LAND WITHOUT CHIMNEY Mexici BY ALFRED OSCAR COFFIN, CANNOT LEAVE THE LIBRARY. Chap .fcjj/.tf. Shelf.JLl.^ __ = COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. a LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 9—165 Land Without Ghimneys oza- The Byways of Mexico. BY Alfred Oscar voffin, Ph.D. •attlu CINCINNATI, OHIO, THE EDITOB PUBLISHING CO., 1898. Copyright, 1898, by The Editor Publishing Company. 1st COPY, 1o98. y"bo f\Jl TO PROFESSOR HELEN C. MORGAN, MY FORMER TEACHER, THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. The San Juan Valley CHAPTER VII. The Valley of Mexico Page. 10 CHAPTER II. Saltillo and the Plateau - 29 CHAPTER III. San Luis Potosi --.... 45 CHAPTER IV. The Bill of Fake . _ «» CHAPTER V. In the Valley of the Laja - 76 CHAPTER VI. The Vale of Anahuac 00 107 CHAPTER VIII. The Shbine of Guadalupe ----- 118 CHAPTER IX. Public Buildings - - - . . . 141 CHAPTER X. The Paseo and Bull Fight ----- 153 CHAPTER XI. La Viga Canal - - - . . 168 CHAPTER XII. The Suburbs ------- 179 CHAPTER XIII. Within the Gates ---_.. 192 v vi Contents. CHAPTER XIV. Page. The Trail of the Tangle-Foot 222 CHAPTER XV. The City of the Angels ... - 232 CHAPTER XVI. The Pyramid of Cholula ----- 241 CHAPTER XVII. Las Tierkas Calientas ----- 248 CHAPTER XVIII. Guadalajara in the Vale of Lerma - - - 269 CHAPTER XIX. The Cities of the Plain ., - - - 282 CHAPTER XX. Dives and Lazarus ------ 294 CHAPTER XXI. Political Economy ------ CHAPTER XXII. Prehistoric Ruins ------ 312 CHAPTER XXIII. Aztec Cosmogony and Theogony 322 CHAPTER XXIV. The Lost Atlantis ------ 331 CHAPTER XXV. CONCLUSION ------- 348 A LAND WITHOUT CHIMNEYS. PREFACE. THIS book is not sent forth to fill a long- felt want; nor does the author hope to convince all his readers to his way of looking at the social and religious problems of Mexico. As a teacher of modern languages, the author went to Mexico solely for the purpose of master- ing the language, but the remembrance of that enjoyable stay allured him like a bird of passage when the spring has come, and so he returned to study the people. If what he has written will help any one to better understand our next door neighbor, his humble efforts have not been in vain. CHAPTER I. THE SAN JUAN VALLEY. DID it ever occur to the American reader that there lives a people numbering twelve millions, who know not the com- forts of the fire-place, nor the discomforts of soot and chimney-swallows ? And yet there lives just such a people at our very doors; just across the Rio Grande, in that strange land of romance and fiction, where the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries go hand-in-hand and never unite ; where the variation in temperature is less than at any other place on the globe ; where an ancient race live among the ruined temples and pyramids of a race they know not of ; where the traveler finds mouldering ruins of hewn stone engraved with figures and animals that have no likeness anywhere else, except amid the ruins of Egypt ; it is here you find the Land Without Chimneys. The land of Montezuma ; the spoil of Cortez; the treasure-house of Spain; the modern Mexico, where fact and fancy so mingle with romance and fable, that we hardly know when we have reached historical data. When the Spaniards reached Mexico in 1518, they found that the Toltec history, done in pic- ture-writing, was the most reliable source of information obtainable in this strange fairy-land. 10 tfhe San Juan Valley. 11 From these idiographic paintings we learn that the Aztecs, or Mexicans, entered the valley from the north ahout 1200 A. D. Before the Aztecs came, the valley was occupied hy the Chicimecs, and before they had pitched their tents around their capital hill, Chapultepec, the Toltecs had ruled supreme. The Toltecs, being exiled from Tollan, their ancient capital near lake Tulare, wandered a hundred and twenty years, until, in 667, A. D., they came to the bank of a river, where they founded another city which they called Tollan, or Tula, in honor of their ancient capital. The ruins of this ancient city lie twenty-five miles from the city of Mexico . During the reign of their eighth king, a famine drove the Toltecs south, whither many emigrated to Yucatan and Guate- mala, where the Toltec language is still spoken. But before the Toltecs, there lived in Yucatan the Maya race, the most ancient in Mexico, whose tradition dates to the year 793 B.C., when they arrived in Yucan by water from Tulapam. Here tradition is lost until we examine the ancient ruins and pyramids of Uxmal and Copan, whose walls are nine feet thick and cov- ered with the finest facades found in America ; and then language fails us as we gaze upon the massive walls of the pyramid of Copan, contain- ing twenty-six million cubic feet of stone brought from a distant quarry, whose base is six hundred twenty-four feet by eight hun- dred nine feet, and a tower one hundred eighty- four feet, built of massive blocks of stone, and surmounted by two huge trees rooted in its mold. Within the inside are statues and hierogly- i2 Land Without Chimneys. phics and inscriptions which tell to the world their history, but they speak in an unknown tongue, which may tell us of their Tulapani on the lost Atlantis. In despair, we give up the riddle of the first people of Mexico, and take a nearer view of the present inhabitants. The country is divided into three parts — the coast region called tierra calienta, where the tropical sun makes life a burden, and engenders that scourge of Mexico, el vomito, or yellow fever. Midway between the eoast and the mountain is the tierra templada, where the mean tempera- ture is 68° F. The tierra fria, or cold country, is the plateau which caps the crest of the Cordil- leras, so different from the mountains of the rest of the world that a carriage road was built for eight hundred miles along the crest of the mountains, without the service of an engineer. Here the mean temperature is 63° F., and on account of the altitude rain seldom falls, and, where it does fall, the porous amygdaloid rocks absorb it so quickly that the plateau is a verit- able desert, where the cactus and other thorny plants have taken possession of soil and rock alike. What adds more than anything else to its barrenness, is the utter lack of forest tree or green grass. Everywhere, for miles and miles of landscape, the eye meets only the bare rock and brown earth, with here and there the ever- present cactus and its kind. What wonder is it that nearly all these plateau people are beggars, when the water for their very existence must be drawn from the locomotive tanks each day as the train passes ? Far across the treeless plain they see the smoke of the locomotive, and from every adobe hut and The San Juan Valley. 13 straw- thatched jackal swarm the eager-eyed women, carrying the empty five-gallon cans of the Standard Oil Company, or their smaller ollas of burnt earthenware. To supply that horde would be to disable the train, so the fireman fills a number and again mounts his engine amid the silent looks of anguish from the disappointed faces that plead more eloquently than words. Yet there are whole townships of this desert, fenced in with stone walls, and upon these haciendas the rancheros grow rich off their herds at the ex- pense of the poor peons, and the source of their wealth is the prickly pear. The thick, fleshy leaf is both food and water to the starving cattle. Where herds are small, the herder, with a huge knife or machete, cuts the cruel thorns from the leaves or singes them in a great bonfire; but on the vast estates the cattle must, from necessity, get their food with- out help. It may be curious to know how these leaves can furnish water in a country where it rarely rains. The reason is, the skin is so tough it does not lose any water by evaporation, and it is thus able to carry water a year or more without additional rain. This cactus grows to the height of fifteen feet, with innumerable branches armed with needles nearly as long as your finger, and it bears bunches of fruit about the size and shape of lemons, called tunas. This is the staff of life for the poor people on the plains, and without it, existence on the plateau, for man or beast would be impossible. But this country was not always a desert. Before the coming of the Spaniards it was clothed in verdure, but "it was not like the 14 Land Without Chimneys. plains of Old Castile," and so the reckless gold- hunter turned the beautiful plateau into a Sahara, in which the silver mines now pay from eleven to sixteen dollars a cord for wood, brought on the backs of diminutive burros, and five dol- lars and seventy-five cents for a hundred and fifty pounds of corn. It is purely a lack of thrift that no effort is now made to restore the land to its original in- heritance. The eucalyptus tree of California has been tried in many places and thrives well, and with proper protection would soon grow a forest. The present wood supply is the mes- quite, which never grows taller than a peach tree, and the average size stick of wood it fur- nishes is but little larger than a beer bottle. Yet, with all its scarcity, the locomotives use it, because coal from the United States costs twenty-one dollars a ton. This wood is packed on the backs of dozens of little burros, and is carried as far as a dozen miles for delivery. This is a land without chimneys, for two reasons: The climate is not cold enough to re- quire fires, and if it was, the poor people would never be able to purchase wood. The little cooking that is done, is accomplished by little charcoal fires in braziers. If all this country was a plateau, then my tale would not be told, but there can be no mountains without valleys, and it is these val- leys that make Mexico one of the most delight- ful spots in this country. In the lovely valley of the noisy little San Juan River, rests the beautiful city of Monterey — "King Mountain." Situated at the foot of the Sierra Madres, surrounded by cloud-oovered peaks, there seems The San Juan Valley. 