_CROSSING THE ARIZONA DESERTS._
HEAD-QUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF CALIFORNIA, } SAN FRANCISCO, CAL., March 11, 1868.}
MY DEAR MADAM:--The next steamer for Wilmington is advertised to sail onthe 14th, but as she is not yet in, her departure may be delayed a dayor two.
I enclose letters to the commanding officers of Drum Barracks and FortYuma, and am,
My dear Madam,
Truly yours,
E. N. PLATT.
It was my intention to visit quite a remote part of Arizona; and,although an officer's wife, having no personal acquaintance with any ofthe officers stationed in the Territory, the letters the colonel gave meto the commanding officers of both these posts, through which I shouldhave to pass, were very acceptable. As I was quite alone, the commandingofficer of Drum Barracks was particular to give me reliable people formy long journey. Phil, the driver, was a model, and in many respects agenius, while the two soldiers--who had been in the hospital when theircomrades had started for Arizona, two months before, and who were sentby the post commander to protect "Government property" (theambulance)--were attentive and good-natured, as soldiers always are.
With so small an escort, it was possible--nay, expedient--to make thejourney very rapidly. We were unincumbered by tents or baggage--my onlytrunk and what provisions we carried were all in the ambulance, whichwas drawn by four large mules. I had decided, being alone, to stop atthe forage-stations, whenever we could reach them, expecting to take mymeals there and to find quarters for the night. Luckily, thequartermaster and Phil had made arrangement and provision to have mymeals cooked by one of the soldiers, in case the "station-fare" shouldnot agree with me; and my ambulance was of such ample dimensions that itwas easily turned into a sleeping apartment for the night: so that Phil,who had all the merits and demerits of such places by heart, had only togive an additional nod of the head to induce me to say to thestation-keeper, who would always invite me to enter his "house" whenPhil drove up to the _corral_, "No, thank you: I can rest very well inthe ambulance." Then there were days' marches to be made when no stationcould be reached, so that we were compelled to camp out; and on suchoccasions Phil would appear in the full glory of his well-earnedreputation. He boasted that he had brought fully one-half the number ofofficers' wives who ever visited Arizona to the Territory himself, andthat he had always made them comfortable. Knowing, of course, before,whenever we should camp out, he would go to work systematically. Hiscarbine was always by his side, and early in the morning he wouldcommence his raid on the game and birds abounding, more or less,throughout the Territory. Slaying sometimes five or six of thebeautifully crested quails at one shot without moving from his seat, hewould send one of the soldiers to gather up the spoils, and then set themen, placed one on each side of him, to pick the birds. That this wasthoroughly done he was very sure of, for he watched the operation with astern eye. Not the smallest splinter of wood, or anything combustible,was left ungleaned on the field over which he passed on such a day;fifty, ay, a hundred times, he would turn to his right-hand man, or tohis left, with the admonition:
"Miller, we've six birds to cook, and bread to bake, to-night: pick upthat stick."
Down would jump Miller, trusting to his agility, and the gymnastics hemight have practised in younger days, for safety in vaulting over thewheels; for never a moment would Phil allow the ambulance to halt whilethis wayside gathering was going on.
I always preferred camping out to "bed and board" at the roadside hotelsof Arizona, for Phil, with all his sagacity, would sometimes go astrayin regard to the eligibility and comfort of the quarters furnished. As,for instance, at Antelope Peak, where my mentor assured me I should finda bedstead to place my bedding on, and a room all to myself. I _did_find a bedstead; but after the family (consisting of an Americanhusband, a Spanish wife, sister-in-law, brother-in-law, and threechildren) had removed their bed-clothes from it, to make place for mine,it looked so uninviting that I requested Phil to spread my bed on thefloor. I had a room all to myself, too; but, on retiring to rest, Ifound that the whole family--again consisting of husband, wife,sister-in-law, brother-in-law, and three children--had spread their bedon the floor of the adjoining room, which, being separated from myapartment only by an old blanket, coming short of the ground over afoot, and hung up where the door ought to be, enabled, or rathercompelled me to look straight into the faces of the different members ofthis interesting family. As it grew darker, and the danger of beingstared out of countenance passed over, another serious disturbancepresented itself to my senses. All my friends can bear witness to thefact that I consider Mr. Charles Bergh the greatest public benefactor ofthe present age (the woman who founded the hospital for aged and infirmcats not excepted), and that, with me, it calls forth all the combativequalities lately discovered to lie dormant in woman's nature, to see anyharmless, helpless animal cruelly treated; but if I could have caughtonly half a dozen of the five hundred mice that nibbled at my nose, myears, and my feet that night, I should exultingly have dipped them incamphene, applied a match, and sent them, as warning examples, back totheir tribe.
