The Osceola times., 1881-10-29

district Good teachers from the cleaner
blooded spanisrds of the city of Tepic
were selected by the padres or priests OF
that city and children had to attend
school. The same in making soldiers of
his people. AT ~ years of age each male
was obliged to learn the use of
the lance and practice with fire
arms. Once month there was gene
raj training by sub districts and
twice yearly there was encampment and
manouyering for six weeks of all his
warriors on the cocoanut palm plain,
near Lozada's home, thirty miles from
Topic, from where the Pacific Ocean is
in sight. The Tres Marias are three well
known small islands forty miles Off the
coast from Tepic, and that city istwenty-
eight miles east from the coast. Maxi
milan sold these islands to five confed-
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 Mr.. Fowler for Interpreter and the
old chieftain welcomed them. These
three islands have about 100000 acres
of sea island cotton land. There are now
about seventy.fve or eighty confeder-
ate families on these islands. They each
have an immense plantation, end one
who is here now, Mr.. Jacob Ashlock of
Kentucky, says that their crop, year after
year averages one and three-fourths
bales TO the acre. Mr. Ashlock is here
TO negotiate the crop with Barron, For
bes x Co. He says everything grows
there that the Tepic district can grow,
which in fact every grain, fruit, veeeta-
BILE and ilewer that grows in temperate
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 90 annually
as TO picnic, to dive for pearls. They
bore hole through each one of them.
Many of them would bring $1,000 TO
u 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,
a perfect scholar and a great linguist.
With his invitation ! accompanied him
to a small mountain covered with ever
greens, four miles southwest of the city,
day before yesterday. We took lunch
with us and some forty year old native
claret. On the way we crossed perdre-
nal or lava bed table land and assembled
the mountain or long ridge. Under the
shade there Father Jerome began a
story with a sort of Spanish shrug as
though his narrative was going to tell of
commendable or at least excusabe de-
cet. lie said: "The Jesuit fathers made
their way into this beautiful valley in
1909 They founded Tcpic, 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
sion. Finally, they determined by arti-
fee of some kind to endeavor to prove to
the Indians by q miracle that God was
God. Long study was made how to ac-
complish one without chance of ex-
posure." There are several small isol-
ated, small table land hills around Te-
pic which are black and absolutely
barron, no blade of grass, tree nor shrub
was ever known to grow on
them. They are volcanic lava in for
nation. One of these joins the noun
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 entire
pot fori the great China tea trade with
Europe. Mules as pack animaes were
loaded from vessels discharging their
China cargo here, and so freighted tea TO
Vera Cruz or Tampico, on the Gulf of
Mexico, where it was loaded on ships
for Europe. BY a 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 the
sterile hill. They dug excavations in the
form Of cross with the foot of each
pointing towards the ridge. Each was
80 feet wide, - feet in depth. and 800
feet in length, From a small river bot
tom land they hauled the richest kind
Of soil and filed these crosses. They
levolled oil 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 sowed them on these
crosses very thickly. All along the edges
Of the crosses they planted small ever
greens. They kept that ground moist
although il was arduous toll. in time
the flower plants sprang up thickly.
Calculating when they would be in
brightest bloom 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 lie 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 rs can grow only in
these lands and climates. Each color
and hue crossed and recrossed, and all
were bordered 10y the evergreens. II
must have been 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 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
il brought before their guests these ideas
of impossibilties and prepared them for
the astonishment of the coming morn
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 to ac-
company the fathers who were up and
! s.o,.oj ia tho most imnncipa rohaa