but from stories I heard about other places, I am sure it has rivals. One man asserted that one winter he heard there were 37,000 consumptives in and around San Antonio and El Paso. Of course it was not so; but that yarn is spun by the great family of "They Say." On our train there were several poor fellows on their way West for their health. How they did cough! It was distressing. One said, "I have bronchitis which bothers me some. My lungs are not at all affected." How strange the hopeful tone of all consumptives! May be it is well that they are so. "When you get into Arizona, it will be so dusty you can hardly see out of the windows," said the porter. That is the case here in New Mexico and if the wind was blowing it would be blinding. A vast sandy plain in every direction with bare mountains, sometimes sand, sometimes rock, in the far distance, is all we see. As we near Deming, we begin to see wind mills, which indicates the presence of water at not a great depth. Here is a nice town, some large stores, a court house and public school building, all of brick; but what on earth keeps up the town? Possibly there may be grazing land in the region and maybe some mining; but to a stranger all is desert.
AT LORDSBURG
we pass into Arizona. Drummers are everywhere present. They crowd on with their grips and sample cases at every station. The saloon is everywhere present also. At one place, besides the depot building, I saw no business house except a combined saloon and barber shop. The "Tennessee Saloon" was in one place; "This here is a saloon," was the sign on another. After we left San Antonio, the tramps disappear. Up to that point, I could see them looking wistfully at the flying train in day time and at night I could see their camp fires beside the track; but the stations are too far apart and the picking too poor beyond San Antonio for these enterprising travelers. Though the country seems so dry and barren, there are evidences that sometimes they have fearful rain falls. I noticed at several points in Arizona vast areas, covering probably thousands of acres, where at times there are lakes or inland seas. Now the surface is dry and cracked, with not the least sign of water except at one spot where the depression is deepest and there is congregated a great herd of poverty-stricken cattle. The wire fence on either side of the road keeps me company. It makes one think the land is fenced to keep the cattle in and you are expecting to see a great herd every minute; but the fence belongs to the railroad and is intended to keep cattle off the track. Think of a double line of wire fence three thousand miles long; yes, longer than that, for the Southern Pacific goes right on to Portland, Oregon, nearly eight hundred miles north and to Ogden, nearly a thousand miles east of San Francisco and the fences go with it.
AT SAN SIMONS,
in Arizona, they say there is fine grazing for cattle, one company alone owning 75,000 head. I was on the lookout for the face of the Apache chief, called "Cochise's Head." It is far to the southwest on the mountain top. I fancied I saw it time and again, but when it came in sight, there was no mistaking it. The outline of the face with its great Roman nose looking towards the heavens, is very distinct; for three hours it was in full view of the train. The Apache Indians, who once roamed these plains, called that mountain after the name of their greatest chieftain
TUCSON,
pronounced "Tuson," said to be one of the quaintest towns in all the West and next to the oldest place in the United States, I saw only by its electric lights. Phoenix, the capital, is thirty-four miles from our route on a branch road. I was so charmed with descriptions of the country thereabouts, I copy for your readers some interesting matter:
"All this country was settled by an earlier race than any of the present Indians. The cliffs all through these Arizona mountains are covered with hieroglyphics and pictographs. The Salt and Gila (Hela) river valleys are full of old ruins of early occupancy. There are artificial mounds, hundreds of feet long, extensive canals for irrigating purposes, and vast debris—all, a class of work the present races are unfamiliar with. The most wonderful, or at least the best known of all these ruins—lies three hours of stage north of the station of Casa Grande. Father Niza, who, in 1539, visited the country, heard of these ruins which were then regarded with awe and veneration by the native tribes. Coronado's people visited them in 1540, and since then many explorers have come and gone, and left descriptions to tell us what they were and are. As they exist today, they still show the towering adobe walls that are believed to have been seven stories in height.
"Some of the rooms were thirty and forty feet long. Archaeologists and ethnologists have puzzled over these ruins for ages. Today, with their remains of great irrigating ditches all about them, they present a hard nut for scientists to crack. However, we must stand amazed at the extent of these ruins. One of the great canals tapped the Salt river on the south side near the mouth of the Verde. For three and a half miles it passes through an artificial gorge in the Superstition mountains, cut out of solid rock to a depth of a hundred feet. After passing the mountains, it divides into four branches whose aggregate length is 120 miles independent of the distributing ditches. This system of canals irrigated 1,600 square miles of country. The engineering is perfect. There is not even a tradition to be found of these people. We only know that at a period fixed by scientists as 2,000 years ago, the Bradshaw mountains were active volcanoes, and the lava, making its way through Black Canon flowed into these canals. Still later, a great deluge flowed over McDowell Mountains, segregating their granite sides and depositing their wash over the upper valley and the canals to a depth of from three to five feet. This gives us testimony as to the age of these vast works, and tells us nothing of the millions of people who must once have lived here in a high state of civilization.