CHAPTER XII.
THE SUBURBS.
THERE are twenty suburban towns around the capital that can be visited by horse-cars, or as the natives say, “tram-vias.” They are Atzcapotzalco, Tacuba, Tacubaya, Jamaica, Santa Anita, Chapultepec, Molino Del Rey, Churubusco, San Angel, Castaneda, Tlalpam, Cepoyacan, Popotla, San Joaquin, Contreras, Azteca, Nueva Tenochtitlan, Guadalupe, Tlaxpano, Tlalnepantla and Mixcoac. You will notice that most of them bear Aztec and not Spanish names, which means that they are older than the Conquest, and are worth seeing, even though you do not get out of the cars.
The farthest away is old Tlalpam, about 20 kilometers, and most of the journey is made by steam. Seven or eight cars leave the city, drawn by mules to the gate of the city where they are coupled together, and a locomotive pulls the train through the beautiful valley at the rate of fifteen miles an hour. It makes one feel a little bit creepy to know that he is thus hurried along in a train of street cars, but they are made by a reliable New York firm and that gives confidence. We pass through a valley overlain with volcanic tufa, and herein lies the secret of the wonderful productiveness of this farming land. It is easily pulverized and makes a fertilizer as potent as the commercial ones. Old Tlalpan is on the rim of the valley and the foot hills of the plateau, and is a residence suburb of the wealthy who do business in the city. The walls of the private residences are as forbidding as a penitentiary. Solid masonry from ten to twenty feet high, capped with broken glass fastened in cement.
A Mexican’s home is indeed his castle, to which he enters through stone walls and iron gates. You are not wanted there and are never invited. I knew an American professor who taught five years in Mexico, and had seen the inside of only three homes, and then he went on business, and saw none of the female members. Such is the custom and seclusiveness of the people.
Tlalpan reminds me of a citizen of New York who went into a fin du siecle saloon to get a drink, and when he paid his reckoning it was one dollar. He naturally protested against the exorbitance, and the clerk called his attention to his surroundings. “My dear sir, look about you; this is no dive, these paintings cost a hundred thousand dollars.” The victim paid the dollar, and thought long and deeply. The next day he returned by way of a harness shop, and got a pair of blind bridles that draymen use on their horses, and thus equipped he entered that aristocratic saloon and walked up to the counter. “Gimme a drink straight without any scenery today.” That is old Tlalpam. Every street has its blind bridles up and no scenery, but it is not peculiar to Tlalpam. I have never seen a Mexican’s home with a front yard. At the edge of the sidewalk up goes his stone house or his stone wall, pierced with an opening and closed by a heavy iron gate fastened always on the inside. Members of the family have to give the password or its equivalent before it is ever opened, and tramps are unknown. Life would have no pleasures for a tramp who could not open the back-gate and creep up to the kitchen and frighten a woman to death by a flash of his living picture.
In Tlalpam you walk a block between high walls to the cross street, and do the same to the next and the next, and you can imagine how delightful it is, “Straight without scenery.” You must not forget that none of the streets have shade trees. So after I had admired all the beautiful stone walls and stone pavements, a wicket was suddenly opened to pass someone in, and I got a flashing glance of languid señoras and señoritas taking their siesta in hammocks swung between lime trees redolent with fragrance and—some one shut the gate. If that sleepy old town thought that I had come all the way there to look at the stone walls, little did it know me. I pounded on that gate till the startled inhabitants thought I was trying to break into jail, but I got in, and found myself in one of the most beautiful and fascinating places I had yet seen. The spraying fountains and flowers and song birds, and the Moorish setting of the surroundings, took me back to the wonderful stories of the Alhambra. Meanwhile that astonished household was all agape at the unheard of intrusion, but great is the power of flattery. I frankly told them that I had been sent all the way from the United States by a committee of one, to hunt out the most beautiful places in Mexico and secure their photographs at all hazard to display and strike dead with envy the people who live in the stuffy cities of America. That on that very morning I had left the City of Mexico for the express purpose of getting a picture of the finest place and the most beautiful ladies in Tlalpam, and with that end in view I was here.——“Enough Señor, enough! Take us; we are all yours, the house, the fountains, the trees, the girls—they are all yours, take them.”
