On the Mexican Highlands Part 3

HOTEL ITURBIDE, MEXICO, _November 22d_.

This limpid atmosphere, this vivifying sun,--how they redden the blood and exhilarate the spirit! This is a sunshine which never brings the sweat. But yet, however hot the sun may be, it is cold in the shadow, and at this I am perpetually surprised.

The custom of the hotels in this Latin land is to let rooms upon the "European" plan, leaving the guest free to dine in the separate cafe of the hotel itself, or to take his meals wherever he may choose among the city's mult.i.tude of lunch rooms and restaurants. Thus I may take my _desayuno_ in an "American" restaurant, where the dishes are of the American type, and my _almuerzo_, the midmorning meal, in an Italian restaurant where the dishes of sunny Italy are served; while for my _comida_, I stroll through a narrow doorway between sky blue pillars, and enter a long, stone-flagged chamber, where neat tables are set about and where the Creole French of Louisiana is the speech of the proprietor. Here are served the most delicious meals I have yet discovered. If you want fish, a swarthy Indian waiter presents before you a large silver salver on which are arranged different sorts of fish fresh from the sea, for these are daily received in the city. Or, perhaps, you desire game, when a tray upon which are spread ducks and snipe and plover, the heads and wings yet feathered, is presented to you. Or a platter of beefsteaks, chops and cutlets is held before you.

From these you select what you may wish. If you like, you may accompany the waiter who hands your choice to the cook, and you may stand and see the fish or duck or chop done to a turn, as you shall approve, upon the fire before your eyes. You are asked to take nothing for granted, but having ascertained to your own satisfaction that the food is fresh, you may verify its preparation, and eat it contentedly without misgiving. In this autumn season, flocks of ducks come to spend their winters upon the lakes surrounding the city. At a cost of thirty cents, our money, you may have a delicious broiled teal with fresh peas and lettuce, and as much fragrant coffee as you will drink.

The food is cheap, wholesome and abundant. And what is time to a cook whose wages may be ten or fifteen _centavos_ a day, although his skill be of the greatest!

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLEASED WITH MY CAMERA]

The city is full of fine big shops whose large windows present lavish displays of sumptuous fabrics. There is great wealth in Mexico. There is also abject poverty. The income of the rich comes to them without toil from their vast estates, often inherited in direct descent from the Royal Grants of Ferdinand and Isabella to the _Conquestadores_ of Cortez, when the fruitful lands of the conquered Aztecs were parceled out among the hungry Spanish _companeros_ of the Conqueror. Some of these farms or _haciendas_, as they are called, contain as many as a million acres.

Mexico is to all intents and purposes a free trade country, and the fabrics and goods of Europe mostly supply the needs and fancies of the Mexicans. The dry goods stores are in the hands of the French, with here and there a Spaniard from old Spain; the drug stores are kept by Germans, who all speak fluent Spanish, and the cheap cutlery and hardware are generally of German make. The wholesale and retail grocers have been Spaniards, but this trade is now drifting to the Americans. There are some fine jewelry stores, and gems and gold work are displayed in their windows calculated to dazzle even an American.

The Mexican delights in jewels, and men and women love to have their fingers ablaze with sparkling diamonds, and their fronts behung with many chains of gold. And opals! Everyone will sell you opals!

In leather work, the Mexican is a master artist. He has inherited the art from the clever artificers among the ancient Moors. Coats and pantaloons (I use purposely the word _pantaloons_) and hats are made of leather, soft, light and elastic as woven fibre. And as for saddles and bridles, all the accoutrements of the _caballero_ are here made more sumptuously than anywhere in all the world.

The shops are opened early in the morning and remain open until noon, when most of them are closed until three o'clock, while the clerks are allowed to take their _siesta_, the midday rest. Then in the cool hours of the evening they stay open until late.

Over on one side of a small park, under the projecting loggia of a long, low building, I noticed, to-day, a dozen or more little tables, by each of which sat a dignified, solemn-looking man. Some were waiting for customers, others were writing at the dictation of their clients; several were evidently composing love letters for the shy, brown _muchachas_ who whispered to them. Of the thirteen millions const.i.tuting the population of the Mexican Republic, less than two millions can read and write. Hence it is, that this profession of scribe is one of influence and profit.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VOLCANO DE POPOCATEPETL]

I have once more visited the famous cathedral which faces the Plaza Grande. From the north tower of it, to the top of which I climbed by a wonderful convoluted staircase, ninety-two spiral steps without a core, I gained a view of the city. North and south and east and west it spread out several miles in extent. It lies beneath the view, a city of flat roofs, covering structures rarely more than two stories high, of stone and sun-dried brick, and painted sky blue, pink and yellow, or else remaining as white and clean as when first built, who knows how many hundreds of years ago? For here are no chimneys, no smoke and no soot! To the south I could descry the glistening surface of Lake Tezcoco, and to the west, at a greater distance, Lakes Chalco and Xochomilco. Never a cloud flecked the dark blue dome of the sky.

