y crimes. This tribe of Apaches
has given the government of the United States almost as much trouble
as have the Seminoles in Florida, and I hesitate not in saying, that
before they are exterminated, which is the only sure plan of making
a peace with them, they will have surpassed their red brethren of the
swamps of the South in the number and enormity of their crimes. Before
New Mexico came under the jurisdiction of the United States, the
Apaches, for many years, had committed all kinds of heinous offences
against the Mexicans; and, for a period of ten years after that event,
these same savages were continually on the war path, notwithstanding
military expeditions, one after another, were organized and sent out
against them. Their mountain retreats are almost inaccessible to white
men, while the Indians, apparently, play about in them like rabbits.
The amount of physical endurance and the length of the journeys these
red men can make, appear very astonishing to one not accustomed to
them. The Apaches, as an Indian race, are not wanting in bravery, the
best evidence of which statement is, that nearly all their warriors
_die in battle_. Their country is the healthiest in America.
Besides waging war against the whites and Mexicans, they have their
differences to settle with their neighboring tribes, with whom they
are punctilious in vindicating their national honor. Colonel Beall
commenced his operations against these Indians by dispatching a junior
officer, backed by a strong force, with orders to pursue, overtake,
and chastise them. This expedition started; but, on coming to the
mountains, the guides reported that there was too much snow on them
for the command to pass through in safety; so the undertaking was
given up, and the men were marched back to Taos.

The most famous war chief of the Apaches, during these troubles,
was called by the Mexicans _Chico Velasques_, and his name, for many
years, was a terror to the surrounding country. His savage brutality
knew no bounds, and he was truly in his element, only when he was
tearing the bloody scalp from his half-lifeless victim. He was the
sworn enemy of the Americans and Mexicans, and his hunting-knife was
rarely clean of human blood, until his cruel life, by the wise decrees
of an all-seeing Providence, was suddenly cut short. He fought against
his disease (small pox) with that rashness that had been his ruling
spirit through life, and thus ingloriously terminated his