The Nation of the Willows

I.

THE RIDE THITHER.

ONE winter night, some Indian brothers told me of a most marvelous country toward the sunset, covered by waterless wastes and vast pine forests, and cut through by cañons as deep as the peaks of the Sierra Madre are high. “ A veritable land of summer,” they said, “deep down in a cold country, where sit our younger brothers, the Kuhni kwe.”

“ Are they a nation as great as our own ? ” I asked, wondering whether the old chief were telling me of a people of to-day, or of the personages of some fireside tradition of his forefathers.

“ Oh, no,” he replied; “ there are but a few houses of them. They are wiser than the Navajos, and sit still in a cañon so deep that a little stone rolled from the top sounds like thunder ere it strikes the bottom. The road down is a whole day long, and only a little while in the middle of the day do you see the sun from below.”

“ Ah, no, you won't! ” exclaimed my brother, when I enthusiastically told him I would go to that far-off country, and look myself upon the younger brothers of the Zuñis. “ You are a little crazy, brother younger,” he added, after a puff or two from his cigarette, and a sarcastic smile. “ You Americans are a soft people. True, you are a Zuñi now, but you had an American mother; and the Americans sleep on bags of down, I am told. I know they get thirsty before the morning of a hot day has gone, for did n’t I make roads with them through the country of the Navajos, many years ago? — and there is water there. Now, could you go with the skin of your throat dry three — yes, four — days, or leave your horse dead by the trail-side, without thought, little brother ? Don’t talk any more about going to Kuhni. The young people will ask you ‘ how many buck-skins you brought back,’ if you do. You would n’t like them to do that, when you had never been there ! ”

But I did go, and this came to be the way of it.

I had to wait a year and a half for instructions ; to use my authority as a chief, and to rant through two big councils, before Tsai-iu-tsaih-ti-wa — a young Indian who had been there — would consent to guide me. He and Tits-kemat-se, Captain Pratte’s Cheyenne protégé, educated at Hampton, and sent out by my directors as companion and assistant in the field, were my only companions, as, on a hot June morning, we wound down the hill on which old Zuñi stands, and struck out northwestward through the fields of half-grown corn, toward the ruin-covered, picture-scarred base of Kwilli yallon, or Twin Mountain. Our two headstrong government mules, laden with beads and shells for trade, provisions and scientific apparatus, gave us no little trouble until we had left behind us the mountain buttes, and began to ascend the low, long, gray and grassy hills which bound the north and west of the valley of Zuñi.

Over these sandy trailed hills, up the wide, undulating western mesa, the solitary Twin Mountain behind us, the long stretch of ever-rising table-lands in front, we climbed and journeyed, until, toward evening, we rode down a beaten antelope trail to the mud-springs of Pi-la-na, or the “ Row of Willows,” just inside the eastern borders of Arizona.

Here we were detained until nearly dark by “ Black,” — “ Black Corn,” the Indians called her,—whose experiences in the winter campaign against the Apaches of Southern New Mexico and Sonora seemed to have taught her more of the wisdom of caring for herself than of obedience: for she characteristically rushed ahead to water, and was buried to the very eyes in one of the bottomless pools of mud, only her broad pack and much hauling saving her. So we were forced to build a big fire of pitchy pinon, — for the night was cold, — and to camp near an old deserted cabin ; the coyotes, night-birds, and restless, half-wild Navajo horses made many a break in the camp-fire stories of my Indians, but disturbed not the slumber of the weary journeyers, after they had rolled themselves in their serapes and were stretched around the smoking brands.

Toward noon, the next day, we descended one of the tributary valleys of the Rio Puerco, finding, on our way down, a picturesque encampment of the Navajos. Ever awake to trade, the old men and women greeted us demonstratively, while the children scampered away and hid under sticks, blankets, or what not. For a few beads the men furnished meat for the remainder of our journey. The strange, beehive-shaped, earth-covered hut, with wattled shelter at its entrance, in the centre of which burned a smoky little fire, as well as the rude stick loom strung up in the shadow of a cedar-tree, at which a brightly dressed young squaw was diligently weaving, excited much curiosity and comment on the part of Tits-ke-mat-se.

Beyond, up the valley, we came to a spring, carefully walled in by the Indians, flowing out from the base of a gray hill, crowned by the broken-down ruins of a once great pueblo. While we ate a lunch of jerked meat and parched corn meal, my Indian Tsai-iutsaih-ti-wa told the story which gives name to the place as the “ spring where the old woman entered.”

“ In the days of the Kâ kâ,” he said, “ a goddess, who was invulnerable, because she carried her heart in a little gourd rattle, continually stirred up strife between the gods and men. Things, thus, were not well. So the two infant children of the sun, A-hai-iu-ta and Matsai-le-ma, went up to their father, and implored his interposition. He gave to them the arrow of white lightning, and told them the secret of the life of the goddess. Now, the two immortal children had led the Pueblo races since the days of creation, and loved their people ; so with great joy in their hearts they descended to earth. Even then the wars of the Kâ kâ were raging, and the goddess was striding up and down between the mortal and the immortal forces, ever uttering a low, long, moaning cry ; for her person was pierced by many arrows, but she could not die, because her heart was in the rattle. Now one of the children aimed his sacred arrow, and, keen of sight, strong of arm, though but a boy. he let go, and shattered the rattle ; and the goddess, so long unconquerable, fell before him. Peace was once more established between the gods and mankind; but the goddess died not. Far away to the northward, her spirit entered the clear waters of a spring, near a city of the children of men ; and when she again came forth on earth it was as the benevolent leader of warriors against evil things and the elements, that mankind might be blessed with rain.”

