Lake Chapala Artists and Authors

Relatively little is known about the life of Thomas L. Rogers, the American author of Mexico? Sí, señor, based on a trip to Mexico in July 1892, and published the following year by the Mexican Central Railway. The book provides an up-beat accessible account of all the places and regions that the then-expanding railway network was opening up for travelers.

At that time the Mexican Central Railway was the principal railway of the Republic, with 1846 miles of line; it was the only standard gauge line connecting Mexico City to the U.S. First class rail fares at the time were very reasonable: return fares to Mexico City were $50 (dollars) from El Paso; $88.60 from Chicago and $135 from New York or Boston.

The book covers the sights along not only the Mexico Central Railway’s main route from Ciudad Juárez to Mexico City, but also along its two major branch lines: the first to Tampico, and the second to Guadalajara via Irapuato. The completion of this latter branch in 1888 spurred a significant growth in tourism at Lake Chapala, and was the route used by many of the early visitors to Chapala, including eccentric pioneer Septimus Crowe, English  writer Maud Pauncefote, British consul Lionel Carden, American writers Charles Embree and Mary Ashley Townsend, and anthropologist Frederick Starr. American photographer-hotelier Winfield Scott , who lived for many years near Ocotlán, was commissioned by the Mexican Central Railway to document the company’s network in Mexico.

Rogers’ writing style is informal and chatty. Mexico? Sí, señor is well illustrated with small sketches, photographs and several maps. Chapter XVI includes one of the earliest published photographs (untitled) of Ocotlán, as well as images of the Atequiza hacienda, the Río Lerma, and the famous Juanacatlán Falls. (Note, however, that the photograph titled “On the Lake Shore’ (by A. Briquet) depicts Lake Cuitzeo, not Lake Chapala.)

Excerpts from chapter XIV of Mexico? Sí, señor

Ocotlán is situated on a plain which slopes southward a few miles into the shore of the lake. With its pretty plaza, beautiful church spires, its portales, and its two bridges (one over the Sula, south of the village, and one west over the Lerma), Ocotlán is very picturesque.

The water front of the city is on the Sula, just above the bridge. Here a novel sight is seen on the levee. No great steamers are moored there, but scores of great canoes are loading and unloading, or waiting for the spirit of their captains to move. These canoes have hitherto done all the business on Lake Chapala.

The water works of Ocotlán are not extensive, but such as they are, they can be seen at the bridge across the Lerma, over which passes the highway to Guadalajara. They consist of one large wheel and a pump. The wheel is on a frame under one of the arches of the bridge. The current of the river runs the wheel, and the wheel, of course, runs the pump. But rivers in this region rise and fall, and there are times when this wheel is six feet above the water. Whenever the current cannot reach the wheel, the people of Ocotlán get their water by carts and carriers.

The steamer “Chapala” is a flat-bottom stern-wheel boat, very like those that are common on the shallow rivers of the West; the only boats adapted to shoal-water service. Everything about the steamer appears new, but one of the things not new on the “Chapala” is Juan Perez, the pilot. He is not necessarily old, but he is a veteran in service….

The steamship Chapala. From Thomas Rogers (1893), p222.

The sail along the north shore from Mescala to the town of Chapala is delightful. We seem, at times, to be shut in, but the pilot finds a way out and duly brings us to a pretty little city which nestles at the base of a sugar loaf mountain, and which is the largest town on the lake. A fine old church is one of the attractions of the town for visitors, but the hot springs which boil up not far from the plaza have given Chapala fame as a health resort. The springs, although not numerous… have made Chapala a favorite resort of the people of Guadalajara and vicinity, and when better known will attract people from a greater distance. “Charming” is the word to describe Chapala; I doubt if there is another town in Mexico more prettily situated. A short distance from shore is a large island, which is made use of as a picnic ground. The view from the hill immediately back of the town is one of great beauty.

It is an interesting sight to see the water works of Chapala in operation. No wheels, no pumps, no fountains; only dippers. The lake is the reservoir, and women are the dippers. They wade out as far as they please, fill their jars as full as they please, shoulder them and march home. No scooping with gourds as at Zacatecas, for water is plenty, and no one has to wait for another.

