Del Norte

“ On the 22d, I arrived at a village called Casas Grandes, or the Great Houses.88 On the 23d, I pursued an east course towards Passo del Norte, situated on the banks of the Rio del Norte. I travelled over a very rough country with some high mountains, inhabited by a wandering tribe of the Appache Indians, that live by seizing their opportunities for robbery and murder among the Spaniards, riding off upon the stolen horses, to the obscure and almost inaccessible fastnesses of their mountains, where they subsist upon the stolen horseflesh. ”

“ With the Yutas, Killbuck and La Bonté remained during the winter; and when the spring sun had opened the icebound creeks, and melted the snow on the mountains, and its genial warmth had expanded the earth and permitted the roots of the grass to "live" once more, and throw out green and tender shoots, the two trappers bade adieu to the hospitable Indians, who broke up their village in order to start for the valleys of the Del Norte. ”

“ Del Norte laughed softly.
"You have yet much to learn of me. In this game I hold the winning cards. In my employ is an Indian who knows where in these mountains we may hide so securely that a thousand men cannot find us. In one of these hiding places I shall keep you secure. If your gringo lover comes, I'll meet him. I'll fight him to the death. One of us will conquer, and no man ever triumphed over one in whose blood was the spirit of old Guerrero. ”

“ El Paso can boast of excellent hotels, the best being the Grand Central, and the possession of the only international street railway bridge in the world; also an interesting old church about three hundred years old. The greatest drawbacks, as a place of residence, are the clouds and columns of dust that for a great part of the year drive through the streets, entering the houses, and penetrating every nook and cranny.
The old town of Paso del Norte is the Mexican El Paso, as Nuevo Laredo is the Mexican Laredo. Each one is a necessary complement to the other. ”

“ The whole country beyond the settlement of San Patricio and Corpus Christi, till within a few miles of the del Norte, is a perfect desert, one hundred and sixty miles wide by the route pursued by General Taylor, as stated by himself, and near one hundred and twenty miles in a straight line. ”

“ It is a mountainous country. The grand dividing ridges which separate the waters of the rio del Norte from those of California border it on the line of its western limits, and are covered, in some places, with eternal snows, which give a keenness to the air that could not be calculated upon or expected in a temperate zone. ”

“ El Paso is a progressive, lively, American town; El Paso del Norte is as far back in the Middle Ages, and as slow as it was when the first adobe hut was executed in 1680. It is rich with grass and shade trees, while El Paso is as spare of grass as a twenty-year old youth is of beard. ”

“ Some of the most picturesque country in California lies on or near the coast north of San Francisco. The coast counties, Marin, Sonoma, Mendocino, Humboldt, Klamath, and Del Norte, are the least visited by strangers, and yet with Napa, Lake, and Trinity, they make up a region which contains a very great deal of wild and fine scenery, and which abounds with game, and shows to the traveler many varieties of life and several of the peculiar industries of California. ”

“ When we drove into the town, which consisted of a ranch of some hundred and fifty acres in cultivation in beautiful grape, apple, apricot, pear, and peach orchards, watermelons, grain, wheat and corn, it seemed still more beautiful, especially when, under the shade of the large cottonwood trees along the acequias [52] (canals for irrigation) , we saw Mexican girls selling fruits of all kinds grown on the opposite side of the river at what was known as Paso del Norte, a city of thirteen thousand people, controlled by well-to-do and educated Spaniards. ”

“ So long as they keep men digging, so long she will thrive exceptionally and remain an important feeder to our railway.
The scenery along the Rio Grande, above Del Norte, is very fine, and has always the zest of human interest in the quaint ranches of the Mexican farmers, whose women and children flock out to see every train go by. Terraced steeps bound the river-valley where the farms are, at a little distance, on the right, while rounded pine-clad hills slope upward on the left. ”

“ As Oñate followed the course of the Rio Grande upward from below El Paso del Norte, and afterward branched off to almost every sedentary settlement in New Mexico and Arizona, the comparison of his diary with previous reports (those of the Coronado expedition included) is highly valuable, indeed indispensable. ”

