This woman is going to one of the public wells to draw water, and presently is joined by a young Hebe, with bare, shapely ankles and rotund bust, whose laughing talk is like the gurgling chatter of the blackbirds in the rushes. They each carry classically shaped and gaily ornamented jars of earthenware, made by themselves, and which they will tell you are tinájas. Some of the wells are so shallow that an inclined passage-way has been cut down to the water from the surface; from others the liquid must be drawn in buckets. Having filled their vessels, each woman lays a little pad on her head, skillfully poises the heavy tinája upon it, and marches off, as erect, elastic of tread and graceful in mien as any Ganymede who ever handed about the nectar on Olympus. You can see the trimmed and painted gourd-dipper floating about in the neck of the jar, and thus know that the water is level with the top; yet up hill and down, along the dusty roadway, through the half-concealing corn, and under the low doorway go the dusky carriers, and not a drop is lost.

A short distance back we had met a superannuated governor, or chief, called in Spanish Attencio. His long, straight hair, of ashy hue, and deeply furrowed features gave a most venerable appearance to his attenuated but still upright form. His garments evinced more design, were better fitting, and somewhat fantastically decorated; while from his neck was suspended a drum, a tribute apparently to growing infirmities which had not quite obscured the dream of place and circumstance. We halted in curiosity while the Photographer, by specious argument and a gentle subsidizing process, overcame the half-scruples of the patriarch, and transferred his semblance to a “dry plate,” an operation he repeated a little later with the maid and matron whom we had seen at the well, though in their case with more difficulty and overcoming of native shyness. The results of this enterprise are commended to the reader.

The pueblo pottery is of all sizes and shapes,—jars, pitchers, canteens, bowls, platters, and images of men and animals, made as playthings for their children, or merely for amusement, and the latter often called their “gods” by ignorant tourists.

It is evident everywhere that originally much finer and more symmetrical pottery was made by all these Village Indians than now. They seem to have understood the art of mixing a finer paste, and they worked with more careful hands. The resemblance of this antique ware to that of Egypt and Cyprus, has been noted in its structure, and in the “scrolls, straight lines and walls of Troy,” with which it is embellished. Birds, too, were painted upon some of the oldest ware extant, recalling certain Chinese symbols, while “in the animal handles and in a design known as the old Japanese seal,” the early ware of Japan is simulated. The ancient and (in ruins) most widely distributed form of pottery known is the “corrugated,” fragments of which are also found in the mounds of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys and on the Pacific slope. This variety was made by winding around and above one another slender strings or ropes of red clay, expanding and contracting the coil to suit the varying diameters of the vessel. Pressure of the fingers alone, or aided only by a smooth stone, then compressed the coils into compactness and on the inside into some smoothness. There was also a kind of ware in use in prehistoric times which bore a red or black glaze beyond anything seen in later manufacture; but this fine finish is thought to have been accidental.

At San Juan, as in all other pueblos, the old adobe church, with its absurdly barbaric furniture and uncouth appearance, is a center of interest. Climbing the rickety ladder to its little gallery, and thence ascending to the roof, one gets the best idea of how valuable a garden spot this district is. As far as the eye can reach, up and down the river, stretch farms and orchards and plazitas. I suppose that from the mouth of the cañon down to the village of San Ildefonso, a distance of about thirty miles, the river-bottom is almost continuously cultivated, the chief crops being wheat and Indian corn, the latter notable for its variegated and bright colors, and for which the people here keep the original name, maiz; but every sort of grain and vegetable is also produced in abundance.

The population sustained consists largely of Indians, in some localities, as here at San Juan, almost entirely so; and they are quite as industrious and skillful in their farming as the Mexicans. In most of the villages the tillage of the reservation is wholly in common, but here the Indians many years ago divided up their farming lands into individual properties, not all equally either, for it was apportioned to each man in proportion to his needs, abilities and desire. It is said that there has been little change in the ownership of this property, the same fields descending from father to son, generation after generation. This being the case, it is not strange to learn the second fact, that there is small variation in the fortunes of the different families, and that there is slight disposition on the part of any to become rich while others grow poor. All are self-supporting, and proud of the fact that no aid is asked or received from the government.

Nothing reminds the traveler more of the Holy Land than to witness these people threshing their grain, which happens, of course, in August, since they do not stack the grain in the straw at all. The threshing-floors are circular spaces of high level ground in the outskirts of the pueblo, around which poles ten or twenty feet high are set, though there is no need of more than mere posts. When the threshing is to be done, a rawhide rope or two is stretched about these posts to form a fence, and often upon this are hung many blankets, the gay colors and striped ornamentation of which make an exceedingly picturesque scene. Sometimes in place of the ropes a cordon of bare-legged small boys and girls, to whom the duty is great sport, does service as a girdle. The diameter of such a prepared space, hardened by service for half a century to the consistency of brick, is sixty or a hundred feet. In the middle of it are heaped the sheaves of the three or four families who are accustomed to join in this work until a suitable quantity has been obtained, and then the fun begins.

