Mexico and its Religion Part 13

When the Aztecs were thus roused to action by the brutal l.u.s.t of Cortez, they a.s.sailed him with phrensy rather than with courage, until his quarters in the city became untenable, and then this night retreat was undertaken, in which all the gold, if there really was any, and all other treasures, and two sons and one daughter of Montezuma, were lost in the confused rush of such a mult.i.tude over this foot-path. The Indian story is that Cortez slew the children of Montezuma when he found himself unable to carry them off. Perhaps he did, but the probability is that they perished by chance, or, rather, it seems to have been by chance that Cortez or any of his gang escaped and came safe to Tacuba.

We must now give up history to talk of things by the road-side.

The "hard water" from the springs on the south side of Chapultepec is carried over stone arches upon the causeway of Tacubaya to the gate of Belin. But at Santa Fe, several leagues distant from the city, is a stream of soft water, which is brought to the powder-mill (_Molina del Rey_), where it turns a wheel. Thence the aqueduct, pa.s.sing by the north side of Chapultepec, is carried along the highway to the causeway of San Cosmo. It pa.s.ses the gate of San Cosmo, enters the city, and terminates in the street of Tacuba. By these two gates, and by the side of these two parallel aqueducts, the American army entered the city of Mexico.

The objects of interest by the road-side, after I had pa.s.sed the city gate, were, first, the French Academy, which is well worthy of a visit for its pretty grounds, if nothing more. When we had got farther on, the land rose a little above the water-level of the swamp. Here a branch-road and the aqueduct turned off to Chapultepec, and in the angle thus formed by the two roads is the English burying-ground or cemetery. In this resting-place of the dead there is not a spot that can not be irrigated at all seasons of the year, while the art of man has been busy in improving the advantages that nature has so lavishly bestowed.

Just before my first arrival in Mexico, public attention had been particularly directed to this quiet spot, from its having been chosen as the place for depositing the ashes of the last President of Mexico, at whose burial no holy water had been wasted and no candles had been burned, and for the repose of whose soul no ma.s.ses had ever been said, or other religious rites performed, and yet he slept as quietly as those who had gone to their burial with the pomp and circ.u.mstance of a state funeral. No priest had shrived his soul, his lips had not been touched with the anointing oil, nor was incense burned at his funeral; yet he died in peace, declaring in his last hours that he had made his confession to G.o.d, and trusted in him for the pardon of his sins, and refused all the proffered aid of priests in facilitating his journey to heaven. Thus died, and here was privately buried, the first and last Protestant President of Mexico, the only really good man that ever occupied that exalted station, and probably the only native Mexican who ever had the moral courage to denounce the religion of his fathers upon his dying bed.

THE AMERICAN CEMETERY.

Adjoining the English cemetery on the south side is the American burying-ground, which has been established since the war, where have been collected the remains of 750 Americans, that died or were killed at Mexico, and a neat monument has been erected over them. Here Americans that die henceforth in that city can be buried. An appropriation of $500 a year would make this more attractive than the English cemetery, but the place has been wholly neglected by Congress since that worthy man, the Rev. G. G. Goss, completed his labors. There is a pleasure in observing the natural affinities which, in foreign countries, draw close together these two branches of the Anglo-Saxon family. A common language and a common religion overmaster political differences, and the English and American dead are laid side by side to rest until the judgment. At the south of the American cemetery is a vacant lot, which the King of Prussia should purchase, so that the Germans may no longer be dependent on Americans for a burying-place, and that the three great Protestant powers of the world may here, as they every where should, be drawn close together.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MONUMENT TO THE AMERICANS.]

Tacuba is a very small village, and is not in any wise noted except for an immense cypress-tree, that must have been a wonder even in the time of Cortez. Tacuba has the historical notoriety of being the place where hostilities first broke out between the Aztecs and the Spaniards, and the spot where the night retreat of the latter terminated. Here the land is quite fertile, and a little way from the village are several water-mills, where the grain raised in this part of the valley is ground into flour.

THE VIRGIN OF REMEDIES.

A little way beyond Tacuba is the hill and temple of the Virgin of Remedies. It was upon this hill, within the inclosure of an Indian mound, that the retreating party of Cortez made their first bivouac, and built fires and dressed their wounds. Hence they gave to the hill the name of _Remedios_, and the church afterward erected was dedicated to our Lady of Remedies. Diaz tells us that it became very celebrated in his time. The story about Cortez finding a broken-nosed image in the knapsack of one of his soldiers is not mentioned either by himself or Bernal Diaz, and must therefore be an afterthought, to give plausibility to a subsequent imposition. From this point Cortez and his party, without their women or treasures, trudged along to the foot of the hills to Tepeac, or Guadalupe, and thence around the foot of Tezcuco to the plains of Otumba.

