The Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet in California, Sonora, and Western Part 8

At last we pa.s.sed the Rio Grande, and a few days more brought us to Santa Fe. Much hath been written about this rich and romantic city, where formerly, if we were to believe travellers, dollars and doubloons were to be had merely for picking them up; but I suspect the writers had never seen the place, for it is a miserable, dirty little hole, containing about three thousand souls, almost all of them half-bred, naked, and starved. Such is Santa Fe. You will there witness spectacles of wretchedness and vice hardly to be found elsewhere--harsh despotism; immorality carried to its highest degree, with drunkenness and filth.

The value of the Santa Fe trade has been very much exaggerated. This town was formerly the readiest point to which goods could be brought overland from the States to Mexico; but since the colonization of Texas it is otherwise. The profits also obtained in this trade are far from being what they used to be. The journey from St. Louis (Missouri) is very tedious, the distance being about twelve hundred miles, nor is the journey ended when you reach Santa Fe, as they have to continue to Chihuahua. Goods come into the country at a slight duty, compared to that payable on the coast, five hundred dollars only (whatever may be the contents), being charged upon each waggon; and it is this privilege which supports the trade. But the real market commences at Chihuahua; north of which nothing is met with by the traveller, except the most abject moral and physical misery.

Of course, our time pa.s.sed most tediously; the half-breeds were too stupid to converse with, and the Yankee traders constantly tipsy. Had it not been that Gabriel was well acquainted with the neighbourhood, we should positively have died of _ennui_. As it was, however, we made some excursions among the _rancheros_, or cattle-breeders, and visited several Indian tribes, with whom we hunted, waiting impatiently for a westward-bound caravan.

One day, I had a rather serious adventure. Roche and Gabriel were bear-hunting, while I, feeling tired, had remained in a rancho, where, for a few days, we had had some amus.e.m.e.nt; in the afternoon, I felt an inclination to eat some fish, and being told that at three or four miles below, there was a creek full of fine ba.s.ses, I went away with my rifle, hooks, and line. I soon found the spot, and was seeking for some birds or squirrels, whose flesh I could use as bait. As, rifle in hand, I walked, watching the branches of the trees along the stream, I felt something scratching my leggings and moccasins; I looked down, and perceived a small panther-cub frisking and frolicking around my feet, inviting me to play with it. It was a beautiful little creature, scarcely bigger than a common cat. I sat down, put my rifle across my knees, and for some minutes caressed it, as I would have done an ordinary kitten; it became very familiar, and I was just thinking of taking it with me, when I heard behind me a loud and well-known roar, and, as the little thing left me, over my head bounded a dark heavy body. It was a full-grown panther, the mother of the cub. I had never thought of her.

I rose immediately. The beast having missed the leap, had fallen twelve feet before me. It crouched, sweeping the earth with its long tail, and looking fiercely at me. Our eyes met; I confess it, my heart was very small within me. I had my rifle, to be sure, but the least movement to poise it would have been the signal for a spring from the animal. At last, still crouching, it crept back, augmenting the distance to about thirty feet. Then it made a circle round me, never for a moment taking its eyes off my face, for the cub was still playing at my feet. I have no doubt that if the little animal had been betwixt me and the mother, she would have s.n.a.t.c.hed it and run away with it. As it was, I felt very, very queer; take to my heels I could not, and the panther would not leave her cub behind; on the contrary, she continued making a circle round me, I turning with her, and with my rifle pointed towards her.

As we both turned, with eyes straining at each other, inch by inch I slowly raised my rifle, till the b.u.t.t reached my shoulder; I caught the sight and held my breath. The cub, in jumping, hurt itself, and mewed; the mother answered by an angry growl, and just as she was about to spring, I fired; she stumbled backwards, and died without a struggle. My ball, having entered under the left eye, had pa.s.sed through the skull, carrying with it a part of the brain.

It was a terrific animal; had I missed it, a single blow from her paw would have crushed me to atoms. Dead as it was, with its claws extended, as if to seize its prey, and its bleeding tongue hanging out, it struck me with awe. I took off the skin, hung it to a tree, and securing the cub, I hastened home, having lost my appet.i.te for fis.h.i.+ng or a fish-supper for that evening.

A week after this circ.u.mstance, a company of traders arrived from St.

Louis. They had been attacked by Indians, and made a doleful appearance.

During their trip they had once remained six days without any kind of food, except withered gra.s.s. Here it may not be amiss to say a few words about the origin of this inland mercantile expedition, and the dangers with which the traders are menaced.

