Little Folks of North America Part 13

The owner of such a farm is usually a rich man who lives with his family in a large stone house surrounded by high walls. There is a courtyard where beautiful trees and plants are growing and fountains are playing.

The wife and children of the owner wear dainty garments and are waited upon by many servants. They have the choicest food,-fruits of many kinds, chicken cooked in different ways, tortillas of course, besides all sorts of delicacies prepared by excellent cooks.

The workmen have very different homes. They live in small huts of one or two rooms, and built of mud or adobe. Inside are rough stone fireplaces, and a few mats are spread on the floor. Here the children and their parents sit while they eat their simple meals of tortillas and black beans, and here they stretch themselves at night for sleep. They are quite happy, however. Outdoors are the birds, the flowers, and the beautiful suns.h.i.+ne. They need few clothes and they do not go hungry.

There are usually large dairies on these farms where women are busy making the rich milk into b.u.t.ter and cheese. Thousands of pounds are often sent to market from one such farm during the year.

You have probably seen century plants in the hot-houses you have visited, and have been told that they belong to the aloe family. When the Spaniards first came to Mexico they saw the Indians making paper from the pulp of the leaves of the aloe plant and twine from its fibers.

The sharp thorns on the edges of the leaves furnished needles for the Indian women, and the sap of the aloe was made into pulque, the favorite drink of the natives. They also made hammocks from the fibers and thatched the roofs of their huts with the big leaves, lapping one over the other like s.h.i.+ngles. In fact, the Indians made so many uses of the aloe plant that the Spaniards thought it worth while to raise it in large quant.i.ties for themselves.

The aloe has thick, pointed leaves sometimes ten feet long. It blossoms about once in ten years, when it sends a flower stalk twenty or thirty feet up into the air. At the very top an immense cl.u.s.ter of greenish-yellow blossoms appears. All the strength of the plant goes into these blossoms for, as they open, the leaves wither and die.

The Indians have learned to tell when the plant is getting ready to send up its giant flower-stalk. Just before it appears they cut out the heart with a sharp knife, leaving only the thick, outside rind of the stem.

The sweet sap that should have gone to feed the flower-stalk begins to ooze into the hollow and continues to do so for several weeks. The Indians, who have discovered the right time to cut into the plant to prevent its flowering, have also learned that the sap can be used in making the drink which they call pulque.

The city of Mexico is a beautiful one, with high stone walls around it, a large square in the centre, and broad streets running at right angles to each other. Nearly all the houses are built of stone, with flat roofs on which the people sit in the evening to enjoy the cool breezes and watch the stars twinkling merrily in the heavens above.

The children of the big stone houses can play in inner courtyards among flowering plants and fountains. But when they leave their homes to go out into the city they must pa.s.s through heavy doors studded with nails and heavily chained. The house windows that face the street have iron bars across them, so that at first these houses seem like fortresses.

But when one pa.s.ses to the back part of such a building and looks out through the windows there upon the pretty courtyard with its fountains and flower-beds, or takes a comfortable chair on one of the balconies, with its gilded bal.u.s.trades covered with trailing vines, he begins to feel as though he were in a beautiful palace.

The great square in the middle of the city is beautiful with trees and flowers, statues, and walks paved with snowy marble. In the long-ago a temple stood here where hundreds of people were sacrificed to the G.o.ds in whom the Aztecs believed. On one side of the square stands the house of the president, and on another there is a grand cathedral where the Mexicans and their children go to wors.h.i.+p. The cathedral doors are always open so that any day you may go inside and find people kneeling there. Rich and poor, grand ladies in delicate muslins and jewels, and the poorest Indians with their packs of fruit or coops filled with chickens still on their backs, kneel in prayer side by side.

Many of the children who have been to the cathedral to wors.h.i.+p, stop as they leave it before the flower-decked stands under the trees, where women are busy selling cool drinks and sweetmeats. Or perhaps they are more interested in the Indians wandering about with cages of humming-birds and parrots, and they beg their parents or older friends who are with them to buy one of the birds to carry home.

As the children go on their way they pa.s.s many a horseman riding through the streets with broad hat shading his face, and with leggings trimmed with b.u.t.tons and silver braid. Silver spurs s.h.i.+ne brightly at his side in the sunlight, as also do the gorgeous trappings of his horse.

