A DAY IN OAXACA
By
Arthur A. Baer

Read Before
The Chicago Literary Club
on December 3rd, 1945

An old chronicle of 1532, writes Terry, states that Oaxaca possessed "five hundred Castilian families of pure blood without an African, a Jew or a Turk among them. It is a Bishop's seat, not very big, yet a fair and beautiful city to behold, which standeth three score leagues from Mexico in a pleasant valley."

Some four hundred years later one grants that it is still a fair and beautiful city to behold, although the pure Castilian blood now runs indistinguishably through Zapotec and Mixtec veins and the glory that was Spain has now become the wonder that is Mexico.

Oaxaca is a provincial capital and as such proudly boasts a governor's palace, a federal palace, a municipal palace and other fine buildings of government, principally gracious in body and line in the Spanish-Moorish style and fashioned of locally quarried stone of a distinct greenish cast. Being buildings of government, however, they have a more important characteristic than content or line or marble; they fly the flag of Mexico, from dawn to dusk.

Thus each day is ushered in at Oaxaca with a great fanfare of trumpets and beating of drums, as the proud Police Bank, in gorgeous uniforms and bare feet, marches triumphantly form one important building to another, playing at each in order, with gusto and crepitation, the national anthem and raising at each the national colors.

We wake violently, for the horns are very loud and the drums very insistent. The cocks have been crowing for hours and the Mexican dogs have been barking ceaselessly at the ghost wolves from the mountains, but we realize now these were but a muted prelude to an operatic overture in the grandest style. For with the rackety raising of the colors, the sputtering, coughing, clattering passenger buses awake all over the city and seem to converge with terrific sound effect upon the center of the city, the plaza mayor, the well-loved zocalo. The streets below are suddenly alive with people and the pavement echoes the clatter of hard-soled sandals and the patter of bare feet. By this time the sacristans have shaken the bell-ringers into action, the bells of the great churches of Oaxaca toll and toll, the bells of the lesser churches clang and clang and a great cacophonous bedlam reigns.

So day begins in Oaxaca.

The making of music in public seems to engage the Mexican soul beyond all reason. Bugling and drumming especially are performed on an individualistic pattern undreamed of any place else but in a volunteer Mexican band. They are performed with a passion, an abandon, a concentration, a repetitiousness that is devastating -- and nobody cares. In the two adjoining zocalos, in our own Cuernavaca, music went on simultaneously several nights weekly. In Morelos Square, the mechanical melody makers inside the merry-go-round wheezed stridently; in the other park a rapt orchestra of ill-assorted human music makers rendered Wagner and Verdi. Each rustic virtuoso lolled easily while he performed vigorously, the haphazard group unhampered by frustrating discipline, orchestral etiquette or even uniforms. They wore a diverting variety of serapes, battered fedoras, caps jauntily maintained at precarious angles and pastel shirts hanging loosely in back with the two side tails drawn up and knotted firmly over the stomach. Auto traffic honked its brazenness and could not be heard in the narrow street between the zocalos. The musicians pulled all stops, unperturbed by the imbalance of the instruments, most of them blowing and thumping in a beatific trance.

In the daytime at almost any hour, through the dust of Netzahualcoyotl Street, past our door tramped struggling parades of big and little boys, properly identified by Boy Scout costumes; intent only upon their music. The numbers which they played so exuberantly never came to a conclusive stop. Some of the musicians, for one good reason or another, ceased playing at intervals, but never the drummers or buglers. They were sustained beyond collapse or even fatigue by their bodily attachment to their little music-loving souls. They stumbled into unanticipated holes in the pavement; they were jostled by determined cattle wandering the calle on the loose; but nothing deterred them from their noble purpose, and the band played on.

In Mexico City the Alameda is a rendezvous for impromptu bands. An astonishing number of workers hie straight as a die from the office to the park, and whenever several get together, lo they have a band, never failing at the minimum one bugle and one drum. As others join the group, sometimes all too freshly from the pulqueria, lugging bulky instruments, there usually ensues a prolonged argument for the ordinary Mexican is an individualist and demands his constitutional rights, even in a band. It is true, however, that the drummers and buglers never seem to get involved in the wrangling. They are pacific souls and while the rest talk it over, they practice drumming and bugling, tenderly, movingly, with no surcease at all and no pianissimo whatever.

All this is in the north where all over the world the spirit is chastened. In the south, in Oaxaca, the spirit is exuberant, joyous, unchastened. The Oaxaca drummers and buglers are tireless, sleepless and dedicated.

