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CHAPTER IX

It was but the next week when, unexpectedly as thunderbolts now and then surprise us on days of serene, unclouded sky, an unlooked-for domestic calamity startled Alamo Ranch.

Dennis, the good-natured Irish waiter, and Fang Lee, the Chinese cook, had come to blows. The battle had been (so to put it) a religious controversy, and such, as we know, have a bitterness all their own. It was inaugurated by Dennis, who, as a good Catholic, had, on a Friday, refused to sample one of Fang's chef-d'œuvres, – a dish of veal cutlets with mushroom sauce. A mutual interchange of offensive words, taunts highly derogatory to his holiness Pope Leo XIII. and equally insulting to the memory of that ancient Chinese sage, Confucius, had finally led to a bout of fisticuffs. In this encounter, Fang Lee, a slightly built, undersized celestial, had naturally been worsted at the hand of the robust Hibernian, a good six feet five in his stockings. Dennis, the "chip well off his shoulder," had peacefully returned to the duties of his vocation, nonchalantly carrying in the dinner, removing the plates and dishes, and subsequently whistling "St. Patrick's Day in the Morning" under the very nose of the Confucian, as he unconcernedly washed his plates and glasses, and scoured his knives. Fang, having meantime sent in his dinner, cleaned his pots and pans, brushed his baggy trousers, adjusted his disordered pigtail, and straightway gave in his notice; and with sullen dignity retired to the privacy of his bedroom, for the avowed purpose of packing his box. On the ensuing morning he would shake from his feet the dust of Alamo Ranch.

Vain were the endeavors of his discomfited employers to gain the ear of the implacable Fang Lee. He stood out resolutely for the privacy of his small sleeping apartment, obstinately refusing admission to outsiders.

In a house replete with boarders, and forty miles from available cooks, Fang's pending loss was indeed a calamity.

In this dilemma, the disheartened landlord and his wife begged the intercession of the star boarder, – always in high favor with the domestics, and known to be especially in the good graces of the Chinaman. Long did this envoy of peace unsuccessfully besiege the bedroom door of the offended Fang Lee. In the end, however, he gained admittance; and with adroit appeals to the better nature of the irate cook, and a tactful representation of the folly of giving up a good situation for the sake of a paltry quarrel, he finally brought Fang Lee down from his "high horse," and persuading good-natured Dennis to make suitable friendly advances, effectually healed the breach.

Ere nightfall amity reigned in the ranch kitchen, and the respective pockets of the belligerents were the heavier for a silver dollar, – a private peace-offering contributed by the arbitrator. An Irishman is nothing if not magnanimous; Dennis readily "buried the hatchet," handle and all.

Not so Fang Lee, who, smugly pocketing his dollar, covertly observed to the giver, by way of the last word, "All samee, Pope bigee dam foolee."

With genial satisfaction the star boarder received the thanks of the Browns for having saved to them their cook, and, with simple pleasure in the result of his diplomacy, met the encomiums of his fellow-boarders.

To this gracious and beautiful nature, replete with "peace and good-will to man," to help and serve was but "the natural way of living."

CHAPTER X

At mid-March, in this sun-loved land, the genial season far outdoes our own belated Northern May. Already, in Mesilla Valley, the peach, pear, and apricot buds of the orchard are showing white and pink. In the garden, rose-bushes are leaving out, and mocking-birds make the air sweet with song.

"In the spring," said Leon Starr, parodying Tennyson one morning at the breakfast-table, "the Koshare fancy lightly turns to thoughts of Shalam. Why not make to-day our long-planned excursion to that famous colony?"

"All right," responded the entire Koshare; and that afternoon a party of twelve set out from Alamo Ranch to explore that remarkable colony, some seven miles up the valley.

A description of the place and an account of this excursion is copied verbatim by the present writer from the journal of one of the party.

"To begin at the beginning," says the narrator, "the colony was started by one Dr. – , a dentist from Philadelphia. He enlisted as a partner in his enterprise a man from that region of fads – Boston, Mass. To this chimera of the doctor's brain, the latter, a man of means, lent his approval, and, still more to the point, the money to carry out the doctor's plans.