15 to be not enough room for its seventy-five thousand inhabitants, as it first bursts upon the vision through the towering masts of Yucca palms. It is wedged between "La Silla," Sad- dle Mountain, and "Las Mitras," the Bishop's Mitre ; but this is only the first trick which this clear and illusive atmosphere plays upon the traveler from the lowlands. The perspective seems unduly fore-shortened, and mountain peaks which are really twenty-five miles away, appear to be within an hour's walk. After your law of optics has been restored, you discover that no prettier spot could have been chosen for a city than that for Monterey. Founded three hundred and thirty-five years ago, upon an elevation 1700 feet above the sea, the seasons are so nearly alike that December is as pleasant as May. In the western part of the city are the homes of the wealthy; beautiful houses in shaded gardens where tropical birds and flowers have their home, and where spraying fountains and living streams of water remind one of the tales of fairy-land. Just beyond these homes is the Bishop's Palace, the last fortification to succumb to the American army of invasion when the city was taken. Around the palace are many cannon, some half -buried beneath the soil, and one with the unbelched shot still imbedded in its throat where, for fifty years it has lain in mute testimony of that unequal struggle which General Grant called " The most unholy war in all history." Across the valley, three miles as the crow flies, are the famous hot springs of Topo Chico, at the base of a mountain of black marble, which, in 16 Land Without Chimneys. building material, shows a beautiful stripe of alabastine whiteness. It was here the daughter of Montezuma and the elite of the Valley of Mexico came to bathe and chase dull care away, after the whirl of the court in the capital city of Tenochtitlan, long before the coming of the white man. At a temperature of 106° F. the water bursts forth in a heroic stream that bears testimony of the intense fires that hurl it forth. This reminds us that there is hardly a city in Mexico that has not its hot water baths, and it need not excite surprise, when three of the loftiest volcanoes in the world stand guard over the valley ; Orizaba in the east and Popocatapetl and Ixtacihuatl in the south, the highest stand- ing 17,782 feet above the sea. The water of Topo Chico, after serving the baths, is carried through the valley in irrigating ditches. Leaving the horse-cars which brought us from the city, we are enticed across the beautiful meadows to a grove of palms and tropical flowers, and find ourselves at the lofty walls of an enclosure which at first gives the impression of a penitentiary, but which you afterwards learn is a " Campo Santo," or ceme- tery. We walk around the forbidding walls until we come to a massive iron gate, and through its opening we see a forest of wooden crosses which tell their own tale, but the sexton will tell another. 14 A relic of by-gone days was he, And his hair was white as the foaming- sea." He had dug a row of twenty-four graves, twenty-three of which were open, but the other The San Juan Valley. 17 was filled to the brim with bones and scraps of clothing taken from the others. A peep into these revealed cross-sections of leg-bones here, two ribs and a hand there, with a jawbone or a vertebra lying in the bottom. The sexton explained that a person may rest in peace for the period of five years, and if, after that time his relatives do not pay a tax on his grave, his resurrection day will come to make room for newer tenants and better renters. And so on for a hundred years or more they will begin at the gate and dig graves and collect taxes until they reach the rear wall, and then start over. If everybody paid, the yard would remain intact and the sexton would have to start a new farm; but with the average Mexican, the cost of remaining alive is a far more serious question than remaining dead for an orthodox resurrection. He much prefers using his spare cash during those five years in buying masses from the priest to get the soul of his late departed out of Pur- gatory, and if he succeeds in that, the bones may go; so every five years he is prepared to see his friend's lodging aired and let to new lodgers. The wealthy rent tombs which are built in the outer wall, and here they can peep through the glass doors and see the dust of their fathers sifting down upon the ashes of their grandfathers to the third and fourth generation. The sexton was not very careful in removing his renters, and would leave a leg in No. 7 and carry the other remains to 24. I asked him if that would not complicate matters a little in the final resurrection . He assured me that Purgatory was the place to right such small matters, and 18 Land Without Chimneys. if the priest was paid enough he would get them all together. That reminds me of a wealthy man who died, and the priest, with an eye to business, called upon the son of the late departed, and impressed upon him the urgency of paying for enough masses to take his father's soul from Purgatory. The son asked how much would do it. The priest, after a careful calculation said: " He was a pretty hard case and no less than five hundred dollars will move him," and the son paid the money. After a while they met again. " And how is my father getting along? ' ' asked the son. ' ' You see," said the priest, "your father was in the middle of Purgatory and I had to move him a long way, but I have him towards the outer edge now, and I think two hundred dollars more will pass him out." The money was paid without protest, and this so encouraged the priest that he resolved to make one more deal. "And how is my father now?" was asked when they met again. "Well, I have him right at the edge of Purgatory with one foot over the line, and I think another fifty dollars will pass him into heaven." "0 no ! " said the son . ' ' You don't know my father. If he has one foot in heaven, St. Peter and all Purgatory can't keep him out and so I will save this fifty dollars." As the sexton and I talked, a funeral proces- sion entered the gate, consisting of two men and two women of the poorer class. On the head of one man was a dead child stretched upon a board. The other came to the sexton for in- structions. He pointed them to a row of thirteen small graves, dug about two feet deep The San Juan Valley. 19 and two of them were filled with the bones from the others. The child was taken from the board and chucked in, but was found to be several inches too long for the grave, so its head was bent up until the pall-bearer could gouge out enough dirt to admit the body straight, and then enough dirt and bones were raked in to cover it a foot and a half. Meanwhile, the women sat upon neigh- boring graves, chatting and smoking cigarettes until the grave was filled. Thirteen minutes after they had entered they were gone, leaving the sexton and myself alone with the dead. Within ten minutes another procession en- tered, preceded by a company of priests with lighted candles, followed by a hearse with a velvet covered coffin. Behind the hearse walked a procession of young men with lighted candles, and then I knew a man was dead, for no women attend the funerals of men. On entering, the body was taken from the coffin and buried, and the coffin returned to the undertaker. Wood is too scarce in Mexico to buy coffins when a rented one will do as well, and besides, it would give the sexton too much trouble in his impromptu resurrections if he had to dig through hard wood boards. If you should ask these people why they dig over and over a few acres of enclosed ground when just outside there are leagues and leagues of ground that will not grow anything else but a good crop of graves, they would shrug their shoulders and say: " Quien saheV — who knows — with that untranslatable gesture which forbids other question. Should you ask the tax col- lector, he might look over his balance-sheet and 20 Land Without Chimneys. give you an answer about how much it takes to run the government. Nothing better illustrates the stature of these people than the death of an American. He was a conductor, and the railroad employees deter- mined to give him an orthodox Christian burial, but no coffin could be found long enough, so he was put into one with both ends knocked out. Then came the inspection, and official announce- ment and permit, and enough red tape to consume two whole days and all the patience of the American colony, and involved enough writing to have chartered the city. All cemeteries are reached by mule car ; and for those who cannot afford a hearse, a funeral car and as many empties as are needed, are always to be had. The funeral car is painted black or white, with a raised dais to support the coffin, and in a sweeping gallop the cortege is soon at the cemetery gates on schedule time. All head-boards and grave-stones are embel- lished with the ominous black letters R. I. P. They tell me that is Latin for "May he rest in peace;" but I think they ought to add, "For five years." The cathedral in all Mexican cities is the one place of attraction. The one here was used as a powder magazine during the Mexican war, and the walls still bear the grim ear-marks of cannon balls. The finest church here is Nuesta Senora del Roble, which is old, but seems never to be finished, and thereby hangs a tale. No church property is taxable here until it is finished, so the astute priests rarely finish one. There are churches here whose foundations The San Juan Valley. 