ANCIENT JAR UNEARTHED AT JUAREZ CITY.
On the Tapasita we came upon the ruins of what must have been a large city of these people—the largest we saw in that part of the country. The only life we saw there was a mountain lion or panther, that came trotting along the valley until it saw us, when it turned back into the mountains. Truly the wild beasts were wandering over the Toltec Babylon.
It is impossible for an artist to convey in plain black and white any idea of the beauty of this country; it is a land requiring the painter to exhibit its beauties.
One of the interesting peculiarities of the numerous ruins found throughout this portion of the country, and that indicates a once dense population living off the soil, is the way in which most of them seem to have met their fate. When a ruined house is dug into all the skeletons of its occupants are found in what may be termed the combined kitchen and eating room,—these two rooms being in one,—and always near a fireplace. The postures of these skeletons are as various as it is possible for the human body to assume. They are found kneeling, stretched out, sometimes with their locked hands over their heads, on their sides, and, again, with their children in their arms, hardly any two being alike in the same house or series of houses, where they were united into a pueblo. Now in the whole study of sepulture it has been almost universally found that even among the lowest savages as well as among the most civilized peoples, whatever form of burial is adopted, no matter how absurd from our point of view, it is uniform in the main points, allowing, of course, slight deviations for caste or rank. The positions of the skeletons in their own houses do not accord with this general fact, and have led some to believe that this race was destroyed by an earthquake or other violent action of nature.
I had a long talk with Mr. Davis, superintendent of the Corralitos Company, who has made a study of these ancient ruins from having them almost forced upon his attention. That gentleman not only believes they were cut off by a violent earthquake, as I have suggested, but that this great cataclysm caught them at their evening meal. He infers the latter fact from a consideration of the customs of the present almost pureblooded Indians here, who must have descended from the older race, although, singularly enough, knowing nothing of their ancient progenitors. The evening meal is the only occasion when they are all gathered together at home. The earthquake must have been a very severe one, and have brought down the large buildings upon the occupants before they could escape. This region is not especially liable to such disasters. That it has them, however, occasionally, and severe ones too, is shown by the Bavispe earthquake of a few years ago, when that town was destroyed, some forty people killed, and the whole country shaken up. Mr. Davis goes on with his theory that the survivors were thus exposed to the mercy of their enemies (that they had enemies before is shown by their fortifications adjoining almost every village), and became cliff dwellers as a last resource to escape the fury of their old assailants. These, probably, were savages by comparison; and, living in savage homes, as skin tents or wikeyups, and other light abodes, they suffered little from the great commotion referred to. When the partially vanquished race became strong enough they wandered southward as the first, or among the first, Toltec excursions in that direction.
While at Corralitos Mr. Davis told me of some ruins situated about halfway between his hacienda and Casas Grandes, near Barranca. I visited them next day, and found a very noticeable and well-defined road leading straight up a hill to a slight bench overtopped by a higher hill at the end of the bench. Here was an ancient ruin, built of stone, and looking very much like a position of defense. It may have been a sacrificial place, for otherwise I cannot account for the careful construction of the road. For defensive purposes it would not have been needed, especially one so well made; but observation has taught me that, when no other reasonable explanation can be found for doing a thing, superstitious or religious motives can be consistently introduced to account for it. This hill was really an outlying one from a larger near by and overlooking it. After climbing up the latter about halfway a series of stone buildings, not discernible from the bottom, were clearly made out. They encircled the hill, and about halfway between these and the top of the hill was another row of encircling buildings, faintly recognized by their ruins, although the masonry was of the best character. On the top of the hill was a fortification, with a well probably about twenty feet from the summit, overtopped and almost hidden by a hanging mesquite bush. At the base of both hills was a series of mounds extending as far as the eye could reach. I almost fear to place an estimate on their number, nor can I positively say they represented buildings at all. In all or nearly all other mounds there is some sign of the house walls protruding through the débris; here I found none, but they closely resemble the other mounds except in this respect. Everything goes to show that these people were on the defensive, and that defense was often necessary. The ruins looked very much older than any others I had visited, but that can in a measure be accounted for, I think, by the sandy character of the district. Nothing makes an abandoned building or other work of man look so antiquated as drifting sand piled up around it. This town, therefore, may have been contemporaneous with the ruined towns of the Casas Grandes valley generally, although the latter look much more recent from being built on more compact soil.
