SOUTHWESTERN CHIHUAHUA--THE RETURN BY ANOTHER TRAIL--THE CAÑON OF
THE CHURCHES--AMONG THE CLIFF DWELLERS.
After bidding adieu to our hospitable host and the many friends at
the great hacienda, we started quite late in the afternoon to ride
about eight or nine miles up the Batopilas River to a station of
the Batopilas Mining Company called the Potrero. On either side the
Batopilas lifts its banks from four to five and even to six thousand
feet above the river bed, making a wonderfully beautiful panorama of
rugged mountain scenery as you wind along, sometimes climbing up a
few hundred feet and then descending to the water's edge to cross at
some favorable ford. For the cañon through its entire length is very
narrow, and in some places there is only room for the rushing river
with the trail hugging the banks or finding a foothold for the mules
on the steep, broken mountain side. I hardly know which looks the more
impressive, to stand upon the crest of a high cañon or to wind through
its depths and look up at its beetling sides, which seem to cleave
the clouds. Whatever be the point of view, from top or bottom, with
the usual discontent of human beings in all things, the observer will
always wish he were at the other place, from which, as he imagines,
something better could be seen.
At the Potrero I found a good, substantial log house, built and
maintained by the Batopilas Company, and used by them as a shelter for
members of their pack trains, instead of depending on the sky for a
covering. One end of the house was divided off, where grain was stored
for all the animals. There was also a storeroom for provisions of
various kinds, thus saving much packing over the rough mountain trail.
These houses, I learned, had been built about every thirty-five miles
along the trail, and at each a trusty Indian lived to care for them.
They were a great comfort, and seemed even luxurious after a hard
all-day ride on the rough trail. At each was a large corral or pen,
into which the mules were turned for their feed, and this too was a
saving of labor and time to the packers, and allowed one to make
a much earlier start, as well as to omit the long noon camp of the
Mexicans. In each of the houses was an immense fireplace, which, on the
arrival of the party, was piled with pitch-pine, and a most welcome
blaze and warmth soon thawed out the coldest.
At the Potrero a church, built by the first Jesuits in this country,
still remains, and is used for devotion by the Indians, although
roofless and over two hundred years old. Standing near the ruined
door, and looking in, one sees an altar surmounted by a cross and
a scaffolding of flowers. Above this is one of the most beautiful
pictures ever seen in such a peculiar framing. The roofless old church
reveals the most magnificent castellated cliffs to be seen along the
Batopilas River for many miles. Taking the tops of the battlements,
which rise thousands of feet in sheer altitude in many places, so that
they will fall just below the top of the church door, thus leaving a
little streak of blue sky between, and viewing the scene as framed by
the rest of the church, the observer has a picture before him that
would make the reputation of any artist who could transfer it to
canvas with reasonable ability. Near by was the primitive belfry, two
sticks set in the ground, and the bell, an old bronze one, hung from a
cross-piece between them. Once each year a priest visited this place,
upon which occasion a great festival was held. Indian runners were
sent out into the mountains for many miles around, to induce the timid
Tarahumaris to come in. Here all the civilized and semi-civilized
brought their children to be christened, and they again induced many
of the wilder Indians of the cliffs and caves to join them. In this
way the priests reach the wilder ones, and sometimes conversions
are made among them. This is their only method of approaching the
uncivilized natives, through the medium of those not quite so wild,
who allow them to visit their homes in the cliffs and crags and hold a
limited intercourse. From the steep cliffs above the resort, the wild
Tarahumaris can look down on the strange doings of their more civilized
brothers in the little valley below. This they told us was often done,
but the instances were quite rare in which the very wild ones had been
coaxed down from the crags above.
I have been asked what chance a missionary would have among these
people and how he could best reach them. Where the patient priest or
Jesuit fails to penetrate with all the assistance he can derive from
those of his own faith who are kinsmen of the people to be approached,
it would seem indeed a difficult task for those of other beliefs.
I was told that these people, the semi-civilized Tarahumaris, are
particularly fond of colored prints, and any brightly colored picture
is to them an object of veneration. Often old copies of _Puck_ or
_Judge_ drift down here, passing from the hands of miners to Mexicans
and thence to the Indians. These they preserve and worship as saints,
and to them they offer up their simple prayers.
Early the next morning we were to climb to the top of the steep cliffs
behind the old church at the Potrero; that night we slept for the last
time in the land of the tropics. Late in the evening I walked over by
the home of a Tarahumari Indian. He had a bright fire burning in front
of his hut, and on the ground his family were all sleeping peacefully,
even down to a very young baby. The house appeared to be deserted,
being used probably only during the rainy season.
Next morning by four o'clock we began the ascent of the steep mountain.
