READINGS
FROM
MODERN MEXICAN AUTHORS
BY
FREDERICK STARR
CHICAGO
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY
London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., Ltd.
1904

Copyrighted, 1904
BY
FREDERICK STARR
Chicago

THIS LITTLE BOOK IS DEDICATED
TO
SEÑOR DON VICTORIANO AGÜEROS,
AUTHOR OF Escritores Mexicanos Contemporaneos,
EDITOR OF El Tiempo,
PUBLISHER OF La Biblioteca de Autores Mexicanos,
FAITHFUL FRIEND, VALUED HELPER.

CONTENTS.

PREFACE.

When I began visiting Mexico, in 1894, my knowledge of Mexican authors was limited to those who had written upon its archæology and ethnography. Even the names of its purely literary writers were unknown to me. My first acquaintance with these came from reading some of the writings of Icazbalceta, a critical historian of whom any nation might well be proud, and a man of literary ability. I then sought the books of other Mexican authors and have been accustomed, when in Mexico, to read only those, in such hours of leisure as travel and work have left me. This reading has led me to prepare this little book, in the hope that it may introduce, to some of my countrymen, the literary men of the neighboring Republic.

I call the book Readings from Modern Mexican Authors; I might almost have said Living Mexican Authors, for my intention has been to include only such. I have, for personal reasons, made two exceptions—including Icazbalceta and Altamirano. This I have done because I owe much to their writings and because both were living, when I first visited Mexico.

Mexican authors write, to a notable degree, for periodical publications. Many Mexican newspapers devote space to literary matter and many extensive works in fiction, in history, in social science and political economy have appeared as brief chapters in newspapers and have never been reprinted. Mexico is remarkably fond, also, of literary journals, most of which have a brief existence. Many of the writings of famous Mexican writers exist only in one or other of these forms of fugitive publication, and are almost inaccessible. The tendency to republish in book form grows, however, and Señor Agüeros is doing an excellent work, with his Biblioteca de Autores Mexicanos (Library of Mexican Authors), now carried to more than fifty volumes, in which the collected works of good authors, past and present, are being printed.

Of course, many authors have been omitted from my list, some of whom may have well deserved inclusion; I have omitted none for personal reasons. Specialists, unless they have written literary works outside of their especial field of study, have been intentionally omitted. Men like Nicolás Leon, Herréra, Orvañanos, Belmar, Batres, could not be left out in a history of Mexican literature, but their writings do not lend themselves to translation of brief passages to represent the literary spirit of the country.

It has not been easy to devise a definite plan of arrangement for my selections, but the matter is roughly grouped in the following order—Geography, History, Biography, Public Questions, Literature, Drama, Narrative, Fiction. One demand, made of all the material, is that it shall show Mexico, Mexican life, Mexican thought. Every selection is Mexican in topic and in color; together the selections form a series of Mexican pictures painted by Mexican hands.

I hesitate at my final remark, because it will sound like a lame excuse for failure. It is not such. In these translations I have not aimed at a finished English form. I have, intentionally, made them extremely literal; I have sometimes selected an uncouth English word if it exactly translates the author, have frequently followed the Mexican form and order of words, and have even allowed my punctuation to be affected by the original. To the English critic the result will be unpleasing, but to those who wish to know Mexico and Mexican thought, it will be a gain. And it is for these that my little book is written.

The sections dealing with Icazbalceta, López-Portillo, Altamirano, Agüeros, Roa Bárcena, Obregón and Chavero, were originally published in Unity. Part of the matter relative to Guerrero, has been printed in the American Journal of Sociology.

READINGS FROM MODERN MEXICAN AUTHORS.

EDUARDO NORIEGA.

Eduardo Noriega was born in the city of Mexico on October 4, 1853. He came of a notable family of Liberals, his father being General Domingo Noriega, and his brother Carlos, being, at the time of his death, adjutant-colonel to President Juarez. Eduardo was educated in the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria (National Preparatory School), where he spent five years and received his bachelor’s degree. Since that time he has dedicated himself to literary work and to teaching.

He has written both prose and poetry. Besides two volumes of verse, he has printed a number of monologues—among them Primeros nubes (First clouds), El mejor Diamante (The better diamond) and La hija de la caridad (The daughter of charity). He has translated dramatic writings and has himself written two plays. From the age of forty years he has confined his teaching and writing to scientific subjects. He holds the chair of History and Geography in the Escuela de Comercio y Administracion (School of Commerce and Administration). He is author of a Geografía general (General geography), which has gone through two editions, of a capital Geografía de Mexico, and of a handy Atlas de Mexico miniatura (Miniature atlas of Mexico) which is in its third edition.

Eduardo Noriega is a directing member of the Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía y Estadistica (Mexican Society of Geography and Statistics) and many valuable papers read by him before that body are printed in its Bulletin.

Our selections are taken from his Geografía de Mexico. A school text-book of geography is hardly a promising place in which to seek examples of literary value, but in his descriptions Noriega often shows facility in expression and felicity in statement.

CLIMATIC ZONES OF MEXICO.

The climatic contrasts occasioned by the mountainous relief, are sharply produced only in the middle portion of the Republic, that is to say, in the central mesa and upon the slopes of the cordillera. The section from one coast to the other, from Vera Cruz to Acapulco, for example, is the line best situated for observing well-marked climatic changes.

The low zone of the seaboard contains, at once, the marshes and the barren sands of the coast, the well-watered open plains, and the lower slopes, where the luxuriant branchings of a thousand differing trees mingle and crowd, closely bound together by festoons of trailing and pendent vines, forming lovely masses of verdure, sprinkled through with fruits of many and brilliant colors, which stand out conspicuously from the magnificent, chlorophyll-laden foliage, and above all of which tower the graceful forms of palm trees. To such a charming tropical combination is given the name—tierra caliente (hot land).

Within this range, where the temperature passes 23° C., there are places which must be included among the hottest on the globe; such, for example, is the port of La Paz, in Lower California. The high temperature of this region, gave to it the name, derived from the words calida fornax, which signify hot oven.

Above the two seaboard zones, one sloping toward the Gulf, the other toward the Pacific, rises the tierra templada (temperate land), at an altitude of from 1000 m. to 2000 m., but higher in the south than in the north. This region corresponds to the southwest of Europe, not so much in climate—for it has no winter—as in mean temperature, productivity and salubrity.

Lastly, the central tableland, the part of the territory where the maguey is cultivated with notable profit and every class of cereals is produced, constitutes the tierra fria (cold land). It is the most populous part of the Republic.

In the high valleys, as those of Toluca and Mexico, the descent of the mercurial column often shows considerable falls of temperature; in winter the column reaches 8° or 10° below 0 C. and frosts are frequent. In general, however, the winters are mild. The mean temperature is from 13° to 14° C.

In many places exceptional conditions have brought the vegetable areas into abrupt juxtaposition; thus, while upon the summit of some ridge, only plants of European character may live and flourish, in the plains surrounding it are seen palms and bananas. From the summit of the great volcanoes, the three superposed zones may be clearly seen, at once.

The rapid communication, which today happily exists, presents to the traveler the marvelous opportunity of passing, in a few hours, through the three distinct regions of which we speak, which in other parts of the globe are separated by thousands of kilometres.

In some places these zones remain clearly distinguished from one another, but this is exceptional, since commonly they crowd upon each other, mingling one with another by imperceptible transitions. It is common to mention some certain place as belonging to one and the other zone, because the line of separation for both runs irregularly in mountainous regions. A zone of reciprocal penetration has been formed, on account of the multiple phenomena of temperature, of winds and of plant groupings. So, too, cañons and slopes are met with, which, by their vegetation, may be considered foci of tierra caliente, included within the fully developed tierra templada.

POPOCATEPETL.

The valley of Mexico lies, then, surrounded by various chains, which are: to the north the Sierra de Pitos and its branches, of which one is the Sierra de Guadalupe; to the east the Sierra de Zinguilacan, which ends in an extensive ridge, channeled by deep furrows, which connect the Sierra mentioned with the Sierra Nevada. By means of mountains and ridges forming the Sierra de Xuchitepec, to the southeast of the valley, the Sierra Nevada is connected with that of Ajusco, which is connected to the southwest with that of Las Cruces, which, extending to the northwest, forms the Cordillera de Monte Alto, which is connected, as already stated, with the western arm of the Sierra de los Pitos.

In all these chains there are heights of importance such as; in the Sierra Nevada, Popocatepetl, lovely volcano, and Ixtaccihuatl, merely a snow-cap.... Popocatepetl—smoking mountain—is the highest mountain in Mexican territory and measures 5452 m. above sea-level. The ascent of this colossus is full of discomforts, but when these have been endured, the result is surprising.

The most suitable road for the ascent is the one which goes from Amecameca to the ranch of Tlamacas, which is situated at 3897 m. altitude and almost at the limit of tree growth; the trees there met with are stunted; the day temperature is 8°, and at night 0 C., in summer. In winter these temperatures are more extreme.

Until one thousand metres beyond the ranch some firs are seen, which are the last; to these follows a soil covered with a dark sand, very fine and slippery, over which the horses can scarcely make their way. Here and there upon this sandy zone are tufts of dry grass. These gradually disappear, until, finally, there remains no sign of vegetation. A little later snow begins, at a place called La Cruz, to which a great wooden cross, reared upon a heap of rocks, gives name. At this point, the line of perpetual snow is found, at 4300 m., little more or less, above sea-level.

From here the ascent is made on foot, and ever over the snow. The trail zigzags, because the slope is 24° or 25°, becoming more abrupt, until reaching 30° and 34°, at times. The walking is, naturally, very difficult.

When some hundred metres have been traversed, great difficulty in breathing begins to be experienced, the lungs feel oppressed, and every step, every movement of the body, causes great fatigue and compels the stopping to take breath. Feeble constitutions cannot endure the weariness and illness which are experienced. The reflection of the sun upon the snow is intense, for which reason the wearing of dark glasses is necessary. The face should also be veiled, to prevent the vertigo, which the white sheet surrounding the traveler produces toward the middle of the journey; when the day is fine and the atmosphere clear, the panorama is incomparably beautiful. The city of Puebla is clearly seen, and, at a greater distance the peak of Orizaba and the Cofre of Perote. There may also be seen, with all clearness, the summit of Ixtaccihuatl, totally without a crater. After some four hours of travel, the end of the journey, the summit of the volcano is reached; the last steps are particularly difficult, because the slope is now 40° and the rarity of the air is greater; progress is difficult.

From the point where the crater is reached it is not easy to take full cognizance of its depth, though the general form may be appreciated. This is elliptical; the major diameter measures some fifty metres more than the other. A crest of rock, of varying elevation, forms the edge, which makes it very irregular; it is very narrow; a simple step leads from the outer, to the inner, slope. This edge presents two heights—one is the Espinazo del Diablo (Devil’s Backbone), the other is the Pico Mayor (Greater peak), which is, as its name indicates, the highest point of the volcano, being 150 m. higher than the Espinazo. The Pico Mayor is almost inaccessible, but its summit may, with difficulty, be reached.

The major diameter of the crater corresponds to the two summits named, has some 850 m. length, and its direction is from south 20° west to north 20° east. The transverse diameter may be estimated at 750 m., which would give the crater a circumference of 2,500 m. In descending from the border, the crater presents three distinct parts; a slope of 65°, a vertical wall seventy metres in height, and another slope, which extends to the bottom. In total, the mean depth of this imposing abyss will reach 250 m. to 300 m.

At the place, where the vertical wall begins and the first slope ends, there has been set up a sort of a windlass, below which an enormous beam slopes downward toward the abyss; by this beam, and lowered by a cord, the workmen who extract sulphur descend.

In the bottom of the crater are four fumaroles, whence vapors escape, which in issuing produce slight hissing sounds. Abundant deposits of sulphur exist near these. Besides the fumaroles mentioned, there are seven points at the borders of the crater, where gases escape, though in less abundance; six of these points lie to the east of the major diameter, and the seventh on the opposite side. All are inaccessible.

The interior of the crater is formed by sheets, which form a regular wall with vertical sides. In some places these layers are profoundly shattered and there various species of rocks, of notably different natures are seen; first, below, are sheets of trachyte, very compact and rich in crystals of striated feldspar and partly decomposed amphibole; above these more or less regular trachytic layers are beds of well-characterized basalt—also very compact and rich in peridote; lastly, above these layers are porous scoriæ, of dark purple color, which indicates the presence of a considerable quantity of iron oxide. These scoriæ must have originated from the fusion of the porphyritic rocks.

Every little while, at the summit, rage violent storms of snow, which falls in thick sheets; at such times the atmospheric clouds do not permit objects to be seen at a metre’s distance and the temperature falls to 20° and 22° below 0 C.

The exploitation of the sulphur is insignificant since only some forty-eight or fifty tons are taken out, in a year; this sulphur is distilled at the ranch of Tlamacas; it is sold in Mexico and Puebla at the same price as that of Sicily—that of Popocatepetl being superior in quality. The snow, too, on the side of Ozumba, is exploited, but this exploitation is on the smallest scale.

Various expeditions have been organized for the ascent of Popocatepetl, some scientific in nature, others for amusement. The first was made in 1519 by Diego de Ordaz, one of the soldiers of Cortes; others followed. In our own day, such expeditions are frequent and their results happily verify each other.

Ixtaccihuatl,—“white woman”—connected to Popocatepetl by a ridge of graceful outline, rises to 5,288 m. altitude above sea-level. Down the slopes of this mountain, several torrents, derived from the melting snows, pour and form cascades and falls up to forty-five metres in height. These same slopes, covered by a sheet of astonishingly rich and luxuriant vegetation are gashed by deep crevices, in which are enormous masses of porphyritic and basaltic rocks. Conifers form dense forests up to 3,000 m. altitude; from there the vigor of arborescent vegetation diminishes and at 4,000 m. it completely ceases; from that point on there are only stretches of brambles, which completely disappear at about 4,200 m.; then follow the sands, and, lastly, the perpetual snows, which begin at 4,300 m.

The crest, which is very grand and beautiful, resembles in the arrangement of its rock masses, the form of a woman’s body, stretched at length upon its back, and covered by a white winding sheet. From this, the name of white woman,—izta, white; cihuatl, woman—with which this lovely mountain was baptized by the dreamy imagination of the Aztecs.

THE CAVERN OF CACAHUAMILPA.

In the limestone mountains of Cacahuamilpa, thirty kilometres north from Tasco, in a ravine, lies the village of the same name, near which is situated the famous cavern, one of the most beautiful in the world, commonly designated by the name of the gruta de Cacahuamilpa (grotto of Cacahuamilpa).... Dominating the eminence formed in the cordillera running eastward and which has already been mentioned, is perceived the great mouth of the cavern, with the green festoons of foliage which adorn it and some stalactitic formations which seem to announce the marvels of the interior. Access to this entrance is gained by a short and narrow path.

The mouth measures five metres in its greatest height and thirty-six metres from side to side; after it has been traversed, there begins a plane sloping toward the interior; the soil is sandy; shortly one arrives at the first gallery, which is lighted by the sunlight.

This gallery is very large; its walls are formed of enormous masses of tilted rocks, which look as if about to fall; the spacious and lofty vault is furrowed by broad and deep crevices and from it hang many stalactites in the form of columns, or colossal pear-shaped masses of marble. Crossing the broad space of this gallery, a second is reached, where the darkness is dense and appalling, the torches scarcely dispel the gloom, and the spirit is oppressed.