"Some few years ago the original founder of Shalam died, leaving to his partner the work of carrying out his half-tried experiment.

"Mr. – lived on in the place, assuming its entire charge, and finally marrying the doctor's widow, – a lady of unusual culture and refinement, but having a bent towards occult fads, as Spiritualism, Mental Science, and their like.

"Well, we arrived safely at Shalam, and were met by Mrs. – and a dozen or more tow-headed kids. It is noticeable that the whole twenty-seven children selected for this experiment have light hair and blue eyes. Mrs. – kindly presented us to her husband, – apparently a man of refined natural tendencies and fair intellectual culture, but evidently, like 'Miss Flite,' 'a little m-m, you know.'

"Conventionally clothed, Mr. – would undoubtedly have been more than presentable; in his Shalam undress suit he was, to say the least, unique.

"His long, heavy beard was somewhat unkempt. His feet were in sandals, without stockings. His dress consisted of a pair of white cotton pants, and a blouse of the same material, frogged together with blue tape, the ends hanging down over his left leg. Hitched somehow to his girdle was a plain watch-chain, which led to a pocket for his watch, on the front of his left thigh, placed just above the knee. When he wants time he raises the knee and takes out the watch, standing on one leg the while.

"The place is beautifully situated on the banks of the Rio Grande, with a range of high mountains across the river.

"It consists of two parts: 'Leontica,' a village for the workers, where they have many nice cottages, an artesian well for irrigation, and a big steam pump to force the water through all the ditches; Shalam, the home of the children, has a big tank, with six windmills pumping water into it all the time. Near the tank is the dormitory, – a building about one hundred and fifty feet in dimension. Through its middle runs a large hall for the kids to gambol in. On each side are rooms for the attendants and the larger children.

"Chiefly noticeable was the cleanliness of the hall, and the signs over the doors of the chambers, each with its motto, a text from 'Oahspe,' – the Shalam bible.

"At each end of the hall was a big sign, reading thus: 'Do not kiss the children.' As none of them were especially attractive, this command seemed quite superfluous. After looking over the dormitory, we were led to the main building, projected by the late Dr. – . This encloses a court about one hundred and fifty feet by sixty in size, and planted with fig trees.

"The front of the building is taken up by the library of the doctor; on the opposite side is his picture gallery.

"Rooms or cells for the accommodation of guests occupy the long sides of this structure.

"I was cordially invited to occupy one of these; but the place is too creepy for me! The pictures in the gallery were all done by the deceased doctor, under the immediate direction of his 'spirit friends.' To look at them (believing this) is to be assured that artists do not go to heaven, since not even the poorest defunct painter would have perpetrated such monstrosities.

"They all represent characters and scenes from the doctor's bible, – known as Oahspe, and written by him at the dictation of spirits. The drawing is horrible, the coloring worse; and no drunkard with delirium tremens could have conceived more frightful subjects!

"Mr. – , the doctor's successor, is a curious compound of crank and common-sense; the latter evinced by his corral and cattle, which we next visited. I have never seen so fine a corral nor such handsome horses and cattle. They are all blooded stock; many of the cows and calves having come from the farm of Governor Morton, in New York State. The cows were beautiful, gentle creatures; one of them is the largest 'critter' I ever saw, weighing no less than fifteen hundred pounds!

"The county authorities – scandalized by the meagreness of the Shalam bill of fare – compelled Mr. – to enrich the children's diet with milk, and, thus officially prodded, he is trying to give them the best in the land.

"The stock department of Shalam seems to be his undivided charge; while Mrs. – manages the garden. She kindly showed us all over it; and it is a beauty! With water flowing all through it, celery, salisfy, and lettuce all ready to eat, and other vegetables growing finely. She gave us a half bushel of excellent lettuce, which we all enjoyed.

