YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Gift of YALE DIVINITY SCHOOL Mexico of the Mexicans By Lewis Spence NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 597-599 Fifth Avenue 1917 Printed by Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd., London, England PREFACE The thunders of the titanic struggle which at present convulses Europe have drowned the echoes of strife which come from far-away Mexico, and in the eyes of many the warring of the factions in the American Republic will seem very like the battle of the mice and the frogs. Yet we who are sacrificing everything for an ideal should feel a lively sympathy with the Mexican people, for when all is said they, too, are fighting for idealistic reasons — for the possession and free exercise of that liberty towards which the spirit of man in all climes and ages has so painfully yet so persistently aspired. In these islands the agonies through which Mexico is passing are too frequently regarded as a mere collision of brigands — the scufflings of disputatious robber-factions, who are equally desirous of rule because of the possibilities it holds for exac tion and looting. By holding such a view we do the people of Mexico a great wrong, and its expression is unquestion ably due to ignorance of the true condition of things in the Republic. The Author sincerely hopes that this volume will clear away some of the mists which surround Mexico at the pre sent time. But he has experienced the utmost difficulty in obtaining news of recent events from the Republic because of the prohibition placed upon correspondence. He feels, however, that he has in a measure overcome this by the piecing together of matter from sundry reliable sources, and hopes that he has been enabled to present his readers with a truthful account of things as they are at the present day, in a land the mighty destinies of which he devoutly and hopefully believes in. LEWIS SPENCE. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE PREFACE ...... iii I. WHO ARE THE MEXICANS ? . 1 II. THE MEXICAN CHARACTER AND FAMILY LIFE 25 III. SOCIETY HIGH AND LOW ... 37 IV. THE STATE AND STATESMANSHIP . 52 V. LITERATURE AND THE PRESS . 64 VI. ART, MUSIC, AND THE DRAMA . . 80 VII. RELIGIOUS LIFE IN MEXICO . . 99 VIII. SPORTS AND PASTIMES . . 108 IX. THE PROVINCES AND LARGER TOWNS . 116 X. RANCHING MEXICO ..... 133 XI. MINING AND COMMERCIAL MEXICO . . 141 XII. ABORIGINAL AND SAVAGE MEXICO . 156 XIII. THE REVOLUTION ..... 176 XIV. THE REVOLUTION (CONTINUED) ... 195 XV. MEXICO OF TO-MORROW ..... 221 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF BOOKS ON MEXICO . 225 INDEX ........ 227 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS THE CASTLE, CHAPULTEPEC PART OF ANCIENT FACADE, MITLA A HACIENDA HOUSE . CATHEDRAL, AGUAS CALIENTES CATHEDRAL, PUEBLA. GENERAL VIEW OF VERA CRUZ DRYING COFFEE PASTORAL SCENE NEAR CHAPULTEPEC PALM TREES AND OFFICES, TUXPAM TUXPAM : GENERAL VIEW . BURNING ASPHALT . NATIVE INDIAN MARKET . Frontispiece facing page 10 116 122128130134138 152 154 156158 Mexico of the Mexicans CHAPTER I WHO ARE THE MEXICANS ? With the exception of Peru, Mexico is perhaps the only Latin-American Republic in which the native Indian race has not shrunk and retreated before the onset of European civilisation. This is owing to the circumstance that when first brought into contact with European influences the Mexican Indian was in full enjoyment of a civilisation of his own, which, if it was inferior to that of his conquerors as regards important essentials, was in some of its phases even superior, and as far removed from the nomadic habits and scanty culture of the savage tribes of North and South America as it is possible for the usages of the settled agri culturist to differ from those of the wandering hunter. If we would comprehend modern Mexico, we must perforce have some little acquaintance with the strange and bizarre civilisation which preceded it. The earliest accounts of the natives of the Mexican plateau are those furnished by Hernan Cortes, and the soldiers and priests who either assisted in the conquest of Mexico or else arrived from Spain shortly after that event. Landing at Vera Cruz in 1519, Cortes first came into contact with the coastal tribes, gaining at length the plateau of Anahuac (" Place by the Water "), where he encountered more highly civilised native peoples. Subduing some and enrolling others under his banner, he advanced to the city of Mexico — Tenoch- titlan, the capital of the Azteca — by far the most powerful 1 2 Mexico of the Mexicans people in the land, who lived in houses of stone or marble, clothing themselves in fine cotton dyed in many colours or in wonderful feather cloaks made from the plumage of brilhant-hued birds. This people possessed a religion as picturesque as it was terrible in rite and sacrifice, and legal and political systems which in most of their provisions were, perhaps, equal in enlightenment to those of seventeenth- century Europe. The Aztecs or Nahua had records of their national history painted in symbols upon deer-skins which told of successive migrations of their stock from the north to Wanderings ^e Mexican plateau. Thus the Toltecs, Chichimecs, Tecpanecs, Acolhuans, and Tlas- caltecs had successively poured their myriads upon the table land of Anahuac, the latest immigration being that of the Aztecs themselves. Many of these tribes were of one and the same race — the Nahua — and used in common the Nahuatlatolli, or " speech of those who five by rule," the word " Nahua " meaning " the settled folk," the " law-abiding." The Toltecs, the first of these successive swarms, were credited by native traditions with a higher culture than was possessed by those tribes who succeeded them The Toltecs. in Anahuac. According to native lore, they were mighty builders, and so skilled in artistry and handicrafts that the name Toltecatl became a synonym for " artist " or " craftsman " among the less gifted peoples who inherited their culture. Their downfall was due to plague, famine, and drought no less than to the inroads of the savage if related Chichimec, who entered upon the heir ship of their civilisation. Excavations at Tula, the modern name of the ancient Tollan, the Toltec capital, substantiate what legend has to say of the Toltec culture, the architectural and artistic remains unearthed there exhibiting a standard of excellence considerably higher than any arrived at by their successors. Who are the Mexicans ? 3 There were other and relatively more aboriginal peoples in Mexico besides those of Nahua race — the Otomi, who still occupy Guanajuato and Queretaro; the Peoples Huasteca, a people speaking the same language as the Maya of Central America; the Totonacs and Chontals, dwelling on the Mexican Gulf; and, to the south, the Mixteca. and Zapoteca, highly civilised folk, who nowadays furnish modern Mexico with most of her schoolmasters and lesser officials. To the west lay the Tarascans, famous craftsmen and jewellers. A general impression seems to prevail that the Aztecs as a race are extinct. In what circumstances the belief arose it would be difficult to say; but it would seem to have emanated from the pages of writers of romance, who love to dwell upon the legends connected with the mysterious ruined cities of Yucatan, and who too often confound the Aztecs with the Maya of that country, who are also far from being exterminated. The Nahua race, of which the Aztecs were a division, is very much alive, and forms the basis of the greater part of the Indian populations of present-day Mexico. After the conquest of Mexico by Cortes, inter marriage between the Spanish hidalgos and Mexican women of rank was common, as bestowing on the Castilian a claim to his wife's estates. But, in subsequent generations, few alliances between Spaniards of the aristocracy and native women were entered into. The lower ranks of the Spanish soldiery, however, espoused many Mexican wives, and it is chiefly from these unions that the half-breeds of the present day have sprung. The Nahuatlatolli, or native Mexican tongue — the speech of the Aztecs — is still widely spoken in Mexico, and this alone should be sufficient to refute the statement that the race has become extinct. The present-day population of Mexico may then be divided into (1) persons of pure European descent, the descendants of Spanish and other colonists, who form the bulk of the official and administrative classes, and whose numbers are 4 Mexico of the Mexicans very considerable; (2) half-breeds, the descendants of Europeans and Indians; (3) pure Indians, who mostly inhabit the rural districts; and (4) Zambos, a cross between of Mexico5 Indian and negro, and other sub-types. In the South and in the State of Yucatan, there exists a population wholly different in origin from the Mexican. This is the Mayan, a race speaking about seventeen dialects of the same tongue, and divided into the three great sub- races of Maya, Quiche, and Cakchiquel. This ancient people it was who built the wonderful temples and palaces of Central America. The Maya had many customs and beliefs in com mon with the Nahua, but their art and racial characteristics mark them out as fundamentally a different people. At the present time their descendants are represented by the agri cultural class in Yucatan and Guatemala. In many parts of Mexico, Indian life in its tribal aspect still exists; and, although several attempts have been made to collect facts concerning native customs in these districts, a large and rich field awaits the traveller who possesses the scientific attainments requisite for the proper and systematic observation of these obscure tribes. Aztec history could not lay claim to any great antiquity prior to the arrival of Cortes. Coming from the North, probably from the region of British Columbia, History w*tn tne mnabitants of which their speech, art and religion indicate a common origin, the Aztecs wandered over the Mexican plateau for genera tions, settling at length in the marshlands near Lake Tezcuco. For a space they were held in bondage by the Tecpanecs, but such truculent helots did they prove, that at length the Tecpanec rulers were fain to " let the people go "; and, once more their own masters, they founded the city of Mexico- Tenochtitlan in 1325. For generations they failed to assimilate the civilisation which surrounded them, and which was at its best represented by the people of Tezcuco on the north-eastern borders of the lake of that name. In 1376 Who are the Mexicans ? 5 they elected a ruler. Tezcuco had been assailed by the Tecpanecs, and its rightful king, Nezahualcoyotl, forced to flee. But with the assistance of the Aztecs and the people of Tlascala, he regained his crown. The Tecpanecs, how ever, sent an expedition against Mexico, but were signally defeated by the Aztecs under their monarch Itzcoatl, who, in his turn, attacked their chief city and slew their king. These events raised the Aztecs to the position of the most powerful confederacy in the valley of Anahuac. Itzcoatl formed a strong alliance with Tezcuco and Tlacopan, a lesser city, and Mexico entered upon a long career of conquest. Its policy was not to enslave its neighbours, but merely to establish a suzerainty over them and to exact a tribute. Under the able rule of Motecuhzoma (Montezuma) I, the Aztecs pushed their conquests farther afield. After sub duing the more southerly districts, this able soldier-king turned his eyes eastwards, and in 1458 sent an expedition against the Huastecs of the Maya stock on the Mexican Gulf and the Totonacs. But he was also occupied in quelling disturbances in several of the conquered cities nearer his own capital. The Tlascalans, a folk of warlike and turbulent mood, were the hereditary and implacable enemies of the Aztecs, who relied upon constant strife with them for the larger proportion of their sacrificial victims, and, indeed, regarded Tlascala as a species of preserve to supply the altars of their war-god. On the other hand, did an Aztec fall into the hands of the Tlascalans, he became the prey of the military divinity of that people. This unnatural strife between related tribes was fostered by the belief that, unless the sun constantly partook of the steam arising from blood-sacrifice, he would wane and perish; and, because of this belief, thousands were annually immolated upon the pyramids of Huitzilopochtli of Mexico or his prototype Camaxtli of Tlascala. The hatred nourished between these people by this deplorable superstition proved the undoing of both when, at the advent of Cort6s, that leader was 6 Mexico of the Mexicans enabled to employ the warriors of Tlascala against their ancient foes of Mexico. The reign of Motecuhzoma was marked by a public work of great importance to the city of Mexico. A great dam or dyke was constructed across the lake of Aztec Tezcuco from a point on the northern side of the lake to one upon its southern shore. The purpose of this ten-mile barrier, which also did service as a causeway, was to guard the growing city against the inundations which frequently threatened it and had on more than one occasion submerged it. Motecuhzoma was followed on the throne by Axayacatl, a monarch of equal ability, who succeeded in annexing the city of Tlatelolco, which shared the same island with Mexico, and dispatched an expedition to the wealthy and enlightened Zapotec country, even as far south as the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, thus opening the way to the fertile district of Soconusco with its cocoa plantations, its mines of precious stones and great natural resources. Other regions equally desirable fell before the Aztec advance. Axayacatl died in 1469 (? 1477) and Tizoc in 1482 (? 1486), and Auitzotl came to the throne. He continued the Aztec career of conquest, and even pene trated to Chiapas and Guatemala, although he did not occupy these regions. He completed the great temple of Huitzil- opochtli in the city of Mexico, commenced by his predecessor, and constructed an aqueduct which supplied water from Coyoacan on the southern shores of Lake Tezcuco. He was accidentally killed in an inundation by striking his head against the lintel of a flooded building from which he was trying to escape. He was succeeded in 1502 by Motecuhzoma II, the king whose name has been rendered famous by reason of the coming of Cortes in his time. This monarch Motecuhzoma II, had been trained both as a soldier and a priest, but the sacerdotal part of his educa tion had perhaps been amplified at the expense of the military. Who are the Mexicans ? 7 Intensely superstitious, he was yet enough of a soldier to suppress nascent rebellions in the Mixtec and Zapotec countries, and energetically attack the Tlascalans, who, however, eventually beat him off after a strenuous invasion of their territory. He cultivated a truly Oriental magnifi cence in the city of Mexico, and employed the inexhaustible tributes which flowed into his coffers to render the capital city worthy of its position of eminence. But the end of this teeming and picturesque civilisation was at hand. Cortfe sailed from Santiago, in Cuba, on a November morning in 1518, when Motecuh- £°^d^ zoma's reign was some sixteen years old. The Spanish leader had a following of about six hundred men, thirteen of whom were armed with fire locks and sixteen of whom were mounted. On arriving at the mainland, he was met by the emissaries of the Aztec monarch, who received him courteously but coldly, and tendered him presents of gold and gems, which merely excited his cupidity. To the chagrin of Cortes, the Aztec emperor refused an interview. Destroying his ships, the intrepid Spaniard left a small detachment at Vera Cruz, and set forth with 450 men and numerous Indian " friendlies " for Mexico. He desired passage through the country of the Tlascalans; but its inhabitants, fearful of his approach, instigated the Otomi tribes on their frontier to attack him: 30,000 of them gave him battle. He succeeded in routing them, but 50,000 Tlascalans advanced to attack him in a temple-pyramid where he had fortified himself. Charging down upon the enemy, he found himself in a most precarious position until, the Otomi deserting the Tlascalans, the latter were forced to retire. Overtures of peace were sent to the Tlascalans, and these were accepted. The alliance between his enemies greatly alarmed Motecuhzoma, who attempted to placate the Spaniards with a tribute of gold and gems, but to no purpose. Cortes entered Tlascala in triumph; and Motecuhzoma, now in real consternation, at last sent him 8 Mexico of the Mexicans a friendly invitation to visit him in Mexico. Cortes set out from Tlascala accompanied by 5,000 Tlascalans. Halting at Cholula, the sacred city of Mexico, he was informed by his native allies that treachery was intended by its people, whom he attacked and slaughtered in thousands ere their conspiracy to destroy him had reached fruition. It was October ere the Spaniards arrived at the capital, where they were met by the Emperor in person, surrounded by all the exotic grandeur of an Aztec ^c^MexkT monarcn- The streets were thronged with spectators as the Teules, or "gods" as the natives styled them, entered the city. The fated ruler con ducted Cortes to a spacious palace, where he seated him on a gilded dais decked with gems, and feasted him royally, saying, " All that we possess is at your disposal." The Spaniards feared treachery and, at a later stage, seized upon the person of the unhappy emperor as a hostage for their safety. Velasquez, the governor of Cuba, not content with Cortes's conduct of affairs, which he believed to be governed by selfish motives, fitted out an expedition to Mexico, the purpose of which was to wrest the power he had achieved from the adventurous leader. This armada of 18 vessels and 900 soldiers was commanded by one Panfilo de Narvaez; but on Narvaez's arrival at Vera Cruz, Cortes, who had made a forced march to the coast with but 280 men, attacked him by night and signally defeated him. Cortfe had left Pedro de Alvarado in command at Mexico, and this captain com mitted the barbarous indiscretion of attacking and slaying the Mexican chiefs whilst celebrating a religious festival within the bounds of the great temple. He was at once closely besieged by the Aztecs, and on the return of Cortes with Narvaez's men, the whole party was beleaguered; Motecuhzoma, in attempting to conciliate his own subjects, was wounded, and survived but a few days. The desperate expedient of evacuating the city in the face Who are the Mexicans ? 9 of a hostile and deeply irritated population was risked. This resulted in what is known as the " Noche Triste," the night of woe, in which, in making their Triste e escape by one of the great stone causeways leading to the mainland, the Spaniards were almost decimated. Cortes now found it necessary to rest and refresh his sorely tried troops after their dread experience, and withdrew to Tlascala. Reinforcements arrived from Cuba, ^Mexico °f swelling the Spanish numbers to about 900 Castilians, and some 50,000 Tlascalan allies. Building numerous brigantines, which he transported in parts on the shoulders of native carriers to Lake Tezcuco, Cortes laid siege to the Aztec capital in May, 1521. At first the Spaniards were driven back, but, reinforced by tribes hostile to the Aztecs to the number of nearly 200,000 warriors, they pressed the investment, which dragged along for seventy-five days. At length, Cort6s resolved upon the demolition of the city, building by building, and by this barbarous method at last broke down the stubborn Aztec defence. The great pyramid- temple of Huitzilopochth was overthrown, and only a single quarter of the city, commanded by Guatamotzin (" chief Guatamo "), the nephew of Motecuhzoma, remained in Aztec hands. Guatamo was eventually captured; and Mexico- Tenochtitlan, the city of the most warlike people in Anahuac, became the prey and spoil of the conquering Spaniards. A portion of the city was rebuilt for the occupancy of the Spaniards, but, needless to say, its architectural character was substantially altered. This sketch of Aztec history, brief as it is, would not be complete without some reference to the interesting indig enous civilisation of the peoples of Anahuac. _. A?te.1? Dwelling, as we have seen, in stone houses Civilisation. b' . ' ' usually of one storey in height, they were slowly evolving an architectural type of their own. These houses, which were built of red stone found in the vicinity z— (2393) 10 Mexico of the Mexicans of Mexico city, were flat-roofed, the roofs or azoteas being laid out with parterres of flowers, which gave the city, when viewed from the summit of a temple, the appearance of an immense garden. The royal palaces, especially those of King Axayaca and Motecuhzoma, were stately and spacious, and covered so much ground that the Spanish conquerors aver that often they had wandered through their apartments for a whole day and had not then inspected all of them. The rooms, as a rule, were spacious if not very lofty, and were frequently hung with native tapestries or with cunningly devised arras manufactured from the feathers of the brilliant- hued birds of the tropical regions of Mexico, an art in which the Mexicans excelled. Furniture bore a resemblance to that in use in Oriental countries, where the habit of squatting dispenses with the necessity of chairs; but thrones and couches were not unknown, and all beds were laid on the floor without supports. The costume of the upper classes was the tilmatli or cloak, woven of fine cotton and, sometimes, in the case of ceremonial dresses, of feathers. Beneath this was worn Costume *ne maxt^> or loin-cloth, the only usual wear of the lower classes. The several ranks of chieftains and nobles wore the hair in divers manners to denote the grade to which they belonged, as did the orders of knighthood (of which there were several degrees). Jewellery was lavishly in use among the higher ranks, and huge panaches, or head-dresses of feather plumes, were worn by chiefs and nobles. Footwear consisted of sandals. Great proficiency had been reached in the jeweller's art, the Spanish artificers who witnessed the work of the Aztec and Tezcucan crafts men stating that they could not equal it. Gold was extracted by rather laborious means from mountain lodes, and entered largely into the adornment of a warrior. Aztec ladies wore a species of skirt, and a body-dress of jewels and gold. The government was an elective monarchy, the emperor or tlatoani being elected from the royal family. This obviated Photo by Underwood & Underwood PART OF ANCIENT FACADE, MITLA Who are the Mexicans ? 11 the perils of a minority and, as the throne was invariably filled by a brother or nephew of the lately deceased monarch the continuance of the royal line was Government assured. The emperor was usually selected because of his military prowess and sacer dotal experience, a knowledge of matters warlike and religious being regarded as essential in a ruler. Thus the ill-fated Motecuhzoma, besides being an experienced soldier, had been trained exhaustively in the tenets of the priesthood, which perhaps accounts for the superstitious and fatalistic attitude he adopted upon the arrival of the Spaniards in Anahuac. Justice was dealt with an even hand by varying grades of tribunals, which sat constantly and were answerable to none, the emperor not excepted, for their verdict. Corruption on the part of a legal official was punishable by death. The moral code was high, and such crimes against social decency as drunkenness and immorality were rigorously punished. The religion which instigated this stern moral code was of a highly composite character, mingling as it did the tenets of a peaceful and idealistic cult with the Religion. sacerdotal practices and sanguinary ritual of a people who were still in a condition of mental barbarism. This faith probably drew its high ideals from that of the older Toltec race, who may have fused with the Nahua immigrants to the Mexican plateau. The influ ence of this cultivated people was seen in the worship of Quetzalcoatl, a god possessing solar and atmospheric attri butes, whose cult, if in later times it became stained with the abominations of human sacrifice, showed many signs of an earlier repugnance to ceremonial cannibalism. Not so the other cults of Anahuac, whose gods were tutelar genii of the Aztec people, and who were supposed to have guided them to their possessions in the Valley of Mexico. These deities, the most important of whom were Tezcatlipoca, a god of the air (who afterwards developed into the chief divinity of the Aztec pantheon), and Tlaloc, god of waters, 12 Mexico of the Mexicans delighted in human sacrifice; and at their altars, hundreds, if not thousands, of hopeless war-captives and innocent children were annually devoted to slaughter in the belief that, unless the gods were nourished and rejuvenated with the blood of human beings, they would droop into senility and perish, with the result that the world would be wrapped in darkness and the human race become extinct. The festivals in connection with the cults of the numerous Aztec gods were many, and involved the practice of an imposing and bewildering ritual, the climax to which was only too often an orgy of cannibalism, which was rendered none the less abhorrent in that it was surrounded by the circumstances of a degree of civilisation by no means despicable. A great deal of speculation has been indulged in regarding the belief of the Nahua in a Supreme Being, a " god behind the gods." There is some slight ground for the belief that shortly before the Spanish invasion of Mexico the cultured classes of the various Nahua States commenced a movement towards Monotheism, or the worship of a single god. Behind this movement, states a chronicler of most doubtful veracity, was Nezahualcoyotl, King of Tezcuco; but concerning this theological novelty and its sponsors, our data is so slender and dubious of origin, that it cannot be pronounced upon with any degree of certainty. As with the deities of other people, those of the Mexicans were alluded to by their priests as " endless," " omnipotent," " invincible," " the Maker and Moulder of all," and " the One God, complete in Perfection and Unity." It was natural that the priesthoods of the several great deities of Mexico should have regarded their especial god as the god -par excellence, and thus exalt him above the other members of the Mexican pantheon. When a race forsakes a nomadic existence and begins to rely upon agricultural labour as a means of subsistence, it inevitably creates in its own conscience a class of divine beings whom it regards as the source and origin of the crops and produce it raises. These deities of grain and the Who are the Mexicans ? 13 fruits of the earth and the allied gods of the elements quickly overshadow and surpass the older gods in the popular imagination — these beings who are worshipped Th«ie3°FcSodnd by a PeoPle in the state of the nomadic Supply. hunter, and which now sink to a minor posi tion in the tribal pantheon. This worship of the food-gods will be found to He at the root of Mexican mythology. The elemental gods of wind and sun have undoubtedly first place in that system, but it is chiefly so because of their paramount importance in the phenomena of growth and fructification. Even Huitzilopochtli, the war-god of Mexico, had an agricultural significance. Enough has been said to exhibit the Mexican mythology as a religious system which had advanced to a stage typical of a people whose chief business in life was the tilling of the earth. It does not exhibit those figures of a suaver cultus, such as that of Greece, where, side by side with deities of the soil, other gods had arisen who symbolised higher national ideals in love and art, such as Aphrodite or Apollo. Although Mexico had its goddess of Sexual Indulgence and its craft gods, it is very questionable whether the latter would ever have evolved into higher types. The artistic consciousness of the Mexican, although virile and original — much more so than the lack-lustre artistry of Hellas, with its passionless and unhuman types — was yet lacking in the Hellenic quality of idealty (unless its symbolism might be said to partake of that quality) and in the Hellenic sense of beauty. But it possessed a grotesque sense of beauty peculiarly its own, which is by no means to be regarded as ugliness run mad. The temples where the dreadful rites which stained the Mexican religion were celebrated were known as teocallis or " houses of god," and had evidently been Teocallis. evolved from the idea of the open-air altar. They were pyramidal in shape and consisted of several platforms, one superimposed upon the other, reaching a considerable height, usually 80 or 100 ft. A staircase 14 Mexico of the Mexicans wound around the pile and led to the summit where the god or gods was enshrined in a building of stone or wood. Here, also, stood the stone of sacrifice, a convex block, upon which the struggling victims of fanaticism were immolated by having their hearts torn out, these being placed in a large vase, along with a quantity of gum copal, the steam arising to titillate the nostrils of the ever-hungry god. The warfare which secured this never-failing supply of victims was scarcely of a higher type scientifically than that waged by most North American Indian War. tribes. The Aztec warriors greatly favoured the ambush — quick retreats followed by speedy rallies and such barbaric stratagems. The weapons most in use were the maquahuitl, a wooden club-sword, into the side of which were inserted sharp pieces of iztli or flint; and the Spanish conquerors speak of this as a really formid able weapon, a blow from which was capable of killing horse or man outright. Bows and arrows were employed, and a spear-thrower, known as atlatl, was much used to launch darts and javelins. Armour consisted of thick, quilted cotton jackets for the rank and file, and occasionally of light gold or silver plates in the case of chiefs. Discipline was severe, and acts of cowardice in the field were almost unknown. Enough has been said to show that the race which preceded the Spaniards in Mexico was at the epoch of their arrival emerging from a condition of savagery into Cf aAai*i»w" The Mexican Character and Family Life 33 The national beverage of Mexico is pulque, which is as ubiquitous in the Republic as is beer in Germany or tea in Australia. It is made from the fermented Pulque. juice of the agave Americana, and in appear ance is white and viscid, with an unpleasant resemblance to soapsuds. Its effect when that of the strongest quality is freely drunk is stupefying and deadening in the extreme. The word pulque is of South American origin, the real Aztec term for the drink being octli. In ancient Mexico, indulgence to excess was forbidden to aU save the very old and certain grades of warriors; and the establishment of some such measure is devoutly to be wished for at the present time, when the peasantry is deeply immersed in bondage to this insidious and brutalising beverage, to pro cure which they will pledge almost the last garment which stands between themselves and nakedness. Large pulquerias, or estabhshments for the sale of pulque, are prominent in the lower quarters of aU the great cities, and these frequently bear grandiose and heroic titles which scarcely match with their degrading purpose. The exteriors of these pulque palaces are frequently painted and decorated in the most gaudy and extravagant manner, their facades forming a marked contrast to the sordidness of their interiors. It is not too much to say that the native abuse of pulque is as much detrimental to the progress of the Mexican Indian race as was the Russian consumption of vodka, or the excessive whisky drinking in the lower parts of Scottish and Irish towns, to the labouring classes in these countries. When in January, 1916, the governor of the Federal Dis trict issued a proclamation prohibiting the use and sale of pulque within the limits of his jurisdiction, his action was applauded by practicaUy all the better classes, and the bold stand taken by him gained for him the feehng that he was a man of courage who had resolved to attack one of the great social evils at the very root. For a time the measure seemed 34 Mexico of the Mexicans in a marked degree successful, but graduaUy there began to appear in place of the saloon signs those of private clubs. In other cases these were changed to " Restaurant," and a few tables and chairs placed in view, backed by shelves fiUed with bottles. The doors of others were to be seen sealed by Court orders, and aU business was suspended. GraduaUy these seals have disappeared, and the pulquerias are little by little resuming their old-time aspect. At last a decree was published in the Press that certain conditions which prevailed last winter now no longer obtained. The decree of 14th January was annuUed, and the sale of pulque of the first class and of the commoner grade known as tlachique went on merrily as before. The peon is a great smoker, and manufactures his own cigarettes, wrapping the tobacco in the dried husk of the maize and twisting down one end of the cigarette so that it wiU hold together. He smokes constantly. It is one of his few relaxations. Some of the Mexican peasantry are penurious and saving in the extreme. The chief object of many Indians or half- breeds is to save a substantial sum and bury it in a secure place. To employ money thus hoarded never occurs to the peon. Indeed, he regards money once buried as out of com mission and unspendable. Perhaps it is because he has to toil so hard for his money that he values it so highly. But most of the peon class are born gamblers, and wiU stake their last coin on a turn of the dice. The native population is also superstitious in the extreme, with a very real dread of the supernatural, a legacy in all probability from their ancestors of pre-Conquest days. Socialism has of late years intruded itself upon the horizon of the Mexican peon with strange results. The comparative freedom he has enjoyed within the last twenty years has failed to banish his sense of subservience, and the new doctrine which has been sedulously preached to him by peripatetic agitators has made him a grumbler without The Mexican Character and Family Life 35 in any way strengthening his hands, and has induced " sweUed head " to the detriment of proper pride and manhood. The average peon is untidy and shaggy in appearance, uncleanly, given to gambling, super stitiously religious, patient, intelligent, and witty. He is hot- Characteristics tempered and apt to be homicidal, and has a tendency to petty pilfering if a suitable occasion presents itself. He is piously obedient to his parents and his priest, and, when treated fairly, wiU perform a good day's work. If iU-used, he grows suUen and mahngers. His womenkind make good nurses and mothers, and are economical and clever housekeepers. Indeed, there are probably no better managers in the domestic sphere any where than the Mexican women of all classes. The peon woman is patheticaUy obedient to her husband, fond of her home, and prone to the love of Mammon (when he comes her way). She is dressy when she can afford to be so, and, as a rule, her fiesta, or holiday attire, is good of its kind, if showy and somewhat reminiscent of the wardrobe of a travelhng circus. The servant problem is quite as acute in Mexico as it is in our own country. Factories bid so highly for female labour, that to secure good native service is extremely Mexican difficult. Mexican " generals " and house- servants. . ° ,_,.., maids are quite as touchy as the British " slavey," and a good deal more careless and quick-tempered. They usuaUy refuse to do their hair in a civilised fashion, and wear it hanging or in plaits in the native style to the scandal of their