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INTRODUCTION. ITINERARY.

Cuba. Volantes. A Cuban Railway. Voyage. Passports. Isle of Pines. Mosquitos. Pirates. Runaway slaves. Baths of Santa F?. Alligators. The Cura. Missionary Priest. Florida Colonists. Blacks in the West Indies. Chinese and African slaves.

Players and Political Adventurers. Voyage. Yucatan. Slave-trade in Natives. The Ten Tribes. Vera Cruz. Don Ignacio Comonfort. Mexican Politics. Casualties. The City of the Dead. Turkey-buzzards. Northers. The "temperate region." Cordova. The Chipi-chipi. The "cold region." Mirage. Sand-pillars. The rainy season. Plundered passengers. Robber-priest. Aztec remains. Aloe-fields. Houses of mud-bricks. Huts of aloes. Mexican churches. Mexican roads. Making pulque.

Palace-hotel of Yturbide. Site and building of Mexico. Changes in the Valley of Mexico. Dearth of Trees. Architecture. Drunkenness. Fights. Rattles. Judas's Bones. Burning Judas. Churches in Holy Week. Streets. Barricades. People. Women. The cypress of Chapultepec. Old-fashioned coaches. The canal of Chalco. Canoe-travelling. "Reasonable people." Taste for flowers. The "Floating Gardens." Promenade. Flooded streets. Earthquakes.

Tacubaya. Humming-birds and butterflies. Aztec feather-work. Bullfight. Lazoing and colearing. English in Mexico. Hedge of organ-cactus. Pachuca. Cold in the hills. Rapid evaporation. Mountain-roads. Real del Monte. Guns and pistols. Regla. The father-confessor in Mexico. Morals of servitude. Cornish miners. Dram-drinking. Salt-trade. The Indian market. Indian Conservatism. Sardines. Account-keeping. The great Barranca. Tropical fruits. Prickly pears. Their use. The "Water-Throat." Silver-works. Volcano of Jorullo. Cascade of Regla. "Eyes of Water." Fires. The Hill of Knives. Obsidian implements. Obsidian mines. The Stone-age. The loadstone-mountain of Mexico. Unequal Civilization of the Aztecs. Silver and commerce of Mexico. Effect of Protection-duties. Silver mines. The Aztec numerals.

A Revolution. Siege and Capitulation of Puebla. Military Statistics. Highway-robbery. Reform in Mexico. The American war. Mexican army. Our Lady of Guadalupe. Miracles. The rival Virgins. Sacred lottery-ticket. Literature in Mexico. The clergy and their system of Education in Mexico. The Holy Office. Indian Notions of Christianity.

To Tezcuco. Indian Canoes. Sewer-canal. Water-snakes. Salt-lakes. A storm on the lake. Glass-works. Casa Grande. Quarries. Stone Hammers. Use of Bronze in stone-cutting in Mexico and Egypt. Prickly Pears. Temple-pyramids of Teotihuac?n. Sacrifice of Spaniards. Old Mexico. Market of Antiquities. Police. Bull-dogs. Accumulation of Alluvium. Tezcotzinco. Ancient baths and bridge. Salt and salt-pans. Fried flies'-eggs. Water-pipes. Irrigation. Agriculture in Mexico. History repeats itself.

Horses and their training. Saddles and bits. The Courier. Leather clothes. The Serape. The Rag-fair of Mexico, Thieves. Gourd water-bottles. Ploughing. Travelling by Diligence. Indian carriers. Mules. Breakfast. Bragadoccio. Robbers. Escort. Cuernavaca. Tropical Vegetation. Sugar-cane. Temisco. Sugar-hacienda. Indian labourers. The evensong. The Raya. Strength of the Indians. Xochicalco. Ruins of the Pyramid. Sculptures. Common ornaments. The people of Mexico and Central America. Their civilization. Pear-shaped heads. Miacatl?n.

Cocoyotla. Indian labourers. Political Condition of the Indians. Indian Village and huts. Cotton-spinning. The Indian Alcalde. Great Cave of Cacahuamilp?n. Optical phenomenon. Monk on horseback. Religion of the Indians. Idols. Baptism by wholesale. Village amusements. Dancing. Chalma. The meson and the convent. Church-dances. The miller's daughter. Young friar. The Hill of Drums. Sacred cypress-tree. Oculan. Change of climate. Grain-districts of Mexico. The Desierto. Tenancingo. Toluca. Lerma. Robbers.

