IN THE LAND OF CAVE
AND CLIFF DWELLERS
BY
LIEUT. FREDERICK SCHWATKA
AUTHOR OF "THE CHILDREN OF THE COLD," "NIMROD IN
THE NORTH; OR, HUNTING AND FISHING ADVENTURES
IN THE ARCTIC REGIONS," ETC.
NEW EDITION
EDUCATIONAL PUBLISHING COMPANY
BOSTON
NEW YORK CHICAGO SAN FRANCISCO
COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY
THE CASSELL PUBLISHING CO.
COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY
THE EDUCATIONAL PUBLISHING CO.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. NORTHWESTERN CHIHUAHUA--PREPARING FOR
THE EXPEDITION--FROM DEMING, N. M., TO
CASAS GRANDES, CHIHUAHUA, 1
II. NORTHWESTERN CHIHUAHUA (_Continued_)--MEXICAN
MORMON COLONIES--FROM LA ASCENCION
TO CORRALITOS--SOME RUINS ALONG THE
TAPASITA--A TOLTEC BABYLON, 34
III. SONORA--ALONG THE SONORA RAILWAY--HERMOSILLO--GUAYMAS,
AND ITS BEAUTIFUL HARBOR--FISHING AND HUNTING
ABOUT GUAYMAS, 80
IV. CENTRAL CHIHUAHUA--FROM THE CITY OF
CHIHUAHUA WESTWARD TO THE GREAT MEXICAN
MINING BELT, 131
V. CENTRAL CHIHUAHUA--IN THE LAND OF THE
LIVING CAVE AND CLIFF DWELLERS--THE
TARAHUMARI INDIANS, CIVILIZED AND SAVAGE, 172
VI. THROUGH THE SIERRA MADRES--ON MULE-BACK
WESTWARD FROM CARICHIC, 206
VII. SOUTHWESTERN CHIHUAHUA--AMONG THE CAVE
AND CLIFF DWELLERS IN THE HEART OF THE
SIERRA MADRE RANGE, 227
VIII. IN SOUTHWESTERN CHIHUAHUA--DOWN THE
URIQUE BARRANCA--FROM PINE TO PALM--URIQUE
AND ITS MINES, 265
IX. SOUTHWESTERN CHIHUAHUA--DESCRIPTION OF
ONE OF THE RICHEST SILVER REGIONS OF THE
WORLD--MINERAL WEALTH OF THE SIERRA
MADRES--THE BATOPILAS DISTRICT, 311
X. SOUTHWESTERN CHIHUAHUA--THE RETURN BY
ANOTHER TRAIL--THE CAÑON OF THE
CHURCHES--AMONG THE CLIFF DWELLERS, 345
[Illustration: FALLS OF THE BECORACHIC, SIERRA MADRE MOUNTAINS,
1239 FEET HIGH]
IN THE LAND OF
CAVE AND CLIFF DWELLERS.
CHAPTER I.
NORTHWESTERN CHIHUAHUA--PREPARING FOR THE EXPEDITION--FROM DEMING,
N. M., TO CASAS GRANDES, CHIHUAHUA.
The first chapter describing an expedition is liable to be prosaic to
the point of dullness. It is full of promises that are expected to be
realized, while as yet nothing has been done. Not one-tenth of these
may formulate, and yet the expedition may be a success in unexpected
results; for in no undertaking is there so much uncertainty as in
travel through little known countries. Then, again, the writer is
likely to consider himself called upon to give a lengthy description of
the party in the preliminary letter, and, as I have often seen, even
descend to an enumeration of the qualities of the cook or the color of
the mules. The next night the cook may desert and the mules may run
away, so that others must be procured, and therefore they are of no
more interest to the reader than any other of the millions of cooks or
mules that would make any writer wealthy if he could find a publisher
who would print his description of them. I intend to break away from
that stereotyped formula in this first chapter and briefly state
that I was in the field of Northern Mexico, hoping to obtain new and
interesting matter beyond the everlasting descriptions that are now
pumped up for the public by versatile writers along the beaten lines
of tourist travel, as determined by the railroads, and, occasionally,
the diligence lines. I had a good outfit of wagons, horses, mules, and
last, but not least, men for that purpose. Each and every member of the
expedition will be heard from when anything has been done by them, and
not before. When the mule Dulce kicks a hectare of daylight through the
cook for spilling hot grease on his heels I will give a description
of Dulce and an obituary notice of the cook; but until then they will
remain out of the account.
We crossed the boundary south of Deming early in March, 1889, and
entered Mexican territory, where our travels can be said to have begun.
If one will take the pains to look at a map of this portion of Mexico
he will see that it projects into the United States some distance
beyond the average northern boundary, the Rio Grande being to our east,
and an "offset," as we would say in surveying, being to our west, this
"offset" running north and south. This flat peninsula projecting into
our own country can be better understood by visiting it and comparing
it with the surrounding land of the United States, coupled with a
history of the country. Roughly speaking, the Mexican-United States
boundary, as settled by the Mexican War, followed the line of the
Southern Pacific Railway as now constructed, and the so-called Gadsden
purchase from Mexico of a few years later fixed the boundary as we now
see it, giving us a narrow, sabulous strip of Mexican territory, but a
definite boundary, easily established by surveys.
[Illustration: OUTFITTING AT DEMING]
The Mexicans were on the ground and knew just what they were doing
when they arranged for selling us this narrow strip; while, as usual,
we did everything from Washington, and knew just about as little
concerning it as we possibly could and be sure we were purchasing a
part of Mexico. The Mexicans ran this flat-topped peninsula far to the
north, inclosing lakes, rivers, and springs, and waters innumerable;
while, as a generous compensation, they gave us more land to the west,
but a land where a coyote carries three days' rations of jerked jack
rabbit whenever he makes up his mind to cross it. There is no more
comparison between the offset of Mexico that projects here into the
United States, and the offset from the United States that projects
into Mexico west of here, than there is in comparing the fertile plains
of Iowa or Illinois with Greenland or the Great Sahara Desert.
Everyone familiar with the exceedingly rich lands of the Southwest,
when so much of it is worthless for want of water, knows how valuable
that liquid is in this region, especially if it occurs in quantities
sufficiently large for the purposes of irrigation. I have stood on
land that I could purchase for five cents an acre or less, and that
stretched out behind me for limitless leagues, and could jump on other
land whose owner had refused a number of hundreds of dollars an acre,
although, as far as the eye could see, there was no more difference
between them than between any two adjoining acres on an Illinois farm.
The real difference was one to be determined by the surveyor's level,
which showed that water could be put on the valuable tract and not on
the other. This also is the difference between the Mexican "offset" in
the North, lying between the Rio Grande and the meridianal boundary
to the west, and the American tract that juts into Mexico just west
of this again. They both share the same soil as you gaze at them from
the deck of your "burro," and you can even see no difference in them
on closer inspection, after your mule has assisted you to alight; but
there is a real and tangible value difference of from one hundred to
two hundred dollars a year per acre between the grapes and other fruits
and vegetables you can raise on one, with water trickling round their
roots, and the sagebrush and grease wood of the other, not rating at
ten cents a township.
The diplomats of our country at Washington may be all Talleyrands in
astuteness, but in the Gadsden purchase they got left so far behind
that they have never yet been able to see how badly they were handled
in the bargain.
As our people travel along the line of the Southern Pacific Railway,
through its arid wastes of sand and sunshine, they can little realize
the beautiful country of Northern Chihuahua and Sonora that lies so
close to them to the southward. And yet some of this seemingly arid
land in Southern New Mexico and Arizona is destined to become of far
more value than its present appearance would indicate. Anglo-Saxon
energy is converting little patches here and there into fertile spots,
and these are constantly increasing. A great portion of the land
is fine for cattle grazing, and these little oases make centers of
crystallizing civilization, which render the country for miles around
valuable for this important industry.
The persons who believe that New Mexico will not eventually become one
of the finest States in our Union belong to the class of those who put
Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas in the great American desert a decade or
two ago.
There is still another physical feature of at least Northern Mexico
that I have never seen dwelt upon, even in the numerous physical
geographies that are now extant, and it is well worth explaining.
Books innumerable have spoken of the _tierra caliente_, or low, hot
lands near the coast, the _tierra templada_, or temperate lands of
the interior plateaus, and the _tierra fria_, or cold lands of the
mountains and higher plateaus; and these subdivisions are really good
as explaining Mexican climate, but they give us but little idea of
the country's surface itself beyond that of altitude, and even less
regarding its resources and adaptability to the wants of man. The
_tierra caliente_, or hot lands of the coast, are out of the question
as habitations for white men; but the _tierra templada_ and _tierra
fria_, as everyone familiar with climatology knows, gives us the finest
climate in the world, as do all elevated plateaus in sub-tropical
countries. But these elevated plateaus, or different portions of them,
are not alike in resources, and their variations are simply due to the
variations in the water supply.
The backbone ridge of mountains in Mexico is the Sierra Madre, or
Mother Mountains, for from them all other ridges and spurs seem to
emanate. From their crests, as with all other mountains in the world,
spring innumerable rivulets and creeks, which, uniting, form rivers.
But nearly everywhere else these streams increase in size by the
addition of the waters of other tributaries until they reach the sea.
