Reader, are you the sort of person who rushes through life the first
passenger on the earliest train; who hires the fastest coach at
Niagara, to exhaust the Falls, the Whirlpool, and Lundy’s Lane in
half a day, and are then ready to whiz off in the night express? If
you are, then are we no company for each other, and may as well part
at once. You are entirely unfit for frontier travel and may go this
minute. _Adios! Adios!_
But you who lingered by the Rapids; who have a kindly glance for
the smutty sentinel at the brake; who do not threaten to die when
the gentlemanly conductor fills the car full and corks it tight
as a champagne bottle, but live on in order to cheer a gasping
fellow-martyr; who help the mediæval lady, of convex outline, traveling
with two geraniums and a canary bird, yet keep a sympathetic eye for
the young pair in the new of the moon, murmuring, as they pass, I too
have dwelt in Arcadia.--You are the one I love. Yours are the feet,
beauteous on the mountain-top, that go gypsying with me through this
New World, which Agassiz tells us is the Old.
We travel in a hap-hazard way, varied with many a digression, following
no train but our own fancies. We stop to speak with the natives by the
way, try to sketch a Gifford sunset on a gritty scratch-book, and stray
from the road for bits of cheating mica, and for flowers which wilt in
the gathering, and change in our hands to dry stalks and grasses.
The mountains are eternally beautiful, always changing, forever new,
and all about us is picture. Walking for rest, the grama grass is soft
and pleasant under the pilgrim’s feet; the sun always shines; the days
are like the enchanted rooms in the fairy castle, each more beautiful
than every other; the air is balm, and oil, and wine.
There is nothing pleasanter than such travel, unless it be to float
between blue and blue among the Cyclades, and idly drift along the
tideless sea, to catch the far echo of the syren songs that wooed the
wandering Ulysses.
And now for the Turquois Mines.
To one who was an early and ardent admirer of _Lalla Rookh_, the
word turquois brings up memories of old or, rather, young days among
fragrant orchard trees, meadows pink and white with clover-blooms,
and a certain fine-printed, sight-destroying volume of the poet whose
hundredth birthday we have just celebrated. It is like a fading dream
to look from the shadowy half-way house at the girl embowered among
singing birds, reading, with dazzled eyes, of swords inlaid with rich
marquetry, talismans, and characters of the scimitar of Solomon. Arms of
“The wild warriors of the Turquois Hills,”
who rallied to the white veil and glittering banner of the False
Prophet.
The perfumed and sparkling poem which thrilled so many soft hearts at
life’s morning is not loved by lovers of this age. Only the setting
generation--and they mainly for the sake of old times--read “The Veiled
Prophet of Khorassan,” and in the twilight pensively sing “Araby’s
Daughter,” with voice not altogether fresh. In the days when that fond
farewell was first sung it was taught that turquoises belonged chiefly
to the Turkish and Persian Empires. Since then the ceaseless delving
of the antiquary has given to the world such treasure far removed from
the Shah’s dominions. There are mines of high antiquity in Mount Sinai,
and a bronze finger-ring, of unique pattern, set with turquoises, has
been discovered in the Wady Meghara of that peninsula. It dates back to
the vague, unreal period of the Fourth Dynasty; and amulets of the same
material are unearthed in the ruins of ancient Egyptian towns. They are
found in Arabia Petrea, in a stratum of red sandstone, of finer blue
and darker shade than the Persian, and the visitor of Roman museums
sees antique cameos and intaglios carved in Arabian turquois, sadly
faded and tarnished by long burial. Only a few in the Vatican still
retain their color.
Those of Khorassan are sold in Russia on sticks, tied in bunches
like quills, and are in demand by jewelers of St. Petersburg, for
enriching sword-hilts, handles of daggers, belts, pipes, etc. The Shah
is reported to have in keeping all the finest gems, allowing only the
inferior grades to leave the country.