Here was eloquence and victory combined and I did not know what to do with all the victory. I had solemnly promised not to accept any more costly presents from these good people, but this bunch of girls seemed to be different from hotels and other real estate, so I resolved to make the old gentleman a present of his house and lot, and keep the girls: so I very gladly embraced—er—the opportunity of posing them for their pictures. Why these good people should hide so much loveliness and beauty behind impassable stone walls is beyond my ken.
How old is Tlalpam? I don’t know, but it began at a time when the memory of man runneth not to the contrary. Upon the walls, the crop of glass planted in the cement did not seem to flourish very much. It was a very glassy looking glass and seemed to need irrigating, but time is long with these people, and if it does not pan out a crop in the next fifty years, they will wait patiently for manana, that scape-goat of all incompleted enterprises—to-morrow. I don’t know whatever gave these people an idea that they could grow glass anyway, unless it was the Spanish moss. This moss is a parasite that grows upon all kinds of trees, but in old Tlalpam it grows upon the wires stretched across the street to hold the street lamps, and it is aristocratic moss that grows with its head up instead of trailing, and I call that making headway against adverse conditions. The weeds and cacti upon the wall seemed to make their way better than the broken glass, and when I last saw them, they were green and were getting up in the world.
“But it is a long lane,” etc., as the proverb says, so at last the supply of aristocracy gave out at the rise of the hill, and we reached the realm of the great unwashed, who had neither walls nor rags to hide their nakedness. The happy children were clothed with innocence which needed no other protection than the blue sky and the Republic of Mexico.
Higher and higher we go up the hill. The avenue we started in led into the main street, this street finally led into a path, and the path terminated in a cow trail and this trail merged into a squirrel path which ran up a tree; so, like the King of France, “We marched up the hill, and then marched down again.” But before starting down we stopped to rest at the tree where the squirrel trail disappeared, and looked over the valley, and could realize the emotions of Cortez when he stood at the same place and viewed a similar scene. Across the silver lake lay the City of Mexico, twenty kilometers away, with its thousands of spires and pulse-throbs that supplied the veins and arteries and capillaries to the fortunes and hopes of its tens of thousands of dependencies. No wonder Cortez said it was the fairest city man ever looked upon. The one thing a stranger never quite masters here is the rarified atmosphere which destroys all ideas of distance and nullifies all laws of optics. You have traveled the road and know it is twenty kilometers, but the city is brought so like a mirage that you seem almost able to hear the clock strike. We leave our squirrel path and find ourselves in the city of the dead, a beautiful place shaded with eucalyptus trees and furnished with restful seats.
Soon there enters a figure heavily veiled and places a wreath of amaranth upon a new-made grave, marked with a wooden cross, and R. I. P. We leave her to her sorrow and follow a limpid stream from the mountain back to the city below. Beyond is the parched chaparral and the thorny cactus now laden with its harvest of purple tunas, surely the manna of the desert for these discouraged-looking peons. Beside the stream were green trees of limes and oranges and English walnuts and agua caties and an air of restfulness.
We follow the stream into the little plaza with its spraying fountain and fragrant Datura suaveolens, which grows into quite a bush. The pleasant seats invite us to sit and listen to the notes of the noisy purple grackle and the discordant tropical jay as they take their morning bath. Rip Van Winkle is still asleep and Mrs. Xantippe R. V. W. has not yet come from the market, and so for fear of disturbing the serenity of that Elysian Field, we tip-toe back to the station where the car is waiting, and that sleepy old town does not know to this day that a band of camera fiends invaded its sacred precincts, even unto its highest citadel and returned without the loss of a single man. Happy Old Tlalpam. R.I.P.
Back across the ancient bed of the lake we fly, and where once was Montezuma’s fleet are herds of sleek cattle, knee-deep in rich alfalfa, awaiting their turn to contribute to the material welfare of the mammoth city. We reach a junction, Churubusco! Immediately we think of that history class of twenty years ago, when we had to “stay in” after school because those battles would not fight themselves in the right places; when Chancellorsville and Crown Point and Saratoga and Churubusco could not agree as to time, place and manner. Here was a chance to settle one point, even if the teacher had long since died of worry, and we anxiously get out and look.