Museum. Fate of Antiquities. War-God. Sacrificial Stone. Mexican words naturalized in Europe, &c. Chamber of Horrors. Aztec Art. Wooden Drums. Aztec Picture-writings. The "Man-flaying" Mr. Uhde's Collection. Mr. Christy's Collection. Bones of Giants. Cortes' Armour. Mexican Calendar-stone. Aztec Astronomy. Mongol Calendar. Peculiarities of Aztec Civilization. The Prison at Mexico. No "Criminal class." Prison-discipline. The Garotte. Mexican law-courts. Statistics. The Compadrazgo. Leperos and Lepers. Lazoing the bull. Cockfighting. Gambling. Monte. The fortunate Miners.

A travelling companion. Mexicans who live by their wits. Jackal-masks, &c. Mexican words used in the United States. Miraflores. Cotton-factory. Sacred Mount and Cypress-tree. Rainy Season. Ascent of Popocatepetl. The Crater. View of Anahuac. Descent from Popocatepetl. Plain of Puebla. Snow-blindness. Hospitable Shopkeeper. Morality of Smuggling. Pyramid and Antiquities of Cholula. Hybrid Legends of Mexico. Genuine Legends. Old-world analogies among the Aztecs.

Puebla. The Pasadizos. Revolutions in Mexico. Festival of Corpus Christi. Mexican clergy. Their incomes and morals. Scourging. Religion of the People. Anomalous constitution of the Republic. The horse-bath. Debt-slaves or peons. Great fortunes in Mexico. Amozoque. Spurs. Nopaluc?n. Orizaba. Robbers. Locusts. Indian village. Inroads of Civilization. Lawsuits. Native Aristocracy. The vapour-bath. Scanty population. Its explanation. Unhealthy habits. Epidemics. Intemperance. Pineapples. Potrero. Negros. Mixed races. "Painted men."

Barrancas. Indian trotting. Flowers. Armadillo. Fire-flies. Singular Fandango. Epiphytes. The Junta. Indian Life. Decorative Art. Horses. Jalapa. Anglo-Mexicans. Insect-life. Monte. Fate of Antonio. Scorpion. White Negress. Cattle. Artificial lighting. Vera Cruz. Further Journey. St. Thomas's. Voyage to England. Future destinies of Mexico.

PLATES:

WOODCUTS:

INTRODUCTION.

The journey and excursions in Mexico which have originated the narrative and remarks contained in this volume were made in the months of March, April, May, and June of 1856, for the most part on horseback. The author and his fellow-traveller enjoyed many advantageous opportunities of studying the country, the people, and the antiquities of Mexico, owing to the friendly assistance and hospitality which they received there. With this aid they were enabled to accomplish much more than usually falls to the lot of travellers in so limited a period; and they had the great advantage too, of being able to substantiate or correct their own observations by the local knowledge and experience of their friends and entertainers.

Visiting Mexico during a lull in the civil turmoil of that lamentably disturbed Republic, they were fortunate in being able to avail themselves of that peaceable season in making excursions to remarkable places and ruins, and examining the national collection of antiquities, and other objects of interest,--an opportunity that cannot have occurred since owing to the recommencement of civil war in its worst form.

The following are some of the chief points of interest in these Notes on Mexico, which are either new or treated more fully than hitherto:

The order in which places and things were visited is shewn in the annexed Itinerary, or sketch of the journeys and excursions described.

ITINERARY.

In the spring of 1856, I met with Mr. Christy accidentally in an omnibus at Havana. He had been in Cuba for some months, leading an adventurous life, visiting sugar-plantations, copper-mines, and coffee-estates, descending into caves, and botanizing in tropical jungles, cruising for a fortnight in an open boat among the coral-reefs, hunting turtles and manatis, and visiting all sorts of people from whom information was to be had, from foreign consuls and Lazarist missionaries down to retired slave-dealers and assassins.

As for myself, I had been travelling for the best part of a year in the United States, and had but a short time since left the live-oak forests and sugar-plantations of Louisiana. We agreed to go to Mexico together; and the present notes are principally compiled from our memorandum-books, and from letters written home on our journey.

