WITH THE INVADER: 
 
 GLIMPSES OF THE SOUTHWEST. 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARDS ROBERTS. 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO: 
 
 SAMUEL CARSON & CO., PUBLISHERS. 
 
 18S5.
 
 Copyright, /SSjr. 
 
 SAMUEL CARSON & CO., 
 
 San Francisco, Cal. 
 
 " * .JVjr&iisXeserf'd..* 
 
 C. A Murdoch & Co., Printers.
 
 F7 
 
 /S85" 
 
 TO 
 
 M. A. R. 
 
 cc 
 
 ro IN MEMORY OF IDLE 
 
 ^ WANDERINGS IN MEXICO, THIS RECORD 
 
 OF TRAVEL IS AFFECTIONATELY 
 
 DEDICATED BY 
 
 HER SON. 
 
 Si 
 
 815371
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The Railway is to-day the modern invader of the Southwest. 
 By its advent has been made possible that of the Americans. 
 Probably the region is being overrun for the last time by foreign- 
 ers; and the last comers are the ones from whom the country 
 will derive its greatest blessings. 
 
 The following chapters do not pretend to contain exhaustive 
 information. They are the result of a carelessly planned and 
 leisurely executed journey, and describe nothing beyond what 
 every traveler may easily see and learn. 
 
 The Southwest, vast and historically interesting, has a brilliant 
 future. Time, money and labor are necessary for its ultimate 
 development, but already the land of prehistoric people, Spanish 
 conquests and curious legends is beginning to assert itself. 
 
 When the future witnesses a realization of the present prcdic- 
 tions, and when the Southwest is as familiar to the many as it 
 now is to the few, this volume may at least be historically inter- 
 esting as containing a picture of Spanish America as it was 
 in 1S84. 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 San Francisco, Cal., Dec, 1884.
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 Page. 
 
 I. Romances and Realities of the Southwest, 5 
 
 II. To the Pueblo Stronghold, 24 
 
 III. America's Oldest City, 45 
 
 IV. Into the Heart of the Southwest, ... 69 
 V. A Mexican Metropolis, 88 
 
 VI. In the Footsteps of Coronado, .... 106 
 
 VII. A Seaport of Old Mexico, 122 
 
 VIII. With the Franciscan Fathers, .... 138
 
 WITH THE INVADER! 
 
 GLIMPSES OF THE SOUTHWEST. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Romances and Realities of the Southwest. 
 
 BEFORE the Pilgrims landed upon die shores of 
 New England; when Manhattan Island was a 
 wilderness; before Virginia and Florida had seen 
 their first European; in the years of the supremacy of 
 Spain in Europe; when Cervantes was a child, and 
 before Milton, Shakespeare and Bacon were bonr; 
 before, in fact, America was known to the world, or 
 Columbus had begun to dream that it existed, the great 
 Southwest, which may properly mean to-day that por- 
 tion of country embraced by New Mexico, Arizona, 
 Northwestern Texas, Southern California and upper 
 Old Mexico was peopled by a race of men who not 
 only enjoyed a high degree of civilization and had 
 towns and cities of great size and importance, but who 
 were versed in the sciences, who had a regular form 
 of government, and who cultivated their lands in a 
 manner most approved of at the present day. 
 
 Who these early settlers in this section of America
 
 With the Invader. 
 
 were is not clearly known. It has not been determined 
 whence they came nor whither they went. 
 
 Whether it be true that all races came originally 
 from the "Atlantis" of Homer, and that the Toltecs 
 and Aztecs and Indians of the West and Southwest 
 once inhabited that island supposed to exist opposite 
 the entrance to the Mediterranean; or that the original 
 inhabitants of the Rio Grande Valley were an indige- 
 nous people, or that they migrated to the far west from 
 Egypt, matters but little, and is, after all, only a ques- 
 tion of interest to the closest student of history and 
 mythology. 
 
 That the works of art left by the Toltecs and Aztecs 
 resemble those found in Egypt and in Peru, is indis- 
 putable. But whether the west supplied the east or 
 vice versa is a mystery which has not been affected by 
 the most learned theories and investigations. The 
 events of the past are clouded by time; the record of 
 prehistoric changes was never written. The Incas of 
 Peru, the Aztecs of Mexico, the Pueblos of Arizona, 
 the Utes, Apaches, Arapahoes, and the Delawares of 
 the north may claim kinship with the Esquimaux 
 around the north pole, or with the dwellers by the 
 waters of the Nile, and none can dispute with them, 
 for the past is all a blank. 
 
 But whoever the people were, they had advanced 
 to a power and an excellence in the sixteenth century 
 which was phenomenal. In 15 16 Hernandez Cortez 
 reached the shores of Old Mexico and landed at Vera
 
 Romances and Realities of the Southwest. 7 
 
 Cruz. Fighting his way northward, and everywhere 
 impressed with the power and wealth of those whom 
 he desired to conquer, he found in the city, now known 
 as the City of Mexico, a population composed of men 
 who were skilled in the arts and sciences and who 
 had built themselves a capital which might well have 
 belonged to any of the countries of Europe. 
 
 Later on, when Montezuma, the emperor of the 
 Aztecs, had been slain and the Spaniards had overrun 
 his land, other explorers from Spain marched still 
 farther toward the north into New Mexico and Arizona, 
 discovering in these countries the same great advance- 
 ment and high civilization. 
 
 They found canals irrigating the lands, prosperous 
 villages, rich mines, large cities, and a people who had 
 evidently inhabited their present homes for many cen- 
 turies and who were still enjoying the benefits of their 
 early teachings. There was in fact, a nation in the 
 new world which was a surprise to the Spaniards when 
 they first discovered its existence, and which has been 
 the wonder and the admiration of succeeding genera- 
 tions. 
 
 The achievements of the people were not as great 
 in New Mexico and Arizona as they were in Old 
 Mexico to be sure, and in the north there was no one 
 who equalled Montezuma, nor cities that could com- 
 pare in size and magnificence with that in which the 
 Aztec chieftain lived. But the Indians who inhabited 
 the various villages, and who were conversant with so
 
 With the Invader: 
 
 much that one would naturally suppose they would 
 know nothing of, were interesting objects of study to 
 the Spaniard three hundred years ago and at present 
 lend an attractiveness to the region which is as great as 
 ever before 
 
 There is a certain glamour about Spanish America, 
 as the Southwest is sometimes called, which acquaint- 
 ance does not dispel, but frhich it rather intensifies. 
 Not only are its history and traditions interesting, 
 the more so perhaps because so vague and full of 
 conjecture, but its subjugation was attended with so 
 much that is romantic, that its history from 1540, the 
 date of the first invaders visit, to 1720, the year when 
 Spanish rule began to grow commonplace, reads at 
 times like the fabulous tales of an active imagination. 
 
 It seems incredible, when the truth is realized, that 
 there could possibly have been this great empire in 
 existence, when the rest of America was practically a 
 wilderness. One has to read the story of Spanish 
 discoveries again and again before understanding the 
 importance which the southwestern people had attained 
 when it is generally supposed that Europe alone was 
 creating history and that the rest of the world was un- 
 inhabited. 
 
 So strange is the story and so unreal does it at first 
 appear, that for years it was forgotten and from the time 
 in which the records of adventure and discovery were 
 prepared by Cortez and his followers to the day when 
 attention was attracted to the country on account of
 
 Romances and Realities of the Southwest. 9 
 
 its great riches, the Southwest was forgotten and its 
 history overlooked. There were vague ideas enter- 
 tained regarding it. It became a land of myths and 
 shadows and unrealities to the majority, and only the 
 few were conversant with its peculiarities and with its 
 achievements. 
 
 Prescott resurrected an interest in Mexico for a 
 time, and by the vividness of his descriptions of the 
 Spanish conquest created a reality out of the mythical 
 Montezuma; and von Humboldt did much to render 
 the distant land more actual. But it has been reserved 
 for the modern invaders of the country, the Railways, 
 to bring it into the present. To the iron bands which 
 now stretch out and over the land of strange events and 
 stranger features is due the general knowledge which is 
 being so rapidly disseminated. It is not idle prophecy 
 now to predict that in a few years Spanish America's 
 history, people and appearance, will be as familiar as 
 Europe or as the rest of America. We may not come 
 to know everything which has happened, down in this 
 strange corner of our continent, and it is more than 
 likely that many of the present mysteries will remain 
 mysterious for all time to come. But in the future, 
 now that they are brought so near the East by the 
 railways, Santa Fe, the Rio Grande Valley, the Pueblos 
 of Taos, Zuni, and Santo Domingo, Chihuahua, Mex- 
 ico City, Guaymas, and the relics of Arizona will 
 seem less shadowy and unreal, and more like what 
 they are — tangible realities having an existence ante-
 
 io With the Invader: 
 
 dating that of our Jamestown, our Plymouth and our 
 New York. 
 
 Before the railway which now penetrates the south- 
 west was built, the Santa Fe Trail was the only road 
 leading to Santa Fe and to the various sections of 
 country about that ancient metropolis. Early in the 
 present century fabulous tales were told in the East 
 regarding the treasures of the land of the Hidalgos, 
 and in time a line of travel was followed by various 
 pioneers which led westward from the Missouri River 
 across Kansas and down the centre of New Mexico. 
 Never freed from dangers, the old Santa Fe Trail was 
 the scene of many a hardship and privation, and the 
 guides, who piloted heavy trains composed of wagons 
 loaded with goods consigned to Santa Fe, performed 
 deeds of valor and bravery which have made their 
 names famous throughout the land. 
 
 It was in taking parties to Santa Fe that Kit Carson 
 gained his great renown. The reverse of anything per- 
 taining to the novelistic hero, Carson was never known 
 to shrink from danger, or to glory in his achieve- 
 ments. The best scout that ever walked the prairies of 
 the Far West, and a man absolutely without fear, he 
 performed the hazardous duties which devolved upon 
 him without a murmur, and when his work was ended 
 his only wish was to be buried in a quiet yard at Taos 
 near the scenes of his daring exploits. Another hero of 
 the trail was Frank Aubry, a man of medium stature 
 and slender proportions, but of iron nerves and in-
 
 Romances and Realities of the Southwest. n 
 
 domitable courage. He was an excellent scout and 
 did much for the safety of those engaged in business 
 with the Spanish city. Still another hero was Colonel 
 A. G. Boone, a grandson of the famous pioneer. He 
 was considered the best linguist of any of the scouts, 
 and is said to have been able to speak all the Indian 
 languages. 
 
 During the days when these several guides were most 
 actively employed, the business transacted over the 
 trail between Santa Fe and the East assumed gigantic 
 proportions. It is estimated that 4000 people were 
 engaged in it at one time and the capital employed 
 reached into the millions. The wagons were driven 
 four abreast, and each caravan started out under con- 
 trol of a captain, whose power was absolute. At night 
 the wagons were drawn up in a circle around a camp 
 fire and selected sentinels took turns in keeping watch 
 over their sleeping companions. When nearing Santa 
 Fe', men were sent in advance of the wagons to engage 
 warehouses and make contracts, and the arrival of the 
 caravan was signalized by a general holiday. 
 
 The profits of the Santa Fe' business were enormous. 
 Nothwithstanding the heavy duties levied by the Mexi- 
 cans upon all goods brought from the States into New 
 Mexico, men were sure that the profits would more 
 than balance all expenses. It was this fact that caused 
 so many to engage in the hazardous undertaking. No 
 dangers seemed too great to chill the enthusiasm 
 which prevailed, and to-day one may see from the car
 
 12 With the I? wader. 
 
 windows of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe trains, 
 the deep ruts marking the course of the canvas covered 
 wagons which once moved slowly to and from the 
 City of Santa Fe. 
 
 The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad is the 
 pioneer line into the Southwest. With but slight devia- 
 tions, it closely follows the old trail, whose importance 
 it destroyed, and the existence of which first suggested 
 the idea of building a railway into Spanish America. 
 With the completion of the new road has come an 
 absolute cessation of the hardships and dangers which 
 formerly were the accompaniment of every trip to the 
 region of precious ores and curious features. To-day 
 one may travel in a comparatively short space of time 
 from the Missouri River to the Gulf of Mexico in a 
 Pullman car, over the land which witnessed many a 
 battle less than a century ago between the Pathfinders 
 and the Indians, and where, three centuries ago, the 
 restless Spaniards waged fierce wars against the origi- 
 nal owners of the valleys, plains and plateaus. Santa 
 Fe' is now no longer an isolated and unknown city, for 
 it, El Paso del Norte and Chihuahua and the towns 
 scattered along the valley of the Rio Grande, are on 
 the great iron highway which reaches from Vera Cruz 
 to Kansas City. 
 
 The changes of the past ten years, if not the last half 
 dozen, have been phenomenal in the southwest. The 
 treaty by which Mexico gave to the United States her 
 vast possessions, is bearing fruit at last. The predic-
 
 Romances and Realities of the Southwest. ij 
 
 tion of von Humbold'. that the wealth of the world 
 would be found to exist in the Southwest is on the 
 verge of realization. In a quarter of a century from 
 the present time it is not unlikely that Spanish America 
 will produce enough to add most materially to the na- 
 tional wealth. That which has been done is but a 
 suggestion of what will be. No one to-day can begin 
 to realize what the future has in store for New Mexico 
 and Arizona. The actualities, great as they are, do 
 not compare in importance with the possibilities. 
 
 There is no need to fear that the constant arrival of 
 foreigners will overtax the capacity of the United 
 States to provide for them, when the size of the South- 
 west is considered. New Mexico is larger than New 
 England and New York and Pennsylvania together; 
 and Arizona is larger still. There are more than thirty 
 millions of acres of land in these two territories await- 
 ing settlers; and only a fraction of the country has yet 
 been developed sufficiently to disclose its rich mines 
 of valuable ore. 
 
 With the almost assured growth and development 
 of the country to nourish it, the present railway need 
 have no doubt as to its ultimate financial success. It 
 has the best route, and is first upon the ground. 
 Pushed far beyond the limits proposed by its earliest 
 progenitors, the road has been the creator of business. 
 Towns have sprung into existence because of its arrival, 
 and mines have been worked because capitalists knew 
 they had an outlet for their ore. As the Denver and
 
 14. With the Invader. 
 
 Rio Grande Railway did more than is generally 
 acknowledged to develop Colorado, which it covers 
 with a network of lines, so the Atchison has been of 
 material benefit to New Mexico. It has brought that 
 country within easy reach, and has made possible its 
 development. 
 
 In penetrating the Southwest, the Atchison, Topeka 
 and Santa Fe was built across Kansas, along the banks 
 of the Arkansas River, and through a region of great 
 fertility. At La Junta, sixty-three miles east of the 
 town of Pueblo, in Colorado, it divides itself into two 
 distinct lines, one extending westward to the Centen- 
 nial State, where connection is made with the roads 
 through Colorado and the western territories to the 
 Pacific Ocean, and the other reaching almost due 
 southward, over the Raton Mountains, into New Mex. 
 ico, Texas and Arizona. In February, 1867, forty 
 miles of the railroad were in operation; in 1870 it was 
 completed to Emporia, Kansas, and in 1873 had 
 reached the Colorado line. In 1876 Pueblo was en- 
 tered, and in 1878 Trinidad, New Mexico, became the 
 southern terminus. Santa Fe was reached in 1880 
 and Deming in 1881. 
 
 At the latter town in Southern New Mexico connec- 
 tion is made with the Southern Pacific Road which 
 leads through Arizona and Southern California to San 
 Francisco. Another important connection is at Albu- 
 querque, New Mexico, the eastern terminus of the 
 Atlantic and Pacific Railway. This road is built across
 
 Romances and Realities of the Southwest. ij 
 
 Northern Arizona to the Colorado River, and there has 
 control of a line extending into California as far as 
 Mojave on the Southern Pacific Road. At El Paso, 
 Texas, the Atchison joins the Mexican Central Rail- 
 way. The latter line has been completed during the 
 present year (1884) and is one of the most important 
 roads yet constructed. It extends from El Paso del 
 Norte, a little town in Mexico built upon the banks of 
 the Rio Grande River, and directly opposite El Paso, 
 Texas, to the City of Mexico. Built by the same men 
 who constructed the Atchison, Topeka and- Santa Fe', 
 and in close harmony with it, the Mexican Central 
 seems but an extension of the Atchison, and does in 
 reality form with it a grand international line nearly 
 3000 miles in length. 
 
 Besides these connections the Atchison, Topeka and 
 Santa Fe has numerous branches of its own which are 
 feeders to the main line, and by which important sec- 
 tions of the Southwest are reached. At Las Vegas 
 there is a short branch to the Hot Springs, six miles 
 west from the old Mexican city, and at Lamy another 
 branch of the road extends into the hills of New 
 Mexico to Santa Fe. At Nutt Station, in Southern 
 New Mexico, a line has been completed to Lake Val- 
 ley, twelve miles away, where are located several 
 mining properties of great value. The product of one 
 of the Lake Valley mines for the last six months of 
 1882 was one million dollars. 
 
 At Deming a line fifty miles in length has been built
 
 1 6 With the Invader: 
 
 to Silver City. This is one of the oldest towns in the 
 southern part of the territory, and has a population of 
 about 3000 people, who are mostly engaged in mining. 
 The famous Santa Rita mines are near Silver" City, and 
 Georgetown, a progressive camp, is only eighteen miles 
 distant. The stage connections of the Atchison road 
 are also numerous. They reach every known town 
 of any size or importance, and Concord coaches or 
 wagons meet the various trains. 
 
 Kansas City, perched upon its high bluff overlook- 
 ing the muddy waters of the Missouri, marks the limits 
 of the middle west and is the great central starting 
 point of all who are bound for the Southwest and 
 Mexico. Behind one lies whatever is of the East, 
 while before is the extended, expansive West, with its 
 freshness, its wealth, its attractions and its romances. 
 Escaping from the city, with its ceaseless rush born of 
 an almost unequaled vigor, and riding rapidly toward 
 the setting sun, one begins his long journey across the 
 levels of Kansas with a feeling of rest and buoyancy 
 which is only experienced where nature, and not man 
 alone, is the chief attraction. The Missouri is barely 
 out of sight before Kansas begins to exert its (harms. 
 Broad, cultivated fields stretch away in every direction 
 and there is evidence everywhere that the doubt which 
 once existed regarding the future of the State has been 
 dispelled by the achievements of the present. 
 
 Kansas to-day is wealthy, and its future is most 
 promising. Having a length of four hundred miles
 
 Romances and Realities of the Southwest. rj 
 
 and a width of two hundred, it contains 52,000,000 
 acres of land and a population of nearly 1,500,000. 
 At the Missouri the elevation above the sea is barely 
 400 feet; at its western extremity, along the borders of 
 Colorado, it is 4000. Admitted to the Union in 1861, 
 and having a most eventful history, the State at pres- 
 ent is the great farming country of the west. Along 
 the railway, towns have appeared in rapid succession, 
 until there is left not even a suggestion of the barren- 
 ness formerly existing. 
 
 The improvements in the last ten years are manifold. 
 The valuation has increased with wonderful rapidity. 
 In 1S73 tne rc were 2,530,769 acres of land under cul- 
 tivation, valued at $28,311,200. In 1883 there were 
 1 1,062,080 acres cultivated, with a valuation of $102,- 
 °4-.-455> an increase in acreage in ten years of 8,531,- 
 311 acres, or 335 per cent. In the production of 
 cereals there has also been a large increase, as follows: 
 
 1876. i3s 3 . 
 
 Wheat, bushels, - - 11,738,408 28,958,884 
 
 Rye, - - • 3.441,189 5,084,391 
 
 Corn > " ... 82,308,176 182,084,526 
 0ats > " ... 12,386,216 30,987,864 
 
 In 18S3 the State produced 6,002,576 tons of hay, 
 and 102,042 acres were planted with sorghum. The 
 latter product is of vast importance. Sugar plays an 
 important part in national and domestic affairs. In 
 1 88 1 the sum paid for it amounted, with imports, 
 to $57,000,000, more than the value of all the bullion 
 produced in the same year. The staple furnishes one-
 
 18 With the Invader. 
 
 fourth of the amount received for import duties, and 
 the demand is increasing more rapidly than our popu- 
 lation. Sugar is obtained from Cuba, Porto Rico, the 
 Sandwich Islands and other countries, and only about 
 twelve per cent is of home production. 
 
 The sugar cane and beet have hitherto furnished 
 this home supply, but the cane is subject to early frosts 
 and is seldom fully ripened, even in the semi-tropical 
 Southern States. It cannot be depended on. The 
 sugar-beet furnishes thirty per cent, of the sugar con- 
 sumed by civilized nations, but requires special soil 
 and fertilizers, careful cultivation and an abundance of 
 rain, which must come at a certain time. The Amer- 
 ican beet-sugar belt is confined to a comparatively 
 small portion of certain Northern and Middle States, 
 and can never become our chief dependence. 
 
 Sorghum is a plant that with care may supply not 
 only the wants of this country, but those of others. It 
 belongs to the great family of grasses, and is nearly 
 related to sugar cane and Indian corn. The first Chi- 
 nese sorghum — which is the best adapted to sugar pro- 
 duction — was introduced into the country in 1853 from 
 France. During the civil war it greatly helped to sup- 
 ply the deficiency in our sugar imports, and in Ohio 
 and Illinois "sorghum-molasses" was made in large 
 quantities. In 1876 it was again brought into notice 
 by the Northwestern farmers. In 1878 it was experi- 
 mented with scientifically by Professor Collier, of the 
 Agricultural Department, who continued his investiga-
 
 Romances and Realities of the Southwest. 19 
 
 tions for five years. His conclusions, stating the best 
 varieties of sorghum adapted to various sections of 
 country, the amount of sugar in the juice of matured 
 plants, the length of the period during which the juice 
 contained a profitable amount of available sugar, and 
 the height and weight of sorghum at each stage of its 
 development, raised at once an interest in the project 
 of making the plant available. 
 
 From that time on the interest in the question has 
 increased, and the number of acres planted with sor- 
 ghum has more than doubled. Raising sorghum is 
 now an important industry. 
 
 In 1883 Rio Grande, in New Jersey, produced 282,- 
 711 pounds of sugar and 55,000 gallons of molasses, 
 from the plant, and Champaign (Illinois) 160,000 
 pounds of sugar and 40,000 gallons of molasses. In 
 the same year 48,271 acres of sorghum in Kansas 
 yielded 447,859 tons of cane and 4,684,023 gallons 
 of syrup, valued at $2,058,127.60. Of the 102,042 
 acres planted, 53,771 were for forage cane, an excel- 
 lent diet for cattle. 
 
 There are 20,071,741 fruit trees in Kansas, and in 
 1883 the sum of $11,988,801 was invested in manufac- 
 turing. The product of the mills was valued at $30,- 
 249,360. The value of animals slaughtered and sold 
 for slaughter in the year ending March, 1884, was 
 $31,067,200. In 1883 the wool clip amounted to 
 3,774,915 pounds. In 1884 there were 1,206,297 
 sheep and 461,136 horses in the State, besides 1,500,-
 
 20 With the Invader. 
 
 ooo head of cattle. Grass is luxuriant and nutritious, 
 and the increase in live stock is continuous. Kansas 
 is a stockman's paradise, and in late years there has 
 been a large importation of liner grades of cattle than 
 were previously known. 
 
 The State is also a rich producer of coal, lead, zinc, 
 salt and gypsum. Veins of coal have been discovered 
 that measure from three to four feet in thickness, and 
 the supply is practically inexhaustible. Salt abounds 
 in large quantities, and a species of limestone has been 
 found that is particularly well adapted for building 
 purposes. 
 
 Kansas originally was a dry country. Away from 
 the valleys, watered by shallow streams, the low hills 
 were covered with short, dry grass, and it was supposed 
 that none of the cereals could be grown. Now, how- 
 ever, water has been found at a depth of less than fifty 
 feet in many places, and every year the farms are 
 being pushed farther toward the west. By irrigation 
 large tracts of valuable land are being reclaimed. Col- 
 onies have been established on the plains in rapid suc- 
 cession, and though the average rainfall is very slight, 
 farmers do not suffer from drought. At the present 
 time new settlers are daily arriving from abroad, and . 
 are purchasing sections of land belonging to the Atch- 
 ison road. 
 
 Once away from the more thickly settled parts of 
 Western Kansas, one begins to notice these pioneers 
 who are so rapidly reclaiming the boundless plains.-
 
 Romances and Realities of the Southwest. 21 
 
 Their houses stand grouped about the simple church, 
 and the fields are freshly broken. Here is a town of 
 industrious Germans, sure of success, and again one 
 hardly knowing whether it is to exist or not. The 
 questionable, however, of last year, is generally the 
 assured of the year to come. Talk with whomever he 
 may, one cannot fail to find hope and confidence most 
 generously distributed. For those who have lived 
 abroad, in constraint and among hardships, Kansas is 
 an El Dorado. It gives blessings to all that deserve. 
 Once doubted, questioned and maligned, it to-day has 
 proved its worthiness, and is reaping the reward of 
 actual merit. 
 
 It has been said that traveling across the plains is 
 monotonous. To the many it may be, but to the few 
 at least the journey has its charm. Beyond the town 
 of Coolidge, near the western boundary of Kansas, the 
 country begins to lose its cultivation, and on both sides 
 of the road treeless prairies stretch far away into the 
 distance. The view of the horizon is unobstructed, 
 and between it and the observer are gentle undulations, 
 brown and bare, over which roam vast herds of cattle, 
 adding materially to the wealth of the State. 
 