As I have already more than hinted, all these valleys along the foothills of the Sierra Madre Mountains may have held a dense population when these ancient people sojourned here, and if the physical characteristics were the same as at the present time it is very easy to account for. To the westward it is too mountainous for many people to find homes and cultivate the soil, while to the eastward the country is too barren after one passes the line of the lakes, or where the mountain rivers sink. The strip along the foothills, between the main ridge of mountains and the plains, is about the only place where an agricultural people could live in large numbers and thrive; and now that the dreaded Apache Indian has been finally subdued, I think the day is not far distant when it will be again peopled by a community engaged in peaceful pursuits. These ancients probably raised everything they needed, so that there was very little commerce between them, and not much need of roads or trails, although a few of them are occasionally made out with great distinctness.
I have already spoken of the plainly marked road leading up the steep sides of Davis Hill. One can see this fully a mile away, although not able to fully make out its true character at that distance; the observer might suppose it to be a strip of light grass in a depression, until his error was corrected by a closer inspection.
The fortifications on the summit, considered from a military standpoint, were the most complete that could be desired. The hills retreated on both sides, giving full scope to the eye up and down the broad valley, every square yard of which was probably irrigated and cultivated. Without doubt the fortifications could safely be left unguarded in clear weather, when the inhabitants would probably be at work on their farms. A few keen-sighted sentinels, suitably posted, might give notice of a coming foe in ample time for the population to man the intrenchments before an attack could possibly be made by the most rapidly moving enemy. This, of course, assumes that the able-bodied citizen of that day was equally an artisan or farmer and a soldier; it is an assumption, however, that accords with our knowledge of many other ancient races.
On our way back to the hacienda from these ruins we passed through an old, abandoned Mexican mining town called Barranca. It plainly showed its ancient character in the long rows of slag that had come from the adobe furnaces, some of which were still standing.
Although many of the adobe houses were in excellent condition, even the old church being in a fair state of preservation, there was not a soul about the place. The primitive methods of doing the work and the richness of the ore which had been smelted could be seen in any piece of slag taken from the piles. By cutting a little almost pure lead and silver were revealed, probably in the same proportions as they existed in the vein. These piles of slag would represent a fortune, with new and improved machinery like that employed in the United States, to resmelt them, and with a railway running near. This place, moreover, is only one of the many where fortunes are lying dormant in the different slag piles of the old mines of northwestern Chihuahua alone.
It is difficult to get information from the natives regarding the mineral wealth of the country. If they have a good mine they are exceedingly shy about saying so, and they are very jealous lest foreigners should obtain valuable mining property. They dislike to see it pass from under their control, and do not take kindly to the foreign spirit of enterprise and improvement. This, however, is quite contrary to the policy of the Mexican Government, which is doing all it can to induce capital to come in for investment. The country is in a stable, settled condition, and we found every part that we visited quite as safe as the more settled communities of the United States. The politeness and disposition to oblige of the humblest of the Mexican people you can rely upon invariably, and that is more than can be said of the corresponding class in more enlightened countries.
This day of our visit to the ruins of Davis Hill was very warm, and our driver, not having a taste for antiquarian research, even in the modest degree possessed by me, had quite resented being dragged from the shade of the great cottonwood trees around the hacienda. To show his native independence of spirit he therefore refused to listen to advice and water his horses on the road, but on returning allowed them to drink all they wanted; as a consequence one horse died. We left Deming with two large American horses, but now found it impossible, even on that great hacienda, to obtain a suitable match, so we were obliged to start off with a comical, sturdy broncho for a mate, which not only gave a very lop-sided look to the conveyance, but an appearance of extreme cruelty toward the little animal. Whenever the big horse trotted the little fellow would take up a canter to keep alongside, and it was almost enough to make a person seasick to watch the ill-mated pair get over the ground.
