F 
 1215 
 
 V;656y
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 A Glimpse of Old Mexico 
 
 BEING THE OBSERVATIONS AND REFLECTIONS OF A TENDERFOOT 
 
 EDITOR WHILE ON A JOURNEY IN THE LAND 
 
 OF MONTEZUMA 
 
 BY 
 
 J 
 
 JAS. H. WIIvKINS 
 
 SAN RAFAEL, CAL. 
 19OI 
 
 (Copyright 1901 by Jas. H. Wilkiiia)
 
 F 
 
 These letters were written, as the}- purport to have been, during atw^o 
 months' stay in Mexico, with no other object in view than to fill a little 
 space in a countr}^ newspaper. During my absence, however, the em- 
 ployes of my printing office gathered together the series and published 
 them in pamphlet form, not for sale, but merely for complimentary dis- 
 tribution among friends of the editor. Since then, there has been an 
 inquiry for the book that has encouraged me to strike off" a fresh num- 
 ber. My first intention was to change the form entireh-, but a little 
 work soon satisfied me that it is as difficult to remodel an old story as to 
 reconstruct an old house. So the letters appear as they were originally 
 written, though here and there expanded and with some errors of state- 
 ment corrected. 
 
 The half-tone illustrations, although in a number of cases very imper- 
 fect, all represent actual Mexican life and scenery along the line of my 
 travels and are from photographs taken en route. 
 
 j. H. \V. 
 
 San Rafael, Cal., 1901. 
 
 1531086
 
 A Glimpse of Old Mexico 
 
 FIRST LETTER 
 
 T is easy to promise a lot of things in- 
 volving a certain amount of work 
 when you set off on a sea voyage that 
 should contribute many vacant hours 
 in which some mental occupation 
 ought to be agreeable . Yet I have 
 ever found the performance of such 
 obligations an irksome duty and have 
 always had ample cause to lament hav- 
 ing entered into them. Last evening 
 T stood on the deck of the good ship Colon and watched old Tam- 
 alpais vanish in the gathering shadows. Those who have gone 
 down to the sea in ships know how that notable landmark of the 
 Golden Gate lingers in the vision after the rest of California's coast 
 line is lost in the ocean's mist. Long after the sun went down, I 
 could still distinguish it — a mere fluff outlined against the sky, 
 which slowly passed from sight — and there was a last of it. That 
 word "last" always makes me sad. It is pursuing us all the way 
 through life, marking graves of hopes, ambition and friendships at 
 every turn of the road. It is forever the last look, the last word, 
 the last struggle against fate, the last day, the last hour as the 
 journey draws to its close, and finally the last resting place. If 
 that infernal word and all the consequences it carries with it could 
 only be blotted from the vocabulary of man, what a bright, cheer-
 
 6 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 ful thing human Hfe would be. It is with us to stay, however, and 
 naturally the last look at Tamalpais stirred up the usual sombre 
 reflections in the editor's breast. But these were .succeeded by a 
 still more profound depression when I remembered a rashly-made 
 promise to employ the idle moments of this journey in writing 
 about Mexico for my paper. For the truth is, I never felt less like 
 work in my whole career. Life has not been exactly a bed of roses 
 for me during the last few months but on the contrary has been 
 crowded with incidents that leave their trace on body, mind and 
 heart. Wearied with many sided cares, business, official and poli- 
 tical, the predominant desire of nature now is to spend the next 
 few weeks in a loafing match, in a state of complete mental vac- 
 uity, as well as of physical rest. So, for what follows, the usual 
 allowance must be made, for a man seldom does well what he does 
 not want to do at all. 
 
 Anyhow, it is difficult to write about a foreign country in a way 
 that will either interest or instruct the fairly well-informed reader, 
 for the simple reason that the field has been gone over so often 
 and diligently. In ancient times it was different. Then, if a fel- 
 low chanced to strav a hundred miles from home, he was able to 
 tell of marvels enough to cram a book. The story of Jason's 
 prodigious voyage in quest of the golden fleece filled all antiquity 
 with wonderment and the echoes of it are heard dimly to this day. 
 Yet if he ever .steered his classic junk from Greece, it is certain 
 that his voyage did not cover a much greater distance than from 
 San Rafael to Alviso, at the head of the Bay of San Francisco. So, 
 in the biblical stories that begin "and he girded up his loins and 
 set out on a long journey, "from which momentous consequences 
 follow, it merely meant that somebody went into the next town- 
 ship; probably a trip that you or I would take nowaday and be 
 home again for lunch. It is a well known fact, for instance, that 
 the journey which occupied the Children of Israel for forty years 
 could be traversed today by a railroad train in four hours, without 
 crowding on steam. So, a person who now does the globe-trot- 
 ting act does not have the chance he used to have, and unless he 
 keeps his eyes mighty wide open, he might circle the planet and 
 not find anything new to tell.
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 7 
 
 i 
 /■' 
 
 But if I wanted to pick a field to write about, with a fair pros- 
 pect of presenting something novel and fresh, I would unhesitat- 
 ingly select Mexico for my subject. For, as far as my knowledge 
 goes, this most interesting country has been given the overlook 
 by the travel writers to an unusual degree, and the literature con- 
 cerning it is singularly barren of anything really valuable. I have 
 explored libraries diligently and have found nothing that con- 
 veyed to me a fair idea of the country or its people as I have seen 
 them. ]\Iost writters on the subject are bitterly hostile and un- 
 just, unless we except certain descriptive publications issued un- 
 der Mexican authority, which perhaps err the other way quite as 
 much, which is equally wrong. For although I shall have many 
 kind things to say about Mexico, it is a long way yet from being 
 the whole thing. 
 
 This spirit of unfriendly criticism on the part of most visitors 
 to ^Mexico who have written about it is not perhaps so unnatural. 
 It proceeds, in the first place, from fixed habits of thought more 
 or less common to all of us. We become accustomed to 
 certain usages, conditions and methods, and by long observing 
 them, and by practicing the same, are fully convinced that they 
 represent the correct standards of civilization, and that nothing 
 else does. Therefore, when we come in contact with a people who 
 talk, think, act, dress and eat differently from ourselves, the first 
 impression is that we have encountered an inferior race, who de- 
 serve a kind of contemptuous pity for their benighted condition. 
 It is a notorous fact that there is not a nation today that does not 
 hold all manner of foreigners in the utmost disdain. Now, Mex- 
 ico, to most comers, is like a new world. To the American, 
 Englishman, Frenchman or German, it presents points of diver- 
 gence at every turn, and even those of the Iberian race do not feel 
 any too much at home there. It is not very astonishing, therefore, 
 that the average observer, who does not go very far below the 
 surface, has concluded without further evidence that here was a 
 people hopelessly and irremediably in the wrong. 
 
 Besides that, it was not so very long ago that Mexico had justly 
 the very worst reputation among the nations of the earth, and it 
 takes a country quite as long to live down a bad name as an indi-
 
 8 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 vidiial — perhaps longer. Less than twenty years ago, neither Hfe 
 nor property were safe there. Its government was weak and im- 
 potent, changing with every fickle gust of popular feeling, and its 
 official life honeycombed with rottenness and corruption. Its 
 national finances were ruined and its credit so wrecked abroad 
 that it would not have been trusted for a two-bit meal in any 
 money center. It was overrun by bandits and armed bodies of 
 freebooters, who looted practically at will, until the whole open 
 country was depopulated and almost every industry suspended, 
 save in the immediate vicinity of the largest towns. Capital would 
 not invest there, no matter what the inducement, and what little 
 remained in the country was doing its best to get out at any sacri- 
 fice. In short, if there was a land on earth that seemed to be 
 going to the devil across lots, beyond the possibility of redemp- 
 tion, Mexico was certainly that one. 
 
 It is hard for many persons to believe that this so recently dis- 
 tracted and discredited country has, within a space of about a de- 
 cade and a half, undergone a regeneration that has reached to 
 every department of affairs. That it is now peaceful, orderly and 
 admirably governed. That crimes of violence there are practi- 
 cally unknown and the security of life and property are as perfect 
 in Mexico as in any country in the world. That its national credit 
 is now restored, its bonds eagerly sought and its finances on a 
 stable footing. That its industries are springing into existence 
 again, instinct with a new hope, and that syndicates of foreign 
 capitalists are hurriedly sending their agents over the land in 
 search of favorable investments. I am free to confess that I went 
 to Mexico brimfull of the old-time predjudices, expecting to find 
 a people hopelessly backward and a government under which 
 one's rights had to be maintained pretty much by force of arms. I 
 was in the frame of mind of a juryman who enters into the trial 
 of a case with a "fixed opinion," and if I was forced to alter it later 
 on, it was because the evidence on the other side was conclusive 
 and overwhelming. 
 
 But, referring to the former conditions of Mexico, it had travel- 
 ed so far in the wrong direction, was so profoundly demoralized 
 financially, politically and socially that, if left to itself, it would
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 9 
 
 probably have continued to go from bad to worse indefinitely. The 
 situation had become so acute that the people, however much they 
 might desire a change, were powerless to carry their wishes into 
 execution. The conditions demanded the genius of one man with 
 statesmanlike qualities of the highest order, with a will as stern 
 and inflexible as fate, and a resolute courage that never stopped 
 to calculate dangers when once his mind was made up. Fortun- 
 ately for Mexico, such a man came to the front in the person of 
 President Porfirio Diaz. If I were asked to name the greatest 
 statesman of all lands that the present generation has produced, 
 I should find no difficulty in placing this distinguished gentle- 
 man's name at the head of the list. Measured by what he has ac- 
 complished for his country, which should be the supreme test, he 
 easily leads them all. He found Mexico stricken and prostrate, 
 hurrying to utter anarchy and barbarism, a by-word of reproach 
 throughtout the civilized world. He has restored it to order, made 
 it respected abroad, given wealth and happiness to its people, and 
 started it on a career of progress, the future of which is limitless. 
 What other man is there today in public station who, in his de- 
 clining years, can look back on a life work of such splendid re- 
 sults?" 
 
 At Sea on Board S. S. Colon, ]\Iarch, 1901. 
 
 moM
 
 SECOND LETTER 
 
 HEN Porfirio Diaz 
 President of Mexico 
 
 twenty years ago, 
 
 strengthen on the 
 
 became 
 something 
 oyer twenty years ago, he was 
 Generally resrarded as another of 
 the executive figure-heads iset 
 up to be knocked down. It was 
 not long, however, before he fur- 
 nished evidence that he differed 
 in many respects from his pred- 
 ecessors. His first move was 
 central authority by remodeling 
 with those devoted to himself and 
 
 to 
 
 the army. He ofiicered it 
 introduced modern regulations that changed it from little better 
 than an undisciplined mob, as apt to fight on one side as another, 
 to a fairly efficient and reliable body of troops. Then he organ- 
 ized the rurales, a sort of mounted police on the Texas Ranger 
 plan, all composed of picked men, of tried courage, sure shots and 
 hard riders, who have developed into one of the most capable and 
 trustworthy constabularies to be found in the world. With these 
 adjuncts, his authority w'as fixed on a reasonably firm basis. Two 
 or three revolutions started up and he promptly crushed them 
 with a thoroughness and attention to detail that fairly took 
 people's breath away. The ringleaders were shot or banished and 
 after that, getting up a revolution was regarded as something 
 more serious than organizing a picnic party.
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 11 
 
 Then the President turned liis attention to another matter. 
 Mexico had long been cursed with a class of professional agitators 
 Avho never could rest easy under any form of government, who 
 Avere eternally stirring up internal strife and discord and who were 
 the only ones who profited by it. These were, as a rule, ex-gen- 
 erals under the old regime, soldiers of fortune and others who for 
 various reasons exercised considerable influence over larsre bodies 
 of the common people. Diaz justly determined that there was no 
 lasting peace for Mexico as long as these gentry remained in it, 
 and with him to determine was to act. He accomplished his pur- 
 pose as gently as possible, but where those methods failed never 
 hesitated to employ others. Some were deported outright, some 
 took advantage of a strong hint and left voluntarily; as for those 
 who elected to remain and brave the storm, some accident always 
 befell them that brought their careers to a close. 
 
 There is a story that I heard from one of the best known Ameri- 
 cans in Mexico, that will bear repeating in this connection. Three 
 generals of the unruly type, wearied of the humdrum life under 
 the new dispensation, had determined to run the chances and 
 start a revolution. They were busy on the plot, when Diaz was 
 apprised of their plans. Instantly he wrote an autograph letter 
 to each conspirator. They were identical in terms and ran to this 
 effect : That the President had long observed the devotion of 
 
 General to the welfare of Mexico. He had also observed 
 
 with deep concern that his close attention to public affairs was 
 undermining his health and he therefore suggested an indefinite 
 vacation in Europe, where the Executive trusted his vigor might 
 be restored. He furtlier advised that he depart at once, as delays 
 in such cases were dangerous. 
 
 One General skipped over the frontier as fast as his legs would 
 carry him. Another thought there might be some mistake about 
 it and wrote to the President that he was profoundly touched by 
 his allusion to the services he had rendered to Mexico; that the 
 letter, in fact, had caused him to shed tears, but a-s for his physical 
 condition, he wislied to inform His Excellency that it never was 
 more rugged and robust and that he needed no holiday. Diaz 
 answered briefly: "I am the sole judge of your health," on the
 
 12 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 receipt of which, the General became wise and followed his com- 
 panion with due diligence. As to the third, he chose to remain and 
 see what came of it — and he saw. A short time after, while riding 
 over his plantation, he was set upon by masked men and shot to 
 death. Whether they were bandits or private enemies, or secret em- 
 issaries of the government, no one ever knew, nor was the inquiry 
 very searching. But it is certain that the General troubled Mex- 
 ico no more. Of course I do not vouch for the truthfulness of this 
 story. I merely give it for what it is worth. However it may be, 
 the revolution industry soon became regarded as so extra-hazard- 
 ous that no one cared to embark in it. 
 
 That being settled, President Diaz next turned his attention to 
 the suppression of the bandits and freebooters who terrorized the 
 open country and smaller towns. The individuals comprising the 
 principal bands were well known and they were legally declared 
 outlaws and detachments of troops and rurales were detailed tO' 
 hunt them dowai and destroy them wherever found. This was 
 something over fifteen years ago. At first the work proceeded 
 slowly, for many of the poorer people in the smaller towns were 
 in sympathy with the bandits, supplied them with food and ad- 
 vised them of the movements of their pursuers. This condition 
 of things w^as fatal to success on a large scale and the government 
 finally decreed that any who, under any conditions, gave assist- 
 ance to bandits, should themselves come under the outlaw cate- 
 gory and be subject to summary execution. The rule was enforced 
 with unflinching severity. Whenever it was known that robbers- 
 had visited a village and been hospitably received, in a short time 
 a column of troops also made a social call, found out as near as 
 possible who the sympathizers were and promptly lined them up 
 and shot them. Thousands were executed in that way and there 
 is little doubt that many innocent men lost their lives. It is a 
 bloody story that you hear of those times, but all seems to agree 
 that it was the only medicine to work a permanent and speedy 
 cure. The facts speak for themselves. The fear of God was in- 
 stilled into the hearts of the populace and all connections between 
 the bandits and the outside world was broken up at once. Con- 
 fined to their mountain fastnesses, the outlaws were given no rest
 
 A GLiMt'Sii: OF OLD MEXICO 13 
 
 or mercy. One by one, they were hunted down to their death and 
 It is many years ago smce the last of them paid the penalty of his 
 crimes. Today i should consider Mexico one of the safest coun- 
 tries to travel through in unlrequeiited regions on the North 
 .Vmerican continent. 1 here are two good reasons for this : First, 
 because nearly all the bad men have been killed oft ; secondly, be- 
 cause the punishment is so unerring and terrible that to embark 
 in the highwayman's trade is equivalent to constructive suicide, 
 i^or any oltense of that character, there is no trial. If a man is 
 guilty, they waste no turther time over his case and his promising 
 career is nipped in the bud by a hie of soldiers. 
 
 Let me give a couple of illustrations showing the prompt oper- 
 ation of justice, and the general security of the country: 
 
 The last hold-up in the State of Sinaloa occurred about seven 
 years ago. An Englishman and native attendant were traveling 
 through the mountains, when they were set upon by robbers. The 
 attendant was shot dead and the Englishman received a wound 
 in the tieshy part of the leg, which little mishap, however, rather 
 augmented than diminished his powers of speed, and he made good 
 his escape. News of the outrage was sent down by telephone to 
 Culiacan, the capitol of Sinaloa, and the Governor of the State at 
 once called up the Prefect of the district in which the crime took 
 place, and briefly notified him that the ends of justice demanded 
 that the oft'ense should be punished within forty-eight hours. 
 This was rather close figuring, but within the time mentioned, the 
 Prefect reported to his Excellency that he had the honor to in- 
 form him that the robbers had been captured with the evidences 
 of guilt in their possession, and it gave him pleasure to add that 
 he had at once shot them. 
 
 Again, the town of San Dimas, in the State of Durango, is a 
 center for several important mines. Every now and then, bullion 
 trains are made up there for shipment to Mazatlan. The value of 
 these, for the several companies concerned, is often enormous, 
 reaching into hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yet these trains 
 are sent down to the sea, through one of the wildest regions on 
 earth, either unguarded entirely, or perhaps with a man with a pot 
 metal gun in his pocket as a convoy. They are practically turned
 
 14 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 over to the peon muleteers, and no one dreams of the trains being 
 molested. 1 do not wish to run down my own great btate ot Cal- 
 ifornia, but such a thing could not be done there, ii it were known 
 there that a vast bullion train was coming down trom the moun- 
 tains unguarded, some of our capitalists would be tormmg syndi- 
 cates to hold it up. 
 
 •'i1ie pacification of the country being completed, the President 
 next diverted his energy to other questions of hardly less import- 
 ance. Previous to this time, there had been scarcely an attempt 
 made to educate the masses and at least eighty-five per cent, of 
 the population was absolutely illiterate. Mr. Diaz determined 
 that education should be an exclusive governmental function, and 
 should be compulsory m its nature, without which provision httle 
 could have been accomplished. This system was modeled largely 
 after that of the United States, including normal schools for the 
 training of teachers, and has proved a triumphant success. You 
 find school houses dotted all through Mexico today, well supplied 
 with modern text books and apparatus, crowded with attentive 
 children, over whom dark-haired Minervas rule with the same 
 dignity and grace with vv'hich our own blonde school marms have 
 made us familiar. I think this wide-spread education of the 
 masses is one of the most hopeful facts about Mexico today. And 
 wh'^n we judge its common people as they have been and still are 
 in the older generation, and criticise their poverty, ignorance and 
 inclination never to do today what can be put off till tomorrow, 
 just think in fairness what kind of a chance they have had in life 
 until President Diaz came upon the scene. Remember that for 
 four centuries they have been down-trodden, looted and perse- 
 cuted till every spark of ambition and hope had been seared out 
 of their souls. Remember that during all that weary period they 
 have lived in a dense ignorance, into which no ray of light pene- 
 trated, and that for them all the triumphs of civilization have been 
 but a closed book. Remember this, and you ought to find less 
 cause to wonder that the peon classes are apathetic and unpro- 
 gressive. I am confident that the rising generation, the boys and 
 girls now enjoying the advantages of education and the discipHne 
 of school, will be very different from the one that is passing off 
 the scene. 
 