In Oaxaca then we arise at dawn, which is not our habit elsewhere, and toss a centavo to see who gets the bath, for we know there is not enough water for two. The tub is huge and is equipped with two scooped-out cocoanut shells, which come into play later in the day when the tub takes on its more important role of reservoir. The hot water should flow from the faucet marked "C" for all over Mexico the plumbing fixtures were originally received from North America without Spanish explanations and of course any plumber would know anyway that "C" must mean "caliente," and so for all time the faucet marked "C" shall emit hot water as soon as it gets south of the border. To be sure, the other, the "H", had no discernible significance whatsoever and must be part of some incomprehensible gringo lingo, and so the "H" faucet must spout forth cold water.

In Oaxaca, however, in the modern and livable Hotel Ruiz, in the early morning, neither faucet produces hot water and the winner of the tossed coin shivers valiantly through a cold bath. But there is no complaint, for we know that during most of the day and evening there will be no running water at all; we pray fervently that the maid will remember to fill the tub and will not carry off the cocoanut shells.

We dress and rush down the stairs. Quickly, quickly, around the corner, over to the street called the 20th of November and then into the Mercado Porfirio Diaz, the city market. Already streams of business-bent Indians are pouring through the entrance. We try to hold a steady course between two tourist-born hazards, the Scylla of standing open-mouthed, gaping at the color and excitement, and the Charybdis of pushing inconspicuously against a pink wall, with a poised pocket camera.

Three Indian women file by, with a gliding grace of body. On their heads are balanced wide wooden trays, piled high with brilliant cerise claveles, the loved Mexican version of our carnation. The women's arms swing rhythmically at their sides; the stride is vigorous and sure; below the hem of the colorful calico skirts which reach to the ankles, the brown bare feet move swiftly over the cobblestone pavement.

We edge our way inside and are immediately buffeted by overpowering gusts of conglomerate odors.

The smells of the Oaxaca market are awe-inspiring, more impressive than those of Toluca or Cuernavaca, and the reason lies in the extensive public restaurant which is part and parcel of the market. Here, on scores of charcoal-heated braseros, Mexican pepper-pot bubbles and steams in huge kettles, camposinos sit on the long wooden benches, leaning on the tables elbow-wise, enjoying noisily the hot contents of their breakfast bowls.

Every Mexican market smells richly of white polished onions that shine like pearls, of dried shrimps spread out on large wicker trays, of camotes and yams and sops sweet or sour, of melons (a few definitely over-ripe), of flowers and baskets and straw hats, small brown bananas and large green bananas, slightly high goat meat hanging on hooks, tooled saddles and snake-skins not completely cured. The Oaxaca Mercado possesses in no small degree this conventional aroma of things to wear and use and food waiting to be cooked, but adds to it a racy overtone of food being cooked and without doubt, re-cooked.

We are attracted by a typical Rivera figure, a potter from some nearby village, who is bringing his handiwork to market. He is bent double, bearing on his back a hemp net packed with brown earthenware pots, held to him and supported by ropes across his chest and by thongs straining from a leather pad across his forehead. His burden is twice his size and equal his weight, but his step is certain and light.

"One never ceases to marvel," says Charles Flandrau in Viva Mexico!, "at the superhuman strength existing beneath the pretty and effeminate modeling of their arms and legs and backs! However great may be their muscular development from trotting up and down perpendicular mountain trails with incredible loads of corn, or pottery, or tiles, or firewood, or human beings on their backs, the muscles themselves never stand out! In spite of their constantly surprising exhibitions both of unpremeditated strength and long endurance, there is in the general aspect of their physique more of prettiness than of vigor, more grace than virility."

We follow our potter as best we can, through the crowds, past the stalls, across the street. We linger near the sidewalk merchant who is selling bright green parrots in two sizes. Down at the corner a languid throng has gathered around a finely dressed mestizo selling patent medicines. The attraction is not the deceptive shiny bottles, nor the richly braided charro jacket of the vendor, but the vendor's companion, a lovely black-haired, black-eyed Indian girl, who is singing for him and his prospective customers the sentimental ballads of modern Mexico. The entrepreneur from time to time becomes so overcome by the nostalgic spirit of the songs that he puts down his bottles, picks up a guitar, strums an accompaniment, and rolls his eyes longingly to the mountains beyond the town.

We pass by, into the pottery mart adjoining the great central market. Here, in a block-square place, unroofed and brilliant now under the bright sky of early morning, is spread out in piles and patterns, the famous Oaxacan pottery. The enclosing adobe walls shadow small sheds and stalls, where Indians are building displays of woven baskets and hampers of all sizes and shapes and colors and uses, and hemp twines and ropes in heavy coils. A train of burros, attended actively by two boys, is leaving with a clatter of hooves through the farther gate.

Standing here in the brilliant sunlight, entranced by the sharp morning shadows on the white, pink and blue facade of the street beyond and the changing light on the brown mountains in the distance, we speak of our approach to the town the night before and the striking contrast of its appearance, night and day.