Chapala is sure to become more and more a favorite watering place. Already there are some fine summer “seaside” cottages there, and in the offing you can see a yacht! With a combination of delightful climate and hot springs, with mountain climbing, boating, bathing, and fishing as recreations for visitors, why shouldn’t charming Chapala become the finest health and pleasure resort in Mexico?

The next port is Xocotopec, at the extreme western end of the lake. The town lies in a pretty valley three miles back from the lake, and is the center of an extensive rural trade. Returning along the south shore we find no towns of commercial importance, but do find a succession of beautiful views which charm by their variety. We pass San Martin, San Cristobal, Tuscueca, and see, partly hidden by groves of orange and lemon trees, the flourishing city of Tizapan which reposes on the hillside two miles from the lake, along the little Rio de la Pasion.

We sail over what is supposed to be an oil well, some signs of which appear on the surface of the lake; we touch at the fisherman’s village with the pretty name, La Palma, and thence complete our eighty mile circuit of Lake Chapala by a direct return to Ocotlán, where we resume our railroad journey.

Who was Thomas L. Rogers?

Thomas L Rogers was born at Pownal, Vermont, on 2 August 1851, and died in Brookline, Massachusetts at the age of 59 on 19 June 1901. He was survived by his wife and six children.

Rogers was a prominent Baptist minister, and publisher of The Watchman (formerly The Christian Watchman), who graduated from the Newton Theological Institution, before serving in Cleveland and Scituate. He spent the winter of 1880-81 traveling in Arizona, southwestern California and Mexico. He was appointed Vice-President of the Board of the California Southern Railroad in 1881. The President of that railroad was his father-in-law Thomas Nickerson.

Rogers’ railroad links were probably a key reason why he was offered the commission to write Mexico? Sí, señor.

Comments, corrections and additional material are welcome, whether via comments or email.

Educated Italian traveler Adolfo Dollero (1872-1936) resided in Mexico for many years. Though not published until 1911, his book México al día relates to travels in Mexico in 1907-10. The work is a large volume (almost a thousand pages) and covers almost the entire country, with details of activities, ranches, villages, towns and cities, together with a partial listing of hotels and significant stores and services. Dollero was interested in the economic opportunities Mexico offered, and considered that improved transport routes would allow the nation’s natural wealth, mines, caves, lakes, coast and rivers to be fully exploited.

Dollero was born in Turin in November 1872. He moved to Mexico in 1895, but continued to make regular return trips to Europe. In 1898, he married Maria Luisa Paoletti, countess of Rodoretto (the daughter of the Italian vice consul to Mexico) in Mexico City. Eight years later, in 1906, the couple—now with two children, Ernastina and Lamberto, and a Mexican servant—are named on the passenger manifest of a boat back from Europe. The couple added twin boys to their family in 1912.

Towards the end of 1914, the difficult political circumstances in Mexico caused the family to  relocate to Cuba, where they remained until 1921, when they returned to Mexico. The family also lived for periods of time in Colombia and Venezuela. Dollero died in Mexico City in September 1936.

In migration records, Dollero described his profession variously as “publicist”, “publisher”, “author” or “press.” A Colombian book by Rito Rueda Rueda describes Dollero as a historiographer who agreed with the opinion of the geographer Eliseo Reclus “that all the native Americans belong to the same ethnic group despite their diversity of customs and their four hundred languages.”

The title page of México al día refers to future English, French, Italian and German editions of the book; however, only the Italian edition ever saw the light of day, and not until 1914. Dollero also wrote books on Cuba (1916, 1919, 1921), Colombia (1930) and Venezuela (1933).

His account of the Lake Chapala area, which he visited in 1909, includes descriptions of the towns, climate and fertility of the lakeshore, as well as the gold and silver mines in the area, and the names of the major landowners. The only hotel listed for the “bathing resort of Chapala,” is the Hotel La Palmera, managed by Francisco Mántice, and the only store he lists is Juan Sanchez é hijos, selling ‘Ropa y Abarrotes’ at the intersection of calle Muelle (now Avenida Francisco I Madero) and calle Agua Caliente (now Avenida Hidalgo).

