In the Land of Cave and Cliff Dwellers

Preface

. This book records in a popular way the adventures, researches, and other doings of two expeditions sent into Northern Mexico in the years 1889 and 1890, the patron of the first being America and of the other The Herald, both Chicago publications. The story is told, however, as if it were a continuous undertaking, to make it more succinct and interesting; the public probably being uninterested in the business details, which did not vary from the usual details of that nature. In this light the Mexican expedition in

PREFACE.

. easily divides itself into three quite distinct trips, the first from Deming, N. M., southward into the northwestern part of the State of Chihuahua; the second through the central part of the State of Sonora ; and the third and most important from the city of Chihuahua, in the State of the same name, westward into the Sierra Madre range, that forms the boundary between the States of Sonora and Chihuahua on the northern part of the travels, and Durango and Sinaloa on the southern. None of the travels can be strictly called exploration, although often alluded to as such in the American press, yet there were a few interesting and impor ant facts disclosed by the researches that almost amounted to discoveries in the light of the very little that was generally

PREFACE.

. V known regarding them. This was espe cially true of the living cliff and cave dwellers found abiding in the Northern Mexican Sierra Madres, the knowledge of whose existence was seemingly con fined to the native peons and laborers but little above them in the scale of intelligence, on the. one side, and an exceedingly few intelligent Mexicans and for eigners, mostly engaged in mining, on the other, who either did not care to give the world any accounts of these strange beings or who had interests in keeping everything regarding this rich country as secret as possible. Quite a long resi dence, off and on, in our own Southwest country had somewhat familiarized me with the dwellings and relics of the cliff and cave dwellers of that region, and, in common with the general opinion, I VI

PREFACE.

. believed they belonged to a race wholly extinct, and with no direct or indirect living representatives, at least on the North American continent. Even when the first living cliff dwellers were found in Mexico I believed they were isolated cases of depraved savages having acquired ancient dwellings, as the very lowest order of our own people occasionally seek similar habitations on the outskirts of towns and cities. But I was certainly not prepared to believe that this singular and savage race was so extensively dis tributed and so distinct from all others in its characteristics ; and this belief was undoubtedly universal, as shown in the comments elicited by the discovery. Whether there are any relations exist ing between the extinct cliff and cave dwellers of our own country and those

PREFACE.

. VII now existing in Mexico is a technically scientific question that I was not prepared to investigate, both because the discovery was wholly unexpected, and (still more important) because destitute of a sufficient knowledge of the subject to do so. Had I been able to overcome both obstacles, however, I could have done no more than to leave the subject in the shape of an incomplete theory at the best, as all similar ethnological discussions have been left ; and I doubt if this would have added to or subtracted from the more definite purpose of being the first to consider them in any light whatsoever. Such information as I obtained regarding this most curious people and their strange country is related in the following pages. Frederick Schwatka. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. Northwestern Chihuahua — Preparing for the Expedition — From Deming, N. M., to Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, . . . i II.

Northwestern Chihuahua (Continued) — Mexican Mormon Colonies — From La Ascencion to Corralitos — Some Ruins along the Tapasita — A Toltec Babylon, . . .34 III. Sonora — Along the Sonora Railway — Hermosillo — Guaymas, and its Beautiful Harbor — Fishing and Hunting about Guaymas, 80 IV. Central Chihuahua — From the City of Chihuahua Westward to the Great Mexican Mining Belt, 131 V. Central Chihuahua — In the Land of the Living Cave and Cliff Dwellers — The Tarahumari Indians, Civilized and Savage, 172 VI. Through the Sierra Madres — On Mule-back Westward from Carichic, .... 206 VII. Southwestern Chihuahua — Among the Cave and Cliff Dwellers in the Heart of the Sierra Madre Range, 227 VIII. In Southwestern Chihuahua — Down the Urique Barranca — From Pine to Palm — Urique and its Mines, CONTENTS.

