Here and There in Mexico: The Travel Writings of Mary Ashley Townsend

Index

Editor’s Preface

Mexico, a century ago! At peace and bursting with economic development after years of political disorder and economic decline. For a North American visitor exotic, foreign, and rich in ancient tradition, yet racing to modernize in imitation of its northern neighbor!

Here and There in Mexico is the account of an observant and sensitive Louisiana woman, Mary Ashley Townsend.¹ She was a poet, a novelist, a newspaper columnist, and a mother, who made several trips to Mexico during the last two decades of the nineteenth century. She recorded her observations in her newspaper columns, in diaries, and in letters, and around the turn of the century she wrote a manuscript that presented a composite picture of part of Mexico. The manuscript, published here for the first time, ends abruptly without including all of the places she had visited, cut short by her accidental death in 1901. Written as a single journey, it incorporates impressions and insight from her several trips in her descriptive and lyrical prose. She reveals a wry sense of humor and keen powers of observation in an account that tells us of the political, the economic, the social, and the cultural sides of Mexico at the end of the 1800s. It vividly describes flora and fauna, architecture, and people, their work and attitudes, at play, dancing, and singing, as well as observations on fashions, society, manners, cooking, and more. Her descriptions of the living quarters and habits of Mexicans of all classes make it especially valuable for social historians of the period.

Born Mary Ashley Van Voorhis in Lyons, Wayne County, New York, on September 24, 1832, the daughter of James G. and Catherine (Van Wickle) Van Voorhis, she grew up in a comfortable family of Dutch descent in upstate New York. In 1853 she married a cousin, Gideon Townsend. Mary and Gideon lived in Fishkill, New York, and Clinton, Iowa, before moving to New Orleans in 1860, where they raised a family of three daughters. Mary had a solid education in New York and in addition to English spoke Spanish and French fluently, and she also translated a number of poems from Spanish and German into English. Although frail as a child, in adult life she enjoyed excellent health and carried on a physically active life. She was a tall, blue-eyed, slender woman with dark hair, noted for her gracious manners. Yet her travels in mountainous Mexico were often by horseback, on which she covered forty or fifty miles without undue fatigue.

Mary Ashley Townsend had been to New Orleans before her marriage, when she visited a sister there in 1850. She had begun to write as a child, but it was during that visit to New Orleans that she wrote her first published work, printed in that year in the Fishkill Standard under the name Xariffa. After returning home, she sent a poem to the New Orleans Delta, again under the pseudonym Xariffa. After her move to New Orleans her poems and articles appeared regularly in the Sunday Delta, under the title A letter from Xariffa. She also wrote, under the name Mary Ashley, for the New Orleans Crescent, a newspaper established by William Walker, later known as the grey-eyed man of destiny who took over Nicaragua in 1857 before being defeated by a united Central American army. In that same year, Townsend published her first and only novel, The Brother Clerks: A Tale of New Orleans (New York: Derby & Jackson, 1857). Xariffa also published beyond New Orleans, in the New York Courier and New York Tribune, as well as in literary journals in Boston and elsewhere. A series of letters entitled Life in a Trunk described her summer travels throughout the United States and honed her talents as a perceptive observer.

Her poems reflect a reverence for nature and the outdoors. I have a passionate love of flowers myself, she wrote, and when I witness it in others, there is a chord responsive touched on the human harp of one thousand strings, which plays within this breast.² She also wrote several popular poems related to the Civil War, including her often reprinted commemoration of A Georgia Volunteer. The last poem she wrote, in fact, commemorated Robert E. Lee on his birthday and was written at the request of the United Daughters of the Confederacy for their celebration of Lee’s birthday on January 19, 1901.³ Her work eventually appeared in various anthologies and in three volumes of her own.⁴ She became a role model for liberated women in the South. Her most popular poem, reprinted many times, was a sensitive love song, Creed.

I believe if I should die,

And you should kiss my eyelids when I lie

Cold, dead, and dumb to all the world contains,

The folded orbs would open at thy breath,

And, from its exile in the isles of death,

Life would come gladly back along my veins.

I believe if I were dead,

And you upon my lifeless heart should tread,

Not knowing what the poor clod chanced to be,

It would find sudden pulse beneath the touch

Of him it ever loved in life so much,

And throb again, warm, tender, true to thee.

I believe if on my grave,

Hidden in woody deeps or by the wave,

Your eyes should drop some warm tears of regret,

From every salty seed of your dear grief,

Some fair, sweet blossom would leap into leaf,

To prove death could not make my love forget.

