Mexico and its Religion Part 11

In support of the hypothesis that the street ditches, called ca.n.a.ls, were independent of the Tezcuco for their supply, we have still the remains of an old Indian dike, which extended from near Iztapalapan, along the east part of the city, to Guadalupe or Tepeyaca, which must have been intended to shut off the Tezcuco when the water was high, and when it receded they probably opened a weir at the northern extremity, through which the waters of the city that had been discharged upon the flats of San Lazaro found an outlet.

The waters of the valley are now distributed in the best possible manner to favor evaporation; and yet so completely is this power taxed, that when, in 1629, a water-spout, bursting over the small river Guaut.i.tlan, had forced the waters of Zumpango over its barriers into the San Cristobal, and that again into the Tezcuco, the city was inundated to the depth of about three feet. Evaporation was unable to remove or materially lessen this new volume of water in a period of five years. This fully demonstrates that the average annual fall of water is equal to the full capacity of evaporation. The valley of Mexico is a very small one over which to dispose of the ma.s.s of water that the mountain-torrents in summer and the tropical rains pour into it, and with the small margin of six and a half feet for rising and falling, the city must have been in constant jeopardy. Still the floods have been much less frequent than would have been supposed, fully demonstrating the great uniformity in the fall of water in the Mexican season of rain. When a water-spout occurred in the Chalco in 1446, in the time of the Aztec kings, there was a flood, which probably ran off into the Tezcuco. Under the Spaniards the following floods are enumerated: the first in 1553; the second in 1580; the third in 1604; the fourth in 1607; the fifth in 1629.

After the flood of 1607, the tunnel of Huehuetoca was undertaken, and constructed in eleven months, for the purpose of letting out of the valley the waters of the River Guaut.i.tlan, so as to prevent it from falling into Tezcuco or flooding the city. For those times it was a great work, but we should say now that it was poorly engineered and badly managed, and not worthy the notice it has received in books on Mexico. Since that time, the great inundation of 1629 occurred while the mouth of the tunnel was closed. After that time, the Spaniards, instead of building inside of the tunnel an elliptical tube, actually, by a hundred years of misapplied labor, turned the tunnel into an open cut.

THE MAP OF CORTeZ.

Cortez furnished a map to ill.u.s.trate his description. This map has the same defect as his narrative; that is, it was untrue at the time he made it. In order to bring Tezcuco about the city, he places the village of that name due east of Mexico, although he well knew that it was nearly north, as the two towns are distinctly in sight, although at a distance of about six leagues. Now, if we carry the village of Tezcuco and the sh.o.r.e of the lake with it to its correct position, we shall have the Laguna of Tezcuco in about its present form and size.

The apology for his defeat at Iztapalapan, by the breaking open of the dike and letting in the salt water, is, of course, inadequate, as the dike could not have supported a head of water sufficient to drown his men, nor could so great a head of salt water be obtained at that point.

In this survey of the ponds of Mexico, I have drawn upon the experience which has been acquired in the process of evaporation at the extensive salt manufactories of Syracuse and the surrounding villages in Western New York, and also the experience of our engineers Upon the Erie Ca.n.a.l, and the engineers upon the dikes or levees at Sacramento, where the nature of the soil resembles that of Mexico. And I may now conclude this long survey of the ca.n.a.ls and lagunas of Mexico, by saying that it is a wise provision of Providence that all bodies of water that have no outlet are found to contain a considerable infusion of salt, otherwise their acc.u.mulations of decaying matter would be such that mankind could not live in their vicinity. This valley is an ill.u.s.tration of that truth. Tezcuco, surrounded by barrenness, is not deleterious to life, while the fresh-water lagunas, though continually changing their volume, render Mexico unhealthy in summer by the gases which they exhale from decaying vegetation.

ANCIENT POPULATION OF THE VALLEY.

