Chapter II: Part 2

Perhaps the principal secret of the charm of the winter climate of Southern California, as well as that of its wonderfulhealth-restoring properties, lies in the fact that its dry, pure air and even temperature make it possible for one to live continuously out of doors. Yet, though not cold, it is a temperature cool enough to be free from summer languor.

Especially attractive to the visitors from the North are the palms of Southern California. Many of these resemble monstrous pineapples terminating in gigantic ferns. What infinite variety the palm tree has, now dwarfed in height, yet sending out on every side a mass of thick green leaves; now rising straight as an obelisk from the desert sand, and etching its fine feathery tufts against the sky; now bearing luscious fruit of different kinds; now furnishing material for clothing, fishing-nets, and matting; or putting forth those slender fronds, frequently twenty feet in length, which are sent North by florists to decorate dwellings and churches for festivals and weddings! The palm is typical of the South, as the pine is of the North. One hints to us of brilliant skies, a tropic sun, and an easy, indolent existence; the other suggests bleak mountains and the forests of northern hills, and symbolizes the conflict there between man and nature, in which both fortitude and daring have been needful to make man the conqueror. One finds a fascination in contrasting these two children of old Mother Earth, and thinks of Heine's lines:

"A pine tree standeth lonely
On a northern mountain's height;
It sleeps, while around it is folded
A mantle of snowy white.

"It is dreaming of a palm tree
In a far-off Orient land,
Which lonely and silent waiteth
In the desert's burning sand."

On my last day at San Diego, I walked in the morning sunshine on Coronado Beach. The beauty of the sea and shore was almost indescribable: on one side rose Point Loma, grim and gloomy as a fortress wall; before me stretched away to the horizon the ocean with its miles of breakers curling into foam; between the surf and the city, wrapped in its dark blue mantle, lay the sleeping bay; eastward, the mingled yellow, red, and white of San Diego's buildings glistened in the sunlight like a bed of coleus; beyond the city heaved the rolling plains, rich in their garb of golden brown, from which rose distant mountains, tier on tier, wearing the purple veil which Nature here loves oftenest to weave for them; while, in the foreground, like a jewel in a brilliant setting, stood the Coronado.

The fascination of Southern California had at last completely captured me. Its combination of ocean, desert, and mountain, its pageantry of color, and its composite life of city, ranch, and beach had cast over me a magic spell. It was, however, a lonely sea that spread its net of foam before my feet. During my stay I had not seen a single steamer on its surface, and only rarely had a few swift sea-birds, fashioned by man's hand, dotted the azure for a little with their white wings, ere they dipped below the horizon's rim. Hence, though the old, exhilarating, briny odor was the same, I felt that, as an ocean, this was unfamiliar. The Atlantic's waves are haunted by historic memories, but few reminders of antiquity rise ghostlike from the dreary waste of the Pacific. Few battles have been fought, few conquests made upon these shores. On the Atlantic coast one feels that he is looking off toward civilized and friendly lands, across a sea which ocean greyhounds have made narrow; but here three purple islands, floating on the limitless expanse, suggest mysterious archipelagoes scattered starlike on its area, thousands of miles away, before a continent is reached; and one vaguely imagines unknown races, coral reefs, and shores of fronded palms, where Nature smiles indulgently upon a pagan paradise. Nevertheless its very mystery and vastness give to the Pacific a peculiar charm, which changeful Orient seas, and even the turbulent Atlantic, never can impart. Instinctively we stand uncovered in the presence of the mightiest ocean on our planet. It is at once the symbol and the fact of majesty; and the appalling sense of trackless space which it inspires, the rhythm of unmeasured and immeasureable waves, together with the moaning of the surf upon the sand, at times completely overwhelm us with suggestions of the Infinite, until no language seems appropriate, unless it shapes itself in prayer.

In Helen Hunt Jackson's novel, "Ramona," the romance of this region has found immortality. What "Romola" is to mediaeval Florence, "Ramona" is to Southern California. It has embalmed in the memory of the nation a lost cause and a vanished race. Less than one hundred years ago, where the Anglo-Saxon has since built railroads, erected manufactories, and created cities, a life was lived, so different in its character from all that followed or preceded it, that only a story like "Ramona" could make it appear real. At that time about twenty "Missions"--which were in reality immense ecclesiastical farms--bordered the coast for seven hundred miles. For when the New World had been suddenly revealed to the astonished gaze of Europe, it was not merely the adventurous conqueror who hastened to these shores. The priest accompanied him, and many enthusiastic soldiers of the Cross embarked to bear to the benighted souls beyond the sea the tidings of salvation. Missionary enterprises were not then what they are to-day. Nothing was known with certainty of the strange tribes on this side of the globe, and there was often a heroism in the labors of self-sacrificing missionaries to America, which far surpassed the courage of the buccaneer. Many exploring expeditions to this western land received the blessing of the Church, and were conducted, not alone for obtaining territory and gold, but for the conversion of the inhabitants. In Mexico and Peru the priests had followed, rather than led the way; but in California, under the lead of Father Junipero, they took the initiative, and the salvation of souls was one of the principal purposes of the invaders. This did not, however, prevent the Franciscans, who took possession of the land, from selecting with great wisdom its very best locations; but, having done so, they soon brought tens of thousands of Indians under spiritual and temporal control. These natives were, for the most part, as gentle and teachable as the Fathers were patient and wise; and, in 1834, a line of Missions stretched from San Diego to Monterey, and the converted Indians numbered about twenty thousand, many of whom had been trained to be carpenters, masons, blacksmiths, saddlers, tailors, millers, and farmers. Three-quarters of a million cattle grazed upon the Mission pastures, as well as sixty thousand horses; fruits, grain, and flowers grew in their well-cultivated valleys until the country blossomed like the Garden of the Lord; and in the midst of all this industry and agricultural prosperity the native converts obeyed their Christian masters peacefully and happily, and came as near to a state of civilization as Indians have ever come.

