At last, we passed the Rio Grande, and a few days more brought us to
Santa Fe. Much hath been written about this rich and romantic city,
where formerly, if we were to believe travellers, dollars and doubloons
were to be had merely for picking them up; but I suspect the writers had
never seen the place, for it is a miserable, dirty little hole,
containing about three thousand souls, almost all of them half-bred,
naked, and starved. Such is Santa Fe. You will there witness
spectacles of wretchedness and vice hardly to be found elsewhere--harsh
despotism; immorality carried to its highest degree, with drunkenness
and filth.
The value of the Santa Fe trade has been very much exaggerated. This
town was formerly the readiest point to which goods could be brought
overland from the States to Mexico; but since the colonisation of Texas,
it is otherwise. The profits also obtained in this trade are far from
being what they used to be. The journey from St. Louis (Missouri) is
very tedious, the distance being about twelve hundred miles; nor is the
journey ended when you reach Santa Fe, as they have to continue to
Chihuahua. Goods come into the country at a slight duty, compared to
that payable on the coast, five hundred dollars only (whatever may be
the contents) being charged upon each waggon; and it is this privilege
which supports the trade. But the real market commences at Chihuahua;
north of which nothing is met with by the traveller, except the most
abject moral and physical misery.
Of course, our time passed most tediously; the half-breed were too
stupid to converse with, and the Yankee traders constantly tipsy. Had
it not been that Gabriel was well acquainted with the neighbourhood, we
should positively have died of _ennui_. As it was, however, we made
some excursions among the _rancheros_, or cattle-breeders, and visited
several Indian tribes, with whom we hunted, waiting impatiently for a
westward-bound caravan.
One day, I had a rather serious adventure. Roche and Gabriel were
bear-hunting, while I, feeling tired, had remained in a Rancho, where,
for a few days, we had had some amusement; in the afternoon, I felt an
inclination to eat some fish, and being told that at three or four miles
below, there was a creek of fine basses, I went away with my rifle,
hooks, and line. I soon found the spot, and was seeking for some birds
or squirrels, whose flesh I could use as bait. As, rifle in hand, I
walked, watching the branches of the trees along the stream, I felt
something scratching my leggings and mocassins; I looked down, and
perceived a small panther-cub frisking and frolicking around my feet,
inviting me to play with it. It was a beautiful little creature,
scarcely bigger than a common cat. I sat down, put my rifle across my
knees, and for some minutes caressed it as I would have done an ordinary
kitten; it became very familiar, and I was just thinking of taking it
with me, when I heard behind me a loud and well-known roar, and, as the
little thing left me, over my head bounded a dark heavy body. It was a
full-grown panther, the mother of the cub. I had never thought of her.
I rose immediately. The beast having missed the leap, had fallen twelve
feet before me. It crouched, sweeping the earth with its long tail, and
looking fiercely at me. Our eyes met; I confess it, my heart was very
small within me. I had my rifle, to be sure, but the least movement to
poise it would have been the signal for a spring from the animal. At
last, still crouching, it crept back, augmenting the distance to about
thirty feet. Then it made a circle round me, never for a moment taking
its eyes off my face, for the cub was still playing at my feet. I have
no doubt that if the little animal had been betwixt me and the mother,
she would have snatched it and run away with it. As it was, I felt
very, very queer; take to my heels I could not, and the panther would
not leave her cub behind; on the contrary, she continued making a circle
round me, I turning within her, and with my rifle pointed towards her.
As we both turned, with eyes straining at each other, inch by inch I
slowly raised my rifle, till the butt reached my shoulder; I caught the
sight and held my breath. The cub, in jumping, hurt itself, and mewed;
the mother answered by an angry growl, and just as she was about to
spring, I fired; she stumbled backwards, and died without a struggle.
My ball, having entered under the left eye, had passed through the
skull, carrying with it a part of the brain.