We were soon back again to Corralitos, and inside the forbidding looking gates. Here we were very comfortably housed, with a bright fire burning in the bedroom fireplace to take the chill off the air, as the rooms in these thick adobe buildings are much like cellars in their temperature, whether it is warm or cold outside. We had not been in many hours before other strangers began to arrive: Englishmen from their ranches, miners from the silver mines, a surveying party, and a number of cattlemen. By nightfall the place was swarming with people, and the problem was where to stow away so many for the night. The long table in the old adobe dining room was three times full. There is no lack of fresh meat on such an hacienda, all that is necessary being to send out the butcher, who kills whatever is wanted from the abundant supply on the range, for in that clear, rare atmosphere meat is preserved until used.
There is another feature of large haciendas like this that may prove interesting. I refer to the store, which usually occupies one corner of the building. At this store is found every kind of merchandise that is wanted, and here is doled out to the Indian population in exchange for their work certain quantities of flour or sugar,—you can be sure the amount is always very small,—and in time the simple people draw much more than is due them for work, as they are always allowed credit. Then it is they become peons or slaves, for they rarely get out of debt, but increase it until they are virtually owned by the lords of the soil, who can do as they please with the poor creatures, and work them whenever and wherever they see fit. These debts descend from father to son; in this manner they are continually increasing, and so the chains are riveted. I suppose the system has many advantages as well as disadvantages, but certainly we see the disadvantages to the poor and simple people, who, having their immediate wants supplied, do not care to look beyond. Among the more intelligent this condition is very galling, but as a rule they are shrewd enough to avoid it.
Standing a short distance from the inclosing wall of the hacienda, and in the midst of the poor quarter, was a dilapidated Roman Catholic church. There was no resident priest, but one came twice a year from a settlement farther south. At all hours of the day, however, women could be found kneeling in front of the primitive altar, a poor, degraded class, with not as much morality as the most savage tribes who have never heard of civilization.
My trip of over two hundred miles down the eastern slope of the Sierra Madre Mountains, from the boundary between the two countries, coupled with the information I gained en route, showed me that I might do better by attempting to make my way through the great range from the westward; so it was decided to make the change of base from the State of Chihuahua to that of Sonora.
While visiting at La Ascension on our return trip we saw about a dozen Mexicans extracting silver from ore by a method which is as old as that mentioned in the Bible. The rich ore, showing probably two hundred and fifty dollars to the ton, had been taken out of the vein with crowbars and by rough blasting, and then brought to the town on the backs of burros. Here the huge rocks were first crushed with sledge hammers until they were about the size of one's fist and could be easily handled, then broken again with smaller hand hammers until almost as fine as coarse sand. This was reduced to a complete powder by being beaten in heavy leather bags. After these operations it was mixed with water and thrown into an arastra, a cross between a coffee mill and a quartz crusher; in other words, consisting of four stones tied to a revolving mill-bar and turned by the inevitable mule. This makes a paste rich in granulated silver, which is mixed with salt and boiled in a little pot, as if they were making apple butter instead of working one of the richest veins of silver in a country celebrated for its valuable silver mines. The resulting mass is washed out in a pan, as a prospecting miner washes for signs of gold, with the exception that quicksilver is put in to form an amalgam with the now liberated metal. The latter is pressed out with the hand, and the little ball of amalgam, as bright as silver itself, has the mercury driven off by a furnace only big enough to fry the eggs for a party of two. The pure silver ball, glistening like hoar frost in the sun, is now beaten down to the size of a big marble to prevent its breaking to pieces. It is exasperating in the extreme to see such ignorant methods of man applied to the rich offerings of nature.
There was but very little out of the usual routine of travel for a day or two, until we came to the third crossing of the Casas Grandes River, at a point so near its entrance into Laguna Guzman that we felt sure we would have no trouble in getting over. For, as I have already explained, most of the rivers in this country are larger the nearer you approach their heads. There had been no rains to swell the streams, and our surprise can therefore be imagined when, upon reaching the river, we found it a raging torrent. A long experience had taught me that it does not pay to await the falling of a swollen river; so we set at work to get over the obstreperous stream. The loads were all piled on the seats, above the empty wagon beds, which, being thus weighted and top-heavy, acted like so many boats when they dashed into the river. Our driver, a Mexican, had the worst of it in a low, light wagon, drawn by two small pinto bronchos. The flood swept him down stream under an overhanging clump of willows, despite a rope tied to the tongue of the wagon and another held firmly by a half dozen persons on the upstream side. But he was as cool at the head as at the feet, although he was knee deep in ice water at the time as he stood up in the wagon bed. After waiting a moment to allow the horses to regain their bewildered senses, he swam them upstream to the crossing, and the men, with a whoop and a yell, dragged the whole affair on shore, looking like drowned rats tied to a cigar box. We were three hours and a quarter getting over that river, and felt as if we could have drowned the man who wrote that Northern Mexico is a vast, waterless tract of country.