Only, overhead, I noted one burst of refulgent whiteness. It was with difficulty that I could compel my comprehension to grasp the fact that this was nothing less than the snow summit of mighty Popocatepetl, so distant that tree and earth and rock along its base, even in this pellucid atmosphere, were hid in perpetual haze.

It is said that peoples differ from one another not merely in color, in form and in manners, but equally so in their peculiar and individual odors. The Chinese are said to find the European offensive to their olfactory nerves because he smells so much like a sheep. The Englishman vows the Italian reeks with the scent of garlic. The Frenchman declares the German unpleasant because his presence suggests the fumes of beer. Just so, have I been told that the great cities of the world may be distinguished by their odors. Paris is said to exhale absinthe. London is said to smell of ale and stale tobacco, and Mexico City, I think, may be said to be enwrapped with the scent of _pulque_ (_Pool-Kay_). "_Pulque_, blessed _pulque_," says the Mexican!

_Pulque_, the great national drink of the ancient Aztec, which has been readily adopted by the Spanish conqueror, and which is to-day the favorite intoxicating beverage of every bibulating Mexican. At the railway stations, as we descended into the great valley wherein Mexico City lies, Indian women handed up little brown pitchers of _pulque_, fresh _pulque_ new tapped. Sweet and cool and delicious it was, as mild as lemonade (in this unfermented condition it is called _agua miel_, honey water). The thirsty pa.s.sengers reached out of the car windows and gladly paid the _cinco centavos_ (five cents) and drank it at leisure as the train rolled on. Through miles and miles we traversed plantations of the maguey plant from which the _pulque_ is extracted. For pulque is merely the sap of the maguey or "century plant," which acc.u.mulates at the base of the flower stalk, just before it begins to shoot up. The _pulque_-gatherer thrusts a long, hollow reed into the stalk, sucks it full to the mouth, using the tongue for a stopper, and then blows it into a pigskin sack which he carries on his back. When the pigskin is full of juice, it is emptied into a tub, and when the tub is filled with liquor it is poured into a cask, and the cask is shipped to the nearest market. Itinerant peddlars tramp through the towns and villages, bearing a pigskin of _pulque_ on their shoulders and selling drinks to whosoever is thirsty and may have the _uno centavo_ (one cent) to pay for it. When fresh, the drink is delightful and innocuous. But when the liquid has begun to ferment, it is said to generate narcotic qualities which make it the finest thing for a steady, long-continuing and thorough-going drunk which Providence has yet put within the reach of man. Thousands of gallons of _pulque_ are consumed in Mexico City every twenty-four hours, and the government has enacted stringent laws providing against the sale of _pulque_ which shall be more than twenty-four hours old. The older it grows the greater the drunk, and the less you need drink to become intoxicated, hence, it is the aim of every thirsty Mexican to procure the oldest _pulque_ he can get. In every _pulque_ shop, where only the mild, sweet _agua miel_, fresh and innocuous, is supposed to be sold, there is, as a matter of fact, always on hand a well fermented supply, a few nips of which will knock out the most confirmed drinker almost as soon as he can swallow it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A PULQUE PEDDLER]

I was pa.s.sing a _pulque_ shop this afternoon when I noticed a tall, brawny Indian coming out. He walked steadily and soberly half way across the street, when all of a sudden the fermented brew within him took effect and he doubled up like a jackknife, then and there. Two men thereupon came out of the self same doorway, picked him up head and heels, and I saw them sling him, like a sack of meal, into the far corner of the shop, there to lie, perhaps twenty-four hours, till he would come out of his narcotic stupor.

Riding out to the shrine of Guadeloupe the other afternoon, I pa.s.sed many Indians leaving the city for their homes. Some were bearing burdens upon their backs, some were driving donkeys loaded with goods.

