Alamo Ranch Part 11

"But as Prescott commends his 'fairness and integrity,' and says 'he has been followed, without misgiving, by such Spanish chroniclers as could have access to his ma.n.u.scripts,' without attempting to settle the vexed question of the probability of its details (which are a combination of 'Munchausen' and 'Arabian Nights'), we also will follow his marvellous story of the Tezcucan Prince Nezahualcoyotl. Pa.s.sing lightly over the fascinating chapter of that prince's romantic adventures,--his marvellous daring, his perilous escapes from the fierce pursuit of the usurper Maxtla, and the dethronement and violent end of that b.l.o.o.d.y-minded monarch,--we come to the time when Nezahualcoyotl, restored to the throne of his fathers, is firmly established in the love and fealty of his people, and may turn his attention to the production of the odes and addresses handed down in Castilian by his admiring descendant Ixtilxochitl. This admirable monarch was, we are informed, 'the Solon of Anahauc.' His literary productions turn, for the most part, on the vanity and mutability of human life, and strikingly embody that Epicurean poetic sentiment, expressed, at a later time, by our own English poet, Herrick, in such verses as 'Gather ye rose-buds while ye may.'

"'Banish care,' sings the royal Tezcucan bard; 'if there be bounds to pleasure, the saddest life must also have an end. Then wear the chaplet of flowers, and sing thy songs in praise of the all-powerful G.o.d; for the glory of the world soon fadeth away.

"'Rejoice in the green freshness of thy spring; for the day will come when thou wilt sigh for these joys in vain. Yet the remembrance of the just' (piously adds the poet) 'shall not pa.s.s away from the nations; and the good thou hast done shall ever be held in honor.' And anon,--returning to his _Epicurean_ 'muttons,'--he sings: 'Then gather the fairest flowers in the gardens to bind round thy brow, and seize the joys of the present ere they perish.'

"An English translation of one of Nezahualcoyotl's odes has been made from the Castilian. It harps upon the same old string, as also do his prose essays, which have less literary merit than his verse. We are told by his panegyrist that not all the time of this incomparable monarch was pa.s.sed in dalliance with the muse, but that he won renown as a warrior, and in the interests of peace also fostered the productive arts that made his realm prosperous, as agriculture, and the like practical pursuits. Between times he appears to have looked well after the well-being of his children, who, in numbers, rivalled the progeny of our modern patriarch, Brigham Young. It is recorded that by his various wives this monarch had no less than sixty sons and fifty daughters. (One condones his disgust with life!) The Tezcucan crown, however, descended to the children of his one legal wife, whom he married late in life. The story of his wooing and winning this fair lady is almost an exact counterpart of the Bible account of King David's treacherous winning of Uriah's beautiful consort.

"It is related of Nezahualcoyotl, that having been married for some years to this unrighteously obtained wife, and not having been blest with issue by his beautiful queen, the priests persuaded him to propitiate the G.o.ds of his country--whom he had pointedly neglected--by human sacrifice. He reluctantly consented; but all in vain was this mistaken concession. Then it was that he indignantly repudiated these inefficient Pagan deities.

"'These idols of wood and stone,' said he, 'can neither hear nor feel; much less could they make the heavens, and the earth, and man, the lord of it. These must be the work of the all-powerful unknown G.o.d, creator of the universe, on whom alone I must rely for consolation and support.'

He thereupon withdrew to his rural palace, where he remained forty days, fasting and praying at stated hours, and offering up no other sacrifice than the sweet incense of copal, and aromatic herbs and gums.

"In answer to his prayer, a son was given him,--the only one ever borne by his queen. After this, he made earnest effort to wean his subjects from their degrading religious superst.i.tion, building a temple, which he thus dedicated: 'To the Unknown G.o.d, the _Cause_ of _Causes_.' No image was allowed in this edifice (as unsuited to the 'invisible G.o.d'), and the people were expressly prohibited from profaning its altars with blood, or any other sacrifice than that of flowers and sweet-scented gums. In his old age the king voiced his religious speculations in hymns of pensive tenderness.

