fancy not; the race will die out-Ishmaels, whose hands are against every man, and against whom every man's hand is turned-either to avenge the past, protect himself for the present, or as often as not as a precaution for the future. APACHES. It is now more than 100 years ago since Miguel Venegas, the Spanish friar, wrote the following description of the tribe whose name heads this paragraph :-"Within a circuit of 300 leagues they reside in their small rancherias,* erected in the valleys and in the breaches of the mountains. They are cruel to those who have the misfortune to fall into their hands; and among them are several apostates. They go entirely naked, but make their incursions on horses of great swiftness, which they have stolen from other parts. A skin serves them as a saddle. Of the same skins they make little shoes of one piece,† and by them they are traced in their flight. They begin the attack with shouts at a great distance, to strike the enemy with terror. They have not naturally any great share of courage; but the little they can boast of is extravagantly increased on any good success. In war they rather depend upon artifice than valour; and on any defeat submit to the most ignominious terms, but keep their treaties no longer than suits their convenience. His Majesty has ordered that if they require peace, it should be granted, and even offered to them before they are attacked. But this generosity they construe to proceed from fear. Their arrows are the common bows and arrows of the country. The intention of their incursions is plunder, especially horses, which they use both for riding and eating, the flesh of these creatures being one of their greatest dainties. These people, during the last eighty years, have been the dread of Sonora, no part of which is secure from their violence . . The Apaches penetrate into the province by different passes, and after loading themselves with booty, will travel in one night fifteen, eighteen, or twenty leagues. To pursue them over the mountains is equally dangerous and difficult, and in the levels they follow no path. On any entrance into their country, they give notice to one another by smokes or fires; and at a signal they all hide themselves. The damages they have done in the villages, settlements, farms, roads, pastures, woods, and mines are beyond description; and many of the latter, though very rich, have been forsaken." Without the change of almost a word, this lucid description by the old missionary applies to the Apaches at the present day, as it would have applied to them 200 years before it was written. Under the name 66 Apache" are comprehended several tribes or bands, numbering in all something over 5,000 souls, but, with the exception of a few hundreds too cowardly or too weak to fight, and who therefore prefer to be fed by the Government, all hostile to the whites. The Indian Department is endeavouring to collect the rest of them on "reservations" and to teach them the arts of peace-at least so far as may prevent them being an annoyance to their civilised neighbours; the result has hitherto been but little successful. They will "make treaty" and accept all the presents with an avidity which leaves nothing to be desired. They will even do the department the honour to live in the houses prepared for them, until they find it to their profit to do otherwise, when they instantly commence that series of murderous depredations which in western parlance is known as "going on the rampage." About * Or houses, a Spanish term applied in the extreme western portion of America very commonly to Indian villages. + Mocassins. the habits or social condition of the others very little is known. Too much, on the other hand, is known about their outrages. Equal failures have marked every attempt to either "clear them out" or to "improve them-off the face of the earth." A few years ago the commander at Camp Grant conceived that he had a special mission for this task, but the result proved that in this opinion the gallant gentleman was altogether singular, he and his soldiers being exceedingly glad, before they had gone many miles, to beat an undignified retreat out of the country. Northern Sonora is their favourite plundering-ground, and more than a hundred years ago the Spaniards found it necessary to protect their outlying provinces by a complete system of military posts from San Antonio, in Texas, to the Pacific. So long as this system was adopted, the country, being comparatively safe, prospered, but soon after the withdrawal of the troops, owing to the decay of Spanish power, the region again became desolated by the ravages of the savage hordes, only kept in check by these forts. The Apaches poured down upon it, the herdsmen fled for their lives, and left their cattle and horses-herds of which in a wild condition are now found in the territory-to their fate. The country districts cleared, the savages next attacked the smaller towns, until the word Apache became such a name of terror, that even the news of one of these savage bands being seen twenty or thirty miles off, was sufficient to cause them to leave everything and flee. Secure in the mountain fastnesses of his home in the north, the Apache meanwhile knew that he was safe from pursuit or retaliation, and increased