Beyond the Mexican Sierras

Front matter

MEXICAN

SIERRAS

DILLON WALLACE

Contents

Chapter Page

Introduction ix

I A Forgotten Land 1

Chapter II

THERE was little formality to be gone through at San Bias. The port doctor came aboard, looked at the whites of our eyes, and passed us with the wave of a hand. We were more than ten days out of San Francisco — the period of incubation for bubonic plague — and they considered us harmless and inoffensive now. We were no longer suspected of harboring dark designs upon Mexico, and the selfrespect that we lost at Mazatlan was regained at San Bias.

Emerson buckled his revolver on, and told us we had better follow his example before going ashore, as it was quite fashionable to wear them here. We did so, but I felt very much as a young man does when he dons his first evening clothes and appears in public in them; and though I pushed my big Colt back under my coat, to hide it as much as possible from the gaze of the populace, it would protrude in spite of me, and seemed like a ton’s weight upon my belt. However, when the boat came that was to take us ashore, and I saw that at least one of the boatmen wore a beltful of cartridges, with a revolver in a leather holster dangling from it, I felt better about it.

The boatmen were mozos (servants) from the Hacienda San Nicolas, who had been despatched from

li the interior ranch with horses and mules to meet Emerson and his party.

On the edge of the low, flat ground, which stretches from the beach to the foothills of the Cordilleras, punctuated by one abrupt bluff a mile from the sea, the town lies, half hidden by an exuberant growth of tropical foliage and stately cocoanut palms. Its main street, running up from the sea, is lined with substantial, mortar-covered, whitewashed stone buildings of Spanish architecture, flanked on either side by crooked, narrow streets, along which are massed fiimsily constructed huts, thatched with palm leaves and sea grass. The effect of the whole is somewhat Oriental, as one approaches the sandy beach, though a more intimate view robs it of its Oriental aspect, and makes it typically Mexican. This Oriental coloring led Randall to remark,

"Makes me think of Cairo or some other Bible town that I Ve read of.” Randall is not strong on Biblical history.

Barelegged, bareheaded cargadores and sandalled peons, wearing skin-tight trousers and immense highcrowned, broad-brimmed sombreros of straw or felt, — a brown-skinned, black-haired medley, — crowded around us in eager curiosity as we stepped ashore. Emerson’s two mozos, with the help of half a dozen of the cargadores, carried our baggage to the custom house, where a polite officer, who spoke good English, passed it with a very cursory examination; and the first ordeal — one that every one dreads upon entering a strange country — was over.

But Emerson had troubles of his own ahead, in the shape of two pigs that he was taking to his hacienda.

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He suggested to the officer that the pigs should be passed free of duty, as they would be of decided benefit to the country, in improving the stock.

“Oh, yes, certainly we passa th’ pig,” said the polite official. “We carra much for th’ improve of stock of Mexico, but Senor Emerson will be pleased to signa some paper first.”

Emerson, not to be outdone in politeness by the official, bowed low and said he would, and it was right there his troubles began. All the afternoon he was kept busy signing documents. Now and again we met him, coat on arm, one hand grasping a handkerchief, with which he desperately mopped perspiration from his face, the other hand filled with papers, rushing up and down the scorching street on the trail of an official. He wrote his name on twenty-seven different documents for twenty-seven different officials that afternoon, and each time had to purchase and affix an internal revenue stamp. I never did learn how much he paid for the stamps, but the pigs were admitted duty free.

When I refer to the afternoon, I mean after two o’clock. At eleven in the forenoon all business stops, all shops close, the people go to their siesta, and the streets are deserted.

Our formalities at the custom house were completed by ten o’clock, and we went at once to the Hotel Americano, where we were received with much formality, and shown to our rooms — two rooms for the five of us. They were furnished with a washstand, a couple of chairs in each, and with beds about the size of ordinary cots. Each bed was simply a single piece of canvas stretched over a frame, with a sheet over that, and a straw or hay pillow. A canopy of cheese-cloth, about four feet high, enclosed each as a protection against sand flies and mosquitoes. The floor was bare.

Our rooms were on the second or top floor of the house. On one side, windows looked upon the main street, while our doors opened upon a balcony overlooking the hotel patio, or courtyard, in which grew cocoanut palms, banana plants, lemon trees with ripe fruit that we could reach from the balcony, and many brilliant tropical flowers and plants. There were also sand flies and fleas galore, and when we drew our chairs to the balcony to smoke a while and cool off, while the mozos brought up our baggage, we were startled by a lizard about eighteen inches long, a row of horns down the back of his head, and glaring eyes, which looked like “the devil himself,” as Emerson said, though we were told it was only an aquila, and harmless. I did not care to associate with him, however, and let him see it, and he went away. His personal appearance was against him.

