The Shrine of Guadalupe.—Priestly Miracles.—A Remarkable Spring.—The Chapels about the Hill.—A Singular Votive Offering.—Church of Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe.—Costly Decorations.—A Campo Santo.— Tomb of Santa Anna.—Strange Contrasts.—Guadalupe-Hidalgo.—The Twelve Shrines on the Causeway.—The Viga Canal.—The Floating Islands.—Indian Gamblers.—Vegetable Market.—Flower Girls.—The “Noche-Triste” Tree.—Ridiculous Signs.—Queer Titles.—Floral Festival.

Guadalupe, the sacred Mecca of the Roman Catholics of Mexico, is reached by a tramway of about two or three miles in length, running in a northeasterly direction from the city. It appears that in the Aztec period there was here a native shrine dedicated to some mythological god, and as the foolish legend runs, a miracle caused this spot to be changed to a Christian shrine. The story is told with great unction by “true believers,” but to a calm, unbiased mind it is too utterly ridiculous for repetition. These church miracles were simply chronic during the Spanish rule. “The religion of Mexico,” says Wilson, “is a religion of priestly miracles, and when the ordinary rules of evidence are applied to them, they and the religion that rests upon them fall together.” Guadalupe forms a rough, irregular elevation some hundred feet or more above the level of the surrounding plain. Beside the rude stairway leading to the top of the hill, there is built a stone column, in the shape of a ship’s mast with the square sails set upon it. This is said to have been a votive offering by some sailors who were threatened with shipwreck at Vera Cruz. When in dire distress, the party referred to vowed that if the Virgin of Guadalupe would save the lives of the crew, they would bring the ship’s mast to her shrine and set it up there, as a perpetual memento of her protecting power. The mariners were saved and kept their vow, bringing the mast upon their shoulders all the way from Vera Cruz. Here they set it up and built around it a covering of stone, and thus it stands to this day. It is between thirty and forty feet high, and about twelve feet wide at the base, tapering upwards—a most unsightly and incongruous monument. On the summit of the hill there is a small chapel known as the Capilla del Cerrito, and two or three near its base, one of which has a large dome covered with enameled tiles. This is known as the Capilla del Pocito, and supports in its cupola some of the harshest and most ear-piercing bells which we have ever chanced to hear. This chapel covers a somewhat remarkable spring, which is abundant and never failing in its supply, for whose waters great and miraculous power is claimed. It manifestly contains a large impregnation of iron, and is no doubt a good tonic, beyond which its virtues are of course mythical. It is held by the surrounding populace to be an infallible remedy in the instance of unfruitful women, and is the constant resort of that class from far and near. These chapels at Guadalupe are decorated in the crudest and most inartistic manner, entirely unworthy of such belief as is professed in the sacredness of the place, or of the virtues attributed by the priests to them as a religious shrine. Money enough has been wasted, but there seems to be an utter lack of good taste.

Over two million dollars had been expended on the church of Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe, which stands at the foot of the hill, in supplying the usual inventory of jewels, gold and silver plate, and other extravagant church belongings. The church just named is built of brick and stone combined, with four towers about a central dome, and is also known as the cathedral of Guadalupe. The solid silver railing extending from the choir to the high altar is three feet in height. Owing to its presumed sacredness, this church, unlike the cathedral of the city near at hand, has never been despoiled. Its interior is very rich in ornamentation, among the most effective portions of which we remember its fine onyx columns supporting lofty arches of Moorish architecture. The costly elegance displayed in this cathedral is exactly suited to a faith in which there is so little worship and so much form and ceremony.

On coming out of this elaborate edifice, half dazed by its expensive and gaudy trappings, we step at once into an atmosphere of abject poverty and want. The surroundings of the chapels and cathedral of Guadalupe are in strong contrast with the interiors. This is undoubtedly the dirtiest and most neglected suburb of the capital, where low pulque shops and a half-naked population of beggars stare one in the face at every turn. What sort of Christian faith is that which can hoard jewels of fabulous value, with costly plate of gold and silver, in the sacristy of its temple, while the poor, crippled, naked people starve on the outside of its gilded walls? “Ah!” says Shelley, “what a divine religion might be found out if charity were really made the principle of it instead of faith!”