Dollero stayed at the Hotel Palmera—designed by Guillermo de Alba for owner Ignacio Arzapalo— which had opened in 1908 adjacent to the Hotel Arzapalo. (One section of the Hotel Palmera later became the Hotel Nido, which was acquired by the Chapala municipality in 2001 for its main municipal offices.)

José María Lupercio. Chapala, c. 1907. (Dollero p 435)

Dollero’s account of the Chapala region is illustrated with four small photographs: one (above) credited to “Jup.” (sic) (= José María Lupercio) and three—The Isla del Presidio, aka Mezcala Island; a chalet on the lakeshore (Casa Capetillo); and boats in Ocotlán—credited to Winfield Scott.

The following excerpts from México al día (translations by author) give a sense of what most interested Dollero:

Chapala is a village of no more than 3000 inhabitants, but its privileged location and truly unbeatable climate have made it the meeting place for the most important Mexican families, especially those from the Republic’s capital and Guadalajara.

On the shores of the lake, or at the foot of the hills that are reflected in its water, are magnificent chalets. The President of the Republic, General Porfirio Díaz, himself likes to spend some vacation time here at the end of Lent in the company of his close friends. Then the lake acquires a special liveliness: hundreds of steam launches and boats plow through the water in every direction; everywhere there are high society parties and lots of money is spent. It is a shame that this liveliness has been, up to now, very short lived; it has always been restricted to a few months of the year, perhaps on account of the communication difficulties.

From the station at Atequiza, we were shaken for more than two and a half hours in an uncomfortable diligence, which was certainly not very agreeable. They assured us, however, that within a short time a branch line of the railroad would be started to remove the only obstacle which up to now has prevented Chapala from being a place of happiness year round.

We were staying in the hotel La Palmera, belonging to a congenial Italian citizen Mr. Francisco Mantice. The hotel was first rate and the cooking, distinctly French and Italian, was therefore very satisfying.

Chapala has, in general, good land, especially that which is on the shores of the lake; some fields are less fertile than others. Besides dedicating themselves to agriculture, the inhabitants also fish; fine fish are abundant, as are turtles and various species of aquatic birds, some of them valued highly for their very fine feathers.

Lake Chapala measures some 100 kilometers in length and its maximum width is 24 kilometers.

There are some mines for gold and silver in Ajijic, but, judging by what has been discovered in them up to now, they are not very rich. Some traces of petroleum have been found in the lake, but tests have shown it to be insufficient for exploitation.

The sand of the lake contains lots of quartz and silica and could be used for the manufacture of glass: there was already one bottle factory, which was closed down for lack of capital. Several thermal springs also exist in Chapala: one of them is ferruginous and another one sulfurous.

After two days in Chapala, Dollero departed for Ocotlán on board the small steamship Raúl:

Our voyage lasted four hours and proved extremely interesting. Black storm clouds were gathering on the horizon, and from time to time a ray of sunshine shone through them for a few moments to fleetingly illuminate the top of this or that greenish hill before becoming hidden again behind other clouds, still blacker and heavier . . . .

We passed a short way off the island of Alacranes and afterwards very close to Presidio Island, where we could clearly distinguish the old walls, almost destroyed, of the gaol that existed there long ago… The island appeared to be abandoned. Only a very short time after we had passed Presidio Island, we saw a huge vertical column shaped like an enormous serpent appear on the horizon.

We had the opportunity to see for the first time the phenomenon of a water spout, which greatly interested us, though we would have preferred to meet it on board a large steamer rather than the extremely fragile Raúl. However, the little steamer’s owner, who had not put down the telescope, calmed us down shortly afterwards, assuring us that the wind from the North that was blowing strongly at the time would have changed the direction of the water spout or would have destroyed it. In truth, some twenty minutes later, the column of water did become less dense, becoming gradually like a bow before disappearing completely. . . .

The left bank gradually acquired an extraordinary liveliness: house followed house; then came ranches and haciendas which they told us belonged to American citizens who had changed them into poetic residences with an abundance of flowers, fruit and cattle. A more enchanting landscape could not be planned.

