On the Mexican Highlands Part 6

The same cruelty which we saw practiced in the bullring, where horses were ripped open, sewed up twice and thrice and ridden back into the arena to be ripped open just once more, amidst the plaudits of vociferating thousands, is equally apparent along this traveled highway where we constantly meet animals overloaded to their death, animals turned out to die, animals fallen beneath their loads and unable to rise.

At the Rancho Nuevo, the Spanish-Indian ladies of the kitchen promised us boiled chicken with our rice for the midday meal. One of the ladies, a stocky, swarthy Indian, with her agile son, started in hot chase after a long-legged active hen. The bird seemed to know its fate. Several short-haired dogs joining in the pursuit, the hen was captured. The mother brought it to me holding it up showing it to be fat and well-fed, and then, as she stood beside me, watching a caravan of pack animals on the moment just entering the courtyard, she calmly broke the thigh bone of each leg and the chief bone of each wing, so that escape became impossible, and proceeded right then and there to pick the chicken alive. She was evidently unconscious of any thought of cruelty. The legs and wings were broken in order that the bird might not run or fly away. It was picked alive as a matter of course. The sentiment of pity and tenderness for dumb things had never yet dawned upon her mind. The fowl destined for the pot, was as little considered as the wounded prisoner with his wrists tied tight to the neck and back, whom _Don_ Louis' soldiers that day were "transferring"

to another jail.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COOLING THE HORSES--RANCHO NUEVO]

Our _Jefe Politico_ had been joined by two Spanish (Mexican) gentlemen, managers (_superintendentes_) of _haciendas_ and we all dined together. We had the hen cooked with rice and then _frijoles_, and I gave them of my precious old Bourbon, which--"_La agua de los Estados Unidos_"--they p.r.o.nounced "_mas excellentemente_" than their own _mescal_.

Here we rested until about 3:00 P. M., when we got away for the final descent into _La Tierra Caliente_. We came down very gradually for about an hour and then found ourselves at Agua Sarpo, a collection of a few huts on the brink of the plateau, whence we looked out over an aggregation of mountain peaks and ridges, valleys and deep plains, much as though you stood at the "Hawk's Nest" in West Virgina, and looked out for a hundred miles over a country five thousand feet below, all that distant region bathed in lurid heat, verdant and luxuriant with tropical vegetation.

The summits below me were volcanic and the flat cone of Mexico's last created volcano, Jorullo, thrown up to a height of nearly two thousand feet in a single night, September 29, 1759, and so graphically described by Humboldt, stood at our very feet--the extraordinarily clear atmosphere making the volcano and neighboring peaks and ranges look as though crowded hard against each other, although they were many of them miles apart.

My first herald of the approaching tropics was a _paraquita_ gorgeous in emerald and scarlet and gold, sitting on a stump watching me intently, and then I noticed a flock of parrots tumbling in the air.

The road, a mere trail, was as steep as some of those which lead down from our Kanawha mines. We let the _Jefe_ and his soldiers follow us, we taking the lead. Down we went and down, and down, hour after hour.

We pa.s.sed palm trees, mult.i.tudes of bananas, and coffee trees. There were many Indian huts by the wayside,--for we were on a famous, much traveled thoroughfare,--and at most of them a bottle or gourd of _pulque_ and fruit were set out to tempt the traveler to buy.

When almost down we came to the _hacienda_ Tejemanil, a great sugar estate, with an ancient mill run by water conveyed many miles from the plateau. Here we rested half an hour, the _Jefe_ transacted some business, and we ate delicious oranges, small, in color a light yellow, and bursting with slightly acid juice.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A WILD FIG TREE--LA PLAYA]

We were now on a level of palm orchards, whence the dried palm leaves are shipped to the highlands in great bales. Then we came to another _hacienda_, a farm of a hundred thousand acres, La Playa, where the Jefe and his company with their doomed prisoner took the diverging road to La Huacana. Finally, we came to a broad valley, the valley of El Rio de la Playa, black with volcanic sand, called the _mal pais_ (bad land), this being the immediate region once devastated by the terrible eruption of volcano Jorullo. Here were extensive banana groves, strange tropical trees quite new to me, orchids and palms and a stretch of several miles of indigo and watermelon cultivation. We then crossed another divide and came down again just as the big hot sun dove behind the mountains and precipitated the night. It was pitch dark when we entered the _hacienda_ La Cuyaco and dismounted, four thousand eight hundred feet below Ario, six thousand feet below Santa Clara and yet some one thousand two hundred feet above the sea.

