Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans/Chapter 30
XXX.
SONORA AND THE APACHE COUNTRY.
BY the Proyecta de Guerra of 1837, the government of Chihuahua, worn out by the repeated atrocities committed on its defenceless ranchos and pueblos, offered a bounty for every Indian scalp: $100 for that of every warrior, and $50 for that of a squaw. This proyecta was soon repealed, but not before its beneficial workings were made manifest in the lessening of the number of los barbaros about the region of the capital city. It was almost from necessity that the project was, in effect, again lately put in operation in the raids against those Indians, though bounty for the scalp of a "buck" was advanced to $250, while the soldiers were cautioned to extend the shield of protection over the less guilty and defenceless women and children.
Having had dealings with savage Indians for over three centuries, the Mexican government has finally evolved a policy that should commend itself to our own. The squaws are, indeed, nearly as irreclaimable as the men, but they endure confinement with stoical indifference, and some of them even take kindly to service in Mexican families. The children are assigned to good masters, and though scattered throughout the State, so as entirely to remove them from tribal influences, they are treated with great humanity. But even after years of captivity, many of these Apache children, although brought up as privileged members of the family, will escape and flee to the mountains, such is their inherent barbarism.
Confined in the jail at Chihuahua, at the time of my visit, were about twenty Apache prisoners, women and children. Nearly all the women were busy with the needle, and one of them, an aged squaw, with head white with the frosts of many winters, was engaged in an insectivorous hunt in the hair of her neighbor, that required not only good eyesight but deft fingers. They seemed to enjoy the cool rooms of their prison, which opened into a clean patio, shaded by fig-trees; and one of them, who had recently given birth to an infant, seemed an object of solicitude to her companions. This babe, then about three weeks old, was very light in color, had a thick head of jet black hair, and, as it lay sleeping on the stone floor, looked the picture of health and innocence.
My acquaintance with the Apaches began in the first week in June, at which time there were some two thousand Mexican troops in the Sierras and on their skirts, with headquarters at Casas Grandes and Corallitos, in the northwestern part of the State. They were honestly endeavoring to co-operate with General Crook, who had then been absent, and unheard from, in the mountains of the Apache region, for quite a month. It had been reported that intense feeling existed in Mexico against the United States government, on account of the passage of the Border by our troops; but this I found not to be the case. There was a feeling, it is true,—but also shared in by all sensible residents of the Southwest,—that the United States troops were but carrying out a false mid mistaken policy; that they were in Mexico, not for the purpose of meting out justice to murderers who had perpetrated atrocities without a parallel in Indian warfare, but to cajole them into returning to the flesh-pots of the reservation, with all their plunder stolen from Mexican haciendas, their herds of cattle and horses, there to recruit for fresh forays into Mexican territory.
The Mexicans know, through two hundred years and more of bitter experience, that the caustic remark, usually attributed to General Sheridan, that "the only good Indian is a dead Indian," is perfectly true as applied to the Apache. Hence it is that the grim humor of the farce enacted by our government was hardly appreciated, in view of the tragedy that they knew was sure to follow!
Coming down from Santa Fé, New Mexico, on the 16th of June, on my way to the Gulf of California, I learned, at the little station of Willcox, on the "Southern Pacific," that General Crook's command had recrossed the frontier, and that he himself was in the hotel of that very place. Hearing this, and that, further, the troops with the Indian prisoners would be in early next day, I at once applied to the conductor for a stop-over check; for I had a through ticket for Sonora, and local travel on the Southern Pacific is ten cents a mile. But he had then already given the signal for starting the train, and I had nothing to do but clamber on board again. One hope remained; it was an up-grade for the next twenty-five miles, and an extra engine was assisting from Willcox, to which it would return from Dragoon Summit, where I secured the coveted stop-over. The engineer—to his credit let me say it—refused me a ride on the engine, saying it. was against orders; but after he had got the old machine spinning down the steep incline, he found I was a passenger, and could not then well put me off.
Willcox, which lies as near the point of departure for the Apache country as any station on the Southern Pacific, consists of two straggling lines of shanties and frame houses, and presents a bold front, with a saloon in every other building. It is an outfitting station, and has several well-stocked stores and large corrals. Though it was Saturday, and Crook's forces were momentarily expected, the town was very quiet, and but few of the inhabitants were intoxicated; save one poor devil, who lay dead drunk on the platform scales all day. He must have been weighed during the night, and found wanting—at the police station; for his place was vacant in the morning.
General Crook was not visible till late in the evening, as he was taking a much-needed rest; but he then gave an interview to the two sons and former law partner of the murdered Judge McComas, who, with his wife, was killed at a short distance only from Lordsburg, a station on the railroad about seventy miles from Willcox. The General gave the anxious young men much encouragement to hope that their little brother, Charley, who had been carried away by the Indians, was yet alive. He told them he was quite certain the little captive would be brought in within seven days, as he had detailed Indians acquainted with his whereabouts to search for him. Notwithstanding this assurance, subsequent events have proved our Indian fighter to be in error, as it would seem that Charley was not a long time even in captivity, but was brutally murdered not long after his capture.
The wily Indians well knew what an influence it would have in making subsequent terms for peace, if it should be thought that he was then alive and well, and we have many reasons for believing that the "Gray Fox," as they denominate General Crook, was outwitted by the untutored savage in several instances, and that the latter was chuckling, for more reasons than one, when, in reply to a question at an interview in the Sierras, the "Gray Fox" made a mistake in the word for his Apache appellation.
