Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/37

 weight not unlike the elongated projectiles of the three-inch rifled cannon.

Alarcon, who ascended the Colorado River in 1541, describes such bread as in use among the tribes along its banks; and Cabeza de Vaca and his wretched companions, sole survivors of the doomed expedition of Panfilo de Narvaez, which went to pieces near the mouth of the Suwanee River, in Florida, found this bread in use among the natives along the western part of their line of march, after they had succeeded in escaping from the Indians who had made them slaves, and had, in the guise of medicine-men, tramped across the continent until they struck the Spanish settlements near Culiacan, on the Pacific coast, in 1536. But Vaca calls it "mizquiquiz." Castaneda relates that in his day (1541) the people of Sonora (which then included Arizona) made a bread of the mesquite, shaping it like a cheese; it had the property of keeping for a whole year.

There was so little hunting in the immediate vicinity of the post, and so much danger attending the visits of small parties to the higher hills a few miles off, in which deer, and even bear, were to be encountered, that nothing in that line was attempted except when on scout; all our recreation had to be sought within the limits of the garrison, and evolved from our own personal resources. The deficiency of hunting did not imply that there was any lack of shooting about the post; all that any one could desire could be had for the asking, and that, too, without moving from under the "ramadas" back of the quarters. Many and many a good line shot we used to make at the coyotes and skunks which with the going down of the sun made their appearance in the garbage piles in the ravines to the north of us.

There was considerable to be done in the ordinary troop duties, which began at reveille with the "stables," lasting half an hour, after which the horses and mules not needed for the current tasks of the day were sent out to seek such nibbles of pasturage as they might find under the shade of the mesquite. A strong guard, mounted and fully armed, accompanied the herd, and a number of horses, saddled but loosely cinched, remained behind under the grooming-sheds, ready to be pushed out after any raiding party of Apaches which might take a notion to sneak up and stampede the herd at pasture.