By such stories as this and dozens of folk-lore tales, often of great length, was the journey enlivened or the camp entertained by my ever happy Indians.

Thence, our way lay over rising hills to the westward, higher and higher, by long stretches of grass and piñon-covered mesa, until, toward evening, passing a deep, sandy arroyo, and again climbing, we found ourselves at the very edge of a high precipice, midway between Zuñi and Moqui. Deep down, like the basin of a sea, and many times longer than wide, was a great plain-like valley. Our trail wound down narrow banks of talus, around the bases of huge, broken red and gray sand rocks and columns, and led out across it in a wavering line, through bands of dark sage-brush, to the far-off western boundaries. There, just at the foot of a gray mesa as abrupt and grand as the one we stood on, a sheet of water shimmered, now golden, now burnished silver, which, from its brilliancy in a setting of dark gray twilight cliffs, seemed to stand far above the plain it watered. Clouds of sand were grandly wafted hither and thither by the evening winds, and far off to the right of the trail, half hidden by a cloud of dust fairly brilliant, the rays of the opposite sun shooting through in lines of rosemingled shadow, a herd of wild Navajo horses galloped from their solitary watering-place toward their limitless pastures, off among the cedar-clad foot-hills to the north. A gray coyote was sneaking along amongst the bushes far below us, his tail almost dragging in the sand, and one ear pricked up toward ourselves, while the other was pointed toward the distant, speeding herd of horses. A great eagle, the envy of Tits-ke-matse, was circling uneasily about its nest among the rocks to our left, and some little brown cotton-tails, well aware of his presence, were dodging in and out far below. Beyond all, off to the west and south, stood black, volcanic peaks : some pointed and narrow, like needles ; others rising in perfect symmetry to a broad level top, giving them the appearance of giant cones, the points of which had been trimmed off midway down. One, which rose far to the southwest, among the milder plains of Arizona, like a great black chimney, was eagerly pointed out to me by Tsai-iu-tsaih-ti-wa, as the home of Te-na-tsa-li, or the “ medicine flower,” from which my own Indian name was derived. Upon its summit, he said, apparently so narrow and scaleless, was an ancient town of stone, once the home of his own people, and in the open plaza of which still stood a shrine, Here pilgrim medicine men yet made sacrifices to the spirit of Te-na-tsa-li, whose flesh and blood spring yearly in manycolored flowers about its base. Sometimes a sudden current of air in the fading sunlight would lift these great mountains into the mid-heavens, making giant cities of them amid rosy floating clouds, and the sands, rolled along the great basin at our feet, made it seem like a red, yellow, and gray foam-capped sea, which divided us from a new and wonderful world.

I enjoyed this scene a few moments while the Indians were securing the packs. Then we descended, doubling once and again on our trail, here and there slipping over rounded soft bowlders into great beds of limy débris. Black asserted her independence once more. She wished to make a trail of her own, and succeeded. It was straight and narrow, like a black streak, with much dust hanging over it; but after the dust had settled and the stones had ceased rolling, no traces of travel appeared, save occasional pieces of frayed rope and patches of black hair. It speaks well for Indian packing that when Black got up, shook herself, breathed deeply, and started for a bunch of sagebrush she carried with her the pack. But that night we had to straighten our frying-pan with a chunk of sandstone, and throw our coffee-pot away.

As we approached the browsing mule, the Indians said she was taking medicine to overcome the effects of fear. “ See !” said Tsai-iu-tsaih-ti-wa; “ she is all right, for she listens with her left ear for the coming of the other mule.” But on nearing her I discovered that the ear in question was either disjointed or paralyzed. Not until three or four days after did it move back and forth with the same celerity or precision as had been the case when Black was listening for the customary morning lasso. She was without injury, save the paralyzed ear, and, having gathered her with the rest of the animals into the trail, we proceeded across the basin. Deceptive plain ! It was filled with deep arroyos, the passage of which did far more toward disjointing the packs than had Black’s descent of the precipice.

As we approached the sheet of water, we found it to be a pond, formed by the confinement of some streamlets from a spring, farther up among the cliffs, in an embankment of sand, which some Navajos had made, and whose smokebannered hogans stood farther below. Far as the eye could reach over the plains which we had just crossed, or up the great cliffs and hills we were to climb in the morning, not a piñon or cedar could be seen. The Navajos had erected many poles, however, in some corn-fields surrounding their huts, interruptedly dotting the sandy plain for nearly half a mile, which, variously decorated with worn-out dresses and blankets, deer-bones and clattering sticks, had served as scarecrows. I directed Titske-mat-se, who could not understand Navajo expostulation so well as Tsai-iutsaih-ti-wa, to gather a sufficient quantity of these for camping purposes, intending to pay for them in beads. In the centre of a grassy patch Tsai-iutsaih-ti-wa unpacked the mules, while Tits-ke-mat-se, less mindful of the singsong jabbering of an old Navajo hag than of my directions, gathered in the desirable number of scarecrows.

