and noble hospitality. It is recorded in Dr. Willard's tablets, that
one day he dined with the governor; and on another was invited to
spend the evening with some _donna_, or family of respectability; that
his patients and friends often called upon him, to invite him to ride
with them to this point and to that; and that a horse or carriage was
always provided on such occasions. Such hospitalities, it is true, are
unexpensive in a country, where farmers have six or eight thousand
horses or mules, forty thousand cattle, and twice as many sheep. But
churlish and boorish people will always be inhospitable, cost the
efforts to be otherwise little or much. This single trait in their
character went far with us to conciliate kind feeling and good will
towards them.
Writers on this country have generally represented its climate as
variable and unequal. Dr. Willard found Taos, Sante Fe and Chihuahua
to possess a very agreeable climate. It was never so warm there, as
in some days of our summer. The temperature seemed to him equable,
and seldom falling much below, or rising far above our temperate
summer heat. The country suffers much from aridity, and the want of
the shelter of our trees and noble forests. A few miserable, stinted
shrubberies of a diminutive growth, like that which covers our
shrub-oak plains, called musqueto wood, is only found at intervals.
These countries are so elevated, that beyond 28° north latitude, the
ground is sometimes whitened with snow and frost. Muriates of soda
and lime, and nitrate of potash, and other saline substances, abound
on the surface, and often so encrust the soil, as to bid defiance to
cultivation. The mountains at the sources of the Arkansas are sublime
elevations. There are sometimes cultivable table summits on their
peaks. That the soil is underlaid with strata of calcareous rock, is
manifest from a very astonishing {268} recorded phenomenon. In 1752 the
Rio del Norte became dry for an extent of 150 leagues. The water had
sunk, and passed through subterranean channels, and so continued to
flow for some weeks; when, no doubt, the chasm became choked, and the
river resumed its former bed. Among the most important Indian tribes
are the Commanche, Appache and Navijo. They live on horseback, and
keep the inhabitants constantly on the alert and alarm. They are the
Ishmaelites and Tartars of these deserts. It seldom rains; and when
rains happen, the spring of that country may be said to have commenced.
The naked, red and rolling surface of the wide prairies, only limited
by rude and rugged mountains, become at once covered with a tender
and deep verdure. This spring happens in September. The whole country
becomes as an ocean of verdure. Few frosts occur. When the dry season
returns, this grass may be said to be cured standing. The cattle
feed and fatten upon it, when in its state of verdant tenderness.
It afterwards sustains them as substantial hay. Hence, and from the
mildness and salubrity of the climate, and its destitution of storms,
its advantages for a grazing and a shepherd's country. Hence its
infinite numbers of fine mules, horses, cattle and sheep; and hence,
also, its innumerable droves of antelopes, deer and buffaloes.
All cultivation is carried on only by artificial irrigation; and it
seems wonderful, how providence has adapted a country, which could
produce but few of the edible cerealia without it, for irrigation.
Abundant rains fall on the mountains; and the flush waters are
collected in the Rio del Norte, which rolls down these arid plains
in such a channel, and by such a gentle slope, that each of the
inhabitants along this water course can command just as much water as
his necessities of cultivation require. Where the soil is fertile, it
will naturally be imagined, how delightful and luxuriant those fields
and gardens will be, when the owners can command just as frequent
waterings as they choose. Art works a miniature sample; but it has a
neatness and finish, which we look for in vain in the great scale
of nature's rough operations. In Chihuahua, their trees, planted for
ornament and shade, require to be irrigated; and a person {269} is
appointed by a municipality, whose business it is to take care of the
trees, and see that they want not for water. Of course, native trees
can only be expected on the misty and cool tops of the hills, and near
the constant moisture of streams and ponds. It will not be difficult
to imagine, that in a very windy climate--and this is such,--where,
too, it rains moderately only a few days in the year, they will have
ample opportunities to know what dust means. But it so happens, that
there is little travel,--little cause to break the sward, or disturb
the tranquil monotony of nature; and the people have become accustomed
to look on the brown-yellow and sear surface, during a great portion of
the year, with the same patient composure of endurance, with which we
regard the mud, desolation and frost of winter.