At last, we entered the River Zula and then clearly saw the small churches of Ocotlán and to the right the Hotel Rivera Castellanos and the haciendas of El Fuerte, also extremely pleasant places, and very popular with North Americans, great lovers, as is known, of natural beauty.

Dollero then describes Ocotlán:

Ocotlán is a small town of 5000 inhabitants with a lot of commercial activity. The products of all the lake arrive here. Given this, it attracted our attention that there was no wharf and that the small steamers and different vessels had to moor alongside the trees on the banks! We were told, however, that a Mr. Ramón Flores, a person of initiative and capital, had requested authorization from the Secretariat of Communications and Public Works to build a suitable one within a short period of time.

Ocotlán is a true granary: since all the region is fertile, canoes come here from all directions with loads of cereals, fruit, matting of tule (an aquatic plant that is very abundant in these parts). On some occasions, the dozens of warehouses belonging to the Railway Company and private owners, and the wagons of the Tram Company, which sometimes transport up to 3000 loads a day—an enormous quantity considering that Ocotlán is more a town than a city—are not sufficient.

The countryside is splendid: irrigation, already practiced on a vast scale, will soon be on an even larger one, once the magnificent project of Mr. Manuel Cuesta Gallardo, for which the Federal Government has made important concessions, has been carried out.

Dollero then describes the proposed irrigation system, noting that the irrigation company will make a ‘fairly good profit’ by selling parcels of the land ceded to it by the Government, and that Cuesta Gallardo had reached ‘extra-judicial agreements’ with the most important of those landowners who had initially opposed the scheme. Dollero also commented on the likely high agricultural productivity of the reclaimed, irrigated land, for fruit trees, grapevines, chickpeas, corn and cattle.

In a later section, Dollero turns his attention to the resources found on the southern shore of the lake, and makes some pertinent observations:

The District of Jiquilpan, to which Cotija also belongs, is very rich. A short distance from Cotija are large deposits of iron oxides, zinc sulfides, copper sulfate and carbonate: the mountains have mica, talc or anhydrous magnesium silicate, and kaolin (hydrated aluminum silicate) for the manufacture of porcelain, etc.

There are also fine construction woods, many fruit trees, a large variety of medicinal plants, and the terrible weed that causes temporary madness, that is to say marijuana (Cannabis indica).

Near La Palma, on the shores of Lake Chapala, part of which belongs to the State of Michoacán, a lot of stone suitable for blade-sharpening is also found.

Source

• Dollero, Adolfo. 1911. México al día. (Impresiones y notas de viaje). Paris-Mexico: Librería de la Vda. de C. Bouret, 435-441, 456.

This post is based on chapter 51 of Lake Chapala Through the Ages: an anthology of travelers’ tales, which focuses on the period 1530-1910. For more recent history of the region, see Lake Chapala: A Postcard History.

Comments welcomed via email or via comments feature on this post.

What was Italian Count Giuseppe Antona doing at Lake Chapala in 1895? Shooting as many teal ducks as possible! And he wrote all about it for The Detroit Free Press.

• “Shooting Teal Duck at Lake Chapala.” (The Detroit Free Press, 3 March 1895, 11.) – pdf

Who was Giuseppe Antona?

Count Alessandro Giuseppe (sometimes Guiseppe) Valerio Antona was born in Asli, Italy, on 10 May 1865 and died in Detroit, Michigan, on 27 January 1931. According to a short piece about him in The Detroit Free Press shortly after he moved to the US in 1893, he had previously worked for the Italian government, and came from an old Piedmont family.

His grandfather was “the Count of Casale and Montebello until the Austrian domination in Italy obliterated the title with many others in Piedmont.” Following the death of his elder brother in February 1894, Giuseppe theoretically succeeded to the “earldom and estates of Barraggio, including one of the largest and most valuable vineyard tracts in all Piedmont,” in the event that his family’s title was ever restored by King Umberto I, as was widely expected to happen at the time. Unfortunately for Antona, the King was assassinated in 1900.