This night we slept on rawhide springs, a piece of matting for a mattress. We were in the tropics. I was forbid to touch water, even to wash. Our supper was chocolate, (delicious), _tortillas_ and eggs.

Parrots and two large gray doves and a gold finch hung in cages in the _patio_ where we ate. All were new to me. A baby swung in a cradle suspended from the ceiling and the father, Izus, the keeper of the courtyard, held another. He had thirteen children.

We took off our thick clothes--(it had been difficult to endure them all the afternoon)--I put on a gauze underwear and linen, and slept without the burden of a blanket. In the morning we set out early, but the sun was fiercely hot by nine o'clock. For some fifteen miles we now traversed a wide valley. We were away from the neighborhood of Jorullo and its scattered volcanic sands, and had entered the mineral belt. A ledge bearing copper and silver ran through the courtyard of the _hacienda_. I tripped against it when going to supper.

And thereby hangs a tale: Not long ago, it seems, an itinerant American--one of those casual countrymen of mine who now and then retreat to Mexico, when the law at home gives too hot chase--dropped in at the _hacienda_ toward the close of a hot day and asked for lodging. He was hospitably received, as is the custom, and when the great bell clanged for supper, he left his sleeping room and made his way across the courtyard.

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

Walking carelessly, he stubbed his toe against the unruly ledge and limping into the dining room, his host apologized for the presence of so ill located a ledge of obtruding rock. The guest declared his hurt a trifling matter, and the incident was forgotten. The next morning, he was seen knocking the ledge with a hammer and he put samples of the rock in his pocket before he went away.

Many months pa.s.sed by and all memory of the casual American had vanished from men's minds. Recently, however, an officer connected with the Department de Mineria of the Mexican Government, dined at the _hacienda_ and politely informed the _superintendente_, that an American had "denounced" (i. e. filed claim to) the ledge of mineral running through the courtyard, and had received t.i.tle thereto along with the right to occupy as much of the adjacent surface as might be necessary to work the mine.

Thus are the proprietors of the _hacienda_ most uneasy at the approach of any _gringo_ (contemptuous term for American) lest the newcomer turn out to be their casual guest or his representative.

After leaving Cuyaco, we met constant indications of minerals along the road. I also noted flocks of parrots, mult.i.tudes of jays, flycatchers, brown and black vultures and many Caracara eagles, all of these birds being new to me; and I saw also several fine b.u.t.terflies, _Papilios_ and _Colias_, small white and orange and yellow ones. But nowhere did I see any wild flowers--the season was now too hot for these.

Toward ten o'clock, we stopped at an _hacienda_, that of San Pedro de Castrejon, where the Castrejon brothers live, owners of copper properties near those we go to see. They are the grand _senores_ of the Valley; they also gave us letters of introduction. Black birds, big boat-tailed grakles, grey and white jays, and scores of wild doves were here walking tamely among our horses. Swarms of parrots were clamoring in the trees. For a few _centavos_, we here bought delicious bananas, small finger size, and others three times as big, and oranges and cocoanuts.

By eleven o'clock we began to see the steam from the power house of the Inguran mines and were soon there. They are ancient copper mines, now being opened by the French Rothschilds, over four million _francs_ having been thus far spent. Extensive copper deposits are here exposed. The managers are all Americans; one is from Virginia, one from California. There is not a Frenchman employed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RANCHO DE SAN PEDRO]

We are installed in the private bungalow of the general manager, of Mexico City, from whom we brought a letter of introduction. We are half way up the foothills; we have a superb view, the beds are comfortable and the fare is good.

This morning we have gone through the mines. Fuel and transportation are here the two problems. This whole region of several hundred miles square is rich in copper and silver, is full of ancient mines, once worked by Indian slaves but now abandoned, since Spanish expulsion and the dawn of liberty.