We were very tired that night, and supper was not finished until darkness had settled all around our little firelit camp. Even later we were approached by one after another of the Navajos, who came to examine our beads, shells, and other trinkets, no doubt with the hope of bartering. Tits-ke-mat-se was extremely suspicious of them. He called me a fool for entertaining them, and kept a close eye on the squaw of the party, who sat nearest the packages. He soon detected her secreting a bunch or two of bright red and black beads, and silently informed me of it by sign language. I demanded of her, in the few Navajo words I could muster, the delivery of the beads, which so astonished the poor natives, ignorant as they were of signs, that they soon departed as they had come, one by one.

I was awakened next morning by a chorus composed of Zuñi, Navajo, broken English, and Cheyenne imprecations, and soon learned that, under the leadership of Black, our animals had braved the restraint of hobbles and picket-ropes and entered the Navajo corn-fields. As soon as I looked around, however, all was quiet. Tsai-iu-tsaihti-wa stirred the olla; Tits-ke-mat-se transferred his anger to Black, who was, as usual, dodging the lasso ; and Mrs. Navajo No. 3, who had claimed damage, sneaked off toward the hut, returning soon with a blanket for trade.

Scarecrows, corn, and blankets paid for, breakfast over, packing done, the animals well watered, we climbed the gray cliffs, and turned westward over a great descending grassy plain to another line of cliffs, higher than the former, and red. At the summit of these was a plain, grassy and everywhere cut up with antelope trails. The view stretched far, revealing strange red sandstone houses, citadels, giants’ heads, monster forms as various and inconceivable as those of summer clouds. Here and there stood the great pointed black peaks and flat-topped mountains which we had seen the night before. Here, Tsai-iu-tsaih-ti-wa said, were the homes of the gods of prey, who were changed to stone in the days of the ancients. Most marvelous indeed were these rock forms, and I blamed not the Indians for regarding them as so many “ pillars of salt.” The day was excessively hot. Almost famished for want of water, I asked a Navajo, whom I met on a fagged pony at the foot of a hill, for a drink. He motioned me to a mountain about twentyfive miles on. Where was I going ? he asked; and when I told him, he shook his head, and moved his flat hand significantly back toward Zuñi.

Tits-ke-mat-se espied an antelope, and gave chase. Two hours after, when the hunter had returned and caught up with us, his horse fell by the trail-side, and refused for a long time to go further. Thereafter we slowly labored along, my own brave horse at last wavering in the path, but keeping faithfully on. Dismounting, I directed the Indians to proceed with the animals, while I followed on foot. Long and most lonely was this last but one of the days between Zuñi and Moqui. Over basaltic mesas with grassy plains between; here and there the trail sharp with slag, in other places dusty and burning in the rays of the southern sun ; all around, mountains of the strangest forms imaginable ; grass, piñons, cedars, blooming sunflowers, and twittering birds, but no water. Just before sunset, rounding to the left the western base of a malpais mesa, the favored home of rattlesnakes and sand lizards, I saw Tsai-iu-tsaih-ti-wa running toward me with a canteen strapped over his forehead. Faithful fellow ! He had waited for nothing, on reaching water, but left Tits-ke-mat-se to unpack while he ran down to the spring in a cave at the base of the cliff, filled the canteen, and hastened back to me. He handed me the canteen with the smile of a child expecting praise, and, pleased when I gave it, walked along by my side, telling more of his charming stories. Further yet to the left, whither the trail led into a great half-round recess in the high basaltic cliffs, near a little cedar-tree, stood one or two of our jaded animals. Tits-ke-mat-se was kneeling near, kindling a fire ; while far beyond him, where the cliffs again resumed their outward sweep and straight course, I could see a flock of Navajo sheep, scarcely distinguishable from gray rocks, save for the cloud of dust which hovered over them and floated gently off on the wind toward the west.

Cliffs six hundred feet high rose round our camp, capped by basaltic columns, on which grew stunted cedar and sage. Near the edge, up above the spring, a pair of screaming falcons were feeding their noisy young ; and even before the coffee was boiled my two Indians had each tried his rifle on them, picking a feather from the wing of one, and leaving great white spots on the smooth dark cliffs wherever the bullets struck. Every report of a gun, or even the noise of a broken twig, thundered from one side of the recess to the other, gathering, descending, entering the cave of the spring, and issuing forth again like thunder, but softened and modulated by the sound of water.