Presently the Mexicans made their appearance here; but, though they held and managed enormous ranches, the situation was comparatively unchanged; for they maintained harmonious relations with the Missions, and had no serious difficulties with the Indians. Thus life went on for nearly half a century, and seemed to the good Fathers likely to go on forever; for who, they thought, would ever cross the awful eastern plains to interfere with their Arcadian existence, or what invading force would ever approach them over the lonely sea? But history repeats itself. The Missions soon became too rich not to excite cupidity; and those who coveted their lands and herds declared, as an excuse for violence, that the poor Indians were held in a state of slavery, and should be made to depend upon themselves. At length, in 1833, the Mexican Government by a decree of secularization ruined the Missions; but the Indians, although not so prosperous and well treated as under the Fathers, still kept, through Mexican protection, most of their privileges and the lands they owned. Finally came the Anglo-Saxon, and, under the imperious civilization that poured into California from 1840 to 1860, the pastoral age soon disappeared. The Missions, which had already lost much of their property and power under the Mexican Government, quickly shrank after this new invasion into decrepitude. The practical Anglo-Saxon introduced railroads, electricity, commerce, mammoth hotels, and scientific irrigation, all of which the Fathers, Mexicans, and Indians never would have cared for. Nevertheless, with his arrival, the curtain fell upon as peaceful a life-drama as the world had seen.

To the reader, thinker, and poet the memories and associations of these Missions form, next to the gifts of Nature, the greatest charm of Southern California; and, happily, although that semi-patriarchal life has passed away, its influence still lingers; for, scattered along the coast--some struggling in poverty, some lying in neglect--are the adobe churches, cloisters, and fertile Mission-fields of San Juan Capistrano, San Fernando Rey, Santa Monica, Santa Barbara, and Santa Cruz, all of which still preserve the soft and gracious names, so generously given in those early days, and fill us with a genuine reverence for the sandaled monks, who by incessant toil transformed this barren region into a garden, covered these boundless plains with flocks and herds, and dealt so wisely with the Indians that even their poor descendants, to-day, reverence their memory.

The Saxon has done vastly more, it is true; but, in some ways, he has done much less. The very names which he bequeathed to places not previously christened by the Spaniards, such as Gold Gulch, Hell's Bottom, and Copperopolis, tell a more forcible, though not as beautiful a tale, as the melodious titles, San Buenaventura, San Francisco Dolores, Santa Clara, San Gabriel, and La Purissima.

It is not, therefore, the busy streets and handsome dwellings of Los Angeles and Pasadena, but the adobe ruins, the battered statues, the cracked and voiceless bells, the poor remnants of the Indian tribes, and even the old Spanish names, behind which lies a century of sanctity and romance, which give to Southern California an atmosphere of the Old World and harmonize most perfectly with its history.

Most of the Mission buildings are in a sad condition. Earthquakes have shattered some; neglect and malice have disfigured others; but a society, composed alike of Catholics and Protestants, is now, in the interest of the past, endeavoring to rescue them from utter ruin. It is a worthy task. What subjects for a painter most of them present! How picturesque are their old cloisters, looming up dark, grand, and desolate against the sky! How worn and battered are they by the storms of years! How tremblingly stands the Cross upon their ancient towers, as if its sacred form had become feeble like the fraternity that once flourished here! What witnesses they are of an irrevocable past! Their crumbling walls, if they could speak, might grow sublimely eloquent, and thrill us with inspiring tales of heroism, patience, tact, and fortitude exhibited when these Missions bloomed like flowery oases on the arid areas of the South and West, and taught a faith of which their melancholy cloisters are the sad memorials.

Ten miles from Los Angeles, the Southern Pacific railroad passes a long edifice, the massive walls of which might lead us to suppose it was a fortress, but for its cross and a few antiquated bells. It is the church of the San Gabriel Mission. All other buildings of the institution have disappeared; but this old edifice remains, and, unless purposely destroyed by man, may stand here for five centuries more, since its enormous walls are five feet thick, and the mortar used in their construction has rendered them almost as solid as if hewn from rock. As I descended, at the station a quarter of a mile away, a little barefooted Mexican boy approached and shyly offered me his hand. "Are you the Father," he asked?

"No," I said, "I am not the Father, but I have come to see the church; can you show it to me?"

"But Padre Joaquin said I was to meet a Father."

"Well," I answered, "I am the only passenger who has come by this train, so you had better walk back with me."