 There is a stillness lingering about the motionless 
 billows of earth and a freshness to the breezes blowing 
 so strongly that is most exhilarating. One gains a rest 
 of body and of mind. He has time for reflection and 
 for meditation. Stopping at a station, with only the 
 undulating wastes in sight, the wind whistles around
 
 22 With the Invader. 
 
 the car with the musical cadence with which it blows 
 through the rigging of a ship at sea. There is the 
 same sense of isolation experienced as when upon the 
 ocean. One notices every passing object; it may be 
 a herder on his horse, or a dugout, or a coyote, or a 
 group of prairie dogs; or possibly the train may run 
 past a herd of cattle, or a flock of sheep, or up to a 
 red-roofed station-house, where roughly-clad men are 
 lounging, waiting to see if a passenger stops at their 
 new home in the West. 
 
 As daylight begins to fade and the shadows of eve- 
 ning come creeping slowly over the quiet region, the 
 last golden rays of the setting sun flood the grasses 
 and tip the low hill-tops with golden hues, while the 
 sky has an intensified coloring added to it, and high 
 above are arrows of brilliant light shining upon the 
 toiling train and the broad, flat acres. Later, when 
 the lamps are lighted, one knows that out in the inky 
 darkness the feeding herds of the land stand, wonder- 
 ing what strange being of moving lights it is that goes 
 shrieking over their long-neglected country. 
 
 The entrance of the Atchison road into New Mexico 
 is by a pass over the Raton Mountains. Leaving La 
 Junta, in Colorado, and passing almost due south, over 
 the famous grazing lands extending eastward from the 
 base of Pike's Peak, the range which divides Colorado 
 from New Mexico is encountered. 
 
 In one direction stretch the prairies, while beyond 
 them, toward the west, £re seen the snow-capped sum-
 
 Romance and Realities of the Southwest. 23 
 
 mits and the deep-blue sides of the Rockies, lifting 
 themselves skyward like a wall of defiance to further 
 progress in that direction. High above all its fellows, 
 and whitest of all its neighbors, is Pike's Peak, that 
 landmark of '59, toward which so many adventurous 
 pioneers drove their canvas-covered wagons when the 
 Colorado excitement was at its height. 
 
 It is a grand old picture, this of the Rocky Moun- 
 tains, full of bold outlines and changing colors, and 
 one gains an idea, at least, of what the ruggedness 
 there is like as he begins the ascent of the Raton hills, 
 with their deep canons and frowning heights and bared 
 rocks hanging over the passing train. 
 
 When the Atchison road was first constructed it 
 climbed over the Raton range by switching back and 
 forth up the steep grades which had to be overcome. 
 During the last few years, however, a tunnel has been 
 driven through the crest of the mountains, that lessens 
 the grades, and one is plunged into this, after being 
 pushed and pulled by two heavy engines to it, before 
 the northern slope of the range is overcome and New 
 Mexico is entered.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 To the Pueblo Stronghold. 
 
 |\TORTHERN New Mexico is a region of plains, 
 * covered with immense herds of cattle, ranches, 
 
 and sheep. The southern part of the Territory is a 
 land of mountains, mines, secluded valleys, and wa- 
 tered basins that have a semi-tropic climate. In the 
 north the conversation of the residents is of cattle; in 
 the south, of mines. Crawling carefully down the 
 Raton Range into this old-new country, the trackless 
 prairies are seen extending to a measureless distance in 
 the east, and westward to where a ridge of mountains 
 has been forced out of the flat levels. 
 
 In the south lies the territory of promise and of 
 late fulfillments. With an average breadth of 335 
 miles, and containing 121,200 square miles, the coun- 
 try, which saw its first European in 1530, reveals its 
 attractions long before the Raton Range begins to 
 fade from sight. From the town of Raton, the centre 
 of the rich coal deposits of Colfax county, to Las 
 Vegas, one of the important stations of the Santa Fd 
 Trail, the railway has hardly an obstacle to overcome, 
 and there is but little variety to the topography of the
 
 To tlu- Pueblo Stronghold. 25 
 
 country. Except the mountains, extending along the 
 western borders of the Territory, there is not a hill in 
 sight. High over the cattle-dotted plains, with their 
 varying hues of brown, red and green, arches the deep 
 blue sky, rivaling in splendor even that of Italy, and 
 breezes, strong and invigorating, giv£ one vitality to 
 enjoy the novel scenes. 
 
 The elevation of Northern New Mexico is 6000 
 feet — a height that gives clearness and freshness to the 
 air. Let the sun shine with what lustre it will, one 
 rarely experiences discomfort in the shade. Gazing 
 across a stretch of fifty miles to distant heights, there 
 seems but half that intervening space. The clearness 
 of the atmosphere destroys distance. As for the col- 
 orings nature is bedecked with, one must see New 
 Mexico to appreciate them. There is a mellowness 
 and richness which cannot be described. Even the 
 faintest hues grow intensified in the strong light, yet 
 never become glaring. The first glimpse of Spanish- 
 America had in the ride southward toward Las Vegas 
 is not one of disappointment. That which was ex- 
 pected is present. Vast, curious, mystical and bril- 
 liant, the broad levels lead one on to that which is 
 stranger and more interesting still. 
 
 New Mexico is very rich. Not only are its mines 
 productive, the value of their yield for 1882 being 
 nearly $4,000,000, but within its borders arc more 
 than 10,000,000 sheep and 700,000 head of cattle. 
 The wool clip for 1882 was 30,000,000 pounds. There
 
 26 With the Invader. 
 
 are still 20,000,000 acres of land which can be irrigated, 
 and whose productiveness is unquestioned. Sections 
 of the Rio Grande Valley have been cultivated for 
 two hundred years without the aid of fertilizers. 
 
 Eighty bushels of corn and fifty bushels of wheat to 
 the acre, are ojily average crops. There are to-day 
 more than 2000 farms in the Territory that cover an 
 area of 450,000 acres. Fruit growing is becoming an 
 important industry. The grapes, apples and pears 
 raised in the Rio Grande Valley are easily grown, and 
 find ready markets in the East. It is estimated that 
 enough fruit can be grown in the south to supply a 
 large proportion of the Eastern cities. The soil of the 
 country is good, and the Rio Grande Valley is grow- 
 ing every year more populous and better cultivated. 
 The Indians inhabiting it have never suffered from the 
 lack of fruits, and to-day their orchards may be seen 
 lining the banks of the river as far north as Taos, fifty 
 miles above Santa Fe. 
 
 Agriculture, fruit growing, dairy farming and other 
 like industries, however, are still in their infancy, and 
 the region at present depends almost entirely for its 
 reputation on its mines and grazing lands. As a min- 
 eral producer and field for stock raising, it has few 
 equals. With a climate of such exceeding mildness that 
 there is practically no winter, and with an abundance 
 of room and water, New Mexico will easily maintain 
 its position. Millions of dollars are already invested 
 and the capital employed is yearly being added to.
 
 To the Pueblo Stronghold. 2J 
 
 Many ranges, owned by stock companies and by 
 individuals, contain from 10,000 to 250,000 acres. 
 Formerly the largest ranch was "Maxwell's." It com- 
 prised 2,000,000 acres, and a part of it was sold by 
 Maxwell for $1,000,000 to a company of Holland 
 capitalists. They sent over an agent to examine the 
 property, who reported that the land was covered with 
 squatters whom it would be difficult to remove. Later 
 a young man named Sherwin organized a corporation 
 known as the "Maxwell Grant Company," to which 
 the Holland capitalists gave a deed of their property, 
 taking a part of the stock in the new concern in pay- 
 ment. The other shares were sold in this country to 
 several prominent men in Chicago and the East. 
 
 Sherwin was chosen manager, and built himself a 
 magnificent house near the town of Springer, a few 
 miles north of Las Vegas. Immense sums of money 
 were spent on his castle-like dwelling, and he lived like 
 a prince. A year ago he was arrested by the Dutchmen 
 on a charge of swindling them, and has only lately 
 been released. What effect his troubles will have can- 
 not be told now, but it is hardly possible that the prop- 
 erty will ever be divided. It is of great value and 
 contains almost priceless water rights. 
 
 Near Springer there may be seen across the plains 
 to the east of the railway the home of Dorsey, of Star 
 Route fame. He at one time owned his vast ranch 
 lands alone, but the expenses of his trial so beriously 
 crippled his purse as to oblige him to form a stock
 
 28 With the Invader. 
 
 company to hold his possessions. He has now asso- 
 ciated with himself in a company that has over 
 $1,000,000 capital his former counsel, Robert G. In- 
 gersoll, and John B. Alley, a retired leather dealer of 
 Boston. Dorsey is the only one of the three living on 
 the ranch. He has erected a house which has every 
 conceivable comfort, and at which he entertains with 
 lavish hospitality. Ingersoll is to build himself a 
 home near by. And if many more men of money 
 and mark adopt New Mexico, the Territory will be- 
 come the rich man's paradise, rather than the cow- 
 boy's pasture. 
 
 Besides these more famous ranches, there are many 
 smaller grants which still contain their Mexican settlers 
 and original towns. A ranch near Las Vegas con- 
 tains a village of several hundred inhabitants, church, 
 school house and scattered adobe dwellings. Riding 
 across these several properties, which in most in- 
 stances have no visible dividing line between them, 
 there may still be seen the humble homes of the Mexi- 
 cans whose houses, contrasted with those lately erected 
 by the Americans, are most humble. Built of sun- 
 dried clay, known as adobe, and consisting usually of 
 but one room, serving the purposes of a numerous family 
 without regard to sex, they are browned by the sun of 
 the years, and lie scattered over the broad fields like 
 dog kennels in a pasture. Round about them stretch 
 the prairies, so lately without price and now so valua- . 
 ble, and near them runs the railway, bringing its new
 
 To the Pueblo Stronghold. 2Q 
 
 life into the region and disturbing the listless quiet 
 that formerly reigned. 
 
 There has been much written about ranching, and 
 many alluring figures given. Sifting the statements 
 for facts, enough is now known to warrant the asser- 
 tion that the business of cattle and sheep raising is 
 usually one of great profits and quick returns. Not 
 only is there at all times a market for hides, wool and 
 pelts, but the increase in stock is enormous. 
 
 One must, however, calculate upon diseases, inclem- 
 ency of weather, low prices, taxes, labor and other 
 losses and expenses. There must also be had sufficient 
 capital. Profits do not come at once. At present the 
 best lands are well occupied, and water privileges, 
 without which ranges are of little use, are scarce. 
 
 The question of water was once much more import- 
 ant than now. One acre with a spring was worth more 
 than a thousand without. It was feared that there 
 might be a lack of water, and the question of adequate 
 supply was only answered when it was found that 
 wells could be dug capable of supplying any need. It 
 is now believed that the plains, hitherto regarded use- 
 less, may be rendered valuable by artesian wells. If 
 this be true, New Mexico will have many arable acres 
 added to it, and there will be a large increase in the 
 number of small farms and ranches suitable for raising 
 fancy stock and to use as dairy farms. 
 
 The farther one goes into New Mexico, the more 
 numerous are the objects which have an interesting
 
 jo With the Invader. 
 
 history and association. In populating their country 
 the first inhabitants did but little to give an historical 
 attractiveness to the north. Their largest settlements, 
 battles and mines were all in the south. Kansas, Col- 
 orado and Northern New Mexico have between them 
 hardly one object which is ancient or interesting. Nor 
 have the later comers, unless an exception is made in 
 favor of the Santa Fe Trail scouts, woven a web of 
 attractiveness about the region. From Kansas City to 
 within a short distance of Las Vegas only the new and 
 the achievements of the present are the salient features. 
 
 But once over the plains, and gradually nearing the 
 central portion of the Territory, the past begins to 
 reflect itself in the present, and in various directions 
 there are objects discernible which have a romantic 
 and interesting history. A few miles south of Springer 
 the railroad approaches nearer the western range of 
 mountains, followed from Raton, and the country be- 
 gins to have its hitherto flat surface broken by isolated 
 hills extending into the plains from the ridge beyond. 
 
 Two of the most conspicuous of these treeless ele- 
 vations, which are blue in the distance, but dull brown 
 on nearer investigation, give to a small station the pe- 
 culiar name of Wagon Mound. It was during the days 
 of the Santa Fe Trail, as the story is told, that near 
 here the Indians, always ready to dispute the passage 
 of traders' wagons, attacked a train of emigrants. Lying 
 in ambush, and, making a sudden and sharp onslaught 
 upon their enemies, they murdered all the people,
 
 To tin- Pueblo Stronghold. 
 
 3* 
 
 stole the stock and piled the wagons in a broken heap 
 upon the crest of one of the flat-browed hills. 
 
 PUEBLO OF TAOS. 
 
 Fifty miles west from Wagon Mound, and reached 
 by stage, is the town of Taos, a typical Mexican village, 
 occupying the head of Taos Valley, one of the best 
 watered and most prolific producing sections of North- 
 ern New Mexico. It has long enjoyed a life of ex- 
 treme simplicity and laziness. Whatever its past popu- 
 lation was — and Taos was once a city of importance — 
 it has now but few inhabitants, and these pay but little 
 heed to the affairs of the outside world, from which 
 they are so isolated. From the plaza of the village,
 
 32 With the Invader: 
 
 with its weed-grown walks and deserted air, narrow 
 streets lead out among flat-roofed adobe houses, and 
 beyond them may be seen the mountains which sur- 
 round and protect the valley. 
 
 In the little cemetery of Taos, occupying a bit of 
 ground just beyond the town limits, Kit Carson is 
 buried. The man who rarely knew a peaceful day has 
 chosen a quiet resting place. Except the rustling of 
 the sun-baked grasses growing over his grave there 
 is an utter stillness about the spot. Round about 
 one stretches the fertile valley filled with soft shad- 
 ows and overlooked by snow-capped peaks, while a 
 few miles to the north stand the castle-like mounds 
 which have been for centuries the home of the Pu- 
 eblo Indians. 
 
 The Pueblos of Taos, two miles outside the town, 
 are very old. They were discovered by Coronado in 
 1540, and since that date have changed but little in 
 general appearance. Resembling from a distance two 
 feudal castles, they are in reality a collection of adobe 
 houses piled one on top of the other in promiscuous 
 heaps, each having a height of not less than forty 
 feet. In its earlier days the village was surrounded 
 by a high adobe wall. This has fallen to the ground, 
 however, and only odd, crumbling portions of it re- 
 main. 
 
 Between the two mounds runs Taos Creek, coming 
 down from the neighboring mountains and flowing 
 through a grove of cottonwoods, which are resorted to
 
 To the Pueblo Stronghold. jj 
 
 by the Indians of the town. Sitting in the cool shade of 
 these trees and by the side of the loudly murmuring 
 brook, a picture is formed by the Pueblos which can 
 never be forgotten. Far away is a deep blue sky, cloud- 
 less and brilliant, and through an opening in the trees 
 forming a rustic frame, are the two brown castles, out- 
 lined against the heavens, and often having a gaily 
 dressed inhabitant seated on the roof of his home and 
 lending a bit of gaudy coloring to the scene. Past one 
 go the people of the strange village, dressed in their 
 primitive costumes and attending to their simple duties, 
 who recall with vividness that romantic past when the 
 tribe had a power, long since lost, and when the Pueb- 
 los had double their present population of a thousand 
 people. 
 
 A peculiarity of the architecture of Taos is that 
 entrance to all the houses is by ladders leading to the 
 different roofs and thence into the interiors. What 
 light there is in the small, clean homes comes through 
 round holes cut in the walls, and the piazza of one 
 family is the roof of another. There is no attempt at 
 order in the way the houses are piled together. 'A child 
 could not construct with his blocks more irregular 
 piles than are these of Taos, and the two mounds are 
 full of angles and irregular lines, while the people, 
 climbing their ladders and diving in and out the top 
 doorways leading to their homes, give one the impres- 
 sion that the pueblos are villages inhabited by swal- 
 lows.
 
 34 With the Invader. 
 
 The agility with which the old and young climb the 
 peculiar stairways is something most astonishing. The 
 ladders are old and shaky, but such condition does 
 not deter the youngest and strongest nor the oldest and 
 weakest from going up and down them with frightful 
 rapidity. The women, who do most of the hard work, 
 crawl to their house-tops laden with heavy jars of water 
 or earthen dishes filled with corn, and never make a 
 false step, and as for the children they run up and 
 down the rounds and hardly touch their hands to the 
 ladders in going either way. 
 
 The people of Taos are quiet, industrious and thrif- 
 ty. They till the lands which they own and raise 
 large numbers of sheep, cattle and goats. The great 
 festal day is on the 30th of September, when the grand 
 fete of the year is celebrated. Songs are sung, games 
 are played, and sheep are slaughtered. Everybody 
 eats until there is no longer stomach accommodation 
 for more, and the men of the tribe run races over the 
 plaza between the two pueblos. The bodies of the 
 racers are naked and painted in varying colors, and 
 the house-tops are covered with invited guests from 
 other villages, who group themselves in picturesque 
 masses wherever standing room is offered. 
 
 The surface of New Mexico is diversified, and is 
 covered with table-lands, mountains and valleys. The 
 table-lands rise one above the other in sharp terraces, 
 and range in altitude from 5000 feet, in the south and 
 east, to 7500 feet in the north and northwest. Out of
 
 To the Pueblo Stronghold. 25 
 
 the table-lands rise lofty mountains with heights vary- 
 ing from 10,000 to 12,000 feet. From the mountains 
 canons and valleys cut their way through the table-lands 
 toward the far off sea. 
 
 Elevated above the country sufficiently to obtain a 
 bird's-eye view of it, one would see what a net-work of 
 mountain chains and isolated spurs there is. Coming 
 down from the snow-capped peaks of Colorado, two 
 extensions of the Rocky Mountain system reach their 
 long arms into New Mexico, and south of where they 
 end rise detached formations, which may be traced as 
 far as Texas and old Mexico. 
 
 At Las Vegas the Atchison Road begins to meet the 
 heights that have to be overcome before the southern 
 parts of the Territory are reached. Las Vegas itself 
 is one of the oldest towns in Northern New Mexico. 
 There is the old Las Vegas, which grew into promi- 
 nece during the Santa Fe Trail days, and the new Las 
 Vegas, created by the railway. Strictly speaking, the 
 old town is the more picturesque of the two, but even 
 it has only a moderate number of attractions. Essen- 
 tially Spanish in its architecture, the adobe houses are 
 scattered over the meadows, on which the city stands, 
 in confused disorder, and in their midst is the inevita- 
 ble plaza, sure to be found in every Mexican village. 
 
 If it were not that its neighbors are more pleasing, 
 Las Vegas might attract more attention than it does. 
 But rivals have robbed it of its past glory and impor- 
 tance as well as distanced it in population, and to-day
 
 j6 With the Invader. 
 
 it is the new town, standing opposite the old on the 
 right bank of the Gallinas river, which is commonly 
 meant when Las Vegas is spoken of. 
 
 The late arrival is very new, plain, and conventional. 
 Differing but little from the villages of New England, 
 but utterly lacking the quiet of those tree-embowered 
 towns, it has scores of uncouth wooden houses hope- 
 lessly huddled together and reflecting the hot sunlight 
 from perspiring shingles. But the place is a busy one, 
 and its trade as a supply town for the neighboring 
 country is large. 
 
 Six miles west of Las Vegas are the Hot Springs, to 
 which extends a branch of the Atchison Road, and 
 where a hotel is being erected that will have no supe- 
 rior and hardly an equal in the West. The " Monte- 
 zuma," as it is to be called, in honor of the Aztec 
 mythological god, whose children were the first discov- 
 erers of the Springs, will cost over $150,000 and afford 
 every luxury. Its many comforts, together with the 
 extended view which it commands of the mountains 
 near by and of the plains stretching toward the east, 
 will be sufficient inducements to render it a favorite 
 resort. 
 
 The Hot Springs have long enjoyed deserved popu- 
 larity because of their medicinal qualities. There are 
 forty in all, and an analysis of three of them gives the 
 following table :
 
 To the Pueblo Stronghold. 37 
 
 Constituents. Spring No. i. No. 2. No. 3. 
 
 Sodium Carbonate 1-72 l-*7 5-°° 
 
 Calcium Carbonate, \ I0 g IO ^ II-43 
 Magnesium Carbonate, J " " 
 
 Sodium Sulphate 14-12 15-43 i6- 21 
 
 Sodium Chloride 27.26 24.37 27.34 
 
 Potassium Trace. Trace. Trace. 
 
 Lithium Strong Trace. St'g Tr. St'g Tr. 
 
 Silicic Acid i-°4 Trace. 2 S l 
 
 Iodine Trace. Trace. Trace. 
 
 Bromine .'.'■' Trace. Trace. Trace. 
 
 Temperature 130° F. I2 3' F - I2 3° F. 
 
 As often as a new spring is discovered it is curbed 
 with red and white granite from the bluffs bordering 
 the river and a rustic bower is built over it in which 
 one may sit and drink of the highly charged waters 
 which bubble from the earth. 
 
 The Gallinas canon, containing the springs, opens out 
 from the foothills of the main range, and has a roman- 
 tic beauty peculiarly inviting. Beyond the mouth of 
 the narrow ravine, from which the river tumbles over 
 a rock-strewn bed, lies the little plateau of thirty acres 
 on which are the hotel, the bath houses and several 
 cottages. Gathered around this, and enclosing it on 
 three sides, are brown hills with clinging vines and 
 hardy shrubs, while through a narrow opening, by 
 which the railway reaches the region, a long extended 
 vista is obtained of the country reaching like an ocean 
 far away to the blue horizon in the east. Still, richly 
 colored and wide, the prairies from such a height are 
 imbued with a new interest and beauty. At times 
 there are swiftly moving cloud patches dotting them, 
 
 :U5.'$7I
 
 j8 With the Invader: 
 
 and again they are like the unruffled surface of a sea, 
 and canvas-covered wagons, white in the sunlight, go 
 slowly along their way as one sees full-rigged ships, 
 from some rocky coast, sailing from port to port. 
 There is no movement to these earth billows, and 
 no soft, strong murmur comes from them as they 
 touch the ridges rising from their bosom. All is in- 
 animate, hushed and dead. 
 
 Early in the present century the springs were relig- 
 iously guarded night and day by the Indians of the 
 country, who allowed only a favored few to bathe in 
 and drink of the waters. In 1846 an adobe bath 
 house was erected and a hospital established by the 
 United States Army. In 1862 General Canby occu- 
 pied the quarters, and the old building was afterwards 
 used as a hotel until 1879, when the present house, 
 near the " Montezuma," was built. 
 
 The bath house is new and commodious. Built of 
 native red granite, and two stories high, it is 200 feet 
 long by 42 feet wide. The upper floor is occupied as 
 offices and the bath rooms are below. The daily 
 capacity of the house is 500 baths of every variety — 
 medicated, electric, vapor, tub, spray, mud and shower. 
 Experienced attendants are always present, and many 
 remarkable cures have been effected. All skin dis- 
 eases and rheumatism and stomach difficulties are es- 
 pecially benefited, and the climate is such that those 
 suffering from pulmonary and miasmatic troubles ob- 
 tain great relief.
 
 To tin- Pueblo Stronghold. 39 
 
 Below Las Vegas begins the real work of reaching 
 the South. The mountains, which must be crossed or 
 overcome in some manner before Santa Fe and the 
 Rio Grande Valley are entered, begin to assert their 
 power. There is hardly a mile where the railroad 
 track is straight. Its course is that of a serpent's— full 
 of twists and turns — and the grades are heavy and 
 numerous. Climbing over high mesas, penetrating 
 deep canons, and winding through forests of pine, 
 pinon and oak, the invader of the historic country 
 reaches its strong arm into the fastnesses of the range 
 and offers constantly changing views of varied attrac- 
 tiveness. 
 
 There is rugged grandeur everywhere. Here a 
 rocky pinnacle rears itself high above the passing train, 
 and there, far beyond the deep green tops of some 
 long neglected forest, appear the whitened summits of 
 distant hills clearly outlined against the deep blue sky. 
 The rule of nature is absolute. Trees lie where they 
 fell, streams run unmolested down rocky channels, 
 the woods are full of game, and only some boulder, 
 hurled from its resting place by the frosts of winter, 
 and tearing a pathway for itself down the mountain 
 side, has disturbed the natural growth of the countless 
 trees and shrubs. 
 
 Compared with the unvarying monotony of the 
 plains, the constant change in the vistas offered by the 
 mountains is most welcome. There is ever something 
 new, fresh and entertaining. The air is laden with
 
 ^o With the Invader. 
 
 sweet perfume, and the colorings are so rich a hue that, 
 were they painted, the artist would be accused of ex- 
 aggeration. Here the rocks are a brilliant red, here a 
 mellow yellow, and there a grayish white. Near hills 
 are brown, and distant ones deep blue. There, drifts 
 of snow lie white upon the peaks, and reaching to 
 where they are, grow dark green trees. It is a novel 
 combination, and every hue, no matter how slight, 
 has the clear sky and the strong, warm sunlight to 
 heighten its effect. 
 
 One of the most noted landmarks on the road be- 
 tween Las Vegas and Santa Fe is Starvation Peak. 
 The flat-topped hill rises high above its neighbors and 
 is visible long before reached, and for hours after it is 
 passed. On its crest is a wooden cross, and around 
 its base grow tall pines, above which the peak looks 
 out upon a wilderness of mountains, canons and foam- 
 ing streams. 
 
 The weather-beaten cross recalls the fearful suffer- 
 ing of departed days. In 1837, during a war between 
 Mexicans and Indians, the latter invited their enemies 
 to a council at the top of the peak. It being mutually 
 agreed that all arms should be left in camp, the Mexi- 
 cans met their tricky foes on the height and a council 
 was held with every evidence of good faith. But during 
 the meeting the Indians slowly brought up their weap- 
 ons, and, at a given signal, gave a startling war cry, swept 
 down upon the Mexican camp in the valley and mur- 
 dered in cold blood the startled people who were there.
 
