AMONG THE SERIS OF MEXICO
It is a fact generally acknowledged throughout the American continent,
that the Indian population have never yet failed to take advantage of
war, revolution, or other political crises among the white settlers,
to make themselves more than usually troublesome. From 1810 to 1867,
Mexico went through a troublous period of rebellion and warfare; which
is another way of saying that, for fifty-seven years, the Mexican
Indians saw themselves at liberty to plunder and slay without the
least fear of organised opposition; and judging from the account given
by the German-Polish traveller, Gustav von Tempsky, they seem to have
made use of their opportunity.
After three years' residence in California, Herr von Tempsky, with an
American friend, Dr. Steel, took ship from San Francisco to Mazatlan,
intending to explore the southern spurs of the Sierra Madre, and to
return to the States overland. This was in 1853-4, a time when the
Government, such as it was, had perhaps reached the summit of its
helplessness; which will explain why, on arriving at Mazatlan, the
travellers found plenty of counsellors ready to confirm the advice
they had heard in California: "Keep out of Mexico, if you value your
lives."
Not to be deterred by mere hearsay, the two friends hired mules and
guides, and at once set out eastwards, far more anxious to escape to
the highlands from the tropical heat of Mazatlan, than apprehensive of
interference from Indians. Yet, as the country grew lonelier and more
rugged, the mules less tractable and the guides less self-confident,
the journey certainly began to lose some of the romantic charm which,
from a safe distance, it had promised to possess; and when, towards
nightfall of the third day's march, a tropical thunderstorm suddenly
burst upon them, and the Mexican guides announced that the nearest
shelter was at a hill village ten miles distant, both the adventurers
found themselves thinking wistfully of the cosy steamer which they had
recently left. Those ten miles seemed like a hundred; the rain
continued to fall like a cataract; a baggage-mule took to flight and
had to be pursued; then the animal ridden by the doctor got his
forefeet in a hole, and for some time refused to move; and, by way of
a little further diversion, the guides began to quarrel among
themselves as to the precise direction in which the village lay.
The end of the journey came at last, however, but not the end of their
annoyances. As the drenched men came within a stone's-throw of half a
dozen feeble lights for which they had been making, they heard an
excited buzz of voices, and, without warning, a dozen or more guns
were fired in their direction. A baggage-mule dropped screaming from a
skin wound on the shoulder, and one bullet passed so close to the
doctor's head that the broad brim of his _sombrero_ was perforated.
"Back, everybody," shouted one of the guides. "It is an Indian
ambuscade. They are firing from shelter, and we can do nothing."
But von Tempsky had caught the sound of something which gave him a
little comfort; to wit, an expression in French from one of the
shooters.
"Who are you?" he shouted in French.
The reply was in the same language. "Halt there; stay where you are
and let us know your business."
"Do you think we want to stop here to get soaked a little more?"
shouted Dr. Steel, urging on his mule before his friend had had time
to frame an explanation. "Come along; we guessed they were Indians,
and they paid us the same compliment."
The volley was not repeated; but a crowd of men with rifles and
lanterns came scurrying to meet the little cavalcade; and, after some
laughter and expressions of regret, their leader began a voluble
explanation, which von Tempsky cut very short by announcing that he
and his party were wet to the skin and required shelter. Thereupon
they were ushered into the building whence the shots had been fired,
which proved to be a tumble-down inn kept by an old Frenchman.
"We have been much beset by the Seris of late," he said apologetically.
"Three times during the past fortnight have we had the village
surrounded by parties of them; and, when we heard you approach so
late at night, we naturally supposed you to be Indians."
The tavern offered little enough comfort; but provisions were
plentiful, and there was a good fire where clothes could be dried.
The tales which the _rancheros_ had to tell were certainly appalling.
Several villages had been entirely depopulated by the savages; many
inoffensive travellers had been killed, and others had escaped with
the bare life. These Seri Indians were--and even now are--a fierce,
intractable people, utterly different from the typical Mexican
Indians, who (the Comanches and Apaches apart) are a mild, diligent,
and strongly religious race. Mexico still possesses some fifty tribes
of redskins, most of which are subdivisions of the very ancient
Nahuatl family; but, with the exception of the three tribes just
mentioned, many of these had, before von Tempsky's time, begun to
intermarry with Europeans and settle in the towns.
