Mexico and its Religion Part 12

A RIDE TO SAN ANGEL.

The ride to San Angel has this advantage over all others out of Mexico, that the road is nearly all the way upon dry land, thus presenting a pleasant contrast to the gloominess of all the others, except the Tacuba road. There is less of stagnant water, and little appearance of _tequisquite_. It is lined with fields of corn and maguey. Contreras is upon this road--the point where Santa Anna's line of defenses was first broken, and broken in the same way as at Cerro Gordo, and by the same officer, the late General Riley. It was the defect of all Mexican military operations, that they were not sufficiently on the look-out for night attacks. In the night Riley had been allowed to get behind the position of his adversary at Cerro Gordo; and here again he got behind and above him, by crawling up a ravine in a foggy night, from which point he charged Valencia in reverse. That successful charge of the brave old soldier raised him to the brevet rank of Major General, and sealed the fate of the city.

What sort of a victory has it proved to the hero of this battle? He had spent the best portion of his life in the Indian territory, arranging difficulties, appeasing strifes, overawing the turbulent, and restraining the lawlessness of white intruders. And now he had become an old man, with the rank only of Major, as he had no kind friend at court. But the Mexican war opened to him the prospect of winning a "sash" or of being brought home in a coffin. The sash was won, but the coffin was near at hand; for, while he was gaining his laurels, he contracted a cancer, which in a short time after his return from a distant command, consigned him to the home prepared for all living.

Forty long years had he followed the profession of arms, and endured its hardships without a murmur; yet, when he laid down his sword to die, he had nothing to leave to his children but the commissions Congress had awarded him on his California revenues. War is a hard trade for the bravest of the brave, and with very few prizes except to political favorites, who with high-sounding t.i.tles, but without military experience, ride by the side of some brave subaltern, gather his laurels, and enjoy the fruits of his experience.

A slight breastwork and a heap of bones and skulls mark the site of this gallant exploit of General Riley. And we fancied that we could select the American skulls from the common ma.s.s, as they clearly belonged to two distinct races of men; one set of skulls being thin and firm, while the other was thick and porous. We rode on, and soon came to San Angel, where were many pleasant places for suburban residences, and an immense convent garden celebrated for its fruits. But now all was parched and dry, for it was midwinter, which is here the middle of the dry season, and it was not yet the time for the new foliage to appear upon the trees, for that does not take place till February.

The occasion of our ride was an invitation to dine with an American family at the paper-mill of Mr. M'Intosh, the English banker. This was the greatest treat that I had yet met with in Mexico. Though I have had the honor of dining in more distinguished places, both in Mexico and in the United States, I never attended a dinner-party that I enjoyed so much. It was a thrifty family, and a charming old-fashioned New England housewife had prepared the dinner. Perhaps this is saying enough to enable the reader to fill out the picture, for he will be sure to guess that pumpkin-pies were not forgotten; for what would a down-east thanksgiving dinner be without this national dish? The dinner was a charm in itself, while the attendant circ.u.mstances gave it a double relish. To complete the pleasure of the visit, we made our way into "the Yankee's" kitchen, and there had the pleasure of seeing a cooking-stove, and cooking-furniture of tin, copper, and iron, displayed after the most approved fashion. Verily this universal Yankee nation preserves its distinctive characteristics every where!

AN ADVENTURE.

On our way home we must needs have an adventure. But whether the party that overtook us on the road were really robbers, or only pleasure-seekers hurrying to escape from the rain, I have my doubts to the present day. But my ministerial companion, who was more experienced in such matters, having been kept here a long time by our government to look after the unburied American dead, insisted that it was a genuine case of attempted robbery. All I can say in the premises is, that eight California robbers would not have run off in that style without first ascertaining whether that old revolver had any powder in it or not.

When we squared up for a fight, they might have known that it was because my old mustang would not move; and they could have had all our availables for the asking; but it was saving time in them to run when they heard us call out in that hated "Yankee language," and they did scamper off most expeditiously.

