Mexico and its Religion Part 6

A NIGHT UPON THE SUMMIT.

"We climbed on, having reached the basaltic rock at an elevation of 16,805 feet, and with exhausting labor we traveled upon it until toward evening, when we came to that immense yawning abyss, the crater. The mouth was about three miles in circ.u.mference, of a very irregular form.

Into this we entered, and soon arrived at the house which was to be our lodging for the night. This house was a curiosity in its way; as it was not built like any other house, and could not be, on account of the rarity of the atmosphere at this elevation of 17,125 feet, and the impossibility of obtaining sufficient oxygen, in a closed room, to feed combustion. It was therefore built in the form of a miniature volcano.

There was an outside and an inside wall, of a circular form, the outside wall sloping inwardly, and the inside wall, which rested on pillars, sloping outwardly, until it met the outside wall. The fire was built in the open court, in the centre of the building, and the party sat under the arches and warmed themselves. The night that we were there, the perverse smoke took the same direction as the heated air, and filled the whole inside to suffocation, so that our condition was most disagreeable, notwithstanding the arrangements that Mr. Corchado had made in his own apartment for the comfort of his guests, for the reflection of the sun on the snow had thrown a film over our eyes, in spite of our green vails. Our stomachs were nauseated at this giddy height, and, though we had almost every other kind of eatable and drinkable, our appet.i.tes craved only chocolate, which we could not obtain. Our heads were dizzy, and our limbs were weary, and we lay down in a dense smoke to try to sleep.

DESCENT INTO THE CRATER.

"Morning came to our relief, and with it the film had pa.s.sed from our eyes. We looked up to the top of the mountain above us, and then down into that fearful abyss into which we were soon to descend. We could eat no breakfast, and could drink no coffee, and so we were soon ready for our day's journey. We followed a narrow footpath until we reached a shelf, where we were seated in a skid, and let down by a windla.s.s 500 feet or so, to a landing-place, from which we clambered downward to a second windla.s.s and a second skid, which was the most fearful of all, because we were dangling about without any thing to steady ourselves, as we descended before the mouth of one of those yawning caverns, which are called the 'breathing-holes' of the crater. They are so called from the fresh air and horrid sounds that continually issue from them. But we shut our eyes and clung fast to the rope, as we whirled round and round in mid air, until we reached another landing-place about 500 feet lower. From this point we clambered down, as best we could, until we came among the men digging up cinders, from which sulphur, in the form of brimstone, is made.

"We took no measurements within the crater, and heights and distances here can only be given by approximation. We only know that all things are on a scale so vast that old Pluto might here have forged new thunder-bolts, and Milton's Satan might have here found the material for his sulphurous bed. All was strange, and wild, and frightful.

"We crawled into several of the 'breathing holes,' but nothing was there except darkness visible. The sides and bottom were, for the most part, polished by the molten ma.s.s, which had cooled in pa.s.sing through them; and if it had not been for the ropes around our waist, we should have slipped and fallen we knew not whither. We almost fancied that, in the moving currents of air, we heard the wailings of the lost in the great sulphurous lake below. The stones we threw in were lost to sound unless they hit upon a projecting rock, and fell from shelf to shelf.

The deep darkness was fearful to contemplate. The abyss looked as though it might be the mouth of the bottomless pit. What must have been the effect when each one of these 'breathing holes' was vomiting liquid fire and sulphur into the basin in which we stood? How immeasurable must be that lake whose overflowings fill such cavities as this! It is when standing in such a place that we get the full force of the figures used by the Scriptures in ill.u.s.trating the condition of the souls that have perished forever.

"Let us turn from great to smaller things--to witness the labors of the men who work, and eat, and often sleep in the volcano. Some are digging sulphur and placing it in baskets, while others are waiting to carry it upon their heads up the side of the crater. Others, again, out of our sight far up the mountain, are working at the oven, when the weather is clear, and there is no cloud between them and the sun, as it is only in the finest weather that men can work upon the top, or carry burdens to the hacienda. When the weather is fine, all the works are in full operation, and good profits are realized by furnishing brimstone for the manufacture of sulphuric acid.

