Chapter VIII: El Mexicano Y El Puebloano

Then they descended and passed through the luxuriant yellow plains,
the sunset blazing on the rows of willows and on the square
farm-houses with their gaudy picture over the arched gateway, while
always in the background rose the dark masses of the mountains, solemn
and distant, beyond the golden glow of the fields.--WILLIAM BLACK.

Home just in time from Ojo Caliente, we hooked our cars the same evening to the never-tiring express, and trusted ourselves to its guidance without a thought of danger. When daylight had fully come, and from the "purple-blazoned gateway of the morn" the sun was begging entrance at our curtained windows, somebody--I think it was the Photographer, a man utterly without nervousness or regard for it in others--startled all our tranquil slumbers by the shout, "_Comanche!_"

It was not Indians though--only a respectable sort of cañon, with great black walls, and rugged hills wedged apart by the stream, and the train hanging invisibly half-way betwixt top and bottom, always going in and out of nooks and gulches, always gliding down nearer the water, until finally, between strange farm-fields, the noble Rio Grande came in view, and once more we ran upon a level track. Emerging from Comanche Cañon, a bend to the southward is made along the western bank of the lower part of the cañon of the Rio Grande. In many portions of this narrow valley, only about twenty miles in length, features of great interest to the eye occur, equaling the walls of Comanche, which was itself ignored until the railway brought it to light. The river here is about sixty yards wide, and pours with a swift current troubled by innumerable fallen rocks. To-day it is swollen and yellow with the drift of late rains, but in clear weather its waters are bright and blue, for it has not yet soiled its color with the fine silt which will thicken it between Texas and Mexico.

On the opposite bank, near the level of the river, runs the wagon road that General Edward Hatch, formerly commander of the department of New Mexico, cut some years ago to give ready communication between his headquarters at Santa Fe and the posts in the northern part of the Territory and in southern Colorado. This is the track now followed by all teamsters, but the old road from the south to Taos ran over the hills far to the eastward, passing through Picuris.

An odd conical hill (shown in our engraving) stands near the mouth of the cañon, dividing the current of the river. Noticing its resemblance to a funnel, the Mexicans called it Embudo, and the adjacent station takes the same name. Embudo is chiefly important as the point of departure for Taos, thirty miles distant.

While breakfast was preparing we were interrupted by the sudden apparition at the side-door of our car of two long ears, then a forehead, bulging by reason of the bushy hair that covered it, and immediately afterward the neck and shoulders of a donkey. But if you say _donkey_ down here few comprehend you. The proper word is _burro_ (boó-ro). This animal bore upon his round back a small saw-buck saddle, from each side of which hung a square panier of wicker-work. These paniers were not nailed, but the willow sticks of which they were made were bound into place by thongs of rawhide. On top, between them, was lashed a third square basket, which would hold a half-bushel. Though this seemed very bulky, it really was a light load for the little beast, and he stepped along briskly ahead of the wrinkled old Mexican who owned him. Shining through the wicker receptacles we saw green rinds, and sang out,--

"Melones?"

"Si, Señor," came the husky answer, whereupon the burro was seized by the tail and brought very willingly to anchor. Slipping several of the sticks out of their leather-loops, half a dozen long yellow specimens, something between a melon and a cantaloupe, were held up for our inspection. We hammered them with our knuckles, testing their soundness, and finding some to suit, enquired the cost,--

"Cuanto pide vm. por estos melones?"

"Dos realles!" (two shillings) was the reply; so we bought three at an outlay of seventy-five cents.

They proved muskmelonish and somewhat tough, but by no means bad. There seems to be no reason why much better melons should not be raised, since the conditions are favorable and every farmer does more or less at it. This question _why_ served to spice our chat at luncheon. It was ultimately concluded that the continued degeneracy was due to the fact that all the good ones were stolen and eaten, only the very poorest being left to mature their seeds; thus the worst, instead of the best, were used to propagate from. I recite this, to show the thoughtful reader that we are not always frivolous, but often introduce grave themes into our discourse, and discuss them in a philosophic way.