XII

Antique Methods of Mining

MINA LA NORIA, MICHOACAN, MEXICO, _December 4th_.

We left the mines of Inguran early Sat.u.r.day morning. We were up at four-thirty, and by five-thirty had packed and breakfasted, _desayuno_, and _almuerzo_ combined. The traveling Mexican eats early and, while he may take a midday snack, it rarely rises to the dignity of the _comida_, and when the day's journey is over, like the two morning meals, the _comida_ and _cena_, are united into one. Our breakfast consisted of fried chicken and rice--rice so delicately fried that each grain was encased in a crisp and dainty sh.e.l.l, and each mouthful cracked with relish between your teeth. Eggs are always to be had. In Spain and Cuba an egg is called _huevo_, in Mexico the refinement of language subst.i.tutes the word _blanquillo_ (little whitey). It is a courtesy to ask your hostess for _blanquillos_. It would be ill-bred to ask her for _huevos_. It is also a courtesy, to say, when you address her, _senorita_. If she protests she is a _senora_, mother of a family and long past the age of a _senorita_, you exclaim "it is impossible," for since she looks so young, she must be a _senorita_. The blunt American manner which calls an egg a _huevo_, and a dame a _senora_, is regarded as unpardonably rude.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IN FLIGHT FROM MY KODAK]

By 5:45 we were climbing down the three hundred feet of mountain side, through the mining village, over an ancient paved roadway about four feet wide, the paving stones set in so firmly between the curbs that the floods and wear of the centuries and seasons have left it as intact and solid as when first laid. The Spaniards built many such roadways to their mines, when they worked the Indians as slaves, centuries ago. The mining village was picturesque. The miner, when he goes to work, builds his own house and pays no rent. The walls are upright poles and the roof is a palm leaf thatch. When he quits his job he abandons his house, although he sometimes carries away the roof. Near each dwelling is built a sort of Dutch oven of clay, making an oven and stove combined. In it the bread is baked; upon it most of the cooking is carried on. Housekeeping is a simple process in this tropical land.

The mines of Inguran are situated at an alt.i.tude of about two thousand feet above the sea, and the dry air, not too light nor too heavy, seems to agree perfectly with the Americans there at work, and restored me to a vigor which the thin air of the highlands had partly relaxed. We were entertained, of an evening, at the delightful bungalow of the superintendent of the inside work, a Mr. O'Mahondra, a member of the distinguished family of that name of Richmond, Virginia.

Originally he began the practice of law in Chicago, when, his wife being threatened with consumption, he fled with her to El Paso. There she gained nothing and he carried her further south and, abandoning the law, took this post at Inguran. She was tall, fine looking and the picture of robust health. A clever American woman, she had acquired the art of a.s.saying and, as official a.s.sayer of the mines, received a handsome salary. "The only drawback to living in Inguran," she said, "is that I am so delightfully healthy."

Our way lay down and then across the San Pedro valley toward the southwest. The valley is a mile or two wide. The trail we followed ran through dense tropical foliage. The air in the early morning was cool almost to coldness. The birds were everywhere astir and all their notes were new to me. There were many doves, the little brown ground dove that merely stepped out of our way; a bigger dove, slate gray in color, which flew among the higher branches of the thickets. The large gray jay was numerous and there were many magpies and rusty and yellow-headed grakles. Along the watercourses we again came constantly upon bands of the big brown and small black vultures, as well as Caracara eagles which were fishing in the stream. Parakeets, resplendent in green and scarlet and gold, were abundant, and flocks of gray and green parrots tumbled clumsily in the air. I saw also my first big green Military macaws,--birds as large as chickens or small turkeys, the body a brilliant green, the head capped with red and yellow. I have never seen these splendid birds in captivity, nor among those brilliant macaws from the Amazon and from Australia which are so often exhibited in collections. These macaws were very tame, and a flock of them settled upon a mimosa tree under which we drew rein. I might have shot them with my pistol, and should have brought some of them home with me, if I had had any way to preserve the skins. In the thickets I also noticed flycatchers and several sparrows I did not know, but I saw no ravens as I did the other day upon the highlands.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ANCIENT STAMP MILL]

