KANSAS--COLORADO--NEW MEXICO.
Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé Railroad -- Land Grants --
Farming Statistics -- Immigration and Settling -- Colorado
-- New Mexico -- Santa Fé -- Colossal Hotels -- Archbishop
Lamy -- The Rio Grande.
We have now taken a new point of departure. In a few minutes we are in
the State of Kansas (in which Kansas City is _not_, it is in Missouri)
and the western world lies before us. We have crossed the great river
by a bridge 1387 ft. long, which cost 200,000_l._
Kansas has now been opened up, as it is called. The Atchison, Topeka,
and Santa Fé Railway, incorporated in 1863, is one of the most
important trunk railways of the American continent. It now extends,
with its branches, over 1700 miles; but although it was authorised as
a railway in the year I have mentioned, the line from Topeka westward
was not commenced till 1869; and it was not till 1871 that
communication was completed to Newton, and a branch made to Wichita.
In the following year the line was completed between Atchison and
Topeka; and in 1875 and 1876 between Topeka and Kansas City, with an
extension westward to Pueblo in Colorado, increasing the mileage to
820. And now it has spanned rivers, tunnelled mountains, and crossed
deserts to Florida Pass in New Mexico, where it "connects" with the
Southern Pacific Railway and completes the communication with San
Francisco. The Company are still developing and pushing out their
lines. The Santa Fé Railroad is striking out for Albuquerque, New
Mexico, to make a short route to San Francisco. Another line is being
made to Guaymas, on the Gulf of California; and another to the city of
Mexico itself. And when all these are completed the boast of the
Handbook of the Company will be justified, and the Atchison, Topeka,
and Santa Fé will be the longest railway in the world under one
management. It will have every reasonable chance of being also the
main continental route to China, Japan, Australia, and South America,
tapping a large share of the passenger traffic to India, and leading
across the American Continent streams of voyagers and tourists. When
the Guaymas line is finished there will be a saving of not less than
1400 miles over the San Francisco route between New York and
Australia; and Japan and China will be brought nearer by 800 and 1000
miles respectively.
Now it does not, I think, fall within the scope of such a book as
this, which is intended to be a record of what a certain number of
people did in a short tour in the United States, rather than a work of
reference for emigrants, or repository of investigation, to offer any
opinion which might mislead those who are looking towards the western
world for their future homes and for the scene of their labours in
search of competence or fortune; but from what I was told I think it
may be taken as true that the railway company I have named has acted
with a liberality, in regard to the settlers in the State of Kansas,
which, if it has brought in return profits to them, must be admitted
to have entitled them to the praise of liberal and intelligent
dealing. When misfortune came upon the State, and the frontier
settlers needed help, the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé Railway gave
it them, and carried them away from the scene of the failure, or
granted them terms for the repayment of the obligations they incurred
if they were willing to stay upon the farms. The Company have given
fair warning to all comers that they do not encourage them to rush off
to what is called the "Far West," and to wander about in the
wilderness in the hope that they will find quails and manna already
cooked and tumbling from the skies. They say that they do not advise
any person to come to Kansas to start farming unless he has capital
enough to run it for a year. By Act of Congress, in 1863, 3,000,000
acres of land were granted to the Company in alternate sections,
between Cottonwood and the border of Kansas on the west, extending
twenty miles each side on the line as far as Kinsley, where the
breadth narrows to ten miles at each side. Government in these Western
States, in the case of grants like this, is authorised by Congress to
retain the alternative sections of one square mile, equal to 640
acres, which are retained for homestead and pre-emption; and at the
time at which I am writing all the even-numbered sections which are
thus belonging to the Government are occupied by settlers as far west
as Spearville, and the sections with odd numbers within ten and twenty
miles of the railway, belonging to the Railway Company, have now been
largely appropriated, about one-third having been sold to actual
settlers. But the Company state that it is almost impossible now to
find any vacant land over one mile from a neighbour's house, or over
three miles from a school-house east of Spearville, except in the
strip of sandhills lying on the south side of the Arkansas Railway. In
many of the counties, the country is thickly settled and improved, and
has an appearance of having been farmed for a quarter of a century
instead of a few years.