CROSSING THE CASAS GRANDES RIVER.
CHAPTER III.
SONORA—ALONG THE SONORA RAILWAY— |
From Deming, N. M., it is but a five or six hours' ride by rail to Benson in Arizona, the initial point of the Sonora railway, a branch of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé, and extending to the seaport of Guaymas in Mexico. The ride from Benson consumes two days, and the route is through the mountains, down the lovely, fertile valleys, and across the flat, tropical country of the seacoast. It is a ride of great novelty and of surpassing beauty throughout the entire distance. After the train reached Nogalles, a town which is half in the United States and half in Mexico, it was made up in regular Mexican fashion of first, second, and third class coaches; and, from the number of Mexicans aboard, it appeared they were as much given to travel as their more active neighbors of the North; with this difference, however: that where they can save a penny by going second or third class they do so. This fact removes an interesting feature of Mexican travel from the sight of the average American tourist, for, as a rule, he prefers comfort to the study of the picturesque in his fellow-travelers.
When we reached Hermosillo, a place of about ten thousand people, the station was filled with vendors of oranges; and such oranges I never tasted elsewhere, although I have sampled that fruit in some of the most famous groves of Florida and California. In sweetness, delicious flavor, and juiciness they surpass all others; in fact it is impossible to find a poor or insipid one among all you can buy and eat. It is a pity there is so little market for this very superior fruit. The entire country from Hermosillo down to the coast seems to be a perfect one for orange culture, and for all other semi-tropical fruits. The prices paid for oranges are very reasonable, for much more is grown than can be consumed, and there seems to be little outlet for the surplus in any direction.
Just before reaching Guaymas the railway winds among the coast range of mountains, and crosses a shallow arm of the sea that is bridged with a long trestle. As you pass over the bridge you can look across the harbor through the gaps in the steep mountains straight out to sea, or rather into the Gulf of California. Again you are treated to long vistas of the beautiful mountain-locked harbor as the train winds around the steep peaks and you approach the old seaport. Before going to this port, the principal one on the Gulf of California, I made up my mind there would be comparatively little to say regarding it, as it is not only the terminus of a railway, but is also located on one or two lines of steamship travel, and would therefore be almost as well known as some California resorts or other famous places of the Pacific coast. It proved, on the contrary, to be seldom or never visited by tourists. I could find nothing about it in my numerous guidebooks and volumes devoted to Mexico, but nevertheless discovered a great deal of interest in this typical old town that was both novel and attractive. When the Sonora railway first reached here a number of years ago everything was ready to be "boomed." A hotel to cost a quarter of a million was started on a beautiful knoll overlooking the picturesque harbor, but after about one-tenth that amount had been put into the foundation and carriage way leading up the hill it was given up.
It may not be inappropriate to say that all of Guaymas is very much like the hotel—it has a fine foundation, but not much of anything else, although its sanitary conditions for a winter resort are nowhere else excelled. The first day you arrive you get a sample of the weather in mild, warm days, with cool nights, that will not vary a hair's breadth in all your stay. The harbor is picturesque in the extreme. It is completely landlocked, and swarms with a hundred kinds of fishes. It looks not unlike the harbor of San Francisco, and, although smaller, is far more interesting in the many beautiful vistas it opens to sight as one sails over its intricate waters. If it should ever become a popular winter resort no finer fishing or sailing could be had than in the harbor of Guaymas and the Gulf of California. A constant sea or land breeze is blowing in summer and winter, but it is never strong enough to make the waters dangerous. I have been fishing several times, and certainly the piscatorial bill of fare, as shown by my experience, has been an extremely varied one.
