The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-09-01
MATTERS AT MULEGE
Our Correspondents Views Of a
Mexican Town.
OYSTERS THAT GROW ON TREES.
How Mrs. Ward Reached Her HOtel-Three
Card MOnte-The Sleepy MeXicaDs
and How They Live.


Especial Correspondence of THE HERALD. /
From La Paz to this place is run of four
teen hours-that is by steamer in reason
able weather. Nodoubt, the journey could
be made over land, but it would require
many days, through hardships innumerable
for uninhabited deserts stretch between.
and there are unexplOred mountains to be
scaled and rivers of unknown depths to be
forded.
We arrived at Mulege anchorage just
after dark; and as your correspondent in
tended to stop in the old town until the re
turn of the ship from a less important
point above, and as the latter was to sail at
daybreak, there was no alternative but to
get to town as best 1 could, under convey
of the captain and purser, who were
obliged to go in order to transact the ships
business.
Pulling away from the ships side in a
life boat, in the dense darkness that pre-
cedes the advent of a waning moon, we
rounded rocky prOmontory, and just
missed crashing into recent wreck, loom
ing sombre and pitiful,
THE WRATH OF AN OCEAN STEAMER.
whose few remaining planks were being
rapidly dismembered by the ceaseless
motion of the waves. Awed and chilled by
this encounter, and the captains tale of the
drowned crew, we shot into little cove,
where blazed bright fire of brush and drift
wood which the Mexican government
causes to be built here every night for the
guidance of passing vessels. Around this
primitive lighthouse were gathered a score
of swarthy natives, looking in the flicker
ing light like typical brigands, OF the evil
spirits in Dante's Inferno, as predicted by
Dore; while close by, under rude shackel
composed only of thatch of leaves set up
on poles, were a couple of women busily
preparing the evening meal of beans and
tortillas.
There is generally something wierd and
Uncanny about entering strange city after
dark, even amid the hustle and commotion
Of a modern railway train, with a carriage
in waiting to convey you to a comfortable
hotel; but how much more grOtesQue to
step from row boat over a tossing sea
upon a shell-strewn waste in a foreign
land by the dim, uncertain light of stars
in a cloudy sky And then to be told that
there are two miles of muddy, lonesome,
perhaps
RoBBER-INFEsTED ROADwAYs
between yourself and the unknown desti-
nation, and no possibility of anything on
wheels to convey you thereto is discour-
aging, to say the least, and calculated to
send small shiVers up and down your spinal
column.
Neither love nor money could have hired
a horse in all the country around; the cap
tain's business was imperative and must be
quickly settled; and as l had promised,
when advised to omit Mulege, not to permit
the unfortunate fact of being women to
interfere with official business if allowed
to accompany the officers, I.said not a word
but meekly mounted in front of a gallant
cabillero who had come down from the
town and now offered me half his steed;
while the rest of the party, with breaches
tucked inside of high top boots, plodded
along on foot through wind and water that
would have reached above the tops of my
shoes. Remembering the old-fashioned
ditty my grandfather used to sing:
This riding double was no crime
In the first good Edwards time;
No brave man thought himself disgraced
BY two fair arms around his waist;
Nor did the lady blush vermillOn
Dancing on lady's pillioD,'
We plunged into the darkness of the night.
and in due course of time, without accident
or romance, drew bride in front of
THE CASA DEL JEFE PoLITICo,
or aduana, or what ever it was in Mulege.
where the ships business had to be trans
acted, and your scribe was handed over to
the care of the care of the jefe politico
himself-Whose office corresponds some
what to that of an English beadle, or
mayor in the United States. At any rate,
he was the most important parsonage in
the town, the one local official; and he lost
no time in conveying me to his residence
and presenting me to his wife and daugh-
tiers. And here l have remained for more
than a week, charmed with the quaint old
place and its kindly people, feeling more
and more sorry as the days 90 by that the
ship will soon return and l must bid adios
forever to this quiet haven and embark
once more on the sea-sick bounding bill
lows"
If, as has often been asserted, most of
Mexico is
A CENTURY BEHIND THE TIMES,
this portion of it belongs to days so much
farther back in the shadowy past-the days
of mail-clad conquistadores and gray
cowled monks of the order of Jesus-that
aeyer, by any possibility, can it hope to
''catch up in the procession.
Mulege has a present population of about
fifteen hundred, of course mostly Next
cans and the vast majority of its enter
prising citizens have never been twenty
miles from home-at the most, to La Paz;
and person so travelled as that is looked
upon with distinguished consideration.
They have heard of the United States, and
incidentally of Europe; but they regard
the latter remote and insignificant country
something as we do little island in the
far South sea, and as for the United States,
Upper or Alta California is not to be
ignored, being a suburb of the all-import-
ant peninsula, but the rest of the unknown
land is an uninhaDited waste, for all the
Mulegeans know or care-although few
of them have vague idea that there is
such port somewhere as Nuevo York
There are the usual features of Mexican
villages, including the plaza where really
good music is nightly rendered to the prom
enading citizens, and where gambling
C'three card monte" what ever that may
be, being the favorite game) is openly and
hilariously INDUCED in by both ladies and
gentlemen. By the way, am informed
that
THE GAME OF THE SAME NAME
in the United States is not at all like that
of Mexico. Not being posted in the
former, l cannot say; but this is the way
they do it here: The dealer shuf1es and
lays four cards upon the table, two on the
right and two on the left, face uppermost.
Sometimes only two cards are used, and
often even more than four, but in any case
they are always in groups of two because
one hand wagers against the other. The
money is silently stacked beside the favor
tie card, and the dealer again shuffies, turns
the pack face uppermost, and slowly draws
off card at a time till one appears of a
denomination corresponding to one of those
first laid upon the table. This is the win
ner's, and he who has bet upon the lucky
card doubles his money. And very silly 1t
seems to me for otherwise rational human
beings to lose their heads completely over
a few bits of pasteboard in a game of
chance, stalking their all upon it, and per-
haps sacrificing their children's bread.
A little more money, and a little energy