SCENE ON THE GREAT AMERICAN DESERT.
“These people were larger than those of to-day, some of them being fully eight feet high. I am led to believe their average height was not less than seven feet. They buried their dead in the ground floors of their rooms, with the heads towards the east, and, as a rule, their pottery, trinkets and personal ornaments with them. In excavating these ruins, one is constantly impressed with one paramount wonder—their great age. Huge pine trees, three and four feet in diameter and 100 feet high, flourish upon the walls and in the rooms of these habitations of forgotten man. The infilling of drift and the increase of surface, caused by vegetable growth and decay, is very slow, and has been estimated by some geologists to average about one foot in eighty years. Admitting this to be near the truth, our surprise knows no bounds when, on sinking directly under these giant trees, we pass through from six to ten feet of vegetable mold, then encounter from one to three feet of clean-washed sand and gravel, then a solid earthen floor covered with ashes, charcoal, bones and fragments of broken pottery. Yet still below this are the skeletons of human beings, surrounded by their pottery, weapons and ornaments of stone, bone and copper. My own opinion is that these people were either Aztecs or Toltecs. They were sun-worshipers and well advanced in carving, painting, building, weaving and agriculture. They flourished many centuries in Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Mexico, Central and South America, and were exterminated either by famine, flood, disease or volcanic action at least 1,000 years ago.
“In the eastern part of this (Socorro) county are the ruins of an immense city known as the Grande Quivero, covering two by two and one-half miles square. Its walls are, in some places, eight feet thick, forty feet high, and 700 feet long. A great aqueduct carried water to the city, but to-day there is no water within forty miles of this ancient wonder. It stands silent and alone in the sunlight and moonlight, and where once the love, industry and skill of an unknown race made thousands of beautiful and happy homes, the coyote, bat and snake now hold sway. When and by whom it was built was a mystery to the Mexican people more than 300 years ago.”
THE PUEBLO VILLAGE OF LA GUNA.—This is one of the most important of the Pueblo settlements in New Mexico. It is situated in the midst of a rich valley, which, by means of irrigation and rude methods of cultivation, produces abundant food for the unaspiring inhabitants. The reader is referred to page 150 of this work for a very full, graphic and interesting description of the Pueblos and their customs, together with a history of their probable origin and descent.
INNER COURT OF A PUEBLO TOWN, ARIZONA.—In two preceding photographs we have had very fine general views of Pueblo villages, and in this one we are shown the interior or court, formed by the surrounding houses, where much of the domestic work is performed. It is a dreary, desolate-looking place, but decidedly better than the average of the homes of savage or uncivilized peoples. The sun-baked mud houses are certainly preferable to an ordinary Indian wigwam, and we are sure the baking ovens would produce sweeter and more wholesome bread than the roving Apaches or Sioux are accustomed to. In fact, the houses, the ovens, and even the dress of the forlorn-looking woman indicate the beginnings of civilization.