BarbarousMexico JOHN KENNETH TURNER

42 BARBAROUS MEXICO
and carried them in the gunboat El De;nocrafa and dropped
them in the ocean between the mouth of the Yaqui river and
the seaport of Guaymas, all of them perishing."
A report was circulated along our Mexican border
that an incident similar to the last mentioned happened
in February, 1908. Colonel Francisco B. Cruz, who
was in charge of the exiles and who claims to have been
on board of the gunboat and witnessed the incident, dedared
to me, however, that this report was not true.
The Yaquis were drowned, he declared, but not by the
authorities, and, since at that time the government was
not killing any Yaquis whom it could catch and sell, I
accept the version of Colonel Cruz as the correct one.
"Suicide—nothing but suicide," asseverated the Colonel.
"Those Indians wanted to cheat me out of my commission
money and so they threw their children into the
sea and jumped in after them. I was on board myself
and saw it all. I heard a loud cry, and looking, saw
some of the crew running to the starboard side of the
vessel. I saw the Yaquis in the water. Then there was
a cry from the port side and I saw the Yaquis jumping
overboard on that side. We lowered boats, but it was
no use; they all went down before we got to them."
"Every soldier who kills a Yaqui," an army physician
who served two years with the troops against the Yaquis
and whom I met in Mexico City, told me, "is paid a reward
of one hundred dollars. To prove his feat the
soldier must show the ears of his victim. 'Bring in the
ears,' is the standing order of the officers. Often I
have seen a company of soldiers drawn up in a square
and one of their number receiving one hundred dollars
for a pair of ears.
"Sometimes small squads of the Indians are captured,
and when I was with the army it was customary