long-suffering mistresses. Men-servants wiU not appear in livery if they can possibly avoid doing so, and they are usuaUy lazy and perfunctory in the execution of their duties. But they are never impolite, even when refusing to obey an order; and if this courtesy be unreal, as certain traveUers assert, it is much more refreshing and desirable than the pertness and surly rudeness of the average British 36 Mexico of the Mexicans domestic when his or her " back is up." The Mexican does not cringe nor is he sycophantic in any degree, and his natural sense of the fitness of things and a certain tact which is native to him, keep him from becoming offensive even when he most offends. CHAPTER III SOCIETY HIGH AND LOW As has been said, Mexican society of the highest class is chiefly remarkable for its exclusiveness, especiaUy towards foreigners. Even when weU accredited, the stranger is seldom received with open arms by the Mexican aristocracy, who seem to believe in the adage that " there are no friends like old friends," and through their habit of living en famille rarely lack society, seeming to find the companionship of their own relations sufficient. When greeting or entertaining strangers, they are effusive and seemingly enthusiastic; but most distinguished travellers have put it on record that those Mexicans who appeared to take most pleasure in their com pany and expressed the deepest friendship for them, were usually those who later most studiously avoided them. This queer dislike of new-comers has been commented upon by nearly all British visitors to Mexico, who have placed their experiences on record. Does it arise from the custom of the Old Colonial times when each man's house was his castle, and when the fear of the savage or the bandit lay heavy upon the community ? Surely not, or our cousins of North America would also have evolved the cult of the family nucleus ! No; it is a legacy from the customs of old Spain, where family hfe (as in most Latin countries) is still more patriarchal than gregarious. However sincere or otherwise they may be, the Mexicans of the upper classes are delightful people sociaUy once the ice of their reserve is reaUy broken. Courtesy and sympathy are their outstanding characteristics; social faux pas are rare because of a rigorous breeding and training, and gaucherie is unheard of among them. They have, however, an almost Oriental symbolism of speech, which at first puzzles the 37 38 Mexico of the Mexicans stranger unaccustomed to the extravagance of their phrase ology. Thus, should one admire anything in a Mexican house, the owner at once makes him a present of it — a verbal present, for should the visitor take him at his word and decamp with the article, no one would be more surprised than his host. The method of introduction prevailing is quaint and formal. " Allow me to introduce you," says a host, when making two persons known to each other. The younger man (or the man, if one happens to be a lady) then pro nounces his name, giving his fuU Christian and surnames, foUowed by his mother's name, the two connected by the letter y, which in Spanish means " and." The person to whom he is being introduced foUows suit, and the ceremony (for it is a ceremony in the real sense of the word) is complete. Let us visualize a Mexican introduction. " Enrique Pedro Martinez y Mariscal " sonorously intones one of the men. " Manuel de Salagua y Aldesoro " responds the other, bowing deeply. Compliments are exchanged, and the pair are acquaintances. The Mexican hospitality is never casual, and all entertain ments are exhaustively planned. Dinners and luncheons are elaborate affairs, and no one is ever asked Dhmets" to take " Pot luck-" The menu is usuaUy Parisian in character, but a few Mexican dishes stiU hold their own. Before dinner, a liqueur glass of brandy is handed to everyone as an aperitif, and is drunk neat, the draught being followed by iced water. When seated at table, the guests invariably pin their table-napkins beneath their chins before commencing " business." The meal is usuaUy a prolonged one, and a couple of dozen of courses may be passed round ere its conclusion. Ices are served half-way through, and the first dessert comes before the pre serves and pastry. A good deal of wine is drunk at such functions, and many healths and toasts are usually proposed and honoured. Champagne is handed round at the conclusion Society High and Low 39 of the repast, during the latter part of which the men — but not the ladies — smoke cigars or cigarettes. There is a common fallacy current that Mexican and Spanish-American ladies smoke both en famille and at public functions. Ladies of the best class in Mexico do not smoke as a rule, or, if they do, they enjoy the weed in strict privacy. Women smokers in Mexico are usuaUy those of the lower middle class. A day in the hfe of a Mexican family much resembles that spent by one belonging to any of the Latin races of Europe. The desayuno, or first breakfast, consists simply of coffee or chocolate, taken soon after rising. Equestrian exercise may foUow or correspondence may be attended to, after which comes the breakfast proper, served between 9 and 12, and much resembling the French dejeuner a la fourchette. Professional or other duties occupy the time until 4 or 6, when dinner is served. Supper follows at 8, after which come chocolate and cigars. The wealthy eat much and often, the poor scarcely sufficient to maintain hfe. Some very antiquated social customs still obtain. Thus in aU reception rooms, and even in pubhc offices, there is a sofa with a rug in front of it, and chairs at either end. As in Germany, this is the seat of honour to which, on entering, the guest is ushered. On departing, he is accompanied by the host to the staircase — the drawing-room being usuaUy on the second floor — and, when he descends, raises his hat to the ladies — a dreadful breach of etiquette according to British social standards. Men taking leave of one another usuaUy embrace, that is, they place their arms on each other's shoulders and pat each other on the back. Younger men generaUy kiss the hand of the elder, whom they invariably address as " Sefior.' Indeed, sons address their fathers by this title; and in all grades of society intense reverence is paid to age, authority, and experience. No young feUow wiU advance an opinion before his elders, unless he is asked for it — a rare occurrence, 40 Mexico of the Mexicans whilst no youth would think of smoking or drinking before his father or his father's friends without permission. Society in Mexico city is circumscribed and limited in numbers, owing to the fact that nearly everyone is related to everyone else. Clubs are numerous. At the head of these stands the Jockey Club, housed superbly in the CaUe San Francisco, the most fashionable thoroughfare of Mexico. Its exterior of carved stone inset with tUes of white and blue is intensely striking, and it possesses a wonderful stone stair case. Some years ago it had a reputation for heavy gaming, but it is said that that reproach is now withdrawn. The Casino Espanol in Esperitu Santo is also a magnificent pile, and houses the Spanish residents in Mexico city — no mean community, and by far the most wealthy in the capital. The Casino Nacional has also a distinguished membership of Mexican gentlemen, many of whom are of scientific and diplomatic significance. Brittanic indeed is the British Club. The British in Mexico are for the most part men of commercial standing, and " free and easy " is the motto of this establishment. The American Club has one of the largest memberships in Mexico, and is a model of comfort and hospitahty. There are also clubs connected with many other nationahties. The practice of the Medical Art is in efficient hands in Mexico. This is in contradistinction to the rest of Latin- America, where medical assistance is, gener- Doctors. aUy speaking, rather poor and dear. Surgery is at a fairly high level. The Mexican doctor does not dispense, but fees are moderate, averaging about four or five shiUings a visit. Many Mexican practitioners receive their training in the United States, and make apt pupils because of their quickness and receptivity. The lower orders seek the herbahst and his kindred for a cure; but, as a rule, the services of the genuine medical man are in their case, to be had for the asking. It is doubtful if anywhere else there is so much wretchedness Society High and Low 41 and distress as among the submerged tenth of the lower quarters of Mexican cities and towns. It is only about forty years since Mexico city was infested by some The Poor. 20,000 leperos or lazzaroni, whose laziness constituted a social pest which had to be done away with by special legislation It was a truly beneficent law which enacted that aU vagrants must work or suffer imprisonment; and if the cure has not proved a radical one, it has at least mitigated the nuisance, to say nothing of the menace, to society of a large unproductive population. But beggars, the maimed, the halt, and the blind stiU swarm in the cities and make their appeal at every street corner. These wretches seem to be regarded by the comfortable classes as less than human, and the gulf between them is so wide, that in some Mexican towns the central plaza has two paved footpaths — the inner for the upper classes and the outer for the native people ! Trades and caUings are almost hereditary in Mexico. As one who has specialised in the subject of Mexican antiquities, I am inchned to believe that this is a remnant Trades and f ancient caste practice, for there are signs Callings. , , f ¦, ¦ a ¦ . -,r ¦ that such was observed m Ancient Mexico. Thus if a man is a tailor, aU his sons usuaUy become tailors. The same thing applies to localities. Nearly every district has its industry — pottery, basket-making, cotton-spinning, or what not; and practicaUy every soul in the community adheres to the local activity. Towns or viUages situated close to one another do not compete in trade, but, as if by common consent, adopt separate industries. Of the standard trades — the carpenters, masons, tailors, butchers — I do not intend to speak, as these display practi caUy the same idiosyncracies in aU lands. It wiU be more to the purpose to describe those trades which are purely Mexican in character, leaving the more stately " industries " of the country for treatment in the chapter upon " Mexican Commerce and Finance." 4— <2393) 42 Mexico of the Mexicans And, first, the water-carriers. These are, in reality, persons of importance in a land like sunburnt Anahuac, where water is not " laid on " in the majority of dweUings, Water-carriers, but is brought to the capital in aqueducts, and distributed by carriers who earn from 50 to 75 cents a day. The water-carrier is usuaUy a staid, almost solemn-looking person, clothed in bronze-coloured garments of leather, which match his skin in hue, bearing on his back a large pig-skin full of " the element by which he liveth," suspended by a broad leathern band which he sup ports with his forehead and by the strength of his muscular neck. In front of him he carries an earthenware jug, which is not intended, as some imagine, to measure the fluid he seUs, but which, alas, he does not himself patronise. It holds a smaller supply of water to balance the larger vessel, and the two represent his " load." Perhaps " too much familiarity breeds contempt," and having earned his scanty pay, he hastens with it to that scourge of Mexico, the pulqueria, where he usuaUy succeeds in " drowning remembrance of his watery toU." He has an odd way of keeping tally with the housewives with whom he deals. Along with the jars of water he hands them a smaU berry, and this at the week's end is redeemed at the rate of 1$ cents for each. His antithesis is the pulquero or seUer of pulque, who traffics the national beverage through the streets in large pig-skins. This he extracts twice a day from Pulquero *^e a&ave plant. When it begins to put forth its high central flowering stalk, the core is cut out and a receptacle left capable of holding three to four gaUons, into which flows the sap which should sup port the stalk. This is withdrawn by means of a long gourd and emptied into the pulquero' s pig-skin. The pulquero usuaUy wears a cloth jacket and low-crowned sombrero, and is clean, alert, and businesslike — as, by the way, are most people who deal in intoxicants ! Society High and Low 43 The sale of tortillas in the streets is undertaken by the enchiladera, who is but the " middle-woman " between the manufacturer of the Mexican staff of life and Sellers* ^e workmg classes. A woman wiU collect a small army of, say, a dozen assistants, who manufacture the tortillas, and it faUs to the enchiladera to retail the dainties. She usually establishes herself at the door of a pulqueria, where she dispenses the pancakes of maize-flour smoking hot, which she manages to do by spreading them on a chafing-dish. Sometimes she seUs turn over tortillas, in shape resembling what in Scotland are known as " Forfar bridies," and which contain meat and chilli, or cheese and onions. These she retails at the extra ordinary price of two for a cent and a half, and manages to make a profit out of the transaction ! Other lesser occupations abound. There are, for instance, the cateiteros, or wooden-tray sellers; the petatero, or seUer of reed mats, at a medio or about threepence apiece, and used as beds by the very poor, of whom there are sometimes twenty sleeping in the same room. There are also the jaulero, or bird-cage seUers; the cedaceros, or sieve sellers; the canas ter os, or basket sellers; and others who make and carry articles in huge loads from town to town, manufacturing and selling them on their way. Then there are the cabazeros, whose street-cry is " Good heads of sheep hot ! " the cafatero, or proprietor of a coffee-stand; the velero, or candle seUer; the mereillero, or pedlar of hardware; the tripero, or vendor of entrails used as the casing for sausage meat; the poller o, or chicken seUer; the escobero, or broom-corn seller; the nevero, or ice-cream seUer; the mantequero, or lard carrier; and the pirulero, or seUer of piru, a red berry used for feeding birds. There are men termed lenadores, whose lifetime is spent in gathering sticks, from which to manufacture char coal; there are women caUed casureras, whose days are passed in gathering rags; and there are the lavanderas, or washer women, of whom the better class wear a hat over the rebozo, while the rest go bareheaded. 44 Mexico of the Mexicans Perhaps the most picturesque of the numerous street- vendors in Mexican cities are the flower and fruit seUers. The ancient Aztecs had a passion for flowers, Flower and ^is t^ey j^ve bequeathed to their present-day representatives in full measure. The little stalls in the plazas are tastefuUy and sometimes lavishly decorated with the wonderful blossoms from the deep tropical vaUeys. But, oddly enough, these are seldom seen in the houses of the upper and middle classes, who appear to prefer the artificial abominations which, hke stuffed birds and antimacassars, remind one unpleasantly of the unlamented Victorian age of domestic decoration in our own land. Flowers fade so quickly in the rarified atmosphere of Mexico, that this is perhaps the reason for their non-appearance in the apartments of the capital, except, perhaps, at dinner-parties and similar functions. A fair type of the original Aztecs may be found among the boatmen and women who ply their trade on the Chalco canal, bringing into the capital flowers and vegetables from the remains of the floating gardens. The boats are of two kinds: one resembling a canoe and usuaUy managed by a woman; the other flat -bottomed, 6 or 8 ft. wide, 30 or 40 ft. long, and capable of carrying the produce belonging to two or three families. Many of the latter have a cabin in the middle, which forms the home of the occupants, where they work, eat, and sleep. A great deal of vegetable-growing is done in the chinampas, or floating gardens as they are called. These are formed from mud and vegetable formations either SS2 upon the lakes or the canals. On the larger bodies of water they can be propeUed across the surface by aid of a large pole. On the canals they are seldom larger than about a quarter of an acre, and some of them even support fair-sized trees. These gardens are cultivated the whole year round. AU through the night, every quarter of an hour, is heard Society High and Low 45 the shrill whistle of the pohceman. The force is weU appointed, and with almost a military organisation, copied after the French system. The salary is Police ^ a ^y koth for guardas, or day-watchmen, and serenos, or night-watchmen. The belated traveUer is chaUenged by the officer as by a sentry with the cry of Quien va ? (" Who goes there ? ") and must promptly respond Amigo ! (" A friend ! "). If further questioned, he must answer to the Donde vive ? or " Where do you live ? " with the name of his hotel or place of lodging. Then he is aUowed to pass; but if the reply should be unsatisfactory, he is immediately arrested. Cafe hfe, if it is not quite such an institution as in some European countries, is sufficiently a phase of Mexican exist ence to require some description. " Sylvani's " Cafe Life. resembles the Cafe de la Paix in Paris. The Chapultepec Caf6, near the entrance to the park of that name, is the smartest in Mexico city, and is the resort of the cream of Mexican society on Sundays and high days. The scheme of the Mexican caf6, or restaurant of the better class, is uncompromisingly French. String bands discourse at most of these places of entertainment. The cheaper cafes and restaurants, the resorts of the lower orders, provide cheap but tasty fare, practically every dish of which is so smothered in chiUi sauce as to be almost uneat able to any but a native. The surroundings are rather crude and the service perfunctory, but it is here that one sees a part of the real Mexico. The dish may be enchiladas, that is, tortillas containing cheese and onion or meat, served with radish or salad, and garnished with the eternal chilli sauce, the peppers of the chiUi when green often actually being served stuffed with cream cheese ! Or perhaps one may be treated to fried eggs and frijoles— also served with chilli accompaniments or " trimmins," needless to say. The manner in which animals are treated in Mexico is certain to rouse and disgust the British visitor It is no 46 Mexico of the Mexicans uncommon thing to see horses and mules lie down and die in the street, belaboured the while by their task-masters in the attempt to galvanise them back into Cruelty to iife. These wretched animals are usuaUy Animals. ... starved and present a shocking appear ance. This abominable cruelty is, unfortunately, extended to children, who, when of tender years, are sent on errands which necessitate the carrying of heavy loads. This sort of thing often ruins a visit to Mexico, for people of compas sionate sensibilities and even the more hardened wiU fre quently feel the flush of indignation arise to their cheeks at recurring exhibitions of inhumanity. What is to blame ? The deadening influence of pulque and the brutalising sport of the buU-ring — which of these more than the other it would indeed be difficult to say. The Mexican, like other Spanish-Americans, is a true citizen of cities; and this would be aU the more surprising, considering the Colonial antecedents of the Pratye Ufef°r race' did we not find that in many lands Jt is just the country folk — those who are brought up with the smeU of the meadow in their nostrUs — who press towards the town with the greatest determination. But the country is abhorred by your Mexican cockney as dearly as it is loved by his London prototype. If a rural pilgrimage becomes necessary, it is regarded as nothing short of a disaster, and condolences crowd in upon the unfortunate who must perforce tempt the rigours of such an expedition. It must be remembered, of course, that a sharp line of demarcation exists between city and country life in the Republic. The rural population is rural indeed, and is in no manner sophisticated as with ourselves. Many country people in Great Britain, and especially in Scotland, are more up to date and wideawake than even Liverpudlians or Glasgovians. But this is by no means the case in Mexico. Quit the confines of the towns and almost at once you enter an environment of absolute ruralism, unless, perchance, you Society High and Low 47 happen to be in a mining vicinity. In many of the pro vincial States, roads are primitive to a degree; and, although railway communications are perhaps the best in Latin- America and generally under the immediate superin tendence of British officials and engineers, yet few Europeans succeed in comprehending the intense remoteness of many Mexican locahties, their sohtude and heart-breaking isolation. AU the same, many Mexican families retire to their haciendas during the summer season. This they do because they regard it as a duty, and not because they like it. No ! They pine for their patios and their stately chambers which look directly on to the street. There are, of course, old families who reside upon their estates for the sufficient reason that the condition of their finances does not permit them to keep house in the capital. Like London, Mexico city was undergoing a process of rehabilitation immediately prior to the days of the Revolu tion. It was, indeed, passing through a RMeUxkc-ng transition stage. Old buildings were in process of being scrapped, their places being taken by beautiful new edifices which, when completed, would make it one of the handsomest cities in the world. Thus the Legislative Building, a Renaissance pile, was being constructed at a cost of £1,000,000; a new Post Office was graduaUy arising; the War Office which was destined to sup plant the old building was to cost over £100,000; and on a National Pantheon £1,000,000 was to have been lavished — aU these were works of the Diaz regime, ever active, ever taking on new responsibilities. But are they finished ? Do they still stand incomplete ? Who can tell ? The strict censorship exercised on news leaving the country renders it impossible to say. But those who have reliance in Mexican patriotism can confidently predict that it is equal to the task of the rehabilitation of the capital, backed up as it wiU be by the great wealth of the country when the present sorry 48 Mexico of the Mexicans state of things is over and firm government and popular security are once more established. Dress in Mexico appears to be just as dependent on fashion among the higher classes as European costume. The fashions of New York and Paris have for almost a generation been adopted by the upper classes, and national garments for merly worn by aU grades are now being abandoned to the peon. But here and there a remnant of the picturesque remains. The costume worn by ladies in the street is fre quently black, while for headgear they sometimes wear a thin veil or mantiUa. Some classes of Mexican women unwittingly hasten the ravages of time by using cosmetics too freely, which spoils their complexions and tends to a premature appearance. The poorer women also wear an article of apparel caUed a rebozo, a kind of thin cotton shawl, usuaUy sombre in colour. It is about three yards long by three-quarters of a yard wide, and it is worn draped gracefully round the head and shoulders. The men of the peon class, in contrast to European custom, are, as a whole, much more gorgeously attired than their women-folk, and affect showy and briUiant garments. An article of headgear which they are fond of decorating is the sombrero. This is a wide-brimmed felt hat, usuaUy hght grey or white, which, for decorative purposes, is faced with silver lace, and bands of silver are twined round the foot of the crown, the whole being occasionally completed with a silver fringe. The zarape is a garment at one time popular with Mexican men in aU grades of society, but it is now sharing the fate of the rebozo, and is worn mostly by labourers and the lower classes. It consists of a thick shawl, which may sometimes be gaily striped, or, in the more costly varieties, decorated with gold and silver, though others are beautifuUy embroidered. The zarape is often red in colour and, when made in cheaper materials, costs from $2 to $5, but in richer cloths it may reach the price of $5,000. When on horseback, the Mexican is brilliant in his charro costume, which is of Society High and Low 49 deerskin, his trousers being sewn with silver or brass buttons, which are placed close together up the side-seam of the leg; and these garments are also frequently ornamented by fancy facings on the back and legs. In rough country, trousers, caUed chaperreras, are worn over the others, and this pic turesque dress is finished with a heavy beaver-felt hat with a deep crown. The dress of a Mexican country gentleman is not unlike the riding costume described above, with the exception that a ruffled shirt is sometimes worn, and the jacket is made of black cloth trimmed with rows of buttons, or ornamented with fur and costly sUver or gold embroidery. This coat is fastened with a tab of cloth held by two buttons. The sombrero is usuaUy elaborately decorated and sewn with the owner's monogram. The hohday dress of the superior Indian is of a brilliant hue, that of the male being the more gaudy. The man wears a pair of crimson trousers edged with cream- Native coloured lace, which reach to a few inches to above his bare ankles. For his upper garment he wears a yeUow tunic striped with orange, round which is worn a blue belt. Over his shoulders is a species of zarape made of patterned cotton tied at the neck with blue ribbon. The colours mentioned are, of course, subject to variation. The Indian woman affects quieter apparel than that worn by her husband. Her brown skirt is fuU and reaches to above her ankles, while it has a narrow edging of green and blue. Her upper garment is a long white tunic trimmed at the foot and waist with green and blue respec tively, over which is thrown a transparent garment trimmed with a narrow red strip at the sleeves, foot, and down the front. The entire transparent tunic is completed with graceful points of cream lace, and the whole reaches to her knees. The colours mentioned are characteristic, but are variable according to the taste of the wearer. The everyday dress of the labourer consists of a zarape, 50 Mexico of the Mexicans with a slit in the middle for the wearer's head to pass through: this garment is allowed to hang from the shoulders. UsuaUy a white cotton blouse, shirt, and pantaloons are worn under neath, and the costume is completed with a briUiant sash and leathern sandals, while the familiar sombrero crowns aU. The peon woman wears an everyday dress which might be found among the lower classes in almost any European country. She attires herself in a fairly fuU skirt, a white tunic blouse over which she throws a rebozo — the enveloping shawl described above. The livery of the Mexican coachman is rather incongruous when compared with the gorgeous equipages he attends, and consists of an ordinary tweed suit with a bowler or crush hat. Occasionally liveries are worn, but only very rarely. The house servant wears a suit of rough cotton, in shape not unlike a man's pyjama suit; while the female servant dresses, as a rule, like the peon women. On certain festal days it is a custom for bodies of girls clothed in white to sing in unison on their way to church. The orthodox dress of an aldeana on such occasions is some what elaborate — a white mushn garment trimmed with lace, over a short parti-coloured petticoat; a sleeveless, bright- coloured, satin vest, open in front; a long, coloured sash and rebozo ; and as many gold or silver ornaments as the wearer can afford to purchase. A unique and beautiful dress was that designed and carried out by Sefiora E. Leon, of Aguascahentes. In the making of this exquisite gown, which is composed of drawn-work, she was assisted by 300 expert needlewomen. It consists of a short Zouave jacket, and a berthe with a full skirt and long train. No seams are to be seen in this marvellous piece of work, which is valued to the extent of $40,000 Mexican (about £4,000). Sefiora Leon must have had wonderful patience, as this dress, which was designed for a Mexican exhibit at a Paris exhibition, but unfortunately was not completed in time, took nine years to finish. When finished, Society High and Low 51 it presented an appearance of costly lace, and gave a beautiful, filmy effect. An amusing regulation was passed in Mexico some years ago to the effect that the Indians were to be compeUed to wear trousers, as, desiring greater freedom of limb, they frequently appeared without them. The holiday dress of the women of Tehuantepec is as distinct from other Mexican costumes as its wearers are renowned for their beauty of figure and carriage. Their headgear plays an important part, as it has a legend attached to it. It consists of a friUed piece of material called the uipil, and the story goes that it is symbolical of a baby's skirt. This baby was rescued by some of the people of Tehuantepec from drowning, and the head-dress is worn for luck, as the little foundling was supposed to have brought an abundance of good fortune to those who succoured it. It is arranged in different ways; one fashion being to drape it round the head and shoulders, while the other style is to wear it right round the head and chin, almost like an Eliza bethan ruff, or a Normandy peasant's festal bonnet. The remainder of the costume is composed of a short tunic-bodice and a voluminous skirt, sometimes of check material, while the neck and arms are left bare. For better occasions, they sometimes wear a lace tunic or species of shawl; while the costume, which is reminiscent of Aztec days, forms a pleasing whole. CHAPTER IV THE STATE AND STATESMANSHIP By the constitution of the 5th of February, 1857, Mexico was created a federation of sovereign States, the institutions of which are described as representative and democratic. This Federal Republic then consisted of nineteen States, which for purposes of administration have since been multiplied to twenty-seven, each with its independent local government. There are also three "territories": those of Tepic, Lower California, and Cjuintana Roo; and the Federal District of the city of Mexico in which the national capital stands is common ground. The manner of electing the President is, curiously enough, reminiscent of the procedure of the ancient Mexicans, whose tlatoani, or king, was chosen by four great lords or electors. The President, who must be a Mexican born, is chosen by an electoral coUege, the members of which are representative of the people. He must be at least 35 years of age, and it is discreetly provided that he must not belong to any religious order. The Cabinet is under the direct supervision of the President and Vice-President, and consists of eight Secretaries of State: those of foreign affairs, justice, public instruction, interior, " fomento " or industry and colonisation, finance, public works, and war and navy. It was enacted in 1890 that the re-election of the President might take place without limit. The salaries of these offices are exceedingly modest as com pared with those of the executives of European countries, for, although the President draws some £5,000 per annum and is, therefore, in much the same position in this respect as British statesmen, the heads of departments receive only £1,500 per annum for their labours. 