New-England noses from curving superciliously at the degraded Mejicano. Are we beyond taking a lesson?
There are a good many that we might take, without hurting ourselves. There is the good, honest building, without sham or pretence, which looks as if it were made for eternity. There is the power of restfulness and leisure, which, though unhappily a crying evil here, would be one of the cardinal virtues if we could only ingraft it on our stubborn, rushing, uneasy nervousness. There is their way of holding the dear, dark little babies, with a long fold of the nurse's rebozo, or scarf, wound around the little creature from mouth to hips, supporting the back and neck well, and throwing the child's weight on the bearer's shoulder instead of her arms and hips. And there are the exquisitely clean streets, which would make us blush hot with shame, remembering the filth of Chicago and New York, if our sallow Eastern skins could ever show so beneficent a change of color.
The plan of spending our days visiting or sightseeing, passing to the next important point in the cool of the evening, and resting luxuriously for the night drawn up on some quiet sidetrack, works wonderfully well. There is something gorgeous in the idea of a special train, that moves when one pleases and rests when one desires; that goes on like an obedient carriage-horse, stopping here to let you pick flowers, and there for fear of disturbing your after-dinner coffee; that meets you with welcome, homelike face after each new pilgrimage into the strange, unknown country; that offers you plenty of plump pillows and soft cushions to poultice the bruises of fatigue. It is a little nest of such comfort and luxury as these Mexican cities, enchanting as they are as studies and full of brilliant novelty, have not as yet the slightest conception. To come back from a tiresome and exciting ride in quest of pleasure or information; to find your quarters swept and garnished; your neighbors in their customary places; the judge's pretty wards at their knitting or crochet; the blonde-haired Vassar girl sharpening her clever pencil; and Peter, your man-of-all-work, waiting with smiling welcome and a helping hand at the door, — is to know something still of home feeling in the midst of strangeness, and to thank Heaven silently, but emphatically, for the Pullman. Ice-water in the tank, and your slippers on your feet; your books on the table, and a good bright light under which to read them, — these look like trifles to you, O easy-going devourers of the corpulent good things of beloved Boston, but wait till they come to you in Méjico!
Glimpses of a New World
CHAPTER II
GLIMPSES OF A NEW WORLD
Under
a long avenue of superb cottonwoods, the largest we have yet seen in the country, the warm waters which give Aguas Calientes its name flow through a series of really fine baths, well built of a soft red stone, and out again into wide ditches in which the common people wash themselves and their family linen. Irreverent members of the party affected to believe that this order was reversed; but I do not credit it, and so my readers need not. A better class, or a larger number of a better class, than we had found in any town before, made the streets interesting. The moment the people are lifted into the dignity of self-support, that moment they become joyous and hopeful. We saw new birds in the trees of the plaza; a species of large black crow, with a short but pleasant song. The frescos of the houses were more elaborate and brilliant, the
fountains better supplied, the squares enclosed in fine stone balustrades, and the stone seats softly tinted. Chance, or perhaps some longing memory of the family doctor at home, led us into a doctor's office here. Imagine a small door set in a large carved gateway leading through a stone archway into a broad, sunny patio. Under an arch at the right, a pair of fine horses champing in their cool stone stalls; under an arch at the left, some pet birds, a couple of tame ducks, a green and gold parrot on the wall, a silver-trimmed saddle with sharp spurs, and a gay riding-blanket hanging beneath it; through an open door, the clean stone kitchen; through another, a stone bedroom with fresh, clean beds; through a third, the office, — stone, too, like the others, — and all opening on the warm, silent courtyard. The room was cool and dusky, tiled, as were the rest; there were bamboo chairs and lounge, a professional-looking desk, a small pharmacy at one end, a table covered with the wonderful feather-work for which the town is noted, in the centre, and a few engravings on the wall. The shuttered and grated window was closed; light and air came through the great inner door, which stood always open.
A feeling of repose and coolness, in delicious contrast to the dusty, glaring, adobe-lined streets outside, stole pleasantly through our travel-worn senses; and one remembered with new pleasure the sentiment of Longfellow in his lines to Mad River, —
"Do you not know that what is best
In all this restless world is rest
From turmoil and from worry?"
Before the Governor's Palace a brace of trumpeters ushered noon in with a blare of silver bugles; in the market-place the fruit-venders were selling baskets of Indian straw with a hundred oranges for seventy-five cents, and tropical fruits of every description from the agricultural districts on the other side of the hills. The air was hot, but pleasant, always delightful in the shade; and between the months of November and April the changes in temperature had been only fifteen to seventeen degrees. If a stirring, competent Northern company should take it into their heads to build a good hotel, and utilize the mineral waters and superb climate, there is no reason why Aguas Calientes should not become one of the great health resorts of the world. It only needs enterprise and steadfastness, — two qualities not uncommon in the East or West of our own country.
Leon, a city of seventy-five thousand or a hundred thousand people, better supplied with water from the numerous wells, and therefore more beautiful with trees and shade, is extremely interesting, as showing the immense stride which steady employment of any form enables the people to make. Almost every house has its hand-loom, worked as in the old scriptural times, — heavy, cumbrous, and slow, but capable of producing wonderfully good results. One part of the city is given to the manufacture of zarapes, the other to that of rebosos. As nine-tenths of the population wear one or the other, the industry is well established. Although one sees telegraph-wires and telephones, sewing-machines and street-cars, even gas and electric lights, the people still cling to the old-fashioned methods of hand-work. How the amount of time and labor represented can be afforded for the small amount asked for the wares, is hard to understand. We found here, also, some good forms of pottery in the market-place. The beautiful Calzado — a triple avenue of magnificent trees, floored with broad red flagstones, and lined with low hedges of orange-trees in fruit and blossom — was a delightful promenade. Figs, pomegranates, and oleanders, of larger size than those even of California, made every inch of ground beautiful, and the warm air was sweet with fragrance.
In the streets here we began to see the mantilla, — the graceful black scarf, either of lace or fine wool, which is pinned over the hair and allowed to fall loosely above the shoulders. The women of all grades have an erect and graceful carriage. The dress for the street among the better classes is almost uniformly black; the Indian women wear any and every thing, but usually an embroidered white chemise and colored cotton skirt, surmounted by the inevitable blue reboso. The large market-place, with its collection of cool arches, and great splashing fountains in the centre, is always an attraction. Green pease, fresh fruits, young beets, small tomatoes, and potatoes the size of marbles, were spread about in what seemed to us interminable confusion, but which no doubt had a method of its own. We could forgive much to a place where we could buy roses in bunches as large as one's head for six-and-a-quarter cents.
The plazas were gorgeous with