Through an opening in the extemporized fence is driven a flock of sheep and goats, or else a small herd of horses. They at once fall to eating the fresh grain, but are quickly beaten off and started into a run around the enclosure, trampling down the edges of the stack, and all the time getting more and more of it under their beating hoofs. Behind them race two or three athletic, bare headed and scantily-dressed youths, cracking long whips, hustling the laggards, and nimbly keeping out of the way of the kicking, crowding and bewildered animals. This is quite as hard work as any of the horses or goats do, and is accompanied by continual halloos and trilling cries, which almost make a song when heard at a little distance. Now and then a young horse will make a leap at the rope, and snap the rawhide lariat, or dodge under it; or a venturesome goat will elude his guard and escape; but there are excited youngsters enough to speedily give chase and bring him back; and from time to time the panting drivers are changed, the animals given a rest, and the grain heaped into a new pile in the center. It is a wonderfully lively and gay picture, which will never be forgotten, and entirely unlike anything else to be seen in the United States. Toward evening, when the incessant tramping has threshed all the grains out of their husks, comes the winnowing. This is quite as primitive and idyllic as its forerunner. Having lifted away the bulk of the straw, several men and women take long-handled, flat-bladed wooden shovels, and toss up the grain which lies thick on the hard clay floor, thus allowing the wind to blow away the chaff. There is generally a breeze at sunset every day, and the largest part of the chaff is gotten rid of by the shoveling; but to perfect the process, the women take half a bushel at once of the grain, and re-winnow it, by tossing it a second time in and out of one of the large Navajo wicker-baskets, of which every family owns a number. The rough, wasteful threshing, and the cleansing, only partial at best, having thus been accomplished, the grain is divided out to its owners, and by them packed away in huge jars of coarse earthenware, called ollas, some of which will hold several bushels. These vessels keep it dry and safe from rats, so long as the covers are tight. All these processes are followed not only by the Indians, but by all Mexican farmers throughout the Spanish southwest.

We were never weary of wandering about these Indian towns, and watching the people at their work and sunny-tempered play. They are the happiest men and women on the continent. Well sheltered, well fed, well companioned, peaceful, guileless,—what else do they wish? Not theirs to know carking care, and the fluctuating markets which imperil hard-earned gains; nor to suffer the hurt unsatisfied ambition feels, or know the terrors of a crime-haunted or doubt-stricken conscience. The broad, bright sunshine of their latitude suffuses their whole lives and dispositions, turning their rock-bounded lowlands into a Vale of Tempe.

IX
SANTA FE AND THE SACRED VALLEY.

—Joanna Baillie.

I have referred to Española as the southern terminus of the railway. From this point, however, another company is actively engaged in constructing a line to Santa Fe, a distance of thirty-four miles by the survey, and its prospective early completion will afford a direct and desirable connection with the ancient capital. At present the communication is by means of stages, which run in conjunction with the trains, and, not being restricted in the matter of grades, accomplish the trip in about twenty-five miles. The journey is interesting, and is made comfortably.

Santa Fe claims the distinction of being the oldest town in the United States, a claim that is readily admitted when we consider that it was a populous Indian pueblo when the first Spaniards crossed the territory now known as New Mexico, less than forty years after the discovery of the western continent by Columbus. The earliest European who penetrated this region was Alvar Nuñez Cabeça de Vaca, a Spanish navigator, whose vessel was wrecked on the coast of Texas in 1528, and who, with three of his crew, wandered for six years through the plains and mountains, until finally he joined his countrymen under Cortez in Mexico. His report of the section through which he passed led to an expedition, in 1539, by Marco de Niça, a Franciscan friar, who was frightened away by the Indians, and returned to Mexico with a marvelous account of the extent, population and wealth of the country, the magnificence of its cities, and the ferocity of its people. In 1540 the famous expedition of Vasquez de Coronado passed through the pueblo where Santa Fe now stands, crossed the range, and traversed the plains until he came to the Missouri river, at a point probably near the present site of Atchison or Leavenworth. In 1581, Friar Augustin Ruyz, with one companion, reached a village called Poala, a few miles north of Albuquerque, where they were killed by the Indians. Antonio de Espejo came with an expedition, in 1582, to seek Ruyz, and discovered Zuñi, Acoma and other pueblos. In 1595 Juan de Oñate founded a colony near the junction of the Rio Chama with the Rio Grande, in the immediate vicinity of Española. It was about this date that a Spanish settlement was formed in Santa Fe, and the church of San Miguel erected. In 1680 there was a great uprising of the natives, who entirely drove out the Spaniards, and obliterated as far as possible all evidences of their occupation, dismantling, among other buildings, the old church. Twelve years later they were reconquered by Diego de Bargas. From that time to the present Santa Fe has had an eventful career. The Mexicans, in 1821, declared their independence of Spanish rule, and after that there were numerous insurrections, until the occupation of the territory by the United States, in 1846. Then came the War of the Rebellion, in 1861-65, in the course of which Santa Fe was captured by the confederates, and recaptured by the Union forces.