"We are at the top once more; and now that our eyesight, which we lost in climbing the mountain, is restored to us, we will take a view of the lower world. Looking toward the west, every object glows in the brightness of the rising sun, except where the mountain casts its vast shadow even across the valley of Toluca. How strangely diminished now are all familiar objects that are visible! The pureness of the medium through which things are seen presents distant objects with great distinctness, but it will not present them in their natural size, for it can not change the angle of vision. The villages upon the table-land were apparently pigmy villages, inhabited by pigmy men and pigmy women, surrounded with pigmy cattle, and garrisoned by pigmy soldiery. It is, by an optical illusion, Liliput in real life. Had the English satirist placed himself where we now stood, he would have more than realized the picture which his fancy painted. He might have seen the marshaled hosts of Liliput marching to the beat of drum, in the proud array of war.

"If you wish to see all the sights, you must walk around the mountain, and look down its steepest side, where there is no table-land, into the 'hot country.' The distance is so vast, the descent so steep, that an inexperienced climber suffers from dizziness. If you climb to the very summit, 250 feet above the mouth of the crater, you will find more surface about you. But it is a point where few can desire to remain long, or to visit it a second time."

THE SULPHUR MINE.

In Cortez's letters to the Emperor we read as follows: "As for sulphur, I have already made mention to your Majesty of a mountain in this province from which, smoke issues; out of it sulphur has been taken by a Spaniard, who descended seventy or eighty fathoms by means of a rope attached to his body below his arms; from which source we have been enabled to obtain sufficient supplies, although it is attended with danger. It is hoped that it will not be necessary for us to resort [again] to this means of procuring it." ... "As the Indians told us that it was dangerous to ascend, and fatal to those who made the attempt, I caused several Spaniards to undertake it, and examine the character of the summit. At the time they went up, so much smoke proceeded from it, accompanied by noises, that they were either unable or afraid to reach its mouth. Afterward I sent up some other Spaniards, who made two attempts, and finally reached the aperture of the mountain whence the smoke issued, which was two bow-shots wide, and about three fourths of a league in circ.u.mference, where they discovered some sulphur which the smoke deposited."[14] (Bernal Diaz says that the crater was perfectly round, a mile in diameter.--Vol. i. p. 186.) During one of their visits they heard a tremendous noise, followed by smoke, when they made haste to descend; but before they reached the middle of the mountain there fell around them a heavy shower of stones, from which they were in no little danger.

In or about the year 1850, Corchado, an active and enterprising white man, had become a favorite with the Indians at the foot of the mountain, who proposed to him that he should accompany them when they again undertook one of their expeditions into the volcano, which of late had been very frequent. This was a proposition that exactly accorded with his adventurous character. Accordingly, on an appointed day, he appeared at the rendezvous, with a rope, a piece of sail-cloth, and an iron bar. Thus provided, the party, which was a large one, started up the mountain, but one by one they gave out, until only Corchado and a single Indian arrived at the mouth of the crater. Here, unfortunately, Corchado fainted from the loss of blood and fatigue; and the Indian, not knowing what better to do, covered him with the sail-cloth, and then started down the mountain for a.s.sistance. In a short time he revived under the sail-cloth, and from his dangerous position he drew himself into the volcano, that he might not perish from cold outside. He descended as far as the shelf, and, looking over into the abyss, he found himself so refreshed by the atmosphere of the volcano that he brought down the bar, sail-cloth, and rope, determining to pa.s.s the approaching night at the bottom of the volcano. When he had fixed his bar and rope, the relieving party arrived, and all descended, one by one, upon the rope to a point where they pa.s.sed the night in safety.

Corchado, on his return, gathered up some of the scoria and carried it to Puebla, when it was found to contain so large a percentage of sulphur as to warrant its 'denouncement' as a sulphur-mine. Capital was procured at Puebla sufficient to set up the rude apparatus we have already described, by means of which a very handsome profit on the adventure was realized. But, owing to a lawsuit, in which the affair was at that time (1852) involved, no effort had yet been made to pierce the mountain, or to explore a pa.s.sage through some vent or fissure. A good path had been made up the mountain, and in the month of May it was considered quite a safe undertaking to visit these sulphur-works.

[14] This must have been the great fissure, and not the crater. I see no objection to this statement; for in this Cortez had no motive to falsify, and it is the ordinary appearance of an active volcano.

CHAPTER X.

