Chapter 50

The Chinampas or Water Gardens.--Laws of Nature not set aside.--Mud will not float.--The present Chinampas.--They never could have been floating Gardens.--Relations of the Chinampas to the ancient State of the Lake in the Valley.

All the world has heard of the floating gardens (_chinampas_) of Mexico, but all the world has not seen them. I have not seen any floating gardens, nor, on diligent inquiry, have I been able to find a man, woman, or child that ever has seen them, nor do I believe that such a thing as a floating garden ever existed at Mexico. Humboldt admits that they do exist; says that he has seen floating earthy masses of great size in the tropical rivers, and then describes the manner of the construction of the chinampas, but in such a way as to satisfy the careful reader that he does not intend to say that he saw them himself, and evidently makes his statement upon hearsay; and takes it up as an admitted fact, without having his mind called to the physical impossibilities of floating a mass of earth that was of a greater specific gravity than water.

FAITH AND TESTIMONY.

When the historians of the Conquest wrote their marvelous narratives of alleged adventures and of the new empire, it was a question for the Emperor and the Inquisition solely, whether their writings should pass for history or be condemned as fabulous. With this question the people had nothing to do but to believe as it suited those in authority. The question being settled that the publication of the letters of Cortez as a verity would redound to the glory of the Church and the king, then it was also settled that there should be no contradiction published; and as these marvelous tales were spread abroad throughout Europe, with the masses of silver from the newly-discovered mines, men were prepared to believe almost any thing--even that rich vegetable mould, when saturated with water, could float.

It not being lawful to promulgate the facts of the Conquest, the memory of events that really transpired ultimately passed from the recollections of men, so that the letters of Cortez were taken for truth, even in their most minute details; so that, in a subsequent century, we find a vice-king employing an engineer to search for and clean out the hole in the bottom of the Tezcuco! for, from the vice-king down to the most insignificant official, all assumed that the letters of Cortez gave a correct picture of affairs at that time; and all showed the greatest embarrassment in accounting for the magnitude of the changes that are supposed to have occurred without a sufficiently adequate cause. It is a common difficulty in all purely Catholic countries, for there the rule of evidence is an unnatural one. The people have been taught to believe from their infancy that the laws of nature can be set aside upon every trifling occasion, at the momentary caprice of any one of the multitude of saints "who are to govern the world;" and on proof that any mortal has set aside the laws of nature or wrought a miracle, he at once becomes a saint. With these "dutiful children of the Church" there can be no fixed laws of evidence; the only ground of belief is, and ever must be, Has the statement been sanctioned by the highest authority? If so, it is true; if not, it is to be doubted, however positive the proofs may be. A difficulty that the traveler every where encounters is that he can believe nothing that he hears, even on the most trifling subject, without careful examination and weighing of testimony. As he can not examine every thing himself, he is constantly liable to be imposed upon by taking for granted that which is every where affirmed. Humboldt for once, with all his caution, seems to have fallen into the common trap, and credited, without examination, the story of the floating gardens.

THE CHINAMPAS.

The chinampas are formed on the fresh-water mud on each side of the canal of Chalco, from the southeast corner of the city to a point near the ancient village of Mexicalzingo, and for a part of the way they are on both sides of that beautiful but now neglected _paseo_, Las Vegas; there are also a small number near the causeway of Tacubaya, and in other parts of the marsh; their number might be extended without limit if it was not regulated by the demands of the vegetable market of Mexico. Chinampas are formed by laying upon the soft mud a very thick coating of reeds, or rather rushes, in the form and about the size of one of our largest canal scows. Between two chinampas a space of about half the width of one is left, and from this open space the mud is dipped up and poured upon the bed of dry rushes, where it dries, and forms a rich "muck" soil, which constitutes the garden. As the specific gravity of this garden is much greater than that of the water, or of the substratum of mud and water combined, it gradually sinks down into its muddy foundation; and in a few years it has to be rebuilt by laying upon the top of the garden a new coating of rushes and another covering of mud. Thus they have been going on for centuries, one garden being placed upon the top of another, and a third placed over all, so soon as the second gives signs of being swallowed up in the all-devouring mud.

