322 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Nov. 22, 1883. 



FALL O' THE YEAR. 



BY W, H. PIERCE. 



rpHE white birch is yellow, 

 *- The apples are. mellow, 

 ' The com is ripe in the ear; 

 The p^ct ridge is drumming, 

 The woodcookfi are coming— 

 Because 'tis the fall o' the year. 



The crickets are calling. 

 The aller leaf's falling. 

 In the fields the stubble is sere: 



Be 



e fall o' the yen'-. 



The sportsman's heart gladdens, 

 His cheeks the frost reddens. 



He's off in the raom, bright and clear, 

 With his enn and his setter, 

 And no care to fetter— 



Because "tis the fall o' the rear. 



All cars and all trouble 

 hen. behind for the stubble, 



His fleet-footed companion quite near; 

 Through woods, fields ami swamps 

 He delightedly tramps — 



Because 'tis the fall o' the year. 



FROM ALAMOS TO SENTENTRION. 



' pHE town of Alamos is the chief place of the most south- 

 JL easterly district of Bonora. 



After a week's drive through desolation we at last came 

 near the ridgy mountain, which for a couple of days had 

 served as a landmark. A few miles to the right lay the 

 Promontorio mine, worked by an English company, and the 

 .Minus Nuevas, '& the hands of an American corporation. 

 We pa«ed by some extensive mescal fields, and were told a 

 story almost fabulous about their owner. 



It* appears that an energetic foreigner. German or French, 

 had some $700 capital, and patience enough to wait seven or 

 eight years for returns. He started the plantation on the 

 outskirts of the town, and ib proving his wisdom by receiv- 

 ing, after a lapse of fifteen years, some $15,000 or $20,000 of 

 annual income from his distillery. At all events, the natives 

 will point out the distillery and the great man's house, and if 

 thev make any mistakes it surely is not your fault. 



.fust as you cross the welcome stream that waters Alamos, 

 you sec the grove which gives the city its name. To he sure, 

 the trees arc not "elms," but the Mexican substitutes cotton- 

 woods, but they arc very line samples of their race. Grouped 

 in the shade lie pack-trains of mules and asses, with their 

 loads and ttppo rtjo* ranged iu orderly Hues, while the pack- 

 ers lounge with their cigarettes near the great masonry 

 water troughs; or gather around some friend who has cap- 

 tured a watermelon mid share toe least. The gray of the 

 stones, (he green of the trees, the clear intense heat, the 

 gurgle of the water, and the swarthy, graceful loungers, 

 with their resting beasts, make a scene that one might think 

 copied from a page of Cervantes. 



Down the stream there are fields and orchards near the 

 banks, where ditches can be taken for irrigating, and you set* 

 the fronds of the bananas (lagging out as the wind sweeps 

 over, and the heavy verdure of the orange Irees. Then when 

 you get into the town you find the same air of a classic 

 'model. Though the place is comparatively young for Mexico 

 (less than a century old), and though it has one of the most 

 important mints in the country, yet the primitive fashions 

 have not yet begun to decay, nor has the fever for improve- 

 ment and progress marred the scene with horse railroads and 

 other unsightly conveniences. The cathedral, imposing by 

 its mass, though not line otherwise, guards one side of the 

 plaza. The fountain in the middle is, strangely enough, 

 continually flowing, and all the people get their water supply 

 I hence. Indians with great red water jars on their heads or 

 shoulders, and pigmy soldiers, half clad, with sandalled 

 feet and with a barrel slung on a pole between each pair of 

 staggering warriors, distribute the supply to the houses, 

 while a few send round donkeys with cauvas or leather sacks, 

 which hold water wonderfully well 



Then in the daytime, under the arcades which cover the 

 sidewalks in front of the low houses, are piles of native 

 wares, bread stands, heaps of sweet roasted mescal and 

 pyramids of corn, with a few miserable plums, to Bhow how 

 completely they can fail when in competition with Yankee 

 products. ' 



Toward dusk you will see Indian women squatting all 

 along the street with baskets by them, and perhaps a pine 

 torch or a little fire to give light. For some time 1 dia not 

 know what the women were about, but found at last that 

 they sold kanaka. Now tamales are sometimes very good. 

