JxTLy 30, 1885.1 



FOiREST AND STREAM. 



S 



cracker was utterly nonplussed, and walked off muttering, 

 "Dag; on it; but that is a neat little trick." I think the baby 

 canoe, us "Tarpon" calls it, attracted as much notice as all 

 the other craft in the harbor. 



At night there was an old-fashioned southern country 

 dance, and I ought to have been there. But 1 had been on 

 my feet or in the canoe from early dawn until sundown, and 

 was so tiled that even the attractive strains of "Money Musk" 

 and Fisher's hornpipe could not induce me to paddle ashore 

 again. And ''Tarpon," who rather wanted to take in the 

 dance, tinally agreed that the more sensible course was to 

 get a powei-fiiJ cup of tea. turn in for an all-night watch be- 

 low, and be on hand for an early start to Big Pass in the 

 morning, where we are to anchor or moor near the clean beach 

 for a day or two, gather sliclls ou the outer beach, and shoot 

 snipe, plover and sickle hilled curlew to our hearts' content; 

 with a possible chance at roseate spoonbills. And so with 

 the distant fiddles squeaking faintly on our ears, we take 

 Hiher side of the after house and sink to sleep \inder the 

 shadow of the standing lug, to droara of Big Pass, LitUe 

 Pass, the Fislicry and other spots we propose fo visit on this, 

 the trial cruise of the Nessmnk. For that is the name that 

 floats from her truck m bright scarlet letters. A compliment 

 for which 1 am indebted to Mrs. S. D. Kendall, who worked 

 the same with her own deft hands before she had ever seen 

 nie. May she live to paddle her sixteen-pound canoe long 

 after 1 am gathered in. Ntssbmck. 



FROM TOLUCA SOUTH. 



BEF0RI5 beginning to tell the details of a perhaps un- 

 eventful mountain ride, it is but just to give one or 

 1 two friendly warnings. 



First, this recital bids fair to be very instructive, a thing 

 repellant to minds of an indejiendent turn. Then, probably, 

 others who have lieen before me have given all possible in- 

 formation of this country and this people. Humboldt, in 

 particular, whose genius for detail is so great that if he had 

 facilities for publishing we sliould now doubtless be well ac 

 quainted with all the peculiar features of the nest world — 

 Humboldt, 1 repeat, has passed this way. I console my- 

 self by thinking that others like myself know of the great 

 man by repute, but have never read his works. Then, again, 

 as I go along I shall often be forced to use many names that 

 convey little or no meanina* to the foreign ear. The Mexican 

 idiom'has left, even in dying, deep marks on the language of 

 the country. Numus of familiar and domestic objects are 

 often deiivcd from Indian words, and names of places almost 

 always have this origin. Some of these words, such as 

 Almoioya, are soft and liquid, while other towns, such as 

 Tescalteclan and Ixtlahuaca, tangle the unpracticed tongue. 

 "Tlieir uncouth names of prehistoric moulcl, 

 Clinljing lUre hammers in an age of stone." 



One thing more and 1 begin. You must expect no exact 

 measurements. Those who try to give just measure are 

 liable to be corrected. This unpleasant thing happens to 

 .scientific men of the first rank every day. but one can't be 

 critical about a humble guess. Tiie most captious person 

 would waste his pains at this as much as if he were trying to 

 spoil a defective egg. 



At Toluca, the capital of the State of Mexico, not remark- 

 able for anything except its beautiful market, I found my- 

 self in .Tune, 1785— perhaps it was 1883. A century more 

 or less does not make much difference in Toluca. 



The market is a long paved building, with four rows of 

 slicrt stout pillars running lengthwise. The roof in the cen- 

 ter is paneled in brick red. On each side of this paneling, 

 between the two middle lines of pillars and the two side lines, 

 there are glass skylights, and then solid roof again from the 

 flanking pillars to the outer walls. The whole is painted in 

 simple striking designs, and is not only good in itself, but all 

 the more welcome fbr being unexpected. 