These people live, as the honest Irishman said of his farm on Lake
Erie, "a thousand miles from home, and five hundred from any place!"
They are nearly a thousand miles from Matamoras, still farther from
Mexico; and as far from the settled parts of our country. The mail
goes and returns, so as that an answer can be had from Mexico in about
two months. Our municipal arts are almost unknown to them. They make
whiskey it is true; but all the saw they know, and all the water or
steam power, for making building plank, is the human steam power of a
broadaxe, or an awkward hatchet, applied to the cloven sections of a
log. It seems incredible, that such can be the state of the mechanic
arts among a policed people, living under a government; but such is
the fact. Not a word need be said about the external improvement, the
buildings, and finishings of dwellings, exterior and interior, when the
plank are made with a broadaxe. Yet Dr. Willard mentions a splendid
stone church at Chihuahua, which cost 300,000 dollars, was supported
by Corinthian pillars, and glittered with gilding. The houses in the
towns are generally built of unburnt bricks; in many instances in the
form of a parallelogram, or hollow square, making the fronts at once
mural defences, and the fronts of dwellings. The floors are, for the
most part, brick or composition,--that is {270} to say, clay, lime,
&c. pulverized, and cemented with blood, or other glutinous and sizy
liquids.
Dr. Willard's narrative incidentally brings to light, with a great
degree of _naivete_, many of the interior lights and shades of their
social intercourse and manners. Nothing can well be imagined, more
unlike ours; and yet there are many points of resemblance, in which
all civilized people must possess a similarity of manners. It is
wonderful, how, with their extreme bigotry, they could so readily have
admitted an unknown stranger to their intimacy and confidence. They
evidently are a dancing generation; for fandangoes are matters of very
frequent occurrence. Our young physician generally noted the presence
of the minister at these places, which a reverend gentleman here has
denominated 'squeezes,'--a word which, however, seems more vulgar and
less respectable than fandango.
Upon surveying the state of society, and the progress of improvement,
cultivation and refinement in these countries, we can hardly forbear
something like a feeling of exultation, on comparing our condition
with theirs. What an immense distance between the state of society in
this place and Chihuahua, a place of nearly half the size, and thrice
the age, and the same distance from the sea! What would a Cincinnatian
think of building a house, if the planks were to be hewed from our
oaks by a broadaxe? What a spectacle would be the state of things
here to a citizen of that place! What surprise and astonishment would
the _don creole_ of that country experience, if transported to Lowell
in Massachusetts, with its million wheels flying in dizzying, and at
first view, inexplicable confusion! Yet they have mines innumerable,
and ingots of silver; and one farmer owns ten thousand horses and
mules,--and still sleeps under the puncture of fleas, on a wretched
bed, supported upon an earth floor--without chairs, without hearths,
and chimneys and fire places; in short, the lower classes dwell in
habitations like the comfortless dens of Indians.