Only once after this, toward the close of the journey, did Phil enticeme to sleep under a roof. It was at Blue-water Station; and the man whokept it turned himself out into the _corral_, and made my bed on thefloor of the only room the house contained. There was no bedstead there,but the man gave his word that neither were there any mice; so I went tosleep in perfect faith and security. When I woke up at midnight, Ithought the Indians must have surprised us, scalped me, and left me fordead. Such a burning, gnawing sensation I experienced on the top of myhead that almost unconsciously I put up my hand to see if they had taken_all_ my hair. But I brought it down rapidly, for all the horrid,pinching, stinging bugs and ants that had ensconced themselves in myhair, during my sleep, suddenly fastened to the intruding fingers, andclung to them with a tenacity worthy of a better cause.
But these experiences were not made until I had crossed the greater partof the Arizona deserts; and I considered them rather as pleasantlyvarying the solemn, still monotony of the days passed, one after one, ina solitude broken only, at long intervals, by those forlorn governmentforage-stations.
The first desert we crossed was still in California--though whyCalifornia should feel any desire to claim the wilderness of sand andrattlesnakes lying between Vallecito Mountain and Fort Yuma, I cannotsee. We had passed over the thriving country around San Bernardino, andthrough the verdant valley of San Felipe; and striking the desert justbeyond Vallecito, it seemed like entering Arizona at once.
Could anything be more hopelessly endless--more discouraginglyboundless--than the sand-waste that lay before us the morning we leftthe forage-station of Vallecito! For days before, Phil had beenentertaining me with stories and accounts of travellers who had beenlost in sand-storms on the deserts. Not a breath of air stirred--not acloud was to be seen in the sky on this particular morning;nevertheless, I watched for the signs that precede the springing up ofthe wind with a keen eye, as the ambulance rolled slowly and noiselesslythrough the deep sand, and I listened attentively to Phil's stories. Theroad we followed was but a wagon-track, at best, and I could wellbelieve that, in ten minutes from the time a storm sprang up, therewould be no trace of the road left. Then commence the blind wanderings,the frenzied attempts to regain the friendly shelter of the station, onthe part of the inexperienced traveller--ending, but too often, in amiserable death by famine and starvation. The sand, flying in clouds,conceals the distant mountains, by which alone he could be piloted; and,straying off, he finds himself bewildered among piles of sand andtattered sage-brush, when the storm has blown over. The remains of humanbeings found by parties going into the mountains have proved that suchpoor wretches must have wandered for days without food, without water,till they found their death, at last, on the wide, inhospitable plain.Their death--but not their grave; for the _coyote_, with his jackalinstinct, surely finds the body of the lost one, under the sand-moundmercifully covering it, and
, feasting on the flesh, he leaves the boneswhite and bleaching in the pitiless rays of the sun.
"Phil," said I, interrupting him, "you told me the mules would not get adrop of water to-day: what is that lake before us, then?"
He looked up to where I pointed.
"It is _mirage_, madame. _You_ cannot be deceived by it; I am sure youmust have seen it on the plains, before this."
"Yes," I said, stoutly, "I have seen _mirage_; but this is water--not_mirage_."
"We shall see," said Phil, equally determined to hold his ground.
But I was sure it could not be _mirage_--it must be water--for did I notsee each of the few scattering bushes of _verde_ and sage that grew onthe border, and farther out, all through the water, reflected in theclear, slightly undulating flood? The bushes seemed larger here than anyof the stinted vegetation I had yet seen on the desert, and every bushwas clearly reflected in the water; but it was strange that as weapproached the water receded; and if I noted any particular bunch ofsage or weeds, I found that, as we neared, it grew smaller, and I couldno longer see its image in the water.
Phil was right--it was the _mirage_; and this _Fata Morgana_ of theplains and deserts of our own country became a most curious andinteresting study to me. I could write a volume on the "dissolvingviews" I have seen. Leaving camp one morning, I saw, on turning, that anarrow strip of short, coarse grass had been suddenly transformed into atall, magnificent hedge; and a single, meagre stem of _verde_ would assuddenly grow into a large, spreading tree. Out of the clouds, on thehorizon, would sometimes loom up, majestically, a tall spire, a heavydome, or a vessel under full sail; and changing into one fantastic shapeafter another, the picture would slowly fade into vapor at last. Wholecities have sprung up before my eyes: I could have pointed out which oneof the different cupolas I supposed to be the City Hall, and whichsteeple, according to my estimation, belonged to the First PresbyterianChurch; and could have shown the exact locality of the harbor, from thenumber of masts I saw across the roofs of the houses yonder. Even Philwas deceived one morning. I asked him why he stopped the ambulance, andallowed the mules to rest at so unusual an hour in the day? He pointedto a mountain I had not noticed before, which stood almost in front ofus, and was steep and bare, of a light clay-color.