I have pretty thoroughly described this small valley, and have also stated how large a portion of it is flooded with surface-water, and how large a portion of this water is infused with salt. In the vicinity of Tacubaya the land is remarkably fertile, and there is good tillable land as the mountains are approached, especially about Chalco on the southeast; but under Indian cultivation, the whole of this valley could have produced sustenance for only an extremely limited population, if the product of the floating gardens and the ducks caught upon the pond should be added. It is totally inadequate to feed the population of Mexico under the vice-kings, 400,000, or its present population of say 300,000; nor could the valley itself be made to sustain one third of this. This valley, it must be recollected, is inclosed on all sides except the north by mountains that exceed 10,000 feet in height, while the commissariat capacity of barbaric tribes is not such as to provide extensive supplies from a distance. Under such circ.u.mstances, we should look for an extremely limited population. Yet the most surprising part of the story of the conquest is the enormous population a.s.signed to the numerous large cities which they allege the valley contained. Diaz says, "A series of large towns stretched themselves along the banks of the lake, out of which [the lake] still larger ones rose magnificently above the water." Cortez says that Iztapalapan contained "10,000 families," which would give the town 50,000 inhabitants; "Amaqueruca, 20,000 inhabitants;" "Mexicalzingo, 3000 families," or 15,000 inhabitants; "Ayciaca more than 6000 families;" "Huchilohuchico, 5000 or 6000." The population of Chalco he does not give, nor the population of the very numerous villages whose names he mentions. At the present day there are a few mud huts in nearly every locality named, but not enough in any one instance to merit the name of a village. And this, I am inclined to believe, was the real condition of things in the time of Cortez. The city of Mexico alone would have exhausted the limited resources of the valley. Old Thomas Gage was as much puzzled two hundred years ago to account for this astonishing disappearance of the numerous Indian cities of this valley as we are, and also for the supposed filling up of the lakes, never appearing to suspect that the story of Cortez was a fiction.

[31] There has been much speculation in regard to the origin of the saline properties of this water; but the Artesian borings going on while I was in Mexico, I think, sufficiently demonstrate that the earthy bottom of the valley, for hundreds of feet, contains an infusion of carbonate and muriate of soda.

[32] The atmosphere of Mexico is so intensely dry, that the hygrometer of Deluc frequently descends to 15.--HUMBOLDT'S _Essai Politique_, vol. ii. p. 110.

[33] When the Artesian well, in process of construction near my residence, had reached a depth of seventy yards, the water that came up was slightly impregnated with this salt.

[34] _Comercio de Mexico_, 1852.

CHAPTER XVI.

The Chinampas or Water Gardens.--Laws of Nature not set aside.--Mud will not float.--The present Chinampas.--They never could have been floating Gardens.--Relations of the Chinampas to the ancient State of the Lake in the Valley.

All the world has heard of the floating gardens (_chinampas_) of Mexico, but all the world has not seen them. I have not seen any floating gardens, nor, on diligent inquiry, have I been able to find a man, woman, or child that ever has seen them, nor do I believe that such a thing as a floating garden ever existed at Mexico. Humboldt admits that they do exist; says that he has seen floating earthy ma.s.ses of great size in the tropical rivers, and then describes the manner of the construction of the chinampas, but in such a way as to satisfy the careful reader that he does not intend to say that he saw them himself, and evidently makes his statement upon hearsay; and takes it up as an admitted fact, without having his mind called to the physical impossibilities of floating a ma.s.s of earth that was of a greater specific gravity than water.

FAITH AND TESTIMONY.

When the historians of the Conquest wrote their marvelous narratives of alleged adventures and of the new empire, it was a question for the Emperor and the Inquisition solely, whether their writings should pa.s.s for history or be condemned as fabulous. With this question the people had nothing to do but to believe as it suited those in authority. The question being settled that the publication of the letters of Cortez as a verity would redound to the glory of the Church and the king, then it was also settled that there should be no contradiction published; and as these marvelous tales were spread abroad throughout Europe, with the ma.s.ses of silver from the newly-discovered mines, men were prepared to believe almost any thing--even that rich vegetable mould, when saturated with water, could float.

It not being lawful to promulgate the facts of the Conquest, the memory of events that really transpired ultimately pa.s.sed from the recollections of men, so that the letters of Cortez were taken for truth, even in their most minute details; so that, in a subsequent century, we find a vice-king employing an engineer to search for and clean out the hole in the bottom of the Tezcuco! for, from the vice-king down to the most insignificant official, all a.s.sumed that the letters of Cortez gave a correct picture of affairs at that time; and all showed the greatest embarra.s.sment in accounting for the magnitude of the changes that are supposed to have occurred without a sufficiently adequate cause. It is a common difficulty in all purely Catholic countries, for there the rule of evidence is an unnatural one.

