Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/124



TUCSON INCIDENTS—THE "FIESTAS"—THE RUINED MISSION CHURCH OF SAN XAVIER DEL BAC—GOVERNOR SAFFORD—ARIZONA MINES—APACHE RAIDS—CAMP GRANT MASSACRE—THE KILLING OF LIEUTENANT CUSHING.

The Feast of San Juan brought out some very curious customs. The Mexican gallants, mounted on the fieriest steeds they could procure, would call at the homes of their "dulcineas," place the ladies on the saddle in front, and ride up and down the streets, while disappointed rivals threw fire-crackers under the horses' feet. There would be not a little superb equestrianism displayed; the secret of the whole performance seeming to consist in the nearness one could attain to breaking his neck without doing so.

There is another sport of the Mexicans which has almost if not quite died out in the vicinity of Tucson, but is still maintained in full vigor on the Rio Grande: running the chicken—"correr el gallo." In this fascinating sport, as it looked to be for the horsemen, there is or was an old hen buried to the neck in the sand, and made the target for each rushing rider as he swoops down and endeavors to seize the crouching fowl. If he succeed, he has to ride off at the fastest kind of a run to avoid the pursuit of his comrades, who follow and endeavor to wrest the prize from his hands, and the result, of course, is that the poor hen is pulled to pieces.

Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to describe for the benefit of my readers the scenes presenting themselves during the "Funccion of San Agostin" in Tucson, or that of San Francisco in the Mexican town of Madalena, a hundred and twenty-five miles, more or less, to the south; the music, the dancing, the gambling, the raffles, the drinking of all sorts of beverages strange to the palate of the American of the North; the dishes, hot and cold, of the Mexican cuisine, the trading going on in all