 At Sea on Board the S. S. Colon, March, 1901,
 
 THIRD LETTER 
 
 FTER President Diaz at length 
 found himself in complete con- 
 trol, and at the head of a well or- 
 ganized and settled government, 
 the largest task of his statesman- 
 ship still remained to be accom- 
 M'^^i^'^gj^^t^^ ^^ plished. For ^Mexico, notwith- 
 V^-^JnKlsM\i\ ^^ standing its vast resources, was 
 p Vv^ 4^ uBH desperately poor and entirely 
 
 ■^^^^■^^^^■■^ without those modern adjuncts 
 
 of business and commerce that make progress on a large scale 
 possible. The first step was to arrange the fiscal system along new 
 lines. The old plan had been a merciless form of exaction from 
 the poor, and prohibitive imposts on industry and enterprise, with 
 an almost complete exemption of the favored classes. All this 
 was transformed. I cannot give here a complete exposition of the 
 fiscal S3-stem of the country, partly because space will not permit, 
 and partly because my somewhat imperfect knowledge might 
 lead me into mistatements. But, from all I can gather, it is 
 founded on principles of justice and enlightened common sense, 
 and admirably suited to promote the success of nascent industries. 
 The main sources of revenue are tariff duties on foreign imports, 
 internal revenue and stamj) taxes and what amounts, in effect, to 
 an income tax. As to the latter, it is laid this way : If a nmchero
 
 16 A GLBIPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 is engaged in cattle raising, he pays no taxes on his herd as long 
 as they remain on the range. But when he drives them to r.iarket 
 and sells them, he pays the government a fixed percentage on the 
 transaction, and the butcher who kills them and markets the meat 
 also pays so much per carcass. This certainly had the effect of 
 stimulating the business of cattle raising, for in the early stages, 
 the owner is not crushed with taxes, and when the time does come 
 to pay, the money is there to meet the demand. Similarly in 
 mining. During development work, you pay the government 
 only a tax that is purely nominal. When your mill begins to run, 
 however, you pay a very modest royalty on the bullion produced 
 — about one-fifth of what is demanded by the Canadian govern- 
 ment from the Klondike miners — and if for any cause production 
 ceases, taxation ceases also. I take the word of resident foreign- 
 ers for it that the system, as a whole, is as wise and equitable as 
 prevails in any civilized country. And it has yielded ample reve- 
 nues as well. From being bankrupt nationally Mexico has re- 
 deemed herself, and its credit now stands high. Large surpluses 
 have been devoted to public improvements. Among the most 
 notable of these may be mentioned the construction of a complete 
 government telegraph system, reaching to every village of three 
 or four hundred souls, and a telephone system extending to prin- 
 cipal points under control of the several states. The service 
 charges fixed by the government are absurdly low; yet they are, 
 nevertheless, revenue producers. If anyone wants an object les- 
 son, illustrating how the telegraph and telephone companies 
 squeeze us in the United States, all he needs is to compare their 
 rates with those of Mexico. 
 
 The country was too poor to enter upon the vast expense of 
 constructing railways. The President, therefore entered into nego- 
 tiations with foreign capitalists, principally those of America and 
 England, which resulted in the granting of many concessions, or 
 franchises. Thousands of miles of railroad were constructed by 
 the various companies, immense territories opened up and a cor- 
 responding impulse give nto business. As I understand it, a com- 
 mission of experts, appointed by the government, fixes a sched- 
 ule of fares and freights, subject to modification as conditions
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 17 
 
 change, which is incorporated in the concession and must be ac- 
 cepted by those seeking to do business. The rates allow a reason- 
 able return on capital invested, and no more, yet that does not 
 seem to have discouraged railway constructing. Among other 
 things, every company is required to attach second and third 
 class coaches to their trains, on which the fares are extremely low. 
 The Diaz government has also held out many important in- 
 ducements to encourage foreign capital and skill to engage in 
 manufacturing industries, as well as to inspire native ambition 
 in that line. In this, the demonetization of silver by nearly all 
 important countries has contributed an enormous impulse. Mex- 
 ico, a silver country, found the rate of exchange so greatly against 
 it abroad that it could no longer afford to purchase extensively in 
 foreign markets. It formed a barrier stronger than any tariff 
 wall, and the question was simply for the people to manufacture 
 for themselves, or go without. This stern necessity, stimulated 
 further by the influx of foreign capital and mechanical skill from 
 without, has worked wonders. This country, that a few years 
 ago relied almost entirelv on the external world for evervthing it 
 used outside of raw materials, is now very nearly commercially in- 
 dependent and is striding ahead rapidly as the necessity to supply 
 its own wants stimulates demand. It has modern plants to turn 
 out all classes of textiles — such as cotton, woolen and silk goods 
 — great foundries that are skillfully managed and furnish an ex- 
 cellent product, boot and shoe factories, breweries, machine 
 shops, flour mills, and I don't know what not. There are verv few 
 manufacturing industries, in short, that are prosecuted in the 
 United States extensively that are not carried on, to some extent 
 in Mexico. The profits are said to be very large, which is easily 
 credible, considering the cheapness of labor and the important in- 
 ducements which the government holds out. Foreign enterprise 
 and capital first exploited this field, but native Mexicans are now 
 turning their attention to it. The country is generallv jM'osper- 
 ous, wealth is accumulating fast, and it is a kind of wealth that 
 stays at home. Xo one will take it al)roa(l for in\cstment or 
 travel, for it shrinks b\ half as soon as it crosses the border. 
 Therefore, the holders of it are eagerly seeking new avenues for
 
 18 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 putting it to useful account, and generally find the most certain 
 returns in some of the constantly expanding enterprises of manu- 
 facture. 
 
 The greatest need of ]\Iexico today is a general system of roads 
 and highways. These are now wretchedly inadequate. I have 
 seen no good roads in the country, and even the miserable tracks 
 laid out here and there are few and far between. Practically the 
 entire internal commerce, away from the railroad lines is carried 
 on by mule and burro pack trains, a most imperfect, expensive 
 and vexatious substitute for teaming. The productive powers of 
 the country can never be fully developed until this condition of 
 things is changed. I understand that it is the ambition of Presi- 
 dent Diaz to close the record of his great career by making at 
 least a start in this direction, and that there are now under con- 
 sideration plans for constructing several great public highways, 
 to constitute the main arteries from which the lesser ones will radi- 
 ate. ^^'hen this is accomplished, and the miseries of mule transpor- 
 tation become a thing of the past, Mexico will assuredly strike 
 ahead at a pace that will astonish the world. 
 
 1 am nearly through with this end of the subject, but one thing 
 more should be said, in fairness. There is still a general impres- 
 sion abroad that the lesser Mexican officials are hopelessly cor- 
 rupt, and that in order to get along at all, one must submit to an 
 interminable system of blackmail, Setting aside my own per- 
 sonal experience to the contrary, here again I submit the univer- 
 sal testimony of foreigners I have met, that this is not so. The very 
 nature of the appointment of these officials makes such a state of 
 affairs impossible. All the district and municipal officials hold 
 their commissions from the Governors of the States, and at their 
 pleasure. They are selected with care, and are held strictly ac- 
 countable to the Executive for their acts, and an appeal always 
 lies to him. Under these circumstances, wholesale crookedness 
 could hardly exist. It could not fail of detection, and summary 
 removal inmiediately follows that. . And removal from office is the 
 crowning disgrace that can befall a Mexican. He is branded 
 thenceforth as " a man without shame," and the poorest of his 
 countrvmen avoids him.
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 19 
 
 I have endeavored, in an off-hand way, to show how Mexico 
 has passed from old to new ; how a moribund nation, through the 
 genius of a single man, has risen from the very throes of death 
 and taken its place, with a fresh lease of life, by the side of its 
 vigorous fellows. The status of its government today is anoma- 
 lous. We speak of the Republic of Mexico, but it is a misuse of 
 terms, for it is nothing of the kind, though all the forms remain 
 and the essentials of liberty. The government represents, in fact, 
 the supreme will of an enlightened statesman, who has only the 
 welfare of his country at heart. He runs the whole machine, se- 
 lects governors, judges and legislatures, and whatever he says 
 goes. They have elections still, but the way they are conducted 
 is enough to make a cat laugh. They arrange weeks beforehand 
 just what vote a candidate is to receive in each precinct, and can 
 figure out for you the final result to a nicety. Mr. Richard Croker 
 is the merest novice alongside of these Mexican experts. This 
 seems monstrous, but it works well, is generally accepted, and 
 what more can one ask? The explanation given is that the peo- 
 ple are not ready for complete self-government, that with three- 
 fourths of the electors illiterate and ignorant, it would be to in- 
 vite destruction to place the destiny of government completely 
 in their hands. But it is also claimed that their rights are onlv 
 withheld for the present, and that when, with education and prog- 
 ress, they develop to the proper intellectual and moral standard 
 of citizenship, they will be accorded the full powers guaranteed by 
 the Mexican constitution. 
 
 \y\\\ the government survive the death of Diaz? That is a 
 question often asked. Some believe that the structure reared by 
 his genius will fall asunder when his strong hand is no longer at 
 the helm. I think otherwise. Mexicans, of all classes, have too 
 sharp a recollection of former miseries to ever court a like experi- 
 ence, and will gladly concede to the successor of Diaz the same 
 general powers that the great President has so wisely exercised. 
 It is said that this successor has already been selected and has been 
 trained for future honors for many years.
 
 20 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 1 
 
 Our voyage from San Francisco southward has been barren of 
 startHng incidents, nothing noteworthy save the sharp change in 
 cHmatic conditions. When one sails southward from the Golden 
 Gate, it is natural to expect summer skies and balmy breezes all 
 the way down the coast, but they do not materialize at the out- 
 set. On the contrary, the farther south you go the chillier is the 
 weather and the more dismal the everlasting fog. But just as you 
 begin to think that some mistake has been made and that you are 
 certainly approaching the polar regions, one morning you come 
 on deck to find the sun shining with dazzling brightness, the air 
 warm and generous and everything lovely. Then the luxury of 
 the trip begins. The days are fine enough for anyone but the 
 nights are so gorgeous that it seems a sin to go to bed. At such 
 a time, to istretch yourself on an easy steamer chair and look out 
 on the phosphorescent sea while the breeze, soft as the touch of 
 a mother's hand, sobs through your whiskers, is as near heaven 
 as I ever expect to get in this world of imperfect joys. Like most 
 of those who have begun to descend the hill of life, my habits of 
 thought are changing. I look backward rather than ahead. I 
 prefer to remember rather than to anticipate. And more than 
 once, under the humanizing influence of a square meal and a 
 bunch of good cigars. I have whiled away the night, recalling by- 
 gone days, listening to the sound of voices that long ago were 
 hushed forever and hearing the music of songs that will never be 
 sung again, till the first faint streak of dawn glimmered beyond 
 the headland of Mexico. 
 
 The glory of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company has de- 
 parted. Time was when this line transacted by far the largest 
 passenger business in the world, when every ship was loaded down 
 to the guards and it was necessary to engage passage a couple 
 of months ahead. There is plenty of room, now, however, for 
 anyone who wants to travel this way. There are barely seven of 
 us on this big ship and the steamer before carried just one lone- 
 some passenger. Thus has the competition of transcontinental 
 roads destroyed this once enormous business. But, if few in num- 
 ber, we make up for it in being very select. In the list is an 
 elderly gentleman whose name, Prof. , is famous the world
 
 A GLIMP8E OF OLD MEXICO 21 
 
 over as a metallurgist, mining" expert and scientist, a surgeon in 
 the United States Xavy on the way to join his ship at Acapulco, 
 a very companionable gentleman like most of his profession, a 
 lady who cut a conspicuous figure in society in the days that are 
 gone, and a rather talented, though highly erratic Englishman 
 accompanied by his wife, my nephew and myself completing the 
 seven. 
 
 The smoking room has been the common rallying place for the 
 men. The Englishman was perpetually endeavoring to get the 
 Professor into an argiunent, to which the latter was not averse. 
 The Briton as a rwle advanced the most astounding theories that 
 one ever heard of, and the Professor with his clean-cut reasoning, 
 tumbled ther-' over in great shape, but his antagonist was not a 
 man to be easily silenced. He had read extensively, had the term-- 
 inology of science at his finger's end and when cornered, had a 
 most ingenious facultv for wriggling out of logical dilenmias, to 
 the evident irritation of the other. One day the two had been at 
 It hammer and tongs, the Englishman contending that it was per- 
 fectly feasil)le to make gold out of anv old thiuij. The air was 
 thick with molecular attraction, atomic forces and the like, the 
 de])ate ending with considerable warmth on both sides and we 
 walked out on the deck to cool of¥. A seagidl swept by with out- 
 stretched, motionless wings, passing the .ship on its onward course 
 as though it had been standing still. *' Look at that bird," said 
 the Englishman. " speeding along at the rate of forty or fifty 
 miles an hour without any effort that the eye can detect. It 
 seems to me that common sense should teach us that the accepted 
 mechanical explanation of flight is utterly erroneous. My own 
 theory is that in the anatomy of Ijirds there resides a subtle 
 electrical or rather magneto-electrical force and that " 
 
 Here the old ])rofessor doul)led u]) as if some one had smote 
 him in the solar ]:»lcxu-s. " Excuse me, gentlemen." hg said. " I 
 am not feeling well," and staggered off to his (juarters. His 
 voice was not heard again in our smoking room del)ates. 
 
 We are off Cape St. Ivucas this afternoon. Tomorrow T will 
 ascenrl witli dignity to the hurricane deck of a nuile and strike 
 out for the tall mountains, from which a stream of gold and silver
 
 22 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 has flowed for centuries to the sea. You wiU hear from me anon. 
 I win try to tell you something about mining and agriculture in 
 Mexico, about the people and their customs and such wayside 
 gossip as the journey may suggest. Adios, amigos.
 
 FOURTH L E T T E E 
 
 
 E arrived at San Dimas last night 
 and are now resting beneath the 
 ever hospitable roof of Don 
 Daniel Burns. Here, in the 
 throl~)bing heart of his great in- 
 dustries, amid flying wheels and 
 the sound of grinding rock, the 
 noted Californian has made an 
 American home, presided over 
 by that kindest and best of la- 
 dies, his wife. Here, day by day, with his wonderful genius for 
 organization, he handles the details of an immense and compli- 
 cated business with as much ease as you or I manage a dollar 
 transaction. 
 
 Some time ago, I took the same journey from the sea to San 
 Dimas. and if the truth must be told, it very nearly saw my finish. 
 I had not then bestridden a horse, to say nothing about a mule, 
 for thirteen or fourteen years, and the sudden experience of rid- 
 ing some forty miles a day over a rough mountain trail was al- 
 most too much for flesh and blood. Every nerve, muscle and 
 fibre throbbed like a jumping toothache, and the highest descrip- 
 tive talent the world has seen could not have conveyed even an 
 idea of my misery. I faced the ordeal of a second trip with no or- 
 dinary trepidation, but 1 have gone tlu'ougb it without an}- diffi-
 
 24 
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 ciilty beyond the purely trifling inconveniences of roughing it, 
 and reached San Dimas as fresh as a daisy. The same is true of 
 my nephew, Harry Wilkins. But there was one member of our 
 Httle party who fared otherwise. My nephew, against my earnest 
 protest, brought with him a setter dog called Dewey, well known 
 in San Rafael. Dewey's trials w^ere many and various. On the 
 voyage to Mazatlin, he was seasick, homesick and sick otherwise, 
 and testified his disapproval of the proceedings by doleful lamen- 
 tation, to the unmeasured discomfort of the steerage passengers. 
 
 Col. D. M. Barns. The Most Successful American Miner of Mexico. 
 
 His first exploit on the trail was an attempt to jump a cactus 
 fence, from which he emerged with more stickers in his hide than 
 a porcupine. The new forms of animal life, also, nearly made him 
 idiotic. He tried ever so hard to get down to business, flushed 
 an iguana, an interesting lizard about six feet long and doubtless 
 would have come to a stand at a caiman or alligator, if one had
 
 A (iLlMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 25 
 
 happened alont;-. Then he liecome footsore and traveled most of 
 the time on tliree legs, holding' one in reserve for emergencies. 
 He wilted under the severe heat till he had not energy enough left 
 to raise his tail, and if it had not l)een for numerous water holes 
 alonof the trail, caused bv recent rains, his bones would now be 
 adorning the landscape of Mexico. But that was not all. Every 
 house along the trail and every pack train swarmed with native 
 dogs. These are the most wretched looking and odious curs that 
 the eve of man ever rested on. If you were to compare them in 
 appearance to a coyote, the coyote could justly accuse you of 
 throwing mud. And their disposition is on a par with their looks. 
 Xaturallv. they regarded the opportunity to chew up a dude setter 
 as a kind of a windfall never to be overlooked and attacked our 
 poor quadruped in numbers at every turn of the trail. Now, Dewey 
 in his far-away home, showed none of the warlike characteristics 
 of the great admiral. His ways were distinctively those of peace. 
 But when he found himself assailed in a foreign land, without just 
 cause, he defended the dignity and honor of the American dog 
 with a spirit and gallantry that would have filled his illustrious 
 namesake's heart with pride. Though beset l)y overwhelming 
 odds, he proved \-ictorious in many sanguinary battles, and soon, 
 encouraged by uniform success, and further by discovering that 
 there was not mucli fight in his opponents anyhow, he took to 
 charging the enemy with the utmost abandon, without waiting 
 for overt acts. After that, his troubles with the curs were at an 
 end. If Dewey ever returns to the United States, he will have lots 
 to tell the gringo dogs about his travels in Mexico, and will doubt- 
 less become a canine Sinbad the Sailor among them. 
 
 Still, while we got through the long mule ride in excellent 
 shape, nc\crtheless, this kind of tra\eling in Mexico is not the 
 same. b\' an\- means, as touring in a limited train. I can give sev- 
 eral valuable ])ieces of advice to any who may follow in my foot- 
 steps. In the first ])lace, take a well-stocked grub box with you 
 from the coast. The food sujjplx- is not abundant along the way 
 and not always agreeable to an unseasoned palate. Take also a 
 shrjt gun. for the countr\- abounrls with small game of all descrip- 
 tions; (|uail, do\-es, wild ])igeons and a grouse called (jueche — a
 
 26 
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 noble table bird. You can easily kill all the game you want with- 
 out leaving the trail. Then, by all means, have one of the patent 
 cots that fold up into a compass not much greater than a fishing 
 pole. Insect life is rather mmierous in Mexico, and if you sleep 
 on the ground, you may have cause to lament it. We went one 
 step furthur — we brought mattresses. This was a concession to 
 the solicitude of female members of the family, but I am willing 
 to testify that the idea is not half bad. But those mattresses cre- 
 ated a sensation along the trail that has hardly subsided vet. Wise 
 gringos usually have cots in their travels hereabouts, but I am 
 
 Mountains Around San Dimas. 
 ■certain that no mattresses had ever penetrated those parts before. 
 More than once they were on exhibition before large and appre- 
 ciative audiences of muleteers and resident peons, who expressed 
 their wonderment variously. One said "They must be very rich." 
 Another old sage and philosopher remarked, "If they go to sleep 
 on those soft things they will never wake up," and so on down the 
 line. 
 
