The Arizona sentinel., 1892-12-31
ARIZONA.

JOaQuAn 41AAAOia
 Sierras." in an article published in tht New York Independent, Ion August 2d, 1888, says;
 "Casa Grande is an old ruin-a very old ruin. Many men will calmly assert and assure you over and over again that this is but the relic of g temporary occupation by the Spanlard' when tracking this land in search oi the Seven Cities of Gold The truth is. Alvar Nunez de Vaca visited the ruins of Casa Grande about the yeal l538. A detailed account of his dis
 covery of these ruins 1 have myself read in the library of Mexico. AnC the antiquity of these and other rufus in this region makes up a very impor- tant fact in the testimony of the case which I should like to present to the world in this brief paper. Let thls
 then, be we'll settled in your mlnd these ruins of Arizona or 'Arizuna,' as the Spaniards called this region of the Gila and Colorado, are old, older than history-as old may be as the oldest ruins on the Nile of Egypt. This re- zion then was once densel y peopled- No allurements of gold, no lust Of con- quest, nothing at all but the generous soil and the genial climate built up city here; many cities, indeed, up and down the land, that must have rivaled in splendor and extent the storled cities of the Nile of old. If then the simple, primitive and half-civilized people of the dead-past made garden of this land where the world has al ways insisted and insists now on locat- ing desert, can we not do something with our blows, our ditches, our dozens of improved methods9 Let us try and get down to the facts of this con- tradiction and see who js at fault. Let us see whether it is in the land, the climate, or the people themselves.
 "The first Bananas I ever saw l saw here in the valley of the North America Nile, near what is now Fort Yuma, I think; although the place was then called Colorado and afterwards Arizona City. And richer, sweeter or better bananas I never ate. I was with some Mexicans who were engaged in driving horses to Northern Califor- mia, and they bought large punches from the Indians. Now it is just pos. sible that this fruit had been grown Tn Mexico, or about the mouth of the Colorado, and had been brought up the river in boats; but my recollection is that it was grown right there where we got it. l remember, at least, that we had bananas until we reached San Bernardino. This was more than thirty years age. And why, you ask, has this region not been converted into a garden and prepared so as to furnish our people with this fruit9 Simple be- cause we have been seeking for gold, listening to tales about Indians, and looking away up at the wonder of the Grand Canon. We have not been able in all these years to get our faces bent down to the sol of the Colorado.
 Looking back to those early days ] remember the banks of the Colorado as the most green and fowery and all together delicious land I ever beheld. l have spent two winters in Upper Egypt, and so have thoroughly seen about all the Nile has to offer; yet I am bound to say that ia my recollec- ton the first two views takes prpced ence for verdure and fertility.
 "Gaunt, red and dirt brown camels. a few lazy and lousy asses, one.eyed Arabs in very short shirts. few lone ly and leaning palms swaying in the sandy wind, that is the prospect as you are dragged up the drowsy Nile of Egypt. l have not steamed up and down the Colorado, or the North America Nile, from the Sea of Cortez or Gulf of California to the Grand Canon as many have, but 1 have trav- eled on horseback a portion of that distance, and as @ traveller whose trade is the study and comparison of lands, l unhesitatihgly testify that the air, the outlook, tEe sense of vital soil, | that spices of possibilities, which you clearly feel yet but feehly express, is altogether with this great tawny river of the New World, the Colorado. As for the fertility of the soil-sand. if you prefer to call it sand-of the Colo rada let there be no two oponions This river v-aS not horn in tba C,,...-l 1