On the morning of the 17th of June, General Crook and his staff started in an ambulance for a military post in the interior. Early the same day a party of us bestrode some lively horses and rode out to Croton Springs, where we found Crook's command encamped, and already picketing their horses, while the Indians were scattered over the fields wherever their fancy seemed to have taken them. It was difficult to distinguish captives from captors, for the famed scouts were not in many instances better armed than their "prisoners," except that the last were mainly children and squaws, and the remainder old and decrepit men. These Apache scouts were a muscular, sinewy body of men, and their countenances were of a cheerful cast, save for an aspect of ferocity bestowed by an overhanging shock of jet-black hair. This was bound in place by a strip of scarlet cloth; a loose-hanging shirt fell over their scanty drawers, or deer-skin leggings, and their feet were encased in fine and close-fitting moccasons with raw-hide points, which projected beyond and turned up in front of the toes. Some were in uniform and wore blue trousers, kept in place by a broad leather belt, which contained as many rounds of cartridges as could be crammed into it, generally forty. All were armed with the regulation Springfield breech-loading rifle, and every one bore a brass tag, with a number on it corresponding with another attached to a minute description of the bearer at the San Carlos reservation.
Our first respects were paid to Captain Crawford, commander of the scouts, and Lieutenant Gatewood and the bronzed and war-worn troopers who comprised the company from the Sixth Cavalry. Most of them were asleep, and but one man could be seen on guard in the whole encampment, though the Indians, scouts and all, outnumbered the whites ten to one, and were not a long way distant from their retreats in the Mexican mountains. The squaws and children, temporarily deprived of the protection of the gallant "bucks," had already raised shelters over themselves and their belongings, in the shape of huts of brush, or cloth tents, and there they sat, as hideous groups of redskins as ever drew the breath of life. There they sat, or wandered around the camp, or went to the spring for water, or staid by their fires and cooked the entrails and garbage of the slaughtered cows, while choice cuts of beef fairly covered the tops of all the bushes. Revelling, even rioting, in abundance, these Indians were far better fed than the brave and patient soldiers who had penetrated to their far-off stronghold, and brought them out to be petted and fattened at the expense of good Uncle Sam. "Beefsteak and chops for the —— redskins," said one of the soldiers, "and sow-belly and hard-tack for us." This is the usual complaint, I know, but in this case it was justified by the fact. There were in all about three hundred and eighty captives, but forty of whom were, or ever had been, warriors; among them were several chiefs who had been famous, but who, from age or incapacity, no longer had influence with the tribe. One of these, named Loco, or Old Crazy, was once a famous leader, but is now a pitiful old man, with shrunken and palsied limbs, and so poor that he even sold his neck-ornaments, his tweezers for picking out the
superfluous hairs on his face, and his brass earrings, for a little silver. But he was an exception to the others, who were fat, saucy, and rich beyond the dreams of Indian avarice. The others figuring as chiefs were Chato, Bonito, Geronimo, Nachez, and Nana, who were engaged all day in playing a peculiar game with long poles and hoops. The whole band was well supplied with money: gold, silver, greenbacks, and fractional currency of Chihuahua, amounting, it was thought, to a sum not less than $5,000, as when captured they had over one hundred ponies laden with plunder, not only cloths, saddles, and money, but even gold and silver watches. The ornaments of bucks and squaws were made of silver dollars beaten into stars, and some wore necklaces of double-eagles, American gold. They were so well "fixed" that I could not purchase any of their effects, such as I have hitherto found the Southern Indians so ready to part with, except one small jicarilla, or water-gourd, covered with bear-skin.
Nearly all were engaged in their favorite pastime of monte, or Mexican cards, and the circles formed for this purpose were many, and the crowds about them dense and numerous. In the afternoon two great loads of goods came out from Willcox; and these savages, with arms yet in their hands, and thrifty in murdered men's money, crowded around the wagons and quickly emptied them, bartering their spoil, some of it yet red with the blood-stains of their victims, for the luxuries of civilization.
I witnessed this, not without indignation, and also another sight which was calculated to hasten the circulation of Yankee blood a little; no less than the purchase of the veritable watch taken from the dead body of the murdered Judge McComas, and for which, that very day, his former law partner paid fifty dollars to recover for the family! Better, a thousand times, thought I, the Indian policy of the Mexican, than such a vacillating one as ours, which sacrifices the lives of valuable soldiers and hardy frontiersmen to the support of a horde of villains, whose crimes, in a civilized community, would send them to eternity with the rope of outraged justice around their necks!
As I have said, feasting and boasting seemed the sole occupation of that "captured" horde, and, as night fell, an Indian drum sounded a call for a savage dance of victory,—a victory of Indian cunning and diplomacy. All was joy and happiness in Arizona at that time, June, 1883, for it was thought that the territory was finally freed from predatory bands, as General Crook, in his despatches, gave the most emphatic assurance that no Indians were left likely to cause disturbance, or that would not soon be on the reservation; yet within less than three months reports of murders and wholesale cattle-stealings by the Apaches came thick and fast from Chihuahua and Sonora. The end, if I may judge from the tone of the Western press, is not yet, nor likely to be, until the last Apache "buck" is sent to happier hunting-grounds than the Sierra Madres. We should not forget, in our spasms of sympathy with the redskin, that the white man also has claims upon our humanity.
