The City of Vera Cruz.—Defective Harbor.—The Dreaded and also Welcome Norther.—San Juan d’Ulloa.—Landing of Cortez.—His Expedition Piratical.—View of the City from the Sea.—Cortez’s Destruction of his Ships.—Anecdote of Charles V.—A Sickly Capital.—Street Scenes. —Trade.—The Mantilla.—Plaza de la Constitución.—Typical Characters.—Brilliant Fireflies.—Well-To-Do Beggars.—Principal Edifices.—The Campo Santo.—City Dwelling-Houses.—The Dark-Plumed Buzzards.—A City Fountain.—A Varied History.—Medillin.—State of Vera Cruz.

Vera Cruz, which is at present the principal seaport of the republic, and which has heretofore been considered as the gateway of Mexico, is without a harbor worthy of the name, being situated on an open roadstead and affording no safe anchorage among its shoals, coral reefs, and surf. It is not safe, in fact, for vessels to moor within half a mile of the shore. A cluster of dangerous, merciless-looking reefs, together with the island of San Juan d’Ulloa, form a slight protection from the open Gulf. A sea-wall shelters the street facing upon the water, and there is a serviceable mole where boats land from the shipping when a “norther” is not blowing; but when that prevails no one attempts to land from vessels in the roadstead. No wonder that underwriters charge double to insure vessels bound to so inhospitable a shore. Even in ordinary weather a surf-drenching has sometimes to be endured in landing at the mole. This is a serious objection to the port where every ton of freight must be transferred between ship and shore by lighters. Nevertheless, this difficulty might be easily overcome by the construction of a substantial breakwater, such as has lately been successfully built at Colombo, Ceylon, or that which has robbed the roadstead of Madras, India, of its former terrors. To be sure, such a plan requires enterprise and the liberal expenditure of money. Unless the citizens open their purses and pay for the needed improvement, which would promptly turn their exposed shore into a safe harbor, they will have to submit to seeing the present commerce of the port diverted to Tampico, where suitable engineering is about to secure an excellent harbor. Improvements are of slow growth in this country. The railway between this city and the national capital was over thirty years in building, and cost fully forty million dollars.

The captain of a freighting steamer sailing out of New York told the writer that he had more than once been obliged, at certain seasons of the year, to sail from Vera Cruz carrying back to his port of departure a portion of his cargo, as there was no time while the ship remained here that he dared to risk the landing of valuable goods liable to be spoiled by exposure to a high-running sea.

When a norther comes on to blow at Vera Cruz, all the vessels remaining near the city let go an extra anchor and batten down the hatches; or, wiser still, they let go their ground tackle and hasten to make an offing. The natives promptly haul their light boats well on shore; the citizens securely close their doors and windows; while the sky becomes darkened by clouds of sand driven by fierce gusts of wind. It is a fact that passengers have been obliged to remain for a whole week upon a European steamer, unable to land during a protracted norther. These storms are terrific in violence. It is not a straight out-and-out gale, an honest tempest, such as one sometimes meets at sea, and with which an experienced mariner knows how to cope. A norther is an erratic succession of furious squalls with whirlwinds of sand, the wind blowing from several points at the same time. When a norther blows, work is suspended in the city, and the streets are deserted until the fury of the blast has subsided. This wind, however, like most other serious annoyances in life, has its bright side. Very true is the saying: “It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good.” The norther drives away that fatal enemy of the city, the yellow fever; and when it fairly sets in to blow, that surely ends the disease for the season; its germs are swept away as if by magic. The insect plague is only second to that of the vomito as regards the danger and discomfort to be encountered in this “City of the True Cross.” But even mosquitoes succumb to the northers. The muslin bars which surround the beds of the Hotel Diligencia, fronting the plaza, are effectual, so that one can generally sleep during the two or three nights that he is likely to stay in the city. A longer sojourn is simply inviting disease, besides which there is no possible attraction to keep one here any longer.