“ North of the 32nd parallel of latitude, the climate is colder, but the country is rolling and fertile, or, if broken, possessing wellwatered valleys, and destined eventually to be occupied for raising stock and grain. [12]
After the cession of Louisiana to France, and its purchase by the government of the United States, in 1803, it was claimed by the latter, that the Rio Grande del Norte formed the south-western boundary of the acquired territory. This claim was never acknowledged by Spain ”

“ But the land improves as we go westward, and at Murphysville, 230 miles from El Paso, an active goat might get a good day's feed from less than an acre. Twenty-five miles back from this station is Fort Davis, an important military post, and southwest, about eighty miles distant, on the Rio Grande, is Presidio del Norte, once an important frontier town and the future initial point, perhaps, of the Mexican branch of a transcontinental railroad. ”

“ Coming down from the north, pursuing the course followed by the little army of Spanish fugitives of two hundred years ago, a great railroad line—a system, rather, with its giant trunk and numerous feeders—bisects New Mexico, the territory of the Pueblos, and crosses the Rio Grande at El Paso. At Paso del Norte it enters Old Mexico as the "Mexican Central," though still under the guidance of the same wise and sagacious capitalists who projected the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé system westward from the Missouri River, and southward to the Mexican frontier. ”

“ While I have been standing in the midst of that noble-minded people, teaching them the gospel, I could not make myself believe I was standing in the presence of American Indians or Lamanites, neither was I. The Isletas of which I speak is a village twelve miles below Albuquerque, on the Rio Del Norte, containing 3,000 souls that stand at the head of this class of men that I call the Nephites. They occupy forty villages, containing a population of 32,000, speaking sixteen distinct languages, but nearly all good Spanish scholars. ”

“ Continuing our course we met several Mexicans bearing a white flag. Their commander coming up, presented Colonels Doniphan and Mitchell his sabre. They then drank wine and other liquors together, and we resumed our march, crossed the Rio Grande, and encamped in the town of El Paso del Norte about night-fall. This is the noted pass between Old and New Mexico. The town contains about seven or eight thousand inhabitants, and is built along the margin of the river, several miles in length. [49] The environs are cultivated to some extent, and the usual varieties of fruit grow here in abundance. ”

“ The settlements of New Mexico covered at one time a much wider extent of country than they do now. The Indians have been constantly narrowing the boundaries for the last fifty years. At present these settlements are almost wholly restricted to the banks of the Del Norte and a few tributary streams. ”

“ The land is exceedingly rich, and its fertility increased by irrigation.
On the 28th, I started for the Copper mines, wrought by my father. This day my course led me up the del Norte, the bottoms of which are exceedingly rich. At a very short distance from the Passo, I began to come in contact with grey bears, and other wild animals. At a very little distance on either side are high and ragged mountains, entirely sterile of all vegetation. ”

“ Middle Ages in magnitude, peril and adventure. The amount of suffering which must have been endured in the savage mountain passes and herbless deserts of the interior, cannot be told in words. Some had come by way of Santa Fé and along the savage hills of the Gila; some, starting from Red River, had crossed the Great Stake Desert and taken the road from Paso del Norte to Tucson in Arizona; some had passed through Mexico and after spending one hundred and four days at sea, run into San Diego and given up their vessel ”

“ Beginning from a point one Spanish league below the confluence of the Rio de Costilla and the Rio del Norte; thence up the Del Norte, on the eastern bank, to a point one league above the mouth of the Rio Trinchera; thence north-east to a point on the mountain ”

“ Exposed to the full force of the winds, which are drawn through this river-valley as through a funnel, and with a foothold so narrow, it was easy to believe that neither man nor beast could pass here during the season of the northers, except at great risk of being dashed down the declivity.
A little beyond the Portillo, the road diverges from the valley proper of the river, and is carried over an undulating country to the village of San Antonio del Norte, finely situated on a grassy plain, of considerable extent, a dependency of the valley of the Goascoran. ”