"In one of these, he thus piously philosophizes: 'Rivers, torrents, and streams move onward to their destination. Not one flows back to its pleasant source. They must onward, hastening to bury themselves in the bosom of the ocean. The things of yesterday are no more to-day, and the things of to-day shall cease to-morrow. The great, the wise, the valiant, the beautiful,--alas, where are they?'"

"The compositions of Nezahualcoyotl," observed the Grumbler, as the Antiquary folded away his finished paper, "though strictly founded on fact, are not exhilarating. His family was too large; and the wonder is, not that his odes and hymns are depressing, but that he should have the heart to 'drop into poetry' at all!"

"We are told," rejoined the Journalist, "by his descendant with the unp.r.o.nounceable name, that once in every four months his entire family, not even excepting the youngest child, was called together, and orated by the priesthood on the obligations of morality, of which, by their exalted rank, they were expected to be s.h.i.+ning examples. To these admonitions was added the compulsory chanting of their father's hymns."

"Poor beggars!" pitied the Grumbler; "how they must have squirmed under this ever-recurring royal 'wet blanket!'"

"You forget," said Leon Starr, coming to the rescue of the poet-father, "that in view of their inevitable mortality the bard had already advised them to 'banish care, to rejoice in the green freshness of their spring; to bind their brows with the fairest flowers of the garden, seize the joys of the present, and'--in short, had given them leave to have no end of larks, which, of course, they naturally and obediently did."

"It is a noteworthy fact," observed Mr. Morehouse, "that many aborigines--though but scantily supplied with clothing, as the natives of Samoa and the Sandwich Islanders--take great delight in adorning the body with flowers. To this liking the Tezcucan king especially appeals in his odes and hymns. The Mexicans have from time immemorial doted on flowers. This taste three hundred years or more of oppression has not extinguished."

"Do you remember, dear," asked Mr. Bixbee, turning to his wife, "the flower market in the Plaza at Mexico?" (The pair had, a year or two earlier, explored that city)--"that iron pavilion partly covered in with gla.s.s, and tended by nut-brown women and smiling Indian girls?"

"Shall I ever forget it?" was her enthusiastic response. "The whole neighborhood was fragrant with perfume of vases of heliotrope, pinks, and mignonette; and such poppies, and pansies, and forget-me-nots I never elsewhere beheld!"

"One can believe in absolute floral perfection," said the Journalist, "in a country which embraces all climates. 'So accurately,' observes Wilson, 'has nature adjusted in Mexico the stratas of vegetation to the state of the atmosphere, that the skilful hand of a gardener might have laid out the different fields, which, with their charming vegetation, rise, one above another, upon the fertile mountain sides of the table-land.'

"Along with many other important vegetable growths, the cotton-plant is supposed to be indigenous to Mexico, as Cortez, on his first landing, found the natives clothed in cotton fabrics of their own manufacture.

Its culture continues to the present day, but with very little improvement in method since the earlier time of the Spanish Conquest."

"And now," asked the Harvard man, "since we are on the subject of Mexican natural floral products, may I speak my little piece, which I may call, 'What I have learned about the Cactus'?"

The Koshare graciously a.s.senting, Roger Smith thus began:

"In Mexico the cactus is an aboriginal and indigenous production.

Several hundred varieties are identified by botanists. A beautiful sort is Cereus grandiflora. As with us, this variety blooms only at night; its frail, sweet flower dying at the coming of day. The cactus seems to grow best in the poorest soil. No matter how dry the season, it is always juicy. Protected by its thick epidermis, it retains within its circulation that store of moisture absorbed during the wet season, and when neighboring vegetation dies of drought is still unharmed. Several varieties of cactus have within their flowers an edible substance, which is, in Monterey, brought daily to market by the natives. That species of cactus which combines within itself more numerous uses than any known vegetable product is known as the maguey, or century plant.

"Upon the Mexican mountains it grows wild as a weed; but as a domestic plant it is cultivated in little patches, or planted in fields of leagues in extent. Its huge leaf pounded into a pulp makes a subst.i.tute both for cloth and paper. The fibre of the leaf, when beaten and spun, forms a silk-like thread, which, woven into a fabric, resembles linen rather than silk. This thread is now, and ever has been, the sewing thread of the country. From the leaf of the maguey is crudely manufactured sailcloth and sacking; and from it is made the bagging now in common use.

