Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 201, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 August 1910 — Tour Throgh Mexican Forests [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Tour Throgh Mexican Forests

MttlCM . MTER CMWR. EVER the thought of El Desierto conjures a vision of lofty forest Isles and mysterious depths “where old Enchantment piles her shuttle' of lost days and dreams.” Where monks of .old wandered In peaceful meditation today the wild deer brouses and the prowlersof dim forests glide. The barefooted Carmelites are gone, and the gray convent on the mountain, with its ndble domes, and towers and cloisters, and arched corridors is silent and pathetic, with that peculiar pathos Jhat broods over a solitude where man has once ruled*. Nature has been busy here, as is her wont, recovering the conquest of man; but those monks of old built so pobly that their work still resists effacement and sees to dominate the wilderness. Beauty envelopes like a garment the grass-grown cloisters and crumbling walls and domes of faded color; and the breeze that rustles the tall heavyheaded grass and clinging vines seems to bring down the river of Time, from that island of long ago, odor of Incense, tones of long silent bells, orisons and chants. Such is El Desierto today; and one cannot do better than to quote, as others have, the old chronicler Thomas Gage, an Dominican monk who was smuggled Into Mexico. He wrote about 260 years'ago. "It is the pleasantest place,” he says, “of any about Mexico; called by some La Soledad and by other El Desierto, the solitary or desert place or wilderness. Were all wildernesses like it, to live In a wilderness would be better than to live in a city. “This hath been a device of poor Fryers, named discalced or barefooted Carmelites, who to make show of their hypocritical and apparent godliness, and whileßt „ they would be thought to live like Eremites, retired from the world, they may draw the world to them; they have built there * stately cloister, which being upon a hill and among rocks makes it to be more admired. £ “About the cloister they have fashioned out many holes and caves in, under and among the rocks, like Eremite lodgings, with a room to lie in, an oratory to pray in, with pictures and images, and rare devices for mortification as disciplines of wyar, rods of* iron, haircloth girdles with sharp wyar points to girdle about their bare flesh, and many such toys, which hang about their oratories to make people admire their mortified and holy lives. "All these Eremitical holes and caves (which are ten in number) are within the bounds and compass of the cloister and among orchards and gar- . dens of fruit and flowers, which may take up two miles in compass; and here among the rocks are many springs of water, which, with the shade of plantins and other trees, are moßt cool and pleasant to the Eremites; they have also the sweet smell of rose and jasmin, which is a little flower, but the sweetest of all others; there is not any flower to be found that is rare and exquisite in that country which is pot in that wilderness to delight the senses of these mortified Eremites.” Racial bias and rivalry of order, though not saintly attributes, might find entrance and be harbored unawares in the soul of even a good monk. And since we remember that Father Gage was Epglish and Dominican. may we not Justly soften * his caustic presentation of his “Eremites” while we thank him for his chronicle? To see El Desierto as we saw it, you must first get lost. On the smooth white road up over the rolling hills from the desolate little puebla of Santa Fe our horses loped briskly in the early morning. This old white ribbon of road is ah automobile thoroughfare, in these twentieth-century days, from the City of Mexico pver the mountains to the Valley of Toluca, where nestles the city that is the capital of the State of Mexico. But on this fair day no twentieth-century devices of people came to strike the discordant note. We met only the descendants of many generations of those who had walked that way. Men, barefooted or shod in that peculiar sandal called guarache, wearing gracefully their gay serapes or red blankets, and the picturesque broadbrimmed, high-peaked sombreros, walked beside their burros that were packed with towering loads of coarse baskets. Women, also

wearing sombreros, sat upon the littie burros between huge baskets, carrying beautiful brown babies in their arms, while larger brown babies clung on behind. We illustrated the old fable of the hare and the snrjl, we and a brightlooking peon of the best type, whose burro kept steadily on In its lightfooted little trot while we varied our progress between galloping and walking. In onq of the passings, after the courteous salutation, w er entered into conversation about the road to El Desierto; and remarking that the way was long, he proceeded to describe a much nearer way by trail, a cut-off that left the main road some miles before the El Desierto road did. The wooded mountains across the deep ravine appealed to us, and when we came to the trail It also looked, tempting, so we took our wayfarer’s advice and left the beaten track, soon to find ourselves scrambling down a precipitous way leading our horses. Atfer crossing a stream at the bottom of the canon, we mounted and foh lowed the bank, entering a pine forest through which we rod§. mil 6 after mile, momentarily expecting to see the trail up the mountain we sought. We did find an ascending trail and climbed a mountain to see, when at the top, only far-reaching forests and more mountains. Down jre went Into Another canon, losing our trail many times to find It again. On the steep mountainside, between us and the sudden drop Into the canon (down which we looked upon the tops of tall trees, and to the bottom of which sight could not penetrate,) we saw a fragment of moss-covered masonry, and farther on another, and another, and still farther on the fragments lengthened into a crumbling wall, and we were on a stone-paved way. When It reached the sharp ridge of the mountain, which It followed, there was a low stone wall on each side of a narrow paved way, mossy and banked with dead leaves; walla covered with plaster or cement that moss and lichen and weather stain had mellowed into harmony with the surroundings. Never was road like this one! Through a wilderness apparently primeval, but for it it seemed to lie dreaming In a potent forest silence that trembled on the edge of a sound, as the pale light that sifted, through the trees upon it trembled between shade and sunshine. A strange spell broods here that woos one to linger and see visions of that olden time. At last we were on the top of the mountain and riding beside the high convent wall, the entranoe being on the opposite side from our approach. Within the patio, like the deserted guardian of the deserted place, stands on a high pedestal a marred stone statue of some unrecognizable saint, mutely eloquent We pass It, and walk the lonely corridors, stand under the lofty dome, climb tbe worn stairs to the belfry, descend Into underground chambers, and loiter In cloisters and In the walled' gardens and orchards of old that Father Gage tells us of; where the fragrant flowera bloomed and the luscious fruit ripened on jUBt such air and sunshine as bathes the mountain top today. But the “spirit of the hive,” where la It? In front of the great arched entrance Is an open space with a few maple trees, and a small detached ruin of brown adobe. Steps lead down from one of these eld rooms, and though the Bpace is filled with debris It appears to be an underground passage to the.convent. Standing there, one looks into a forest such as Dure? painted; vistas between the bodies es giant trees, dim beguiling, satyr* haunted depths. The shadows were deepening there, for the day was perceptibly waning; and we of short span of days mutt hasten to leave a ruin that was old before we had being, and that will long outlast us. ELEANOR EVANB,