Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/192

 "Mitl, the venerator of the gods; Tolpiltzin, last of the Toltecs; and the beautiful Xinlitzal—where are they?" These no doubt once famous personages can be the better spared now, on account of their unpronounceable names, but to the writer they represented something very tangible and solid.

"Very brief is the realm of flowers," he continues, "and brief is human life. . . . Our careers are like the streams, which but run on to excavate their own graves the more surely. . . . Let us look, then, to the immortal life. . . . The stars that now so puzzle us are but the lamps that light the palaces of the heavens."

Such, if he be properly presented by Spanish adapters, were the sentiments of this early monarch. Truly the latent capacities even of the natural man are not so far below the surface; and it may be that no agency will be found so potent to awaken them with a rush as the modern facility in railway transportation.

On the return we visited a country residence, combined with large mills for making paper and grinding grain. It was called the Molino de Flores, and belonged to the wealthy Cervantes family of Mexico. One of this Cervantes family was the subject, in 1872, of a celebrated exploit by the plagiarios, or kidnappers. He was seized while coming out of the theatre at night, a cloak was thrown over his head, and he was bundled into a cab, He was buried a long time under the floor of a house, just enough food being given him to sustain life. The plagiarios did not secure the large ransom they demanded, after all, but were finally apprehended, and shot—three