A Flight in Spring Part 3

In Desolate Places.--Beauty Everywhere.--Railway Engineering.--a.n.a.logy in the Conduct of Life.--El Paso.--The Sand Storm.--Human Gra.s.shoppers.

--The Placid Night.--Rev. Dr. Higgins.--Juarez.--Rev. M. Cabell Martin.

--Strangeness of our Mexican Glimpse.--The Post-Office.--The Old Church.

--The Padre's Perquisites.--The Prison.--El Paso Again.--Cavalry Going East for the War.

After leaving San Antonio, the night soon shut out the landscape from our view, and the next morning revealed to us a rather forlorn region.

This is how it impressed Mrs. Morgan. I quote from her diary: "We awoke to find ourselves in a desolate portion of country, bare prairie, stretching away towards craggy hills whose irregular outline is very picturesque, and the soft blue and purple shadowing on them is beautiful. Droves of cattle wandered about, feeding on the spa.r.s.e dried gra.s.s, which is the only forage the poor beasts seem to have."

Even the most unpromising places have some compensation in them, for the beauty of the distant mountains was worth seeing, and the natural cured gra.s.s of the prairies has wonderful sustaining power. In fact, it is a hay crop wisely scattered everywhere, needing neither storehouse nor barn, always on hand--or at mouth, one might say--for the strolling droves. We pa.s.sed during our morning's run some splendid pieces of railroad engineering. We were constantly rising above the sea level, every mile bringing us up to the mountain heights. This rapid ascent was managed by a most circuitous route among the foothills, winding in and out, and doubling again and again upon our track. A railway map gives one an idea of almost straight lines from place to place. How different is the reality! It seemed to me a symbol of theory and practice in real life. A proposition in business or in morals seems as simple and inevitable as that two and two make four; but many are the twists and turns that must be taken in all departments of life before the end in view can be attained.

By these necessary zigzags and retracing curves we made our advance, higher and higher. The spa.r.s.e vegetation revealed our increasing alt.i.tude, the trees became few and stunted, and the wild plants more limited in variety. We descend again as we pa.s.s on, until toward evening we reached El Paso. Here we landed in the midst of a fearful sand storm. We were met by a dear old friend of former days, the Rev.

Dr. Higgins, whose first impulse was to tell us that it was not always thus in El Paso. We should hope not; for it was fearful. The wind blew at a dreadful rate, sweeping along with it dense clouds of sharp sand which gave one a sense of being lashed with whipcords. In the midst of this blinding dust and sand, obscuring the light, people moved about like huge gra.s.shoppers. A contrivance of transparent celluloid, fitted like gla.s.ses to the eyes, extending from above the eyebrows, down well on the cheeks, gave people this absurd insect-like appearance. It was gruesome and comical at once. Several of our party invested immediately in these most necessary appliances, in order to get round a little in what looked like a forlorn town; but ere an hour or so had pa.s.sed we found the storm gone, and all in placid peace, while the stars shone down through the clear night with true southern brilliancy.

The next morning Dr. Higgins was once more with us, and was delighted to act as guide to our younger contingent, who did El Paso thoroughly, and went also across the river, the Rio Grande del Norte, into the Mexican town of Juarez. Some of the party met with a sad experience on their return, when they had to pay so much a pound tax, and _ad valorem_ besides, on a Mexican blanket whose gay stripes had taken their fancy in a shop at Juarez.

My cicerone was the Rev. M. Cabell Martin, Rector of St. Clement's, El Paso, who drove me in his buggy over the frontier to Juarez and showed me all that was to be seen. It is astonishing what a change one sees in little more than a few yards of distance. Once across the bridge from El Paso, and you are in a new atmosphere. El Paso is like a New England town, after all; a little rough here and there, a little strange it may be, like the strangeness of the city pets, the alligators, who sleep in luxurious laziness in the public square; but yet it all was in our ways, and we were at home. But in Juarez all is different. As we drive along, two men by the roadside making adobe looked as if they might have been with the Israelites in Egypt at the same business. With their naked legs they were kneading up the black muck, which, when of the proper consistency, they deftly moulded into form for the great master workman, the sun, to dry at his leisure and pleasure. The streets of the town seemed bare. The shops were in most cases without windows or exterior openings, save the entrance door. The booths and stalls in the streets for cheap eatables, vegetables, pottery, and odds and ends had a wild, gypsy grace about them, all water-colors, ready to be painted, just as they were.

We saw the post-office where Juarez kept up the government and existence of the Republic of Mexico during the whole of the Maximilian invasion. It was a close point to the United States for escape and liberty if he was molested. When Maximilian received his death-shot, Juarez went on with his presidency, taking no notice whatever of the usurpation as if it never had place. This man, of pure Indian blood, was certainly of heroic mould, and a stanch lover of light and liberty.

We looked into the church, a most interesting old adobe building, with walls of immense thickness. The interior was a well-proportioned parallelogram of good height, with a grand wooden roof of carved beams of a dark hue, possibly black with age. We were told that the work had been all done by native workmen in ages past. Part of the doors in the same style, like Aztec work, had been ripped away and thrown outside to make way for a jimcrack gallery for singers. We longed to bring those old doorposts with us, and looked up with gratification at the roof as yet safe in its distance and old magnificence. The church walls had been all done up in whitewash, and the altar was adorned with saints and a Madonna decked out in real laces, satins, velvets, and jewelry, possibly real also. The effect of it all was bizarre and a trifle depressing.

We saw the arena for the Sunday and _fete_-day bull fights, and also the square behind the church where the Mexican padre indulges in his form of church sociables and grab-bag business. He does it by letting out the s.p.a.ces of the square to all sorts of three-card-monte men, and other catchpennies of that ilk, from December 8th, through the Christmas Holidays, until the following _fete_ of the Epiphany. It is said that the padre gets his percentage on the profits also. Poor man, he must have some compensation, for his lot is such that, under the laws of Mexico, he, or any other padre, cannot walk the streets in clerical garb, but must disguise their calling in the ordinary dress of a civilian. The padre in question, I was told, usually appeared in the dress of an ordinary peon.

We took a peep into the prison, and were instantly a.s.sailed by the prisoners behind the bars and in the open court within the gates, offering us for sale trinkets they had made. The Mexican prison rules do not oblige the jailers to provide food for their prisoners, so they must in some way hustle for themselves, buy from their jailers, or depend upon the charity of others. An officer in full uniform lounged on a chair near by the outer door, and soldiers in canvas uniforms were on guard with military rigidity, with arms in their hands. It was like a bit out of the Middle Ages, or a scene from the opera, where brigands and regulars have varying fortunes of conquering and being conquered.

It was nice to drive back over the Rio Grande del Norte again into the home land; to have a chat with the United States Custom House officer; to show him our purchases worth about fifty cents American money, for which we had got eight or ten pieces of pottery from a street vender, and then after our chat to be told "it was all right."

When we got into El Paso we saw the first touch of real war in the shape of a regiment of cavalry bound for New Orleans and Cuba. There were shouts and hurrahs as they moved off in their train, but not the noisy enthusiasm which one might expect. Our American people are not shouters, they are too serious. There is a silence about their most excited conditions which a stranger can hardly understand.

VIII

Leaving El Paso.--Deming.--The Desert.--The Armed Guard.--The Cacti and Other Flowers.--The Yuma Indians.--Avoiding Kodaks.--Rossetti's "Sister Helen."