At dinner, which was eaten under our balcony, and out of doors, where we could enjoy the fragrance of the flowers and foliage of the patio, we had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Mr. William Ramos, a banana grower, who lived at the hotel, and had the distinction of being the only American resident of San Bias. Ramos was delighted to see us, because we were Americans, and he was more than a little lonesome.

The dinner began with soup, followed by an array of courses, mostly compounds of things I did not recognize, and nearly all very hot with chilli-peppers,

Cocoanut palms

A corner of the market-place, San Bias but on the whole palatable. Frijoles (beans) were served just before the dulce. That is a warning that you have had all you are going to get, and to satisfy yourself upon them, if you have not had enough of the other things. They were well cooked and good. The bread was in the form of rolls, sweetened, and of poor quality — “pan bianco ” they call it. It was the characteristic bread, however, of Mexico — when bread is to be had at all. The coffee was of good quality, but, like all Mexican coffee, muddy and very strong. It is burned black in roasting, ground to a powder, boiled, and served with the grounds. One is supposed to drink the grounds.

After dinner Ramos took us about the town. It has, he informed us, about two thousand inhabitants. The buildings on the main street, as has been hinted, are mostly of substantial Spanish architecture, while the others are mere shacks of poles and mud, with thatched roofs and without floors. The main street is paved with cobblestones, through which grass grows, and from the sea front to the custom house is a miniature railroad, on which a push-car is operated, to carry freight from the landing to the warehouses.

Men and women lounged in the little shops, drinking mescal and tequila, their native whiskey. The latter is simply a better quality of the former. The best shops are kept by Chinamen, and everything is sold in them, from dry-goods to fruit. We stopped at one and drank some cocoanut milk, and then ate the soft meat from the green fruit with a spoon. They do not eat the cocoanut here after it has ripened. We also tested the oranges, green-skinned but ripe and sweet, all seedlings grown without cultivation and therefore not to be compared in quality with the oranges of California; and bananas, from a delicious small banana, not larger than your thumb, to the immense platen grande, which is cooked as a vegetable. The bananas are no better than those to be had at any New York fruit stand, for they are ripened in the same way — after they are cut.

In the rear of the municipal building on the north side of the plaza is the theatre, a unique feature of the town. It is a stage facing upon an open court, or patio, and Ramos told us that people attending performances bring their own chairs with them, or squat upon the ground. The plaza opposite is a beautiful little square filled with tropical plants and with a bandstand in the centre. Every town in Mexico has its plaza and bandstand. But what interested us most was the market-place, where pottery, meat, vegetables, leather goods, dry-goods — nearly everything a Mexican needs for his comfort — were displayed for sale. The vegetables were divided into little piles representing one, two, or three centavos ’* worth, and very often fruits or vegetables were cut to make the exact quantity desired.

Big sombreros of straw or felt, often trimmed elaborately with gilt and ornaments, were the chief characteristic of the men’s dress. The remainder of the costume was in many instances not enough to remark about. The women were slovenly and ugly. I feel qualified to speak upon this matter, for Randall and I, both of a romantic turn of mind, looked into every face for one specimen of the “enchanting, dark-eyed

*A centavo is a Mexican cent, equal to one-half cent United States currency.

senoritas,” whose beauty is extolled by nearly every writer on Mexico, but failed in the quest. The eyes were dark enough, but so was the skin; — almost as dark as that of our average Southern negro, and the features were not good to look upon.

It is not entirely correct to say that the market-place is the most interesting feature of the town. The policemen hold that honor. The first specimen I saw was leaning against a post in a nice, shady corner, puffing contentedly at a cigarette, and apparently quite oblivious of and superior to his surroundings. He wore a dirty white cotton tunic, unbuttoned, dirty cotton trousers, a white peaked cap, and sandals. A big revolver, with its muzzle sticking out behind and below his tunic, and a club hanging listlessly by a string from his wrist, were his weapons of offence and defence. Listless, ambitionless, staring vacantly into space, with apparently no purpose in life but to hold up that post and pass away the time, he was the best representative of human vacuity of mind and official indolence I ever saw. It appeared to me as though it would require a dynamite cartridge to blow a breath of activity into him. But I was mistaken in the gentleman. I approached him.

“Will senor permit me to take his portrait?” I asked, forgetting that English was a foreign tongue to him.

He did not move, but displayed some interest.

“Just a snapshot,” I said briskly. “I’ll have it published, and senor will be immortalized.”

He developed more interest, but I saw he did not appreciate his opportunity to be immortalized.