In the first gallery the most notable concretions are “the enchanted goat” and “the columns.” The former has lost much of its resemblance, as the head of the goat has fallen, but the second is wonderfully beautiful, because of its astonishing originality; its form is that of a column adorned with a capital, in the form of a tuft of plumes, which supports the base of a natural arch.

The third gallery, called “the pulpit” on account of the shape of its principal concretion is no less beautiful, grand, and imposing, than the preceding. Here the darkness is absolute.

Beyond this third gallery there are twelve more, very imperfectly known; they are called—the cauliflower, the shell, the candelabrum, the gothic tower, the palm tree, the pineapple, the labyrinth, the fountain, and the organ-pipes. The rest have no special names. All of these galleries are marvelously beautiful; all are extensive and have lofty vaultings.

The total extent of the cavern is unknown; though the guides assert that it ends in the gallery of the organ-pipes, there are indications that the statement is false. These indications are: the air, which, even at such profound depths, is perfectly respirable; the lack of exploration; the superstitious fears of the guides to go further; and, some traditions, which declare that new galleries exist and have been explored by persons, who report a rushing torrent producing a terrible noise, for which reason no one cares to penetrate further. But, although the extent of the cavern is unknown and the gallery of the organ-pipes may not be the last, we ought not to believe the reports, which give the cavern immense extension. For example, some say that the galleries and ramifications extend to the mountains of Tasco, and there is one tradition, which affirms that the cavern prolongs itself, through the interior of the mountains which limit the Valley of Mexico on the south, until it unites with the cavern of Teutli, near Milpa Alta.

This tradition, although improbable, is curious; it states that some families hid their treasure in the cave which occurs in the mountain of Teutli; this has a very narrow entrance at first, but after some twelve or fifteen metres broadens, forming a most beautiful cavern; this cavern has a series of chambers, of greater or lesser size, which finally communicate with the cave of Cacahuamilpa, more than one hundred kilometres distant.

The tradition cited adds that but few persons have dared to penetrate the cave of Teutli, and on but one occasion, a herd of sheep having entered it, some peons followed to collect and bring them out—a thing they could not do because the animals penetrated far into the cave; those who went in pursuit of them returned after two days of journeying through these rough passages.

In conclusion, it only remains to state, that the existence of the cavern of Cacahuamilpa remained unknown to everyone, until the year 1833. Before that year, not even the Indians had entered it, because they believed that the stalagmite in the form of a goat was a bad spirit, that guarded the mysteries, which the cavern enclosed; but a criminal who took refuge in it and was there during the period of his pursuit, after which he returned to his home, astonished the inhabitants of Tetecala by his fantastic reports; they made the first exploration and announced their expedition, describing the wonderful cavern. Since then, until now, expeditions have not lacked; unhappily, none of them has been scientific.

ANTONIO GARCÍA CUBAS.

Antonio García Cubas was born July 24, 1832, in the City of Mexico. He began study looking toward engineering in the year 1845, although not actually taking the degree of engineer until 1865. His technical studies were pursued in the Colegio de San Gregorio, the Minería (School of Mines), and the Academia de San Carlos. His studies were repeatedly interrupted by appointments of importance and by public commissions. Thus, in 1853 he published a general map of the Mexican Republic. Since that date he has done much geographical and engineering work of importance. In 1865, he served on the Scientific Commission of Pachuca. In 1866 he did the leveling for the Mexican Railway to Tulancingo. He published his first Atlas in 1857; in 1863, his Carta general (General map), in 1876 his Carta administrativa (Administrative map), in 1878, his Carta orohydrographica (Orographic-hydrographic map), still perhaps the best maps of Mexico, of their kind. In 1882, his great Atlas, geografico, estadistico, y pintoresco de la Republica Mexicana (Geographical, Statistical, and Picturesque Atlas of the Mexican Republic) was published. In addition to these and other equally important scientific works, Señor García Cubas has written various school books in geography, history, etc. Our selections are taken from a little volume, Escritos diversos (Miscellaneous Writings).

The work of Señor García Cubas has received wide and well-deserved recognition. He is a member of the Geographical Societies of Paris, Lisbon, Madrid and Rome; he has received scores of medals and diplomas; he holds the Cross of the Legion of Honor. In his own country he is a member of all the scientific societies but has naturally been most interested in the Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía y Estadstica (The Mexican Society of Geography and Statistics). He has ever been active in movements for public advancement and among many results of his interest we may mention the Conservatory of Music.

THE INDIANS OF MEXICO.

The statistical data, imperfect though they have been, have given force and value to the opinion, which for me is a fact, that the indigenous race becomes debilitated and decreases in proportion as the white race becomes strong and advances. This fact is in complete accord with the laws of nature; the disadvantage of the indigenous race consists, for its decrease, in its customs and in the hygienic conditions of its mode of life. A miserable hut serves as a habitation for a numerous family and in it, the inmates actually packed together, cannot but breathe a polluted air; food is scanty and innutritious, while the daily occupations are heavy and hard. Sad indeed is the sight of these unhappy indigenes who without distinction of sex and age are encountered in our city streets and who, exhausted under the weight of enormous burdens, return to their villages with the miserable pittance gained from their trading.

If we consider the Indian from the time of his birth, or even from before his birth, we see his life to be but a series of miseries and abjections. The Indian women, even at the time of travail, do not cease from their wearisome tasks and, without thought for the being who stirs within them, occupy themselves in grinding maize and making tortillas, labors which cannot but prove hurtful to the act of giving birth. While the period of suckling has not passed, the child is fed with tortillas and fruits and other foods unsuited to its digestive powers, causing by such imprudence diarrhœas and other diseases, which carry the children to the grave or, as they grow, leaves them infirm and feeble. Smallpox, in consequence of the neglect of the parents and their indifference to vaccination, causes frightful ravages—the disease being most pernicious in the indigenous race.

Such statistics as I possess of the movement of population in the pueblo of Ixtacalco, while they indicate that the Civil Registry has not yet extended its dominion to that pueblo, corroborate the opinion that the decrease of the race is mainly due to infant mortality.

In this mortality there were one hundred and forty children. In the year 1869, although the data show an augmentation of fifty-nine persons in the population, the infant deaths number sixty-five, to thirty-four of adults.

One fact ought to particularly call our attention because it proves that the degradation of the race is not in its constitution but in the customs of its members. The Indian women of the villages near the Capital, hiring themselves out as nurses in private homes, rear healthful and robust children, because in their new employment they improve their condition, by enforced cleanliness, by good food, and by the total change in their hygienic conditions. But this very circumstance is a serious misfortune for the race, the women impelled by the desire to gain better wages, abandoning their own children to the mercenary cares of other women, as if the lack of a mother’s love and care could be made good!

Another of the reasons which, in my opinion, cause the degeneration of the indigenous race, is that marriage takes place unwisely and prematurely. According to medical opinion, the nubile age of woman in our country is eighteen years, in the hot lands fourteen; between medical theory and actual practice there is an enormous difference. As regards the Indians, frequently union occurs between a woman scarcely arrived at the term of her development and a man of forty years or more, entirely developed and robust; as a consequence, the woman becomes debilitated and infirm and her children are weak and degenerate.

If to these causes, which operate so powerfully toward the decrease of the indigenous race, is added the sensible diminution it has suffered in our civil wars,—since the indigenous race supplies far the larger part of the army—the truth of my assertion seems fully corroborated.

THE SEASONS IN THE VALLEY OF MEXICO.

Few must be the places in the world which, from the picturesque and poetical point of view, surpass in beauty the Valley of Mexico. The varied phenomena, which the seasons of the year there present, powerfully contribute to this.

Some European savants assert that the seasons of the year are, in the intertropical regions, reduced to two, the dry and rainy seasons. In our country this assertion is without foundation. The truth is, that, in those regions, weather variations less sharply determine seasonal changes than in the temperate zones; but, in the Valley of Mexico seasonal changes really take place as shown by the beautiful fresh mornings of its Spring, prodigal in exquisite and varied flowers; the hot days of its rainy Summer, rich in delicious fruits; the warm afternoons of Autumn with its wondrously beautiful drifting clouds, and the cold nights of Winter, with its clear and starry sky.

As the last hours of night shorten in the lovely season of Spring, the deep darkness which envelopes the earth’s surface dissipates little by little and objects become visible as the delicate light of dawn gradually invades the east. The sun’s rays, propagating themselves with a constant undulatory movement, cause successive reflections and refractions, in the atmosphere and clouds, scattering the light in every direction and permitting the distinguishing of objects not yet directly illuminated by that body. If this light, known by the name of diffused or scattered light, did not exist, the shadow cast by a cloud, or by any object whatever, would produce the darkness of night, and—there being no twilight—the sun would appear on the horizon suddenly and in full splendor.

The sweet trills of the goldfinch, the warbling of other birds, the harmonious sound of bells, which announce in the towns the hour of dawn, and the laborer, who betakes himself to the field, with his oxen, to begin his daily labors, mark the moments in which the splendid rays of the sun, which precede the rising of the luminary, diffuse themselves through the transparent fluid of the atmosphere. Before the sun mounts above the horizon the eastern heavens are successively colored with the brilliant tints of red, orange, yellow, green, and purple; the limit of the white light of dawn, extending in the form of an arch through space, rapidly advances toward the zenith, while, at the same time, the upper heavens about that point, gradually acquire the most intense hue of azure.

The crest of the eastern cordillera sharpens and defines itself against a background of rose and gold; the majestic snow caps of Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl, which rise as two colossi in order to display the beauties of the sunrise, feebly illuminated on their western flanks by the diffused light, appear as if made of Bohemian crystal. At times a dense column of smoke, rendered visible by the whiteness of dawn, issues from the crater of Popocatepetl, demonstrating the constant activity of this volcano, which retains evidences of tremendous activity.

When the sun, rising above the horizon, pursues its upward march, it presents a beautiful spectacle, difficult of description. Its disc, red and apparently increased in size, on account of atmospheric refraction, presents itself surrounded by a luminous aureole, and gradually diminishes in diameter as it mounts higher. The antecrepuscular curve submerged in the horizon, the west acquires the same succession of tints and the upper part of the sky is colored with a brilliant, most vivid blue.

From that moment the surroundings of the Capital city are most charming. Chapultepec, with its many and limpid springs, its picturesque rock mass, its poetic palace and its dense grove of ancient cypresses, from the branches of which depend masses of gray moss—the honored locks of their hoary age; Tacubaya with its palaces, its parks, and gardens; Mixcoac with its pleasing environs and its lanes of fruit trees; San Angel, Coyoacan, and Tlalpam, with their clear brooks, their gardens, their fields, and their pretty glades, covered with plants, trees, and interlacing climbers.

In all these places one enjoys the intoxicating freshness of the morning, the attractiveness of the fields, the breathing of the fresh air loaded with the perfume of flowers. There swarms of butterflies, with gleaming and brilliant wings, display their beauties and humming-birds, those precious winged gems which, endowed with an extraordinary flight, cleave the air like an exhalation, or, sucking honey from some flower, suspended in space, incessantly beat their wings and expose the green and pearly lustre of their plumage to the reflections of the sun.

South of the capital, the soil differs from that of the places mentioned. There the camelia, the lily, the Bengal-rose, and the other exquisite flowers of careful cultivation are not met; but there, in the chinampas, those artificial islands which have converted swamps into lovely gardens, grow the luxuriant poppy, the purple pink, the elegant dahlia, the perfumed violet, and the fragrant rose of Castile.

The canal which unites the lakes of Texcoco and Xochimilco in the days of Spring is to be seen covered with canoes loaded with flowers and vegetables bound for the city markets; and everyone, who has participated in the Lenten festivities of the Viga, will ever remember, with delight, the animation that constantly reigns in that place, where the common people finds its greatest joy. It may be said that there is the place of the festival of Spring and flowers.

* * * *

Summer, in the Valley, as the other seasons of the year, has its especial attractiveness.

The atmospheric strata being unequally expanded by the fierce heat from the earth’s surface, the order or arrangement of the layers in contact with the soil is, so to say, inverted. It is well known that the lower layers of air have the greater density, from the fact that the upper layers weigh down upon them; from the earth’s surface upward there is a gradual decrease in density until the last, the lightest and most subtle, which is called ether. This general law being interfered with by the expansion of the lower layers, refraction of the light rays,—or the deviation which they suffer in passing from one medium into another of differing density—takes place in a manner contrary to that when the atmospheric layers are normally superposed, and the mirage[1] is produced, an optical illusion, which causes us to see objects, below the horizon or in the air, inverted.

In the dry and level stretches in the north of the Valley, one frequently sees the thick vapor stretch itself out over the surface of the ground, and upon it, inverted, are portrayed the mountains with all their irregularities and details, as if reproduced in a limpid mirror of waters.

The mirage is yet more interesting, more wonderful, in the Lake of Texcoco, though the phenomenon is there less frequent. On clear days, from the shore, one sees the full extent of the lake and the tranquillity of its water. Miserable, frail canoes, the form of which has not varied since the days of the conquest, are seen crossing the lake, loaded with grains and vegetables for the Mexican markets. The unsteady and narrow chalupas of the fishermen and flower-dealers rapidly cleave the watery surface and only the creaking of the oars, or the notes of the monotonous songs of the boatmen break the silence of the solitude.

When the temperature of the water of the lake is less than that of the air with which it is in contact, those little crafts suddenly disappear from the surface of the water and are seen, inverted, floating in the air, coursing to the stroke of the oars, through a shifting sea of clouds.

JOAQUÍN GARCÍA ICAZBALCETA.

No name better deserves to be first mentioned in the list of modern Mexican writers than that of Joaquín García Icazbalceta. He was born in the City of Mexico Aug. 25, 1825. His father was a Spaniard, his mother a Mexican. On account of the disorders connected with the Revolution, his parents left Mexico, going first to the United States and later to Spain, where they remained until 1836. In that year they returned to Mexico. The boy showed early earnestness in study and was well instructed by private tutors. He was acquainted with and encouraged by the great historian, Lucas Alaman, who no doubt had much to do with his decision, about 1846, to devote himself to historical study.