I believe if I should fade

Into those mystic realms where light is made,

And you should long once more my face to see,

I would come forth upon the hills of night

And gather stars, like fagots, till thy sight,

Led by their beacon blaze, fell full on me!

I believe my faith in thee,

Strong as my life, so nobly placed to be.

I would as soon expect to see the sun

Fall like a dead king from his height sublime,

His glory stricken from the throne of time,

As thee unworth the worship thou hast won.

I believe who hath not loved

Hath half the sweetness of his life unproved;

Like one who, with the grape within his grasp,

Drops it with all its crimson juice unpressed,

And all its luscious sweetness left unguessed,

Out from his careless and unheeding clasp.

I believe love, pure and true,

Is to the soul a sweet, immortal dew,

That gems life’s petals in its hours of dusk;

The waiting angels see and recognize

The rich crown jewel, Love, of Paradise,

When life falls from us like a withered husk.⁵

Townsend’s granddaughter described her marriage in idyllic terms:

Gideon Townsend was a poet himself but discontinued writing after his marriage. In Mrs. Townsend’s diary, shortly after she married, she wrote on April 1, 1853, found a little book in Gideon Townsend’s trunk full of sweet thoughts dedicated to Mary since eight years ago. I was deeply touched and shed a few bright tears. They were always lovers. Mrs. Townsend never wrote a poem she did not first submit it to her husband, and she was wont to say, if he were pleased, she was satisfied. He was an able critic of her works and an unfailing admirer."⁶

In New Orleans the Townsends lived first on Canal Street, but then moved to Carondelet near Lafayette Street, and later farther out to Carondelet and Jackson Avenue, and finally to 3923 Carondelet. Their home became a meeting place for both local writers and those from other places, including Oliver Wendell Holmes, Eugene Field, Joaquín Miller, Horace Fletcher, Joseph Jefferson, and George Cable. One guest wrote:

We sat in the rich and artistic drawing-room of Xariffa’s beautiful home in Carondelet Street in this City. Never had a fine and refined home a more gracious and graceful mistress. When she crossed her long apartments, her gown trailing in a little frou-frou and whisper of silk about her tall form, her large, nervous hands outheld in welcome, her soft hair brushed back and braided in a golden-brown coronet above a brow that makes one feel it is thought-crowded, there is something so inexpressibly dignified and noble in her bearing that one seems to fully realize for the first time what a thoroughly high-minded and good woman this woman poet is.⁷

She came to be known as the Poet Laureate of New Orleans and was a regular at ceremonial occasions in the city. Her granddaughter chronicled such occasions:

There was no public occasion of any importance that her pen was not called upon to perform. She was appointed on January 1, 1880, to write the annual address of the Carriers for the New Orleans Times-Democrat; on May 10, 1881, the poem dedicated to the Army of Northern Tennessee on the occasion of the unveiling of the statue of Stonewall Jackson; February 28, 1881, the poem dedicated to the Louisiana Press Association; April 7, 1887, the poem on the unveiling of the statue of Albert Sidney Johnston; February 13, 1888, the poem on the occasion of the Confederate Cavalry Reunion at the Washington Artillery Hall; January 27, 1894, the poem for the laying of the cornerstone of Tulane University; and March 5, 1889, the poem on the occasion of the opening of the Howard Memorial Library. She was appointed the official poet of the New Orleans Cotton Centennial Exposition on the opening day in 1884, and also wrote the poem for the opening of the Woman’s Department of the Exposition, of which Julia Ward Howe was President. On February 17, 1879, she was appointed Poet Laureate of Rex. And on April 10, 1874, she was appointed to write the poem of the Dedication of the Confederate Monument at Greenwood Cemetery.⁸

She was one of the founders, in 1886, of the Quarante Club, forty women organized for literary study and improvement. Elected president of the club in 1888, Townsend was reelected for seven consecutive years, until she resigned in November 1894, owing to expected frequent trips to Mexico.

