143 YEARS GOOD HEALTHS.

Northland Age, Volume 2, Issue 44, 12 June 1906, Page 2

143 YEARS GOOD HEALTHS.

— b — When Cortez conquered Mexico/081 of his officers, named Hernandez, married an Aztec woman, and settled down in the country. A son of this marriage also married an Aztec woman, but he stole her from a native temple, where she had been devoted to the service of the undying, fires. The couple had one child, Enrico Hernandez, who was born, as the parish records at Nazas, in Mexico testify, on March 9, 1764.

Enrico is still alive to-day, and it is impossible to impugn his record of 143 years, and his claim that he is the oldest man in the world. The old man lives a few miles from the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, upon the slopes of the great Volcano de las Yirgines. His odd-looking house is in keeping with his unusual life. The native Mexicans and the Yaqui* declare that he has a charmed life t and point to his frequent climbs up the side of the volcano to prove that he is league with Tezcopopl, the god of the volcano. Hernandez fought in the revolution of 1810 against the Spaniards, and took part in the rising that drove Spain out of Mexico. In 1875 Hernandez left La Paz.j and went to live on a piece of land! between Rosario and the volcano.* Here he built a square adobe, or mucl house in an acre of garden ground,] surrounded by an adobe wall 10ft.! high. j A half-breed once entered the gar-f den in the absence of Hernandez, amfi found seven bars of polished iror| running from floor to ceiling on onci side of the house, Full of curiosity J he leaned forward to pear into the] house, and laid hold of two ,of the' bars. The inquisitive half-breed de- 1 dared that the bars of iron seized, upon his hands, jerked him about onj the floor, d shook him until the 1 breath lc his body, holding him fast iintil tandez arrived and released him. I is believed by tourists who he visited the old man that the b, s were merely magnetized. The ( man in the world sells little < 'ects that he carves in vergin gold o strangers, but only smiles when 'estioned as to the means he has a >pted to attain such an - advanced age. The natives declare that he eats a demonaic mixture of brimstone and sugar-cane, but it is believed that the concoction differs very little from the treacle and sulphur served up to Mr. pupils in Dothebov’s I" ill. Hernandez writes and reads Spanish and, of course, speaks that language, as well as Aztec, but not English. An interpreter can generally be secured to get over the language difficulty, but the old man is rot communicative, and his secret (if secret he has) is -likely to die w ith him.