That coaching is a grand sport I cannot deny, for I know almost
nothing of it beyond an impression that there is a tremendous amount
of mystery connected with its rites. As a sport I have never
participated in it, but while travelling the waste places of the earth
I have used it as a means on occasion. I never will again. There is no
place to which I desire to go badly enough to go in a coach, and such
points of interest as are inaccessible except by coach are off my
trail. I am not in the least superstitious, and am prone to scout such
tendencies; but I’m a Jonah in a stage-coach, and that is not a
superstition, but a fact amply proven by many trials. I remember as a
boy in Montana having been so hopelessly mixed up with a sage-bush on
a dark night when the stage overturned that it left an impression on
me. Later in life I was travelling in Arizona, and we were bowling
along about ten miles an hour down a great “hog-back” to the plains
below. A “swing mule” tripped up a “lead mule,” and the stage--with
myself on the box--ran over the whole six, and when the driver and I
separated ourselves from the mules, shreds of harness, splinters,
hair, hide, cargo, and cactus plants I began to formulate the
intelligence that stage-coaching was dangerous.
While riding in an army ambulance with Major Viele, of the First
Cavalry, and the late Lieutenant Clark, of the Tenth, the brake-beam
broke on the descent of a hill, and we only hit the ground in the
high places for about a mile. I will not insist that every man can
hold his breath for five consecutive minutes, but I did it. Thereupon
I formulated vows and pledges. But like the weak creature I am, I
ignored all this and got into one at Chihuahua last winter, and first
and last did five hundred miles of jolting, with all the incident and
the regulation accident which goes to make up that sort of thing.
Now I like to think that I have been through it all, and am alive and
unmaimed; and I take a great deal of comfort in knowing that, however
I may meet my end, a stage-coach will be in no way connected with it.
[Illustration: A COACHERO]
[Illustration: THE START]
On the trip out we had mules. They were black and diminutive. To me a
Mexican mule seems to be the Chinaman of the dumb animals. They are
enduring beyond comprehension, and they have minds which are patient,
yet alert and full of guile. The Mexican _coacheros_ have their mules
trained, as bankers do their depositors in our land. They back up
against a wall and stand in line while one by one they are harnessed.
In the early morning I liked to see the lantern-light glorify the
little black creatures against the adobe wall, and hear the big
_coachero_ talk to his beasts in that easy, familiar way and with that
mutual comprehension which is lost to those of the human race who have
progressed beyond the natural state. This coachman was an enormous
man--big, bony, and with Sullivanesque shoulders, gorilla hands, and a
blue-black buccaneer beard; and but for a merry brown eye and a mouth
set in perpetual readiness to grin he would have belonged to the
“mild-mannered” class, to which, as a matter of fact, he did not. It
is written in the lease of his land that he shall drive the Bavicora
ranche coach--it’s fief-service, it’s feudal, and it carries one back.
If the little mules and ponies did not stand in the exact six feet of
ground where he wanted them, he grabbed hold of them and moved them
over to the place without a word, and after being located they never
moved until he yanked or lifted them to their place at the pole. The
guards were Mexican Indians--hair cut _à la Cosaques_, big straw hats,
_serapes_, and munitions of war. William, whose ancestors had
emigrated from the Congo region before the war, was to cook. He was
also guide, philosopher, and friend to Mr. H. and myself in this
strange land, and he made all things possible by his tact and zeal in
our behalf. William knows every one in the State of Chihuahua, and he
is constantly telling us of the standing and glittering position of
the inhabitants of the mud huts which we pass, until it sounds like
that ghastly array of intelligence with which a society reporter
quickens the social dead in a Sunday newspaper.
At night we stay at the different ranches, and, rolling ourselves up
in our blankets, we lie down on the mud floors to sleep. It’s not so
bad after one becomes used to it, albeit the skin wears off one’s
femur joint. The Mexican hen is as conscientious here as elsewhere,
and we eat eggs. The Mexican coffee is always excellent in quality,
but the people make it up into a nerve-jerking dose, which will stand
hot-water in quantities. Nearly all travellers are favorably impressed
with the _frejoles_ and _tortillas_ of the country. The beans are
good, but as old General Taylor once said, “They killed more men than
did bullets in the Mexican War.” Of the _tortillas_ I will say, as my
philosophical friend, Mr. Poultney Bigelow, says of the black bread of
the Russian soldier, “It’s a good strong food to march and fight on,”
which can in no way be a recommendation of its palatability.
The coach starts by gray dawn, and we are aroused at an early hour.
