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diff --git a/40471-0.txt b/40471-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9ba0187 --- /dev/null +++ b/40471-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4017 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40471 *** + + ALAMO RANCH + + _A Story of New Mexico_ + + BY SARAH WARNER BROOKS + + Author of "My Fire Opal," "The Search of Ceres," etc. + + CAMBRIDGE + PRIVATELY PRINTED + MCMIII + + UNIVERSITY PRESS . JOHN WILSON + + AND SON . CAMBRIDGE . U.S.A. + + + TO LEON + + _Across the silence that between us stays, + Speak! I should hear it from God's outmost sun, + Above Earth's noise of idle blame and praise,-- + The longed-for whisper of thy dear "Well done!"_ + + + + +[Illustration: ALAMO RANCH] + + + + +ALAMO RANCH + +_A STORY OF NEW MEXICO_ + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +It is autumn; and the last week in November. In New Mexico, this land of +sunshine, the season is now as kindly as in the early weeks of our +Northern September. + +To-day the sky is one cloudless arch of sapphire! The light breeze +scarce ruffles a leaf of the tall alamo, the name tree of this ranch. +Here any holding bigger than a kitchen garden is known as a ranch. The +alamo, Spanish for poplar, lends here and there its scant, stiff shade +to this roomy adobe dwelling, with its warm southern frontage and +half-detached wings. Behind the house irregular out-buildings are +scattered about. + +A commodious corral, now the distinguished residence of six fine Jersey +cows, lies between the house and the orchard,--a not over-flourishing +collection of peach, apricot, and plum trees. + +Here and there may be seen wide patches of kitchen garden, carefully +intersected by irrigating ditches. + +Near and afar, wide alfalfa fields with their stiff aftermath stretch +away to the very rim of the mesa, where the cotton-tail makes his home, +and sage-brush and mesquite strike root in the meagre soil. Cones of +alfalfa hay stacked here and there outline themselves like giant +beehives against the soft blue sky; and over all lies the sunny silence +of a cloudless afternoon with its smiling westering sun. + +Basking in this grateful warmth, their splint arm-chairs idly tilted +against the house-front, the boarders look with sated invalid eyes upon +this gracious landscape. + +Alamo Ranch is a health resort. In this thin, dry air of Mesilla Valley, +high above the sea level, the consumptive finds his Eldorado. Hither, +year by year, come these foredoomed children of men to fight for breath, +putting into this struggle more noble heroism and praiseworthy courage +than sometimes goes to victory in battle-fields. + +Of these combatants some are still buoyed by the hope of recovery; +others are but hopeless mortals, with the single sad choice of eking out +existence far from friends and home, or returning to native skies, there +to throw up hands in despair and succumb to the foe. + +Sixteen miles away the Organ Mountains--seeming, in this wonderfully +clear atmosphere, within but a stone's throw--loom superbly against the +cloudless sky; great hills of sand are these, surmounted by tall, +serrated peaks of bare rock, and now taking on their afternoon array in +the ever-changing light, rare marvels of shifting color,--amethyst and +violet, rosy pink, creamy gold, and dusky purple. + +The El Paso range rises sombrely on the gray distance, and on every hand +detached sugar-loaf peaks lend their magnificence to the grand +mesa-range that cordons the Mesilla Valley. + +And now, out on the mesa, at first but a speck between the loungers on +the piazza and the distant mountain view, a single pedestrian, an +invalid sportsman, comes in sight. As he nears the ranch with the slowed +step of fatigue, he is heartening himself by the way with a song. When +the listeners hear the familiar tune,--it is "Home, Sweet Home,"--one of +them rallying his meagre wind whistles a faint accompaniment to the +chorus. It is not a success; and with a mirthless laugh, the whistler +abandons his poor attempt, and, with the big lump in his throat swelling +to a sob, rises from his chair and goes dejectedly in. A sympathetic +chord thrills along the tilted piazza chairs. + +The discomfited whistler is but newly arrived at Alamo; and his feeble +step and weary, hollow cough predict that the poor fellow's journey will +not take him back to the "Sweet Home" of the song, but rather to the +uncharted country. + +And now the invalid sportsman steps cheerily on the piazza. + +"Here, you lazy folks," mocks he, holding high his well-filled game-bag, +"behold the pigeon stew for your supper!" And good-naturedly hailing a +Mexican chore-boy, lazily propped by a neighboring poplar trunk, he +cries, "Catch!" and deftly tossing him the game (pigeons from the mesa) +goes in to put away his gun. When later he returns to the piazza, bathed +and refreshed, it is as if, in a room dim-lit by tallow candles, the gas +had suddenly been turned on to a big chandelier. + +Seating himself in the vacant arm-chair, he fills a briar-wood pipe. +Some of the loungers do likewise; and now, while they smoke and chat, +look at the new-comer, Leonard Starr. Though not robust, he has the +substantial mien and bearing of one who finds it good to live, and makes +those about him also find it good. It is not long before most of these +dispirited loungers are laughing at his lively stories and sallies, and +cheerily matching them with their own. + +Well is it for this troublous world of ours that some of its children +are "born to turn the sunny side of things to human eyes." + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +It is the middle of December; the Alamo boarders are now well arrived. + +First and foremost, Mr. John Morehouse--the one lion of the ranch--makes +his bow. He is conspicuous for his able research in Archæology, and +among his fellow boarders is familiarly known as "the Antiquary." + +Mr. Morehouse has come to New Mexico in the interest of science; he is +not, however, a mere dry-as-dust collector of knowledge, and is very +much inclined to unbend himself to the lighter moods and pursuits of his +less scholarly fellow-men. + +This well-groomed, handsome man of forty is James Morley of Bangor. + +He has come to try this healing air for a slight, but persistent, lung +affection. + +Mr. Morley is known to be a man of means, with all the advantages thus +implied; but all the same, he is given to railing at most things under +the sun; hence by the boarders he is surreptitiously dubbed "the +Grumbler." Mr. Morley's growl is a foregone conclusion, and one may +safely reckon on his bark; but as for his bite, it is simply nowhere. + +Already he has manifested a most considerate kindness for this gray-eyed +little lady from Marblehead, Miss Mattie Norcross,--a sweet-mannered, +quiet gentlewoman, who is currently reported as scant of filthy lucre, +and hence compelled to content herself with a cramped, inexpensive +bedroom for herself and her invalid sister, who has one hopelessly +diseased lung. This cheery-faced Irishman, who with his shy little wife +is, for a stubborn bronchial trouble, making the grand tour of the +world's health resorts, and is now trying New Mexico, is, strange as it +may seem, a Methodist minister. His name is Patrick Haley. It may be +said of Mr. Haley that he has the genial temperament indigenous to Green +Erin, and he has already won golden opinions at Alamo Ranch by the +considerate brevity of his grace before meat. + +Among the invalids attended by their wives are Mr. Bixbee, from Ohio, +and Mr. Fairlee, from New York City. + +Mr. Bixbee has been bidden by his medical dictator to repair his damaged +vitality by rest and nourishing food. It is predicted that this +surfeited "lunger," in escaping his Scylla of consumption, bids fair to +strand upon the Charybdis of liver complaint, since Mrs. Bixbee, in her +wifely zeal, not only plies him all day long with lunches, but makes +night hideous by the administration of raw eggs throughout its drowsy +hours. + +Mr. Roger Smith, an over-worked Harvard athlete, is taking as a +restorative a lazy winter in this restful land. He has also other irons +in the fire, of which, later, we shall hear more. Roger Smith is known +in Boston society as one having heaps of money, but badly off for +pedigree. All the same, he is, in manner and appearance, a gentleman, +and has distinctly the hall-mark of Beacon Hill. He is here known as the +"Harvard man." + +Also, among the sound-lunged invalids, is Mr. Harry Warren, a brilliant +Chicago journalist. Mr. Warren is taking a vacation in Mesilla Valley, +where he is said to be collecting material for future articles, and +possibly for a book. + +The Browns have also two table-boarders from Boston,--Miss Paulina +Hemmenshaw and her beautiful niece, Louise, a superbly healthy brunette. +Their friend, Mr. Henry Hilton, during an absence abroad, has lent for +the winter to these ladies his toy ranch, with its aesthetically +fashioned dwelling-house. + +The Hemmenshaws dine and sup at Alamo Ranch, and the aunt, a +cooking-school graduate, is known to make at Hilton Ranch for herself +and niece wonderful blazer breakfasts, consisting mainly of dishes +new-fangled of name, and eminently trying to mortal digestion. There +are, besides, some half-dozen male lungers unaccompanied by friends; and +two impecunious invalids to whom the kind-hearted landlord, George +Brown, allows bed and board in return for light-choring about the ranch. +These latter are democratically counted in with the dining-room +boarders. + +Leon Starr, by common consent the "star boarder" of Alamo Ranch, has +already been presented to the reader. He has taken the large +two-windowed room on the ground-floor commanding a glorious view of the +distant Organ Mountains. After getting his breath in this unaccustomed +altitude, Leon's next care has been for the depressed lungers who daily +gather on the boarding-house piazza and wonder if life is still worth +living. To get them outside themselves by cheery good-fellowship, to +perform for them little homely services, not much in the telling, but +making their lives a world easier, has been a part of his method for +uplifting their general tone. + +Of an inventive turn of mind, and an amateur mechanic, he has brought +with him a tiny tool chest; and it soon becomes the family habit to look +to Leon Starr for general miscellaneous tinkering, as the mending of +door and trunk locks, the regulating watches and clocks, the adjustment +of the bedevilled sewing-machine of their good landlady, and the +restoration of harmonious working to all disgruntled mechanical gear, +from garret to cellar. He it is who, on rainy days, manufactures denim +clothes-bags for clumsy-fingered fellows; who fashions from common canes +gathered on banks of irrigating ditches, photo-frames for everybody, and +shows them how to arrange the long cane tassels with decorative effect +above door and window, and how to soften the glare of kerosene lamps by +making for them relieving shades of rose-colored paper. + +Pessimistic indeed is that lunger who, succumbing to the charm of this +gracious nature, does not feel the cheery lift in his heavy atmosphere. + +From the landlord and his wife, both worn by the strain of doing their +best for chronically discontented people, down to Fang Lee, the Chinese +chef, Dennis Kearney, the table-waiter, the over-worked Mexican +house-maids, and the two native chore-boys--one and all rise up to call +the star boarder blessed. + +Out on the mesa the air is finer and brighter than on the lower plane of +the ranch, and full of the life and stir of moving things,--quail, +rabbits, and doves. + +Leon had at first found the thin air of this altitude somewhat +difficult; but since time and use have accustomed his lungs to these +novel atmospheric conditions, shooting on the mesa has become a part of +his daily programme, and his quail, rabbits, and pigeons prove a +toothsome contribution to the already excellent ranch table. + +A small, shy Mexican herd-boy, pasturing his lean goats on the mesa, +gradually makes friends with the tall, kindly sportsman. As they have +between them but these two mutually intelligible words, _bueno_ (good) +and _mucho calor_ (very warm), their conversation is circumscribed. Kind +deeds are, however, more to the point than words, and go without the +saying; and when Leon instructed the ragged herd-boy in the use of his +bow, and made and weighted his arrows for him, he _understood_, and +became his devoted henchman, following in his path all through the +week-day tramps, and on Sundays coming to the ranch with clean face and +hands to adore his fetich, and watch, with admiring eyes, his novel +works and ways. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +After a protracted interval of tranquil sunshine, a stormy wind came +blustering from the west, bringing to Mesilla Valley, in its wintry +train, sunless days, light flurries of snow, and general dreariness. + +The boarders, weather-bound and dull, grew sullenly mutinous; and on the +third of these stormy days, gathering in the ranch parlor after the +mid-day meal, their discontent found vent in banning right and left this +"land of sun, silence, and adobe." + +"Beastly weather!" muttered the Grumbler, drawing into the stove with a +discontented shiver. + +"A precious sample, this, of your fine climate, Brown," jeered Bixbee, +turning mockingly to the disheartened landlord, who, reckless of +expense, commanded of the chore-boy fresh relays of fuel, and +incontinently crammed the parlor air-tight, already red-hot. + +"I say, fellows," drolled the Harvard man, "let's make tracks for +Boston, and round up the winter with furnace heat and unlimited water +privileges, as the house-broker has it." + +"And with cut-throat plumbers thrown in," suggested the Grumbler with a +malicious grin. + +"See here, you folks, draw it mild," laughed the star boarder, crossing +the room with a finger between the leaves of a volume which he had been +reading by the dim afternoon light of this lowering day. "Here, now, is +something that fits your case to a T. Let me read you how they doctored +your complaint in these parts, æons before you were born." + +"Anything for a change," muttered Bixbee, and, with the general consent, +Leon read the following: + +"'When the people came out of the cold, dark womb of the underworld, +then the great sun rose in the heavens. In it dwelt Payatuma, making his +circuit of the world in a day and a night. He saw that the day was light +and warm, the night dark and cold. Hence there needed to be both summer +and winter people. + +"'He accordingly apportioned some of each to every tribe and clan, and +thus it is down to the present day. Then those above (that is, the +Sun-father and the Moon-mother), mindful lest the people on their long +journey to the appointed abiding-place succumb to weariness and fall by +the way, made for them a koshare, a delight-maker. His body was painted +in diagonal sections of black and white, and his head, in lieu of the +regulation feather-decorations, was fantastically arrayed in withered +corn-leaves. + +"'This koshare began at once to dance and tumble. Then the people +laughed, and were glad. And ever from that day, in their wanderings in +search of a satisfactory settling-place in the solid centre of the big +weary world, the koshare led them bravely and well. + +"'He it was who danced and jested to make happiness among the people. +His it was to smile on the planted maize till it sprouted and flowered +in the fertile bottoms, to beam joyously on the growing fruit, that it +might ripen in its season. + +"'From that day there have been delight-makers in all the Pueblo tribes. +The koshare became in time with them an organization, as the +Free-masons, or the Knights of Pythias, with us. This necessity, we are +told, arose from the fact that among the Pueblos there were summer +people who enjoy the sunshine, and winter people,--people who +determinedly prefer to live in the dark and cold.' + +"Is it not so," said Leon, turning down a leaf and closing his book, +"with every people on the face of the earth? + +"Is not the 'delight-maker,'--the koshare,--under various names and +guises, still in demand? It has struck me," continued he, looking +quizzically at this disgruntled assemblage, "that the koshare might be +an acceptable addition to our despondent circle." + +"Amen!" fervently responded the Methodist minister. + +"Right you are," said the Harvard man. "Write me as one who approves the +koshare!" + +"Yes! yes!" eagerly exclaimed approving voices. "Let us have the koshare +here and at once!" + +"A capital move," said Miss Paulina Hemmenshaw (born and reared in the +climatic belt of clubdom, and regent of a Chapter of Daughters of the +Revolution). "Let us have a Koshare Club." + +"Good!" echoed Mrs. Fairlee, among her intimates surnamed "the Pourer," +because of her amiable readiness to undertake for her friends the +helpful office that among afternoon tea-circles has been distinguished +by that name. "We might give afternoon teas to the members." + +"And why not have recitations, with humorous selections?" bashfully +suggested the gray-eyed school-mistress, who rejoiced in a fine-toned +voice and in a diploma from the School of Oratory. + +"Yes, indeed; and music, acting, and dancing, and all manner of high +jinks," exclaimed Miss Louise, who, an accomplished musician, and +distinguished for her amateur acting, with her superb health and +unfailing flow of spirits, might be counted in as a born koshare. + +"And we might unite improvement with diversion, and have, now and then, +a lecture, to give interest to our club," suggested Mrs. Bixbee; and +here she looked significantly at Mr. Morehouse, "the Antiquary," who as +a lecturer was not unknown to fame. + +"Lectures," observed the Minister, "though not strictly kosharean, +would be highly entertaining, and we can, no doubt, count upon our +friend, Mr. Morehouse, to give us the result of some of his research in +Mexican Antiquities." + +The Antiquary, with a smile, accepted the part assigned him by his +fellow-boarder. Here the boarders went to supper, after which the more +sleepy sought their beds. The evening blew stormily in; but, gathered +about the centre table in the warm parlor, the leading spirits of Alamo +Ranch bade the storm go by, while they inaugurated the Club of The New +Koshare. + +The star boarder was chosen president. The Minister was elected +vice-president, Miss Paulina secretary, and the Harvard man treasurer. +These preliminaries well arranged, a programme was voted on, and by +general approval carried. + +Mrs. Fairlee--the Pourer--was to give to the club-members a weekly +afternoon tea. An entertainment open to the entire household was, on +every Thursday evening, to be given in the ranch dining-room by the +Koshare, consisting of music, tableaux, and recitations. A +shooting-match, under the direction of Leon, was to come off weekly on +the grounds of the establishment. There should be among the clubbists a +fund collected for magazines; and on fortnightly Saturday evenings Mr. +Morehouse promised to give them lectures, the result of his antiquarian +researches in Mexico, New and Old; and during this course papers and +talks relating to this subject should supplement his own. + +"The Pueblo," commented the Grumbler, "would not have found magazines +strikingly kosharean; let us by all means have them," and suiting deed +to word, he subscribed to the book-fund on the spot, and paid +surreptitiously the subscription of the little school-ma'am, who had +previously withdrawn in the interest of her invalid sister. + +In this fashion was inaugurated "The New Koshare" of Mesilla Valley; +thereafter the Hemmenshaws bundled themselves in winter wraps and, +handed into their vehicle by the Harvard man, set out in the storm for +their ride to Hilton Ranch, and the Koshare betook themselves to rest. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +On the morrow the sun shone warm and bright, and on the mesa, and on all +the desert-stretches of mesquite and sage-brush, on the broad alfalfa +fields and outlying acres of Alamo Ranch, there was no longer a flake of +snow. + +Early in this sunny day the star boarder and the Pourer, driven by a +leisurely chore-boy, might have been seen taking their way to Las +Cruces, the nearest village and postal centre, intent on the procurement +of sundry wafers, biscuit, and other edibles pertaining to an afternoon +tea. + +El Paso, the Texan border-town, some forty miles distant, is properly +the emporium of that region. Between it and Las Cruces lies a stretch of +desert more barrenly forlorn than the Long Island pine-lands, since it +is totally void of forest growth, and has but here and there a sprinkle +of mesquite-bushes about three feet in height, the rest being bare +sand-ridges. + +At El Paso one may ride in street cars, luxuriate in rain-proof +dwellings, lighted by electricity, and pretty with lawns and +flower-pots. But even at its best, modern civilization, with its push +and bustle, ill becomes the happy-go-lucky native Mexican sunning +himself in lazy content against the adobe of his shiftily built +dwelling. + +In a land of well-nigh perpetual blue sky, why need mortal man scramble +to make hay while the sun shines? Yesterday has already taken care of +itself. To-day is still here, and always there is _mañana_--to-morrow. + +As for our own upstart civilization, in this clime of ancient Pueblo +refinements one must own that it takes on the color of an impertinence, +and as incongruously exhibits itself as a brand-new patch on a long-worn +garment. + +But to return to Las Cruces, which is "fearfully and wonderfully made." +To look at the houses one might well fancy that the pioneer settlers had +folded their hands and prayed for dwellings, and when the answering +shower of mud and adobe fell, had contentedly left it where it stuck. +All these structures are one-storied, and square-built; each has its one +door, a window or two, and a dumpy roof, fashioned for the most part of +wattles, for, as it seldom rains here, the Las Crucean has no +troublesome prejudice in favor of water-tight roofs. When the sun shines +he is all right; and when it rains, he simply moves from under the drip. +Here, among confectionery that had long since outlived its desirability, +among stale baker's cookies and flinty ginger snaps, the Koshare +commissariat foraged discouragedly for the afternoon tea. + +Duly supplied with these time-honored sweets, Leon and the Pourer, thus +indifferently provisioned, turned their faces homeward, at such moderate +pace as seemed good in the eyes of an easy-going Mexican pony and his +lazy Indian driver. + +On the afternoon of that day Mrs. Bixbee, in her airy bed-chamber, +where the folding-bed in the day-time masqueraded as a black walnut +bookcase, gave the first Koshare afternoon tea. + +Mrs. Fairlee poured from a real Russian Samovar brought over from the +Hilton Ranch for this grand occasion. Somewhat to the general surprise, +the Grumbler made his bow to the hostess in evening clothes, and though +not exuberantly Koshare, he was in an unwontedly gracious mood; +partaking with polite zest of the stale chocolates, tough cookies, and +flinty ginger snaps; munching long-baked Albert biscuit; serenely +bolting puckery Oolong tea; and even handing the cups,--large and +substantial ones, kindly furnished from their landlady's pantry,--and +commending their solidity and size as far preferable to the Dresden and +Japanese "thimbles" commonly appearing on afternoon tea-tables. As for +the Pourer, it must be recorded that her grace, facility, and charm of +manner gave even stone china tea-cups an air of distinction, and lent to +Oolong tea and stale cakes a flavor of refinement. It was on Monday that +this function came off successfully. + +The next Koshare festivity in regular order was the shooting-match. + +Leon, who had inherited from some Nimrod of his race, long since turned +to dust, that _true eye_ and steady hand which make gunning a success, +was here master of ceremonies as well as contributor of prizes. + +The first of these, a pair of gold sleeve-links, he, himself, easily +won, and subsequently donated to Dennis the dudish table-waiter. Of the +five prizes, two others were won by the two impecunious lungers, one by +the Harvard man, and another by the Antiquary. The shooting-match, +enjoyed as it was by the near population of Mesilla Valley, proved a big +success, and weekly grew in grace with the aborigines as having a fine +flavor of circus shows and Mexican bull-fights, and was considered by +the Koshare as one of their happiest hits. + +Equally successful was the Thursday entertainment, held in the big +dining-room, under the auspices of the landlord and his wife, with the +cook, waiter, maids, and chore-boys gathered about the open door. + +It consisted of vocal and instrumental music, and recitations in prose +and rhyme; and, at a late hour, wound up with a bountiful supper +contributed to the occasion by the generous landlord. + +Miss Hemmenshaw, the star performer, gave, with admirable Rachelesque +gesture and true dramatic fire, "The Widow of the Grand Army," recited +with exquisite delicacy Shelley's "Cloud," and sent shivers down the +backs of the entire assemblage, by a realistic presentation of +Rossetti's "Sister Helen." The grey-eyed school-marm recited with +genuine "School of Oratory" precision and finish "Barbara Frietchie," +Holmes' "Chambered Nautilus," Longfellow's "Sandalphon," and "Tom +O'Connor's Cat." Leon read, with admirable humor, some of Mr. Dooley's +best; and the Harvard man brought down the house with Kipling's "Truce +of the Bear." + +There was some fine piano and banjo playing, and the singing of duets; +and the Journalist rendered, in his exquisite tenor, Ben Jonson's rare +old love-song, "Drink to me only with thine eyes." + +"Strange," commented the Antiquary (who in his miscellaneous mental +storage had found room for some fine old Elizabethan plays), turning to +Miss Hemmenshaw in the pause of the song, "Ben Jonson is dust these +three hundred years, and still his verses come singing down the ages, +keeping intact their own immortal flavor. The song-maker's is, indeed, +an art that 'smells sweet, and blossoms in the dust.' Well might they +write him, 'O rare Ben Jonson.'" + +"And how exquisitely," responded the lady, "is the air married to the +words!" And now the Minister brought forward his Cremona. He was a +finished violinist, with a touch that well-nigh amounted to genius. All +praised his performance. At its close the Grumbler, in an aside to the +Antiquary, thus delivered himself:-- + +"To _some_, God giveth common-sense; to _others_, to play the fiddle!" + +From the entry audience the fiddler won rousing rounds of applause, and +Dennis, the waiter, ventured on the subdued shuffle of an Irish jig. + +This it was that suggested to the Koshare an impromptu dance, and +thereupon the young people straightway took the floor. The Minister, +kindly oblivious of his cloth, fiddled on; Miss Paulina called off the +figures, and so, merrily, ended the first Koshare evening +entertainment. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +As it is not proposed to give this record of the doings of the "New +Koshare" the circumstantiality of a diary, the chronicler may be allowed +to include the ensuing teas, shooting-matches, and all the lighter +kosharean festivities in the one general and final statement, that they +each came off duly and successfully; and leaving their details +"unhonored and unsung," proceed to a more extended account of the +Saturday evening entertainments,--as all members of the club were +invited to contribute to these evenings, and it was expected that the +Minister would, from the storehouse of his travelling experience, +contribute liberally to their delectability; and that the Journalist +(who naturally thought in paragraphs, and, like the fairy who "spoke +pearls," conversed in exquisitely fashioned sentences) would supplement +the papers of the Antiquary by his own brilliant talks. + +And so it was that on the initial Saturday evening, with a full +attendance and great expectations, the Koshare found themselves +convened, the president in the chair, the secretary with notebook in +hand, and all in dignified attention. + +The Antiquary--with this apt quotation from Cumming's "Land of Poco +Tiempo"--began his first lecture before the club. + +"'New Mexico,'" quoted he, "'is the anomaly of the Republic. It is a +century older in European civilization than the rest, and several +centuries older still in a happier semi-civilization of its own. +It had its little walled cities of stone before Columbus had +grandparents-to-be; and it has them yet.' + +"There are," stated Mr. Morehouse, "three typical races in New Mexico. +The American interpolation does not count as a type. + +"Of Pueblo Indians there are nine thousand, 'peaceful, home-loving, and +home-dwelling tillers of the soil.' Then, here, and in Arizona, there +are about twenty thousand Navajo Indians,--nomad, horse-loving, +horse-stealing vagrants of the saddle, modern Centaurs. Then come the +Apaches, an uncounted savage horde, whose partial civilization has been +effected by sheer force of arms, and inch by inch: who accept the +reservation with but half a heart, and break bounds at every +opportunity. Last of all come the Mexicans, shrunken descendants of the +Castilian world-finders; living almost as much against the house as in +it; ignorant as slaves, and more courteous than kings; poor as Lazarus, +and more hospitable than Croesus; and Catholics from A to izzard. + +"The Navajos and Apaches," said Mr. Morehouse, "have neither houses nor +towns; the Pueblos have nineteen compact little cities, and the Mexicans +several hundred villages, a part of which are shared by the invader. + +"'The numerous sacred dances of the Pueblos,' says Cummings, 'are by far +the most picturesque sights in America, and the least viewed by +Americans, who never found anything more striking abroad. The mythology +of Greece and Rome is less than theirs in complicated comprehensiveness; +and they are a far more interesting ethnological study than the tribes +of inner Africa, and less known of by their white countrymen.' + +"The Pueblos of New Mexico," explained the Antiquary, "are by no means +to be confounded with the Toltecs or Aztecs. It is, however, barely +possible that in prehistoric ages the race in possession of Mexico may +have had some tribal characteristics of the latter-day Pueblo. As of +that remote time, there is not even a traditionary record; this +supposition is absolutely conjectural. + +"By investigation and comparison it has, however, been proved that the +Pueblos have racial characteristics connecting them with some mysterious +stage of human life even older than that of the more barbarous Toltecs +or Aztecs. + +"This race has from time immemorial had its book of Genesis. It is not, +like that of the Hebrew, a written record, but has been orally handed +down, and with careful precision, beginning with their original +emergence, as half-formed human beings, from the dark of the mystic +underworld of 'Shipapu' to the world of light. + +"After the fashion of most barbarous races, the Pueblo appears +originally to have 'pitched his moving tent' in various parts of Mexico; +and it may be inferred that he endured many casualities before settling +himself in life. It was to tide over this trying epoch in his existence +that 'Those Above,' according to tradition, made for the tribes that +quaint 'Delight-Monger,' with whom we have already made acquaintance, +who led them in their wanderings from the womb of Shipapu to the solid +centre of their world; but, as has been already stated, this record, +going back to an indefinite period of time, and having only the dubious +authority of folk-lore, is only of traditional value. + +"The Pueblo, no less than the Aztec, is the most religious of human +beings. His ceremonial, like that of the age of Montezuma, is +wonderfully and minutely elaborated; and though originating in a +civilization less splendid and refined, it is really less barbarous, +since its rites have never, like those of the Aztec, included the +horrors of human sacrifice and cannibalism. + +"The Pueblo, since his exit from the womb of mother Earth, seems to have +given his principal attention to the cultivation of its soil. All the +same, he appears never to have shirked the less peaceful +responsibilities of his tribe,--putting on his war-paint at the shortest +notice, to settle the quarrels of his clan. + +"Although like most men of savage birth and breeding, cruel in warfare, +he seems never to have been abstractedly blood-thirsty, never to have +killed, like his ever-belligerent neighbor, the Apache, purely for +killing's sake; but, his quarrel once ended, and the present security of +his clan well achieved, he has contentedly returned to the peaceful ways +of life; diligently sowing, weeding, and harvesting his crops of maize, +melons, squashes, and beans, and--ever mindful of the propitiative +requirements of 'Those Above'--taking careful heed of his religious +duties. + +"For a succinct account of the Pueblo cave (or cliff) dwellers," said +the Antiquary, "I am largely indebted to Bandelier, from whose valuable +Pueblo researches I shall often take the liberty to quote. + +"The imperfectly explored mountain range skirting the Rio Grande del +Norte is picturesquely grand. + +"Facing the river, the foundation of the chain is entirely volcanic. + +"Colossal rocks form the abrupt walls of the gorges between these +mountains, and are often so soft and friable that, in many places they +were easily scooped out with the most primitive tools, or even detached +with the fingers alone. + +"In these gorges, through many of which run unfailing streams of water, +often expanding to the proportions of regular valleys, the Pueblo Indian +raised the modest crop that satisfied his vegetable craving. + +"As it is easier to excavate dwellings than to pile up walls in the open +air, the aboriginal Mexican's house-building effort was mostly confined +to underground construction. He was, in fact, a 'cave-dweller,' yet +infinitely of more advanced architectural ideas than our own remote +forbears of Anglo Saxon cave-dwelling times. + +"Most of these residences might boast of from three to four rooms. They +were arranged in groups, or clusters, and some of them were several +stories high. + +"Rude ladders were used for mounting to the terrace or roof of each +successive story. The Pueblo had, literally, a hearthstone in his +primitive home. His fireplace was supplied with a hearth of +pumice-stone. A rudely built flue, made of cemented rubble, led to a +circular opening in the front wall of his cave-dwelling. Air-holes +admitted their scanty light to these dusky apartments, in which there +were not only conveniences for bestowing wearing-apparel, but niches for +ornamental pottery, precious stones, and the like Indian bric-à-brac. +The ground-floor entrance was a rude doorway closed by a hide, or mat. +Plaited mats of Yucca leaves, and deer-hide, by day rolled up in corners +of the sleeping-apartments, served for mattresses at night. A thick +coating of mud, washed with blood, and carefully smoothed, gave to the +floor a glossy effect. Some of the rooms are known to have been in +dimension ten feet by fourteen. Their walls were whitewashed with burnt +gypsum. + +"Though the time when these traditional cliff-dwellers wooed and wed, +lived and died in the Rialto vale is long, long gone by, the ruins of +their homes may still be seen. Some of them are tolerably intact; others +are crumbled away to mere shapeless ruins. + +"And now, having described their dwellings, let us note some of the most +marked and interesting characteristics of the men and women who made in +them their homes. + +"We are apt," said the Antiquary, "to accord to our more enlightened +civilization the origin of communism; yet, antedating by ages our +latter-day socialistic fads, the communal idea enthused this unlettered +people, and to a certain extent seems to have been successfully carried +out. + +"Let not the strong-minded Anglo-Saxon woman plume herself upon the +discovery of the equality of the sexes. While our own female suffragists +were yet unborn, the Pueblo wife had been accorded the inalienable right +to lord it over her mankind. + +"Among the Mexican cliff-dwellers, 'woman's rights' seem to have been as +indigenous to the soil as the piñon and the prickly pear. + +"In the primitive Pueblo domicile, the wife appears, by tribal consent, +to have been absolutely 'cock of the walk.' The husband had no rights as +owner or proprietor of the family mansion, and, as an inmate, was +scarcely more than tolerated. + +"The wife, in those ever-to-be-regretted days, not only built and +furnished the house,--contributed to the kitchen the soup pot, water +jars, and other primitive domestic appliances,--but figured as sole +proprietor of the entire establishment. + +"The Pueblo woman, though married, still had, with her children, her +holding in her own clan. In case of her death, the man's home being +properly with _his_ clan, he must return to it. + +"The wife was not allowed to work in the fields. Each man tilled the +plot allotted him by his clan. The crops, once housed, were controlled +by the woman, as were the proceeds of communal hunts and fisheries. + +"The Pueblos had their system of divorce. It goes without saying that it +was not attended by the red-tape complications of our time. As the +husband's continuance under the family roof-tree depended absolutely on +his acceptability to the wife, at any flagrant marital breach of good +behavior she simply refused to recognize him as her lord. In vain he +protested, stormed, and menaced; the outraged better half bade him _go_, +and he _went_! Thus easily and informally were Pueblo marriages +dissolved; and, this summary transaction once well concluded, each party +had the right to contract a second marriage. + +"The Pueblo Indian is historically known as a Catholic; that is to say, +he told his beads, crossed his brow with holy water, and duly and +devoutly knelt at the confessional. This done, he tacitly reserved to +himself the privilege of surreptitiously clinging to the Paganism of his +forbears, and zealously paid his tithe of observances at the ancient +shrine of 'the Sun Father' and 'the Moon Mother.' + +"Some of the Pueblo tribes are said still to retain the use of that +ancient supplicating convenience, 'the prayer-stick.' + +"'Prayer-sticks, or plumes,'" explained the Antiquary, "are but painted +sticks tufted with down, or feathers, and, by the simple-minded Indian, +supposed especially to commend him to the good graces and kindly offices +of 'Those Above.' In a certain way, the aboriginal prayer-stick seems to +have been a substitute for an oral supplication. + +"The Pueblo, pressed for time, might even forego the hindering +ceremonial of verbal request, adoration, or thanksgiving, and hurriedly +deposit, as a votive offering to his easily placated gods, this tufted +bit of painted wood; and, furthermore, since prayer-sticks were not +always within reach, it was permitted him in such emergencies to gather +two twigs, and, placing these crosswise, hold them in position by a rock +or stone. And this childish make-shift passed with his indulgent gods +for a prayer! + +"The most trivial commonplace of existence had, with the superstitious +Pueblo, its religious significance; and it would seem to have been +incumbent on him literally to 'pray without ceasing.' Hence the +prayer-plume, or its substitute, was, with him, one of the necessities +of life. Time would fail me to tell of the ancient elaborate religious +rites and superstitions of the Mexican Indian; to recount his latter-day +ceremonials, wherein Pagan dances, races, and sports are like the jumble +of a crazy quilt, promiscuously mixed in with Christian festas and holy +saint-days; and indeed the subject is too large for my sketchy handling. +It may not, however, be amiss to notice the yearly celebration of the +festival of San Estevan. It may be still witnessed, and seems to have +been the original Harvest-home of the Mexican Indian, the observance of +which has been handed down in various ways from all times, and among all +peoples, and is probably the parent of our Thanksgiving holiday. + +"The monks of the early Catholic church, in their missionary endeavor to +commend the Christian religion to the pagan mind, took care to graft +upon each of the various festas of the Pueblo one of their own saint-day +names. Thus it was that the Acoma harvest-home masquerades under the +guise of a saint-name, though an absolutely pagan ceremonial. + +"It is still observed by them with genuine Koshare delight. There are +dances, races, and tumbling, and the carnival-like showering of Mexican +confetti from the roofs of adobe houses. In summing up this brief +account of the sedentary New Mexican, I quote literally the forceful +assertion of Cummings. 'The Pueblos,' says this writer, 'are Indians who +are neither poor nor naked; who feed themselves, and ask no favors of +Washington; Indians who have been at peace for two centuries, and fixed +residents for perhaps a millennium; Indians who were farmers and +irrigators, and six-story housebuilders before a New World had been +beaten through the thick skull of the Old. They had,' he continues, 'a +hundred republics in America centuries before the American Republic was +conceived.' + +"This peaceably minded people, as has already been stated, are by no +means to be confounded with the roving New Mexican aborigines, with the +untamed Navajo scouring the plains on the bare back of his steed, or the +fierce Apache, murderous and cruel. + +"We must not," said Mr. Morehouse, "take leave of the Pueblo, without +some reference to the great flat-topped, slop-sided chain of rock-tables +that throughout the length and breadth of his territory rises from the +sandy plains, the most famous and best explored of which is known as 'La +Mesa Encantada,'--'the Enchanted Mesa.' + +"According to tradition the Mesa Encantada gains its romantic name from +an event which centuries ago--declares the legend--destroyed the town, +then a well-populated stronghold of the Acomas. As a prelude to this +legend, let me state that the Pueblo cliff-dwellers often perched their +habitations on lofty, sheer-walled, and not easily accessible mesas, a +natural vantage-ground from which they might successfully resist their +enemies, the nomadic and predatory tribes formerly over-running the +country. + +"The steep wall of the Acoma Mesa, with its solitary trail, surmounted +by means of hand and foot holes pecked in the solid rock, was so well +defended that a single man might keep an army at bay. What fear, then, +should these Acomas have of their enemies? + +"The Acomas, like other Pueblo Indians, have from time immemorial been +tillers of the soil. + +"From the fertile sands of their valley and its tributaries they won by +patient toil such harvests of corn, beans, squashes, and cotton as +secured them a simple livelihood; and 'their granaries,' it is asserted, +'were always full enough to enable them, if need be, to withstand a +twelvemonth's siege.' How long the top of Katzimo, the site of the +Enchanted Mesa, had been inhabited when the catastrophe recorded in the +legend befell, no man may say, not even the elders of the tribe; this +much is, however, known,--the spring-time had come. The sun-priest had +already proclaimed from the housetops that the season of planting was at +hand. The seeds from last year's harvest had been gathered from the +bins; planting-sticks had been sharpened, and all made ready for the +auspicious day when the seer should further announce the time of +repairing to the fields. On that day (so runs the tale), down the ragged +trail, at early sunrise, clambered the busy natives; every one who was +able to force a planting-stick into the compact soil, or lithe enough to +drive away a robber crow, hurried to the planting. Only a few of the +aged and ailing remained on the mesa. + +"While the planters worked in the hot glare of the valley below, the sun +suddenly hid his face in angry clouds. The busy planters hastened their +work, while the distant thunder muttered and rolled about them. Suddenly +the black dome above them was rent as by a glittering sword, and down +swept the torrent, until the entire valley became a sheet of flood. The +planters sought shelter in the slight huts of boughs and sticks from +which the crops are watched. + +"The elders bodingly shook their heads. Never before had the heavens +given vent to such a cataract. + +"When the sudden clouds as suddenly dispersed, and the sun-lit crest of +Katzimo emerged from the mist, the toilers trudged toward their mountain +home. Reaching the base of the trail, they found their pathway of the +morning blocked by huge, sharp-edged pieces of stone, giving mute +testimony of the disaster to the ladder-trail above. + +"The huge rock mass, which had given access to the cleft by means of the +holes pecked in the trail-path, had in the great cloud-burst become +freed from the friable wall, and thundered down in a thousand +fragments, cutting off communication with the mesa village. The Acomas, +when asked why their ancestors made no desperate effort to reach the +sufferers whose feeble voices were calling to them from the summit for +succor, but left their own flesh and blood to perish by slow starvation, +gravely shook their heads. + +"The ban of enchantment had already, for these superstitious pagans, +fallen upon the devoted table-land; it had become 'La Mesa Encantada.' + +"The publication by Mr. Charles F. Lummis, who resided for several years +at the pueblo of Iselta, of the story of Katzimo, the tradition of which +was repeated to him by its gray-haired priests some twelve years ago, +aroused the interest of students of southwestern ethnology in the +history of 'La Mesa Encantada,' and, subsequently, Mr. F. W. Hodge was +directed by the Bureau of American Ethnology, of the Smithsonian +Institute, to scale the difficult height of this giant mountain, for the +purpose of supplementing the evidence already gained, of its sometime +occupancy as a Pueblo town. His party found decided evidence of a former +occupancy of the mesa, such as fragments of extremely ancient +earthenware, a portion of a shell bracelet, parts of two grooved stone +axes, lichen-flecked with age. Here, too, was an unfeathered +prayer-stick, a melancholy reminder of a votive offering made, at the +nearest point of accessibility, to 'Those Above.' + +"'When I consider,' says Mr. Hodge, in his charming paper, 'The +Enchanted Mesa,' published in the 'Century Magazine,' some three or +four years ago, 'that the summit of Katzimo, where the town was, has +long been inaccessible to the Indians, that it has been swept by winds, +and washed by rains for centuries, until scarcely any soil is left on +its crest, that well-defined traces of an ancient ladder trail may still +be seen pecked on the rocky wall of the very cleft through which the +traditionary pathway wound its course; and, above all, the large number +of very ancient potsherds in the earthy talus about the base of the +mesa, which must have been washed from above, the conclusion is +inevitable that the summit of 'La Mesa Encantada' was inhabited prior to +1540, when the present Acoma was discovered by Coronado, and that the +last vestige of the village itself has long been washed or blown over +the cliff.'" + +With this account of the Enchanted Mesa, Mr. Morehouse, amid general +applause, ended his interesting paper on the Pueblo Indians; and after a +short discussion by the Club of the ancient and modern characteristics +of these remarkable aborigines, the Koshare, well pleased with the +success of its endeavor to combine improvement with delight, adjourned +to the next Monday in January. + +Little dreamed Roger Smith as, that night, after the Club entertainment, +he handed the Hemmenshaw ladies to their wagon, for the return ride to +Hilton Ranch, that the very next week he was to undertake, on their +behalf, a hand-to-hand encounter with a blood-thirsty Apache. Yet so was +it ordained of Fate. + +It has already been stated that these ladies were but day-boarders at +Alamo Ranch, occupying, together with Sholto, a Mexican +man-of-all-work, the Hilton Ranch, a good mile distant from the +boarding-house. + +Louise Hemmenshaw, usually in exuberant health, was ill with a severe +influenza. It was the third and cumulative day of this disease. Sholto +had already been despatched to Brown's for the dinner; Miss Paulina had, +in this emergency, undertaken to turn off the breakfasts and suppers +from her chafing-dish. + +After replenishing, from the wood basket, the invalid's chamber fire, +Miss Paulina administered her teaspoonful of bryonia, gave a settling +shake to her pillow, and hurried down to fasten the back door behind +Sholto. + +Lingering a moment at the kitchen window, the good lady put on her +far-off glasses for a good look across the mesa, stretching--an unbroken +waste of sage-brush and mesquite-bush--from the Hilton kitchen garden to +the distant line of the horizon. + +As she quietly scanned the nearer prospect, Miss Paulina's heart made a +sudden thump beneath her bodice, and quickened its pulses to fever-time; +for there, just within range of her vision, was the undoubted form of an +Apache savage, clad airily in breech-clout, and Navajo blanket. Skulking +warily along the mesa, he gained the garden fence and sprang, at a +bound, over the low paling. For a moment the watcher stood paralyzed +with wonder and dismay. + +Meantime, under cover of a rose-trellis, the Apache, looking bad enough +and cunning enough for any outrage, coolly made a reconnoisance of the +premises. This done, still on all-fours, he gained the bulkhead of the +small dark vegetable cellar beneath the kitchen. It chanced to have been +inadvertently left open. + +With a satisfied grunt (and eschewing the paltry convenience of steps) +he bounded at once into its dusky depths. + +Summoning her failing courage, this "Daughter of the Revolution" +resolutely tiptoed out the front door, and, with her heart in her mouth, +whisking round the corner of the devoted house, shot into place the +stout outside bolt of the bulkhead door. + +This feat accomplished, she made haste to gain the safe shelter of the +adobe dwelling. She next looked well to the bolt fastening the trap-door +at the head of the ladder-like stairway leading perilously from the +kitchen to the dim region below, where the Apache might now be heard +bumping his head against the floor-planks, in a fruitless endeavor to +discover some outlet, from this underground apartment, to the family +circle above. With the frightful possibility of a not distant escape of +her prisoner, the good lady lifted her heart in silent prayer, and +hurrying promptly to the chamber of her niece, gave a saving punch to +the fire, a glass of port wine to the invalid, and, feigning an +appearance of unconcern, left the room, and slipped cautiously down to +the kitchen. Here she dragged an ironing-table, a clothes-horse, and a +wood-box on to the trap-door, and breathlessly waited for the Apache's +next move. + +And now, a step might be heard on the driveway, followed by a rap at the +front door. + +Prudently scanning her visitor through the sidelight, and assuring +herself that he was no breech-clouted savage, but a fellow white man, +Miss Paulina let in through the narrowest of openings,--who but their +friend the Harvard man! "Dear soul!" tearfully exclaimed the good lady, +while Roger Smith stood in mute wonder at the warmth of her greeting. + +It was but the work of a moment to explain the situation and acquaint +him with the peril of the moment. + +Sholto, at his leisurely Mexican pace, now opportunely appeared at the +back door with the hot dinner. + +"There is a time for all things," said the "president of Chapter 18th," +as (having pulled the bewildered Mexican inside) she vigorously shot the +door-bolt in place, deposited the smoking viands on the sideboard, and +thus addressed him. "Sholto," said Miss Paulina, "I have an Apache here +in the cellar. For the time being his ability to work us harm is +limited; but an Apache is never nice to have round; and, besides, he +must have terribly bumped himself poking round there all this time in +the dark. One would not unnecessarily hurt even a savage. We must +therefore let him up, bind him fast, and take measures for delivering +him to the police at Las Cruces. Here is a clothes-line: it is good and +strong; make up a lasso, and when I open the trap-door, as his head bobs +in sight, throw it, and then help Mr. Smith haul him out, and tie him." + +Sholto's lasso was soon in working order. The trap-door once raised, the +head of the unsuspecting savage flew up like a Jack in a box, and with +such a rubber-like bound that Sholto's lasso went wide of the mark. In +this dilemma, a scientific blow from the fist of a Harvard athlete +deftly floored him, and, in the consequent lapse of consciousness, he +was easily bound, and safely deposited in the bottom of the Hilton +express wagon. This accomplished, Sholto and the Harvard man summarily +took the road for Las Cruces, some four miles distant. The horse and his +driver being in absolute accord as to the ratio of miles proper to the +hour, the captors drove leisurely along; the Harvard man meantime +relieving the slow monotony of the way, with incident and anecdote, and +Sholto, in turn, imparting much interesting New-Mexican information. + +Presently a faint stir, as of the quiet, persistent nibbling of a mouse +in the wall, might (but for the talking) have been heard from the bottom +of the wagon. "Poor beggar!" said the Harvard man, at last recalling to +mind the captive Apache; "he must, by this time, be about ready to come +to." And taking from his over-coat pocket a tiny flask of brandy, he +turned on his seat with the humane intention of aiding nature in +bringing about that restoration. "Gone! clean gone! by George!" +exclaimed the astonished athlete. The cunning savage had, with his +sharp, strong teeth, actually gnawed through his wrist cords, and, with +tooth and nail extricating himself from the knotted clothes-line, was +already on his return from the unsatisfactory husks of Mesilla Valley, +to the fatted veal of the U. S. government, in his father's house,--"The +Reservation." "_They are fleet steeds that follow!