Upon the back of one donkey was tied a _pulque_ drunkard. His legs were tied about the donkey's neck and his body was lashed fast to the donkey's back. His eyes and mouth were open. His head wagged from side to side with the burro's trot. He was apparently dead. He had swallowed too much fermented _pulque_. His _companeros_ were taking him home to save him from the city jail.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A FRIEND OF MY KODAK]

[Ill.u.s.tration: DULCE VENDER]

The Mexicans have a legend about the origin of their _pulque_. It runs thus: One of their mighty emperors, long before the days of Montezuma's rule, when on a war raid to the south, lost his heart to the daughter of a conquered chief and brought her back to _Tenocht.i.tlan_ as his bride. Her name was Xochitl and she gained extraordinary power over her lord, brewing with her fair, brown hands a drink for which he acquired a prodigious thirst. He never could imbibe enough and, when tanked full, contentedly resigned to her the right to rule. Other Aztec ladies perceiving its soothing soporific influence upon the emperor, acquired the secret of its make and secured domestic peace by also administering it to their lords. Thus _pulque_ became the drink adored by every Aztec. The acquisitive Spaniard soon "caught on" and has never yet let go.

The one redeeming feature about the _pulque_ is that he who gets drunk on it becomes torpid and is incapable of fight. Hence, while it is so widely drunk, there comes little violence from those who drink it.

But not so is it with _mescal_, a brandy distilled from the lower leaves and roasted roots of the maguey plant. It is the more high priced and less generally tasted liquor. Men who drink it become mad and, when filled with it, sharpen their long knives and start to get even with some real or imaginary foe. Fortunately, _mescal_ has few persistent patrons. It is _pulque_, the soporific _pulque_ that is the honored and national beverage of the Mexican.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VOLCANO DE IZTACCIHUATL]

VII

A Mexican Bullfight

MEXICO CITY, _Sunday, November 24th_.

A feeling first of disgust and then of anger came over me this afternoon. I was sitting right between two pretty Spanish women, young and comely. One of them as she came in was greeted by the name _Hermosa Paracita_ (beautiful little parrot), by eight or ten sprucely dressed young Spaniards just back of me. The spectators with ten thousand vociferous throats had just been cheering a _picador_. He had done a valiant deed. He had ridden his blindfolded horse around the ring twice, lifting his cap to the cheering mult.i.tude. He was applauded because he had managed to have the belly of his horse so skillfully ripped open by the maddened black bull, that all its vitals and entrails were dragging on the ground while he rode it, under the stimulus of his cruel spurs and wicked bit, twice around the ring before it fell, to be dragged out, dying, by mules, gaily-caparisoned in trappings of red and gold, tugging at its heels! _Paracita_ clapped her pretty bejeweled hands and cried "_bravo_!" And so did the scores of other pretty women; women on the reserved seats, elegant ladies and pretty children in the high-priced boxes on the upper tiers! The howling mob of thousands also applauded the gallant _picador_! Would he be equally fortunate and clever and succeed in having the next horse ripped open so completely, all at one thrust of the bull's horns? _Quien sabe?_

The city of four hundred thousand inhabitants, capital of the Mexican Republic, had been profoundly stirred all the week over the arrival from Spain of the renowned Manzanillo and his band of _toreadors_ (bullfighters). Their first appearance would be the opening event of the bullfighting season.

Manzanillo, the most renowned _Toreador_ of old Spain! And bulls, six of them, of the most famous strains of Mexico and of Andalusia! Senor Limantour, Secretary of State for Mexico, spoken of as the successor to President Diaz, had just delighted the _jeunesse doree_ by publicly announcing his acceptance of the honor of the Presidency of the newly founded "Bullfighting Club." Spanish society and the _Sociadad Espanola_ had publicly serenaded _Don_ Manzanillo at his hotel! A dinner would be given in his honor after the event! Men and women were selling tickets on the streets. Reserved tickets at five dollars each, could only be obtained at certain cigar stores. The rush would be so great that, to secure a ticket at all, one must buy early. I secured mine on Thursday, and was none too soon. The spectacle would come off Sunday afternoon at three o'clock, by which hour all the churches would have finished their services, and the ladies would have had their _almuerzo_, and time to put on afternoon costume.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SETTING A BANDERILLA]

By noon the drift of all the street crowds was toward the bull ring, a mile or two out near the northwest border of the city. All street cars were packed and extra cars were running; even all carriages and cabs were taken, and the cabmen commanded double prices. I had retained a carriage the day before. At the restaurant I could scarcely get a bite, the waiters and cooks were so eager to get through and escape, even for a single peep at the spectacle. As I drove out, young ladies were standing in groups at the gateways of many fashionable residences waiting for their carriages to take them to the ring. As I approached the arena, the throngs upon the streets and sidewalks blocked the way.