 Also, do not allow any weak prejudice to stand in the way of
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 27 
 
 choosing a mule as a saddle animal. A mule is not a thing of 
 beauty, neither is its character loveable but you can rely on it to 
 carry you safely over ticklish places in the mountains when a horse 
 would be a mighty uncertain support. A mule never loses its 
 presence of mind, never is disturbed at trifles and has no inclina- 
 tion to be sensational under any circumstances. A horse in apt 
 to shy at a moving leaf or take a mad plunge at the sight of a 
 lizard crossing the trail and is liable to do this when his indiscre- 
 tion may drop you and him a matter of five hundred feet or there- 
 abouts. Then a mule always knowiS where he can go safely, and 
 when his instinct tells him there is danger no human power can 
 move him on. He simply plants his four good feet emphatically 
 and nothing short of a convulsion of nature can budge him, 
 whereas if you apply a whip and spur to a horse, you can force him 
 to go anywhere, even to destruction itself. Alules have one little 
 habit that keeps the tenderfoot's heart in a flutter until he under- 
 stands and gets used to it. The trails are very narrow and the 
 projecting burdens of the pack animals touch the steep hillsides 
 and compel them to travel a few inches from the margin, which 
 every now and then overlooks a yawning abyss. Now the mule is 
 a great deductive reasoner and he seems to conclude that where 
 others of his kind have gone, there he can go likewise and that the 
 safest rule anyhow is to follow usage. So the saddle mule persists 
 in traveling on the extreme outer edge of the trail, like his breth- 
 ren of the pack train, and when you come to one of those dizzy 
 precipices \ery common in the mountains, it makes you gasp for 
 breath to look down. But it is a waste of time to attempt to make 
 him hug the bank. You may jerk him in, but he promptly sidles 
 out again, with head depressed and melancholy air, as if meditat- 
 ing suicide, for which he always has ample cause. Tt looks horrible 
 but you are really just as safe as in your rocking chair at home 
 and after a day or so it ceases to worry. 
 
 Then, you must allow for the fact that a mule is a marvelous 
 character reader and will ascertain your weaknesses in no time. It 
 seemed to me as if all the mules in ^Mexico had me sized u]) right. 
 They understood perfectly that T had a chicken hearted disposi- 
 tion anrl didn't liave the nprvc to ])unch holes in llu'ir liides with
 
 28 
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 the cruel spurs that I wore, and therefore that they could loaf 
 along- with me pretty much as they pleased. In consequence I 
 always used to be four or five miles behind the last man in the pro- 
 cession and considered myself lucky if I got into camp at all. But 
 one day I happened to be a little short tempered and my mule 
 more than commonly preverse and with a sudden impulse I drove 
 an inch of steel into both sides of him, supplementing the same 
 with half a dozen wallops with a small sized cat-o-nine-tails I 
 carried. A dispensation from above could not have worked a 
 greater change. There wasn't a more ambitious animal than mine 
 
 San Dimas Creek and Glimpse of San Dimas. 
 
 on the trail that day and for fear the tonic would wear out, I re- 
 peated the dose the next morning. I have got along with mules 
 very well ever since. 
 
 It seems a little uncanny, at first, to have dusky shadows, 
 swathed in red scrapes, flitting noiselessy around your camp as the 
 night falls, but a little experience soon reassures. These people are 
 absolutely harmless, and such a thing as petty theft is almost un- 
 known, especially so far as the foreigners are concerned. After
 
 A OLBIPkSE of old MEXICO 29 
 
 considerable inquiry, I can hear of no instance of camp being 
 robbed while its owner slept. This is the more surprising and 
 commendable, because the plunder of a well-equipped outfit 
 would represent incalculable wealth. And I want to add this — 
 that so far as my experience of mankind goes, you can find more 
 absolute happiness among the peon classes of Mexico than among 
 any other people on the earth. There is no such thing as true 
 happiness in America, for no matter how much you have, you al- 
 Avays want something more. There, it is an endless chain of dis- 
 appointed hopes, ambitions unfilled, of heart-burnings and jeal- 
 ousies, and the sundering of friendship because of them. You 
 may enjoy any amount of decent prosperity, but there is always 
 that infernal fellow ahead who wears better clothes, has more 
 money, owns a later style of automible, succeeds better in politics, 
 or moves in a higher social circle, on whom your ever-restless eyes 
 are fixed. But the peons are all on the same plane, know only the 
 one life, and it suits them. Beyond its circumscribed boundaries, 
 they ha\'e no ambition. They perform their day's work — and here 
 in the mountains it is an honest one — and expect from it only a 
 livelihood. Apart from that, they love to gossip and are passion- 
 ately fond of music and dancing. With these amusements, access- 
 ible to all, the leisure hours are never irksome, and they ask no 
 more. Among them, too, you find the epicurean philosophy in 
 all its purity. They live absolutely for the present, make the most 
 of the fairweather end of existence and let the future take care of 
 itself. Tf you want to make a peon mad through and through, 
 you can pursue no l>etter course than to exhort him to save his 
 wages. He thinks you are coxertly trying to induce him to com- 
 mit a crime against his family and himself. "No, senor,"he will 
 reply, "if I have money, I will put food in my istomach and clothes 
 on my back. I am here toda}'. but tomorrow I do not know where 
 I will be While 1 live, 1 will have the best I can buy." And I am 
 not so very sure that there is not as much wisdom in the peon's 
 j/nilosophy as may be found in the lives of thousands of Ameri- 
 cans, who deliberately dei)rive themselves and families of every 
 comfort and luinian cnjoynirin in order to ])ile u]) fortunes that 
 they must ultimatel\- leave behind to uKJck them as the grav«* 
 closes o\'er their endeavors.
 
 30 
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 San Dimas is a brisk little mining town of the old Spanish type, 
 bnilt on the spnr of the mountain on which the great Candaleria 
 Mine is located. Its day of glory was doubtless about one hun- 
 dred and fifty years ago when the principal veins were first 
 
 Okl Well of Hacienda Balurte. 
 
 opened and the \'ast ruins of ancient works show the magnitude 
 of the operations. The old Spaniards builded not for a day Init for 
 centuries and time deals gently with their monuments, even 
 though human care and labor were withdrawn long ago. Their 
 aqueducts in this district are still in perfect preservation. The 
 walls of the principals buildings stand intact and will continue to 
 do so for many a year to come, though the tile roofs have fallen. 
 The great Hacienda Baluarte. in particular, is a magnificent spec- 
 imen of masonry and as you stand within its court, in the shade of 
 mighty orange trees, a century and a half old, you can almost re- 
 construct in fancy the ancient times. They had some forgotten 
 formula for preparing lime for building purposes, for it hardens 
 with aee till it becomes infinitelv more resistent than the masonry 
 
 Its 
 
 it binds 
 
 Twenty years ago San Dimas was on its last legs.
 
 A (;L1MP^^E OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 3t 
 
 mining industrv seemed exliausted and the scant population was 
 preparing for a clean up and departure when Col. Burns, needy 
 and unknown, but full of the enterprise that -tells, appeared upon 
 the scene. His genius or luck, whichever you choose to call it, 
 brought the Candelaria again to the front, likewise the Contra 
 Estaca and El Pilar which had been forgotten for a century. Then 
 other capitalists followed in his footsteps, opened up promising 
 properties and now the outlook is that San Dimas will soon be- 
 come perhaps the most important mining camp in Mexico. 
 
 The town is in the heart of a rugged mountain range, with 
 many impressive peaks in the neighborhood, though the land- 
 scape has a stern aspect from being sparsely timbered. It is just 
 outside the great coniferous timber belt of the Sierra Madre,. 
 
 Col. Hums' Favorite Corner, whore he Overlooks and nirects an lia- 
 
 niense Inrlustry. 
 
 which begins onl\- four or five miles to the eastward.
 
 :i2 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 When I commenced to write this letter today, it was my inten- 
 tion to devote it to a brief description of the great mining industry 
 of ]\Iexico. But I rambled on from one subject to another until 
 I had about reached the limit that the acting Editor would stand, 
 and to give even the merest outline of the mining industry here 
 will require at least one letter by itself. But, if not that at present, 
 I can at least relate something of a mining man, famous in the two 
 republics, that will be of interest to many people in California. 
 The presence of Col. D. M. Burns in San Francisco had been 
 eagerly sought for two wxeks before I left, to adjust matters of 
 momentous consequence. Telegrams of wild entreaty were sent 
 by the political chieftains of California to San Dimas, but still the 
 Colonel came not, and many were the surmises as to the reasons 
 therefor. The last rumor I heard had it that he was sick unto 
 death and could not be moved. Well, the gentleman was never 
 better in his life, nor in finer spirits. The old Candelaria mine, 
 which he loves better than politics, or horse racing, or senator- 
 ships, is again on the boom and is turning out ore from several 
 new developements that would make your heart sick to think you 
 did not own it. If the mine was in California, the daily papers 
 would be publishing columns about this marvelous strike, and 
 hundred of miners would be prospecting the country for miles 
 around. But here in Mexico, such things pass for nothing. They 
 merely say, "Yes, the Colonel is very fortunate," and so dismiss 
 the incident. But the grading is going on for a new forty-stamp 
 mill, and when it begins to run, the output of the Candeleria will 
 astonish the world. That's why Colonel Burns is here, and reso- 
 lutely persists in letting the other fellows walk the floor. He has 
 his business eye on probably the biggest thing that ever came his 
 way during his eventful career. 
 
 San Dimas, State of Durango, Mexico, March 12, 1901.
 
 FIFTH T. F T T E K 
 
 ERHAPS a word here about the people 
 of Mexico as I have observed them may 
 be of interest. When I speak of the peo- 
 ple, I do not refer to the high caste 
 group of wealthy, educated and refined 
 men and Avomen. These you can find in 
 every civilized country and they are 
 very much the same the world over. 
 But while they may influence, they are 
 
 not the ones that make a nation. If you wish to examine the po- 
 tential forces on which the future of a race depends, you must get 
 well down among the masses and see of what stuff they are made. 
 They supply the creative power, they make a community rich or 
 poor, progressive or unprogressive, ambitious or sluggard. Car- 
 negie. Rockefeller. \'anderbilt and Pierrepont Morgan never 
 would have amounted to a row of pins by themselves. They have 
 piled up their hundreds of millions simply and solely because of 
 the genius and splendid energy of the American people, whic'i 
 they had the organizing a1)iHty to take advantage of. Amonsy 
 a race of loafers, they would have had to skirmish to make their 
 daily bread. 
 
 In the great mass of Mexican people, the Indian stock i)re- 
 dominates. 1 should say that at least three-quarters of their an-
 
 34 
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 cestry could be traced back to the aboriginal populations of the 
 country. But it must be remembered, in the first place, that the 
 Mexican Indians were of a far higher type intellectually than ♦^he 
 nomads of the north, that they had a written language, had solved 
 many astronomical problems, were expert builders, had a regu- 
 larly organized government and in short, had traveled far on the 
 road to a high civilization. How sturdy the stock was, is best il- 
 lustrated by the fact that their descendants are here today. Fol- 
 lowing the Spanish conc[uest, after the natives had been made duly 
 
 Scene in Humble Life. 
 
 aware of the priceless blessings of Christianity, they were (li\ide'i
 
 A OLniPSE OF OLD :\[EXICO 35 
 
 into "repartimientos." or allotments, and assigned to the various 
 conquerors wlio liappened to have a pull. Then they were duly 
 branded on the cheek to locate their ownership and became chat- 
 tels of masters who exercised over them the absolute right of life 
 or death. The greater number of them were sent to work in the 
 mines, the remainder being employed to raise corn for their food 
 and to pack it into the mountains. The miners passed practically 
 their whole lives in the damp underground workings, to prevent 
 attempts to escape. I have seen in an old mine the niches cut in the 
 rock walls, where they slept. It was as rigorous a form of slavery 
 as ever existed and in most parts of the Americas the native races 
 crumbled under it to dust. Less than fifty years of the system 
 practically exterminated the once teeming aboriginal population 
 of the West Indies. After a hundred years, in Chile and Peru there 
 remamed not more than one-fifteenth of the estimated population 
 at the time of the conquest. The Mexican slaves alone survived 
 and when freedom came at length early in the present c6ntury, 
 they were if anything more numerous than when Cortez and his 
 followers landed in their country. So, physically, at least, they 
 must have possessed the rugged type that goes with a survival of 
 the fittest. 
 
 Even when liberty was given them, it seemed as though they 
 had gained nothing by the change. Under their Spanish masters, 
 they had at least some protection from outside foes, just as any 
 valuable chattel is guarded. During the stormy half century suc- 
 ceeding Mexican independence even this was withdrawn. In that 
 distracted period, with revolutions occuring every few months and 
 the country swarming with free-booters, outlawis and desperadoes, 
 the helpless people suffered even more severely than in the days of 
 bondage, for the population of Mexico decreased rapidly, the loss 
 being estimated variously at from two to five millions. 
 
 .And in their contact with European civilization, the native 
 races acquired nothing worthy of mention. Their christianitv is 
 still little better than a superstition, founded, not on a belief in 
 God's infinite love and mercy but on the dread of what He mav do 
 if He gets mad. Not the slightest effort was made to educate them 
 and it is perfectl}' safe to say that twenty-five years ago not one in
 
 36 
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 a thousand was able to read or write. In no sense was their con- 
 dition improved. Cortez found the native races clad in cotton fab- 
 rics and cotton is the dress of the lower orders to this day. They 
 used the most primitive agricultural implements — a sharp stick to 
 make holes in which seeds were deposited, a wooden spade and 
 sometimes a wooden plough — and these are still employed in 
 many parts of Mexico, though in other sections modern appli- 
 ances have replaced them. Even their food has been modified 
 The native beans, or frijolis, tortillas or baked 
 
 very slightly. 
 
 -e«f 
 
 vUisSi.' «.■'.. *j&-j 
 
 Peons Shelling Corn. The Grain Falls through the Frame and the Wind 
 
 Separates the Chaff. 
 
 cakes of maize, chili peppers, tomatoes, together with indigenous
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 37 
 
 fruits, are the great sta]')les thc}- were four hundred years ago and 
 are prepared for consumption the same way. In every well regu- 
 lated peon household, you will find the Aztec metate or stone on 
 which the corn is hand ground and the ancient pottery vessels in 
 which their food is cooked. 
 
 It is scarcely conceivahle that the experience of four such cen- 
 turies would fail to leave an evil impress on the national character 
 of anv ])eo])le. For my part, the only wonder is that they did not 
 re\ert to utter barbarism when finally left to themselves, just as 
 manv races ha\e done after being long held down by the strong 
 hand of ])hvsicial restraint. It is not an agreeable task to enumer- 
 ate the shortcomings of a people but as I am endeavoring to pre- 
 sent a perfectlv impartial ])icture, this view of it cannot be over- 
 looked. 
 
 First and foremost. I should place among the weaknesses of 
 the Mexican character an almost indescribable lack of anything 
 api)roaching thrift. I have briefly alluded to this in a previous 
 letter, ^'ou will emjiloy your time better explaining to one of 
 them the mathematical problems relating to the precession of the 
 equinoxes than by endeavoring to make him believe that any good 
 can come from the practice of economy. Whatever they make 
 goes as it comes, without a thought for the morrow or the evil day 
 ahead, and when their money is gone, they never hesitate to ])awu 
 their little personal effects and the very clothes on their backs. If 
 you wish to hire a man who has 1)een out of employment for a few 
 days, it is almost a certainty that you will have to redeem his rai- 
 ment in order to enable him to make an a])pearance in public. 
 Their recklessness and necessities are preyed upon by a sw-arm of 
 l^awn brokers, about as conscienceless a crew of pirates as can be 
 found the world over. When you find a genuine shark among a 
 people given to free-handedness, the chances are that he will go 
 the limit and something more. This is particularly trtie of the 
 Mexican ])awnbrokers, who are al)solutely without pity or re- 
 morse. 1 ha\'e watched their hard, cruel, merciless faces as thev 
 wfjrked some unha])])} jjenn to a finish and it seemed to me that 
 the toughest Isaacstein on Kearney street looked like an enlight- 
 ened i)hilamhr(ii)i^t by cnniiJarisf :n. In some of the large centers,
 
 3S A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 the g-o\ernment has opened pawnshops of its own, great estab- 
 lishments where money is loaned on any collateral on reasonable 
 terms. But this system has not extended to Sinaloa or Durango 
 and the way the poor people are pillaged there in the private pawn 
 shops is one of the curses of the country. 
 
 The unthinking spendthrift habit is without doubt a very 
 grave national defect. Mexico never can be at her best until the 
 mas.ses begin to accumulate and have a more substantial stake in 
 the country than they now possess. My impression is that it will 
 take some time to work a cure, so profoundly has it taken root in 
 the human soil, but that it will finally be overcome, I have no rea- 
 sonable doubt for it does not seem to me an inherent vice, but 
 rather the inevitable result of the conditions under which the 
 people have lived for centuries. During the long period of slav- 
 erv, no possil^le incentive for thrift existed and there was nothing 
 for the poor devils to save anyhow, for they received from their 
 masters only the most pressing necessaries of life. Then again, 
 after emancipation, for two generations or more, the distracted 
 state of the country, would have discouraged' saving ways, even if 
 thev had existed before. Everv little town and farm house was 
 pillaged bv revolutionists or outlaws two or three tmies a year un- 
 til it seemed the very part of wisdom to use anything valuable that 
 came to one's hands in purchasing high priced food and line rai- 
 ment and promoting hilarity in general, rather than to hoard up 
 the pesos until some fellow came along and took them away. 
 Thus the acquisitive instinct became rudimentary among the 
 masses, naturally enough, and it is going to take time and pa- 
 tience to develop it again. 
 
 Another failing is their common indifference to financial ol)li- 
 eations. I refer of course to the lower classes. The Mexican mer- 
 chants and business men, I have found quite up to the average 
 moral standard. This weakness is to a large extent a supplefnent 
 of the other. Being so everlastingly prodigal with their own 
 monev, it is not to be wondered at that they will be free with 
 vours, if vou give them a chance. They will run themselves, head 
 over heels in debt at every opportunity without the slightest 
 thought of how it is going to be liquidated and precious little con-
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 39 
 
 cerii for the same. They Aie\\- such matters in the 'true philo'^ 
 sophic spirit, never are annoyed by them and cannot see why anyr 
 one else should be. If a disposition is shown to become disagree- 
 able about it and perhaps demand that the debt be worked out, 
 they gather their small belongings and go to some more congen- 
 ial clime. It doe.sn't cost nuich to move in Mexico. Of course, 
 they are the chief sufferers l)y this habit. The people are at the 
 
 A Mexican Diligencia, or Stage Coach; Changing Mules. 
 
 mercy of company stores and pinch-me-concerns where they re- 
 ceive credit for exactly what is coming to them in wages and
 
 40 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 where the druggist's familiar two per cent profit is invariably ex- 
 acted. 
 
 These, in my judgment, are the two glaring defects in the Mex- 
 ican character and the hardest to be overcome. You will hear 
 many other indictments against these people if you listen to cer- 
 tain critics. They will tell you that they are instinctively idle, 
 treacherous, immoral, untruthful, thievish and habitual drunkards. 
 All that I can say is that my experience and observation do not 
 bear out any such accusation. I have been right among them 
 and found them exactly the reverse. Of course, there is the usual 
 proportion of black sheep in evidence, but I am writing of the peo- 
 ple as a whole. And that brings me to the pleasant part of this 
 subject. 
 