If you have to buy a hat in Mexico you will find that a 

 head that at home is small will yet surpass the size of the 

 native head. To compensate for the small hat band there is 

 a wide brim and a lofty crown. 



In the evening, on entering a cheap cafe to hear some very 

 fine music playtd on instruments of the nature of the guitar, 

 it was explained to me that there are three grades of harsh 

 alcoholic drinks distilled from cane juice. The best is "Cata- 

 lan." It is said that if you hold a glass of Catalan to your 

 ear you can hear the contents hum. It is possible one might 

 hear the glass hum after emptying it of Uquor; but the other 

 statement is exaggerated. Next in grade comes "resacado," 

 while at the bottom of the series stands a still coarser drink 

 whose name I forget. 



A iter thus sounding the resources of the town, I set to 

 work to buy three horses; one for myself, oue for my effects 

 and one for the mozo who was to take care of them. It 

 needed both patience and decision to select, among the ani- 

 mals offered, those least bad. I bought a little, skinny 

 roan, with eyes like a rabbit's bulging far out, and seeing 

 more than he ever spoke about, for a pack horse. 



I rescued a gray mare from sacrifice in the bull ring for 

 iny man to mount, and for myself got a black, large and 

 sleek with a good character and an easy jog. I will not tell 

 the price of the stud for fear you should think the animals 

 contemptible. Some such suspicion lurked in my mind at 

 first. Still, to give you a rough notion, you may know that, 

 after subtracting the cost of my cavalcade, saddles and all, 

 from a hundred dollars, there was a pleasing remainder. In 

 one point only was I deceived. My own charger, whose 

 pace was as swift and pleasant as a mule's, proved to be 

 foundered. His legs were hmber and his gait graceful, and 

 he did not show his disease until he got to climbing moun- 

 tains, when his respiration rose to near two hundred and 

 fifty pants a minute, and his progress grew slow in inverse 

 proportion. 



My mozo, Gntnecindo, was not a packer by profession. 

 Indeed, he turned out to know nothing of that delicate art. 

 He began his service with the seeming intention of being a 

 patronizing if incompetent adviser. His manners were veiy 

 grand and his tone a condescending chant. It needed, how- 

 ever, only a blunder or two with the ropes and a little neg- 

 lect of the horses to alter our relations seriouslj% His aris- 

 tocratic bearing woxdd fade, and only freshen again when 

 heahng time allowed him to forget the past. Yet the poor 

 fellow made me half ashamed of myself on oue occasion. 

 For the puipose of a flying trip to Tasco I took another boy 

 for guide, and left Gumecindo behind for a day because his 

 horse's back was sore. Just before we started out Gume- 

 cindo came to me and asked that, in view of the disability of 

 his horse, he might be allowed to accompany us on foot that 

 he might continue to watch over my welfare. Fifty miles 

 on foot over such a traUl 



Loading upon the roan a bag of bread and two boxes of 



claret, which ought to have been cheap, but was not, we 

 set out across the valley. After a time we began skirting 

 the volcano and soon rose among the pines. The volcano, 

 called, according to a geography I carried, Xinantecatl or 

 "the naked maii" by the ancients, is somewhere about 14,000 

 feet high. On one side of its ridgy crest snow is always to 

 be seen. Its fires have long been dead and in their place 

 two sheets of clear water fill the old craters and send down 

 their overflow to freshen the lands on every side. Toward 

 ■Toluca comes a small stream. Two considerable rivers 

 unite at Temascaltepec, and further south, at Tenanciugo, the 

 cool waters still come from the same source. I was told 

 that the tirst discoverers of tliese lakes found there the shat- 

 tered pieces of an old boat with its iron fastenings lying 

 around. Like many other things supposed by the people to 

 be relics of the ancient races, the remains spoken of in this 

 story must really have been of Spanish origin, for iron was 

 unknown before their coming. 



Up in the forest woodchoppers were at work cutting and 

 fashioning lumber. The axe is a queer instrument not more 

 than three inches broad at the blade and nearly a foot long; 

 but, clumsy as it is, it is well handled, and excellent results 

 are got. Trains of Indians passed laden with burdens. 

