Chapter 10 - The White Chief by Mayne Reid
The “Llano Estacado,” or “Staked Plain” of the hunters, is one of the most singular formations of the Great American Prairie. It is a table-land, or “steppe,” rising above the regions around it to a height of nearly one thousand feet, and of an oblong or leg-of-mutton form, trending from north to south.
It is four hundred miles in length, and at its widest part between two and three hundred. Its superficial area is about equal to the island of Ireland. Its surface aspect differs considerably from the rest of prairie-land, nor is it of uniform appearance in every part. Its northern division consists of an arid steppe, sometimes treeless, for an extent of fifty miles, and sometimes having a stunted covering of mezquite (acacia), of which there are two distinct species. This steppe is in several places rent by chasms a thousand feet in depth, and walled in on both sides by rugged impassable precipices. Vast masses of shapeless rocks lie along the beds of these great clefts, and pools of water appear at long intervals, while stunted cedars grow among the rocks, or cling from the seams of the cliffs.
Such chasms, called “cañons,” can only be crossed, or even entered, at certain points; and these passes are frequently a score of miles distant from each other.
On the upper plain the surface is often a dead level for a hundred miles, and as firm as a macadamised road. There are spots covered with a turf of grass of the varieties known as gramma, buffalo, and mezquite; and sometimes the traveller encounters a region where shallow ponds of different sizes stud the plain—a few being permanent, and surrounded by sedge. Most of these ponds are more or less brackish, some sulphurous, and others perfectly salt. After heavy rains such aqueous deposits are more numerous, and their waters sweeter; but rain seems to fall by accident over this desolate region, and after long spells of drought the greater number of these ponds disappear altogether.
Towards the southern end of the Llano Estacado the surface exhibits a very singular phenomenon—a belt of sand-hills, nearly twenty miles in breadth and full fifty in length, stretching north and south upon the plain. These hills are of pure white sand, thrown up in ridges, and sometimes in cones, to the height of a hundred feet, and without tree, bush, or shrub, to break their soft outlines, or the uniformity of their colour. But the greatest anomaly of this geological puzzle is, that water-ponds are found in their very midst—even among their highest ridges—and this water not occasional, as from rains, but lying in “lagunas,” with reeds, rushes, and nymphae growing in them, to attest that the water is permanent! The very last place where water might be expected to make a lodgment.
Such formations of drift-sand are common upon the shores of the Mexican Gulf, as well as on European coasts, and there their existence is easily explained; but here, in the very heart of a continent, it cannot be regarded as less than a singular phenomenon.
This sand-belt is passable at one or two points, but horses sink to the knees at every step, and but for the water it would be a perilous experiment to cross it.
Where is the Llano Estacado? Unroll your map of North America. You will perceive a large river called the Canadian rising in the Rocky Mountains, and running, first southerly, and then east, until it becomes part of the Arkansas. As this river bends eastwardly, it brushes the northern end of the Llano Estacado, whose bluffs sometimes approach close to its banks, and at other times are seen far off, resembling a range of mountains—for which they have been frequently mistaken by travellers.
The boundary of the west side of the “Staked Plain” is more definite. Near the head-waters of the Canadian another large river has its source. This the Pecos. Its course, you will observe, is nearly south, but your map is not correct, as for several hundred miles the Pecos runs within a few degrees of east. It afterwards takes a southerly direction, before it reaches its embouchure in the Rio Grande. Now the Pecos washes the whole western base of the Llano Estacado; and it is this very plain, elevated as it is, that turns the Pecos into its southerly course, instead of leaving it to flow eastward, like all the other prairie-streams that head in the Rocky Mountains.
The eastern boundary of the Llano Estacado is not so definitely marked, but a line of some three hundred miles from the Pecos, and cutting the head-waters of the Wichita, the Louisiana Bed, the Brazos, and Colorado, will give some idea of its outline. These rivers, and their numerous tributaries, all head in the eastern “ceja” (brow) of the Staked Plain, which is cut and channelled by their streams into tracts of the most rugged and fantastic forms.
At the south the Llano Estacado tapers to a point, declining into the mezquite plains and valleys of numerous small streams that debouch into the Lower Rio Grande.
