CHAPTER XXI.
EXCURSION TO TULA.--AN ANCIENT CITY OF THE TOLTECS.--CHURCH OF THE TIME OF CORTEZ.--MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE TOLTECS.--TOLTEC KINGS, COURTS, AND KNIGHTHOOD.--RUINS OF THE TEMPLE AND PALACE.--JOURNEY TO MORELOS.--INTEROCEANIC RAILWAY.--MORELOS AND HIS SERVICES TO MEXICO.--CUAUTLA AND ITS ATTRACTIONS.--TERRIBLE RAILWAY ACCIDENT.--DOWN THE SOUTHERN SLOPE.--IN TIERRA CALIENTE.--VISITING A SUGAR ESTATE.--TO YAUTEPEC AND CUERNAVACA.--RIDE OVER THE MOUNTAINS.--SITUATION OF CUERNAVACA.--OLD CHURCH AND PALACE OF CORTEZ.--A FORTUNATE FRENCHMAN.--ROMANTIC INCIDENT IN THE CAPTURE OF CUERNAVACA.
One of the volumes in which our young friends were interested during their stay in Mexico was "The Ancient Cities of the New World," by M. Charnay. The perusal of this book led them to wish to visit Tula, which is famous for having been a city of the Toltecs, and a flourishing place at the time of the Conquest.
Leaving the city of Mexico at half-past seven o'clock one morning by the Central Railway, they reached Tula at 9.40 A.M.; the distance is about fifty miles, and the route is the same as already described, through the Nochistongo cut. The returning train at 4.40 P.M. brought them back to the city at seven o'clock, and the trio unanimously voted that they had passed a most agreeable and instructive day. The heads of the youths were filled with archæology, and they felt themselves almost competent to write a history of the Toltecs and their migrations, in spite of the obscurity of many of the traditions about this remarkable people.
Instead of a history, they acted upon Doctor Bronson's suggestion, and contented themselves with an account of what they had seen, with a few supplementary notes by way of explanation. From this account we will make a few selections.
"Tula now has a population of less than 2000," said Frank in his note-book; "but according to the histories, it was a rival of Tenochtitlan, the ancient name of the city of Mexico, at the time of the Conquest. The inhabitants were firm supporters of Cortez, and among the first people to accept the new religion and become his allies. Its ancient name was Tollan, which is said to mean 'the place of reeds,' and also 'the place of many people.' Cortez built a church there very soon after he conquered the place. There is a church now standing which was begun in 1553 and completed eight years later.
"It is one of the best built churches in Mexico; at any rate, one of the best that we have seen. Doctor Bronson thought it must have been intended as a fortress as well as a church, as the walls in some places are seven feet thick, and built in the most substantial manner. And it wasn't a small building either, as it is 192 feet long by 41 wide. The body of the church is more than 80 feet high, and it has a tower whose top is 125 feet from the ground. The architects that came with Cortez evidently understood how to erect substantial buildings.
"Exactly how many inhabitants there were in Tula when Cortez came nobody seems to know; but it is certain, from the extent of the ruins, that the city covered a wide area. There is a small and not particularly clean river that winds through a plain around the base of Mount Coatepetl, and the city stretched over this plain and was dominated by the mountain. Great quantities of sculpture have been found here in ploughing the fields or clearing the bed of the river, and explorers and antiquarians have done a great deal of work with profitable results. Some of the 'finds' have been taken to the museum in Mexico, some have gone out of the country, and a good many large pillars and pieces of statues remain in Tula to interest and instruct the visitor.
"According to the historians, the Toltecs founded Tula, or Tollan, in the year 648. We have told elsewhere how the discovery of pulque brought about the ruin of the nation, but whether this is really so or not the historians cannot say positively. At any rate, the ruins of Tula are of great antiquity, and as we walked and stood among them we tried to make a mental picture of what was to be seen here a thousand years ago.
