Some Heroes of Travel, or, Chapters from the History of Geographical Discovery and Enterprise. Adams William Henry Davenport
outnumbered as they were, they slew half a dozen of the Comanches. It is probable, however, they would have been overpowered but for the arrival of the rancheros, who, coming up from the hacienda, put the Indians to flight. As night had darkened in the sky, they did not pursue; but returned to the hacienda with the dead bodies of Juan Maria and Isabel, who were buried the next day, side by side, at the very hour that had been fixed for the unfortunate Isabel’s marriage. As for Escamilla, ashamed of his cowardice, he was seen no more in the valley of the Rio Florido, but settled at Queretaro, where he afterwards married.
This tragedy occurred on the 11th of October, 1845.
From Durango Mr. Ruxton proceeded westward for Chihuahua and New Mexico. On the second day of his journey an unpleasant incident very sternly convinced him of the treachery and bloodthirstiness of the lower Mexicans. He was riding slowly ahead of his native attendant, whom he had hired at Durango, when the sudden report of fire-arms, and the whiz of a bullet close to his head, caused him to turn sharply round, and he beheld his amiable mozo [young man], pistol in hand, some fifteen yards behind him, looking guilty as well as foolish. Drawing a pistol from his holsters, Mr. Ruxton rode up to him immediately, and was about to blow out his brains, when his terror-stricken and absurdly guilty-looking face turned his employer’s wrath into “an immoderate fit of laughter.”
“Amigo,” said Mr. Ruxton, “do you call this being skilled, as you boasted, in the use of arms, to miss my head at fifteen yards?”
“Ah, caballero, in the name of all the saints, I did not fire at you, but at a duck which was flying over the road. Your worship cannot believe I would do such a thing.” Now, the pistols which Mr. Ruxton had given him to carry were secured in a pair of holsters tightly buckled and strapped round his waist. To unbuckle them at any time was difficult; to unbuckle them in time to get one out to fire at a flying duck, was impossible. Mr. Ruxton knew that the duck was an invention, and a clumsy one, and to prevent another treacherous attack, took from the fellow everything in the shape of offensive weapon, including even his knife. Then, after lecturing him severely, he administered a sound thrashing with the buckle-end of his surcingle, and promised him that, if he were suspected of even dreaming of another attempt at murder, he would be pistolled without a moment’s hesitation.
After narrowly escaping a collision with a party of Indians, Mr. Ruxton reached a place called El Gallo, where he resided for a couple of days in the house of a farmer. He tells us that in a rancho the time is occupied as follows: – The females of the family rise at daybreak, and prepare the chocolate, or alde, which is eaten the first thing in the morning. About nine o’clock, breakfast is served, consisting of chile colorado, frijoles (beans), and tortillas (omelettes). Dinner, which takes place at noon, and supper at sunset, are both substantial meals. Meanwhile, the men employ themselves in the fields or attending to the animals; the women about the house, making clothes, cleaning, cooking, washing. In the evening the family shell corn, and chat; or a guitar is brought, and singing and dancing are continued until it is time to retire.
Riding onward from El Gallo, Mr. Ruxton turned aside from the regular route to kill an antelope and broil a collop for breakfast. He was descending the sierra to quench his thirst at a stream which flowed through a cañon, or deep ravine, when a herd of antelopes passed him, and stopped to feed on a grassy plateau near at hand. He started in pursuit. As soon as he got within rifle-shot, he crept between two rocks at the edge of the hollow, and raised his head to reconnoitre, when he saw a sight which startled him, as the footprint on the sand startled Robinson Crusoe. About two hundred yards from the cañon, and scarcely twice that distance from his place of concealment, eleven Comanches, duly equipped for war, each with lance and bow and arrow, and the chief with a rifle also, were riding along in Indian file. They were naked to the waist, their buffalo robes being thrown off their shoulders, and lying on their hips and across the saddle, which was a mere pad of buffalo-skin. Slowly they drew towards the cañon, as if to cross it by a deer-path near the spot where Mr. Ruxton lay concealed. The odds were great; but he was advantageously posted, and he held in readiness his rifle, a double-barrelled carbine, and a couple of pistols. If he were attacked, he thought he could make a good defence; but, if unobserved, he had nothing to gain by attacking them. On they came, laughing and talking, and Mr. Ruxton, raising his rifle and supporting it in the fork of a bush which served as a screen, covered the chief with deadly aim. On they came, but suddenly diverged from the deer-path and struck across the plain, thereby saving the chief’s life, and probably Mr. Ruxton’s. As soon as they had disappeared, he recrossed the sierra, and returned for the night to El Gallo.