21 were laid three hundred years ago, and as you stand in the grand nave, bits of stone falling around you will be the only evidence of the workmen two hundred feet above. The stone used is almost as porous and as light as chalk, and responds readily to the chisel for ornamentation, but hardens on exposure. These building blocks are nearly always two feet square, and are built into the wall rough, and with scaffolding built around; the stone- mason, with mallet and chisel, will work for years, creating an ornamentation that is a joy and beauty forever. Patience here is a cardinal virtue, and time has no value whatever, and to their credit, be it said, that these decoraters are artists, and their work is beautiful. A man will begin work on a hundred year job with as much sang-froid as though it was to last a month. A workman will take an intricate pattern of wall-paper, and, with a paint-pot and brush, will spread that design over ten thousand square yards of surface, and at a distance of ten feet you cannot detect his work from genuine wall- paper. The perspective is so deceptive in ^one church in Monterey, that you almost run into the rear wall before you are aware that the long aisle is a painted one. You must stand or kneel in the churches, as no seats are provided. One church in Puebla is the only exception. Most of the churches are bedizened with cheap gew- gaws and tinsel, which gives you an impression of a child's playhouse. The church of San Francisco is the oldest in town, and its bells were cast in Spain. A large painting in there which is meant for the piece de resistance, represents Christ with a 22 Land Without Chimneys. Spanish fan in his hand, and the Madonna draped in a Spanish cloak of the vintage of 1520. Another represents the Shepherds with violins in their hands looking at the Babe in the manger. It all reminds me of February 22, in New York, when national proclivities will rise against time and circumstances, and George Washing- ton will blaze with all his calm dignity from the Teuton's shop window with a huge glass of lager in his hand, and the citizen from County Cork flashes him forth from his aldermanic window with an extra width to his supermax- illary, while Hop Long Quick displays him with his weekly washee washee, sporting a three foot queue. I suppose all this proves that we think a lot more of ourselves than we do of others, and of our nationality: "My country, may she ever be right, but right or wrong, my country." I suppose local color is everything to the am- bitious artist, and in making the rounds of the different churches, the amount of dripping gore you encounter in the transit from the San- hedrin to Calvary is appalling. Were you to meet the dramatis persona' in the flesh, and away from their settings, you would be in doubt as to whether they were just from the foot-ball game, or a delegation from Darktown Alley "After de Ball." Beyond the city and near the foothills is the modest little chapel of Guadalupe. Around it is a grove of maguey plants with their long, fleshy leaves, just as inviting to the jack-knife of the Mexican boy as a white beech tree was to you when you werx? loitering around the country church. Nor were these boys less The San Juan Valley. 23 boys than others, for all over these telltale leaves are inscriptions, some cut ' ' When you and I were boys, Tom, just twenty years ago." Nor were all these inscriptions outbursts of piety and consecration to the church. Some still told the old, old story, that the lovely Ramona was La alma de mi vidi, mi dulce corizon, the soul of his life and his sweetheart forever. I sincerely hope Ramona got the letter and rewarded the young man for his splendid sculp- turing, but I doubt if he * ' sculped ' ' all the things I read. Some were avowals to the service of the Vir- gin, and I know of no place better calculated to inspire such thoughts of worship than the little chapel of Guadalupe. Beyond the chapel was a young man quarry- ing stone, and in his idle hours he had chiseled out a small miniature chapel, about three feet long and similar in design to Guadalupe. Per- haps he was the one who wrote the pious in- scription, but he fooked just about old enough to have boiled over with that effervescence about Ramona. While he was at work, I slyly investigated his means of saving grace. Within the little chapel were candles and tinsels of gold leaf and silver, and symbols made of pewter and tin, and bits of broken crockery and other childish play- things, while around it were planted a row of resurrection plants. This botanical wonder, Selaginella lepido- 2Jhylla, grows upon the bare rocks, and may be kept a dozen year^ in a trunk, but when placed in a saucer of water, immediately changes its grey color for green, and unfolds its fronds like 24 Land Without Chimneys. a thing of life. When taken from the water it closes up like a chestnut-burr, and continues in its dormant state till water is given it, when it responds every time. This young man having all this paraphernalia as a means of worship may be strange, but what about the church from which he drew his pattern ? What the lower classes here do not know about the bible would fill a book. The city of Monterey is supplied with water from a famous spring in the heart of the city, which also gives birth to the Santa Lucia, which is crossed by numerous bridges, and is the pub- lic bath-house and laundry. A whole company of soldiers will march from the barracks down the principal street, and the first bridge they reach, down they go into the water, and every man will take off his shirt, wade in and begin his laundering. In all likelihood, they will find as many women already in the water enjoying a bath, and they will all sit in the sun and smoke cigarettes together while their clothes dry. The little proprieties which most people attach to a bath do not seem to trouble these innocent people, especially when an orthodox bath-house charges a quarter of a dollar for what the city gives free gratis for nothing. If cleanliness is next to godliness, these people must be away up in the line of promotion, for from sunrise to sunset, I have seen every rod of this canal a moving panorama of black-haired swimmers, men, women and children, while the banks were white with drying laundry. The painter who first made that picture about the mermaids sitting upon a rock and combing their raven locks, must have been standing on a The San Juan Valley. 25 bridge here and got his idea from the Mexican liouris trying -to dry their hair before they— well whUe waiting for their clothes to get dry. The puento Purisiina is the bridge where a wing of the Mexican army withstood Gen Trior's diyision. The legend says that the L a a y ge of the Virgin hovered oyer the Mexican army and enabled it to do wonders and that tC re enacted the old story of Thermopylae. Below the old bridge is a perpetual laundry. A Mexican laundry if a study in white and wnen ycXve mastered the details, it differs not one jot or tittle from all the other laundries m the ^LikeMahomet's mountain, the Mexican laun- dress always carries her clothes to the water and rests upon her knees hy the hrmk Sbe casts a garment into the stream until it is wet, and the! wads it upon a flat stone and soaps it until it is a mass of foam. She .then^ ■*£ a wooden tray, such as we use m our kitchen, Ld rubs all the soap out of it and immediately empties the water and repeats the Process If she dips a piece a dozen times, she soaps it jus as often, and empties the soapsuds after lach rubbing, and neyer, never uses the soap- suds a second time. This is very hard on a bar of soap, but the linen is returned to you as white as snow There are many Americans in Monterey and they are trying' very hard to unplan ; their American customs upon the country, one of which is the color line in public places. All the streets are paved with