While off the shore in the harbor one afternoon I caught a shark measuring a little over six feet in length, which gave me a tussle of about a quarter of an hour before I could pull it alongside and plunge a knife into its heart. This last operation, be it observed, was not so much to end its own sufferings as to prevent those of other and better fish, and maybe a human being or so, in the near future. The natives told me, however, that it was only the large spotted or tiger shark, a species seldom seen there, that will deign to mistake the leg of a swimmer for the early worm that is caught by the bird. None of the shark kind enter the inner harbor where a sensible person would naturally bathe, as he wants enough water to hide his movements from his prey, and this condition seldom exists in the inner harbor. Indeed its name, Guaymas, borrowed from that of an Indian tribe, means a cup of water; and it is aptly applied, for the harbor is so landlocked and protected that seldom more than the slightest ripple disturbs its mirror-like surface, although breezes that will waft sailboats prevail throughout the day.
A VIEW OF GUAYMAS HARBOR.
As a further part of my fishing experience we caught a number of perch-like fish called by the people cabrilla (meaning little goat-fish, on account of some fancied resemblance to that animal, so numerous in the settled parts of Mexico), and which is pronounced the sweetest fish known on the Pacific coast. They are not as big as one's hand, and, of course, it takes a great many of them to make a mess for a few persons, but once a mess is secured it cannot be equaled in all the catches known to the piscatorial art. Another fish that we secured, and which the natives call boca dulce (sweet mouth), looked like a German carp. It had a pale blue head, weighed from two to four pounds, and seemed to run in schools, with no truants whatever to be found outside the school. One might fish a day for the boca dulce and never get a bite, but on the instant one was caught you could haul them in over the side of the boat as fast as you could bait and drop your hook, the biting ceasing as suddenly as it began. They are a delicious fish for eating, and should Guaymas ever become the large-sized city which its favorable position seems to promise, the boca dulce will furnish one of the leading fishes for its market.
While we were there the United States Fish Commission steamer Albatross came into the harbor from a long cruise in investigating the fishes of the Gulf of California, and Captain Tanner of the United States Navy told a small party of us that there were enough fish in the Gulf of California to supply all the markets of Mexico and the United States. Singularly enough, nearly all this great fish supply in the Gulf was along the eastern coast of this American Adriatic, or on the Sonora and Sinaloa side, rather than on or along the coast of Lower California. A good system of railways to the interior mining camps is needed to make this great supply available to the wealth of this naturally wealthy, but now poorly developed country. This will inevitably come, for no one can travel in Northern Mexico without clearly seeing it has a grand and wonderful future ahead, that will greatly strengthen us if we are in the ascendant, and that can correspondingly hurt us in an hour of need if we are not. The tide is rapidly setting in our favor, if we take proper advantage of it.
When I first sailed on the waters of the Gulf of California, some eighteen years ago, its commerce, although small indeed, was three-fourths in the hands of Europeans, while to-day three-fourths of it is American, and only the other fourth European. We labor under one disadvantage, however, and that is we do not attempt to cater to another's taste, even though to do so would be money in our pockets. There are peculiar lines of cheap prints and cottons made in Europe that are sold only on the west coast of Mexico, not a yard finding its way to any other part of the world. Now, while our goods command higher prices, and a great deal finds a market there, it does not "exactly fill the bill," and Americans, probably from not knowing the real wants of these people, do not manufacture the needed articles, and drive foreign stuff from the Mexican market. The ignorance of our people as to the commercial value of Mexico, and especially those parts off the principal lines of railway, is certainly great, and is losing us money now, and a more important influence later. Our enormous advantage of contiguity is pressing us forward in spite of ourselves, and we ought to sweep nearly every line of commerce in Mexico from the hands of foreigners—a fact that is most emphatically true of the northern part of that rich territory.
After cooking our lunch of cabrillas and boca dulces on the northern or inside shore of San Vincente Island we made a visit to the caves on the southern or seaward face of the same island. This led us through a little gorge between two high, beetling cliffs, into which the sea had excavated the caves we were to see. Through, or rather under, this gorge the waters pour into a small underground funnel of the solid rock before they reach the little lagoon beyond. At all hours the reverberation of the rushing tide is like thunder, as it beats backward and forward in its prison. The upper crust of the funnel is pierced with occasional holes and crevices, and at certain stages of water these are the mouths of so many spouting geysers, as each wave comes in and beats against the stone roof that confines it. Woe to the person who tries to cross just as a high wave reaches its maximum strength in the cave beneath! He will get the quickest and most effectual bath of his lifetime. Once on the seaward face a long line of caves is presented to view.