The list of his works is a long one. He translated Prescott’s Conquest of Peru into Spanish and enriched it with valuable notes. To the well known Diccionario Universal de Historia y Geografía (Universal Dictionary of History and Geography) he contributed the biographical sketches of many personages of the sixteenth century. In 1858 he began publishing the Coleccion de Documentos para la Historia de México (Collection of Documents for the History of Mexico), two volumes of ancient, and for the most part unknown, matter of the highest value. This was continued by the publication in 1870 of Mendieta’s Historia Ecclesiastica Indiana (Ecclesiastical History of the Indians). Still later in 1886-1892 these volumes were followed by four similar volumes under the name Nueva Coleccion de Documentos para la Historia de México (New Collection of Documents for the History of Mexico). These papers were all original works, many of them from the sixteenth century, of the greatest importance and interest, and most, if not all, of them would have been lost or never known but for Icazbalceta’s care. In publishing this matter our author always added notes and explanations, characterized by lucidity, interest, and learning. Two important works were published in 1875 and 1877—México en 1554 (Mexico in 1554) and Coloquios espirituales y sacramentales y Poesias sagradas (Spiritual and Sacramental Colloquies and Sacred Poems). The former was a reprint of three interesting dialogues in Latin by Francisco Cervantes Salazar; the book is most rare; Icazbalceta printed the original Latin text with a Spanish translation and added his usual valuable notes. The other book, chiefly composed of religious dramas for popular representation, was by Fernan Gonzales de Eslava, who was by no means a mean poet. In reprinting this curious sixteenth century book Icazbalceta practically traced the whole history of the religious play in Mexico of the past. No Mexican bibliographer has done more important work than Icazbalceta. Two works in this line need special mention. His Apuntes para un Catalogo de Escritores en lenguas indigenas de America (Notes for a Catalogue of Writers in the Native Languages of America) is not only interesting in itself, but has been the necessary foundation for everything since written regarding Mexican languages. As for his Bibliografía Mexicana del siglo xvi. (Mexican Bibliography of the Sixteenth Century), it is a wonderful work, representing forty years of labor. “It is a systematic catalogue of books printed in Mexico in the years between 1539 and 1600, with biographies of authors and various illustrations, facsimiles of ancient title pages, extracts from rare books, bibliographic notes, etc., etc.” It is far more—it is really a restoration of the life of that wonderful age in American letters. In biography our author is eminently happy; he usually loves and reverences his subject. In 1881 he published his Don Fray Juan de Zumárraga, Primer Obispo y Arzobispo de México (Friar Juan de Zumarraga, first bishop and archbishop of Mexico). It is a magnificent example of such work. Another subject of his love was Alegre, and besides a biography of him he wrote—1889—Opusculos ineditos Latinos y Castellanos de Francisco Javier Alegre (The Unpublished Works, Latin and Spanish, of Francisco Javier Alegre). Icazbalceta’s last great work was Diccionario de Provincialismos Mexicanos (Dictionary of Mexican Provincialisms). This was passing through the press at the time of his death, November 26, 1894.

Many of Icazbalceta’s choicest writings were monographs of no great length prepared for reading before the Mexican Academy or other organizations of which he was a member. These always show the same careful gathering of facts, the same just criticism, and the same literary character as his greater works. Our selections—all but one—are from such a discourse read before the academy in June and July, 1882, entitled, El instruccion publica en México durante el siglo xvi. (Public Instruction in Mexico during the Sixteenth Century). The other is from a paper—Los Medicos de México en el siglo xvi. (The Physicians of Mexico in the Sixteenth Century). These passages will no doubt surprise many readers, who have been pleased to believe that Spain’s policy was to hold its conquered territories in deep ignorance.

THE EARLY MISSIONARIES.

When the first Spanish missionaries arrived, they faced that great mass of uncivilized folk, which it was necessary to convert and civilize in a single day. Today there exist an enormous number of establishments and private teachers for educating youth in classes, graded with relation to ages; there were then twelve men for millions of children and adults, who begged, in concert, for light, and light which it was impossible to deny them, because it was not merely a matter of human culture, which most important as it is, did not then occupy the first place; but of opening the eyes to blind heathen and of making them take the straight road for attaining the salvation of their souls. The matter then seemed serious; it was really still more so, because the new teachers had never heard the language of their pupils. But what may not devotion accomplish? Those venerable men quickly mastered the unknown language and then others and others as they met them; they understood, or rather they divined, the peculiar character of the population, and at once converted, instructed, and protected it. The first missionaries and those who followed after them, were certainly no common men; almost all were educated; many like Fathers Tecto, Gaona, Focher, Vera Cruz, and others had shone in professorships and prelacies; they were of noble birth, and three of them, Fathers Gante, Witte, and Daciano, felt royal blood coursing through their veins. All renounced the advantages promised by a brilliant career; all forgot their hard gained learning to devote themselves to the primary instruction of the poor and unprotected Indians. What inflated doctor, what betitled professor today would accept a primary school in an obscure village?

The Franciscans went everywhere rearing temples to the true God, and with them schools for children. They gave to their principal convents a special plan; the church set from east to west and the school, with its dormitories and chapel at right angles to it, stretching to the north. The square of buildings was completed by the ample court, which served for teaching the Christian doctrine to adults, in the morning before work, and also for the sons of the macehuales or plebeians who came to receive religious instruction; the school building was reserved for the sons of nobles and lords; although this distinction was not rigidly observed.

At first the friars found great difficulty in gathering together boys to fill these schools, because the Indians were not yet capable of understanding the importance of the new discipline and refused to give their boys to the monasteries. They had to appeal to the government that it should compel the lords and principal men to send their sons to the schools; first experiment in compulsory education. Many of the lords, not caring to give up their children, but not daring to disobey, adopted the expedient of sending, in place of their own sons, and as if they were these, other boys, sons of their servants or vassals. But in time, perceiving the advantage these plebeian boys, by education, were gaining over their masters, they sent their sons to the monasteries, and even insisted on their being admitted. The boys dwelt in the lodgings built for the purpose in connection with the schools, some so spacious as to suffice for eight hundred or a thousand. The friars devoted themselves by preference to the children, as being—from their youth—more docile and apt to learn, and found in them most useful helpers. Soon they employed them as teachers. The adults brought from their wards by their leaders, came to the patios and remained there during the hours set for instruction, after which they were free for their ordinary occupations. Divided into groups, one of the best instructed boys taught to each group the lesson learned from the missionary.

PEDRO DE GANTE’S WORK.

Although you know the fact well, gentlemen, you would not forgive me should I omit mentioning the work which the noted lay brother, Pedro de Gante, blood relative of the Emperor Charles V., did in the direction of instructing the Indians. He was not the founder of the College of San Juan de Letran, as is generally stated, but of the great school of San Francisco, in Mexico, which he directed during a half century. This was constructed, as was customary, behind the convent church, extending toward the north, and contiguous to the famous chapel of San José de Belem de Naturales—the first church of Mexico, the old cathedral included. There our lay brother brought together fully a thousand boys, to whom he imparted religious and civil instruction. Later he added the study of Latin, of music, and of singing, by which means he did a great service to the clergy, because from there went forth musicians and singers for all the churches. Not satisfied with this achievement, he brought together also adults, with whom he established an industrial school. He provided the churches with painted or sculptured figures; with embroidered ornaments, sometimes with designs interspersed of the feather work, in which the Indians were so distinguished; with crosses, with candlestick standards, and many other objects necessary for church service, no less than with workmen for the construction of the churches themselves, for he had in that school painters, sculptors, engravers, stonecutters, carpenters, embroiderers, tailors, shoemakers, and other trades workers. He attended to all and was master of all. The gigantic efforts of that immortal lay brother cause genuine admiration—who without other resources than his indomitable energy, born of his warm charity, reared from the foundations and sustained for so many years a magnificent church, a hospital and a great establishment, which was at once a primary school, a college of higher instruction and religious teaching, an academy of the fine arts, and a trades school, in fine a center of civilization.

INSTRUCTION BY HIEROGLYPHS.

Industrial schools, compulsory education, these seem to us usually modern ideas; but these old teachers knew something of object teaching, of adapting methods to varying conditions. Thus:

They completed the instruction by the use of signs, and it may be imagined that the result was little or nothing. Desirous of hastening the instruction and realizing that what enters by the eye engraves itself more easily upon the mind, they devised the idea of painting the mysteries of religion upon a canvas. Friar Jacob de Tastera, a Frenchman, was the first, it seems, who tested this method. He did not know the language, but he showed the Indians the chart and caused one of the brighter among them, who knew something of Spanish, to explain the meaning of the figures to the others. The other friars followed his example and the system continued in use much time. They were also accustomed to hang the necessary charts upon the wall, and the missionary, as he made the doctrinal explanations, indicated with a pointer the corresponding chart. The Indians accustomed to painting hieroglyphs adopted them for writing catechisms and prayerbooks for their own use, but varying the old form and interspersing here and there words written with European letters, from which there resulted a new species of mixed writing, of which curious examples are preserved, some of which are in my possession. They made use of the same method of jotting down a record of their sins that they might not forget them at the time of going to the confessional. The use of the pictures was so pleasing to the Indians that it lasted all that century and a part of the following. In 1575 Archbishop Moya de Contreras substituted with announcements in pictures, papal bulls which failed to come from Spain; and the well known French writer, Friar Juan Bautista, caused figures to be engraved—after the seventeenth century had begun—for use in teaching the Indians of that time the doctrine.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MEXICO.

The famous University of Mexico was opened in 1553, almost seventy years before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. Literary contests of a public character were not infrequent:

The doors of the university opened, there entered by them a great number of youth, who waited with impatience the moment of commencing or prosecuting their studies. So Cervantes Salazar testifies in the description which he wrote of the institution, the year following its establishment. Soon the literary exercises began and notable was the ardor with which the students engaged in scholastic disputations, to which, as Cervantes says, night alone put an end. The learned men who were already in Mexico hastened to connect themselves with the university, among them Archbishop Montufar. Nothing was omitted to add to the luster of the new school, since there were given to it the privileges of the University of Salamanca and the title Royal and Pontifical. From it sallied many alumni as teachers, or to occupy high positions in church and state. It was really, as its founders had planned, a source of supply (nursery) of educated men, which in large measure obviated the necessity of bringing such from Europe, and there were even some who there brilliantly displayed the education which they had received in the schools of Mexico.

A LITERARY FESTIVAL.

In the year 1578, on the occasion of the arrival at Mexico of a great quantity of sacred relics, presented by Pope Gregory XIII. to the Jesuits, it was decided to celebrate a brilliant festival. Upon the announcement of this, many distinguished persons and a multitude of others betook themselves to Mexico. An official proclamation, given forth beforehand with much ceremony, announced a program of seven literary controversies. The procession with the sacred relics sallied from the cathedral, and on the way to the Church of the Jesuits, where they were to be deposited, there were reared five magnificent triumphal arches ‘at least fifty feet high.’ Besides these more important ones, the Indians constructed more than fifty, made of boughs and flowers according to their custom. All the doors and windows of the houses were adorned with rich tapestries, Flemish stuffs embroidered with gold and silk. In the arches, as at the corners, and in the little ornamental shrines which decorated the line of march, there were displayed placards and shields with inscriptions, sentences, and poetical verses in Latin, Spanish, and even in Greek and Hebrew. At each arch the procession paused to see and hear dances, sports, music, and poems. During the space of eight days, in the afternoons, upon platforms erected for the purpose, the students of the different schools in turn represented religious plays. One of these was the tragedy of the persecution of the church under Diocletian and the prosperity which followed, with the reign of Constantine. This drama, which still exists in printed form, was undoubtedly a work of the Jesuit professors. Delighted with its rendition the populace demanded its repetition, which took place the following Sunday.

INDIAN LANGUAGES.

An immense field is opened before my view, in the linguistic and historic works, which we owe to the sixteenth century. On their arrival the missionaries found themselves face to face with a language entirely unknown to the inhabitants of the Old World; and as they progressed with their apostolic labors they discovered with pain that this land, where the curse of Babel seems to have fallen with especial weight, was full of different languages, of all forms and structures, some polished, others barbarous, for which they had neither interpreters, nor teachers, nor books, and for the most part not even a people of culture who spoke them. That difficulty in itself would suffice to discourage the most intrepid mind; but there did not in the world exist anything which could quench the fire of charity with which the missionaries were aglow. They undertook the contest with the hundred-headed monster and vanquished him. Today the study of a group of languages, or even of one tongue, raises the fame of the philologist to the clouds, although he usually finds the way pathed out for him by previous labors; but the missionaries learned, or rather divined all, from the first beginnings; a single man at times attacked five or six of these languages without analogy, without a common filiation, without known alphabet, with nothing that might facilitate the task. Today such investigations are made, for the most part, in the tranquillity and shelter of the study; then, in the fields, the groves, upon the roads, under the open sky, in the midst of fatigues of the mission journey, of hunger, of lack of clothing, of sleeplessness.

The missionaries did not undertake such heavy tasks to attain fame; they did not compare the languages, nor treat them in a scientific way; they tried to reduce them all to the plan of Latin; but they went straight to the practical end of making themselves comprehensible to the natives, and laid firm foundations, upon which might be reared a magnificent structure. The linguistic section of our literature is one of those which most highly honor it, and this, although we know but a portion of it. Countless are the writings which have remained unpublished, either for lack of patronage to supply the cost of printing or because they were translations of sacred texts which it was not permitted to place in vulgar hands. Father Olmos is a notable example of the sad fate which befell many of these writers. It is believed that he knew various Chichimecan dialects, because he was a long time among them, and it is certain that he wrote without counting other books, grammars, and vocabularies of the Aztec, Huastec, and Totonac languages. Of such great works only his Aztec grammar has survived, which, after circulating during more than three centuries through public and private libraries, has finally been saved, thanks to the beautiful edition of it which was published, not in Mexico, but in Paris in 1875. In a history of Mexican literature, notices and analysis of the books on the native languages—today so much esteemed and studied in foreign lands—claim a place of honor.

FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ.

That same year, about the month of September, the famous Dr. Francisco Hernandez, court physician of Philip II., arrived in Mexico. He was a native of Toledo and was born about 1517 or 1518. Nothing is known of his life previous to his journey to New Spain, whither he came by royal commission, to write the natural history of the country, with reference to medicine. He consumed seven years in the discharge of his commission, making continual journeys, meeting obstacles and suffering diseases which brought him to the edge of the grave. It has been generally said that Philip II. supplied the expenses of this expedition with regal munificence and that it cost him 20,000 ducats; but documents published in our days, clearly show that Hernandez was given but a modest salary, although we do not know exactly the amount, with no assistance whatever for his extraordinary expenses, not even for those occasioned by his frequent journeys. Nor was he supplied the assistance usual in such cases, and he had no other helper than his own son. In spite of all this he was never discouraged in that great enterprise. In order to devote himself entirely to it, he refused to practice medicine in Mexico, ‘throwing away the opportunity of gaining more than 20,000 pesos by the practice of the healing art, and much more by occupations pursued in this country, on account of employing myself in the service of your majesty and in the consummation of the work’—as he himself says in a letter to the king. Not content with describing and making drawings of the plants and animals of New Spain he caused the efficacy of the medicines to be practically tested in the hospitals, and availing himself of his title of protomedico, convoked the practitioners then in the city and urged them to make similar tests and to communicate the results to him. Finally he carried to Spain, 1577, seventeen volumes of text and illustrations, in which was the natural history; and an additional volume containing various writings upon the customs and antiquities of the Indians. Copies of all were left in Mexico, which have disappeared. He wrote the work in Latin; he translated a part of it into Spanish, and the Indians, under his direction, commenced a translation into Aztec.

Arrived in Spain, Hernandez suffered the severest blow possible for an author—instead of his great work being put promptly to press, as he had expected, it was buried in the shelves of the library of the Escorial; to be sure with all honor, for the volumes were ‘beautifully bound in blue leather and gilded and supplied with silver clasps and corners, heavy and excellently worked.’ However, this magnificent dress did not serve to protect the work, which finally perished, almost a century later, in the great conflagration of the Escorial, which took place the 7th and 8th of June, 1671, nothing being saved except a few drawings, just enough to augment our appreciation of the loss. Dr. Hernandez survived his return little more than nine years, since he died February 28, 1587.

AGUSTIN RIVERA.

