XX.
ON HORSEBACK AND MULEBACK TO ACAPULCO.
I.
the time came at length—all too soon—for my final Mexican journey to the Pacific coast at Acapulco, where I was to take the steamer for San Francisco.
I was advised not to go to Acapulco. There are always persons ready to advise you not to do perfectly feasible things. It was now August, and the rainy season had begun in town itself. It began one afternoon with a rush. I had been reading at the National Library, and, coming out at four o'clock, found the streets a couple of feet deep in water. The cabs, now at a premium, and some few men on horseback, who could give a friend a lift, served as impromptu gondolas upon these impromptu canals. There were also cargadores, who, for a medio, carried you on their backs from corner to corner. I was told that ladies in the balconies, watching the animated sight, now and then slyly held up a real, in consideration of which the cargador dropped some gallant in the water, presenting a ridiculous sight. Such inundations last several hours before the sluggish sewers can carry off the surplus water, and they leave the ground-floor habitations of the poor in but a cheerless condition, as may be imagined.
If this were to be added to the other embarrassments of life every afternoon, it was not interesting to think of remaining longer at the capital. And yet, with Macbeth, there seemed "nor flying hence, nor tarrying here." The journey to Acapulco was represented as very difficult and dangerous. The route was a mere trail or foot-path, a buen camino de pájaros—a good road for birds. No wheeled vehicle ever had passed or ever could pass over it. All this was, indeed, the case. Three large rivers were to be crossed, and these unbridged.
"Suppose," said the advisers, putting the case in that bold and alarming way in which advisers delight, "that these should be swollen by the floods, as is naturally to be expected now in the rainy season. You would then be delayed so long on their banks as to miss your steamer, which touches at Acapulco only once a fortnight. Again, the road lies, for days at a time, in ravines and the beds of streams; but when the waters occupy their channels what room is there for travellers?"
If to this were added the natural reflections of the novice on the score of danger to property and person in entering upon so wild a section, the prospect was not at all a pleasing one. Nevertheless it would be almost too much to expect that a person bound for California should come back to the United States again in order to go there, and I had a firm conviction that the Acapulco trip could be made.
II.
I had negotiated a little already with an arriero, or muleteer, named Vincente Lopez, in a street called Parque
del Conde. He would furnish a horse to ride, and a mule to transport my baggage, each for $20 all other expenses to be defrayed personally along the way which
makes the three hundred miles come a good deal higher than so much railway travel. I had thus dallied with
` the idea, and my decision was precipitated by the sudden coming down of the rain. I hurried to Parque del
Conde Street, and closed with Vincente Lopez. I was glad to learn from him that he had also another patron who was going, in the person of a colonel of the army. The journey, under the most favorable auspices, consumes ten days on horseback, besides the day occupied in going down by stage-coach to the provincial city of Cuernavaca, where the bridle-path begins. Considering all the circumstances as stated, there were many companions one would much less prefer to have than so presumably bold and well-informed a person as a Mexican regular officer.
He proved to be a veritable military man, a colonel who had seen twenty years' service in different wars of his country, and bore bullet-holes in his body as the result of them. He had begun in the War of the Reform, which overthrew the Church and aristocratic party; he had fought against the French and Maximilian in the second War of Independence; and, lastly, for the government of Lerdo against Porfirio Diaz. To the party of the latter he was, however, now reconciled, and he was going to take a command on the disturbed northern frontier. If more were needed, he had lately fought a duel, as he told me, in which the weapons were sabres, and had so slashed his opponent, a brother officer, that the latter was laid up in a grievous state at the hospital. A vacant barracks had been set apart, by the War Department, for this proceeding. Army dueling, as on the Continent, is connived at. The case seems to be that, if you fight, you are afterward reprimanded; but if you do not, you are likely to be cashiered as pusillanimous.
Not that the colonel was in all respects the most agreeable of travelling companions. He was much wrapped
12
Vincente Lopez collected our baggage at the appointed time. He was a plausible person, and when he desired the full amount of his bill in advance I had well-nigh yielded to him. I submitted, however, as more equitable, that one-half should be paid down and the remainder on the completion of the journey according to contract.
"That would be equitable, indeed, for ordinary arrieros" said Yincente Lopez, "but I am one of especial probity. It is my habit to watch over the persons who confide themselves to my care with a tender solicitude, and in the present instance I have intended to multiply even my usual pains. I am one of those who have never known what it is to encounter on the way the slightest delay or annoyance."
He seemed wounded in his finest sensibilities by an appearance of mistrust, which was to him hitherto unknown. There were considerations in his favor. He said that the colonel, at another hotel, had paid the full sum in advance, and this proved true. Whatever money was to be taken, besides, must be in the heavy silver coinage of the
country, $16 to the pound, and to be rid of the weight and jingling of even a part of it was desirable. Still, on the whole, the contract was drawn in my way, by
the advice of the dark secretary of the Iturbide Hotel. Though it seemed almost cruel at the time to act in this formal manner with so good a man, the precaution
proved in the sequel to be very useful.
III.