In April 1894 a Mexican newspaper reported that “Sra Annetta Josefa Valerio-Antona and Sr Alessandro Giuseppe Valerio-Antona, Italian writers who have lived in US for some time” were staying at the Hotel Humboldt for a couple of months, with plans to write articles for US news outlets and a book about Mexico. This report was not entirely accurate. Annetta Josefa Halliday (1866-1949) was American, not Italian, and went to Mexico as a special correspondent for the Chicago Times. Giuseppe did not marry Annetta until 26 June that year; the newlyweds received a cable of congratulations from President Porfirio Díaz and his wife.

Despite being offered a post as Secretary to the Italian Royal Legation in Cairo, Egypt, Antona chose to remain in Detroit, and do some writing alongside investing in real estate, construction, a chemical business and the wine trade. Annetta continued her established career in writing and lecturing. Less than a month after their marriage, Annetta gave a presentation on “Mexico, the Egypt of the New World” at the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City, Canada. Annetta also taught history and art at the Ganopel School of Musical Art. She was also reportedly working on a book about Mexico, titled The Florence of Mexico, based on her knowledge of Mexico and Mexican customs. Whether by coincidence or not, this was precisely the same title as a work by Mexican diplomat Eduardo A Gibbon published a few years earlier. She also published articles in Town Topics, Smart Set, Munsey’s, McClure’s, Scribner’s, Collier’s, Good Housekeeping, Outing and the New York Tribune.

The Antonas’ only child, Janice, was born in Michigan on 15 June 1901. Eleven years later, in 1912, Detroit society was shocked to the core when the “Count and Countess” were arrested in relation to the sudden death of their housekeeper, and were held behind bars for several days. According to press reports, their housekeeper, Miss Lizzie Fleming died at the age of 63 on 4 July after a short illness, and her body was cremated the following day. Suspicions were arisen because a few days prior to her death, Fleming made a will leaving virtually everything to Mrs. Antona. Her relatives in Ohio, who did not learn about her death until a few weeks later, claimed that Fleming had often expressed a horror of cremation and had already purchased a cemetery lot for her burial, and demanded an investigation.

What did Giuseppe Antona write about Chapala?

Antona opens his article with an exaggeratedly poetic description of Lake Chapala, setting the scene for the spring morning when he set off with three friends (one of them the son of the American consul) to shoot waterbirds at the lake. After taking the train from Guadalajara to Atequiza, the four gun-toting sportsmen’s plans to take the stage coach to Chapala were thwarted—”rendered impossible by the conductor’s illness”—so they “procured horses with some difficulty for ourselves and one extra for provisions and ammunition,” before riding south to the lake.

Antona’s article is illustrated by two unsigned sketches, which may well be the author’s own work: one of the village of Chapala, and the other of an unidentified tiny lakeshore village.

After riding through “Rancho del Mirador” and three small haciendas—San Nicolas, Labor and Buena Vista— the group approached Chapala, entering the village through a “rustic wood gate” designed to keep village livestock (and people) off the adjoining hacienda land. (Mexican Herald correspondent Owen Wallace Gillpatrick, who rode from Atequiza to the lake about three years later, claimed to have ridden through about a dozen ranches, separated by gates which were opened “at the rate of a centavo a gate, which is cheap as gates go.”)

In the 1890s the village of Chapala was tightly sandwiched between the Hacienda del Cuije (to the west and north) and the Hacienda de la Labor (to the east). As Antonio de Alba wrote decades later in Chapala, the northern limit of the village until some years into the twentieth century was approximately along the line followed by calle Degollado. It was several years after Antona’s visit before the local haciendas lost their territorial power, and Chapala had room to expand.

Antona’s visit predated the opening of the Hotel Arzapalo in 1898, so where did he stay? Arriving in Chapala, Antona and his friends “dismounted at the Inn of the ‘Nueva Purissima,’ [which] was more suited to be called a stable than anything else.” According to Antona, the rooms had no windows, a description which does not match the small inn where Eduardo Gibbon had stayed a few years earlier. Antona’s hostelry was the (no longer extant) building called “Mesón de la Purísima,” located where the Plaza Chapala Hotel (Avenida Madero #232) is today.