X CHAPTER PAGE IX. Southwestern Chihuahua — Description of One of the Richest Silver Regions of the World — Mineral Wealth of the Sierra Madres — The Batopilas District, . .311 X. Southwestern Chihuahua — The Return by Another Trail — The Canon of the Churches — Among the Cliff Dwellers, . r IN THE LAND OF CAVE AND CLIFF DWELLERS.

Chapter I. Northwestern Chihuahua Preparing For The Expedition From Deming

N. M., TO CASAS GRANDES, CHIHUAHUA. '"PHE first chapter describing an expe- -*• dition is liable to be prosaic to the point of dullness. It is full of promises that are expected to be realized, while as yet nothing has been done. Not one tenth of these may formulate, and yet the expedition may be a success in unexpected results ; for in no undertaking is there so much uncertainty as in travel CAVE AND CLIFF DWELLERS. through little known countries. Then, again, the writer is likely to consider him self called upon to give a lengthy descrip tion of the party in the preliminary letter, and, as I have often seen, even descend to an enumeration of the qualities of the cook or the color of the mules. The next night the cook may desert and the mules may run away, so that others must be procured, and therefore they are of no more interest to the reader than any other of the millions of cooks or mules that would make any writer wealthy if he could find a publisher who would print his description of them.

I intend to break away from that stereotyped for mula in this first chapter and briefly state that I was in the field of Northern Mex ico, hoping to obtain new and interesting matter beyond the everlasting descrip- NORTHWESTERN CHIHUAHUA. 3 tions that are now pumped up for the public by versatile writers along the beaten lines of tourist travel, as deter mined by the railroads, and, occasionally, the diligence lines. I had a good outfit of wagons, horses, mules, and last, but not least, men for that purpose. Each and every member of the expedition will be heard from when anything has been done by them, and not before. When the mule Dulce kicks a hectare of daylight through the cook for spilling hot grease on his heels I will give a description of Dulce and an obituary notice of the cook ; but until then they will remain out of the account.

We crossed the boundary south of Deming early in March, 1889, and entered Mexican territory, where our travels can be said to have begun. If one CA VE AND CLIFF D WELLERS. 4 will take the pains to look at a map of this portion of Mexico he will see that it projects into the United States some dis tance beyond the average northern bound ary, the Rio Grande being to our east, and an " offset," as we would say in sur veying, being to our west, this "offset" running north and south. This flat pen insula projecting into our own country can be better understood by visiting it and comparing it with the surrounding land of the United States, coupled with a history of the country. Roughly speak ing, the Mexican-United States boundary, as settled by the Mexican War, followed the line of the Southern Pacific Railway as now constructed, and the so-called Gadsden purchase from Mexico of a few years later fixed the boundary as we now see it, giving us a narrow, sabulous strip outfitting at deming PREPARING FOR THE EXPEDITION. 7 of Mexican territory, but a definite bound ary, easily established by surveys.

The Mexicans were on the ground and knew just what they were doing when they arranged for selling us this narrow strip ; while, as usual, we did everything from Washington, and knew just about as little concerning it as we possibly could and be sure we were purchasing a part of Mexico. The Mexicans ran this flat-topped peninsula far to the north, inclosing lakes, rivers, and springs, and waters innumerable ; while, as a gener ous compensation, they gave us more land to the west, but a land where a coyote carries three days' rations of jerked jack rabbit whenever he makes up his mind to cross it. There is no more comparison between the offset of Mexico that projects here into the United States, CAVE AND CLLFF DWELLERS. and the offset from the United States that projects into Mexico west of here, than there is in comparing the fertile plains of Iowa or Illinois with Greenland or the Great Sahara Desert.

Everyone familiar with the exceed ingly rich lands of the Southwest, when so much of it is worthless for want of water, knows how valuable that liquid is in this region, especially if it occurs in quantities sufficiently large for the purposes of irrigation. I have stood on land that I could purchase for five cents an acre or less, and that stretched out behind me for limitless leagues, and could jump on other land whose owner had refused a number of hundreds of dollars an acre, although, as far as the eye could see, there was no more difference between them than between any DEMING TO CASAS GRANDES. 9 two adjoining acres on an Illinois farm. The real difference was one to be determined by the surveyor's level, which showed that water could be put on the valuable tract and not on the other.