Attaching ourselves to the locomotive of a working train, after the noon repast, we were hauled down the valley three miles, and given an opportunity to watch the men repair track that had been lately torn to pieces by water, two or three culverts having been swept out and the road-bed completely uprooted. The hills at that point slanted down to the river in a long treeless sweep, sown so thickly with boulders of basalt, from the size of a bushel to that of a barrel, that even the sagebrush could find scanty footing between. Down this long slope, from the mountains behind, had come one of those raging precipitations of unmeasured rain to which the West has given the expressive name "cloudburst." Truly, when one of these incidents of Rocky Mountain meteorology occurs, "the windows of heaven are opened." To such a torrent the natural rip-rap opposed a very slight obstacle. The heavy and closely packed rocks were lifted and rolled and hurled headlong as though they had been a child's marbles. Wherever any earth or mere gravel was met, it was plowed up and dashed away in a moment, while as for the railway bed, its embankments were demolished, its cuttings filled, and such heaps of stones piled upon its distorted track in some places that no attempt was made to dig it out, but new rails were laid in a different spot. They were rough and irregular enough, but we went safely over. Against these cloudbursts no railway in this region can provide; and there is nothing to be done but rebuild as quickly as possible. The skill, energy and marvelous speed with which the section men do this, and the character of the temporary track over which they run their trains until a better one can be constructed, excite the surprise of every one. Railroading in the West is as unlike the similar pursuit in the Atlantic States as a Colorado silver shaft is a contrast to a commonplace granite quarry.

We had observed on the further side of the river, where the flat lands were continually widening between the stream and the hills, signs of Mexican habitancy, and at the washout discovered a chapel of the Society of the Penitentes, into which the flood had broken a great gap near the foundation. It was a rude little house of mud, but well plastered within, and perhaps had been intended as a dwelling in former days. Creeping in through the breach, we found no furniture, but a pile of a dozen or more wooden crosses, which had been carried there by the doers of penance at Easter. The smallest of these crosses was more than ten feet in height, and its beams at least six inches in diameter. As to the heaviest, I doubt if I could have lifted it fairly from the ground. Yet the poor sinners had managed to get them across their shoulders, and so had dragged them hither, with many pains of outward penance and fearful flagellations of conscience, but with rich reward of pride before earthly eyes, and promises of glory in the world to come. From where they had been brought, or by whom, there was no record; but their ends were worn diagonally to a sharp wedge by long scraping over the stony soil. In addition to these were several small crosses of lath, which had been borne by the priests, typically; some tin and wooden candle holders, curious little lanterns, and one of those rude religious portraits on woods, which are so common throughout this section, and which are preserved reverently among the Mexicans for generations.

The Penitentes are a sect within the Church, which the priests are said to have been discouraging. Perhaps this has had some effect, for the custom is in decay, a result due more to the railway than to the cathedral, I fancy. During the greater part of the year the Penitentes sin and are sinned against like other people, but in the spring they atone for it by wearing coarse clothes under a sort of sacrificial robe, and by torturing and starving themselves nearly to death. Walking in processions, masked beyond recognition, enduring constant castigations from each other, bearing over the roughest roads and across country the heavy crosses we have seen, and with the "pride that apes humility" enduring the utmost suffering, they consider themselves to have laid in a stock of grace sufficient to over-balance all possible crime during the coming twelvemonth. The practice has a long history, but amounts to an American survival of the Flagellants of Europe.

A few miles below, the Mexican farms and orchards became more frequent, the little settlement of Joya was noticed, Plaza Alcalde passed by, and the wide, fertile plain of San Juan opened to our view. Skirting the western edge of this (for the river keeps close under the high bluffs on that side), we ran five or six miles, until a triangular parting in the bank opened to the westward, where we halted on a side-track near the old adobe village, but new railway station, of Chamita. The Rio Chama flows into the Rio Grande here, and a broad valley area is the result. The whole of this, which is easily irrigated, is under tillage, and just now looking its best. It is therefore a green and prosperous landscape we gaze upon, bounded by reddish benches which the setting sun brightens into splendor, and shut in by blue, lofty, cloud-capped hills, beyond which stand the guardian summits of snowy ranges.