During all these years Santa Fe has changed its character but little, and is to-day, in general appearance, very much the same old Mexican town that it has been for nearly three hundred years. There is the same broad plaza, with the same adobe buildings nearly all the way around it; the same one-story houses, surrounding the same plazitas; the same suburban fields and gardens; and the same swarthy, dark-eyed population, still speaking the musical Spanish tongue. Wood is still brought into town on the backs of burros, and by this conveyance can be left inside the dwellings. Among the other objects of attraction to the stranger, are the governor’s palace; the ruins of old Fort Marcy, on a bluff, from which is had a fine view of the city; and the extensive and beautiful garden of Bishop Lamy. The famous chapel of San Miguel, the oldest in America, still rears the same mud walls that have stood for three centuries, and internally is well preserved and in presentable shape. It has no exterior beauty and no interior magnificence, its only interest being in its age and the sacred uses for which it has been kept up during almost the entire period of American civilization. On a great beam, as plain as if made but yesterday, is the Spanish inscription, traced there one hundred and seventy-four years ago, to the effect that “The Marquis de la Penuela erected this building, the Royal Ensign Don Augustin Flores Vergara, his servant, A.D. 1710.” Original documents show that this refers to its restoration after the wood-work was burned by the rebel Indians. A dark picture of the Annunciation, on one side of the altar, bears on its back a notation, seemingly dated A.D. 1287, leading to the belief that it is one of the oldest oil paintings in the world. By the side of the church is a two-story adobe house, which tradition says was in existence when Coronado marched through the town. The neighborhood of Santa Fe is rich in precious stones, including turquoise, bloodstone, onyx, agate, garnet and opal. The manufacture of Mexican filigree jewelry, largely carried on here, will be found interesting. The work is done by natives, to whom the trade has been handed down by their ancestors, who derived it from the Italians. The primitive Spanish records of the aborigines of all tropical America say that there were “no better goldsmiths in the world;” so that the Indian blood mixed in the veins of most of the modern artisans may have increased their skill.

But even quaint old Santa Fe is catching the spirit of the age, and now boasts a colony of northern residents, cultivated society, and many handsome structures, among which are a new hotel, a large public hospital built of stone and brick, a Methodist church, Santa Fe Academy, and San Miguel College. The tendency of this innovation will be to rapidly dissipate the aroma of antiquity and sentiment which has hitherto attached to the town’s romantic history.

On the return northward, our cars were again set out at Embudo, the gentlemen of the party having determined not to omit from this itinerary the Taos pueblos, possibly the most antiquated, and certainly the best preserved of all, and whose people are still awaiting with pathetic patience the returning Montezuma, who shall restore their pristine glory, and the kingdom that stretched from river to sea. When questioned as to her desires, the Madame did not advance the staple feminine excuse, a council with the dressmaker, but boldly proclaimed her aversion to the thirty-mile equestrian trip. So we left her behind reluctantly, with many injunctions to our chef de cuisine and still more trustworthy railway friends.

After no little wrangling, a sufficient number of spiritless quadrupeds were procured from the natives, and we turned our faces to the north. And right here let me advise the reader who may hereafter contemplate this pilgrimage, to address, in ample season, Mr. Henry Dibble, Fernandez de Taos, New Mexico, who will undertake to have a team in waiting at Embudo, thus saving the traveler much time and even more bad Spanish. The ride was thoroughly enjoyable, and formed a fitting prelude to the novel experiences that followed. I have said “ride,” though the statement is not altogether exact, since we took pity,—and largely from necessity,—on our miserable under-sized and under-fed ponies and ourselves, and walked a full third of the distance. Occasionally we passed small Mexican villages, which seemed as peacefully asleep in the afternoon sunshine as we could ever have pictured them. Flocks of ugly yellow-spotted goats, attended by dusky urchins in scanty attire, browsed on the near hill-slopes. Over the eaves of almost every one of the low adobe houses hung great ropes of red peppers,—the chili colorado of the Mexican,—that gave the one brilliant dash of color to a perspective whose tones were otherwise the most subdued. Not unfrequently, however, an entire family would be seen ranged along in a row on the shady side of the house, the women generally dressed in gay colors, solid red, blue, or green, and all as silent as the scene on which they looked. But for the dogs, these hamlets might have passed for the ruins they appeared. The caretta, or great, clumsy, two-wheeled cart, and the plow made of a pointed stick, were here and there reposing before the abodes, not seeming like implements of daily use, but as appropriate details in the worn-out landscape.

To pick one’s way through Taos valley, even by daylight, might be a task; in the darkness, which at length overtook us, success was a lucky chance. The very populousness of the locality was against us. How many times we took the divergent road and brought up against the fence of some ranchero’s threshing-floor; or crossed the stream not at the ford; or engaged in a broil with some awakened native who persisted in misunderstanding our gesticulated inquiries, may never be related. The houses, too, were a mystery. To find the front door of the rectangular heap of mud; to determine in what part of its cavernous recesses the inmates might now be residing; or to decide whether, after all, it was not the stable, taxed our ingenuity and tempers through several hours of that memorable evening. Finally, in the plaza of a great communistic ranch-house, that covered an area half as large as a city block, we managed to secure the services of a muchacho, who preceded us on horseback, and led us into one of the narrow and crooked streets of Fernandez de Taos, where we soon found the hostelry of “Pap” Dibble.

