CHAPTER III.
SAN LUIS POTOSI.
AND no more satisfactory city can be visited than San Luis, situated in the crater of a fertile valley, while its suburbs extend to the rich silver mines of the mountains which give it name.
The mines have been worked over three hundred years, but the city is only two hundred years old. The mines were discovered to the Spaniards by a pious monk, who named them Potosi, because of the resemblance to the mines of Peru.
Three million dollars annually, are mined. A very unusual thing for Mexico, the railroad station is in the heart of the city. Seventy-five thousand people make their home here, and the law requires all houses to be kept freshly painted; and what a restful revelation it is, with asphalt pavements swept clean each night, and hotels that make a traveler glad. The only drawback to complete happiness is a lack of water. Most cities here draw their water from the mountains in aqueducts, but San Luis has outgrown its supply.
At the public fountains, a stream of water-carriers by hundred stand patiently in line to fill their vessels from the tiny, discouraged stream trickling from the Dolphin’s mouth, and the police stand guard to see that all are served in the order of arrival. All day and all night this pitiful waiting goes on forever. It is like buying tickets for the Symphony concerts in Boston, where the people come before day and buy choice places in the long line of earnest waiters. The water is free, but the successful ones sell to those in the city who do not care to enter the crush, or to the hotels and wealthy ones who can buy. All kinds of vessels are used, but the preference is given to the five-gallon cans that brought kerosene into the city.
With two of these fastened to a shoulder yoke, the men peddle the water at three cents a can. With the women, the favorite is the large Egyptian model earthenware called olla. With this poised gracefully on one shoulder and elbow, and the opposite hand held across the head to balance, it completes one of the most picturesque scenes so common here. Rebecca at the Well has simply stepped out of the old picture book and assumed her ancient calling. The feature of the profession, however, is a man with a nondescript wheel-barrow which no man can describe.
Rainfall is quite plentiful here, but the porous amygdaloid rocks can not hold it. At present an American citizen is boring an artesian well, and the interest displayed by the citizens is remarkable. All day long hundreds of anxious watchers will stand around the drill, evincing the same interest we used to show at our boarding house when the first strawberry short-cake of the season was cut, and the anxious boarders were watching to see who would get the strawberry.
The burro train has lost its hold upon San Luis. For three hundred years all the silver was carried to the sea, two hundred and seventy-five miles away, by burros, but now, with two railroads, things have changed. The Mexican National leads to the capital, the Mexican Central to the bay of Tampico.
Here are many fine buildings to see; the Governor’s palace, palace of justice, State capitol, the museum, the library with a hundred thousand volumes, cathedral, and the churches of Carmen, Merced, San Augustin, San Francisco, Military College, and the Teatro de la Paz, one of the finest opera houses in the country.
As in all the cities, the street ears start from the main Plaza, and from here you may visit Guadalupe, Tequisquiapan, the baths of La Soledad, Axcala and Santiago.
In the rainy season, the street cars bear this legend: “There is water in the river.” As a matter of course, the cars do a land-office business as long as the water lasts. The cars lead to the Paseo, a beautiful shaded avenue two miles long, asphalt pavements, and fountains at either end, with the usual scramble for water.
At the extreme end is the church of Guadalupe, with two tall towers, and a fine clock presented by the king of Spain, in return for the gift of the largest single piece of silver ore ever taken from a mine—the mine of San Pedro.
The city of San Luis Potosi is building a hall that is to be the eighth wonder of the world. It has cost millions and will cost millions more. Seven years ago a dozen skilled stonemasons from Pennsylvania were imported to do the ornamental carving on the front. One Fourth of July a member of the party got drunk and killed a Mexican. He was tried and condemned to be shot.
Then arose the certainty that with him in the grave there would be no one to do the fancy carving on the City Hall, so it was decided to keep him at work and shoot him when he had finished. Every day this workman hangs like a fly against the great white wall and pecks away at gargoyles and griffins’ heads, while a file of soldiers stand in the streets looking at him.
His life ends with his job, and the Mexicans say he is the most deliberate workman in the world. At the present rate of progress, by the best obtainable calculations, the front of the City Hall will be sufficiently scrolled and carved about the middle of 1950. All the churches contain valuable paintings.
The most remarkable thing about these cities, there is no noise. There is no steam, no manufactories, no wagons, no drays, and as the people go without shoes, there is no noise of any kind. You may sit on the busiest street here and close your eyes, and feel all the quiet and comfort of a cemetery. Those who like to sleep late in the morning can better appreciate this. The days and nights are of equal length, and you could stop in the most populous hotel in the city and sleep until ten o’clock in the day. No bell-boy, no breakfast bell; just quiet. The one exception to noise is the market place; it was made for noise, and is different from all the others in the country.
