On the Mexican Highlands, with a Passing Glimpse of Cuba

Then there is “El Padre” as we call him, who joins our party as our guest and for the pleasure and profit of seeing the wilder, remoter sections of the great state of Michoacan. He is virtually the Presiding Bishop of the Baptist Missionaries of Mexico, for as General Secretary he visits their different stations, handles the funds sent down by the General Board from Richmond, Virginia, and does invaluable work in organizing and directing the common propaganda. He is a native of Tennessee, a graduate of the University of that state, a cultivated, scholarly man who speaks classic Spanish and is master of local dialects as well. I find him greatly respected by the leading Mexicans whom we meet, and withal a most delightful and intelligent comrade. He is an adept at adjusting all those little comforts of the camp which only the practiced traveler can know, and by his bonhommie and courtesy wins the good will of señor and peon alike, while even the Roman padres we fall in with return his salutations with friendly greeting.

Izus Hernandes, our mozo, completes the party. He lives in Patzcuaro, where Señora Hernandes brings up his numerous brood, for he is father of eleven living children. He is short and slender, with dark black beard covering his face. His color is pale brown, and like most of the population hereabouts, he has in his veins much Tarascon blood. His manners are gentle and courteous, even suave to Tio and El Padre and myself, but his orders are sharp and peremptory to the horseboys and stablemen of the ranchos and fondas where we stop. He has spent his lifetime traversing these trails between Patzcuaro and La Union and Acapulco, driving bands of pack animals and acting as escort for parties of Dons and Doñas when trusty guards have been in demand. He supplies his own pack animals, is past master in cinching on a load, and makes all bargains and pays all bills in our behalf. He is our courier and valet of the camp combined. And he proves himself worthy of his hire – two silver pesos (80 cents United States) per day – for he never fails us throughout the trip.

Our horses have been picked with care and newly shod. Tio bestrides a mettlesome white mare, while El Padre rides a chestnut sorrel, lean and toughened to the trail and gaited with giant stride, a famous horse for fatiguing days of mountain travel. For myself has been reserved the choicest of the mount, an iron-limbed black mule – the mule is the royal and honored saddle-beast in all Spanish lands – a beast well evidencing Isus’ discerning choice.

Our coming being expected, arrangements had been made for our further journey to the South. Our mozo was awaiting us in the courtyard of the Fonda Diligencia with the four saddle-beasts and two pack animals, a black bronco and a stout white pack mule. We carried snug folding cots, which rolled up into compact bundles, and extra food against short rations, when we should reach the borders of Guerrero. We are provided with immense Mexican sombreros, of light woven straw, which cost us fifteen centavos apiece, the high, peaked crown and wide-reaching brim protecting head and neck completely from the sun.

We have with us heavy clothing and flannels for our journey along the highlands of the Tierra Fria and also the thinnest of linen and wool garments to save us from the scorching sun, when we descend into the hot levels of the Tierra Caliente. I have purchased a pair of immense Mexican spurs and my mule’s mouth is choked with a mass of wicked iron, calculated to break the jaw with little effort, should I pull hard enough on my rawhide bridle rein. A rawhide goad hangs upon one side of my saddle-pommel and my long barreled Colt’s revolver, loaded and ready for instant use, hangs on the other. We are all armed and our mozo has a formidable and ancient sword strapped along the left saddle-side beneath his leg.

We dined in the low-ceilinged eating hall of the Colonia, upon a well-served dinner of boiled rice, boiled chicken, yams and peppers, and cups of strong black coffee, drunk with sugar, but no milk. Our city clothes are left behind in a room, the rent of which we have paid a fortnight in advance, and the large iron key of which we take along.

Our foreign looks and ways attracted much attention in the town. A crowd gathered in the courtyard of the fonda to see us off. Our coming and our going were events. Nor was it altogether a simple matter to pack our equipment safely and balance it properly upon the beasts. But Izus was an expert, and with many yards of palmetto rope finally cinched fast the loads. At a word from him the pack animals trotted forth from the fonda’s court, he following behind, while we brought up the rear. “Adios, adios, señores,” shouted the crowd. “Adios, adios,” we replied.

