The pioneer West : $b Narratives of the westward march of empire
History
The pioneer West : $b Narratives of the westward march of empire
Frontier and pioneer life -- West (U.S.)
All passengers can have refreshments on the cars at reasonable prices.
Tickets of round trip from Leavenworth, $10.00.
The inducements, at these rates, to any one anxious to visit the
plains, and see a live buffalo, and perhaps a “live injun,” not so
acceptable at that time, were certainly very tempting, as the full
expense of the above trip, at the regular rate of fare, would not
have been short of seventy dollars. A quarter of a century hence, the
buffalo and the Indian will have entirely disappeared from the line of
the railways. The few that still survive will have then been driven
to the most remote, inaccessible, and uninhabitable sections, if not
entirely exterminated.
AT TUCSON
CAPT. JOHN G. BOURKE
1870
From “On the Border with Cook.” Reprinted by permission of the
publishers, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York.[26]
It has been shown that Tucson had no hotels. She did not need any at
the time of which I am writing, as her floating population found all
the ease and comfort it desired in the flare and glare of the gambling
hells, which were bright with the lustre of smoking oil lamps and gay
with the varicolored raiment of moving crowds, and the music of harp
and Pan’s pipes. In them could be found nearly every man in the town
at some hour of the day or night, and many used them as the Romans did
their “Thermæ”--as a place of residence.
All nationalities, all races were represented, and nearly all
conditions of life. There were cadaverous-faced Americans, and
Americans whose faces were plump; men in shirt sleeves, and men who
wore their coats as they would have done in other places; there were
Mexicans wrapped in the red, yellow, and black striped cheap “serapes,”
smoking the inevitable cigarrito, made on the spot by rolling a pinch
of tobacco in a piece of corn shuck; and there were other Mexicans more
thoroughly Americanized, who were clad in the garb of the people of the
North. Of Chinese and negroes there were only a few--but their place
was occupied by civilized Indians, Opatas, Yaquis, and others, who had
come up with “bull” teams and pack trains from Sonora. The best of
order prevailed, there being no noise save the hum of conversation or
the click of the chips on the different tables. Tobacco-smoke ascended
from cigarritos, pipes, and the vilest of cigars, filling all the rooms
with the foulest of odors. The bright light from the lamps did not
equal the steely glint in the eyes of the “bankers,” who ceaselessly
and imperturbably dealt out the cards from faro boxes, or set in motion
the balls in roulette.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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