The only good harbor in the Gulf of Mexico within a hundred miles of this point is that of Anton Lizardo, about fifteen miles to the southward of Vera Cruz, which, in fact, should have been made the commercial port. This position is now, doubtless to be filled by Tampico, in connection with the Mexican Central Railroad branch running from the main trunk of that road to the Gulf, by way of San Luis Potosi. We heard of another element operating very seriously against the interests of Vera Cruz. It seems that the sand of the Gulf shore, moved by various currents, is gradually depositing itself in the shallow roadstead in such quantities as to seriously imperil navigation. It is admitted that should this continue for a few years it would close the port to commerce. The railroad management are already talking of extending the line southward to Anton Lizardo.

On an island, less than one mile off the shore of Vera Cruz, stands the grim old fortress of San Juan d’Ulloa, a most conspicuous object with its blackened and crumbling walls. It has often been declared to be impregnable, and yet, curious to say, it has never been attacked by a foe without being compelled to surrender. Here Cortez landed on Mexican soil, April 21, 1519. He disembarked on a Friday, a day which the Romish church has set apart for the adoration of the cross; he therefore called the place Vera Cruz (The True Cross). The mere handful of followers which he brought with him to conquer and possess a nation consisted of four hundred and fifteen men at arms, sixteen horses, and seven cannon! These last were mere howitzers. Was ever a more daring and reckless scheme conceived of? Fully realizing the peculiar nature of the venture, and fearing that when his followers should awaken to the extravagant folly of the invasion, they would mutiny, forcibly seize the ships which had brought them, and return in them to Cuba, he deliberately destroyed all the galleys save one, and thus cut off the means of retreat. This was quite in accordance with the desperate nature of the enterprise and the reckless spirit of its leader, who had boldly taken upon himself unauthorized responsibility. In bringing about the destruction of his vessels, Cortez resorted to a subterfuge so as to deceive the people about him. He did not “burn” his ships, as has been so commonly reported, but ordered a marine survey upon them, employing an officer who had his secret instructions, and when the report was made public it was to the effect that the galleys were unseaworthy, leaky, and not fit or safe for service. A certain sea worm had reduced the hulls to mere shells! So the stores and armament were carried on shore, and the vessels sunk or wrecked. “His followers murmured at the loss of the ships,” says Chevalier, “but were quieted by Cortez, who promised them salvation in the next world and fortunes in this.” This is one version of the famous episode which has come down to us, and which we believe to be the true one. It is certainly the most in accordance with all the known facts in the case.

There are important circumstances connected with this often repeated episode which are not always considered in forming an estimate of the whole affair. The departure of the expedition from Cuba was nothing less than open rebellion on the part of Cortez. Had it eventuated in failure, its leader would have been pronounced a pirate and filibuster. It was Talleyrand who declared that nothing succeeds so well as success. Thus it is that history makes of the fortunate adventurer a hero, never pausing to consider the means by which his success was attained. “Cortez and his companions,” says Chevalier, “had incurred the necessity of signalizing themselves by some great exploit. They had committed a fault which the laws of all states treated as crime, and one that the leaders must expiate on the gibbet and their followers at the galleys, unless atoned for by brilliant deeds. Their departure from Cuba was an act of flagrant rebellion.” In his great haste to get away from Cuba he embarked in nine small vessels, the largest not over one hundred tons and some were even undecked boats. Velasquez, the governor of the island of Cuba, had for some time previously contemplated sending an expedition to Mexico, and having got it about ready for departure, he was over-persuaded to give Cortez the command; but after due consideration, repenting of his decision, he took steps to replace him by a more trusted officer. Cortez learned of this, and hastily got as many of the people together who had enlisted for the purpose as he could, and putting the munitions on board, sailed without taking leave! He had already been once pardoned out of prison by Velasquez, where he was confined for gross insubordination, and for the baseness of his private life, which, though he was thirty-four years of age, exhibited all the faults of earliest manhood. R. A. Wilson pronounces the expedition to have been “purely piratical, whose leader could have no hope of royal pardon but in complete success.” Cortez knew that it would not answer for him to return to Cuba, therefore he unhesitatingly destroyed the means by which even his comrades could do so. These facts rob the act which has been so lauded by historians of all heroism. Depend upon it, all our heroes have feet of clay. He had just made a rough campaign with the natives of Tabasco, in Yucatan, where he learned that farther up the Gulf, where he finally landed, there was “a people who had much gold.” That was what he sought. It was not God but gold that drew him onward from Vera Cruz to Montezuma’s capital. He was not seeking to christianize the natives; that was a plausible subterfuge. His aim was to enrich himself with native spoils and to acquire empire, nor did he pause until he had consummated the ruin of a kingdom and his own aggrandizement.

