The centre of the piazza presents a salient point in the picture. There
the well (_el poso_), with its gigantic wheel, its huge leathern belt
and buckets, its trough of cemented stone-work, offers an Oriental
aspect. Verily, it is the Persian wheel! 'Tis odd to a northern eye to
find such a structure in this Western land; but the explanation is easy.
The Persian wheel has travelled from Egypt along the southern shores of
the Mediterranean. With the Moors it crossed the Straits of Gibraltar,
and the Spaniard has carried it over the Atlantic. The reader of the
sacred volume will find many a familiar passage illustrated in the
customs of Mexico. The genius of the Arab has shaped many a thought for
the brain of the Aztec!
My eye rests not long upon the well, but turns to gaze on the scene of
active life that is passing near and around it. Forms, and varied ones,
I trow, are moving there.
Gliding with silent step and dubious look--his wide _calzoneros_
flapping around his ankles, his arms and shoulders shrouded in the
mottled serape, his black broad-brimmed hat darkening still more his
swarth face--goes the _poblano_, the denizen of the adobe hut. He shuns
the centre of the piazza, keeping around the walls; but at intervals his
eyes are turned towards the well with a look of mingled fierceness and
fear. He reaches a doorway--it is silently opened by a hand within--he
enters quickly, and seems glad to get out of sight. A little
afterwards, I can catch a glimpse of his sombre face dimly visible
behind the bars of the reja.
At distant corners, I descry small groups of his class, all similarly
costumed in calzoneros, striped blankets, and glaze hats; all, like him,
wearing uneasy looks. They gesticulate little, contrary to their usual
habit, and converse only in whispers or low mutterings. Unusual
circumstances surround them.
Most of the women are within doors; a few of the poorer class--of pure
Indian race--are seated in the piazza. They are hucksters, and their
wares are spread before them on a thin palm-leaf mat (_petate_), while
another similar one, supported umbrella-like on a stem, screens them and
their merchandise from the sun. Their dyed woollen garments, their bare
heads, their coarse black hair, adorned with twists of scarlet worsted,
impart to them somewhat of a gipsy look. They appear as free of care as
the zingali themselves: they laugh, and chatter, and show their white
teeth all day long, asking each new-comer to purchase their fruits and
vegetables, their _pinole_, _atole_, and _agua dulce_. Their not
unmusical voices ring pleasantly upon the ear.
Now and then a young girl, with red _olla_ poised upon her crown, trips
lightly across the piazza in the direction of the well. Perhaps she is
a _poblana_--one of the belles of the village--in short-skirted,
bright-coloured petticoat, embroidered but sleeveless chemisette, with
small satin slippers upon her feet; head, shoulders, and bosom, shrouded
in the blue-grey _reboso_; arms and ankles bare. Several of these may
be seen passing to and fro. They appear less uneasy than the men; they
even smile at intervals, and reply to the rude badinage uttered in an
unknown tongue by the odd-looking strangers around the well. The
Mexican women are courageous as they are amiable. As a race, their
beauty is undeniable.
But who are these strangers? They do not belong to the place, that is
evident; and equally so that they are objects of terror to those who do.
At present they are masters here. Their numbers, their proud confident
swagger, and the bold loud tone of their conversation, attest that they
are masters of the ground. Who are they?
Odd-looking, I have styled them; and the phrase is to be taken in its
full significance. A more odd-looking set of fellows never mustered in
a Mexican piazza, nor elsewhere. There are fourscore of them; and but
that each carries a yager rifle in his hand, a knife in his belt, and a
Colt's pistol on his thigh, you could not discover the slightest point
of resemblance between any two of them. Their arms are the only things
about them denoting _uniformity_, and some sort of organisation; for the
rest, they are as unlike one another as the various shapes and hues of
coarse broadcloth, woollen jeans, cottonades, coloured blankets, and
buckskin, can make them. They wear caps of 'coon-skin, and cat's-skin,
and squirrel; hats of beaver, and felt, and glaze, of wool and palmetto,
of every imaginable shape and slouch. Even of the modern monster--the
silken "tile"--samples might be seen, _badly crushed_. There are coats
of broadcloth, few in number, and well worn; but many are the garments
of "Kentucky jeans" of bluish-grey, of copper-coloured nigger cloth, and
sky-coloured cottonade. Some wear coats made of green blankets, others
of blue ones, and some of a scarlet red. There are hunting-shirts of
dressed deerskin, with plaited skirt, and cape, fringed and jauntily
adorned with beads and embroidery--the favourite style of the backwoods
hunter, but others there are of true Indian cut--open only at the
throat, and hanging loose, or fastened around the waist with a belt--the
same that secures the knife and pistol. There are cloth jackets too,
such as are worn by sailors, and others of sky-blue cottonade--the
costume of the Creole of Louisiana; some of red-brown leather--the
_jaqueta_ of the Spano-American; and still another fashion, the
close-fitting embroidered "spencer" of the Mexican ranchero. Some
shoulders are covered by serapes, and some by the more graceful and
toga-like manga. Look lower down: examine the limbs of the men of this
motley band: the covering of these is not less varied than their upper
garments. You see wrappers of coarse cloth, of flannel, and of baize:
they are blue, and scarlet, and green. You see leggings of raw hide and
of buckskin; boots of horse-leather reaching to the thighs; "nigger
boots" of still coarser fabric, with the pantaloons tucked under
_brogans_ of unstained calf-skin, and moccasins of varied cut,
betokening the fashion of more than one Indian tribe. You may see limbs
encased in calzoneros, and others in the heavy stamped leather _botas_
of the Mexican horseman, resembling the greaves of warriors of the olden
time.