It had been a long and hot and exhausting journey. We started early Sunday morning. Reina, the cook, knowing the ways of Mexican chauffeurs, had warned us to rise in plenty of time, as she said, to start late. Julia served our unhurried breakfast of granadas, pancakes and coffee under the Indian laurel tree in the garden and at eight, Juvencio, who was to have come at seven, honked a horn outside our door. Luggage was stowed away in the trunk compartment along with a leaking drum of petrol, for emergencies; lunch was tucked in here and there, Tehuacan water, a bottle of Santo Thomas white wine and roadmaps. Soon we slipped around the corner where the old cathedral and the Borda Gardens scorn the modern motor highway; we were off to Oaxaca.

We reached Puebla that night. The road traced a wide circle around Ixtaccihuatl, the Sleeping Lady, but the ride was slow. Juvencio was conserving his tires; nor could one blame him, for a single grade one tire, as a result of scarcity and inflation, cost at that time one hundred and twenty American dollars.

Monday morning we continued on through Atlixco and took the wrong turn at Matamoros. The pavement of the highway as it runs through the town of Matamoros is very bad. Juvencio, innocent of all geography, chose the well-paved right fork in preference. We drove lazily past rice paddies and fields of sugar-cane and fig-tree plantations. Larry gnawed his knuckles and grumbled continually, convinced that we were going in the wrong direction, but unable to prove it because of the inadequacy of the map. Proof came, however, when we reached the town of Chietla, with its name printed boldly on the tiny railway station.

"Despacio, Juvencio!" I shouted. Grudgingly he stopped. With the help of the map, a Spanish-English dictionary and many gestures, I persuaded him of his error and we returned sadly to Matamoros. In this rustic city, the political situation must have, over a period of years, resembled that of Chicago, for it was clear that the Governor and the Mayor had failed to see eye to eye, with the unhappy result that the smooth concrete pavement of the state highway ending at the municipal limits of this unimpressive city called Izucar de Matamoros. We jolted violently through the town, on a road probably floridly named La Avenida de Los Conquistadores, a road unpaved, smothered in dust and laid most of the way over the naked rugged rock of the local terrain. It reminded us kinesthetically of that famous highway which runs from Hsi Chih Men Gate at Peiping to the Ming Tombs, paved with huge blocks of marble whose joinings are sadly no longer flush, built, the Chinese said, to be good for ten years and bad for ten thousand.

We had lost an hour, the heat of the day was on us, we had reached only Kilometer 202, whereas Oaxaca, our goal, was Kilometer 553 and we had been told over and over again, by innkeepers and bus drivers and foreigners that the last hundred kilometers approaching Oaxaca were camino malo, very bad road. We were weary and worried, but determined, and continued south into the Terra Caliente, the Hot Country. We snaked our way through the burnt brown mountains, always hoping that beyond the next rise there would be a shade-tree by the roadside where we might stop and rest, but there never was. The organ cactus was the principal characteristic of the countryside and we are always amazed to see the spreading candelabra cactus being used by the Indians as a hayloft, open to the weather of course, but the hay or garnered straw at least out of the reach of wandering stock.

We panted on, through Tehultzingo, Acatlan, Petlolzingo, Huajuapan and Tutla. The pavement stopped and we skidded on loose gravel. The gravel stopped and we ploughed wearily mile after mile through recently spread crushed stone in what one might call the larger gauges.

As we finally came down out of the mountains into a dark valley, the short twilight fluttered about us for a few moments and as the Spanish say, it "nighted." Somewhere ahead of us, not too far away, was Oaxaca and maybe after all, we would soon be dining there, guajalote and frijoles and a bottle of Monterey beer. Maybe after all, we would soon be climbing the tiled stairs to our rooms in the Hotel Ruiz. At this moment, the engine coughed, then gave a sighing gasp and the car stopped.

Our hopes crashed, our dreams faded, we relapsed into despair. But Juvencio was not depressed; he was triumphant; for this was the emergency he had anticipated. With pride and satisfaction, he indicated in Mexican gestures that we were out of petrol. He opened the trunk compartment and dragged out the reeking drum. We improvised a funnel of newspaper and poured petrol indiscriminately over our trousers, over the car and a little, fortunately, into the tank. The starter worked; we were again under way.

The night was very black. The beams of the headlights poked fretfully into nothingness. Our lovely Cuernavaca moon would have been a blessing. Two weeks ago we climbed up to the mirador at midnight and saw very faintly in the east, the glow of moonlight on old Popo. Our little garden below was brilliant with the silver light. The banana trees threw bizarre shadows on the whitewashed walls. But there on the highway, we were a long way from the security of our home in Cuernavaca, the night was black, the journey seemed endless.