The traveler should not fail to take a boat across the bay to the castle, and there visit the dark and dismal dungeons built below the surrounding waters of the Gulf, like those in the castle of Chillon beneath the surface of the lake of Geneva. One may obtain an admirable view of the city and its neighborhood from the cupola of the lofty lighthouse, which is of the first class, and rises grandly to ninety feet above the sea. The fortress is now only partially manned, being used mostly as a place of confinement for political prisoners. As this island was the first landing-place of the Spaniards, so it was their last foothold in Mexico. There is a familiar anecdote, which is always retailed by the guides to the strangers whom they initiate into the mysteries of the fortress upon which Cortez is said to have expended uselessly many millions of dollars. Charles V., being asked for more funds wherewith to add to the defenses of San Juan d’Ulloa, called for a spyglass, and, seeking a window, pointed it to the west, seeming to gaze through the glass long and earnestly. When he was asked what he was looking for, he replied: “San Juan d’Ulloa. I have spent so much money upon the structure that it seems to me I ought to see it standing on the western horizon.”

The low-lying town—nearly eight thousand feet below the city of Mexico—is, perhaps, one of the most unhealthy spots on this continent, where the yellow fever, or vomito as it is called, prevails for six or seven months of the year, claiming myriads of victims annually, while a malarial scourge, known as the stranger’s fever, lingers about the place more or less fatally all the year round, according to the number of persons who are liable to be attacked. The yellow fever, which makes its appearance in May, is generally at its worst in August and September, at which periods it is apt to creep upwards towards the higher lands as far as Jalapa and Orizaba, though it has never been known to exist to any great extent in either of these places. The dangerous miasma which prevails seems to be quite harmless to the natives of the locality, or at least they are rarely attacked by it. When a person has once contracted yellow fever and recovered from it, as a rule he is presumed to be exempt from a second attack, but this is not a rule without an exception. In summer the streets of Vera Cruz are deserted except by the buzzards and the stray dogs. These quarrel with each other for scraps of food. The latter by no means always get the best of it. Even the Mexicans at such times call the place Una ciudad de los muertos (a city of the dead).

A large share of the business of Vera Cruz is carried on by French or German residents who have become acclimated, or by those born here of parents belonging to those nationalities. Many of the merchants of the city keep up a permanent residence at Jalapa for sanitary reasons. It is singular that the climate of this port on the Gulf side of the peninsula should be so fatal to human life, while the Pacific side, in the same latitude and quite near at hand, is perfectly salubrious. When the French army landed here in 1863-64, the ranks were decimated by the epidemic, and the graveyard where the bodies of between three and four thousand French victims lie buried near the city has been named by their countrymen, with grim humor, “Le Jardin d’Acclimatation”!