“I want to get your picture,” I repeated.

He straightened up and said a few sentences in Spanish. He was becoming quite animated. Then it dawned upon me that he did not understand English and I looked around for Ramos to interpret for me, but he and the others had gone on. So I tried again. The position was becoming rather awkward, and I put more stress and enthusiasm into my voice, in a vain hope that he might grasp my meaning.

“Just your picture — I just want to get your picture.”

The policeman, now standing quite independent of the support of the post, pointed down the street in the direction the others had gone, and reeled off a whole string of Spanish at me. I thought he understood at last, and was inquiring whether I wished him to step out into the sunshine in the street. Bringing my entire Spanish vocabulary to my assistance, I said, very sweetly,

“Si, senor.”

The result was magical. The policeman clutched his club firmly, and started up the street at a good pace after Ramos, Randall, and the others. He thought they were malefactors, and I was telling him of some dark and bloody deed that they had committed. He was going to run them in. In desperation I headed him off and shouted:

“No! No! senor, photograph,” at the same time unfolding my camera. A crowd was gathering and the situation was becoming strenuous for me.

The officer halted and smiled. He at last comprehended. “No” was very good Spanish, so was “senor,” and “photograph” sounded very like the Spanish word for the same thing, and all this, in con-

" The officer halted and smiled”

Custom House, San Bias nection with the unfolded camera, made my meaning clear. The policeman stood still where I placed him, assumed the most soldierly pose of which he was capable, and I made my snapshot. I thanked him cordially, we doffed our hats to each other and shook hands, and then he went back to lean against his post in the shade, quite a hero in the eyes of the admiring crowd, which gathered around him to talk over the occurrence as I hurried on to find my friends.

In this little town there are seven or eight policemen. At night one sees them at the corners, their lanterns, which they always have with them after sunset, standing out in the middle of the narrow streets. There are no wagons or carriages in San Bias, and the horsemen and pack mules turn out for them. At nine o’clock in the evening, and every hour thereafter until daylight, one hears their whistles. As the clock strikes the hour, the sharp, shrill tones of one sounds out upon the night, to be followed by another and another, like an oft-repeated echo, in the distant corners of the town, until all have answered. A policeman’s wages here are thirty-two centavos a day (sixteen cents), and out of this he must live and provide for his family, if he has one. This, of course, applies only to San Bias. Each individual town has its own separate police system, with its distinctive regulations as to uniform, wages, and so on.

Between the soldiers and the police a pretty close watch is kept upon the movements of travellers everywhere in the Republic. When a stranger secures accommodation at a hotel where no regular register of the guests is kept, he is requested to write his name, and where he last came from, upon a slip of paper. This slip is turned over to the police, and intercommunication between the police of various towns, and the soldiers, keeps the visitor well under the eye of the authorities.

The whole town of San Bias turned out that night to do honor to two senoritas of uncertain reputation, who came over on the steamer from Mazatlan. They were not quite so dark in complexion, and were so much better looking than the damsels of the town, that the men — and the women, too. for that matter — were quite infatuated by them — excepting the two maiden ladies who ran our hotel. These maiden ladies declined to extend the hospitality of their house to the attractive senoritas, and the said attractive ones were forced to find shelter in an inferior hotel at the market-place, where the susceptible proprietor received them literally with open arms. Later in the evening, we applauded the maiden ladies for their good judgment and thoughtfulness for the comfort of their guests, for the populace and the town band massed in the market-place before the other hotel. During the night, whenever the fleas and sand flies roused us to consciousness, we heard the noise over there. On these occasions we would turn over and go to sleep again, giving thanks that the racket was not being made under our windows.

Later I heard the story of what took place. Two or three of the wealthiest natives, including civil officials of the town, employed the band to play, purchased a quantity of liquid refreshments, and invited their friends to a reception in honor of the two charmers. Well along in the night, after everybody had withdrawn except two of the three who had arranged the affair, one of these gentlemen gave the senoritas a substantial honorarium to present some special Spanish dances before them. The other subscriber returned and applied at the door for admission just as the dancing was at its height. Those within had no time or inclination to open the door, and the one without inconsiderately broke it down, frightening the musicians and the dancers to such an extent that one of the gentlemen within was moved to protest, and as an expression of the annoyance he felt at the rude entrance, drew his gun and proceeded to shoot up the intruder. The newcomer drew his gun too, and used it, but they were all so intoxicated, or such poor marksmen, that no one was seriously injured by the fusillade. Finally my friend, the policeman, with two or three other officers, appeared and put a stop to the disturbance.