We got back to the city, without a wetting and without a chance of getting frightened, where the faithful old mustang and I parted company forever. Ten Mexican dollars was the market value of horse, saddle, and bridle--less than the cost of his city eating, which he had enjoyed with a gusto; and we took diverse ways at parting. The faithful old fellow went to the silver mines, and I returned to the United States, after an absence of three years and more, in which I had been through perils by land and perils by water, but not sufficient to satisfy my taste for adventure.

Up to this time I was a firm believer in the story of Cortez. But when I had retired from active duties, I began to think of writing a book. I did what no other foreign writer on Mexico has yet done--I made a journey to the country _at my own charges_. I was not in the employment of any company or any government; I was under no obligation to praise any man who did not deserve it, and not disposed to speak unnecessary evil of any, whether they deserved it or not. My advantages above most writers upon Mexico were these: my independent position, and my intimate knowledge of the character of the North American Indians, acquired before I had gained any preconceived notions from the writings of others. My father, who had lived among the Iroquois, or Six Nations, in the family of Joseph Brandt, and went through the usual forms of adoption in place of some Indian who had died, gave me my first lessons on Indian character; and a taste so early acquired I followed up in after life. My ancestors for several generations dwelt near the Indian agency at Cherry Valley, on "Wilson's Patent," and in a neighboring village was I born, but removed early in life to a part of the country that had belonged to the Senecas, where I enjoyed a good opportunity of studying Indian character.

It was the feast-day of the kings, _los Reyes_, when after my return to Mexico, I was again in the saddle, riding out from Mexico toward the village of Tezcuco. I had to take a by-way to avoid the Guadalupe road, which was blocked up in consequence of the holiday. In doing so, I had to leap a ditch or ca.n.a.l, in which both I and my horse came near closing our pilgrimage in a quagmire; but in time we were again upon the road. It is a dreary place about the hill of Tepeyaca, or Guadalupe, and if the Virgin had not smiled upon the barren hill and made roses grow out of it, it would be as uninviting as one of the hills of the valley of Sodom. This hill is now called the "Mountain of Crosses," for upon it, in 1810, the first insurgent, Hidalgo, the priest of Dolores, won a battle against the royal troops, which should have been followed up by an entry into Mexico; but Providence ordered it otherwise, and the forest of crosses that once covered it proclaimed a b.l.o.o.d.y slaughter without any results.

The sh.o.r.es of Tezcuco approach the hill in the wet season, leaving but a narrow margin for the road, but in the dry season this margin is greatly enlarged. I have already explained the composition of _tequisquite_, and the manner of its production; here it was lying in courses, or spots, as it had been left by the receding and drying up of the water during the present dry season. Little piles of it had been gathered up here and there to be taken to town for use, probably by the bakers or soap-boilers, who are said to pay fourteen shillings an _aroba_ for it. Besides a little stunted gra.s.s, there was here no sign of vegetable life except a peculiar species of the cactus family, which resembled a mammoth beet without leaves, but bearing upon its top an array of vegetable knives that surrounded a most exquisite scarlet flower.

FATE OF ROBBERS.

There was another sight by the road side more in keeping with the gloomy thoughts which this desert plain excites: it was the dead bodies of three men, who had been condemned by a military commission for robbing a bishop. They were shot, and their bodies were placed on three gibbets as a warning to others. The bishop said he would have pardoned the robbery, but when they went to that extreme limit of depravity of searching within his shirt of sackcloth for concealed doubloons, it was more than a bishop could endure. The worthy ecclesiastic had renounced the world and all its vanities, and had put on the badges of poverty and self-mortification for $50,000 a year, and he wore the disguises that ought to have shielded him from the suspicion of being rich!

These military commissions are no new invention in Mexico, for that famous Count de Galvez, the Vice-king who built the castle of Chapultepec and deposed the Archbishop of Mexico, had a traveling military court, with chaplain and all spiritual aids, to accompany the dragoons that scoured the road in search of robbers. When a fellow was caught, court, chaplains, and dragoons made rapid work in dismissing him to his long resting-place, and saying a cheap ma.s.s for the repose of his soul, and then again they were ready for another enterprise. In this way the roads were made safe in the times of that Viceroy.