52 The State and Statesmanship 53 The Parliamentary machinery of the Mexican Republic is represented by two chambers — a Senate and a Chamber of Deputies — the diets of which are held annuaUy from 1st April to 31st May, and 16th September to 15th December. There is, however, a permanent committee of 14 senators and 15 deputies, which sits during the recesses and which has certain emergency powers. The Senate is composed of 56 members, two from each State elected by popular vote for a term of four years, one-half of these retiring every two years; and it is wisely provided that the senators must be residents of the States they represent. The deputies are elected in the ratio of one for each 40,000 inhabitants, and serve for a term of two years. Both senators and deputies receive a salary of about £600 per annum. The judicial power is vested in a Supreme Court of Justice, 3 circuit courts, and 32 district courts. The Supreme Court consists of 11 justices, 4 deputies, and other officials, aU of whom are elected by popular vote. Its jurisdiction extends to aU cases arising under the federal laws, but it has no powers in cases involving private interests, in inter-State litigation, or in cases in which the State figures. The salaries of the judges are extremely moderate, those of the Supreme Court receiving only about £550 per annum; while the dis trict justices have to be content with about £360 per annum. Each State has also its legislative organisation or congress presided over by a governor, who is indirectly elected by popular vote and served by deputies who sit for two years. These assembhes, and indeed the whole State machinery, is modeUed upon the federal institutions, and each State had also its Supreme Court of Justice and inferior courts. The States are divided into districts having a resemblance in size and administration to English counties, and each has at its head a Jefe Politico, an administrator or prefect. The powers of the several States are limited. For example, no one State is permitted under the constitution to raise a tariff 54 Mexico of the Mexicans wall against another, to go to war with its neighbours, or to issue paper money or make alliances, or, in short, so to act that the general commonwealth might be jeopardised. Up to the time of the Revolution the workings of the constitution, so far as the States serving the federal capital were concerned, were exceedingly harmonious; in fact, the manner in which they adhered to the federal government was an eloquent testimony to the virtues inherent in such a form of political administration, where the evils of rule from a distant centre were obviated and the blessings of local government fuUy reaped. It would be idle, however, to pretend that in some of the more distant States disaffection had not reared its head. Especially was this the case in the Northern State of Chihu ahua, where the great land-owning family of the Terrazas aroused the spirit of revolution by acts of peonage and exac tions of an extreme character. There were, too, other causes which contributed to disloyalty on the part of the more distant States. In Latin-American Repubhcs the system of " the spoils to the victors " in matters political is carried out with rigorous exactitude; and those persons of influence, who are left in the cold shades of opposition, are usuaUy totally excluded from all participation in the life of the country. Under the regime of Diaz, this policy was perhaps more rigidly enforced than ever before in the history of Mexico. Diaz surrounded himself by a band of statesmen whose interests were identical with his own, and who formed perhaps as solid an oligarchy as Latin-America had ever known. This Cabinet was known to its opponents as the Grupo Cientifico, or " knowing ones," and there is little doubt now, that although these men toiled, in a sense, for the real good of the country, that they exercised a kind of tyranny peculiarly distasteful to the more liberal-minded section of the Mexican public. The result of this species of administration we will deal with later in the chapters devoted to the revolutionary movement. The State and Statesmanship 55 The national revenue of Mexico is chiefly derived from a duty on imports, which amounts to nearly one-half of the total receipts. The remainder of the national Revenue income is derived from excise and stamp taxes, and from direct taxes levied in the Federal District and national territories. In the rural dis tricts there is also a land tax, a house tax in the cities; and there are also burdens imposed upon bread, pulque, vehicles, and spirit-shops. There is, further, a federal contribution composed of a surcharge on all taxes levied by the several States, and the Post Office is another source of revenue. For the fiscal year 1914-15 (the last figures available), the estimated expenditure amounted to $152,284,898; that for 1912-13 had amounted to $110,781,871, which was more than balanced by a revenue of $120,958,908. During the year under review, we find that import duties brought in over $46,000,000 and interior taxation about $38,000,000, other burdens realising about $30,000,000. The expenditure on legislature was $1,801,473; on executive, $278,860; judi ciary work absorbed $691,276; and the department of the interior about $14,000,000 in round numbers. Public instruc tion required $705,631; justice nearly $2,000,000; fomento, $3,500,000; public works over $12,000,000; and war and marine nearly $29,000,000. The public debt of Mexico at the present time amounts to between £40,000,000 and £50,000,000. The Mexican regular standing army at the outset of the Revolution was organised on modern lines, but though up to date and weU armed, and large ' enough (it ^e might have been thought) for aU likely con tingencies, was yet, in view of what occurred, insufficient in numbers and striking power. In 1908 it con sisted of 2,574 officers and 24,000 men, commanded by a general staff at the capital. There were 8 generals of divi sion, no less than 54 brigadier-generals, and nearly 1,000 officers between this rank and that of major, of whom 56 Mexico of the Mexicans perhaps the larger portion were on half-pay. The infantry establishment consisted of 28 battalions and 4 skeleton battalions, 1 section, and the Yucatan Guard of 20 officers and 400 men. There were 14 regiments of cavalry and 4 other skeleton regiments of horse; 2 regiments of mounted artUlery; 1 of exceUent horse artiUery (perhaps the best in America); a corps of mountain gunners, garrison artiUery, and other ordnance units. A battalion of sappers and miners with engineers, transports, and hospital corps, made up the tale of Mexican military resources. The scale of pay in the Mexican Army is extremely modest, but it must be remembered that most of the officers are men of private means belonging to the older families. In the cavalry, a first lieutenant receives about 5s. 6d. a day and a captain from 6s. to 7s., a major about 9s., a lieutenant- colonel about half a guinea, and a colonel about 15s. The infantry scale runs as foUows: First lieutenant, 5s.; captain, 5s. to 6s.; major, 8s.; lieutenant-colonel, 9s. 6d.; colonel, 14s. A general of brigade receives about 25s., and a general of division about 33s. These scales apply, of course, to pay on active service. Besides the standing army, the war strength of the Mexican forces was given in 1907 as 120,000 infantry, 20,000 cavalry, and 6,000 artiUery. In 1900 it was enacted that the army should be reorganised, and a second reserve was formed consisting of volunteer officers, round whom volunteer civilians might Reorganisation, rally in time of war. These officers belong for the most part to the commercial and pro fessional classes, and are placed on precisely the same footing .as those commanding the regular corps. The arm with which the Mexican infantry is supplied is the Mauser rifle (pattern 1901), 7 mm. calibre. Armaments. The artiUery is furnished with Krupp cannon, and a special design of gun which is the invention s>f Colonel Mondragon, a Mexican officer of The State and Statesmanship 57 artiUery, who was at one time military attache to the Mexican Legation at Paris. The reserves are armed with the older Mauser rifle of 1893, and the ammunition is manufactured in Mexico. Gun-running has always been more or less a favourite pastime with the malcontents in the Northern States, and it is possible that many of the rebels were during the Revolution armed with better and more up-to-date weapons than their opponents in the regular army. The method of obtaining men for the Mexican Army is, to say the least of it, a peculiar one. Considerable numbers enlist, but others are " taken," that is, the form of conscrip tion in vogue might be characterised as impressment. The vast bulk of the rank and file is naturaUy drawn from the half-breed and Indian castes. These men are most amenable to discipline, and are possessed of aU the fiery courage of their Aztec forefathers. There are excellent military schools at Chapultepec and Vera Cruz, and at the former, the place of instruction is situated in the historic palace of the Presidents. In connec tion with this institution a touching story of patriotism is told. In 1844, during the invasion of Mexico by the army of the United States, the castle was invaded by American troops, who succeeded after a desperate engagement in pene trating to the fortress. The flag of Mexico, with the national emblem of the eagle bearing the serpent in its talons, floated from the topmost turret, and when the American soldiers reached this last citadel they were met by the cadets, almost boys, who gave such a good account of themselves, that the Northern soldiers were for the moment thrown back. Seeing that the Americans were being reinforced every moment, and that the flag of his country was in danger, one of the cadets seized it and, wrapping it about his body, leaped from the turret, and was dashed to pieces on the earth below. In the war with the United States, the Americans had cause to remember the terrible Mexican Lancers, whose 5— (2393) 58 Mexico of the Mexicans dashing tactics more than once threw them into confusion; and the French at Puebla, where Diaz won his reputation as a military leader, were shattered by Mexican elan on the glorious Fifth of May. The Mexican Navy consists of 10 smaU vessels, including a steel training cruiser, 2 old unarmoured cruisers, 2 unarmoured gun-boats, and 5 small modern gun-boats, with a personnel of about 1,000 men. There are naval schools at Campeche and Mazatlan. Mexico has little need for a navy at present, and what she has may be described as a nucleus rather than a force. The educational system of Mexico has been reorganised on modern lines. In the old days the schools were under ecclesiastical rule — by no means a desider- Education. atum. CoUeges were founded so early as 1530, and in 1553 the University of Mexico came into being. This institution, however, never achieved a position compared to that of the greater South American Universities, but, this notwithstanding, education continued to flourish in Mexico; and when at last the Spaniards were expeUed from the country, increased efforts were made to introduce educational reform. Matters were, however, stiU under the discipline of the Church, and it was found that for this reason but little could be achieved. The subjects taught in those earlier days were, for the most part, Latin rhetoric, grammar, and theology, which curriculum was supposed to furnish the student with a liberal education. In 1833 the usefulness of the University of Mexico became doubtful, its labours were suspended, and in 1865 it passed out of existence. After the overthrow of Maximilian, its place was taken by a number of individual colleges, institutions of law, medicine, and engineering being founded in 1865, and proving much more suitable to the modern requirements of the country. Good schools, too, began to spring up in the provinces; and in 1874 there were no fewer than 8,000 of these, with an attendance of 360,000 pupils. The State and Statesmanship 59 When visiting Mexico at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Humboldt professed himself greatly surprised at the development of education in the capital, and at the number and worth of its scientific institutions. But the Spanish- American has always been most amenable to educational and refining influences. Indeed, few races in the world exhibit such signs of enthusiasm for culture as do those of Latin- America. The movement was strongly fostered by President Diaz, who, indeed, regarded it as the basis of Mexican exist ence. Diaz made a thorough personal study of educational methods and requirements, and may indeed be said to have founded the present machinery of instruction in vogue within the Repubhc. A National Congress of Education was convened in December, 1899, and also in the foUowing year; and its pro visions were carried into effect in 1892 through a law regu lating free and compulsory education in the Federal District and national territories. Prior to this, Mexican public educa tion had been under the supervision of a company known as the Compania Lancasteriana, so called after Joseph Lancaster (1778-1838), the English educationist whose system was matter for so much controversy at the beginning of last century, and which consisted to a great extent of instruction by monitors and mnemonics. This doubtful and antiquated method was now abandoned, and the schools taken in charge by the Department for Public Education; but no comprehensive or far-reaching scheme was arrived at until 1896, when a simple yet liberal plan was constituted. At first, the various States objected to educational inter ference within their boundaries; but, later, they came to see the evils accruing to a lack of uniformity. In 1904, over 9,000 public schools were opened for instruction, with an enrolment of 620,000 pupils. Nearly 3,000 of the schools were supported by the municipalities, and there were also over 2,000 private and religious establishments with 135,000 pupils. Secondary instruction was by no means neglected. 60 Mexico of the Mexicans for at the last date for which figures are available there were 36 secondary establishments with nearly 5,000 pupils, and 65 schools for professional instruction with 9,000 students, of which 3,800 were women. This last statement shows how thoroughly modernised the educational movement has become in the Republic. A quarter of a century ago, Mexican women would never have dreamed nor have been desirous of partici pating in the benefits of the higher education, but now their keenness to embrace professional careers is intense. It is, of course, extremely probable that the relative proximity and example of their Northern neighbours in the United States, where female education has made such advances, has had much to do with their enlightenment, for many Mexican women, like their brothers, are now educated in the United States, whence they return with the most modern opinions regarding instruction, erudition, and general culture. The curriculum of the Mexican pubhc schools is carefully graded. In the preparatory departments, Spanish grammar, arithmetic, natural science, the history of his Curriculum na-tive land, practical geometry and drawing, and singing are taught the boy, as weU as gymnastics and physical drill. These last two items are replaced in the girls' curriculum by sewing and embroidery. In the higher grades, English is compulsory. Rehgious education is wisely banned from the schools of Mexico, for the terror of priestly interference and domination has burned itself so deeply into Mexican memory that there is no desire to encourage a recurrence of these evils. In the place of religion there is instruction in moral precepts and civic ethics. Stress is laid on the virtues of temperance — instruction that is sadly necessary in Mexico, where the ravages of the national beverage may be witnessed on every hand — and the children are taught to be good citizens and good Mexicans. Many of the schools have their temperance societies, and as far as is possible the teachers are drawn from the ranks of total abstainers. The children appear happy and contented, The State and Statesmanship 61 intelligent, and eager for instruction, and their course of study by no means unfits them for the usual childish sports. Night schools flourish where the child may continue its education after leaving school, or the grown-up person may acquire that in struction which in early hfe he or she has been unable to obtain. There are excellent training schools for teachers of both sexes. Many of these are Mixtecs and Zapotecs from the Southern States, the descendants of a highly civilised people who did much to spread the use of the old native calendar, the source of all native wisdom, throughout Mexico. In aU these schools, not only instruction, but books and other apparatus are entirely free, even in such of the training coUeges where the students of the professional classes resort. The Mexican peon, when educated, does not seek to abandon the labour of his forefathers. He does not, as a rule, desire to become a clerk or to exchange his zarape for the black coat of commerce. This attitude may be regarded as lacking in ambition. On the other hand, it may prove his wisdom in avoiding the pitfalls of the life of the lesser bourgeoisie. The foreign policy of Mexico has greatly varied with its Presidents. It certainly has not sought territorial expansion, one of the most fertile causes of international The Foreign strife; but it has fiercely combatted all foreign Policy of . J ., , & Mexico. aggression on its own soil, as was shown during the French attempt at domination and the American invasion. Its official attitude towards the United States has, in recent years, been calm and dignified in face of a most difficult situation. Unintelligent opinion everywhere lays the outbreaks and slaughter in the North at the door of the official classes in the South; and one has even read leading articles in journals of good standing, which profess to be weU informed, to the effect that Mexico must be classed as regards her type of civilisation with Turkey or Germany. The foUy of such a statement is extreme, and could only have been penned in utter ignorance of the 62 Mexico of the Mexicans conditions prevailing in the Republic. Nor has American opinion on Mexican questions of State been much more enlightened. The American people, oblivious of their own stormy past, pretend to regard Mexico as peopled by a race dangerous and irreconcilable. They cannot advance the plea that they are so far distant from this folk that they may have misunder stood it for lack of facilities for closer study. One must remember, too, that the United States has shorn Mexico of some of her richest territories; and those in the Northern Republic who decry their neighbours should recaU the out rageous story of the Conquest of Texas, stigmatised by a great American, General Grant, as the most unjust and unholy war ever waged by a great nation against a weaker one. They cannot be surprised if Mexico dreads that the lust of conquest and wealth known to exist in some quarters in the United States may overflow and swamp her completely. She has already ceded to America nearly 1,000,000 square miles of territory, or more than one-half her original area. Her mineral wealth has always been coveted by North American capitalists, who lose no opportunity for furthering their aims in the rich mining districts of the northern and central provinces. As regards other countries, Mexico has been studiously friendly, yet cautious. British people were in the old days unfortunately confounded by the Mexicans with their North American relatives, much to their detriment, as the Yankees who frequented Mexican soil in these times were by no means of the haut temps ; but when the distinction became clear, the Mexican began to appreciate the sterling qualities of the British race, who have ever since been popular and welcome within his borders. The political power in Mexico was, prior to the revolution, disputed by two great parties, the Liberal Pontics1 and Conservative. It wiU seem strange to British ears to be told that the first embraces the intellectual and cultured classes and the thinking part of the The State and Statesmanship 63 middle class. The Conservative Party, on the other hand, is under clerical domination, and consists for the most part of the lower classes and peons who are staunch supporters of the Church. Of course, the whole object of the Church is to regain its lost property, and to this end the entire weight of its political battery is directed. Its wonderful persistence in the face of such powerful odds as it meets with in the en lightened section of Mexican opinion would be touching, if it were not pitiful. It is, indeed, a lost cause of the most consummate character. For the most part, the common people are ignorant of the principles for which they vote. They only know that their suffrages are given in the cause of religion, and that knowledge fuUy suffices for them, or did so until quite recently. But if the Church has certainly been a factor making for internal dissension, a very thorn in the flesh of the enlightened classes of Mexico, a much stronger element of dissatisfaction was awakened in Mexico through the conditions which of late years obtained in the Republic. The long regime of Diaz, peaceful and prosperous as it was, had an intensely irritating effect upon the younger members of the Liberal party. Diaz had surrounded himself by a group of men whose pohtical , interests were identical with his own, and their attitude, as we shall find, was responsible for the outbreak of the Revolution which ensued. CHAPTER V LITERATURE AND THE PRESS In Mexico, as throughout Latin-America, literature is much more generaUy cultivated than it is among a commercial people like ourselves. The imaginative and poetical genius of the Spaniard has been inherited by the modern Mexican in full measure. British opinion is apt to regard the literary Spaniard as amateurish, and as reveUing in the grandiose and " highfalutin," but seldom takes the trouble to view the condition of English letters from the Spanish point of view. English and French litterateurs have evolved a style which, if it possesses the virtues of precision, economy, and neatness, is yet woefuUy lacking in spirit, in fluency, music, and beauty. In England, it is a literary crime to " let one self go " in print. Eloquence is frankly disliked in our land. But because we cannot or wiU not appreciate or understand an excellence that practicaUy all the rest of the world approves, is there any reason why we should so openly con temn the work of others in a sphere which we have closed to ourselves ? The literary Latin-American, and in especial the Mexican of the better type, is usuaUy a precisian of the most uncom promising character, insisting upon the employment of the purest Castilian with all the rigour of the hereditary purist — for the Mexicans have always been purists in style. But, that notwithstanding, he does not desire to cramp or limit himself by closing the ears of his spirit to the promptings of inspiration. In Mexican literature we observe none of those carefully toned down passages, those repressed rhap sodies which lend to the works of our stylists such necessary " comic relief " — those flights upon a close-bitted and blinded Pegasus, which remind one of the efforts of an 64 Literature and the Press 65 awkward reciter who is too shy to exhibit his powers to the best advantage. There is, then, no hterary shyness in Mexican letters — none of the stylistic hypocrisy to which we have become accus tomed in Enghsh literature. The Mexican is not afraid to let himself go; and if it be charged against him as a mis demeanour that he possesses no sense of discretion in this respect, he is quite within his rights in retorting that such disciphne as has proved suitable to the cold English and the systematising French is totally unfitted to the expression of his outlook and his ideals. No sketch of Mexican literature can altogether ignore the wondrous writings of the Colonial time, which figure again and again in modern Mexican literary productions, and have inspired the younger generation of writers with the knowledge that those who have gone before have bequeathed to them works of which any country might be proud. For the literature of Mexico goes back to the Conquest. And, first, the book of Sahagun, the Franciscan, con temporary with the Conquest. His Historia Universal de Nueva-Espafia, commenced after 1530, was printed separately by both Bustamante and Lord Kingsborough in 1830. Its historical and mythological value is difficult to overestimate. It was written after years of deep consultation with the wisest of native scribes; banned and confiscated by the blind zeal of his order; scattered throughout the orthodox libraries of moribund monasteries; sent to Madrid, there to become the prey of the official penchant for manana ; unearthed at last by Munoz, at Tolosi, in Navarre, in some crumbling convent library; and seized upon with avidity by the zealot Kingsborough. Sahagun's translation of the Scriptures is a monument of the possibilities which underlie a barbarous tongue; the rude Mexican or Nahuatl speech is seized, heated to a glow; hammered, welded, and shaped into a shining, sinuous, sword-like thing, despite the cumbrous machinery of the language. It is a " world-book." 66 Mexico of the Mexicans Torquemada, a later Provincial of the same order, did not fail to use Sahagun's manuscript in the composition of his Monarchia Indiana, first printed at SeviUe in 1615. He is chiefly remarkable, in fact, for his piracy of the old friar's researches. His paraUels — Scriptural and profane — range the Greek and the Jew by the side of the feathered Aztec with an anachronistic genius only to be expected of the seventeenth century. His book was again impressed at Madrid in 1723, in three volumes folio. Torquemada's facilities for the acquirement of much that is curious in Mexican antiquity were undoubted; and he has aU the charm and amusing garrulity of his age and caste. He is by no means unimpor tant, were it only for an elementary yet potent curiosity which puts him on the scent of facts the fate of which, under other scrutiny, might have been to remain unrecorded. Suave and august, the Abbe Clavigero has nought in com mon with Torquemada. Although a Spanish-speaking brother, his Storia Antica del Messico is written in Italian, and is best known to English readers by the translation of 1807 in two volumes quarto. This work brought the Abbe into fierce controversy with Robertson of Edinburgh, and De Pauw, a French savant, in which the Scottish professor was no less sententious or scathing than the Spanish priest. The confessional of Joan Baptista, shriver of the Order of San Francisco, was printed in 1559. Old Baptista was the teacher of Torquemada, and professed philosophy and the ology at the CoUege-Monastery of Tlatilulco. In his Men- ologio, Vetancurt styles him " the Mexican Cicero." He was the author of a bundle of quaint manuscripts, which he entitled Teption amoxtli, or " The Little Book." Bartholome de Alua also compiled a confessional in Nahuatl. Bartholome was a native of Mexico and a descendant of those kings of Tezcuco who were the aUies of Montezuma, and whose dynasty perished with his amidst the smoke of the Spaniards' " death-thunder." Alonso de Molina's Confessional (1578) is one of the most Literature and the Press 67 difficult to procure of those works which were impressed in Mexico. It is extremely curious and quaint, and written in both Mexican and Castilian. Mohna was born in the year of the Columbian discovery, and was also the author of a Vocabulario. This Vocabulario, by the way, was the first dictionary printed in the New World, and is cited by Thomas in his History of Printing in America as a great literary curiosity. For a long time it was generaUy supposed that this was the first book printed in the New World. The first printing press which found its way to Mexico was actuaUy brought thither at the request of Archbishop Zumarraga, the wholesale destroyer of the native Aztec manuscripts so much bewailed by scholars. Thus " out of the eater came forth meat." Ever since then the printing press has been busy in Mexico. Modern journals are numerous. The Mexican Herald, an admirably conducted paper, is published in English, and caters to the English-speaking people in the Repubhc. It is housed in a most palatial building and exerts enormous influence, representing as it does the capital and enterprise of the country. Among other Enghsh papers, the evening Daily Record — the only Enghsh evening paper in Mexico — has a high reputation. The native Press has a splendid record of educative and enlightening labour behind it. Only some twenty years ago, people of the peon class who were able to The Native read were ^e excepti0n, but to-day even the most ragged of them evidenlty finds the daily paper a necessary adjunct to his weU-being. The Press is in no wise " muzzled " in Mexico, and its influence with the general public is supreme. El Imparcial, the great Mexican daily, has a circulation approaching 100,000 copies; and its evening journal, El Mundo, is also widely patronised. El Popular, with its afternoon edition El Argos, is extremely " popular," as its name suggests, with the masses. La Patria is frankly anti-American, and the pen of its editor is not 68 Mexico of the Mexicans infrequently dipped in gall. The Financier o Mexicana deals with commercial affairs and the money market in an able manner. Rehgious sheets are popular and plentiful. El Pais (The Country) and El Tiempo (The Times) are both ably conducted and widely read. La Tribuna is a strong Catholic bi-weekly, with highly Conservative tendencies which appeal to many of the older generation. As has happened in other countries, Mexican journalism has been powerfully affected by the spirit of the times. The once dignified and rather sombre productions which glided rather than fell from the printing-presses of Mexico city have given way to newspapers which in tone reflect the " new " American spirit of journalism, its " human " note, its rather gross personalities, its meretricious smartness, its tendency towards the flippant and frivolous. Added to this we find a tendency towards the exaggerated in language which has nothing in common with the gift of ardent utterance we have before alluded to as despised by British writers. That gift is the property of distinguished writers alone. But the Latin- American and Mexican journalist deems it essential to copy this exalted style, and, as he does not in most cases possess the great powers necessary to the fulfilment of such a task, he produces false rhetoric and mistakes the use of superlatives for eloquence. In his totally undisciplined efforts such phrases as " magnificent," " immortal," " fabu lous," and the hke abound; whilst he can praise no public man without the employment of such adjectives as " iUus- trious " and " distinguished." The reiteration of such phrases is irritating and monotonous, but perhaps not more so than to read in our own newspapers that " It appears " that such and such an event occurred, or that " Alderman Jones is temporarily laid aside with a distressing attack of sciatica." The cliche is as rife among ourselves as elsewhere. In spite of this tendency towards flippancy and fulsomeness in the lower ranks of Mexican journalism, the opinionative matter in the leading dailies of the capital is, in general, of Literature and the Press 69 a fairly high literary stamp, the language is well chosen, and considerable graces of style are often displayed in the com position of even a political leading article. But one is told that the Mexican journalist's style is in process of faUing off, and that the efforts sf the new school do not approach those of their predecessors in purity and elegance. Of weekly journals, there is a supply sufficient for the needs of the community. El Mundo Illustrado, owned by the proprietors of El Imparcial, is well illustrated, bright, and informative, as is its rival El Mundo. Artes y Letres is a publication devoted to the connoisseur in the Arts and Literature; and its criticisms on books, pictures, and allied matters carry considerable weight. El Semanario Liter ario and La Revista Literaria are, as their names imply, literary reviews, both conducted with good taste and judgment. The comic Press is by no means of high grade, and dealing, as it does, chiefly in personalities, is offensive to most persons of refinement, however great its appeal to the vulgar and irreverent. The haute litterature of Mexico, as has been said, is repre sented by a circle of purists who evince great anxiety as to the future of Mexican letters. Chief among Agueros. these, perhaps, or at least typical of them, was the late Sefior Agueros. Of the high Conservative school of pohtics, a writer of accurate and polished Spanish, a journalist whose work was marked by thought and judgment, but who was by no means weU dis posed towards all that is liberal and modern, Victoriano Agiieros's most valuable work was undoubtedly that to which he had addressed himself of later years — the rehabilitation of Mexican authors in the sight of the Mexican people. Observing the neglect into which the national literature was faUing and deploring the popular taste for the meretricious type of French fiction, Sehor Agueros set himself to counter act this lamentable vogue by the publication, in uniform style, of the works of the best Mexican authors under the 70 Mexico of the Mexicans general title of " Bibhoteca de Autores Mexicanos " (Library of Mexican Authors). More than fifty volumes are now collected under this series, which has been weU received. Born in 1884 in Tlalchapa, in the State of Guerrero, Senor Agueros had a long literary career. He left law for letters, as so many Mexican authors have done, and edited the journal El Imparcial. Later he founded El Tiempo, an ultra-Con servative journal. Among his best known books are Escri- tores Mexicanos Contemporaneos (Contemporary Mexican Writers) and Confidencias y Recuerdos (Confidences and RecoUections). Senor Agueros, as has been said, was excessively severe in his criticism of the modern Mexican school. In one of his essays he says of its members: " In my opinion the new generation of writers has no significance. I discern no writers in it, no love for erudition, no noble tendencies such as would foster the advance of our literature. . . . They believe that they are well informed because they have cuUed jokes from low dramas, have studied history in novels and opera librettos, and gaUantries in fashionable periodicals. They conceive themselves litterateurs and poets because they have pubhshed some article in the and have in the printed some verses describing their disenchantments, their ennui, their doubts, their hours of pain. Miserable though beardless, their lamentations for their disiUusions are bound less ... to be singular is what they most desire." Senor Agueros proceeds to castigate the Mexican jeunesse doree of letters by saying that they do not study or acquire new information, that they are unmindful of the literary move ment of the epoch, and do not foUow the masters of their art. " And if they do none of these things, it is useless for them to write and publish verses, since the progress of a hterature has never yet consisted in the abundance of authors and of works. Love of study and for work, close thought, good selec tion of themes and care in expression — these are the things necessary. Criticism also is completely lacking among us." Literature and the Press 71 Senor Agueros, of course, railed against a dilettante move ment which has spread from France and Spain throughout the whole of Latin-America, and is not confined to Mexico alone. Such young men as he describes are met with in every European country, so that his fears for the national hterature were scarcely weU founded. But it is true that the Mexican youth is prone to extravagance (or what the Englishman would regard as extravagance) in literary as in amatory affairs. His ancestry and environment render it difficult for him to be otherwise. In later hfe, however, he sobers down; his precocity is disciplined by experience; and in his turn he lectures the gilded youth of a later generation upon the heinous character of literary make-beheve. Another writer who pleads for a Mexican literature and the treatment of purely Mexican themes is Victoriano Salado Albarez, who has set his face uncompro- Albarez. misingly against the weak imitations of French decadent writings. In his De mi cosecha (From My Harvest) he attacks Mexican hterary decadence, and pleads for a sane and sound national literature. He has gathered together anecdotes of the national history from the time of Santa Anna to that of the modern reforms in his Santa Anna a la Reforma, and this is perhaps his most notable hterary endeavour. La Intervencion y el Imperio (The Intervention and the Empire) treats the time of Maximilian in the same manner. The first part of this work is entitled " The Frogs Begging for a King," from which Senor Albarez's attitude towards his countrymen's behaviour during the Maximilian period can readily be construed. Luis Gonzalez Obregon, one of Mexico's most charming writers, is best known by his Mexico Viejo (Old Mexico), a delightful coUection of two series of essays Obregon. on isolated episodes in ancient Mexican history, legends, old customs, and biographical matter, nearly aU of which are drawn from unpubhshed manu scripts or scarce and precious works. Obregon revels in the 72 Mexico of the Mexicans obscure and the curious as represented in the history of his native land. He is the authority upon its more recondite history, those small but toothsome rarities of long-forgotten fact which so tickle the palate of the real antiquary. Of such, his " Old Mexico " is a never-failing mine. It has established a reputation beyond the confines of Mexico and has been republished in Paris. No less valuable in its own way is his Novelistas Mexicanos en el Siglo XIX (Mexican Novelists in the Nineteenth Century), in which he has outhned the char acter of the Mexican novel and attempted to give each fictioneer his place in the national hterature. His bio graphical essays upon Lizardi, a Mexican writer of the early nineteenth century, and Jose Fernando Ramirez are highly appreciated and valued in literary circles in the Repubhc. Senor Obregon's health has never been strong, but his habits, always those of a valetudenarian, have by no means interfered with his literary labours. Foremost among Mexican writers on ancient Mexican history was the late Alfredo Chavero, whose knowledge of the affairs of his native land in prehistoric Chavejf° times was rivaUed by none, Mexican or " Antigiiedades. " European. EspeciaUy was he erudite in the subject of the ancient picture-writings; and the explanatory text of a great work, Antigiiedades Mexi canos, published by the commission delegated to fitly cele brate the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America, is from his pen. He also edited the Historia Chi- chimeca and Relaciones of Ixthlxochitl, a native chronicler, iUuminating the text with valuable annotations and making many dark places light. The first volume of Mexico a traves de los Siglos (Mexico Through the Centuries), a vast work in five volumes, each dealing with a distinct epoch in Mexican history and written by an expert, is his, and treats pre historic Mexico in masterly fashion. He paid close attention to the very important question of the ancient Mexican calendar — the rock on which many archaeologists are wrecked, Literature and the Press 73 and a subject of extreme difficulty and most involved char acter, his principal work on this vexed question being Los dioses astronomicos de los antiguos Mexicanos (The Astro nomical Gods of the Ancient Mexicans). ExceUent lives of several Mexican worthies of distinction must also be placed to his credit, the most