 In the first place, so far from being a lazy people, I consider 
 Mexicans thoroughly industrious. Most writers who have taken 
 the opposite view appear to have formed their opinion from ob- 
 servations from a Pullman car window, which undoubtedly dis- 
 closes a goodly number of shiftless looking loafers around every 
 railroad station, or perhaps from a visit to one of the tropical coast 
 towns, where you can generally find a considerable portion of the 
 population snoozing the hours away in shady corners. But de- 
 ductions from any such basis are most misleading and do a huge 
 injustice to the great body of the people. To see them in their 
 real, active life you must get out in the country where the earnest 
 work is done. Follow a pack train for a day or two and mark the 
 incessant labor of the drivers under a blistering sun to keep the 
 line moving or head ofif some cantankerous animal that wants to 
 fly the procession; go into the lumber camps and watch say a 
 dozen of them pick up a stick of lumber that weighs more than 
 a ton and pack it up hill and down over any kind of a trail, a feat 
 that American laborers would shy at every time ; then visit the 
 mines and observe the steady swing of pick and sledge for twelve 
 mortal hours, which is the regular day's work in Mexico ; finally 
 go among their little farms and note the prodigious labor in- 
 volved under their crude methods in planting a crop, harvesting 
 the same and bringing it to market. If after doing this in a fair- 
 minded way. you still declare the Mexicans a lazy race, I can only
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 41 
 
 say that your idea of what constitutes industry is very different 
 from mine. 
 
 Xor is their industry a mere physical effort and uninteHigent. 
 You can notice among them a distinct mechanical capacity and a 
 good mechanic is a man to be admired. We have a plumber at 
 our mine nick-named Abraham Lincoln, from a rather remote re- 
 semblance he bears to the great commoner, who is as thorough 
 a master of his trade and as resourceful in applying it as one could 
 wish to see. He has had charge of the construction of several 
 great pipe line plants in this section and of the complicated con- 
 nections with the mechanism of a silver mill and his work has al- 
 ways remained as a monument to his skill. Very fair carpenters 
 and masons are to be found in abundance. At mining, from hand- 
 ling compressors and filling the sub-ordinate positions in a mill 
 down to the purely manual part of the business, they are efficient 
 and reliable. These qualities have had the slimmest possible 
 chance to develop in the past but with the revival of industry 
 and the general education of the masses, there is good 
 ground for the belief that marked progress will be made by the 
 people of Mexico in the mechanical line l)efore the century is 
 much older. 
 
 As to their treacherous ways. I have also failed to observe 
 them ; quite the reverse. To the best of my judgment, they are a 
 singularly open hearted and guileless race, almost like children 
 in their simple hospitality and friendliness, if you treat them right. 
 The real trouble is that quite a sprinkling of foreigners do the 
 other thing. I am sorry to say that I have met some Americans 
 in Mexico whose conduct has made me blush for my country. To 
 say nothing about more serious offenses, their manner alone is 
 too often of the kind to ins])ire hostility and a si)irit of reprisal. 
 They walk all over the poor people, bully them and show their 
 contempt in a thousand ways and then wonder because they are 
 not liked. Of course, such conduct is resented as it would be in 
 any part of the inhabited globe and if an opportunity presents 
 itself to play for even, it is seldom neglected. Then the cry is 
 raised that Mexicans are treacherous. But if you investigate to 
 the bed-rock. I think you will discover that in practically every
 
 42 
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 case where a foreigner has got into trouble in Mexico, landed in 
 jail or been run out of the country, the sufferer has been one of the 
 fellows who have systematically outraged the feelings of the peo- 
 ple beyond the possible limits of endurance. It is only fair to add 
 
 Farm Mules. Corn Drying on Line Overhead. 
 
 that these are the exceptions. Most Americans and most other 
 foreigners here have the fundamental instincts of gentlemen and 
 their relations with the natives of the country are perfectly ami- 
 cable. 
 
 ■ Another count in the indictment is the loose relation of the 
 sexes. There is foundation to the charge to this extent at least
 
 A (iLniPSE OF OLD MEXICO 43 
 
 that ceremonial marriag'e among the peons is the exception, not 
 the rule. Two marriages, if any, are usually performed the civil 
 and ecclesiastical, and as both mean fees, the thrifty people usually 
 prefer to celebrate their nuptials by having a good time, instead 
 of squandering money on priests and magistrates. There are 
 about fort}' families at our mine and in only two cases ai^e the 
 heads joined in lawful wedlock. The balance have simply elected to 
 live together in tlie condition of husband and wife without further 
 form than mutual consent. I know that some of my readers \vill 
 cry out in horror at the statement and wish never to hear of a Alex- 
 ican again. But. on the other hand this free and easy relation is 
 maintained in a majority of instances, with a good deal of fidelity, 
 as a rule to the close of life. Of course, if a gentleman becomes 
 tired of his matrimonial lot, he is privileged to terminate it sum- 
 marily, but our own conjugal bond does not hold very fast when 
 either party wishes to sever it.. They are kind and indulgent to 
 their wives or "women, "delighting to load them down wdth fine 
 raiment and Jim Crow jew^elry, when luck comes their way, and 
 are devotedly fond of children, w'hich are propagated in swarms. 
 If you view these conditions from a purely religious standpoint, 
 they are terrible beyond expression. If you look at them as a plain 
 philosopher, the picture of humble home life in Mexico is not an 
 impleasant one. 
 
 As to being of a general larcenous disposition. T know otherwise 
 from abundant i)ersonal experience. Of course, there are thieves, 
 pickpockets and crooks of every grade among them but. they are 
 no more types of the race than are the jail birds of the United 
 States re]:)resentative of American manhqigd. I have been among 
 the common Mexican people in all sorts of ways, under conditions 
 admirably suited for light fingered operations and often with an 
 array of luggage that must have looked like a boundless fortune 
 to a Peon and never on one occasion have T had cause to lament 
 the loss of the smallest article. For myself, I wish no better proof 
 that they are trustworthy. They possess a lively imagination and 
 the rich Spanish language, which deals largely in superlatives rather 
 tends to habits of exaggeration. Everything is the biggest, the 
 richest, the most beautiful and so on and vnu nuist exercise con-
 
 u 
 
 A GLIMPBE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 siderable caution in assimilating what you hear. But it isn't a 
 malignant kind of lying after all, very far dififerent from tho.se 
 kinds of untruth that have made the vice odious the world over. 
 It is rather a picturesque form of drawing the long bow that 
 doesn't do anyone special mischief and does not necessarily pro- 
 
 Verano. A Mexican Mountain Farm. 
 
 ceed from a vicious heart. As for intemperance, there seems to 
 be a strange appetite for alcohol the world over and the Mexicans 
 are not exempt from it. The majority of them go on occasional 
 jamborees, but the chronic soak is a rareity and the vice very sel- 
 dom goes to the extent of unfitting therii for the business of mak- 
 ing a living. I should say that they were no better or worse than
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD .MEXICO 
 
 45 
 
 people in the same station of life in the United States. If anything 
 the comparison would be in their favor. 
 
 There is a class of ]\Iexicans with whom the sojourner comes 
 in close personal contact and from whom he can gather a very fair 
 estimate of the general character of the people. These are the 
 "mozos" a kind of equestrian valets of the Sancho Panza des- 
 cription. Everyone who wishes to be considered somebody must 
 of necessity have one of these attendants as he travels through the 
 
 Verano. A T ypical Mexican Farm House. 
 
 country, or be rated forthwith as poor trash. Nor are they, by any 
 
 means, mere rirnamcntal fisjurchcads. 'I hc\' are, 
 
 fact, 
 
 elh-
 
 46 
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 cient servants as I ever met. They are on the lookout for their 
 emplover's comfort every minute. If your saddle girth needs 
 tiehtenins:, their watchful eve ahvavs detects it. If your mule 
 casts a shoe, they carry their little blacksmith's kit with them and 
 have a new shoe on in a jiffy. They always find you the coolest 
 place in the neighborhood for the noon siesta. If you are thirsty, 
 they know it by intuition, scamper off and return in a few minutes 
 
 \v 
 
 ^.'erano. A Primitive Sugar Mill. The long arms are operated by mule 
 power, turn ins; two v/ooden cylinders in pit, revolving in contact 
 with each other. K Mexican feeds in sugar cane, stalk at a time, 
 which is crushed between cyliTiders. 
 
 ith a tin cup filled with cold water from some spring that only
 
 A GLOEPSE OF OLD AIEXICO 
 
 47 
 
 mozos know about. They are familiar with the best stopping 
 places for the night for hundreds of miles around and the sublime 
 impudence with which they will take possession of a "casita" in 
 your name, elbow the occupants, order them to make way for the 
 senor. get a move on and do it quick, is a sight worth seeing. Then 
 
 The Donwnfall of Lario. 
 after your luggage has been cared for and supper prepared, you 
 can listen to a panegyric on your virtues such as you never heard 
 before, when the mozo has time to engage in conversation with 
 your hosts. I suppose the rogues indulge in these rhapsodies so 
 as to shine themselves in the reflected light. At all events, you 
 will learn that vou are wise, brave, rich, generous, of illustrious 
 birth, related to McKinley and last but not least "muy caballero" 
 or very much a gentleman. If a person is profoundly enamoured 
 of himself and loves to hear his praises chanted, 1 do not know of
 
 48 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 anything that will do him more good than to take a trip through 
 Mexico with some of the mozos I have met. In addition, they are 
 imperturbably good natnred, no matter what happens and unless 
 they are ill used become sincerely attached to their employers. I 
 never parted from a mozo that he did not tell me that his heart was 
 A'erv heavy and one at least shed real salt tears when we reached 
 our journey's end. Come to think of it though, there was one ex- 
 ception and I will now proceed to relate the story of it, for it is 
 pertinent to the subject of this letter. 
 
 The relation between servant and employer in Mexico is stately 
 and ceremonial and never relaxed for one moment. Thus, for in- 
 stance, when you address a servant, you first call him by 
 name, as "Juan." He answers "Senor," off comes his hat Hke a 
 flash and he stands in an attentive attitude to receive your orders. 
 Similarly, when you are out in the mountains, it is the mozo's duty 
 to stand bareheaded at a respectful distance while you eat, attend 
 to vour wants, if you have any and never touch a morsel of food 
 till you signify that you have finished. I had the necessity of en- 
 forcing these rules and regulations properly impressed on my 
 mind when I first visited Mexico and was warned that if a certain 
 distance were not kept between employer and employed, the latter 
 invariably became sociable and *'fresh" beyond all indurance. I 
 have noticed a similar tendency among other people. 
 
 \\'ell, it happened once that I had to ride across the Sierra 
 Madre mountains from San Dimas to the City of Durango, 
 through one of the wildest and most unfrequented sections of 
 Mexico. A Mozo was picked out for me with due care, a likely 
 young fellow called Lario, with a splendid record for ability in his 
 line. We were soon far up in the mountain fastness and that feel- 
 ing of mutual dependence began to assert itself that comes nat- 
 urallv enough to a couple of men when they have to make their 
 way through difficulties, with the suggestion of possible danger 
 thrown in. This is a mighty levelerof social distinctions at all tin-'cs. 
 If my great and good friend, Edward the Seventh, were ship- 
 wrecked on a desert island with one of his footmen, I doubt if 
 rank, station and precedence would bother them very long, espe- 
 ■ciallv if the footman were a bigger man than His Royal Highness.
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 49 
 
 At all events, Lario's elaborate ceremony became almost gro- 
 tesque under the circumstances and I yearned for a little good fel- 
 lowship, so when we halted for the night and the camp tire 
 blazed and the grub sizzled merrily in the frying pan, I told Lario 
 to keep his sombrero on his blooming head, sit down to dinner 
 with me and be sociable. And maybe he wasn't. We tossed off 
 the regulation mescal cocktail, ate like a pair of cormorants, had 
 a cup of black coffee, smoked cigarettes and sang Spanish love 
 songs till our voices gave out. But what were the consequences ? 
 In two days Lario became the most worthless vagabond that ever 
 happened. True, he loved me like a brother and was willing to 
 do anything in the world for his dear amigo Don Santiago, ex- 
 cept work. It almost took a traction engine to get him out of his 
 l)lankets in the morning. I had to make the fire, cook the break- 
 fast and do most of the packing in order to get started at all. I 
 threatened to rebuke him with a club if he failed to mend his ways 
 and then there was ill will and sullenness which lasted till Dur- 
 ango was reached, where we parted with mutual disesteem. If 
 you ever visit Mexico, do not forget the incident. 
 
 Xor did the wrong done Lario end here. He went back to his 
 old haunts and resumed his occupation, but no one could toler- 
 ate his changed ways. He was discharged by one after another. 
 Presently he had to seek new employment and then his descent 
 was awful. A year later I met him on the trail driving a pack train 
 of burros. Now, the drop from the station of a pampered mozo, 
 usually employed by free handed Americans, to the abject posi- 
 tion of a burro puncher, is a thing too terrible to describe ade- 
 quately. The degradation of Dreyfus was trivial in comparison. 
 Poor Lario gave me one sad look that recognized me as -the au- 
 thor of his ruin, then dropped his eyes and passed on. 
 
 I have spoken of the preponderance of the Indian blood in the 
 masses of Mexico. But the Spanish strain has been a strone one 
 prepotent to transmit many of the admirable (|ualities of the 
 Iberian race and modify the harsh lines of the aboriginal features. 
 In fact any infusion of foreign blood seems to take a powerful 
 hold. Pure blond types are not so unusual and very persistent, 
 when the crop is once sown. Often, it is not difficult tr trace them
 
 50 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 back to their source. For instance, long ago, a red-headed Irishman 
 landed at Mazatlan, journeyed southward in the direction of San 
 Bias, then turned eastward toward Tepic and at length reached 
 the City of Durango in this round-about way, after which he was 
 lost track of. It was not a long journey — say a thousand miles 
 at the utmost — but it took the Irish gentleman many years to 
 complete it. He was of a jovial disposition, always ready to halt 
 at any hacienda or pueblo where the cheer was good and the eyes 
 of the girls bright and never in a hurry to move on as long as con- 
 ditions remained agreeable. He left no great impression on the 
 history of the nation but along his itinerary, a red-headed genera- 
 tion of children sprang up which, singularly enough, marked his 
 exact line of progress through the country, like milestones on a 
 county road. Of course. I do not wish to be understood as cast- 
 ing an undeserved aspersion on the departed Hibernian or of 
 drawing any questionable deductions from this peculiar coinci- 
 dence. 
 
 I have given you herewith personal impressions of the Mexican 
 people, the bad together with the good, just as they have been 
 seen through these particular eyes. Other eyes are just as good 
 and have seen differently. Time alone will show which is in the 
 right. 
 
 California Mine, State of Durango, Mexico, March 17, 1901.
 
 SIXTH LETTEK 
 
 UR party reached the hacienda of the 
 California Mining Company, of 
 which sonhess corporation I have 
 the honor to be President, eight 
 da}S ago, and we have been luxuri- 
 ating since in the finest climate on 
 J I ... n,=:=j>n->.,. — .jsjt^ . ^ ^--.^ earth. The elevation is nearlv six 
 WMW^\\\ii'' •ST^i':^ thousand feet above sea' level, and 
 
 such a thing as oppressive heat is 
 unknown. The days are mild and 
 generous, the air exhiliarating and the atmosphere so dazzlingly 
 clear that the outlines of mountains seventy-five miles away stand 
 out boldly, clear cut against the indigo blue horizon. I am writ- 
 ing now about the period fi'oni 8a.m. to about 7 p.m. But perhaps 
 it isn't cold when the sun goes down ! and maybe the editor 
 doesn't pile on the blankets when he seeks his lowly couch ! At 
 the beastly hour which custom has fixed here for breakfast time, 
 everything is frozen stift" as a board and the thermometer down to 
 twenty-seven or twenty-eight degrees Fahrenheit. But, some- 
 how, you hardly notice it after the awful agony of getting out of 
 bed is over, and, as I said before, by 8 o'clock everything is lovely. 
 These sharp changes of temperature, however, are anything but 
 unhealthful. In the last year, there have been at least a hundred 
 and fifty people living at this camp and during that period there 
 has not been a single case of illness, nor an ounce of medicine, 
 tmtil my esteemed nephew and myself unlimbered the small-sized 
 apothecary shop whicli female solicitude had provided. This sec-
 
 52 
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 tion, in short, should be shunned hke a pestilence by doctors and 
 druggists, but for every one else it is all right. 
 
 We are located in a kind of transition land. This is certainly a 
 temperate climate. Quite as much so as the country around the 
 bay of San Francisco, with the difference that the nights are infin- 
 itely colder. But not more than a quarter of a mile from our 
 
 Lookine; TImwh the Canyon, nom California Mine's Main Tunnel. 
 
 house or shack, to be more accurate, there is a kind of jumping 
 off place where you can look down at a river valley, 4,000 feet be- 
 low, and into the genuine torrid zone where the scorching sun 
 drives every living thing to cover under its meridian rays and
 
 A GLniPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 53 
 
 where all the forms of animal and vegetable life are strictly trop- 
 ical. You can stand there and readily shoot a rifle ball into the 
 valley. Somewhere on the mountain, the two forms of botanical 
 life, the tropical and temperate, meet. But this meeting point is 
 from the nature of the country, on so sharp a line of demarcation 
 
 m *he Pines. Lumbei- Cami) of California Mine. 
 
 that the two overlaj) more or less and conuninglc with a strange 
 efifect. This extends to some degree as far as our hacienda. We 
 live in a forest of sugar and yellow pine, oak and madrone, yet 
 rioting in it are ])alms, gorgeous tree orchids, bamboos, gaudy 
 climbing vines, that stretch frcjm branch to branch in graceful
 
 54 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 festoons, and flowers with coloring so vivid that it hurts the eye. 
 Then, all day long thousands of parrots, guacamayas and birds 
 of strictly tropical habitat chatter and make merry in the foliage. 
 To be sure, when it comes to roosting time, they take wing and 
 drop down about 3,000 feet, to get away from the shrewd nip of 
 our nights. So, we live in all the exuberant beauty of the tropics, 
 without the drawbacks. 
 
 Amid these pleasant surroundings, in the heart of the great for- 
 est that reminds the resident gringos of their far-away State, for 
 it numbers many of the trees peculiar to California, we are build- 
 ing one of the dandiest quartz mills you ever saw, just at the junc- 
 tion of two dashing mountain streams, clear as crystal and as cold 
 as ice. The walls are of beautiful red stone, just like the Flood 
 mansion on Nob Hill — not plebeian concrete such 'as usually pre- 
 vails in these parts — and some of the more important timbers are 
 of the finest cabinet hardwood, worth all kinds of money in San 
 Francisco. It looks more like a millionaire's establishment than 
 an hacienda for turning out gold and silver, but a few months 
 hence, when the water power is unhitched and the wheels begin 
 to revolve, it will be otherwise. But all this has nothing to do 
 with the general subject of mining in Mexico, of which I promised 
 to write. 
 
 Of all nations of modern times, Mexico has been by far the lar- 
 gest contributor to the world's store of precious metals. Ever 
 since the conquest by Cortez, nearly four centuries ago, it has 
 poured a steady stream of gold and silver into the channels of com- 
 merce and trade that has exercised a momentous influence on later 
 history. For the most important immediate effect of the discovery 
 of America was that it opened up new sources of supply of the 
 precious metals. \\'ith respect to them, the old world was desper- 
 ately poor. Barbarian invasion and the anarchy of the dark ages 
 had scattered the once abundant stores of the ancient civilization, 
 and every form of enterprise was hopelessly hampered by the lack 
 of an adequate medium of exchange. In twenty years, the New 
 World gave to the Old World more gold and silver than the latter 
 possessed before the discovery of the former, and the impulse was 
 given to progress and civilization that has never ceased. Mexico
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 55 
 
 and Peru far outstripped all contributors, with Mexico well in the 
 lead. 
 
