CHAPTER X.
THE PASEO AND BULL-FIGHT.
THE City of Mexico with its 350,000 inhabitants is a disappointment to the foreigner. The business portion looks just like an American city. All the Mexican cities are paved with cobble stones, with the street lowest in the center, which is the gutter. Here the streets are broad, cross at right angles, high in the middle with gutters next the sidewalk, and are paved with asphalt. The houses are four story, and the shops have glass show windows, very unusual in Mexico. The reason is, this is not a Mexican city. It was built by foreigners and is now run by foreigners.
On July 14, when the French celebrated the Fall of the Bastile, four-fifths of the business houses were draped in the tri-color of France. With twenty-five foreign consuls, six vice consuls, and fourteen foreign ministers, each with its attaches and dependencies, it is no wonder the city’s local ear-mark is lost in this assembly of foreigners; and, were it not for the languages of Spanish and French which fall so musically on the ear, the scene would not be very different from a street in Chicago, if we eliminate the vehicles. It is due the foreign element that the city has the finest boulevard in America.
LA PASEO DE LA REFORMA.
The Latin American races are very fond of carriage-driving, and one of the first signs of wealth is the laying out of the promenade where the “four hundred” may drive at the fashionable hour. Before the present Paseo was built, the fashionable drives were Paseo de La Viga and Paseo de Bucareli. Every afternoon, then as now, were to be seen two long rows of carriages with crowds of gentlemen on horse-back and multitudes of foot passengers.
The Paseo de Bucareli, or Paseo Nuevo, is in the southwestern part of the city. It was opened Nov. 4, 1778, by Don Antonio Maria de Bucareli, the viceroy. It has the same starting point as La Reforma, the circular plazuela in which stands the statue of Charles IV. and extends half a mile almost due south to the Garita de Belem. In the glorieta near the city gate, is what was once a handsome fountain, surmounted by a statue of Victory, erected in 1829 in honor of Guerrero, and which was originally gilded. For promenading, the Paseo is now practically deserted, but is becoming a fashionable residence section.
The glories of Paseo de La Viga have indeed departed. The once famous and fashionable drive is almost deserted, save during Lent when an old custom prescribes that fashion shall air itself there. It traverses the bank of La Viga canal for many miles, past the chinampas or floating gardens, through a double avenue of shade trees, where continual processions of Indians are seen from the Lake country, paddling to market with canoes laden to the guards with vegetables, fruits and flowers.
But Fashion is a tyrannical mistress, and she decrees that Paseo de La Reforma be the only place to see and be seen. It leads from the statue of Charles IV. to the gate of Chapultepec, two miles and a half. It is laid with smooth asphalt, and has a uniform width of two hundred feet.
It has double avenues of shade trees on each side, with broad foot ways on the side, lined with seats for the weary. At certain intervals, the street widens into glorietas, or circles, four hundred feet in diameter. The street passes on each side of these glorietas and leaves them as green islands with beautiful flowers and statuary. There are six of these glorietas and more are to be added.
All along the curbing of the Paseo, are statues of men famous in Mexican history, and are contributed by different states. At the entrance to the Paseo is the equestrian statue of Charles IV. of colossal size.
Thirty tons of metal were used in the casting, and it is the largest single casting in the world. Humboldt says it has but one superior, that of Marcus Aurelius.
A royal order issued Nov. 30, 1795, granted to the Viceroy Marquis de Branceforte to erect this statue in the Plaza Mayor. The commission was given to the sculptor Don Manuel Tosta, and the casting in bronze to Don Salvador de la Vega. The mold and furnaces were made ready in the garden of San Gregorio, and after two days spent in fusing the mass, the cast was made at 6 a.m. Aug. 4, 1802. The casting, remarkable alike for being in a single piece, and for being the first important piece of bronze executed in America, came out of the mold complete and without defect. In 1803, it was erected in front of the cathedral where now is the bandstand of the Zocalo. Here it remained till 1822 when the Mexicans had achieved their independence, and the feeling against Spain was so bitter it was encased in a wooden globe and painted blue, but was finally placed for safety from the mob in the patio of the university, a comparatively out-of-the-way place. Here it remained in obscurity till 1852 when it was set up in the commanding position it now occupies. The height of horse and rider is fifteen feet nine inches. The king is dressed in classic style, wearing a laurel wreath and raising aloft a scepter.
On both sides of the Paseo at its entrance, are colossal figures on high granite pedestals said to represent Aztec warriors. The work must have been done by Spaniards, in ridicule, for a more hideous pair of warriors never went to battle.