She developed a deep love for Mexico during her first trip there in 1881, when she spent the winter with her daughter, Cora, who married a Mexican, José Rascón. From Mexico she sent back letters entitled Travels in Mexico to the New Orleans Picayune. Thereafter she visited Mexico frequently, gaining a deep knowledge of and sympathy for the country and its people. On one of several visits to Mexico, the Liceo Hidalgo, the foremost literary club in Mexico City, honored her with election to membership, the only woman from the United States at the time to be so honored. And she owned a home on beautiful Lake Chapala, near Guadalajara. Many of her poems and sonnets breathe of the tropic beauty of that country. As early as 1882 she had discussed the possibility of a Mexican volume with her publisher, J. R. Osgood of Boston,⁹ but although she published many newspaper columns on her travels in Mexico, the book was still in progress in the spring of 1901. Nearly seventy years old, she was once more en route to Mexico when the train on which she was traveling had an accident near Houston. Townsend suffered serious injury and after several weeks of suffering she died in Galveston at the home of a daughter, Daisy Townsend Lee.

After a brief description of Mexico in general and of ways of getting there, Mary Ashley Townsend’s charming account describes the sea voyage from New Orleans to Tampico and then south along the Mexican coast to Veracruz. Going ashore there, she describes in rich detail that port and surrounding areas. Subsequent chapters describe a trip inland to Jalapa, and then to Orizaba, Puebla, Cholula, and, finally, the capital city of Mexico, the environs of which occupy much of the latter half of the book. Although her descriptions of places and sights are fascinating, much more valuable are her perceptive and observant comments on people and their manners. She points out both vices and virtues with considerable candor. She is not hesitant about expressing some hostility toward the Roman Catholic Church and the Spanish Inquisition but still admires the churches and cathedrals and the art found within them. She frequently notes the condition of women, their activities, hospital care, children, and other social aspects. She comments on the Indians at length, throughout the work, as well as about the life-styles of the elite. Her comments range over literary figures, politicians, generals, entrepreneurs, historical sites, customs, and manners. Her detailed description of Mexico City in the late nineteenth century is especially insightful, for she deals with both commoner and elite. Reflecting the values of the era of Porfirio Díaz, who dominated the country from 1876 to 1910, she emphasizes Mexico’s order and progress and the safety of the country for foreigners. Her style is decidedly poetical. Her sometimes flowery, rather longish sentences are characteristic of her own era but are laced with Mexican Spanish, occasionally incorrect, but clear enough if slightly corrupted. Townsend also voices strong ideas about economic development, reflecting both her U.S. capitalist biases and sympathy for the indigenous masses. Her sympathy for labor reflects an understanding of the economic benefits of higher wages in driving an economy. In this respect, her views may reflect more about attitudes in the United States at the end of the nineteenth century than matters relevant to Mexico. Despite a sympathy for Mexico’s Indians and poor people, she does not entirely suppress a sense of Anglo superiority and the racism so common north of the border at the end of the nineteenth century.

Accompanying the handwritten original were a number of illustrative photographs and other illustrations; however, after a century most of the photographs are badly faded or otherwise damaged and they have not been included in this edition. Far better images are found in Townsend’s lyrical and poetical prose, in which she inspires our imagination to see, to feel, and even to smell so many scenes in Porfirian Mexico. The descriptive and literary quality of her writing is remarkable and ranks Here and There in Mexico among the more notable foreign descriptions of the country in the late nineteenth century. The travel account was a popular literary genre in the United States and Europe in the nineteenth century, as travelers described their visits to the rest of the world. An early classic of such works on Mexico was Madame Fanny Calderón de la Barca’s Life in Mexico, During a Residence of Two Years in that Country (London: Chapman and Hall, 1843), based on the letters of a Scotswoman, Francis Erskine Inglis, married to a Spanish diplomat.¹⁰ Townsend’s work continues in the tradition established by that work and compliments nicely several other travel accounts of the last decades of the century.¹¹ Her observations of and sympathy for both the elite and the lowly of Mexican society make it an especially valuable window on the period. Her greater coverage of the environs of the capital city also distinguishes her account from most of the others of the period.

As editor of this work, I have attempted to preserve as closely as possible the language and punctuation of Townsend’s original handwritten manuscript. I am indebted to my dear late wife, Sue Dawn McGrady Woodward, who transcribed the first draft of this work from the original manuscript. I have added information sparingly, either in brackets within the text or as footnotes, to clarify a meaning, to correct a factual error, or to identify persons mentioned. In a number of cases, Townsend preferred not to identify certain personages, providing only an initial or a blank for the name. All the explanatory and bibliographical footnotes are mine. I am also deeply grateful to Dr. Wilbur Meneray and his staff at the Special Collections Division of Tulane University’s Howard-Tilton Library in New Orleans for their assistance to me in this project. That division is the repository and owner of this manuscript and has granted permission for its publication. The Special Collections Division also holds a vast collection of papers relating to the Townsend and Stanton families, including Mary Ashley Townsend’s diaries, letters, articles, and other papers relating to her Mexican travels. Thanks are also due to Janice Chatelain-Woodward for her encouragement and assistance, as well as to Nicole Mitchell and Mindy Wilson of the University of Alabama Press, to my copy editor Kathy Cummins, and to Mike McCracken and Clayton Brown of Texas Christian University.