smooth, round cobble stones from the mountain gorges. They are about the size and shape of a butter-dish, 26 Land Without Chimneys. and they make just about as smooth a pavement as so many acres of cannon balls would make, buried half way in cement, and meeting about as closely as round objects usually meet. I can think of no American equivalent, except a corduroy log bridge, or driving across the railroad tracks in a switch-yard. The gutter is always in the middle of the street, which is a foot or more lower than the rest. An American has gained a concession to lay one street with Texas vitrified brick, and let us hope it is a fore-runner of others. But, come to think of it, it might work a hardship to a time-honored custom ; an innovation to some might prove an iconoclast to the church. It has long been a custom during Passion week and other fiestas, for the priests to prescribe a penance for those who confessed to a sin in thought or word or deed either in the past, present or future tense; and one of the favorite punishments is to require a number of maidens to walk down a street leading to a church, and return, crawling upon their bare knees to the church to be absolved. As they would leave a trail of blood over the cruel stones, some agonized lover would cast his zerape before his beloved and beseech her to let him lead it in front of her to the church and spare the laceration \ but poor ignorant creatures, they have been taught that this is the only way to have their sins forgiven. I notice I never see men in these pilgrimages, and it must prove that the men have more hard sense than the women, or else the priests have their own reasons for appointing women only. Now what would a penance amount to on a The San Juan Valley. 27 San Antonio brick pavement ? Just a picnic, no more. It takes a regulation Monterey pave- ment to draw blood in the first round. I like the Texas innovation, but I shall vote to keep one of these threshing-machine streets for the church and auld lang syne. In Monterey are a number of smelting works, where the lead and silver ore is reduced to pigs, and here we see the applied difference in wages. The hardest work in the smelter is to weigh in and deliver to the furnace a thousand pounds of ore every fifteen minutes, and this is not unskilled labor either. The man has a two- wheeled cart into which he must weigh in 600 pounds of ore, and 400 pounds of coke and flux material. Those ores are perhaps fifty yards away at the dump, and if the ore is very refrac- tory, he must mix four or five grades in different proportions. His cart must be always on scales as he goes from one pile to the other, and he must make four trips an hour, and for this he cannot possibly make over a dollar a day, and the regulation wages for even the hardest work is 67| cents for a maximum, if he is able to make eight full hours. I saw an Indian boy who had become so ex- pert, he could load his cart with three or four different ores and not miss the amount by more than ten pounds when weighed. The engines never stop night nor day, except to collect the rich gold dust which collects in the flues. It is a very dangerous, suffocating job, which a white man always gets ten dollars for, and a Mexican five reals, or 67£ cents. Two railroads pass Monterey. The Mexican Central to Tampico on the Gulf, and the Mexi- 28 Land Without Chimneys. can National to the City ; and on the latter we now leave for Saltillo and the battle-field of Buena Vista. CHAPTER II. SALTILLO AND THE PLATEAU. FROM Monterey to Saltillo is sixty-seven miles as the crow flies, 5,300 feet in ele- vation as the barometer creeps, and fifty rise to the mile as the train runs. Up, up we go with two powerful engines to the train, and the ever-present query, "If the train should break in two, where would I land ? " This is no idle question either, and to reduce possibilities, the Pullmans follow the baggage, the first-class cars next, and the second and third-class last. This is very necessary in steep grades and sharp curves, where the heavy Pullmans with their momentum would always endeavor to strike off segments and chords across the arcs. Up we go between mountains bare of vegeta- tion, which enables you to see them in their naked grandeur and sublimity. You very soon conclude that the train is on the trail of the little river, and trying to track it out of the canon, and you also discover that it was impos- sible to have built the road over any other route than the bed of the noisy, fretful little San Juan. We pass through the canon with the lit- tle stream first on one side and then on the other, clinging to the side of the mountain by a 30 Land Without Chimneys. path that hardly eaves the train from destruc- tion by the overhanging rocks, but ever upward. Indeed, railroad men say that when a car breaks loose from the yard in Saltillo, it runs all the way back to Monterey. I don't believe it. It might come part of the way, but I think before it got half way down that grade, it would leave the track and make the rest of the journey in mid-air, and in considerable less than a mile a minute, too. On the way up we pass the little peubla of Garcia, where a peak of the mountain has an opening through it, as though some Titanic cannon-ball had crashed its way through there, showing the sunlight on the other side. As we pass, all good Catholics take off their hats and cross themselves. Far up the peaks, tiny spirals of smoke show where the charcoal burners have found some isolated shrubs and are reducing them to merchantable form. In the cleft of the rocks are also to be seen the tuna-bearing cac- ti, which the half-clad Indian women are gathering for food. At last the grade is sur- mounted and we reach Saltillo, the capital of the State of Coahuila to which once also was at- tached the State of Texas. One of the causes of the Texas revolution was that the Texans had to go to Saltillo, fully a thousand miles from Red River, to attend to their legal business. They asked for a separate state, and at the head of the Texas army they kindly persuaded Santa Anna to grant it. There is great persuasive power in a gun. The train passes through a long street, lined on both sides with gardens of peaches and ap- ples and oranges and bananas and figs. The Saltillo and the Plateau. 81 altitude is a mile above sea-level, so that the heat of summer is never known, and one must sleep under blankets, even in July and August. It is a favorite summer resort for those who want a climate with no changes whatever. The city has a population of 20,000, but no horse- cars, so you take your foot in your hand and go off to see the town. There is but little to see, but of course there is the Grand Plaza, all Mexican cities have that, and of course the Cathedral faces the Plaza, there is no exception to that rule. The town is 300 years old, but the Cathedral was not begun till 1745, and the main body was completed in 1800. The towers were begun in 1873, and may con- tinue a hundred years longer. In keeping with the custom of the country, the churches must be as fine as time and money can make them, and the people give both, freely. The Alameda is as beautiful and as restful as one could wish, with fountains and flowers, and birds and trees to drive dull care away. I was honestly trying to do this when a school dismissed near by, and I called several of the " Kids " by to let me look at their text books, which consisted of a Cate- chism of the Catholic faith, and an Arithmetic. There must have been nearly a dozen boys around me, when all of a sudden they scattered like quails before a hawk, as a watchful police- man headed for us. I suppose he thought the boys were about to kidnap me and came to my rescue, but he ex- plained that it was a place of rest and pleasure and "Kids" were not allowed to flock there. I flocked by myself for a half hour, and the young ladies' school dismissed and they all 32 Land Without Chimneys. passed, dressed in black, and with bare heads generally, but several had lace mantillas. If ever I wanted to examine text-books, I thought now was the time, but to save my life I could not muster courage to ask that policeman if it was any harm for me to flock anywhere else but on that park bench, and while I hesitated the dream vanished — and so did I. I thought it was time to go see Alta Mira, the baths of San Lorenzo. Beyond the city limits is a dismantled old fort, a relic of French occupation. It was a very rude affair of sun-dried bricks, and is now occupied by a hermit and a vicious dog who de- manded backsheesh. The who refers to both man and beast, for, after looking at the persua- sive face and teeth of that dog, you quite willingly pass over the coppers to the old man. I have never heard of the couple using force on travelers, but the argumentative look on that dog's face showed that they understood each other, and especially since the isolation of the fort encourages the presumption. Ten miles from Saltillo is the battle-field of Buena Vista, where General Taylor, after a two days' fight, defeated the Mexicans. After the battle the Mexican women went among the wounded, ministering to the American as well as to the Mexican soldiers. Whittier has made their name immortal in his beautiful poem : " THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA." which closes with the following lines : "Sink, () Night, among thy mountains, hi thy cool, gray shadows fall ; Saltillo and the Plateau. 