 Those old Spaniards had marvelous noses for the precious met- 
 als. Very little that cropped on the surface eluded their keen 
 scent, and the country is dotted over with the ruins of their for- 
 gotton industry. But for obvious reasons, their work was very 
 seldom thorough and comprehensive. Their knowledge of me- 
 ciianical appliances was extremely limited. If a mine could not be 
 operated through a tunnel, their only means of hoisting was on the 
 
 Building a Quartz Mill. The Battery Frame in Place. 
 
 backs of ])eons. who carried huge leather l)ags up what are ap- 
 propriately termed "chicken ladders" — mere notched poles set
 
 56 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 aslant in a shaft. I have traversed them, hanging on with four 
 sets of nails and my teeth, and then, when I saw a native go sail- 
 ing up with a hundred and fifty pounds on his shoulders, never 
 deigning to reach for support, I couldn't help saying "You're a 
 bird." If water was encountered, it had to be lifted out the same 
 way. Then, the processes of extraction were extremely crude and 
 tedious, certainly not more than fifty per cent, of the value being 
 saved. The cost of powder for blasting, also, was enormous. So 
 it had to be a rich mine to attract a Spaniard at all, and even then 
 he came to the end of his rope before long. In fact, what they 
 were always looking for was "shipping ore," that is, ore rich 
 enough to be carried to the seaboard and transported thence to 
 Spain for final reduction. And on top of all, the enormous roy- 
 alty of tw^enty per cent, was exacted by the crown and collected 
 with merciless precision. So the old Spanish miner did not have 
 such an everlasting snap after all. Yet, in spite of these obstacles, 
 during the first half century after the conquest, Mexico produced 
 over a billion dollars of gold and silver. 
 
 It is known that the Spaniards abandoned hundreds of mines 
 for the above reasons while still in good ore. Many of them have 
 been reopened and have produced millions upon millions. But 
 far the greater number have never been rediscovered and remain 
 to reward the explorer's industry. This may seem strange, yet 
 it is a sober fact. In this odd country, you will run upon the ruins 
 of an ancient town, a half wrecked church, large enough to hold a 
 congregation of three or four thousand, the remains of old reduc- 
 tion works and great piles of tailings, all telling of a once-prosper- 
 ous mining industry. Where did the ore come from? Quien 
 sabe. Nobody knows, and you can search the country round for 
 miles without finding a trace of tunnel, shaft, or beaten track. The 
 explanation is simple enough. During the four months of wet 
 season, at least upon the west coast, the rainfall is prodigious, far 
 beyond anything an untutored Californian can conceive of. When 
 it gets down to business, it takes about seven drops to fill a horse 
 bucket. The water shed is also very steep, and under these con- 
 bined conditions the erosion is enormous. Slides, boulders and 
 debris come tumbling down from the mountains, and often in a
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 57 
 
 fcAv years the whole face of nature in a given locaHty may be 
 clianged. In this way, countless numbers of old Spanish workings 
 have been obliterated, though another turn of the weather mangel 
 is liable to lay them l)are again. ^Moreover, the same erosion is con- 
 stantly exposing new ledges that were hidden from the eyes of the 
 ancients. Therefore, l)ecause you have prospected a region once 
 without result is no reason why it would not pay you to prospect 
 it again — particular!}- after a severe rainy season. 
 
 Frame of Timber Hewn l)y Natives, Illustrating Accuracy of Work. 
 
 Tn fact, one of the things a newcomer must steel himself against 
 is the stories about lost mines — abandoned during vSpanish rule as
 
 58 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 above described, or closed down and forgotten in the stormy days 
 of the ^lexican Republic. If yon fail to heed this advice, you will 
 be a gibbering lunatic in a month. For these are not stories like 
 those current on the mother lode of California, with which we are 
 too familiar, based on the creative memory of some antique moss- 
 back, who remembers to have heard Long Pete tell about a cement 
 streak yaller with gold that Bronco Bill and Rooshian Kate found 
 somewhar near Hog Mountain one day when they rid off from 
 camp on a drunk. The trouble with the Mexican stories is that 
 they are absolutely true. They are founded on ofificial records of 
 unquestioned accuracy and other authenticated documents, and 
 they will conduct you ever so close to boundless wealth, but stop 
 short just when it comes within your grasp.. Still, there have been 
 some lucky ones who have followed up these clues to fortune. For 
 instance, I heard of one man, and this incident is strictly authentic, 
 who had been engaged in a hunt for a certain lost mine and, as 
 usual, was slowly gomg crazy. It so happened that he found a 
 bundle of forgotten manuscripts in the deserted church of the an- 
 cient pueblo, and among them a letter from an old employe in the 
 lost mine, addressed to a priest. In it the devout old 
 miner stated that as he came out of the tunnel at 
 night he could see the lights on the altar of the church 
 shining" through tb.e door, and never failed to cross 
 himself. The piety of the writer did not impress itself on 
 the prospector as much as the fact that the mouth of the old tun- 
 nel must be on a straight line drawn from the church altar to the 
 door and thence produced. He followed his investigations on this 
 theory, actually locating the old tunnel, and now has one of the 
 most valuable mining properties in Mexico. 
 
 One more yarn and I am through, though I shall have much 
 more to tell about mining in Mexico. This story is from Col. 
 Burns, wdio seldom speaks in narrative, and when he does, is w^ise. 
 A centurv and a half ago, perhaps more and maybe less, there was 
 a famous mine in the State from which this letter is written. It 
 was the greatest bullion producer of the age. and the king's fifth, 
 or crown royalty, was so large that his ^lost Catholic Majesty be- 
 came interested in determining how long the revenue would con-
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 59^ 
 
 tinne. For this purpose he dispatched a royal commission to 
 Mexico, comprising three distinguished mining experts. They 
 examined the property and reported that there were one hundred 
 and fifty mihion dollars in sight, and heaven only knew how much 
 out of sight. Almost immediately after, insurrections broke out, 
 the countr}' was overrun by bandits and Indians, and the mine was 
 closed down. Many years later when it was sought for to exploit 
 again its marvelous treasures, not a trace of it was to be found. 
 As to the existence of the mine, there is not a shadow of doubt. 
 The report of the Spanish experts is .still extant. The records of 
 the City of Durango tell of the payment of royalty there, of bul- 
 lion shipments, and of patent rights to the property. We know 
 the names of owners, superintendents, local priests and what not. 
 You can be conducted probably within a rifle shot of the right 
 place. Yet, after continued research, the secret of the lost mine 
 still lies buried in the heart of the Mexican Sierra. 
 
 California Mine, State of Durango, Mexico, March 23, 1901.. 
 
 mm
 
 S E ^^ E N T H L E T T E R 
 
 
 T is nearly three weeks since I arrived 
 liere. and during that time this camp, 
 or "mineral, "to use the technical phrase 
 of the country, has been the busiest 
 place in the district. The machinist, 
 the mason, the carpenter and plain ordi- 
 nary peon have been plying their re- 
 spective vocations industriously. Long 
 
 lines of mules and burros have arrived 
 daily, loaded with machinery and supplies, and the scene 
 has always been full of life and animation. But today 
 the sound of the hammer is low and the click of the 
 trowel is silenced and the ringing cry of the arriero, 
 exhorting his laggard mules in tuneful blasphemy is 
 heard no more far up on the mountain side. For this is "la 
 semana santa," or holy week, the last of lent, during which, for 
 all good Mexicans, the commandment runneth "Thou shalt not 
 Avork." 
 
 I am not quite certain whether this prolonged holiday is ob- 
 served from a spirit of profound piety so much as from the deeply 
 founded belief that divine punishment will surely follow its breach. 
 If you attempt to argue against it, you will be simply overwhelmed 
 "by instances of impious wretches who have dared to labor on these 
 "forbidden davs and have sufTered some awful death in conse-
 
 A GLIMr^E OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 61 
 
 qiience. We are crowding work on our mill with all speed, and 
 yesterday we prevailed on some carpenters to turn out and finish 
 some seasonahle work. About noon, one of them banged his 
 thumb nail with a hammer. That was enough. Clearly the inci- 
 dent was a sign of divine displeasure, a timely warning to the rest, 
 which none should presume to disregard. Doubtless this instance 
 will go down to history as an illustration of the perils of toiling 
 during holv week. 
 
 
 •v^ 
 
 \ 
 
 € 
 
 m 
 
 Johnny- on -the-Spot. 
 
 riicre is one class of the population, however, not averse to 
 "lolv week, or anv other time. These are the Chil- 
 
 work' niu'mi^-
 
 «2 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 eros. a kind of Mexican Highlanders. They are born and bred in 
 the lofty Sierra region, are sinewy and athletic of frame, frugal of 
 babit, of marvelous indurance, and inspired mighty little by re- 
 ligious scruples. Added to this, they are the most cheerful and 
 imperturbably good natured fellows that the sun shines on. They 
 are further noteworthy from the circumstance that they actually 
 seem to enjoy work, the tougher the better, a characteristic that I 
 bave not often encountered in this imperfect world. They are not 
 backward, either, in bragging about their appetite for toil, which 
 at first is apt to convey the impression that they belong to the famil- 
 iar "blowhard" genus, but experience generally proves them as 
 ^ood as their word. We have one particular Chilero in our em- 
 ploy who never ceases to amuse me. We call him Johnny-on-the- 
 spot, partly as a tribute to his unfailing punctuality, partly because 
 bis true name happens to be Jesus Christo — not an uncommon 
 cognomen in these parts — and it seems a trifle irreverent to be 
 howling for him under that title across arroyos and from moun- 
 tain tops. I have never yet had the pleasure of seeing Johnny in 
 repose. He is a kind of incarnate perpetual motion machine, and 
 when he is engaged on some sort of a man-killing job, his face fair- 
 ly beams with happiness. He is handy at almost anything, and is 
 usually a reserve where others fail, but he is especially great as a 
 courier. About once a week, we have occasion to send a messen- 
 ger to San Dimas. Now, from here to there and back is a deadly 
 ride for a seasoned horseman to make in two days. Johnnv cev- 
 ers the round trip in a day and a half on foot, and usually returns 
 with fifty pounds or upward on his back, and it only makes him 
 feel proud. He will then probably put in the afternoon in the pas- 
 time of hustling heavy lumber, or something of that kind, and in 
 the evenings he calls on our Superintendent to inquire if he hasn't 
 something more to do. Johnny is a great orator and usually ac- 
 companies these final appeals with a speech generaly eulogistic of 
 his own good qualities as a"trabajadore.' "You know, senor," he 
 will say, "while in your service I will never flinch. Day or night I 
 am always ready. You can drag me from my bed, or call me from 
 my meals, and I will not grumble. You can never give me any 
 task too hard. If you tell me to jump off a precipice. I will do it."'
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 63 
 
 This is nearly a word for word translation of his latest effort, but 
 it lacks sadly the setting- of his fantastic gestures and earnestness 
 of speech. 
 
 But this ha6 nothing to do with mining in Mexico, except in a 
 remote way. which I started to tell about in my last letter. Not 
 only has Mexico been the largest bullion producer in the world, 
 but it has also had by far the greatest gold and silver mines. Cal- 
 ifornians have to be rather careful here how they swell up about 
 
 ->-"^' • ••^Ps* ■ '^l^^wSm 
 
 ]'ackiug Mir.iui< Macliineiy. Tho "Retort" reaches Camp. \Veis;ht, 
 
 ;1jO Ib.s. 
 
 the wonderful record of some great property in their own beloved 
 State, which has turned out say five or six millions of dollars. The
 
 64 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 Mexican auditor will probably smile and remark, "Yes, a very nice 
 little pocket." What they call a good mine here is one that has 
 produced say fifty millions, and a big, first class mine is one that 
 has run from one hundred millions upward. And there are plenty^ 
 even of the latter. The greatest mine of Mexico, and of the world,^ 
 is the Valenciana, which has paid royalty on more than one billion 
 dollars produced. Not far from our camp is the Guadalupe de los 
 Reyes mine. It has been worked for a hundred and fifty years and 
 is still turning out nearly two million dollars a year. The famous 
 Candelaria mine, also in this neighborhood, was opened in the 
 year 1767 by a Spaniard named Zambrano. In the first ten years 
 of his ownership, he paid royalty in the City of Durango on fifty- 
 five million dollars of bullion. This mine has been w^orked off and 
 on since then, made many a fortune, and was finally shut down 
 and practically abandoned. Messrs. Burns and Waterhouse 
 bought it for a trifle, opened up lower levels, took out millions up- 
 on millions, and now% as stated in a former letter, have struck new 
 ore bodies of great extent and enormous richness. Similar in- 
 stances, without number, could be mentioned. In fact, the bottom 
 has never been reached of any of the great mines in this district. 
 The Candelaria, in its old age, is producing over half a million a 
 year. With the new plant in operation, this will be more than 
 doubled and there is every reason to believe that it will keep up 
 that average for another century yet. 
 
 Nearly all these mines carry both gold and silver. The impres- 
 sion prevails in the United States that Mexico is almost exclus- 
 ively a silver mining country, but the fact is that most of the veins 
 operated carry gold enough to justify their being worked for that 
 metal alone. In our own country, four dollar rock in a favorable 
 location is looked on as a good enough thing for anybody. 
 Nearlv all the mines in this neighborhood carry that much gold,- 
 and from ten dollars upward of silver, which is not a bad thing tO' 
 have as a bi-product. And my impression is that mining can be 
 carried on cheaper here than in any other part of the world. 
 
 Notwithstanding the work of four hundred years, no one can 
 visit Mexico without being convinced that mining here is still in 
 its infancv. Either wood or water for power is considered an es-
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 65 
 
 sential. and when these are not at hand, no attempt has been made 
 to develop promising ledges. Yet there are great streams, 
 descending rapidly from the monntains, whose energy could be 
 converted into electric power and carried on wires from one loca- 
 tion to another. Two or three such plants, costing perhaps half 
 a million dollars, would niake the wheels turn in not less than a 
 hundred mines now lying idle in the San Dimas District. But 
 
 Packing Mining Mae-hinery. Ariival of a Tiain. 
 aside from mines thai .-irc un(le\ eloped from lack of cheap and con-
 
 G6 
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 venient power, the prospector has here an immense field in which 
 the conditions are generally favorable. There are many ledges, 
 well worthy of exploration, that have never been cut, and old 
 Spanish workings that usually prove profitable when opened up, 
 and sometimes lead to immense bonanzas. But it requires money 
 to do all this, and for the lack of it many a promising property lies 
 idle. For, be it understood, this is not a poor man's country for 
 
 Packing Mining Machinery- The Pile to the Left is Home-made Lime 
 
 for Masonry. 
 
 a miner. You never can carve out a fortune here with no greater 
 capital than a strong pair of arms, a pick and a shovel. You must
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 67 
 
 have the stuff — not as much as you need to develop a mine in Cal- 
 ifornia, but. nevertheless, a fair sized purse. 
 
 A number of circumstances have combined to cripple the min- 
 ing industry in ]\'Iexico and prevent the investment of foreign capi- 
 tal. In the first place, the unsettledcondition of the country in 
 former times was an insuperable barrier. Some fifteen or sixteen 
 years ago, when the Diaz administration had succeeded in enforc- 
 ing something like order, thousands of mining men swarmed into 
 Mexico, principally on the west coast. It was then that an epi- 
 demic of yellow fever, imported by a theatrical troupe from Hav- 
 ana, broke out in IMazatlan and spread rapidly through the mining 
 regions. Hundreds of foreigners died, and the remainder de- 
 parted with more alacrity than they came. The country gained an 
 ill repute from this incident from which it has not fully recovered 
 to this day, though not another case of yellow fever has been re- 
 ported since on the west coast. Then came the drop in silver val- 
 ues, the end of which no one was able to foretell, which at one time 
 cut the former profits of mining in two. But of all causes of dis- 
 trust, the most serious has been the many failures and immense 
 losses occasioned through investments made by parties who had 
 never been in the country,' knew nothing about the conditions, and 
 to make matters worse, intrusted their interests to ignoramuses 
 or knaves. The follies committed .in the name of mining by com- 
 panies organized in St. Louis, New York, England and elsewhere 
 pass all belief. Mexico is dotted over with the most weird and 
 awful machinery, constructed without the slightest idea of the 
 work in hand, transported thousands of miles at a vast expense 
 and finally abandoned before it reached its destination. 
 
 One instance may serve to illustrate the almost incredible lack 
 of common intelligence that has marked most mining 
 enterprises here. Not far from us is quite a famous 
 mine owned by a swell English company. There is no use giving 
 its name; suffice it to say that half the nobility in the tight little 
 isle are shareholders, even such an exalted personage as Her 
 Royal Highness, the Princess Beatrice, being interested. The 
 story goes that the mine was "salted' on the blooming British ex- 
 pert who examined it for his titled clients, but, however that may
 
 68 
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 be, the company proceeded to develop the property, and by some 
 perversity of fortune actually blundered onto a great body of rich 
 ore that nobody dreamed of being in the neghborhood. Of 
 course, that meant a big quartz mill. Now, the mine in question 
 is located in the heart of one of the finest forests in the world, 
 where native w^oodsmen can hew out on the spot beams of any di- 
 mensions at an almost nominal cost. This would usually be re- 
 
 The Hunting Party. T. W. Tompkins, Frank Moseley, J. H. Wilkins, 
 
 Harry Wilkins. 
 
 garded as a most acceptable piece of good fortune, but did the 
 English shareholders take advantage of it? Far from it. Every
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 69 
 
 stick of lumber for that mill was framed in the city of London, 
 shipped across the Atlantic Ocean, carried by mule teams eight 
 hundred miles to the City of Durango, where the remarkable dis- 
 covery was made that the great pieces of lumber could no more 
 be carried over the remaining hundred and fifty miles of steep and 
 tortuous mountain trail than the Pyramid of Cheops. A desper- 
 ate effort was made to get some of the lighter stuff through, but 
 it finally stranded about thirty miles outside of Durango, wdiere 
 it remans to this day. These eyes have .seen it. 
 
 The mine is a marvel. The mill was subsequently built with 
 the local .timber, the wheels turned and the bullion commenced 
 to grind out. Then the stockholders began to send their younger 
 sons and ne'er-do-weels and saddle them on the enterprise as as- 
 sistant superintendents, deputy assistant superintendents, and 
 vice deputy assistant superintendents, until there was an official 
 list as long as your leg, and every man jack of them wdth a peach 
 of a salary. The young gentlemen maintain no end of style, keep 
 up golf links, lawn tennis grounds and a polo course, take their 
 diurnal tubs regularly, have their boots "cleaned" and go to work 
 every morning in tennis flannel suits, with trousers carefully turned 
 up at the bottom. Yet, with all this, the mine pays, and it stands 
 perhaps as a solitary instance where continued mismanagement 
 has failed to wTeck a property of this kind. 
 
 Well, I must finish the mining- dissertation later on. The Cali- 
 fornia mine and w^orks are now closed dow^n tight. All the Mex- 
 ican population has departed for San Dimas, where during the 
 holy week the mescal will circulate merrily for social entertain- 
 ment and the greater glory of God. So we gringos have an un- 
 sought holiday on our hands and tomorrow set out for a grand 
 eight days' hunting trip. We are going to one of the wildest and 
 most unfrequented sections of the Sierra, where bear, tigers, wald 
 boars and deer abound, where wild turkeys are thicker than chip- 
 pies in California, and a large and gamey trout haunts the 
 mountain streams. There will be four gringos in the party, 
 Senores Don Tomas Tompkins, Don Francisco Mosely, Don 
 Enrique Wilkins and Don Santiago del mismo nombre, also John- 
 ny-on-the-spot and several fellow Chileros. I give the names, as
 
 70 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 this expedition is likely to prove famous, for if I fail to make 
 Teddy Roosevelt look like a ten-cent piece when I write up the 
 story of it then this pen will have lost its cunning. 
 