There are all sorts of people to be seen on the streets of Mexico. There are Indians with packs of all sorts on their backs. There are girls in gaily striped skirts selling fruit. There are water-carriers in leather ap.r.o.ns with large earthen jars on their backs and smaller ones hanging down in front; there are bird-sellers with flower-trimmed cages; there are the Indian policemen who carry lanterns at night, which they place in the middle of the street while they nap in the doorways close by.

These naps must be very short, however, because every fifteen minutes it is the business of the policemen to blow shrill whistles, and at every hour to call the time.

The Big Market.

The boys and girls of the city often visit the big market which is only a short distance from the cathedral. It is surrounded by high stone walls and on every side there is a gateway through which the people are constantly pa.s.sing.

The sides of the market are lined with shops where people are busy selling all sorts of goods. There are the stalls of butchers where only meats are to be seen. There are stands of fruit that fill the air with sweet odors. There are vegetables of many kinds, furniture, and dress-goods of all colors. There are shops where fried meats are sold to hungry people in need of a lunch. There are great piles of cocoanuts and bananas heaped upon the ground. There are fish from both lake and ocean.

Strangest of all are the cakes made out of marshflies. These flies are found in great numbers along the muddy banks of the Mexican lakes. There they lay their eggs among the flags and rushes and are killed by the Indians and made into a paste.

The middle of the market is filled with Indians who shade themselves and their wares from the hot sun by large squares of matting perched on poles. Here is one man with coops filled with chickens, and another with a stack of earthen dishes made at home. Just beyond him is a woman with a baby on her back. She is standing by the side of a patient donkey with panniers filled with melons or peaches, hanging from its sides, and a happy little two-year old child on its back. Some of the people who are busy selling their wares have come many miles and left their homes before sunrise. They have brought their families along with them, so that half-naked children and babies of all ages are to be seen everywhere. Some of them are munching fruit, others playing hide-and-seek among the crowds, while many a tiny baby is nodding itself to sleep on its mother's back or crying with all its might for a little attention.

The Museums.

The children of the city are fond of visiting the museums, for there they can see many of the wonderful things made by the Aztecs in the time of their great ruler, Montezuma.

First of all they stop before a large bed of flowers in the court, in the center of which is the "sacrificial stone" where, in the old days before the coming of the white men, people were offered up to the G.o.ds in whom they believed. Near by are the hideous statues of two of these G.o.ds. They are not pleasant to look at, so the visitors pa.s.s quickly into the building where they can see Aztec vases ornamented with strange carving, masks of volcanic gla.s.s, the wonderful feather s.h.i.+elds of Montezuma, books filled with picture-writing, and images made of wax and representing all kinds of life in Mexico. There is the Indian with his pack, the charcoal-seller with his donkey beside him laden with coal, the flower-vender with bouquets of flowers in her hands.

Children are never tired of looking at these wax figures, but however long they may stay, they do not like to leave the museum without at least a peep at the feather pictures made in the time of Montezuma.

These pictures are entirely of birds' delicate feathers, laid over each other so carefully that if you were to examine them ever so closely you would not be able to tell how the work was done. The pictures are as wonderful in their way as fine paintings. Only few Indians know the secret of making them, which is guarded carefully and handed down from father to son.

The Floating Gardens.

Most of the vegetables raised for the people of Mexico are brought in the early morning from the floating gardens a short distance from the city, where there are some lakes. A kind of water-plant grows in these lakes very fast and mats together, making marshy beds.

Long ago, in the time of Montezuma, the Aztec farmers learned to make gardens out of these floating ma.s.ses of weeds. They cut out large squares which they covered with mud drawn up from the bottom of the lake. The soil was rich and moist so that no place in the world could be better for plants. Flower and vegetable seeds were sown and in a short time beautiful gardens were growing.

From that day to this Indians have been busy tending these floating gardens. They pa.s.s from one to another in canoes, gathering vegetables and flowers for the city market. One boat will be filled with lettuce, another with luscious red tomatoes, while still another will be loaded with bright-colored flowers. It is a pretty sight to see them as they move slowly along through the Viga Ca.n.a.l that leads from the lakes to the city. Again and again the Indians paddling along with their loads are pa.s.sed by pleasure boats filled with young people, who make the air resound with the odd sweet songs of the country.