in boldness and atrocity. The result is that the country is almost depopulated. Even though the United States have stipulated to protect the Mexican frontier from these disagreeable citizens of the great Republic, they have felt thenselves powerless to accomplish this, and the helpless frontier on both sides of the boundary ·line lies waste. In this, indeed, lies the only safety it has, for there being nothing to steal or murder, the Apaches do not visit it. Once, however, let the owner of a scalp settle in the territory, or a flock of cattle graze in its villages, then, as of old, their yells would be heard in the land. But Nature has taken in hand what the Government of the United States, or what passes for such in Mexico, has failed to do; the Apaches are dying off gradually, and the general wish in the region surrounding their haunts is that that pleasant event cannot be too speedily accelerated. The illustration on page 197 shows the scene of a terrible massacre by this bloodthirsty tribe in 1867. NAVAJOS. This people, though often classed with the Apaches, are not only their hereditary enemies, but in every respect a different and much finer race. Bold, defiant, with lustrous eyes, and sharp, intelligent countenances, their skill in some arts does not belie their appearance. They have taken to agriculture, and in some cases have raised large crops of various kinds. They also weave blankets, in appearance and quality, according to Dr. Bell, scarcely excelled even by the costly seraphes of Mexico and South America, and they manufacture baskets, ropes, saddles, and bridle-bits. Yet in their love of rapine and plunder the Navajos are scarcely excelled by the Apaches. Until they were partially settled upon "reservations" by the Government they inhabited a fine tract of well-watered country, bounded on the north by the Utah Indians, on the south by the Apaches, on the west by the Moqui and Zuñi Pueblo Indians, and on the east by the Rio Grande Valley. Twenty years ago they must have numbered 12,000. While they left their wives and old men to plant, reap, and attend to the stock, and make blankets, the braves spent their lives traversing the whole country, and carrying off the stock of the helpless Mexican farmers, besides keeping the entire agricultural and mining population in a constant state of alarm. To give a slight idea of the depredations of these hordes, it may be stated that between August 1, 1846, and October 1, 1856, there were stolen by them no less than 12,887 mules, 7,050 horses, 31,581 horned cattle, and 453,293 head of sheep. The official reports from New Mexico appear to contain nothing but catalogues of depredations committed by the Navajos, or of similar deeds done by the Apaches; and not only was the valley of the Rio Grande swept over and over again of its stock, but the Indian, Pueblo and Zuñi, and other native towns, barely escaped destruction, and this, too, since the annexation of these places to the United States. From 1846 up to the present date their history is simply one of plunderings by them and reprisals by the whites. Their corn-fields were set on fire, their cattle and sheep driven away, their stores plundered, and they themselves slaughtered by the enraged settlers and Indians friendly to the whites. If there were no flocks to drive off, the military would attempt to destroy the remnants of their stock by encamping at the different springs, thinking by this means to prevent the sheep from obtaining water. This was not, however, altogether successful, for the Navajo sheep, by long habit, only require water every three or four days. So that the soldiers, after guarding a spring for some days, and seeing no signs of Indians, would fancy the country must be deserted, and leave. Then the Navajos, who were grazing their flocks quietly in some secluded valley among the mountains hard by, would come and water their flocks with the utmost impunity. Still the result of this continual warfare was to decrease them, and at the present time there exists not a fraction of the number who once made the country so lively. Numbers have gone on to reserves, and it is said there are about 2,000 in the hands of the Mexicans, who profess to bring them up as members of their families and households. Perhaps so. They are, however, far from contented on the reservations, and we are informed. by their superintendent that of the state of their health and morals the hospital reports give a woful account. "The tale is not half told, because they have such an aversion to the hospital that if taken sick they will never go there, and so they are fast diminishing in numbers; while the births are many, the deaths are more. Discontent fills every breast of this brave and light-hearted tribe, and a piteous cry comes from all as they think of their own far-off lands, 'Carry me back, carry me back!"" In character they are said to be superior to most of the neighbouring tribes, sparing life when no resistance was offered, though death was, and is, the unvarying result of opposition to their plundering. In battle they never scalp an enemy, and in many other respects they are generous, and more like the Pueblo Indians, whom we shall On the describe by-and-by, and with whom they claim a common relationship and origin. |