82 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
he ^fforiwptn ^mirist 
TO THE GULF OF CORTEZ. 
About a month ago, my brother, who is a very saga- 
cious physician, advised me to take the fresh liver of a 
mountain sheep for certain nervous symptoms Avhich 
were troublesome. None of the local druggists could fill 
the prescription, and so it was decided that I should seek 
the materials in person. With me went my friend J. B., 
the'pearl of companions, and we began the campaign by 
outfitting at San Diego, with a view to exploring the re- 
sources of the sister republic in the peninsula of Lower 
California. Lower California is very different from 
Southern California. The latter is— well, a paradise, or 
something of that kind, if you believe the inhabitants, of 
whom I am an humble fraction. The former is what 
you may please to think. 
At San Diego Ave got a man, a wagon, four mules and 
the needed provisions and kitchen — all hired at reason- 
able rates, except the provisions and kitchen Which we 
bought. Then we tried to get a map, but av ere foiled. 
My fiuniture contained hundred cartridges,a belt 1 always 
carry, given by a friend, Avith a bear's head on the 
buckle (a belt which has held, before I got it, more fatal 
bullets than any other west of the Rockies), and my usual 
rifle. J. B. prepared himself in a similar way, except the 
belt. 
Starting south from San Diego, A\ r e crossed the line at 
Tia Juana, and spent an unhappy day Waiting on the 
custom house officials. They, however, did their duty in 
a courteous manner, and we, with a bundle of stamped 
papers, Avent on. The only duties Ave paid were those 
leAded on' our provisions. The team and wagon were 
entered free under a prospector's license, for thirty days, 
and. j>,u obliging stableman signed the necessary bond. 
Th« main difficulty in travelling in Lower California 
lies in the fact that you can get no feed for your ani- 
mals. From Tia Juana east to Tecate, Where you find 
half a dozen hovels, there is hardly a house, and not a 
spear of grass for thirty miles. At Tecate there is a little 
nibbling. Thence south for twenty-five miles Ave went 
to the Agua Hechicera, or witching water; thence east 
twenty-five miles more to Juarez, always without grass; 
thence south to the ranch house of the Hansen ranch at 
El Kayo, twenty-five miles more. There, at last, Was a 
little 'grass, but" after passing; that point Ave camped at 
Agua Blanca, and Avere again without grass for thirty 
miles to the Trinidad Valley, which once had a lit tJ e 
grass, now eaten clean. Fortunately Ave Avere able to buy 
hay at Tia Juana, and took some grain. Fortunately also 
Ave found some corn for sale at Juarez. So, Avith con- 
stant graining, a little hay, and a supply of grass, either 
absent or contemptible, We managed to pull the stock 
through. 
Besides our four hired mules there was another belong- 
ing to our man, Oscar, which we towed behind to pack 
later; The animal Was small in size, but pulled back 
from two hundred pounds to a ton at every step. Its sex 
was female, but its name was Lazarus, for the over- 
whelming necessity of naming animals of the ass tribe 
either Lazarus or Balaam tramples on all distinctions of 
mere sex. We started, prepared for a possible, though 
improbable, season of rain; but Ave did not count on ex- 
treme cold, yet the first night out the water in our bucket 
froze, and almost every night it froze from a mere skin 
to several inches thick. To give an idea of the country, I 
will transcribe from a brief diary a few descriptions. 
Starting from Tia Juana, Ave drove or packed for nearly 
two hundred miles in a southeasterly direction, until we 
finally sighted the Gulf and the mountains of Sonora in 
the distance. At first our road lay through Ioav moun- 
tains, in valleys abounding in Cholla cactus. From 
Tecate southward the country was rolling and clotted 
with brushwood, until you reach Juarez. Juarez is an 
abandoned, or almost abandoned, placer camp. Here 
amid the countless pits of the miners the pinons begin, 
and then, after a short distance, the pine barriers stretch 
for forty miles. Beyond again you pass into hills of low 
brush and plains covered with sage and buckweed, until 
finally you cross a divide into the broad basin of the 
Trinidad Valley. This is a depression some twenty miles 
long and perhaps five miles. Avide on the average, with a 
hot spring and a house at the southwestern end, Availed on 
the southeast by the grim frowning rampart of the San 
Pedro Martir range, and on the other sides by mountains 
of lesser height but equal desolation. 
