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"The school has a pen of swine, a flock of chickens, and a fine herd of milch cows; and all the hay and fodder for them and the horses are raised on the farm. Oats and corn are purchased from the Indians, who, in 1895, raised one hundred and fifty thousand pounds.
"The adult Indians," he adds, "cut this year one hundred and sixty cords of wood for the school, for which I paid them two dollars and fifty cents per cord. In the winter of 1896 the industry of blanket-making was introduced into the reservation. Navajo blanket-makers were employed to teach to the Mescalero women their incomparable method of carding, spinning, and dyeing wool, and weaving blankets. Twenty of the Mescaleros," boasts the agent, "can to-day make as good blankets as the Navajos themselves.
"The reservation is mountainous, and one of the finest sheep ranges in the country. Government has allowed five thousand sheep for general distribution at the reservation, and in addition, five hundred head for the school; where a room is now set aside for the looms of the older girls, who will, in their turn, become instructors in this useful art. This puts into their hands another opportunity to become self-supporting."
The visitors from Mesilla Valley were kindly admitted behind the scenes at the reservation, to make acquaintance with its people, both old and young; and were highly interested and entertained by the picturesqueness of the Indian character.
The Grumbler had brought his camera along. He was a skilled amateur photographer, and had offered his services in that capacity to the little party.
To bring his household under the focus of that apparatus was no easy task for the courteous agent. An Indian is nothing if not a believer in witches. In his aboriginal mode of life witch-hunting and witch-punishing are among his gravest occupations. He pursues them with a vigorous hand, and with a superstitious zeal equal to that of the most persistent white man in the palmiest days of Salem witch-hunting and witch-burning. The Mescaleros, to a soul, are believers in witchcraft. The camera, as might be seen from its effect, was plainly bewitched. They would have none of it.
The school children, having no choice, must needs range themselves in scared, sullen rows, and be "took" under compulsion.
Suspiciously eying the operator, they sullenly took their prescribed pose, and heedless of the immemorial request, "Now look pleasant," went sourly through the terrible ordeal.
Some of the older girls, pleased with the novelty, submitted more cheerfully; but the younger pupils, looking askance at the white men, covered their faces, so far as was possible, with hair, or hands, and were thus providentially carried safely through this process of bewitchment.
Some of the schoolboys had fine, intelligent faces; of others, the Grumbler subsequently observed that "they were the kind that grow up and scalp white settlers."
A curious young squaw, from the opened slit of her tepee, watched the approach of the party with their bedevilled machine. Her position was excellent; but no sooner had the operator arranged his camera for a snap shot at this picturesque subject, than, with a scared yell, the woman bounded out of range, closing behind her the aperture – her front door.
The result was merely an uninteresting view of an Indian tepee, which is like nothing more than a mammoth ant-hill, minus the symmetry and nice perpendicular of that more intelligently fashioned structure.
Two incorrigible squaws in "durance vile" for making tiswin, as they sullenly served their sentence of hard labor at the reservation woodpile, looked defiantly up from their task of chopping fuel, and scowled viciously at the witch machine and its abettors.
They, however, succeeded in getting a fairly good picture of these hideous-faced beings, as "withered and wild" as the uncanny sisters who brewed "hell broth" before the appalled Macbeth, beneath the midnight moon, on Hampton Heath.
A mild-eyed Indian woman, whose peaceful occupation was to scrub the reservation floors, kindly submitted to the bother of being put into a picture, along with the insignia of her office, – a scrubbing-pail.
Not so "Hot Stuff," a highly picturesque squaw, claiming the proud distinction due to the "oldest inhabitant." This "contrairy" female, impervious to moral suasion, was finally induced to pose before the terrible "witch-thing" by the threat of having her rations withheld until her consent to be "taken" was obtained. Scared and reluctant, she was at last photographed; but required Lieutenant Stottler to protect her with his arm through the perils of this unfamiliar ordeal. This he good-naturedly did, and is immortalized along with this aged squaw.
After an interesting visit of two nights and a day at the reservation, the Koshare turned their faces towards Mesilla Valley, where, after two uneventful days, they arrived in safety, full of the novelties encountered, charmed with the courteous and gentlemanly agent, but wearied with the long ride, and heartily glad to return to white civilization.