In other cities there are several market places which relieve the congestion, but here there is but one. Before daylight the hubbub begins and lasts till noon, and the main building is soon crowded, and its overflow spreads to the four streets which pass it. There are no passing vehicles, so from curb to curb are hundreds of women sitting flat upon the ground with their gray rebosas around their heads, and their scanty wares spread about. They sell everything, and the streets are redolent with unknown and unsavory odors from the charcoal braziers, from which the designing maid or matron offers her concoctions to the unsuspecting wayfarer.
Of course you try some of these experiments; you do not know what you are eating, but it never kills. This compels me to say that very, very few people eat at home, but go to the market for their meals, going from one stall to the other. Another market feature, green corn is always offered cooked, and the same is true of sweet potatoes. Some people buy their supplies and take them home to be cooked, but green corn and potatoes never. They are both boiled with their jackets on, and if a vendor has a bushel, he or she boils the whole and stacks it up on the pavement, and it may be five or six hours later, the purchaser buys an ear and hulls the grains off and eats his dinner with no salt or accompaniment whatever.
The market is never closed for three hundred and sixty five days in the year. In many stalls are wholesale dealers who supply the retailers. In unloading the corn or grain to put it in bins, there will be half a dozen women or children in the dust under the cart, scrambling for the grains as they fall from the sacks. When the cart has gone, they winnow all the dust through their hands looking for the missing grain.
These market gatherings are the simon-pure article of the native element, unadulterated by foreign influence. Here are Indians from the mountains, peons from the haciendas and peasants from the surrounding country and the gentry from the city, all hobnobbing together. The usual dress of these women vendors is startling. The Indians wear a string of beads around their necks and one or two yards of coarse cloth fastened wherever it will fit best, and they are dressed up. The peasants wear a string of beads and a chemise which commences too late above and stops too soon below, and all are barefoot. The high-caste women all dress in American or French styles, except that they wear no head gear but their own black hair, and they wear the most ill fitting high-heel, needle-pointed shoes that are made. The national color for Spanish and Mexican women is black. Meet a hundred ladies at a time, and every dress without exception is jet. I rather think it is vanity. We put salt on watermelon to enhance its sweetness by comparison, and so with black hair, black dress and fair skin, the contrast I think was the final end sought.
Elite society never appears on the street here till six o’clock, unless a fiesta or church service calls it out; and before that hour, what careful preparation is had? The hair is usually braided and let alone. A quantity of India ink along the eyebrows make a black en rapport with the hair, and a little belladonna in the eyes will add a sparkle that will wither up men’s souls and scatter them prone at her feet—metaphorically speaking, and when those cheeks have been kalsomined—I mean whitewashed—that is—painted, if the dear ladies will spare my life for mentioning it, and when mi-lady has thus performed her renovation—I mean toilet, and placed her diamonds on her neck where they will show best, and wrapped as to her shoulders with the diaphanous mantilla and steps under the electric light, I tell you she is—is indescribable.
The dress of the men of the lower class is just a kaleidoscope, that’s all. Some of the Indians are dressed like their women, in their long hair and a strip of cloth hung where it hangs the best. The high top straw sombrero or the Panama hat with a string under the chin is the prevailing style, although the more costly woolen hat is represented. White cotton and brown linen constitute the dress goods.
The usual cut of coat is a short jacket or jumper. Others wear a long sack coat, and instead of buttoning it they gather the two corners together and tie them in a knot. This distinctive style has a kind of freemasonry importance in which I was never initiated. Then his pantaloons are white, with the bottom widened immensely. The shepherds have a style all their own. They have a buckskin jacket cut short, and buckskin pantaloons cut long, with a row of buttons on the outside. Then he takes his knife and slits the legs inside and out, from the knee down, then he gathers up the ends and tucks them under his belt, and depends upon his underwear for effect on dress parade. He always scores. Some people might say he looks badly, but with his clan he is in very correct form and why should you object?
The porters, or public drays dress in white cotton, with one leg of their pants rolled up to the knee, leaving the leg bare.
Around his neck he wears a large badge like a policeman’s, with his official number, showing that he is licensed to carry packages, from express money orders to upright pianos. He is the only express wagon here, and is absolutely reliable. He will shoulder your Saratoga and trot a mile without resting. I recall the case of one who stumbled with an American drummer’s trunk on his back, and when the street commissioners gathered up his remains, they were spread over two square yards of pavement. P. S. the trunk was not injured.