Ralph Lee Woodward, Jr.

1. The biographical information in this preface is based on the Dictionary of Louisiana Biography, 2 vols., edited by Glen R. Conrad (New Orleans: Louisiana Historical Association, 1988), s.v. Mary Ashley Townsend, and on a paper presented by Mary Ashley Townsend’s granddaughter, Cora Stanton Jahncke, to a meeting of the Quarante Club in New Orleans on an undetermined date. The paper is in Collection 19, Stanton-Townsend Papers, in the Special Collections Division of the Howard-Tilton Library, Tulane University, New Orleans.

2. Jahncke, 9.

3. Ibid., 15–19.

4. Xariffa’s Poems (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1870); Down the Bayou and Other Poems (Boston: J. R. Osgood, 1882); Distaff and Spindle: Sonnets (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1895), with many subsequent editions of these works, some of which have slight variations in the titles.

5. This poem, reprinted many times, appeared first in the New Orleans Picayune, November 1, 1868.

6. Jahncke, 5.

7. Ibid., 6. Jahncke does not identify the writer.

8. Ibid., 14–15.

9. J. R. Osgood to Mary A. Townsend [Boston], August 7, 1882, in Collection 19, Manuscripts Division, Special Collections, Howard-Tilton Library, Tulane University, New Orleans.

10. This work has been republished several times, including a heavily annotated edition with new material from the author’s private journals, edited by Howard T. Fisher and Marion Hall Fisher (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1966).

11. Among the more notable of the late nineteenth-century travel accounts are Howard Conkling, Mexico and the Mexicans, or Notes of Travel in the Winter and Spring of 1883 (New York: Tantor Brothers, 1883); Thomas U. Brocklehurst, Mexico To-day: A Country with a Great Future, and a Glance at the Prehistoric Remains and Antiquities of the Montezumas (London: John Murray, 1883), which focuses especially on pre-Columbian ruins; Reau Campbell, Travels in Mexico (New York: C. G. Crawford, 1890); and Fanny Chambers Gooch [Iglehart], Face to Face with the Mexicans: The Domestic Life (New York: Fords, Howard, & Hulbert, 1887). The last-named work, like Townsend’s, makes a special effort to explain the Mexicans to a North American audience, but deals with different areas of the country than does Townsend. In the first decade of the twentieth century several more interesting accounts appeared, notably Ethel Brilliana Harley Tweedie’s Mexico as I Saw It (New York: Macmillan, 1901); W. E. Carson’s Mexico, the Wonderland of the South (New York: Macmillan, 1909); and, especially useful for its description of Mexico on the eve of the Revolution of 1910, Charles Malcomb Flandrau’s Viva Mexico! (New York & London: D. Appleton & Co., 1910). For a detailed and scholarly examination of one region of nineteenth-century Mexico based on foreign observations, see Alfred H. Siemens, Between the Summit and the Sea: Central Veracruz in the Nineteenth Century (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1990).

1

General Remarks Concerning Mexico

A few answers to many questions. General remarks concerning Mexico; its area, topography, climate, flora, fauna, soil and productions. Situations of the hot lands (tierras calientes), of the temperate regions (tierras templadas), and of the cold lands (tierras frias). Hints about starting for Mexico. Money matters. Weight of luggage allowed each passenger. Customs Officers. Duties for every state. Diligence rates. The kind of clothing required. The kind of weather to be expected. Temperature of the City of Mexico. Pulmonary complaints in that locality. Medical attendance. Oaxaca and its superior advantages for all lung diseases. Ignorance of the Spanish language not a serious impediment to the journey. Politeness of the Mexicans. Their willingness to welcome and advance American enterprise. Some of the characteristics of the men [and] of the women. The land of tomorrow. The climatic influences which make it so. The readiness with which a foreigner falls under the spell. The form of government. The Constitution. How the Supreme governmental powers are vested. Mexican suffragists. The ballot box. The locomotive as a peace maker.

