Maturin M. Ballou

Zacatecas.—Sand-Spouts.—Fertile Lands.—A Silver Mining Region.—Alpine Scenery.—Table-Land of Mexico.—An Aged Miner.—Zacatecas Cathedral.—Church and People.—A Mountain Climb.—Ownership of the Mines.—Want of Drainage.—A Battlefield.—Civil War.—Local Market.—Peculiar Scenes.—Native Beauties.—City Tramway Experience.—Town of Guadalupe.—Organized Beggars.—A Noble and Successful Institution.—Market of Guadalupe.—Attractive SeÑoritas.—Private Gardens.

The first place of special interest on the line of the Mexican Central Railroad after leaving Torreon is Zacatecas, the largest town between the Rio Grande and the city of Mexico, being nearly eight hundred miles south of the river and four hundred and forty north of the capital. Its name is derived from the Indian tribe who inhabited this region long before the coming of the Spaniards. Between Torreon and this city, for a distance of some three hundred miles, as we have described, the country is lonely, prairie-like, and almost uninhabited, forming a broad plain over a hundred miles wide, with ranges of the Sierra Madre on either side. On these dry and sterile plains sand-spouts are frequently seen; indeed, half a dozen were counted at the same time from the car windows. These are created just as water-spouts are formed on the ocean, and to encounter one is almost equally serious. One must visit either Egypt or Mexico to witness this singular phenomenon. As Zacatecas is approached, large flocks of sheep and herds of mules and horses are grouped in the fields, overlooked by picturesquely draped horsemen. The cultivation of the land and its apparent fertility improve, and many one-handled ploughs, consisting of a crooked stick, sometimes shod with iron, are being used. The marvel is that anything satisfactory can be accomplished with such an awkward instrument, and yet these fields in some instances show grand results.

We expressed surprise to an intelligent citizen at seeing long lines of burros laden with freight beside the railroad, and going in the same direction, remarking to him that the railway ought to be able to compete with the jackasses. "You must take into consideration," said our informant, "that a man who owns a score of these cheap animals can himself drive them all to market or any given point. His time he counts as nothing; his burros feed beside the way, and their sustenance costs him nothing. Wages average throughout the country something less than thirty cents per day, and the cost of living among the peons is proportionately low. A railway is an expensive system to support, and must charge accordingly; consequently the burros, as a means of transportation for a certain class of goods, are quite able to compete with the locomotive and the rail." Of course, as other avenues for remunerative employment are opened to the common people, this antiquated style of transportation will gradually go out of use, and the locomotive will take the goods which are now carried by these patient and economical animals.

Zacatecas is the capital of the state of the same name, and has a population of nearly fifty thousand. This is one of the oldest and most productive silver mining regions in Mexico. The town seems actually to be built on a huge vein of silver, which has been penetrated in scores of places. Eight or ten miles below the city the cars begin to climb laboriously a grade of one hundred and seventy-five feet to the mile, presenting some of the most abrupt curves we have ever seen in a railway track. Here we are in the midst of Rocky Mountain scenery. One can easily imagine himself on the Northern or Canadian Pacific road, among their giant peaks, hazardous roadbeds, and narrow defiles. The huge engine pants and trembles like an animal, in its struggle to drag the long train up the incline and around the sharp bends, until finally the summit is reached. To mount this remarkable grade a double engine has been specially built, having two sets of driving wheels; but it is often necessary to stop for a few moments to generate sufficient steam to overcome the resistance of the steep grade.

Here we are on the great table-land of the country, about eight thousand feet above the level of the sea, in a narrow valley surrounded by groups of hills all teeming with the precious ore. These rich mines of Zacatecas have been worked with little intermission for over three hundred years, and are considered to be inexhaustible. "There is a native laborer," said an intelligent superintendent to us, "who is over seventy years old," pointing out a hale and hearty Indian. "He entered the mines at about ten years of age, so he has seen sixty years of mining life, and he may be good for ten years more." These men constantly climb the steep ladders, bearing heavy loads of ore upon their backs, for which hard labor they are paid about thirty-five or forty cents a day. The most productive districts, as relates to mineral products, especially of silver, lie in the northern part of the republic, but metalliferous deposits are found in every state of the confederation.