Hundreds of Indians and Mexicans, mostly women, had set up temporary eating stands along the roadside. Fruit, _tortillas_, steaming broth and meat roasting over fires, tempted the hungry. These stands would feed a mult.i.tude. It was early, but the city fire department was already on hand with apparatus to extinguish any possible blaze among the wooden tiers of seats. A battalion of mounted police sat on their blood-bay horses at intervals along the road, their gaudy blue and gold uniforms setting off effectively their dark brown skins. We entered a large gateway, gave up half of our tickets, and then pa.s.sed in to a broad flight of steps. We ascended to the tiers of seats and chose good places. Presently, two companies of infantry with set bayonets also entered and took up their positions. Often the mob becomes so mad with blood-l.u.s.t, that bayonets are needed to keep order, sometimes also bullets.

It was an hour before the set time, but none too early. The crowds, all well dressed on this side, every one of whom had paid five dollars for a ticket, kept pouring in. Across on the other side swarmed the cheap mob. Behind me was a row of young Spaniards. They stood up and called nicknames to all their friends who entered within reach of their vision. They cheered every pretty well dressed woman. They howled like mad when the band came in, they fairly burst themselves when, at last, Manzanillo, the _toreador_, the _matadores_, _picadores_, the valiant gold-laced company of bullfighters, entered and marched around the ring.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TEASING EL TORO]

Manzanillo sat on a superb Andalusian charger which pranced and threw up his forefeet as though conscious of the ill.u.s.trious character of his master. Then Manzanillo dismounted and took his place, the _picadores_ stationed their horses on either side and pulled over their eyes the bandages to blindfold them, others carrying big gold-embroidered red shawls, stood all attention, the band struck up, the door opposite me was thrown open and a handsome, black-brown bull trotted in. As he pa.s.sed the gate he received his first attention. Two rosettes of scarlet and gold ribbons were hooked into his shoulders, with steel teeth, enough to irritate him just a little. He stood there amazed. The crowd cheered him. A man in gold lace promptly flaunted a red shawl in his face. He charged it. The man stepped lightly aside and bowed to the audience, who cheered vociferously. "Bravo! Well done!" Then one of the blindfolded horses was spurred toward the bull.

The bull was dazed and angry. He charged right at the horseman. The horseman lowered his spear and caught the bull in the shoulder. The bull flinched to one side. The audience cheered the _picador_, but the bull dexterously turning, charged the horse on the other side, and, before the poor beast could be turned, drove his sharp horns into his abdomen, ripped it up and upset the rider and horse in a cloud of dust. The audience now cheered the bull. A dozen men rushed to the rescue and dragged the _picador_ away. The horse lay there and the bull charged it again, and again ripped out more entrails. The audience cheered the bull, and the bull, encouraged by the applause, took another turn at the dying horse. Just then a dexterous footman slung the red sheet in the bull's face and he turned to chase it. But all in vain! Charge the red vision all he would, he never caught anything but thin air! He could never catch the man.

Then the bull saw another horse blindly sidling towards him, for though blindfolded, the old horse could yet smell the bull and the blood, and only went forward under the pressure of savage spur and bit. The bull stood gazing at the horse and rider a moment, then he charged right at them with head down. He caught the horse in the belly and ripped out its entrails, which dragged on the ground, while the brave _picador_ continued to ride it about, and sought yet again to engage the attention of the bull.

But the bull was now tired. He thought of his mountain pastures and the sweet, long gra.s.s of the uplands. He would go home. He would fight no more. He wanted to get out, he wanted badly to get out. The now hissing mob scared him worse than when they cheered. He ran about the ring trying all the locked doors. He couldn't force them. Then he tried to climb over the high wall, to jump over anyway. He was frantic with pathetic panic. But shouting men stood round the parapet and clubbed him over the head. So he gave up and returned to the center of the ring, panting, his tongue hanging out, foam dripping from his jaws. He was altogether winded.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE GARDENS OF CHAPULTEPEC]

