Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/530

520[May 1, 1869] into their country, but before he got very far he found enemies gathering around him in such numbers, that his small force of fifty soldiers had to beat a rapid retreat. The favourite field for plunder during the last century has been Northern Sonora. The Apaches seem never to have lived there, but their custom was to descend in bands along the whole length of the Pina-leña and Chiracahui Mountains, which, so to speak, form a bridge two hundred miles long across the Madre Plateau from the mountains north of the Rio Gila to the Sierra Madre of Mexico.

The Spaniards protected their outlying provinces from these hordes, by a complete system of military posts from San Antonio, Texas, to the Pacific. Thus the Spanish miners and Rancheros were protected, and the country became rich in flocks, herds, and productive mines, while the population increased with great rapidity. But as the power of Spain declined, and the central government at the city of Mexico degenerated into a chaos of contending factions, the troops which garrisoned these frontier stations were gradually withdrawn; the grand military system, which had so effectually done its work, was allowed to fall into decay until most of the presidios were relinquished altogether. The Apaches were not long in discovering the weakness of their wealthy neighbours, and year by year their raids became more numerous, and their ravages more destructive. At first the stock of the outlying rancheros fell a prey to the enemy, and, although probably but a small proportion of the vast herds which formerly occupied the rich grazing regions of North-eastern Sonora and Northern Chihuahua were really carried off by the red men, still the rancheros had to fly for their lives, and leave their cattle to their fate. This accounts for the herds of wild cattle and horses which are still to be found in those districts. Then the miners began to be molested, their stock, chiefly mules, driven off, and their peons so terrified that they could not be induced to remain.

When the country districts were cleared, the little towns were next attacked. The Apaches would lie concealed for days, until an opportune moment had arrived for capturing the cattle, and plundering the place. The people at last became so terrified, that if they heard of a band of Apaches fifty miles off, they very frequently left everything and fled. Against such an enemy they were almost powerless, for the mountain fastnesses from which he came lay far away to the north, and anything approaching an open fight was always avoided by him.

This state of things, in fine, going on year after year, has entirely depopulated that country. Its ruin was almost complete before the Treaty of 1854 had finally settled the question of boundary line between Mexico and the United States; but one of the chief stipulations of the treaty was that the latter government should keep the Apaches in their own country, and prevent them from making any more raids into Mexican territory. Although this was promised, it could not be accomplished; for the United States military have, up to the present time, been almost powerless in their attempts either to "wipe out" or to restrain these marauding hordes. They have neither protected their own subjects on their own soil, or sheltered the helpless Mexicans across the border. But the Apaches do not lay waste northern Sonora as they formerly did, chiefly because there is now no one to plunder; all is desolation. Destiny, however, seems to be doing what the government has failed to do; it is destroying the Apache nation. Although very few are yearly killed in fight, and the white man has not as yet penetrated into the heart of their country, still they are dying out fast; already the total population, as far as it can be estimated, is so small as to appear at first to be beneath our notice; but the scalp of many a brave settler will yet be taken before these bloodthirsty savages are crushed.

In the region lying between the Rio Verde, which is about the limit of the Apache country and the Rio Colorado, two tribes, few in number, and of the lowest type of humanity, are met with. These are the Walapais (Hualpais) and the Yampas. The latter chiefly inhabit little strips of marshy land at the bottom of the deep cañons, which debouch upon the Rio Colorado. The valleys of the Colorado from the end of the Black Cañon almost to the head of the Gulf of California, are inhabited by Indian tribes, who occupy an intermediate position between the semi-civilised Pueblo Indians and the wild Apache races.

They have for some time kept peace with the whites, but contact with them appears