XIII Some Tropical Financial Morality
Churumuco, Mina el Puerto, On the Rio de las Balsas,
December 6th.
We were up before the day, our horses and mules having been fed with grain a little after midnight. Thus the food is digested before the journey of the day is begun. It was dazzling starlight with a gleaming streak of white moon. Our two pack beasts had been loaded, we had breakfasted and were in the saddles a little after four. A keen wind which cut like a knife-edge blew steadily down from the highlands behind us. I had kept on my warm clothes of the night. We traveled rapidly by the brilliant starlight and passing down the aroyo along which we camped, turned down the San Pedro River toward the south. We crossed the stream frequently, traveling in single file. By seven o’clock the sun was peering over the hills and I began to shed my clothes. By half past eight I retained only my thinnest underwear, my pajama coat, my linen trousers and slippers. By ten o’clock the sun was scorching, our great Mexican sombreros alone saving us from its fierce rays. Our way lay for twenty miles almost due south down the valley of the San Pedro, then turning to our left, we followed a slightly-traveled trail, crossing a succession of low hills, until after four long hours we came to immense plains or llanos stretching flat as a table for twenty miles toward the Balsas River. The streams were dry, the leaves were falling from shrubs and trees. It was the dry season. Mesquit and cactus and mimosa were the only vegetation, except the blistered stalks of the sun-dried grasses. No water was visible anywhere. The ground was parched and cracked. A light breeze which followed us all day and a few highflying clouds, which now and then hid the sun, alone saved us from being almost broiled alive. The watch in my pocket became burning hot, I could scarcely hold it in my hand; the metal buttons on my clothes almost burned themselves loose; only the dryness of the atmosphere made it possible to have made this journey during the day.
The great llanos, stretching south and southwest, were crossed by many well-beaten trails, where the horses and cattle, which roam here in thousands, have worn the paths they take to reach the distant water. It is said that these animals, which wander at large, have schooled themselves to cross the wide plains beneath the stars in the cool of the night.
We reached the mines of El Puerto about half past one o’clock, crossing the plain for several hours toward the mountain on whose side the mines are perched. The only living things we met upon these llanos were the jack rabbits and an occasional roadrunner, which birds were very tame. Although his rabbitship has attained a reputation for lightning leg-velocity upon the sagebrush plains of our own far-west, yet surely his Mexican cousin has him outclassed. A vaquero, followed by a couple of lean and seasoned hounds, had met us on the borders of the llanos and kept with us almost across the plain. The dogs, despite the fact that they must well have known the power of the jack rabbit, would often come upon one crouched in the grass, and so nearly within their reach that they quite forgot their lessons of the past, and started full cry upon his trail. It was almost laughable to see the hounds’ despair, so quickly did the rabbits shoot out of sight, quite beyond all dog power to keep the pace. The pair would regularly return with their tails between their legs, the picture of disorganized defeat.
We have climbed three hundred feet up the side of the mountain to a group of open sheds, thatched with palm leaves, while above us volcanic rock masses tower more than two thousand feet. Across the river Balsas, apparently rising from the water’s edge, are the tremendous heights of the Cordillera, lifting themselves twelve to thirteen thousand feet above the level of the sea.
The Mina el Puerto is an ancient mine, now nearly exhausted; for it has been worked almost two hundred years, all through a single doorway cut into the rock, barred by a great wooden door, fastened by a ponderous lock with a ponderous iron key. Each morning, for many decades, the owner has taken the key from his belt, unlocked the big door and sent fifteen to twenty naked Indians down the “chicken ladders” four hundred feet into the hot mines below. There is no ventilation, there are no pumps, there is no other way to go in or out. Two or three hours is the longest time a man can work at the bottom of this hole; when the Indian can stand it no longer he climbs up bringing on his back the ore which he has been able to dislodge, or a bag of water, if any shall have leaked in. By three or four o’clock in the afternoon, those who went down have all come out again. The ore they have dug is thrown upon a pile beneath the palm-thatched roof; the owner of the mines then locks the door. When the ore pile has been reduced to powder by the hammering of many dusky hands, it is concentrated in the wooden troughs, washed with water from the river Balsas, three miles away, brought up in bullskin sacks upon the backs of mules; and when a sufficient number of two-hundred-pound bags of concentrated ore have been accumulated, forty or fifty mules are tied together neck to tail, loaded with the bags and driven almost one hundred miles up to the plateau. These ores have always been particularly rich, the gold and silver in them having been sufficient to pay the cost of transportation to and charges of the smelter, leaving the copper for net profit.
The Mexican owners have lived well from the fortune of their mines. In fact, to them copper ore in the ground has been equivalent of cash in the bank. When they have wanted money they have dug into their ore bed. They generally smelted it themselves in crude clay furnaces, using charcoal burned near at hand. What of gold and silver there might be was also run into the copper bars and the bars were currency. A pile of bars meant rollicking jaunts and roystering junkets. The family and friends, the servants and retainers were gathered together, muskets and swords, horns and mandolins were assembled, horses and pack animals were loaded and bestridden, and a tour of the surrounding countryside was made. Bullfights, cockfights, balls and fandangoes were gloriously enjoyed, duels were fought, hearts were stormed and the copper ingots were blown in even to the last ounce. Then the company would return, the fast-locked door would again be opened and a new supply of copper extracted from the mine. Like princes lived these Señores de las Minas, so long as the earth yielded up her hidden treasure.
At this particular mine, this sort of thing has been going on for a hundred years. Generations have come and gone and come again, and the ore has not yet given out. But the thrifty ancestors so managed it as to pay only the smallest taxes to the government. Why should they pay good money into the itching palm of the distant despots, who might for the moment hold supreme power in the far-off capital! The first owner had “denounced,” (i. e. taken up), only half an acre. In the middle of this he cut the doorway to the mine. His descendants have always paid taxes on that half acre! The government never asked for more. Even Diaz was content. So the workings went on, and spread and ramified into the many acres surrounding the single so well-guarded entrance. The original half-acre had long years ago been mined out. And no one ever entered the mine or knew of its depth or latitude except the owner, who took the big key from his belt each workday morning and opened the ponderous wooden door. The Indians dug and sweated and smothered in the hot depths, even as their forbears had done. The Castrejon family held fast to the big key and enjoyed their credit for unbounded riches. La Mina el Puerto was a busy place, and its hospitality was equal to its wealth.
Thus it might have continued to this day, but for an accident which happened two or three years ago. One stormy night two travelers sought shelter beneath the Castrejon thatch. In crossing the llanos they lost their way and their horse cast his shoe. They discerned the light on the mountain side and came to it. The courteous lord of the mine gave them true Spanish welcome. “All that he had was theirs!” They slept in his biggest hammocks and ate his fattest poios (chickens). The strangers were gringos (Americans) and “missionaries” and one spoke excellent Spanish and the other smiled. El Señor told them how many years he had worked the mine, he and his ancestors, and he boasted, just a little, of its wealth. In the morning, rested, fed and smiling, they bade their gracious host a parting adios as they followed his superintendente, who rode with them to the main road from which they had strayed. The mine as usual worked on. The incident was forgotten. A few months later, one sultry evening, the gringos returned and with them a mining inspector of the Mexican government and a company of rurales. The Fomento (Department of the Interior) had granted to them all of the mineral rights surrounding and outside of the half acre which contained the big door. Los Señores de Castrejon had never had legal title to any mineral, but what lay under that half acre. If ore had been taken from outside of that half acre, it had been stolen from the government and dire are the penalties for theft in this land of the iron hand. And what ore had been taken from the outside of that half acre now belonged to the two strangers. They might sue in the courts and recover the full value of it and all legal costs. The two Americans were very courteous as they explained these matters to El Señor. The mining inspector was there to examine the mine and the rurales held in their hands repeating rifles of the latest pattern. El Señor was a discreet man. He accepted the courteous offer of the smiling Americans that they would not prosecute, provided he made them a deed for all claim he had to the half acre, the big door and whatever else he might possess. He was pleased to sign the deed. He then mounted his horse—they gave him back his horse—and rode away a beggar. Next morning the Americans put the big key in the door, unlocked it and sent the Indians down to their daily toil. The mining inspector received liberal recompense for his trouble and rode contentedly back to the Tierra Fria. The rurales were induced to remain yet a little while, as a sort of protection against unforeseen mishap.
The new owners remained long enough to place a new native superintendente in charge at increased salary, and then accompanied the rurales upon their return. But los Americanos were themselves gentlemen who had had to leave the States in rather hasty flight, and soon fell into feud among themselves. One, I learn, is now residing in a Mexican penitentiary for robbing a brother missionary, and the other, having sold his own interest as well as that of his partner to uninitiated purchasers in Kansas, has also disappeared. At the time of our visit the mines are in the hands of a receiver of the courts, and the Kansas people are endeavoring to ascertain just “where they are at.” Do you wonder, when I tell you that I find throughout all this ancient mining region a certain suspicion of visiting Americans, even on the part of Mexican owners whose titles are beyond a flaw?
Saturday.
Early this morning Tio and I mounted into our saddles and with an Indian-Mexican guide crossed the llanos to see two quartz veins showing copper. The veins are “undenounced,” open to whosoever may care to take them up. We did the unusual thing of going out in the middle of the day, and before we returned the fierce sun’s heat burned almost like flames of fire. I have never known anything but fire so to scorch. Even in this great heat we passed a hawk poised upon a cactus top watching for his prey and seemingly wholly unmindful of the terror of the sun.
After our siesta, we loaded the two pack beasts, saddled our riding animals and, about four o’clock in the afternoon, set out for the river Balsas, two miles to the south, and to the little town of Churmuco on its banks. From the mountain side we took a last look over the wide expanse of the llanos, extending twenty or thirty miles toward the west, as level as a floor, the blue line of the Cordilleras marking the horizon far beyond.
We passed through several prehistoric, Indian towns. Their streets were laid out with regularity, generally at right angles, the foundations of the ancient houses still plainly showing. In many places, the base walls were intact and constructed of rounded bowlders laid carefully, in a row, upon one another in substantial tiers.
