344 



MEXICAN HABIT OF HOME- STAYING. 



Jalapa, Perote and Puebla, was gradually extended northwards 

 from the capital through the principal mining and commercial cities 

 of the north, and thus the means of swift and comfortable travel was 

 at length, though only recently, supplied to a small part of Mexico. 



The danger of robbers, the wretchedness of the roads, the dis- 

 comfort of inns and the old fashioned Mexican habit of staying at 

 home, have, therefore, hitherto prevented the masses of the people 

 from going abroad. A journey of two or three hundred miles, for 

 any purpose but business or emigration, is still regarded as an im- 

 portant undertaking. When families depart on such an expedition 

 the preparations embrace almost every comfort and luxury required 

 at home, except a cow and a piano. Until very lately nothing but 

 shelter or the commonest food was to be had at the miserable mesones 

 or taverns along the roads. In most of the less frequented regions 

 this is still the case. It was necessary therefore that travellers 

 should be accompanied by a full complement of servants, that they 

 should carry with them an ample supply of bedding and table fur- 

 niture, that their long and numerous train should be fully armed and 

 equipped to fight its way if necessary, and that they should be con- 

 tent to halt frequently, journey slowly, and linger on the road. In- 

 conveniences like these necessarily localized and confined all classes 

 of Mexicans except the very rich or those whose business impera- 

 tively required them to encounter a life of expensive adventure. 

 Nor was Mexico a country of watering places and sea-side fashion, 

 in which it was customary, at certain seasons, for all whose means 

 permitted, to fly from the city to the fields or the shore for recreation 

 and health. Invalids, occasionally, under the stringent orders of 

 physicians, crawled to the warm baths or mineral waters which are 

 abundant in a volcanic country, but they were not followed by the 

 idle crowds who frequent similar places in Europe and the United 

 States. Tens of thousands are now living in the city of Mexico 

 who have not even crossed the lake to Tezcoco ; while the fashion- 

 able or the wealthy are perfectly satisfied if they make an annual 

 peregrination in the month of May of twelve miles to San Agustin 

 de las Cuevas, where they spend three days of frivolity, gambling, 

 cockfighting, and dancing. The journeys of the rest of the year are 

 confined, as they are elsewhere in the Republic, to an evening drive 

 or ride on the Passeos and Alameda, or a more extended excursion 

 of a few miles to Tacubaya or San Angel. It was not the usage, 

 in the early days of Mexico or during the viceroyal government, to 

 travel for pleasure in a country conquered from the Indians, and 

 still ravaged by them or made insecure. The custom of the Span- 