In 1807, Captain Pike, returning from his exploring trip in the interior of the American continent, made it known to the United States merchants that they could establish a very profitable commerce with the central provinces of the north of Mexico; and in 1812, a small party of adventurers. Millar, Knight, Chambers, Beard, and others, their whole number not exceeding twelve, forced their way from St. Louis to Santa Fe, with a small quant.i.ty of goods.

It has always been the policy of the Spaniards to prevent strangers from penetrating into the interior of their colonies. At that period, Mexico being in revolution, strangers, and particularly Americans, were looked upon with jealousy and distrust. These merchants were, consequently, seized upon, their goods confiscated, and themselves shut up in the prisons of Chihuahua, where, during several years, they underwent a rigorous treatment.

It was, I believe, in the spring of 1821, that Chambers, with the other prisoners, returned to the United States, and shortly afterwards a treaty with the States rendered the trade lawful. Their accounts induced one Captain Glenn, of Cincinnati, to join them in a commercial expedition, and another caravan, twenty men strong, started again for Santa Fe. They sought a shorter road, to fall in with the Arkansas river, but their enterprise failed; for, instead of ascending the stream of the Canadian fork, it appears that they only coasted the great river to its intersection by the Missouri road.

There is not a drop of water in this horrible region, which extends even to the Cimaron river, and in this desert they had to suffer all the pangs of thirst. They were reduced to the necessity of killing their dogs and bleeding their mules to moisten their parched lips. None of them perished; but, quite dispirited, they changed their direction and turned back to the nearest point of the river Arkansas, where they were at least certain to find abundance of water. By this time their beasts of burden were so tired and broken down that they had become of no use.

They were therefore obliged to conceal their goods, and arrived without any more trouble at Santa Fe, when, procuring other mules, they returned to their cachette.

Many readers are probably unaware of the process employed by the traders to conceal their cargo, their arms, and even their provisions. It is nothing more than a large excavation In the earth, in the shape of a jar, in which the objects are stored; the bottom of the cachette having been first covered with wood and canvas, so as to prevent anything being spoiled by the damp. The important science of cachaye (Canadian expression) consists in leaving no trace which might betray it to the Indians; to prevent this, the earth taken from the excavation is put into blankets and carried to a great distance.

The place generally selected for a cachette is a swell in the prairie, sufficiently elevated to be protected from any kind of inundation, and the arrangement is so excellent, that it is very seldom that the traders lose anything in their cachette, either by the Indians, the changes of the climate, or the natural dampness of the earth.

In the spring of 1820, a company from Franklin, in the west of Missouri, had already proceeded to Santa Fe, with twelve mules loaded with goods.

They crossed prairies where no white man had ever penetrated, having no guides but the stars of Heaven, the morning breeze from the mountains, and perhaps a pocket compa.s.s. Daily they had to pa.s.s through hostile nations; but spite of many other difficulties, such as ignorance of the pa.s.ses and want of water, they arrived at Santa Fe.

The adventurers returned to Missouri during the fall; their profit had been immense, although the capital they had employed had been very small. Their favourable reports produced a deep sensation, and in the spring of the next year, Colonel Cooper and some a.s.sociates, to the number of twenty-two, started with fourteen mules well loaded. This time the trip was a prompt and a fortunate one; and the merchants of St.

Louis getting bolder and bolder, formed, in 1822, a caravan of seventy men, who carried with them goods to the amount of forty thousand dollars.

Thus began the Santa Fe trade, which a.s.sumed a more regular character.

Companies started in the spring to return in the fall, with incredible benefits, and the trade increasing, the merchants reduced the number of their guards, till, eventually, repeated attacks from the savages obliged them to unite together, in order to travel with safety.

At first the Indians appeared disposed to let them pa.s.s without any kind of interruption; but during the summer of 1826 they began to steal the mules and the horses of the travellers; yet they killed n.o.body till 1828. Then a little caravan, returning from Santa Fe, followed the stream of the north fork of the Canadian river. Two of the traders, having preceded the company in search of game, fell asleep on the edge of a brook. These were espied by a band of Indians, who surprised them, seized their rifles, took their scalps and retired before the caravan had reached the brook, which had been agreed upon as the place of rendezvous. When the traders arrived, one of the victims still breathed.

They carried him to the Cimaron, where he expired, and was buried according to the prairie fas.h.i.+on.

Scarcely had the ceremony been terminated, when upon a neighbouring hill appeared four Indians, apparently ignorant of what had happened. The exasperated merchants invited them into their camp, and murdered all except one, who, although wounded, succeeded in making his escape.

