Part 4 (2/2)
He forthwith produced and c.o.c.ked a long Colt's revolver. But, as we saw no more rabbits, I missed this exhibition of his skill.
From the pace at which we proceeded during the night, I presumed that the Mexican's bottle of _mascal_ was not the only one we had on board.
The jolting was terrific. Besides encountering the ordinary ruts and irregularities in the ground, we struck every now and then, when going at full gallop, against a loose boulder, or the projecting corner of a rock, the shock of which brought our heads in stunning contact with the bra.s.s-capped nails that studded the roof of the coach. I was sometimes in doubt a moment whether my neck were broken or not. When Magdalena was reached my scalp was raw, and every angle of my body bruised.
Stage travelling in Mexico, if this were a fair sample of it, is neither luxurious nor speedy. Owing to the irregularity with which the service is conducted, it is impossible for relays to be in attendance. Not until the coach arrives is a _peon_ sent out to drive in fresh horses from the country. As they roam free over the broad _vegas_, they may be miles from home; consequently it is no unusual thing for the best part of a day to be wasted before they are found. Outward bound, we were singularly fortunate in this respect. On the return journey, our delays were all prolonged, in some cases exceeding even five or six hours. The wattled sheds and huts at which these intervals were pa.s.sed were of the filthiest description.
Some of our teams were curiously mixed. One consisted of three donkeys, two mules, and three _bronchos_. Most of them were partly composed of mules. Some were poor, others were remarkably good. Particularly noteworthy was the performance of a level team of st.u.r.dy _bronchos_, that we picked up late in the afternoon, and that of a fine team of mules that took us into Magdalena on the following morning. The stages were about sixteen and eighteen miles respectively, but with the exception of a few short stoppages, caused by trouble with the harness, were covered at full gallop; notwithstanding which, the teams pulled up almost as fresh as they had started.
In one instance a deficiency of stock necessitated the la.s.soing and breaking in of a horse that had never been used before. He fought gallantly for nearly half-an-hour, and several times was thrown half-strangled on the ground, when the la.s.so was loosened and he was given a few minutes to recover. Eventually he allowed himself to be harnessed, and once in the team had to go with the rest. I must do our driver the justice to say that he handled the ribbons with admirable skill and boldness.
To add to the interest of the trip, it was expected that we should be stopped by cow-boys. These gentlemen had lately ”gone through” the coaches with great regularity, and, in antic.i.p.ation of trouble, our whip and second whip were armed to the teeth. Fortunately, the journey was without incident of this kind.
With demoniacal yells, and a furious cracking of both whips, we dashed into Magdalena, and pulled up in the _plaza_. It was Sunday. The good people were just issuing from church. Mexican maidens, in white or brilliant robes, trooped out in twos and threes, and hand in hand went laughingly homewards. And here I feel the scribbling traveller's temptation to romance. A fanciful picture of some dark-eyed beauty, with proud Castilian features, and bewitching dignity and grace of manner, would fit my tale so well. Besides, in a Mexican sketch, one expects a pretty woman, even as one looks for lions in African, and elephants in Indian scenery. But I was so disgusted in this respect myself, that it will be of some satisfaction to me to have you disappointed also.
Expect, therefore, no glowing description of female loveliness from me.
Good-looking women doubtless exist in Mexico; but, in the few miles that I went over the border on this occasion, I saw none. A hazy recollection of flowers in connection with this scene of church-going damsels haunts me, but whether they were worn in the hair, or in the dress, or simply carried, I no longer remember. Men in their coloured _zarapas_, and broad-brimmed hats, chatted and smoked the eternal cigarette. Old women in black robes loitered in knots (very like old wives elsewhere) and gossiped. The _commandante_ and a few officials sat on one of the old, carved stone seats. A few miners loafed before the ”American Hotel,”
kept by a plump, jovial, masterful American woman, and her subdued matter-of-fact English husband, by name Bennett. Here I breakfasted, and in the afternoon rode out, twenty-three miles, to the mine of a friend of mine, whom I had come down to visit.
