San Miguel

“ San Miguel was not so densely populated as it is now, but very quaint as to its town, and very romantic and beautiful as to its scenery all around. The governor dwelt in a villa on a garden-terraced hill in the outskirts. ”

“ The inhabitants of San Miguel gave him the best reception in their power, and furnished him as far as they were able with every thing he was in want of. He continually kept his small army on foot, to preserve the honour and reputation of his character as viceroy, and that he might be in a convenient situation for receiving such reinforcements as might come from Spain or from any of the American colonies; as every one coming by land from these quarters must necessarily pass by the way of San Miguel, especially if accompanied by horses or beasts of burthen. ”

“ SAN MIGUEL, the capital of the department of San Miguel, Salvador; 80 m. E. by S. of San Salvador, near the right bank of the Rio Grande, and at the foot of the volcano of San Miguel or Jucuapa (7120 ft.) . Pop. (1905) about 25,000. San Miguel is an important and attractive city, although the extensive swamps in the Rio Grande Valley render malaria common. It possesses several handsome churches, municipal buildings, law courts and two well-equipped hospitals. Near it are the ruins of an ancient Indian town. San Miguel has a flourishing trade in indigo, grain, rubber and cattle. ”

“ It is said to be rather unhealthy, and the people suffer in their eyes from the wind and dust of summer and the dampness of winter. They say that it never rains in this district, but some dew falls from heaven, and, at intervals of a few years, a heavy shower of rain comes down. The valley is like that of Tumbez, and there are many vines, figs, and other trees of Spain growing in it. This city of San Miguel was founded by the Adelantado Don Francisco Pizarro, governor of Peru, then called New Castile, in the name of his Majesty, and in the year of our Lord 1531. ”

“ IN a former chapter I described the foundation of the city of San Miguel, the first settlement made by the Spaniards in Peru. I will now treat of what there is between this city and Truxillo, the distance between the two cities being seventy leagues, a little more or less. On setting out from San Miguel there is a distance of twenty-two leagues over a sandy waste before reaching the valley of Motupe. The road is very wearisome, especially by the route which is now used. ”

“ Now I want you to go on tomorrow to San Miguel. Go in there after dusk, and take up your quarters at this address; it is a small wine-shop in a street off the market. Get up as Mexicans; it only requires a big cloak and a sombrero. You can both speak Spanish well enough to pass muster. Stay all next day, and till daybreak on the morning afterward, and then ride back on this road. You will find cut in the first place whether Cabra has arrived, and in the next place whether El Zeres is in the neighborhood. ”

“ In a minute they had passed a turn in the street, and there was only sandy earth and dust-colored walls and a yellow glare above them, where a moment ago had been a shimmer of sunset's gold.
"The one haven of safety always is the holy sanctuary."
Father Josef's words sounded in my ears, and the face of old San Miguel seemed to wear a welcoming smile. I stepped into the deep doorway and stood there, aimless and unthinking, looking out toward where the Jemez Mountains were outlined against the southwest horizon. ”

“ The San Miguel river, which flows near, affords a means of transportation, and the town has considerable commerce. Some beautiful furniture is made out of the hardwood from the mountains, and cotton fabrics are woven in considerable quantities by the women. ”

“ I was hardly conscious of any purpose of direction until I came to the half-dry Santa Fé River and saw the spire of San Miguel beyond it. In a moment the same sense of loss and longing swept over me that I had fought with on the night after Mat's wedding, when I sat on the bluff and stared at the waters of the Kaw flowing down to meet the Missouri. And then I remembered what Father Josef had said long ago out by the sandy arroyo:
"Among friends or enemies, the one haven of safety always is the holy sanctuary." ”

“ The rumor that Don Jose Lopez had carried the household saint with him in his wagon was at once contradicted and disproved by his wife, Dona Mercedes. The lady declared that San Miguel had never left his shrine in the patio of their residence except for the avowed purpose of making rain. In seasons of protracted drouth, when crops and live stock suffer for want of water, crowds of Mexican people, mostly farmers' wives and their children, form processions and carry the images of saints round about the parched fields, chanting hymns and praying for rain. ”