The Apaches, it is well known, are divided into several different tribes, so widely separated that they have different dialects. In 1876 their number was estimated at 10,000, but at present it is not much over 6,000. They are probably of Mexican stock, descendants of those fierce Chichimecs, who have remained nomads and barbarians from time immemorial. Nearly all the tribes have been brought into the United States reservations except the Chiricahuas, whose haunts were the almost inaccessible fastnesses of the Sierra Madre Mountains in Northwestern Chihuahua and Northeastern Sonora, where rocky gorges, deep canons, and pine-crested heights gave them ample security. With their homes in this vast wilderness, whose solitudes were ever penetrated by whites or Mexicans until last year, they have ravaged the territory on both sides the border line ever since it was first inhabited by a Christian population.
The records of the Spanish missionaries, who were the first to establish settlements in Northern Mexico, one of which was the Presidio of Fronteras, in 1690, show that they were constantly carrying on an unequal struggle with their savage neighbors, whom they could neither subjugate nor civilize. From a collection of notes written by one of these missionaries in 1762, we learn that there were then, in the province of Sonora alone, inclusive of the five presidios, twenty-two inhabited and forty-eight depopulated Spanish settlements and mining towns, and but two occupied ranchos, while there were one hundred and twenty-six devastated.
This condition of affairs has not been improved by the lapse of time, nor have any of the settlements thus destroyed by Indians or abandoned through fear of them, ever been rebuilt. To one unacquainted with the country which borders the Sierra Madres it would be difficult to picture its desolation and wretchedness. Though it has a fine climate, fertile valleys, and perhaps rich mineral deposits, the traveller finds only deserted haciendas and settlements, while the few inhabitants are crowded into small villages, tilling the soil only in their immediate neighborhood, living in constant dread of the savages, and
possessing but a small number of cattle and horses, owing to the frequent raids. Thickly scattered along every trail are seen small mounds of stone surmounted by rude crosses, showing where some poor wayfarer has been murdered by the Indians. "Infelice Sonora" was the name aptly applied by the old writers to this devastated territory. Of the Chihuahua territory on the eastern side of the mountain range a Mexican writer recently said: "At present every hacienda must be converted into a castle of the Middle Ages, every shepherd into a soldier; proprietors of estates enjoy no security in their possessions, and the common people gather themselves into villages to escape from the exposed country in which they are certain to become the victims of the bloodthirsty savages from the wilderness."
The last extensive raid of which we have information was committed in 1882, when a band of seventy-five warriors roamed over entire Northern Sonora, spreading everywhere death and desolation, even to the very suburbs of the large cities, as Ures, the former capital. Though it is difficult to get any data as to the extent of these outrages, it is safe to say that at least one hundred people were murdered during this raid, without the loss of a single Indian. They then departed for Chihuahua, where their work of blood was continued, in the neighborhood of Carmen and Casas Grandes, and they returned to their stronghold with six captives and three hundred head of stock.
Nor have they confined their operations to Mexico, for the annals of New Mexico and Arizona tell similar tales of woe; even so late as 1882 they killed seventeen people in these territories. The Mexicans have again and again sent expeditions against them, which generally returned unsuccessful. Their repeated failures are not difficult of explanation, though it is hard for one unacquainted with Indian warfare to understand why a small band like this, which seems never to have contained more than three hundred warriors, has not been subjugated or exterminated. One of the reasons is, that the Indians live in an unexplored wilderness, without fixed habitations, camping in small bodies, here to-day and off to-morrow, and ever ready to scatter at the signal of danger. Hence there is no fixed objective to which troops can march. Following on the trail of the last raiding party, they reach, perchance, the outskirts of the Indian stronghold; without guides to head the advance, they find themselves in a perfect labyrinth of trails, leading in all directions, with no signs of the foe, save here and there a deserted rancheria. To move on seems useless and hazardous, and as their rations (all of which they are obliged to carry) are giving out, there is nothing to do but sound the retreat. Then it is that the Indians again assemble, and, being perfect masters of the country, make use of every gorge and canon from which to pour a deadly fire upon the weary and discouraged soldiers.
The Department of Arizona has been for several years in charge of General Crook, who has gained a reputation for bravery and skill as an Indian fighter second to that of no other officer of our army. When the last outbreak occurred he planned a campaign that should penetrate to the Indian stronghold, hoping thereby to strike terror into the hearts of the enemy and entirely crush them out. The difficulties attending Indian fighting in this department are not alone those resulting from the unfavorable character of the territory, but are augmented by the treaty stipulations between Mexico and the United States, by which alien troops are not permitted to cross the Border. Cognizant of these restrictions, the Apaches raid first one country and then the other, retreating over the line, where they for a while defy the pursuing soldiers, and enjoy their plunder unmolested.
After visiting the officers in command of the Mexican troops in Sonora and Chihuahua, and securing their promise of cooperation, if possible, and the assurance that treaty violations in this instance would be winked at, in view of the great advantages likely to accrue to Mexico from the bold movement, General Crook commenced his march into that unknown territory. In some respects this hazardous undertaking is without a parallel, and the interest excited and sustained during the forty days of his absence, when rumors of every sort filled the press, was without a precedent in the annals of our Indian campaigns.
