Thirty Years on the Frontier

XXIII

THE EGYPT OF AMERICA

Once I made a horseback ride from Trinidad, Colorado, to El Paso, following the old trail over the Glorietta mountains to Pueblo de Taos and thence by easy stages to El Paso, Texas, my object being to prospect for placer mines.

It is a wild, weird scene, when after crossing the Glorietta range, one finds himself in this storied valley of the Rio Grande, New Mexico, that mysterious land of sunshine, of eternal silence and (may I say) eternal sadness. Sunlight paints the landscapes in rarest tints of blues and greys, heightened by vermillion and bright ochre colorings on cliff and crag, whose silence of ages is broken only by the rumble of the train, to relapse again into its wonted quietude. The land has been asleep for over three hundred years, while the world’s progress has been going on about her. Once she was aroused when the cattle men came from over the range and stocked her valleys, but the cattle did not do well. Then she laid down for another nap. These valleys are those of sadness like unto fabled regions of the hereafter, wherein ungodly spirits are destined to roam forever in isolation from kindred beings. Sad-eyed Mexicans lean against the sunny side of their adobe huts – they are always leaning against something, as though their weak anatomies would not stand alone. They are poor, very poor, but proud. Let a stranger go to their casas and their hospitality is never wanting. A frugal meal of corn, beans and chile is divided with as free a hand as a minister’s benediction. Sad-eyed sheep graze upon the scant vegetation of hill and valley, while the mournful, philosophic donkey does the work of the land, – and perhaps the thinking, too. When the shadows of night fall and the mountain range stands in dark relief against the sky the eye can trace the outlines of grotesque faces formed by irregular peaks and curves. Many of them have traditions old as the Sphinx, for the semi-civilization of the Aztecs that once inhabited this land dates hundreds of years before Cabeza de Vaca explored these valleys of the Pecos and Rio Grande. The sacred fires of the Aztecs have died out in the ashes of the past, yet there are those living who still look for the coming of Montezuma. It seems that every race of people in their decline look for the coming of a redeemer. This belief is kept alive by the Pueblo Indians of these valleys, who bow to the sun from their housetops as he shines from over the mountain range at early morn. Like the men of Mars Hill, they believe in “the unknown God,” whose name is too holy to be spoken. They hold sacred all animals living in or near water, which in this dry climate is the greatest blessing.

At Taos they have a tradition that at the flood a few faithful Pueblos gathered upon a mountain top and waited long and in vain for the waters to subside. At last a youth of royal blood and a beautiful virgin decorated with brilliant feathers, were let down from the cliff as an offering to the angry Deity. The waters soon fell, and the youth and maiden were transformed into statues of stone. With all the silence and sadness of this region, contentment seems to reign supreme, and if some genius with the pen of Washington Irving will study the simple ways of these Mexican people and write of their traditions he will do mankind a service and make himself famous.

Swiftly flows the Rio Grande along its shallow banks, from whence here and there runs an irrigating ditch which waters a patch of corn or vineyard, near the adobe houses which are scattered thickly along the banks of the river, from the Sangre de Christo mountains to the Mexican sea. Here for over three hundred years a semi-Spanish civilization has existed in a sweet contentment to which the Anglo-Saxon race was born a stranger. Here is the Egypt of America, teeming with the traditions of a simple people, content almost with breath alone.

The old mission of Las Cruces was among the first built by the Jesuits in this valley. Behind its altar were two crude paintings of Santo Domingo and Santa Rita, and between them the statuettes of the Virgin and St. Joseph. Beneath the whole was a painting, the scene of which the artist had located somewhere on the borderland between heaven and hell. Gilded saints were flying off in one direction while great horned toads and scorpions were pulling dark browed Mexicans and Indians into a sea of flames. At this mission was held the first Auto de Fa in New Mexico. An Apache chief had been made a prisoner and was set to work herding sheep. One day he lost one and the holy father said: “Son of the infidel, what did you do with that sheep?”

“I lost it,” replied the Apache, “but you may take it out of my pay.”

“Pay! what pay, you sacrilegious toad?”

“Why, out of my daily lashes.”

“Holy saints protect us!” exclaimed the padre. “Theft, disbelief and the church itself defied! We will have Judaism here next. Away with him to the faggot fires.”

Then, as the flames crept around the Apache chained to a stone post, he repented and the father baptised him and agreed to meet him up yonder, but did not offer to put out the fire. As about two hundred and fifty years have passed since then, they have perhaps met and adjusted their differences by this time.

Cruel as these old religious zealots may have been at times, they did a world of good, for they semi-civilized the natives.

