by Mayne Reid
Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
The White Chief, A Legend of Northern Mexico, by Captain Mayne Reid.
________________________________________________________________________An exciting and well-written book by Mayne Reid based on his experiencesduring the war between America and Mexico in the 1840s. Reid took thetitle of "Captain" because that was what his men called him during thatwar, although he was never promoted to that rank.
The importance of Reid's books with this background is that they wereamong the first in the Wild West genre.
________________________________________________________________________THE WHITE CHIEF, A LEGEND OF NORTHERN MEXICO, BY CAPTAIN MAYNE REID.
CHAPTER ONE.
Deep in the interior of the American Continent--more than a thousandmiles from the shores of any sea--lies our scene.
Climb with me yonder mountain, and let us look from its summit of snow.
We have reached its highest ridge. What do we behold?
On the north a chaos of mountains, that continues on through thirtyparallels to the shores of the Arctic Sea! On the south, the samemountains,--here running in separate sierras, and there knotting witheach other. On the west, mountains again, profiled along the sky, andalternating with broad tables that stretch between their bases.
Now turn we around, and look eastward. Not a mountain to be seen! Faras the eye can reach, and a thousand miles farther, not a mountain.Yonder dark line rising above the plain is but the rocky brow of anotherplain--a _steppe_ of higher elevation.
Where are we? On what summit are we standing? On the Sierra Blanca,known to the hunter as the "Spanish Peaks." We are upon the western rimof the _Grand Prairie_.
Looking eastward, the eye discovers no signs of civilisation. There_are_ none within a month's journeying. North and south,--mountains,mountains.
Westward, it is different. Through the telescope we can see cultivatedfields afar off,--a mere strip along the banks of a shining river.Those are the settlements of Nuevo Mexico, an oasis irrigated by the Riodel Norte. The scene of our story lies not there.
Face once more to the eastward, and you have it before you. Themountain upon which we stand has its base upon a level plain thatexpands far to the east. There are no foot-hills. The plain and themountain touch, and at a single step you pass from the naked turf of theone to the rocky and pine-clad declivities of the other.
The aspect of the plain is varied. In some places it is green, wherethe gramma-grass has formed a sward; but in most parts it is sterile asthe Sahara. Here it appears brown, where the sun-parched earth is bare;there it is of a sandy, yellowish hue; and yonder the salt effervescencerenders it as white as the snow upon which we stand.
The scant vegetation clothes it not in a livery of verdure. The leavesof the agave are mottled with scarlet, and the dull green of the cactusis still further obscured by its thickly-set spines. The blades of theyuccas are dimmed by dust, and resemble clusters of half-rusty bayonets;and the low scrubby copses of acacia scarce offer a shade to the dusky_agama_ and the ground rattlesnake. Here and there a solitary palmetto,with branchless stem and tufted crown, gives an African aspect to thescene. The eye soon tires of a landscape where every object appearsangular and thorny; and upon this plain, not only are the trees of thatcharacter, but the plants,--even the _very_ grass carries its thorns!
With what sensations of pleasure we turn to gaze into a lovely valley,trending eastward from the base of the mountain! What a contrast to thearid plain! Its surface is covered with a carpet of bright green,enamelled by flowers that gleam like many-coloured gems; while thecotton-wood, the wild-china-tree, the live-oak, and the willow, mingletheir foliage in soft shady groves that seem to invite us. Let usdescend!
We have reached the plain, yet the valley is still far beneath us--athousand feet at the least--but, from a promontory of the bluffprojecting over it, we command a view of its entire surface to thedistance of many miles. It is a level like the plain above; and gazingdown upon it, one might fancy it a portion of the latter that had sunkinto the earth's crust, so as to come within the influence of afertilising power denied to the higher region.
On both sides of it, far as the eye can reach, run the bordering cliffs,stepping from one level to the other, by a thousand feet sheer, and onlypassable at certain points. There is a width of ten miles from cliff tocliff; and these, of equal height, seem the counterparts of each other.Their grim savage fronts, overhanging the soft bright landscape of thevalley, suggest the idea of a beautiful picture framed in roughoak-work.
A stream, like a silver serpent, bisects the valley--not running in astraight course, but in luxuriant windings, as though it loved to tarryin the midst of that bright scene. Its frequent curves and gentlecurrent show that it passes over a surface almost plane. Its banks aretimbered, but not continuously. Here the timber forms a wide belt,there only a fringe scarce shadowing the stream, and yonder the grassyturf can be distinguished running in to the very water's edge.
Copse-like groves are scattered over the ground. These are of variedforms; some perfectly circular, others oblong or oval, and otherscurving like the cornucopias of our gardens. Detached trees meet theeye, whose full round tops show that Nature has had her will in theirdevelopment. The whole scene suggests the idea of some noble park,planted by design, with just timber enough to adorn the picture withoutconcealing its beauties.
Is there no palace, no lordly mansion, to correspond? No. Nor palacenor cottage sends up its smoke. No human form appears within this wildparadise. Herds of deer roam over its surface, the stately elk reposeswithin the shade of its leafy groves, but no human being is there.Perhaps the foot of man never--
Stay! there is one by our side who tells a different tale. Hear him.
"That is the valley of San Ildefonso." Wild though it appears, it wasonce the abode of civilised man. Near its centre you may note someirregular masses scattered over the ground. But for the trees and rankweeds that cover them, you might there behold the ruins of a city.
"Yes! on that spot once stood a town, large and prosperous. There was a_Presidio_ with the flag of Spain flying from its battlements; there wasa grand Mission-house of the Jesuit padres; and dwellings of rich minersand `hacendados' studded the valley far above and below. A busypopulace moved upon the scene; and all the passions of love and hate,ambition, avarice, and revenge, have had existence there. The heartsstirred by them are long since cold, and the actions to which they gavebirth are not chronicled by human pen. They live only in legends thatsound more like romance than real history.
"And yet these legends are less than a century old! One century ago,from the summit of yonder mountain could have been seen, not only thesettlement of San Ildefonso, but a score of others--cities, and towns,and villages--where to-day the eye cannot trace a vestige ofcivilisation. Even the names of these cities are forgotten, and theirhistories buried among their ruins!
"The Indian has wreaked his revenge upon the murderers of Moctezuma!Had the Saxon permitted him to continue his war of retaliation, in onecentury more--nay, in half that time--the descendants of Cortez and hisconquerors would have disappeared from the land of Anahuac!
"Listen to the `Legend of San Ildefonso'!"