Agustin Rivera was born at Lagos (Jalisco) on February 28, 1824. For a time he studied at the famous Colegio de San Nicolas, at Morelia, and, later, at the Seminario in Guadalajara. In 1848 he was licensed to practice law and in the same year took holy orders. He taught for some time at Guadalajara, and was, for nine years, the attorney of the Ecclesiastical Curia. He finally removed to Lagos, the city of his birth, where he still lives, and where his writings have been published. In 1867, he made a journey to Europe, visiting England, France, Italy, and Russia. His writings have been many, varied, and extensive; the complete list of his books and pamphlets, includes ninety-four titles. Among the best known and most widely mentioned are his Compendio de la Historia antigua de Mexico (Compend of the Ancient History of Mexico), Principios criticos sobre el vireinato de la Nueva España (Critical Observations upon the Vice-Royalty of New Spain), and La Filosofía en Nueva España (Philosophy in New Spain). Two pamphlets, Viaje á las Ruinas de Chicomoztoc (Journey to the Ruins of Chicomoztoc) and Viaje á las Ruinas del Fuerte del Sombrero (Journey to the Ruins of the Fort of Sombrero), have been widely read and are often mentioned.

Our author is vigorous and clear in thought and expression. Extremely liberal in his views, much of his writing has been polemic. In argument he is shrewd and incisive; in criticism, candid but unsparing. His Principios criticos is a scathing arraignment of the government of New Spain under the viceroys. His Filosofía is a part of the same discussion. It forms a large octavo volume. It begins with presenting two Latin documents of the eighteenth century, programs of public actos, given at the Seminario and the Colegio de Santo Tomás in Guadalajara. These serve as the basis for a severe criticism of the philosophical thought and teaching in Spain and New Spain during the vice-regal period. Testimonies are cited from many authors and Rivera’s comments upon and inferences from these are strong and original. In the course of the book he summarizes the scientific work really done—and there was some—in Mexico during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He sums up his argument in eleven corollaries. Our selections are taken from the Filosofía en Nueva España and from a curious dialogue regarding the teaching of Indian languages.

On February 28, 1902, after many years of absence, Agustin Rivera was in Guadalajara; his completion of seventy-eight years of life was there celebrated by a large circle of his friends, old students, admirers, and readers, most brilliantly. In October, 1901, a proposition, that the national government should pension the faithful and fearless old man, was unanimously carried by the one hundred and twenty-five votes in the House of Deputies in the City of Mexico. It is pleasant to see these acts of public recognition of the value of a long life usefully spent.

BACKWARDNESS OF MEXICO IN VICEROYAL TIMES.

My lack of pecuniary resources does not allow me to give greater bulk to this book by translating Document I. from Latin into Spanish; but those who know the Latin language and philosophy will observe that in the Department of Physics in the College of Santo Tomás in Guadalajara were taught the first cause, the properties of secondary causes, supernatural operations, the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, eternity—everything, in fact, save physics. Neither the word heat, nor the word light, is met with once in the program. The program cited, further accentuates ignorance of modern logic and modern metaphysics. Such was the teaching of philosophy by the Jesuits in the schools of New Spain, until the end of their instruction and existence in this country, since the public acto, in the College of Santo Tomás, took place in 1764, and three years later they were expelled (June 25, 1767). History proves that the Jesuits were at the front in teaching in the colleges of New Spain, and if they taught such things, what could those teach who were in the rear?

Lucas Alaman, Adolfo Llanos, Niceto de Zamacois, Ignacio Aguilar y Marocho, and other writers, open partisans of the colonial government (few indeed in this nineteenth century) to such documents as form the matter of this Dissertation reply: “It was the logic, the metaphysics and the physics of that epoch.” The statement is false and one might say that the writers mentioned were ignorant of history, or that, knowing it, they made sport of the credulity and good faith of their readers, were it not that the intelligence and honesty of the four writers—and of others—is well established, and did not logic teach us that there are other sources of error in judgment besides ignorance and bad faith; that a great source of errors is preoccupation, as that of Alaman and Aguilar Marocho—for all that concerns the monarchy and viceroyalty; and a great source of errors is passion, vehement and uncontrolled, as the love of country which sways Zamacois, Llanos, and other Spanish writers.... The statement is false, I repeat, and, in consequence, the conclusion is nul: nulla solutio. I shall prove it.

The discovery of the New World, the origin of the Americans and their magnificent ruins and antiquities, scattered over the whole country; the Aztec civilization, grand in a material way; their human sacrifices, which in fundamental meaning involved a great genesiac thought and in application were a horrible fanaticism; the Conquest of Mexico, in which present themselves:—Hernan Cortes, the first warrior of modern times, though with indelible stains; Pedro de Alvarado, Gonzalo de Sandoval, Cristobal de Olid, and Diego de Ordaz, with their feats of heroism and their crimes; Cuauhtemotzin, Xicotencatl, Cacamotzin, and the other Indian warriors with their immortal patriotism; the interesting figure of Marina; Bartolomé de Olmedo, Pedro de Gante, Bartolomé de las Casas, Juan de Zumárraga, Toribio de Motolinia, Bernardino de Sahagun, and the other missionaries surrounded by an aureole of light which brings posterity to its knees; all the conjunct of the Conquest, as the finest subject for an epic poem; “the Laws of the Indies,” the encomiendas, the Inquisition; Antonio Mendoza, the venerable Palafox, Fray Payo Enriquez de Rivera, the Duke of Linares, Revilla Gigedo the second, and other excellent viceroys; the fecund events of 1808; the Revolution of the Independence, the first and second empires, and many other events in the history of Mexico during its five epochs, have already been treated and ventilated in many books, pamphlets and journals—some sufficiently, others overmuch. Poetry in New Spain has been magnificently treated by my respected friend, the learned Francisco Pimentel, in Volume I. of his Historia de la Literatura y de las Ciencias en Mexico. But Philosophy in New Spain is a subject that has not been specifically treated by only one. This work has, perhaps, no other merit than novelty, which would be worth nothing without truth, supported by good testimonies. As regards Spain I shall take my testimonies from no foreign authors—lest the bourbonist writers might reject them as disaffected and prejudiced, and so shield themselves—but from Spanish writers; with the exception of one and another Mexican, accepted by all Spaniards as trustworthy, such as Alzate and Beristain.... And among Spaniards I will refrain from citing Emilio Castelar and others of the extreme left.

DISTRIBUTION OF OFFICES IN NEW SPAIN.

With regard to the public offices in New Spain, of consequence for the honor connected with them, or because of the fat salary, Señor Zamacois says:

“It has been said, in regard to official positions, that the Mexicans filled only the less important; in this, another error has been committed. The monarchs of Castille considered those born in the American colonies as Spaniards, and made no distinction between them and Peninsulars; all had equal rights and, therefore, in making an appointment, there was no question whether the person named came from the provinces of America or those of the Peninsula.... The offices and appointments were conferred in equal numbers on the sons of America and Peninsulars.”

By way of digression, I may present a few penstrokes, but they will be sufficient for any intelligent man. Padre Mariana, high authority in history, states this maxim: History takes no sides until shown a clean record. Señor Zamacois shows no clean record for his assertions. I will present mine. There were sixty-two Viceroys of Mexico, and of these fifty-nine were Spaniards of the Peninsula and three were creoles—Luiz de Velasco, native of the City of Mexico, Juan de Acuña, native of Lima, and Revilla Gigedo the second, native of Havana; in consequence, only one was Mexican. There were thirty-three Bishops of Guadalajara and of these twenty-six were Spanish Peninsulars and seven were creoles; these were ...; that is to say, only five were Mexicans. I confess my ignorance; I do not understand Señor Zamacois’s arithmetic—the equality between 26 and 7. There were thirty-four Bishops of Michoacan, and of these there were thirty Spanish Peninsulars and four creoles; these were ...; that is to say, only two were Mexicans. Thirty equals four? Please, Señor Zamacois. There were thirty-one Archbishops of Mexico, of whom twenty-nine were Spanish Peninsulars and two creoles; these were ...; that is to say, only one was Mexican. Twenty-nine Spaniards and two creoles are equal.

* * * *

Adolfo Llanos, in treating this matter, goes (as is his custom farther than Zamacois, saying that the ecclesiastical offices of importance were obtained by the creoles, not equally with the Spaniards, but preponderantly over them.) He says:

“Americans were preferred by the Spanish Kings over Europeans, in the assignment of high ecclesiastical dignities.”

Let us leave Llanos and the other blind defenders of the vice-regal government.

SCIENCE VERSUS SCHOLASTICISM.

Modern philosophers, notable in European lands (outside of Spain) were numbered by hundreds, and the young Gamarra did nought but glean in so abundant a field. Galileo and Harvey! What brilliant and suitable examples men of great talent furnish! Harvey, in his study, with a frog in his hand. As parallels and comparisons are most useful in understanding a subject, as a recognized rule of law says that placing two opposing views face to face both are more clearly known, I venture to add—after Gamarra’s fashion—a parallel between Harvey and Domingo Soto. A frog! here I have a thing apparently vile and despicable; the Epistles of Saint Paul, here I have a thing infinitely sublime. A film to which the intestines of a frog are attached; what thing meaner? The science of theology; what thing so grand? To soil one’s hands with the blood and secretions of an animal; occupation, to all appearance, vile; to take the pen for explaining the Holy Scriptures; occupation, sacred and sublime. And yet, Domingo Soto with his scholastic commentaries on the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Romans was of no use to humanity; and Harvey, presenting himself in the great theater of the scientific world, with a frog in his hand, discovering the circulation of the blood, rendered an immense service to mankind. Domingo Soto was a Catholic, and one of the Fathers of the Council of Trent, and Harvey was a Protestant—and yet, without doubt, the Catholic Church does not esteem the commentaries of its son Soto, and, in the Vatican’s council, has sounded the praises of the discovery of the Protestant Harvey.

PHILOSOPHY IN NEW SPAIN.
COROLLARIES.

1. Studies never flourished under the Colonial regime.

2. Spain in the seventeenth century and in the first and second thirds of the eighteenth century was poor and backward in philosophy, and New Spain during the same period was in the same predicament.

3. That New Spain was backward in philosophy at that time because such was the philosophy of the epoch, is false.

4. The ideas and impulse in the modern philosophical sciences, which New Spain received during the last years of the eighteenth and the early years of the nineteenth century, did not come mainly from Spain, but from the other principal nations of Europe.

5. It follows, from Spain and New Spain having been backward in philosophy, that they were also backward in theology, jurisprudence, medicine, and in all the sciences, because philosophy is the basis of all.

6. The expression, “Spain taught us what she herself knew,” is not a good excuse or exoneration.

7. The scholastic philosophy is useful; the pseudo-scholastic is prejudicial.

8. The history of the viceroyal government is most useful.

9. This dissertation is a new book.

10. “Not as a spider, nor as an ant, but as a bee.”

11. The union between Spaniards and Mexicans is very useful; but history cannot be silenced by the claim that it is a social union.

DIALOGUE BETWEEN AGUSTIN RIVERA AND FLORENCITO LEVILON.

“How are you, sir?”

“How are you, Florencito? When did you arrive?”

“Yesterday.”

“I am greatly pleased that you have called to see me. What have you studied this year?”

“The Aztec language; here is the invitation to my public examination. The program was as fine as usual, since my teacher, Señor Don Agustin de la Rosa, spoke splendidly, as every year, of the philosophy and richness of the Aztec tongue.”

“Thank you. And how many students were there in the subject?”

“This year we were so many, last year there were so many, the year before so many, and the same, more or less, so I have heard, in years gone by.”

“What a pity! They are few, almost nothing in comparison with the necessity that exists in our Republic for men who study the native tongues. But these few, at least, attend the exercises every school day?”

“No, sir; far from it! Some attend, and others not, just as they please.”

“And, the days they do attend, they study the Aztec grammar and hear it explained?”

“No, sir; by no means. Many days the teacher and we occupy ourselves in the Levilon.”

“And what is that?”

“Levilon, levilon, ton, ton.”

“I understand you, even less.”

“It is a sort of a marsellaise against cleanness and neatness of person and dress; that is to say, against politeness.”[2]

“But, man, in a college for the instruction of youth—however, let us return to our subject. In the three years you have studied Aztec, have you learned to speak it?”

“No, sir; by no means.”

“Then, what have you learned?”

“The philosophy and richness of the Aztec tongue.”

“But you must have studied the four divisions of Aztec grammar—analogy, syntax, prosody, and orthography—and by this complete study arrived at an understanding of the philosophy and richness of the language.”

“No, sir.”

“But have you not had a public examination?”

“Yes, sir; but those who were publicly examined in past years, have as little, made a complete study of the grammar, but have also learned the philosophy and richness of the Mexican tongue.”

“Come! let us see. How many years has the chair of the Aztec language been established in the Seminario at Guadalajara?”

“About thirty.”

“And during about thirty years has some priest gone forth from the institution to preach to the Indians in their native language?”

“Why, no sir! During the thirty years what has been, and is, learned is the philosophy and richness of the Aztec language. You must have seen the precious little work, by my professor, upon the beauty and richness of the Aztec language, elegantly bound, which was sent to the Paris Exposition.”

“But man—Florencito,” (rising, pacing, and puffing at my cigar) “really, all this and nothing are much the same. These programs, in which one speaks eloquently of the beauty and richness of the Aztec language are no more than pretty theories. This book upon the richness and beauty of the Aztec language, with all its elegant binding, is but a pretty theory. The practical! The practical! Let me give you my opinion in the matter briefly, and in four propositions: First, the ecclesiastical government and the civil government have the obligation and the mission of civilizing the Indians; second, for this, in each bishopric and in each State there ought to be chairs of the Indian languages spoken in the territory—for example, in the Seminary and in one of the State Colleges of Mexico, there ought to be a chair of the Aztec language; in the Seminary and State College of Queretaro, there ought to be a chair of Otomi; in the Seminary and in the State College of Morelia, there ought to be chairs of Tarascan and Matlazinca; in the Seminary and in the State College of Guadalajara, there ought to be a chair of the Cora language; in the Seminary and State College of San Luis Potosi, there ought to be a chair of the Huastec; in the Seminary and the State College of Puebla, there ought to be a chair of Aztec; in the Seminary and the State College of Jalapa there ought to be a chair of Totonaco; in the Seminary and in the State College of Oaxaca there ought to be chairs of the different indigenous languages spoken in the territory—chiefly the Mixtec and Zapotec, etc.; third, it ought to be, that from the seminaries there shall go forth priests to be curas in the Indian towns of the bishopric, who shall preach to the Indians and catechize them in their own language; fourth, it ought to be, that from the State Colleges, primary teachers shall go forth to teach the elementary branches to the Indians of the State, in their own idiom—and shall go forth jefes politicos, who shall be able to treat with the Indians, talking to them in their own languages.”

“Sir, these things appear to me impossible.”

“Yes, I know that there can be given but two answers to my proposition and my arguments. The first is the ‘non possumus,’ ‘we cannot.’[3] One can preach in cathedrals and other magnificent temples, to an elegant gathering, afterward print the sermon and distribute copies liberally to select society; but to subject one’s self to the task of learning an indigenous tongue, and to go to preach to the Indians—that, one cannot do. One can be a jefe politico in a city, where comforts abound, and draw a fat salary; but the abnegation and patriotism of exercising the administrative power in an Indian town—a despicable thing! Sad reply. Unhappy Mexican nation during the colonial epoch! and, unhappy Mexican nation, still, in 1891, because you yet preserve many—even very many—remnants of the colonial education, and this is the principal hindrance to your progress and well-being. We Mexicans, because of the education which we received from the Spanish, are much given to scholastic disputes, to beautiful discourses, pretty poems, enthusiastic toasts, quixotic proclamations, projects, laws, decrees, programs of scientific education, plans of public amelioration, in Andalusian style and well-rounded periods; but, as for the practical—the Spanish sloth, the Spanish fanaticism for the statu quo, the Indian idleness and cowardice, do but little. In theories we have the boldness of Don Quixote, and in practice we have the pusillanimity, the inability to conquer obstacles, and the phlegm of Sancho Panza.”