33 Dying brothers, fighting demons, drop thy curtain over all ! Through the thickening winter twilight, wide apart the battle rolled, In its sheath the sabre rested, and the cannon's lips grew cold. " But the noble Mexic women still their holy task pursued, Through that long, dark night of sorrow, worn and faint and lacking food, Over weak and suffering brothers, with a tender care they hung, And the dying foeman blessed them in a strange and Northern tongue. " Not wholly lost, O Father! is this evil world of ours ; Upward, through its blood and ashes, spring afresh the Eden flowers ; From its smoking hell of battle, Love and Pity send their prayer, And still thy white-winged angels hover dimly in our air! " Near the old French fort is a narrow stream of water, precious as all water is on the plateau. Through irrigating ditches it winds around the hill to the valley, through a winding street, among adobe houses, serving each as it passes, as a laundry, fountain or bath-house. The people on the lower course did not seem to care how the water had been treated before it reached them, but they believe in the old saw : "Where ignorance is bliss," etc. Along the hard, sunbaked street we pass and look in upon more squalor than was ever dreamed of in a city. The hovels are built of sun-dried brick, with no windows nor chimneys for venti- lation. Within is neither floor nor table nor chair nor bed nor any piece of furniture. The 84 Land Without Chimneys. women and children and dogs and men all herd together on the bare floor, or at most on straw mats. Neither shoes nor stockings find a place here. The men wear a presentable suit of white cotton or coarse linen, and are bare-footed, or wear a pair of leather sandals on their feet. These are simply pieces of sole leather under the bottom, held on by thongs passed between the toes to the ankle. Every man is his own shoemaker. The women often wear only a chemisette and neither shoes nor stockings, and when they do wear shoes, they wear no stock- ings. Privacy is absolutely unknown, in this or any other Mexican city, except in the heart of the city or among foreigners, and it requires the utmost watchfulness on the part of the police to keep a semblance of public decency, even in the city of Mexico ; and even then, the Indians are tacitly exempt from punishment for infrac- tions. It must not be understood that this as- sertion includes everybody, but you must remember that five-sixths of the population is classed as low caste or peons, and strong enough numerically to imprint their influence upon every city in the country. Through almost every city flows a stream of water, and in this hundreds of men and women bathe promis- cuously. Some cities require some garment to be worn, but while changing clothes and putting on the bathing suit, they are protected only by the blue sky and the Republic of Mexico. These hovels are the centers of a great manu- facturing industry; within, the women are pounding the fibre from the thick leaves of the aloe or maguey, and making brushes, mats, hammocks, rope and twine. The fibre is very Saltillo and the Plateau. 35 much like the unraveled strands of our sea- grass rope, and so strong that ordinary wrap- ping cord must be cut with a knife. The weaving apparatus is crude in the extreme. A post with a windlass and three wooden arms stands in the ground, and a boy turns the wind- lass. A man walks backwards with a basket of fibre hanging from his neck. Having fastened a thread to each of the arms of the crank, he slow- ly feeds each lengthening strand as it twists around the windlass. In ten minutes he can twist a thread fifty feet long. The threads are woven any desirable size, the most common being such as is used in making hammocks. As the husband prepares the thread, the wife weaves the mats or hammocks, and goes off to the market to sell. Within such hovels, all the manufacturing of Mexico is carried on, with no machinery any- where. Of course, without wood, steam is impossible, and water power there is none. Saltillo is famed for one thing above all others, and that is the beauty of its zerapes. A zerape is a cross between a cloak, a blanket, a shawl and a mat, because it is used for all these. It is the one garment a Mexican prizes next to his hat, the sine qua non of his attire. The zerape is a hand-woven blanket, with figures and colors that would make Pharaoh's adopted son turn green with envy. They are woven and worn all over Mexico, but those made in Saltillo are a thing of beauty and a joy for- ever, to the happy possessor. When the Mexi- can starts out in the morning, his zerape is folded across his shoulder with the fringed ends nearly touching the ground. If he is hunting work, or going to work, or walking for pleasure, 36 Land Without Chimneys. or holding up the sunny side of a street corner to keep it from falling down, the zerape is al- ways there. If he sits down, he either sits upon that zerape or fondly folds it across his lap. When night comes, if he has a home, he spreads that zerape on the dirt floor for his bed. If he has no home, a nice soft corner of the stone pavement is carpeted with his zerape. When morning comes, he goes through the same pro- gramme. Many slit a hole through the center and stick their heads through. Those who can- not buy, take am old salt sack and rip it up, and presto ! a zerape. In the Torrid Zone on the coast, when the hot sun melts the asphalt pave- ments, an Indian may be seen comfortably smok- ing his cigarette, his head covered with a woolen sombrero weighted down with silver ornaments, and several yards of woolen zerape covering his reeking body. Ephraim is wedded to his idols. If the men are wedded to the zerape, the women are equally inseparable from the rebosa. The rebosa is a shawl, nothing more — that is from appearance, but with the Mexican women and girls, it is second self. The common gray, cotton article is called a rebosa, the finer black article is a tapalo, while the lace fabrication is a mantilla y but it is of the rebosa that we now speak. Hats nor bonnets are ever worn by the women at any time or place, the rebosa is used instead. It is drawn across the brow until the ends hang down below the waist, then one end is thrown across the opposite shoulder, protecting the neck and making a drapery both picturesque and pleas- ing. Sometimes she wears it around her shoulders as a shawl. If she has a bab} r , she Saltillo and the Plateau. 37 lets the slack out in the back, loops the young- ster in it and takes a half hitch with the ends in front. It is an every day sight to see cara- vans of women come to town with large baskets of fruit on their heads, and the blackeyed youngsters tied in the rebosa and peeping over the mother's shoulder. When the mothers sit by the roadside to rest the " Kids " are not un- wrapped, but they usually keep the peace until released. The rebosa is the first garment a girl learns to wear, and I might add, until she is quite large it is often the only one. The most re- markable thing about it is, they never cease wearing them. Peep into these hovels, and every woman and girl child will be sitting list- lessly on the stone floor, or busily at work with head and ears tightly wrapped up, their spark- ling eyes and pleasant faces alone showing. But draw a camera on them, presto ! every face is instantly covered. In walking, one or both hands is always engaged in holding the folds under the chin, as no shawl pins are used. The girl of fashion is a combination of painted face, India inked eyebrows and bella-donna eyes, but the ordinary middle class girls have rare beauty sometimes, and a series of faces would make " mighty interesting reading," but no camera that I have seen can get their faces, unless covered with a rebosa. The prevailing color of rebosas is as much a distinctive emblem of caste, as any rule in the social decalogue. No high caste woman would dare be seen with a gray rebosa, and though a low caste might be able to buy one of the more costly black ones, I have never seen one do so, 38 Land Without Chimneys. and the observance of these social adjuncts is as unchanging as the laws of the Medes and Persians. Saltillo as seen from the rear is disappointing. Most towns are painted white, but here the dull, wearied-looking sun-baked adobe houses are not pleasing. We visit a high school for young ladies astd wonder that all this youthful beauty can bide this dull town, and that reminds me that there is not a mixed school in all Mexico, even the kindergartens being separate. You do not need to visit the primary schools, as you can hear all you wish a block away. The noise that first greets you will remind you of the last inning at the base-ball park when everybody is asking who killed the umpire. There may be three hundred children and each one is studying at the top of his voice, if voices ever have top and bottom, and the priests are stalking among them. The catechism is the first book placed in the hands of the child, and his duty to the church, the priest and the pope, are the first lines he ever learns. This statement will help make plain some other things I shall eay later about the religious status of the country. In the early gray of the July morning, with the chilling fog settling all around us, we draw our heavy wraps about us and leave with no re- grets Saltillo, * " The Stepping Stone . " We have indeed stepped upon the plateau, and for a hun- dred and fifty miles the track is as straight as a carpenter's rule. What a monotony ! Desert, yucca palnis, cactus, dust. Not a living thing but cactus. No birds, no insects, no rabbits, no snakes — nothing that breathes claims this Saltillo and the Plateau. 