"The ropes made from it are of that kind called manila. It is the best material in use for wrapping-paper. When cut into coa.r.s.e straws, it forms the brooms and whitewash brushes of the country, and as a subst.i.tute for bristles it is made into scrub-brushes, and, finally, it supplies the place of hair-combs among the common people. So much for the cactus leaf; but from its sap arises the prime value of the plant.

"From this is made the favorite intoxicating drink of the common people of Mexico. This juice in its unfermented state is called honey water.

When fermented it is known as pulque. The flowering maguey, the 'Agava American,' is the century plant of the United States.

"In its native habitat the plant flowers in its fifteenth year, or thereabout; and we are a.s.sured that nowhere, as is fabled, does its bloom require a long century for its production. The juice of the maguey is gathered by cutting out the heart of the flower of the central stem, for whose sustenance this juice is destined. A single plant, thus gingerly treated, yields daily, for a period of two or three months, according to the thriftiness of the plant, from four to seven quarts of the honey water, which, before fermentation, is said to resemble in taste new sweet cider.

"Large private profit accrues to the owner of maguey estates, and the government excise derived from the sale of the liquor is large. Pulque is the lager of the peon. It was the product of the country long before the time of the Montezumas; and Ballou tells us that 'so late as 1890 over eighty thousand gallons of pulque were daily consumed in the city of Mexico.'

"It is said to be the peculiar effect of pulque to create, in its immoderate drinkers, an aversion to other stimulants; the person thus using it preferring it to any and all other drinks, irrespective of cost."

The Minister followed Roger Smith with an account of a famous tree of Mexico.

"It was at Papotla," said this much-travelled invalid, "a village some three miles from that capital, that we saw this remarkable tree, which is called 'The Tree of the Noche Triste' (the Dismal Night), because Cortez in his disastrous midnight retreat from the Aztec capital is said to have sat down and wept under it. Be that as it may, the Noche Triste is undoubtedly a tree of great age. It is of the cedar family, broken and decayed in many parts, but still enough alive to bear foliage.

"In its dilapidated condition it measures ten feet in diameter, and exceeds forty feet in height. Long gray moss droops mournfully from its decaying branches, and, taken altogether, it is indeed a dismal tree.

"It is much visited, and held sacred and historic by the people, who guard and cherish it with great care."

"It calls up singular reflections," commented the Journalist, "to look upon a living thing that has existed a thousand years, though it be but a tree. Though so many centuries have rolled over the cypresses of Chapultepec, they are yet sound and vigorous.

"These trees are the only links that unite modern and ancient American civilization; for they were in being when that mysterious race, the Toltecs, rested under their shade; and they are said to have long been standing, when a body of Aztecs, wandering away from their tribe in search of game, fixed themselves upon the marsh at Chapultepec, and, spreading their mats under these cypresses, enjoyed in their shadow their noontide slumber. Then came the Spaniards to people the valley with the mixed races, who respected their great antiquity, so that during all the battles that have been fought around them they have pa.s.sed unharmed, and amid the strife and contentions of men have gone quietly on, adding many rings to their already enlarged circ.u.mference.

'Heedless,' says Wilson, 'of the gunpowder burned over their heads and the discharge of cannon that has shaken their roots, as one ephemeral Mexican government succeeded another, these cypresses still remain unharmed, and may outlive many other dynasties.'"

"Apropos of the subject," said the Antiquary, "Nezahualcoyotl, according to his descendant, the native historian, embellished his numerous villas with hanging gardens replete with gorgeous flowers and odoriferous shrubs. The steps to these charming terraces--many of them hewn in the natural porphyry, and which a writer who lived in the sixteenth century avers that he himself counted--were even then crumbling into ruins.

Later travellers have reported the almost literal decay of this wonderful establishment. Latrobe describes this monarch's baths (fabled to have been twelve feet long by eight wide) as 'singular basins, perhaps two feet in diameter, and not capacious enough for any monarch larger than Oberon to take a ducking in.'

"The observations of other travellers confirm this account. Bullock tells us that some of the terraces of this apparently mythical palace are still entire; and that the solid remains of stone and stucco furnished an inexhaustible quarry for the churches and other buildings since erected on the site of that ancient Aztec city.