It would probably be unjust to suppose that the praise and
recommendation of the gentlemen connected with the great lines are
much, if at all, influenced by the consideration of their own
interests as officers or shareholders; and therefore I may take it for
granted that the assertion, that "no matter what the speciality of the
farmer may be, he will find soil and climate in the sections of the
Company to suit him," is justified. Along by Cottonwood, and the
eastern half of the Marion county, the high rolling prairie, covered
with sweet nutritious grass, broken at short intervals by numerous
valleys of corn, a quarter of a mile to a mile wide, through which
flow perennial streams fed by hundreds of living springs, and fringed
with timber, is peculiarly adapted to cattle-raising and dairying as
a speciality, and the soil and climate are favourable to general
farming. Between Florence and the Great Bend is described as the
finest portion of Kansas. The county is gently rolling, in rich fields
of which nearly every acre can be tilled, with deep upland soil and
dark sandy loam underlaid with a porous marl, almost equal in
fertility and affording a perfect and natural drainage. It is almost
ridiculous to enumerate the crops which can be grown, according to my
authority in this district--corn, wheat, oats, rye, barley, flax,
buckwheat, tobacco, Irish and sweet potatoes, sorghum, castor-beans,
broom-corn, rice-corn, millet, clover, timothy, peanuts, silkworms,
apples, peaches, pears, plums, cherries, grapes, and all kinds of
vegetables.
There was in 1879, and a part of last year, a terrible drought in the
western portion of the State, and Mr. Bennyworth, seeing that wheat
could not be grown in consequence, planted 600 acres of sugar-cane,
and was rewarded for his intelligence and enterprise by a crop of
which the sugar and syrup are equal to the best of Louisiana--10 tons
to the acre, every ton producing 80 lbs. of sugar and 2 gallons of
syrup, the average yield of the acre being 800 lbs. of sugar, at 10c.,
and 20 gallons of syrup. Value of the crop $75 to $80 per acre, or
from 15_l._ to 16_l._, which is, they say, a clear profit of 8_l._ an
acre. The United States at present pays about 20,000,000_l._ to
foreign countries for sugar; and if this new industry succeeds, a
large outflow of money will be cut off and turned westwards into the
pockets of the Kansas farmer. Dhoura, or Egyptian corn, is being also
cultivated with success, and is pronounced very excellent food for
hogs, cattle, and horses, giving the stock-raiser of the West cheap
food for his cattle, and, in conjunction with the buffalo-grass,
enabling him to fatten them at the smallest possible rate.
In South Central Kansas, forest trees are rapidly growing up; for it
would seem that before the country was settled trees were not found at
all, except by the banks of the streams. Between the Great Bend and
Dodge City the country has the same deep, rich, well-drained soil, but
it presents a great change in the climate and the grasses, the latter
being principally the buffalo-grass, instead of the tall blue-stained
grass of the country farther east. As we go westward from the Great
Bend, there is a higher elevation, a drier atmosphere and a smaller
rainfall, and a different system of cropping is required. Winter wheat
is dangerous to meddle with, because there may be a short rainfall,
which happens once every five years, and then failure is certain; but
broom-corn can get on in dry weather, and the sugar-cane has never
failed. The manufacture of sugar at Larned in Pawnee County is
declared to have been so successful that sugar-growing and making give
every promise of being the coming industry in South-western Kansas;
and in the same district, sheep-raising has made marked progress. But
it is admitted that the result was very much in consequence of the
failure of the wheat-crop. Capital is required here for growing
wheat, broom-corn, or sugar, or breeding sheep or cattle. West of
Dodge City the Company admit that there is only grazing to be had,
except along the valley of the Arkansas river, where irrigation is
being carried on with successful results in fitting the soil to raise
vegetables for the markets in Colorado and New Mexico. It must be
remembered that the average elevation of the great region which is
traversed by the rail is about 200 feet above the level of the sea;
and although I will not go so far as to believe that chills and
fevers, asthma, consumption, and pulmonary diseases do not exist, or
are relieved and cured by the air, I think there is ground for
accepting the statement that the climate is generally healthy.
I cannot offer any opinion on the great question of water supply, but
the Railway Company aver that the eastern half of their grant is well
watered by running streams, and that though in the western half there
are longer intervals between the watercourses, ample supplies of this
great necessary can be obtained at a depth of 15 to 50 feet below the
surface, and it is only on the summit of the high divides that greater
depth must be reached before water is struck. The employment of
windmills is becoming pretty general.
Now as to the rainfall. Over such a large extent of territory, it is
not to be wondered at that there should be a considerable difference
in the averages. The Eastern Belt of Kansas has an average rainfall
of 33 inches, the Centre Belt 25 inches, and the Western Belt 20
inches; the sufficiency of this rainfall depends upon the nature of
the soil, a fact to be remembered and taken much to heart by every man
who goes out to Kansas with a view to settling there, and his family.
There is almost a menace in the words in which they are told by the
local authorities, that deep ploughing, repeated harrowing, and
frequent rolling are required for success, and that no State requires
so high a standard of intelligence as Kansas. Slipshod farming is not
profitable anywhere, least of all in Kansas; my friends of the
Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé Railway admit that there are people
who, returning to the east, denounce the climate and the country which
they could not understand or work; but take heart at the thought that
they are the shiftless who are weeded out, and that pluck and
intelligence are attracted and will prosper on a soil peculiarly
suited for them.
