Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 355, May 1845

Although none of the three damsels were more than half through their teens, they had not the less attained the full perfection and ripeness of Mexican womanhood. First, there was the Señorita Doña Celestina, daughter of the intendant of Valladolid, a little round-faced beauty, with some tendency to embonpoint, lips rather too full, eyes black and brilliant, although somewhat prominent, a well-turned waist, and a healthy Spanish complexion – that is to say, bordering on the yellow – of which hue her teeth, thanks to the filthy cigar, also participated. Doña Ximene, daughter of Señor Vivar, one of the oidores of the Audiencia, was of more slender form than her above-named companion, her lips also rather too thick – a defect modified, however, by the grace with which they occasionally parted, and disclosed a symmetrical row of teeth. Her eyes, although not sufficiently deep-set, sparkled like diamonds, and she smoked her pajita with an elegance that was quite enchanting. Laura, a round-chinned, plump-cheeked damsel, youngest daughter of the vice-president of the Hacienda Real, made up the trio. All three had the smallest possible feet, the most fairy-like hands, the blackest eyes, and the best Woodville cigars; and all three were suffering from a most extravagant fit of ennui. It was to get rid of this last, that the poor girls, who lived in the Calle de Aguila, the fashionable Spanish street, and had been awakened from their siesta by the grito and disturbance, had come, attended by their negro waiting-maids, to pay a visit to their friend Isidra, whom they had found giving herself up to all the delights of Mexican farniente.

The mirador on which the three girls were lounging and smoking, was connected with the sala, or drawing-room, by lofty folding-doors, which stood open. At the further end of this sala was the estrada, a kind of raised platform; on the estrada a large low ottoman, and on the ottoman two figures, of which the one sat upright, and the other was in a reclining posture. The girdle of the latter was loosened, and the upper part of the body bare of all covering, except a profusion of glossy black hair, which was spread out over the bosom and shoulders; answering, however, less the purpose of a veil, than that of making more evident the whiteness of the owner's skin. The lady thus unceremoniously disapparelled was apparently very young; but no inference could be drawn from her face, which was concealed in the lap of her companion, a mulatto girl, whose fingers and eyes were alike busy in an investigation of her mistress's head; a search so eager, active, and absorbing, that she resembled a huntress, forgetting, in the ardour of the chase, all surrounding objects.

The saloon occupied by these two damsels was furnished in the usual manner of Spanish houses of the better class; the floor spread with esteras, or mats, a large table in the centre, and two smaller ones at the sides, the latter supporting images of the Virgen de los Remedios, and of San Jago de Compostella. A dozen or two high-backed chairs, dating probably from the time of Philip the Fourth, made up the furniture. The walls were covered with square tiles of blue earthenware, the hangings were of green Cordovan leather, and instead of the chandelier, which hung in one corner of the extensive apartment, six silken cords were suspended from the large gilt hook in the centre of the ceiling. On the table in the middle of the room lay several musical instruments, amongst them a Spanish guitar and a Mexican teponatzli or lute – the latter a hollow wooden cylinder, with two parallel holes cut in the centre, and played upon by means of sticks tipped with caoutchouc.

A cloister-like stillness reigned in the saloon as well as on the balcony, and not a syllable was uttered, although fully a quarter of an hour had elapsed since the arrival of the young ladies and their donzellas. Nor was there more vivacity of movement than of tongue. From time to time, one or other of the three girls would push aside her mantilla, and dart a flashing glance into the street, and then, meeting no return, relapse into her former languor.

"A ellos! a ellos! Go on!" at length cried a voice out of the lap of the mulatto girl.

"Que quiere? What do you want?" replied the latter, as she discontinued her diligent search amongst the raven locks, and raising the head from her knees, exposed to view a youthful and charming countenance. "Basta! enough!" added she, in a decided tone. The lady gave her an angry look.

"Porque?" she asked "Porque acabar? Why leave off?"

"Que quiere vmd?" returned the waiting-maid; "matar los todos? A ninguna señora de calidad se los mata todos. No lady of quality has them all killed."

"Mentira! 'Tis a lie!" screamed her mistress peevishly.

"Es verdad! 'Tis true!" interposed Doñas Ximene, Celestina, and Laura, putting their hands into their hair, and after a short search producing manifest proofs of the truth of the waiting-maid's assertion, and of their own powers of endurance. Thereupon the head sank once more into the lap of the mulatto maiden, who began to disentangle and arrange the hair.

Again all was still. The three señoritas gazed out into the street, and smoked and yawned; the attendant twisted and plaited her mistress's abundant tresses; all was apathy leaden, Mexican apathy.

