Spanish America: Its Romance, Reality and Future. C. Reginald Enock
streams. The water was used by the ancient builders of the Maya cities here, whose beautifully sculptured palaces and pyramid temples are among the chief archæological wonders of Spanish America. They constructed wells adjacent to the buildings—the curious cenotes, or sacred wells.
The lore of these silent, buried temples, over-run by the jungle, the haunt now of wild creatures, is fascinating in its mystery. Some observers have likened their details of the façades of these structures to Hindu temples, others to Egyptian, and so forth, whilst others stoutly proclaim them to be of purely autochthonous culture.[11] This culture area, we have already seen, extended into Guatemala.
To turn for a moment now to the Pacific coast of Mexico, this presents its own special points of interest. From hence may have come the Toltecs originally, with their wonderful native knowledge and stone-shaping arts, among famous objects of whose handiwork is the famous Calendar Stone, to be seen in the Museum of Mexico. This remarkable stone shows the early Mexicans to have had a more exact division and calculation of solar time than their contemporaries, the cultured nations of Europe. However, the principal Toltec remains are not upon the Pacific coast, but at Tula, on the Plateau, which appears to have been their ancient capital.
Upon the long Pacific coastline Mexico possesses several important seaports, to some of which access may be gained by railway, and many picturesque places rarely heard of by the outside world, together with vast areas of fruitful land and valuable forests. This littoral, indeed; forms a region which must some day take its place in the economy of the globe. The long peninsula of Lower California, forming an isolated part of Mexico, is in many respects remarkable, and into the head of the Gulf flows the Colorado River, with many peculiar characteristics.
What we have here said as to the topography of Mexico, with its beautiful mountains, rivers, archæological remains, cities and so forth, is little more than an index to a vast field of interest, which, however, must be studied elsewhere. We are now bidden to cast a further glance at the people who have their being upon the diversified surface of the Republic.
A small proportion only of the Mexicans are white—perhaps ten per cent. The remainder are of varying shades of brown. But there is no "colour line," although, naturally, the purest European blood is found among the upper and governing classes.
However, the brown race has produced some of the best of Mexico's people. The famous Juarez, the lawyer-president who preceded Diaz, and who was responsible for some of the most important measures of reform, was a pure Indian by birth, and Diaz himself was proud of his partly aboriginal ancestry. In fact, it cannot be said that there is any dividing line in the composition of the Mexicans. The bulk of the people are thus of mestizo or mixed race, but there are various districts where only pure Indians are found.
The working population of the country, perhaps three-quarters of the total, are peones. Peonage is a state of what might be termed debt-bondage. They dwell upon the great landed estates, dependent for their livelihood upon the owners of these, unable to leave them, and are paid their small wage largely in goods under a species of "truck system." They are often purposely kept in debt. Their economic condition is a low one. They own nothing of the land upon which they dwell; they carry on occupations which are not profitable to themselves, and are subjected to many abuses in this respect; they dwell in adobe, or dried mud huts, generally of the poorest kind; their food is of the most primitive, and often scanty—meat is an article which rarely enters into their diet; if a cow dies on the plain they cut it up for food—but nevertheless they labour hard from sunrise to sunset upon a diet of maize and beans. This class is almost wholly illiterate, although there has been some improvement of late years in this respect.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.