Wickenburg, much longed for and at last reached, we found to be an adobe hamlet, of perhaps one or two hundred inhabitants, depending chiefly on the Vulture Mine. We were all so thoroughly jaded and worn out, by our rough ride through the country, from Maricopa Wells, that we decided to halt there for a day or two to rest and recruit. This afforded us an opportunity to visit the Mine, which we gladly embraced, as we had heard so much about it. It is really a fine mine of gold-bearing quartz, off in the mountains, some fifteen miles west of Wickenburg, whence the ore was then wagoned to the mill, on the Hassayampa at Wickenburg. It consists of a fine vein of free quartz, from five to fifteen feet wide, and mostly devoid of sulphurets, or other refractory substances. Seventy or eighty men—half of them or more Mexicans—were hard at work, sinking shafts and getting out ore; and already a large amount of work had been done there. One shaft was already down a hundred feet, and another half as far—it being intended to connect the two by a lateral gallery, to insure ventilation, etc. Unfortunately, no water could be found near the mine, and all used there then was transported from Wickenburg, at a cost of ten cents per gallon. So, all the ore taken out had to be wagoned, from the mine to the mill at Wickenburg, at a cost of ten dollars per ton. The cost of everything else was about in the same proportion. Nevertheless, we were told the mine paid, and that handsomely, and I sincerely trust it did.
The mill at Wickenburg, belonging to the same company, was a fine adobe structure, roofed with shingles, and had just gone into operation. They had previously had a small five-stamp mill, which paid very well; but this new mill ran twenty stamps, and would crush forty tons of quartz per day, when worked to its full capacity. Their ore was reputed to average from fifty to seventy dollars per ton, though of course "assaying" much more, and we were assured would pay for working, if it yielded only from twenty to thirty dollars per ton. If so, we thought, stock in the Vulture Company must be a "gilt-edged" investment; and their noble mine certainly was the best-looking enterprise, we had yet seen in Arizona. It appeared, however, to be a sort of "pocket" vein, as prospecting on either side of it, as yet, had failed to discover other points worth working. Fine as it was, the mine was embarrassed by financial difficulties, and was then in the hands of creditors, authorized to work it until their claims were met, though these troubles it was thought would soon end.
Thence on to Prescott, via Skull Valley, some eighty-four miles, we passed without further mishap. We made the distance in two and a-half days, and rolled into the capital, just as the last rays of the setting sun were purpling the triple peaks of the distant San Francisco Mountains. The road generally was naturally a good one, but here and there developed a peculiarity seldom seen elsewhere. For example, on a perfectly good road, apparently, even dry and dusty, suddenly a mule would go in to his girth or a wheel to the hub, and there seemed no bottom to the execrable quicksands. In other places, there had been surface-water or mud, that served as a warning. But between Skull Valley and Prescott, when trotting along as usual, we often struck spots, where the dust was blowing, and yet when we ventured on, our vehicles seemed bound for China or Japan, rather than Prescott. Skull Valley itself proved to be a narrow little vale, of perhaps a thousand or two acres, but devoid of timber, and inaccessible in all directions, except over bad mountains. A few ranches had been started here, and a petty Military Post was there to protect them; but this last had already been ordered away, the location was so faulty, and with its departure, Skull Valley, as a settlement, seemed likely to collapse.
Here and at Wickenburg were the only settlements, and, indeed, the only population, we found between Maricopa Wells and Prescott—a distance of nearly three hundred miles, by the way we came. The whole intervening country, as a rule, was barren and desolate, and absolutely without population, except at the points indicated, until you neared Prescott. There were not even such scattered ranches, or occasional stations, as we found in crossing the Colorado Desert, and ascending the Gila; but the whole district seemed given over, substantially, to the cayote and the Indian. The Apaches and Yavapais are the two main tribes there, and were said to infest the whole region, though we saw nothing of them. In the valley of the Hassayampa, and across the Aztec Mountains, they certainly had an abundance of ugly-looking places, that seem as if specially made for ambuscades and surprises. If they had attacked us in the cañon of the Hassayampa, while floundering through the quicksands there, they would have had things pretty much their own way—at least, at first, vigilant as we were. They had killed a wandering Mexican there, only a few days before; but we did not know it, until we reached Wickenburg, and came through ourselves unscathed.