Texas.--Battle of Madina.--First Introduction of Americans into Texas.--Usurpation of Bustamente.--Texas owed no Allegiance to the Usurper.--The good Faith of the United States in the Acquisition of Louisiana and Texas.--Santa Anna p.r.o.nounces against Bustamente.--Santa Anna in Texas.--A Mexican's Denunciation of the Texan War.--His Idea of our Revolution,--He complains of our grasping Spirit.--The right of the United States to occupy unsettled Territory.--A few more p.r.o.nunciamientos of Santa Anna.--The Adventures of Santa Anna to the present Date.

We must resume again the narrative of historical events, in order better to set forth the condition of the country through which we are traveling.

Texas is a turning-point in the history of Mexico. Captain Don Alonzo de Leon, in the year 1689,[15] by command of the Vice-King of New Spain, took formal possession of Texas, in the name of His Most Catholic Majesty of Spain. Afterward a few military and missionary settlements were commenced, with indifferent success, as the Indians were of a less docile character than those of the southern provinces. They were ever restive under the yoke of spiritual taskmasters, so that the feeble missions and presidios had only a sickly existence down to the time of the breaking out of the civil wars of Mexico.

We have already noticed the statement that, in the year 1819, a Mexican general routed at the River Madina a party of 3000 men, who were on their way to join the Mexican insurgents. The above number is somewhat improbable; say there were 500, which would be about as many as could well be mustered at that early period for a filibustering expedition at New Orleans.

In 1820 Moses Austin applied to the Spanish authorities, and obtained from them the right to settle a certain number of families in Texas. He died soon after, and his son Stephen obtained a confirmation of the grant, or, rather, a new grant, from the authorities established at Mexico under the Federal Const.i.tution of 1824. Under that const.i.tution Texas was annexed to Coahuila, and, together with it, was formed into the united state of Coahuila and Texas. From the authorities of this state divers other Americans obtained grants of land under the provisions of the colonization law of the Mexican Congress of the year 1824. From this time all things went smoothly on, and the grantees were busily engaged in introducing the number of families which were stipulated for in the said law, and in the grants made under it, when the Spanish armada landed at Tampico.

DOWNFALL OF BUSTAMENTE.

In consequence of the great dangers threatening the country, Congress had conferred dictatorial powers upon the President of the Republic, Vincente Guerrero. By virtue of his dictatorship, he had invested the Vice-president of the Republic, Bustamente, with the command of an army of reserve, which he established at Jalapa. As soon as the Spanish army had capitulated to Santa Anna, Bustamente put forth a _p.r.o.nunciamiento_, and, marching to the city of Mexico, he deposed the President, whom he afterward caused to be cruelly put to death. Having now, by means of a successful military insurrection, possessed himself of the executive power, he proceeded by violent means to overturn, one by one, the governments of the individual states. In this war against the states he was also successful, except in the most distant one, that of Coahuila and Texas.

Texas clearly owed no allegiance to the usurper Bustamente. It was an independent state in all respects, excepting those powers it had conceded to the general government by adopting the Federal Const.i.tution. The subversion of this Const.i.tution reinstated Texas as an independent republic. It owed no farther allegiance to Mexico. Texas might at once have applied for admission into our Union, or have asked to be annexed to any other foreign state, pleading not only her inherent right to do so, but the excessive cruelties that Bustamente inflicted on those state authorities that opposed his usurpations.

The learned and eloquent General Tornel, distinguished alike as a statesman and a soldier, from whose popular history we have below made a brief extract, in pleading the cause of his country, charges bad faith against the United States in the acquisition of both Louisiana and Texas, but in both arguments he fails to make out a case. By the treaty of San Ildefonso in 1800, France acquired an imperfect t.i.tle to Louisiana; by the treaty of Paris in 1803, she conveyed all her t.i.tle to the United States. But, before the United States would pay over any money on account of the treaty of 1803, she required Spain to confirm the treaty of San Ildefonso by putting France into the actual possession of Louisiana. This being done, and not till it was done, did the United States pay over the $15,000,000 stipulated as the purchase money. The dispute with Spain about boundaries was settled by the treaty for the acquisition of Florida, in 1819, which established boundaries that were confirmed in a subsequent treaty with Mexico. Thus far, certainly, there was no breach of faith.