39 for a home. The railroad authorities did not plan this road for the beauty of its landscape, but for the economy of building. Ten thousand feet above sea-level lies the back-bone of the Cordilleras, and the plain is as level as a floor. For twelve hundred miles a carriage can travel here without making a road, so while the journey is disappointing to the tourist, the rail- road company pats itself on the back for long- headedness. Away in the distance we see a tiny curl of white dust no larger than a man's hand, and reaching to heaven. That is the sign of the burro pack-team bearing their bundles of fag- ots for the hungry maw of the locomotive. Poor little donkeys, not weighing more than three hundred pounds, without bridle or saddle or harness or halter, and without food except as they can argue with the thorns and thistles by the wayside, follow, follow forever the nar- row trail to the wood-pile by the railroad track, drop their burden and return. Surely the earth is round to the donkey. When he was no larger than a kid, he followed his mother along the same trail until he got large enough to carry a pack-saddle himself. That wearied, discouraged look he has always had, even to the twentieth generation. It is a part of his inheritance. He never had any frisky colt days in a pasture, nor did he have to "be broke " to harness when he reached the state of Coahuila and donkey hood. In fact he was never born, but like Topsy "just growed up," a burden-bearing burro. From the Rio Grande to Yucatan, he has gridironed the country and impressed it with his stamp. He and his com- 40 Land Without Chimneys. panions have trailed, Indian file, loaded to the guards with silver ore, until his sharp little feet cut the trail so deep that his burden was raked off by the banks. He then started a new trail by the side of that until his little legs are out of sight in the trails cut by his feet in the solid rock ; and then repeats, until you may count twenty or more little parallel gridiron paths for hundreds of miles. He has worn through solid rock in a dozen parallel paths, and only the final recorder in the burro paradise can tell how many weary journeys he had to make to write his name so well. Neither the trolley car nor the bicycle will ever make his shadow grow less; he is a part of the country, as indispensable as water itself. While the Indians load the tender with wood, I follow the fireman and brakeman into the chaparral. They have a pail of water, a wicker basket, and a long stick with a string lasso on the end, and are hunting tarantulas. Being some- thing of a naturalist myself, I was well acquainted with tarantulas, and I promptly told them I had not lost any tarantulas, and if they had nothing better to lose than tarantulas, they needed guardians. To those who have not a speaking acquaintance with his vitriolic majesty, I will say it is a huge hairy spider that will cover the bottom of a tea-cup, and when placed in a saucer is able to grasp the edge all round, so great is the spread of its claws. It is very vindictive and can leap up to a man's face when making close acquaintance. In Texas I have known its bite to kill a person in twelve hours. I saw one catch a chicken under the wing, and the chicken fell within one minute. Saltillo and the Plateau. 41 However, I joined the hunters. We first looked for a hole in the ground, and as the hole denotes the size of the tarantula, only the larger ones were sought. When a hole about the cir- cumference of a half dollar was found, one man guarded that with the stick and basket, while the other sought the outlet, for they al- ways have two entrances to their homes. When it was found, the water was poured in, and out he came into the lasso placed over the other hole — and is caught dangling at the end of the stick. What is he good for ? To sell. The Mexican is the greatest gambler this side of Monte Carlo. Tomorrow is the fiesta of his patron saint, and he will celebrate. As every one chooses a saint to his liking, and churches and towns do likewise — there is scarcely a day in the calendar that is not some- body's saint day. Tomorrow he will "knock off " from work, go to the bull-ring and bet his money on the bull or the man, and whichever one gets killed, he is so much loser or winner. He goes to the cock-pit and stakes again, and a bird soon spears another through with his gaff ; but a tarantula fight ! Bravo ! that is a sport royal. In the bull-ring, the bull sometimes gets wounded and bellows to be allowed to go home to his mother. In the cock-pit, a bird gets a gaff pinned through his upper works and decides to settle the fight by arbitration; but a tarantula, Caramba ! they simply eat each other up. The only way you can lose money is that the other fellow's cannibal will eat yours first. The engineer blows his whistle and calls us in, and we trail again through the white dust to Catorce, a hundred and fifty miles as the crow 42 Land Without Chimneys. flies, only no crow ever flies over this Sodom and Gomorrah. Catorce means fourteen, as the mines were discovered by a band of brigands numbering fourteen. You get off at the station and see nothing but a station and three or four pack trains of burros that have just brought in a load of silver. Folio w their gridiron trail, and eight miles further you come to Catorce, a city of from ten to twenty thousand people, according to the output of silver, and these people have never heard the rumble of wheels. Ore was first found here in 1790, and for thirty years the silver output was over three million dollars yearly. There are hundreds of these mines here, and the drainage tunnel of the San Augustin mine runs into the mountain more than a mile and a half and cost a million and a half dollars. Up, up you climb the rocky sides of the mountain, but there is no other way to reach Catorce, and when there, you are in one of the richest spots on earth, where the ore often assays $15,000 to the ton. The streets run forty-five degrees one way, and I suppose they ought to run the same coming back, but if you let go your hold on the street corners, you would fall out of town so fast you could not measure the angle. The only level place in town of course has a plaza and a very fine cathedral. I have made a similar statement several times, which needs no repeti- tion. Whenever you enter a Mexican town you will always find "A very fine plaza and a very fine cathedral." That copyright phrase will fit anywhere, with sometimes a modification of very and a change of church for cathedral. Catorce is the last town in the temperate zone. Saltillo and the Plateau. 43 A few miles beyond, standing solitary upon the desert like Lot's wife in the geography, is a pyramid erected by the railroad company. It marks the exact line of the Tropic of Cancer. On the north the legend reads: — TROPICO DE CANCER. ZONA TEMPLADA. on the south, TROPICO DE CANCER. ZONA TORRIDA. Out of respect to your early teaching in geog- raphy you ought to perspire and be exceeding warm in the Torrid Zone, and see all kinds of gay-plumaged birds and jungles of flowers, but the hammer of the iconoclast has shattered one of your long cherished dreams. The sun was shining upon a landscape over which clouds never hover. You pull your over- coat around you on this cold July day, and look through your closed windows for the other canard — the landscape. The landscape is all there according to the book, and for that you are thankful, but how changed! As. far as the eye can reach and ten times farther are beautiful rock-colored rocks, and dust-colored dust and thorny thorns and dust-hidden sky. Where are the flowers? Never were any. And the birds? Never wiH b© any. Not a blade of grass nor a chirp of insect. For forty miles around, or as far as the eye can reach is the dry, parched dust, and the chaparral, sere and yellow. After a hundred and fifty miles of desert, how welcome is the oasis! Bocas is its name, and the last stopping-place before we reach the great city of San Luis Potosi. Las Bocas is a fine hacienda and recalls old 44 Land Without Chimneys. feudal times along the Rhine. Here is a fine old castle with its walled enclosure, its beauti- ful arched bridge and its herds and flocks and gardens and retinue. By the railroad track is a distillery for making liquid lava from the aloe or