_" quoted the Harvard +man as the jubilant Apache, with flying heels, loomed tantalizingly on +the distant plain. The startled cotton-tail, swept by "the wind of his +going," scurried breathlessly to his desert fastnesses among the +sage-brush and mesquite. + +With a humorous glance at his fast-vanishing form, the Harvard man +measured with his eye the intervening distance, the speed of the escaped +captive, and the pace of the propeller of the Hilton express, and +gracefully accepted the situation. Sholto lazily turned the horse's +head, and in process of time the discomfited captors of Miss Paulina's +Apache--like John Gilpin-- + + "Where they did get up + Did get down again." + +Meantime, Miss Hemmenshaw brought up the mid-day meal. + +"Auntie," said the invalid, "this feverish cold puts queer fancies in my +head. While you were away, I must have taken a little nap, and when I +awoke there seemed to be some sort of a rumpus going on below; after +which I fancied that a team started away from the back door. It could +not have been Sholto's; for he would be coming from Brown's about that +hour with our dinner." + +"It may have been just a part of your dream, dear," pacified the aunt; +"but come, now, here is our dinner. Let us have it together. A +wonderfully nice dinner Mrs. Brown has sent us, too, and you can +venture to-day on a quail, and a bit of orange pudding. For myself, I am +as hungry as a bear;" and, removing the books from the oval bedroom +table, Miss Paulina laid the cloth, set out the dishes and glasses, and +daintily arranged the viands, which the two ladies discussed with +evident relish. + +"And now," said the aunt, "since you have dined, and have something to +brace you up, I will 'tell my experience;'" and forthwith she related to +the astonished Louise the adventure of the morning. The good lady had +but accomplished her exciting account, when the valiant captors of the +Apache drove up. + +Miss Paulina, with the concentrated importance of her entire "Chapter," +met and opened the door to her hero. + +"Well?" asked she of the crestfallen athlete. + +"No: ill!" replied he; "the Apache never reached Las Cruces. He managed +to unbind himself, and slipped from our hands by the way. The +clothes-line has come back safe; but the savage is, long ere this, well +on his road to the Mescalero Reservation." + +"Well," said Miss Paulina, judicially, "I can't say that I'm sorry. The +creature had a rough time bumping about that low, dark cellar; and your +blow on his head was a tough one. And when one considers the +slip-shodness of things at Las Cruces, and the possible insecurity of +their jail, _we_, on the whole, are the safer for his escape; and _he_ +will, of course, feel more at home now in the Reservation, and will +probably remain there for a while, after the fright we gave him." + +Thus reassured, the Harvard man accepted Miss Hemmenshaw's invitation to +stay to supper. And presently the convalescing invalid came down to +express her thanks for his devoir of the morning. Reclining on the +parlor lounge, in a cream-white tea gown, she looked so lovely that a +man might well have dared a whole tribe of savages in her defence. By +and by they had a quiet game of chess. It goes without saying that the +lady won. There _might_ be men hard-hearted enough to beat Louise +Hemmenshaw at chess. The Harvard man was not _of_ them. + +So slipped away this happy afternoon; and, at sunset Sholto appeared +with the tea equipage, and the young people covertly made merry over a +chafing-dish mess achieved by the Cooking School pupil; and under cover +of rarebit, water-biscuit, and cups of Russian tea, the Harvard man made +hay for himself in this bit of sunshine, and grew in favor with both +aunt and niece. + +With Miss Paulina Hemmenshaw, true to her aristocratic birth and +breeding, pedigree far out-weighed filthy lucre. To be well born was, in +her estimation, to be truly acceptable to gods and men. + +Roger Smith, with his plebeian surname and unillustrious "tanner" +grandfather, was by no means a suitable husband for her motherless +niece, to whom, as the head of her brother's household, she had for +years filled a parent's place. Louise Hemmenshaw, as the good lady +shrewdly guessed, was the magnet that drew this undeclared lover to +Mesilla Valley. During the preceding winter they had met at many social +functions in Boston and Cambridge, and he had become the willing captive +of her bow and spear. He had never told his love. + +The social discrepancy between the lovely aristocrat and Roger--the +grandson of Roger the Tanner--was too wide to be easily overstepped. + +Ostensibly the Harvard man had come to New Mexico to recruit his spent +energies; but in his heart of hearts he knew that dearer than health was +the hope of winning the heart of Louise Hemmenshaw. Already his native +refinement and charm of manner had commended him to Miss Paulina; and +now, his prowess in the day's adventure had made her, for good and all, +his warm friend. As to her niece, he told himself, as, that night, by +the light of a low moon, he took his way to Alamo Ranch, recalling the +tender pressure of the invalid's white hand, when, with a rosy blush, +she bade him good-night, that in his wooing he had to-day "scored one;" +and with the confident egotism of presumptuous mortals, when events play +unexpectedly into their hands, he decided that Fate had prearranged this +timely call of his on the Hemmenshaws, and had timed the arrival of the +Apache at that opportune hour, with an especial view to the fulfilment +of his own cherished wishes. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +Another two weeks of lighter Koshare festivities had again brought round +the more solid fortnightly entertainment of the Club. + +Its members duly assembled, the president in his chair, and the +secretary at attention, Mr. Morehouse thus began his second paper. + +"Before Texas," said he, "became a part of an independent republic, and +until after the Mexican war (when we forced Mexico to sell us all +California, New Mexico, and Arizona, nearly all of Utah and Nevada, +besides Texas, and the greater part of Colorado), Mexico proper reached +way up here; and it is thought by some archaeologists that the mesas or +table-mountain land especially characterizing the New Mexican landscape +may have afforded the suggestion for the Teocallis of the great +pyramid-like mounds, with terraced sides, built by the Aztecs. Some +scholars have even convinced themselves that the Aztec culture must have +originated here in the North. Others wholly discard the conclusion. + +"Mr. Baxter, in his valuable and interesting book of Mexican travel, +says, decidedly, 'The New Mexican Indians were not Aztecs, and Montezuma +had no more to do with New Mexico than he did with New England.' And +with this assertion I think we must all, perforce, agree. + +"Of the Toltecs, the probable predecessors in Mexico of the Aztecs, all +written records," said the Antiquary, "have long since perished. They +are known to us only through traditionary legends orally handed down by +the races that succeeded them. + +"They are said to have entered the Valley of Anahnac from a northerly +direction, coming from a mysterious unknown region, and probably before +the close of the seventh century. They appear to have been a far more +gentle and refined nation than their immediate successors, the +half-savage Aztecs, who, at last, with their semi-civilization, +dominated Mexico. By general archæological agreement, the Toltecs were +well instructed in agriculture, and many of the most useful mechanic +arts. + +"'They were,' declares Prescott, 'nice workers in metals.' They invented +the complex arrangement of time adopted by the Aztecs, who are said to +have been largely indebted to them for the beginnings of that +incongruous civilization which reached its high-water mark in the reign +of the Montezumas. So late as the time of the Spanish Conquest the +remains of extensive Toltec buildings were to be found in Mexico. + +"'The noble ruins of religious and other edifices,' says the same +writer, 'still to be seen in Mexico, are referred to this people, whose +name, _Toltec_, has passed into a synonym for _Architect_.' + +"After a period of four centuries--having succumbed to famine, +pestilence, and unsuccessful wars--this remarkable people disappeared +from the land as silently and mysteriously as they had entered it. It +is conjectured that some of them may have spread over the region of +Central America and the neighboring isles; and that the majestic ruins +of Mitla and Paleque are the work of this vanished race. Tradition +affirms that a remnant of Toltecs still lingering in Anahnac 'gave +points' to the next inhabitants; and the Tezcucans are thought to have +derived their gentle manners and comparatively mild religion from the +handful of Toltecs who still remained in the country. A Spanish priest, +with that keen relish for the marvellous common to his kind, accounts +for this mysterious disappearance by supernatural stories of giants and +demons. + +"According to good authorities, more than a hundred years elapsed +between the strange disappearance of the Toltecs from the land of +Anahnac and the arrival on its borders of the Aztecs. + +"After the nomadic fashion of barbarous races, this people did not at +once make a permanent settlement, but pitched their tents in various +parts of the Mexican valley, enduring many casualties and hardships, and +being at one time enslaved by a more powerful tribe, whom their prowess +subsequently dominated. + +"Some of these wanderings and adventures are perpetuated in their oral +traditional lore. + +"One of these legends is well substantiated, and current at this day, +having been the origin of the device of the eagle and cactus, which form +the arms of the present Mexican republic, and may be found on the face +of the Mexican silver dollar. Thus it runs: 'Having in 1325 halted on +the southwestern borders of the larger Mexican lakes, the Aztecs there +beheld, perched on the stem of a prickly pear, which shot out from a +crevice of a rock that was washed by the waves, a royal eagle of +extraordinary size and beauty, with a serpent in his talons, and his +broad wings open to the rising sun. + +"'They hailed the auspicious omen, which the oracle announced as an +indication of the site of their future city.' + +"The low marshes were then half buried in water; yet, nothing daunted, +they at once proceeded to lay the sloppy foundation of their capital, by +sinking piles into the shallows. On these they erected the light +dwelling-fabrics of reeds and rushes,--the frail beginnings of that +solid Aztec architecture carried to such elegant elaboration in the time +of the Montezumas. In token of its miraculous origin they called their +city Tenochtitlan. Later it was known as Mexico, a name derived from the +Aztec war-god, Mexitil. + +"It has been shown that the Aztec race, once permanently established in +Mexico, finally attained to a civilization far in advance of the other +wandering tribes of North America. + +"'The degree of civilization which they had reached,' says Prescott, 'as +inferred by their political institutions, may be considered not far +short of that enjoyed by our Saxon ancestors under Alfred. In respect to +the nature of it, they may better be compared to the Egyptians; and the +examination of their social relations and culture may suggest still +stronger points of resemblance to that ancient people. + +"'Their civilization,' he goes on to say, 'was, at the first, of the +hardy character which belongs to the wilderness. The fierce virtues of +the Aztec were all his own. They refused to submit to European +culture--to be engrafted on a foreign stock. They gradually increased in +numbers, made marked improvements both in polity and military +discipline, and ultimately established a reputation for courage as well +as cruelty in war which made their name terrible throughout the valley.' +In the early part of the fifteenth century--nearly a hundred years after +the foundation of the city--that remarkable league--of which it has been +affirmed that 'it has no parallel in history'--was formed between the +states of Mexico and Tezcuco, and the neighboring little kingdom of +Tlacopan, by which they agreed mutually to support each other in their +wars, offensive and defensive, and that in the distribution of the spoil +one-fifth should be assigned to Tlacopan and the remainder be +divided--in what proportions is uncertain--between the two other powers. + +"What is considered more remarkable than the treaty itself, however, is +the fidelity with which it was kept. + +"During a century of uninterrupted warfare that ensued no instance, it +is declared, occurred in which the parties quarrelled over the +distribution of the spoil. By the middle of the fifteenth century the +allies, overleaping the rocky ramparts of their own valley, found wider +occupation for their army, and under the first Montezuma, year after +year saw their return to the Mexican capital, loaded with the spoils of +conquered cities, and with throngs of devoted captives. + +"No State was able long to resist the accumulated strength of the +confederates; and at the beginning of the sixteenth century, on the +arrival of the Spaniards, the Aztec dominion reached across the +continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific." + +Here Mr. Morehouse ended his paper on the Toltecs, and the Koshare, with +many thanks for his interesting account of these ancient races, +supplemented his information by a general discussion of the genuineness +of the accepted authorities for the early history of the Aztecs and of +the time of Montezuma. + +"Prescott," said the Minister, "traces some points of resemblance +between the history of the Aztecs and that of the ancient Romans; +especially in polity and military success does he compare them." + +"Unfortunately," observed the Antiquary, "the earlier records of the +Mexican people can only be scantily gleaned from oral tradition and +hiero-graphical paintings." + +"Later, however," remarked the Journalist, "we have the seemingly more +definite and reliable accounts of the Spanish chronicles." + +"These," returned the Minister, "being usually ecclesiastic, have warped +their record to suit their own bigoted views; consequently, much of the +narrative popularly known as Mexican history is to be taken with more +than the proverbial pinch of salt." + +"It has," said the Journalist, "been urged by realistic critics of our +own fascinating historian--Prescott--that since he drew his historic +data, with the exception of the military record of the Spaniards, from +these unreliable sources, his history is little other than the merest +romance. Plainly, the assertions of some of the chroniclers are scarce +more worthy of credence than the equally fascinating adventures of +Sinbad the Sailor, and the impossible stories of Baron Munchausen. +'Bernard Diaz'--that enigmatical personage from whom many of Prescott's +data are drawn--tells us that the Aztecs actually fattened men and women +in cages, like spring chickens, for their sacrifice, and asserts that at +the dedication of one of their temples a procession of captives two +miles long, and numbering seventy-two thousand persons, were led to +sacrifice! By the way, it has, however, been latterly proved that the +so-called sacrificial stone, now exhibited in the National Museum of +Mexico, is not a relic of the Aztecs, but of the earlier Toltecs (who +were not addicted to human sacrifice), and is as innocent of human blood +as the Calendar Stone, referred to the same period. The critics of Diaz +have detected in his account constant blunders in many important +matters, and his glaring geographical errors would seem to prove that, +though he claims to have been, all through the Conquest, the very shadow +of Hernando Cortez, he has never even been in the country he describes!" + +"From what I have read of Bernald," said Leon, "I think we may finish +him off with 'Betsy Prig's' very conclusive objection to Sairey Gamp's +'Mrs. Harris'--there ain't no sich person!" + +"Even so," exclaimed the Minister, "I, for one, agree with certain +downright critics who contend that Diaz was a pure fabrication, a +priestly scheme of the Roman Church to screen the cruel enormities of +their agent, Cortez. Father Torquemada, another of Prescott's +authorities, is thought to be scarcely more reliable. Las Casas, another +of our historian authorities, whose history was, at the time, promptly +suppressed by the all-powerful Inquisition, declares these Spanish +histories of the Conquest to be 'wicked and false.'" + +"And yet, in spite of these strictures," contended Leon, "I, for one, +still pin my faith to Prescott and his implicit honesty of purpose. He +gave us, in his own learned and fascinating way, the narrative of these +priestly chroniclers as he found it. If the chroniclers lied, why, so +much the worse for the chroniclers." + +"Lying," complained the Grumbler, "is a malady most incident to +historians;" and thereupon rose to open the parlor door for the +gray-eyed school teacher, who just then bade the Koshare good-night, +adding that she had already been too long away from her sister. + +And now the chairman announced the next paper in the Koshare course for +the second Saturday in February, and the members, one and all, +dispersed. + +Sholto, roused from a most enjoyable series of naps, brought his wagon +to the side door, and with a friendly grasp from the hand of Miss +Paulina, and a shy, tremulous clasp from that of her niece, the Harvard +man saw the ladies off. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +February had come, bringing in its train such weather as verified the +warmest praise of New Mexico's perfect climate. + +It was on one of its most spring-like afternoons that a walking party of +eight set out to pay a long-proposed visit to the ladies at Hilton +Ranch. + +As the little party went gayly along the mesa, Leon, carrying his gun, +shot doves for the evening meal, while the rest walked on, chatting +merrily. + +The ladies talking over, by the way, the late attempt of the Apache on +Hilton Ranch, Mrs. Bixbee declared herself curious to see the cellar in +which Miss Paulina had caught that prowling savage. On their arrival +that good lady, informed of this desire, kindly proceeded to gratify her +guest, and the entire party was presently led by her to the kitchen, the +hero of this adventure modestly walking beside the fair lady of his +love. Sholto, busied about the place, was just then out of call, and +Miss Hemmenshaw, intent to afford them a peep into the cellar, begged +the Harvard man to raise for her the heavy trap-door. + +The dear lady never quite knew how it was that, leaning forward, she +lost her balance, and, but for the prompt help of Roger Smith, might +have landed, pell-mell, on the cellar bottom; or how, in rescuing her, +he himself made the misstep that, ere he could recover his poise, threw +him to the end of the ladder-like cellar stairs. + +Recovering breath, Roger Smith cheerily called up to the affrighted +group at the top, "All right!" but, on pulling himself together to make +the ascent, he suddenly found all wrong. He had sprained his ankle; and +it was with painful effort that he won to the top. At this juncture +Sholto, aroused by the unwonted rumpus, made his appearance, +anticipating no less a disaster than the reappearance of the slippery +savage, for whom he still held the lasso "in pickle." Disabled by the +sprain, the Harvard man submitted himself to the stout arms of the +Mexican, and, by Miss Paulina's direction, was carried into the bedroom +adjoining the ranch parlor. + +There, laid upon a movable couch which served the double purpose of sofa +and bed, Sholto having, not without difficulty, removed his boot and +stocking, he submitted the swollen foot to the careful inspection of +Miss Hemmenshaw, who, with a steadiness of nerve not unworthy of her +"Chapter," put the dislocated joint in place, bandaged the injured +member with arnica, administered an internal dose of the same +restorative, and duly followed it with a glass of old Port. This done, +Sholto wheeled the sufferer's couch into the adjoining parlor. Half an +hour later Leon came in with a well-filled game-bag; and after an hour +of mild Koshare merriment, in which the athlete but feebly joined (the +pain of his ankle was still terrible), the little party took its way, in +the fading sunlight, to Alamo Ranch. Miss Paulina, having promptly +decided that her patient was unequal to the return by way of the jolting +Hilton express team, sent to Mrs. Brown an order for supper for her +guest, Louise, and herself. It was duly conveyed to Hilton's by an Alamo +chore-boy. Sholto, as the sole male dependence of Hilton's, must stick +to his post; for, sagely observed the "Daughter of the Revolution," two +women, heroic though they might be, were no match for an Apache +marauder; and as for poor Roger Smith, he could now neither "fight" nor +"run away." + +Sholto lighted the lamps, laid the supper on the low Queen Anne table, +added fresh water from the spring, and when a pot of tea had been made +by the hostess' own careful hand, and Sholto had wheeled up the couch of +the invalid, that he might take his supper _à la Roman_, the three made +a cheery meal. + +When the man had removed the supper things, and piled fresh wood on the +andirons, the ladies brought their work-baskets; and while they busied +themselves with doily and centre-piece, the Harvard man, lying in the +comfort of partial relief from pain, watched the dainty fingers of +Louise Hemmenshaw as she bent industriously over her embroidery, and +fell fathoms deeper in love with the dear and beautiful girl. + +Roger Smith stayed on at Hilton Ranch, where, thrown day after day in +semi-helplessness on the kind attendance of Miss Paulina and the sweet +society of her niece, he (I grieve to say) fell a ready prey to the +suggestions of a certain wily personage who (according to Dr. Watts) +finds employment for idle hands, and thus conceived the wickedness of +cunningly using this accident to further his own personal ends. Thus +devil-tempted, this hitherto upright young person resolved that it +should be a long day before his sprained ankle should permit him to +return to Brown's, and lose this precious opportunity of establishing +himself in the good graces of the aunt, and winning the love of the +niece. + +Far from approving the crooked policy which led Roger Smith to feign +lameness long after the injured ankle had become as sound as ever, the +present historian can only, in view of this lapse from integrity, affirm +with Widow Bedott that "we're poor creeturs!" and, with that +depreciative view of humanity, go on with this truthful narrative. + +A whole delicious month had been passed by the Harvard man in this +paradise,--Elysian days, while, waited on by Sholto, petted by Miss +Paulina, and companioned by the loveliest of houris, he dreamed out his +dream. + +At last, on a certain decisive evening, Roger Smith found himself alone +in the gloaming with Louise Hemmenshaw. The aunt, who through all these +weeks had zealously chaperoned her niece, had passed into the +dining-room to evolve some chafing-dish delicacy for the evening meal. +Without, the setting sun flooded all the west with gold, touched the +distant mountain peaks with splendor, and threw a parting veil of glory +over the wide mesa. Within, the firelight made dancing shadows on the +parlor wall, where the pair sat together in that eloquent silence so +dear to love. "Well," said the athlete to himself (compunctiously +glancing at his superfluous crutches, left within easy reach of his +hand), "this performance can't go on forever. I have made believe about +long enough; what better may I do than own up this very night, and +somehow bring this base deceit to an end." + +Mentally rehearsing the formula, in which, over and over, he had asked +the hand of this beautiful aristocrat, his mind still sorely misgave +him. "Why," thought this depressed lover, "was not my name Winthrop, +Endicott, or Sturgis, instead of Smith; and my grandfather a senator, a +judge, or even a stockbroker, rather than a tanner?" + +Neither Miss Paulina nor her brother, he discouragedly mused, would ever +countenance this unequal match. His millions would with them weigh +nothing against "the claims of long descent." + +The sun had gone down, the after-glow had faded to gray. They were still +alone. The firelight half revealed the lovely figure beside the hearth. +In that gown of golden-brown velvet, with the creamy old lace at wrists +and throat, the brown hair combed smoothly from the white forehead, +knotted behind and fastened with a quaint arrow of Etruscan gold, Louise +Hemmenshaw was simply adorable! It was indeed good to be here; and why +should not a life so sweet and satisfying go on indefinitely? + +"It is four weeks to-day since I fell down cellar,"--such was the +commonplace beginning to this much considered tale of love. + +"Really?" said the lady, looking innocently up from an absorbed +contemplation of the fender. "It has not seemed so long. I never before +realized what a serious thing it is to sprain one's ankle. You have been +a most patient sufferer, Mr. Smith; and, indeed, for the past two weeks, +a most jolly one. Aunt Paulina was saying to-day that it was high time +we all went back to Alamo for our meals, and helped out the Koshare +doings of the Club." + +"Dear Miss Hemmenshaw," here blurted out the culprit, "do not despise me +for my meanness, since it is all for love of you that I have been +shamming lameness. For these last two weeks I could at any time have +walked as well as ever." And, hereupon, without the slightest reference +to his crutches, he rose from his chair and skipped over to her side. "A +sprain," explained this audacious lover, "may be cured in a fortnight, +but it takes a good month to woo and win a fair lady. Having soon after +my accident decided that point, I have done my best. Tell me, dear +Louise," pleaded he, "that my time has been well spent. Say that, +deceitful ingrate though I am, you will take me, for good and all." + +"Roger Smith," replied the lady, with much severity, "you have repaid +the devoted care of two unsuspecting females by a whole fortnight of +wilful duplicity. For my aunt I cannot answer; for myself, I can only +reply,--since to err is human; to forgive, womanlike,--dear Roger, on +the whole, I will." + +Miss Paulina, a moment later entering the parlor, surprised her invalid +guest, standing crutchless on his firm feet, with his arm thrown about +the waist of her niece. "Well, well!" exclaimed the astonished lady, +"and without his crutches!" + +"Dear Miss Paulina," said Roger Smith with a happy laugh, "my ankle is +as well as ever; and your niece has promised to marry me. Say that you +will have me for your nephew." + +"I seem already to have gotten you, my good sir, whether I will or no," +laughed Miss Hemmenshaw. "But, my stars and garters" (mentally added +she), "what ever will my brother say? A tanner's grandson coming into +the family! and he a Hemmenshaw, and as proud as Lucifer!" "Never mind, +Auntie dear," said the smiling fiancée, guessing her thoughts. It will +be all right with father when he comes to know Roger; and besides, let +us remember that under the 'Star Spangled Banner' we have our +'Vanderbilts,' our 'Goulds,' and our 'Rockefellers;' but _no_ Vere de +Veres. And if we _had_, why, Love laughs at heraldry, and is + + "'Its own great loveliness alway.'" + +"To-morrow," said Miss Paulina decisively, "we will all dine at Alamo +Ranch." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Through this month of wooing and betrothing at Hilton Ranch, the +Koshare, at Alamo, never once remitted its endeavor to hearten the +despondent. + +The weekly entertainments took their regular course, and were +successfully carried on, and, in due time, the fortnightly club convened +to listen to the Antiquary's account of "Montezuma and his Time." + +And here the Koshare chronicle returns on its track to record that able +paper. + +"As a consistent Koshare," said Mr. Morehouse, to his eager listeners, +"it behooves me to give--without that dry adherence to facts observed by +the 'Gradgrind' historian--the charming melodramatic details of that +romantic monarch's life and times afforded by the popular +Munchausen-like data of the Spanish chroniclers, albeit they have in +their entirety, all the fascination, and, sometimes, all the +unbelievableness of a fairy tale. + +"The Aztec government," prefaced the Antiquary, "was an elective +monarchy, the choice always restricted to the royal family. + +"The candidate usually preferred must have distinguished himself in war; +though, if (as in the case of the last Montezuma) he was a member of the +priesthood, the royal-born priest, no less than the warrior was, with +the Aztec, available as an emperor. + +"When the nobles by whom Montezuma the Second was made monarch went to +inform the candidate of the result of the election, they are said to +have found him sweeping the court of the temple to which he had +dedicated himself. It is further asserted that when they led him to the +palace to proclaim him king, he demurred, declaring himself unworthy the +honor conferred on him. It is a humiliating proof of the weakness of +human nature in face of temptation, to find that, later, this pious king +so far forswore his humility as to pose before his subjects as a god; +that five or six hundred nobles in waiting were ordered to attend daily +at his morning toilet, only daring to appear before him with bared feet. + +"It was not until, by a victorious campaign, he had obtained a +sufficient number of captives to furnish victims for the bloody rites +which Aztec superstition demanded to grace his inauguration, +that--amidst that horrible pomp of human sacrifice which stained the +civilization of his people--Montezuma was crowned. + +"The Mexican crown of that day is described as resembling a mitre in +form, and curiously ornamented with gold, gems, and feathers. + +"The Aztec princes, especially towards the close of the dynasty, lived +in a barbaric Oriental pomp, of which Montezuma was the most conspicuous +example in the history of the nation. + +"Elevation, like wine, seems to have gone to the head of the second +Montezuma. + +"An account of his domestic establishment reads like the veriest record +of midsummer madness. Four hundred young nobles, we are told, waited on +the royal table, setting the covers, in their turn, before the monarch, +and immediately retiring, as even his courtiers might not see Montezuma +eat. Having drunk from cups of gold and pearl, these costly goblets, +together with the table utensils of the king, were distributed among his +courtiers. Cortez tells us that so many dishes were prepared for each +meal of this lordly epicure, that they filled a large hall; and that he +had a harem of a thousand women. His clothes, which were changed four +times a day (like his table service), were never used a second time, but +were given as rewards of merit to nobles and soldiers who had +distinguished themselves in war. If it happened that he had to walk, a +carpet was spread along his way, lest his sacred feet should touch the +ground. His subjects were required, on his approach, to stop and close +their eyes, that they might not be dazzled by his effulgent majesty. His +ostentatious humility gave place to an intolerable arrogance. He +disgusted his subjects by his haughty deportment, exacting from them the +most slavish homage, and alienating their affection by the imposition of +the grievous taxes demanded by the lavish expenditure of his court. + +"In his first years Montezuma's record was, in many respects, +praiseworthy. He led his armies in person. The Aztec banners were +carried far and wide, in the furthest province on the Gulf of Mexico, +and the distant region of Nicaragua and Honduras. His expeditions were +generally successful, and during his reign the limits of the empire +were more widely extended than at any preceding period. + +"To the interior concerns of his kingdom he gave much attention, +reforming the courts of justice, and carefully watching over the +execution of the laws, which he enforced with stern severity. + +"Like the Arabian ruler,--Haroun Alraschid, of benign memory,--he +patrolled the streets of his capital in disguise, to make personal +acquaintance with the abuses in it. He liberally compensated all who +served him. He displayed great munificence in public enterprise, +constructing and embellishing the temples, bringing water into the +capital by a new channel, and establishing a retreat for invalid +soldiers in the city of Colhuacan. + +"According to some writers of authority there were, in Montezuma's day, +thirty great caciques, or nobles, who had their residence, at least a +part of the year, in the capital. + +"Each of these, it is asserted, could muster a hundred thousand vassals +on his estate. It would seem that such wild statements should be 'taken +with a pinch of salt.' All the same, it is clear, from the testimony of +the conquerors, that the country was occupied by numerous powerful +chieftains, who lived like independent princes on their domains. It is +certain that there was a distinct class of nobles who held the most +important offices near the person of their emperor. + +"In Montezuma's time the Aztec religion reached its zenith. It is said +to have had as exact and burdensome a ceremonial as ever existed in any +nation. 'One,' observes Prescott, 'is struck with its apparent +incongruity, as if some portion had emanated from a comparatively +refined people, open to gentle influences, while the rest breathes a +spirit of unmitigated ferocity; which naturally suggests the idea of two +distinct sources, and authorizes the belief that the Aztecs had +inherited from their predecessors a milder faith, on which was +afterwards engrafted their own mythology.' The Aztecs, like the +idolaters to whom Paul preached, declaring the 'Unknown God' of their +'ignorant worship,' recognized a Supreme Creator and Lord of the +Universe. + +"In their prayers they thus addressed him: 'The God by whom we live, +that knoweth all thoughts, and giveth all gifts;' but, as has been +observed, 'from the vastness of this conception their untutored minds +sought relief in a plurality of inferior deities,--ministers who +executed the creator's purposes, each, in his turn, presiding over the +elements, the changes of the seasons, and the various affairs of man.' +Of these there were thirteen principal deities, and more than two +hundred inferior; to each of whom some special day or appropriate +festival was consecrated. + +"Huitzilopotchli, a terrible and sanguinary monster, was the primal of +these; the patron deity of the nation. The forms of the Mexican idols +were quaint and eccentric, and were in the highest degree symbolical. + +"The fantastic image of this god of the unpronounceable name was loaded +with costly ornaments; his temples were the most stately and august of +their public edifices, and in every city of the empire his altars reeked +with the blood of human hecatombs. + +"His name is compounded of two words, signifying 'humming-bird' and +'left;' from his image having the feathers of this bird on his left +foot. + +"Thus runs the tradition respecting this god's first appearance on +earth: 'His mother, a devout person, one day, in her attendance on the +temple, saw a ball of bright-colored feathers floating in the air. She +took it and deposited it in her bosom, and, consequently, from her, the +dread deity was in due time born.' He is fabled to have come into the +world (like the Greek goddess, Minerva) armed _cap-à-pie_ with spear and +shield, and his head surmounted by a crest of green plumes. + +"A far more admirable personage in their mythology was Quetzalcoatl, god +of the air; his name signifies 'feathered serpent' and 'twin.' During +his beneficent residence on earth he is said to have instructed the +people in civil government, in the arts, and in agriculture. Under him +it was that the earth brought forth flower and fruit without the fatigue +of cultivation. + +"Then it was that an ear of corn in two days became as much as a man +could carry; and the cotton, as it grew beneath his fostering smile, +took, of its own accord, the rich dyes of human art. + +"In those halcyon days of Quetzalcoatl all the air was sweet with +perfumes and musical with the singing of birds. + +"Pursued by the wrath of a brother-god, from some mysterious cause +unexplained by the fabler, this gracious deity was finally obliged to +flee the country. On his way he is said to have stopped at Cholula, +where the remains of a temple dedicated to his worship are still shown. + +"On the shores of the Mexican Gulf Quetzalcoatl took leave of his +followers, and promising that he and his descendants would revisit them +hereafter, entered his 'Wizard Skiff,' and embarked on the great ocean +for the fabled land of Tlapallan. + +"The Mexicans looked confidently for the second coming of this +benevolent deity, who is said to have been tall in stature, with a white +skin, long, dark hair, and a flowing beard. Undoubtedly, this cherished +tradition, as the chroniclers affirm, prepared the way for the reception +of the Spanish conquerors. + +"Long before the landing of the Spaniards in Mexico, rumors of the +appearance of these men with fair complexions and flowing beards--so +unlike their own physiognomy--had startled the superstitious Aztecs. The +period for the return of Quetzalcoatl was now near at hand. The priestly +oracles were consulted; they are said to have declared, after much +deliberation, that the Spaniards, though not gods, were children of the +Sun; that they derived their strength from that luminary, and were only +vulnerable when his beams were withdrawn; and they recommended attacking +them while buried in slumber. This childish advice, so contrary to Aztec +military usage, was reluctantly followed by these credulous warriors, +and resulted in the defeat and bloody slaughter of nearly the whole +detachment. + +"The conviction of the supernaturalism of the Spaniard is said to have +gained ground by some uncommon natural occurrences, such as the +accidental swell and overflow of a lake, the appearance of a comet, and +conflagration of the great temple. + +"We are told that Montezuma read in these prodigies special +annunciations of Heaven that argued the speedy downfall of his empire. + +"From this somewhat digressive account of the Aztec superstition, in +regard to the 'second coming' of their beneficent tutelar divinity, +which, as may be seen, played into the hands of Cortez, and furthered +his hostile designs upon Mexico, let us return to the time in Aztec +history when no usurping white man had set foot upon Montezuma's +territory. + +"We are told that this people, in their comparative ignorance of the +material universe, sought relief from the oppressive idea of the endless +duration of time by breaking it up into distinct cycles, each of several +thousand years' duration. At the end of each of these periods, by the +agency of one of the elements, the human family, as they held, was to be +swept from the earth, and the sun blotted out from the heavens, to be +again freshly rekindled. With later theologians, who have less excuse +for the unlovely superstition, they held that the wicked were to expiate +their sins everlastingly in a place of horrible darkness. It was the +work of a (so-called) Christianity to add to the Aztec place of torment +the torture of perpetual fire and brimstone. The Aztec heaven, like the +Scandinavian Valhalla, was especially reserved for their heroes who fell +in battle. To these privileged souls were added those slain in +sacrifice. These fortunate elect of the Aztecs seem to have been +destined for a time to a somewhat lively immortality, as they at once +passed into the presence of the Sun, whom they accompanied with songs +and choral dances in his bright progress through the heavens. After +years of this stirring existence, these long-revolving spirits were +kindly permitted to take breath; and thereafter it was theirs to animate +the clouds, to reincarnate in singing birds of beautiful plumage, and to +revel amidst the bloom and odors of the gardens of Paradise. + +"Apart from this refined Elysium and a moderately comfortable hell, void +of appliances for the torture of burning, the Aztecs had a third place +of abode for immortals. Thither passed those 'o'er bad for blessing and +o'er good for banning,' who had but the merit of dying of certain +(capriciously selected) diseases. These commonplace spirits were fabled +to enjoy a negative existence of indolent contentment. 'The Aztec +priests,' says Prescott, 'in this imperfect stage of civilization, +endeavored to dazzle the imagination of this ignorant people with +superstitious awe, and thus obtained an influence over the popular mind +beyond that which has probably existed in any other country, even in +ancient Egypt.' + +"Time will not permit here a detailed account of this insidious +priesthood; its labored and pompous ceremonial; its midnight prayers; +its cruel penance (as the drawing of blood from the body by +flagellation, or piercing of the flesh with the thorns of the aloe), +akin to the absurd austerities of Roman Catholic fanaticism. The Aztec +priest, unlike the Roman, was allowed to marry, and have a family of his +own; and not _all_ the religious ceremonies imposed by him were austere. +Many of them were of a light and cheerful complexion, such as national +songs and dances, in which women were allowed to join. There were, too, +innocent processions of children crowned with garlands, bearing to the +altars of their gods offerings of fruit, ripened maize, and odoriferous +gums. It was on these peaceful rites, derived from his milder and more +refined Toltec predecessors, that the fierce Aztec grafted the loathsome +rite of human sacrifice. + +"To what extent this abomination was carried cannot now be accurately +determined. The priestly chroniclers, as has been shown, were not above +the meanness of making capital for the church, by exaggerating the +enormities of the pagan dispensation. Scarcely any of these reporters +pretend to estimate the yearly human sacrifice throughout the empire at +less than twenty thousand; and some carry the number as high as fifty +thousand. A good Catholic bishop, writing a few years after the +conquest, states in his letter that twenty thousand victims were yearly +slaughtered in the capital. A lie is brought to absolute perfection when +its author is able to believe it himself. + +"Torquemada, another chronicler, often quoted by Prescott, turns this +into twenty thousand _infants_! + +"These innocent creatures, he tells us, were generally bought by the +priests from parents poor enough and superstitious enough to stifle the +promptings of nature, and were, at seasons of drought, at the festival +of Haloc, the insatiable god of the rain, offered up, borne to their +doom in open litters, dressed in festal robes, and decked with freshly +blown flowers, their pathetic cries drowned in the wild chant of the +priests. It is needless to add that this assumption has but the +slightest groundwork of likelihood. + +"Las Casas, before referred to, thus boldly declares: 'This is the +estimate of brigands who wish to find an apology for their own +atrocities;' and loosely puts the victims at so low a rate as to make it +clear that any specific number is the merest conjecture. + +"Prescott, commenting on these fabulous statements, instances the +dedication of the great temple of the 'Mexican War God' in 1486, when +the prisoners, for years reserved for the purpose, were said to have +been ranged in files forming a procession nearly two miles long; when +the ceremony consumed, as averred, several days, and seventy thousand +captives are declared to have perished at the shrine of this terrible +deity. In view of this statement, Prescott logically observes: 'Who can +believe that so numerous a body would have suffered themselves to be led +unresistingly, like sheep, to the slaughter? Or how could their remains, +too great for consumption in the ordinary way, be disposed of without +breeding a pestilence in the capital? One fact,' he adds, 'may be +considered certain. It was customary to preserve the skulls of the +sacrificed in buildings appropriate to the purpose; and the companions +of Cortez say they counted one hundred and thirty-six thousand skulls in +one of the edifices.' + +"Religious ceremonials were arranged for the Aztec people by their +crafty and well-informed priesthood, and were generally typical of some +circumstances in the character or history of the deity who was the +object of them. That in honor of the god called by the Aztecs 'the soul +of the world,' and depicted as a handsome man endowed with perpetual +youth, was one of their most important sacrifices. An account of this +sanguinary performance is gravely given by Prescott and other writers. +Though highly sensational and melodramatic, since our betters have found +it believable, we transcribe it for the New Koshare; thus runs the +tale:-- + +"'A year before the intended sacrifice, a captive, distinguished for his +personal beauty, and without a single blemish on his body, was selected +to represent this deity. Certain tutors took charge of him, and +instructed him how to perform his new part with becoming grace and +dignity. He was arrayed in a splendid dress, regaled with incense and +with a profusion of sweet-scented flowers, of which the ancient Mexicans +were as fond as are their descendants at the present day. When he went +abroad he was attended by a train of the royal pages; and as he halted +in the streets to play some favorite melody the crowd prostrated +themselves before him, and did him homage as the representative of their +good deity. In this way he led an easy, luxurious life until within a +month of his sacrifice. Four beautiful girls were then given him as +concubines; and with these he continued to live in idle dalliance, +feasted at the banquets of the principal nobles, who paid him all the +honors of a divinity. At length the fatal day of sacrifice arrived. The +term of his short-lived glories was at an end. + +"'He was stripped of his gaudy apparel, and bade adieu to the fair +partners of his revelry. One of the royal barges transported him across +the lake to a temple which rose on its margin, about a league from the +city. Hither the inhabitants flocked to witness the consummation of the +ceremony. As the sad procession wound up the sides of the pyramid, the +unhappy victim threw away his gay chaplets of flowers, and broke in +pieces the musical instruments with which he had solaced the hours of +his captivity. + +"'On the summit he was received by six priests, whose long and matted +locks flowed disorderedly over their sable robes, covered with +hieroglyphic scrolls of mystic import. They led him to the sacrificial +stone, a huge block of jasper with its upper surface somewhat convex. On +this the prisoner was stretched. Five priests secured his head and +limbs, while the sixth, clad in a scarlet mantle, emblematic of his +bloody office, dexterously opened the breast of the wretched victim with +a sharp razor of _itzli_ (a volcanic substance hard as flint), and, +inserting his hand in the wound, tore out the palpitating heart. The +minister of death, first holding the heart up towards the sun (also an +object of their worship) cast it at the feet of the god, while the +multitudes below prostrated themselves in humble adoration.' + +"The tragic circumstances depicted in this sanguinary tale were used by +the priests to 'point a moral.' The immolation of this unhappy youth was +expounded to the people as a type of human destiny, which, brilliant in +its beginning, often closes in sorrow and disaster. + +"In this loathsome manner, if we may believe the account given, was the +mangled body disposed of. It was delivered by the priests to the warrior +who had taken the captive in battle, and served up by him at an +entertainment given to his friends. + +"This, we are told, was no rude cannibal orgy, but a refined banquet, +teeming with delicious beverages, and delicate viands prepared with +dainty art, and was attended by guests of both sexes, and conducted with +all the decorum of civilized life. Thus, in the Aztec religious +ceremonial, refinement and the extreme of barbarism met together. + +"The Aztec nation had, at the time of the Conquest, many claims to the +character of a civilized community. The debasing influence of their +religious rites it was, however, that furnished the fanatical conquerors +with their best apology for the subjugation of this people. One-half +condones the excuses of the invaders, who with the cross in one hand and +the bloody sword in the other, justified their questionable deeds by the +abolishment of human sacrifice. + +"The oppressions of Montezuma, with the frequent insurrections of his +people," concluded the Antiquary, "when in the latter part of his reign +one-half the forces of his empire are said to have been employed in +suppressing the commotions of the other, disgust at his arrogance, and +his outrageous fiscal exactions, reduced his subjects to that condition +which made them an easy prey to Cortez, whose army at last overpowered +the emperor and swept the Aztec civilization from the face of the +earth." + +"I find it strange," said the Journalist (in the little talk that +followed Mr. Morehouse's able paper), "that civilized nations have held +an idea so monstrous as the necessity of vicarious physical suffering of +a victim to appease the wrath of a divine being with the erring +creatures who, such as they are, are the work of his hands. + +"That unenlightened races, from time immemorial, should have supposed +that the shedding of blood propitiated their angry god, or gods, is but +the natural outcome of ignorance and superstition; but, that in this +twentieth century, civilized worshippers should sing-- + + 'There is a fountain filled with blood + Drawn from Immanuel's veins; + And sinners plunged beneath that flood + Lose all their guilty stains'-- + +passes my understanding." + +"In the ruins of Palenque there is," said the Antiquary, "a scene +portrayed on its crumbling walls, in which priests are immolating in a +furnace placed at the feet of an image of Saturn the choicest infants of +the nation, while a trumpeter enlivens the occasion with music, and in +the background a female spectator, supposed to be the mother of the +victim, looks on." + +"The sacrifices to Moloch (or Saturn)," interpolated the Minister, "were +marked features of the Phoenician idolatry. In the Bible account we read +that even their kings 'made their children to pass through the fire to +Moloch.'" + +"Well," commented the Grumbler, "it may be said of a portion of this +evening's entertainment that it is distinguished by the charm found by +'Helen's' sanguinary-minded 'baby,' in the story of 'Goliath's +head,'--it is 'all bluggy.'" + +"Right you are," responded the star boarder with a shudder. "Cold +shivers have meandered along my poor back until it has become one +dreadful block of ice; and, judging by the horror depicted on these +ladies' faces as they listened to the details of the Aztec sacrifice, I +fancy that they too have supped o'er-full of horrors." + +The Minister's eye rested for a moment affectionately on his stanch +little wife. He sighed, and looked with mild rebuke on these godless +triflers. + +And now the Koshare (some of them stoutly orthodox) wisely put by the +question of vicarious atonement, and summarily adjourned. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +It was but the next week when, unexpectedly as thunderbolts now and then +surprise us on days of serene, unclouded sky, an unlooked-for domestic +calamity startled Alamo Ranch. + +Dennis, the good-natured Irish waiter, and Fang Lee, the Chinese cook, +had come to blows. The battle had been (so to put it) a religious +controversy, and such, as we know, have a bitterness all their own. It +was inaugurated by Dennis, who, as a good Catholic, had, on a Friday, +refused to sample one of Fang's _chef-d'oeuvres_,--a dish of veal +cutlets with mushroom sauce. A mutual interchange of offensive words, +taunts highly derogatory to his holiness Pope Leo XIII. and equally +insulting to the memory of that ancient Chinese sage, Confucius, had +finally led to a bout of fisticuffs. In this encounter, Fang Lee, a +slightly built, undersized celestial, had naturally been worsted at the +hand of the robust Hibernian, a good six feet five in his stockings. +Dennis, the "chip well off his shoulder," had peacefully returned to the +duties of his vocation, nonchalantly carrying in the dinner, removing +the plates and dishes, and subsequently whistling "St. Patrick's Day in +the Morning" under the very nose of the Confucian, as he unconcernedly +washed his plates and glasses, and scoured his knives. Fang, having +meantime sent in his dinner, cleaned his pots and pans, brushed his +baggy trousers, adjusted his disordered pigtail, and straightway gave in +his notice; and with sullen dignity retired to the privacy of his +bedroom, for the avowed purpose of packing his box. On the ensuing +morning he would shake from his feet the dust of Alamo Ranch. + +Vain were the endeavors of his discomfited employers to gain the ear of +the implacable Fang Lee. He stood out resolutely for the privacy of his +small sleeping apartment, obstinately refusing admission to outsiders. + +In a house replete with boarders, and forty miles from available cooks, +Fang's pending loss was indeed a calamity. + +In this dilemma, the disheartened landlord and his wife begged the +intercession of the star boarder,--always in high favor with the +domestics, and known to be especially in the good graces of the +Chinaman. Long did this envoy of peace unsuccessfully besiege the +bedroom door of the offended Fang Lee. In the end, however, he gained +admittance; and with adroit appeals to the better nature of the irate +cook, and a tactful representation of the folly of giving up a good +situation for the sake of a paltry quarrel, he finally brought Fang Lee +down from his "high horse," and persuading good-natured Dennis to make +suitable friendly advances, effectually healed the breach. + +Ere nightfall amity reigned in the ranch kitchen, and the respective +pockets of the belligerents were the heavier for a silver dollar,--a +private peace-offering contributed by the arbitrator. An Irishman is +nothing if not magnanimous; Dennis readily "buried the hatchet," handle +and all. + +Not so Fang Lee, who, smugly pocketing his dollar, covertly observed to +the giver, by way of the last word, "All samee, Pope bigee dam foolee." + +With genial satisfaction the star boarder received the thanks of the +Browns for having saved to them their cook, and, with simple pleasure in +the result of his diplomacy, met the encomiums of his fellow-boarders. + +To this gracious and beautiful nature, replete with "peace and good-will +to man," to help and serve was but "the natural way of living." + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +At mid-March, in this sun-loved land, the genial season far outdoes our +own belated Northern May. Already, in Mesilla Valley, the peach, pear, +and apricot buds of the orchard are showing white and pink. In the +garden, rose-bushes are leaving out, and mocking-birds make the air +sweet with song. + +"In the spring," said Leon Starr, parodying Tennyson one morning at the +breakfast-table, "the Koshare fancy lightly turns to thoughts of Shalam. +Why not make to-day our long-planned excursion to that famous colony?" + +"All right," responded the entire Koshare; and that afternoon a party of +twelve set out from Alamo Ranch to explore that remarkable colony, some +seven miles up the valley. + +A description of the place and an account of this excursion is copied +verbatim by the present writer from the journal of one of the party. + +"To begin at the beginning," says the narrator, "the colony was started +by one Dr. ----, a dentist from Philadelphia. He enlisted as a partner +in his enterprise a man from that region of fads--Boston, Mass. To this +chimera of the doctor's brain, the latter, a man of means, lent his +approval, and, still more to the point, the money to carry out the +doctor's plans. + +"Some few years ago the original founder of Shalam died, leaving to his +partner the work of carrying out his half-tried experiment. + +"Mr. ---- lived on in the place, assuming its entire charge, and finally +marrying the doctor's widow,--a lady of unusual culture and refinement, +but having a bent towards occult fads, as Spiritualism, Mental Science, +and their like. + +"Well, we arrived safely at Shalam, and were met by Mrs. ---- and a +dozen or more tow-headed kids. It is noticeable that the whole +twenty-seven children selected for this experiment have light hair and +blue eyes. Mrs. ---- kindly presented us to her husband,--apparently a +man of refined natural tendencies and fair intellectual culture, but +evidently, like 'Miss Flite,' 'a little _m-m_, you know.' + +"Conventionally clothed, Mr. ---- would undoubtedly have been more than +presentable; in his Shalam undress suit he was, to say the least, +unique. + +"His long, heavy beard was somewhat unkempt. His feet were in sandals, +without stockings. His dress consisted of a pair of white cotton pants, +and a blouse of the same material, frogged together with blue tape, the +ends hanging down over his left leg. Hitched somehow to his girdle was a +plain watch-chain, which led to a pocket for his watch, on the front of +his left thigh, placed just above the knee. When he wants time he raises +the knee and takes out the watch, standing on one leg the while. + +"The place is beautifully situated on the banks of the Rio Grande, with +a range of high mountains across the river. + +"It consists of two parts: 'Leontica,' a village for the workers, where +they have many nice cottages, an artesian well for irrigation, and a big +steam pump to force the water through all the ditches; Shalam, the home +of the children, has a big tank, with six windmills pumping water into +it all the time. Near the tank is the dormitory,--a building about one +hundred and fifty feet in dimension. Through its middle runs a large +hall for the kids to gambol in. On each side are rooms for the +attendants and the larger children. + +"Chiefly noticeable was the cleanliness of the hall, and the signs over +the doors of the chambers, each with its motto, a text from +'_Oahspe_,'--the Shalam bible. + +"At each end of the hall was a big sign, reading thus: '_Do not kiss the +children._' As none of them were especially attractive, this command +seemed quite superfluous. After looking over the dormitory, we were led +to the main building, projected by the late Dr. ----. This encloses a +court about one hundred and fifty feet by sixty in size, and planted +with fig trees. + +"The front of the building is taken up by the library of the doctor; on +the opposite side is his picture gallery. + +"Rooms or cells for the accommodation of guests occupy the long sides of +this structure. + +"I was cordially invited to occupy one of these; but the place is too +creepy for me! The pictures in the gallery were all done by the deceased +doctor, under the immediate direction of his 'spirit friends.' To look +at them (believing this) is to be assured that artists do not go to +heaven, since not even the poorest defunct painter would have +perpetrated such monstrosities. + +"They all represent characters and scenes from the doctor's +bible,--known as Oahspe, and written by him at the dictation of spirits. +The drawing is horrible, the coloring worse; and no drunkard with +delirium tremens could have conceived more frightful subjects! + +"Mr. ----, the doctor's successor, is a curious compound of crank and +common-sense; the latter evinced by his corral and cattle, which we next +visited. I have never seen so fine a corral nor such handsome horses and +cattle. They are all blooded stock; many of the cows and calves having +come from the farm of Governor Morton, in New York State. The cows were +beautiful, gentle creatures; one of them is the largest 'critter' I ever +saw, weighing no less than fifteen hundred pounds! + +"The county authorities--scandalized by the meagreness of the Shalam +bill of fare--compelled Mr. ---- to enrich the children's diet with +milk, and, thus officially prodded, he is trying to give them the best +in the land. + +"The stock department of Shalam seems to be his undivided charge; while +Mrs. ---- manages the garden. She kindly showed us all over it; and it +is a beauty! With water flowing all through it, celery, salisfy, and +lettuce all ready to eat, and other vegetables growing finely. She gave +us a half bushel of excellent lettuce, which we all enjoyed. + +"The Shalam idea is to take these children from all parts of the +country, to bring them up in accordance with its own dietetic fad (which +in many respects corresponds with that of our own dream-led Alcott), +feeding them exclusively on a vegetable diet so that they won't develop +carnal and combative tendencies, and thus start from them a new and +improved race. Will they succeed? God knows; but they seem to have +started wrong; for the children are largely the offspring of outcasts, +and you can't expect grapes from thistle seed. However, Mr. ---- and +Mrs. ---- are both sincere, kind-hearted reformers, trying to do what +they think right in their own peculiar way. They are doing no harm by +their experiment--hurting no one; and if the children turn out badly, it +is no worse than they would if left alone; and if well, it is a distinct +triumph of brain over beastliness. It may be well to state that no +_materia medica_ is tolerated at Shalam. The health of the colony is +entrusted absolutely to the 'tender mercies' of mental healing. Mr. ---- +is himself the picture of health, and says he does not know what it is +to feel tired. ('They that be whole need no physician!') As for the Lady +of Shalam, there is a look in her face that led me to think she was +deadly tired of the whole business, but was too loyal either to her dead +or living husband to 'cry quits.' + +"These children know not the taste of physic. All their ailments are +treated in strict accordance with Mental Science. They eat no eggs, +fish, or other animal matter, save the county-prescribed milk, living +solely on grains, vegetables, and fruits; and it must be said that they +all look extremely healthy. Mr. ---- informs us that he rises daily at +three A.M., goes directly to his corral and milks, comes in a little +after four and prepares the children's breakfast. They are called at +four forty-five, and breakfast at five. At five thirty devotional +exercises begin, and last until six thirty, when the father of Shalam +goes out and starts the hands on the farm. At eight the children begin +lessons or some kind of mental training, which lasts till dinner time. + +"After dinner they run wild for the rest of the day. + +"We left Shalam at about five P.M. On the homeward drive we discussed +this odd colony, and compared notes on what we had observed. An +irreverent member of the party thus summed up the whole business in his +own slangy fashion,--'a man who all winter long prances round in +pajamas, making folks shiver to look at him, ought to be put in an +insane asylum.' So there you have his side of the question. + +"The original founder of Shalam, Dr. ----, not only aspired to be a +painter, but, as an author, flew the highest kind of a kite, giving to +the world no less than a new bible. + +"A glimpse at its high-sounding prospectus will scarce incite in the +sane and sober mind a desire to peruse a revelation whose absurdity and +fantastic assumption leaves the Mormon bible far behind, and before +whose 'hand and glove' acquaintance with the 'undiscovered country' +Swedenborg himself must needs hide his diminished head. + +"Thus it runs: '_Oahspe_; a new Bible in the words of Jehovih and his +Angel Embassadors. A synopsis of the Cosmogony of the Universe; the +creation of planets; the creation of man; the unseen worlds; the labor +and glory of gods and goddesses in the etherean heavens with the new +commandments of Jehovih to man of the present day. With revelations from +the second resurrection, found in words in the thirty-third year of the +Kosmon Era.' + +"Oahspe's claims are thus _moderate_: 'As in all other bibles it is +revealed that this world was created, so in _this_ bible it is revealed +_how_ the Creator _created_ it. As other bibles have proclaimed heavens +for the spirits of the dead, behold _this_ bible revealeth _where_ these +heavens _are_.' + +"Oahspe also kindly informs us 'how hells are made, and of what +material,' and how the sinner is in them mainly punished by the forced +inhalement of 'foul smells,'--so diabolically foul are these that one is +fain to hold the nose in the bare reading of them! + +"'There is,' declares Oahspe, 'no such law as Evolution. There is no law +of Selection.' A vegetarian diet is inculcated; and we are gravely +informed that 'the spirit man takes his place in the first heaven +according to his _diet_ while on earth!' + +"A plan for the founding of 'Jehovih's Kingdom on earth through little +children' is given. This 'sacred history' claims to cover in its +entirety no less a period of time than eighty-one thousand years. At +quarter-past six," concludes our informant, "we arrived, tired and +hungry, but glad to have gone, and glad to get back, leaving behind us +Shalam, with its spirit picture-gallery and its fantastic Oahspe, for +the more stable verities of commonplace existence." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +It was on Friday that the Koshare made their little excursion to the +Shalam settlement, and the next evening they gathered in full +force,--with the exception of the Hemmenshaws and the Harvard man, who +still remained at Hilton Ranch, losing thereby two of the most +interesting of the Antiquary's papers; but "time and tide" and Saturday +clubs "stay for no man," and now came the second Aztec paper. + +"The Aztec government," began Mr. Morehouse, "in a few minor points is +said to have borne some resemblance to the aristocratic system evolved +by the higher civilization of the Middle Ages. + +"Beyond a few accidental forms and ceremonies, the correspondence was, +however, of the slightest. The legislative power both in Mexico and +Tezcuco had this feature of despotism; it rested wholly with the +monarch. The constitution of the judicial tribunals in some degree +counteracted the evil tendency of this despotism. Supreme judges +appointed over each of the principal cities by the crown had original +and final jurisdiction over both civil and criminal cases. From the +sentence of such a judge there was no appeal to any other tribunal, not +even to that of the King. + +"It is worthy of notice as showing that some sense of justice is inborn; +as even among this comparatively rude people we read that under a +Tezcucan prince a judge was put to death for taking a bribe, and another +for determining suits in his own house (a capital offence also, by law.) +According to a national chronicler, the statement of the case, the +testimony, and proceedings of the trial were all set forth by a clerk, +in hieroglyphical paintings, and handed to the court. + +"In Montezuma's day the tardiness of legal processes must have gone +miles beyond the red tape of a nineteenth-century court of justice. + +"This vivid picture of the pomp and circumstance attendant upon the +confirmation of a capital sentence by the king is presented by one of +the Mexican native chroniclers: + +"'The King, attended by fourteen great lords of the realm, passed into +one of the halls of justice opening from the courtyard of the palace, +which was called "the tribunal of God," and was furnished with a throne +of pure gold, inlaid with turquoises and other precious stones. + +"'The walls were hung with tapestry, made of the hair of different wild +animals, of rich and various colors, festooned by gold rings, and +embroidered with figures of birds and flowers. Putting on his mitred +crown, incrusted with precious stones, and holding, by way of sceptre, a +golden arrow in his left hand, the King laid his right upon a human +skull, placed for the occasion on a stool before the throne, and +pronounced judgment. No counsel was employed and no jury. The case had +been stated by plaintiff and defendant, and, as with us, supported on +either side by witnesses. The oath of the accused was, with the Aztecs, +also admitted in evidence. + +"'The great crimes against society were all made capital. + +"'Among them murder (even of a slave) was punishable with death. +Adulterers, as among the Jews, were stoned to death. Thieving, according +to the degree of the offence, was punished with slavery or death. It was +a capital offence to remove the boundaries of an estate, and for a +guardian not to be able to give a good account of his ward's property. + +"'Prodigals, who squandered their patrimony, were punished. Intemperance +in the young was punished with death; in older persons, with loss of +rank, and confiscation of property. + +"'The marriage institution was held in reverence among the Aztecs, and +its rites celebrated with formality. Polygamy was permitted; but +divorces were not easily obtainable. Slavery was sanctioned among the +ancient Mexicans, but with this distinction unknown to any civilized +slave-holding community: no one could be _born_ to slavery. The +_children_ of the slave were _free_. Criminals, public debtors, persons +who from extreme poverty voluntarily resigned their freedom, and +children who were sold by their parents through poverty, constituted one +class of slaves. These were allowed to have their own families, to hold +property, and even other slaves. Prisoners taken in war were held as +slaves, and were almost invariably devoted to the dreadful doom of +sacrifice. A refractory or vicious slave might be led into the market +with a collar round his neck, as an indication of his badness, and +there publicly sold. If incorrigible, a second sale devoted him to +sacrifice. + +"'Thus severe, almost ferocious, was the Aztec code, framed by a +comparatively rude people, who relied rather on physical than moral +means for the correction of evil. In its profound respect for the +cardinal principles of morality, and a clear perception of human +justice, it may favorably compare with that of most civilized nations.' + +"'In Mexico,' says Prescott, 'as in Egypt, the soldier shared with the +priest the highest consideration. The King must be an experienced +warrior. The tutelary deity of the Aztecs was the God of war. The great +object of their military expeditions was to gather hecatombs of captives +for his altars.' The Aztec, like the (so-called) _Christian crusader_, +invoked the holy name of religion as a motive for the perpetration of +human butchery. He, too, after his own crude fashion, had his order of +knighthood as the reward of military prowess. Whoever had not reached it +was debarred from using ornaments on his arms or on his person, and was +obliged to wear a coarse white stuff, made from the threads of the aloe, +called _nequen_. Even the members of the royal family were not excepted +from this law. As in Christian knighthood, plain armor and a shield +without device were worn till the soldier had achieved some doughty feat +of chivalry. After twenty brilliant actions officers might shave their +heads, and had, moreover, won the fantastic privilege of painting half +of the face red and the other half yellow. The panoply of the higher +warriors is thus described. Their bodies were clothed with a close vest +of quilted cotton, so thick as to be impenetrable to the light missiles +of Indian warfare. This garment was found so light and serviceable that +it was adopted by the Spaniards. + +"The wealthier chiefs sometimes wore, instead of this cotton mail, a +cuirass made of thin plates of gold or silver. Over it was thrown a +surcoat of the gorgeous feather work in which they excelled. Their +helmets were sometimes of wood, fashioned like the heads of wild +animals, and sometimes of silver, on the top of which waved a panache of +variegated plumes, sprinkled with precious stones. They also wore +collars, bracelets, and earrings of the same rich materials. + +"'A beautiful sight it was,' says one of the Spanish conquerors, 'to see +them set out on their march, all moving forward so gayly, and in so +admirable order!' + +"Their military code had the cruel sternness of their other laws. +Disobedience of orders was punished with death. + +"It was death to plunder another's booty or prisoners. It is related of +a Tezcucan prince that, in the spirit of ancient Roman, he put two of +his sons to death--after having cured their wounds--for violating this +last-mentioned law. A beneficent institution, which might seem to belong +to a higher civilization, is said to have flourished in this semi-pagan +land. + +"Hospitals, we are told, were established in their principal cities for +the cure of the sick, and as permanent homes for the disabled soldier; +and surgeons were placed over them who 'were,' says a shrewd old +chronicler, 'so far better than those in Europe that they did not +_protract the cure in order to increase the pay_.' + +"The horse, mule, ox, ass, or any other beast of burden, was unknown to +the Aztecs. Communication with remotest parts of the country was +maintained by means of couriers, trained from childhood to travel with +incredible swiftness. + +"Post-houses were established on all the great roads, at about ten +leagues distance apart. The courier, bearing his despatches in the form +of hieroglyphical painting, ran with them to the first station, where +they were taken by another messenger, and so on, till they reached the +capital. Despatches were thus carried at the rate of from one to two +hundred miles a day. + +"A traveller tells us of an Indian who, singly, made a record of a +hundred miles in twenty-four hours. A still greater feat in walking is +recorded by Plutarch. _His_ Greek runner brought the news of a victory +of a hundred and twenty-five miles in a single day! + +"In the funeral rites of this ruder people one traces a slight +resemblance to those of the more cultivated Greek. They burned the body +after death, and the ashes of their dead, collected in vases, were +preserved in one of the apartments of the home. After death they dressed +the person's body in the peculiar habiliments of his tutelar deity. It +was then strewed with pieces of paper, which operated as a charm against +the dangers of the dark road he was to travel. If a chief died he was +still spoken of as living. One of his slaves, dressed in his master's +clothes, was placed before his corpse. The face of this ill-starred +wretch was covered with a mask, and during a whole day such homage as +had been due to the chief was paid to him. At midnight the body of the +master was burnt, or interred, and the slave who had personated him was +sacrificed. Thereafter, every anniversary of the chief's birthday was +celebrated with a feast, but his death was never mentioned. + +"The Spanish chroniclers have told us (and in reading these statements +due allowance must be made for their habit of 'stretching the truth') +that to the principal temple--or Teocallis--in the capital five thousand +priests were in some way attached. These, in their several departments, +not only arranged the religious festivals in conformity to the Aztec +calendar, and had charge of the hieroglyphical paintings and oral +traditions of the nation, but undertook the responsibility of +instructing its youth. While the cruel and bloody rites of sacrifice +were reserved for the chief dignitaries of the order, each priest was +allotted to the service of some particular diety, and had quarters +provided for him while in attendance upon the service of the temple. + +"Though in many respects subject to strict sacerdotal discipline, Aztec +priests were allowed to marry and have families of their own. Thrice +during the day, and once at night, they were called to prayers. They +were frequent in ablutions and vigils, and were required to mortify the +flesh by fasting and penance, in good Roman Catholic fashion, drawing +their own blood by flagellation, or by piercing with thorns of aloes. +They also, like Catholic priests, administered the rites of confession +and absolution; but with this time-saving improvement: confession was +made but _once_ in a man's life,--the long arrears of iniquity, past and +present, thus settled, after offences were held inexpiable. + +"Priestly absolution was received in place of legal punishment for +offences. It is recorded that, long after the Conquest, the simple +natives, when under arrest, sought escape by producing the certificate +of their confession. + +"The address of the Aztec confessor to his penitent, with his prayer on +this occasion, has come down to us. As an evidence of the odd medley of +Christianity and paganism that marked this queer civilization, it is +quaintly interesting. 