“Our guides soon halted. We immediately observed by their movements and manifestations that some object beyond the loveliness that nature had strewn upon that valley, was enrapturing their gaze. We had stood gazing a few moments only, when the smoke at the distance of a few miles, winding in gentle columns up the ridges, spoke to us of the abodes or tarrying of human beings. Very soon there came into the field of our steady view a large number of huts, clothing the valley in every direction. We could plainly see a large cluster of these huts huddled into a nook in the hills on our right and on the bank of a river, whose glassy waters threw the sunlight in our face; its winding, zigzag course pointed out to us by the row of beautiful cottonwood trees that thickly studded its vicinity.
“‘Here, Olive,’ said Mary Ann, ‘is the place where they live. O isn’t it a beautiful valley? It seems to me I should like to live here.’
“‘May be,’ said I, ‘that you will not want to go back to the whites any more.’
“‘O yes, there is green grass and fine meadows there, besides good people to care for us; these savages are enough to make any place look ugly, after a little time.’
“We were soon ushered into the ‘Mohave Valley,’ and had not proceeded far before we began to pass the low, rude huts of the Mohave settlers. They greeted us with shouts, and dance, and song as we passed. Our guides kept up, however, a steady unheeding march for the village, occasionally joined by fierce, filthy-looking Mohaves, and their more filthy-looking children, who would come up, look rudely in our faces, fasten their deep-set, small, flashing eyes upon us, and trip along, with merry-making, hallooing, and dancing at our side.
“We were conducted immediately to the home of the chief, and welcomed with the staring eyes of collecting groups, and an occasional smile from the members of the chief’s family, who gave the warmest expressions of joy over the return of their daughter and sister so long absent. Seldom does our civilization furnish a more hearty exhibition of affection for kindred, than welcomed the coming in of this member of the chief’s family, though she had been absent but a few days. The chief’s house was on a beautiful but small elevation crowning the river bank, from which the eye could sweep a large section of the valley, and survey the entire village, a portion of which lined each bank of the stream.
“As a model, and one that will give a correct idea of the form observed, especially in their village structures, we may speak of the chief’s residence. When we reached the outskirts of the town we observed upon the bank of the river a row of beautiful cottonwood trees, just putting out their new leaves and foliage, their branches interlocking, standing in a row, about a perfect square of about one hundred feet, and arranged in taste. They were thrifty, and seemed fed from a rich soil, and with other plots covered with the same growths, and abounding throughout the village, presented truly an oasis in the general desert of country upon which we had been trailing our painful walk for the last ten days, climbing and descending, with unshapen rocks, and sharp gravel, and burning sands for our pavement. Immediately behind the row of trees first spoken of, was a row of poles or logs, each about six inches in diameter and standing close to each other, one end firmly set in the ground and reaching up about twenty feet, forming an inclosure of about fifty feet square.
“We entered this inclosure through a door, (never shut,) and found a tidy yard, grass-plotted. Inside of this was still another inclosure of about twenty feet, walled by the same kind of fence, only about one third as high. Running from front to rear, and dividing this dwelling-place of the Mohave magnate into equal parts, stood a row of these logs stuck in the ground, and running up about three feet above the level top of the outside row, and forming a ridge for the resting of the roof. The roof was a thick mat of limbs and mud. A few blankets, a small smoking fire near the door, with naked walls over which the finishing hand of the upholsterer had never passed, a floor made when all terra firma was created, welcomed us to the interior.
“The daughter of the chief had been kind to us, if kindness could be shown under their barbarous habits and those rates of travel while on our way. She was more intelligent and seemed capable of more true sympathy and affection, than any we had yet met in our one year’s exile. She was of about seventeen years, sprightly, jovial, and good-natured, and at times manifested a deep sympathy for us, and a commiseration of our desolate condition. But though she was daughter of the chief, their habits of barbarousness could not bend to courtesy even toward those of rank. She had walked the whole distance to the Apaches, carrying a roll of blankets, while two horses were rode by two stalwart, healthy Mohaves by her side.
“On entering the house Topeka, who had accompanied us, gave an immediate and practical evidence that her stinted stomach had not become utterly deaf to all the demands of hunger. Seeing a cake roasting in the ashes, she seized it, and dividing it into three parts, she gave me the Benjamin portion and bade us eat, which was done with greediness and pleasant surprise.