Show MARVELS OF MEXICO I A Birds Eye View of the Wonderful j t Won-derful Capital QUEER AND PICTURESQUE IT IS A City of Three Thousand People Kestlnc u Above a Swamp Without Drainage and hewers Still it is Healthy EXICO CITY r June 14 1S01 Special correspondence I corre-spondence of THE 1 HERALD The f City of Mexico is I the nearest to heaven of the great capitals of k the world It is I N more than a mile I straight up in the air above London Berlin Paris or Washington Wash-ington and it is hemmed in by great mountains moun-tains which kiss the sky with their frosty lips some two or three miles higher Here E I among these mountains there is a little ovalshaped valley about fortylive miles I long and some thirty miles wide at the cen tre which contains halfa dozen great lakes one rising above another and the level of nearly all being higher than that of the spot on which the great city stands Mexico was built by the Aztecs and they h chose a swamp for a foundation The i Spaniards when they rebuilt the city stuck to the old site and with high round all around this great Mexican metropolis stands upon a slimy ooze of black mud so soft that two feet below the surface the I water is found and so that piles may be driven down going into the earth easier and easier as they go deeper The crust of earth on which the town is built seems to be solid but builders tell me they dare not attempt to make deep foundations and it may be that the city is built over a great subterranean lake Considering this fact it is a greater wonder than Venice or Amsterdam Am-sterdam and it is a model in the shape of good pavements solid buildings and excessive II exces-sive cleanliness There is no town in the United States which has cleaner streets I man this great Mexican capital ana their condition is even better than that of the streets of Washington at the time of a beginning be-ginning of a new Congress when the street cleaners of our capital are doing their work well in the hope of holding on to their job THE RICK LIVE THE POOR DIE This cleanliness of Mexico is all the more wonderful from the fact that the city has no system of sewerage or drainage For more than three hundred years the people have lived and died and have cast their garbage and their offal into its cesspools Ten generations of men and women have poured the constant filth of their daily life and an enormous business into its soil and all the refuse and waste of 300000 people are sinking into it today It is indeed a wonder that this city is not a mighty hospital hos-pital of dead and dying According to the ordinary rules of municipal health its whole population ought to die off every year and one would think that the typhoid fever and diphtheria would leave the rest of the world for Mexico The sun and the air however fight them and for the better t classes Mexico is a city of life rather than one of death The life insurance people of New York which have agencies here find that the death rate is very low among the insurable people and the high death rate of Mexico city comes from the poor Indians who sleep on the ground saturated with this I foulest debris of ages with slimy water two feet below them and with nothing between be-tween them and the earth except the cotton I clothes and the red blankets which form i their costumes by day and by night These j I die more rapidly than is generally known Tho better classes sleep on the second floors t and their health is generally good TO WARD OKI DANGER FROM FLOODS The question of the drainage of Mexico has been discussed for generations and it Is one of the great problems of today This little valley has no outlet and the city is in its lowest part Lake Tezcoco which at this time is only two feet lower than the level of the city has an area of fcixtyseven square miles and it rises during the wet season Several times it has overflown the I city and within only a few ears back I am told tho whole town was covered with three feet of water One inundation in-undation lasted for five years and the wattrs were finally carried off by an earthquake sinking through the cracK caused by it The other lakes are higher than Tezcoco and one of them is twenty nine feet above the city A Jchnstown flood here would do an immense deal more damage than it did in Pennsylvania and In coming into the city 1 rode by a great cut which a Spanish engineer made nearly three hundred years ago with the aim of draining the lakes and the valley and carrying carry-ing the water off into the Gulf of Mexico change of government occurred while the Work was in operation and It was finally abandoned The present government has given a contract for another immense I I canal to drain these lakes and hundreds of nfen are now at work on them under j American engineers A big cutis being made through the mountains and within two or three years at the farthest Mexico Mex-ico City will be out of danger and a vast amount of land now covered by water will be reclaimed Plans for the sewering of o the city are now under consideration and this canal will I understand be eighteen to twenty feet below the present level of I the town A very important question will be as to whether the city will not sink when the vast amount of water which is I found under it at every point is removed and whether such a drainage would not be c more disastrous than a great earthquake J The expense of this canal so one of the s c n = yaX oJ a i engineers tells me will be 5000003 > or 0000000 and its construction is one of I the big engineering projects of the world today This expense however is a mere I bagatelle in comparison of the loss by a single inundation During thereat the-reat flood of 140 it is estimated that forty millions of dollars worth of property prop-erty was destroyed and the Mexico of that time was not more than onefifth the size in wealth or in population of the Mexico of today In the days of Montezuma the lakes surrounded the