After five or ten miles down the valley, winding through the forest, crossing open clearings, pa.s.sing here and there a native hut, frequently fording the river, we left the main trail and turned up a shaded ravine, following it to its head, where we pa.s.sed through a low gap with high mountains on either hand, and then descended toward the river again, thus cutting off a great bend and saving fifteen or twenty miles. As we came down toward the main valley, the timber grew smaller, the persistent mesquit more and more possessed the land, and the sun fell full upon us. The heat was intense. No living thing now seemed anywhere to exist; only the mult.i.tudes of little brown lizards, countless thousands of them scurrying on the sand; and _iguanas_, black as night, sleeping in the crotch of a tree, or on the heated top of a stone near the wayside. Nor did any sound now stir the midday silence except the hum of millions of cicadas, which the fierce sun rays seem only to nurse into active life.

Six hours in the forepart of the day brought us to the Hacienda de Oropeo, on the borders of the Rio de San Pedro. Here we halted for the noontime rest, lying-by beneath an Indian shelter, a wide-thatched roof of palm leaves, under which we could tie our horses, and where we might ourselves repose. Here an old Indian woman cooked for us _tortillas_ and _frijoles_. We watched her make the _tortillas_, little cakes of corn meal as thin as sheets of paper. The dry kernels of the corn are first soaked in lime water until the enveloping sh.e.l.l readily comes off. It is then much like samp. The swelled and softened grain is then rubbed to a pulp between two stones, the moistened pulp is patted between the hands to the thinnest sort of a wafer, and these thin wafers are laid upon the top of the clay oven to be slowly dried. The _tortilla_ is said to be the most nutritious of all foods prepared from maize. It is the staff of life of the Mexican peon, and the making of _tortillas_ is the chief vocation in life of his wife and daughters. As soon as the little girls are big enough they begin to pat _tortillas_, and they continue to pat _tortillas_ throughout their lives. If you travel through an Indian village your ear will be struck by the pat, pat, pat, of hundreds of pairs of hands. The Indian women are patting _tortillas_. They are always patting _tortillas_, when not specially occupied in other toils.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COPPER ORE DUMPS--LA CHINA MINES]

Toward 4:00 P. M. Izus, our _mozo_, repacked the loads, again we mounted, and in an hour were across the river, where we ascended a small creek a couple of miles to these ancient mines. It was while resting at noontime, that we noticed a group of thirty or forty men bearing on their shoulders the palm-thatched roof of a moving mansion.

Later, we rode past the new domicile, the roof was already set upon the corner posts, and the family were already moved into their habitation.

We are bivouacked in a building where once lived the lord of the mines,--mines now filled with water and abandoned, although none of the workings go down more than one hundred feet. The building is chiefly constructed, both the floor and walls, of sun-baked clay. High above the walls rests the palm-thatched roof. There are no frames in the window openings, no frames in the doorways. Walls and roof being only a protection from the sun heat, the air may blow through where it listeth. Our cots are taken from the back of "Old Blacky," unrolled and set in the breezy chamber; upon them we sit and sleep.

Our only terrors are the ants, but we set the legs of the cots in little earthenware pans of water and are safe. An Indian family, living in the distant end of the rambling, abandoned buildings across the courtyard, provides us with boiled rice and stewed chicken. Izus has brought us an abundance of bananas and oranges, fresh, fragrant, and luscious. We buy several oranges for a _centavo_, and a _centavo_ is worth less than half an American cent. The Indian keeps poultry and also gamec.o.c.ks. These latter are tied by the leg near his door. They are his pride, and he fights them on Sunday after church. When the priest has closed the services the neighbors, who have all brought their chickens, form in a circle, and there the week's wages are staked and lost upon the issue of the fights. I send you a snap shot of a battle.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MOVING A MANSION]