The Mexican boys seem to be the best part of what Mexico has left in California. This lad, for example, was attending an American school, and appeared bright and ambitious, though so extremely courteous and respectful that he seemed almost timid. The little hut in which he lived was opposite the church, and he seemed perfectly familiar with the sacred structure. "See," he said, pointing to some mutilated wooden statues in the poor, scantily furnished sacristy, "here are some images which cannot be used, they are so broken, and here are more," he added, opening some drawers and displaying four or five smaller figures in various stages of dilapidation. Thus, for some time he continued to call my attention to different curious relics with such interest and reverence that I was almost sorry when Father Joaquin appeared. It was sad to see the altar of the church defaced and cracked, and its statues, brought a hundred years ago from Spain, scarcely less battered than those which the boy had shown me in the sacristy. Yet it was plain that worshipers as well as vandals had been here. The basins for holy water, cut in the solid wall, were worn, like the steps of an ancient building, with countless fingers, long since turned to dust. There, also, were two old confessionals, one of which was so hopelessly infirm that it had been set aside at last, to listen to no more whispered tales of sin and sorrow. The doors of the church at first looked ancient, but wore a really modern air, when compared with the original portals, which, no longer able to stand upright, had been laid against the wall, to show to tourists. Yet, eighty years ago, this church stood proudly at the head of all the Missions, and reared its cross above the richest of their valleys. According to Father Joaquin's estimate, the Fathers of San Gabriel must have had twenty thousand acres under cultivation, and, in 1820, this Mission alone possessed one hundred and sixty thousand vines, two thousand three hundred trees, twenty-five thousand head of cattle, and fifteen thousand sheep. "It was all ours," he said, with a sweep of his hand, "we had reclaimed it from the desert, and, by the treaty between the United States and Mexico, we were allowed to retain all lands that we had cultivated. Yet of those twenty thousand acres, one hundred and fifty are all that are left us!"

The Padre accompanied me to the station. "How large is your parish, Father?" I asked.

"It is thirteen miles long," was his reply, "and I have in it eight hundred souls, but most of them live too far away to walk to church, and are too poor to ride."

"And how many Indians have you?"

"Perhaps a hundred," he answered, "and even they are dying off."

"What of their character?" I asked.

"They have sadly fallen away," was the response. "True, they are Christians as far as they are anything, but they are hopelessly degraded, yet they respect the Church, and are obedient and reverential when under its influence."

Most of the Californian Missions are really dead, and near that of La Purissima may still be seen the rent in the ground made by the earthquake which destroyed it. Others, like San Gabriel and San Juan Capistrano, are dragging out a moribund existence, under the care of only one or two priests, who move like melancholy phantoms through the lonely cloisters, and pray among the ruins of a noble past. The Mission of Santa Barbara, however, is in fairly good repair, and a few Franciscan Fathers still reside there and carry on a feeble imitation of their former life.

It is on his way to this Mission that the traveler passes the reputed residence of Ramona. There is, it is true, another structure near San Diego which, also, claims this distinction; but the ranch on the route from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara perfectly corresponds to "H.H.'s" descriptions of her heroine's home, with its adjoining brook and willows, and hills surmounted by the cross. The house is almost hidden by the trees with which a Mexican ordinarily surrounds his dwelling, and is, as usual, only one story high, with a projecting roof, forming a porch along the entire front. As we learn in "Ramona," much of the family life in those old days--sewing, visiting, and siesta-taking--went on in the open air, under the shade of the porticos which were wide and low. Here it was that Alessandro brought Felipe back to health, watching and nursing him as he slept outdoors on his rawhide bed; and we may see the arbor where the lovers met, the willows where they were surprised by Senora Moreno, and the hills on which the pious lady caused wooden crosses to be reared, that passers-by might know that some good Catholics were still left in California.

The Mission of Santa Barbara is of solid brick and stone, with walls six feet in thickness. Its cloisters look sufficiently massive to defy an earthquake, and are paved with enormous bricks each twelve inches square. The huge red tiles of the roof, also, tell of a workmanship which, although rude, was honest and enduring. The interior, however, is of little interest, for the poor relics which the Fathers keep are even less attractive than those displayed at the Mission of San Gabriel; yet there are shown at least two enormous missals which are no less than four feet long by two feet wide, and beautifully inscribed on parchment.

"What is the Mission's income?" I asked the gentle monk who acted as my guide.

"Alas!" he answered, "we have very little. You know our lands are gone. We have barely twenty-five acres now. Moreover, we are outside the village; and, as there is another church, most Catholics go there. We receive, indeed, occasional offerings from travelers; but we are very poor."

"Who cultivates your twenty-five acres?" I inquired.

"According to our ability, we are all busy," was the answer, "some till the garden; others train young men for the priesthood; one of our number is a carpenter; and another," he added, evidently laughing at his own expense, "knows just enough about machinery to make a bad break worse."

"And the Indians?" I said.

"Not one is left," was the reply. "Though once the Mission counted them by thousands, they are all dead and gone. There are their monuments," he added, pointing to the fragments of a mill and one or two industrial shops.

I looked and saw the remnants of a giant wheel which formerly had been turned by water, brought from the hills to feed the Fathers' lands. The water was still flowing, but the wheel lay, broken,--symbolic of the link which bound the Mission to the vanished past.