Four of these cargadors will carry your piano to any part of the city. For moving household goods, they have vans made on the plan of a hospital stretcher, with a man in the shafts at each end, and a rope passing over his shoulders to the shafts, and they will carry a dray load each time. Two dozen chairs by actual count is what I have seen one man carry. The mule has been promoted to the street car, out of respect to the two-legged express wagon.
The dress of the cow-boy and rural police is something to admire. A high sombrero, costing from twelve to fifty dollars, weighted down with monograms and silver ornament.
Leather or buckskin suit with silver buttons from boots to neckband. Silver spurs and silver bridle bits. Saddle whose every piece of ornament is solid silver, a horse-hair lariat, and if he is a Rurale, a rifle, and he sits his horse like a centaur.
The dude is in a class alone, but he counts one when on dress parade. A tall, black sombrero with silver ornaments. Scarlet jacket, reaching to the waist, and sprayed with silver braid in fantastic designs. Buckskin pantaloons, flaring at the bottom and silver buttons all the way up, and along-side a series of cross-section slashes, interwoven with a beautiful ribbon from spur to waistband. Silver spur and bridle bit, a saddle worth as much as the horse, and a bright nickel-plated revolver buckled around his waist.
At the fashionable hour for promenade, he mounts his horse, and slowly rides over the town and graciously permits the populace to admire him. I think he ought to be knighted for his liberality. Most people who go to that much trouble to shine, generally make you buy a dollar theater ticket for the pleasure of looking at him, strains his constitution and bylaws showing off, and cannot ride a horse at all.
But commend me to the Mexican dude. After he has set the town agog, he turns up a certain avenue, which contains a certain house, projecting from which is a balcony, in which dwells the only girl in town, and, after he has passed in all his silent glory, he throws bouquets at himself for the wonderful impression he has made, and then goes home to undress. Earth cannot hold him much longer. I fear his own ardor and faith in himself will finally sublimate him, but our loss is heaven’s gain. The children; there are no children; they are just vest-pocket editions of old folks. Usually they are dressed in their innocence, but that is a quality of goods that does not last long here. When a boy is old enough to wear anything else, it is exactly like his father’s, tall sombrero, pants that strike his heels, and a red sash around his waist. Suspenders are not worn here. When a girl is no longer innocent, she dresses in a rebosa. By wrapping it around her head it reaches her feet. They don’t have much time to be little for they marry at eleven and twelve. The upper class men, of course dress as Americans, but Paris sets the fashion in Mexico always. All these things you see at the market in San Luis Potosi, but you see them in hundreds, while I have only described them as individuals, and have not half turned the kaleidoscope yet.
The streets must be all vacated by eleven o’clock at night, and when the hour for closing has arrived, nothing is locked up. The thousand and one vendors have no care for their goods. A piece of canvas is spread over them and a brickbat placed on to keep the wind from interfering, and they go home.
The policeman does the rest—he never sleeps. Crime does not pay in Mexico. The laws are as swift as a bolt of Jupiter. A person is arrested this morning, tried and shot before night. They waste no sentiment on criminals and they are too expensive to feed.
Another curious custom is, the money received during the day must always be in sight. A wooden tray on top of a pile of goods holds the receipts of the entire day and not a piece is hidden. The taxation law is very rigid, and a certain per cent. of all sales is collected by the city, and the inspector must be always free to look at your sales and figure on his per cent.
As hard as the law is on poor people, you never hear them complain. They respect the laws even though they do not like them. Just imagine an American counting up square and even with a tax collector on a day’s sale! When Bellamy gets his colony in working order and invites me to come and see the wonder of the twentieth century, that is the sight I want to see.
The wearing of pistols here is not a sign of revolution. Probably it is not loaded, and a Mexican would not shoot you for anything. If his liver was out of order to the extent of wanting your blood, he would take his knife and reduce you to sausage meat, but shoot you, never. That is not his style. A pistol is as much an article of full dress as a pair of gloves would be in America, or a tin sword is to our military organizations.
When Mexico had her monthly revolution, and when bandits used to come in and take the town, every man had to go armed in order to find himself after the cyclone; but she has comparative peace now, yet wearing pistols for a hundred years has made it quite a habit. I went on an excursion with a party of harmless looking Mexicans, and we tried to sit down on a bench, and every man and boy of them had to unload his cannon pocket before he could sit down—and the other fellow too.
