THE LAND OF THE NOONDAY SUN-MEXICO

IN MIDWINTER.

BY JUSTICE WALTER CLARK, LL. D.

Until the advent of railroads, the opinion prevailed among the great majority of Mexicans that the people inhabiting the United States were a rude, semi-civilized race, presuming on their numbers and brute force. Nor was this opinion unnatural, since they based their conclusion upon those specimens of our people at that time most generally to be found there, rough frontiersmen, needy adventurers, and that class of gentry who went to Mexico because it was no longer entirely safe for them to live north of the Rio Grande. The advent of railroads has changed all this. Large numbers of our people have gone to Mexico, and among them the great majority are thriving, energetic, honorable business men, who are developing the country while they are also making fortunes for themselves. The result has been to elevate this country immeasurably in Mexican estimation, and they too have risen in our scales when better known and judged more correctly. But many of the tourists who go to the country, unlike the intelligent men who go there to invest, so conduct themselves as to earn the dislike of the people. The following extract from a letter just received from an intelligent American now resident in Mexico sums up many similar complaints I heard while there:

"In the last two months we have had several excursion trains pass through here loaded with Americans. These trains are specials and stop at all places of importance. Generally the people on them seem to think they are down here among a lot of savages or rather uncivilized people, and that everything is open for their inspection and criticism. Some of them make perfect guys of themselves by combining Mexican dress with that of their own country, and some of them will even put Mexican sandals over their shoes and parade the streets in that style. Where these people come from I don't know. I have never met them in the States and I take very good care to keep shy of them here. I should certainly tell them what fools they are

making of themselves. No wonder Mexicans have a dislike for Americans. I could not understand it at first, but I do now."

I heard many almost incredible instances of rudeness and lack of refinement on the part of members of these large travelling parties (though of course the great majority of them are ladies and gentlemen there, as they are at home), which serve to bring odium upon the American name. It is the more shocking since politeness is a striking characteristic of the Mexican people, and a lack of good manners is, in their eyes, the deadliest sin in anyone claiming to be a gentleman. It is very certain that if members of an excursion party of Mexicans were to behave in one of our large cities as some of those tourists think they are privileged to behave in Mexico, the next carload would be hooted out of the town by the boys.

The time must come, and that at an early day, when the great central plateau of Mexico will be to the teeming millions of the United States and Canada what the south of France and the Riviera are to the people of England and of Northern Europe. The scenery and the climate of Mexico, for a winter resort, are incomparably superior to the shores of the Mediterranean. All that is lacking, besides a better knowledge of the country, is a few of the magnificent hotels which have been erected in Florida. The hotels in Mexico generally are said to be far better than they were formerly and are still improving, but much is yet to be desired. The only hotel in the whole country which has an elevator is the "Iturbide" in the city of Mexico, and the short hours of service of that have caused it to be said that "It is like a ballet dancer's costume-begins too late and leaves off too soon."

The most striking building in the city of Mexico is the famous cathedral, with its twin towers and graceful dome, on the north side of the Plaza Mayor. Begun in 1573, it took ninety-odd years to build it and the cost was many millions, the walls alone costing two millions. It is built on the spot where the great Aztec temple or teocalli stood, on whose summit, upon the great sacrificial stone (now in the museum close by), twenty thousand beings were annually offered in sacrifice, the sacrifices being made hourly. The ancient temple was pyramidal, one hundred and fifty feet high, and was served by five thousand priests. The towers of the cathedral are each over two hundred feet high, and in the western one is the great bell, named Santa Maria de Guadeloupe, nineteen feet high and which is probably the largest in the world next to the great bell in the square of

the Kremlin at Moscow. That was cracked and rendered useless by the great, fire which drove Napoleon out of the Russian capital, whereas this is in daily use. The cathedral is four hundred feet long by two hundred wide. Quadruple pillars, each thirty-five feet in circumference, support the roof, which is one hundred and seventy-five feet from the floor. The railing of the choir, made in China, cost, it is said, one and a half million dollars. Much of the former equipment of the church has gone into the possession of the government, notably the solid gold candlesticks, each heavier than one man could lift, the statue of the Assumption, also of solid gold and inlaid with diamonds and rubies, and many other costly articles. A genuine Murillo and a Michael Angelo are among the paintings on the walls. Here Maximilian and Carlotta were crowned in 1864, and here behind bronze gates, in one of the side chapels, the soldieremperor Iturbide "sleeps the sleep that knows no waking."