 Wonder how much some of the San Francisco sports would 
 give to be with our crowd? 
 
 California Aline, State of Durango, Mexico, April 2, 1901. 

 
 EIGHTH LETTER 
 
 HAVE attempted to convey some idea 
 of mining in ^lexico in a general way. 
 To pnt the situation more exactly, I 
 will enumerate briefly the reasons why 
 this country ought to command the 
 attention of mining men the world 
 over. First and foremost, because the 
 real thing is here. I have already 
 given an idea of the enormous produc- 
 tion of past ages and the great revival 
 of the industry within recent years. Yet I am not giving my own 
 valueless opinion, but the mature judgment of every capable min- 
 ing expert who lias visited Mexico, when I say that the surface 
 has barely been scratched, that there are still countless prizes to 
 reward the prospector's enterprise, and that when capital finally 
 directs its magic influence this way in earnest, the land of the 
 ^lontezumas will become, once more, by far the greatest contrib- 
 utor to the ever increasing demand of civilization for the precious 
 metals. 
 
 But gold and silver do not by any means constitute the only 
 great mineral resources of Mexico, although until very recent 
 years they have been the sole objects of the miner's quest. Out- 
 side of these, the mineral wealth of the country is enormous, but 
 still almost entirely undeveloped. Some inquiry has been made 
 for copper properties, since the great advance in the price of that 
 metal, and agents of foreign capitalists are busily examining prop-
 
 72 
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 ositions of this kind. One mine, the Santa Rosaha, located on 
 the Gulf of California, is now rivaling the great producers of our 
 
 ^ 
 
 Constructing a Pipe Line for Power. Mouth of Tunnel and Settling 
 
 Tank. 
 
 time. It is owned by a French company, and during the year 1900 
 is said to have paid dividends amounting to forty million francs 
 (about $7,200,000).' Large plants are being installed at many 
 other localities and Mexico will soon take a foremost place in the 
 copper industry. 
 
 Some of the most remarkable iron deposits of the earth are 
 found in Mexico and remain as a rule to this day untouched by 
 man, and in most cases, not even under private ownership. The
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 73 
 
 Iron ^Mountain, a mile or so from the City of Durango, is a large 
 hill, one solid mass of nearly eighty per cent, iron ore. Aside 
 from the enormous amount of metal visible, it has also been as- 
 certained that it extends to a great depth beneath the surface, the 
 whole constituting what is, humanely speaking, an inexhaustible 
 
 T'or struct: np a Power Line. A Mexican Trestle. 
 
 deposit. The story goes that when the late Mr. C. P. Huntington 
 extended his railroad system to Durango, it was largely because 
 of the traffic possibilities presented b\' this marvelous property, 
 and it is said that he was negotiating for its purchase when the
 
 74 A GLIMI'BE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 liand of death checked his busy brain forever. I have been reli- 
 ably informed that there is a still larger iron monntain in South- 
 ern ]\Iexico. and countless others of minor importance which, in 
 the fullness of time, will be developed profitably. 
 
 It is known that extensive coal fields exist in many parts of 
 Mexico, but scarcely an effort has been made to uncover them. A 
 noted mining expert informed me that probably the largest an- 
 thracite bed in the world was in a remote, and at present inaccess- 
 ible, section of the State of Sonora. It is likewise known that 
 there are coal veins in the country drained by the Yaqui and 
 Fuerte Rivers. In many places, there are strong indications of 
 petroleum, and beyond all question, important oil districts will 
 soon be discovered. But so far as the latter industry is concerned, 
 it is substantially unexplored. 
 
 Zinc and lead deposits are numerous, but neglected. The 
 former has been overlooked entirely and the latter worked only 
 as a bi-product in the treatment of the precious metal ores. 
 Other forms of mineral wealth occur, that need not be enumerated 
 here, that remain unnoticed. The miner's research has extended 
 only to the precious metals, and in a smaller way to copper. Out- 
 side of these, the field is practically a virgin one, that will repay 
 richly those who have the energy and capital to exploit it scien- 
 tifically and systematically. 
 
 Another ad^'antag■e that the miner enjoys here is the remark- 
 able liberality of the laws relating to his occupation. He is re- 
 garded as an individual who deserves special encouragement, for 
 his enterprise gives employment to hundreds of thousands and in- 
 jures no one. I have already referred to the very lenient svstem 
 of taxa'tiori." Another immense item is the fact, that the entire area 
 of Mexico is open to exploration, except within the limits of 
 pueblos or towns and on territory used for governmental pur- 
 poses. Ownership of the surface of land does not carry with it 
 title to the mineral wealth below and anyone who discovers a de- 
 posit of mineral has the absolute right to denounce or file on it 
 and carry on his mining operations, no matter who holds the title 
 deeds to the top of the ground. He can also denounce an 
 hacienda, or mill site, and whatever more mav be neces-sarv to con-
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 75 
 
 duct his business to the best advantage. If he needs wood or 
 water, no grasping landlord can extort an exorbitant price for 
 these prime necessities. If the miner and the landlord cannot 
 agree on terms, the former notifies the latter that he has appointed 
 Senor to represent him in fixing rates. In eight days, the 
 
 Constructirg a Power Line. A Native Retaining Wall. 
 
 land owner must nominate a like representative. These two,, 
 with the local Judge of the h^irst Instance (Superior Judge), form 
 a board of arbitration, which must convene, consider the case and 
 render a decision within eight days, fixing legally the prices that 
 may be charged. An appeal lies from this decision, but in the 
 meanwhile the nn'ncr can go ahead and take wood and water at
 
 76 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 the figTires named by the arbitrators. As a matter of fact, these 
 decisions are scarcely ever appealed from, nor is it even necessary 
 often to have recourse to boards of arbitration. The miner's rem- 
 edy being speedy and decisive, arrangements are usually made 
 without serious friction on either side ; and it may be said here 
 that a little of this summary way of dealing out justice might be 
 copied in the United States to the general advantage of litigants. 
 In other words, the miner here holds the top hand at all stages 
 of the game. In California, after he finds a mine, as like as not it 
 will be rendered valueless because some unconscionable fellow 
 owns the only accessible water and timber and will not allow him 
 the use of these essentials except on terms that are practically pro- 
 hibitive. Again, exploration in our State is practically limited to 
 the public domain, constantly lessening in area, for it is small com- 
 fort to find a mine on another man's land and receive only his 
 thanks for your trouble. 
 
 Then -you have a very efficient, cheap and contented class of 
 laborers to deal with. The Mexican miner is industrious to the 
 backbone, is native born to his trade, for his forefathers have 
 worked in the same groove for generations, and he is perfectly 
 satisfied with his lot. There are no unions, walking delegates or 
 strikes or friction between employer and employe, providing the 
 former treats his men half-way decent. He must pay them 
 promptly, have some regard for life and limb about his works and 
 not attempt to overreach them too outrageously in general mat- 
 ters of business. \Mien these plain conditions are disregarded, 
 there is trouble of the passive kind and lots of it. That is, when a 
 mine once gets a bad name by reason of ill-treatment of its em- 
 ployes, you might as well try to move the Sierra Madre as induce 
 a Mexican to work in it. Valuable properties have been com- 
 pelled to close their works, and keep them closed through the 
 folly of their management in dealing with their men. But accord 
 them fair treatment and they are as easy a lot to get along with as 
 I ever met. The general scale of wages here is about half that in 
 the United States, payable in Mexican money. The cost of living, 
 however, is about correspondingly less. The Mexican miner 
 •could lav bv a tidv sum as^ainst a rainv dav if he wanted to, but he
 
 A GLIMPi^E OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 IT 
 
 doesn't. ]\Iost of his income passes down the ahmentary canals 
 of himself and family, althou2"h he is bv no means averse to fine 
 raiment, if there is any balance after the grub bill is liquidated. 
 In one matter of extravagance, things are reversed in Mexico. 
 The gringo's nose is held rather steadily at the grindstone to keep 
 his females in headgear. Here the women wear neither hat nor 
 
 ^■^>™»s»-Nn„ 
 
 Const' iicling a Power Line. A Tougii Stretch. 
 
 bonnet, but the vanity of the men in this direction is inordinate 
 and limitless. To own a swell sombrero is the crowning ambition 
 of a Mexican's life. These sombreros are gorgeous affairs, cost- 
 ing from fifteen dollars up into the luuidreds, and it is astonishing
 
 78 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 to see the kind of people who acquire property rights in extremely 
 fine ones. This weakness is worked on with deadlv effect in the 
 stores. When a Mexican with a shabby tile enters, a salesman 
 invariably requests the privilege of trying an expensive sombrero 
 on him. Then, if he can be induced to look at himself in the 
 glass, his doom is sealed. He will make any sacrifice, discount the 
 future and tie himself up in all sorts of financial knots to own that 
 hat. Therefore, it frequently happens that you will see a Mexican 
 strutting proudly along under a hundred dollar hat, the balance of 
 whose raiment would be dear at six bits. 
 
 I can merely enumerate briefly a few of the remaining condi- 
 tions favorable to the mining industry, and I refer here only to 
 the States of Durango and Sinaloa. so far as I am familiar with 
 them. The ores are generally of a free milling character, yielding 
 to the cheap processes of amalgamation and cyanide. Wood and 
 water, those prime necessities, are plentiful and as a rule easily ac- 
 cessible. Lastly, the walls of ledges are generally so hard and dur- 
 able that they will stand without timbering, which in many locali- 
 ties entails an enormous bill of expenses. 
 
 Then, it is only fair to give the other side, for there are certainly 
 some serious drawbacks to mining in Mexico. The principal and 
 perhaps only grave one is the matter of transporting heavy mach- 
 inery and supplies. I have been here six weeks assisting as best I 
 might in the construction of the California Mining Company's 
 mill and can write on this subject with the profound emotion of 
 personal experience. INIan can engage in no more heartbreaking 
 job. The trails in this section, leading from the seaboard, are so 
 bad that the worst in our country look like speed tracks by com- 
 parison. They traverse arroyos littered with rocks as big as a 
 church, skirt chasms and precipices that make your hair lift when 
 you look down, and cross mountain ranges ten thousand feet 
 high by grades almost as .steep as going up a chimnev. When it 
 comes to packing several hundred tons of machinery and supplies 
 over such a route, perhaps you can gather some idea of the under- 
 taking, and perhaps you can not. The trails are only open seven 
 months in the year, for during the rainy season they are impass- 
 able, and in that period you must somehow get your luggage into
 
 A GLIMrSE OF OLD .MEXICO 
 
 79 
 
 camp. You are absolutely dependent on the mule for motive 
 power and the mule is dependent on the muleteer, who is a mighty 
 irresponsible fellow. He leaves ]\Iazatlan with your freight all 
 right enough, but when he will reach his place of destination is 
 another thing. He loathes to handle machinery at any price and 
 if he chances to hear of desirable freight at some other point, he 
 Avill drop your cargo by the way. run oft' after the other stuff and 
 return to your in\-oice when he gets good and ready. \\'hen T 
 
 A Ale.\ieaii Trail. Tho Best I riaw iii tlu Country. 
 
 came from Mazatlan. I found parts of the California mill and 
 power pipe line adorning the trail from the first stopping place
 
 80 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 • 
 
 to the mine, and it has only been by dint of superhuman exertion 
 and powerful official influence that we have finally succeeded in 
 getting things pretty much in shape. Then, what you want first, 
 always comes last, and you have to hold down the safety valves 
 of your temper while train after train winds into camp with loads 
 of material that you cannot possibly go to work on till something 
 else arrives. All this entails endless vexation and expense, but 
 in the nature of things, it is only temporary. Finally your plant 
 is all together and in operation, after which your serious troubles 
 are at an end. 
 
 But, even if there are some drawbacks here, Mexico is all 
 right and will soon regain its reputation as the world's greatest 
 mining country. If the money wasted on fool projects at Nome 
 last year had been diverted our way, it would have developed by 
 this time the boom of the age. 
 
 I cannot tell you about our great hunting and fishing trip into 
 the high Sierra Madre further than to remark that it was a James 
 Dandy, only we almost froze to death every night. We got right 
 into the heart of the bear, deer, wild turkey and trout region, 
 and if we didn't have fun to the filling of our bellies, then my 
 ilame is something else. But this subject deserves a letter by it- 
 self. Hasta la vista. 
 
 California Mine, State of Durango, Mexico, April 13, 1901.
 
 NINTH LETTER 
 
 FTER you have jogged along 
 through hfe beyond the turning 
 of the ways and watched the 
 milestones marking the thirties 
 and most of the forties speed 
 swiftly by, did it ever oc- 
 cur to you what it would 
 mean to feel like a boy again, 
 be it for ever so short a 
 
 iSiim:im.:-,im^ 'IT,? f^*^' 'f" I consider 
 
 childhood the happiest part ot 
 human existence by considerable, for it is full of its own troubles, 
 big and small. It is a period of dependence and of restraint that 
 are felt then far more than we realize in after years. If you doubt 
 that statement, think of the kid who has to march off to a dingy- 
 school on some glorious spring morning, while his little heart is 
 full of birds and woods and flowers and all the inspirations of the 
 season. Recall, as you proliably can, how your very soul used to 
 revolt against acts of tyranny, perhaps imaginary and perhaps 
 not. for a boy does not always have a square deal. Remember 
 how you ha\e laid awake at nights and dreaiued of tlie time when 
 you would be l)ig and istrong enough to lick the school teacher 
 who had just disci])]ine(l you. Then consider, as your half-for- 
 gotten experience will doubtless enable you to do, what a tough 
 lot boys are with each other, how the weak are set upon, how 
 merciless they are to the sensitive and shrinking. T held m\' own
 
 82 
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 fairly well with my early contemporaries, yet I never can for- 
 get one day, almost forty years ago, when I went to school in a 
 Little Lord Fauntleroy suit of black velvet and the jibes and 
 jeers I suffered with a breaking heart on that occasion from a lot 
 of young demons, before I returned home and took that suit off, 
 never to be worn again. No, if you think it over dispassionately, 
 childhood is not all that it is cracked up to be, even when your 
 lives are cast in pleasant places. Nor is early youth altogether 
 
 Mountain Scenery. Sierra Madre. 
 
 the idyllyic age that the poets assure us it is. The romping and 
 flirting with the girls is all well enough but that is only an inci-
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 83 
 
 dent. The average young man who is suddenly thrust into the 
 world to make his own way is of all created things the most 
 helpless. He realizes it so thoroughly that many a poor fellow 
 gives up the struggle in sheer despair and falls by the wayside. 
 He must endure the snubs of his elders who never seem to recol- 
 lect that they too were once raw beginners, be thankful for a beg- 
 garly income that will not permit of the legitimate pleasures he 
 longs for and through it all see no certain rift in the clouds that 
 darken his destiny. 
 
 I have been through it all and at this stage of the journey, as I 
 compare the present with the past, I can say without a moment's 
 hesitation, give me comfortable middle age, every time. When 
 you have hewed out a secure place in the world for yourself, 
 have outgrown the sordid cares of keeping the wolf from the door 
 and making both ends meet, when you are able to look on things 
 like a philosopher with a mind broadened by experience, when 
 you can go home to a happy family at night and withal still en- 
 joy health, strength and faculties unimpaired, then I am very sure 
 that man is at the time when life means more for him thaii ^ny 
 other. The only trouble is that the colors of middle age are not 
 fast. They begin to fade altogether too soon, almost as soon.a^ 
 you begin to learn how rich and strong they are. , - • ' ' • 
 
 But for all that there is something about boyhood that few of 
 us forget in later years — it is then that we feel the thrill of ex- 
 panding life, the sense of development, physical and intellectual, 
 and the buoyancy of growth. What an intense appetitite for fun 
 we used to have when it came our way and how short the days 
 used to iseem. How easily sleep came to us \\%h the night and it 
 wasn't any trouble to get out of bed in the morning, even if the 
 frost was on the lawn. Yes, that marvelous exhilaration of, youth 
 and untiring energy, we remember only too well as we start 
 down the long toboggan amid the lengthening shadows and when 
 we recall them in fancy, a sigh comes surging up from the depths; 
 laden with the refrain, "Would I were a boy again." 
 
 I have made that reflection once or twice and behold ! the wish 
 has been realized. 1 am forty-seven years old and past but for 
 eight days I have been a boy once more, just as sure as two and
 
 84 
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 three make six. And there wasn't any fairy god-mother work 
 about it either : for the matter of that mine has probably l^ecome 
 too aged and sedate to be playing pranks any more. It was just 
 the purely natural results of our outing in the high Sierras, an 
 experience open to anyone who cares to try it. In a former letter, 
 I spread myself about the climate at the California mine and I do 
 not wish to take back a word of it now. But the climate of the 
 loftv Mexican mountains is a veritable inspiration, a thing "sui 
 
 In the IVIexican Sierra— a Picturesque Gorge. 
 
 generis," incomparable and indescribable. It gives you the sen- 
 sation of walking on air and a suggestion that at last you have 
 found the object of Ponce de Leon's fruitless quest. Then you
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 85 
 
 have tlie marvelous and stupendous scenery of the Seirras to fill 
 vour verv soul witli gladness, the exalting sense of perfect free- 
 dom and last but not least, a sportsman's paradise to wander 
 through. I will nexer forget those eight days. They brought 
 back the best of boyhood with a rush. It did not seem as though 
 fatigue were ])ossible and every incident turned spontaneously 
 into merriment and fun. just as it used to when school was over, 
 
 In the Mexican Sierra — Porpliyry Buttes. 
 
 long, long ago. A hundred dollars a minute ought to be dirt 
 cheaj) to have the clock's hands turned backward in this fashion
 
 86 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 but I intend to repeat the experiment at least once a year here- 
 after at a far less price. 
 
 We left the California mine on April 3(1, with a well stocked 
 commissary department, eight souls in all, four gringos and four 
 Mexicans. ' Mr. Frank Moseley elected to stay by the works and 
 an employe of the Mexican Gold and Silver Recovery Company 
 took his place, with the usual mozo attendant. A Rurale hap- 
 pened into camp the night before, scented a good time from 
 afar and joined our forces. His first name was Manuel — I never 
 inquired the balance of it — and a better man for roughing it never 
 stood in shoe leather. We rode over a lofty range in the early 
 morning, followed a long ridge for several miles and plunged 
 down into a vast and precipitous canyon, known as the Arroyo 
 Santa Barbara. It was a risky sort of a descent here and there; 
 several times we had to dismount and help our mules down by 
 the tail, a courtesy which the sagacious animals understand and 
 appreciate. But at length we emerged from our difficulties on a 
 beautiful grassy meadow luxuriant wdth rich feed, through which 
 a dashing mountain stream ran, clear as crystal and cold as ice. 
 This secluded and almost inaccessible valley was a famous lurk- 
 ing place for bandits a quarter of a century ago, or less. The 
 ruins of their old well built log houses still stand. Here, on a car- 
 pet of pine needles, we spread the generous contents of our grub 
 box which were attended to with the gusto of a mountain appe- 
 tite. A few minutes after we had started for the afternoon ride, 
 w^e had our first experience with that king of game birds, the 
 Mexican wild turkey or cocano. We were proceeding in leisurely 
 fashion through the timber with the isilence that usually follows 
 a square meal when one of the Mexicans in a hushed voice hissed 
 the word, "cocanos." There they were, a flock of probably fifty 
 of them. We had come upon them by surprise, a rare thing in- 
 deed, for the wild turkey is the wariest of game. I had heard 
 about the immense size and weight of these birds but never be- 
 fore realized the truth of it till I saw them in a state of nature. 
 Why, the finest Christmas turkey in California would look like 
 a squab alongside of one of these mighty gobblers. There was 
 one old patriarch in the group that seemed nearly as tall as the
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD :\[EXTCO 
 
 87 
 
 Eiffel Tower and after seeing him I am quite ready to admit that 
 the Mexican wild turkey often weighs fifty pounds. Well, if we 
 surprised them, they surprised us. Not a gun was ready and 
 though we slid off our mules and got them out of the scabbards 
 with nervous haste, by the time we had cleared the decks for ac- 
 tion, the birds were zig-zagging through the timber with that 
 deceptive trot of theirs. However, we made a run for it, endea- 
 voring to come to close range and ever and anon blazing away 
 
 -/S0^,. 
 