Giuseppe Antona (?). The Detroit Free Press, 1895.

Antona and his companions walked down to the beach, where:

The view was most fascinating: with rolling hills, steep mountains, the perfect sky, and the villas scattered here and there; one called Monte Carlo was kept by an English man named Crow[e] and nestled among the rocks like a little fortress.”

Antona’s mention of “villas” (plural), the Montecarlo, and of its then owner, Septimus Crowe, all dovetail perfectly with my own view of when and how Chapala first began its courtship with tourism. Chapala’s development certainly began some years before 1895, the date often used (even today) in some Spanish-language accounts.

The beach reminded Antona of his native land: “The smooth, sandy stretch of beach touched by the fringe of the waves, recalled the lake regions of sunny Italy.” But it was not tourism that brought Antona and his friends to Chapala, it was the local wildlife, including:

the wild teal duck, which made their homes in the tangle of matted vegetation on the shores, and render Chapala a veritable paradise.”

After bathing in the lake, they:

procured a native boat and an Indian who served both as a steersman and oarsman, and embarked just before sunset well provided with ammunition and Parker guns, our zest for sport heightened by the tract of morass visible in the distance… which our greed told us could not but abound with prey.

Our craft, made from a hollowed tree trunk, had for oars and rudder a single pole, such as might be called a slender flag-staff in the states, and used for such on national holidays, and which our Indian boatman and guide, Feliciano, maneuvered much like a laundryman attempting to fill a receptacle of soiled clothes.

Giuseppe Antona (?). The Detroit Free Press, 1895.

By moonlight, with the stars twinkling overhead, the men:

gradually and cautiously approached the feeding grounds, and leaving the smallest of wakes behind us, slid gently through the reeds and grasses and anchored behind some great logs near a mud bank.”

As hundreds and hundreds of ducks started feeding in front of them, the men opened fire:

Out of the reeds and sedge flew the terrified fowl, hundreds of wounded concealing themselves in the rushes, others half-swimming, half-wading away in their fright, the loud flapping of wings of the thousands in flight seeming like distant thunder, while dull thuds and loud splashes made known where our shots had told upon water and upon land.”

After waiting a few minutes—and as surviving ducks returned to feed—the men opened fire again… and again:

Each man emptied his barrels as quickly as possible into the black clouds, loading up again every three minutes as long as ammunition lasted.”

When the dawn light came up, the men collected “200 ducks, or 50 apiece, all blue-winged teal.” The ducks were taken to shore, and a Mexican boy hired to carry them back to the village, while the men rowed their boat back.

In addition to his article about Lake Chapala, Giuseppe Altona also published pieces about Alaska and America-Russia relations.

Sources

• Guiseppe [Giuseppe] Antona. 1895. “Shooting Teal Duck at Lake Chapala.” The Detroit Free Press, 3 March 1895, 11.
• Antonio de Alba. 1954. Chapala. Guadalajara: Banco Industrial de Jalisco.
• The Detroit Free Press: 10 Dec 1893, 23; 3 Jun 1894, 9.
• El siglo diez y nueve: 17 April 1894, 17.
• Eduardo A Gibbon. 1893. Guadalajara, (La Florencia Mexicana). El salto de Juanacatlán y El Mar Chapálico. 1992 reprint, Guadalajara: Presidencia Municipal de Guadalajara.
• The Omaha Evening Bee: 26 Mar 1895, 1.
• Muncie Evening Press: 31 Jul 1912, 2.
• Quebec Morning Chronicle: 4 July 1894, 2.
• The American: 29 Mar 1895, 1.

Though E. Ernest Bilbrough (1861-1891) died tragically young, he certainly had some adventures before departing this world.