This cruel retaliation brought down heavy punishment. Indeed from that period the Indians vowed an eternal war--a war to the knife, "in the forests and the prairies, in the middle of rivers and lakes, and even among the mountains covered with eternal snows."

Shortly after this event another caravan was fallen in with and attacked by the savages, who carried off with them thirty-five scalps, two hundred and fifty mules, and goods to the amount of thirty thousand dollars.

These terrible dramas were constantly reacted in these vast western solitudes, and the fate of the unfortunate traders would be unknown, until some day, perchance, a living skeleton, a famished being, covered with blood, dust, and mire, would arrive at one of the military posts on the borders, and relate an awful and b.l.o.o.d.y tragedy, from which he alone had escaped.

In 1831, Mr. Sublette and his company crossed the prairies with twenty-five waggons. He and his company were old pioneers among the Rocky Mountains, whom the thirst of gold had transformed into merchants.

They went without guides, and no one among them had ever performed the trip. All that they knew was that they were going from such to such a degree of longitude. They reached the Arkansas river, but from thence to the Cimaron there is no road, except the numerous paths of the buffaloes, which, intersecting the prairie, very often deceive the travellers.

When the caravan entered this desert the earth was entirely dry, and the pioneers mistaking their road, wandered during several days exposed to all the horrors of a febrile thirst under a burning sun. Often they were seduced by the deceitful appearance of a buffalo-path, and in this perilous situation Captain Smith, one of the owners of the caravan, resolved to follow one of these paths, which he considered would indubitably lead him to some spring of water or to a marsh.

He was alone, but he had never known fear. He was the most determined adventurer who had ever pa.s.sed the Rocky Mountains, and if but half of what is said of him is true, his dangerous travels and his hairbreadth escapes would fill many volumes more interesting and romantic than the best pages of the American novelist. Poor man! after having during so many years escaped from the arrows and bullets of the Indians, he was fated to fall under the tomahawk, and his bones to bleach upon the desert sands.

He was about twelve miles from his comrades, when, turning round a small hill, he perceived the long-sought object of his wishes. A small stream glided smoothly in the middle of the prairie before him. It was the river Cimaron. He hurried forward to moisten his parched lips, but just as he was stooping over the water he fell, pierced by ten arrows. A band of Comanches had espied him, and waited there for him. Yet he struggled bravely. The Indians have since acknowledged that, wounded as he was, before dying, Captain Smith had killed three of their people.

Such was the origin of the Santa Fe trade, and such are the liabilities which are incurred even now, in the great solitudes of the West.

CHAPTER XIV.

Time pa.s.sed away till I and my companions were heartily tired of our inactivity: besides, I was home-sick, and I had left articles of great value at the settlement, about which I was rather fidgety. So one day we determined that we would start alone, and return to the settlement by a different road. We left Santa Fe and rode towards the north, and it was not until we had pa.s.sed Taos, the last Mexican settlement, that we became ourselves again and recovered our good spirits. Gabriel knew the road; our number was too small not to find plenty to eat, and as to the hostile Indians, it was a chance we were willing enough to encounter. A few days after we had quitted Santa Fe, and when In the neighbourhood of the Spanish Peaks and about thirty degrees north lat.i.tude, we fell in with a numerous party of the Comanches.

It was the first time we had seen them in a body, and it was a grand sight. Gallant hors.e.m.e.n they were and well mounted. They were out upon an expedition against the p.a.w.nee[15] Loups, and they behaved to us with the greatest kindness and hospitality. The chief knew Gabriel, and invited us to go in company with them to their place of encampment. The chief was a tall, fine fellow, and with beautiful symmetry of figure. He spoke Spanish well, and the conversation was carried on in that tongue until the evening, when I addressed him in Shoshone, which beautiful dialect is common to the Comanches, Apaches, and Arrapahoes, and related to him the circ.u.mstances of our captivity on the sh.o.r.es of the Colorado of the West. As I told my story the chief was mute with astonishment, until at last, throwing aside the usual Indian decorum, he grasped me firmly by the hand. He knew I was neither a Yankee nor a Mexican, and swore that for my sake every Canadian or Frenchman falling in their power should be treated as a friend. After our meal we sat comfortably round the fires, and listened to several speeches and traditions of the warriors.

[Footnote 15: The word p.a.w.nee signifies "_exiled_;" therefore it does not follow that the three tribes bearing the same name belong to the same nation.