Volcanoes.

South of the city of Mexico there is a range of hills, and beyond these is a chain of volcanoes, two of which bear the names of Popocatapetl and Iztacsihuatl. It is much easier, however, to think of them as "Smoking Mountain" and "The Woman in White," for such are the meanings of these long words. Both these volcanoes wear garments of snow and they look so peaceful that the children of Mexico are not troubled with the thought of what might happen if they should awake in fiery anger some day and send out streams of red-hot lava over the country below.

The slopes of Popocatapetl are dotted with the huts of Indians who earn their living by getting loads of sulphur from the crater of the volcano.

The highest mountain peak in Mexico is Orizaba, or the "Star of the Sea." As you sail towards the eastern sh.o.r.e of Mexico and when you are still so far away that no other part is in sight, the lofty volcano Orizaba appears before you with its summit in the clouds. The Indians chose a fitting name for it, because it certainly seems to rise out of the sea.

Among the Mines.

When the Spaniards became the rulers of Mexico they found themselves the owners of the richest silver mines in the world. A great part of the silver used to-day came from those mines. Although immense fortunes have been made in the country for hundreds of years, yet the mines are still rich in the precious ore. They are owned by white men, but the work of getting the silver is done mostly by Indians. Mules are sometimes used to carry the ore from the dark caverns underground to the bright world outside, but much of even this work is done by the Indians themselves, who climb up the steep sides of the mines with heavy loads on their backs day after day.

When the silver is found it is generally mixed with sulphur, but sometimes a lump of the pure metal is turned up. One of these lumps weighed four hundred and twenty-five pounds, and was worth eight thousand dollars.

The miners sometimes try to steal the silver by hiding it in their hair, their ears, or between their toes. They are carefully watched for this reason, so they seldom succeed.

Copper is also found in the mines of Mexico and some of it is sent to the United States.

The children of Mexico never need to leave their country for the sake of a change, for by traveling a few miles, they can enjoy either cold weather or hot; they can see the trees and plants, can hear the birds, and can pick the flowers belonging to lands that stretch from the frozen north to the burning regions of the equator.

CHAPTER IX-Little Folks of Central America

Now let us make a short visit to the children of Central America.

Perhaps it would not be well for us to stay with them long unless they live in the high valleys of the mountain country along the western sh.o.r.e, for the lowlands are hotter and even more moist than those of Mexico. Fever lies in waiting for strangers in the lowlands; swarms of mosquitoes are ready to attack us on every hand, centipedes and scorpions are hidden in the gra.s.s at our feet, so that we are quite willing to hasten towards the hill country as quickly as possible. Even here we feel in danger, for the high valleys we enter lie hidden under the very shadow of a row of volcanoes that stretch from north to south through the land. Many of these are quite wide-awake and show this in various ways, some by the clouds of smoke that rise out of their craters, or by the odor of sulphur that reaches our noses, or perhaps by the shaking of the earth beneath our feet.

One of the highest of these peaks is called Agua which, from time to time, sends out jets of boiling water.

The children of Central America are quite used to earthquakes, which they feel many times during the year. At any moment, in the midst of their play, at dinner time, or during a walk through the streets, the ground may suddenly tremble under their feet, they become dizzy and light-headed, and perhaps there is a rumbling sound in the air around them. If they are away from home, they hurry back to seek safety beside their mothers.

A minute afterwards the danger may pa.s.s by and the play or dinner or walk goes on as before. Yet there are ruined cities in the country to tell the story that there have been terrible earthquakes in past times when homes were destroyed, and men, women and children lost their lives before they had time to flee for safety.

The children of Central America are much like their brothers and sisters of Mexico. There are the Indians who are little troubled by the heat and mosquitoes, there are the white boys and girls whose people came from Spain, and there are the little half-castes.

Some of these children live near dense forests where their fathers are busy cutting down valuable mahogany and logwood trees, which are s.h.i.+pped to other lands to be made into elegant furniture. It is so hot in many of these forests that the men do their work at night with flaming torches to give them light.