Unknown Mexico Part 3

Camping at Upper Bavispe River--Low Stone Cabins, Fortresses, and Other Remains Indicating Former Habitation--The Animals Starve on the Winter Gra.s.s of the Sierra and Begin to Give Out--A Deserted Apache Camp--comfort at Last--The Giant Woodp.e.c.k.e.r--We Arrive at the Mormon Settlements of Pacheco and Cave Valley.

At Bavispe River we had to remain for some little time to allow the animals to recuperate, and to get them, as far as possible, in condition for the hard work still ahead. I also had to send back to Nacori for fresh provisions. Of course, not much was to be gotten there, but we got what there was in the line of food stuffs, panoche (brown sugar) and corn. My messengers had orders to bring the latter in the form of pinole, that is, toasted corn ground by hand into a fine meal. This is the most common, as well as the most handy, ration throughout Mexico. A little bag of it is all the provisions a Mexican or Indian takes with him on a journey of days or weeks. It is simply mixed with water and forms a tasty gruel, rather indigestible for persons not accustomed to it. When boiled into a porridge, however, pinole is very nourishing, and forms a convenient diet for persons camping out. Aside from this we still had a supply of wheat flour sufficient to allow the party fifteen pounds a day, and our stock of canned peas and preserved fruit, though reduced, was not yet exhausted. The jerked beef had given out even before we reached the main sierra, and we had to depend on our guns for meat. Luckily, the forest was alive with deer, and there were also wild turkeys. Thus there was no difficulty about provisions, although the Americans sighed for their beloved bacon and hot biscuits.

Fish seemed scarce in this part of the Bavispe River; at least we did not succeed in bringing out any by the use of dynamite. We got only five little fish--one catfish, and four suckers, the largest six inches long.

On Christmas Day the black bulb thermometer rose in the sun to 150 F., although that very night the temperature fell to 22.9 F., a difference of nearly 130. The warmth was such that even a rattlesnake was deceived and coaxed out by it.

We made every effort to celebrate Christmas in a manner worthy of our surroundings. We could not procure fish for our banquet, but one of the Mexicans had the good luck to shoot four turkeys; and Kee, our Chinese cook, surprised us with a plum pudding the merits of which baffle description. It consisted mainly of deer fat and the remnants of dried peaches, raisins, and orange peel, and it was served with a sauce of white sugar and mescal. The appreciation of this delicacy by the Mexicans knew no bounds, and from now on they wanted plum pudding every day.

On the upper Bavispe we again found numerous traces of a by-gone race who had occupied these regions long before the Apaches had made their unwelcome appearance. In fact, all along on our journey across the sierra we were struck by the constant occurrence of rude monuments of people now long vanished. They became less numerous in the eastern part, where at last they were replaced by cave dwellings, of which I will speak later.

More than ever since we entered the Sierra de Nacori, we noticed everywhere low stone walls, similar to those we had seen in the foot-hills, and evidently the remains of small cabins. The deeper we penetrated into the mountains, the more common became these hut-walls, which stood about three feet high, and were possibly once surmounted by woodwork, or, perhaps, thatched roofs. All the houses were small, generally only ten or twelve feet square, and they were found in cl.u.s.ters scattered over the summit or down the slopes of a hill. On one summit we found only two ground plans in close proximity to each other.

The stones composing the walls were laid with some dexterity. They were angular, but never showed any trace of dressing, except, perhaps, by fracture. The interstices between the main stones were filled in with fragments to make the walls solid. Neither here nor in any other stone walls that we saw were there any indications of any mud or other plaster coating on the stones.

On top of a knoll in the mountains south of Nacori, at an elevation of 4,800 feet, well preserved remains of this kind of dwelling were seen. The house, consisting of but one room about ten feet square, was built of large blocks of lava. The largest of these were eighteen inches long, and about half as thick, and as wide. The walls measured about three feet in height and one foot and a half in thickness, and there was a sufficient amount of fallen stone debris near-by to admit of the walls having been once four or five feet high. There were the traces of a doorway in the northwest corner of the building. Numerous fragments of coa.r.s.e pottery were scattered around, some gray and some red, but without any decoration, except a fine slip coating on the red fragments.