There are a number of important edifices in the city, among which is the municipal palace, the cathedral, and the mint. The courtyard of the first-named forms a lovely picture, with its garden of fragrant flowers, tropical trees, and delicate columns supporting a veranda half hidden with creeping vines. Both the interior and exterior of the cathedral are extremely interesting and worthy of careful study, though one cannot but remember how much of the wages of the poor populace has been cunningly diverted from their family support to supply this useless ornamentation. For this object indulgences are sold to the rich, and the poor peons are made to believe their future salvation depends upon their liberal contributions to support empty forms and extravagance. In his "Through the Heart of Mexico," lately published, Rev. J. N. McCarty, D. D., says: "If ever any people on earth were stripped of their clothing and starved to array the priesthood in rich and gaudy apparel, and to furnish them the fat of the land, these poor Mexicans are the people. Where the churches are the richest and most numerous, as a rule the people are the poorest. Their earnings have gone to the church, leaving them only rags, huts, and the cheapest and coarsest of food."

An ancient stone aqueduct supplies the town with excellent water, but it is distributed to consumers by men who make a regular business of this service, and who form picturesque objects with their large earthen jars strapped across their foreheads, one behind and one in front to balance each other. We are struck with the aspect of barrenness caused by the absence of vegetation. The nature of the soil is such as not to afford sustenance to trees, or even sufficient for the hardy cactus. The grounds are honeycombed in all directions with mines; silver is king.

Mines in Mexico are individual property, and do not, as we have seen stated, belong to the government, unless they are abandoned, when they revert to the state, and are very promptly sold for the benefit of the public treasury. In order to keep good the title, a mine must be absolutely worked during four months of the year. If this rule is in any way evaded, the government confiscates the property and at once offers it for sale, so that those on the lookout for such chances often obtain a good title at a merely nominal price. But there are mines and mines in this country, as in our western districts; some will pay to work and some will not. As a rule it depends as much upon the management of such a property as upon the richness of the native ore, whether it yields a profitable return for the money invested in the enterprise.

In climbing to the level of the city from the plain below, the railroad sometimes doubles upon itself horseshoe fashion, like a huge serpent gathering its body in coils for a forward spring, winding about the hills and among the mines, affording here and there glimpses of grand and attractive scenery embracing the fertile plains of Fresnillo, and in the blue distance the main range of the Sierra Madre. The color of these distant mountain ranges changes constantly, varying with the morning, noon, and twilight hues, producing effects which one does not weary of quietly watching by the hour together.

Vegetables, charcoal, fruit, and market produce generally are brought into the town from various distances on the backs of the natives. These Indians will tire the best horse in the distance they can cover in the same length of time, while carrying a hundred pounds and more upon their backs. Mules and donkeys are also much in use, but the lower classes of both sexes universally carry heavy burdens upon their backs from early youth. Some of the Indian women are seen bearing loads of pottery or jars of water upon their shoulders with seeming ease, under which an ordinary Irish laborer would stagger. Comparatively few wheeled vehicles are in use, and these are of the rudest character, the wheel being composed of three pieces of timber, so secured together as to form a circle, but having no spokes or tire, very like the ancient African and Egyptian models. To such a vehicle a couple of oxen are attached by a wooden bar reaching across their frontlets and lashed to the roots of the horns by leather thongs. The skins of animals, such as goats, sheep, and swine, are universally employed for transporting and storing liquids, precisely as in Egypt thousands of years ago. The daily supply of pulque is brought to market on the natives' backs in pig-skins, the four legs protruding from the body in a ludicrous manner when the skin is full of liquid. Everything in and about the city is quaint, though the telephone, electric lights, and street tramways all speak of modern civilization. The insufficient water supply is the cause of much inconvenience, not to say suffering, and partly accounts for the untidy condition of the place and the prevalence of offensive smells. The latter are so disgusting as to be almost unbearable by a stranger. No wonder that typhoid fever and kindred diseases prevail, and that the death rate exceeds, as we were told is the case, that of any other district in the republic.

There is an article of pottery manufactured in this vicinity, of a deep red color, hard-baked and glazed inside and out, having rude but effective ornamentation. Almost every large town in Mexico has one or more pottery manufactories, each district producing ware which is so individualized in the shape and finish as to distinctly mark its origin, so that experts can tell exactly whence each specimen has been brought. The manufacture of pottery is most frequently carried on by individuals, each Indian with his primitive tools turning out work from his mud cabin sometimes fit to grace the choicest and most refined homes. The accuracy of eye and hand gained by long practice produces marvelous results.