The rich bottom land along the river, wholly uncultivated, much impressed me. The soil, a black and chocolate loam, is capable of bearing any crop, and is twenty to thirty feet in thickness. There was no cultivation anywhere. These lands belong to some mighty hacienda (a hacienda contains often from one hundred thousand to two million acres) owned by some absentee haciendado. It is said to be worth about ten cents (Mexican) per acre!
The river Balsas looks as broad as Elk River in West Virginia, where it enters the Kanawha (four or five hundred feet in width). It is now the dry season, but, nevertheless, the river is swift and deep, a tide of clear blue water too swift and too deep to ford or swim. In the rainy season it must be a boisterous mighty stream, for its fall is rapid. In the dry season it is fed by the melting snow fields of Popocatepetl and Ixtaccihuatl far to the east. The stream is said to afford good fishing, and in it veritable crocodiles (Cayman) abound.
Approaching the river, we found ourselves at a primitive ferry where two wild-looking vaqueros were about to cross. Availing ourselves of this opportunity to voyage upon the Balsas—Mexico’s greatest river—we tied our horses in the shade of a friendly mimosa and climbed aboard the craft used as a ferryboat—a sharp pointed scow which is entered at the stern. The two Indian boatmen pulled each a ponderous blade, but despite their most strenuous efforts, the powerful current carried us down quite half a mile before we landed upon the farther shore—a wide bar of sand and pebbles. Our fellow passengers eyed us in suspicious silence, each holding fast his broncho lest it should jump out, their wild dark glances betokening little friendliness. Reaching the shore each silently swung into his saddle and galloped off toward the not far distant Cordillera. These silent, untamed men traverse this desolate country everywhere, keeping constant track of the thousands of cattle and horses which roam their wastes; and the Indians of Guerrero bear the name of being the most turbulent and treacherous of all Mexico.
Recrossing, we traveled for an hour through rich and uncultivated bottom lands along the river’s course, until we came to the primitive town of Churumuco, a hamlet occupied by Indians only, an Indian priest gazing out of the dilapidated church as we rode by. Here we found a fonda (inn) with ample corral. A half-caste Spanish-Indian woman, “Señora Doña Faustina,” cooked us a supper of potatoes, rice, tortillas, and chilis (peppers) stewed in cheese, substantials which were washed down with clear hot coffee. Here, in the intense heat, the burning peppers were vivifying and we ate them greedily.
We slept on native mats set on frames three feet above the adoby floor in the open patio. Pigs, cats, chickens, dogs and children scrambled beneath.
We were just rolling up in our blankets, when Doña Faustina excitedly addressed my companions, Tio and El Padre, and I gathered from her speech that chinchas, as long as your hand, had a habit of crawling along the rafters and dropping upon the unsuspecting sleeper, while, unless your shoes were hung above the floor, tiernanes (scorpions) were likely to camp in them until dislodged. I hung my slippers above the tiernanes stinging reach and lay awake apprehending the chinchas’ descent, but the fatigue and heat of the day, the soporific influences of chilis and cheese, soon wrapped me in a slumber from which only the braying of our white pack mule at last aroused me, as Izus cinched upon him the burden for another day. The night was warm and close, the first dull, heavy air I have known in Mexico. We were now actually in the Tierra Caliente—where, the saying is, “the inhabitants of Churmuco need never go to hell since they already live there.”
It was not yet three o’clock in the morning and still dark. Ros and poios and coffee were already prepared for us. “Adios, Doña Faustina!” “Adios, Señorita!” “Adios, Señores!” “Adios, adios!” and we trotted out of the corral and, turning northward, moved up a deeply-cut baranca over a more generally traveled trail than that by which we had come. The coldness of night no longer chilled us, the air was almost warm, while no sign of day made mark upon the heavens above us; the black spaces of the night were yet ablaze with great white stars. The constellations to the northward I well knew, but to the south there were many wholly new and, supremest of them all, just clinging along the gigantic mountain summits, shone the splendid constellation of the Southern Cross, my first glimpse of it. We reined in our horses, turned and watched the big lustrous stars descend and disappear behind the impenetrable curtain of the Cordillera’s towering chain.
The Balsas River was now behind us. The baranca we ascended widened out. We were upon the well-beaten track of travel from Guerrero, and even Acapulco, to the north. Ere the sun came blazing up, we were many miles on our way. And well for us it was so, for the day’s heat has been the most terrible I have yet endured. The animals did not sweat, nor did we, the air was too dry for that, but my blood boiled, my bones baked, and my skin parched from the fierce hotness of the sun. Even the cowboys we here and there encountered sat silent in their saddles beneath the mimosa’s and mesquit’s thickest shade.
The land was desolate, with no habitations save here and there a solitary rancho or wayside resting place, where passing travelers might find rough lodgment and perhaps food for themselves and beasts. The only sound was the droning whir of millions of cicadas.
It was nearly midday when we reached the grateful shelter of La Mina Noria, there to tarry and revive until we should fare on in the cooler evening hours.