city Since then they have steadily receded but the floods may yet come It is only by dikes and by this Spanist cut that the city has been saved several times in the past PAVED AND CLEAN STREETS From the above it might be thought that Mexico was a sort of a second Rotterdam > It is nothing of the kind Its five hundred 1 miles of streets are as do as a bone and I the square houses which wall the Blue walks with their smooth fronts ot plaster fairly glare with thirst under the bright sun of the south land The town has Its waterworks water-works The roads are not watered t throughout the day as are the borough fares of an American city but they are swept every morning by peons under the charge of policemen and every bit of dirt is picked up from the principal streets till they are as clean as Japanese parlor These streets of Mexico are well paved and improvements im-provements are going on steadily Not long ago some of the streets were laid with Trinidad asphalt and this pavement is far better fitted for Mexico than Washington Others of the streets are paved with Nicholson Nich-olson blocks and a great many have the old cobblestones of years ago The streets are everywhere wide and on the whole Mexico is a beautiful capital WHERE HUMAK SACPIFICE WAS MADE Take a stand with me on the spire of the great cathedral which faces the plaza in the center of Mexico We have put ed tbe rope at the little side door and have paid our fee to the dark haired big eyed cream faced i maiden in Mexican garments who guards the entrance and have worn our legs sore in climbing hundreds of steps and we sit I on a ledge above the forty great bells which thunder out the hours as we look We are I two hundred feet above the ground and more than seventyfive hundred feet above the sea Under our feet is the spot on i which the Aztecs sacrificed their victims and upon the great altar which in the days of Montezuma lay only fifty feet below where we are sitting sixty thousand slaves were sacriticeda in a single year In that lone low building there in front of us you may see the wonderfully carved stone upon I I which the victims lay when the sharp obsidian I obsi-dian knife was plunged into their vitals and there is the great stone pot which was used to catch their blood as it flowed down the trench from the altar It was on that altar that Montezuma stood with Cortes when he took him up here to show him his fair city and the Mexico of the Aztecs of three hundred odd years ago covered very I much the same ground as does the Mexico I uauuo uaW hat a beautiful site for a city 1 Mountains on every side of you rise into the skies making a natural series of forti fications A great plain of the richest green stretching out on all sides from the vast network of buildings until it Is lost in the hazy blue of the mountain sides Silvery lakes sparkling like shields of diamonds dia-monds off in the distance The great volcanoes vol-canoes of Popocatepetl and Ixtaccihuatl looking down upon you from their caps ol perpetual snow Canals in silvery streams bordering the outskirts of the city and away over there at its edge the vast clump of green trees which in hundreds of acres of forest surrounds what was once the summer home of the great Montezuma and which is now the summer residence of President Diaz the Castle of Cbapultepec the White house of Mexico I HOW MEXICO CITT LOOKS Bring your eyes nearer home and take a look at the city below It is as big as St Louis and Minneapolis and St Paul could be lost in its borders Its form is that of one of the great cities of Europe and like the cities of Spain its streets cross one another alright angles and the center of the network of squares is the plaza filled with green trees which lies at our feet There are a number of these spots of green squares through the network and there at the right is the long strip cf forest where fashionable Mexico walks for an hour or so on Sunday aud where there is music every afternoon the year round Furth ron r-on is the wide avenue known as the Paseo where you may see any afternoon as gay a set of turnouts asyoue will nnd in Hyde Park or the Bois de Boulogne and all around and below you is the great checker board of Mexico City Suppose yourself hanging still in a balloon above a5000 acre farm Let thIs farm be tlitHdwr lIn into little square fields and pave these fields with brick and make the fields fiat but at different levels and yu have an idea of how Mexico looks from the skies The roofs of all the houses are flat There is not u chimney in the whole city and you could number the furnaces and the cooking and heating stoves on the finger of one hand The Mexican capital does all its heating by charcoal and a base burner would be as much of a wonder here as a five legged calf If you will take your glass you will rote that each field is made up of houses and that each of the houses I has a great well or hole in its center These are tho patios or courts around which every Mexican house is built and which many cases constitutes the only garden of the family Where there are houses this is sometimes used for the stor ing of the carriages and you note that all the houses stand close up to the street and I that the most of them are of less than three stories On the tops of many of them you see white and gay colored patches of floating float-ing to and fro in the breeze These are family washings which are usually dried on the roofs and those great spires and domes which spring up on every side of you are the buildings of the church which i are fewer now than ever before and which t a few years ago were the richest and the most important buildings of tho city The government now owns these and not the priests They are allowed to use them only on sufferance and when they were confiscated confis-cated It is said they were worth millions and that the government then took from the church property to the amount of 300000000 This building upon