Arts and the Man By LOUIS UNTERMEYER Xenophon Cohn has a tale of his own The tale of an artist-attorney; His mother had praised him and petted and raised him To play all the pieces of Czerny. At nine he could do what Bach never knew And at ten he had written a novel; Before he was twenty his paintings had plenty Of points to make enemies grovel. His dreams were of fame that would carry his name All the way from the East to El Paso; So when he read law, the things that he saw Were the works of George Moore and Picasso. Xenophon Cohn grew as thin as a bone, He sprinkled his speeches with pages of Nietzsche's And proved that most murders were right. He argued that arson was something a parson He talked for a time on the colors of crime, And proved his intenser convictions by Spencer, Though his larynx grew weak, he continued to speak And the lesson is this: when you study the law, You must stick to the quarrels of people with morals There is something absurd in the use of a word That will stir up the middle-class spleen; For art, like a child, should be seen and not heard, THE CAREY PRINTING CO. INC. NEW YORK THE HE auto tour over the old Apache Trail of Arizona offers today one of the most remarkable trips ever presented to tourists. It takes you over the most ancient highway in America through a region rich in historic associations. Aeons ago a primitive race of extraordinary development inhabited the Salt River Valley and territory farther north as attested by ruins of cliff habitations and vestiges of great irrigation schemes. They were the ancient Shinumos, the people who disappeared. Pottery, mortars and stone implements of war, granaries and weird hieroglyphics in labyrinths of lava are all man has to know them by. Their caves and terraces remained for more modern tribes to turn to their uses and wonder at. Their name was a word signifying "We, the Wise." Assailed by other tribes and gradually superseded, they passed away, but the mystery of their early civilization "haunts about" a region of unique topography and gorgeously barbaric color. After them came the "Conquistadores," whose very name thrills with romance. In this very region, upon this very trail, one follows the footsteps of the early sixteenth century Spanish explorers. One is borne back mentally to the time when, after the Castilian conquest and colonization of Mexico, men set out northward from "New Galicia" in search of fresh adventure, inexorably drawn on by rumors of the marvels to be found, though somewhat daunted by myths and legends inspired by the fantastic rock and land formations of the unknown waste. Men thought that there might well be terrible demons and grotesque monsters in ambush there. A monk, Fray Marcos of Niza, had returned with tales of the Seven Golden Cities of Cibola, one of them larger than Mexico, and rich in precious metals. On the summits of distant mesas the sunset shaped awe-inspiring castles of cloud. Next to the name of Hernando Cortez himself stands that of Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, who led his helmeted companies after this mirage in that remote, romantic era. What they found, of course, were the pueblos of the Zuni Indians. The golden cities seemed to recede before them as they toiled on. Finally, standing on the wily chief, Geronimo, figured so dashingly in comparatively recent American history. The Apaches also used the old trail, across a land deeply scored by dizzy canons and embossed with painted cliffs a land of brilliant colors and air as clear as crystal. Emigrant trains that wound their way through the Gila Valley in the fifties were attacked and decimated by the savages. Apache raids and murders before '71 spread panic among southern villages and ranchos. Finally the settlers petitioned General Grant that General Crook, the famous Indian fighter, be sent to restore order. The Navajos had come under early Spanish missionary influences. to a considerable extent. The Mojavos were planters; the Moquis for the most part kept to their cliffs; but the Apaches had derided the glorious efforts and martial power of Castile. Since the days of Cortez they had raided and plundered over an area greater than that of Germany, France, Italy, and Great Britain, through Texas, Arizona, and New Mex 30 ico. War was the breath of their nostrils. They were snakes for strategy and squirrels in climbing. Their wickiups were everywhere, their signal smokes constantly rising. Bound around the loins with buckskin, clad in long moc casins and eagle-plumed headdresses, they swept a wide territory. General Crook was our more modern Daniel Boone, a man simple and strong, without love of military glitter or finery. Blue-eyed, hawk-nosed, inured to every hardship of the open, he led his troopers through deserts bristling with cactus and mescal. He carefully studied the contour of the country at first-hand. He cultivated the peaceful element among the Apaches and knew their chiefs. In the Sierra Madre Mountains he led a campaign after the savage Chiricahuas, whose chief Chochise became so famous in the annals of Indian warfare, as well as the later Victorio, who shook his hawk-feathered lance in the face of two nations, till the Mexican soldiery finally exterminated his bands. For, after the Mexican War, the resulting boundary cut sharply through the heart of the Apache country and the bandits made havoc on both sides of the border. Then the railroad puffed through their deserts, and miners followed. |