CAVE OF SAN VINCENTE.
The high hills here are hard conglomerate, and the waves of the Gulf of California, as we call it (the Gulf of Cortez as it was first named, and is yet called by most Mexicans), have cut far under the cliffs, leaving overhanging masses of rock, sometimes hundreds of feet in depth, as measured along the roofs under which we walked. They looked forbidding enough, and we feared that a few hundred tons might at any moment fall on our heads; for here and there could be seen just such deposits in the shallow waters, while occasional islands were discerned along the front of some of the caves which must have been formed when greater masses fell. But these fallings were without doubt centuries apart, and all these caves fully as safe to explore as caves in general. At any rate, every thought of danger was soon lost in the delicious coolness; for the day on the shining water and white sand beach had been very warm, although we hardly noticed it in the excitement of our sport. The coloring in the largest cave was beautiful beyond description. The sketch of our artist is as good as black and white can make it; but it conveys little idea of the reality, save form and contour. There was a narrow ledge on the skirts of the cave where one could find a way to enter, except at the highest tide or when a storm was beating landward, which is seldom the case, and never known during the winter months.
Guaymas has a wealth of natural attractions for the winter visitor or traveler, but hardly any reared by the hand of man to make his stay agreeable in a strictly physical sense. The hotels are all Mexican, and while they should be judged from that standpoint, probably to an American they would be very uncomfortable. Our hotel was a curious compound of saloon, kitchen, dining room, and court, all in one, with sleeping rooms ranged along two sides. One end of the building opened on a street, and the other directly on the beautiful bay, within a stone's throw of the water. The views in all directions from the water front of that simple hotel were indescribably lovely, causing one to forget the discomforts of the interior and the lack of cleanly food.
Even the inhabitants, in their Nazarene primitiveness, are very interesting. Although Guaymas claims seven thousand within her gates, her waterworks are of the same character as those of the ancient Egyptians. The chief description I shall give of them is a picture of one of the public wells just in the suburbs of the town. The water from these wells is used only for sprinkling the streets, and for household purposes, such as washing, it being totally unfit for drinking. That precious fluid is brought from a spring fully seven miles back in the mountains. We were told that this water could be easily piped into the town, and that there was some talk of an attempt to do so, for the sleepy old place is beginning to awaken to the fact that the world is moving ahead.
ONE OF THE WELLS OF GUAYMAS.
Near the town is a sort of pleasure garden, or ranch, as it is sometimes called. It is owned by an industrious German, who sank a number of wells on the place, and obtained warm, cold, and mineral waters, and established baths, which are very popular with the people and make the place quite a resort. There are groves of all kinds of tropical fruits and plants, with flowers in the greatest profusion; the brilliant, gorgeous flowers of the tropics growing beside the more modest ones of the temperate zone, and making the arid, rocky region beautiful with blossoms and shade. During the rainy season this country is the home of the tarantula, the centipede, and the scorpion, for they flourish equally as well as the flowers.
In one of the rooms of the American Consulate, facing the principal plaza, is lodged a piece of a shell, thrown there, singularly enough, by an American man-of-war when Guaymas was taken in 1847, during the Mexican War. At that time the Portsmouth and the Congress entered the harbor, shelled the town, and took it. The piece of shell referred to lodged in the huge wooden rafters of the building, and as these are never covered in the simple architecture of that country its rusty, round side is plainly visible from beneath. From the positions assigned to the vessels it is said to have been the Congress, she of Monitor-Merrimac fame afterward; and as the American flag still floats from the staff directly over the shell it is quite an interesting and historic piece of iron. Very few Americans, however, associate the quiet little town of Guaymas with any event of the war waged so long ago that its memories are almost lost in the later and greater war of civil strife.
In the good old times Guaymas used to have revolutions of its own. Whenever a governor of the place was financially embarrassed, or imagined he would soon be replaced by some fresh favorite from the City of Mexico, he would issue a proclamation and send around to merchant after merchant to take up a collection. If they had the temerity to object, not wishing to part with their worldly goods in that fashion, one of their number was selected as an example, taken out and shot, which had the desired effect of causing the others to come to time. We had the pleasure of meeting one of the old-time governors who had ruled in this fashion. He now holds an important position, is a man of great wealth, and a distinguished citizen—a tall, fine-looking man—but I could not help thinking he looked the born pirate, and would enjoy playing the despot again if he had the opportunity.