CHAPTER XIV
It was at the close of the week succeeding that of the little journey across the mountains that the Koshare held their last Saturday evening session. To punctuate the finality of this gathering, a variation from the usual programme was proposed by the Antiquary. Members of the Club were requested to supplement his brief paper by giving such written or verbal statements, along the same line as their own research might enable them to make. To this proposal many of the Koshare had agreed, and had come well primed for lively discussion.
The attendance was unusually full, nearly all the boarders, in addition to the regular Club members, being in attendance.
The Antiquary led with the following interesting paper, which, as he explained, was, in a way, supplementary to those on the Aztecs.
"As the Tezcucans were of the family of the Aztecs," began Mr. Morehouse, "and are said far to have surpassed them in intellectual culture and the arts of social refinement, some slight notice of their civilization may not prove irrelevant.
"Ixtilxochitl is the uneuphonious name of the native chronicler, purporting to be a lineal descendant of the royal line of Tezcuco, who has given us his highly colored narrative of the Tezcucan civilization. It may be prefaced with the information that Ixtilxochitl (who flourished so late as the century of the Conquest) has had his reputation so torn to tatters by the critics of later years that he has, figuratively, 'not a leg to stand on.'
"But as Prescott commends his 'fairness and integrity,' and says 'he has been followed, without misgiving, by such Spanish chroniclers as could have access to his manuscripts,' without attempting to settle the vexed question of the probability of its details (which are a combination of 'Munchausen' and 'Arabian Nights'), we also will follow his marvellous story of the Tezcucan Prince Nezahualcoyotl. Passing lightly over the fascinating chapter of that prince's romantic adventures, – his marvellous daring, his perilous escapes from the fierce pursuit of the usurper Maxtla, and the dethronement and violent end of that bloody-minded monarch, – we come to the time when Nezahualcoyotl, restored to the throne of his fathers, is firmly established in the love and fealty of his people, and may turn his attention to the production of the odes and addresses handed down in Castilian by his admiring descendant Ixtilxochitl. This admirable monarch was, we are informed, 'the Solon of Anahauc.' His literary productions turn, for the most part, on the vanity and mutability of human life, and strikingly embody that Epicurean poetic sentiment, expressed, at a later time, by our own English poet, Herrick, in such verses as 'Gather ye rose-buds while ye may.'
"'Banish care,' sings the royal Tezcucan bard; 'if there be bounds to pleasure, the saddest life must also have an end. Then wear the chaplet of flowers, and sing thy songs in praise of the all-powerful God; for the glory of the world soon fadeth away.
"'Rejoice in the green freshness of thy spring; for the day will come when thou wilt sigh for these joys in vain. Yet the remembrance of the just' (piously adds the poet) 'shall not pass away from the nations; and the good thou hast done shall ever be held in honor.' And anon, – returning to his Epicurean 'muttons,' – he sings: 'Then gather the fairest flowers in the gardens to bind round thy brow, and seize the joys of the present ere they perish.'
"An English translation of one of Nezahualcoyotl's odes has been made from the Castilian. It harps upon the same old string, as also do his prose essays, which have less literary merit than his verse. We are told by his panegyrist that not all the time of this incomparable monarch was passed in dalliance with the muse, but that he won renown as a warrior, and in the interests of peace also fostered the productive arts that made his realm prosperous, as agriculture, and the like practical pursuits. Between times he appears to have looked well after the well-being of his children, who, in numbers, rivalled the progeny of our modern patriarch, Brigham Young. It is recorded that by his various wives this monarch had no less than sixty sons and fifty daughters. (One condones his disgust with life!) The Tezcucan crown, however, descended to the children of his one legal wife, whom he married late in life. The story of his wooing and winning this fair lady is almost an exact counterpart of the Bible account of King David's treacherous winning of Uriah's beautiful consort.
"It is related of Nezahualcoyotl, that having been married for some years to this unrighteously obtained wife, and not having been blest with issue by his beautiful queen, the priests persuaded him to propitiate the gods of his country – whom he had pointedly neglected – by human sacrifice. He reluctantly consented; but all in vain was this mistaken concession. Then it was that he indignantly repudiated these inefficient Pagan deities.
