Hesperothen; Notes from the West, Vol. II (of 2)

Deming-The Mirage-Ruined Cities-American Explorers-Self-Tormentors-Animals and Plants-Yuma-California-Los Angeles-Santa Monica-The Pacific.

May 30th.-At an hour as to which controversy might arise, owing to the changes of time to which we have been subjected, the train, which had pulled up but seldom during the night, stopped at Deming Junction, where the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé Railroad "connects" with the Southern Pacific, on which our cars were to be "hauled" to San Francisco. Jefferson time and San Francisco time differ two hours, so at one end of the station we scored 6 A.M., and at the other 8 A.M. The sooner one gets away from Deming in any direction the better. A year ago-as is usually the case hereabouts-there was not a trace of a town on the dry ugly plain covered with prickly acacias and "Spanish bayonets"; now Deming flourishes in gaming and drinking saloons, express offices, and all the horrors of "enterprise" in the West. The look-out revealed a few tents, wooden shanties, a station, at which workmen were running up a frame-house, ground littered with preserved provision tins, broken crockery, adobes and refuse of all sorts. At the door of one hut, swarming with flies, swung half a carcase of beef; two women were washing, pale-faced, but not uncheerful creatures, who had not a good opinion of Deming and its population. "They carry out a dead man a day, or used to," said one informant. The lady washerwomen did not quite corroborate the figure; but, remarked the chattier of the two, "there was a considerable shewtin' about last night!" To the observation of one of the party that he was "going to have a look about," the other lady made reply, "I guess if you dew it will be 'hands up' for ten cents with you." On the platform was a United States marshal, with a revolver stuck in his belt, but his duties were considered to be punitive rather than preventive. Here Mr. Chase and Mr. Hawley left us to return to Topeka. At the abschiednehmen Sir H. Green was affected by a proof of interest in his welfare of a touching character and very full of local colour; one of our friends beckoned to him, took him aside, and pulling out a revolver ("It is hands up!" thought Sir Henry), fully loaded, pressed it on his acceptance in the kindest manner as a useful compagnon de voyage. As we were not to stay at Deming, the self-sacrifice was not consummated.

The regular train having come up, our special was tacked on to it, and in an hour the locomotive puffed out of the depot, and sped westerly on its way at the rate of twenty miles an hour, across a plain some fifteen miles broad, bordered by jagged, irregular mountain ranges north and south, as dry as a bone-so dry that water for the engine has to be brought to the stations in tanks. A scanty growth of what looked like camel grass, interspersed euphorbias and cactuses of great height, was all that met the eye. We are approaching the great basin of Arizona, and are warned that much dust and great heat must be expected, and that the "scenery" does not improve in point of variety or verdure, both of which are nearly at zero. A vigorous, well-directed campaign against the flies in the saloon gave us comparative repose; then the blinds being pulled down, and the thermometer reduced to 83 deg., society settled itself to study, with results indicated presently by a gentle susurrus on the sofas. A sudden alarm, "Look at the deer!" There sure enough was a herd of antelopes flying over the scrub towards the horizon, which flickered about in the heat in a mirage of islands and uplifted mountain ends-so vanished.

After passing Lordsburgh, a desolate spot in the desert, there appeared a beautiful mirage. The sand became a sheet of water, waveless and mirror-like, and in it we saw reflected in trenchant outline the mountain range beyond. "It must be water! it is water!" exclaimed an unbelieving director. And, lo! as he spoke the "dust devils" rose and danced along the face of the sea; in another minute the vision was gone; the dazzling sand, white, blank and dull, mocked our senses. This was near Stein's Pass, up which the train of nine carriages was climbing-"the heaviest train that has gone over yet," said the triumphant conductor. "But we thought we'd try it." Each waggon weighed 30 tons. The Pass is three miles long, and we were working at a grade of 74 feet with a 19-inch cylinder engine.

Between Pyramid Station and San Simon (stant nomina umbrarum-the names of mere shadows of stations) the western border of New Mexico is crossed, and we enter the great Territory of Arizona, which lies between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada.