Taos valley is widest near its head, where the several streams that form the river issue from the Culebra range. About the center of the fertile expanse lies the old Mexican town of Fernandez de Taos, with a present population of 1,500. Two miles northeast of it, and under the shadow of Taos mountain, stand the two great buildings known as the Pueblo de Taos, and inhabited by about 400 Indians. Three miles south of Fernandez lies still another Mexican village, named Ranchos de Taos, in contrast with whose adobes the traveler finds a newly-erected flouring mill. The middle settlement has the greatest commercial importance, and is likewise possessed of considerable historic interest. Here was the seat of the first civil government of the territory by the United States, after it had been acquired as a result of the Mexican war of 1846. Here Bent, the first governor, was killed in the revolt of the following year, and the ruins yet remain of the old church on whose solid mud walls the howitzers of the troops could make no impression, and from which the band of insurgent Indians and Mexicans were only finally dislodged by means of hand-grenades. The widow of the murdered governor still lives in her modest adobe, and shows to visitors the hole in the wall made by the fatal bullet. Fernandez de Taos was likewise for years the residence of Colonel Kit Carson, and in the walled graveyard at the edge of town his body is buried.

All this and much more is communicated the following morning by the genial Dibble, who fills our idea of what a host should be. For twenty years has he lived in this quiet valley, among an alien people, leaving it only once for a trip to Santa Fe, content to preside over his curious aggregation of rambling adobes, and make each chance guest feel himself under paternal care.

But to us the great interest centers in the Indian carnival at the pueblo, which is to occur on the morrow. On the last day of September of each year the Taos Indians celebrate the festival of their patron saint, San Geronimo (the Spanish St. Jerome), by ceremonies altogether unique, and which few Americans have as yet witnessed. Some hours are still at our command, in which to study the country in its every-day aspect, and we early start out in the direction of the pueblo. Already the roads converging toward the old stronghold show signs of the assembling throng. Little bands of Indians, gaily blanketed and with uncovered heads, who have walked from pueblos perhaps fifty miles away, driving before them shaggy burros, with many-shaped packs; and Mexican fruit-vendors, their trains of donkeys laden with well-filled wicker baskets, form the vanguard of the unique procession. The valley across which we pass is all under cultivation, and the ground is now covered with the yellow stubble, while along the roadside we come upon the regulation threshing-places.

The Pueblo de Taos consists of two great mud buildings (of the larger of which an engraving is given) facing each other from opposite banks of a stream, and perhaps two hundred yards apart. They rise to a height of about fifty feet, and seem to have attained their present size by accretions during the ages since they were founded. They are of an irregular pyramidal form, and made up of about five stories or terraces. Each new story is built a distance from the edge of the one immediately beneath, so that both the length and breadth of the building diminish as the height is increased. To enter the rooms we must ascend one of the many ladders that lean against the wall, and then descend another ladder through a hole in the roof. Everything was quiet and silent about this great human wasps’ nest. Nude children tumbled on the ground in the warm rays of the sun; men strolled lazily hither and thither, their bodies wrapped in gaudy blankets and legs encased in close-fitting sheepskin leggings, while to their hair, black as jet and brought down in a lock on each side, hung great bunches of zephyr or other gay material; women, dressed in much the same manner, carried on their heads the earthen water-jars, or large baskets of bread, which had been baked in the oval mud ovens ranged in front of the pueblo. Everybody treated us with quiet respect, and seemed pleased to respond to our salutations. We climbed over one of the ancient piles, mounting to its topmost story on shaky ladders, peering into its rooms, which we were courteously invited to enter, and where we found sometimes as many as a dozen Indians sitting on the floor, engaged in adding some last touches to the holiday garments. We saw few young men, but afterwards learned that they were in the estufas, or underground council-chambers, preparing for the next day’s spectacle.

To give anything like an adequate account of the festival would require a small volume. Early on that resplendent September morning the human tide began to pour in, till, from our position on the summit of the north pueblo, we looked down to the plaza below on a surging mass of fully three thousand Indians and Mexicans, in every gay and fantastic garb. The fruit-vendors had established themselves in scores of little stalls scattered over the plaza, and with their burros standing patiently by, added a picturesque feature to the scene. Three hundred mad young Mexicans, mounted on excited ponies, charged among the crowd in a body, dared each other in feats of horsemanship, or “ran the gallo” on the opposite bank. The padre from Santa Fe first held service in the little church, after which came the event of the day. One hundred naked and painted Indians issued in solemn march from an estufa, and began the race, two by two, over the straight track a thousand feet long. For an hour and a half they sped up and down in front of the pueblo, amid the wildest excitement of the spectators. Then the march of the victors, to the music of a wild chant, while bread is showered upon them from one of the roofs of the pueblo under which they pass, closes the morning’s ceremonies.