Had I known the real distance to Tezcuco, I ought to have abandoned the journey on account of the lameness of my horse. But either the Virgin Mary, or, more probably, the extreme purity of the atmosphere on these elevated plains, had deprived me of the power of measuring distance by the eye. This is excessively annoying to a traveler. He sees the object he is attempting to approach at an apparently moderate distance, plain in sight, and as he rides along, hour after hour, there it stands, just where it seemed to be when he first got sight of it. I finally reached my destination in good time for a dinner, and for as good a night's "entertainment for man and beast" as could be found in all the Republic of Mexico.

When I turned the head of the lake, I was close upon the track which Cortez and his retreating band followed into the plains of Otumba. Poor wretches! what a time they must have had of it in this disconsolate retreat--wounded, jaded, like tigers bereft of their prey! They mourned for their companions slain, but most of all for the booty they had lost.

"They grieved for those that went down in the cutter, And also for the biscuits and the b.u.t.ter:"

and hobbled on, as best they could, while the natives pursued them with hootings and volleys of inefficient weapons. Pa.s.sing this point and turning to the north-east, they entered the plains of Otumba, where they encountered the whole undisciplined rabble of the Aztecs, and scattered them like chaff before the wind.

A NIGHT AT TEZCUCO.

Soon after I had pa.s.sed the head of the lake and turned southward, I entered a cultivated country between tilled grounds and little mud villages along the road. These were the representatives of the magnificent cities enumerated by Cortez. That fine grove of cypresses which had been a landmark all day was now close at hand, and I could form some idea of its great antiquity. But the day was pa.s.sing away, and it was still uncertain whether I could find safe quarters for the night, where my horse, and the silver plates on my bridle, and the silver mountings of my saddle would be safe. I never own such fancy trifles, but they were on the horse given me at the stable.

A good dinner and a clean bed I did not expect to find, nor could I have found them a year earlier. But the new and enterprising company of Escandon and Co., who now have the possession of the Real del Monte silver mines, of which I shall speak hereafter, had just completed the "Grand House" (_Casa Grande_) in connection with the salt manufacture, which they carry on here solely for the use of that single mine. It was a neat, one-story residence of dried mud (_adobe_), and worthy the occupancy of the proudest king of Tezcuco. Though the flagging of the interior court was not all completed, yet the managing partner had taken possession, and it was fitted up according to the most approved style of an Anglo-Saxon residence. As horse and rider pa.s.sed into the outer court, there stood ready a groom to lead the former into the inner court, where were the stables for the horses, and I entered the house to enjoy the unlooked-for pleasures of English hospitality in this out-of-the-way Indian village.

The resident partner was an Englishman. His connection with the Real del Monte Company extended only to the manufacture of salt. But even this was an extensive affair, and had already absorbed an investment of $100,000, in order to provide the salt used in only one branch of the process of refining silver at that mine. The gentleman was now absent, but his excellent English wife and her brother knew full well how to discharge the duties of host even to an unknown stranger. The dinner was of the best, and there was no lack of appet.i.te after a hard day's ride on a trotting horse. So we all had the prime elements of enjoyment. Entertainment for man and beast is among the highest luxuries to be found by the wayside. It was an equal luxury to my hosts in their isolated residence to receive a visit from one whose only recommendation was that the English language was his native tongue, so that when we retired from the dining-room we had become old acquaintances.

REMAINS OF TEZCUCO.

The King of Tezcuco never knew what it was, on a raw winter's evening, to sit before a bright wood fire, in a fire-place, with feet on fender and tongs in hand, listening to an animated conversation so mixed up of two languages that it was hard to tell which predominated. Not all the stateliness to be found in Mexican palaces, where, in a lordly tapestried halls, men and women sit and shiver over a protracted dinner, can yield pleasures like those grouped around an English fireside. The evening was not half long enough to say all that was to be discussed. As we sat and chatted, and drank our tea with a gusto we had never known before, we forgot altogether that we were indulging in plebeian enjoyments upon the spot where a king's palace had probably stood. Instead of such plebeian things as a wood floor and Brussels carpet, his half-clad majesty had here squatted upon a mat, and dealt out justice or injustice, according to his caprice, to trembling crowds of dirty Indians, whose royal rags and feathers made them princely.