We left El Paso with pleasant recollections of all the kindness we received there, and once again we travelled into the night. Ere that, however, we had ample time to note the rapidly increasing desert character of our surroundings. The whole thing was like a Salvator Rosa setting for wild adventure and daring lawlessness. I am confident that any one owning a horse there, and not overburdened with moral sense, would almost unconsciously become a desperado. May we not imagine that man is apt to develop within himself the characteristics of those animals who find a subsistence in such places? There the sly coyote, the panther, and wildcat inhabit; there, too, the rattlesnake and other venomous things have their life; and may not the environment which produces such creatures have like effect upon men who grow up or dwell there? Such were my reflections when at Deming, where we made a wait of twenty minutes, I saw an armed guard mount our train to be all ready for possible train robbers. One of the guards was a sweet-looking, mild-mannered man, quite young; but the conductor told me that that sweet fellow was the one who did the business, by a sure shot, in the last recent train-robbing escapade. It seemed all a matter of course, to fit in nicely with the landscape, and did not trouble us in the least nor disturb our tranquil rest. The morning found us all safe and unmolested, which was rather a disappointment to some of our ladies who wished especially to encounter a train robbery or hold-up. The ideal highwayman is ever held to be gallant to the ladies, even when depriving them in good old-fashioned way of their jewels.

The desert of Arizona, through which we were speeding, had the same pale and tawny look of dry, rocky, and alkaline soil; but nature is never idle anywhere. Here we were entertained with whirling processions of immense cacti, some thirty feet high, which seemed to dance past us in grim, grotesque fashion as we rode along. Some species were gorgeous in blood-red blossoms, an admirable contrast to the pale, bell-shaped flowers of the yucca plant.

At Yuma we had a vivid evidence of what care and irrigation can do even in this arid waste. The station enclosure was a ma.s.s of brilliant beauty. There were red, pink, and white oleanders. There were pomegranates in full bloom, with their rich yellow blossoms.

An enthusiastic German whom I met was quite enraptured with the sight of palms and flowers, and declared that the railroad company ought to establish oases such as this, but larger, at frequent intervals, well furnished with casinoes, music, hotels, and all the appliances of Monte Carlo. One can imagine that in this perfect air, and with such luxurious surroundings, a lotos sort of life might be enjoyed for a resting spell now and then.

The platform of the station was lined up with Indians having various trinkets for sale, more or less authentic. The rich tint of the Indian complexion, especially among the younger women and children, exactly harmonized with the bright light and vivid surroundings of the desert beyond and the flowers near by.

There was a graceful Indian Madonna there, with her chubby baby boy, that any artist might covet to paint. Our kodaks were unable to snap them off, for the moment the drop of the camera was on them the Indian mothers gathered their brood under their shawls and wraps, just as a hen would gather her chickens under her wings from a hawk. There is a widespread superst.i.tion among primitive people that some evil may be wrought to a person by working enchantment upon his or her likeness or image. This is fearfully brought out in Dante Gabriel Rossetti's poem, "Sister Helen." The poet discovers to us, in some ancient castle, Sister Helen and her little brother. The child speaks and the sister replies in this fashion:

"Why do you melt your waxen man, Sister Helen?

To-day is the third since you began."

"The time was long, yet the time ran, Little brother."

(_O Mother, Mary Mother,_ _Three days to-day, between h.e.l.l and Heaven!_)

"But if you have done your work aright, Sister Helen, You'll let me play, for you said I might."

"Be very still in your play to-night, Little brother."

(_O Mother, Mary Mother,_ _Third night, to-night, between h.e.l.l and Heaven!_)

"You said it must melt ere vesper bell, Sister Helen; If now it be molten, all is well."

"Even so,--nay, peace! you cannot tell, Little brother."

(_O Mother, Mary Mother,_ _O what is this, between h.e.l.l and Heaven!_)

In this weird fashion the poem moves along. The whole story of the wronged Sister Helen and her false lover, upon whose waxen image she works her spell, is told us, until at last, the waxen image consumed, the child with his pure, innocent eyes sees the wraith of the dead man cross the threshold of the apartment where they are. The child exclaims:

"See, see, the wax has dropped from its place, Sister Helen, And the flames are running up apace."

"Yet here they burn but for a s.p.a.ce, Little brother!"

(_O Mother, Mary Mother,_ _Here for a s.p.a.ce, between h.e.l.l and Heaven!_)

"Ah! what white thing at the door has cross'd, Sister Helen?

Ah! what is this that sighs in the frost?"