Kansas was organised as a territory in 1854. It then contained 8000
people. In January 1861 it was admitted into the Union as a State, but
the population at that time was not 110,000 souls. In the Civil War
party spirit ran high, and the struggle between the Federals and
Confederates was protracted and fierce. But the majority of the
emigrants were the hardy and adventurous people of the North and
North-west States, and these, notwithstanding the vicinity of the
great slave States and their consequent influence, established their
ascendency, and amongst the most valiant soldiers of the Union were
the men of Kansas regiments, of whom it is said that 61 per cent. fell
in battle.
On the establishment of the Federal Government, the increase of Kansas
was rapid, and the development of the State in the last fifteen years
is said to be unparalleled in the history of these lands of wondrous
growth and progress, even when compared with the most rapid extension
of the most prosperous of its western neighbours. The population
increased from 136,000 in 1865, to 997,000 last year. Taxable property
in the same time increased from $36,000,000 to $160,000,000; the
taxation for State purposes from $217,000 to $884,000. The taxes which
were $1 60c. in 1865, were not 89c. last year. The State debts had
increased from $456,000 to $1,182,000; but the amount per head had
fallen from $3 35c. to $1 18c. The assessed value of the State is 50
per cent. less than the real value. The total number of acres in the
State was given at 52,000,000 some odd thousands; but there is a
remarkable fact to be noticed, that of these only 22,000,000 and some
odd thousands are returned as taxable. The wealth of the State per
head is given at the very respectable figure of $323, which may be
taken to be about 65_l._; and the total value of farm products in 1879
was $81,000,000. There were 5000 school-houses; 7000 teachers in the
State; the invested school fund amounted to $1,684,000, and the annual
school fund to $303,000; and the estimated value of all unsold school
lands to $13,000,000.
We are threatened over in the East with an extraordinary rush of
cattle across the Atlantic, and from Kansas will come, should that
menace be realised, which I do not believe, a very large share of the
contribution to our food resources. The corn crop of the State yielded
over 100,000,000 bushels in one year; but it is not so much what the
value of that crop is, as the amount of cattle, sheep, pigs and horses
it would feed, that the Kansas people consider. In 1880, however, the
returns did not quite alarm one, although the increase in stock in
fifteen years was very remarkable. There were 1,116,000 cattle;
1,282,000 pigs; 427,000 sheep; 368,000 horses, and 59,000 mules. The
total value of the stock was estimated at something over
12,000,000_l._ Note, however, that there has been a failure in the
grass crops of Mexico and Colorado, and that vast flocks of sheep were
driven perforce from those regions into Western Kansas. I have heard
from a good authority that it has been found that herds of cattle
absolutely deteriorate the grass instead of enriching it, which is a
phenomenon that requires explanation. With respect to sheep there
appears to be more certainty. In some districts a threefold increase
has taken place in the quantity of stock in one year. Generally, as to
prices, there is but an increase of 5 per cent. over the cost of
necessary articles in the East, in the large Kansas stores.
While the increase in the population of the United States for the last
ten years has been about 1,000,000 per annum, the increase in that of
Kansas has been 100,000 annually, or one-tenth of the entire increase
of the forty-seven States and Territories of the Union. It is believed
that when the next census is taken nine years hence, Kansas will be in
the position of the fourth or fifth of the States in population and
productiveness--yesterday an infant, to-day a giant. However, the
giant is exposed to many sorts of trouble as he is attaining his
development.
I fear to weary my readers more with figures, but any one who is
interested in the actual condition of Kansas, and desirous of
investigating the statistics connected with it, will have no
difficulty in obtaining full information by applying to the Land
Commissioner at Topeka, or to any officer of the United States
Government connected with the land.
In order that emigrants may test with their own eyes as far as
possible the reality of the statements made respecting these lands,
tickets are issued, good for forty days, which may be obtained at all
the railway offices in the United States. The holder must go in five
days to the Arkansas Valley, and return from it in the same time, so
that he will have thirty days to examine the country between
Cottonwood and Dodge City; and if a purchase of 160 acres be made from
the Company, the amount of the fare will be refunded, and half the
fare if the emigrant buys eighty acres. Now as to the people who
should come. The artisan looking for employment, the young man who
desires to be a clerk, the farmer who has no capital, the man who
wants to be rich in a few years without hard work--these are not
wanted; there is no hope for them; nor is there for the man who has
made a failure wherever he has tried to succeed; nor the agriculturist
who sets out with a great stock of machinery under a heavy mortgage.
