The Russellville Democrat., 1881-10-20

district. Good teachers from the cleaner
 blooded Spaniards of the city of Topic were selecfed by the padres or priests of ] that city and children had to attend { school. The same in making soldiers Of ! his people. At la years of age each male
 was obliged to learn the use of ! the lance and practice with fire arms Once a month there was gene. ral training by sub districts and
 twice yearly there was eneampment and manouvering for six weeks of all his 1 warriors on the cocoanut palm plain, near LOzada's home, thirty miles from Tepic. from where the Pacific Ocean is l in sight. The Tres Marias are three well | known small islands forty miles off the
 coast from Topic, andthat city istwenty- ! eight miles east from the coast. Maxi ! milan sold these islands to five eonfed- crates in 1864. These men went and also purchased from Juarez or the Liberal
 government when it was in the field. After reaching here they visited Locada and MT. Fowler for interpreter and the old chieftain welcomed them. These | three islands have about S,000000 acres l of sea island cotton land. There are now about seventy-fve or eighty eonfeder- ate families on these islands They each have an immense plantation, snd one
 who is here now, Mir. Jacob Ashloek of
 Kentucky, says that their crop, year after l year, averages one and three.fourths bales to the acre. Mr. Ashlock is here l to negotiate the crop with Barron, For ! bes & Co. He says everything grows i there that the Topic district can grow, which in fact every grain, fruit, vegeta- i ble and fewer that grows in temperate i and torrid zones.
 Every family has strings of fine pearls for beads. The pearl oyster abound along the shores of the Gulf of California and thousands of the men % annually
 as to picnic, to dive for pearls. They bore hole through each one of them.
 Many of them would bring Sl ,00O to
 Sl 800, or even more, in proper markets, were it not for their holes.
 Father. Jerome is one of the curates of
 the district. He is at the head of the diocese, is about forty-six years of age, 1 a perfect scholar and 8 great linguist. i With his invitation I accompanied him l to q small mountain covered with ever 1 greens, four miles southwest of the city,
 day before yesterday. We took lunch 1 with us and some forty year old native ] claret. On the way we crossed a perdre- nal or lava bed table land and ascended [ tAtS AltOuAAlsAAAA bt AhbE tiAC skade there Father Jerome began 8
 story with a sort of Spanish shrug as | though his narrative was going to tell of ! commendable or at least excusable de- l ceit He said: "The Jesuit fathers made their way into this beautiful valley in 1 1909. They founded Topic, naming it after the controlling band of Indians in
 this region. For twenty odd years they ! worked faithfully to convert the people | here, but had only made slight impress l sion. Finally, they determined by arti- 1 flee of some kind to endeayor to prove to I the Indians by miracle that God was ] God. Long study was made how to ac- i complish one without chance of ex- 1 posure" There are several small isol- ated, small table land hills around Te- ] pic which are black and absolutely 1 barron, no blade of grass, tree nor shrub
 was ever known 10 grow on
 them. They are volcanic lava in for
 nation. One of these joins the moun- tain ridge below where we then sat. In conclusion it was decided to make that sterile table-land hill below us bear fruit
 and flowers. Topic then was the entr.- pot fors the great China tea trade with Europe. Mules as pack animales were loaded from vessels discharging their China cargo here, and so freighted tea 10
 Vera Cruz or Tampico, on the Gulf of
 Mexico, where it was loaded on ships for Europe. By 8 shipwreck which oc- cured off the coast about thirty English
 sailors became dependent upon the fathers. They set the sailors to work
 digging in three different places on tAe
 sterile hill. They dug excavations in the
 form of cross with the foot of each pointing towards the ridge. Each was 50 feet wide, l5 feet in depth, and 300
 feet in length, From small river bot
 tom land they hauled the richest kind
 of soil and filled these crosses. Thsy levelled of the rock excavated. The
 padres had been gathering wild flower
 seeds, all such for leagues around which
 were quicker of growth and bloomed
 simultaneously and dsowed them on these crosses very thickly. All along the edges of the crosses they planted small ever greens. They kept that ground moist
 although 1t was arduous toll. In time the flower plants sprang up thickly. ' Calculating when they would be in
 brightest kloom the fathers sent out
 their few converts to all tribes within
 hundreds of miles to come to Topic for the great God would show the unbeliev- ing people that He was ruler of all. The
 small river from which the padres took water WAS close to the church. On this clear little stream their thousands after thousands of guests camped. The crosses were brilliant beds of such bright, high ly colored flowers as can grow only in these lands and climates. Each color and hue crossed and recrossed, and all were b0rdered by the evergreens. It
 must have been a magnificent picture those three great naturally illumined crosses there in the unsightly surround ing rough rock. The evening before the
 set day for showing the Indians these as
 a miracle from Heaven, the padres made
 harrangues telling how their Great Spirit could do anything by speaking. How
 He could level mountains, make every
 mountain a volcano, send no rain on
 earth forever or even make such barren, sterile hills as the Indians saw in places
 around them suddenly blossom as gar
 den. Still this did not convince, and the padres did not believe it would, still
 it brought before their guests these ideas ] of impossibilities and prepared them for the astonishment of the coming morn l. ing. They were told late in the evening
 that they, the padres, were going to plead
 on their knees all the hours of the night
 that the Great Spirit would make some of these sterile hills change to flower
 gardens, the plants to grow and blossom between that time and morning. When
 day began to break all were ready Co se- company the fathers who were up and