Then suddenly a twinkling light appeared and then another. Soon the highway climbed and down below us to the right we saw Oaxaca, the provincial capital, an electric skeleton of a city, the lifeblood of its people flowing along visibly as startling motor lights and then as dim pinpoints on humbler vehicles. We were climbing steadily. Was this the famous Cerro del Fortin that overlooks the city and is crowned with the status of Benito Jaurez? We seemed to be passing the city. Had we missed the fork again? But suddenly the highway swung sharply to the right, we descended rapidly to the valley level and soon were actually lost in the simple outskirts of Oaxaca. A policeman carrying a kerosene lantern directed us to the zocalo. We found the Ruiz; we were welcomed warmly, and were gently chided that Senor Felguerez the guide had expected us a day earlier and was disappointed. But that could hold for tomorrow. We dined and retired.

And now, as we stand in the pottery mart under the brilliant morning sky, it is tomorrow. We are suddenly conscious of the day's impending program and rush back to the Ruiz. We are met by an affable portly youngish man in white linens. He bows.

"Senores, senora, may I announce I am Carlos Felguerez? Senor Frederico Holm has received the letter from your amiga, Nina Conrad. He regrets, he has been ill and cannot come. I am to show you Oaxaca. Where shall we start? Let us go first to the Museo."

When Dr. Alfonso Caso opened Tomb Seven on Monte Alban, the story goes, he and his wife and a trusted helper worked for twenty-four hours without respite, to be certain that none of the precious finds should be mishandled or lost. After the task of securing the exquisite jewels was completed, Dr. Caso was so overcome (was it fatigue or triumph?) that he was unable to speak a single word for two whole days. The lovely little museum in Oaxaca still almost produces that effect upon the visitor.

The beauty of the jewelry is amazing in itself and the craftsmanship is exquisite; the imagination is stimulated more than in most places where men's artifacts reveal them; the conjectures which arise, intrigue one's thinking persistently. But the most thrilling part of it all is the love and pride which permeates the whole. Most museums coldly house cold collections. This one, simple as it is in comparison with the wealth of treasure it protects, has the air of a temple tended with loving care, with proud understanding that it holds not just art objects of beauty and antiquity, but a great heritage.

The miraculous hero of the Toltecs, Quetzalcoatl, is often identified with Kukulcan, the powerful god of the Mayans; and here in this rich valley where the ancient races advanced and withdrew, with a fascinating mixture of cultures as a result, the proud descendants of the Mixtecs uphold their ancestor Xipetotec as the same great mysterious figure. But Xipetotec was God of the Jewelers; and his was a consecrated cult. Certainly these treasures which survived the resurrection by the archeologists tell more plainly than words that the artists who designed and executed them were dedicated and inspired. The superlative in all the guide books and travel talks will doubtless seem fulsome until you too have seen the delicate detail, the elegance of form, the perfection of workmanship which those gifted artisans achieved with the most distressingly limited tools, so ill adapted to each of the various media in which they worked to the glory of the god who taught them, and for the aggrandizement of the priests and warriors who ruled them.

"An amazing array," says Gessler, "of massive or delicate work in gold or silver, in jade and turquoise, in obsidian, rock crystal, jet. Here were gold breastplates, anklets, bracelets, ear ornaments, rings for fingers and toes. Here was a cup of rock crystal, finely shaped of a material harder than steel -- monument of a lifetime of patient grinding with crystal dust and water; translucent goblets of alabaster; a jade pheasant, exquisitely carved, with golden eyes; fan handles of gold and jade from which the precious quetzal feathers had crumbled away! Great barbaric necklaces of turquoise, jet and gold, of coral and jade and obsidian, hung with pendants of huge pear-shaped pearls! Two small rings, one of gold, bearing the rising eagle of day, the other silver, with the descending eagle of night."

Museums of art and antiquities in our country are strange places, when you give thought to the matter. The more foreign the contents, the greater the prestige of the institution. The visitors who do dribble into the galleries are most often completely casual and remote to the things at which they are looking. The cultural heritage which identifies them with the objects about them seems not to have been completely assimilated. They are not at home with it. But all over Mexico, real Mexicans, especially those obviously scantily endowed with worldly goods, frequent museums and view murals with rapt attention. In Cuernavaca, Dwight Morrow's great gift of the Rivera Murals on the portico walls of the Cortes Palace is enjoyed daily by whole families of Indians who look in studious silence and are stirred deeply by what they see. It is their life that is painted, their life and their sad history; it is their blood brother who painted; it thrills them with beauty, it has meaning, it is a part of themselves.

In Oaxaca, barefoot Indians move silently from case to case, room to room, seeing what we could not, the beauty created by their own forefathers to the glory of god and of his priests and of the great kings of the land. We felt profound respect for the artists and their works; the Indians felt pride and identity with inspiration and consecration.