 They consist of mince meat, or chicken, or beans, or toma- 

 toes; in fact, whatever meat you will, wrapped round with 

 eorn husks and a little tallow, When the wrapping is 

 finished the bundle is about the size and shape of a small 

 Vienna roll, and a Dumber of these are spitted on a stick and 

 roasted, foreigners buy them two for a medio Ubut is half 

 a "bit"). Natives get four for the same money, but two will 

 be found quite tilling. 1 have always seen sheep or cow fat 

 used in these dainties, but perhaps this comes from the fact 

 that the native pigs are all lean. 



Swine are numerous in Sonera. They are of the breed 

 called by Americans "wind-splitters," built very like a shad 

 on legs and speedy; with long sharp snouts. Some philoso- 

 phers bold that pigs are unfairly censured for dirt which 

 only comes from being put up in a sty with swill. There 

 may be a difference iu pigs, but as far as the Mexican beasts 

 are' concerned the argument is proven bad. Tour hog in 

 Sonora is as free us air. He has the country lo roam over 

 and can get lots of cleanliness and small nutrition, but he is 

 very dirty. It is a wonder where in (hat arid region he finds 

 moisture enough to make so much filth slick to his bide, but 

 he succeeds in that and as if proud of the accomplishment, 

 comes around you and stays, as familiar as your shoe. 1 re 

 member on one occasion we were giviug our mules a feed of 

 barley, and there happened to be a number of sows with 

 young litters near by. I was guarding our animals when the 

 pigs charged in mass for the grain, and, skilfully as they 

 dodged, the air for a few moments was dotted with a shower 

 of kicked piglings who, almost as fast as they lit, advanced 

 again to the combat, 



There are two principal hotels in Alamos, formerly kept 



by brothers Don Hypation and Don Espiridion— splendid 

 names which perhaps served to spur their owners on to riBe 

 from the post of cook boys on a San Francisco boat to that of 

 hotel-owners further south. Don Hypation had been gathered 

 to his fathers, but his fierce-looking, good-natured, slattern 

 widow kept his house and entertained his customers, if it be 

 entertainment to smoke very large cigars and neglect the 

 house — but there were delicious bread stands in the arcade, 

 and have I not just been telling of the supply of tamales? 

 One needed nothing but the airy room, the canvas stretcher 

 that served as a bed, and a few missiles to keep the dogs and 

 cats out to be quite hnppy. 



Across the street rose the quiet cathedral and, if the jang- 

 ling chimes had but been silent, life would dream itself away 

 in that forgotten province as well as iu the sleepiest of lotus 

 islands. 



But "sweet do nothing" does not of itself make reports on 

 mines, so 1 consulted Don Jorge Le Brun, the cultivated and 

 courteous chief of the mint, about getting means of transport! 

 And here I will give another illustrating digression. The 

 mints in Mexico used to be managed by the government, but 

 it was rumored that the officials stole. Certainly the business 

 did not pay, so a contract system was introduced, and now 

 certain foreign contractors not only pay for the privilege of 

 coining, hut have amassed in many cases, private fortunes 

 besides. As a consequence, many of the mint officials, acting 

 for the contractors, will be found to be gentlemen of great 

 knowledge and capacity. To these qualities Sefior Lc Bruu 

 added a courtesy of his own. He told me of a man who 

 could let me have mules and a Truss, that is a boy to manage 

 them, and following his directions, 1 was soon in treaty with 

 Mariano Espinosa for the means of travel, The mules had 

 an unfortunate habit of getting away from Mariano's custody, 

 so it took several days to gather them together and put on a 

 missing shoe, then after two days more, allowed for the na- 

 tional custom of not keeping appointments, we were in trim 

 to start. 