Not so with the Mexican rivers of this locality. Shortly after leaving
the mountains and reaching the foothills, they receive no additions
from other sources, and after flowing from fifty to one hundred miles
they sink into the ground. These "sinks" are usually large lakes,
and a map of the country would make one believe that the rivers were
emptying into them, but in reality they only disappear as just stated,
to reappear in the hot lands as the heads of rivers. Now all the
country between the Sierra Madre and the "sinks," or at least all the
valley country, can be readily irrigated by this perennial flow of
water. The rivers are fringed with trees, and the grass is in excellent
condition, while beyond, the plains are treeless, the soil arid, and
the prospect cheerless in comparison. To particularize: if the reader
looks at the map of Chihuahua he will see a series of lakes (they are
the "sinks" to which I refer): Laguna de Guzman, Laguna (the Spanish
for lake) de Santa Maria, Laguna de Patos, etc., extending nearly north
and south, and parallel with the crest of the Sierra Madres. Between
the lakes and the crest is a beautiful country, capable of sustaining a
dense population; while outside of it, to the eastward, so much cannot
be said in its favor, although probably the latter is a good grazing
district. Now the railway runs outside or eastward of the line of the
"sinks," where the country is flat and the engineering difficulties are
at a minimum; and as nearly all the descriptions we have of Mexico are
based upon observations made from car windows, it is easy to see how
erroneous an opinion can be formed of this northern portion of Mexico,
which is so constantly, though conscientiously, misrepresented by
scores of writers.
The first lake we came to in Mexico was Laguna Las Palomas (the
Doves), only a few miles beyond the boundary, and to secure which
Mexico was smart enough to get in the offset to which I have referred.
It is, I think, the "sink" of the Mimbres River, which, as a river,
lies wholly in the southwestern portion of New Mexico. It disappears,
however, before it crosses the boundary, to reappear as sixty or
seventy huge springs in Mexico (any one of these would be worth
$20,000 to $25,000 as water is now sold in the arid districts), which
drain into a beautiful lake, backed by a high sierra, the Las Palomas
Mountains, altogether forming a very picturesque scene. All the country
around is quite level, and thousands of acres can here be irrigated
with this enormous water supply; while it can only be done by the
quarter section in the Southwest on our side of the line, except,
probably, in a few rare instances.
This was a favorite "stamping ground" of the more warlike bands of
Apache Indians but a few years ago. The water and grass for their
ponies and the game for themselves made it their veritable Garden of
Eden; settlement, therefore, was out of the question until these bold
marauders could be ejected with powder and lead. Not two leagues to
the north the road from Deming, N. M., to Las Palomas passes over two
graves of as many Apaches, killed a few years ago; while on a hill
hard by can be seen three crescent-shaped heaps of stones where the
great Apache chief Victorio, with three or four score warriors, made
a stand against the combined forces of the United States and Mexico,
which proved entirely too much for him in the resulting combat. More
worthless or meaner Indians were never driven out of a country than
were the Apaches after they had found this region uninhabitable, or at
least unbearable for their murderous methods of life; and for much of
the decisive action that led to this desirable end we have to thank the
Mexicans.
The way the Las Palomas Mountains have of rising sheer out of a level
country is quite common in this region, plainly showing that the
mountains once rose from a great sea that washed their bases, and when
it receded with the uplifting of this region it left the level plain
to show where its flat bottom had been ages before. A fine example of
this is seen in the mountains called Tres Hermanas (the Three Sisters),
very near the boundary line, and but a few miles from the wagon road
leading from Deming south into old Mexico. They form an interesting
feature in the landscape as viewed from the railway on approaching
Deming, and are the subject of an illustration by our artist.
[Illustration: TRES HERMANAS (THE THREE SISTERS)]
Sometimes a single peak just gets its head above the level plain by a
few hundred feet, while again, great ranges extend for miles, their
tops covered with snow in the winter months. However long that level
plain may be, it always extends without break or interruption to
the next range. A railway would have but little trouble, so far as
grades are concerned, in getting through this country. It might be
necessary to wind a great deal to avoid hills and mountains, but if
the constructors were lavish with rails and ties, and did not mind
mileage, the grade would be almost as simple as building on a floor;
in fact it is the floor of an old inland ocean.
A profile view of some of these ranges and isolated peaks gives some
very grotesque as well as picturesque views, and imaginative people of
the Southwest fancy they see many silhouette designs in the crests of
the mountains. Faces seem to predominate, and especially is Montezuma's
face quite lavishly distributed over this region. I think I can recall
at least a half dozen of them in the Southwest since I first visited
there in 1867. This unfortunate Aztec monarch must have had a very
rocky looking face, or his descendants must have thought exceeding well
of him to sculpture him so often, even in fancy, upon the mountain
crests.
I went into a little face-making business of my own, so as to keep
along in the custom of the country while I was there. The most
southerly peak of the Florida range had quite a well-defined face,
upturned to the sky, that, to my imagination, looked more like the
well-known face of Benjamin Franklin than any other of nature's
sculpturing so often portrayed in mountains when assisted by the fancy
of man.