“My teacher, Don Agustin,” said Florencito, “has told us that Padre Sahagun and many other missionaries of the sixteenth century dedicated themselves to the study of the native tongues because they found them highly philosophical and adapted to express even metaphysical ideas.”

“That is true,” I replied, “but the Padre Sahagun and the other missionary philologists of the sixteenth century dedicated themselves to the study of the Indian languages of the country, not to detain themselves ... (in) the philosophy and richness of the Aztec language, without moving a peg to go and teach some Indian; but in order that they might use them as means for the practical—to wit, to preach, to catechize, and to teach the Indians the civilizing truths of Christianity.”

ALFREDO CHAVERO.

Few men are better known throughout Mexico today than Alfredo Chavero. As a lawyer, a politician, a man of affairs and a writer, he has been eminently successful. He was born in the City of Mexico, February 1, 1841. He studied law, and began the practice of the profession at the age of twenty years. In 1862 he was elected Deputy to Congress. A Liberal in politics, he was associated with Juarez throughout the period of the French intervention. After the downfall of the Empire in 1867, he entered journalism and began his career in letters. During the administration of Lerdo de Tejada he was in Europe, but when that government fell, he returned to Mexico and was appointed to the second position in the department of foreign affairs. He has occupied other important government positions, among them that of City Treasurer and Governor of the Federal District and has for many years been a member of the House of Deputies, of which he has at times been the presiding officer.

Señor Chavero is, probably, the foremost living Mexican authority upon the antiquities of that country. He is also an eminent historian. In both archæology and history he has written important works. At the quadricentennial celebration of the discovery of America, he was the chief member of a commission, which among other things published a great work—Antigüedades Mexicanas—which was largely devoted to facsimile reproduction of ancient Mexican picture manuscripts, before unpublished; the accompanying explanatory text was written by Chavero himself. Among other archæological works he has written Los dioses astronomicos de los antiguos Mexicanos (the Astronomical Gods of the Ancient Mexicans)—and studies upon the stone of the sun, and the stone of hunger. He has lately published the Wheel of Years, and Hieroglyphic Paintings. He was the author of the first volume of the great work México á traves de los Siglos, (Mexico, Through the Centuries), a history of Mexico in five large quarto volumes. Each of these volumes dealt with a distinct epoch of Mexican history and was written by a specialist. Chavero’s volume treated Prehistoric Mexico in a masterly fashion. In biography Chavero’s lives of Sahagun, Siguenza, and Boturini deal with Spanish-Mexicans, his Itzcoatl and Montezuma with natives. He has edited, with scholarly annotation, the works of Ixtlilxochitl and Muñoz Camargo’s Historia de Tlaxcala.

But Alfredo Chavero has also written in the field of dramatic literature, some of his plays having been well received. Xochitl, Quetzalcoatl and Los Amores de Alarcon (The Loves of Alarcon) are among the best known. In Xochitl and Quetzalcoatl, the romantic events of the days of the Conquest and the life of the Indians, furnish his material. In all his writing, Chavero is simple, direct, and strong; his style is graceful and his treatment interesting.

Our quotations are drawn from México á traves de los Siglos and Xochitl.

THE CHRONICLERS.

Still, among the first writers of the colonial epoch we shall encounter some authentic material regarding the ancient Indians. Some chroniclers based their narratives upon hieroglyphs, which they did not limit themselves to interpreting, but which also served them as a foundation for more extended records; contemporaries of the Conquest, they had heard from the conquered themselves, their traditional history. Others, without availing themselves of the assistance of the paintings, simply recorded the traditions in their works—and we must remember that, on account of the inadequacy of their hieroglyphic writing, the Mexicans were ever accustomed to carry the glorious deeds of their race in memory, which they taught their children, in song and story, that they might not be forgotten. Without doubt, the first works of the chroniclers suffered from the natural vagueness which is felt in expressing new ideas. They are not, and could not be, complete treatises because each wrote merely what he himself could gather. The most important personages of the vanquished people dead, in fighting for their country, few remained who knew the secrets of their history, and the greater number of these did not lend themselves to their revelation. The chroniclers, themselves, concealed something of what they learned, especially if it related to the gods and the religious calendar, for fear of reawakening the barely dormant idolatry. Also from the very first, the desire to harmonize the beliefs of the Indians, and their traditions, with the Biblical narrative, was, in part, responsible for the confusion in their writings; a desire very natural in that epoch, and which must be taken into account in reading the chronicles, in order to get rid of false judgments born from it. But whatever may be their defects, it cannot be denied that they constitute a most precious material, in which, seeking discreetly and logically, abundant historic treasures are encountered. We present, therefore, some discussion of the principal chroniclers and their relative importance and examine impartially the works of our historians.

THE SURRENDER OF CUAUHTEMOC.

At dawn Sandoval proceeded, with the brigantines to take possession of the lakelet; Alavardo was to advance from the market, and Cortes sallied from his camp, with the three iron cannon, certain that their balls would compel the besieged to surrender and would do them less damage than the fury of the allies. In his march he met many men almost dead, weakened women, and emaciated children, on their way to the Spanish camp. Some miserable beings, in order to escape from their last hold, had thrown themselves into the canals, or had fallen into them, pushed from behind by others, and were drowned. Cortes issued orders that no harm should be done them, but the allies robbed them and killed more than fifteen thousand persons. The priests and warriors, thin with hunger and worn with labor, armed with their weapons and bearing their standards, passively awaited the attack, on top of the temple, on house roofs, or standing in their canoes. Cortes ascended also to the roof of a house near the lake, that he might oversee the operations. He again offered peace to those who were in the canoes, and insisted that some one should go to speak with Cuauhtemoc. Two principales agreed to go and, after a long time the Cihuacoatl returned with them to say that his king did not care to speak of peace. Some five hours having passed in these transactions, Cortes commanded to open fire with the cannons. It was three in the afternoon, when Cuauhtemoc’s shell-horn was heard for the last time; the Mexicans on the east and south precipitated themselves upon their opponents and the canoes attacked the brigantines.

Cuauhtemoc, when it was no longer in human power to resist, preferred flight to surrender, and in order to succeed, distracted the attention of his opponents. While these, battling and routing the Mexicans, penetrated into their last refuge from the south and east, and while Sandoval was destroying the fleet of canoes, Cuauhtemoc, with Tecuichpoch and the chief dignitaries, sallied in canoes from Tlacochcalco—gained the western canal, whence, by great labor, he reached the lake. He directed himself toward the opposite shore, to seek refuge in Cuauhtlalpan.

But Garcia Holguin saw the canoes of the fugitives and setting the sails of his brigantine, gave chase; already he had them within range and the gunners were in the prow, ready to shoot, when Cuauhtemoc rose and said—‘Do not shoot; I am the king of Mexico; take me and lead me to Malintzin, but let no one harm the queen.’ With Cuauhtemoc were ..., the only dignitaries, high-priests, and principales, who had survived. All were transferred to the brigantine.... Cortes, as we have said, was upon the roof of a house in the quarter of Amaxac, a house belonging to a principal, named Aztacoatzin. He caused it to be decorated with rich mantles and brightly colored mattings, for the reception of the imperial captive. By his side were Marina and Aguilar, Pedro de Alavardo and Cristobal de Olid. The prisoners arrived led by Sandoval and Holguin. Cortes rose and, with the noble respect of a conqueror for the unfortunate hero, embraced Cuauhtemoc tenderly. Tears came to the eyes of the captive and, placing his hand upon the hilt of the conqueror’s poignard, said to him the following words with which at once succumbed a king, his race, his native land, and his gods—‘Malintzin, after having done what I could in defense of my city and my nation, I come, perforce and a prisoner, before thy person and thy power; take, now, this dagger and kill me.’

* * * *

Xochitl is a fair example of Chavero’s dramas. It comprises three acts and is in verse. There are but five actors—Cortes, Marina (his Indian interpreter and mistress), Xochitl (a beautiful Indian girl, supposed to be Marina’s sister), Bernal Diaz del Castillo (faithful soldier of Cortes and best chronicler of the Conquest), and Gonzalo Alaminos (brought, though a mere youth, from Spain, by Cortes, as a page). Xochitl is, really, an Aztec maiden who, when the Spaniards first appeared, was serving in the temple; Gonzalo, wounded, was brought a prisoner to the temple, where he is nursed by Xochitl, between whom and himself ardent love arises. After the capture of the city, they are separated and Xochitl is sent, as a slave to Tabasco, a present to Marina’s unknown sister. Marina summons her sister to Mexico; she starts but dies upon the journey and Xochitl, substituted for her, reaches the city and is taken at once into Cortes’ house, by her supposed sister. Cortes, having tired of Marina, falls in love with Xochitl; his affection is not reciprocated. Marina, knowing that the love of Cortes has cooled, though she does not know the new object of his love, remorseful for her treachery to her own people and smarting under the contempt of Indian and Spaniard both, is ever complaining and querulous. Xochitl, terrified at Cortes’ love, consults Bernal and makes known the facts to Gonzalo. They plan to flee and set an hour for meeting. Cortes, anxious to rid himself of Marina, determines to send her to Orizaba, to wed Jaramillo; sending for Gonzalo he orders him to accompany her and arranges the departure at the very time set for elopement, by the lovers. The moment is one of public tumult. Gonzalo keeps his appointment but, at the critical moment, Xochitl’s courage fails. Marina appears and Gonzalo abruptly leaves; he is shot in the tumult. Meantime the two women converse; Xochitl narrates the story of her life, her substitution for Marina’s sister, her love for Gonzalo and Cortes’ love for her. They separate in anger. Cortes entering, announces Gonzalo’s death, and mourns him, confessing him to be his natural son. Xochitl, in her agony, tells Cortes of the love there had been between Gonzalo and herself; Marina, appearing at this moment, hands the unhappy girl the weapon with which she kills herself. As she dies, she reveals her complete identity, she is the last survivor of the royal house, the sister of Cuauhtemoc. Cortes overwhelmed by grief for Gonzalo, loss of Xochitl, and weariness of Marina, sends the latter at once to Orizaba, in Bernal’s care.

PASSAGES FROM XOCHITL.

Bernal and Gonzalo, meeting, discuss the recent conquest of Nueva Galicia by the infamous Nuño de Guzman.

Gonzalo. “If to lay waste fields and towns,
If to assassinate war captives,
If to violate pledged faith,
Is to be Christian, I admit
That Don Nuño de Guzman
Is of Christians, the very type.
The Tlaxcallans complain,
Who have been our faithful allies,
That, like beasts of burden,
He has led them over
Hard roads, not fighting—
As they were led to expect—
But, bearing on their shoulders
Great, heavy burdens;
And that those, who, from fatigue,
Bernal, could go no further,
Were instanter thrown to the dogs,
Or left, without assistance,
In the forests. Their shoulders
Covered with wounds, I have seen;
Upon frightful chafed spots,
The memory of which appals me,
They carried our provisions;
Meantime, Don Nuño, tranquil,
Sought renown in war,
Or enriched himself,
By plundering defenseless villages.
Imagine, friend Bernal,
If he mistreats our allies,
What he would do to enemies.”

* * * *

Xochitl confers with Bernal as to what she ought to do:

(Pause.)

(She departs.)

* * * *

Cortes communicates his plans for Marina—first to Gonzalo, then to Marina, herself.
(Pause.)

* * * *

In 1882, General Riva Palacio, author and statesman, published a little book Los Ceros (The Zeros), under the nom-de-plume of Cero. It was a good natured criticism of contemporary authors, written in a satirical vein. We will close with some quotations from it regarding Chavero.

“Well, then, let us study Chavero upon his two weak sides, that is to say upon his strong sides, because, it is a curious thing, that we always say—‘this is my forte,’ when we are speaking of some penchant, while common opinion at once translates, ‘this is his weakness’; strength is the impregnable side, but we call the more vulnerable, the strong side.

“Archæology and the drama! Does it seem to you the title of a comedy? But no, dear sir, these are the passions of our friend, Alfredo Chavero.

“True, archæologists and dramatists are lacking in this land so full of antiques and comicalities; but theatrical management is difficult and the way is sown—worse than with thorns—almost with bayonets.

“Alfredo has produced good dramas, but nobly dominated by the patriotic spirit, he has wished to place upon the boards, such personages as the Queen Xochitl, and Meconetzin, and with these personages no one gains a reputation here in Mexico.... Our society, our nation, has no love for its traditions. Perhaps those writers are to blame for this, who ever seek for the actors in their story, personages of the middle ages, who love and fight in fantastic castles on the banks of the Rhine, or ladies and knights of the times of Orgaz and Villamediana; those novelists, who disdain the slightest reference in their works, to the banquets, dress, and customs of our own society; who long to give aristocratic flavor to their novels, by picturing Parisian scenes in Mexico and sketching social classes, which they have seen through the pages of Arrsenne Houssaye, Emile Zola, Henri Bourger, or Paison de Terrail; and our poets, who ever speak of nightingales and larks, gazelles and jacinths, without ever venturing to give place, in their doleful ditties, to the cuitlacoche, nor the zentzontl, nor the cocomitl, nor the yoloxochitl.”

“As the Arabs have their Hegira, the Christians their era, and the Russians their calendar without the Gregorian correction, so Chaverito[4] has his personal era and chronology. The eolithic or neolithic ages signify nought to him, nor the jurassic nor the cretaceous periods; he counts and divides his periods in a manner peculiar to himself and comprehensible to us, the ignoramuses in geology, archæology, and palæontology.

“Thus, for example, treating of archæology he says: ‘in Manuel Payno’s boyhood’—when he refers to preadamite man; of men like Guillermo Prieto, he says ‘they are of the geological horizon of Guillermo Valle’; soldiers, like Corona, he calls ‘volcanic formations’; the customs’ house receipts he names ‘marine sediments’; ‘the stone age,’ in his nomenclature, signifies the time before he was elected Deputy;—when he says ‘before the creation,’ it is understood that he refers to days when he had not yet been Governor of the Federal District; and if he says ‘after Christ,’ he must be supposed to speak of an epoch posterior to his connection with the State Department; and it is claimed, that he is so skilled in understanding hieroglyphs, that he has deciphered the whole history of Xochimilco, in the pittings left by small-pox, on the face of a son of that pueblo.”

“Suppose, dear reader, you encounter one of those stones, so often found in excavating in Mexico, a fragment on which are to be seen, coarsely cut, some engravings, or horrible reliefs, or shapeless figures—have it washed, and present it to Chavero.

“Alfredo will wrinkle his forehead, take a pinch of snuff, join his hands behind him, and displaying so much of his paunch as possible, will spit out for your benefit, a veritable discourse:

“‘The passage which this stone represents is well known; it figures in an episode in the great war between the Atepocates,[5] warlike population of southern Anahuac, and the Escuimiles, their rivals, in which the latter were finally conquered. The person standing is Chilpocle XI, of the dynasty of the Chacualoles, who, by the death of his father Chichicuilote III, inherited the throne, being in his infancy, and his mother, the famous Queen Apipisca II, the Semiramis of Tepachichilco, was regent during his youth. The person kneeling is Chayote V, unfortunate monarch of the vanquished, who owed the loss of his kingdom to the treachery of his councillor, Chincual, who is behind him. The two persons near the victor are his son, who was afterward the celebrated conqueror Cacahuatl II, and his councillor, the illustrious historian and philosopher Guajalote, nicknamed Chicuase, for the reason that he had six fingers on his left hand, and who was the chronicler of the revolt and destruction of the tribes of the Mestlapiques. The two-pointed star-symbols, which are seen above, are the arms of the founder of the dynasty, Chahiustl the Great, and this stone was sculptured during the golden age of the arts of the Atepotecas, when, among their sculptors figured the noted Ajoloth, among their painters the most famous Tlacuil, and among their architects the celebrated Huasontl.’”