The people have been taught to believe from their infancy that the laws of nature can be set aside upon every trifling occasion, at the momentary caprice of any one of the mult.i.tude of saints "who are to govern the world;" and on proof that any mortal has set aside the laws of nature or wrought a miracle, he at once becomes a saint. With these "dutiful children of the Church" there can be no fixed laws of evidence; the only ground of belief is, and ever must be, Has the statement been sanctioned by the highest authority? If so, it is true; if not, it is to be doubted, however positive the proofs may be. A difficulty that the traveler every where encounters is that he can believe nothing that he hears, even on the most trifling subject, without careful examination and weighing of testimony. As he can not examine every thing himself, he is constantly liable to be imposed upon by taking for granted that which is every where affirmed. Humboldt for once, with all his caution, seems to have fallen into the common trap, and credited, without examination, the story of the floating gardens.

THE CHINAMPAS.

The chinampas are formed on the fresh-water mud on each side of the ca.n.a.l of Chalco, from the southeast corner of the city to a point near the ancient village of Mexicalzingo, and for a part of the way they are on both sides of that beautiful but now neglected _paseo_, Las Vegas; there are also a small number near the causeway of Tacubaya, and in other parts of the marsh; their number might be extended without limit if it was not regulated by the demands of the vegetable market of Mexico. Chinampas are formed by laying upon the soft mud a very thick coating of reeds, or rather rushes, in the form and about the size of one of our largest ca.n.a.l scows. Between two chinampas a s.p.a.ce of about half the width of one is left, and from this open s.p.a.ce the mud is dipped up and poured upon the bed of dry rushes, where it dries, and forms a rich "muck" soil, which const.i.tutes the garden. As the specific gravity of this garden is much greater than that of the water, or of the substratum of mud and water combined, it gradually sinks down into its muddy foundation; and in a few years it has to be rebuilt by laying upon the top of the garden a new coating of rushes and another covering of mud. Thus they have been going on for centuries, one garden being placed upon the top of another, and a third placed over all, so soon as the second gives signs of being swallowed up in the all-devouring mud.

The gardeners navigate the open s.p.a.ce between their islands with light boats; and during the short hours of the morning, the market-boat alongside each island is loaded with a cargo of vegetables, fruits, and flowers, which are to be displayed in the great market of Santa Anna.

More pleasing than a drive on the _paseo_ is a boat-ride down the ca.n.a.l of Chalco at eventide, when the proprietor of each of these little estates is seen standing in the ca.n.a.l alongside, and throwing upon his thirsty plants a plentiful supply of the tepid ca.n.a.l water, which, from every leaf and flower, reflects back the rays of a setting sun, that have penetrated the long shadows of the trees of Las Vegas. Some of the chinampas have small huts upon them, where a gardener lives, who watches over two or three of these little properties. Sometimes also shrubs, and even trees, are planted along the edges, which yield both fruits and flowers, and serve to keep the dry earth from falling into the water. When looking at one of the largest and best cared for chinampas, the beholder can hardly divest himself of the idea that it is a floating island, and might well have been the residence of Calypso.

This is the whole of the story of the chinampas, the most fertile and beautiful little gardens upon the face of the earth. A correct picture of them would be poetry enough, without the addition of falsehood; for whether it is the rainy season or the dry season, it is always the same to them. They know no exclusive seed-time, and have no especial season for harvest; but blossoms and ripe fruits grow side by side, and flowers flourish at all seasons. As market gardens they are unrivaled, and to them Mexico is indebted for its abundant supplies.