Up the Rio Chama cultivation extends almost uninterruptedly for many miles, and there are several villages or _plazas_. Chamita itself is on this side--a cluster of scattered houses along the bluff through which the railway has made a deep cut. The top of this ridge commands a fine view up and down the Rio Grande, and there idle figures of Mexican or Indian are always to be seen watching for the train or studying the movements of almost invisible people on the other side of the valley. Draped in black, for the most part, motionless and immovable, they remind one irresistibly of Poe's picture:--

"And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting,
On the pallid bust of Pallas, just above my chamber door."

This point, as I have intimated, is in the midst of the civilization of northern New Mexico. Twenty-five miles up the Chama stands the large town of Abiquiu, an important place in old times; nearer by another plaza, Cuchillo, is a farming center. Not far away, in the Rio Grande valley, are San Juan, Santa Cruz and Española, the latter on the western bank of the river and the present terminus of the railway line southward, whence stages depart regularly for Santa Fe.

A Mexican farmhouse or "ranch" looks like a small fort, and makes a very pleasing picture, as you may observe in our sketch. It is square, rarely more than one story high, is built of mud, and roofed with immense round rafters, the ends of which protrude irregularly beyond the wall, because the builders have been too indolent to saw them off. Over these rafters,--above the line of which the wall extends a few inches,--are laid some boards or a stratum of poles, and upon these dry earth is spread a foot or more deep, with rude gutters arranged to carry away the water. In the course of two or three seasons, such a roof will have caught a supply of wind-sown seeds, and support a plentiful crop of grass and weeds, which is no disadvantage. This novel result is interfered with somewhat, however, by the habit of using the roofs of the houses (reached by a short ladder) as a place for drying fruit and sunning grain, and for a general lounging spot, whence a better view of what is occurring in the world,--the going and coming of the neighbors, the planting or gathering of the crops, the approach of a stranger-horseman, or the movements of the cattle on the benches,--can be obtained, than a seat on the ground affords. As the train dashes by, the passenger notices two or three women and children standing on each housetop, shading their eyes with their brown hands, and making an unconscious _pose_ irresistibly alluring to an artist.

On a line with the front of the house a wall will probably extend a little distance in each direction, and then backward, enclosing a garden and diminutive orchard. Everything is square. The idea of a curve seems rarely to enter the Spanish-Indian mind. For graphic effect, this is highly gratifying, since the bends in the river, the rounded outlines of the mountains, the undulations of foliage, are all in curves, to which the angular lines of the buildings present a most pleasing contrast. Now and then you will see a better house--one whitewashed outside, and having a balcony running around the second story. The outbuildings, in any case, are only a few mud huts, used for storage, and some rough pens where the animals are kept. Anything like the barns of an Eastern farmer is unknown.

The isolated dwelling, however, is largely a modern innovation. The general plan is to live in compact, block-like villages, surrounded by a wall, or what amounts to that. This results partly from the need in early days of united protection against the Indians, but chiefly from following the traditional custom of their red ancestors; for the New Mexican of to-day is a half-breed, or a mongrel of some degree between the Spaniard who "came over with the conqueror" and the Indian of whatever tribe happened to be accessible. Remote from civilized influences, the common people have tended always toward barbarous ways, and are more Indian than Spanish, albeit the dialect they speak is not so far removed from the Castilian as one would expect. There are local differences and idioms, of course, which are at once noticeable; but the usual tongue is not very bad Spanish.

Though Mexican hamlets and farms are scattered everywhere about here, in the fertile valleys, there is a class of towns along this part of the valley of the Rio Grande which are primarily Indian, and situated upon reservations each ten miles square, secured to them by the government. Each of these present villages, now commonly known by a Spanish name, was the site of an ancient native pueblo, and the fields which were deeded to them by the United States are those their fathers cultivated before the white men appeared at all. Some, however, yet retain their Indian names, as Taos, Picuris, Pecos, Pojuaque, Acoma and Tesúque. San Juan, Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, San Ildefonso, and others have been given new names by the conquerors and priests. South and west of Santa Fe lie many other pueblos, some of them very populous, as Jemez, Zia, Santo Domingo, and San Felipe. In all of them substantially the same sort of life is found, and as it is impossible for me to cover the wide territory they embrace, the reader must be content with the type of the whole to be seen here at Pueblo San Juan. It is a phase of humanity and conduct rapidly passing away--melting under the steady sun of modern progress; and the traveler who does not take an early opportunity to study it will miss not only that which is extremely interesting and suggestive, but what in a few years will become a matter of history and romantic tradition.