This also is the difference between the Mexican "offset" in the North, lying between the Rio Grande and the meridianal boundary to the west, and the American tract that juts into Mexico just west of this again. They both share the same soil as you gaze at them from the deck of your " burro," and you can even see no difference in them on closer in spection, after your mule has assisted you to alight ; but there is a real and tangible value difference of from one hundred to two hundred dollars a year per acre between the grapes and other fruits and vegetables you can raise on lo CAVE AND CLLFF DWELLERS. one, with water trickling round their roots, and the sagebrush and grease wood of the other, not rating at ten cents a township. The diplomats of our country at Washington may be all Talleyrands in astuteness, but in the Gadsden purchase they got left so far behind that they have never yet been able to see how badly they were handled in the bargain.

As our people travel along the line of the Southern Pacific Railway, through its arid wastes of sand and sunshine, they can little realize the beautiful country of Northern Chihuahua and Sonora that lies so close to them to the southward. And yet some of this seemingly arid land in Southern New Mexico and Arizona is destined to become of far more value than its present appearance would indi- DEMIXG TO CASAS GRANDE S. 11 cate. Anglo-Saxon energy is converting little patches here and there into fertile spots, and these are constantly increas ing. A great portion of the land is fine for cattle grazing, and these little oases make centers of crystallizing civilization, which render the country for miles around valuable for this important in dustry. The persons who believe that New Mexico will not eventually become one of the finest States in our Union belong to the class of those who put Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas in the great American desert a decade or two ago.

There is still another physical feature of at least Northern Mexico that I have never seen dwelt upon, even in the nu merous physical geographies that are now extant, and it is well worth explaining. Books innumerable have spoken of the tierra calientc, or low, hot lands near the coast, the tierra templada, or temperate lands of the interior plateaus, and the tierra fria, or cold lands of the moun tains and higher plateaus ; and these sub divisions are really good as explaining Mexican climate, but they give us but little idea of the country's surface itself beyond that of altitude, and even less re garding its resources and adaptability to the wants of man. The tierra calic7ite, or hot lands of the coast, are out of the question as habitations for white men ; but the tierra templada and tierra fria, as everyone familiar with climatology knows, gives us the finest climate in the world, as do all elevated plateaus in sub. tropical countries.

But these elevated plateaus, or different portions of them, GRANDES. 13 are not alike in resources, and their variations are simply due to the variations in the water supply. The backbone ridge of mountains in Mexico is the Sierra Madre, or Mother Mountains, for from them all other ridges and spurs seem to emanate. From their crests, as with all other mountains in the world, spring innumerable rivulets and creeks, which, uniting, form rivers. But nearly everywhere else these streams increase in size by the addition of the waters of other tributaries until they reach the sea. Not so with the Mexican rivers of this locality. Shortly after leaving the moun tains and reaching the foothills, they re ceive no additions from other sources, and after flowing from fifty to one hun dred miles they sink into the ground.

These " sinks " are usually large lakes, and a map of the country would make one believe that the rivers were emptying into them, but in reality they only disap pear as just stated, to reappear in the hot lands as the heads of rivers. Now all the country between the Sierra Madre and the " sinks," or at least all the valley country, can be readily irrigated by this peren nial flow of water. The rivers are fringed with trees, and the grass is in excellent condition, while beyond, the plains are treeless, the soil arid, and the prospect cheerless in comparison. To particular ize : if the reader looks at the map of Chihuahua he will see a series of lakes (they are the "sinks" to which I refer) : Laguna de Guzman, Laguna (the Spanish for lake) de Santa Maria, Laguna de Patos, etc., extending nearly north and GRAN DES. 15 south, and parallel with the crest of the Sierra Madres.

