XXV.
THE GOLD-MINERS OF HUITZILAN.
As we rounded a mountain spur that extended a long way out into thelake, a deep bay opened to us; which bay ran close in to the cliffswhereby the valley was surrounded, and was at no great distance from theBarred Pass, through which we had made our entry. At the foot of thebay, built partly upon the level land near the water-side, and partlyupon the steep ascent beyond, was the town of Huitzilan--whereof themost curious feature that at first was noticeable was a tall chimney,whence thick black smoke was pouring forth, that rose above a stonebuilding of great solidity and of a very considerable size.
On archaeological grounds, the sight of this chimney greatly astonishedme; and Rayburn, who was a very well-read man in all matters connectedwith his profession, was greatly astonished by it also; for the chimneyobviously was a part of extensive reduction-works, and we both knew thatsuch complete appliances for the smelting of metal, as seemed from thissign to exist here, were supposed to be the product of a high state ofcivilization in comparatively modern times. As for Young, he declaredthat the chimney gave him a regular jolt of homesickness; for, exceptingthat it was built of stone instead of brick, it might have been, for thelook of it, transplanted hither directly from the region of the BackBay. "I s'pose we'll be hearin' th' noon whistle next," he said,mournfully; and presently he added: "Do you know, Professor, I b'lieveI'm beginnin' t' see daylight in all this tall talk you say th' Colonelhas been givin' us about th' 'rebellions,' as he calls 'em, that go onhere. He don't mean t' close our eyes up, th' Colonel don't, for he's afirst-class gentleman; but, bein' born an' bred a heathen, he don't knowany better. What he's tryin' t' tell us about, an' can't, because hedon't know th' English for it, is _strikes_. That's what's th' matter.Miners are bound t' go on strikes. It's their nature, an' they can'thelp it. That chimbly gives th' whole thing away. You just tell th'Colonel that we've got down t' th' hard-pan an' really know what he'sbeen drivin' at. An' t' think of there bein' strikes in Mexico! I didn'tb'lieve that a Greaser had backbone enough, or ambition enough, t'strike at anything!"
However, as I had no great amount of faith in Young's theory, I did notattempt to translate to Tizoc what he had said to me; nor was there anyopportunity for further talk at that time. Already the foremost boats ofthe flotilla had made a landing at a well-built pier that extended fromthe shore into deep water; and a minute or two later our boat alsopulled in to the pier, and we disembarked. The general view of the townthat I then had showed me that it was closely built over an area rathermore than half a mile square; that the houses for the most part weremere hovels, of which the largest could not contain more than two smallrooms; and that the few houses of a better sort were within the strongstone wall by which the reduction-works also were enclosed. At the pierwhere we landed a boat was in process of lading with bars of gold fortransport to the Treasure-house in the city; and I thought that I neverhad seen anywhere more savage-looking fellows than the almost nakedlaborers by whom the work of lading was carried on. Physically these menwere magnificent creatures--tall and well-shaped and vigorous, and theease with which they handled the great bars of gold showed how enormousmust be their strength. But so full of venomous hate were the sullenlooks which they cast upon us, and so savage was the effect of theircoarse, dishevelled hair falling down over and partly veiling theirgreat glittering eyes, whence these angry glances were shot forth at uslike poisoned darts, that I was thankful to see that, all told, therewere not more than a dozen of them, and that three times as many heavilyarmed soldiers served as their guard. And looking at these creatures,who were truly less like men than dangerous wild beasts, I could notwonder at the grave concern which Tizoc had manifested at thought of therisk which we ran in taking them for allies. "It's as easy t' start'em," Young said, when he came to an understanding of the situation, "as'tis t' start a freight-train down a three per cent. grade. But what Iwant to know is, when we want 'em t' stop, how in th' h--ll are we evergoin' t' set th' brakes?"
THE TLAHUICOS AND THEIR GUARDS]
Yet, dangerous to ourselves though the use of it must be, our hopes ofsuccess rested mainly upon our ability to control and to employeffectively this savage material. Fortunately, it was not the whole ofour reliance; and it was our intention to leaven this dangerous lumpwith the very considerable number of trained and trustworthy soldiersthat we had available as the substantial nucleus of our fighting force,and also with the larger body of both slaves and freemen--not regularlydrilled soldiers, to be sure, yet many of them trained in the ways ofwar--that we counted upon to join us from among the people at large.
This outline of the plan of action that the Council had determined uponwas exhibited to us by Tizoc during our passage down the lake; and I wasglad to find that Rayburn--for whose judgment I had much respect insuch matters--was disposed to think well of it.
"If I expected to stay here, Professor, after the row was over," hesaid, "I mightn't be quite as well satisfied with this plan of theirsfor running things. The war part of the programme is all right. Theywon't have any difficulty in getting their Tlahuicos to fight anythingin the way of an army that the Priest Captain shows up with. Fighting isjust what will please them more than anything else. Where the trouble isgoing to come in is when the fighting is over and they go in forreconstruction. It's one thing to make fighters out of this sort ofstuff, but it's quite another thing to make respectable citizens out ofit. That's where the hitch will be. But as we don't intend to settledown in this valley--unless we find that there's no way out of it--weneedn't bother about that part of the performance at all. That's theirfuneral, not ours. So, for my part, the sooner they get their army inshape, and get the fighting part settled, the better I'll be satisfied."
