Weekly Phoenix herald., 1882-09-22
Arizona Exhibits an Historical
 Prodigy.

The aged man tells hIs experience | He lives among the mills of Gibral
 tar" that fortress like rear themsel- yes in impre gpable shape from the great valley of Casa Grande, in Ari-
 zona, which stretches from the Sil-
 yer King on the north to Sonora :! line on the South. He says: My
 memory of incidents relating to this particular country and the anteced-
 ents of its people are vivid, as inn pressed upon me in a most lasting manner by the clashing of elemen-
 tary violence that seemed for time to annul the promise of the rainbow and inaugurate reign of deluge so severe and sudden as to bring to ruin and desolntiou a section of country that once bloomed in the fragrance of rosetic hues and graced
 the valleys with far reaching fields
 of grain. My dates are piior to the lives of American historians. Shou name the specified era of Az,ecian
 government under winch this pros perity existed and final disaster oc-
 cured, 1 should excite the venom of
 some fogisiical fogy, who p.eling
 over the records of ancient times
 shall disclaim the existence of such
 such things in the past or even an
 cPitaph of subs,antistion whereon a
 drowning scribe, seeing the flood
 gates of Heaven turned upon him
 hastily, seized the chalk of inscrip-
 tlon, aud. reaching higher than the
 way of inundation, wrote upon the
 peaks of Gibraltar: "A prohiga,e
 people have brought retribution,
 and the flag and government of the
 Aztccs perished ill sea of acquati-
 cal anger"
 The reporter here smiled at such
 an eloquent impromptu inscription as paying high compliment to the newspaper men of the AZteclan age and rehccting creditably upon the
 fraternity at large:
 The gentleman coloring slightly,
 proceeded: Ut was way back III the
 seventeen hundreds and the time of
 Gay was noon, and the historians of
 those times were asleep. l was at
 work in my fathers garden. AS
 quick as 1 tell it there was dark,
 canopical cloud upoL us and from It came wicked, sizzing lightning, fol
 lowed up by instantaneous volcanic thunder, as if the combined artille-
 lies of tho Sedan army were ill masked activity. Upon tl.is tornado of sound cane an avalauchical
 wa;erspout that seemed to contain all the water and elements of des- truction that was left over from the days when Noah quit his forty days of housekeeping. All that was beau iful gathered in conglome rate and indiscriminate mass upon the waves of destruction, and the daisies and ,iaffodils were alike mix ed with the good and bad, and the roofs of Aztecian houses along with the contents of the Aztccian mint loomed up under the flashes of
 lighting as whales in mid ocean. VesuYius and Etua and the descrip- tIon of the gates of Infe1no are miniature when placed comparative to the horrors of that sad day when one million five hundred thousand were launched into eternity, save one, and that one the aged man who now relates 10 you the transpir- atioEs of the d .ys go before. My escape was miraculous, owing to presence of mind. Seeing at a glance N hat was up, tore from the garden gate large block or bar of | silver, such as mining companies | ship per express during the present age, and which we used in those | days as gate weights. lashcd this securely 10 my body, so that I would not be washed away; but 1 was taken along like bobbin gStish line, and whilst in vortex of mental | misery as regards that bourne from wht nee a weary traveller never thinks of returning, I brought up against the highest peaks of the Gibraltar, to which I clung with of for ones country and na- i've land as would surprise even oollcian of 1882. I stand today a lying witness of that fearful crisis, \ refuter of opposing historians and with the remaining landmarks of hose cventful times, shall nnllify he ulteranccs of every doubling Thomas"
 The reporter here smiled bland mile, and the aged gentleman sus- oic1oning there was doubt manifest d, called for vindicalion, and re. ,airing to the sanctums of newspa- 'er row, faced such authority as the Boomerang man, the Laraminian, he Hatokeye man the Burl .ngtcnian, nd the telegram read in onen ses- iou from Twain the Karki;onian. the Aztecian Recorder and laced Aors du combat every literary ,ra irie cI4iOrDunk thAt ra oi hi. ,,Y, losing head only to dub it down gain.-Denver Irt5uae.
 Denver position.
 MT. McGrcgor also showed us an indian idol, cut in stone, Lorrid and gly. The idol evidently belonged