At first all the guides except Jago, the leader, flatly refused to go
any farther, on hearing these gruesome stories; but when, on the next
day, a dozen of the _rancheros_ offered to accompany the party as far
as Durango, on condition that they would combine with them against any
Indians they might meet, the grumbling ceased; for no one was averse
to getting a shot at the men who, at one time or other, had robbed
every one of them of friend or property. Von Tempsky and Steel were
nothing loth, either; the one came from a country where persecution
and death were everyday matters; while the other had roughed it for
five-and-twenty years, first in the backwoods and latterly at the
Californian diggings, where it was a case of "a word and a blow--and
the blow first."
For a day or two no sign of Indians was observed, and despite the
irregularity of the road and the alarming prevalence of rattlesnakes,
the journey was not unpleasant. But on the third afternoon, as the
guide Jago was seeking to point out from a distance the village where
the company was to pass the night, he uttered a horrified exclamation,
and made the sign of the cross. At the same moment an angry hubbub
arose from the group of _rancheros_.
"What is it? What are they all looking at?" inquired von Tempsky.
"Smoke; and plenty of it," said the doctor, who was shading his eyes
with his hands.
"Ay; smoke," said Jago, who spoke English quite well. "They have burnt
another village. Let us go forward quickly, Senors."
An hour's sharp riding brought them to what, a day earlier, had been a
fertile settlement or _rancho_, but which was now nothing but a pile
of smouldering wood-ashes, round about which lay fully fifty corpses
of men, women, and children. At the sight, both guides and _rancheros_
went almost mad with indignation; and von Tempsky himself was eager to
press on immediately in pursuit of the wretches who had been guilty of
such relentless slaughter. It was then that the more phlegmatic Yankee
doctor showed the rest the value of a cool and calculating head.
"See here, boys," he said in his best Spanish, when he could make his
voice heard above the howls and oaths of vengeance; "I reckon a
redskin's a redskin, whether he hails from here or 'way north. _I'd_
got no quarrel with these particular vermin, till I saw _this_. Now I
fought Indians before some of you were born; and I'll do it again if
you'll let me. But there'll have to be none of this tear-away sort of
game that some of you are after. Will you make me captain? You can
soon turn me out of it again if you're not satisfied."
The _rancheros_ wavered for a moment. Why obey a perfect stranger, who
knew neither the country nor the Seris? But the look of simple
honesty, yet of bull-dog determination and pluck, in the man's face,
gave confidence even to the most hesitating.
"Very good, Senor Doctor; we will obey you."
"They mean they'll _try_, poor fellows," said Steel, in English, to
von Tempsky. "They don't know what discipline is."
By his orders, mules and horses were ungirthed, and while he, Jago,
and the oldest of the _rancheros_ made a careful examination of the
first mile of the track left by the murderers, the others lay down to
rest and eat.
"They have crossed the ridge," said Steel when he rejoined his
fellow-traveller. "We'll all of us take four hours' rest now. It'll be
no real delay. Those rascals are fifty miles away by this time, as
like as not; perhaps a hundred, for these poor souls have been dead a
good many hours. We needn't worry; we shall come up with them later;
or with more like them, who'll have to pay for this picnic."
The doctor was probably not exaggerating the distance covered by the
Seris. The youngsters of the tribe were put on a horse as soon as they
could straddle him; their only toys were bows and arrows, and the
generally Spartan upbringing which all underwent enabled them to ride
or march or fight for a whole day without food or rest. Large bodies
of Seris or Comanches would move a hundred and thirty miles in a day.
Stifling their impatience as well as they could, the avenging party
waited till the four hours had expired; then all set off on their
mountain climb, though darkness would be coming on almost immediately.
Half a mile from the top of the ridge, von Tempsky was seen to spring
from his saddle and make a dash at some dark object that lay in the
shelter of a rock. Before he had reached it, however, a scuffling,
clattering sound arose near him, and a horse, saddled but riderless,
struggled to his feet. The others halted.
"Show a light some of you; I've got him," shouted von Tempsky.
"But--why, the man's dead!"
