CHAPTER VI. TO THE TURQUOIS MINES.
Reader, are you the sort of person who rushes through life the first passenger on the earliest train; who hires the fastest coach at Niagara, to exhaust the Falls, the Whirlpool, and Lundy’s Lane in half a day, and are then ready to whiz off in the night express? If you are, then are we no company for each other, and may as well part at once. You are entirely unfit for frontier travel and may go this minute. _Adios! Adios!_
But you who lingered by the Rapids; who have a kindly glance for the smutty sentinel at the brake; who do not threaten to die when the gentlemanly conductor fills the car full and corks it tight as a champagne bottle, but live on in order to cheer a gasping fellow-martyr; who help the mediæval lady, of convex outline, traveling with two geraniums and a canary bird, yet keep a sympathetic eye for the young pair in the new of the moon, murmuring, as they pass, I too have dwelt in Arcadia.--You are the one I love. Yours are the feet, beauteous on the mountain-top, that go gypsying with me through this New World, which Agassiz tells us is the Old.
We travel in a hap-hazard way, varied with many a digression, following no train but our own fancies. We stop to speak with the natives by the way, try to sketch a Gifford sunset on a gritty scratch-book, and stray from the road for bits of cheating mica, and for flowers which wilt in the gathering, and change in our hands to dry stalks and grasses.
The mountains are eternally beautiful, always changing, forever new, and all about us is picture. Walking for rest, the grama grass is soft and pleasant under the pilgrim’s feet; the sun always shines; the days are like the enchanted rooms in the fairy castle, each more beautiful than every other; the air is balm, and oil, and wine.
There is nothing pleasanter than such travel, unless it be to float between blue and blue among the Cyclades, and idly drift along the tideless sea, to catch the far echo of the syren songs that wooed the wandering Ulysses.
And now for the Turquois Mines.
To one who was an early and ardent admirer of _Lalla Rookh_, the word turquois brings up memories of old or, rather, young days among fragrant orchard trees, meadows pink and white with clover-blooms, and a certain fine-printed, sight-destroying volume of the poet whose hundredth birthday we have just celebrated. It is like a fading dream to look from the shadowy half-way house at the girl embowered among singing birds, reading, with dazzled eyes, of swords inlaid with rich marquetry, talismans, and characters of the scimitar of Solomon. Arms of
“The wild warriors of the Turquois Hills,”
who rallied to the white veil and glittering banner of the False Prophet.
The perfumed and sparkling poem which thrilled so many soft hearts at life’s morning is not loved by lovers of this age. Only the setting generation--and they mainly for the sake of old times--read “The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan,” and in the twilight pensively sing “Araby’s Daughter,” with voice not altogether fresh. In the days when that fond farewell was first sung it was taught that turquoises belonged chiefly to the Turkish and Persian Empires. Since then the ceaseless delving of the antiquary has given to the world such treasure far removed from the Shah’s dominions. There are mines of high antiquity in Mount Sinai, and a bronze finger-ring, of unique pattern, set with turquoises, has been discovered in the Wady Meghara of that peninsula. It dates back to the vague, unreal period of the Fourth Dynasty; and amulets of the same material are unearthed in the ruins of ancient Egyptian towns. They are found in Arabia Petrea, in a stratum of red sandstone, of finer blue and darker shade than the Persian, and the visitor of Roman museums sees antique cameos and intaglios carved in Arabian turquois, sadly faded and tarnished by long burial. Only a few in the Vatican still retain their color.
Those of Khorassan are sold in Russia on sticks, tied in bunches like quills, and are in demand by jewelers of St. Petersburg, for enriching sword-hilts, handles of daggers, belts, pipes, etc. The Shah is reported to have in keeping all the finest gems, allowing only the inferior grades to leave the country.
In a curious old treatise on precious stones the turquois is described as a delicate and sensitive jewel, which has an affinity for its owner, changing color with his health and varying fortunes. The fact that they do change color in a wholly unaccountable manner may explain the fanciful notion. Human hearts are the same everywhere and in all ages, and many a myth and superstition of the East is reproduced in Mexico--plain testimony that Orientalism dwells not alone in its sky and the palm trees of the valley.
It interested me greatly to find that the pretty legend of the Orient attaches to the turquois of the New World, called by the ancient Aztec _chalchuite_ (pronounced chal-chew-e-te).
Like the Asiatic, the Aztecan believed it brought good fortune to the wearer, glowed in sympathy with the healthful beating of his pulse, and ominously paled in prophecy of a coming misfortune. The power of the Montezumas was absolute, as their dominion was vast; and wherever the green banner of the king marked the limit of his realm, the _chalchuite_ was, by imperial decree, forbidden to the commonalty--the jewel sacred to the royal house. When the five ambassadors from Totonac came to the tent of Cortez, at Vera Cruz, they defied the law (being then at war with the fierce and bloody Aztec), and wore the proscribed jewels--“gems of a bright blue stone, in their ears and nostrils.”[14]
Readers of Prescott will remember his picturesque page describing the city of Tezcuco, where North American civilization reached its height. In the royal palace was a hall of justice, called the “Tribunal of God,” where the judge decided important causes and passed sentence of death, seated on a throne of pure gold, inlaid with the consecrated turquois.
