--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Grant, B. F. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 6 number: 6 published: 1903-04 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'B. F. Grant, "A Trip to Mexico," *Improvement Era* 6, no. 6 (April 1903): 412–419.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0606unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera0606unse start_page: 412 end_page: 419 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1903-04) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0606unse publication_year: 1903 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1903, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # A Trip to Mexico A TRIP TO MEXICO. BY B. F. GRANT. The readers of the Era have all heard of "The Man from Mexico." Many have seen the play and laughed over the adven- tures of the chap who plays the title role, until their sides have ached, and they have felt to cry out, enough. Just now, I am a man from Mexico. That is, I have recently returned from that interesting country. I had no such experiences as the unfortunate hero of the merry drama had; but I had some that were almost as ludicrous, and some that were as thrilling as I care to experi- ence. I will briefly narrate some of the incidents that came under my observation, and leave the detailed descriptive story for an- other person or time. To begin at the beginning. When I started for Chiapas to visit a big rubber plantation, I was accompanied by my eldest daughter, who went with me as far as the Pacific coast, where she remained with my mother, until my return from the great republic over which the wise and able statesman, Diaz, presides with such signal ability. The trip was fraught with interest from first to last. In San Francisco, I met with Bishop George R. Emery, of the Sixteenth ward, Salt Lake City—my own bishop. He was there on a pleasure trip, and during the brief period we sojourned together, it was mutually pleasant, I am sure. It was a little spicy, too, as will be seen by that which follows; that is, it had in it some of the elements of life and humor that were rather un- expected. We had been to the meetings of the "Mormon" elders. One was held in the streets of Oakland. The elders, though young and inexperienced, preached like heroes. Their music was far from being up to the standard of that of the Tabernacle choir, A TRIP TO MEXICO. 413 but I must say that I don't believe I ever heard a hymn at home that made me feel quite like the notes of those good old "Mor- mon" hymns that rung out upon the night air at Oakland. There was a spirit—a something about it that made me go down into my pocket,and hunt for my handkerchief. When I got it out, there was a suspicious moisture about my eyes that looked and felt decidedly like tears. And when the preaching came, it was not difficult to recognize their words as truth, as they dropped from the lips of the elders who uttered them. Then we attended the services of our people in San Francisco, and enjoyed them to the uttermost. Many of the points of interest were visited, both in and out of the city, and here I was joined by J. W. Ellsworth, managing director of the Chiapas Rubber Plantation and Investment Company. Later, we were the guests of this distinguished gentleman at his hand- some Redwood home. But I am wandering from the spice, the humor to which I referred above. Before leaving San Francisco, a party of us planned a trip to the battleship Oregon, the magnificent ironclad that startled the world, a few years ago,by her famous run around South America from San Francisco, where she was built, to Cuban shores, where, off the coast of Santiago, under her gallant com- mander Captain Clark, she rendered such signal service to Ad- miral Schley in the sinking of Cervera's fleet. The very thought of an inspection of this grand ocean-defender was sufficient to fill our hearts with pride and delight. But we were destined to have some disappointments. In order to reach the Oregon, it was neces- sary for us to get into a tugboat, and be piloted to the big ship. Here is where an accident occurred that might have been serious. Fortunately, it was only exciting and laughable. One of the rud- der ropes of our boat broke, and we were run into by a govern- ment tugboat on the way to Goat Island. For a few minutes, there were lively times in our vicinity. It looked as if our little craft were going to the bottom, and there was a mighty clambering for safety. There was no time to be lost, and some of our party scurried up the side of the government tug, and, before they knew it, they were being carried off at a lively rate to Goat Island. This meant a decided interruption in our battleship program. Among those who were borne off captive was Bishop Emery. His 414 IMPROVEMENT ERA. disappointment was funny, but his hasty trip up the side of one of Uncle Sam's bothersome little tugs was funnier still. To appreciate the full force of the incident, one must know Brother Emery as I do. He is a man of extraordinary avoirdupois. But that wasn't all. When we had followed them several miles, had reached Goat Island, had got them off this water-bound military post, where they had been unwilling prisoners until our arrival, and had commenced the return voyage, our boat ran upon a sand- bar from which it required our combined strength to lift it. For a time all went well, but soon we hit a reef of rocks, and again we lost time. When we reached the Oregon, the supper signal had just sounded, and there was an unwillingness to permit us to go on board. But a statement of our case resulted in a modification of the disposition to refuse us, and we were permitted to walk through the ship—to spend five minutes upon it It was not long, but brief as it was, and as difficult as it had been to reach our destination, we all felt amply repaid for all of our inconveni- ence. While we were, as I have said, allowed to remain only a few moments, yet I saw enough to fill a book. But I must hasten on. It is upon Mexico, and my trip there, that I wish particularly to dwell. The next day, and we were en route. At El Paso, Texas, we had a really narrow escape. Just ahead of us, there had been a big washout, and traffic was delayed. It was simply a remarkable piece of good fortune that prevented us from running into it. Over the border, we found ourselves in a new world, so to speak. We had, to all intents and purposes, jumped from the domain of Uncle Sam into the land of the Montezumas. Everything American had disappeared; everything Mexican had taken its place. Yankee manners, custom, and food, had been left behind, and the man- ners, custom and food of the Greaser had succeeded them. The first had been part of our lives; the latter were all new to us. We cannot say that we appreciated the change. But that made no difference; it went all the same. Even our money was new. The gold and the greenbacks of our own country had been con- verted into Mexican silver at the rate of $2.45 of the latter for every dollar of the former. Our course down into the Republic was over the Mexican A TRIP TO MEXICO. 