This Tucson
Is An Ancient City, Having Been Founded By The Jesuits In 1560 A.D. It
Does A Large Business In Exporting Gold Dust, Wool, And Hides.
I expect
that these mountains of Arizona contain much value in minerals.
The
Indians in this part of the country are the Apaches, and were described
to me as the most treacherous of all the American Indians, that they are
cowardly and will never fight in the open. A gentleman who entered the
train at Tucson gave me many instances of this. In the evening we saw
"cow-boys" round their fire camping out in the open, and also a camp of
freighters resting on their journey across the desert. The next morning
early (December 19th) we arrived at El Paso, a most interesting Mexican
town situate on the borders of Old Mexico, New Mexico and Texas, where I
bought the skin of a Mexican tiger, and other things.
In travelling for some days in a train continuously one feels the need
of exercise, and this I obtained by getting in and out of many of the
railway stations and walking up and down. Between San Francisco and New
Orleans there are 322 stations, and I should suppose the number of
stations on both the Northern and Southern routes I traversed would
probably amount to nearly 700.
We are now commencing to cross the great plains of Texas. At first the
plains are desert, with mountains skirting our view; the scenery is less
interesting than the Arizona desert, because there are no cacti.
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