The afternoon is consumed by the antics of seven unclothed and curiously painted clowns. For three hours do they amuse that motley crowd with their mimic cock and bull fights, and their semblance of plowing, threshing, and other familiar labors. As the sun nears the west, the rabble gather about a pole, fifty feet high, over the cross-piece at whose top has been hung a living sheep, together with garlands of fruit and a basket of bread. After many pretended failures, the pole is climbed, and the bread and fruit are thrown to the ground. Last of all, the sheep, in which a spark of life still lingers, is detached, and strikes the earth with a sickening thud. With yells and strange cries the Indians rush in, the sheep is torn limb from limb, and with this, the only revolting part of the entire celebration, the fête ends.

“He was a good enough cook when he tried to be, but wholly averse to neatness. Becoming tired of seeing things that bore no relation to one another on an intimate acquaintance, as the bacon and flour, for instance, I undertook, with fear and trembling, some mild expostulation. But I had not gone far before he raised himself to all his dignity, and exclaimed, ‘I have served fifteen years as first cook on board the Bristol,’ and then turned his back upon me. Somewhat stunned, but persevering, I continued meekly to tell him the things I wished him to attend to. Instantly his tone changed from indignation to supplication, and he described in feeling terms his rheumatism. ‘He enjoyed a neat kitchen as well as anybody, but what could he do, having his joints all knotted up with this terrible disease?’ and his face grew sadder than ever. I retired from the field vanquished, and reported progress.

“The gentlemen were not so easily silenced, however, and that very day began a little investigation. ‘Amos, can you make a tapioca pudding?’ cried one, at lunch. ’I have been fifteen years chief cook on the Bristol,’ came the answer, with an upward roll of the prayerful eyes. A little later: ‘Amos, bring up a pail of fresh water from the creek.’ Very glad to oblige you, sir (a groan), but I’ve the rheumatics.’ When one excuse wouldn’t answer the other would. So we sent him off, and got Burt in his place,—a youth without rheumatism or record,—who proved to be a very bright, willing, and useful boy.”

X
TOLTEC GORGE.

—King Lear.

Having at last turned our heels reluctantly on the simple-hearted, prettily-chequered life of the Pueblos, we raced back in a single night to the plains of San Luis. A long line of telegraph poles stretches out from Antonito into a true vanishing point across the park, and the train follows it San Juanward. The noble Sangre de Cristo looms up higher and higher behind us as we proceed, a mirage lifting the line of cottonwoods along the Rio Grande into impossibly tall and spindling caricatures of trees; while the Jemez mountains away to the south are not yet lost to view, and the striking landmark of Mount San Antonio, smooth and round, is close at hand. A few miles beyond it the arid level of the lake-spread plain breaks into white, stony eminences, reared in a bold front. To surmount these the track is arranged in long, ingenious loops, in one place, known as the “Whiplash,” extending into three parallel lines, scarcely a stone’s throw apart, but disposed terrace-like on the hillside. On top of the mesa the sage-brush disappears, grass, piñons and yellow pines taking its place, and we begin to wind among the long, straight lava ridges at the foot of the divide between the Los Pinos and the Chama, whence the backward view is remarkably fine. The road here is like a goat’s path in its vagaries, and wagers are made as to the point of the compass to be aimed at five minutes in advance, or whether the track on the opposite side of the crevasse is the one we have just come over, or are now about to pursue.

Describing a number of large curves around constantly deepening depressions, we reached the breast of a mountain, whence we obtained our first glimpse into Los Pinos valley; and it came like a sudden revelation of beauty and grandeur. The approach had been picturesque and gentle in character. Now we found our train clinging to a narrow pathway carved out far up the mountain’s side, while great masses of a volcanic conglomerate towered overhead, and the face of the opposing heights broke off into bristling crags. The river sank deeper and deeper into the narrowing vale, and the space beneath us to its banks was excitingly precipitous. We crowded upon the platform, the outer step of which sometimes hung over an abyss that made us shudder, till some friendly bank placed itself between us and the almost unbroken descent. But we learned to enjoy the imminent edge, along which the train crept so cautiously, and begrudged every instant that the landscape was shut out by intervening objects.

To say that the vision here is grand, awe-inspiring, painfully impressive or memorable, falls short of the truth in each case. It is too much to take in at once, and we were glad to pause again for a little brain-rest at a telegraph station, hung almost like a bird’s nest among the rocks,—to grow used by degrees to the stupendous picture spread before us. We were so high that not only the bottom of the valley, where the silver ribbon of the Los Pinos trailed in and out among the trees, and underneath the headlands, but even the wooded tops of the further rounded hills were below us, and we could count the dim, distant peaks in New Mexico.

