The Project Gutenberg eBook of Alamo Ranch, by Sarah Warner Brooks.

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.

"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

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.

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."

"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.

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:—

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 Crœsus; 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.

"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—

"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.

"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

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."

"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.

"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—

"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'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."

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.

"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.

"'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.'

"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'?"

"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."

"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 Phœnicians."

"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.

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Alamo Ranch: A Story of New Mexico

ALAMO RANCH

A Story of New Mexico

BY SARAH WARNER BROOKS

Author of "My Fire Opal," "The Search of Ceres," etc.

ALAMO RANCH

ALAMO RANCH

A STORY OF NEW MEXICO

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE