Letters from the Southwest

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BANCROFT
LIBRARY

THE LIBRARY

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THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

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LETTERS

FROM THE SOUTH-WEST

BY

RUDOLF EICKEME YER I ? G 2

ILLUSTRATED BY E. W. DEMING

1894

COPYRIGHT, 1894, BY
R. EICKEMEYER.

[All rights reserved.}

Press of J. J. Little & Co.
Astor Place, New York

(o 2.0

BANCROFT
LIMAKY

THE letters have to speak for themselves, but I have something to say about the
illustrations. I can pronounce all true to life except two, the frontispiece and
another, representing my partner on horseback. I did not see myself when mounted,
and tun therefore unable to judge whether the artist succeeded in making a true
likeness. The picture of the horse is a faithful one, but I have some doubts as to
the speed at which he seems to move. If the artist intended to illustrate my feelings,
I think he is very nearly right, for I felt as if the horse was galloping when my
companion said he walked. Of the other picture, I can only say that I was not pres-
ent on the occasion depicted. I must have been at the hotel writing letters when

the artist sketched the figure from life.

THE AUTHOR.

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

i.

EL PASO, TEXAS, February 12, 1893.
MY DEAR MK. GORTON :

AFTER a long and cold trip through the " Sunny South " (snow eight
inches in Atlanta, Ga., and more or less all the way to New Orleans), I
landed in this place, by way of San Antonio, Texas, nearly two weeks ago.

I had left home with my son Carl during a heavy snow-storm, and this
storm followed, or, rather, advanced, before us all the way to and beyond
Mobile.

6 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

As luck would have it, the heating pipes in our sleeper burst before we
left Jersey City, and we made the trip to New Orleans in a refrigerator car
instead of the comfortably warmed " Pullman " for which we had paid.

The trip through Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and
Alabama was anything but interesting. The country was covered with
SDOW, and might as well have been in the northern part of New York, near
the lakes, as in the South.

When we approached Montgomery the train passed through cedar
swamps for hours, and for the first time we saw trees draped with Florida
moss. At Westport we made our first acquaintance with the turkey buz-
zard, and it looked as if these birds knew that things were not as they
should be. They would take a lazy flight upward, and a short view of the
surroundings, which seemed to be unsatisfactory, and then perch on the
fences and out-houses near the station.

We arrived at New Orleans twenty hours behind time and thoroughly
disgusted with our experience. Our search after sunshine, so far, had not
been a success.

New Orleans, with its long line of wharves loaded with cotton bales,
sugar hogsheads, and other merchandise, piled tier upon tier, looked like
an industrious place. But the French market, with the French and Span-
ish Creoles and the negroes of all shades, made a strange picture for an
American city.

Our stay there extended over a week, and what amused me more than
anything else was that every one we met insisted that we must see the
burying-grounds. Well, they were interesting enough ; all the burials are
above ground in sepulchral structures highly ornate. But to send a visitor,
who has left home to restore his health, all over the city to see how New
Orleans takes care of its dead, did not strike me as a very judicious move.

Our trip to San Antonio took us over a plain that was well cultivated
in parts, and contained here and there a thriving village ; but the vegetation
constantly reminded us that we were going south. Along the fences were
large cacti, and occasionally a Spanish "bayonet." We passed by large
grain fields and cotton plantations, and in one of the latter saw a gang of
convicts in striped suits hard at work, while mounted men, armed to the
teeth, guarded them.

At some station along the route a gentleman left our car and forgot to
take his satchel. The trainman who found it opened it to see if he could find
a clew to the owner, and what do you think it contained ? A shirt, a
paper collar, and a six-shooter. Another proof that we were going south.

In San Antonio we saw the Alamo, where Davy Crockett and his compa-
triots held a whole Mexican army at bay ; San Pedro Springs, in the Park,

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 7

and the springs which are the fountain-head of the San Antonio River ;
some old churches, and a post where the United States have a garrison of
fifteen hundred soldiers.

We left San Antonio for El Paso after a week's visit, and I must relate
what induced us to come here. The fog and smoke that characterized
New Orleans was only a little less dense in San Antonio, and as it did not
agree with me, we partly concluded to go to Southern California. Then
some of our friends suggested El Pas...

But El Paso was an unknown region, and our inquiries elicited no reli-
able information ; so I requested Carl to go to some public library and look
the place up in an encyclopaedia. When he came back to the hotel he
reported that El Paso was a town on the border of Mexico, having forty-five
hundred inhabitants, half of whom were barbarous nati\

On the strength of this description we bought our tickets, and after a
ride of twenty-four hours through a real desert, our train following the pict-
uresque caflon of the Rio Grande a good part of the way, we landed here,
as stated above, nearly two weeks ago. And I was surprised when I found,
instead of the town described in the encyclopaedia, a well-regulated Ameri-
can city, with churches and schools, and the schoolmaster on top.

El Paso is located in what looks to a stranger like a desert ; and so it is
unless water is obtainable for irrigation, and that seems to be the question
of greatest importance to the city.

There is a high-school here with eighty-five pupils, and in this, as in the
other schools, the rooms seem to be as well equipped as ours.

I have not had the ambition yet to visit all of the schools, but without
doubt will do so before I get away. Besides the high-school there are three
others (including one for Mexican and another for negro children), all
under one superintendent and all in good buildings. Please get me excused
for another month from the meetings of the Board of Education, as I intend
to gather a whole lot of information on school-keeping while on my travels.
I think this should be considered as an equivalent for regular attendance at
the meetings of the Board.

The climate here is excessively dry, not more than six inches of rain-fall
per annum ; but for the last two years no rain has fallen in this section.

II.

EL PASO, TEXAS, March 1, 1893.

I RECEIVED your letter yesterday, and was struck by the closing remarks
about water and its uses, and especially by the suggestion that, where water

8 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

is so precious, it would be unfair for a visitor to diminish the supply by
drinking it. When I left home I had a sort of a notion that I might land
somewhere where tbe water was scarce or bad, and so I ordered a supply of
cigars and " Blue Grass " to be sent forward.

I have found since that it was the best thing I ever did. You see,
great minds run in the same groove ; by intuition I had done what you sug-
gested after you heard of the scant rainfall in the section I now inhabit.

It may interest you to hear something about this part of " Uncle Sam's
farm." El Paso is, as you know, in the State of Texas, and a mile or so
from the Eio Grande. On the opposite side of the river is the Mexican
town of El Paso del Norte, or, as it is now called, Juarez. It is necessary
to keep this in mind to understand the condition of things on this side. To
give you an idea how El Paso appears to a stranger, I must describe it as I
gradually saw it.

I am lodged at the Vendome, an American hotel, and the best in town.
We landed here at about nine o'clock in the morning, just four weeks ago
to-day, and I had my first view of the place — bathed in sunshine under a
cloudless sky — when I looked out of the window of my room. I had found
sunshine at last. Right in front of the hotel is the Plaza, a sort of park
covering four squares. This Plaza is daily filled with people, mostly from
the North, who come here to mend their lungs. "Lungers," they call them
here for short. You remember you once found me counting up the ages
of my ancestors, to find out how near to the average I had arrived. Well,
a walk on the Plaza on a sunny day — and six out of seven are sunny — is
about as cheerful an occupation as that you found me at.

But to return to the original subject, namely, the description of the
town. I must say that it looked on that morning as pleasant as any place
I had seen. The Plaza has a fountain in the centre, and a sign on one side
says : " Don't disturb the alligators." I have circled around the basin
almost daily, but have not had the pleasure yet of seeing their open
countenances ; so that sign may be a deception and a fraud. On the left,
and about the middle of the square, " Uncle Sam " has put his Federal
building, containing the post-office, custom-house, and courts, and the flag
is flying all day ; so you feel at home, anyhow, no matter how strange the
surroundings may seem.

The next building is a large business block, built of brick ; and in the
top story "Uncle Sam's" weather clerk has his roost. The wind-gauge
and weather-vane crown the roof of this building, and, as I have a full view
of them from my room, I have become an expert on the wind. By simply
looking from my window I can tell where it comes from, and by the speed
of the whirligig I can tell how fast it blows. There is also a registering

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 9

thermometer on top, and regularly, at six o'clock in the evening, an attend-
ant climbs a ladder to take the reading, and this reading is telegraphed to
Washington to serve as part of the data for predicting the weather. Of
course I had to climh up and investigate the method of observation, and
while there I had a pleasant chat with the attendant. So. \vlu>n for a num-
ber of days we had bad weather, I took the liberty of requesting that, as he
had so little to do, he would furnish us a better article ; and he did.

It seems that El Paso is out of the range of the storms, which form
either in the Gulf of Mexico or in the Rocky Mountains. It is a sort of
island, having a climate of its uwn. and, consequently, the observations
taken here bear very little relation to the storms at the North. Still, the
temperature depends in a measure, though not invariably, upon the quan-
tity of snow on the plains. The other day the temperature here was ten
degrees lower than at one hundred miles north or east of us, showing the
climatic isolation of El Paso.

N"\v, to continue the description of the buildings around the Plaza, we
have next to the post-office an adobe house. These mloln-x have few win-
dows but many doors, and when I first saw one in San Antonio 1 could not
help thinking of some fort with a lot of cannon mounted on the ramparts.
The houses are one story high. The walls extend two or three feet above
the flat roofs. Every eight or ten feet around the building wooden leaders
project a distance of from four to six feet. They cany the water, when it
rains away from the foundation, and look from a distance like guns for
the defence of a castle.

When I suggested to the weather-clerk that it seemed a useless precau-
tion to put these leaders on the houses, he told me that at times (not very
often indeed) rain fell at the rate of two inches an hour, and without this
way of carrying off the water these houses would be washed away. Facing
the hotel, on the opposite side of the plaza, are the ruins of a hotel which
was burned some time ago, and adjoining these is a livery stable one story
high, built of sun-dried clay bricks, filling the space to the next corner.
The railroad runs along the fourth side of the plaza, thus completing the
square.

Behind the buildings on the south side of the Rio Grande you see moun-
tains, and at the west another range. Facing you is what they call the
Mesa. 1 believe this is the Spanish for table, and should mean tableland.
This is a deception ; it is composed of a succession of hills and gullies,
which look as if the rains of heaven had washed them out yesterday, but
not a drop of water is in them. I am told that the sluggish stream is
called the Rio Grande because at times its bed, which is one-eighth of a
mile wide, is covered with water.

10 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

I don't know whether you have ever seen a " sage-brush " desert. Imag-
ine a number of hills of pure, unadulterated loose sand, here and there a
green bush or a cactus plant. Then imagine the same conditions as far as
the eye can reach, with mountains from one thousand to fifteen hundred
feet above the plain on either hand, enclosing an area about thirty-five
miles long by eight or ten wide, stretching from El Paso toward the east,
and you may get a sort of a notion of a desolation in which it would appear
that no living being could exist ; yet even here man does get a living in
some way, such as it is.

El Paso is part Mexican and part American. The Mexicans and a great
many of the Chinamen live in adobe houses ; but there are a number of fine
residences, built of brick, which contain all the modern improvements.

I have just reached the point where I might branch out and talk about
the churches, schools, public halls, banks, and gambling houses, when I
find I must stop for the day. There is going to be a drawing of the lottery
in Juarez under the superintendence of the ex-Confederate Colonel Mosby,
the one who had his field of action in the Shenandoah Valley during the
late unpleasantness. He receives, I am told, eight thousand dollars a year
for the use of his name and his personal attendance at the drawings. It
would be too bad to miss that, so good-by, and the story is to be continued
in our next.

III.

EL PASO, TEXAS, March 4, 1893.

WHEN I closed my last it was my intention to go to Juarez and see Colonel
Mosby and the drawing of the lottery, but just as I had finished my letter
to you and was ready to start, the Eastern mail came in, and I had to go
right at it to answer my letters and get them away on that day. One of the
advantages of this place is a regular mail service. There is a daily train
each way, north, east, south, and west ; and so your letters go, or don't go,
if you happen to mail them at the right or wrong time.

This city has between ten and eleven thousand inhabitants, not counting
the visitors ; and to supply these people with drinks and an opportunity to
get rid of any surplus cash, there are about twenty saloons, and to almost
every saloon is attached a regular outfit for roulette, faro, sweat, crap, and
keno. I put down these games by the names I have been told they go by.
If I stay here some time longer I may be initiated into all the secrets of
gambling, provided that the money holds out.

But I may as well tell this part of my story in the regular way. When it
proved to be too late to go to Juarez, we organized a sort of an investigating

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 11

party, or, rather, a committee on disc-ox cry ; and a little after two o'clock
P.M. started out to see the town. There were six of us — a gentleman
from Kentucky, another from Delaware, two young men from New Jersey,
and my son. We had become acquainted during our stay here, and con-
cluded that it might be as well to go in force. Now, when I speak of saloons,
don't imagine that they are the ordinary kind of places where a man takes
a drink. Oh, no ! They are carved and gilded, and everything is in first-
class style, and their names are simply grand. El Paso Street is the leading
business street, and as the saloons constitute the principal business the more
stylish establishments are upon it. Come to think of it, they are as thick as
the saloons on Main Street from the station to Getty Square, and as to the
names;, there is the " Draw ing- Room," the " White House,'' the "Jewel,"
the *• Tepee," the " Sachem," and so on.

\\e started on our expedition at the upper end of the street, which com-
mences at the Plaza and extends, a straight, wick- avenue, to Juarez. On it
is the street-car line, each car being propelled by a mule as large as a good-
>i/ed goat, and the engineer, a .Mexican, plies the whip incessantly.

To return, however, to our inspection. We had learned that the
"Jewel" was the most stylish of the gambling-houses, and so we dropped
in there first. The "bar" is about forty feet in length, and gotten up
" regardless," as the boys say. This " bar, "ornamented and embellished
with statuary — lacking the conventional fig-leaf — is on the left ; and at the
end is a black-walnut partition carved in the highest style of art. We
passed through the door, and entered a room filled with a promiscuous
crowd. There were Chinamen. Mexicans (real "Greasers"), negroes of all
shades and colors, a few cow-boys, and some business men.

On the left a roulette game was in full play, and a solitary player was
" bucking the tiger." He seemed to be in luck, and to be winning ; but
as I did not understand the game, 1 could not follow his moves. Opposite
the roulette another game was a-going which, I was told, was called crap —
as mysterious as the other. This game was played with two dice. Adjoin-
ing this was a regular faro-table, and another, opposite to it, completed the
outfit.

Now about the players. At one of the faro-tables I counted five China-
men, two mulattoes, and one cow-boy ; at the other the cow-boys seemed
to be in the majority, and some rough-looking " Greasers" completed the
set. The faces of the players were a study. Some looked as if they did
not care a fig how the game turned, while the faces of others expressed an
excitement you seldom see. Of course, I did not stay long. It takes time
to get used to such things, and I hope to be able to devote some to see it
out. 1 am told that every saloon is equipped substantially in the same

12 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

style ; some even more elaborately, as far as gaming is concerned, than the
"Jewel." This is all carried on in broad daylight, and, of course, all
night. I first thought that these places were licensed. I have learned
since that there is no such a thing ; but the city of El Paso derives quite an
income from these "dives/' nevertheless. At the end of each month a
collector goes around and fines (note this particularly) each keeper of a
gambling-house (I think, fifty dollars), and if he cannot pay the fine the
majesty of the law steps in and closes his place. This seems to me to be
the finest illustration of the old saw, namely, " To beat the devil around
the bush." I intended to continue a full description of our exploration
that afternoon, but I find I have about used up my mental energy, and
will have to stop and continue the description in my next.

I wish you would keep these letters for me. As I write, the subject
grows on me, and if I stick to it I will have a story of El Paso second only
to the " Mysteries of Paris," by Eugene Sue.

IV.

EL PASO, TEXAS, March 4, 1893.

I GOT off one letter to you this morning and did not intend to write
another ; but even El Paso has a climate. Now the sun shines as brightly as
it does on a clear day at home ; but the wind blows at the rate, I should
say, of twenty-five miles an hour, and the sandy plain and the hills furnish
sand enough to make the atmosphere look hazy. Consequently I have to
stay indoors. I will therefore proceed from where I left off.

Continuing our walk down El Paso Street, which contains a good num-
ber of brick blocks, interspersed here and there with one-story adobe houses,
we reached what is called " Dobe-town." But again I have to stop in tell-
ing my tale of our exploration. As we arrived at the end of the business
part, we had on our right the ruins of an adobe house ; and thereby hangs
a tale.

The city of El Paso has a great many Chinamen included in its inhabi-
tants, and among these was an old crippled Chinaman, who was, as his coun-
trymen said, "no good/' The first or second week of my residence here I
concluded to see some of the city authorities, and so my son Carl and I
took a walk to the city hall. We found there a great crowd passing in
and out of an engine-room of the Fire Department, and, on inquiring,
ascertained that a roasted Chinaman was oh exhibition. You may imagine
how quickly I got out. The Chinamen who had to support the old fellow
got tired of it ; and when, about midnight, one of the city policemen (who

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 13

was coming out of a saloon opposite the ruined hut) discovered the fire,
he rushed over and kicked in the door and tried to pull the old man out.
He could not do it, because the poor fellow was fastened down somehow,
and the whole place was saturated with kerosene, so he had to let him burn
up. This is, at any rate, the testimony produced before the coroner ; and
there the matter ended. The Chinaman was buried at the city's expense,
and that is the whole story.

While I am at it, I may as well relate another incident characteristic of
this place.

All the respectable citi/ens are, on occasions, armed with revolvers, and
at times, when arguments get strong, they use them, although fisticuffs
seem, to an extent, to take their place in the higher grades of society.

The other dav a dispute arose between one of the best police officers of
the city and an ex-sheriff. The lie was passed, and the sheriff let fly at the
policeman with his fists. The latter evidently felt overmatched at that
game, and, pulling his revolver, hammered away at the ex-sheriff's head
until mutual friends (newspaper report) separated them. The sheriff's head
was cut in half a dozen places, and he was taken to a drug store, where
the cuts were sewed up and pronounced not dangerous. The policeman
had to resign, and much regret was expressed that he had allowed his ha>ty
temper to get the better of him. He was evidently looked upon as a
highly cHicicnt servant in the line of law and order.

Then, again, two gentlemen had a rather hot argument on some legal
question, and to clear up the matter they came to blows. An unfortunate
reporter of one of the dailies here got wind of it, and somehow must have
reported the wrong man victor. Be that as it may, the wronged gentle-
man and the reporter met accidentally in the street, and a free fight was
the result, until some mutual friends separated them. (You see the
mutual friend cuts a great figure here.) Both rushed for a store to buy
good stiff canes to go at each other again, but the mutual friend stepped
in once more, and explanations and mutual apologies prevented any further
contest. The papers said the next day that the combatants were going to
keep the sticks as mementos of this chivalrous dispute.

But now I must give you a sketch of something that happened three
weeks ago. About twenty miles from here some parties met. Two of them
had a herd of cattle, about twenty in number ; the other party, numbering
three, contended that most of the cattle were stolen. Of course such an
offence can only be washed out in blood, so both sides drew their revolvers
and began to shoot. The two thieves were killed then and there. One had
no less than six bullets in his chest; and the other, two in his head. The
three men surrendered at once to the sheriff here in El Paso, and were

14 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

released on five thousand dollars bail, and all three are about the city as
unconcerned as anybody. It takes but a walk of about five hundred yards
from the hotel to make their acquaintance.

V.

EL PASO, TEXAS, March 8, 1893.

I REGEET that I have not told my story in regular order, but 1 could not
help it. When I saw the Chinaman's hut it started a new train of thought,
and I had to run that down before I could go ahead. Now, to finish the
description of that exploring expedition. I mentioned that we reached
Dobe-town. Imagine eight or ten squares covered with mud houses, with
sefioras, some as dark as the darkest Indian you ever saw, performing their
cooking and washing (such as it is) out of doors ; dozens of young ones,
half clad, and some almost not clad at all, running about playing, and you
have a picture of this end of the town.

We followed the sandy avenue to the smelter, which has been shut down
since the McKinley bill put a duty on silver ores from Mexico ; passed by
the square where the court-house stands, surrounded by a grass-plot with
large cottonwoods here and there, and reached our hotel just in time for
dinner.

Well, I am glad I have finished that trip, because I can go systematically
at it to give you the sunny side of life in this place. To start, I will take
you up on the Mesa or tableland, and show you a view that is as beautiful
as any you may have seen. At the foot of the Mesa is El Paso. Close to
the bluff are a dozen or more squares covered with trim brick dwelling-
houses, each with its little garden and its cactus plants. A little farther
east is the Plaza, enclosed on nearly three sides by solid buildings three or
four stories high. El Paso Street, with its brick buildings, extends from
the centre, south, over to Juarez, Mexico. And the American town, with its
ten churches, four good school buildings, its county court-house — of which
any city might be proud — and its city hall, clusters about the plain, cover-
ing an area of probably four square miles.

The streets are as level as a table and as straight as arrows. The side-
walks, of asphalt, are kept in good order, and as it does not rain very often
it is easy to keep them. Outside of this part of the city (in which is the
centre of travel, the railroads passing right through it) is the Mexican
town. Scattered among the brick buildings of El Paso are numbers of
adobe houses. Most of these are plastered over and have a clean and nice
appearance. Surrounding the American city are hundreds — yes, I should

LETTERS FKOM THE SOUTHWEST.

15

say thousands — of adobe houses with just one, or at the outside two,
rooms, all of them one story high, inhabited by Mexicans, negroes, and
Chinamen.

The Rio Grande makes a great bend which, in a nu-asure, puts El Paso
on a peninsula. At present the water is so low that but little can be seen
of the stream except its bed of white sand. A level plain stretches for

r

miles to the east and ex-
tends to the other side of
the river, where El Paso-
del Norte lies before you as
in a bird's-eye view. Its
church, which is supposed
to be three hundred years
old, attracts your attention
first; then the custom-
house and post-office and

the presidio, where the Mexican garrison guard their side of the border.
A number of brick stores and a few brick dwelling-houses also appear
above the adobe houses in which the Mexicans live ; and as there are ten
thousand inhabitants in the town you may imagine how much ground
they cover.

All this country that you see is surrounded by hills, or mountains, from

16 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

five hundred to fifteen hundred feet in height ; they seem to form an
irregular wall enclosing the wide plain. I spend a good deal of time up at
the Mesa, and the oftener I go there the more impressive is the sight. El
Paso — that is, the American town — is bnt a few years old. The first rail-
road entered it in 1879, I think, and all it is to-day has been created in
these few .years.

I wish I was able to do justice to the view ; but as all my descriptive
powers have been wasted on machinery of one kind or another, while I
have not lost my ability to see and appreciate, my power of expressing my
thoughts is but limited. So you must take the will for the deed and let
your imagination fill in where my pen has left a blank.

I guess I will close right here, and when I feel like it again will give
you some more.

There is a lot of material — cock-fights, bull-fights, etc.

VI.

EL PASO, TEXAS, March 12, 1893.

IN my last letter I tried to give a bird's-eye view of El Paso, and when I
got through I felt that I was now ready to start in and tell you all about
the good people. But I find myself on the wrong side yet. Every Sunday
they have cock-fights in Juarez, and it would never do to go away from here
and not see one. It would really be as bad, as the Germans say, "to go
to Rome and not see the Pope." So last Sunday we started for Juarez
to see the cock-fight, and I hope that next Sunday I will be able to see
the bull-fight. But, to go at the subject, I have first to give you some
geographical information.

As I said before, Juarez is on the other side of the Rio Grande, and is
connected with El Paso by street-cars which pass over the river on two
bridges. Going in one direction, they pass over the lower, returning,
after a long detour through Juarez, over the upper bridge back to El Paso.
As soon as the first bridge is crossed the car is stopped, and a Mexican
custom-house officer passes through to inspect passengers and baggage.
This inspection Carl calls " Bluff No. 41." I don't know why, but where
"bluffs are trumps" (gambling-house slang), I suppose he has run up to
that figure. The custom-house officer is a picturesque figure. With his
broad sombrero trimmed with gold and silver braid, his short jacket and
tight pantaloons, a cartridge-belt around his loins, and a silver-plated
revolver in his belt, he looks like a robber in a Bowery theatre melodrama.
(This is from hearsay, not from actual observation.) He rings the bell as he

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 17

steps off of the rear platform, and away we go at full mule-speed into
Juarez.

It being Sunday, everybody is in full dress. And right here I want to
make an observation on something that, I think, is characteristic of the
country. In other parts of the world the bright colors are worn by the
better half of mankind; but here it is the opposite. All the sefloras are
dressed in sombre black, and the men in all the colors of the rainbow.

As we passed up the street, I noticed a Mexican dandy on horseback
whom I had seen in El Paso at the hotel. Having acquired by long years
of contact some Yankee inquisitiveness, I learned then that the hat (about
two feet in diameter, more or less), of light color and trimmed with gold
and silver braid, represented something like eighty dollars in value. The
jacket and pantaloons, of the finest, softest leather I ever saw, and profusely
ornamented with black braid, were worth about an equal amount ; and the
blanket which he wore gracefully thrown over one shoulder was of a striped
pattern, varying from the deepest blue to pure white. I must confess I
never saw a dress as picturesque as this, and I never imagined that any
man nould wear such a dress and not look ridiculous ; and yet there he is,
a hid;ilgo, every inch of him.