When dining, we sit on improvised stools around a homemade table and just back of us crouch a group of attentive admirers--the famished family dogs, rough-haired, cadaverous, wolf-eyed, silent dogs they are. They watch with furtive intentness each morsel we put into our mouths, they instantly pounce upon each crumb and bone which falls within their reach. They never bark--only a shrill melancholy howl I sometimes hear breaking the stillness of the night; they never wag their tails, for these are always tucked between their legs. When we have finished, we toss to these wistful watchers the refuse of our meal. There is a silent scuffle, a hasty crunching and then each dog sits up as hungry and observant as before. Thus our friends breakfast and dine and sup with us, and so filled with suspicion and fear of man are they, that they never by any chance allow us to approach. "_Veni aqui perro_" (come here, dog) an Indian boy calls out, and immediately _perro_ slinks out of sight. Descended originally from the wild _coyote_, which they much resemble, these dogs seem to have acquired little taming by contact with man.

Next up the creek above us lie the Azteca mines, long since abandoned, and then come the China (p.r.o.nounced _cheena_) mines, the only group now being worked, the present _superintendente_ being a member of the Castrejon family to whom they belong. The vein is a porphyry-and-quartz carrying copper, and is about three hundred feet wide and almost vertical. It is nearly with the watercourse, about one degree to the west, and how deep it may go no one knows. This whole region is full of holes, generally, say, four feet to six feet square, from which for centuries the copper ore has been taken. The rich pieces were carried away and the balance was thrown upon the ground.

The entire country is filled with innumerable piles of this abandoned copper ore carrying two and three per cent of copper, and waiting for that distant day when railroads, modern machinery and efficient labor shall make this natural wealth profitable to modern enterprise. As it is, the present primitive Indian methods of mining and transportation on mules, unventilated pits, and awful trails climbing stupendous heights, destroy the possibility of profit even in working the richest ores.

Sunday we spent in riding over the hills which rise from three to five hundred feet above the stream. Up their easy, rounded slopes a horse can clamber almost anywhere. It is a country where cattle roam and where the Mexican _vaqueros_ (cowboys) are the only human beings. In the afternoon, we went down to the San Pedro River, now a small stream, and bathed in the tepid water, where I surprised an old familiar friend, also watching the limpid water, a Belted Kingfisher.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BRINGING OUT THE ORE LA CHINA MINES]

Monday, we spent from seven o'clock to ten, going through the China mines, which are worked by the Mexicans in the old primitive way. We went into the side of the hill by a short tunnel, which led to a black hole up out of which stuck a slippery pole. On one side of this pole notches are cut, and into these notches, if you want to descend, you must sidewise set your feet. Our guide clasped the pole with one arm, holding aloft his flickering light with the other, and slowly sank from sight into the blackness below. We all went down, not knowing what might be beneath us. At first, my feet would not hold in the notches, but it was a matter of setting in my feet or falling into unlimited darkness, so I clung tight and came slowly down. The distance was only about twenty feet. Here there was an off-set of eight or ten feet, and then another pole and more notches, blackness above as well as below, and the notches had grown slick through years of contact with shoeless Indian feet. Thus we went down and down, descending some two hundred feet to where the air lay hot and heavy and our breathing became stertorous and slow. We then followed a long narrow tunnel, and came to where naked Indians with steel wedges were sledging out the ore. The Indians descend in the morning, they work as long as the foul air permits, then they gather up all the rock they have dislodged, put it into a bull hide sack, load this on their backs and climb up the notched poles again to daylight. On issuing from the mines they stagger to an ore pile, under a thatched roof set on high poles, and dump their loads. Around this pile of ore squat twenty or thirty Indians, each holding a stone in his hand. Each has before him a large flat piece of rock. He reaches for the ore pile, takes from it a lump which looks fairly good and cracks it to powder between the two stones. The mean ore is thrown on a dump pile, the rich ore is all cracked up. This is the original of the modern stamp mill, and it is the only stamp mill the Indian-Mexican will probably ever know. The ore, after it is pulverized in this way by hand, is put into a wooden trough into which water is poured which has been carried up in bull hide sacks from the stream below, and the ore is thus washed and concentrated. It is afterwards put into sacks, about two hundred pounds to the sack, and taken fifty or sixty miles, over the frightful precipitous trails, to the railroad at Patzcuaro, whence it is shipped to the smelter.