outstanding of which are those of Sahagun (a missionary priest of the Colonial period, who wrote a valuable treatise on the native religion) and Montecuhzoma, the ill-fated Aztec monarch. But archaeology and history were not Senor Chavero's sole hterary interests. He was a playwright, and although his dramas deal with the ancient native life of Mexico, some of them have been well received. Quetzalcoatl, which takes its title from the ancient solar deity of old Mexico, and Xochitl, picture native hfe in the stirring days of the Conquest. Although he was good-naturedly raUied upon his antiquarian dramatic tastes, it is generaUy admitted by native critics that his plays breathe a strong patriotic spirit, and are nobly conceived and powerfuUy if simply executed. It is pointed out, however, by Riva Palacio in his Los Ceros that " our society, our nation, has no love for its traditions "; and that on the strength of native themes alone, " no one gains a reputation here in Mexico." The fantastic taste for the me diaeval in the native novel is blamed for this neglect of native subjects, and preference for the environment of Rhine castles and Spanish court is rightly and sarcasticaUy aUuded to. Chavero was more than an author. He was in younger days a man of affairs, a shrewd lawyer, and was one of Juarez's right-hand men during the period of French inter vention. Born in 1841, he commenced the practice of law at the age of 20, and became a member of the House of Deputies in 1862. When the Empire feU in 1867, he abandoned politics for literature, but on the coUapse of Lerdo's government was sent to the Department of Foreign Affairs as second in command. He also acted as City Treasurer and Governor of the Federal District, besides 6— (2393) 74 Mexico of the Mexicans fulfiUing his duties as a deputy. He died quietly during the dark days of the Revolution. Primo Feliciano Velasquez, Mexican Academician, historian and journalist, drifted from law into newspaper work. He founded an anti-Government paper, El Estan- Velasquez. darte (The Standard) in 1885, and so fierce were its attacks upon constituted authority, that he could not hope to escape the heavy hand of the power he combatted, and pains and penalties foUowed his bitter criticisms. Turning his attention to the nulder muse of ancient history, Velasquez, in his Discovery and Conquest of San Luis Potosi, won the recognition of the Royal Spanish Academy. These researches he foUowed up by publishing, in 1897 and 1899, the four volumes of his Collection of Docu ments for the History of San Luis Potosi. In later life, Senor Velasquez has returned to the practice of the law, his first profession. Ignacio M. Altamirano was one of those men of native Aztec blood who, by dint of genuine abihty and personal force, acquired social and hterary success. Altamirano. A peon boy, and seemingly doomed to peon age, he helped his parents in the fields at Tixtla, in the State of Guerrero. But poor and despised as is the Indian stock, it bears within it the germ of aesthetic appreciation, and the love of beauty was too deeply implanted in young Altamirano to permit of his remaining in the sordid environment of an Indian viUage. The Indian lad who would attain to eminence in any department of Mexican hfe is doubly handicapped, for not only has he to combat the most soul-destroying poverty, but he must also face a deep-rooted race-prejudice. Born in 1834, Altamirano's abihties were recognised in the village school, and he was sent to the Literary Institute at Toluca, and later to the Colegio de san Juan at Mexico. His real literary energies commenced with the Revolution of 1854, which impelled him to write pohticaUy on the Liberal side. Literature and the Press 75 EspeciaUy intense was his address against the Law of Amnesty. A close foUower of Juarez, he did splendid journalistic service during the re-establishment of the Repubhc. His hfe until 1889 was passed as a publicist and man of letters, and in the latter year he was sent to Spain as Consul-General of the Repubhc there But his health broke down, and he was transferred to the more temperate climate of France as Consul-General at Paris. Like aU men of his race, he grieved greatly at his separation from his native land, and it is thought that this hastened his end, which took place at San Remo in February, 1893. Altamirano was, perhaps, the most remarkable aboriginal Mexican litterateur of modern times. From his pen flowed biographies, novels, verse, criticism, and political and literary essays in the most astonishing profusion. He pleaded for the development and formation of a national, a purely characteristic Mexican literary style, even as Bjomson pleaded for a purely Norse hterary language. " We want," he says in one of his essays, " that there should be created a literature whoUy our own, such as aU peoples possess, ... we run the risk of being credited as we are painted (by foreigners), unless we ourselves take the brush and say to the world — ' Thus we are in Mexico.' " The writings of Altamirano, hke those of many another worthy, journalist-author, were scattered throughout count less periodicals. But they were recently coUected and pubhshed. Perhaps his most characteristic book is Paisajes and Leyendas (Landscapes and Legends), published in 1884. Physiologist, logician, and man-of-letters, the late Porfirio Parra, who died quite recently, was one of the most various men in Mexico. He abandoned a chair of Porfirio Logic to accept that of Physiology in the National School of Medicine, and he held the chairs of Mathematics and Zootechnology in the National Agricultural and Veterinary School. Born in the Northern State of Chihuahua, he early exhibited signs of great promise, 76 Mexico of the Mexicans and was not quite 14 years of age when his State voted him the requisite funds to enable him to pursue his studies in Mexico city. In 1902 he became Secretary of the Upper Council of Education. On several occasions he represented Mexico in European Medical Congresses. His accomplish ments seemed boundless, for he also wrote scientific poetry (Odes to a Skull, to Mathematics, to Medicine, and on the Death of Pasteur), A New System of Logic ; a novel, Pacitillas ; and countless essays are also from his pen. His only venture in fiction is an interesting picture of Mexican life, and concerns the doings of four feUow-students at the School of Medicine. Perhaps the foremost writer on the ancient history of Yucatan is Juan F. Molina Sohs, who belongs to an old Spanish- Yucatec family, and who was born Molina. in the realm of the ancient Maya in 1850. His History of the Discovery and Conquest of Yucatan is a standard authority, acknowledging original sources only and patiently discriminating between those which are of real value and those which lean towards the marveUous. In journahsm, Senor Mohna represents the ultra-Conservative standpoint so typical of the Society of isolated Yucatan; but his leading articles are scrupulously fair to his opponents, if their tone is candid, and his patriotism is undoubted. Modern Mexican fiction tends for the most part towards the reahst school. Its note is scarcely one of optimism any more than is the note of Mexican verse. Fiction1 Indeed, it has been called squalid and sordid. Its most famous protagonists are Frederico Gamboa and the late Rafael Delgado. Frederico Gamboa has covered a wide field of literature. Just over 50 years of age, he, like nearly aU his literary coUeagues in Mexico, was educated for the Gamboa. legal profession, but he succeeded in entering the Corps Diplomatique, and was dispatched to Guatemala as one of the Secretaries of the Mexican Literature and the Press 77 Legation there, afterwards filling posts in Argentina, Brazil, and elsewhere with acceptance; and later being appointed Secre tary to the Embassy at Washington in 1902. Earlier in hfe, he practised journalism and translated the words of rather ephemeral operettas for the stage. But by far his best work in letters have been fictional. His Suprema Ley (The Supreme Law), Metamorfosis, and Santa are realistic, and recaU the work of Hardy and Zola. The theme of Suprema Ley is the love of a married man, a poor clerk, with five children, for a fascinating woman sociaUy above him; his disiUusion; his return to his wife; his repentance; and death from consumption, the last in the true style of Bjornson. " The marital affection is choked by the ivy of disgust and the weeds of custom; the home disappears, covered by the weeds which grow and grow until they cover even the pin nacle of the exterior." Carmen, the neglected wife, is a pathetic figure. She resolves to regain her husband's affec tion by " the charms of a chaste coquetry." " But on regarding her attractions, impaired by child-bearing; her features rendered sharper by time; the hands she was so proud of in girlhood, roughened by cooking and washing, she felt two tears burn her eyes; and, unable to excel in a combat of graces, she lowered her face on the table, supported by her arms, in silent sorrow for her vanished youth and her perished beauty." In Suprema Ley, Gamboa has struck a universal chord. Such a story is no more Mexican than it is British, Italian, Russian. Indeed, there is a spirit of greatness in the book, which is, perhaps, one of the best conceived Mexican novels of modern times. Its faults are the faults of all modern Latin literature. The love interest is not aU which the story contains, but it is aU in aU, or at least intended to be aU in aU while we peruse it. The amatory passages are prolonged, and the erotic psychology is intense, minutely described, and is capable of endless ramifications. But the grand simplicity of plan redeems aU. Moreover, we learn more of Mexican 78 Mexico of the Mexicans life in such a work than from the absurd pseudo-Parisian novels which metamorphose Mexicans into Frenchmen with all the vices of the Gaul and none of his virtues. Says Victoriano Albarez regarding this novel: " Suprema Ley sur prised me agreeably, came as a revelation — of admirable truthfulness, vivid, passionate, fuU of weU-founded realism of the kind which wiU not keep a book on the shelf of the bookseUer, but places it upon the table of the reader and in the memory of the lover of the beautiful. . . There is not a needless character nor a useless incident, nor one page which does not contribute to the completion of the action and which has not a direct relation to the plot. . . . Gamboa ... is, before all and beyond aU, an analyst, a dissector of souls who sees to the bottom of hearts. . . Lamartine and Daudet might weU have drawn the picture if Lamartine and Daudet had dedicated themselves to painting Mexican types of the humbler class. There is no doubt that the world of Gamboa is, as that of Carlyle, a heap of fetid filth, shadowed by a leaden sky, where only groans and cries of despair are heard; but, as in the terrible imagination of the British thinker, flashes of kindliness, bringing counsel and resignation, cleave the sky of this Gehenna." Another Mexican realist was Rafael Delgado, whose novels La Calandria, Angelina, and Los Parientes Ricos (Rich Rela tions), deal with the lower classes of Mexico. D^teado Daudet and the brothers Goncourt set their seal upon him, but he was no mere imitator. Describing his methods of work, he says: " Plot does not enter much into my plan. It is true that it gives interest to a novel, but it usuaUy distracts the mind from the truth. For me, the novel is history, and thus does not invariably possess the machinery and arrangement of the spectacular drama. In my judgment, it ought to be the artistic copy of the truth — hke history, a fine art. I have desired that Los Parientes Ricos should be something of that sort — an exact page from Mexican life." Literature and the Press 79 But his chief d'ceuvre is, perhaps, Calandria. In the beginning we find Guadalope, a woman of iU-repute, on her death-bed. Carmen, nicknamed " the Calandria " because of her singing, is her iUegitimate daughter by Don Eduardo, and is left destitute. Don Eduardo undertakes to support her in the house in which her mother died, and she is looked after by an old woman, Dona Pancha, who had been kind to her mother. Pancha's son, Gabriel, a young cabinet-maker of good character, falls in love with Carmen, and she with him. But a loose woman, Magdalena, exercises a bad influ ence upon the young singer, and brings her into touch with a vicious young aristocrat named Rosas. Gabriel is annoyed, and a breach is opened between the lovers, and finaUy Gabriel casts off La Calandria, who, in despair, faUs into the arms of Rosas, who seduces her under promise of marriage and, later, abandons her. From that time she rapidly sinks into a life of infamy, and eventually commits suicide. Delgado has also written much lyric poetry, essays, and dramas in prose and verse, and has translated Octave FeuiUet's A Case of Conscience. Mexican verse writers are legion, but it cannot truthfuUy be said that any of them has reached distinction. They prefer to sing, as Agueros truthfuUy remarked, Mexican 0f tnejr " disenchantments " rather than of hfe, of which their verses have no savour. The poetry that does not mirror life and its reahties is scarcely likely to survive, and the Mexican verse writers would do weU to foUow the lead of Gamboa and Delgado and regard things as they are — not as they seem. CHAPTER VI ART, MUSIC, AND THE DRAMA It would have been strange if Mexico had not plunged with some ardour into the pursuit of the fine arts, considering that in the veins of her people Indian blood is commingled with Spanish. The Nahua and Maya of old were among the world's greatest masters of sculpture, possibly greater masters in that field than ever were the Spaniards themselves. Irre spective of this priceless legacy, there exist in Mexico to-day abundant elements likely to favour artistic creation, elements tending to keep alive the flame which was ht so early as the days of Cortes, who, himself showing a deep interest in Aztec art, urged his pious countrymen to send or bring fine devo tional pictures and statues to New Spain, telling them repeatedly that this act was a veritable duty. They responded munificently to this appeal, with the consequence that Mexican churches, and rehgious edifices in general, are still singularly rich in grand old Spanish works; while the incitement which these objects awaken is assisted by the presence, throughout the land, of a wealth of good pictures by native Mexican artists, of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. No country has a more romantic and thrilling history to look back upon than Mexico; and the stirring affairs enacted there in the past, the deeds of the conquerors, are even now proving a mine of inspiration to Mexican painters. The efforts which Porfirio Diaz made to suppress bull fighting tended rather to quicken than quench the Mexican devotion to that sport, which erstwhile evoked from Goya, in Madrid, some of his most typical works: and, apart from the superb display of glittering colour and seething action which the bull-ring presents, there are countless picturesque sights to be seen from day to day in Mexico, more so than 80 Art, Music, and the Drama 81 in most countries at the present time, Spain herself not excepted. The elderly women of the peasant class, for example, have not yet renounced the use of their tasteful headgear: a big white bonnet, rather like a nun's, which usuaUy forms a beautiful contrast with the wearer's some what swarthy face; while be he peon or not, the vaquero still rides abroad with aU his old brave display, his sombrero, his vast jingling spurs, his elaborately tinseUed clothing. How grand, too, is Mexican scenery ! The perpetually snow capped mountains around Cuernavaca rival Fuji-no-Yama, the faUs of Juanacatlan easily surpass Niagara, the InfernieUo Canon transcends the Yosemite Valley, the Great Plateau has aU the wizardry of the Sahara, while the tropical parts of the land abound in magnificently glowing colours. But granting these things, says someone — allowing that Mexico embodies such a plentitude of intrinsic incentive to art — what has the country done officially Encouragement to a*d tn*s aullost unique incentive ? What help and encouragement are afforded by the State to the painter or sculptor ? What opportunities are vouchsafed him from year to year of exhibiting his handiwork ? These are interesting and important questions, and it is, therefore, imperative that they should be handled cautiously, in justice to the Mexican Government. It is only very seldom that an official and greatly influential position is held by a man of genuine aesthetic taste, and Mexico has not reaUy been more fortunate in this relation than most other countries, although both Hidalgo and Maximilian appear to have had a personal affection for the arts. Nevertheless, there is ahve, and in effective action in Mexico city, what is styled variously El Museo Nacional de Pintura y Escultura, La Escuela Nacional de BeUes Artes, and the Academia Nacional de San Carlos — which, as the two latter names indicate, coincide in aim with the Royal Academy in Eng land — striving to set up a definite criterion in art, and offering instruction and guidance to young artists. The 82 Mexico of the Mexicans last-named establishment may weU be caUed a very old one, the fact being that it evolved by degrees from a school of en graving, founded in 1778 by Charles IV of Spain, while its first director was a noted Mexican expert of the burin, Geronimo Antonio Gil. In 1783 the king made a handsome pecuniary present to this school, almost simultaneously sending it a valuable gift of casts from the antique; and shortly after wards he sent overseas, to assume the directorship of affairs, one Rafael Jimeno, a painter, and an architect named Manuel Tolsa. Up tiU then the Academy's activities had been con ducted in a section of the old Mint, but in 1791 it moved into its present spacious quarters, a house previously the Hospital de Amor de Dios, and situate hard by the Palacio Nacional. Just as in aU other countries, in Mexico the Academy is fervently disliked by the majority of young artists who are in real earnest about their work, these con tending that, by its whole nature, the institution is the sworn foe to that individual note which is essential in vital paintings and sculpture, the enemy, too, of that development or evolu tion, as regards technique, so indispensable to art's welfare, if not to her hfe. But waiving this point, it can hardly be gainsaid that, considering the comparatively limited extent of the Mexican national treasury, in the matter of subsidies the country acts munificently towards its Academy, which is thus able to offer numerous scholarships to young men and women. The most valuable of these scholarships admit of their holders going abroad to study; and, quite recently, the incalculable advantages of working for a while in Italy have been granted by the Academy to three of its most promising pupils. Leandro Izaguirre, best known as a gifted copyist of old masters; Ramos Martinez, a successful painter of pastels and a notable colourist; and Alberto Fuster, who has since painted " Sappho " and " The Greek Artist," each of the three receiving a comfortable httle pension during his foreign sojourn. What European countries, it is worth pausing to ask, give money sufficient to convey their budding Art, Music, and the Drama 83 artists a distance equal to that from the Gulf of Mexico to the Adriatic ? In 1909 Mexico sent no fewer than three young painters to Madrid; one to Barcelona and one to Paris, to which city were sent, at the same time, a student of engraving, Emilliano Valadez, and a student of sculpture, Eduardo Solares. According to the constitution of La Escuela Nacional, the winners of its travelling scholarships are expected, during a period of four years after returning home, to give their services by preference to the Government; but such services are, of course, remunerated, they are not often caUed for, and the rule is not rigorously imposed. Like most bodies of kindred nature, and as one of its titles shows, the Mexican Academia Nacional is itself an art gaUery. Its principal rooms, however, are inadequately lit, so that proper justice is not done to the exhibits there, and this is much to be regretted, for the pictures include many fine old works, numerous good ones, too, by artists stiU living or deceased within the present decade. Salient among these contemporaneous paintings is Manuel Ocaranza's " Travesuras del Amor"1 (Love's WUes), a fine httle study of a cupid, seemingly occupied in the appropriate act of preparing a love philtre, the subject treated in a fashion which would have dehghted Francois Boucher himself. Ocaranza's notable gifts are further represented by a picture caUed " La Flor Marchita " (The Faded Flower), a curious contrast to which is formed by the many neighbouring works on Biblical themes, notably " Abraham e Isaac " by Salome Pina, " Dejad a los Ninos que Vengan a Mi " (Suffer little children to come unto Me) by Juan Urruchi, and " El Bueno Samaritano " by Juan Manchola. Events in the fives of the early Christian martyrs and saints also figure prominently in this gaUery, remarkable items in this field being Uarraran's " El Suefio del Martir Cristiano " (The Christian Martyr's Dream) and " La Carida en los Primeros Tiempos de la Iglesia " (Charity during the 1 A small, but tolerably good, reproduction of this painting appeared in the issue for November, 1913, of The International Studio. 84 Mexico of the Mexicans first years of the Church); while there are various works on classic topics; for instance, Luis Monroy's " Ultimos Momentos de Atala." Episodes from the history of Spain are hkewise set forth in divers canvases, chief among those artists evincing signal talent in the handhng of such matter being Pelegin Clave, a powerful colourist. But best of aU are the paintings of a class already referred to — those inspired by Mexico's own history. One of the finest of these is that in which Juan Ortega has depicted the visit of Cortes to Motecuhzoma; further good works in this same category being a pair by Fehx Parra: " Episodio de la Conquista " and " Fray Bartolome de las Casas, Protector de los Indios." One by Rodrigo Entierrez, " El Senado de Tlaxcala," must also be cited; while as fine as this, if not finer, is a famous picture by Jos6 Obregon, " La Reina Xochitl." The heroine and her father are here dehneated presenting a rich goblet to the Toltec prince, Tecpancaltzin; and the painter has in rather an adroit fashion signified the precise contents of this goblet, there being, at the extreme left of the canvas, a servant bearing a maguey plant, the plant from which Mexico's national drink of pulque is concocted. The doughty Indian is evidently somewhat surprised, and withal greatly delighted, by the imminent prospect of quenching his thirst; while it is clear that his first taste of pulque is not to be his last one, for in the background are more servants, carrying large pitchers, the wherewithal for a carousal. The whole picture reflects sound archaeological knowledge on the part of the artist; and this complete correctness of his details, from an antiquarian point of view, certainly adds materially to the interest of Obregon's masterpiece. This brief account of the modern pictures in the Academia de San Carlos wiU serve to give readers an idea as to who are the better known, if not really the most talented, of Mexico's painters to-day, at least so far as the realm of genre is con cerned. More wiU be said, at a later stage, about contem porary Mexican painters; and it is worth pausing to note, Art, Music, and the Drama 85 meanwhile, that the old works possessed by the Academy include fine examples of Zurbaran, MuriUo, Titian, and Rubens; while it should be added, in passing, that another important coUection of old works, in Mexico city, is con tained in the Museo Nacional de Argueologia, Historia y Etnologia, which forms part of the Palacio Nacional, and faces the CaUe de la Moneva. In this gaUery, moreover, as also in the Palacio Municipal and the Bibhoteca Nacional, visitors are afforded a good opportunity of appraising the modern Mexican school's prowess in portraiture; for there is domiciled, in each of the three said buildings, a large gathering of portraits of recent notables. Perhaps the Mexican portrait painter of to-day, who influences one most favourably, is Juan TeUas Toledo, a man who has won fame outside the border of his own country; while among his imme diate predecessors, the best is probably Tiburcio Sanchez. It must be pointed out, however, that the Museo Nacional's two portraits of Maximilian, and one of the Empress Carlota, are not actuaUy Mexican works; and the common inference that they belong to that category must be laid to the charge of numerous popular writers on Mexico, who, reproducing these paintings in books or magazines, have failed to state the artists' names. Pottery is a branch of art for which the Mexicans have long shown a special aptitude — thus carrying on finely a grand Aztec tradition — and to this day, in Pottery. a great many of their towns, there is made some given type of faience, quite peculiar to the particular place where it is created. Zacatecas, for example, is renowned for its lustred ware; Guanajuato for dark green ware highly glazed, and rather similar to the latter are those emanating from Oaxaca; while, on the other hand, a light grey is the favourite colour with the potters at Zacepu, and those working at Cuanhitlan evince a fondness for black. Another important centre of the art is Aguasca- hentes, and a stiU more famous one is Patzucars, the potters 86 Mexico of the Mexicans there mainly producing jars and bowls of an iridescent nature, in appearance somewhat akin to much of the faience of old Persia, which they also resemble in being sadly fragile, alas ! Nor must Puebla be forgotten, this town's artists in pottery having enjoyed a high reputation, throughout many cen turies, for majolica, having a briUiance of colour hke that associated with the Post-Impressionist painters. As fine as this ware are the Puebla tiles, also, in general, of ghttering hue, and stiU used frequently in the decoration of churches in Latin-America. Nevertheless, the potters whom the Mexicans themselves regard as their cleverest are those of Guadalajara, who often ornament their handiwork with gold or silver, affixed after the piece is fired, the men of this school having likewise a taste for pictorial decorations. No account of Mexican pottery would be complete without what are known there as Af arenas: places where the Indians make earthenware for their own use, probably employing exactly the methods of their ancestors in Aztec days. A splendid artistry, a rare technical skiU, are displayed in many of these primitive workshops; and even when looking at such of their creations as are intended merely for cooking utensils, seldom or never does the temptation arise to say with the poet — What ! did the hand, then, of the potter shake ? In the past, in many lands, pottery and sculpture were closely affiliated; and, as wiU be shown later, Mexico is one of these places where this affiliation is still Architecture, in evidence. Moreover, the bulk of her faience is made anonymously; and the gentle art of self-effacement, singularly foreign as a rule to people of any aesthetic predilections, is also practised con siderably among Mexican architects. In this matter they form a curious contrast to those of the United States, where egotism is so rife that, to a great many buildings, there are affixed prominently metal plates, bearing the designers' names. But, while this reticence on the part of the Mexican Art, Music, and the Drama 87 school may be a thing to be admired, it naturaUy makes very difficult the giving of an exact and adequate account of that school's activities. Few countries in Europe, and assuredly none in America, are richer in fine old edifices than Mexico, and they are of various types, the penitentiary of Puebla, for example, recalling some French chateaux, or Scottish castles of the Middle Ages, when building in both France and Scotland was largely carried on by Flemings. Needless to say, architecture of an inherently Spanish character is para mount in Mexico, not merely because of her inheritance, but because, in her early years, many of her great ecclesiastical structures were wrought from designs sent from Spain. Thus the veredos in the chapel of Los Reyes, in Puebla Cathedral, was designed by Juan Martinez Montanes, whose portrait, as the reader may recaU, was painted by Velasquez. Before the seventeenth century was over, however, there were busy in Mexico many talented architects of native birth, among the best being Fray Diego de Valverde, who built the Palacio Nacional in Mexico city. And these early masters, far from betraying any inchnation to depart from the architectural traditions of Spain, manifested in abundance their mother land's fondness for the quaint and the rococo, likewise giving their structures that bizarre glitter which is a striking charac teristic of many Iberian churches, thanks to the Spaniard's large strain of Moorish blood. Nor have the Mexican archi tects of yesterday and of the present time disclosed any marked desire to forsake this course, hitherto accepted by those practising the builder's art throughout their country. To quote from an article in that highly interesting, but now defunct, American periodical, Modern Mexico : " Archi tecture, in Cuernavaca to-day, differs so httle from that of centuries ago, that it is almost impossible to teU a new building from the oldest . . . "; and these words are hardly more applicable to Cuernavaca than to large sections, at least, of many other towns and viUages — Puebla, Guadalajara, Oaxaca, Colima. It is true, that in the entrance to the spacious 88 Mexico of the Mexicans public hall in the last-named town, there has been erected, of late, a rather severe arch which recaUs that at the foot of Fifth Avenue, New York, likewise reminding the beholder of the pseudo-classic Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile at Paris. But this arch is an anomaly in Colima, where, all along one side of the plaza, there is an arcade which is redolent of mediaeval Spain, portales being the name which the Mexicans themselves give to the picturesque archways supporting structures of this description. Scarcely more salient at Colima than at Oaxaca and Cholula, these portales form the very key-note, so to speak, in the majority of Mexican cities, the thing chiefly impressing itself on the visitor's memory, so far as the visible is concerned; while another thing which he or she is bound to remember is the bright colour garnishing the facades of countless houses. To turn from domestic to ecclesiastical architecture, a remarkable iUustration of this order is to be seen at Puebla, in the beautiful Cepillo del Rosario;1 for the interior of this church was completely redecorated so recently as the end of the nineteenth century, the additions withal being whoUy in keeping with the venerable edifice containing them. And a great deal of equaUy tasteful rehabilitation of churches has been done, during the last few years, at Vera Cruz; whUe a church built as lately as 1908, in the CaUe de Orizaba, har monises most perfectly with all the old edifices in the imme diate vicinity, the design in this instance having come from Cessare Novi, one of the best known and cleverest of con temporary Mexican architects. Again, the rare httle CapeUo de San Antonio, in the environs of Mexico city, a church which formed the subject of one of Miss Florence Wester's many engaging contributions to Modern Mexico, dates only from late in last century, yet looks almost as if it had been erected in the days of Cortes; whUe, although that 1 Some excellent photographs of this church, showing the modern additions, will be found in a book by Antonio Cortes, La Arquitectura en Mexico, published by the Museo Nacional, Mexico City, 1914. Art, Music, and the Drama 89 arch-enemy of the architectural art — the speculative builder, whose one idea, when at work, is to be economical with time and with materials — has been aUowed to ravage much of the business part of Mexico city, even there some imposing buildings have been raised of late, among them the National Bank and several offices in the CaUe Cinco de Mayo, the Mexican WaU Street. These last, however, cannot be acclaimed as being among those perpetuating the bygone Spanish styles; but another structure, most certainly to be included in that honoured category, is a small church which, in 1909, the British residents of Mexico city caused to be built there for their own use, the site being in the British Cemetery. Her large quota of artistic buildings notwithstanding, Mexico shows httle bias towards decorating facades with sculpture; and such works in this art as she Sculpture. has produced in the last few decades, such as she is producing just now, are nearly all of the independent kind. As already observed, she is one of those countries where pottery and sculpture are still affiliated; and this holds good, in particular, of the potters working at San Pedro Tlaqueplaque, situate on a high hill near Guadalajara. For these men are not more preoccupied with making vases, and the hke, than with modelling figures and groups, the subjects being invariably chosen from the life of Mexico to-day; indeed, there is hardly anything in that life which these artists do not represent on occasion, nearly all their work, moreover, being done in a finely downright fashion. This viUage of San Pedro is likewise the home of two briUiant Indian sculptors, Panduro pere and fils, working exclusively with clay, and living almost in the manner of their remote forefathers, their studio being a primitive hut. Either the father or the son wiU do, in a matter of half an hour, and for a few dollars, a wonderfuUy lifelike portrait- bust, so that the services of the Panduros are much courted, alike by their own neighbours and by tourists. Indeed, their 7— (2393) 90 Mexico of the Mexicans clienUle has embodied numerous distinguished men, and they are very proud of telling that Porfirio Diaz himself sat to them repeatedly; while they invariably add, when relating this, that their likenesses of the President are far ahead of those by any other artists, whether painters or sculptors, who have received the questionable benefits of scholastic training. Apropos of such people, it was maintained in a recent article, in the New York Herald,1 that they engage sadly little official patronage in Mexico. But this statement does not bear scrutiny, because, ever since Mexico city unveiled, in 1803, at a prominent spot in the Plaza de la Reforma, the vast bronze equestrian statue by Manuel Tulsa of Charles IV of Spain, a marked affection for sculptural monuments has been evinced by Mexican municipalities, these having frequently shown fairly good taste. It is true that that self-effacement, mentioned as being practised largely by architects throughout Mexico, has long been rather com mon also among sculptors active there. And no one at Cuernavaca, for example, appears to remember what hand is responsible for the memorial, erected there in 1891, to the soldier, Carlos Pacheco; no one in Vera Cruz seems to know who wrought, in 1892, the town's statue of the politician, Manuel Gutierrez Zamora; nor is. information to be had even concerning the big piece of statuary, set up at Chapultepec in 1881, celebrating the romantic little Thermopylae enacted there during Mexico's first war with the United States. It is possible, then, that some of these striking works are not by native artists; while it must be owned that the fine Christopher Columbus, placed in 1877 in the first glorieta of the Paseo, Mexico city, must be