a Next week will close this series of 
travel letters, and this letter will tell 
you something about Mexico and the 
Mexicans—a little of the inside stuff 
that perhaps you don’t know. 
Tf I was hunting a nerve sanitar- 
ium, I would go to Mexico, for there 
1s never a jar in that country. 
I see you smile, but I am not writ- 
ing of war days. I know Villa is jar- 
ring Huerta and Huerta President 
Wilson, but I am speaking of ordin- 
ary life in the Republic, 
Everything is soft and easy in 
Mexico, from the pronunciation to 
“rolling” a “Gringo.” A Mexican is 
never strenuous. If he sticks a knife 
into your vitals he will do it with 
quietness and grace. It is a land of 
rest, music and quietness. Get onto 
enough of the lingo to make your- 
self understood, go in bunches of two 
or three, and you can have the quiet- 
est and yet the most interesting trips 
you ever dreamed of. 
The whole country is simply satu- 
rated with lore, traditions, ruins and 
mysteries, and you can find most any- 
thing that appeals to you, from Cor- 
tez love affairs to a cock fight. Just 
try to comprehend that Mexico was 
on the job when the abandoned cliff 
homes of Arizona were running wide 
open—inhabited by men who builded 
great pyramids and stone cities, but 
who put no historic records in tin 
‘boxes when they laid the corner 
stones. They left the ruins, but no 
names behind. And quite modern in 
comparison ‘with the mysterious old 
ruins, is the time of the Toltecs, in 
the year 648, who came north from 
“somewhere.” And this word “some- 
where” has to account for a lot of 
weak spots in Mexico’s early days. 
But I am not going to write his- 
tory or traditions. I'll bring you 
down to the present so quick that it 
will jar even a greaser. 
The Toltecs disappeared as mys- 
teriously as they showed up, Like the 
cliff dwellers they left no history of 
their coming or going, and Mexican 
history jumps you from 1050 to 1200 
at a pace that exceeds all modern 
speed stunts, and then we run on up 
to Cortez’ time, and you know the 
rest—or a little of it. 
And today you can find in Mexico 
almost all the types from the Aztecs 
of seven hundred years ago to the 
brigands who are generals in the rebel 
NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
Mexico, Land of Old Witchery 
Where Everything Runs Smoothly and it is Always Afternoon 
By M. J. BROWN 
army. 
There are the blanketed Indians, 
stalwart and proud; flashily dressed 
Mexicans of the better class; peons 
in rags and hunger; women who have 
the old Toltec beauty in their eyes; 
boys in sandals of the fashion of a 
thousand years ago; women with 
beautiful gems, nearly all in their 
ears; hard looking old hags of wo- 
men who do men’s work and eat any- 
thing hogs miss—all these types you 
will see in Mexico, and you can usu- 
ally find them in one pueblo crowd. 
And there is always merriment, al- 
ways music, always coquetry, but 
never a jarring sound. Everything is 
quiet, gentle, restful, and after you 
have mingled with these Aztec de- 
scendants for a few days, you won- 
der how they ever can work at all, 
and you more than wonder how a 
war ever got under headway. Even 
in their drunken brawls the trouble 
is done quietly and deliberately, as if 
it required too much exertion to get 
real excited and noisy. 
If you can talk any Spanish, and 
if you have your mouth and eyes as 
wide open as a farmer on his first 
trip to New York, well the Mexicans 
have taken your measure, and what 
they will do to you will be plenty. 
They can distinguish between the 
greenhorn and the real “turista” on 
sight. ‘The newcomer is stalked as a 
quarry, while the “turista” is bowed 
and scraped to—with the hand al- 
ways behind, opened and begging. 
The Mexicans are beautiful and per- 
sistent beggars—mind you, I refer to 
the lower classes who hang around 
the pueblos. A fellow did me a trifl- 
ing favor, brought me a gourd of 
water from the next room, and then 
he just stoood there and smiled and 
smirked, so plainly asking for change 
by his actions that I gave him a dime 
to be rid of him, and then he follow- 
ed me like a dog all day, 
The common class Mexican is 
honest and honorable after a fashion 
-—the Greaser fashion. You will have 
to count your change carefully when 
he hands it to you, but you have to 
do that with your home folks. But 
here is a peculiar trait. I will illus- 
trate it by a little incident my part- 
ner, a Texan, told me. 
A few years ago he was over in the 
Santa Rosa mountains mining. The 
Yaquis raided them and drove them 
3 
out. He had about $2,000 in gold, 
dust and nuggets. The Indians were 
in wait for them as they started for 
the Texas border to rob them. It 
was their game to scare them out of 
the mountains then rob them on tie 
trail home, The Texan gave the gold 
to a Mexican whom he had known 
for three years, and he slipped 
through and delivered every ounce of 
it safely in Del Rio, Six months later 
he said he, with a bunch of cattle buy- 
ers, was held up and robbed, and the 
Mexican who robbed him was the 
man who took his money safely 
through. 
He was trusted to do what the 
white men dared not do with the 
money. He was put on his honor 
and made good. As soon as deliver- 
ed, the obligation was off, and then 
he robbed the man who trusted him. 
And that is Pancho, 
If you want to buy anything from 
a Mexican, souvenirs, drawn work, 
relics, etc., you want to take all day 
for it. The first price is not the last 
price, or the lowest price. Examine 
the article, show that you want it, 
but refuse to pay the price asked, and 
he will sell it to you later, and at 
about your own price. 
The things you buy will cost little 
or much, depending on yourself as a 
trader, and on what you buy. You 
can get a god or an idol for two-bits, 
and drawn work, handkerchiefs, man- 
tle scarfs, collars, doilies, etc., run 
all the way from 50 cents to eight or 
ten dollars, and at the prices they 
first quote you they are bargains. 
Silver novelties, beautifully made of 
Mexican filigree, are great bargains, 
and sapphires, pearls, opals, topaz and 
emeralds can be bought at genuine 
bargains if you are a Yankee at bar- 
gaining and know the gems, and if 
you don’t you can be trimmed most 
beautifully. 
When you get into the sarapes, or 
zarapes, you will have to go some, 
which ever way you spell them. They 
are the shoulder blankets that make 
the Mexicans so picturesque, and you 
can get them all the way from five 
to five hundred dollars. The weave 
and the age fix the price, and there 
is about as much fake in them as 
in Navajo blankets. Mantillas, beau- 
tifully designed and embroidered, 
can be bought for from ten to forty 
dollars. In the city art stores you 
will pay from $50 to $150. Pieces 
of onyx can be bought for a dime. I 
bought an ancient matette stone, a 
Mexican corn grinder, for $1, for 
which I have refused $50. 
I remember one night we had tc 
put up at a little inland pueblo of 