Our animals knew the road perfectly. They had traveled it many a time before. We wound and twisted through narrow streets, we passed several wide plazas, and then turning up a street wider than the rest, began the ascent toward the hills which lie back of the city.

IX

A Journey Over Lofty Tablelands

Ario, Michoacan, Mexico,November 26th.

As we wound higher and higher toward the summit of the hills, the town nestled below us half-hidden among umbrageous trees, and groves of orange and apricot and fig, while stretching beyond it, toward the northeast, lay the light green expanse of lovely Lake Patzcuaro. The panorama before me as I turned in my saddle to gaze upon it, presented a vista of wood and water, of fertile, cultivated, well populated country, delighting the eye on every hand. We were traversing a land enjoying one of the most salubrious climates of the world.

We had started about four o’clock in the afternoon, and before we had ridden many miles the shadows began to creep across the landscape, and then, sudden as the drop of a curtain, down fell the fullness of the night. This absence of twilight is always a perpetual surprise to me. I do not yet become used to this immediate extinction of the day. The sudden banishment of the sun did not cause me uneasiness, however, despite the frightful condition of the labyrinthine paths along which we threaded our way, for the moon was at its full. It shone with the splendor and potency which our altitude and tropical latitude assured. We were more than seven thousand feet above the sea and rising higher at every league. The thin, translucent atmosphere gave to the moon a wonderful quality of illumination. It shone white and radiant, with a brilliance which permitted the reading of a newspaper with ease. The landscape, the wide expanses of cultivated fields, the thousands of acres of corn and wheat and rolling grass land, the dense copses and thorny vine-woven thickets, the miles of maguey plantations, the orchards of apples, of apricots, of lemons and of limes, lay illuminated and distinct in the strange white light, revealed with almost the same vividness as in the day. Only the shadows were dark, were sharp and black and solid. For several miles we rode through forests of oaks and pines, our little caravan appearing and disappearing into the blackness of the shadow and then into the lightness of moonbeam, in perpetual hide and seek. We passed multitudes of pack beasts, in droves of a score or more, generally led by a bell-mare, and followed by two or three ’cherros in zerape and flapping sombrero, as well as many burros, these generally driven by Indians. Here and there, we came upon a blazing fire by the wayside, where were camping for the night the cargadores, roasting tortillas and boiling frijoles, or wrapped in their zerapes, their chins between their knees, asleep before the flickering embers.

It was nine o’clock when the white walls of Santa Clara gleamed before us. We saw a long paved street, ending in a little plaza filled with great anciently-planted trees. Along the street were only high, bare, white, adoby walls, rarely the glimmer of a light shone through a small and high-up window. Midway along this street, we turned into a wide doorway and, passing through the low encircling building, entered a large stone-paved courtyard. The backs of thirty or forty pack mules, from the lowlands of the Pacific, were here being unloaded of cocoanuts, and salt and dried palm leaves for rope and mat-making. Drivers and stableboys were swearing melodiously in Spanish and Tarascon. There was everywhere great stir and nobody paid us the slightest heed. We halted and dismounted. Our mozo Izus, took charge of our animals. A swarthy, burly Mexican bade us put our personal belongings in a little room, where was also soon set our baggage. He then locked the door and gave us a big iron key as evidence of possession. In another house, further along the street, we found an old Indian dame who gave us boiled rice, peppers, and a dish of stewed chicken, setting before us cups of boiling hot water and a small earthen pitcher of black, strong essence of coffee. A couple of spoonfuls of this, put into the water, gave me a delightful cup of fragrant drink, and a lump of the brown native sugar sweetened it perfectly. This method of making coffee I commend. Every housewife in Mexico roasts, grinds and drips through little flannel bags her own coffee essence. She keeps it always on hand. There is always hot water simmering on the clay oven, and it is only a moment’s care to provide the traveler with as much of the fragrant, vivifying drink as he requires.