If I keep on at this rate over each Mexican we meet, I fear your patience
will give out, because I suppose you want to hear about the cock-fight as
much as 1 want to see it.

Our mule turned to the right, and we travelled along a street parallel to
the Rio Grande (but about three-quarters of a mile away), and passed the
American part of the town, where the Herman Jews monopolize all the
business (the same as in middle Broadway, from Canal to Twenty-third
Street, in New York). The custom-house is on the same street, and when
our mule turns to the right again to return to El Paso, we will get out and
be at a point where the old church is visible.

Of course the old church is the first thing to visit. It is built of sun-
dried brick, and is at least three hundred years old. A square tower at the
left and in front of the building has three bells, suspended in the most
primitive manner, with ropes, to cross-beams. As we enter we see a bare
floor — no pews or seats of any kind. The high altar fills an arched recess in
the further wall, and to the right and left are altars of smaller dimensions.
Along the walls on both sides are pictures of the saints, mostly cheap
prints ; but the ceiling of the church is the most attractive portion. It is
formed of native timber, carved with elaborate designs. The dark wood of
the ceiling and the dim light of the few windows seem to put you back some
centuries, as you stay in the half-light on entering the door. Yet this
picture of the church does not comprehend the scene.
2

18 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

Right in front of the church is a plaza, well laid out and planted with
palms and cactus plants. The walks are lined with seats, on which old and
young sit in the sun ; and right in the middle, upon a stone pedestal, is a
bust of Juarez, the president who established the Republic of Mexico on
the ruins of the Empire of Maximilian.

In the rear of the church is, sad to relate, the lock-up ; and a look
through the gate at its inhabitants, who seem to have the freedom of the
yard, destroys all the romance you may weave about this old part of El
Paso del Norte. A Mexican soldier in dark blue uniform, himself as black
as the ace of spades, walks to and fro in front of the gate, and a set of
ragged urchins keep him company.

But when are you going to get at that cock-fight ? I hear you ask, and I
have only to say that we will come to it all in good time.

But right here is another interruption. As I told you before, directly
in front of my window is the Plaza, and to-day (Sunday) a Mexican band
from Ysleta, who wish to show their ability, are going to give us a concert.
The hall-boy has just informed me that the concert will begin shortly, and
as no seats are reserved I will have to close and try to get a good one.

VII.

EL PASO, TEXAS, March 13, 1893.

MY " Epistle to the Corinthians" was closed yesterday by the hall-boy,
and I start in to-day on a subject which is more or less metaphysical. If
you have taken the trouble to decipher my communications to you, I have
no doubt you can read or have read between the lines a longing to get away
from the bad people and get a hack at the good ones. It has been a puzzle
to me ever since I started in, why I cannot get away from that end of the
story. Now you know, and if you don't I will tell you, that whenever you
want to investigate any subject, you want a good working theory to guide you.

I have for the last ten or fifteen years had a hobby. I was after mag-
nets in all forms, and their application. I finally reached a point where I
got the whole planetary system in the proper shape. The sun became an
enormous dynamo ; the planets were electric motors, and the whole system
worked admirably and to my satisfaction.

When I first realized that, somehow or other, I could not get away from
the end of the problem I had in hand, I looked around to see if there were
not some good and sufficient reason for the attraction which the shady side
of life down here had for me. And you see, as soon as my thoughts had
crystallized so that I knew it was attraction, the scales fell from my eyes.

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 19

Why, it was as plain as a pikestaff. Society in El Paso, and, for that
matter, everywhere else, is just like a big magnet, the molecules of which
group themselves regularly, the good people forming one pole, say the
north, and the bad ones the south pole; and between the two poles the
rest of humanity are stratified in proper layers.

Now, suppose you take two magnets and bring poles of like denomin-
ation near each other, they repel; while, when poles of unlike denomina-
tion are brought together, they are attracted. Now here you have at once
a clear and forcible explanation of all my troubles. The greasy Mexican
who gathers cigar stumps regularly every day in front of the hotel and on
the Plaza, or a gambling Chinaman at the faro-table — yes, even a bunco
steerer — seems to be more interesting to me than all the good people I have
so far met, and I see plainly that it will take all my time to follow out this
line. And, on the whole, I don't know but it is as good a line as any. It
reminds me of a German saw, which, badly translated, reads about as follows:

" The good in us, depend, my son,
Is but the bad we leave undone ! "

VIII.

EL PASO, TEXAS, March 16, 1893.

WHEX I took you over to Juarez, a week ago last Sunday, I held out as
one of the great inducements a cock-fight which was to take place. I got
you over all safe on the International horse-car line, propelled by mules,
and, if I remember rightly, left you in front of the lock-up. Well, I
have now made up my mind that you shall see that cock-fight with your
mind's eye — if my pen holds out to describe it. When we left the old
Mexican cathedral, we turned to the right and found in the rear the afore-
mentioned lock-up ; and as we passed on we came to a building which, in
a rough way. resembles a circus. This building is the Plaza del Toros, or,
in plain English, the bull-ring. Now, if I was not in a hurry to get to the
cock-fight, I might take the time to describe all the arrangements provided
for this great national game of all the Spaniards and their descendants;
but I will leave this until I have had an opportunity to judge for myself of
the valor of the matadors who ride on blindfolded horses and kill innocent
bulls. As we pass on, leaving the old church and the Plaza on our left, we
finally reach a one-story adobe building where the cock-pit is located. To
give you a clear picture of the situation, I have to describe an adobe of the
better type a little more clearly than I have done.

The one we are going to enter covers an area of about one hundred and

20 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

twenty feet square. Imagine that the outside of this square, say twenty
feet in width, is covered with a low building enclosing a yard eighty feet
square. Within the inner walls is a row of rough columns supporting a
roof which extends as far as the columns. This regular colonnade runs
around the inside of the yard, substantially in the same manner as in the
buildings unearthed at Herculaneum and Pompeii. There are few windows
outside, and the rooms, dark ones at best, are lighted and entered from the
yard.

Now, to get at the pith of the matter, we enter through a portico which
leads from the street to the square yard referred to above, and in the centre
we find a circular wall, built of sun-dried brick ; it is about twenty feet in
internal diameter, and about two feet high, rounded on the top. This
circle has two openings, and is surrounded by another circle, about two
feet high and flat on top ; on this the spectators are seated.

To fill this inner and outer circle with actors and spectators would take
a pen more pliable than mine, yet I will make the attempt.

When I speak of Mexicans, you must remember that they are of all
kinds and types, from a tawny yellow, such as you see frequently in the
Dago in the " promised land " (right behind my house), to the deep red of
the Indian, and even as black as a Congo negro. And right here you have
them all in a bunch. Then there are tourists representing all the States in
and out of the Union. As a cosmopolitan crowd, there is nothing to
beat it.

In the inner circle are a lot of Mexicans, each one having his fighting-
cock tied to a string by a peculiar strap around one leg, and a lot of other
roosters tied to sticks in the ground all over the yard. You may imagine
that music is not missing. Each bird sends his note of defiance to every
other, and sun-rise in a barnyard is nothing to the din that greets your ears.
But the owners of the fowls are equally excited ; bets have to be made, and
to make bets the roosters have to be matched as nearly as possible ; and it
seems that weight is of as much importance in a cock-fight as in the prize
ring, where human brutes fight for glory and cash.

Considerable time is thus consumed. But when the purses are made up
and all the bets are made (and I tell you silver dollars seem to be plenty),
the arena is cleared, and the preparations for the fight begin in earnest.
You probably think, as I did, that the roosters fought each other with their
natural weapons ; but there you are mistaken. The owners of the cocks
pick them up (and right here I may say that they seem to be as tame as
kittens, and look as if they had been raised in the families of their owners
with the children), and fasten to the left leg a curved knife, sharp as a
razor and about four inches in length. I asked to see one of these

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

21

"slashers," and when I felt the keen edge and saw the curved shape, I
thought that Saladin's sword with which he cut the silken cushion must
have furnished the pattern.

Everything being ready, the two roosters were held by their owners — or, I
should probably say, their trainers — close enough for them to just reach each
other, to show each, I suppose, his enemy. They were then released about
four feet apart, and they flew together with such fury that both were
knocked down. But they were up and at it, and, in less time than it takes
to tell the tale, one of them lay dead. I must own up to a little squeamish-

ness (if that expresses it), and I intended to go and call it done. But, as I
tried to explain to you in my last, I could not help owning up that there
was a certain attraction that caused me to stay.

The preliminaries of the second fight were much like those of the first ;
but the fight itself lasted much longer and ended in one of the roosters run-
ning away. I was told that the death penalty was the least that this coward
had to expect, but did not see it applied. I saw a third fight, and then
left.

Now I must tell you something that may want deep thought. You

22 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

know I have raised chickens for a good many years, and natter myself that
I am a pretty fair judge of roosters. I could not, therefore, resist the temp-
tation to select the winning birds. Of course, I could not bet except in a
mental way. I picked the winning birds in the first and second fights, and
when the third fight came on, a gentleman from Kentucky who stops at
our hotel said : " I bet you that white rooster will win." I examined the
red rooster critically and concluded he would be the winner, and we bet,
not mentally, but half a dollar a side, and my bird lost the fight. Now I
wonder if this half-dollar dimmed my judgment. In the other bets I was
above all feelings of self-interest, and I won, but here I lost. You would
oblige me if you would try to solve this riddle for me. Some night when
you are in a philosophical mood, you may find the key.

But I have something to say about the actors. It surprised me to see
such eagerness in the lookers-on. Their faces showed an excitement you
would scarcely expect in the countenances of people who hardly ever smile.
Our white fellow-creatures seemed to partake of the excitement, and while
the fight was going on you could have heard a pin drop. I left after the
third fight, and don't think I will ever want to see another.

IX.

EL PASO, TEXAS, March 17, 1893.

I SUPPOSE you noticed (that is, if you read my letter on the cock-fight)
that while I took you along and showed all there was to be seen in the
cock-pit, I forgot to take you back with me to El Paso. I felt disgdsted
with the brutal fight, and perhaps that bet may have had something to do
with it. At any rate I forgot your presence and took the first mule train
to get away. You would naturally expect that, under such circumstances,
a stranger, like yourself, for instance, would want to use his time to see
the town on his own hook ; and I will tell you what usually happens
to the poor, unprotected foreigner who does the town in the manner
suggested.

Of course, the first object to visit is the old church. While examining
the tower with its three bells, a young gentleman steps up, and, looking
with a great deal of interest at the tower, remarks: "Ah, well, I suppose
this is the old church they talk so much about. Well, it is a curiosity !
Look at the ropes that hold the bells ! Why, they look a thousand years
old instead of the two or three hundred years that they say is the age of the
church !" Of course the stranger, say yourself, is pleased to find somebody
who can talk his " lingo," and then the young man is evidently a tourist

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 23

like yourself ; he carries a summer overcoat on his arm, and casually in-
forms you that he has an hour or two on his hands before his train starts
for the East, or the West, and he thinks the best use he can make of this
time is to see Juarez. The conversation then turns on the various objects
in sight. The young man is exceedingly anxious to get your opinion on all
tiiere it to be seen, all is so new and strange, and so you stroll along. You
see the bull-ring and cock-pit, and, having been there before, furnish your
new friend with a lot of information. You talk of the habits of the Mexi-
cans, etc., when your friend calls your attention to a sign on one of the best-
looking adobe buildings on the Plaza — " El Nuevo Mondo " (The New
World) — and remarks : '•' I suppose this is something of a real Mexican inn
of the old style. I wonder what it looks like ! Have you ever been inside
of one ? " You have not, so you conclude to just look in and get one of those
celebrated Mexican cigars and a glass of native wine. Your new friend
objects to letting you pay for it, and playfully suggests to follow the example
of two Mexicans who arc throwing dice for drinks. You see no harm in
that, and throw and win. You have to give your friend revenge ; the ball is
started, and in fifteen minutes by the watch your quondam friend has cap-
tured all the loose cash you had about you and has disappeared from the
Boene.

I have no doubt that you think no man could furnish such a description
unless he had lived through it, but you are mistaken. The second day
after I landed here, and before I tried to see Juarez, I met an oldish sort
of a gentleman (they call me tin- old gentleman) in front of the hotel, who
was greatly excited. lie had but just arrived, had been over to Juarez, and
" dropped," as they say hereabouts, seventy-five dollars in the innocent way
I have described above.

The oldish gentleman referred to is the gentleman from Kentucky who
won the bet oil the third tight in the cock-pit Sunday last.

X.

EL PASO, TEXAS, March 22, 1893.

I HAVE hesitated for a day or two about sending you any more of my
pen-pictures of the towns of El Paso, because I began to doubt whether these
epistles were interesting enough to you to keep them out of the waste-
basket.

But I felt encouraged to keep on when I saw in the Statesman that you
had accepted the position of judge in the " gold prizes " : to encourage
home literature and improvement. You may consider my descriptions of

24

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

El Paso as negative contributions mainly. A good part of them can well
serve to illustrate how not to do things, and that side of the question is in
most cases as important as the opposite.

I do not submit my letters for their merits as literary productions, and
I don't want you to apply any of the ordinary rules of grammar or orthog-
raphy (I believe that is the way it is spelled), but to consider them from
the standpoint of those learned men who for years have tried to improve (?)
the spelling of the English language !

But this is to be considered only as a sort of an introduction to our next
trip in El Paso proper, and I will lead you along substantially as I would
take a stranger in hand to show him Yonkers.

As you know, my headquarters for the last two mouths have been in the

Vendome Hotel, and that is as good a place to start from on our present
excursion as any other. We will start out and cross the Plaza, with its
fountain in the centre and basin in which there are actually two alligators.
You may remember that I expressed a doubt as to their existence in one of
my first letters ; but there they are as large as life (one about four feet six
inches and the other four feet long), and as we pass they are basking in the
sun. Now these animals are not at all frisky. I have watched them for
hours and have never been able to detect any movement but the winking of
one eye. What adds some interest to the scene is when some dog gets into
their neighborhood, and then the whole crowd of people who, like the
alligators, are basking in the sun on the seats that surround the basin, watch
with a great deal of interest to see what may take place if the poor dog gets
too close to the front end of the alligator. There is a tradition afloat that

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 25

at -nme time u little dog had his nose pinched by one of the saurians, and,
of course, everybody expects that this may happen again.

I very much doubt that any of the lookers-on would really wish to see a
poor dog swallowed with hide and. hair, and yet this expectation gives as
peculiar a zest to the spectacle as a performance on the tight-rope so danger-
ous that the spectators may expect to see a neck broken at any time.

But, leaving the Plaza, we are soon on El Paso Street, the principal
business street of the city. We pass on, looking to the right and left, and
reach San Antonio Street, which terminates at El Paso Street and runs at
right angles to it. On one corner is one of the three national banks, and
on the other is the '• Drawing-Room." To enable the passer-by to be sure
of the functions of the " Drawing- Room." tlu-re is a sign crossing the whole
broadside of the building on San Antonio Street with the legend inscribed :
'• This is a saloon." We ]>a>s on, however, and the second or third door
from there we find ourselves in front of the finest saloon in El Paso, namely,
the "White House." Its appointments are A Xo. 1, and the gentlemanly
proprietor receives us, after we have entered, with distinguished honors.
You know, he is a man of importance in this city, and no stranger who
wants to be considered anybody will miss the opportunity to get an intro-
duction.

While I am at it, I may as well interrupt our tour of inspection for a
minute, and give you the true value of my friend, the proprietor of the
'• White House/' I met him some time ago, in company with some gentle-
men who, like myself, do not wish to consume what little drinking water
there is in this section. He invited me to call at his place, and, of course,
I did, and he showed me over the establishment — bar in front, gambling-
room in the rear, and parlors lip-stairs. I felt highly honored with my
reception ; but picture to yourself my surprise when, on St. Patrick's
Day, a friend of the proprietor of the '• White House" called on me at the
hotel, and invited me to take a seat in one of the carriages that were to
form a part of the procession. Such an honor could not be refused, and
punctually at tun P.M. I reported at the " White House." My friend, the
proprietor, was to act as grand marshal, and I doubt if any marshal of
France under the great Napoleon was ever dressed as grandly as he. He
is a gentleman who stands six feet in his stockings, and, as he told me,
weighs one hundred and ninety pounds. He is well proportioned, and,
riding in the lead, formed a grand figure-head for the parade.

I must let you into the secret of this St. Patrick's parade. St. Pat-
rick's Day had to be celebrated, and as real Irishmen are very scarce in
this neighborhood, it would never have done to have the affair fail. Every-
body had to step in and help out, and such Irishmen as Mr. O'Schmecken-

26 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

becker, Mr. O'Shulz, Mr. O'Muller, and Mr. O'Eickemeyer, decorated with
green ribbons, and carrying green flags with the harp of Erin, did yeomen's
service in honor of the patron saint of old Ireland.

The celebration was a complete success. It was led by the marshal and
his staff ; these were followed by the McGinty brass band, dressed in green
coats and green hats. All the coaches in town followed — the mayor and
aldermen, prominent citizens, and such strangers as were thought of im-
portance enough (like a gentleman from New York and his wife, and myself,
for instance).

The procession started from and wound up at the city hall ; but the
real centre was the " White House.'" All the participants took something
before they started, and refreshed themselves again after the procession
had finished. In the evening there was a grand supper and speeches, to
which your humble servant had a cordial invitation ; but, unfortunately,
having taken a walk of about three and a half miles before dinner, and
having undergone the exertions entailed on following the procession, and
also in getting into and out of it, I had to stay at home and go to bed early.

From what I heard of those who were present, I should judge that, aside
from the mental feast (the speeches, and so forth), the supper was supplied
on the recipe of a friend of mine, who always insisted that a good meal
should consist of one dollar's worth of eat and five dollars' worth of drink.

When I started in I expected to show you a good part of the city, but
here I am. We have just walked one block on San Antonio Street, and
have seen two of the important points, and I am all tired out and must
close. I will promise faithfully, however, to carry you along at a ten-mile
gait the next time, when I will call for you at the " White House," where I
hope you will enjoy yourself until my next.

XI.

EL PASO, TEXAS, March 23, 1893.

YOURS of the seventeenth has just reached me, and I note with pleasure
that Uncle Jacob is the new trustee. If good, solid, common sense is a
desirable qualification, he has that in the highest degree.

Now, as to your flattering proposition to publish my letters in the
Statesman, I don't see my way clear. When I first came here I had a
notion to send to Mr. Oliver some of my views about matters and things
hereabouts, and I actually started in and wrote a number of pages, when I
got up a stump. I had to write a letter as if I was delivering a lecture
before a class in a Sunday-school, and I gave it up in despair. The letters

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 27

I wrote you would bo hardly suitable for publication, because when I wrote
them I did not try to hide my leanings. You have undoubtedly heard of
the saying of old Horace Greeley, when somebody asked him if his biog-
raphy, which had just been published, was true. "True!" said he. ''I
would as soon walk up Broadway naked as to have my true biography
published ! "

When I tried to write to Mr. Oliver, I had to write as if in full-dress
suit, my best manners ready at hand ; while the letters I wrote you were,
figuratively speaking, written in my shirt-sleeves, my boots on the table,
pulling a cigar, a good glass of "Blue Grass" in, and another in sight.

A day or two ago I wrote you a treatise on a new theory, or, rather, a
new philosophy on the good and the bad, and I have no doubt that after
reading it you will take my view of my letters. If you edited them to
make them suitable for the Sftih:«uinn, you would have "to play Hamlet
with Hamlet left out/' And then, again, I may not get away from here
for some time; and if, by some unforeseen circumstance, one of the copies
of the Statesman -should find its way down to El Paso, some of our best
citizens might take exception to my views, and might feel tempted to use
me as a target, a thing 1 should very much regret.

XII.

EL PASO, TEXAS, March 26, 1893.

WHEN I left you in the "White House," three or four days ago, I did not
expect that your stay there would be such a lengthy one. Had I thought
that I could not take up our tour until to-day, I might have taken you to
the hotel with me, and given you three or four days to study "mine host"
and his customers. We will do that some time later on, and will now pro-
ceed down San Antonio Street and see what is to be seen.

The " White House" is, as you may remember, on the left-hand side of
the street, and diagonally opposite is the "Tepee," a fashionable resort in
which the young Moods of our best citizens can be found. It has its gam-
bling establishment in the rear, and posters inform visitors that keno is
played every night.

While I think of it, I may as well refer to a little thing that happened
in this place some time ago. A number of the sons of the same best
citizens referred to before called at the " Tepee " late at night, or, more
properly speaking, early in the morning. All were drunk, and the
barkeeper, being sober, refused to sell them any more liquor ; whereupon
the young gentlemen drew their "guns, "and a general shooting-match was

28 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

in operation. Fortunately, no other damage was done than the smashing
of looking-glasses, bottles, and so forth, for which an amicable settlement
was made next day.

Adjoining this establishment is the "Kitchen," and this place. is so
characteristic that it deserves special notice. It is a restaurant kept, like
most others in this city, by sons of the Chinese Empire. As you enter you
see on your left a counter, behind which the cashier is seated. He is
dressed in immaculate white ; his pigtail is wound around his head in such
an artistic way that it seems to form the edge of a black skull-cap, the
black hair on his head, carefully drawn down, forming the crown. A row
of tables extends through the middle of the room, and on each side are
stalls in which parties of four can dine in private. The waiters are all
Chinamen and are dressed like the cashier, and the whole place is as neat
as a pin. The meals served are excellent, which is more than can be said
of most of the places I have tried since I left home.

There are about a dozen establishments of this kind in the city that
are principally patronized by visitors, as but few stay at the hotels for any
length of time. In almost every private house are furnished rooms to let,
and most of the invalids, after their arrival, select private rooms and take
their meals at these restaurants.

But I see I have to get on, or we will never get through with our trip ;
and, by the way, I think I have found the reason why my letters get more
long-winded the longer I keep at it. When I left home I did not take any-
thing along to read during my absence. In New Orleans I found that I
did not want to read newspapers all the time, and you may imagine my
pleasure when I found, on a news-stand, a copy of Scott's " Ivanhoe " and
another of " Kenilworth." I have read these two until I have " Ivanhoe"
by heart and "Kenilworth " almost as well, and I think this fact accounts
for a good deal of my composition, in so far as the minutiae of description
are concerned.

At this end of the block is the second of the National banks of this city,
and on the opposite corner is the third. The next block starts in as the
first one on El Paso Street did, namely, with a saloon. The one on El
Paso Street bore the legend : " This is a saloon " ; and the one on this
corner — the "Castle" — has a sign of equal size and prominence : "This is
the other saloon." It is not worth while to inspect them all ; but we will
pass on and simply read the signs. For a whole block, saloons and
restaurants follow each other, and the sidewalk is filled with the customers
of these places.

After we have passed this business block we find a number of brick
buildings in which other kinds of trade are carried on, and the El Paso

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 29

Herald, one of the daily newspapers, stretches its sign in heavy gilt letters
OUT the sidewalk. I may in time give you an introduction to the editor ;
but at present we have to pass on to reach the institution I have been
anxious to take you to for some time.

As we turn to our right we see, on a wooden building one story high,
and at the corner of the next street, a sign projecting some ten feet, with
the inscription: "Horse Restaurant." This is a most important institu-
tion. It is called the "corral," and all the ranch owners who visit the city
to purchase supplies put up their "democrat" wagons, covered with can-
vas, and their ponies, horses, or mules, in the yard of this establishment.
If you wish to see the regular Texas ranger, or the cow-boy tiu adulterated,
this is your hunting-ground.

XIII.

EL PASO, TEXAS, March 27, 1893.

I HAVE tried before to give you an insight into the social conditions of
this place by roughly classifying the inhabitants into two sorts; namely,
the good and the bad. But as I become more and more initiated, I find
that I had done better had I said that there are two streams which flow
alongside of each other, and only mingle in the gambling-houses — one
representing the American, and the other the Mexican nationality — and
then divided both in the manner above stated. Yet even this division
would be faulty, for who can say what is good and what is bad ?

I left you reading a sign on the corner of a street, and I will now take
you into an establishment that forms the social and business centre of
one class of the population of El Paso and the country that surrounds
the city.

It is the " corral," the city centre of " ranger " life. A piece of ground
about three hundred feet long and sixty or eighty feet wide has, on one side,
a row of stalls in which the horses and mules are kept. The little frame
building on the corner serves as a sort of office, and the " rangers" use the
yard to keep their wagons in during their stay in town.

The proprietor of the Horse Restaurant, whom we met at the gate, takes
us in hand, and, passing along in the rear of the open stalls, he shows us his
stock. Small Texas ponies, called broncos, are in the majority, but here
and there we see fine, broad-chested saddle-horses, and even Percherons, the
elephants among the tribes of horses, represented. Two vehicles are drawn
up on one side of the yard, true copies of the celebrated emigrant wagons
that carried the early pioneers to the wild West.

30 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

The proprietor is an ex-Confederate soldier. He served during the war
in one of the Texas regiments, and is a man between fifty and sixty years
of age, with sandy hair and whiskers, and light gray eyes. If you ever go
down East — say to Maine— and look at the farmer who has followed the
plough all his life, you will find the perfect counterpart of the proprietor
of the Horse Kestaurant. His stooping shoulders, his sharp, bright eyes, his
quiet and measured movements, reminded me so strongly of the " down-
easter " that I could hardly believe my eyes when I found I had one of the
Confederate heroes before me, who had served in the bloody fights of 1861
to 1865.