San Bias, which stands at the mouth of the Santiago Rio, was founded by the Spaniards in the middle or latter part of the sixteenth century. The original town was built upon a hill, which rises abruptly and prominently out of the low surrounding country. In the rear, this hill has steep slopes, but in front, toward the ocean, it presents walls of perpendicular rock, rising sheer from the plain below, as though reared by some gigantic hand to support the once formidable fortress that stood upon its summit. Glowering guns commanded the harbor at the entrance to the Santiago River, where the merchantmen that carried on the growing trade with the Orient and the rich islands of the Southern sea took refuge, and where, in extensive shipyards, men-of-war were fashioned to guard Spain’s possessions in the Pacific.

San Bias was then the gateway to the Pacific, as Vera Cruz was the gateway to the Atlantic, and Spanish enterprise — for that was in the day of Spain’s glory and progress — built a great highway from port to port, linking the two gateways and laying the foundation for a lucrative trade between the Occident and the Orient. It was over this road the artillery and military supplies for the fort were drawn, and over it thronged long mule trains heavily laden with Oriental plunder.

But time works wondrous changes. Spain has fallen from her glory and lost her place among nations; the sea, which once broke against the face of the cliff, has receded and left the high bluff a full mile inland; sand bars block the entrance to the once active harbor; the shipyards have disappeared, and are forgotten; the powerful fort, the great arsenal, and the once beautiful town lie in ruins, half hidden by tropical jungle. Even authentic records of the establishment of the town and building of the military road have disappeared, and tradition is all that remains — a tradition so intermingled with legends that a culling leaves almost nothing of reliable history.

It is quite certain, however, that the old town was not wholly abandoned for the new one, down by the water’s edge, until after the revolution that freed Mexico from Spanish rule. When in Tepic, Mr. Eugen Hildebrand, the German Consul, showed me a book written by one James Colnet, an English whaling captain, in the year 1798, in which the author tells of a voyage he made on the Pacific coast, in 1792, in search of the spermaceti whale. The Captain was captured by the Spaniards and taken prisoner to San

The ruins of the old cathedral

A corner of the ruined fortress

Bias fortress, which he describes as “on the south side of the Saint Jago River ['Santiago/ as we spell it now], and contains the grand arsenal and dockyards of the Province of Mexico. ... It is situated upon a small mount that rises in the middle of a marsh, which joins the dockyard about two miles from it. . . . The face of the rock towards the sea is perpendicular, one hundred fathoms high, and presents a very formidable appearance.” Captain Colnet’s estimate of the height of the wall is at least two hundred feet too great. Otherwise we are bound to accept his description of San Bias as he saw it, for, as far as we can learn, all the official records were destroyed during the Mexican revolution, and no other account has survived.

Of course we had to climb the hill with Ramos, and walk around the massive ruins of the old fort, the once beautiful cathedral, and the decayed buildings of the town, all of stone blocks cut from the hill. The interior arches of the cathedral were still in place. Two mozos, with machetes, cut away enough of the growth to enable me to photograph portions of the ruins. The cemetery, farther back, is still used for burial; and in front of the cathedral we found some vine-covered tombs. What a monument to dissipated power and lack of national foresight the old town is! Here crumbled and rotted the bones of Spain’s great empire on the Pacific.

Amongst the many legends centring around old San Bias and the ruined fortress is one, devoutly believed by the aged peons, of the Padre Mercado, a patriotic priest who lived here during the early days of the war of independence. Padre Mercado, as the legend goes, warmly espoused the cause of the revolutionists. He roused the people to arms, earnestly exhorted them to fight for freedom from the yoke of Spanish oppression, and personally led them in many desperate assaults against the fort. One day, however, he was discovered within the town, unguarded and alone. The Spanish soldiers cut off his retreat, and hotly pursued by them, whose desire it was to capture him alive, he ran to the edge of the cliff. Nothing but death on the rocks below, or capture, seemed left to him, when lo! the angels of God intervened. The Padre was surrounded by a blaze of glory, and before the very eyes of his pursuers ascended into heaven!

The soldiers who witnessed the miracle fled in terror to the fort, and reported the occurrence to the commandant. This officer was skeptical, and personally conducted a search of the rocks below the cliff, confidently expecting to find there the mangled remains of the Padre. But the search was unsuccessful, and finally even he had to accept, in the face of overwhelming evidence, the truth of the good priest’s translation into Heaven.

Another version of the story is that the body was found by the commandant, and as an example to the revolutionists was attached to a lariat behind horses and ignominiously dragged through the streets. This is doubtless what really happened, though the reader is free to decide for himself.