'O merciful Lord,' prayed he, 'thou who knowest +the secrets of all hearts, let thy forgiveness and favor descend, like +the pure waters of heaven, to wash away the stains from the soul. Thou +knowest that this poor man has sinned, not from his own will, but from +the influences of the sign under which he was born.' + +"In his address to the penitent he urges the necessity of instantly +procuring a slave for sacrifice to the Deity. After this sanguinary +exhortation he enjoins upon his disciple this beautiful precept of +Christian benevolence: 'Clothe the naked, feed the hungry, whatever +privations it may cost thee, for, remember, their flesh is like thine, +and they are men like thee.' + +"Sacerdotal functions (excepting those of sacrifice) were allowed to +women. + +"At a very tender age these priestess girls were committed for +instruction to seminaries of learning, in which, it is recorded, a +strict moral discipline for both sexes was maintained, and that, in some +instances, offences were punished by death itself. + +"Thus were these crafty Mexican priests (the Jesuits of their age) +enabled to mould young and plastic minds, and to gain a firm hold upon +the moral nature of their pupils. The priests had (as we are told) their +own especial calendar, by which they kept their records, and regulated, +to their liking, their religious festivals and seasons of sacrifice, and +made all their astrological calculations; for, like many imperfectly +civilized peoples, the Aztecs had their astrology. This priestly +calendar is said to have roused the holy indignation of the Spanish +missionaries. + +"They condemned it as 'unhallowed, founded neither on natural reason, +nor on the influence of the planets, nor on the course of the year; but +plainly the work of necromancy, and the fruit of a contract with the +devil.' + +"We are told that not even in ancient Egypt were the dreams of the +astrologer more implicitly referred to than in Aztec Mexico. + +"On the birth of a child he (the astrologer) was instantly summoned, and +the horoscope--supposed to unroll the occult volume of destiny--was hung +upon by the parent in trembling suspense and implicit faith. No +Millerite in his ascension robe, awaiting the general break-up of +mundane affairs, ever looked forward with more confidence to the final +catastrophe than did the ancient Mexican to the predicted destruction of +the world at the termination of one of their four successive cycles of +fifty-two years. + +"Prescott gives us this romantic account of the festival marking that +traditional epoch: + +"'The cycle would end in the latter part of December; as the diminished +light gave melancholy presage of that time when the sun was to be +effaced from the heavens, and the darkness of chaos settle over the +habitable globe, these apprehensions increased, and on the arrival of +the five "unlucky days" that closed the year they abandoned themselves +to despair. They broke in pieces the little images of their household +gods, in whom they no longer trusted. + +"'The holy fires were suffered to go out in the temples, and none were +lighted in their own dwellings. Their furniture and domestic utensils +were destroyed, and their garments torn in pieces, and everything was +thrown into disorder. On the evening of the last day, a procession of +priests moved from the capital towards a lofty mountain, about two +leagues distant. They carried with them as a victim for the sacrificial +altar the flower of their captives, and an apparatus for kindling the +new fire, the success of which was an augury for the renewal of the +cycle. + +"'On the funeral pile of their slaughtered victim, the _new fire_ was +started by means of sticks placed on the victim's wounded breast. As the +light soared towards heaven on the midnight sky, a shout of joy and +triumph burst forth from the multitudes, who covered the hills, the +terraces of the temples, and the housetops with eyes anxiously bent upon +the mountain of sacrifice. Couriers with torches lighted at the blazing +beacon bore the cheering element far and near; and long before the sun +rose to pursue his accustomed track, giving assurance that a new cycle +had commenced its march, altar and hearthstone again brightened with +flame for leagues around. + +"'All was now festivity. Joy had replaced despair. Houses were cleansed +and refurnished. Dressed in their gayest apparel, and crowned with +chaplets and garlands of flowers, the people thronged in gay procession +to the temples to offer up their oblations and thanksgivings. It was the +great secular national festival, which few alive had witnessed before, +or could expect to see again.' + +"Although we find in the counsels of an Aztec father to his son the +following assertion, 'For the multiplication of the species God ordained +_one_ man _only_ for _one_ woman,' polygamy was nevertheless permitted +among this people, chiefly among the wealthiest classes. + +"Marriage was recognized as a religious ceremony, and its obligations +strictly enjoined. Their women, we are told, were treated with a +consideration uncommon among Indian tribes. It is recorded that their +tranquil days were diversified by the feminine occupations of spinning, +feather-work, and embroidery, and that they also beguiled the hours by +the rehearsal of traditionary tales and ballads, and partook with their +lords in social festivities. + +"Their entertainments seem to have been grand and costly affairs. +Numerous attendants, of both sexes, waited at the banquet; the halls +were scented with perfumes, flowers strewed the courts, and were +profusely distributed among the arriving guests. + +"As they took their seats at the board, cotton napkins and ewers of +water were placed before them; for, as in the heroic days of Greece, the +ceremony of ablution before and after eating was punctiliously observed +by the Aztecs. The table was well provided with meats, especially game, +among which our own Thanksgiving bird, the turkey, was conspicuous. +These more solid dishes were flanked by others of vegetables, and with +fruits of every variety found on the North American Continent. + +"The different viands were skilfully prepared, with delicate sauces and +pungent seasoning, of which the Mexicans were especially fond. They were +further regaled with confections and pastry; and the whole was crowned +by an 'afterclap' of tobacco mixed with aromatic substances, to be +enjoyed in pipes, or in the form of cigars, inserted in holders of +tortoise shell or silver. The meats were kept warm by chafing-dishes. +The table was ornamented with vases of silver (and sometimes of gold) of +delicate workmanship. + +"We are told by the chroniclers that agriculture was, before the +Conquest, in an advanced state. There were peculiar deities to preside +over it, and the names of the months and of the religious festivals had +more or less reference to it. The public taxes were often paid in +agricultural produce. As among the Pueblos, Aztec women took part in +only the lighter labors of the field,--as the scattering of the seed, +the husking of the ripened corn. + +"Maize, or Indian corn, the great staple of the North American +continent, grew freely along the valleys, and up the steep sides of the +Cordilleras, to the high table-land. Aztecs were, we are told, well +instructed in its uses, and their women as skilled in its preparation as +the most expert New England or Southern housewife. + +"In these equinoctial regions, its gigantic stalk afforded a saccharine +matter which supplied them with a sugar but little inferior to that of +the cane itself (which, after the Conquest, was introduced among them). +Passing by all their varieties of superbly gorgeous flowers, of +luxuriously growing plants, many of them of medicinal value, and since +introduced from Mexico to Europe, we come to that 'miracle of nature,' +the great Mexican aloe, or _maguey_, which was, in short, meat, drink, +clothing, and writing material for the Aztec, as from its leaves was +made their paper, somewhat resembling Egyptian _papyrus_, but more soft +and beautiful. + +"Specimens of this paper still exist, preserving their original +freshness, and holding yet unimpaired the brilliancy of color in +hieroglyphical painting. It is averred that the Aztecs were as well +acquainted with the uses of their mineral as of their vegetable kingdom, +deftly working their mines of silver, lead, and tin. It has, however, +been contended by Wilson, in his 'New Conquest of Mexico,' that, in +spite of Cortez's statement to the contrary, 'it is not to be supposed +that the Spaniards found the Aztecs in the possession of silver, since +its mining requires a combination of science and mechanical power +unknown and impossible to their crude civilization.' He considerately +allows them the capability of gathering gold from their rich soil. + +"Prescott, on the contrary, tells us that 'they opened veins for the +procurement of silver in the solid rock, and that the traces of their +labors in these galleries furnished the best indications for the early +Spanish miners.' + +"Who shall decide when doctors disagree? Not, indeed, a Koshare, whose +laudable purpose it is to eschew the wearisome 'gradgrinds' of history, +and accept the infinitely more charming conclusions of the romancer. + +"Gold, say the chroniclers, was easily gleaned from the beds of their +rivers, and cast into bars, or in the form of dust, made part of the +regular tribute of the southern provinces of Montezuma's empire. They +cast, also, delicately and curiously wrought vessels of gold. Though +their soil was impregnated with iron, its use was unknown to this +people. As a substitute for this metal, they used, for their tools, a +bronze made from an alloy of tin and copper, or of itzli,--a dark +transparent metal, found in abundance in their hills. With the former +they could cut the hardest substances, such as emeralds and amethysts. + +"It has been contended that an ignorance of the use of iron must +necessarily have kept the Mexican in a low state of civilization. On the +other hand, it is urged that iron, if even known, was but little in use +among the ancient Egyptians, whose mighty monuments were hewn with tools +of bronze, while their weapons and domestic utensils were of the same +material. For the ordinary purposes of domestic life, the ancient +Mexicans made earthenware, and fashioned cups, bowls, and vases of +lacquered wood, impervious to wet, and gorgeously colored. + +"Among their dyes, obtained from both mineral and vegetable substances, +was the rich crimson of the cochineal, the modern rival of the far-famed +Tyrian purple. Later, this coloring material was introduced into Europe, +from Mexico, where the curious cochineal insect was nourished with great +care on plantations of cactus. + +"The Aztecs were thus enabled to give a brilliant coloring to their webs +of cotton, which staple, in the warmer regions of their country, they +raised in abundance. With their cotton fabrics, manufactured of every +degree of fineness, they had the original art of interweaving the +delicate hair of rabbits and other animals, which made a cloth of great +warmth as well as beauty. + +"On this they often laid a rich embroidery of birds, flowers, or some +other fanciful device. It is supposed that the Aztec 'silk,' mentioned +by Cortez, was nothing more than this fine texture of cotton, hair, and +down. + +"But the art in which they especially excelled was their plumage or +feather-work. Some few existing specimens of this ancient art (one of +them a vestment said to have been worn by Montezuma himself) have, we +are told, 'all the charm of Florentine mosaic.' + +"The gorgeous plumage of tropical birds, especially of the parrot-tribe, +afforded every variety of color, and the fine and abundant down of the +humming-bird supplied them with a finish of soft aerial tints. The +feathers pasted on a fine cotton web were wrought into dresses for the +wealthy. Hangings for apartments and ornaments for the temples were thus +fashioned. Labor was held in honorable estimation among this people. An +aged Aztec chief thus addressed his son: 'Apply thyself to agriculture, +or to feather-work, or some other honorable calling. Thus did your +ancestors before you. Else, how could they have provided for themselves +and their families? Never was it heard that nobility alone was able to +maintain its possessor.' + +"The occupation of the merchant was held by them in high respect. These +were of prime consideration in the body politic, and enjoyed many of the +most essential advantages of an hereditary aristocracy. Mexico, as their +abundant use among the Aztecs testifies, is especially rich in precious +stones. It is the land of the emerald, the amethyst, the turquoise, and +the topaz; and that superbest of gems, the fire opal, is native to its +generous soil. + +"One of Cortez's wedding gifts to his second bride is thus described: +'This was five emeralds of wonderful size and brilliancy. These jewels +had been cut by the Aztecs into the shapes of flowers, and fishes, and +into other fanciful forms, with an exquisite style of workmanship which +enhanced their original value.' + +"It was gossiped at court that the Queen of Charles the Fifth had an eye +to these magnificent gems, and that the preference given by Cortez to +his fair bride had an unfavorable influence on the Conqueror's future +fortunes. Among the 'royal fifth' of the Mexican spoils sent by Cortez +to the Spanish Emperor, we are told of a still more wonderful emerald. +It was cut in a pyramidal shape, and of so extraordinary a size that the +base of it was affirmed to have been as broad as the palm of the hand. + +"This rich collection of gold and jewelry, wrought into many rare and +fanciful forms, was captured on its road to Spain by a French privateer, +and is said to have gone into the treasury of Francis the First. +Francis, we are told, looking enviously on the treasures drawn by his +rival monarch from his colonial domains, expressed a desire to 'see the +clause in Adam's testament, which entitled his brothers of Spain and +Portugal to divide the New World between them.' + +"The Aztec picture writing, rude though it was, seems to have served the +nation in its early and imperfect state of civilization. + +"By means of it, as an auxiliary to oral tradition, their mythology, +laws, calendars, and rituals were carried back to an early period of +their civilization. + +"Their manuscripts, the material for which has already been described, +were most frequently made into volumes, in which the paper was shut up +like a folding screen. With a tablet of wood at each extremity, they +thus, when closed, had the appearance of books. A few of these Mexican +manuscripts have been saved, and are carefully preserved in the public +libraries of European capitals. The most important of these painted +records, for the light it throws on the Aztec institutions, is preserved +in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. The greater part of these writings, +having no native interpretation annexed to them, cannot now be +unriddled. + +"A savant who, in the middle of the seventeenth century travelled +extensively through their country, asserts that, 'so completely had +every vestige of their ancient language been swept away from the land, +not an individual could be found who could afford him the least clue to +the Aztec hieroglyphics.' + +"Some few Aztec compositions, which may possibly owe their survival to +oral tradition, still survive. These are poetical remains, in the form +of odes, or relics of their more elaborate prose, and consist largely of +prayers and public discourses, that show that, in common with other +native orators, the Aztecs paid much attention to rhetorical effect. The +Aztec hieroglyphics included both the representative and symbolical +forms of picture-writing. + +"They had various emblems for expressing such things as, by their +nature, could not be directly represented by the painter; as, for +example, the years, months, days, the seasons, the elements, the +heavens, and so on. + +"A serpent typified time, a tongue denoted speaking, a footprint +travelling, a man sitting on the ground an earthquake. + +"The names of persons were often significant of their adventures and +achievement. + +"Summing up this account of Aztec civilization, we find that, although +of the countries from which Toltec and Aztec in turn issued tradition +has lost the record, it is nevertheless affirmed, by so reliable an +historian as Humboldt, that the former introduced into Mexico the +cultivation of maize and cotton; that they built cities, made roads, and +constructed pyramids. 'They knew,' says this authoritative historian, +'the uses of hieroglyphical paintings; they could work metals, and cut +the hardest stones; and they had a solar system more perfect than that +of the Greeks and Romans.' + +"After their mysterious disappearance from the table-lands of Mexico, +the Aztecs, who succeeded them, gradually amalgamated all that was best +in their civilization, and, engrafting upon it their own, became as a +nation what they were in the time of the second Montezuma, when Cortez +and his conquering army treacherously swept their civilization from the +face of the earth. + +"A thoughtful traveller still finds in Mexico traces of this people, its +early possessors. + +"The Mexicans, in their whole aspect," he observes, "give a traveller +the idea of persons of decayed fortune, who have once been more +prosperous and formidable than now, or who had been the offshoot of a +more refined and forcible people." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +It was but the day after the delivery of this most interesting paper by +Mr. Morehouse, that the laggards from Hilton Ranch, who had missed it, +and the preceding one, returned to their places at the dinner-table; and +on that very afternoon Miss Paulina, with all due formality, announced +the engagement of her niece to Mr. Roger Smith. Recovered from the first +shock of surprise, the Koshare celebrated the betrothal by a pink +afternoon tea, and made such slight engagement offerings as were found +available, remote from silversmith, florist, and bric-à-brac dealer. + +The ladies gave bureau scarfs, table doilies, and centre-pieces _ad +infinitum_; the Antiquary bestowed a bit of Mexican pottery dating back +to the "cliff-dwellers." Leon framed the photographs of the handsome +pair in Mexican canes, as an engagement gift; and the most despondent +"lunger" of them all had a kindly wish for their young and happy +fellow-boarders, setting out on that beautiful life-journey to whose +untimely end he, himself, was sadly tending. + +Among the more observing of the Koshare, much wonder was expressed at +the slow mending of Roger Smith's sprained ankle. It was at the +engagement tea that Miss Paulina innocently said, in response to these +strictures, "Yes, it _did_ take a long time to cure dear Roger's sprain. +Years ago," continued the good lady, "I had the same accident; and, if I +remember rightly, in less than a fortnight after the sprain I was +walking without any crutches. One would think now," she went on, "that +in this lovely dry climate a sprain would mend rapidly; but, though I +did my very best, the result was far less prompt than I had hoped." + +"Sprains differ," interposed the audacious subject of these remarks, +unawed by the disapproving glances of his betrothed; "the surgeons tell +us that fractures are both simple and compound. Mine, dear Miss +Hemmenshaw, was undoubtedly compound." + +This he said by way of accounting to his friends for his tardy +convalescence. To himself he thought, looking at this kind, unsuspicious +new auntie, "Dear, delicious old goose!" + +This is what the niece said when, later, she got this incorrigible lover +to herself: "Roger, I am quite convinced that your conscience is seared +with a hot iron, whatever that process, supposed to indicate utter moral +callousness, may be." + +"My dear girl," laughed the unabashed culprit, "I am, as you know and +deplore, a good Catholic, and consequently hold with the astute Jesuit +Fathers that the end justifies the means." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +It was in the sunny, lengthened days of early March that the Antiquary, +the Journalist, the star boarder, and the Grumbler undertook their +long-projected trip to the Sacramento Mountains, there to visit the +Government Reservation, nestled in the sheltered Mescalero Valley, which +gives its name. + +Well equipped with camping conveniences, the four Koshares set forth on +their journey of one hundred and twenty-five miles. + +It was their intention to "make haste slowly," and nothing could better +have suited the leisurely pair of Mexican horses, and the equally +easy-going Mexican driver, who, with his team, had been hired for the +expedition. The first night of their journey was passed beneath the open +sky, with the rounded moon riding clear and fair above them, and the +desert of sand and sage-brush all about them. On the second, they lodged +at the solitary dwelling of a ranchman, whose nearest neighbor was +thirty-five miles distant. + +At the journey's end, they were cordially received by Lieutenant +Stottler, Government Agent at the Mescalero Reservation, and throughout +their visit were treated by him with a kindly hospitality and a genial +courtesy beyond praise. + +Of the Apache, now transformed by the iron hand of civilization from a +blood-thirsty savage to a passably decent and partially self-supporting +member of the republic, it has been aptly said that Nature has given him +"the ear of the cat, the cunning of the fox, and the ferocious courage +and brutishness of the gray wolf." + +The whole vast realm of his native ranges, desert though they seem, are +known to teem with ever-present supplies for his savage menu. + +There are found fat prairie mice, plump angle-worms, gray meat of +rattlesnake and lizard, and of leathery bronco,--all easy-coming "grist +for that 'unpernickety' mill," his hungry stomach. + +Is he minded for a vegetable diet, for him the mescal lavishly grows; +and the bean of mesquite, reduced to meal, makes him palatable cakes. +Fruit of Spanish bayonet dried in the sun, and said thus to resemble +dates, is at hand for his dessert; and of mountain acorns alone he may +make an excellent and nutritious meal. + +From the primeval years this belligerent savage is said to have +especially harried that dismal waste in New Mexico known as _Jornado del +Muerta_, "Journey of Death." + +This awful desert is declared to be literally "the battle-ground of the +elements." In the winter it is made fearful by raging storms of wind and +snow, in which frozen men and animals leave their bodies, as carrion +prey, to the hungry mountain wolf. In later times it is "the skulking +place of unscrupulous outlaws, and many a murdered traveller makes good +the name it bears." + +It is thus finely depicted by a modern traveller: "Near the southern +boundary of New Mexico stretches a shadeless, waterless plateau, nearly +one hundred miles long, and from five to thirty miles wide, resembling +the steppes of northern Asia. Geologists tell us this is the oldest +country on the earth, except, perhaps, the backbone of Central Africa; +at least, the one which has longest been exposed to the influence of +agents now in action. The grass is low and mossy, with a wasted look; +the shrubs are soap-weed and bony cactus; the very stones are like the +scoria of a furnace. It is sought by no flight of bird; no bee or fly +buzzes on the empty air; and, save the lizard and horned frog, there is +no breath of living thing. One might fancy that this dreary waste had +served its time, had been worn out, unpeopled, and forgotten." + +In the (not long past) day of his power and might, to steal and murder, +under the show of friendship; to beat out the brains of unsuspecting +men; to carry off to captivity, worse than death, the women and larger +children, was, with the Apache, merely a question of opportunity. + +In the Apache war--ending in October, 1880, and lasting but a year and a +half,--it is estimated that more than four hundred white persons were +scalped and tortured to death with devilish ingenuity. + +The details of Indian fighting are everywhere much the same; but in +strategy and cruelty that of the Apache surpasses all the sons of men. +Victorio, the chief who led the war with his band, was surrounded at +last, and captured, and killed in the mountains of Mexico. + +With the death of Victorio (whose only son, Washington, was shot in the +fall of 1879, leaving no one to succeed him) the cause was lost. + +His wife, we are told, after Victorio's death, cut off her hair, in the +old Greek fashion, and buried it,--an offering to the spirit of this +fallen chief, to whom (devil though he was) she was devoted. + +It is told of Rafael, one of Victorio's band, that when maddened by +_tiswin_ (an intoxicant made by the Indian from corn), he fatally +stabbed his wife, and, after her death, overcome with penitence, +sacrificed all his beads and most of his clothes to the "dear departed," +cut his and his children's hair short, and sheared the manes and tails +of his horses. These manifestations of anguish over, he went up into a +high hill, and howled with uplifted hands. + +Women are regarded by the Apaches as an incumbrance. They are of so +little account that they are not even given a name. Mothers _mourn_ at +their birth. + +The Indians occupying a reservation of seven hundred square miles in +southern New Mexico, and numbering, at the present writing, about four +hundred and fifty souls, are typical Apaches, and closely related by +blood to the other Apaches of Arizona and New Mexico. They exhibit the +usual race characteristics,--of ignorance, stubbornness, superstition, +cruelty, laziness, and treachery. + +In December, 1894, Lieutenant Stottler first assumed the charge of these +Indians. In spite of the fact that for many years a generous government +had supplied them annually with rations, clothing, working implements, +etc., they were then living in _tepees_, or brush shelters, on the side +hills; clad in breech-clout and blanket, wearing paint, and long hair, +and thanklessly receiving their rations of beef, flour, coffee, sugar, +salt, soap, and baking-powder. A few of them condescended to raise corn +and oats; but acres of tillable land on the reservation were still +unused. + +"They were," says Lieutenant Stottler, in an able and interesting +report, "not only contented with this order of things, but desirous and +determined to prolong it indefinitely." + +Fifty per cent of their children were in school, but the parents were +wholly opposed to their education. Among them were twenty strong, +broad-shouldered Indian adults, educated at the expense of thousands of +dollars, yet still running about the reservation in breech-clout and +blanket, wilder than any uneducated Indian on it. + +The girls were held from school, and at ten and twelve years of age were +traded for ponies, into a bondage worse than any known slavery. + +Fourteen Indian policemen are allowed the agent. Their especial duty is +to see that the herd of beef cattle for their own eating is properly +cared for. The police, each had a cabin to live in; but each, in scorn +of this civilized innovation, had carefully planted alongside of his +cabin a _tepee_ to sleep in. To get these policemen into civilized +clothing, under threat of duress, and to order all _tepees_ away from +their cabins, was the agent's first move. Next, it was decided that all +children five years old and upwards _must_ be placed in school at the +beginning of the school year, whether the parents were willing or not. +Every Indian man was ordered to select a piece of land, and put in his +posts. To break up the influence of chiefs or bands, who, claiming the +whole country, deterred the people from work, by threats, appears to +have been up-hill work; "but now," says the agent (in 1897), "there are +no chiefs, and 'work or starve' is the policy." Formerly, government +supplies of clothing, wagons, harness, and utensils, as soon as issued, +had been packed on burros and sold for a mere song to settlers about the +reservation. This abuse was promptly stopped, as also was the making of +_tiswin_. + +This native drink, made from Indian corn, is said to be more maddening +in its effect than any other known intoxicant; Indians brutalized by +_tiswin_ fought, as do our own drunkards, and often wounded or killed +each other. For corn to make this detestable beverage, an Indian would +trade away the last article in his possession. + +It was proclaimed by the agent that the maker of this poison would be +imprisoned for six months, at hard labor, in the guard-house. This +stopped its manufacture, and there are no longer drunken Indians at the +reservation. Occasionally they still get liquor at Las Cruces, when sent +there for freight. + +All supplies are hauled from the railroad over-land. The distance is one +hundred and ten miles; about one hundred thousand pounds are annually +brought in this way to the reservation, and without harm or loss. Much +of the Indian's savagery lies (like Samson's strength) in his hair; to +his long, matted tresses he clings tenaciously. As a beginning, +Lieutenant Stottler induced one old fellow--a policeman--with the +reward of a five-dollar gold piece to cut his precious locks. Thus +metamorphosed, he became "the cynosure of all eyes." His squaw made life +a burden to him; and thus badgered, he, in turn, pestered the agent to +get the entire police force to cut theirs. + +It was long before the general consent to part with these cherished +tresses could be won; and it became necessary to put some of the Indians +in the guard-house to accomplish this reform. Finally, orders were asked +from Washington, and received, compelling submission to the shearing. + +When the Indians saw the Washington order, they all gave in, with the +exception of a last man, who had to be "thumped into it." Their hair +well cut, a raid was made on breech-clout and blanket. Now they all +appear in civilized clothing. This seems to have been the turning-point +in their wildness. + +"Now," says the agent, "they come and ask for scissors and comb to cut +their hair, and volunteer the information that they were 'fools to +oppose it.'" + +About half a dozen of these