 To the Pueblo Stronghold. 41 
 
 Finishing that work, they surrounded the peak and 
 waited with grim delight for starvation to do its work. 
 The Mexicans on the summit were utterly defenseless, 
 and had but the alternative of descending to certain 
 death, or remaining where they were, without food or 
 fire, until death should relieve them of their misery. 
 They chose the latter fate, and when the war was over, 
 their bones were found whitening upon the mountain 
 top which to-day bears its singular and suggestive 
 name. 
 
 Below Starvation Peak the railway follows the crest 
 of a narrow forest-covered ridge. At the right of the 
 elevation, which has a gentle slope into a valley wa- 
 tered by the river Pecos, stand the ruins of the old 
 Pecos church and of the village of Pecos, which a hun- 
 dred years ago was one of the largest Pueblos in New 
 Mexico. 
 
 Seen from the railway, the church seems the only 
 object having so much as a wall remaining, for the red- 
 hued stones of the houses are scattered over the 
 ground, and trees are growing over the historic spot. 
 In a few years the ancient village will become obliter- 
 ated, and when even the church lies prone, and no 
 traces of the houses can be seen, there will have been 
 destroyed one of the most interesting ruins in the Ter- 
 ritory. For Pecos Pueblo was undoubtedly one of 
 the seven cities which tempted Coronado to journey 
 into the North more than three hundred years ago, 
 and was, if tradition is reliable, the place in which the
 
 42 With the Invader: 
 
 sacred flame of Montezuma burned for so many centu- 
 ries prior to its removal to Taos. 
 
 The legend of Montezuma declares that the father 
 of the Aztecs was born at Pecos, and lived there until 
 an eagle bore him away to distant lands and from the 
 sight of those who have, and whose children have, 
 watched ever since for his coming again with "glory 
 from the east " and laden with " blessings and with 
 power." The faith that Montezuma will return has 
 never once been shaken through all the centuries of 
 suffering and disappointment. The priests stand upon 
 the house tops to-day as they did in the ages past, 
 shading their eyes with their hands, and gazing toward 
 the east, hoping to see their Redeemer coming. The 
 fire which Montezuma lighted on the old altar at Pe- 
 cos burns in a guarded shrine at Taos, and Pecos is 
 the Mecca of the scattered tribes. 
 
 The town is in ruins, and deserted. Vandal hands 
 have stolen its treasures and a new civilization is press- 
 ing upon its crumbling stones. Silence reigns down 
 by the passing stream and the emperor of the past has 
 become a shadowy unreality. Yet still the people 
 hope and trust and believe implicitly that the great 
 cities of the South and the various Pueblos of the 
 North are standing now on those places where Monte- 
 zuma and his eagle rested in their long flight from the 
 village by the Pecos River. 
 
 Given an energetic population, and the Pecos Val- 
 ley would long ago have become a veritable garden.
 
 To tlie Pueblo Stronghold. 43 
 
 Protected, fertile, well watered and beautiful, it seems 
 to wait the era of improvement with open arms. In 
 the stream are many fish, and game abounds in the 
 forests. The region is the sportsman's paradise. Nor 
 need the artist want for material. Nowhere in New 
 Mexico is there greater variety or more picturesqueness. 
 The region is a bit of unpolluted nature, fresh and fair 
 and elysian. The stream is cold and clear, the shade 
 is deep and rich, the isolated rocks are vari-hued, and 
 overlooking the valley are high mountains, lending a 
 grandeur to the scene. No wonder Montezuma lived 
 here, and it is only strange that in the present naturfe 
 holds a sway so undisputed. 
 
 The narrowest part of the Pecos Valley, and through 
 which the road extends to the junction town of Lamy 
 and thence to Santa Fe, is Glorietta Pass. In it 
 is Apache Canon, formed by twin ledges of yellowish 
 rock pressing so closely together that there is barely 
 room for the train and stream to pass between. 
 
 Apache Cation has a history. One of the sharpest 
 battles of the late war was fought there. In 1863 the 
 Confederates marched up the Rio Grande Valley and 
 attacked the towns of New Mexico and Colorado, 
 gaining possession of Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and 
 several scattered villages. In the north the Unionists 
 became alarmed at the invasion, and petitions for help 
 were forwarded to Washington. But Virginia was in 
 danger as well as Colorado, and no aid could be 
 spared to protect the Far West. Upon receiving this
 
 44 With the Invader. 
 
 ultimatum a company, composed of frontiersmen and 
 citizens was formed at Denver. 
 
 Marching southward, with only their patriotism to 
 encourage them, the handful of men came to Glorietta 
 Pass, and camped there. Soon the Texans, with their 
 ranks swelled by Mexicans, marched into Apache 
 Caflon, and were met by the Unionists. The odds 
 were ten to one against the patriots ; but when the 
 engagement ended, thousands of dead Texans lay 
 piled together in the ravine, and the live ones were 
 making haste down the valley to their homes. The 
 West was saved, and later the captured towns in New 
 Mexico were retaken.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 America's Oldest City. 
 
 O ANTA FE enjoys the distinction of being the old- 
 ^ est city in America, and in 1883 it celebrated its 
 tertio-millennium. It requires perhaps a slight stretch 
 of the quality in honor of which the town is named to 
 accept the age which is given the place without ques- 
 tion; but even if the antiquity is exaggerated a few 
 years, it is only a very few, and the town is sufficiently 
 hoary with antiquity to satisfy any one desirous* of 
 something ancient and historical in America. 
 
 The date from which Santa Fe begins to count the 
 years of its existence is 1550. Ten years previously 
 the Spanish adventurer, Coronado, had visited the Pu- 
 eblo, which was afterwards captured by the invaders 
 and rechristened with its present name, and it was 
 probably at an earlier date than 1550 that the present 
 city began to have its foundations laid. 
 
 In 1540, when the Spaniards looked for the first time 
 upon the city, Santa Fe was an Indian village of great 
 size and importance. Not only was its population larger 
 than that of its neighbors, but it was better built and bet- 
 ter located. It was so attractive indeed, that the visitors
 
 4.6 With the Invader. 
 
 from Spain were at once filled with a desire to possess 
 it, and they never rested until they had subjugated the 
 people. Marching down upon the city from the hill 
 commanding a view of it, they leveled its walls and de- 
 stroyed its houses, and on the ruins erected the pres- 
 ent town. 
 
 Spanish cruelty has robbed the world of the history of 
 the Aztec stronghold antedating the invasion of 1540. 
 Had the conquerors treated their victims with any len- 
 iency at all there would be to-day less conjecture and 
 more certainty regarding the original village and its peo- 
 ple. But so great was the tyranny of the Spaniards, and 
 so harsh their measures, that the Indians revolted after 
 more than a century of servitude, and in 1680 drove the 
 invaders from their city and from the land. Then came 
 a half-dozen years of annihilation. Churches were de- 
 stroyed, houses leveled to the ground, valuable mines 
 obliterated, Spanish documents burned, and vandalism 
 reigned supreme. The cruelty of the past century sug- 
 gested every form of obliteration. Santa Fe was pil- 
 laged, and in its plaza the records of the first discoverers 
 of the place, which would now throw so much light 
 upon a doubtful question, fed the fire whose fitful glare 
 lighted the destroyers engaged upon their angry work. 
 
 In 1693 the Spaniards, under De Varque, recon- 
 quered the town, after a desperate fight, and from that 
 time Santa Fe' enjoyed a listless lease of life which has 
 really never been disturbed. Even with its start of 
 more than a century it cannot compare in size or im-
 
 America's Oldest City. 47 
 
 portance with many of its rivals, who will be obliged 
 to wait more centuries than one cares to contemplate 
 before claiming an age equal to that of Santa Fe'. 
 
 Under the rule of Spain, the city was very much the 
 sort of place that it was when the Pueblo Indians, and 
 possibly the Aztecs, who preceded them, held con- 
 trol. Had the monuments of the original builders 
 been kept intact, they would more than likely be as 
 imposing as are those which the Spaniards have left. 
 Enough is known of the old Pueblo, which antedates 
 the Spanish discovery no one knows how long, to war- 
 rant the assertion that it was a veritable metropolis of 
 grand proportions. But the present city is far from 
 being imposing, and were it not that the place has a 
 romantic history and is picturesque in many of its de- 
 tails, it would hardly receive the attention now lavished 
 upon it. 
 
 At first sight it is peculiarly Spanish in its archi- 
 tecture, and a more intimate acquaintance with its 
 narrow crooked streets, shaded balconies, flowery 
 placitas and quaint adobe buildings, heightens one's 
 first illusion, which impelled him to imagine Santa Fe 
 a town of some foreign land rather than one resting on 
 American soil. The sophism is most natural. Except 
 in a few particulars, more noticeable in late years than 
 in the past, Santa Fe might easily pass muster as a 
 town of Spain. It bears everywhere the marks of its 
 Spanish origin. The material used in building, and 
 the peculiar conditions of climate which had to be
 
 48 With the Itivader . 
 
 considered, have given it an old-world appearance and 
 general solidity of design, which is particularly accepta- 
 ble in a region where there is so much that is frail, and 
 new, and unstable. 
 
 Compared with the frontier towns of the west, with 
 their crude glarishness, Santa Fe is solidity personified, 
 and one notices with unaffected sorrow the increasing 
 Americanisms which are so surely altering the old 
 houses and the quaint streets, and which are robbing 
 the city of much of its old time charm. 
 
 The history of Santa Fe from 1540 until the late in- 
 vasion by Americans, is the uneventful story of a peo- 
 ple who were little inclined to exert themselves and 
 who were satisfied, so long as they had enough to eat 
 and drink, to sit in the warm corners of their town 
 and take life as it came without questioning the why 
 or wherefore. 
 
 Some one has said that if Montesquieu was right in 
 calling that people happy whose annals were tiresome, 
 the Santa Feans should have been supremely happy. 
 So far as there is external evidence the inhabitants of 
 the old city did but little in their lives to render their 
 town attractive or to develop the vast natural resources 
 of their country. It may be that the warm climate of 
 New Mexico was not sufficiently stimulating to create 
 activity, or that the people were naturally lazy. What- 
 ever the cause, there was great inactivity, and the 
 priests, who followed the conquerors, appear to have 
 been the only ones who were imbued with the slightest
 
 America's Oldest City. 49 
 
 animation. The result of this one-sided activity is that 
 Santa Fe has more churches than there seems to be the 
 slightest necessity for, and the natives are an essen- 
 tially church-going people. 
 
 The First Yankee visitor to Santa Fe was Lieuten- 
 ant Pike, whose name is given to one of the highest 
 peaks in Colorado. He visited the city in 1806, and 
 was not particularly pleased with its appearance. In 
 1846 the United States declared war against Mexico, 
 and a strong force under General Kearney was sent to 
 take possession of New Mexico. They captured Santa 
 Fe without opposition and Kearney built a fort on the 
 height behind the town, which he called Fort Marcy, 
 and the crumbling ruins of which may still be seen. 
 Later on other troops were quartered in the old town 
 and a military post was established near the plaza, 
 which was the cause of many Americans drifting into 
 the country and settling in the city of New Spain. 
 
 But still the early comers were only indifferent civil- 
 izers, and Santa Fe remained, as Goldsmith would say, 
 "remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow," and there was 
 but little life in the place until the mining "boom" of 
 a few years ago that caused the Southwest to assume a 
 new importance, and which was the direct cause of that 
 railway building in the Territory which has so changed 
 the historic land. 
 
 The best view of Santa Fe is that obtained from the 
 ruins of old Fort Marcy. The crumbling walls of the 
 defense occupy the crest of a brown-hued hill rising
 
 jo With the Invader 
 
 just back of the city which overlooks the plateau upon 
 which the town stands and the valley stretching south- 
 ward toward old Mexico. In the north runs a ledge 
 of hills with snow-capped peaks, while southward rise 
 the Cerrillos, blue and indistinct and with heavy clouds 
 rolling about their snowy summits. The scene is never 
 tiresome, and is full of changes as the cloud patches 
 dot the valley and the sunlight falls upon the range 
 beyond. 
 
 At one's feet lies the city, its low-roofed houses cov- 
 ering the mesa and its narrow streets extending in 
 wavering courses among sun-baked walls. There 
 flows Santa Fe Creek, with time-stained huts lining its 
 banks, there rises the torn fagade of old San Miguel, 
 there the spire of Guadalupe, there the roof of San 
 Francisco, while in the centre of the town lies the 
 plaza, with its green trees reaching high above the 
 palace and overshadowing the nearer house-tops. 
 Gaping chimneys send wreaths of smoke curling into 
 the air, the sky is blue and clear, and beyond the val- 
 ley, filled with shadowy mounds, peak after peak is 
 seen lifting pointed heads far into cloud land. 
 
 Santa Fe is all disclosed to view, and from its busy 
 portions the eye roves away to where there is still the 
 old-time quiet and primitiveness and where children are 
 playing about the open doorways and women are bak- 
 ing bread in their earthen ovens as they have done for 
 so many years. The coloring is as varied as the pros- 
 pect. Brown and yellow, blue and white are crowded
 
 America's Oldest City. 51 
 
 before one's vision everywhere, and a country is spread 
 in sight which seems without a limit. No wonder the 
 Indians fought hard to retain their home, or that the 
 Spaniards fought as strongly to obtain the place. 
 
 The prevailing color in Santa Fe is brown. Nearly 
 all, and it was not long ago that the qualifying adverb 
 might have been omitted, the houses are built of adobe 
 which has been baked by the suns of fleeting years 
 until given the deep, warm and eye-resting hue it has. 
 The streets, too, so adobe themselves that the slightest 
 moisture renders them as slippery and pasty as a brick- 
 yard in rainy weather, are of brown-hued earth, and 
 the distant range, and the elevations about the town 
 are brown. -At sunrise and sunset the houses are 
 lighted with a coloring that is almost reddish brown, 
 but during the day, when there is a steady glare, they 
 lose their brilliant hues and appear in their true 
 shades. 
 
 Here and there about the city one may find a few 
 buildings which are more yellow than brown, notably 
 the church of San Miguel, and the facade of the new 
 San Francisco Cathedral, and off in the southern lim- 
 its of the plateau are a few highly colored, red-tinged 
 rocks; and whenever the hills have their sides dis- 
 turbed the earth is red-hued, too. 
 
 It is a happy combination of colorings, and all the 
 shades are intensified and made conspicuous by that 
 over-arching sky, pure and blue, and deep, and by the 
 white sunlight, which causes the houses to throw long,
 
 j2 With the Invader: 
 
 dark shadows, and which is itself reflected with almost 
 dazzling beauty from off the snow-covered ranges 
 stretching across the horizon in the south and west. 
 
 During the summer season, which begins earlier and 
 lasts longer than in the East, Santa Fe has still another 
 beauty formed by the green-leaved trees which line 
 both banks of Santa Fe Creek — upon which the town 
 is built — and which fill the little plaza, spread out in 
 front of the old Governor's Palace. Then there is 
 more freshness on the hillsides and in the yards, and 
 the town, except its houses, resembles many of those 
 New England villages which are scattered among the 
 New Hampshire hills. 
 
 It seems almost a pity to those who are inclined to 
 cling to the old, that Santa Fe' cannot retain its brown- 
 ness, which is so in keeping with the soil upon which 
 the city stands and with the faces of those who live 
 within the sun-baked houses. One regrets the pres- 
 ence of the new American cottages. Their pointed 
 roofs, with prosaic shingles, their angles, so obtrusive, 
 and their glaring white fronts and trim walls of bright 
 red brick are not in keeping with the natural colors 
 that exist. 
 
 And yet regrets at the modern innovation are useless. 
 Santa Fe contains many new houses, and will contain 
 many more, and to-day the flaming posters, stiff new 
 signs, heavy wagons, the hurry and bustle characteristic 
 of American "pluck" and "energy," are prominently 
 present, and the plaza, which at one time witnessed
 
 America's Oldest City. S3 
 
 the marshaling there of gaily bedecked Spaniards, at 
 another saw infuriated Indians, bent on reclaiming 
 their own, rushing across it to the Palace, and which 
 at all times, until Santa Fe became so modernized, 
 was the resting place of picturesquely attired people, 
 speaking together in a musical tongue, the plaza even 
 is changed. One sees more Americans there than he 
 does Mexicans, and there is not the ancient restful- 
 ness and quiet which once existed. The name "plaza" 
 should be changed to "common," for the spot is no 
 longer Spanish. 
 
 There are still portions of the city, however, which 
 the modern invaders have not attacked as yet, and 
 where one may still find the simply built houses and 
 the simple-minded people who once were the only in- 
 habitants. Leaving the plaza and following any one of 
 the several narrow streets that lead from it toward the 
 creek that runs along the eastern limits of the city and 
 divides old from new Santa Fe', one comes to where 
 there are intricate and tortuous alley-ways leading among 
 small, ill-kept dilapidated abodes in which the Mexi- 
 cans live. Except where they have fallen down, and 
 have been replaced by fences, there are long lines of 
 adobe walls, brown as the houses and the children, and 
 behind which are the gardens and the oval-shaped 
 baking ovens and the other accessories of a well order- 
 ed household. 
 
 Near San Miguel, out in this part of Santa Fe', stands 
 the oldest house in America, which, if it has not the
 
 54 With the hivader . 
 
 age allowed it, has certainly a sufficiently antiquated 
 appearance. It is only one story high, and through 
 the doorway one has a glimpse of a bare-floored room 
 in which dogs, chickens and children are mixed to- 
 gether in indescribable confusion. The windows, few 
 in number and small, are set deep into the adobe 
 walls, and the yard is the congregating spot of the 
 many who idle there basking in the warm sunlight or 
 the shade of afternoon. 
 
 The street leading past the old place, a cow-path in 
 width, runs near many other homes which have age 
 and primitiveness written all over them. Some are 
 better and cleaner than others, and the yards are all 
 carefully swept, and the rooms, with their earthen 
 floors, and ceiling beams and whitened walls, are re- 
 freshing places in which to lounge away an hour. 
 
 The latch-string is always out, among the Mexicans. 
 The people are hospitable to an extreme, and the sim- 
 ple request for entrance insures a hospitality that is 
 unbounded and limited only by means of the host and 
 hostess. Running down from many of the cottages 
 are the diminutive gardens which do so much toward 
 giving bread to the people. They are very small, these 
 bits of ground, but very neat, and every inch of earth 
 is cultivated. 
 
 Wandering about them, with the walls hiding the 
 streets with their activity, and hearing the murmuring 
 waters of the stream bubbling contentedly past, one 
 seems again in Arcadia, or likens himself to the fathers
 
 America's Oldest City. Jf 
 
 of old who had their gardens in the west, and who 
 listened to the same old bells that still clang their 
 summons from out the distant towers of the various 
 churches. 
 
 Santa Fe means "Holy Faith." Whether the Fran- 
 ciscan fathers feared there would be a lack of faith un- 
 less they deluged the town with churches, or whether 
 it aided Spanish power to have numerous houses of 
 worship, is a question. But whatever the incentive, 
 Santa Fe is unusually well provided with miniature ca- 
 thedrals of golden age, which are severally interesting. 
 None of them are cathedrals in reality, and robbed of 
 their associations would hardly be worth inspection. 
 But their history is closely allied to that of the city, and 
 as specimens of Spanish architecture in the west they 
 enjoy no little importance. Time has dealt none too 
 gently with the adobe structures. The walls are scarred 
 and infirm, the heavy beams are stained and warped, 
 and the towers show a general weakness, which is prima 
 facie evidence of their age. 
 
 The three important churches are Guadalupe, San 
 Miguel and San Francisco, or St. Francis. Of these 
 San Miguel is the only one remaining as it was built a 
 hundred years or more ago, or that has great age. The 
 others were not finished until several years after it was 
 opened, and to-day have been altered past all recogni- 
 tion. 
 
 Guadalupe has had a wooden roof and steeple 
 added to its old flat roof and cracked belfry, and as
 
 56 With the Invader: 
 
 for San Francisco, the stone walls of the new church 
 completely hide the adobe ones of the old, and it is 
 only by careful search that the original cathedral is 
 discovered. 
 
 It i s all very necessary, probably, this modernizing 
 and destroying, but in losing its old churches Santa 
 Fe will lose one of its chief attractions. It is the old 
 and curious, rather than the new and prosaic which is 
 desired in the Southwest. One may not care to wor- 
 ship in adobe houses with bare floors, somber shadows 
 and dingy walls, but he enjoys seeing others do so. 
 That which is picturesque is attractive, and the old 
 churches of Santa Fe were that, whatever else they 
 may or may not have been. 
 
 San Miguel is part and parcel of old Santa Fe. The 
 body of the church extends in front of the oldest house 
 of the city, and the facade looks out upon a wall- 
 enclosed yard, facing one of the narrow lanes. 
 
 Standing before the time-stained tower, with its 
 wooden cross still feebly bidding defiance to time and 
 weather, one looks over flat-roofed houses to the rush- 
 ing waters of the creek, flowing down from the moun- 
 tains and out into the valley, and across it to the 
 newer portions of the city, crowded together at the 
 base of low-browed hills, which reach far away to blue 
 ridges, with whitened tops, looming proudly into sight. 
 It is very quiet in the neighborhood, and the church 
 itself has a sedateness corresponding to the houses 
 clustering at its side. It is a plain, unornamented
 
 America's Oldest City. 
 
 57 
 
 structure, built for use, and not for show. In earlier 
 days, before the walls became so insecure, a Spanish 
 bell hung in the tower, and rang out its summons. 
 But to-day the belfry is empty, and the old bell, cast 
 in 1356, has an honored niche within the church. 
 
 FAQADE OF SAN MIGUEL. 
 
 Entering the interior, and shutting out the greater 
 part of daylight behind the heavy doors, closing with 
 noisy clatter behind one, there is found a softened 
 light doing its best to illumine the darkened corners
 
 j8 With the Invader. 
 
 At one end of the long and narrow room, confined by 
 thick, white walls, set with deep-cut windows, stands 
 the altar, gaudy with its decorations, while above the 
 entrance doorway is the choir, supported by heavy 
 beams, still showing the carvings cut by the builders 
 years ago. It is a simple, unpretentious room, and 
 one that sees but little of the pomp and show that 
 marked its earlier life. There is a mustiness in the 
 atmosphere aud a venerableness about the wood-work 
 which is unmistakably ancient. 
 
 It is supposed that San Miguel was originally built 
 very shortly after the year 1600, during the governor- 
 ship of Onate. In the Indian revolution of 1680 it 
 was nearly destroyed by the exasperated natives, who 
 left only a wall or two of its orignal edifice standing. 
 In 1693, after the re-conquest of the city by the Span- 
 iards, the work of rebuilding was begun, and in 17 10 
 the church was finished. 
 
 At the head of San Francisco street, extending 
 north and south past the plaza, is the Cathedral of San 
 Francisco. A new church is being built over the old 
 one, and while the original edifice is still used for 
 worship, its days are already numbered. 
 
 When erected, in 17 61, the cathedral was the largest 
 and the most imposing looking church in New Mexico. 
 Two heavy towers flanked the facade, and the en- 
 trance doors were of stained wcod, elaborately carved. 
 These are things of the past now, and the thick outer 
 walls are broken down in many places, and only the
 
 America's Oldest City. 59 
 
 interior, dark and gloomy, retains its original shape 
 and attractions. Visiting the place at any hour of the 
 day, one will find silent worshippers kneeling on the 
 hard floor before the various shrines, or in front of the 
 altar, while on Sunday the church is filled with people, 
 and clouds of incense rise to the time-stained rafters 
 overhead. 
 
 San Francisco is cruciform in shape, and contains 
 several interesting objects left by the Spaniards. The 
 most highly prized relic is the great Reredos, made of 
 native stone, carved in relief, which stands behind the 
 altar, and extends across the entire width of the chan- 
 cel recess to the eaves of the building. 
 
 It is in three sections, with carved arabesque col- 
 umns between them, the whole being painted in ap- 
 propriate colors. In the center is a large, life-sized 
 statue, and above that a relief of St. James on horse- 
 back, killing turbaned Saracens. Over that, crowning 
 the whole Reredos, is a representation of St. Joseph, 
 and of the Virgin and Child. On the north side are 
 two carved pictures, in stone relief, one of St. Anthony 
 of Padua, with the Holy Child, and a tree; and the 
 other of St. Ignacius, with a book and standard. Op- 
 posite these are St. John Nepomuceno, with cross and 
 palm, and St. Francis Xavier baptizing Indians. 
 
 On both sides of the altar, in the main body of the 
 church, are two small chapels, dedicated respectively 
 to San Jose and the Blessed Virgin. The chapel of 
 San Jose has a number of old and valuable pictures.
 
 60 With the Invader: 
 
 That over the altar is of St. Joseph, and underneath it 
 is a statuette of the same saint wearing a crown and 
 holding the Infant Christ. Near by is another picture 
 of St. Joseph, and one of a monk, and of St. Augus- 
 tine wearing a bishop's mitre. On one of the chapel 
 walls hang paintings of the Good Samaritan, of a saint 
 in penitential robes, and of a Franciscan friar. 
 
 In the chapel of the Blessed Virgin are two figures 
 of female saints, the one on the right of the altar be- 
 ing painted in bright colors, while that on the left is 
 black. Over the altar is an image of the Virgin 
 clothed in rich silk vestments, above which is a picture 
 of the Madonna, and beneath an "Ecce Homo." On 
 the left and right are paintings of the Assumption of 
 the Virgin and of St. Joseph, companion pieces, and 
 between them and the altar smaller pictures represent- 
 ing two female saints. 
 
 In the body of the church are the usual "Stations 
 of the Cross," of large size, and on the north side a 
 niche containing an image of Christ in the Tomb, used 
 in the ceremonies between Good Friday and Easter. 
 Over the chancel are three stained glass windows, with 
 figures representing St. Francis, St. Joseph and the 
 Immaculate Conception. In the sacristy is a painting 
 of Our Lord, and a statue in wood and enamel of San 
 Antonio de Padua, of Spanish origin, eighteen inches 
 high, and similar in style to those at Santa Cruz and 
 the Guadalupe Church. In the same place is a large 
 image of the Santo Nino Conquistador. None of the
 
 America's Oldest City. 61 
 
 paintings are artistic, but in the faint light of the 
 church they lend a certain impressiveness to the place, 
 and the rudely carved and horribly decorated images 
 of the Savior, and of various saints, are devotedly ad- 
 mired by the natives. 
 