The grand view to be obtained from the summit of the hill of Guadalupe amply repays the visitor for climbing the rude steps and rough roadway, notwithstanding the terribly offensive odors arising from the dirty condition of the neglected surroundings. It embraces the city in the middle foreground, a glimpse of Chapultepec and the two grand mountains in the distance, together with the surrounding plains dotted with low adobe villages. The long white roads of the causeways, lined with verdant trees, divide the spacious plain by artistic lines of beauty, while between them green fields of alfalfa, and yellow, ripening maize give delightful bits of light and shade. On the back of the hill, behind the chapel crowning the summit, is a small cemetery full to repletion of tombs dedicated to famous persons. Great prices, we were told, are paid for interments in this sacred spot. Among the most interesting tombs was that of Santa Anna, the hero of more defeats than any notable soldier whom we can recall. He is remembered as a traitor by the average Mexican (just as Bazaine is regarded by the French), although he was five times President and four times military Dictator of Mexico. It will be remembered that this eccentric and notorious soldier of fortune was banished to the West Indies, whence he wrote a congratulatory letter to the intruder Maximilian, and sought to take command under him. His proffered aid was coolly declined, whereupon he offered his services to Juarez, who was fighting against Maximilian, but was repulsed with equal promptness. In a rage at this treatment, he fitted out an expedition against both parties, landed in Mexico, was taken prisoner, and in consideration of the services once rendered his country his life was spared; but he was again banished, to finish his days in poverty and in a foreign land. His wooden leg, captured during our war with Mexico, is in the Smithsonian Institution at Washington. The town which surrounds the immediate locality of these shrines of Guadalupe has a population of about three thousand, and is particularly memorable as being the place where the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo was signed, February 2, 1848, between the United States and Mexico. The name of Guadalupe was combined with that of Hidalgo, the Washington of Mexico as he is called, who in 1810 raised the cry of independence against the Spanish yoke, and though he was captured and shot, after eleven years of hard fighting, the goal of independence was reached by those who survived him. He is reported to have said just before his execution: “I die, but the seeds of liberty will be watered by my blood. The cause does not die. That still lives and will surely triumph.”

Churches bearing the name of Guadalupe are to be found all over the country, the Virgin of Guadalupe being the adopted patron saint of Mexico. Along the main road or causeway leading from the capital to the hill of Guadalupe,—now given up to the use of the Vera Cruz Railway,—one sees tall stone shrines which were erected long ago, before which deluded pilgrims and penitents knelt on their way thither. These were intended to commemorate the twelve places at which the Saviour fell down on his journey while bearing the cross to Calvary. It was called the road of humiliation and prayer, over which devotees crept on their hands and knees, seeking expiation for their sins, instigated by priestly suggestions and superstitious fears. Over this causeway, Maximilian, actuated by his fanatical religious devotion, and by a desire to impress the popular mind, walked barefooted from the city walls to the shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe! The hold of the priests on the Mexican people to-day is confined almost entirely to the péons and humble laborers. It is a common saying that when a peon earns two dollars he gives one dollar and forty-five cents to the priest, spends fifty cents for pulque, and supports his family on the remaining five cents. Among the educated classes the men are beginning to refuse to permit their wives and daughters to attend the confessional, the most subtle and portentous agency for evil that was ever invented, which has contaminated more innocence and destroyed more domestic happiness than any other known cause.

The tramway which runs out to the Viga Canal takes one a couple of miles into an extremely interesting region, exhibiting many novel phases of native life. The thoroughfare runs beside the canal for a considerable distance, the banks of which are shaded here and there by drooping willows and rows of tall Lombardy poplars. How old the canal is, no one can say; it certainly antedates the period of the Conquest. The straw-thatched, Indian, African-looking town of Santa Anita is a curiosity in itself, surrounded by the floating islands, which we are soberly told did really float centuries ago. “Here they beheld,” says Prescott, “those fairy islands of flowers, overshadowed occasionally by trees of considerable size, rising and falling with the gentle undulations of the billows.” One does not like to play the rôle of an iconoclast, but probably these islands were always pretty much as they are to-day. The “floating” idea is a poetical license, and was born in the imaginative brain of the Spanish writers. Had Prescott ever seen them, he would doubtless have come to the same conclusion. “Hanging” gardens do not necessarily depend from anything, “floating” islands need not necessarily float. They really have the appearance of buoyancy to-day, and hence the figure of speech which has been universally applied to them. “I have not seen any floating gardens,” says R. A. Wilson, author of “Mexico and its Religion,” “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.” They are now anchored to the bottom fast enough, that is certain, being separated from each other and the main land by little narrow canals. The soil of which they are constituted is kept always moist by natural irrigation, and is wonderfully fertile in producing flowers, fruits, and mammoth vegetables. Seed-time and harvest are perennial on these peculiar islands. Men are always ready with a rude sort of boat, which the most poetic imagination cannot dignify into a gondola, but which is so called. These floats are about fifteen feet long, four wide, flat bottomed, with low sides, and have no covering. The boatmen row, or rather pole, the boats through the little canals, giving the passengers a view of the low, rank vegetation on the islands, some of which present a pleasing floral picture, rather curious, but not very interesting. On Sundays and festal days the middle and lower classes of the capital come hither in large numbers to amuse themselves with the tall swings, the merry-go-rounds, and the scowlike boats, to eat dulces at the booths, and to drink inordinate quantities of pulque at the many stands at which it is dispensed at popular prices. The pungent liquor permeates the surrounding atmosphere with its sour and offensive odor. Here one sees numerous groups busy at that besetting sin of the Indians, gambling. It is practiced on all occasions and in all places, the prevailing means being “the wheel of fortune.” An itinerant bearing one of these instruments strapped about his shoulders stops here and there, soon gathering a crowd of the curious about him. The lottery-ticket vender drowns all other cries in his noisy search after customers, reaping a large harvest, especially on Sundays, in this popular resort. The old stone church of Santa Anita is a crumbling mass of Moorish architecture, with a fine tower, the whole sadly out of repair, yet plainly speaking of past grandeur.