which we are standing cost two million dollars to build and its roofs are shingled with enough brick to pave town of ten thousand people Bricks are shingles of Mexico They are fastened down in mortar and there is as much masonry on the top of every one of these churches and houses as there Is in its sides f NOTED BUILDINGS AND PLUNDERERS Take a boa at this cathedral as you stand here abovo it It covers acres and you wander for hours in going from one place to another within it i It has been a goldmine gold-mine in its costly decorations and its choir has a balustrade of a mixture of silver copper and cold which weighs 50000 pounds and which is worth more than this weight in solid silver The walls of the church alone cost two millions of dollars and the treasures of the interior have made rich some of the families of Mexico today It had a single statute of gold set with diamonds dia-monds which was worth a million of dollars and one of the great lamps which lighted it I in the past cost S700JO and its workmanship I workman-ship was so intricate that it cost thousand I dollars to clean it The altars were once I set with precious stones and it was a second building like that which the Shah Johan and Akbar had at Delhi in India and like their buildings in has been plundered by the unbeliever After all however I it stands only as a monument of retributive justice Akbar plundered the people the church plundered the Indians and then the Mexicans or Indians under a pure Indian leader President Juarez plundered it It was right here that Cones despoiled the Aztecs and that long low twostory building build-ing which faces the Plaza and which looks more like a great stable than anything else I IsMexico national palace where the Senate of I Mexico is now sittinjr and in which the treasury and the government offices are located There was the palace of Montezuma Monte-zuma and that site formed the residence of the successors of Cortes Back of it is the postofflce and further on is that beehive bee-hive of antlike men and women the great 4 market of the City of Mexico which is as much a sight today as it was when the I Spaniards entered it and described its wonders won-ders At vour feet is the market for flow I ers and dozens of men under big hats and pretty girls under no hats at all are there selling tbe most beautiful of fuilblown roses for almost nothing and you can buy a twentydollar bouquet for twentyfive cents COSMOPOLITAN SURELT Come down from the cathedral and take a walk along the streets The crowd which moves with and by you is as cosmopolitan as that of any European capital You are in the Calle de San Francisco where the foreign shops are located and near the principal hotels Here are Frenchmen Germans Spaniards and Americans and mixed with them are the diverse elements of the great Mexican people A swell carriage car-riage with great coach horses dashes by you its silver mounted harness glistening In the sunlight and its coachman wearing a gorgeous sombrero and his pants lined with silver It contains the wife and daughter of a rich hacendado who are going go-ing to take their afternoon ride on the Paseo Behind them rides a rich Spaniard in Mexican costume with saddle hat and harness as gorgeous in their gold and silver as money can buy aud at the side of tho street runs a half dozen little burros with great bales of hay almost hidIng their little bodies from view trnila in their rear is a I poor Indian driving them with n like bundle of hay fastened on to his back and held there by a strap that comes over the front of his forehead Here is a brigand like peon from the country in a blanket as red as the opal which shines out of its diamond dia-mond setting on the necktie of the American Ameri-can dude at his side and you note that his I feet are dirty with miles of travel as they show out through his leather sandals There are two ladies in black on their way to the cathedral to mass and the younger 1 one casts a sly but modest look at you out 1 of her shawl as they pass On the other side of the street there is an Indian girl i whose wealth of black hair streams in a I frowsy way down her shoulders and whose plump form is bent almost double under the great load of red jars she is carrying and now through them all comes a squad of soldiers darkfaced and sullen under the command of an officer who looks down as proud as Lucifer out of his naadle Hero are water carriers and peddlers millionaires million-aires and paupers tbe rich and the poor the great and the small all mixed up together to-gether in one of the most picturesque and tbe most delightful conglomerations you will find anywhere in the world Every way your eye turns it meets a now sight and everything is strange You g ance about you in bewilderment wonder won-der where you are You put your hand to your head and almost ask when the curtain I cur-tain will fall and hide the great show from view As you go on you are accosted by peddlers and good natured highwaymen in big hats and red blankets who offer to sell you opals and queerly carved canes and little Indians in ragged clothes thrust boxes of matches into your face and beg you to buy The newsboy is here in all his glory and a dar faccd old man looks out of tho stray gray locks which fringe J his wrinkled face under his hroadhrimmpn bat and asks alms You givo him a copper and he hobbles off happy and makes you feel like a benev len prince And so you go on along tho streets of the silversmiths by jewelry stores whose gold diamonds and rubies flash their multitudinous rays back at tho sitting sun by dry goods win dons whose stock of Paris mad goods areas are-as gay as those of Fifth avenue and on down to the great loors which with their portals of carved stone admit you to the big palace the Emperor Iturbide which like all bines imperial iu this country of Mexico has fallen from Its high estate and is now turned into un immense hotel FRANK C CARPENTER I |