In another house, across the street, we were bedded for the night. A single, large, high-ceilinged room off a big, airy court was assigned to us. The iron bedsteads were narrow, each with one thin mattress and no springs, but there were home-woven blankets to roll ourselves in and in the morning basins of beaten copper were brought us to wash in, with water poured from graceful ewers of like metal; evidences of the survival yet of a native industry for which this region and town have been famous ever since the days of Tarascon dominion. I endeavored to buy these handsome copper utensils, but my hostess would take no price, although I really offered her a great sum in my eagerness to possess them. They were heirlooms, she said, and too precious for money to avail.

The night was cold, almost frosty. On these high tablelands, a mile and a half above the sea, the radiation of the sun’s heat is rapid and, the year round, by morning the thermometer is usually close to thirty-nine degrees (Fahrenheit).

We were up betimes, out of the town, and among cultivated fields and orchards and pine and oak woods again, before the sun became at all oppressive.

As yet, I have not seen many birds in Mexico, only the waterfowl along the lakes and a few finches in the thickets along the way. To-day we have traveled in company with many ravens. Tame and companionable they are, so usual is the sight of mules and men along this frequented highway.

Santa Clara is close to the height of land. Seven thousand two hundred feet above the sea, my aneroid declared, and from that altitude we began to descend. The thirty miles to Ario is one steady decline, a gradual fall of twelve hundred feet.

This whole country hereabout is held in vast haciendas of thousands of acres, and is chiefly owned by nonresident landowners who rarely, if ever, visit their possessions, but trust entirely to overseers to manage and work them and wring an income from the hapless peon. It is a land of great fertility. Only the most primitive methods of agriculture are employed, and work is done in the most inefficient way. Yet huge incomes are withdrawn from the land, and spent by the distant haciendado in his city home in Mexico, or in Paris, or Madrid. These lands are said to be marketable (buyable) at about ten dollars (Mexican) per acre, say four dollars in United States money. As I have been riding along, viewing mile after mile of this superb fertility in a climate temperate all the year around, I have pondered much on what a garden it might have been, and it yet may be, if ever the thrifty American shall have it in possession.

Toward noon we began to gain a wider view of the landscape opening before us toward the south and west. Our altitude was steadily lessening and, many miles distant, seemingly, there was a sudden falling away of the land to profound and indefinite depths, whence came the impression of tropical verdure, the whole expanse backed on the horizon by blue and jagged lines of lofty mountain chains, peaks and summits which sometimes pierced the zenith, far to the southwest. They were the mighty Cordilleras of Guerrero, a hundred miles away and barring from view the Pacific Ocean just beyond. On a day wholly clear, it is said, the snow-capped cones of Colima may be seen, also, far to the northwest, but gaze as we might we could catch no glimpse of the mighty volcano.

Thousands of cattle are raised in Mexico, and we passed many extensive herds being driven toward Patzcuaro. They were urged on by vociferous vaqueros, swearing musically the immense and cumbrous Spanish oaths – yet have we seen almost no milch cows and the few we saw were those gathered in a corral hard by a wide thatched-roofed building, known as a “milk ranch,” an establishment where milk is gathered and shipped to nearby Ario, and butter and cheese are made for immediate sale. A cross upon the gable denoted it to be under the protection of the Virgin and I hope assured milk unadulterated to its patrons. From my saddle I caught a snap shot of the ranch and send you the pretty picture.

Our road now showed signs of being in better repair. Finally, the maze of intricate paths along which we had traveled, coalesced, and the ancient pavement now appeared intact. On either hand, tall wide-spreading ash trees arched over the perfect road, carven stone benches stood beneath them, and we found ourselves entering the important town of Ario. It is a place of more than five thousand inhabitants, the county seat of the District, the home of the Jefe Politico (the “political chief,” mayor, governor, boss and judge), through whose iron-handed rule the central government of Diaz maintains its firm control.

We passed an ancient church, turned to the right, entered a wide doorway and halted in a well-flagged court, in the center of which a fountain played amid many flowering plants and cages of gay-feathered birds. It was the hotel Morelos. We were at the end of our journey in the Highlands. We were come to the last town in the Tierra Fria. We were on the brink of the hot country, the Tierra Caliente, which lay stretched out beyond us, one short day’s ride and below us six thousand feet.