The next stage from El Gallo was Mapimi, situated at the foot of a range of mountains which teems with the precious metals. There he got rid of his mozo, or native attendant, and engaged in his place a little Irishman, who had been eighteen years in Mexico, and had almost forgotten his own language. He readily agreed to accompany him to Chihuahua, having no fear of the Indians, though they infested the country through which the travellers would have to pass. They reached Chihuahua, however, without misadventure. Its territory is described as a paradise for sportsmen. The common black or American bear, and the formidable grizzly bear, inhabit the sierras and mountains; and in the latter is found the carnero cimarron, or big-horn sheep. Elk, black-tailed deer, cola-arieta (a large species of the fallow deer), the common American red deer, and antelope, are everywhere abundant. Of smaller game the most numerous are peccaries, hares, and rabbits; and in the streams the beavers still construct their dams. There are two varieties of wolf – the white, or mountain wolf, and the cayeute, or coyote, commonly called the prairie-dog. Of birds the most common are the faisan (a species of pheasant), snipe, plover, crane, and the quail, or rather a bird between a partridge and a quail.
The entomologist would find much to interest him in the plains of Chihuahua, and especially an insect which seems almost peculiar to that part of Mexico. From four to six inches in length, it has four long slender legs. Its body, to the naked eye, seems nothing more than a blade of grass, and has no apparent muscular action or vitality except in the two antennæ, which are about half an inch long. It moves very slowly upon its long legs, and altogether looks not unlike a blade of grass carried by ants. The Mexicans assert that if horse or mule swallow these zacateros (so called from zacato, grass), it invariably dies; but the assertion may well be doubted. The variety of spiders, bugs, and beetles is endless, including the tarantula and the cocuyo, or lantern-bug. Of reptiles the most common are the rattlesnake and the copper-head: both are poisonous; and the sting of the scorpion is fatal under some conditions. The grotesque but harmless cameleon abounds in the plains. On the American prairies it is known as the “horned frog.”
Vegetation is very scanty in Chihuahua. The shrub that covers its plains, the mezquit, is a species of acacia, growing to a height of ten or twelve feet. The seeds, contained in a small pod, resemble those of the laburnum, and are used by the Apache Indians to make a kind of bread, or cake, which is not unpleasant to the taste. This constantly recurring and ugly shrub, according to Mr. Ruxton, becomes quite an eyesore to the traveller who crosses the mezquit-covered plains. It is the only thing in the shape of a tree seen for hundreds of miles, except here and there a solitary alamo or willow, overhanging a spring, and invariably bestowing its name on the rancho or hacienda which may generally be found in the vicinity of water. Thus day after day the traveller passed the ranchos of El Sauz, Los Sauzes, Los Sauzilles – the willow, the willows, the little willows, – or El Alamo, Los Alamitos – the poplar, the little poplars. The last is the only timber found on the streams in northern Mexico, and on the Del Norte and the Arkansas it grows to a great size.
Leaving Chihuahua, Mr. Ruxton set out for the capital of New Mexico, escorted by three dragoons of the regiment of Vera Cruz, and carrying despatches from the governor to the commander of the American troops then posted on the frontier. At El Paso del Norte he entered a valley of great fertility; but this delightful change of scenery lasted only as far as San Diego, where begins the dreaded and dreadful wilderness significantly known as the Jornada del Muerto, or “Dead Man’s Journey.” Not only is it cursed by an absolute want of water and pasture, but it is the favourite foraging-ground of the Apache Indians, who are always on the alert to surprise the unwary traveller, to plunder and kill him. There is no vegetation but artemisia (sago) and screw-wood (torscilla). About half-way lies a hollow or depression called the Laguna del Muerto, or “Dead Man’s Lake,” but this is hard and dry except in the rainy