Now was Manzanillo's opportunity. He carried a small purple gold-fringed scarf over his left arm, and his long, straight naked sword in his right hand. He stood directly in front of the bull. He caught its eye. He waved the purple banner. Almost imperceptibly he approached. The bull stood staring at him, legs wide apart, sides panting, tail lashing, head down, tired but ready to charge. Then, quick as lightning, Manzanillo stepped up to the bull, straight in front of him, and reaching out at arm's length drove the sword to the very hilt right down between the shoulder blades. It was a mortal stroke, a wonderful thrust, perfect, precise, fatal. Only a master of his craft could do just such a perfectly exact act. And as quick as lightning did Manzanillo step aside, fold his arms and stand motionless, not ten feet from the bull, to watch him die. He gave only one sweeping bow to the audience. The Spaniard is a connoisseur in all the delicate and subtle masterstrokes in this duel of man and beast.

Manzanillo had sustained his reputation as the greatest living bullfighter of old Spain. The nerve, the agility, the lightning-like act--too quick for human eye to follow--the perfect judgment of time and distance and force, all these he had now displayed. The vast audience broke out into one simultaneous "Bravo," rose to its feet and then, like the _matador_, stood silent and breathless to watch the bull die,--to see the hot blood pour from mouth and nostrils, the st.u.r.dy thighs and shoulders shake, the powerful knees bend. The nose sank to the dust, the knees trembled, the bull rolled in the sand, quite dead. Manzanillo drew out his reeking sword. Again he bowed to the vast mult.i.tude, and no human being ever received a more overwhelming ovation than did he. Flowers were thrown him in heaps.

Sometimes women even take off their jewels and throw them, and kiss the hero when they later meet him on the street. So great is the joy of the blood-l.u.s.t! So has the frenzy of the Roman arena descended to some of Rome's degenerate sons. Mules in gay red and gold trappings now dragged out the bull as they had the horse. There would be cheap stews for the mult.i.tude in the city to-night.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MANZANILLO'S FATAL THRUST]

The next bull was jet-black, big, st.u.r.dy, ferocious. He scorned to charge or gore a blindfolded horse, but he chased a man wherever in sight. Such a bull is according to the Spanish heart! The audience cheered him wildly. He ripped up three or four horses just because he had to, in order to get at the man on their backs. One of the horses had been ripped up by the first bull, but his dusty entrails had been put back, the rent sewn up, and under cruel spur and bit he had been presented to the second bull to be again splendidly and finally ripped wide open, ridden around the ring by his bowing rider, b.l.o.o.d.y entrails dragging in the dust, and applauded to his death by the blood-hungry mult.i.tude! The second bull was game! The _banderillas_ were placed with danger and difficulty. These are two beribboned sticks tipped with steel gaffs that are jabbed into the bull's shoulders, adding to the irritation of the rosettes, and increasing his desire for revenge.

In the first bull they were perfectly planted and three pairs set in.

In the second only one was got in at first, then a pair, then one again. Each setting of the _banderillas_ is a dangerous feat! The bull must be approached from the front. Just as they are stuck into the maddened animal, the _banderillador_ must step aside. He must be quick, very quick, as quick as the _toreador_ in planting his fatal sword thrust. And not infrequently the _banderillador_ gets tossed, and perhaps gored and killed by the bull. Hence the act, well done, receives deafening applause. Despite his fierce courage, this splendid black bull also met at last his inevitable fate, beneath the perfectly skillful thrust of Manzanillo.

The third bull was the biggest and oldest yet. Horses were ripped up by him in exciting succession and one _picador_ was caught under his fallen horse and badly bruised. Nor was it so easy to kill this bull.

The _matador_ lost a trifle of his nerve. The sword only went in half way. It took the bull some time to bleed internally and die. With the sword-hilt waving between his shoulder blades, he tried to follow and gore the _matador_, but his strength began to fail. He stood still, his head sank down, his knees bent, he knelt. And the vast audience stood in hush and silence to watch with delighted expectancy the final oncoming of death. When he rolled over quite dead, the pretty women in the box behind me shouted and waved their dainty hands in mad delight.

The fourth bull was just ushered in when the brutality and cruelty and horror of it all quite nauseated me. I rose to go. My friend told our neighbors that I was "ill." Otherwise they could not have understood my leaving in the midst of the fight. Afterward I heard it declared to be a very fine performance, for, as a little Mexican boy exclaimed delightedly, "they killed six bulls and thirteen horses! It was _magnifico_!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: JUAREZ' TOMB AND WREATHS OF SILVER]