 The Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe has been 
 so restored and modernized that its builders, could 
 they see it to-day, would hardly recognize it as the 
 one which they erected. In place of the flat roof of 
 brown adobe, there is the pointed, shingled one, 
 which so generally graces a "meeting house" in New 
 England, and the belfry, in which once hung a half 
 dozen bells made of native brass, is replaced by a 
 steeple of great angularity and no beauty. The floor 
 has been covered with boards and pews, while the 
 walls have been studded with wide windows, which 
 flood the old place with a glaring light, rendering it 
 commonplace and unattractive. Were it not for the 
 heavy beams supporting the choir and the roof, Guad. 
 alupe would be a creation of the present day. But 
 the beams could not be removed, and now, with the 
 old paintings which the church contains, save the pile 
 from being entirely without interest. 
 
 The principal picture in the collection is that behind 
 the altar. It is dedicated to Neustra Sefiora de Guad- 
 alupe, and is composed of six paintings, two on each 
 side, one in the center and one over the center, the 
 whole covering a canvas some fourteen feet high by 
 ten wide.
 
 62 With the Invader. 
 
 The central picture is the usual one of Our Lady of 
 Guadalupe, which, of course is unchangeable, as all 
 are copies of the original which appeared on the talma 
 of the shepherd. Around this are four pictures repre- 
 senting scenes in the story of the Virgin of Guada- 
 lupe. The first scene represents the Virgin appearing 
 to the shepherd, Juan Diego, and the latter hastening 
 to obey her command. Opposite this is the second 
 scene, when the shepherd returns after being repulsed 
 by the Bishop of Mexico, three angels appearing above 
 him. Below is represented the third scene, when 
 Diego brings the roses in his talma at the command of 
 the Virgin, and opposite this, the fourth and last scene, 
 where on opening the talma before the bishop, the mi- 
 raculous painting of Our Lady appears. Above the 
 whole is a representation of the three persons of the 
 Trinity, the Son being distinguished by the nail-marks 
 in his hands. 
 
 The most interesting single work is the picture on a 
 large copper plate, which was painted in 1779 by 
 Sebastian Salcedo. The frame is a unique produc- 
 tion of art, having silver corners and a silver orna- 
 ment on each of the four sides, and the painting itself 
 is made up of a number of small pictures, the central 
 one being Our Lady of Guadalupe, surrounded by 
 angels and patriarchs presenting crowns. Above her 
 are seven different scenes in the history of her ap- 
 pearance to Diego; four of them similar to those in 
 the great altar-picture, and three of other scenes.
 
 America's Oldest City. 63 
 
 Below is a portrait of Pope Benedict XIV, and on 
 the right an emblematic picture of the Mexican Empire, 
 personified as a female. 
 
 The church also contains two antique statuettes — 
 one of which is the finest specimen of wood carving, 
 combined witth enamel work, existing in America. It 
 represents the Virgin standing in the crescent of a new 
 moon, surrounded by clouds. Directly underneath the 
 figure is a cherub's face. The robes are of exquisite 
 workmanship, representing embroidery, and the color- 
 ing is in red and purple contrasted with black and 
 gold. The other statue is a wood and plaster one, 
 representing St. Joseph, and is a worthless piece of 
 work. It was made by the Indians about a century 
 ago. 
 
 In the gallery is a large Mexican painting of a saint. 
 The figure occupies the center of the canvas. Behind 
 it is a large cross and over the head are two angels 
 holding crowns. In one lower corner is another angel 
 presenting a crown, and in the opposite corner a table 
 holding a hideous skull. The picture is far from artis- 
 tic, but as a specimen of art in the Territory a hundred 
 years ago, is interesting and valuable. 
 
 Next to their churches the Santa Fe'ans take particu- 
 lar pride in their old Governor's Palace, or Palacio del 
 Gobernador, as it was called until the Americans occu- 
 pied it. The building itself has a history full of pathos 
 and stirring incident. It was the palace of the Pueblo 
 Chiefs long before the name of Santa Fe was given the
 
 64 With tlie Invader: 
 
 town, and for nearly three hundred years the various 
 Captain Generals of Spain issued their edicts from its 
 dingy rooms. Altered and added to, whitewashed and 
 restored, there are still the old walls of the original 
 edifice remaining, and the place is to-day the official 
 residence of the Territorial Governor. 
 
 In front of the building, which faces the plaza, runs 
 a shaded portico supported by a row of wooden pillars, 
 while opening from it are the various rooms of the pal- 
 ace. During the heat of the day and on those afternoons 
 when the military band plays in the plaza, the portico 
 is filled with idlers of every nationality, and for a time 
 the ancient palace assumes its old time liveliness and 
 importance. Usually, however, there is a listless quiet 
 about it, and except for a few burros fastened to the 
 pillars the palace, which saw so much excitement in 
 the past, is left to its meditations undisturbed. In one 
 of the rooms Lew Wallace wrote, "Ben Hur" and "A 
 Fair God," and in another General Kearney was re. 
 ceived, and Pike was entertained. The house in reality 
 is a mecca of three nations, for three different people 
 have been interested in it. 
 
 Leaving the palace and passing through the plaza 5 
 filled with idlers resting on the various benches scat- 
 tered about beneath the green trees, the principal busi- 
 ness street of Santa Fe is reached. In olden days, 
 when dark-eyed Mexicans held the city, San Francisco 
 street, as the narrow thoroughfare is called, was lined 
 with residences, but to-day its casas are converted into
 
 America's Oldest City. 65 
 
 shops and heavy American wagons have replaced the 
 long-eared burros that once filled the lane. On either 
 side of the street the balconies of the house fronts hang 
 far over the sidewalk, and there are shaded alcoves, 
 with rows of pillars, beneath which one walks from one 
 shop to another. 
 
 Half-way down the street, and extending sharply 
 away toward the country, is Burro alley, one of the 
 oldest and narrowest paths leading about the city. 
 Whether it be morning, noon or evening, one is sure 
 to find in Burro alley a score and more of the animals 
 that have given the street its name. They are so 
 numerous, indeed, that could Copperfield's Aunt Trot- 
 wood see the place even her stout heart would fail were 
 she to undertake ridding the alley of the pests she so 
 abominated. There are big burros and little ones, 
 long-haired and frowsy ones, and it seems at times as 
 though every donkey in the city had been brought to 
 the place for inspection and criticism. For every 
 Mexican having goods to sell or visiting the town to 
 purchase goods, leaves his burro in the alley. There 
 he unpacks his goods and there he gathers his parcels 
 together, and the sight of all the loading and unloading 
 has in it a flavor of the Alhambra, where, as here, the 
 donkey is the native bird and the hardest looking being 
 that exists. 
 
 Looking at Santa Fe' from any height around it there 
 is seen a bit of enclosed ground lying in the heart of 
 the town, which enjoys a freshness and a verdure un-
 
 66 With the Invader. 
 
 equaled by the plaza itself. The spot is the Bishop's 
 Garden, owned by Bishop Lamy of Santa Fe. From 
 outside the high adobe wall enclosing the garden 
 there is not even a suggestion offered of the beauties 
 hid within. One can only realize the charms of the 
 place after entering the garden through the gateway that 
 opens upon the street. 
 
 The Bishop has labored for years in beautifying and 
 improving his few acres. In the center of them is a 
 diminutive pond, and around this trees and flowering 
 shrubs, which fill the air with fragrance. Shaded walks 
 wind in and out among the orchards, and reach amid 
 the flowers, and there are rustic seats placed beneath 
 the shade on which one may rest while breathing the 
 fragrant air and listening to the bells of the town call- 
 ing the people to their prayers. Here, away from the 
 present realities of the city, the Santa Fe of the past 
 rises before one in imagination. Now, as then, there 
 is quiet restfulness, and a suggestion of towns beyond 
 the seas, and in the distance rise the surrounding hills 
 and the brown towers of the churches. 
 
 But all that Santa Fe has to offer is not found with- 
 in the city. Twenty miles westward lies the Rio 
 Grande Valley, wide and fertile, and dotted with Pu- 
 eblo villages, still retaining their ancient quaintness. 
 Nearer still are canons leading into the heart of the 
 ranges, that have a picturesque beauty and a freshness 
 that is delightful. 
 
 By a two days' trip one may also visit the old stone
 
 America's Oldest City. 6f 
 
 Pueblo of Chippillo and the ruins ot the Cliff Dwell- 
 ings. Chippillo occupies the top of a high mesa in 
 the neighborhood of San Yldefonso, and is reached by 
 carriage from Santa Fe. It is perhaps the most inter- 
 esting ruin in New Mexico. Walking up a narrow 
 canon formed by ledges of vari-colored rock, one 
 climbs the cliffs to the mesa, and stands at last beside the 
 town whose origin is lost in the shadows of age. As 
 at Taos, the various houses comprising the village 
 are piled together in a compact mass, measuring some 
 three hundred feet from east to west and an equal 
 number north and south. The Pueblo was originally 
 built around a plaza containing two circular estu/as, 
 or council chambers, and was constructed of stones 
 squared to the size of adobe bricks. To-day a ruin, 
 forsaken and dismantled, the lines of the old walls may 
 still be traced, and the ground is covered with broken 
 pieces of pottery and bits of volcanic glass. 
 
 The Cliff Dwellings are on the opposite side from 
 that ascended in reaching Chippillo, and consist of a 
 score of cave-like habitations, deeply cut into the hard 
 limestone. All show evidence of former occupation, 
 and the towns are blackened with the smoke from fires 
 long since gone out. In many of the caves are rudely 
 drawn pictures of eagles, bears, horses, and men and 
 in one is a drawing of a huge snake of hideous ugli- 
 ness. 
 
 Whether Santa Fe has seen its best days or has yet 
 to enjoy them, is a much discussed question in New
 
 68 With the Invader: 
 
 Mexico. It says no, and its rivals say yes. In reality, 
 all depends upon chance. If paying properties are 
 discovered in any of the neighboring ranges the city 
 will profit from the excitement that must ensue and 
 it may be that the town will at least be important as 
 an agricultural centre. 
 
 But at present, matters are at a standstill. What ani- 
 mation there is, is due to the presence of the troops at 
 the Fort, and the visitors of to-day are more attracted 
 by the curiosities of the place than by its prospects. 
 Rich with its history and traditions, quaint, old and 
 pleasing, Santa Fe has much which is not found else- 
 where, and its popularity cannot easily be taken away.
 
 CHAPTER IV, 
 Into the Heart of the Southwest. 
 
 A BLUE sky overhanging vast stretches of yellow 
 sand swept into mounds and hills, a few red- 
 roofed houses, radiating the heat of the closing day, 
 clumps of coarse grass, a few sage brushes, and far in 
 the distance a line of deep-blue hills with whitened 
 summits. 
 
 Such is the view from Wallace Station, a few miles 
 below Santa Fe'. A dreary prospect some would call 
 it — a deserted region, void of moisture, parched, dusty 
 and full of monotony. And so it is at first sight. 
 Look in whatever direction one may, there will be seen 
 the same sights. Low-browed hills, hot and dry, 
 stunted shrubs, loose rocks, deep arroyos, distant 
 mountain heights. 
 
 But once let the eye grow accustomed to the view, 
 and there begins to appear a new feature in the land- 
 scape. The far-off mountains, their peaks battling 
 with the clouds, the foot-hills, covered with dense for- 
 ests, the Rio Grande Valley, broad and haze-obscured, 
 the nearer mounds, with steep cliffs and rock-strewn 
 crests, all have a wealth of coloring which is indescrib- 
 ably beautiful, and which varies with almost every 
 hour of the day. If the time be that in which the sun
 
 yo With the Invader: 
 
 is sinking out of sight behind the hills, the sky above 
 is all suffused with red, and quivering arrows of light 
 leap upward toward the zenith, while the sand dunes 
 and the dry parched cliffs are dyed a deeper red, and 
 are softened and subdued until they become almost 
 exquisite. Even the sage-brush and grasses grow col- 
 ored then, while the country all about seems hushed 
 and quieted and less full of ugly glariness than it did 
 when the light of noon was upon the scene. 
 
 Wallace is a sleepy town, but it is far from being an 
 unimportant one. Its business is small, so far as its re- 
 tail trade is concerned, but from it there are shipped 
 tons and tons of ore, and large herds of cattle, which 
 are raised in and about the immediate vicinity. The 
 country lying east and west, is of unusual richness, and 
 scattered over the land, which looks at first sight so 
 barren, are almost countless valleys, fertile and se- 
 cluded, which contain towns and ranches, adding 
 most materially to the wealth of New Mexico. Some 
 of the richest mines in the Territory are located within 
 from twenty to fifty miles of Wallace, and the little 
 town for years has been a busy centre. 
 
 A few minutes' walk down the Rio Grande Valley 
 from Wallace brings one to the Indian pueblo of Santo 
 Domingo, one of the best preserved of the many vil- 
 lages scattered along the banks of the river. 
 
 Santo Domingo saw its first European visitor in 
 1540, when Coronado discovered it. Since that time it 
 has changed but little. Old roofs have crumbled away
 
 Into the Heart of the Southwest. yi 
 
 perhaps, and ladders have fallen to pieces and been 
 replaced by new ones, but the town, in spite of its 
 stains and scars, does not look materially different than 
 when it was centuries younger, and, judging from the 
 past, it will not be likely to change greatly in the future 
 if the Americans leave it, as it has so long been left, to 
 bask in the sunlight down the river side. 
 
 The houses of Santo Domingo are not as irregularly 
 arranged as at Taos, though made of the same mate- 
 rial. There is less angularity at Domingo and fewer 
 ladders, while the people in a measure have discarded 
 trap-door entrances and adopted modern doorways and 
 windows. Still the village is but a collection of rudely 
 made huts, grouped disconnectedly about a common 
 plaza, and occupying a sandy bluff that overlooks the 
 Rio Grande. 
 
 At one end of the town, and standing apart from 
 the houses, is the church of Santo Domingo, built by 
 the Spaniards, and still containing bits of Spanish dec- 
 oration. Time has dealt the building strong, hard 
 blows during the time it has stood on the red-tinged 
 bank, and to-day the belfry, with its wooden crossbar 
 holding a bell, and the heavy wooden doors leading to 
 the interior, are cracked and time-stained, while the 
 wall enclosing the little square in front of the church is 
 rapidly crumbling into ruins. 
 
 An artist searching for contrasts in colors and pic- 
 turesqueness, would find both at Santo Domingo. Not 
 only are the houses interesting, with their quaint style
 
 72 
 
 With //it- Invader: 
 
 of architecture, but the people are picturesquely at- 
 tired and the life they lead is that of centuries ago, 
 when New Mexico was a terra incognita, and the fore- 
 fathers of the Indians were the only inhabitants. 
 
 A CORNER AT SANTO DOMINGO. 
 
 One sees dark, swarthy faces gleaming beneath thick 
 tresses of coarse, black hair, cut square across the 
 forehead, rows of white teeth set in large, full-lipped 
 mouths, magnificent eyes, laughing or serious, full,
 
 Into the Heart of the Southwest. 7? 
 
 rounded busts among the women and broad chests 
 among the men. 
 
 Noticing the beauty of these fat, rounded people, 
 one naturally, if he is a man, turns his eyes first to the 
 women, and once turned upon them, the men of the 
 tribe might be as ugly as sin and as fierce as his satanic 
 majesty, but he would gaze until the object looked at 
 moved away. For a girl of Santo Domingo is as pretty 
 as a picture. Brown as a berry, eyes dark and languid, 
 hands and feet small, ankle well-shaped and liberally 
 displayed, shoulder round and peeking out of the 
 calico waist that ends just below the arm, pearly teeth, 
 black hair, pretty laugh, saucy, flirty, and yet demure 
 Where is the man who would not fall in love for half 
 an hour, or until that time, at least, when he noticed 
 that his adored one wore no shoes, that her dress was 
 soiled, that she could not write, that she had to work, 
 that she was an Indian squaw. But she is a modern 
 Rebecca at the well, and, like her model, she lives in 
 a hot country, and wears few clothes, and loves to lin- 
 ger and to gossip. 
 
 With wants that are as simple as those of a child, 
 the inhabitants of Santo Domingo are, nevertheless, 
 well-to-do, and their farms are among the largest and 
 best in the Rio Grande Valley. Not at all versed in 
 manufacturing, themselves, they trade once a year 
 with the Navajos and the Zuni for the blankets and 
 trinkets which the latter make, and give in exchange 
 the fruit and corn and sheep which they have raised.
 
 74 
 
 With the Invader. 
 
 A man has but one wife, who labors for him, but who 
 is protected, and the people are quiet and unassuming. 
 To a stranger the bared forms met with at the village 
 may seem to imply immodesty. Women are often but 
 scantily clothed, and the younger children play in the 
 sands with no other covering than that which nature 
 has given them. But whatever is natural does not ap- 
 pear immodest to these ancient dwellers in the warm, 
 winterless climate, and mothers nurse their children in 
 public without a thought of its being a proceeding in- 
 tended for the home alone. 
 
 With civilization pressing upon them, the Domin- 
 goans are still primitive. Devoted Catholics, they do 
 not forget their mythological creeds, and to them 
 Montezuma is a reality. During the proper seasons 
 men work industriously in the fields, irrigating the soil, 
 plowing, planting and gathering the harvests, and on 
 appointed days parties are formed to scour the coun- 
 try for game. The bow and arrow are still used, and 
 the boys are expert throwers of a rudely made club 
 with which they strike down their prey. 
 
 South of Wallace are several smaller pueblos nest- 
 ling beside the Rio Grande, and farms lie on both 
 sides of the railroad track, and convert the otherwise 
 barren valley into a garden of exceeding freshness. 
 In the spring, lands are plowed with the old-fashioned 
 Mexican plow, drawn by a half-dozen yoke of oxen. 
 In the fall, the fields are yellow with ripened grain, 
 and the harvesters are busy gathering the cereals into
 
 Into the Heart of the Southwest. j$ 
 
 lumbering carts. But whether sowing or reaping, the 
 workers and the wide stretches of level land, hemmed 
 in by hills and high mountains, and watered by the 
 river, lend a pastoral beauty to the scene and remind 
 one of Acadian meadows. 
 
 Harvesting is an especially happy season. Crops 
 are gathered by the old and young, thanks are offered 
 in the churches, and the last load is followed by a 
 triumphal party from field to granary. The festivities 
 of the day extend far into the night. Fires are lighted, 
 songs are sung, and dances indulged in, and the other- 
 wise sedate dwellers in the adobe houses act like chil- 
 dren, tickled with a toy, who must express their joy or 
 go mad. 
 
 At Albuquerque, a few miles south of Wallace, the 
 Atlantic and Pacific Railroad branches westward from 
 the Atchison, across Northern Arizona to Mojave in 
 California. The line has been completed but a short 
 time, yet it is already a favorite route to the Pacific. It 
 passes through many interesting sections of Arizona, 
 and within six miles of the Colorado River canon, one 
 of the deepest and widest gorges that the river trav- 
 erses. The dark walls of rock rise six thousand feet 
 above the boiling stream, and the place is filled with 
 weird lights suggestive of Rembrandt. 
 
 From Peach Springs a wagon trail leads northward 
 to the canon. Climbing low, rock-strewn ridges and 
 winding around the bold headlands, marking an epoch 
 of wild upheaval, one descends at last to the level of the
 
 ~6 WitJi the Invader; 
 
 yellowish stream that gallops out of darkness and 
 bounds away into fitful shadows. The spot is sombre 
 and weird — a gateway to infernal regions. High 
 above hang the darkened cliffs, untouched by sunlight, 
 bare and drear. Rumblings, long and loud, fill the 
 sunless chasm, and past one rushes the river, seething 
 as it goes and full of angry whirlpools and flecked with 
 foam. 
 
 The Colorado is formed by the Grand and Green 
 rivers, rising respectively in Wyoming and Colorado. 
 For a distance of three hundred miles it runs through 
 a canon varying in depth from 3000 to 6000 feet. 
 Not merely along the stream itself is there this abrupt- 
 ly descending gulf, but hundreds of lateral cafions, 
 some furnishing tributary waters to the great river, and 
 others perfectly dry, interlace the level lands for miles. 
 
 The country through which the Colorado passes is 
 in the main level, though occasionally low mountain 
 ranges border or run across it. Mountains are formed 
 below the common surface of the earth, with their 
 bases three, and even six thousand feet beneath, so 
 that the whole order of mountain scenery is reversed. 
 In looking over the face of the country one imagines 
 it to be prairie. A mile further on and he finds him- 
 self on the top of a mountain, beyond which are a suc- 
 cession of mountain ranges, and thousands of feet 
 below streams of water, drawn like ribbons of steel 
 through the solid rocks. The country is not cut into 
 even, angular blocks with perfectly upright walls, but
 
 Into the Heart rf the Southwest. 77 
 
 by erosion, and the wear of the elements, the under- 
 ground peaks have taken the most unique shapes, rep- 
 resenting every conceivable architectural design, and 
 resembling cities grander than was ever conceived by 
 the ingenuity of man. The effect is greatly heightened 
 by the brilliant colors that nearly all these rocks dis- 
 play, varying from brilliant scarlet to the purest marble 
 white. 
 
 The present route of the Atlantic and Pacific, de- 
 fined by the topography of the country, was not known 
 to the Spanish explorers. They, in coming north by 
 way of Sonora, on the Gulf of California, followed the 
 valleys of the Yaqui and Gila Rivers, passed near the 
 Indian village of Zuni, and reached the Rio Grande 
 below Albuquerque. Even as late as 1846, General 
 Kearney, marching to the conquest of California, fol- 
 lowed the Rio Grande as far south as San Marcial, 
 and worked over to the Gila River; while his quarter, 
 master, Captain Cook, took his trail farther south, 
 going by Tucson. 
 
 After military affairs had culminated in the Pacific 
 State, Lieutenant Beale was intrusted with dispatches 
 for Washington. With a trusty guide, said to have 
 been Kit Carson, he marched eastward by the Mojave 
 River Valley, crossed the Colorado near Fort Mojave, 
 and, feeling his way through valleys and ravines, passed 
 north of Williams' Mountains, then south of the San 
 Francisco range, and reached the Valley of the Little 
 Colorado, near the present town of Winston. From
 
 y8 With the Invader. 
 
 there the Puerco Valley was but a natural course to 
 take, as it led to Coolidge and Laguna, which were 
 within easy reach of the Santa Fe trail. 
 
 Lieutenant Beale was so deeply impressed with the 
 favorable condition of the route he had traversed, as 
 an overland road to California, that he applied to Con- 
 gress for an appropriation to open a wagon road from 
 Albuquerque to Los Angeles. He was successful, and 
 laid out what soon became well known as " Beale's 
 wagon road." In 1833-5, when a survey for Pacific 
 roads was made under Lieutenant Whipple, the line 
 approached the Rio Grande Valley past Santo Do- 
 mingo, and from Albuquerque followed Beale's road 
 to Laguna, reaching the Little Colorado by way of 
 Zuni. 
 
 In 1866 a national charter was granted the Atlantic 
 Pacific, but no surveys were made until 1867, when 
 General W. J. Palmer made a survey westward from 
 the Rio Grande River, with the idea of building an 
 extension of the Kansas Pacific road. The plan was 
 abandoned, however. In 1880, work was begun again, 
 and the road was completed under the direction of 
 the present General Manager. In 1883 nearly 600 
 miles were in operation, and in 1884 the Colorado 
 river was crossed and a new trans-continental line es- 
 tablished. During the present fall (1884) the Mojave 
 division of the Southern Pacific was bought, giving a 
 through line from the Missouri to San Francisco. 
 
 Western New Mexico and Northern Arizona are pic-
 
 Into the Heart of (he Southwest. yp 
 
 turesque portions of the southwest. Cut into valleys, 
 or elevated tablelands, by heavily wooded mountains 
 they contain many ancient pueblos inhabited by curious 
 people, whose villages ante-date the advent of the ear- 
 liest explorers. Still clinging to their primitive customs, 
 the pueblo Indians have abandoned whatever predilec- 
 tions they may have entertained for war, and to-day are 
 a pastoral people. 
 
 Laguna, sixty miles west from Albuquerque, is one 
 of the largest pueblos, and is built on the crest of a 
 high rock overlooking a narrow valley. Near it is 
 Acoma, also located high above the surrounding coun- 
 try, and reached by a narrow, winding trail that follows 
 a natural crevice of the rock. Standing within this 
 fortified village of curiously constructed houses one 
 looks down upon a vari-colored valley, and far away to 
 distant mountain heights, with wooded slopes and 
 snowy peaks. The neighboring rocks, bright red and 
 yellow and silvery gray, lie tossed in wild confusion 
 and are suggestive of huge castles and stately towers. 
 The view is extended, varied and beautiful, a revelation 
 to first observers, and ever attractive to those acquainted 
 with its charms. 
 
 North of Wingate station is the Navajo reservation. 
 The Navajos belong to the Apache nation, and are an 
 intelligent and industrious people. Formerly on the 
 war-path and a terror to all neighbors, they have lately 
 made rapid progress toward civilization, and to-day 
 number about 15,000 and own considerable property.
 
 So With the Invader: 
 
 They live in huts, made of boughs and earth, and are 
 ingenious manufacturers of rugs and blankets of native 
 wool, dyed with brilliant colors. Their goods are 
 famous for durability and imperviousness to water. 
 
 The Zuni village, near the Navajo, has attained 
 national prominence lately through Mr. Cushing, who 
 has lived among the people and described at length 
 their peculiar modes of life and the strange aspects of 
 the town. 
 
