FACE TO FACE WITH THE MEXICANS.*
To a Scotch lady, Madame Calderon de la Barca, who wrote fifty years ago, belongs the credit of having produced what still remains the best presentment of life in Mexico. An American lady, Mrs. Fanny Chambers Gooch, has worthily followed in her predecessor's footsteps ; her handsome volume, printed in America three years ago, and recently republished here, not only marks the advance that has been made in the art of getting up books since Madame Calderon de la Barca's day, but also serves to show how very little change even the- introduction of railways has made in the national charac- teristics and daily life of Mexicans. The reason of this per- sistent conservatism is not far to seek. Ages before the advent of Columbus or Cortez, the brown Indians who inhabited the- southern part of the North American continent had passed from the nomad stage of existence into one of settled and,. comparatively speaking, high civilisation, in which the arts- of peace predominated over those of war. Their red brethren in the more temperate parts of the continent were still nomad warriors with no settled homes ; their very pride and spirit forbade them to become hewers of wood and drawers of water, and thus stood in the way of their absorption among their Anglo-Saxon conquerors, before whom they steadily and surely receded to the fastnesses of the North-West, where their ultimate extinction is, probably, but a matter of time, or where, at all events, their remnant will become indistinguishable from the prepotent race. The English, consequently, had to base their occupancy on their own labour, or on that imported from Africa. Between the Spaniards of the days of Cortez and the brown Indians whom they found in Mexico, the difference of civilisation was one rather of degree than of 'kinds The land was already tilled by a patient labouring population, -*rho yeadily transferred:, their allegiance to, and, in form at least, adapted the religion of, their new masters. The natives remained on the.S011a.if- not in possession of it ; the Spaniards were always too few in number to do without their help; intermarriages were fre- quent, and regarded without racial prejudice ; the childran of these mixed marriages were in as good a social position as those of pure Spanish blood born in the Colony, for both were equally excluded from all public offices, which were reserved by the Spanish Colonial system for those alone who had been born in old Spain. From mere superiority of numbers, the lowest class remained, and remains to the- present day, purely Indian in blood. The present population of Mexico is reckoned at ten millions, two-thirds of whom are- probably without admixture of Spanish blood. Provided that they got through a certain amount of work and attended a certain amount of masses, they were little interfered with by their conquerors ; their wants were few, and their numbers, more than sufficient to do the work required of them ; hence. there has been little incentive to change, and it is not to be wondered at that their hereditary adherence to their old customs should oppose a vas iveriiie which even Anglo-Saxon activity fails, in such a climate, to overcome.
Mrs. Gooch lived for several years in Mexico, not all the- time in one city or place, but in different parts of the Republic. As she occupied a private and not an official position like. Madame Calderon de la Barca, she was brought more into immediate contact with the people than the latter could have been, and the contact, close as it was, appears tc- have engendered none but the kindliest sentiments of affec- tion and esteem. Mrs. Gooch's first experiences were suf- ficiently droll, for, in company with sonic other Americans,. she went at once into housekeeping, since her husband's business kept them for some time in the quaint old provincial city of Saltillo. The party settled themselves in a roomy old house, with accommodation more than ample as far as space was concerned, but almost void of furniture and all modern necessaries of housekeeping, wants which they soon found that even unlimited money could not supply. A few articles of furniture were procured with difficulty, and even a dilapi- dated American cooking-stove ; but this was beyond the understanding of Mexican cooks, who one after another took themselves off on the ground that it would give them disease of the liver.° The authoress's desire to do her own marketing was foiled by the sheer obstinacy of her servants, who met every • Faoo to Face with tho Mexicann, Ily Fanny Chamb3ra Gooch. London Sampson Low and Co. 1890.
;attempt to get them into American habits with the unanswer- able remark, " No es costumbre," " It is not the custom of the -country." The cook declined to pluck fowls instead of skin- ning them ; the man-servant would not clean the floor, or .attend his lady at market ; the porter refused to work on now principles,—till at length the conviction forced itself on Mrs. Gooch that, as she could not Americanize the household, she would have to Mexicanise herself ; yet she .declares that all the inconveniences of the constant change of servants caused her no annoyance or disagreement with them, but that, on the contrary, it was a perpetual treat to her to .note their strict adherence to inbred characteristics : even in the act of giving warning, politeness ruled their lives ; they would endeavour to spare her feelings by inventing some -excuse as to family calls which necessitated their going,— .native courtesy was stronger than love of truth. All the little details of domestic economy which a man would over- look, are described with minute accuracy by Mrs. Gooch ; the method of making tortillas, of grinding coffee without a mill, the absence of all but earthen vessels from the kitchen, the stiff arrangement round the walls of such scanty furniture as there was,—all these, and many other points which would infallibly have escaped notice from a male observer, find their place in the narrative, and add considerably to the lifelike presentment of the picture. The illustrations throughout the volume are of very unequal merit ; some are exquisite repro- ductions of life and scenery, while others—for instance, that on p. 41—had bettor have been omitted. As examples of good and bad actually facing each other, compare the water-carrier on p. 433 with the washerwomen on the opposite page.
