Hermosillo

“ A complaisant spirit of justice at Hermosillo would accept in lieu of the escaped convict’s person some token symbolical of a justice already wrought through the instrument of the state’s worthy servant, Urgo. ”

“ Batuecas, 350 miles ; Guaymas, 353 miles.
Fronteras, Sonora. This road extends through a fine cereal and grazing country. Oranges, pears, melons, and other fruits grow at Hermosillo and to the southward. This town has 7,000 inhabitants. It contains a good hotel, the Cosmopolitan. Hermosillo lies in a valley about ten miles long and four miles wide. It is at the base of the Sierra de la Campana,
Magdalena
a rugged mountain of limestone. Magdalena has a population of 3,000. A wagon-road leads thence to the town of Ures. Another line of railroad will soon be constructed
Arispe. ”

“ I could, if I would, live quietly and free from care with a dear friend, an old companion, who has retired to a magnificent hacienda which he possesses a few leagues from Hermosillo; but the existence of a hunter has charms which only those who have lived it can understand: it always compels them to renew it in spite of themselves. I am still a young man, hardly five-and-forty years of age. An old friend of mine, an Indian chief of the name of Eagle-head, proposed to me to accompany him on an excursion he wished to make in Apacheria. ”

“ The moon lighted up a country mainly sterile, and daylight did not reveal one more attractive; but at six we reached the Sonora River, and the scenery underwent a most magical change. At seven we ran into the station at Hermosillo, the "beautiful town," and I took refuge and breakfast at the Hotel Cosmopolita, a one-story adobe, hard by the cemetery. This city, situated on the Sonora River, ninety miles from the Gulf of California, contains about 12,000 inhabitants. ”

“ The ranch house of Mesa Blanca was twenty miles from the hacienda of Soledad, and a sharp spur of the Carrizal range divided their grazing lands. Soledad reached a hundred miles south and Mesa Blanca claimed fifty miles to the west, so that the herds seldom mingled, but word filtered to and from between the vaqueros, and Rhodes heard that Perez had come north from Hermosillo and that El Aleman, (the German) had made the two day trip in from the railroad, and had gone on a little pasear to the small rancherias with Juan Gonsalvo, the half-breed overseer. ”

“ They are of dark copper color, large and strongly built. Although in their faces no human sentiments can be discerned, yet they can not be called ugly. Their limbs are so beautifully proportioned that the Spanish ladies in Hermosillo view with envy the slender shapes and the comely hands and feet of the young Ceris maidens. They wear no headdresses, and as their coarse, shaggy hair is neither combed nor cleaned, it sticks out in tangled tufts in all directions like spines on a hedgehog ”

“ Now just what is south?”
“The ranches of Soledad grant join La Partida, or aim to. There are no maps, and no one here knows how far down over the border the Partida leagues do reach. Soledad was an old mission site, and a fortified hacienda back in the days of Juarez. Its owner was convicted of treason during Diaz’ reign, executed, and the ranches confiscated. It is now in the hands of a Federal politician who is safer in Hermosillo. The revolutionists are thick even among the pacificos up here, but the Federals have the most ammunition, and the gods of war are with the guns.” ”

“ As you fancied, for certain reasons which to is unnecessary to remind you of, that your enemies might try to lay some ambush for you, during the long journey you were obliged to perform from Hermosillo to Mexico, you thought it necessary to take the following precautions, the inutility of some of which I presume that you have recognized by this time. While, for the purpose of deceiving your enemies, you started in disguise, and only accompanied by a few men, for California, in order to return to Mexico across the Rocky Mountains ”

“ He appears to have reached the mouth of the Rio Sonora, but he found no trace of Alarcon. It was the first time that the places where Hermosillo, the chief city of Sonora, and Guaymas, the principal port of the Gulf of California, stand were visited by white men. The Spaniards consequently came in contact with the still savage tribe of the Serès. Coronado had founded the settlement of San Hierónymo at Suya, and Melchior Diaz was left with eighty men to hold it. ”