A renegade Chiricahua Indian, called Peaches, conducted the troop over a trail which led into the heart of the Sierre Madres, for a distance of two hundred miles,—a country hitherto almost unknown to civilized man. The little band consisted of General Crook, with Captain Bourke, of the Third Cavalry, and Lieutenant Fiebeger, Corps of Engineers, as aids, and Captain A. R. Chaffee's company of the Sixth Cavalry, of forty-six men, and one hundred and ninety-three Apache scouts, under Captain Crawford, assisted by Lieutenants Gatewood and Mackay. The accompanying map, kindly furnished me by Lieutenant Fiebeger, shows the devious trail and the site of every camp and skirmish. The campaign cannot be more tersely described than in the modest despatch of General Crook, sent in immediately after his return to United States territory.
"Silver Creek, Arizona, June 12th, 1883.
"Left here May 1, with one hundred and ninety-three Apache scouts under Captain Crawford. Got Lieutenants Wood and Mackay, with Captain Chaffee's company of forty-two men of the Sixth Cavalry, and rations for two months on mules, and followed the hostiles. The Chiricahua country is of indescribable roughness, and a number of mules lost their footing, and, stepping from the trail, fell down precipices and were killed. The stronghold of the Chiricahuas is in the very heart of the Sierra Madre. The position is finely watered, and there is a dense growth of timber and plenty of grass. They had been camped near the head of the Bavispe, occupying prominent, elevated peaks, affording a fine lookout for miles and rendering surprise almost impossible, and their retreats were made secure through the rough adjacent cañons.
"Captain Crawford, with Indian scouts, early on the morning of May 15, surprised the village of Chatto, the chief who led the recent raid into Arizona and New Mexico. The fight lasted all day, and the village was wiped out. The damage done cannot be estimated. A number of dead bodies were found, but the indescribable roughness of the country prevented a count being made. The entire camp, with the stock and everything belonging to it, was captured.
"It was learned from the prisoners taken that the Chiricahuas were unanimous for peace, and that they had already sent two messengers to try to reach San Carlos. On the 17th, they began to surrender. They said their people were much frightened by our sudden appearance in their fastnesses, and had scattered like quail. They asked me to remain until they could gather all their bands together, when they would go back to the reservation. By the terms of the treaty, my operations were limited to the time of the fight. I told the Chiricahuas to gather up their women and children without delay. They answered that they could not get them to respond to the signal, the fugitives fearing they might be sent by our Apache scouts to entrap them. They told us that they had a white boy
assured me every one of the band should come in if I would remain a short time; but the terms of the treaty embarrassed me greatly, and being in that rough region, with rations rapidly disappearing, there being between three and four hundred Chiricahuas to feed, I was compelled to return.
"We found six Mexican captives,—five women and one child,—taken in Chihuahua early in May. They are now with the command. These women say they were captured near the Mexican Central Railroad, at a place called Carmen. They further state that when the Chiricahuas discovered that the Apache scouts were in the country they became greatly alarmed, and abandoned on the trail the three hundred head of cattle they were driving away from points in Western Chihuahua. The cattle were afterward picked up and driven off by a body of Mexicans.
"We marched back as rapidly as the condition of the stock and the strength of the women and children would permit. We found the country depopulated for a distance of one hundred miles from the Apache stronghold. The Chiricahuas insist that they have always lived in the Sierra Madre, and that even when the main body went on the reservation some remained behind in the mountains. Of those who now go out, there are a number who state that they have never been on the reservation. I have strong hopes of being able to clean the mountains of the last of these.
"There are now with us Loco and Nana, who were so often reported killed, and the families of other prominent chiefs. I saw no Mexican troops, and after leaving the settlements in Northeast Sonora did not see a Mexican other than the captives rescued.
"GEORGE CROOK,
Brigadier-General Commanding."
The enthusiasm of the Border country knew no bounds, as the travel-worn heroes emerged from the unknown region, and General Crook was hailed as the savior of the Southwest. A banquet was given him in Tucson, and the long-repressed feelings of the inhabitants found vent in adulatory addresses. Before the enthusiasm had well cooled, ugly rumors began to creep out; which it may seem ungenerous in me even to mention. His enemies claimed that he had not only committed a foolhardy thing, in going into the stronghold of the Apaches with a force of Indian scouts in full sympathy with them, outnumbering the soldiers five to one, but that he was at the last outwitted and entrapped, and, instead of being the captor of the wily Indians, had himself been captured. Policy alone, they said, had dictated to the Indians the advisability of allowing him to return, without massacring his whole command; so they compelled him to take out to the reservation all their old and worthless squaws,—all the non-combatants, in fact,—and then, with loins girded for battle, and with only their most agile warriors and the youngest of their squaws, they started to make reprisals upon the hated Mexicans.
This, in truth, would have been but consistent with the mistaken policy hitherto pursued by our government: to treat the Indian like a spoiled child, to allow him to pillage and murder all summer, then to cajole him into returning to the reservation, where he might fatten upon his ill-gotten gains all winter, and thus recruit for another campaign of terror. The noble red man thereby holds our prowess in light esteem, as well he may; for the spectacle of a nation of fifty million people quaking with dread over the anticipated depredations of less than three hundred Indians, is well calculated to inspire not only contempt but disgust.