After a considerable stay at Saltillo, Mrs. Gooch‘went hi/ the Mexican Central Railway to the capital on the woad at the towns of Chihrtal— 44acatecas, Aguas Calientes, —
and Queretaro, o e-- - ot which she sketches the principal obaractp„i' "ca. f,„ in the capital, the authoress stayed long -gn to form numerous friendships with the leading persons
of Mexican society, to which her letters of introduction secured her ready- access. The city of Mexico has been often and well described in recent works of English and American 'travellers ; but the inner aspect of the daily life of all classes, from the highest to the lowest, has never been so faithfully portrayed as in the present pages. The fact that seems to have impressed Mrs. Gooch most, perhaps because she was American, was the gentleness of demeanour and courteous bearing among all classes ; birth and education, she remarked, had nothing to do with it; it was an exquisite instinct, common to the people as a nation. In spite of the im- passivity of the Aztec type—using the word as synonymous with brown Mexican Indian, though in. reality the Aztecs are but one out of many tribes still existing—in spite of their air of stolid unconcern, the idea conveyed to Mrs. Gooch's mind was that they are a happy and contented race; and this, no doubt, is the correct view. Some recent observers have tried to make out the contrary, urging that from the days of Cortez downwards they have been humiliated, degraded, and enslaved until their patriotism, self-reliance, and independence have been orushed out of them ; that they are set apart and kept apart by a rigidly defined caste, and pass their lives in poverty and suffering, without hope and without ambition. On these grounds, an indictment of cruelty and selfishness has been ;preferred against the Spanish nation which, there is every 'reason too believe, is grossly exaggerated. That the followers and immediate successors of Cortez were guilty of great .cruelties, is no doubt tine—witness the life-work of Las Oases —but that this was systematically continued in New. Spain is not in accordance with history. Moreover, the condition of the natives under Spanish rule was probably no whit worse than it was before the conquest. Slavery undoubtedly existed in Aztec times, the pyramids and temples could not have been built without forced labour, and the abolition of the sanguinary rites of human sacrifice was a distinct gain to the people of the land. Further, it is quite incorrect to say that there is any hard-and-fast line of caste separating the Indian from the white race. On the contrary, the races blend by imperceptible gradations, and, as Mrs. Gooch herself notices, many ladies in good position spoke proudly to her of their Indian blood. Indiana are found in every walk of life, and there exists absolutely no prejudice against them as such.; Benito Juarez, for instance, the best President that Mexico ever had, to whom she owes her emancipation from the power of the clerical party, was a full-blooded Indian, who rose by his own talents to the position of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Mrs. Gooch's chapter on "Actors and Events in Mexican History" is admirably put together ; she teaches history in the way in which it is most likely to impress itself on the memory, by associating the actors with the places rendered memorable by their deeds, and throwing in these local touches as incidental to her description of the places which she visited. In narrating the early struggles of Mexico for independence, she perhaps glosses over too charitably the readi- ness with which Iturbide changed sides, and, after deserting his King, himself grasped the Imperial diadem. To the patriot-priests of Mexico, Hidalgo, and Morelos, who gave their lives to raise the first cry of independence, Mrs. Gooch renders full honour, and she is amply justified in saying that " a better-grounded or more righteous cause never existed than that of Mexico against the tyranny Enid usurpation of the Spaniards, who filled every place of power and emolument in the Government, to the exclusion of the Creoles; and native population." The life of Santa Anna is practically the history of Mexico for upwards of thirty years, as from 1822 to 1855 he was, with various ups and downs, the most conspicuous figure on the stage ; he outlived the French intervention, and wore out repeated sentences of exile, dying in the city of Mexico in 1876, at the age of eighty-four. Mrs. Gooch does not spare the conduct of her own. countrymen in provoking the war of 1848, and she energetically repudiates the doctrine
that it is the manifest destiny of the United States to include or annex the Mexican Republic. Ten years of domestic peace and steady progress have done something to re- move the reproach% -4 4r 4,,,d-mbility of Mexican Govern- ments and of the non-progressiveness of the Mexican people.
Time and perseverance on the part of reformers are the only remedy ; and all praise is due to Mrs. Gooch for recognising, and seeking to impress on her own countrymen, that doctrinaire ideas of popular government suited to the United States would not work in Mexico, and that the interests of the two Republics lie in their not interfering one with the other :—
" No foreign power need over expect with ruthless hand to break down Mexican customs, laws, peculiarities, and institutions. Such changes as are made must be made slowly. With the American idea of Government in Mexico, the worst evils would arise, The ultraism of American reforms would defeat all reform."
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