the "Ho, there, Kate; be still--will you?" with which Phil admonished
the nigh leader, but persisted in rearing every time a piece of "linen"
struck them, till the old scow shook with their furious stamping, and I
grew desperate in my lone corner. "Phil," I cried at last, with the
energy of despair, brandishing an enormous knife I had drawn from the
mess-chest, "unless you come and quiet the mules immediately, I shall
get down, cut the harness, and let them jump into the river!"
An hour's drive brought us to Fort Yuma, where we rested a day or two,
before resuming our journey. The country here has been described again
and again; its dry, sterile plains and black, burnt-looking hills have
been sufficiently execrated--relieving me of the necessity of adding my
quota. Fort Yuma--grand in its desolateness, white and parched in the
midst of its two embracing rivers--needs but the Dantean inscription on
its gateway to make it resemble the entrance to the regions of the
eternally damned.
It was by no means my first glimpse of the "noble savage" that I got on
the banks of the Colorado, or I might have been appalled at the sight of
a dozen or two of barely-clothed, filthy-looking Indians, squatted in
rows wherever the sun could burn hottest on their clay-covered heads.
The specimens here seen were different from those that had come under my
observation on the Plains. That Indians can be civilized William Lloyd
Garrison would not doubt, could he but see with what native grace these
dusky belles wear their crinoline. Nor can they be accused of the
extravagance of their white sisters in matters pertaining to toilet and
dress: the crinoline (worn _over_ the short petticoat, constituting
their full and entire wardrobe, aside from it) apparently being the only
article of luxury they indulge in, except paint--and whiskey, when they
can get it. But grandest of all were the men--the warrior-like
Yumas--arrayed in the traditional strip of red flannel, an occasional
cast-off military garment, and the cap of hard-baked mud above alluded
to. I had never seen these before, and thought them very singular as
ornaments; but Phil soon explained their utility in destroying a certain
parasite by which the noble red man is afflicted. During the summer
months he seeks relief in an application of wet mud to the part
besieged--his head. The mud is allowed to bake hard, in the course of
weeks, under the broiling sun; and when quite certain that his enemy has
been slaughtered, he removes the clay until another application becomes
necessary.
Following the course of the Gila river for some time, we struck the
desert again, beyond Gila Bend. What struck me as very surprising was,
that the desert here did not look like a desert at all: the scattering
_verde_-bushes and growth of cactus hiding the sand from one's eyes,
always just a little distance ahead--the cacti growing so thickly in
some places that, when they are in blossom, their flowers form a mosaic
of brilliant hues. Some of them are very curious--particularly the
"monument cactus," a tall shaft, growing to a height of over thirty
feet, sometimes with arms branching out on either side, more generally a
simple obelisk, covered with thorns from three to four inches long.
We were now nearing Maricopa Wells and the Pimo villages. Phil was the
pearl of all drivers; and he recounted traditions and legends belonging
to the past of this country that even Prescott might have wished to
hear. Phil had studied the history of the country in his own way, and
had evidently not kept his eyes closed while travelling back and forth
through Arizona. Halting the ambulance one day, he assisted me to alight
near a pile of rocks the most wonderful it was ever my fortune to
behold. He called them Painted Rocks, or Sounding Rocks; and his theory
in regard to them was, that this had been a place where the Indians had
long ago met to perform their religious rites and ceremonies. Rocks of
different sizes--from those not above a foot high, to others that
reached almost to my shoulders--all rounded in shape, were here, in the
midst of the plain, gathered together within a space of twenty or thirty
feet. They were black--whether from the action of the weather merely, or
from some chemical process--and covered on all sides with
representations from the animal world of Arizona and Mexico. The
pictures had been engraved, in a rude manner, on the black ground, and
embraced, in their variety, snakes, lizards, toads; also, four-footed
animals, which I could conscientiously recognize neither as horses nor
antelopes. Were they horses, it would go to prove that these pictures
had been made by roving bands of Indians, any time after the conquest,
as it is held that horses were first brought to this country by Cortez.
Did the pictures represent antelopes, it would almost tempt me to
believe that it was a specimen of the picture-writing of the Aztecs. The
sun was also represented, with its circle of rays, which, in Phil's
estimation, was proof conclusive that the heathens had come here only to
worship, particularly as there was no water in the neighborhood, and
they could not have lived here for any length of time. What the
character of the rocks may be, I am not geologist enough to know; but
when struck they emit a peculiarly clear and ringing sound, like that
produced by striking against a bell or a glass. None of the tribes now
to be found in that part of the country appear to claim any knowledge of
the origin of these rocks.
If either the Pimos, Maricopas, or Yumas are descendants of the Aztecs,
they have most wofully degenerated. On one point their traditions all
agree: namely, that the three tribes were not always at peace with each
other, as they are now. Long, long ago, when the Pimos were sorely
pressed by the more powerful Yumas, they allied themselves with the
Maricopas; and when they still found themselves in the minority against
the common enemy, and had been almost exterminated, they flew to the
white man for assistance, and never broke the treaty made with him.