credited, hke the splendid Maximilian portrait in the Museo Nacional, to the French school, the sculptor having been Charles Cordier. Nevertheless, all this does not in the least vitiate the contention that Mexico is 1 This article appeared in 28th June, 1914. Notwithstanding the error referred to above, it is an interesting and valuable contribution to the history of modern Mexican art, and should certainly be consulted by the student of that subject. Art, Music, and the Drama 91 singularly rich just now in gifted artists in statuary, among the best being the brothers Yslas, usuaUy working in col laboration, whose finest and most famous work, completed in 1880, is their large monument to the patriot, Benito Pablo Juarez, author of Los Reyes de la Reforma. This imposing memorial is contained in the Pant eon de San Fernando, Mexico city; another very noteworthy piece of sculpture in the capital being the Monumento a la Independencia Nacional, which was unveiled in 1910, and to the making of which various different artists contributed, the chief being Enrique Alciati, a professor in the Academia Nacional de San Carlos. Two further sculptural monuments of great note, in Mexico city, are one commemorating the Portuguese cosmographer, Enrico Martinez, and that more famous one to the memory of the last prince of the Aztecs, Guatemotzin; the latter work finished in 1887, the former in 1881. It is in the Jardin del Seminario, and was modelled by Miguel No vena; while as regards the other work, standing in the second glorieta of the Paseo de la Reforma, here once again there were several different artists employed. The general idea apparently came from Francisco Jiminez, but parts of his design seem to have been carried out, not by himself, but by Novefia, who was sole sculptor, furthermore, of certain tablets let into the base, depicting episodes in the Conquest of Mexico; while some neighbouring tablets, of a votive order, are by Gabriel Guerra, one of those comparatively few Mexican masters who are weU known in the United States. Sculpture is also well represented by Senores Bringas, Toledo, Goitia, and Rosas. The almost constant friction between the United States and Mexico has necessarily tended to inhibit, rather, a just recognition of Mexican artists in the former country, which reaUy has a far greater love of the fine arts, withal, than most Europeans seem willing to realise. At the great Panama Pacific International Exhibition, held at San Francisco in 1915, the superb collection of painting and sculpture 92 Mexico of the Mexicans represented artists of Cuba, Uruguay, and the Argentine, the Philippine Islands, and even Finland, yet none of the Mexican school, this absence being the more noticeable considering that, hard by the Tower of Jewels, there stood equestrian statues of Pizarro and Cortes. But there is a department of old Mexican paintings now in the Pennsylvania Museum, Philadelphia, to which institution they were presented by Robert N. Lamborn, author of Mexican Painting and Painters (New York, 1891), a very valuable book; and although, when the World's Columbian Exposition was being organised at Chicago, Mexican artists did not apply for a section until even at the eleventh hour, their request was gladly granted. The amount of space aUotted to them was somewhat inadequate, inevitably smaUer than it would have been had the application been made timeously. Nevertheless, this Chicago gathering, in 1893, was a memorable one; and it was when showing here that Guerra won his American reputa tion as already stated, the work from his hand which chiefly elicited homage being a bronze group, entitled " A Mockery of Cupid." Other beautiful pictures by him on view on this occasion were studies of Christ and the Virgin Mary, together with busts of Carlos Pacheco and Porfirio Diaz; while a good bust of the latter was also shown by Jesus Contreras, this artist's fine gifts being hkewise iUustrated by a head caUed " The Past." Some exceUent sculpture was exhibited, too, by Jos6 Maria Centurion, in particular his " Francisco Morales "; and sundry medallions by Antonio Galvanez must not pass unnoticed; nor must those of Luis Cisfieros, his exhibit including one of Christopher Columbus. One more sculptural work, which must certainly be cited with honour, is " Spring," carved in ivory by Felipe Pantoja; while among the best things in the smaU muster of etchings was the " Aztec Flower Girl " of Luis Campa. Bearing in mind the rarity of good devotional art nowadays, it was interesting to observe to what fine purpose Biblical topics had been handled by a number of the Mexican painters — Alberto Bribiesca, Gonzalo Art, Music, and the Drama 93 Carrasco, Pablo Valdes; while artists showing meritorious landscapes were Ygnacio Alcarreca, Cleofas Almanza, Luis Coto, Carlos Rivera, and Jose Velasco — those by the last- named being over twenty in number. Art inspired by Mexican history was weU to the fore also, able pictures in this category being those of Rodrigo Gutierrez and Leandro Yzaguirre; while " The Aztec Baptism " of Manuel Ramirez justly evoked much eulogistic comment, as too did Jose Jara's " Episode of the Founding of Mexico City," a big canvas, wherein are shown some fifteen Indians grouped in a finely eurythmic fashion. x But although, to repeat, this Chicago exhibition was a memorable one — doubly so, inasmuch as it enlightened many people, almost oblivious, previously, to the existence of a lively Mexican school of art — it would be quite unjust to maintain that these paintings in oils and water-colours, these prints, drawings, and pieces of sculpture, constituted a reaUy adequate symbol of contemporary Mexican artistic prowess. As George Ehot observes in one of her novels, it is by " hidden lives " that the great things in the world are achieved; and there is hteraUy no branch, perhaps, of aU human activities, concerning which the novelist's acute words hold good, more essentiaUy, than of artistic creation. Men living in very humble circumstances, strenuously busy for sheer love of their art, gaining no official laurels, their works and very names unknown save to a smaU band of shrewd people — it is from such that great work usuaUy comes: it is mainly works wrought thus which emerge with honour from the great sifting carried on by Time, arch-arbiter in all aesthetic matters. And no doubt there are many fine artists, working in this quiet fashion in Mexico to-day, responding year by year, to their country's almost unique incentive to art. Like aU Latin peoples, the Mexicans are exceptionaUy musical, and the Government long ago discovered that a 1 A print of this picture accompanies the article already mentioned in the New York Herald for 28th June, 1914. 94 Mexico of the Mexicans plentiful supply of music was essential to peaceful rule, pro bably on the assumption that he who was not supplied with " concord of sweet sounds " was " fit for Music. murders and conspiracies." The Indians are also intensely addicted to music, and possess their own types of folk-songs and their own military bands. The half-caste element of Mexico has been described as being as musical as the Hungarians, and there is httle doubt but that a Mexican Brahms would find as much and as superior material to his hand as his Hungarian prototype, were he suddenly to arise. The type of folk-song to be heard among the half-breed and the Indian classes is plaintive, melancholy, and beautiful, couched usually in a minor key, and very reminiscent of old Spain and its semi-Oriental music. The native bands are particularly melodious, their members receiving but little instruction. The son learns from his father the rudiments of the art, and the leader does the rest, the result being that in many of the thousand plazas of Mexico, exceUent music may be heard throughout the soft tropical evenings. Dance- music, with its weird and rhythmic movement, is most in favour, and is played in perfect time and tune: for the ear of the musician is remarkably correct, and his taste almost faultless. The national dance, resembling somewhat the Cuban habanera, has a slow, swaying movement, conforming to the strains of the orchestra; and the songs are somewhat of the same description, a striking feature being their melancholy tone. In fact, Mexican music is as individual in its character as the Hungarian czardas or the German Volkslieder. The best bands are undoubtedly those of pure Indian race. The delicacy and harmony of their perform ances, their masterly command of their instruments, the originality of the compositions they render, and their ability to capture the soul of the music are quite exceptional among untrained and even among professional musicians. The two fold gift of utterance and composition is theirs. These bands Art, Music, and the Drama 95 play twice or thrice a week in aU the large towns, even in the poorer quarters, and are a great source of pleasure to the citizens. The Indians and mestizos are also extremely fond of the guitar and the mandoline. Nowhere is such mandoline playing to be found as in Mexico, not even in Spain itself. It can be said that these stringed instruments are the national instruments. The performance of a Mexican guitar and mandoline band, its rhythmic harmony, its twittering beauty of tone and its richness of melody usuaUy comes as a surprise to the foreigner who expects httle of the poor Indian or despised half-breed. The same apphes to native singing. The climate of Mexico — clear, pure, and healthy — is just the air for song. The natives are often possessed of beautiful Native voices, and are as ready at improvisation Singing. ' * r as any Neapolitan. Opera in Mexico is usuaUy provided by touring companies. In Mexico city, opera is usuaUy performed in the National Theatre (completed in 1910), or the Teatro Renacimiento, in the CaUe de Puerta Falsa de San Andres, which is a hand some theatre, seating 1,900 people. The operatic companies which tour in Mexico are usually Italian,, but occasionaUy French opera boufje companies visit the Repubhc. The singers in these companies are not always of the best type, and are usuaUy often veterans in their art; but in this respect Mexico is in no way behind the British provinces, which have usually to put up with artistes of a third-rate character. The other theatres in Mexico besides these already aUuded to are the Teatro Principal, an old house, built in the middle of the eighteenth century, but which has been extensively altered. Its performances are usually suited to its audiences, which are by no means the cream of Mexican society. It is, however, a real Mexican theatre, and no attempt has been made to denationalise it. The Teatro Arbeu, in the CaUe San Felipe, has been established for about forty years, and 96 Mexico of the Mexicans is usually rented by theatrical companies from the United States. Most Mexican towns of any size have a playhouse of their own; but the theatre is decidedly not an institution in pro vincial Mexico. Some of the provincial houses, as at Guada lajara and Guanajuato, are constructed on the most elaborate modern lines, but there is little patronage of these palatial buildings, as they are only open on the occasion of a visit of a large opera or dramatic company. In this way, many houses are closed for months together. The buU-ring has kiUed theatrical appreciation among the lower classes in Mexico, who prefer its more sanguinary excitements to the milder pleasures of the sock and buskin. As with our stock companies half a century ago, the Mexican theatrical performances are usuaUy divided into several acts or httle plays, each lasting an hour or so, caUed a tanda. The theatre-goer may purchase a ticket for one of these or for the entire performance. The people sit in the foyer hke those waiting their turn at a picture-house, and when the tanda is done they take the places of those who leave at its conclusion. There are usuaUy four or five tandas in an evening's " show." Prices are cheap — from the twopenny seats in the gaUery (where the darker castes sit) to the sixpence-per-tan rivalled in civilisation and culture the Aztecs Tarascans. themselves. They were celebrated for their exceUence in the jeweUer's art and in pottery. Their present- day representatives are smaU and agile in build and move ments, and usuaUy succeed, unlike some other native tribes, in growing respectable beards and moustaches. Their attire is by no means scanty, and they frequently wear Mexican clothing. Their women are clever at the loom, and produce exceUent blankets and zarapes, both cotton and wooUen. The scenery of their country is pastoral and, for the most part, they have it all to themselves, or it is in the hands of Aboriginal and Savage Mexico 165 half-castes, but seldom in those of the pure Mexicanos, of whom they are suspicious, not without good reason. They are conservative to a degree, and isolation has rendered them illiberal and somewhat fanatical, so that the Mexican Government has always regarded them with some distrust. The dwellings of the Tarascan Indians recaU those of the Japanese peasant. They are built of heavy pine logs and roofed by shingle-covered boards which overlap one another. They consist of one room and are built without windows. The chief industry of the country is the textUe work before alluded to. Such agriculture as exists is on a feeble scale, and consists for the most part of individual efforts to raise corn and beans for private consumption. As in some other native quarters of Mexico, the women are the salvation of the community, and were it not for their bravery and unselfishness it would go hard with the men, many of whom are quite content to aUow their wives to labour day in, day out, for them whUst they loaf and liquor. May the writer suggest to the charitable that a better sphere for their bounty and usefulness could not be found than in the amelioration of the lot of these poor native women of Mexico, many of whom possess not even the common liberties of humanity, but are forced to exist in an environment compared to which a weU-nourished slavery would be a paradise. The Tarascans are, however, gifted with a keen com mercial sense, and peddle their wares over an extensive tract of country, their stocks comprising pottery, home-made musical instruments (they are musical to a degree), blankets, maguey rope, and so forth. They make the entire journey on foot and return with necessaries purchased in the towns they have visited, these articles being, of course, of such a kind as cannot be procured in their own viUages. They can make a profit of 300 per cent, on their pottery alone, and on their return usuaUy succeed on doubling their gains by the sale of the articles they have brought back. Their turnover 166 Mexico of the Mexicans is entirely limited to their carrying capacity, which is, indeed, considerable. The Tarascan women are cleanly and tidy, but the men wash only once a year, and are generaUy unkempt and shaggy. Their principal food is corn and cooked herbs, and they infuse a kind of tea from the leaf of a bush caUed murite, which aids digestion and acts as a nerve-tonic. The people are blessed with wonderful health for the most part, but the chmate induces pulmonary complaints, and jaundice is pre valent. They are very superstitious regarding iUness, and frequently placate its various manifestations by soothing language and the burning of incense, addressing it as " Father." But should it prove fatal, they abuse it fouUy, and beat the air of their houses in order to expel it. This practice is, of course, a remnant of old magico-religious practice. The Tarascans were, until recently, rather given to robbery and brigandage, but the bands of plunderers who infested their country have been wiped out. As a race, they are possessed of wild and ungovernable tempers, but are kind and hospitable among themselves. They are born orators, and many of the distinguished priests which Mexico has produced originated among this people. Some of the aboriginal tribes of Mexico stiU exist in a savage or semi-barbarous condition. The Coras, resident in the Pacific State of Tepic, are, many of them, pagans or semi- pagans, suspicious through isolation and difficult to under stand. They are a comparatively pure stock, and discounte nance intermarriage with Mexicans or even with other Indians. However, they dress like Mexicans, but there the resemblance ends. They are typically Indian in physiognomy, and their chief industry is making ornamental pouches of cotton and wool, which in pattern recaU the bead-work of the North American Indians. With them, provisions are plentiful, and life is easy and tranquil. Their houses are built of stone. Their religion takes the form of ritualistic dances, the worship of the morning star, and frequent fasts, Aboriginal and Savage Mexico 167 The Huichol Indians, the immediate neighbours of the Cora, are extremely primitive people. Their clothing is, indeed, their most elaborate mark of civilisa- Huichols t^on' aRd is lavishly decorated with embroidery. The men wear a shirt which has invariably a smaU pouch in front of it, which gives the dress somewhat the appearance of a kUt and sporran, and both sexes wear heavy necklaces of beads. These people are pagans, and in their methods of worship the remains of the old aboriginal faith can be traced. They keep their idols in sacred caves in the mountains. Nearly one-fourth of the male population are shamans or witch-doctors, and from this circumstance they take their name of Vishalika, corrupted by the Mexicans into Huicholes (pronounced " Veetcholes "), and which means " doctors " or " healers." They are raciaUy related to the Aztecs, whom they resemble physicaUy, but they have never adopted civilisation; and such churches as have been built within their territory are now in ruins. The country they inhabit is mountainous and difficult of access. They are clever and inteUigent, but cunning and of thievish propensity, and notorious pervertors of the truth. They are, however, kind-hearted and hospit able, if inordinately proud of their nationality. They are by no means courageous, and their morals are rather loose. The Huichols have a remarkable talent for music, and are deeply and sincerely rehgious in their own way. Their houses are circular for the most part (an early type of dwelling), built roughly of stone and covered with thatched roofs. They never consist of more than a single apartment. Expert hunters, the Huichols snare wild animals by means of traps of cunning construction, and sometimes pursue the " chase " in large companies, these hunts having a rehgious significance. Excitable to a degree, these people grow almost hysterical under stress of anger or emotion, especiaUy if under the influence of the native brandy. The Tarahumare Indians of the Northern State of 168 Mexico of the Mexicans Chihuahua either dweU in caves or in stone houses with thatched roofs. They seem to prefer the former kind of dweUing which they regard as sheltered, _ J116 safe, and substantial. In the larger caverns, they build smaU stone storehouses for the reception of grain and other foods, and occasionaUy construct mud waUs to partition off the cave into rooms. Domestic animals are frequently housed in wooden enclosures within the cave-shelter. The Indians are not gregarious, each family preferring to five by itself; and this fact seems to differentiate them from the ancient chff-dweUers of that territory, who appear to have lived together in bands. These Indians suffer much from lack of provisions, and are usuaUy poorly nourished. They grow a certain amount of corn, but their agricultural activities are rude and per functory, and are carried out upon a very small scale and on communal lines. The people are of medium height and are among the more muscular of the Indian tribes. They are beardless, and regard hirsute adornments on the face as unbecoming. Corpulence is uncommon among the men, but the women are more inchned to it. They are duU in appearance, but this is merely a superficial aspect, and in reahty they are intelligent and fairly acute. Their carrying capacity is wonderful, and some of them travel for miles, bearing enormous burdens. The Otomi, a hardy race, inhabit that part of the country immediately to the North of the VaUey of Anahuac. They speak a monosyUabic language, which, Otomi solely because of its structure, has been likened to Chinese ! Most of them are now agricultural labourers. The Zapotecs and Mixtecs of Oaxaca are comparatively civilised people — indeed, they have made greater progress in the arts of civilisation than any other of the native races, thanks, probably, to their own ancient culture. They furnish Mexico with numerous clerks and schoolmasters, and are Aboriginal and Savage Mexico 169 in demand wherever patriotic and intelligent work is required. Since the downfaU and dismemberment of the State of Central America in 1841, Yucatan has been incorporated with the Mexican Republic, but the compa- Yucatees ratively enlightened administration enjoyed by the Mexican people has by no means passed to the whoUy ahen races which have come under their rule. This was due not so much to the maladministration of the Central Government as to the absolutely feudal nature of the local regime of Yucatan, a pohcy which has arisen out of the physical peculiarities of the country and chmate. The general conditions of hfe in Yucatan are extremely healthy, although the atmosphere is somewhat humid in consequence of the rains which are prevalent nearly nine months in the year, but neither heat nor rain renders the chmate at aU sickly. The peninsula of Yucatan — which juts out in much the same manner as the " heel " of Italy runs out from the mainland — is a vast plain, the soil of which is extremely dry owing to the absence of rivers. From Cape Catoche to Campeachy there is not a single stream of fresh water, and the interior is equaUy destitute of rivers, aU of which he far to the South. To ensure a sufficient supply of water, artificial means have to be resorted to, and vast irrigation works are a conspicuous feature of every hacienda and plantation. To store as much water as possible during the rainy season is one of the great problems of hfe to the owners of haciendas in Yucatan; and for this purpose each of these estabhshments possesses enormous tanks and reser voirs constructed and maintained at great expense, to supply water for six months to aU who are engaged in labour on the estate. As may weU be imagined, such a condition of affairs gives the owners of these haciendas a substantial hold upon the services of the Indians. The native of Yucatan is usuaUy of a thriftless and improvident disposition, and were it not for the foresight of his employer would assuredly perish for 12— {2393) 170 Mexico of the Mexicans want of water. In fact, the greatest part of his remunera tion consists of water — a circumstance which makes it a monopoly in the hands of the employers of labour, and reduces the Indians to the condition of serfs. The owners of haciendas have taken full opportunity of the conditions of the country, and their estates are usuaUy managed upon a system closely approximating to that of feudalism. The Indian is at liberty to leave the haciendas of his master should he so desire, but he is certain, should he do so, to perish of thirst. Revolts of the Maya Indians have, indeed, given the white population of Yucatan good cause to dread the immoderate violence of these usuaUy placid but revengeful and crafty people. Under Spanish dominion, the excesses of the Indians were so much feared, that for nearly a genera tion the entire, peninsula was abandoned by the white popula tion to them. The terrible nature of the Indian reprisals has never been paralleled even in the annals of the Indian Mutiny. They swept through the land sacrificing chUdren on the altars of the churches and at the foot of the crosses, tearing out their hearts, and besmearing with blood the images of the saints, the statues of which they replaced with those of their own idols, and perpetrated other nameless horrors impossible of description. The Maya Indians who inhabit Yucatan are of a race totally distinct from the Nahua or Indian peoples of Mexico, and are the direct descendants of these civilised races who built the wonderful ruined cities of Chichen-Itza and Uxmal, the marveUous carved hiero glyphs of which stiU baffle the attempts of scientists to inter pret them. Although nominally Roman Catholics and under the guidance of Catholic priests, they certainly still cling to their ancient superstitions, or the degraded portions of them which stiU survive, and secret cults are in vogue among them. In general, of a mild and retiring disposition, they are stiU naturally cruel and vindictive, and their secretiveness makes it difficult for a European to gauge their immediate attitude towards the white population of the Aboriginal and Savage Mexico 171 country. At the same time, they have been abominably sweated in many instances, and their treatment by their Spanish masters in the hennequen plantations has frequently aroused the indignation of the civilised world. Perhaps it may not be out of place here briefly to describe the superstitions and occult behefs of the Mexican Indians, a subject upon which practicaUy nothing Superstitions, has been written, and which possesses a fascinating interest aU its own. But httle regarding the occult is to be gleaned from native sources, and the behef that the ancient Mexican and Maya hiero glyphic paintings possess any magical meaning may here be disposed of once and for ever. These are mostly calendric in their significance, and their only connection with occultism is that they may have been employed for astrological pur poses. Of occult secrets they hold none, and for the records of sorcery in the land of the Aztecs we have to faU back upon the writings of Spanish priests, who were naturaUy unfriendly to the science they discussed and to its practitioners. Therefore we have to search among anathemas for notices of the Black Art in Anahuac. An intensive examination of the subject points to resemblances and affinities between the occultism of the peoples of Mexico and the Red Man of North America. For it is necessary to remember that the Aztec and Chichimec inhabitants of the Mexican VaUey were closely related to the Indians of British Columbia and the Zuiii of New Mexico; and that, although they had fallen heirs to an ancient and complex civilisation, they received the rudiments of this when in a condition of savagery. The early settlers in New Spain, as Mexico was designated under Castihan rule, frequently aUude to the naucdli, or magician caste. The name is derived from a root na, which contains the germ of a group of words meaning " to know." These men were masters of mystic knowledge, practitioners in the Black Art, sorcerers or wizards. They were not 172 Mexico of the Mexicans invariably evilly disposed, but as a class they were feared and disliked. Our earhest information regarding them is to be found in the History of New Spain of Father Sahagun, which says of them — " The naualli, or magician, is he who frightens men and sucks the blood of children during the night. He is weU skiUed in the practice of this trade, he knows aU the arts of sorcery (nauallotl), and employs them with cunning and ability; but for the benefit of men only, not for their injury. Those who have to recourse to such arts for evfi intents injure the bodies of their victims, cause them to lose their reason, and smother them. These are wicked men and necromancers." Father Juan Bautista, in a work of instruction to confessors, printed at Mexico in the year 1600, says — " There are magicians who call themselves teciuhtlazque, and also by the term nanahualtin, who conjure the clouds when there is danger of hail, so that the crops may not be injured. They can also make a stick look hke a serpent, a mat like a centipede, a piece of stone hke a scorpion, and similar deceptions. Others of these nanahualtin wiU trans form themselves to all appearance (segun la aparencia) into a tiger, a dog, or a weasel. Others, again, wiU take the form of an owl, a cock, or a weasel; and, when one is preparing to seize them, they wiU appear now as a cock, now as an owl, and again as a weasel. These caU themselves nanahualtin." This passage recalls to us the contest between the magician and the princess in the Arabian Nights. Some of the leading questions which the clergy put to members of their flock whom they suspected of sorcery throw light upon the nature of the magical rites indulged. For example, Nicolas de Leon puts into the mouth of the priest such questions as the foUowing — " Art thou a soothsayer ? Dost thou foreteU events by reading signs, or by interpreting dreams, or by water, making circles and figures on its surface ? Dost thou sweep and ornament with flower garlands the place where idols are Aboriginal and Savage Mexico 173 preserved ? Dost thou know certain words with which to conjure for success in hunting, or to bring rain ? " Dost thou suck the blood of others, or dost thou wander about at night, calling upon the Demon to help thee ? Hast thou drunk peyotl, or hast thou given it to others to drink, in order to find out secrets, or to discover where stolen or lost articles were ? Dost thou know how to speak to vipers in such words that they obey thee ? " It is interesting to observe that, as under similar primitive social conditions elsewhere, the Mexican sorcerer is suspect of vampirism. The intoxicant peyotl which they are here said to employ is a species of the genus cocolia, having a white tuberous root, which is the part made use of. The Aztecs were said to have derived their knowledge of it from an older race which preceded them in the land and Sahagun states, that those who eat or drink of it see visions, some times horrible, sometimes merely ludicrous. The intoxica tion it causes lasts several days. In a list of beverages pro hibited by the Spanish in 1784, it is described as " made from a species of vinagriUa, about the size of a billiard bah." The natives were wont to masticate it, and then place it in a wooden mortar, where it was left to ferment, after which it was eaten. Another plant employed by the naualli for the purpose of inducing ecstatic vision was the ololiuhqui, the seeds of which were made use of externally. They were one of the elements in a mysterious unguent known as teopatli, or " the divine remedy," into the composition of which they entered along with the ashes of spiders, scorpions, and other noxious insects. This ointment was smeared over the body, and was beheved to constitute an efficient protection against evil agencies. Just as the witches of mediaeval Europe were in the habit of taking drugs to assist levitation, rubbing themselves with the ointment known as " witches' butter," preparatory to setting forth on the ride to the Sabbath, so did the sorcerers of ancient Mexico intoxicate themselves by the use of some 174 Mexico of the Mexicans potent drug, or apply unguents to their bodies when they desired to travel afield. Says Acosta — " Some of these sorcerers take any shape they choose, and fly through the air with wonderful rapidity and for long dis tances. They will tell what is taking place in remote locahties long before the news could possibly arrive. The Spaniards have known them to report mutinies, battles, revolts, and deaths, occurring two hundred or three hundred leagues distant, on the very day they took place, or the day after. " To practise this art, the sorcerers, usuaUy old women, shut themselves in a house, and intoxicate themselves to the degree of losing their reason. The next day they are ready to reply to questions." But all the terrors of Spanish ecclesiasticism could not put an end to the practice of magic among the Mexicans. The minor feats of sorcery flourished in every Mexican town and village. Sahagun teUs us how a class of professional con jurers existed who could roast maize on a cloth without fire; produce a spring or weU fiUed with fishes from nowhere; and after setting fire to and burning huts, restore them to their original condition. The conjurer, asserts the chronicler, might on occasion dismember himself and then achieve the miracle of self-resurrection ! Perhaps a higher caste of the naualli were the naualteteuctin, or " master magicians," who were also known as teotlauice, or " sacred companions in arms." Entrance to this very select order might only be attained after severe and prolonged tests of initiation. The head and patron of the society was the god Quetzalcoatl, or " Feathered Serpent," a deity of that mysterious eldei race, the Toltecs, who had been forced from the soil of Mexico by the inroads of the less cultured Aztecs and allied tribes. Divination and the kindred arts were professed by the tonal- pouhque, or diviners, whose principal instrument was the tonalamatl, the " book of days," or calendar. When a child was born, one of these priest -seers was caUed in and requested Aboriginal and Savage Mexico 175 to cast its horoscope. But, as a general rule, no enterprise of any kind was engaged in without taking the advice of this brotherhood. The awful barbarities practised upon the wretched Yaqui and Yucatec Indians by the fiendish tools of the Diaz regime are fuUy dealt with in the chapter on " The Barbarities Revolution," in which they were, perhaps, one of the prime causes, and in connection with which they naturaUy faU to be treated. CHAPTER XIII THE REVOLUTION At the end of our historical sketch we stated that even when aU looked fair for Mexico on the great day of her centenary as a Repubhc, the dark clouds of revolution were gathering above her. Diaz, who had ruled Mexico for a generation, had been elected to the Presidency in April, 1910, for the eighth consecutive time. But when Senor Francisco Madero placed himself at the head of the revolutionary movement which began in November, 1910, it was at once apparent that the Government had lost the confidence of the people. A change of Cabinet brought no accession of popular trust. Europe and America were amazed. For what reason had Mexico turned upon Diaz, its saviour, its popular idol, the man who had " made " it ? Since the enforced resignation of Diaz, evidence has accumulated that his regime was in large measure responsible for the unhappy conditions now prevaihng. Here we have a system of government outwardly peaceable, prosperous, winning the approval and support of foreign powers, and notably of the United States; inwardly pursuing a pohcy of repression and cruelty worthy of mediaeval serfdom at its worst. At the head of this Government, President Porfirio Diaz presents a curious study. Hailed — by outsiders — as a peace maker, a wise and diplomatic ruler governing a refractory people with firmness and tolerance, he set himself with dehberate intent to crush every spark of patriotic feehng in the country, to bend the neck of the peasantry to his yoke, and finaUy to seU the nation into slavery. The " peace maker " throughout his long years of office was waging a deadly war — a war of bitter oppression against his own 176 The Revolution 177 people. The wise ruler was prudent only for the furtherance of his own interests and those of his paymasters, the rich American capitalists. The democracy which, under his pre decessor Benito Juarez, had bidden fair to come into its own, was crushed back into slavery, and progress in every branch of civilisation delayed in consequence. SmaU wonder, then, that the people, reluctant when he first assumed authority over them, found his rule ever more irksome, and hated their yoke of oppression with a hatred ever more sincere and justifiable ! After the death of Juarez, Diaz succeeded in establishing himself in the capital. By an impudent manip ulation of the electoral machinery (opposition candidates were forcibly prevented from standing, and