The white men take sponge-baths in a wash-basin, and the native who
stands about deep in the folds of his _serape_ fails utterly to
comprehend. He evidently thinks a lot, but he doesn’t say anything. I
suppose it seems like “clay-eating” or penitent mutilations to
him--not exactly insanity, but a curious custom, at any rate. On the
return trip we have a half-broken team of buckskin broncos, which have
to be “hooked up” with great stealth. And when the coachman had
climbed quietly on to the box and we were inside, the guards let go of
the team, and the coachman cracked his whip, while we looked out of
the window and held our breath. Then there were Horse Pyrotechniques!
Ground and Lofty Tumbling! Greatest Show on Earth! for about a minute,
when we made a start down the big road--or didn’t, as the case might
be. After the first round we often had to get out, and, two ponies
having got themselves into the same collar, we would then rearrange
them for better luck next time.
[Illustration: MORNING TOILET]
In Mexico they drive four mules abreast in the lead and two on the
pole, which seems to be an excellent way. Mexican coachmen generally
keep “belting” their stock and yelling “_Underlay-nula!_” which is
both picturesque and unintelligible. Our man was, however, better
educated. Forty or fifty miles is a day’s journey, but the exact
distance is so dependent on the roads, the load, and the desire to
“get thar” that it varies greatly.
We pass the Guerrero stage as it bowls along, and hundreds of heavy,
creeking ox-carts, as they draw slowly over the yellow landscape, with
their freight to and from the mines. Bunches of sorrowful _burros_,
with corn, wood, pottery, and hay, part as we sweep along through and
by them.
We have the inspiring vista of Chihuahua before us all the time. It is
massive in its proportions and opalescent in color. There are torquois
hills, dazzling yellow foregrounds--the palette of the “rainbow
school” is everywhere. There are little mud houses, ranches, and dirty
little adobe towns to pass, which you must admire, though you may not
like them. Gaunt cattle wander in their search for grass and water,
and women squat by the riverbed engaged in washing or filling their
_ollas_.
The people are enchanting. It is like reading the Bible to look at
them, because it is so unreal; yet there they are before one, strange
and mysterious, and, like other things which appeal to one’s
imagination, it would be a sad thing if one were to understand them.
One is tempted to think that the people of our Northern races know too
much for their own good. It seems remorseless, but it is so. When I
heard the poor Mexican asked why he thought it had not rained in
eighteen months, he said, “Because God wills it, I suppose;” we were
edified by the way they shifted the responsibility which Farmer Dunn
in our part of the world so cheerfully assumes.
One afternoon we were on a down-grade, going along at a fair pace,
when a wheel struck a stone, placed there by some freighter to block
his load. It heaved the coach, pulled out the king-pin, and let the
big Concord down and over on its side. The mules went on with the
front wheels, pulling Jack off the box, while we who were on top
described a graceful parabolic curve and landed with three dull thuds.
I was caught under the coach by one leg and held there. A guard inside
made all haste to crawl out through a window, and after a bit I was
released. We were all pretty badly bruised up, and Mr. H. had his foot
broken. The mules were recovered, however, the coach righted, and we
were again off. We made the town of Tamochica that night, and the
town-folks were kind and attentive. They made crutches, heated water,
and sent a man to the creek to catch leeches to put on our wounds. Two
men were shot in a house near by during the night, and for a few
minutes there was a lively fusillade of pistol shots. It was evident
that life in Tamochica would spoil a man’s taste for anything quiet,
and so as soon as we could move we did it.
We passed an old church, and were shown two Jesuits who had been dead
over a hundred years. They were wonderfully preserved, and were
dressed in full regalia. I wondered by what embalmer’s art it had been
accomplished.
[Illustration: HARNESSING MULES]
A guard of punchers met us to conduct us over a mountain-pass. They
were dressed in terra-cotta buckskin trimmed with white leather, and
were armed for the largest game in the country. The Bavicora coach has
never been robbed, and it is never going to be--or, at least that is
the intention of the I-F folks. One man can rob a stage-coach as
easily as he could a box of sardines, but with outriders before and
behind it takes a large party, and even then they will leave a “hot
trail” behind them.
One morning as I was lolling out of the window I noticed the wheel of
the coach pass over a long, blue Roman candle. I thought it was
curious that a long, blue Roman candle should be lying out there on
the plains, when with a sudden sickening it flashed upon me--“giant
powder!” The coach was stopped, and we got out. The road was full of
the sticks of this high explosive. A man was coming down the road
leading a _burro_ and picking up the things, and he explained that
they had dropped out of a package from his bull-wagon as he passed the
night before. We didn’t run over any more pieces. If the stick had
gone off there would have been a little cloud of dust on the Guerrero
road, and, I hope, some regrets in various parts of the world. The
incident cannot be made startling, but it put the occupants of the
Bavicora coach in a quiet train of reflection that makes a man
religious.
Now, as I ponder over the last stage-coach ride which I shall ever
take on this earth, I am conscious that it was pleasant, instructive,
and full of incident. All that might have happened did not, but enough
did to satiate my taste.