Here at Chamita the river is divided by a large, flat island into two branches, each perhaps a hundred yards in width. Over the first one, at the time of our visit, stood a good bridge, built by the railway company; a second bridge had spanned the other branch until the high water carried it away. Formerly there had been a ferry, but the boat was out of order, and nobody cared to repair it, for could not the stream be forded?

In the cool of the evening the whole party went down to the river bank, trusting to good fortune for transportation. Thus challenged, good fortune stood by us in the person of a citizen and his broncho. Chartering the latter, the Artist, his sketching haversack slung over his shoulder, mounted, and then the Madame was invited to ascend, the pillion being a shawl thrown over the horse's haunches. When there she declared she could not stay--would certainly slip off the Gothic back of the beast the instant he moved.

"Then take it Anna Dickinson fashion," remarked her unfeeling spouse; whereupon there was a frantic lurch, a twinkle of crimson suspected to be hosiery, and a cheery "All right!" to let us know she was ready to brave the passage. The landing was safe, and then the patient horse returned and repeated the fording until we all were across.

But our peace of mind, or our _amour propre_--which is much the same thing--was disturbed by a suspicion that we were being laughed at, for a party of Mexican women from Chamita came down to the brink while we were there, and, chattering merrily over our slow and undoubtedly ludicrous progress, unconcernedly pulled off their shoes and stockings, gathered their skirts in a bunch about their waists, and gaily waded through as though in contempt of our fear of water and the conventionalities.

The large island was gravelly and liable to be inundated, so that it was given over to the pasturage of sheep, goats, cattle, horses and donkeys. On the eastern bank we found ourselves at once in the midst of grain fields and garden plats. Tall Indian corn alternated with short wheat, hay and alfalfa, or patches of potatoes, melons and vegetables. Fences were few, but the road was defined by a line of upright brush, bound into cohesion by withes of bark, so that it resembled a thoroughly dead hedge. Here and there stood a _casa chiquita_, but the main town was on the bluff marking the old bank of the river, half a mile from its present current.

_Pueblo_ in Spanish simply means "a village." When the first explorers, Cabeça de Vaca, Coronado and the early lieutenants and friars whom Cortez sent northward, in search more of gold than geography, penetrated what is now New Mexico and Arizona, they everywhere found Indians more or less nomadic, but the larger part of the natives belonging to a different class, and living in settled communities of permanent houses. To these the Spaniards naturally gave the name of "village," or "pueblo" Indians, which, by a common process of lingual change, has become shortened into Pueblos, though Puebloans is a far better word. Their own tribal names have disappeared except in a few cases, such as the Zuñis and the Moquis, and the Spanish word covers all Village Indians distinguished from the roving Apaches, Mojaves and Utes, that surround them and centuries ago wrested from them much of their former territory. At present there are in all New Mexico but nineteen towns of the Village Indians, whose aggregate population in 1880 was only 10,469, as follows:

Taos 391
San Juan 408
Santa Clara 212
San Ildefonso 139
Picuris 1,115
Nambé 66
Pojuaque 26
Tesuque 99
Sochiti 271
San Domingo 1,123
San Felipe 613
Jemez 401
Silla (_or_ Zia) 58
Santa Aña 489
Laguna 968
Isoleta 1,081
Sandia 345
Zuñi 2,082
Acoma 582

Ascending the high bank along a road greatly gullied by the rains, we found ourselves in a large group of houses, each of which was joined to its neighbor as continuously as in a city block, but only one story high; or if there was a second story, it did not come out flush with the front wall, but was ten or fifteen feet back, the roof of the lower story serving as a portico to the upper floor, which was reached by an outside ladder.

These dwellings were built of mud bricks, called _adobes_, and in many cases the floors were lower than the level of the street--a matter of small concern, since the door-sill was so high as to shut out any water which might be running outside. Mixing in a little broken straw, rough blocks about twice the size of ordinary bricks are moulded, dried somewhat in the sun, and laid up in the form of a wall. Space is left for a door and some small holes for windows, quite high up. That is about all there seems to be of it, yet the inexpert find it not so easy to build a "doby" as they supposed. The consistency of the clay must be right, and I am told the wall must be laid so that the blocks somewhat brace each other by beveled sides, or else the great weight which rests on the top, otherwise wholly unsupported, will cause the middle of the wall to bulge. That these ancient houses stand so plumb and uncracked shows how proficient the Indians are at this peculiar architecture; and ought they not to be, for did not they invent it?