But men and women who expect to meet drawbacks, and who are not
discouraged, and not afraid to work; who know how to economise, and
possess intelligence, judgment, and enterprise--these, and plenty of
them, are wanted. So are people of capital. What is called a gritty
farmer may start in a small way with 200_l._, but to give him a fair
chance he ought to have at least double the money. A man with 1000_l._
can secure--mind, _non mea sermo_--a fine farm in South Central Kansas
in a well-settled community, near schools and churches; put one-third
of his capital into stock, and nothing short of mismanagement can
prevent the realisation of 33 per cent. from his stock investment. The
people who have got all these good things, moral and material, to
start with, may do very well in other places. The remark upon that is,
that they must succeed in Kansas.
I have seen too many evidences of wealth, natural and acquired, to
doubt of the greatness of the future which is opening in the Far West
to the citizens of the Republic; but I also have witnessed, even from
the windows of a railway train, sufficient to make me aware of the
great struggles which must be made by pioneers, and by the early
colonists and settlers in these distant regions, before the
conditions of civilised life be fulfilled. There can be no question of
the severity and length of the winters, but then we were told on all
sides, with a concurrent testimony that could not be disputed or
doubted, that the exceeding dryness of the climate renders the most
excessive cold of very much less actual consequence to the sufferer
than it would be in a country where there is moisture in the air. In
fact in these Prairie regions, when the thermometer is perhaps 15° or
20° below freezing point, the cold is not so severely felt as with us
when it is only 2° or 3° below 32°.
The existence of insect plagues--bugs and beetles of all kinds, or at
least many destructive species--the prevalence of drought, violent
tornados, the sudden rising of great rivers, forest and grass fires,
all and each present elements of insecurity for the harvest. It would
seem that one of the most serious mischiefs which the early settler
has to encounter--I do not speak of the Indians, who are only to be
found in certain districts far away from the region of which I am
writing--is the insufficiency of the capital with which most of them
begin life. They think that when they have got a square of land they
have an assured subsistence, but when they come to break it up and to
procure seed and agricultural implements, in a country where labour is
scarcely to be had even on exorbitant terms, they find that their
little capital with which they commenced--the greater part of which
was probably absorbed in the erection of the humble dwelling in which
they are content to live at the beginning--is quite insufficient to
meet their needs and to enable them to tide over the interval between
their establishment on the land and the time when any reward can be
reaped for their labour. They and their families must live; food must
be bought; and so it is that among these outlying settlements there is
one sure harvest to be reaped--that is, the gain of the money-lender,
I will not say usurer, who advances on the security of the land sums
for which he charges 10, 15 or 20 per cent. interest. Formerly the
struggle was not so severe as it is now, because the land was more
accessible, and speculators, whose operations have attracted
unfavourable comment, had not come into possession; but now it will be
very hard indeed to obtain at moderate rates any land on the great
lines of railway of a superior quality, except at a high price; and
the settler is obliged to go far afield, and to strike out into the
country which has not been appropriated by the land-shark.
It would be unsatisfactory to rely on statements, often interested,
which one hears respecting the resources of the country; and it was
not to be expected that the opportunity of influencing one who might
direct a considerable amount of emigration and of money into these
parts, would be lost by active-minded gentlemen who are interested in
the land. But making allowance for all exaggerations, and trusting to
the evidence of one's senses, I could not but believe that a young man
with 500_l._ at his command, clear of all deductions, with
determination to get on, a little practical knowledge of agriculture,
and absolute self-control to resist the temptations of prairie life,
would be master of an assured competence in four or five years, unless
he were exceedingly unfortunate or subject to some of the vicissitudes
of which I have spoken.
A man can buy outright in Kansas a farm for a year's rent of one in
the East, and in less than ten years he can make a good living for
himself and family. It is amusing almost to be assured that if he has
a wife she should come with him, "because her husband is a landed
proprietor, and she will find the social distinctions which in the
East are drawn between the family of the landowner and those of the
mere renter." They may think that the society they have left is
different from that which they will find out in the West, but if they
come they will discover as many families of refinement and education
among the Kansas farmers as in any part of the States.
