VII.
THE RAILWAYS AT WORK.
I.
THE Sonora road is already built, and in operation as I write. It is a stretch of three hundred miles, from the Arizona frontier, to the port of Guaymas, near the centre of the shore line of the Gulf of California. Its United States connection is by a branch of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé, from Benson, through Calabasas, to the border at Nogales; and another is proposed, from the Southern Pacific at Tucson. The management of this enterprise, as well as of the Great Mexican Central, is practically that of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé.
Its course is across the state of Sonora. It abolishes the old system of ox-train transportation and the dusty stage-line from Tucson. It will be found fault with, among others, by the savage Apaches, whose refuge Northern Mexico has so long been. Their depredations, with their territory penetrated by railroads, must soon come to an end once for all. The other Indians of the state—Yaquis, Mayos, and Opatas—are docile, and a principal reliance for cheap labor. The road taps mines, and, by means of a branch, what is even more important for Mexico, the valuable Santa Clara coal-fields. It has the little city of Hermosillo, with its plantations, irrigated by aqueducts, in its course; and its port of Guaymas is commodious and sheltered.
II.
I have purposely reserved to the last—the better, perhaps, to present them to view—the two great trunk lines of principal importance, the Mexican Central and the Mexican National. These two represent the bulk of the entire movement as it is at present. Neither had many miles in actual operation during my stay; but the works, railway stations, city offices, and army of employes of both, were constantly in sight at the capital, and were the principal evidences by which the manner of the railway invasion of Mexico could be judged.
Energy of movement, ingenuity in planning, and an almost limitless expenditure, all indicated here conscientious work, and not simply railroad building on paper.
The Central begins at El Paso, the terminus of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé, as well as a station on the Southern Pacific, at the frontier of New Mexico. It extends to the capital, a distance of thirteen hundred miles, tapping on the way a long series of the leading cities of the republic, most of these as well capitals of states. It has also a great interoceanic cross-line, which is to pass from the port of Tampico, on the Gulf of Mexico, through the cities of San Luis Potosi, Lagos (the junction with the main line), and Guadalajara, to San Blas, on the Pacific. It is expected that the main line will be completed about July, 1884.
The first reached in the chain of leading cities is Chihuahua, with about eighteen thousand inhabitants. The line is already running to this point, and is completed in all three hundred and thirty-one miles southward from Paso del Norte. The visitor by rail may already have in Chihuahua a glimpse of a place presenting most of the typical Mexican features. It has Aztec remains, and a large cathedral, built out of a percentage of the proceeds of a silver-mine in bonanza. It is the scene where the patriot Hidalgo, who first raised the standard of insurrection against Spanish rule, was shot, having been treacherously betrayed by his friends. This story is, unhappily, of but too frequent repetition in Mexican annals.
Durango, three hundred miles farther, has twenty-eight thousand people. It has been spoken of as the Ultima Thule of civilized Mexico, the barren plains to the north—which are, indeed, very common in all these uppermost states—not having been considered worthy to be included with the country below. There are places where water is not to be had for two and three days at a time, but must be carried by the traveller. The inhabitants have had to depend considerably upon themselves for defence, as is seen in the occasional fort-like haciendas, with walls turreted and pierced for musketry.
Zacatecas, moving onward now into a country of recognized civilization, has 62,000 people; San Luis Potosi, 15,000; Aguas Calientes, 35,000; Lagos, 25,000; Leon, 100,000; handsome Guanajuato, capital of the state which is the richest of the whole interior, 63,000; Celaya, 30,000; Silao, 38,000; Irapuato, 21,000; Salamanca, 20,000; and luxurious Guadalajara, 94,000.
The mining of the precious metals is a leading industry over all the area thus described, which abounds also in the agricultural products of a gentle and temperate climate. The railroad is now running northward from the city of Mexico to Lagos, and is completed for three hundred and thirty-four miles from this lower end.
Lastly in the chain of cities may be mentioned Queretaro, which has a population of 48,000. It is the site of
flourishing cotton-mills, an aqueduct which is compared
with the works of the Romans, and it saw the final resistance and execution of Maximilian. Mexico itself has 250,000 inhabitants. I have summed up here nearly a million of people; and it would seem that a railroad along the line of which are scattered such communities as these, grown to their present dimensions without even tolerable means of approach, need not lack for support.
True, large numbers of the people are Indians and very poor; but I point to the example of Don Benito Juarez, the liberator of his country from the French, an Indian of the purest blood, and to numerous others accessible on every hand, to show that there is nothing inherent in the race itself to debar it from the highest development with increase of opportunities. And if any suppose that they do not like to travel, let him simply inspect the excursion trains where third-class cars are supplied to them in sufficient numbers.