JULIO ZÁRATE.

Julio Zárate was born April 12, 1844, at Jalapa, in the State of Vera Cruz, where he received his education. Since he was twenty-three years of age he has been continuously in public life. In 1867 he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies, of which he remained a member for twenty-five years, being, at times, president, vice-president, or secretary of the body. In 1879 and 1880 he was the Assistant Secretary of Foreign Affairs for the Republic, in 1884 to 1886 Secretary of State of the State of Vera Cruz, and from 1896 to the present time he has been a Justice of the Supreme Court of Mexico.

Through all this long period of active public service, he has found time for literary work. From 1870 to 1875 was an editor of El Siglo XIX (The Nineteenth Century), in its time one of the most important journals of the Mexican capital. He wrote the third volume of the great work on national history—México á traves de los Siglos (Mexico Through the Centuries), treating of the War of Independence. For twenty years past, from 1883, he has been Professor of General History in the National Normal School. He has written two text-books, one a compend of general history, the other of the history of Mexico. He has also been a contributor to various literary journals. While in the Chamber of Deputies he was known for his oratorical ability and his speeches were often notable for form and thought. He is a member of many learned societies at home and abroad—a miembro de numero of the Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía y Estadistica (Mexican Society of Geography and Statistics).

Our selections are from México á traves de los Siglos.

THE DEATH OF HIDALGO

Supporting himself on the opinion of the Assessor Bracho, the Commandant General, Don Nicolás Salcedo had already, since the 26th, ordered the execution. After the degradation (from the priestly office) had been concluded, the sentence of death and confiscation of his goods was made known to Hidalgo on the same day—the 29th—and he was told to select a confessor to impart to him the last religious consolations. The illustrious promulgator of independence selected Friar José Mariá Rojas, who had been notary of the ecclesiastical process instituted by the Bishop of Durango. In his prison, which was the room under the tower of the chapel of the Royal Hospital, he received kind and compassionate treatment from his two guards, Ortega and Guaspe (a Spaniard), alcaldes of that prison, to whom he showed his gratitude in two ten-line poems written by himself with a piece of coal upon the wall, the evening of his death.

The 30th of July, the last day of his life, dawned and in his last hours he showed the greatest calmness. “He noticed,” says Bustamente, “that at breakfast they had given him less milk than usual, and asked for more, saying that it ought not to be less, just because it was last.... At the moment of marching to the place of execution, he remembered that he had left some sweets under his pillow; he returned for them and divided them among the soldiers, who were to shoot him.” At seven in the morning he was taken to a place behind the hospital, where the sentence was executed; he did not die at the first discharge, but after falling to the ground received numerous bullets. His body found sepulchre in the Chapel of San Antonio of the Convent of San Francisco, and his head and those of Allende, Aldama and Jiménez were carried to Guanajuato and placed in cages of iron at each one of the corners of the Alhondiga[6] of Granaditas, where they remained until 1821, when they were taken to the Ermita de San Sebastian. On the door of the Alhondiga, by order of the Intendant, Fernando Pérez Marañón, the following inscription was placed:

“The heads of Miguel Hidalgo, Ignacio Allende, Juan Aldama, and Mariano Jiménez, notorious deceivers and leaders of the revolution; they sacked and stole the treasures of God’s worship and of the royal treasury; they shed, with the greatest atrocity, the blood of faithful priests and just magistrates; and, they were the cause of all the disasters, misfortunes, and calamities which we here experience and which afflict, and are deplored by, all the inhabitants of this, so integral, part of the Spanish nation.

“Placed here by order of the Señor Brigadier, Felix María Calleja del Rey, illustrious conqueror of Aculco, Guanajuato and Calderon, and Restorer of the Peace in this America. Guanajuato, 14 of October, 1811.”

But, the hour of reparation, though tardy, arrived; one of the first acts of the independent and liberated nation was to consecrate the memory of its martyrs and to reward the efforts of its loyal sons, and on the thirteenth anniversary of the glorious Grito de Dolores (The Cry of Dolores, i. e., the motto of independence) the heads of Hidalgo, Allende, Aldama, and Jiménez, slowly become fleshless in the cages of Granaditas, and their other remains buried in the humble cemetery of Chihuahua, were received with solemn pomp at the Capital city and a grateful people bore them to rest forever in the magnificent sepulchre, before destined for the Spanish viceroys; the names of those heroes and of other eminent leaders, were inscribed in letters of gold in the Hall of Congress, and those of all will remain in indestructible characters in Mexican hearts.

GENERAL NICOLÁS BRAVO.

Still fresh the laurels just gained in San Agustin, the valiant youth proceeded to the province which had been assigned to him as the seat of his campaign, and early in September advanced with three thousand men to Medellin, after attacking a Royalist convoy at the Puente del Rey and taking ninety prisoners of the troops that guarded it. There Bravo was to cover himself with an immortal glory, without counterpart in history.

His father, General Leonardo Bravo, since the month of May prisoner of the Royalists, had been condemned to death in Mexico—and to the same fate were destined José María Piedras and Luciano Pérez, apprehended at the same time, after the sally from Cuautla. The viceroy had suspended the execution of the sentence, in the hope that the prisoner might influence his sons, Nicolás and his brothers, to desert the files of the Independents and to ask for pardon, under which condition he offered him his life. But the youthful leader, although authorized by Morelos to save his father by accepting the pardon offered by the viceroyal government, believed he ought not to trust in the pledges given, since he remembered that some time before, the brothers Orduñas were victims of the Royalist Colonel José Antonio Andrade, who had promised them pardon but, when he had them in his power, commanded their execution.

Morelos then wrote to the viceroy, Vanegas, offering the surrender of eight hundred prisoners, mostly Spanish, as the price of Leonardo Bravo’s life. The viceroyal government, in turn, refused this proposition and on September 13, 1812, General Bravo and his fellow prisoners, Piedras and Pérez, suffered, in Mexico, the penalty of the garrote, the former displaying, in his last moments, that calm and valor, of which he had given so many proofs in battle. In communicating this sad news to Nicolás Bravo, Morelos ordered him to put all the Spanish prisoners he held—some three hundred in number—to the knife. Let us hear the hero himself narrate his noble action, with the simplicity of one of Plutarch’s characters:

“In effect, he said to me in the proposition made to me in Cuernavaca, that the Viceroy Vanegas offered me amnesty and the life of my father, if I would yield myself.... When Morelos was in Tehuacan he appointed me General-in-chief of the forces, which were operating in the province of Vera Cruz.... I commenced to fight him (Labaqui) and, after an action lasting forty-eight hours, gained a complete victory, making two hundred prisoners, whom I sent under escort to the province of Vera Cruz, and returned with all my wounded to Tehuacan to give account of the action of arms confided to me. In the interview which I had with Morelos, he told me that he was about to send a communication to the viceroy, Vanegas, offering him, for my father’s life, eight hundred Spanish prisoners, and that he would inform me of the result. I immediately returned to the Province of Vera Cruz, where, five days after leaving Tehuacan, I had another favorable action near Puente Nacional, attacking a convoy, which was proceeding to Jalapa with supplies; I took ninety prisoners and betook myself to Medellin, where I established my headquarters and from where I threatened the city of Vera Cruz, with the three thousand men who were under my command. After a few days Morelos notified me that the proposition which he had made to the viceroy had not been accepted and that he (the viceroy) had, on the contrary, commanded that my father be put to the garrote and that he was already dead; he commanded me at the same time to order that all the Spanish prisoners in my power be put to the knife, and informed me that he had ordered the same to be done with the four hundred, who were in Zacatula and other points; I received this notice at four in the afternoon and it moved me so much that I commanded the nearly three hundred that I had at Medellin to prepare for death and ordered the chaplain (a monk named Sotomayor) to aid them; but during the night, not being able to sleep, I reflected, that the reprisals I was about to practice would greatly diminish the credit of the cause which I defended, and that by adopting a conduct contrary to the viceroy’s I would secure better results, an idea which pleased me far more than my first resolution; then there presented itself the difficulty of palliating my disobedience to the order I had received, if I carried my resolve into effect; with these thoughts, I occupied myself the whole night until four o’clock in the morning, when I resolved to pardon them in a public manner, which should produce the desired effects in favor of the cause of independence; with this end in view, I withheld my decision until eight in the morning, when I ordered my troops to draw up in the form usual in cases of execution; the prisoners were brought out and placed in the centre, where I informed them that the viceroy, Vanegas, had exposed them to death that day, in not having accepted the proposition made in their favor for the life of my father, whom he had given to the garrote in the Capital; that I, not caring to parallel such conduct, had determined, not only to spare their lives for the moment, but to give them entire freedom to go where they pleased. To this, filled with joy they replied, that no one desired to leave, that all remained at the service of my division, which they did, with the exception of five merchants of Vera Cruz, who on account of business interests were given passports for that city; among these was a Senor Madariaga who, afterward, in union with his companions, sent me, in appreciation, the gift of sufficient cloth to make clothing for a full battalion.”

Never, in past times nor in modern ages, could history record in its pages so noble an action; and never has human magnanimity expressed its lofty deeds with more sublime simplicity than that of the Mexican hero in the document, which we have just copied. In the midst of that war of extermination, Bravo displays the noble sentiment of forgiveness as a supreme protest of humanity whose laws were being disregarded and trampled under foot; he condemns the barbarous system of reprisals; he teaches the conquerors, who immolated without exception so many prisoners as fell into their hands, to respect the life of the conquered; in contrast to Venegas, Calleja, Cruz (Alaman’s hero), Trujillo, Llano, Porlier, Castillo Bustamente, and so many others, stained with Mexican blood and thirsting for vengeance, he presents the spotless figure of the patriot giving life and liberty to the prisoners in his power; and, he does this when he knows that his noble father, after a prolonged captivity, has succumbed under a punishment reserved for thieves and assassins; and he forgives, when his feared and respected leader orders him to punish. He restrains his great grief and in the reflections to which he yields himself, on the receipt of that order, he does not think of the blood of his father, yet warm; he thinks only of his country’s interests, he believes that the reprisals which he is ordered to practice will greatly diminish the credit of the cause of independence and that, by observing a conduct contrary to that of the viceroy, he would secure better results; he encounters but the one difficulty that he cannot palliate his responsibility in disobeying the order which he has received; and, after meditating all night, he resolves to pardon the prisoners in a public manner, in order that the pardon may secure all the good results desirable in favor of the cause of independence. Bravo, on that day, conquered, for his country, titles of universal respect and rehabilitated human dignity in that period of unbridled cruelty.

JOSÉ MARÍA VIGIL.

José María Vigil was born October 11, 1829, at Guadalajara. Early left an orphan, during the period of his education he was in straitened circumstances. He attended the seminario in Guadalajara and studied law in the university of that city, but failed to secure his degree, on account of his Liberal views. He began literary work in 1849, and in 1851 his drama, Dolores ó una pasion (Dolores, or a passion), was well received at the Teatro Principal, at Guadalajara. In 1857 he published a collection of his poems, under the title Realidades y Quimeras (Realities and Chimeras). In 1866 he published two volumes of verse and drama—Flores de Anahuac (Flowers of Anahuac). These writings were varied in style, and included original compositions and translations from Latin, French, English, Portuguese, Italian, and German. Through this period, Vigil also edited literary periodicals—La Aurora Poetica (The Poetic Dawn), and La Mariposa (The Butterfly).

Señor Vigil’s political career began in 1855, when Comonfort occupied the Plaza of Guadalajara. With other youths, Vigil then began the publication of La Revolucion (The Revolution), in which were expounded the ideas of the later Constitution of the Reform. From then, on through the period of the Intervention, he led an active public life, writing and editing, and in other ways of fearlessly working for democratic principles. On December 31, 1863, he retired as the French entered Guadalajara, and sought a refuge in San Francisco, California, where he edited El Nuevo Mundo (The New World), devoted to the cause he loved. In 1865 poverty compelled him to return to Guadalajara. There he might have received desirable public appointments, had he been willing to receive aught from the Imperial government. He conducted an opposition and patriotic publication, which was more than once suppressed.

Since the Restoration, Vigil has filled many and important public posts. Passing to the City of Mexico, about 1870, he has been, repeatedly, a member of the House of Deputies, always standing for radical democratic ideas. He has done much journalistic work; has pronounced discourses, served in judicial capacities, has edited important works, and has served many years as an educator. He founded La Biblioteca Mexicana (The Mexican Library) in which appear the important works of Las Casas, and Tezozomoc, and the Codice Ramirez. He has been Professor of Logic in the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria. For many years past, and at present, he is the Librarian of the National Library of Mexico. He is a member of all the important literary and scientific societies, among them the Sociedad Mexicana de Geografia y Estadistica and the Liceo Hidalgo. When, in 1881, the Mexican Academy increased its membership to fifteen, by the addition of one new chair, Señor Vigil was the unanimous choice of the academicians. He is now the secretary of that organization.

Señor Vigil is the author of volume five of the great historical work, México á traves de los Siglos (Mexico through the Centuries), treating of the period of La Reforma (The Reform). Our selection is taken from this work.

THE DEATH OF MAXIMILIAN.

Meantime the trial of the prisoners followed its course in Queretaro and, on the 13th, at eight in the morning, the council of war met in the theatre of Iturbide, under the presidency of Lieutenant-Colonel Platón Sánchez, the judges being Commandant-Captain José Vicente Ramirez, Commandant-Captain Emilio Lojero, Captain Ignacio Jurado, Captain Juan Rueda y Auza, Captain José Verástegui and Captain Lucas Villagrán. Maximilian excused himself from attendance on account of illness; the whole of the defense was read and, at eight o’clock at night, the council adjourned to meet again the next day. On the 14th, at half-past-twelve the trial ended after the prosecutor had presented the rebuttal, in which death was demanded, and the defenders had replied. It was easy to guess what the sentence would be and the associate defenders, who were in San Luis Potosí, hastened to direct to the President a second statement begging the pardon, a petition which was repeated on the 16th, on learning that the sentence had been confirmed by the General-in-Chief. The following reply of the President, communicated through the Minister of War, took the last hope from the defenders: “Having examined this appeal for pardon and the others of a similar kind which have been presented to him with all the care which the gravity of the case demands, the President of the Republic has decided that he cannot accede to them, since the gravest considerations of justice and the necessity of safeguarding the peace of the nation oppose themselves to this act of clemency.” At the same time the Minister sent a telegram to General Escobedo, in which he told him that it had been decided that the execution should not take place until the morning of the 19th, in order that the sentenced might have time for the arrangement of their affairs. General Miramon’s wife arrived at San Luis, in these moments, to see if she could save the life of her husband; but Juarez refused to see her, saying to the lawyers of the defense: “Spare me this painful interview, which, considering the irrevocable nature of the decision, would but cause the lady much suffering.” Finally, when Señores Riva Palacios and Martinez de la Torre were parting from the President of the Republic, he said to them: “In fulfilling your duty as defenders, you have suffered much by the inflexibility of the government. Today you cannot understand the necessity of this nor the justice which supports it. The appreciation of this is reserved to the future. The law and the sentence are, at this time, inexorable, because the public welfare demands it. It also may counsel us to the least bloodshed, and this will be the greatest pleasure of my life.”

