ARIZONA AND SONORA.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 1152, 30 August 1865, Page 5

ARIZONA AND SONORA.

('Prom, ihj Saturday Review.)

One of the results of the French expedition to Mexico has been to invest the mines of that couatry with more than, uaual interest Numerous suggestions have emanated from Paris as to the expediency of a part of them being made over to France, to be held as a material guarantee for the payment of the expanses incurred iv the cause of the Emperor Maximilian, and rumour has reported tkjtt the district of Sonora would be temporarily pledged by that monarch to his disinterested but prudent allies. That province was invaded by French arms about twelve years ago, but the result was not* encouraging. The world has by this time almost forgotten Count Gaston de Raousaet Boulbon, but, at the time of which we speak, he created no, alight sensation in. Mexico. Having squandered his patrimony in Paris and at Algiers, he went in ttie year 18A2 to California with the hope of repairing bis shattered fortunes, and there organized a filibustering expedition for the purpose of seizing the silver mines of Sonora. At first he obtained considerable; success, overcoming the forces sent by the Mexican Government, to oppose him, occupying AriUpe, the capital of the province, and proclaiming a free republic. la 1853* however, he met with a defeat, which, r obliged him to retire from the country, ani]L to seek refuge in San Francisco. The next year he set on &ot a fresh espedUjou, «a*

invaded Sonora a second time, bat be wa soon compelled to surrender, and thi sentence of a Mexican court martial ter minated his "career at an earlj'agi?, and pu an end to the plans about which his friend: had raved and sung :— De v,iin"rc ou de rnourlr i'hornme de caiit fi'honere! Hurrah N'est-ii paa ua pays <yx-. Yon iiomme Sor ore ! II v rah C'«sl-il f»ut plssntcr, pui'santettoliiaire. Hurrah Le drapaau do/*' les i>!ißOit ombrfg<£ 'a t-rie. Hurrah Had it not been for the civil war ir America, Sonora would probably by this time have formed a. portion of the Unitet: States, and Mr Mowry, in the work whicl is now before us, looks hopefully forward to the time when that province will b( acquired by his countrymen, and " the Mexkan population will recede before the energy of American career." lie epeaks with enthusiasm both of Arizona ant of Sonora^iind his opinion is entitled tc carry weight, for he has spent several yean in those districts. In 1855 he was at; officer in the Federal army at Tort Yuma, In the course of an expedition which he made into the wilds of Arizona, he formed so hi;;h sn opinion of its great mineral resources, and so enthusiastic v.n idea of its future destiny, that he resigned his commission, and devoted hinv-elf to exploring the country, and attempting to call the attention of the Government to its claims. At one period he was elected a delegate to Cor.grcss, and he has always held the position of a representative man in Ariz-ma. He became the proprietor of one of it* silver mines, and, according to his own account, he was rapidly making a fortune, when the general in command of the Federal troops imprisoned him on a charge of collusion with the Confederate-", and seized the mine. lie was sub.-equently set at liberty by the court which tried his cr.se, and his property lias been restored to him, but his indignation Etill survives, and makes itself maniftsr, here and there in his book. lie appears to be a man of strong likings and disliking.", and some allowance must be made for this fact is accepting his very favourable opinion of the country which he describe1-; but his book stems to be written with ancenty. and he constantly gives his authorities", and backs up his theories with statistics. The name Arizona is said to be derived from an Aztec w»rd Arizuma, meaning "t-iiver-bearing"—a tradition still existing among the Mexicans of a silver mine of incredible richness, called La Arizona. The district was acquired by purchase from Mexico, at a cost often million dollars, during the mission of General Gadsdcn, and is therefore commonly called "the Gadsdcn I'urchar-e." : In fiuimer days it was a thriving Spanish province, the Jesuits (one of whom first explored it in the year 1G87) having early founded a mis-sion there, which increased so rapidly that in the course of a century forty towiu and villages sprang into life. The valley of the Simla Cruz and its tributaries teemed with an active population of agriculturists and miners, and at one time more than a hundred silver and gold mines were worked with success. But at last the Indians organised a general rising against the settlers, who had by tliis time lost much of their original energy, and drove them out ol the greater part of the country. "A superior civilisation disappeared before their devastating career, and to-day there is hardly a trace of it left, except scarcely visible ruins, evidences everywhereof cxtensiv cane! hastily deserted mining operations, au'l the tradition of the Country." The*climate, in Mr Mowry's opinion, is for the most part dclici'm-, " never extremely hot, with cool summer nights." Fuel is abundant, labor is cheap, and (he land in the valleys is very fertile. One valley, fifty miles long, is described as " all golden with grain. In one field there were 1.50 acres of corn. I counted upon four stalks eighteen full-grown ears, and the average height of the stalks was fifteen feet." The population of the country in 1858 amounted to 10,000, exclusive of Indians. Those savages form the chief drawback to the delight of Arizona, the amount of mischief which they contrive to do being enormous, although their numbers are small. The tribe of Apaches, who are the main offenders, can boast of only a couple of thousand warriors", but they have been able to devastate all Northern Mexico. Xo kindmss has ever molifled them, no policy has been able to conciliate them. A nation of thieves, they must steal or they starve, and it appears to be impossible to convert them to a better state of mind. The only way t-> wage war against them, says the author, in a passage bearing considerable likeness to a speech lately levelled against the Maori*, is to hunt them down to their haunts. Then "they must be surrounded, starved into coming in, surprised or inveigled—by white flags, or any other method, human or divine — and then put to death. If these ideas shock any weak-minded individual who thinks himself a philanthropist, lean only say I pity, without respecting, his mistaken sympathy- A man might as well have sympathy for a rattlesnake or a tiger." Mr Mowry speaks in glowing terms of the mines of Arizona. The Sonora Company has expended a large capital in working many of them, the largest being the Heintzelmann mine, and it is his profound belief " that the most colossal fortunes this country has ever known will be made from the mines of Arizona and Sonora. . . . Iron, copper, silver, and gold are found in hundreds of localities, a plumbago mine was discovered during the present year (1859), and quicksilver is the only metal of which no mention has been made. Eveu if Arizona did not contain a single acre of arable land, he says, there could be no doubt that her mines would some day make her one of the wealthiest of the State 3of the Union. The silver mines he describes as especially prolific, and he quotes from Ward's Mexico a decree issued by Philip V. in the year 1741, " declaring the district of Arizona to be royal property, as n'C'riedero dc plata —a place where, by some natural process, silver was created," a number of masses of the pure metal having been found there, one of which weighed 27OOibs, the entire weight of the whole amounting to 40331b3. But before the resources of the country can be fully developed many changes will be necessary. The Indians must be reduced to submission, the Mexican boundary line must be altered, the roads must be improved, and a good sea-port must be obtained. Arizona will then become "an