We had intended at first to strike for the Cocopah 
range, near the mouth of the Colorado River, and there 
do our hunting. Several reasons induced us to change 
our plan and make for the Hansen ranch, Avhere deer were 
said to Jbe plenty and sheep not distant; so Ave turned 
from Tecate southward, made one dry camp and one camp 
near Juarez, and on the fifth day of our journeying 
reached a long meadow, called the Bajio largo on the 
Hansen ranch. We turned from the road and followed 
the narrow park-like opening for four miles, camping in 
high pines, with water near and enough remnants of grass 
to amuse the animals. This region of pine barriers occurs 
at quite an elevation, and the nights were cold. The 
granite core of the country crops out all along in Ioav 
broken hills, the intervening mesas consisting of granite 
sand and gravel, and bearing besides the pines a good deal 
of brush. Thickets of manzanita twisted their blood- 
colored trunks over the ground, and the tawny stems of 
the red-shank covered the country for miles. The red- 
shank is a lovely shrub, growing about six or eight feet 
high, with broom-like foliage of a yelloAvish green, pos- 
sessing great fragrance. If you simply smell the un- 
crushed shoots, they give a faint perfume, someAvhat sug- 
gestive of violets, and if you crush the leaves, you get a 
more pungent odor, sweet and a little smoky. Also, the 
gnarled roots of the red-shank make an excellent cooking 
fire, if you can wait a few hours to have theni burn to 
coals. «. All things considered, the pine barrier country 
is A-ery attractive, and if there were grass, water and 
game, it would be a fine place for a hunter. From qui 
camp at Bajio Largo, J. B. and I went hunting for deer, 
which were said to be plentiful. We hunted from early 
morning till noon, seeing only one little fellow about the 
size of a jack-rabbit scuttle off in the brush. Then we 
decided to go home. This, however, turned out to be a 
large business. The lofty trees prevented our getting any 
extended view, and the stony gulches resembled each 
other to an annoying degree. At last even the water 
seemed to Aoav .,the_ /wrong way. <J3o/we gave/up the at- 
tempt to identify landmarks, and folloAvingJctir course 
f ronijthe sun, Ave finally came again to the long meadow 
and followed that to camp. Here we violated all rules 
and shot at a mark — our excuse was that Ave had decided 
to leave J;he vicinity without further hunting; and, at all 
events, we spoiled a sardine-box, to Oscar's great admira- 
tion. 
In order to get a", fair day's journey out of "a fair day, 
Ave had to rise at four or five o'clock. Oscar once or twice 
borrowed my Watch to wake by, but the result Avas only 
that I had to borrow J. B.'s watch to Avake Oscar by; so 
I afterwards retained the timepiece and got up early 
enough to start Oscar well on his duties. 
The question of fresh meat had uoav become important. 
We let Bajio Largo and droA T e to Hansen's Laguna, a 
shalloAv pond 0A r er a mile long, much haunted by ducks. 
Here we made a bad mistake, driving six or eight miles 
into the mountains, only to reach noAAmere, and be forced 
to retrace our steps. Night, however, found us at El 
Rayo, the Hansen ranch house, and, as it turned out, the 
real base of our hunting campaign. The Hansen ranch is 
an extensive tract named after an old Swede who brought 
a few cattle into the country years ago. The cattle multi- 
plied exceedingly, to the number, indeed, of several thou- 
sand, and can be seen at long range by the passer-by. 
They are very Wild and gaunt at present, and Avill prance 
off among the rocks at a surprising rate before a man can 
get within two hundred yards of them. Ex-Governor 
Ryersou now oaahis these cattle, and his major-domo, Don 
Manuel Murillo, a fine gray-haired A'eteran, learning that 
I had known the GoA^ernor, gave me much friendly ad- 
Adce and sent his son to guide us well on the road to the 
Trinidad Valley and the sheep land. He also provided 
us Avith potatoes and fresh meat, so that Ave lived fatly 
thenceforth. 
Our track lay past an abandoned saAV-mill, built by the 
International Company. Thence Ave Avere to go to Agua 
Blanca, the last Water to be had on the road; for the next 
thirty miles are dry. The saAV-mill Avas built to supply 
timbers to the mining town of Alamo, some twenty-live 
miles south. This camp is uoav in an expiring state and 
needs no timbers, but is said to shelter some rough and 
violent men. The road from the mill Avas deep in sand, 
and our pace was slow. The darkness was, coming cold 
and fast when we finally drove on to the water and 
halted to camp. 
Two men were there before us With a saddle-horse each, 
and no other apparent equipment. When we arrived the 
men Avere watering their animals, and at once turned 
their backs, so as not to be recognized. Then they retired 
to the brush. We supped and staked out the mules, and 
then sent Oscar to look up our neighbors. Oscar went 
and shouted, but got no answer and could find no men. 
We thought that our mules were in some danger, and J. 
B., who is a yachtsman, proposed to keep anchor watch. 
So Oscar remained awake till midnight, 'when he awoke 
rne and retired freezing, saying that he had seen the enemy 
prowling around. I took my gim and visited the mules in 
rotation, till 2:30. Then J. B. awoke chattering With 
cold, but determined, and kept faithful guard until five, 
When we began our day with a water-bucket frozen solid. 
