The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 66, July 1962 - April, 1963 Page: 554
641 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
though our men were fatigued and exhausted, hurried on, until we
reached the little village Alameda. When we were within about a
mile of that village, a Mexican girl jumped over a fence, and joined
me, and the Mexican guard who rode beside me, for I was so tired
that I was in the rear of our men. The guard made love for me to the
girl, about sixteen years old, in a vulgar manner, then would address
me, I pretended for some time not to understand what he said-in
fact I did not all, but signs were too plain; he continued to interro-
gate me and weary me, till at last, disgusted, I told him, I was not
capable to receive, or return caresses; then he let me alone, but the
girl really pretty for an aboriginal Indian, followed by my side till
we reached Sandia, where after my scanty ration of meat boiled, I sank
down totally exhausted--oblivious to all our suffering, and could then
have died perhaps perfectly unconscious. In fact, death then had no
terror to us-there was no prospect for a better fate in the future.
After rising next morning for our day's march, we received one ear
of corn, to refresh usl
About noon we entered Albuquerque, being the largest town in
New Mexico. As we marched through the principal streets, the women,
with all kindness of heart, gave our men such simple provisions as
they had to spare, and had to subsist on themselves. The kind popula-
tion would have supplied us with a sufficiency, as they had to offer, but
that brute of an officer, Salezar, drove us through the place, with not a
halt of thirty minutes.
LXXII.
Here I quote an incident verbatim as described by Geo. W. Ken-
dall."
It was at Albuquerque that I saw a perfect specimen of female loveliness. The
girl was poor, being dressed only in a chemise and coarse woolen petticoat; yet
there was an air of grace, a charm about her that neither birth nor fortune can
bestow. She was standing upon a mud wall, the taper fingers of her right hand
supporting a large pumpkin upon her head, while her left was gracefully resting
upon her hip. Her dark full and lustrous eyes, overarched with brows of pencilled
regularity, and fringed with lashes of long and silken texture, beamed upon us
full of tenderness and pity, while an unbidden tear of sorrow at our misfortunes
was coursing down a cheek of the purest and richest olive. Her beautifully curved
lips, half opened as if in pity and astonishment at a scene so uncommon, disclosed
teeth of pearly, dazzling whiteness. Innocence and the best feelings of our nature
were playing in every lineament of that lovely face, and ever and anon as some
of us more unfortunate than the rest would limp, halting by, again her tears
would gush from their fountains, and illumine a countenance of purity. If
'Crystal tears from pity's eye
Are the stars in heaven high,'
some of them fell that day from the poor village girl, drawn from their firmament
to lighten the sorrows of those upon whom misfortune had laid her heavy hand.
She could not have been more than fifteen; yet her loose and flowing dress but
half concealing a bust of surpassing beauty and loveliness, plainly disclosed that
"Kendall, Narrative of the Texan Santa Fe Expedition, I, 383-385.554
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 66, July 1962 - April, 1963, periodical, 1963; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101196/m1/594/: accessed April 20, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.