Six Months in Mexico by Nellie Bly (best classic literature TXT) 📕

How a missionary, after one sight like this, can wish to convert them into a faith where dress and money bring attention and front pews, and where the dirty beggar is ousted by the janitor and indignantly scorned down by those in affluence, is incomprehensible.

No Mexican lady thinks it proper to wear a hat into church. She thinks it shows disgust; hence the fashion of wearing lace mantillas. In this city of rights there is nothing handsomer than a lady neatly clad in black with a mantilla gracefully wrapped around her head, under which are visible coal-black hair, sparkling eyes, and beautiful teeth.

A ragged skirt, and rebozo encircling a babe with its head on its mother’s shoulder, fast asleep; black, silky hair which trails on the floor as she kneels, her wan, brown, pathetic face raised suppliantly in devotion, is one of the prettiest, though most common, sights in Mexico on Sunday morning.

This is the busiest day in the markets. Everything is booming, and the people, even on their way to and from church, walk in and out around the thousands of stalls, buying their marketing for dinner. Hucksters cry out their wares, and all goes as merry as a birthday party. Indians, from the mountains, are there in swarms with their marketing. The majority of stores are open; and the “second-hand” stalls on the cheap corner do the biggest business of the week.

Those who do not attend church find Mexico delightful on Sunday. In the alameda (park) three military bands, stationed in different quarters, play alternately all forenoon. The poor have a passion for music, and they crowd the park. After one band has finished, they rush to the stand of the next, where they stay until it has finished, and then move to the next. Thus all morning they go around in a circle. The music, of which the Mexican band was a sample, is superb; even the birds are charmed. Sitting on the mammoth trees, which, grace the alameda, they add their little songs. All this, mingled with the many chimes which ring every fifteen minutes, make the scene one that is never forgotten. The rich people promenade around and enjoy themselves similar to the poor.

In the Zocalo, a plazo at the head of the main street and facing the palace and cathedral, the band plays in the evening; also on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Maximilian planned and had made a drive which led to his castle at Chapultepec. It is 3750 feet long, wide enough to drive four, or even six teams abreast. It is planted on the east side with two rows of trees; one edging the drive, the other the walk, which is as wide as many streets. The trees are now of immense size, rendering this drive one of the handsomest, as well as most pleasant, in Mexico. Maximilian called it the Boulevarde Emperiale; but when liberty was proclaimed the name was changed to the Boulevarde of the Reform. On the same drive are handsome, nay more, magnificent statues of Columbus, Quatemoc, and an equestrian statue of Charles IV. of wonderful size, which has also been pronounced perfect by good judges. A statue of Cortez is being erected. This paseo is the fashionable promenade and drive from five to seven P. M. every day, and specially on Sunday afternoon. The music stands are occupied, and no vacant benches are to be found.

Those who call the Mexicans “greasers,” and think them a dumb, ignorant class, should see the paseo on Sunday: tally-ho coaches, elegant dog-carts, English gigs, handsome coupes and carriages, drawn by the finest studs, are a common sight. Pittsburg, on this line, is nowhere in comparison. Cream horses, with silver manes and tails, like those so valued in other cities, are a common kind here. The most fashionable horse has mane and tail “bobbed.” It might be added this style prevails to a great, very great extent among all animals. Cats and dogs appear minus ears and tails. Pets of every kind are much in demand. Ladies carry lap dogs, and gentlemen have chained to them blooded dogs of mammoth size. The poor Mexican will have his tame birds; even roosters are stylish pets. “Mary had a little lamb” is respected too much here to be called “chestnut.” The favorite pets of children are fleecy lambs, which, with bells and ribbons about their necks, accompany the children on their daily airing.

Mexico, while in the land of churches, would be rightly called the city of high heels, hats, powder and canes. Every gentleman wears a silk hat and swings a “nobby” cane. There are but two styles of hats - the tile hat and the sombrero. Every woman powders - lays it on in chunks - and wears the high heels known as the French opera heel. The style extends even to the men. One of the easiest ways to distinguish foreigners from natives is to look at their feet. The native has a neat shoe, with heels from two inches up, while the foreigner has a broad shoe and low heel. These people certainly possess the smallest hands and feet of any nation in the world. Ladies wear fancy shoes entirely - beaded, bronzed, colored leather, etc. A common, black leather shoe, such as worn by women in the Slates, is an unsalable article. Yet it is nothing strange to see a lady, clad in silk or velvet, lift her dress to cross a street or enter a carriage, and display a satin shoe of exquisite make and above it the hosiery of Eve. In fact, very few women ever wear stockings at all.

This city is a second Paris in the matter of dress among the elite. The styles and materials are badly Parisian, and Americans who come here expecting to see poorly-dressed people are disappointed. Like people in the sister Republic, the Mexicans judge persons by their dress. It is the dress first and the man after.

