CHAPTER XI.
LA VIGA CANAL.
ON the side-walk adjacent to the western entrance to the cathedral is an iron and glass Kiosk. This is Mexico’s flower market. Every morning in the year from daybreak until eight o’clock, the sidewalk and the adjoining street is one mass of fragrance and color. Every flower you know and as many as you do not know are spread in the greatest profusion possible, which fact suggests an inexhaustible supply-house somewhere. Here are roses, jassamines, pansies, violets, heliotropes, sweetpeas, gardenias, camelias, lilies, honeysuckles, forget-me-nots, verbenas, lark-spurs, poppies, morning-glories, tulips, geraniums, and orchids of untold variety and color. And there were purchasers. Priests from all the churches, milliners and café proprietors, dry-goods’ merchants, hotel keepers, the señora in her private carriage, señoritas with holy shrines and patron saints to honor, devotees whose special saint day is to be celebrated by a fiesta—everybody buys flowers, and they come by the ton as fast as other tons are sold. And they are arranged by master hands into cornucopias, crosses for the church altar, wreaths for the funeral car, decorations for the cemetery, and into any design the purchaser may indicate.
GROUP EL ABRA.
I ask where such a world of flowers can come from in such an unbroken stream. “From Las Chinampas,” the floating gardens. Floating Gardens! that sounded like the tales I had read, and here are people just from them! I anxiously ask where are they: “En Canal La Viga;” and so the search began. A street-car takes us to La Embarcadero where a hundred eager boatmen leave the wharf and come running to see us. I always thought I was popular, but here was an ovation I had not looked for. Then I learned something new. Each of my hundred friends had the best boat on La Viga, and each of my hundred friends was the best pilot from the canal to the lakes. Here was absolute perfection in ship building and nautical knowledge that would make Diogenes put up his lamp and say: “Eureka!” After each had extolled the virtues of his particular scow, or flatboat, or raft, whichever it approached nearest in appearance, we chose one.
If Canal La Viga was ever dug by man, history is silent about it. It was here when the conquerors came. It serves the same purpose as Niagara River, and brings the water of Lakes Chalco and Xochimilco down to Lake Texcoco. It has a uniform width and depth, and its banks are lined with stately avenues of trees the entire length. To the great middle-class and Indians, this is the great highway of commerce and resort for pleasure. Sundays and feast days it is a mass of moving color. In the dim past this city was the Venice of the New World, so boating is an inheritance. The boats are from ten to fifteen feet long; from four to eight wide and are generally poled along. There is an awning and comfortable seats where the passenger may enjoy the scenery protected from the sun. You make any arrangement you can as to price, and your boatman spits on his hands and pushes off, and if it is early in the morning you meet hundreds of crafts coming to market loaded down with fruits, grain and vegetables, pigs, lambs and chickens, and charcoal and baskets and everything else that the Lake country produces. The vegetables, by irrigation, surpass anything you have over met in that line; heads of lettuce larger than cabbage, and radishes as large as an ear of corn. A diminutive steam tug is met, trailing twelve or fifteen barges loaded with grain and cordwood from the upper lakes. Under a shade tree by the water, is a laundry after the fashion of the country, and a man and woman are washing clothes. The man’s part consists in sitting down and looking tired while the woman scrubs.
If it is Sunday the boats are laden with garlanded merry-makers with tinkling guitars and singing and dancing and having a “large time.” On the right is the once famous Paseo de La Viga, whose glory has long since departed to the Paseo de La Reforma. In spite of its neglect, La Viga is one of the most delightful drives in the city, especially in early morn, when canal traffic is at its best, and during Holy Week when the great middle-class take their holiday. Almost immediately after starting, we reach the old puebla of Jamaica, which, like the Paseo, has the look of having seen better times. On the opposite bank and by the Paseo, stands a melancholy bust of Guatemotzin, the last of the Aztec chieftains, whom the Mexicans delight to honor—another testimonial of ancient aristocratic grandeur. The next point of interest is the old Garita de la Viga, the custom-house building, dating back to Spanish times.
Until a month prior to this writing, all boats paid custom duties on whatever merchandise they brought to the city. When the duties were paid the smaller boats were admitted through a small gate-way, which necessitated the lowering of the awnings, while the large ones had to discharge their cargoes.