But the shimmer of romance and poetry one would willingly throw around
them, is so rudely dispelled by the sight of these lank, dirty,
half-nude creatures, with faces exhibiting no more intelligence than
(perhaps not so much as) the faces of their lean dogs, or shaggy horses.
Yet, again, I must confess that even these Indians are susceptible of a
high degree of refinement and cultivation. Two of them, mounted on a
horse whose diminutive size allowed their four feet to touch the ground
at every stride, dressed, or rather undressed, in a manner to strike
terror into the soul of any well brought-up female, rode close up to the
ambulance one day, as it passed through the Indian villages, one of them
shouting, "Bully for you!" at the top of his voice, while the other
whipped up the horse at the same time, as though anxious to retreat the
moment their stock of polite learning had been exhausted.
Meeting at Maricopa Wells with the captain of the infantry stationed at
La Paz, we visited the interior of the Pimo and Maricopa villages
together, on horseback. We rode through the field the Indians cultivate,
and irrigate from the Gila river, by means of _acequias_ dug through
their lands in all directions. Some of their huts on the roadside were
deserted by their owners, who had removed to very airy residences,
constructed of the branches of cotton-wood and willows, growing on the
banks of the Gila, located where they could overlook their possessions
on all sides. As these residences consisted simply of a roof, or shed,
it was no such very hard matter to keep a lookout on every side. That
they do not trust a great deal in each other's honesty, was evident from
the way in which they had fastened the doors of their city residences
when exchanging them for their country-seats: they had firmly walled up
the entrance with _adobe_ mud. However, they are quiet and peaceable, I
am told, unless, by any chance or mischance, they get whiskey--of which
they are as fond as all other Indians.
In the mountain around which we had passed on the last day's journey
from Gila Bend, is to be seen, plainly and distinctly, the face of a
man, reclining, with his eyes closed as though in sleep. Among the most
beautiful of all the legends told here, is that concerning this face. It
is Montezuma's face, so the Indians believe (even those in Mexico, who
have never seen the image), and he will awaken from his long sleep some
day, will gather all the brave and the faithful around him, raise and
uplift his down-trodden people, and restore to his kingdom the old power
and the old glory--as it was, before the Hidalgos invaded it. So strong
is this belief in some parts of Mexico, that people who passed through
that country years ago, tell me of some localities where fires were kept
constantly burning, in anticipation of Montezuma's early coming. It
looks as though the stern face up there was just a little softened in
its expression, by the deep slumber that holds the eyelids over the
commanding eye; and all nature seems hushed into death-like stillness.
Day after day, year after year, century after century, slumbers the man
up there on the height, and life and vegetation sleep on the arid plains
below--a slumber never disturbed--a sleep never broken; for the
battle-cry of Yuma, Pimo, and Maricopa that once rang at the foot of the
mountain, did not reach Montezuma's ear; and the dying shrieks of the
children of those who came far over the seas to rob him of his sceptre
and crown, fall unheeded on the rocks and the deserts that guard his
sleep.
Two days more, and Phil pointed out to me, at a distance of some two
miles away, the ruins of the Casas-Grandes, sole remnant of the Seven
Cities the adventurous _Padre_ had so enticingly described to the
Spaniards. I could not induce Phil to allow me a nearer view, as we were
in the Apache country, and had no escort save the two soldiers in the
ambulance with us. From this distance the houses looked to me like any
other good-sized, one-story, _adobe_ buildings; but the material must
have been better prepared, or differently chosen, from that which is now
used in erecting Mexican houses, or it could not have resisted the
ravages of Time so far.
On we journeyed, not without some dread on my part, and a great many
assurances on the part of Phil that I was a very courageous woman. But
nearing Tucson, where the danger was greatest, we were not always alone.
Mexican trains bound for, or coming from Sonora, sometimes fell in with
us, and I did not despise their company, for I knew that only "in
strength lay safety" for us. Some of these trains consisted of
pack-donkeys only, bearing on their bruised backs the linen and cambrics
which are so beautifully manufactured in Sonora and other Mexican
provinces; others consisted of wagons heavily laden, their drivers armed
to the teeth, and well prepared to defend them against attacks the
Apaches were sure to make on them, sometime and somewhere between Sonora
and Tucson.