“ But the city itself seemed unchanged, and there was little evidence that Yankee thrift and energy had entered New Mexico with the new government. The narrow street still marked the trail's end before the Exchange Hotel. San Miguel, with its dun walls and triple-towered steeple, still good guard over the soul of Santa Fé, as it had stood for three sunny centuries. The Mexican still drove down the loaded burro-train of firewood from the mountains. The Indian basked in the sunny corners of the Plaza. The adobe dwellings clustered blindly along little lanes leading out to nowhere in particular. ”

“ Gordon went blinking out of the San Miguel mission into a world that basked indolently in a pleasant glow of sunshine. It seemed to him that here time had stood still. This impression remained with him during his tramp back to the hotel. He passed trains of faggot-laden burros, driven by Mexicans from Tesuque and by Indians from adjoining villages, the little animals so packed around their bellies with firewood that they reminded him of caricatures of beruffed Elizabethan dames of the olden days. ”

“ We descended and then mounted along dry slopes to Santiago Guevea, then hot and dusty. Our friends of San Miguel really live in Guevea and are at San Miguel only when the coffee needs attention. From Guevea the road was hard and dry and dusty to Santa Maria. The mountain mass over which we passed was a peak, the summit of which was covered with masses of chalcedony of brilliant colors, which broke into innumerable splinters, which were lovely to see but hard upon the feet of horses ”

“ Between Jilmeca and San Felipe there was a pretty brook, with fine cypresses along the banks, and a suspension bridge of great logs. Having passed through San Felipe and San Miguel, a pleasant road, through a gorge, brought us to the valley in which Teposcolula lies. The great convent church, historically interesting, is striking in size and architecture. The priest, an excellent man, is a pure-blooded Mixtec indian, talking the language as his mother tongue. ”

“ The chief village, San Miguel, is the center of the pearling industry, and consists mostly of palm-thatched huts and a handsome stone church, more costly than all the remaining buildings of the town combined. While the soil is fertile and some vegetables are raised, the inhabitants depend almost wholly on the fisheries. ”

“ From Tumbez, he advanced in May 1532, to the river Piura, and close to its mouth founded the first Spanish colony in Peru, to which he gave the name of San Miguel, having subdued all the curacas or chiefs in the vicinity. While engaged in founding this city, the general received a message from Huascar, the reigning Inca, informing him of the revolt of Atahualpa, and requesting his assistance in establishing the empire in the hands of its lawful sovereign. Placing a garrison in San Miguel, Pizarro determined to penetrate into the interior, under the guidance of the Inca's messengers ”

“ There is another small village contiguous to that of Dilao, called San Miguel, which has a house of [92] retreat for the Japanese women who are exiled from their country because they follow our holy faith. They, as well as the natives of the said village, are in charge of religious of the Society of Jesus.
All of the said villages, so far as the secular affairs are concerned, belong to the jurisdiction of the alcalde-mayor of Tondo, who lives in the village of that name on the other side of the river. ”

“ Miguel is an immense grass-grown square, bounded on the west by the sea, on the east by a thatched church, and on north and south by thatched dwellings. The rest of the village is scattered along the beach and a little way back, not far, for there are only five hundred inhabitants. ”

“ San Miguel de Piura, but was removed, on account of the unhealthiness of its situation, to its present scite, on a sandy plain. The houses are constructed of bricks, or cane and wood-work, and have generally only one story. The corregidor, and an officer employed in collecting the royal revenue, reside here and at Payta alternately, and the town contains about 7000 inhabitants. It has an hospital and church; the climate is hot and dry, but not unwholesome, and water is sometimes scarce in the heats of summer. ”

“ Lasuen's third Mission, of 1797, was San Miguel, located near a large ranchería named Sagshpileel, and on the site called Vahiá. One reason for the selection of the location is given in the fact that there was plenty of water at Santa Isabel and San Marcos for the irrigation of three hundred fanegas of seed. To this day the springs of Santa Isabel are a joy and delight to all who know them, and the remains of the old irrigating canals and dams, dug and built by the padres, are still to be seen. ”