All our property remained safe, and a distant fire 
twinkling in the brush showed that our neighbors were 
still there. After breakfast Oscar again sought the hos- 
tile camp and finally found a scared and innocent 
Frenchman, Avho cried out: 
"Holy Mary! I took you for American robbers from the 
Hue, and I have lain awake all nigh watching my horses. ' ' 
From Agua Blanca we drove across the Santa Catarina 
ranch, for the most part plain and mesa covered Avith 
greasewood and buckbrtisli.' This latter shrub looks 
much like sage, except that its leaves are of a yellow- 
green instead of a blue-green. It is said to furnish the 
chief nutrition for stock in several great ranches. Cer- 
tainly there was no visible grass, but buckbrush can 
hardly be fattening. Toward night we crossed the pass 
into the Trinidad Valley and drove down a grade not 
steep only, but sidelong, where the Avagons both went to- 
bogganing down and slid rapidly toward the gulch. The 
mules held well, however, and before dark Ave were 
camped near the hot spring at the house of Alvarez. 
Our friend Don Manuel Murillo had recommended us 
both to Alvarez and to his sister, Seuora Paula, but both 
of these were absent. Don Manuel had also urged us to 
get the Indian Anastasio for a guide. 
"For Heaven's sake," he said, "don't venture without 
a guide. You may perish from thirst, as others have 
done before you. ' ' 
We tried at first to hire burros and let our mules rest, 
but the Indian vvho owned the burros stated that his 
terms were "one burro, one day, one dollar," an impu- 
dent attempt at robbery, Which Ave resented. 
We mtervieAved Anastasio, however, Avho said he 
would start at any moment, and after leaving Oscar to 
guard the wagpn, We packed tAvo mules, saddled two more 
for J. B. and myself, and giving Anastasio 1he tow-rope 
of a pack-mule, we started after him. Anastasio AA r as the 
most interesting figure of the trip, and I must be par- 
doned if I go into some detail about him. He spoke some 
Spanish and understood a good deal When he did un- 
derstand he never stated that fact, but either assumed a, 
stony look or answered at cross-purposes, so that Ave did 
not get to knoAv a great deal about each other for some 
time Aside from his Spanish, Anastasio was a fine rep- 
resentative of the best of the stone age, and as Ave jour- 
neyed on one got an excellent idea of the life of the sav- 
age here in early times. About three o'clock in the 
afternoon we reached the only Avater spot on the trail. 
Anastasio parted some withered reeds, and looking earn- 
estly, said "dry." A little further up he repeated the 
word, and yet again, till, at his fourth attempt, he said, 
"very little," and Ave camped. By scraping aAvay the 
mud and grass we got a little gravelly hole and dipped 
out the slowly seeping water, a cup at a time. We thus 
managed to give each of the mules a little in a pan and 
to get a canteen full for cooking. 
Then I noticed Anastasio gathering wood, Avhich I 
thought at first Avas for general use, but I found it was a 
private pile to be used, so to speak, for bedding. An- 
astasio did not take the ax to secure his Wood, but 
smashed off -mesquito branches Avith a rock or pulled out 
some old root. He quite despised pinon and juniper logs, 
saying they gave no heat, meaning, probably, that they 
burned out too soon. 
We turned in soon after supper, and the night was 
cold. Anastasio said he feared snow. The reason for his 
fear was soon evident. My bed Was about twenty feet 
from Anastasio's, and during the night I would turn 
and watch him. He carried but one small blanket of 
about the texture of a gunny-sack. He lighted a long 
smouldering fire, strapped himself naked, except a 
breech-clout, and Avith his back to the coals and his 
front protected by his gauzy blanket he slept until the 
cold roused him, Avhen he put on more Avood and slept 
again. I offered him four pairs of warm horse-blankets 
to sleep in, but ,that Avas not the thing. He said he 
needed to have the fire strike him in the small of the 
back, and he slept in that way always. So all night in 
my Avakefrd moments I saAv the light reflected from his 
mahogany person. Evidently snow or cold rain Avould 
be disastrous to people who need a fire all night, for With 
no covering against the cold and with fires extinguished 
by storm, they might easily freeze to death. 
We were packed and inarching at 7:30 next morning, 
and to those 1 who knoAv the inwardness of packing in win- 
ter that statement means a good deal. It means, for 
instance, that J. B. got up, at my summons, long before 
dawn, and cooked a splendid breakfast, and that the 
mules were caught and grained and saddled, and the 
packs made and lashed, by the earliest sun. 
J. B. was a Wonder. He seemed to enjoy .giving his 
fellow mortals the best breakfasts and suppers— for we 
never had any midday meals — that our supplies could 
furnish. Ahvays rising at the first call, jn the dark, 
sometimes with an accompaniment of snow or rain, he 
managed the commissariat to perfection. 