It is bounded by New Mexico on the east, by Mexico on the south, by Utah and Nevada on the north and north-west, and by California in continuation of the western boundary. It is as large as New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, and Delaware together. Whom it belonged to first, so far as occupation constitutes possession, I know not; but the Spaniards owned and neglected it for more than three centuries before the Americans possessed it. In 1848 and 1853 the regions now forming Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada were ceded by the descendants of the Spanish conquerors to the conquering Anglo-American. It would need weeks of assiduous travel to explore the portion of Arizona where the most interesting ruins in America, the cities of the Zoltecs or the Aztecs-for the experts differ respecting their origin-are to be found. The weight of authority and of recent investigation leads one to believe that the Aztecs were not the builders of these ruined cities. Humboldt, indeed, believed that they were; but, as Mr. Hinton remarks, in his capital little handbook, which I recommend to prospectors, emigrants, tourists, and travellers, "to suppose such an utter abandonment of settled habitations, it will be necessary to suppose some strange impelling reasons, either in climate or other causes, that must have amounted to a catastrophe. An hypothesis which would leave a whole race able to conquer an empire, and to preserve power enough to abandon without destruction their old homes, implies conditions and forces without a known historical parallel." The conclusion that many native cities were flourishing when the Spaniards arrived in America may, perhaps, be questioned. There is a distinctive character about them, differing from that of the Mississippi mounds, the Central American pyramids, or the ruined cities of Yucatan.

The site of one of these cities was pointed out to us from the train, and that was all we saw of them. But I heard so much about the mysterious remains that I was induced to procure Mr. Bancroft's remarkable essay on the native races of the Pacific Coast. Mr. Bancroft believes that the Pueblos and other Indians, in a state of civilisation which they subsequently lost, were the earliest inhabitants of these countries and the builders of the cities; that the Apaches came down upon them, and their work being then aided by the Spaniards, this original agricultural people were swept off the face of the earth. But where the Apaches came from the American ethnologists have not, I believe, determined. For hundreds of miles these ruins cover the country-stone houses, ancient watch-towers, and adobe buildings, around which are quantities of stone implements, masses of crockery and pottery. In some places there are structures of wood and stone, without iron, the masonry consisting of thin plates of sandstone dressed on the edges, and laid in coarse mortar nearly as hard as the stone itself.

The explorers who have discovered the most interesting cities in Arizona and elsewhere were officers of the United States army. They have been the true pioneers of American civilisation in the West, and it is most creditable to them that they have been able to furnish so much scientific and antiquarian observation in the execution of their arduous and often painful duty in Indian warfare. There is no cold shade cast upon the labours of officers who desire to make a little reputation for themselves by contributions to scientific publications, and by papers on natural history and the like in periodical publications or in the daily press.

There is, as might be expected from its position, a very high temperature in Arizona. This lasts from the middle of June to the first of October. During the best part of summer exertion of any kind is impossible. Metal objects cannot be handled without producing blisters; rain scarcely ever falls; and, to keep up the drain of constant evaporation, a man must drink a gallon or two gallons of water a day. Mr. Ross Brown, speaking of the summer, declares that "everything dries. Waggons dry; men dry; chickens dry. There is no juice left in anything, living or dead, by the close of summer. Officers and soldiers creak as they walk; chickens hatched at the season come out of the shell ready cooked. Bacon is eaten with a spoon, and butter must stand in the sun an hour before the flies become dry enough for use. The Indians sit in the river with fresh mud on their heads, and, by dint of constant dipping and sprinkling, manage to keep from roasting, though they usually come out parboiled." But, although it is recorded that a party encamped on a narrow ca?on where the temperature was 120 degrees, there was no sunstroke. And in that respect the climate differs from that on the eastern coast, where, especially this very summer, a great number of deaths were caused by coup de soleil. People, with the thermometer marking 94 degrees, talk of its being agreeably cold. An exceedingly interesting fact, if it be one, connected with residence in this part of the world is the wholesome effect of complete abstinence. Death from want of water was by no means infrequent in the old days before so many wells were dug; but it only occurs when there is a good deal of humidity in the air. Although alcoholic drinks and tobacco have an injurious effect, there is a large consumption of both at all the stations and at the mines.