“Where is Churubusco?” “This is Churubusco.” “But,” I said, “I don’t see anything but a street-car stable with come mules in it.” “All the same this is Churubusco.” “Well,” I enquired, “where does this mule car go from this junction?” “It goes to San Angel, a summer residence town.” I determined to go out there and come back when my mind was settled to take a look at Churubusco, but when I got back, there it was, just an adobe mule stable. I sat on a bench opposite and tried to think what did General Scott want with the stable, and why they put it in the history. I suppose it was put there to punish unoffending little boys who liked to play base-ball. I took out my camera and prepared to shoot the harmless stable, and changed my mind. I was not on a warlike expedition, but was in pursuit of knowledge, and I did not want to add another blot on the sanguinary page of America’s Dr. Ledger. No, not for a brevet. I put up my magazine.
A general vegetable merchant, who had three cabbages and four turnips on a board, seeing my troubled countenance, very kindly came over and said: “Que pense, Señor?” I said: “I am thinking about General Scott bringing his army up here after that car stable and then did not take it away after you gave it to him. Now don’t you think he was off his base?” He shrugged both shoulders, took his cigarette from his mouth and thought a minute, and then he uttered these words of wisdom: “Quien sabe?”
I said, “Well if you live here and do not know, how am I expected to know, and what are the histories to do about it? And my good fellow, just between you and me and the gatepost, don’t you think if General Scott had come here and taken a good look at that stable first, he would have gone on to town and had a good night’s rest, and saved me all this unrest and pang of conscience about that history lesson, and that poor dead teacher?”
With his eyes full of pity he said: “Señor, are you hungry?” “Yes I am, and I am disgusted with your old street-car stable.” “Señor, here’s your car if you are going to town.” I turned my face to the city and my back on Churubusco.
We soon reached the city gate, where the locomotive was unhitched and the mules were re-hitched, and we were soon on the street, where we met a funeral car with its black canopy flying behind, as the mules, under whip and lash, hurried to the city of the dead, and I went to drown my thoughts in a glass of pina. Others may have this drowning mania sometimes, so I give this recipe free gratis for nothing, as I got it from the señora on the Zocalo. The pine-apple is first pared and sliced as we do apples. Then on her knees the señora takes her stone rolling pin and stone vessel like a wash board and reduces the slices to pulp, which is strained and sweetened and iced, and is sent to you by the señorita, who guarantees to drown all your troubles for just six cents, and she innocently prattles away until the glass is empty, and “of course the caballero will have another.” Under ordinary circumstances you would not, but many a man has taken his second glass there just because he did not know how to say no. The next car is bound for Atzcapotzalco, so we jump aboard and pass out upon that terrible causeway where the Spanish army were almost annihilated on that memorable night of Noche Triste, July 1, 1520.
At the bridge you pass through the Riverra de San Cosme and are shown El Salto de Alvarado. Alvarado was the most trusted lieutenant of Cortez, and on the retreat that night the Aztecs cut the causeway and the waters rushed in, separating the army of Cortez into two parts. Alvarado was fighting in the rear, and when he attempted to join Cortez he found the dike cut. His men were all killed or taken prisoners, and he gathered all his strength and made the leap from the end of his lance that made him famous. Authorities do not give the distance, but say it was impossible for any other man. Aztecs and Tlaxcalans alike looked on in amazement and cried: “Surely this is Tonatiuh, the child of the Sun!”
Here the Aztecs stopped to gather up the rich booty which Cortez had taken from their treasure-house and was forced to leave behind in the breach, and the circumstance alone enabled the invaders to reach the village of Popotla, a mile further, where Cortez sat down to weep over the destruction of his army. The tree under which he sat is by the side of the street and is known as the tree of Noche Triste—Melancholy Night. It is a cypress and is called by the Aztecs, Ahuehuete. Some years ago a religious fanatic set fire to it and disfigured it, but it still shows a trunk forty feet high and the same in circumference. The American tourists were about to take it all away as relics, so the city was compelled to enclose it in a lofty iron fence, which is fully able to enforce the ordinance, “Keep off the grass.” The natives very naturally expected me to attempt to scale the fence and get a branch, and to let them know that all Americans could live up to their reputation. I vigorously shook one or two of the iron posts which stubbornly refused to leave the enclosure. All the same I felt proud; I had proved to them that I was an Americano, who would rob the dead, if the dead had any keep-sakes about him that would do to exhibit at home.
