In the Land of Cave and Cliff Dwellers

by Frederick Schwatka

Although many of the adobe houses were in excellent condition, even the old church being in a fair state of preservation, there was not a soul about the place. The primitive methods of doing the work and the richness of the ore which had been smelted could be seen in any piece of slag taken from the piles. By cutting a little almost pure lead and silver were revealed, probably in the same proportions as they existed in the vein. These piles of slag would represent a fortune, with new and improved machinery like that employed in the United States, to resmelt them, and with a railway running near. This place, moreover, is only one of the many where fortunes are lying dormant in the different slag piles of the old mines of northwestern Chihuahua alone.

It is difficult to get information from the natives regarding the mineral wealth of the country. If they have a good mine they are exceedingly shy about saying so, and they are very jealous lest foreigners should obtain valuable mining property. They dislike to see it pass from under their control, and do not take kindly to the foreign spirit of enterprise and improvement. This, however, is quite contrary to the policy of the Mexican Government, which is doing all it can to induce capital to come in for investment. The country is in a stable, settled condition, and we found every part that we visited quite as safe as the more settled communities of the United States. The politeness and disposition to oblige of the humblest of the Mexican people you can rely upon invariably, and that is more than can be said of the corresponding class in more enlightened countries.

This day of our visit to the ruins of Davis Hill was very warm, and our driver, not having a taste for antiquarian research, even in the modest degree possessed by me, had quite resented being dragged from the shade of the great cottonwood trees around the hacienda. To show his native independence of spirit he therefore refused to listen to advice and water his horses on the road, but on returning allowed them to drink all they wanted; as a consequence one horse died. We left Deming with two large American horses, but now found it impossible, even on that great hacienda, to obtain a suitable match, so we were obliged to start off with a comical, sturdy broncho for a mate, which not only gave a very lop-sided look to the conveyance, but an appearance of extreme cruelty toward the little animal. Whenever the big horse trotted the little fellow would take up a canter to keep alongside, and it was almost enough to make a person seasick to watch the ill-mated pair get over the ground.

We were soon back again to Corralitos, and inside the forbidding looking gates. Here we were very comfortably housed, with a bright fire burning in the bedroom fireplace to take the chill off the air, as the rooms in these thick adobe buildings are much like cellars in their temperature, whether it is warm or cold outside. We had not been in many hours before other strangers began to arrive: Englishmen from their ranches, miners from the silver mines, a surveying party, and a number of cattlemen. By nightfall the place was swarming with people, and the problem was where to stow away so many for the night. The long table in the old adobe dining room was three times full. There is no lack of fresh meat on such an hacienda, all that is necessary being to send out the butcher, who kills whatever is wanted from the abundant supply on the range, for in that clear, rare atmosphere meat is preserved until used.

There is another feature of large haciendas like this that may prove interesting. I refer to the store, which usually occupies one corner of the building. At this store is found every kind of merchandise that is wanted, and here is doled out to the Indian population in exchange for their work certain quantities of flour or sugar,—you can be sure the amount is always very small,—and in time the simple people draw much more than is due them for work, as they are always allowed credit. Then it is they become peons or slaves, for they rarely get out of debt, but increase it until they are virtually owned by the lords of the soil, who can do as they please with the poor creatures, and work them whenever and wherever they see fit. These debts descend from father to son; in this manner they are continually increasing, and so the chains are riveted. I suppose the system has many advantages as well as disadvantages, but certainly we see the disadvantages to the poor and simple people, who, having their immediate wants supplied, do not care to look beyond. Among the more intelligent this condition is very galling, but as a rule they are shrewd enough to avoid it.

Standing a short distance from the inclosing wall of the hacienda, and in the midst of the poor quarter, was a dilapidated Roman Catholic church. There was no resident priest, but one came twice a year from a settlement farther south. At all hours of the day, however, women could be found kneeling in front of the primitive altar, a poor, degraded class, with not as much morality as the most savage tribes who have never heard of civilization.

My trip of over two hundred miles down the eastern slope of the Sierra Madre Mountains, from the boundary between the two countries, coupled with the information I gained en route, showed me that I might do better by attempting to make my way through the great range from the westward; so it was decided to make the change of base from the State of Chihuahua to that of Sonora.

While visiting at La Ascension on our return trip we saw about a dozen Mexicans extracting silver from ore by a method which is as old as that mentioned in the Bible. The rich ore, showing probably two hundred and fifty dollars to the ton, had been taken out of the vein with crowbars and by rough blasting, and then brought to the town on the backs of burros. Here the huge rocks were first crushed with sledge hammers until they were about the size of one's fist and could be easily handled, then broken again with smaller hand hammers until almost as fine as coarse sand. This was reduced to a complete powder by being beaten in heavy leather bags. After these operations it was mixed with water and thrown into an arastra, a cross between a coffee mill and a quartz crusher; in other words, consisting of four stones tied to a revolving mill-bar and turned by the inevitable mule. This makes a paste rich in granulated silver, which is mixed with salt and boiled in a little pot, as if they were making apple butter instead of working one of the richest veins of silver in a country celebrated for its valuable silver mines. The resulting mass is washed out in a pan, as a prospecting miner washes for signs of gold, with the exception that quicksilver is put in to form an amalgam with the now liberated metal. The latter is pressed out with the hand, and the little ball of amalgam, as bright as silver itself, has the mercury driven off by a furnace only big enough to fry the eggs for a party of two. The pure silver ball, glistening like hoar frost in the sun, is now beaten down to the size of a big marble to prevent its breaking to pieces. It is exasperating in the extreme to see such ignorant methods of man applied to the rich offerings of nature.

There was but very little out of the usual routine of travel for a day or two, until we came to the third crossing of the Casas Grandes River, at a point so near its entrance into Laguna Guzman that we felt sure we would have no trouble in getting over. For, as I have already explained, most of the rivers in this country are larger the nearer you approach their heads. There had been no rains to swell the streams, and our surprise can therefore be imagined when, upon reaching the river, we found it a raging torrent. A long experience had taught me that it does not pay to await the falling of a swollen river; so we set at work to get over the obstreperous stream. The loads were all piled on the seats, above the empty wagon beds, which, being thus weighted and top-heavy, acted like so many boats when they dashed into the river. Our driver, a Mexican, had the worst of it in a low, light wagon, drawn by two small pinto bronchos. The flood swept him down stream under an overhanging clump of willows, despite a rope tied to the tongue of the wagon and another held firmly by a half dozen persons on the upstream side. But he was as cool at the head as at the feet, although he was knee deep in ice water at the time as he stood up in the wagon bed. After waiting a moment to allow the horses to regain their bewildered senses, he swam them upstream to the crossing, and the men, with a whoop and a yell, dragged the whole affair on shore, looking like drowned rats tied to a cigar box. We were three hours and a quarter getting over that river, and felt as if we could have drowned the man who wrote that Northern Mexico is a vast, waterless tract of country.