Beside the yellow waters of the Rio Grande and near the Sierra Blanco range, lies El Paso. Its streets were busy with traffic, and tall buildings rose majestically on either side. But the wind sweeps through the mountain pass and the dust storms darken the sky for days at a time. Like all other desert regions the chief boast of its inhabitants is climate and “this exceptionally bad weather only known heretofore to the oldest settler” grows irksome when one has heard it five hundred times in like regions. Around and about El Paso for three hundred miles north, south, east, and west, is desert, and to those who have never seen a desert country it is surprising how all conditions of life are changed. These conditions are harder than in humid countries. In our northern land between Canada and the Gulf, that which sustains life grows in abundance and few people there are who know what it is to be hungry. But here in El Paso there are many of the poorer classes who actually suffer for something to eat.

Within thirty minutes the entire scene had changed. I had crossed the river and was in El Paso del Norte, on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande. Narrow lane-like streets, white adobe buildings with heavily grated windows make the stranger feel that he has intruded on a convention of county jails. In half an hour I had gone backward three centuries. Silent, dark-browed figures walked the streets with Spanish cloak or serape wound majestically around them, donkeys laden with wood, peddlers with hogskins filled with pulque, strangely attired Mexicans, all formed a weird street scene not soon to be forgotten.

It was on the plaza here that General Bonito Juarez camped his little force of 150 men while he went to Washington to appeal to this government to enforce the Monroe doctrine in the midst of our own rebellion. When the American ultimatum went forth to France, Napoleon III withdrew his French troops. Then Juarez marched on to the City of Mexico gathering strength as he went. The unfortunate Maximilian fell into his hands and was executed on the “Cerra de las Campus” (The Hill of the Bells), near Queretaro on the 19th of June, 1867. General Bonito Juarez was a full blooded Aztec whom Fate seems to have ordained to bring about the political regeneration of his country.

It was a gala day in El Paso del Norte. A company of Rurales from the interior was to contest in a shooting match with the Carbine Rifles and bets were running high. Both sides did some good shooting at 500 yards and the Carbine Rifles won. Bets were paid freely and everybody was in a good humor.

I had formed the acquaintance of Captain Esperanza Provincio and at his invitation I fired a few shots, hitting the bull’s eye each time with one of the Mexican carbines.

This excited everybody’s attention and soon some Americans offered to bet that I could beat any man they had in their company shooting at 500 yards. The bets were taken and I was pitted against six crack shots belonging to the Carbine Rifles. I won in every instance and received a neat sum for my skill from my American friends who had won the Mexicans’ money. Captain Provincio, not to be outdone in generosity, caused a handsome silver medal to be made which he afterwards presented to me with the compliments of his company.

The Military Band from Chihuahua discoursed sweet music in the plaza that night to a large crowd of citizens from both towns.

The Mexican plaza is the national chimney corner, where at evening a band plays wild, weird strains of martial music, and the young gather about the old to hear tales of daring and valor. It is the plaza where the traditions are kept alive and where the young are taught that the very acme of glory in life is the battlefield.

The soft effects of moonlight, the plaza with its green trees, fountains, and sauntering of senors and senoritas in the presence of the silvertoned bells of an old cathedral and the weird strains of martial music, form the pleasant remembrances of El Paso del Norte, since named Juarez.

In company with a Mexican miner named Martenez I rode westward along the Mexican border for two days, and thence toward the northwest to Gila River, when one morning we saw to the southward a column of smoke ascending. We knew it to be Indian signals and so rode our bronchos into a clump of bushes on the river banks in order to be out of sight.

On scanning the plain with my field glass I saw a column of dust rising far to the north like a pillar of smoke and rightly guessed it to be caused by a body of horsemen. From the speed they were making, I judged they were either pursuers or being pursued. In either event, we felt fairly safe, as our bronchos were in good condition, were splendid animals, and as we had used them well of late, we believed we could outdistance them if they proved to be hostile Indians. Nearer the cloud of dust approached and the closer I looked with my field glass until I discovered they were Apaches making all haste to reach the mountains. They crossed the Gila River, which was at flood tide, five hundred yards from where we were concealed and disappeared in the direction from whence we saw the smoke signals. We had made up our minds to remain in our hiding places until night, when I saw another dust cloud in the same direction as the first, and in a little while I made out that the dust was raised by a party of scouts and rode out to meet them. They were led by Captain Jack Crawford and were in pursuit of the murderous band of Apaches who had been killing ranchmen in the upper country.

The scouts continued on the pursuit, while we rode away in the direction of Silver City.

It was that band of marauding Apaches which we saw crossing the Gila River that furnished the cause for the Geronimo war, which broke out soon afterwards. It was not until March, in 1886, that General Crook captured Geronimo and his band of Chiricahua Apaches, who escaped from him while they were being taken to Ft. Bowie. The chief and band were recaptured by General Nelson A. Miles in Mexico some months afterwards and sent to Fort Pickens, Florida. Geronimo and fourteen of his band were afterwards taken to Ft. Sill, Indian Territory. Here the cunning old Chief spent most of his time playing monte with the soldiers.

XXIV

IN THE DOME OF THE SKY

There are three ways of reaching the summit of Pike’s Peak – walking, riding a burro, or seated comfortably in one of the coaches of the Cog Road.