On the night of January 3d, 1832, the garrison of Vera Cruz _p.r.o.nounced_ against the usurping government of Bustamente, which was then suffering dreadfully from the want of funds. A delegation was sent the same night to Santa Anna, who had been in retirement at his estate of _Manga de Clavo_ since the murder of his friend, President Guerrero. This fourth insurrection was prosecuted with varying success for several months, but was finally terminated by the capitulation of Bustamente at Puebla, and the recalling of Pedraza from banishment in the United States, to serve out the few months that remained of his term of office as President.

In 1832 Santa Anna was elected successor to Pedraza as President of the Federal Republic of Mexico. Texas had now of right the option of returning into the family of Mexican States, or of maintaining her separate existence; but she was under no obligation to return, for, the confederacy having been once broken up, it was optional with the only member that had not submitted to the usurper to re-enter this unreliable family, or to continue outside. This election was not long open; for, by the _p.r.o.nunciamiento_ of Toluca (1835), the Federal Const.i.tution was again abolished, and Santa Anna became dictator in fact, if not in name. The clergy were at the bottom of this last revolution, and they demanded, as the price of their support, the extirpation of heresy from the territory of the Republic. This meant the indiscriminate slaughter of all Texans. Santa Anna, who, in all his previous wars, had never shown a disposition to be cruel to the vanquished, was so dazzled with the prospects before him as to be willing to make the slaughter of the Alamo and of Fannin's division an offering to a priesthood who were plotting for the restoration of the Inquisition. The battle of San Jacinto was, in its consequences, more disastrous to the designs of the ecclesiastical party than even to Santa Anna himself.

MEXICAN VIEW OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS.

Let me stop in my narrative of events to translate a Mexican's eloquent denunciation of the Anglo-Saxon race. It is from the pen of General Tornel, a most uncompromising enemy of that race and of its religion.

Thus he opens his account of the Texan difficulty:

"In order to understand what we to-day (1852) are, and what we to-day value, it is indispensable to discover, and to perpetuate the history of one of the greatest scandals of the age--all of its antecedents, all of its consequences, all that can aid in coming to knowledge of this greatest act of injustice of which the Mexican nation has been the victim.

"Those who cross the sea change their skies, but not their nature. The Anglo-Saxons abandoned their country from physical and moral necessities, and on account of their political and religious quarrels.

Transporting themselves to the virgin forests of America, they brought with them the characteristics of Northmen; they were distinguished for sobriety, laboriousness, and industry; for ardor in their enterprises; for constancy, and for that spirit of adventure which subjugates all by the right of conquest. They leveled all obstacles by the vigor of their arm and the sweat of their brow, and from their successes has arisen the hope of acquiring every thing by the inspiration of their talents and the force of their genius.

"The English, of whom John Cabot was a compatriot, came by the northern route [to America], and discovered an immense country, whose rivers are the grandest, whose forests appear to be antediluvian, whose lakes would be called seas in Europe; with harbors on an extensive coast which rival the greatest in the world. It has a soil suited to every purpose of agriculture. In short, it has facilities for all enterprises, and for raising the material of a productive commerce sufficient to establish advantageous relations with the Old World, and for creating an independent society; for supplying its necessities; for making its condition enviable; for rivaling the power, the influence, and the destinies of its parent country.

"The country which they discovered they found scarcely inhabited, although here and there wandered some tribes without social organization, without government, without the power of concentration, even to the extent which numbers give to savages. They [the colonists]

early learned that they could establish their dominion without resistance, and that they could extend it as far as they could open the country with the ax of the active colonist, who considered himself the heir of undiscovered wealth, which would result from an inevitable destiny. The colonies which were established along the coast, and those which were formed in the interior, increased, as increases the gentle rill in its onward course by uniting with other rills and with rivers, until, becoming one vast torrent, it precipitates itself into the ocean. The colonies of Tyre, of Carthage, or Rome were never comparable with the Anglo-American colonies, who appropriated to themselves, in less than a century, regions more extended than the half of Europe.

"The observer of the providential destiny of the Anglo-Saxon race in America notices that the emanc.i.p.ation of the thirteen American colonies, which const.i.tuted so many states and an independent nation, instead of being the result of the alleged political grievances, was rather the impulsive force of expansion, which encountered insuperable obstacles while the states were colonies subordinate to a European nation. They were r.e.t.a.r.ded in their advances by relations and compromises with other nations. The Anglo-Saxon, when translated to the wilds of America, needed only a stopping-place in order to found a peculiar and exclusive polity, which should enable him to march ever onward in his aggressions and usurping inst.i.tutions.

