Enterprise and Adventure/A Rolling Stone
A ROLLING STONE.
Mr. Kendall, a gentleman who accompanied the American Santa Fé expedition in New Mexico, having crossed the great sandy desert in the centre of that country, found one day, near his encampment, a celebrated stone, weighing about two hundred pounds, the history of which is curious. Many years before his arrival, this stone was found near the pool which the people call the Diamond of the Desert, and was the only one within many miles of that spot. A band of muleteers, passing that way, commenced lifting it in sport, and finally one or two of them were found strong enough to raise it to a level with, and then throw it over their heads. By accident the stone fell just in a direction towards the city of Mexico; and the muleteers having spoken of this fact to their fellows, by some strange freak of superstition, it became in course of time regarded as a duty among the muleteers who travel that road to facilitate the progress of the stone towards the capital, a distance of about fourteen or fifteen hundred miles. Accordingly, every muleteer who passed along gave the stone a trial; and although scarcely one in fifty was found able to throw it over his head, in no other way was it allowed to be moved.
By this odd system of advancing, this "rolling stone" had progressed, at the time of Mr. Kendall's visit, some twelve or fourteen miles on its travels, and this within a century and a half. The number of travellers upon the road is considerable, it being the highway of all traffic between New Mexico and the State of Chilhuahua; yet the stone progresses only at this slow rate, the same person not being allowed to throw it over his head more than once. The muleteers were accustomed to say that when it should have travelled further down the country, some ages hence, its transit would be more rapid; but centuries upon centuries must pass away before the strange wayfarer could arrive at its journey's end. "Throughout the country," says Mr. Kendall, "the inhabitants have many strange customs, superstitions, and observances, borrowed from the Indians, and all taking their rise from some circumstances of trifling import; but this idea of starting a stone which few can lift, upon so long a journey, and by such ludicrous means, is the most singular of all."