to a Spanish widow lady, living either in Mexico or Spain. In the course
of my travels through the country, I met with accounts of this or some
other widow, owning fabulous stretches of land, mines, and treasures, so
often that I came to regard this widow-institution as a myth or a
humbug; but the people living here were always very earnest in their
assurances to the contrary. However this might be, it was a beautiful,
romantic spot, such as we came upon time and again in this strange
country. Well do I remember the succession of little narrow valleys on
the route between Fort Union and Santa Fé; the hard, smooth road, the
tall gramma-grass on each side of it, and the shapely-grown evergreens
bordering the lawn-like fields, till lines of taller trees, coming up
close to the road, seemed to divide off one little valley from the
other. Yet never a house did we see the whole of that day, though the
garden for many a one seemed ready planted by kind mother Nature's
hands. The land was but a desert, in spite of the waving grass and the
dark green trees. There was no water to be found for long, long weary
miles.
Before we had been long on our journey, an unfortunate circumstance
brought us to doubt the honesty of poor old Manuel so seriously that it
had almost resulted disastrously to him. We had made camp not far from
San Jose, a place consisting of two and a half houses, on the Pecos
river. We were to cross the river here; and in the morning, when the
tents were being struck, and we were already seated in the carriage,
waiting for the mules to be harnessed to it, these same mules were
reported missing. The command moved on, of course, leaving our
baggage-wagon, our cook, our orderly, and ourselves, behind; the old
colonel chuckling to himself that as we were in the habit of looking out
for ourselves, we might do so on this occasion too.
The mules were unharnessed from the wagon at once, Charley mounted on
one, Pinkan on the other, Manuel on the third, and the lieutenant on the
fourth, all starting off in different directions to search for the
truants, while I was left in charge of the other two mules and the rest
of our effects. A long time passed before any of them returned; and when
Charley came back, soon after the lieutenant, he said he had heard from
a Dutchman in San Jose that two mules answering the description had been
seen driven by a Mexican, just at daybreak, over the bridge near the
town; and the supposition now was that Manuel had sold them to some of
his countrymen, always going in gangs through the Territory. Manuel soon
came in, without the mules. When the lieutenant told him of his
suspicions his face fell; and when the vague threat of summary justice
to be executed was added, his shrivelled, monkeyish face grew livid, and
he turned to me trembling, and begging, for the sake of his "pretty
little girls," that I should intercede, and assure the lieutenant that
indeed, _indeed_, he hadn't stolen the mules. I felt sorry for the old
man; but just when things looked darkest for him, Pinkan was seen in the
distance driving up the runaways.
The reaction of the fright experienced by old Manuel had the effect of
making him drunk when we got to San Jose (perhaps the _aguardiente_
imbibed at the house of his _compadre_ had something to do with it,
too); and just as I was making my first trial of _chile-con-carne_ in
the low room of the Mexican inn, he came and spread before me, beside
the fiery dish which had already drawn tears from my eyes, papers
certifying that he had rendered good services as teamster in the Mexican
war, under General Zack Taylor, and could be trusted by Americans. If it
was laughable to see the air of pride with which he struck his breast,
declaring in Spanish that he was "a much honorable and brave man," there
was yet a touch of true dignity in the low bow he made while thanking me
for having called him an honest man, while the rest had taken him for a
horse-thief, a _ladrone_ and _picaro_.
We easily caught up with the command at night, and laid our plans while
in camp for the next few days to come. The troops were not to pass
through Santa Fé, and, though we could have made the detour without the
colonel's knowledge, it was not safe to run into the very jaws of
danger, as General Carleton's headquarters were at Fort Marcy, and he
had probably returned to Santa Fé from Fort Union long before this time,
travelling with only an escort and the best mules in the department. We
had letters to Doctor Steck, "running" a gold-mine about thirty miles
from Santa Fé; and as the command passed near by, we started off into
the mountains where the mine lay. Wild and rugged as the scenery was, it
was not so dreary as I had always fancied every part of the Territory
must be. In some places it seemed as if man had done a great deal to
make the face of nature hideous. Great unseemly holes were dug here,
there, and everywhere--the red, staring earth thrown up, and then left
in disgust at not finding the treasures looked for. The company of which
Doctor Steck was superintendent seemed to have found the treasures,
however, for in their mill half a dozen stamps were viciously crushing
and crunching the rock brought down from the mountains above on
mule-back.