“ Meantime population and industries increased, while civil and military development pursued its course; the Presidio of Pitic expanded into a pueblo, and later into the city which gradually adopted the cognomen of General José Maria Gonzalez Hermosillo, a hero of Sonora in the stirring times of 1810-1812; Pueblo Seri became Mexicanized, retaining only a few Seri families in 1811, according to Manuel Cabrera;137 Guaymas grew into a port of some commercial note; pearl fishing progressed along the coast and prospecting in the interior ”

“ Hist., i. 176-81, and in Campañas de Calleja, 62-8. The original document belonged to Bustamante, and Hernandez y Dávalos is indebted for it to José María Andrade. Alaman is inclined to discredit Bustamante's account relative to the dishonorable action of Villaescusa. Hist. Mej., ii. 93. But the statements of Parra copied by Bustamante are corroborated by another document, a despatch written by José Lopez, an officer under Hermosillo, and who makes the same statements. Hernandez y Dávalos, Col. Doc., i. 376-7. The total dispersion of Hermosillo's army may be gathered from Gaz. ”

“ The lamentations and prayers of the survivors are heard each day at dawn and dusk wherever there are tombs.
In New Mexico the whites have singularly modified the customs of the Indians; what remains of their ancient practices bears the impress at once of the superstitious character of the natives, and of the habits of the Spaniards. Thus, the inhabitants of Pueblo de Laguna, who are half Christians, half followers of Montezuma, wrap the body of the deceased in his ordinary garments, lay him in a narrow grave of little depth, and place bread and a vase of water near him. ”

“ The Indians returned to land and soon departed for Mexico, where they arrived in a day and a night, to give the news of what they had seen to Montezuma, and they brought to him the beads which had been given them by the Spaniards, and spoke to him (Montezuma) as follows: “Our Lord, we are deserving of death; hear what we have seen, and what we have done. Thou hast placed us on guard at the seashore; we have seen some gods on the sea, and went to receive them, and give them various rich mantles; look at these beads that they gave us, saying to us, ‘Is it true that you are Mexicans? ”

“ Somewhat farther to the south, the eye passes across the beautiful plains lying around the city of Puebla de los Angeles, founded by the old Spaniards, and still rivalling, in the splendor of its churches, the most brilliant capitals of Europe; and far in the west he may behold the Valley of Mexico, spread out like a map, with its diminished lakes, its princely capital rising in still greater glory from its ruins, and its rugged hills gathering darkly around it, as in the days of Montezuma. ”

“ The town was so large, clean, and beautiful, with its white-walled dwellings and temples, its gardens and plantations, that the soldiers compared it with Seville, in Spain. The cacique shortly waited on Cortez, dressed in rich mantles and ornaments of gold, and ordered a present to be made him of gold and mantles. It did not take long to find out that what the Indians had told them on the sands—that these people were tired of Montezuma's exactions—was perfectly true. ”

“ The dark-eyed señora of Spanish blood wrapped in the ample folds of her silken reboza bows on the stone floor close beside an Indian from the country on the way to market with a hen-coop on his back, and the cackling, crowing inmates of the coop in no wise disturb the prayers of either devotee. Perhaps half the crowd remembered to throw a kiss to their old deity, the sun, as they entered the shrine where the one true God is professedly worshiped. There is no Sabbath in Mexico. ”

“ Just then the eternal war which gnaws at the vitals of Mexico was raging somewhere else, but large bands of broken soldiers were roaming through the state of Puebla, and the native element of brigandage had been strongly reinforced. We were a motley company: French traders going back to their shops in the metropolis; a spectacled German who collected plants and insects, and who almost cried when he espied some rare cacti or curious heaths among the rocks and the conductor refused to stop; some English and Americans, all engaged in commerce ”

“ Among the many traditions implicitly believed in by the people, and which tend to obstruct the advancement of knowledge, there is one equally as amusing and extravagant as the foregoing, which has been gravely recounted by the present Vicar of New Mexico and ex-delegate to Congress. During the memorable insurrection of 1680, the Pueblo of San Felipe was about the only one that {253} remained faithful to the Spaniards in all the North. ”