 Most of the loads were put in a device called a "huacal." 

 This is an osier cage some three feet high and two 

 feet wide and deep. Usually the "huacal" is divided 

 into two or three stories. The lower floor is perhaps crowded 

 with live hens, then there will be a compartment full of 

 eggs, with an assortment of fresh vegetal>les, or new crockery 

 on top. Tiie carriers get their stock together and set out on 

 a long tramp, so timing their start as to get to some town on 

 the day of the week consecrated to the "pla/.a" or public 

 market. Then they sell their cargo and walk back. 



It was rainy and cold when we got to a straggling settle- 

 ment called Meson Viejo. The roofs looked leaky, but we 

 could get no further that night, so we took our chances and 

 were happily dry. 



There are four principal kinds of roof in this part of the 

 country. First there are the red tiles, half cylindrical in 

 form. These are laid overlapping, first in rows with the 

 concave side up, and then, over the edges of these, in rows 

 with the convex side up. The effect is both good for shelter 

 and attractive to look at; loved equally by the artist and the 

 practical man. At the other end of the series is the thatch 

 roof of grass or palm leaves, set with a steep slant, dirty, in- 

 effective and used only in the poorest houses. Between'these 

 extremes are the roofs made of "tejamaniles." These are 

 long shingles, perhaps six inches wide by three feet in length. 

 I think what we call shakes are about the same thing. "Te- 

 jamaniles" are fastened either by boring holes and driving in 

 long wooden pins which are left uncut (so that your roof 

 looks like a great harrow slightly tilted), or by the simpler 

 method of weighting the roof with stones. The roofs at 

 Meson Viejo were loaded with stones. It looked as if a new 

 Deucalion had been scattering the seed, and the classic par- 

 allel was made more striking by the great number of infant 

 Indians that seemed to have sprouted under the tliick strewn 

 rocks. 



The next day, after going over some hilly ground, we got 

 to Temascaltepec, in the edge of the mineral belt, for here 

 little ore is found either on the Tolucan peak or its higher 

 spurs. Ou the lower ranges that lie between here and the 

 coast are the principal mines of this and the adjoining dis- 

 tricts. 



It woidd, of com-se, be indelicate and perhaps uninterest- 

 ing in a mining expert to tell "the secrets of the prison 

 house" and other professional matters. In these I keep dis- 

 creet silence, but tbe town has other features which repay 

 attention. We have got low enough now for the tropic sum 

 to show its influence. Up the steep sides of the barranca, 

 just below where the two rivers flow together, wide banana 

 groves wave their great leaves. Coffee trees are planted 

 among the bananas, giving fine fruit and yielding good re- 

 turns. Corn here as elsewhere, is the main stay of tbe 

 people, and it is striking to see what ungrateful soils are 

 tilled. As little manure is used, the fields have to rest long 

 in fallow, but, with this exception, the cultivation is close. 

 Side hills a man can hardly^ climb, and which only the ox 

 reared in the mountains can plow, are green with corn. I 

 have seen, in limestone regions, fields so full of boulders you 

 could scarce see the soil, and yet between the rocks stood the 

 withered cornstalks of last year's harvest. Nor is there any 

 lack of necessary attention to growing crops. There is care- 

 ful system on the contrary. While the stalks are short 

 enough for the ox yoke to pass over, there is frequent 

 ploughing, and after that the ground is hoed. The wooden 

 ploughs of the country are effective in light soils. They do 

 not turn the furrow over as a mold board does but they stir 

 deeply. Even the antique style of threshing by driving 

 cattle and horses over the grain does not turn out so badly as 

 one would think. Another sign of the careful use of the 

 land is the extent of the "rozas," the burned over clearings 

 on the mountains, where only a crop or two can be raised, 

 after which the land lies idle till another growth of brush is 

 ready for another burning. You will often see a distant 

 range checkered over clear to the summit with the bare 

 squares of former "rozas." 



Among the fruits that are unusual with us comes first the 

 "zapote." The tree is larger than any walnut I ever saw, 

 open and ah-y, and the fruit is about the size of a large pear. 

