Land without chimneys; or, the byways of Mexico

Near the old French fort is a narrow stream of water, precious as all water is on the plateau. Through irrigating ditches it winds around the hill to the valley, through a winding street, among adobe houses, serving each as it passes, as a laundry, fountain or bath-house. The people on the lower course did not seem to care how the water had been treated before it reached them, but they believe in the old saw: "Where ignorance is bliss," etc.

Along the hard, sunbaked street we pass and look in upon more squalor than was ever dreamed of in a city. The hovels are built of sun-dried brick, with no windows nor chimneys for ventilation. Within is neither floor nor table nor chair nor bed nor any piece of furniture. The women and children and dogs and men all herd together on the bare floor, or at most on straw mats. Neither shoes nor stockings find a place here. The men wear a presentable suit of white cotton or coarse linen, and are bare-footed, or wear a pair of leather sandals on their feet. These are simply pieces of sole leather under the bottom, held on by thongs passed between the toes to the ankle. Every man is his own shoemaker. The women often wear only a chemisette and neither shoes nor stockings, and when they do wear shoes, they wear no stockings. Privacy is absolutely unknown, in this or any other Mexican city, except in the heart of the city or among foreigners, and it requires the utmost watchfulness on the part of the police to keep a semblance of public decency, even in the city of Mexico; and even then, the Indians are tacitly exempt from punishment for infractions. It must not be understood that this assertion includes everybody, but you must remember that five-sixths of the population is classed as low caste or peons, and strong enough numerically to imprint their influence upon every city in the country. Through almost every city flows a stream of water, and in this hundreds of men and women bathe promiscuously. Some cities require some garment to be worn, but while changing clothes and putting on the bathing suit, they are protected only by the blue sky and the Republic of Mexico.

These hovels are the centers of a great manufacturing industry; within, the women are pounding the fibre from the thick leaves of the aloe or maguey, and making brushes, mats, hammocks, rope and twine. The fibre is very much like the unraveled strands of our seagrass rope, and so strong that ordinary wrapping cord must be cut with a knife. The weaving apparatus is crude in the extreme. A post with a windlass and three wooden arms stands in the ground, and a boy turns the windlass. A man walks backwards with a basket of fibre hanging from his neck. Having fastened a thread to each of the arms of the crank, he slowly feeds each lengthening strand as it twists around the windlass. In ten minutes he can twist a thread fifty feet long. The threads are woven any desirable size, the most common being such as is used in making hammocks. As the husband prepares the thread, the wife weaves the mats or hammocks, and goes off to the market to sell. Within such hovels, all the manufacturing of Mexico is carried on, with no machinery anywhere. Of course, without wood, steam is impossible, and water power there is none.

Saltillo is famed for one thing above all others, and that is the beauty of its zerapes. A zerape is a cross between a cloak, a blanket, a shawl and a mat, because it is used for all these. It is the one garment a Mexican prizes next to his hat, the sine qua non of his attire. The zerape is a hand-woven blanket, with figures and colors that would make Pharaoh's adopted son turn green with envy. They are woven and worn all over Mexico, but those made in Saltillo are a thing of beauty and a joy forever, to the happy possessor. When the Mexican starts out in the morning, his zerape is folded across his shoulder with the fringed ends nearly touching the ground. If he is hunting work, or going to work, or walking for pleasure, or holding up the sunny side of a street corner to keep it from falling down, the zerape is always there. If he sits down, he either sits upon that zerape or fondly folds it across his lap. When night comes, if he has a home, he spreads that zerape on the dirt floor for his bed. If he has no home, a nice soft corner of the stone pavement is carpeted with his zerape. When morning comes, he goes through the same programme. Many slit a hole through the center and stick their heads through. Those who cannot buy, take an old salt sack and rip it up, and presto! a zerape. In the Torrid Zone on the coast, when the hot sun melts the asphalt pavements, an Indian may be seen comfortably smoking his cigarette, his head covered with a woolen sombrero weighted down with silver ornaments, and several yards of woolen zerape covering his reeking body.

Ephraim is wedded to his idols. If the men are wedded to the zerape, the women are equally inseparable from the rebosa. The rebosa is a shawl, nothing more-that is from appearance, but with the Mexican women and girls, it is second self. The common gray, cotton article is called a rebosa, the finer black article is a tapalo, while the lace fabrication is a mantilla, but it is of the rebosa that we now speak. Hats nor bonnets are ever worn by the women at any time or place, the rebosa is used instead. It is drawn across the brow until the ends hang down below the waist, then one end is thrown across the opposite shoulder, protecting the neck and making a drapery both picturesque and pleasing. Sometimes she wears it around her shoulders as a shawl. If she has a baby, she lets the slack out in the back, loops the youngster in it and takes a half hitch with the ends in front. It is an every day sight to see caravans of women come to town with large baskets of fruit on their heads, and the black-eyed youngsters tied in the rebosa and peeping over the mother's shoulder. When the mothers sit by the roadside to rest the "Kids" are not unwrapped, but they usually keep the peace until released.

The rebosa is the first garment a girl learns to wear, and I might add, until she is quite large it is often the only one. The most remarkable thing about it is, they never cease wearing them. Peep into these hovels, and every woman and girl child will be sitting listlessly on the stone floor, or busily at work with head and ears tightly wrapped up, their sparkling eyes and pleasant faces alone showing. But draw a camera on them, presto! every face is instantly covered. In walking, one or both hands is always engaged in holding the folds under the chin, as no shawl pins are used. The girl of fashion is a combination of painted face, India inked eyebrows and bella-donna eyes, but the ordinary middle class girls have rare beauty sometimes, and a series of faces would make "mighty interesting reading," but no camera that I have seen can get their faces, unless covered with a rebosa.

The prevailing color of rebosas is as much a distinctive emblem of caste, as any rule in the social decalogue. No high caste woman would dare be seen with a gray rebosa, and though a low caste might be able to buy one of the more costly black ones, I have never seen one do so, and the observance of these social adjuncts is as unchanging as the laws of the Medes and Persians.

Saltillo as seen from the rear is disappointing. Most towns are painted white, but here the dull, wearied-looking sun-baked adobe houses are not pleasing. We visit a high school for young ladies and wonder that all this youthful beauty can bide this dull town, and that reminds me that there is not a mixed school in all Mexico, even the kindergartens being separate. You do not need to visit the primary schools, as you can hear all you wish a block away. The noise that first greets you will remind you of the last inning at the base-ball park when everybody is asking who killed the umpire. There may be three hundred children and each one is studying at the top of his voice, if voices ever have top and bottom, and the priests are stalking among them. The catechism is the first book placed in the hands of the child, and his duty to the church, the priest and the pope, are the first lines he ever learns. This statement will help make plain some other things I shall say later about the religious status of the country.

In the early gray of the July morning, with the chilling fog settling all around us, we draw our heavy wraps about us and leave with no regrets Saltillo, "The Stepping Stone." We have indeed stepped upon the plateau, and for a hundred and fifty miles the track is as straight as a carpenter's rule. What a monotony! Desert, yucca palms, cactus, dust. Not a living thing but cactus. No birds, no insects, no...