Overland Tales

by Josephine Clifford

The road now was one continuous level, with hills, uniformly bare and brown, in the distance. Bare and brown as they look, thousands of goats are herded on them, and, to judge from the milk and cheese we got on the road, find pretty good picking till such time as "Lo! the poor Indians" think proper to drive off the herds for their own use, when they are in most cases generous enough to leave the herders behind—dead. And the sun, smiling down so placidly on the river and the little towns lying near its banks, seems never to heed the death-cry of the helpless peon or the lonely wayfarer laid low in the dust by the prowling savage, but goes on lighting up the cloudless sky-dome, and bringing into strong relief the different features of scenery, life, and customs, that make a journey through New Mexico resemble a sojourn in the Holy Land. Through all those towns along the Rio Grande do we see the daughters of the land, barefooted, their faces half hidden by the oriental-looking rebozo, the earthen olla poised gracefully on the head, going at eventide to the well for water. Belen, Sabinal, Polvedaro—here are the low-built houses, the flat roofs, the gray-green olive here and there; even the wheaten cake, the tortilla, is set before the stranger when he comes. Then this dead, dead silence! The barking of the dogs as we come through the villages, the drawling sing-song of the children, calling to each other at the unusual spectacle we present, seem hardly to break the slumber of the mid-day air.

So wearying as the one color—clay—grows to the eye! the ground, the houses, the fence-walls, the bake-ovens, all, all the same color. Even where there are gardens, with the enclosing wall seems to terminate vegetation; never a vagabond grass-blade or a straggling vine can find its way outside. Bake-ovens are an institution and a marked feature in the landscape; every house has one, and as they are built with a dome-like top, they are more pleasing to the eye than the houses, and very often nearly as large. I remember seeing one day a dog and a little naked child (clothing is considered superfluous on children) mount from the mud fence to the top of the bake-oven, and from there to the house roof, with no more difficulty than we would experience in going up a flight of easy stairs. The bread that the Mexicans bake in these ovens is the sweetest and whitest that can be found.

Then came Socarro, where most of the officers spent the day, while the command went into camp some miles below. An English family kept a very pleasant house there, whose good cheer the old colonel had not forgotten from long ago. The garden back of the neatly-built house I thought one of the loveliest spots on earth; not from the fact alone that it contained flowers and some few tall trees, but from the view it afforded of the far-off mountain—probably of the Sierra Maddalena chain, but called Socarro Mountain here. There was the same dreamy haze that hung over the mountain near Albuquerque, and the same bluish-green tint that made it appear wooded to the top. A hot spring takes its rise in the mountain somewhere, and the tiny stream at my feet seemed hardly cold yet, though its waters had travelled many miles from its source.

Fort Craig, though an important military post, is not celebrated for the beauties or grandeur of the country surrounding. We crossed the Rio Grande here again—two companies only, the colonel, with the other three, having been assigned to Fort Craig. Toward the Jornada del Muerto we journeyed, making camp before entering the desert at Parajo, the Fra Cristobal of the Texan Santa Fé prisoners who were driven through here in 1842, on their long, weary journey to the city of Mexico. They had been captured, or rather tricked into a surrender, near Anton Chico, and, from Albuquerque down, I traced them all along the Rio Grande. They had been marched on the opposite side of the river, taking in their way Sandia, Valencia, Tome, Casa Colorada, and La Joya, crossing the river at Socarro, and recrossing probably near where Fort Craig now stands.

Such heart-rending tales as were told us of the sufferings and the diabolical treatment of these helpless men—mere youths, some of them, the sight of whom brought out all the native tenderness, the true charity there is in the heart of every Mexican woman! As in Albuquerque, the shadow of Governor Armijo—tall and stately, though with something of a braggart in his carriage, and the glare of a hyena in his eye—was ever rising before me, so in this wretched place did I seem always to hear the gentle, pitying "Pobrecitos!" of the kind-hearted women, who brought the last bit of tornale, the last scrap of tortilla that their miserable homes afforded, to these men who were so soon to be driven like cattle, and shot down like dogs, when their bleeding feet refused to carry them further on their thorny path. Had the horrible stretch of ninety-five miles of desert-land now before us not been christened "Dead Man's Journey" before these unfortunates passed over it, the baptism of the blood of those wantonly slaughtered there would have fastened on it that name forever.

Two companies of United States cavalry are not hastily attacked by ye noble red man, and we slept peacefully on the Jornada—though close to our tent, the first night, were two graves, dug for their murdered comrades years ago by some of the men now in the company.

A number of wagons had been loaded with water-casks, filled before entering the Jornada, so that we did not suffer; yet we were all glad when, on the third day, Fort Seldon was reached. After a rest of two days, we once more crossed the river, on a ferry-boat moved with a rope, leaving the other company at Fort Seldon, and proceeding alone, with the last company, to the farthest out-post of the department. At this place we disposed of our carriage to the post surgeon, as we were told that among the mountains in the vicinity of Pinos Altos we should have no use for it, while the officers of this garrison could make excursions to Donna Ana, Los Cruces, and even La Messilla, over the level and rather pleasant country.

The first day out, a heavy rain-storm came on, and I was glad enough to leave the saddle and seek shelter in the linen-covered army-wagon, where Manuel arranged quite a comfortable bed for me—seat it could not be called. And here let me say that, with bedding and blankets, spread over boxes and bundles underneath, there is more comfort to be found in one of these big wagons, where you can recline at full length, than in the most elegant travelling-carriage, where you have always to maintain the same position.

The stretch between Fort Seldon and Fort Cummings proved harder for us than the Jornada del Muerto. It was reported that large bands of Indians were hovering round us, and we could make no fires to cook by, but were hurried on as fast as possible. Many of the horses gave out and had to be shot; and my poor Toby was sometimes so tired from carrying me over the rough country, and up and down the rocky hills, that more then once he stopped and nibbled at my stirrup-foot—asking me in this peculiar language to dismount.

The soldiers were better off than we were, for they had their rations of hard-tack and salt bacon, which needed no cooking; while the dressed chickens and tender-steaks we had providently brought from Fort Seldon with us, uncooked, were going to decay in the provision-box, and we might have gone hungry had not the men divided with us. No one can think how sweet a bit of bacon tastes with a piece of hard-tack, when offered by a soldier whose eyes are shining with honest delight at being able to repay some trifling kindness shown him on the march.