"The Shalam idea is to take these children from all parts of the country, to bring them up in accordance with its own dietetic fad (which in many respects corresponds with that of our own dream-led Alcott), feeding them exclusively on a vegetable diet so that they won't develop carnal and combative tendencies, and thus start from them a new and improved race. Will they succeed? God knows; but they seem to have started wrong; for the children are largely the offspring of outcasts, and you can't expect grapes from thistle seed. However, Mr. – and Mrs. – are both sincere, kind-hearted reformers, trying to do what they think right in their own peculiar way. They are doing no harm by their experiment – hurting no one; and if the children turn out badly, it is no worse than they would if left alone; and if well, it is a distinct triumph of brain over beastliness. It may be well to state that no materia medica is tolerated at Shalam. The health of the colony is entrusted absolutely to the 'tender mercies' of mental healing. Mr. – is himself the picture of health, and says he does not know what it is to feel tired. ('They that be whole need no physician!') As for the Lady of Shalam, there is a look in her face that led me to think she was deadly tired of the whole business, but was too loyal either to her dead or living husband to 'cry quits.'

"These children know not the taste of physic. All their ailments are treated in strict accordance with Mental Science. They eat no eggs, fish, or other animal matter, save the county-prescribed milk, living solely on grains, vegetables, and fruits; and it must be said that they all look extremely healthy. Mr. – informs us that he rises daily at three A.M., goes directly to his corral and milks, comes in a little after four and prepares the children's breakfast. They are called at four forty-five, and breakfast at five. At five thirty devotional exercises begin, and last until six thirty, when the father of Shalam goes out and starts the hands on the farm. At eight the children begin lessons or some kind of mental training, which lasts till dinner time.

"After dinner they run wild for the rest of the day.

"We left Shalam at about five P.M. On the homeward drive we discussed this odd colony, and compared notes on what we had observed. An irreverent member of the party thus summed up the whole business in his own slangy fashion, – 'a man who all winter long prances round in pajamas, making folks shiver to look at him, ought to be put in an insane asylum.' So there you have his side of the question.

"The original founder of Shalam, Dr. – , not only aspired to be a painter, but, as an author, flew the highest kind of a kite, giving to the world no less than a new bible.

"A glimpse at its high-sounding prospectus will scarce incite in the sane and sober mind a desire to peruse a revelation whose absurdity and fantastic assumption leaves the Mormon bible far behind, and before whose 'hand and glove' acquaintance with the 'undiscovered country' Swedenborg himself must needs hide his diminished head.

"Thus it runs: 'Oahspe; a new Bible in the words of Jehovih and his Angel Embassadors. A synopsis of the Cosmogony of the Universe; the creation of planets; the creation of man; the unseen worlds; the labor and glory of gods and goddesses in the etherean heavens with the new commandments of Jehovih to man of the present day. With revelations from the second resurrection, found in words in the thirty-third year of the Kosmon Era.'

"Oahspe's claims are thus moderate: 'As in all other bibles it is revealed that this world was created, so in this bible it is revealed how the Creator created it. As other bibles have proclaimed heavens for the spirits of the dead, behold this bible revealeth where these heavens are.'

"Oahspe also kindly informs us 'how hells are made, and of what material,' and how the sinner is in them mainly punished by the forced inhalement of 'foul smells,' – so diabolically foul are these that one is fain to hold the nose in the bare reading of them!

"'There is,' declares Oahspe, 'no such law as Evolution. There is no law of Selection.' A vegetarian diet is inculcated; and we are gravely informed that 'the spirit man takes his place in the first heaven according to his diet while on earth!'

"A plan for the founding of 'Jehovih's Kingdom on earth through little children' is given. This 'sacred history' claims to cover in its entirety no less a period of time than eighty-one thousand years. At quarter-past six," concludes our informant, "we arrived, tired and hungry, but glad to have gone, and glad to get back, leaving behind us Shalam, with its spirit picture-gallery and its fantastic Oahspe, for the more stable verities of commonplace existence."

CHAPTER XI

It was on Friday that the Koshare made their little excursion to the Shalam settlement, and the next evening they gathered in full force, – with the exception of the Hemmenshaws and the Harvard man, who still remained at Hilton Ranch, losing thereby two of the most interesting of the Antiquary's papers; but "time and tide" and Saturday clubs "stay for no man," and now came the second Aztec paper.

"The Aztec government," began Mr. Morehouse, "in a few minor points is said to have borne some resemblance to the aristocratic system evolved by the higher civilization of the Middle Ages.