The story is, that while Cortez and his men were resting here, a soldier took from his knapsack an image, with nose broken and an eye wanting, which Cortez made the patron saint of the expedition, and held it up to their adoration, and that this little incident so encouraged the men that they started off with renewed vigor. The whole of this story is probably a very silly modern invention. The bulk of the forces of Cortez was most probably composed of that cla.s.s of reprobates that to this day can be found about almost any of the West India sea-ports, ready for any enterprise, however hazardous. They have no religion; they are not even superst.i.tious, but yield a nominal acquiescence to the forms of the Catholic religion. Cortez speaks often of his efforts to effect the conversion of the Indians, but it is in such a business sort of way as to lead to the impression, that it was all done to make an impression at home, but was really a matter that he did not care much about. The famous image, according to the current story, disappeared soon after the Conquest, but was found about 150 years afterward in a maguey plant, and was as much dilapidated as if it had been exposed to the weather for the whole of that century and a half.

Such, in substance, is the tradition of the Virgin of Remedies, who for a century divided with the Virgin of Guadalupe the adoration of the people in the most amicable manner. But when the insurrection of 1810 broke out, these two virgins parted company. "_Viva_ the Virgin of Guadalupe!" became the war-cry of the unsuccessful rebels, while "_Viva_ the Lady of Remedies!" was shouted back by the conquering forces of the king. The Lady of Guadalupe became suspected of insurrectionary propensities, while all honors were lavished upon the Lady of Remedies by those who wished to make protestations of their loyalty. Pearls, money, and jewels were bestowed upon her by the n.o.bility and the Spanish merchants; and as one insurrectionary leader after another was totally defeated, the conquering generals returned to lay their trophies at the feet of the Lady of Remedies, to whose interposition the victory was ascribed. They carried her in triumphant procession through the streets of Mexico, singing a _laudamus_. Then it was that the Lady of Remedies was at the zenith of her glory. Her person was refulgent with a blaze of jewels, and her temple was like that of Diana of Ephesus, and all about the hill on which it stood bore marks of the greatest prosperity.

RISE AND FALL OF THE VIRGIN.

Her healing powers were then unrivaled, and the list of cures which she is claimed to have effected surpa.s.ses that of all the patent medicines of our day. She was an infallible healer, alike of the diseases of the mind and of the body. A glimpse of her broken nose and battered face instantaneously cured men of democracy and unbelief. Heretics stood confounded in her presence, while the halt, the lame, and the leprous hung up their crutches, their bandages, and their filthy rags, as trophies of her healing power, among the flags and other trophies of her victories over the rebels. Nothing was beyond her skill; from mending a leaky boat to securing a prize in the lottery; from giving eyes to the blind, feet to the lame, mending a broken or a paralyzed limb, or a broken heart, to putting the baby to sleep. Her votaries esteemed her omnipotent, and carried her in procession in times of drought, as the G.o.ddess of rain; and when pestilence raged in the city, she was borne through the infected streets. Such was she in the times of her glory.

Now all is changed. She is still a G.o.ddess, but her glory is eclipsed.

She, like many a virgin in social life, neglected to make her market while all knees were bowing to her, and now, in the sear and yellow leaf, she is a virgin still. Her temple is dilapidated, her garlands are faded, her gilding is tarnished, the buildings about her Court are falling to decay, while the bleak hill which her temple crowns looks tenfold more uninviting than if it never had been occupied. When I entered this neglected temple of a neglected image, an old, superannuated priest was saying ma.s.s, and three or four old crones were kneeling before her altar. Such are the effects that followed the revolution of Iguala. Not only was her hated rival of Guadalupe elevated from her long obscurity to be the national saint, but the animosity against this dilapidated image of Remedies was carried to that extreme of cruelty that, when the Spaniards were expelled from Mexico, the pa.s.sports of the "Lady of Remedios" were made out, and she was ordered to leave the country. Poor thing!