Another national custom is that your driver and the hirer 

 of mules want their pay in advance, but this habit Ihonored 

 by its breach .• only 1 was forced by common humanity, and 

 indeed, my man would not start otherwise, to leave enough 

 money to support the driver's family in my absence, Aud 

 now with a pack mule aud two saddle mules, all born tired 

 and kept starved, we set out for the Sierra. The pack mule 

 had easy work. A case of cheap claret and a bag of bread 

 filled the provision list, and few blankets were needed in the 

 clear summer nights. Within three days we had reached 

 the Fuerte River at Vaca. For some time back I had 

 noticed a little change in the houses. In all Other parts of 

 the State the walls are built of large sun-dried adobe bricks, 

 and the nearly flat, roof is made of cactus poles covered with 

 dirt, but here" most of the roofs have a sharp pitch, and are 

 thatched with the leaves of the royal palm, a tree, to my 

 eye, much less beautiful than its cousin, (he date palm, hut 

 compensating perhaps by greater usefulness. The river, 

 which has various names, taken from the various towns and 

 districts it passes through, was quite high when we reached 

 it. The rains always start in the mountains first, and while 

 the lowlands are parching at the ends of the long summer 

 drought, a rise in the .streams tells of (he coming floods. 



On the river bank at Vaca lay an old rusty boiler, a monu- 

 ment of American enterprise. Early in the sixties a com- 

 pany had been formed to work some distant mines, aud ma- 

 chinery had been sent in from California, but none of it reached 

 its destination. Certain p/'onunntidon, as they called the 

 revolutionists, intent on bettering the constitution, had seized 

 the trains and taken the malleable iron to hammer into ma- 

 ehetes, the national sword, while the articles that were not 

 easy (• use or small enough to carry away, had been left to 

 guide future travelers on their way. It is astonishing what 

 large weights can be moved with a pack-train. 1 have been 

 told, and~ean well believe, that, by fastening poles between 

 two beasts, one behind the Other, musses of seven hundred 

 pounds weight can be slowly got along, but some bulk} 

 pieces that I have seen in the mountains have completely 

 puzzled me, unless indeed they were, in some ingenious way, 

 carried along.on the shoulders of a multitude of men. 



At last we got safely over I he Fuerte, aud found ourselves 

 at the ranch of an j4 mer ' C!in wno ' h^e the man already 

 spoken of at Alamos, owed a large fortune to the distillation 

 of mescal. Very hospitable was Mr. Lanphar. and it was 

 hard to part, not so much from the flesh pots, as from the 

 great rarity of a kitcheii garden and baths in his fine hot 

 springs. But the necessities of summer journeying forced 

 us to start while it was yet night, that we might get to wafer 

 and shelter at the Descanso ranch before the groat heat of 

 mid-day. 



And' here I think it fair to warn you that, although I he 

 whole of this narrative is written straight along like harm- 

 less prose, there is a quantity of blank verse coming soon, in- 

 spired by the happy title, "Descanso," or the "ranch of rest." 

 So they had named the place where once in the hot month 

 of cloudless June we stopped for nooning. When the creep- 

 ing light showed its faint streak over the eastern hills we 

 rose and saddled. League on league we sped through trails 

 hung close with tangled thorny houghs, crushing down fra- 

 grant weeds, and desert flowers, before the sun rose. Then 

 with tardy toil urged the hot mule* panting along the road, 

 till in a valley, almost at our feet, we saw the clustering 

 Jiodses and the green alfalfa fields that marked a streamlet's 

 course. With "kindly courtesy the master came to bid us 

 welcome. ' 'Throw you r saddles off and rest with me until the 

 afternoon," said be; and soon the tired beasts were fed. 

 The tired men, stretched upon palm-leaf mats, waited the 

 summons to the table spread by hospitable hands with 

 homely fare. We dined and after laid us down to smoke, 

 while in our ears the women's soft, dull tones crooned like 

 a lullaby, and graceful shapes hung with free drapery went 

 gliding by, blending with the fair dreams that soon came on. 