I in my hirmble Avay packed and saddled and did other 
necessary work, and Anastasio regarded us with benevo- 
lent curiosity, though ahvays ready to get Avood or Water 
or mules When we asked him to do so. 
We Avere now approaching the true desert. This term 
is not restricted to the broad level sand Avastes along the 
Gulf, but includes the arid and waterless mountains ad- 
jacent, and this must be borne in mind when the Mexi- 
cans tell you that sheep are to be found in the desert. 
We passed the last of the brushy hills, and crossing a 
small divide came over slopes of volcanic cinders to a lit- 
tle water spot with dwarf willows and grass. This Avas 
our hunting camp. The country through which our 
route had lain heretofore was altogether granitic, though 
one could see hills apparently of stratified material in the 
distance. Toward the desert we met beds of conglom- 
erate and tractiye and mountains covered Avith slide- 
rock ringing iflnty-like clinkers from some great volcanic 
furnace, but doubtless some accurate and industrious 
German has described all this in a Work on^the geology 
of the peninsula, and I aa-HI refer you to that valuable 
treatise for. further facts. 
The vegetation had somewhat changed. There Avere 
more cactus, particularly the fleshy kind called venaga, 
though .1 noticed With surprise the absence of the great 
fruit-bearing cactuses, the Saguarro and Pitaya, all along 
our route. The Spanish daggers were very numerous, as 
wore- also Mescal plants, both of these forming veritable 
thickets in places. 
This makes the third variety of wilderness encountered 
in the peninsula. There are four: First and best, the 
pure barrens; second, the brushy hills and plains covered 
with sage, greasewood and buckweed; third, this spike- 
bearing A r olcanic region, and fourth, the appalling desola- 
tion of the acknowledged desert. 
The moment We had unloaded and watered our animals, 
Anastasio and I set out to look for deer. Anastasio Avore 
the spotted and tattered remnant of a frock-coat once 
green, given him by an Euglisman, of whom I shall say 
more later. He had guarachis, or sandals, on his feet, 
bare legs, a breech-clout, and on his head a reddish ban- 
danna handkerchief in the last stages of decay, and as he 
peered over some rock, glaring long and earnestly in 
search of game, he reminded one of those lean and Wolfish 
Apaches that Remington draws in a way so dramatic and 
so full of grim significance. 
Anastasio was fifty-one years old and had no upper in- 
cisors, but the way he flung his gaunt leathern shanks 
over those mountains of volcanic clinkers, armed with 
the poisoned bayonets of myriads of mescal, cactus and 
Spanish dagger, was astonishing. 
I told him that I Avas not racing, and that he would 
scare the game. In fact he did start one little fellow, but 
he said he always saw the game first, and for this day I 
Was quite powerless to hold him in; so I decided to return 
to camp before dark. This disgusted Anastasio greatly. 
"In this way Ave shall never kill," said he. "We are 
going to suffer from hunger." I assured him that we had 
plentiful supplies, but he had come for meat. Un- 
bounded meat ,had been the chief incentive for his trip, 
and hungry he Avas determined to be. 
The next day J. B. set out early with the red man. I 
arranged carnp and two or throe hours later took what I 
supposed was a different direction, but soon encountered 
the pair returning. J. B. had a painful knee, and An- 
astasio had started his racing tactics and kept them up 
until J. B. WaS quite lame. 
The Indian reported that he had seen sheep. J. B. had 
used the glass without finding them, and then Anastasio 
captured it and looked through the wrong, end, nodding 
and saying he covdd count live, very big. This, I am 
sorry to say, was false and affected on Anastasio's part, 
and J. B. was skeptical about the sheep altogether; but I 
knew how hard it Avas to find distant game when you 
don't know exactly how it should appear. To reach the 
supposed sheep the mountain must be climbed and the crest 
turned, for the wind permitted no other course. J. B. 
did not feel up to the task, and I directed him to camp. 
Anastasio and I climbed for about four hours, and 
reached a position whence his sheep Avould be visible. He 
stared long, and said he could make out one ewe lying 
doAvn under a juniper. I tried the glass. He was right. 
His unaided sight seemed about equal in definition to my 
field-glass. On this occasion he declined to use the glass. 
We could get no nearer unseen, and though the distance 
was very great, I decided to risk a shot. 
I fired in fact, two or three shots at the ewe, alarming 
her greatly, when from beneath a clilf which lay below 
us a band streamed out. Two big rams started off to the 
right. Anastasio and I ran -"down a bit, and 1 tried a long 
shot at the leading ram. The distance Avas great, and the 
run had pumped me a little. I missed. The second ram 