 The Moqui Indians, whose village lies near that of 
 Zuni and Navajo, are the only people able to decipher 
 the inscriptions on ancient pottery or the hieroglyphics 
 on the cliffs. Still occupying the same houses in 
 which they were found by the Spaniards, they cling 
 tenaciously to their primitive customs, and lead an 
 interesting though prosaic existence. The pueblo is 
 built on a rocky mesa that lies six hundred feet above 
 the valley, and the houses are made of rough stones 
 plastered with mud, and extending in terraces around a 
 central plaza. Like their neighbors, the Moquis, they 
 are expert manufacturers of blankets and pottery, and 
 have accumulated considerable wealth, represented by 
 sheep and cattle. 
 
 Of the prehistoric dwellings in Northern Arizona 
 those found in the cliffs that border waterless canons, 
 and in lava cones, are the most interesting and curious. 
 Eight miles from Flagstaff a mountain of lava, rising to 
 a height of some six hundred feet, contains a succes- 
 sion of cells that were evidently occupied in some past
 
 Into the Heart of the Southwest. 8r 
 
 age. The dwellings usually consist of three or four 
 apartments, entered through a hole barely large enough 
 to admit a single person. The first chamber is the 
 largest of the suite and the only one that is lighted. 
 From it narrow openings lead into other rooms, floored 
 with dust, in which are buried Indian implements of 
 stone. The mountain is honeycombed with apart- 
 ments, and is surmounted by a wall bearing strong re- 
 semblance to a fortification, and which was possibly a 
 Spanish defence during the visit of the explorers. 
 
 Flagstaff is also in near proximity to several cliff 
 dwellings built in the solid walls of a canon. Though 
 tenantless to-day the huts are still well preserved, and 
 contain many relics of the former inhabitants. There 
 arc several canons in Arizona containing these pre- 
 historic homes, and their presence has caused much 
 discussion. That they formerly stood beside deep 
 rivers seems certain from the strata of the canons' rock, 
 which everywhere exhibits the mark of water. That 
 they were inhabited by a people familiar with many arts 
 is evinced by the presence of pottery, bits of cloth and 
 matting found buried in the dust of the floors. 
 
 The canon near Flagstaff is deep and dry. The 
 walls are of sandstone, irregularly stratified near the 
 bottom, but which are traversed higher up by continu- 
 ous lines of open, horizontal fissures that are some ten 
 feet wide at their mouth and extend fifteen feet into the 
 cliff. At the outer edge of the overhanging rock stone 
 walls have been built, closing the aperture, and division
 
 82 J J 7/// the Invader: 
 
 walls that separate the enclosed space into a series of 
 rooms. The apartments resemble mud-swallow nests 
 and are almost inaccessible. The entrances are small 
 and open upon narrow ledges. Crawling into these 
 dark abodes, that stand so silently amid their wild sur- 
 roundings, one questions who the builders were and 
 why they fled their homes. He who shall tell the story 
 will have a curious tale. 
 
 Nature has played curious tricks with Arizona. Fresh 
 and beautiful here, it is dry and deserted there. At 
 one moment in the midst of dense forests, one at 
 another stands where there are mounds of lava and 
 oddly-fashioned rocks. But at all times the coloring is 
 brilliant. Red-tinged boulders rest in wastes of yellow 
 sand ; snowy peaks rise high above dark green forests ; 
 grasses are silvery gray ; canon walls are vari-hued; the 
 sky is blue, the air soft and yet invigorating. There is 
 a medley of the old and new. Prehistoric huts stand 
 beside ancient villages, which in turn are crowded by 
 modern houses of the late invaders. 
 
 A few miles south of Holbrook is a petrified forest. 
 It covers nearly 2000 acres, and every tree and shrub 
 is hardened into stone. A killing hand has struck the 
 region. Huge trunks, turned to solid rock, lie upon the 
 ground or rest one upon the other. Tender twigs and 
 leaves and fallen bits of bark arc lifeless. The spot is 
 weird and wild. Birds were frozen as they flew, ani- 
 mals as they ran. The transformation was sudden and 
 complete.
 
 Into the Heart of the Southwest. 8j 
 
 The trees arc of various wood, and the bark and 
 grain are well preserved. When broken die trunks 
 present a brilliant crystalline appearance, and many 
 are agatized. Cut and polished, the wood is I 
 colored and the grain distinctly seen. Some of the 
 are hollow and filled with purest crystals, vary- 
 ing from white to richest amethyst in color, while 
 others are solid and often measure a hundred feet in 
 length. One log of solid petrifaction that has fallen 
 across a canon is ioo feet in length and five feet in 
 thickness, and forms a natural bridge across the deep 
 ravine. Beneath the ground are giant trunks weighing 
 many tons, and the forest is filled with petrifactions. 
 
 Below Albuquerque the Rio Grande Valley extends 
 nearly due southward for two hundred miles, then 
 eastward eighty miles to El Paso, in Northwestern 
 Texas. Never, until nearing the end of its long 
 course, a deep stream, the Rio Grande waters an 
 extended area of country, and sections of its valley, ly- 
 ing between El Paso and Albuquerque, have been cul- 
 tivated for centuries. The soil is composed of silicious 
 matter, and the muddy waters are carried by irrigating 
 ditches over the low-lying fields. The river is the Nile 
 of the southwest, furnishing a rich supply of fertilizing 
 ingredients and often overflowing its banks 
 
 Albuquerque is on the dividing line between the 
 grazing fields and the mineral regions of New Mexico. 
 Beyond it the Rio Grande extends through a mass of 
 mountains which have yielded and continue to yield 
 large amounts of precious metals.
 
 84 With the Invader: 
 
 The country, unfortunately, enjoyed a few years ago 
 an excitement unwarranted by developments, and at 
 present is comparatively dull. From 1878 to 1882 
 new and valuable discoveries were made so frequently 
 that great expectations arose. Towns sprang into ex- 
 istence without reason, and property commanded prices 
 past all real value. To-day business has become more 
 equalized, and values more properly apportioned. The 
 excitement is over, but development continues. With 
 the present amount of knowledge regarding the actual 
 wealth existing one cannot begin to foretell the future 
 of the region. Prospecting has been but desultory. A 
 comparatively limited area has been examined. Mines 
 not proving bonanzas at once have been passed by. 
 Capital has sought large returns rather than sure ones. 
 There has been too much speculation and not enough 
 patience; too many swindles and too little honesty. 
 
 But Southern New Mexico is only seemingly dead. 
 It is still plodding toward certain wealth. Metropoli 
 have settled into towns and cities have realized they are 
 but villages. There is more systematic mining at pres- 
 ent than ever before. The next noteworthy advance- 
 ments will be more lasting because better warranted. 
 The metals are in the ranges, and it is only a question 
 of time when they shall be discovered. 
 
 And when the country attains the position its natural 
 wealth entitles it to the Rio Grande Valley, and the 
 level lands bordering smaller streams, will prove their 
 power to produce. Already they are being cultivated,
 
 Into tlii- Heart of the Soul Incus!. Sj 
 
 and the climate and soil insure a rich and abundant 
 growth. Fruit trees and vines especially thrive. The 
 grape-growing belt extends in the Rio Grande Valley 
 from Bernalillo County, around Wallace, to the Texas 
 line, at El Paso. In it are thousands of arable acres. 
 It is a natural garden, watered, protected and level. 
 
 Practically knowing no winter, for snow is rarely 
 seen in it, the valley is never bare or dreary. In early 
 spring the grasses cover the confining hills, the river is 
 full of swiftly moving waters, and the air is laden with 
 the perfume of blossoming fruit trees. Above the blue 
 of distant heights lie banks of pure white snow ; the 
 fields are being tilled ; Lower New Mexico is at its 
 best. Vast, boldly outlined, filled with strange sights 
 and peculiar people, it appeals strongly to the imagina- 
 tion. There is a picture of gradual development. 
 Hitherto neglected fields are being reclaimed ; modern 
 styled houses stand beside ancient adobe ones ; red- 
 blanketed Indians mingle with the strangers who have 
 entered their native country. The old is not obliter- 
 ated, but remains to lend emphasis to the new. 
 
 Turning sharply eastward, near Rincon, the Rio 
 Grande escapes from its narrower valley and enters a 
 level country, containing the towns of Las Cruces and 
 '.Mrssilla. The villages are old and built mostly of 
 adobe. With a mixed population of Mexicans and 
 Americans, they stand in the center of a rich agricul- 
 tural section, surrounded by low-browed hills, and in the 
 midst of vineyards and orchards. There are 200,000
 
 86 With tJie Invader. 
 
 acres of grape land in the valleys, and the Mission 
 grape is grown in large quantities. Land is valued 
 at from $5 to $2000 per acre, as it is improved or unim- 
 proved, and the popular belief is that five acres put in 
 vineyards, and properly cultivated, will yield a revenue 
 sufficient to support a family. 
 
 The Mission grape vine was introduced into New 
 Mexico by the Franciscan Fathers. It still flourishes 
 in California, and around Las Cruces is particularly 
 prevalent, and affords a delicious fruit and a wine 1 \ 
 excellent quality. From the town the vineyards stretch 
 far away toward the hills, and remind one of scenes 
 along the Rhine, where green leaves half hide the juicy 
 fruits. 
 
 The method of growing grapes in New Mexico is 
 purely local. The vineyards are usually started from 
 cuttings, though a few growers use trenches until the 
 root is well started. During the first three years atten- 
 tion is mainly directed to giving strength to the trunk, 
 so that staking or trellising need not be required. All 
 superfluous growth is continually cut away, the trunk 
 and a few short branches only being allowed to remain. 
 This throws all the strength and nourishment into the 
 body of the plant, so that in a few years it is thick and 
 stout, closely resembling a dwarf tree. 
 
 "When the cutting is first set out, the soil is closely 
 packed about it, and the water from the irrigating ditch 
 turned on. Nothing is done the first year except to 
 keep the plant well watered and clear the vineyard of
 
 Tnto the I hart of the Southwest. S 1 / 
 
 weeds. In November it is covered with dirt and straw. 
 The time for uncovering varies with different growers 
 some commencing as early as the middle of February, 
 while others wait until April. After the lapse of from 
 ten days to a month the plant is trimmed, and the pro- 
 cess of the previous year repeated. 
 
 But few grapes will be produced until the third 
 season, but the labor of the cultivator is increased each 
 succeeding year in removing the weeds and suckers, 
 staking where needed, trimming, covering and uncov- 
 ering. After the fourth year the vines will be loaded 
 with grapes. 
 
 Every vine of Las Cruces is estimated to yield from 
 two to three gallons of wine, worth usually one dollar 
 per gallon. By planting them eight feet apart each 
 way, there would be 680 vines to the acre, which should 
 yield 1360 gallons. Every year sees an increased num- 
 ber of acres planted, and it is proposed to settle the 
 valley with colonists. The soil and climate are partic- 
 ularly favorable, and the region has an abundant sup- 
 ply of water.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 A Mexican Metropolis'. 
 
 WITH its gardens overlooking the yellow waters of 
 the Rio Grande, and bordering the banks of that 
 shallow stream for a distance of six miles below the 
 dividing line of Texas and New Mexico, stands the 
 little town of El Paso del Norte. Snugly ensconced 
 at the gateway opening into old Mexico, and enjoying 
 the dual reputation of being very old and picturesque, 
 it offers little evidence of its existence, but hides be- 
 neath the cottonwood trees, as though fearful of dis- 
 covery. 
 
 Even from El Paso, a modern village created by 
 the railways, Del Norte, though only across the river, 
 still refuses to disclose itself, and the only object sug- 
 gesting its existence is the whitewashed tower of a ca- 
 thedral that rises above the tree-tops and stands closely 
 outlined against the distant hills. Beyond it stretch the 
 sandy levels of old Mexico, dotted with coarse grasses, 
 while between it and El Paso runs the Rio Grande. 
 
 Were it not for the groves of Del Norte, the coun- 
 try around the gateway to Mexico would have but 
 little attractiveness. But they relieve the monotony of 
 sandy plains and the dull covering of the surrounding 
 hills, and are as refreshing as oases in the desert. Look-
 
 A Mexican Metropolis. 89 
 
 ing at them, one grows impatient to cross the river to 
 their cool shade and to the narrow streets bordered 
 by rows of adobe houses, which lead about the city. 
 
 El Paso del Norte will very likely never be larger 
 than it is to-day. The town will be slow to alter its 
 settled ways of living, or to adopt the new ideas intro- 
 duced by that civilization which has pressed down 
 upon it with the advent of the railways. Simple, un- 
 ambitious and pretty, it is now, and probably ever will 
 be, the home of contented people, living in and for 
 their gardens, and heedless of the new and larger 
 towns springing up around them. El Paso will be- 
 come a metropolis before Del Norte has a thousand 
 people added to its population; but still the new ar- 
 rival will not cease to look to its neighbor for fruits 
 ami vegetables. Del Norte, in fact, will continue to 
 be what it is to-day, the park, garden and suburb of 
 El Paso. 
 
 A resident of Del Norte has profound contempt for 
 El Paso. The new town to him is an interloper, a 
 parvenu, a bubble blown into existence by railways. 
 According to his idea, El Paso is a place of worry and 
 undue haste, where there is no sweet siesta to break 
 the monotony of the day. Del Norte is not jealous of 
 El Paso's growth, but pities rather than envies, seeing 
 but little in the new town to admire, and wondering, 
 in a dull sort of way, why the place has come at all, 
 and v, hat its future is to be. 
 
 Before the Americanos came, Del Norte was idealic
 
 po With the Invader. 
 
 and individual. Its people knew nothing beyond fete 
 days and an occasional bull-fight, and saw but few 
 strangers. Now the new-comers have introduced a 
 horse-car line into the town, and built stations and a 
 railway bridge over the river, and have made overtures 
 to buy gardens that were legacies for years. 
 
 And yet it is rather sad to notice the alteration that 
 is forced upon the old city. It seems a pity to force a 
 change upon it or allow an upstart rival to overpower 
 and eclipse it. Forgetting business, and the fact that 
 progress must be made in this, the century of advance- 
 ment, one cannot but wish that the old might have 
 staid a little longer, and that quaint cities — American 
 Nurembergs, as we may call them — might have retained 
 their primitiveness and been safe from horse-car inva- 
 sions and modern implements. But regrets are use- 
 less, and the old must be displaced by the new, and 
 Del Norte is not alone among the cities that our rail- 
 ways are reconstructing and changing beyond all rec- 
 ognition. 
 
 El Paso has grown too rapidly to be attractive. It 
 resembles an overgrown boy, strong and vigorous, but 
 loosely put together. With a population of 5,000 peo- 
 ple, whose advent has been within the past three years ? 
 the city is a busy railway centre, and devoted to mak- 
 ing money. At it the Atchison road ends and the 
 Mexican Central begins. The meeting place of such 
 highways insures present and future importance. If 
 business between the two republics increases, El Paso
 
 A Mexican Metropolis. pi 
 
 will be benefited accordingly. It is a natural central- 
 ize^ the fact being attested by the large wholesale houses 
 that are present, and by the banks which have been 
 opened. 
 
 The climate is generally salubrious, though at times 
 the clear days are made the reverse by sand storms gen- 
 erated in the vicinity. There is a mixed population at 
 present, and Spanish signs are as plentiful as English. 
 But with the foreign aspects there exist sufficient Amer- 
 icanisms, and the people are western to the core, ener- 
 getic and wide awake. They have transformed the 
 original village, and by their tireless energy are likely 
 to make El Paso a city of wealth and importance. 
 
 One likes and dislikes El Paso. But if it irritates at 
 times with its freshness, the town across the river never 
 does. Del Norte is a healing balsam to the blister of 
 El Paso. One goes there and rests because the place 
 is restful. As George Sand would say, the perfume of 
 the flowers penetrates the mind as well as the bodily 
 organ. There is not much to see in the way of 
 historical buildings, but there are cool placitas 
 and shaded streets, and flowers without limit that 
 climb over the walls and fill deep-set windows and 
 trail over ancient doorways. 
 
 Leaving El Paso and crossing the river, either by 
 the boat, still pushed from shore to shore by a swarthy- 
 faced Mexican, or by the bridge, which spans the cur- 
 rent, one steps upon Mexican soil and into the quiet 
 of Del Norte at the same time. Wandering up a long,
 
 Q2 With the Invader. 
 
 narrow street, dusty, unpaved, and lined with adobe 
 houses, the way leads at last into the center of the 
 town and to the plaza and cathedral. Yet even here 
 there is general listlessness. Beneath the trees of the 
 little square, around which are the shops of the city, a 
 few people are assembled, and in the doorways men sit 
 with a wistful innocence that their after extortions in 
 trade belie. 
 
 In its early days the plaza was lively enough, how- 
 ever. Then wide, stone seats were scattered about it, 
 and tables, loaded with fruits and drink, were set 
 beneath the trees. There people gathered to do their 
 dailv marketing, and there on fete days the showy pa- 
 geants of the church were held. But to-day the benches 
 are gone, and the people go across the river to sell and 
 purchase goods, and the square has drawn into its 
 shell, like a snail, and gives but little sign of life. Yet 
 the cathedral remains, stately as of old, and holding in 
 its high tower a trio of bells of Spanish brass, and to 
 the open doorway, facing the square, worshipers con- 
 tinue to wander. 
 
 The first mission at Del Norte was established in 
 1585 by Padre Ruiz, one of the Franciscan monks. 
 Later, the colony was presided over by Ohate. The 
 cathedral was finished a little over a century ago, and 
 while its whitened, adobe walls are time-stained, they 
 are still strong, and the interior is full of deep shadows. 
 Overhead, the carved beams are stained dark with age, 
 and birds have built their nests among them, while the
 
 A Mexican Metropolis. pj 
 
 heavy doors, swinging on their huge Spanish hinges, 
 are scarred and cracked. In the chapel are heavily 
 bound books of parchment, filled with the writings of 
 long-dead padres, as legible to-day as a hundred years 
 ago, and banners of gold and velvet, brought to the 
 cathedral by the fathers who have "gone on before." 
 
 Before leaving Del Norte, after wandering about its 
 gardens, where men and women are at work tending 
 the vegetables, and where there are thatched-roofed 
 cottages, with doves fluttering around them, and vistas 
 of green trees, brown walls and bright flowers, one 
 should go to the cathedral tower. Climbing the creak- 
 ing stairway that leads into the airy belfry, and stand- 
 ing beneath the old bells hung by thongs of hide to 
 heavy beams above, Del Norte is spread out at one's 
 feet, and down the wide valley, full of ever-changing 
 colors, runs the Rio Grande toward its distant sea. 
 There reach the pointed mountains, haze-obscured and 
 grand; there lie the sandy wastes, making an inland sea. 
 There is a wealth of coloring — the brown walls of. the 
 town, the white-faced cottages, the brilliant flowers, the 
 green gardens, the blue-tinged peaks and the yellow 
 plains. Behind the church appear the barracks of the 
 city and a dreary prison, while across the Rio Grande, 
 El Paso rises into sight, its frame houses and red-brick 
 blocks manifesting the new life that has so lately crowded 
 down upon the city of Del Norte, embowered in trees, 
 nestling beside the great river of the north. 
 
 Looking southward into old Mexico from El Paso
 
 94 
 
 With the Invader: 
 
 del Norte, there is given little evidence of that wealth 
 which has tempted railways into the Republic. Away 
 from the Rio Grande, the State of Chihuahua, clown 
 which the Mexican Central extends to the City of 
 Mexico, is dry and unattractive. Far as the eye can 
 see, a mass of yellow sand lies glistening in the strong 
 sunlight, tossed into rills and billows, by the winds that 
 sweep over the region, and as devoid of trees as the 
 Desert of Sahara. Once among the low-lying dunes, 
 rolling about one like the waves of an ocean, the cot- 
 tonwoods of Del Norte form the only exception to the 
 monotonous coloring. For eighty miles the railway 
 pursues its uninteresting course. One escapes from 
 civilization to a desert. 
 
 Chihuahua contains 100,000 square miles of terri- 
 tory and has a population of 200,000. Naturally one 
 of the richest states in the Republic, having valuable 
 gold, silver, copper and iron mines, its grazing area 
 supports thousands of cattle, and many of the towns 
 are large and important. Beyond the sandy portions 
 of the State, occupying its northeastern limits, the ara- 
 ble country is encountered. Watered by rivers and 
 small lakes, and guarded on the west by the Sierra 
 Madre Mountains, it is divided into extended ranches, 
 and is literally covered with cattle. 
 
 Nor is the State without its scenic attractions. 
 Once away from the sands, the Mexican Central, 
 closely following the old wagon road between El Paso 
 and Chihuahua, enters an elevated valley, formed by
 
 A Mexican Metropolis. 95 
 
 the Sierra Madre on the one side, and a range of low- 
 lying hills on the other. Here grasses are encoun- 
 tered and haciendas passed, having strong resemblance, 
 with their houses and huge corrals, to thriving towns. 
 Before one stretches the valley, mountain-guarded, 
 and seemingly without limit, while around are the blue 
 and brown Sierras, cut into fantastic shapes and pene- 
 trated by gloomy canons. 
 
 The region is delightfully fresh and cool. At the 
 various stations, broad-hatted Mexicans peer into the 
 windows of one's car, or are seated on their little mus- 
 tangs, keeping guard over their grazing herds. For 
 nearly two hundred miles, and until the Chihuahua 
 house-tops become visible, only the grassy plains are 
 present. The valley is a wide, long field, green in 
 spring-time, brown in summer. A few years ago far 
 removed from civilization, and the scene of many an 
 Apache raid, it to-day is on the highway leading 
 through Central Mexico, from republic to republic. 
 
 Evening shadows filled the valley when we ap- 
 proached Chihuahua. In the distance, the mountain 
 ranges loomed against the star-lit sky. Out in the 
 fields, scattered camp-fires gleamed brightly through 
 the gathering darkness. Later on, adobe huts, lighted 
 by pines burning on open hearths, lined the road, and 
 beyond them, gathered upon a mountain side, shone 
 the stardike lights of Chihuahua. 
 
 Leaving the train, and boarding an American omni- 
 bus, we drove across a shallow creek, past scattered
 
 g6 With the Invader: 
 
 houses, and into long, narrow streets, lined with adobe 
 walls or flat-roofed houses, to a brilliantly lighted 
 square lying in the heart of the city. Greeted in 
 Spanish, paying reals and pesos, looking upon a plaza 
 that had not yet been Americanized, we realized that 
 we were in a foreign country, amid strange sights and 
 lands. The introduction, with its attendant lights and 
 music, was satisfactory. Mexico did not, for the mo- 
 ment at least, belie its reputation. It was quaint, cu- 
 rious and fascinating. 
 
 Visit Chihuahua only for a day, and one will be- 
 lieve that the city consists of a cathedral, a plaza and 
 a succession of narrow streets, that radiate in every 
 direction, from the church. For the cathedral is 
 proportionately larger than the city, and overpowers it, 
 and one never loses sight of the towers. As for the 
 plaza, it is omnipresent, too, for at it every street be- 
 gins, and in it is whatever life there is in the city. 
 Regarding the streets, they are narrow, diminutive and 
 numerous, and form a veritable network over the town, 
 and are ever entertaining, with their burros, shops, 
 oddly-dressed people and candy-stands, presided over 
 by gray and wrinkled matrons, selling sweets for cop- 
 per tlacos. 
 
 The situation of Chihuahua is commanding. In 
 front of it runs the valley of the Rio Conchos, 
 winding past a range of bluish mountains, and behind 
 the town are other hills, with brown-hued sides. The 
 ranges are bare of trees, but in the valley, cottonwoods
 
 A Mexican Metropolis. 
 
 97 
 
 line the banks of the river, and green groves cluster 
 about white-walled cottages. Away in one direction, 
 toward the north, the valley extends far as- the eye can 
 see, but in the south, mountains of varying height and 
 form lie heaued together in wild disorder. 
 
 CATHEDRAL TOWERS. 
 
 Free of clouds a greater portion of the year, the sky 
 over Chihuahua is clear and blue, and is filled during 
 the day with a warm, bright sunlight that floods the val- 
 ley and throws long shadows on the mountain sides; and
 
 y8 WitJi the Invader: 
 
 at night the stars shining in it are as brilliant as choice 
 gems. Robbed of its other attractions, but retaining 
 the climate of its table lands, Mexico would never want 
 admirers. At the same elevation which the City of 
 Mexico and Chihuahua enjoy — 5000 to 7000 feet 
 above sea level — the air is warm but bracing, and the 
 breezes ever dry and yet refreshing. Existence is a 
 pleasure. All nature is brightened, and colors intensi- 
 fied. There is invigoration without excitement; the 
 warm sensuousness of the south with the vitality of the 
 north. 
 
 Chihuahua is interesting, not because of its age, 
 although founded in 1604, but rather from its close 
 resemblance to Spanish cities, and because of the life 
 existing in it. Whatever its appearance was in 1604, 
 it to-day is Spanish in construction, and the language 
 of that country is heard upon the streets. During the 
 power of Spain Chihuahua expanded, but did nothing 
 after the Spaniards left. It had no ambition, appar- 
 ently, and was satisfied with itself and with the world. 
 The result of this apathy is now apparent. The town 
 is ancient far beyond its years. More than two cen- 
 turies old, parts of it appear still older. There is anti- 
 quity written everywhere. Even the aqueducts, which 
 the Spaniards built into the valley to supply the town 
 with water, do not seem much younger than those of 
 Rome, and as for the cathedral and the old walls pro- 
 tecting the various gardens, they are time-stained, 
 crumbling and antiquated.
 
 A Mexican Metropolis. pp 
 
 It is a relief to find so much mellowness. Santa ¥6 
 introduced the liking for the old, and Chihuahua whets 
 the appetite. Did one not know the city existed in 
 Mexico, he might easily believe it to be in Europe. 
 There are the same vine-clad walls and flower-choked 
 gardens and quaint balconies; and the people dress, 
 speak and live much as do their cousins whom we cross 
 an ocean to visit. 
 