 Then, freab with rest, we waked to start again. Southward 

 and eastward lie the thirsty plains, their verdure browned 

 by the long Shrivelling drought In the blue distance heaves 

 in billowy swells the central range, watching in soulless 

 calm the parching lowlands, treasuring the damps blown 

 from each ocean to her cloudy peakB; then, when the fiery 

 ummer's angry heat frees the imprisoned waters from (heir 

 bonds, hurling' to left aud right her garnered storms; and in 

 the hills above the sultry flats, before the path climbs up the 

 rugged heights, nestles contentedly the ranch of rest. 



The darkness was closing down fast as we half rode, half 

 slid down the steep descent that, rises on one side of the few 

 Indian huts which claim the name of Lai Guasa. Near 

 the river we could see the twinkle of a fire now and then, 

 aud wc steered for the welcome light. Indians, though 

 .. re usually ill-supplied with luxuries, and so I sent 

 Mariano ahead to find out if there were a Mexican Jiving in 

 the hamlet, ne showed me the house of a man "of reason," 



I as the members of the superior race call themselves, and 

 there we stopped. Our host was almost wealthy compared 

 bo his neighbors, for, as the corn was not yet harvested, the 

 I Indians were living on the wild fruit known as pitagfu with- 

 out other food, while in our house beans were rife. I was 

 also able to get a kind of mattrass to sleep on the\ call a 

 tapesli. This consists of a lot of poles, cactus or wild cane, 

 lashed together with rawhide so as lo roll up like a blind, 

 only lengthwise; and at night the bundle is spread out, the 

 ends propped up, and the result is a springy bed whose 

 roughness disappears entirely if one is only tired enough. 



The next morning we secured the services of our host as a 

 guide, and at daybreak forded the river, here culled the 

 Chinipas, but the same stream we had before crossed, and set 

 out, to climb the ridge. 



Our guide tucked his machete under his arm, apparently 

 rather for martial looks than bloody uses, and led the way. 



In front of us rose a hill that seemed from a distance like 

 the steep, square finished wall of the great plateau through 

 which the stream beds are hollowed out. 



This climb of the euesta de La Ov.nm is perhaps three or 

 four thousand feet from the ford to the highest point of the 

 crest, and the trail reaches the top in about seven miles, so 

 that, the average grade is not very steep; but there are places 

 in the road where it seems as if the front mule were almost 

 treading on the head of the next in line. You start from 

 the tropic growth of the valley, mescal and palm and cactus, 

 pass through oak and hard wood growth and, at the top, 

 find yourself among groves of spindling breezy pines. 



Then turning around you see far below the milky (bread 

 of the Winding river, walled as far as vision readies by the 

 same square mountain forms; on the right, the rolling, pine- 

 tuftcd top of the table land; and again, beyond, the daik, 

 yawning break that marks the canon of the tributary Sen 

 tentrion. 



The only game we saw was one wild turkey. There arc 

 deer of two kinds, which the natives call respectively bv.ro 

 (not bvrro, with two r's, which means jackass) and knailo. 



1 have seen quite large antlers ot the hi no, hut, the tame 

 specimens of the animal met around the ranches look like a 

 rather dwarfed bhicktail. and the eeimdo is smaller even than 

 our whitetail Virginian deer — not much bigger than a com- 

 mon sheep— it has, however, a longer tail than any other 

 species I ever met. 



Of wild animals, you hear about the lion and the tiger. 

 The first seems to be 'like the Rocky Mountain lloti or puma; 

 but the tiger is an animal without "immediate kindred in the 

 United States. A live Mexican tiger I never saw, but a skin 

 was shown to mc at the town of San Marcial and I was as- 

 sured that the beast had been killed in the neighborhood. 

 The skin without the tail was three or four feet long, yellow 

 with transverse stripes of black, very like a small Indian 

 tiger akin. 