The terms of sale are different. First, there is No. 1, or eleven
years' credit, with 7 per cent. interest. Let us take a farm of 160
acres, at $5 per acre, bought on the 1st of April, 1882. The first
payment of one-tenth of the principal and 7 per cent. interest on the
remainder, in all $130 40c., must be made at the time of
purchase--that is 26_l._ In April the following year the payment is
only the 7 per cent. interest, and the same for the second year,
namely, $50 40c. for each year. On the third year one-tenth of the
principal, with 7 per cent. on the balance, amounting to $124 80c.,
and so on each succeeding year, so that in 1893 the man would become
the owner of his plot of 160 acres, for which he would have paid $800
principal and $352 80c. interest--total, $1152 80c., or 225_l._ In the
six years' credit, or No. 2 term, the first payment is made, at date
of purchase, of one-sixth principal and 7 per cent.; the second payment
is interest only; and in the subsequent year one-sixth of the sum and
7 per cent. interest, and so on; but the Company will give a discount
from the appraised prices of 20 per cent. under these circumstances.
On two years' credit they allow 30 per cent., the payments being three
in number; the first, a third of the principal at the time of
purchase, with 10 per cent. interest on the balance, and that balance
being paid in two annual instalments. So with the same farm under this
system, on term No. 3, the farmer will pay $560 for securing 160 acres
of land, and $56 interest, or $616 altogether--about 123_l._ Where the
whole amount of the purchase money is paid down a discount of 33-1/3
per cent. is made, so that one can become the owner of 160 acres for
$533 33c.; or, if payments are made in advance of maturity, and deed
taken up, purchasers on long credit will be allowed a liberal
discount. There were still about 1,105,000 acres of land to be let,
varying in price from $4 an acre in Sedgewick County, to $1 50c. in
Stafford, Pawnee, &c.
Droughty Kansas, as it is called, was smitten severely last year, but
it is hoped that at least twenty will elapse before the State is
afflicted by a similar visitation; and the rain-belt is said to be
travelling westward in the past twenty-five years, each increase of
acreage cultivated adding to the moisture store, and the capacity of
the soil increasing the evaporation.
Travellers like ourselves must depend greatly upon hearsay for any
information that we can derive respecting the resources of the country
through which we are going.
There are few buildings which would be considered of a permanent
character visible from the railway train at the stations. They are
generally built for the accommodation of some small town close at
hand. Wood, generally to be found in the West before the prairie lands
are reached, furnishes the material of which most public edifices and
private habitations are constructed; and invariably there is to be
seen, wherever a dozen such houses are placed together, one structure,
generally the most important of all--the school; and a church and a
printing office. These are great agencies. Nothing has perhaps done
more to develop the energy of the American people than the amount of
general intelligence which has been diffused by the State from the
very outset of the Republic by the system of Common Schools, which
dates far back, long previous to the successful assertion of their
independence by the colonists, and which was grafted upon the
institutions of the country.
The line of rail regulates its course by the windings of the Kansas
River for nearly 200 miles, and as we journeyed on the dim outlines of
the Rocky Mountains could be discerned, and they gradually
strengthened and grew high and broad as we sped westwards. Towns of
which we had never heard rose up imposingly on the plain. Lawrence and
Topeka, capital of the State (60 miles from Kansas City), and smaller
settlements in a wonderful country. "What have these people done,"
exclaimed one of my companions, "that God should be so good to them?"
And that was said more than once, I think, and would be felt far
oftener by distressed agriculturists if they could see the country.
All day long we ran through this land of fatness, conversing with our
new companions, whom we found very intelligent and agreeable. There
was a fresh "crew" on board our ship, but we found no reason to regret
the change, loth as we had been to part with our late attendants. The
sun set over the western slopes, night fell--our companions retired to
their own carriages, and after a talk over our new experiences we
followed their example.
_May 28th._--The "track" was not always in good order, and the car was
"agitated" pretty violently at times, for we were going at a very fair
speed over exceedingly sharp curves; in fact, no waggon on the English
principle could be expected to remain on the rail at all; and so I had
occasion ever and anon to peep out at the stars, for I was shut in and
curtained closely in my Pullman, and observed that the country had
subsided into a dead waste, treeless, and apparently houseless,
through which flowed a broad river, bank-full, and almost on a level
with the rail. The line struck the Arkansas at Nickerson, and never
left it for hundreds of miles. I awoke at dawn from a troublous sleep,
and looked out on the outer world from my secluded couch--on a world
so utterly unlike that through which we had passed yesterday, that it
was scarcely possible to imagine that we had only travelled through
the darkness of one night at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour in
the same land. The border line had been passed at "Serjeants," 10
miles east, and we were now in Colorado.
Colorado is a vast square, extending from 25° to 35° west longitude,
from 37° to 41° of latitude from Washington. It is bounded by New
Mexico on the south, Kansas and Nebraska on the east, Wyoming
Territory on the north, and Utah on the west. The great mass of the
population is concentrated about the middle of the State, at Denver,
Leadville, and on the course of the rivers adjacent to the principal
mining districts. On the west towards Utah an enormous extent of
country is occupied by Indian reservations, and there are also
mountain ranges and vast plateaus which, as yet, are unsettled and
almost uninhabited.