no contrary votes aUowed to be registered !) Diaz had himself elected President, and so entered on a term of office which was to last for nearly forty years. This cool imposition of his authority was at first scarcely treated seriously; but Porfirio Diaz, with a foresight and determination worthy of a better ideal, set about strengthening his position where he judged it would best repay him to strengthen it. From the first, no attempt was made to placate the people of Mexico; but assiduously and to good purpose he cultivated the friendship of foreign powers, estabhshed a sound financial relationship with them, and encouraged foreign capitahsts to settle in the country. It is in connection with this latter part of his policy that some of the most disgraceful acts of the Diaz regime were perpetrated. In order to provide territory for the capitalists, the President and the Grupo Cientifico, or " grafters," over which he presided, resorted to unjust and barbarous methods of seizure. Thus for minor or even imaginary offences, large numbers of Mexicans were deported and their property con fiscated. Then, because they could not produce the title- deeds to their estates, hundreds of native farmers and land owners were forced to rehnquish properties which had been in the possession of their families for generations. If they 178 Mexico of the Mexicans offered resistance, as they occasionaUy did, they were slaughtered wholesale by the soldiery. A case in point is the Tomochic Massacre of 1892, where the death-roU was placed at between 1,000 and 2,000, many of the victims being defenceless women and children. And this is but one of many instances of " judicial " robbery being followed up by " judicial " murder. Even a tyrant may be excused in part if a sufficiently great motive be found for his tyranny. Diaz's motive may be reckoned in American doUars, American capitahstic support and patronage. The great capitahsts, who were always the power behind the Presidential chair, bought up the territories thus obligingly accorded them; plantations of rubber, sugar, and tobacco sprang up and yielded substantial profits. But labour was required to work these great plantations — cheap labour. And here Diaz deliberately planned the great crime of his career, for in order to provide the labour he literally sold his people into slavery. Not only the properties of the deported Indians were forfeited — the people themselves were " confiscated," and forced to become chattel slaves on some hennequen farm or Southern plantation. The system once started, became more and more embracive. Criminals, instead of being imprisoned, were handed over to the slave- traders to undergo far worse punishment. If the demand exceeded the supply, the jefe politico, or district governor, could always trump up a charge against some poor creature, whom it was not even necessary to bring to trial. Faihng that, it was a comparatively simple matter to kidnap a peon or a labourer. But the method chiefly adopted was that known as " contract labour," a thinly disguised system of slave-trading, to be described later. Since the whole pohtical and legal system of Mexico is involved, it may be questioned just how far President Diaz was responsible for the infamous dealings carried out under the cloak and cover of his Government. Doubtless much independent plundering and slave-trading went on among The Revolution 179 the governors of the several States and the jefes politicos ; yet it must be remembered that the Diaz regime was to all intents and purposes an autocracy purely. Governors and jefes politicos were invariably the creatures of the President, as were no less the military, rurales, and pohce. That he must bear a fuU share of the responsibility is, therefore, inevitable, and truly the responsibihty is not light. A nation crushed and demoralised, its natural progress retarded, count less individuals degraded to slavery, tortured and brutally iU-treated, and this carried into the twentieth century — surely no heavier charge can be laid against a ruler. And though from out this hotbed of misgovernment, Diaz turned a complacent face on the outside world, remaining through it aU the peacemaker, the kindly ruler who had taken in hand the governing of an ungrateful people, as his clever propagandists took care to make out, yet from the Mexicans, suffering under his yoke, the mask could scarcely serve to conceal his real character. Having once alienated the sympathies of the population, he had no choice but to govern by military and repressive methods. As an autocrat, he must use the great weapon of autocracy — force. To this end, a strong and efficient army was maintained, largely' recruited from among political and other offenders. Indeed, it was a common practice to draft criminals into the army instead of sending them to prison. The training was severe, and the discipline exceptionaUy harsh. On the whole, the soldiers were treated rather worse than convicts. OccasionaUy it happened that this system defeated its own ends, as in the case of Emihano Zapata, the Mexican bandit, whose trained band (it was practicaUy an army) strongly supported Madero in the overthrow of the Diaz government. For some petty acts of brigandage, Zapata was compeUed to pass a term of fifteen years in the Mexican Army, where, apparently, he studied mihtary tactics to good purpose. Naturally, Diaz frowned upon the democratic element in the Republic. Nevertheless, the "revolutionary" 180 Mexico of the Mexicans principles smouldered throughout the land, bursting unbidden into flame, as, time after time, Diaz announced his intention of continuing in office for a further term. Various opposition movements and societies were inaugurated, the most notable and powerful being the Liberal Party, formed in 1900. Many prominent Mexicans were associated with one or other of these parties, and countless newspapers sprang up to support them. Though unable utterly to crush all opposition, Diaz did everything in his power to suppress these Liberal tendencies, and in this he was seconded by the United States' agents, behind whom again we find the omnipotent doUars of the capitalists. Individuals associating themselves with pro gressive movements were thrown into prison, maltreated, tortured, or kiUed outright. There is a law in Mexico — the ley fuga, or law of flight — which permits the shooting of prisoners who have tried to escape. This very elastic measure was stretched to sanction the slaughter of anyone whom the authorities desired to be rid of. A widespread secret police system was of immense advantage to Diaz in the hunting down of political offenders, many of whom were never brought to trial at all, but fell victims to the knife of the assassin. If the fugitive crossed the border into the sister-repubhc, he was promptly flung back to the Mexican authorities, any frail pretext sufficing for this purpose. Inevitably, under these circumstances, the democrats resorted to force of arms, and time and again Mexico was thrown into a state of chaos — the righteous if unorganised protest of a people against conditions weU-nigh insupportable. The utter inconsistency of Diaz's spoken sentiments with his actual policy may be judged from his announcement of 1908, declining (in his usual fashion) to enter upon an eighth term of office. He says: " I welcome an Opposition party in the Mexican Republic. If it appears, I wiU regard it as a blessing, not an evil. And if it can develop power, not to exploit, but to govern, I will stand by it, support it, advise it, and The Revolution 181 forget myself in the successful inauguration of complete democratic government in the country." His method of dealing with Opposition parties can hardly be called a welcome. This is but one instance of the hypocrisy of Diaz. He seems, indeed, to have led a sort of JekyU-and-Hyde exist ence: to his own people, a tyrant of the worst type; to foreigners, a very pattern of the Presidential virtues. Partly, perhaps, out of ignorance regarding the true conditions pre vailing in this unhappy country, partly out of self-interest, foreign statesmen and biographers praised Diaz, " the peacemaker," without stint. Admiration of a kind is reluctantly accorded him. Shrewd ness, inteUigence were certainly his. He displayed a talent for diplomacy and pohtical organisation which his opponents could not always equal. His character in private hfe was unblemished, save here and there a smirch of ingratitude, a blot of treachery to a friend. But it is by his public hfe that a pubhc man must be judged, and, according to every right standard of government, Porfirio Diaz is surely one of the most lamentable failures in modern history. The men who surrounded him — the Grupo Cientifico — have by this time achieved weU-merited oblivion. But we may glance briefly at the pair who were his chief advisers or abettors. Jose Yves Limantour, the Minister of Finance, one of Diaz's principal henchmen, was weU known in European financial circles as one of the shrewdest and Limantour. most capable financiers of his day. To him the Diaz regime owed much, as without his business sagacity the development of the resources of the country could never have been undertaken in the highly successful manner which marked the rule of his party. Indeed, it is not too much to say that Limantour rescued Mexico from the bankruptcy which at one time certainly threatened it. He had, indeed, a genius for finance, and it 182 Mexico of the Mexicans is a pity that his country was not ultimately able to avail itself of his ability. Of French extraction, he was a Mexican born; was a close student of political economy; and, besides being a successful financier, was an exceedingly successful diplomat, as was demonstrated by more than one pohtical visit to Europe. But, successful as he was, the Mexican public did not repose perfect confidence in Senor Limantour, whom they blamed for " jugghng " with the finances of the country and finding pubhc offices for so many of his friends. He became, along with Corral, one of the betes noirs of the Maderist party, who selected him as a special target for their fulminations against the " dictator " and aU his satellites. The Vice-President, Ramon Corral, was in his own way as strong a personality as Diaz. Shrewd, clever, and active, he combined his Vice-Presidency with the Ramon portfolio of Minister of the Interior. He was the first occupant of the vice-chair and, before being elected to it, had been Governor of the Federal District of Mexico city. Madero sought to show that, through this appointment, did Diaz die before his term of Presidency came to an end, the chief power would then vest in Corral, and the policy of one-man rule be perpetuated in his person. This, in fact, was one of Madero's strongest cards. Again, thousands in Mexico had been for years groaning beneath the yoke of the slave-master. To talk of a slave system in connection with any modern ^Mexico'" nation claiming a degree of civilisation .would seem absurd; and surely a Repubhc, where aU men are nominally free and equal, should be the last community to tolerate within its bounds a system so barbarous, so utterly opposed to every Republican principle. Yet here, in Mexico, we find a state of things existent which was nothing else than slavery — slavery in its most crude and obvious shape, with aU its revolting conditions and incidental horrors, A large proportion of the populace The Revolution 183 was involved in the system, and the peons, or peasantry, were but a degree more fortunately placed. The words " slave " and " slavery " were not used, unless privately, by the Mexican slave-owners. Other and more convenient terms there were wherewith to designate the system. By a juggling with words and legal forms, they can keep to a certain extent within the letter of their elastic laws. Deportation as practised on the Yaqui Indians of Sonora is a legal proceeding, which fiUs the Yucatan peninsula with slaves, so completely the property of their masters, that they may be bought and sold, starved, beaten, treated with inhuman barbarity, and killed outright when they have ceased to be of value to these masters. EquaUy effectual for the procuring of slaves are the " legal " systems of contract labour and enforced service for debt. Nowhere in the world, perhaps, is the labourer more harshly repressed, more pitiably abject, than in Mexico; and it is an easy matter for the labour agent to inveigle him into signing a contract, fair enough at the first glance, in reality a bond of slavery. Once in the power of the slave-owners (the hennequen farmers of Yucatan, the owners of the great plantations of rubber, coffee, tobacco, and sugar-cane, in the Southern States), the labourer gets few wages or perhaps none. In lieu, a cheque is given him wherewith to purchase his requirements on the plantation. Nothing easier, therefore, than that he should faU into debt to his master, and a debt so incurred is seldom or never liquidated. The owner does not " seU " his slave; he simply transfers the debt and with it the compulsory services of his human property. But the shaUowness of this pretence is shown by the fact that the " debt " is a fixed and invariable amount — or, rather, an amount which varies with the price of labour, and not with the circumstances of the particular case. When the supply of contract labour faUed, kidnapping and other means of procuring slaves were resorted to, and the mask of legality thrown aside. This disgraceful traffic in human lives was not only tolerated 184 Mexico of the Mexicans and condoned, but actuaUy engaged in by the Diaz Govern ment. It sanctioned the contract which condemned men, women, and even children, to torture and an early death; it gave assistance, in the shape of soldiers, rurales, pohce, to the hunting down of escaped slaves; it withheld punish ment, where punishment was so greatly needed, for the barbarous iU-treatment and murder of these unfortunate creatures. Many of its high officials were themselves per sonally and actively concerned in the trade. The very pro cedures of law and justice were utilised for the purpose of procuring slaves. People were arrested on the least pretext, flung into prison, and quietly conveyed with a " contract labour " gang to the plantations. To protest was futUe: there were none to whom an appeal might be made, for " the law," so-caUed, was on the side of the kidnappers — was, in fact, the arch-criminal. For its latitude and easy conscience, the Government received a substantial share of the profits of the slave-trade, and these we may suppose were not small. As an indication of the extent to which this system of labour prevails, it may be mentioned that aU over the Southern States the land is worked by slaves, or by peons whose condition is little better than that of slaves. True, the peon does not undergo the hideous suffering and degrada tion of the contract labourer, the deported Yaqui, the casual citizen arrested for some minor offence and dispatched to the plantations; yet with a system in force of compulsory service for debt, he is often equaUy httle of a free agent, and his condition only less abject. It is, however, the situation of the slave proper which most surely arouses pity and indignation. TraveUers' tales are coloured with the horrors of those places where men, women, and children are herded together like cattle — but treated far more brutaUy than cattle, for men, when they have spent their strength in the bitter service, are more easily replaced than kept alive, and it is not so with animals. Long hours of toil are theirs — they work from 4, 3, or even The Revolution 185 2 o'clock in the morning untU late at night. Their food is of the coarsest, and scanty enough at that. The men are frequently and cruelly beaten with water-soaked ropes, the women and girls subjected to every indignity that barbarism can devise. Once in the power of the slave-owners, there is practicaUy no way of escape. Should a labourer succeed in breaking away, he dares not venture near town or viUage, for the authorities are vigilant and eager to take and restore him. Human aid denied, he can scarcely hope to win sub sistence from the barren wilds through which he must journey ere he reach " civilisation." Is it any wonder, then, that the final release comes quickly to these poor people ? — that few but the hardiest outlast six months of bondage ? The millionaire slave-owner looks on complacently. There are more, and stiU more, to replace those who die — and such labour is cheap. So alarmed did men of liberal outlook in the Repubhc become at the possibihty of another extended term of office on the part of the Diaz group, that many pohtical clubs were organised, among them the Central Democratic Club, the programme of which included extended municipal powers, better educational facilities, the freedom of the Press, stricter enforcement of the laws against monastic orders, an employers' habihty act, new agrarian laws, and measures granting greater personal liberty and the abolition of contract slavery. Many of the propagandists were imprisoned or banished, and their newspapers suppressed. Francis I. Madero, the politician whose pubhc spirit so greatly advanced Mexican democratic ideals, was a type of statesman by no means foreign to Latin- Madero. American pohtics. But although an oppor tunist to the finger tips, it cannot be said of him that his actions were not prompted by necessity and patriotism. A man of wealth and abihty, belonging to a great family in Coahuila, a lawyer by profession, he first attracted public attention in the early part of 1910 by a 13— (2393) 186 Mexico of the Mexicans remarkable book entitled The Presidential Succession, in which he mercilessly attacked the Diaz regime and the " Grupo Cientifico," or " Knowing Ones," whose policy of " graft " had excited general distrust and discontent. In this straightforward work, he launched his thunders against Senor Limantour, the Minister of Finance, a man of French extraction, who had never had the confidence of the Mexican people, and who was, therefore, a mark for their special dis approbation. He also fulminated against the great land owners of Mexico, those veritable hidalgos of the soU, whose pride and exactions have done much to arouse a hatred of the upper classes in the breast of the Mexican peon. The reactionary movement of which Madero was the head was at first not leveUed so much at Diaz himself as against his sateUites, Limantour and Corral. But when it was announced that President Diaz would seek re-election, public feeling was strained to breaking point; and Madero, although almost unknown, speedily found himself surrounded by a party of resolute men who had fully determined to exclude the bureaucracy from another prolonged sojourn in office. They had before appealed to General Reyes — Madero's recent opponent for the Presidency — to combat the Diaz party, as his dislike to their methods was notorious. But he refused to lead an insurrection against constituted authority, and, indeed, before the Presidential campaign commenced, was sent to Europe on a military mission, so that the malcontents had perforce to be contented with Madero. Madero was nominated, and at once commenced an active campaign, denouncing the Diaz administration, promising to examine and rectify abuses, and indicating to the people the danger of again permitting the aged President to hold office, because of the want of integrity of those who surrounded him. Madero lacked nothing of the energy, rhetoric, or courage of the typical demagogue, and quickly made himself popular with the masses, many of whom, smarting under the abuse of peonage and outrage, hearkened to his speeches as to those The Revolution 187 of a veritable saviour. There was only one thing necessary to complete his popularity, and that was that he should become the victim of the system he so strenuously denounced. With a disregard of consequences which proved absolutely fatal to themselves, the Diaz party arrested him in July, 1910, a few days before the election, whilst making a speech at Monterey, on the grounds that he had incited the populace to unrest. He was at once incarcerated, being kept in close confinement until the completion of the poll. The election ended in a complete triumph for the Diaz party. Madero, rightly considering that Mexican soil was unsafe, made his way to the United States, whence he continued to incite his partisans to rebellion. The fire Blood °^ rev°luti°n was kindled in the town of Puebla, where the chief of police was assas sinated by a female member of one of the many revolutionary societies in the provinces. The State of Chihuahua, roused to fury by the tyrannies and exactions of the great land owning family of the Terrazas, flew to arms; and the fiery cross of revolt was dispatched from province to province with a rapidity that appalled and paralysed those in power. News of the condition of popular revolt which was daily growing in Mexico now began to reach Europe; but the Mexican authorities, fearful of their reputation, minimised the gravity of the situation. In February, 1911, advices received by the Mexican Minister in Great Britain stated that with the exception of trouble in Chihuahua, the situation in Mexico was perfectly tranquil. The Minister said that news of the disorder in the far north of Mexico did not in any way indicate the existence of a revolutionary movement. The unrest was confined entirely to the State of Chihuahua, and was said to be due to the operations of bands of robbers who roamed about the almost inaccessible mountains along the Mexican-United States frontier. These had no special grievance against the Federal Government, their aim being to loot and raid 188 Mexico of the Mexicans wherever possible. The greater number of foreigners in the disturbed area were American miners, but there were also a smaUer number of persons of other nationalities engaged in mining or cattle-raising. This guerilla trouble started after the Revolution of the preceding November, and the Federal Government dispatched from the capital General Novarro at the head of a force of nearly 3,000 cavalry and infantry. The President considered it necessary to put down these raids by means of a strong military force, but the difficulty was that the bands would not come out of their almost inaccessible hiding-places or make a regular stand. There was, however, every reason to believe that in a short time the bands would be dispersed. The policy of the Government, added the Minister, in dealing very severely with the revolutionary leaders no doubt made it very difficult for the heads of these bands to surrender. Senor Madero, the leader of the November Revolution, was now in the United States, whither he had fled some time before. He was at this time endeavouring to carry on his propaganda from American territory. Most of the other leaders of the late movement were shot. Their capture was dramatic. It was discovered that five of the revolutionary leaders, including two women, were in one house. This was surrounded by 300 pohce and the Federal troops, but for several hours the few inmates kept their assailants at bay, until finaUy the house was rushed, and aU except the two women were shot. So much for matters as outhned by the Mexican Minister. In Great Britain, the lack of definite news regarding the rising in Mexico for some weeks was interpreted in certain quarters as an indication of a complete cessation of hostilities and a return to a condition of tranquility within the borders of the Republic. But private advices showed that the state of unrest was worse than before, and that insurgents had been gathering strength in the Northern provinces with the probable intention of proclaiming these always disaffected The Revolution 189 States as a separate Repubhc. In the United States, the situation was regarded as so serious that a Cabinet conference was convened to deal with the question of the preservation of neutrality, and no less than eleven troops of cavalry were dispatched to the Mexican border to augment the very considerable forces already stationed there. The centre of insurgent unrest was Ciudad Juarez, a town of some importance near the United States border, which was menaced by a large insurrectionary force. In the moun tainous country to the north of the State of Chihuahua, the rebels had an unrivaUed base for their operations. So terri fied were the authorities of Juarez at the approach of the insurgents, that they destroyed the powder magazine in order to prevent the supply it contained falling into the hands of the rebels, whose advance upon the town was marked by a victory over the Republican troops almost at its very doors. Upon the approach of the Insurrectos, as the insurgents were caUed, the bulk of the population took to flight, and it is difficult to understand what prevented the invaders taking immediate possession of the town, in which business was at a complete standstiU. The numbers of insurrectos outside the town grew rapidly, and they drew a complete cordon round it; but these measures did not pre vent Colonel Rabago, a Republican officer of experience, breaking through the Revolutionist lines one Sunday evening, with 300 men for the better garrisoning of Juarez. General Orozco, the insurgent leader, momentarily threatened to attack and bombard the town, which, through the panic- stricken act of destroying the Government supply of powder, was entirely at his mercy. The place had only some 500 defenders, another body of equal numbers which was coming to the rescue having been defeated and driven back by Orozco, and the transport train, which conveyed them, wrecked. The main idea of the insurgents appeared to be to seize Juarez and make it the seat of a Provisional Government, 190 Mexico of the Mexicans The area of unrest presented the greatest difficulties to the expeditious movement of troops. But one line of railway existed to convey them to the front, and in the temporary destruction of that the insurgents evidently found httle difficulty, to judge from the news that they had wrecked a troop train which was conveying a large body of men to Juarez. Neither did the supply of arms seem to present any difficulties to the rebels, who by some mysterious means were enabled to equip themselves with modern weapons from an evidently inexhaustible source. This source of supply had always been one of the mysteries of the Mexican Border, and its origin wiU probably remain an insoluble secret. Under cover of the general disorder, Madero returned from his exile. In May, 1911, a "Peace Conference" was held, at which the leaders of the North demanded DlMexicoV6S Diaz's resignation. The aged President, see ing how the tide of popularity had set dead against him and his foUowers, acceded to the terms before the end of the month, and quitted Mexican soU for ever. A Provisional Government was instaUed under Senor de la Barra, and five months later a Presidential election was held on 2nd October, when Madero was chosen President without opposition. Madero had entered Mexico city on 7th June, 1911, shortly after a terrific earthquake had shaken it to its very founda tions. Several hundreds of the inhabitants were kiUed, and many of the principal buildings were totally wrecked. The superstitious Mexicans, seeing in the catastrophe a sign of the divine wrath, brought upon them for the expulsion of their President, prayed wildly for forgiveness at every street corner, and a terrible panic ensued. On the appearance of Madero some hours later, it is not surprising that he failed to receive the triumphal reception that he looked for. Needless to say, the Mexican people were in high hope that the new conditions would bring them all they had asked for, and dissolve the pohtical chains and shatter the The Revolution 191 disabilities under which they had groaned so long. But they were doomed to disappointment as bitter as it was unlooked for. Madero proved himself to be but a dwarf with a giant's voice — a talker, not a doer. Moreover, he surrounded him self with men of the same stamp — doctrinaires, people of no experience and less abihty — so that the affairs of the country speedily became comphcated and went from bad to worse. The National Debt leaped up in a most alarming fashion, and the Madero Government went through 160,000,000 pesos (£16,000,000) in two years without leaving anything to show for the money, or, indeed, even deigning to enter details of its expenditure in the Treasury accounts. But there were many other causes for uneasiness as weU as the rapidly rising national indebtedness. The Maderist Government, so far from favouring the intro- Jv! f duction of foreign capital into the Republic, were actively hostile to such a policy; more over, they permitted bands of robbers and highwaymen to overrun parts of the country, a thing unknown in Mexico for more than a generation. General Felix Diaz, a nephew of the ex-President, sensing the discontent around him, raised the standard of revolt in an attempt to overthrow the Maderists, who, however, bribed the leading revolu tionists so generously, that they abandoned the cause to which they had pledged themselves. General Diaz and General Reyes were taken prisoners, and later were incarcerated in Belem prison in Mexico city. In February, 1914, however, a fresh revolt broke out. It was decided upon to strike a blow in the capital, the garrison of which was won over. By this time, everybody had become disgusted with the Maderist Government, especiaUy when they saw the great apostle of popular free dom "place over 100 of his relatives in Government offices. At dawn on Sunday morning, 9th February, the first cavalry regiment, along with two artiUery regiments, left Tacubaya barracks for Mexico city, being reinforced on the way by 192 Mexico of the Mexicans another artiUery regiment. Generals Diaz and Reyes were at once released with other prisoners, the citadel was seized with a valuable reserve of ammunition and other stores, and the revolt had begun in earnest. The Mexican Sunday was in fuU progress as the troops swung into the great square foUowed by a cheering populace. The churches were emptying themselves, and the people were looking forward to the afternoon festivities which mark the Mexican " day of rest." As Reyes led his cavalry into the square, he observed that an infantry regiment was already occupying it, and he either thought that they were friendly or that they did n6t intend to offer any resistance. The cavalry and infantry faced one another, and for a good twenty minutes no hostile sign was given, crowds of people walking up and down between the two bodies of men and engaging in conversation with them. AU at once a sharp order was given, the infantry raised their rifles to their shoulders, and fired at the mixed masses of cavalry and civilians in front of them. Simultaneously, two machine guns which had been mounted on the roof of the palace belched forth their leaden stream, cutting down scores of helpless men, women, and children. Reyes himself was kiUed instantaneously. The square was a bloody shambles, containing more than a thousand dead and wounded ere five minutes had passed. The survivors fled in wild panic, nor would any return to succour the wounded and dying. Night feU, and prowlers from Mexico's rookeries slinked into the square to rob the dead — nor did any man stay their hand. At this time, Madero was at the Presidential residence of Chapultepec and, when he was apprised of these doings, he rode into the city at the head of his guard. At the national palace he met General Huerta, who was stiU, ostensibly at least, faithful to him. About midnight, he motored to Cuernavaca, where he met Zapata, a brigand chief, whom he attempted to bribe with the object of pro curing his assistance and that of his follower's. In this, The Revolution 193 however, he failed. Next morning, fighting began again. The foreigners in Mexico city asked both parties for assur ances that the lives and property of their nationals would be respected. To this Diaz readily assented, but Madero gave no sign, so the various foreign colonies immediately organised a suitable protection for themselves. Hostihties proceeded apace. The citizens appeared absolutely apathetic, and even went quite close to watch the fighting between the Maderistas and Felixistas, as the foUowers of General Diaz were caUed. Many of them were shot down, but this failed to quench their curiosity. The slaughter and damage to property were immense. The military cadets shot their leader, Colonel Morelos, dead, for suggesting that they should surrender. The American consulate was almost wrecked by shells, and its inhabitants had an exceedingly narrow escape. As in the case of the Dublin revolt, men armed with rifles lay on the roofs of the houses firing at anybody who chanced to pass, and innocent women and children were shot dead, their bodies lying in the streets for days afterwards. The aboriginal savage that lurks behind the Mexican of the lower and middle classes had broken loose. Neither side seemed able to make much headway. At last, Huerta met General Diaz at the citadel and agreed to join the Felixistas on the condition that he ^of Huerta"5" should be appointed Provisional President of the Repubhc until such time as General Diaz should be elected by the suffrages of the people. This ended the insurrection. Madero, hearing the news, attempted to escape, accompanied by his brother Gustavo, and Suarez, the Vice-President, but all to no purpose. What precisely took place no one can say, but both Madero and Suarez were kiUed, under what circumstances it has never been made clear. It has been said that their bodies were left on the street where they were shot, but there is no direct proof that this was the case. Madero was a weU-meaning but weakly pohtician, an idealist rather than a worker, 194 Mexico of the Mexicans a man who, to gain light and guidance in the conduct of political affairs, had recourse to spiritualism rather than to his own common sense. Had he been properly understood by the people he sought to govern, he certainly would never have occupied the position he did CHAPTER XIV the revolution (continued) In the vortex of lawlessness and political disorder which Mexico had become, it is perhaps not surprising to find a bandit occupying a place of supreme import - Zapata. ance in its history, building up governments and setting them aside, holding absolute sway over a vast tract of country, terrorising the populace like some fabled giant of mediaeval times. Emiliano Zapata is essentially a product of Mexican con ditions. Once a common bandit, although a landowner, with a dozen desperadoes at his heels, he has gradually extended his dominion over the whole country, and has grown so powerful that no President or faction dare venture to dispute his authority. One by one, successive governments have broken a lance with him, but have had to admit defeat. Against a background of rebellion and intrigue, Zapata stands out as a unique if scarcely admirable figure. Utterly unscrupulous, presenting the characteristics of the race at its lowest level, he is aptly designated by his nom de guerre, " El Atila del Sur "— " The Attila of the South." No gleam of chivalry, no single spark of honour, can we trace in aU his triumphant career. He is a breaker of treaties throughout; a scorner of truce and amnesty; avid for wealth; looting, sacking, spoiling wherever he goes. The brutahty of his methods of warfare contemporary records may equal, but can hardly surpass. The story of his career — successful though it be — is unrehevedly sordid and inglorious. The son of a farmer of Indian extraction, he early began to plunder, with the assistance of a dozen followers. For these petty depreda tions, he was arrested and conscripted into the army of 195 196 Mexico of the Mexicans President Diaz (against whom he afterwards