But there are always two sides to a story, and I think that the following statement, furnished me by the same officer who prepared the map, and to whom I am indebted for a graphic description of the Apache country and the terrible journey undertaken into it, is not only entitled to the fullest confidence, but will bear the test of the revelations of the future.
"General Crook has been severely criticised by certain people because of their complete ignorance of the situation. First, the campaign is deemed a failure because it did not terminate in the utter extermination of the Chiricahua tribe of Indians. Secondly, his policy is condemned because he chose to accept the surrender of the Indians, instead of remaining in the mountains and continuing the pursuit.
"In answer to the first objection, it may be stated that the object of the campaign, as explained to the Mexican officers and understood by the troops under his command, was to free the people of Mexico and the United States from further outrages by these Indians. There were two methods of coming to this end. One was by means of a large command, capable of subdivision, which would move along with little attempt at concealment and forcibly drive the enemy before them out of their strongholds in succession, and eventually surround and destroy them. This would have required several thousand troops, and it would have taken at least a year to accomplish the result. In the mean time, the misery and suffering inflicted on the poor inhabitants of Sonora and Chihuahua would be almost incredible, were these savages compelled to leave their mountain retreats and subsist entirely on the country.
"The other method was by means of a smaller body of picked material, capable of moving rapidly and quietly, and thus having the power of surprising and 'jumping' the savages, and yet strong enough to demoralize them by its superiority, and insure to itself success in any open engagement.
"The first method was not to be thought of, for one reason if no other, that the Mexican authorities are jealous of their rights, and would never permit a foreign army to move upon its soil.
"The other, although in many respects a superior method, could not be expected to annihilate the enemy, unless resort was made to treachery. The most that could be hoped was one decisive victory, which would cause a surrender; and then the management of the Indians after they were placed on a reservation would have to be relied on. This in simple terms was the plan of the campaign and its execution, in every particular. The Chiricahuas are now on the San Carlos reservation, far removed from their stronghold, surrounded by all the available forces of the United States army and a thousand faithful Indian allies. The future of these Chiricahuas, who will henceforth disappear from the view of the world, can be fairly estimated by that of the other Apache Indians. Little over five years ago, the whole Apache race was at war with the whites; but six thousand of them were subdued by General Crook, and placed on the San Carlos reservation, since which time there have been few outbreaks, and these of short duration. "One point which has been omitted, and which the critics seem to dwell upon, is that no great battle was fought, and that none of Crook's command were killed. Had they read his report they would have seen that no such claim is advanced, but he modestly states that but nine Indians were killed; although there is hardly a man of the command who is not convinced that this estimate is too small. Crook's detractors note only the slight decrease of the enemy's forces, but lose sight of the fact that hundreds of innocent people are saved from future outrage, and an immense territory freed from raid and rapine."
At the time of the surrender of the stronghold, General Crook was assured by the Apache chief that the remainder of his band would follow him into United States territory and give themselves up, which the General confidently believed would be done. It was several months, however, before the recreant redskins made their appearance, having meanwhile secured, by means of bold and skilfully conducted raids, great herds of cattle and horses from Mexican haciendas. Then they hastened towards the reservation, where they could enjoy the protection of Uncle Samuel, and find a market for their stock.
It is believed that the object of the daring expedition is accomplished, and that, without bloodshed, General Crook has ousted the Apaches from the Sierras, and opened a new and virgin territory to the enterprise of the whites. Conjecturally, this region is stored with mineral treasure, and tradition points to numerous rich mines abandoned during two centuries of Apache depredations; and hundreds of prospecters are waiting for the moment when it shall be declared rid of savages, to put the truth of these rumors to the test.
It was late at night when I finally took horse again and departed from the Apache camp, with the weird music of Indian drums and the demoniac songs of the savages ringing in my ears. The night was cool and moonlit, such as compensates the dweller in this hot and arid region for his sufferings during the day, and the ride to Willcox, where we arrived at one in the morning, was quite enjoyable. With commendable enterprise, the keeper of the "Eureka House," desiring to satisfy the natural craving of the "tender-foot" for a sight of relics of the campaign, had placed in his window "the skull and a rifle of an Indian chief," and some Chihuahua currency "taken from the dead body of a noted warrior on the battle-field." As the currency was some I myself had lent mine host, and as I was not conscious of having plundered any dead Indian, the tenderfoot naturally looked upon the other "genuine relics" with suspicion.
At noon, I took train for Sonora and the Gulf of California, through a waste and forsaken region, in which settlements are not stimulated by the local tariff of ten cents a mile for travel. The temperature along this route through Southern Arizona was about one hundred degrees, in such shade as it was possible to find. The general vegetation was cactus, the greatest types of which, the giant petayah, were most interesting. Benson is the first large and flourishing town west of Deming, from which it is one hundred and seventy-four miles distant. Only forty-six miles west lies the ancient Spanish settlement, now a flourishing city, of Tucson; but this city I did not visit, as my course lay towards and into Mexico, bearing south from Benson instead of west, crossing the rich mineral region which has made Arizona famous, both in the distant past and in recent years, and has sustained its claim to the ancient appellation of Arezuma, Land of Gold.