They want freedom. They want the collision of rival minds. They want
liberty, that cannot be supplied either by constitutions, {271} or
laws, or enactments. So long as bigotry reigns, so long as the terrors
of perdition are held up as determents from all freedom of thinking,
and all mental elasticity, their condition cannot ameliorate. Let a
miserable, ignorant priest lay down the law, and prescribe just how
men may think and act--when they shall go to church, and when stay
at home--when they must stand, kneel, or sit, and we should soon be
here the same mischievous grown up infants, that they seem to be, with
all the appetites and passions and stubbornness of men, and all the
mental laziness and imbecility of children. Our free institutions are,
no doubt, attended with their disadvantages; and there may be some
peculiar pleasures belonging to such a state of society as exists at
Chihuahua. But with all the licentiousness of our press, with all the
bitterness of the hundred tongues of calumny, with all our rivalry
and competition, and disposition to pull each other down, that we
may fill the vacancy, give us our free institutions, with all their
scourges and all their curses; where men may be truly men; where the
mind need not feel itself shut up between two adamantine walls; where
no one need fear to think because a stupid doctor in divinity assures
him he will be damned, if he dares to think. Give us freedom, with
all its appendant drawbacks. Deliver us from the abominations of a
dominant church establishment. Deliver us from a submission, and a
cringing conformity, which is not enjoined by the voluntary movement
of a free mind, but which is extorted by a creed maker, armed with
a little brief and bad authority. It seems to us, as if even the
sincere prayers of the people, who are compelled by law to pray,
could not ascend acceptably to Him, whose only temple is the free
heart. It is evident, that the hierarchy of New Spain has received an
incurable shock from the revolution there. But it has been grafted
on the ignorance and bigotry of centuries. It operates as cause and
effect, acting and reacting for its own benefit; and it will be ages
to come, before its bad predominance will pass away. We would not be
understood to object to the Catholic church, as such. We believe it at
present {272} among the most tolerant and liberal churches; and they
are wretchedly mistaken, who think, that bigotry belongs exclusively to
that profession. It is a cheering consideration in our country, that
the bigotry of one denomination neutralizes that of another; so that
"all nature's discord makes all nature's peace." Heaven defend us from
a dominant religion, or a worship enforced by law!
Various Spanish writers, Malte-Brun, Humboldt, Gen. Pike, and others,
have described this country superficially; Gen. Pike, perhaps, more
satisfactorily, and more to the common apprehension, than any who
preceded him. Baron Humboldt, only travelled it, and rapidly, in one
direction.[136] Pike was a kind of a state prisoner, while in it, and
was necessarily, much restricted in his means for making observations.
Perhaps no person has had more ample chances of this kind, than Dr.
Willard. Unfortunately, he was there with the feeling and temperament,
which are usually appended to the people from his section of the
country, and whose principle object is to secure, what the New
Englander calls the main chance. He now bitterly regrets, that he did
not more highly appreciate, while he was in that interesting, and in a
great measure undescribed and unexplored country, his opportunities to
have made a book of travels of very high interest.
As it was, he remained in the country nearly three years, made his
first essays at operating on the living fibre among the New-Mexicans,
traversed the whole extent of country from Taos to Matamoras, a
distance by the travelled line, of more than 2000 miles. He travelled
leisurely, and at intervals, through the country, practising physic
at the more important towns, making some stay at Santa Fe, Chihuahua,
Monterey, Saltilleo, Maspimi, Matamoras, &c. We note in his journal,
which details the events and journeyings of each day, proofs of
the hospitality of the higher classes of the citizens, and of the
readiness of the people to trust themselves to an American stranger,
who appears among them in the character of a physician, {273} although
they consider him a heretic. This is evidence conclusive of their
deep respect for the supposed learning, acuteness and talents of the
people from our division of the continent. He made money rapidly,
as a physician among them. But it seems, he looked from the 'leeks
and fleshpots' of this distant and strange country, with a filial
remembrance, towards the common mother of us all, the land of his
birth; and preferred to return, and encounter the scramble and
competition of an over crowded profession, certainly with inferior
prospects of present pecuniary advantage. We admire that feeling,
in our countrymen, which prompts them, in remote and foreign lands,
still to turn their thoughts towards home, as the place of the
charities, views and motives, that render life desirable. A true
hearted American, living or dying, as long as pulsation lasts, _dulces
reminiscitur Argos_. It will gratify the reader to learn, that our
enterprising, modest and amiable traveller spoiled the Philistines, in
an honorable and honest way, of a sum of dollars, which to a young,
sober and calculating New-Englander, may be considered the embryo germ
of a future fortune.
We left him last at Chihuahua. He left this place, August 5, 1827.