It was before daylight when we left the cañon, and by the time we had
climbed for three hours I noticed one of the most singular cliff or
cave dwellings I had so far seen. There was a distinct trail leading
to it. This trail could be perceived from the very bottom of a deep
cañon which branched off from the Batopilas, led along dizzy cliffs,
holding to the sides of the steep mountain until it reached a height
fully equal to our own, and finally disappeared in an enormous cave.
This must have been capable of containing hundreds of people, as it was
over a mile distant, and at that distance we could perfectly discern
its mouth and even its interior walls. It was the dizziest climb to a
home I have ever read of or seen.
[Illustration: THE HOME OF A TARAHUMARI INDIAN]
That afternoon I came to the farms of some civilized Tarahumaris, built
on the very steep mountain side, on which the dirt was held back by
terraces or rude retaining walls, so very similar to those seen around
the ruins of Northwestern Chihuahua, supposed to be Toltec or Aztec,
that I could not help thinking that there was some closer connection
between them than that of mere resemblance.
I had heard a dozen theories to account for these terraces in the
North, as for collecting water in dry seasons, for conducting water,
as places for defense, etc., etc., but, with an actual case directly
under observation, this seems to be a better explanation: In decades
and centuries of rainy seasons of more or less violence, after the
people had abandoned these northern houses, or had been killed by their
enemies, all the retained loose earth would have been swept away,
leaving only rude and dilapidated walls or terraces sweeping around the
mountain sides, from which almost anything could be inferred, whether
the most peaceful form or the most warlike fortification.
Although our journey began at four o'clock in the morning it was two
or three o'clock in the afternoon before we reached the welcome shelter
of the next station, and it seemed to me from beginning to end one
uninterrupted climb. This station on the Teboreachic was an exception
to the rest on the trail regarding distance, for it is only eighteen
miles from the Potrero, although eighteen miles of incessant uphill
work. While the trail is by no means as steep or dangerous as that
leading into the Urique barranca, it is fully as long a climb to reach
the top or cumbra, and one does not welcome a retreat to the somber
pines with half the enthusiasm inspired by a descent into the tropical
foliage of the deep barrancas. I have already described so many ascents
and descents, that carried us from one kind of climate to another, that
I hardly think it necessary to repeat it in this instance. One feature
of the ascent, however, exceptionally pleasant, was the ease with which
one could get off one's tired mule and not only earn its gratitude, if
a mule may be said to possess that virtue, but also stretch one's weary
limbs by climbing over a comparatively good trail.
As soon as we were well up in the mountains we found the region
extremely well watered, beautiful streams flowing through every little
glen or valley, many of them filled with small trout. This Batopilas
trail differed from the other in that some attempt at grade had been
made. It did not adopt the erratic Indian method of making for the top
of every tall peak and then climbing down on the other side, only to
repeat the performance until the rider became almost seasick from the
undulations. Since Batopilas came into the hands of Americans there
has been a constant effort on their part to look for better grades
and secure a simpler method of ingress and egress from their mountain
mines, and they are continually broadening and improving the path.
Still, at the best, they can never make anything but a narrow mountain
trail in that country of crag and cañon. The day will come when
railways are built through that rich region, but until then the patient
mule will be the only means of transportation.
The first night on the Teboreachic was a most delightfully cool one
after the long spell of warm weather we had experienced on the lower
levels. It was preceded by a slight thunder shower, the first one of
the season, but it warned us in unmistakable terms that the rainy
season was not far off, and that we had better get out of the mountains
before it was upon us. Before making La Laja, the second night, we
passed the homes of many Indians, both of the semi-civilized type and
the wilder ones of the cliffs and caves. At one point I stopped to get
a photograph of the homes of some cliff dwellers, where, directly below
the cliffs, were a couple of rude stone huts, built on a steep side of
the mountain. The men seemed to be absent from this place, but we could
see the forms of some women moving about and crouching down to avoid
being seen by us. My Mexican man, Dionisio, was greatly alarmed at my
action in dropping behind the party to photograph this group of strange
homes, and loudly declared we would all be shot by the men, should
they return and see us at this, to them, strange work. It was almost
impossible to induce Dionisio to bring up my camera or hold my mule, so
anxious was he to get away. There was really no danger whatever from
these people, as they only fight to defend their homes, but the fear of
the cowardly Mexican was very amusing.
[Illustration: HOMES OF SEMI-CIVILIZED TARAHUMARIS.]