All the buildings are smoothly plastered outside and in. This is done some weeks after they are built, and after they have thoroughly dried. To obtain the necessary material for the outer "stucco" coat, the floor of the interior of the unfinished house is dug up and mixed with water until it becomes a soft paste. Then it is taken by the handful, dashed against the unchinked adobes, and spread smoothly with the palms, just as a town mason would use a trowel. The women do all this, and I remember surprising three damsels, as pretty as the New Mexican peasantry have to show, down on their knees and up to their elbows in seal-brown mud, plastering the new house, while father and mother were busy in the fields.

Most of the Indian dwellings,--and they are as good as the majority of the abodes of the Mexican ranchmen,--have two rooms, and sometimes three, but these are generally so dark that the eye must accustom itself to the gloom before their contents can well be discerned. This arises from the scarcity and diminutive size of the windows. Here in San Juan, indeed, I saw roughly sashed windows in many houses, or else a single pane of glass set in; but often only a grating is used to guard the aperture, or else holes in the walls are left so small that no enemy could crawl through. You can imagine the darkness inside, therefore, even on a bright day. Originally the pueblo was common property, and both men and women assisted in building it, but new ideas of individual possessions are invading the old notions. It was the former custom, too, to mix ashes with earth and charcoal into a substitute for mortar; yet, as we shall see later, the very ancient, ruined buildings of the ancestors of these Puebloans show an architecture in stone, with a cement now as hard, or even more tenacious, than the blocks it binds together. "They take great pride," says an old book "in their, to them, magnificent structures, averring that as fortresses they have ever proved impregnable. To wall out black barbarism was what the Pueblos wanted; under these conditions time was giving them civilization."

Entering one of the houses here in San Juan, we shall find the floor is only of earth, but that many skins are spread about. In one corner, or else beside the entrance door, will be one of the queer little round-topped fireplaces prevalent all over Spanish America; but if in the latter place, a low wall or wing of masonry runs out into the room, protecting the fire from contrary drafts. The cooking in summer is done out of doors almost wholly; but in cold weather, when utilizing these fireplaces, they use the iron pots and skillets which civilization has brought them, eking out with variously shaped earthen utensils of their own make, and baskets obtained from Apache and Navajo visitors.

You must expect to see very little furniture in an Indian's house, though occasionally some familiar objects are found. The beds are made on the floor, and consist entirely of skins and blankets. The walls are often whitewashed, and though they never heard of Eastlake, they always make a dado of clay water. The soft brown tint contrasts well with the white frieze, and would be attractive in itself; but the clay here is full of specks of mica, which dust the walls with gleaming points not to be spurned in mural decoration.

The Indians admire pictures, but are not scrupulous as to artistic superiority. In nearly every house you will find a board a few inches square, upon which is painted a religious subject, usually in red and yellow, of some saint, or a group of them. Such pictures, and others whenever they can get them, are highly valued and will be adorned with peacock feathers and bright berries.

They love gay colors and choose them in their dress, which is a singular mixture of Indian, Mexican and American. There go a man and woman ahead of us who are fair types. Neither are of large size, and though an oddity of gait comes from their habit of walking with their toes straight before them, both are of erect carriage. The man is dressed in brown flannel shirt, hanging blouse-like about him, tightly fitted leggings of buckskin, with a broad seam-flap in place of fringe on the outside of each leg, and moccasins. Over his right shoulder and under his left arm is loosely draped a striped blanket made by the Navajo or Apache Indians of the interior, and diligently repaired in its worn places. His head is bare, under the blaze of the hot sun, save for a wreath of cottonwood leaves. Under this "bay crown" his smoothly-brushed and jet black hair, accurately parted in the middle along a line of red or yellow ochre, is plaited on either side into two long braids, intertwined and lengthened out with strips of red flannel and tufts of otter-skin.