We find ourselves sitting on a tiled bench on the Alameda, under the shadow of the ponderous sixteenth century cathedral, listening to Felguerez tell incidents of his work on Monte Alban as an assistant of Dr. Caso. He speaks of the Zapoteca, their temples and tombs, characteristics of their architecture, evidence of the large population and intricate social organization which had their home on the small mountain southwest of the valley city. He speaks of the Mixtecs who swept down from the north, overran the countryside, seized the holy mound and built their own imposing temples and tombs directly over the Zapotec ruins.

He tells us mostly what we have already read in tourist books, but it all comes to life in the awe and enthusiasm of his words and tones. Hundreds of times he must have taken others exactly like ourselves over this same ground and time has worn his words threadbare, but not his awe and admiration for the great dead city. He is identified with its glory and romance. His home is in the city of the living, but he lives on the flattened, terraced, deserted mountain, searching out the spirit of his ancestors and the secrets of their lives.

"I find it hard to say it clearly," he says. "Let me read to you what Vaillant writes."

He pulls a volume out of his briefcase and reads.

"The temple architecture achieved real majesty. The great gods lived in the sky, so that their shrines and images were very naturally elevated above the level of worldly affairs. The climate contributed indirectly to the conversion of religious requirement into an impressive art form. It was not necessary to house the congregation or protect it from the weather."

Felquerez pauses and looks up at the dour cathedral towering over the park. Then he continues.

"The altar or shrine alone needed to be elevated and the worshippers stood in the plaza below. Thus the temple capped the substructure and was the culmination of a harmonious series of ascending planes, calculated to increase the illusion of height by emphasizing the effects of mechanical perspective."

Felquerez peers at us curiously and thumbs over a few pages.

"Listen to what he has to say about the Temple of the Sun at Tectihuacan."

He continues.

"The floors of the temple survive, though the roof and walls were destroyed long ago, but the illusion of infinite height and space still remains. The planes between its terraces are so cunningly calculated that the observer standing at the foot of the great staircase cannot see people at the top. He is conscious only of the massive ascent disappearing into space. When the stair was used by a religious procession, in all its pomp and color, the effect must have been stupendous. The elaborate hierarchy of a great civilization moved upward to meet, at a point unseen by the beholders, the infinity of the heavens, consecrated aloft in the god's image."

He is interrupted, in typical Mexican fashion, by a parade. It is a parade of school children, little boys and girls dressed in their very best, marching seriously behind the national flag and watched over by several harried-looking school teachers. They form a square in front of us, the color guard performs its rites stiffly and a starchy little girl with a flag in her hand steps forward and speaks a piece in a small voice. What is this ceremony, we ask our companion.

"It seems to be the birthday of Benito Juarez," he replies.

Since we do not pursue this, Felguerez elucidates for the foreigners.

"He is a great national hero in Mexico and especially in Oaxaca. His parents were pure-blood Zapotec Indians and he was born in a little puebla forty miles from our city. About a hundred years ago, I do not recall the precise year. He was very poor, but showed talent and a friendly priest educated him. When he came into political power in later years, he dispossessed the church, for which some call him an ingrate. But see the light on the faces of the children. To them he is a great man. And perhaps he was."

We rise and walk to the zocalo, to find Juvencio and our car, for we are to drive to Mitla, the City of the Dead. Crossing the plaza ahead of us is a man walking slowly and carefully, completely obscured by his burden of an enormous wreath of white carnations. Carrying it with loving care, he pauses to rest in front of the portales of the government building. He sets down the great wreath and stands proudly beside it. A small crowd gathers instantly; there is much talk, a short impromptu speech and some undirected singing. As we pass, Felguerez asks a question or two and turns to us.

"It has been donated by an unknown friend. This man is taking it to the Governor's Palace, where there will be a fine program tomorrow in honor of Juarez' birthday."

"But," we interrupt, "today is Juarez' birthday! You know -- the school children!"

"Well," replies Felguerez blandly, "someone has made a mistake in the day. But what does it matter really, today or tomorrow, in Mexico?"

Meekly we climb into the car and set off for Mitla. Quickly leaving the lovely old streets of the city and the jade-green churches, we follow the road down a broad valley between mist-covered mountains. In the fields, the brown soil is being turned by wooden plows pulled by oxen which barely move. From time to time we pass on the highway an ox-drawn wooden cart, creaking slowly on two enormous wooden wheels. Indian families pass by trotting, the women balancing on their heads wicker baskets filled with melons. A young boy whips angrily at his burros, explaining that they will be killed, por Dios, unless they remain on the side of the road and the sad little burros can hardly be seen under their burdens of burlap bags bulging with charcoal.

