'There is a fountain filled with bloodDrawn from Immanuel's veins;And sinners plunged beneath that floodLose all their guilty stains'—
'There is a fountain filled with bloodDrawn from Immanuel's veins;And sinners plunged beneath that floodLose 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.
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'schef-d'œuvres,—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."
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 littlem-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 nomateria medicais 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 thusmoderate: 'As in all other bibles it is revealed that this world was created, so inthisbible it is revealedhowthe Creatorcreatedit. As other bibles have proclaimed heavens for the spirits of the dead, beholdthisbible revealethwherethese heavensare.'
"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 hisdietwhile 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."
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 bebornto slavery. Thechildrenof the slave werefree. 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, callednequen. 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 notprotract 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.HisGreek 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 butoncein 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, thenew firewas 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 ordainedonemanonlyforonewoman,' 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, ormaguey, which was, in short, meat, drink, clothing, and writing material for the Aztec, as from its leaves was made their paper, somewhat resembling Egyptianpapyrus, 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."
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-piecesad 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, itdidtake 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."
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 asJornado 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 bytiswin(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. Mothersmournat 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 intepees, 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 atepeeto sleep in. To get these policemen into civilized clothing, under threat of duress, and to order alltepeesaway from their cabins, was the agent's first move. Next, it was decided that all children five years old and upwardsmustbe 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 oftiswin.
This native drink, made from Indian corn, is said to be more maddening in its effect than any other known intoxicant; Indians brutalized bytiswinfought, 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 histepee, 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 owntepee, 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 hertepee, 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 Indiantepee, 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 makingtiswin, 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.