The Grand p.a.w.nees, the tribe among whom Mr. Murray resided, are of Dahcotah origin, and live along the sh.o.r.es of the river Platte; the p.a.w.nee Loups are of the Algonquin race, speaking quite another language, and occupying the country situated between the northern forks of the same river. Both tribes are known among the trappers to be the "Crows of the East;" that is to say, thieves and treacherous. They cut their hair short except on the scalp, as is usual among the nations which they have sprung from.

The third tribe of that name is called p.a.w.nee Pict; these are of Comanche origin and Shoshone race, wearing their hair long, and speaking the same language as all the western great prairie tribes. They live upon the Red River, which forms the boundary betwixt North Texas and the Western American boundary, and have been visited by Mr. Catlin, who mentions them in his work. The Picts are constantly at war with the two other tribes of p.a.w.nees; and though their villages are nearly one thousand miles distant from those of their enemy, their war-parties are continually scouring the country of the "Exiles of the East"--"_Pa-wah-nejs_."]

One point struck me forcibly during my conversation with that n.o.ble warrior. According to his version, the Comanches were in the beginning very partial to the Texans, as they were brave, and some of them generous. But he said that afterwards, as they increased their numbers and established their power, they became a rascally people, cowards and murderers. One circ.u.mstance above all fire the blood of the Comanches, and since that time it has been and will be with them a war of extinction against the Texans.

An old Comanche, with a daughter, had separated himself from their tribe. He was a chief, but he had been unfortunate, and being sick, he retired to San Antonio to try the skill of the great pale-face medecin.

His daughter was a n.o.ble and handsome girl of eighteen, and she had not been long in the place before she attracted the attention of a certain doctor, a young man from Kentucky, who had been tried for murder in the States. He was the greatest scoundrel in the world, but being a desperate character, he was feared, and, of course, courted by his fellow Texans.

Perceiving that he could not succeed in his views so long as the girl was with her father, he contrived to throw the old man into gaol, and inducing her to come to his house to see what could be done to release him, he abused her most shamefully, using blows and violence to accomplish his purpose, to such a degree, that he left her for dead.

Towards the evening, she regained some strength, and found a shelter in the dwelling of some humane Mexican.

The old Indian was soon liberated: he found his daughter, but it was on her death-bed, and then he learned the circ.u.mstances of the shameful transaction, and deeply vowed revenge. A Mexican gentleman, indignant at such a cowardly deed, in the name of outraged nature and humanity, laid the cause before a jury of Texans. The doctor was acquitted by the Texan jury, upon the ground that the laws were not made for the benefit of the Comanches.

The consequences may be told in a few words. One day Dr. Cobbet was found in an adjoining field stabbed to the heart and scalped. The Indian had run away, and meeting with a party of Comanches, he related his wrongs and his revenge. They received him again into the tribe, but the injury was a national one, not sufficiently punished: that week twenty-three Texans lost their scalps, and fourteen women were carried into the wilderness, there to die in captivity.

The Comanche chief advised us to keep close to the sh.o.r.es of the Rio Grande, that we might not meet with the parties of the p.a.w.nee Loups; and so much was he pleased with us, that he resolved to turn out of his way and accompany us with his men some thirty miles farther, when we should be comparatively out of danger. The next morning we started, the chief and I riding close together and speaking of the Shoshones. We exchanged our knives as a token of friends.h.i.+p, and when we parted, he a.s.sembled all his men and made the following speech:--

"The young chief of the Shoshones Is returning to his brave people across the rugged mountains. Learn his name, so that you may tell your children that they have a friend in Owato Wanisha. He Is neither a Shakanath (an Englishman) nor a Kishemoc Comoanak (a long knife, a Yankee). He Is a chief among the tribe of our great-grandfathers, he is a chief, though he is very, very young."

At this moment all the warriors came, one after the other, to shake hands with me, and when this ceremony was terminated, the chief resumed his discourse.

"Owato Wanisha, we met as strangers, we part as friends. Tell your young warriors you have been among the Comanches, and that we would like to know them. Tell them to come, a few or many, to our _waikiams_ (lodges); they will find the moshkotaj (buffalo) in plenty.

"Farewell, young chief, with a pale face and an Indian heart; the earth be light to thee and thine. May the white Manitou clear for thee the mountain path, and may you never fail to remember _Opishka Toaki_ (the White Raven), who is thy Comanche friend, and who would fain share with thee his home, his wealth, and his wide prairies. I have said: young brother, farewell."