The legal resources exhausted, the plan of escape, devised by the Princess Salm-Salm, in collusion with the Ministers of Austria, Belgium, and Italy and the French Consul, frustrated; the prisoners waited, with resignation, until the terrible moment should arrive in which the sentence was to be executed. The last letters and dispositions written by Maximilian and Miramon show that their natural valor did not abandon them in those supreme moments. Mejia wrote nothing; but in the mental depression in which the disease from which he was suffering submerged him, he maintained that tranquil stoicism, which marked his temperament.

On the 19th, at six in the morning, a division of four thousand men under command of General Jesús Diaz de León formed at the foot of the Cerro de las Campanas, on the northeast slope. Maximilian, Miramon, and Mejia arrived at about a quarter past seven, brought in carriages, and each one accompanied by a priest. Maximilian descended first and said courteously to his companions in misfortune: “Let us go, gentlemen,” and the three directed themselves with firm step to the place of execution, where they gave each other a farewell embrace. Maximilian then advanced and distributed twenty-peso gold pieces among the soldiers, who were to shoot him, and then, raising his voice, said: “I am about to die for a just cause, the liberty and independence of Mexico. May my blood seal the unhappiness of my new country. Viva Mexico!” Miramon read the following in a loud voice: “Mexicans! in the council of war, my defenders attempted to save my life; here, soon to lose it, and about to appear before God, I protest against the stigma of traitor which they have tried to put upon me to palliate my sacrifice. I die innocent of that crime, and I forgive its authors, hoping that God may pardon me and that my compatriots will remove so foul a stigma from my sons, doing me justice. Viva Mexico!” Placing himself on the spot indicated, Maximilian, who had asked that his face might not be disfigured, separated his beard with his hands, to one side and the other, exposing his chest; Miramon said, “here,” indicating his heart and raising his head; and Mejia, who had given the soldiers charged with his execution an ounce of gold to divide between them, said never a word but merely laid by the crucifix, which he held in his hand, on seeing that they were aiming at him. The signal to fire was given and a discharge put an end to the bloody drama of the Empire in Mexico, which was so fatal for its authors and for its partisans.

PRIMO FELICIANO VELÁSQUEZ.

Primo Feliciano Velásquez was born at Santa María del Rio in the state of San Luis Potosí, June 6, 1860. Before he was nine years of age, on account of promise shown in the school-room, he was taken in hand by the village priest, who taught him Latin and later secured for him admittance to the Seminario Conciliar at the capital city of San Luis Potosí. He was a diligent student and completed his study of law on October 23, 1880. Although his legal career opened auspiciously, he preferred to devote himself to journalism. In 1883 he founded, at San Luis Potosí, a publication intended to promote the celebration of the Iturbide centennial, through which he established a standing among the eminent literary men of Mexico. In 1885, in company with several others, he established El Estandarte (The Standard), a periodical bitterly opposed to the State Government, which caused him many vexations and penalties. Velásquez has made a special study of local history and archæology. His Descubrimiento y Conquista de San Luis Potosí (Discovery and Conquest of San Luis Potosí), received recognition from the Royal Spanish Academy. His Instruccion pública en San Luis Potosí durante la Dominación española (Public Instruction in San Luis Potosí during the Spanish Domination) was published in the memoirs of the Mexican Academy, of which he has been a correspondent since 1886. His Coleccion de Documentos para la historia de San Luis Potosí (Collection of documents for the History of San Luis Potosí) in four volumes, was published between 1897 and 1899. Senor Velásquez has during recent years returned to the practice of law.

THE TLAXCALAN SETTLEMENTS.

In this year of 1589, in which peace was arranged, Santa María del Rio was founded by Guachichiles and Otomis on lands of the Hacienda of Villela and at a place called San Diego de Atotonilco. Of the villages of our State, this one and Tierra Nueva count among their founders individuals of Otomi stock. The other colonies established were formed with Indians brought from Tlaxcala, either because that city was populous, or because of its relative culture, or—what is more probable—because of its unshakeable loyalty to the Spaniards. It is asserted that four hundred families set out from the ancient republic for these parts, by order of the Viceroy, Don Luis de Velasco II (1591), and with the aid of Friar Jerónimo Mendieta. Friars Ignacio de Cardenas and Jeronimo de Zárate brought them and distributed them in Tlaxcalilla—on the outskirts of this city of San Luis, close by the congregation of Santiago, which was of Guachichiles—in San Miguel, Mexquitic, Venado, San Andrés, Colotlan, and Saltillo. It can easily be believed that these colonists would not readily consent to abandon their soil and come to such a distance to serve as a protection against barbarians and as a guarantee of their obedience. Far from it; they stipulated that they should enjoy the same privileges as if they were noble-born Castillians; that they should go on horse and bear arms; and that their towns, in which no Spaniards were to live, should measure three leagues on each side.

ANDRES DE OLMOS.

God, who holds aloft with his right hand a torch to light the way of his creatures and to fructify, in the very field of death, the germs of life; behind the bearded divinities with dress of steel and armed with thunderbolts; from the region of light, the east, that they might anoint with the oil of charity, the victims of greed, and resuscitate for Heaven those dead for the world, sent the friars, shorn and shaven, unshod, clad in sackcloth, with no shield but their faith, with no weapon but the Gospel. Among these was that notable man, who wandered through the whole Huasteca, while the Guachichiles still obstinately fought their fierce battles; so wise was he that, besides his miracle-play of The Last Judgment and Conversations, Sermons, and Tractates, all written in Aztec, he left grammars and vocabularies of that language and of the Totonaco and Huastec, as well as many other books for the instruction and admiration of missionaries, philologists and historians; so poor, that, when he died, there was nought but a rosary, some beads, a disciplina[7] and a cilicio,[8] left to his hosts in token of gratitude; so temperate, that he did not in the least seek those things which the appetite naturally desires, nor took pleasure in them, but ate whatever was placed before him, although bad in savor and smell; so strong that, after bearing a heavy weight of years, going on foot through wastes and wilds, in a trying climate, without any kind of comfort,—not only did he not choose to accept the rest and shelter which his brethren urged upon him, when they saw him old, asthmatic, insect-bitten to the degree that he looked like a leper, but, glorying in his natural strong constitution, again betook himself to the mountains where the warlike Chichimecs had their strongholds, to preach to them for the last time, in the name of the Crucified, a gospel of obedience and peace.

Already you know, gentlemen, that I speak of the friar, Andres de Olmos, companion of the venerable Zumárraga.

MARTYRS TO THE FAITH.

In the New, as in the Old World, in the deserts as in the cities, in the mountains as in the plains, the Gospel,—light and truth, refreshment, hope and delight at once,—has to subjugate all peoples, to soften the fierce and uncultured and to reduce to peace, order, and progress, whatever may be the language in which it be announced. By divine arrangement the doorposts must be marked with blood, with blood of innocent victims, gentle and pure, that the avenging angel may pass by and not wet his sword with the blood of the first-born. Thus, in the northeast, four leagues from Zacatecas, a little after the year 1556, kneeling and with the crucifix in his hand, Friar Juan de Tapia yielded his blood to the sharp arrows of the Guachichiles; thus, Friar Juan Cerrato shed his blood at the hands of the pagans, to whom he came from Jalisco, that he might raise them from their rude condition and bring them to a knowledge of their Creator and to the bosom of the Holy Catholic Church; thus, the friars, Francisco Doncel and Pedro de Burgos inundated with their red life-fluid the deep gorge of Chamacuero, where, fierce as tigers, the Chichimecs hurled themselves upon them.

Father Doncel was returning from Patzcuaro with Friar Pedro, carrying a crucifix which he had ordered made for the Villa of San Felipe, of the convent of which he was guardian. Looking to the security of the image, they came accompanied by soldiers; but, as these fled at the moment of attack by the Indians, they left the holy monks abandoned and helpless. As was his duty in such a crisis, Father Doncel knelt and, raising the crucifix aloft, lifted up his voice in prayer. Devoted to their sublime mission, both the friars suffered death from the furious rage of the savages, which, not content with blood and with stripping off the garments to deck itself in them, and to run races thus garbed, uttering beast cries, sawed off the heads, tore off the skull caps, and wore them, to make display of its triumph. That image of Jesus is still venerated in San Felipe, under the name of the Señor de la Conquista; and that gorge in which these monks perished is still called the Arroyo de los Martires (Gorge of the Martyrs).

Near by, at four leagues distance from Colotlan, is the spot where Friar Luis de Villalobos sealed by a glorious death, in 1582, the doctrine which he taught the heathen; not far distant is where Friar Andrés de la Puebla was cruelly beaten, in 1586, and the skin was torn off his head, from the eyebrows upward, while he was denouncing idolatry and intoning the divine praises. Ours, is that land of Charcas, where also suffered martyrdom, the friar, Juan del Rio, brother of the general of that name, who made the final campaign against the Chichimecs. One day in 1586, when the Spaniards had sallied from the town, a body of Indians attacked it and stole the cattle. The only two soldiers, whom they had left on guard, started in pursuit; shortly after, the friar followed them on horse, believing the robbers would respect his presence. When he arrived where they were he saw that one soldier was dead and that the other was in imminent peril. He besought his enemies to calm themselves and hear him, and did not cease to speak even when a rain of arrows fell upon him, striking him in every part of the body. Reason enough was there for the astonishment of the assassins, for the arrows, though many and well directed, made no impression—he held himself well on his horse and continued speaking. The Indians then aimed at his head and, with three or four shots, brought him to the ground. What think you was the cause of his apparent invulnerability? To find out, the barbarians, running up to examine the body, despoiled it of clothing and found an immense cilicio, an iron network supplied with iron points inside, which constantly tore the flesh of the penitent friar.

DIEGO ORDOÑEZ.

What do you admire in the great navigator, whose fortunate discovery two hemispheres are now preparing to celebrate? His wisdom? his valor? his boldness? While he possessed all these in heroic grade, it is surely not these which, in him, captivate us, but his faith, his marvelous faith, which sustained him erect and firm in the midst of innumerable obstacles, betrayed by treachery, mocked and harassed by adverse fortune, and he held it against machinations and dangers, until he planted it securely in the land of his dreams. Well, of this same faith, which caused the inspired mariner to triumph over enemies and obstacles and the mysterious dangers of the sea, there are also found examples in these, our regions, which ought not to be held unworthy of esteem because they are buried in the humble chronicles of a Province; for even thus, in solitude, a diamond gleams more brightly. When the immortal Genoese entered the service of Spain, there had just (1483) taken the Franciscan habit in Salamanca, a youth of such precocity that, at thirteen years, he had already graduated in philosophy. At sixteen, dedicated to the study of theology, he made such progress in this science and in Greek and Hebrew, that, with no little credit to his order, he occupied—through many years—the professorship in his convent, where, as is well known, Columbus found a more friendly reception than among the proud professors of the famous university. From Guatemala, whither the learned teacher went in 1539 to occupy himself with the instruction of the wild Indians, he passed to Mexico, called to serve as Consultor to the Holy Office. The snows of a hundred winters already whitened his head, but as the volcanoes which display a snowy crown to conceal the forge where are smithed their glowing thunderbolts, so the venerable centennarian priest. He scarcely tarried at the vice-regal court; like a flaming arrow he went to Michoacan, Zacatecas, and Durango, whose inhabitants enjoyed the last ministrations of the philosopher, theologian, humanist, and eminent preacher, whose name was Diego Ordoñez, and who, at one hundred and seventeen years of age, seated in a chair because he could not stand, died in Sombrerete, preaching to the Indians—he who had been the pride of the convent at Salamanca and the venerated oracle of theologians and inquisitors.

ANTONIO DE ROA.

Two methods were employed by him, or rather one only, in converting so untamed and rude a people. No one is ignorant, that in New Spain the worship of the Holy Cross has ever been general. Be the mountain beautiful or barren, lofty or low, the natives were accustomed to rear a cross upon it. Where roads forked they set it up, and also in the streets and plazas, that they might venerate it at every step and bow before it. With greater reason, therefore, believed Father Roa, ought the sacred emblem to be multiplied upon the rugged mountain trails, which, at first glance, had so much discouraged him.

But, not consenting to erect it in spots, where, before, the Indians had adored their idols, he taught them to honor it with great love and unheard-of penances. When he went forth from his convent, he had them throw about his neck a halter, dragged by two Indians; thus, with quick step, downcast eyes, in tears, with ardent groaning, he went, meditating on the passion of the Redeemer, until he reached the spot where stood a cross. Scarcely knelt before it, the Indians, who accompanied him and knew his orders, buffeted him, spat upon him, and cruelly beat him. This was repeated as many times as there were crosses on the way—and there were many.

When it is stated that this practice was constant and but the beginning of each day, one begins to have an idea of the examples, which he set to the new followers of Christ. One is stupefied to read that, arrived at the village he preached and administered the sacraments, then waited until night to make a general flagellation, which, finished, he sallied from the church, naked from the waist up and barefoot, with a halter around his neck, in order to walk around the churchyard, which was strewn with glowing brands. One can hardly believe that his strength allowed him to preach, on returning into the church, a sermon upon the torments of hell and, further, that after all this he endured the torture of boiling water, which his rough followers threw over his lacerated body.

Still the idea of the sufferings, which he added to those, today, as then, inseparable from a region so wild and remote, is not complete until we know that, in Lent, he was accustomed, thrice weekly, to bathe the Hermita of Molango with his blood. In his oratory he had painted the Prayer in the Garden; and there, after his long prayers, the Indians came to beat him, while they overwhelmed him with insults. They stripped him from the waist up and violently tore away the coarse and rasping cloth which was bound closely to his flesh; they threw a halter about his neck and, in this guise, dragged him to a second oratory where was painted a Magdalene anointing the Lord’s feet. Placing him there before an Indian who, seated in his tribunal, represented Divine Justice, they accused him of being a wicked man, an ingrate, proud, perverter, and false. He replied nothing on the matter to the questions of the judge, but, after a little time, confessed his sins, ingratitude, and faults, in a loud voice. He replied as little to a new accusation, made against him with false witnesses, of the truth of which the judge declared himself convinced, and ordered that they should beat him naked, which they did, thoroughly, until the blood ran down upon the ground from his raw and quivering body. Afterward they kindled splinters of fat pine, with the sizzling resin of which they scorched him from the shoulders to the soles of his feet, and lastly they laid upon him a heavy cross, which he bore in a procession around the enclosure over a bed of glowing coals.

JUAN F. MOLINA SOLIS.

