Page:The gilded man (El Dorado) and other pictures of the Spanish occupancy of America.djvu/161

Rh in the Atlantic and Pacific Divide, flows generally from east to west, and unites in Arizona with the Rio Puerco. This stream flows at first through a narrow and exceedingly fertile valley. About thirty miles from the borders of Arizona it widens into a sandy and treeless but productive intervale. This intervale, which is hardly fifteen miles long and nowhere more than twelve miles wide, is watered only by the muddy brook. An isolated table-mountain rises on the southeast side over the edge of the intervale to a perpendicular height of 1026 feet above its level. The rocks everywhere hang wall-like over the valley, or swell out at the foot over the river; and only a few dizzy paths lead to the summit. Similar colossal rocks tower upon the north side, far above the rest of the valley's edge. This plain, with the little sand-burdened river that bears its name, is the plain of Zuñi.

I can never forget my first view of this plain from a distance, nor the entrance into it. I had left the provisional station of Bennett's late in the morning, alone, on foot, without arms, to go thirty miles to Zuñi on a strange road through a wholly uninhabited country, which was only occasionally traversed by Navajo Indians. Till four o'clock in the afternoon I passed through the apparently endless plateau, on which the sandy trail was visible only from one juniper bush to another, and seemed to lead around each one. From the few elevations only the next rise could be seen; no mountain ranges enlivened the horizon, for thick clouds covered the sky; it was in February, and a snowstorm might come on at any moment. About four