maguey plant, which is sold under the name of mescal for the purpose of making men drunk. Those who know say it will eat the lining out of a lead-pipe stomach. I saw a case of delirium tremens which it is guaranteed to give, and I can only liken it to a caged hyena after Lent. Away in the distance is the snow-white trail of a stone wall, which winds its tortuous path many leagues away to encircle the hacienda de Las Bocas, while within its bounds and feeding upon the rocks and thorns are the thousands of cattle that maintain its opulence. How that kind of food can work such wonders is beyond my ken. When I was in school I learned that cattle have four stomachs. I think one would be quite sufficient for all the food a cow can get from a cactus bush, and a couple of mill- stones might be helpful in digesting the rocks. No one told me that the rocks were positively a part of the bill of fare, but I pointed to ten miles of rocks enclosed hy a wall and asked a man why they fenced in the rocks, and he said it was a pasture, and he ought to know, as he is a native and to the manner born. Four hundred and seventy-five miles from the Rio Grande, and the only trees seen were upon the little oases watered by tiny streams. We leave the plateau and climb the mountain into the city of San Luis de Potosi. CHAPTER III. SAN LUIS POTOSI. AND no more satisfactory city can be vis- ited than San Luis, situated in the crater of a fertile valley, while its suburbs ex- tend to the rich silver mines of the mountains which give it name. The mines have been worked over three hun- dred years, but the city is only two hundred years old. The mines were discovered to the Spaniards by a pious monk, who named them Potosi, because of the resemblance to the mines of Peru. Three million dollars annually, are mined. A very unusual thing for Mexico, the railroad station is in the heart of the city. Seventy-five thousand people make their home here, and the law requires all houses to be kept freshly painted; and what a restful revelation it is, with asphalt pavements swept clean each night, and hotels that make a traveler glad. The only drawback to complete happiness is a lack of water. Most cities here draw their water from the mountains in aqueducts, but San Luis has outgrown its supply. At the public fountains, a stream of water- 45 46 Land Without Chimneys. carriers by hundred stand patiently in line to fill their vessels from the tiny, discouraged stream trickling from the Dolphin's mouth, and the police stand guard to see that all are served in the order of arrival. All day and all night this pitiful waiting goes on forever. It is like buying tickets for the Symphony concerts in Boston, where the people come before day and buy choice places in the long line of earnest waiters. The water is free, but the successful ones sell to those in the city who do not care to enter the crush, or to the hotels and wealthy ones who can buy. All kinds of vessels are used, but the preference is given to the five-gal- lon cans that brought kerosene into the city. With two of these fastened to a shoulder yoke, the men peddle the water at three cents a can. With the women, the favorite is the large Egyptian model earthenware called olla. With this poised gracefully on one shoulder and elbow, and the opposite hand held across the head to balance, it completes one of the most picturesque scenes so common here. Rebecca at the Well has simply stepped out of the old picture book and assumed her ancient calling. The feature of the profession, however, is a man with a nondescript wheel-barrow which no man can describe. Rainfall is quite plentiful here, but the porous amygdaloid rocks can not hold it. At present an American citizen ie boring an artesian well, and the interest displayed by the citizens is re- markable. All day long hundreds of anxious watchers will stand around the drill, evincing the same interest we used to show at our board- ing house when the first strawberry short-cake San Luis Potosi. 47 of the season was cut, and the anxious boarders were watching to see who would get the straw- berry. The burro train has lost its hold upon San Luis. For three hundred j^ears all the silver was carried to the sea, two hundred and seventy- five miles away, by burros, but now, with two railroads, things have changed. The Mexican National leads to the capital, the Mexican Cen- tral to the bay of Tampico. Here are many fine buildings to see; the Gover- nor's palace, palace of justice, State capitol,the museum, the library with a hundred thousand volumes, cathedral, and the churches of Carmen, Merced, San Augustin, San Francisco, Military College, and the Teatro de la Paz, one of the finest opera houses in the country. As in all the cities, the street cars start from the main Plaza, and from here you may visit Guadalupe, Tequisquiapan, the baths of La Soledad, Axcala and Santiago. In the rainy season, the street cars bear this legend: ''There is water in the river." As a matter of course, the cars do a land-office busi- ness as long as the water lasts. The cars lead to the Paseo, a beautiful shaded avenue two miles long, asphalt pavements, and fountains at either end, with the usual scramble for water. At the extreme end is the church of Guada- lupe, with two tall towers, and a fine clock presented by the king of Spain, in return for the gift of the largest single piece of silver ore ever taken from a mine— the mine of San Pedro. The city of San Luis Potosi is building a hall that is to be the eighth wonder of the world. It has cost millions and will cost mil- 48 Land Without Chimneys. lions more. Seven years ago a dozen skilled stonemasons from Pennsylvania were imported to do the ornamental carving on the front. One Fourth of July a member of the party got drunk and killed a Mexican. He was tried and con- demned to be shot. Then arose the certainty that with him in the grave there would be no one to do the fancy carving on the City Hall, so it was decided to keep him at work and shoot him when he had finished. Every day this workman hangs like a fly against the great white wall and pecks away at gargoyles and griffins' heads, while a file of soldiers stand in the streets looking at him. His life ends with his job, and the Mexicans say he is the most deliberate workman in the world. At the present rate of progress, by the best obtainable calculations, the front of the City Hall will be sufficiently scrolled and carved about the middle of 1950. All the churches contain valuable paintings. The most remarkable thing about these cities, there is no noise. There is no 'steam, no manu- factories, no wagons, no drays, and as the peo- ple go without shoes, there is no noise of any kind. You may sit on the busiest street here and close your eyes, and feel all the quiet and com- fort of a cemetery. Those who like to 6leep late in the morning can better appreciate this. The days and nights are of equal length, and you could stop in the most populous hotel in the city and 6leep until ten o'clock in the day. No bell-boy, no breakfast bell; just quiet. The one exception to noise is the market place ; it was made for noise, and is different from all the others in the country. Ban Luis Potosi. 40 In other cities there are several market places which relieve the congestion, but here there is but one. Before daylight the hubbub begins and lasts till noon, and the main building is soon crowded, and its overflow spreads to the four streets which pass it. There are no pass- ing vehicles, so from curb to curb are hundreds of women sitting flat upon the ground with their gray rebosas around their heads, and their scanty wares spread about. They sell every- thing, and the streets are redolent with unknown and unsavory odors from the charcoal braziers, from which the designing maid or matron offers her concoctions to the unsuspecting wayfarer. Of course you try some of these experiments; you do not know what you are eating, but it never kills. This compels me to say that very, very few people eat at home, but go to the market for their meals, going from one stall to the other. Another market feature, green corn is always offered cooked, and the same is true of sweet potatoes. Some people buy their sup- plies and take them home to be cooked, but green corn and potatoes never. They are both boiled with their jackets on, and if a vendor has a bushel, he or she boils the whole and stacks it up on the pavement, and it may be five or six hours later, the purchaser buys an ear and hulls the grains off and eats his dinner with no salt or accompaniment whatever. The market is never closed for three hundred and sixty five days in the year. In many stalls are wholesale dealers who supply the retailers. In unloading the corn or grain to put it in bins, there will be half a dozen women or children in the dust under the cart, scrambling for the 50 Land Without Chimneys. grains as they fall from the sacks. When the cart has gone, they winnow all the dust through their hands loDking for the missing grain. These market gatherings are the simon-pure article of the native element, unadulterated by foreign influence. Here are Indians from the