415 Central Railroad. The meals on this road—well, words fail me; so I simply sum it all up and say, they are terrific. But I might add, by way of explanation, that they are composed principally of grease and garlic, and garlic and grease, with pepper thrown in, until, after meal time you are so hot that you want to hunt up a fire department to be put out. But that doesn't make any dif- ference; when you are in Mexico, you must do as the Mexicans do. At the stations, you get your first glimpse of how far human beings in that country do the work of beasts of burden and ma- chinery. The natives take the place of pack-mules, to an extent that is most astonishing. Even the women and children divide the work with the men. They come to the depots with all kinds of Mexican fruits and vegetables, and the men will trot away with trunks on their shoulders, that weigh two and three hundred pounds, and think nothing of it. Their strength is something enormous. What a great country—what a country of future possibilities Mexico is! Its offers to industry are immeasurable—its induce- ments to homeseekers many. Just now, American enterprise and American money are working a revolution of advancement in all the lines of trade and development. And Mexican officials are wise enough to encourage Yankee thrift and push. Emigration, of the right sort, is what they want; and I might state paren- thetically, that there is no class of strangers that find a warmer welcome than do the "Mormons." What the latter have done is sufficient to prove their worth as citizens of Mexico. When it is stated that we traveled nearly an entire day by rail, and at a reasonably rapid rate, on the land-holdings of one man, some idea of land immensity may be obtained. I was particularly impressed with the City of Mexico. It is picturesque to the last degree. It has a population of four hun- dred thousand, mostly Mexicans, of course. But it has many Americans, and other foreigners. To me, the most attractive feature of the town was its old, re-modeled castles, reminiscent of the days of Spanish glory—days when the gay dons held high car- nival on this continent, ruling and reveling in the power and pride which preceded the series of downfalls and defeats that had their ending in Cuba and Porto Rico, in our own time, and which drove 416 IMPROVEMENT ERA. the haughty Castillian back to his own home beyond the seas, so far as national entity is concerned. These old castles are now used principally as hotels—Mexican hotels. You can get Ameri- can meals in the City of Mexico, but you must know where to get them. The Mexican method of looking after the stranger, that is, the way the visitor is kept track of, is interesting. For instance: Our hack was stopped just before we got into the city. The driver was asked how many passengers he had. Then they were asked their nationality, hotel to which they were going, the length of time they expected to stay, and their business. One official does the questioning, and another records the answers. It is all done with promptness and dispatch ; and thus the authorities know much about you. If anything happens to you, they are in posses-, sion of all needful information. A trip to the City of Mexico without a visit to the parks and markets would be incomplete. Under tropical skies, trees and shade, you will witness many scenes that give you an insight into the habits and customs of our neighbors of the south. In their markets, you will see their edibles—all cooked; everything is cooked in Mexico, generally speaking, before it is offered for sale. The people go to the markets to eat, and they sit down upon the ground to partake of their ready-made meals. And every house of business, in the big city, closes its doors from twelve o'clock noon, until two in the afternoon, during which period breakfast is eaten. In the morning, they simply take tea. Mexico is a country of color and show, and the place where they are seen in their height is the City of Mexico. The particu- lar spot is on the great promenade street,where the gayest equip- ages and the gaudiest dresses ever man beheld, are displayed in bewildering confusion. This thoroughfare is long, narrow, paved, and scrupulously clean. It is a case of keep to the right, so far as the long procession is concerned. The line goes out on one side, and back on the other. There is no deviation from that rule. The proudest don, the haughtiest duenna, must bow to that order. We took a little run out to the Holy Spring, near the outskirts of the city. Great quantities of the water are carried away by A TRIP TO MEXICO. 