Lippincotts Magazine of Popular Literature and Science | Page 2

likewise to their descent from the Aztecs. But their glory departed with the coming of Cortez, and their Spanish conquerors treated them as an inferior race. Revolting against their oppressors in 1680, they were reconquered thirteen years later, though subsequently allowed greater liberty. By the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848 they became citizens of the United States. From one extreme of government to another has drifted this remnant of a stately race, till now at last it finds itself safely sheltered in the arms of our great republic.
Such is the romantic history of a portion of our so-called "New West;" but it was with a view of ascertaining some facts concerning occurrences of more recent date, as well as of seeing some of the actors therein, that we paid a visit to Pueblo. We found it a rather odd mixture of the old and the new, the adobe and the "dug-out" looking across the street upon the imposing structure of brick or the often gaudily-painted frame cottage. It looked as though it might have been indulging in a Rip Van Winkle sleep, except that the duration might have been a century or two. High mesas with gracefully rounded and convoluted sides almost entirely surround it, and rising above their floor-like tops, and in fine contrast with their sombre brown tints, appear the blue outlines of the distant mountains. Pike's Peak, fifty miles to the north, and the Spanish Peaks, the Wawatoyas, ninety to the south, are sublime objects of which the eye never grows weary; while the Sierra Mojadas bank up the western horizon with a frowning mountain-wall. A notch in the distant range, forty miles to the north-west, indicates the place where the Arkansas River breaks through the barriers that would impede its seaward course, forming perhaps the grandest ca?on to be found in all this mighty mountain-wilderness. Truly a striking picture was that on which Coronado and his mail-clad warriors gazed.
[Illustration: GENERAL VIEW OF PUEBLO, COLORADO, LOOKING NORTH-WEST--PIKE'S PEAK IN THE DISTANCE.]
A motley throng compose the inhabitants of Pueblo. The dark-hued Mexican, his round face shaded by the inevitable sombrero, figures conspicuously. But if you value his favor and your future peace of mind have a care how you allude to his nationality. He is a Spaniard, you should know--a pure Castilian whose ancestor was some old hidalgo with as long an array of names and titles as has the Czar of All the Russias himself. Though he now lives in a forsaken-looking adobe hut with dirt floor and roof of sticks and turf that serves only to defile the raindrops that trickle through its many gaps--though his sallow wife and ill-favored children huddle round him or cook the scanty meal upon the mud oven in a corner of the room--he is yet a Spaniard, and glories in it. The tall, raw-boned man, straight as a young cottonwood, whose long black hair floats out from beneath his hat as he rides into town from his ranch down the river, may be a half-breed who has figured in a score of Indian fights, and enjoys the proud distinction of having killed his man. There is the hungry-looking prospector, waiting with ill-disguised impatience till he can "cross the Range" and follow again, as he has done year after year, the exciting chase after the ever-receding mirage--the visions of fabulous wealth always going to be, but never quite, attained. The time-honored symbol of Hope must, we think, give place to a more forcible representation furnished by the peculiar genius of our times; for is not our modern Rocky-Mountain prospector the complete embodiment of that sublime grace? His is a hope that even reverses the proverb, for no amount of deferring is able to make him heartsick, but rather seems to spur him on to more earnest endeavor. Has he toiled the summer long, endured every privation, encountered inconceivable perils, only to find himself at its close poorer than when he began? Reluctantly he leaves the mountain-side where the drifting snows have begun to gather, but seemingly as light-hearted as when he came, for his unshaken hope bridges the winter and feeds upon the limitless possibilities of the future. Full of wonderful stories are these same hope-sustained prospectors--tales that are bright with the glitter of silver and gold. Not a single one of them who has not discovered "leads" of wonderful richness or "placers" where the sands were yellow with gold; but by some mischance the prize always slipped out of his grasp, and left him poor in all but hope. And in truth so fascinating becomes the occupation that men who in other respects seem cool and phlegmatic will desert an almost assured success to join the horde rushing toward some unexplored district, impelled by the ever-flying rumors of untold wealth