"The United States of America lost no time in making themselves powerful; a nation rich in its industry, enviable in its commerce, respectable in its social organization, which are so favorable to the advancement of the condition of man. When the government had regulated, with great prudence and wisdom, the interior system of the states, it placed itself upon the watch for the compromised circ.u.mstances of embarra.s.sed European states that possessed colonies on the American continent. Some of these colonies were contiguous to the limits which the United States had acquired definitely by the treaty of peace of 1783. In order to augment, at the expense of her neighbors, her possessions, already immense, and not yet well populated, she set about acquiring territory by astuteness, by cunning, by violence, and also by justifiable means, when such were available. Spain first, and Mexico afterward, have been her victims; and to-day these rich and powerful states display the spoils, for such they are in reality, which they have wrested from us. Such are the people that already rival those nations of Europe whose territories are the most extensive, and whose commerce is spread over all the seas."

WEAKNESS OF THE SPANISH t.i.tLE.

My limits will not permit me to follow General Tornel through his statement of the manner in which Louisiana, Florida, and Texas were acquired, and to notice his complaints of the injustice committed by the Americans in all these acquisitions. He loses sight of the fact that Spain had no t.i.tle to her possessions in America but that of discovery, and that very doubtful claim had not, in a period of 300 years, been strengthened by actual settlement. Three or four dilapidated mud forts, and as many more feeble missions, const.i.tuted the sum total of the Spanish possession of Texas; and settlements scarcely worthy of the name in the other northern departments const.i.tuted all the t.i.tle that Spain could put forth to those countries; while the right of Mexico was as much weaker, as Mexico was a weaker power than Spain, and morally incapable of settling the disputed territory. The claim of the United States was the necessity for land in which to settle her population, which was so rapidly augmenting by foreign immigration. Once in ten years she requires a portion of the wild land nominally belonging to Mexico, and once in ten years she must take it.

SANTA ANNA.

In 1836, while Santa Anna was a prisoner in Texas, Bustamente, then in banishment in Europe, was elected President by the same party that had chosen Santa Anna as Dictator. In 1838, the government having incurred the hostility of France, Vera Cruz was blockaded for several months, during which time a night foray was made into the town by a party of French sailors, headed by the Prince de Joinville. On their return, they were pursued by Santa Anna to the Mole, where they stopped farther pursuit by discharging a cannon, which deprived Santa Anna of one of his legs, and effectually wiped out the recollections of his unfortunate Texan campaign. In 1841, the government being no longer able to raise funds at two per cent. a month, the Minister of War, Valencia, p.r.o.nounced against Bustamente in the citadel of Mexico. The result was, that Santa Anna was again elevated to supreme power, according to the plan of Tacubaya, and the interpretation he put on that plan. In 1843 a slight change was made in the Const.i.tution, but he remained in power until 1845, when, having left the capital to put down the insurrection of Paredes, Congress declared against him. Herrera was appointed President, and Santa Anna was imprisoned for a while in the castle of Perote, and finally banished from the country. In 1847 he was recalled by the Federal party, with the consent of President Polk, and became the chief support of the war, notwithstanding his totally inadequate means for organizing a successful defense. When the defense could no longer be protracted, he left the city by night, and retired to the West Indies, and afterward to Carthagena, where he remained until he was recalled in 1852, and again restored to supreme authority.

We may sum up the politico-military life of Santa Anna by saying that he has been engaged in eight _p.r.o.nunciamientos_. Five of these have been made by himself; three by others, for his benefit. Twice he has been chosen President by the Federal party of the Federal Republic of Mexico. Three times he has been made President by the Central, or Ecclesiastical party. He has been twice banished from Mexico, and each time recalled again and placed at the head of affairs. He has twice been taken prisoner, when his captors held long consultations upon the propriety of putting him to death. He has, in turn, been the candidate of all parties, and has served all parties faithfully in turn, but most faithfully of all he has served himself. Actively engaged through life as a politician and a soldier, he has found time to readjust the whole complicated system of Mexican laws, and, in a series of volumes of autocratic decrees, he has drawn from that chaotic ma.s.s a new system of jurisprudence, that will stand as a monument of his genius as long as the Mexican nation shall continue.

[15] _Breva Resena Historica_, by Gen. Tornel. Mexico, 1852.

p. 135.