This singular tract is without one fixed dweller; even the Indian never makes abode upon it beyond the few hours necessary to rest from his journey, and there are parts where he—inured as he is to hunger and thirst—dare not venture to cross it. So perilous is the “Jornada,” or crossing of the Llano Estacado, that throughout all its length of four hundred miles there are only two places where travellers can effect it in safety! The danger springs from the want of water, for there are spots of grass in abundance; but even on the well-known routes there are, at certain seasons, stretches of sixty and eighty miles where not a drop of water is to be procured!
In earlier times one of these routes was known as the “Spanish Trail,” from Santa Fé to San Antonio de Bexar, of Texas; and lest travellers should lose their way, several points were marked with “palos,” or stakes. Hence the name it has received.
The Llano Estacado is now rarely travelled, except by the ciboleros, or Mexican buffalo-hunters, and “Comancheros,” or Indian traders. Parties of these cross it from the settlements of New Mexico, for the purpose of hunting the buffalo, and trafficking with the Indian tribes that roam over the plains to the east. Neither the hunt nor the traffic is of any great importance, but it satisfies a singular race of men, whom chance or inclination has led to the adopting it as a means of subsistence.
These men are to the Mexican frontier pretty much what the hunter and backwoodsman are upon the borders of the Anglo-American settlements. They are, however, in many respects different from the latter—in arms and equipments, modes of hunting, and otherwise. The outfit of a cibolero, who is usually also a coureur de bois, is very simple. For hunting, he is mounted on a tolerable—sometimes a fine—horse and armed with a bow and arrows, a hunting-knife, and a long lance. Of fire-arms he knows and cares nothing—though there are exceptional cases. A lazo is an important part of his equipment. For trading, his stock of goods is very limited—often not costing him twenty dollars! A few bags of coarse bread (an article of food which the prairie Indians are fond of), a sack of “piñole,” some baubles for Indian ornament, some coarse serapés, and pieces of high-coloured woollen stuffs, woven at home: these constitute his “invoice.” Hardware goods he does not furnish to any great extent. These stand him too high in his own market, as they reach it only after long carriage and scandalous imposts. Fire-arms he has nothing to do with: such prairie Indians as use these are furnished from the eastern side; but many Spanish pieces—fusils and escopettes—have got into the hands of the Comanches through their forays upon the Mexican towns of the south.
In return for his outlay and perilous journey, the cibolero carries back dried buffalo-flesh and hides—some the produce of his own hunting, some procured by barter from the Indians.
Horses, mules, and asses, are also articles of exchange. Of these the prairie Indians possess vast herds—some individuals owning hundreds; and most of them with Mexican brands! In other words, they have been stolen from the towns of the Lower Rio Grande, to be sold to the towns of the Upper Rio Grande, and the trade is deemed perfectly legitimate,—at least, there is no help for it as the case stands.
The cibolero goes forth on the plains with a rare escort. Sometimes a large number of these men, taking their wives and families with them, travel together just like a tribe of wild Indians. Generally, however, one or two leaders, with their servants and equipage, form the expedition. They experience less molestation from the savages than ordinary travellers. The Comanches and other tribes know their object, and rather encourage them to come amongst them. Notwithstanding, they are often cheated and ill-used by these double-faced dealers. Their mode of transport is the pack-mule, and the “carreta” drawn by mules or oxen. The carreta is of itself a picture of primitive locomotion. A pair of block-wheels, cut out of a cotton-wood tree, are joined by a stout wooden axle. The wheels usually approach nearer to the oval, or square, than the circular form. A long tongue leads out from the axle-tree, and upon top of this a square, deep, box-like body is placed. To this two or more pairs of oxen are attached in the most simple manner—by lashing a cross-piece of wood to their horns which has already been made fast to the tongue. The animals have neither yoke nor harness, and the forward push of the head is the motive power by which the carreta is propelled. Once in motion, the noise of the wooden axle is such as to defy description. The cries of a whole family, with children of all sizes, in bitter agony, can alone represent the concert of terrible sounds; and we must go to South Mexico to find its horrid equal in a troop of howling monkeys.