The first Roman Catholic Bishop of California and some of the early Fathers are buried in the chapel of the monastery, but interments are now made in a neighboring cemetery, strictly reserved for members of the Mission, each of whom has there his predestined place. Yet even in this humble Campo Santo life will not yield entirely to death. The hum of droning insects breaks the stillness of the empty cloisters; occasionally a lizard darts like a tongue of flame along the walls; grasses and trailing plants adorn impartially the ground containing human dust, and that which still awaits an occupant; while round a stately crucifix, which casts its shadow like a benediction on the sleeping dead, sweet wild flowers bloom throughout the year, and from their swinging censers offer incense to the figure of the Saviour with each passing breeze. The hush of melancholy broods over the entire place. The mountains, gazing down upon it in stony silence, are haggard and forbidding; below it lies the modern town; while from a neighboring hillside the inmates of a villa look directly into the monastery garden, on which the earlier Fathers little dreamed a female eye would ever rest. A little life, however, was still visible about this Santa Barbara Mission. Two brown-robed monks were hoeing in the field; occasionally, visitors came and went; and, just as I was leaving, one of the priests, in obedience to a summons, hurried away to minister to the sick; yet over all there hung an atmosphere of unreality and sadness. I felt myself the guest of an anachronism.

A fashionable city has risen at the feet of these old monks, but they regard it not. A trolley car brings curious tourists to their doors; but the ways of the Santa Barbara Fathers are those of long ago. Like aged pilgrims, dreaming by their firesides, they seem to be living in the past; they certainly have no present worthy of the name; and when I sought to draw forth from my priestly guide some idea of their future, he answered me by pointing to a grave.

GRAND CANON OF THE COLORADO RIVER

While the Old World is better able than the New to satisfy the craving of the mind for art and history, no portion of our globe can equal the North American continent in certain forms of natural scenery which reach the acme of sublimity. Niagara, the Yosemite, the Yellowstone National Park, and the Grand Canon of the Colorado in Arizona are the four great natural wonders of America. Niagara is Nature in the majesty of liquid motion, where, as the outlet of vast inland seas, a mighty river leaps in wild delirium into a gorge two hundred feet below, and boils and seethes tumultuously till its heart is set at rest and its fever cooled by the embrace of Lake Ontario. The Yosemite is Nature pictured, in a frame of granite precipices, as reclining on a carpet woven with a million flowers, above which rise huge trees three centuries old, which, nevertheless, to the spectator, gazing from the towering cliffs, appear like waving ferns. The Yellowstone Park is the arena of an amphitheatre in which fire and water, the two great forces which have made our planet what it is, still languidly contend where formerly they struggled desperately for supremacy. But the Grand Canon of Arizona is Nature wounded unto death, and lying stiff and ghastly with a gash, two hundred miles in length and a mile in depth, in her bared breast, from which is flowing fast a stream of life-blood called the Colorado.

The section of country through which one travels to behold this last-named marvel is full of mystery and fascination. It is a land where rivers frequently run underground or cut their way through gorges of such depth that the bewildered tourist, peering over their precipitous cliffs, can hardly gain a glimpse of the streams flowing half a mile below; a land of colored landscapes such as elsewhere would be deemed impossible, with "painted deserts," red and yellow rocks, petrified forests, brown grass and purple grazing grounds; a land where from a sea of tawny sand, flecked here and there with bleached bones, like whitecaps on the ocean, one gazes upon mountains glistening with snow; and where at times the intervals are so brief between aridity and flood, that one might choose, like Alaric, a river-bed for his sepulchre, yet see a host like that of Pharaoh drowned in it before the dawn. In almost every other portion of the world Nature reveals her finished work; but here she partially discloses the secrets of her skill, and shows to us her modes of earth-building. Thus, the entire country is dotted with _mesas_, or table-lands of sandstone, furrowed and fashioned in a tremendous process of erosion, caused by the draining through this area of a prehistoric ocean, whose rushing, whirling, and receding waters molded the mountains, carved the canons, and etched innumerable grotesque figures and fantastic forms. A feeling of solemnity steals over us, as we reflect upon the lapse of geologic time which such a record covers, unnumbered ages before man's advent on this planet; and these deep canons and eroded valleys, whose present streams are only miniature representatives of those which formerly wrought havoc here, teach lessons of patience to the restless mortals who behold them; while some of the singular formations on the cliffs present perplexing problems which Nature, as it were in mocking humor, bids us solve.

Was Nature ever really sportive? In the old days, when she produced her uncouth monsters of the deep, was she in manner, as in age, a child? Did she then play with her continents, and smile to see them struggle up from the sea only to sink again? Was it caprice that made her wrap her vast dominions in the icy bands of glaciers, or pour upon them lava torrents, and frequently convulse them with a mighty earthquake? If so, New Mexico and Arizona must have been her favorite playgrounds. At many points her rock formations look like whimsical imitations of man's handicraft, or specimens of the colossal vegetation of an earlier age. Some are gigantic, while others bear a ludicrous resemblance to misshapen dwarfs, suggesting, as they stand like pygmies round their mightier brethren, a group of mediaeval jesters in a court of kings. In the faint dusk of evening, as one flits by them in the moving train, their weird, uncanny forms appear to writhe in pain, and he is tempted to regard them as the material shapes of tortured souls.

