief; it is unsafe to trust them within your doors. I knew an American who had his hat stolen from under the bench on which he was seated in the Cathedral listening to a sermon!1
1 A very ingenious theft by one of this class was mentioned to me by an American who was present when it took place. At a fair in the interior of the country, two Americans were seated on a bench engaged in conversation, one of them having his hat by his side with his hand upon it for its protection. Talking earnestly he occasionally uplifted his hand from the hat. On his rising from his seat, he was surprised to find in his hand not his own beaver, but an inferior one which had been substituted for it. At an incautious moment he had ceased to guard it; a hat was there when he put down his hand—but it was not his own.
They are superstitious, too, almost to idolatry. I may here include with them the better class of people also. The recent reception of the image of Nuestra Senora de los Remedios, (Our Lady of Remedies,) I give as evidence of the justice of this remark. Her history is briefly this. She is a deity of Spanish origin—the more highly esteemed Lady of Guadalupe—the patron saint of Mexico, is indigenous. She accompanied the conquerors to the city of Muteczuma2—was lost in their disastrous retreat on the celebrated noche triste—was found some years afterwards, in 1540, seated in a maguey, by an Indian, Juan de Aguila, who carried her to his dwelling, and fed her with tortillas, (Indian corn-cakes,) which were regularly deposited in the chest where she was kept. Suddenly she fled, and was discovered on the spot where her temple now stands—the place to which Cortes retreated on the night of his flight from the city. It is an eminence to the west of Mexico, distant about five miles.