 Inside are two or three pits that together take up as much 

 room as a turkey's egg. The meat of a ripe zapote is soft 

 and sweetish; neither dry nor juicy, but of that consistency 

 of fibrous custard which is met with in so many tropic 

 fruits. 



Then you have the "aguacate." On a tree not unlike a 

 small chestnut grow dark green spheroids about the dimen- 

 sions of an average potato. Aguacates, too, have large 

 stones, and besides have a tough rind. Between the two lies 

 an oily pulp which goes far to replace butter. It is just the 

 thing for salads. 



Further south is the land of the "mamey." These have 

 the shape of a small cocoanut, four to six inches long, a 

 rough, brown skin, and the usual enormous seeds. The flesh 

 is hke a pumpkin pie. Good mameys remind you of good 

 pies and bad mameys of poor pies, but the comparison is 

 quite exact throughout. An intelligent friend told me that 

 it took four years for the mamey to develop from the flower 

 to the ripe fruit. This may be so in unfavorable places, but 

 in hot land a few months only are needed. 



There are two kinds of wild cherries here, highly prized. 

 "Capnlin," a red berry growing on a large tree, and "nan- 

 anche," a yellow berry, on a much smaller tree. Both have 

 the astringent taste of our choke cherries, and have hardly 

 more juice. 



A day's ride from Temascaltepec led us over a high divide 

 and down into the plain where Almoioya stands. On the 



mountain here, as in many other places where the rock ig 

 soft, the trail was so deeply worn in spots that a horseman 

 could not see over the sides of the banks. Near the towns, 

 too, the roads were often paved for a long way. Of course 

 I do not mean that a wagon could be driven on such pave- 

 ments. So steep and rough were they sometimes that one 

 could only ride down with great danger to his horse's legs; 

 still it shows that great labor has been spent, where uecesa- 

 sary, in preserving the scanty lines of travel tbe country 

 owns. On the roads called by courtesy "carainos reales," 

 royal or main roads, you meet many solid masonry bridges 

 connecting paths little better than cattle ti-ails. Probably 

 much of this work was done by forced Indian labor. The 

 odious methods of the present government in that regard 

 show too clearly what the past must have lieen. When the 

 roads now need repair, the local magnate sends to the lead- 

 ing men of some Indian village, bidding them do the job or 

 go to jail. Not only are tbe poor creatures paid nothing, 

 but they are not even supplied with tools. They are forced 

 to cut stakes, and, hardening the pointed ends by charring 

 them in the fire, get on as best they can with these miserable 

 makeshifts. 



As you ride through the level land toward Almoioya, you 

 find, for a wonder, that the villages and churches stand a 

 little way off tbe main road. All the fertile bottom seems 

 to be utilized; grain and corn growing right up to the walls 

 of the houses. 



Almoioya was full of festal visitors when we rode in. 

 There was no room either for man or beast, and we went on 

 to a little store at the hacienda of Los A.rcos. 



Here we had various fortune. We were treated first to 

 "te lirnon," a drink made out of a kind of grass. There are 

 three principal kinds of herb teas here in use. Te limon is 

 cultivated in gardens and dried. When steeped it has a 

 flavor that rerninds one of lemon verbena. Then you have 

 "te yerba buena," made by steeping while green a plant 

 that resembles mint. The infusion, however, has hardly any 

 taste at all; "te del monte," made from the dried leaves of 

 a wild bush, is better than either of these, and the three 

 varieties, called from the colors of their flowers red, purple 

 and white, are prized in the order named. Sometimes a tea 

 is made from green orange leaves. To my palate hot water 

 is more agreeable. 