“ Señor Don Florencio, in this our world of Mexico we are called upon to play many parts, and make out home in many places. Yesterday, you knew me as a prisoner, like yourself in a loathsome gaol; to-day, you see me in a monastery. And no common monk, but an Abbot, for know, amijo mio, that I am the head of this establishment. But come! As your host I am not now playing the part I should. You must be half famished; besides, your toilet needs attending to. For the first, breakfast will be ready by the time you have looked to the last. Here, Gregorio! ”

“ The valley of the Rio Grande River was occupied by a number of Pueblo tribes, and there are at present eight inhabited pueblos along this river, in New Mexico, and one in Texas. The region around Bernalillo was a prosperous section. At intervals, up and down the river, and along its tributaries, we can still trace low crumbling ruins, evidence of an old pueblo. If the statements of the Spanish writers are to be believed, the number of inhabited towns, at the time of the conquest, was at least ten times that now existing. The population could never have exceeded forty thousand. ”

“ It is a singular fact that none of the occupied pueblos in New Mexico at the present time are equal in materials or in construction with those found in ruins. It tends to show a decadence of art among them since the period of European discovery.
Westward of the Animas, the La Plata, and the Mancos Rivers, which run southwesterly into the San Juan, is the Montezuma Valley, a broad and level plain, so named by General Heffernan, of Animas City. ”

“ Is it not on us, the sons and daughters of Castile?"
"Most unquestionably, señora."
"Then, let us exert ourselves. Political unrest is agitating the people. It is as yet formless, but soon it must flow in settled stream, for men's thoughts, like water, always seek their level. Señor Soldier, the part of every lover of Castile is plain."
"Please say further, señora."
"Mexico and California soon go their separate ways. Is it not so?"
"I think it is."
"The world moves, Captain Morando, and California must move with it. Whither do we go?" ”

“ But little is known of the operations of the santa hermandad in New Spain down to the end of the seventeenth century; but to judge from the continually increasing numbers and depredations of robbers, it could not have been an efficient force. [7]
In 1710, at the urgent request of the inhabitants of Querétaro, Miguel Velazquez de Lorea, a native of that city, was appointed as provincial alcalde of the Santa hermandad in that district. [8] The energy of this officer and his success in the suppression of brigandage were so great that later his powers were greatly increased. ”

“ Upon the table lands between Sombrereté, Fresnillo, and Catorcé, in the State of San Luis, are several towns or villages deserving of notice, and the hacienda of Sierra Hermosa, a cattle estate, which is one of the most remarkable in the Republic for its extent and production. It covers an area of 262 sitios or square leagues, and supports immense herds of horned cattle, horses, mules, goats and sheep. ”

“ Among the last of the sad band came Antonio Herezuelo. Though his face was pale, he walked with a firm step, and he replied now with a smile, now with a few gentle words, to the exhortations of the two friars. He, as was the case with his companions, had a halter round his neck, and in his hand he carried an extinguished torch, while his companions destined to the stake also carried extinguished torches or crosses. Many trembled and tottered as they moved along; indeed, no one bore himself more bravely than the young advocate. ”

“ This point, as I have intimated, is in the midst of the civilization of northern New Mexico. Twenty-five miles up the Chama stands the large town of Abiquiu, an important place in old times; nearer by another plaza, Cuchillo, is a farming center. Not far away, in the Rio Grande valley, are San Juan, Santa Cruz and Española, the latter on the western bank of the river and the present terminus of the railway line southward, whence stages depart regularly for Santa Fe.
A Mexican farmhouse or “ranch” looks like a small fort, and makes a very pleasing picture, as you may observe in our sketch. ”

“ A Mexican story says that on the night of the departure of the Spaniards the corpse of the monarch was dashed to pieces, by his enraged people, upon a tortoise of stone which stood in a corner of the palace of Axayacatl. And here, say the indios, wanders the melancholy spirit of Montezuma, under the gloomy cypress, restless and unable to sleep the sleep of death, lamenting the lost Tenochtitlan and the happy days of the Aztecs. ”