Reluctantly we turned from the old town to the new. Emerson’s pigs were duly admitted to citizenship, and nothing more was to be seen or done in San Bias. Arrangements had been made with mozos to transport the pigs and heavier luggage up the Santiago River, in dugout canoes, to the Hacienda San Nicolas, while the personal baggage of our party was to accompany us upon two pack mules, as we journeyed into the distant hills and mountains of Tepic, which lay in a blue haze beyond the flat lands to the eastward.

Chapter III

WE had hoped to get an early morning start, and thus avoid the scorching rays of the midday sun; but it was not until ten o’clock that our mozos announced everything ready, and we finally mounted and rode eastward through the long main street, circled the foot of San Bias Hill, and out into the open country.

A short way from town a narrow estuary was crossed upon a catamaran ferry propelled by men hauling upon a rope stretched from shore to shore. Why they do not bridge this bit of water I do not know, for it is little wider than the ferry-boat, but probably because it is a source of income to the Government. The ferrymen have to get a concession, for which they pay, and an internal revenue is collected upon all fares received.

For four or five miles our road wound through a marsh, and for a mile our horses splashed stirrup-deep in water. Then we reached the first rise of the foothills, and a tropical jungle, dense and high, closed in upon us, and shut out the last breath of air that in the open marsh below had fanned our cheeks, and in some degree made tolerable the burning intensity of the noonday sun. I had never experienced such heat before. In a little while we were drenched with perspiration. Our clothing clung to us like wet bathing suits, and I recalled Randall’s comforting assurance on the steamer. We were, in truth, “bathing in the sunshine of tropical Mexico.”

Somewhere, just above the marsh, a trail branches off to the left, and with easier grades than those of the old military road, which we were on, follows the valley of the Santiago River. It was suggested that we turn into this, but the mozos informed us that it had not yet drained since the rainy season, which was just at an end, and was still submerged in places; in fact, that it seldom became passable before the middle of December.

But we did not mind the longer and steeper way, for we were treading historic ground, and were filled with the romance of it. Here and there round pavingstones, laid long ago by the Spaniards, were still in place, and bits of supporting wall remained to tell of the infinite labor expended in the construction of the road. Three centuries fell out of time and in our fancy we saw the slaves who laid those very stones toiling under the lash of the cruel Spaniard; trains of gay adventurers rode by; we heard the rumble of heavy artillery wagons on the rock-paved road; bands of the murderous soldiers of the Conquest passed us, leaving behind them a trail of terror and of blood. In reality the old highway was quite deserted, save for one pack train of mules, laden with merchandise, that we passed, silently wending its way inland to Tepic City.

Stately palms and gigantic ferns, with a luxuriant tropical undergrowth, made impenetrable the jungle that lined our road. Marvellous flowering vines that entwined themselves in the forest trees, blooming shrubs, with here and there beautiful orchids, and masses of wild honeysuckle, gave a setting of gorgeous color and charged the atmosphere with delicious perfume. Brilliant plumaged parrots and parrakeets screamed discordantly overhead, ugly-looking lizards scurried out of our path, a grass-green snake, coiled around the naked trunk of a tree, high up in the air, swayed his head back and forth in defiance, and an unseen animal crashed away into the jungle as we approached. It was all very wonderful to me and I experienced the strange sensation of having lived through all this before in some far-away, mystic past, just beyond any positive remembrance. It was like a dream that one tries vainly to recall — “a sleep and a forgetting.”

Neither Randall nor I had been in a saddle for over twenty years, until this day, and we hailed with joy the Indian village of Libertad, the first settlement that we reached, when we rode into it at two o’clock in the afternoon; for here it was decided that we should rest ourselves and our horses for an hour, and eat some luncheon.

Libertad is a primitive Indian village, with a single long street. The houses are built of poles bound together with the quamacate plant — a vine-like weed used in place of rope — with a space between each pole, the way corn-cribs are built in the States. This space admits light and air. The roofs are thatched with palm leaves or grass; and some of the houses have sides running only half-way to the roof, with the upper half open. No nails or iron in any form are used in the construction of these buildings. In fact, the people live practically as they did when the white

A ruin of old San Bias

A god of the ancients man first found them; civilization has had small influence upon their lives. The mule, perhaps, is the only innovation of note since their forefathers owned allegiance to Indian tzins, and few of them possess mules.

Naked children ran into the houses as we approached, not because they were ashamed of their nakedness, for they had never worn clothing any more than the pigs and donkeys that shared the houses with them, but because they were startled at the sudden appearance of so many strange Americanos.

We engaged an old woman to prepare our luncheon, and while we waited for it to be made ready, sought the shade of a large tree, under which we unpacked our mules and loosed the cinches of our saddles, that the animals might rest while we stretched our legs.