Tensas gazette. [volume] (St. Joseph, La.) 1886-current, 1916-05-26
MONG all the historic spots In

~ the Southwest none Is quite so
~ thrilling and enhancing as that
along the old Santa Fee trail.
Among those towering granite hills.
buried in the silence of the Rockies.
are to be found the ruins of Spanish
palaces spacious and stately in their
day. Here lie the bones of daring
scouts like Kit Carson. Here lingering
tribes cling to pueblos and till the fer
tile valleys in the most primitive
fashion. Here live the cliff-dwellers-
a remnant still wandering through
rough-hewn granite halls deserted by
their fathers in the long ago.
Pages might be filed with the
stories Of the pioneers and frontiers
men Of the mighty Southwest. No
more picturesque character ever trav-
ersed this wilderness than Augustini-
ani-the Hermit of Old Badly.
John Mary Augustiniani was a her
NIT because Of pious inclination. A
nobleman by birth-the product of
Italian aristocracy-he was born of
the nobility in Sizzario, Lombardy,
Italy, in 1901. Under the impulse of
religious zeal. he turned his back upon
all the wealth and luxury of his Ital-
ian home, only to become a wanderer
in strange and distant lands. OF this
there is a legend, common in some
fashion to the beginning of every re-
formers life. One day he was strolling
in the garden of the estate. Suddenly
he saw an apparition-the finger of the
Virgin pointing toward regions far
away. He must therefore lead a soli-
tary life in life far from his native
home. No cave-dweller in the Orient
ever more certainly followed the path
of destiny.
After three years of earnest medita-
ton, and at the age Of twenty. with
only staff in hand, he set out on foot to
Rome. Seven long years he dwelt in
the caves of Italy, and for five more
years he wandered on foot all over Eu-
rope. About this time his thought
turned toward new continent, and he
landed on the shores Of Venezuela.
Here, still afoot, he traversed the Bra
lillian, Chilean and Argentine coun-
tries. He then sought out his abode
near the dangerous Orizaba volcano in
Old Mexico. In all these wanderings
he became famous as a doctor and a
priest among the widest Indian tribes.
Banished to Cuba.
While doing his priestly work
around the city of Orizaba, he was ar.
rested by the civil authorities. A
charge was trumped up against him
and conviction followed. He was BAN
ished to the island of Cuba. From
these shores he set sail for New York.
He reached st. Louis In the opening of
the sixties. These were the opening
days when the intrepid pioneer blazed
out the Santa Fe trail. Augustiniani
began to dream Of priesthood among
the Indians in the distant West.
He walked to Kansas City and on to
Westport. By Invitation Of Gonzales.
q wagon-train king of the historic trail,
he found his way to Las Vegas, N. M.
On reaching Las Vegas. he found a
cave-home in Kearney's Gap, west of
town. The people thought him super
human, but their coming broke the
quietude he so much longed for. With
only his bag Of meal, his books and his
staff. he began his long journey toward
the Owl mountains. There is q we'll
worn path on the very summit of Old
Badly about which there gathers a le-
gend of the hermit priest. From
breast to breast the story has passed,
and to this day they say this is the
path of the pious patriarch as he
walked to and fro in his devout medi-
tations. Amidst the SHOWS of this i'm
mense altitude Augustiniana lived in
pious solitude until the last tragic hour
of his life in the summer of 1867.
About the base Of this famous peak
lay the trading station of the Santa Fe
trail. Old Badly overlooked the vast
outstretching leagues of the Baubien-
Maxwell land grant, equal to three
states the size Of Rhode Island. In the
very shadow Of these heights, piled In
ouch wondrous beautv stood the Max