THE "DILIGENCIA."
issues, but the history of the scar was that, while commanding in Yucatan, he had ordered to be shot, on some of the ordinary revolutionary pretexts, a member of the powerful family of Gutierrez Estrada, a family with commercial houses in Paris, Mexico, and Merida, and noted, among other things, for the beauty and intelligence of its women. A brother of the victim came over from Paris as an avenger, sought out the general in question, met him in a duel, and left this mark, which, at the time of its infliction, brought the recipient to death's door.
The city of Mexico is some 7500 feet above the sea, and, having come up, we now followed a great downward slope. It abounds in bold points of view, from which the prospects spread vision-like at vast distances below. Cuernavaca presents one of the most thrilling of these. What is yonder singular detail in the valley? A hacienda set in the open side of an extinct volcanic crater, of which the whole interior has been brought under smiling cultivation. And yonder yellowish spot? The sugarcane fields of the Duke of Monteleone. He is an Italian nobleman of Naples, who inherits, by right of descent, a part of the estates reserved here for himself by Cortez. The Conqueror was made "Marquis of the Valley," with his port at Tehuantepec, and an estate comprising twenty large towns and villages, and 23,000 vassals.
Nowhere is there a quainter group of old rococo churches than that in this solid little city. They have flying buttresses, of two arches in width, descending quite to the ground, domes, and other inlay in colored porcelain tiles; and they are all clustered together, with tombs and a battlemented wall about them. A student architecture corming this way with his sketch-book his hand could find material here for a month. I am not sure that the trip could not be made enjoyably, as it certainly could economically, on foot, with an attendant carry a knapsack, as we met some German naturalists and prospectors making it farther on. Close by is a garden on a great scale the—Jardin Borda—to which one obtains admittance for a fee. It has a stone fish-pond as large as a lake, terraces, urns, and statues worthy of the most luxurious prince in Europe. I was told that it could be bought for $5000. I asked the custodian about the owner—what he had been remarkable for.
"He had altos pesos" replied the man, which is Spanish for "a pile of money." Bushels of delicious mangoes were rotting untouched along the walks. From the outer terrace you look down into the barranca which Alvarado crossed by a fallen tree when sent by his indefatigable general against the disaffected Gonzalo Pizarro. Here are guava, mango, pine-apple, banana, and plenty of other fruits, but not yet the cocoa-nut, which only flourishes lower down.
Behold us ready to set forth on the trail! Vincente Lopez is not present, strange to say, to cast about us the fostering care he has promised. On the contrary, he has quietly sold out his contract and gone back to the Parque del Conde with his profits. We are in the hands of a new muleteer, "Don Marcos," who has never made the journey to Acapulco before, and a fourteen-year-old boy, "Vincente," who is depended upon to find the way. Every cavalcade in Mexico is bizarre, and ours, ordinary enough there, would attract attention elsewhere. First, upon the mule "Venado" rides the colonel, a tall, spare ` man, in military boots, wide hat with silver braid, and a linen blouse, through which project the handles of huge revolvers. He is aiming, not at display, but comfort. Of myself I shall say nothing. It is a privilege of the narrator to let it be supposed that he is always gallant and imposing in appearance, and exactly adapted to the circumstances of the case. I rode the. rather large bay horse "Pajaro." Don Marcos, a deprecating, tricky person, with a purpose, soon evident, of making up from us his bad bargain, wore a crimson poncho and cotton drawers, and bestrode the small white horse "Palomito" ("Little Dove"). Thus appreciatively had he thought fit to name all the animals, though he had but on the instant come into possession of them. The trunks, first securely sewn up in cocoa-mats, were tied, the colonel's upon the back of the mule "Niña," and mine upon "Aceituna." Vincente, the boy, ran barefoot most of the way to Acapulco behind the mules, crying, "Eh! machos! and cracking at them with a combination whip and blinder. With this same blinder their eyes were covered while their loads were being put on and taken off, at morning, noon, and night.
There was a bit of wagon-road at first, as there is outside of each of the more important places along the way. This soon merged in the trail, which was of increasing wildness. The huts and hamlets we fell in were of cane, well thatched. There were fields of cane, trains of mules laden with sugar-loaves, and an occasional stately sugar hacienda. Now and then there were the remains of one ruined in the wars. At noon the mules were unpacked at some favorable point, and the expedition rested for several hours. It was the custom to take a siesta during the extreme heat of the day. At night there were occasional mesons, or rude inns, but generally our stopping-place was such accommodation as could be offered by the inhabitants of the villages. The baggage was piled up under a thatched pavilion. Beds, consisting of mats of stiff canes resting upon trestles, were arranged for us along-side, or in open piazzas. These, in the warm lights, were more agreeable than might be supposed. A guerre comme à la guerre! Sleeping almost under the belle étoile, you could study the constellations, the out-lines of strange, dark hills, your own thoughts, and hear the dogs bark, down at remote Sacocoyuca, Rincon, and Dos Arroyos, and there was not a little pleasant novelty in the situation. At the gray of dawn we were off.