Early next morning, I saw a herd of horses galloping toward us from the base of the opposite mountain. By and by, when a whirlwind lifted above the shadow of the mountain the mantle of dust which covered the coming herd, I saw among the horses’ heads a lassoencircled, bare-back rider, in red shirt and Navajo blanket. Not many minutes elapsed ere the rider and horses approached our camp, the horses wildly plunging past us into the cavern, again awaking its watery echoes. Ere breakfast was finished our red-shirted friend was joined by others. Tsai-iu-tsaih-tiwa told me ruefully that Tits-ke-matse’s horse could not proceed, so I began bargaining with the Navajos, who, at last, tempted by a number of silver dollars, traded a fine cream-colored stallion for my worn-out jade, and once more we took the trail. Each half mile changed the environment, and turned the more distant views into new ones. Every peak had its tradition interpreted by Tsai-iu-tsaih-ti-wa. “ Here, five generations ago, on the summit of that spindle-shaped mountain to the right, died a lonely Zuñi traveler, after keeping seventeen Navajos at bay half a day. Right there where the little heap of stones stands, the father of the Navajo who sold us the horse struck dead my grand-uncle and his wife, when they started home, one autumn, from the country of the Moquis. It is three plains and sand valleys from here to that red sandstone cliff you see away yonder,” said Tsai-iu-tsaih-ti-wa, pointing towards the horizon. “ A tough climb it is; and do you see that black speck at the top ? That is A-wa-te-u, near Moqui.” “ What’s that ? ” I asked. “ Ah, it’s the ruin of the city where the gray water-fathers [Jesuits] were burnt out and ‘war-clubbed’ by our grandfathers and the Walpi.” What a climb it proved to be: sandstone, red, gray, and white, worn by wind, storm, and water, broken down and piled up ; the trail winding in and out among rocks as big as country taverns, or scaling terraces where the sure-footed pony would have slipped but for the stairway picked with flint hammers by the diligent cliffdwellers in the centuries past. When at last I reached the top, and paused a moment in the plaza of the ancient city, the tradition of Tsai-iu-tsaih-ti-wa bore abundant corroboration in the charred reed roofings, which still stuck in the mud walls ; in the carefully mixed adobes of the broken-down church, which zeal had diligently built in the centre of the court; or in the thousand of shining potsherds, red, green, white, yellow, and black, which besprinkled the bases of long lines of tumbled-down stone houses.

If another Francis Parkman could compile the yellow papers of the days of the Conquest, which are growing mustier and mustier in the Mexican and Spanish monasteries, and write the brave history of the faith in New Spain, what chapters of heroism, devotion, adventure, would be opened to an unconscious world of wondering readers !

Down the other side of the mesa of the ruin, we came to a spring in the face of the cliff, where a Moqui woman handed me a drink of the cool water. She was bright-skinned, red-cheeked, rosy-lipped, and graceful; her hair was done in two rolls, which hung down her breast ; her arms were bare to the sun, yet not burned ; her bracelets of silver shone against the dark blue dress, and clinked against one another as she filled her water-jar with a gourd-shaped dipper. A moment after she was shaking hands with Tsai-iu-tsaih-ti-wa, and telling how many had died in Te-wa — this with a sigh — since his last visit.

Just at sunset, I reached, before the Indians, the base of the mesa of Walpi. A single young Indian was climbing up the great spiral trail from a cistern in the sand. I tried Spanish with him ; it was useless. Then I spoke in Zuñi. The fellow was transfixed; he gazed at me with open eyes and mouth, dropped his canteen of water and raw-hide hobbles, forgot the burros he had brought to water, and, after some moments, exclaimed in the same language, “ What do I hear?” So an acquaintance was formed with one of the few Zuñi-speaking Moquis ; by lucky accident the first one I met. While I stood talking with the young Te-wan, my little caravan came up, and together we ascended the winding, difficult trail through the notch which separates the mesa of Walpi from all the world. But more than once it was necessary for us to combine our efforts to urge the snorting animals along the giddy heights that we had to pass ere we reached the top. Here I found a compact little pueblo of stone houses, terraced one above the other, like step above step, in the rock-shelves of the mesa it stood on. It was built around a square plaza, entered by a single narrow opening in the southeastern corner, whence a heavy ladder led up to a solid three-terraced dwelling, which was destined to become our temporary house. On the first terrace a noisy assemblage of women and children was gathered, among whom could be seen the smiling face of a young man, who shouted hilariously in Zuñi, “ Come you all? Well, well; come up and sit. Here,” said he to a crowd of youngsters; “ hurry down and unpack their mules and horses, while I lift them up. My girl,” — to his wife, the handsomest of the crowd, — “ set out the cooked stuff, peaches, and pí-ké.”

As I ascended the ladder, I glanced south along the narrow mesa, and saw the long plaza, a sacred estufa in the middle, with its two ladder poles sticking out of the smoke-hole, a wall of houses, then a space of bare rock, and midway toward the end the pueblo of Shi-maco-vi ; another space ; then, towering, picturesque Walpi, its background of clear sky following the sun down behind the snow-capped peaks of the San Francisco, with the shadow-filled, deep-lying, southwestward arc of the terrace-bounded Colorado Chiquito between. What a famous site is this long-lived remnant of the ancient province of Tusayan ! It stands at the very end of the long, isolated, gray mesa, looks down six hundred feet upon miles of mesa - besprinkled sand plain, and each evening is a towering silhouette against a rosestreaked and golden-mountain-fringed sunset sky.