In a side chamber, of which the door stood half open, a voice was suddenly heard, uttering sundry Oh's! and Ah's! in such a strange, half-groaning, half-screaming tone, that the four young ladies burst into a loud fit of laughter. The chamber was much smaller than the saloon, but yet far larger and higher than an ordinary European bedroom, and, like the sala, was lined with blue china tiles. In one part of it there hung a hammock, the occupant of which, judging from his or her loud and regular snore, was soundly sleeping. On the right hand stood a sort of hybrid machine, between a bed and an ottoman, which might have been cleaner, and on which, besides other articles of dress, lay a blue cloak, richly embroidered with gold. Hats crushed out of shape, dusty trowsers, dirty linen, and implements of the toilet, were scattered about the apartment, side by side with costly articles of apparel, the value of one of which would have sufficed to cleanse the whole house, and keep it clean for half a year to come. Below the hammock sat an Indian girl, with a fan of feathers upon her lap; her head was inclined upon her breast, and sleep had overtaken her in the midst of the monotonous occupation of fanning the inmate of the hammock. Near the bed or sofa stood a mulatto, holding a box of cigars and a light.

"Oh! Ah! Ih!" again groaned the occupant of the bed, from which a nightcap now emerged. A meagre grimy hand next appeared, pulled off the nightcap, and disclosed a dry, brown physiognomy, of which the cheeks, temples, and hollows round the eyes, were puckered into innumerable dark olive-green wrinkles.

This lamentable interjection, which was somewhat louder than the preceding one, caused a commotion in the hammock, from which there now appeared another tawny countenance, ornamented with a few warts as large as peas, and with a beard which would have been a fitting decoration for a grenadier. All effort was made to raise the body as well as the head, but the weight of the former made the attempt abortive, and the whole figure again disappeared in the hollow of its hanging couch. A second, and more vigorous trial was successful, and there came into view the head, neck, shoulders, and other component parts of a female bust, the more minute description of which we will spare our readers. The lady of the house, for it was no less a person, did not seem in the least embarrassed by the presence of the mulatto, but sat upright n her hammock.

"Manca!" cried she, in a voice like an ill-conditioned trumpet, and gazing around her as she spoke. "Manca!" she repeated in a yet harsher tone; and then throwing her right foot and leg over the side of the hammock, she, by a tremendous kick, knocked the drowsy Manca off her perch. By this exertion there was communicated to the hammock a swinging motion which seemed highly pleasing to the Spanish lady, who allowed her left foot to follow her right, neither of them being protected by stockings or any other covering; and then, holding on with both hands to the cords of the hammock, she rocked herself to and from with infinite satisfaction, her sole garment being her chemise.

For the third time did the Spaniard utter his lamentable Oh! Ah!

"Don Matanzas!" screamed the señora, "it is impossible to shut one's eye for your groans. Can one have no quiet; not even for the siesta? C – jo!"

And again she jerked herself into her hammock, which Manca now kept in a state of vibration, creating a cool breeze in the room, but at the same time raising clouds of dust. About two minutes elapsed, during which not a word was spoken; the Spaniard had lighted a cigar, and was puffing forth volumes of smoke. On a sudden he took the cigar from his mouth, apparently in a great rage.

"Muerte y infiernos!" he exclaimed. A twinge interrupted him, and he relapsed into his groanings, while his greenish-brown physiognomy was horribly distorted. "Muerte y infiernos!" he resumed, as the pangs diminished in violence. "No quiet, say you? And whose fault is it? Who brought us up here from Acapulco?"

"Would you have stopped there to be made minced meat of by the rebels?" retorted his wife.

"Maldito mal pais," growled the Spaniard. "Would that I had remained in the Madre Patria!"

The lady cast a glance of the most supreme contempt upon her shadow of a husband, took a cigar from the Indian girl, and beckoned the mulatto to bring her a light. It was only when her cigar was in full puff that she vouchsafed a reply.

"Remain in the Madre Patria, say you? To dine with St Antonio,18 I suppose. To feast upon garlic soup, with six-and-thirty garbanzos in it, and as many drops of oil swimming on the hot water. Porquerias! No hablas como Cristiano."

"Not speak like a Christian, say you?" cried the Spaniard with a sort of comical shudder. "Jesus, Maria, y Jose! Nosotros! We, who descend from the oldest Christians of whom Castile can boast – we, whose ancestors were at the fight by Roncesvalles" —

"Pshaw! the man talks nonsense. Did we not come all the way from Acapulco to get him cured of his consumption? And now we are here, the fool will not see the doctor, because he would be obliged to call the Zambo Don, or Señor. Cursed folly!"

"Folly!" returned her better half furiously – "Folly, do you say? You may call it so; you who have not a drop of the blood of the Matanzas in your veins. Folly, quotha!" continued he with a fresh outburst of indignation; "the heroism of a Matanzas, whose three hundred forefathers must look down on him from heaven with pride and exultation, especially the great Matanzas who in the fight by Roncesvalles" —

"Roncesvalles or no Roncesvalles!" interrupted his spouse, "my ancestors were members of the Seville Consulado, Señor! remember that; and it was through them that you got your present place, and became what you now are, a richer man than all your three hundred ancestors put together; three hundred beggars, indeed, who had only three cloaks amongst them all, and as many soup-dishes, in which they begged their olla."

The Spaniard threw a scornful glance at his wife.

"We have," said he, in mighty dudgeon – "Oh! ah!" groaned the poor devil, his features twisted up with pain. "We have," he continued after a moment, "a pedigree as long as the Tacuba Street, Señora, while yours – pshaw! it would not make a mat for this room."

The man had raised himself up, and spoke in a sharp screaming voice, but the last words he uttered were half stifled by pain.

"Folly!" continued he, after a pause – "folly, do you call it! because we refuse to indulge an insolent Zambo, who dares to expect that a descendant of the great Matanzas, a viejo Cristiano, should style him Señor – a Matanzas, whose nobility is older than that of the king himself!"

And so saying, the shrivelled anatomy of a creature placed upon his head an enormous three-cornered cocked hat, with a red cockade and waving plume of feathers.

"Folly! d'ye call it?" he repeated.

"Yes, folly," laughed his wife; "I would style the Zambo 'your majesty,' if I wanted him." And she went on with her smoking and swinging. The Spaniard took a fresh cigar out of the mulatto's box, lit it, and soon enveloped himself and his cocked hat in a cloud of vapour.

The truce between the contending parties lasted several minutes, during which the Spaniard sat up in his bed without any other clothing than a flannel shirt and the cocked hat aforesaid, and his lady lay quiescent in her hammock. She was the first to break silence.

"Matanzas, you are an old fool," cried she, "and if I were Don Toro" —

"Don him no Dons!" interrupted her husband. "He has no right to them. Ah! oh!" groaned the suffering wretch. "No, never will we give to a miserable Zambo the title of Señor; we, whose ancestors were at the fight of Roncesvalles. And the dog expects that we should stand up on his entrance, as before a viejo Cristiano, and greet him as Señor!"

"The standing up might be dispensed with," rejoined the lady, "seeing that you are not able to do it."

"We call the Zambo Don!" reiterated the Spaniard, "and stand up on his entrance! Madre de Dios, what insolence! No, Señora, that shall never be," continued he with much solemnity. "By the Virgen de los Remedios, and the most excellent Sant Jago, that shall never be! Were we a thousand times as ill, and this Zambo could cure us by the mere touch of his staff, as Señor Don Moses did the Israelites – Doña Anna," said the man, with an assumption of immense dignity, "we would rather die a thousand deaths that call the Zambo Señor, or stand up before him. We are a viejo Cristiano, y basta! Enough! I have spoken."

During this declaration of his principles, the Spaniard's cigar had gone out; he lit another, pressed down his huge cocked hat deeper upon his forehead, took a long cross-hilted dagger from the wall, with the words, "Ven, mi querida Virgen!" and kissing the sacred emblem, laid it before him. Husband and wife had quarrelled themselves weary, and now remained silent.

The dispute seemed to have excited no interest in the saloon and mirador, where the young ladies were still lounging, yawning, and smoking; their features wearing that disagreeable relaxed expression which is frequently to be observed in the countenances of Mexican women. A moment, however, was sufficient to change the scene. The Señorita Ximene had gazed awhile, with the drooping underlip and careless glance of indifference, upon a number of persons who were coming up the Tacuba Street, and who, to judge from their garb, were for the most part members of the cinco gremios, the five guilds or handicrafts. On a sudden, however, her eyes lost their vague and languid look, and became fixed and sparkling; her lips were protruded as if inviting a kiss; her hand was extended, her mantilla fell, as of itself, into graceful folds – it was but an instant, and the damsel was completely transformed. Her two companions had scarcely remarked this change, when they in their turn underwent a like metamorphosis; their countenance became all animation, their manner fascination itself; they were no longer the same beings.

"Don Pinto y un superbo hombre!" whispered Ximene.

"Quien es? Who is it?" asked Celestine.

"No sé," replied the other two.

The whispering and commotion in the balcony had roused Doña Isidra from her state of indolent apathy. Her hair was already tressed and knotted; she now hastily slipped on a gown, darted through the folding-doors out upon the mirador, and clapped her hands together, uttering the words, "Venid, venid, querido!" Then tripping back into the saloon with her three companions, they all four seized the cords of variegated silk that hung down, as already mentioned, from the centre of the ceiling, which was full fifteen feet high. The waiting-maid had just had time to slip on Doña Isidra's basquina, and fasten her mantilla on the crown of her head, when the door opened, and Don Pinto, accompanied by another cavalier, entered the room.

The damsels were now picturesquely beautiful. No trace was visible of the dull apathy which, but two minutes before, had seemed to weigh them down. The yellow tint of their cheeks had become a glowing carnation; the thick-lipped, half-open mouth was closed with an arch expression, the eyes flashed fire; all was grace and seduction. The fascinating basquina, embellishing the full round form, and reaching down to the knees; beneath it the petticoat of light blue silk; the elegant folds of both garments, and the indescribable play of the mantilla, now half veiling, then revealing, the speaking, love-glancing eyes. It was an enchanting group, which acquired additional grace when joined by the two cavaliers, in their characteristic Mexican costume, embroidered jackets, and short cloaks. The girls bounded forward to welcome Don Pinto and his companion, a handsome young Creole; and with a "Venid, venid, senores!" offered them the two remaining cords. A hasty pressure of the hand, an ardent glance, and the dancers stood ready to begin.

"The Chica of Yucatan," whispered Don Pinto.

The maidens were all fire, glowing with eagerness. An Indian girl took up the guitar, and began to play the dance that had been asked for, accompanied by another on the Mexican instrument already described, which yielded tones hollow and tremulous, but yet melodious, somewhat resembling those of an harmonica. The dance commenced with a slow gliding step, the dancers holding the ropes with one hand, while with the other the ladies coquetted their mantillas. It was impossible to behold any thing more fascinating than their movements, as they glided past each other, their eyes flashing, mantillas waving, their full and graceful forms exhibiting the most enchanting contours. Presently the step changed, the movements became quicker, ladies and cavaliers more animated, crossing, circling, winding, quite unembarrassed by the cords, which they still held, and which, as they trode the complicated mazes of the dance, gradually formed themselves into a sort of network. As the ropes grew shorter, the movements of the dancers became necessarily more circumscribed, until at length the completion of the net brought them together into one panting, glowing, voluptuous group. For an instant they remained motionless, and the music ceased; but then again commencing, they retraced their steps through the complicated mazes of this most singular of dances, until the network they had so skilfully interwoven, was as skilfully and gracefully disentwined.

Y basta! as Don Matanzas says; for we cannot allow ourselves to follow our author any further in his somewhat glowing description of Mexican dances, the license of which appears to be in accordance with the unrestrained morals and manners of the people. We return then to Don Manuel, who cannot get over his remorse at having, under the influence of a generous but fleeting impulse, assisted the rebels against the troops of his rightful sovereign; and as his free-agency is in no way restrained by Gueréro, he leaves the patriot army and repairs to Mexico. Whilst endeavouring to obtain an interview with the viceroy's sister, Doña Isabella, he is discovered, apprehended, and thrown into one of the subterranean dungeons which extend under a considerable portion of the viceregal palace. On discovering the name of the prisoner, the viceroy, in pursuance of his designs on the immense wealth of the Conde de San Jago, resolves to make away with this, his nephew and heir. The great power and influence of the count, his popularity in Mexico, a popularity which is in some degree shared by his nephew, compel the viceroy to proceed with extreme caution in carrying out his design. While deliberating as to the best means to be employed, one of Don Manuel's servants, named Cosmo Blanco, is brought in a prisoner, and this circumstance suggests a plan to the plotting viceroy and his secretary and creature, Don Ruy Gomez. The servant is put out of the way in a dungeon, and his arrest not registered, while Don Manuel, under the name of Cosmo Blanco, is brought before a sort of arbitrary tribunal, which sits in the vaults adjoining the prison. Despairing and half frantic, the unfortunate young nobleman takes no note of the name under which he is arraigned, confesses all the charges brought against him, and implores that the punishment, which he acknowledges himself to have merited, may be immediate. He is condemned to death; but, before the sentence can be executed, his real name gets wind, and great alarm is excited even amongst the very judges and officials who have had to do with his capture and condemnation, as to what the consequences of his death may be. Already have two of the alguazils who apprehended him, been stabbed in the open street; there is a rumour and a murmur throughout the city of Mexico, which bodes no good. Nevertheless the viceroy holds firm, trusting to his Spanish bayonets to keep down rebellious demonstrations, and to his assumed ignorance of Don Manuel's identity to bear him harmless with Count San Jago. It is a critical time; the hour appointed for Manuel's death draws near; the Count, apparently unaware of his nephew's peril, has made no visible effort to rescue him; when, by a boldly devised and rapidly executed scheme, which several Spanish officials are induced by their fears either to aid or connive at, the viceroy's secretary, who has been commissioned to witness the secret execution of Don Manuel, is deceived, and the young Creole's life saved. We will extract the chapter in which this occurs, and the one that precedes it. The action of them both passes in the prisons beneath the viceregal palace.