"Beyond a few accidental forms and ceremonies, the correspondence was, however, of the slightest. The legislative power both in Mexico and Tezcuco had this feature of despotism; it rested wholly with the monarch. The constitution of the judicial tribunals in some degree counteracted the evil tendency of this despotism. Supreme judges appointed over each of the principal cities by the crown had original and final jurisdiction over both civil and criminal cases. From the sentence of such a judge there was no appeal to any other tribunal, not even to that of the King.

"It is worthy of notice as showing that some sense of justice is inborn; as even among this comparatively rude people we read that under a Tezcucan prince a judge was put to death for taking a bribe, and another for determining suits in his own house (a capital offence also, by law.) According to a national chronicler, the statement of the case, the testimony, and proceedings of the trial were all set forth by a clerk, in hieroglyphical paintings, and handed to the court.

"In Montezuma's day the tardiness of legal processes must have gone miles beyond the red tape of a nineteenth-century court of justice.

"This vivid picture of the pomp and circumstance attendant upon the confirmation of a capital sentence by the king is presented by one of the Mexican native chroniclers:

"'The King, attended by fourteen great lords of the realm, passed into one of the halls of justice opening from the courtyard of the palace, which was called "the tribunal of God," and was furnished with a throne of pure gold, inlaid with turquoises and other precious stones.

"'The walls were hung with tapestry, made of the hair of different wild animals, of rich and various colors, festooned by gold rings, and embroidered with figures of birds and flowers. Putting on his mitred crown, incrusted with precious stones, and holding, by way of sceptre, a golden arrow in his left hand, the King laid his right upon a human skull, placed for the occasion on a stool before the throne, and pronounced judgment. No counsel was employed and no jury. The case had been stated by plaintiff and defendant, and, as with us, supported on either side by witnesses. The oath of the accused was, with the Aztecs, also admitted in evidence.

"'The great crimes against society were all made capital.

"'Among them murder (even of a slave) was punishable with death. Adulterers, as among the Jews, were stoned to death. Thieving, according to the degree of the offence, was punished with slavery or death. It was a capital offence to remove the boundaries of an estate, and for a guardian not to be able to give a good account of his ward's property.

"'Prodigals, who squandered their patrimony, were punished. Intemperance in the young was punished with death; in older persons, with loss of rank, and confiscation of property.

"'The marriage institution was held in reverence among the Aztecs, and its rites celebrated with formality. Polygamy was permitted; but divorces were not easily obtainable. Slavery was sanctioned among the ancient Mexicans, but with this distinction unknown to any civilized slave-holding community: no one could be born to slavery. The children of the slave were free. Criminals, public debtors, persons who from extreme poverty voluntarily resigned their freedom, and children who were sold by their parents through poverty, constituted one class of slaves. These were allowed to have their own families, to hold property, and even other slaves. Prisoners taken in war were held as slaves, and were almost invariably devoted to the dreadful doom of sacrifice. A refractory or vicious slave might be led into the market with a collar round his neck, as an indication of his badness, and there publicly sold. If incorrigible, a second sale devoted him to sacrifice.

"'Thus severe, almost ferocious, was the Aztec code, framed by a comparatively rude people, who relied rather on physical than moral means for the correction of evil. In its profound respect for the cardinal principles of morality, and a clear perception of human justice, it may favorably compare with that of most civilized nations.'

"'In Mexico,' says Prescott, 'as in Egypt, the soldier shared with the priest the highest consideration. The King must be an experienced warrior. The tutelary deity of the Aztecs was the God of war. The great object of their military expeditions was to gather hecatombs of captives for his altars.' The Aztec, like the (so-called) Christian crusader, invoked the holy name of religion as a motive for the perpetration of human butchery. He, too, after his own crude fashion, had his order of knighthood as the reward of military prowess. Whoever had not reached it was debarred from using ornaments on his arms or on his person, and was obliged to wear a coarse white stuff, made from the threads of the aloe, called nequen. Even the members of the royal family were not excepted from this law. As in Christian knighthood, plain armor and a shield without device were worn till the soldier had achieved some doughty feat of chivalry. After twenty brilliant actions officers might shave their heads, and had, moreover, won the fantastic privilege of painting half of the face red and the other half yellow. The panoply of the higher warriors is thus described. Their bodies were clothed with a close vest of quilted cotton, so thick as to be impenetrable to the light missiles of Indian warfare. This garment was found so light and serviceable that it was adopted by the Spaniards.

