The star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1908-1909, 1908-11-17
CONTINUED From Yesterday

CONTINUED From Yesterday
1t was to the modern version that
Lane had succumbed. From the
Sweetwater he roved to the south of
Albuquerque, where h narrow valley
of the Rio Grande is trimmed on the
east by an arid plateau, twenty miles
wide; and this is, in turn, walled in
by a long cordillera. Through the
passes, over the summit, Lane climbed,
descending through the pineries, park
like in their grandeur and immensely
to the bare, brown plains which stretch
eastward to the rising. sun. In the
midst of the desert lies a chain of
s~alines, the accursed lakes of Tigua
folklore. Beyond them the plain melts
and rebuilds itself in the shimmering
sun. To the south and southeast spec
trail peaks lower to the clouds. North
ward the blue shadows of the Sante
Fe fall upon the pine-clad foothills.
Along the lower slopes of the Man
zano are the ruins of the ancient
Pueblos. Abo and Cuarac are mounds
of fallen buildings and desert-blown
sand. Solemn In their grandeur. they
dominate the lonely landscape In a land
of adobe shacks.
Thirty miles from Cuarac, to the
southeast, lies Tabira, the "Grand
Quivira." Huddled on the projecting
slopes OF the rounded ridges, access to
II is a weary, dreary march. The
nearest water is forty miles away. Toll
ing through sand ankle-deep, the trav-
eler plods across the edge of the plains
through troughlike valleys. and up the
wooded slope of the Mesa de los Ju-
manos. A mile to the south a whale
back ridge springs from the valley,
nosing northward. No sound breaks
the stiffness of the day.
From the higher ridges the eye falls
upon the pallid ghost of the city.
Blotches of juniper relieve the mon
otony of the brown, ~lifeless grass.
Grays Jade into leaden hues, to be abb
sorbed in the ashy, indeterminate col
ors of the sun-soaked plains. No filter
setting for a superstition could be
found. Once a town of fifteen hundred
inhabitants, the topography of the
ridge gave it an unusual shape. Ruins
of three and four-story terrace houses
face one another across narrow alleys.
Six circular cisterns yawn amid the
mounds of fallen walls. At the centre
of the southerly blocks towers a gray
~quadrangular wall, the last of a large
building. At the western terminus of
the village, where the slope falls away
to the valley. is a gigantic ruin. Its
walls are thirty feet high and six feet
thick. The roof has fallen, and the
topmost layers of the b~luish-gray lime
stone are ragged and time-worn.
The building had a frontage of two
hundred and two feet, and its greatest
depth was n hundred and thtrty-one
feet. Flat-faced prisms, firmly laid in
adobe mortar, are placed at irregular
intervals in the walls.
The northern part of the ruin Is one
great cross-shaped ROOM, thirty-eight
feet wide and one hundred and thirty
one feet long. A gate fifteen feet wide
and eleven feet high opens to the east
ward. A mighty timber forms an arch
supporting fifteen feet of solid ma
sonry.
South of this Is a great chamber cut
up into smaller rooms, with long halls,
with walls twenty feet in height. In
one of the rooms Is a fireplace, and over
the doorways are carved wood lintels.
An entrance from the south Is given
through a spacious antecha1nber. The
~rafters, hauled fifteen miles, must have
weighed a ton.
Here lies the Colchis of the modern
Argonaut. AT first the Mexican pried
through the debris-choked rooms, or
feebly tunneled under the walls. With
the coming of the white races and the
drill, holes have been sunk into the
original bedrock. To the simple stories
of the natives, fable-bearers have added
maps, dying confessions and discov-
cred ciphers. ]4.'r
This ruin, which has caused SO many
heart breaks and disappointments, are
but the fragments of an old mission
founded by Francisco de Acevedo in
1923. Tabira was to be the central
mission of Abo and Cuarac. The alb
sence of water leads the modern ex-
plorer to believe hat when the town
was. deserted the spring was killed.
The gentle fathers who built the church
supervised the construction of a water
works. On q higher rid are three
crudely made reservoirs, with bitches
leading to the village. The Piros had
no animals save a few sheep, and the
water supply was needed only for do
nestle uses. as the precipitation fur
nisbed moisture for small crops of
beans and corn.
All these towns were wiped out by
the Apaches, the red plague OF the
desert. First they attacked the out
lying forts of the Salines, once sup
posed to be we'll watered, teeming with
game and fruitful. Tradition again
takes the place of unrecorded history,
and tells that the sweet waters were
turned to salt, in punishment of the
wife of one of the jewellers in the city,
who proved fatthless. In 1875 the last