We arrive at the village of Santa Maria del Tule, where tourists come to see the largest living thing known to man. It is the Great Tree of Tule. Ours is a personal pilgrimage, for Larry has a photograph of the Great Tree in his newest book and we are here to see. The circumference of its trunk is over one hundred and forty feet. The signature made by the illustrious Baron Von Humboldt in 1826 is there but difficult to find, for the bark is gradually growing over the axed scar. Its age is conjectural; casual estimates vary from two thousand to five thousand years; if the school teacher could miss Juarez' birthday by a day, surely a thousand years more or less in the life of an ahuehuetl tree is hardly of any consequence.

Since we are now an important party, having an author in our midst, we are escorted across the hot dry plaza to the government building, which is actually the town school house, where we meet Senor Angel Soto, el Presidente de Administracion Civil de Santa Maria del Tule. He is a querulous old Indian in short white pants and bare feet, who complains that because he was appointed, not elected, he does not have the full support of his constituency and often finds it very difficult to administer the affairs of state, especially since he is not paid for his efforts. We pay him, in the form of a visitor's registration fee and we all walk together to the churchyard near the Great Tree. There we take el Presidente's picture in front of a bamboo shelter housing two old bronze bells which fell from the church tower during an earthquake and are felt to be safer closer to the ground.

Back in the car, we pass two more of the great Sabine Trees and then resume our drive down the valley. We might have passed Tlacolula, if it had not been for the sharp eyes of Felguerez, who said suddenly, "Turn here!" The town is very drab. Its adobe houses and dusty lanes bordered with fences of organ cactus are nondescript and unimpressive. The entire community, because of the contour of the land and the sweep of the road, is practically hidden from the sight of the passing tourist and yet we were told several thousand Indian families lived there. Tlacolula in Zapotec means glorious place, but the glory belongs with the past.

There is a traffic jam in the principal lane of the village, caused by three ox-carts meeting and in attempting a detour, we break a spring. We go to the market to buy an aguacate for lunch and crossing the zocalo, we hear music. In a very old building, in a dingy room with a doorway, but not a single window and smelling terrifically of kerosene, used in provincial Mexico for obvious purposes, we find the schoolmaster teaching four Indian lads of assorted sizes, the mastery of the marimba. Would Senora like to hear a piece, he asks. It would give us all the greatest pleasure. They do not present the usual "La Paloma" and "Rancho Grande," but instead play two formal Mexican dances, with zeal, much activity and a fine sense of music.

The cathedral at Tlacolulua is very old and has, surprisingly enough, an interior dazzlingly churrigueresque in the gaudiest Puebla style. It reminds us at once of Flandrau's description.

"The use of gold leaf in decoration is like money," he writes. "A little is pleasant, merely too much is vulgar; but a positively staggering amount of it seems to justify itself" The ordinary white and gold drawing room done by the local upholsterer is atrociously vulgar, but the cathedral at Puebla is not. Gold -- polished, glittering, shameless gold -- blazes down and up and across at once; from the stone rosettes in the vaulting overhead, from the grilles in front of the chapel, from the railings between which the priests walk to altar and choir, from the onyx pulpit and the barricade of gigantic candlesticks in front of the altar, from the altar itself -- one of those carefully insane eighteenth-century affairs, in which a frankly pagan tiempolito and great lumps of Christian symbolism have become gloriously muddled for all time. Gold flashes in the long straight sun shafts overhead, twinkles in the candle flames, glitters from the censors and the chains of the censors. The back of the priest at the altar is encrusted with gold! and all the pillars from capital to base are swathed in the finest of crimson velvet, fringed with gold. It isn't vulgar; it isn't even gaudy. It has surpassed all that and has entered the realm of the bewildering "the flabbergastric."

Modestly standing near the chapel entrance, sobered but not dismayed by the gilt and carved plaster, is a charming statue of Saint Anthony of Padua. The poise of the head, the expression of profound dignity of character and a great gentleness, have been turned out by the sculptor with a simplicity that puts the carved and gilded ceiling to shame. Is it any wonder that in this chapel we find on the walls so many retablos, humble hand-worked messages of gratitude to the protector? Sometimes they are carved awkwardly of wood, sometimes they are pathetic contrivances of cardboard, cheap paper and water-colors. One, we notice, is the faded photograph of a doltish young man, with a long verse scribed beneath it. "What does it mean?" we ask.

"He was born poor," translates Felguerez, "but fortune smiled upon him. He learned to read and write and he became a public scribe, an evangelista."

"Do you mean," we say, "that he owned an ancient Oliver typewriter and sat under the laurel trees in the zocalo, writing letters about amor and passion for the Indios?"

