Those scouts who were not on watch gave themselves up to the luxury of the tá-a-chi, or sweat-bath. To construct these baths, a dozen willow or cotton-wood branches are stuck in the ground and the upper extremities, united to form a dome-shaped frame-work, upon which are laid blankets to prevent the escape of heat. Three or four large rocks are heated and placed in the centre, the Indians arranging themselves around these rocks and bending over them. Silicious bowlders are invariably selected, and not calcareous—the Apaches being sufficiently familiar with rudimentary mineralogy to know that the latter will frequently crack and explode under intense heat.
When it came to my time to enter the sweat-lodge I could see nothing but a network of arms and legs, packed like sardines. An extended experience with Broadway omnibuses assured me that there must always be room for one more. The smile of the “medicine-man”—the master of ceremonies—encouraged me to push in first an arm, then a leg, and, finally, my whole body.
Thump! sounded the damp blanket as it fell against the frame-work and shut out all light and air. The conductor of affairs inside threw a handful of water on the hot rocks, and steam, on the instant, filled every crevice of the den. The heat was that of a bake-oven; breathing was well-nigh impossible.
“Sing,” said in English the Apache boy, “Keet,” whose legs and arms were sinuously intertwined with mine; “sing heap; sleep moocho to-night; eat plenny dinna to-mollo.” The other bathers said that everybody must sing. I had to yield. My repertoire consists of but one song—the lovely ditty—“Our captain’s name is Murphy.” I gave them this with all the lung-power I had left, and was heartily encored; but I was too much exhausted to respond, and rushed out, dripping with perspiration, to plunge with my dusky comrades into the refreshing waters of the Bávispe, which had worn out for themselves tanks three to twenty feet deep. The effects of the bath were all that the Apaches had predicted—a sound, refreshing sleep and increased appetite.
APACHE HEAD-DRESSES, SHOES, TOYS, ETC.
The farther we got into Mexico the greater the desolation. The valley of the Bávispe, like that of the San Bernardino, had once been thickly populated; now all was wild and gloomy. Foot-prints indeed were plenty, but they were the fresh moccasin-tracks of Chiricahuas, who apparently roamed with immunity over all this solitude. There were signs, too, of Mexican “travel;” but in every case these were “conductas” of pack-mules, guarded by companies of soldiers. Rattlesnakes were encountered with greater frequency both in camp and on the march. When found in camp the Apaches, from superstitious reasons, refrained from killing them, but let the white men do it.
The vegetation remained much the same as that of Southern Arizona, only denser and larger. The cactus began to bear odorous flowers—a species of night-blooming cereus—and parrots of gaudy plumage flitted about camp, to the great joy of the scouts, who, catching two or three, tore the feathers from their bodies and tied them in their inky locks. Queenly humming-birds of sapphire hue darted from bush to bush and tree to tree. Every one felt that we were advancing into more torrid regions. However, by this time faces and hands were finely tanned and blistered, and the fervor of the sun was disregarded. The nights remained cool and refreshing throughout the trip, and, after the daily march or climb, soothed to the calmest rest.
On the 5th of May the column reached the feeble, broken-down towns of Bávispe and Basaraca. The condition of the inhabitants was deplorable. Superstition, illiteracy, and bad government had done their worst, and, even had not the Chiricahuas kept them in mortal terror, it is doubtful whether they would have had energy enough to profit by the natural advantages, mineral and agricultural, of their immediate vicinity. The land appeared to be fertile and was well watered. Horses, cattle, and chickens throve; the cereals yielded an abundant return; and scarlet blossoms blushed in the waxy-green foliage of the pomegranate.
Every man, woman, and child had gathered in the streets or squatted on the flat roofs of the adobe houses to welcome our approach with cordial acclamations. They looked like a grand national convention of scarecrows and rag-pickers, their garments old and dingy, but no man so poor that he didn’t own a gorgeous sombrero, with a snake-band of silver, or display a flaming sash of cheap red silk and wool. Those who had them displayed rainbow-hued serapes flung over the shoulders; those who had none went in their shirt-sleeves.