The conversation turned, of course, on horses and their good and bad
points, and even the mules and "burros" were not forgotten. As we
returned toward the gate, a young man stepped out of the office, and we
were introduced to him as a ranchman from Hueco Tanks. He was a
handsome young fellow, about twenty-five years of age, straight as an
arrow, and dressed in Mexican style. A real sombrero ornamented with
gold and silver braid covered his black hair, and his dark eyes and smooth
face smiling under the broad brim made you pleased to shake hands with
him. A black jacket, light-colored pantaloons, and an embroidered vest
completed his suit. Two or three other gentlemen joined us, and the con-
versation turned from horses and burros to politics and the inauguration of
Mi*. Cleveland, and here the Eastern man had the advantage. None of those
present had ever seen Washington, and a description of all the glories of our
capital was listened to with both eyes and ears open by the enthusiastic
Texans, who seem to look upon Mr. Cleveland as the great representative of
the cause for which they had fought.

While the conversation was carried on behind the fence alongside of the
gate, where a pile of old boards and some empty nail kegs served as seats for
the audience, a new figure hove in sight. A regular cow-boy came riding
into the yard. His horse, a good-sized Texan, showed some signs of travel,
having made, in fact, forty-five miles that forenoon, and the rider, also,
showed that out on the plains the sand had been drifting enough to cover
him with dust.

A lariat was suspended from the pommel of his huge Mexican saddle ;
a broad-brimmed Stetson hat covered his head, and pantaloons tucked in
his boots, together with extraordinarily large spurs, completed his outfit —
not to forget a Colt's revolver suspended from a cartridge-belt that he
wore around his waist. That finished the typical cow-boy of Texas and
New Mexico. The gentleman had just come in from Hueco Tanks, a cattle
range some forty-five miles from El Paso. After inquiries about mutual
friends, the conversation turned on some local news that seemed to be

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

31

new to the cow-boy. I think it is thirty miles from here to Las Cruces,
where, the day before, a young man, a student in a college at Las Cruces,
had been shot dead by a cow-boy who was out of funds, and robbed of a few
dollars. The reputation of the cow-boy was that of a bad man, and the
question that was uppermost in all minds was whether he should be lynched,
or hung in the regular way. Other matters of similar nature also came up
and were talked of. When we withdrew, our friends invited us to repeat
our visit whenever we had any leisure time on our hands, which we promised
to do.

Now, as I have introduced to you the gentlemen who frequent the corral,
I will give you something of their history. The proprietor of the Horse
Restaurant owns a number of stock-ranges ; he is a wealthy man. But some
years ago he filled some of his neighbors with buckshot, and he has not

32 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

visited that particular range for some time. It is said that the boys out
there are lying in wait for him in the chaparral, and intend to give him a
warm welcome should he venture there. As to the ranchman and the
cow-boy, why,, they are the two heroes who, four or five weeks ago, filled the
two cattle thieves with bullets.

What I have related here is not, as you may imagine, a fancy picture.
It is true to life, every line of it. You will agree with me that it would be
ill-advised to publish my letters before I have put at least a thousand miles
between myself and this glorious city of the North Pass.

XIV.

EL PASO, TEXAS, March 28, 1893.

You may have noticed that when I took you over to Juarez on a Sun-
day, some time ago, I kind of hustled you along. That is, we went over
there in a sort of way to attract as little attention as possible. We
sneaked into the cocking-main and got out in a sort of guilty way. It
was on a Sunday, you know, and up our way we would not like to be seen
doing such a thing.

Well, I have now resided here two months, breathing the free air of
Western Texas and basking in the sunshine, and things and manners that
at first seemed to go against the grain, as it were, seem now all regular and
proper.

On our side of the Kio Grande, however, you are continually reminded
of the Northern States and their Puritanical notions, and you have to go
over to Juarez and leave the horse-car tracks to be transplanted into a new
and strange world.

Sunday is the gala day of the Mexicans, and if you wish to see them at
their best, you must go over on a Sunday afternoon, when all, old and
young, are out of the adobe houses — the children playing in the sun, the
young senoritas promenading the streets, and the senors walking about in
their best attire.

Of course, the stores and cantinas (rum-shops) are open, and the venders
of onions, peppers, and other Mexican delicacies carry on their trades on
all the street corners. Among the Americans, the Mexicans have the
reputation of having no enterprise ; but before we get across the river I
can furnish a proof that this is a mean slander. The usual way to go to
Juarez is by horse-car, and then you are taxed ten cents ; or, if you walk
across one of the bridges of the International horse-car lines you are taxed
two and a half cents. Now, don't you see that even here in the " Sunny

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

33

South " the grasping capitalist has spread his net to catch the pennies of
the poor traveller. This exaction has led to a competition entirely credit-
able to our enterprising " Greasers." At the present stage of the river the
water is not much deeper or wider than our own Nepperhan above the
Moquette mills. Two stout, broad-shouldered Mexicans in high boots have
started a ferry across the stream. For one and a quarter cents they carry
men, women, and children over the river, and I tell you the enterprise
pays big. A long string of passengers from both sides travel to and fro on
the two-legged ferry-boats, and the wily capitalist is cheated out of his toll.

The path from the ferry leads to highly cultivated gardens in which, for
weeks, the peach and apricot trees have been in full bloom, and pears and
apples cast their snowy flowers on the ground. Every inch of land is cul-
tivated, and the canals that serve to irrigate the land flow peacefully in all
directions, carrying their life-giving moisture to tree and shrub.

The culture of grapes is rather singular. When I first came here I saw
large pieces of ground that seemed to be covered with mammoth mole-hills.
These hills, five or six feet apart, had a scrubby looking bush sticking out
of the centre. The mole-hills have now disappeared. The soil, which had

34 LETTERS FKOM THE SOUTHWEST.

been piled around the vines to protect them, has all been spread out and
levelled off, leaving only long furrows between the lines ; into these the
water has been turned to moisten the roots. The first leaves are now
sprouting, and give a reddish-green cast to the tops of the vines.

It is a novel sight to a Northern man to see garden beds surrounded by
boards that form basins to hold the water; and where no boards are used,
the paths are raised above the beds to make dikes for the miniature lakes
in which vegetables and flowers are planted and raised.

The whole country around Juarez shows that it has been under cultiva-
tion for many years, yet the soil is as fruitful as ever. The waters of the
Kio Grande, like the waters of the Nile in old Egypt, carry the top soil of
the mountains in which they have their source, and deposit it year after
year upon the land, keeping it up to its full bearing power.

The grape-vines and gardens are generally surrounded by adobe walls
connecting with the adobe houses of the inhabitants, and it is a singular
sight to see a landscape where all there is has but one color. Everything is
of the color of the soil. The adobe bricks of which the houses are built
are made on the spot where the houses are to stand. A hole is dug, and the
clay is mixed with water in the pit. The bricks are moulded in wooden
moulds, and are generally eighteen inches long, ten to twelve wide, and four
to five inches thick. In a week's time they are dried sufficiently to be put
into walls. Some more of the soil is mixed with water, and this furnishes
the cement to bind the structure together.

You see, Mother Nature has furnished every thing ready at hand to build
a house, except the timber for the roof, which is supplied from the luxuri-
ant growth of cottonwood on the shores of the Rio Grande and the irrigat-
ing canals, and this is the only material that has to be brought from the
water's edge.

Few of the houses in the suburbs of Juarez have glass windows. As a
rule, a square hole in the wall with a tight wooden shutter, open all day,
summer or winter, furnishes all the light needed in the house. The cook-
ing, washing, and eating are all done out of doors. The houses I have had
an opportunity to look into do not seem to be overstocked with furniture.
A bedstead or two, and a bench, constituted all there was, and even these
showed that the enterprising Yankee had been around and had sold the
Mexicans " Grand Rapids " furniture.

I intended to take you to Juarez first, because there you can see all grades
of houses and all classes of Mexican people, from the pure white Castilians
(the military officers in the Presidio) to the black and tawny peons ;
houses furnished with all the luxury of Europe or America, and houses like
those I have described above. You even find the gratings that separate the

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 35

lovers in Spanish novels, and which project in front of the house to allow
the sefioritas a look up and down the street. In my next I will try to
sketch the houses and streets, and fill them with the people by whom they
are inhabited.

XV.

EL PASO, TEXAS, April 1, 1893.

YOUR letter of the twenty-third of March has pleased me very much.
It showed that all honest efforts to instruct people are successful, provided
the seed is planted in the proper soil. From the tenor of your letter I
judge that I have made no mistake in the selection of my audience.

In my last I promised to take you over to Juarez again, and show you
the houses and the streets filled with people. Well, it is mighty easy to
make rash promises, but it is not nearly as easy to fulfil them.

During the last eight or ten days the temperature has increased to such
an extent that all efforts to do anything become hardships. Think of it :
our rooms in the hotel are up to seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit right along,
and in the daytime the thermometer registers, with windows and doors
open, a temperature of from seventy-eight degrees to ninety degrees. To
go over to Juarez in such weather is asking altogether too much — even in
imagination — and I will have to suspend our trip until a "norther" cools
the atmosphere to some extent.

But of course there is no objection to taking a look at our hotel and
its guests, especially as you will not have to travel a great way ; and, on
the whole, the heat here is not very oppressive, the air U ing so dry that you
don't feel it much. The great trouble is to supply the inner man with
moisture enough to counteract the rapid evaporation through the pores of
the skin.

So, you see, the place where this moisture is supplied may properly
form the starting point from which we will visit the Hotel Vendome. The
bar-room is located on the corner of St. Louis Street, and the bar is pre-
sided over by Mr. Potter of Texas, assisted by a gentleman of the colored
persuasion who does the rough work (cleaning the glasses, wiping off the
counter, and so forth), while Mr. Potter dispenses the drinks with gentle-
manly politeness.

I have studied the drinks carefully, and can recommend one of Mr.
Potter's specialties. He brews a milk punch unsurpassed in my experience.
Adjoining the bar-room proper is another room, which serves as a sort of
sitting-room for those who want to have the time extended during which the
cooling drinks pass the lips. In one corner of this room is a little closet

36

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

or small room, partitioned off for those guests who enjoy a little private
game of cards ; and, between us, I must tell you that I myself hud an
invitation to a game of " round-up," which I had, however, to decline on
account of my ignorance of it, and for some other reasons which will appear
later on. From these rooms we pass to the reading-room, where the
"drummers" do their writing, and where in the evening the "regulars"
come together to tell stories.

When I speak of the " regulars " I mean those of the guests who have
been here for some length of time, in a measure permanent boarders. Of

course, some go and others take their places, but nobody is admitted in
less time than a week or two. Most of these "regulars" are "lungers,"
and they usually introduce themselves by a long description of all their ail-
ments, and their experiences in the different sections of the country where
they have been. This is not the most cheerful part of the introduction,
but it generally don't last long, because there are other " regulars " who
have already told their tales.

One of our coterie is a gentleman, formerly from Kingston, N. Y., who
is a representative of the original Californian " Forty-niners." He landed
there, I think he said, with the first lot by way of Panama. He was in

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 37

Nevada during the time when Mark Twain ran a store in Carson City, and
he knows every man, woman, and child that ever lived on the Pacific Slope.
The business he is on now is a " gold mine " that he discovered sixty miles
from here, and he is looking for some one to buy it from him.

Then we have the " dominie/' a Presbyterian preacher, who is here to
regain his voice. He puts the company on their good behavior, and
••cuss" words don't sound good when he is around. We have the
"judge"; he is a lawyer, from Louisiana, I think, but he is an old
resident here, and does a little private business in the little room referred
to above. In fact, he gets acquainted with new-comers quicker than any-
body else, and it often happens that he takes parties of three over to the
bar, and, later on, a social game is played, and they say the "judge"
usually wins.

Then we have the " gentleman from Kentucky" — or, I should say, we
had, because he left us a week ago to go to Las Vegas. He was thoroughly
posted on horses ; but the knowledge that he possessed of all kinds of
drinks proved him to be a true son of old "Kentuck." In addition to
these we have the "gentleman from Michigan," who has travelled a good
deal in Mexico. He can tell more about the effects of the Mexican national
drink, tui/iicln, than about the scenery; and, besides these, we take in
"transients " to fill out the gaps.

But I had almost overlooked the father of the "regulars." He is from
Delaware ; has been an engineer in "Uncle Sam's" service; has surveyed
the Indian Territory, and tells Indian stories that confirm you in General
Sherman's view, "that the only good Indian is a dead Indian." He is now
a peach-planter in Delaware, where his father and his grandfather before
him have lived, and he is here for the benefit of his health.

Then we have, every day, new faces. One day it is an English lord
and his family ; the next day it is a Scotch laird, who, with his daughter,
takes long walks, and wears shoes with hob-nails. These honor us with a
short stay.

And what do you think ! John Wanamaker is expected here to-mor-
row ! (Of course, it would be sinful to travel on Sunday.) He will stop
over for the day, and our parson has told me that he will be invited to
preside at a Sunday-school convention which is especially called on his
account.

Our landlord is like all others I have met, and the "house" is as much
like other country hotels as one egg is like another ; so it is not worth
while to waste any paper on either.

38 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

XVI.

EL PASO, TEXAS, April 2, 1893.

IN my last I referred to a gentleman who represents in our set of
" regulars" the "pioneer" of the early days of California, and the glori-
ous times when a private graveyard constituted an essential part of a
gentleman's equipment in Nevada.

The incidental mention of this gentleman in connection with half a
dozen or more of others would hardly do justice to a man whose life has
been so varied, and who has seen so much of pioneer life in the far West.
To give you an idea of the man, I will say he is six feet one in his stock-
ings ; his eyes are as keen as a knife-edge ; he is broad-shouldered, and
his fists would do honor to a prize-fighter. His weight would be some-
where near one hundred and ninety, and his hair and beard are of a gray
color. He looks like a man who has seen a good deal of life, and who can
take care of himself in any case.

Now you might expect that a man of this type would be overbearing
and surly, but you were never more mistaken. He seems to be a jolly, over-
grown boy, who likes to spin yarns by the hour, and is ever ready to relate
the hair-breadth escapes he has had. I met him in front of the hotel a
week or two ago, and he started a conversation.

I soon learned that he was an old Californian miner, that he had discov-
ered a gold mine in New Mexico, and was looking for some capitalists to
take an interest in his mine and work it. He next had to show me some of
the ore, which he kept in the hotel yard. To demonstrate how rich it was,
he pounded up a piece of rock about as big as his fist in an iron mortar, and
then began to wash it out, in the same manner that he had washed out gold
in California, when a panful of earth produced from sixty to five hundred
dollars. This piece of rock would only show color ; at least I thought I
could see something yellow on the edge of the dirt in the pan after he had
washed it out. I felt interested. I had never seen anybody wash out gold,
and his stories of rich finds in California also interested me ; so, as he
seemed to take a liking to me, he in a short time became a member of the
"regulars."

I tell you this simply to introduce our "pioneer" and give him an
opportunity to tell some of the stories which have furnished no small part
of our entertainment for some time. It would be impossible for me to
give an outline of his tales. I will, therefore, tell them as nearly as possible
in his own words ; or, rather, let him tell them himself.

He got a-going on some of his Californian stories in this way. Some

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

39

guests returned to the hotel one evening with a good string of ducks that
they had shot on some pools of water not a great way from El Paso. After
the game had been regularly inspected, the conversation turned on hunt-
ing. From ducks it went to jack-rabbits; from these to deer and antelope;
finally, bears and mountain lions came up, and then our friend from
California had a story to tell. " You see," he began, " when I first went
to California, in '49, the mountains were full of grizzly bear. I had many
a hard fight with them, and killed a great number ; but there was one old
fellow (he weighed fourteen hundred pounds) who gave us a great deal of

trouble. I went for him more than once, but, somehow or other, he always
got away ; so, finally, I concluded to trap him.

" I knew pretty near where his den was, and, to make sure of him, built a
pen and baited it with a calf. Sure enough, he got in, and I had him alive.
A live bear, of course, was a valuable animal in those days, and he was the
making of me at that time. The first thing I did, I took him down to the
settlement, and we had a bear-and-bull fight. I charged a dollar a head to
see it, and I cleared sixty dollars. I then sold the bear for fifty dollars in
gold, fifty dollars' worth of provisions, two jackasses, and a jenny. I loaded
my asses with the groceries and started for the mines. I sold them for a
greatly advanced price, and inside of three months I had no less than ten

40 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

mule teams travelling between Sacramento and the mines, making money
hand over fist, and all started from that one bear."

This story was received with general acclamation, and other story-tellers
attempted to show off ; but when the question of raising large vegetables
came up, he started in to give another one.

"You know," he said, "that in the early days the Sacramento Valley
was the most fruitful part of the whole State, and the vegetables and fruit
raised there were simply grand. Talk about pumpkins in Connecticut — why,
they were nowhere. There was a friend of mine who had a farm outside of
the city. His name was Jack Hamilton, and he had originally come from
New Hampshire. He raised pumpkins, and he showed me some that weighed
over two hundred pounds apiece. Well, one day an old sow with a litter
of pigs was missing. They looked all around for them, but could not find
hair nor hide of her or the pigs. About a week after the sow had got lost,
my friend wanted to take one of the pumpkins — of course, the largest one of
the lot — to the county fair ; when, lo and behold, they found that the old
sow had eaten a hole into the pumpkin, and had lived for a week with her
litter inside of it on the pumpkin seeds."

This was a corker. It settled the question as to the size of pumpkins on
the Pacific Slope once and for all. No one could beat it, and our meeting
adjourned then and there to the bar-room, where all of us took one as a
reward of merit, and then separated to go to bed, which is precisely what I
intend to do now.

So, good-night.

XVII.

EL PASO, TEXAS, April 3, 1893.

I HAVE described to you our Plaza a number of times, I believe, and
have in a general way given you a description of the people who usually sit
around in it ; but I will now go a little more into details.

In the centre of the Plaza is the fountain with its basin and its two alliga-
tors. Directly northwest of it is a pavilion intended for the band which,
years ago, when the " boom" was on, played there daily. You may remem-
ber that one Sunday, some weeks ago, I had to close my letter to listen to a
baud of Mexican musicians who performed at that time. It was a string
band of six pieces : two fiddles, a bass-viol, one harp, one clarionet, and a
trumpet, and I tell you the music was not bad. The leader, a little hunch-
back not over four feet high, made his violin "talk," as my friend from
Delaware remarked while we sat on a stone wall listening.

The Plaza was crowded with people. The visitors from the North and

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

41

East furnished a large quota, but the Mexicans outnumbered them. I saw
few Mexican women, but close to my side was an old sefiora who was all
attention. She was dressed in black, and had a shawl thrown over her head
which completely covered her face, so that I could not even get a glimpse
of it. I have no doubt, however, that she was in some way interested in one
of the performers. Most of the Mexicans wore broad-brimmed hats. But
few were dressed in the gorgeous style described to you in one of my former
letters. Ragged clothes and dirty blankets were in the majority, and I
noticed one among the lot who wore sandals instead of shoes, and they were
rather the worse for wear.

The music was all new to me. Its soft strains seemed to invite you to
have day-dreams and to conjure up long-forgotten events. I stayed there

listening for hours, and then went home filled with recollections of other
times and other places. This was the only concert we had had, so far, on
the Plaza, but I have listened to this same band again and again, and
with the same pleasure.

You see, the proprietor of the " Tepee " has them engaged permanently to
furnish music to his customers in the gambling-hall, where faro and keno
are played ; and all you have to do to enjoy divine music, is to go into
the hall, sit down, and play or order drinks, and you are welcome. The
house is always crowded, and the business at the bar and gaming-tables is
flourishing.

But to return to my original theme ; namely, to describe our Plaza on a

42 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

warm, sunny day. I will have to introduce you to the people who sit around
the music-stand. There, as in the Vendome, we have "regulars " and " tran-
sients," and, of course, the "regulars" of the hotel are recognized as old
settlers.

The first figure I have to introduce is "our Frenchman." He has
travelled all over Europe and has visited all the countries that border on the
Mediterranean. He knows Algeria and Tunis as well as you and I know
New York and Hoboken ; and he can tell you all about the costumes of
the people of Asia Minor, as well as of the people who promenade on the
Boulevard Montmartre in Paris. When he starts in, every one is all atten-
tion. With the point of his cane he draws maps on the sand (or, as one of
my friends put it, in the bacteria that cover the ground). He knows all
the past and present of European politics, and lays down with absolute
certainty the future of the European states. In American matters he is
not as well posted ; but we have an Irishman who knows all about that.
While listening to his dissertations I have often thought of the old familiar
saying, " that it was a pity that when the Lord made this world he did not
have the advice of some of the wise men of the present day." What a
paradise it would have been, could he have done so !

Then we have transients who have just come from the North, others
from the East, and a good many from New Mexico ; and the discussions
about the laws and customs of the different sections and countries are end-
less. An amusing incident occurred the other day. A late arrival from
Carson City, Nevada, began to tell of his experience in the "early days."
Our friend, the Californian pioneer, interrupted him. "Why, I was
sheriff of that county in 1860, and /am the man who impanelled the jury
and subpoenaed the witnesses in that trial between Hyde and Morgan in
the ' landslide case/ tried by ex-Governor Eoop in Carson City." He
related the story as if he had committed " Mark Twain's" description to
memory. But he closed his tale with the remark that " Mark Twain" had
him in his picture of the scene. After this evidence was in, there was
nothing more to be said. I had always looked upon that court scene as one
of the great author's finest efforts in inventional writing, and here in the
" wild " West I find the man who, with one fell blow, destroys my fancy.

What do you think, however, when I tell you that there is a man in Mr.
Clemens' picture of the court-room who actually bears a slight resemblance
to our Californian friend ! I know you would not be without a copy of
" Eoughing It," and I therefore refer you to page 244, where you will see,
behind the judge's desk, a broad-shouldered gentleman with a high, soft-
crowned hat — the sheriff who ran the court.

So it goes. All our illusions go to pieces sooner or later. Mark

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 43

Twain's " Koughing It " is removed from the field of romance to that of
history ; and I think, whenever you wish to instruct the pupils in our
schools on the history of Nevada, you should adopt it as a text-book.

XVIII.

EL PASO, TEXAS, April 4, 1893.

I PROMISED to show you Juarez in holiday attire, and I now have an
opportunity to do so. It is Easter Sunday, and, the temperature having
kept low, we will take a buggy — that is, you and I, and Carl and his friend
from England on their ponies will serve as guides.

As I told you before, there are two bridges connecting Juarez with El
Paso, both owned by the International R.R. Co., and on both toll is collected.
This time, however, we go over as dry-shod as the Jews did when Moses
led them across the Red Sea, and it does not cost us a cent. During the
past two or three weeks the Rio Grande has actually disappeared. With the
exception of a dirty pool here and there, there is not a drop of water in its
wide, sandy bed, and our enterprising Mexicans who had started the ferry
are completely thrown out of business.

The bed of the river presents a desolate appearance. Sand, sand, and
nothing but sand, and it looks impossible that it should ever be filled again.
Yet on the Mexican as well as on the American shore men are at work
raising and securing the levees, to guard against such freshets as have here-
tofore overflowed both banks and shifted the bed of the stream half a mile
over toward Mexico.

We enter Juarez by the same street on which the horse-cars go in, and
we notice at once that a great feast day is about to be celebrated. On
all the prominent buildings, the custom-house, post-office, and presidio, as
well as on many private buildings, the green, white, and red flag of the
Republic is floating, and the houses and stores are decorated with bunting
of the same colors. Over the office of the American consul floats the Stars
and Stripes, and here and there smaller flags indicate that the residents of
some of the houses are Americans.

The inhabitants are in motion to reach the Plaza, and you see them
coming in from the country in wagon loads, or riding on horses and bur-
ros. In not a few cases a whole family is on a single horse, the woman,
with a child in her arms, riding in front of her husband. A great many of
the men are well dressed, but the everlasting black in the ladies' dresses
becomes in time monotonous. As we pass on, nearing the Plaza, the
crowd increases, and you now see here and there young women who have

44 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

adopted the American costume, high-heeled shoes and high-colored dresses,
but very few have any use for spring bonnets.

Opposite one corner of the Plaza is the establishment of Mr. Duchene,
a Swiss who served years ago in the United States regular army, married a
Mexican, and settled down as a wine-seller. Here we hitch our team and
the ponies, and are now ready to view the town at our ease.

The Plaza is decorated with flags and bunting. Around the pedestal of
the Juarez monument Mexican flags are draped in an artistic manner, and
lamp-post, tree, and shrub are decorated.

We stroll along with the people who are promenading on the Plaza, and
at last take a seat facing the old church. The Plaza is alive with strange
figures. Sefioritas in twos and threes pass by. Here and there are dark
Indian faces alongside of pure white. The majority are dressed in black,
with black shawls thrown over their heads, and rarely is a light dress or
an American bonnet seen.

The men, dressed in their national costume — some in bright colors,
others in rags — did not promenade with the sefioritas, but supplied all the
color there was in this sombre picture.