In the Sierra de Nacori, on the summit of a steep knoll, and at an elevation of about 6,500 feet, we found two huts of such laid-up walls. The rough felsite blocks of which they were composed were surprisingly large, considering the diminutive size of the cabins. We measured the largest block and found it to be two feet long, ten inches wide, and eight inches thick. There were many others almost as large as this one. But there was only one tier of stones left complete in place. Although there were well-built trincheras in all the surrounding arroyos, there were no traces of either tools or pottery on that hill.

On the western slope of the Sierra de Nacori, on top of another knoll, and at an elevation of 6,400 feet, we found numerous rude ground plans, some of which showed rubble walls fifteen inches thick. They formed groups of four or five apartments, each ten by twelve feet. But on the north side of that summit there was a larger plan, nearly eighteen feet square; however, the outlines of the entire settlement were not distinct enough to enable us to trace its correct outlines.

Many fragments of pottery lay about, but neither in number nor in interest could they be compared with those found near the ruins in the southwest of the United States, for instance, near the Gila River. Some of the potsherds were one-third of an inch thick, and large enough to show that they had been parts of a large jar. They were made of coa.r.s.e paste, either gray or brown in colour. Some had a kind of rude finish, the marks of a coa.r.s.e fibre cloth being clearly discernible on the outside. Others were primitively decorated with incisions. One sherd of really fine thin red ware was picked up, but there was no trace of ornamentation on it. We found, besides, a few cores of felsite and some shapeless flakes and several fragments of large metates.

In the valley formed between the mountains on the upper Bavispe River we met with very many such houses. The cl.u.s.ters which we came across seemed to have been composed of a larger number of houses. Parapets, also built of undressed stones and surrounding these villages, now became a constant feature. Even within sight of our camp was such a parapet, six feet high, and house ruins were near by. We also discovered an ancient pueblo consisting of thirty houses, all of the usual small dimensions, but not all alike in shape. Some were round, others triangular, but most of them were rectangular, measuring eight by ten feet. Along two sides of this village ran a double wall, while the other two sides were bound by a single wall constructed on the same principle. Evidently these walls were built for the protection of the people in time of war.

About five miles south of our camping place the river turns eastward, and again two miles below this point it receives a tributary from the west. One day I followed the broken cordon on its eastern bank, then turned north and ascended an isolated mountain, which rises about fifteen hundred feet high above the river. There is a small level s.p.a.ce on top, and on this there has been built, at some time, a fortress with walls of undressed stones from two to six feet high and three feet thick. It was about fifty paces long in one direction, and about half that length in the other. Remains of houses could be traced, and inside of the walls themselves the ground plan of three little chambers could be made out.

On the Bavispe River we photographed a trinchera which was about eight feet high and thirty feet long; and one of the foremen observed one which was at least fifteen feet high.

I decided to move the camp one and a half miles down the river, and to its right bank, on a cordon, where Mason, one of my Mexican foremen, had discovered some ruins. It was very pleasant here after the rather cool bottom of the valley, which in the morning was generally covered with a heavy fog. On this ridge were many traces of former occupancy, parapet walls and rude houses divided into small compartments. The parapets were lying along the north and south faces of the houses, and just on the brink of the narrow ridge. On the south side the ridge was precipitous, but toward the north it ran out in a gentle shallow slope toward the next higher hill. The building material here is a close-grained felsite, and huge fragments of it have been used in the construction of the parapets. These boulders were, on an average, thirty-five inches long, twenty-five inches thick and fifteen inches wide; while the stones used in the house walls measured, on the average, fourteen by nine by seven inches.

On the western end of the ridge is a small house group, which, for convenience sake, I will designate as "Mason's Ruins." They showed a decidedly higher method of construction, and the walls were better preserved, than in any we had seen so far. The ground plans could be readily made out, except in a small part of the southwest corner. These walls stood three to five feet high, and the stones here too were dressed only by fracture. They were laid in gypsiferous clay, a ma.s.s of which lay close to the southwest corner. This clay is very similar to the material used by the Moquis in whitening their houses. The stones themselves were felsite, which abounds in the locality. The blocks have an average size of twelve inches square by six inches thick. It should be noted that no regard was paid to the tying of the corners and the part.i.tion walls; but considerable care had been taken in making the walls vertical, and the angles were fairly true. The walls were almost twelve inches thick, and on the inner side they had evidently never been plastered.

