Part 1 (1/2)

Anahuac.

by Edward Burnett Tylor.

INTRODUCTION.

The journey and excursions in Mexico which have originated the narrative and remarks contained in this volume were made in the months of March, April, May, and June of 1856, for the most part on horseback.

The author and his fellow-traveller enjoyed many advantageous opportunities of studying the country, the people, and the antiquities of Mexico, owing to the friendly a.s.sistance and hospitality which they received there. With this aid they were enabled to accomplish much more than usually falls to the lot of travellers in so limited a period; and they had the great advantage too, of being able to substantiate or correct their own observations by the local knowledge and experience of their friends and entertainers.

Visiting Mexico during a lull in the civil turmoil of that lamentably disturbed Republic, they were fortunate in being able to avail themselves of that peaceable season in making excursions to remarkable places and ruins, and examining the national collection of antiquities, and other objects of interest,--an opportunity that cannot have occurred since owing to the recommencement of civil war in its worst form.

The following are some of the chief points of interest in these Notes on Mexico, which are either new or treated more fully than hitherto:

1. The evidence of an immense ancient population, shewn by the abundance of remains of works of art (treated of at pages 146-150), is fully stated here.

2. The notices and drawings of Obsidian knives and weapons (at page 95, &c., and in the Appendix) are more ample than any previously given.

3. The treatment of the Mexican Numerals (at page 108) is partly new.

4. The proofs of the highly probable sophistication of the doc.u.ment in the Library at Paris, relative to Mexican eclipses, have not previously been advanced (see Appendix).

5. The notices of objects of Mexican art, &c., in the chapter on Antiquities, and elsewhere (including the Appendix), are for the most part new to the public.

6. The remarks on the connection between pure Mexican art and that of Central America, in the chapter on Xochicalco, are in great part new.

7. The singular native bridge at Tezcuco (page 153) is another novelty.

The order in which places and things were visited is shewn in the annexed Itinerary, or sketch of the journeys and excursions described.

CHAPTER I.

THE ISLE OF PINES.

In the spring of 1856, I met with Mr. Christy accidentally in an omnibus at Havana. He had been in Cuba for some months, leading an adventurous life, visiting sugar-plantations, copper-mines, and coffee-estates, descending into caves, and botanizing in tropical jungles, cruising for a fortnight in an open boat among the coral-reefs, hunting turtles and manatis, and visiting all sorts of people from whom information was to be had, from foreign consuls and Lazarist missionaries down to retired slave-dealers and a.s.sa.s.sins.

As for myself, I had been travelling for the best part of a year in the United States, and had but a short time since left the live-oak forests and sugar-plantations of Louisiana. We agreed to go to Mexico together; and the present notes are princ.i.p.ally compiled from our memorandum-books, and from letters written home on our journey.

Before we left Cuba, however, we made one last excursion across the island, and to the _Isla de Pinos_--the Isle of Pines--off the southern coast. A volante took us to the railway-station. The volante is the vehicle which the Cubans specially affect; it is like a Hansom cab, but the wheels are much taller, six and a half feet high, and the black driver sits postillion-wise upon the horse. Our man had a laced jacket, black leather leggings, and a pair of silver spurs fastened upon his bare feet, which seemed at a little distance to have well polished boots on, they were so black and s.h.i.+ny.

The railway which took us from Havana to Batabano had some striking peculiarities. For a part of the way the track pa.s.sed between two walls of tropical jungle. The Indian fig trees sent down from every branch suckers, like smooth strings, which rooted themselves in the ground to draw up more water. Acacias and mimosas, the seiba and the mahagua, with other hard-wood trees innumerable, crowded close to one another; while epiphytes perched on every branch, and creepers bound the whole forest into a compact ma.s.s of vegetation, through which no bird could fly. We could catch the strings of convolvulus with our walking-sticks, as the train pa.s.sed through the jungle. Sometimes we came upon a swamp, where cl.u.s.ters of bamboos were growing, crowned with tufts of pointed leaves; or had a glimpse for a moment of a group of royal palms upon the rising ground.

We pa.s.sed sugar-plantations with their wide cane-fields, the sugar-houses with tall chimneys, and the balconied house of the administrador, keeping a sharp look out over the village of negro-cabins, arranged in double lines.

In the houses near the stations where we stopped, cigar-making seemed to be the universal occupation. Men, women, and children were sitting round tables hard at work. It made us laugh to see the black men rolling up cigars upon the hollow of their thighs, which nature has fas.h.i.+oned into a curve exactly suited to this process.

At Batabano the steamer was waiting at the pier, and our pa.s.sports and ourselves were carefully examined by the captain, for Cuba is the paradise of pa.s.sport offices, and one cannot stir without a visa. For once everybody was _en regle_, and we had no such scene as my companion had witnessed a few days before.

If you are a married man resident in Cuba, you cannot get a pa.s.sport to go to the next town without your wife's permission in writing. Now it so happened that a respectable brazier, who lived at Santiago de Cuba, wanted to go to Trinidad. His wife would not consent; so he either got her signature by stratagem, or, what is more likely, gave somebody something to get him a pa.s.sport under false pretences.

At any rate he was safe on board the steamer, when a middle-aged female, well dressed, but evidently arrayed in haste, and with a face crimson with hard running, came panting down to the steamer, and rushed on board. Seizing upon the captain, she pointed out her husband, who had taken refuge behind the other pa.s.sengers at a respectful distance; she declared that she had never consented to his going away, and demanded that his body should be instantly delivered up to her. The husband was appealed to, but preferred staying where he was. The captain produced the pa.s.sport, perfectly _en regle_, and the lady made a rush at the doc.u.ment, which was torn in half in the scuffle. All other means failing, she made a sudden dash at her husband, probably intending to carry him off by main force. He ran for his life, and there was a steeplechase round the deck, among benches, bales, and coils of rope; while the pa.s.sengers and the crew cheered first one and then the other, till they could not speak for laughing. The husband was all but caught once; but a benevolent pa.s.senger kicked a camp-stool in the lady's way, and he got a fresh start, which he utilized by climbing up the ladder to the paddle-box. His wife tried to follow him, but the shouts of laughter which the black men raised at seeing her performances were too much for her, and she came down again. Here the captain interposed, and put her ash.o.r.e, where she stood like black-eyed Susan till the vessel was far from the wharf, not waving her lily hand, however, but shaking her clenched fist in the direction of the fugitive.