New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1860-09-10
A Ruined Land and City.

correspondent Of the San Francisco Bulletin,
who is travelling through Sonora, writes to that
paper from the city Of Arispe, as follows:
Failing in every endeavor to engage an escort in
Santa Cruz, was at last reluctantly compelled to
attempt to cross with my servants alone the wide
desert that intervenes between the frontier and
Arispe. The road was utterly unknown to US
maps could not be obtained, guides were out of
| the question, and with such verbal directions as
were accessible, we launched out into the wilder
| nesss
noTia and the fallen walls Of buildings. and at mid
/ day encountered most extensive ruined buildings,
/ with silver and copper smelling works, on stream
/ supposed to be q branch of the Sonora, which we
] rightfully conjectured to be the hacienda Baca-
nnche, twelve leagues above Arispe, the granary
4 of the far-famed mines of La Cananea. The de-
VISITATION of this beautiful estate is piu to behold
/ The spacious and beautiful mansion hurled and
/ crumhling to decay-two handsome chapels with
| their roofs partially demolished, the ornaments
and pictures still upon the walls the sacred para
menta strewn before the altar, and in the font,
where pious hands had sought the holy water, was
| placed grinning skull, in mockery of the desola-
! ton. ..-.. -...-
| A huge scorpion traed his loathsome body over
| the altarshrine, reminding nvolunfarily of the
anathemas Illuminated in Scripture against the cits
| of the heather. Without the view was not less
gloomy. large and luxuriant orchard devastated
| by fre-long lines of accquias-wide grain fields,
once cultivated, now bare and sterile-numerous
corras, moulderiug furnaces and vast piles of cop
perslag remained to attest its former opuIence.
| Bacanuche must have been pleasant place in
other times when the wide halls of the old manor
| house Teechoed the voice of music and of min
strelsy; but melancholy and sick at heart, turned
4 away from the contemplation of this memento of
national decadence. From Santa Cruz to Arispe
not human being owns habitation and home.
From its isolated and retired position, this place
was peculiarly exposed to the attacks of the Apa-
ches, from which the miners were accustomed to
escape by entering the mine and setting the sava-
ges at defiance. On the 18th of Nov, 1898, the
| luii viz npft IN
rison, made sudden lmoad in force, and pene-
trated as far as Espiritu Santo. The inhabitants
took refuge usual, in the mine but the willy en-
envy not to be baked of his prey filed the shafts
and adits with dry wood and applied the torch
| Mortal eye saw not their agonies, but when the
troops arrived, inanimate corpses Of three hundred
and eighty victims of every sex and age drawn
| from the galleries-not a soul remained alive of all
that busy people! Such outrages were not passed
over as lightly then as now and the Col. Vasquez
| appeased with bloody holocaust the names of the
slaughtered In the old archives find it recorded
| that more than two thousand Apaches were known
| to have been destroyed in the nine months cam
paign which followed.
Arispe, the capital of the State under the Span
ISL rule, once populons and fourishing, town,
peopled by the best families of the province, is
now poor miserable heap of rubbish, occupied
by some eight hundred or one thousand souls, who
may be considered mere tenants-at-will of the
Apaches. In Santa Cruz, the savages entered the
precincts and carried off cattle the night passed
there but that is nothing compared to the state
of affairs in Arispe. The river of Sonora, on
which it stands, is depopulated as far the Presi
dio or Bacuachi, which must soon in turn succumb
to the presence Of the foe. The northern road TO
Santa Cruz, passed the great mines of the Cananea
is virtually closed and the country abandoned. On
the south road, leading to the capital the Apaehes
robbed the Governor OF his baggage, and dispersed
the escort, a few days ago. The very baggage
mules have to be eorralled alongside the guberna-
toral palace to prevent their being carried off.
Only fortnight has passed since they entered the
suburbs boldly, in broad day, wounded one young
woman and carried off another captive
Under the old dynasty numerous public buildings
| were erected here, such as the Commandment,
| treasury, hospital, barracks penitentiary, etc.,
most of which are now in ruins. Till late period
many relics of the olden time were still preserved
including some hundreds ofsuts Of armor worn by
the soldiery of the PRESIDED in their campaigns
against the Apaches. saw the curious old money
chests of massive oak, which formerly graeed the
treasury, but their empty sides gave forth q hol-
low sound, indicative of the poverty within,
The ladies had once the reputation of being the
most amiable most beautiful and most refined of
any on the Pacific coast of Mexico, being mostly
descendants of old Spanish families of repute;
but almost all the better class have emigrated to
more favored climes.
/ could obtain butlttle reliable information con-
corning the former state of the city. The worthy
padre, man OF more than ordinary intelligence,
told me- with face of great gravity that it had
been en- ell tempo del rey,' the scat Of the vice
royalty of New SPAIN IN the year liza, there
were eighty-four mines worked in the district of
Arispe, some of them of extraordinary richness
now, / believe, not one. Most of the old national
ediices 1eveled to the ground and tile archives
are being destroyed pecemeal.
REMARK ABLE PEDESTRIAN FEAP.-SmaIl boy on
tip.toe to companion Sh-h-stop your noise
all of you
Gompanions-"H Halo, Tommy, what's IN now p,
Small We've got new baby-vers weak and
tired--walked all the way from Heaven last night
mustn't be ktekin' up row around here.a