Evening star., 1901-06-22
"A DESERT OF DESERTS
SITUATED IN THE SOUTHWEST PART
OF ARIZONA.
Supposed to he Disappearing, but
There is Stfll n Great Deal
Of Desert Left.
From the Brooklyn Eagle.

We comfortably assure ourselves that the
American desert is disappearing; that it
never was much of desert, anyway, and
that before long people will be living in the
middle of it and sitting under vines and fig
trees We know that land in Colorado,
which Zebulon Pike and Lieut.. Long de-
clared to be unfit for human habitation, is
now raising the finest of corn, potatoes
melons and theories, and healthiest of
tramps, and that thousands of square miles
of other mountain states have been re-
deemed by irrigation. But when you go
through the otner thousands of miles that
have not been irrigated, and that do not
seem likely to get any irrigation in CEN
turies to come. you have to confess humbly
that there Is deal of desert left
Death stalks through the desert. yet
death Is clothed in beauty Thirst and
famine, ScorChing heat and bitter cold fol-
low in his train. The victim sinks to his
doom under a cloudless sky, with a mock
cry OF cheer in the colors of the buttes and
mesas and the drifting sands half cover
him, and snarling coyotes quarrel over him
and after a little there is nothing to tell
that root of man ever pressed the spot
where he died.
Has It's Life.
Yet the desert has it's life and it's bright
ness and its gayety. Flowers bloom there
the gorgeous blossoms of the cactus-and
strange forms abound in those same plants
Ihe grisiy sage covers vast territories. and
the greasewood and the mesquite grow
where little else takes root In the river
bottoms there will sometimes be found
WILLOWS and prospecting cottonwoods. In
deed, your cottonwood Is one of the thrift
lest or trees. and is one of the first to be
planted when start is made in the re-
demption of the desert. And here is wild
life, too, the inexterminable prairie dog,
seemingly the tamest of creatures yet one
OF the hardest to know by close acquaint-
ance: wolves, that prey on the dogs: jack
rabbits, great of ear and swift of foot ::
ratdesnakes. that fatten on young prairie
dogs and occupy their burrows; small owls
and various crawling things that sting and
nip Now and again. away off on the crest
OF some ridge that divides the sand from a
place of green and water, you may see an
antelope or a deer but the huntsmen are
quick in the chase. and these pretty cit
izens will be eXterminated before long.
Back in the hills, where the gnarly mes
quite makes patches of shelter, you are
likely to find mountain lion-not the
fierce creature described by Mr. Roose-
velts corps of press agents, but a sly,
Sinking cat that is willing to let people
alone. unless she finds them meddling with
her cubs. In South America this animal is
tame and has been known to sport beside
a man on horseback in the pampas. Bears
are not often seen in the desert. There is
nothing to take them there. They want
small game and honey and raspberries.
The most deserted desert Is that in the
southwest. Arizona is a desert territory,
with a population of 10000: less than that
of some wards in that other blithering
desert over the river they call Manhattan.
Not only is Arizona sparse Of population,
but parts of it are losing what they had
Tombstone for example, which was a place
of 10000 people few years ago, is in
it's decline and fall-off, because there is no
demand for silver, and it was silver that
made Tombstone. The man who made it,
and was advised to take his tombstone
with him (whence the name). took out
S., ,000.0O0 from the hills, and the Indians
never bothered him his partner. He is
under his own tombstone now.
Where certain rivers have been tapped
for irrigating purposes they have dried up
below, SO what is to be done about that? :?
Obviously the way is to create reservoirs
near their sources, and encourage a better
rainfall by tree planting. Where the rivers
have dwindled the population has to dwin-
die also, and there are Indian traditions
hereabout that point to the ancient fertility
of regions that are bare today.
Indians familiar with Land.
The Indians are, alone of men, familiar
with the desert and go hither and yon upon
it, naked and unafraid They have an ami
NAL instinct that guides them to the springs
and water holes and a tenacious memory
for landmarks. such as can be likened only
to that Of a Mississippi pilot for the trees
and bluffs and houses he must steer by
These Indians are seldom benighted at a.
distance from a spring or stream, and you
never hear of their perishing among the
sands except by the act Of some other In
dian or a bad white man. Spittin Bull, as
you see him in Arizona, is decent sort Of
chap, but all the laws Of the Swedes and
Persians won't make the white contingent
let him alone. We do right enough to edu-
cate him, but we ought to make his educa-
tion profitable to himsef and to u.s. We
ought to encourage him to keep on manu-
featuring his baskets and pottery and blan-
kets, instead of instructing him in the arts
of blacksmithing and deviltry. The desert
has variety of Indians-Apaches, Nava-
jos, Supis. Walpis, Hopis and others. You
hear Of Pueblos, also, but pueblo means
merely people, and Is applied to the Indians
who live in towns. We folk in BROOKLYN
are pueblos, and Pueblo is any sort of an
Indian in Arizona
AS you trundle across the desert -you
catch glimpses of the mesas that once were
topped with villages as a few of them are
to this day. Away off in one direction is the
crag town of the HopiS. whose weird snake
dance is. beginning to draw visitors from a
World that is strange to these people. and
who still believe devoutly that the serpents
which they carry in their mouths and hands
in this ceremony scuttle away as soon as
they are released. to carry their prayer for
rain to the gods. The dance occurs lust as
the rainy season is due, so why should not
the people continue to believe?
Hereabout, too. is the lofty pueblo of AGO.
ma, with its church built at the behest OF
the Spaniards-a wonderful church, for all
the stone had to be carried by steep paths
and ladders to a height of $50 feet and
when you consider that its walls are ten
feet thick and fifty feet high, that means
a good deal The Spaniards found it aw-
fully easy to have other people work for
them
Another famous mesa is that to which
tradition. now known to be justified, has
affixed the name of Enchanted. 1t rises in
lonely corner of the desert to height OF
more than four hundred feet above the
plain, and anciently there was town upon
its top. One day a terrific earthquake
hurled down the only accessible side of the
rock mass, and there was no way of return
for those who had descended to work in
the fields, nor any way for the aged and the
children and the women on the top to get
down. The water stored at the summit
gave out presently; no food could be shot
on the arrows of those below to their wives
and babes above, and so the faces that
peered from the cliffs edge into the agon-
lied faces below grew daily more thin and
sad, and after a little they appeared 10
more. Then the survivors wrapped their
cloaks about them and left that land for
ever.
Free From AIkaH.