"Probably, probably," replies our companion. "At any rate, he had an evil brother, who became jealous of his good fortune. In the night, the brother crept up to him while he slept, with intent to kill him with a machete, but when he -- what shall I say? -- made for to drive the great knife into his heart, lo and behold, the blade broke. This then is written in deep thankfulness to the great saint who saved his life and the young man is still situated, he writes, just north of the municipal building doing work for those many friends who need his services."

"Why, Senor," we say, "this is a public advertisement!"

"No, no, my friends," replies the guide with a gentle smile. "It is a ratablo, a message of gratitude."

Reluctantly, we leave Saint Anthony to his humble followers and after stopping for a drink of Mescal Viejo (meaning relatively old and correspondingly ripe), taken bottoms-up fashion with a pinch of bright pink salt made from dessicated maguey grubs, we are again on our way. We soon reach the little ancient Zapotec settlement called San Pablo Mitla and stop before the inn. This is the very old hacienda of the district; it has now fallen upon evil days and takes in paying guests. We walk through the empty-shelved store facing the street, through a storeroom smelling redolently of seed and grain and hay, and into a green and fragrant patio. The fragrance is of jasmine. Cut leaf philodendron grows eight feet tall along the surrounding portico. The patio is crowded with oleander trees, lime trees, a flowering jacaranda and thick tangled vines. Between the old paving-stones grow beds of violets. Several tame parrots set up a clamor as we enter. Someone shoos a goat through a far doorway.

We sit down at a plain board table in a shaded corner and are served comida by a gentle old man, barefooted and graciously hospitable. Lunch begins with a large bowl of thick soup prepared from potato and camote. Tortilla is brought in, warm and smelling richly of cornmeal. What tortilla! They measure a foot across, of a burnt lavender color and have been prepared in proper Zapotec fashion, treated with lime water before cooking. Each is a meal in itself. But they are not the meal; actually, they serve a dual purpose, for they take the place of both our bread and our utensils. The meal follows, heaps of scrambled eggs with rice, two meat servings buried under gravy and sauce flavored intolerably with herbs and chili, and the alligator pear which we brought with us from Tlacolula. We may not drink the local water and are therefore, served throughout the meal with very hot tea of a peculiar flavor.

"It is tea made from the fresh leaves of the sour orange tree," says Felguerez. "Let us go now and visit the City of the Dead."

The ruins at Mitla are fascinating to the casual observer for two principal reasons, both having to do with architecture. One is amazed first by the enormous blocks of stone used for structural purposes, and secondly by the skilled craftsmanship used on the tiny pieces of stone which make up the intricate mosaics in the decorative plan.

The lintels over the entrances to the Hall of the Monoliths, four feet high, five feet thick and fifteen feet long, are solid blocks of stone. They were probably cut in a quarry which lies some distance from this site, and the questions naturally arise as to how the great heavy blocks were transported and how they were lifted into place.

Since all doorways in the Mitla structures are very low, requiring most tourists to bend double to pass through them, the casual comment is that the Zapoteca must have been a very short people.

"No wonder," says Larry, "if they carried those blocks of stone around on their heads."

The mosaics are beautiful, stiffly geometric in design, with a skillful use of a variety of patterns. Small cut stones were used, about an inch thick and several inches long. They were shaped and cut so expertly and fitted together so precisely that no mortar was necessary to hold the pattern together. As one stands and gazes at these stone friezes, perhaps a thousand years after they were laid, one is struck with wonder at the artisans who did this work, the architects who planned it and the strange theopathological civilization which consecrated them to their tasks.

We muse on these matters as we drive back through the valley heat to Oaxaca and are distracted only as we draw up our chairs at the Green Chair Café to sip a sangria before dinner. In Oaxaca, the sidewalk cafes that fringe the zocalo are a social institution and you meet your friends for gossip and high talk in the twilight, just as before lunch in Taxco you have a drink on the balcony at Paco's or in Mexico City at the cosmopolitan Ritz Bar. But the Ritz Bar has a swank international air; Paco's serves an assorted company of artists and literary oddities; the Green Chair Café is simple unadulterated delightful provincial Mexico.

The passing parade weaves its way here and there between the tables, for the café and the sidewalk are one and those who are in slightly more of a Mexican hurry saunter down the street pavement right next to one's table. Many of the passersby are camposinos in pink or lavender shirts and clean white trousers, for there is a government labor levy today and the town is crowded with exuberant Indian males hoping for a free trip to Estados Unidos. Earnest-looking men with a distinct professional air and shoe-shine outfits in their hands, stop at your table, give an appraising look and inquire ingratiatingly, "Graza, senor?" Then, as Flandrau says, there are the old men who wail at intervals that they are selling pineapple ice cream, old women with strings of white and yellow and green lottery tickets, basket sellers and sellers of flowers and ladies draped in black lace on their way to meditate in church.