Before leaving Batopilas we had been told that whatever we had seen of
the wonderful or beautiful in nature on our outward journey by other
trails, a treat of a most magnificent character was reserved for us on
this route, one that was unique and wholly without parallel in those
grand old mountains. This was the day's journey through the Arroyo de
las Iglesias. So we were in a measure prepared for the many beautiful
sights that awaited us on our third day. Although we had been passing
through picturesque valleys and were constantly crossing lovely
mountain brooks, one must admit without hesitation that of the many
hundreds of beautiful streams in the Sierra Madre Mountains, flanked
by cut and carved stone, there is none that will compare in extent or
beauty with the sculptured rock of the Arroyo de las Iglesias (the
Cañon of the Churches), so named on account of the spires of rock that
greet one on every side for the greater part of a day's travel. For
eighteen or twenty miles the Cañon of the Churches seems more like some
theatrical representation of a fairy scene than a real one from nature.
The limestone has been eroded into a thousand fantastic forms by the
action of the elements, the predominating one being some feature of a
church or cathedral, either in spires, minarets, or flying buttresses
built far out from the main walls of the cañon. The most grotesque
forms are those that generally cap the spires; it seems necessary that
some hard rock above should protect the softer underneath in order to
insure one of these petrified pinnacles of nature.
One of them, two hundred feet in height, as seen from the cañon, was
as good a spread eagle as a person would want to see cut out of stone,
while on a tower not a hundred yards away was a bust of Hadrian, quite
as good as that in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, ten times as large,
and a thousandfold more conspicuously placed. A person with a small
amount of imagination could easily make a land of enchantment out of
this _arroyo_ with its singular columns and pillars, its leaning
towers and busts and statues, that meet him on every side and are
repeated every few hundred yards by great cañons that break off to
the right and left, and which are perfect duplicates of the original
through which the traveler wends his way.
Strange, singular, and curious as are these works of nature, they are
not so astonishing to the average civilized person as the works of
man. Among these beetling crags and dizzy cliffs savage men have found
places to erect their houses and live their lives. Ladders of notched
sticks lead from one crag to the crest of another, whenever the rude
steps made by nature do not allow these creatures of the cliffs to
climb their almost perpendicular faces; a false step on the slight
ladders or a turning of one of them, which to me seemed so likely,
would send the climber two hundred to three hundred feet to the bottom
of the cañon, perhaps a mangled corpse.
[Illustration: HOMES OF CLIFF DWELLERS IN ARROYO DE LAS IGLESIAS.]
Had I wanted to visit them directly in their homes I doubt very much
if I could have reached them, for I am sorry to say I am not a sailor,
a tight-rope performer, or an aëronaut. Beyond this place the people
had fled to their houses, and could, by disarranging a single notched
stick, have made our ascent impossible. This, I think, was one of the
methods of defense adopted by ancient cliff dwellers of Arizona, as
shown at least by some which I have seen and which now, with the logs
rotted away, are unapproachable. It is even possible, as I have more
than hinted before, that there is some closer affinity between the
Arizona and Mexican cliff dwellers than this simple but suggestive one
I have mentioned. It is certainly a question I would like to see some
good archæologist struggle with for a year or two.
So steep are the walls of the Arroyo de las Iglesias in many places
where we observed cliff dwellers that, had they thrown an object from
the little portholelike window of their stone pens with ordinary
strength, it would certainly have brought up in the cañon bottom
probably two hundred or three hundred feet below. How they can rear
little children on these cliffs without a loss of one hundred per cent.
annually is to me one of the most mysterious things connected with
these strange people.
They are worshipers of the sun, so good authorities say, and on
the first day of a child's life they dedicate it to that great orb
by placing it in his direct rays. In many other ways they show their
devotion to that source which has been loved by so many primitive
people. Their whole range of worship would certainly be interesting
in the extreme. They have the greatest dread of the owl, which, as is
known elsewhere as well as here, has some association or other of evil
connected with it, from the slightest disaster to death. How many other
things they fear no one knows, but they certainly are not afraid to
climb cliffs and crags that would frighten the average white man half
to death to even contemplate.
[Illustration: IN ARROYO DE LAS IGLESIAS, CLIFF DWELLINGS IN ROCKS.]
That all their children are not killed off every month by falling from
the elevations is shown by the fact that we saw a few of them playing
in a little "clearing" in the brush at the bottom of the cañon. But
we did not see them very long, for as soon as they got sight of the
leading member of our party they fled to the brush and caves, and a
pointer dog could not have flushed one five minutes later.
I have already described some of their strange methods of hunting game.
In fishing they build dams in the mountain streams and poison the fish
that collect therein with a deadly plant the Mexicans call _palmilla_,
securing everything, fingerlings and all. They never tattoo, paint, or
wear masks as far as I could ascertain. They are a strange, wild set of
savages in a strange, picturesque country, a country that will repay
visiting in the future should the means of transportation--railways
or better stage facilities--ever be sufficiently improved.