"The wealthier chiefs sometimes wore, instead of this cotton mail, a cuirass made of thin plates of gold or silver. Over it was thrown a surcoat of the gorgeous feather work in which they excelled. Their helmets were sometimes of wood, fashioned like the heads of wild animals, and sometimes of silver, on the top of which waved a panache of variegated plumes, sprinkled with precious stones. They also wore collars, bracelets, and earrings of the same rich materials.

"'A beautiful sight it was,' says one of the Spanish conquerors, 'to see them set out on their march, all moving forward so gayly, and in so admirable order!'

"Their military code had the cruel sternness of their other laws. Disobedience of orders was punished with death.

"It was death to plunder another's booty or prisoners. It is related of a Tezcucan prince that, in the spirit of ancient Roman, he put two of his sons to death – after having cured their wounds – for violating this last-mentioned law. A beneficent institution, which might seem to belong to a higher civilization, is said to have flourished in this semi-pagan land.

"Hospitals, we are told, were established in their principal cities for the cure of the sick, and as permanent homes for the disabled soldier; and surgeons were placed over them who 'were,' says a shrewd old chronicler, 'so far better than those in Europe that they did not protract the cure in order to increase the pay.'

"The horse, mule, ox, ass, or any other beast of burden, was unknown to the Aztecs. Communication with remotest parts of the country was maintained by means of couriers, trained from childhood to travel with incredible swiftness.

"Post-houses were established on all the great roads, at about ten leagues distance apart. The courier, bearing his despatches in the form of hieroglyphical painting, ran with them to the first station, where they were taken by another messenger, and so on, till they reached the capital. Despatches were thus carried at the rate of from one to two hundred miles a day.

"A traveller tells us of an Indian who, singly, made a record of a hundred miles in twenty-four hours. A still greater feat in walking is recorded by Plutarch. His Greek runner brought the news of a victory of a hundred and twenty-five miles in a single day!

"In the funeral rites of this ruder people one traces a slight resemblance to those of the more cultivated Greek. They burned the body after death, and the ashes of their dead, collected in vases, were preserved in one of the apartments of the home. After death they dressed the person's body in the peculiar habiliments of his tutelar deity. It was then strewed with pieces of paper, which operated as a charm against the dangers of the dark road he was to travel. If a chief died he was still spoken of as living. One of his slaves, dressed in his master's clothes, was placed before his corpse. The face of this ill-starred wretch was covered with a mask, and during a whole day such homage as had been due to the chief was paid to him. At midnight the body of the master was burnt, or interred, and the slave who had personated him was sacrificed. Thereafter, every anniversary of the chief's birthday was celebrated with a feast, but his death was never mentioned.

"The Spanish chroniclers have told us (and in reading these statements due allowance must be made for their habit of 'stretching the truth') that to the principal temple – or Teocallis – in the capital five thousand priests were in some way attached. These, in their several departments, not only arranged the religious festivals in conformity to the Aztec calendar, and had charge of the hieroglyphical paintings and oral traditions of the nation, but undertook the responsibility of instructing its youth. While the cruel and bloody rites of sacrifice were reserved for the chief dignitaries of the order, each priest was allotted to the service of some particular diety, and had quarters provided for him while in attendance upon the service of the temple.

"Though in many respects subject to strict sacerdotal discipline, Aztec priests were allowed to marry and have families of their own. Thrice during the day, and once at night, they were called to prayers. They were frequent in ablutions and vigils, and were required to mortify the flesh by fasting and penance, in good Roman Catholic fashion, drawing their own blood by flagellation, or by piercing with thorns of aloes. They also, like Catholic priests, administered the rites of confession and absolution; but with this time-saving improvement: confession was made but once in a man's life, – the long arrears of iniquity, past and present, thus settled, after offences were held inexpiable.

"Priestly absolution was received in place of legal punishment for offences. It is recorded that, long after the Conquest, the simple natives, when under arrest, sought escape by producing the certificate of their confession.