It was a terrific animal; had I missed it, a single blow from her paw
would have crushed me to atoms. Dead as it was, with its claws
extended, as if to seize its prey, and its bleeding tongue hanging out,
it struck me with awe. I took off the skin, hung it to a tree, and
securing the cub, I hastened home, having lost my appetite for fishing
or a fish-supper for that evening.
A week after this circumstance, a company of traders arrived from St.
Louis. They had been attacked by Indians, and made a doleful
appearance. During their trip they had once remained six days without
any kind of food, except withered grass. Here it may not be amiss to
say a few words about the origin of this inland mercantile expedition,
and the dangers with which the traders are menaced.
In 1807, Captain Pike, returning from his exploring trip in the interior
of the American continent, made it known to the United States' merchants
that they could establish a very profitable commerce with the central
provinces of the north of Mexico; and in 1812, a small party of
adventurers, Millar, Knight, Chambers, Beard, and others, their whole
number not exceeding twelve, forced their way from St. Louis to Santa
Fe, with a small quantity of goods.
It has always been the policy of the Spaniards to prevent strangers from
penetrating into the interior of their colonies. At that period, Mexico
being in revolution, strangers, and particularly Americans, were looked
upon with jealousy and distrust. These merchants were, consequently,
seized upon, their goods confiscated, and themselves shut up in the
prisons of Chihuahua, where, during several years, they underwent a
rigorous treatment.
It was, I believe, in the spring of 1821, that Chambers, with the other
prisoners, returned to the United States, and shortly afterwards a
treaty with the States rendered the trade lawful. Their accounts
induced one Captain Glenn, of Cincinnatti, to join them in a commercial
expedition, and another caravan, twenty men strong, started again for
Santa Fe. They sought a shorter road to fall in with the Arkansas
river, but their enterprise failed for, instead of ascending the stream
of the Canadian fork, it appears that they only coasted the great river
to its intersection by the Missouri road.
There is not a drop of water in this horrible region, which extends even
to the Cimaron river, and in this desert they had to suffer all the
pangs of thirst. They were reduced to the necessity of killing their
dogs and bleeding their mules to moisten their parched lips. None of
them perished; but, suite dispirited, they changed their direction and
turned back to the nearest point of the river Arkansas, where they were
at least certain to find abundance of water. By this time their beasts
of burden were so tired and broken down that they had become of no use.
They were therefore obliged to conceal their goods, and arrived without
any more trouble at Santa Fe, when procuring other mules, they returned
to their cachette.
Many readers are probably unaware of the process employed by the traders
to conceal their cargo, their arms, and even their provisions. It is
nothing more than a large excavation in the earth, in the shape of a
jar, in which the objects are stored; the bottom of the cachette having
been first covered with wood and canvas, so as to prevent any thing
being spoiled by the damp. The important science of cachaye (Canadian
expression) consists in leaving no trace which might betray it to the
Indians; to prevent this, the earth taken from the excavation is put
into blankets and carried to a great distance.
The place generally selected for a cachette is a swell in the prairie,
sufficiently elevated to be protected from any kind of inundation, and
the arrangement is so excellent, that it is very seldom that the traders
lose any thing in their cachette, either by the Indians, the changes of
the climate, or the natural dampness of the earth.
In the spring of 1820, a company from Franklin, in the west of Missouri,
had already proceeded to Santa Fe, with twelve mules loaded with goods.
They crossed prairies where no white man had ever penetrated, having no
guides but the stars of Heaven, the morning breeze from the mountains,
and perhaps a pocket compass. Daily they had to pass through hostile
nations; but spite of many other difficulties, such as ignorance of the
passes and want of water, they arrived at Santa Fe.
The adventurers returned to Missouri during the fall; their profit had
been immense, although the capital they had employed had been very
small. Their favourable reports produced a deep sensation, and in the
spring of the next year, Colonel Cooper and some associates, to the
number of twenty-two, started with fourteen mules well loaded. This
time the trip was a prompt and a fortunate one; and the merchants of St.
