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Updated: May 27, 2025
Weeks later, we learned the probable reason of the governor's gruffness, which was in such marked contrast to his previous treatment, that it puzzled us considerably. At about the time of our visit, a number of wealthy hacienderos, of the State of Tlaxcala, had been arrested for counterfeiting silver money.
When making this little journey to Tlaxcala in January, 1897, we noticed in the car with us, a stout, purely indian man, who seemed anxious to engage us in conversation. Knowing a few words of English, he was particularly anxious to practice them.
Tlaxcala lies between two gaunt broken ridges, with rugged chains all about it, yet the little State is by no means so completely fenced in by nature as the imagination that has fed on Prescott pictures. Puebla, third city of Mexico, is even colder than the capital. The snow-clads of the latter look down upon it from the west, and far away to the east stands Orizaba, highest peak of Mexico.
The result was evident; on the following day delegations, ordered by the jefe, and consisting of from six to a dozen persons each, began to come in from the outlying villages. This made our work easy, indeed. In one respect, Tlaxcala differs from all the other Mexican states with which we are acquainted. Most of the people live in very little towns, which cluster around the larger places.
When the terraces were entire, with their temple-crowned pyramids, and with embankments and walls in full repair, these vast constructions must have been indeed impressive. A street-car line, running for most of the distance down hill, connects Santa Ana with Tlaxcala, the towns being separated by seven miles.
The burdens were shouldered, and we started out in the cool, fresh morning air, for the village, where we arrived in about half an hour. It is a town of less than one hundred people, situated upon a little mountain, hidden, to one looking from Tlaxcala, by intervening hills.
It was to Tlaxcala that Cortez and his small band of followers retreated when the natives of the valley of Mexico rose and in desperation drove him from their midst. Here, after some months devoted to recuperation and being joined by reinforcements from Cuba, he prepared to lay siege once more to the Aztec capital.
Thus, around the capital city, Tlaxcala, there are some seventeen of these small pueblos. Working at the palace, we had secured almost no women for measurement. Asking the advice of the cura, in the matter, he recommended that we should go to some one of the neighboring indian villages; that he would give us a letter to the juez and that, thus, we would secure our subjects easily.
Thence we went to Patzcuaro by rail, and studied the Tarascans in the villages about Lake Patzcuaro, visiting these by canoe-trips. After returning to Mexico, we visited the states of Tlaxcala and Puebla. In and around the City of Tlaxcala, we secured our Tlaxcalan subjects. At Cuauhtlantzinco, we worked upon Aztecs.
After returning to Puebla from Tlaxcala, we take the cars which will convey us eastward from the elevated table-land towards the tropical region of the coast. Here also is the dividing line between the states of Puebla and Vera Cruz.
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