To do the members of the Council justice, they seemed to be even moreeager than Rayburn was to forward the work that they had in hand. Fromthe pier they went directly to the enclosure in the centre of the town,within which was the building ordinarily occupied by the commandant ofthe post and by the officials of the civil government; and in thisplace, Tizoc informed us, they intended immediately to organize the newgovernment, and then to proceed with all possible despatch to makearrangements for placing an army in the field.
In Tizoc's company, but more leisurely, we also went on to theCitadel--as we found the enclosure about the smelting-works wascalled--where comfortable quarters had been provided for us in the samebuilding wherein the Council was housed. Here we waited, in somewhatstrained idleness, while the Council carried on, in a chamber not farremoved from us, its exciting work of destroying a government that hadendured for more than a thousand years; and we were mightily surprised,knowing how prodigious was the change that then was being wrought inancient institutions, by observing how quietly it all went on. Themurmur of talk that came to us, unchecked by any intervening doors, hadno sound of excitement or of anger or of violent emotion of any sort;and I could not but hold in admiration the calm, self-contained naturesof these men who thus equably and rationally could deal with such vastlyweighty affairs.
While this great matter--which could end only in wild commotion andfierce battling--went forward in this quiet way, Tizoc opened to usmuch that was of curious interest touching the near-by gold-mine andthey who mined the gold. Of the existence of the mine, he said, theAztlanecas had remained ignorant for many generations after their cominginto the valley; and for many more generations but little gold had beentaken from it, because the metal was of no value to his people save forthe making of ornaments. But when the process had been discovered bywhich this metal could be hardened, and so made serviceable for allmanner of useful purposes--and this the more because, by themanufacture that then ensued of tools wherewith the rock could be easilyworked, mining in a large way became possible--the development of themine upon a great scale had been begun, and had been continued upon aconstantly increasing scale from that time onward. All the earth beneathwhere we then were, he said, was honey-combed with passages whichfollowed the several veins; and of the
se there seemed to be no end atall, for ever as each vein was exhausted another not less rich wasfound--and thus it seemed as though all the substructure of that greatmountain range were one huge mass of gold.
What the measures of weight were with which he estimated the annualoutput of the mine, I could not clearly understand, but the matter wasmade approximately plain to us by his statement that the daily productof the mine never was less than one of the great bars of gold that wehad seen upon the pier in process of carriage to the Treasure-house; andthat sometimes, when veins of extraordinary richness were encountered,even so much as four of these bars had been smelted from the ore thatthe mine yielded in a single day.
"Those bars don't weigh an ounce less than two hundred pounds apiece,"Rayburn said, when I had translated to him what Tizoc had told me. "Thatmakes the output of the mine not less than three tons a month, and, in arough way, a ton of gold is worth just about half a million of dollars.If the Colonel isn't mixed in his figures, and if you've translated himstraight, Professor, these fellows are taking out somewheres in theneighborhood of twenty millions a year."
Young gave a long whistle. "Great Scott!" he exclaimed, "that just is anall-fired big pile of money t' be wasted on a lot of barelegged heathencritters like these, who don't know th' Ten Commandments by sight, an'who've never even heard of a cocktail! D' you know what I'm goin' t' do,Rayburn, when I realize on this investment? I'm goin' t' buy th' OldColony Railroad, just for th' sake of bein' able t' bounce th'Superintendent. He bounced me after that freight smash-up--and it wasn'tmy fault that th' operator got mixed an' gave me th' wrong orders--andI'll give him a taste o' th' same kind. Won't it just paralyze him whenhe gets his orders t' quit, signed 'Seth Young, President,' an' findsout it's th' same old Seth Young who used t' run Thirty-two on th' FallRiver division?"
"Hadn't you better let him down easy by telegraphing him right now tobegin to look out for a new place?" Rayburn asked. "We'll wait for youhere, while you step over to the Western Union office"--which coolcomment upon Young's enthusiastic discounting of a bright future broughtthe gloomy present so clearly before his mind that his castle-buildingended suddenly, and he lapsed into silence.
But great though our wonder was at the prodigious quantity of preciousmetal that this mine yielded in each year, and amazed though we were bythought of the vast store of treasure that the valley now must hold, I,for my part, felt a far deeper interest in what Tizoc went on to tellus concerning the men by whose toil the treasure had been accumulated.And, truly, so bitter and so dreary was the life of the Tlahuicos whowere forced to labor here unceasingly, and through so long a period hadthey been thus cruelly dealt with, that it seemed to me there must restupon all the Valley of Aztlan a heavy curse that only some signal act ofexpiation could remove. And the coincidence struck me as most curiousthat here among the Aztecs, wrought by themselves upon the men of theirown race, should be found identically the same cruelties which theSpaniards practised upon the Indians whom they enslaved as miners in NewMexico: whereof came that fierce outburst of revolt two hundred yearsago, when the Pueblos ravaged with sword and flame the whole valley ofthe Rio Grande from Taos to the Pass of the North.
