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Show MORE OF THE AZTEC CITIES. Special Correspondence of tho Herald.) TRADITIONARY HISTORY. From Indian trnditton and the meagre mea-gre history uvaiiabla, the accepted theory is that, ilurinK the Spanish conquest con-quest the Aztecs were driven from Mexico into i lie vast deserts laying to the north and west, and t'rotu thence across the Colorado river. Proof o' this is still visible in the many remains of cities and towos scattered throughout through-out New Mexico and Arizona, and even in Utah. On t li e northern side of the Colorado and Green rivera the canyon walls are found decorated with hieroglyphics and piuiurc writing, tho meaoio of which is totally unknown! to the Indiana at present inhabiting that region. On the tops of almost inaccessible clilTi, and down into hor-riblj hor-riblj chasms, tho remain of hrge towns may still be found, crumbling; to dust - Here a numerous ami powerful tribe lived for many years, tilling the soil and building houses three and four storie ' high. Tbeit underground houses, which they used for working in and at regular seasons for places of worship, are still iuund in a perfect state of preservation. These holes, called '"Kcvas," are about twelve feet deep, and twelve by twenty feet, squire. In thuui the men wcavo blankets, blan-kets, meet to havo a sociable Enioke and chat, hold council, and uso them for the stiiiie purposes as we would club rooms. At their seasons of worship they are their temples, and, cleared ot everything unholy, arc entered only by the men. The entrance is through a hole in the top, and tlicnce to tho bottom bot-tom bya ladder; they arc cool and pleasant, but rather dark. ' Peace loving; and industrious as wero this raoe, tbey were soon attacked by the warlike nomadio) tribes; and unable un-able to copo with their powerful enemies in tho open field, tho poor Aztecs took refuge among the deep canyons and chasms of tho river. Here up the Bides of the canyon walls, whose vertical hight is from threo to five thousand feel, are yet found the . remains of their housos. Many legends and stories are told of how, besieged in their stronghold, they were by fctar-vation, fctar-vation, di.--cu.so and the missiles of their enemies, reduced from a powerful power-ful nation to & few hundred, who making a treaty with the Pah-Utcs returned re-turned to the east side of tho river, there to remain for over, while the Utes should occupy the opposito country. coun-try. S TO ATI ON OF THE PABLOS. The present inhabitants of tho Mo-qui Mo-qui Fablos do not number over fifteen hundred. Tbey aro situated in northern north-ern part of Arizona, about one hundred hun-dred miles south east of the Paria crossing of the Colorado. The towns, seyen in number, are built upon cliffs or plateaus, twelve to fifteen hundred feet above tho valley, wbioh they pulti-vate pulti-vate to some extent, raiding corn, pumpkins, melons, etc. There is a great scarcity of wood, which is brought a distanoe of from seven to ton miles by the women, who carry it on their boks I have often seen a train of ten or of wood and brush fast:ned upon their backs, coming across the valley in Indian In-dian file and with a celerity that would do nrejit to a mule pack train For water they vely mostly upon their reservoirs, wtiieh in many jjIuvob sro cut out of the rocks with steps all around descending to the bottom. They are formed like a bowl, ten to fifteen Icet deep and about thirty fee t across the top ; at Mee shorn o-neah we found a series of the.e reservoirs along tho Ride of the cliff, ju-.t beiow the town. They were supplied by a large spring, and when the upper 0 oveifljwed it filled the nest one, and so on down. Tbo lower ones were used for watering I Bheep and other stock, while the upper ones were kept for the use of the people. peo-ple. QUEER IDEAS OF CLEANLINESS. Their ideas of cleanliness may be judged of from ihe following ; we were camped close by them and other reservoirs reser-voirs nearly all the time durirjg our stay among the villages. Early in the morning a concourse of women would come out with large water iugs strapped on their backa with blankets, tho corners tied together over the forehead. fore-head. Entering the water up to their knees they would fill thoir jugs, and placing them on the bank return re-turn and wash their faces and bands, and sometimes wash all over all the time laughing and splashing ia the water like a lot of ducks. As this is kept up until about eight o'clock, and as there are upwards ot arty