"We imagined that we saw a long line of soldiers, armed with spears, light javelins, bows and arrows, and also with clubs studded with copper or silver nails. They were protected by cotton tunics thickly quilted, that must have been very warm when the wearers were marching, but evidently made an excellent armor. They had leggings of the same material, and they had wadded capes over their shoulders, but kept their arms bare for greater facility in handling their weapons. We pictured their king wrapped in a thick mantle knotted across his breast, with his hands bare, and his feet protected by sandals. These sandals were held in place by a thong passing between the first and second toes--exactly after the style of the foot-gear worn by the Japanese at the present time. His head was covered with a conical cap resembling that of the Persians, and his ears were ornamented with heavy rings that glistened through his long hair.
"At one side of the field where the soldiers are standing in battle-array we see some buildings which they tell us are storehouses where grain is laid away in times of abundance as a provision against a period of famine. This was a custom of the Toltecs, and on several occasions saved them from great suffering.
"One building which we cannot clearly make out is a tennis-court, so M. Charnay says, and if we have any doubt about it now we can be convinced, as one of the tennis-rings is still in place. Then there is a temple on the top of a hill, and the procession that is going towards the temple is in honor of a warrior who is receiving the honor of knighthood.
"You will be interested in learning that they had a regular system of knighthood here centuries before Columbus discovered America. When a candidate was to be presented the knights accompanied him to the temple in a solemn procession. At the temple a priest pierced the cartilage of his nose with an eagle's claw, and then twigs were inserted in the wound to keep the flesh from uniting as the sore healed. He was clad in a coarse tunic, and then they painted him black all over, gave him one tortilla and a little water once a day to save him from starvation, and compelled him to lie on a mat on the cold ground. They allowed him to sleep only a few minutes at a time, and waked him by a prod with a thorn. Several times a day they sat down and feasted in front of him, called him every mean name their language contained, and heaped all sorts of insults upon him. They kept this up for sixty days; if he lost his temper at any time and 'talked back' at their insults, or asked for any of their food, the ceremony stopped and he wasn't made a knight.
"If he held out bravely and patiently to the end of the sixty days, he was then taken to the Temple again, and the whole order of the knights received him with high honors. His mean garments were removed from him by the oldest knight in the assemblage, and he was decorated with the insignia of the order and dressed in fine clothes. The use of the hole in his nose was now apparent, as the jewel that indicated his rank was hung there. The Apache and other south-western Indians occupy the country dwelt in by the Toltecs before their migration to Mexico. These Indians wear ornaments in their noses, and are supposed to have derived the custom from the ancient inhabitants.
"So much for the past. Let us see what there is here now. Here are the ruins of the Temple of the Sun, where the people worshipped that great luminary; they made offerings of fruits and flowers, and sometimes of birds, and, unlike the Aztecs, they did not indulge in human sacrifices. The temple is now only a heap of stones partly overgrown with trees, and it is said that a great deal of material was taken from it for building the houses of the Tula of to-day.
"We went from the temple to the ruins of the palace. These ruins were unearthed by M. Charnay, and cover a considerable area of ground. The guide who accompanied us was the same that aided the author of 'Ancient Cities of the New World,' and he pointed out the different rooms in the palace and their probable uses. One room, he said, was supposed to have been devoted to a sort of 'Happy Family' of wild and domestic animals, as it was the fashion of those times for every palace to have a menagerie attached to it. Then they had coops and cages for turkeys, ducks, and other fowls destined for the table, yards for goats and other domestic quadrupeds, tanks for fish, and chambers for reptiles and birds of prey. Servants' quarters were arranged very much as in modern palaces; and altogether the Toltec kings had a good deal of comfort about their residences.
"In the plaza we saw some broken columns, which appear to have been wrought with a great deal of skill and carefully mortised together. There was also the lower portion of a caryatid. Fred made a sketch of it with the guide standing at one side, so that you can see the proportions of the figure. Only the legs and feet remain, and they are more than seven feet high. Taking this height for a calculation, the head of the complete figure before it was broken must have been nearly twenty feet from the ground.
"The Toltecs built their houses of uncut stone laid in mud, and covered with hard cement; this cement seems to have been of an excellent composition, as it is well preserved in spite of the centuries that have elapsed since the city was built. The floors are levelled with the same cement, and some of them are smooth enough for skating-rinks. The palace that we visited contains thirty or forty rooms, and there is a smaller palace in another part of the town which we did not see. One of the Toltec stone basins is used as a baptismal font for the church, and the ruins supplied much of the material of which the walls are composed.