The evidence that Humboldt[35] produces in favor of floating gardens, viz., that he saw floating islands of some 30 feet in length in the midst of the current of rivers, amounts to little in this case; for every one that has traveled extensively in tropical lowlands has seen vegetation spring up upon floating ma.s.ses of brush-wood. Where earth torn from the river bank is so bound together by living roots as to form a raft, it will always float for a little while upon the current, provided that its specific gravity does not materially exceed that of the water; and those gra.s.ses that flourish best in water will spring up and grow upon these islands. Peat, too, in bogs, will float and form islands, for the simple reason that it is of less specific gravity than water; and vegetation will also spring up on these peat islands. But all this furnishes no evidence that the invariable law of nature, which carries to the bottom the heaviest body, has been suspended at Mexico.

Had the floating gardens been built in large boats made water-tight, they might have floated. But, unfortunately, the Indians had not the means for constructing such boats. Even timber-rafts would have become saturated in time, and sunk, as rafts of logs do if kept too long in the "mill-pond," waiting to be sawed into lumber.

There is another law of nature, which must not be lost sight of, which is at war with the idea of a garden floating on a bed of rushes; and that is capillary attraction, which would raise particles of water, one by one, among the fibres of the rushes until the frail raft on which the earth rested was saturated; and still pressing upward, the busy drops would penetrate the superinc.u.mbent earth, moistening and adding to the specific gravity of the garden by filling the porous earth until it became too heavy to float, if it ever had floated.

Nearly three hundred years had pa.s.sed away before men ventured to question the truth of the statement that the gardens along the ca.n.a.l of Chalco ever floated, and then it seemed like temerity to raise the question, even if it were only a popular fallacy. It has therefore been treated by all modern writers as a well-established matter, and one of not sufficient importance to justify its minute investigation. With me the question was a far different one. I had, after careful inquiry and observation, come to the conclusion that the marshes of the valley of Mexico were, in the time of Cortez, substantially in the condition in which we find them at the present day; that the filling up they had undergone in that time was counterbalanced by the relief they had gained by the ca.n.a.l of Huehuetoca. The chinampas const.i.tute an important link in the chain of proofs to establish this fact. If I have succeeded in showing that these gardens of the Aztecs, instead of floating upon the water, rested upon the muddy bottom, it follows as a matter of course that the depth of the water in the laguna could not, in the day of the Aztecs, have been materially greater than it now is.

[35] _Essai Politique_, vol. ii. p. 61.

CHAPTER XVII.

The gambling Festival of San Augustine.--Suppressed by Government.--The Losses of the Saint by the Suppression of Gambling.--How Travelers live in the Interior.--A Visit to the Palace.

GAMBLING AT TLALPAN.

I have already said that my first entry into the valley of Mexico was from the south, through the suburban city of Tlalpan, where in good old times was held the great gambling festival of San Augustine. The advancing morality of our day has put an extinguisher on this noted festival, which was one of the most noted days in the Mexican calendar.

Crowds flocked to it to gamble, to dance, and to adore the most holy Saint Augustine. To a looker-on it was hard to say whether it was the devil or the saint whom the people had come to worship. The chief business of high-born dames seemed to be to make a display of their taste in dress, and to set off the whole contents of their wardrobe; for five times in each day was their entire wardrobe changed, and so often did they appear in a new set of jewels. To this festival came also n.o.blemen and highway robbers, to gamble and to rob each other, and to be robbed by the women at the _monte_ table. In honor of the saint, the city was crowded with monks, and thieves, and Magdalens, and the dignitaries of the Church and state. The rich and the poor came together to enjoy the saturnalia in honor of the most blessed Saint Augustine. Gambling was here duly sanctified by the partic.i.p.ation of the priests, who were here, as they are every where in Mexico, the most expert gamblers at the tables. While this festival continued, money changed hands more rapidly than in California in her worst days. Five dances a day were the pastime; but at the monte table was the solid sport. This was the great attraction that had called all the crowd together. It was an exciting scene to see the ounces piled up as men got excited in the game. What is there left of woman's virtue, when the highest ladies of the court stake their ounces at a public gaming-table, and poorer ones eagerly throw down their last piece of silver? Woman's rights have not yet reached that point with us that she may gamble and get drunk without losing caste; and G.o.d grant they never may.