The service in the cathedral had taken place in the morning, so we had
no opportunity to see it ; but I must not forget a visit during service made
on the previous Thursday.

The church was filled then from end to end with women wrapped in
black shawls, but here and there an American dress, and even a bonnet, was
seen. As we approached the door we saw that all were on their knees facing
the altar, where eight or ten wax candles made the darkness more visible.
As there were no men in the church, except those who like statues stood on
the right and left of the altar, we soon withdrew and took seats on the
Plaza, facing the church ; and for an hour the people entered and left the
sanctuary.

I had noticed on previous occasions that most of the Mexican women
and girls were, on week days, of a very dark complexion, and was surprised
that I should see so many much lighter faces on the Sundays I spent in
Juarez ; and I also seemed to notice a change in the looks of the sefioritas
on our side of the river.

Among the ''regulars" I have mentioned my friend the peach-planter
from Delaware. He is looked upon by all of us as the best judge of female
beauty, having studied it in all sections of the country, and I submitted my
difficulty to him. "Why," he said, "don't you know that the Mexican
women of the lower classes wash themselves every Sunday and feast day? — so
that the question resolves itself into a query as to the quality of the soap in
most cases. But at times" — and he gave me a side glance of his eyes — " in

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

45

addition to simply washing, I have no doubt whitewashing comes in also.''
Be that as it may, after drinking a bottle of Mr. Duchene's native Mexican
wine, we started on to see more of the town and its surroundings.

The presidio is, next to the custom-house, the largest public building.
Like all others, it is built in the form of a hollow square. It is a handsome
brick structure, and serves as barracks, hospital, etc., of a regiment of Mexi-
can soldiers. As we approached the entrance we saw, coming behind us,

two whole companies in their gray summer
costume, accompanied by two officers in full
uniform. It seems that every Sunday these
soldiers are given an outing, and to make sure
that none of them run away, the first and second
lieutenants have to go with them. The soldiers
wi-re unarmed, but each officer carried a revolver,
as did the policemen and the custom-house
officers we saw on the border of the Rio Grande.
We asked permission to go into the barracks ;
it was granted, and we thus had an opportunity
to see the soldiers at home. The officers are
white men, and in their looks and actions re-
minded me strongly of Frenchmen ; and so did
the soldiers, in a certain way. They were all
of them broad-shouldered, healthy-looking fel-
lows of medium height and of an exceedingly
dark brown color.

Entering through the gateway, where two
soldiers with Remington rifles stood on guard,
we found ourselves in a
square yard surrounded by
buildings one story high,
and a colonnade. On the
right are the barracks
proper. A look in showed
the knapsacks, canteens,
and fire-arms systematically hung upon the wall, and the bedsteads of the
soldiers, about two feet apart, extending along the room. When I say
bedsteads I must give you some description of the piece of furniture meant.
It is simply a low sort of table, six feet or so in length, with legs about six
inches higher on the end next the wall than on the outer end. It is
certainly simplicity itself, and it reminded me of the carpenter who took
his nap during the dinner hour on the soft side of a plank.

4:6 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

Opposite this room, across the yard, is the hospital, in which, however,
real beds are furnished for the sick. The side facing the entrance has
another dormitory, which leads to a yard where the kitchen, and, I think,
the lock-up, is located. This yard also contains the tanks that supply
water to the garrison. Every drop of water has to be pumped by hand.
A driven well at one end of the tanks is provided with a cast-iron Yankee
pump, which is kept in operation by those of the soldiers who have broken
some of the rules.

The whole place is as neat as a pin, and, all in all, is a credit to the
officers and men who are quartered there.

From the presidio we go on through some of the best streets in the
town, and also through others most singular-looking to a stranger. In one
section, evidently of late construction, not one of the adobe houses is plas-
tered or whitewashed. The streets, houses, and adobe walls that surround
the yards are of one color. Everything you see is a dark gray, and it is
difficult to distinguish at a short distance where the street ends and the
houses begin. The main streets, however, have a cheerful look. All the
houses are, at least on the street front, plastered and whitewashed ; and
some walls are even laid out in squares, to give the appearance of stone
buildings. Here we saw the gratings on the windows referred to in a former
letter.

On one occasion we saw two young ladies (they were almost white, and
their beauty was only marred by a little too much mouth, as my friend
from Delaware declared) looking through the bars and smiling at the pass-
ing " Gringoes/' who returned their smiles with interest.

I suppose your Spanish is, like mine, of negative value, and I may as
well tell you what "Gringo" means. It is a man who speaks only an
incomprehensible language, and every stranger who does not speak Spanish
is so called here ; the same as my fellow-countrymen, during the " middle
ages," called any one who could not speak the language of the " Fatherland ''
a " Welschmann."

After we left the city we came to the real agricultural wealth of the
neighborhood. Every foot of the ground is cultivated. The whole coun-
try is intersected by irrigating canals, which are elevated above the sur-
rounding farm land, and look like embankments, or, rather, raised roadways.

Grapes, corn, wheat, and all kinds of fruits are grown here to perfec-
tion. The farm-houses, adobe buildings in a hollow square, are scattered
all over the country. What surprised me most was a discovery I made
about pigeon-houses. Some time ago I looked through some books illus-
trating the Egypt of the present day. The villages of the peasantry, with
their flat-roofed dwellings, were just like those of the Mexican peasantry.

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 47

In addition to this, the pigeon-houses were similar. Here are real pigeon-
houses built of adobe, three, four, and five stories high, as they are on the
Nile ; and it is pretty certain that at the time Moses lay in the bulrushes
this was already an old style.

Our trip into the country brought us to another adobe church. It was
not very old, but it had a most characteristic bell-tower. In front of the
main entrance were two posts planted about ten feet apart, each forked on
the upper end, and a pole resting in the forks completed the structure.
Three bells were suspended by chains from the cross-beam at the height of
about six feet from the ground. One of the bells bore the date of 1834
and the others 1854, showing that the church is of recent origin.

Well, I think with this last effort I will close my attempt to describe
the city and people of Juarez. The more I write, the more firmly I
become convinced that words are the poorest means of expressing thoughts.

"What a blessing it would be if somebody would invent a machine to record
the sights we see and the impressions they make on our minds. All would
be easy then, for we could simply set the recorder in motion and show
things much better than by clumsy words.

XIX.

EL PASO, TEXAS, April 6, 1893.

IN my last I closed my studies of the Mexicans, and will now take a
look at the other fellows. To begin with, you will certainly expect me to
start at the head. You and I have no doubt in our minds that the school-
master and his superior officer, the trustee, are at the head, and so we will
start in by taking this proposition for granted.

48

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

I had taken a look at the high-school, the grammar-school, and some
primary classes, some time ago ; but, owing to the attraction of the other
pole (metaphysically speaking), I then suspended operations, and did not
take up that subject again until I felt that I had mastered the other. I
met the superintendent just as he was mounting his horse to go to the
negro school, which, under the State laws of Texas, is an independent insti-
tution. No white children can go to it, and no negro can attend a white
school ; and yet I saw children in the negro school whiter tlian you or I.

The superintendent is a man of fifty-five or fifty-six years of age. He

wears gold spectacles, and, being an Ohio man, is full of dignity. He
regretted that his horse could not carry both of us, but kindly directed me
to the negro school-house, where he met me at the door.

This school-house is a fine-looking new brick building, with two pleasant
school-rooms in which eighty or ninety pupils are instructed. The princi-
pal is nearly white, and is assisted by a lady teacher of about the same
color. Both hail from Rochester, N. Y., and when I was introduced as
" Professor " Eickemeyer (in spite of my protest and statement that I
was a "greasy mechanic"), both seemed to look upon me as a fellow-
countryman.

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 49

Well, I was invited to the only chair in the class-room, which I grate-
fully accepted on the plea of being an invalid (which was, as Carl puts it, a
bluff), and the teacher, or professor, as the judge called him, began to show
us what his pupils could do. I noticed that all of them, from the primary
to the seventh-year grade, were provided with books more or less the worse
for wear ; and I saw none of the appliances that are used in the primary
grades of our schools, and in the primary classes far white children in El
Paso. He called out the sixth-year boys and girls, six in number, and as
they stood in a row I had a fair opportunity to look them over. On the
extreme left was a tall boy, as black as the ace of spades ; next to him was
another, two or three shades lighter, while the next one would have passed
anywhere as a white boy. The girls differed in size and color as much as
the boys ; one of them had blue eyes and flaxen hair. The exercises con-
sisted of a spelling-bee, such as you can find, or could find a few years ago,
in the schools of the city of New York. The words were read by the pro-
fessor from a text-book which the pupils had studied just before they got
up, and were of such a character that I felt sure not one of them knew their
definitions ; and I know, had I been put in the row, I would have got to the
foot before the lesson was over. It reminded me of the old days when I
sa\v the pupils change places when the one above missed.

He next called out another grade, and the same performance was re-
peated with slight variations.

I was then introduced to the pupils as "Professor" Eickemeyer, and was
requested to address them. I did so, but did not repeat the same speech

that Judge E s had heard so many times that he finally thought it was

his own. Of course, I complimented them on their acquirements, and did
no less for the superintendent and teachers : and I think that Yonkers ought
to be proud to be represented in El Paso by the most eloquent member of
its school-board.

The next performance was singing, and this was really as good as you
could expect. The song, the national air or anthem of Mexico, was new to
me, and there were some very good voices. Then four girls sang a song,
and the whole school (all the pupils had been brought into one room) sang
the chorus. After the singing, which I applauded heartily, to the great
enjoyment of the boys and girls, the superintendent, at the request of the
"professor," delivered an address. He evidently fired at me, because I
think his gun was elevated so high at the muzzle that the spryest young
darky could hardly jump high enough to get in range. He talked for at
least half an hour, and as I had to stand up in honor of the occasion, I felt
about tired out ; but in acknowledgment of the treat I had to sail in again
and express my thanks. I am invited to meet the judge at the Spanish
4

50 LETTERS FKOM THE SOUTHWEST.

school next, and will report in due time what I see, hear, and, least and last,
what I say myself.

P.S. — You see, the judge talked as if every little darky intended to be
elected President of the United States at some future time.

XX.

EL PASO, TEXAS, April 9, 1893.

I HAVE now spent over two months in El Paso, and have, in a measure,
familiarized myself with it and its surroundings.

When I came here the Rio Grande contained at least some water, but
all has now disappeared ; and even the irrigating canals are nearly empty,
although fed by a reservoir located some miles above. The rainfall here is
insignificant, as any one would expect when they consider that the humidity
is almost nil. To prevent evaporation, or at least to reduce it to a minimum,
the canals are made narrow and deep, and even the ditches in the fields
are dug deep and narrow, to present as little surface to the dry air as
possible.

When trees or shrubs are to be irrigated, deep trenches, or rather pits,
are made around them, and these are filled with water. Even when the
grass-plot is to be watered it is not sprinkled as in our neighborhood ; the
water is run on in a heavy stream, which is absorbed by the loose soil as fast
as it comes.

Land that has no water-supply is almost worthless ; but whenever water
is supplied, either artificially or by nature, it produces all the fruits of the
temperate and semi-tropical zones. The first requirement for starting or
running a cattle or horse ranch is water. Stock will not, I am told, stray
more than twenty miles from the spring or brook which furnishes their
supply, so that the cow-boy, or, as lie is called here, the cow-puncher, is sure
that he has gathered in or rounded up all the cattle on a given range when
he has described a circle with a radius of twenty miles around his spring,
gradually reducing the diameter until his herd is safely collected in the
corral.

But it is of equal importance to the cow-boy to have a supply of fluid
to irrigate the inner man, and this has started me on a train of thought
which, I think, deserves to be followed. Up to the present time I have
not had the pleasure of studying the ''ranchmen," except as I saw them
herein the "corral," when they came in for supplies. I always noticed
that when they arrived, and the horses and mules had been taken care of,
the first thing they did was to irrigate. I have described at length the

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 51

various institutions where supplies of the nature in question are fur-
nished, and it was an interesting problem to me what fluid these hardy
men would select to quench their thirst. One would have thought that
men who had just travelled thirty-five or more miles over a desert plain,
would fall to and drink water by the pailful ; but no, nothing of the kind.
Water is the last thing they seem to hanker after. A stiff glass of some
kind of fire-water is always sent ahead, and a few drops of water are used
to wash it down afterward, more as a preparation, I think, to clear the
passage for the next drink than to relieve the thirst.

Then, again, I have observed that when the ranchman returns he always
carries some demijohns as a supply for himself, but never any water that I
could see. That a visit to El Paso is an important event you may be sure.
It is never undertaken unless supplies are needed badly. On all ranches
they always have fresh meat on hand, and on many even fresh eggs ; also
Mexican beans — I think they call t\\ero.frijoles — which grow almost every-
where. Taking all this into account, I reached the conclusion that the
refilling of the demijohns is the principal object of the trip. I am
strengthened in this opinion by another observation. To quench their
thirst when they arrive here usually takes some days, showing conclusively
that a drought had preceded their coming ; and I know of a case when the
return trip to the range was delayed for two days, to allow the company to
pull itself together.

But let us go a little farther into this interesting question. That a
ranchman, whose drinking-water is always more or less alkaline in its
nature, should want to put a stick in it, does not seem on the whole very
strange ; but how can we account for the methods of irrigation of people
who have no such adverse circumstances to contend with ? No wonder that
mail and beast have to irrigate in a climate like this of Western Texas ; but
how can we account for the phenomenon in countries where the hygro-
meter shows ninety to one hundred degrees of humidity ? I feel that I
made a great mistake that I did not come here years ago.

Suppose the irrigation problem, as far as the human species is concerned,
was regulated or influenced by general humidity. What valuable conclu-
sions could I not have drawn during my life, and especially during my travels,
where I had ample opportunities to study the drinks of almost all nations !
Think of it : if I had taken as a starting point all the mixtures in use in this
climate, where humidity is nil, and, while watching the humidity of other
lands, studied their drinks, I might have solved the question why the Eng-
lishman takes his Scotch whiskey with soda, while the Scotchman takes it
straight ; why the South-German takes his morning drink in the beer-house
and winds up late at night with a bottle of wine and a cup of black coffee,

52 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

while to the North-German a glass of schnapps serves as his morning drink
and his night- cap.

Then, again, it might solve the problem why Medford rum holds its own
in New England, while Blue Grass whiskey is marching victoriously through
the Middle States. You see, the problem is a great one ; but, alas ! I am not
in it. I began at the wrong end. Yet I am sure that the suggestion is a
good one, and if some clear-headed thinker would take it up properly, he
could solve one of the greatest sociological questions for the benefit of
humanity.

XXI.

EL PASO, TEXAS, April 10, 1893.

I HAVE just learned something, and as I have a few minutes and nothing
particular to do (being, as it were, between drinks), I will have to tell it to
you while it is fresh in my mind. Here, as all over the States south of
Mason and Dixon's line, we have two kinds of Grand Army posts, the
" Gray " and the "Blue/' There has been a great deal said about shaking
hands over the bloody chasm ; and the incident I have to relate will show
you that there is a good deal of fiction in some of these stories. But, to
get to my tale.

Both Grand Army posts have their " camp-fires/' as they call them ;
that is, they light their pipes, sit around and tell stories, and, as I am
informed, irrigate, to enliven the company.

It so happened that the two posts lighted their camp-fires on the same
evening last week. The "blues" were peacefully sitting around, telling
stories of Sheridan's ride, and other equally well-authenticated stories of
the civil war, when, lo and behold, a squad of rebels appeared at the door,
took the doorkeeper or sentry prisoner, conquered the assembled braves, and
marched every man of them as prisoners to the Confederate headquarters.

Here a court-martial was formed, and the poor, helpless captives were
condemned to smoke Confederate tobacco out of corn-cob pipes, to drink
Confederate whiskey, and to eat Confederate beans (not the mild kind so
well known as " Boston baked beans," but that horrid species known
around here as the Mexican black bean, orfrijole, seasoned with red pepper
to such an extent that the poor victim has to keep drinking in sheer self-
defence). The "rebels "kept their prisoners till the small hours of the
morning, and then dismissed them, singing " Dixie." You may imagine
how our brave boys in blue felt under this treatment. They were outraged,
and I have learned from good authority that they have sworn to take
revenge on the " rebel " crew.

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 53

All the "blues" in the State, or rather county, are to be called in at
the next camp-fire, to make sure that no " rebel" will escape. But, I beg
of you, don't tell anybody of this part of the conspiracy, because the
"rebels" might hear of it and get scared and decamp.

The proposition is to retaliate in kind, and go them one better. A reso-
lution was passed unanimously, that no "rebel" should escape "till day-
light does appear/'

Now talk about relegating the " bloody shirt" to the relics of the past.
You see the " rebels " flaunt it still in the faces of the Union men, and it
looks to me as if the " Sons of the Veterans," even, will be in honor bound
to act as their fathers do in the sunny South.

P.S. — I forgot to mention that the boys propose to sing "John Brown's
body lies a-mouldering in the grave."

XXII.

EL PASO, TEXAS, April 10, 1893.

THE last week or two I devoted to a study of the other El Paso, and I
find that there is hardly anything to mention. Of the churches I can say
that they are like those at home — services twice every Sunday, and Sunday-
schools in all of them. Even the church sociables are on the same general
plan, as I have learned from my friend the " parson," who attended no less
than three last week, in all of which ice-cream and cake were served at the
close. So you see I may as well make my studies when 1 get home, and
compete for the gold prizes offered by the Statesman to encourage home
literature and improvement. And I now feel well posted in such studies.
I could start in witli the Italians behind my house, and study the manner
of living of the Lazaroni of Naples and Southern Italy. Then I could step
over to the Greek-Catholic church and learn all about the habits and customs
of the inhabitants of the Danubian states. The old Teutonia Hall would
furnish any number of pictures of the Hebrews who have been driven out
of Russia and Poland by the Czar. And the new Teutonia Hall would
supply the modern Teuton in all his glory. If I then took the health officer
as my mentor and guide, and travelled with him once more, as I have many
times before, I would have a field for my studies as varied as that I find here.

The great trouble, however, would be that I would have to put on green
spectacles so as not to see all the things I could see and describe. As I
intend to stay in Yonkers for some time to come, my pen-pictures might get
me into trouble. So, come to think of it, I will confine my literary efforts
to subjects away from home and not try to win the " gold prize."

54 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

To-morrow there is an election here for city officers — mayor and alder-
men— and if you read the editorials of the El Paso "dailies," and compared
them with those I read a week or so ago in the Yonkers papers, they are as
like each other as two peas. One candidate represents a ring ; the other
wants the office for personal reasons. But what amused me most was that
one of the candidates who was nominated withdrew because his employers
objected to his running. Well, our Yonkers boy bad spunk enough to run,
and I glory in it and am glad of his success.

Then there is the water-supply question, which is, of course, a very
important one ; and the discussions you hear about it remind me of
Yonkers twenty years ago, when some of our " best " citizens (Statesman)
held indignation meetings, and some of my friends covered themselves with
glory by shaking bottles filled with dirty water in the faces of those stupid
water commissioners who, after three years' investigation, did not know as
much as the gentlemen who had simply looked at the problem from their
high scientific standpoint.

It cost the city of Yonkers a good many thousand dollars to convince
our " best citizens " that they knew nothing, and I fear El Paso will also
have to pay a nice penny before the wise men will learn the same lesson.
So you see, even in this line I have nothing to write, because you can read
the whole of it in the Statesman and Gazette of twenty years ago. And
there you can find all the points fully elaborated, signed, sealed, and deliv-
ered by the heroes themselves.

But I must not forget a monument that is the glory of Mesa Garden.
Fifteen years or so ago, by a lucky accident some genius discovered in Car-
diff, N. Y., the well-known Cardiff giant. It was the wonder of the day;
all the papers were full of it, and the illustrated papers contained large
wood-cuts. A heated discussion was carried on as to its origin ; but it was
finally decided to be of that class of bug that Professor Agassiz classed as
humbug.

Imagine my surprise and pleasure when I found myself face to face
with this celebrated "giant." It seems that when its usefulness as a catch-
penny had departed, an enterprising showman loaded it on a car to send it
by way of El Paso to Mexico, to fleece the " Greasers." He was unfortunate,
however. While trans-shipping it from one car to another, the baggage
smashers handled the box in the same way they handle Saratoga trunks,
and the result was bad. Both legs of the "giant" were broken, and the
skeleton appeared in plain sight. Two bars of iron an inch square had
formed the thigh and shin bones; this at once destroyed its use as an ossi-
fied man. After some time, the railroad company presented the mutilated
relic to the owner of the Mesa Garden, where the " giant " now rests in peace.

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 55

Some other things differ slightly from what we are in the habit of seeing
at home. El Paso County has an excellent court-house. It is erected in
the centre of a square, with galleries on all sides, square towers on the
corners, and a central tower, with a flight of stairs to the top, lighted by
circular openings, and surrounded by handsome railings which extend to
the top floor, forming a dome-shaped centre in the building. The court-
house has four entrances, and, what is most appropriate, over each entrance
is a Goddess of Justice, blindfolded and holding u balance, indicating that
at least four kinds of justice are administered in the edifice.

The court-room; •?. and those of the county officers, are comfortable and
well lighted, and, what is more, they are all well furnished. Some time ago
I visited this court-house to take a view of the city from the tower, and, as
the court was in session, I took a seat and listened to the proceedings.

It was a jury trial, and the case had some novel features. It seems that
a Mr. Roe had deposited in a certain bank five hundred dollars, and had
taken a cashier's check for the amount. Some time later he stopped pay-
ment. The check was presented at another bank, properly indorsed by
one of the owners of a gambling establishment, and it was cashed. When
presented later to the first bank, payment was refused, and suit was brought
to compel payment. The case was decided in favor of the plaintiff, on the
ground of innocent Imldi'r.

The proceedings were carried on in the usual way. but all the lawyers
and the jurymen in the box smoked pipes and cigars. The judge, the wit-
ness on the stand, and the lawyer who had the witness in hand were the
only persons inside of the railing who did not smoke. Well, different
countries, different fashions. So it goes.

Three weeks ago our Plaz;; was as gray as all the country around ; but
about that time the work to put it in shape began, and the first thing done
was to clean the grass-plots of the sand and dust that the winter winds had
deposited. A number of industrious Mexicans went to work with brooms
to sweep the grass, in the same manner that our good housewives sweep the
carpets. After considerable effort the blades of grass came to the surface.
Water was then put on in streams, and to-day the grass is as green as on a
well-kept lawn. The trees are in leaf, and the rose-bushes that surround
the basin are in full bloom. The change was so rapid that it seemed MS if
you could see the grass grow.

Birds are very rare. In fact, I have seen none except a kind of red-
breasted sparrow — the Mexican sparrow, I am told ; but even these are few
and far between. I wonder why some of the people up North who hate
the English sparrow so much, don't catch them and send them down here
where they would be welcome.

56 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

I have one more important person to mention, and then I will close to
my satisfaction, and, I have no doubt, to yours. You have probably heard
of the representative from Texas at the Eepublican nominating convention a
year ago, who, when asked about offices, remarked : "What are we here for
if not for the offices ? " This gentleman of national fame is a resident of El
Paso. He is in charge of Uncle Sam's custom-house, and I saw him at the
time I lost that half-dollar at the cock-fight in Juarez.

P.S. — The Democratic papers here call him, " What-are-we-bere-for
F n."

XXIII.

EL PASO, TEXAS, April 11, 1893.

I LANDED here in El Paso on the first of February last, and the first
time I got beyond the Plaza in front of the hotel was on the twenty-second
of that month.

Besides the Plaza, El Paso has a park about two miles from the centre
of the city. It was formerly owned by the El Paso Jockey Club, which
flourished during the "boom" — up to 1888. When the "boom" subsided
the Jockey Club did the same, and the city purchased the property for use
as a public park.

Texas, like all other States, has its Arbor Day, and the governor selected
as the Arbor Day for 1893, the twenty-second of February. The selection
of Washington's Birthday was a happy one. The aldermen provided two
hundred young trees to be planted. The McGinty Band was engaged to
furnish the music, and, after a prayer by one of the leading clergymen, a
patriotic speech was made by one of the leading lawyers, and the whole
audience then adjourned to see the trees planted in holes already prepared
by some Mexican laborers.

As stated above, the park is two miles or thereabouts from the centre
of the town, and a few hundred feet from the tracks of the Southern Pacific
Railroad. The manager of the road put two trains of five cars each at the
disposal of the aldermen, and gave all those who wished to go a free ride
to and from the park. This liberality was highly appreciated by the people
of the city and the visitors. It looked as if all the churches, the schools,
and the Sunday-schools were going on a picnic, and the crowd looked and
acted exactly as a crowd would gathered up at home.