Among the tables, little boys run about with a remarkable number of English nouns at their tongues' ends. Manuel, aged ten, but wise in the ways of the world, picks our party as his exclusive property and he services us from head to foot. He selects a table for us, pulls over enough chairs to seat us. He claps his little hands impatiently and shrieks arrogantly for service at top speed from the over-worked waiter.

What do we want? Tequila? Highball? Cerveza? He approves of our choice of sangria, which is a mild mixture of fragrant claret and lemon juice, and rushes the waiter off to the bar. Do we want a newspaper? Telegrafo? English edition of course, meaning that somewhere on page six, there are two and a quarter columns written in machine-made English, with always a half-tone of a Hollywood beauty in a midriff bathing suit. When we agree, he flies down to the newsstand and rummages rapidly through the repossessed stock on the lower shelf, hoping to find a fair-looking resale copy, and he succeeds. He takes complete possession of us, driving away all purveyors of "graza," the man who keeps pulling tawdry carved and painted cigarette boxes out of his pockets and offering them for sale, the vendors of gaudy serapes, the flower-girls, the newsboys.

Strange it is that anything so utterly lacking in subtlety as this waif Manuel, can be so intriguing. His is the direct method of reducing competition to nothing or less. Once we catch him, while smiling seraphically at us, kicking viciously at a rival approaching our table. Since the well-directed hint was not successful, he excused himself with cavalier grace, and pursued with fists, feet and rich language the alarmed muchacho who had probably hoped for only a small share of the gringo gratuities. Manuel is nothing if not enterprising; he offers us more drinks, he would bring us tacos. Does Senora wish Monte Alban earrings? May he carry our packages to the hotel? He even slyly whispers into Larry's ear an offer of a fine evening's entertainment, and then backs off to see the effect.

In the meantime, a tall, good-looking stranger approaches us, obviously an Americano.

"A thousand pardons for intruding," he says, bowing, with his hat over his heart. "I don't want to borrow any money, or even cadge a drink. I saw you come by and you looked so respectable. I couldn't resist it; I do so much want to talk to my own kind."

We invite him to join us and as the talk gathers momentum, we even prevail upon him to have a drink, in spite of his introductory protests. He is a Canadian. He came down in the early twenties to manage his uncle's silver mine up in the hills. Mining had its ups and downs, mostly downs. Then there was always trouble with the damn lazy Indians. And, por Dios, how could one come along with some of these governors? If one could only get back to New York! Or even Chicago!

We talk and talk and suddenly become aware that night has fallen. The lights have come on, the street lights are glowing, the arcades are flooded with light from hanging electric bulbs and the stores are all illuminated. It must be time to go to dinner.

We rise to take our leave and at this moment all the lights go out. We hesitate a moment, expecting them to come on again, but they do not.

"No luz," groans our table companion. "Oaxaca, oh Oaxaca! Power station! Such stupidity!

We part with polite words and stumble through the dark streets to the Ruiz. There the little old, peering hotelkeeper stands behind his cigar case, cutting short wax candles into even shorter ones, and placing the stubs on brown Oaxaca saucers. By candlelight we grope our way to our rooms, in the hope of freshening up before dinner, but there is no water. We feel a little depressed and with the candles dripping and splashing we find our way down the tiled stairs, treads and risers weirdly distorted by the simultaneous flickering of three candles. The huge middle-aged Indian bell-hop, wordless, but eloquent with gesture, waves us into the dining room, where the candlelight only emphasized the stains on the tablecloths. The active, efficient little waiter lopes back and forth, bringing us our private bottle of Tehuacan water, bowls of thick soup, tortilla tostada, various vegetables and salads, and for desert, the fruit called zapota negro, prepared deliciously with fresh lime juice and a thimble of rum.

Engrossed in our recollections of the day just spent and our speculations of tomorrow, we hardly notice that a small group of traveling musicians, mariachis, has entered the Ruiz lobby. The music of their guitars begins softly and we turn to peer at them in the dim light. Two are seated on a bench near the entrance, playing dreamily, their eyes closed. The third, blind, is being led in gently by a woman who takes her stand beside him and stays with him, no shadow of fatigue or boredom or restlessness on her face during the long wait. They play with deep feeling and tangy harmony the every day songs of Mexico, "Adelita," "The Four Fields," "Borrachita," "Jalisco." A little crowd gathers at the open doorway. The guests in the dining room loll back in their chairs. The two waiters sit in a far corner and whisper in Spanish. The old hotelkeeper leans over his half candles and keeps time with the nodding of his head. At the foot of the stairs the bell-hop dozes and dreams.

After a while, we climb the stairs and go to bed and sometime or other the guitars cease playing. It is the end of our day in Oaxaca.