visitants to the pools, one would naturally think that the last comers would get anything but pure water; yet the last jugfull is used for the same purpose as the first; viz, cooking and drinking during the day. Now some of my fastidious readers read-ers might not consider this an aid to digestion, but it is surpassed by other peculiarities, ono of which I will mention. men-tion. One day the chief of Shee pa-la-wee invited me to take dinner with him. Having an appetite already that I thought would be hard to turn, it was increased by sitting down to the Ba-vory Ba-vory viands. While tbo old gentleman gentle-man and myself were hard at work, and as thiogs began to bo interesting, his wife came in and seated herself in front of us followed by a daughter probably ten years of age, dressed in the garb that uature gave her.' The old woman oommcnecd picking the vermin from tho girl's head and cracking crack-ing them between' her teeth with a gusto that plainly indicated that "she knew how it. waB herself." My appetite, appe-tite, which a moment beforo was ravenous, raven-ous, suddenly cooled off and I had recourse re-course to my old pipe to hold thingB level. To the chiefs enquiry if I was ot hungry, I said that 1 had been to dinner, in some things the Aztecs are the cleanest Indians I have over met, and in others they are tho very extreme. Their bouses and clothing are kept scrupulously clean, and their provisions served up in beautiful dishes of their own mautilaoture would indeed be tempting were it not for the 'dread of something heretofore instead of something hereafter.!' - i . '' PUOTOUKAPHISQ UNDER DIFFICULTIES, " At Ta wall and tho two Moqui villages vil-lages I aucccoded in getting some fine views, but iho Mohuliasetas, with the beautiful wings spoken of in my for-iner for-iner letter, X tbuod so very modest and retiring that protographing them was a great difficulty. 1 havo, however, a aerie of pictures that will undoubtedly be intt resting to your people. '""''!, JIEJiUKlj KiVAJOfca. ,, j Ijcaving the Moquis Pablos wo traveled trav-eled about fifty miles in southwesterly direction. On our way wo passed through . u iurgo camp of Navojoes. They exhibited considerable surprise at our small retinue, and enquirod if we wero not afraid to travel through their oountry alone, , We replied by giving them the chargo of our hordes, and making them understand that we intended in-tended to remain with them awhile. Our confidence in their honesty t-eemcd to 13 alter and pleaw them, and tho old ohit'f sent a yming mm out to herd our homes, which were immediately brought t'j us when calli d tor. Had we avoided thtir camp we wuuld havo been in dmv- r of looking ev-jry annual we hid. NEW MOQUI StXlTEMENT. At tho Moincoppi we found Toba and his wife, Te-lash-nim ki. Thoy.with a half dozen other families some from Oryba, nnd one or two from Moquivillc, aro building up a new wn lenient; Discarding Dis-carding tho antiquated ways ot their people, tbey aro trying to cmtilalO the white n dd risu itbove th presont stato of thrir divriditum. The Azlec peoply, naturally intelligent and industrious, indus-trious, an) Just dying oul fr the want of tho hflpirj" hand of civilization. This is a ti-M fur ilie missionary un-equaled un-equaled in tin. tviM, nrj.i when so near at Ivmo. wl.y rn.l ah ni-iny thousand thou-sand mil.'S h'tmi I ? Tin; wcrd "Moqui" "Mo-qui" we.m-i "'ji-;" tlui u,.'!d has called tlu'iu the "Diii ( "n h " ,Mo-quis ,Mo-quis Tablo1 which in in reality being verified- Tuba aad his friends treated us as brothers ; tboy aro anxiously awaiting the arrival of the whites to join them in their new settlement. We returned to tbo river hut found that in our absence the high water had either carried the boat away or covered it with sand. By building a raft, however, how-ever, we managed to cros in safety, and found Mrs. Lee with her seven little children living all alono nearly one hundred miles from trie settlements settle-ments they had nothing to cat excepting ex-cepting a few girden vegetables, John D. having been absent to the settlements settle-ments for about f'.ur weeks Some twenty five miles farther on at a place called tliiroVg Pools, we found another part of his family a daughter sixteen years of nge and a boy aboat ecven. These children having boon loft alone four weeks before had boon livign for some time oo inilk and cheese-, and they were on the point of starting to the river to the other portion of the family. This. I presume, 13 what1 I have heard oiHrtd living on faith. 1 - K. O. liEAMAN. |