"We dined fairly well at the Hotel de Diligencias, having taken the precaution to order the dinner as soon as we arrived. We allowed ourselves scant time for the meal, as we wished to utilize our stay as much as possible in seeing the sights of Tula. If we ever turn excavators of ruins, we will come to Tula and see what can be found. Our interest is somewhat stimulated by the story that an Indian boy once found a jar here containing 500 gold coins; he was ignorant of their value, and sold the entire lot for a few coppers. If you hear of our doing anything of this sort, please let us know."
On their return to the city Doctor Bronson found at the hotel a letter which contained an invitation to visit a sugar plantation in the State of Morelos; the invitation included the youths, and was accepted at once. Immediate acceptance was necessary, as the proprietor of the estate was to leave the city on the following morning, and wished the visitors to accompany him, and on their part they desired the pleasure and advantage of his company on the road.
The party took the morning train on the Interoceanic Railway, the line by which they went to Amecameca on their excursion to Popocatepetl. Their destination was Cuautla (pronounced Kwat-la) or Cuautla-Morelos, as it is officially designated.
"It was named in honor of the patriot Morelos," said Señor Domingo, the gentleman whose sugar estate our friends were going to visit.
"I have seen his name in the list of Mexicans who have made their names famous," replied Fred, "and must refresh my memory concerning him."
"I will save you the trouble of consulting the histories," the gentleman answered, "by giving you a brief sketch of his life."
The youths bowed their acknowledgments of his courtesy as Señor Domingo continued:
"You doubtless know about the insurrection led by the priest Hidalgo, in 1810, which was the beginning of the War for Independence. Well, Morelos was one of the curates under Hidalgo, and when the insurrection began he joined in it, and raised a force of patriots to oppose the Spaniards and drive them from the country. He began with five negro slaves as the nucleus of his army, and soon had a following of several thousands. He was successful at first, and his defence of Cuautla was one of the most heroic affairs known in Mexican history.
"Morelos had taken his position in the town, and was attacked by the Spanish general Calleja, in February, 1812. He repulsed the attack, and then the Spaniards laid siege to the place. For more than two months the siege was kept up; provisions grew very scarce and the besieged were near the point of starvation. Rats sold for one dollar each, and a cat was worth five or six dollars. Lizards became valuable, and a fair-sized one was worth two dollars, and could not be readily obtained at that price."
"Was the patriot army forced to surrender?" Frank asked.
"No," was the reply, "it held out for sixty-two days, and then Morelos managed on a dark and rainy night to evacuate the place and retreat. He fought several other battles, but was finally captured. He was tried for treason, and condemned to death, and it is notable that his conviction was one of the last acts of the Inquisition in Mexico. Morelos was shot in December, 1815; his memory is preserved in the name of the State we are about to visit, and also in that of his native city, Valladolid, which is now called Morelia."
"To be shot for treason seems to be the fate of the majority of Mexican leaders," one of the youths remarked.
"Yes," was the reply. "An intimate friend of Morelos, and one of his ablest officers, was the priest Matamoras. He was captured and shot by Iturbide, in 1814, and in revenge for his execution Morelos is said to have butchered 200 Spanish prisoners. And Iturbide, as you know, was disposed of in the same way, when he set foot on Mexican soil after his banishment. It may seem strange to you to see the portraits of Iturbide, Morelos, and Matamoras side by side in the public hall at Cuautla, and to know we revere them all as heroes; but it shows you the ups and downs of Mexican history better than anything else I know of."
The conversation just related occurred as the train was wending its way from Mexico to Amecameca. Beyond that town there were numerous curves in the railway line, and the youths were interested in studying the rapidly changing panorama as the train wound among the mountains in its descent from Ozumba to Cuautla. Before the ride was ended they declared that they had nowhere seen a more crooked railway, and expressed unfeigned admiration for the engineer that built it.
But their admiration was checked when Señor Domingo pointed out the scene of one of the most terribly fatal accidents known in the history of railway management.
"This is the place," said he, as they reached the deep barranca of Malpais. "The railway was opened on the 18th of June, 1881, and there was an excursion from the city, with a grand banquet at Cuautla. President Diaz and nearly all the notable men of Mexico were on the excursion and banqueting party; in fact there was hardly any government left in the capital on that day. The banquet was given in an old convent, which had been converted into a railway-station, and a very good station it makes.