On the way to these islands by the Paseo de la Viga, we pass through an out-door vegetable market, which is remarkable for the size of some of the specimens offered for sale; radishes were displayed which were as large as beets, also plethoric turnips, overgrown potatoes, ambitious carrots, and broad spread heads of lettuce as big as a Mexican sombrero. There were many sorts of greens for making salads, of which the average Mexican is very fond, besides flowers mingled with tempting fruits, such as oranges, lemons, melons, and pineapples. The latter, we suspect, must have come from as far south as Cordova. Young Indian girls, with garlands of various-colored poppies about their necks, like the natives of Hawaii, offered us for a trifle tiny bouquets made of rosebuds, pansies, violets, tube-roses, and scarlet geraniums, all grown close at hand on these misnamed floating islands. One low, thatched adobe cabin, between the roadway and the canals, in Santa Anita, was covered with a mammoth blooming vine, known here as the copa de oro. Its great yellow flowers were indeed like cups of gold, inviting our attention above all the other floral emblems for which the little Indian village is famous. Great quantities come daily from this suburb to supply the city demand, and especially on the occasion of the floral festivals, which have their headquarters in the plaza and the alameda, as elsewhere described.

There is much to be seen and enjoyed in these brief excursions by tramway into the environs of the city. One should not forget to take the cars which start from the west side of the Plaza Mayor, and which pass through the Riviera de San Cosme out to the village of Popotla, where the famous “Noche-triste” tree is to be seen. It is situated about three miles from the plaza. Cortez is said to have sat down under its branches and wept over his misfortunes when he was obliged to retreat from the capital, on the night of July 1, 1520, still known as the “Dismal Night.” Whether this story be true or otherwise, it matters very little. Suffice it that this big gnarled tree is held sacred and historic by the citizens, and is always visited by strangers who come to the capital. It is of the cedar family, and its dilapidated condition, together with the size of the trunk, shows its great antiquity. At present it measures ten feet in diameter at the base, with a height exceeding forty feet. Although broken and decayed in many of its parts, it is sufficiently alive to bear foliage. The gray, drooping moss hangs from its decaying branches, like a mourner’s veil shrouding face and neck, emblematic of the tears which the daring adventurer is said to have wept in its shadow. An iron railing protects the tree from careless usage and from the knives of ruthless relic hunters. A party of so-called ladies and gentlemen—we are sorry to say they were Americans—broke off some of the twigs of the tree, in 1885, to bring away with them. For this vandalism they were promptly arrested, and very properly fined by a Mexican court. Close by this interesting tree of the “Dismal Night” stands the ancient church of San Esteban.

The practice prevails in the cities of Mexico that one sees in Cuba and in continental Spain, as regards the signs which traders place over their doors. The individual’s name is never given, but the merchant adopts some fancy one to designate his place of business. Seeing the title “El Congreso Americana,” “The American Congress,” we were a little disconcerted, on investigation, to find that it was the sign of a large and popular bar-room. Near by was another sign reading thus: “El Diablo,” that is, “The Devil.” This was over a pulque shop, which seemed to be appropriately designated. Farther on towards the alameda was “El Sueño de Amor,” signifying “The Dream of Love.” This was over a shop devoted to the sale of serapes and other dry goods. On the Calle de San Bernardo, over one of the entrances where dry goods were sold, was seen, in large gold letters, “La Perla,” “The Pearl.” Again near the plaza we read, “La Dos Republics,” meaning “The Two Republics.” This was a hat store, with gorgeous sombreros displayed for sale. “El Recreo,” “The Retreat,” was a billiard hall and bar-room combined, while not far away “El Ópalo,” “The Opal,” designated a store where dulces were sold. “La Bomba,” “The Bomb,” was the sign over a saddle and harness shop. “El Amor Cantivo,” “Captive Love,” was the motto of a dry goods store. “La Coquetta,” “The Coquette,” was the title of a cigar shop.