Jago dismounted, and, striking a light, revealed the pallid face of a
Mexican, who lay with an arrow through his back. Von Tempsky, who had
been the only one of the riders to notice the recumbent figure, had
imagined it to be that of an Indian spy or sentinel, and had at once
made a grab at his throat, only to find the body stiff and quite
cold.
"One more score against them," cried the doctor. "Ride on."
They travelled all night and till long after daybreak, without meeting
or seeing anyone; and at length Steel called another halt for a few
hours. Presently, as he and von Tempsky sat chatting, the latter drew
his attention to a body of mounted men riding slowly across their
projected path, a couple of miles away.
"We've got them this time," said Steel, jumping up.
"Those are not Indians, Senor," said Jago.
"Tch! Look at their spears, man."
"I do. They are our Mexican lancers. There; do you not hear their
bugle?"
A faint note or two from some brass instrument was carried to them by
the wind.
"All right; mount," cried the doctor. "We'll have a look at them,
anyway."
They had not gone more than a few hundred yards, when the new-comers
caught sight of them riding down the incline; they reined up and,
waving their lances, greeted them with jubilant shouts.
"Well--of all the scraggy-looking donkey-drivers!" exclaimed Steel in
an aside, as they came up with the "lancers." There were about eighty
of them, all more or less in rags, each man armed with a lance, a very
rusty sabre, and a carbine. In their midst, two men held their lances
aloft, each spear-point being decorated with the head of an Indian.
The men were hearty-looking, happy-go-lucky ruffians, brave as need
be, but woefully undisciplined, and out of gear generally. After one
glance at them, von Tempsky no longer wondered that many an
Englishman, Irishman, Scot, or Yankee who would think himself lucky if
he ever rose to the rank of sergeant, at home, could here become a
field-marshal or an admiral in half an hour. For the Mexico of those
days was, like the southern republics, a happy hunting-ground for
foreign soldiers of fortune.
"And they send _these_ fellows to put down an Indian rising!" he
muttered to the doctor; adding aloud, in Spanish: "Is that all you
have killed? Who is your officer?"
The lancers grinned. No; they had killed at least thirty, out of some
two hundred. Officer? H'm! Nobody was quite sure. The two men with the
heads were _supposed_ to be something in that line; but really they
couldn't say for certain.
"All right; pray go on. I and my troop will follow you," said Steel.
There was one advantage in having fallen in with these ragamuffins;
two at least of their number were half-bloods, with eyes like hawks
for a trail; and this put an end to all doubt as to the way which must
be followed now that the plain was reached. Some of the lancers had
more terrible tales of the Indians to add to what the travellers
already knew. A priest and a farmer had been murdered two days before;
and, only that morning, three ladies had been found speared to death
near an _estancia_ (farm).
The track wound in serpentine fashion, now skirting a town, now going
straight through a _rancho_ whence the occupants had fled. By late
afternoon the pursuers were within half a dozen miles of Durango; but
here the track--more visible than ever now, in the long grass to which
they had come--broke away at an obtuse angle, towards the more hilly
ground on their right. The doctor pulled up, and he and von Tempsky
began to confer with the soldiers. Horses and mules and men were all
jaded, urged Steel; and the trail might lead them on through another
all-night journey; and to no purpose. Why not ride for the town, take
a short rest, and beat up recruits?
The question was being argued and re-argued, when a series of
whistles, followed by one concerted and unearthly yell, proceeded from
the hills; and, like a pack of wolves, the Indians for whom they had
been hunting came charging down the slope; full three hundred of
them, stark naked, their bodies painted scarlet and black, their hair
and their horses decked with feathers. Steel looked glumly at his own
little army. Oh for a couple of dozen well-armed men who had learned
the virtues of obedience and combination!
"You lancers prepare to receive their charge," he shouted; and
motioned to his own men to draw off and be ready to attack the Seris
in the rear. He was obeyed indifferently; further urged by von Tempsky
and Jago, the guides and _rancheros_ were wheeling slowly northwards;
but the lancers were evidently more than half minded to charge
wholesale at the oncoming savages.