 A stranger perhaps will not be greatly impressed with 
 Chihuahua at first sight. It does not reveal the whole 
 of itself at once. Like Venice, it has to be known 
 intimately. The plaza is the Grand Canal in attract- 
 iveness; but the plaza is not all there is. If he knows 
 where to seek, one may find many a by-path that has 
 a picturesqueness all its own, and many a quiet garden 
 where fountains are splashing, and cool, wide balconies 
 look down upon sweet-smelling flowers. 
 
 In such retreats the foreign flavor predominates. 
 They are fragments of the Old World, washed across 
 the Atlantic to the table-lands of Mexico. Leave the 
 street, pass through a doorway, leading beneath an 
 adobe arch, and one finds the garden, cool, fragrant 
 and restful. Children with big, black eyes are playing 
 on the well-swept walks; a senorita is busy with her 
 guitar ; doves are cooing on their nests under the bal- 
 cony; the fountain jets upward from the plants around 
 it to the sunlight that falls over the casa. Above is the 
 deep-blue sky; around one, the winter roses. Cold 
 and barren in the north, it is summer and sunshine
 
 ioo With the Invader: 
 
 here. Windows are open in January; birds are ever 
 present. 
 
 Nor is one's pleasure in Chihuahua marred by guides. 
 There are no set rules of procedure. One may wan- 
 der where he will. There is the Alameda, with its 
 double row of trees and twin streams of water, leading 
 from the city to the country; the church of Guada- 
 lupe, with whitened walls and dome, from which the 
 city is visible, and around which lie the farms; the aque- 
 duct, still bringing water from the river to town, and 
 through whose arches appear the cathedral towers or 
 the dome of San Francisco; and the climb to distant 
 hill-tops, with their view of the valley and distant heights 
 of Central Mexico. There is little that is grand, but 
 much that is picturesque and novel. Adobe supplants 
 marble and granite, but the designs are good, and time 
 has colored all things harmoniously. 
 
 Day is ushered into Chihuahua by the clanging of 
 the cathedral bells. Coming with early risers, on their 
 way to mass, to the plaza, one finds the city all astir. 
 Across the little square hurry a promiscuous throng. 
 There a ranchero, early into town with his load of fruit, 
 moves bareheaded to the church, greasy, but devout ; 
 and at his side walks a senora, her dress sweeping be- 
 hind, and the graceful mantilla covering her head. 
 The rich or the poor, the peon, the Indian, the mer- 
 chant, and the beggar obey the summons of the bell. 
 Men leave their burros and hurry to their prayers ; the 
 sweeper drops his broom to pray. Caste is forgotten.
 
 A Mexican Metropolis. IOI 
 
 The day has begun, and during mass the ragged and 
 the richly clothed are gathered together. 
 
 There are three places in Chihuahua which soon 
 become favorite haunts — the market, the cathedral, 
 and the plaza. All are within short distance of each 
 other, and in them centres the life of the town. The 
 market is open from early morning until late at night, 
 and, except at noon, when every Mexican takes his 
 siesta, the multitudinous wares are lustily called and 
 eagerly offered for sale by cigarette-smoking proprietors 
 squatting on bits of matting spread beside their goods. 
 
 The market place is an enclosure formed by four 
 whitewashed walls, and is entered from the street 
 through arched doorways. Outside the walls, filled 
 with diminutive booths, stand rows of patient burros, 
 their heads obstructing the narrow sidewalk, and their 
 bodies filling the street. Quaint beasts of burden they 
 are, these donkeys, browsy-coated, prone to deceit, 
 patient amid all their hardships. Every Mexican owns 
 one, every city is filled with them. Sure-footed and 
 strong, they march into town at daybreak loaded with 
 produce, and stand all day blinking in the hot sun- 
 shine, fully satisfied with the thought of eating. 
 
 Passing through one of the arched entrances the 
 market proper is reached. The place is a second Bed- 
 lam. In every direction are heaped the goods — pot- 
 tery and onions, cigars and cabbages, cheap fruits and 
 cheaper jewelry, fowl and beans. Harsh and shrill 
 voices are heard on every side ; packing and unpack-
 
 102 
 
 Willi the Invader. 
 
 ing is going briskly on; tlacos are jingling; women and 
 boys are eating, sorting, laughing, busily engaged about 
 the minor details of their work. Confusion reigns. 
 Every one is alert for trade. Gay colors, dark faces, 
 brilliant eyes, supple forms, and flowers of every hue 
 abound 
 
 And yet one cannot repress a feeling of sadness as 
 he looks upon the scene. The purchases are so small; 
 all buy so carefully; every ilaco is counted before it 
 leaves the owner. Pitiful allowances of food are taken 
 home by the senoras—a. half-dozen potatoes, a handful 
 of onions, an ounce of beef ! Goodness knows how 
 body and soul are kept together, and yet the one pleas- 
 ure that the people have is going to market, and the 
 fact of there being old men and women in Mexico 
 proves that some of our fellow creatures, at least, can 
 live upon less than would satisfy any class outside that 
 found in Cairo or on the banks of the Nile. 
 
 The cathedral is not only the most conspicuous 
 building in Chihuahua, but is the largest and most 
 celebrated. The architecture is decidedly Moorish, 
 and the church, finished a century ago, is a fine old 
 specimen of adobe and stucco. It stands facing the 
 plaza and the facade, bordered on either side by two 
 high towers, is covered with carvings and filled with 
 niches holding time-scarred images of the twelve Apos- 
 tles. Over the doorway is an illuminated clock with a 
 dull-sounding bell, on which the hours and quarter- 
 hours arc struck throughout the day, and in the towers, 

 
 A Mexican Metropolis. ioj 
 
 tapering gradually to carved crosses, hang half a dozen 
 hells, which call worshipers to church, or give loud 
 peals on fete days. During Maximilian's attack on the 
 city a cannon ball went through one of the bells for a 
 pastime, somewhat destroying its tone, but the others 
 are as sound to-day as when the Spaniards hung them 
 in their places a hundred years ago. 
 
 There are three entrances to the church — one broad 
 and high, facing the plaza, and the others on the sides 
 of the building. All have heavy oaken doors, vying 
 now with the stucco work around them in fantastic but 
 sadly soiled carvings. Back of the towers is a lightly 
 constructed dome, surmounted by a dilapidated weather 
 vane. Time has dealt no gentle blows upon the ven- 
 erable pile. It has nipped the noses and plucked the 
 ears off of many a statue in the dusty niches, turned the 
 stucco yellow, eaten holes in the wooden work, and 
 chipped the pillars and cornices. The church is dirty, 
 too. Long, dark stains extend down the facade and 
 circle about the towers, and the interior is as musty as a 
 disused chest. 
 
 And yet the interior has its charm. Somber shadows 
 linger there, uncertain rays of light stream through the 
 small and deep-set windows upon the cold stone floor. 
 Birds have built their nests in the dome and flutter 
 from it about the altar beneath, and the roof is high- 
 vaulted and shadowy. The design apparently was 
 elaborate, but lack of funds interfered with its con- 
 ception. There is great attempt, but little execution.
 
 104 
 
 With the Invader: 
 
 The decorations of the altar are tawdry, the floor bare 
 and uneven, and yet the church is the idol of the 
 people, and masses are religiously attended. 
 
 The Chihuahua plaza is unique. Set in the heart of 
 the city, guarded upon one side by the cathedral, on 
 another by the city hall, and elsewhere by flat-roofed 
 houses, with cool arcades extending along their fronts, 
 it has a fountain in its center, paths leading about it, 
 benches beneath the trees and flowers everywhere. 
 
 CHURCH OF SAX FRANCISCO. 
 
 It is a miniature park, neat and pretty, the lounging- 
 place by day, the center of attraction at night, when 
 the band plays there and lights flash through the trees 
 and upon the waters of the fountain. 
 
 At night the scene is fairy-like. The walks are
 
 A Mexican Metropolis. 103 
 
 filled, the music is enticing, the fragrance of flowers 
 fills the air, laughter and gay repartee are heard on 
 every side, the pleasure of all is genuine and un- 
 affected. Everything is novel, and one scarce heeds 
 the cathedral clock tolling away the passing hours of 
 the night. 
 
 It is hard to leave Chihuahua. Acquaintance in- 
 creases the desire to stay longer. There is so much 
 sunshine, so many quiet corners, so many flowers, that 
 one is fain to linger. There is San Francisco, with 
 its gilded altars, walls, porticos and garden, where 
 stillness reigns, and mellow lights throw into dim re- 
 lief the whitened pillars and the flowering shrubs; the 
 Barracks, with their pompous soldiers; the creek, 
 winding through groves of trees and under rustic 
 bridges; the clear, bright air, the curious streets, the 
 little shops. The town has not caught the spirit of the 
 new invasion yet. It still pursues its even way of life, 
 sleeping at noonday, wide-awake at night, satisfied, 
 quaint and novel.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 In the Footsteps of Coronado. 
 
 THE picturesqueness Southern Arizona possesses is 
 that of New Mexico intensified. Yellow-sanded 
 valleys are wider and longer; pale blue mountains, 
 with serrated tops, are higher; old ruins of prehistoric 
 people are more dilapidated. With an average eleva- 
 tion of 4000 feet above sea-level, the country enjoys 
 that clear and bracing atmosphere so peculiar to ele- 
 vated regions, and which heightens the color of every 
 hill and crumbling ruin. Even the most prosaic mon- 
 uments are glorified in the warm, clear air. There is 
 great expansion and vastness and grandeur. In what- 
 ever direction one looks, there are mountains of ever 
 varying size and shape massed together beneath the 
 sunlit sky of blue, and gathered about the abruptly 
 rising heights lie rivers of yellow sand, dotted with 
 flowering cacti, and forming a brilliant contrast of color 
 with the never-ending ranges. 
 
 The history of Arizona has never been written. It 
 is known only to the ruins of a forgotten people that 
 lie scattered over the Territory; and they are silent 
 and hold fast within their walls the facts connected 
 with the people who once had cities where there are 
 barren fields to-day, and farms where worthless wastes
 
 In the Footsteps of Coronado. 107 
 
 now exist. The prehistoric dwellers, judging from the 
 ruins left, were rich and cultivated. Under their rule 
 Arizona was a garden. The canals they built, the 
 farms they cultivated, may still be traced and located, 
 and in their houses remain the articles that they manu- 
 factured. Could but the inanimate speak, the story of 
 Arizona would be more interesting than fiction. 
 
 But there is a new as well as an old in Arizona, and 
 the new is not uninteresting. The progress of the 
 past few years has been phenomenal, and yet the pro- 
 cess of utilization is only in its infancy. Few consider 
 the Territory an agricultural center ; and yet it is one. 
 Hitherto the mines of Arizona have gained prominence 
 for it; in the near future productive valleys will add to 
 its reputation. The quantity of cereals grown in the 
 last few years in the Salt and Gila River valleys has 
 been very large. Near the town of Phoenix the coun- 
 try is literally covered with farms, and in other sec- 
 tions lands once dry and neglected are being rapidly 
 reclaimed. 
 
 The climate and soil are both propitious. While 
 the higher parts of Arizona are cold, those in the south 
 arc warm and protected. In the Gila and Salt val- 
 leys there is but little winter weather, and the supply 
 of water is abundant. The regions have been culti- 
 vated to a certain extent for three hundred and fifty 
 years, but the soil to-day is as rich as centuries ago. 
 The question whether cereals will grow is no longer a 
 doubtful one. Experiments have given an affirmative
 
 108 With the Invader: 
 
 answer. By irrigation thousands of acres have already 
 been made valuable; and with water thousands more 
 will be. In 1883 there were 135,573 acres in farms, 
 which were valued at $1,127,946. Maricopa County, 
 watered by the Salt River, is principally devoted to 
 agriculture, and contains 400,000 acres of arable land. 
 The soil is a sandy loam, high and porous, and is par- 
 ticularly adapted to fruit trees. Nearer the stream it 
 is a rich adobe. 
 
 There are eight irrigating canals already built in the 
 county and nearly 40,000 acres are under cultivation. 
 The planting season begins in November and lasts 
 until March, and four crops a year are gathered. 
 Wheat averages about twenty-five bushels to the acre, 
 and barley twenty-six. There are 33,000 fruit trees 
 already planted and 216,000 grape vines, the mission, 
 muscat and black Hamburgh being the favorites. 
 Vines planted from cuttings begin to yield the second 
 year. Vegetables thrive bounteously and attain great 
 size. Cotton was raised in Salt Valley by the Pima 
 Indians long before DeSoto discovered the Mississippi, 
 and at present the settlers are literally sitting beneath 
 their own vine and fig tree — the almond, fig, plum and 
 pomegranate being easily grown where it was thought 
 that nothing would ever thrive. It was in these valleys, 
 now beginning to blossom and to produce, that the 
 earliest inhabitants had their farms and long canals. 
 
 A canal is now being dug in Maricopa County from 
 Salt River, just below the mouth of the Verde, which
 
 In the Footsteps of Corotiado. lop 
 
 will cost $400,000 and open 80,000 acres to cultiva- 
 tion. From the Gila four canals are being constructed 
 which will make available as many acres more. Land 
 at present is valued at $5 to $10 per acre, where un- 
 improved but accessible to water, while improved land 
 is held at from $15 to $30 per acre. Near Phcenix 
 $100 is asked and paid for valley land that has been 
 improved. 
 
 The Territory has also 60,000 square miles of graz- 
 ing lands, and there is hardly a single section that does 
 not have its growth of grass. After the summer rains, 
 lasting from July to the end of August, the valleys and 
 hill-sides are rolling seas of brightest green, and are 
 dotted with delicately hued flowers. Arizona contains 
 300,000 head of cattle, 680,000 sheep, and 32,000 
 horses. Each year sees the country more generally 
 utilized by stockmen. During the past season thou- 
 sands of cattle have been imported. Some of the 
 counties have a supply of grasses sufficient to feed 
 500,000 head of cattle, and many of the valleys, such 
 as those of the Santa Cruz, San Simon and San Pedro, 
 can afford grazing to a million head. 
 
 To a casual observer Arizona is dry and barren. 
 Escaping from New Mexico by way of Deming, the 
 terminus of the Atchison Road in the southwest, one 
 enters the country by the Southern Pacific Railway and 
 is soon winding among the isolated peaks that cover 
 the region in every direction. Here valleys broaden 
 and again contract. There are low, fiat plains, tree-
 
 no 
 
 With the Invader. 
 
 less, sandy and neglected, and rock-strewn canons 
 leading zig-zag courses among the mountains. Cactus 
 and palms, alkali basins and sharp-pointed mounds 
 are everywhere. There is isolation and loneliness, 
 grandeur and picturesqueness. Far-away heights are 
 blue, nearer ones are brown. One sees but little fresh- 
 ness, but little verdure ; to all appearances the region 
 is arid, void of beauty, bare and bleak. 
 
 PAPAGO INDIAN. 
 
 And yet the wealth existing is greater than can oe 
 imagined. All the ore taken up to the present time 
 from Arizona mines is but a fraction of that still re- 
 maining hid. In 1882 the yield of silver and gold was 
 valued at $10,000,000. A single mine at Tombstone, 
 once valued at $10,000, has produced $5,000,000.
 
 Iii the Footsteps of Coronado. in 
 
 Pima County is one of the oldest and most important 
 mineral sections of the Territory. Men were digging 
 its gold when the Southwest was centuries younger 
 than it is to-day. In the southwestern limits of the 
 county are the Quijotoa mines, the latest ones of value 
 discovered, and which are now being successfully 
 worked. Around them them the first mining opera- 
 tions ever attempted by Europeans in America began. 
 
 Mining countries will always have their ups and 
 downs probably, and Arizona is no exception to the 
 rule. When properties were first discovered any hole 
 in the ground tempted capitalists to pour in their gold, 
 hoping to get out more than they put in. There was 
 energy without discretion. Men were shrewd, but 
 barren of conscience. The country enjoyed a boom 
 for a time, then grew listless, and to-day many towns 
 of mushroom growth have degenerated into lifeless 
 hamlets, and capitalists have lost heavily in their pros- 
 pect holes. Compared with its condition two years 
 ago, Arizona is utterly dead. At least, there is no 
 mining excitement. Good properties are still paying — 
 bad ones do not pay, and never will. The business 
 has settled into ledgers, and there is little speculation. 
 Legitimate has supplanted illegitimate. Mines are 
 sold only after careful examination. Capital seeks 
 sure rather than high profits. Tombstone was inflated 
 and burst, and its downfall has taught new towns to pro- 
 ceed slowly. 
 
 But notwithstanding the apparent dullness, progress
 
 112 With the Invader: 
 
 is being made. The present growth is more stable, if 
 not so rapid. The base of success has been made 
 broader. Reason is more often consulted now. Every 
 year sees progress made. Where people once de- 
 pended on mines alone, they now look to their farms 
 and herds as well. Industries are more varied. 
 Smaller percentages are accepted. There is less hurry 
 and flurry, more honesty and patience. Death is not 
 present, but thoughtfulness is. Men consider and pon- 
 der more than they did. Time is being taken to consider. 
 The old truism, that "haste makes waste," is accepted. 
 The fact is realized, that great fortunes will not con- 
 tinue to come by chance, but that patient industry 
 may gain them. Those who enjoy "booms" regret 
 that the one Arizona had is over. But those who fail 
 to see the usefulness of undue excitement are glad. 
 And those who are happy form the main portion of 
 the population. They are the men to whose untiring 
 energy the country will owe the success it must eventu- 
 ally have. 
 
 The history of mining in Arizona reads like a ro- 
 mance. Many a fortune has come by merest chance. 
 In one instance a man drinking from a spring noticed 
 a rock beneath the water. He rose with a rock in his 
 hand that assayed $10,000 per ton. In four years the 
 mine netted a million and a half of dollars. In 1875, 
 a party of prospectors lost one of their mules. Later 
 he was found on the top of a hill, and in going up the 
 elevation the finder stumbled over the croppings of a
 
 In the Footsteps of Coronado. TI3 
 
 mine, since famous as the "Silver King," which has 
 already yielded $4,000,000. The mines around Ben 
 Nevis, in the Quijotoa District, were worked for years 
 before McKay climbed the mountain, located the "Peer 
 and Peerless," and made $500,000 in eight months. 
 The ignorant often succeeded where the cultivated 
 failed. College graduates grew poor as itinerant 
 tramps grew rich. Saloon-keepers became million- 
 aires and parsons died of starvation. Chance fa- 
 vored the undeserving and neglected the deserving. 
 
 The largest timber tract in Arizona is in the north- 
 ern portion of the Territory, and extends southwest 
 from the San Francisco Mountains. It contains 
 12,000 square miles, and its yield is estimated to be 
 nearly one billion feet of lumber. The pine is the 
 predominant tree, and often grows to a height of 200 
 feet. Many of its forests are still untouched, though 
 from some of them considerable lumber is being sent 
 East and to old Mexico. 
 
 Any one traveling across Arizona on the Southern 
 Pacific road in summer, will incline to the opinion 
 that the country is unbearably hot and dry. The road 
 has selected the easiest but not the pleasantest route, 
 and the heat in very truth is sweltering. But in 
 reality Arizona has an enviable climate. It possesses 
 three climatic zones. The first extends from the Utah 
 line to the thirty-fourth parallel, and is from 4000 to 
 6500 feet above the level. The average temperature 
 in summer is about seventy-five degrees. The winters
 
 iij With the Invader. 
 
 are free from severe storms. Snow is only found upon 
 the mountains. South of the thirty-fourth parallel the 
 elevation is from 2000 to 4000 feet less, and the climate 
 is warm, the summer being practically continuous. 
 In the Salt and Gila valleys winter never intrudes, 
 and the air of January is mild and bracing. The 
 third zone is found around Yuma, on the Colorado 
 River. There it is always hot in the superlative 
 degree. 
 
 The thermometer often registers one hundred and 
 sixteen degrees in the shade, and never forgets itself 
 sufficiently to go far below seventy. The Indians of 
 Yuma have long since accepted the situation, and 
 dress becomingly in a paper collar, without accessories, 
 and later residents long to do the same. 
 
 There are many cities in the Southwest that have 
 a location commanding an extended view of lofty 
 mountains, but Tucson, in Southern Arizona, is par- 
 ticularly happy in its surroundings. In whatever di- 
 rection he may gaze, one will find blue-hued heights to 
 look upon and to admire. The town is settled in a 
 mountain-guarded basin, wide, fiat and brush-grown, 
 and around the enclosure arc pointed cones and serra- 
 ted ranges rising abruptly from the plains. 
 
 Could Bayard Taylor have seen the Catalina Moun- 
 tains from Tucson, he would have lavished upon them 
 fully as many encomiums as he did upon the Rockies, 
 as they appeared rising from the prairies of Colorado. 
 The Catalinas have not the massive ruggedness of the
 
 In the Footsteps of Corona do. 113 
 
 Rockies, nor have they any of their peaks capped with 
 banks of unmelting snow; but they are very beautiful, 
 nevertheless, and seen through the thin, blue haze often 
 lingering about them constantly appeal to one's affec- 
 tion by the gracefulness of their contour and the deli- 
 cate coloring of their sides/ 
 
 There is a deal of veneration born in the soul of 
 man by the sight of mountains. Grand old ranges 
 are to the people of the Southwest what the ocean 
 is to those living on its shores. They speak in count- 
 less ways out of their grim silence, even as do the waves 
 as they pound upon the whitened sands of the sea- 
 shore. Tucsonians sometimes complain of their isola- 
 tion from the cultured refinement of the East, but with 
 the complaint is always mingled the gratification that 
 the mountains are theirs. The various peaks, canons 
 and rounded heights all become individualized in time, 
 and are ever ready to satisfy the longings for that which 
 whispers to the mind and refreshes the soul. 
 
 Nature, after all, is the great pacifier. Ruined hopes 
 seem less hard to bear when one can look, in his sor- 
 row, upon a placid lake, a fertile valley or a delicately- 
 fashioned peak. They bring rest together with assur- 
 ance. Many a man, beaten in the battle of life, has 
 found comfort at last in country vistas, void of turmoil 
 and strife. In Arizona, Nature's monuments are par- 
 ticularly impressive, and at Tucson, generally regarded 
 as wild, reckless and uncivilized, one has glimpses of 
 nature making him forget, for a time at least, the dull
 
 u6 J 17/// the Invader. 
 
 reality of the present in his contemplation of the future 
 as suggested by the scenery about the town. 
 
 Tucson is an ancient city. Antedating Jamestown 
 and Ply mouth, it was visited by Coronado in 1540, 
 lived in by Europeans in 1560, and had its first mis- 
 sionaries in 1581. But long before 1540 there was an 
 Indian village existing on the site of the present city, so 
 that Tucsonians can, if they please, claim an age for 
 their town as great as the Santa Feans claim for theirs. 
 
 But for all practical purposes, 1540 is a sufficiently 
 ancient date, and if Tucson only becomes as good as it 
 is old, no one will complain; and so far it has done 
 well. While not a particularly attractive city at first 
 sight, it still stands in close proximity to much that is 
 interesting, and is, besides, wide-awake and progressive. 
 There is much adobe and great irregularity, and parts 
 of the city resemble sections of Santa Fe and other 
 semi Spanish towns. The new that there is stands 
 prominently forth by contrast with the old, and seems 
 incongruous at first, until one realizes that Tucson has 
 had fresh blood infused into it. and that it is the com- 
 mercial center of Southern Arizona. 
 
 One at once notices the distinctive animation that 
 exists. The shops and streets might, properly, contain 
 lazy Spaniards and lumbering ox-carts; but they do not. 
 The new-comers have suppressed the ancient inhabit- 
 ants. The same shaded porticos and heavy adobe 
 walls remain, but the listlessness of former days has 
 departed. It is true, the Papago Indians, who formerly
 
 In the Footsteps of Coro?iado. 
 
 117 
 
 owned the town, but who to-day reside outside its lim- 
 its, wander about the streets, laden with home-made 
 goods, and there are Mexicans and Indian ponies, and 
 many suggestions of the Spanish occupancy. But the 
 place is Americanized, after all, an& the town, though 
 old, is not asleep. Its social life, especially, is refined 
 and agreeable. People of culture have congregated in 
 it, and so utilize their opportunities as to enjoy life at 
 its full. They have not theatres, perhaps, and art gal- 
 leries, but they have their rides over the plains to the 
 canons, mountain peaks and fresh green valleys, and 
 those acquainted with such attractions soon feel willing 
 to give up the East. 
 
 SAN XAV1ER. 
 
 The most popular ride or drive out of Tucson is up 
 the valley of the Santa Cruz, a shallow stream winding 
 down from Sonora toward the city, to the Mission San 
 Xavier. The church was finished more than a century
 
 u8 With the Invader: 
 
 ago by the Spanish padres, and is the most interesting 
 monument in the Territory. Nearing it, by following 
 the river as it winds through luxuriant groves of cotton- 
 wood trees and low-growing shrubs, giving by their 
 green presence the lie to the too-often-repeated asser- 
 tion that Arizona is a desert, one has glimpses, from 
 time to time, of the white walls and graceful towers of 
 the cathedral, standing clearly outlined in the strong 
 sunlight against the blue-hued Catalinas. There are 
 green pastures, thatched-roofed cottages of Papago 
 Indians, cultivated fields, bright-colored flowers. Off 
 in the distance, mountain peaks fill the horizon; the 
 air is cool in the shade; cattle feed in the pastures. 
 The region is a bit of New England, fair, fresh and 
 fruitful. 
 
