Here we stepped into another world. An Irish Mother Superior welcomed us, her soft brogue tempered to the hushed stillness within, and offered us trays of cold milk. Hers was the mellow presence which long ripening in cloisters sometimes,—not always—brings. Walls four feet thick shut out the yellow sunlight, save where it fell in dappled patterns on the flags, or filtered through green vines covering open arches.
SAN XAVIER DEL BAC, TUCSON, AND THE RAPAGO INDIAN VILLAGE.
The central dome of the mission roofs the nave of the church. Inside, it lights the obscurity with a rich gleam of gold leaf, put on with barbaric lavishness. Paintings and frescoes of Biblical stories add to the ornate effect; painted-faced Holy Families in gauze and lace stare from their niches unsurprised; two great carved lions of Castile, brought in sections from Old Spain, guard the altar treasures. Rightly did the Jesuits and Franciscans gage the psychology of their dusky converts. Never eliminating the old religion, but grafting to it the vigorous shoots of the new, they made it appeal to the Indian’s love of pomp and color. Pictorial representations of the saints bridged the gap between the two languages, and the glitter of the decadent Renaissance style was gilded the brighter to attract the curious minds of the red children. At least two artists of some gifts decorated the nave, for two styles are apparent. One artist was fairly unimaginative and conventional; the other painted with a daintier flourish his flying angels, who float about in their curly ribbons with a Peruginian elegance, hinting too, in their fragility, of the more perfect creatures of Fra Angelico. Certainly, this latter artist had a touch, but who he was or what he did so far from the studios which trained him, I do not think is known.
The Mother Superior led us out of the church and into the courtyard flanked by what were once cells for the resident monks, and are now schoolrooms for young Papagoes, intoning lessons to a sharp-faced nun. At the end of the court a graceful gateway, triple-arched, harked back again to Old Spain, and thence more remotely to Arabia, for it is a copy of the “camel gates,” which at sunset closed their middle arch, and left tardily arriving camel trains to crawl through side openings. It is a far cry from Arabia to Arizona, yet there are camels in Arizona, too, according to a creditable account. But that story belongs elsewhere.
Framed through low white arches of the courtyard walls, against which clusters of china berries make brilliant splashes of color, are exquisite pictures of emerald green pastures leading out to white topped crests. Toward sunset these peaks turn rosy, then red; the somber, barren hills below them become deep purple, then chilly blue. Over the plain, mingling with the tinkle of sheep bells float the silver notes of the chimes brought from Old Spain, and little by little darkness falls, and the fluttering veils of the Papago women vanish from the scene.
Tucson is perhaps the most liveable town in Arizona. It boasts several good hotels, macadam boulevards, a railway station so attractively designed and placed it might be taken for a museum or library, an embryo subway, and a university. The last may account for an atmosphere of culture not perhaps remarkable in the West, yet not always found in a provincial town of the size.
The University of Arizona is situated in the newer part of the town. Its buildings are of classic architecture, well proportioned, their simple, dignified lines suited to the exuberance of nature surrounding them. Still new, its landscape gardening has been happily planned in a country which aided the gardener rapidly to achieve his softening effect. The grounds boast two attractions Northern colleges must forego, an outdoor swimming pool and a cactus garden, in which all known varieties of cactus grown in the state are found. The University necessarily lacks some advantages of older colleges, but it owns a rare collection of Indian basketry and pottery. The well-known archeologist, Prof. Byron Cummings, who was the first white man to behold the Rainbow Bridge in Utah, in winter has the chair of archeology, and in summer leads classes through the cliff dwellings and prehistoric ruins which stud the Four Corners of the United States.
DOORWAY OF SAN XAVIER DEL BAC, TUCSON.