Josiah Gregg - City Quotes

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Being once more forced to emigrate, they passed into Illinois, where they founded the famous 'City of Nauvoo.'

Josiah Gregg
The city of Zacatecas... is celebrated for its mining interests. Like all other Mexican towns of the same class, it originated in small, insignificant settlements on the hillsides, in the immediate vicinity of the mines, until it gradually grew up to be a large and wealthy city, with a population of some 30,000 inhabitants.... Many of the streets are handsomely paved, and two of the squares are finely ornamented with curiously carved jetsd'eau [water fountains], which are supplied with water raised by mule power, from wells among the adjacent hills. From these the city is chiefly furnished with water.

Josiah Gregg
We were soon under way, and very little regret did I feel when I fairly lost sight of the city of scorpions. But I was not yet wholly beyond the pale of difficulties. Owing to the fame of the Indian hostilities in the North, it was almost impossible to procure the services of Mexican muleteers for the expedition.... I was of course delighted when I reached Chihuahua, on the 14th of May, in perfect safety.

Josiah Gregg
Besides the cock-pit, the gaming-table, and the Alameda [tree-lined avenue], which is the popular promenade for the wealthy and the indolent, one of the most favorite pastimes of the females generally is shopping; and the most fashionable time for this is by candle-light, after they have partaken of their chocolate and their cigarritos. The streets and shops are literally filled from dusk till nine or ten o'clock; and many a time have I seen the counter of a store actually lined till a late hour, with the fairest and most fashionable señoritas of the city.

Josiah Gregg
This affair is a pretty just sample of most of the successful battles of this 'great general.'... the soldiery amused themselves by sacking the city, and by perpetrating every species of outrage that their mercenary and licentious appetites could devise. Their savage propensities were particularly exercised against the few foreigners that were found in the place. Meanwhile I was journeying very leisurely towards Durango, where I arrived on the 21st of April.

Josiah Gregg
Having closed all my affairs in Chihuahua, and completed my preparations for departing, I took my leave of that city for the North, on the 31st of October, 1839. I was accompanied by a caravan consisting of twenty-two wagons (all of which save one belonged to me), and forty odd men, armed to the teeth, and prepared for any emergency we might be destined to encounter: a precaution altogether necessary, in view of the hordes of hostile [natives]...

Josiah Gregg
But a new difficulty now presented itself. I must procure a guia or passport for my cargo of merchandise, with a responsible endorser,— an additional imposition I was wholly unprepared for, as I was then ignorant of any law to that effect being in force, and had not a single acquaintance in the city. I was utterly at a loss what to do: under any other circumstances I might have left the amount of the derecho de consumo in deposit, as others have been obliged to do on similar occasions; but unfortunately I had laid out the last dollar of my available means.

Josiah Gregg
It is usual for each trader, upon his arrival in that city, to engage a store-room, and to open and exhibit his goods... His most profitable custom is that of the petty country merchants from the surrounding villages. Some traders, it is true, continue in the retail business for a season or more, yet the greater portion are transient dealers, selling off at wholesale as soon as a fair bargain is offered.

Josiah Gregg
Durango is also celebrated as being the head-quarters, as it were, of the whole scorpion family. During the spring, especially, so much are the houses infested by these poisonous insects, that many people are obliged to have resort to a kind of mosquito-bar, in order to keep them out of their beds at night. As an expedient to deliver the city from this terrible pest, a society has actually been formed, which pays a reward of a cuartilla (three cents) for every alacran (or scorpion) that is brought to them. Stimulated by the desire of gain, the idle boys of the city are always on the look-out: so that, in the course of a year, immense numbers of this public enemy are captured and slaughtered.

Josiah Gregg
No better evidence can be found of the extensive operations which have been carried on in this the greatest mining district of Northern Mexico, than in the little mountains of scoria [dregs] which are found in the suburbs of the city. A great number of poor laborers make a regular business of hammering to pieces these metallic excrescences, from which they collect silver enough to buy their daily bread.

Josiah Gregg
The road which leads into the town of Jesus-Maria from the west side of the mountain is also extremely perilous and steep, and seems almost to overhang the houses below. Heavily laden mules have sometimes slipped off the track, and tumbled headlong into the town. This place is even more pent up between ridges than Zacatecas: the valley is narrower and the mountains much higher; while, as is the case with that remarkable city, the houses are sometimes built in successive tiers, one above another; the azoteas [roofs] of the lower ones forming the yard of those above.

Josiah Gregg