Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/654

646 who guided the destinies of the great railroad, the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé. And the supper! The last meal like it we had been able to obtain only at Deming, and the one before that at Wallace; and later on my trip I found that the great road aforementioned had built a line of magnificent hotels and dining-rooms, from the Missouri River—as far as its route extended—to the Mexican Border. "Eat like thunder," said an "old-timer," as we sat down to the table, "for you won't get another square meal till you get back here again!" And we ate; our Mexican friends—who, though strangers to good cooking, knew how to appreciate it—gorged themselves till their eyes stuck out like those of a shrimp, and the warning whistle bade them desist. Then I paid my dollar and departed, and in half an hour was over the line, again in Mexico, for the fourth time on this journey.

We had come down the valley of the Santa Cruz River, where the bottom lands, covered with luxuriant grass, and the banks, fringed with gigantic cottonwoods, made it the most attractive of any I saw in all Arizona. How tempting this region must have seemed to those prospecters who penetrated Sonora before Arizona became ours by the Gadsden Purchase! Seeing these delightful valleys, after their weeks of hardship on the arid plains above, they concluded that the whole great province was one equally desirable. But in this they were greatly mistaken. Speaking in general terms, Northern Sonora and Southern Arizona (at this point) are much more fertile than Northern Arizona and Southern Sonora.

The frontier town of Sonora, where the railroad enters, is Nogales, simply a double row of slab shanties and mud huts, the former being American, the latter Mexican. The customs officials of both republics may be found here, who make a pretence of examining one's luggage. As soon as the Border is crossed, you are impressed with the difference between American energy and Mexican thriftlessness. I was reminded of what an observant writer, Mr. Bartlett, once wrote of Tubac, which lies on the banks of the river of Santa Cruz: "In a book of travels in a strange country, one is expected to describe every