had the satis faction of using his arms). A military experience of fifteen years has doubtless stood him in good stead in his many battles. His connection with the Federal Army was over and done with when, on his father's death, he and his brother Eufemio betook themselves to the Villa Ayala, to settle on the exten sive haciendas which formed their heritage. The instinct of brigandage was, however, still strong within him, and part of the revenue from these estates he used to arm and equip 900 men, with which, in March, 1911, he flung himself into the Maderist Revolution against President Diaz. From the beginning of March to 24th May, when Diaz resigned, Zapata made the Revolution an excuse for every form of licence and barbarity. Towns, viUages, haciendas were sacked and burned, and their inhabitants treated with revolting cruelty. With the resignation of Diaz, the activity of the bond fide revolutionaries naturaUy came to an end, but the Zapatistas continued their depredations without interruption. The political element was apparently but a second consideration in their leader's career of rapine and plunder. Nevertheless, because of his support of the Madero Govern ment, Zapata was not interfered with for some six months after the termination of the Diaz Presidency. Then, indeed, it was too late; for by this time his forces were greatly improved, both in numbers and equipment, and from his stronghold among the Guerrera Mountains he had extended his sway over the States of Morelos and Puebla. A force of 5,000 men sent against him by President Madero met with defeat, though led by such seasoned generals as Huerta and Figueroa. Meanwhile, the bandit steadily widened the territory under his barbarous rule, and the people clamoured bitterly for protection. In response to their appeals, Madero had the attacking force renewed, but still without effect. Finding The Revolution 197 his troops thus unable to cope with the situation, the Presi dent resorted to bribery, and offered Zapata $50,000 to dis band his foUowers and live peaceably. The bandit took the bribe and gave his promise readily, but without the slightest intention of keeping it. He made no effort to disperse his foUowers, but rather increased their number, and became, if anything, more cruel and audacious than hitherto. Instances of his incredible cruelty might be multiplied, but one wiU suffice. A handful of Federal troops (thirty-seven in all), recalled to Mexico by the authorities, and passing through Yantepec on their way, were there besieged by Zapata with a force of 3,000 men. NaturaUy the httle garrison could not hope to prevail against such overwhelming odds; but rather than surrender or trust to Zapata's worthless promises of amnesty, they bravely held out until there was but one man left, and he mortally wounded. The Zapatistas then stormed and carried the improvised fortress, and finding the one gaUant survivor — burned him alive. The bandit and his foUowers now allied themselves to the partisans of Pascual Orozco; but Madero, whose government had not from the first been strong enough to cope with Zapata, chose to ignore this circumstance and to regard him as a loyal supporter. Another large bribe was offered and accepted, though Zapata had as httle intention of keeping the peace as on the former occasion. Again Madero opened hostilities, sending Generals Huerta and Figueroa against the rebel. At Horseshoe HiU, near Cuernavaca, the capital of Morelos, a severe engagement took place, resulting in a painful defeat for the Federal troops. Another fierce struggle ensued round the fortified dweUing of Zapata, and once more the Madero force was repulsed. Once again the President entered into negotiations with Zapata, to faU back at length on his weak policy of bribery, though experience might have taught him how ineffectual it was. The bribe (30,000 pesos) went into the coffers of the 198 Mexico of the Mexicans bandit, whose " peace talk " was, of course, not worth a moment's credence. In the autumn of 1912, General Robles, at the head of 5,000 men, marched against the brothers Zapata, who retired to the Villa Ayala. Here a three-weeks' battle was fought, and again the Federal troops were worsted and driven back with heavy losses. Towards the end of the year, Emiliano Zapata, with a force of 10,000 armed men, made a saUy into the State of Hidalgo, whose rich mines had roused the cupidity of the bandits. The " raid " — it was almost an invasion — was not entirely successful. The Zapatistas failed in their effort to secure the capital city of Pachuca, and had to withdraw before the State troops. Considerable damage was done, however, among the peaceful inhabitants, and the raiders returned home laden with plunder. More than that, Zapata's popularity in Mexico was greatly increased as a result of the raid, and a corresponding increase took place in the size of his army. On the appointment of the Provisional Presidency of General Huerta, for whom as an enemy Zapata had a whole some respect, he left his task of harassing the capital and withdrew once more to his fortified home in Guerrero. Here we observe a new and somewhat surprising phase of his career, for we find the rapacious bandit, the vulture of the mountains, the Attila of the South, posing as a philanthropist, and that on a very extensive scale. Thou sands of square miles of land were divided among the very poorest of the peasantry. Part of this was property which had already been seized by Zapata. In some cases, the rightful owners were purposely dispossessed so that their land might be given to the peons. He is stiU, however, " El Atila del Sur," whom the role of benefactor fits but poorly. One feels again that it is a malicious and cynical rather than an altruistic motive which prompts his actions. His democracy, too, is of the crudest. The Revolution 199 It is the effort of a low inteUigence to place others of his kind in authority rather than see such authority in the hands of those fitted to use it. It is his pleasure, too, when he has sacked a town, to give its best houses to the poor. In due course, General Victoriano Huerta became Pro visional President. He made an effort to restore pubhc order, and was recognised by aU the powers PreYiden? excePt tne United States, which from the first steadily refused to countenance him. That their view was the correct one was speedily proved, for Huerta quickly showed that he was working entirely for his own personal ends. In August, 1913, the American Ambassador was withdrawn, and the United States demanded early and free Presidential elections, and an undertaking that Huerta himself should not be a candidate. New elections were arranged for 26th October, and Huerta announced that the terms of the Constitution would prevent him from offering himself as a candidate. But before the elections transpired, Congress was arbitrarily dissolved, and many of its members cast into prison. The elections duly took place, and Huerta, although not a candidate for the Presidency, received the largest number of votes. The United States refused its recognition of the election, and once more called upon Huerta to resign, which he most unwillingly did. Francisco Carvajal became Provisional President until Venustiano Carranza could reach Mexico city from his exile in the United States. Carranza was a Carranza. trusted politician of wide Liberal sympathies and, although over the aUotted span in years, was stiU able and wiUing to serve his country. Carvajal was a drawing-room soldier, and gracefuUy aUowed matters to shde. But when Carranza entered the capital, he was to find himself handicapped by the opposition of a remarkable and desperate man — a man who before had practicaUy been one of his henchmen. This was the famous bandit-soldier Villa, a native of Guerrero, in whose mountains he had been 200 Mexico of the Mexicans wont to lurk in true gueriUa manner. Soon he got into touch with Zapata, and this alliance was more than Carranza could face. They quickly gained command over the country immediately surrounding Mexico city, and this they conscientiously looted. So serious did the situation become, that at length Carranza consented to a peace con vention at Aguas Calientes, which should be attended by delegates from the Carranza, Villa, and Zapata factions, the object being to select a Provisional President satisfactory to all parties. Meanwhile, Carranza evacuated Mexico city; and on Thursday, 11th March, 1915, Zapata entered it for the first time. Zapata had a wonderful reception, people of aU classes stopping to shake hands with his men. They sacked several churches and destroyed many magnificent paintings, and in this they were helped by members of the Casa del Obrero Mundial, a society of working men instituted by the Carranzistas, with strong socialistic or anarchistic leanings. The Aguas Calientes convention duly took place, and Eulalio Gutierrez, a supposed adherent of Carranza, but in reality a tool of Zapata, was chosen Pro- GUtGarza a"d visional President and went to Mexico. Zapata evacuated the city in his favour, but Gutierrez coUected 10,000,000 pesos and betook himself to San Luis Potosi to start a revolution of his own there. But late in 1915 he was forced to surrender to the Carranzist army under General Obregon. At the time that Gutierrez had fled Mexico city, the Carranzists heard of his defection before the Zapatistas became aware of it, and took possession of the capital before the bandit leader could get there himself. This, of course, meant constant attacks on the suburbs by Zapata, and Carranza, afraid of his international reputation and reaUy desirous to avoid further bloodshed and looting, consented to a second meeting at Aguas Calientes. On this occasion, Roque Gonzalez Garza, one of ViUa's men, was chosen Provisional President. Carranza did his best to keep The Revolution 201 Garza from Zapatista influence, but aU to no purpose, for he required to keep most of his troops watching ViUa in North Mexico. Zapata commenced the most stringent black mailing demands on the unfortunate Garza, who, in despair, fled to the United States. Once more Zapata entered Mexico city, this time in a spirit of ferocious destruction. His ruffians invaded the stately palaces which had harboured the great ZMeSco°0tS families of the Diaz rigime, stripped them of their paintings and other adornments, and forced the national pawnshops to pay immense prices for them. Horses were stabled in the stately homes of Mexico, the parquet flooring of the great houses was puUed up because the women who accompanied the Zapatista army preferred to dance on earthen floors, to which they had always been accustomed. Valuable libraries, containing priceless volumes on Mexican antiquities, were looted and their contents used for fuel to cook the messes of Zapata's brigands. Women were dragged from their homes by the hundred and never seen again., and the denizens of the slums were informed that the city was now their property and that they might do what they chose with it. The altars of the great churches were looted and defiled; in short, there was no viUainy to which this monster among men did not stoop in his caUous disregard of the fundamentals of humanity. The foreign colony, aroused to the real danger of the situa tion, appealed to the British Charge d' Affaires, Mr. Hohler, who by great efforts and the most distinguished personal bravery, succeeded in conducting 500 foreigners by train to Vera Cruz. The refugees were forced to make the journey to Pachuca by mule-cart and, having arrived at that city, entered a train which the Carranzist party had put at their disposal. What American and Brazihan efforts could not do, British pluck and forcefulness duly accomplished. But the tale of Mexico's Provisional Presidents was not yet at an end, for a third meeting at Aguas Calientes, at which 14— (2393) 202 Mexico of the Mexicans Carranza and Villa had met, concluded that Zapata's behaviour was detrimental to all parties and elected Lagos Chazaro, the former Maderist Governor Chazaro. of Vera Cruz, to the Provisional Presidency. They had unhappily selected another broken reed, for, after a few weeks had passed, Chazaro disappeared. Once more Zapata entered Mexico city, and in September, 1915, was attacked by the Carranzist forces to the east of the capital. For nearly a month the conflict raged with but smaU losses on either side. In the end, Zapata was forced to evacuate the city, since when he has lain low in the Cuernavaca district. By this time, the price of food had risen enormously. A pound of meat cost about $6 (Mexican) or 12s., milk had gone up from 15 to 80 cents the htre, potatoes from 12 cents to $3, flour from $10 the 100-lb. bag to $138. The wretched women and children of the city were starving for the most part and begging from door to door for a mouthful of bread. Scores of them dropped in the streets from sheer weakness and died there — and aU because of the fiendish rapacity of the leaders of the various " parties," that of Carranza excepted. It must be admitted that for a time the machine of civihsation in Mexico was entirely broken down and that the barbarian element triumphantly vindicated its presence. Was Diaz aware from the experience of his rule of forty years that the only methods of repressing this element were those of harshness and peonage, or was this outbreak of barbarism the fruit of his regime ? Who can say ? Those who have studied the history of Mexico know that certain of the races who flourished within its borders in the aboriginal period were cruel and bloodthirsty, and cherished a sanguinary faith in which human sacrifice and ceremonial cannibalism were the outstanding characteristics. Have these inherent brutalities only slumbered since the Conquest ? In some measure, it is probably only too true that they have. But the critic of the Mexican people should strive to remember that at such a crisis the better elements in a population The Revolution 203 become almost completely overpowered and voiceless. This was not the real Mexico any more than France of the Revolution was the real France. Carranza had now a better opportunity of attempting to reduce the country to a condition of order. That he has done much and is stiU occupied in this Chaos direction is plain from the accounts of acute observers who have recently visited Mexico. Dr. David Starr Jordan, American Minister to the Mexican Repubhc, stated in a recent interview that a beginning of order has been made, the worst conditions prevaihng in Morelos, where Zapata is still in control, and in Chihuahua, where conditions are unsettled on account of the presence of American troops. He says — " The Mexican Revolution, with aU its crudities and brutalities, I found had a very definite purpose. Briefly, this purpose was to get rid of the mediaeval organisation left by the Spanish occupation. " The land was divided into enormous tracts, held largely by non-residents, upon which the ordinary people, peons, were httle more than slaves. Besides that, the great resources of the country had been peddled out in concessions to natives and foreigners, largely Americans, Germans, and British. The pawnbroking banker system had loaned the nation money on ruinous rates. " Order was maintained by armed force and by the per sonal popularity of Porfirio Diaz. Extortion and disorder existed everywhere. " During the various stages of the Revolution there were many atrocities. Men of the common sort became generals, supporting themselves by brigandage — a business more profitable for peons than ordinary work. Carranza came to be the representative of law and order, and as such was wisely recognised by the United States and by the South American Republics. " At the present time the frontier city of El Paso is filled 204 Mexico of the Mexicans with agents of all types, representing the plundering interests. The city itself is a vigorous frontier town of reasonable whole- someness. Cientificos, Clericos, concessionaires, and vultures of every kind are now there awaiting the word to pounce upon Mexico. Should the United States troops be with drawn," Dr. Jordan said, " there would be httle danger of a lapse into the internal strife of the last few years in Mexico. Revolutions cannot turn backward," he concluded. Professor Roscoe R. HiU, of the University of Mexico, when lecturing on inter-American relations at the University of California during the 1916 summer session, said that three things were at the basis of the present crisis: " The conces sion of Porfirio Diaz to American and other outside interests; the land and labour problem, with monopoly on the one hand and the abasement of the lower classes on the other hand, and lastly, the failure of Diaz to educate the people. Diaz gave Mexico thirty years of peace, and this did much for business; but, as regards the conditions of the peons, he left them as he found them. Madero was a reformer and an idealist, Huerta a reactionary, and Carranza is attempting to carry out Madero's policy." Dr. HiU urged an organised study of Mexico and South American countries: " Travel, the exchange of students and professors, scientific conferences, and better views wiU," he said, " bring about better understanding and feehng. To understand a people is to sympathise with it. The Mexicans are essentially no more barbarous than we are." Reviewing something of the history of Mexico as this has affected the present situation, in an address before the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco, Dr. Hill said — " Naturally the present condition is not the result of a day. Its explanation must be sought not only in the movement that led to the overthrow of Diaz, not only in the Diaz regime itself, but as far back as the Spanish colonial period. During the colonial epoch, the Spaniard maintained a policy of The Revolution 205 exclusiveness in trade and an intolerance of foreigners and foreign ideas. " The preservation to a greater or less extent of these characteristics upon the estabhshment of the Mexican Repubhc served to hinder immigration and the proper invest ment of capital. These very necessary processes of national development were further retarded by the unstable conditions resulting from the pohtical anarchy, which ruled for nearly half a century after independence. An outcome of this unsettled period was the introduction of the idea of Govern ment concessions to foreign capitalists to take the place of national investment. " The greatest responsibihty for the present condition in Mexico must be laid to the Diaz regime. Porfirio Diaz was a benevolent despot who ruled Mexico with an iron hand. His three decades of peaceful rule brought many benefits to the country. Finances were placed on a firm basis, railways were extended, the material wealth of the country was developed, and the most friendly relations were established with foreign nations. Despite these positive achievements, three fundamental errors were made by the Diaz administration — " First, the development of the cientifico principles, based on the idea of government by an ohgarchy, was out of har mony with the growing democracy of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Pohtics were controlled by a small group of professional politicians, who maintained their posi tion by the support of the army. The carrying of these ideals to their logical conclusion could do no less than bring on a period of reaction. " Second, the abuses in the granting of concessions, which created a monopoly of the land and wealth in the hands of a smaU group of individuals, served to make the already hard lot of the peons more oppressive stiU. The process of concentration of the land, which carried with it the dis possessing of small land-holders, who thought their title 206 Mexico of the Mexicans secured by the constitution of 1857, exerted a very potent influence in the downfall of Diaz. Further, labour conditions were such that a large majority of the Mexicans lived in abject misery. " FinaUy, the failure to provide an adequate system of public education impeded the healthy growth of the body politic. It prevented the development of a real public sentiment, which should exert a salutary effect upon the Government." In April, 1916, a clash occurred between the civilian population of Parral (Mexico) and United States troops, who incautiously and unnecessarily entered ^at Parrai°n tne townsnrP- Carranza, by this time recog nised by the United States by the title of " First chief of the de facto Mexican Government," pleaded for the withdrawal of United States troops from Mexican soil, and stated that his forces were now quite competent to pursue and capture ViUa and his followers. ViUa was, indeed, the bone of contention, for he had destroyed much American property, had intimated his hatred of the Gringos, and his intention of despoiling them wherever he encountered them. As an American note to Carranza said — " Despite repeated and insistent demands that military protection should be furnished to Americans, ViUa only carried on his operations, constantly approaching closer and closer to the border. . . . His movements were not impeded by troops of the de facto Government, and no effectual effort was made to frustrate his hostile designs against Americans. " Yet the Mexican authorities were fuUy cognisant of his movements. . . . Villa's unhindered activities culminated in the unprovoked and cold-blooded attack upon American soldiers and citizens in the town of Columbus on the night of 9th March, the details of which do not need repetition here in order to refresh your memory with the heinousness of the crime. After murdering, burning, and plundering, ViUa and his bandits, fleeing south, passed within sight of the Carranza The Revolution 207 mihtary post at Casas Grandes, and no effort was made to stop him by the officers and garrison of the de facto Government stationed there. " In the face of these depredations . . . the perpetrators of which General Carranza was unable or possibly considered it inadvisable to apprehend and punish, the United States had no recourse other than to employ force to disperse the bands of Mexican outlaws. . . . " The marauders engaged in the attack on Columbus were driven back across the border by American cavalry, and subsequently . . . were pursued into Mexico in an effort to capture or destroy them. Without co-operation and assistance, . . . despite repeated requests by the United States, and without apparent recognition on its part of the desirabUity of putting an end to these systematic raids, . American forces pursued the lawless bands as far as Parral, where the pursuit was halted by the hostility of Mexicans, presumed to be loyal to the de facto Government, who arrayed themselves on the side of the outlawry, and became in effect the protectors of ViUa and his band." Carranza begged that United States troops should be removed from Mexico. The Americans retorted that the Mexican authorities had themselves agreed that United States troops should cross the Mexican border to hunt down ViUa; but the Mexican Government had done so under reservation of the clause that incursion must only follow speciaUy outrageous conditions, and these, they held, had not transpired. Conference foUowed conference at El Paso between the American and Mexican representatives. Mean- while, ViUa played out his own disastrous and unpatriotic game. It was rumoured that he had been kiUed, and civilis ation rejoiced. But the " death " was merely a ruse to throw his enemies off the scent. A document which reached the Mexican Government about this time is of real historical value. A memorial addressed to General C. Venustiano Carranza by three former leaders 208 Mexico of the Mexicans of the so-caUed convention Government of Mexico in April, 1916, urged the First Chief, as a means of preserving the sovereignty of the country to provide for a national election at the earliest possible moment. The letter, signed by R. Gonzales Garza, former Convention President of the Republic; Enrique C. Llorente, former head of the Villa confidential- movement in Washington; and F. Gonzales Garza, who was captured and imprisoned with President Madero and Vice-President Pino Suarez at the time of the Diaz-Huerta movement. These statesmen, who are now residing in New York, disavow aU selfish motives in writing the letter, and assert their wilhngness to hve permanently in exile if they can best serve the interests of Mexico by doing so. They address the First Chief, " with words of peace and concord," because tendencies are operative both within and without Mexico which will sooner or later destroy the independence of the country unless steps are taken to give it a de jure instead of a de facto government. As their memorial is of interest as coming from Mexicans who are fuUy aware concerning both the internal conditions of their country and its relations with foreign powers, we quote it at some length. The hope is expressed that the First Chief wiU consider the proposal favourably, because it is in hne with the purposes which actuated the Constitutionalist move ment, in which they were united to him until the time of the Aguas Cahentes convention. They recaU the circumstance that Carranza promised to provide general elections within a " reasonable time." A reasonable time, they beheve, has now passed. The international factors which are dangerous to Mexico, and which would be at least mitigated by placing the Govern ment on a constitutional basis, are, according to the memorial, the foUowing — 1. " A possible change of administration in the United States; because, in spite of the grave incidents which we have had with the present administration, there is no room The Revolution 209 for doubt that between the ideals of the Democratic party and those which are at the root of our revolution are greater affinities than it is possible for us to have with the Repubhcan party. We weU know the discreet line of conduct which the Democrats, headed by Mr. Wilson, have foUowed since the beginning of their administration, and we must believe that they will continue it until the conclusion of their period. This wiU give sufficient time to the Constitutionalists of Mexico to effect the reorganisation of the country and the estabhshment of a legal rigime such as their name promises. 2. " The pohcy of preparedness for defence, which President Wilson has adopted, must be considered by us as very dangerous for our security. The series of controversies with Europe and a certain effervescence observed within this country (the United States) has spread a great distrust which, in the judgment of very sensible people, is not justified, but which has given ground for the President to initiate a most active personal campaign and to present biUs to Congress for placing the nation on a war footing. Once this policy is adopted by Congress, we wiU see this people (the Americans) essentiaUy pacific, dominated by new ideas which wiU pro bably drive them to make use of their military forces on the first provocation or opportunity — a course which would be by so much the more likely in the event of a change of administration. 3. " End of the European War — if the beginning of the war was favourable to us, its end would be fatal, if at that time we stiU found ourselves with musket in hand, without having signs of adjusting our domestic affairs satisfactorily. And it is clear that at the end of the European War the apprehension that some Power or Powers may attempt a pohcy of aggression against this country, probably wUl vanish; and as this apprehension is what is pushing forward the movement for military preparedness, the conclusion of the great conflict wiU exaggerate the peril which we have mentioned, since the United States wiU find itself perfectly 210 Mexico of the Mexicans prepared; and the least which can happen in these circum stances wiU be that, urged on by European interests, it wiU be inclined to intervene with arms under pretext of claims or on some other pretext which chance will not fail to provide, " Perhaps you," says the memorial in another place, " with the excessive confidence which is the natural consequence of triumph, and occupied as you are with the immense task of bringing order out of our national chaos, cannot take due account of the conditions which hourly menace our nationality. We, however, who are living in this foreign atmosphere, with eyes and heart intent upon everything which in any manner affects our country, can easily see the ebb and flow of opinion. And it is momentarily more sceptical of us, momentarily less tolerant of our foibles, to the extent that there are already not a few who consider the Mexicans outside the circle in which Lorimer placed the civilised peoples. These even attempt to deny our country, because of its prolonged intestine struggles, the right to the immunities ascribed to free States in international law. " Before the court of foreign opinion our moral bankruptcy is as complete as our economic. Justly or unjustly, it is a fact that we have been losing all our prestige as a people capable of self-government. Our imprudences and our excesses have caused aU politicians to judge us as without honour and without patriotism, our own intemperance in judging one another perhaps contributing no little to this lamentable result." The writers declare that there is only one way by which Carranza may forestall the destructive tendencies which are at work against Mexico, both within and without the country, and that is by complying immediately with the constitutional provisions. Now, they say, is the opportune time to caU a convention and set the machinery to work for the establishment of a legal government. The memoriahsts were not far wrong in their observation regarding the " effervescence," noticeable in the United The Revolution 211 States. For many months, large detachments had been patrolhng the Mexican border, on the plea that the interests of the United States required their presence there; and on 21st June, 1916, they came into conflict with a detachment of Carranzista troops at Carrizal, about 90 miles south of the El Paso. The Americans lost about forty killed and seven teen taken prisoners, and it is said that they were decoyed into an ambush by a white flag. On the Mexican side. General Gomez was killed. Public opinion in America was wildly excited, and so many contradictory statements were made on either side that it is, indeed, difficult to get at any thing like the truth. The situation was indeed a dangerous one, and war might have been precipitated at any moment. Much was made by the enemies of America of the fact that she was ready to go to war with Mexico but not with Germany, but the two questions were by no means on all fours, for, while it was obvious that America was desirous of acting pacificaUy towards Mexico, it was difficult for her to do so in the face of the policy of pinpricks which she had to put up with. Every day the citizens of the United States were agitated by the news of some new outrage upon their country men or upon American property. This situation, full of evil potentialities, was certainly being augmented and aggravated by the German agents in Mexico, who were said to have spent money with both hands in the hope of keeping the United States so busy on its own borders that it could not enter into the world war. The north of Mexico was said to be teeming with German officers who openly boasted of the thrashing they were going to inflict upon the " Gringoes." Mobilisation was resolved upon. The Mexican Provisional Government wholly denied that its intentions were beUicose, but, in spite of those denials, a note of a somewhat warlike character was dispatched to the United States Government. Mr. Lansing's reply to this note, if it is a little reminiscent of matters which must have been only too weU within the 212 Mexico of the Mexicans knowledge of both the Mexican Government and his own, is still a clear exposition of the American standpoint. It instanced the many Mexican atrocities and outrages which American citizens had had to endure at Mexican hands, and it talks of the deep disappointment in America at the exhibition of Carranza's inability to check the atrocities occurring on the border. It announced deep surprise that the conduct of Villa should have been condoned by the de facto government, and it instanced the many breaches of faith on the part of Mexico. The Mexican Government wholly denied the statement made in many quarters that it was being in any way influenced by Germany; and, although this may be true as regards Mexican officialdom, it certainly is not so of the Mexican people at large, who are by no means prone to welcome foreigners of any kind to their bosoms. Though, however, there may be no definite evidence of the fact, the finger of suspicion points to the Carranzist Govern ment as the protectors and comforters within its own borders of members of that world-wide organisation founded by German espionage, which looked towards Mexico as an unrivalled base for its operations. How far the Mexican people are properly instructed regarding the great European conflict from which they are so distantly removed it would be difficult to say. Probably their countrymen who have sought an asylum in the United States have realised the true nature of the fight which civilisation is putting up against savagery, but that the great mass of Mexicans have any conception of the true state of affairs is very unlikely. In any case, the nearness and imminent importance of the struggle developing under neath their very eyes is probably sufficient to blunt their interest in or anxiety for the European civilisation. As Mr. Lansing's Note is interesting, we quote some of its passages — " The Government of the United States has viewed with The Revolution 213 deep concern and increasing disappointment the progress of the Revolution in Mexico. Continuous bloodshed and dis orders have marked its progress. For three years the Mexican Repubhc has been torn with civil strife; the lives of Americans and other ahens have been sacrificed; vast properties devel oped by American capital, and enterprise have been destroyed and rendered non-productive; bandits have been permitted to roam at wiU through the territory contiguous to the United States and to seize, without punishment and without effective attempt at punishment, the property of Americans; while the lives of citizens of the United States, who ventured to remain in Mexican territory or to return there to protect their interests, have been taken, and in some cases barbarously taken, and the murderers have neither been apprehended nor brought to justice. " It would be difficult to find in the annals of the history of Mexico conditions more deplorable than those which have existed there during these recent years of civil war." The note frankly states: " It would be tedious to recount instance after instance, outrage after outrage, atrocity after atrocity." It did mention, however, specific cases. Detafis of attacks on BrownsviUe, Red House Ferry, Progreso Post Office, and Las Peladas, " aU occurring during last September," are cited. " In these attacks," the Note continued, " Carranzista adherents, and even Carranza soldiers, took part in the looting, burning, and killing. Not only were these murders characterised by ruthless brutality, but uncivilised acts of mutilation were perpetrated. Notwithstanding representa tions to General Carranza and the promise of General Nafarette to prevent attacks along the international boundary, in the foUowing month of October a passenger train was wrecked by bandits and several persons kiUed seven miles north of Brownsville, and an attack was made upon United States troops at the same place several days later. Since these attacks, leaders of the bandits weU known to both the Mexican civil and military authorities, as well as to American