I visited the famous cocoanut palm grove in the Alameda Park, and seating myself upon one of the stone benches, watched the flocks of tame vultures which abound in Vera Cruz, and are the regular street scavengers of the town. Protected as they are by city ordinance, they run about like flocks of chickens. They scarcely move aside for the passer-by. There is not much of interest in Vera Cruz, although the city contains several ancient churches, Spanish towers, and one mediæval fortress, built in the early period of the Conquest.
THE TAME VULTURES OF VERA CRUZ
After lunch at the hotel, where I was sadly overcharged, “Mr. Sam” rowed me a quarter of a mile to the steamship Monterey. My baggage was brought out by the “express company” in a lighter along with that of other fellow-travelers of my train, and although we were through passengers from Mexico City to Cuba and New York, yet extra charges were made for this necessary service, an evident extortion.
I had reached my ship about half-past three in the afternoon; we were scheduled to leave at four; we did not sail until long after the appointed hour, so slow is the “lighterage” process of taking on cargo. The largest vessels can lie at the new piers, but either to save port charges, or, as they claim, “to avoid the possibility of yellow fever,” these boats anchor far out in the harbor and compel all passengers and freight to be brought on board.
Our motley cargo included sheep and cattle for Havana; a menagerie, lions, tigers, monkeys, and an elephant carefully hoisted and standing in a specially constructed crate in the forward hold, uneasy and swaying his body in great terror; and also many and divers crates and bales of merchandise.
We carry a large company of cabin passengers for Progresso, the chief port of Merida, in Yucatan. Among them I have noticed a group of gentlemen who upon the train seemed to be suffering greatly from the cold. I learned that they are rich planters from Merida. One is a senator in the Mexican National Congress. He is a large, thick-set man, with high cheek bones, blue eyes, light-brown hair, a white man much burned and browned by tropical suns. I thought he might possibly be a German or Scandinavian. Imagine my astonishment when I am advised that he is a full-blooded “Yucataka Indian!” He is one of that strange tribe of blue-eyed, light-haired people, whom the Spaniards never conquered, and whom the Mexican government have never yet been able to subdue, and in recent years have only been won over through Diaz’s subtle diplomacy. Whence came this tribe is one of the unsolved riddles of history. Possibly some Viking crew, drifted far out of their northern waters, may have been the forefathers of this blue-eyed, unconquerable race.
We are weighing anchor. The propeller blade begins to turn. On our port side rise the white walls of San Juan de Ulloa, the famous fortress and now state prison of Mexico,—an island of itself,—within the cells and dungeons of which yellow fever perpetually removes the imprisoned wretches sent there to die.
A NOBLE PALM