Six miles ahead lay the cañon of which we had heard so much,—the Toltec Gorge, whose praises could not be overdrawn. Evidently his majesty had entrenched himself in glories beside which any ordinary monarch would lose his magnificence. Was this king of cañons really so great he could afford to risk all rivalry? Here, on the left, what noble martello-tower of native lava is that which stands undizzied on the very brink of the precipice? I should like to roll it off, and watch it cut a swath through that puny forest down there, and dam up the whole stream with its huge breadth. How these passages of spongy rock resound as our engine drags the long train we have again mounted through their lofty portals! How narrow apparently are these curved and smooth embankments that carry us across the ravines, and how spidery look the firmly-braced bridges that span the torrents! All the way the road-bed is heaped up or dug out artificially. It is merely a shelf near the summit. It hugs the wall like a chamois-stalker, creeping stealthily out to the end of and around each projecting spur; it explores every in-bending gulch, boldly strides across the water channels, and walks undismayed upon the utmost verge, where rough cliffs overhang it, and the gulf sinks away hundreds of feet beneath.

In the most secluded nook of the mountains we come upon Phantom Curve, with its company of isolated rocks, made of stuff so hard as to have stood upright, tall, grotesque, and sunburned, beside the pigmy firs and cowering boulders with which they are surrounded. Miles away you can trace these black pinnacles, like sentinels, mid-way up the slopes; but here at hand they fill the eye, and in their fantastic resemblance to human shapes and things we know in miniature, seem to us crumbled images of the days when there were giants, and men of Titanic mold set up mementoes of their brawny heroes,—

“Achaian statues in a world so rich!”

Phantoms, they are called, and the statuesque shadows they cast, moving mysteriously along the white bluffs, as the sun declines, are uncanny and ghost-like, perhaps; but the brown, rough, grandly grouping monoliths of lava themselves, are no more phantoms than are the pyramids of Sahara, and beside them the Theban monuments of the mighty Rameses would sink into insignificance.

Winding along the slender track, among these solemn forms, we approach the gorge, the vastly seamed and wrinkled face of whose opposite wall confronts us under the frown of an intense shade,—unused to the light from all eternity; but on this, the sunny side, a rosy pile, lifts its massive head proudly far above us, its square, fearless forehead,—

How should we pass it? On the right stood the solid palisade of the sierra, rising unbroken to the ultimate heights; on the left the gulf, its sides more and more nearly vertical, more and more terrible in their armature of splintered ledges and pike-pointed tree-tops,—more often breaking away into perpendicular cliffs, whence we could hurl a pebble, or ourselves, into the mad torrent easily seen but too far below to be heard; and as we draw nearer, the rosy crags rise higher and more distinct across our path. We turn a curve in the track, the cars leaning toward the inside, as if they, too, retreated from the look down into that “vasty deep,” and lo! a gateway tunneled through,—the barrier is conquered!

The blank of the tunnel gives one time to think. Pictures of the beetling, ebony-pillared cliffs linger in the retina suddenly deprived of the reality, and reproduce the seamed and jagged rocks in fiery similitude upon the darkness, in a twinkling the impression fades, and at the same instant you catch a gleam of advancing light, and dash out into the sunshine,—into the sunshine only? Oh, no, out into the air,—an awful leap abroad into invisibly bounded space; and you catch your breath, startled beyond self-control!

Then it is all over, and you are still on your feet, listening to the familiar ring of the brown walls as they fly past.

What was it you saw that made your breathing cease, and the blood chill in your heart with swift terror? It is hard to remember; but there remains a feeling of an instant’s suspension over an irregular chasm that seemed cut to the very center of the earth, and, to your dilated eye, gleamed brightly at the bottom, as though it penetrated even the realms of Pluto. You knew it opened outwardly into the gorge, for there in front stood the mighty wall, bracing the mountain far overhead, and below flashed the foaming river. This is the sum of your recollection, photographed upon your brain by a mental process more instantaneous than any application of art, and never to be erased. Gradually you conclude that the train ran directly out upon a short trestle, one end of which rests in the mouth of the tunnel, and the other in the jaws of a rock, cutting. This is the fact; but the traveler reasons it out, for he cannot see the support beneath his car, which, to all intents, takes a flying bound across a cleft in the granite eleven hundred measured feet in depth.

XI
ALONG THE SOUTHERN BORDER.

—Bayard Taylor.

Though the climax of the pass to the sight-seer is Toltec Gorge, the actual crest of the Pinos-Chama divide is at Cumbres, some fifteen miles westward, and several hundred feet higher. After leaving Toltec, the brink of the cliff is skirted for some time, and many grand and exciting views are presented; but the stream is broken into cascades, and rapidly rises to the plane of the track. Passing a number of snow-sheds, the train is soon twisting around shallow side ravines, and at last, after making a great circle of nearly a mile, there comes a stoppage of that dragging sensation which the wheels impart on an upward grade, and the cars halt on the little level space at the summit. From Antonito to Cumbres the maximum ascent to the mile is only seventy-five feet, while on the western slope the descent per mile reaches two hundred and eleven feet. This intrepid railway crosses the main ranges of the Rocky Mountains over seven or eight distinct passes; and in every instance the locating engineers have followed one water-course upward to its head, and another downward to the valley, finding invariably the sources of these oppositely-flowing brooks to be in springs only a few feet or rods apart at the top. In the present case so slight is the separation that we seem to stop beside the Los Pinos, and to start beside Wolf Creek. Although at an altitude of about 9,500 feet, the neat station buildings at Cumbres are located in a depressed indentation, whence the surrounding hills shut off all outlook.