The first glorieta contains Cordier’s Columbus, one of the most admirable and artistic modern statues to be found in the world. This was the work of the French sculptor, Cordier, and was erected at the cost of Don Antonio Escandon. The base is a platform of basalt, surrounded by an iron railing, above which are five lanterns. From the base arises a square mass of red marble with four basso-relievos; the arms of Columbus with garlands of laurel; the rebuilding the monastery of La Rabida; the discovery of San Salvador; a fragment of a letter from Columbus to his patron Raphadi Sauris; beneath which is the dedication by Señor Escandon.
Above the basso-relievos and surrounding the pedestal, are four life-size figures in bronze, of monks and missionaries, and crowning the whole upon the top of a pedestal of red marble is the figure of Columbus, drawing aside the veil which hides the new world.
In the next glorieta is Cuauhtemoc, a worthy companion of Columbus, and is the work of Don Francisco Jiminez. The statue of the great warrior king is magnificent, as he appears hurling defiance at his country’s enemies. The base contains some fine basso-relievos, one representing the torture of Cuauhtemoc (also spelled Guatemotzin) by the cruel Spaniards. The fretting around the structure is all after the old Aztec pattern, and the trophies of Indian arms and insignia are all intensely appropriate to the warrior who preferred death of his whole people to the surrender of his city to the Spaniards. Facing the Paseo is the following inscription: “A la memoria de Cuauhtemoc y de los Guerreras que Combatieron Heroicamente en Defensa de su Patria M. D. XXI.”
Mexico is indebted to Maximilian and his wife Carlotta for this Paseo. She had set her heart upon a “Paseo Imperaliz,” and Maximilian entered heartily into the scheme, but he did not live to complete it. His idea was to establish a court that should rival any in Europe, and he had already introduced titles of nobility.
He planned to create a handsome park of Chapultepec, with lakes and streams and drives, with deer and swans and all the other nice things. What was done he paid for out of his own civil lists, and he intended to pay for it all and present it to the city. The Mexican people could not brook a European Emperor, but they all loved “Poor Carlotta,” and as she planned the Paseo, every year they add some new improvement until it has now become the glory of the republic. Every addition is an evidence of good taste, and Carlotta’s park idea is already planned. From the last glorieta two roads branching to Tacubaya and Tlaxpana are being prepared, and the park grounds will then extend from Molino del Rey to the Exposition building, three miles.
One never tires of sitting on this boulevard and viewing the motley throng as it passes in review, driving, riding or promenading. Ladies in Parisian bonnets and Spanish mantillas; the dashing equestrian rigged in the paraphernalia of Mexican horsemanship, or breeched and booted after the manner of Rotten Row itself. Stately vehicles drawn by snow-white mules; four-in-hands tooled along in the most approved European style; youthful aristocrats astride Lilliputian ponies, followed by liveried servants; here and there mounted police with drawn sabres, giving an air of old world formality to the whole proceeding. In and out among them flash the bicycles ridden by men, women and children from all civilized countries; the kaleidoscope of the pedestrians, dressed in their peculiar garb with red and gray and black rebosas, raven black hair exposed to view, and the Indians from the mountains in their severe simplicity. The procession passes up the right, with here and there a light American buggy, or a heavy-wheeled English mail phaeton with a real live dude at the front holding the reins, and a liveried flunkey facing behind and holding a flaring bouquet, and, after reaching Chapultepec, it comes back on the other side, leaving the center to the horsemen, and to the latter’s disgust, the bicycles.
And we must not forget the centaurs, the Mexican horsemen; rigged out in all the silver ornaments of bridle and saddle worth more than the spirited horse, and ten thousand people to admire them, they never appear to better advantage than when exhibiting on the Paseo. Spanish and Mexican ladies rarely ride, and when they do, they are so very exclusive they ride in closed carriages. At the glorietas are stationed military bands with from forty to eighty pieces in each, and the procession always exhibits to “slow music.”
Poor Maximilian, at heart a great man, but the dupe of Europe, planned this city as a king and died as a king. Could he return now, what might be his feelings to see his plans carried out? And poor Carlotta! the idol of Mexico, a victim of circumstances, has never forgotten that fatal day when Maximilian was shot at Queretaro and the flash of the rifles left her a queen without a throne and a wife without a husband. To this day she drags out a miserable existence at the Austrian capital, a maniac that has spent thirty years murmuring and jibbering his name. There is in America a miserable lack of respect to kings, be they never so good and kind and great, and Mexico was only true to the free air of the mountains when she refused Maximilian. Mountain-born men will always be free.
The Aztec in his palmy day offered human sacrifice. He daily made war upon his neighbors to secure the victims, and washing his hands in gore has been his profession for six hundred years; this is why bull-fighting with its fascination and danger and death is to him so dear.