The porter's eye glistened at the now unwonted sight of a silver dollar, and he soon had me through the most secret recesses of the sanctuary. The only things I saw worthy of admiration were some pictures, made from down or the feathers of the humming-bird, by which a richness of color was imparted to the pictures that could not be obtained from paints.

At last we came to the back of the great altar, and the curtain of damask silk being drawn up by a little string, we saw sitting in a metallic maguey plant a bright new Paris doll, dressed in the gaudy odds and ends of silk that make such a thing an attractive Christmas present for the nursery. Paste supplied the place of jewels, and a constellation of false pearls were at the back of her shoulders. The man kept his gravity, and did reverence to the poor doll, while I burned with indignation at being imposed upon by a counterfeit "universal remedy for all diseases." I had often read in the apothecaries' advertis.e.m.e.nts cautions against counterfeits, and rewards for their detection, and I always noticed, from these printed evidences, that the counterfeits were exactly in proportion to the worthlessness of the genuine article, and that medicine which was utterly valueless itself suffered most from the abundance of counterfeits. So it was with the Lady of Remedios; after she had fallen below the dignity of a humbug, and no man was found so poor as to do her reverence, she was spirited away to the Cathedral of the city of Mexico, in order to save her three jeweled petticoats from being stolen, and a child's doll, covered with paste jewels, now personified the great patron saint of the vice-kingdom of New Spain.

AZTEC AND ROMISH IMAGES.

I again mounted my horse, angry at being cheated. Though the day was a most lovely one, I rode home in fit humor to contrast the system of paganism which Cortez introduced with the more poetical system which preceded it, and to compare these cast-off child's dolls with the allegorical images of the Aztecs. My landlord had two boxes of such images, collected when they were cleaning out one of the old city ca.n.a.ls. By way of parlor ornaments, we had an Aztec G.o.d of baked earth.

He was sitting in a chair; around his navel was coiled a serpent; his right hand rested upon the head of another serpent. This, according to the laws of interpreting allegories, we should understand to signify that the G.o.d had been renowned for his wisdom; that with the wisdom of the serpent he had executed judgment; and that his meditations were the profundity of wisdom. And yet this allegorical worship, defective as it may have been, was forcibly superseded by the adoration of a child's doll--one that had very possibly been worn out and thrown from a nursery, and perhaps picked up by some pa.s.sing monk, was made the G.o.ddess of New Spain, and clothed with three petticoats, one adorned with pearls, one with rubies, and one with diamonds, at an estimated cost of $3,000,000. Which was the least objectionable superst.i.tion?

We have been taught to look upon the worship of the Aztecs as monstrous; but the witnesses against them were themselves monsters, who were seeking for a pretense to excuse their own brutality in reducing the Indians to the most debasing slavery, while they appropriated to their own use the best looking of the squaws, and kept such swarms of supernumerary wives that each Spaniard had to brand them with a red-hot iron in order to know his own family. The fathers of the present mixed-breed population of Mexico tell us that the Aztecs offered human sacrifices, and feasted upon human flesh. They hope, by dwelling upon the enormities of the Indians, to excuse their own still more detestable crimes. For three centuries their stories were uncontradicted, and they have been received as historical verities. But the character of the witnesses warrants us in receiving their statements with some incredulity.

[36] _Bernal Diaz_, vol. i. p. 338.

[37] _Bernal Diaz_, vol. i. p. 31, 32.

CHAPTER XX.

The Paseo at Evening.--Ride to Chapultepec.--The old Cypresses of Chapultepec.--The Capture of Chapultepec.--Molina del Rey.--Tacubaya.--Don Manuel Escandon.--The Tobacco Monopoly.--The Palace of Escandon.--The "Desierto."--Hermits.--Monks in the Conflict with Satan.--Our Lady of Carmel.

