The table at Tubac was generously supplied with the best the market afforded, besides venison, antelope, turkeys, bear, quail, wild ducks, and other game, and we obtained through Guaymas a reasonable supply of French wines for Sunday dinners and the celebration of feast days. It is astonishing how rapidly the development of mines increases commerce. We had scarcely commenced to make silver bars--"current with the merchant"--when the plaza at Tubac presented a picturesque scene of primitive commerce. Pack trains arrived from Mexico, loaded with all kinds of provisions. The rule was to purchase everything they brought, whether we wanted it or not. They were quite willing to take in exchange silver bars or American merchandise. Sometimes they preferred American merchandise. Whether they paid duties in Mexico was none of our business. We were essentially free traders. The winter was mild and charming, very little snow, and only frost enough to purify the atmosphere. It would be difficult to find in any country of the world, so near the sea, such prolific valleys fenced in by mountains teeming with minerals. The natural elements of prosperity seem concentrated in profusion seldom found. In our primitive simplicity we reasoned that if we could take ores from the mountains and reduce them to gold and silver with which to pay for labor and purchase the productions of the valleys, a community could be established in the country independent of foreign resources. The result will show the success or failure of this Utopian scheme. The usual routine at Tubac, in addition to the regular business of distributing supplies to the mining camps, was chocolate or strong coffee the first thing in the morning, breakfast at sunrise, dinner at noon, and supper at sunset. Sunday was the day of days at Tubac, as the superintendents came in from the mining camps to spend the day and take dinner, returning in the afternoon. One Sunday we had a fat wild turkey weighing about twenty-five pounds, and one of my engineers asked permission to assist in the _cocina_. It was done to a charm, and stuffed with pine nuts, which gave it a fine flavor. As we had plenty of horses and saddles, a gallop to the old Mission of San Jose de Turnucacori, one league south on the Santa Cruz River, afforded exercise and diversion for the ladies, especially of a Sunday afternoon. The old mission was rapidly going to ruin, but the records showed that it formerly supported a population of 3,500 people, from cultivation of the rich lands in the valley, grazing cattle, and working the silver mines. The Santa Cruz valley had been and could apparently again be made an earthly paradise. Many fruit trees yet remained in the gardens of the old mission church, and the "Campo Santo" walls were in a perfect state of preservation.