mountains, peons from the haciendas and peas- ants from the surrounding country and the gentry from the city, all hobnobbing together. The usual dress of these women vendors is startling. The Indians wear a string of beads around their necks and one or two yards of coarse cloth fastened wherever it will fit best, and they are dressed up. The peasants wear a string of beads and a chemise which commences too late above and stops too soon below, and all are barefoot. The high-caste women all dress in American or French styles, except that they wear no head gear but their own black hair, and they wear the most ill fitting high-heel, needle-pointed shoes that are made. The nat- ional color for Spanish and Mexican women is black. Meet a hundred ladies at a time, and every dress without exception is jet. I rather think it is vanity. We put salt on watermelon to enhance its sweetness by comparison, and so with black hair, black dress and fair skin, the con- trast I think was the final end sought. Elite society never appears on the street here till six o'clock, unless a fiesta or church service calls it out; and before that hour, what careful preparation is had? The hair is usually braided and let alone. A quantity of India ink along the eyebrows make a black en rapport with the hair, and a little belladonna in the eyes will add a sparkle that will wither up men's souls San Luis Potosi. 51 and scatter them prone at her feet — metaphori- cally speaking, and when those cheeks have been kalsomined— I mean whitewashed— that is — painted, if the dear ladies will spare my life for mentioning it, and when mi-lady has thus per- formed her renovation — I mean toilet, and placed her diamonds on her neck where they will show best, and wrapped as to her shoulders with the diaphanous mantilla and steps under the electric light, I tell you she is — is indescribable. The dress of the men of the lower class is just a kaleidoscope, that's all. Some of the Indians are dressed like their women, in their long hair and a strip of cloth hung where it hangs the best. The high top straw sombrero or the Panama hat with a string under the chin is the prevailing style, although the more costly woolen hat is repre- sented. White cotton and brown linen constitute the dress goods. The usual cut of coat is a short jacket or jumper. Others wear a long sack coat, and instead of buttoning it they gather the two corners together and tie them in a knot. This distinctive style has a kind of freemasonry im- portance in which I was never initiated. Then his pantaloons are white, with the bottom widened immensely. The shepherds have a style all their own. They have a buckskin jacket cut short , and buckskin pantaloons cut long, with a row of buttons on the outside. Then he takes his knife and slits the legs inside and out, from the knee down, then he gathers up the ends and tucks them under his belt, and depends upon his underwear for effect on dress parade. He always scores. Some people might say he 52 Land Without Chimneys. looks badly, but with his clan he is in very- correct form and why should you object? The porters, or public drays dress in white cotton, with one leg of their pants rolled up to the knee, leaving the leg bare. Around his neck he wears a large badge like a policeman's, with his official num- ber, showing that he is licensed to carry packages, from express money orders to upright pianos. He is the only express wagon here, and is absolutely reliable. He will shoulder your Saratoga and trot a mile without resting. I recall the case of one who stumbled with an American drummer's trunk on his back, and when the street commissioners gathered up his remains, they were spread over two square yards of pavement. P. S. the trunk was not injured. Four of these cargadors will carry your piano to any part of the city. For moving household goods, they have vans made on the plan of a hos- pital stretcher, with a man in the shafts at each end, and a rope passing over his shoulders to the shafts, and they will carry a dray load each time. Two dozen chairs by actual count is what I have seen one man carry. The mule has been promoted to the street car, out of respect to the two-legged express wagon. The dress of the cow-boy and rural police is something to admire. A high sombrero, costing from twelve to fifty dollars, weighted down with monograms and silver ornament. Leather or buckskin suit with silver buttons from boots to neckband. Silver spurs and silver bridle bits. Saddle whose every piece of orna- ment is solid silver, a horse-hair lariat, and if San Luis Potosi. 53 he is a Burale, a rifle, and he sits his horse like a centaur. The dude is in a class alone, but he counts one when on dress parade. A tall, black som- brero with silver ornaments. Scarlet jacket, reaching to the waist, and sprayed with silver braid in fantastic designs. Buckskin panta- loons, flaring at the bottom and silver buttons all the way up, and along-side a series of cross- section slashes, interwoven with a beautiful ribbon from spur to waistband. Silver spur and bridle bit, a saddle worth as much as the horse, and a bright nickel-plated revolver buckled around his waist. At the fashionable hour for promenade, he mounts his horse, and slowly rides over the town and graciously permits the populace to admire him. I think he ought to be knighted for his liberality. Most people who go to that much trouble to shine, generally make you buy a dol- lar theater ticket for the pleasure of looking at him, strains his constitution and bylaws showing off, and cannot ride a horse at all. But commend me to the Mexican dude. After he has set the town agog, he turns up a certain avenue, which contains a certain house, pro- jecting from which is a balcony, in which dwells the only girl in town, and, after he has passed in all his silent glory, he throws bouquets at him- self for the wonderful impression he has made, and then goes home to undress. Earth cannot hold him much longer. I fear his own ardor and faith in -himself will finally sublimate him, but our loss is heaven's gain. The children; there are no children; they are just vest-pocket editions of old folks. Usually they are dressed 54 Land Without Chimneys. in their innocence, but that is a quality of goods that does not last long here. When a boy is old enough to wear anything else, it is exactly like his father's, tall sombrero, pants that strike his heels, and a red sash around his waist. Sus- penders are not worn here. When a girl is no longer innocent, she dresses in a rebosa. By wrapping it around her head it reaches her feet. They don't have much time to be little for they marry at eleven and twelve. The upper class men, of course dress as Americans, but Paris sets the fashion in Mexico always. All these things you see at the market in San Luis Potosi, but you see them in hundreds, while I have only described them as individuals, and have not half turned the kaleidoscope yet. The streets must be all vacated by eleven o'clock at night, and when the hour for closing has arrived, nothing is locked up. The thousand and one vendors have no care for their goods. A piece of canvas is spread over them and a brickbat placed on to keep the wind from inter- fering, and they go home. The policeman does [the rest — he never sleeps. Crime does not pay in Mexico. The laws are as swift as a bolt of Jupiter. A person is arrested this morning, tried and shot before night. They waste no sentiment on criminals and they are too expensive to feed. Another curious custom is, the money received during the day must always be in sight. A wooden tray on top of a pile of goods holds the receipts of the entire day and not a piece is hid- den. The taxation law is very rigid, and a certain per cent, of all sales is collected by the city, and the inspector must be always free to San Luis Potosi, 5£> look at your sales and figure on his per cent. As hard as the law is on poor people, you never hear them complain. They respect the laws even though they do not like them. Just imagine an American counting up square and even with a tax collector on a day's sale ! When Bellamy gets his colony in working order and invites me to come and see the wonder of the twentieth century, that is the sight I want to see. The wearing of pistols here is not a sign of revolution. Probably it is not loaded, and a Mexican would not shoot you for anything. If his liver was out of order to the extent of want- ing your blood, he would take his knife and re- duce you to sausage meat, but shoot you, never. That is not his style. A pistol is as much an article of full dress as a pair of gloves would be in America, or a tin sword is to our military organizations. When Mexico had her monthly revolution, and when bandits used to come in and take the town, every man had to go armed in order to find himself after the cyclone; but she has com- parative peace now, yet wearing pistols for a hundred years has made it quite a habit. I went on an excursion with a party of harmless looking Mexicans, and we tried to sit down on a bench, and every man and boy of them had to unload his cannon pocket before he could sit down— and the other fellow