Probably no other country on the face of the globe presents, within the same territorial limits, such a variety of soil, climate, agricultural and mineral wealth as our noble Sister Republic. Much as its original boundaries have contracted, it still covers a magnificent area; equal in extent to that of the United Kingdom, and France, Spain and Portugal put together. It has the productions of every clime, and the climates of every zone. It is nature’s Horn of Plenty filled with precious metals, rich gems, priceless minerals and exhaustless quarries. Its soil is capable of producing anything that can be raised elsewhere on the earth, and these products are swift of growth and bountiful of harvests. Its flora and fauna are marvelously rich and varied, its fruits delicious and of endless variety. No other country seems so perfectly adapted for self sustenance. If completely severed from all outside intercourse, Mexico would scarcely miss the rest of the world, so richly capable is it at supplying all the wants of its people from its own unlimited resources. A Mexican can find any grade of temperature, the most diverse and magnificent scenery, an almost boundless choice of the earth’s products, without crossing the boundaries of his own land. He needs not to go to the Pyrenees for mountain scenery, nor to Italy for sunny vales; nor to the south of France for general climes, nor to the Alps for peaks of perpetual snow. The sea upon his right-hand and his left, matchless mountains are always with him, and the exquisite valleys open on every side to provide their feasts of beauty and abundances. Is he a scientist? From her buried cities to her loftiest hill tops, his country offers him unequaled range of study. Is he poet or romanticist? Her diversity of races, her history and her legends afford him inexhaustible sources of inspiration. Is he a painter? The whole land is full of pictures for him. Is he an agriculturist? All that he can desire in the way of climate and of soil are there, and he may drive the plough where neither winter’s cold nor summer’s heat afflicts, and sow his seed where unending spring makes the land as fair as Calypso’s fabled isle.

The highlands are admirably adapted to the cultivation of wheat, barley, corn and oats. The latter grain is scarcely, if at all, cultivated. I do not remember to have seen an oatfield in the country, other products deriving as a thoroughly satisfactory substitute. Strawberries there is no lack of in this region; the markets in the City of Mexico are provided with them all the year.

The temperate regions produce an infinite variety of fruits, flowers and vegetables, besides coffee and cane, while the hot lands unite the rich productions of the temperate domain to innumerable tropical products of incomputable value, and a marvelous prodigal vegetable growth which lends to the land both grace and color.

Some of the misapprehension which exists regarding Mexico climatically is occasioned by the fact that those who speak of it forget to state that the Republic and its Capital both bear the same name. Thus, they say Mexico is excessively hot, Mexico is extremely cold, Mexico is neither hot nor cold; Mexico is superlatively beautiful, Mexico is arid as a desert. Contradictory as these statements appear they are all true as, in the area of about eight hundred thousand square miles which the territory of Mexico comprises, all of these features may be found due, principally, to its peculiar configuration conceded to be the most remarkable of any country in the known world. There are regions which are hot with torrid heat, others which are cold. There are regions which, deprived of rains and rivers, are dry and productive of but thorny and fibrous plants; where dust abounds, and the landscape is uninteresting. In other localities rain is abundant, vegetation rich, and the scenery beautifully picturesque. But the City of Mexico and the lovely valley in which it is located, points which the generality of travelers to that country desire to visit first, and then tarry in longest, are of a uniformly delightful climate at all times of the year, scarcely any warmer in summer than in winter and never cold enough for a fire at any season.

If one will call to mind the topography of Mexico he will remember that it lies, not unlike in shape to a huge cornucopia, between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. Its northern edge is ribboned by the Río Grande, and its southern limit is the peninsula of Yucatan. The Gulf laves its eastern border, the Pacific bathes its western coast and the shore of its most southern states. Its magnificent mountain system is apparently a continuation of the Cordillera of the Andes which, after marching the entire length of South America enters Mexico on the extreme south and there bunches itself, so to speak, for a race across the continent. There it divides into two branches which diverge eastward and westward, though maintaining their general direction toward the north, following the coast-line on each shore of the Republic. The eastern range sinks into lowlands and is lost as it approaches the Gulf near the northeastern boundary, but the western branch continues its course, crossing the most northern limits of Mexico into the United States.

Between these diverging mountain chains is supported an immense extent of elevated table land, varying from seven to eight thousand feet above the sea level and not unlike in outline to a gigantic letter V. This plateau is intersected by lofty peaks, spurs, and ranges of lesser hills, but stretched away toward the north for a distance of more than fourteen hundred miles, widening always as it extends, and giving a natural roadway for the entire distance.