Few Mexicans were among the excursionists, although fully one-third of
the inhabitants are of that nationality. The trains stopped near the gate
of the park, and the visitors soon filled the grand stand. But the visitors
by rail were not the only ones. Dozens of carriages and buggies brought

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

57

ladies and gentlemen. But the small boy on the "burro" (donkey) cut the
chief figure on the race-course. Everybody here rides on horseback, and a
good many young men in Mexican saddles paraded about, at times starting
around the track on impromptu races. But in spite of that the small boy
had it all to himself. Most of the wood used is brought into town on
burros, and these animals are more numerous than goats on Hog Hill. The
only bridle used by the boys was an old rope wound around the burro's
nose ; and as to the saddle, why that is unknown in burro riding by boys.
It was a lively picture when the cavalcade began to come in. Some
youngster would ride, sitting as close to the head of the animal as he could,

while the next one preferred a seat near the tail ; and other burros caine in
having two and even three riders on board. Now, a burro at times has his
own views in regard to the direction in and the speed at which he wants to
go, and as these may differ from those of the rider, a contest is .often the
result. It is highly amusing to see the amount of exercise he can furnish
the small boy. To keep his animal in motion the boy has to use all the
energy stored in his hands and heels, and even then the burro often goes
his own way, after gracefully shooting his rider over his head.

When the whole audience had arrived and all were comfortably seated,
the exercises began with music by the band, followed by prayer ; then came
the oration. I listened with a great deal of interest to the speech, which

58 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

was patriotic and thoroughly American ; yet I must own to some surprise
when the speaker, in the course of his remarks, told his hearers that our
free institutions had been brought over by the Pilgrim Fathers, had been
maintained by the Fathers of the Eepublic, and that it was the duty of. the
children to preserve our freedom and deliver it to the future generation. I
had not expected that an orator in Texas in 1893 would claim the Pilgrim
Fathers as the founders of our free institutions. Yet it was not, after all,
more of a surprise than the one I had in 1886, when a member of the Eng-
lish Parliament showed me over the Houses of Parliament in London.
After we had visited the House of Commons — or, more properly speaking,
the hall in which the sittings take place (as the House was not in session)—
and while going to the House of Lords, we passed through a long hall,
decorated on both sides with fresco paintings representing events in English
history, one of which represented the embarkation of the Pilgrim Fathers
on the Mayflower.

My friend had called my attention to the picture, and when I saw it the
thought came into my mind that it would not take many more generations
before the English would claim George Washington as one of the greatest
Englishmen that ever lived; and my conductor, with a smile, assented
to my suggestion.

The planting of the trees took quite some time, but a jack-rabbit fur-
nished diversion for the small boy and the dogs. The poor fellow had been
surprised near the grand-stand, and began to make his way in big leaps
toward the fence. A whole drove of youngsters with a dozen or more of
dogs took up the chase ; but, fortunately for the rabbit, the fence was not
rabbit-tight, though it was an effectual barrier for boys and dogs, so the
rabbit escaped, thoroughly scared, no doubt.

The return train came in sight at about sunset, and all got safely home,
having enjoyed a summer day on the twenty-second of February.

The Stars and Stripes waved over all public and many private buildings,
and there was nothing to suggest that twenty-five short years ago the
Texas Rangers stood in the line of the Confederates, fighting under Lee in
defense of Richmond.

XXIV.

EL PASO, TEXAS, April 11, 1893.

THE reason why I have been so very industrious lately in writing letters
about El Paso is that El Paso has, among other things, some climate after
all. About a week ago a season of blow set in, which, with more or less
force, shifted the sands of the prairie all over the city. At times, especially

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 59

on Thursday List, the wind blew a perfect gale of forty miles an hour for
five hours, as I learned from the weather clerk, whose roost is almost oppo-
site the hotel. The wind-gauge, a sort of whirligig, is a very interesting
sight, and I have watched it with a great deal of attention. It can serve
as a thermometer as well. When the breeze is light and the direction is
east, the temperature is low and from sixty-five to seventy-five degrees in,
the shade ; when from the west, the temperature rises from seventy -five or
eighty degrees to ninety degrees or over. Now, the gale we have had came
from the west, and the air being filled with dust and sand, I think I have
a good conception of what a simoom in the Sahara may be like. The tem-
perature of the moving air was above eighty degrees, and filled with sand
and dust so that I could hardly see across the street, and it felt when I
opened the window as if it came from a hot oven. The Plaza was de-
srrted for two or three days; but the wind generally subsided when the
sun went down, so that the evenings and nights were cool and pleasant.
But you must not forget that when the temperature gets below seventy
di-grees in this dry atmosphere it is as cool as it is in Yonkers at sixty
degrees, or even less.

Then, my stay here is drawing to a close, and I want to get over my self-
imposed task. I hold you, however, responsible for ail these letters. Your
remark about the scarcity of water here started the whole of it, and after a
while I In-iran to like the task, and I think writing these letters to you has
been as good a cure for my mind as the air has been for my body. I had
to look sharp to be able to describe things, and then these studies put every-
thing else out of my head, giving me, as it were, a vacation from all other
thoughts and worries.

Next week I shall be in Santa Fe. But I doubt whether I shall continue
in this line. You know that Mr. Deming, my nephew, has an atelier there
and paints pictures ; and I am strongly inclined to exchange the pen for
the brush, and bring home such a work of art in landscape painting as no
one has ever seen, or wanted to see !

I may send you a report on the election, which takes place to-day, if it
continues to be windy, but, otherwise, I think the present letter will close the
"' Mysteries of El Paso."

XXV.

EL PASO, TEXAS, April 12, 1893.

WELL, the whirligig on the weather clerk's roost rotates at a good speed
and the winds blow as before, but not anything like the whirlwinds that
excited the legal and illegal voters of El Paso yesterday.

60 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

In El Paso, as elsewhere in this glorious country, the "best citizens"
(as the Statesman usually calls them) at times take it into their heads
to come to the front. You are sure to know them when you see them.
All the year round they find fault with what others do. They never take
any interest in public affairs except to find fault and to scold, and they feel
rather above the common herd who vote and take an interest in the man-
agement of the city business. These gentlemen, with a flourish of trumpets,
got up a citizens and taxpayers' party, held public meetings in the court-
house (which is used here for all sorts of entertainments, as well as for
political meetings), and nominated a citizens' ticket. The Republicans,
who are in the minority, did not make any nominations, but did not indorse
the citizens' ticket either.

Yesterday the battle was fought. It was a bad day; the sand filled the
air from morning till the polls closed, furnishing a good excuse for the
"best citizens " to stay at home, and the result was as usual in sucli cases.
The "straights" carried the election by a majority of over five hundred out
of a vote of a little more than sixteen hundred, and the ticket, composed of
pirates and blacklegs (as the " best citizens" assured the voters they were),
was successful.

In this neighborhood the Mexicans are the unknown quantity. Out of
sixteen hundred voters, about five hundred are Mexicans, and, of course,
these were all bought by the " straights." The " best citizens " were alto-
gether too good to do anything to get any Mexican votes, and even the few
negroes were inveigled into voting the straight Democratic ticket. So it
goes ; but as virtue is said to be its own reward, I hope the "best citizens"
feel entirely satisfied with the result.

Unbiassed observers told me before the election that both tickets con-
tained the names of representative citizens, and that both candidates for
mayor would make excellent officers.

I have, however, one more observation to make ; namely, that not a
solitary rum-shop keeper was on either ticket, and none has ever been elected
as a city official in this place. The bar-rooms were absolutely closed, and, as
the daily paper says, not even the river furnished an opportunity to irrigate.

In spite of these precautions, they had a lively time in what is called the
" bloody Second." Two officers, a " regular " and a " special," got into an
argument about a Mexican who was to be voted for one of the tickets, and
both being well armed — the "special" with two six-shooters and a bowie
knife, and the "regular" with one six-shooter and a "quoit" (a whip
loaded with shot) — guns were drawn ; but mutual friends (who seem to play
an important figure in such affairs) separated them before a great deal of
damage was done. Two bloody heads and some black eyes were the only

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST,

61

results, and the report says that both officers attended to their duties at the
same poll in the court-house as before. Other arguments and explanations
took place at other polls, but as no damage was done, except to eyes and
noses, they are not worth mentioning.

When the result WMS
clared, the " unterrified " or-
ganized a procession to serenade
the new mayor. A band uas
secured, and under the lead of
my friend (the grand marshal
who had conducted the St.
Patrick's Day parade) they
marched to the mayor-elect's
residence, and after listening to
a neat little speech of thanks
and congratulation, adjourned
to the " White House " to wind
up the glorious victory.

If you look at the whole
performance impartially, and
make allowances for the differ-
ence in latitude between the
two places, you will perceive

that the dissimilarity is not as great between here and at home as you would
expect when you consider that the two places are about two thousand miles
apart ; and it furnishes a new proof of the solidarity and unity of our free
and glorious country.

62 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

P.S. — I forgot to relate a new use to which shooting-irons are put in
this town. A week or two ago, in the evening, as I was just getting ready
to retire, I heard a regular fusillade. Half a dozen shots were fired not a
great distance from the hotel. A minute or two later the fire bells began
to ring, and I was sure then that some cow-boys had taken the town and
were murdering the inhabitants. I was mistaken, however ; the shooting-
irons served simply as a fire-alarm box to notify the firemen of a conflagra-
tion in a grocery store in San Antonio Street.

XXVI.

EL PASO, TEXAS, April 13, 1893.

MY son Carl has just returned from an excursion to a cattle ranch at
Hueco Tanks, and his looks show, as well as the whirligig on the Weather
Bureau, that the wind blows a gale. His eyes, his ears, and, he says, his
lungs also, are filled with sand, and his clothing looks as gray as an adobe
house.

You may remember that some time ago I introduced you to the owner
of the corral known as the " Horse Restaurant," and to two ranchmen
that we found there. Carl kept his saddle and obtained the horses used
for his equestrian excursions at this place, and in a short time became
acquainted with many of the cow-boys who frequented it. He accepted
an invitation to visit Hueco Tanks with them, and the condition he was in
when he returned, after a week's stay, was as stated above.

As luck would have it, he had a high wind going out and a gale com-
ing back, but was well pleased with his experience. The owner of the
ranch, described before as the "young man in Mexican costume" that we
met at the corral, has a nice residence in El Paso, and is considered to be
well-off. It was in company with him and two cow-boys that the excursion
was made.

If Carl's description of the cattle ranch is at all correct, it must be a
picturesque place.

But I can do no better than to give Carl an opportunity to tell his
own story of the trip referred to above, as he did in a letter to a friend at
home.

XXVII.

EL PASO, TEXAS, April 14, 1893.
DEAR JACK :

I have spent a good deal of time with the cow-boys down in this section,
taking trips out to their ranches and into the mountains with them, and
have gotten a fair insight into the cattle business.

There are only a few losses that the ranchman here has to guard against.
He does not have to worry about cattle being frozen, taken sick, or stray-
ing very far from the "cow-camp," which is generally situated near the
tanks or springs where they come to get water.

The ranches are not nearer to each other than fifty or sixty miles, and
cattle will not stray more than twenty miles from water, unless the buffalo

64 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

grass becomes moistened by rain or dew, and that is something that seldom
happens. When it does, the grass dries very rapidly.

The ranges here are good and not overstocked. Occasionally a mountain
lion will kill a calf or a yearling and eat from the flank until he is satis-
fied ; then the wildcats will start in at the shoulder, while the coyote,
who has been lingering about, keeping his eye on the feast, will pick at the
carcass.

Now and then a cattle thief will start at the northern part of the State
with a few head of cattle, and pick up others from the different ranches all
along the way to the Rio Grande, where he will cross with them into Mex-
ico. In this way they sometimes collect a herd of many hundred cattle,
which they sell to the Mexicans. At other times the thieves are killed by
some of the cow-boys before they reach their destination.

I have just come in from a visit to the ranch, and I must write you
about the trip going out. The morning we started on our trip over the
prairie, Tom and Jim came down to the corral at ten o'clock, and we three
went up town to get some provisions, including canned corn, tanglefoot,
etc. We got back at eleven and saddled the mustangs.

There was a horse for us to take out to the ranch for a rest. He had
been pretty well worked out, but was just what we wanted for a pack-horse.
I towed him out of the corral, and before going very far found that he would
lead about as well as a wooden post.

We went down the turnpike about a mile to where Mrs. L. lives, and
there Tom changed his clothes and got out the bedding we were to take
along, besides some camping utensils, blankets, and a wagon cover. (Don't
get this mixed up with the " tenderfoot's " cover for keeping the dust off
wagons.)

The extra horse was then packed as usual, by first laying the wagon
cover over him unfolded ; on top of this came the blankets ; next, two old
oat-bags, tied together at the top, were laid across the horse, one hanging
down on either side ; they contained our cooking utensils and provisions.
The wagon cover was then folded over the other things, and the whole tied
tight around the horse with a lariat.

After this was done we started out, taking turns in leading the pack-
horse. The wind was coming up at a great rate from the southwest, but
as we were travelling with it we did not mind it so very much.

While I led the pack-horse by a rope around his neck, with a half -hitch
around his jaw, the boys rode behind and kept him up with an occasional
jab from a gun-stock or a kick in the ribs. This sort of work made my
pony very nervous, as he was not yet four years old and only half broken.
When we got to the first Mexican dug-outs, three miles from town, he tried

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 65

to get away, but I was determined he should lead the other horse if it took
a leg.

About two hundred yards from the dug-outs we saw two Mexicans driving
a bunch of cattle off of the road on which we were travelling, and on nearing
them Jim said : " There is a flying 'X ' in that bunch."

Tom told him to follow them and go through the bunch, and if he saw
any to come back, and we would all go down and cut them out. But he did
not find any of our cattle among them.

We started again, reaching the Mesa, when the pack-horse jerked back
and pulled me clear of the stirrups. Just then the rope broke, and my pony
started to run and buck — over mounds, cactus, mesquite, and sage bushes,
and running around dagger plants, fortunately not leaving me on top of
any of them. He kept this up for a quarter of a mile before lie had his fill
of the spurs with which I jabbed him at every jump. We both had a'good
sweat during the circus.

The boys had already started for the pack-horse, which had left as soon
as the rope broke. When I came up, Tom handed me my six-shooter, which
had been thrown out of the holster while the pony was bucking. It is a
safe rule never to take your eyes off of a bronco's head ; if you do, he may
have his feet on yours.

We tried to drive the pack-horse then, but he did not have the brains of
a chicken, and would not keep road or trail ; and we found we were wearing
our horses out trying to keep him in the right direction, so we finally con-
cluded leading was the best.

The wind now was high, and picking up the dust and sand so that we
could not see fifty feet in front of us, and we struck off for B.'s ranch, think-
ing we might find it, which we did, by good luck. It seemed as though his
whole place was going to be covered up with the sand, that was drifting like
so much snow.

His house was very comfortable and plain, being built of rough pine
boards, but the cracks allowed considerable sand to blow in. On his place,
which was fenced in, was a wind-mill for pumping water out of an artesian
well into a large tank that was on high supports like a railroad tank. The
mill was just humming on account of the high wind.

He had twelve dogs on the place, and they looked like thoroughbred
meat-hounds, although he did not have their pedigrees. We had some
coffee, eggs, and frijoles in the kitchen ; and after watering the horses and
filling our canteens, we started on.

We could hardly tell what direction to start in, the air was so full of
sand. Every trail was covered up, and there were no traces of a road, so we
went it blind. Everything looked a yellowish cast from the sun shining
5

66

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

through the sand-filled air, and we could just make out our shadows on the
ground, which gave us our only idea of direction.

Each breath helped to fill our throats with the pure prairie sand, and
we were entirely covered with it. The wind was so warm that it seemed
like a hot blast. We kept pegging along over the rough road, our ponies in
a trot all the way, occasionally sinking in up to their ankles when they would
strike a gopher burrow.

At six-thirty or thereabouts the sun went down and the wind partially
died out, and there in front of us, in the distance, stood Sierra Alto, which
is the highest mountain of the Hueco chain, and stands fifteen miles east of

our camp. A peculiar thing about these rock mountains is that they are
entirely bare of trees, but have a greenish hue from the mesquite and sage
bushes, amole, and Spanish dagger.

Finding we had struck three miles north of the main gap leading to the
tanks, we went straight on over the first range of hills, and got on the north-
west trail at dark. The dagger plants were all in bloom in this section of
the country, and the cacti, with their beautiful red flowers, were in all
directions more plentiful than near El Paso.

The short cucumber cacti had their tops covered with bright red flowers.
The amole or soap weed is of a dark green color. It grows low on the
ground, and spreads like a century plant. From the centre, a distance of
seven or eight feet, there shoots out a stalk of white, fibrous material, and

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

67

on the top of this blossoms out a large bunch of white, bell-shaped flowers.
The amole is a tough plant on horses, as the thorns on the ends of the leaves
break off in the hock joints when yon do any fast riding over a country
covered with them, where there is neither road nor trail, arid if the thorns
are not taken out at night the pony will not be fit to ride the next
morning.

The Spanish dagger grows to the height of five or six feet, with a bunch
of sharp leaves on the top, the lower ones having dried and fallen from the
sides of a trunk which is sometimes six or eight inches in diameter. It is a

mean plant to ride against, as it will cut a hole in a leather boot as easy as
a bullet will.

After travelling through the rough, over rocks, and down to the trail, we
had easy going to the tanks for about four miles, where we arrived at eight
o'clock, having be«n in the saddle eight hours, and having travelled forty-
five miles.

We watered the horses first, and then went around to the cow-camp,
where we found Billy McIJ. and wife, with their little three-year-old girl,
living in a natural cave. After cooking some coffee and meat and having

68 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

supper, we turned in, making our beds up outside, the clear blue sky the
only canopy over our heads.

We arose at sunnght, washed in the old frying-pan with the handle off,
and after a trip around to the tanks to get a couple of pails of drinking-
water, we breakfasted on fried meat, biscuit, and coffee. We then helped
Jim get his horses ready for atrip up to a spring about fifty miles northeast,
where he was going to locate a new cow-camp.

While the boys were getting the pack-horse ready, I took a snap-shot at
them. One was standing at the pony's head, holding him; the other two
were on either side, tying down the saddle-bags with a lariat.

After Jim's departure we went out to get some "roping" pictures.
Tom first chased the steer at full speed, at the same time throwing the
rope over his head. After he had caught him and stopped him, he rode
around him until the rope bound his feet together. Spurring the pony, he
then tripped the steer and threw him to the ground, where the pony held
him down by bracing himself and keeping the rope taut. Tom then dis-
mounted, the pony, who was thoroughly trained, meanwhile holding the
steer down alone.

Quite frequently a powerful animal has been known to wriggle himself
loose and at once attack the horse. After one experience of this sort a pony
will exert himself to the utmost to keep the steer down.

The next move Tom made was to take the steer's tail and pass it
between his legs. He then, by speaking to the pony, who let go his hold,
loosened the lariat and tied the steer's feet together. He was now ready
for branding. He then roped another steer, which was thrown by stop-
ping the horse while the steer was running away at full speed.

As it was nearing dinner-time, we returned to camp, and after having
some roast beef and coffee we started on a trip up to Sierra Alto, a moun-
tain twenty miles from camp, from the base of which we had a beautiful
view of the mountains and plain.

To conclude my story, I will describe our camp and give you an idea of
the rocks and caves in our neighborhood.

The rocks are of volcanic origin, and were forced up in the centre of the
plain, which is about fifty miles square, and though surrounded by moun-
tains is as level as the sea. The rocks cover about three-quarters of a
square mile, and in some places rise perpendicularly to a height of two
hundred and fifty feet. They are filled with caves, tunnels, and natural
tanks, whence their name.

Our camp was made in one of these caves, which had a roof that was
quite flat, and a fire-place in front of the entrance open to the sky above.

The tanks are three in number, and situated in a canon north of the

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 69

camp. They are fed with springs which supply an abundance of water for
the cattle.

Some of the caves south of the camp were at one time inhabited by
Comanches. On the rocks there are still many Indian paintings and
drawings, and borings where they used to grind their corn.

There are also many pieces of Indian pottery, and flint chips left from
their manufacture of arrow-heads. In one cave that they inhabited there
is a natural well, eight feet deep and filled with clear, cool water. In
another place there is a deep perpendicular crack from the top of the rock,
which is two hundred and fifty feet high, to the plain. It makes a straight
passageway for two hundred yards, and averages about four feet in width.
During warm weather the prairie rattlesnake makes his appearance in these
caves and under the rocks. GAEL.

XXVIII.

SANTA FE, N. M., April 19, 1893.

MY stay in El Paso terminated on Monday last, just three months to a
day from the time I said farewell to our beautiful Yonkers.

And on taking leave, I must confess I had a feeling as if I was going
away from a dear friend. Many of the guests from the hotel and some
of the citizens came to the depot to say good-by, and the leave-taking,
hand-shaking, and wishes for good health and happiness, mutually ex-
pressed, were as hearty and sincere as if we had lived together for a
lifetime.

When I landed in El Paso I was very low down. I was an invalid, and
to take a walk of a quarter of a mile was more than I could stand. All
this had changed. I had made all my tours through El Paso on foot. To
walk three or four miles a day was my regular exercise during the last
month or more, whenever the wind was below ten miles an hour.

My long residence in this place gave me many opportunities to meet the
citizens. I received nothing but kindness at their hands.

In spite of the rough elements invariably found on the border, life is as
safe in El Paso as at home, and all try to make the stay of the visitor as
pleasant as possible. My leanings toward the picturesque side of life, and
the new scenes which characterized the frontier town and made it especially
interesting to me, need not interfere with any visitor. I cannot but recall
the look of surprise on the face of the clerk of Uncle Sam's Weather
Bureau when I related to him some of the results of my investigations, and
told him of the people I had met. The gentleman is from Maine, and he

70 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

evidently knew El Paso only as he saw it in bird's-eye view from his roost
on the highest building in the town.

On leaving El Paso, I can conscientiously recommend it to any one
who, like myself, wants rest and sunshine in the winter, a dry atmosphere,
and pure, clear air. Should I ever want to emigrate again and bask in the
sunshine of a health-giving climate, I will make a bee-line for North Pass
City, in Texas, knowing that I shall not be disappointed.

XXIX.

SANTA FE, N. M., May 10, 1893.

IN my last letter I took leave of El Paso, but I can't help returning to
it before I give you a description of my trip to Santa Fe.

Our trunks had been packed a day or two before ; my son Carl had
brought his saddle from the "corral"; the Mexican curiosities and some
fossils he had collected in the mountains had been boxed and started for
home, and we were ready to leave. The train was to start at 10.30 A.M.,
and this left us time enough to make a last visit to Mr. Potter's sanctum.
He presented us with a flask of his best whiskey to protect us against the
drought which is permanent on the barren plain we had to cross on our way
to Santa Fe.

I took a final walk around the basin in the Plaza to say good-by to the
alligators, who were taking their morning nap on the water's edge ; shook
hands with some of the visitors whom I had met, and after having taken
leave of our landlord and some of the guests, drove to the depot of the
Santa Fe Railroad.

Carl's friends, the boys with whom he had made his equestrian excur-
sions during our stay, all came to say good-by. Some of them had made
up a party to travel on horseback through New Mexico to Denver, Colo.,
and they were going to take a " prairie schooner " to carry the baggage,
water, and provisions, and were to leave an hour after our train de-
parted. All were dressed in their travelling costume : broad-brimmed
hats, short riding-jackets, high boots, and spurs with rowels the size of a
cartwheel.

There was Jim and his brother from Chicago ; Dock, the young fellow
from New York, who insisted that a part of the camping outfit should con-
sist of .silver spoons, knives, and forks ; and the remaining " twin." In one
of our excursions around El Paso I mentioned two young men from New
Jersey, brothers, who looked so much alike that I could only tell them
apart when they were together. Although of different ages, we called them

LETTERS FBOM THE SOUTHWEST. 71

" twins." One had started for home about a week previous, and the other
was now starting on his first camping-out trip toward the north.

" All aboard ! " called the conductor, and with a last waving of hands
we left our friends and El Paso behind us.

The train follows for miles the bed of the Rio Grande. We passed the
pumping-station which furnishes the town with water from the river when
there is any. We took a last look at the old fort, where Uncle Sam has a
garrison of some three or four companies of artillery and infantry. To hear
the band play and see the soldiers on dress parade, we had visited it many
times during our stay.

Within a mile of this point is the smelter, a large establishment with
smoking chimneys all over it, where the lead and silver ores, mostly im-
ported from Mexico, are reduced and converted into lead pigs and silver
bars. All the laborers are Mexicans, and the works are flanked on two
sides by an adobe town of the usual type. On our first visit there one
Saturday afternoon we found the whole town in an uproar over a football
game played by the younger generation, all the men, women, and children
forming an admiring audience. Among the lookers-on were two little
misses on a pony, who started with us on our return to the city. It was an
interesting sight to see how well they kept their seats in the side-saddle, and
it gave our horse something to do to keep up with them as they rode along,
laughing and chatting and evidently enjoying the race with our buggy.

Our train sped on. The river on our left and the mountains on both
sides gradually receded, leaving a plain covered near the water's edge with
cottonwood trees, and here and there some fields which surrounded the
adobe houses of the few Mexicans who raise vegetables and herd cattle on
the river bottom.

