ADVENTURING DOWN THE WEST COAST OF MEXICO 



469 



Then the World War and the inter- 

 necine war came to interfere with the 

 west coast trade, so that the gemlike little 

 bay is now almost barren of vessels. On 

 the farther side a German square-rigger, 

 interned in 1914, was drying at its anchor. 

 Here and there were smaller vessels. 



A schooner from Lower California, 

 once white, now sadly smudged, its sails 

 torn and flapping, nudged into the little 

 wharf. Its sailors lazily rolled ashore 

 bales of dates — rawhide bales, sewed up 

 in the form and size of flour barrels, as 

 the friars had taught the Lower Calif or- 

 nians to do two centuries ago. One dis- 

 covers that these dates come from the 

 groves planted by the friars themselves, 

 and no better are grown in the world. 



As for the rawhide in which they are 

 baled, it is as much an article of daily use 

 here as is barbed wire to the western 

 farmer; or, rather, rawhide was. Now- 

 adays there are so few cattle on the So- 

 nora ranges that a tannery in Lower Cali- 

 fornia imports its hides from the United 

 States. Yet this tannery's leather is gold- 

 medaled and blue-ribboned all over the 

 world. 



One hopes that this is but a temporary 

 stagnancy in Guaymas, however. Mex- 

 ican towns have the advantage — perhaps 

 a doubtful one — of a longer perspective 

 than our own cities, which jump from 

 the pine shack to the skyscraper stage 

 over night. 



After all, the mines in the high Sierras 

 still hold their hoards of gold and silver. 

 Some time, when men work more and 

 talk and fight a little less, the mule trains 

 will again wind out of old Guaymas to- 

 ward the rosy hills, and tall ships will 

 again creep through the harbor gates, and 

 Parisian buyers will again clamor for the 

 pearls of La Paz. Then Guaymas will 

 come back to its own. 



For the moment one feels that one had 

 best talk of the bay. Not very long, not 

 very wide, hemmed in with hills that 

 come down to the water's edge, the gate- 

 way invisible in their brown folds, it is 

 one of the extraordinary beauty spots of 

 the world. 



The water has the hue and iridescence 

 and sparkle of gems, changing and shift- 

 ing and glittering anew as the light de- 



scends in varying reflections from the 

 summits overhead. 



It is a paradise for fishermen. The 

 Indian fishers are forever sailing out in 

 their log canoes or towing them back, 

 fish-laden, along the shores. Unkind 

 breezes and treacherous currents are un- 

 known. The bay seems as gentle as 

 those who use it. 



Like everything else about Mexico, 

 that statement must be qualified. The 

 natives of Guaymas are gentle, but not 

 far up the coast of the Gulf of California 

 a savage tribe is dying. 



One need not mourn the Seri Indians 

 too much. They are naked, squalid, de- 

 generate. They live in pits in the sand 

 or under the branches of trees that they 

 tie together with withes. They have no 

 culture or traditions or kindness. They 

 are non-producers of everything save 

 hate. 



It may be that another year or so will 

 see the last of them. There can hardly 

 be more than 100 left now, and each 

 winter takes an increasing toll of their 

 scrawny, starved, shivering bodies.* 



But they have never struck their colors. 

 They are the active enemies of every 

 sentient being in the whole world. 



UDWKR CALIFORNIA AND ITS GREAT PEARI, 

 PORT 



Across the Gulf of California, a few 

 days' sail on one of the schooners that 

 from time to time drifts languidly over 

 these tranquil waters, is the wonderland 

 of Baja California — Lower California. 



It may be a bit arid. In point of fact, 

 it is more than a bit arid. Horned toads 

 carry canteens when they travel there. 

 There are sections of the peninsula where 

 it has not rained for seven years. 



One must be a desert-lover thoroughly 

 to appreciate the sandy wastes, its weary 

 miles of mesquite and cactus, its huge 

 canyons marked here and there by the 

 traces of a race that is not only lost to 

 history, but the existence of which can- 

 not be explained by any of the common- 

 sense theories of to-day. 



But, provided the visitor does not fear 



See an account of the Seri Indians in "A 

 Mexican Land of Canaan," by Frederick Simpich, 

 in The Geographic for October. 1919. 