The railway which took us from Havana to Batabano had some striking peculiarities. For a part of the way the track passed between two walls of tropical jungle. The Indian fig trees sent down from every branch suckers, like smooth strings, which rooted themselves in the ground to draw up more water. Acacias and mimosas, the seiba and the mahagua, with other hard-wood trees innumerable, crowded close to one another; while epiphytes perched on every branch, and creepers bound the whole forest into a compact mass of vegetation, through which no bird could fly. We could catch the strings of convolvulus with our walking-sticks, as the train passed through the jungle. Sometimes we came upon a swamp, where clusters of bamboos were growing, crowned with tufts of pointed leaves; or had a glimpse for a moment of a group of royal palms upon the rising ground.

We passed sugar-plantations with their wide cane-fields, the sugar-houses with tall chimneys, and the balconied house of the administrador, keeping a sharp look out over the village of negro-cabins, arranged in double lines.

In the houses near the stations where we stopped, cigar-making seemed to be the universal occupation. Men, women, and children were sitting round tables hard at work. It made us laugh to see the black men rolling up cigars upon the hollow of their thighs, which nature has fashioned into a curve exactly suited to this process.

If you are a married man resident in Cuba, you cannot get a passport to go to the next town without your wife's permission in writing. Now it so happened that a respectable brazier, who lived at Santiago de Cuba, wanted to go to Trinidad. His wife would not consent; so he either got her signature by stratagem, or, what is more likely, gave somebody something to get him a passport under false pretences.

To return to our voyage to the Isle of Pines.--All the afternoon the steamer threaded her way cautiously among the coral-reefs which rose almost to the surface. Sometimes there seemed scarcely room to pass between them, and by night navigation would have been impossible. We were just in the place where Columbus and his companions arrived on their expedition along the Cuban coast, to find out what countries lay beyond. They sailed by day, and lay to at night, till their patience was worn out. Another day or two of sailing would have brought them to where the coast trends northwards; but they turned back, and Columbus died in the belief that Cuba was the eastern extremity of the continent of Asia.

It was after sunset, and the phosphorescent animals were making the sea glitter like molten metal, when we reached the Isle of Pines, and steamed slowly up the river, among the mangroves that fringe the banks, to the village of Nueva Gerona, the port of the island. It consisted of two rows of houses thatched with palm-leaves, and surrounded by wide verandahs; and between them a street of unmitigated mud.

As we walked through the place in the dusk, we could dimly discern the inhabitants sitting in their thatched verandahs, in the thinnest of white dresses, gossipping, smoking, and love-making, tinkling guitars, and singing seguidillas. It was quite a Spanish American scene out of a romance. There was no romance about the mosquitos, however. The air was alive with them. When I was new to Cuba, I used to go to bed in the European fashion; and as the beds were all six inches too short, my feet used to find their way out in the night, and the mosquitos came down and sat upon them. Experience taught us that it was better to lie down half-dressed, so that only our faces and hands were exposed to their attacks.

The Isle of Pines used to be the favourite resort of the pirates of the Spanish main; indeed there were no other inhabitants. The creeks and rivers being lined with the densest vegetation, a few yards up the winding course of such a creek, they were lost in the forest, and a cruiser might pass within a few yards of their lurking-place, and see no traces of them. Captain Kyd often came here, and stories of his buried treasures are still told among the inhabitants. Now the island serves a double purpose; it is a place of resort for the Cubans, who come to rusticate and bathe, and it serves as a settlement for those free black inhabitants of Florida who chose to leave that country when it was given up to the United States. One of these Floridanos accompanied us as our guide next day to the Ba?os de Santa F?.

When we left the village we passed near the mangrove trees, which were growing not only near the water but in it, and like to spread their roots among the thick black slime which accumulates so fast in this country of rapid vegetable growth, and as rapid decomposition. In Cuba, the mangoe is the abomination of the planters, for they supply the runaway slaves with food, upon which they have been known to subsist for months, whilst the mangroves give them shelter. A little further inland we found the guava, a thick-spreading tree, with smooth green leaves. From its fruit is made guava-jelly, but as yet it was not ripe enough to eat.