Unfrequent as rains are, he records being wet with a shower on the
way to San Pablo. On the 11th, another shower is recorded. From these
casual records, we should infer, that the aridity of the country has
been overstated, as the records of rains occur in this journal almost
as frequently, as they would in our country at the same period. The
loss of four mules is mentioned on the night of the 12th. The loss of
horses stolen is also mentioned, as a frequent occurrence. Once or
twice all his clothes, save those he wore, were taken off, during his
sleep, at his place of encampment. It is noted often, as a circumstance
of hardship, that he encamps at night without water; and, once or
twice, that the beasts travel all day, without finding either grass,
or other feed. Frequent mention is made of _haciendas_, _ranchos_,
and small villages. Among them are noted Vera Cruz, San Blas and San
Bernardo. He arrives at Mapimi, September 7th. The night before his
arrival his {274} best horse was stolen. He stays on the 14th at San
Lorenzo, where the grape is cultivated to a considerable extent; wine,
brandy, and dried fruit being important articles of their commerce.
The large establishment here occupies from 150 to 200 hands. The whole
of this magnificent and expensive establishment is owned by a young
widow. He thinks the wine rich, and of a fine flavor, describing it,
as having the sweetness of a Greek wine. On the 19th he arrives at
Saltillio.[137] This town he supposes to contain 10,000 souls; a great
proportion of them Indians. The valley, in which it is situated, he
describes, as one great beauty; deeply verdant, and productive of rich
fruits. It is surrounded by rugged and lofty mountains. Great part of
Baring's famous purchase lies between Paras and this place, a distance
of 88 miles. He considers the intermediate country by no means a
fertile one. In all these places he meets Americans, whom he names; and
notes the places of their birth. On the 21st he records passing many
fine farms, and in one instance a line of stone wall, laid perfectly
regular and straight three miles in length, and enclosing a rich wheat
field.
There is little in the subsequent notes of the journal, which would so
much interest the general reader, as the mass of information, thrown
together in the notes upon the country, which follow. We recommend them
to the attentive perusal of the reader, as we give them substantially
in the author's own words. The reader will not find in them the manner
of Baron Humboldt, or Malte Brun. They have no resemblance, either,
to the remarks of Gen. Pike. But they have the piquancy and freshness
of being the views of a shrewd, and intelligent young man, who had
his eyes open, and was accustomed to make observations, although to
make money was his first vocation. It is, perhaps, from views like the
following, that we form more definite and adequate conceptions of a
country, than from the scientific and ambitious writings of practised
scholars, and travellers, who commence their career with the professed
purpose to make a book.
{275} General aspect of the country embraced in a tour from Council
Bluffs, Mo. to Santa Fe, New-Mexico, thence down the general course of
the Rio del Norte to its mouth, comprising a distance of 2000 miles.
The physical appearance of that part of the country, lying between the
limits of Missouri and the Rocky mountains, is generally well known
to be, comparatively speaking, an illimitable expanse of prairie. That
portion of country, situated between the Missouri and the head waters
of the Osage rivers, is considerably undulating; the lower situations
of which abound, more or less, with timber, grass and small streams;
the higher portions are usually covered with grass only.
When arriving at the termination of this immense valley, we meet
abruptly the Rocky mountains, or the southern extremity of that chain
so celebrated for eternal snows and rocks. These mountains are mostly
covered with pines, some spruce, hemlock and white birch. On the top of
the mountain we found several vallies abounding with natural meadow,
and having the appearance of receiving daily showers and heavy dews.
Here the atmosphere was delightfully cool, while the plains on each
side were so destitute of rain, as to render the air sultry, and to
require irrigation for all the common products of agriculture.
The province of New Mexico is rather more mountainous, than that
part formerly called New Biscay, now state of Chihuahua; but is
interspersed with some rich vallies, particularly those bordering on
the Rio del Norte. The city of Santa Fe is situated 25 miles from the
river, at the barren foot of a mountain. It was established about
the beginning of the 17th century, and seems to have been formerly a
place of considerable importance, as a rendezvous for troops. It now
contains perhaps not far from two thousand souls, the most of whom
have the appearance of penury. The mines in the neighborhood of Santa
Fe were formerly worked, but are now abandoned. The principal articles
of commerce are sheep, blankets, buffalo hides, and sometimes their
meat and tallow, peltry, salt, and {276} the common production of
agriculture, as corn, wheat, beans, onions, &c.