"A soul that's lost as mine is lost, Little brother!"

(_O Mother, Mary Mother,_ _Lost, lost, all lost, between h.e.l.l and Heaven!_)

As we looked at the Indian women cuddling up their babes from the shot of the camera, we saw an evidence of those deep and widespread superst.i.tions which make the whole world kin.

After leaving Yuma we soon cross the Colorado River, and ere darkness set in upon us we could see the ordered lines of vines and olives, of apricots and oranges, in rich and cultivated California, whose many wonders both of nature and of man were soon to open more fully before us.

IX

Los Angeles.--Our Beautiful Anchorage.--First Impressions.--Sunday Morning in a Garden.--St. Paul's Church.--Pasadena.--The Diva's Car.

--Journeying to San Diego.--First View of the Pacific.

We reached Los Angeles at nightfall, and it was a fitting entrance to that enchanted spot. Through the shadows, as we approached, we caught glimpses of the beauties that awaited us when light should dawn.

The station was bright and cheerful, and the anchorage for our car was in a delightsome spot, withdrawn in a garden from the noise and confusion so inevitable in the regions of the iron horse. Night as it was, we made a little tour of inspection ere turning in for sleep.

Emerging from the depot, the first thing that confronted us was a giant palm, towering up in the darkness of the night, yet glowing with electric light, which brought out its tropical foliage splendidly. Its graceful and splendid form made a beautiful initial letter to the bewitching chapter which Los Angeles presented for our future inspection.

Sunday morning came to us in our smiling garden like a benediction. The place was small in itself, but so well laid out that it had the full effect of s.p.a.ciousness. It was glowing with roses, pansies, stocks, and any number of other flowers. A gorgeous bordering of a species of ice plant with splendid magenta blooms was especially effective. All this profusion was accented by beautiful trees--the pepper-tree, the red gum, and several species of palm. There was also near by a collection of Arizona plants in all their grotesque shapes, and a most interesting group of hieroglyphic rocks brought from some mountain place, having on them prehistoric inscriptions of lines and rude figures, suggesting the Ogham records found in Ireland and other parts of Europe, usually attributed to most primitive times.

It was my privilege to a.s.sist at the service at St. Paul's Church, where the Bishop of Los Angeles preached. The unwinterish conditions of this climate were well suggested by the out-of-door pa.s.sage of choir and clergy from the choir-room to the church. The service was well rendered by a choir of men and boys. In the evening it was my lot to preach. It was delightful to join in the worship of the Church, and to be as much at home among brethren on the sh.o.r.es of the Pacific as if we were thousands of miles away, on the other side of the continent, near another sea. We spent our next day at Los Angeles and neighborhood in democratic fashion, going by street and electric cars in various directions. We went out to Pasadena, where a Chicago friend gave us a pressing invitation to stay over and visit his villa built on the old Spanish model. His kind hospitality, so hearty and unexpected, we could not accept. We had, like most tourists, to press on. Now California, of all places, is a region to tarry in. It is too huge, too complicated, too strange to be done in a flying visit, although a flying visit is well worth having. The clear atmosphere makes you imagine you could take an easy stroll over to the mountains, but a day would not suffice to reach them. You think you have exhausted some place or other, but you find that you have only skimmed over the surface.

We left Los Angeles with regret in the afternoon of our third day there. We were sorry to leave our pretty garden anchorage, where we had for a near neighbor the distinguished Madam Melba, travelling on a concert tour in her private car. The diva had quite a suite in attendance. The only music that we heard from its sacred interior was from her colored _chef_, who, while his mistress was on the concert stage, made the garden, where we were wandering about in the moonlight, vocal with her piano and his by no means unmelodious voice. There was a touch of the comic in this sentimental proceeding quite irresistible.

Our memory of Los Angeles and the whole _entourage_ of that garden spot will always be a vision of palms and flowers, of beautiful homes embowered in roses, of orange-trees in fruit and flower, and of a far-extended city whose future must be as magnificent as its present is beautiful.