It is a consolation to be able to add that the late government of the State of Mexico had sufficient firmness to suppress this abominable festival of the Church, much to the pecuniary disadvantage of the saint and his priesthood. Indeed, there is now no public gambling, not even in the city of Mexico, except the lottery of the Academy of Fine Arts, and the lottery which is monthly drawn to promote the adoration of our Lady of Guadalupe. This last is one of the most corrupting of all lotteries. Tickets for as small a price as a Spanish shilling are hawked about the street, and by the exhibition of a splendid scheme the poor Indians are tempted to venture their last _real_ in the hopes of winning a rich prize, through the kind interposition of the Virgin, to whom they are taught to pray for that purpose. It is true that a ma.s.s is performed for the benefit of all losers, but this ma.s.s has never had the power of restoring to the poor Indian his lost shilling.

Let us now go from this place, where gambling used annually to have its festival, or, rather, harvest of victims, into the cathedral church of San Augustine, to whom the lucky gamblers were accustomed to dedicate a part of their winnings, that thus they might sanctify their unrighteous calling by bringing robbery to the saint for an offering. Poor saint!

how much he and his priests have suffered by this wanton interference of the civil government in Church affairs--this prohibition of monte-playing in honor of the festival of San Augustine! There was much in this church to admire, and much of that gold displayed which gamblers are accustomed to lavish upon their idols. It seemed like another worship and another religion from that which I had been accustomed to witness in the humble chapels of the Pintos, in whose country I had so long been wandering.

Again I was in the saddle, and soon upon that noted causeway by which Cortez entered the city of Mexico. It has lost none of its attractions in the course of centuries, but has been kept in fine repair as a carriage-road, while the venerable trees that line it on either side look as old as the time of the Conquistadors. This n.o.ble carriage-way, through the marshy ground of the valley of Mexico, is an enlargement of the old causeway of the Indians, or, rather, it has been built over and around it, that having been less than thirty feet in width. I soon arrived at Churubusco, the scene of one of the b.l.o.o.d.y battles of the American campaign in this valley. There was little here to look at, and I hurried on and entered the south gate of the city, and soon arrived at the _Hotel de Paris_, to which I had been directed. My poor old mustang here ended a twelve days' journey, over mountains and plains of _pedregal_, without a shoe to his hoofs.

A party of Californians, who had been stopping here for some weeks, had left the day before, and I was ushered into French society, in which to form my first impressions of Mexico. Still, there was an exquisite pleasure in once more getting clean, and eating food cooked after a civilized manner. Not that I had in any wise become tired of drinking porridge, extracted from corn, called _atola_, or dissatisfied with eating bits of fowl, which the maid of honor to General Garay so ingeniously served up with her fingers, after having it well flavored with Cayenne or Chili pepper! He that does not love Chili must keep out of Spanish America. And he will prove a poor traveler who can not sit down with a good appet.i.te to a supper of small black beans (_frijoles_), and a dozen Indian cakes (_tortillas_), as thin and as tough as a drum-head, which serve the double purpose of spoon and plate.

ABODE IN MEXICO.

My room was on the roof, and when my inner and outer man was fully in order, I used to walk till a late hour of the day upon the paved house-top, now leaning against the parapet and looking up to the snow-covered mountains, whose shadowy forms could be made out even by moonlight, and upon the shadowy towers and domes of the city. Thus pleasant days and weeks flew on. Sometimes I rode about the valley, carefully searching after the relics of times past, and at other times surveying the curiosities of the city. Once this order was broken in upon, in order to accompany that n.o.ble-hearted man and excellent emba.s.sador, Governor Letcher, to the palace, where I had an interview with Arista, then the President of Mexico, who strikingly resembled our own President of that day, Millard Fillmore.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Visit to Contreras and San Angel.--The End of a brave Soldier.--A Place of Skulls.--A New England Dinner.--An Adventure with Robbers--doubtful.--Reasons for revisiting Mexico.--The Battle at the Mountain of Crosses.--A peculiar Variety of the Cactus.--Three Men gibbeted for robbing a Bishop.---A Court upon Horseback.--The retreat of Cortez to Otumba.--A venerable Cypress Grove.--Unexpectedly comfortable Quarters.--An English Dinner at Tezcuco.--Pleasures unknown to the Kings of Tezcuco.--Relics of Tezcuco.--The Appearance of the Virgin Mary at Tezcuco.--The Causeways of Mexico.