By the side of the rail there spread away to the horizon a plain
apparently as flat as the sea itself, but the course and current of
the river on our left showed that there was a steady rise to the west;
the Arkansas has a fall of 7 feet in the mile, so that we mount
westward at that rate till we reach the summit of the great upheaval
of the Rockies, the existence of which would not otherwise be
cognizable. The plain is covered with tufted grass, the soil is thin
and sandy. At long intervals a small wooden shanty. Now and then a
roof visible above the level of the plain, covering an excavated
dwelling--the solitary window just even with the ground, the doorway
buried in a covered way, and the early inhabitant pretty sure to have
his or her head thereat to inspect the passing train. Prairie dogs
popped up their inquisitive faces. Turkey buzzards soared over the
carcases of cattle killed on the line, the number of which must be
pretty large, if all the skeletons by the way belonged to the
category.
As morning broke the greatness of the change became more marked.
Farewell to fat corn-fields and undulating plains, beseamed with
tree-embowered, deeply set, and muddy rivers, to frequent villages and
Kansas towns, to the cheerful aspect of labour and its rich rewards,
to the rows of tender green maize, the expanses of wheat, the herds of
cattle, belly-deep in the meadows, the black swine wallowing in the
ponds! I do not say "farewell" regretfully, but use the word to
express a complete departure from the scene of yesterday. By the
margin of the river belts of cotton-wood trees lent shade as the day
wore on to herds of wild-looking cattle, and presently vast flocks of
sheep and lambs appeared on the plain, and droves of horses, the
mares with foals at their feet, tended by mounted men, accompanied by
slim wiry greyhounds. These belonged to the marshes, which became more
frequent as we progressed westward. The character of the soil
gradually improved; patches of flowers, purple, blue, and yellow, gave
brightness to the colouring of the prairie grass, but it is not easy
to identify species from the windows of a railway carriage. Here
Pawnees and Apaches hunted the buffaloes, which not long ago literally
blackened the meadows. Soon after 8 A.M. the train stopped at
Granada--three or four scattered detached houses--a "store," "a
drover's home," a ticket-office; the Duke and some others got out "to
change the air," and to talk to some workmen who were digging a deep
well for engine supply.
More life perhaps, and greater show of cattle and horses--interesting
too in what there was to see, for it was of novel aspect; toiling over
the track parallel to the railway, tilt-covered carts, one or two, or
three perhaps, of emigrants making westwards "_immer und immer_";
groups of tents where the wayfarers halted; the usual outcome of women
and children gazing at the special; tall, long-haired, wild-looking
men tending their herds, riding lasso in hand after the wild colts
scampering in the distance, for we are now in New Mexico.
If a Boer in a trance were taken up by the breeches and dropped
hereabouts, he would surely begin to look about for his house! It is
the Transvaal all over--the Drakensberg, with patches of snow here and
there on the peaks near at hand. The land does not flow with milk or
water, but there is coal in the hills, and there is wealth of sheep,
horses, and herds. The "burro" or donkey, which plays such an
important part in the domestic economy of the Mexican, abounded;
explorers' covered carts, termed "desert schooners," with white tilt
roofs, were seen on the plain.
A little before noon the train reached La Junta (the
junction)--pronounced by the natives "Le Hunter." Mount Fisher on one
side, the Spanish Peak on the other, towered higher and higher. At
last, beyond Starkville, we reached the summit pass of the Rocky
range, here 9000 feet high. It needed two engines to haul the train up
the summit, which is perforated by a tunnel 1700 feet long. I am not
sure that the Sömmering or the Bhoreghaut presented greater
engineering difficulties. We got out to walk across the hill--not a
mile--and were well rewarded for the slight exertion, for there is a
grand panoramic view from the top, and we rejoined the train at the
foot laden with wild flowers and delighted with the scenery. Our
American friends told us not to hurry, as the air was so rarefied it
might affect us; but I do not think any of the party were
inconvenienced by the climb or descent. Lady Green was the first
Englishwoman who ever crossed the summit. There are not, we were
told, more than half-a-dozen American or other ladies who have ever
been over it.
A little further west we crossed towards evening the frontier of New
Mexico. We whistled rejoicingly along cañons, slid down by the sides
of tremendous ravines, and sidled into the lower regions, where the
train found rest in a siding for the night at Las Vegas ("the
meadows").
