Page:Our Neighbor-Mexico.djvu/283

 Rh ample for grain. There is no need of poverty and degradation so unspeakable. The hills, black, blue, and purple, and, when the sun lights them, golden-brown, as everywhere in Mexico, "brown in the shadow, golden in the sun," like Willis's beloved's tresses, form a grand background, the rising sun being in this case a grander background to the hills.

Our mules fly as fast as the fearful road and a partial epizootic will let them, to the stone-house village of Napola. Before we reach it, we note the superb roll of the land. It sweeps away in majestic breadth, black with the plow, or awaiting in yellow dryness the near approaching rains that shall set every germ alive. A hacienda in the heart of this grand landscape is rightly called "Vista Hermosa" (view beautiful). I had never seen one prettier. Nor did it lose its beauty because a tiny lake lay at the bottom of the valley, flashing in the morning rays. Some upper Minnesota views were not unlike it, only those lacked the mountains, a lack indeed.

The town disenchants you. Man is far below nature. It was burned twice by the French in their marches to and fro in the land, either because it did not give good enough pulqui or not enough of it, for their thirsty needs, or because it harbored republicans and patriots, and political Protestants, who resisted a triumphing foreign Church and army and tongue. "America for Americans," native or adopted, the motto of these United States, as well as those of the North, brought wrath upon Napola. It seems determined not to be caught that way again; for it rebuilt its town of stone. Not a stick in it that I could see, except the few that formed the doors. The stones are laid neatly, and even ornamentally in some cases, and then plastered over, so as to give a uniform whiteness when finished; for this city, unlike some in the West, and many in this country, can not be said to be finished. It has been finished twice in another way, and that gives it a chance to be a-growing again. Its name signifies cactus, and this hardy and useful tree is growing in orchards among its rocks. So it grows everywhere, and is well called the national tree.