One of the three children born to Thomas Priestley Bilbrough and his wife, Gertrude Elizabeth Bates, Edward Ernest Bilbrough was born in Liverpool, UK, on 6 March 1861. Details of his education are unknown, but he became a writer and photographer. He published his first book, Twixt France and Spain; Or, A Spring in the Pyrenees, in 1884, and the following year the UK-based periodical The Field printed Bilbrough’s account of sport and travel in Mexico. This article includes a description of his experiences at Lake Chapala. Also relating to Mexico, though as a photographer, Bilbrough was credited for some of the photos illustrating an article in The Graphic in 1886 about the Mexican National Railroad.

By 1887, Bilbrough had moved to New Zealand and been awarded a “certificate of excellence” in an Auckland Society of Arts competition for a set of six landscape photographs. At about this time, he was elected Secretary of the Athenaeum, a newly formed Auckland literary and debating society.

On 13 June 1889, Bilbrough married Mary Jane MacKellar (1865–1922), the Shanghai-born daughter of “Mrs MacKeller of The Pines, Epsom, and the late John MacKellar Esq. of London and Calcutta.”

Bilbrough’s second book, Brett’s Handy Guide to New Zealand., was published in 1890, only months before his untimely death in Auckland on 27 March 1891, shortly after his 30th birthday. Bilbrough was buried in the city’s Purewa Cemetery. His obituary in the New Zealand Herald explained how the well-known manager of Cook’s Tourists’ Agency in Auckland had been in failing health for several weeks, despite completing a trip to England the previous year.

Unusually, it was only after the death of his mother—Gertrude Bates Bilbrough—almost thirty years later, that his estate in the UK was settled, with probate (for effects valued at £1151) then granted to Bilbrough’s widow, Mary Jane.

Gertrude Bates Bilbrough, who died in Hong Kong, had close ties to “Wonsan Korea and Victoria Island Lower Burma.” Probate for her estate, valued at £1249, 2s, 5d, was granted to Bilbrough’s brother, Charles Francis Stanhope Bilbrough. Robert Neff has written several interesting articles about the family’s links to Korea:

• The mysterious Bilbroughs (part 1)
• The mysterious Bilbroughs (part 2)
• Grumpy Gertrude: The mysterious Bilbroughs (part 3)
• A life of hate and conflict: The mysterious Bilbroughs (part 4)

What did E Ernest Bilbrough write about Mexico and Lake Chapala?

Bilbrough opens his article, published in England, by claiming that, “Of all the civilized countries, Mexico is undoubtedly the least known, especially to dwellers on this side of the Atlantic.” He then points out that Mexico has four railways already built, and several more under construction. The four existing lines were the Mexican Railway (Mexico City to Veracruz), the Mexican Central (Mexico City to the northern border and New York), the Mexican National (Mexico City north, but not yet reaching the US border), and Inter-oceanic (“so called because it approaches neither ocean.”)

The author considered Mexican roads “frightful,” and recommended overland travel by horseback, “preferably on a steed of your own, though others can be hired from place to place if desired.” Horses could be hired for one dollar a day, but it was necessary to add another dollar for the horse’s attendant. Travel by stage coach brought its own perils, and Bilbrough advised, in the event of a hold-up, not to flee, and “never carry arms unless you intend to use them.”

He also recommended that travelers forget about regular hotels—”in the interior, hotel charges may be reckoned generally at from two dollars per diem to four, in the capital and chief towns from three dollars to six dollars, according to your room, your restaurant, and your liquor”—and consider staying in haciendas:

Accommodation can almost invariably be procured at the haciendas for the night—that is to say, as a guest—even without a letter of introduction of any kind; and right good-hearted men some of the “hacendados “ are too, giving you of their best, and giving freely.”

The main purpose of his article was to describe the opportunities Mexico offered for hunting. Bilbrough thought the methods for shooting wildfowl at Lake Texcoco were unsportsmanlike because:

the sport consists in erecting batteries of guns on three different levels close to all the favourite feeding grounds. The first discharge is directed at the birds on the water, the next just as they rise, and the last sweeps about two yards from the surface, so that it is a lucky bird that gets away. These ‘sportsmen’ have a lofty contempt for the individual who allows the bird to rise before firing.