Our train is scarcely in motion again, however, ere a deep gully opens at our feet, and we commence to crawl cautiously around the protruding face of Cumbres Mountain, with its curiously-piled top of red and gray sandstone, and its precipitous front, in which is hewn midway a shelf for the track. Beyond this we pass a great curve, and then overlook a beautiful valley, which leads down into the broad basin through which the Rio Chama pursues its way southeasterly to its junction with the Rio Grande at Chamita. The view here is picturesque, and well worthy the reproduction our artist has seen fit to give it. There are glimpses of far-off, white-edged mesa-lands, with spaces of shadowy cobalt between. The brook sinks deeper, and its grassy banks are full of yellow and purple asters, in brightest bloom, glorifying the whole hillside up to where, a short distance from its bed, begins the solid spruce and aspen forest. Near Lobato, the track crosses from one tawny ridge to another, on a lofty iron bridge, and we note that Wolf Creek is here a lovely stream, with many cozy nooks in which the sportsman may pitch his tent, and are informed that the water is full of trout, while the wooded mountain slopes abound in large and small game. Once down in the valley, the way is through smooth lawns and pleasant groves until Chama is reached, and here we pause to ask questions about sheep.

Our cars were set aside in the very woods, far from the noisy station; a Ｙ runs southward there, the germ perhaps of a railway down the river to Chamita, where it may join the southern line. All about us are the never-silent pines, and the breezes that whisper among their rugged branches blow laden with balsamic odors. Close by is the Rio Chama, hidden between dense and continuous thickets, through which the cattle can tell you of winding and mysterious paths. Everything in the landscape is soft and peaceful. The grass lies green and tender; the rounded clusters of willows, blending with the glowing masses of poplar behind them, bright in their new autumn colors, make no sharp line against the pine copse, nor this against the swelling, gaily-clothed background of the hills above.

Through this utterly wild, yet richly modulated scene, the Madame and I rode off one morning down to Tierra Amarilla, leaving our companions to angle for finny beauties. For miles the two mules trotted gaily with us through alternate groups of gigantic yellow pines and open stretches of grassy upland, where now and then we struck panic into the hearts of a flock of sheep. Then signs of ranch-life began, and some cattle were met; and ten miles from Chama we came upon the thrifty plazita of Los Brazos (the Arms), surrounded by a wide district of farming land. This continued three miles, and centered in a second hamlet, Los Ojos (the Springs), where there were several shops; thence two miles more, across a sage-brush terrace, took us to our destination.

Though the post-office has restricted the use of the name to this village, the whole region, on account of its peculiar beds of ochre earth, was formerly known as La Tierra Amarilla. This has been abbreviated, not only in spelling, but in speaking, until its ordinary pronunciation is Terr-amaréea. In 1837 a tract forty miles square, in this part of the valley of the Chama, was granted by the Mexican government to Señor Manuel Martin and his eight sons. There was a failure to ratify the matter somehow, and in 1860, old Manuel having died, his eldest son, Francisco Martin, applied to the Surveyor-General of the United States to have the grant confirmed to him, his brothers “and their companions” resident thereon. The Surveyor-General, however, struck the “companions” out, and ratified the grant only to the heirs of Manuel Martin. When this was discovered, Francisco, with the consent of his brothers, at once gave to each incumbent the land he occupied, and a deed for the same. Soon after this the Martins sold out all the domain, getting scarcely ten thousand dollars for the whole million of acres, which passed chiefly into the hands of a gentleman of Santa Fe. The next proprietor is to be an English company, which proposes to colonize the tract with British farmers and stock-raisers. The price paid, it is said, amounts to more than two millions of dollars. Pending these successive arrangements, the unfortunate settlers found their deeds valueless, because of informality,—a neglect not at all strange in a Mexican hidalgo. On the point of being ousted of their supposed proprietary rights, if not actually dispossessed, they bethought themselves of a lucky law of the territory, which gives ownership to anyone who can show a color of title, and undisputed possession for ten years. This statute saved them, and they will be bought out by the Englishmen.

Farming here hardly yields enough of grain to meet the local demand, except in the oat crop. The soil is good, the irrigating facilities very large and convenient, timber is plenty, and the climate superb. Yet only a portion of the wide, fertile bottom-land is under cultivation, and the valley invites intelligent immigration with an array of inducements unusual in New Mexico.

But there is no laxity in the matter of wool-producing, a full million of sheep belonging at Tierra Amarilla, distributed among about two hundred owners. These are never sold, except under stress of need for money, when they bring from one to two dollars each. The value of the total flock, then, will be somewhat over a million of dollars; while the annual production of wool will amount to more than two millions of pounds, worth more or less than half a million dollars, according to the price of wool. Its natural outlet to market is through Chama and Amargo. Early in September the flocks are started on their march to the southern part of the territory, where they can feed unharmed by winter storms.

I do not know a better place to study the primitive life of New Mexico, with all its quaint features; and the traveler who follows our example, and digresses long enough to ride down to the settlements I have mentioned, will not regret his short divergence from the beaten track.