 ■■ 1 .. 
 
 A Mexican Faisan. 
 
 at an illusive turkey in ilic \ain hope that a case of nigger luck 
 would bring him down. I^'ortune nearly came my way. My 
 nephew started in pursuit of the aforementioned colossal gobbler
 
 88 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 and turned it down a long ridge. It occurred to me that I could 
 make a short cut and head it off and I proceeded to execute this 
 manoeuvre at the imminent risk of chest foundering, for running 
 in these altitudes is rather hard on the wind. My calculations 
 \vere all right in one w-ay; for I intercepted the gobbler at close 
 range and had I carried a rifle his shrift would have been short. 
 Unluckily, I was armed with nothing better than a shotgun. I 
 gave him both barrels as he turned but it seemed only to put more 
 ginger into hi.s heels. As I hung to a tree, in a vain effort to catch 
 my breath again, I watched him climb a ridge, reach the crest, 
 halt a moment to look back and smile at me, just a trifle sadly, I 
 thought, and then he was gone forever. 
 
 The truth might as well be told. This was our luck all through 
 the outing so far as turkeys were concerned. We could hear 
 them gobbling and perhaps see a dozen or more disappearing like 
 ghosts in the timber but we never had a dead man's chance of 
 bagging one. We made our fatal mistake wdien we tied poor Dewey 
 up before our departure. A dog is absolutely essential to wild 
 turkey hunting. A setter or pointer wall easily outrun them and 
 make they fly into the trees and nothing else will induce them to 
 take wing. Once in a tree, the most astute and experienced gob- 
 bler will pay no attention to a hunter whatever. His eyes and 
 thoughts are all fixed on the dog and it is simply a matter of 
 walking within range and bowling him over. Remember this and 
 vou will never be short of turkev in the Mexican mountains. 
 Otherwise my experience will be yours. 
 
 This part of Mexico is particularly rich in its variety of galli- 
 naceous game birds, their habitat being influenced more or less 
 by altitude. There are at least seven varieties of them within 
 the scope of a day's hunt of our mine. First and foremost, there 
 is the gorgeous and imperial wild turkey. Next in order is the 
 faisan, which resembles a turkey in its long neck, throat wattles 
 and general make-up a good deal more than a pheasant, the 
 Spanish name for which it bears. It weighs about twelve pounds, 
 has a fine gamey flavor, but is the most idiotic of birds, appar- 
 ently going out of its way to be killed and therefore gives the true 
 sportsman little joy. The cut herewith represents Johnny-on-
 
 A (ILIMI'SSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 89 
 
 the-Spot and your hnmhle servant supporting a recently slaught- 
 ered faisan. Then conies the queche or chachalaca resembling 
 the faisan but much smaller and more handsomely plumed, like- 
 wise not overburdened with intellectual gifts. I have written of 
 the (jueche in a pre\ious letter. There is also a true grouse, 
 
 In the Mexican Sierra. 
 
 though very rare in these parts, for 1 haxe not seen o\cr four or 
 five specimens. Two distinct and very large kinds of mountain 
 quail are numerous. These are genuine game birds, strong of 
 wing and remarkably puzzling flyers when first Hushed. No ap- 
 prentice with a shotgun can land them. Last of all there is the
 
 90 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 valley quail similar to our Californian quail, but smaller, very game 
 and toothsome no end. These make a royal collection for the 
 sportsman and the field is likely to remain a good one for years 
 to come, as the birds are absolutely unmolested by the native pop- 
 ulation. Shotguns are unknown in these parts and anyhow the 
 average Mexican has the utmost contempt for the smaller game. 
 A deer is about the smallest thing he cares to bother with. 
 
 But to resume, after the turkey incident, we went climbing up- 
 ward till we reached the summit of a great flat ridge that stretched 
 out to the eastward, beautifully diversified with forest and open 
 glade. Deer were crossing our path every few minutes and a 
 couple of them tried it once too often. We could have killed a 
 dozen just as easily but we were honest sportsmen and had no wish 
 to slaughter wantonly. 
 
 We found a spring of sparkling water late in the afternoon and 
 went into camp. My aneroid informed me that we were just a 
 shade over iiooo feet above sea level and later on when the cold 
 began to pinch it would'nt have surprised me to learn that we were 
 five miles up in the air. I was all right, for like an old campaigner 
 I had brought enough blankets along to load a mule. But how 
 those poor devils of Mexicans lived through the night I never will 
 understand. They had a serape apiece, about as thick as a light 
 shawl and this is their regular covering by night, whether they are 
 sojourning on the tropical coast land or camped on the lofty 
 sierra, where the theremometer gets down close to the zero point 
 before day break. On this occasion, they curled up in their scrapes 
 and calmy went to sleep with half a yard of leg sticking out. Now 
 and then, one of them would mutter "caramba" get up. stir the fire, 
 hang over it until his clothes fairly smoked and after thus hoisting 
 on board a satisfactory cargo of heat, return once more to the 
 arms of Morpheus. But even with this adjunct their capacity to 
 assimilate cold was wonderful. I never .saw^ the like of it before. 
 
 AVe were up betimes, anticipating the sun somewhat and eating 
 breakfast with a crisp white frost covering the ground. An hour 
 or so later, you could hardly realize that it had ever been cold, so 
 generous was the sunshine, so soft and balmy was the breeze. By 
 noon we were camped on the banks of a bewilderingly beautiful
 
 A (UJMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 91 
 
 trout stream, ideal for the angler's craft, replete with waterfalls 
 and long dark pools and no underbrush to hamper operations. I 
 had a regulation dude outfit, split bamboo rod, tly book, reels, 
 spoons, fish basket, etc. and I went to work in scientific fashion,, 
 as will be seen from the subjoined snap shots. The others cut 
 poles that looked like base ball bats, tied on lines and hooks baited 
 
 Catching My Biggest Trout. 
 
 with grasshoppers or grubs and if the sad truth must be told,were 
 yanking trout out of the water rather more rapidly than my- 
 self. The fact is the season was not propitious for fiy fishing. It
 
 92 
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 was early for the insect life that later swarms the air and the 
 speckled darlings, dependent on food from other sources, did not 
 rise enthusiastically. As I did'nt want to be beaten at the game, 
 I did a little bait fishing of my own and soon silenced the laugh 
 that had started at my expense. 
 
 The Mexican trout closely resembles the rainbow variety, only 
 
 A Small But Well Stocked Stream. 
 
 the markings are stronger and the colors more vivid. They do 
 not grow to enormous proportions and a pound fish is a very 
 large one here. From six to ten inches is about the average of 
 the catch but to my way of thinking this is the ideal size. For
 
 A (ILBII'SE OF OLD :MEX1C0 93 
 
 firmness of flesh and delicacy of flavor they can not be surpassed 
 the world over. Like the feathered tribe, they are practically un- 
 molested by man. Several gringos from San Dimas come once- 
 a year to fish in one of the creeks in this neighborhood and catch 
 perhaps a few hundred during a stay of three or four days, but that 
 is about the sum of human depredations. The stream we first 
 tackled had never been fished before — at least an old Chilero 
 gentleman residing in the neighborhood so informed me. He 
 claimed to have lived on the creek for upwards of seventy years 
 and had never seen or heard of any angling there previous to our 
 coming. 
 
 These mountain fastnesses have a sprinkling of population. 
 Here and there. the rugged gorges broaden out into small valleys 
 with a soil well suited to the cultivation of maize and in these you. 
 will usually find a family installed and a pretty big one at that. 
 Here are the breeding grounds of the Chileros, those hardy 
 mountaineers who descend periodically to the lower levels and 
 astonish the onlookers with their strength, activity and willingness 
 to work. A finer race physically it would be hard to find. Instead 
 of the sallow complexion prevalent among the lower classes of 
 Mexico, the red blood tinges their cheeks in a way very agreeable 
 to look upon, especially when the object is one of the gentler sex. 
 Among the women. I saw some of the finest complexions it has 
 ever been my pleasure to behold, \\liile not very tall, they are 
 superbl}' proportioned and have an unusual chest development, 
 that T take is due to the natural enlargement of the lungs to com- 
 pensate for the attenuated atmosyjhere in these high attitudes. At 
 all events, thev suffer no inconvenience of breathing under heavy 
 exertions and climb the steepest hills like goats where an ordinary 
 lowlander would have to take a rest every ten steps. 
 
 Their habits of life are simplicity itself. They know nothing 
 abom intoxicants, use tobacco sparingly, if at all, and corn, 
 worked up into tortillas, comprises about four-fifths of their diet. 
 They are absolutely ignorant of the luxuries of civilization and 
 likewise of the penalties they entail. The long array of physical 
 afflictions that hover over crowded centers and stand continually 
 like horrible sjiecters to fill us with a haunting dread, find no abid-
 
 •94 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 ing place in these mountains. Consumption, cancer and the whole 
 group of germ diseases are unheard of, except through passing 
 tradition from the outside world. Smallpox, indeed, occasionally 
 makes an inroad but that is all they have to fear and its ravages 
 are not very fatal. They take it like philosphers when it comes, 
 liouse themselves and simply permit the disease to run its 
 course, which it usually does in a satisfactory way. I saw a family 
 ■of about a dozen, some of whom bore honorable scars of a recent 
 set-to with the dreaded scourage, and was informed that every 
 member had been down with it at the same time a couple of years 
 before. All of them pulled through, however, and barring the 
 scars, which were not very pronounced, were none the worse for 
 the experience. The special senses seem to be preserved to a 
 great age. It is the commonest thing to see an aged man or 
 woman with keen eyes, ears that catch every sound and last but 
 not least, with teeth as flawless as in the days of childhood. Those 
 who have suffered the agonies of the damned from morbid molars 
 can best appreciate what that means. 
 
 Their life is not very eventful. The appearance of our cavalcade 
 made them perfectly idiotic with delight and their simple hospi- 
 tality was wide open. Doubtkss the story of our visit will be 
 handed down to posterity as a noteworthy incident of local history 
 and later generations will hear of the wonderful strangers who 
 killed birds flying, a feat that never failed to excite astonishment, 
 and who practiced a strange art that induced fish to leave the 
 water on the end of a string. But do not fall into the error of 
 imagining that these people are to be pitied. When I think of 
 their abounding health and buoyant spirits, their long lives with- 
 out ache or pain, even as old age comes gently on and then re- 
 member the wan faces and bent forms only too familiar in the 
 haunts of civilized man : the gouts, dyspepsias and torpid livers, 
 the wearinesses and lassitudes of our abnormal existence and the 
 pills, tonics, castor oil and cocktails with which we vainly endeavor 
 to brace up exhausted nature and stand off the inevitable, then I 
 am more than half inclined to the opinion that the Chilero gentle- 
 man has distinctlythe best of the game even if he lives in a shack
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 95 
 
 and misses the French dinners, tailor made clothes, automobiles 
 and swell mansions that we enjoy. 
 
 And thus our eight days in the mountains slipped swiftly by. I 
 promised to thrill you with blood-curdling descriptions of my ad- 
 ventures with the savage tenants of the wilderness and had I once 
 started on that tack my readers would still be trembling with ex- 
 citement, for my invariable rule is never to spoil a good story for 
 want of facts. But the truth is, we had no experiences of the ex- 
 citing order. There is no end of big game in the mountains such 
 as lions, bears, leopards and wild boars, but you never see them 
 unless you have dogs to drive them from their haunts, So if a 
 chronicle of every day was furnished, one would be pretty much 
 the same as the other but each was brimful of hearty enjoyment, 
 without an unpleasant incident to mar the whole. Hunting, fish- 
 ing, good fellowship and the brisk air of the mountains are enough 
 to make any rational man take a cheerful view of existence and 
 when I said I felt a boy again all over, I did not stretch matters 
 a bit. 
 
 We took about sixty views of camp life, mountain scenery and 
 of the Chileros and their abodes. Sad to relate, all but five or six 
 proved failures. The intense light and odd atmospheric con- 
 ditions are apt to play the mischief with amateur photography in 
 Mexico as I have found more than once to my sorrow. In this, 
 instance, I regret the loss particulary for our work related to a 
 region upon which no camera had been directed before. 
 
 California ]\Iine. State of Durango, Mexico, April i8, 1901.
 
 TENTH LETTER 
 
 N outline is all I have been able to 
 give in preceding letters of the 
 great mining industry of Mexico, 
 of its impressive past, prosperous 
 present and the limitless possibil- 
 ities ahead when capital and enter- 
 prise unite in developing its miner- 
 al wealth. But not alone in that 
 direction is the future bright with 
 promise. Mexico is enormously 
 
 rich in agricultural resources, which for the most part are still in 
 the latent state. In certain sections, some attempt has been made 
 to cultivate the soil according to modern methods, but as far as 
 my observation has extended, husbandry is still in a most primitive 
 condition. Improved agricultural machinery is practically un- 
 known. The earth is still broken with a wooden plow, the crops 
 harvested with a machete, the corn shelled bv hand and the chaff 
 separated by the breezes. In one particular only do the rancheros 
 display any marked capacity in their work — in the curious art and 
 vast industry devoted to the construction of irrigating ditches. 
 As might be expected under these conditions, agriculture is any- 
 thing but varied. Two or three staples comprise almost the entire
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 97 
 
 list. I think that about three-fourths of the energies of the farmer 
 class are devoted to raising corn and beans, the mainstays of life 
 in Mexico. Cattle raising is also an important pursuit, and one 
 of the few that is pushing ahead rapidly at present. Of course, in 
 additon to the above, tobacco culture, sugar, coffee and choco- 
 late growing are carried on in specially favored localities on a 
 
 Near the Crest of the Sierra. 
 
 more or less extensive scale. Sugar production, in particular is 
 coming rapidly to the front and the apparently authentic figures 
 they give you of the profits of certain haciendas, fairly make the 
 head dizzy. But the diversities of agriculture, such as we are 
 familiar with in the United States, are not found here on an ap-
 
 98 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 preciable scale, and some branches are unknown altogether. For 
 instance, I might mention one of special local interest — that of 
 dairying — -so far as butter making is concerned. No butter, to 
 the best of my knowledge, is produced in commercial quantities 
 in Mexico. In my travels, I have never seen an ounce of the 
 native product. All of it comes from Sweden in tins of from a 
 quarter of a pound up. An ocean of this stuff is used, although 
 it is a terrible poor substitute for the fresh article, and sells at the 
 dizzy price of $1.50 per pound, silver, or about eighty cents of our 
 money. Now, while the country on the west coast of Mexico, say 
 for a hundred miles back, is not adapted to dairying, when you 
 climb into the mountains you find the conditions admirably suited. 
 When hunting in the high Sierra some weeks ago, I saw thous- 
 ands of acres of the finest dairy land, great stretches of grass land, 
 green the year round, and abundant water, coupled with cool and 
 bracing climate. I should rate it at least equal to the best dairy 
 ranches in Marin Countv. California. The native cows are of little 
 value as milkers, but if some fellow had the enterprise to bring a 
 graded herd of American cows into this section and set up in the 
 dairy business, I have not a doubt that he would make his ever- 
 lastig fortune in no time. These mountain ranges are still, in 
 many instances, part of the public domain, and where under pri- 
 vate ownerhip, can be purchased at almost nominal prices. I 
 am now treating for one of them myself — a small affair of 13,000 
 acres — which took my fancy, primarily because it is the finest 
 stretch of country for the sportsman that I ever saw. I verily be- 
 lieve that there are more tons of game and trout on that one ranch 
 than in the counties of Marin, Sonoma and Mendocino combined. 
 If I acquire it, I will give my California friends a permit to hunt 
 there when they visit Mexico, but bags of wild turkeys will be 
 limited strictly to twenty-five. But as soon as I make a good raise 
 in the mines, I intend to take up the dairy proposition on this 
 ranch, if no one gets in ahead of me, and see just what is in it. 
 
 I have referred to dairying simply as an example of dormant 
 possibilites. How wide the range of these may be, I am not in a 
 position to state. But it goes without saying that a country that 
 presents every diversity of climate from tropical to north temper-
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 99 
 
 ate, through variations of altitude, that possesses a fertile soil and 
 a fairly industrious rural population, is still in its agricultural in- 
 fancy when it has progressed no further than Mexico has today. 
 It is now doing little better than supplying the wants of its own 
 people. In many directions it is not even doing that. Whereas, 
 if its resources were properly exploited, it would be sending its 
 wealth by hundreds of ships to feed the hungry of other lands, just 
 as the sister republic to the north is doing. That there is sure to 
 be an immense boom in agriculture here seems to me one of the 
 most certain things in this shifting world, and that the millions of 
 acres now lying idle and tenantless will soon be dedicated to their 
 proper uses. Therefore, I cannot imagine an investment more 
 sure to yield a rich return in the future than the purchase of real 
 property in ]\Iexico, in those sections where it can be had pretty 
 much at the buyer's figures. The conditions are very much the 
 same as in California in 1849, ^vhen ranchos were transferred for 
 a few hundred dollars that are worth millions today. And we have 
 here what we did not have there — an abundance of effective labor 
 to develop our opportunities. I have spoken well of the character 
 of the Mexican miner. The Mexican husbandman is in most re- 
 spects his equal. The industrial curse of this country, which once 
 stood steadfastly in the way of its progress and gave it the title of 
 the land of manana, was the eternal observance of saints' day. 
 Less than twenty years ago, I am informed that there were only 
 one hundred and sixty-one days per annum when it was permiss- 
 ible for a good Mexican to work. The remaining two hundred 
 and four were either Sundays or days of saints of the first class, 
 to labor on which meant to invite the certain displeasure of God, 
 and probably induce Him to strike the offender dead on the spot. 
 Col. Burns described to me an incident in his early experience in 
 Mexico, illustrating how completely this idea had taken possess- 
 ion of the public mind. He and Mr. Waterhouse had elected to 
 work on one of the most notable holy days, and the entire popu- 
 lation of San Dimas turned out and watched patiently till sun- 
 down, expecting to witness the edifying" spectacle of their annihi- 
 lation by an outraged diety. The days of the minor saints were 
 more numerous than those of the year, and of course it was more
 
 100 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 religious not to work on those either, although it was not compul- 
 sory. Therefore, about all the work you could get out of a Mex- 
 ican of the old school was say a hundred days a year at the utmost. 
 But that has been broken down long ago. All that remains of the 
 prodigious superstition is a strict observance of holy week — the 
 last of lent — and a three days' holiday at Christmas. For the rest, 
 you can find all the labor you want, and a very good quality 
 of it. 
 