as important source of silver, although . . ie it cannot be expected to produce the brilr> liant results obtained in Central America.' it "Sonorais said to derive itename from-m la Indian word, Sonot, meaning Senora. Th< Conquistadores were hospitably receivec lr there by the Opata Indians, who modified , i the name of their country out of courtesy to the Spaniards, being very different frora i! their successors, the Apache Indians. , whose devastations have reduced Sonora to the state depicted by its euithet Infelix. ] Its Mexican inhabitants are of a docile and obedient nature, but they have %st theii . n original force of character. Raids and 'I revolutions have completely shaken it out j* of them. Education is at* its lowest ebb a among them, but they are honest and hosd pitable, and, as Mr Mowry observes with ' c emphasis, " strong-minded women are une known, and usually peace reigns in their ie homes." In 1859 the entire population :s did not exceed 135,000, and it was " decreasing so fast that there were 0 fears of the country becoming a desert. 's In former days, however, the valleys 11 of the Sonora and Gila rivers main- '■ tamed a numerous and active race. The c Jesuits founded extensive missions there, and the traces of (heir sway are still visible l' iv the ruins scattered over the country, s while " among the rid people, their kind- " ness and wisdom are still remembered and ? talked of." A tradition is current in c Sonora that Montezunia was originally the ■ chief of the Opata Indians, and that after * he had Hubdu<d the neighboring tribes he 3 baean to build a great city, afterwards " called Cbsa Blanca, on the banks of the ' Gila. But evil omens having alarmed ) him, he set out in search of a more favor--1 able site, guided by an eagle which flew in ' front of his army, until at last it led him to ' the Lake of Mexico. There he founded 1 his great city on the spot where the eagle ■ was discovered "perched on an opal, with : a rattlesnake in its beak." To this day, ' says Air Mowry, "eagle, snake, and opal ' is the escutcheon of Mexico. Snake alone ' would be more appropriate." ! The climate of Sonora he describes as ' excellent, the extremes of heat and cold ; being unknown, but in this he differs from ' many other writers. The soil is very 1 fertile, two crops of great abundance being ; gathered every year from the same land. Wheat, maize, peas, and beans are the principal products, but excellent tobacco grows everywhere, and in some districts the sugar-cane flourishes, and a coarse sugar, called panoclia, is produced. In others cotton is grown, and " the cereals will mature, as in Alabama, into a golden harvest, separated only by a hedge or a highway from the snowy fleece of the cotton-plant" The mines of Sonora Mr Mowry considers inexhaustible. In the branch of the Cordilleras known as the Sierra Madre, ." hardly a village or grazing estate but can show some vein of gold, silver, lead, or copper," and he thinks that in all probability "not a fourth of its existing metallic wealth is known, while not a moiety of that has been or is being developed." Under the Spanish rule, mining was encouraged in every way, special privileges and advantages being granted to the miners; but the republican institutions of Mexico have proved fatal to their enterprise, and mining has now reached its lowest ebb iv that country. The mines are worked on a paltry scale, little capital being invested, few hands employed, and only contemptible machinery used. "To work a mine requires a mine," was a proverb among the Spaniards, who drew enormous revenues from the sources of which their successors make so little use. But the Spaniards were men of enterprise and industry, and they brought to bear on I their operations all that capital and science could offer, while the Mexicans are poor and lazy, and utterly destitute of energy." " Formerly Sonora the Rich was a proverb ; now, Sonora the Poor is a stubborn fact." The modern miner is in every way inferior to his predecessors. In general he belongs to the class called Gambunsinos, speculators without capital, who usually work abandoned mines. Free from all government inspection, and carryj lug on their operations without order or j foresight, they break out ore only where ■ it is rich and accessible, and, to save them- } selves trouble, they throw the refuse into the shafts and drifts they are not working, and soon block them up. Frequently they cut away the pillars which had been left as supports, till the walls crack, the mine falls in, and the results of centuries of labour are thrown away. Many of the mines have been abandoned on account of the inroads made by the Indians. In the time of the Spaniards, order was maintained throughout the province; but, after the republic was proclaimed, the troops which would have kept the Indians quiet were called off to quell the rebellions which were constantly taking place in the capital and other places, and, as they retired, the savages rushed in. Mr Mowry thinks that the mines offer an excellent field for speculators, but that foreigners will find their way impeded by numerous obstacles. A long purse is necessary for success, and to it must be added experience in mining affairs, and an intimate acquaintance with the character of the country and its inhabitants.