At your work, the law supposes you to be unarmed, but in making a journey, though it be the length of a street, you are allowed to arm against bandits. On every first and second-class car, ten out of every dozen men will carry huge revolvers, but you might live there for months and never hear of a person getting shot.
In this great city, everything is so quiet you are constantly enquiring if anything has happened, or is happening, or has any likelihood of happening; you cannot understand the absence of noise and bustle.
It finally dawns upon you that the native never hurries. He has mastered the ethics of rest, he never exerts himself. He does so delight to sit himself down long and often and ponder over the wear and tear of the foreigner. The state feels as he does about it, so it has placed comfortable seats everywhere, where the native can rest. Just rest. He never “Hellos” to an acquaintance across the street; if he wishes to speak, he motions with his hand. All this saves wear and tear, and by this means, the nation has saved vast stores of conservated energy to use in the next world. He has been saving energy for four hundred years and has never let any of it out.
There is no “hello” on the street, and no vehicles, and everybody is barefooted, so there is no noise. They don’t “hello” in the telephone. They talk some sweet, musical Spanish in it that is a real pleasure to listen to. Instead of thundering back “Who’s that?” he sweetly says “Quien habla?”—Who speaks?
The national watchword is, “Never do to-day what you can possibly put off till to-morrow.” An excursion agent went to a large hotel and asked what were the rates per day. “Four dollars,” said the major-domo. “But my party contains seventy people, what rates do we get for the party?” “Four dollars and a half each, more trouble.” The same in buying goods. The man who buys wholesale quantities has to pay for the extra trouble he causes the clerks.
“Poco tiempo,”—wait a little, is the national leveler for all difficulties and broken contracts. You order a suit of clothes to be delivered tomorrow. Tomorrow never comes—neither do the clothes, You get down your dictionary and hunt up all the cuss words you can command, and hurl them at that tailor, and expect to see him shrivel up before you. Does he? Not a shrivel! He offers you a cigarette, carefully rolls one for himself and forces wreaths of smoke through his nostrils, and turning to you says: “Poco tiempo”—what’s your hurry? Manana will do, tomorrow, tomorrow, manana comes, and also another poco tiempo.
You engage a guide and want to go see a place you have come a thousand miles to see, and want to start this afternoon. “Well, why not manana? You Americanos do hurry through life so!” He works two days, carving a wonderful cane he sells for a quarter. His two days tiempo count for nothing. He lives in yesterday and today, but never in tomorrow. He will wait for the millennium but will never go to meet it. He will never hurry from the comforts of today into anxieties of tomorrow. Manana, the panacea for all ills, the Nirvanah.
The language of gesture has a new meaning here. When a person wants you to approach him, he frantically motions you away. When you see your lady acquaintance across the street, and she motions with her fingers and thumb for you to come to her, you must read it backwards because she does not mean it, she is simply recognizing you.
When ladies meet and re-enact the great American humbug of miscellaneous kissing, it is always given and received on the cheek. When two gentlemen meet, they rush into each others arms and rapidly pat each other on the back with the right hand, and finally shake hands, and if they meet each other a dozen times a day, they effusively shake.
At the railway station, the departing friend embraces, pats, shakes, and jumps aboard, If the train is delayed, he gets out again and talks until the conductor cries, “Vamanos!” then he goes through the same performance again with each of his dozen friends, and when half a dozen lugubrious groups are similarly engaged, the conductor simply waits until they have finished.
Indeed, to such an extent does this leave-taking interfere with business that signs are placed up asking the people not to delay business by their long salutations.
At Guanajuato the following sign is tacked up:—“Se suplica a los pasajeros eviten las despididas y saludos prolongadosque retarder la marcha de los carros.”
In all places the innate politeness and courtesy of the people show a study for your comfort. In walking, your Mexican friend insists that you walk on the inside next the wall, while he walks next the street. In accepting an invitation for a carriage drive, you must enter first and accept the rear seat; but if a lady invites a gentleman he is not supposed to accept the rear seat when offered. After the drive your host will alight first and assist you. In the street car, the gentlemen always offer their places to ladies, and salute all passengers when entering and leaving the ear. People have said they also shake hands with the driver, but I do not believe all I hear.
When you are introduced to a gentleman, he tells you his house and all his belongings are yours, giving you the street and number, and says: “Now you know where your house is.” If you admire his horse or his paintings or his wife, he says: “Take them, they are yours.” To be sure you are not expected to take him too literally, but it shows that the French are not the only people who claim politeness as a national trait.
If you are invited to his house for refreshments, you are to precede your host on entering, but he will precede to the door when you signify your readiness to depart.