These stores are almost all conducted by French or German owners, with now and then a Jew of uncertain nationality; few are kept by Spaniards, and none by Americans, or citizens of the United States. American enterprise seeks expression here in a larger field. Where a trunk line of railroad a thousand miles or more is demanded, as in the instance of the Mexican Central, they are sure to be found at the front, with capital, executive ability, and the energy which commands success. The surveys for the Mexican railroads demanding the very best ability were made by Americans, the locomotive drivers are nearly all Americans, and more than half the conductors upon the regular railway trains are Americans. The infusion of American spirit among the Mexican people is perhaps slow, but it is none the less sure and steady.

Each sort of business has its distinctive emblem. The butcher always hangs out a crimson banner. In some portions of the town there are painted caricatures on the fronts of certain places to designate their special business. For instance, in front of a pulque shop is found a laughable figure of a man with a ponderous stomach, drinking his favorite tipple. At another, which is the popular drinking resort of the bull-fighters, is represented a scene where a picadore is being tossed high in air from the horns of an infuriated bull, and so on. The names of some of the streets of the capital show how the Roman Catholic Church has tried to impress itself upon the attention of the populace even in the titles of large thoroughfares. Thus we have the Crown of Thorns Street, the Holy Ghost Bridge, Mother of Sorrows Street, Blood of Christ Street, Holy Ghost Street, Street of the Sacred Heart, and the like. Protestants of influence have protested against this use of names, and changes therein have been seriously considered by the local government. As previously explained, some of these streets have been so named because there were churches bearing these titles situated in them.

Friday, the 28th of March, the day of Viernes de Dolores, was a floral festal occasion in and about the city of Mexico. The origin of this observance we did not exactly understand, except that it is an old Indian custom, which is carefully honored by all classes, and a very beautiful one it most certainly is. For several days previous to that devoted to the exhibition, preparations were made for it by the erection of frames, tents, canvas roofing, and the like, in the centre of the alameda and over its approaches. At sunrise on the day designated, the people resorted in crowds to the broad and beautiful paths, roadways, and circles of the delightful old park, to find pyramids of flowers elegantly arranged about the fountains, while the passageways were lined by flower dealers from the country with beautiful and fragrant bouquets, for sale at prices and in shapes to suit all comers. Nothing but a true love of flowers could suggest such attractive combinations. Into some of the bouquets strawberries with long stems were introduced, in order to obtain a certain effect of color; in others was seen a handsome red berry in clusters, like the fruit of the mountain ash. We had observed the preparations, and were on the spot at the first peep of the day. The Indians came down the Paseo de la Reforma in the gray light of the dawn, and stopped beside the entrance to the alameda, men and women laden with fragrance and bloom from all parts of the valley of Mexico within a radius of forty miles from the city. One lot of burros, numbering a score and more, formed a singularly picturesque and novel group. The animals, except their heads and long ears, were absolutely hidden beneath masses of radiant color. Groups of women sitting upon the ground were busy making up bouquets, which were most artistically combined. These natives love bright colors, and have an instinctive eye for graceful combinations.

Of course the variety of flowers was infinite. We remember, among them, red and white roses, pansies, violets, héliotropes, sweet peas, gardenias, camélias, both calla and tiger lilies, honeysuckles, forget-me-nots, verbenas, pinks in a variety of colors, larkspur, jasmine, pétunias, morning glories, tulips, scarlet geraniums, and others. Three military bands placed in central positions added spirit and interest to the suggestive occasion. The harmony of the music blended with the perfume of the flowers, completing the charm of such a scene of floral extravagance as we have never before witnessed. Our florists might get many bright, new ideas as to the arrangements of bouquets from these Mexicans.

None of the populace seemed to be too poor to purchase freely of the flowers, all decking their persons with them. As fast as the bouquets were disposed of, their places were filled with a fresh supply, the source being, apparently, inexhaustible. Young and old, rich and poor, thronged to the flower-embowered alameda on this occasion, and there was no seeming diminution of demand or of supply up to high noon, when we left the still enthusiastic and merry crowd. In the afternoon, no matter in what part of the town we were, the same floral enthusiasm and spirit possessed the populace. Balcony, doorway, carriage windows, and market baskets, married women and youthful senoritas, boys and girls, cripples and beggars, all indulged in floral decoration and display. It appeared that several carloads of flowers came from far-away Jalapa to supply the demand in the national capital made upon the kingdom of Flora for this flower festival.