Arizona weekly enterprise., 1889-08-24
THE MEXICAN MULE.
A DISSERTATION INSPIRED BY M.
 SCHWATKA'S EXPERIENCE.

Some PecuIiarities Which Make the Ami mal the Most Interesting Specimen of His Race-He May Be Indolent. but He IndustriousIy Pays Old Scores.
 The Mexican mule is a sort of cross between mountain goat and flying squirrel, with the distinct difference that its surplus electricity flows off from the negative pole instead of the positive, as with the goat. It is in its meanderings on the mountain trails that it shines re- splendent, but with a luster wholly it's own. that can no more be compared with any other than can the flash of the dia- mond be compared with the fire of the opal.
 A BLOOD CURDLING WAY.
 On the mountain trail this distinct species of mule was never known to fall, although he has an exasperating and blood curdling way of stumbling along over it that would raise the hair on end of a bald headed man. Many time have watched the mule was compelled to ride with view of discovering his methods of trying to scare me to death as payment for past injuries Often times the trail would lead past dizzy heights or cliffs, where one could look sheer down far enough to be dead'before he reached the bottom should he fall, and every few feet along the trail, of | foot to foot and half in width, it would have tumbled in foot or so and again taken up the original inclination l of the mountain, or about that of the l leaning tower of Pisa. Here the mule would always be sure to stick one foot and stumble little bit, but always re- 1 gain it's equilibrium at the next step, having clearly done it Intentionally, and for no other purpose than pure cussed- ness. One can imagine the cool Alpine zephyr that is waited up the dorsal vertebrp with sufficient force to blow the hair straight up on end.
 If you have touched the beast during the last three or four days with the whip or dug into its sides with the spurs when l it was absorbed in melancholy reflec- tions, it will be sure to remember it when | you are climbing over the comb of a cliff | 5000 feet high, and at the least move ment of your feet or twitching of your fingers it will throw it's head high in the air like hound on the scent and go stumbling over every pebble and blade of grass on the dangerous way, evidently trying to make you regret that you had tried to punish so delicate Q creature At any other time you can turn double somersaults on its back, or act like a rav- ing maniac, and it will not increase it's funereal march foot day as a result of your actions. Whenever a trail leads exceptionally near cliff, before it turns on the reverse grade down or up hill, the Mexican mule never fails to go within an inch of the crest and let hind leg over with slight quiver as it turns around. All these mountain trails are full of lit le 1 round, hard stones about the size of mar bles and larger, hidden underneath car peting of pine needles. These are liable to make mule stumble if two feet are on stones at once; but this is very rare, although they always go sliding over them on the sleeper trails
 It is wonderful how these rotund rocks, hidden under the pine needles on the trail or off of it, will throw a human be- ing prosrrate if he dismounts 6 sc-v min- utes to take walk on a slope and stretch his stiffened limbs. Of course the mule, under headway, walks over them before it can stop. Hobnails in shoes, nor anything of mans make, help to avoid them.
 A PLEASANT PASTIME.
 There is another pastime in which the Mexican mule delights, and in which you won't. It likes to deviate enough to go under every low branched tree on the trail, and so universal is this trait of character that the trail seems to lead from one low tree or vine to another, just as the mules seem mind to make it. The lodging of limbs and branches among the pines, expresses and oaks in the highlands was not so bad, but down in the tierras calientes, or hot lands, where brambly mosquito and thorny vines were tearing crescente out of your clothes until you looked like a group of Turkish ensigns, it was much more monotonous.
 The beast 1 was compelled to ride had one ear cut off near the head and looked
 
 ears make up goodly portion of it, as seen in elevation from the saddle on its back, l was always frightened when he approached cliff on the unabridged sidt and instinctively leaned in to counter poise the heavy weight that 1 thought might drag us over the precipice H. was familiarly known by the party a. "Old Steamboat" "Old Lumber Yard, and other names indicating his charac teristics, but he was large and so was 1 and he fell to my lot. When 1 first saw his abbreviated auricular appendage, as member of the society for the prevention of cruelty to mules, felt incensed wher l heard that it had been lost by the GU of whip in the hands of previous dri yer; but before we had been acquainted a week l had transferred all my sympa thy from the mule to the man, whoeve he may have been. On the level grount he was slower than the cook, who tool fifteen minutes to wash spoon, but ol perilous path of half foot in widtl )n dizzy precipice the way he could bo, , the compass with the lone ear, so as t, catch some faint sound at which he coult , get frightened at this inopportune time ; made me wish I could cut off the othe ear at the third cervical vertebrB.- Frederick Schwatka's Mexican Letter.
 His Only Hope.
 Henry (married six months) )-I fear m, wifes love is growing cold. She used t