On Sundays the streets and parks are thronged with men and women selling ice cream, pulque, candies, cakes, and other dainties. They carry their stock on their heads while moving, and when they stop they set it on a tripod, which they carry in their arms.

The flower sellers are always women, some of whom look quite picturesque in their gay-colored costumes. All the flowers are elegant, and are arranged in bouquets to suit either ladies or gentlemen.

Bull fights take no little part in the Sunday list of amusements, where the poor and rich mingle freely. Theaters have matinees and evening performances, and everything takes on a holiday look, and everybody appears happy and good-humored. This is nothing new in Mexico, however, for the most unusual sight is a fight or quarrel. These are left to the numerous dogs which belong to the city, and even they do little of it.

Riding horseback is a favorite pastime. Ladies only ride in the forenoon, as custom prevents them from indulging in the saddle after one o’clock. Gentlemen, however, ride mornings and evenings. Among them are to be found the most graceful and daring riders in the world. Their outfits are gorgeous; true Mexican saddle trimmed with gold and silver, graceful flaps of the finest fur on bridles finished with numberless silver chains. The riders are superb in yellow goatskin suits, ornamented with silver horse shoes, whips, spurs, etc., with silver braid on the short coat. A handsome sombrero, finished in silver, with silver monogram of the owner, revolvers, and proud, fiery, high-stepping horse completed the picture. The ladies’ habits are similar to those now in the States, except the fine sombrero which replaces the ugly, ungraceful high silk hats.

All day Sunday is like a pleasant Fourth of July, but after eight o’clock the carriages become scarcer and scarcer, the people go to the theaters and to their homes, the poor seek a soft flagstone, where they repose for the night, and by nine o’clock the streets make one think of a deserted city.

Mexicans do not go half way in the matter of style. At one o’clock Sunday afternoons policemen in fancy uniforms, mounted on handsome horses, equipped with guns and lassoes, ride down the Boulevard. They are stationed in the center of the drive one hundred yards apart, every alternate horse’s head in the same direction. There they remain, like statues, the entire afternoon. Sunday is a favorite day for funerals and change of residence. Men with wardrobes, pianos, etc., on their backs are seen trotting up and down the streets like our moving wagons on the first day of April. They mean well by work on Sunday, but it would appear awful to some of our good people at home. There is this advantage, at least: they have something better to do than to congregate in back-door saloons or loaf on the streets.

CHAPTER VII.

A HORSEBACK RIDE OVER HISTORIC GROUNDS.

A SUNDAY in Mexico is one long feast of champagne, without a headache the next day. When the first streaks of dawn appear in the east people bob out from this street and that, hostlers hurry horses off to private residences, gay riders whirl by as if eager to catch the shades of night as they are sinking in the west, and by 6:30 it looks as if all Mexico was on horseback. Ladies wear beautiful costumes, dark habits, short skirts, silver and gold buttons, and broad sombreros. Men display greater variety of costumes; some wear yellow buckskin suits trimmed with gold or silver, others have a drab skin suit artistically trimmed, still others wear light cloth suits and high boots, buttoned at the side, and reaching the knee. A belt holding a revolver, and a Mexican saddle to which is fastened a sword complete this beautiful riding suit. And then what riders! It is the poetry of motion; they are as but part of the perfect horse they ride. Take the beautiful horses, artistic outfit, grand eyes glancing at you from beneath a pretty sombrero, and you have a Mexican scene which is irresistible. Even Americans are a thousand times handsomer when they don this outfit, and it is safe to wager that if the men in the States would adopt the Mexican riding-suit, there would not be a single man left after a two months’ trial.

After searching the whole city over we at last found a woman we knew, who owned a habit. “Certainly you may have it, with great pleasure,” and we thought what an angel she was until the time we needed it, when she sent a reply: “My riding-dress is, as I told you, at your service any day in the week but Sunday. I am surprised that you find need of it on that blessed day.” That evening on going to a house for dinner we found her there, dressed to the height of fashion, discussing the people who had attended church in the morning and telling what a lovely drive she had on the paseo in the afternoon. She is a missionary.

However, as the sun was creeping up trying to catch night unawares, I mounted a horse, clad in a unique and original costume, to say the very least, which the gallant young men, however, pronounced odd and pretty, and wanted to know if it was the style of the States. The boulevard of the Reform looked as cool and sweet as a May morning in the country, and finer than a circus parade with the hundreds of horsemen going either way. “Vamos?” (Let us go). “Con mucho gusto” (with much pleasure), was our reply, and away flew our willing steeds, bearing us soon to the paradise of Mexico - Chapultepec.