Juan F. Molina Solis, representative of one of the oldest and most respected families of Yucatan, was born June 11, 1850, in the village of Hecelchacan. His father was Juan F. Molina Esquivel, his mother Cecilia Solis de Molina. In 1857, the family removed to Merida, where the boy’s education was carried on. He received the degree of Master of Arts from the Seminario conciliar de San Ildefonso, after which he studied law, graduating in 1874. He has ever occupied a prominent position in Merida as a successful lawyer, as teacher in the Seminario, as professor in the Law School, as journalist, and as author. In literature he has largely confined himself to history—especially the history of Yucatan. His Historia del Descubrimiento y Conquista de Yucatan con una reseña de la Historia antiqua de esta Peninsula (History of the Discovery and Conquest of Yucatan with a Summary of the Ancient History of this Peninsula) is a standard authority. It is admirably written and is marked by a sober criticism and constant reference to original sources. Besides this, the largest and most important work that he has written, we may mention a collection of polemical historical articles and of miscellaneous editorials presented under the general title El Primer Obispado de la Nacion Mejicana (The First Bishopric of the Mexican Nation) and an interesting historical sketch, El Conde de Peñalva (The Count of Peñalva). In his editorials Señor Molina often discusses matters of transcendant importance to the nation. While extremely conservative, and hence often in the opposition, his writings on such themes are thoughtful, candid, just, and patriotic. Among such articles are some treating of Representative Government, The Election of Deputies and Senators to the Federal Congress, The Commercial Treaty Between Mexico and the United States, etc. The passage presented here, in translation, is a chapter from El Conde de Peñalva.

THE HORRORS OF 1648 IN YUCATAN.

The Count could not arrive at a more unfortunate moment nor amid conditions sadder than those among which fate decreed his coming to these shores. The situation of the Peninsula could not be more sorrowful or calamitous. An epidemic disease, whether cholera, or yellow fever, or the black plague, is uncertain, was just ceasing to devastate the community, and the misfortunes and ruin which it caused had not yet ended. That pest began in the year 1648, year unlucky for Yucatan. After the season of northers in February of that year, a drought set in, so rigorous as to sterilize the soil and to produce intense heat, which was increased by burning over the fields in preparation for the year’s sowing. This drought, these heats, the Peninsula suffers ordinarily, but for a short time only, from the month of March until the rains fall in May—and, it even happens often that, before the rains, showers refresh the air and moisten and fertilize the earth. The year 1648 was not, however, such; the heats, initiated in the month of February, augmented, more and more, until they reached the extreme degree which human nature can endure; the inhabitants of the country anxiously begged for rain to diminish the heat, in which they were burning; but heaven, deaf to their clamors, refused to open its stores, and time passed without a single drop of rain coming to refresh the thirsty earth. Sometimes, the rains delay until the end of June, but what was seen in 1648 has never been since repeated; June passed, July passed, August began, and the land was as dry as a fleshless skeleton, exposed to the quivering rays of a dog-days’ sun. The dust, fine and penetrating, was constantly raised in clouds, from March on, at the blast of the southeast wind, and shut out from view the barren fields which, when visible offered to the eye nothing but leafless trees and ground overgrown with briars and brambles without greenness. Nor was the afternoon breeze any relief from the extraordinary heat and drought, because that little current of air, blowing so softly and agreeably on summer afternoons, at that time came impregnated with an odor strong and pestiferous as if the whole Peninsula had been encircled by filthy and stinking cesspools. And this was because that period of drought coincided with an extraordinary infection of the fishes of the sea, which died in infinite numbers, and their bodies, tossed up by the sea onto the shores, formed gigantic heaps of putrefaction, which poisoned the air. How great must have been the number of those dead fish, since it is stated that the vessels that were navigating near our coasts were checked in their courses and journeyed slowly, as if they were running in the belt of calms or through spaces filled with drifting ice! In vain our police force, then in embryo, sent out daily, from all the towns near the coast, files of Indians led by a Spaniard, for the purpose of burning the dead fish. The very stench of the burning came to be unbearable, so that finally the expedient was abandoned, as harmful.

Suffering under these tribulations, the people intensified their affliction, by dire forebodings, which existed more in their imagination than in reality. As always happens, in time of social calamity, aged persons spoke of similar times, in remote epochs, which had preceded horrible disasters. The air appearing thick and heavy, they imagined that the sun did not shine as it was accustomed to do, but was as if eclipsed; and, in fine, the inner sadness of minds was reflected in external things, conspiring to exalt the fancy with dread of vague misfortunes, of coming and fatal ills.

And the fear became reality, since in the month of June a terrible and contagious disease made its frightful appearance in Campeche. Whether it was the Levantine plague, which a little before had ravaged Europe and was brought by some vessel to the port, whether it was occasioned by the putrefaction of the dead fishes, whether it was the cholera which visited us for the first time, or whether it was the yellow fever scourging with an iron hand, we cannot say. It is enough to know that it was a terrible disease, which converted Yucatan into an immense cemetery. Sometimes, without any warning, it showed itself in intense pains in the bones, accompanied by excessive fever and delirium; at other times with the fever was united vomiting of putrid blood; now it presented the diarrhœa of the cholera patient; now the putrid dysentery of pernicious fever. Some died in eight or ten hours; others lasted through three, four, or even seven days. Men more than women, and the youth, lively and vigorous, more than the feeble and infirm, were the field preferred by the epidemic. No one escaped its deleterious influence, and the Spaniard and Indian, the negro, the mulatto, and the mestizo all paid their tribute to the contagion, which showed no respect in its depredations. In its course, it sometimes skipped populations; and while it swooped pitilessly down upon some obscure and distant village, it neglected some town close by and exposed to its attack. Sometimes it seemed to spare the Indians, only to return later and make a clean sweep of them.

There were great sadness and horror in Merida when notice was brought of the rapid, frequent, and painful deaths, which were taking place in Campeche, and which suggested the existence of the plague; the more so as an effort was made to minimize the reports of conditions. The pest, the sombre and frightful pest, which brings death as a daily thought to the minds of all; and not sweet and peaceful death, but the most distressing of all, death in solitude and abandonment! The stupor, caused by the news, did not prevent some measures of sanitation to prevent the invasion of the contagion, the principal of which was isolation. The city completely separated itself, closed the highways, set numerous guards in the roads, and all the inhabitants turned their eyes to God, imploring pity; the temples were thronged and deeds of mercy were more frequent and general.

Nothing, however, sufficed to stay the advance of the disease; in turn, it attacked Merida, leaping over all the populations in the line of progress, and appearing in the city at the end of July. At first it attacked but few, here and there a person; although the number stricken did not cause a panic, the promptness with which they died struck terror. This, however, was but the beginning of the affliction; because, afterward, in the first days of August the disease increased above measure, and by the middle of the month almost all the inhabitants of the city were stretched upon the bed of pain by the contagion. Whole families were stricken and died in isolation, with no one to care for them or even to call a nurse, a physician, or a priest to give some aid. In the sad and deserted streets were only to be seen, passing like fugitive spectres, the secular clergy, the Jesuits, and the Franciscans in their long gowns, rapidly crossing from house to house to administer consolation to those dying who had the happiness to receive them; because, not infrequently, when the priests crossed the threshold of the house of death, they only encountered sepulchral stillness and corpses; at other times it happened that the priest, who bore the viaticum, was himself suddenly stricken with the disease and was obliged to lay himself down to die in the first doorway, while another priest came to take the holy elements from his hands, to continue the sacred task of abnegation and sacrifice. In the cathedral, in Santa Lucia, in San Cristobal, in Santiago, in San Sebastian, in Santa Catalina, the corpses were buried in the burying grounds near the churches; but so great was the crowd of the dead that the town government commanded new cemeteries to be opened and blessed in the fields; and, in order not to increase the panic, it ordered that the bodies should be carried to all these cemeteries at dawn, where a priest received them and repeated a prayer over them, and they were thrown into the common trench. That was a mournful spectacle, which those fields of death presented at that hour, with long files of corpses, badly clad or wrapped in serapes or in henequin mattings, laid out on boards, or stretchers.

The Governor, Don Esteban de Ascárraga did not escape the pest; he died August 8 and was buried quietly, not to augment the consternation of the city. A Franciscan friar, José de Orosco, mounted, hale and hearty, the pulpit in the church of San Francisco, to preach the sermon, and descended ill, and died. The regidors, in the town government, died; of eight Jesuits, who lived in the Colleges of San Javier and San Pedro, six sacrificed their lives on the altar of charity, succoring the sufferers day and night; twenty Franciscans perished in the same labors; clergy, seculars, canonigos, pensioners, royal employes, in short, the principal and choicest of the city went down to the tomb in the month of August, 1648.

Public consternation had reached its height; the city was completely overwhelmed. Without physicians, without adequate supplies of medicines, with no hospital except that of Nuestra Señora del Rosario, later known by the name San Juan de Dios, from the fact that it was in other times served by the mendicant friars; sustained with difficulty, without sanitary police, without hygienic arrangements, with the deaths increasing, the public spirit crushed. It was then, when deprived of every human succor, the inhabitants of Merida redoubled their appeals to heaven, and, recalling the great devotion of the Province to the Most Holy Virgin Mary, resolved to make a pilgrimage to the Sanctuary of Izamal and to bring the sacred image, there venerated, in public procession in order to attribute to it special worship during nine consecutive days. The Licenciate, Don Juan de Aguileta, Vice-Governor, was appointed by the city to represent it and bring the sacred image to Merida. In so great faith and mortal terror were all the people that the Licenciate Aguileta, himself ill with the pest, did not hesitate a moment to receive the commission, and without discussion started for Izamal. Whether for the faith with which he undertook the journey, the change of temperature, or some other reason, the fact is that the licenciate was cured before he reached Izamal. As soon as the Indians learned the object of his journey, they tenaciously opposed the removal of the sacred statue, fearing that it would not be returned to its traditional sanctuary. The persuasions, threats, and exhortations of the authorities availed nothing, nor did those of the friars themselves; the Indians distrusted all, and did not willingly lend themselves to permit the departure of the sacred image until the Provincial of the Franciscans agreed to remain in Izamal, as a hostage, until the venerated figure should be restored to its temple. And so seriously did the Indians take his proposal that they placed guards upon all the roads out from the town to prevent his escape.

These measures having been taken by the Indians, the holy image started from Izamal for Merida. It was not a procession; it was a grand popular festival; it was a triumphal march, with an enormous accompaniment of people, who poured forth from their homes, to see pass by on the highway, the statue of the venerated Patroness of Yucatan, whose aid was besought. Those who know the faith, the ardor, the effusion of soul with which the humble and common people devote themselves to religious practices, can imagine the enthusiasm, bordering on delirium, with which the inhabitants of the surrounding towns flocked together, anxious to render their homage of love to the Virgin Mary. Long and closely packed files of devotees, with lighted torches, formed the accompaniment, which stretched, as a broad, blazing strip, through the dry and arid wastes bordering the road. All on foot, all praying, all filled with remorse, and penitent, they arrived at the outskirts of Merida, where a numerous and select concourse awaited the procession. The Regidors, the Canonigos, the principal ladies, had gone, barefoot in sign of penitence, and, when the procession passed through the streets of the city, from the Cruz de la Villa to the Plaza Mayor, the sick had themselves brought to the doors and windows of their houses, to implore health. After a brief rest at the Cathedral, the procession went to the Church of San Francisco, where for nine days constantly the most solemn worship[9] was attributed to the Most Holy Virgin.

The nine days having passed, on the 23d of August, 1648, the Alcalde Governor, Don Juan de Salazar y Montejo, returned the sacred image to the Sanctuary of Izamal, with the same splendor, pomp, and accompaniment. The pest mitigated, in fact, in Merida at the end of August, and had almost disappeared before the middle of September, although merely changing the scene of its ravages.

As happens always, the gathering of people, the numerous concourse of inhabitants from other towns, scattered the seed of the contagion, which spread its devastation throughout the whole country. The first to be attacked were the Indians of Izamal, who, faithful and devoted, did not abandon the sacred image for a moment on its journey from its natal city to Merida. From Izamal the pest extended slowly to the east and south. The great procession took place in August, and already in September the District of Izamal was smitten; in October the epidemic had propagated itself to Ticul, Chapab, Bolonchen, Mani, Bolonchenticul; in December it had spread throughout the whole coast, and, thus, spreading from town to town, it fiercely struck its claws into the whole Peninsula during two long and weary years.

LUIS GONZALES OBREGÓN.

Luis Gonzales Obregón, one of the best known of living Mexican writers, was born in Guanajuato, August 25, 1865. After studying under private teachers at his home, he went to Mexico, where he completed his preparatory studies in the Seminario and in the Colegio de San Ildefonso. Ill health interfered with his further education, but he had already developed a strong affection for literary, and particularly for historical, pursuits, which has motived his whole life work. He is a devoted student of the national history of his country and particularly delights in the investigation of obscure and curious incidents. So far as a feeble physical constitution has allowed, he has given himself up to such researches and to writing. In 1889 he published a useful little volume, entitled Novelistas Mexicanos en el Siglo XIX (Mexican Novelists in the Nineteenth Century). In an introductory section he briefly characterizes the Mexican novel; he then presents a complete list of the novelists of the century, to the time of his writing, with the names of their novels and a few discriminating words regarding their place in the national literature. Our author’s best known work is certainly México Viejo (Old Mexico), of which a “first series” was printed in 1891 and a “second series” in 1895. These have recently been republished, in a single volume, in Paris. The work consists of essays, each dealing with some special event in Mexican history, or sketching the life of some eminent person, or depicting some old custom or popular practice. Usually they contain information derived from unpublished manuscripts or rare and ancient works. Among the many other writings of our author, two biographical sketches demand particular mention, on account of the interest and prominence of the men who form the subjects. These are Don José Joaquín Fernandez de Lizardi famous as a writer, early in the last century, under the nom-de-plume of El Pensador Mexicano (the Mexican thinker), and Vida y Obras de Don José Fernando Ramirez (Life and Works of José Fernando Ramirez), the eminent literary man, historian, and statesman. The selections, which we here present, are from México Viejo. They do not as satisfactorily represent Señor Obregón’s style as longer passages would, as he is at his best when he narrates some ancient legend or describes some popular festival.

CHANGES IN MEXICO.

For some years past Mexico has been undergoing a slow, but evident, transformation. Everywhere the modern spirit modifies what is old. Customs, types, dress, monuments, and buildings are completely losing the long-fixed physiognomy of the colonial days.

The customs of our ancestors, half Spanish, half indigenous, are disappearing, replaced by a mixture of European practices, and now, in the same house, one prays in the old fashion, clothes one’s self after the French style, and eats after the Italian manner; one mounts his horse or enters his coach a la English, and conducts his business a la Yankee, in order to lose no time.

The fountains, those ancient fountains of the colonial epoch, have been replaced by hydrants and troughs at every corner, and the traditional type of the aguador (water-carrier) is eclipsed and forced to betake himself to those sections where the deep shadows of the electric lights fall, and where the precious fluid does not flow of itself, except when it pleases heaven to inundate the streets and alleys.

The china[10] has died, to live only in the beautiful romances of the popular Fidel; the chiera[11] yields her gay and picturesque puesto of refreshing waters, to the experienced señorita, who in high-heeled shoes and tightly-laced bodice serves us iced drink in vessels of fine crystal; the sereno,[12] with his shining, varnished hat, his ladder on his shoulder and his lantern in his right hand, withdraws shame-faced before the gendarme,[13] and thus with other types, whom the curious investigator now encounters only in the pictures of forgotten books.

Who now remembers the habits of the humble friars, who once traveled through the streets amid the respectful salutations of the faithful?

The coaches slung on straps, the gigs, the omnibuses—are all passing away, all are forgotten in the noisy whirl of English and American carriages and the confusion of the tranvias,[14] which rapidly slip over their steel rails.

Mexico changes, principally, in its material part. The old houses fall daily, façades change, the ancient wooden roofs give way to iron sheeting.

The streets are being lengthened, their names are expressed in cabalistic signs, and their historic and traditional associations are relegated to the verses of our poets.