The great mass of the working class of this western part of Mexico are the Yaqui and Mayo Indians, portions of these tribes being civilized, and others adhering to their wild and nomadic life in the mountains. They are one of the most interesting features of the country. For years savage members of the Yaqui tribe have waged bloody and successful wars against the Mexican Government, and have been the principal cause of the slow development of the Gulf coast; but since the death of their famous leader Cajeme they have been peaceable and quiet. As a race they are remarkably stalwart, handsome, and aggressive, and are said to be able to endure any extremes of heat or cold. They are enlisted in the service of the government whenever it is possible, and make the best soldiers obtainable for this particular country.
While in Guaymas I heard from reliable sources that the jabali, peccary, or Mexican wild hog, was quite plentiful along the line of the Sonora Railway, and determined to get up a small party and attack these pugnacious pigs in their own haunts. The jabali (pronounced hah-va-lee in the Mexican version of the Spanish language) is the wild hog of Northern Mexico, and while one of them is in no wise equal to the wild boar of other countries, still, as they go in droves, and are equal in courage, they more than make up in numbers all they lose by being considered individually. Up to this time my game list had included polar bears, chipmunks, moose, jack rabbits, grizzlies, snipe, elk, buffalo, snow birds, reindeer, vultures, panther, and others, but as yet the scalp of no peccary dangled from my belt. So one fine morning we pulled out for Torres station, about twenty or twenty-five miles up the railway, where peccaries could be expected, and where horses (better speaking, the bucking broncho of the Southwest) could be procured, together with guides, ropers-in, etc.
The fertile soil and warm sunshine of Sonora quickens the imagination in a way unknown in the northern part of the United States, with its colder clime and cloudy skies. The day before starting I had done a good deal of telegraphing up the Sonora railway to learn just where these peccaries might be the most numerous, and the replies were enthusiastic as well as comical. Carbo sent back word that the section men on the railway had to "shoo" the jabalis off the track so as to repair it; another station reported that wild hogs were seen every day except Sundays; another station said there was a Yaqui Indian guide there who went out with a lasso and a long, sharpened stick, and brought in a peccary every morning before breakfast; while Torres thought I could have jabali about three miles from there. This was the most modest report and the nearest station, so I decided on Torres.
The country along the southern portion of the Sonora railway would be interesting in the extreme to one unfamiliar with tropical or sub-tropical countries. Its vegetation was most curious, and the surrounding country picturesque. Fine scenery can, indeed, be viewed in a thousand places in our own country, but it is not characterized with such a wonderful plant growth as we saw that morning on our way to the slaughter grounds of the peccaries. Here was the universal mesquite, looking like a dwarfed apple tree, and that affords the brightest fire of any wood ever burned. The tender of our engine was filled with it, and, as far as fuel was concerned, we could have made sixty miles an hour, had we wished to do so. The wood of the mesquite is of a beautiful bright cherry red; many a time I have wondered if this plentiful, tough, and twisted timber of the far Southwest could not be utilized in some way as a fancy wood; certainly a more beautiful color was never seen. Occasionally I thought I saw my old friend the sagebrush; then there was the ironwood (palo de hierro), that looks like a very fine variety of the mesquite. Its name is derived from its hardness, and is well deserved. It requires an ax to fell each tree, and as the quality of different trees is always the same, and that of different axes is not, even this ratio of one ax to one tree has to be changed occasionally, and always in favor of the tree. There was a story going the rounds that a tramp, who had wandered into that country (tramps sometimes get lost and find themselves in Sonora just once), with the usual appetite of his class applied for something to eat. In reply he was told, if he would get out a certain number of rails for a fence, the proprietor would give him a week's board. It was, as he thought, about a day's work that had been assigned him, and bright and early next morning he sallied out with his ax on his shoulder. Unfortunately the most tempting tree he met was an ironwood. Very late in the evening he returned with the ax helve on his arm. "How many rails did you split to-day?" was asked. "I did not split any, but I hewed out one," was the reply; and then he resigned his position.
There is also the palo verde, named for its color, with its bright, vivid green leaf, twig, and bark, and its pretty yellow blossoms, making a beautiful contrast with the more somber green of other trees. Occasionally great rows of cottonwoods (the alamo of the Mexicans) show the line of water courses, while a number of shrubs covered with blossoms are seen, apparently half tree, half cactus, so thick are their brambles and thorns. But as to cactus! There are five hundred species in America, of which Mexico has a large plurality, and the majority of these can be found along this end of the Sonora railway. There is the giant pitahaya, sometimes with a dozen arms, each as big as an ordinary tree, and from thirty to forty feet in height. Each arm has a score of pulpy ribs along its sides, and each rib has a button of thorns every inch along its length, each button having twenty or twenty-four great thorns sticking from it. I was told that when a hunter is sorely pressed by peccaries, if he will climb a pitahaya about ten feet, the thorns are so thick and terrible in their effect that the peccaries will not dare to follow him, hardy and venturesome as they are. Then there is the choya or cholla cactus, about as high as one's waist. You can go around a pitahaya as you would a tree, but when you find a field of chopalla (field of choyas) you might as well try to go around the atmosphere to get to a given point. The cholla will lean over until it breaks its back trying to get in your way, so that it can dart a dozen or two spines into your flesh. They are the worst of all; I could use almost as much of my readers' time in describing different cactuses as I used of my own in picking them out of my flesh after the peccary hunt was over, but I forbear.
A MEXICAN CACTUS
When we reached Torres nobody seemed to know anything about peccaries, and as the train stopped there for dinner we had plenty of time to talk it over. It then appeared that wild hogs were to be found all the way from Guaymas to Nogalles, but at this time of the year were very scarce, and seen only in twos or threes, and not in droves. In droves they are pugnacious and will easily bay; but in pairs or very small numbers they are more timid, and not until they are exhausted or overtaken by a swifter pursuer will they show fight. No jabalis could be depended on, and, as I had only a day or two to spare, I determined to move on to Carbo, where the prospects seemed better, and which place we reached in time for supper. This over we busied ourselves about our horses, mules, guides, dogs, etc. The superintendent of the railway at Guaymas had kindly volunteered to telegraph to any point and secure us a Yaqui Indian or two to guide us after the jabalis, and any number of hundreds of dogs to bay them if needed. He said he could guarantee the dogs (and so could anyone else who knew anything about a Mexican village), but he felt dubious about the Yaqui Indians. We secured four broncho horses and two dejected mules for the next day, and then went to sleep. I unrolled my blankets and buffalo robe, laid them down on the railway station platform, and, as the night was cold, had a fine sleep. The morning broke as clear as crystal, and we were up bright and early; but in spite of all our Caucasian hurry we did not get away until shortly after nine o'clock. Our first destination was a ranch two miles to the southeast of the town, owned by Colonel Muñoz. Here we were to get a Yaqui Indian for a guide, and learn the latest quotations as to the peccary market. Shortly after rising in the morning heavy clouds were seen in the northeast, which kept spreading and coming nearer and nearer, with vivid flashes of lightning and loud rumblings of thunder, until just about the time we were halfway to the ranch of Colonel Muñoz it broke over us with the full fury of a Sonora thunderstorm. Its worst feature was its persistency. I never saw a thunderstorm hang on for six or seven hours before in all my life, but this did, much to our personal discomfort, and, worst of all, to the serious detriment of the hunt.
Arriving at the ranch, we found that the Yaqui Indian guide, who, by the way, was a famous peccary hunter, was absent, working on a distant part of the hacienda. Now a hacienda or ranch in Sonora is about as large as a county in most of our States, and it requires efficient messenger service to get over one inside of half a day. We sent for him, however, and as a small boy present volunteered the information that he thought he could guide the party to where a pig might be lurking in the brush, we concluded we would take a short spin with him while waiting for the Yaqui Indian. He based his expectation of a jabali on the rain that had been falling, which sent the wild hogs out, made it easy to trail them, and brought them to bay sooner than if the weather had been dry. There was no horse for the youngster to ride, so he was taken on behind one of the party, and we started out in the pelting rain after "the poor little pigs," as one of the señoras of the hacienda put it. As the poor little pigs have been known to keep a man up a tree for three days, we felt more like wasting ammunition than sympathy on them.