At Rincon we stopped for dinner. On my return to the train I took a
seat in the smoking-car, to enjoy my last Mexican cigar. The car contained
a mixed company : drummers from Northern and Western cities, "Greasers,"
and a few inhabitants who were taking short rides between the way-stations,
at all of which our train stopped. As I entered and looked for a seat, I
saw a figure dressed in a heavy ulster buttoned up to his chin, above which
appeared a woolly head covered with a cap. As I passed I saw a black face
with heavy, curling whiskers, and a mustache corresponding to the hair
and whiskers. It was an Australian negro, one of a band of six or seven who
had given an exhibition of boomerang throwing in El Paso. The poor fellow
had met with an accident. After the exhibition there was some kind of a
rumpus about the receipts at the gate, and a part of the company seceded
and started in on their own hook. I don't know whether the local traditions
of Texas as a rebel State had anything to do with this movement, but, at

72 LETTERS FEOM THE SOUTHWEST.

any rate, a part of the performers went to Santa Marcia, the subject of this
sketch among them. The financial success of the performance must have
been great, because, after the show, our bearded friend got dead drunk, and
falling from the stoop of the hotel, broke his arm, and had to be returned to
El Paso to have it set and taken care of. I don't know, of course, whether
the habit of getting drunk was contracted in the bush in Australia or not,
but have my doubts, because, from all accounts, fluids are as scarce in the
Australian bush as in Texas and New Mexico ; and I am inclined to think
it an acquirement of Western civilization, which, no doubt, influences all
visitors, whether they come from the antipodes or from nearer home.

A word about boomerangs and their flight. Most of us have thrown
boomerangs, figuratively speaking, which hit the thrower with more or
less force ; but to see these sons of the Australian wilds throw them in
reality, is a surprise. We saw a black man, with lean legs and arms that
look as if there were no muscles on them, throw the sickle-shaped pieces
of wood with a force and skill that caused them to circle over the heads
of the spectators who filled the grand-stand of the base-ball grounds of
El Paso, to rise like a bird almost out of sight, and to circle in smaller and
smaller circuits around the thrower, till they dropped at his feet ! It was
almost impossible to believe my own eyes, and the experience recalled an
anecdote of one of our townsmen who, years ago, when spirit-rapping first
came into prominence, related to a friend some of the wonderful feats he
had seen. "Well," said this friend, "would you have believed it had you
not seen it with your own eyes ? " " No," said the relater. " Well, I have
not seen it, and that accounts for my doubt. "

While telling this story we have entered a level plain, more desolate
than the plains east of El Paso. Even the sage brush is stunted, and the
Mexican dagger-plant and some cacti are the only vegetation that seems
to flourish ; although, here and there, bunches of short buffalo grass, that
looks more like hay, would furnish food for cattle and horses. The river
is miles to the westward, and the mountains miles to the eastward, and the
drought which has hung over this part of New Mexico for a long time
has left many a relic in the shape of skeletons of dead horses and cattle that
line the railroad. No evidence of man is in sight for miles and miles on
this barren plain, except the windmills for pumping water from wells sunk
by some enterprising ranchman.

But such ranches are few and far between, and as we near Lava, about
half-way between El Paso and Albuquerque, the desolation becomes more
desolate. The sage brush and cactus grow less and less frequent. Black
rocks project from each elevation, and gradually the whole plain and the
hills, which now approach nearer to the Rio Grande, are covered with them.

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

73

Imagine a country without water for miles and miles, where the water to
supply the locomotives has to be hauled on tank trains ; then look at the
black lava jutting out of the loose sand, and you cannot but admire the
courage and perseverance of the men who laid the iron ribbon that connects
the north pass into Mexico with the west of our great continent.

But the picture changes as if by magic when we approach Santa
Marcia. The road runs close to mountains covered from the foot to the
top with loose, broken lava. The Eio Grande, furnishing water to a plain
spread with flourishing fields, is on our left, the intense green of the
alfalfa being interrupted here and there by fields of wheat just sprouting
from the ground. Irrigating canals filled with water run in every direc-

tion, their banks lined with trees just putting on their summer coats ; the
orchards, too, are in full bloom.

Santa Marcia was our next stopping place. Locomotives had to be
changed, and we had a few minutes to stretch our legs. The place, as
much of it as I could see, is a new American town, but it has its plaza like
all the Mexican and Texan towns I have seen. (And I just wonder why we
cannot have some such breathing spot in our own beautiful Yonkers !) The
principal business houses and hotels are around this plaza. Too late I noticed
that some of my fellow-travellers, who had been here before, had laid in a
stock of fluid provisions in the shape of a number of bottles of lager, to last
until we should reach Albuquerque, our supper station ; but I had no reason
to regret my neglect when the bottles were opened later on, and a cordial
invitation extended to me to join in "irrigating."

74 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

•

A short distance from the town we crossed to the right side of the Rio
Grande, and ran through a country where green meadows and ploughed
fields cover the valley, and herds of cattle feed on the green plains. The
river-bed in some parts is almost dry, the water having been diverted by
the irrigating canals, and only a portion returned by soakage through the
ground.

Adobe houses line the hills, and in some of the older Mexican towns
above the house-tops appear the quaint belfries of the churches, with the
bells suspended by ropes from cross-trees. The Mexican has brought his

grape-vines into the valley — fine vineyards of thrifty vines surround like
gardens many an adobe house.

The mountains have completely changed their character ; the lava lining
has disappeared, and at times we pass sections in which the vertical walls
of red sandstone have been sculptured by the action of water and sand
storms into veritable ruins of castles and cathedrals of cyclopean dimen-
sions. The adobe houses have also gradually changed color ; the sombre
gray has given place to a more cheerful red that contrasts pleasantly with
the black soil of the valley.

But I had almost forgotten my travelling companions in the smoker.

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 75

Our Australian had left us at Santa Marcia, but a group of travellers had
formed and were carrying on a lively conversation on mining in Mexico.
One of them was a cattleman from Colorado returning from a business trip
to New Orleans; another was a mining engineer, and the third was a
manufacturer from Milwaukee. The two latter had made a flying trip to
Chihuahua, Mexico, to inspect and preempt a silver mine of untold rich-
ness. I don't remember how much silver to the ton its ore contains, but it
was fabulous. It was the same story I had heard from the promoters in El
Paso for months; and even earlier from some of my friends at home who
know something about silver mines in Mexico. The ranchman thought,
and he said so, that there was more silver in cattle-raising than in all the
silver mines in Mexico. I think most of those who have tried it say the
same. From the mine we got to the Mexican, and, at last, to the Indian ;
and I learned, incidentally, that we would pass close to one of the Indian
"pueblos" — namely, that of Ysleta— and that we would most likely find a
number of squaws and youngsters at the station willing to sell us pottery,
baskets, and trinkets; so when we stopped I was prepared to step off and
see the Indians. I had seen Indians in Michigan and Western New York,
dressed up in blankets, headed moccasons, and all the finery we usually
observe in pictures of them ; but I was -always impressed with the notion
that, a good part of it was put on for the benefit of the white man — a sort
of show-dress to attract attention and help sell their wares.

There were about a dozen squaws, boys, and girls, with bright blankets
and dressed in a costume of as many colors as you could wish — as pleasing a
bit of coloring as I had seen. Some offered pottery, jugs, and little plates ;
others had baskets to sell, and one squaw did a flourishing business with her
pappoose. The pappoose had on a short blue calico dress with a red cloth
belt around the waist, and green leggings beaded on each side on its feet.
She covered the baby's face with one corner of her red striped blanket, and
called out : "Nickel, nickel !" The travellers, struck with the novelty of
the proposition, handed out their nickels, and the squaw removed the
blanket and showed the baby's face, to the great amusement of the lookers-
on and to the evident satisfaction of the pappoose, who squalled lustily while
its face was covered. I think this enterprising mother did the most busi-
ness, and, on the whole, the baby was worth seeing. With its full round
cheeks, its small black eyes, and its shining black hair, it was as handsome
a child, though rather dark, as you would be likely to meet with in many
days' travel.

I must confess I was not very deeply impressed with the exhibition ; it
struck me as altogether too theatrical; and yet the ranchman from Colo-
rado, who had visited some of the pueblos in New Mexico, assured me that

76 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

the dresses the Indians wore were nothing more than was customary on
festive occasions.

At Albuquerque we had our supper, and as night closed in, I saw no
more of the country. We reached Lamy, the junction of the Santa Fe
branch road, at 10.30 P.M., and Santa Fe about midnight, and went to bed,
thoroughly tired out, at the Palace Hotel.

This is the longest letter I have yet written, but no wonder ; there was
no place where I could break off, and as Santa Fe weather differs slightly
from that of El Paso, I have plenty of time to write, being compelled to
stay in the house instead of out-doors, as I did there most of the time.

XXX.

SANTA FE, N. M., May 16, 1893.

I HAVE now been here for over a week and have taken a good look at
Santa Fe, and I think, although you can find a description of the city and
its surroundings in any one of the advertisements of the Atchison, Topeka,
and Santa Fe R.B. Co., it will interest you to see it in my company as you
did El Paso. And as in that case we climbed up to the Mesa Garden for
a view of the city, we will in the present case climb the hill in the rear of
the Palace Hotel to the ruins of old Fort Marcy.

But before we start I must remind you not to walk at the same speed
as you do at home. You are now nearly eight thousand feet above sea
level, and the air is thin ; the only safe thing to do is to copy the native
Mexicans, who have all the time they want, and never go " faster than a
walk," as the signs read on dilapidated bridges.

I thought at first that the reason why the natives did not move any
faster was that they had fallen into the same pace as their burros ; but I
soon found out that even burro speed was too fast for me to keep my wind.

The Palace Hotel fronts on a broad avenue, and opposite is a square
covered with buildings used by the garrison for a magazine, wood-yard,
coal-shed, etc. We turn to the right of this, and soon reach a cluster of
adobe houses that line the foot of the hill on which the fort stands. This
hill is about two hundred feet high, and following a winding path, we in
due time get to the fort and enter from the rear, leaving the ruins of a
powder magazine on our left. We now find ourselves in the centre of earth-
works covering about an acre of ground ; these were the ramparts, and the
bastions where the cannon were mounted can still be traced.

We walk to the front and take a bird's-eye view of the capital of New
Mexico, the oldest city but one in the United States.

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 77

The fort stands upon one of the foot-hills of the Santa Fe Mountains,
which tower like giants at the east and extend to the north as far as the eye
can reach. But even they are overtopped by old " Baldy," with its head of
snow shimmering in the sun. To the westward, two or three ranges of
mountains wall in the plain, which extends southerly for miles and miles, to
be closed in by another wall of hills still farther distant than those of the west.

The city is situated in a natural basin, protected on all sides from dis-
astrous wind storms; and it is not strange that, long before a European had
put foot on the soil of New Mexico, the Pueblo Indians had one of their
most populous villages on this very spot. But no trace of the Indian pop-
ulation remains. The Spaniards have civilized and converted them out of
existence, and the last vestige of their buildings disappeared forever when
the ruins of this pueblo were made over by the government into Fort Marcy,
where we now stand. This is historical ground. One civilization has dis-
placed another, and history is repeating itself. As the Indian disappeared
before the Spaniard, so the Mexican of the present day is gradually disap-
pearing before the men from the North, and in two centuries from now no
more traces of the Mexican will remain in Santa Fe than we find to-day of
the Indians.

But let us take a look at the city spread out at our feet. The Federal
building, with its flag flying in the breeze, is right in front of us. It stands
in a large square surrounded by a stone wall, and in front of the entrance
we see the monument erected in honor of Kit Carson, who led the path-
finder, John C. Fremont, to the sunny plains of California.

In front of the Federal building is a wide avenue called Federal Street,
and on the other side of the street is New Fort Marcy; but New Fort Marcy
has neither ramparts nor bastions. It is bounded by four wide streets and
is intersected by a fifth, known as Lincoln Street. This street extends
from the Federal building to the palace, and along one side of the Plaza.
The headquarters, the parade ground, with its flagstaff and two old brass
cannon, the officers' quarters (where the houses occupied by General Grant
and General Hayes are pointed out to the visitors), and the barracks face the
west side of Lincoln Street, while the magazine and the governor's resi-
dence occupy the square on the east side.

The palace, which has served as the habitation of the Spanish viceroy,
and, later on, as the dwelling place of the Mexican governors, is now, as
said before, the official home of the Governor of New Mexico.

The Stars and Stripes fly at the masthead in the parade ground from sun-
rise to sunset, and it is a great consolation to see that flag flying when you
are away from home in a country as strange looking as that surrounding
Santa Fe.

78 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

And, while I think of it, I must tell you of something that made rather a
queer impression on my mind. A few days ago a new governor was inaugu-
rated in the capital of New Mexico. You may have heard that there was a
change of administration at Washington, and this event had to be celebrated.

Two companies of Uncle Sam's " boys in blue," the pupils of the Indian
Institute, the patriots of New Mexico who want offices, and others too
numerous to mention, marched in procession past our hotel, with banners
flying and a band at their head. But imagine my surprise when, for the
first time, I saw the defenders of our country adorned with the Prussian
helmet ! In my boyhood days I had seen them on the other side of the
water — the Prussians shooting at us, and we shooting at the Prussians — and
I don't wonder now that we got the worst of it, when their helmet has con-
quered even Uncle Sam. I think old Moltke must feel highly flattered, if
he looks down upon us from above, to see his lightning-rod on the top of
our boys in blue.

The old palace is an interesting building. It was built in the early part
of the eighteenth century, and from our standpoint on the old fort it looks
like a long, low house, out of all proportion to its height. In front of the
palace is the Plaza, and through the old trees we can just see the roof of the
pavilion where the band plays every day, and where Santa Fe promenades
every sunny day.

Palace Street is the Fifth Avenue of Santa Fe. Most of the stylish
residences line its sides ; but a little distance from these I made a discovery.
To see the city, you generally go over to the west side of the Santa Fe
Kiver, drive up the valley through the Mexican town, and return by Palace
Street, after crossing to the east side of the river on a bridge. Well, one day
we made this trip, and when within a half mile of the stylish part of the
street we discovered on our right a sign with the legend " Santa Fe Beer
Garden." We stopped, of course, and found ourselves in the Fatherland.
Tables under the trees, and a jolly fellow-countryman of mine ready to
serve his customers with pure Santa Fe lager and real St. Louis pretzels.
When he brought the lager, however, I was both astonished and amazed.
You have, no doubt, seen in Yonkers, in front of the establishments where
the juice of King Gambrinus is flowing, a sign with the picture of a tumbler
of huge size, saying, " Schooners, five cents." But even the schooners there
offered to the thirsty are not to be compared with those of Santa Fe. I
could account for it in but one way, namely, the climate here is exceedingly
dry, and to moisten the throat it takes a large quantity of fluid. In all
my travels I have never met as good measure, except in the Hofbrau, in
Munich, Bavaria, where his Royal Highness the King furnishes his thirsty
subjects with lager at so much a " stein."

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 79

The brick blocks that surround the Plaza are mainly occupied by the
sons of Abraham. Here and there modern churches and schools tower
above the low adobe houses. The cathedral, which is not yet finished,
occupies the site of the first Spanish church, and with the Sanitarium —
half hospital, half hotel — is on our left ; and old San Miguel with its
college, the convent of the Sisters of Loretto and its school, bring us
gradually to the Santa Fe River. Following the river-bed with our eyes (we
cannot follow the stream, because there is little or no water in it), we see to
the right and left fields and gardens and house on house in long rows ;
some of the natural color of the ground, others whitewashed and shining
brightly in the sun. On the hill-side at our feet we look into the rear of the
houses, and few are without wings on each end, connected by covered spaces
like colonnades, where the thrifty housewives can be seen, busy at the
washtub.

The Mexican town extends along the Santa Fe valley as far to the south
as you can see, and up to as well as into the canon, where is the reservoir in
which the water of the summer freshets (when the snow melts on the Santa
Fe range) is gathered to irrigate the valley. The Indian school is in sight
at the southwest, and the ruins of the Capitol building, which was destroyed
a few years ago, furnish another point for the eye to rest upon.

I have often wondered why in all the towns where prisons are located
the inhabitants point with pride to such institutions. Santa Fe has its
penitentiary, and it is shown to every visitor who gets in sight of it.

Orchards with budding trees surround the houses, and here and there
you can see the irrigating canals winding like silver threads through gardens
and fields.

We have seen Santa Fe in bird's-eye view ; now let us step down and see
it face to face.

The American town is like all others of its kind : brick houses two,
three, and even four stories high. Most of the old adobe churches have
been improved (?) one way and another, so that they are no longer the
antique structures I had seen in Juarez. The Mexican himself is no longer
the picturesque figure we met with in the south. He has adopted the hat,
trousers, and coat of the Americans, and you can see his counterpart any
time you take the trouble to look at the Italians in our town. But some
color is given to the place by the presence of the officers and soldiers of
the post, and now and then by a Pueblo Indian who rides or walks in full
dress through the town.

There is ' ' Buckskin " Charley coming down the street. He is a Namb6
who sells Indian curios to the guests at the hotels, and is a well-known
character. As his sobriquet indicates, he wears buckskin leggings and orna-

80 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

mented moccasons. He sits his black Indian pony as straight as a cavalier.
His beaded sash is wound around his waist, and his black hair is held close
to his head by a red ribbon.

But let us hurry on and get to the Plaza. The military band is going
to play soon, and we shall see the elite of Santa Fe in coaches, on foot, and
on horseback, promenading the Plaza and the streets that enclose its four
sides.

The Governor's Palace, as I said before, is on one side of the square,
and the pavilion is near it. From the soldiers' monument in the centre

radiate the paths lined with seats, and the seats are filled with old and
young. Sefloritas promenade in twos and threes, and the young married
couple from the North, who are on their wedding trip, find a seat, not con-
spicuous, in one of the paths that run at right angles to the streets ; they
are less used by the promenading beauties. Whole families, fathers, mothers,
and children, are seated among the listeners, and all the sunniest seats are
filled by dark-skinned Mexicans.

In the surrounding streets carriages drawn by stylish horses and driven
by liveried servants keep up their slow walk around the Plaza. Others, less
pretentious, follow at the same gait. Gentlemen on horseback join in the

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 81

procession, and with these you see some of the visitors who look as if they
had never been on horseback before. But the shining light in all this parade
is the young lieutenant who has just come from West Point, and who is,
by common consent, pronounced the vainest man in all New Mexico.

But let us take a seat in the shade of one of these old cotton woods. The
ground is covered, not with grass, but with bright green alfalfa. The band
begins, the coaches and riders gather in front of the palace, and the whole
scene is like a dream. I have never listened to good music without a long-
ing for home, so I will stop to have my day-dreams, and we will continue
our walk some other time.

XXXI.

SANTA FE, N. M., May 18, 1893.

LIKE all other tourists, we shall have to see the palace first. The long
colonnade extending from Washington to Lincoln Streets forms a sidewalk
in front of the building. It is, no doubt, modern, and is ornamented on the
edge of the cornice with a low railing, which makes a balcony level with the
roof. The western end of this building is used as a post-office, the centre
is the official residence of his Excellency the Governor of New Mexico, and
the eastern end is occupied by the Historical Society. We will look into
the last named.

\\ r first notice in the hallway a part of the trunk of a tree, about three
feet in diameter and two feet long, leaning against the wall. Looking a
little closer, we discover it to be a pet rifled tree in which every ring and fibre
of wood has been replaced by solid rock. It is the same old tree as when it
stretched its giant branches to the sky, but the dead stone has taken the
place of the live cells through which the life-giving fluids had circulated
long, long ago. I don't know but that this old stump, as a memento of
past ages, was very properly placed at the entrance to rooms where the
antiquarian of our time tries to preserve the relics left by former gener-
ations.

On entering the room, however, we feel disappointed. The collection
of antiquities is very unsatisfactory : a few cases of stone weapons used by
the Indians before the Spanish conquest, some old Indian pottery, and
oil-paintings taken from primitive Indian churches — no doubt the work of
pious monks — are about all there is. And the whole is not systematically
arranged, but old and new are put on any shelf where there is room.

In an adjoining room is a collection of native minerals of New Mexico ;
gold and silver ores, soft and hard coal, and even native coke, are repre-
6

82 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

sented. But all these specimens are heaped on the shelves in the same
way you see piles of stones arranged in a flower-bed to make a mound.
A register is kept of all the visitors ; so, following the custom, we set down
our names and residences, and with ciyic pride put Yonkers (written
large) before New York.

One of the most interesting buildings, next to the palace, is an old
house with adobe walls four or five feet in thickness, which is claimed to be
the oldest in Santa Fe. It is also said that its present inhabitant and
owner is a direct and lineal descendant of its builder. It has a baking
oven in front, and stands on one of the narrow streets that run substantially
parallel to and west of the Santa Fe Kiver, which we had crossed dry-
shod to reach the Spanish part of the town.

There is some difference in the look of the houses as compared with
those of El Paso ; namely, their extreme neatness, and comfortable
appearance. We hardly see a window without clean lace curtains and
the recess filled with blooming geraniums, which seem to be the favorite
flower here.

Each house has its garden, and as planting time is at hand, every one is
busy throwing up the ridges which form dikes around the garden-beds, or
carefully directing the flow of the water to spread it equally over the sur-
face of each bed, in order to insure an even growth of the grain or vegetable
which is to be raised.

The old orchards are in bloom, and I begin to think that, after all,
Santa Fe may be the " paradise of fruit growers," as I found it called in a
pamphlet prepared by some enterprising land speculator, and freely distrib-
uted among the visitors.

About a mile from the ruins of the Capitol (which the charitable people
of the city declare was burned down by the people of Albuquerque in order
to have the capital of the Territory removed to their town) is the Indian
training-school, established some years ago by the United States govern-
ment.

A large brick building with two wings contains school-rooms and dormi-
tories for about one hundred and sixty boys and girls. These are all ages,
from small children to young men and women twenty or more years of age.
The scholars in the class-rooms seemed to be highly interested in their
studies, and the superintendent assured me that their mental ability was
equal to that of white children of the same age. There are Pueblo, Navajo,
and Apache children all toiling together under the same roof, and the boys
and girls — the boys in military uniform and the girls in neat dresses — showed
their training when marching in the procession at the inauguration of the
new governor.

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

83

Since I have been in this neighborhood I have often thought how nice
it would be if I knew some Spanish. When I went to Juarez to see the
lottery drawing under the supervision of Colonel Mosby, the lucky numbers
were first called out in Spanish, and then, in stentorian tones by the
colonel, in English. All legal notices in New
Mexico have to be given in Spanish and Eng-
lish, and when the new governor made his
inaugural speech an interpreter translated
each sentence, as it was delivered, into
Spanish.

This continent is inhabited, in the main, by
English- and Spanish-speaking peoples, and it
looks to me, if any foreign language is of im-
portance to the English-speaking American, it
is the Spanish ; and I hope you will see if,
somehow or other, you can get for this most
important of languages a place in the curric-
ulum of our schools.

One feature of the Indian school that de-
serves special mention is that each boy is
taught some trade. There is a carpenter shop,
a blacksmith shop, tailoring and shoemaking;
and a hr-v area of the prairie en which the
school-buildings stand is highly cultivated.
All the work is done by the pupils under com-
petent instructors. The girls are equally well
taken care of, and those of the pupils who are
promoted are sent to Carlisle to finish their
education.

I met a young Apache boy who has been £r

in the Indian school for four years and who

expects to go to Carlisle shortly. His brother is one of the medicine men
of his tribe, and he intends to study medicine as the white men practise it.

XXXII.

SANTA FE, N. M., May 20, 1893.

AT last the weather has taken a turn for the better. The wind has
stopped filling the air with sand, and we have made arrangements to visit the
nearest Pueblo Indian village to see what the real Indian looks like at home.

84 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

We have a Yonkers colony here ; two-thirds of my partner's family and
one- third (the biggest, however) of my own. It is unnecessary for me to
introduce the travellers, as you are acquainted with them all, except the
artist who is the leader in our excursion. He bears the same relation to
Yonkers that a witty friend of mine declared, on a certain occasion, I held
to the State of Maine.

Several years ago some sons of the Puritans among my acquaintance
remembered that they had had forefathers, and concluded to celebrate Fore-
fathers' Day with a New England dinner. Your humble servant was
invited, as he supposed, to show the difference between the sons of the early
immigrants and the immigrants of the present day. But I found myself at
home at once when my friend introduced me to the company as a son-in-
law of the State of Maine.

The trip toTesuque is easily made in one day, and we will select Sunday,
as it is a gala day in an Indian village. Our company is a lively one. The
boys and girls on horseback take the lead, while the old folks follow in
carnages. Ours is drawn by two excellent ponies, named George Washing-
ton and Dolly Varden respectively, who travel along at a lively gait.

As we leave the Federal building behind us, we enter a valley in the foot-
hills overshadowed by the Santa Fe range, which, in turn, is overlooked by
the snow-clad peak of old "Baldy."

Let us take a glance at the country we are travelling through. Upon
the hills on our right and left, stunted pines, and juniper bushes of a deep
green, have taken the place of the pale sage brush of the prairie. The
mountain sides are covered with a richer growth of pines, through which
the white snow is just visible in the less dense parts of the forest ; but not a
blade of grass or other green thing is to be seen between the bushes ; nothing
but loose sand everywhere upon the surface of the ground.

As we move along the valley, we find that it is intersected by deep
gullies, which have been cut out by the heavy rains that at times fall in
this region like cloudbursts. As we gradually approach the level of the
foot-hills — the divide between the watersheds of the Santa Fe and the
Tesuque rivers — the valley narrows.

The artist calls a halt when we reach the highest point of the divide,
and before our eyes, under a deep blue sky, is a panorama that few others
can compare with in any part of the world.