On viewing the town from the castle of San Juan d’Ulloa, one is struck by the oriental aspect which it presents. Everything is seen through a lurid atmosphere. The glare of sunshine reflected by the porcelain domes and the intense blue of the sky are Egyptian. Groups of mottled church towers surmounted by glittering crosses; square, flat-roofed houses; rough fortifications; a long reach of hot sandy plain on either side relieved by a few palm-trees; and scattered groups of low-growing cactus,—these make up the picture of the flat, miasmatic shore. There are no suburbs; the dreary, monotonous sand creeps close up to the city. But if the near foreground thus exhibits a certain repulsive nakedness, there looms grandly on the far-away horizon the Sierra Madre range of mountains, the culminating point of which is the bold, aspiring peak of Orizaba. It must be clear weather, however, to enable the visitor to see this remarkable elevation, with its hoary crown, to reach whose base twenty-seven leagues must be traversed.

The long, straight, narrow streets are laid out with great uniformity, a characteristic of all Mexican cities, and cross each other at right angles, the monotony being broken by green blinds opening on to the little balconies which are shaded by awnings. The streets have a sort of sun-baked hue, though the principal thoroughfares show a fair degree of life and activity considering that the population is so largely made up of Mexicans. The area covered by the city cannot much exceed sixty acres, the town being built in a very compact manner, a bird’s-eye view of which makes it resemble the outspread human hand. The port has seen its most prosperous days, if we may judge by present appearances. The aggregate of the imports and exports amounted to about thirty million dollars annually before the completion of the railroads to the national capital and thence to El Paso, but, as was anticipated, this new facility for transportation has diverted a large portion of this amount northward through the United States. The streets of Vera Cruz are still crowded in business hours with mule carts, porters, half-naked water-carriers, Indians, and a few negroes, military officers, and active civilians. Speaking of negroes, there are a less number in all Mexico than in any one State of this Union. In the plaza pretty flower-girls with tempting bouquets mingle with fruit venders, lottery-ticket sellers, and dashing young Mexican dudes, wearing broad sombreros heavy with cords of silver braid. Occasionally there passes some dignified senora, whose head and shoulders are covered with a black lace mantilla, imparting infinite grace to her handsome figure. How vastly superior is that soft, drooping veil to the tall hats and absurd bonnets of northern civilization! Broad contrasts present themselves on all hands, in groups of men, women, and children, half clad in rags, perhaps, but gay with brilliant colors, sharing the way with some sober-clad Europeans, or rollicking, half tipsy seamen on shore-leave from the shipping at anchor in the roadstead.

The Plaza de la Constitución is small in extent, about two hundred feet square, but it is very attractive. It is skillfully arranged, having a handsome bronze fountain in its centre, the gift of Carlotta, the unfortunate, energetic wife of Maximilian. In the evening the place is rendered brilliant by a system of electric lights. The flower plots and marble walks are ornamented with many lovely tropical flowers, cocoanut palms, and fragrant roses nodding languidly in the hot summer atmosphere under a sky intensely blue, and nine tenths of the time perfectly cloudless. The Australian gum-tree and the Chinese laurel were conspicuous among other exotic varieties. As the twilight approaches, it is amusing to watch the habitues, consisting of both sexes, especially in shady corners where there is obviously much love-making on the sly, but not the legitimate article of the Romeo and Juliet sort which has already been described. Here and there strolls a dude,—a Mexican dude, with his dark face shaded by his sombrero, his tight trousers flaring at the bottom and profusely ornamented at the side with silver buttons. He is jostled by a fellow-countryman, who gathers his serape across his left shoulder and breast so adroitly as to partially conceal his shabby attire, while he puffs his cigarette with assumed nonchalance, exchanging a careless word in the mean time with the gypsy-like woman who offers bananas and zapotas for sale. Dainty senoritas trip across the way in red-heeled slippers of Cinderella-like proportions, while noisy, laughing, happy children, girls and boys, romp with pet dogs, trundle ribbon-decked hoops, or spin gaudy humming tops. Flaring posters catch the eye, heralding the cruel bull-fight or a performance at the theatre. On Sundays a military band performs here forenoons and evenings. Under the starlight you may look not only among the low growing foliage to see the fireflies, which float there like clouds of phosphorescence, but now and again one will glow, diamond-like, in the black hair of the fair senoritas, where they are ingeniously fastened to produce this effect. It is strictly a Spanish idea, which the author has often seen in Havana. So brilliant are these tropical fireflies that with three or four placed under an inverted wineglass one can see to read fine printed matter in the nighttime. It is the common people mostly who use these insects as evening ornaments on their persons, though sometimes the most refined ladies wear them. The firefly has a hook-like integument on its body by which it is easily fastened to the hair or dress without any harm to itself. It seems as though nature had anticipated this peculiar use of the “lightning-bug,” and so provided the necessary means for the purpose. The country people bring them to market in little wicker baskets or cages, and it is curious to see with what avidity they will consume sugar. As you gaze with interest at the picture of tropical life, you are quietly asked for a few pennies by a man so well dressed, and apparently so well to do, that it seems more like a joke than like real begging. Just so the author has been accosted in the streets of Granada, in continental Spain, with a request for a trifling sum of money, by well-dressed people. Comparatively few beggars importune one in the large cities of Mexico, being deterred by the watchful police; but in the environs of any large settlement the poverty-stricken people are sure to descend upon the stranger like an army with banners.