In a curious old treatise on precious stones the turquois is described
as a delicate and sensitive jewel, which has an affinity for its
owner, changing color with his health and varying fortunes. The fact
that they do change color in a wholly unaccountable manner may explain
the fanciful notion. Human hearts are the same everywhere and in all
ages, and many a myth and superstition of the East is reproduced in
Mexico--plain testimony that Orientalism dwells not alone in its sky
and the palm trees of the valley.
It interested me greatly to find that the pretty legend of the Orient
attaches to the turquois of the New World, called by the ancient Aztec
_chalchuite_ (pronounced chal-chew-e-te).
Like the Asiatic, the Aztecan believed it brought good fortune to the
wearer, glowed in sympathy with the healthful beating of his pulse,
and ominously paled in prophecy of a coming misfortune. The power of
the Montezumas was absolute, as their dominion was vast; and wherever
the green banner of the king marked the limit of his realm, the
_chalchuite_ was, by imperial decree, forbidden to the commonalty--the
jewel sacred to the royal house. When the five ambassadors from Totonac
came to the tent of Cortez, at Vera Cruz, they defied the law (being
then at war with the fierce and bloody Aztec), and wore the proscribed
jewels--“gems of a bright blue stone, in their ears and nostrils.”[14]
Readers of Prescott will remember his picturesque page describing the
city of Tezcuco, where North American civilization reached its height.
In the royal palace was a hall of justice, called the “Tribunal of
God,” where the judge decided important causes and passed sentence of
death, seated on a throne of pure gold, inlaid with the consecrated
turquois.
The art of cutting gems was carried to high perfection by the Aztecs,
and the carved _chalchuite_ is noted by every writer on the Spanish
Conquest.
Father Sahagun calls it a jasper of very green color, “or a common
smaragdus,” so precious to the infidel that the use of them was
prohibited by royal edict to any but the nobility. “It represented
to them everything that was excellent in its kind; for which reason
they put such a stone in the mouth of distinguished chiefs who died,”
like the coin poetry offered to the grim ferryman of the souls of the
Greek dead.[15] They were valued by the heathen above all earthly
possessions, and, therefore, at first held in great estimation by the
Spaniards. The art of polishing them came from Heaven, the gift of
the god Quetzelcoatl, a gentle deity who instructed the Aztecs in the
use of metals, agriculture, and the arts of government. It was in the
golden age of Anahuac, when an ear of Indian corn was as much as one
man could carry, when the air was filled with the melody of birds, the
earth with flowers, and cotton in the field took of its own accord
the rich dye of cochineal. Cholula was his favorite city, where the
massy ruins of the temple dedicated to his worship form one of the
most interesting relics of ancient Mexico. By command of the superior
deities, he took leave of his worshipers on the shores of the Mexican
Gulf, under promise to return, and, entering his wizard skiff, made of
serpents’ skins, sailed away to the blooming shores of happy Tlapallan.
The earliest mention of this historic gem is made by the honest old
soldier, Bernal Diaz. Four _chalchuites_, counted the most precious
offerings from his treasury, were among the first presents sent by
Montezuma to Cortez. “A gift to our emperor, designed as a mark of
highest respect, as each of them, they assured us, was worth more than
a wagon-load of gold.” The covetous Spaniard was enraptured with the
gold-dust and jewels, and gave in exchange--a sorry return for the
munificence of the imperial present--a few Holland shirts, and a string
of trumpery beads, strongly perfumed with musk.
On sending the priceless Aztecan diamonds, “worth four wagon-loads
of gold,” to Valladolid, it turned out, rather awkwardly for the
Spaniards, that they were not worth so many wagon-loads of earth.
The gossiping Herodotus of the New World alludes to the _chalchuite_
again in his narrative of the first meeting of Montezuma and Cortez,
on the Causeway, at the entrance to Mexico, city of enchantment. That
fatal day, when the force of his own genius brought the representative
of the strongest empire of the Old World face to face with the
mightiest monarch of the New, its pale lustre shone dimly in the fringe
of the canopy held by the _Caciques_ above the hapless monarch’s head.