On the up-stream side of the romantic old bridge is always a blockade of boats of every description, from mud scows to steamboats, waiting for a transfer. The first town beyond the Garita is the quaint little town of Santa Anita, the Coney Island of the Canal. It is essentially a Mexican town of thatched reed houses, nearly every one a restaurant for the sale of those unnamable dishes one meets with so often, which have a far-off smell, but fill a long-felt want. After hearing their names called, you are no wiser, but feel better. There are also liquid and semi-liquid refreshments to suit the taste, provided your sense of taste has been destroyed before coming here. The insidious and seductive pulque mixed with the firey tequila and mescal are all loaded with malice præpens, and are better left to the lava-scarred throats that have met them before. All the fruit drinks are excellent, but the drink par excellence is the pina. It is made from grated pine-apple, sweetened with sugar and cooled with the snow just brought from Popocatapetl that morning.
When Horace sang of the wine of Brundusium cooled with the snows of Hymettus, he had not heard of the pina of Santa Anita backed up by Popocatapetl. Here are games, and all manner of games peculiar to the people, and flower-booths where the people buy flowers and garland each other, where even the humblest may wear a crown woven of fragrant flowers woven by the hand of Romeo or Juliet, only they call each other Ramon and Inez. Here is a fine old church with a beautiful tower and a diminutive plaza with restful seats and entrancing music.
Be sure to stop at the hacienda of Don Juan Corona. He was a retired bull-fighter, and in his old age became antiquarian, and his house is a vast museum of costly and rare antiquities. When he died he left a legacy to found a school for the poor, and if you have any pennies to bestow upon the señora who shows you around, they will be well spent.
We leave the merry-makers and proceed on our search for las chinampas, after our boatman has mulcted us for coppers enough to tank up at a pulque joint. The thick ropy liquid has loosened his tongue in a marvelous manner, and the flood gates of his information bureau are raised, and for an hour he gives us chapters of unwritten history and legends of the country. That which I knew, he gave in Spanish, and that which neither of us knew he gave in Aztec, and he justified his claim of being the best informed guide on La Viga. Henceforth I call him Ananias. The two snow-clad volcanoes were close by on our left and I asked him which was Ixtaccihuatl and which Popocatepetl. “This is Esclaéwa and that is Popocaltepay,” he promptly answered. I said: “Man, your pronounciation is bent a little bit to starboard; everybody else says Popocatepetl.” “Of course they do,” he said, “which only proves that everybody else is wrong. I say it is Popocaltepay.” That scored one more for that designing pulque, and added to the title of Ananias, that of Geographer with a pedigree only three removes by blood from some people Baron Munchausen once knew.
The next town reached was Ixtacalco, where the people seem to have sobered down, and the burg showed less bent for pleasure and more for business. Here a fine old stone bridge crosses La Viga, and a discouraged old chapel with its portals wandering down to the water’s edge, where, in the good old days gone by, the boatman muttered an ave and deposited his offering to the saint in whose honor it was consecrated, in the hope that good luck might attend his market voyage. In front of the church, dedicated to Saint Matias, and which is a Franciscan foundation of more than three hundred years ago, is a little plaza with a fountain of running water. Along the lane from this plaza and marked by a palm-tree, is the ruin of what was once the chapel of Santiago, which is used as a dwelling.
In the midst of these inhabitants is the remnant of what was once a most gallant image of Santiago himself, now galloping to defend the faith on a headless horse, another relic of the romantic past, the work possibly of some cavalier of Spain, under the leadership of that prince of brave men, Hernan Cortez—for cruel as he was, we cannot withhold from him the meed he justly earned in bearding the lion in his den, though The New World Venice was buried in his blood-reeking canals. Who knows whose work it was, least of all the inhabitants of Ixtacalco, or the mutilated image itself, or if it knows, it discloses not its secret. We told Ananias to drive on, but that worthy assumed an electrocuted countenance that was wonderful to behold. The long distance had already paralyzed one side, and “He barely had strength enough to take him back to the city, and the Lake is fifteen kilometers. You will have to hire another boatman from here, and señor, by all the saints I could not pass that bridge, it is beyond my territory, and besides, señor, how much more will you give me to carry you to the next town?”
There! at last we see him in his true light, a pirate! Three well-earned titles in one day and it was not a very good day for titles either, and he had no appearance of aristocracy either. Certainly he did not belong to the Order of the Bath. “Here,” said I, “I will give you three cents to get drunk and drown yourself.” Off came his sombrero and down came a salaam almost to the prow of his boat. “Señor, I think I heard you say you wanted to see the chinampas.” “Chinampas! why of course, that is what I left the city to see, where are they?” “Well señor, we passed the floating garden a mile back at Santa Anita.” Caramba! Here was the title of knave to add to his already long list. With the hope of “holding me up” at the bridge for a raise in wages, he had silently passed the chinampas for fear I would stop.