"There was a regiment of soldiers at Cuautla at the time, and just six days after the excursion and the opening of the line it was ordered to the city. The soldiers were placed on platform cars, and several other cars loaded with barrels of aguardiente were attached to the train.
"It was dusk when the train started, and the night came on very dark and rainy. The soldiers broke open some of the barrels of the fiery liquid, and drank heavily to keep out the effects of the rain. The foundations of the bridge at this barranca had been badly built, and were made unsafe by a flood; when the train came along, the bridge gave way and the cars were thrown into the abyss. The barrels of aguardiente took fire, the cartridges in the belts of the soldiers exploded, the men who were not killed outright or stunned by the fall were crazy with drink and excitement, and shot and stabbed each other; many were swept away by the torrent, and altogether the accident was the most horrible ever known upon a railway, so far as I have read or heard. More than three hundred lives were lost, and many persons think the real number was not much below five hundred."
Frank and Fred shuddered as they looked from the windows of the car into the deep barranca, where the stream was rushing along in its wild fury. The fallen train, inky darkness, the tropical storm, men crazed with drunkenness, burning aguardiente, exploding cartridges, knives, bayonets, and loaded rifles combined to make a picture terrible to contemplate.
The change from the Valley of Mexico to the warm country south of the encircling mountains is very perceptible in the distance between Ozumba and Cuautla, and more so where the line continues to Yautepec, fifteen miles farther on. Cuautla is eighty-five miles from Mexico City, and before the railway was opened it was very difficult of access.
The railway, as before stated, is entirely Mexican in character; it is a narrow-gauge line, and owes its existence to the owners of the sugar estates in the region of which Cuautla and Yautepec are the commercial centres. Through the political influence of these men a Government concession and subsidy were obtained, with extra subventions for speedy constructions. To the insecure character of the work, owing to the speed with which the line was built, may be attributed the accident at the Malpais barranca.
Cuautla has about 12,000 inhabitants, and is 3500 feet above the level of the sea; the rapidity of the descent of the railway will be realized when it is remembered that Amecameca is nearly 5000 feet higher up in the air, and less than fifty miles away. That the region is tropical a glance from the car windows as the station is approached will readily show.
Cuautla contains a very good and venerable church, and a well-built town-hall; the alameda is pretty, and when these have been seen the stranger has practically finished with the place. Señor Domingo did not allow our friends an opportunity to inspect the town, as his carriage was waiting at the station and they were off in a few minutes. They did not see the sights of Cuautla until their return.
They had breakfasted lightly before starting in the morning, and substantially at Ozumba; it was half-past three in the afternoon when they ended their railway ride, and the drive to the sugar estate occupied fully two hours. The drive was along roads lined with tropical trees and plants, and among plantations of bananas, sugar-cane, oranges, and other products of the warm region. The air was dense and hot, and by no means an agreeable change from the pure atmosphere of the Valley of Mexico.
Sugar is the chief product of the State of Morelos, the annual yield being over 60,000,000 pounds, or 30,000 tons. Next to sugar comes corn, the value of the corn product being nearly two-thirds as much as that of the sugar. Coffee, rice, wheat, and fruits are the remaining yields of the soil; and there are several silver-mines in Morelos, but they are not of great repute. The story is that they swallow up a great deal more than they produce, and are only worked when a capitalist happens along who has a few hundreds of thousands he is willing to part with.
A late and bountiful dinner was served at the plantation, and after a pleasant evening with the family of their host the strangers retired to rest. They were out early the next morning, ready for an investigation of the sugar-making process as it is conducted in Mexico.
Here is what Fred wrote on the subject:
"We have seen sugar-making in several parts of the world, so that there is nothing particularly new to us here. They have the most improved machinery for crushing, boiling, and refining, and there is a portable railway for transporting the sugar-cane to the mills. This railway is shifted from one part of the estate to another as it is wanted, and the saving of horse or other quadrupedal power is very great. The peons appear to be well fed and happy; but it must be remembered that it takes very little to support this class of the population. Nearly all the sugar consumed in Central Mexico is grown in the State of Morelos and the tropical region which immediately borders it. It is said that the business is less profitable now than in former times, owing to the low price of sugar.