My residence was near the _Paseo Nuevo_, and at evening, while the sun had yet an hour of his daily task to finish, I habitually sauntered forth for a walk up and down the Paseo, to look at the crowd of coaches, with tops thrown back, so that the bare-headed ladies, in full dress for dinner, might enjoy the evening air, acquire an appet.i.te, and salute their friends by presenting the backs of their hands, while they twirled their fingers at them with a hearty smile. Gentlemen on richly-caparisoned horses dashed along between the rows of advancing and returning carriages, stopping now and then by the side of a well-known carriage to exchange salutations, or, by an exhibition of a well-timed embarra.s.sment, proclaim the favored object of their evening's ride. Crowds of foot-pa.s.sengers sauntered along the road-side, looking at the rich display made by the aristocracy and n.o.bility of the republic. At the entrance of the Paseo, in front of the amphitheatre, where on Sundays bulls are tortured to death as a popular amus.e.m.e.nt, is the equestrian bronze statue of Carlos IV., the work of Tolsa, who, as artist and architect, has won for himself undying renown at Mexico. The garden of Tolsa, the College of Mines, and the bronze horse, testify to the greatness of his genius. Half way down the Paseo is a fountain, around which two semicircles of coaches place themselves for a little time, to look on the pa.s.sing current of carriages and hors.e.m.e.n. They soon disappear as the sun shows symptoms of descending behind the mountains. On Sundays the scene is more animated, and then the President, with his body-guard of lancers, and attendants in scarlet livery, is seen to dash into the Paseo, ride down and return through the Alameda, among whose trees and fountains the Sabbath crowds most do congregate.

One morning when all was quiet in this place of display, I rode down the street of San Francisco, and turned up the Pas...o...b..tween the prison of the Acordado and the bronze horse. There was nothing to disturb the monotony that now reigned but cabs or omnibuses on their way to or returning from Tacubaya. Pa.s.sing through the open gate of Belin, I rode along at the side of the aqueduct to the rock of Chapultepec.

CYPRESSES OF CHAPULTEPEC.

It calls up singular reflections to look upon a living thing that has existed for a thousand years, though it be only a tree. Though so many centuries have rolled over the venerable cypresses of Chapultepec, yet they still are sound and vigorous. The extensive springs of pure water that issue from beneath this immense rock have kept them flourishing in the midst of a _tequisquite_ valley. Long gray threads of Spanish moss hang pendent from the extremity of their limbs and cover the lower leaves. These trees are the only living links that unite modern and ancient American civilization; for they were in being while that mysterious race, the Toltecs, were still upon the table-lands of Mexico--a race that has left behind, not only at Teotihuacan, but in the hot country, the imperishable memorials of a civilization like that of Egypt; and from them the Aztecs acquired an imperfect knowledge of a few simple arts.[38]

These trees had long been standing, when a body of Aztecs, wandering away from their tribe in search of game, fixed themselves upon the islands of this marsh, first about the rock of Chapultepec, then at Mexicalzingo and Iztapalapan, and finally at Mexico. These trees were undisturbed by the Spaniards when Cortez took the city, and the Americans respected their great antiquity, so that during all the wars and battles that have taken place around and above them, they have pa.s.sed unharmed.

Not only unnumbered generations, but whole races have appeared and disappeared, while these trees have quietly flourished amid the strife of the elements and the contentions of men, taking no heed of the pa.s.sing events of which they were spectators. The Toltecs, of whom we must speak more fully hereafter, were the first of these races that disappeared from the table-land--the victims of wars, and of that plague of the Indian races, the _matlazhuatl_. As the Aztecs rose into importance by their success in war and by the mult.i.tude of their captives, Indian princes made the springs near Chapultepec their favorite bathing-place, and spread their mats under these trees, and in their shadow enjoyed their noontide slumbers. Then the pale-faces came, and peopled the valley with a race of mixed blood, and vice-kings occupied the place that had been the sacred retreat of the Aztec chiefs.

These trees had added many rings to their already enlarged circ.u.mference before the vice-kings disappeared, and an emperor sat in the shade which had been their favorite retreat; and the Aztec eagle floated again upon the standard that waved over Chapultepec; but it was only the galvanized corpse of that brave bird, and the emperor was only a victim prepared for the sacrifice. Since that time much bad gunpowder has been burned over the heads of the trees, and the roots have been shaken by the discharge of the cannon of the castle at every change of rulers, as one ephemeral government succeeded another, but these cypresses still remain unharmed, and may outlive many other dynasties.

CHAPULTEPEC AND MOLINA DEL REY.

The Americans captured Chapultepec by a _coup de main_. Having made several breaches through the stone wall behind the cypresses, they rushed through under those trees and up the side of the hill next to them, not allowing themselves to be delayed by the turnings of the road. The general in command, the late General Bravo, was a man of tried courage, and not deficient in military sagacity. He sent most urgent requests to Santa Anna for reinforcements, urging that General Scott was too prudent a soldier to attack the city before carrying the castle, and that the garrison was inadequate for its defense. But Santa Anna was completely paralyzed, as Scott designed he should be, by the large force, under General Smith, which was threatening the south front of the city. When it was too late, Santa Anna discovered that this was only a feint.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHAPULTEPEC.]