My admiration began to grow for this Captain Kidd, and I was anxious to know how many cards he yet held up his sleeve, but it was expensive, so telling him to soak his head, I crossed the bridge and struck out upon the causeway, and for miles and miles there was nothing but chinampas! They could have been seen from Ananias’ boat had it not been for the bank of the canal. This then was the mint where the flowers and vegetables were coined for the great city. Floating garden is now a misnomer. In years gone by they really floated on rafts, but as the French say “Nous avons change tout cela.” Since the lake was drained they are all stationary and are likely to remain so unless “Popocaltepay” resumes business again.
The Chinampas are a net-work of islands—Venice moved from the city to the lakes. The land-owner simply taps the canal with a ditch, leads it around three sides of a square and brings it into the canal again, making a rectangular island of any dimension he chooses. His neighbor beyond taps to his canal, and the system is extended for miles and miles just like the streets of a city, the business blocks answering for the islands. Through these canal streets dart thousands of boats that harvest the crops that grow here forever. Surrounded and saturated with water the chinampas are always moist and fertile and as there is no winter it is one perpetual seed time and harvest. The accumulated humus and vegetable matter make it unnecessary to even fertilize.
Broad streets cross these areas at intervals and among these islands and along the causeways the Indians live. No mosquito is ever billed for an evening’s entertainment, and the voice of the mud-turtle is not heard in the land. Malaria? perhaps, but what of that? A few dollars to the priest, a few masses for the soul in Purgatory, and the general average in the end is about the same. Your average Indian, like the Hindoo, is a fatalist, and “Kismet!” what is to be will be. There is something of beauty in these humble homes, and where flower-growing is a profession, it would be strange if their beauty had left no impression upon the lives and homes, and so all the people of La Viga decorate with flowers. The thatched house of reeds will be hidden under its wealth of vine and flower of the copra del oro with its immense golden cups approaching in size a squash blossom. Within these huts are specimens of dark beauty and features and wealth of hair that many a fairer maiden might envy. Seated under her own vine and pomegranate tree, wrapped in thought and a scant petticoat, she weaves a mat of rushes or knits a hammock that will find its way to the home of some who read these lines.
Are they happy? “Where ignorance is bliss,” etc. They were born here, their parents before them were born here, this beautiful valley has all the charms to them that your home has for you. And is not Antonio here? and is he not the best gardener on La Viga, and are they not going to the little chapel next fiesta to be joined by the priest? Surely happiness in this world is measured by the contentment of our lot.
Not all the people of the Chinampas have boats. The great highway along the bank carries more passengers than the placid waters. An Indian woman with a hundred and thirty pounds on her head will trot her thirty miles to market and return next day. I say trot because no other word will do. All people of the burden-bearing class have a swing trot that they keep up all day. And the income! what glowing picture of opulence does the Indian not feel when he spends two days in the mountains burning charcoal, then loads himself and burro with his wealth, and trots his twenty miles to market? A dollar and a half for both loads would drive him speechless, but let us confine ourselves to actual facts, and grant him a whole dollar. He counts himself well paid, and the five days labor and forty mile journey count for nothing. He is not selling his time, but his carbon which he patiently peddles till sold, only keeping enough to feed his burro with. I suppose he feeds him with it, for I am sure I have never seen him carry along anything else that looked like feed. For dessert a few banana peels around the market place and broken pottery is about his only chance unless good luck blows some old straw hat his way; then he feasts. Time! What is time to the Indian? Has he not a whole year?
The next town on La Viga is Mexicalcingo, seven miles from the city. Before the Conquest it was of some importance, but now only a straggling village with dirty streets, which shelter possibly three hundred people. The ruins of the monastery and church of San Marco, built by the Franciscans, are here. The old causeway and military road, seven miles long, that once crossed the lake from Mexico to Ixtapalapan, crosses La Viga at this point. This was a dependency of the Aztec City. A very picturesque view of the high old bridge of Aztec time is had, and the bright green maize on one hand, and the old ecclesiastical building on the other, bowered in masses of dark green foliage, are very pleasing. Past the ancient old bridge the scene changes but little except there are less signs of habitation, and finally the last town of La Viga is reached, Culhuacan. This is a picturesque old town, half of it built on the hill, and here are the ruins of a fine old church and monastery. Here La Viga begins to broaden out into a lake, and everywhere, both parallel with it and at right angles to it, are many branches of the canal, which in wet weather are small lakes themselves.
The journey might be continued out into Lake Xochimilco “The Field of Flowers,” and the quaint and beautiful town of the same name would be well worth the time; but we started out to see where all those beautiful flowers came from, and veni, vide, I returned.