"Latrobe, on the contrary, attributes these ruins to the Toltecs, and hints at the probability of their belonging to an age and a people still more remote. Wilson, on the other hand, positively accords them to the Phoenicians."

"In reading up on this famous empire, Tezcuco," said Leon Starr, "one is inclined to believe that every vestige of this proud magnificence could not possibly have been obliterated in the short period of three centuries, leaving on the spot only an indifferently built village, whose population of three hundred Indians, and about one hundred whites, maintain themselves in summer by gardening, and sending in their canoes daily supplies of 'herbs and _sullers_' (whatever this last may be) to Mexico, and, in winter, by raking the mud for the 'tegnesquita,' from which they manufacture salt."

"Wilson," said the Grumbler, "tells us that 'the Tezcucan descendant of an emperor "lied like a priest."' However that may be, one cannot quite swallow his own relation 'in its entirety.'"

"Right you are," responded the Harvard man; "and now here is Miss Norcross, waiting, I am sure, to cram us still further with Mexican information."

"It is only," said this modest little lady, "some bits that I have jotted down about Mexican gems;" and shyly producing her paper, she thus read:

"In enumerating the precious stones of Mexico,--the ruby, amethyst, topaz, and garnet, the pearl, agate, turquoise, and chalcedony,--one must put before them all that wonder of Nature,--the Mexican fire opal, which, though not quite so hard as the Hungarian or the Australian opal, excels either of them in brilliance and variety of color. Of this beautiful stone Ballou has aptly said, 'It seems as if Nature by some subtle alchemy of her own had condensed, to form this fiery gem, the h.o.a.rded suns.h.i.+ne of a thousand years.' He tells us that, in his Mexican travels he saw an opal, weighing fourteen carats, for which five thousand dollars was refused. 'Really choice specimens,' he goes on to say, 'are rare. The natives, notwithstanding the abundance of opals found in Mexico, hold tenaciously to the price first set upon them.

Their value ranges from ten dollars to ten hundred.'

"In modern times, as we all know, a superst.i.tion of the unluckiness of the stone long prevailed. Now, the opal has come to be considered as desirable as it is beautiful, and, endorsed by fas.h.i.+on, takes its rightful place among precious gems. A London newspaper states that a giant Australian opal, oval in shape, measuring two inches in length, an inch and a half deep, and weighing two hundred and fifty carats, is destined to be given to King Edward the Seventh; and that Mr. Lyons, the giver, a lawyer of Queensland, desires that it should be set in the King's regalia of the Australian federation. The London lapidaries believe it to be the finest and largest opal in the world.

"Its only rival in size and beauty is the Hungarian opal, possessed by Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria. This gem is known as the 'Imperial opal,' and is said, in its rainbow beauty, to display the blended colors of the ruby, the emerald, and the amethyst.

"What is termed the 'fire' of the gem appears to burn in its remotest depths, with a glow and fervor which at times seem to convert the stone from the opaque to the semi-transparent."

"We have in our own family," said Miss Paulina Hemmenshaw, supplementing this account, "a rare Mexican opal. Long, long ago, it was given as an engagement ring to my mother's youngest sister, by her lover, who, while travelling in Mexico, had secured this exquisite stone for a betrothal pledge. On the very eve of her wedding-day my beautiful Aunt Margaret died of an unsuspected heart-disease. The old superst.i.tion of the unluckiness of the opal being then dominant, my aunt's superb ring was laid by as a thing malignant as beautiful.

"As a child I was sometimes allowed to take this sad memento of my dead aunt from its nest of cotton wool and admire its harmful splendor. At my mother's death it descended, along with all her own jewels, to me, her only daughter. Now that we have outlived the foolish superst.i.tion in respect to this precious stone, I have made up my mind," said the good aunt, beaming kindly on her niece, "to take this ring from the Safety Vault, on our return to Boston, and make it one of my wedding gifts to this dear child."

"Many thanks, dear ladies," said Mrs. Bixbee, as Miss Paulina ended, "for your talks about the opal. It is my favorite among precious stones.

I even prefer it to the diamond, as something warmer and more alive. I am glad that its character is looking up in these days."