Saddle and Mocassin

by Francis Francis

As a matter of fact, there is no unoccupied cattle-range of any importance left in the States. The range there is absolutely diminishing, since in many places it is being, or already has been, eaten out. The ranchero in overcrowded Texas, in full New Mexico, and dry Arizona looks over the border and sees in Northern Mexico a vast cattle country, superior to anything that the States ever possessed, still comparatively unused, in the hands of drones for whom he has an undisguised contempt, and under the dominion of a weak and corrupt Government. What does he care about the political feelings of his rulers, or the diplomatic difficulties of annexation!

Side by side with the temptation afforded by this splendid grazing, lies another, equally powerful, but affecting a different class of men, namely, the evidence of greater mineral wealth than was discovered even in California. The conclusion arrived at many years ago by Humboldt, that in these States would eventually be found the richest mineral deposits in the world, seems likely to be verified. And has the Government at Washington ever shown signs of the qualities that would be necessary to preserve Mexico from absorption by the American people under these circumstances?

The "Government!" The Government will have little voice in the matter. In the United States more than in any other country, is the so-called Government merely an institution for formulating, and shedding a legal glamour over the wishes of the masses. It deals with and rounds off accomplished facts; it does not initiate movements, and dictate them to the people. The duty of Government in this case will be to arrange some scheme of purchase to tickle the national conscience and soften the aspect of the transaction, whilst none the less enabling the United States troops to remain in Northern Mexico when once a revolution has given them an opportunity of "crossing the border to protect their fellow citizens." Talleyrand once said indignantly: "On s'empare des couronnes, mais on ne les escamote pas." Things have changed since he lived; the latter course now fits far better with our temper.

If there is any cause for surprise in this matter, it lies in the fact that Mexico should have remained isolated so long—that so shiftless a race should have retained their independence in so rich a country. This is due not a little to the ill success which attended the earlier speculations there of American capitalists. The causes of this ill success were various. A prejudice originated in Mexico against Americans during the war, and the behaviour of the "rustlers" and malefactors of all kinds, who, flying from justice in the States, have been accustomed to seek refuge in the sister republic since then, has kept this feeling alive. Even the better class of Americans who penetrated into Mexico, have been apt to display there (as, for that matter, they are often apt to display elsewhere) an autocratic, impatient, and pugnacious spirit, which contrasts oddly with their tolerance of abuses, and free admission of the right of "a coon to do as he durned pleases," in the States. The American abroad and the American at home are two totally different beings. In Mexico they have had to deal with an intensely conservative people, whose dilatory and slack way of doing business was the very polar antithesis of the slap-dash, energetic, and decisive style to which they themselves are accustomed. In place of accommodating themselves to these conditions, they appear to have endeavoured to force their own methods on the natives, and failing in this, to have treated them with systematic contempt. Unfortunately their numbers, and the influence of their Government, have not been sufficient until lately to sustain them in this mode of procedure, and consequently, in the face of an already established ill-feeling, it has resulted in uniform business failure. "They could not get on with the Mexicans," they found. It would have been strange had it been otherwise. Add to the unfavourable impression which the above circumstances left in American minds, the unfortunate experience which some investors gained by plunging into land speculations, without previously inquiring into Mexican land laws, and sifting the titles to the ranch property they coveted—titles which are vested sometimes in all the living members of a family—and the once marked indisposition of American capitalists to invest in things Mexican will be fully understood.

I have said that, as a cattle country, Northern Mexico is preferable to any section of the United States. Bold though the assertion may seem, it is undoubtedly correct in so far as the greater part of Sonora, Chihuahua, and Cohuila are concerned. In Northern Mexico, the percentage of increase amongst a hundred cows frequently reaches ninety-five, and is rarely below eighty—an average that is unapproached anywhere in the States, save in Southern New Mexico. There are no winters to kill the young calves, and at intervals sweep off forty or fifty per cent. of the whole herd, as in Montana, Wyoming, etc.; no piercing "northers," or cold sleet storms to cause cattle to drift a hundred miles or more; no droughts, such as entail enormous losses in Colorado, Kansas, Texas, and elsewhere in the West (dry seasons do occur, but they are never sufficiently dry to prevent the growth of new grass); there is no sickness; neither flies nor screw-worms trouble the cattle; no plagues of locusts strip the ranches of herbage in a night, as is the case sometimes in California; the country is far enough south to be within the limits of the semi-tropical rainy season, and yet lies, for the most part, at such an altitude that the summer climate is comparatively cool and bracing. None of the risks and dangers which face the ranchero in other countries have to be encountered here. On the other hand he has the advantage of fine breeding and maturing grounds in close juxtaposition, inasmuch as the plains are unrivalled in the former respect, whilst the gramma-carpeted foot-hills and plateaux of the Sierra Madre compare, upon almost equal terms, with the bunch-grass valleys of Montana and Wyoming as regards the latter.

Another advantage enjoyed by the ranchero in Mexico—one which cow-men will be amongst the first to recognise, and which, as cattle countries fill up, will become of more and more importance—is that he is able to purchase his ranch entirely, and does not simply graze his cattle on Government land which he controls in virtue of the water rights that he holds. His herds, therefore, are isolated, and he alone derives the advantage of any expense that he may choose to go to in improving their breed. No outsider can sink a well or take up a desert claim in the midst of his range, and either run cattle there or impound those of the original tenant for trespass. If he pleases, he can put a ring-fence round his property and remove any intruder from it. And this is no slight privilege.

In Sonora and Cohuila very many of the old grants, besides immense tracts of public land purchased from the Mexican Government, have already passed into the possession of foreigners. In Northern Chihuahua, only one large ranch (the Boca Grande) remains in Mexican hands. Foreigners also own large bodies of land further south in this province. Influenced, no doubt, by the present agitation against them in the States, the Mormons are silently but continuously pouring into Sonora and Chihuahua, and acquiring land in all directions. Polygamy is a little out of date certainly in times when even monogamy is apt to be regarded as too irksome a burden. But the United States have no quieter or more industrious a class of men to send forth than are these much-married individuals. They work systematically and have capital to invest if necessary, and the condition of prosperity that they will initiate wherever they settle will soon enhance the value of adjoining land.

Few people, who have not at intervals passed over waste lands out West, can conceive the rapidity with which a country, once opened up, is appropriated and developed in these days of steam and telegraphy; few people can realise what enormous masses of population year by year roll forth from the crowded hives of Europe and the Eastern States.

And be it remembered that the country to which I have referred lies not in any remote corner of the world, but close to the centres of trade and population in America, and within twelve days' journey of England. The "boom" in land, therefore, will be sharp and swift there. Of course, the possibility of these provinces being annexed to the States is a question of importance for the investor to consider, since the future value of property there hinges to some extent upon it. But this aside, the advance in the value of ranches will be rapid enough. Already it is treble that which it was six or seven years ago. Annexed or not annexed, at the rate that foreigners are now occupying the country, the power of the Mexican Government there will be merely nominal before long. The taxes levied by it are extremely light, and sensible settlers have absolutely no trouble with the officials; judicious investments there can hardly fail to prove profitable, therefore.

Whilst we have been discussing the fate of Northern Mexico, our waggon has made good its way to Smith's Wells, where a little adobe building of three small rooms was to be our shelter for the night.