“ J. E. Johnston, and the Quartermaster (myself) . The object of the expedition was to march a part of the third regiment of infantry to Paso del Norte to garrison that place, and my train was to convey public stores there for their future use and to open a public road to that point now called El Paso. There was no road, not a path, from San Antonio to Paso del Norte. All was an unknown, untrodden extent of plains, hills, and mountains over which perhaps no white man had ever traveled, except two 101 United States engineers who had ridden over it in returning from New Mexico. ”

“ The story of the American fur trade in the Far Southwest may be outlined regionally and chronologically as follows : 1. The years 1815-1821 comprise the period of only partially successful attempts on the part of the American trappers to break into the Far Southwest. II From 1821 to 1823 was the period of the exploita- tion of the basin of the Rio del Norte. Practically all the tributaries of the Rio del Norte were visited by American trappers during these two years. In all there were upwards of a hundred men engaged in the trade during this period. ”

“ From these products of the hand of man, it may be inferred that there was a time when a higher human civilization existed in this now desolate region. Repetitions of the singular architectural style of the Aztecs, and of their houses of seven stories, are at the present time to be found far to the east of the Rio Grande del Norte; as, for instance, at Taos. [IZ] The Sierra Nevada of California is parallel to the coast of the Pacific ”

“ Also, it had been reported that he had said he would give five thousand dollars to get me out of the way. He furthermore advised me in the letter to take the train from El Paso, as the old fellow might have some mexicans watching along the road for me.
[299]
Chapter XXIX. IN LOVE WITH A MEXICAN GIRL.
I found El Paso, to be a red-hot town of about three thousand inhabitants. There were also about that number of people in Paso Del Norte, across the river in Old Mexico. I spent several days in each place. ”

“ Webster’s errors in geography, and of his false citation of authorities. It will then be seen that his geographical statements are worthy to be placed side by side with his classical. In the same letter, he says the extent of New Mexico, north and south, on the line of the Rio Grande, “can hardly be less than a thousand miles.” This makes a little more than fourteen degrees of latitude. Now, as its northern boundary is in 42°, its southern must be as low as 28°. This is four degrees below El Paso del Norte. Yet Mr. ”

“ Mex., 26, 32, etc. ↑ 47 The 18 colonies counted 1,093 men and 140 officers, including chaplains, thus lacking 1,333 men and 51 officers. The Oriente frontier, which extended for 170 leagues, was less exposed along the lower or eastern half, owing to the growing river traffic and settlement on both banks of the Rio Grande del Norte. ”

“ To-day there is a comparative calm, a faint continuation of the Norte, which is an air with variations. Everything now seems melancholy and monotonous. We have been tossed about during four days in sight of Vera Cruz, and are now further from it than before. The officers begin to look miserable; even the cook with difficulty preserves his equilibrium.
Sunday, 8th.—A Norte! The sky is watery, and covered with shapeless masses of reddish clouds. This is a great day amongst all Spanish Catholics, Le Virgen de la Concepcion, the patroness of Spain and the Indies ”

“ Who that knows the North can ever deny its lure? Wherever you be, it will call and call to you. In the sluggish South you will hear it, will long for the keen tingle of its silver days, the vaster glory of its star-strewn nights. In the city's heart it will come to you till you hunger for its big, clean spaces, its racing rivers, its purple tundras. In the homes of the rich its voice will seek you out, and you will ache for your lonely camp-fire, a sunset splendouring to golden death, the night where the silence clutches and the heavens vomit forth white fire. ”

“ Alas! too often those principles which give consistency, individuality, and form to the Northern character, which render it stanch, strong, and seaworthy, which bind it together as with iron, are sucked out, one by one, like the bolts of the ill-fated vessel, and from the miserable loosened fragments is formed that human anomaly, a Northern man with Southern principles. Sir, no such man can speak for the North. ”