The woman wears a long, loose tunic of coarse cloth, almost devoid of sleeves, and belted at the waist; but sometimes this is of buckskin, Her extremities are not clad in leggings, but encased in short, shapeless boots having a moccasin foot, and stiff legs, which reach nearly to her knees, and often afford the only recognizable distinction between a male or a female, who, to a stranger's eye, are confusingly alike. She wears thrown over her head a shawl-like expanse of common pink-printed calico; but if you could see her hair you would discover that none of the attention had been bestowed upon it which her husband's has received; it has been cut short, particularly across the forehead, and is likely to be tangled and dirty. In this respect these Rio Grande Indians have fallen from grace into the slovenliness of their nomadic neighbors. The maidens of the purer Moqui pueblos, for example, take great care of their raven locks. Parting the hair at the back of the head, they roll it around hoops, when it is fastened in two high bunches, one on each side, a single feather being sometimes placed in the center. The Moqui wives gather it into two tight knots at the side, or one at the back of the head; and the men cut their hair in front of the ears and in a line with the eyebrows, while at the back it is plaited or gathered into a single bunch and tied with a band.

This woman is going to one of the public wells to draw water, and presently is joined by a young Hebe, with bare, shapely ankles and rotund bust, whose laughing talk is like the gurgling chatter of the blackbirds in the rushes. They each carry classically shaped and gaily ornamented jars of earthenware, made by themselves, and which they will tell you are _tinájas_. Some of the wells are so shallow that an inclined passage-way has been cut down to the water from the surface; from others the liquid must be drawn in buckets. Having filled their vessels, each woman lays a little pad on her head, skillfully poises the heavy tinája upon it, and marches off, as erect, elastic of tread and graceful in mien as any Ganymede who ever handed about the nectar on Olympus. You can see the trimmed and painted gourd-dipper floating about in the neck of the jar, and thus know that the water is level with the top; yet up hill and down, along the dusty roadway, through the half-concealing corn, and under the low doorway go the dusky carriers, and not a drop is lost.

A short distance back we had met a superannuated governor, or chief, called in Spanish Attencio. His long, straight hair, of ashy hue, and deeply furrowed features gave a most venerable appearance to his attenuated but still upright form. His garments evinced more design, were better fitting, and somewhat fantastically decorated; while from his neck was suspended a drum, a tribute apparently to growing infirmities which had not quite obscured the dream of place and circumstance. We halted in curiosity while the Photographer, by specious argument and a gentle subsidizing process, overcame the half-scruples of the patriarch, and transferred his semblance to a "dry plate," an operation he repeated a little later with the maid and matron whom we had seen at the well, though in their case with more difficulty and overcoming of native shyness. The results of this enterprise are commended to the reader.

The pueblo pottery is of all sizes and shapes,--jars, pitchers, canteens, bowls, platters, and images of men and animals, made as playthings for their children, or merely for amusement, and the latter often called their "gods" by ignorant tourists.

It is evident everywhere that originally much finer and more symmetrical pottery was made by all these Village Indians than now. They seem to have understood the art of mixing a finer paste, and they worked with more careful hands. The resemblance of this antique ware to that of Egypt and Cyprus, has been noted in its structure, and in the "scrolls, straight lines and walls of Troy," with which it is embellished. Birds, too, were painted upon some of the oldest ware extant, recalling certain Chinese symbols, while "in the animal handles and in a design known as the old Japanese seal," the early ware of Japan is simulated. The ancient and (in ruins) most widely distributed form of pottery known is the "corrugated," fragments of which are also found in the mounds of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys and on the Pacific slope. This variety was made by winding around and above one another slender strings or ropes of red clay, expanding and contracting the coil to suit the varying diameters of the vessel. Pressure of the fingers alone, or aided only by a smooth stone, then compressed the coils into compactness and on the inside into some smoothness. There was also a kind of ware in use in prehistoric times which bore a red or black glaze beyond anything seen in later manufacture; but this fine finish is thought to have been accidental.

At San Juan, as in all other pueblos, the old adobe church, with its absurdly barbaric furniture and uncouth appearance, is a center of interest. Climbing the rickety ladder to its little gallery, and thence ascending to the roof, one gets the best idea of how valuable a garden spot this district is. As far as the eye can reach, up and down the river, stretch farms and orchards and plazitas. I suppose that from the mouth of the cañon down to the village of San Ildefonso, a distance of about thirty miles, the river-bottom is almost continuously cultivated, the chief crops being wheat and Indian corn, the latter notable for its variegated and bright colors, and for which the people here keep the original name, _maiz_; but every sort of grain and vegetable is also produced in abundance.

