The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1880-07-29
RamhIeS in New MEXICO.


long knife (RaCagaJ in its folds. Every
/ Spaniard can use the knife with skill
and in his hands it becomes a dreadful
weapon. He c:in cast it with exact aim
and unerring certainty into a post or
/ into the heart of an enemy, at a consid-
cradle distance away. and wherever
there is Spanish blood the ndUdgdis the
| favorite weapon, not always concealed
about his person. Our muleteer took
| his pleasure sadly as any Englishman;
/ but his sadness is only for strangers
/ He is leader of the band which goes
from house to house playing under the
windOws-the sweet Spanish invitation
to the ball; gayly thrums the guitar at
the light fandangO; and can dance till
morning, as we'll as hold his own in any
atfray that may grow out of the wild
license of the bale.
Occasionally he leaped from his seat
for a pocketful of stones, gathering
them as the wagon moved on and throw
ing them at the heads of the mules; at
the same time mutteriDg, on the ledger
lines below, sacred words mixed with
names of saints. The Mexican insists
mule cannot be made to understand
without such urging and they have a
prOverb: IAN ass ears are made long
in order to catch oaths.'
n. B.-There is no reason to believe
that like superstition attaches to the
Army of the United States.
Leaving the venerable city of the Pueb-
los we crossed the Santa Fe River,
which in Indiana would be called a
spring branch. l have often gone over
it dry shod. But the poverty of the
Spanish language allows only one word
for running water-RiO, translated river.
The Santa Fe Mountains round about us
are part of the great Rocky Mountain
system, connecting on the north with
the Spanish Peaks and Ration Mountains,
including many whose SUBMITS are sill
vered with perpetual snow. A series
of high, picturesque chains, in the
morning-glow robed with transparent
purple haze, of such exquisite tint one
can hardly realize those airy pyramids
in fair borderland between us and
heaven are, indeed, upheavals of earth.
velned with quartz and based on coarse
red granite.
Words cannot picture aught 50 fair.
The faintest violet, the softest hello
trope are coarse and hard beside the
dreamy, poetic color, which appeals to
the eve IS dim @Oliar sounding touch
the ear, charming the fancy with vague
ideas of a viewless beauty within the
floating veil.
| cannot make you understand. Come
and see the TRANSFORMATION which makes
rOck-ribbed hills appear like tents of
light, lovely enough for angels to rest in
IN their upward flight.
The plain was smooth as a prairie
IN our road free of stone. The reader
must not imagine it lay among the Al
pine scenery, with huge peaks tower
inc TO the SKY, forbidding our advance,
yielding at last to reveal smiling valleys
and hidden hamletS, nesting close to
the hillSides in narrow glens. Here all
is on the same magnificent scale. The
plains are broad as the SUBMITS are
high; the refined atmosphere SO intense
ly clear the light is like a reflection
from snow. No such extensive views
are had in Europe or any country where
the air holds moisture and sometimes
the landscapes seem absolutely limit
less.
The Sierras are short, uneven spurs
from the main line. They have dis
turbed the everything strata in the shape
of H1esaS Cables of solid rock, which
are distinguishing feature of Rocky
Mountain scenery, giving it Il grotesque
fantastic beauty. The process of erosion
has formed in colossal size copies of the
grandest structures of mans art and
towering columns, temples with sharp
pinnacles, scattered pillars rise alb
ruptly from the center of plains desc
late and fOrSaken as the wilderness of
EnrcdCi strange and solemn sights.
In the Painted Desert are snOw-white
nlesGs, the craze blanche composition of
the chalk cliffs on the south coast of
England, which dazzle the eye, reflect
ing the sunlight ike palaces of alabas-
ter or Of ice. The stone corridors of
Karnuk and Philac are the work of pig
mics compared with this noble architect
wrought by slow processes in secret
places.
"Made by Nature for herself"
Sometimes the mesa shapes into
rose-red wall, with tiuted columns tAat
uphold the sky. Again it isa group of
cray pyramids, thousand or twelve
hundred feet high; or an isolated, bro
ken dome, worn smooth by the wealth
er. picturesque in the extreme. .
Nothing affords such changes of col
oring as the variegated marls, lying in
regular bands of red, orange, green,
blue, Of rainbow hue, striped and in
terstratifed with belts of purple, blush
white and notified veins of exceeding
richness.
Strangely enough, the traveller occa-
sionallv finds himself riding above these
singular formations and looking down
on the L" Painted Rocks"
The sheer sides of a mesa of gray
limestone, mixed with blue clay and
capped with rim of pillared basalt.
are singularly like fabrics of hewn stone.
| have seen low walls of even height
reaching long distances, precisely like
field-walls laid. by skillful masons.
These, in the neighborhood of stately
fdcadeS, with the fair finish at the top,
explain how an explorer, afraid to make
near approach, should 90 away and
give accounts of vast cities, with gallant
banners on the walls, enclosed in heavy
outwOrks. Mrs Coz. Len Wallace, in
N. 7. independent.
-Stonewall Jaekson's corps flag has
recently been unfurled in the bunting
room of the War Department at Wash
ington. A SOutherner called with two
friends and asked to see it. 1t was
handed to him. In silence he held it
for some time, then on his knees he
carefully spread it on the floor. When
one of his friends asked him what he
was doing, he answered, tears strean