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.The visit to Fort Niobrara is discussed in Chapters 6 and 7 of this volume, andthe Thornburgh Expedition, in Ibid., Vol.3, Part 4.404 THE BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGYrailroad track to the Armijo House, a hotel just built and splendid inthe  new town.This new Albuquerque is a noisy place; its streetsare lined with gin-mills, each with its  accordeon [sic] fiend war-bling forth his strains to the delight of an audience of open-mouthedminers, train-hands and  tenderfeet.The Armijo is not a bad hotel in appearance & being brand new hasnot yet had a chance to become dirty.In the parlor, a squad of ladiesand gentlemen were torturing the ears of night with their ideas ofvocalization: they did fairly well with a couple of negro [sic] camp-meeting songs which sufficed as an excuse, if excuse were neededin Albuquerque, for classifying their entertainment as a  sacredconcert.They sang selections from Pinafore too, but sang themso wretchedly that their violation of the Sabbath was degraded toa venial offense in presence of their more heinous crime of singingwhich merited hell-fire any day of the week.They regaled my earswith this musical banquet, until long after midnight.Not having anyweapons with me, they escaped unharmed.A gentleman at the R.R.depot, this evening showed me a quantityof delicious strawberries and beautiful flowers, raised in the  oldtown, he said.May 16th 1881.The train leaving Albuquerque this morning wascomposed of a long line of freight cards, with one  combined coachto carry passengers, mail and express.Last night s plenteous rain had laid all dust and made the air freshand bracing and with the immediate blue sky above him one couldnot help feeling how true are the praises lavished by all travellersupon the climate of the valley of the Upper Rio Grande.At El Rito stopped for dinner in an unpromising woodshed, butthe proprietor, Mr.Sheridan, disappointed us most agreeably.Thebill of fare was not very pretentious, but composed of well cookedfood a rich broth, good fresh bread, boiled potatoes, beans, stewedmutton, apple pie and coffee.The sugar-bowls, & salt cellars werebric-à-brac that would have set Eastern collectors crazy with envy;they were of ornamented ware, made by the Pueblos of Laguna, 6m.distant.Mr.Sheridan had a strikingly handsome face and head;he said he had wandered all over the world from the place of hisbirth, Charleston, S.C. to Great Britain, India, China, Japan andAustralia.Noticing my interest in pottery, he displayed a greatnumber of specimens, all odd & not a few very beautiful.A dozenAMONG THE ZUNIS 405or more of the Indians were hanging around the door, waiting to selltheir wares to the passengers.Not having the least bit of room in myvalise, I had to content myself with an earthen duck and a paintedcup, my purchases costing me the sum of just fifteen cents.TheseIndians, like all the Pueblos I ve seen, are very short, but stronglybuilt; their faces are decidedly good.The R.R.companies permit them to ride up and down to theirheart s content and not a train passes along without a half dozen orso availing themselves of the privilege.The track cuts through themiddle of their town which is on the Rio Puerco (of the East.) about75 m.from Albuquerque.This band have not confined themselvesto the town proper, but under the security now afforded them, havebranched out into a considerable number of dwellings, standingalone or groups into hamlets too small to be called towns.Each ofthese has its strip of cultivated land, its irrigating ditches dug atan immense expenditure of labor, and its orchards of peach trees.In one field, not a stone s thrown from the cars, two Indians wereplowing with the rude wooden instrument of this country.This wasfastened to the horns of a pair of small oxen, driven by one of theIndians and led by the other.Saw a mill-stone of lava.15 m.beyond Laguna is the pueblo ofAcoma, composed of 3 small villages, a stone s throw apart.6 Closeto Acoma, I noticed mesas formed of lava and sandstone in juxta-position, the lava on top: on summits and flanks, these mesas hada straggling growth of scrub cedar, not sufficiently plenty to hidethe surface beneath.On a promontory projecting from one of thesemesas, saw another pueblo, of very small size, containing not over adozen houses: we should not have noticed its existence had not ourtrain been chased by a parcel of white-toothed, bright-eyed childrenwhose voices rang out in musical laughter as they emulated eachother in a frolicsome attempt to overhaul us.The valley of the Pueblos, and indeed nearly all the country thus farpenetrated by the line of the Atlantic and Pacific R.R., consists ofa succession of broad, flat fields, bounded by low mesas of lava andsandstone.These fields lie well for good drainage and are filled withrich soils, the decomposed lava of the bluffs, mixed with sand andclay.All they need is irrigation to make them bloom as a garden.6.This refers to seasonal dwellings where Indians from Acoma proper came to workirrigable lands near the river.Bloom,  Bourke on the Southwest, 8:106.406 THE BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGYArtesian wells would furnish all the water needed and would, I amconvinced from the looks of the country, strike it at a moderatedepth, say within 300 ft.A gentleman on the train told me that theR.R.had struck water at 60 ft., but that very likely was an excep-tional instance.Were our Government to expend a small sum in thedemonstration of this fact, a stream of colonists would quickly setin upon these lands and draw from them rich harvests of wheat andsub-tropical fruits, such as oranges, figs, olives, grapes and raisins,almonds, peaches &c.Going from the station to the Fort [Wingate], had the company ofMr.Small, U.S.Mail Agent, a very intelligent, companionable gentle-man.Put up with Col.DeCourcey and called upon General Bradleyand family before going to bed.May 17th 1881.Put in a good day s work upon my journal; also calledupon Genl.Bradley to arrange about transportation to Zuni, andfinally visited the Great Spring, by which the post is built.This is astream of very good size, especially for such a dry climate.It sup-plies more than enough water for all the needs of the post, where atpresent nine companies of cavalry and Infantry are stationed andmuch building is going on.May 18th 1881.(Wednesday.) After breakfast, left post, going nearlydue South climbing up a steep grade for about 3 or 4 miles, the flankof the mountain being plentifully covered with piñon, scrub cedar,scrub oak and occasionally, stunted pine.From the summit, a fineview was obtained of the surrounding country which was seen to bea series of plateaus, or perhaps it might be better to say one plateauseamed and gashed with countless ravines and cañons.There wasa great deal of timber to be seen, chiefly of small growth, but therewas little water.To my surprise we now entered a very pretty park, a thick for-est of pine encircling little grassy glades.The driver said that a finespring poured out of the ground, a mile to the Left of our trail.Sev-eral wagons loaded with ties for the Rail Road passed us [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]