"The address of the Aztec confessor to his penitent, with his prayer on this occasion, has come down to us. As an evidence of the odd medley of Christianity and paganism that marked this queer civilization, it is quaintly interesting. 'O merciful Lord,' prayed he, 'thou who knowest the secrets of all hearts, let thy forgiveness and favor descend, like the pure waters of heaven, to wash away the stains from the soul. Thou knowest that this poor man has sinned, not from his own will, but from the influences of the sign under which he was born.'

"In his address to the penitent he urges the necessity of instantly procuring a slave for sacrifice to the Deity. After this sanguinary exhortation he enjoins upon his disciple this beautiful precept of Christian benevolence: 'Clothe the naked, feed the hungry, whatever privations it may cost thee, for, remember, their flesh is like thine, and they are men like thee.'

"Sacerdotal functions (excepting those of sacrifice) were allowed to women.

"At a very tender age these priestess girls were committed for instruction to seminaries of learning, in which, it is recorded, a strict moral discipline for both sexes was maintained, and that, in some instances, offences were punished by death itself.

"Thus were these crafty Mexican priests (the Jesuits of their age) enabled to mould young and plastic minds, and to gain a firm hold upon the moral nature of their pupils. The priests had (as we are told) their own especial calendar, by which they kept their records, and regulated, to their liking, their religious festivals and seasons of sacrifice, and made all their astrological calculations; for, like many imperfectly civilized peoples, the Aztecs had their astrology. This priestly calendar is said to have roused the holy indignation of the Spanish missionaries.

"They condemned it as 'unhallowed, founded neither on natural reason, nor on the influence of the planets, nor on the course of the year; but plainly the work of necromancy, and the fruit of a contract with the devil.'

"We are told that not even in ancient Egypt were the dreams of the astrologer more implicitly referred to than in Aztec Mexico.

"On the birth of a child he (the astrologer) was instantly summoned, and the horoscope – supposed to unroll the occult volume of destiny – was hung upon by the parent in trembling suspense and implicit faith. No Millerite in his ascension robe, awaiting the general break-up of mundane affairs, ever looked forward with more confidence to the final catastrophe than did the ancient Mexican to the predicted destruction of the world at the termination of one of their four successive cycles of fifty-two years.

"Prescott gives us this romantic account of the festival marking that traditional epoch:

"'The cycle would end in the latter part of December; as the diminished light gave melancholy presage of that time when the sun was to be effaced from the heavens, and the darkness of chaos settle over the habitable globe, these apprehensions increased, and on the arrival of the five "unlucky days" that closed the year they abandoned themselves to despair. They broke in pieces the little images of their household gods, in whom they no longer trusted.

"'The holy fires were suffered to go out in the temples, and none were lighted in their own dwellings. Their furniture and domestic utensils were destroyed, and their garments torn in pieces, and everything was thrown into disorder. On the evening of the last day, a procession of priests moved from the capital towards a lofty mountain, about two leagues distant. They carried with them as a victim for the sacrificial altar the flower of their captives, and an apparatus for kindling the new fire, the success of which was an augury for the renewal of the cycle.

"'On the funeral pile of their slaughtered victim, the new fire was started by means of sticks placed on the victim's wounded breast. As the light soared towards heaven on the midnight sky, a shout of joy and triumph burst forth from the multitudes, who covered the hills, the terraces of the temples, and the housetops with eyes anxiously bent upon the mountain of sacrifice. Couriers with torches lighted at the blazing beacon bore the cheering element far and near; and long before the sun rose to pursue his accustomed track, giving assurance that a new cycle had commenced its march, altar and hearthstone again brightened with flame for leagues around.

"'All was now festivity. Joy had replaced despair. Houses were cleansed and refurnished. Dressed in their gayest apparel, and crowned with chaplets and garlands of flowers, the people thronged in gay procession to the temples to offer up their oblations and thanksgivings. It was the great secular national festival, which few alive had witnessed before, or could expect to see again.'

"Although we find in the counsels of an Aztec father to his son the following assertion, 'For the multiplication of the species God ordained one man only for one woman,' polygamy was nevertheless permitted among this people, chiefly among the wealthiest classes.