The heels of all are armed, though their armature is as varied as the
costumes. There are spurs of silver and steel, some plated, and some
with the plating worn off; some strapped, and others screwed into the
heel of the boot; some light, with small rowels and tiny teeth, while
others are seen (the heavy spur of Mexico) of several pounds' weight,
with rowels five inches in diameter, and teeth that might be dashed
through the ribs of a horse!--cruel weapons of the Mexican _cavallero_.
But these spurs in the piazza, these botas and calzoneros, these mangas
and serapes, are not worn by _Mexicans_. Their present wearers are men
of a different race. Most of those tall stalwart bodies are the product
of the maize-plant of Kentucky and Tennessee, or the buckwheat and
"hog-meat" of the fertile flats of Ohio, Indiana, and the Illinois.
They are the squatters and hunters of the backwoods, the farmers of the
great western slopes of the Alleghanies, the boatmen of the Mississippi,
the pioneers of Arkansas and Missouri, the trappers of prairie-land, the
_voyageurs_ of the lake-country, the young planters of the lower states,
the French Creoles of Louisiana, the adventurous settlers of Texas, with
here and there a gay city spark from the larger towns of the "great
west." Yes, and from other sources are individuals of that mixed band.
I recognise the Teutonic type--the fair hair and whitish-yellow
moustache of the German, the florid Englishman, the staid Scot, and his
contrast the noisy Hibernian; both equally brave. I behold the adroit
and nimble Frenchman, full of laugh and chatter, the stanch soldierly
Swiss, and the moustached exile of Poland, dark, sombre, and silent.
What a study for an ethnologist is that band of odd-looking men! Who
are they?
You have thrice asked the question. I answer it. They are a corps of
"Rangers"--_the guerilla of the American army_.
And who am I? I am their captain--their chief.
Yes, I am the leader of that queer crew; and, despite their rough motley
aspect, I dare affirm, that not in Europe, not in America elsewhere, not
upon the great globe's surface, can be found a band, of like numbers, to
equal them in strength, daring, and warlike intelligence. Many of them
have spent half a life in the sharpening practice of border warfare--
Indian or Mexican--and from these the others have learnt. Some have
been gentlemen upon whom fortune has frowned; a few have been
desperadoes within the pale of civilised life; and a smaller few,
perhaps, _outlaws_ beyond it--bad materials wherewith to _colonise_; not
so bad, if you go but to _conquer_.
Rude as is the _coup d'oeil_ of the corps, I am proud to say that a high
sentiment of honour pervades it--higher than will be found in the picked
_corps de garde_ of an emperor. True, they appear rough and reckless--
terrible, I might say; for most of them--with their long beards and
hair, dust-begrimed faces, slouched hats, and odd habiliments, belted as
they are with knife, pistol, powder-horn, and pouch--present such an
aspect.
But you would wrong them to take them as they look. Few among them are
the pure bandits whose aim is plunder. Many a noble heart beats beneath
a rude exterior--many a one truly humane. There are hearts in that band
that throb under the influence of patriotism; some are guided by a still
nobler impulse, a desire to extend the area of freedom: others, it is
true, yearn but for revenge. These last are chiefly Texans, who mourn a
friend or brother slain by Mexican treachery. They have not forgotten
the cowardly assassination of Goliad; they remember the red butchery of
the Alamo.
Perhaps I alone, of all the band, have no motive for being here; if one,
'tis slight--scarce so noble as vengeance. Mere chance, the love of
excitement and adventure, perhaps some weak fondness for power and fame,
are all the excuses I can urge for taking a hand in this affair. A poor
adventurer--without friends, without home, without country, for my
native land is no more a nation--my heart is not cheered by a single
throb of patriotism. I have no private wrong to redress, no public
cause, no country for which to combat.
During intervals of inaction, these thoughts recur to me, and give me
pain.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The men have picketed their horses in the church enclosure; some are
tied to trees, and others to the reja-bars of the windows: like their
riders, a motley group, various in size, colour, and race. The strong
high-mettled steed of Kentucky and Tennessee, the light "pacer" of
Louisiana, the cob, the barb, his descendant the "mustang," that but a
few weeks ago was running wild upon the prairies, may all be seen in the
troop. Mules, also, of two distinct races--the large gaunt mule of
North America, and the smaller and more sprightly variety, native of the
soil.
My own black steed, with his pretty fern-coloured muzzle, stands near
the fountain in the centre of the piazza. My eye wanders with a sort of
habitual delight over the oval outlines of his body. How proudly he
curves his swan like neck, and with mock anger paws up the dust! He
knows that my eyes are upon him.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
We have been scarcely an hour in the rancheria; we are perfect strangers
to it: we are the first American troop its people have yet seen--
although the war has been going on for some months farther down the
river. We have been despatched upon scouting duty, with orders to scour
the surrounding country as far as it is safe. The object in sending us
hither is not so much to guard against a surprise from our Mexican foe,
who is not upon this side, but to guard _them_, the Mexicans, from
another enemy--an enemy of _both of us_--the Comanche! These Indian
Ishmaelites, report says, are upon the "_war-trail_" and have quite an
army in the field. It is said they are foraging higher up the river,
where they have it all to themselves, and have just pillaged a
settlement in that direction--butchered the men, as is their wont, and
carried off the women, children, and chattels. We came hither to
conquer the Mexicans, but we must _protect_ while _conquering_ them!
_Cosas de Mexico_!