Finding the Worth While in the Southwest 15

Finding the Worth While in the Southwest 15

The Main Plaza is dominated by the cathedral of San Fernando, which

dates from 1738, though little of the original structure remains—most of

the present building having been constructed about half a century ago.

What is left of the original church is in the rear, backing on another

and larger square, the old _Plaza de Armas_, or Military Plaza as it is

now called.

 

Modern San Antonio has risen out of the consolidation of the presidio of

San Antonio de Béjar, the Mission of Antonio de Valero (both mission and

presidio founded in 1718) and the _villa_—a form of Spanish

municipality—of San Fernando, founded in 1730. The Mission, after

abandonment as a religious institution, was turned into a fortress and

barracks, and acquired the name of Alamo.[87] The Church of the Mission

and what is left of the main building of the Fort are the most famous

historical buildings in the city. They face on the Alamo Plaza, and are

of such unique interest as to draw, in themselves, many visitors to San

Antonio; for they are in a sense to Texas what Faneuil Hall is to New

England, the cradle of its liberty. Late in 1835, when Texas was still a

part of Mexico, San Antonio was stormed and captured by a band of

insurgent American-Texans under the leadership of “Old Ben” Milam, who

was killed in the fight. (You will see his statue in Milam Square, if

you are interested enough to look it up). The Alamo, which was well

outside the San Antonio of those days, was surrendered with the city.

Here the Texans later entrenched themselves, and in February and March

of the following year were besieged for 12 days by 4000 Mexicans under

General Santa Ana. Of the Texans, there were less than 200, including

some women and children. Refusing to surrender, every man of them was

killed in the final assault upon the place, the only survivors

(according to H. H. Bancroft) being 3 women, 2 children and one negro

boy servant. “Remember the Alamo” became the war-cry of the Texans in

the subsequent struggle that ended in the independence of the province.

 

The little Alamo Church and part of the main building that we see

to-day, form only a small portion of the establishment that existed in

1836 and was occupied by the Texan defenders. Besides this church part

(now maintained as a public monument) there was the large two-story

_convento_-fortress divided into rooms and used as armory and barracks,

part of which now exists and is cared for by the State of Texas; also a

prison building and courtyard; the whole covering between 2 and 3 acres.

Prominent among the Alamo defenders was that picturesque character and

popular Southwestern hero, Davy Crockett. Another was James Bowie, to

whom many authorities attribute the invention of the famous knife that

bears the Bowie name, but Bancroft says it was Rezin Bowie, a brother of

James, who originated it. These and others of the participants in the

Texan war of independence are commemorated in the names of streets,

parks and public houses throughout the city. As for the Alamo, it is

bait in all sorts of business ventures—giving name to saloons,

suspenders, grocery stores, restaurants, lodging houses and what not.

 

Next to the Alamo, the sightseer (unless an enthusiasm for matters

military takes him straight to San Antonio’s famous army post, Sam

Houston), will find worth while a visit to the old Franciscan Missions,

now in ruins, that are strung along the San Antonio River to the south

of the city. There are four of these, the first about 2 miles from the

Alamo, the rest at similar intervals of a couple of miles. Americans

have got in the way of calling them, in numerical fashion, First,

Second, Third and Fourth Missions, respectively, to the neglect of their

fine old Spanish names. The First, which is on the southern outskirts of

the city, and may be reached by a moderate walk from a street car line,

is the Mission _Nuestra Señora de la Purísima Concepcion de Acuña_ (Our

Lady of the Immaculate Conception, of Acuña). From quite a distance one

catches sight of its twin square towers with pyramidal tops and its high

dome peeping above a tangle of mesquite, chinnaberry and pecan trees,

and sprawling juisache bushes. A Mexican family lives in an end of the

ruined _convento_ part, and a small fee is charged for showing the

inside of the church and permitting you to climb the belfry for a fine

view over the country. The façade is interesting with much curious

sculpturing. The knotted cord of St. Francis winds above the austere

polygonal “arch” of the doorway, upon which is this Spanish inscription:

_A su patrono y princessa con estas armas atiende esta mission y

defiende el_ _punto de su pureza_. (With these arms this Mission attends

her Patroness and Princess and defends the state of her immaculateness.)

This is an obvious allusion to the controversy long maintained among

old-time theologians concerning the dogma of the Virgin Mary’s

immaculate conception—a doctrine defended and preached by the

Franciscans from the first. In the corners immediately above the arch

are two medallions, the one bearing an unusual form of the Franciscan

Order’s coat-of-arms—the Saviour’s naked arm and the sleeved arm of St.

Francis nailed together to the Cross; the other carved in the semblance

of five blood-drops, to symbolize perhaps the stigmata of St. Francis.

Upon the keystone is another elaborate embellishment now much worn by

the elements. The central figure of this is plainly representative of

the consecrated elements in the Lord’s Supper—a slender Spanish chalice

surmounted by the Sacred Host. Worn figures at the sides of the chalice

may have represented clouds or adoring angels. The whole carving of the

keystone obviously typifies the Church’s missionary purpose. The front

was once gaily frescoed in red, yellow, blue and orange; but Time’s

remorseless hand has fallen heavily on that. Begun in 1731, the building

was not completed until 1752. After Mexican independence from Spain was

accomplished, this Mission as well as the others, was abandoned and was

not infrequently used by both Mexican and United States troops for

barracks and stables. Some 30 years ago Bishop Neraz of San Antonio had

La Purísima Concepcion cleared of rubbish and re-dedicated to Our Lady

of Lourdes.[88]

 

[Illustration]

 

SAN JOSÉ DE AGUAYO

 

The sculptured window of this old Franciscan Mission near San

Antonio, Texas, is widely famed for its refined beauty.