As in the Orange River Free State, where probably the conditions of temperature are not very dissimilar, pulmonary complaints are cured, so a residence in Arizona, it is said, stops consumption; and there are authentic statements that people who arrived in a rapid decline have experienced almost immediate relief of the principal symptoms, and have been finally cured. Governor Safford, in an official letter, states that his lungs were a good deal diseased, and that he was suffering with a severe cough when he reached Arizona, and that in six months his cough left him. He is satisfied the warm, dry atmosphere acted like a healing balm to diseased lungs, and that, the pores being kept open, the impurities which attack weak organs escape through the skin. Dr. Loryea, of San Francisco, and Dr. Sawyer aver that Arizona is nature's Turkish bath, and that Yuma, that evil-looking place, contains the fountains of health.

Of such vast regions a small acquaintance acquired by passing rapidly twice over a line of railway does not entitle one to speak; but, if what we read and heard of Arizona be true, there is within its limits enormous mineral and agricultural wealth. There are carboniferous basins of great extent and richness. The mountains teem with ore. Silver and gold, copper pyrites, zinc, and lead are to be found over a great range, the extent of which is as yet imperfectly known. There are sulphates of nearly all the metals; metallic oxides, chlorides, carbonates, nitrates; agates, amethysts, garnets, and other precious stones. People there are who believe that the diamond, the emerald, and the ruby will turn up in due time. In fact, if one were to be guided by the accounts in the papers or the guide-books, he would think that a sure way of making an immediate fortune would be to settle down on any hillside in this favourite land. Nevertheless, what I saw out of my window gave me reason to suppose that there was poverty in Arizona as well as in the old country. Nor did the buildings which I saw by the way at the sparse stations and infrequent towns give an idea that the in-dwellers were well-to-do in the world. The adobe, or burnt brick, which is a common material in lieu of better, has always a ruinous appearance. The houses built of it yesterday seem tumbling to pieces from the influences of old age.

We take no note of time save by its relation to constant motion, and to the "programme"-a Procrustean bed on which we have voluntarily placed our tortured limbs. Sometimes in the hours of the night, which could not be called still because of the incessant pealing, rattling, and thundering of the train, I thought of the wonderful ways of man with himself in such affairs as we were now engaged in. There is a play of Terence which was a trouble to me in my youth, so long ago that I remember very little more of it than the dismal and elongated name; but Mr. "Heautontimorumenos" never needlessly bound himself up in a programme and delivered his life over to a time-table! It is likely enough, seeing what sort of man he was, that he would have adopted that course had he lived in these days. I admit that programmes are necessary when your movements regulate, or have to be regulated by, those of other people; and that was the case in some measure with us, but the solicitude it occasioned the worthy and valued friends, whose brows I perceived becoming more puckered, and whose faces and spirits were heavy with cares connected with the programme, to come up to time, was beyond belief, and I vowed if ever I had my own way with the ordering of a party I would have no programme at all. And plot and calculate as you will, a gale of wind, or a heated axle, or a broken bridge, or a flood, upsets everything, and your schemes gang aglee utterly! It was admirable to see how we were working out the destiny we had made manifest for ourselves in advance so long ago, but the task was not easy. What curious sounds, by the way, our train made at night! One could now and then compose words to the tune of the wheels, and the regular rhythm forced one at times to hum the words of a song, of which the train seemed to hammer out the music. It seemed so strange to be turning into bed night after night, and waking up to pass the same life day after day, like a log of wood carried on by an interminable, irresistible torrent.

Provided with books and newspapers, and friends to converse with, as well as with sights to see, we had, however, no reason to complain that time hung heavy on our hands as the train sped on. The books were very utilitarian, it is true-Reports of Chambers of Commerce, statistics and papers connected with railway and commercial enterprise and the like. But our directors took to that literature with avidity, and aided by maps and tables, copiously furnished to them, seemed bent on passing with honours in a competitive examination anent the American railway system. There were always, close at hand in the cars, competent authorities to answer questions, or able champions to engage in controversy, and as I heard all the subtle contentions, which I did not understand, concerning signalling and baggage checking, gauges and engines, curves and gradients, freights and fares, I was set to think what the field had been in which all the ingenuity and talent displayed in dealing with such topics were exercised in pre-railway days. These discussions were mostly connected with the consideration of profits and percentages, and that was a neutral ground on which the combatants man?uvred their facts and figures as in a natural "schauplatz". There were times when such investigations ran down like a clock, and no one wound them up again for a few hours, and then my friends digested the remains they found on the field of battle and strengthened themselves for friendly jousting.