One of these trains belonged to Leopoldo Carillo, a Mexican merchant of
Tucson, who paid his men one hundred and fifty dollars for every Indian
scalp they delivered to him. Phil asked one of the Mexicans, driving a
wagon drawn along by some twelve or sixteen horses, if he had taken any
scalps on the trip. The Mexican nodded his head in silence, and turned
away. The teamster belonging to the next wagon--an American--told us how
the Indians had "jumped them," just after crossing the border, and how
two of them had held the Mexican, just spoken to, at bay, while two
others killed and scalped his younger brother. They all together, some
seven or eight of them, had taken three scalps from the Indians on this
trip; but he was willing to lose his share of the prize-money, the man
said, if the "pesky devils hadn't taken the boy's scalp;" for the
brother, he averred, cried and "took on about it" _just like a white
man_.
_DOWN AMONG THE DEAD LETTERS._
Strangers visiting Washington, and admiring the style and architecture
of the General Post-Office building, would never know that there are
numbers of ladies seated behind the plate-glass of the second-story
windows. Indeed, few people residing in the capital are really aware in
what part of the building those female clerks are stowed away. I had
passed on every side of the building--morning, noon, and night--but
never had seen anybody that looked like a "female clerk," till I found
myself of their number, one morning; and then I discovered the right
entrance to the Dead Letter Office. It is on F street, so close to the
Ladies' Delivery that any person entering here would be supposed to be
inquiring for a letter at that delivery. There is another entrance on E
street, but it is not much patronized by the ladies until after fifteen
minutes past nine o'clock; for punctually at that time, the door-keeper
is instructed to lock the ladies' door on F street, and those who are
tardy are compelled to go up the gentlemen's staircase, or pass in at
the large public entrance on E street. Crowds of visitors walk through
the building, day after day, but not one of all the ladies employed here
do they see, unless they request to be shown the rooms of the female
_employés_.
In this department, working hours are from nine o'clock in the morning
till three o'clock in the afternoon. Ladies are not allowed to leave the
office for lunch, nor do they waste much time in discussing the lunch
they may have brought, as it is only in consideration of their industry
and close application that they are allowed to leave the office at
three o'clock, instead of four.
This Dead Letter Office is one of the most complicated pieces of
machinery in the "ship of state." I will try to explain and elucidate as
much of it as came under my observation. Letters left "uncalled for" at
the different post-offices throughout the country are sent to the Dead
Letter Office, after a certain length of time. Letters not prepaid, or
short-paid, through neglect or ignorance of the writer, also find their
way here; and so do foreign letters, from all parts of Europe, which
have been prepaid only in part, and therefore come here, instead of
reaching their destination. Sometimes mails are robbed, and the
mail-bags hidden or thrown away, but are afterwards searched for, and
their remaining contents brought to this office. Then again, a vessel at
sea, homeward-bound, brings letters from ships meeting it, of sailors
and passengers, who send their letters in firm faith that they will
reach their anxious friends at home; but if our Government happens to
have no treaty or contract with that particular government to which the
writer belongs, of course, the letters cannot be forwarded, but are laid
at rest here. These letters are carefully preserved for a number of
years. They are sometimes called for, and found, a long, long time after
they were written; in fact, only "dead" letters are destroyed.
Though I wish to speak more particularly of the duties and labor
performed by the ladies employed in this department, I must begin by
saying that all letters pass through the hands of, and are opened by, a
number of gentlemen--clerks in the department--whose room is on the
ground floor of the building. A great number of letters contain money,
valuable papers, and postage stamps. These are sent to the
superintendent's room. Letters without contents are folded, with the
envelope laid inside the letter, tied in bundles, and sent up-stairs
for directing. Money, drafts, and postage-stamps, however, are not the
only articles considered "mailable matter" by the public. One day I
looked over a box filled with such matter, taken from dead letters and
parcels in the opening room, and found in it one half-worn gaiter boot,
two hair-nets, a rag doll-baby, minus the head and one foot, a set of
cheap jewelry, a small-sized frying-pan, two ambrotypes, one pair of
white kid gloves, a nursing-bottle, a tooth-brush, a boot-jack, three
yards of lace, a box of Ayer's pills, a bunch of keys, six nutmegs, a
toddy-stick, and no end of dress samples. This matter is allowed to
accumulate for three months, and is then sold at auction; but a register
is so carefully kept, that the person mailing the doll-baby without
prepaying can follow its progress from the little country town where it
was mailed to the end of its career under the hammer at the Dead Letter
Office, and here can claim the amount it brought at auction.
Every clerk, male or female, has his or her letter, from A to Z, and
beginning again with A A, when the alphabet "runs out." Before the
ladies take their places at the desk in the morning, the messenger has
already placed there the number of envelopes each lady is expected to
direct in the course of the day; and large baskets filled with bundles
of letters, sent up from the opening room (the bundles marked with the
letter of the clerk through whose hands they have passed), are brought
into the rooms. The envelopes are stamped in one corner with the lady's
letter, in red; so that the ladies are spoken of, by the superintendent
or the messengers, as Miss A, B, C, D--not as Miss Miller, or Mrs.