 Cabeza de Vaca marched up the Santa Cruz valley 
 on his way to Mexico to report the existence of the 
 "Seven Cities of Cibola;" and it was by following the 
 stream that Coronado came from Sonora into Arizona 
 in 1540. But even before the advent of the Spaniards, 
 the Papagos had inhabited the region, and still remain 
 in it, tilling their grounds, minding their cattle, and 
 making pottery and baskets for their neighbors, the 
 Tucsonians. Possibly they will be driven out, however, 
 now that the valley is found productive, but at present 
 they hold tenaciously to their own, and add pictur- 
 esqueness to a naturally attractive place. 
 
 If a modern architect were to build a church in Ari- 
 zona, which should harmonize with the surroundings,
 
 /// ///<■ Footsteps of Corona Jo. / rp 
 
 he could not improve upon the plan and style adopted 
 by the builders of San Xavier. The years that have 
 elapsed since the work was completed have witnessed 
 many attacks of age upon the fagade and two high 
 towers guarding it, and the church has suffered from 
 neglect. The wall once surrounding it has great gaps ; 
 the balcony over the main doorway is dilapidated and 
 unsafe; the statue of St. Francis above it has lost all 
 the resemblance it may once have had to the patron 
 saint; and as for the colored decorations of the interior, 
 they are sadly in need of fresh paint and of a general 
 freshening up. San Xavier is suggestive of a church 
 whose people had forsaken their temple and left it to 
 its fate. There is the air of neglect about it that is so 
 noticeable in the moss-grown castles of Europe; and 
 there is, too, just as much fascination. 
 
 One begins at once to weave curious fancies regard- 
 ing the past, and falls to speculating about the scenes 
 of earlier days, when the time-stained church was the 
 scene of gorgeous pageants. In its day, San Xavier 
 had none of the loneliness that clings to it at present. 
 The gaudy decorations of roof, walls and altar, the fan- 
 ciful bits of carving, the statues in deep-set niches were 
 bright and all intact a century ago. Masses were said 
 by richly dressed fathers; costly incense was burned; 
 the Spanish bells called successfully from the belfries 
 in the towers. The church was a power, loved, if 
 feared; the centre of government, the storehouse of 
 rich ornaments.
 
 120 With the Invader: 
 
 But if San Xavier has lost most of its glory it is not 
 entirely neglected. The Indians still worship there, 
 and one old native still acts as custodian of the place 
 and pilots visitors into the interior. The church stands 
 upon elevated ground and commands a view of the 
 entire valley. In the distance Tucson is visible, 
 crowded down among its hills, and in another direc- 
 tion are the Catalinas. Following the guide one passes 
 through long, dark corridors, musty with age and sug- 
 gestive of hooded monks, and from them into the 
 interior, where grim shadows lurk continually in the 
 corners, behind the altar and in the choir, over the 
 main entrance. In the dimness the place loses all its 
 harsh crudeness. If not magnificent, as cathedrals 
 should be, it still is picturesque. 
 
 The church is in the form of a Greek cross, and the 
 decorations are lavish if not always artistic. There is 
 much bad taste in the manner the paint is applied to 
 every pillar and wall ; but in the light of the place the 
 effect is far from disagreeable, and one is reminded a 
 little, even if only a little, of St. Marks, at Venice. 
 There are no Mosaics in San Xavier, no alabaster pil- 
 lars and rich treasures; but the colorings are brilliant, 
 the carvings around the altar elaborate, and the quaint 
 costumes of the Indian worshipers — one will always 
 find a few gathered before a shrine — render the entire 
 picture unique, if nothing more. The cathedral brings 
 the past into the present, and serves as a connecting link 
 between that which was and is. It is an historical
 
 Iii the Footsteps of Coronado. 121 
 
 landmark, indicative by its presence of Spanish con- 
 quest ; suggestive, with its decay, of the failure of the 
 invasion. 
 
 If the whole of Arizona were as beautiful as the Santa 
 Cruz valley, as it appears from the San Xavier towers, 
 the Territory would be acknowledged a garden more 
 generally than it is by those who make a rapid flight 
 across it without stopping to inquire" if any charms 
 exist. Climbing the crumbling stairways leading to 
 the bells, that still wake the echos of the region at 
 stated intervals, the river and the fields, Tucson and 
 its plains, the mountains and isolated hills are all ex- 
 posed to view. The coloring is rich and bright, green 
 fields, blue peaks, brown walls, yellow acres of waving 
 grain. Verdure supplants barrenness. There is vast- 
 ness and grandeur, cultivation and picturesqueness. 
 Looking upon the valley, choked with trees, protected 
 by high ranges, one wonders, while admiring, when 
 other sheltered and watered vales of Arizona will be 
 reclaimed. For this of the Santa Cruz is no better than 
 others, and contains nothing that its fellows may not 
 have.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A Seaport of Old Mexico. 
 
 THE State of Sonora, Mexico, belongs to the South- 
 west. Through it marched the Spaniards on their 
 way to the north, and into it, to-day, reaches a branch 
 of the Atchison Railway, the last invader of a much- 
 invaded region. 
 
 Mexico has made rapid progress in the last half- 
 dozen years. In 1878 the only railway of importance 
 in the Republic extended from Vera Cruz to the City 
 of Mexico. Now there is the Mexican Central, tra- 
 versing the country from north to south; the Mexican 
 National, entering at Leredo and passing westward to 
 the capital; and the Sonora Railway, extending from 
 Benson, Arizona, to Guaymas, on the Gulf of California. 
 
 The sentiment of the Republic has changed. Diaz, 
 elected President for the second time, is a statesman 
 as well as soldier. He inclines to progress more than 
 to revolution. By his aid, in a great measure, the 
 present railways were built. While much still remains 
 to be done, a great deal has been accomplished; and 
 Diaz is the man for the times. In 1878 he encouraged 
 American capital coming into Mexico. He is a second 
 Juarez, and in all probability will enjoy a brilliant 
 administration.
 
 A Seaport of Old Mexico. 123 
 
 In 1873, illustrative of the progress made, the value 
 of the imports and exports between Mexico and the 
 United States was $10,541,066; in 18S3 it was $24,- 
 764,743. The revenues of Mexico have more than 
 doubled in the last five years, being only $17,811,125 
 in 1878-9, and over $36,000,000 in 1883-4. From 
 1877 to 1882 the country produced $161,286,744 
 worth of silver, or 28 per cent, of the total production 
 of the globe. 
 
 South of the district in which is the City of Mexico, 
 the climate is tropical, and the vegetation rank. Beyond 
 the burning sands, on which stands the city of Vera 
 Cruz, facing the Gulf, is a long succession of tropical 
 gardens, producing every known fruit in richest abun- 
 dance; and even on the table lands, with an average 
 elevation of 7000 feet, there are extended areas, capa- 
 ble of almost unlimited production. 
 
 Until recently, Sonora was but little known. Con- 
 taining barely a tenth of the entire population of the 
 country, its cities are few and small, and its achieve- 
 ments unimportant. Along its western borders lie the 
 waters of the Gulf of California, pressed down upon by 
 low-browed hills, and its eastern limits contain the 
 Sierra Madre mountains, that come into the south from 
 Arizona. 
 
 Between the blue-hued range and the Gulf are long, 
 wide stretches of sand, brush and cactus grown here, 
 and barren there; watered valleys, cultivated and pro- 
 ductive; protected basins, containing picturesque towns,
 
 124 With the Invader: 
 
 fields of grain, vineyards and orchards. Riding by 
 rail down the center of the State, one is led by the gen- 
 eral appearance of the country to regard it as a deserted 
 region, vast but valueless, hot and unproductive. Once 
 escaping from the valleys leading over the hills that 
 separate Sonora from Arizona, the railway traverses a 
 veritable desert. Flat, sandy wastes extend about one 
 in every direction, towns are scattered and poorly 
 built, and only the distant mountains, grouped together 
 in the east, relieve the dull monotony of the view. 
 
 But in reality Sonora contains much that is attract- 
 ive, and has great natural wealth. The length of the 
 State is about 700 miles; its breadth varies from 120 
 to 300 miles; and its area is 123,466 square miles. 
 Along the coast the surface is diversified by valleys, 
 plains and mountains, but in the neighborhood of the 
 Sierra Madres is lofty and broken. Dry plains are 
 located in the northwest, while table-lands lie in the 
 northeast, and extend from the valley of the Santa Cruz 
 to the base of the Sierra Madres. The vast plains and 
 wide valleys of the interior have a soil of great depth 
 and richness. 
 
 The best lands, and those most generally cultivated, 
 lie in the northern and eastern sections of the State, 
 and along the Yaqui and Mayo rivers. Near the Sier- 
 ras the country is especially fertile, and contains ex- 
 tended ranches and farms. The mineral belt is also 
 located there, and many of the mines, adding materi- 
 ally to the wealth of Sonora, are being worked, after
 
 A Seaport of Old Mexico. 125 
 
 long centuries of idleness, by English and American 
 capitalists. 
 
 The mines of Sonora have been known from time 
 immemorial. Many of the older ones have a history 
 clouded with traditions, and some have no data to de- 
 termine the first period of their existence. But in all 
 their years they have never yet been systematically and 
 thoroughly developed. Of the dozen or more dis- 
 tricts scattered over the State, many contain richly 
 producing mines, and were worked in a desultory 
 manner by the Spaniards. The Alamos District, 240 
 miles southeast from Guaymas, is particularly rich in 
 silver leads, while that of San Ildefonso, 100 miles 
 westward from Hermosillo, contain a number of gold 
 veins. 
 
 Besides gold and silver, Sonora also contains large 
 quantities of coal, antimony, lead and zinc. Several 
 of the mineral districts are located in fertile tracts of 
 country, and in close proximity to prosperous towns 
 and reduction furnaces. There is also a large supply 
 of timber in the Sierras, and the bottom lands, in pro- 
 tected basins and in the larger valleys, produce with 
 rich abundance every known cereal and fruit. Fruits 
 of the tropical zone and those of the temperate zone 
 thrive equally well. Irrigation is necessary in nearly 
 every instance, but whenever water is supplied the soil 
 produces most lavishly. 
 
 Leaving Benson, Arizona, the Sonora Railway fol- 
 lows a winding creek, flowing from a range of hills
 
 126 With tlic Invader: 
 
 that separate Mexico from our territory, and from it 
 climbs through tortuous canons, fresh valleys and over 
 the divide into Sonora. The scenery is surpassingly 
 beautiful, having a rugged grandeur at first, while the 
 Arizona heights remain in view, and picturesqueness 
 later on, when the way leads through groves of live oaks 
 that cover the sides of gently-rounded hills, green with 
 short, sweet grasses. 
 
 The fertility is universal. High-pointed mountains, 
 extending in uncertain courses here and there over the 
 region, form a blue back-ground to green fields and 
 yellow-colored rocks, while every canon has its limpid 
 stream, fringed with stately trees and low-growing 
 shrubs. Many of the valleys, leading from and into 
 rolling pastures, are covered with farms, as fresh, fair 
 and verdant as those among the Eastern hills, and one 
 loses, for a time at least, that sense of vastness so char- 
 acteristic of the great Southwest. 
 
 The little town of Nogales, situated directly on the 
 dividing line between southern Arizona and northern 
 Mexico, is the port of entry to Sonora, and a typical 
 Mexican village. It nestles in a narrow valley, formed 
 by two ranges of low hills, and watered by a stream of 
 clear, fresh water, and is hardly more than a collec- 
 tion of adobe huts, crowded together in disorderly 
 confusion. From a little distance the village is a quaint 
 oddity that constantly invites a nearer inspection. 
 And yet one would do well to see it only from afar, 
 for the closer the investigation the more prosaic and
 
 A Seaport of Old Mexico. r2j 
 
 dirty the place appears. A small town in Mexico is 
 far from being entirely attractive. Not only are the 
 houses rudely made, and crowded uncomfortably to- 
 gether, but there is present an odor that is far from 
 pleasant to the nostrils. And as for general cleanli- 
 ness, one must go elsewhere before he finds it. 
 
 But Nogales is not entirely depraved, and as you 
 leave it, the little cottages, with wreaths of smoke curl- 
 ing upward from the chimney tops, have a certain 
 picturesqueness which predisposes one to form an 
 immediate attachment for the Republic at large. It is 
 the curious and the strange in life, after all, that one 
 wants to discover; and Mexican towns and cities have 
 a flavor of oddity about them which renders them as 
 attractive, to a certain extent, as the villages lying be- 
 neath an Italian sky, or within short distance of the 
 crumbling walls of the Alhambra. 
 
 Below Nogales a few miles, the way leads out of 
 the canons into the great central valley of Sonora, 
 that region of solidly baked sands, coarse growth of 
 shrubs and cacti, dry, hot air, and general dreariness, 
 which is confined between the Sierra Madres, on the 
 one side, and the Coast Range on the other. Far 
 away in the east and west the mountains may be seen 
 lifting their pale blue fronts out of the levels lying at 
 their base, but immediately at hand is the flat, uninter- 
 esting country down which the railroad runs. 
 
 In this veritable desert even the hardy trees have 
 a dry and withered look, and the yellowish sands lie
 
 128 With the Invader. 
 
 simmering in the hot sunlight. There are few sugges- 
 tions of civilization and settlement, and even the towns 
 that are passed have an air of neglect and loneliness 
 about them which is not only repellant, but which 
 causes one at all times to pity the unfortunates 
 obliged to live in such dull, hot places. The huts are 
 made of reeds plastered on the roof with grass and 
 mud; and as for the natives, they are robed as nearly 
 as possible after the fashion of Mother Eve. The chil- 
 dren follow the dictates of nature, and lie curled up in 
 shady places, with no other covering than that given 
 by the flies settling on their bodies. The heat is con- 
 tinuous and oppressive, enervating to the strong as 
 well as to the weak — omnipresent and parching. One 
 longs to copy the natives, and discard superfluous 
 clothing, and he feels that Sonora, if its main valley is 
 a sample, is altogether unfitted for a stranger's place of 
 residence. 
 
 Nearing Hermosillo, which lies about midway be- 
 tween Guaymas and Nogales, one enters at a bound a 
 section of Sonora which is as richly cultivated, fresh, fair, 
 and pretty as the major portion of the valley is the re- 
 verse. Near the city, which is the largest in the State, 
 the mountains are only separated by a narrow tract of 
 land that is watered by the Sonora River and irrigating 
 ditches extending in every direction. It is a fruitful 
 vale, crowded with groves of lemon, fig, orange, and 
 banana, and containing fields of waving grass and grain. 
 To residents of the main valley, the Hermosillo dis-
 
 A Seaport of Old Mexico. 129 
 
 trict must appear a second Eden. Every inch of ground 
 is cultivated; the hot rays of the sun arc baffled in their 
 effect by vigorous shade trees; and along the banks of 
 the creeks grow masses of sugar-cane. The soil is rich 
 and productive, and aided by a genial climate (hot, to 
 be sure, but not of burning heat), and carefully watered, 
 grows whatever may be planted, whether it be a flower- 
 ing shrub, or a grove of orange trees, with yellow 
 fruit gleaming among the leaves. 
 
 Many have argued from this fertility of the Hermo- 
 sillo country that the whole State of Sonora might be 
 cultivated as well if properly irrigated, and there seems 
 no valid reason why it should not be. The soil is the 
 same, the climate is not materially different, and it 
 seems that only the energy is wanting. 
 
 Hermosillo, as a city, ranks, by reason of its size, 
 importance, and general appearance, with Chihuahua 
 and Durango in the northeast of Mexico. It has a 
 population of some 10,000 people, and its public and 
 private buildings are large and handsomely constructed. 
 At the end of the city is the plaza, without which no 
 Mexican city would be complete, and leading to it are 
 various long and narrow streets, lined with two-storied 
 adobe houses, and paved with rounded cobble-stones. 
 Within the plaza, laid out in shaded walks that are 
 fringed with myriads of vari-colored flowers, is a large 
 stand, in which the military band plays, and rustic seats 
 placed beneath orange and lemon trees. Seated here 
 in protected corners, one looks over the city house-tops
 
 i jo With the Invader: 
 
 to the mountains crowding down and overlooking the 
 town, or up one of the public ways to a white-faced 
 cathedral with melodious bells, which guards the city 
 on the north. 
 
 The picture presented is one of varying attractions, 
 warm-colored and listless, illumined by stucco deco- 
 rated walls, and dark, swarthy faces peering above 
 snowy clothes. There is but little animation among 
 those whom one notices moving lazily about the little 
 square, or taking refreshing siestas on the benches. It 
 is too hot to venture into the sunshine, even if the 
 energy to do so were present; and a Mexican loves, 
 above all other things, to lead a life of ease and of 
 repose. And in Hermosillo, indeed, there is some ex- 
 cuse for his prevailing laziness. Where the sun strikes 
 the pavements, the heat rises in glaring, quivering 
 layers, and the shadows are dark and clearly outlined. 
 The city is hot, and at noonday is a deserted village, 
 with shop windows tightly barred, doors all closed, 
 and people fast asleep. 
 
 Beyond Hermosillo, as one continues his way toward 
 Guaymas, the same dreary levels are again encountered, 
 and the heat becomes every moment drier and more 
 oppressive. The wastes of sand, with scrawny cacti 
 growing here and there, lend a general dreariness to 
 the scene. The country looks shriveled up, and one 
 has to be argued with many times before being con- 
 vinced that if the land were irrigated it would he val- 
 uable.
 
 A Seaport of Old Mexico. 
 
 There is too much actuality to suggest man)' glorious 
 possibilities. At times the road leads past lowly huts, 
 with half-naked Indians grouped about the open door- 
 way; and again past a straggling village, with its half- 
 dozen houses protected from the sunlight by an awning 
 of reeds or bushes. Continuing southward, and every- 
 where encountering the same dry, hot scenes, the way 
 at last runs beside an inlet of the sea, that has forced 
 its way far in among the sun-baked sands; then over a 
 long bridge, leading to a hilly isle, and from there 
 around the shores of other inlets and secluded bays to 
 where there is a station. From it the town of Guaymas 
 appears in sight, nestled by the side of its deep and 
 land-locked harbor. 
 
 It is so generally supposed that Guaymas faces the 
 Gulf of California, that when one arrives in the town 
 and finds that it looks toward the east rather than 
 toward the west, and that the waters of the Gulf are 
 nowhere to be seen, he becomes hopelessly confused, 
 at first, regarding the points of the compass, and is 
 inclined to believe that Nature is playing a joke upon 
 him. But when he climbs any one of the high hills 
 that rise sharply from the western limits of the town, 
 the seeming incongruity is explained and the east is 
 seen to be in its proper relative position. 
 
 For Guaymas is built upon a long and narrow stretch 
 of land that shoots far southward into the waters of the 
 Gulf, then turns sharply eastward and again toward the 
 north, until an inland bay is formed, leading into a
 
 jj2 With the Invader: 
 
 channel which extends to the Gulf, and on the shore 
 of which is Guaymas. 
 
 The harbor is filled with unruffled waters, and the 
 surrounding ranges of bare hills protect it on every 
 side. Sailing toward the city, one moves eastward at 
 first, then toward the north until the channel leading 
 to the bay is reached, when the course is changed to 
 south, and the way lies through a narrow opening. It 
 is a picturesque entrance, safe and deep, and the har- 
 bor is the best in Western Mexico. The largest ships 
 can enter it and anchor within a hundred yards of 
 shore. The fact that Guaymas is nearer Australia and 
 the South American ports than either San Pedro or 
 San Francisco, has led to the hope that the city would 
 become the shipping and receiving port of the western 
 coast. It was with this idea that the Sonora Railroad 
 was built. 
 
 So far, however, the business has not been large, and 
 Guaymas, while still of considerable importance, is 
 hardly a metropolis, and remains to-day, as for years 
 past, a village of but limited activity, though naturally 
 well calculated to enjoy a large trade and great pros- 
 perity.- Connected, as it is, by a continuous line of 
 railway with the East, it seems to deserve an importance 
 greater than it now has. 
 
 Seen from the hills beyond it, Guaymas looks its 
 best. From that elevated stand-point, the little sea- 
 port exposes to view its flat-roofed, adobe houses, its 
 unfinished cathedral, whose dome towers white and
 
 A Seaport of Old Mexico. 133 
 
 rounded above the other buildings, its plaza, busy 
 streets, and the calm, still bay, reflecting in its clear 
 depths the Indian barges, anchored near the wharf, 
 and the larger ships from foreign ports lying further 
 out. There is the channel, with white-winged boats 
 gliding to and from the harbor, and far away, beyond 
 the hot and dusty plains, rise the majestic heights of 
 the Sierra Madre, softly outlined againt the sky. 
 
 A GUAYMAS BOY. 
 
 Guaymas is not an old town, nor has it a super- 
 abundance of attractions. A much older village, from 
 which the present one takes its name, stands in ruins 
 not far away, and boasts of Spanish origin. But it has 
 been eclipsed by the new comer, and the present 
 Guaymas will undoubtedly soon claim the birthday 
 of the older town, and be spoken of as an ancient
 
 7j4? With the Invader: 
 
 city. And its looks will not belie the boast. To-day 
 it might add another century to the one it has already 
 lived, and none would doubt the claim. Not only are 
 the houses antiquated and scarred, but the wharf is 
 dilapidated and abandoned to the Indians, who pitch 
 their tents upon it. Many of the inhabitants appear to 
 have existed for untold centuries, so old and wrinkled 
 are they, and the streets of the village have that listless 
 air about them so peculiar to cities of antiquity. 
 
 As in Italy all roads lead to Rome, so in Guaymas 
 all streets lead to the plaza. It is the radiating center 
 of the village, and the congregating spot of all the 
 people. During the day, the little square, with its 
 trim rows of orange trees, well-made walks and flower- 
 ing shrubs, is deserted, save for the few passing through 
 it on their various errands; but during the evening, 
 when the labors of the day are ended, it is filled with 
 idlers, who promenade its walks, or lounge upon the 
 benches, enjoying the cool air and the lively music of 
 the military band. During our stay the moon was at 
 its full, and hung above the city like a ball of fire, 
 lighting the hill-tops, and touching with silvery hand 
 the dome of the cathedral and the low, flat roofs of the 
 houses. Out in the bay it fell upon the water with 
 long, bright glimmer, and on the distant ranges threw 
 dark shadows down the mountain sides. The air was 
 calm and soft, and perfumed with the fragrance of 
 myriads of flowers, while at intervals rose the sweet 
 notes of the players flooding the town with music, and
 
 A Seaport of Old Mexico. 135 
 
 lending a picturesque and fascinating brilliancy to the 
 scene. 
 
 If night could always linger at Guaymas, the city 
 would never grow dull or commonplace, for when the 
 sun once sets, the otherwise prosaic town is imbued 
 with joyous life. All troubles are forgotten then, and 
 the rich and the poor flock into the plaza to enjoy the 
 cool night air, the music, the cigarette, the sedate flir- 
 tation with the pretty seilorita. 
 
 Down by the side of what is politely called the wharf 
 of Guaymas stands a broad-balconied custom house, in 
 the shadow of which one may be always certain of find- 
 ing a group of Yaqui Indians, curled up in cool cor- 
 ners, or stretched at full length on their bits of matting, 
 enjoying a quiet siesta. 
 
 The Yaquis are the laborers of Sonora, and consti- 
 tute a large proportion of the population. Their vil- 
 lage is situated only a few miles from town, on the 
 Yaqui River, and contains some four thousand people. 
 The ruler of the tribe, Cajeme by name, is a despot of 
 the deepest sort. His power is absolute, he has his 
 own custom house, and levies toll upon any export or 
 import he pleases to tax, and his farms are the most 
 prosperous in the State. It is the Yaqui gardens 
 which supply the tables of Guaymas, and the Indians 
 are the bearers of heavy burdens, the builders of rail- 
 ways, the boatmen, and porters of the land. They come 
 into town early ever}' morning, rowing or sailing heavy 
 laden boats up to the old wharf, and from there carry-
 
 jj6 With the Invader: 
 
 ing their goods about the streets. At evening, those 
 who have sold their possessions enter their boats again 
 and sail for home, while the less fortunate camp upon 
 the wharf and pass away the hours of night singing 
 plaintive melodies and indulging in childish sports. 
 Living in so warm a climate, they dress in cotton gar- 
 ments and wear broad-brimmed sombreros and leather 
 sandals. They are strong, and often handsome, skillful 
 makers of baskets, mats, and cages, and rarely mingle 
 with the other classes. 
 
 The cathedral of Guaymas, which faces the plaza, is 
 one only in name, and is still far from being finished. 
 It is an ordinary building of brick, and presents none 
 of the interesting features usually accompanying Mexi- 
 can churches. At the present rate of progress it will 
 be years before it is completed. 
 
 When one has exhausted the pleasures of the plaza 
 and the hills, with their view of the city nestling be- 
 neath them, there is left in Guaymas little to do but 
 to roam aimlessly about the narrow streets, with their 
 quaint phases of life, or to sit upon the benches down 
 near the custom house, and watch the boats gliding 
 over the waters of the harbor. From the latter place 
 there is always something of interest taking place. 
 Now one sees the barges lightering the freight ashore 
 from the ship that is anchored out in mid-channel; 
 now the Yaqui boats appear, laden to the water's edge 
 with garden produce. Away toward the east is the 
 channel leading out to sea, hemmed in by blue hills,
 
 A Seaport of Old Mexico. 137 
 
 and lighted now and then by a white-winged vessel ; 
 while on a sharply rising bit of ground near by stand 
 the ruins of a long-neglected fort, which Maximilian 
 erected during his short, sad reign. The bay, at times, 
 is full of boats, while here and there a steamer from 
 foreign ports is anchored in the midst of smaller crafts. 
 