"There ain't a man driving government mules knows this road better'n Ido; but I'll be derned if ever I saw that mountain before."
He asked the men if they thought it could be _mirage_, but they hootedat the idea--it was too substantial for that, altogether; it was amountain--nothing else. But while we were, all four, so intently gazingat it, the scene was shifted; the mountain parted, leaving two steepbanks--the space between apparently spanned by a light bridge.
For days we continued our journey through the desert, making campgenerally near one of the numerous wells indiscriminately scatteredbetween Vallecito and Fort Yuma. There are Indian Wells, Sacket's Wells,Seven Wells, Cook's Wells, which, on close inspection, prove to belongto the dissolving views, of which Arizona possesses such a variety; anold well-curb or muddy water-hole generally constituting all the claimthese places have to the distinction of being called wells. But no; atCook's Wells, we _did_ find a good, clear well of water; nor is this theonly object of interest connected in my mind with the place. Thestation-keeper told me that a tribe of friendly Indians, not far fromhere, the Deguines, were to celebrate the funeral rites of a departedwarrior the following day. The spirit of the "brave" was to find its wayup to the Happy Hunting Grounds from the funeral-pyre on which the bodywas to pass through the process of incremation--this being their mode ofdisposing of the remains of deceased friends. A novel spectacle it wouldbe, no doubt; but I decided not to witness it. I could already seeCastle Dome looming in the distance, and I knew that I should be able toreach Fort Yuma in the course of the following day. So we left Cook'sWells early in the morning, and reached the crossing of the Coloradosome time in the forenoon.
The Colorado river was "up," Phil said; and I was prepared to agreewith him when I saw an expanse of muddy water covering the flat, on theother side, to a considerable distance. The old scow, or flat-boat,manned by two dirty-looking Mexicans, had no difficulty in coming upclose to us, where we were waiting on the shore: the difficulty lay inour getting on the crazy thing without breaking through the rottenplanks. Perhaps the two Mexicans looked so dirty because all their"clean clothes" were hanging out to dry, on two lines of cowhide,stretched on either side of the flat-boat, which the wind kept blowinginto the mules' faces, causing them to "back out" twice, after our_entree_ to the ferry had been almost effected. There was no railingaround the boat (the four posts from which the clothes-line wasstretched having evidently been erected at the four corners for thatpurpose), and, as it was only just large enough to afford standing roomfor the ambulance and the men, it was anything but soothing to a woman'snerves to see the mules rear and plunge every time the wind flapped oneof the articles on the line into the animals' faces. I had remained inthe ambulance, and in my usual corner, but as the shore receded, and anocean seemed to stretch out on every side of me, I found it hard to staythere. I had suggested to Phil, in the first place, to cut down thosemiserable clothes-lines, if the Mexicans refused to gather in theirweek's washing, but he had quieted me by saying that our men would holdthe mules. However, when the current grew swifter, and the Mexicansfound some difficulty in managing their craft, the men were directed totake the long poles, of which there was an abundant supply, and help tosteer clear of the logs floating down the river.
Now came the difficulty; for the refractory mules would not listen tothe "Ho, there, Kate; be still--will you?" with which Phil admonishedthe nigh leader, but persisted in rearing every time a piece of "linen"struck them, till the old scow shook with their furious stamping, and Igrew desperate in my lone corner. "Phil," I cried at last, with theenergy of despair, brandishing an enormous knife I had drawn from themess-chest, "unless you come and quiet the mules immediately, I shallget down, cut the harness, and let them jump into the river!"
An hour's drive brought us to Fort Yuma, where we rested a day or two,before resuming our journey. The country here has been described againand again; its dry, sterile plains and black, burnt-looking hills havebeen sufficiently execrated--relieving me of the necessity of adding myquota. Fort Yuma--grand in its desolateness, white and parched in themidst of its two embracing rivers--needs but the Dantean inscription onits gateway to make it resemble the entrance to the regions of theeternally damned.