Overlooking the city, on a mountain ridge known as the BÜfa, is a quaint and curious church, Los Remedios. From this point one obtains a very comprehensive view of the entire valley and the surrounding rugged hills. One of the most bloody battles of the civil wars was fought on the BÜfa in 1871, between a revolutionary force under General Trevino and the Juarez army, which resulted in the defeat of the revolutionists. "Both sides fought with unprecedented frenzy," said a resident to us. "From those steep rocks," he continued, pointing to the abrupt declivities, "absolutely ran streams of blood, while dead bodies rolled down into the gulch below by hundreds." We ventured to ask what this quarrel between, fellow countrymen was about that caused such a loss of life and induced such a display of enthusiastic devotion. "That is a question," he replied, "which the rank and file of either army could not have answered, though of course the leaders had their personal schemes to subserve,—schemes of self-aggrandizement." It was Lamartine who said significantly, "Civil wars leave nothing but tombs."

It is the custom for a stranger to descend one or more of the silver mines; indeed, it may be said to be the one thing to do at Zacatecas, but for which only the most awkward means imaginable are supplied, such as ladders formed of a single long, notched pole, quite possible for an acrobat or performer on the trapeze. It is up and down these hazardous poles that the Indian miners, in night and day gangs, climb, while carrying heavy canvas bags of ore weighing nearly or quite two hundred pounds each. The writer is free to acknowledge that he did not improve the opportunity to explore the bowels of the earth at Zacatecas, having performed his full share of this sort of thing in other parts of the world.

Zacatecas has its plaza; all Spanish and Mexican towns have one. Probably, in laying out a town, the originators first select this important centre, and then all other avenues, streets, and edifices are made to conform to this location. In the middle of this plaza is a large stone fountain, about which groups of native women are constantly busy dipping water and filling their earthen jars, while hard by other women, squatting on their haunches, offer oranges, pineapples, figs, and bananas for sale. How these Mexican markets swarm with people and glow with color, backed by moss-grown walls and ruined archways! Long burro trains block the roadway, and others are seen winding down the zigzag paths of the overhanging declivities. Close at hand within these low adobe hovels, pulque is being retailed at a penny a tumbler. It is the lager-beer of the country. Poverty, great poverty, stares us in the face. No people could be more miserably housed, living and sleeping as they do upon the bare ground, and owning only the few pitiful rags that hang about their bodies. At the doors of these mud cabins women are seen making tortillas with their rude stone implements. These little flat cakes are bread and meat to them. Now and again one observes forms and faces among the young native women that an artist would travel far to study; but although some few are thus extremely handsome, the majority are very homely, ill-formed, and negligent of person. The best looking among the peons lose their comeliness after a few years, owing to hard labor, childbirth, and deprivations. Few women retain their good looks after twenty-five years or until they are thirty. Another fact was remarked, that these Indian men and women never laugh. The writer was not able to detect even a smile upon the faces of the lower grade of natives; a ceaseless melancholy seems to surround them at all times, by no means in accordance with the gay colors which they so much affect. In contrast to the hovels of the populace, one sees occasionally a small garden inclosed with a high adobe wall, belonging to some rich mine owner, in which the tall pomegranate, full of scarlet bloom, or a stately pepper tree, dominates a score of others of semi-tropical growth.

One practice was observed at Zacatecas which recalled far-away Hong Kong, China. This was the prosecution of various trades in the open air. Thus the shoemaker was at work outside of his dwelling; the tailor, the barber, and the tinker adopted the same practice, quite possible even in the month of March in a land of such intense brightness and sunshine. We wandered hither and thither, charmed by the novelty and strangeness of everything; not an object to remind one of home, but only of the far East. The swarthy natives with sandaled feet, the high colors worn by the common people, the burnous-like serape, the sober unemotional manners of the peons, the nut-brown women with brilliant eyes and half-covered faces, the attractive fruits, the sharp cries of the venders, the Egyptian-shaped pottery,—surely this might be Damascus or Cairo.