officers, 214 Mexico of the Mexicans have been enjoying with impunity the liberty of the towns of Northern Mexico." " So far has the indifference of the de facto Government to these atrocities gone, that some of these leaders, as I am advised, have received not only the protection of that Government, but encouragement and aid as weU." After denouncing the conduct of ViUa, the Note proceeded: " Subsequent events and correspondence have demonstrated to the satisfaction of this Government that General Carranza would not have entered into any agreement providing for an effective plan for the capture and destruction of ViUa bands." Mr. Lansing next takes up in detail General Carranza's last demands. Charges that the United States Government had not fuUy answered a previous communication are flatly denied. Several mis-statements, noticeably a quotation copied in the Carranza communication and purporting to show the United States Government had formaUy admitted the dispersion of the ViUa band had been accomphshed, are cited. Mention is made of the Mexican Government's pro posal that the American troops be withdrawn on the ground that the Carranza forces were so disposed as to prevent outlawry and border raiding. It was because of these proposals and General Scott's confidence that they would be carried out, says the Note, that he stated in his memorandum, foUowing a conference with General Obregon, that American forces would be graduaUy withdrawn. It is to be noted that while the American Government was wilhng to agree to this plan, the Carranza Government refused to do so. General Carranza is reminded that even while the border conference sat at El Paso, and after the American conferees had been assured that Carranza troops were able to protect the border, an attack at Glenn Springs occurred. The Note continues — " During the continuance of the El Paso conferences, General Scott, you assert, did not take into consideration the plan proposed by the Mexican Government for the The Revolution 215 protection of the frontier by the reciprocal distribution of troops along the boundary. This proposition was made by General Obregon a number of times, but each time conditioned upon the immediate withdrawal of American troops, and the Mexican conferees were invariably informed that immediate withdrawal could not take place; and, therefore, it was impossible to discuss the project on that basis." The publication of Mr. Lansing's Note was regarded by the Mexican people in general as an ultimatum. It created no excitement and but little comment, and the Press adopted a tone of serene confidence and exalted patriotism, a good specimen of which was the leading article of El Democrata (a widely-circulated journal) of June, 1916, which voiced pubhc opinion as foUows — " Whatever may be the outcome of this conflict, all the time more comphcated because of bad faith, there wiU always remain the clear evidences that the President has not pro voked or precipitated the situation; but, on the contrary, he employed aU the conciliatory measures compatible with dignity to reach that situation which would most conform to justice and the interests of both Mexico and the United States. The punitive expedition into our territory no one could justify — taking into account the thousand subterfuges of the United States Government, not only that it has not at once withdrawn the troops; but, with the pretext of pur suing the foragers who attacked Great Bend, has sent a new force (which latter has been withdrawn) without previously advising the Mexican authorities, thus showing that they were deceiving, and not trying to comply with the mission of punishing the marauders. " These aggressions, and others more flagrant, are inex plicable, taking into account the anti-interventionist protests of Mr. Wilson before Latin-America and particularly what he has said to the Mexican ChanceUery. It is known that they have held back shipments of arms which our Government has bought, and the machinery for manufacturing war 216 Mexico of the Mexicans materials, and are protecting in Texas a nucleus of con spirators who are planning aU kinds of hostile movements against Mexico. The time has arrived to show that this is not a co-operative movement to exterminate bandits, but a real invasion or menace of our national sovereignty. . . . In the event that they persist in maintaining the status quo indefinitely . . . the Mexican Army wiU be obliged to prevent their aggression by force, as they clearly have the right to do." The editorial closes with the declaration that in the ultimate case, the whole nation wiU stand to the end with their chief. It cannot be doubted that a very large class of the Mexican people are satisfied that the sinister motives attributed to the American Government are only imaginary, if honestly asserted; and that there is nothing behind their entry upon Mexican territory more than has been clearly stated by the administration, namely, to punish the per petrators of the crimes against the border citizens — therefore, public sentiment was not aroused by the somewhat belligerent note of Mr. Lansing. On 28th June, the United States formulated its " irreducible minimum " of demand. It was stated that President Wilson would go to the hmits of diplomacy in the efforts to avoid war with Mexico, actuated solely by a desire to save American hves. The President felt that a way would appear to avoid actual war; and it was his confident hope that this avenue would be opened up through a satisfactory reply from General Carranza to the ultimatum sent to Mexico, for so Mr. Lansing's Note was regarded. Comphance with the President's demand would consist in the immediate release of the prisoners held in Mexico and the assurance that there is no intention on the part of the de facto Government to make war on the United States. Senor Obregon, the Mexican War Minister, interviewed on 17th July, stated, that if United States troops were The Revolution 217 withdrawn from Mexican territory, that the Carranza Govern ment would ensure that the border would be fuUy protected from bandit raids. " Our proposals made at the Juarez-El Paso conference have not been withdrawn," said General Obregon. " Our army not only is in a position to protect the border against further raids and incursions into American territory, but is in a position to subdue the bandits completely and pacify the country in a short time. "It is our purpose to give protection and guarantees to everyone, and for this purpose we count on 80 per cent, of the male population to help to restore order. The whole country is now in sympathy with our cause, and we are doing our best to end internal troubles." On the morning of 18th July, 1916, the Press of Mexico city surprised the people by announcing in big head-hnes that the American forces had crossed the Testing the borders ten miles from Matamoras, and that, People. . ' on request for instructions by the Constitu tionalist commander there, he had been ordered by General Carranza to attack them. The city was somewhat uneasy during the day until 8 o'clock p.m., when the cathedral beUs rang -furiously, continuing for two hours, and leading to the conclusion that a victory had been obtained by the Mexican Army. Soon a manifestation of public enthusiasm was started at the national palace, and for an hour or more a procession paraded in the principal streets. It was com posed of not more than fifty people, who shouted " Muerte los Gringos." It was supposed that papers on the foUowing day would contain some startling news, but there was absolutely nothing, excepting a few lines saying that the Mexican troops had met the Americans and driven them back across the border, and giving the Mexican loss as one officer kiUed and one soldier wounded. It was an attempt to test the temper of the people, and 15— (2393) 218 Mexico of the Mexicans the effort was kept up during the day, resulting in some processions marching to and fro in the outlying districts; but in the afternoon the students and workmen of the railroads formed and marched to the palace, offering their services to the First Chief in case of war, and were told by him that " We do not wish to provoke war, but if we are obhged to enter upon it we know how to comply with our duty." The manifestants, about a thousand in number, then marched through the principal streets. In Pachuca there was some excitement and mal-treatment of Americans, but it was not very serious. GeneraUy speaking, httle feehng was manifested: much less than when Huerta made his effort to arouse the people against the Americans. But it is pleasing to note that by the middle of August better counsels began to prevail. The great fundamental mistake made by the Americans was that they insisted on placing Carranza on the same level as they might have placed ViUa or Zapata. Although they had thrown so much capital into the country, their lack of knowledge of it was colossal, and they insisted in keeping their troops within the Mexican borders. Carranza appointed a certain number of Mexican commissioners to an international conference, with the understanding that the United States should appoint a hke number. The first point of discussion from the Mexican outlook was the removal of United States troops now in Mexico to the other side of the border. The best American thought, to its great credit, concurred in this view. Although America is so greedily capitalistic, her worst enemies cannot but admit that she has always possessed a certain number of men of a much more lofty and humane outlook than any other nation in the world. Her own great democratic prin ciples have been forged by such men, who at moments of supreme importance have cowed the capitalistic crew into shame and impotence, and there is httle doubt that on this occasion they came forward to wield the same beneficent influence that they and their kind have so often wielded The Revolution 219 before. These men are not to be regarded as mere pacificist cranks, for they have shown, when occasion offered, that, if they beheve their enemy to be in the wrong, they can be the most stubborn of foes as weU as the most steadfast of friends. They saw clearly that peace was already at hand in Mexico, and that the special, and immediate need of the Republic was the confidence of its neighbour as weU as of the world at large. By the good offices of these true humanitarians, we may believe, rather than by the more regular methods of trans-Atlantic diplomacy, the situation was saved. Proof that such men are at work is found in the existence of an organisation formed at San Francisco for the purpose of arresting the intervention of the United States in Mexican affairs, and in taking steps that will assure the people of Mexico that neither the Government nor the people of the United States covet the territory of their Southern neighbour, or wish to dominate its affairs in any way. It is known as the Mexican Property Owners' Non-intervention League. It is the plan of the organisers of the league to form branch clubs throughout the country for the purpose of carrying forward their programme of non-intervention, and of removing the causes of inter-racial and international friction, and replacing them with that measure of understanding which, they believe, is alone necessary to prevent any trouble between the two countries and to restore relations of abiding friendship. In fact, the purpose of the organisation, according to its promoters, might be described as a campaign of education to show the American people that any hostility that Mexicans may feel to Americans has been caused by sinister or ignorant influences that have misrepresented the feeling of the great body of the American people towards Mexico. Certain classes of Americans, it is pointed out, have taken a kind of delight in expressing to the Mexicans a contempt for Mexican characteristics; and other classes of Americans with large 220 Mexico of the Mexicans financial interests in that country have apparently been forgetful of the interests and rights of the citizens of the country whose hospitality they were enjoying. For the purpose of correcting the erroneous impressions that have thereby been created, and for the added purpose of acquainting Americans with the simphcity, loyalty, and other admirable qualities that are to be found in the great mass of the Mexican people, this organisation has been formed. " We favour," says the organisation's declaration of principles, " action by the United States that wiU tend towards the rehabilitation of Mexico on hnes that shall be mutuaUy agreed upon, and that every effort shaU be taken for complete co-operation in assisting in this rehabilitation. " It shaU also be the object of this organisation to give pubhcity to the actual facts as to the conditions as they exist in Mexico, in order that the American pubhc may be convinced that intervention by force would be no less than a crime, that such intervention has not been heretofore desirable, and certainly is not necessary at the present time." A joint commission to consider international relations was appointed by the two countries, and at the time of writing (Oct., 1916) is stiU sitting. Such findings of importance as it has arrived at have not yet been made public, but that its labours will be crowned with success must be the earnest hope of aU good men. CHAPTER XV MEXICO OF TO-MORROW It is fashionable in some quarters, when the subject of the future of Latin-America is discussed, to adopt an air of pro found pessimism. It is surprising to encounter men of experience, who, in dealing with such questions, adopt the attitude that progress among certain races is impossible, and that to expect advance — social, political, or commercial — in regard to them is to expect the incredible. Yet the lessons of race-history do not teach us such counsels of despair. Many great nations have lapsed into barbarism or else been totally forgotten, whilst others have risen from the most negligible beginnings to a place in the forefront of the world's activities. There is nothing in the geographical position or natural resources of Mexico which would lead us to the con clusion that one day, when her national evolution is complete, that she wiU not be able to take her place side by side with the most favoured countries. Nor is there anything in the type or constitution of the race which inhabits her soil which unfits them for a great destiny. Those who criticise the peoples of Latin-America are usuaUy those who understand them least. At present, taking them aU in all, they are in some respects an adolescent people. Moreover, they are a highly composite people; and what race, it may be asked, has been enabled to justify itself before it had reached that stage in its evolution when the various stocks of which it was composed had been welded into ethnic unity ? Certainly not the Anglo-Saxon race, which does not appear as a European power of any magnitude until the beginning of the sixteenth century — precisely the epoch at which Mexico was discovered. It cannot be too strongly insisted upon that the two races 221 222 Mexico of the Mexicans which, for the most part, go to make up the Mexican people, are stocks which have behind them a great record of human endeavour. It is unnecessary in this place to dweU upon the question of what Spain has done for the world at large. As a great Spanish statesman has pointed out, Spain by damming back the conquering Moslem flood, sacrificed her self for Europe, which might otherwise have suffered from the retrograde influence of the conquering East. The story of aboriginal Mexico is not so famihar to British readers; but nowhere on the American continent had such a high standard of human progress been achieved as in the VaUey of Anahuac, the civilisation of which was self-evolved, and, unlike the cultures of Europe, owed nothing to other sources. That Mexico is slowly recovering her poise, or rather that she is organising herself for the first time, is vouched for by the fact that order has been restored in Recover"* thirteen out of her twenty-seven States, that prohibition has been put into effect in several States, and that free schools have been established in scores of places where education was before unheard of. In Yucatan, for example, there are at present 2,400 teachers where, under the Diaz regime, there were but 200. In a number of the remaining fourteen States; a beginning of order has been made, the worst conditions prevaihng in the State of Morelos, to the immediate south of the Mexican Federal district, where Zapata is stiU in control, and in the northern frontier State of Chihuahua, where conditions are unsettled on account of the presence of American troops. But law and order are surely beginning to prevail. In several States there is already provision for the equitable division of the great estates into smaller holdings; and arrangements are being made by the various State legislatures for just systems of taxation, and the New England system of co-operative welfare is being widely established. Intervention in Mexican affairs on the part of the United States would be far more uncalled for than the unwarranted Mexico of To-morrow 223 intervention of Austria in Serbian home pohtics. It would destroy the moral prestige of America among the nations, which would undoubtedly regard American Alone ,e,X1C° interference as a return to the pohcy which tore Texas and California from the bleeding side of the Isthmian Repubhc. The United States has a treaty with Mexico which provides that aU differences shall be referred to arbitration. This treaty cannot be made a " scrap of paper " of, without grave results to the credit of the more powerful disputant. The end and aim of the United States in a policy of intervention could only be one of two things: to annex Mexico, or to place once more upon her shoulders the ancient incubus of slavery from which she has struggled so valiantly to free herself. The genius of the Mexican people wiU suffice to restore the equilibrium of their commonwealth, or rather to endow it with an equilibrium which, under the regime of crafty and self-seeking dictators, it never possessed. Leave Mexico alone ! Give her the oppor tunity — the common right — of arriving in her own way at a settlement of her own affairs, so long as no flagrant injury is done to neighbouring interests. Such injury as is done is nearly always effected by the reactionaries, the clericos, the Cientificos, the concessionaries, and other vultures who repre sent the plundering interest, and who throng the frontier town of El Paso, awaiting the signal to swoop on the land which once they ruled and from which they have been justly exiled. Those who have endured so long and so patiently, who have struggled so vahantly for freedom, must endure and struggle a little longer. That they wiU do so is certain; for Mexico has always had, and stiU has, patriots of the most disinterested type, if these have been of widely conflicting aims. As the historian casts his eyes down the varied past of this wonderful land, a circumstance which cannot fail to arrest his interest and inspire his imagination is the quality, the cahbre of the men who have hved and died for 224 Mexico of the Mexicans Mexico, and who, in most cases, have given their lives ungrudgingly in the hope that their blood would benefit the country of their birth or adoption. The lion-like Guatemotzin, last monarch of the Aztecs; the valiant priest Hidalgo; Rayon; Morelos; Mina; the brave Iturbide; the unfortunate Maximilian; the briUiant Mexia; Juarez; Lerdo; Madero — surely no other land on earth can display such a roU of sacrificial patriotism ! Each in his own way, although treading in widely different paths, helped to mould Mexico into a nation: some with a personal incentive, others by reason of a purer and more patriotic instinct, but none whoUy without the good of the country at heart. Were aU the pains, the struggles, the Herculean labours of those gigantic figures in vain — the mere contortions of Titans imprisoned in an Mtna seething with eternal pohtical unrest ? No; for from out the wreck of its stormy past, when the day of trial is over, Mexico, that land of legend and romance, more various than Greece, more mysterious than Egypt, shaU arise to an era greater and more briUiant than any that is sung of in her myth or chronicled in the dazzling story of her conquest. TiU that day dawns, it must be hers — "to hope till hope creates From its own wreck the thing it contemplates." Viva Mexico ! Viva el Pueblo Mexicano ! SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF BOOKS ON MEXICO AUTHORITIES ON THE ANCIENT HISTORY, CUSTOMS, AND RELIGION OF MEXICO " Historia Natural y Moral de las Yndias," by Jose de Acosta. SeviUe. 1580. " Description de las Antigiiedades de Xochicalco," by Alzate y Ramirez. 1791. " Native Races of the Pacific States of America," by H. H. Bancroft. 1875. " Idea de una Nueva Historia General de la America Septentrional," by L. Boturini Benaduci. Madrid, 1746. " Storia Antica del Messico," by the Abbe Clavigero. Cesena, 1780. English translation, London, 1787. " Historia Verdadera de la Conquista de Nueva Espana," by Bernal Diaz. 1837. " Historia General de las Yndias," by F. L. de Gomara. Madrid, 1749. " Historia General de los Hechos de los Castellanos en las Islas y Tierra Firma del Mar Oceano," by Antonio de Herrera. 4 vols. Madrid, 1601. " Vues des Cordilleres," by Alex, von Humboldt. Paris, 1816. English translation by Mrs. Williams. " Historia Chichimeca:" " Relaciones," by F. de Alva Ixtlilxochitl. Edited by A. Chavero. Mexico, 1891-92. " Antiquities of Mexico," by Lord Kingsborough. London, 1830. " Letters of Cortes to Charles V," by F. C. MacNutt. London, 1908. " The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations," by Zelia Nuttall. 1901. " History of the New World called America," by E. J. Payne. London, 1892-99. " Monumentos del Arte Mexicano Antiguo," by F. Penafiel. Berlin, 1890. " Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva Espana," by Bernardino de Sahagun. Mexico, 1829. " The Civilization of Ancient Mexico," by Lewis Spence. London, 1911 ; " Myths of Mexico and Peru." London, 1913. " Monarquia Indiana," by Juan de Torquemada. Madrid, 1723. Bulletin 28 of the Bureau of American Ethnology contains transla tions of valuable essays by the German scholars Seler, Schellhas Forstemann, etc. 225 226 Bibliography BOOKS ON MODERN MEXICO " The United States, with Excursions to Mexico, etc.," by Baedeker. Leipzig, 1909. " Resources and Development of Mexico," by H. H. Bancroft. San Francisco, 1893. " Etude geographique, statistique, descriptive et historique des Etats-Unis Mexicains," by A. Garcia Cubas. Mexico, 1899. In English, 1893. " Mexico: its Ancient and Modern Civilization, etc.," by C. Reginald Enock. London, 1909. " Travels in Southern Mexico," by Hans Gadow. London, 1908. " Mexico " in Stanford's " Compendium of Geography and Travel," by A. H. Keane. London, 1904. " Unknown Mexico," by Carl Lumholtz. New York, 1902. " The Awakening of a Nation," by C F. Lummis. New York, 1898. " Mexico of the Twentieth Century," by P. F. Martin. London, 1907. " A Short History of Mexico," by A. H. Noll. Chicago, 1903. " Geographical and Statistical Notes on Mexico," by Matias Romero. New York, 1898. " Mexico and the United States," by the same author. New York, 1898. " Mexico: Its Social Evolution, etc.," edited by Justo Serra. 2 vols. Mexico, 1904. " Mines of Mexico," by J. R. Southworth. 9 vols. Mexico, 1905. " Indians of Southern Mexico," by Frederick Starr. Chicago, 1899. " Maximilian in Mexico," by Sara V. Stevenson. New York, 1899. " Mexico as I Saw It," by Mrs. Alec Tweedie. London, 1901. " Labor Conditions in Mexico," by W. E. Weyl. Washington, 1902. (Bulletin No. 38, Bureau of Labor.) " Mexico and her People of To-day," by Nevin C Winter. Boston, 1907. " Les Etats-Unis Mexicains," by Rafael de Zayas Enriquez. Mexico, 1899. INDEX Aboriginal peoples, 3 Academia Nacional de San Carlos, 81, 84 Acapulco, port of, 128 Acolhuans, 2 Acosta, 104, 174 Agriculture, 133-135 Agricultural gods, 12-13 Aguas Calientes, State of, 122 , conference at, 200, 201, 208 Agueros, Victoriano, 69 Alarcon, Monsignor, Archbishop of Mexico, 106 Albarez, Victoriano Salado, 71 Alcarreca, Ygnacio, 93 Almanza, Cleofas, 93 Altamirano, Ignacio M., 74 Alvarado, Pedro de, 8 Anahuac (" Place by the Water "), 1, 2, 161 Arboriculture, Board of Forestry and, 150 Architecture, 9, 86-89 Armaments, 56 Army, 55-57 Art, 80 Artes y Letres, journal, 69 Artillery, 56 Asphalt, 152 Axayacatl, King, 6, 10 Aztec civilisation (type of), 9, 10, 14 Government, 10-11 Aztecs, 1, 2, 5, 6, 151, 156, 161-4 Bajio, 123 Baptista, Juan, 65 Barbarities, 175 Barra, Senor de la, 190 Beggars, 41 Bibhoteca Nacional, 85 Big game, 114 Boatmen, 44 Bowling, 113 Brasseur de Bourbourg, Abbe, 105 Bribiesca, Alberto, 92 Bringas, Senor, 91 British trade in Mexico, 146-149 Building operations, 47 Bull-fighting, 109-111 Cabazeros (sheep's-head ven dors), 43 Cabrera, Don Luis, 154 Cafe life, 45 Cakchiquel, 4 California, loss of, 16 Calumet, 52 Camaxtli (a god of the Tlascalans) , 5 Campa, Luis, 92 Campeachy, 58, 131-132 Can-Ek, Jacinto, 102 Capello del Rosario at Puebla, 88 Carranza, Venustiano, 199-200, 202, 203, 206, 210 Carrasco, Gonzola, 93 Carvajal, Francisco, 199 Casa del Obrero Mundial, 200 " Castes " of Mexico, 4 Cateiteros (tray-sellers), 43 Cattle-raising, 136-137 Cavalry, 56 Centennial celebrations, 21 Central Democratic Club, 185 Centurion, Jos6 Maria, 92 Chalco Canal, 44 Chamber of Deputies, 53 Chapala, Lake of, 126 Chapultepec, 57, 90, 192 Charles IV of Spain, 82 Chavero, Alfredo, 97-98 Chazaro, Layos, 202 Chianpinolli, 100 Chiapas, 132 Chicago Exhibition, Mexican pic tures at, 93 Chichimecs, 171 227 228 Index Chihuahua, State of, 54, 116, 168, 187 Chinampas (floating gardens), 44 Chontals, 3 Church, 99 Circus in Mexico, 96-97 Cisfieros, Luis, 92 Ciudad Juarez, 189, 190 Clavigero, Abbe, 65 Cliff-dwellers, 168 Clubs, 40 Coahuila, State of, 1 17, 185 Cock-fighting, 111 Cocoa, 134 Coffee, 134 CoUma, 88, 124 Columbus, Statue of, 90 Comonfort, President, 21 Conservative Party, 63 Contraband of war, 23 Contract labour, 178 Contreras, Jesus, 92 Coras, 166 Cordier, Charles, 90 Corral, Ramon, 182, 186 Cortes, Hernan, 1, 3, 5, 7—9, 20. 80, 97-98, 127, 133 Costume, 25, 35, 48-51, 81 Coto, Luis, 93 Cotton manufacture, 150 Country life, Mexican dislike of, 46 Courtesy, 31 Courtship, 28 Cruelty to Animals, 46 Cuernavaca, 81, 87, 202 Customs (social), 39 Daily Record (of Mexico), 67 Debt, National, 55 Delgado, Rafael, 78, 79 Departments, State, 52 Diaz, General Felix, 191, 193 , Porfirio (late President), 17, 18, 19-24, 54, 58, 59, 63, 80, 90, 145, 176-182, 186-188, 190, 203 Dinner-parties, 38 Divination, 174-175 Doctors, 40 Drama, Mexican, 97 Durango, 119 Dyke across Lake Tezcuco, 6 Education, 58-61, 121-122 El Argos, newspaper, 67 El Democrata, 215 Electoral College, 52 El Impartial, newspaper, 67 El Mundo, newspaper, 67 — — ¦ Illustrado, journal, 69 Eloquence, Mexican, 64 El Pais, newspaper, 68 El Paso, city of, 203, 207, 211, 214, 217 El Popular, newspaper, 67 El Semanario Literario, journal, 69 El Tiempo, newspaper, 68 Entierrez, Rodrigo, 84 Escuela Nacional de Belles Artes, 81, 83 Etiquette, Mexican social, 29 Expenditure, national, 55 Family life, 31, 39 Farming, 138-140 Feather-dresses, 10 Felixistas, 193 Fiction, Mexican, 76 Figueroa, 197 Finance, 55, 152, 155, 181 Financiero Mexicana, newspaper, 68 Fishing, 114 Flores, 142 Flower-sellers, 44 Folk-wanderings, 2 " Fomento " (Department of In dustry), 52, 133 Food, 38-39, 45 supply, 153 Football, 113 Foreign pohcy of Mexico, 61 Forestry, Central Board of, and Arboriculture, 150 France, 17 Frijoles (beans), 32 Frontons, a ball-game, 112 Fruit, Mexican, 135 Fuentes (toreador), 111 Fuster, Alberto, 82 Index 229 Galvanez, Antonio, 92 Gambling, 34 Gamboa, Frederico, 76-78 Game, wild, 114 Gardens, floating, 44, 162 Garza, Roque Gonzalez, 200, 208 Gentleman, the Mexican, 26-27 GUI, Geronimo Antonio, 82 Girl, the Mexican, 27 Goitia, Senor, 91 Golf, 113 Great Britain, 17, 188 " Grupo Cientifico," 54, 177, 181, 186, 204, 205 Guadalajara, 123 Guanajuato, 3, 123, 142, 144 Guatamotzin (nephew of Monte zuma, and subsequently Em peror of Mexico), 9, 91 Guaymas, town, 117 Guerra, Gabriel, 91, 92 Guerrera Mountains, 196 Guerrero, State of, 128 Gutierrez, Eulalio, 200 , Rodrigo, 93 Haciendados, 139-140 Haciendas, 117 Half-breeds, 4 Hennequen, 134, 183 Hidalgo (revolutionary leader of 1808), 15, 81 — , State of, 125, 198 Hill, Professor Roscoe R., of the University of Mexico, 204 Hohler, Mr., British Charge d' Af faires, 201 Hospital de Amor de Dios, 82 Houses, 25-26, 32 Huasteca or Huastecs, 3 Huerta, 192, 197, 198, 199, 218 Huichols, 167 Huitzilopochtli (a god of the Mexicans), 5, 6, 9, 99 Human sacrifice, 15 Humboldt, 59, 158 Indians, Mexican, 34, 156-175 Infantry, 56 Inferniello Canon, 81 Insurrectos, 189 Introductions, 38 Iturbide, Don Augustin, 16 Itzcoatl, 5 Ixtlilxochitl, 72 Izaguirre, Leandro, 82 Iztaccihuatl (mountain), 128 Jalapa, 131 Jalisco, State of, 122, 144, 162 Jara, Jose, 93 Jardin del Seminario, 91 Jesuits, 99 Jewellery, 10 Jimeno, Raphael, 82 Jiminez, Francisco, 91 Jockey Club, 113 Jordan, Dr. David Starr, Ameri can Minister, 203 Journalism, 67-69 Juanacatlan, Falls of, 81 Juarez, 17, 18, 73, 91, 99, 177 Justice, Courts of, 53 Kidnapping, 184 Kingsborough, Lord, 65 Lady, the Mexican, 27, 29, 30 Lancaster, Joseph: his system of education, 59 Lancers, Mexican, 57 Lansing, Mr., U.S. Secretary of State, 212-216 La Patria, newspaper, 67 La Revista Literaria, journal, 69 Las Casas, 159 La Tribuna, newspaper, 68 Lawyers, 30 Leather, 152 Legislation, State, 53 Leon, 124, 152 Leperos, 41 Liberal Party, 63, 180 Limantour, 181-182, 186 Literature, 64-79 Llorente, Enrique C, 208 Lower California, territory of, 52 Maderistas, 193 230 Index Madero, 24, 182, 185, 186, 188, 190-194 Manchola, Juan, 83 Manufacturing, 144 Marriage, 163 Martinez, Enrico, 91 , Ramos, 82 Maximilian, Archduke Ferdinand, Emperor of Mexico, 17, 81, 90, 127 Maxtli (loin-cloth), 10 Mazatlan, 58 , port of, 119 Memorial to Carranza from Mexi can leaders, 207-210 Merida, 132 Mescal spirit, 162 Mexico city, 47, 152, 190, 191-192 Mexican Herald, 67 " Mexican Painting and Painters " (work on by R. N. Lamborn), 92 Mexican Property Owners' Non- Intervention League, 219 Michoacan, 126 , State of, 126 Military schools, 57 Mina (revolutionary leader, 1817), 15 Mining, 141-144 Mixtecs, 3, 6, 61, 168 , leaders, 207-210 Molina, Alonzo de, 66-67 Mondragon, Colonel, 56 Monotheism (Aztec belief in), 72 Monroy, Luis, 84 Montanes, Juan Martinez, 87 Monterey, 119, 152 , monument to the National Independence at, 91 Moreha, city of, 126 Morelos (revolutionary leader of 1808), 15 , Colonel, 193 , State of, 127, 134, 196, 203 Motecuhzoma (Montezuma) I, 5, 100 (Montezuma) II, 6-8, 10, 11 Motoring, 114 Museo Nacional de Argueologia, 85 de Pintura, 81 Music, 93-95 Nafarette, General, 213 Nagualism, 100-105 Nahua, 2, 3, 156, 161-164 N ahuatlatolli (Native Mexican tongue), 2, 3, 156-157 Napoleon III, 17 Narvaez, Panfilo de, 8 National Debt, 191 Naualli (magicians), 171-174 Navy, 58 New Mexico, loss of, 16 Newspapers, 67-69 Nezahualcoyotl, 5, 12 Novarro, General, 188 Novena, Miguel, 91 Novi, Cessare, 88 Nuevo, Leon (State of), 119 Oaxaca, 129, 130, 133 Obregon, General, 200, 216 •, Jose, 84 , Luis Gonzalez, 71-72 Ocaranza, Manuel, 83 OU industry, 151-152 Oluido, Maximilian's cottage at, 127 Opera in Mexico, 95 Opposition, 180-181 Orizaba, Mount, 128, 131 Orozco, General, 189, 197 Ortega, Juan, 84 Otomi, 3, 7, 157, 168 Pacheco, Carlos, 90 Pachuca, 125, 144, 198, 201, 218 Palacio Municipal, 85 Nacional, 82, 85, 87 Riva, 73 Palo Alta, battle of, 16 Panama Canal, 22 Panduros (sculptors), 89 Panteon de San Fernando, 91 Pantoja, Felipe, 92 Paper-making, 150 Paper money, 153-154 Parra, Porfirio, 75-76 Paseo de la Reforma, 91 Pasteur, monument to, 22 Index 231 Pasual, 206, 207 Peasant dwellings, 32 Pennsylvania Museum, Phila delphia, department of Mexican paintings in, 92 Peon (peasant or workman), 32, 34, 35, 61, 67, 133, 134, 140, 160, 186 Peyotl (an intoxicant), 173 Pina, Salome, 83 Plaza de la Reforma, 90 Poetry, Mexican, 79 Police, 45 Politics, 62-63 Popocatepetl (mountain), 128 Popol Vuh, 102 Population, 3 Post Office, 55 Pottery, 85-86 President, office of, 52 Presidential elections, 23 Press, 67-69 Progress, 132 Promenading in Mexico, 115 Protestant Episcopal Church, 106 Provinces, the, 116 Puebla, 18, 87, 128, 129, 158, 187. 196 , battle of, 17, 58 Pulque, 33, 161 Pulquero, the, 42 Qtjeretaro, 3 Quetzalcoatl (a god of the Aztecs), 11, 21, 127, 174 Quiche race, 4 Quintana Roo, territory of, 52 Racial feeling, 164 Rabago, Colonel, 189 Ramirez, Manuel, 93 Ranching, 133-140 Rayon, 15 Religion (ancient Aztec), 11-14 Rehgious life in Mexico, 99-100, 105, 107 Resaca, battle of, 16 Reserves, Army, 57 Revenue, national, 55 Revolution against Spanish Government, 15-16, 176-220 , present, 53, 176, 195 Reyes, General, 120, 186, 191 Riley, Rev. H. C, 106 Rivera, Carlos, 93 Robert N. Lamborn, 92 Robles, General, 198 Roman Catholic Church, 99-100, 105-106 Rosas, 91 Rubber, 135-136 Rurales, 21, 152, 179, 184 Sacrifice, human, 11, 14 Saddlery, 152 Sahagun, 65, 172 Salt-beds, 151 Saltillo, 152 Sanchez, Tiburcio, 85 San Luis Potosi, 120-121, 134, 151, 200 Santa Anna, President, 21 Scherzer, Dr., 103 Schools, 58, 59 Sculpture, 89 Senate, 53 Serna, Jacinto de la, 104 Servants, 35 Shooting as a. sport, 113-114 Shopkeepers, 30 Sinaloa, State of, 119 Singing, 94-95 Slave-trading, 178, 182-185 Smoking, 34, 39 Socialism, 34 Society, 37-40 Soconusco, 6, 133 Solares, Eduardo, 83 Solis, Juan F. Molina, 76 Sombrereto, 143 Sonora, State of, 117, 183 Spain, 15, 16, 17 Sports, 108-115 Squier, E. G., 105 Suarez, Pino, Vice-President, 193, 208 Superstitions, 171-174 Surnames, 38 Suspicion of strangers, 37 232 Index Tampico, 151 Tarahumare Indians, 167 Tarascans, 164-166 Taxation, 55 Tecpancaltzin, 84 Tecpanecs, 2, 4, 5 Tehuantepec, Isthmus of, 6, 22, 151 Tejada, Lerdo de, 18, 19 Temperance movement, 60 Tenochtitlan, 1 " Teocallis " (Mexican temple- pvramids), 13-14 Tepic, territory of, 166 Terrazas, family of, 54, 187 " Territories," Mexican, 52 Teules (" gods," native name for conquerors), 8 Texas, annexation of, by U.S.A., 16, 62 Tezcuco, City, 5 , Lake, 4, 9 Theatres, 95-96 Tilmatli (cloak), 10 Timber, 150 Tizoc, 6 Tlacopan, 5 Tlaloc (a god of the Aztecs), 11 Tlascala, 5 Tlascaltecs or Tlascalans, 2, 7, 8, 157, 158 Tlatilulco, 65 Toledo, Juan Tellas, 85 Toledo, Senor, 91 Toltecs, 2, 11, 174 Tomochic, massacre at, 178 Tonalamatl (calendar), 174 Torquemada, 65 Tortilla (maize cake), 32, 43, 45 Totonacs, 3 Trades, 41-43 Tulsa, Manuel, 90 Tuxpam, 152, 162 Tezcatlipoca (a god of the Aztecs), 11,99 United States of America, 16, 57, 62, 180, 187, 189, 206, 207, 208, 209, 211, 218, 222-223 Universities, 58 Upper classes, 25 Uxmal, 170 Valadez, Emiliano, 83 Valdez, Pablo, 93 Valladolid (Yucatan), 102 Vegetable gardening, 162 Velasco, Jose, 93 Velasquez, Governor of Cuba, 8 , Primo Feliciano, 74 Vera Cruz, 1, 7, 8, 17, 57, 88, 90, 130-131, 134, 151, 201, 202 Verse, Mexican, 79 Villa, 199, 201, 202, 206, 207, 208, 214, 218 War with U.S.A. in 1844, 16, 57 and Navy, Department of, 52 Water-carriers, 42 Weapons, 14 Wilson, President, 209, 211, 215 Woman, Mexican, 27, 31, 165 Xochicalco, ruins of, 127 Yaqui, 183-185 " Yellow Jack," 131 Yslas, the brothers, sculptors, 91 Yucatan, 4, 17, 102, 103, 134, 135, 160-170 — — Guard, 56, 183, 222 Yzaguirre, Leandro, 93 Zacatecas, State of, 121, 141, 142 Zambos, 4 Zamora, Manuel Gutierrez, 90 Zapata, Emiliano, 179, 192, 195- 198, 200, 202, 218, 222 , Euphemio, 196 Zapatistas, 196, 198, 200, 218 Zapoteca or Zapotecs, 3, 6, 7, 61, 168 Zarapes, 164 Zumarraga, Archbishop, 67 Printed by Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd., Bath, England a39002