_May 29th._--The ship of the desert was under weigh soon after 6 A.M.,
and the promises made that early risers would be rewarded by fine
scenery were amply fulfilled. We were still making our way by wide,
sweeping curves downwards to the hilly plains of New Mexico--a novel
flora and a complete change of forestry--scarce a house visible,
stations at long intervals, sage bush, juniper, and firs, the river
courses marked by belts of cotton-wood trees.
At last we reached Santa Fé--a very pleasant break, indeed, but short,
alas! at this ancient city--the oldest now existing on this North
American Continent--100 years older than Boston--hubbiest and most
rejuvenated of the work of civilised hands! The cupolas of the
cathedral, of the hospital, and of the old church of San Miguel, were
visible some time before the adobe houses of the "city" came in view.
The builders put Santa Fé in a hollow for the sake of the little
stream. Colonel Hatch and his staff, who were waiting to receive the
Duke in full uniform, entered the saloon and introduced his adjutant,
Captain Lord, Major Lee, of the Quartermaster-General's Department,
Captain Woodruff, &c. What a charming change it was to meet agreeable,
well-informed gentlemen who never once mentioned "dollars," or told us
what any one was worth, or the number of bushels of wheat and other
stuffs which were raised per acre, and who had no elevators to show!
Carriages were waiting. Colonel Hatch drove the Duke of Sutherland
"behind" a capital pair of fast trotters. Lady Green and Sir H. Green,
accompanied by Major Lee, were in a carriage and pair; Mr. Stephen,
Mr. Wright and I were assigned to Captain Woodruff; Edward was on the
box; our chariot wheels drave heavily; but the spirited little horses
spun us rapidly through the streets of the town, into what would be
called in India "the cantonment"--the Head-Quarters of the district of
New Mexico. Within a large quadrangle, fenced in by a neat white
paling, facing two sides of the square, are placed the detached houses
of the officers, each with its little garden and trellised verandah in
front, and a small space in the rear; the barracks and hospital, very
neat outside, and no doubt equally proper interiorly--efforts at
gardening and flowers commendable. In the centre the tall pole bearing
"Old Glory" (the Stars and Stripes) aloft to the admiring skies, a
Parrot gun for signals, and military properties generally. Some
soldiers of the 9th Cavalry and 15th Infantry were lounging about, but
the Command is scattered at Fort Union, Fort Bayard, Fort Wingate
(13th Infantry), Fort Lewis, Pagosa Springs, Fort Craig, Ojo
Caliente, Fort Stanton, Fort Bliss (Texas), Fort Cummings, and Fort
Seldon. Just before we arrived a column had marched off to strengthen
the frontier posts, 200 miles away, where the Ute Indians were
menacing the poor whites with war--one of those troubles which appear
to be the greatest blot on the capacity of the United States
Government in its civil administration. The streets are narrow, the
houses of abode two storeys high, with flat earth roofs, but there is
a plaza with some trees, in which there was a small crowd listening to
the strains of the excellent band of the 9th Cavalry--a penny theatre,
drinking saloons, bars, &c., and a large hotel is being built on a
scale which argues a robust faith in the future of Santa Fé. From the
mounds on which Fort Marcy stood in the time of the war, we looked
down on the flat roofs of the town and wondered how the people were
fed, for of cornfields or of green there was no trace; but we were
told that there is a good deal of trade in the place, and that it was
not as bad as it looked. Thence the Cathedral--to be the _magnum opus_
of the good Archbishop. The lofty walls of cut stone and pillared
doorways and windows are rising--let us hope rapidly and surely--round
the original adobe of the simple edifice, which was built by the
Spaniards in the usual cruciform shape more than two centuries ago.
Some veiled and black-robed sisters of charity were praying before the
Virgin in the transept; curiosity to see the strangers prevailed for a
moment, and for a moment only. Criticism must be mute before the
pious intent with which the intrepid missionaries decorated with
images and pictures the altar and the lateral chapels. If any one as
he stood thought of the peril which attended the steps of these good
men, and then felt inclined to scoff at the rude art of the Christian
symbols he saw around him, I should not feel proud of his
companionship. We went on to the Church of San Miguel, an adobe block,
dating from 1572, in the time of the Marquis of Penuelo, but renovated
after two fires, the last about 200 years ago. The stalwart sacristan
who received us, a full-blooded Canadian, was a famous base ball
player. He showed the little there was to be seen with care and
courtesy--no doubt "_pius miles, fortis sacerdos_." A large Hospital,
due to the devotion of one nun, who collected and worked year after
year among the faithful, was pointed out to us. But we had yet to pay
our respects to the venerated and venerable Archbishop. Our carriages
stopped at the door of a modest house--the visitors were conducted
through an open courtyard in the Spanish fashion, with a fountain
sparkling in the centre, to the Archbishop's reception-room, a quietly
furnished apartment, with religious paintings and pictures on the
walls, bookcases well-filled with patristic theology, history, &c.