From the summit of the towers at set of sun is one of the loveliest views it was ever given to man to see. Beneath us rolls along the ceaseless, moving, human tide of a city of four hundred thousand people. Around us, bordering the horizon, are the gigantic purple-hued ranges of mountains completely encircling the valley; to the south are Popocatapetl and Ixtaccihuatl, each thousands of feet higher than Mont Blanc, their snow-crowned summits glistening like diamonds in the rays of the departing orb of day; between them lies the mountain pass through which Spaniard and American, Cortez and Scott, marched to the conquest of the city, while nearer us are the sunlit mirrors, the great lakes of Chalco, Xochomilco, and Texcoco. The distant fields of maguey, mathematically regular as lines of soldiery on parade, the verdant patches of alfalfa, the luxuriant meadows, and the groups of grazing cattle, give variety to the scene. To the north rises the holy hill and church of Guadeloupe, the Mecca of Mexico. Around us in every direction are the suburban towns which dot the great valley, Tacubaya, San Angel, Santa Anita, Castaneda, and many another. There to the southwest lies Coyoacan, the home of Cortez, and in the south and west Contreras, Cherubusco, Casa Mata, Chapultepec, Molino del Rey, Belen and San Cosme, fields illustrated by American valor. Due west, at the city's extremest verge, towers the lofty hill of Chapultepec crowned with the presidential mansion and the Military Academy, the West Point of Mexico, while lying darkly between in the growing shadow is the great Paseo with its colossal statues, and the Alameda, and the La Viga canal

with its flower-crowned boats, and the spires and domes of a hundred churches. All these combined make a panorama which Humboldt pronounced the finest on which the human eye has ever rested. Once seen it can never be forgotten. The rarefied atmosphere causes each distant object to stand out with a distinctness and a coloring unknown elsewhere, and the golden flood of the sun's latest rays encircles the whole in a framing of amethyst and amber.

"So sinks, more lovely ere his race be run,
Along Morea's hills the setting sun,

Not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright,
But one unclouded blaze of living light."

On the eastern side of the same Plaza is the National Palace which covers an entire square and has a frontage of seven hundred feet on the Plaza. It is occupied by the presidential offices and the departments of state, treasury, and war. Many of the rooms are magnificent, notably the Hall of Ambassadors, which is over three hundred feet in length, with its walls decorated with portraits of the most distinguished men of the republic, Hidalgo, Morelos, Juarez, Diaz, and many others, besides a striking portrait of Washington. The National Library, with over two hundred thousand volumes, the National Museum, the School of Fine Arts, the Mint (and in Mexico some four thousand millions of the world's money have been coined) and many another building claims the attention and would justify a full description, but space forbids.

A visit to the La Viga canal and the Chinampas, or floating gardens, is exceedingly interesting. Here in midwinter flourish in tropical profusion the fruits and flowers to be found in Florida in midsummer. When the lake came up to the city in ancient times the people built osier frames on which they laid dirt and thus raised their vegetables and flowers, hence the designation "floating gardens"; but merely the title has been retained, for the floating gardens of this day are simply the rich alluvial land left by the receding lake, which is intersected every few feet by numerous canals. The little patches are watered from the canals by hand and beneath the tropical sun produce at all seasons the flowers and fruits formerly raised on the osier floating gardens.

The numerous lines of street cars take one not only to all parts of the city but to all the suburban towns and the battle fields, for all of Scott's battles except the skirmish at the National Bridge and the stout fight at Cerro Gordo, down below Jalapa, were fought in this valley in sight of the city

walls. A visit to the field of Cherubusco will forcibly remind those who have been on the field of Waterloo of the contest for the similar wall-surrounded enclosure of Hougoumont. At Chapultepec, which was also carried by our troops, a visit to the National Military Academy and the rooms of the presidential mansion is very interesting. From the east windows the president looks down upon the great city and the lovely valley and up to the encircling range of mountains and the snow-covered peaks. No monarch in all Europe has so magnificent a location for his castle, palace, or chateau. At the foot of the hill is a touching memento, a tall shaft to the memory of the boys, the young cadets of the military academy, who fighting for their homes "perished here," so the inscription reads, "in the northern invasion, 1847." In such a case, God alone can adjust the responsibility. With the sleeping moonlight lying athwart the white shaft and the green mound, the thought must come that somebody, not these gallant youths, was to blame.

The great street leading west from the north end of the cathedral is the one along which Cortez retreated on the terrible night of June 30, 1520, during which he lost threefourths of his men. The street was then intersected by canals the bridges over which had been broken down by the Aztecs. A flying leap taken by his lieutenant Alvarado over one of these gave the name of "Alvarado's Leap" to the spot, which is still pointed out, though there are now no canals, but solid pavement. At another point where the slaughter was especially fearful, a church stands to commemorate the event and that masses may be still said for the dead, who perished on that memorable and fearful retreat. Further along the present street, which has now firm land on each side, was then a narrow causeway intersecting the lake in which the canoes of the Aztecs swarmed to assail the retreating line of Spaniards. Cortez lost eight hundred and eighty-seven Spaniards (three-fourths of them), four thousand allies, all his artillery, treasure, and wagons, and when he reached the end of the causeway, he sat down and wept beneath a great tree which is still standing and called the tree of Noche Triste (anglice "Dismal night"). Well might he weep, for he had of his Spaniards only some two hundred and fifty left, not one of them unwounded, and was in the midst of a mighty empire which had risen against him. Every foot of his succeeding retreat was harassed, and at Otumba, a few miles off, it is related that he cut his way with his little band through two hundred thousand hos