In the middle of the island we came upon marble-quarries. They are hardly worked now; but when they were first established, a number of emancipados were employed there. What emancipados are, it is worth while to explain. They are Africans taken from captured slavers, and are set to work under government inspection for a limited number of years, on a footing something like that of the apprentices in Jamaica, in the interregnum between slavery and emancipation. In Cuba it is remarked that the mortality among the emancipados is frightful. They seldom outlive their years of probation. The explanation of this piece of statistics is curious. The fact is that every now and then, when an old man dies, they bury him as one of the emancipados, whose register is sent in to the Government as dead; while the negro himself goes to work as a slave in some out-of-the-way plantation where no tales are told.

We left the marble-quarries, and rode for miles over a wide savannah. The soil was loose and sandy and full of flakes of mica, and in the watercourses were fragments of granite, brought down from the hills. Here flourished palm trees and palmettos, acacias, mimosas, and cactuses, while the mangoe and the guava tree preferred the damper patches nearer to the coast. The hills were covered with the pine-trees from which the island has its name; and on the rising ground at their base we saw the strange spectacle of palms and fir trees growing side by side.

Where we came upon a stream, the change in the vegetation was astonishing. It was a sudden transition from an English, plantation of fir trees into the jungle of the tropics, full of Indian figs, palms, lancewood, and great mahagua trees, all knotted together by endless creepers and parasites; while the parrots kept up a continual chattering and screaming in the tree-tops. The moment we left the narrow strip of tropical forest that lined the stream we were in the pine wood. Here the first two or three feet of the trunks of the pine trees were scorched and blackened by the flames of the tall dry savannah-grass, which grows close round them, and catches fire several times every year. Through the pine forest the conflagration spreads unobstructed, as in an American prairie; but it only runs along the edge of the dense river-vegetation, which it cannot penetrate.

The Ba?os de Santa F? are situated in a cleared space among the fir trees. The baths themselves are nothing but a cavity in the rock, into which a stream, at a temperature of about 80?, continually flows. A partition in the middle divides the ladies from the gentlemen, but allows them to continue their conversation while they sit and splash in their respective compartments.

The houses are even more quaint than the bathing-establishment. The whole settlement consists of a square field surrounded by little houses, each with its roof of palm leaves and indispensable verandah. Here the Cubans come to stay for months, bathing, smoking cigarettes, flirting, gossiping, playing cards, and strumming guitars; and they seemed to be all agreed on one point, that it was a delightful existence. We left them to their tranquil enjoyments, and rode back to Nueva Gerona.

We shot a hawk and a woodpecker, and took them home; but, not many minutes after we had laid them on the tiled floor of our room, we became aware that we were invaded. The ants were upon us. They were coming by thousands in a regular line of march up our window-sill and down again inside, straight towards the birds. When we looked out of the window, there was a black stripe lying across the court-yard on the flags, a whole army of them coming. We saw it was impossible to get the skins of the birds, so threw them out of the window, and the advanced guard faced about and followed them.

We made two clerical acquaintances in the Isle of Pines. One was the Cura of New Gerona, and his parentage was the only thing remarkable about him. He was not merely the son of a priest, but his grandfather was a priest also.

The other was a middle-aged ecclesiastic, with a pleasant face and an unfailing supply of good-humoured fun. Everybody seemed to get acquainted with him directly, and to become quite confidential after the first half-hour; and a drove of young men followed him about everywhere. His reverence kept up the ball of conversation continually, and showed considerable skill in amusing his auditors and drawing them out in their turn. It is true the jokes which passed seemed to us mild, but they appeared to suit the public exactly; and indeed, the Padre was quite capable of providing better ones when there was a market for them.

We found that though a Spaniard by birth, he had been brought up at the Lazarist College in Paris, which we know as the training-school of the French missionaries in China; and we soon made friends with him, as everyone else did. A day or two afterwards we went to see him in Havana, and found him hard at his work, which was the superintendence of several of the charitable institutions of the city--the Foundling Hospital, the Lunatic Asylum, and others. His life was one of incessant labour, and indeed people said he was killing himself with over-work, but he seemed always in the same state of chronic hilarity; and when he took us to see the hospitals, the children and patients received him with demonstrations of great delight.