It is proverbial that the greater the pain or the danger or the
suspense, the more readily a man finds time to notice minute detail
that has little or nothing to do with the matter in hand. Steel
observed, on this occasion--though the yelling mob was within
thirty yards of him--that apparently not a man of them was under six
feet in height; that every man sat his horse as though he were a part
of it, and that each carried a spear, bow, and quiver, and also a
trumpery-looking round shield, studded with bits of brass, shell, and
looking-glass. As he had half anticipated, the savages suddenly
changed their tactics on reaching the hill foot, and wheeled
sharply towards the smaller force.
"Lancers, charge, the moment our volley's fired," shouted the doctor.
"Fire!--Charge! _Charge_, you thick-headed clod-hoppers, can't you?--O
Lord!" His voice died away in a disheartened little groan.
For the lancers might so easily have had it all their own way; at
least twenty redskins had fallen before the carbines of the
_rancheros_, and clearly the rest were surprised and confused. Yet
there sat these intelligent lancers, their spears in rest, calmly
unslinging their carbines for a volley that was quite as likely to
hurt their own side as the enemy.
"Can't be helped now," said the doctor to his followers. "Blaze away
at them as best you can."
There were no quick-firing magazine-rifles in those days, and with the
exception of von Tempsky and Steel, who had each a couple of
revolvers, every man was armed with a muzzle-loader; but necessity had
long been the mother of invention with the _rancheros_, as with the
trappers and the Gauchos. Wads were dispensed with; a generous pinch
of powder was thrown into the barrel, and each man had his mouth full
of bullets, ready to spit one after the powder; a cap was hastily
stuck on the pin and everyone was ready for another volley. But even
as it was fired, a shower of arrows was launched at each troop, and
many a man dropped forward in his saddle. Already the boot was on the
other leg; it was the whites who were confused now, while the Indians
had recovered their coolness; and, with a discord of howls, they
swiftly separated into two parts, one preparing to charge at each
white division.
"Pull yourselves together!"--"Die like men!" cried Steel and von
Tempsky respectively, as, abandoning their bridles and with a revolver
in each hand, they rode straight to meet the charge; while one half of
the lancers fled, and the other half sought to cut a way through their
assailants and rejoin the _rancheros_.
The doctor fired off six shots into the front rank as the two forces
met, and four Indians fell dead; but his own mule dropped under him,
transfixed by a spear.
"Here you are; mount," bawled von Tempsky in his ear, just when, in
imagination, he was already being trampled down by the Indians'
horses.
The ready-witted Pole had sent a bullet into the head of the redskin
nearest him, and as he fell, had caught the bridle of his horse. The
old backwoodsman, active as a cat, sprang to the horse's back, and the
next moment was emptying his second revolver into the faces of the
enemy. Meanwhile, the lancers fought furiously but spasmodically.
Their lances could not avail them against the war-hatchets of the
savages; and while one half clubbed their carbines, the other made but
fruitless play with their sabres, seeking at the same time to drown
the howls of the Indians with their own.
But suddenly, when the fight was at its hottest, and when the issue
was very much in the balance, a cry of dismay broke from one batch of
redskins, who, pointing towards Durango, began to wheel round with the
obvious intention of taking flight.
"Help is coming," cried Jago encouragingly; and, looking back for an
instant, Steel saw about forty men, splendidly mounted, and coming up
at a gallop from the direction of the town. The second division of the
enemy followed the example of the first, and turned to flee. The forty
strangers, without uttering a word as they swept past, dashed in
pursuit, firing while still at the gallop. It was vain for the Indians
to goad their tired horses; those of the rescuing party were fresh.
Before they had gone a mile they were overtaken, and Steel, who had
followed as best he could, heard a voice cry in English:
"No quarter; they don't deserve mercy. If we take prisoners, the
Mexicans will torture them to death."
In a few minutes there was not an Indian left alive; every man of the
fugitives had fallen before the ceaseless shower of bullets poured
into their ranks by the strangers.
The very sort of men for whom Steel had been longing had come; forty
of the Texan mounted militia, who had been sent down-country to treat
for mules, had put themselves at the disposal of the Durango police
for the suppression of the Indian hordes; and on this, as on
subsequent occasions, the punishment which they served out was so
terrible that the redskins fled south and east, or hid in the hills,
and for a year or two, at least, little was heard of their attacking
either travellers or homesteads.