The people, all of Aztec blood, were gentle with us, honest, and not much less comfortable in their circumstances than farmers newly established at the West. The predicted difficulties of the undertaking largely melted away. It rained chiefly at night; there were but one or two showers in the daytime, though of these one was very hard. The food obtained along the way was of rustic quality, and occasionally scanty, but, on the other hand, it was often excellent. Chickens were generally to be had, with fried bananas as the most frequent vegetable accompaniment. The national dish of frijoles (black beans) was always palatable. There was milk in the morning, but not at night, the cows being milked but once a day. We foraged more or less for ourselves. The colonel would demand a couple of eggs under the off-hand formula of un par de blanquillos, which can hardly be translated, but is as much as to say, "A pair of little white 'uns." He declared it "a miserable population" where they were not to be had.
On the very first day out Don Marcos came to say that he had no money with which to buy feed for the animals. It was with the reserve I had retained, doled out little by little, that this necessary purpose was thereafter accomplished, and the arriero perhaps kept from leaving us in the lurch.
It was apropos of this incident that my first glimpse into the peculiar nature and inclinations of the colonel was obtained. It was now evident that it would have been better not to have paid the man in advance. But the colonel refused either to regret that he had done so or to regard it as a lesson for the future.
"I am a philosopher," he said. "The philosopher makes no account of such things."
These views he professed also on other occasions, and seemed, with a bravado of stoicism, almost to go in search of inconveniences.
"But is it not rather philosophy," I argued, "to avoid such inconveniences as one can by a little exercise of forethought, and then endure the inevitable with equanimity?"
"No; that is the civilian's, not the soldier's, point of view," he persisted, with obstinacy.
IV.
This route, probably no better, and certainly no worse, was travelled, as now, nearly a hundred years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. It was the sole highway between Acapulco, the only really excellent port on the Pacific Coast, and the capital. It has seen the transit of convoys of treasure, slaves, silks, and spices from the Indies, bound in part for Old Spain. A regular galleon used to sail from Acapulco for supplies of Oriental goods. It has seen the march of royalist troops, under the sixty-four viceroys, and of many a wild insurgent troop. Morelos operated here, with his bandit hand- ` kerchief round his head, and kept the district clear of Spaniards down to the sea at Acapulco. By one of the rivers still lies the massive stone-work for a bridge, the instruction of which was abandoned in the War of Indpendence, seventy years ago.
Most momentous of all the processions it has seen, however, must be counted that of Iturbide, who returned along it, with his new tri-colored flag of the three guarantees—Religion, Union, and Independence—to the capital, to make himself, for a brief season, Emperor. This brilliant figure, of such an ignominious end, is still greatly honored in Mexico, and there is something rather typical of Mexico, or of Spanish America generally, in his history. Taking the position which would have been that of a Tory here, he fought against the earlier insurrection of his country, from its outbreak, in 1808, till 1820. Sent in command of an army against the rebel chief Guerrero in the latter year, he united with instead of attacking him, seized a convoy of treasure to serve as sinews of war, and drew up at Iguala—a charming little city on the route—a plan of independence of his own. The Viceroy, in despair, tried to buy him back with promises of pardon, money, and higher command, but without success. He made a triumphal entry into the capital in September, 1821. In May of the following year a sedition, which he had without doubt artfully set on foot, roused him at his hotel at night, with a clamor that he should become Emperor. He appeared upon his balcony and affected to reluctantly consent to the popular will.
He modelled himself after Napoleon, nearly his contemporary. There is a portrait of him at the National Palace, in the same gorgeous coronation robes affected by the latter, though in his own whiskered countenance he is more like the English Prince Regent of the same date. In August he imprisoned some Deputies, and in October, still following his illustrious prototype, put his troublesome Congress out-of-doors. But in October also the country rose against him, and he was obliged to leave it and take refuge in England. He returned again in July of the next year—another Napoleon from Elba; but, instead of sweeping the country with enthusiasm, he was seized upon landing, and ordered to prepare for death within two hours. Four days of grace were finally given him, and then he was shot.
Iturbide was a person of a highly politic turn, as has been seen. A thorough devotee of expediency, he maintained (and there was not a little truth in this) that a people made up so largely of Indian serfs suddenly released from tyranny was not ready for self-government. He said that he had meant the Empire to be only temporary. He had shown no personal valor in the service of his country, as there had been no occasion for it; all his actual fighting had been against it. Yet he is commemorated in the national anthem,* and a certain hold, in the Napoleonic way, which he had upon the popular imagination, was relied upon by the French when they endeavored to establish Maximilian in Mexico. A grandson of Iturbide still lives who was adopted by Maximilian, in order to give his dynasty a more indigenous effect, and made heir to the succession. The boy's mother, who at first acquiesced in the usurping order of things, later repented, and endeavored to get him away. This was finally effected through the mediations of Secretary Seward and Mr. John Bigelow, then Minister to France.
.* "Si á lo lid contra hueste enemiga
Nos convoca la trompa guerrera,
De Iturbide la sacra bandera,
Mexicanos valientes, seguid !"