“A canopy of exceeding great value,” says the quaint chronicler,
“decorated with green feathers, gold and silver, _chalchuis_ stones
and pearls, which hung down from a bordering altogether curious to
look at.”
Its delicately-traced veins, occasionally of greenish hue, betray a
near kinship to malachite. This rich-tinted mineral is finer than
the dark-colored stone of Russia, and though by no means costly as
Shylock’s turquoise, the _chalchuite_ still holds its high repute among
the various tribes of the red race.
It is valued by the Navajo beyond the garnets and beryls of his own
country, and is used as currency among the half-civilized Pueblos of
New Mexico and Arizona. The Indian girls along the Colorado wear it as
a love-token in their necklaces; the roving and tameless Apache covets
a blue bead as an amulet; the degraded Ute loves its soft glimmer;
and when a Mohave chief would assume regal splendor, he sticks a
three-cornered piece of _chalchuite_ in his royal nose.
Such associations fresh in mind, it was with extreme pleasure I
prepared for an excursion to Los Cerillos, where these blue-eyed gems
are found, the only mines as yet discovered this side the Russian seas.
Twenty-six miles southwest of Santa Fé are the long, narrow ranges of
gold and silver-bearing mountains--Placer, Sandia, Manzana, etc.--which
form an unbroken chain on the eastern side of the Rio Grande. Among
them are three turquoise mines, which anciently supplied the Indian
market of North America.
A roomy ambulance, drawn by four mules; various delights, liquid and
solid, in a mess-chest; a party of choice spirits, like my reader; and
a morning such as breaks nowhere but over the hills of Paradise and New
Mexico--this was our start.
Our driver was a young Mexican, bearing a lengthy and musical name,
with which I shall not serenade you. Juan Fresco (Cool John) is a
minute fragment of it. He was very spruce in a brand-new suit of
kerseymere, of the sort sold throughout the frontier by Israelites in
whom there is much guile; a handsome Navajo blanket closely woven and
brightly striped; and was happy in possession of a limitless supply
of corn husks and powdered tobacco which he rolled into cigarettes
and smoked, without so much as saying, By your leave. Had he known it
was impolite, he would have implored pardon, with many sweet-sounding
words. Mexican women smoke constantly, as men do and he does not
know better. He can live and does live on a dollar a week; and, with
_tortillas_, onions, red pepper, and once in a great while a mutton
stew, thrives and drives the ambulance. They say that there is Indian
blood in him; that he is cold as death and treacherous as a tiger-cat;
but I do not believe it.
In this high, dry country, corresponding with Western Asia, the
tendency of the human body is to Arab leanness, and Juan Fresco, who
grew to man’s estate under this fierce Syrian sun, sitting against the
mud wall of a Syrian hut, has a soft Syrian face. No positive beauty
(I have never seen out-door people except Arabs who have), but comely
features, unchanging, melancholy eyes, and a gentle, passive voice,
very winsome.
The festal day found Juan Fresco highly embellished with a yellow sash
tied tightly around his waist, securing a long knife (_navaja_) in its
folds. Every Spaniard can use the knife with skill, and in his hands it
becomes a dreadful weapon. He can cast it with exact aim and unerring
certainty into a post or into the heart of an enemy at a considerable
distance away; and wherever there is Spanish blood the _navaja_ is the
favorite weapon, not always concealed about his person. Our muleteer
took his pleasure sadly as any Englishmen; but his sadness is only for
strangers. He is leader of the band which goes from house to house
playing under the windows--the sweet Spanish invitation to the ball;
gayly thrums the guitar at the light fandango; and can dance till
morning as well as hold his own in any affray that may grow out of the
wild license of the _baile_.
Occasionally he leaped from his seat for a pocketful of stones,
gathering them as the wagon moved on, and throwing them at the heads
of the mules; at the same time muttering, on the ledger lines below,
sacred words mixed with names of saints. The Mexican insists a mule
cannot be made to understand without such urging; and they have a
proverb: “An ass’s ears are made long in order to catch oaths.”