The salutation on the street is “adios,” the equivalent of the French adieu, but “buenos dias,” “buenos tardes,” and “buenos noches” are also used for good morning, etc., and are always used in the plural. Why, the deponent sayeth not. One of the adjuncts of an introduction, is for the native to offer his cigarette case; and to refuse the invitation to smoke, is to also refuse the introduction, and this little custom nearly brought trouble upon the writer’s head. His early education had been sadly neglected, and the manly art of smoking had never been taught him, so he was forced to practice deception on his kind friends to keep the peace. The deadly cigarette is rolled in the thin innershuck of the Indian corn, and holds its shape whether filled or not, so I filled my pocket with empty cases. When my new-made friend asked that I smoke with him the pipe of peace, I replied cordially, “Sí Señor,” and took the proffered cigarette, and with the same hand felt in my pocket for a match and exchanged the loaded cigarette for a harmless one, and, presto! I am in good form and all goes merry as a marriage bell. He tells me his house, his sisters and all he has are mine for ever, and I quietly add another item to my million dollar possessions. In one summer I have acquired more wealth and real estate and beautiful maidens by actual gift, than Jay G. and Brigham Y. acquired in a lifetime.
Already I have become a bloated aristocrat, and daily receive and give away haciendas that cover nine square leagues of land.
The custom-house officials already have their eye on me, and are even now figuring on the dividends they will declare when I attempt to leave the country, but every bitter has its antidote, so I am congratulating myself on the change of dates. A few years ago I was in this country when each state collected its customs’ duties from every other state, and that sometimes meant two or three inspections daily. Now things have changed and they inspect only on the border, so I shall have fewer bribes to offer the officials from my newly-acquired millions.
This people’s generosity runs them into bankruptcy. Once a kind friend introduced himself to me, said he always did like my country and people, said he had a beautiful sister named Inez and she was mine. “Take her, señor, she is yours,” also a whole block of buildings. I thanked him profusely and began to take stock of my new possessions, when he said in excellent English, “Have you a loose quarter about your clothes you could lend me to buy a supper?” We had reached a part of the street where there was no light when he made his modest request, and he had his hand on a very persuasive looking knife. I had my eye on him and my hand on a good revolver, so in very choice Texas language I told him I had the drop on him.
After reflecting that he had nearly impoverished himself by enriching me with all his possessions, I took pity on him and gave him a pewter quarter that some of my dear friends had passed on me that very morning. Instinctively his native politeness came to the front, and with hat in hand he kotowed, and in the softest of Spanish he thanked me a thousand and one times, and incidentally let the quarter fall to the pavement to catch the ring of it. Proving counterfeit money here is a regular trade which they all learn.
Hereafter I shall positively refuse all gifts, because I am going to call upon the president, and when I admire the national palace he will of course say: “Take it, it is yours,” and it will appear ungrateful in me to refuse it and mean in me to accept it, because all new presidents have to start a revolution; and then he might not appreciate my motives, and sometimes they do not understand American jokes till a week after their perpetration. This is due to British influence at the embassy.
In the Capital I went once to a hotel, and before the carriage could stop, three flunkies fell over themselves grabbing for my baggage, they were so glad to see me. One got an umbrella, one a camera and one a valise, and ran up stairs to my room to welcome me, and this welcome only cost me twenty-five cents.
The proprietor wrung my hands and then wrung his own, and then spreading them out with a magnanimous gesture said: “This hotel is yours señor, and all my servants; just make yourself at home.” I blushed profusely and told him I certainly appreciated a four-story stone front on San Francisco Street, and I would remember him in my prayers.
After a week of his hospitality, when I offered to treat him to a cigar, he incidentally mentioned that I owed him sixteen reals for each day of my pleasant sojourn. I asked him what for. “Your room, señor.” I told him very forcibly that he told me to make myself at home. “So I did,” said he. “But I never pay board at home,” said I, but the point was lost on him. He was wearing a British hat, impervious to jokes. Next summer he will ask me what I meant.
This is the second time I have got into trouble by accepting largesse, and for the first time I understand what the old Trojans meant when they said: “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.”
Hereafter, I shall positively refuse all gifts, and sell off about twenty hotels and villas and haciendas which I have accumulated beyond my needs. That much wealth actually interferes with a man’s rest and the color of his hair.
While in this state of mind and also in San Luis Potosi, I will discourse on the Bill of Fare. I know a Boston friend who would have said William of Fare, but I never could talk Bostonese, and just plain bill of fare will do me, when I am traveling. The Texas lingo just says “Hash.”