 The streets of Guaymas are odd little alley-ways, 
 paved with large, flat stones, and lined on either side 
 by rows of adobe shops and residences. Into some of 
 the wider ones the American horse-car, drawn by a 
 mule, has found its way, but usually there are only the 
 native carts, big and ungainly, and the oddly dressed 
 people, crying their wares early in the day, later curled 
 up in shaded doorways, and in the evening making 
 haste to reach the plaza. Here, at one moment, 
 comes the Guaymas water-cart, pulled by a patient 
 mule, with the driver perched in uncomfortable 
 position behind him; and there the still more primi- 
 tive carrier, the burro, loaded with pig-skins filled with 
 water, and led by a black-haired, bright-faced boy. 
 
 One learns in time to take an interest in the different 
 people met with on the way, and the streets, for all 
 they are so plain and common, grow in popularity as 
 the days go past. Guaymas, at last, with all its heat 
 and glaring defects, steals a place in one's affections, 
 and with regret is left to bask in its sunlight as the 
 stranger moves toward the north again to another sea- 
 port of the western coast which the Franciscan padres 
 beautified.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 With the Franciscan Fathers. 
 
 IT is but natural to go to California after visiting 
 Sonora. The history of the Southwest leads one 
 out of Mexico, through Sonora, and on to Southern 
 California. In former years the early Spanish padres 
 moved westward from Tucson and established missions 
 among the warm and sheltered valleys of California. 
 Many of the churches that they built are melancholy 
 ruins to-day, and the founders have long been dead 
 and forgotten. 
 
 But the achievements of the romantic past are not 
 forgotten, and in passing toward the Pacific, one never 
 loses the Franciscan flavor so prominently present in 
 the Southwest. Americans have robbed Arizona and 
 parts of Sonora of many distinctive characteristics sug- 
 gestive of Spain, but have not destroyed all the adobe 
 churches, which Father Junipero and his confreres built, 
 nor robbed the natural scenery of its glorious beauty. 
 
 Nearing the Rio Colorado, crossed by the railway 
 at Yuma, Arizona is not picturesque. Sandy wastes 
 surround one. Mountains stand in isolated groups. 
 Cactus plants, bunches of coarse grass, pointed peaks 
 are everywhere, and in summer the heat rises in quiv- 
 ering layers from the parched and neglected ground.
 
 With the Franciscan Fathers. zjp 
 
 And yet once there were wide canals, some fifty 
 miles in length, that may still be traced, and near Casa 
 Grande Station are the crumbling ruins of an ancient 
 home whose history is unknown, but whose heavy walls 
 to-day are still intact. When Casa Grande was dis- 
 covered by the Spaniards in 1540, the largest build- 
 ing of the group was four stories high and had walls 
 six feet in thickness. As late as a century ago one of 
 the remaining houses measured 420 by 260 feet. That 
 there was once a busy city near the pre-historic houses 
 seems evident ; and that the people were rich and cul- 
 tivated is evinced by the treasures that have been dis- 
 covered beneath the floors. 
 
 A short distance beyond Casa Grande is the station 
 from which one takes stage to Phoenix, in the Gila 
 Valley. Riding across the level wastes, only waiting 
 for water to be as productive as of old, the little town 
 is reached. Around it are gathered the farms, so rap- 
 idly spreading over all the valley, and in the streets 
 are double rows of cottonwood trees, shading the 
 houses and lending an air of comfort and contentment 
 to the village. 
 
 It is by seeing such places that one's preconceived 
 ideas of Arizona are dissipated. Here there is verdure 
 and general freshness. Meadows reach from the river 
 far into the plains; vineyards have been started. There 
 are old-fashioned barns and feeding cattle and the 
 usual accessories of New England agricultural centres. 
 The ambition to own a farm near Phoenix to-day is as
 
 140 With the Invader: 
 
 great as formerly it was to own a mine at Tombstone; 
 and the people now gathering in the village are the 
 ones who will reclaim the deserts and transform the 
 country. 
 
 It is dreary work, traveling across the desert that lies 
 east of the Californian mountains, and between those 
 heights and the Colorado. There, at least, man has 
 attempted nothing. Glaring sands are everywhere, 
 wind-swept and parched. Even the railway track is 
 buried, at times, with heaps of sand, and the region is 
 like an inland sea, vast but motionless. 
 
 The Spanish invaders entered California from the 
 sea; but modern ones come into the country over the 
 range that runs down the entire length of the State like 
 a huge backbone. And once over it, the land of ver- 
 dure, sunny skies, green grasses and fragrant flowers 
 is reached, and the Pacific caught sight of. 
 
 Southern California is a second Eden, fresh, fair and 
 satisfying. Leaving the Sierras, now looming above 
 the road, robed from base to peak with verdure, one 
 journeys northward through Nature's gardens. There 
 are long, wide valleys, carpeted with green and brilliant 
 with vari-colored flowers; orange groves, with golden 
 fruit shining through the leaves; vineyards, dotting the 
 hillsides; and olive, pear, apple and banana groves. 
 
 Formerly little was expected of Southern Califor- 
 nia. It was too dry, and sandy, ever to become valu- 
 able. When the Franciscan fathers settled in San Ga- 
 briel Valley, it was thought they had selected the only
 
 With the Franciscan Fathers. 141 
 
 available region, and the church the padres built there 
 was the only center of cultivation, But the achieve- 
 ments of the past few years have settled the dispute, 
 and the southern portion of the State has proved itself 
 productive without limit. Already San Gabriel Valley 
 is. occupied from one end to the other, and every year 
 is being more utilized. Water is abundant, and the 
 climate perfect. 
 
 Los Angeles is the metropolis of Southern California. 
 Founded by the Spaniards, and in early days a village 
 of vine-clad, adobe houses, it to-day is a busy, bustling 
 city, modern and prosaic. True, the " Spanish quar- 
 ter" still remains and retains its old-time flavor of 
 quaintness; but it is overpowered by the new city. To 
 be enthusiastic now over Los Angeles, one must remem- 
 ber its past; for the present is not picturesque, and the 
 people are restless workers, rather than idle dreamers, 
 though they still have orange groves in their yards and 
 date palms and banana trees guarding their house steps. 
 
 But if the city is less attractive than one had hoped, 
 the surroundings are not. San Gabriel is as beautiful 
 now as when the Fathers held undisputed possession 
 of it. Around the old San Gabriel Mission, with 
 heavy walls, toned by time to harmonize with the col- 
 ors of the valley, are vineyards, orange groves and 
 yellow wheat fields, and stately homes stand beside 
 white-walled cottages. On one side of the valley runs 
 the Sierra Madre range, from whose foothills is a 
 view of the Pacific, stretching far away into the west.
 
 1 42 With the Invader: 
 
 The region is languid and satisfying — a gem of nature 
 guarded by high blue hills and looking out upon a 
 bluer ocean. 
 
 Santa Monica and San Pedro are the twin sea-ports 
 of Los Angeles. The former is devoted to pleasure, 
 and the latter to business. Santa Monica occupies the 
 crest of a high bluff, against which the waves sound 
 their ceaseless roar, and San Pedro stands beside a 
 protected harbor, where ships ride safely at anchor. 
 The town is the Piraeus of Los Angeles, receiving the 
 freight from the steamers and sending it by rail to the 
 city, and depending entirely on its neighbors for what- 
 ever life it has. When Richard Dana acted as sailor 
 before the mast he packed hides along the San Pedro 
 shore, and to-day one's baggage is trucked over the 
 same ground when he leaves Los Angeles for the sail 
 up the coast to that other abiding place of the Fran- 
 ciscan fathers, Santa Barbara, the pride of every Cali- 
 fornian and the most attractive village, to every lover 
 of the picturesque, in the State. 
 
 The ocean pathway along the western shores of 
 America has been followed for centuries. Over it 
 moved the Spanish discoverers, and up it sailed Sir 
 Francis Drake, on his _ way to the Bay of San Fran- 
 cisco. Later, the ships bearing the Argonauts of '49 
 moved slowly past the sombre headlands that one 
 passes to-day. It was all chance and guess work then, 
 for none knew what lay before them when the journey 
 ended. But now there is certainty in place of conjee-
 
 With the Franciscan Fathers. 143 
 
 ture, and when, darkness having stolen over the islands 
 and hid the shores, a light flashes its rays over the 
 waters, one knows that behind the long arm of the 
 wharf, toward which the steamer makes, Santa Bar- 
 bara stands waiting, and that it is the lights of the town 
 that glimmer through the shadows of the night. 
 
 A new Santa Barbara has overgrown the old, and 
 modern houses are fast driving out the old ones; but 
 the surroundings of the place are all the same, and the 
 oak-clad hills still stand in all their glory overlooking 
 the town and its valley, and the Pacific. Even in 
 these active times, when the ceaseless energy of man 
 is robbing valleys of their former quiet and supplant- 
 ing adobe villages by busy towns, Santa Barbara seems 
 to have escaped the general reformation and to have 
 retained its old-time peacefulness. With no railway 
 connection with the outside world and no desire for it, 
 the town lies snugly nestled in a sunlit valley that 
 opens upon a land-locked bay where the waters are 
 proverbially calm. North and south behind the village 
 run the mountains of the Santa Ynez, their foothills 
 crowned by oaks, and the main range penetrated by 
 narrow canons leading to rugged heights of solid rock. 
 Facing the channel extending ^o the open sea are other 
 hills, low and rounded, half sheltering the valley on 
 the south and merging at last into a stretch of yellow- 
 beach, that runs in graceful curve for miles to Carpen- 
 teria and blue-hued Rincon peak. 
 
 Within the peaceful vale, forever green and fresh,
 
 T44 With the Invader: 
 
 lies the sleepy city, with its one main street reaching 
 up the narrow valley, from the waters of the bay, to 
 where the Mission stands and yellow fields appear in 
 sight. The region is restful to look at and to live in, 
 guarded by mountains, isolated from activity, blessed 
 with a genial climate, the home of an eternal summer. 
 The beauties of three countries are combined. With 
 the Swiss suggestiveness of the mountains there is the 
 Scottish flavor of the valley, while the bay is that of 
 Naples, blue and sparkling, and sending bits of foamy 
 white upon a yellow shore, pressed down upon by hills 
 of blue. No wonder the early padres loved the spot, or 
 that before their time it had been for years the home 
 of now forgotten Indians. 
 
 The history of Santa Barbara is uneventful. No 
 fierce wars were ever waged for its possession, but the 
 Spanish fathers quietly established themselves within 
 the valley, and built the Mission that still stands over- 
 looking the little town gathered before it. Previous to 
 their day the region was peopled by Indians, and an 
 early Spanish navigator who sailed into Santa Barbara 
 Bay as long ago as 1542 claims to have passed several 
 months among the indolent aborigines who are now so 
 scattered and forgotten. In 1602 another Spanish 
 captain — Sebastian Vizcaino — rediscovered the original 
 village and explored the islands lying off the coast; and 
 following him came others from the mother country 
 who displaced the primitive huts with adobe cottages, 
 and gained at last full possession of the land.
 
 With the Franciscan Fathers. 
 
 '45 
 
 Then came the padres^ temporal rulers as well as 
 spiritual, under whom the Indians that remained were 
 furicd to till the fields and labor on the Mission. For 
 years the valley was ruled by subjects of Old Spain, 
 and Spanish galleys anchored in the harbor. As the 
 Mission neared completion, the town continued to 
 grow. Vine-clad cottages were grouped about a fort, 
 the fields were tilled, and a lazy contentment was char- 
 acteristic of the place. 
 
 SANTA BARBARA MISSION. 
 
 And the contentment of the early days still lingers 
 about the town, though the Mission has lost its power, 
 and Americans have settled around it. Spanish cot- 
 tages have given way to modern ones peopled by an- 
 other race; the place enjoys the distinction of being a 
 fashionable winter resort; and yet it retains its ancient 
 ease, its listless inactivity. No noise of manufacturing 
 establishments breaks the ever-present quiet; no harsh
 
 1^6 With the Invader: 
 
 whistle of an engine ever reverberates from the moun- 
 tain sides. At timts arrivals enter the town by stage, 
 but more often come by boat; but even their appear- 
 ance does not affect the general serenity of the people 
 or disturb the even tenor of the town. 
 
 There is a neutrality about the place. Life to it is 
 not a burden; nor is it an hilarious pleasure. One 
 living in Santa Barbara never feels inclined to be bois- 
 terous, but is not subdued. The region calms the 
 excited, invigorates the depressed; and yet, in time, 
 the strong and weak, the nervous and the placid, lose 
 both their positive and their negative qualities, and 
 become imbued with the genial characteristics of the 
 town itself. The surroundings invite placidity; nature, 
 even, knows but little change from month to month. 
 November merges into May, and roses never fail to 
 bloom. The winter of December is the summer of 
 June, and the summer of June is the winter of Decem- 
 ber. It is only polite fiction to grant that Santa Bar- 
 bara has any seasons at all. The grasses are greener 
 and the flowers are fresher and more abundant at one 
 time, perhaps, than at another; but the air is ever soft, 
 the oaks are always fresh, the sea is rarely cold. 
 
 With the evenness of temperature and the natural 
 attractions existing, it is not strange that the town 
 invites and holds the affections of both strangers and 
 of residents. Its beauty is of a restful nature. Explor- 
 ing the secluded canons of the Santa Ynez, with their 
 fresh green beauty and commanding view of distant
 
 With the Franciscan Fathers. 147 
 
 waters, holding on their bosom the mountain islands of 
 the bay, one forgets that there arc turmoils in the world, 
 that killing winter ever reigns, that life is ever harsh 
 and drear. There is picturesqucness rather than gran- 
 deur everywhere, and yet the mountains are often high 
 and rugged. But their coloring is exquisite, and the 
 canons leading among them are choked with bushes 
 and redolent with sweet odors. As for the valley, 
 gently sloping down from orange groves and cultivated 
 fields past the blue waters of the bay to other groves 
 half hiding the villas of Montecito and Carpenteria, its 
 attractions never weary because never commonplace. 
 Fruitful fields, extending about the Mission, fill its 
 upper end, and the opposite extremity lies beside the 
 curved shore of the bay, with Rincon Peak overlooking 
 it, and a range of hills guarding it on the north. 
 
 From the Mission the valley is especially attractive. 
 Below one is the town, its white houses gleaming 
 through masses of foliage, and beyond it the unruffled 
 bay, with its blue-hued islands. Up the valley, fields 
 of yellow, dotted with dark-green oaks, press upon the 
 hillsides, and above them rise the mountains. The 
 prospect is one of simple beauty, highly colored and 
 picturesque. Painted at sunset with every glorious 
 hue, the valley, even at noonday, has a charm peculiarly 
 its own, and one that is recognized by all. 
 
 In its middle age, when the Argonauts had only 
 begun to settle in California, Santa Barbara was one of, 
 if not the leading city in the State. But as its rivals
 
 148 With the Invader: 
 
 grew it barely held its own, and even at the present 
 time contains but 5000 people, and is but a village in 
 reality, though a city by name. There is but little 
 business transacted in the town, and the shops lining 
 the street that extends up the valley from the bay do 
 nothing beyond supplying residents, visitors and the 
 buyers from the neighboring country. The nearest rail- 
 way station is eighty miles away, and the only commu- 
 nication with the outside world is by steamers that call 
 once a week on their way from San Francisco to San 
 Pedro and San Diego. 
 
 The town, in fact, is a resort. Invalids seek it for 
 the genial climate that exists, and others for the pleas- 
 ures which the out-of-door life affords. Strange as it 
 may seem, considering the fact that the summers are 
 never other than delightful, Santa Barbara, until lately, 
 has never been recognized except as a winter resort. 
 From November until May has hitherto been the pop- 
 ular season ; but the present summer saw many visitors, 
 and probably the next will see many more. One can- 
 not imagine a more delightful resort for the warm 
 months. No matter how fiercely the sun may shine, 
 the shade is always cool, and the nights never op- 
 pressive. 
 
 It is dangerous, perhaps, to recommend any one 
 place to invalids, and yet there are reasons authorizing 
 one to say that Santa Barbara might be selected with 
 the certainty of benefit being received. Though near 
 the sea, the air is comparatively dry and invigorating,
 
 With the Franciscan Fathers. 149 
 
 while the climate is that of Southern France. In sum- 
 mer there is little rain, and in winter the wet season is 
 interspersed with dear, warm days. Many suffering 
 from pulmonary and miasmatic diseases have been 
 greatly benefited, and others may be. The town is a 
 sanitarium, but will not benefit all — no place can. 
 Some fail in Colorado, where the elevation is 7000 feet, 
 and improve at Santa Barbara, on the sea level, and 
 vice versa. But if an equable climate, and weather 
 inviting out-door life are desired, the little town by the 
 Mission Santa Barbara might be selected with the con- 
 fident belief that it would do much toward restoring 
 shattered health. 
 
 The accommodations are excellent. Beside the 
 private boarding-houses, comfortable and reasonable in 
 price, there is the world-famed "Arlington," which 
 Colonel Hollister built. There arc hotels and hotels; 
 but the "Arlington" is the hotel. Delightfully situated 
 so as to overlook the town and the bay, it is as large, 
 roomy and comfortable as a Saratoga palace. A town 
 of rare beauty, but with a poor hotel, might as well 
 subside at once. To satisfy the soul, the stomach must 
 not be neglected. While Santa Barbara satisfies the 
 mind, the "Arlington" caters royally to the body. It is 
 part and parcel of the town, one of the good things 
 that man has provided. It is more of a home than 
 a hotel, and its grounds give unfailing delight to the 
 lovers of green lawns and flowers, for they have both in 
 rich profusion. Charles Nordhoff said there was but
 
 ijo With the Invader: 
 
 one Santa Barbara, and but one "Arlington;" and his 
 sentiment has been echoed ever since. 
 
 Entering Santa Barbara by way of the sea, or com- 
 ing into the valley from over the mountains, the Mis- 
 sion is the most conspicuous object seen. Set upon 
 elevated ground, and commanding a view of extended 
 surroundings, it is one of the most attractive, and per- 
 haps the best preserved, of all the churches that the 
 Spanish fathers built. The facade, which rises above 
 a wide doorway, reached by a flight of low stone steps, 
 is guarded by twin towers, each with its quota of Span- 
 ish bells, and capped by an ornamented cornice, on 
 which the swallows have built their mass of nests. 
 
 Westward from the broad white front extends a long, 
 low-storied wing, faced with graceful arches opening 
 from a shaded corridor. Another flight of gray stone 
 steps leads into this and across it to a heavy door 
 opening into a darkened hall, which is the particular 
 sanctum of the friars now guarding the church. 
 
 The interior of the main building is long and high, 
 and contains upon the walls several copies of paintings 
 placed there by the founders of the Mission. Services 
 are still held in the church, and fete-days are scrupu- 
 lously observed. The fathers dress in coarse robes, 
 girded at the waist by a stout cord, and wear sandals. 
 Their cells are open to male inspection, but not to 
 that of the other sex. Nor can a woman enter the 
 garden of the Mission, which lies behind the church. 
 It is a quiet place, this guarded loitering ground, and
 
 With the Franciscan Jut t hers. IJI 
 
 is filled with flowers and chattering swallows and 
 shaded walks. 
 
 In the Mission's day of greatness an adobe wall sur- 
 rounded its grounds, and the fathers were wealthy as 
 well as powerful. The old wall has nearly disappeared 
 to-day, however, and the fathers are poor and power- 
 less. They have lost their lands, and those who wor- 
 ship with them are not wealthy. And yet some of the 
 hooded monks, with shaven pates, are as round as 
 history describes their brothers, and are jovial speci- 
 mens of mankind. Isolating themselves from the world 
 and sleeping in narrow cells, they lead poetic lives, at 
 least, and lend by their presence an additional attract- 
 iveness to their home. 
 
 Obliterate the houses of Santa Barbara and leave 
 but the Mission standing, and one would be trans- 
 ported bac 1 : a century, in imagination, without the 
 slightest tiouble. For the church has changed but 
 little in appearance or in customs since it was first 
 erected. Time has colored the once white walls, to be 
 sure, and has chipped off the sharp corners, and planted 
 grasses in various crevices. But the bells still peal 
 out their calls for prayers, the busy swallows still circle 
 about the old facade, and the peaceful serenity of the 
 pile is ever present. Picturesque in its location, with 
 the mountains rising behind it and the valley stretching 
 out before, it is no less so in its architecture. The 
 towers, broken by cornices into three sections, are 
 solidly yet gracefully constructed, and are capped by
 
 i j 2 With the Invader: 
 
 rounded domes surmounted by antiquated weather 
 vanes. Over the doorway the roof meets at an angle, 
 and above this stands a bit of ornamentation holding 
 the symbolic cross. 
 
 The Mission was founded in 1786, two years after 
 the death of Father Junipero Serra at Monterey. He 
 had selected the spot and name, however, before his 
 death, and the foundations were probably begun as 
 earl}- as 17 84. Upon its completion, the church was 
 placed in charge of two priests, one of whom was 
 Father Antonio Paterna, under whose supervision the 
 funds granted by the Viceroy of Mexico, by authority 
 of the King of Spain, were expended and the work of 
 civilization continued. 
 
 The capital stock of each Mission founded in New 
 Spain consisted of a band of two hundred black cattle, 
 with a few sheep and horses. The church at Santa Bar- 
 bara, however, soon had a large increase from the orig- 
 inal grant, and became comparatively wealthy. The 
 Indians w*ere first baptized, and then taught to labor 
 for their own livelihood and for the benefit of the Mis- 
 sion. The monks introduced the olive tree and the 
 Mission grape, and in addition so civilized the Indians 
 that some of the more talented became expert musi- 
 cians, and artists of sufficient ability to copy the Span- 
 ish pictures that hang within the church. 
 
 In 1833-34 the Act of Secularization was passed by 
 the Mexican Congress. By it the monks lost control 
 of their lands, and the property which they had accu-
 
 With the Franciscan Fathers. ijj 
 
 mulated during years of labor and hardship. Thus 
 deprived of their only means of support, many of the 
 friars disbanded, and returned to their respective 
 homes. The Indians also left and went south about 
 Los Angeles, where a few scattered remnants may still 
 be found. 
 
 In 1854 a religious house of the order of St. Francis 
 was founded, with headquarters at the parish church 
 that stood in Santa Barbara. But the Mission build- 
 ing being larger and more suitable, the monks of the 
 new order moved into it, and have lived there ever 
 since, and the old church is now an apostolic college 
 for the education of youth for the order and as mis- 
 sionaries. The community to-day numbers twelve 
 brothers, among whom are apt to be a few novices. 
 They have in a measure saved the building from utter 
 ruin, but it and the gardens are far from being in the 
 condition they were before the Act of Secularization 
 was passed. 
 
 The plan of the Mission is rambling and uncertain. 
 Rooms were added when and where they were most 
 needed, without regard to unity. The towers are ot 
 stone, plastered with a coarse layer of cement, and the 
 walls are mostly of adobe mixed with brick. Formerly 
 the roof was tiled, but the huge sustaining beams rot- 
 ting away, it was replaced with shingles. 
 
 Near Santa Barbara are the two suburbs of Monte- 
 cito and Carpenteria — the one wedged into a valley 
 penetrating the Santa Ynez, and the other facing the
 
 IS 4 With the Invader: 
 
 bay, with the range guarding it on the north. Car- 
 penteria is a town of ranches, and Montecito of villas 
 and groves. Both vie in attractiveness with Santa 
 Barbara, but are more or less absorbed by the latter 
 place, and properly belong to it. Beyond the Mission, 
 and opening into the valley, are various canons of dif- 
 ferent size — some still as Nature created them, brush- 
 grown and wild, and others cultivated and containing 
 olive and orange orchards. To the left of the valley, 
 and bordering the bay, is the Hope Ranch. In it are 
 rounded hills, cultivated here and studded with live 
 oaks there, over which one may ride to the beach, with 
 its high cliffs and yellow sands that runs around rocky 
 points and past Castle Gate to the wharf at the lower 
 end of the town. 
 
 One must live long to become tired of the rides and 
 rambles about Santa Barbara. Those who have en- 
 joyed them the longest love them the most. Nature has 
 beautified and man has not injured them. They are 
 ever fresh and attractive. Here the way is through 
 green canons, with colored rocks shining through green 
 shrubs and clear streams flowing over granite ledges ; 
 and here out upon the beach, curving like a crescent, 
 past abruptly rising cliffs and by the side of deep blue 
 waters. One path leads to orange groves, another to 
 mountain heights and others to tree-grown points, from 
 which the valley, town and bay are visible far below. 
 
 Old Santa Barbara, the village of Spanish cottages, 
 is being rapidly destroyed. The Presidio, that once
 
 With the Franciscan Fathers. 753 
 
 stood in the center of the town, has but a single wall 
 remaining to mark where the fort once was, and the 
 houses about it are every year growing fewer in num- 
 ber. Those that have been left, however, add yet 
 another attraction to the city, and serve to recall the 
 days when Americans were unknown, and Spanish 
 authority was recognized by all. 
 
 THE SPANISH QUARTER. 
 
 They are solidly built structures of adobe and heavy 
 beams, and the walls, if left alone, would stand another 
 century. Rarely over one story in height, the houses 
 are roofed with bright red tiles, old-fashioned and cum- 
 brous, and have deep porticos, with trailing vines 
 clinging to them. The windows are small and deep- 
 set, and the more pretentious houses are built around 
 an open court. 
 
 It may be that the exigencies of the time require the 
 removal of the Spanish quarters, and possibly the town 
 will in the future shake off its present listless air, and 
 enjoy a boom calculated to make glad the heart of
 
 zj(5 With the Invader: 
 
 land agents. But one cannot help regretting whatever 
 immolations there have been in the past, or will be in 
 the future. To-day the town is not robbed of its 
 greatest charms, and those who know it trust it never 
 will be. Modem improvements will not assimilate 
 with nature's work in Santa Barbara. Spoil its natur- 
 alness, and it will grow commonplace. The valley is 
 a favored nook of California. Modernized, it and the 
 town will become mere fashionable resorts, instead of 
 remaining as they are to-day — incomparable and abso- 
 lutely satisfactory.
 
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