What a triumph was my arrival in Moqui! It was greeted, when I reached the top of that ladder and afterward, as things long expected, yet often delayed, always are. The high priest of Walpi and all the chiefs of the three cities were summoned. The former performed, next day, the sacred and impressive rites of receiving me temporarily into his nation. Councils of learning, councils of mutual congratulations, councils of a sacred nature, councils of intermediation between the Moquis and onr government, — these filled up my days and nights while in Moqui.

My pleasantest memories of the Moquis lie in the universal confidence reposed in and displayed to me by old and young. On the morning following my arrival, I opened my eyes to greet a little boy whom I had known at Zuñi, and who had sat affectionately watching me no one knows how long. As soon as I was dressed he beckoned me to follow him to his rock-built Walpi. As we neared his house a beautiful little girl, of perhaps eleven or twelve summers, her hair coquettishly coiled up on either side of her head, came smilingly down to meet us, and without fear or hesitation ran to my side and placed her hand trustingly in mine, then tripped along up the stone walk with us, and prattled away eagerly all the while to her brother. When we reached their home, and I had finished the introductory smoke with the elders, the young girl placed some rolls of pí-ké and a specially prepared stew of rabbit before me with all the grace of more civilized usage and hospitality.

Nothing could be more touching, or more convincing of the advantages of my methods with the Indians, than the way in which this little girl and my other friends urged me not to cross the great dry deserts between Oraibe and Kuhni until the autumnal rains should render it safe ; or the way in which they came forward with all their best guides and interpreters, when they found that I was determined, or, as they thought, compelled by the Great Father, to make the journey.

Out of the little company, I selected our smiling host, Pu-lá-ka-kai ; and thus our party numbered four, as, on the morning of the fourth day, with the kind wishes of Agent and Dr. Sullivan, with the blessings and prayers of the high priest, said while giving me his parting embrace, and with every facility which Moqui generosity could give or Moqui ingenuity could contrive, — water-bottles, goat-skins, pí-ké, and hepa-lo-kia-oé, — we set out. Two sand plains and a high mesa between them passed, we found ourselves at Oraibe, where we witnessed a highly picturesque “ dance of the Navajos,” which I sketched in colors, thereby frightening half the population ; for the Oraibeans are the most isolated Indians we have, and, as they have been warned by the Mormons against the Americans, the treatment they gave us painfully contrasted with that of all other Moquis. We camped that night below the outlying Oraibe Gardens, a few miles away, rising early the next morning, and continuing northwestwardly to a sunken stream in the middle of a great sandy plain, where a Moqui, a kinsman of my guide, was attending his flocks. He showed at once his relationship and his generosity by sending us a fine fat sheep, and by coming down to spend an evening in chatting. When I went down to the water, before sleep, I saw a little prayer-plume eddying about in the wind, and “ collected ” it, but unfortunately fastened it, for safe-keeping, into the plume of my helmet.

Not very early the next morning we started off westward, over rolling, sandy stretches of country, turning at last southward, and following a well-beaten trail into the Desierto Pintado, which borders the Colorado Chiquito. Before we descended from the high sandy mesas which we had crossed, I rested on a great promontory, to take a nearer view of the valley which I had seen from the top of Te-wa. Terrace after terrace, one below another, stretched out before me, melting off into misty mirages. Citadels, towers, rancherias, green, sunny oases, appeared to be before me. Giant sand-dunes rose from plains of blazing, dazzling white. Here and there, near and far, rose great solitary rocks, angular as if the sculptor’s chisel had clearly cut them, and gorgeous with chrome and pink. Everywhere over this mighty scene were wafted clouds and clouds of sand, which shimmered, golden and rosy, in the evening sun. Everything in the scene gave the false impression of intense past activity: fallen rocks ; sublime depths of cañon; great basins ; high, flat peaks ; immense sandy plains, which looked as if they had been lifted and thrown upon their rocky heights, or cast into their sombre depths, where the winds of centuries had played with them daily. Of all this activity, with no sound, only great whirling, waving, drifting clouds of sand remained.