We paid a regular round of visits to the Floridan settlers, and were delighted with their pleasant simple ways. It is not much more than thirty years since they left Florida, and many of the children born since have learnt to speak English. The patches of cultivated land round their cottages produce, with but little labour, enough vegetables for their subsistence, and to sell, procuring clothing and such luxuries as they care for. They seemed to live happily among themselves, and to govern their little colony after the manner of the Patriarchs.

Whether any social condition can be better for the black inhabitants of the West Indies, than that of these settlers, I very much doubt. They are not a hard-working people, it is true; but hard work in the climate of the tropics is unnatural, and can only be brought about by unnatural means. That they are not sunk in utter laziness one can see by their neat cottages and trim gardens. Their state does not correspond with the idea of prosperity of the political economist, who would have them work hard to produce sugar, rum, and tobacco, that they might earn money to spend in crockery and Manchester goods; but it is suited to the race and to the climate. If we measure prosperity by the enjoyment of life, their condition is an enviable one.

I think no unprejudiced observer can visit the West Indies without seeing the absurdity of expecting the free blacks to work like slaves, as though any inducement but the strongest necessity would ever bring it about. There are only two causes which can possibly make the blacks industrious, in our sense of the word,--slavery, or a population so crowded as to make labour necessary to supply their wants.

On the morning of our departure we climbed a high hill of limestone, covered in places with patches of a limestone-breccia, cemented with sandstone, and filling the cavities in the rock. All over the hill we found doubly refracting Iceland-spar in quantities. Euphorbias, in Europe mere shrubs, were here smooth-limbed trees, with large flowers. From the top of the hill, the character of the savannahs was well displayed. Every water-course could be traced by its narrow line of deep green forest, contrasting with the scantier vegetation of the rest of the plain.

As we steamed out of the river, rows of brilliant red flamingos were standing in the shallow water, fishing, and here and there a pelican with his ungainly beak. Our Chinese crew were having their meal of rice when we walked forward, and the national chopsticks were hard at work. We talked to several of them. They could all speak a little Spanish, and were very intelligent.

The history of these Chinese emigrants is a curious one. Agents in China persuade them to come out, and they sign a contract to work for eight years, receiving from three to five dollars a month, with their food and clothing. The sum seems a fortune to them; but, when they come to Cuba, they find to their cost that the value of money must be estimated by what it will buy. They find that the value of a black labourer is thirty dollars a month, and they have practically sold themselves for slaves; for there is no one to prevent the masters who have bought the contract for their work from treating them in all respects as slaves. The value of such a contract--that is, of the Chinaman himself, was from ?30 to ?40 when we were in the island. Fortunately for them, they cannot bear the severe plantation-work. Some die after a few days of such labour and exposure, and many more kill themselves; and the utter indifference with which they commit suicide, as soon as life seems not worth having, contributes to moderate the exactions of their masters. A friend of ours in Cuba had a Chinese servant who was impertinent one day, and his master turned him out of the room, dismissing him with a kick. The other servants woke their master early next morning, with the intelligence that the Chinese had killed himself in the night, to expiate the insult he had received.

Of African slaves brought into the island, the yearly number is about 15,000. All the details of the trade are matter of general notoriety, even to the exact sum paid to each official as hush-money. It costs a hundred dollars for each negro, they say, of which a gold ounce is the share of the Captain-general. To this must be added the cost of the slave in Africa, and the expense of the voyage; but when the slave is once fairly on a plantation he is worth eight hundred dollars; so it may be understood how profitable the trade still is, if only one slaver out of three gets through.

The island itself with its creeks and mangrove-trees is most favourable for their landing, if they can once make the shore; and the Spanish cruisers will not catch them if they can help it. If a British cruiser captures them, the negroes are made emancipados in the way I have already explained.

Hardly any country in the world is so thoroughly in a false position as England in her endeavours to keep down the Cuban slave-trade, with the nominal concurrence of the Spanish government, and the real vigorous opposition of every Spaniard on the island, from the Captain-General downwards. Even the most superficial observer who lands for an hour or two in Havana, while his steamer is taking in coals, can have evidence of the slave-trade brought before his eyes in the tattooed faces of native Africans, young and middle-aged, in the streets and markets; just as he can guess, from the scored backs of the negroes, what sort of discipline is kept up among them.

We slept on board the steamboat off the pier of Batabano, and the railway took us back to Havana next morning.

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