The population sustained consists largely of Indians, in some localities, as here at San Juan, almost entirely so; and they are quite as industrious and skillful in their farming as the Mexicans. In most of the villages the tillage of the reservation is wholly in common, but here the Indians many years ago divided up their farming lands into individual properties, not all equally either, for it was apportioned to each man in proportion to his needs, abilities and desire. It is said that there has been little change in the ownership of this property, the same fields descending from father to son, generation after generation. This being the case, it is not strange to learn the second fact, that there is small variation in the fortunes of the different families, and that there is slight disposition on the part of any to become rich while others grow poor. All are self-supporting, and proud of the fact that no aid is asked or received from the government.

Nothing reminds the traveler more of the Holy Land than to witness these people threshing their grain, which happens, of course, in August, since they do not stack the grain in the straw at all. The threshing-floors are circular spaces of high level ground in the outskirts of the pueblo, around which poles ten or twenty feet high are set, though there is no need of more than mere posts. When the threshing is to be done, a rawhide rope or two is stretched about these posts to form a fence, and often upon this are hung many blankets, the gay colors and striped ornamentation of which make an exceedingly picturesque scene. Sometimes in place of the ropes a cordon of bare-legged small boys and girls, to whom the duty is great sport, does service as a girdle. The diameter of such a prepared space, hardened by service for half a century to the consistency of brick, is sixty or a hundred feet. In the middle of it are heaped the sheaves of the three or four families who are accustomed to join in this work until a suitable quantity has been obtained, and then the fun begins.

Through an opening in the extemporized fence is driven a flock of sheep and goats, or else a small herd of horses. They at once fall to eating the fresh grain, but are quickly beaten off and started into a run around the enclosure, trampling down the edges of the stack, and all the time getting more and more of it under their beating hoofs. Behind them race two or three athletic, bare headed and scantily-dressed youths, cracking long whips, hustling the laggards, and nimbly keeping out of the way of the kicking, crowding and bewildered animals. This is quite as hard work as any of the horses or goats do, and is accompanied by continual halloos and trilling cries, which almost make a song when heard at a little distance. Now and then a young horse will make a leap at the rope, and snap the rawhide lariat, or dodge under it; or a venturesome goat will elude his guard and escape; but there are excited youngsters enough to speedily give chase and bring him back; and from time to time the panting drivers are changed, the animals given a rest, and the grain heaped into a new pile in the center. It is a wonderfully lively and gay picture, which will never be forgotten, and entirely unlike anything else to be seen in the United States. Toward evening, when the incessant tramping has threshed all the grains out of their husks, comes the winnowing. This is quite as primitive and idyllic as its forerunner. Having lifted away the bulk of the straw, several men and women take long-handled, flat-bladed wooden shovels, and toss up the grain which lies thick on the hard clay floor, thus allowing the wind to blow away the chaff. There is generally a breeze at sunset every day, and the largest part of the chaff is gotten rid of by the shoveling; but to perfect the process, the women take half a bushel at once of the grain, and re-winnow it, by tossing it a second time in and out of one of the large Navajo wicker-baskets, of which every family owns a number. The rough, wasteful threshing, and the cleansing, only partial at best, having thus been accomplished, the grain is divided out to its owners, and by them packed away in huge jars of coarse earthenware, called _ollas_, some of which will hold several bushels. These vessels keep it dry and safe from rats, so long as the covers are tight. All these processes are followed not only by the Indians, but by all Mexican farmers throughout the Spanish southwest.

We were never weary of wandering about these Indian towns, and watching the people at their work and sunny-tempered play. They are the happiest men and women on the continent. Well sheltered, well fed, well companioned, peaceful, guileless,--what else do they wish? Not theirs to know carking care, and the fluctuating markets which imperil hard-earned gains; nor to suffer the hurt unsatisfied ambition feels, or know the terrors of a crime-haunted or doubt-stricken conscience. The broad, bright sunshine of their latitude suffuses their whole lives and dispositions, turning their rock-bounded lowlands into a Vale of Tempe.