"'These idols of wood and stone,' said he, 'can neither hear nor feel; much less could they make the heavens, and the earth, and man, the lord of it. These must be the work of the all-powerful unknown God, creator of the universe, on whom alone I must rely for consolation and support.' He thereupon withdrew to his rural palace, where he remained forty days, fasting and praying at stated hours, and offering up no other sacrifice than the sweet incense of copal, and aromatic herbs and gums.
"In answer to his prayer, a son was given him, – the only one ever borne by his queen. After this, he made earnest effort to wean his subjects from their degrading religious superstition, building a temple, which he thus dedicated: 'To the Unknown God, the Cause of Causes.' No image was allowed in this edifice (as unsuited to the 'invisible God'), and the people were expressly prohibited from profaning its altars with blood, or any other sacrifice than that of flowers and sweet-scented gums. In his old age the king voiced his religious speculations in hymns of pensive tenderness.
"In one of these, he thus piously philosophizes: 'Rivers, torrents, and streams move onward to their destination. Not one flows back to its pleasant source. They must onward, hastening to bury themselves in the bosom of the ocean. The things of yesterday are no more to-day, and the things of to-day shall cease to-morrow. The great, the wise, the valiant, the beautiful, – alas, where are they?'"
"The compositions of Nezahualcoyotl," observed the Grumbler, as the Antiquary folded away his finished paper, "though strictly founded on fact, are not exhilarating. His family was too large; and the wonder is, not that his odes and hymns are depressing, but that he should have the heart to 'drop into poetry' at all!"
"We are told," rejoined the Journalist, "by his descendant with the unpronounceable name, that once in every four months his entire family, not even excepting the youngest child, was called together, and orated by the priesthood on the obligations of morality, of which, by their exalted rank, they were expected to be shining examples. To these admonitions was added the compulsory chanting of their father's hymns."
"Poor beggars!" pitied the Grumbler; "how they must have squirmed under this ever-recurring royal 'wet blanket!'"
"You forget," said Leon Starr, coming to the rescue of the poet-father, "that in view of their inevitable mortality the bard had already advised them to 'banish care, to rejoice in the green freshness of their spring; to bind their brows with the fairest flowers of the garden, seize the joys of the present, and' – in short, had given them leave to have no end of larks, which, of course, they naturally and obediently did."
"It is a noteworthy fact," observed Mr. Morehouse, "that many aborigines – though but scantily supplied with clothing, as the natives of Samoa and the Sandwich Islanders – take great delight in adorning the body with flowers. To this liking the Tezcucan king especially appeals in his odes and hymns. The Mexicans have from time immemorial doted on flowers. This taste three hundred years or more of oppression has not extinguished."
"Do you remember, dear," asked Mr. Bixbee, turning to his wife, "the flower market in the Plaza at Mexico?" (The pair had, a year or two earlier, explored that city) – "that iron pavilion partly covered in with glass, and tended by nut-brown women and smiling Indian girls?"
"Shall I ever forget it?" was her enthusiastic response. "The whole neighborhood was fragrant with perfume of vases of heliotrope, pinks, and mignonette; and such poppies, and pansies, and forget-me-nots I never elsewhere beheld!"
"One can believe in absolute floral perfection," said the Journalist, "in a country which embraces all climates. 'So accurately,' observes Wilson, 'has nature adjusted in Mexico the stratas of vegetation to the state of the atmosphere, that the skilful hand of a gardener might have laid out the different fields, which, with their charming vegetation, rise, one above another, upon the fertile mountain sides of the table-land.'
"Along with many other important vegetable growths, the cotton-plant is supposed to be indigenous to Mexico, as Cortez, on his first landing, found the natives clothed in cotton fabrics of their own manufacture. Its culture continues to the present day, but with very little improvement in method since the earlier time of the Spanish Conquest."
"And now," asked the Harvard man, "since we are on the subject of Mexican natural floral products, may I speak my little piece, which I may call, 'What I have learned about the Cactus'?"