[N. B.--There is reason to believe that a like superstition attaches to
the Army of the United States.]
Leaving the venerable city of the Pueblos, we crossed the Santa Fé
River, which in Indiana would be called a spring branch. I have often
gone over it dry shod. But the poverty of the Spanish language allows
only one word for running water--_Rio_, translated river. The Santa Fé
Mountains round about us are a part of the great Rocky Mountain system,
connecting on the north with the Spanish Peaks and Raton Mountains,
including many whose summits are silvered with perpetual snow. A
series of high, picturesque chains, in the morning-glow robed with a
transparent purple haze, of such exquisite tint one can hardly realize
those airy pyramids in a fair border-land between us and heaven are,
indeed, upheavals of earth, veined with quartz and based on coarse red
granite.
Words cannot picture aught so fair. The faintest violet, the softest
heliotrope are coarse and hard beside the dreamy, poetic color, which
appeals to the eye as dim æolian soundings touch the ear, charming the
fancy with vague ideas of a viewless beauty within the floating veil.
I cannot make you understand. Come and see the transfiguration which
makes rock-ribbed hills appear like tents of light, lovely enough for
angels to rest in on their upward flight.
The plain was smooth as a prairie, and our road free of stone. The
reader must not imagine it lay among Alpine scenery, with huge peaks
towering to the sky, forbidding our advance, yielding at last to reveal
smiling valleys and hidden hamlets, nestling close to the hillsides in
narrow glens. Here all is on the same magnificent scale. The plains
are broad as the summits are high; the refined atmosphere so intensely
clear the light is like a reflection from snow. No such extensive
views are in Europe or any country where the air holds moisture, and
sometimes the landscapes seem absolutely limitless.
The Sierras are short, uneven spurs from the main line. They have
disturbed the overlying strata in the shape of _mesas_ (tables) of
solid rock, which are a distinguishing feature of Rocky Mountain
scenery, giving it a grotesque, fantastic beauty. The process of
erosion has formed in colossal size copies of the grandest structures
of man’s art, and towering columns, temples with sharp pinnacles,
scattered pillars rise abruptly from the centre of plains desolate and
forsaken as the wilderness of Engedi--strange and solemn sights. In the
Painted Desert are snow-white _mesas_, the _craie blanche_ composition
of the chalk cliffs on the south coast of England, which dazzle the
eye, reflecting the sunlight like palaces of alabaster or of ice. The
stone corridors of Karnak and Philae are the work of pigmies compared
with this noble architecture, wrought by slow processes in secret
places,
“Made by Nature for herself.”
Sometimes the _mesa_ shapes into a rose-red wall, with fluted columns
that uphold the sky. Again it is a group of gray pyramids, a thousand
or twelve hundred feet high; or an isolated, broken dome, worn smooth
by the weather, picturesque in the extreme.
Nothing affords such changes of coloring as the variegated marls, lying
in regular bands of red, orange, green, blue, of rainbow hue, striped
and interstratified with belts of purple, bluish white, and mottled
veins of exceeding richness.
Strangely enough, the traveler occasionally finds himself riding above
these singular formations, and looking _down_ on the “Painted Rocks.”
The sheer sides of a _mesa_ of gray limestone, mixed with blue clay
and capped with a rim of pillared basalt, are singularly like fabrics
of hewn stone. I have seen low walls of even height reaching long
distances, precisely like field-walls laid by skillful masons. These,
in the neighborhood of stately _façades_, with the fair finish at the
top, explain how an explorer, afraid to make near approach, should go
away and give accounts of vast cities, with gallant banners on the
walls enclosed in heavy outworks.
FOOTNOTES:
[14] Prescott’s _History of the Conquest of Mexico_, Vol. I.
[15] Father Sahagun thus describes these precious stones: “_Las
chalchuites son verdes y no transparentes mezcladas de blanco, usanlas,
mucho las principales trayendolas las muñecas atadas en hilo, y aquello
es señal de que es persona noble el que las trae._”--_Hist. de Nueva
España_, Lib. ii. chap. 8.