To compensate for the pleasures of "te limon," we were at 

 Los Arcos infested with pigs. Of all God's creatm-es, I 

 most loathe a pig. Dead pigs, like dead Indians, may have 

 their good points, but for the living my sentiments are httle 

 better than those of a .lew. Their sntiffling, granting, and 

 the slobbering smack of their filthy chops arouse in me a 

 feeling of dislike. Most of the pigs at Los Arcos, though 

 living in the x>arlor during the day, retired to a separate room 

 to sleep. Two or three favored ones, however, kept going 

 the rounds for hours after the others had gone to rest. "As a 

 measure of protection I gathered a pile of firewood, laid it 

 near my hand and discharged this artillery at every grunt I 

 heard in the darkness. At last we had peace. My kindly 

 host, though perhaps pained at the ill-treatment of their pets, 

 wished me all sorts of good fortune the next morning, and I, 

 far from complaining, pocketed my pig grievance and 

 answered with CastiUan punctilio to their graceful compli- 

 ments. One thing I forgot to say about Temascaltepec, viz., 

 that the withers of the horses were there badly bitten by 

 bats. We guarded carofully against this misfortune for the 

 future, and it did not occur again. 



And now one day more of mountain travel and we reach 

 the town of Zacualpan. On the road I saw the only wild 

 animal, with the exception of one sm&U deer, that I met dur- 

 ing the trip. He was tbe size and shape of a fox, both as 

 regards the head, the tail and the body, but his color, instead 

 of being rufous, was of a steely gray. The natives call the 

 animal a "cacomistli." 



The town of Zacualpan cannot be hid. It is set on the 

 very summit of a lofty hill. It makes one tired merely to 

 see the steepness of the streets, and a Mexican there ou a 

 visit told me he got quite foundered in going to his sleeping 

 place. He was lucky, however, to find any place to stay. 

 Though the town is large, so few people come there that 

 only the casual kindness of heart of some benevolent citizen 

 rescues a stranger from the street. It was not till we en- 

 joyed the hospitality of the hacienda in the ravine below 

 that we were in any position to judge of the advantages of 

 the country. 



The mountains around are bored and burrowed into on 

 every side. Immense amounts of labor have been done, and 

 you hear tales of several old-time miners who took many 

 millions in silver from the ground only to end in aged help- 

 less poverty. 



Now we draw near the State of GueiTero. The road to 

 Tasco is one of the most beautiful paths a man need wish to 

 see. Almost all the way you ride through the shade of oak 

 forests. More than thirty kinds of oak are said to grow 

 here, but they do not have the rugged look of their English 

 cousins. Crowded close together, they shoot up tall "and 

 nearly as straight as pines. Orchids and trailing mosses 

 drape and swathe the trunks and branches, and ever and 

 again you catch glimpses of the red boles of writhing mad- 

 ronos hung with tattered bark. 



From the lofty ridge of the Mount of Temptation, at a 

 place called the Devil's Balcony, whence you can see, if not 

 all the kingdoms of the earth, at all events' a great expanse of 

 republican land, the traveler looking east is faced by the 

 tall crest of the Tolucan volcano. The twins of Puebla, the 

 White Woman and the Smoking Mountain, rise above the, 

 line of the range further to the right, and on clear mornings, 

 before the heated air begins to'shimmer, you can see the 

 faint-drawn, sharp point of Orizaba piercing the southern 

 sky and ending the line of sleeping fire. 



As the ride draws to a close you pitch down a long de- 

 scent. At first a few churches to the right catch your atten- 

 tion, and you think half an hour will bring you to the town. 

 Then you see a settlement nestled on the slope far across the 

 valley and your hopes of a speedy arrival are chilled. On a 

 sudden you turn a point of rocks and the red towers of the 

 tall, narrow-chested fagade of the cathedral rise before you 

 with such a determined front that you stop half startled. 

 This is Tasco beyond a doubt. 



The town now lives mainly on memories of the past. In 

 the cathedral hangs a portrait, beneath contempt in execu- 

 tion, with a writing below that tells the reader that Don Jose 

 Borda built the church out of gratitude for divine favors 

 shown him in the getting of wealth. 'The outside of the 

 building is not all in good taste, but was clearly costly. The 

 fine red stone was brought from far, and is elaborately 

 carved to the top of the bell towers. Statues .in the same 

 stone are clustered around, giving an almost confusing effect 

 of detail. The nave is high and narrow. "The belfries much 

 higher and, instead of tapering, swell slightly as they go up. 