By traveling hard with but, a short siesta we reached the 

 edge of the plateau that dominated the valley of the Seuten- 

 trion about tour o'clock; then pitching down the sharp de- 

 scent we managed to get under the shelter of the single tum- 

 ble-down adobe house that graced the mine, just as night was 

 falling and, with the night, the first rain storm of the wet 

 season. 



For a week or so I was engaged in examining the mines. 

 Of course the way in which this is done is a mystery of the 

 trade, not to be told to any one outside the circle ol 



The glories, however, of this particular piece of property 

 had, until recently, been a matter of history. Within a few 

 days' march lie the Palmarejo, whose owner (always called 

 Dona Justina, so I can't give her last name) is said to have 

 forty thousand dollars a month coined at Alamos, and the 

 Urapa, which is credited with an output of fifteen thousand 

 dollars a month, but, the silver age of the BeOtentrion dates 

 fifty years back. Down on the narrow fiats where the 

 river brawls stormily through (he gorge, are long lines of 

 masonry aequeduels, water power ore-crushers, orange 

 orchards, ruined buildings, and all (be marks of former 

 prosperity. 



At that time one Almada was the sultan of this isolated 

 principality, and you are shown the pool where he used to 

 sit in the "afternoons and mouse himself by watching the 

 members of his harem dive for the silver 'he threw iu the 

 water, while his private band, probably amateurs, hilled his, 

 lislening ear with their best efforts. 



After a few days spent in work, we were sitting in the 



I the oft.: 



, v." lieu 

 < ir sixty- 



ve had r 

 n Icagu 

 . Mexici 



nodes* 



in a dav. 



door of the house about four o'clock i 



Jesus, an old Mexican who had seen somewhere n 



five summers, came up and delivered letters, denui 



presence elsewhere. Jesus bad started that mon 



the Descanso ranch and come over the same trail i 



ccntly traveled, making over twenty-three Mexica 



on foot before four o'clock in the day. Now G 



league is five thousand varas, and a vara" is some tl 



inches, so that the league is but two miles and two 



thereabouts, but, all deductions made, his perfornuin 



to me wonderful, aud yet the old fellow was vet 



about it. We asked him how far he could £0 



"Ah," said he, "barely twenty leagues. I am old, you know, 



aud going up hill tires me out." 



We started back with .lesus for a companion. 1 made nry 

 first advance into his good grace by giviug him a box of 

 sardines, then when we' came to a store I bought him a eo- 

 t<n,'iu, and finally cemented the alliance with a dollar, so 

 that 1 now feel that I have at, least one 1'iiend in Mexico. 



The ivU-ua'a asks for a word of explanation. Pieces of 

 cotton or linen arc woven like a large dish cloth, or say a 

 wide (owel. These are folded diagonally, so as to make a 

 triangular surface, and wrapped around the waist, the point, 

 hanging down behind or on one thigh. Small articles are 

 often carried wrapped in the folds Of %hacateneia us a Yankee 

 would carry them in his hat. The most singular liinj 

 nected with this queer garment, is the idea many of the 

 working people have that it is necessary to the costume. 

 You will meet a peon with no shirt, only a hat, rawhide san- 

 dals, short white cotton drawers, and a cotencia, and if you 

 ask him why he carries the latter, he will tell you that it U 

 not, decent to go without. 



When I again reached Alamos my hostess took her cigar 

 out of her mouth aud welcomed me loudly ; but to get out to 

 the. railroad agaiu promised to be the hardest task that had 

 vet fallen lo my lot. 



The heat was very great, not seldom ISO" in the shade, 

 and 140 in the sun at if or 3 o'clock in the day. There hud 

 been a recent highway, or rather byway, robbeiy on (be 

 trail, aud while the rains that would soon make the country 

 nearly impassable were fastcoming on, every traveler except 

 myself seemed to wish to put off the start till the Inst, mo 

 ment, 



Finally my old guide Mariano was persuaded to bring his 

 mules up for another venture, and we left town iu the warm 



