Chapter XIII: Round About the Mexican Capital

Chapultepec, on the outskirts of Mexico City, was the summer home of Montezuma. Now it contains the president’s handsome summer palace. There is a wonderful park, and along the _paseo_ or boulevard between it and the capital are fine statues of famous Aztecs and Mexicans. For a century Chapultepec was the West Point of Mexico. Many of the cadets were killed when American soldiers captured the place during the war with Mexico. Now there is a larger military academy at San Jacinto.

The Valley of Mexico in which the Aztecs and the Spaniards built their capitals was once a great lake, and there are six small lakes in it now. When the Spanish _conquistadores_ first entered Anáhuac they found the whole valley a network of canals and waterways. Tenochtitlan they reached across a great causeway, a raised road with water on either side. Some remnants of these great works still remain. In the days of Montezuma what is now Mexico City was practically on an island, with more traffic by water than by land.

On the lakes about Tenochtitlan floated rafts of interlaced branches, covered with rich soil and blossoming flowers. The last survival of that Aztec floral paradise is Xochimilco, a kind of picnic lake a few miles outside the capital. Xochimilco means “Where the Flowers Are” and the place is well named. Mexicans of all classes are so fond of flowers that every day in the year great quantities of roses, carnations, double violets, and other products of the floating gardens of Xochimilco are sold in the capital.

The gardens do not really float now, or at least they do not move about, as they did in Aztec days. But many of them bob up and down when one steps on them. They are made of mats of interlaced branches covered with a thin layer of rich soil in which plants are set out. Tiny huts for the gardeners are built on the islands. Anchored with willow poles thrust into the mud bottom, the islands often become fixed when the willow takes root. Flat-bottomed boats are poled about by the Indian descendants of those who established this watery kingdom in the thirteenth century. Some boats are loaded with flowers or vegetables until they look like floating farms; some carry whole families (as in China); others are filled with picnickers, for Xochimilco is a favorite outing place. Guitars and other instruments may be heard there any moonlight evening. Peddlers of _tamales_, _tortillas_, _pulque_, and other things to eat and drink move about in boats. The Indians who live and work in the floating gardens are full-blooded Aztecs, still speaking the ancient tongue. They are a cleaner and more independent people than the city half-breeds, and are very proud of their ancestry.

The Famous Volcanoes

Courtesy Ward Line. Photo by American Photo Co., Havana

Mt. Popocatepetl, the most famous mountain in Mexico, as seen from the
side of the Pyramid of Cholula. An ancient _adobe_ mound is in the
right foreground.
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The springs which supply the lakes in the Valley of Mexico have their source in the snows of the two great volcanoes that lift their white heads into the sky above it. One of these mighty peaks, Popocatepetl (17,543 feet), is known the world over. Its name means “Smoke Mountain.” There have been a number of eruptions of this volcano since Cortés reached Mexico; the most recent was in 1802. The mountain still smokes, however, and some day it may again belch forth lava and ashes. Although it is one of the mountain wonders of the continent, being surpassed in height by only four mountains in North America, Popocatepetl belongs to a Mexican general and has often been offered for sale! Perhaps if he offered to deliver it wherever the purchaser wished, he could more easily sell it. “Popo” furnishes ice, sulphur, and great parks. The whole floor of its crater, which is a mile wide at the top and a thousand feet deep, is covered with pure sulphur. It throws this out at the rate of about a million tons a year; a hundred million tons of sulphur have been taken from its crater in the period since the Spaniards came. As the mountain produces more sulphur than the world can use, and the United States obtains an ample supply from Texas, and Louisiana, the general will probably have trouble in selling his mountain.

Courtesy “Picturesque America”

A wonderful view of Ixtaccihuatl, the “Sleeping White Woman,” as this
famous volcano appears from Amecameca.
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Alongside Popocatepetl stands—or rather lies—Ixtaccihuatl, an extinct volcano almost as high and nearly as beautiful as the other. We say “lies” because the name means the “Sleeping White Woman.” The snowy mountain does actually look much like a woman lying with her head pillowed on one arm. A Mexican legend says that Popocatepetl was a god and Ixtaccihuatl a maiden with whom he fell in love. She was not faithful to him, however, so he turned her into a mountain. But “Old Popo” himself froze with grief, though he still shows his anger now and then by belching forth smoke and sulphur.

For the traveler there are few more beautiful sights in the world than these two great snow and glacier-capped volcanoes, as seen from anywhere in Mexico City. In the clear air of highland Mexico they seem almost near enough to touch. They stand forth from any point in the Valley of Mexico, and even from far beyond, though on the opposite side they do not resemble the mythical characters.