 The race that time doth run with swift but silent pace is draw- 
 ing my stay in Mexico to a close. Tomorrow, I leave for the sea- 
 board, homeward bound, taking with me the memory of six pleas- 
 ant weeks spent in the Mexican mountains. I must say that I 
 am giving up the free life and returning to what we call civilization 
 with rather a heavy heart. I am not much in love with some of 
 the conventionalities and restraints with which polite society is 
 constantly aiming to circumscribe our actions, without any special 
 good reason for it. I have an honest dislike for the vanities, shams, 
 pretenses, jealousies, heartburnings and eternal regard for outward 
 show that poison life and make good fellowship impossible. I 
 prefer a camp fire in the wilderness to quarters in a palace, a hunt- 
 ing suit to a swallowtail, a mule to a special car and a fellow in any 
 old kind of clothes who will meet me frankly to one of the tailor 
 made pinheads who infest the most exclusive circles. Therefore, 
 during the last six weeks, I have been entirely in my element, have 
 said and done exactly what I pleased and cared never a rap what 
 anyone thought of it. It is hard to break of¥ from such a delight- 
 ful existence all at once, but I suppose in due time I will get back 
 in the old groove again. 
 
 R. C. Kirk, the well known Klondiker, blew in on us last week, 
 fresh from the northland. The gentleman went to Dawson with
 
 A GLBIPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 101 
 
 the first rush in 1897. made a stake and had the good sense to pull 
 out before his nose and ears were frozen off. His book, "Twelve 
 Months in Klondike," published by a London firm, is by far the 
 best descriptive work on the Klondike that I have seen. Happen- 
 
 Leaving: the Mine, Homeward Bound. 
 
 ing- to be in San Francisco, he heard that I was in Mexico and de- 
 cided that it would be the proper thing to pay me a social call — 
 a trifling trip of only 1500 miles. He worked his way from Ma- 
 zatlan to the California Mine, through the roughest country on 
 earth, without knowing a single word of Spanish, which I con- 
 sider something of a feat. He is full of enthusiasm for this coun-
 
 102 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 try, as far as he has seen it, and has a mind to settle here if he can 
 find a suitable base of operation, which ought not to be difficult 
 in a young man of his energy and talents. He and Superinten- 
 dent Tompkins will take the long ride with me to Mazatlan, so the 
 journey will not be a lonesome one. 
 
 California Mine, State of Durango, Mexico, April 23, 1901. 
 
 mm
 
 ELEN'EXTH LETTER 
 
 T the interesting hour of 2 o'clock 
 in the morninsf of yesterday we 
 arriyed here, after a man-kihing 
 ride of four days. We tried a 
 new and unfrequented trail to 
 get out of the mountains, with 
 the usual results, and paid the 
 corresponding penalty in fatigue 
 and oyerwork. Not only that, 
 wild hogs wrecked our grub box 
 the first night out and we had to liye off the country as best we 
 nu'ght. But the yirtue of hospitality is one that never fails in 
 Mexico, and no matter how tough looking you may be, food and 
 shelter are neyer refused. Nay, they are furnished cheerfully, and 
 when you depart the host bids you make yourself at home if you 
 pass that way again. It isn't exactly Palace Hotel accommoda- 
 tion that you receive, but they give you the best they have, and 
 what can man do more? As often as not, any form of compensa- 
 tion is declined. And it never seems to give the women the 
 slightest trouble to do a lot of extra work for strangers. They are 
 a hard working, good-natured and fair looking lot, these women 
 of Mexico. In my younger days, I should have had more to say 
 about them. There are real beauties among them, and a still 
 larger number can be classed as "simpatica," a Spanish word the 
 nearest English equivalent of which is "attractive" or "pleasing." 
 One thing about them that struck me as a clear reversal of female
 
 104 
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 human nature was the entire frankness with which they discussed 
 certain matters concerning themseh'es which a gringo dame 
 would rather die than alkide to. For instance, when you find an 
 American lady who is approaching the shady side of life unat- 
 tached, if the subject of marriage is brought up at all. she will tell 
 
 Mazatlan, Looking Seaward. 
 
 vou all about the brilliant offers she has received and the swarm 
 of lovers she dismissed broken-hearted, because she never met a 
 man who came up to her ideals. You may know to the contrary, 
 but that is the story you will get. Now, with the Spanish lady it 
 is otherwise. I was talking one evening with a senorita, a midget 
 of a thing, but so pretty that it made your heart ache to look at 
 her, who nevertheless was accumulating years in single blessed- 
 ness in a manner highly distasteful. She was an orphan and sup- 
 ported by the good lady with whom she lived, a condition of 
 things that she had been most anxious to terminate by matrimony. 
 She spoke about her efforts in that direction almost pathetically. 
 "I have done my very best, senor," she said; "I have set my 
 cap for every likely young man in the neighborhood and I cer-
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 105. 
 
 tainly cannot blame myself for overlooking any opportunity. But 
 they will not have me. In the meanwhile I have seen girls who 
 were anything but 'simpatica,' whose eyes looked in different di- 
 rections and had mouths like the gateway of a church, march of¥ 
 with good husbands under my very no.se. I cannot imagine what 
 is the matter, unless it be that the men will not take me because 
 I am so little." "But, amiga," I suggested, the thoughtless fel- 
 lows ought to remember that the most valuable things in the 
 world are always put up in small parcels." "Granting that to be 
 true, senor," she replied, "in my case the parcel is so very small 
 that it is overlooked altogether." Other people may imagine an 
 American woman talking that way. I cannot. 
 
 But spinsters are not numerous in Mexico and I doubt not that 
 my little friend has had her wish gratified long ago. The fact is, 
 whether a woman is married or not depends upon many things 
 beside her looks. We constantly see very handsome women given 
 the overlook and pass on, lonesome and neglectd, from youth to 
 that terrible uncertain age; while others who just miss being posi- 
 tively plain never seem to lack admirers and are able to pick their 
 choice. The explanation is not so difficult as it seems. In the 
 first place, men see women through eyes entirely their own and 
 your friend may be able to discover charms in a certain lady 
 which you are utterly powerless to detect. But far more import- 
 ant still is that instinctive faculty of ingratiating themselves with 
 the sterner sex that some women possess and others lack. There 
 is no more edifying spectacle than to watch a really capable, alert 
 and resolute female at her work, to observe how dextrously she 
 finds out a certain gentleman's weakness — just where he is vulner- 
 able and just where she must march around his sensitive points 
 with that curious art of hers. She knows in a moment exactly 
 how far she can go with flattery, without being suspected, exactly 
 how mucli regard may be manifested, without the appearance of 
 setting her cap. And when that gentleman goes home, sits in 
 his easy chair and thinks how wonderfully that woman under- 
 stands him. how she appreciates all his good ((ualities, how she re- 
 spects and admires him — and how much he deserves it — he is pre-
 
 lOG 
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 cioiis near the matrimonial landing net and will be gathered in 
 before he knows it. 
 
 Mexican ladies seem to have this gift developed in a high de- 
 gree. They are good fellows, like men and tell them so with 
 their eyes, if not otherwise. Their talents carry them rather early 
 in life to the hymeneal altar, and as above stated, spinsters are 
 few and far between. 
 
 I'nloading' Lighters, Mazatlan. 
 
 We passed a quiet Sunday in Mazatlan yesterday. That is to 
 ■say, we took in the sights, which included a brief inspection of a 
 rooster tournament and attendance at the regular weekly bull
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 107 
 
 iight. These are national pastimes and the latter partakes of the 
 nature of a great social function. Personally, I have no taste for 
 either and dislike both as cordially as I detest pugilism at home. 
 But when one is abroad, it is necessary to have experiences to get 
 a fair idea of national character — and I had them. I came away 
 with none of my previous impressions changed, but rather deep- 
 ened and the cock-pit and the bull-ring shall see me no more. 
 
 Street Scene, Mazatlan. 
 
 This prejudice on the part of Americans is looked upon by Mex- 
 icans as one of the strangest aberrations of the gringo mind. 
 They themselves have very strong convictions on the subject of
 
 108 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 prize fighting. They regard it as a brutal and degrading spectacle 
 which should be frowned down by all good people; and they will 
 argue to any length on the viciousness of the game of football^ 
 which risks the lives of promising young men, simply to afford 
 amusement to the multitude. But when it comes to a chicken 
 fight or a bull fight, that is quite another afifair. The simple mis- 
 sion of these animals, according to their logic, is to grow up, be 
 killed and eaten, which is not very far from the truth, after all. 
 That being so, the manner of their taking off is a mere matter of 
 detail and if they can contribute to the entertainment of the pub- 
 lic in their last moments by displays of courage and steadfast- 
 ness, what harm is done? Moreover, if the animal had a choice,^ 
 would it not prefer to perish in combat gloriously, rather than 
 basely submit its neck to the ax or its throat to the butcher's 
 knife ? I merely give the argument without pasing on its merits. 
 
 The most interesting part of a bull fight are the side hghts lead- 
 ing up to it. There were eight thousand people in attendance and 
 the enthusiasm of the crowd knew no bounds. The entrance of 
 popular favorites called forth an uproar. Orators attempted to 
 speak and were either howled down or applauded. Then the 
 four queens of the fiesta swept in and took their seats in a special 
 box, whereat the multitude arose and yelled like demons. After 
 that, the fighters and bull number one, were turned loose and the 
 entertainment began. But just about as it was getting to the real 
 interesting part, my chicken heart got the best of me, and I found 
 business elsewhere. So the task of describing a bull fight at Ma- 
 zatlan must be left to other hands. 
 
 And with these words, my story comes to a close. I may lin- 
 ger here a few days and perhaps return by some zig-zag land ■ 
 route, the better to see the country, but I will be in California to 
 talk for myself before another letter could arrive. In the forego- 
 ing I have purposely avoided the more ambitious themes and have 
 only endeavored to show you, in my own way, a few live people 
 and some real things. If this has been accomplished, then I am 
 repaid for the expenditure of considerable time and thought; for 
 these letters have not slipped from the writer's pen carelessly.
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 109 
 
 but, on the contrary, represent many an hour's hard work, just 
 how many it would be embarrassing to admit. But the labor has 
 not been burdensome for the subject is one near to my heart and 
 later on I may write of it more at length. 

 
 HOME AGAIN 
 
 Hints for Home Use. 
 
 Probably the reader who has traveled with me thus far has 
 heard as much of Mexico as he cares to, but there are just one 
 or two observations that I wish to make that ought to be of no 
 little interest to the American people. 
 
 The United States is today an expanding nation. I do not 
 mean in the sense of reaching out for territorial acquisitions for 
 that has probably run its course. Our boundaries may be en- 
 larged hereafter, but if so, it will be by the voluntary act of those 
 who desire to enter our national family. Our people have no de- 
 sire to increase their limits by force of arms and the acquisitions 
 incident to the late war would never have been tolerated by public 
 opinion had not peculiar and unforseen conditions arisen that to a 
 certain extent forced the issue on the nation. But ours is an ex- 
 panding" country in this sense, that it has entirely outgrown the 
 mere business of looking after itself. It needs outlets for its 
 superabundant products, for the industry and energies of its 
 people, and the demand for wider opportunities in this direction 
 is sure to increase as the years roll on. No chance should be 
 neglected now to establish permanent commercial relations 
 wherever a fair field presents itself. 
 
 In letters published during the last two months, the writer has 
 endeavored to give an idea of the remarkable progress Mexico 
 had made in recent years. Not only that, but the possibilities 
 ahead are almost limitless. No one can go through the country 
 with one eye half open, without being impressed with the many
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 111 
 
 sided resources bestowed upon it by prodigal nature, most of 
 which are still latent, waiting- for the hand of modern enterprise 
 to quicken them into life. That it has a great future before it, and 
 a special interest to our adventurous youths, there can be no man- 
 ner of doubt. For in our own country, the best places at the table 
 are preempted by close corporations. Whole industrial provinces, 
 such as transportation, the manufacture of iron, sugar, mineral, 
 oil and other products, too numerous to mention, are held under 
 the domination of single minds. The average yoimg man here, 
 with the usual equipment of brains and ambition, has a sorry 
 chance to break into this charmed circle. Whereas, in Mexico 
 the field is still open to all comers, just as it was among us half a 
 century ago and industry and thrift are sure of a liberal reward. 
 There is an opening there for thousands of our aspiring youths, 
 who could not only better themselves but also serve as advance 
 agents in establishing trade relations with the mother country of 
 immense value, as events unfold themselves. 
 
 Of all the leading industrial nations, we have the great advant- 
 age of position in dealing with Mexico. Our borders touch along 
 fifteen hundred miles. The railway systems of the two countries 
 are connected and the principal Mexican ports of entry on the 
 Gulf and on the Pacific are almost at our doors. In the feverish 
 race of international competition, one w'ould suppose that these 
 conditions would easily place us way in the lead commercially with 
 our southern neighbors. But such is far from the fact. Ameri- 
 cans cut a respectable figure in the mining industry in Mexico, 
 and are well represented in the professions. They are also doing 
 more or less in certain branches of agriculture and some of our 
 capitalists have been extensive railroad builders. But in the im- 
 portant domain of commerce, they are hardly a factor at all. In 
 that. Europe walks al! over us. Tlie single city of Hamburg, I 
 am very certain has a far larger volume of trade with Mexico than 
 the whole United States put together.' The city of Mazatlan, for 
 instance, is a most important distributing point for a great extent 
 of country. Its imports last year, so the American Consul there 
 informed nic. exceeded $80,000,000 Mexican money. Here was 
 a i)lum w ell worth fighting for. Yet less than one per cent, of this
 
 112 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 total came from the United States. Almost every nation of Eu- 
 rope is represented there by one or more large commercial firms. 
 ^^^e have none, either big or small. And what is true of Mazatlan 
 is true of the other considerable cities of Mexico. They swarm 
 with German, English, French, Spanish and Italian business 
 bouses, but an American concern of the kind is so rare that it is 
 regarded as a curiosity. It forms a sad commentary on our un- 
 readiness to recognize facts of common knowledge. Years ago, 
 we were taught to look down on Mexico, because its government 
 was unstable and its people unprogressive. We have failed to 
 realize, as Europe has, that these conditions have changed entire- 
 ly, and that it is now a country with which commercial relations 
 should be eagerly sought. The opportunities once to be had for 
 the asking are rapidly slipping from our grasp, perhaps forever. 
 In my judgment, what has kept us in the background in Mex- 
 ico more than any one thing is the fact that knowledge of the 
 Spanish language is a very rare accomplishment among us. Prob- 
 ably fifty can speak French or German to one familar with the 
 Castilian tongue. The independent American will not go where 
 he cannot make himself understood, for his good common sense 
 tells him how insane it would be to embark in business among a 
 people of whose speech he knows nothing. Therefore, he leaves 
 Mexico out of his calculations, even if he has some glimmering 
 idea that it offers unusual inducements ■ to enterprise. But the 
 European man of affairs has no such handicap. Those who are 
 trained for commercial life are taught the languages of countries 
 with which they will probably have dealings, just as much a matter 
 of course as instruction is given in reading, writing and arithmetic. 
 Not only that, but they also make a special preparatory study of 
 trade conditions in foreign lands and trade usuages. This is spec- 
 ially true of German commercial men, who are given a finished 
 education that puts all other nationalities to the blush. No Ger- 
 man who expects to embark in mercantile pursuits is supposed 
 to have any business training at all who cannot speak at least three 
 or four languages besides his own, and who has not familiarized 
 himself thoroughly with the commercial customs of leading na- 
 tions. The general mercantile education abroad, in particular,
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 113 
 
 always gives special attention to the Spanish tongue. In my 
 oi)inion. this is the whole secret of the remarkahle success of Ger- 
 mans and other Europeans in Si)anish America and it also tells 
 the tale of American failure. The average young man of the old 
 world who follows trade is made of no better material than the 
 American. On the contrary, our youngsters are generally more 
 resourceful, self-reliant and pushing. But the European lands in 
 Mexico with a full knowledge of the language and trade condi- 
 tions of tlie countrw while our own unhappy countryman wanders 
 arcnmd like a cat in a strange garret and is not in the race for a 
 minute. If anyone wants to have the national conceit taken out 
 of him in good shape, he only needs to see for himself how efifete 
 Europe is chasing us ofif the earth in Spanish speaking America. 
 
 But the remedy is in our own hands. We need only to imitate 
 the European system of education to place our people on an even 
 footing and then the game should be easilv ours. Just a little travel 
 has satisfied the writer how fatally defective the early training is 
 that takes no account of modern languages and until our system 
 is changed in this respect the American will remain a back number 
 in countries where for every reason he ought to be on top. We 
 teach a vast amount in our public schools that is valuable only for 
 mental discipline and is forgotten promptly as soon as other mat- 
 ters engage the scholar's thoughts. Why cannot we include 
 something distinctly practical, that is bound to be usefuf as long 
 as the boy or girl nves? There is no reason in the world why 
 every pupil who goes through the public school course should not 
 master two languages and we respectfully submit that the mental 
 drill in acquiring a foreign tongue is quite as valuable as that 
 which comes from digging into various abstractions. If one of 
 these languages should be Spanish, it would work a transforma- 
 tion in our relations not only with Mexico, but with the whole 
 cDntinent south of us to Cape Horn. It would give an opening 
 Uj thou.sands and thousands of enterprisingyoung men who would 
 serve as our representatives in clearing the way for the expansion 
 that this country imperatively demands. Unless something of 
 this sort happens, the United States will lose the biggest prize for 
 which commercial nations are contending: for there can be no
 
 114 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 
 
 manner of d()u1)t that the greatest developments of the next half 
 century will be in Spanish speaking America. It includes an area 
 far greater than all Europe and richer in natural resources. The 
 world's progress will not permit it to lie comparatively idle longer 
 and when the boom once starts in earnest, it will roll along like 
 a tidal wave. Whether the United States shares in it or not. de- 
 pends largely on whether we have the good sense to fit our young 
 men to enter the field with some prospect of success; and the 
 indispensible condition is that they be given a thorough instruc- 
 tion in the Spanish language, during the course of study which 
 our public school system provides. 
 
 And when we attempt to do business with our Spanish Amer- 
 ican neighbors, we ought at least to make an efifort to meet their 
 customs half way. instead of attempting to cram our methods 
 down their throats. European commercial men are constantly 
 endeavoring to accommodate the trade in every particular while 
 with us it is simply a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. A single in- 
 stance will illustrate this as well as a thousand. In Mexico, much 
 of the trai^c is carried on by. the tedious process of mule trans- 
 portation and for that reason the returns of business are slow. 
 On that account, a long credit system prevails, the usual time al- 
 lowed a solvent firm being not less than six months. European 
 bouses have no objection to this, for the prices are all right and 
 the security ample. In the city of Mazatlan, there has been but 
 one commercial failure in twenty-five years and that was the case 
 of a French firm which was overwhelmed by the collapse of the 
 parent concern in Paris. Yet because our rule is a credit of sixty 
 or ninety days at the utmost, our merchants, especially those in 
 Ssn Francisco, have turned the cold shoulder to no end of the 
 finest kind of business when it was knocking at our very doors. If 
 we persist in this absurd conservatism, we have only ourselves to 
 blame if we continue to stand at the tail of the procession, when 
 we ought to be at its head. 
 
 The writer only wishes that he could make this as clear to oth- 
 ers as it is to himself. The lesson that anyone must read who 
 travels through Mexico intelligently is so very plain that there is 
 no mistaking it. We are simply going to be frozen out of Spanish
 
 A GLIMPSE OF OLD MEXICO 115 
 
 America altog-etlier commercially by our European brethren, un- 
 less we adopt the methods that have secured them supremacy. 
 The proposition is so distinct and clear cut that it seems as if the 
 force of it ought to be realized by those to whom it is directly ad- 
 dressed. If not, a later generation of Americans may have ample 
 cause to lament the short-sightedness of their sires. 
 
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