 

[Illustration]

 

SAN XAVIER DEL BAC, ARIZONA.

 

Though largely restored, this survival of early 17th-century

missionary effort, is one of the most interesting antiquities of its

class in the United States.

 

The Second Mission, properly called San José de Aguayo, was the first

founded of the four, dating from 1720. It was 11 years a-building, and

the date of its completion, March 5, 1731, seems to have determined the

beginning of the remaining three Missions in the chain, all of which

were founded on their present sites in that same year.[89] It was in its

day the most flourishing of the Texas Missions, as, in its ruins, it is

the most beautiful. The builder indulged to the uttermost his love of

florid carving, and the broken façade of the roofless church is a marvel

of ornate sculpturing—of saints, life size or in bust, cherubs’ heads

and flaming hearts, volutes and arabesques and conchoids innumerable.

But it is good sculpture and an amazing thing that it should have been

wrought to the glory of God in that wilderness of what was Northern

Mexico, near two centuries ago. Doubtless it was the work of some

artisan (I have read that his name was Juan Huisar) brought up from Old

Mexico where such ecclesiastical art was encouraged from the beginning

of the Spanish occupation; and for assistants Indians were employed.

Around the corner from this front is a window in the baptistry that

makes you exclaim for the beauty of it, so exquisite is it in its

sculptured setting, so delicate and of so simple loveliness is its

_reja_, or grating of wrought iron. And about it in the broken chinks of

crumbling masonry is a fern garden of Nature’s own sowing, of a sort

that thrives in the sunshine and aridity of the Southwest and nowhere

else, a species that botanists call _Notholaena sinuata_. The Mission is

quite abandoned now save for an occasional service at a modest little

altar in one room. A neighboring Mexican family has the key and supplies

a guide.

 

These two Missions are usually all the hurrying tourist sees; but an

hour more, if you are in an automobile, is enough to afford a glance at

the other two, which, if less interesting, are still a pleasant

adventure. The Third (6 miles from San Antonio) is Mission _San Juan

Capistrano_ (Saint John of Capistrano, in Italy), and the Fourth is _San

Francisco de la Espada_ (Saint Francis of the Sword). The last has

undergone some restoration to fit it for the resident priest, who

ministers to a Mexican flock quartered roundabout. The entire round of

the Missions can be easily done by motor car in half a day; but take a

day to it, if you can spare the time, picnic somewhere by the river, and

do the beautiful old places with leisure and reverence. Surely one can

do worse things, to quote Sidney Lanier, “than to steal out here from

town ... and dream back the century and a half of strange, lonesome,

devout, hymn-haunted and Indian-haunted years that have trailed past

these walls.”

 

Annually during the last week of April, there is held in San Antonio an

open air carnival called the Fiesta San Jacinto. The name commemorates

the decisive battle of San Jacinto, fought April 21, 1836, between

Mexicans and Texans, and ending the War of Texan Independence. Elaborate

celebrations mark the festival, which is almost as well known in the

Southwest as the New Orleans Mardi Gras.

 

NOTE: Readers interested in particulars of the history of the San

Antonio Missions will be repaid by consulting the valuable work of

Miss Adina DeZavala, entitled: “History and Legends of The Alamo and

Other Missions in and Around San Antonio.”

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XV

IN THE COUNTRY OF THE GIANT CACTUS

 

 

There are two Arizonas. There is that wide, breezy plateau region of the

north, a mile and more above sea level, where our travels so far have

been; and there is the much lower desert region of the south slanting

downward from the Gila River to Sonoran Mexico, from which country there

is little to distinguish it physically. This desert region, known to the

Spaniards as Pimería Alta (that is, the upper country of the Pima

Indians), was the only portion of what was afterwards called Arizona to

possess a white population until several years after our Mexican War.

The tourist to-day penetrates it in two general ways. Near the Mexican

frontier the Southern Pacific transcontinental line traverses it,

passing through Yuma and Tucson and reaching up to Phoenix by a branch

from Maricopa. From the north a branch of the Santa Fe system runs

southward from Ash Fork through Prescott directly to Phoenix.

 

Phoenix is the State capital, a very modern little city dating from

1817, with a population of perhaps 20,000. There is a touch of poetry in

the name, which was given to symbolize the rising of a new civilization

from the ashes of that prehistoric culture the evidences of whose

existence cover so much of Southern Arizona. Here, where 50 years ago

was pure desert lorded over by the giant Sahuaro—that huge tree-cactus

which is Arizona’s State emblem—we find today surrounding Phoenix a

pleasant land of ranches watered by full irrigation canals flowing in

the shade of palms and cottonwoods, where besides the common staples of

potatoes, corn and alfalfa, there is the exotic grace of the orange and

the fig, the olive, the date and the apricot. This is the valley of the

Salt River, whose waters are impounded by the huge Roosevelt Dam, some

80 miles east of Phoenix. Travelers desirous of studying desert

reclamation will find Phoenix a good center for their observations.

 

If you value your personal comfort, the time to visit Phoenix is between

November and May. During the rest of the year the weather normally is

remorselessly hot to the unacclimated. My own acquaintance with the city

began in August. In a hazy way I had noticed something unaccustomed

about the look of the population, the men particularly, but failed to

analyze it until a sociable street car conductor remarked to me,

“Stranger here?” “Yes,” said I, “my first day.” “We always know

strangers right away,” he continued. “You see, they wear their coats.”

Then I took a fresh look around and though it was a fairly crowded

street, I failed to see a man who was not in his shirt sleeves. The

winter and early spring, however, are delicious with the peculiar purity

and dryness of the desert air to which a touch of frost at night may give added vitality.