"The process of making sugar has been described so often that it would be superfluous to give it a place here. Some of the estates date from the time of Cortez, and we were shown a building that was erected about 1540, if the tradition concerning it is correct. Of course the processes for obtaining sugar from the cane have greatly improved since that time, and the sugar-makers of three hundred years ago would be very much astonished if they could wake up and see what is going on here now."
Doctor Bronson and his nephews spent two or three days around Cuautla, and then continued on to Yautepec, where they took horses for a five hours' ride to Cuernavaca. They took the advice of Señor Domingo, and spent the night at Yautepec, so as to make the horseback journey in the early hours of the day, and thus escape the heat of noon.
"We had a rough ride," said Frank, "but were amply repaid for it, not only by the scenery along the way but by the quaint and picturesque position of Cuernavaca. It has a commanding site on a promontory projecting into the Valley of Cuernavaca, several hundred feet above it. The valley is exceedingly fertile, and so is the ground on which the town, with its twelve or fourteen thousand inhabitants, is located. There was a town here when Cortez came to Mexico, and it was captured and converted to Christianity before the siege of Tenochtitlan was begun.
"There is a wonderful supply of tropical fruits, and also, we regret to say, of tropical insects, the scorpion having a prominent place among them. The widest street is the Calle Nacional, and the most interesting buildings are the church and the palace of Cortez. The conqueror had a grant of land from the King, which included the Valley of Cuernavaca; he established his private residence here, and had a large estate, where he introduced the cultivation of the sugar-cane and other useful growths of the hot lands. His palace is now used as the public building of the State of Morelos, which has its capital here; it has been changed a good deal since his time, and we had some doubt as to the veracity of the guide, who pointed out the different rooms and told the uses which the great warrior made of them.
"The church is well worth seeing, and according to the historians it was founded in 1529, along with a convent of the order of San Francisco. There is another church, which was built by a Frenchman who came to Mexico a poor boy and was so successful in mining enterprises that he accumulated a fortune of $40,000,000. He spent a million dollars in building the church, and another million in making a garden which is one of the finest in Mexico, though it is far from being what it was in its best days. We went through it and were fairly enraptured with what it contains. The whole flora of the tropics seem to have been gathered in this garden, and not only that of the tropics, but also of a large part of the temperate zone.
"This fortunate Frenchman was named Joseph de la Borde, which is changed in Spanish into José de la Borda. Lest you might think of coming here to make his acquaintance, I will add that he was born in the year 1700, and therefore isn't around very much just now.
"Cuernavaca means 'cow's horn,' but we looked in vain for something to remind us of the weapon of the favorite animal of the farm-yard. It was explained to us that the word is a corruption of Quauhnahuac, which means 'where the eagle stops.' This was a better definition, as the site of Cuernavaca is one which an intelligent eagle might select for building his nest, provided there were no human beings around to molest him. The ill-fated Maximilian followed the supposed example of the eagle, as he was fond of coming here; it was his favorite dwelling-place whenever he could snatch a few days from the cares of state. Most of the houses are roofed with red tiles, which make a fine contrast with the foliage of the tropical and semi-tropical trees.
"We visited the springs of Guadalupe which supply the town with water, and found some charming scenery among the neighboring hills. Cuernavaca lies between two barrancas, with very steep sides, and thereby, or therein, hangs a bit of history. The barrancas offer an excellent protection against assault, and when the army of Cortez came here there seemed to be no point of access. You must remember that Cortez had no Krupp or Armstrong cannon with which he could lie off at his ease to batter the town to pieces and care nothing for the intervening chasms.
"The Spaniards were at bay for some time, till at last some of the soldiers found a place where two trees had fallen across the barranca, and made a perilous but possible bridge. Over this passage-way they crept, one by one, some of them growing dizzy and falling off, to be dashed to death on the rocks below. Silently they effected the transit, formed their ranks on the other side, and then, with the blare of trumpets and the fire of musketry, they dashed forward and captured the town. How it must have astonished the people when the position they had considered impregnable was thus captured by the white men from beyond the sea!"