Between the lakes and the crest is a beautiful country, capable of sustaining a dense population ; while out side of it, to the eastward, so much cannot be said in its favor, although probably the latter is a good grazing district. Now the railway runs outside or eastward of the line of the "sinks," where the country is flat and the engineering difficulties are at a minimum ; and as nearly all the descriptions we have of Mexico are based upon observations made from car windows, it is easy to see how erroneous an opinion can be formed of this northern portion of Mexico, which is so constantly, though conscientiously, misrepresented by scores of writers. The first lake we came to in Mexico was Laguna Las Palomas (the Doves), CUFF DWELLERS. only a few miles beyond the boundary, and to secure which Mexico was smart enough to get in the offset to which I have referred.

It is, I think, the "sink" of the Mimbres River, which, as a river, lies wholly in the southwestern portion of New Mexico. It disappears, however, before it crosses the boundary, to reappear as sixty or seventy huge springs in Mex ico (any one of these would be worth $20,000 to $25,000 as water is now sold in the arid districts), which drain into a beautiful lake, backed by a high sierra, the Las Palomas Mountains, altogether forming a very picturesque scene. All the country around is quite level, and thousands of acres can here be irrigated with this enormous water supply ; while it can only be done by the quarter sec tion in the Southwest on our side of the GR ANDES. 17 line, except, probably, in a few rare instances. This was a favorite " stamping ground " of the more warlike bands of Apache Indians but a few years ago.

The water and grass for their ponies and the game for themselves made it their veritable Garden of Eden ; settlement, therefore, was out of the question until these bold marauders could be ejected with powder and lead. Not two leagues to the north the road from Deming, N. M., to Las Palomas passes over two graves of as many Apaches, killed a few years ago ; while on a hill hard by can be seen three crescent-shaped heaps of stones where the great Apache chief Victorio, with three or four score warriors, made a stand against the combined forces of the United States and Mexico, which proved CLIFF DWELLERS. entirely too much for him in the resulting combat. More worthless or meaner In dians were never driven out of a country than were the Apaches after they had found this region uninhabitable, or at least unbearable for their murderous methods of life ; and for much of the decisive action that led to this desirable end we have to thank the Mexicans.

The way the Las Palomas Mountains have of rising sheer out of a level country is quite common in this region, plainly showing that the mountains once rose from a oreat sea that washed their bases, and when it receded with the uplifting of this region it left the level plain to show where its flat bottom had been ages before. A fine example of this is seen in the mountains called Tres Hermanas (the Three Sisters), very near the boundary TRES HERMANAS. GR ANDES. 21 line, and but a few miles from the wagon road leading from Deming south into old Mexico. They form an interesting fea ture in the landscape as viewed from the railway on approaching Deming, and are the subject of an illustration by our artist. Sometimes a single peak just gets its head above the level plain by a few hundred feet, while again, great ranges extend for miles, their tops covered with snow in the winter months.

However long that level plain may be, it always extends without break or interruption to the next range. A railway would have but little trouble, so far as grades are concerned, in getting through this country. It might be necessary to wind a great deal to avoid hills and mountains, but if the constructors were lavish with rails and ties, and did not mind mileage, the grade would be almost as simple as building on a floor ; in fact it is the floor of an old inland ocean. A profile view of some of these ranges and isolated peaks gives some very grotesque as well as picturesque views, and imaginative people of the Southwest fancy they see many silhouette designs in the crests of the mountains. Faces seem to predominate, and especially is Montezuma's face quite lavishly distributed over this region.

I think I can recall at least a half dozen of them in the Southwest since I first visited there in 1867. This unfortunate Aztec monarch must have had a very rocky looking face, or his descendants must have thought exceeding well of him to sculpture him so often, even in fancy, upon the mountain crests. GRAND ES. 23 I went into a little face-making business of my own, so as to keep along in the custom of the country while I was there. The most southerly peak of the Florida range had quite a well-defined face, upturned to the sky, that, to my imagination, looked more like the well-known face of Benjamin Franklin than any other of nature's sculpturing so often portrayed in mountains when assisted by the fancy of man. Before leaving Las Palomas our material underwent inspection by the customs officials, and no people could have been more polite and considerate than were these officers toward us, giving us our necessary papers without putting us to the inconvenience of unpacking our many boxes and bundles.