The art of cutting gems was carried to high perfection by the Aztecs, and the carved _chalchuite_ is noted by every writer on the Spanish Conquest.
Father Sahagun calls it a jasper of very green color, “or a common smaragdus,” so precious to the infidel that the use of them was prohibited by royal edict to any but the nobility. “It represented to them everything that was excellent in its kind; for which reason they put such a stone in the mouth of distinguished chiefs who died,” like the coin poetry offered to the grim ferryman of the souls of the Greek dead.[15] They were valued by the heathen above all earthly possessions, and, therefore, at first held in great estimation by the Spaniards. The art of polishing them came from Heaven, the gift of the god Quetzelcoatl, a gentle deity who instructed the Aztecs in the use of metals, agriculture, and the arts of government. It was in the golden age of Anahuac, when an ear of Indian corn was as much as one man could carry, when the air was filled with the melody of birds, the earth with flowers, and cotton in the field took of its own accord the rich dye of cochineal. Cholula was his favorite city, where the massy ruins of the temple dedicated to his worship form one of the most interesting relics of ancient Mexico. By command of the superior deities, he took leave of his worshipers on the shores of the Mexican Gulf, under promise to return, and, entering his wizard skiff, made of serpents’ skins, sailed away to the blooming shores of happy Tlapallan.
The earliest mention of this historic gem is made by the honest old soldier, Bernal Diaz. Four _chalchuites_, counted the most precious offerings from his treasury, were among the first presents sent by Montezuma to Cortez. “A gift to our emperor, designed as a mark of highest respect, as each of them, they assured us, was worth more than a wagon-load of gold.” The covetous Spaniard was enraptured with the gold-dust and jewels, and gave in exchange--a sorry return for the munificence of the imperial present--a few Holland shirts, and a string of trumpery beads, strongly perfumed with musk.
On sending the priceless Aztecan diamonds, “worth four wagon-loads of gold,” to Valladolid, it turned out, rather awkwardly for the Spaniards, that they were not worth so many wagon-loads of earth.
The gossiping Herodotus of the New World alludes to the _chalchuite_ again in his narrative of the first meeting of Montezuma and Cortez, on the Causeway, at the entrance to Mexico, city of enchantment. That fatal day, when the force of his own genius brought the representative of the strongest empire of the Old World face to face with the mightiest monarch of the New, its pale lustre shone dimly in the fringe of the canopy held by the _Caciques_ above the hapless monarch’s head. “A canopy of exceeding great value,” says the quaint chronicler, “decorated with green feathers, gold and silver, _chalchuis_ stones and pearls, which hung down from a bordering altogether curious to look at.”
Its delicately-traced veins, occasionally of greenish hue, betray a near kinship to malachite. This rich-tinted mineral is finer than the dark-colored stone of Russia, and though by no means costly as Shylock’s turquoise, the _chalchuite_ still holds its high repute among the various tribes of the red race.
It is valued by the Navajo beyond the garnets and beryls of his own country, and is used as currency among the half-civilized Pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona. The Indian girls along the Colorado wear it as a love-token in their necklaces; the roving and tameless Apache covets a blue bead as an amulet; the degraded Ute loves its soft glimmer; and when a Mohave chief would assume regal splendor, he sticks a three-cornered piece of _chalchuite_ in his royal nose.
Such associations fresh in mind, it was with extreme pleasure I prepared for an excursion to Los Cerillos, where these blue-eyed gems are found, the only mines as yet discovered this side the Russian seas. Twenty-six miles southwest of Santa Fé are the long, narrow ranges of gold and silver-bearing mountains--Placer, Sandia, Manzana, etc.--which form an unbroken chain on the eastern side of the Rio Grande. Among them are three turquoise mines, which anciently supplied the Indian market of North America.
A roomy ambulance, drawn by four mules; various delights, liquid and solid, in a mess-chest; a party of choice spirits, like my reader; and a morning such as breaks nowhere but over the hills of Paradise and New Mexico--this was our start.
Our driver was a young Mexican, bearing a lengthy and musical name, with which I shall not serenade you. Juan Fresco (Cool John) is a minute fragment of it. He was very spruce in a brand-new suit of kerseymere, of the sort sold throughout the frontier by Israelites in whom there is much guile; a handsome Navajo blanket closely woven and brightly striped; and was happy in possession of a limitless supply of corn husks and powdered tobacco which he rolled into cigarettes and smoked, without so much as saying, By your leave. Had he known it was impolite, he would have implored pardon, with many sweet-sounding words. Mexican women smoke constantly, as men do and he does not know better. He can live and does live on a dollar a week; and, with _tortillas_, onions, red pepper, and once in a great while a mutton stew, thrives and drives the ambulance. They say that there is Indian blood in him; that he is cold as death and treacherous as a tiger-cat; but I do not believe it.
In this high, dry country, corresponding with Western Asia, the tendency of the human body is to Arab leanness, and Juan Fresco, who grew to man’s estate under this fierce Syrian sun, sitting against the mud wall of a Syrian hut, has a soft Syrian face. No positive beauty (I have never seen out-door people except Arabs who have), but comely features, unchanging, melancholy eyes, and a gentle, passive voice, very winsome.