It was by no means my first glimpse of the "noble savage" that I got onthe banks of the Colorado, or I might have been appalled at the sight ofa dozen or two of barely-clothed, filthy-looking Indians, squatted inrows wherever the sun could burn hottest on their clay-covered heads.The specimens here seen were different from those that had come under myobservation on the Plains. That Indians can be civilized William LloydGarrison would not doubt, could he but see with what native grace thesedusky belles wear their crinoline. Nor can they be accused of theextravagance of their white sisters in matters pertaining to toilet anddress: the crinoline (worn _over_ the short petticoat, constitutingtheir full and entire wardrobe, aside from it) apparently being the onlyarticle of luxury they indulge in, except paint--and whiskey, when theycan get it. But grandest of all were the men--the warrior-likeYumas--arrayed in the traditional strip of red flannel, an occasionalcast-off military garment, and the cap of hard-baked mud above alludedto. I had never seen these before, and thought them very singular asornaments; but Phil soon explained their utility in destroying a certainparasite by which the noble red man is afflicted. During the summermonths he seeks relief in an application of wet mud to the partbesieged--his head. The mud is allowed to bake hard, in the course ofweeks, under the broiling sun; and when quite certain that his enemy hasbeen slaughtered, he removes the clay until another application becomesnecessary.
Following the course of the Gila river for some time, we struck thedesert again, beyond Gila Bend. What struck me as very surpris
ing was,that the desert here did not look like a desert at all: the scattering_verde_-bushes and growth of cactus hiding the sand from one's eyes,always just a little distance ahead--the cacti growing so thickly insome places that, when they are in blossom, their flowers form a mosaicof brilliant hues. Some of them are very curious--particularly the"monument cactus," a tall shaft, growing to a height of over thirtyfeet, sometimes with arms branching out on either side, more generally asimple obelisk, covered with thorns from three to four inches long.
We were now nearing Maricopa Wells and the Pimo villages. Phil was thepearl of all drivers; and he recounted traditions and legends belongingto the past of this country that even Prescott might have wished tohear. Phil had studied the history of the country in his own way, andhad evidently not kept his eyes closed while travelling back and forththrough Arizona. Halting the ambulance one day, he assisted me to alightnear a pile of rocks the most wonderful it was ever my fortune tobehold. He called them Painted Rocks, or Sounding Rocks; and his theoryin regard to them was, that this had been a place where the Indians hadlong ago met to perform their religious rites and ceremonies. Rocks ofdifferent sizes--from those not above a foot high, to others thatreached almost to my shoulders--all rounded in shape, were here, in themidst of the plain, gathered together within a space of twenty or thirtyfeet. They were black--whether from the action of the weather merely, orfrom some chemical process--and covered on all sides withrepresentations from the animal world of Arizona and Mexico. Thepictures had been engraved, in a rude manner, on the black ground, andembraced, in their variety, snakes, lizards, toads; also, four-footedanimals, which I could conscientiously recognize neither as horses norantelopes. Were they horses, it would go to prove that these pictureshad been made by roving bands of Indians, any time after the conquest,as it is held that horses were first brought to this country by Cortez.Did the pictures represent antelopes, it would almost tempt me tobelieve that it was a specimen of the picture-writing of the Aztecs. Thesun was also represented, with its circle of rays, which, in Phil'sestimation, was proof conclusive that the heathens had come here only toworship, particularly as there was no water in the neighborhood, andthey could not have lived here for any length of time. What thecharacter of the rocks may be, I am not geologist enough to know; butwhen struck they emit a peculiarly clear and ringing sound, like thatproduced by striking against a bell or a glass. None of the tribes nowto be found in that part of the country appear to claim any knowledge ofthe origin of these rocks.
If either the Pimos, Maricopas, or Yumas are descendants of the Aztecs,they have most wofully degenerated. On one point their traditions allagree: namely, that the three tribes were not always at peace with eachother, as they are now. Long, long ago, when the Pimos were sorelypressed by the more powerful Yumas, they allied themselves with theMaricopas; and when they still found themselves in the minority againstthe common enemy, and had been almost exterminated, they flew to thewhite man for assistance, and never broke the treaty made with him.
But the shimmer of romance and poetry one would willingly throw aroundthem, is so rudely dispelled by the sight of these lank, dirty,half-nude creatures, with faces exhibiting no more intelligence than(perhaps not so much as) the faces of their lean dogs, or shaggy horses.Yet, again, I must confess that even these Indians are susceptible of ahigh degree of refinement and cultivation. Two of them, mounted on ahorse whose diminutive size allowed their four feet to touch the groundat every stride, dressed, or rather undressed, in a manner to striketerror into the soul of any well brought-up female, rode close up to theambulance one day, as it passed through the Indian villages, one of themshouting, "Bully for you!" at the top of his voice, while the otherwhipped up the horse at the same time, as though anxious to retreat themoment their stock of polite learning had been exhausted.