Presently the Archbishop entered--a tall man of commanding presence
and benevolent aspect, dressed in the purple of his rank, with perfect
manners and the pleasantest possible expression in his keen yet gentle
eyes. Over seventy years of age, he is still the boldest and most
untiring of horsemen, and, unarmed and unescorted, he travels from one
end of New Mexico to Texas and California without any fear of what
man, red or white, can do unto him. It is forty years since Archbishop
Lamy left the shores of France for America, and for thirty years he
has devoted himself to the spiritual welfare and temporal progress of
the people of his enormous diocese. By all classes and all
denominations he is held in honour, and when the Pope sent him the
archbishop's _pallium_ some years back, the procession was headed by
two Jews! a singular token of tolerance on both sides, which might be
commended to the notice of religious Germans and Russians. The
Archbishop led us to his ample and well-stocked garden, an oasis in
the adobe wilderness; to his fish-ponds, where trout and fish unknown
to us rose to take food from his hand, all the time chatting so easily
and answering questions so kindly that every one felt sorry when it
was time to go. If all we were told be true, the field of the
Archbishop's labours yields many tares and thistles. Monte is a
powerful rival; faro has many votaries; the only two houses of
pretension in Santa Fé belong to priests of these _cultes_. High and
low, rich and poor, gamble as the business of life. The ladies, once
freed from duennadom by marriage, cause great uneasiness to their
father confessors. Several of the younger women, with fine eyes and
teeth and raven tresses, were pretty, but we did not see any who
looked like a lady; the old ones were fat and exceedingly unlovely.
The Mexican men and women were dark as Indians--dusky as Lola--and
easily recognisable from Americans by their affectation of gay colours
in dress. Colonel Hatch and his officers bade good-bye at the station.
General Sheridan had telegraphed that the party would arrive last
night, and a little ball had been arranged in our honour, but all we
could do now was to thank our friends for their good intentions and
drink to their long life and preservation from the Indians and other
evils, and at four o'clock the train moved out and left the capital of
New Mexico to its own devices. The good prelate sent the Duke a
present of Mexican wine, which disappeared between the house and the
railway. I hope it disagreed with the rogues who drank it, but that is
a detail. The Indians--a race called Pueblos--about here are quiet,
civilised after a fashion and a bad one. There is a large settlement
some miles farther on than Santa Fé where the train halted, and we
were surrounded by red men eager for tobacco, women, and children,
with turquoises to sell--keen-eyed, white-teethed, with masses of
straight, coarse black hair, cut straight off the forehead, worn by
the men in clubs behind, and by the women in unkempt locks. The women
had their legs swathed from the knee down in thick folds of cotton
cloth, and wore a sort of kilt, with red and black blankets on their
shoulders. The men wore deerskin leggings and castaway European
clothing; none were armed but one, who had an old musket. I committed
a penal offence unwittingly by giving one of them a small glass of
whisky. Alas! How long was it before our kind Christian friends
discovered that the firewater of the palefaces was not an "agency" for
good? How long ere the Wilfrid Lawsons of Washington decreed that
temperance for red men should be enforced by law? The train sped on,
the broad dry bed of the tributary of the Rio Grande del Norte close
at hand. Ere sunset we had struck the great but unprofitable river
itself. As the train steamed along through the waste, "It's exactly
like Sibi," said one. "It's Beloochistan," says another. "No," argued
a fellow, "It's like Egypt about Abul-Simnel." Any way, an Indian
Caractacus might well wonder why Hidalgo of Spain or Yankee of New
England should envy him his barren, fata-morgana-haunted desert,
fenced in by mountain ridges tier upon tier. "By thunder! they'll get
$100,000,000 of gold out of that mountain before they be done with it.
There is a company forming to make a dam that will cost $500,000 to
scoop it out." And the untutored Indian, anxious for a 10c. piece,
knew not that more wealth than Cortez, or Pizarro, Drake, or Raleigh,
ever dreamt of lay close at hand! The Duke, who had what the Americans
call "quite a good time of it" on the engine, with a London and
North-Western driver, was struck with the stress of work put on the
locomotive. It was to run from Kansas City to Deming--1140 miles--it
is not often an English engine has to do more than 200 miles without
an overhaul and rest. There were two engineers and two firemen for all
the journey, and they were to return from Deming as soon as needed.
"Ten o'clock! Arthur, make up the beds--good night, everyone!" Rattle,
rattle, all night--onwards under the bright stars through the desert
till morning.
END OF VOL. I.
LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET
AND CHARING CROSS.