From Contention, on the line of the "New Mexico and Arizona," it is but ten miles to Tombstone, the banner town of Arizona, to which a stage runs on quick time. At Huachuca General Crook and staff left the train for the military post of that name, where their presence was needed for the final disposition of the troops guarding the Border. They are, all of them, as modest and unassuming heroes as I ever had the good fortune to meet. Having just brought to a successful close one of the most intrepid and remarkable expeditions on record, they were now retiring to the obscurity of a remote frontier post, and turning their backs upon the honors the grateful people of Arizona were anxious to shower upon them.
Calabasas is the name of the last station in United States territory through which we pass previous to entering Sonora. It was once an old hacienda, near which was a gold mine, but was often depopulated, through Apache raids, and knew not the blessings of peace until the advent of the railroad. This, indeed, may be said of this entire region, every presidio and village of which existed only upon sufferance, half in ruins, guarded by cowardly Mexican soldiers, who rarely ventured beyond the mud forts, and allowed the Apaches to murder and plunder with impunity.
But not a village on the Border showed such sure evidences of settled peace as this quondam hacienda, on the night of our arrival. It was eight o'clock, and as we groped our way from the station to the hotel, where it was said a supper awaited us, darkness hid from our sight such a structure as we had not seen for days. We found a hotel there that reminded me of the edifice at Las Vegas, in New Mexico; and on inquiry I learned that it had been built by the same shrewd and far-seeing men who guided the destinies of the great railroad, the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé. And the supper! The last meal like it we had been able to obtain only at Deming, and the one before that at Wallace; and later on my trip I found that the great road aforementioned had built a line of magnificent hotels and dining-rooms, from the Missouri River—as far as its route extended—to the Mexican Border. "Eat like thunder," said an "old-timer," as we sat down to the table, "for you won't get another square meal till you get back here again!" And we ate; our Mexican friends—who, though strangers to good cooking, knew how to appreciate it—gorged themselves till their eyes stuck out like those of a shrimp, and the warning whistle bade them desist. Then I paid my dollar and departed, and in half an hour was over the line, again in Mexico, for the fourth time on this journey.
We had come down the valley of the Santa Cruz River, where the bottom lands, covered with luxuriant grass, and the banks, fringed with gigantic cottonwoods, made it the most attractive of any I saw in all Arizona. How tempting this region must have seemed to those prospecters who penetrated Sonora before Arizona became ours by the Gadsden Purchase! Seeing these delightful valleys, after their weeks of hardship on the arid plains above, they concluded that the whole great province was one equally desirable. But in this they were greatly mistaken. Speaking in general terms, Northern Sonora and Southern Arizona (at this point) are much more fertile than Northern Arizona and Southern Sonora.
The frontier town of Sonora, where the railroad enters, is Nogales, simply a double row of slab shanties and mud huts, the former being American, the latter Mexican. The customs officials of both republics may be found here, who make a pretence of examining one's luggage. As soon as the Border is crossed, you are impressed with the difference between American energy and Mexican thriftlessness. I was reminded of what an observant writer, Mr. Bartlett, once wrote of Tubac, which lies on the banks of the river of Santa Cruz: "In a book of travels in a strange country, one is expected to describe every town he visits; but as for this God-forsaken place, when I have said that it contains a few dilapidated buildings and an old church, with a miserable population, I have said about all."
It was after midnight when we arrived at Magdalena, formerly a frontier town of much importance, but of which, as I only saw it by moonlight, I will borrow a description by J. Ross Browne, who made his mark upon this country twenty years ago: "The town is like all I have seen in Sonora, a parched-up confusion of adobe huts scattered over the slope of a barren hill, like so many mud boxes. The earth and houses are pretty much of the same material and color, while mesquit and petayah are the chief surrounding objects of interest and ornament in the way of vegetable life." But I remember that, going southward to Magdalena, we ran through fields and gardens, that we sorely missed beyond, with large trees standing up invitingly draped in masses of tangled vines.
A curious fraud has been recently unearthed here, regarding a reported discovery of ancient ruins, said to be but four leagues distant from Magdalena, and consisting of "a pyramid with a base of 1,850 Feet, and a height of 750. On the walls of the gloomy rooms, cut out of solid stone, are numerous hieroglyphics, and representations of human forms, the hands of which, strange to say, have five fingers and one thumb, while the feet have six toes," etc.
Now, if these reports, frequently revived, ended with the papers that gave them birth, it would little matter; but, unfortunately, they have obtained credence, and have even been copied into an unreliable book on the Border States, the editor of which was more desirous to obtain notoriety than solicitous for the reputation of his work, and whose proceeding cannot be too strongly reprehended. As these mythical ruins were located on the borders of the Apache country, where a traveller ran extreme risk of his life, it will be seen what a reckless disregard these unscrupulous-men had for the lives of those who should be lured here by their malicious lies. I had intended visiting the locality myself, but was dissuaded therefrom by Captain Bourke, Aide-de-camp to General Crook, who assured me that he had been over the entire region, and that the whole story was a fabrication. There is indeed a curious natural formation there, worn into holes in which people may have lived, as nomads, or shepherds tending their flocks.