The _mesas_ of New Mexico and Arizona are, usually, regular in outline, sometimes resembling in the distance cloud-banks on the edge of the horizon, but oftener suggesting mighty fortresses, or ramparts to resist invasion, like the wall of China. These are not only beautiful in form and color, but from the fact that they recall the works of man, we gaze at them with wonder, and find in them a fascinating interest. They prove that Nature needs some human association to appeal strongly to us, and how man's history of smiles and tears gives pathos, mystery, and romance to scenes which otherwise would be merely coldly beautiful or terribly sublime. It is for this reason, doubtless, that we are always endeavoring to personify Nature. We think of solitary trees as lonely, of storm-tossed waves as angry, and of a group of mountains as members of one family. Thus some of the Arizona mountains are called brothers. No doubt their birth was attended by the same throes of Mother Earth, and they possess certain family resemblances in their level summits, huge square shoulders, and the deep furrows in their rugged cheeks; while all of them evince the same disdain for decoration, scorning alike the soft rich robes of verdure and the rough storm-coats of the pines.

The idea of companionship in Nature is not wholly fanciful. Is not the fundamental law of the universe the attraction which one mass of matter has for another? Even the awful distances in interstellar space form no exception to this rule; for telescopic scrutiny reveals the fact that planets, suns, and systems move in harmony, on paths which indicate that they are all associated in the stupendous drama of the skies. The human interest connected with the mountains and the _mesas_ of New Mexico and Arizona is not very great. No mediaeval mystery haunts these castles sculptured by the hand of Nature. No famous romancer has lighted on their cliffs the torch of his poetic fancy. No poet has yet peopled them with creatures of his imagination. We can, unfortunately, conjure up from their majestic background no more romantic picture than that of some Pueblo Indian wooing his dusky bride. Yet they are not without some reminiscences of heroism; for valiant men, a half century ago, following the westward moving star of empire, braved almost inconceivable hardships in their shadow, when, after four thousand years, American pioneers repeated the old, old story, begun upon the plains of Shinar, as the "Sons of the East" went westward in their quest of fortune. How few of us think of those unrecorded heroes now, as we cross this region in luxurious cars! To most of us the dead, whose bones once whitened many of these lonely plains, are nothing more than the last winter's snowdrifts melted by the sun; yet how effectively the Saxon has succeeded in his conquest of the continent we have continual evidence as we glide swiftly, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, through glowing grain fields, prosperous cities, and states that rival empires in size. Where formerly the Spanish conquerors, in their fruitless search for the reputed Seven Cities glittering with gold, endured privations and exhibited bravery which have hardly been surpassed in the entire history of the world; and where, too, as if it were but yesterday, the American Argonauts toiled painfully for months through tribes of hostile Indians, across desert wastes and over cloud-encompassed mountains, we find ourselves the inmates of a rolling palace, propelled by one of Nature's tireless forces, and feel at times in our swift flight as if we were the occupants of a cushioned cannon-ball of glass. Even the crossing of one of the many viaducts along our route is a reminder of how science has been summoned to assist the invader in his audacious enterprise of girdling a continent with steel.

The art of bridge-building in some form or other is one of the earliest necessities of civilization. Even the apes in equatorial regions will link themselves together, and swing their living line across a stream to trees on the opposite bank, thus forming a connected path of bodies along which other monkeys pass in safety. Bridges of ropes or reeds are, also, made by the most primitive of men; while viaducts of stone rose gradually in perfection, from the rude blocks heaped up by savages to the magnificent structures fashioned by the Romans. But with the introduction of iron and steel into their composition, bridges are now constructed quickly, with consummate skill, and in a multitude of different forms assist in making possible the safe and rapid transit of our great Republic.

In addition to all the wonderful natural features of Arizona and New Mexico, the insight into ancient and modern Indian life which they afford is of extraordinary interest, particularly as aboriginal civilization, evidently, reached a higher level here than was attained by any of the tribes which roamed throughout the regions now known as the Middle and Eastern States. The natives of the arid regions of the great Southwest, though subdivided into numerous tribes, are usually known under the general title of Pueblos. The name itself, bestowed upon them by the Spaniards, is significant; since _pueblo_ is the Spanish word for village, and this would seem to prove that the race thus designated three hundred and fifty years ago was not nomadic, but had been settled here for many years.

Antiquity and mystery impart a charm to these Pueblo Indians. They are foundlings of history. We see their immemorial settlements, and know that, centuries before Columbus landed on San Salvador, a number of advantageously situated places in the western portion of this continent served as the homes of powerful tribes, whose towns and villages formed the scenes of warfare and barbaric splendor. But of the men who built those villages we know comparatively nothing. Their origin is almost as trackless as the sand which hides so many of their relics in a tawny sepulchre. We may be certain, however, that the remnants who survive are the representatives of myriads who once made most of the American valleys palpitant with life, but over whom oblivion has swept like a huge tidal wave, leaving the scattered fragments of their history like peaks rising from a submerged world.

The best conclusions of scientists in regard to the geological periods of our planet consider that the Glacial Epoch began about two hundred and forty thousand, and ended about eighty thousand, years ago. Traces of the existence of men in North America during that glacial period have been found in abundance, and make it probable that a human population existed, toward the close of that era, all the way from the Atlantic Coast to the Upper Mississippi Valley. Where these men of the Ice Age originally came from is a matter of conjecture; but it seems probable that they migrated hither from the Old World, since it is certain that during the various elevations and depressions of the two continents, it was possible, several times, for men to go from Europe or from Asia into America without crossing any ocean, either by the northwestern corner of Alaska, which has been repeatedly joined to Siberia through the elevation of the shallow Bering Sea, or by the great Atlantic ridge which more than once has risen above the ocean between Great Britain and Greenland. Yet, though the first inhabitants of America, in all probability, came thus from the Old World at a very distant period of antiquity, it is believed by the best students of the subject that, until within the last few centuries, there had been no intercourse between America and either Europe or Asia, for at least twenty thousand years. Hence the Aborigines of this continent developed in the course of ages peculiarities which distinguish them from other races, and justify their being regarded as, practically, native to the soil.

