Climate of Guadalajara—American tramps—Courtship under difficulties—Influence of the priesthood—The Metayer system.

During June and July the average mean temperature in Guadalajara is 68.85° F. in the sun; the average maximum for these months is 88.52°, the average minimum is 56.48°, and the highest recorded temperature was 95° on 1st July 1908. All these records are officially taken on the top of the Degollado Theatre. In August the mean for the month is 69.26°. During November it ranges from 63.5° to 72.8°. During December and January the average mean is 57.5°. It sometimes freezes in the winter, but never enough to hurt flowers or fruit if protected from the wind. Violets grow out-of-doors all through the winter. Except during the rainy season it seldom rains, though we do have occasional showers in the spring. The country is truly a paradise, and if only the big holdings were broken up among small farmers, all Mexico could be supplied with food grains, instead of having, as now, to import them. The reason for this 267is that the hacendados, like squatters in Australia, hold tracts of from one thousand to one or more million acres, and of this they only cultivate probably one per cent. The Government of Madero is at present trying to borrow $100,000,000 for the purpose of buying out these large holdings and selling them on long-term annual payments to the actual cultivators. If the plan succeeds, the country is bound to go ahead at a wonderful rate. As in India, the chief industry is agriculture, but Guadalajara, Aguas Calientes, and Celaya are noted for drawn-work lace and embroidery; the work is certainly beautiful. The Mexicans also are no mean decorative painters, sculptors, and builders. In buildings they put in “flat arches,” which never sag or crack when the supports are removed, and they can hang masonry stairways up in the air, apparently without supports, if they can build them in a long curve. I have asked American builders how it is done, and have not received any clear answer yet.

There are at present but two ways of getting to Guadalajara by rail—either by branching off at Irapuata from the main line of the Mexican Central, which runs from El Paso, Texas, to Mexico City, or coming by steamer to Manzanillo, and from there by rail, passing en route the volcano of Colima, which is 268in eruption. This latter route, from the Pacific coast, is by far the best and pleasantest, as you thereby miss the northern desert of Mexico, and see, besides, some beautiful wild scenery. There is also a third road, which the Southern Pacific are building into Guadalajara from Mazatlan, but this will not be completed for a year or two.

Every winter Mexico is filled with American tramps who come to escape the cold up north, and they are a perfect pest at times. The Mexican police will never touch them unless some American or Englishman makes a complaint, in which case they run them out of town. Seven years ago we had such a bad lot here that the colony made complaint, and the police cleaned them up. Two of the most impudent, who returned, I had the pleasure later of seeing do some honest work on the city streets. In Mexico City the Saxon colony has a committee whose business it is to investigate the case of every tramp who arrives; if he is a good man in hard luck he is helped; if, on the other hand, he is a professional tramp, the police are at once notified, and he has to move out.

One of the things that strike a visitor to this country is the method of courtship. A Mexican girl of good family is never seen on the street with a man till she is married to him. When a young man wishes to court 269a girl, he walks up and down daily before the windows of her house. If she reciprocates, she comes to the window after a decent interval, the length of which is according to how highly she values herself, and smiles on him. As he gets bolder he comes nearer and nearer, till finally they get on speaking terms. All this may have taken some weeks. When matters have progressed far enough for the couple to arrive at an understanding, he makes a call on the family, and if they approve of him he is invited to call again. After this he calls as frequently as he can; the girl is present at these state calls, but it is not considered etiquette for him to speak to her directly till they are officially engaged. He must converse with the other members of the family so that they can size him up. Imagine what intellectual conversation a man would “get off” under the i............