Before leaving Las Palomas our material underwent inspection by the
customs officials, and no people could have been more polite and
considerate than were these officers toward us, giving us our necessary
papers without putting us to the inconvenience of unpacking our many
boxes and bundles. There is this peculiarity about Mexican frontier
customs: after passing the first one you are by no means through
with them, for the next two, three, or even four towns may also have
customhouse officers. I was in a Mexican town, La Ascencion, and had a
wagon unloaded before I knew they had a customhouse. I expected to be
shot at reveille the next morning; but instead they politely passed all
my personal baggage without even asking to see it, simply examining the
papers received at the first customhouse.
[Illustration: PACHECO PEAK.]
After leaving Las Palomas our course lay southward across a high
_mesa_, or table-land, until we reached the Boca Grande River. The
scenery along the Boca Grande is picturesque and somewhat peculiar.
The river bottom is flat, very wide, and rich in soil; but on the
flanks rise the Mexican mountains sheer out of the plains. To the
west are the Sierra Madres, covered with snow on the highest peaks,
making some of the most beautiful views I have ever seen as presented
from different points along the river's course. One of them, Pacheco
Peak, in the Boca Grande range (named after the Mexican Minister of
the Interior), is shown in the illustration. Slight spurs and _mesa_
lands extend from the sierras in the valleys and often reach the river
bank, thereby forcing the road over them, but affording a foundation
that any macadamized highway in our own country might emulate. Some of
these ridges were ornamented with groupings of cactus (of the oquetilla
variety), if their presence can be called an ornament. Imagine a dozen
fishing rods, from ten to fifteen feet in length, all radiating from a
central point like a bouquet of bayonets, and each rod holding hundreds
of spikes throughout its length. You will thus have a faint idea of the
appearance of a bunch of oquetilla cactus. These bunches seem to prefer
growing along the rocky crests in rows of tolerable regularity that, to
a person at a distance, suggest the work of human hands.
[Illustration: OQUETILLA CACTUS.]
We traveled some thirty miles along the river without seeing a living
thing except a few jack rabbits and coyotes, when suddenly we rounded
a bend of the beautiful Boca Grande and came upon a stretch of valley
covered with zacaton grass, and which in a few years will be a valuable
ranche. Across this we saw two as hard-looking characters approaching
us as ever cut a throat. I was preparing to hand over to them all my
Mexican money and other valuables when they politely touched their hats
and simply said, "Documentos." Here, again, in the far-off woods and
hills were more customhouse officials. These men were here to prevent
smugglers from crossing the border between the towns and established
highways.
We lunched that day on Espia Hill, used formerly as a customhouse post
of observation, but the Apache chief Geronimo, raiding through here,
collected a poll tax of one scalp apiece, and since then the post has
been abandoned. A short distance further the river changes from the
Boca Grande to the Casas Grandes.
The Boca Grande and the Casas Grandes are the same river, like the Wind
River and the Big Horn in our own country, the two changing names at
a certain point. In other words, they have the same river bed, for in
the dryest seasons the Casas Grandes sinks and reappears further down
as the Boca Grande, the two streams being really identical most of the
way, however, and both of them emptying into the great "sink" known
as Laguna Guzman. I noticed one peculiarity of the rocky soil on the
ridges extending down from the foothills of the mountains that I have
never seen elsewhere, and might not have noticed even here had it not
been pointed out to me by one of my guides. Great areas of the soil
were covered with stones, mostly flat in shape, and so numerous that
but little vegetation could exist between them. A decidedly desolate
aspect was thus presented; indeed no one would believe that anything
except the oquetilla cactus could possibly grow here. One of my Mexican
men, however, assured me that the stones were only on the surface,
and that by removing them the richest of red soil could be found
underneath, not affording a single stone in a cubic yard of earth.
The soil had not been washed away when the rains beat down upon it,
as this "top-dressing" of flat rock had shielded it from such action,
protecting it, let us hope, for the future use of man. They told me
this peculiar kind was the richest and most easily cultivated soil in
Mexico, but it looked, with its covering of rocks, poor enough to put
in some terrestrial almshouse along with the Sahara Desert.
This whole Southwest, or rather Northwest from a Mexican standpoint,
is a country of deceptive appearances. Hundreds of my readers have
probably traveled over the Santa Fé Railway as it courses through
the Rio Grande valley, and, recalling the grassy, pleasant-looking
country in the East, have wondered how this cheerless area of sand
and sagebrush could ever be utilized. Yet in this valley is a farm of
twenty-two acres for which sixty thousand dollars has been flatly
refused, although not one cent of its value is due to its proximity
to any important point (as the fact is with the valuable little farms
around our Eastern cities), but solely to what it will produce. Verily
the desolation of the land is deceptive, and, like beauty, is but skin
deep.