Chapter IX: City and Country Life in Mexico

November had come when I took the train at Guanajuato and traveled down to Silao through broad plains of corn. So late in the fall it seemed strange to find dozens of women at the Irapuato station selling strawberries, but one can buy strawberries at Irapuato every day in the year. The basket I bought was a foot in diameter and cost only a quarter, so I was only amused to find all the largest berries carefully arranged at the top, with smaller and smaller ones toward the bottom. I still had some left when I reached Guadalajara after dark the next day.

All three of the main railroads carry their passengers to Guadalajara, the second largest and, in some respects, the finest city of Mexico. It is the capital of Jalisco, one of the richest states in the country. At an altitude of five thousand feet, Guadalajara has a better climate than lofty Mexico City. With its twenty _plazas_ and many splendid buildings, it reminds the traveler of a southern European city. In fact, it is often called the Athens of Mexico. In the business part of town the sidewalks are covered with _portales_, great stone or _adobe_ archways that form arcades along the edge of the street. One can stroll from store to store without stepping out into the hot sunshine. Guadalajara is noted for its _porrónes_, or porous clay jars in which water will remain cold even on the warmest day.

Delicious strawberries are sold at the station of Irapuato every day
in the year.
]

One of the reasons that Guadalajara is so fine a city, and that its people are above the average in Mexico, is that there is no _pulque_ in the state of Jalisco. Although its soil is very fertile, the maguey does not grow well. Drunkenness is rare, and there are no _pulquerías_ to offend the traveler’s nose. Almost every night the band plays in the beautiful central _plaza_, and there are even occasional big electric advertising signs that remind one of large cities in the United States.

Underwood & Underwood

Looking down upon the market house at Guadalajara, Mexico.
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Keystone View Co., Inc.

As one looks across the city of Guadalajara, he can easily understand
why Mexico has been called the country of domes.
]

Almost the only thing that keeps Guadalajara from being a favorite resort for rich American invalids is that its nights are too noisy. The Mexicans, like other Latin-Americans, do not seem to mind noise and uproar as much as we do. In fact, most of them seem to enjoy it. The policemen of Guadalajara all blow their whistles about every ten minutes from midnight until daylight, as if they were trying to keep up one another’s courage. All night long, electric street cars pound over the rails, creak at the switches, their gongs ringing constantly. Young men, who enjoy life too much to go to sleep, gather under a window to serenade some beautiful maiden, or wander through the streets, singing (or trying to sing) and playing guitars. About four in the morning, when the other noises die down, all the church bells in town begin ringing. They waken hundreds of dogs and roosters, who join the uproar, and soon afterward the peddlers begin to shout their wares. By this time the traveler is convinced that he will get no more sleep.

Round about Lake Chapala

Keystone View Co., Inc.

The Falls of Juanacatlan are sometimes called “the Niagara of Mexico.”
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Not far from Guadalajara are the Juanacatlan Falls which furnish electric power and light for the city. Five hundred feet wide and seventy feet high, they are often called “the Niagara of Mexico.” The Santiago River in which these falls occur flows into beautiful Lake Chapala, the second largest body of fresh water between Lake Michigan and Lake Titicaca, far down in South America. One lake in Nicaragua is larger. Lake Chapala is seventy miles long and twenty miles wide. Birds from as far north as Labrador come to spend the winter about it—and so do many wealthy people from the United States! It seems strange to find so large a body of water almost a mile above the level of the ocean. Like our Lake Erie, it is quite shallow, and violent storms often sweep across it. Fishermen, before setting out, almost always step into the Chapala village church to pray that St. Peter, their patron saint, will grant them a safe return. At this church, on the morning I left, the waves were dashing as if angry with it for cheating them of their prey. Yet the evening before, in water that was calm and friendly, I had a splendid moonlight swim that I shall never forget.