The doctor is a Pennsylvanian, and he tried to have his ranch look as
much as possible like a Pennsylvania homestead. There were necessarily
slight deviations, more particularly in the furniture of the
dwelling-house, which here consisted mainly of double-barrelled
shot-guns and repeating rifles. These were merely a set-off, I presume,
to the chunks of gold he showed us (the size of a fist), each being a
week's "cleanup." There was quicksilver used in gaining the gold (what I
know about gaining gold is very little), and the doctor turned a stream
of water on the plates under the crushers, and then scraped up the gold
for me to look at.
I did not learn till months later--though I readily believed it--that
this man could travel alone and unarmed through the midst of the Apache
country; and did he ever miss his road or want assistance, he had but to
make a signal of distress, when the savages would fly to him from their
lurking-places, shelter him, and guide him safely back to his white
brethren. This I learned first from an old Mexican guide at our camp,
who said that the Indians stood in awe of him as a great medicine-man,
and loved him for his uniform kindness to them.
Santa Fé Mountain behind us, there were no more hills save the
sand-hills, that seem shifting and changing from day to day, so that
very often in the neighborhood of the Rio Grande, the river itself is
followed as a landmark, the land being more unreliable than the water.
The big sand-hill opposite Albuquerque, however, seems to be stationary;
people who had been here twenty years before remembered the location.
There is something singular about these Mexican towns or cities. You
hear them spoken of as important places, where the law-givers and the
dignitaries of the American _régime_ reside, and where renowned families
of the Spanish period had their homes; where large commercial interests
lie, and where things flourish generally. When you approach them, a
collection of what seem only mud hovels lie scattered before you. You
look for order and regularity of streets, and you find yourself running
up against square mud-piles at every other step; you look for doors and
windows in these structures, and find a narrow opening, reaching to the
ground, on one side, and high up in the wall a little square hole
without glass or shutter. This is the first impression. But you are
compelled to remain at such a place; and as the eye grows to shrink less
from the sight of the hard clay and cheerless sand, you discover the
tips of the pomegranate tree peering curiously over the high mud wall
enclosing a neat _adobe_ with well-cultivated garden. In astonishment
you press your face to the railing of the rude gate, and directly the
soft voice of a dark-faced woman calls to you from within: "Enter,
_señora_; you are welcome!"
When you leave the garden, where peaches, grapes, and pomegranates have
been showered on you, together with assurances of the kindest feelings
on the part of your hostess, the whole place somehow looks different.
There are streets and lanes which you did not notice before, where the
broad, double doors of the houses stand hospitably open, and the large
square windows, if not provided with sash and glass, are latticed in
fanciful designs, as we see them in old Spanish and Italian paintings.
And there is such a dreamy languor in the air; such a soft tint in the
blue of the heavens; such a wooing, balmy breeze, that seems to float
down from the mountain yonder. There is no necessity for keeping one's
eyes fixed on the sand-hill that hid Albuquerque from us at first. Look
over again to the mountain. Could artist with brush and pencil create
anything more perfect than the gentle rise away off there, over which
houses and vineyards are scattered, and which climbs up steeper and
higher, till the faintest shadow of a passing cloud seems resting on the
blue-green peak? And winding its way slowly from the foot of the
mountain, comes a train of black-eyed, barefooted Pueblo Indian women,
bearing on their heads home-made baskets filled to overflowing with
well-displayed fruit--melons, peaches, grapes--in such perfection, and
with such rich, ripe coloring, as are seldom found away from Mexico.