The Indians of New Mexico and Arizona were, probably, fugitives from more fertile lands, whence they had been expelled by the ancestors of the bloodthirsty and cruel Apaches. The country to which they came, and where they made a final stand against their predatory foes, was well adapted to defense. For hundreds of square miles the land is cleft with chasms, and dotted with peculiar, isolated table-lands hundreds of feet in height, with almost perfectly level surfaces and precipitous sides. The origin and formation of these _mesas_, due to erosion through unnumbered centuries, by water draining from an inland sea, has been already referred to, and it can be readily seen that they originally formed ideal residences for the peace-loving Pueblos, who either made their homes as Cliff Dwellers in the crevices of canon walls, or took advantage of these lofty rocks, already shaped and fortified by Nature, and built on them their dwellings. These in themselves were no mean strongholds. Their thick walls, made of rock fragments cemented with adobe, constituted a natural fortress, against which weapons such as savages used before they acquired fire-arms could do little harm; and even these houses the Indians constructed like the cliffs themselves, lofty and perpendicular, tier above tier, and, save for ladders, almost as inaccessible as eagles' nests. Again, since these _pueblos_ stood on table-lands, the approach to which could be easily defended, they were almost impregnable; while their isolation and elevation, in the treeless regions of New Mexico, enabled watchmen to discover the approach of an enemy at a considerable distance and to give warning for the women, children, and cattle roaming on the plain to be brought to a place of safety. The instinct of self-preservation and even the methods of defense are, after all, almost identical in every age and clime; and the motive which led the Indians to the summits of these _mesas_ was, no doubt, the same that prompted the Athenians to make a citadel of their Acropolis, and mediaeval knights to build their castles on the isolated crags of Italy, or on the mountain peaks along the Rhine.

As times became more peaceful, the Pueblos located their villages upon the plains, and one of these, called Laguna, is now a station of the Santa Fe railway. But a mere glance at this, in passing, was far too brief and unsatisfactory for our purpose, aside from the fact that its proximity to the railroad had, naturally, robbed the settlement of much of its distinctive character. We therefore resolved to leave our train, and go directly into the interior, to visit a most interesting and typical _pueblo,_ known as Acoma. Arriving at the station nearest to it, early in the morning, we found a wagon and four horses waiting to receive us, and quickly started for our destination over a natural road across the almost level prairie. At the expiration of about two hours we saw before us, at a distance of three miles, a _mesa_ of such perfect symmetry and brilliant pinkish color, that it called forth a unanimous expression of enthusiasm. Although the form of this "noblest single rock in America" changes as one beholds it from different points of view, the shape which it presented, as we approached it, was circular; and this, together with its uniform height and perpendicular walls, reminded me of the tomb of Caecilia Metella on the Appian Way, magnified into majesty, as in a mirage. It was with added interest, therefore, that we learned that this was the Enchanted Mesa, about which there had been recently considerable scientific controversy. Enchanting, if not enchanted, it certainly appeared that morning, and, as we drew nearer, its imposing mass continued to suggest old Roman architecture, from Hadrian's Mausoleum by the Tiber to the huge circle of the Colosseum.

The Indian name of this remarkable cliff is _Katzimo_, and the title _Haunted Mesa_ would be a more appropriate translation of the Spanish name, _Mesa Encantada_, than _Enchanted;_ for the people of Acoma believe its summit to be haunted by the spirits of their ancestors. A sinister tradition exists among them that one day, many centuries ago, when all the men of the village were at work upon the plain, a mass of rock, detached by the slow action of the elements, or else precipitated by an earthquake shock, fell into the narrow cleft by which alone an ascent or descent of the _mesa_ was made, and rendered it impassable. The women and children, left thus on the summit of a cliff four hundred and thirty feet in height, and cut off from communication with their relatives and friends, who were unable to rejoin and rescue them, are said to have slowly perished by starvation, and their bones, pulverized in the course of centuries, are believed to have been, finally, blown or washed away. To test the truth of this tradition, at least so far as traces of a previous inhabitancy of the _mesa_ could confirm it, Mr. Frederick W. Hodge, in 1895, made an attempt to reach the summit; but, though he climbed to within sixty feet of the top, he could on that occasion go no higher. He found, however, along the sides of the cliffs enormous masses of _debris_, washed down by the streams of water which, after a tempest, drain off from the summit in a thousand little cataracts. Not only did Mr. Hodge discover in this rubbish several fragments of Indian pottery, but he, also, observed certain holes in the cliff which seemed to him to have been cut there specially for hands and feet. These he believed to be traces of an ancient trail. Stimulated by the announcement of this discovery, Professor William Libbey, of Princeton College, in July, 1896, made the ascent of the Enchanted Mesa by means of a life line fired over the mound from a Lyle gun. Stout ropes having then been drawn over the cliffs and made secure, the adventurous aeronaut was actually hauled up to the summit in a boatswain's chair, as sailors are sometimes pulled ashore from a sinking ship. On his descent, however, he declared that he had found nothing to indicate that the crest had ever been inhabited, or even previously visited. Nothing daunted by this statement, a few weeks later Mr. Hodge again attempted the ascent in which he had failed the year before. This time he was successful, and scaled the cliff by means of an extension ladder and several hundred feet of rope. But very different were the conclusions reached by him as to the probable authenticity of the tradition; for after having been on the _mesa_ only a short time, he found a piece of ancient pottery, and, during a search of twenty hours, not only were several more fragments of earthenware discovered, but also two stone ax-heads, an arrow-point of flint, and part of a shell bracelet. Moreover, a little monument of stone, arranged with evident design, was found on the edge of the cliff. Mr. Hodge and his party concluded, therefore, that beyond a doubt the Mesa Encantada had once been inhabited, and that the legend of the destruction of its last occupants may be true.