There is this peculiarity about Mexican frontier customs : after passing the first one you are by no means through with them, for the next two, three, or even four towns may also have customhouse officers. I was in a Mexican town, La Ascencion, and had a wagon unloaded before I knew they had a customhouse. I expected to be shot at reveille the next morning ; but instead they politely passed all my personal baggage without even asking to see it, simply examining the papers received at the first customhouse. After leaving Las Palomas our course lay southward across a high mesa, or table-land, until we reached the Boca Grande River. The scenery along the Boca Grande is picturesque and some what peculiar. The river bottom is flat, very wide, and rich in soil ; but on the flanks rise the Mexican mountains sheer pacheco peak.

GRANDE S. 27 out of the plains. To the west are the Sierra Madres, covered with snow on the highest peaks, making some of the most beautiful views I have ever seen as presented from different points along the river's course. One of them, Pacheco Peak, in the Boca Grande range (named after the Mexican Minister of the Inte rior), is shown in the illustration. Slight spurs and mesa lands extend from the sierras in the valleys and often reach the river bank, thereby forcing the road over them, but affording a foundation that any macadamized highway in our own country might emulate. Some of these ridges were ornamented with groupings of cactus (of the oquetilla variety), if their presence can be called an orna ment. Imagine a dozen fishing rods, from ten to fifteen feet in length, all radiating from a central point like a bouquet of bayonets, and each rod hold ing hundreds of spikes throughout its OQUETILLA CACTUS. length.

You will thus have a faint idea of the appearance of a bunch of oquetilla cactus. These bunches seem to prefer growing along the rocky crests in rows of tolerable regularity that, to a person at a distance, suggest the work of human hands. GRAN DES. 29 We traveled some thirty miles along the river without seeing a living thing except a few jack rabbits and coyotes, when suddenly we rounded a bend of the beautiful Boca Grande and came upon a stretch of valley covered with zacaton grass, and which in a few years will be a valuable ranche. Across this we saw two as hard-looking characters approaching us as ever cut a throat. I was pre paring to hand over to them all my Mexican money and other valuables when they politely touched their hats and simply said, " Documentos." Here, again, in the far-off woods and hills were more customhouse officials.

These men were here to prevent smugglers from crossing the border between the towns and established highways. We lunched that day on Espia Hill, used formerly as a customhouse post of observation, but the Apache chief Geron imo, raiding through here, collected a poll tax of one scalp apiece, and since then the post has been abandoned. A short distance further the river changes from the Boca Grande to the Casas Grandes. The Boca Grande and the Casas Grandes are the same river, like the Wind River and the Big Horn in our own country, the two changing names at a certain point. In other words, they have the same river bed, for in the dry est seasons the Casas Grandes sinks and reappears further down as the Boca Grande, the two streams being really identical most of the way, however, and both of them emptying into the great "sink" known as Laguna Guzman.

I DEMING TO CASAS GRANDES. 31 noticed one peculiarity of the rocky soil on the ridges extending down from the foothills of the mountains that I have never seen elsewhere, and might not have noticed even here had it not been pointed out to me by one of my guides. Great areas of the soil were covered with stones, mostly flat in shape, and so numerous that but little vegetation could exist between them. A decidedly desolate aspect was thus presented ; indeed no one would believe that anything except the oquetilla cactus could possibly grow here. One of my Mexican men, how ever, assured me that the stones were only on the surface, and that by removing them the richest of red soil could be found underneath, not affording a single stone in a cubic yard of earth. The soil had not been washed away when the rains beat down upon it, as this " top-dressing " of flat rock had shielded it from such action, protecting it, let us hope, for the future use of man.