The gardeners navigate the open space between their islands with light boats; and during the short hours of the morning, the market-boat alongside each island is loaded with a cargo of vegetables, fruits, and flowers, which are to be displayed in the great market of Santa Anna. More pleasing than a drive on the _paseo_ is a boat-ride down the canal of Chalco at eventide, when the proprietor of each of these little estates is seen standing in the canal alongside, and throwing upon his thirsty plants a plentiful supply of the tepid canal water, which, from every leaf and flower, reflects back the rays of a setting sun, that have penetrated the long shadows of the trees of Las Vegas. Some of the chinampas have small huts upon them, where a gardener lives, who watches over two or three of these little properties. Sometimes also shrubs, and even trees, are planted along the edges, which yield both fruits and flowers, and serve to keep the dry earth from falling into the water. When looking at one of the largest and best cared for chinampas, the beholder can hardly divest himself of the idea that it is a floating island, and might well have been the residence of Calypso.

This is the whole of the story of the chinampas, the most fertile and beautiful little gardens upon the face of the earth. A correct picture of them would be poetry enough, without the addition of falsehood; for whether it is the rainy season or the dry season, it is always the same to them. They know no exclusive seed-time, and have no especial season for harvest; but blossoms and ripe fruits grow side by side, and flowers flourish at all seasons. As market gardens they are unrivaled, and to them Mexico is indebted for its abundant supplies.

The evidence that Humboldt[35] produces in favor of floating gardens, viz., that he saw floating islands of some 30 feet in length in the midst of the current of rivers, amounts to little in this case; for every one that has traveled extensively in tropical lowlands has seen vegetation spring up upon floating masses of brush-wood. Where earth torn from the river bank is so bound together by living roots as to form a raft, it will always float for a little while upon the current, provided that its specific gravity does not materially exceed that of the water; and those grasses that flourish best in water will spring up and grow upon these islands. Peat, too, in bogs, will float and form islands, for the simple reason that it is of less specific gravity than water; and vegetation will also spring up on these peat islands. But all this furnishes no evidence that the invariable law of nature, which carries to the bottom the heaviest body, has been suspended at Mexico. Had the floating gardens been built in large boats made water-tight, they might have floated. But, unfortunately, the Indians had not the means for constructing such boats. Even timber-rafts would have become saturated in time, and sunk, as rafts of logs do if kept too long in the "mill-pond," waiting to be sawed into lumber.

There is another law of nature, which must not be lost sight of, which is at war with the idea of a garden floating on a bed of rushes; and that is capillary attraction, which would raise particles of water, one by one, among the fibres of the rushes until the frail raft on which the earth rested was saturated; and still pressing upward, the busy drops would penetrate the superincumbent earth, moistening and adding to the specific gravity of the garden by filling the porous earth until it became too heavy to float, if it ever had floated.

Nearly three hundred years had passed away before men ventured to question the truth of the statement that the gardens along the canal of Chalco ever floated, and then it seemed like temerity to raise the question, even if it were only a popular fallacy. It has therefore been treated by all modern writers as a well-established matter, and one of not sufficient importance to justify its minute investigation. With me the question was a far different one. I had, after careful inquiry and observation, come to the conclusion that the marshes of the valley of Mexico were, in the time of Cortez, substantially in the condition in which we find them at the present day; that the filling up they had undergone in that time was counterbalanced by the relief they had gained by the canal of Huehuetoca. The chinampas constitute an important link in the chain of proofs to establish this fact. If I have succeeded in showing that these gardens of the Aztecs, instead of floating upon the water, rested upon the muddy bottom, it follows as a matter of course that the depth of the water in the laguna could not, in the day of the Aztecs, have been materially greater than it now is.

[35] _Essai Politique_, vol. ii. p. 61.