On the Mexican Highlands, with a Passing Glimpse of Cuba

by William Seymour Edwards

From my hotel Jardin, in Morelia, I rode down to the station in a most ancient little car pulled by a single mule; the electric tramway has not yet arrived at that capital.

It was yet dark when I was awakened for Toluca. When I left the train the air was cold, frosty. The city was silent, but it was well lighted with electricity, and a modern electric tram car awaited me at the station. Toluca thus gave me at the hour of my night arrival the impression of being more modern than Morelia, and this impression was borne out upon later acquaintance.

Toluca is one of the more vigorous of the growing cities of the republic. It is a community of some twenty-five thousand people, the capital of the State of Mexico, and lies one thousand feet higher in the air than Mexico City. It is near the center of a fertile valley, forty or fifty miles in length, and ten to twenty broad, while ten miles to the southwest towers the snow-capped Volcano de Toluca, lifting its gleaming cone fifteen thousand feet into the heavens, its melting snows giving an abundant supply of pure water to the town.

The religious differentiation between Toluca and Morelia is marked. Morelia is one of the six cathedral cities of Mexico, and is the seat of one of the six Archbishops. Morelia is also the center of Jesuit activity in Mexico. In Morelia, the Spanish-Mexican takes off his sombrero when he passes the cathedral; the Indian kneels down in the street and crosses himself. The several hundred churches are kept in excellent repair. Ecclesiasticism dominates, the layman is subordinate. In Toluca, on the contrary, Church rule is pushed aside; while there are a number of churches, they are old and most of them dilapidated. The foundations of a great cathedral, laid many years ago, are now overgrown with grass and bushes. No money has been forthcoming from Tolucan pockets to build it up. The governor of Toluca is among the most progressive and liberal men of the republic. His administration maintains large schools and academies for the instruction of young men and women, where the sciences are taught, where enlightened thought rules, and where particular attention is paid to the English language and literature. Several of the instructors are from Chicago.

A DILIGENCIA—TOLUCA

There are many fine residences in Toluca, with handsome private grounds. The public buildings are new and imposing; the Alameda Park, with its groves and gardens and multitudes of birds, is as beautiful as Chapultepec.

There is also great business activity in Toluca and a number of successful manufactures.

The morning of my visit, I noticed an unusual crowd upon the streets. It surged toward me. It was respectful and quiet. The swarthy company were pressing to look wonderingly upon two little Swedish girls, with the bluest eyes and pinkest cheeks, and braids of the most golden hair—perfect types of the Scandinavian North. They were the children of workmen imported from Sweden and now teaching Tolucans the skilled manufacture of iron.

The rich valley, with its climate of perpetual spring, is the home of a large Aztec and Otomy Indian population. These live in many towns built of stone and adoby, containing two and three thousand souls, even yet speaking their ancient Aztec tongue, knowing only Spanish enough to trade. They are mostly agriculturists, and raise large crops of wheat and corn, which are borne to market upon the backs of men and mules and burros. We met many such burden-bearing cavalcades entering the city, and generally driven by Indians of the wildest types we yet have seen. The sturdy and rugged men are of a stronger race than the inhabitants of the Tierra Caliente along the valley of the Balsas. These Indians run, not a man of them walks. They take a quick, short step, a sort of jog-trot, which carries them forward a great many miles a day.