Photo by Shirley C. Hulse 



THE BURRO SOMETIMES SPOKEN OE AS THE MEXICAN CANARY 



This animal is admirably suited to the needs of the Mexican peon. He is the personiti- 

 caton of patience. About all that any one ever does for a burro is to make him work or 

 to collect 15 pesos for his remains after he has stolidly permitted himself to be run over on 

 a railroad. The process of making a burro work often entails what might seem to be 

 considerable brutality. If the Mexican has any feeling for animals, he rarely exhibits such 

 feeling in the presence of a foreigner; but the burro never seems to mind. The longer you 

 observe him working or eating, or merely in a trance, the more surely will you wonder 

 whether he is a stoic or whether he, too, is unfeeling as regards animals, until you hear and 

 see him burst forth into song. Then you know that the burro is neither stoic nor clod. He 

 has great feeling — all the feelings. He simply lacks means of expression excepting that of 

 song, and in song he pours out all his joys and hopes, all his suffering and anguish, his 

 longing, his very soul. 



whose borders are surrounded by tower- 

 ing mountains ; located where the beauti- 

 ful volcanoes, Popocatepetl and Ixtacci- 

 huatl, rear their snow-capped heads above 

 the plain and stand eternal guard over 

 it, its situation is one of rare beauty and 

 grandeur. Its climate is mild, the tem- 

 perature ranging from 35 to 75 degrees, 

 with a mean of 65 degrees. No man 

 sleeps without a blanket in Mexico City, 

 nor needs an overcoat at midday. 



Prior to the conquest the lakes of the 

 Mexican Valley were extensive and the 

 barges of the Aztecs sailed uninterrupt- 

 edly from the gates of Chapultepec to 

 Ixtapalapa. A large number of canals 

 intersected the ancient metropolis of Ten- 

 ochtitlan and connected with the lakes in 

 the suburbs, making it a sort of new 

 world Venice. 



In 1607 the celebrated Portuguese engi- 

 neer Martinez undertook to drain the 

 Valley of Mexico by cutting a canal 

 through the mountains. From 12,000 to 

 15,000 Indians were forced to do the 

 work, which was considered complete 11 

 months after its inception. The work, 

 however, was largely a failure, since it 

 drained only one small lake and an un- 

 important river, leaving lakes Texcoco 

 and Chalco still perpetual menaces to the 

 city. 



In 1879 a huge drainage canal 30 miles 

 long was begun, which was completed in 

 1900, at a cost of about $8,000,000, Amer- 

 ican gold. Its completion removed the 

 danger of inundations from Mexico City 

 and solved the problem which occupied 

 the thoughts and engendered the fears of 

 the A^ztecs as far back as 1449. 



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