On the Mexican Highlands, with a Passing Glimpse of Cuba

William Edwards

William Seymour Edwards

On the Mexican Highlands, with a Passing Glimpse of Cuba

FOREWORD

These pages contain the impressions of a casual traveller – a few letters written to my friends.

Upon the temperate Highlands of Mexico, a mile and more above the sea, I was astonished and delighted at the salubrity of climate, the fertility of soil, the luxuriance of tree and plant, the splendor and beauty of the cities, the intelligence and progressiveness of the people, the orderliness and beneficence of the governmental rule.

In Cuba I caught the newborn sentiment for liberty and order, and at the same time came curiously into touch with restive leaders, who even then boldly announced the intention to plot and wreck that liberty and order by sinister revolution, if their wild spirits should find no other way to seize and hold command.

If there shall be aught among these letters to interest the reader, I shall welcome another to the little circle for whose perusal they were originally penned.

В В В В William Seymour Edwards.

Charleston-Kanawha, West Virginia,

November 1, 1906.

I

Flying Impressions Between Charleston-Kanawha and New Orleans

В В В В New Orleans, Louisiana,

В В В В November 15th.

When the New York and Cincinnati Flyer (the “F. F. V. Limited”) came into Charleston yesterday, it was an hour late and quite a crowd was waiting to get aboard. Going with me as far as Kenova were D, H, and eight or ten of “the boys.” They all carried Winchesters and were bound on a trip to the mountains of Mingo and McDowell, on the Kentucky line, to capture a moonshine still which was reported to be doing a fine business selling to the mines. D wanted me to go along, and offered me a rifle or a shotgun, as I chose. They are big men, all of them, and love a scrap, which means the give and take of death, and have no fear except of ambush. I still carry in my pocket the flat-nosed bullet D took from the rifle of Johnse Hatfield two years ago, when he caught him lying-in-wait behind a rock watching for Doc. Ellis to come forth from his front door. Johnse was afterward hanged in Pikeville for other crimes. Then, a few months later, his brother “Lias,” just to get even, picked off Doc. Ellis as he was getting out of a Pullman car. Now “Lias” is said to be looking for D, also, but D says he’s as handy with his gun as “Lias” is, if only he can get a fair show. D is captain of this raid and promises to bring me tokens of a successful haul, but I am apprehensive that, one of these days, he or some other of “the boys” will not come back to Charleston.

At Ashland my Louisville car was attached to the Lexington train, and we turned to the left up the long grade and soon plunged into the hill country of eastern Kentucky. Here is a rough, harsh land, a poor, yellow soil, underlying miles of forest from which the big timber has long since been felled. Here and there small clearings contain log cabins, shack barns, and soil which must always produce crops as mean as the men who till it. We were traversing the land of the vendettas. At the little stations, long, lank, angular men were gathered, quite frequently with a rifle or a Winchester shotgun in their bony hands. It was only two or three years ago that one of these passenger trains was “held up,” by a rifle-armed gang, who found the man they were looking for crouching in the end of the smoker, and shot him to death right then and there – but not before he had killed two or three of the assassins.

I had gone forward into the smoking car, for it is in the day coaches where one meets the people of the countryside when traveling. I had seated myself beside a tall, white-haired old man who was silently smoking a stogie, such as is made by the local tobacco growers of this hill country. He had about him the air of a man of importance. He was dressed in homespun jeans and wore the usual slouch felt hat. He had a strong, commanding face, with broad, square chin and a blue eye which besp