The Western World / Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North / and South America

by William Henry Giles Kingston

We have thus, in Mexico, a region of elevated plateaux with numerous lofty mountains, steep and broken hill-sides, with deep valleys, watered by numerous streams, and a wide extent of low, level country under the rays of a tropical sun. These several regions possess a great difference in climate, and a corresponding variation in their productions, and, in most instances, in the animals which inhabit them. The domestic animals introduced by the Spaniards, have multiplied greatly, so that vast herds of cattle and horses run wild on the table-lands and lower tracts. Sheep also abound, especially on the northern table-lands. The buffalo makes his way to the great plains bordering the Red River and Arkansas; while deer, in large herds, abound on the higher plains. They are followed, as elsewhere, by packs of wolves and foxes or wild dogs; while the puma makes himself at home here, as he does in Southern America. The bear takes possession of many a mountain cavern; the beaver and otter inhabit the banks of the streams and lakes; the raccoon is found in the woods; and the antelope bounds across the plains.

We know more about the feathered tribes than the mammalia of Mexico. There are upwards of one hundred and fourteen species of land birds, one half of which are unknown in other parts of the world. Still, out of this entire number of species, only one new genus—which connects the family of the tyrant-shrikes with that of the caterpillar-catchers—has been discovered. There are two species of this genus, in both of which the males differ greatly from the females. In this intermediate region we find numerous genera which exist both in Northern and, Southern America intermixed. Several South American birds have found their way into Mexico,—as the mot-mots and trogons, the harpy and carracara eagles, the hang-nest, the true and red tanagers, parrots, parrakeets, macaws, creepers, crest-finches, and the fork-tailed and even-tailed humming-birds. Of the genera peculiar to North America,—but which are unknown in the South,—found in Mexico, are the fan-tailed wagtails, titmice, and worm-eating warblers—blue robins, ground-finch and sand-finch, crescent-starlings and ground-woodpecker. The sand-finch is, however, found in the Brazils. Vast numbers of aquatic birds frequent the lakes and marshes of the table-lands of the interior, as well as the rivers and shores of the coast, nearly the whole of which are well known in the United States, the greater number also inhabiting the Arctic regions.

Among the reptiles, there is one curious creature, peculiar to the country, allied to the siren of Carolina. It is the axolotl, which partakes of the form of a fish, and abounds in many of the lakes in Mexico. It is much esteemed as an article of food by the inhabitants of the neighbourhood.

We cannot speak of Mexico without having our minds drawn to the time of the Aztec monarchy,—when sumptuous palaces, enormous temples, fortresses, and other public edifices covered the face of the country. In the midst of the territory, on the western shore of the large lake of Tezcuco, stood the city of Tenochtitlan, the superb capital of the unfortunate Montezuma, on the site of which has arisen the modern Mexico. Though its glory has long passed away, the enormous ruins which still remain attest its past grandeur. Vast pyramids, on a scale and of a massiveness which vie with those of Egypt, still rear their lofty heads in great numbers throughout the country; while the ruins of other buildings prove that the architecture of Mexico in many points resembled that on the banks of the Nile. Some of these pyramids might rather be called towers. They consist of a series of truncated pyramids placed one above another, each successive one being smaller than the one on which it immediately rests—thus standing in reality upon a platform or terrace. The great pyramidal tower of Cholula is of this character, resembling somewhat the temple of Belus, according to the description given of it by Herodotus. It reaches a height of 177 feet, and the length of each side of its base is 1440 feet. In its neighbourhood are two other pyramids—teocalles, as they are called—of smaller dimensions. These temples, or teocalles, were very numerous, and in each of the principal cities there were several hundreds of them. The top, on which was a broad area, was reached by a flight of steps. On this area were one or two towers forty or fifty feet high, in which stood the images of the presiding deities. In front of the towers was the stone of sacrifice, and two lofty altars, on which fires were kept burning, inextinguishable as those in the temple of Vesta. In the great temple of Mexico there were said to be six hundred of these altars, the fires from which illuminated the streets through the darkest night.

Deeply interesting as is the subject of the architecture and the remarkable state of civilisation of the Aztecs, we must not dwell longer upon it, except to mention the cyclopean roads and bridges, constructed of huge blocks of stone, and carried on a continuous level, across valleys, which still remain. There are also, in various parts of the country, excavations, rock-hewn halls, and caverns, generally dome-shaped, the centre apartment lighted through an aperture in the vault. They somewhat resemble the cyclopean fabric near Argos, called the Treasury of Atreus. Not only the

buildings, but the hieroglyphics, of the Aztecs, so closely resemble those of the Egyptians, that there appears every reason to suppose they were derived from the same source.

Among the natural curiosities of Mexico, one of the most remarkable is that of the rock-bridge in the valley Icononzo, which might, from its form—until closely examined—be mistaken for a work of art.

The great mass of the population of Mexico consists of the descendants of those tribes which inhabited the country at the time of the Spanish invasion. The language most extensively spoken, as well by the civilised as the savage tribes, is still that of the Aztecs. The people of pure European blood are supposed not to amount to thirty thousand. About a quarter of the population consists of Creoles, descendants of Europeans and Indians known as Mestizos, while there is a small number of Mulattoes, and another race, the Zambos—descendants of Africans and Indians.