The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1916-04-19
MEXICO

Some idea of the difficulties which the
American punitive expedition has been en-
countering in its work of pursuing Pancho
Villa is conveyed in a statement prepared by
the National Geographic Society, with head
quarters in Washington. This statement
says any one who has travelled over the
highlands of Mexico cannot help feeling
very deep sympathy for the men who have
been entrusted with the work of capturing
Pancho Villa and his fellow bandits
When it is recalled that even in an ordi-
narily comfortable Pullman car the alkali
dust creeps in through invisible cracks and
gives the traveller the appearance of having
been working around a threshing machine
all day long it may well be imagined what
hardships soldiers must meet who have to
travel on forced marches across such re-
giOn. The shifting waves of heat which
hover about the land create curious mirages.
Although the distance between Ell Paso and
Casas Grandes is only $50 miles Casas
Grandes is approximately one mile higher
than Ell Paso.
THE desert region of Chihuahua possesses
a vegetation nearly every species OF when
is supplied with thOrns or spines. There is
an almost endless variety of cacti, ranging
from tiny plants no larger than finger to
the giant pitahaya pushing its tall stem to
height of fifty feet. Then there are the
mesquite, the tOrtilIa, the agaves, and the
yuccas, all armed with spikes as If to repel
invasion.
A great variety of insects and reptiles, in
Guiding lizards, horned toads, tarantulas
and rattlesnakes, abound in the desert. Con-
spicuOus among the birds of the region is
the chaparral cock which attacks and eats
rattlesnakes with unbridled gusto. The des-
ert has its own remedy for snakebites. 1t
is plant called the sneeze- wort. The juice
r. nc ctr oh 1Oid yEvhiF
serves as an antidote for snake poison.
Snakes have a bitter dislike of it, and it is
a trick of the Indians to irritate them into
biting it, with the result that they quickly
die in COMMISSIONS
One of the interesting products Of this
region is the Chihuahua dog, which resem-
bles the sleeve dog of China and the chin
koro dog of Japan. They are sometimes
called butterfly dogs" Usually they weigh
from one to three pounds, and are often no
larger than large rat. Pure bred specl-
mems are distinguished by depression
about the size of a pea in the forehead and
by the possession of five nails on each foot.
Before the tourist tide set into Mexico the
dogs could be bought for s. each. Now
they often sell for hundreds and even thou
sands of dollars. Many an American traV-
eler has bought a tiny canine alleged to be
a Chihuahua dog only to have it afterwards
develop into a large and lusty cur.
When one gets out of the desert region
of Chihuahua and into the Sierra Madre
mountains there is found a winter that is
like May or October in New England and
summer that is delightful. Game in these
mountains is plentiful. In the northern
Sierra Madre live the Tarahumare Indians,
perhaps the best examples of physical per-
lection in the world. Both men and women
are splendid runners, and their endurance
is phenomenal. A healthy Tarahumare will
easily run ITO miles at stretch. When sent
as a messenger he goes along at a slow tTot
running steadily and constantly. man
has been known to carry a letter 500 miles
in five days. While executing these feats
of endurance the Indians live on pinole,
which is a dish made of corn and water.
The TaraumaTes kill rabbits with a spe-
cies of boomerang said to be a relic of the
days when they and their Australian kins-
men are believed to have crossed the Pacihc
ocean by a chain of islands supposed to
have linked, at one time, Asia with America
and Australia.