Its geographical position places a great portion of Mexico within the torrid zone in latitudes one associates with the splendid flowers and foliage, the precious gems and regal products and burning skies of the tropics. But, such is its extraordinary geological construction, such the wonderful upheaval of its grand mountain chains and vast central table lands, that the effect of its situation is counteracted by the regions of rarified atmosphere into which it is lifted. Its low coasts on either shore are perpetually washed by the salt seas which it separates. For the most part these lie within the tropics exposed to intense heat and producing all that marvelous bounty of animal and vegetable life peculiar to such latitudes.

A short distance back from the shore, however, the land begins to rise; the heat diminishes as the ascent increases, and such is the grade going west, from tropically hot Vera Cruz, that within a distance of 269 miles or a day’s journey by rail, the City of Mexico is found at a height of 7,500 feet above sea level in a climate deliciously cool and equable the year through. In making this ascent from the sea, one enjoys not only variety of climate, but he has the opportunity to observe that entire range of vegetation which attends him from the sea to the summit. He passes from the tierras calientes or hot lands, to the tierras templadas or cool lands, and from the latter to the tierras frias or cold lands. Even in many portions of the latter, snow or frost are almost unknown. The tierras frias are those lands comprised within an elevation greater than 6,500 feet. The tierra templada or temperate region lies at a height of from 4,000 to 5,000 feet, and the tierra caliente or hot district, comprises the low lands on each coast, and all those portions which do not rise to a greater height than 2,000 feet above the sea. It is a land replete with enticement and enchantment for the mere travelers, and for one bent upon more serious pursuits, its future seems so bright, so promising that the grave political stumbling blocks to her progress, which still exist, are scarcely sufficient to deter him from uniting his destinies with hers.

When one is about to start for Mexico from the United States, he will find it to his advantage to provide himself with a supply of Mexican dollars to defray current expenses for the first portion of his trip. These he can buy, at this time, for greenbacks at sixteen percent discount. He should also carry with him, to cash when required, drafts on New York, which now command in our Sister Republic from twelve to fifteen per cent premium. He will spare himself annoyance by looking at tariff rates before packing his trunks, as his luggage will undergo rigorous scrutiny by the customs officers at whatever point he may enter the country, and also, as he passes out of one Mexican State into another. He should also bear in mind that luggage goes by weight in Mexico, the railways allowing sixty pounds to each passenger, and charging a trifle less than five cents for every extra pound. The diligences allow but twenty-five pounds, and charge more in proportion than the railways for any amount of weight exceeding this limit. The quality of clothing to be taken depends upon what part of Mexico one intends to visit. For the coast lands which for the most part are hot, summer wear. Thin woolens, etc. are needed. Penetrating the interior from the coasts, or from the Texan border, such clothing is needed as one wears in early spring or late autumn in the United States. A light wrap or overcoat for the daytime, and extra wraps and rugs for night travel should be taken. These necessities must be provided for the high table land and for the City of Mexico which, owing to its elevation above the level of the sea, as I have already said, has very nearly the same temperature both winter and summer; the mercury rarely rising above 70° nor falling below 62°.

In different parts of the country can be found any degree of Fahrenheit desired; but in the city, and on the upper table lands, an even temperature exists all the year around, and but two seasons are talked of—the wet and the dry. The rainy season begins about the middle of May and continues until October. It ordinarily consists of a rain fall beginning about the same hour, and lasting about the same length of time, every day. After this shower the sky clears. The sun shines. The streets dry rapidly and pleasure and business resume their regular routine. As the rain may be expected near the middle of the day and never disappoints, and as it may be counted upon for ceasing early in the afternoon, the Grand Paseo, which is the principal drive, and other points for fashionable gatherings, lose none of their afternoon brightness and attraction during the wet season. Meanwhile, vegetation flourishes so luxuriantly under the benign moisture that the whole land becomes glorified by the increase of verdure and grace and beauty.

Upon the country roads the wet season works some mischief which does not much affect city streets and railways. The highways then become almost impassible. Even the diligence travel, which is over the best made roads in the country, is difficult, and often seriously interrupted. The transportation of heavy machinery or any weighty merchandise, where railway conveyance does not exist, becomes almost impossible. The slippery mud and watery holes prove too much for even the proverbial patience of the donkey, and in no country is it more necessary to make hay while the sun shines than in Mexico. During the rainy weather, fevers, such as thrive on dampness and rapid increase of vegetation, prevail to a greater or lesser extent on the table lands, though never attaining a virulent nor an epidemic type.

