Across America by Motor-cycle

by C. K. Shepherd

After twenty miles appeared La Bajada Hill, crossing the trail at right angles. There was not much climbing to be done, but going down the other side was a different matter. It seemed that a great "fault" or outcrop had appeared in the plain, making it much lower on the one side than the other. No less than thirty-two acute hairpin bends conducted the trail down the precipitous slope. The gradient in places was terrific. At the bottom was a cemetery!

Here and there we crossed the sandy wash of a one-time river, leaping over bumps and boulders and picking the road as well as possible. Occasionally a wooden shack was passed, with a few dirty-looking Indians hanging around: Indians dressed not in native garb but in pseudo-modern style. The only things that betrayed them were their faces and lank dark hair. He that goes to the West and expects to see the landscape decorated with Indians dressed in multicoloured garbs of picturesque pattern, is doomed to disappointment. The first impression of a modernized native is disheartening if one has lingering thoughts in one's mind left from childhood's days when one read with ceaseless delight of stalwart Indians with huge muscles and painted bodies galloping along, bow and arrow in hand, on a fiery white mustang in pursuit of an unfortunate "pale-face."

Ah, no!—Nous avons changé tout cela! The Indian as a rule is not stalwart, and decidedly not picturesque. Having had the gentle arts of civilization thrust upon him, and being naturally of a lazy disposition, he is content to loaf around chewing shag and disfiguring the landscape generally with his presence.

As Albuquerque was approached, things looked more flourishing. The land was cultivated where possible, and in places corn and wheat appeared.

It is very strange to find a prospering city in the midst of such desolate surroundings as Albuquerque has. It came as a pleasant surprise to me to see the electric trams, the wide streets and the clean modern buildings. I was puzzled to know just what it was that kept the place going. Albuquerque, however, although the largest town in the State, has only 10,000 or so inhabitants, and is the nucleus of a very extensive ranching district which undoubtedly largely constitutes its raison d'être. I left it rather sadly, because, with the exception of Flagstaff some 500 miles away, I should not meet another town of anywhere near its size until I reached the Pacific Coast.

Shortly after leaving Albuquerque the trail crossed a very wide shallow muddy river—the famous Rio Grande. It was spanned by a low wooden bridge which creaked and rattled in its planks as we rumbled across it. We saw quite a lot of the Rio Grande and got to look upon it as a friendly sort of river. That is not to be wondered at, because in a wilderness that is next to being called a desert one can become attached to anything that has life or movement, even if it be a muddy stream! Probably in consideration of the feelings of weary travellers, but for no other apparent purpose, the trail from time to time crossed and re-crossed the same old river with the same old friendly wooden bridges until finally, eighty miles farther on, it was left to wander southward unmolested through the plains and deserts of New Mexico and Texas into the Gulf of Mexico.

At Isleta there was a surprise in store. Isleta is a charming Indian pueblo, built wholly of "adobe" mud and populated entirely by native Indians. So unique, so bewitchingly attractive are these pueblos, that I must digress awhile to describe their nature and origin.

The history of the American Indians since the advent of the White Man is an unsatisfactory one from all points of view. Different authorities on the subject have widely different opinions as to the eventual outcome of the American domination, which from generation to generation has vacillated in its policy and, sometimes with bloodshed, sometimes with bribery, has gradually reduced the red man to subjection, occupied his country and enforced an unwilling civilization upon him. But all are agreed that the Indian of to-day is in a far lower stage of civilization than when the early settlers first drove him from his rightful property.

There are, however, a few tribes which advanced much farther along the road to civilization than the others. Moreover theirs was a civilization quite their own, not acquired through contact with the whites. Chief among them are the Pueblo (pueblo-building) Indians, and the Moqui Indians, the town-building natives of New Mexico and Arizona.

The "Pueblo" Indians include several different tribes, each speaking a different language. Each tribe, with only one exception, comprises a number of separate "pueblos" or villages, generally built on the "community dwelling" basis, that is, the houses are in a large and solid mass, several stories in height, each one receding from the one below and approached by ladders. In these houses, which look like great pyramids, live a number of families. In some pueblos most of the houses are on this plan and as many as 1,600 people have been known to live in one house. The houses are built of adobe, and sometimes of stones cemented together with adobe.