234 NEW TEACZS IN NOIiTH AMEEICA 



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most ignominious terms, but keep their treaties no longer 



than suits tlieir convenience. His Majesty has ordered that 

 if any require peace, it should be grantedj and even offered p 

 to them "before they are attacked. But this generosity they 

 construe to proceed from fear. Their arms are the common ^ I 

 bows and arrows of the country. The intention of their u 

 incursions is plunder, especially horses, which they use both h 

 for riding and eating, the flesh of these creatures being one 



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of their greatest dainties. 



'' These people, dm-ing the last eighty years past, have been 

 the dread of Sonora, no part of which was secure from their ^ 

 violence. ... Of late years, the insolence of these savages ^ 

 has been carried to the most audacious height from the success ^^ 

 of some of their stratagems, particularly owing to the variances ^ 

 and indolence of the Spaniards.- . . . The Apaches penetrate ^j 

 into the province by different passes, and, after loading them- j 

 selves with booty, will travel in one night fifteen, eighteen, [j 

 or twenty leagues. To pursue them over mountains is 

 equally dangerous and difficult, and in the levels they follow 

 no paths. On any entrance into their country, they give 

 notice to one another by smokes or fires ] and at a signal they 

 all hide themselves. The damages they have done in the 

 villages, settlements, farms, roads, pastures, woods, and mines 

 are heyond description ; and many of the latter, though yery " 

 rich, haye been forsaken." 



No better description than this could he given of the ^ 

 Apaches at the present time. 



With respect to Casas Grandes, in Chihuahua, these pueblos, 

 when built, were evidently liable to the incursions of the 

 Apaches, otherwise they would not have been constructed 

 as fortified towns. But rich mines were early discovered in 

 the mountains hard by, and extensively worked by the 



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