Resuming the iron trail westward from Chama, all the way to Willow Creek the same beautiful parks of yellow pine continued, and the track crossed and recrossed a sparkling brook. Passing the mines of excellent bituminous coal at Monero, and surmounting a low water shed, which is in reality the continental divide, the deeply-notched tops of the Sierra Madre came into view in the north, and we spanned the first of the many streams that flow down from it into the Rio San Juan. A birds-eye view of this well-wooded and almost flat region, just on the line between Colorado and New Mexico, would have shown it to consist of a series of low, slightly-tilted ridges, parallel with which ran the serpentine and deeply-sunken rivers.

The first or easternmost of these streams is the Rio Navajo, encountered near Amargo, and up to which, all the way from Chama, nothing is to be found save grazing land, devoted mainly to sheep. Though its bottoms available for agriculture are probably broader than the water it contains is able to irrigate, far more farming remains to be done here than has yet been undertaken. The Rio San Juan, into which the Rio Navajo empties just west of Juanita, is the great drainage channel of this portion of Colorado and New Mexico, and a river of power even here. Its crystal-clear waters to-day prattle innocently, but they sometimes come down from the heights like an Indian raid, a besom of destruction for anything not as firmly anchored as the granite buttresses of the hills themselves.

From Amargo,—there is no end of bloody history attached to El Amargo and its fine cañon, dating from the early days of settlement, Indian fighting and border ruffianism,—runs the old stage-road northward to Pagosa Springs, Animas City, and the interior mines. The tales of that thoroughfare would furnish a whole library of flash literature without going much astray from the truth.

Pagosa is the far-famed “big medicine” of the Utes,—the greatest thermal fountains on the continent. “The largest of these springs is at least forty feet in diameter, and hot enough to cook an egg in a few minutes. Carbonic acid gas and steam bubble up in great quantities from the bottom, and keep the surface always in a state of agitation. The water has the faculty of dividing the light into its component colors, producing effects very similar to those of the opalescent glass of commerce. Around the large spring, and extending for a mile down the creek, are innumerable smaller ones, many of which discharge vast amounts of almost boiling water. These, being highly charged with saline matter, have produced by deposition all, or nearly all, of the ground in their vicinity, and their streams meander through its cavernous structure, often disappearing and reappearing many times before they finally emerge into the river. This spot must become a great popular resort. Its plentifully timbered and mountainous surroundings enhance the interest it otherwise possesses for the traveler and health-seeker, and the medicinal value of the springs claims the attention of all who can afford time to visit them.

“The village of Pagosa Springs is situated about four miles south of the base of the San Juan range, upon the immediate southeastern bank of the Rio San Juan. It consists of a group of dwellings, stores, and bath-houses, among which the steam of the hot springs issues in such clouds as at times to render the entire place invisible. Immediately above the town, on the opposite side of the river, rises a flat-topped, isolated hill, whose summit contains a plateau large enough to liberally accommodate the government post which has been erected there. Utilizing the pines so abundant in the neighborhood, the buildings are all made of logs; and model log-houses they are. A more inviting military camp, both as regards location and construction, could not well be conceived.”

Pagosa lies in the heart of that splendid pine forest, which covers a tract one hundred and thirty miles east and west by from twenty to forty miles north and south. Here the trees grow tall and straight, and of enormous size. No underbrush hides their bright, clean shafts, and, curiously enough, it is only in special locations that any low ones are to be found. These monarchs of the forest seem to be the last of their race, and, like the Indians, are doomed very soon to disappear. They are of immense value, for they form a huge storehouse of the finest lumber in a country poorly supplied in general with such material.

The vicinity of the springs is destined to yield large crops under irrigation, though at present there is little settlement there. Mexicans pasture their sheep as thickly as the fields will hold them; and try to give their flocks a few days in the basin at least once each season, believing that the drinking of the waters is of great benefit to the animals. Though the upper valley of the San Juan is unlikely to prove very profitable as agricultural land, the lower parts, in New Mexico, are the scene of extensive and highly successful Indian farming operations. The next stream westward, however, the Rio de las Nutrias (River of Rabbits), has good ranches, and so has the Rio de las Piedras (Stony river), the Rio Florida (River of Flowers), the Rio de los Pinos (Pine river), and the Rio de las Animas Perdidas (River of Lost Souls), up whose valley we turned sharply when a few miles from Durango. But thus far only a fraction of the tillable soil has been located on.

At Amargo,—for in this sketch of the rivers I have run ahead of our actual progress,—we find several hundred Apaches waiting to receive their rations, it being the weekly issuing day. Three of the redskins importune us for a ride, and we take them upon our platform, having entomological objections against offering them the hospitalities of the interior of the car. Our fund of Spanish is mutually limited, but one of us has a fair knowledge of the sign language, learned in former wanderings among the Dakotas and Kalispelm; and while these Apaches never heard of either of those great northern nations of red men, they readily understand most of the signs, though frequently showing us with great good nature that their way of expressing an idea is by a somewhat different gesture.