Every Sunday afternoon and every feast-day is given up to this bloody pastime and everybody goes. The foreigner goes once, sometimes twice, but rarely three times, but he never forgets what he sees. Four dead bulls, three dead horses, from one to three maimed or dead men is the possible result of a Sunday’s sport. Each city has its plaza de torus or bull-ring, just as we have theaters, and the bull-fighters go from town to town as our opera companies. The stars of the company are the swordsmen. The bull-ring is a circular amphitheater, after the manner of the Roman Coliseum, and will seat from four to twenty thousand. The government takes a strong hand in lotteries and bull-fights, and in the latter, receives twenty-one per cent. of the gate receipts. In the federal district, the secretary of the republic presides at the fight.
Four different haciendas are licensed by the government to breed bulls for fighting purposes, Durango and Cazadero being the most noted. Poncama Diaz, a nephew of the president, is called the star matador of the world, and owns the Bucarelli bull-ring in the city, which is capable of seating 20,000 people. The arena is a circle 200 feet in diameter, and open to the sky. Around this is an eight foot wall to protect the people, and at intervals along this wall are “escapes” for the fighters when the bulls decide there is not enough room in the ring. Receding from the ring are the tiers of seats arranged in the manner of a circus. Those on the shady side usually selling for a dollar, while the “bleachers” sell for 25 or 37 cents. Over these seats are the private boxes, and above all the gallery for the olla podrida.
An ordinary troupe consists of two matadores or swordsmen, four banderilleros or dart stickers, two or four picadores or lancers, and the lazadores who lasso and drag the dead animals from the ring. The program usually consists of the killing of four bulls in an hour, with sometimes an extra. The president of the function, (every thing here is a function) may reject any part of the performance or fine any member who commits a breach of ring etiquette. The performance is set for four o’clock and is always the same. The crowd waits, grows impatient, the band plays. The crowd grows more impatient, the band plays again—plays all the time. Finally the judge appears, (every function must have a mediator between the people and the event) and is seated in his decorated box, and the band plays again.
The judge makes a sign to the bugler who blows the opening of the gates, through which comes a snow-white horse bearing a rider dressed in green and gold, with knee pants and silver buckles, flowing cape, cocked hat and waving plume. This is the president of the company, and he begs the permission and approval of the fight. The judge assents and throws him the keys of the bull-ring, (what else is he there for?) and the rider retires. Again the bugler blows and the company enter in full force, and the costume of each is worth a thousand dollars in gold. No two are dressed alike as to color. Silk jackets that reach the waist, knee pants and silk stockings and a cockade hat, all present the prismatic colors of the rainbow. Around each is a Spanish cloak, held around the waist with the left hand. As they make their bow to the audience, the cloak is let loose with the left hand and swings around gracefully pendant from the left shoulder.
Again the bugle blows, and through the open gate a fierce bull from the mountain is ushered in. As he passes the gate a man overhead thrusts a steel dart into his shoulder, and on the dart is a rosette and a silk ribbon bearing the name of the hacienda whence he came. Maddened by the wound and frightened by the noise and people, he seeks the cause, and sees two horsemen in the arena. The horse is blindfolded to prevent his shying, and has a piece of sole-leather covering his side for protection. The horseman has a lance and endeavors to thrust it into his shoulder to ward him off. The lance point is short and is not meant to do serious harm, but to wound and irritate the bull and make him furious for the final battle. Sometimes the lance fails to score, sometimes it holds in his tough hide and the handle breaks and the bull buries his horns in the horse’s belly, and hurls both horse and rider in the air.
The horse was intended for the sacrifice from the beginning, and this was a part of the program. When the bull has killed one or two horses, he is encouraged to fight, and that is just what the whole thing is for. A man with a red flag draws the bull’s attention to the other side while the dead horse is dragged out, and sometimes a dead man. Again the bugle blows and the ring is cleared, and two banderilleros enter. With a red flag one gets the bull’s attention, and a banderillero runs to the center. In each hand he holds a banderilla, a sharp steel dart about a foot long, and ornamented with rosettes and streamers. When the bull charges, he must reach over his horns and plant both of his banderillas in a shoulder at the same time. Sometimes the spread of horns is four feet, and the banderillero must make the pass and escape in a flash. As the bull makes the charge in a frenzied run, you find yourself unconsciously rising from your seat in anticipation of the almost certain death of the man, and women who see it for the first time usually faint and are promptly carried out.
