The sand storms at Fort Craig were something to remember, or rather I should say impossible to forget. They are simply a straight wind blowing with terrific force and loaded with fine sand and dust and very fine gravel. I remember particularly one that came up one day when the steward and I were making out the monthly reports at the hospital. The windows and doors were closed and everything made as snug as possible, yet when the storm was over one made tracks when walking across the floor as visible as he would have made walking along a sandy highway. It was a serious matter to be out in one of them, for unless the face was covered one would suffer severely from the stinging sand and fine gravel, and everything a short distance away was shut out from sight. There are also some pleasant things to remember of my experience at this post. The hunting, particularly of wild fowl, was very good, the ducks remaining late in the spring and returning early in the fall. The sunsets were beautiful beyond my power of description. It was my first summer in a rarified atmosphere and I imagined at times I could see objects moving along the mountain range some thirty miles away. I remember one evening when Doctor Seguin was visiting a few days with me on his return from Fort Selden to New York, having left the service, we were out for a walk together and were up on a little mound just west of the post as the sun went down and his attention was called to the beautiful cloud effects. He remarked that he had never seen anything more beautiful in Italy. The doctor was a Frenchman by birth; his father was a medical man of distinction, and while most of his life had been spent in this country he had traveled extensively abroad and his education, particularly in medicine, had been acquired in Europe. He was now returning to New York to take up his work as a lecturer on nervous diseases in the College of Physicians and Surgeons.
While the doctor was visiting with me we went up to San Marcial to witness the games on St. John's day, June 24th. San Marcial was at that time a small straggling Mexican village of one street with adobe houses on each side and all told maybe had one hundred inhabitants. We did not go into any of the houses and only witnessed one game of any interest, it was a rough-and-tumble affair and excited great interest among the Mexicans. A rooster with its legs tied would be buried in a little mound of sand in the middle of the street, leaving only its head and neck sticking above the mound. The game was for the horsemen to form in line some distance up the street and come at full speed swooping down from the saddle, grab the chicken by the head, and then the battle was on for the chicken. The possessor of the unfortunate chicken would strike out over adobe walls and across irrigating ditches, anywhere to get out of the way of his pursuers and when at last he would be cornered, or surrounded, a battle royal would follow. I could not determine how the matter was decided but when the game was over they would come back and repeat the performance. There were many misses in their efforts to pick up the rooster, but a few of the contestants were more expert than the others and several succeeded in swinging down and retrieving the rooster from the mound of sand. We left while the game was still in progress. In all the games I witnessed among the Mexicans there appeared the element of cruelty in some form or other.