417 devout followers of the Catholic faith, under the belief that it possesses marvelous healing properties, on account of receiving the benedictions of the priests. And a pure, white clay on the hill above the spring is eaten for some similar purpose. On this hill is a figure, in a small church, called the Black Saint, associ- ated with which is a belief of the commission of heinous crimes and intercession for criminals, of which I do not feel able to speak with authority, realizing that there is much that is criminally unjust and ridiculous told of Catholics, and Catholic rites, just as there is of "Mormons" and "Mormon" practices. Suffice it to say, I saw much that to my mind was incomprehensible and absurd. Just below is a cathedral in which there are silver ornamentations -said to weigh twenty-six tons. After leaving the City of Mexico, we started for Vera Cruz. This city has an open sewerage system, and the turkey buzzard is its scavenger. The noxious odors that filled the air, and the sight and the loathsomeness of these ugly but useful birds, are such that one is sickened. From Vera Cruz we were glad to flee, going by steamer, on the Gulf of Mexico, to Fontario. Oh, what a voyage! A "Big Northerner," as they call it, was blowing, and blowing hard. I doubt if any of us would have offered an objec- tion, if we had been told that the ship was going down. I am sure, if a life preserver had been thrown our way, we would have performed no great acrobatic feat to seize it. I had a great desire to quiet a certain commotion within, and was told that a sea bis- cuit would do it. A gruff seaman got ma one. I tried to break it, and was about to give up in despair, after 1 had hammered the side of the boat until I was exhausted. Suddenly it was reduced to fragments, and, after endeavoring to further minimize it, I was ready for the dentist. At Fontario, we changed steamers, and went up a river a dis- tance of one hundred and thirty miles, to a little town called Monte Cristo, where we were met by C. A. Westenberg, assistant general manager of the Chiapas Rubber Plantation and Investment Com- pany, to take us to the town of Palenque, thirty miles distant. He had horses for us to ride, and natives to carry our luggage. The ponies were so small that our feet often bumped the ground. Still they did their work marvelously well, and pattered along through 418 IMPROVEMENT ERA. the jungle, while the natives trotted along the trail behind with their hundred pounds and over apiece, arriving at our destination about two hours and a half after we arrived. For this, their price was sixty cents of our money, or two cents a mile per hundred pounds. They considered they had done well, and were entirely satisfied. They are as strong as oxen, so to speak. In one town en route, we saw four men lift an iron safe, that must have weighed four or five hundred pounds, on to the shoulders of one carrier, who walked ofl with his load without great effort. On the way, we met a party of natives en route to Monte Cristo. They were conveying thither immense quantities of food of various kinds for a religious feast that was about to be inaugurated. Each man carried one hundred and sixty pounds, and the marvel of it all is that they moved rapidly and uncomplainingly. At Palenque, the city with the greatest ruins of the world, we had an experience the memory of which will long remain with us. We were kindly received by the president, who happens to be supreme in that section. He is judge, jury, and high ex- ecutioner, in all things that pertain to the regulation of the affairs of Palenque. When we arrived, we were alive with wood ticks, and the pests were making our existence miserable. They had bored into our skin by the s3ore, and we were scratching as a hen never scratched for her chicks. We had to get rid of them —but how? That was the question. It was raining a regular before-the-flood deluge. There was not a place in which we could find shelter. The president was in a quandary. Finally, he ten- dered us the town jail, and thither we went at a 2:40 gait. Soon we had stripped, and commenced a warfare on the ticks. It was necessary to have native help. This we got, and the way they dug out the ticks, rubbed us down with alcohol, and slapped us, was a sight that forty or fifty natives, who peered through the windows of the jail, enjoyed to the uttermost. I might write of the ruins of Palenque, and tell of the great buried temples, the stone tablets and tables of torture; the sub- terranean passages and records of a mighty race that was swept from the globe for reasons that are clear to every Book of Mormon student. I entered one of these great corridors, and followed my guide for a considerable distance. Suddenly, my A TRIP TO MEXICO. 419 candle was snuffed out, and there was a rush and roar of bats, such as I have never imagined. They came not in hundreds or thousands, but literally in tens of thousands, and beat a hasty retreat to the open air,where my companions made merry over my exploit. Twenty miles further on, and we found ourselves on the plan- tation of our company. This great rubber farm covers a tract of twenty-four thousand acres of ground. Two hundred families find employment upon it, and the electric light, telephone, and other modern conveniences, are everywhere in evidence—a strange sight in the tropical wilds of extreme southern Mexico, where the people are little better than savages. But as to rubber culture —the trees are set out fourteen and a half feet apart. In appear- ance they closely resemble the rubber plants that we see in our local greenhouses, except, of course, that they are much larger. The fullgrown tree will, perhaps, reach a height of fifty to sixty feet. It has two distinct saps—one that keeps the tree alive, and the other from which the rubber is made. The leaf is long and pointed, and the lower limbs keep dropping off from year to year, until the full height is attained. The tapping process begins in the sixth year. The sap resembles buttermilk, and it is easily reduced to the rubber state. On a small scale, a pail of the sap may be warmed, a little alum dropped in, and an egg-beater used. That done, there is rubber in short order. But on the large scale, that employed on the plantation, there are vats, and tanks, and cement cisterns, or basins, into which the fiuid is conducted. The evaporation receptacle is made shallow, and about two or three inches of the sap is put into it. It soon undergoes a change, and in a remarkably short time, it has been transformed into a thick rubber sheet or blanket, which is cut up into strips, and, in the crude state, is ready for the market. We only remained on the plantation two days. During that time seven inches of rain fell. The normal for Utah is about four- teen inches in twelve months. In that country, the average is more than one hundred and fifty inches each year. In the forty- eight hours we were there, the river rose thirty feet, and when we went out in our Indian canoes, it was veritably among the tree tops that lined the banks of the great stream. In fact,