An excursion by tramway was made to the neighboring town of Guadalupe, six or eight miles away, nearly the entire distance being a sharp down grade, over which the cars pass at top speed by their own gravitation; no animals are attached. So steep is the descent that it may be compared to a Canadian toboggan slide. It requires six mules to draw each car back again, the animals being harnessed three abreast like the horses in the Paris and Neapolitan omnibuses. Though this tramway is now admitted to be an indispensable adjunct to the business of the place, when it was first resolved upon by some of the residents more enterprising than their neighbors, it was considered to be a serious innovation, open to great objections, the local priesthood bitterly opposing it. Even the moneyed mine owners and others who instituted the project had no fixed idea how to operate a tramway of this sort, and an American overseer was from the beginning and is to-day in charge. The cars were ordered from Philadelphia, and while they were building, the steel rails, which came from Liverpool by way of Vera Cruz, were laid down from one end of the route to the other. Finally, when the cars arrived from the United States, it was found that they would not run on the track, the fact being that the rails had been laid on a gauge three inches narrower than the cars were designed for. What was to be done? The Mexicans at first proposed to rebuild the cars,—make the bodies narrower, and cut off the axle-trees to fit the gauge of the rails. In their hopeless ignorance this was the only way they could see out of the difficulty. The present superintendent, a practical American engineer, was at the time in Zacatecas, and took in the position of affairs at a glance, offering for five hundred dollars to show the owners how to get out of the trouble without changing an article upon the cars. The money was paid, and with twenty men and some suitable tools the American took up a few rods of the track, made a proper gauge for the rest, and had the cars running over the short distance in one day. It was the old story of Columbus and the egg, easy enough when one knew how to do it. The managers of the road promptly put the American in charge, and he has filled the position ever since.

Guadalupe is an interesting town of some six thousand inhabitants, not counting the myriads of dogs, which do much abound in every part of Mexico. As a rule these are miserable, mangy-looking, half-starved creatures, with thin bodies and prominent ribs. The poorer the people, the more dogs they keep, a rule which applies not only here, but everywhere, especially among semi-barbarous races. The people seem to be very kind to pet animals,—though they do abuse the burros,—cats especially being of a plump, handsome species, quite at home, always sleeping lazily in the sunshine. If they do purr in Spanish, it is so very like the genuine English article that its purport is quite unmistakable. The persistency of the beggars here attracted attention, and on inquiry about the matter, a resident American informed us that these beggars were actually organized by the priests, to whom they report daily, and with whom they share their proceeds, thus enriching the plethoric coffers of the church. This seems almost incredible; but it is true. The decencies of life are often ignored, and the open streets present disgusting scenes. Men and women lie down and sleep wherever fatigue overcomes them, upon the hard stones or in the dirt. The town is generally barren of vegetation, though a few dreary cactus trees manage to sustain themselves in the rocky soil, with here and there a yucca palm.

There is a famous orphan asylum in Guadalupe which is designed to accommodate a thousand inmates at a time, and there is also a well-endowed college. The former of these, the Orfanatorio de Guadalupe, is one of the most important charitable institutions in the republic. The old church of red sandstone, with its somewhat remarkable carvings, as exhibited upon the faÇade, has two graceful towers and is elaborately finished within. The church contains a half dozen oil paintings by Antonio de Torres, which bear the date 1720. The finest of these is that of "The Last Supper." The very elegant interior of the chapel of the Purisima was not completed until so late as 1886, and is justly considered the finest modern church structure in Mexico. As one passes out into the surrounding squalor and obtrusive poverty, it is impossible not to moralize as to the costly, theatrical, and ostentatious road which seems to lead to the Roman Catholic heaven.

The little market-place of Guadalupe presents a scene like a country fair, with its booths for the sale of fruits, pottery, vegetables, flowers, bright-hued serapes and rebosas, all combining to form a conglomerate of color which, mingled with the moving figures of the mahogany-hued Indian women, is by no means devoid of picturesqueness. One must step carefully not to tread upon the little mounds and clusters of fruits and vegetables spread upon the ground for sale. The careless, happy laugh of a light-hearted group of seÑoritas rang musically upon the ear as we watched the market scene. Their uncovered, purple-black hair glistened in the warm sunlight, while their roguish glances, from "soul-deep eyes of darkest night," were like sparks of electricity. Was it their normal mood, or did the presence of a curious stranger, himself on the qui vive to see everything, move them to just a bit of coquetry?