On our right the Santa Fe Mountains extend in an apparently unbroken
chain for many miles. On our left, but at a much greater distance, another
chain of mountains, delicafc* as a veil, and dotted here and there by
patches of snow that shimmer in the bright sunlight, is just visible in the
blue mist. In the foreground the foot-hills with their deep green, broken

l\

17.

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 85

by the cliff-like rocks that project above them, extend to the point where
the two ranges seem to meet. And, away off in the distance, a black butte,
with its level top and vertical sides, looks like a mountain surmounted by
a fortress. Not a trace of the presence of man is in sight, except the road
leading down into the next valley.

But we have seen only a part of the picture ; on turning around and
looking toward the south we have a landscape of a different type. We
can just make out the steeples of the churches in Santa Fe, and the flag-
staff with the flag flying on the parade ground of Fort Marcy ; and, beyond,
the level prairie with scant gray vegetation, extending toward far distant
hills colored a deep green. We see the valley of the Santa F6 River, with its
long line of adobe houses reaching to the point where the stream disappears
among the hills at the right ; and the Cerillos Mountains which close in
the view. This landscape, bathed in bright morning sunlight, softened by
haze in the distance, presents a picture never to be forgotten.

I have seen paintings of mountain scenery by the most celebrated artists,
and have often wondered at their strange coloring ; yet this view at our
feet displayed colors that no artist will ever reproduce on canvas, be he
ever so skilful in the use of palette and brush.

The young people have not waited for the old folks, who are admiring
the beauty of the scene, and we see them trotting along away down in the
v;ilk v, now in plain sight, and disappearing again and again behind the
bushes by the wayside.

The bed of the Tesuque River, like that of all the streams we have seen
in New Mexico, is in a canon cut deep into the clay that fills the valleys,
and the little stream of water that we find seems out of all proportion to
its wide bed; yet at times, and not very seldom either, the floods swell
the river, and carve deep lines in the high banks on either side.

As we near the canon of the river, a Mexican settlement comes into view
on our right. An adobe church, with its front and belfry whitewashed
(the rest of the edifice being the color of the soil), forms the centre of a
cluster of adobe houses surrounded by fields and orchards, the latter just
beginning to show the first leaves and blossoms. Our road leads down into
the river-bed and out again on the opposite side, then up a steep incline to
the level land above. The water of the river is carried by a canal near the
foot of the hills, at a higher level than the river bottom. Adobe houses in
the midst of fruit trees and fields are scattered along the hill-side at our
right.

Now we cross a level plain and pass some fruit ranches where the adobe
is replaced by the modern brick dwelling, with a bay window made into a
veritable greenhouse filled with flowers in full bloom. Neat fences take the

86 LETTERS FEOM THE SOUTHWEST.

place of the rough ones made of cotton wood branches, such as we saw in
the Mexican settlement, and brick barns and stables succeed the low adobe
out-houses.

Here the road follows the curves and bends of the river, now skirting a
ploughed field, then a field covered with the stubble of last year's wheat crop,
and again winding over a dry plain thickly set with dwarfed pine and low
sage bushes. We cross many deep gullies, or arroyos, and occasionally an
irrigating canal which furnishes water to the cultivated fields.

One view will leave an indelible impression on my memory. When I left
El Paso I had decided to exchange the pen for the brush, and here, before
me on the road, to Tesuque, I find the very scene to immortalize on canvas.
As we descend into an arroyo that leads down to the gully of the Tesuque
Eiver it flashes upon our sight.

In the foreground on our right is an ancient cotton wood tree on the
edge of the river-bed. The rill of water is lined with alkali, white as the
driven snow and interspersed with green plots of grass on which a number
of burros are feeding. The far side of the river bottom is lined with green
shoots of cotton wood, and behind these ploughed fields extend up the side of
the hill. On a plateau half way up the hill-side are a number of adobe
houses flanked by lots fenced with brush ; these in turn are surrounded by
stunted pine and juniper bushes scattered over the sandy soil to the top of
the hill, where a rough cross planted in a pile of loose stones marks the place
where some unfortunate traveller has perished.

It is a picturesque spot, containing in a small compass all the character-
istics of the valley : the deep cut which forms the river-bed, the cultivated
fields and orchards, the adobe houses of that region, and the sombre
cross projected on the sky indicating both the faith and lawlessness of the
inhabitants.

The picture is not painted, and probably never will be, unless some day,
when I have nothing else to do, I should paint it from memory.

Wre leave this place behind us, and, after some miles travel, Ed points
out a white spot on the other side of the Tesuque. As we approach it we can
distinguish the whitewashed belfry of a little church in the Indian pueblo.
The river bottom is now nearly a quarter of a mile wide, and cattle and
goats are frequently seen feeding on the green grass in the river-bed. Our
road leads diagonally across it ; the church steeple and the dark gray
adobes become more distinct as we approach. On the left bank of the river
are orchards in full bloom. Old trees, testifying to the age of the settle-
ment, shade the houses. On top of the bluff we cross an irrigating canal,
and between rows of trees, with ploughed fields on either hand, enter the
pueblo of Tesuque.

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 87

At the entrance to the village we pass a small house, in front of which
a number of squaws are busily engaged making their youngsters present-
able. The long black hair of the boys and girls, dripping wet, shines in
the sun. The women are already dressed in their national costume, and by
their behavior it is plain that a visit from strangers is nothing new. We pass
the rear of the church, with its graveyard enclosed by an adobe wall. Here
and there simple wooden crosses mark the resting places of former generations.

The arrival of our party naturally creates some excitement in the village.
Numerous dogs rush out, barking and yelping at the strangers; the inhab-
itants step to the doors to see what is going on, and the boys and girls
gather around our party. The horses are tied to a manger that is sup-
ported by forked sticks, and our inspection' of the village begins. I will
first try to give you a ground plan of the place, and then a more detailed
description.

The pneblo proper encloses an oblong plaza, the little church and the
governor's house taking up one side ; the other sides of the square are
occupied by an unbroken line of two-story adnhe houses, some of which are
whitewashed, but most are of the color of the soil.

In my letters I have often attempted to give you a description of the
.Mexican adobes, but an Indian pueblo bears very little resemblance to them,
except as to color. The style of building we see here evidently dates back
to the time when the square village furnished the best means of defence
against the wild Xavajos and Apaches, who, from time immemorial, have
robbed and plundered the peaceful village Indians.

The outside of the square building — a vertical wall two stories high —
could be easily defended, and the square enclosed, should an enemy obtain
entrance, presents an equally good protection against attack.

The village house is two stories high, but the side facing the enclosure
is only one story high, and a roof, or gallery, covering about one-third of
the lower floor, extends all around the front. The wall which separates
the first row of rooms is carried up two stories, and so are the third and
rear walls, forming, as it were, three rows of rooms on the ground and two
on the second story.

As we now see the buildings, the rooms on the lower floor are entered
from the court, and those on the second floor from the gallery ; but in
olden times those on the ground floor were also entered from above.

To reach the gallery they have a number of ladders made of rough
timber and long enough to extend six or eight feet above it ; they lean, at
intervals, in front of and against each dwelling. The rungs, being from
sixteen to eighteen inches apart, are not the most convenient of stairs to
climb, and I was very much amused at the sight of two squaws helping a

88

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

little girl of three or four years up one of these ladders. The squaw above,
having hold of one of the child's hands, was pulling, and the one below was
pushing, while the little one hung on like a spider to a web, but was hardly
able to reach from rung to rung.

Our arrival, as was said before, brings the greater part of the population
to the doors and the edge of the gallery. We make our first call on the
governor of the pueblo at his house, which is next to the church and

separated from the main building by one of the entrances. He has just
completed his toilet. His coal-black hair is cut in the shape of a bang on
his forehead, and the rest hangs like the mane of a pony on each side of
his face down to his belt. He wears buckskin leggings and a flannel shirt,
and speaks English fairly. As we enter his dwelling the first objects to
attract our attention are three curved stones on which the squaws, even of
this day, grind the corn for their bread.

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 89

In a roomy fire-place is a girl in Indian dress, including leggings, her long
hair almost covering her backdown to the waist, baking tortillas (corn-cakes)
on a heated stone. On the earthen floor the skin of a cow is spread, and
upon it lie the remains of the carcass of a heifer, around which a small,
snarling cur is prowling, but he does not seem to dare to help himself to it.

Adjoining is the living and bod-room, lighted at the extreme end by a
small window. It has a small fire-place in the centre, on one side of which
is a settee made of a number of rolled-up blankets, and on them sits the
wife of the governor, nursing her pappoose. Two older people are seated
near her, and a number of youngsters who have entered with us help to fill
the low room. In one corner we notice a beam suspended from the ceiling,
on which is displayed the finery of the family, consisting of various articles
of Indian manufacture, such as squaw dresses, Navajo blankets, and belts
and sashes of divers colors. Our host exhibits a number of war clubs, loaded
with a stone at the butt end and ornamented with horse tails at the other,
which he offers for sale.

The two rooms are as clean as a pin and neatly whitewashed, and, after
\vt- have made some purchases, we are shown into a third — evidently a store-
room— where dried meat and hides of cattle and goats are hanging from
the ceiling. One of the squaws brings out a big basket full of idols made of
Itakcd day, and another basket filled with small pots and plates, from which
we make some selections, and then step out to visit the main building.

In the square we find two or three dozen Indian children, some of them
having pappooses wrapped in blankets or rags tied to their backs. The edge
of the gallery is lined with men, women, and children, most of them as well
dressed as those we saw at Ysleta. Bright colors predominate, and one
young squaw reminds me of a picture of " Rebecca at the Well " that I had
admired so often when a boy — it was in an old Bible. The picture repre-
sented a young woman with an earthen jar gracefully balanced on her head.
Just as we step out of the goveronr's house we see a young squaw passing —
evidently just returning from the irrigating canal — with an urn-shaped jar
upon her head. Approaching one of the ladders, she ascends it, keeping the
jar balanced, and walks along the gallery to one of the doors, where, taking
hold of the jar with both hands, she lifts it off and then enters.

We are invited to visit the artist who makes the idols. He goes to
work for our benefit to show us how it is done, and I must sav it is re-

•/

markable how quickly the lump of clay in his hands assumes the quaint
shape of the conventional Pueblo Indian idol, with its large head and open
mouth, its short arms holding a little pot, and its crooked legs encircling
the bottom. The room is well lighted and whitewashed, and the rear
wall ornamented with pictures of the Crucifixion and the saints.

90 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

As we want some Indian vases, we will climb one of the ladders and
enter the rooms above. Here an old squaw exhibits a lot of her ware,
assisted by a younger one, evidently her daughter, who speaks a little
English. We price some of the wares, and the young squaw offers them
for a " quarter" ; but when we agree to take them at that figure, the old
woman says something, either in Pueblo or Spanish, to the younger one,
and taking hold of the vase, says : "Half a dollar." She has raised the
price, but we carry them off at that figure.

In another house we are shown some squaw dresses of their own
weaving, such as they wear at their dances ; but these are not for sale, being
heirlooms that date back for generations in the families of their owners.

Almost every house is provided with an oven for baking bread and
pottery. They are usually located before the house, or on the gallery in
front of the entrances to the rooms in the second story, and they look
like clay bee-hives of mammoth dimensions.

The village and the people give an impression of contentment and thrift
such as I have never received elsewhere, and the cleanliness of the people
and the houses is the direct opposite of what one might expect from the
descriptions given by those who had visited some of the tribes farther north.

This pueblo contains from fifty to sixty people, who cultivate their land
and raise cattle, goats, and burros, like their Mexican neighbors, but retain
with the utmost tenacity the habits and customs of their forefathers.

After a stay of some hours we start on our return, making a halt after
crossing the Tesuque River, as the horses must be watered and the travellers
also feel the need of some refreshment. Our carriage has been well stocked
with provisions, so we will sit down on the bank of the stream, with the
gray Indian adobe before us, flanked by blooming orchards on the right
and left, and the high Santa Fe range behind us, and we will enjoy the
view and the lunch in equal proportions.

XXXIII.

SANTA FE, N. M., May 19, 1893.

As our trip to Tesuque, and the sights we saw, simply served to increase
our interest in the Pueblo Indians, San Ildefonso, another pueblo twenty-
four miles away, in the valley of the Rio Grande, was selected as our next
point to visit.

A few days before we started on this trip I had made the acquaintance
of one Facundo Sanchez and his family, who had given all of us a cordial
invitation to visit them at their home in San Ildefonso.

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 91

The house of Mr. Deraing, the artist, is a sort of headquarters for all
the Indians who visit Santa Fe. He has lived with the Indians for years in
the Northwest, and has also, as he says, been a "boarder" in Sitting Bull's
tepee for a whole hunting season; and his opinion of the Indian differs
slightly from that expressed by General Sherman. Ed is an enthusiastic
admirer of the red man, and looks upon the treatment of his red brothers as
the greatest crime ever committed by our government.

Sanchez had two sons in the Indian school, and was on a visit with his
wife and pappoose to see the youngsters. AVlion I entered the room where
lie and his family were seated, I was particularly struck with the pleasant
reception I had from both Sanchez and his wife. They knew that they
were in the house of a friend, and felt as much at ease as if they were in
their own home at San Ildefonso. They were dressed in their national cos-
tume, and the smiling face of the mother, although she understood not one
word of English, bore as pleased a look when we noticed the little pappoose
as would that of the most cultivated white woman.

The Pueblo Indian has long since passed the stage where the women are
simply the servants and beasts of burden of the "masters of creation.*' He
tills the ground and tends the cattle while the squaw takes care of the house
and the children.

The two Indian boys were dressed like white boys and looked bright and
intelligent, and they took a great deal of interest in the pain tings of Indian
scenes scattered about the room.

Among the Indian curiosities were a bow and a quiver filled with arrows,
which at once attracted their attention. They took them from the hook,
and the elder boy tested the bow with his fingers. In the rear of the house
is a yard, and to please the boys as well as ourselves we threw out a paste-
board box a distance of forty feet, and watched with interest while they
shot at it. The box was not more than six inches square, yet twice out of
three times the elder boy would send his arrow through it, while I could
barely succeed in shooting an arrow as far as the box.

Sanchez spoke English well, so during luncheon and afterward I talked
with him about village government, the crops, and irrigation on the reser-
vation, and found him an intelligent and well-informed man. He now
tendered his invitation, which was of course accepted, and early one morn-
ing shortly afterward we started on our journey.

The trip being too long to admit of taking the ladies, our party was
reduced to four. Our carriage was drawn by the two trusty ponies, "George
Washington " and "Dolly Varden." The artist and the amateur cow-boy
occupied the front seat, and my venerable partner and myself the back one.

The road to San Ildefonso is the same one that we travelled over when

92 LETTEKS FEOM THE SOUTHWEST.

going to Tesuque, but we stayed on the right side of the river, leaving
Tesnque on the left. The valley begins to widen here, and we see the indus-
trious Pueblos ploughing their fields and attending to their irrigating canals.

A field as level as a table, with a bare-headed Indian holding in a fur-
row a wooden plough of primitive construction drawn by a burro, is a novel
picture to a traveller who has heard all his life of the Indian only as a wild
man of the woods, with tomahawk in hand, scalps in his belt, and murder
in his eye.

The Tesuque reservation is quite extensive. Good farming and grazing
lands are on either side of the river-bed and in the arroyos in the Santa Fe
Mountains. But as we move on, the country becomes wild, the mountains
recede, the valley broadens ; red sandstone, fantastically carved, lines the
hill-sides or projects above the pine-covered hillocks. The plain in the
valley assumes to a greater or less extent the characteristics of the prairie.

Before we started from Santa Fe we had equipped our carriage for a
trip in the wilderness. Eifles, shot-guns, and revolvers formed the arma-
ment, and in cans, bottles, and bundles we carried our provisions. The
younger men were on the outlook for game, but had so far been unsuccess-
ful, when two owls, of the kind that live with the prairie-dogs and the rattle-
snakes, flew up on our right. Both the artist and the cow-boy jumped from
the carriage to kill them. The artist was ahead, and with two shots from
his gun slew both birds, and thus added two more specimens to the collec-
tion of the cow-boy.

But imagine our excitement when what we all thought to be a gray
wolf crossed our path. Our road was leading up a gentle incline between
two hills, when this animal crossed it a short distance before our horses.
He had evidently been over to the valley to get some breakfast, and was on
his way to his lair in one of the gullies or arroyos when we saw him. I tell
you he looked handsome as he trotted off and disappeared behind the low
sand hill on our right.

Carl grasped his rifle and jumped out on one side, Ed his revolver and
jumped out on the other, and even my partner took his gun and ran after
the wolf. (Henry had been a great hunter when a boy, and I guess his old
love for hunting returned and carried him off.) All at once I found my-
self alone. All three had disappeared over the knoll. I heard a sort of a
thud, but could not believe it was a shot, so I took it easy. The sun was
shining brightly on the sand, the supply of liquid provisions was ample, and
as I never had any ambition in that line, I felt entirely satisfied to sit there
as quartermaster and let the others chase the wolf.

And this reminds me of an incident of my boyhood which may have
something to do with my — aversion, I was going to say — to killing things.

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

93

When I was a boy ten or twelve years old we had in our little village as
minister an enthusiastic botanist. He was also a great French scholar,
and for a number of years he tried, very unsuccessfully however, to ham-
mer French grammar into my cranium. I suppose he did the best he
could in that line ; but when it came to the flowers in the fields and the
birds in the woods, his lessons bore more fruit than in the other line. I
began to collect plants, birds' eggs, and insects ; and when, later on, I
received instruction in the art of stuffing birds and beasts, my natural his-
tory collection took all my spare time, and even during vacation I was
busy from morning till night arranging and perfecting it. I bothered all

my friends to shoot
specimens for me to
stuff, until one day,
when my father was
going to the woods, he
said : " Why don't
YOU shoot your own
specimens ? " This was
an idea that had never

occurred to me, so I took a single-barrelled shotgun I had owned for years
and went along.

The valley in which our little farming village nestled was enclosed by
hills covered with thriving vineyards at the foot and low brushwood on
the top. The first bird I saw, a lark, was perched upon a pole to which
the grapevines cling. I fired and killed it. My excitement was so great
that I dropped the gun, picked up the bird, and running to my father
showed it to him. " Where is your gun ? " he asked ; after some search-
ing I found it in the bushes where I had fired at the lark.

The gun was reloaded, and we started on. After a while I noticed a
chippy hopping about in a low green bush, and concluded to bag it also. I
fired and hit the bird, but did not kill it. I had shattered both wings and

94 LETTERS FKOM THE SOUTHWEST.

mortally wounded it, no doubt ; but as I took it up in my hands it looked
at me with such mournful eyes that I have never forgotten it, and it was
the last time I ever fired at or killed a bird.

But to return to the wolf hunt. Soon things got to be tiresome, and I
concluded to follow the footprints of the wolf up the hill. They were
plainly to be seen in the loose sand, and he must have been a big fellow. I
followed the trail up the hill and around the top for about one hundred
yards, when all trace of it disappeared. I marked the last footprint, and
then pursued the tactics of the Indian, of whose sagacity I had read so
much, and circled around the mark at a short distance, examining the sand ;
but no more footprints could I find, and I gave it up as a bad job and sat
down on top of a sandstone butte that projected above the hill. There,
right in front of me, were the hills and arroyos of the Santa Fe range, and
way on top, some hundreds of feet above me, the form of a solitary hunter,
looking, as I had, for a trace of our wolf.

All at once I heard a shout. A long distance off the artist and the
cow-boy had spied me from the top of a sandy butte. They had found the
wolf dead under a juniper bush half a mile away. At the spot where I had
been looking for the wolf, he had been shot by Carl with his rifle, and the
jump he made when hit had carried him so far that I lost all truce of him.

The hunters with their trophy came along after a while, puffing and
blowing like porpoises. The hot sun and thin atmosphere had taken away
their breath ; and, what was worse, the gray wolf turned out to be a coyote,
a much smaller and less ferocious animal, but, still, game not to be
despised.

While the hunters followed the wolf, and I sat on the sandstone butte,
a lot of Mexicans had passed our carriage, and I did not notice them until
they had gone some distance beyond it. When the hunters returned and
in great distress inquired for the "Blue Grass, " it was gone. Without
doubt the Mexicans had annexed our flask ; but after a careful search it
was found under the seat, where it had slipped during the excitement when
all but myself jumped from the carriage. So, with a mental apology to the
Mexicans, the flask passed around, and all felt highly elated because we
four had killed a wolf.

Another specimen had been added to the collection ; and although I
myself failed to find his trail, I had discovered not a great ways from the
hill-top a lot of broken pottery, the remains of a jar. It was in a portion of
country that seemed to be a wilderness; it looked so desolate that 'you
could not imagine that anybody had ever lived there ; yet here were the
pieces of pottery, proving conclusively that the Pueblos had had a habita-
tion not far away.

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

95

Highly pleased with our success, we go on. The country is growing
wilder as we advance ; on our right the hills and mountains, with their
sandstone cliffs, grow higher and higher, while on our left the plain is fur-
rowed by deep canons cut into the thick soil of the valley.

By and by we reach a Mexican settlement. The valley had descended
gradually, and a new irrigating canal could take water from the river-bed.
Numerous curs receive us with their
snarls, and sefloritas look out of the
doors at the strangers.

Fields and orchards take the place
of the desert plain in the valley of the
Tesuque. The excitement of the wolf
hunt had distracted our attention from
the scenery. We are nearing the
mountain chain that we saw, enveloped
in a blue mist, from the divide. The
butte, rising a thousand feet above
the plain, is on our right hand, but the
blue mountains on the other side of
the Rio Grande are in front and seem
to close in the Tesuque valley. The
patches of snow on the mountain sides
look out of place in the warm sunshine,
and it is difficult to destroy the illusion
which the rocky cliffs produce — that
they are the ruins of dwellings built by
a race of giants ages ago.

The Indian village of San Ildefonso
is located in the fork of the Tesuque
and Rio Grande rivers. The pueblo is
almost hidden by the green trees that
line the irrigating canal. Herds of
cattle and goats, tended by Indian boys,
are scattered over the plain, and in the fields we see men busily engaged in
irrigating the land and carefully guiding the water over the surface. The
laborers are at work in rather scant dress, or undress : a flannel shirt, a
ribbon tied around the head — that is all !

We enter the village from the east and find ourselves in an oblong plaza,
with rows of one and two storied adobes on three sides, and a church, with
a wooden cross in front, occupying a fourth side. The same style of ladders,
the same ovens, and the same people we had seen in Tesuque meet us here.

96 LETTERS FEOM THE SOUTHWEST.

We stop in front of the house of our friend Sanchez, and are received
with smiles by his wife, he being away looking after his fields. His is a
one-storied house, with a gallery or veranda running the whole length of the
building. It is raised one step above the ground, and the roof is supported
by rough columns of cottonwood. Bright, clean windows light the interior,
and here, as in Tesuque, the doorsill is raised six or eight inches above the
floor — as I have seen it in the houses of the wood-cutters in the forests of
Bohemia. The room we enter is evidently the sleeping apartment. The
pelts and blankets which serve as beds are rolled up, and make a settee run-
ning the whole length of one side of the room ; and on a blanket spread out
in front of this impromptu settee sleeps the little pappoose we have seen in
Santa F6.

An adjoining room, furnished with a table, some chairs, and a bedstead,
was put at our service. The boys soon had all our baggage and provisions
in proper shape, and then the important piece of work, the skinning of the
wolf, is next in order. With the assistance of a young Indian, while
dozens of youngsters looked on, the job was quickly under way.

The horses have been unhitched and taken to the stable, the carriage
unloaded, and the harness hung upon pegs built into the adobe walls, and
we are ready to take a walk about the place while our hostess is busy
cooking the dinner. A few cottonwood trees planted here and there are
the only signs of vegetable life in the square. Close by is a shed under
which an old Indian is engaged in fitting a helve into an axe. Every once
in a while he swings the axe and makes a cut into the log on which he has
been sitting, and then goes at the handle again, cutting off some more, or
smoothing it to make it easy to his hand.

We take a walk over to the church at the other end of the square. It
is like all the others we have seen. The front wall is carried up like the
gable to a house with a pitched roof, and in two openings in this wall
the bells are suspended, while a wooden cross surmounts the highest peak.
The church is closed, and as we stroll on we reach the ruins of a structure,
no doubt a church much older than the one in use at present. The roof
has disappeared, but the enclosing wall remains, and the carved girders,
together with the carved wooden columns that support them, are well pre-
served. The ornamental carving upon these is of the same style I had seen
in the cathedral at Juarez, and was, no doubt, the work of some pious monk
who had helped to convert the heathen Indian to Christianity.

Between this interesting ruin and the Eio Grande are some fields. It
is planting time, and the male population is busy ploughing or irrigating the
land. The Rio Grande, a real stream here with water in it, flows peacefully
along, its shores lined with woods or meadows dotted with grazing cattle,

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

97

as fnr as the eye can reach. To the left, extending from the river bank to
the foot of the sand hills — a distance of a mile or so — we see cultivated
fields and green trees, with adobe houses resting in their shade.

To investigate the fields
surrounding the village we
take a walk outside of the
pueblo proper. A street
extends from the village
houses, and here, unexpect-
edly, we come upon the
council chamber.