The King's Mill (_Molina del Rey_) is an old powder-mill, standing on elevated ground in the rear of Chapultepec. It has nothing about it to give it notoriety except the slaughter of the American troops that here took place from a masked battery, manned by a body of volunteers from the work-shops of the city. The whole affair was a military mistake. Its capture was not necessary to insure the capture of Chapultepec, for, as soon as that fortress, which commanded the mill, should be in our power, the mill would be untenable. But repeated successes had made the American officers imprudent, so that without first battering down its walls, the division of General Worth rushed up, regardless of a flank fire of the castle, to carry this old building by a.s.sault. After the sacrifice of about 700 lives, cannon were brought out and the breach made, and then the difficulty was at an end.

A mile or so by the road leading south and west from Chapultepec is Tacubaya, where are the suburban residences of the Archbishop, the President, and of divers city bankers; and where the English banker, Mr. Jimmerson, has introduced English gardening, and, in a Mexican climate, enjoys the pleasure of an English country residence.

DON MANUEL ESCANDON.

The most attractive establishment of Tacubaya is the new palace of Don Manuel Escandon, a native-born, self-made Mexican millionaire; a man whose capital has so enormously acc.u.mulated before he has even reached middle life, that he was able to propose to discount a bill for $7,000,000 as an ordinary business transaction, though ultimately government divided the bid with another house. This most remarkable instance of acc.u.mulation of wealth in modern times is deserving of a pa.s.sing notice, which I give on the authority of my landlord, who had a personal knowledge of his history.

Don Manuel enjoyed, in addition to an intimate knowledge of his own countrymen, the advantages of a foreign education, which had extended to an examination of those arts and improvements that elevate Europeans above the semi-barbarous people of Spanish America. The first enterprise that brought him prominently forward was the establishment of that vast and most perfect system of stage-coaches, of which I have already spoken, on an original capital of $250,000. The wretched condition of the roads, and the heavy losses that at first always attend enterprises of that magnitude, disheartened his partners, who were glad to sell out to him $150,000 of the capital stock at a discount of 50 per cent. Afterward the late Zurutusa bought into the scheme, and ultimately became the owner of all the property, having, before his death, more than realized the highest antic.i.p.ations of himself or Escandon. A hundred thousand dollars, or thereabouts, were the profits to Escandon by this establishment of a series of hotels and stages quite across the continent. By the successful running of a blockade of the coast, he realized nearly another hundred thousand dollars. The numerous enterprises open to men of superior sagacity, who fully understand the wants of a country in a state of chaos, and are familiar with the improvements of other countries, were readily embraced by him, until he found himself possessed of sufficient capital to become the princ.i.p.al purchaser of the extensive silver mines of _Real del Monte_, of which the salt-works of Tezcuco are but an outside appendage.

The tobacco monopoly had yielded to the King of Spain an average return of nearly a million annually. Under the Republic the consumption of the weed had greatly increased, but, from the prevalence of disorder in every branch of the administration, this important branch of the revenue was almost entirely absorbed by the officials through whose hands it pa.s.sed, so that the sum realized by government in the most unproductive year fell off to $25,000, but finally reached $45,000, the amount at which it was farmed out by Escandon and Company. Since that time the return to government has gone on increasing, until it was advertised to be let the last year at the round sum of $1,200,000. How much more the partners realized during the years that they held the contract is, of course, known only to themselves.

The new house which Don Manuel has built at Tacubaya is decidedly the finest palace in the republic. The position is well chosen, and the sum of $300,000 has been laid out upon the house and grounds. It is a combination of an Italian villa, with the comforts and conveniences of English life. London, Paris, and New York have alike contributed to its furniture. I was told that $50,000 was invested in pictures alone. When I looked at the perfection to which the house, the grounds, and the ornamental works had been carried, my only wonder was that $300,000 could have paid for such a combination of elegance and good taste. The family, which consists only of Don Manuel and his widowed sisters, had left on account of the cholera then prevailing in Tacubaya, but the steward readily opened every door to my companion; and thus, without intruding upon the privacy of a family, or even having the honor of their acquaintance, I obtained access to one of the finest private residences that I have ever yet seen, either in this country or any other. In this house it was that the Gadsden treaty was proposed, at a dinner-party at which Mr. Gadsden and Santa Anna were present.

THE DESIERTO.