Not very long ago there would have been exceedingly good sporting in many parts of Arizona. Grizzly bears, common and black bears; pumas, mountain sheep, jaguars, ocelots, opossums, panthers, wolves, and lynxes are largely distributed over the hill ranges. There are also hares and rabbits and many smaller animals. Wild turkeys have much diminished of late years; but there is a variety of birds, some of them excellent for the spit. The chase, however, is attended with some danger, unless one is very well booted and looks out where he treads, as rattle-snakes abound, and are of exceeding virulence, the black species being especially deadly. There are horned toads, but these are harmless.

For the botanist Arizona is an almost inexhaustible field of delight. Any one who likes to read of vegetable wonders, or of an extraordinarily varied flora, cannot do better than get Dr. Loryea's work, or read 'New Mexico,' by Elias Brevoort. The growth which struck us most was that of the extraordinary cactus called the candelabra or Sahuaro. It is worth while going so far as the railway will take one to see these plants sticking up on the sides of a rock without a trace of verdure or moisture, rising to the height of 40 or 50 feet, and throwing out enormous arms at the most grotesque angles, each varying from the other in shape, the number of its arms, and in the manner in which they are disposed. This giant cactus is covered with prickles, and is of a light green colour. It is said that in the old days the Apache Indians not unfrequently made use of them as handy means of torture, and nailed their victims to a cactus previous to setting fire to it. The body of the plant is resinous, and it can be easily converted into a bonfire. Here and there we saw some with traces of pale yellow flowers. When these are gone there is a fruit, which makes an excellent preserve, or can be boiled into sugar. Then there are prickly pears in great quantities; and there is a "negro-head cactus," with a round top covered with sharp spines, which furnished the Mexicans with fish-hooks. "There is a soul of beauty in things evil." If a thirsty traveller coming upon one of these plants kindles a fire around it, the juices of its body are gradually concentrated into a central cavity, where they only wait incision to be liberated in the form of a pleasant drink, half a gallon or more in quantity. The appliances for getting a drink out of most of these roots are described at length in various books of travel; but however useful they may have been at the time, the activity of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railway will in all probability exempt travellers in future from any necessity to avail themselves of these ingenious devices. Trees flourish in spite of the heat and want of water. As various as the trees are the human inhabitants, and one of the greatest marvels connected with them, perhaps, is the extraordinary variety of dialects amongst people of the same race, who lived in the same country long before the white man came to trouble them. They are decreasing, of course, in numbers; but in some of the reservations they seem to have arrested downward progress, and to have taken to some form of agricultural labour. At present Arizona is the happy hunting-ground of the unfortunate red man. There is, I am assured, no disposition on the part of the whites to intrude upon the reservations of the various tribes. I did not hear of any one who had come in from the East to settle with the view of making his fortune by farming; but miners have flooded the ca?ons, and climbed the mountain-tops; and now they have settled down into a steady way of life without any big "booms," as the Americans say, but with prospects of pretty certain returns for their labour.

All night we travelled on, and when the morning came, we were still traversing the desert, still passing through one of the most sterile wastes on the face of the earth, where, however, by strange contrasts of nature-or is it strange?-there were in the mountains and in the ravines rich ores to tempt the cupidity and enterprize of man. We are continually reminded of similar wastes in India and in Africa; but no one, as far as I know, has yet discovered any mineral wealth in the north-western deserts of our Indian Empire. And although Captain Burton and others have fancied they have come across an El Dorado in Southern Egypt, and Ibrahim Pasha had such faith in the existence of gold in those regions that he led forth an expedition to perish there, there is no such fortune in store for the adventurous miner as awaits him in Arizona, Colorado, and California.

June 1st.-Everyone who has entered Arizona, or left it-and let us hope he went back all the better for his visit-will recollect Yuma for ever.