The architecture of Vera Cruz is of the old Spanish style, with a dash of Moorish flavor in it, recalling Tangier and other cities of Morocco. The governor’s palace is a building of some pretension, two stories in height, with a veranda on each, and a tall square tower at one end of the edifice. Having visited the plaza, the alameda, with its fine array of cocoa-palms, the municipal palace, the custom-house, the public library, and the large church fronting the plaza, one has about exhausted the main features of interest. This latter structure is an imposing building, but it will in no respect compare with the cathedrals of the other cities which we have described. There are a fair number of public schools in the town, two well-endowed hospitals, public baths, and a few other institutions worthy of a progressive people. A thoroughfare, called the Street of Christ, leads out to the Campo Santo, half a mile away. This burial-place is an area surrounded by high walls, built very thick of rubble-stones and adobe, in which the tombs are made to receive the bodies instead of placing them in the ground. This neglected city of the dead has been taken in hand by Nature herself, and wild flowers are seen amid the sombre and dreary surroundings, rivaling in beauty and fragrance many cultivated favorites.

The city houses are built of coral limestone, stuccoed. The roofs, when pitched, are covered with tiles of a dull red color, but they are nearly all flat. The interior arrangements are like those elsewhere described. Each house of the better class has its square inner court, or patio, round which the dwelling is constructed, and this is ornamented more or less prettily, according to the owner’s taste, potted plants always forming a prominent feature, together with an array of caged singing birds. The long windows are guarded by significant iron bars, like the dwelling-houses throughout this country and in Havana. Sometimes on the better class of houses this iron work is rendered quite ornamental. The narrow streets are kept scrupulously clean, and are paved with cobble-stones which we were told were brought by ships from the coast of New England, and have a gutter running down the middle. There is an abundance of active, keen-eyed scavengers waddling about, always on the alert to pick up and devour domestic refuse or garbage of any sort which is found in the streets. These are the dark-plumed, funereal-looking buzzard, or vulture, a bird which is protected by law, and depended on to act in the capacity we have described. They are two feet and over in length of body, and measure six feet from tip to tip of the wings, or about the size of a large Rhode Island turkey. Employing these birds for the removal of refuse is a remedy almost as bad as the disease, since the habits of the huge, ungainly, ill-omened creatures are extremely disgusting. Clouds of them roost upon the eaves of the houses, the church belfries, and all exposed balconies, and would invade the patios of the dwellings were they not vigorously driven away and thus taught better manners. The cathedral façade on the plaza is sometimes black with them, the rays of the bright tropical sun being reflected from their glossy feathers as from a mirror. It seems there is one mystery which appertains to these unpleasant birds; namely, as to their breeding places. No one knows where they go to build their nests and to raise their young. The imaginative stranger is perhaps inclined to regard them as tokens of danger to the newcomer. All things considered, many a northern city has a less efficient street-cleaning department.