Having thus patriotically saved our national reputation, I boarded the car for Atzcapotzalco, which was once an independent kingdom and the capital of the Tepanecs. Atzcapotzalco, only seven miles from Tenochtitlan, held the Aztecs in subjection. Once when the Aztec King sent a present, Maxatla, the tyrant, in derision returned to the king a woman’s dress. Later he allured to his court the wife of the Aztec king and violated her. For this insult, the Aztec king Itzacoatl, “Serpent of stone,” made an alliance with the Acolhuans, and in a two days’ battle the city of Atzcapotzalco was taken, 1448, and reduced to a slave market and never again rose to power. I think they were still talking about that battle when I was there. Old age seemed to have settled down upon everything, and the task to arouse them was so great I refused the contract and left it just as Cortez found it in 1520. The valley surrounding it is very fertile and alfalfa and vegetables were as green as ivy.
Tacubaya is the Monte Carlo of Mexico and the most aristocratic suburb around the city, with fine residences and beautiful gardens and the most handsome villas in the country. From the gate of Chapultepec a causeway leads through a most beautifully shaded avenue to the city, and then I lost interest in it. I was riding a bicycle and when I reached those cobble-stone pavements I gave them my undivided attention. A tall fellow from Texas did the swearing for the crowd, and he was so fluent there was no need for reinforcement, so my whole mind was given to calculations as to whether I could mount that next stone or climb out of the next hole. I saw a policeman and I thought he was coming to read the law, which says no team shall go faster than a walk, so I stopped to give him my impression of the inquisition and the rack, but I was disappointed. He had simply used up all the shade on his corner and was hunting for more. A frog once lived in Kiota, so the Japanese story runs, and he started out to see the world. When he reached the top of a hill he reared on his hind feet to view the world. As everybody knows, a frog’s eyes are on the back of his head, and as he reared up, his eyes pointed right back to Kioto, so he returned and said: “All the world is like Kioto.” So all of Tacubaya is like the main street, just cobble-stones. I am sorry I missed all the beauties they say are there, but all I saw was the front wheel of that bicycle and the cobble-stones. Bicycling is best done in that town on foot.
With Penon it is different. Penon was once an island in Lake Texcoco, but since the draining of the lake it is high and dry and is noted for the hot baths and its beautiful bath house. The whole establishment is paved in glazed tiles laid in mosaics, and the pillars are all painted after the ancient Egyptian style. I never was an Egyptian, but if I was I think I would mistake this excellent imitation for one of the old establishments that Anthony and Cleopatra used to patronize so liberally. The ride to Penon on bicycle across the ancient bed of the lake cannot be excelled.
On the road we passed the new penitentiary and the boys wanted to stop and see it, but I was perfectly satisfied to “pass by on the other side.” Not that I was likely to meet any old acquaintance among its officials, but on general principles I argue that a penitentiary is a good place to stay away from. You might get lost in there and not get out, and besides, we had been interviewed by the greatest newspaper in the city, and as most fellows’ wood-cuts always look like somebody you never heard of, I thought those officials might have seen those pictures and would arrest us—I mean the other fellows—for some jail bird that escaped long ago; but they were bound to go so I told them somebody had to attend to those bicycles, and if they would not I felt it my bounden duty to stay there and guard them. So I went to the pen by proxy. They say it was grand and had cages and other attractive furniture all from the United States. I always mean to go to the penitentiary by proxy.
Across the lake is the city of Texcoco, that was once the Athens of the valley as Tenochtitlan was the Rome. Here are many ancient remains of buildings built when this was the most bitter rival the Aztec capital had. Were it not for the help of the Texcocoans, Cortez never would have conquered the Island City. Beyond here are the Arcos de Zempoala, an aqueduct 37 miles long, supported by arches nearly a hundred feet high. Two leagues from Texcoco is the Malino de Flores, “The Mill of the Flowers,” which is not a mill at all, but the entrancing home and estate of an old Spanish family, Cervantes by name, and one of the oldest and noblest of the Grandees from old Spain.
In this fairy land of a hermitage you marvel as you never did before at the possibilities of beautiful surroundings and Moorish architecture. I wish I might describe this beautiful place, but no one can unless he be artist, florist and architect, and as I am neither I will not mar its beauty by a parody of an attempt. For a description of the towns I did not visit, consult any good cyclopedia.