Should the man succeed in planting the banderillas, the crowd shower cigars and flowers and fans upon him and shout bravo! bravo! Should the bull succeed in thrusting his horns through the man’s equatorial region and toss him in the air, the crowd shout bravo torus! just the same and cheer and whistle. They paid their money to see blood and what does it matter if it be man or bull’s? At this point it is proper for the American ladies to faint and come to and hurry out, while the Mexicans laugh at people who leave before the fun begins. The idea of fainting for such a small thing! The dead man is carried out and the other banderillero takes his place, and as the bull charges he must plant his banderillas in the other shoulder. Sometimes the experts vary the program by sitting in a chair until the bull is within six feet of him, and then rises and makes his thrust in time to escape, and the bull goes off writhing in pain and trying to shake the cruel darts from his shoulder.
Sometimes a detachable rosette is thrust between his eyes as he charges, and the stream of blood that follows betrays the steel point behind the beautiful rosette. Then men with red flags will tantalize him. They stand behind the flag, and as the bull charges the men step aside, holding the flag at arm’s length in the same place, and the bull passes under the flag into empty air, where the man was. Quick as a cat he detects the fraud and turns upon the man, who makes a two-forty sprint to one of the escapes, where the bull tries to batter down the planks to get to him. The bull is now mad enough to fight a circular saw, and again the bugle blows. The ring is cleared and now enters the matador. The judge hands him a red flag and a sword. He must now challenge the bull to single combat, and to the victor belong the congratulations, and the man knows full well that if he gets killed the crowd will cheer the bull just as heartily as they would if it were the other way.
All the preliminaries of the fight were to aggravate the bull to his highest fighting power, then turn him over to the matador, the “star of the evening.” Rules as rigid as the Marquis of Queenbury prevail, and woe to the man who should violate a rule or take advantage of the bull! The judge would instantly order him from the ring and fine him. The ethics of the fight require that the man shall stand in the middle of the ring, wave the red flag as a challenge, and as the bull starts toward him put the flag behind him. As the bull charges, he must reach over his horns, thrust the sword through his shoulder, pierce the heart, and the point of the sword must appear between the bull’s fore legs, and it must all be done in a single stroke.
The hand and the eye must be as quick as lightning to do that when the bull is on the run. If the stroke is successful, the sword flashes a moment in the air and the next its hilt is resting against the shoulder blades, and the bull falls as if struck by lightning. Then the air is rent with shouts and dollars and fans and handkerchiefs, and with one foot upon the dead animal, the matador bows his appreciation. The bugle blows, the two lazadores gallop in, throw their lariats over the two hind legs of the bull, and without checking their gallop, drag him out and prepare for another. A bull is killed every fifteen minutes as regular as the clock.
Sometimes the sword misses the heart, and the bull walks off with a stream of blood and an ugly sword wound, and then the hisses and remarks that fall upon the matador sometimes drive him to suicide. I saw a matador driven to desperation by the hisses, and seizing another sword he made the stroke just behind the ear, severing the medulla oblongata, a more difficult stroke than the other, thereby redeeming himself. Sometimes a bull with wide stretch of horns will disconcert a matador and he will attempt to retreat at the last moment, but then it is as often death as escape.
One Sunday a company had unusually bad luck. Three horses and two men had already been killed, and only two bulls, and the troupe had no more matadors. One man was apologizing to the audience that the sport could not proceed as he had already lost two men, when the bull suddenly made a charge upon him and caught him between the shoulders. The “sport” closed for the day, and the people pronounced it a great success.
The next Sunday there was hardly standing room from the crowd that came back hoping for a similar show. I met the crowd returning, and asked how was the fight? Several shook their heads and looked dejected. “No bueno, nobody was killed and the whole thing was a fiasco.” If a bull refuses to fight after the lance has been thrust into him, the bugler at a sign from the judge blows him out. It must be a bloody, thoroughbred fight or none at all. It requires a long education to harden people to suffering and blood as these people practice daily. I saw two soldiers walk out of the barrack to fight a duel with pocket-knives, and a hundred people stood by and saw them kill each other and not a hand was raised to stay them. The modo duello among the cow-boys is very effective. When two cow-boys have a difficulty that cannot be settled, their friends take them off and tie their left hands together and stick two bowie knives in the ground for their right hands, and leave them. The one that is left alive can cut himself loose and come back to camp. If neither comes back by the next day, the friends go over and bury them. There is also a woman bull-fighter in Mexico; her name is La Charita. Arizona Charley, an American cowboy has also endeared himself to the Mexican heart by proving himself a first-class matador. Bull-fighting is as much a national sport as our base-ball. At one time it was interdicted in the federal district, and the people would go to Puebla every Sunday, seventy-five miles away, to see the “sport.” To the lovers of the sport it matters little whether the bull or horse or the man gets killed, or all three. What they want is their money’s worth.
The meat is sold to the butchers after the fight, and Monday morning when the waiter asks the Americano how is his steak, the answer generally comes, “It’s bully.”