Indians were found by Lieutenant Stottler +with two wives; since none others were permitted, this matrimonial +indulgence, polygamy, is, consequently, dying a natural death at +Mescalero. It is found hard to control the ancient practice of dropping +a wife and taking up another without the troublesome formality of a +divorce, which has practically the same result as polygamy. In spite of +the slip-shodness of the marriage-tie among the Indians, "they are," +says the Lieutenant, "about as badly henpecked as it is possible to +imagine. Not by the wife, however; but by that ever dreaded being, her +mother." He gives in his paper a most amusing account of the relation +between the son-in-law and this much-maligned treasure of our higher +civilization. "Just why it is," he says, "no Indian has ever been able +to explain to me, but an Indian cannot look at his mother-in-law. + +"If she enters his _tepee_, he leaves; if he enters and she is within, +he flees at once. He cannot stay in her august presence. If his wife and +he quarrel, his mother-in-law puts in an appearance, and manages his +affairs during his enforced absence so long as she pleases. Perhaps she +takes his wife to her own _tepee_, where he dare not follow. In this +dilemma, he either comes to terms, or the situation constitutes a +divorce. + +"Does the agent wish a child brought to school, or a head of a family to +take land, and try to farm it, the mother-in-law, if hostile (and she +usually is), appears on the scene. Then the head of the family hunts the +woods for refuge. + +"The sight of several stalwart bucks hiding behind doors, barrels, and +trees, because a dried-up, wizened squaw heaves in sight, is a spectacle +that would be ludicrous, were it not for its far-reaching results. As an +Indian may take, in succession, many wives, who still stand to his +credit, the agent has, practically, many mothers-in-law to contend with. +Consequently, these family magnets have been officially informed that +the guard-house awaits any of them who may be found maliciously +interfering with the families of their children. + +"Hard labor added to this sentence, it is hoped, may at length have the +effect of breaking up this absurd superstition." + +By this account it may be seen that "one of the most far-fetched notions +that ever entered into the minds of men" is found domesticated among the +Mexican aborigines. It is asserted, as a chronological fact, that the +Mexican Pueblos "invented the mother-in-law joke gray ages before it +dawned upon our modern civilization." + +The lamented Cushing, in his account of the "restful, patriarchal, +long-lonely world" of his research, tells us that he found the +mother-in-law a too pronounced factor in the Zuni family circle; and, as +we know, in our own higher civilization the mother-in-law, held in +good-natured reprobation, serves to point many a harmless jest. + +White enthusiasts--with whom the "wrongs of the Indian" are a standing +grievance--but imperfectly realize the difficulty of taming these +savages, getting them well off the warpath, and making them cleanly and +self-supporting. It may, therefore, be well to present the side shown us +by the agent in his able paper of statistical facts. + +"The Apache tribe," he tells us, "has one hundred and sixteen children +at school,--nineteen at Fort Lewis, Colorado, and ninety-seven at the +reservation boarding-school. Each child has one-half day in class and +one-half day of industrial work. The girls take their turns in the +laundry, sewing-room, and kitchen, and at dormitory work. The boys do +the heavy work in the kitchen and laundry, chop the wood, and till the +farm under the charge of the industrial teacher. All the vegetables for +their use are raised on the farm, and the surplus sold. + +"The aim of the school is to teach the rising generation of Apaches how +to make a living with the resources of the reservation, and, in time, to +become self-supporting. + +"To this end useful rather than fancy trades are taught. Boys are +detailed with the blacksmith and carpenter, to learn the use of common +tools. To do away with the inborn contempt of the aboriginal male for +the women of his tribe, boys and girls at the reservation are not only +trained to study, recite, and sit at meals with girls, but a weekly +'sociable' is held for the scholars. + +"On such nights they have games and civilized dances. Every boy is +required formally to approach and request, 'Will you dance this dance +with me?' and to offer his partner his arm when the reel, quadrille, +etc., is finished, and escorting her to her seat, leave her with a +polite 'thank you.'" + +In the agent's report for the years 1896-97, "this year," he says, "the +Indian boys raised twenty-five thousand pounds beets, twenty thousand +pounds cabbage, one thousand pounds cauliflower, five hundred pounds +turnips, one thousand four hundred pounds celery, five hundred pounds +radishes, one thousand four hundred pounds of onions, nineteen thousand +pounds of pumpkins and squash, four hundred pounds of peas, nine hundred +and sixty pounds of corn, six thousand five hundred pounds of potatoes, +besides cucumbers, pie-plant, and asparagus. + +"The school has a pen of swine, a flock of chickens, and a fine herd of +milch cows; and all the hay and fodder for them and the horses are +raised on the farm. Oats and corn are purchased from the Indians, who, +in 1895, raised one hundred and fifty thousand pounds. + +"The adult Indians," he adds, "cut this year one hundred and sixty cords +of wood for the school, for which I paid them two dollars and fifty +cents per cord. In the winter of 1896 the industry of blanket-making was +introduced into the reservation. Navajo blanket-makers were employed to +teach to the Mescalero women their incomparable method of carding, +spinning, and dyeing wool, and weaving blankets. Twenty of the +Mescaleros," boasts the agent, "can to-day make as good blankets as the +Navajos themselves. + +"The reservation is mountainous, and one of the finest sheep ranges in +the country. Government has allowed five thousand sheep for general +distribution at the reservation, and in addition, five hundred head for +the school; where a room is now set aside for the looms of the older +girls, who will, in their turn, become instructors in this useful art. +This puts into their hands another opportunity to become +self-supporting." + +The visitors from Mesilla Valley were kindly admitted behind the scenes +at the reservation, to make acquaintance with its people, both old and +young; and were highly interested and entertained by the picturesqueness +of the Indian character. + +The Grumbler had brought his camera along. He was a skilled amateur +photographer, and had offered his services in that capacity to the +little party. + +To bring his household under the focus of that apparatus was no easy +task for the courteous agent. An Indian is nothing if not a believer in +witches. In his aboriginal mode of life witch-hunting and +witch-punishing are among his gravest occupations. He pursues them with +a vigorous hand, and with a superstitious zeal equal to that of the most +persistent white man in the palmiest days of Salem witch-hunting and +witch-burning. The Mescaleros, to a soul, are believers in witchcraft. +The camera, as might be seen from its effect, was plainly bewitched. +They would have none of it. + +The school children, having no choice, must needs range themselves in +scared, sullen rows, and be "took" under compulsion. + +Suspiciously eying the operator, they sullenly took their prescribed +pose, and heedless of the immemorial request, "Now look pleasant," went +sourly through the terrible ordeal. + +Some of the older girls, pleased with the novelty, submitted more +cheerfully; but the younger pupils, looking askance at the white men, +covered their faces, so far as was possible, with hair, or hands, and +were thus providentially carried safely through this process of +bewitchment. + +Some of the schoolboys had fine, intelligent faces; of others, the +Grumbler subsequently observed that "they were the kind that grow up and +scalp white settlers." + +A curious young squaw, from the opened slit of her _tepee_, watched the +approach of the party with their bedevilled machine. Her position was +excellent; but no sooner had the operator arranged his camera for a snap +shot at this picturesque subject, than, with a scared yell, the woman +bounded out of range, closing behind her the aperture--her front door. + +The result was merely an uninteresting view of an Indian _tepee_, which +is like nothing more than a mammoth ant-hill, minus the symmetry and +nice perpendicular of that more intelligently fashioned structure. + +Two incorrigible squaws in "durance vile" for making _tiswin_, as they +sullenly served their sentence of hard labor at the reservation +woodpile, looked defiantly up from their task of chopping fuel, and +scowled viciously at the witch machine and its abettors. + +They, however, succeeded in getting a fairly good picture of these +hideous-faced beings, as "withered and wild" as the uncanny sisters who +brewed "hell broth" before the appalled Macbeth, beneath the midnight +moon, on Hampton Heath. + +A mild-eyed Indian woman, whose peaceful occupation was to scrub the +reservation floors, kindly submitted to the bother of being put into a +picture, along with the insignia of her office,--a scrubbing-pail. + +Not so "Hot Stuff," a highly picturesque squaw, claiming the proud +distinction due to the "oldest inhabitant." This "contrairy" female, +impervious to moral suasion, was finally induced to pose before the +terrible "witch-thing" by the threat of having her rations withheld +until her consent to be "taken" was obtained. Scared and reluctant, she +was at last photographed; but required Lieutenant Stottler to protect +her with his arm through the perils of this unfamiliar ordeal. This he +good-naturedly did, and is immortalized along with this aged squaw. + +After an interesting visit of two nights and a day at the reservation, +the Koshare turned their faces towards Mesilla Valley, where, after two +uneventful days, they arrived in safety, full of the novelties +encountered, charmed with the courteous and gentlemanly agent, but +wearied with the long ride, and heartily glad to return to white +civilization. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +It was at the close of the week succeeding that of the little journey +across the mountains that the Koshare held their last Saturday evening +session. To punctuate the finality of this gathering, a variation from +the usual programme was proposed by the Antiquary. Members of the Club +were requested to supplement his brief paper by giving such written or +verbal statements, along the same line as their own research might +enable them to make. To this proposal many of the Koshare had agreed, +and had come well primed for lively discussion. + +The attendance was unusually full, nearly all the boarders, in addition +to the regular Club members, being in attendance. + +The Antiquary led with the following interesting paper, which, as he +explained, was, in a way, supplementary to those on the Aztecs. + +"As the Tezcucans were of the family of the Aztecs," began Mr. +Morehouse, "and are said far to have surpassed them in intellectual +culture and the arts of social refinement, some slight notice of their +civilization may not prove irrelevant. + +"Ixtilxochitl is the uneuphonious name of the native chronicler, +purporting to be a lineal descendant of the royal line of Tezcuco, who +has given us his highly colored narrative of the Tezcucan civilization. +It may be prefaced with the information that Ixtilxochitl (who +flourished so late as the century of the Conquest) has had his +reputation so torn to tatters by the critics of later years that he has, +figuratively, 'not a leg to stand on.' + +"But as Prescott commends his 'fairness and integrity,' and says 'he has +been followed, without misgiving, by such Spanish chroniclers as could +have access to his manuscripts,' without attempting to settle the vexed +question of the probability of its details (which are a combination of +'Munchausen' and 'Arabian Nights'), we also will follow his marvellous +story of the Tezcucan Prince Nezahualcoyotl. Passing lightly over the +fascinating chapter of that prince's romantic adventures,--his +marvellous daring, his perilous escapes from the fierce pursuit of the +usurper Maxtla, and the dethronement and violent end of that +bloody-minded monarch,--we come to the time when Nezahualcoyotl, +restored to the throne of his fathers, is firmly established in the love +and fealty of his people, and may turn his attention to the production +of the odes and addresses handed down in Castilian by his admiring +descendant Ixtilxochitl. This admirable monarch was, we are informed, +'the Solon of Anahauc.' His literary productions turn, for the most +part, on the vanity and mutability of human life, and strikingly embody +that Epicurean poetic sentiment, expressed, at a later time, by our own +English poet, Herrick, in such verses as 'Gather ye rose-buds while ye +may.' + +"'Banish care,' sings the royal Tezcucan bard; 'if there be bounds to +pleasure, the saddest life must also have an end. Then wear the chaplet +of flowers, and sing thy songs in praise of the all-powerful God; for +the glory of the world soon fadeth away. + +"'Rejoice in the green freshness of thy spring; for the day will come +when thou wilt sigh for these joys in vain. Yet the remembrance of the +just' (piously adds the poet) 'shall not pass away from the nations; and +the good thou hast done shall ever be held in honor.' And +anon,--returning to his _Epicurean_ 'muttons,'--he sings: 'Then gather +the fairest flowers in the gardens to bind round thy brow, and seize the +joys of the present ere they perish.' + +"An English translation of one of Nezahualcoyotl's odes has been made +from the Castilian. It harps upon the same old string, as also do his +prose essays, which have less literary merit than his verse. We are told +by his panegyrist that not all the time of this incomparable monarch was +passed in dalliance with the muse, but that he won renown as a warrior, +and in the interests of peace also fostered the productive arts that +made his realm prosperous, as agriculture, and the like practical +pursuits. Between times he appears to have looked well after the +well-being of his children, who, in numbers, rivalled the progeny of our +modern patriarch, Brigham Young. It is recorded that by his various +wives this monarch had no less than sixty sons and fifty daughters. (One +condones his disgust with life!) The Tezcucan crown, however, descended +to the children of his one legal wife, whom he married late in life. The +story of his wooing and winning this fair lady is almost an exact +counterpart of the Bible account of King David's treacherous winning of +Uriah's beautiful consort. + +"It is related of Nezahualcoyotl, that having been married for some +years to this unrighteously obtained wife, and not having been blest +with issue by his beautiful queen, the priests persuaded him to +propitiate the gods of his country--whom he had pointedly neglected--by +human sacrifice. He reluctantly consented; but all in vain was this +mistaken concession. Then it was that he indignantly repudiated these +inefficient Pagan deities. + +"'These idols of wood and stone,' said he, 'can neither hear nor feel; +much less could they make the heavens, and the earth, and man, the lord +of it. These must be the work of the all-powerful unknown God, creator +of the universe, on whom alone I must rely for consolation and support.' +He thereupon withdrew to his rural palace, where he remained forty days, +fasting and praying at stated hours, and offering up no other sacrifice +than the sweet incense of copal, and aromatic herbs and gums. + +"In answer to his prayer, a son was given him,--the only one ever borne +by his queen. After this, he made earnest effort to wean his subjects +from their degrading religious superstition, building a temple, which he +thus dedicated: 'To the Unknown God, the _Cause_ of _Causes_.' No image +was allowed in this edifice (as unsuited to the 'invisible God'), and +the people were expressly prohibited from profaning its altars with +blood, or any other sacrifice than that of flowers and sweet-scented +gums. In his old age the king voiced his religious speculations in hymns +of pensive tenderness. + +"In one of these, he thus piously philosophizes: 'Rivers, torrents, and +streams move onward to their destination. Not one flows back to its +pleasant source. They must onward, hastening to bury themselves in the +bosom of the ocean. The things of yesterday are no more to-day, and the +things of to-day shall cease to-morrow. The great, the wise, the +valiant, the beautiful,--alas, where are they?'" + +"The compositions of Nezahualcoyotl," observed the Grumbler, as the +Antiquary folded away his finished paper, "though strictly founded on +fact, are not exhilarating. His family was too large; and the wonder is, +not that his odes and hymns are depressing, but that he should have the +heart to 'drop into poetry' at all!" + +"We are told," rejoined the Journalist, "by his descendant with the +unpronounceable name, that once in every four months his entire family, +not even excepting the youngest child, was called together, and orated +by the priesthood on the obligations of morality, of which, by their +exalted rank, they were expected to be shining examples. To these +admonitions was added the compulsory chanting of their father's hymns." + +"Poor beggars!" pitied the Grumbler; "how they must have squirmed under +this ever-recurring royal 'wet blanket!'" + +"You forget," said Leon Starr, coming to the rescue of the poet-father, +"that in view of their inevitable mortality the bard had already advised +them to 'banish care, to rejoice in the green freshness of their spring; +to bind their brows with the fairest flowers of the garden, seize the +joys of the present, and'--in short, had given them leave to have no end +of larks, which, of course, they naturally and obediently did." + +"It is a noteworthy fact," observed Mr. Morehouse, "that many +aborigines--though but scantily supplied with clothing, as the natives +of Samoa and the Sandwich Islanders--take great delight in adorning the +body with flowers. To this liking the Tezcucan king especially appeals +in his odes and hymns. The Mexicans have from time immemorial doted on +flowers. This taste three hundred years or more of oppression has not +extinguished." + +"Do you remember, dear," asked Mr. Bixbee, turning to his wife, "the +flower market in the Plaza at Mexico?" (The pair had, a year or two +earlier, explored that city)--"that iron pavilion partly covered in with +glass, and tended by nut-brown women and smiling Indian girls?" + +"Shall I ever forget it?" was her enthusiastic response. "The whole +neighborhood was fragrant with perfume of vases of heliotrope, pinks, +and mignonette; and such poppies, and pansies, and forget-me-nots I +never elsewhere beheld!" + +"One can believe in absolute floral perfection," said the Journalist, +"in a country which embraces all climates. 'So accurately,' observes +Wilson, 'has nature adjusted in Mexico the stratas of vegetation to the +state of the atmosphere, that the skilful hand of a gardener might have +laid out the different fields, which, with their charming vegetation, +rise, one above another, upon the fertile mountain sides of the +table-land.' + +"Along with many other important vegetable growths, the cotton-plant is +supposed to be indigenous to Mexico, as Cortez, on his first landing, +found the natives clothed in cotton fabrics of their own manufacture. +Its culture continues to the present day, but with very little +improvement in method since the earlier time of the Spanish Conquest." + +"And now," asked the Harvard man, "since we are on the subject of +Mexican natural floral products, may I speak my little piece, which I +may call, 'What I have learned about the Cactus'?" + +The Koshare graciously assenting, Roger Smith thus began: + +"In Mexico the cactus is an aboriginal and indigenous production. +Several hundred varieties are identified by botanists. A beautiful sort +is Cereus grandiflora. As with us, this variety blooms only at night; +its frail, sweet flower dying at the coming of day. The cactus seems to +grow best in the poorest soil. No matter how dry the season, it is +always juicy. Protected by its thick epidermis, it retains within its +circulation that store of moisture absorbed during the wet season, and +when neighboring vegetation dies of drought is still unharmed. Several +varieties of cactus have within their flowers an edible substance, which +is, in Monterey, brought daily to market by the natives. That species +of cactus which combines within itself more numerous uses than any known +vegetable product is known as the maguey, or century plant. + +"Upon the Mexican mountains it grows wild as a weed; but as a domestic +plant it is cultivated in little patches, or planted in fields of +leagues in extent. Its huge leaf pounded into a pulp makes a substitute +both for cloth and paper. The fibre of the leaf, when beaten and spun, +forms a silk-like thread, which, woven into a fabric, resembles linen +rather than silk. This thread is now, and ever has been, the sewing +thread of the country. From the leaf of the maguey is crudely +manufactured sailcloth and sacking; and from it is made the bagging now +in common use. + +"The ropes made from it are of that kind called manila. It is the best +material in use for wrapping-paper. When cut into coarse straws, it +forms the brooms and whitewash brushes of the country, and as a +substitute for bristles it is made into scrub-brushes, and, finally, it +supplies the place of hair-combs among the common people. So much for +the cactus leaf; but from its sap arises the prime value of the plant. + +"From this is made the favorite intoxicating drink of the common people +of Mexico. This juice in its unfermented state is called honey water. +When fermented it is known as pulque. The flowering maguey, the 'Agava +American,' is the century plant of the United States. + +"In its native habitat the plant flowers in its fifteenth year, or +thereabout; and we are assured that nowhere, as is fabled, does its +bloom require a long century for its production. The juice of the maguey +is gathered by cutting out the heart of the flower of the central stem, +for whose sustenance this juice is destined. A single plant, thus +gingerly treated, yields daily, for a period of two or three months, +according to the thriftiness of the plant, from four to seven quarts of +the honey water, which, before fermentation, is said to resemble in +taste new sweet cider. + +"Large private profit accrues to the owner of maguey estates, and the +government excise derived from the sale of the liquor is large. Pulque +is the lager of the peon. It was the product of the country long before +the time of the Montezumas; and Ballou tells us that 'so late as 1890 +over eighty thousand gallons of pulque were daily consumed in the city +of Mexico.' + +"It is said to be the peculiar effect of pulque to create, in its +immoderate drinkers, an aversion to other stimulants; the person thus +using it preferring it to any and all other drinks, irrespective of +cost." + +The Minister followed Roger Smith with an account of a famous tree of +Mexico. + +"It was at Papotla," said this much-travelled invalid, "a village some +three miles from that capital, that we saw this remarkable tree, which +is called 'The Tree of the Noche Triste' (the Dismal Night), because +Cortez in his disastrous midnight retreat from the Aztec capital is said +to have sat down and wept under it. Be that as it may, the Noche Triste +is undoubtedly a tree of great age. It is of the cedar family, broken +and decayed in many parts, but still enough alive to bear foliage. + +"In its dilapidated condition it measures ten feet in diameter, and +exceeds forty feet in height. Long gray moss droops mournfully from its +decaying branches, and, taken altogether, it is indeed a dismal tree. + +"It is much visited, and held sacred and historic by the people, who +guard and cherish it with great care." + +"It calls up singular reflections," commented the Journalist, "to look +upon a living thing that has existed a thousand years, though it be but +a tree. Though so many centuries have rolled over the cypresses of +Chapultepec, they are yet sound and vigorous. + +"These trees are the only links that unite modern and ancient American +civilization; for they were in being when that mysterious race, the +Toltecs, rested under their shade; and they are said to have long been +standing, when a body of Aztecs, wandering away from their tribe in +search of game, fixed themselves upon the marsh at Chapultepec, and, +spreading their mats under these cypresses, enjoyed in their shadow +their noontide slumber. Then came the Spaniards to people the valley +with the mixed races, who respected their great antiquity, so that +during all the battles that have been fought around them they have +passed unharmed, and amid the strife and contentions of men have gone +quietly on, adding many rings to their already enlarged circumference. +'Heedless,' says Wilson, 'of the gunpowder burned over their heads and +the discharge of cannon that has shaken their roots, as one ephemeral +Mexican government succeeded another, these cypresses still remain +unharmed, and may outlive many other dynasties.'" + +"Apropos of the subject," said the Antiquary, "Nezahualcoyotl, according +to his descendant, the native historian, embellished his numerous villas +with hanging gardens replete with gorgeous flowers and odoriferous +shrubs. The steps to these charming terraces--many of them hewn in the +natural porphyry, and which a writer who lived in the sixteenth century +avers that he himself counted--were even then crumbling into ruins. +Later travellers have reported the almost literal decay of this +wonderful establishment. Latrobe describes this monarch's baths (fabled +to have been twelve feet long by eight wide) as 'singular basins, +perhaps two feet in diameter, and not capacious enough for any monarch +larger than Oberon to take a ducking in.' + +"The observations of other travellers confirm this account. Bullock +tells us that some of the terraces of this apparently mythical palace +are still entire; and that the solid remains of stone and stucco +furnished an inexhaustible quarry for the churches and other buildings +since erected on the site of that ancient Aztec city. + +"Latrobe, on the contrary, attributes these ruins to the Toltecs, and +hints at the probability of their belonging to an age and a people still +more remote. Wilson, on the other hand, positively accords them to the +Phoenicians." + +"In reading up on this famous empire, Tezcuco," said Leon Starr, "one is +inclined to believe that every vestige of this proud magnificence could +not possibly have been obliterated in the short period of three +centuries, leaving on the spot only an indifferently built village, +whose population of three hundred Indians, and about one hundred whites, +maintain themselves in summer by gardening, and sending in their canoes +daily supplies of 'herbs and _sullers_' (whatever this last may be) to +Mexico, and, in winter, by raking the mud for the 'tegnesquita,' from +which they manufacture salt." + +"Wilson," said the Grumbler, "tells us that 'the Tezcucan descendant of +an emperor "lied like a priest."' However that may be, one cannot quite +swallow his own relation 'in its entirety.'" + +"Right you are," responded the Harvard man; "and now here is Miss +Norcross, waiting, I am sure, to cram us still further with Mexican +information." + +"It is only," said this modest little lady, "some bits that I have +jotted down about Mexican gems;" and shyly producing her paper, she thus +read: + +"In enumerating the precious stones of Mexico,--the ruby, amethyst, +topaz, and garnet, the pearl, agate, turquoise, and chalcedony,--one +must put before them all that wonder of Nature,--the Mexican fire opal, +which, though not quite so hard as the Hungarian or the Australian opal, +excels either of them in brilliance and variety of color. Of this +beautiful stone Ballou has aptly said, 'It seems as if Nature by some +subtle alchemy of her own had condensed, to form this fiery gem, the +hoarded sunshine of a thousand years.' He tells us that, in his Mexican +travels he saw an opal, weighing fourteen carats, for which five +thousand dollars was refused. 