For a striking picture of strong local color, we commend the stranger to watch for a short half-hour the picturesque old fountain at the head of the Calle Centrale. Here he will find at almost any time of the day scores of weary burros slaking their thirst; busy water-carriers filling their red earthen jars; the street gamin wetting his thirsty lips; the itinerant fruit peddler seeking for customers; the gay caballero pausing to water the handsome animal he bestrides; while the tramway mules seek their share of the refreshing liquid. Dark-hued women are coming and going with earthen jars poised upon their heads, wonderfully like their Eastern sisters at the fountains of oriental Cairo. Here are men with curiously trimmed fighting birds in their arms, wending their way to the cruel cockpit. On the edge of the sidewalk close at hand, women are cooking dough-cakes of corn-meal over charcoal in tiny earthen braziers,—the universal tortillas. A sand-covered muleteer, just arrived, is testing their quality while his burros are drinking at the fountain.

Though Vera Cruz has suffered more than any other capital with which we are acquainted from bombardments, change of rulers, ravages of buccaneers, hurricanes, fevers, and other plagues, yet it is still a prosperous city, always spoken of with a certain degree of pride by the people of the republic as Villa Rica de Vera Cruz, that is, “the rich city of the true cross.” A brief glance at its past history shows us that, in 1568, it was in the hands of pirates, and that it was again sacked by buccaneers in 1683, having been in the interim, during the year 1618, swept by a devastating conflagration which nearly obliterated the place. In 1822-23, it was bombarded by the Spaniards, who still held the castle of San Juan d’Ulloa. In 1838, it was attacked by a French fleet, and in 1847, was cannonaded and captured by the American forces. In 1856, it was nearly destroyed by a hurricane. In 1859, civil war decimated the fortress and the town. The French and Imperialists took and held it from 1861 until 1867, when the cause of national independence triumphed. Since this latter date Vera Cruz has enjoyed a period of quiet and a large share of commercial prosperity.

About ten or twelve miles southward from the city is the little town of Medillin, a sort of popular watering-place, the Saratoga of this neighborhood. It is made up of a few decent houses of brick and wood, and many very poor ones, having plenty of drinking, dancing, and gambling saloons. The trip thither is most enjoyable to a stranger, for the glimpse it gives him of the tropical character and the rank fertility of this region. On the way one passes through a floral paradise, where flowers of every hue and teeming with fragrance line the way. Almond-trees, yielding grateful shade, and the Ponciana regia, blazing with gorgeous flowers, are in strong contrast to each other. The productive breadfruit-tree and the grapefruit with its yellow product abound. Here one sees the scarlet hibiscus beside the galán de noche (garland of night), which grows like a young palm to nearly ten feet in height, throwing out from the centre of its tufted top a group of brown blossoms daintily tipped with white, the mass of bloom shaped like a rich cluster of ripe grapes. Truly, the trees and flowers to be seen on the way to Medillin are a revelation.

The State of Vera Cruz borders the Gulf for a distance of five hundred miles, averaging in width about seventy-five miles. No other section of the country is so remarkable for its extreme temperature and for the fertility of the soil. The variety of its productions is simply marvelous. The intense heat is tempered by the northers, which usually occur about the first of December, and from time to time until the first of April, during which period any part of the state is comparatively healthy. A list of the native products would surprise one. Among them we find tobacco, coffee, sugar, cotton, wheat, barley, vanilla, pineapples, oranges, lemons, bananas, pomegranates, peaches, plums, apricots, tamarinds, watermelons, citrons, pears, and many other fruits and vegetables. The natives push a stick into the ground, drop in a kernel or two of corn, cover them with the soil by a mere brush of their feet, and ninety days after they pluck the ripe ears. There is no other labor, no fertilizer is used, nor is there any occasion for consulting the season, for the seed will ripen and yield its fruit each month of the year, if planted at suitable intervals.