They told me this peculiar kind was the richest and most easily cultivated soil in Mexico, but it looked, with its covering of rocks, poor enough to put in some terrestrial alms house along with the Sahara Desert. This whole Southwest, or rather North west from a Mexican standpoint, is a country of deceptive appearances. Hun dreds of my readers have probably traveled over the Santa Fe Railway as it courses through the Rio Grande valley, and, recalling the grassy, pleasant-looking country in the East, have wondered how this cheerless area of sand and sagebrush could ever be utilized. Yet in this valley is a farm of twenty-two acres for which DEMING TO CASAS GRANDES. 33 sixty thousand dollars has been flatly refused, although not one cent of its value is due to its proximity to any important point (as the fact is with the valuable little farms around our Eastern cities), but solely to what it will .produce. Verily the desolation of the land is deceptive, and, like beauty, is but skin deep.

Chapter II. Northwestern Chihuahua

(CONTINUED) — MEXICAN MORMON COLONIES FROM LA ASCENSION TO CORRALITOS SOME RUINS ALONG THE TAPASITA A TOLTEC BABYLON. sT is sixty to sixty-five miles from Las *■ Palomas to La Ascension, and not a settlement or a sign of life except jack rabbits, coyotes, and customhouse officers is to be seen throughout the whole length of this unusually rich country, so effectually did the Apaches enforce their restrictive tariff but a few years ago. At rare intervals great haciendas are found in these rich valleys, the main NORTHWESTERN CHIHUAHUA. 35 industry of which is cattle raising. We passed a herd of about a thousand head just before reaching La Ascension, all in magnificent condition, and attended by some eight or ten vaqueros, who were driving them to market. With the usual Mexican politeness they took particular pains to give us the road ; and to do so drove the whole herd over a high hill, around the base of which the road ran.

Just before reaching La Ascension we came to the Mormon colony of Diaz (named by them in honor of the pres ent President of the Mexican Republic), numbering about fifty families. A dis cussion of their religious tenets is clearly and fortunately out of my province, not only from its heavy, dreary character, but for the reason that everything wise and otherwise about Mormonism has already been put before those who care to read it. But entirely aside from the subject of polygamy, which has so completely obscured every other point about these people, they have one characteristic which is seldom heard of in connection with them and their wanderings in the Western wilderness. I refer to their building up of new countries. They have no peer in pioneering among the Caucasian races. They are so far ahead of the Gentiles in organized and discrimi nating, businesslike colonization, that the latter are not close enough to them to per mit a comparison that would show their inferiority.

Of course they (the Mor mons) see in their belief an ample explanation for this excellence ; it is far more probable, however, as I look at it from my Gentile point of view, that it is due MEXICAN MORMON COLONIES. 37 to the peculiar organization of their Church, which so fits them for the work of making the wilderness blossom as the rose. No other Christian Church exercises so much authority over the temporal affairs of its members as the Mormon Church. However debatable this exercise of au thority may be in civilized communities, surrounded by people of the same kind, there is no doubt in my mind as to its favorable effect upon pioneer associa tions, encompassed by enemies in man and nature. This view of the subject must be admitted by everyone who has grown up on the Gentile frontier and seen the innumerable bickerings between adjacent towns, the internal dissensions in the towns themselves, the rivalry for " booms," the shotsain contests for county seats, the thousands of exaggerations about their own interests, and the hundreds of depreciations about those of others adjoining.

As in its spiritual, so in its temporal affairs, the authority of the Mormon Church is remarkable for its effective power of centralization. It judi cially settles all questions for the general, not the individual good ; and upon thi-s principle it determines, by the character of the soil, and by the natural routes of travel, where colonies shall locate, as well as what are the probable opportuni ties for propagation of the faith. It is not at all surprising to one who has observed these facts that an organized faith of almost any character should have flourished, though surrounded by so much disorganization. As a rule, at least from two to four years of quiet are needed after an Indian MEXICAN MORMON COLOaVIES. 39 war to restore such confidence among the whites that they can settle the dis turbed district in a bona-fide way.