The discovery of pieces of pottery here does not of itself prove great advancement in the race that made them; for, curiously enough, the manufacture of rude pottery is one of the first steps taken by man from a savage to a semi-civilized state. The various races of mankind have usually reached this art soon after their discovery of fire. In fact, such an invention is almost inevitable. Thus, an early method of cooking food has always been to put it into a basket smeared with clay, which is supported over a fire. The clay served the double purpose of preventing liquids from escaping and protecting the basket from the flame. Now, even the dullest savage could not have failed to notice, after a time, that the clay became hardened by the fire, and in that state was sufficient for his purpose without the basket. Simple as it seems, the discovery of this fact marks an important epoch in the progress of every primitive race, and some authorities on ethnology distinguish the two great divisions of Savagery and Barbarism by placing in the lower grade those who have not arrived at the knowledge of making pottery.

Soon after passing this haunted rock, and driving further over the _mesa_-dotted plain, we came in sight of the weird city of the sky called Acoma. It occupies the summit of a table-land, the ascent to which is now a winding defile, flanked by frowning cliffs. Even this path, though readily ascended on horseback, is too precipitous and sandy for a wagon. Accordingly, as none of our party that day enjoyed the privilege of being an equestrian, we left our vehicle at the foot of the _mesa,_ and completed the journey on foot. Some adventurous spirits, however, chose a short cut up the precipice along a natural fissure in the rocks, which, having been transformed with loose stones into a kind of ladder, was formerly, before these peaceful times, the only means of access to the summit. A steeper scramble would be hard to find. I must confess, however, that before taking either of these routes, we halted to enjoy a lunch for which the drive had given us the keenest appetite, and which we ate _al fresco_ in the shadow of a cliff, surrounded by a dozen curious natives. Then, the imperious demands of hunger satisfied, we climbed three hundred and fifty feet above the surrounding plain, and stood in what is, with perhaps the exception of Zuni, the oldest inhabited town in North America. Before us, on what seemed to be an island of the air, was a perfect specimen of the aboriginal civilization found here by the Spanish conqueror, Coronado, and his eager gold-seekers, in 1540. For now, as then, the members of the tribe reside together in one immense community building. It is rather droll to find among these natives of the desert the idea of the modern apartment house; but, in this place, as in all the settlements of the Pueblo Indians, communal dwellings were in existence long before the discovery of America, and the _mesa_ of Acoma was inhabited as it now is, when the Pilgrims landed upon Plymouth Rock.

An Indian _pueblo_ is really a honeycomb of adobe cells, built up in terraces. The outer walls, being the most exposed, are the highest, and from them toward the centre of the village, projecting stories descend in such a way that the balcony of one series of rooms forms a roof for the next below it. Finally, in the heart of the _pueblo_ is an open area where horses are corralled. When the space on the summit of the _mesa_ is sufficient, these apartment dwellings may be increased indefinitely by adding cells to the original mass, till it is six or seven stories high, and may contain one hundred, five hundred, or even a thousand persons, according to the size of the tribe. Formerly there were no doorways in the lowest stories; but in these peaceful days they are now introduced occasionally by Indian architects. Where they do not exist, the only means of entering the ground-floor rooms is by climbing a ladder from the courtyard to the first terrace, and thence descending by another ladder through a hole in the roof. The upper stories, being safer from attack, are more liberally supplied with doors and windows, the latter being sometimes glazed with plates of mica. At present, panes of glass are also used, though they were pointed out to us as special luxuries. At night, and in times of danger, the ladders in these _pueblos_ used always to be drawn up after the last climbers had used them; since these industrious and sedentary Indians were ever liable to raids from their nomadic enemies, who coveted their stores of food and the few treasures they had gradually accumulated. This precaution on the part of the Pueblos again reminds us that human nature, in its primitive devices for self-protection, is everywhere very much the same. Thus, there is no connection between the Swiss Lake Dwellers and the Indians of New Mexico; yet as the latter, on retiring to their houses, draw up their ladders after them, so the old occupants of the villages built on piles in the Swiss lakes pulled after them at night the bridges which connected them with the land.

