OCR Text |
Show EVERYDAY LIFE IN PUEBLO BONITO 229 Photograph by O. C. Havens THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY'S CAMP AT PUEBLO BONITO During four months of the year this camp, although it seldom contains more than half a hundred persons, is the seventh largest settlement in San Juan County. All provisions for the camp are hauled from the railroad station of Gallup (see map, page 232), 106 miles distant, and even firewood has to be brought from 20 miles away (see text, page 230). Nor can the average reader accurately measure the inestimable contribution The Society has made to science and history through preservation of this, the only known necklace of its kind in all the world. Geographical exploration is not always so simple as it may appear from a printed page. Whether it be tracing a precarious path between hissing fumaroles in a Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, or searching jungle-clad Andean slopes for lost cities of the Incas, or trekking across Tibetan plateaus to visit villages unmarked on the world's recent maps, the explorer must, perforce, adapt himself to his new environment and seek to overcome such obstacles as hinder his progress. Few roses bloom in untamed lands! Before work could proceed at Pueblo Bonito we sought out and tapped a hidden reservoir of the desert for drinking water. This well immediately became our labor barometer. As its surface rose and fell, the number of men and animals engaged in the explorations was increased or diminished. When hot July winds blew across the mesas to pile the rain clouds back upon the horizon, we measured our cistern twice a day. When our Navajo neighbors came in with lard buckets, canvas bags, and even barrels to complain that their water holes were dry, we shared our meager supply with them and agreed that the whole country had been drying up ever since the white men arrived. When they returned later with their goatherds and horses, we clamped on the lid and told them to dig their own wells deeper. The insufficiency of our water supply has been the chief reason why travelers have been rather discouraged from visiting Pueblo Bonito during the annual excavation season. CORNER GROCERY IS 106 MILES AWAY When the gods smiled and work progressed as we wished, thirty-five or more Indians, ten white men, and eight or nine horses were busy in the ruins. During four months out of the year our camp was the seventh largest settlement in San Juan County (see illustration above). All the provisions for this evanescent village, all the hay and grain for the teams, had to be hauled from the railroad. |