Page:Memoir of a tour to northern Mexico.djvu/49

Rh Several days back I had told my servant to clean my guns and pistols, which still remained loaded, and I had advised him to do it on the first sunny day. When I asked the landlord, an old resident of Chihuahua, for a suitable place to discharge them, he showed me to a corner of his court-yard; and upon my inquiry if there was not anything illegal or improper in shooting them off here, he made light of my scruples and assured me that neither the one nor the other was the case, and that travellers were almost daily in the habit of doing so. My servant accordingly discharged the guns this morning, and he selected this day for no other reason than because it was the first clear and sunny morning. Unfortunately, on the same day an express arrived from New Mexico with the intelligence that the American troops under General Kearny had taken possession of Santa Fe. The citizens of Chihuahua, not expecting any thing less from Governor Armijo than that he would make all the Americans prisoners, as he had formerly that handful of famished Texans, were quite exasperated at the news, and could explain this result but by treachery. Their patriotism was as its height, and looked for some vent. Some either malicious or stupid Mexicans, seeing in my barometer probably a courage meter, and in my sextant a paixhan, had several days ago spread a report over town that my scientific observations aimed at a military plan of the open and unfortified city, and that I was sent ahead of the American army as a spy. The discharging of my guns afforded a new opportunity for their lying propensities. Though the guns had been fired off in a remote corner, without any knowledge of the recent news, without any spectators except some Mexicans who passed through the yard, and without the least demonstration of any kind to warrant such an opinion, the same Mexicans reported that a salute had been fired in honor of the victory in Santa Fe; whereupon fifty brave Mexicans applied to the governor for permission to break into my appartments and take away my arms by force. The privation of my arms would have exactly suited their plan of a general mob against the Americans, which they had fixed already for to-night. But the governor, whatever blunders he may have committed, being a man at least of nobler feelings than the Mexican rabble, refused their request and preferred the legal way. A warrant was then issued by a judge for the man who had fired off the guns. As my servant had done it in accordance with my orders, I took the responsibility of course upon myself, and appeared before the court. Having examined several witnesses, pro and con, the judge perceived that there was not the least foundation for such a denunciation, and acquitted me. Notwithstanding this, the long talked of mob against the Americans came off that same night. I have been somewhat minute in relating these trifling matters–more, perhaps, than will interest the public–for the reason that a young Englishman, from Missouri, who arrived some weeks after me in Chihuahua, and was protected there by his English passport, wrote an exaggerated, and in many particulars untrue account of it to St. Louis, Missouri, where it was published, and found its way into several newspapers.

But let us return to our mob. A Mexican mob is not that short, offhand, killing affair that it is in the "far west" of the United States; it is rather an uproarous meeting, a somewhat irregular procession, arranged with a certain decency, and executed more from love of plunder than thirst of blood. In the evening, after dark, a large crowd assembled on the "plaza;"