Dignity and majesty are truly parts of Indian character, but a good dinner and a clean bed are luxuries that an Indian, even though he were an emperor, never knew.

My business here was to search for relics, and as soon as daylight appeared I was astir. But no relics could be found except some stone images so rudely cut as to be a burlesque upon Indian stone-cutting.

There was a sacrificial stone and a calendar stone built into the steps of the church of San Francisco, which were so badly done that the use to which they had been applied could just be made out. Here, too, was a rude stone wall, that had been built over the grave of Don Fernando, the first Christian king of Tezcuco, who had been converted to Christianity by Cortez. There is also here one of those little chapels which Cortez built, which indicate extremely limited means in the builder.

At the distance of a bow-shot from this is the site of the "slip"

(ca.n.a.l) which Cortez says he caused to be dug, twelve feet wide and twelve feet deep, in order to float his brigantines. Near by, the Indians were digging a new ca.n.a.l for the little steam-boat which now plies on the laguna. When they reached a point less than three feet from the surface, they were stopped by the water. How could Cortez, under greater disadvantages, dig to the depth of twelve feet, without even iron shovels?

I returned to the _hacienda_ and inquired if there were no other relics. The proprietor a.s.sured me that he had been unable to find any except the Indian mounds which he showed me, and some stone cellar steps that he had found in digging. And this is all that now remains of the great and magnificent city of Tezcuco, which had entered into alliance with Cortez, and which, for more than a hundred years after the Conquest, was under the especial care of a Superintendent sent from Spain, as an Indian Reservation.

There are here eight Franciscan monks and a convent; seven of these monks I was a.s.sured were living at home with their families and children, but the eighth, who happened to be a cripple, lived in the convent. A major in the guard was pointed out to me, who, having committed a murder, took sanctuary in the church, where he remained several days, when--and we have his own word for it--the Virgin Mary appeared to him and freely forgave him. On this news getting abroad, there was great rejoicing in Tezcuco that the Virgin had at last visited them. From being stigmatized as a murderer, the object of this visit was almost adored as a saint, and became one of the princ.i.p.al men of the village, and was created a major in the new corps.

After I had surveyed the salt-works and the gla.s.sworks, I turned my horse's head toward Mexico by the road along the eastern sh.o.r.e, so that I made the complete circuit of Lake Tezcuco.

Thus far my visit to the royal city of Tezcuco had been perfectly successful, except in the attempts made to convince the young Englishman that I was not a dead-shot with the rifle; and I started home with a slight shade upon my veracity for denying my ability to pierce the centre of the bull's-eye. But otherwise it was a disagreeable parting to all of us. As I returned by the east side of the lake, the splendid high farming-lands that extend from the sh.o.r.e to the foot of the mountain were strikingly in contrast with the flatness and barrenness of the plain on the water-side, which is so slightly elevated above the level of the salt water that a few inches of rise in the laguna spreads out an immense sheet of saline water, and yet there is not a solitary evaporating vat where there is an unlimited demand for the evaporated article at fourteen shillings the _aroba_.

Cortez speaks of the fine fields of corn on the east side of the lake.

But they could not have been finer in his day than they are at present, though they furnished him with the supplies that supported his army. I reached the head of Tezcuco at noontide, where the heavy water of the salt lake was driving up toward the fresh water, as described by Cortez, but it was under the pressure of a strong north wind.

THE AZTEC CAUSEWAYS.

Now that I am on the new causeway, broad and s.p.a.cious like all the others, it may be well to conclude the discussion of the physical condition of this valley by determining the size of the old Aztec causeways.