Perhaps the worst place was Bell's Cañon, a long, tortuous, rocky defile—diabolical in every respect—a few miles south of Skull Valley. Here a Mr. Bell and others had been killed by Apaches, some two years before; and here also the Indian Agent, Mr. Levy, and his clerk, had lost their lives, but a few weeks previously. For miles there, the rocks have been tossed about in the wildest possible confusion, and their grouping in many instances is very extraordinary. A small band of Indians there, ensconced among the rocks, would be able to make a sharp fight, and nothing but cool heads and steady courage would be likely to dislodge them. From the peaks on either side, they can descry travellers a long way off, through the clear atmosphere of that rainless region; and should they decide to attack, nothing would be easier than to conceal themselves behind the massive boulders, that bristle along the cañon. We expected trouble here, if anywhere in Arizona, and, as we approached it, "governed ourselves accordingly." But the "noble Red men" allowed their "Pale-face brothers" to pass in peace. Arizonians spoke of this villanous-looking place, as rather dangerous, and didn't care to venture through it alone; but parties of two and three travelled it frequently, and it seemed safe enough, if they went well armed, and kept a sharp look out. The trouble is, travellers in Arizona, and in all Indian districts, as a rule, see no Indians, and so after a few days believe there are none—become careless, wander on ahead, or straggle along behind, without their arms—when presto! suddenly arrows whiz from behind gigantic rocks or down shadowy cañons, and men are found dead in the road, with their scalps gone. In all such regions, the only safe rule is the rule of our western Borderers, to wit: "Never unbuckle your six-shooter, and never venture from your camp or train without your Spencer or Henry!"
As I have already said, we found the intervening country substantially unsettled, and much of it will never amount to anything for agricultural purposes. Its mineral resources may be great; but, as a rule, it lacks both wood and water, and much of it is a barren desert, given over forever to chemisal and grease-wood. On the Agua Frio and Hassayampa, however, there are considerable bottoms, that might be successfully irrigated; and between the Gila and the Salado there is a wide district, that deserves some further notice. As you come up out of the Gila bottoms, you pass through scattered mesquite trees, and at length enter on a broad mèsa (Spanish for "table-land"), ten or fifteen miles wide by thirty or forty long, which bears every evidence of having once been well cultivated, and densely populated. Instead of mesquite, you here find clumps of chemisal two or three feet high, and bits of broken pottery nearly everywhere. Farther on, some eight or ten miles from the Salado, you find immense ruins in various places, and soon strike a huge acequia winding up from the Salado, in comparison with which all the acequias we had yet seen in Utah or California were the veriest ditches. It must be, I should think, thirty feet wide by ten or twelve deep, and seems like a great canal of modern times. Just where the road to Fort McDowell crosses this, it subdivides into three or four lesser acequias, and these branch off over the mèsa indefinitely. This great acequia heads just above where we crossed the Salado. The river has a considerable descent or "rapids" there, and the ancient constructors of this gigantic water-course, apparently, knew well how to take advantage of this. They have tapped the river there by three immense mouths, all leading into one common channel; and this they have coaxed along down the bottoms, and gently up the bluff, until at a distance of miles away it at last gained the level of the mèsa, and there distributed abroad its fertilizing waters. So, there are other ancient acequias, furrowing the bottoms of the Salado on either side, though we observed none so large as this.
The ruins of ancient buildings, thoroughly disintegrated, are scattered widely along these bottoms, and in some places there must certainly have been large cities. The rectilinear courses of the walls, and the dividing lines of the rooms, are all plainly visible still, though nothing remains but the cobble-stones and pebbles, out of which they seem to have been mainly constructed, and here and there a bit of cement or mortar. The ancient builders and occupiers of these could not have been our present Indians there, because they use different forms and materials. They could not have been Mexicans or Spaniards, because they invariably use brick or adobe. Who they were, where they came from, when they disappeared and why—these are knotty problems for the antiquarian, which it is to be hoped time will soon solve. One thing is certain, these ancient builders—Aztecs (as popularly believed) or whoever they were—were at least good architects and engineers, and they must have peopled much of Arizona with an industrious and dense population, such as it will not see again—I was going to say—for centuries to come. But the Salado, in those days, must have been a larger river than it is now, or probably ever will be again; because two or three of these old acequias would carry off all its present waters, and leave none for the others, whose remains yet furrow the country there everywhere.
However, the larger acequias may have been used only as receiving reservoirs, to husband the spring freshets, and for this purpose they might soon be utilized again. However this may be, there are fine lands all along the bottoms of the Salado, and enough water flowing there yet to irrigate many thousands of acres. Indeed, the best lands we saw in Arizona are here in the heart of it, on the Gila and Salado, and in time no doubt there will be flourishing settlements there. What the region needs, is a railroad to connect it with "inside," or civilization; and this the "Texas and Pacific," it seems, will eventually furnish. Now, like so much of Arizona, it is inaccessible, or practically five hundred miles across a desert—from about everywhere. A railroad will remedy all this, and stimulate Arizona wonderfully in many ways. The whistle of the locomotive will end her Indian troubles, and many others, and may she hear it echoing and re-echoing among her mountains and cañons very soon! A railroad, indeed, is a great blessing everywhere; but in our western territories it means civilization as well, and without one Arizona will evidently continue to slumber on, as she has for so many years.