The National tribune., 1883-09-13
DAYS IN WONDERLAND
The Plains of the PueblOS---Giiche
ManitO, the Mighty.
special Correspondence National Tribune.


Special Correspondence National Tribune
DENvER, Col, August. 1883.
Leaving Canon City. at an altitude of 6,3lS
feet, to which we have made q plunge, through
the Grand Canon and Royal Gorge of {, ,545 feet
we pass to the plains of the Pueblos Though
the grade seems level enough, we know that we
are still getting down at the ratio of over
twenty-one feet to the mile, until we find our
selves at the twin cities of the PueblOs. resting
on the opposite banks of the Arkansas. and
basking in the mild summer weather, but 400
feet above the sea.
Along the route of forty miles the journey
would be rather tame after the scenes of royal
magnifcence left behind did we not remember
that here ON these historic plains we enter the
very cradle of the prehistoric races. Here
lived the Toltecs and the Aztecs. the fragments
of whose story is written in the everlasting
stones, and who reached o civilization whose
traces full of the livliest interest to archse
olOgist and antiquarian. Here, in a more de-
generate day, dwelt the rowing bands of Utes.
Navajoes, Puebl0s ArapahOes, Apaches and
Cheyennes, now passed beyond the great Con-
tinental Divide never more to return to this
side of the Rocky Ranges. Here, too, in 1880,
came up the bold Castilian adventurer, Fran
cisco Vasquez de Coronado governor of one of
the old Mexican provinces ON a tour of explora-
tion and conquest, halting not until he had
reached the confluence of the Arkansas with
the FOntaine qui B0uille the spot which forms
the sight of the Pueblos. Other explorers and
adventures followed Coronado and his band
who formed many settlements and intermin-
gled with the aborigines, living peacefully and
cOntentedly enough until the Anglo Saxon
swung down upon them from Pixies Peak in
1859, routing the primitive tribes as the eagle
when he pOunces upon the dove cote.
The Spaniards and the French have certainly
demonstrated capacity to affiliate and ANAL
gamate with the native Americans beyond any
other races it is the Anglo Saxon that will not
mix, and who, by his spirit of conquest, excites
the antagonism OF al the primitive races. Be
that as it may, the Mexican did not do as much
to develop the resources Of the country in their
three centuries and half of possession as the
Americans have done in the last quarter of a
century. Still that does not detraet from the
romantic interest of the little adobe houses that
dot the lines of our journey, from which peer
the dark faces and black, glittering eyes, which
point through the long conflicts of centuries to
the warm blood and quick pulses of CASTLE.
a COLORADO cANNIBAL.
Something reminds me just here that moth
ing has been said of the penitentiary Of Col
orado, located at Canon City a strong, hand
some building, built of the picturesque quarried
stone, of warm yellowish tint, which forms
part of the towers and battlements and but
bItSotS ttltt 10TH i8tuEdl outlying IOTLt1c-
tions of the valley for many miles around.
| Perhaps it is the recollection of the excellent
condition of the roads in this part OF the valley
and of the general neatness and order that pre-
walls around this pretty mountain town which
| recalls it, since convict labor has done so much
to develop the th0r0ughfares in this part of the
State. And desperate men these cOnvicts are,
sent up generally for murder and cutting and
ffee-lance brlgandage, rather than for the petty
/ thefIs and low debauchery which characterize
/ the criminal classes of older communities.
/ Keen eyed, wiry, alert fellows they are only
held to their tasks by guard Just as sharp
+ and smart as themselves who stauds-One
at the head and front aud the ether at the
rear of the line-with his hand ON the trigger
Of his six shooter, ready to shoot down the first
man that offers TO iiy the track.
/ A man now in one OF the Colorado jails is a
/ type of the class. He was few months since
arrested upon the charge of numbering and
( then deyOuring the flesh of three of his CON-
! Tades while showed in in mountain cave
He does not deny that ne subsisted that long
/ terrible winter on human flesh, but denies
4 Killing but one of his comrades. and he one who
/ had become insane from the terr0rs of their
situation. According TO his story, he had left
7 the three in the cave, and was exploring the
surrounding region, IN the hope of finding
some means of escape, When upon returning
he found that one of the men had become q
/ raving maniac and had murdered the other
I two. lie then killed bim in self-defense. The
man seems entirely lost to any sense of his in
humanity, giving in excuse that one is justi
/ fed in preserving his life at any cost and thai
he once knew miner who ate the body oil
his own wife Rnder similar circumstances
Eight years the man has been at large, and j:
/ now awaiting his trial. He is a man OF more
| than ordinary intelligence, and tells frank
/ straightforward story and there Is nothing
about him to distinguish him as the perpetra-
tor of most unnatural and atroeioas crime
NOVEL IRKIGsTING MACHINE.
Although the Arkansas widens into slug
gish, muddy stream in descending from CanoT
! City to Pueblo, yet the force Of the current
such as to turn the SpOkes of a huge watel
| wheel c0ntrivance which throws the wate1
into a broad, irrigating ditch, and carries i
over the undulating plain. 1t is a curjOu
! sight 10 see the muddy monster as it turn
| itself over and over like some huge hippOPota
mus walloWing in the mire. Very strange AMI
quaint it all seems, as if suddenly tTanspOTtet
to another cline and country; the solemn
/ Tower Rocks rising in the distance; the yer
dant green plainS with wave following Wavt
to the jutting shore-line of the dried up ocean
the prairie dog villages, where the restless lttl
creatures dart out like shadows, and slip bacl
/ to their dome like mounds as the warning
white hocAs, that We know to be sheep, despit
their fabulous size, quietly feeding on the lus
ci0us grasses. No scene of pastoral beaut,
could exceed that of the valley of the Arkansa
at this point
\ PLACER MOTTO.
Western ingenuity expresses itself in man,
| unique forms, but no one has carried the art o
sigu painting to higher flights of fancy tha
the genius who has placed over the dining
room door of the Placer restaurant this con
densed wisdom of the West:
Ir God we trust;
| The rest must pay cash.
To trust is bust
To bust Is hell
Trust!
No{ Bust!-Bear this in mindi
| He'll!
Placer is near Pueblo, and the first poin
! from Denver from which one catches view 0
the Sierra Blanca, the highest peak in Colorado
and the second highest in the United States.
SOMETHING ABOUT THE PUEnLos.
1t helps one out amazingly in trying to Iearl
something of this queer cOngiomeration of oil,
Mexican civilization and young American pro
gress to know that the word . Pueblo" whiel
is derived from the Spanish. means people,
or in Mexican parlance town camp of van
quished Indians living in q state of semi
civilization. Pueblo, or the Pueblos, Sine
there are three of them, nestles in beautiful
coveor basin, partially surrounded by the spur
of the Greenhorn range of the Rocky Noun
tains, in a latitude of 3So 2S' north, and enjoy