A MEXICAN CHIEF’S RAILWAY IMPRESSIONS.
Steam and gunpowder have often proved the most eloquent apostles of civilization, but the impressiveness of their arguments was, perhaps, never more strikingly illustrated than at the little railway station of Gallegos, in Northern Mexico. When the first passenger train crossed the viaduct, and the Wizards of the North had covered the festive tables with the dainties of all zones, the governor of Durango was not the most distinguished visitor; for
among the spectators on the platform the natives were surprised to recognise the Cabo Ventura, the senior chief of a hill-tribe, which had never formally recognised the sovereignty of the Mexican Republic. The Cabo, indeed, considered himself the lawful ruler of the entire Comarca, and preserved a document in which the Virey Gonzales, en nombre del Rey—in the name of the King—appointed him “Protector of all the loyal tribes of Castro and Sierra Mocha.” His diploma had an archæological value, and several amateurs had made him a liberal offer, but the old chieftain would as soon have sold his scalp. His soul lived in the past. All the evils of the age he ascribed to the demerits of the traitors who had raised the banner of revolt against the lawful king; and as for the countrymen of Mr. Gould, the intrusive Yangueses, his vocabulary hardly approached the measure of his contempt when he called them herexes y combusteros—heretics and humbugs.
“But it cannot be denied,” Yakoob Khan wrote to his father, “that it has pleased Allah to endow those sinners with a good deal of brains;” and the voice of nature gradually forced the Cabo to a similar conclusion, till he resolved to come and see for himself.
When the screech of the iron Behemoth at last resounded at the lower end of the valley, and the train swept visibly around the curve of the river-gap, the natives set up a yell that waked up the mountain echoes; men and boys waved their hats and jumped to and fro, in a state of the wildest excitement. Only the old Cabo stood stock-still. His gaze was riveted upon the phenomenon that came thundering up the valley; his keen eye enabled him to estimate the rate of speed, the trend of the up-grade, the breadth, the length, the height of the car. When the train approached the station, the crowd surged back in affright, but the Cabo stood his ground, and as soon as the cars stopped he stepped down upon the track. He examined the wheels, tapped the axles, and tried to move the lever; and when the engine backed up for water, he closely watched the process of locomotion, and walked to the end of the last car to ascertain the length of the train. He then returned to the platform and sat down, covering his face with both hands.
Two hours later the Governor of Durango found him in still the same position.
“Hallo, Cabo,” he called out, “how do you like this? What do you think now of America Nueva?” (“New America,” a collective term for the republics of the American continent).
The chieftain looked up. “Sabe Dios—the gods know—Senor Commandante, but I know this much: With Old America it’s all up.”
“Is it? Well, look here: would you now like to sell that old diploma? I still offer you the same price.”
The Cabo put his hand in his bosom, drew forth a leather-shrouded old parchment, and handed it to his interlocutor. “Vengale, Usted—it’s worthless and you are welcome to keep it.” Nevertheless, he connived when the Governor slipped a gold piece into the pouch and put it upon his knees, minus the document.