One can well imagine that the people of Acoma do not spend many of their waking hours in their apartments. In this warm climate, with its superb air and almost rainless sky, every one lives as much as possible out of doors, and a true child of the sun always prefers the canopy of heaven to any other covering, and would rather eat on his doorstep and sleep on his flat roof, than to dine at a sumptuous table or recline on a comfortable bed. Nature seems to be peculiarly kind and indulgent to the people of warm climates. They need not only less clothing but less food, and it is only when we travel in the tropics that we realize on how little sustenance man can exist. A few dates, a cup of coffee, and a bit of bread appear to satisfy the appetites of most Aridians, whether they are Indians or Arabs. In the North, food, clothing, and fire are necessities of life; but to the people of the South the sun suffices for a furnace, fruits give sufficient nourishment, and clothing is a chance acquaintance. Yet life is full of compensation. Where Nature is too indulgent, her favorites grow shiftless; and the greatest amount of indoor luxury and comfort is always found where Nature seems so hostile that man is forced to fight with her for life.

Most of the cells which we examined in the many-chambered honeycomb of Acoma had very little furniture except a primitive table and a few stools, made out of blocks of wood or trunks of trees. Across one corner of each room was, usually, stretched a cord on which the articles of the family wardrobe had been thrown promiscuously. The ornaments visible were usually bows and arrows, rifles, Navajo blankets, and leather pouches, hung on wooden pegs. Of beds I could find none; for Indians sleep by preference on blankets, skins, or coarse-wool mattresses spread every night upon the floor. When we consider that the forty millions of Japan, even in their comparatively high degree of civilization, still sleep in much the same way, we realize how unnecessary bedsteads are to the majority of the human race. In a few rooms I discovered wooden statuettes of saints, one or two crucifixes, and some cheap prints, which were evidently regarded with great veneration. The floors, which were not of wood, but of smooth adobe nearly as hard as asphalt, were in every instance remarkably clean.

It is an interesting fact, in the domestic economy of the Indian life led in these aerial villages, that the woman is always the complete owner of her apartment and its contents; for it is the women of the tribe who build the dwellings. Accordingly, the position of a Pueblo woman is extraordinary; and should her husband ill-treat her, she has the right and power to evict him, and to send him back to his original home. On the other hand, the man is sole possessor of the live stock of the family and of the property in the field; but when the crops are housed, the wife is at once invested with an equal share in their ownership. Pueblo children, too, always trace their descent through the mother and take her clan name instead of the father's. I noticed that at Acoma the children seemed to be obedient to their parents and respectful to age, as I have invariably found them to be in all partially civilized countries of the world; for, paradoxical as it may seem, it is only in highly civilized communities, where individualism is cultivated at the expense of strict discipline and parental control, that children become indifferent to their fathers and mothers, and insolent to their superiors in age and wisdom.

We lingered for some time upon this citadel of Acoma, profoundly interested in the life and customs of a people that asks no aid of the United States, but is, to-day, as self-supporting as it has always been. The number of Pueblo Indians was never very large. It is probable that there were in all about thirty thousand of them at the time of the Spanish conquest, in 1540, and there are now about one-third that number scattered through more than twenty settlements. In an arid land where the greatest need is water, it is not strange that the dwellers on these rocky eyries should be called in the Indian dialect "Drinkers of the dew," for it would seem as if the dew must be their only beverage. But there are springs upon the neighboring plains whose precious liquid is brought up the steep trail daily on the heads of women, in three or five gallon jars, the carrying of which gives to the poise of the head and neck a native grace and elegance, as characteristic of Pueblo women as of the girls of Capri. Moreover, on the summit of the _mesa_ there are, usually, hollows in the rock, partly natural, partly artificial, which serve as reservoirs to retain rain water and keep it fresh and cool.

Besides the communal apartment-house, every _pueblo_ contains two characteristic edifices. One is as ancient as the tribe itself and thoroughly aboriginal, the other is comparatively modern and bears the imprint of the Spaniard; they are the _estufa_ and the Roman Catholic church. The _estufa_ has always played a prominent part in the history of these Indians. It is a semi-subterranean council hall, where matters of public business are discussed by the chiefs. The government of the Pueblos is practically the same as when the Spanish found them. Each village seems to be completely independent of its neighbors, and no member of one tribe is allowed to sell real estate to members of another, or to marry into another clan without permission from his own. Each settlement is governed by a council, the members of which, including its chief, are chosen annually. Heredity counts for nothing among them, and official positions are conferred only by popular vote. Even their war-chieftains are elected and are under the control of the council. All matters of public importance are discussed by this body in the _estufa_, the walls of which are usually whitewashed; but a more dismal place can hardly be imagined, not only from the dubious light which there prevails, but from the fact that it contains no furniture whatever, and no decoration. Sometimes a village will have several _estufas_, each being reserved for a separate clan of the tribe. In any case, whether many or few, they are used exclusively by men, women never being allowed to enter them except to bring food to their male relatives. As we approached the Acoma _estufa_, it presented the appearance of a monstrous bean pot, from the opening of which a ladder rose to a height of twenty feet. This proved to be the only means of descending into an enclosure, to which we were politely but firmly denied admission. Peering into the aperture, however, and noting the warm, close air which came from it, I understood why the Spanish word _estufa_, or oven, was applied to these underground cells by their European discoverers; for neither light nor ventilation is obtainable except through the one opening, and in summer the temperature of the shallow cavern must be warm indeed.