The council chamber was
in olden time the centre of
the religious and social life
of the pueblo. The old men
of the tribe met there to
consult together upon mat-
ters of government, and the
medicine men and priests
performed their services to
the Great Spirit within its
walls. But the council
chamber even to-day has

lost little if any of the importance it had before the church at the other
end of the square was erected and the cross raised upon its belfry.

It is a circular adobe building, partly underground, and can be entered
only from above. Adobe stairs lead up to the flat roof, which is surrounded
7

s* -

98 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

by a wall two or three feet in thickness and as many feet high. Two
poles project above a square opening in the roof. We descend the ladder,
and find ourselves in a room lighted only by the opening through which we
have entered. It takes some time before our eyes beco'me accustomed to
the darkness and we are able to see the interior. We can make out the
rough column in the centre which supports the roof, and the heavy round
log, acting as a girder, extending from side to side, and embedded, like the
rafters, in the thick walls. Then we see a square fire-place, and the only
furniture of the room, a seat which is merely a projection of the wall about
two feet in height. The chamber is at least forty feet in diameter. There
are two round holes in the wall, opposite each other, one near the ground,
the other near the ceiling ; but though they may ventilate they do not help
to lighten the gloomy room.

It is a remarkable structure, unlike anything I have ever seen or heard
of, and there is no doubt that it was used by Pueblo Indians long before the
white man put foot on their soil.

As we leave the council chamber, an old man by signs invites us to enter
his house. Two squaws are at work making pottery — large vessels that
would hold more than a gallon. One of them is smoothing and polishing
a son-dried jar, while the other, squatted on the ground, is shaping another
on a stone in front of her. No wheel or tools are used. The soft clay is
built up, and then with one hand inside and the other outside she deftly
forms a circular vessel, so regular in shape that a superficial observer would
think it had been made on a potter's revolving table.

We add a few samples to our collection of Indian pottery, and return
across the square to the house of Sanchez, where we find the skinning of
the. wolf completed, and dinner ready.

In a corner of the guest chamber is a fire-place in which our hostess has
built a wood fire, cooked a beefsteak in a pan supported by a tripod, and
brewed coffee in a tin pot. These, with canned vegetables and other good
things, made a feast fit for the gods. We had left Santa Fe early in the
morning, and it was late in the afternoon before we reached San Ildefonso.

While we were taking our walk and refreshing the inner man we had a
whole drove of youngsters around us. The white man here is evidently as
interesting to them as they were to us, and they were made exceedingly
happy when Deming distributed a bag full of apples among them.

While eating our lunch I accidentally looked out of the window, and saw
that another crowd of youngsters, older than those in the house, were mak-
ing faces at the back of our carriage. No doubt one of them had discovered
that the smooth, well-varnished carriage reflected their faces, and the whole
troop had no end of fun. It is surprising, however, how these youngsters

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

99

carry others on their backs. At least one-third of those who were laughing
and scampering around the carriage had pappooses tied on their shoulders.
But it did not seem to interfere in the least with their movements, and the
puppooses never squealed, even when tossed up by their carriers to get them
a little higher upon their backs.

Shortly after dinner Sanchez came in and took us in hand to show us
all there was to be seen. We took another walk about the place, but could

not get into the church. The priest was away,
as he did not come to the pueblo but once or
twice a month. " Is he one of your own people,
or a Mexican ?" I asked. "Neither," said San-
chez; "he is some Frenchman or Irishman, I
don't know." Yet Sanchez's house was deco-
ra t ft 1 with religious pictures like the rest.

He also informed us that the next day they
were to have a dance, and if we stayed over we
might witness it. Now, here was a predicament;
i lie young fellows, of course, wanted to stay, and
after taking another look at the nice clean room,
the old folks concluded to do the same. When
we left home we did not know but that we might
stay over night at the pueblo, and we had brought
blankets enough to camp out with ; but it proved
an unnecessary precaution, as our hostess was well
provided with Navajo blankets, and ray partner
and 1 being old soldiers, we preferred a bed upon
the clay floor to the bedstead, which seemed not
strong enough to support the weight of two such
heavy men.

But there was a surprise in store
for us. When the sun went down
the Indians came in from the fields,
and preparations were made to prac-
tise the dance that evening in the " council house," and we were invited to
be present. Sanchez and his wife were to participate, one as a chanter, the
other as a dancer.

Shortly after dark we started for the council house. A thick cloud of
smoke was coming out of the hole in the roof through which we were to
enter. Right under this hole was a wood fire which furnished the only
light there was, and it seemed like entering the lower regions as we de-
scended the ladder with uncertain steps amid a heavy cloud of dense smoke.

:

100

LETTERS FKOM THE SOUTHWEST.

The smoky atmosphere, the sound of the drum accompanied by the
monotonous chant of the singers, the two rows of dancers revealed by the
flickering light of the fire, made up a scene as uncanny as the dance
Tarn o' Shanter saw in Alloway Kirk when his Satanic Majesty led .the
orchestra.

As our eyes get used to the light, we see a little more clearly the rows of
dancers, facing each other and keeping time with their feet to the beat of
the drum. A man and a woman, a man and a woman, eight or ten on a
side, each carrying green branches in their hands, and swaying to the right
and the left as the two lines at times slowly approach and then recede from

each other. At other times the two lines pass each other in the middle,
changing sides like the dancers in a set of the Virginia reel.

On the seat running around the chamber is seated the audience of men,
women, and children, but the darkness at that distance from the fire is so
deep that we sec only the merest outlines, and but little more of the dancers.
The sight was more weird than the liveliest imagination could ever produce.

We left before the dance was concluded. The smoky hall, after our
long ride, reminded us that we needed rest, and we soon retired, fully con-
vinced that the sight we had just seen had been viewed by few other visitors
to an Indian pueblo.

After a good night's sleep, we awoke in the morning and took a walk to

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 101

see the surrounding scenery. From our host we learned that there is a
tradition that long ago his people had their village on the bntte we had seen
from the divide, but it was such a long time ago that even the trail leading
up to it had disappeared.

In this clear atmosphere the mountains on the other side of the river
seem to be within a stone's throw, yet they are miles away. The ragged
sides cut up by deep valleys, the tops crowned with bold rocks, some over-
hanging the vertical walls; the patches of snow, interspersed here and there
l>\ -eanty growths of pines, with the bright morning sun illuminating
every projecting point ; the peaceful Indian village with its adjacent fields
and gardens, the river flowing at our feet — all combined to make a picture
grand and impressive to the beholder.

Our Indian friend next took us to the irrigating ditch and explained
their system of watering the fields, and how the "governor" and the old
men regulated the affairs of the pueblo. " How much land have you in
your reservation ? " I asked. " We have land on this side and on the
other." said he, "and since the government is in the East they cannot
take it away from us any more."

It seems that while Mexico controlled the country the right of the
Indian to the soil was never recognized, and their lands were taken from
them by the Spanish and Mexican settlers without much ceremony; and
there is evidently not much love lost between the two races to-day, although
they live next door to each other.

Deining is in full sympathy with the Indians. He feels very sore yet
about the loss of one of his horses, which was stolen, on his last trip to the
Apache and Navajo reservation, from his camp near a Mexican settlement.

Our guide had left us some time before to join the party who were to
participate in the dance, when the slow beating of a drum reminded us that
it was time to return to the plaza.

Near one of the trees we found a group of men, our host among them,
chanting in a monotone in time with the beats of the drummer. They
stood facing each other and forming a circle, while the drummer, outside
of the ring, faced a group of men and women who were dancing.

The sight we had seen the evening before had prepared us for the
present one. We viewed it then, as it were, in a cloud, while now the
sunshine brought out light and shadows to the astonished lookers-on.

The green branches and wreaths furnished the predominating color,
and the dresses of the squaws, the painted skins of the men, the rhythmical
motion in time with the chant, and the drum completed the scene.

The dancers, about twenty in number, half of them squaws and the
other half men, danced as they had in the council room, in two rows facing

102

LETTEKS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

each other ; and I must not forget two youngsters, a boy and a girl, ten or
twelve years of age each, who evidently were receiving their first instruc-
tions in the ceremony.

The chanters and the drummer wore their every-day dress — leather leg-
gings and flannel or cotton shirts ; their long
hair was tied tightly around the head with
a red ribbon or red handkerchief ; but the
dancers were in dance costume.

Let me try to give you a description, and,
as our hostess is one of the performers, let me
describe her costume. She, like all the other
squaws, was barefooted. A long dark dress,
or rather bag, reaching a little below the knee
and drawn over the right shoulder, the left
being bare, is fastened by a broad red sash
around the waist. The sash is tied in a knot
on the right side, and its long tassels reach
almost to the ground. It
is a fine specimen of weav-
ing, diagonal figures of
lighter color running
through the centre. She
also wears a number of
necklaces, and from one
depends a silver cross. To
describe her head-dress,
however, is not an easy
matter. It is a thin board
fitted to the head from ear
to ear, and projects upward
in three points a foot or
more above the head. It
is decorated with feathers
and fastened by strings
under the chin. In her
right hand she holds a
bunch of green twigs, and
in her left a string with little tin rattles that jingle at every movement.
All the squaws wear the same head-dress, and their gowns differ but little.
Some are more, others less, ornamented on their upper or lower edges.
The belts or sashes differ in shade and color, but the same description will

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

103

do for all. The men wear moccasons adorned with skunk-skin trimmings,
and a cotton skirt, held by a broad sash of unbleached cotton about the
waist, and reaching down to the knee. The broad sash, like that of the
women, is tied on the right side, and the long tassels almost touch the

ground. But the sash also holds a fox skin, which hangs down behind,
the fox's tail and hind legs swinging and swaying with each motion of
the wearer. The chest and arms are bare, but numerous white spots form
lines from the waist to the shoulders and down the chest. Other dots
extend from the shoulders to the hands. Bunches of green cottonwood

104 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

twigs are fastened by leather armlets to the upper arm, and another bunch
to the top of the head. In the right hand they carry rattles made from a
gourd, and in the left green branches.

The dance is the spring or planting dance, and, no doubt, dates back to
a time when it was performed to propitiate the Great Spirit and to induce
him to give fair weather to plant the crops. It was an acted prayer. And
the Indian squaw of to-day, with a rosary around her neck and a cross on
her breast, still worships her old gods.

To portray the motions of this group is, however, beyond my power.
The feet are lifted alternately from the ground ; the branches are in
motion ; the bodies sway forward and backward in unison with the weird
chant and the beat of the drum. Slowly the procession moves along ; the
chanters have formed in two lines, with the drummer ahead, following
the dancers, who have closed up and formed in couples, two bucks and
two squaws alternately. The first part of the ceremony is over, and the
actors in it retire, climbing a ladder to the upper story of one of the houses
on the other side of the square.

It is nearly noon and time to get under way if we want to reach Santa
Fe by daylight. Our horses are hitched ; we say good-by and leave the
pueblo, this time fully convinced that what we had seen bad not been a
theatrical performance.

I must relate yet another incident of the day before. After we had
made up our minds to stay over night we went hunting for Indian curiosi-
ties. We found some blankets, leggings, squaw dresses, and other wearing
apparel of Indian manufacture. One of the squaws brought out a cradle
of very ancient date, as proved by the wear of the rawhide straps by which
it had been suspended from the ceiling. After the purchase was made
Carl pointed to the pappoose in her arms and asked, " Quanta par este?"
(How much for it ?) The squaw looked at him in astonishment and
hugged the baby tightly in her arms, but when her first surprise was over
she started into a loud laugh, in which the people, young and old, joined
heartily when she told them that Carl wanted to buy the pappoose to put in
the cradle.

There is evidently a good streak of humor in that pueblo, and I can
imagine how they must have laughed in their sleeves when they had sold
their old trumpery to the white men for more than it was worth.

On our way back the young men had plenty of sport shooting wild
doves and quail, and this delayed us so that the sun was sinking in the
west as we neared Tesuque.

We had seen the Santa Fe range in the morning with the sun in the east.
When the sun now neared the horizon, the snow on old " Baldy " and on the

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 105

caps of the other mountains began to glow and assumed a light red hue,
which gradually changed to a deep purple as the sun went down, leaving
the high tops in the starlit night looking like tall black walls enclosing the
valley.

We reached Santa Fe an hour after sun-down, and had to trust to our
ponies to carry us safely by the deep cafions up to the divide and down into
the valley again.

XXXIV.

SANTA FE, N. M., May 25, 1893.

WE are again on the road, and our objective point is San Domingo, the
largest pueblo in the immediate neighborhood of Santa Fe. Our trip is
southward over the prairie. While passing the Indian school we see the
boys at play, and one youngster with bow and arrow hunting prairie-dogs.
The latter are very numerous about here. I saw them to-day for the first
time in their natural state, popping up from their burrows, sitting bolt
upright and looking at the passers-by, then disappearing in the twinkling of
an eye into the ground, to reappear a second later, the head only protruding
from the hole, watching and waiting till the coast is clear. Hundreds of
their hills are scattered over the plain, some close by the road, others
partly hidden behind the sage brush; and we see the little animals running
and scampering about everywhere. As it is early morning, they are out for
their breakfast. But right there on the top of a fence is a large hawk who
is out also for something to eat. He is intently watching the rodents, when
a well-aimed shot brings him to the ground — another specimen of New
Mexican birds.

The ride over the prairie is a monotonous one, varied only by the sight
now and then of a cotton-tail rabbit or a pair of wild doves, which furnish
sport for the two hunters on the front seat of the carriage. The level plain
gradually changes into a rolling surface. In the depressions green grass
is seen occasionally, and as we near the foot-hills of the Cerillos Mountains
we find flocks of sheep, numbering many hundreds, feeding on the scant
herbage.

The Cerillos are famous for their mineral wealth, and we see the miner's
footprints on every side. On the level surface and on the sides of the pine-
covered hills are shafts and tunnels, dug by prospectors in search of gold and
silver.

We pass some of the abandoned mines. The wooden houses and derricks
stand just as the promoters left them when, after a thorough investigation,
the ore was found to be unprofitable.

106 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

We enter the mountain range through a narrow pass, and find ourselves
at once in a wilderness of perpendicular rocks and deep arroyos. The road
at times is barely wide enough for us to pass around some projecting rock
on one side while a deep canon is on the other. In about the centre of
the range we reach Bonanza, an abandoned mining town, which but a few
months ago was full of life and business. But the stamps, mills, and
smelters are closed, boards are nailed over the windows, and we see but one
living inhabitant.

He is seated on the window-sill of a little frame building with the sign
"Post-office" over the door. Evidently all the others had left in despair,
but the postmaster had remained to draw his salary, which, no doubt, is an
extravagant one and worth holding on to. It is a depressing sight to see
an abandoned town — the houses and buildings showing no signs of life, no
smoke arising from the chimneys, and the whole place looking like a burying
ground with its monuments to the departed.

From Bonanza the road gradually descends to the valley of the Calisteo
Eiver. As we approach it, the canon we are travelling in grows deeper, and
the rugged sides close in, so that where the road leads out of it, the almost
vertical walls rise hundreds of feet above our heads. Our road in the canon
is the bed of a mountain stream which discharges its waters into the river,
and we soon find ourselves in a cut from ten to fifteen feet deep and a hun-
dred wide — the dry river bed of the Calisteo.

Our ponies climb the opposite bank, and we come out on the level
surface of a wide valley, and see right in front of us the town of Cerillo, a
station on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad.

We had made a trip over hill and dale of more than twenty miles, and
the sight of a sign — '•' Anheuser-Busch " — on one of the houses was like
seeing an oasis in a desert. But imagine our surprise when, on entering
the establishment, we found a fully equipped lunch counter in the rear, and
the feeling of relief we experienced when a well-done plate of ham and
eggs, garnished with a schooner of lager, was set out to refresh the inner
man.

Our equipment attracted a good deal of attention. We had a regular
battery of guns and rifles and a full supply of blankets, and one old man,
evidently a miner, after looking it all over said, as he turned away: "I
suppose you fellows thought you were to go on a bear hunt when you came
over here."

The best road to San Domingo is by the river bed, and a quarter of a
mile from Cerillo we entered it. The bed of the Calisteo is of the same
character, but much larger, and the grotesquely carved clay banks much
higher than the bed of the Tesuqne.

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 107

For miles and miles we drove on. At times a small stream of water is
trickling in circuitous line over the river bottom, covered with a thick layer
of alkali, white as snow.

Once in a while we would find a trail down the steep bank, where cattle
and horses made their way from the level above to the ditches filled with
soapy water ; but before long all traces of water disappeared, and the bed,
now several hundred feet wide, twisting and turning to the right and to
the left, is covered with a fine loose sand, piled up here and there,
and blown by every gust of wind, forming ridges like the waves of a
frozen sea.

The river bed, a canon cut in the clay, is as level as a table. In places
we ride on hard clay, while in others our wheels sink deep into drift sand.
The mountains on our right, hundreds of feet high, are formed of stratified
sandstone of varying color, from deep red to yellow tints, the different
strata running in parallel lines on the face of the rocks.

The vertical sides of the mountains, cut up by arroyos, project in places
like round towers close to the river bed. More sloping sides adjoin the pro-
jecting buttes.

On a point where the cafion is about one hundred feet wide it is spanned
by a wooden bridge. A pier built of logs like a log house, but having two
of its corners in the direction of the river, supports the two trusses which
rest on either bank. Up to ten or twelve feet above the bed, the logs are
covered with grass and brush, an evidence that not long ago, probably last
season, the barren waste we are travelling in was a rushing mountain stream
ten or twelve feet deep.

\Ve leave the river bed when within a mile or two of the pueblo. A pool
of clear water, confined by a dam, here furnished water for our team ; and
as we get out of the canon, we see, right before us, an Indian settlement
much larger than either Tesuque or San Ildefonso, but of the same general
appearance — one and two storied houses on four parallel streets — but with
many more houses outside of the pueblo among the fields and trees. Before
entering the village we cross an irrigating canal of considerable size, which
is fed by the Rio Grande, and furnishes water to a large area around and
beyond the village.

On the way we met a number of Indians, squaws and bucks, who had
evidently been for supplies to the next American village.

Following a well-beaten road we enter the pueblo from the east. We
go down a street, and, on turning to the left, are in front of the main street,
which is, no doubt, the original pueblo.

We hitch our horses to a feeding trough, and are immediately surrounded
by numbers of children, and are greeted by the old people with their " como

108 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

la va," as one after another comes up to shake hands. Deming, who knew
some of the Indians,, inquired for Juan Lavater, whom we soon found.

Lavater speaks English well. He has served the United States survey-
ors as interpreter, and speaks in addition to the Pueblo language, Spanish,
Navajo, and Apache. He is well to do ; owns a pair of horses and a good
wagon, and is the father of three black-haired youngsters of whom he is
exceedingly proud.

When he came over to the carriage with Ed, a tall squaw with a pappoose
on her back came with him. I was introduced and shook hands with both,
and when I asked Ed whether that tall squaw (she was taller than Juan)

ti

i

was his wife, he shouted with laughter. " Why/' he said, "it is his father-
in-law, and the pappoose is Juan's youngest baby."

There I had discovered a new use for fathers-in-law, and I rather
rejoiced that I was not a Pueblo Indian, as it did not seem exactly the
thing for a gentleman of my age to serve as a nurse-girl for his grandchild-
ren. I saw quite a number of other old men during our stay, who, like
Juan's father-in-law, carried the younger generation on their backs. As we
were talking to our friend, I took a look up the plaza, and there, coming
out of a council house about half-way up, were a troop of Indians walking
in single file. They marched to the middle of the square, then turned to
the right in the centre, and, marching a short distance, halted. We were

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 109

just in time to see another spring dance. " We are in luck," I halloed
to Ed, who was going with Juan to inspect the quarters he and Carl were to
occupy during the night ; and, sure enough, we had arrived just in time to
witness a performance similar to that we had seen in San Ildefonso. We
asked if we could go up to, and near, the place where the dancers had
stopped, and were told that we might.

The sight differed slightly from what we had seen. Twenty-five bucks
in dancing costume, with three musicians, led by an old, gray-haired
man wrapped in a gray blanket, had formed in line in the middle of the
square. The old man carried another blanket on his arm. He left the
head of the company, and in the centre, close to the line, he spread it on
the ground. The three musicians kneeled upon it ; each had a large gourd
open at the bottom, and with a smaller hole on top, which he laid on the
ground. Each had in his left hand a notched stick, and in his right
another one, which, when drawn across the notched stick resting on the
hollow sphere, produced a deep sound like the pronunciation of a string of
letter r's by a Frenchman.

The twenty-five dancers, all ornamented alike, stood facing the musi-
cians. Each dancer wore a breech-clout, held by a broad sash with long
tassels nearly touching the ground, and moccasons ornamented with skunk
skin ; a rattle was in each right hand, and a cottonwood branch in the
left. The legs were bare, and painted with white rings ; and wide stripes
of a white color, which looked not unlike suspenders, went up from the
belt, over the shoulders, and down to the fox-skin on the back.

The armlets on the upper arms held bunches of cottonwood, and a
wreath of green leaves hung down to the middle of the chest. In place
of the head-dresses of cottonwood we had seen before, were eagle feathers
fastened to the top of the head.

A funny incident interrupted this stage of the ceremony. A strong
breeze was blowing from the west ; and one of the ornaments, which had
been imperfectly secured, was blown from the head of a dancer. The
leader, the old gray-haired Indian, chased it down the plaza until he
got the feathers from a youngster who had intercepted their flight.
Then he returned to his position behind the musicians, and the dance
began.

The musicians draw their sticks, the dancers shake their rattles. The
next movement, the dancers turn around and begin to chant. All face the
east, as if starting on a march, and commence to lift their feet in unison
with the sounds produced by the notched sticks. The tempo increases, and
the dancer on the left slowly turns around until he faces the west. As soon
as he has completed this motion, the second dancer performs the same

110 LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST.

movement, and so on through the whole line, till the last Indian has faced
about, and has danced there some time.

When the tempo of the music and of the chant changes, the dancer on
the right turns slowly till he faces the east again, and one after another
all the others change their position. This is repeated again and again,
the column first looking to the east, and then to the west, while the
leader, who is carefully watching the motions, from time to time corrects
some of the performers who are evidently not well enough drilled to
please him.

After about twenty minutes the tempo grows gradually slower, and at
last the chant and the music cease altogether. The musicians rise, the
leader picks up the blanket from the ground, puts it over his left arm,
and steps in front of the column. They march away in single file, and
about one hundred yards further on the same ceremony is repeated.

"What is the old man who leads the band ?" I asked Juan, who stood
on my right. " I don't know in English," he answered ; but I have no
doubt, as he is not the governor of the pueblo, that he is the chief medicine
man of the tribe.

San Domingo has over eight hundred inhabitants, and is a much
wealthier pueblo than either of those we had visited before, and content-
ment and thrift appear to be its principal characteristics.

But the dancers and musicians make only a small part of the picture.
The whole population have gathered to see the dance. Along the houses
in the square, and up on the roofs, the interested spectators in their pict-
uresque dress are lined. But not a smile on any face ; all are as sober
as if at a church meeting, and yet we have seen them laugh as heartily as
white people, when Carl asked the price of the pappoose.

The dance surely had not been prepared expressly for the strangers ;
it was a relic of the past ; and, during the whole performance, I did not
see a single Indian who took any notice of the four white men who watched
their motions with the greatest attention and interest. It was a picture of
unusual brilliancy ; the dancers were almost nude, the musicians kneeling
on the ground, the spectators on the plaza and on the roofs, dressed in
many-colored blankets and dresses. Youngsters and old people, with
pappooses tied on their backs, recalled the description of a scene in far-off
Japan that I had read some time before, where the young people are
actually trained to carry their little brothers and sisters.

It was a bright bit of color, far superior to any I had ever come across
in all my travels. San Domingo has three council-houses, exactly like the
one we had seen in San Ildefonso, and, as Juan told me, " The old men elect
the governor," who is almost an autocrat. " How do you elect the gover-

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTHWEST. Ill

nor?" I asked. "The old men," said Juan, "know best who should be
governor, and they select him."

The sun was sinking in the west, and it was time to start, if we wanted
to return to Santa Fe that day. A drive of three miles brought us to
Wallace, a station on the A. T. & S. F. Railroad, which, as Juan told us,
was on the reservation of the San Domingo Indians; and there at six o'clock
we found a freight train, which landed my partner and myself in Lamy
about eight, and, after waiting for some time, the train on the branch road
brought us to Santa Fe about midnight.

The young men stayed at San Domingo over night as guests of Lavater,
and they witnessed the next day the erection of a bridge across the Eio
Grande, which, had we known about it, we would certainly not have missed,
had we to stay a week instead of a single night.

It is no use to cry over spilled milk. I have seen so much that was new
and strange, that one scene more or less is of little consequence.

My trip West has opened a new world to me, and it has changed my
views of the Indian completely. Grander sights than I had seen can cer-
tainly not be found in any part of the globe, and a trip to New Mexico
furnishes the same pictures that are seen in Egypt and the East; yet, while
hundreds travel to Palestine, few visit the seats of the oldest civilization on
the western continent.

To-morrow we start for home, and I will say good-by to Santa Fe and
the pueblos, with the hope that I may see them again.

Yours truly,

R. ElCKEMEYEE.

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