Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras | Page 9

these dregs of humanity
crept into church for a nap, but the huge edifices showed no other sign
of usefulness. On the whole there was little appearance of "religion." A
few women were seen in the churches, a book-seller sold no novels and
little literature but "mucho de religión," but the great majority gave no
outward sign of belonging to any faith. Priests were not often seen in
the streets. Mexican law forbids them to wear a distinctive costume,
hence they dressed in black derbies, Episcopal neckbands, and black
capes to the ankles. Not distinctive indeed! No one could have guessed
what they were! One might have fancied them prize-fighters on the way
from training quarters to bathroom.
There is comparative splendor also in San Luís, as one may see by
peeps into the lighted houses at night, but it is shut in tight as if fearful
of the poor breaking in. As in so many Spanish countries, wealth
shrinks out of sight and misery openly parades itself.
Out across the railroad, where hundreds of ragged boys were riding
freight cars back and forth in front of the station, the land lay flat as a
table, some cactus here and there, but apparently fertile, with neither
sod to break nor clearing necessary. Yet nowhere, even on the edge of
the starving city, was there a sign of cultivation. We of the North were
perhaps more kind to the Indian in killing him off.

CHAPTER II
TRAMPING THE BYWAYS

Heavy weather still hung over the land to the southward. Indian corn,
dry and shriveled, was sometimes shocked as in the States. The first
field of maguey appeared, planted in long rows, barely a foot high, but
due in a year or two to produce pulque, the Mexican scourge, because
of its cheapness, stupefying the poorer classes. When fresh, it is said to
be beneficial in kidney troubles and other ailments, but soon becomes
over-fermented in the pulquerías of the cities and more harmful than a
stronger liquor.
Within the car was an American of fifty, thin and drawn, with huddled
shoulders, who had been beaten by rebel forces in Zacatecas and
robbed of his worldly wealth of $13,000 hidden in vain in his socks.
Numbers of United States box-cars jolted across the country end to end
with Mexican; the "B. & O." behind the "Norte de Méjico," the "N. Y.
C.," followed by the "Central Mejicano." Long broad stretches of plain,
with cactus and mesquite, spread to low mountains blue with cold
morning mist, all but their base hung with fog. Beyond Jesús María,
which is a sample of the station names, peons lived in bedraggled tents
along the way, and the corn was even drier. The world seemed
threatening to dry up entirely. At Cartagena there began veritable
forests of cactus trees, and a wild scrub resembling the olive.
Thousands of tunas, the red fruit of the cactus, dotted the ground along
the way. The sun sizzled its way through the heavy sky as we climbed
the flank of a rocky range, the vast half-forested plain to the east
sinking lower and lower as we rose. Then came broken country with
many muddy streams. It was the altitude perhaps that caused the patent
feeling of exhilaration, as much as the near prospect of taking again to
the open road.
As the "garrotero" ("twister," or "choker" as the brakeman is called in
Mexico) announced Dolores Hidalgo, I slipped four cartridges into my
automatic. The roadways of Mexico offered unknown possibilities. A
six-foot street-car drawn--when at all--by mules, stood at the station,
but I struck off across the rolling country by a footpath that probably
led to the invisible town. A half-mile lay behind me before I met the
first man. He was riding an ass, but when I gave him "Buenos días," he
replied with a whining: "Una limosnita! A little alms, for the love of

God." He wore a rosary about his neck and a huge cross on his chest.
When I ignored his plea he rode on mumbling. The savage bellow of a
bull not far off suggested a new possible danger on the road in this
unfenced and almost treeless country. More men passed on asses,
mules, and horses, but none afoot. Finally over the brown rise appeared
Dolores Hidalgo; two enormous churches and an otherwise small town
in a tree-touched valley. The central plaza, with many trees and hedges
trimmed in the form of animals, had in its center the statue of the priest
Hidalgo y Costilla, the "father of Mexican independence." A block
away, packed with pictures and wreathes and with much of the old
furniture as he left it, was the house in which he had lived before he
started the activities that ended in the