Of historical interest, too, there is much in Albuquerque. The daughter
of a Spanish lady belonging to the old family of the Bacas, was married
to an officer in our army, and with her I visited the house of General
Armijo. The younger daughters alone received us, the older married
sister being sick or absent. The house was furnished with elegant
material--the heavy Brussels carpet spread out on the mud floor,
flowers and figures running up and down, just as the carpet had been cut
off at the length of the room, and then rolled back again and cut off at
the other end. The breadths were laid side by side, but not a stitch had
been taken to hold them together. Cushioned chairs were ranged along the
walls of the room, the line broken only where marble-top tables,
what-nots, and a Chickering piano were introduced among them--all set
against the wall without symmetry or taste. On the walls hung pictures,
in embroidery, water-colors, and oil, executed by the young ladies while
in a convent school; but in vain I looked for a picture of General
Armijo among them. It was here at Albuquerque that I saw for the first
time--and alas! the last--Kit Carson, and the less renowned but equally
brave Colonel Pfeiffer.
Beyond Albuquerque the road lies again over the sand-hills and through
the valleys of the Rio Grande; and we lost our way among the hills one
day, when the command had passed but a short distance in advance of us.
For hours we toiled through the shifting sand, hoping that each mound we
climbed might bring the marching column to our view. Fortunately,
Manuel, with the wagon, had fallen in line with the train that morning,
and only Pinkan, riding the lieutenant's horse and leading mine, was
with us. The lieutenant was driving, and I could see from the way his
eyes wandered over the interminable range of low sand-hills that he was
completely bewildered. All at once we came on a house, which, from a
distance, we had taken to be another sand-pile; and the Mexicans living
here, after treating us to the best their house afforded--eggs, and the
sweet, unsalted goat-milk cheese--piloted us to Los Pinos, where we were
to camp for the night. Here the command crossed the Rio Grande--forded
it, bag and baggage--and the next day remained in camp below Peralta,
where the tents were pitched in a delightful grove of cottonwood trees.
It has been said that a Mexican is born with a lasso in his hand. The
feat old Manuel performed with his was quite new to me. Wood was so
scarce that not the smallest bit of a dry limb or broken twig could be
found under the trees. The lower branches having been lopped off, and
the soldiers forbidden to cut down any trees, our old Mexican at once
went to work with his rope, throwing it so dexterously over the brittle
limbs that a snap and a crash followed every excursion of the rope.
We made a flying trip to Peralta the next morning, while the command was
marching in the opposite direction. The place, with its pretty church
and scattered houses, surrounded by walled-in gardens, made quite a
pleasing impression. Then we turned back and joined the command.
The road now was one continuous level, with hills, uniformly bare and
brown, in the distance. Bare and brown as they look, thousands of goats
are herded on them, and, to judge from the milk and cheese we got on the
road, find pretty good picking till such time as "Lo! the poor Indians"
think proper to drive off the herds for their own use, when they are in
most cases generous enough to leave the herders behind--dead. And the
sun, smiling down so placidly on the river and the little towns lying
near its banks, seems never to heed the death-cry of the helpless _peon_
or the lonely wayfarer laid low in the dust by the prowling savage, but
goes on lighting up the cloudless sky-dome, and bringing into strong
relief the different features of scenery, life, and customs, that make a
journey through New Mexico resemble a sojourn in the Holy Land. Through
all those towns along the Rio Grande do we see the daughters of the
land, barefooted, their faces half hidden by the oriental-looking
_rebozo_, the earthen _olla_ poised gracefully on the head, going at
eventide to the well for water. Belen, Sabinal, Polvedaro--here are the
low-built houses, the flat roofs, the gray-green olive here and there;
even the wheaten cake, the _tortilla_, is set before the stranger when
he comes. Then this dead, dead silence! The barking of the dogs as we
come through the villages, the drawling sing-song of the children,
calling to each other at the unusual spectacle we present, seem hardly
to break the slumber of the mid-day air.
So wearying as the one color--clay--grows to the eye! the ground, the
houses, the fence-walls, the bake-ovens, all, all the same color. Even
where there are gardens, with the enclosing wall seems to terminate
vegetation; never a vagabond grass-blade or a straggling vine can find
its way outside. Bake-ovens are an institution and a marked feature in
the landscape; every house has one, and as they are built with a
dome-like top, they are more pleasing to the eye than the houses, and
very often nearly as large. I remember seeing one day a dog and a little
naked child (clothing is considered superfluous on children) mount from
the mud fence to the top of the bake-oven, and from there to the house
roof, with no more difficulty than we would experience in going up a
flight of easy stairs. The bread that the Mexicans bake in these ovens
is the sweetest and whitest that can be found.