I take a horseback ride about Guanajuato. The picture shows several
forms of cactus.
]

I had intended to have one of the fishermen take me down the lake in a small open boat, but the storm was so high that none of them would go. So I had a very pleasant summer walk to a great _hacienda_, or estate, owned by an American, at the other end of the lake. Along the way the roads and trails were not hard-paved and crowded, but soft and wandering, as if they were meant rather for walkers than for automobiles. Mud fences or walls lined some of the trails, but most of them had only open fields on either side, with clusters of _adobe_ houses here and there. I met hundreds of Indians carrying on their backs pottery and earthenware figures wrapped in hay or grass. They were on their way to Guadalajara, for the next day, Sunday, was a great market day in that city.

One of the pleasures of life in Mexico is horseback riding. Nearly all the Mexicans, except the poorest class and those who live in large cities, have horses, and so do most of the Americans and some other foreign residents. (At last count, by the way, there were about 100,000 foreigners in Mexico.) I had had many a ride over the mountains about Guanajuato, and I rode all over this fine American _hacienda_. For miles in every direction vast fields were being plowed by oxen. The white garments of the drivers spotted the brown landscape. In the clear air of the Mexican table-land one can see much farther than in most places. At night there seem to be several times as many stars in the sky as we can see at home.

Once I stopped at the _adobe_ home of a bee-keeper, and his wife hurried out with a big bowl of clear honey, and some _tortillas_. The bees lived in hollow logs having little thatched roofs. Out in the bushy foothills where land was not worth cultivating, we met the herdsman who was responsible for the _hacienda_ cattle. His face was sunburned almost to the same color as his leather clothing. He knew by name all the animals under his charge, while the American owner did not even know how many there were, unless he looked the matter up in his office records. Once I climbed so high that I could see all of Lake Chapala, and range after range of the mountains not only of Jalisco but of Michoacán across the lake. To reach again the lake-front plantation house took my horse more than an hour. He had to pick his way down stony trails through almost perpendicular cornfields.

A Walk across Michoacán

The next morning my American hosts sent me across the lake in their launch. I found a trail, and walked all day across the state of Michoacán. The scenery was beautiful. There were birds by the thousand. Lazy _zopilotes_, big ugly vultures, sat sleepily in the sunshine or circled slowly about overhead. Snow-white herons stood in the marshes, looking for frogs and other prey. There were birds red, blue, green, purple, golden, even lilac-colored. Wild ducks hovered about every reedy pond. Eagles did aviator stunts in the sky. Great flocks of small blackbirds flew close to the ground. The air was full of bird calls.

Almost all that day’s walk was on a single estate, called the Guaracha _hacienda_. It was one of those huge tracts of land owned by the same Mexican family for many generations. Just as my shadow was beginning to look very long and ungainly I reached the headquarters of the estate. Hundreds of white-clothed workmen, their day’s work done, were coming toward it from every direction. They all lived in a village of huts clustered about the owner’s residence and offices. I passed through several big gates and crossed three or four cobblestone-paved yards. In one of the outer courtyards were dozens of clumsy two-wheeled carts and in another were at least two hundred mules. The inmost yard was a garden of flowers, and at last I came to the great cement-floored veranda of the owner’s house, its roof supported by immense pillars.

Making roof tiles on a big Mexican estate. There are few wooden houses
in Mexico and shingles are almost never used. Tiles, made of clay
and sand much as we make bricks, cover most of the roofs.
]

The owner was not at home. In fact he had not been there for years. Like many of the rich landowners of Mexico, he preferred to live elsewhere—in Mexico City, New York, or Paris. The estate was managed by an _administrador_, or manager. He appeared, wearing a white jacket and skin-tight trousers, with an immense revolver strapped on his left hip. Welcoming me with Mexican politeness, he ordered the servants to prepare dinner and a bed for me. Although he was more courteous than most Americans, I felt at the time, and still feel, that he did not like “gringo” visitors. He sat with me awhile, but would not join me at supper, saying he was afraid of getting too stout if he ate more than twice a day.