It is not very difficult to climb to the top of “Old Popo” or the “White Woman”—and it is very easy to come down again. The ascent takes about three days, fifty dollars, strong shoes, warm clothing, and good guides. A railroad carries us to Amecameca, a mile and a half above sea level and about forty miles from Mexico City. Horses may be used up to the first rest house. From there the climb is on foot, first in loose shifting black sand, then in snow and ice. On a clear day the view of the Valley of Mexico, with its great capital and its lake-dotted basin, is worth walking many a mile to see. In every direction lie those great hills that are the most striking feature of the Mexican plateau. For a time we struggle upward in the clouds, which move about as if they were living things. The wet snow grows harder; the glare of reflected sunshine hurts our eyes. At last we drop down exhausted at the mouth of “Popo’s” crater.

Its walls, we see as soon as we are rested enough to peep over, are of black obsidian, that flint-hard stone of which the Aztecs made arrowheads and knives. Far below are acres of yellow sulphur, and gases rise from the crevices in the crater floor. It is so very cold up here, more than three miles high, that we soon decide to go down again. Once we have made up our minds, that is easy. We sit down on a straw mat, with a guide who carries an iron-pointed staff as a rudder and brake, and away we go! It is the toboggan slide of a lifetime. Rocks and crevices must be dodged while coasting at a rate that carries us farther in a minute than we could climb in an hour. The sulphur is brought down in this same speedy way.

There are many other volcanoes in Mexico, the highest among them Orizaba (18,654 feet) which is the third highest mountain in North America. Most of the volcanoes seem to be extinct, but one can never be sure. Earthquakes are quite frequent.

A Place of Pilgrimage

Mexico has almost numberless churches. It has been called the land of domes, because most of the Mexican churches are built in a style of which the dome is a conspicuous feature. In olden days men who became rich, especially in the mines, erected churches as thank offerings. In some old towns there almost seems to be a church for each inhabitant!

Perhaps the most famous church in Mexico, and certainly the one considered most holy by the Mexican masses, is Guadalupe. It is three miles out of the capital. One can cover the distance by street car or automobile, or, better still, on foot. Thousands of pilgrims come to pray at this greatest shrine in Mexico, and often they have to camp in the streets of the holy village. Guadalupe is to the Mexicans what Benares is to the Hindus, Mecca to the Mohammedans, and Jerusalem to the Jews and Christians.

To reach the church we climb a stairway cut in solid rock. On the way we pass the stone-carved sails and mast of a vessel—a memorial erected more than two centuries ago by sailors who, having prayed to the Virgin of Guadalupe during a storm, had been saved. This is the most important of many similar thank offerings. Some grateful people send crude pictures, showing themselves being dragged out from under the wheels of a train or a truck, or they donate the crutches they no longer need after a miraculous cure. The church and its chapels are hung with rich offerings of draperies and banners given by the wealthy, and the life-size image of the Virgin glitters with jewels and precious stones. The chapels are crowded from morning until night, every day in the year. The Indians and peons of Mexico are very religious; they almost always raise their hats when they pass a church door. I have seen all the people of a town kneel, their hats laid on the cobblestone pavement before them, when a bishop went by. But the Indians cling so closely to tradition that even after four centuries many old pagan rites remain and form part of their Christian worship. A Catholic visitor would not recognize all the rites performed by the pilgrims at Guadalupe.

Whatever else they do, all drink the waters of a certain spring that flows down the sacred hill. It is a sulphur spring that boils and bubbles and has a very unpleasant odor. There are no individual cups; instead there are copper dippers, chained to a rail. It is a very rare pilgrim who does not carry home some of the holy water for his family and friends, or even to sell; and as most of the pilgrims are too poor to bring worthy receptacles, many of them use old bottles.

Keystone View Co., Inc.

Devout Mexicans climbing the stone stairs at Guadalupe. The famous
stone sails mentioned in the text stand beside the stairs.
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According to a legend, the Virgin appeared to a poor Indian named Juan, and commanded him to build a church where she left a bunch of roses. The priests and the people accepted his story, and joined forces to erect a church that has become the pilgrim center of Mexico. In it may be seen candles of every size, burning before the altars at which pilgrims have prayed for some blessing. To reach the shrine many crawl on hands and knees all the way up the stone steps cut in the rock hill where Juan found the roses.

Underwood & Underwood

Interior of the famous Cathedral at Guadalupe. Around the altar is a
silver railing.
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