Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/41

 Rh water bursting from the apex of the mountains, descending in a crystal sheet, and reflecting the prismatic glories of the rainbow as they go murmuring along to the valleys below. This may give credence to this version. Saltillo is the capital of the State of Coahuila.

The name Coahuila, according to some historians, means "Happy Land," while others claim its signification to be "Vibora que vuela" (flying snake). It is possible that this latter is the real derivation, as snake in the Indian is Coatl, and huila means to fly. This, taken together, may have some reference to the great temple of Huitchiolopochtly, the Aztec war god, which was surrounded by a square wall called coatlpantli (snake wall), carved within and without with myriads of these creatures. In the minds of those who had the naming of the States there must have been an idea that the bleak and barren aspect of Coahuila was sufficient to cause the exodus of even these not over-fastidious reptiles.

In view of these forbidding physical features, the term "Happy Land" must have been given in a spirit of satire; or perhaps some consumptive writer of poetic verse, enchanted by the fine dry climate, pure atmosphere, and blue skies, bestowed the title in gratitude for their salubrious effects.

Saltillo was once also the capital of Texas when that great State formed an unwilling member of the Mexican federation. It has a population of about twenty thousand, and is situated on the Buena Vista table-land in the Sierra Madre Mountains, at an elevation of about five thousand five hundred feet above sea-level.

It was founded on the 25th of July, 1575, by one Francisco Urdiñola, who brought with him sixty Tlaxcalan families who were bitter foes of the Aztecs and firm allies of the conquerors.

The city is the seat of important manufactures, both woolen and cotton. Here are made rebozos (a long narrow shawl worn by women over their heads), and also those gorgeous and durable serapes (blankets), of finest wool and most brilliant colors, which have gained so wide a celebrity that the term "Mexican blanket" is a synonym for a genuine and almost everlasting fabric.