It was three o’clock in the afternoon when the car was pulled out of the yards at the foot of the Peak. The strongly-built little engine puffed like a living thing, obedient to the task of drawing its heavy load. The wheels moved rapidly, and we ascended the steepest mountain railroad in the world. It wound about the mountain sides in little curves, climbing, always climbing higher and higher, until we shuddered at the dizzy heights as we looked down into the great yawning chasms thousands of feet below.

The air grew cooler in the deep mountain defiles densely wooded with fir, pine, cedar and quaking asp. A great fire once swept up these gorges and burned away the fir and pine in patches; in their place came the quaking asp, growing here and there in thickets.

Along the slopes and in the dells, wild flowers grew with the luxuriant profusion of a semi-tropical clime. There were columbines and tiger lilies growing at an altitude of ten thousand feet.

Nature has done some queer things in the mighty rocks which stand sentinel guard along the route.

One great boulder is named the Hooded Monk, because of its resemblance to the human head in a monk’s cowl. There is a Gog and Magog. The Sphynx, the Lone Fisherman, and many other images of man, bird and beast, wrought by nature’s hand in stone.

We glided by one of the loveliest glens in all the mountains; it was called Shady Springs. Here the oriole, the raven and the big blue jay of the mountains have builded their nests and take their morning baths in waters clear as crystal from a spring that gushed from fern and moss covered banks.

Farther on to the right a stream plunges in wild, mad swirl of clear waters and dashing from rock to rock in foamy white, forms Echo Falls. An elephant’s head in bass relief was here to be seen wrought in stone.

We rounded Cameron’s Cone and Sheep Mountain and soon began the ascent of the “Big Hill,” which has a rise of 1,300 feet to the mile.

Nearing timber line, the road ahead appears to be almost at an angle of 45 degrees.

Higher and higher; the great chasm below grew almost a mile deeper. On one side there were masses of square rock which looked like they were broken by human hands. Here, far above timber line, a variety of wild flowers blossomed, while among the rocks lived some of the strangest little animals, the whistling marmot, a fur animal about the size of an overgrown cat, and the peka, which has the legs of a rabbit and the head of a mountain rat; there were also minks, weasels, porcupines and mountain rats.

At the summit was where the magnificence of the great panorama burst upon our view. Northward, away down on the bluish haze of the horizon, rose the Arapahoe peaks – Long and Grey’s Peak, with their white summits glistening in the setting sun. Northwest, Mt. Massive and Mt. Sheridan were outlined against the clear blue sky, while the green sward of the famous South Park, a hundred miles distant, lay between. College Range, Mt. Yale, Mt. Princeton, Mt. Ouray and Cavenaugh reared their rugged heads far to the west, while green mountain ranges of lesser note lay half way between them.

Far to the southwest, far as the eye could reach, faintly outlined against the sky, rose the snowy peaks of the Sangre de Christo and Sierra Blanco Mountains on the other side of the grand San Luis Valley.

Looking to the south, were the Spanish Peaks and range of Greenhorn Mountains, and a little to the southeast rose the snow-capped Gloriettas on the borders of New Mexico.

To the east, lay the mighty plains, stretching away to where the blue of the sky blended in coppery tones with the billowy green.

There were dark spots here and there that were dense forests of pine. The cloud banners hung above, in all the gorgeous colors of sunset in crimson, purple and gold.

A dark shadow crept out upon the plain toward the east, like the finger of a mighty giant. It moved rapidly along, covering the yellow sand lines that mark the course of old river beds, and finally, this shadow of Pike’s Peak was covered by the shadows of other mountains lower down, until the plain was shrouded in the sable garb of eventide.

But westward, the gold and crimson of the sky lingered long above the distant peak of Mt. Ouray. The purple haze grew denser, and the silence of the hour was made more solemn by the mountains standing out in dark silhouette as the shadows of the night grew deeper and denser.

At such a time as this, one feels as though he stood upon the boundary of another world, while all about the wide white waste and hush of space, eternity and the infinite were calling to other glories, too great for the understanding of the human mind.

Here, in the very dome of the skies, in this clear air, the bright worlds seem to hover over, while the vault is strewn with stars, like isles of light in the misty sea above our heads. The purity of the heavenly prospect awakens that eternal predisposition to melancholy, which dwells in the depth of the soul, and soon the spectacle absorbs us in a vague and indefinable reverie. It is then that thousands of questions spring up in our mind, and a thousand points of interrogation rise to our sight – the great enigma of creation.

The harvest moon shed her yellow light over the distant plain, and gilded with a phosphorescent light the rocks and crags of the almost bottomless chasm below. The rocks took on fantastic shapes, while distant mountains rose in spectral form.

I sat throughout the night, watching the ever changing panorama, the most wondrous ever spread out to the gaze of man.

The moon and stars were bright above, while far down below storm clouds had formed where within their inky blackness the forked lightning played like so many fiery serpents.