“ The most considerable Christian settlements are now concentrated between the mountains of Santa Maria, the mission of San Miguel and the eastern bank of the Carony, from San Buenaventura as far as Guri and the embarcadero of San Joaquin; a space of ground which has not more than four hundred and sixty square leagues of surface. The savannahs to the east and south are almost uninhabited; we find there only the solitary missions of Belem, Tumuremo, Tupuquen, Puedpa, and Santa Clara. ”

“ Wood is still brought into town on the backs of burros, and by this conveyance can be left inside the dwellings. Among the other objects of attraction to the stranger, are the governor’s palace; the ruins of old Fort Marcy, on a bluff, from which is had a fine view of the city; and the extensive and beautiful garden of Bishop Lamy. The famous chapel of San Miguel, the oldest in America, still rears the same mud walls that have stood for three centuries, and internally is well preserved and in presentable shape. ”

“ At the rear of the church was the original church, used before the present one was built, and a number of remains of the old houses of the neophytes still stand, though in a very dilapidated condition.
San Miguel was always noted for its proximity to the Hot Springs and Sulphur Mud Baths of Paso Robles. Both Indians and Mission padres knew of their healthful and curative properties, and in the early days scores of thousands enjoyed their peculiar virtues. Little by little the "superior race" is learning that in natural therapeutics the Indian is a reasonably safe guide to follow ”

“ Methinks the Indians of a century ago, though doubtless astonished at the wonderful temple to the white man's God built at San Miguel, would wonder much more were they now to see the elaborate and splendid house recently erected at Paso Robles for the purpose of giving to more white people the baths, the virtue of which they so well knew. ”

“ S. S. W. of Santa Fé, pop. 600 in 1680 San Mateo mts., pk., 637 San Miguel bayou, 712 San Miguel, N. M., 640, 737 San Miguel r., br. of Dolores r., 732 San Miguel r., br. of Sonora r., 771, 774 San Miguel r., in Tex., 696 San Miguel's church, in present Santa Fé, N. M., represents the younger one of two Indian pueblos which occupied that site; this one had a pop. of 700 in 1630 San Oreille, Oriel, see Sans Oreille San Pablo, Mex., 668, 770 San Pablo r., 668 San Pascual mt., 633, 634 San Patricio bayou, 712 San Paubla, Mex., 770 San Paubla r., 668, 762 San Pedro de Jaquesua r. ”

“ I left my men there also, and advanced with two horsemen to the lodging of Atahualpa, and the captain announced my approach and who I was. I then told Atahualpa that the Governor had sent me to visit him and to ask him to come, that they might be friends. He replied that a cacique of the town of San Miguel had sent to tell him that we were bad people and not good for war, and that he himself had killed some of us, both men and horses. I answered that those people of San Miguel [Pg 159] were like women, and that one horse was enough for the whole of them ”

“ At about ten leagues from San Miguel de la Frontera, a miserable town peopled by some twenty or thirty Huiliche shepherds, on the road to Arauca, the land rises rapidly, and suddenly forms an imposing wall of granite, the summit of which is covered with virgin forests of firs and oaks, impenetrable to the sun. A passage of twenty yards at most, is opened by nature through this wall. ”

“ Rather are you impressed with the serenity of Nature, her queenly quietude. A great peace lies on the forest, and on the sunkissed paths which girdle the island's coastline. Sixty years back, when the American traveller Stephens landed, the island was uninhabited. Now there are but two villages, San Miguel and, ten miles southward, El Cedral; and only around these and along the western coast is the land cultivated. ”

“ Book II—THE MONTONERO
BOOK I.—THE PINCHEYRAS CHAPTER I. THE CALLEJÓN DE LAS CRUCES.
Although the town of San Miguel de Tucuman is not very ancient, and its construction dates scarcely two centuries back, nevertheless—thanks, perhaps, to the calm and studious population which inhabit it—it has a certain middle age odour which is profusely exhaled from the old cloisters of its convents, and from the thick and gloomy walls of its churches. The grass in the low quarters of the town freely grows in the nearly always deserted streets ”