My watching detained me, and I followed down, down, down, to find that my guides had disappeared, and still down into a dark, sandy cañon, where I found them refreshing themselves on the few gallons of green water which were retained in a reed-encircled, sandy-bottomed tank, the only accessible spring in all this vast desert. Then came a succession of hard climbs, and breakneck descents, and plowings through deep sand-dunes, and followings of unmapable cañons, until dark found us in the dry bed of the Colorado Chiquito, where we built a huge fire and searched till we came upon a small pool of water. One more night of security, and we knew we had before us a hundred miles of desert, where water might or might not be discovered. Was it imagination that caused us to drink so often during that sleep-broken night from this sodafrosted pool ? No; the first delicious draught over, we found, to our great despair, that it was salty. All night long we could hear the animals traveling back and forth through the belt of cotton-woods which skirted the river between their grazing ground and the pool. When I rose, next morning, and looked northward, toward the high mesa homes of the Moquis, or turned southwestward toward the nearer slopes of the still distant sierra, it was not of the grandeur and solitude, the beauties and wonders by which we were surrounded, that I thought. It was of the deep, spiraltrailed cisterns in the sands near Moqui; of the clear streamlets of fresh, cool water which those mountain banks of snow were feeding. But I did not listen to the murmuring of my Indians. I knew that delay was dangerous, mutiny imminent if I stayed to listen to their gloomy prophecies. So, directing them to fill the goat-skin and every conceivable vessel with water, brackish though it was, I rode on ahead, never doubting they would follow my directions. The trail, well beaten, led over plains and little glades, which, merging into side valleys, ended in the great gray malpais terrace, over which the stoniest, most difficult trail at last brought me to the long but abrupt ascent of the border mesa of the Kuhni desert, the eastern edge of the Great Colorado Plateau. From the summit stretched off westward, northward, and southward a vast rolling plain, closed in on the south by the San Francisco mountains, on the west by the Juniper and blue mesa ranges, and on the north by an indefinite rising succession of undulations.

Imagine my surprise, as I struck out to cross it, on finding this great desert, never before crossed in this direction by a white man, — this desert where so many travelers, even hardy Indians, have perished, — covered with luxuriant grasses, green, gray, blue, flowers fresh as those of a valley, and giant piñons, with blue stretches of vast pine forests in the westward distance. So deserted is this lying oasis that none save the strongest-winged birds break its silence with song; nowhere in its vast extent, along our trail, does a single stone or broken fragment of pottery attest the primitive neighborhood of the hardy Pueblo race. Only the beaten trail before us, the bones, sometimes human, the bits of cast-away cordage, show that man has ever penetrated its solitudes. Tortured by thirst, I was forced erelong to rest beneath a piñon, and await the arrival of my Indians. Toward sunset they came up. I asked them for water. “ Teukia,” they replied. These scoundrels, who had all along exhorted me to “ be a man, little brother,” and had encouraged me with stories of the endurance of their race and correlative tales of the weakness of my own, had emptied the canteens, save one which they had carelessly broken, and only a few quarts of water remained in the goat-skin bag. Relying upon the good omen of the dance which we had witnessed at Oraibe, they had lazily neglected filling the latter. So they comforted me with the assurance that water was at hand, and, proceeding a little further, we began to descend a deep, dark, narrow cañon to our left. Three long hours we toiled down its thousand feet of descent, and, in the gathering darkness, saw in the last tank — our last hope — only dry, baked mud, which our animals piteously pawed, refusing to crop the green grass about them in their thirst.

The Indians laughed. Why not ? They had been drinking all day. They started for the goat-skin, with usual Indian improvidence, intending to have one more good drink ; but my hand laid on my pistol soon taught them, to use their own words, to be men. So I portioned out for each three cupfuls of the precious fluid, which, with he-palo-kia-oé, served us as our evening meal. This over, we readjusted our packs and recommenced our accent, — twice separating in the dark, tumbling into holes, ascending high places to be stopped by black cañons as impassable as the first, only to descend again and try anew, until at last we found ourselves on the great level plain we had abandoned. A search of an hour discovered our trail. I saw that all packs were secure, then ordered the Indians to follow my example and walk. We had not proceeded far, however, ere I was compelled to draw my pistol again. One of the Indians — the Cheyenne — had quietly fallen behind and mounted his horse. The case was desperate, — sixty miles more without water either for our animals or ourselves. Toward midnight the Indians rebelled, and again mounted. I brought them to the ground by the method which I had used before, and reasoned with them. This carelessness on their part was inexplicable to me. They understood far more clearly than I the dangers of the situation, yet were utterly regardless of the possible future in the wish to relieve present suffering. One of them claimed to be ill; another said that he could not find the trail on foot; and a third, that his shoes were too heavy. Thenceforward I led the way myself. Finally, they stopped “ to tighten the packs.” After continuing on unconsciously a quarter of a mile or more, hearing no sound of their coming, I turned back, to find that they had lain down in the tall grass and fallen asleep, — all but Tits-ke-mat-se, who in despair was watching alone in the moonlight, faithfully mindful of the pistol I wore, yet not daring to disturb the less obedient sleepers. I roused them with their own words: “ ‘ Be men, brothers.’ Remember how you reminded me of my weakness, and told me how you would have to carry me, crazy with fever, into the Kuhni cañon, or come to grief on my account.”