The Koshare graciously assenting, Roger Smith thus began:
"In Mexico the cactus is an aboriginal and indigenous production. Several hundred varieties are identified by botanists. A beautiful sort is Cereus grandiflora. As with us, this variety blooms only at night; its frail, sweet flower dying at the coming of day. The cactus seems to grow best in the poorest soil. No matter how dry the season, it is always juicy. Protected by its thick epidermis, it retains within its circulation that store of moisture absorbed during the wet season, and when neighboring vegetation dies of drought is still unharmed. Several varieties of cactus have within their flowers an edible substance, which is, in Monterey, brought daily to market by the natives. That species of cactus which combines within itself more numerous uses than any known vegetable product is known as the maguey, or century plant.
"Upon the Mexican mountains it grows wild as a weed; but as a domestic plant it is cultivated in little patches, or planted in fields of leagues in extent. Its huge leaf pounded into a pulp makes a substitute both for cloth and paper. The fibre of the leaf, when beaten and spun, forms a silk-like thread, which, woven into a fabric, resembles linen rather than silk. This thread is now, and ever has been, the sewing thread of the country. From the leaf of the maguey is crudely manufactured sailcloth and sacking; and from it is made the bagging now in common use.
"The ropes made from it are of that kind called manila. It is the best material in use for wrapping-paper. When cut into coarse straws, it forms the brooms and whitewash brushes of the country, and as a substitute for bristles it is made into scrub-brushes, and, finally, it supplies the place of hair-combs among the common people. So much for the cactus leaf; but from its sap arises the prime value of the plant.
"From this is made the favorite intoxicating drink of the common people of Mexico. This juice in its unfermented state is called honey water. When fermented it is known as pulque. The flowering maguey, the 'Agava American,' is the century plant of the United States.
"In its native habitat the plant flowers in its fifteenth year, or thereabout; and we are assured that nowhere, as is fabled, does its bloom require a long century for its production. The juice of the maguey is gathered by cutting out the heart of the flower of the central stem, for whose sustenance this juice is destined. A single plant, thus gingerly treated, yields daily, for a period of two or three months, according to the thriftiness of the plant, from four to seven quarts of the honey water, which, before fermentation, is said to resemble in taste new sweet cider.
"Large private profit accrues to the owner of maguey estates, and the government excise derived from the sale of the liquor is large. Pulque is the lager of the peon. It was the product of the country long before the time of the Montezumas; and Ballou tells us that 'so late as 1890 over eighty thousand gallons of pulque were daily consumed in the city of Mexico.'
"It is said to be the peculiar effect of pulque to create, in its immoderate drinkers, an aversion to other stimulants; the person thus using it preferring it to any and all other drinks, irrespective of cost."
The Minister followed Roger Smith with an account of a famous tree of Mexico.
"It was at Papotla," said this much-travelled invalid, "a village some three miles from that capital, that we saw this remarkable tree, which is called 'The Tree of the Noche Triste' (the Dismal Night), because Cortez in his disastrous midnight retreat from the Aztec capital is said to have sat down and wept under it. Be that as it may, the Noche Triste is undoubtedly a tree of great age. It is of the cedar family, broken and decayed in many parts, but still enough alive to bear foliage.
"In its dilapidated condition it measures ten feet in diameter, and exceeds forty feet in height. Long gray moss droops mournfully from its decaying branches, and, taken altogether, it is indeed a dismal tree.
"It is much visited, and held sacred and historic by the people, who guard and cherish it with great care."
"It calls up singular reflections," commented the Journalist, "to look upon a living thing that has existed a thousand years, though it be but a tree. Though so many centuries have rolled over the cypresses of Chapultepec, they are yet sound and vigorous.
"These trees are the only links that unite modern and ancient American civilization; for they were in being when that mysterious race, the Toltecs, rested under their shade; and they are said to have long been standing, when a body of Aztecs, wandering away from their tribe in search of game, fixed themselves upon the marsh at Chapultepec, and, spreading their mats under these cypresses, enjoyed in their shadow their noontide slumber. Then came the Spaniards to people the valley with the mixed races, who respected their great antiquity, so that during all the battles that have been fought around them they have passed unharmed, and amid the strife and contentions of men have gone quietly on, adding many rings to their already enlarged circumference. 'Heedless,' says Wilson, 'of the gunpowder burned over their heads and the discharge of cannon that has shaken their roots, as one ephemeral Mexican government succeeded another, these cypresses still remain unharmed, and may outlive many other dynasties.'"