An island embosomed in a marsh has always formed a favorite retreat for an Indian tribe, whether among the everglades of Florida, or the wild-rice swamps of north-western Canada. Such a retreat is still more desirable when, in addition to the security it affords from an enemy, it is likewise a resort for wild ducks, as was and is the case with the laguna of the Mexican valley. Hence, probably, the Aztecs selected this place as the site of their village; and to reach it, it was necessary to make one or more footpaths across the marsh. As the Aztecs had no beasts of burden, this must have been a task of no little magnitude. To have made it thirty feet wide would not only have been a work of immense difficulty, but would have destroyed the defensive character of their position. Still, we can, upon this occasion, afford to be a little liberal with the statements of Cortez, as we have had to cut his hundreds of thousands of warriors down to a few thousand of miserably-armed Indians, and reduce his magnificent cities to small Indian villages. In order to make the island of Mexico at all inhabitable, we have had to reduce his lakes from navigable basins of twelve feet or more in depth to mere evaporating ponds. His floating islands have been transformed into garden-beds built upon the mud; and his ca.n.a.ls have sunk to mere ditches. Now I propose to be liberal to the old Conquistador in the matter of his famous causeways, and will therefore admit that they might have been twelve feet in width--as broad as the tow-path of the Erie Ca.n.a.l.

CHAPTER XIX.

The Street of Tacuba.--The Spaniards and the Indian Women.--The Retreat of Cortez.--The Aqueducts of Mexico.--The English and American Burying-grounds.--The Protestant President.--The rival Virgins.--An Image out of Favor.--The Aztecs and the Spaniards.

As I rode along the street to the gate and causeway of Tacuba, over which Cortez retreated on the "sorrowful night" (_triste noche_), I naturally fell into reflections upon the righteous retribution that overtook a portion of the Spanish robbers on that night, and upon the mysterious ways of Providence in allowing Cortez and a remnant to escape being burned alive by the Indians after the infamous lives which, by their own admissions, they had been leading in the city. The Indians had made a feeble resistance when Alvarado murdered their chiefs, and had cringed into submission when Cortez returned. But now their wrongs had reached that point where even Aztecs could endure no more. Their cup of iniquity seemed full, when Cortez, who had left a wife in Cuba, sent to the little village of Tacuba, called by Diaz Tlacupa, to fetch thence some "women of his _household_, among whom was the daughter of Montezuma [he had already one daughter of Montezuma in his power] whom he had given in charge of the King of Tlacupa, her relative, when he marched against Narvaez."[36] The women being rescued, Cortez afterward sent Ordaz, with four hundred men, which brought on hostilities that ended in this night retreat.

THE HOUSEHOLD OF CORTeZ.

Cortez was worse than the Mormon governor of Utah, who is said to have thirty-six wives in his household. But they are, at least, voluntary inmates of his harem, while the "household" of Cortez had been taken by violence. It is one of the prominent traits of Indian character that, while they are inhuman to their female captives, they guard with the utmost jealousy the virtue of their wives. Even among the debased Indians of California, female infidelity is punished with death; and I have seen the whole population of an Indian village on the Upper Sacramento thrown into the utmost confusion--the women howling, and the men brandishing their weapons--because a base Indian had sold his wife to a still baser white man. "Such a thing was never," they said, "done in the tribe before." And here we have Cortez, in contempt of even Indian notions of virtue, sending to bring to his harem, by violence, another daughter of Montezuma.

As Bernal Diaz goes more into detail than Cortez, he now and then drops an expression that furnishes a clew to many an enigma otherwise unexplainable. In speaking of the avarice of the officers, he lets fall the following confession of his own infamy:

"This was a good hint to us in future, so that afterward, when we had captured any beautiful Indian females, we concealed them, and gave out that they had escaped. As soon as it was come to the marking day, or, if any one of us stood in favor with Cortez, he got them secretly marked [viz., branded with a red-hot iron] during the night-time, and paid a fifth of their value to him. In a short time we possessed a great number of such slaves."[37]

Never was there a band of Anglo-Saxon outlaws, cut-throats, pirates, or buccaneers that reached that point of human depravity that they could brand, as cattle are branded, with a red-hot iron, swarms of women taken by violence, in order that they might not make any mistakes in recognizing their numberless wives! None but Spanish heroes of a "holy war" ever exhibited such a picture of total depravity.