Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/653

Rh territory through which we pass previous to entering Sonora. It was once an old hacienda, near which was a gold mine, but was often depopulated, through Apache raids, and knew not the blessings of peace until the advent of the railroad. This, indeed, may be said of this entire region, every presidio and village of which existed only upon sufferance, half in ruins, guarded by cowardly Mexican soldiers, who rarely ventured beyond the mud forts, and allowed the Apaches to murder and plunder with impunity.

But not a village on the Border showed such sure evidences of settled peace as this quondam hacienda, on the night of our arrival. It was eight o'clock, and as we groped our way from the station to the hotel, where it was said a supper awaited us, darkness hid from our sight such a structure as we had not seen for days. We found a hotel there that reminded me of the edifice at Las Vegas, in New Mexico; and on inquiry I learned that it had been built by the same shrewd and far-seeing men