Past the Sierra Ventana (so called on account of the hole that completely perforates one shoulder of it), and over wave after wave of rolling country, spa.r.s.ely covered with _mesketis_-bush, my guide and I rode on towards some hills in the distance; and dusk had fallen and night had come when we ascended the spur on which the mine was situated.
The stalwart form of my friend (whom I will call by his local sobriquet, Don Cabeza) appeared at his cottage door as I drew up, and, not expecting me, in the dark he took me to be a new hand in quest of work.
”Buenas nochas, senor, said I.
”Buenas nochas.”
”Habla V. Castellano?”
”No hablo so much as all that comes to.”
Then I burst out laughing.
”Why----! If it isn't Francis!”
What a warm-hearted greeting he gave me! How hospitably he spread the best of everything before me, and even would he have relinquished his own bed to me had I allowed it. I had a big budget of news from San Francisco about mutual friends, but much as he wished to hear it, he insisted on its narration being deferred until I had slept and rested.
It was odd. When I had last seen and known Don Cabeza, it had been in an atmosphere of clubs and drawing-rooms, where his wit, good-nature, geniality, and a certain old-fas.h.i.+oned thoughtfulness and courtesy of manner had made him one of the most popular men in a pleasant circle.
Here, with that adaptability to circ.u.mstance which is so marked a characteristic of Americans (_when_ they choose to exert the faculty), he had shed the drawing-room air, and appeared, for the time being, as a bluff, light-hearted, practical miner. The white linen, patent leather, and general fastidiousness of speech and taste, formerly so marked, were temporarily laid aside for the flannel s.h.i.+rts, top boots, Western slang, and sublime indifference to fare and comfort peculiar to the dweller in a mining camp. And yet he had not changed either. There is a tinge of old world chivalry in the character of those who came in early days to California. They are lost in a crowd of a different type and of later date now; wherever you do find one though, you find a large-hearted, generous man, with nothing small or mean in his whole composition. In the better type of old Californian, there is less of the sn.o.b than in any man in the world; and in supporting what he thinks is manly and unselfish, he is as fearless of what others may think, as of what they may do. Animated by the love of adventure, the Don had left a luxurious home in the East to come in early times to California, and had there ”toughed through” all those scenes and times that now read like pages from a fascinating romance. And a fine type of ”old Californian” he was.
The Santa Ana was a new purchase that he had come down there to prospect. It promised well, but was not as yet worked on a large scale.
Those were pleasant days up at the mine. Lazy? Well, yes; I fancy everything in Mexico is more or less lazy. We were so entirely out of the world; the trip, moreover, was so utterly disconnected with anything that came before or followed it, that it stands out now in solitary relief.
An _adobe_ cottage, of three rooms, had been built for the Don and his foreman, and here we lived. Below us, in wattled huts, dwelt the Yaqui miners and their families. A little removed from the adobe was an open arbour, with wattled roof, in which we took our meals. Near it was a stunted tree, that served for various purposes, besides being shady and ornamental. Lodged in the first fork was our water-barrel. The coffee-grinder was nailed to its trunk. In a certain crevice the soap was always to be found. Upon one bough hung the towels, the looking-gla.s.s depended from another. One branch supported the long steel drill, that, used as a gong, measured with beautifully musical tones the various watches of the miners. Amidst the exposed roots the axe in its leisure moments reposed. Our tree, in short, was a kind of dumb waiter, without which we should have been lost.
The country teemed with quail and jacka.s.s rabbits. We bought an old Westley Richards shot-gun in Magdalena, and did great slaughter amongst them. Deer were reported to be numerous, but during my stay we saw none.
A good deal of our time was spent in cooking. The ”China-boy,” nominally _chef_, was so wondrously dirty, that one day we rose against him, and degraded him to the post of scullion, and being, both of us, proud of our culinary skill, we undertook the preparation of our meals ourselves.
Jerked beef, bacon, quails, jacka.s.s rabbit, beans, rice, chilies, and potatoes were the articles that we had to work upon.
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