Eastern end of Lake Chapala. (For complete map, see “Lake Chapala Through the Ages”)

He contrasted this with the situation at Lake Chapala, where “some splendid sport is to be had, not exactly on the lake itself, but on the land which receives its overflow, and is known as ‘cienega,’ a marsh.”

These ciénegas were at the eastern end of the lake, and are marked on the map as “former wetlands.” Some of these ciénegas were drained and converted to farmland twenty years after Bilbrough’s visit.

Bilbrough was sufficiently astute to recognize that the ciénegas played an important role in the local ecosystem:

These ‘cienegas’ form the most valuable pasturage for cattle and horses when drained, partially levelled, and well ditched; but are excessively dangerous to man and beast in their natural state, being nothing less than bogs with a thin crust of treacherous, safe-looking soil. Their value, however, is really derived from the very same cause which makes them dangerous: this being the porous or penetrable state of the lower strata, which receives the overflow from the lake at a period of the year when there is no rain, and promotes the growth of the grass when nothing but surface irrigation, at immense expense, would otherwise produce such an early crop.”

Bilbrough then described in detail his visit “last winter” to an area of ciénega belonging to an hacienda some twenty miles from Lake Chapala, where he enjoyed some varied and excellent shooting:

The best—that is, the most abundant sport, was duck and geese shooting. Of the former, mallards, green teal, blue teal, redhead, wood-ducks, tree-ducks, and pintails were the most numerous varieties; while grey and white geese were in tens of thousands on some fields where the grass was sprouting. Snipe were fairly plentiful (one morning I shot eight, and three the same afternoon), hares and quail likewise. Curlews, sandsnipe, glossy ibis and white ditto, green shanks, pelicans, grey cranes (Grullas pardas), spoonbills, avocets, and stilts were numerous; water hens (which are never eaten there) and thrashers (yellow-throated and red winged) very abundant.”

Ground squirrels were plentiful in the hedges, and I believe rabbits flourish during the rains (May to October), when hares are also more prolific. There were several coyotes, but I never managed to get near enough, unfortunately, to kill one; though common owls, which hooted over my room at night, I used to shoot by moonlight, and some fine horned specimens were bagged also.”

But of all the varieties of sport, none had the same interest as the pursuit of white cranes, called also soldier cranes (Grullas blancas), which are the shyest birds and the wariest it has yet been my lot to stalk. Deer are much less difficult to approach, for a sharp cry or whistle will generally make them halt long enough to give you a chance to get your rifle to bear. Not so white cranes; the least sound, the least movement, and they are off.”

The rifles at the hacienda were not true enough for such sport, and I was obliged to use ball in my gun. Even thus handicapped, pelicans, grey cranes, greater ibis, geese, etc., were added to the bag, but not till the last days of my stay did a white crane crown the whole. It was feeding with four others (they never go alone, but seldom more than a pair of old birds and their young will be seen together, while grey crane always are in flocks) among the maize stalks about one hundred and fifty yards from the nearest hedge, and these stalks, being so numerous and thick, make shooting very difficult. This time, however, I had a fair shot, and saw the bird fall, shot through the wing and body. He was a fine specimen—5ft. 3½in from tip of beak to toe, 7ft. 1½in. across the wings, and weighed 14½lb.”

Other travelers and explorers profiled on this site who have written about hunting at Lake Chapala include:

• William English Carson
• Charles Bernard Nordhoff
• Alessandro Giuseppe Valerio Antona

Illustrated by reproductions of vintage postcards, chapters 6 and 8 of Lake Chapala: A Postcard History look at history of the eastern end of the lake, and the area’s environmental change.

Sources

• E Ernest Bilbrough. 1884. Twixt France and Spain; Or, A Spring in the Pyrenees. Sampson Low and Co.
• E Ernest Bilbrough. 1885. “Sport and travel in Mexico.” The Field, 24 October 1885, 585-6.
• E Ernest Bilbrough (editor). 1890. Brett’s Handy Guide to New Zealand. Auckland: H. Brett.
• The Graphic: An Illustrated Weekly Newspaper: 24 Apr 1886, 8.
• The New Zealand Herald: 25 Feb 1887, 11; 8 Apr 1887, 6; 24 April 1891, 9.