There was small ground for wonder that the Tlahuicos, thus crushed byover-heavy labor, and dealt with as though they were not men, but fierceand dangerous brutes, should cherish at all times in their breasts asullen fire of mutiny; nor that on every occasion at all favorable totheir purposes there should spring forth from the glowing embers oftheir hatred a vivid and consuming flame. Only by the strength and thevigilance of the guard that constantly was maintained over them wastheir tendency to rebellion held in check; and even the guards could notprevent frequent outbreaks--which ended only in the cruel slaughter ofall concerned in them--so passionately eager was the longing of thesedesperate creatures for revenge.
Only once, a vastly long while past, Tizoc said, had success attended aneffort on the part of the Tlahuicos to release themselves from theircruel slavery, and that they then eluded the vigilance of their masterswas due to their employment of strategy against force. The whole matter,he continued, was now but a half-remembered tradition, yet the maindetails of it were clear. In that far-back time a vein of extraordinaryrichness had been followed for a very long distance in the direction ofthe Barred Pass; and, as the event proved, the gallery was carriedbeyond the bars, passing far beneath them, and so went onward, steadilyrising, until an outlet was had into the canon. That the secret of thisoutlet might be kept among the men who had opened it, these slew theguard that watched over them and thrust his body out into the canon,thus most effectually placing it beyond the reach of the search thatwould be made for it; and the opening that they had made they closedcarefully, and continued a little way onward into the rock the galleryin which they were working: so that the superintendent of the mine mightsee clearly (what, indeed, was the truth) that the vein of ore had beenfollowed to its end.
Tizoc knew not how long a time passed before the Tlahuicos made use ofthe way of escape thus opened to them; but their flight could not havebeen taken hastily, because it included a very great number of them, andincluded also carrying with them large quantities of arms for warfare,and of useful household stores. He could say certainly no more thanthat when all their well-laid plan was ready to be executed, they roseagainst the soldiers which guarded them with such suddenness and braveviolence that they succeeded in seizing and in holding the Citadel;which gave no chance for grave uneasiness, for the officers of the forcethus for a moment driven off thought that because of their retiringwithin so narrow a place they speedily must surrender for dread of beingstarved there; and it was held to be but a sign of their still greatersimplicity--since thus would there be more hungry mouths to fill--thatthey carried their women and children with them into the strongholdwhere they lay besieged.
But so strange was the desolate silence that hung over the place intowhich so great a multitude had retired, that the besiegers presentlywere moved by it to a wonder wherein was a strong feeling of awe; andstill greater was the marvel that they had to ponder upon when, at last,meeting with no opposition, they broke in the grating that barred theentrance to the Citadel, and found within the enclosure not one singleliving soul! And so cleverly had the fugitives closed the way behindthem that a long while passed before it was known certainly what hadbecome of this living host that, as it seemed, in a moment had vanishedfrom off the face of the earth. More than half a lifetime went bywithout the shedding of light upon this mystery; and it seemed as thougha ghost had risen when one day a very aged man came forth from thatlong-abandoned passage in the mine and surrendered himself to the firstof the guards whom he encountered--and then told that he was a priestwhom the fleeing rebels had carried captive with them, and whom they hadheld a prisoner through all these many years. And he told also how therebels had made their home in a certain fair valley that was shut in andhidden among the mountains; and how that they had built a greatcity--resting fearless in the conviction that they were safe from harm.By the heavy toil that had been needful to open anew the way into themine from the canon, the little remnant of strength in this old man'sbody had been exhausted; and presently, having told his story, he died.
Then it was that the Priest Captain and the Council who ruled in thatancient time, having assured themselves by the sending out of spies thatall which the old man had told them was true, planned to bring upon therebels a very terrible vengeance; which was to drown them all in theircity by letting loose upon them the waters of a mighty lake. And thisplan, though its accomplishment was not arrived at until two full cycleshad passed away, so mighty was the labor that it involved, at last wasexecuted: and in one single day every living creature in all that valleywas overwhelmed by the flood let loose into it; and where so great amass of teeming life had been there remained thereafter only thedesolate silence and stillness of universal death.
It was with long-drawn breaths that Fray Antonio and I listened toTizoc's telling of this tradition, which in man
y ways was far more realto us than it possibly could be to him; for we but lately had passedthrough that death-stricken valley--and ourselves had been like to diethere--and every feature of the scene, that he could but vaguelydescribe to us, we had clearly in our minds. And thus we came to knowthe full meaning of the great catastrophe whereof we had seen theoutworking, both in the destruction wrought by it and the way of itsaccomplishment, but of which we had divined no more concerning its causethan that in some way it must have resulted from a slowly worked-outvengeance prompted by a most malignant hate.
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