X

A Provincial Despot and His Residence

Cuyaco, Michoacan, Mexico,November 28th.

Day before yesterday, I wrote to you from the curious and most ancient town of Ario, but did not tell you all I might, for lack of time. The city stands upon the verge of the highlands, the Tierra Fria. When the Spaniards founded it, several centuries ago, they placed it, with strategic judgment, at that point which would enable it to command the several trails which here descend to the lowland hot country and lead on to the Pacific. They placed it on a sloping hillside, as was their wont, the better to insure more perfect drainage, for, in those days, the sanitary engineers of old Spain knew better how to assure healthful cities than did the more barbarous English and the less civilized peoples of North Europe.

The streets of Ario, including every alleyway, are paved with sharp, flat stones, set on edge, wedged fast, the pavement running from wall to wall with a low stone gutter in the middle, into which open all the drains from the houses on either side. Along these central gutters are turned streams of ceaselessly flowing water, keeping the city constantly clean. This same sort of street paving and drainage prevails wherever possible in every Mexican city. To every town of consideration, water is carried, anciently, by substantial and often costly aqueducts; modernly, through pipe lines carefully laid. During the centuries of Spanish dominion these towns and cities have enjoyed a supply of water, pure, abundant and free to the poorest inhabitant. There are no water rates in Mexico. Water is regarded as one of the gifts of God to which every man and beast has an inalienable right. To charge for it, would be regarded as indecent and criminal. At the Rancho Tejemanil, I offered a boy a centavo for bringing me a cup of cold water. He refused to take the coin and let it drop upon the ground, rather than disgrace himself by so much as touching it. He turned away, the coin lying where it fell. I apologized to the master of the house for having done such a thing as offer money for a drink of water. He answered, saying, “Si, Si Señor!” “Water is indeed a gift of God, for which no man should be asked to pay.”

Although Ario is in the neighborhood of extensive forests of pine and oak, yet all the buildings are constructed of stone and cement, mortar and adoby sun-dried brick. Indeed, I have seen no wooden buildings in Mexico. Consequently, there pervades Mexican cities, towns and even villages an air of substantial solidity, quite lacking in American wooden towns.

We brought letters to the Jefe Politico, Señor Don Louis Salchaga, the despot of the county and governor of the iron hand. He was of large physique; tall, broad-shouldered, firmly knit, with strong, square chin and commanding eye. His hair was gray almost to whiteness; and a sweeping mustache, re-enforced the general impressiveness of his countenance. He was clad in a linen undress military uniform. He greeted us with courtly Spanish graciousness. He lives in a two-storied stone house at the intersection of two streets, one of which leads from the plaza. Entering through a narrow doorway, at the side, we found ourselves in a small, cement-paved room, whose stone walls perhaps, in years gone by, were white with lime. Don Louis sat at a table scrutinizing papers handed him by a dark-faced youth, who stood at his side. As we entered he hastily signed them, pushed them toward the clerk and rose to greet us. We learned afterwards what the documents were, one of them a decree settling a lawsuit, the other an order that a prisoner be transferred from one jail to another some miles distant. Such an order is equivalent to a death warrant in this land of the iron hand. On the way, the prisoner is said to have “tried to escape.” Necessarily they have been forced to shoot him. He is buried where he falls.

Don Louis pressed us to dine with him that evening at seven o’clock, having first politely inquired of my Spanish-speaking friends whether “El Señor de Estados Unidos tiene dinero?” (Does the gentleman from the United States possess money?) My friends replied, “Si, Si, Señor, mucho dinero,” (“Yes, yes, sir, much money;”) so we were asked to dine! Probably, of all people upon this planet none are more expert in extracting the dinero from the American pocket than are the gracious Latins of the south. If you have money, the laws open wide their gates, and all government officials pat you on the back, meanwhile filching just a little from your unsuspecting pocket. Even the Padre and the Archbishop, for the proper toll of gold, will shove you through the quicker to the gates of Paradise.