Meeting at Maricopa Wells with the captain of the infantry stationed atLa Paz, we visited the interior of the Pimo and Maricopa villagestogether, on horseback. We rode through the field the Indians cultivate,and irrigate from the Gila river, by means of _acequias_ dug throughtheir lands in all directions. Some of their huts on the roadside weredeserted by their owners, who had removed to very airy residences,constructed of the branches of cotton-wood and willows, growing on thebanks of the Gila, located where they could overlook their possessionson all sides. As these residences consisted simply of a roof, or shed,it was no such very hard matter to keep a lookout on every side. Thatthey do not trust a great deal in each other's honesty, was evident fromthe way in which they had fastened the doors of their city residenceswhen exchanging them for their country-seats: they had firmly walled upthe entrance with _adobe_ mud. However, they are quiet and peaceable, Iam told, unless, by any chance or mischance, they get whiskey--of whichthey are as fond as all other Indians.
In the mountain around which we had passed on the last day's journeyfrom Gila Bend, is to be seen, plainly and distinctly, the face of aman, reclining, with his eyes closed as though in sleep. Among the mostbeautiful of all the legends told here, is that concerning this face. Itis Montezuma's face, so the Indians believe (even those in Mexico, whohave never seen the image), and he will awaken from his long sleep someday, will gather all the brave and the faithful around him, raise anduplift his down-trodden people, and restore to his kingdom the old powerand the old glory--as it was, before the Hidalgos invaded it. So strongis this belief in some parts of Mexico, that people who passed throughthat country years ago, tell me of some localities where fires were keptconstantly burning, in anticipation of Montezuma's early coming. Itlooks as though the stern face up there was just a little softened inits expression, by the deep slumber that holds the eyelids over thecommanding eye; and all nature seems hushed into death-like stillness.Day after day, year after year, century after century, slumbers the manup there on the height, and life and vegetation sleep on the arid plainsbelow--a slumber never disturbed--a sleep never broken; for thebattle-cry of Yuma, Pimo, and Maricopa that once rang at the foot of themountain, did not reach Montezuma's ear; and the dying shrieks of thechildren of those who came far over the seas to rob him of his sceptreand crown, fall unheeded on the rocks and the deserts that guard hissleep.
Two days more, and Phil pointed out to me, at a distance of some twomiles away, the ruins of the Casas-Grandes, sole remnant of the SevenCities the adventurous _Padre_ had so enticingly described to theSpaniards. I could not induce Phil to allow me a nearer view, as we werein the Apache country, and had no escort save the two soldiers in theambulance with us. From this distance the houses looked to me like anyother good-sized, one-story, _adobe_ buildings; but the material musthave been better prepared, or differently chosen, from that which is nowused in erecting Mexican houses, or it could not have resisted theravages of Time so far.
On we journeyed, not without some dread on my part, and a great manyassurances on the part of Phil that I was a very courageous woman. Butnearing Tucson, where the danger was greatest, we were not always alone.Mexican trains bound for, or coming from Sonora, sometimes fell in withus, and I did not despise their company, for I knew that only "instrength lay safety" for us. Some of these trains consisted ofpack-donkeys only, bearing on their bruised backs the linen and cambricswhich are so beautifully manufactured in Sonora and other Mexicanprovinces; others consisted of wagons heavily laden, their drivers armedto the teeth, and well prepared to defend them against attacks theApaches were sure to make on them, sometime and somewhere between Sonoraand Tucson.
One of these trains belonged to Leopoldo Carillo, a Mexican merchant ofTucson, who paid his men one hundred and fifty dollars for every Indianscalp they delivered to him. Phil asked one of the Mexicans, driving awagon drawn along by some twelve or sixteen horses, if he had taken anyscalps on the trip. The Mexican nodded his head in silence, and turnedaway. The teamster belonging to the next wagon--an American--told us howthe Indians had "jumped them," just after crossing the border, and howtwo of them had held the Mexican, just spoken to, at bay, while twoothers killed and scal
ped his younger brother. They all together, someseven or eight of them, had taken three scalps from the Indians on thistrip; but he was willing to lose his share of the prize-money, the mansaid, if the "pesky devils hadn't taken the boy's scalp;" for thebrother, he averred, cried and "took on about it" _just like a whiteman_.