III.
I made the trip over the section of the Central to the small city of Tula. Its principal feature is the passage through the great Spanish drainage cut, along one side of which it has been allowed to terrace its track. This cut—the Tajo of Nochistongo, before mentioned, designed for keeping the lakes from inundating the valley—was begun under the viceroys as far back as 1607, and continued for a couple of hundred years. Such mammoth earth—cutting a ditch twelve miles long, a couple of hundred feet deep, and three hundred and sixty wide—was never seen elsewhere in the world; and it is said to have cost the lives of seventy thousand peons, or Indian laborers, in the course of construction. Why this should have been, and how they died—whether by slipping in and being buried, or under the exactions of cruel task-masters, and whether those who passed away simply of old age (for which it will be seen there was ample time) are included— does hot appear.
I went partly by construction train, dining in their car with a group of jolly young engineers, and partly on horseback over the terre-plaine (the graded road-bed), which makes an excellent surface for riding. The peons, swarming on the work, in white cotton shirts and drawers, have reddish skins, bristly black hair, and a sudden, wild-eyed way of addressing you. They have an analogy to the Chinese type. They got at this time two and a half reals (thirty-one cents) a day. They are very suspicious, and have absolutely no idea of trust, or waiting over the appointed time. Dangerous strikes have resulted from some slight putting off of the pay-day, which usually takes place once a week. In other respects they are very tractable.
There were said to be thirty thousand of them at work on railroads at this date. The rate of wages, so favorable to the contractors at first, has been gradually rising under the active demand in the mean time, and I have heard, since my return, of a strike on one of the northern roads for as high as $1 a day. They buy gay clothes for Sunday, and pulque, and save nothing. Many will not even work steadily. Two such form a partnership to take a single place, and one works half the week and the other the rest. There were some who walked all
Saturday night to spend Sunday at Queretaro, and returned Monday morning. On the haciendas they are generally
in debt, and as they cannot leave when in debt, they are so far attached to the land, like serfs. Each gang has a
Cabo (or head), who is simply an enterprising one of themselves, and gets an allowance of two cents extra for
each man he controls. The Cabo is a great
man among the railway laborers, and out of cabos arise the Benito Juarezes, and hopes indefinite for the evolution of the race.
THE GREAT SPANISH DRAINAGE CUT.
I spent the night at Tula. It was the capital of the Toltecs before the day of the Aztecs. I climbed the Hill of the Treasure, to inspect some ruins over which archaeologists have made a stir. There are no sculptures nor carved stones, nothing but some opened cellars and heavy walls, with patches of a red plaster, as at Pompeii, adhering
to them. But we stayed our horses, and looked
down, from a thicket of organ-cactus and nopal, upon a lovely sunset over the valley of Tula. It is a little pocket of fertility in the hills, and it does not seem at all wonderful that the Toltecs stopped there in their migrations southward.
My mozo pointed out a ruin in the thick woods, which he declared was Toltec, knowing that to be what I was in search of. It was picturesque enough, its walls having been split by an irrepressible vegetable growth; but it had the same style of battlements (a kind of Spanish horn of dominion) as the fortress-like church in the town, dating from 1553, and was much more modern.
I went into this cool old church —vast enough for a cathedral— next day, when the temperature was warm without. It was entirely vacant. Fatigued with my journeying, I sat on a comfortable old wooden bench, and dozed till awakened sharply by the striking of a little cuckoo-clock. I seem to have dreamed that the numerous quaint figures of saints, in dresses made of actual stuffs, had somehow an every-day existence there, in addition to their sacred character, and that they were taking notice of the intruder, and offering audible comments. This is one of the ways, I suppose, in which very good miracles have been wrought before now.
For the rest, the place consisted of a plaza, with two or three pulque-shops; a shop of general traps, with the ambitious title of "Los Leones;" a botica (or drug-shop), kept by one Perfecto Espinoza; a Hotel de las Diligencias; and a little jail, at one corner of the plaza, where a couple of soldiers walked up and down, and the prisoners peeped out through a large wooden, grated door.
And there was a good restaurant, kept by a little Frenchman, who moved on with it from time to time to the head of the line. IV.
The Mexican National, or "Palmer-Sullivan," road is due to the same enterprise which established the successful Denver and Rio Grande system in Colorado and New Mexico. It is, like that, a narrow gauge, instead of a standard gauge, line, and a connection is to be ultimately established between the two. In some respects it may claim to be the pioneer in the modern movement, since its agent in Mexico, James Sullivan, had obtained a charter and begun to raise money in 1872, but was stopped in his project by the panic of the following year.