Then came Socarro, where most of the officers spent the day, while the
command went into camp some miles below. An English family kept a very
pleasant house there, whose good cheer the old colonel had not forgotten
from long ago. The garden back of the neatly-built house I thought one
of the loveliest spots on earth; not from the fact alone that it
contained flowers and some few tall trees, but from the view it afforded
of the far-off mountain--probably of the Sierra Maddalena chain, but
called Socarro Mountain here. There was the same dreamy haze that hung
over the mountain near Albuquerque, and the same bluish-green tint that
made it appear wooded to the top. A hot spring takes its rise in the
mountain somewhere, and the tiny stream at my feet seemed hardly cold
yet, though its waters had travelled many miles from its source.
Fort Craig, though an important military post, is not celebrated for the
beauties or grandeur of the country surrounding. We crossed the Rio
Grande here again--two companies only, the colonel, with the other
three, having been assigned to Fort Craig. Toward the Jornada del Muerto
we journeyed, making camp before entering the desert at Parajo, the Fra
Cristobal of the Texan Santa Fé prisoners who were driven through here
in 1842, on their long, weary journey to the city of Mexico. They had
been captured, or rather tricked into a surrender, near Anton Chico,
and, from Albuquerque down, I traced them all along the Rio Grande. They
had been marched on the opposite side of the river, taking in their way
Sandia, Valencia, Tome, Casa Colorada, and La Joya, crossing the river
at Socarro, and recrossing probably near where Fort Craig now stands.
Such heart-rending tales as were told us of the sufferings and the
diabolical treatment of these helpless men--mere youths, some of them,
the sight of whom brought out all the native tenderness, the true
charity there is in the heart of every Mexican woman! As in Albuquerque,
the shadow of Governor Armijo--tall and stately, though with something
of a braggart in his carriage, and the glare of a hyena in his eye--was
ever rising before me, so in this wretched place did I seem always to
hear the gentle, pitying "_Pobrecitos!_" of the kind-hearted women, who
brought the last bit of _tornale_, the last scrap of _tortilla_ that
their miserable homes afforded, to these men who were so soon to be
driven like cattle, and shot down like dogs, when their bleeding feet
refused to carry them further on their thorny path. Had the horrible
stretch of ninety-five miles of desert-land now before us not been
christened "Dead Man's Journey" before these unfortunates passed over
it, the baptism of the blood of those wantonly slaughtered there would
have fastened on it that name forever.
Two companies of United States cavalry are not hastily attacked by ye
noble red man, and we slept peacefully on the Jornada--though close to
our tent, the first night, were two graves, dug for their murdered
comrades years ago by some of the men now in the company.
A number of wagons had been loaded with water-casks, filled before
entering the Jornada, so that we did not suffer; yet we were all glad
when, on the third day, Fort Seldon was reached. After a rest of two
days, we once more crossed the river, on a ferry-boat moved with a rope,
leaving the other company at Fort Seldon, and proceeding alone, with the
last company, to the farthest out-post of the department. At this place
we disposed of our carriage to the post surgeon, as we were told that
among the mountains in the vicinity of Pinos Altos we should have no use
for it, while the officers of this garrison could make excursions to
Donna Ana, Los Cruces, and even La Messilla, over the level and rather
pleasant country.
The first day out, a heavy rain-storm came on, and I was glad enough to
leave the saddle and seek shelter in the linen-covered army-wagon, where
Manuel arranged quite a comfortable bed for me--seat it could not be
called. And here let me say that, with bedding and blankets, spread over
boxes and bundles underneath, there is more comfort to be found in one
of these big wagons, where you can recline at full length, than in the
most elegant travelling-carriage, where you have always to maintain the
same position.
The stretch between Fort Seldon and Fort Cummings proved harder for us
than the Jornada del Muerto. It was reported that large bands of Indians
were hovering round us, and we could make no fires to cook by, but were
hurried on as fast as possible. Many of the horses gave out and had to
be shot; and my poor Toby was sometimes so tired from carrying me over
the rough country, and up and down the rocky hills, that more then once
he stopped and nibbled at my stirrup-foot--asking me in this peculiar
language to dismount.