Few scenes can compare with those we passed through during the remainder of the night, though we but half saw them in the moonlight. Here the trail, almost straight, would lead down through a narrow, level plain, hidden by tall grass and closed in by long rows of pines, black-topped and stately, among which the shadows were so deep and heavy that it seemed as if even the daylight could not lift them. Then, again, the trail would ascend and descend successions of piñon-clad hills, or plunge on for miles through the pine regions, where the trees were many and tall and straight. On, on, on ; down, down, down, — it seemed that the sun would never rise ; and when the sky did grow gray behind us, we could see light through the trees, and gladly thought we were coming to water. Ah, no; it was only one more of those forest aisles, as beautiful and regular as if planned by man, yet opened really by the vicissitudes of nature. All unconscious were the lords of those grassy parks, who grazed and gamboled toward the opposite limits, rousing the sinking spirits of the ever watchful Tits-ke-mat-se with the hope of game. The heat of midday followed the sunrise ; still there was nothing, save these grand parks, with the stretches of pines between; and, weary with ceaseless exertion, thirsty and hungry, we began to despair, when we were cheered by the sight of rain-clouds. The prayers of the Indians, in their belief, were about to be answered, and they roused the echoes of the old forest with their weird songs of thanksgiving and encouragement to the spirit-gods of their ancestors.

Rain did come. It was only a shower of fifteen minutes, just after midday ; but, down in a hollow, by some lime rocks, whither flocked unnumbered doves and insects, we found a little tank containing much mud and two or three quarts of water. Blue as it was with insects, and stale even to stenching from long keeping, — for the rain had added little to it, — we quaffed it, or mixed hepa-lo-kia-oé with it to hide its color and odor, and made breakfast on it; halting the while, for the first time since the previous morning. Then we bathed the mouths of the gaunt, panting animals, just now revived by the smell of water to almost uncontrollable strength, and continued on. Towards evening, we passed the last great descending body of forest, and, at a turn which led into a cañon, came upon a tank holding apparently a barrel of water,—aing-shi-kiana, or the waters of the bear. When the animals came up, we first filled our vessels, and then watered them one at a time. One drank until it could no longer stand ; others, until they were rendered stupid. But the Indians said, “ Let them drink.” Still the waters were not diminished. So, after thirty-six hours of sleepless exertion, we were to rest, secure from death by thirst or famine, and only a day’s distance, Pu-lá-ka-kai told me, from the entrance to the Kuhni cañon.

The spring, or reservoir, was a mere hole below some lime rocks at the very head of a little cañon, the outlet to a grand, shallow, amphitheatre-like grassy plain, only here and there a tree standing within its limits. It had been enlarged by digging; and broken sticks, sharpened and hardened in fire, and lying in the débris, gave evidence that Indians had done the work. Over the eastern edge of the water were planted two evergreen branches of cañon hemlock, with a wand of willow between, the protecting gods of the place. And in a little hollow among the rocks were the remains of an old bear’s skull, which, bleached and broken, had long ago given name to the place.

A few rods below, in the rocks of the opposite side of the little cañon, was a cave, just under the shadow of two great pines. It had evidently served for generations as a camping place for the hunting parties of the cañon Indians; for, lying around, were broken basket canteens, rude wooden implements, and flakes of jasper and flint, as well as many a broken deer bone and antler. At the mouth of this cañon we kindled a fire ; and, storing our packs away in the recess, we shot some doves and night-hawks, cooked a glorious meal, feasted and drank, and rolled ourselves up for the night; not again opening our eyes until the morning sun poured into the mouth of our little grotto, and, waking us, revealed thousands of raindrops on the grass-stalks around us.

We lazily cooked breakfast, and, aside from hunting a little, quite as lazily loafed the day away, drinking, in mere memory of our past sufferings, unheard-of quantities of water.

At supper-time, however, the Indians discovered in the plume of my helmet the little prayer-feather. They were horrified. They demanded an explanation ; for it proved to be the one that Pu-lá-ka-kai himself had sacrificed just before I picked it up near the sunken stream of the plain of Oraibe. I had to tell them I had hailed it as a good omen, and had placed it, not knowing how to make and consecrate such things myself, in my helmet, for emergencies. Mutiny would have resulted had not the two pious Indians been satisfied. As it was, they hurriedly taught me a prayer, gave me medicine-flour, and dragged me down to the spring, where, one on either side, they watched me sacrifice the plume under the evergreen branches, and scatter the water like raindrops to the four quarters of the world.

Nearly the whole night was filled with tales of these desert wilds, — of which Pu-lá-ka-kai knew no end,—and with fairy myths and Indian love-stories. Next day, down the cañon on a hunt, we found the relics of some poor traveler, who, visiting the spring years before, had evidently found no water, and perished.

Another night of telling stories and snatches of adventure round the campfire, and early morning found us again under way, still westward and downward. The forests had ceased, and plain followed plain in descending succession. Just before we reached the lowest plain, broader by far than any of the others, a rain-storm soaked but gladdened us, and stored, at the head of the not distant though still invisible cañon, pockets of water for our animals, which ever since their recent thirst had been seeking drink. Moreover, it proved to the Indians my sacred character, exonerating me from the heinous offense of having stolen a sacred plume ; for “ was it not an answer to my prayer ? ” they asked each other.