At seven o’clock it was dark; the stars glowed big; the moon was not yet up. The city was ablaze with electric lights. On this second visit we did not go to the office door, but entered the wide-arched entrance for man and beast. We came into the usual square patio, where waters plashed and tropical plants, many of them in flower, were set about in pots. Don Louis greeted us as we entered. He shook hands twice all round. He led us across the court to the far side and into the dining room, a stone and cement-walled chamber with stone-flagged floor, wholly without adornments. No cloth covered the plain wooden table. There were wooden benches along the wall on either side. He introduced us to his wife, Doña Maria, and a little grandson of twelve years. The Doña was tall, for a Mexican woman, and stout. Her hair was white, parted in the middle and brushed smoothly back from her forehead. She wore a light muslin of white. She displayed no jewels, although undoubtedly possessing them. Don Louis wore an immense diamond on his left middle finger, while a heavy gold chain about his neck secured a big gold watch.

Our hostess could speak no English, but our host said he could read it and understood it “spoken very slow, a leetel;” “but the grandson,” he said, “had a tutor who was teaching him English, – a young man who had lived six months in Texas at San Antonio and there mastered the northern tongue!” The meal was simple. A very good soup, redolent of garlic and peppers, was followed with boiled rice and stewed chicken, a dulce, some really delicious preserved guavas, and cheese. Then cups of hot water and the small pot of coffee essence were set before us, and we “coffeed” the water to suit our taste. Just when I presumed we were at an end, a servant entered and set before each of us a soup plate of frijoles, with a big spoon. No Mexican considers a dinner properly concluded without frijoles. I had heard of frijoles. I had been told that tortillas and frijoles were the staff of Mexican life. Now the frijoles were before me. What were they? My plate contained nothing but large black beans floating in a thin soup. Perhaps the water should have been poured off, I do not know, but the beans floated and the liquor was thin. And Don Louis ladled them into his mouth with evident relish! Vivan frijoles!

Don Louis had resided in Ario three years. He came from the state of Toreon. How long would he remain in Ario? He did not know. Quien sabe? El Presidente Diaz sent him here and there, into such States and Districts as might be in need of a trusted lieutenant whose smile was beneficent, whose hand was proven steel.

In response to the letters we bore, Señor Don Louis gave us other letters to the chief men of the Distrito– a sort of circular blanket letter – and hinted that he would go part of the way with us next day, which, it came to pass he did.

Later in the evening, we also called upon Señor Don Juan Rodrigues Tarco, one of the leading citizens of Ario, a lawyer of distinction, and who gave us letters to the superintendent of the Mina El Puerto, at Churumuco, on the river Balsas. We met him at his house. Through an unpretentious doorway, which you might drive through, we came into a patio with many flowering plants and palms and a fountain. Near the entrance, on the left, we entered the reception room. This was a large high-ceilinged chamber with handsomely tiled floor, palmetto rugs, modern French furniture of cane, walls and ceiling frescoed in good taste. There were some good pictures on the walls, a new upright piano, and several mahogany book-cases, whose shelves were well filled with books, mostly in Spanish, a few in French and English. There were porcelain vases and handsome modern lamps. In any city, this would be regarded as a room of elegance, and to think that every luxury we looked upon had been carried more than fifty miles over frightful trails, upon the backs of men and mules!

El Señor was a small dark man, alert in his movements and quick of mind, a gentleman, having wide knowledge concerning the mineral wealth of Michoacan. He studied in the Universities at Morelia and Mexico City. He was a liberal in politics, and spoke with enthusiasm of modern Mexico, her mineral resources, the awakening of her industries, the growth of her commerce. He read French and English, but spoke only Spanish. His sons were away at school, in Toluca, and were learning English. It is the great desire of the young men of Mexico to learn to speak English, he said. The language is already taught in all the principal schools of Mexico. It is becoming the language of business and commerce. Before many years it will be the chief language of Mexico, and he regretted that he had not himself, while young, been able to master the difficulties of the tongue.