The National takes a much shorter line to the capital than the Central, say eight hundred miles, as against thirteen hundred. Its initial point is Laredo, on the Texas frontier. It is running already into Monterey, the capital of Nuevo Leon, and built below Saltillo. Of the charms of the little city of Monterey, which has medicinal springs beside it, travellers begin to speak in the warmest terms. It touches San Luis Potosi and Celaya as well as the Central, and has along or near its course other cities, well peopled, though less known to fame, as Matehuala, the population of which is 25,000. Its eastern port is Corpus Christi, Texas, though it will have a branch also to Matamoros. Its westward extension (only less important than the main line) winds round about, through the cities of Toluca, Maravatio, Morelia, Guadalajara, and Colima, down to the port of Manzanillo.
Four of these are capitals, and all are populous, and have wide, well-paved streets and handsome buildings, public and private. Toluca, at a great height, 8825 feet, above the sea, is often afflicted by a rather frigid temperature; Colima is distinctly in the tropics; but Morelia affords the happy medium, and its whole state of Michoacan has charms upon which the appreciative never have done expatiating. Humboldt speaks of the lake found at Patzcuaro as one of the loveliest on the globe. Madame Calderon de la Barca, in her journey here, could hardly refrain from regretting the lavishing by Nature of what seemed (so few were there then to enjoy it) almost a wasted beauty. "We are startled," she says, "by the conviction that this enchanting variety of hill and plain, wood and water, is for the most part unseen by human eye and untrod by human footstep."
The route winds, too, on its way to Guadalajara, around the great lake of Chapala. Truly, it seems they are to be happy travellers, those of the immediate future, to whom the simple device of the railway is to open up so much of the wildness and loveliness of nature, combined with the quaintness of an old Spanish civilization. We are apt to forget, in our preconceived impressions, what an important part Old Spain played in the country during three hundred years, what treasures she spent there. She had made a beginning of some of these solid, regular cities, which surprise one like enchantment on emerging upon them from forests and wastes, a hundred years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. Very little, in fact, has been added to what the Spanish domination left. The modern movement, since 1821, is to be credited with very little in the way of new buildings. Such compliments as are paid in the course of these descriptions to the architecture belong chiefly to that remaining from a much earlier date. The reputation of the republic is still to be made in all such matters when it shall have outgrown the ample legacies bequeathed it, and have need of farther accommodations peculiarly its own.
V.
In all, the National has completed four hundred and sixty miles. It is said of late to have been sold to an English company. We need not forego our American
pride in its early achievements, even if this be so. Perhaps such a transfer might be of benefit, in allaying the dread of an overweening American influence.
It was not done even to Toluca in my time. It has to face its most arduous engineering difficulties at the very beginning, and fortunately goes far more smoothly afterward. No less than seventeen bridges, of solid construction, had to be thrown across the little stream of the Rio Hondo in two or three miles of its course.
A pay-train on horseback started out from the central office every Saturday, to convoy the silver coin for the wages of the army of hands employed on the first section of twenty miles.
"Ride with us!" its members often hospitably urged, and I more than once accepted the invitation. It is an all-day adventure, and a fatiguing one. Behold us at early morning clattering out of the court-yard to ride up into the fastnesses of the mountains, a curious cavalcade. The treasure is packed upon the backs of a dozen mules, which are placed in the centre. A troop of Rurales (the efficient force organized by Porfirio Diaz for the better protection of the rural districts) takes the van. A numerous retinue of armed mozos of the company, with ourselves, bring up the rear. The young engineers, paymasters, and contractors, well mounted, with long boots and revolvers, present a handsome, half-military aspect.
We have presently lost sight of the city, and are upon
high rolling barrens, where the surface is volcanic and rent into an infinity of seams, and the only vegetation is that of nopal, or prickly-pear, as large as apple-trees with us. Here and there a cluster of white tents is seen at a
distance, and cotton-clad peons delving in gulch or on mountain-side are like some strange species of white insects.
The whole expedition wears a most un-nineteenth century air. We might be some band of marauders returned from an ancient foray. The Rurales have something in their cut—the buff leather jackets, crossed by ample sword-belts, and wide, gray felt hats—of the troopers of Cromwell. Each has a rifle in his holster at the saddle-bow, and a gray-and-scarlet blanket strapped behind him. Nothing could be more spirited, in color, than these costumes, dismounted beside a cactus-tree, or thrown out against the blue of distant mountains. On the harness of some of the mules are embroidered in red and blue their names, or that of some hacienda, as "Santa Lucia," to which they have belonged.