'Really choice specimens,' he goes on to +say, 'are rare. The natives, notwithstanding the abundance of opals +found in Mexico, hold tenaciously to the price first set upon them. +Their value ranges from ten dollars to ten hundred.' + +"In modern times, as we all know, a superstition of the unluckiness of +the stone long prevailed. Now, the opal has come to be considered as +desirable as it is beautiful, and, endorsed by fashion, takes its +rightful place among precious gems. A London newspaper states that a +giant Australian opal, oval in shape, measuring two inches in length, an +inch and a half deep, and weighing two hundred and fifty carats, is +destined to be given to King Edward the Seventh; and that Mr. Lyons, the +giver, a lawyer of Queensland, desires that it should be set in the +King's regalia of the Australian federation. The London lapidaries +believe it to be the finest and largest opal in the world. + +"Its only rival in size and beauty is the Hungarian opal, possessed by +Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria. This gem is known as the 'Imperial +opal,' and is said, in its rainbow beauty, to display the blended colors +of the ruby, the emerald, and the amethyst. + +"What is termed the 'fire' of the gem appears to burn in its remotest +depths, with a glow and fervor which at times seem to convert the stone +from the opaque to the semi-transparent." + +"We have in our own family," said Miss Paulina Hemmenshaw, +supplementing this account, "a rare Mexican opal. Long, long ago, it was +given as an engagement ring to my mother's youngest sister, by her +lover, who, while travelling in Mexico, had secured this exquisite stone +for a betrothal pledge. On the very eve of her wedding-day my beautiful +Aunt Margaret died of an unsuspected heart-disease. The old superstition +of the unluckiness of the opal being then dominant, my aunt's superb +ring was laid by as a thing malignant as beautiful. + +"As a child I was sometimes allowed to take this sad memento of my dead +aunt from its nest of cotton wool and admire its harmful splendor. At my +mother's death it descended, along with all her own jewels, to me, her +only daughter. Now that we have outlived the foolish superstition in +respect to this precious stone, I have made up my mind," said the good +aunt, beaming kindly on her niece, "to take this ring from the Safety +Vault, on our return to Boston, and make it one of my wedding gifts to +this dear child." + +"Many thanks, dear ladies," said Mrs. Bixbee, as Miss Paulina ended, +"for your talks about the opal. It is my favorite among precious stones. +I even prefer it to the diamond, as something warmer and more alive. I +am glad that its character is looking up in these days." + +"All the same," said Mrs. Fairlee, complacently turning on her slim +white finger a superb Hungarian sapphire, "nothing would tempt me to +wear a stone even suspected of uncanniness. Trials and crosses, of +course, will befall one, but it seems to me foolhardy to wear jewels +supposed to attract misfortune, and, for my part, I am still suspicious +of opals; and were I King Edward, I shouldn't thank my loyal Australians +for the gift of an ill-omened jewel, however costly and beautiful." + +"Well," commented the Journalist, "every one for his fancy; mine, I +confess, is to 'mouse round' among musty book-shelves. Looking over my +portable store of odds and ends for something relevant to this evening's +discussion, I came upon this extract from the 'Voyages of one "Thomas +Page,"'--a black letter copy of whose long-forgotten book, printed in +London, in 1677, is still extant. As a curious picture of the times, it +is not without an especial value; and, with your approval, I will now +read it: + +"This account must be prefaced with the explanation that Thomas Page was +an English Dominican, who, as a missionary-monk, with his brother +Dominicans travelled to his destination in Manila, by the road across +Mexico, landing, by the way, at Vera Cruz, and there depositing some +illustrious fellow-voyagers. + +"'When we came to land,' says this quaintly circumstantial writer, 'all +the inhabitants of the city had congregated in the Plaza to receive us. +The communities of monks were also there, each one preceded by a large +crucifix,--the Dominicans, the San Franciscans, the Mercedarios,--in +order to conduct the Virey (the Viceroy) of Mexico as far as the +Cathedral. + +"'The Jesuits and friars from the ships leaped upon the shore from the +ships. Many of them (the monks) on stepping on shore, kissed it, +considering that it was a holy cause that brought them there,--the +conversion of the Indians, who had before adored and sacrificed to +demons; others kneeled down and gave thanks to the Virgin Mary and other +saints of their devotion, and then all the monks hastened to incorporate +themselves with their respective orders in the place in which they +severally stood. The procession, as soon as formed, directed itself to +the Cathedral, where the consecrated wafer (called in the English +original the bread God) was exposed upon the high altar, and to which +all kneeled as they entered.... The services ended, the Virey was +conducted to his lodgings by the first Alcalde, the magistrate of the +town, and judges, who had descended from the capitol to meet him, +besides the soldiers of the garrison and the ships. Those of the +religious orders that had just arrived were conducted to their +respective convents, crosses, as before, being carried at the head of +each community. + +"'Friar John presented us [his missionaries] to the Prior of the Convent +of San Domingo, who received us kindly, and directed sweetmeats to be +given us; and also there was given to each of us a cup of that Indian +beverage which the Indians call chocolate. "This," the good friar tells +us, "was but a prelude to a sumptuous dinner, composed of flesh and fish +of every description, in which there was no lack of turkeys and capons. +This feast," he naïvely apologizes, "was not set out for the purpose of +worldly ostentation, but to manifest to us the abundance of the +country." + +"'The Prior of Vera Cruz,' he informs us, 'was neither old nor severe, +as the men selected to govern communities of youthful religious orders +are accustomed to be. On the contrary, he was in the flower of his age, +and had all the manner of a joyful and diverting youth. His fathership, +as they told us, had acquired the Priory by means of a gift of a +thousand ducats, which he had sent to the Father Provincial. After +dinner he invited some of us to visit his cell, and then it was we came +to know the levity of his life.... + +"'The cell of the Prior was richly tapestried, and adorned with feathers +of birds of Michoacan; the walls were hung with various pictures of +merit; rich rugs of silk covered the tables; porcelain of China filled +the cupboards and sideboards; and there were vases and bowls containing +preserved fruits and most delicate sweetmeats. + +"'Our enthusiastic companions did not fail to be scandalized at such an +exhibition, which they looked upon as a manifestation of worldly vanity, +so foreign to the poverty of a begging friar.... + +"'The holy Prior talked to us only of his ancestry, of his good parts, +of the influence with the Father Provincial; of the love which the +principal ladies and the wives of the richest merchants manifested to +him, of his beautiful voice, of his consummate skill in music. In fact, +that we might not doubt him in this particular, he took the guitar and +sung a sonnet which he had composed to a certain _Amaryllis_. This was a +new scandal to our newly arrived _religious_, which afflicted some of +them to see such libertinage in a prelate, who ought, on the contrary, +to have set an example of penance and self-mortification, and should +shine like a mirror in his conduct and words.... In the Prior's cell of +the Convent of Vera Cruz' (concluded this character sketch) 'we listened +to a melodious voice, accompanied with a harmonious instrument, we saw +treasures and riches, we ate exquisite confectioneries, we breathed +amber and musk, with which he had perfumed his syrups and conserves. O, +that delicious Prior!' exclaims our English monk, the humor of the +situation overcoming his horror of the scandalous behavior of the +ecclesiastic." + +"And now," said the Minister, producing some leaves of sermon-like +script, "may I call your attention, my friends, to the striking +analogies found in the religious usages and belief of the +Aztec,--correspondent with those of the Christian,--some of which I have +considered in this little paper? + +"One of the most extraordinary coincidences with Christian rites may, I +think, be traced in their ceremony of naming their children,--the Aztec +baptism. An account of this rite, preserved by Sahagan, is thus put into +English: + +"'When everything,' says the chronicler, 'necessary for the baptism had +been made ready, all the relations of the child were assembled, and the +midwife, who was the person that performed the rite of baptism. After a +solemn invocation, the head and lips of the infant were touched with +water, and a name was given it; while the goddess Cioacoatl, who +presided over childbirth, was implored that "the sin which was given to +this child before the beginning of the world might not visit the child, +but that, cleansed by these waters, it might live and be born anew." +This,' continues the narrator, 'is the exact formula used: "O my child! +take and receive the water of the Lord of the world, which is our life, +and is given for the increasing and renewing of our body. It is to wash +and purify. I pray that these heavenly drops may enter into your body +and dwell there, that they may destroy and remove from you all the sin +which was given to you at the beginning of the world. + +"'She then washed the body of the child with water. This done, "He now +liveth," said she, "and is born anew; now is he purified and cleansed +afresh, and our Mother Chalchioitlyene (the goddess of water) again +bringeth him into the world." Then taking the child in both hands, she +lifted him towards heaven, and said, "O Lord, thou seest here thy +creature, whom thou hast sent into the world, this place of sorrow, and +suffering, and penitence. Grant him, O Lord, thy gifts and inspiration; +for thou art the Great God, and with thee is the great goddess." Torches +of pine illuminated this performance, and the name was given by the same +midwife, or priestess, who baptized him.' + +"The difficulty of obtaining anything like a faithful report of these +rites from the natives," said the Minister, "was complained of by the +Spanish chroniclers, and no doubt led them to color the narrative of +these (to them) heathen rites and observances with interpolations from +their own religious belief. 'The Devil,' said one of these bewildered +missionary monks, 'chose to imitate the rites of Christianity, and the +traditions of the chosen people, that he might allure his wretched +victims to their own destruction.' Leaving these monkish annalists to +their own childish conclusions, and absurd interpretations of the Aztec +religious analogies, we pass on to the tradition of the Deluge, so +widely spread among the nations of the Old World, the Hebrew account of +which was thus travestied by these semi-barbarians. Two persons, they +held, survived this historical flood,--a man named Coxcox, and his wife. +Their heads are represented in ancient paintings, together with a boat +floating on the waters. + +"Another tradition (which is credited by Humboldt) affirms that the boat +in which Typi (their Noah) weathered the flood was filled with various +kinds of animals and birds, and that, after some time, a vulture was +sent out by Typi, to reconnoitre,--as was done in the Hebrew flood,--but +remained feeding on the dead bodies of the giants which had been left on +the earth as the waters subsided. The little humming-bird, +Huitozitsilin, was then sent forth, and returned with a twig in his +mouth. The coincidence of this account with the Bible narrative is +worthy of remark. + +"On the way between Vera Cruz and the capital stands the tall and +venerable pyramidal mound called the temple of Chulola. It rises to the +height of nearly one hundred and eighty feet, and is cased with unburnt +brick. The native tradition is that it was erected by a family of giants +who had escaped the great inundation, and designed to raise the building +to the clouds; but the gods, offended by their presumption, sent on the +pyramid fires from heaven, and compelled the giants to abandon their +attempt. + +"This story was still lingering among the natives of the place at the +time of Humboldt's visit to it. The partial coincidence of this legend +with the Hebrew account of the tower of Babel cannot be denied. This +tradition has also its partial counterpart in the Hebrew Bible. +Cioacoatl, 'our lady and mother, the first goddess who bringeth forth,' +who is by the Aztecs believed to have bequeathed the sufferings of +childbirth to women as the tribute of death, by whom sin came into the +world, was usually represented with a serpent near her, and her name +signified the 'Serpent-woman.' + +"This fable, as will be seen, reminds us of the 'Eve' in the Hebrew +account of the Fall of Man. The later priestly narrators, minded to +improve upon this honest Aztec tradition, gave the Mexican Eve two sons, +and named them Cain and Abel. + +"In this Aztec rite, coming down to us through tradition, the Roman +Catholics recognized a resemblance to their especial ceremony of +Christian Communion. An image of the tutelary deity of the Aztecs was +made of the flour of maize, mixed with blood; and after consecrating by +the priests, was distributed among the people, who, as they ate it, +showed signs of humiliation and sorrow, declaring it was the flesh of +the deity. + +"We are told by a Mexican traveller, Torquemeda, a Spanish monk, that, +later on, when the Church had waxed mighty in the land, the simple +Indian converts, with unconscious irony, called the Catholic wafer 'the +bread-God.'" + +Here the discussion was, for a moment, interrupted by the withdrawal of +Miss Mattie Norcross and her invalid sister, who, wearied with long +sitting, had dropped her tired head upon her sister's shoulder and gone +quietly to sleep. + +As the Grumbler rose to open the door for the two, all present might see +the courteous air of protection and kindly sympathy which accompanied +this simple bit of courtesy. Evidently, the Grumbler had met his fate at +Alamo Ranch. + +"And now," said the star boarder, coming finally into the talk, "since +Mr. Morehouse has kindly condensed for us the history of the aboriginal +Mexican from the far-off day of the nomadic Toltec to the splendid reign +of the last Montezuma,--treacherously driven to the wall by the crafty +Cortez, when the Spaniard nominally converted the heathen, overthrew his +time-honored temples, rearing above their ruins Christian churches, and, +intent to 'kill two birds with the same stone' filled his own pockets, +and swelled the coffers of far-off Spain with Aztec riches,--I have +thought it not irrelevant to take a look at the humble native Mexican as +he is found by the traveller of to-day. + +"First, let me say that it has been asserted of Mexico that 'though +geographically near, and having had commercial relations with the world +for over three hundred years, there is probably less known of this +country to-day than of almost any other claiming to be civilized.' 'To +the Mexicans themselves,' declares an observing traveller, 'Mexico is +not fully known; and there are hundreds of square miles in South Mexico +that have never been explored; and whole tribes of Indians that have +never been brought in contact with the white man.' + +"Mexico may well be called the country of revolutions, having passed +through thirty-six within the limit of forty years. In that +comparatively short period of time no less than seventy-three rulers, +'drest in a little brief authority,' have played their parts upon the +Mexican stage until the curtain dropped (too often in blood) upon their +acts, and they were seen no more. + +"Humboldt, in the seventeenth century, pronounced the fairy-like +environs of the city of Mexico 'the most beautiful panorama the eye ever +rested upon.' On the table-land of this country the traveller is, at +some points, eight thousand feet above the level of the sea. At such +heights the air is so rarefied that the least physical effort well-nigh +deprives the traveller of breath. 'Through this rarefied atmosphere all +the climates and productions of the world,' it has been affirmed, 'are +embraced within the scope of a single bird's-eye view.' In portions of +the country the _vomito_ renders the climate especially unkindly to the +alien. + +"We are told that three quarters of the present Mexican population can +neither read nor write, possess little or no property, and can form no +intelligent ideas of political liberty, or of constitutional government. + +"The degraded condition of the laboring classes is imputed in a measure +to the constitutional inertia of a race who have no climatic conditions +to contend with in their life-struggle; whose simple wants are easily +satisfied, and who (it may be inferred) never know that 'divine +discontent' which is the fulcrum on which the higher civilization turns. +The manner of living, among this class, is thus described by Wells: + +"'Their dwellings in the cities are generally wanting in all the +requirements of health and comfort, and consist mostly of rooms on the +ground-floor, without proper light or ventilation, often with but the +single opening for entrance. In such houses there is rarely anything +answering to the civilized idea of a bed, the occupants sleeping on a +mat, skin, or blanket, on the dirt floor. There are no chairs or tables. +There is no fireplace or chimney, and few or no changes of raiment; no +washing apparatus or soap, and in fact no furniture whatever, except a +flat stone with a stone roller to grind their corn, and a variety of +earthen vessels to hold their food and drink, and for cooking, which is +generally done over a small fire within a circle of stones outside, and +in front of the main entrance to the dwelling. + +"'Their principal food is _tortillas_,--a sort of mush made of soaked +and hand-ground Indian corn, rolled thin, and then slightly baked over a +slow fire. Another staple of diet is boiled beans (_frijoles_). Meat is +seldom used by laborers; but when it is attainable, every part of the +animal is eaten. Should one be so fortunate as to have anything else to +eat, the _tortilla_ serves as plates, after which service the plates are +eaten. When their simple needs are thus satisfied,' says this observing +traveller, 'the surplus earnings find their way into the pockets of the +pulque or lottery-ticket sellers, or into the greedy hands of the +almost omnipresent priest.' + +"These lotteries are, we are told, operated by the Church, and form one +of its never-failing sources of income, proving even more profitable +than the sale of indulgences. + +"The idolatrous instinct, inherited from far-off Aztec ancestors, +decidedly inclines the native Mexican to a worship that has its pictures +and images, and its bowings before the Virgin and countless hosts of +saints, and the priest finds him an easy prey. + +"'While we were in the country,' says Ballou, 'a bull-fight was given in +one of the large cities on a Sunday, as a benefit towards paying for a +new altar-rail to be placed in one of the Romish churches.' + +"Religious fanaticism takes root in all classes in Mexico, even among +the very highest in the land. It is recorded of the Emperor +Maximilian--a man of elegant manners, and of much culture and +refinement--that he walked barefoot on a day of pilgrimage to the shrine +of the Virgin of Guadaloupe,--distant some two or three miles from the +city of Mexico, over a dusty, disagreeable road. + +"It is but fair to add, in conclusion," said Leon Starr, "that it is +asserted of the cultivated classes of Mexico that they are not at all in +sympathy with the extortions and other irregularities of their +priesthood." + +With these interesting statistics ended the last effort of the New +Koshare to combine improvement and entertainment. + +Hard upon this more solid delight-making followed the last afternoon +tea, the lighter Thursday evening entertainment, and the final +shooting-match. All these gatherings took on a tinge of sadness from the +certainty that the little winter family, brought together by Fate at +Alamo Ranch, were so soon to separate. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +Spring had now well come. In the shade it was already more than summer +heat. Fortunately there is, in New Mexico, no such thing as sun-stroke; +and one moves about with impunity, though the mercury stands at fervid +heights. + +It was on All Fools' day that the star boarder, accompanied by a little +party of the Koshare,--made up to escort him as far on his homeward way +as El Paso,--turned his back upon the loveliness of Mesilla Valley. + +Through all this "winter of their discontent" Leon had lent himself +heartily to the work of delight-making; and the saddest of them all had +been cheered by his genial atmosphere. What wonder if to these it was +but a dolorous leave-taking; and that amid the general hand-shaking some +eyes were wet, and some partings said with big lumps that would rise in +swelling throats! A good face was, however, put upon it all; and even +Fang, Dennis, and the chore-boy, sent a blessing and a cheery good-bye +in the wake of the favorite boarder. + +As for the small Mexican herd-boy,--who, with his best clean face, had +come up to the ranch to look his last upon the adored white man under +whose tuition he had become "a mighty hunter before the Lord,"--he +simply "lifted up his voice and wept." + +Following hard upon this departure came the general break-up of the +Koshare circle. The Hemmenshaws, with the bridegroom elect, Roger Smith, +were the next to depart. Miss Paulina, as may be inferred, turned her +face Bostonward with her heart in her mouth, in view of that account of +her chaperonage to be rendered to the father whose daughter she had, as +it were, handed over to the grandson of a tanner. + +And here the historian, asking leave to interrupt for a moment the +routine of the narrative, informs the gentle reader that that august +personage, Col. Algernon Hemmenshaw, was ultimately placated; and that +if a tanner's descendant bearing the non-illustrious name of Smith was +not altogether a desirable graft for the Hemmenshaw ancestral tree, a +fortune of more than a round million tipped the balance in his favor, +and the permitted engagement came out in early May-time. Beacon Hill, at +its announcement, threw up its hands in amazement and distaste. "To +think," it exclaimed, "that Louise Hemmenshaw, who might have had her +pick among our very oldest families, should take up with the grandson of +a tanner!" + + * * * * * + +Out on the mesa it is early nightfall. The little day-time flutter and +stir of moving things has, with the setting sun, given place to silence +and rest. + +A rounded moon looks serenely down upon the grey sage-brush, the +mesquite-bushes, on the lonely stretch of sandy desert. The last gleam +of day has faded from the Organ Mountains, leaving them to dominate, in +sombre grandeur, the distant landscape. In the warm, haunted silence of +this perfect night two lovers saunter slowly along the mesa. + +These happy beings are not unknown to us. The lady is from Marblehead; +the other has before-time been dubbed the Grumbler. + +The name no longer fits the man. His defective lung has righted itself +in this fine New Mexican atmosphere. No more is he at odds with fate; he +has become sincerely in love with life, with the climate, and, most of +all, with the sweet little teacher from Marblehead. They are to be +married early in June. + +The climate admirably suits the invalid sister, and it is hoped that in +this fine dry air her well lung may remain intact, and so serve her for +years to come. The Grumbler, having money enough to order his residence +to his liking, has determined to settle permanently in New Mexico. + +To that end he has, for the time, rented the Hilton place. Later, he +intends to lay out "as a gift for his fair" the ranch of her dreams. +Here, in the beautiful Mesilla Valley, we may predict that the married +pair, like the enchanting couples of fairyland, will "live happy ever +after." + +And now it but remains for the chronicler of the New Koshare to take +leave of "the land of sunshine." + +A backward glance at the half-deserted Alamo shows us a dreary handful +of incurables still tilting their piazza-chairs against its adobe front, +warming their depleted blood in the grateful sunshine, and each, as best +he may, accepting the inevitable. + +Long, long ago it was that the Pueblos made that traditional journey +"from Shipapu to the centre of their world" with the heaven-provided +Koshare, in particolored attire, and fantastic head-dress of withered +corn-husks, jesting and dancing before them to lift and lighten the +weary road. Yet since then, through all the centuries, the +"Delight-Maker," in one shape or another, has been in requisition in +every land beneath the sun. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Alamo Ranch, by Sarah Warner Brooks + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40471 *** |