Being coated with some white plaster, these ruins look white at a distance, and the Mexicans therefore called them _casas blancas_. I heard of an extensive group of such buildings near Sahuaripa, and there are also some ruins of this category near Granados, and in the hills east of Opoto. Undoubtedly they belong to a more recent period than the rude stone structures described before. Most of the ancient remains of the Sierra are remnants of tribes that expanded here from the lowlands, and only in comparatively recent times have disappeared. I also perceived that they were built by a tribe of Indians different from those which erected the houses in the caves of the eastern and northern Sierra Madre, and in the country east of it, and may safely be ascribed to Opatas.

In spite of the rest here, the animals did not seem to improve on the grama and buffalo gra.s.s. It was rather perplexing to note that they grew weaker and weaker. The gra.s.s of the sierra, which was now gray, did not seem to contain much nourishment, and it became evident that the sooner we proceeded on our journey, the better. To save them as much as possible, we loaded only half the regular weight on the mules and donkeys, and sent them back the next day to fetch the balance of the baggage. In this way, and by strengthening the poor beasts with a judicious use of corn, I managed to pull through and overcome this most serious of all difficulties, which, at one time, threatened to paralyse the entire expedition.

On December 31st we moved up a steep zigzag trail cut out by us, and then went north and east through broken foot-hills. We got into a series of cordon mesas, but the breaks between them were not at all difficult to pa.s.s. On the mountain sides grew oaks and, higher up, pines.

The country was wild and rugged. Everywhere we encountered fallen rocks, and there was a scarcity of water. It was a kind of comfort to see now and then some trincheras in these desolate regions. At four o'clock we camped on a steep place amidst poor gra.s.s, and only a trickling of water in the bed of a little rill.

Here, at last, the men whom I had sent to Nacori for provisions overtook us, bringing eighteen dollars' worth of panoche, and two and a quarter fanegas of pinole. Measuring by fanegas was then still in vogue in Mexico; a fanega equals about sixty-four kilograms.

This, the messengers stated, was all that the women would grind for us. Twenty of them had been set to work to fill our order, and when they had laboured until their hands were tired, they declared they would grind no more; and if the _caballeros_ in the mountains wanted further quant.i.ties, they should come and make mills of themselves. From this we judged that their tempers had risen in proportion to the heaps of pinole they were producing, and that they did not bless the day when we had come into their peaceful valley, since it meant so much hard work for them.

Though we were now provisioned for some time to come, I was anxiously looking forward to the day when we should reach the eastern side of the sierra. The animals were rapidly giving out, and it was the opinion of the packers that they could not last longer than a week; but what little corn we could spare for them each day worked wonders, and in this way we enabled them to carry us through.

The most noticeable among the plants in the valleys was the madrona or strawberry tree (_Ardutus Texana_) growing singly here and there. Its beautiful stem and branches, ash-grey and blood-red, are oddly twisted from the root to the top. Now and then, in this world of pine trees, we came upon patches of grama gra.s.s. We also observed pinon trees, a variety of pine with edible seeds.

Apache monuments were plentiful in this part of the sierra, and after four days of travel, on January 5, 1891, we arrived at an old Apache camping place, called by the Mexicans "Rancheria de los Apaches." It was a sheltered place, and we decided to stop again and rest, as now we could not be very far from the Mormon colonies in the eastern part of the sierra. We had, on the day before, heard a shot, which had not been fired by anyone of our party, and we had met some short-horn cattle that must have belonged to some settlers.

We halted on a bare conglomerate scalp near a little creek, which we called "Bonito," and which shortly below our camp joins the Gabilan, an affluent of the Bavispe River which probably has its origin near Chuhuichupa. The elevation of our camp was 6,620 feet. The summit of the sierra toward the east appeared to be 2,000 feet high, and the first ridge, at the foot of which we camped, rises here almost perpendicularly about a thousand feet. The little stream already mentioned originates in a deep canon and adjoining it are four large cordons descending from the ridge east of us and spreading themselves out like a gigantic fan, which we had noticed from some distance on the previous day. From our camp led a track eastward, up along one of these cordons, and a reconnoitring party found a Mormon settlement ten or twelve miles off.

The day after our arrival I went out to take a look at the country. South of us, at no great distance from the camp, I found patches of fertile black soil partly cultivated with corn and turnips that did not appear to be flourishing, and with potatoes which were doing well. An old horse stood there, and I also noticed a small tent. Going up closer I found a plough standing outside. This made quite a queer impression in these solitary mountains, but the implement was apparently not out of place, judging from the beautiful black soil near-by. In the tent I saw a heap of bed-clothes piled up on some tin pails, and there were also some pots with potatoes and corn. The owner of all this was not at home; but the atmosphere was American, not Mexican. I had evidently come upon an outpost of one of the Mormon colonies.