At the Passo del Norte, an important village, the grape is cultivated
to a very considerable extent, of which they prepare excellent wine
and brandy, making use of hides for mashing vats. For these articles
they find market at Santa Fe and Chihuahua. Dried grapes, apples,
onions, &c. are taken down in great abundance. Chihuahua and its
vicinity, with all the territory north of it, is supplied with salt
from a lake in the neighborhood of the Passo. There is, also, about
two day's ride west of this place, an exceedingly rich copper mine,
which was worked for many years by Pablo Guerra, an European Spaniard,
who realized some hundred _talegas_ [a bag of 1000 dollars] from
its proceeds. In consequence of the late law of expulsion, he was
obliged to relinquish it.[138] It is now worked by two Americans, Mr.
Andrew Curcier, a merchant in Chihuahua, from Philadelphia, and Robt.
McKnight, from St. Louis, Mo. A considerable amount of gold is found in
this same mine; but, I believe, not incorporated with the copper.
That part of the republic called Sonora, bounded by the gulf of
California, is celebrated for its rich mines of silver and gold. These
metals, together with mules, horses, beeves, hides, and peltry, are
exchanged for articles of merchandize, which are mostly supplied by the
Americans from Missouri. They, however, procure some part by arrivals
by sea in the port of Guimus, situated on the Gulf. It was in this
part of the country that the Indians were most troublesome, during my
residence there.
The tribe then hostile belonged to the _Yacqui_ nation, united, I
believe, to some of the Navajo tribe; both of which are exceedingly
numerous and rapacious. Pitica, Arrispe, and Guimus are the principal
towns or villages within that state. Upper California apparently has
but little correspondence with that, or any other country; as brave
Indian tribes inhabit the head of the Gulf, the Rio Colorado and
adjacent country, so {277} that the inhabitants are in a measure cut
off from correspondence with the rest of the world.
Chihuahua is an incorporated city of about nine thousand souls, and the
largest north of Durango. It is regularly laid out, but indifferently
built; containing five or six churches, of which the Paroque is
splendid, it being constructed of hewn stone, from base to spire.
The temple of Guadaloupe, is also elegant but smaller. The numerous
paintings, of course religious, which are suspended within, do honor
to the nation in the art of painting; they being according to my
taste, better executed, than the celebrated painting of Mr. West at
Philadelphia. This town seems to have been established by the Jesuits,
at an early day; and located to suit the convenience of the mining
country. There is yet remaining abundant evidence of their superior
skill and perseverance, in the arts of building, mining, &c. The place
now contains about thirty smelting furnaces, the most of which are
generally in blast, and which, in the course of the year separate
a great quantity of the precious metals. The most part of the ore
smelted at this place is brought from La Roche, some 150 miles, over
an exceedingly mountainous country. Their only mode of transportation
is on the back of mules, which are made to carry 300 lbs. each.
These loads produce from 25 to 50 and $100 each, according to their
quality. Price of smelting per load is $14; freight from 6 to $7. This
mineral is bought and sold at the mines, as an article of merchandise,
according to its purity. In regard to manufactures, there are few in
Chihuahua; and, I believe, not many north of the city of Mexico; though
in this place there is no lack of carpenters, shoemakers, hatters,
tailors, blacksmiths, jewellers and painters. But they are of the most
ordinary kind. The city is under municipal regulation. A board of
twelve Alcaldes, constituting a junta, execute justice, according to
common sense, and their notion of right and wrong, provided interest
or partiality do not happen to preside.--Law, I believe, is seldom
consulted in matters of common place litigation. They, however, have
higher tribunals to which appeals {278} can be taken, and by which
criminal causes are tried; but an appeal is almost an unheard of issue.
The _carcel_ or jail, abounds with old and young, male and female,
mostly committed under charges of theft, assassination and murder. The
court recently ventured to pass sentence of death on a man between 25
and 30 years of age, after having acknowledged that he had committed
ten murders; yet a great deal of commiseration was excited for his case
by the priests and lower orders of society. They have now a workhouse,
where all the lower classes of criminals are made to labor.