The traveler in Spain, northern Africa, or Asia Minor is impressed with the similarity between these countries and our Southwest, so that the name of New Spain, early applied by the Spaniards to all of Mexico, seems very appropriate. Like these countries, too, our Southwest is a land of thirst; the dry air and fervent sun parch the skin and devour every trace of moisture. (One feels as though he were placed under a bell glass exhausted of air undergoing the shriveling process of the apple in the experiment.)
So, before taking a journey, one inquires not so much of the roads and distances, but whether water may be found, for it is often necessary to submit to that most unpleasant of contingencies, a “dry camp.” Many parts of Arizona and New Mexico cannot easily be visited except in favorable seasons, because one is told, “it’s a hundred miles to water.” The Hopi often provide for the long journeys across waterless country by hiding water at points along the route. This wise precaution, which was noticed by the Spanish explorers of the sixteenth century, consists of burying sealed water-jars in the sand, their situation being indicated by “signs.” Far from the ancient or modern habitation these jars, uncovered by the wind, are often discovered by riders on the cattle ranges.
Not only must the dusty explorer “haul water,” for even the railroads across the semi-desert are provided with tank trains for water service, and the water tanks of the huge locomotive tenders of all trains are of unusual capacity.
Far out on the sandy, sage-brush plains are frequently seen small cairns of stones, called by the knowing ones “Indian water signs,” pointing out the direction of water, but the more common signs are the trails made by cattle on which a myriad of tracks in the dust point to water, miles away perhaps, and oftentimes, when the tracks are not fresh, leading to a dried-up pool, surrounded by carcasses or bleaching bones.
The Navaho herdsman or herdswoman is a person with great responsibility, for the sheep and ponies must have water at least every three or four days. When a well-defined thunder-storm passes within twenty or thirty miles of his camp he starts for the path of its influence, knowing that there will be pools of water and quick-springing herbs and grass. This chasing a thunder-storm is novel—and much more satisfactory than chasing a rainbow. Even the wild cattle scent the water and make for it, running like race-horses.
As a matter of fact, the animals of the desert have of necessity become used to doing without water. So far as one can determine, the rats, mice, squirrels, badgers, coyotes, prairie-dogs, skunks, and other denizens of the sand-wastes so rarely get a good drink of water that they seem to have outgrown the need of it. Cattle and horses have also developed such powers of abstinence as might put a camel to shame. There is a belief in the Western country that at least one of the burrows of a prairie-dog town penetrates to water, but whether this be true or not, judging from some of the locations of these queer animal villages the tribe of gophers must contain adepts in abysmal engineering.
One does not live long in the wilds of Arizona without becoming weatherwise and, perhaps, skilled in signs and trails like a frontiersman. The country is so open that the weather for a hundred miles or more can be taken in at a glance and the march of several storms observed at once, even though the sound of wind and thunder be far out of hearing. At Flagstaff, for instance, it is easy to tell when the Hopi are rejoicing in a rain, although it is more than a hundred miles away.
In a country with so little rainfall as Tusayan and in which the soil consists largely of sand with underlying porous rocks, springs are few and their flow scanty. The rivers, also, during most of the year, flow far beneath their sandy beds, which only once in a while are torn by raging torrents. This is one of the many novelties of a country that probably offers more attractions than any land on earth.
Around the springs the life of the Hopi comes to a focus, for here, at all hours of the day, women and girls may be seen filling their canteens, getting them well adjusted in the blankets on their backs for the toilsome climb up the trail. A feeling of admiration tinged with pity arises for these sturdy little women who in the blanket tied across the forehead literally by the sweat of their brows carry half a hundredweight of water up a height of nearly half a thousand feet. Mang i uh, “tired?” one asks them. Okiowa mang i uh, “Yes, alas, very tired!” they answer, these slaves of the spring.
At the edge of the water in the spring, where nothing can disturb them, are green-painted sticks with dangling feathers. These are offerings to the gods who rule the water element. At none of the frequent ceremonies of the Hopi are the springs forgotten, for a messenger carries prayer-sticks to them and places them in the water. In former times offerings of pottery and other objects were thrown into springs by devout worshippers.