It is understood that an individual with a crimson handkerchief around the back of his head, under his silver-bordered sombrero, is the titular cacique of San Bartolito by descent from ancient chiefs. He precedes us, being employed by the company to look out for plots and ambuscades. When we have passed what he considers the dangerous points—these are generally in the neighborhood of elevations, whence an intending bandit could spy the road for a distance in both directions, and where are ravines on either side for concealment and escape—he rejoins the troop, and converses upon the propriety of his receiving more salary for his arduous duties. No molestation has ever yet been offered these caravans, and there is hardly likely to be. From a con-
PAY CARAVAN ON THE MEXICAN NATIONAL ROAD.
At the pay-stations we breast our way through crowds of the peons so thick that the horses can hardly be prevented from trampling upon them, always with their narrow foreheads, bristling hair, staring, wild eyes, and large, undecided mouths. Their money is jingled out to them through a pay-window into their shabby sombreros.
Venders of small commodities and pulque wait for them, and profit by the new supply of funds.
At these stations the engineers lead a kind of barrack life. The interior contains some beds, a dining-table, and a safe; outside is a storehouse of picks, shovels, and barrows. Whether here, in their construction-car, or tents, they extend the stranger a cheery hospitality. They are hearty, robust fellows—"not here for their health," as their saying is. Many of them have seen service in war and in other climes, and their company is both amusing and instructive.
VI.
The right of way usually given in all the concessions is for a width of two hundred and thirty feet. Material and supplies for the road, and connected telegraph line, are exempted from duty generally for the period of twenty years. Neither the concession, property, nor shares can be alienated to any foreign government, nor can a foreign government be admitted as a shareholder. The fear of foreign domination crops out everywhere in Mexican legislation; and perhaps the weakness of the nation, and the sad experience of its seizure by Napoleon on the pretext of debt, are sufficient excuse for such
- nervousness. At any rate, all companies organized under its charters agree to be strictly Mexican, and to renounce all rights and exemptions as foreigners.
"NOT HERE FOR THEIR HEALTH."
There is no great vacant public
domain, as with us, and the
Government has not aided the new
enterprises with land grants. Up
to a recent period, however, it has
attached to each concession a cash
subsidy of $10,000 to $15,000 a
mile. Both the Central and National
are thus subsidized. In order that the burden may not fall too heavily upon an exchequer always weak, the payments are made to depend upon the pledge of six
per cent, in the one case, and four in the other, of receipts at the custom-houses. Certificates for the several
amounts as they become due are issued to the companies, which must wait for collection till there are funds to meet them.
The latest plan, affecting most of the great schemes still chiefly on paper, gives no subsidy with the charter, but gives, instead, certain privileges to atone for its absence. A less strict accountability to Government, with a much higher tariff of charges, is permitted. It has been questioned by some whether under these conditions a charter without the subsidy is not better than with it. It is to be borne in mind, however, so far as the matter of the higher rates is concerned, that between competing points the company which can afford to run at the cheapest rates gets the business. If but a tithe of the railroads now covering the map like a net-work be built, there need be no fear of the lack of a lively competition.
The stocks and bonds of railroads are not bought on the word of a desultory traveller mainly in search of the picturesque—though I will admit, too, that they are often bought upon less. I am not afraid, therefore, to express a certain enthusiasm about the ferro-carriles of Mexico, which are in everybody's mouth. It is the railways which have made the modern world elsewhere what it is, and why should they fail of the usual effect here?
They may be overdone, and there may be panics and shrinkages, such as have occurred elsewhere, though this is not extremely probable, owing to the reasons for wariness which lie very much on the surface. The conditions to be conformed to must not be sought in a parallel situation of things in the United States, but rather in such countries, perhaps, as Russia and India, with a large peasant population to be developed, instead of a new population to be created. We have built railroads in advance of settlement, and depended upon immigration to fill up in their wake. Mexico has but an infinitesimal immigration, and presents no great inducements to it at present. It must depend upon the local carrying trade and natural development of the industries and commerce of the country. It has a population per square mile but little less than that of the United States. These are of a natural intelligence, and capable of the stimulus of ambition when opportunities are opened. They are to be encouraged to be no longer satisfied with a bare subsistence for themselves, but to produce from their fertile lands a surplus, for which a market is now opened. They are to trade upon it and become amassers of wealth.
No less than 10,000 miles of railways are spread over what were once the old Mexican provinces of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada,
Utah, and Texas. Railways have brought these out of the nothingness in which they recently lay so vast and desolate. What must they not inevitably do at last for Old Mexico itself, so fully peopled, and scattered with centres of trade and of the arts of civilized life?