The vicinity of the springs is destined to yield large crops under irrigation, though at present there is little settlement there. Mexicans pasture their sheep as thickly as the fields will hold them; and try to give their flocks a few days in the basin at least once each season, believing that the drinking of the waters is of great benefit to the animals. Though the upper valley of the San Juan is unlikely to prove very profitable as agricultural land, the lower parts, in New Mexico, are the scene of extensive and highly successful Indian farming operations. The next stream westward, however, the Rio de las Nutrias (River of Rabbits), has good ranches, and so has the Rio de las Piedras (Stony river), the Rio Florida (River of Flowers), the Rio de los Pinos (Pine river), and the Rio de las Animas Perdidas (River of Lost Souls), up whose valley we turned sharply when a few miles from Durango. But thus far only a fraction of the tillable soil has been located on.
At Amargo,—for in this sketch of the rivers I have run ahead of our actual progress,—we find several hundred Apaches waiting to receive their rations, it being the weekly issuing day. Three of the redskins importune us for a ride, and we take them upon our platform, having entomological objections against offering them the hospitalities of the interior of the car. Our fund of Spanish is mutually limited, but one of us has a fair knowledge of the sign language, learned in former wanderings among the Dakotas and Kalispelm; and while these Apaches never heard of either of those great northern nations of red men, they readily understand most of the signs, though frequently showing us with great good nature that their way of expressing an idea is by a somewhat different gesture.
TOLTEC GORGE.
Our visitors were men of medium size, beardless, and very dark. Their hair was coal black, straight, parted in the middle, carefully combed, and gathered into two braids, the end of each being ornamented with a feather or a tuft of yarn. They wore woolen shirts, the original colors of which were lost in dirt; buckskin leggings, with fringes on the outer seam; moccasins of poorly tanned sheepskin, pointed at the toe and decorated with fringes. Bright scarlet blankets, marked U. S. I. D; were wrapped around their waists or drawn over their hatless polls. Each man carried a sheath-knife at his belt, and a bow with about a dozen arrows wrapped in a sheepskin case. Their features expressed much intelligence and good humor, easily breaking into chuckles of laughter, for they enjoyed studying us quite as much as we did them.
These Indians were Jicarilla Apaches, another branch of what was originally the same great tribe being the Mescalero Apaches, of southern New Mexico. The Jicarillas number about eight hundred souls, all told, and are apportioned into five bands, under as many chiefs, the most influential of whom is Huarito (Little Blonde), though he has no nominal headship. Their reservation extends thirty-three miles southward from the Colorado line, and is sixteen miles in breadth. On account of the severity of the winters about Amargo, the Government moved these Indians, during the autumn of 1883, to Fort Stanton, reuniting them there with the Mescaleros, on the reservation of the latter. Whether this experiment will “work” remains to be seen, as more than half the tribe were dissatisfied, and avowed their intention of returning in the following spring.
Amargo cañon which is always pretty, and sometimes approaches grandeur, extends westward to Juanita. There it widens out and disappears in a series of little parks, where the mountains diminish into pine-clad hills. For the next score of miles we skirt the turbulent Rio San Juan; but just west of Arboles, where it receives the Rio de las Piedras, we leave it, the road making a long detour, and climbing up and away from the stream, to a wide, rolling mesa. Descending again, La Boca is reached, where we cross the Rio de los Pinos, clear, rapid, and of good size, which we follow up to Ignacio.
At this point is another Indian Agency,—that for the Southern Utes, under an aged head-chief after whom the station is named. There are somewhat over eight hundred Indians here, divided into three or four bands under sub chiefs. Their reservation, which the railway traverses from where it re-enters Colorado, near Carracas, nearly to the Rio Florida, measures about sixteen miles north and south, and over one hundred miles east and west. These Utes are considered far more intelligent than the Apaches, and their conduct is more taciturn and dignified. Though not congregating in any considerable numbers along the track, they are not unfriendly to the whites, and daily wander about the streets of Durango. They are now the only Indians occupying a reservation within the limits of Colorado.
The members of both tribes are allowed to ride free at will on passenger trains, and the railway company has never experienced the slightest trouble from them. Liquor is kept from their reach as much as possible. Gambling is their passion.