Yuma is on the Colorado, which divides California from Arizona. The muddy waters of the river rush with immense velocity past the buttresses of the fine bridge, with a draw for steamers, that spans it. The town consists apparently of adobe houses, and these not very regularly built. I could not visit the main street for lack of time, but the offshoots within eyeshot of us were not tempting. All we could see from the railway windows were flat-roofed adobe houses, some squalid Indians nearly naked, the buildings, with the Stars and Stripes over them, of the United States post on the left bank, and a few wooden sheds. It is said to be one of the hottest places in the world, and certainly looked dry and dusty. They say that a soldier who died there and went to an unmentionable place, returned in the spirit to beg for a blanket, as he felt so cold!

More happily constituted travellers than most of us have seen something pleasing in the aspect of the country roundabout, and have been moved to much admiration by the various tints of the hills in the distance, and by the rocks which constitute the near limits of the valley through which the river passes. In the old days, when the stage-coaches offered the only means of travelling through the district, there might have been a good deal to see along the road; but the rail generally avoids sights, and where nature is at its best, the engineer strikes deep down and burrows if he can. The colours of the hills are bright and varied; the lava rocks are of many shades, and the sun, piercing through strata of pure air, illuminates them with great vividness and force; but after a time the eye tires of the uniform hues of the landscape. For a few miles the rail runs close to the river, then plunges into the most remorseless, cruel waste of sand and rock, spread out up to the foot of the rugged hills of the Barnardino Range, I ever beheld-an abomination of desolation compared with which the Libyan Desert or the plains of Scinde were the Garden of the Hesperides. I cannot describe, nor could I at any time hope to succeed in giving an adequate conception of this dreadful wilderness. For 107 miles west there is not a drop of water to be found; the stations are dependent on the railway for their supplies. But Nature, as if to take away the reproach of permitting such a vast blotch on her fair face, kindly threw in Fata Morgana. We saw with delight widespread lakes with fairy islands in the midst; placid seas washing the base of the distant hills. This baked and dreary expanse extends nearly to San Gorgonio. We were spared the sandstorms which are so dreadful, nor did we experience inconvenience from the dust. The traveller, who has begun to despair of ever seeing anything greener than giant cacti and the adamantine vegetation which dispenses with water, is agreeably surprised as he approaches Los Angeles. If he be as fortunate as we were in having such friends as Colonel Baker and his wife to take charge of him, he will be amply repaid for far greater discomforts than any he experienced in the Colorado desert. From Los Angeles there is a railway to Santa Monica, seventeen miles distant, which belongs to Colonel Baker; and I would advise every one who can, either to spare or make the time for a diversion to that most delightful spot. Judge of the pleasure we felt when, after a picturesque run through orange groves, vineyards, and fields of corn and barley, we gazed on the waters of the Pacific-"θαλαττα! θαλαττα!" What a glorious scene! the broad bay lighted by the rays of the declining sun; the blue waves rolling on in solemn march, and breaking in long lines of foam on the dazzling sand, and nearer still the gardens and trees of the Pacific Biarritz which was about to welcome us! Our palace-car and its attendant carriages shot into a siding close to the beach. In a few minutes "every man Jack" was off to the bathing establishment to conform to the regulations ere we plunged into the sea. It is an orthodox bathing-place of the highest order. The Baths are extensive, and provided with every convenience and comfort for ladies and invalids; hot and cold, salt water and fresh, for those who do not like to trust themselves to the sea. A rope extended seaward to hold on by was needful, for the surf was heavy and the undertow strong. The water was delicious. Generally there is less sea on, and it is never too hot or too cold for bathing. Next morning we had another bath in a still rougher Pacific. The Duke and some of the party were driven about the country by Colonel and Mrs. Baker, and at 3 P.M., to our sorrow, we left the most lovable little spot of all we have seen on this continent. Good fortune be in store for Santa Monica! At Los Angeles, where carriages were waiting, we drove through the streets and suburbs, which enabled us to appreciate the reasons which induced the Spanish founders to give the city its name. In the evening we continued our journey, passing in the dark over the feat of engineering called the Loop.