The Dupuyer acantha. [volume] (Dupuyer, Mont.) 1894-1904, 1897-01-07

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one as this typical Indian village. SO
eminent an authority as President Ell
lot of Harvard university is quoted as
having said, during his visit in South
ern California, two winters ago, that
the most profitable day he had spent
in months was that on which he WIS.,
tied the Indian village at Saboba.
The name of the village which, in
the mouths of the Indians, who are it's
ole inhabitants, takes on q far more
musical sound than it's appearance in
cold type would appear to make posi-
HE, Is familiar enough to all readers
of Helen Hunt ,Jackson's
Ramona" some of whose most thrill,
ing though a%pocryphal scenes are To-
Gated there. The greater number of
those readers doubtless have set down
the village of Saboba as being as
much the fiction of the Imagination as
the remainder of the tale which gives
it fame, and they may be surprised to
earn that such a place actually ex-
lists. Exist it does, nevertheless, and
in one of the loveliest valleys of the
Golden State.
Thousands of people come and 60 to
San Jacinto, the thriving town of
modern build, fJur miles or so distant,
without knowing that close at hand is
this ancient Indian rancheria, and the
oldest inhabitant" receives with an
expression of surprise any inquiry con-
corning the place. He cannot, for the
life of him, see why anybody should
care to concern himself with the abid-
ing place Of a lot of Indians. Some
there are. however, in the town who
take the livelieSt and friendliest inter-
csts in the remnant of the tribe of
Mission Indians who cling so tena-
ciously TO the spot where their fore
fathers dwelt from time immemorial.
A gentleman Glanced to have a few
spare hours at his disposal on the oc-
caslOn of a recent visit to this locality,
some time ago, and the subject of
'Ramona' having been preached, it
was suggested that a visit to Saboba
and a possible call on Sonora Ramona
herself, who is a resident of that
neighborhood, might afford an agreea-
bic experience.
1T was Il lovely morning in midwin-
ter in the s~emi-tropics. The hills that
surround the valley like an amphithe.
alter were green with the growth of
wild grasses, the plain was carpeted
with flowers of varied hue, which
filed the air with their fragrance. The
atmosphere was fresh with the breeze
from the pine-clad mountains, whose
snowy submits lowered 1000 and
5000 feet high in the near distance.
Orange groves, olive orchards, and
fields of alfalfa stretched across the
valley from mountain base to foot
hills. From San Jacinto the road runs
up the valley for a short distance, and
soon enters the thickets of gnatemote
that line the bed of the San .JacintO
river. With a watchful eye for quick
sands, the stream is crossed, then a
belt of willow jungle is t%raversed, the
road being only a single track, almost
overgrown with brush, and when this
is passed a belt of cleared land Is
reached, and we are on the outskirts
of Saboba.
There are some little vineyards and
orchards, the vines and trees of which
appear to have been planted in hap
hazard fashion, without regard to
straight lines, or, mayhap, it is be-
cause the bulk of them have died that
the survivors look as if they had been
struck into the ground in the footsteps
of some one who had been logging the
footsteps of a jack rabbit across the
field. There are a couple of Indians
blowing in their little fields. That is,
to say. they are supposed to be doing
so. But the horses stand with heads
down, apparently asleep, while in the
shade of the blossoming peach trees
sit the two toilers lazily rolling and
smoking cigarettes. They have done,
perhaps, a dozen burrows this after
noon. and this is doubtless the fourth
or fifth time they have halted to have
a neighborly smoke and a m%onosyll-
able chat. The scene is thoroughly
topical of the Indian character. 1t is
difficult enough to keep one of the
tribe at work under the watchful eye
of a white observer, but when he is
his W master and servant at the
same time he becomes most glOriously
careless of the passage Of time and
needless of the condition of the work
to be performed. If he accomplish in
a week what a white mar does in a
day, what odds! So long as he has a
pouch Of tobacco in his pocket, a shell
ter, no matter how rude. for his head, a
blanket, a air of %overalls, and a shirt
for his body, with the "wherewithal
FOR hlling his stomach at more or less
regular intervals, he Is "muy conteto."
Why should he worry? The year is
long, and after that another will come,
and then another, and so on to the
end. Why work ones self to death,
like the foolish Americana? Do not
the birds, when building their nests,
pause frequently and twitter to each
other as they sway side by side on
the Dough? Why should a man pre-
tend to know more than a bird? There
is plenty of time to prepare the land