The dry season, extending from October until May, is one of sunshine and out of door delight. The dust is then the chief drawback to travel, but that annoyance is neutralized by the beautiful scenery, the peculiar blue skies and the clear atmosphere. The climate of the City of Mexico is regarded by many as especially favorable to persons suffering from pulmonary complaints. The open air life to which the temperature invites has something to do with creating this impression, but it is a false one. It is not the proper place for a consumptive to seek relief or cure in; there being certain properties in the atmosphere which tend to aggravate rather than heal lung diseases. There is, however, always this advantage for the visitor to the City of Mexico who does not find it agrees with his health. He can reach any climate he desires from that point in a very short space of time, and by means of a railway or other chosen conveyance adopt the temperature to his case with as much ease as he could warm or cool the water in his bath. Should illness assail, as excellent medical attendance can be obtained there as elsewhere and the Mexican physician possesses the advantage of having any desired climate close at hand to act as a potent adjunct to his skill.

For all pulmonary diseases, it has been acknowledged, by many men prominent in the medical faculty, that Oaxaca combines more positive advantages than any other state in the Republic. Its climate is as near perfection as can be found in the world, excellent food is easily obtained, luscious fruits abound, the air invigorates, the scenery delights, historical vicinities keep the interest awake and enlivened, while the people are noted for hospitality and kindness. The superiority of this locality over others has been tested with such satisfactory results that the establishment of sanatoriums for consumption, in or near the city of Oaxaca, has been seriously considered by eminent physicians in the southern United States. Oaxaca at this writing can be reached by a branch road, a portion of which is a tramway leading southeast from the Vera Cruz and Mexican railroad at the station of Apizuco. It is also accessible from the Pacific coast, and from its high table lands both the Gulf and the Ocean, between the blue water of which it lies, are plainly discernible.

No one need deprive himself of the pleasure and benefit of a trip to Mexico from a dread that ignorance of the Spanish language would seriously mar enjoyment or comfort. English is spoken by railway officials and in many hotels, and of late years has been very generally studied by the better classes. The Mexicans are naturally linguists, and toward students of their own tongue they are unfailingly courteous and helpful. French is widely spoken throughout the country, and the language of politeness is practiced by all, high and low, throughout the land; a language which is understood by instinct whether the individual to whom it is addressed is accustomed to use it or not.

Indeed, courtesy in the true sense of the word is a characteristic of the nation, and nowhere has a stranger to fear a rudeness or a departure from the rules of high breeding less than in Mexico. From my own observations and the experiences of personal friends, I am led to conclude that the distrust and jealousy with which Mexicans are supposed to regard Americans and American enterprises amongst them, does not exist. It may have at one time gained a footing in Mexico, the natural product of political prejudice, but it is a thing of the past. The Mexicans welcome and encourage enterprise, and rejoice at whatever tends to the welfare of the country, the development of her resources, and the consequent benefit of her people. There are instances in which foreigners who thought to take advantage of Mexicans in business matters have been surprised at their sagacity and intelligence and unwillingness to be imposed upon, and, disappointed in their schemes, have sought to establish for the Mexicans a reputation for suspicion, ill humor and any other quality into which business capacity, discernment and capability for self-defense can be construed. Approached with fairness, they are always as ready for fair dealing as any people on the face of the earth. They are hospitable in the extreme and generous to a fault. The men are intelligent, warm hearted and brave; the women bright, modest, devoted to home and possessed of a most winning sweetness of manner.

True, Mexico at first is too much la tierra de la mañana for an American full of energy and national go aheadativeness. He finds the Mexican characteristic of putting off until tomorrow what ought to be done today very trying. Fresh from the land of railways and telegraphs, he forgets how long Mexico has lived without their animating influence, and he frets at first under the absence of constant electric news—the want of punctuality in all matters, and that air of activity, bustle and hurry which marks American life. But, under the bright skies, and in an atmosphere where hurry is incompatible with health and comfort, the foreigner speedily falls into the putting off habit himself, and yields to it, as a sort of natural law, rather dreading the day when telephone bells and increased telegraphic communication shall bring the rest of the world so close that its perpetual babble must murder the reposeful quiet of today. If he is from the States he readily makes up his mind that, after his own country, of course, an American is not likely to find any land in which, nor any people among whom, he can dwell with more pleasure and true contentment and find his business projects more cordially favored, if he himself be all right, than in Mexico with the Mexicans.