"Apropos of the subject," said the Antiquary, "Nezahualcoyotl, according to his descendant, the native historian, embellished his numerous villas with hanging gardens replete with gorgeous flowers and odoriferous shrubs. The steps to these charming terraces – many of them hewn in the natural porphyry, and which a writer who lived in the sixteenth century avers that he himself counted – were even then crumbling into ruins. Later travellers have reported the almost literal decay of this wonderful establishment. Latrobe describes this monarch's baths (fabled to have been twelve feet long by eight wide) as 'singular basins, perhaps two feet in diameter, and not capacious enough for any monarch larger than Oberon to take a ducking in.'
"The observations of other travellers confirm this account. Bullock tells us that some of the terraces of this apparently mythical palace are still entire; and that the solid remains of stone and stucco furnished an inexhaustible quarry for the churches and other buildings since erected on the site of that ancient Aztec city.
"Latrobe, on the contrary, attributes these ruins to the Toltecs, and hints at the probability of their belonging to an age and a people still more remote. Wilson, on the other hand, positively accords them to the Phœnicians."
"In reading up on this famous empire, Tezcuco," said Leon Starr, "one is inclined to believe that every vestige of this proud magnificence could not possibly have been obliterated in the short period of three centuries, leaving on the spot only an indifferently built village, whose population of three hundred Indians, and about one hundred whites, maintain themselves in summer by gardening, and sending in their canoes daily supplies of 'herbs and sullers' (whatever this last may be) to Mexico, and, in winter, by raking the mud for the 'tegnesquita,' from which they manufacture salt."
"Wilson," said the Grumbler, "tells us that 'the Tezcucan descendant of an emperor "lied like a priest."' However that may be, one cannot quite swallow his own relation 'in its entirety.'"
"Right you are," responded the Harvard man; "and now here is Miss Norcross, waiting, I am sure, to cram us still further with Mexican information."
"It is only," said this modest little lady, "some bits that I have jotted down about Mexican gems;" and shyly producing her paper, she thus read:
"In enumerating the precious stones of Mexico, – the ruby, amethyst, topaz, and garnet, the pearl, agate, turquoise, and chalcedony, – one must put before them all that wonder of Nature, – the Mexican fire opal, which, though not quite so hard as the Hungarian or the Australian opal, excels either of them in brilliance and variety of color. Of this beautiful stone Ballou has aptly said, 'It seems as if Nature by some subtle alchemy of her own had condensed, to form this fiery gem, the hoarded sunshine of a thousand years.' He tells us that, in his Mexican travels he saw an opal, weighing fourteen carats, for which five thousand dollars was refused. 'Really choice specimens,' he goes on to say, 'are rare. The natives, notwithstanding the abundance of opals found in Mexico, hold tenaciously to the price first set upon them. Their value ranges from ten dollars to ten hundred.'
"In modern times, as we all know, a superstition of the unluckiness of the stone long prevailed. Now, the opal has come to be considered as desirable as it is beautiful, and, endorsed by fashion, takes its rightful place among precious gems. A London newspaper states that a giant Australian opal, oval in shape, measuring two inches in length, an inch and a half deep, and weighing two hundred and fifty carats, is destined to be given to King Edward the Seventh; and that Mr. Lyons, the giver, a lawyer of Queensland, desires that it should be set in the King's regalia of the Australian federation. The London lapidaries believe it to be the finest and largest opal in the world.
"Its only rival in size and beauty is the Hungarian opal, possessed by Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria. This gem is known as the 'Imperial opal,' and is said, in its rainbow beauty, to display the blended colors of the ruby, the emerald, and the amethyst.
"What is termed the 'fire' of the gem appears to burn in its remotest depths, with a glow and fervor which at times seem to convert the stone from the opaque to the semi-transparent."
"We have in our own family," said Miss Paulina Hemmenshaw, supplementing this account, "a rare Mexican opal. Long, long ago, it was given as an engagement ring to my mother's youngest sister, by her lover, who, while travelling in Mexico, had secured this exquisite stone for a betrothal pledge. On the very eve of her wedding-day my beautiful Aunt Margaret died of an unsuspected heart-disease. The old superstition of the unluckiness of the opal being then dominant, my aunt's superb ring was laid by as a thing malignant as beautiful.