The soldiers were better off than we were, for they had their rations of
hard-tack and salt bacon, which needed no cooking; while the dressed
chickens and tender-steaks we had providently brought from Fort Seldon
with us, uncooked, were going to decay in the provision-box, and we
might have gone hungry had not the men divided with us. No one can think
how sweet a bit of bacon tastes with a piece of hard-tack, when offered
by a soldier whose eyes are shining with honest delight at being able to
repay some trifling kindness shown him on the march.
The rock-strewn mountains of Cook's cañon frowned darkly on us as we
made our way into Fort Cummings. The sable garrison, it is said, never
ventured beyond the high mud walls with less than twenty-five in the
party, were it only to bring a load of wood from the nearest grove of
scanty timber.
At no post, I am fain to confess, have I seen a larger number of
mementos of Indian hostility than at this fort. And the negroes had all
the more cause to dread attacks from the Indians, as they had been
accosted the first time they went out--a fatigue-party, to cut wood--by
an Indian chief, who told them that he was their brother, and that it
was their duty to come and join his band against their common enemy, the
white man. The black braves refused, returning to the post without their
load of wood; and since that time no fatigue-party ever returned that
did not bring back at least one of their number dead or wounded.
The last thing we did before leaving this post was to stop at the large
basin of water, Cook's Spring, there to drink, and let the animals
drink, a last draught of the pure, clear flood. How many a heart had
this spring gladdened, when its sight broke on the longing eyes of the
emigrant, before human habitations were ever to be found here! Just at
the foot of the rough, endless mountain, the men who had come under
protection of our train from Fort Cummings pointed out where the two
mail-riders coming from Camp Bayard--our destination--had been ambushed
and killed by the Indians only the week before. I had heard of these two
men while at the Fort, one of whom, a young man hardly twenty, seemed to
have an unusually large number of friends among men of all classes and
grades. When smoking his farewell pipe before mounting his mule for the
trip to Camp Bayard, he said: "Boys, this is my last trip. Mother writes
that she is getting old and feeble; she wants me to come home; so I've
thrown up my contract with Uncle Sam, and I'm going back to Booneville
just as straight as God will let me, when I get back from Bayard. It's
hard work and small pay, anyhow--sixty dollars a month, and your scalp
at the mercy of the red devils every time you come out." The letter was
found in the boy's pocket when the mutilated body was brought in.
It was no idle fancy when I thought I could see the ground torn up in
one place as from the sudden striking out of horses' hoofs. One of the
men confirmed the idea that it was not far from the place where the body
had been found. The mule had probably taken the first fright just there,
where the rider had evidently received the first arrow, aimed with such
deadly skill that he fell in less than two minutes after it struck him.
This gloomy spot passed, the country opened far and wide before us;
level and rather monotonous, but with nothing of the parched, sterile
appearance that makes New Mexico so dreaded by most people. Trees were
few and far between; but later, where the Mimbres river rolls its placid
waters by, there are willows, and ash even, as I have heard people
affirm. But I must not forget the hot spring we camped by for an hour
or two, the _Aqua Caliente_ of the Mexicans. A square pond, to approach
which you must clamber up a natural mud wall some two feet high, lay
bubbling and steaming near the shade of some half dozen wide-spreading
trees. That corner of the pond where the water boils out of the earth
had once been tapped, apparently, and the water led to the primitive
bath-tubs, made by digging down into the hard, clayey ground. A
dismantled building showed that the place had at some time been
permanently occupied, which was said to be the case by the Mexican
family living under one of the trees, and who were sojourning here for
the purpose of having life restored to the paralyzed limbs of one of the
children. The people who had lived here were driven off by Indians, but
I have heard since that the place had been rebuilt.
The second day after leaving Fort Cummings we came in sight of a lovely
valley, enclosed on all sides by low wooded hills, with bold,
picturesque mountains rising to the sky beyond. A clear brook--so clear
that it was rightly baptized Minne-ha-ha--gambolled and leaped and
flashed among the green trees and the white tents they overhung; and in
their midst a flag-staff, at whose head the stars and stripes were
flying, told me that we had reached our journey's end.
_TO TEXAS, AND BY THE WAY._