[Illustration: A CLIFF DWELLING.]
After leaving the wonderful Valley of the Churches it requires a
night's rest before one is ready to give much admiration or attention
to the magnificent scenery on every hand. It seems as if you had had a
surfeit of the beautiful. I obtained a number of interesting sketches
and photographs of these homes in the clouds. The photographs were
taken under great drawbacks, as the days were stormy and cloudy, and
even the lowest of the cliff dwellings were difficult of approach.
Just as we were descending a high mountain into the beautiful valley
of the Tatawichic, we passed by an enormous rock on the steep trail of
the mountain side that must have been fully three hundred feet high
and not over thirty feet in diameter, which did not vary a foot from
its base to its top, where it was rounded off like a half globe. It
was green in color, looked exactly like a pitahaya cactus turned into
stone, and seemed wonderfully unstable as seen from the trail that
wound around its base on the steep descent. The name of the station at
this point was Pilarcitas (Little Pillars), from the many curious and
fantastic rock formations which assumed the shape of pillars, either
singly or in groups of two, three, or more. The previous night had been
very cold in the mountains, and the constant showers only increased the
chill; so we found the little station houses the most welcome places of
refuge as night came on.
The last station on this trail is about four or five miles from
Carichic, and is in the center of a productive and well-watered valley.
The little cultivation done there by the Indians shows a wonderful
fertility of soil; in truth there are but few of the staple products
that could not be grown in that portion of the country in the greatest
abundance. At this last station of the Batopilas Company they start
their private stages directly for Chihuahua. We remained over for a
day, awaiting the departure of the regular diligence from Carichic.
[Illustration: STONE PILLAR ABOUT THREE HUNDRED FEET HIGH, RESEMBLING
CACTUS.]
While here I talked with an intelligent American, who had lived for
many years in this country, about the Tarahumaris. He told me he had
that season attended one of their foot races, a favorite pastime of
these people. At this particular contest one of the fleetest and most
enduring foot runners in all the great band of the Tarahumaris (or
tribe of "foot runners," as we know they are called) was a contestant.
That summer he had made one hundred Spanish miles--about ninety of
ours--in eleven hours and twenty minutes, in a great foot contest near
the Bacochic River, resting but once for half an hour in this terribly
long race. The man, Mr. Thomas Ewing by name, told me that he attempted
to run this foot runner a _vuelta_, (which is six miles straight away
and return, or twelve miles altogether), Ewing using a horse; and
although the white man tried this three times with three different
horses, the Tarahumari cave dweller beat him each time. These contests
of the Tarahumaris are almost always very long and exciting. They make
their bets with stock of some kind, sheep, cattle, or goats, and large
numbers of these change hands on the outcome of the races. In a letter
to me regarding these races, Mr. Ewing writes of one of the runners:
"I was with him"--the Indian--"when he was running his fifth round. It
was about eight o'clock in the morning, and he was running at about
eight miles an hour. At that time his competitor was about six miles
behind him. I rode beside him for about four miles, when my horse had
enough of it. There were a hundred Indians or more to see the race,
and they had stations about every two miles on the trail, where they
stopped the runners, rubbed them down, and gave them _pinola_, a
parched corn, ground fine and mixed with water. The runners stopped one
minute, or about that, at each station for rest. The Indian who won
this race, although tired, finished in good shape, and took in about
fifty dollars in stock."
These contests in running are said to be one of the amusements of even
the wildest of the Tarahumaris, although I doubt whether many white
men have witnessed them. Even as early as the days when Grijalva, the
discoverer of Mexico, and Cortes, its conquerer, landed on its shores
where now is the important port of Vera Cruz, within twenty-four hours
after their appearance an Aztec artist had made perfect representations
of the fleet, the kind and amount of armament, and correct pictures
of the artillery and horses (although he had never seen such things
before), and had transmitted them nearly two hundred miles by carrier
to the City of Mexico, placing them in the hands of the Aztec Emperor
Montezuma. Cortes afterward found that the Aztec, Tlascalan, and other
armies of that portion of the country always moved at a run when on
the march, thus trebling and quadrupling the military marches of
the present day. This was the first intimation to Europeans of the
endurance and swift-footedness of the natives of the great Mexican
plateau, and a similar characteristic was found to be almost universal
among the Indians of the plateau. But it was afterward discovered that
the people most prominent in this respect was one in the far north of
New Spain, hidden away in the fastnesses of the Sierra Madres, whose
very name, as given by other tribes, Tarahumari, meaning foot runners,
indicated their special excellence.
THE END.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
Obvious printer errors have been corrected. Otherwise, the author's
original spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been left intact.