Grande River and the head waters of the affluents of the Lower Mississippi. It is said to be nowhere over 4,000 feet in height and is the most suitable route for a trans-continental railroad-so far as difficulties of construction are concerned -between the Mexican and British American boundaries. In the beginning of 1880 a continuous line from San Francisco had already been extended far up the Gila Valley, and its further construction was being rapidly pushed on eastward, while a road from the east had then reached the Rio Grande, to be extended both to the Gulf of California, at Guaymas, in Mexico, and to the Pacific, in California.

CHAPTER III.

PREHISTORIC ARIZONA.

Arizona, until recent years at least, has been to the Euro pean a land of more mysteries, terrors and dangers than any other part of North America. Its apparent sterility was very great, the Indian tribes roaming over it were remarkably fierce, great changes appeared to have passed over it, uncertain rumors of its vast cañons have been fully verified and defined by scientific exploration but lately, and romantic legends like those told by the Aztecs to Cortez have been more or less current in every generation since. The belief in hidden treasures seemed countenanced by the "planchas de plata," plates of silver, talked of by the adventurous missionaries of a hundred years ago. They found remarkably rich deposits of almost pure silver, and, putting their treasure under military protection, it was confiscated by the Spanish authorities. For this reason, and because of growing danger from the Apaches, open investigation ceased. Unsatisfied curiosity exaggerated, or, it may be, invented, tales still more marvelous.

These mysteries and fearful surmises are now being dissipated as far as science and enterprise can do it; but there is one which appears more likely to remain unsolved than those which surround the works of the Mound Builders in the Mississippi Valley. It regards the origin of its prehistoric relics-the story of a lost race which left behind it ruins of large towns, irrigating canals of great length, and various evidences of a civilization still better organized, in some respects at least, than that of the ancient agriculturists of the Great Valley.

These ruins were more striking and impressive than those

of the Mound Builders, because they consisted of brick and stone, and were evidently the remains of the habitations of the people who produced them. The region in which they are situated was so bare and desolate, and contained so few other objects to attract attention, that they became the subject of inquiry and speculation to the first Europeans who sought to find there new communities to plunder and new stores of gold. When Mexico was conquered, in 1521, various rumors and legends, dim and undefined, hinting of a variety of wonderful things in these depths of the continent, excited the curiosity and cupidity of the Spaniards. In 1535 an adventurer, who was shipwrecked on the coast of Texas, wandered across the upper Rio Grande, and made report of towns and fortresses and organized industries. He does not appear to have penetrated farther than the head waters of the Gila and other eastern tributaries of the Colorado, in western New Mexico. The Gulf of California had already been discovered, and a zealous missionary priest, in 1739, sought to penetrate to this region of marvels from that side. The Aztec legends of the "Seven cities of Cibola" seems to have been suggested by the Moquis, Zunis, and others, near the border of New Mexico. These the priest, Padre Niza, set out to find. He seems to have penetrated to the lower Gila, and speaks of the great ruins still found there.

He took back to Mexico a most wonderful and attractive account of the Seven Cities, one of which was Cibola. According to him it was another Peru, and visions of boundless stores of gold awaiting seizure seem to have originated the expedition of Coronado, in 1540. Various branches of this and connected expeditions, in the course of the following two years, seem to have made a general reconnoissance of the whole plateau region, from the Colorado River to the Rio Grande and the western tributaries of the Mississippi in the same latitude. They went up the Colorado from its mouth a long distance, visited the lower Gila, penetrated from the

SPANISH EXPLORATIONS IN ARIZONA.

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Pueblo villages in New Mexico northwest to the Great Cañon of the Colorado, and fairly solved, in the negative, the question of cities where gold was as plentiful as stones. No large stores of the precious metals were found, although there were indications of mining wealth in New Mexico. Such communities as were in any degree civilized—and there were many of them on the eastern border of Arizona, and in the Rio Grande valley-were industrious but poor. They gained a frugally comfortable living from cultivation of the soil. In the mountainous or plateau regions their houses were fortresses, and commonly built in situations difficult of access by their enemies, the wild tribes.

These explorations led to the ultimate establishment of Spanish authority and civilization in New Mexico and to more or less mining there, but produced no result as to Arizona, except a shudder at its desolate aspect, and some observations and inquiries as to the ruins around the western and southern base of the high plateau. The Pimas and Maricopas were located then, as now, on the lower course of the Gila. Very slightly civilized, they still lived by cultivation. They could not explain the ruins. Their traditions seemed to extend backward about 400 years; but the "Casas Grande," or great stone houses forming the ruins, were then abandoned, and were, apparently, as great an enigma to their fathers of the thirteenth century as to themselves, of the sixteenth. Evidently, several centuries had, at that distant time, already passed since the houses had been occupied, the "acequias," or irrigating canals, filled with water, and the desert lands covered with bountiful crops. The early centuries of the Christian Era, when modern civilization was striking its first roots in Western Europe, would seem to be the latest reasonable date to assign as that of their abandonment.

There is not, however, as yet, much detailed data on which to found theories. From 1540 down to 1850 the Jesuit and Franciscan Fathers who founded Missious in California and

northern Mexico seldom penetrated to the region of the ruins, and then hurried away as quickly as possible from a land which held few attractions and many dangers for them. About a hundred miles south of the Gila, and also far from the ruins, a series of Missions was established in the eighteenth century; but the power of the fierce Apaches seemed to rise and increase in hostility as that of the Spanish dominion in Mexico became enfeebled and lost control of the distant border tribes, and the adventurous priests must be constantly ready to suffer martyrdom if they offered themselves for this field of labor. It must be said, to the credit of their zeal and sincerity, that such devotion was not wanting, and of forty-seven who were stationed at the Missions on the southwestern borders of Arizona, half, at least, died or were massacred by the Wild Hunter tribes. But they were successful in acquiring influence among those they actually taught and some fruit of their self-sacrificing labors still remains.

Yet, as elsewhere, in proportion as the tribes submitted to European or Christianizing influence they lost their native vigor and required civilized protection from their natural enemies. When their protectors and guides, the Catholic priests, were murdered or driven away they diminished in numbers and prosperity, so that, when this region, between 1850 and 1860, became a part of the territory of the United States, the Missions were mostly in ruins and the natives for whose benefit they had been built were but a miserable rem

nant.

From this time until the close of the Civil War many Americans made visits, official or adventurous, to southwestern Arizona. Some mining and farming operations were undertaken, and various ambitious plans were conceived with respect to the adjoining Mexican province, or State of Sonora. One American and one French military adventurer collected some hundreds of rude men from California and