Such immense estates as this, with owners who live like kings on what their peons produce, are the ones which the Mexican Government is attempting to divide among the people who do the actual work. (You will find more about this in Chapter XII.) One front corner of the Guaracha _hacienda_ house was used as a store, and the other as a church. Many of the peons were in the store, buying on credit against their future wages. After evening church service (held every night) the priest sat with us on the veranda and told amusing stories. He had on a huge black Texas hat and what seemed to be about half a dozen long robes. The Indian workmen, their wives and children came up now and then to kiss his hand.

I Continue to Tramp

The _administrador_ insisted on lending me a horse for the rest of my trip across his estate. He seemed to think that the white or upper class would be disgraced if the common people saw me walking. The horse and the _mozo_, who was to take him back, landed me at a railroad station. But I left the train at Zamora and set out on foot again.

The interior of a Mexican hut. The cookstove consists of three stones
laid together, with a little fire between them. In this very humble
home the family and the family cat are quite contented.
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It was barely daylight when I started. Hundreds of Tarascan Indians, going down to town for market day, crowded the narrow, winding trail for the first few miles. They were not exactly friendly, but they showed no desire to harm me, though an American who lived near Zamora had told me it was dangerous to take a walking trip among them. The trail stumbled over long stretches of jagged rocks, wandered in the bed of a mountain stream, then climbed through thin pine forests, the wind whistling mournfully. There were many cornfields. Suddenly I remembered what I had heard about these Indians. Although they had not welcomed me with open arms, all had said “Adiós” or some other Mexican form of “Good day,” if I spoke to them first. But when I stepped into a field to photograph a man guiding a wooden plow, to which were hitched a donkey and a cow, he shouted, “No, señor, I don’t want it.”

“Why can’t I take your picture?” I asked.

“Because I don’t want it taken,” he replied.

On my travels, I have often met people who objected to being photographed. Many tribes and races are superstitious about photography, as this Indian evidently was. They think that a man who has their picture can harm them by harming the picture. However, very few of them are as determined as this Tarascan Indian, who picked up a kind of ax-hammer and strode toward me swinging it threateningly. Having already decided to oblige him by not taking his picture, I went on my way before the argument grew more personal.

In the straggling towns, with their buildings of thatch and rubbish, there was no objection to my camera. Indeed, the people were eager to be photographed, but they always wished to see the picture the moment I had snapped it. I never could make them understand that there would be nothing to see if I opened the camera and showed them the film. One friendly old woman let me photograph the interior of her hut, with her cat sitting on the earth floor beside the “hearth”—a fire built between three stones. Then she brought out a tiny photograph of her dead son and asked me to make a life-size picture from it!

The Dangers of the Trail

Late that afternoon I was reminded again of the American’s warning. Just at sunset I heard half a dozen peons singing and shouting as they came over the top of the hill ahead. I was sure they had been drinking _mescal_ or _tequila_, and knowing how quarrelsome the peons can be when drunk, I was not surprised at their inviting me to a duel. I carried a revolver, but it was too small to do much harm. Besides, I wanted to keep out of trouble. I acted as friendly as possible; but the biggest and most intoxicated man in the group had a large new revolver which he seemed bent on trying out on me. Fortunately it took him some time to get his courage up, and while I kept my boy’s weapon pointed at him I backed away down the road. Finally he fired four shots at me, but his aim was poor. All the men, women and children traveling in my direction gathered close about me, hoping I would protect them from their drunken fellow-countrymen!

The next day’s walk through a great pine forest was delightful, although my early morning start was a cold one. At last the trail, unraveling like a broken shoestring, went swiftly down a great mountain into the town of Uruapan. It was as different from the town where I had spent the preceding night as Florida is from Illinois. The houses were set in banana groves, and many of them were lightly made. The people, surrounded by flowers, seemed more cheerful than those up on the bleak plateau, and I should have liked to stay longer among them.