Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/482

472[April 17, 1869] sonry, is usually to be found; a little lower down is a second one, with a pipe leading to it from the former. This lower reservoir is for the animals, the upper one for the people, and for household use. On each side of the tanks, the sloping sides of the mesa are formed into terraces neatly paved with masonry, and surrounded by a raised edge, so as to retain the water brought to them through pipes from the reservoirs. Peach-trees grow upon the terraces, and most of their crops are raised in this way by carefully husbanding the rainfall and using it for irrigation. Many flocks are owned by them, and most of the sheep are black.

Mr. Leroux, who was the first American to visit them (1850), estimated the united population of the seven villages at six thousand seven hundred, the largest containing two thousand four hundred. Since then, however, small-pox has committed terrible ravages among them, and they have also suffered for several seasons from great deficiency of rainfall; so much so that they have been strongly advised to migrate to some more hospitable region. Within the last six years, however, the rains have been pretty abundant, and by latest reports from that out-of-the-way region, they seem to be in a very nourishing condition; Mr. Ward, however, after a careful inspection of the different communities, places the present population at only two thousand five hundred souls.

The next group of semi-civilised Indians—the Pimas of the Rio Gila—differ from those I have already named, in that they inhabit huts instead of houses. In all other respects they are very similar.

After the Rio Gila has emerged from the succession of deep gorges through which it crosses the Pina-leno Cordilleras, it waters a rich and fertile valley forty or fifty miles long, between the mountains and the Gila desert. About twenty miles of this valley is occupied by these people. They devote themselves entirely to agriculture and to the arts of peace, but they are brave in war, and maintain a complete military organisation, for protection against the incursions of their wild neighbours the Apaches. I have often heard it said by western men, that there are only two spots in New Mexico and Arizona in which you can be certain of absolute safety; the one is in the pueblo of Zuñi, the other amongst the Pimas on the Rio Gila. Both these peaceful tribes have been most useful allies of the United States' troops in their expeditions against the Navajos and Apaches; it has indeed, been only through the assistance of the Pima warriors that any success has ever been gained against the latter sons of plunder.

The valley varies in width from two to four miles, and grouped up and down the stream, usually on ground a little above the level of the low-lying bottom-lands, are seen the cone-shaped huts which compose the villages. These huts are easily built, as they only consist of a framework of willow poles stuck in the ground, and arched over to meet in the centre; these are interlaced with others at right angles, and then covered with wheat-straw neatly pinned down all round the sides, which may or may not be daubed over with mud, and is nicely thatched at the top.

Were we to judge only from their dwellings, we should place these people very low down in the list of Indian tribes; but when we examine the means which they adopt for raising their crops; when we see with what labour and skill they have divided off their lands into little patches of about two hundred feet square, and have dug many miles of irrigating canals, each set radiating from the main arteries, or "acequia madre," to supply every patch; then when we look at the pottery, the beautiful baskets woven so closely of willow chips and grass that they are quite impervious to water; the stores of farm produce carefully packed away in well-made storehouses; when we see specimens of native weaving, and perhaps more than all, when we look at the soft intelligent faces of these Indians, we recognise directly the same people to all intents and purposes as we met in the Rio Grande valley.

The most complete list of the population I have been able to discover is that of Mr. G. Bailey, Indian agent for the Pimas and Maricopas, dated 1858. It is as follows: