Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 353, March 1845

"Mi Général – no – perdon – capitan!" stammered the pursuer; "he has stolen my cigar."

The captain himself now issued from the copse, walked gravely up to the thief, took the half-consumed cigar from his mouth, and placed it in his own; then, stepping forward to the edge of the barranca, he listened a few moments, pointed down into the yawning chasm, and drew himself quickly backwards. His movements were imitated by the Zambos, who gazed for a short space on the windings of the barranca, through which meanders the old road to Cholula, made by Cortes, and then sprang back with the exclamation, "Mulos y arrieros!"

From among the windings of the above-named road, which is scarcely passable even for mules from the depths of ravines, and from amidst rocks and precipices, the pleasant tinkling of bells now ascended through the clear elastic air to the mountain summit on which the three men were posted. Presently the mules became visible, apparently no bigger than dogs, clambering slowly up the steep and rocky path; then were heard the long cadences of the muleteer's rude but not unmusical song; and at last the active figures of the muleteers themselves, with their fantastical garb and five hundred buttons, the variegated accoutrements of the mules, with their worsted plumes, and tufts, and frippery, and many-coloured saddle-cloths, and even the trabucos that were slung behind the saddles, were all distinguishable. There was a wild picturesqueness in the appearance of the cavalcade as it wound its way over the seemingly perpendicular rocks, while the rough sonorous song, accompanied by the sound of the bells, came creeping up the mountain side. Suddenly a figure detached itself from the party, as if weary of the circuitous route it was taking, and, with extraordinary activity and daring, commenced a more direct ascent. Springing from cliff to cliff, the adventurous climber seemed to find pleasure in his breakneck pastime, and continued his course without a pause till he reached the second shelf of the barranca, which was riven by a deep and wide crevice. High over his head a gigantic eagle was wheeling and circling, floating upon the air, now darting down towards him, and then again shooting upwards, sporting, as it seemed, with an anticipated prey. The young man, for such those above could now discern him to be, drew breath for a few seconds, cast a glance upwards at the kingly bird, and then, with one fearless spring, cleared the chasm. With unabated vigour he bounded from rock to rock, and at length reached a rocky projection immediately below the platform. Grasping the trunk of a dwarf oak, he climbed nimbly up it, and let himself drop from the branches on the plateau itself.

"Diabolo!" muttered the two Zambos, who had witnessed the young man's hazardous progress with that mute admiration and sympathy which the exhibition of bodily strength and activity is apt to excite, especially amongst half-civilized men – "Diabolo! He has more lives than a cat!" And with the words they slunk into the thicket.

It was no other than Don Manuel himself who had made this daring, and, as it appeared, unnecessary display of his aptitude for the life of a mountaineer – a display the more perilous, as his rich and fantastical riding dress was any thing but favourable to it. He wore a Guadalajara hat, of which the brim, full six inches broad, was completely covered with gold lace, while above the low crown was displayed the blood-red cockade adopted by loyally disposed Mexicans. His jacket was abundantly decorated with gold embroidery, and garnished with the fur of the sea otter; his breeches, of scarlet cloth, were open at the knee, where they were terminated by green and yellow ties; the whole costume was profusely laced with gold, and loaded with silver buttons. His legs, below the knee, were protected by leather botines or gamashes, fastened by silk ribands of various colours, and finally losing themselves in a pair of old-fashioned, high-quartered shoes. Spurs only were wanting to complete the riding-dress, which was more remarkable for richness than good taste, and evidently after the fashion of a previous century.

Casting a careless glance at the perilous path by which he had arrived, the young man then fixed his gaze upon the magnificent panorama spread out before him. In front were the blooming plains of Cholula, and beyond them those of Puebla de los Angeles, with their corn and maize fields, and agave plantations, divided by hedges and alleys of cactus, and dotted with the cane-built and banana-shaded Indian hamlets. To the right, springing out of the rugged porphyry ridge, the summits of which, alternately wood-crowned and naked, were glowing in the afternoon sun, arose the snowy head of the Itztaccihuatl, shedding such a flood of light and brilliancy in its isolated magnificence, that the eye vainly strove to sustain the glare. To the left towered the gigantic Popocatepetl, high above the mountain world around, a misty crown of cloud clinging to its summit; while farther to the south-east, shot up the star of Mexican mountains, the Orizava, rising like some mighty phantom into the clear blue ether, of which the quivering vibrations seemed to bring the enormous mountain each moment nearer to the beholder. Finally, in rear of Don Manuel, the thickly wooded Malinche, with its masses of forest trees and its stupendous barrancas, frowned in dark and solemn shadow.

The extraordinary contrast of the most magnificent vegetation, then just bursting out in all the green and blooming freshness of the season, with the severe grandeur of the most sublime Alpine scenery, fettered the young man for some moments in speechless admiration. He was roused from his reverie by a slight rustling behind him, and turning his head quickly, he gave a spring which, if less perilous than many of those he had recently made, was yet at least as useful in extricating him from a dangerous position.

"Picaro!" shouted one of the Zambos, whose machete had harmlessly stabbed the air, instead of piercing, as was intended, Don Manuel's heart.

"Maldito Gachupin!" cried the other, who had swung his club with a like innocuous result.

The attack of the two bravoes was made so suddenly and unexpectedly, that Manuel had barely time to jump aside. With wonderful coolness and presence of mind he sprang to the shelter of the rock, at the same moment throwing his hands forward so suddenly that one of the Zambos, in his hurry to escape, nearly ran over his companion. A brace of pistols, which the young man had drawn from the breast of his jacket, were the cause of this sudden change in the tactics of the bandits, who now retired hastily into the thicket. Don Manuel gazed after them for a few moments, and then again approached the edge of the barranca, from the top of which the mules were now no longer very distant. Not a word had escaped him during the short scuffle, and to judge from the cool indifference he had manifested, the occurrence was one of neither a rare nor extraordinary nature.

The nephew of the Conde de San Jago had not long relapsed into contemplation when he was again disturbed by a loud halto! proceeding from the same thicket from which it had been already shouted to the Zambos, and the next instant the patriot captain issued forth with levelled carbine. No ways discomposed, the young don raised a pistol.

"Down with your gun, or I fire!" cried he.

"Indeed," said the captain, "you should be a bold cock, to judge from your crow."

"You will soon find out what I am," replied the young man dryly.

"C – jo!" quoth the captain, and removed the carbine from his shoulder.

The appearance of the patriot or rebel officer, whichever he may be styled, although less bandit-like than that of the two Zambos, was not calculated to inspire much confidence. His face was shadowed, indeed concealed, by a thick mass of black hair, which hung down over forehead, cheeks, and neck, and allowed scarcely any part of his countenance to be visible, except a pair of coal-black eyes of somewhat oblique expression. Although not of a particularly strong build, his frame was muscular, and apparently inured to hardship. He wore a round, high-crowned, Guadalajara hat, encircled by a gold band, in which was stuck a large miniature of the Virgin of Guadalupe. A second portrait of that venerated patroness was hung round his neck by a blue and white riband. His cloak, of fine cloth, and laced with gold, had been much worn and ill-treated, as had also his hose and his red velvet jerkin; on his feet he wore shoes, through which his toes had forced themselves a passage, and instead of the usual gamashes, his legs were bound round with sheepskin. Spurs, full six inches long, and with rowels of the same diameter, were affixed to his heels. His arms consisted of a carbine, a machete, and a rusty dragoon sabre.

The young Creole measured this personage with an indifferent glance, and a smile of disdain for a moment played round his mouth; but then, as if he did not deem the object worthy of further notice, he let his pistol fall carelessly by his side, and turned his back negligently upon the new comer.

"Todos diabolos!" exclaimed the captain after a moment's pause, and apparently indignant at the contempt with which he was treated. "Whence come you, and whither are you going? What is the object of your journey? Answer me, young sir, and that quickly. Soy un gran capitan! Llevo las manos y tiembla la tierra!"

"Probably one of the leaders of the self-styled patriot army," said the young Creole, in a tone of scorn, in reply to this pompous announcement.

"Even so, señor," returned the other, suddenly changing his own manner of speaking to a sort of humorous sneer – "commander of a division of the patriot army, presently in headquarters at Puebla."

"Headquarters!" repeated Manuel with infinite disdain. "Your authority extends far and wide, it would appear," added he, with a glance at his interlocutor's dilapidated shoes.

"It does so," answered the other, in the same humorous but somewhat malicious tone. "Nevertheless, my wardrobe, as your excellency doubtless perceives, has somewhat suffered in the service of the rebel cause, and as your señoria will probably have an earlier opportunity than I shall of providing yourself with another pair of shoes and gamashes, I would crave of you to condescend so far as to seat yourself upon that stone and divest yourself of those you now wear, for the behoof and advantage of the unworthy capitan before you, who will otherwise be compelled to dispossess your worship of them in a less amicable manner."

The gran capitan waited a few moments after making this demand, but then observing that the young Creole took no steps towards obeying his orders, he stamped impatiently upon the ground, and exclaimed in a stern peremptory tone,

"Off with them, and quickly! Your shoes and your gamashes!"

"You will find my shoes too tight for you, I expect," replied Don Manuel, raising a pistol. The Metis, on his side, covered the young nobleman with his carbine.

"Keep still, Jago," cried Don Manuel sharply, "or I will so shoe you that you shall remember Manuel M – to the very last day of your life."

The patriot officer pushed aside the hair which hung over his forehead and eyes, gazed at the Creole for a few seconds in great astonishment, and then, letting his gun fall, ran towards him with outstretched arms.

"Santa Virgen!" exclaimed he – "By the blessed Redeemer of Atolnico! May I never see heaven if it is not the very noble señor Don Manuel, nephew of his excellency Count San Jago, the first cavalier in Mexico, and son of the not-quite-so-noble but still very-tolerably-noble Señor Don Sebastian, and of the Gachupina, Señora Donna Anna de Villagio, and cortejo of the greatest angel in Mexico, and consequently in the whole world, the Countess Elvira!"

This characteristic and thoroughly Mexican apostrophe was accompanied by vehement gesticulation on the part of the Metis, in whose expressive and variable countenance a strange mixture of fun and irony, with reverence for the illustrious persons he was speaking of, was discernible. He was interrupted in his tirade by Don Manuel.

"Have you done?" said the latter.

"Not yet," replied the captain. "May the Virgin of Guadalupe for ever deprive me of those comforts to Mexican palates, Havannah cigars and aguardiente, if I can guess what so noble a señor as yourself is doing on such a rugged path as the old Camino de Cortes, instead of taking the usual road by Otumba."

"I can tell you the reason," replied Don Manuel. "Our friends have commissioned me to have you hung, and that as soon as possible."

"Indeed!" said the captain with a sly smile; "and would you be good enough, just for the joke's sake, to tell me the names of those friends? I might, perhaps, find an opportunity of returning their kindness."

As he spoke he advanced a step towards the Creole, in a sort of familiar way.

"Keep your distance!" cried the young man. "None of your hypocritical caresses! We know each other."

"Hardly, señor," replied Jago, shaking his head. "If you knew me you would, perhaps, speak in another tone. But truly, now, should I not have been a very simple Jago to have passed my life as driver of your mules, or perhaps of the gente irracionale, as you call the poor devils of Indians? Ah! your worshipful uncle is a right noble and powerful caballero, speaks little but thinks much, and does more, and has his hand over all Mexico and the madre patria, and perhaps a step further; but believe me he would speak to Jago in a very different manner from that adopted by his nephew, the son of the tolerably-noble señor Don Sebastian. The count is a very noble gentleman; but when he made over one of his finest estates to your father, he committed a blunder that cost him three hundred able-bodied Indians. Ha ha!" continued the man, raising his sombrero from his head and setting it on again, a little on one side; "you cannot forgive poor Jago for having walked off with the three hundred Indians, who suddenly took a fancy to leave the peaceable hacienda of Don Sebastian, and follow the great Hidalgo, after the example of your very humble servant. But only think now; for three hundred lean oxen, which your worshipful father was kind enough to give to a like number of those poor devils, they had to toil a whole year; and, by the blessed Virgin, St Christopher did not sweat more when he carried the infant Jesus through the flood! It happened to those poor Indians just as it did to St Christopher. The longer they toiled the heavier grew the load; and as they had not the thews and sinews of the saint, they at last sank under the burthen. So far from being able to pay for the oxen, they got every year deeper into your tolerably-noble father's debt. Can you wonder, then, that they threw aside spades and baskets, and joined the army of Hidalgo?"

However galling the patriot captain's observations were to the young nobleman, the latter could not help being struck by their justice.

"Do you think we are dogs, señor?" continued Jago. "You are a blanco, a white, not one of our rulers certainly, but of as pure blood as any of then. You have never felt the infamia de derecho[36 - Infamous by birth. The children of whites and negroes, or whites and Indians, or Indians and negroes, were infames de derecho.] weighing upon you, following you like your shadow, and worse, for that at least leaves one during the rains; and yet my father was as good a father as any Spaniard's could be, and my mother as good a mother. But what was the use of that? Jago is a Metis. He is infamous, and his children's children after him."

The man had touched briefly, but acutely, upon the wrongs of the two classes composing the great majority of the Mexican population, and his words seemed not to have been without their effect upon the young Creole, who replied in a less harsh tone than he had hitherto employed —

"If Mexico is to be delivered by you, and such as you, then is she lost indeed."

Jago caught at the word.

"Delivered!" he repeated sarcastically. "In spite, then, of your aristocratic blood, you feel that a deliverance is wanted? Yet the world says, that for six months past you have become a worse Gachupin than the Spaniards themselves."

Don Manuel cast a furious glance at the Metis.

"Aha! that stings!" continued the latter. "What! have they played you a trick too? But misericordià with your nobility, who quailed before the rising sun of freedom, and deserted your own country to aid the tyrants who oppress it. When such was the case, the time was come for the people to assert their rights; and assert them they did, as you know."

"And a fine reward they got for so doing," retorted the youth.

"Our day will come yet," returned the captain. "You are caballeros, very gentle and noble men, and we are only gavilla, knaves and serfs – therefore have ye hung and shot us, struck us down like oxen, and trampled us under foot, used us worse than snared wolves. Poor Hidalgo!" continued he in a more gentle tone, "you little thought, twelve months before, how you would be peppered by the damnable Gachupins. They rubbed his hands and his poor bald head with brick-dust, slipped a san benito over him, and sent him straight into paradise, where, doubtless, he is now giving concerts, with his musicians and the blessed St Cecilia. Allende ought to be there, too; but he is a soldier, and perhaps they would not let him in amongst the eleven thousand virgins. But enough of this. May we venture humbly to enquire of Don Manuel, what brought him upon this lonely marques-camino? Has your young excellency, perchance, a fancy to take up arms for Mexico and freedom's sake?"

"By the Holy Virgin, Jago, you are an impudent scoundrel, and deserve a beating, for daring to suspect a caballero of such base dispositions."

The Metis smiled scornfully.

"You have chosen the other side, señor," said he, "instead of remaining neutral, which would have been best for you. Ah! beams from bright eyes! Aha!"

"Scoundrel!" cried the youth with menacing tone and gesture, "if your tongue" —