Evening journal., 1897-02-06
THE AMERICAN NILE.
SUCH is THE GREAT RIO cRANDE,
WITH ITS VAGARlES.

derftOod d-fioWs Mainly Underground, /
but at Times There Is Torrent ON Top. |
TITS a river ] 500 miles long, meas
ured in its windings, said the man
from New Mexico, speaking of the Rio |
Grande "For few miles, at its mouth, |
light draft steamers run up from the !
gulf Of Mexico Above that it doesn't
float craft except at ferries. In the old
days, when New Mexico was a province
Of Spain, the people along the river
didn't even have ferryboats and the
only way they had of getting across was
by fording. For this purpose special
breed Of large horses was reared to be
kept at the fords. When the river was
too high for these horses to wade across,
travellers camped ON the bank and wait
ed for the waters TO subside. Now there
are bridges over the river at the larger
Rio Grande towns, and in other places
rope ferries and rowboats are the mezne
Of crossing.
I'm times Of low water a stranger
seeing its current for the first time
would be apt to think slightingly Of the
Rio Bravo del Norte, Us the New Mexi-
cans love to call the great river. Mean
dering in a small part of a very wide
channel he would see only little muddy
stream, for ordinarily nine -tenths of the
Bio Grande is underground, the water
soaking along toward the gulf through
the sands beneath its channel. The val
ley. bounded everywhere 70 left and
right by mountains on foothills is sandy,
and the water, percolatmg the sands
down TO hard pan, spreads out on each
side so that it may always be found
anywhere in tho valley by digging down
to The level Of the rivers sarfaco- For
tho greater Tc~t uf the year the river
above ground flows swift and muddy,
narrowing as il swirls round q sand bar
and widening over shadows. But the
thing that strikes the stranger most
qcoerly is its disappearance altogether
for reaches many miles in length, OF
It's channel, which, except, it may be,
for o water hole here and there, is as
Try as Sahara The river is keeping
right along about it's business, however,
and whero q rock reef or clay bed blocks
its subterranean current it emerges TO
the surface ard takes fresh start above
ground. Running as a big stream which,
farther dowl. may lcse itself in the
sands again
1T is when the foods come down
that the Rio Grande shows why it re-
quires so big a channel for its all the
year round use and demonstrates that
if tho waterway We're even wider it
e would be al advantage to residents
e along its banks. 1t is fed by a watershed
= of vast area and steep descent which
i'm times of rain and melting SHOWS pre-
cipitates the waters rapidly into the
channel In June, when the snow melts
4 on the peaks about its hoadwaters in
: Colorado anG northern New Mexico. and
s later III the summer, when heavy show
s ers and cloudbursts are the order of the
e day. the Rio Grande overfows its banks,
i deluging wide tracts of valley and some.
: times carving a new channel for itself
y changing its course for miles. Wher,
the valley is unusually wide and sandy
. as below Isleta and in the Merilla val
ley, the old channels in which the rive
used to flow are plainly indicated in thu
S landscape.
= ''No one who has seen the great rive
, in flood is likely to forget the positive
J. ferocity it seems to display as its water
!, sweep all before them, and woe to tin
l. man or beast who is overtaken by them
/, The flood arrives without warning. TIL
- sky may be clear above when the travel
y er, leisurely jogging across the wild
r channel hears his wagon wheels graf
y upon the sand with a peculiar sound.
5, means that the waters are stirring tn
sands beneath him, and then, if b
knows the river, he lashes his horse
making at all speed for the neares
70 bank, and lucky he is if he reaches
le safe. The chances are that before he get
a. . there he hears the roaring of waters II
: the channel and sees them coming dow
10 toward him with n front like a wal
ic rolling forward and downward as
al over fall, with a rising food behinc
IS, Many man and whole wagon train
to have been overwhelmed in this way
is and, buried in sands or cast away o
desert banks, no human eye has eve
seen them again.
''The great river has its pleasing an
ic romantic aspect, 50 fascinating that it
er a saying among people who live in i
he valley that 'whoscevcr drinks of its W;
en- ters and departs will come again to see
lg them Like the Nile, the Rio Crane
ly enriches the soil of its valley to II
er point Of incxha1stible fertility. Alor
IL its banks in New Mexico are fields tn
for two centuries have been cultivate
yearly, yielding great crops, and tho
are as productive today as when the
e. first were TILED. Ir1igating canals cal
ay ed acequias madras (mother bitches
-er convey water from the river TO be di
tributed through little gates to the fiel'
Of the valley, which it both waters al
enriches A trip along the river revea
a succession Of pictures of a primiti'
he civilization Of the old Spanish-Americ
i'll type Adobe villages, with small, q
rooted houses built about antiql
he churches, ana the spacious houses of 4
his vicos, or great mon; orchards, vineyard
out wheatfelds and grazing cattle are ;