The moon lighted up a country mainly sterile, and daylight did not reveal one more attractive; but at six we reached the Sonora River, and the scenery underwent a most magical change. At seven we ran into the station at Hermosillo, the "beautiful town," and I took refuge and breakfast at the Hotel Cosmopolita, a one-story adobe, hard by the cemetery. This city, situated on the Sonora River, ninety miles from the Gulf of California, contains about 12,000 inhabitants. The soil of the highly cultivated valley of which it occupies the centre produces great crops of wheat, and its gardens are full of fruit in every variety, as oranges, melons, figs, lemons, plantains, dates, and pomegranates. Celebrated alike for its gardens and its lovely doncellas, Hermosillo has one other attraction that overtops them all, in a peculiar conical hill, called El Cerro de la Campana, or "Hill of the Bell," from the sonorous quality of the rock composing it, which gives out a clear ringing sound when pieces of it are struck together. Great masses of cane line the river and the irrigation canals, the acequias, while a verdurous vegetation surrounds and interlaces the adobe dwellings of town and suburbs. It is the distributing centre for the productions of the agricultural country of Northern and Central Sonora, and it also has some mines of local repute in its vicinity.
The climate is hot, though dry, the temperature exceeding 80° and even 100°, with little change throughout the year. The finest buildings of the State are found here, the principal ones being of stone, with the universal portales and arcades, seen in perfection in every Mexican town, a nice little plaza, and a half-wild park, and the population contains the flower of the Sonora aristocracy. In spite of the great heat, and the exceedingly filthy condition of the town, Hermosillo has generally escaped the epidemic diseases that sometimes ravage the coast; but in September, 1883, the vomito, then raging at Guaymas, leaped over the intervening waste of country and spread itself over this pleasant valley.
On the morning of June 20th, as I was about taking train for Guaymas, I found the station full of ladies and gentlemen, who had come to greet the "divine Peralta," the famous prima-donna of Mexico. Los Musicos, the musicians, were assembled in force, and the brightest and prettiest of señoritas flitted gayly about, shielding their sweet faces and bright eyes from the too ardent rays of el sol with their fans, while the air was ringed and streaked with the smoke of a hundred cigarros. A sprightly Mexicano was circulating printed slips containing a soneto to the gifted singer, S'ra Angela Peralta de Castera, and everybody was on the tiptoe of expectation.
To the great disappointment of the unsophisticated beauties of Hermosillo, Peralta did not arrive; and the episode I had witnessed would have faded away, had I not read, in a paper of three months later, that the "Nightingale of Mexico," with several members of her troupe, had died of yellow-fever at Mazatlan. Poor Peralta! I doubt not that the gentle dames of Sonora are grieving over their sister's demise to this day; though they had cause to sorrow over their own ravaged households. I wonder if any of those graceful girls who regarded el Americano wonderingly through their grated windows, or if any of those airy young men who so politely did the honors of their city, have fallen victims to the plague. I hope not, though vague report leads me to fear that some were taken away.
I remember with what gracious courtesy one of these lovely daughters of Hermosillo, an heiress in her own right to a beautiful estate and a deceased parent's horde of pesos, gave us permission to enter the patio of her dwelling, and with what evident pleasure she directed us to the blossoming gardens, where date palms and plantains mingled their leaves, and where the orange and fig trees were full of cooing doves and warbling songsters. The peace and delights of this place suggested that it might not be amiss to cast one's lines in it for good and all; and we did not wonder that some of our countrymen had been made captives by the gentle Mexicanas, who are said to lend a willing ear to the wooing of the Gringo. The "dark-eyed señorita," especially in the Border States, is a very different being from the idealized creature of the painter and of the author who writes of the country before he visits it; yet there are some, to be met with at exceedingly long intervals, who are quite attractive. Real beauty few of them have, but nearly all are sweet-tempered and gentle-voiced, while sparkling eyes and milk-white teeth are theirs by right of birth.
The only town of importance beyond Hermosillo is Guaymas, chief port of Sonora, ninety miles distant, on the Gulf of California. The railroad running thither is a splendid piece of work, but wasted on such an ungrateful region as lies between these two points, for in the dry season there is hardly a green thing in sight. Though the rains will start the verdure of vegetation, they cannot change its character, and other than mesquit and cactus there is little variety; but of the latter there are many species, nearly all in bloom, the dry stalks gaudy in yellows and reds. Small animals, like jack-rabbits, are numerous, and skip away awkwardly as the train goes by.
Four miles distant from Guaymas a sea-breeze fans our cheeks, as the road crosses the blue waters of a broad lagoon, over a bridge and causeway five thousand feet in length, and then runs along attractive bays, and among cactus-covered hills. The fine station of the railroad is built on the neck of an isthmus terminating in a rocky promontory, half a mile distant from the town. The company owns all the approaches to the town, all the eligible harbor and coast sites, and has run a spur of the road, a mile or so in length, to a headland, where it has built a wharf, in water deep enough to float the largest steamers. This is done in anticipation of the trade that is to spring up when, a Trans-Pacific line of steamers running to Australia and China, traffic and travel shall take this course across our continent. The port is one of the best on the Mexican coast, being securely land-locked, enclosed on every side by hills, and its shores are a succession of island-dotted bays.
"Guaymas," says one of the numerous writers on Mexico, "is shut in from the Gulf, as well as from the winds, by high 
rugged hills, entirely destitute of vegetation, and reflecting the rays of the sun until the place seems like a huge oven. . . . . The country around Guaymas, for a semicircle of about one hundred miles, is a blasted, barren desert, entirely destitute of wood, water, or grass, producing only cacti and a stunted growth of mesquit. The water is all procured from wells, has a brackish, unpleasant taste, and generally causes temporary diseases with those unaccustomed to its use."