The festal day found Juan Fresco highly embellished with a yellow sash tied tightly around his waist, securing a long knife (_navaja_) in its folds. Every Spaniard can use the knife with skill, and in his hands it becomes a dreadful weapon. He can cast it with exact aim and unerring certainty into a post or into the heart of an enemy at a considerable distance away; and wherever there is Spanish blood the _navaja_ is the favorite weapon, not always concealed about his person. Our muleteer took his pleasure sadly as any Englishmen; but his sadness is only for strangers. He is leader of the band which goes from house to house playing under the windows--the sweet Spanish invitation to the ball; gayly thrums the guitar at the light fandango; and can dance till morning as well as hold his own in any affray that may grow out of the wild license of the _baile_.
Occasionally he leaped from his seat for a pocketful of stones, gathering them as the wagon moved on, and throwing them at the heads of the mules; at the same time muttering, on the ledger lines below, sacred words mixed with names of saints. The Mexican insists a mule cannot be made to understand without such urging; and they have a proverb: “An ass’s ears are made long in order to catch oaths.”
[N. B.--There is reason to believe that a like superstition attaches to the Army of the United States.]
Leaving the venerable city of the Pueblos, we crossed the Santa Fé River, which in Indiana would be called a spring branch. I have often gone over it dry shod. But the poverty of the Spanish language allows only one word for running water--_Rio_, translated river. The Santa Fé Mountains round about us are a part of the great Rocky Mountain system, connecting on the north with the Spanish Peaks and Raton Mountains, including many whose summits are silvered with perpetual snow. A series of high, picturesque chains, in the morning-glow robed with a transparent purple haze, of such exquisite tint one can hardly realize those airy pyramids in a fair border-land between us and heaven are, indeed, upheavals of earth, veined with quartz and based on coarse red granite.
Words cannot picture aught so fair. The faintest violet, the softest heliotrope are coarse and hard beside the dreamy, poetic color, which appeals to the eye as dim æolian soundings touch the ear, charming the fancy with vague ideas of a viewless beauty within the floating veil.
I cannot make you understand. Come and see the transfiguration which makes rock-ribbed hills appear like tents of light, lovely enough for angels to rest in on their upward flight.
The plain was smooth as a prairie, and our road free of stone. The reader must not imagine it lay among Alpine scenery, with huge peaks towering to the sky, forbidding our advance, yielding at last to reveal smiling valleys and hidden hamlets, nestling close to the hillsides in narrow glens. Here all is on the same magnificent scale. The plains are broad as the summits are high; the refined atmosphere so intensely clear the light is like a reflection from snow. No such extensive views are in Europe or any country where the air holds moisture, and sometimes the landscapes seem absolutely limitless.
The Sierras are short, uneven spurs from the main line. They have disturbed the overlying strata in the shape of _mesas_ (tables) of solid rock, which are a distinguishing feature of Rocky Mountain scenery, giving it a grotesque, fantastic beauty. The process of erosion has formed in colossal size copies of the grandest structures of man’s art, and towering columns, temples with sharp pinnacles, scattered pillars rise abruptly from the centre of plains desolate and forsaken as the wilderness of Engedi--strange and solemn sights. In the Painted Desert are snow-white _mesas_, the _craie blanche_ composition of the chalk cliffs on the south coast of England, which dazzle the eye, reflecting the sunlight like palaces of alabaster or of ice. The stone corridors of Karnak and Philae are the work of pigmies compared with this noble architecture, wrought by slow processes in secret places,
“Made by Nature for herself.”
Sometimes the _mesa_ shapes into a rose-red wall, with fluted columns that uphold the sky. Again it is a group of gray pyramids, a thousand or twelve hundred feet high; or an isolated, broken dome, worn smooth by the weather, picturesque in the extreme.
Nothing affords such changes of coloring as the variegated marls, lying in regular bands of red, orange, green, blue, of rainbow hue, striped and interstratified with belts of purple, bluish white, and mottled veins of exceeding richness.
Strangely enough, the traveler occasionally finds himself riding above these singular formations, and looking _down_ on the “Painted Rocks.”
The sheer sides of a _mesa_ of gray limestone, mixed with blue clay and capped with a rim of pillared basalt, are singularly like fabrics of hewn stone. I have seen low walls of even height reaching long distances, precisely like field-walls laid by skillful masons. These, in the neighborhood of stately _façades_, with the fair finish at the top, explain how an explorer, afraid to make near approach, should go away and give accounts of vast cities, with gallant banners on the walls enclosed in heavy outworks.
FOOTNOTES:
[14] Prescott’s _History of the Conquest of Mexico_, Vol. I.
[15] Father Sahagun thus describes these precious stones: “_Las chalchuites son verdes y no transparentes mezcladas de blanco, usanlas, mucho las principales trayendolas las muñecas atadas en hilo, y aquello es señal de que es persona noble el que las trae._”--_Hist. de Nueva España_, Lib. ii. chap. 8.