Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/155

 lance-throws along the ground, teaching the youngster steadiness of aim and keeping every muscle fully exercised. They learn at a very early age the names and attributes of all the animals and plants about them; the whole natural kingdom, in fact, is understood as far as their range of knowledge in such matters extends. They are inured to great fatigue and suffering, to deprivation of water, and to going without food for long periods.

Unlike the Indians of the Plains, east of the Rocky Mountains, they rarely become good horsemen, trusting rather to their own muscles for advancing upon or escaping from an enemy in the mountainous and desert country with which they, the Apaches, are so perfectly familiar. Horses, mules, and donkeys, when captured, were rarely held longer than the time when they were needed to be eaten; the Apache preferred the meat of these animals to that of the cow, sheep, or goat, although all the last-named were eaten. Pork and fish were objects of the deepest repugnance to both men and women; within the past twenty years—since the Apaches have been enrolled as scouts and police at the agencies—this aversion to bacon at least has been to a great extent overcome; but no Apache would touch fish until Geronimo and the men with him were incarcerated at Fort Pickens. Florida, when they were persuaded to eat the pompano and other delicious fishes to be found in Pensacola Bay.

When we first became apprised of this peculiarity of the Apache appetite, we derived all the benefit from it that we could in driving away the small boys who used to hang around our mess-canvas in the hope of getting a handful of sugar, or a piece of cracker, of which all hands, young and old, were passionately fond. All we had to do was to set a can of salmon or lobster in the middle of the canvas, and the sight of that alone would drive away the bravest Apache boy that ever lived; he would regard as uncanny the mortals who would eat such vile stuff. They could not understand what was the meaning of the red-garmented Mephistophelian figure on the can of devilled ham, and called that dish "Chidin-bitzi" (ghost meat), because they fancied a resemblance to their delineations of their gods or spirits or ghosts.

The expertness of the Apache in all that relates to tracking either man or beast over the rocky heights, or across the interminable sandy wastes of the region in which he makes his home, has been an occasion of astonishment to all Caucasians who have