The Bandolero Or A Marriage among the Mountains
Chapter One.
A City of Angels
La Puebla de los Angeles is peculiar, even among the cities of modern Mexico; peculiar in the fact, that two-thirds of its population are composed of priests, pelados, poblanas, pickpockets, and incarones of a bolder type.
Perhaps I have been too liberal in allowing a third to the “gente de bueno,” or respectable people. There are travellers who have altogether denied their existence; but this may be an exaggeration on the other side.
Trusting to my own souvenirs, I think I can remember having met with honest men – and women too – in the City of the Angels. But I shall not be positive about their proportion to the rest of the population. It may be less than a third – certainly it is not more!
Equally certain is it: that every tenth man you meet in the streets of Puebla is either a priest, or in some way connected with the holy fraternity – and that every tenth woman is far from being an angel!
Curas in robes of black silk serge, stockings of the finest texture, and “coal-scuttle” hats, full three feet in length; friars of all orders and colours – black and white, blue, brown, and grey – with shaven crowns and sandalled feet, are encountered, not only at every corner, but almost at every step you take.
If monks were immaculate, Puebla might deserve the sanctified appellation it has received – the City of the Angels. As it is, the City of the Devils would be a more appropriate title for it!
“The nearer the church, the farther from God.”
The adage is strikingly illustrated in Puebla, where the Church is not only present – in all its outward symbols – but paramount. It governs the place. It owns it. Almost every house in the city, as almost every acre of land in the vast plain that surrounds it, is the property of the Church, in fee simple, or by mortgage deed!
As you pass through the streets you see painted over the door-heads – three out of every four of them – the phrases, “Casa de San Augustin,” “Casa de San Francisco,” “Casa de Jesus,” and the like.
If a stranger inquire the object of this black lettering, he is told that the houses so designated are the property of the respective convents whose names appear above the doors. In short, you see the Church above, before, and around you, all-powerful over the bodies as well as the souls of the Poblanos; and you have not ceased to be a stranger, ere you discover its all-pervading villainy and corruptness.
Otherwise, Puebla might be termed a terrestrial paradise. Situated in the centre of an immense plain – whose fertility suggested to Cortez and his conquistadores the title “La vega” (the farm) – surrounded by an amphitheatre of magnificent mountains, in grandeur unsurpassed upon earth – with a climate of ever-spring, truly might it be deemed an abiding place for angels; as truly as it is the home of a host of infamous men, and not less infamous women.
Despite its moral character, there is a grand picturesqueness about La Puebla de los Angeles– both in its present aspect and its past history. Both are redolent of romance.
Standing upon the site of an ancient Aztecan town, within view of Cholula, the Indian Athens – with Tlascala, their Sparta, on the other side of the mountain Malinché – what heart would not be touched by the historic souvenirs of such a spot? And though the sages of Cholula and the warriors of Tlascala are no longer to be recognised in their degenerate descendants, there, still, are the grand objects from which they must have drawn their inspirations. On all sides tower up the Cordilleras of the Andes. Sublime, against the eastern sky, rises the “Star mountain;” matched upon the west by the rival cone of Popocatepec. Still in solemn silence reclines the “White Sister” under her cold coverlet of snow.
Well do I remember the impression produced on my own mind when, after passing through the mal pais of Peroté, I first came within view of the domes and spires of La Puebla. It was an impression, grand, mystical, romantic; in interest exceeding even that I afterwards experienced, when gazing for the first time on the valley of Tenochtitlan. It was a coup de coeur never to be forgotten!
As my entry into the “City of the Angels” was not of an ordinary kind, – and, moreover, had much to do with the events about to be related – it will be necessary to give some account of it. I transcribe from the tablets of my memory, where it is recorded with a vividness that makes the transcript easy. I can answer for its being truthful.
I was one of three thousand invaders; all travel stained; many footsore, from long marches over the lava rocks of Las Vigas, and the desert plains of Peroté; some scathed in the skirmish with Santa Anna’s lancers along the foot hills of the mountain Malinché; but all aweary unto death.
Fatigue was forgotten, dust and scars disregarded, as we came within sight of the sanctified city, and with beating drums and braying bugles marched on to take possession of it.
It needed no warlike ardour on our part. Outside the gates we were met by the Alcalde Mayor and his magistrates; who, with fair speech on their lips, but foul thought in their hearts, reluctantly bestowed upon us the “freedom of the city!”
Who could wonder at the reluctance? We only wondered at the soft speeches, instead of the hard blows we had been led to expect from them. All along the route, Puebla had been proclaimed as the point where we were to be brought to bay. There we should have to encounter the sons of the tierra templada; and our laurels, cheaply gathered at Vera Cruz and Cerro Gordo, from the enervated children of the tierra caliente, would be snatched from our brows by the “valientes” of La Puebla. The saints of the “holy city” had been promised a hecatomb; and we expected, at least something in the shape of a fight.
We were disappointed – I will not say disagreeably: for, after all, fighting is not the most desirable duty to be performed in a campaign – especially on the eve of entering into some grand town of the enemy. In my opinion, it is far pleasanter to find the streets clear of obstructions, the pavement without blood spots – although they may be those of the foe – the shops and restaurants open, especially the latter – and the windows filled with fair forms and smiling faces.
After this fashion were we received in the City of the Angels. There were no barricades – no street fighting – no obstructions of any kind. The fair forms were there, seen in shadow behind the iron rejas, or standing in full light in the balcons above. Many of the faces, too, were fair; though I shall not go so far as to assert, that any of them were smiling. It would be nearer the truth to say that most, if not all of them, looked frowningly upon us.
It was a cold reception: but the wonder was that we were received at all, or not more warmly welcomed – in a different sense. Horse and foot all told, we counted scarce three thousand weary warriors – stirred for the moment into a spasmodic activity by the sound of our drums, the thought of being conquerors, and perhaps a little by the battery of bright eyes before which we were paraded. We were marching through the streets of a city of more than sixty thousand inhabitants, with houses enough to hold twice the number; grand massive dwellings with frescoed fronts, that rose frowningly above us – each capable of being converted into a fortress. A city lately guarded by choice troops, and whose own fighting men outnumbered us ten to one!
Its women alone might have overwhelmed us, had each but pitched a projectile – her cigarito or slipper – upon our heads. They looked as if they would have annihilated us!
And yet we did not run the gauntlet altogether unscathed – not all of us. Some received wounds in the course of that triumphal entry, that rankled long after.
They were wounds of the heart, inflicted by those soft love-speaking eyes, for which the Poblana is peculiar.
I can testify to one heart thus sweetly scathed.
The fatigued Foot grounded arms in the Piazza Grande. The detached squadrons of cavalry scoured the deserted streets in search of soldiers’ quarters.
Guided by the displaced authorities, the cuartels were soon discovered; and, before night, a new régime ruled the City of the Angels. The priest had given place to the soldier!