Throughout January the days continued to be fine, though at times a southerly cold wind was blowing; but at night it was cold and the water in our buckets was often frozen. Then we felt what a real comfort a large camp-fire is. Before sundown we would gather the fallen trees and such sorts of wood, and roaring fires were built in front of each tent. The smoke, to be sure, blackened our faces, but the fire made the tents wonderfully comfortable, filling them with light and warmth. For beds we used fragrant pine boughs.

We also had several falls of snow, the heaviest two and a half inches, and on the coldest night, on January 10th, the thermometer went down to 6 F. As the rays of the sun partly melted the snow in the course of the day, the animals could at least get a meagre meal. On January 15th a cup of water froze inside of my tent, but during the day we had 57 F.

We soon found out that in the river Gabilan, some four miles south of our camp, there were immense quant.i.ties of fish, which had come up to sp.a.w.n. No one ever interfered with them, and their number was simply overwhelming. As the task of feeding thirty men in these wild regions was by no means a trifling one, I resolved to procure as many fish as possible, and to this end resorted to the cruel but effective device of killing them by dynamite. I trust that the scarcity of provisions in the camp will serve as my excuse to sportsmen for the method I employed. We used a stick of dynamite six inches long, and it raised a column of water twenty feet in the air, while the detonation sounded like a salute, rolling from peak to peak for miles around. In two hours three of us gathered 195 fish from a single pool. Most of them were big suckers; but we had also thirty-five large Gila trout. All were fat and of delicate flavour, and lasted us quite a long time.

Never have I been at any place where deer were so plentiful. Almost at every turn one of them might be seen, sometimes standing as if studying your method of approach. I sent out five men to go shooting in the northwesterly direction from the camp, and after a day and a half they returned with ten deer. At one time we had fifteen hanging in the kitchen.

One morning our best marksman, a Mexican named Figueroa, brought in three specimens of that superb bird, _campephilus imperialis_, the largest woodp.e.c.k.e.r in the world. This splendid member of the feathered tribe is two feet long; its plumage is white and black, and the male is ornamented with a gorgeous scarlet crest, which seemed especially brilliant against the winter snow. The birds go in pairs and are not very shy, but are difficult to kill and have to be shot with rifle. One of their peculiarities is that they feed on one tree for as long as a fortnight at a time, at last causing the decayed tree to fall. The birds are exceedingly rare in the museums. They are only found in the Sierra Madre. On my journeys I saw them as far south as the southernmost point which the Sierra Madre del Norte reaches in the State of Jalisco, above the Rio de Santiago. I frequently observed them also in the eastern part of the range.

Here, too, a great many specimens of the rare Mexican t.i.tmouse and some beautiful varieties of the duck tribe were procured.

A few days after our arrival at the Rancheria de los Apaches, Professor Libbey left our camp, returning to the United States by way of Casas Grandes. After bidding him good-bye, I made an excursion of a week's duration to the north of our camp, to look for possible antiquities, especially a _casa blanca_, of which I had heard considerable from the people in Nacori.

The woods, considering that it was midwinter, were quite lively with birds. Everywhere I saw bluejays; crested t.i.tmice, too, were plentiful, as well as crossbeaks. A large yellowish squirrel also attracted my attention. It was of the same kind as that recently found by our expedition. The country was hilly and full of small canons, and well watered by springs. Outcroppings of solidified volcanic ash looked in the distance like white patches in the landscape. We searched diligently for some twenty-five miles to the north of the main camp, and also toward the east and west, but no trace of former habitation was found except trincheras and house ruins such as we had seen before. Near one of the group of houses I saw three metates in an excellent state of preservation.

While out on this trip I was one day surprised by the appearance of a Mormon in my camp. It was really a pleasure to see someone from the outside world again; and this was a frank and intelligent man, very pleasant to talk to. He told me that he had never been farther north than where he was now; nor had he ever been farther west than the little creek about two miles west of the place where he met me, which he called the "Golden Gulch." This creek probably originates in the mountains near by; there was still another creek west of us which joined the Golden Gulch near the Mormon's tent, and this he called "North Creek." The ranch near our main camp he had taken up only about three years ago, and he considered agriculture in this region successful, especially with potatoes. Maize, too, may also ripen. Furthermore, he told me of some interesting cave dwellings near the Mormon settlement on the eastern edge of the sierra, which I decided to investigate.