"As a child I was sometimes allowed to take this sad memento of my dead aunt from its nest of cotton wool and admire its harmful splendor. At my mother's death it descended, along with all her own jewels, to me, her only daughter. Now that we have outlived the foolish superstition in respect to this precious stone, I have made up my mind," said the good aunt, beaming kindly on her niece, "to take this ring from the Safety Vault, on our return to Boston, and make it one of my wedding gifts to this dear child."
"Many thanks, dear ladies," said Mrs. Bixbee, as Miss Paulina ended, "for your talks about the opal. It is my favorite among precious stones. I even prefer it to the diamond, as something warmer and more alive. I am glad that its character is looking up in these days."
"All the same," said Mrs. Fairlee, complacently turning on her slim white finger a superb Hungarian sapphire, "nothing would tempt me to wear a stone even suspected of uncanniness. Trials and crosses, of course, will befall one, but it seems to me foolhardy to wear jewels supposed to attract misfortune, and, for my part, I am still suspicious of opals; and were I King Edward, I shouldn't thank my loyal Australians for the gift of an ill-omened jewel, however costly and beautiful."
"Well," commented the Journalist, "every one for his fancy; mine, I confess, is to 'mouse round' among musty book-shelves. Looking over my portable store of odds and ends for something relevant to this evening's discussion, I came upon this extract from the 'Voyages of one "Thomas Page,"' – a black letter copy of whose long-forgotten book, printed in London, in 1677, is still extant. As a curious picture of the times, it is not without an especial value; and, with your approval, I will now read it:
"This account must be prefaced with the explanation that Thomas Page was an English Dominican, who, as a missionary-monk, with his brother Dominicans travelled to his destination in Manila, by the road across Mexico, landing, by the way, at Vera Cruz, and there depositing some illustrious fellow-voyagers.
"'When we came to land,' says this quaintly circumstantial writer, 'all the inhabitants of the city had congregated in the Plaza to receive us. The communities of monks were also there, each one preceded by a large crucifix, – the Dominicans, the San Franciscans, the Mercedarios, – in order to conduct the Virey (the Viceroy) of Mexico as far as the Cathedral.
"'The Jesuits and friars from the ships leaped upon the shore from the ships. Many of them (the monks) on stepping on shore, kissed it, considering that it was a holy cause that brought them there, – the conversion of the Indians, who had before adored and sacrificed to demons; others kneeled down and gave thanks to the Virgin Mary and other saints of their devotion, and then all the monks hastened to incorporate themselves with their respective orders in the place in which they severally stood. The procession, as soon as formed, directed itself to the Cathedral, where the consecrated wafer (called in the English original the bread God) was exposed upon the high altar, and to which all kneeled as they entered… The services ended, the Virey was conducted to his lodgings by the first Alcalde, the magistrate of the town, and judges, who had descended from the capitol to meet him, besides the soldiers of the garrison and the ships. Those of the religious orders that had just arrived were conducted to their respective convents, crosses, as before, being carried at the head of each community.
"'Friar John presented us [his missionaries] to the Prior of the Convent of San Domingo, who received us kindly, and directed sweetmeats to be given us; and also there was given to each of us a cup of that Indian beverage which the Indians call chocolate. "This," the good friar tells us, "was but a prelude to a sumptuous dinner, composed of flesh and fish of every description, in which there was no lack of turkeys and capons. This feast," he naïvely apologizes, "was not set out for the purpose of worldly ostentation, but to manifest to us the abundance of the country."
"'The Prior of Vera Cruz,' he informs us, 'was neither old nor severe, as the men selected to govern communities of youthful religious orders are accustomed to be. On the contrary, he was in the flower of his age, and had all the manner of a joyful and diverting youth. His fathership, as they told us, had acquired the Priory by means of a gift of a thousand ducats, which he had sent to the Father Provincial. After dinner he invited some of us to visit his cell, and then it was we came to know the levity of his life…
"'The cell of the Prior was richly tapestried, and adorned with feathers of birds of Michoacan; the walls were hung with various pictures of merit; rich rugs of silk covered the tables; porcelain of China filled the cupboards and sideboards; and there were vases and bowls containing preserved fruits and most delicate sweetmeats.
