Across America; Or, The Great West and the Pacific CoastRusling, James Fowler
History
Across America; Or, The Great West and the Pacific Coast
Rusling, James Fowler
Overland journeys to the Pacific; Pacific States -- Description and travel; West (U.S.) -- Description and travel
We reached Fort Garland next day (Sept. 20) about one, P. M., without
meeting a single Indian, either hostile or friendly. Denver, as
before said, had warned us to be on our guard, and we tried to be;
but all reported dangers vanished as we advanced--Munchausen after
Munchausen exploding in turn. From the Huerfano across the mountains
to Garland, some fifty miles or more, there was but a single ranch,
and scarcely anybody on the road. A Mexican on foot and another
on a donkey were emigrating to the Huerfano, and at one point we
encountered a whole family similarly engaged. Paterfamilias, whiffing
his cigarito, led a diminutive broncho (Mexican for jackass) about
the size of a spring calf, on which sat his household gods, to wit,
his Señora also smoking, with a child before and another behind
her--all of them astride. Another broncho of about the same size
followed on behind, loaded down with clothing, bedding, and various
domestic utensils until there was but little to be seen of him except
his legs. What the locomotive is to the Yankee, and the horse to the
borderer, that the broncho is to the Mexican, and the two seem alike
fitted for each other and inseparable. His patient little beast
costs but little, and when stopping browses by the wayside the best
it may, while Don Quixote himself sits basking in the sunshine.
The serene and infinite content of a Mexican peon, as he sits thus
wrapped in his poncho or serape, sucking his everlasting cigarrito,
no American can imagine. His dignity is as perfect as that of a
Castilian; but the stolidity of his brain, who shall describe?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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