Who would have imagined that between the terraced plains which we saw ahead and the one we were passing through was a cañon, which, though narrow, was so deep that no one could cross it for miles up or down its length ? Even the entrance to that tremendous chasm can scarcely be pictured to one who has not seen the like. Perhaps the mention of its beauty and sublime depth, its silence, until the dislodgment of a single pebble awoke thundering echoes from its jagged abysses, may suggest a conception of the road-way into the home of the Kuhnis. No more readily can I describe to one who has not traveled with Indians our first descent of twelve hundred feet, almost vertical, except to say that we here wound around a great bank of talus, with tons upon tons of rock impending above us, there scrambled over great rocks, and crept along a foot-wide trail, where one mistaken step would have precipitated us hundreds of feet ; and how at last we reached and made camp on the seeming bottom, but with hundreds of feet still below us, and cooked supper by the light of a single ray of sunlight, which shot boldly down the length of the cañon through the eternal shadows of the place.

The Indians, before sleeping, told me that, when the waters of the world had risen and overwhelmed the nations of their ancestry, from Kuhni to the Rio Grande, A-hai-iu-ta, the sublime infant, the twin god of war, the guarder and guider of the Pueblo races, had perseveringly dug a little outlet where we now stood ; and the devouring waters, rushing through, had worn this great chasm, leaving the marks of their foam and fury on the banded rocks, which rose everywhere above us, and almost echoed our faintest whispers. “ Nor have the waters yet ceased flowing, as you shall see to-morrow, when you cross the river by which the Kuhni have life.”

In the morning we resumed the trail, less abrupt, but still rapidly downward. I shall have to hasten on through the labyrinths of that sublime cañon without attempting description, where fortythree abrupt turns are made, each one deeper, each turn narrowing the vision, yet always revealing some giant fortress or castle, in styles of architecture never dreamt of by human minds, never reared by human hands. At one place, we would see, looking giddily down from the gray summit rocks, where the gray cliffs parted from the red, as if ashamed of their soberer color, the little swallownest houses of a bygone persecuted race. At another, we would pass the mouth of a resounding cave, the walls of which were painted with emblems, and whose nooks were the hunting shrines of the strange inhabitants. Once the rocks seemed to close above us, and only a narrow strip of sky could be seen from our pathway. Finally, the last knot was tied in the fringe of my buckskin shirt, the last turn made in the course of the cañon, and we entered a grove of fresh green willows and cotton-woods. We passed the mouth of a giant stream, which rushes from the base of two thousand seven hundred feet of precipice, already a river in volume, a torrent in force; for, “ as I told you yesterday, the waters of the world have not yet ceased flowing.”

The first Ha-va-su-pai I saw may be taken as a type of his race. But lightly clothed, a strange close head-band around his temples, he swiftly passed from one bush to another as we emerged from the little grove. Below us stretched a green, moist plain of sandy soil, nearly two miles long by half a mile at its greatest width. We could catch only occasional glimpses of it through the rank growth of willows, the leaves of which everywhere brushed our heads as we rode along the river trail. These glimpses, however, revealed numerous cultivated fields of corn, beans, sunflowers, melons, peaches, apricots, and certain plants used in dyeing and basketmaking, and usually carefully protected by hedges of wattled willows or fences of cotton-wood poles. Everywhere these fields were crossed and recrossed by a net-work of irrigating canals and trails. Here and there were little cabins, or shelters, flat-roofed, dirt-covered, and closed in on three sides by wattled flags, canes, and slender branches ; while the front was protected by a hedge like those of the fields, only taller, placed a few feet before the house, and between which and the house burned smoky little fires. The houses were always nestled down among the thick willows bordering the river, or perched on some convenient shelf, under the shadows of the western precipice. In several places, within some of the great horizontal cracks of these western cliffs, and often high up, were little buildings of stone laid in mud plaster, and not unlike the cliff-dwellings we had observed on the way down, and of which ruins exist in almost every cañon throughout the great Southwest.

When we again caught sight of our Kuhni, in a little opening near the trail, he was evidently uncertain whether to run forward and warn the tribe — whose voices, mingled with the barking of dogs and the murmuring of the river, could be heard below — of our coming, or wait to greet us. Finally, he shouted, in a rapid, gurgling, soft sort of language, that the villagers were coming; and then, with a sort of questioning smile, turned toward us, keeping up a ceaseless gibberish, but eying me closely, and evidently thinking me the most curious member of the party.

He guided us through the willows to a crossing of the river, and as we rode up the opposite bank we were greeted by a waiting crowd of men, women, and children, who were gathered around two or three huts in front of a little sweat-house, closely covered with blankets. From out this primitive Turkish bath, heedless of the excited gestures of the presiding medicine man, issued in a cloud of steam a real American, red as a lobster, and half blinded by the steaming he had just passed through. At first he greeted me most blankly, eying me as he would a ghost, but ultimately he became talkative. This exile proved to be a prospector, named Harvey Sample, — “ Sani pu,” the Indians called him, — who had accompanied a cavalry expedition to the cañon from Prescott, a few days previously ; and having been left alone by his companions, was getting along as best he could with the Indians. Pu-lá-ka-kai led the way further down the river to about the middle of the plain, where, near a beautifully sheltered hut, a former host welcomed him and us with jolly cordiality ; gorged us with succotash; cleared the principal portion of his hut of women, children, and dogs, for our use ; and soon after summoned a council, which kept us blinking, jabbering, and smoking until past midnight.

F. H. Cushing.