The form of government, as everyone knows is like our own, Republican. The Constitution closely resembles that of the United States and is very nearly the same as that promulgated at the close of the War of Independence in 1824. That clause, however, in the old Constitution stipulating that the Roman Catholic should be the National religion to the absolute exclusion of all others, was materially modified in that adopted in 1857, under the Juárez administration, and subsequently amended in 1873. Roman Catholic influence is still very strong throughout the country, but the grasp of the Church is loosened and can never, probably, regain its old hold upon the nation.

The Supreme Power of Government is vested in the Legislative, Judicial and Executive branches into which it is divided. The President is elected by universal suffrage to serve for a term of four years. His salary is about forty eight thousand dollars.

A Congress, renewed every two years and divided into a Chamber of Deputies and a Senate, represents the Legislative Power. For the Chamber of Deputies, one member is elected to represent each forty thousand inhabitants, or fractions of that number exceeding twenty thousand. A Deputy must be twenty five years of age. The Senate is composed of two Senators for each state. They are elected by the people for the term of two years, and no one can fill this office who is not thirty years of age.

The Supreme Court, numbering seventeen members and a president, constitutes the Judicial Power. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is also Vice President of the Republic, and in case of the death or removal of the Executive, assumes the Presidential chair. Provision is thus wisely made for filling the office of Vice President from the chief court of the nation.

Amongst the masses in Mexico there exists a general indifference, almost amounting to apathy, concerning the rights of suffrage. Working the governmental wires is a power vested in the few, and the people at large are not educated up to a knowledge of the value of their votes, nor the lofty principles involved in self government. They are passive and without ambition. The Powers that be have, therefore, everything of this kind much their own way and, evidently, the ballot box is managed and manipulated, much as it is in other free countries where it is one of the great institutions. But whatever political drawbacks may exist, Mexico is progressing. She is rapidly ridding herself of the numerous ills that grew out of her long subjection to other Powers and her sudden freedom from them. The character of the people, which for so long seemed to partake of the volcanic nature of their own mountains ready for outbursts and eruptions on the slightest provocation, is gradually tranquillizing and toning down, and the pronouncement¹ is dying a natural death. The people realize the fact that constant insurrection is simply national suicide. Each white man is no longer so eager to be the one white man in power and is more ready to submit with dignity and patriotism to the edicts of the chosen Chief Magistrate. The people have become convinced that any ruler is better than any revolution. The readiness with which news can be transmitted and troops conveyed from one point to another, has, no doubt, had a great deal to do with silencing discontent and lessening the tendency toward internal disturbances. An insurrection has none of the old time chances for ripening and disseminating itself, and augmenting in numbers, as it can now be quickly made known to the authorities, and by them be snuffed out in its incipiency. The gospel that steam and electricity preach is the gospel of peace. It has taught the Mexicans self command, and with it they have gained self respect, and consequently, increased esteem of other nations. Moreover, railways and telegraphs have opened new avenues for the thoughts and energies of the people, besides arousing in them the spirit to keep pace with the marvelous progress of their day and generation.

1. Throughout much of the earlier part of the nineteenth century in Mexico, the pronunciamiento, or declaration of revolt, by military or political chieftains characterized the frequent changes of government by insurrection or other unconstitutional methods.

2

Existing Routes to Mexico by Sea and Land

Existing routes to Mexico by sea and land. Steamer from New York. Time made by that line. The Morgan line from New Orleans and its attractions. The Mexican steamer from the Crescent City and its advantages. Price of Gulf trips. Time of starting. Time between Mouth of Mississippi and Vera Cruz. Leaving the steamer after its arrival in front of the City of the True Cross. Steamers on the Pacific Coast. Land routes. Different railways to be taken. The Mexican Central. Distance to City of Mexico from El Paso. Time made. Elevations. Scenes and cities. Advantages some localities offer to Labor and to Capital. Santa Rosalia and Lerdo. The Laguna region. Fresnillo. Zacatecas. Aguas Calientes. Lagos. Anecdotes. León. Silao. Guanajuato and its silver products. The Castilla de Granaditas. Skulls of patriots. Historical associations. Statuettes of clay and of ore. Salamanca. Zelaya. The Barrio. Uncompleted roads. The way we