Louis getting bolder and bolder, formed, in 1822, a caravan of seventy
men, who carried with them goods to the amount of forty thousand
dollars.
Thus began the Santa Fe trade, which assumed a more regular character.
Companies started in the spring to return in the fall, with incredible
benefits, and the trade increasing, the merchants reduced the number of
their guards, till, eventually, repeated attacks from the savages
obliged them to unite together, in order to travel with safety.
At first the Indians appeared disposed to let them pass without any kind
of interruption; but during the summer of 1826 they began to steal the
mules and the horses of the travellers; but they killed nobody till
1828. Then a little caravan, returning from Santa Fe, followed the
stream of the north fork of the Canadian river. Two of the traders,
having preceded the company in search of game, fell asleep on the edge
of a brook. These were espied by a band of Indians, who surprised them,
seized their rifles, took their scalps, and retired before the caravan
had reached the brook, which had been agreed upon as the place of
rendezvous. When the traders arrived, one of the victims still
breathed. They carried him to the Cimaron, where he expired and was
buried according to the prairie fashion.
Scarcely had the ceremony been terminated, when upon a neighbouring hill
appeared four Indians, apparently ignorant of what had happened. The
exasperated merchants invited them into their camp, and murdered all
except one, who, although wounded, succeeded in making his escape.
This cruel retaliation brought down heavy punishment. Indeed from that
period the Indians vowed an eternal war--a war to the knife, "in the
forests and the prairies, in the middle of rivers and lakes, and even
among the mountains covered with eternal snows."
Shortly after this event another caravan was fallen in with and attacked
by the savages, who carried off with them thirty-five scalps, two
hundred and fifty mules, and goods to the amount of thirty thousand
dollars.
These terrible dramas were constantly re-acted in these vast western
solitudes, and the fate of the unfortunate traders would be unknown
until some day, perchance, a living skeleton, a famished being covered
with blood, dust, and mire, would arrive at one of the military posts on
the borders, and relate an awful and bloody tragedy, from which he alone
had escaped.
In 1831, Mr Sublette and his company crossed the prairies with
twenty-five waggons. He and his company were old pioneers among the
Rocky Mountains, whom the thirst of gold had transformed into merchants.
They went without guides, and no one among them had ever performed the
trip. All that they knew was that they were going from such to such a
degree of longitude. They reached the Arkansas river, but from thence
to the Cimaron there is no road, except the numerous paths of the
buffaloes, which, intersecting the prairie, very often deceive the
travellers.
When the caravan entered this desert the earth was entirely dry, and,
the pioneers mistaking their road, wandered during several days exposed
to all the horrors of a febrile thirst, under a burning sun. Often they
were seduced by the deceitful appearance of a buffalo path, and in this
perilous situation Captain Smith, one of the owners of the caravan,
resolved to follow one of these paths, which he considered would
indubitably lead him to some spring of water or to a marsh.
He was alone, but he had never known fear. He was the most determined
adventurer who had ever passed the Rocky Mountains, and, if but half of
what is said of him is true, his dangerous travels and his hairbreadth
escapes would fill many volumes more interesting and romantic than the
best pages of the American novelist. Poor man after having during so
many years escaped from the arrows and bullets of the Indians, he was
fated to fall under the tomahawk, and his bones to blench upon the
desert sands.
He was about twelve miles front his comrades, when, turning round a
small hill, he perceived the long-sought object of his wishes. A small
stream glided smoothly in the middle of the prairie before him. It was
the river Cimaron. He hurried forward to moisten his parched lips, but
just as he was stooping over the water he fell, pierced by ten arrows.
A band of Comanches had espied him, and waited there for him. Yet he
struggled bravely. The Indians have since acknowledged that, wounded as
he was, before dying, Captain Smith had killed three of their people.
Such was the origin of the Santa Fe trade, and such are the liabilities
which are incurred even now, in the great solitudes of the West.