Situated at a commanding point on the Gulf of California, Guaymas should control, with its unequalled connections with the United States, all the trade of the upper Gulf. One may voyage, even now, down the coast, to Mazatlan and Acapulco; and over across the Gulf, almost within sight, is Lower California, a fabled land of riches, but of hostile shores and desert interior. The vast Bay of Guaymas is ever alive with fish, and its oysters are reputed excellent; but there are few fishermen, the principal purveyors for all the markets being Indians, from down the coast, Yaquis and Mayos, who are agriculturists, likewise, and so far advanced as to deny the white man a residence within their towns. The Indians of Sonora are numerous and interesting; up the Gulf, on Tiburon Island, resides a curious family called the Ceres, which once was powerful and independent.
A good tramway connects railroad station and town, where the buildings are mostly of adobe, and all of one story. Most painful to note is the total lack of green; of gardens there are no visible tokens, save of one, over a hollow in the hills beyond the town, where a thrifty German has established himself, and taken possession of a small grove of palms, watered by a stream fed from an artesian well. On the way there you pass the water-works of Guaymas, a deep well, at which a stalwart Indian presides and doles out the agua to the donkey boys from the city.
If I have said there is not much here of interest, let me retract, in favor of these water-carriers of the town. They are going and coming all the day long, barefooted, barefaced little rascals, of Indian descent, who sit perched astride the burro's hips, and guide him without a bridle, or even a stick. Let their pictures speak for them. Across the burro's back is thrown a hide-sack of leather, a pouch of which on either side is filled with water, which is dispensed to customers through an aperture in the bottom, stopped up by a cow's horn, which fills it tightly, owing to the pressure from above.
Notwithstanding the intense heat, and the fever season in prospective, the authorities of Guaymas permitted filth and garbage to stare one in the face at every turn. As might have been expected, the vomito came upon the town in August, and raged so fiercely that few of the living remained to care for the sick and dead. It was the first visitation in many years so fatal in its consequences; and if the local officers accept the lesson, and use their endeavors to cleanse the place, there need not be such a recurrence of the evil.
Charles Kingsley once called the port of St. Thomas a Dutch-oven of a place, and it is not far different in its surroundings from Guaymas, both being half surrounded by blistering hills; but the former has an advantage in the free circulation of air. One hundred degrees is a temperature often reached in Guaymas, while ninety-five is considered remarkably cool. During the two nights I dwelt there I nearly perspired myself away, though all the doors of the hotel were open from sunset to sunrise. Music and moonlight contributed to the enjoyment of evenings passed in the plaza, and after the musicos had departed it was interesting to watch the people pouring out of their adobe hives, and stretching their cots in the streets and on the sidewalks. Not alone men and boys, but girls and women, were taking up their beds and planting them outside the walls, where only they could get a breath of air not heated to the temperature of a sirocco blast.
Guaymas, just previous to my arrival, had passed through a gold fever without a precedent in several years. Reports had come across the Gulf of the finding of placer gold, in the remote district of Mulegé, in the great abundance that in Upper California astonished the world a century ago. People poured down from the mining regions of Arizona, drawn to this region 
by the representations of some shopkeepers of Guaymas, who wished to reduce the goods in their overstocked stores.
Mulegé is situated southwest of Guaymas, across the Gulf, and could only be reached by sailing-vessels, which were overcrowded and poorly provisioned. Arrived on the eastern shore of Lower California, those who started for the mining region were obliged to cross a waterless desert, only to find the gold district a fraud and disappointment. Their sufferings, of which they had a foretaste on shipboard, were intense, from want and thirst, and nearly all returned to Sonora in rags and poverty.
At no time has Lower California been the rich country that tradition makes it to be, although some of the first religious missions were established here, and have formed the nuclei for settlements which exist at the present day. Near Mulegé itself, surrounded by desert and far remote from civilization, is a conventual structure that is most impressive in its ruin and decay. It stands there, abandoned to Indians and wild beasts, a type of the mission building of the distant past, when every church was also a fort, and every religious edifice a veritable castle.
Gold and silver, pearls and precious stones, have been the alluring phantoms that have beckoned the fortune-hunter on to the Gulf of California for centuries past. Pearls, indeed, have been found here in great abundance. Fifty years ago, it is said, even the common people wore them; but of late the fisheries have languished, as their seeking requires great endurance in the divers, and the efforts to introduce diving-bells have not met with success.
It was here at Guaymas, on the shore of the great Gulf, whose unknown waters were sailed by Cortés and his hardy crew three centuries and a half before, that I turned about for the United States, travelling northward and eastward, and finally reaching home after a roundabout journey of ten thousand miles by rail.
In bringing my travels to so peaceful a conclusion I feel that I shall incur the displeasure of my reader, who will doubtless frown upon a book on Mexico without a robber or a bandit in it. Yet I have wandered in many places noted as the haunts of both, and it has not been altogether my own fault that I had no particularly exciting adventures, and did not shoot anything more harmful than a stump. With this, let me say farewell. Our journey is ended. Adios!
- ↑ A fine town of Southern Sonora, which derives its name from its beautiful alameda,—alamos, poplars,—and which does considerable trade in silver.