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Updated: June 9, 2025
I found him doing all this, and more, in a little native village fifty miles from the city of Oaxaca, Feb. 2nd. The fat little man was complete master of the Zapotec town of Mitla, far distant from the end of the last of the railroads, a town famous for its ruins.
They drove the messenger whom I had sent to measure a house, for the purpose of making a miniature reproduction, off the premises with clubs. The mozos, who had accompanied us thus far, had no intention of going farther, and the problem of getting carriers which had troubled us ever since we had left Mitla assumed serious proportions.
The doctor and his Mexican friend rode with us to Tule to see us well started. It was out over the old road to Mitla. The afternoon was hot, dust was deep, and a heavy wind blew it up into our faces in clouds. The sun was already setting when we rode into Santa Maria Tule, and we went at once to see the famous cypress tree, which no one in the party, save myself, had seen.
Mitla is famous for its weaving; fine mantas of wool are made there in two chief styles one a long strip of black or blue-black cloth, the other a rich red, sometimes banded or striped with black. These Mitla mantas are widely sold to Zapotecs, in all the district around, and form the characteristic women's dress.
After the padre had knelt and kissed the ring, the archbishop invited us to be seated, expressed an interest in our trip to Mitla, hoping that it had proved successful. He then spoke at some length in regard to his diocese.
If the country had never, in the previous ages, felt the influence of a higher culture than that of the Aztecs, it would not have now, and never could have had, ruined cities like Mitla, Copan, and Palenque.
To find the explanation of this phenomenon, must we not suppose these palaces were occupied by a race less advanced in civilization than their first builders?” Two miles or more away from the great edifices here mentioned, toward the west, is the “Castle of Mitla.” It was built on the summit of an isolated and precipitous hill of rock, which is accessible only on the east side.
They still adorn the common pottery made by the inhabitants of the little mission of Maypures; they ornament the bucklers of the Otaheitans, the fishing-implements of the Esquimaux, the walls of the Mexican palace of Mitla, and the vases of ancient Greece.
"No bad news from Mitla, I hope?" he asked gently, recalling one of the main working stations chosen by the expedition and the reported unsettled condition of the country about it. She looked up quickly. "Didn't you know he came back from Vera Cruz yesterday?" she asked slowly, then added, speaking in a broken tone, "and he seems suddenly to have disappeared. Oh, such a terrible night of worry!
So strong was his appeal, that he was deputed to say mass at Mitla Sunday, starting for his new parish of Chila on the Monday following. In the heavy, lumbering coach we left next morning, Saturday, for Mitla. The road, usually deep with dust, was in fair condition on account of recent rains. We arrived in the early afternoon and at once betook ourselves to the ruins.
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