Smith. Fifty of these envelopes are contained in one package, so that it
is easy to calculate whether any of them are wasted by misdirecting or
blotting. The work looks simple enough, when you see a number of ladies
seated at their desks, writing addresses on envelopes, with the greatest
apparent ease. "And then," as a gushing young lady said to me one day,
"how romantic it must be to listen to the outpourings of love and
affection that these letters must contain in many cases, and the dark
secrets that others disclose." She thought it rather a cruel restraint,
when I told her we were allowed to read only so much of a letter as was
necessary to discover the name of the writer, and to read no part of it,
if the name was signed clearly and distinctly at the end. Let the lady
reader pause a moment and ask herself, "Do I sign my letters so that one
of these clerks could return them from the Dead Letter Office, without
going over the whole of their contents?" By the time you have finished
reading this paper, I hope you will have formed the resolution to sign
your name "in full," and just as it is, to every letter you send by the
mail. Don't sign your name "Saida," when it is really Sarah Jones "in
full;" and if you call your father's brick house on Third street, "Pine
Grove," because there are two dry pine-trees in the front yard, don't
neglect to add "No. 24, Third Street, Cincinnati, Ohio." The greater
number of letters passing through this office are badly written and
uninteresting; many of them so perfectly unintelligible that no human
being can read or return them; not that the greater portion of our
community are uneducated or unintelligent people, but that they are
either reckless or careless. Letters directed with any kind of common
sense are most always sure of reaching their destination without
visiting the Dead Letter Office. Not only do people, in a number of
cases, neglect to prepay their letters, but frequently, letters without
direction or address of any kind are dropped into the letter-boxes. In
writing to individuals residing in the same city with them, people think
it is necessary only to mention the name of the individual; the
"post-office man" is expected to know that the letter is not to go out
of the city. The post-office people are, if not omniscient, at least
very obliging. I have found a letter directed to "Carrolton, in
America," and the letter had been forwarded to, and bore the post-mark
of every Carrolton in the United States before it was sent here.
The work of the ladies falls under two heads: "Common" and "Special." We
will get the best idea of what "Common" means, in contradistinction to
"Special," by watching Miss A, on "Common" work this morning. Taking one
of the bundles of letters from the basket, she opens it and takes up the
top letter; spreading it on the desk, she finds the envelope inside; it
is directed to "William Smith, Philadelphia, Penn.," and the words
"uncalled for," stamped on the envelope, show why it was sent here. Now,
the signature is to be looked for: it is here--"John Jones;" next, where
was it dated?--"Somerville, Ohio;" but does the post-mark on the
envelope correspond with that? Yes, it is post-marked from where it was
dated; so, "John Jones" will receive his letter back again: his friend,
"W. Smith," may have left Philadelphia, or may have died. "John Jones'"
letter is returned to him in a coarse, brown "P. O. D." envelope,
stamped with the letter A in one corner, and he pays three cents for the
privilege of knowing that his friend "Smith" never received his letter.
The next is a delicate pink affair, dated, "White Rose Bower"--signed,
"Ella;" "only this, and nothing more;" so the letter is hopelessly dead,
and thrown into the paper-basket at Miss A's side. The epistle following
this is signed, "Henry Foster," and could be returned if it had not been
dated at "White Hall" and post-marked "Harrisburg." On looking over the
Post-office Directory, we may or may not find a White Hall in
Pennsylvania, but there is nothing in the letter to show whether "Henry
Foster's" home is in Harrisburg or White Hall; consequently, that letter
is dead, too. Here is one, signed plainly and legibly, but the writer
has omitted to date it from any particular place. From the tone of the
letter, it is plainly to be seen that he lives where the letter was
mailed--but where was it mailed? The post-mark on the envelope is so
indistinct that any lady not employed in the Dead Letter Office would
throw it aside as "unreadable;" but ladies here learn to decipher what
to ordinary mortals would be hieroglyphic, or simply a blank. After
consulting the pages of the Post-office Directory beside her, Miss A
passes the envelope to Miss B. "Can you suggest any post-office in
Indiana beginning with M, ending with L, with about four letters
between?" Miss B scrutinizes the envelope closely. "The post-mark is not
from Ind. (Indiana), it is from Ioa" (Iowa), is her decision. Misses C,
D, and E, at work in the same room, differ in opinion, and at last Miss
A steps across the hall to the room of the lady superintendent, where a
"blue-book" is kept, and, with the assistance of this lady and the book,
Miss A discovers the place in Indiana, directs the letter, and continues
her work. When she has directed fifty letters, she ties them (with both
envelopes--the "P. O. D." and original one--inside each letter)
carefully together, and the messenger carries them into the
folding-room, where other ladies, employed in this branch, fold and seal
them. Of these "Common" letters, every lady is required to direct from
two hundred to three hundred a day--a task by no means easy to
accomplish.