When the Mormons had come to colonise parts of northern Mexico, an American called "Apache Bill," who had lived for a number of years with the Apaches, told them of a large, fertile valley showing many evidences of former cultivation. Probably he referred to a locality that had once been inhabited by a remnant of the Opata Indians, who had become christianised and had received fruit trees from the missionaries. The trees, when found, were said to be still bearing fruit, while the people had vanished--having probably been killed off by the Apaches.

I returned to the main camp, leaving, however, two men behind to search still further for the _casa blanca_. When they returned after a few days, they reported that nothing could be found, and that the country was difficult of access. On my return I found the men who had gone to Casas Grandes back already, bringing with them some provisions and the first mail for three months.

Two miles east of our camp obsidian was found _in situ_. It was not in the natural flow, but in round, water-worn pebbles deposited in the conglomerate. Many of these had been washed out and had rolled down the hill, where a bushel of them might be collected in a few hours. The outcrop does not extend over a large area, only about two hundred yards on one side of the bank.

On January 22d I started eastward toward the Mormon settlement, pa.s.sing the watershed at a height of 8,025 feet. After fifteen miles of travel we arrived at the Mormon colony called Pacheco, and situated on the Piedras Verdes River. It consists of small wooden houses lying peacefully on the slope, surrounded by pine forests, at an elevation of seven thousand feet. A saw-mill bore evidence of industry. There were sixteen families living here, and as we arrived some eighty children were just streaming out of school. Near by stood a kindly looking old man, possibly their teacher. The children, who ranged in age from seven to eighteen years, were all studying in one cla.s.s. They showed remarkably varied physiognomies, yet all looked healthy and st.u.r.dy, and were demure and well-behaved.

We made camp one and a half miles from the village, and in the evening we were visited by my friend from the sierra and another Mormon. Both expressed their readiness to serve us in every way they could; we bought some potatoes and half a hog.

As is the custom with the Mormons, they have several colonies outlying from a central one. Among these is Cave Valley, about five miles east to north from Pacheco, immediately upon the river already mentioned. On the following day I went there with the scientific corps to examine the cave dwellings of which the Mormons had been speaking. The settlement (having an elevation 6,850 feet) consisted of eight houses. Knocking on the door of one of these I walked in, introduced myself, and stated the purpose of my visit. "How do you do?" said my host; "my name is Nelson"--as if he had been accustomed to receive strangers every day.

Mr. Nelson was quite a charming old man, more than seventy years old, but hardy. In spite of the cold, he walked out in his shirt sleeves in the full moonlight to select a camping place for me. The animals, he suggested, might be left in the field for the night; he would see about them in the morning, and he did not think there would be any difficulty about keeping them there. We got a fine camp on top of a hill with a view of the valley in which the caves are.

Mr. Nelson told us of two interesting caves on this side of the river; also, that there were numerous "inscriptions" (petroglyphs), that the country was full of mounds, and that skeletons and mummies had been found but had been buried again. From his statement it was evident that we had a rich field before us, and the results of the following day more than came up to our expectations.

The old man, acting as our guide, showed us on the way to the valley a primitive kind of corn-mill driven by water power, and with some pride he pointed out to us an "infant industry," the product of which so far was a dozen wooden chairs with seats of interwoven strips of green hide, instead of cane.

A number of caves were found to contain houses. One of them especially made a great impression on us on account of an extraordinary cupola-shaped structure, which from a considerable distance sprang into view from the mouth of the cave. Most of the caves were found on the western side of the river; but there were also some on the eastern bank, among them a number of burial caves. In one of the latter a well-preserved mummy was shown to us. It had already been taken up two or three times to be looked at; but our guide intimated that the influential Mormons in Utah did not want to have the skeletons and caves disturbed. I therefore left it for the present, but thought that in time we might get this, with whatever others might be found there.

I was introduced to a Mormon in the neighbourhood, who invited me to excavate a large mound close to his house. He would even help to dig, he said, and I was free to take whatever I might find inside of it. He was sure that there would be no difficulty about the mummies I might want to remove from the burial caves.