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Show 278 WESTERN WILDS. ascend to the second by a rude ladder or stone stairway at the corner. The better class have carpets of sheep- skin, and all have them to sit on ; the climate is too dry for mold, and I found the residences very agreeable. The people are exceedingly kind and communicative. When the novelty of my appearance had worn away a little, and I could walk about town without a wondering crowd after me, I rarely turned toward a house - without receiving the welcome wave of the hand to the lips and breast, with the words, " Ho, MeUcano, messay to;" or sometimes, as many know a few words of Spanish, " Entre: Pasar adehmte." Then a boy or girl would run down the stone staircase, and extend a hand to steady me in ascending. They took me into every room in their houses, and seemed to take a pride in exhibiting their best specimens of pottery, wicker- jugs, and other property. Of their children they were particularly demonstrative ; and, indeed, they looked well enough. I did not, in all the towns, see a single birth-mark, blotch, or deformity, except albinism. Children of both sexes go entirely naked till about the age of ten years. I noted one curious fact : the little ones seemed almost as white as American children, till the age of six months or a year ; then they began to turn darker, and at ten or twelve had attained to a rich mahogany color. They play for hours along these cliffs, chasing each other from rock to rock at that dizzy height, and yet the parents seemed surprised when I asked if accidents did not happen. Their mode of living is very simple, and I happened upon a time of unusual scarcity. The general drought of the past three years had cut off their crops. As often as Chino, the Capitan of this mesa, visited me, I had presented him a tin of warm, sweetened coffee, of which they are very fond, and which was the only thing I could spare; and had partaken Of parched corn with him the evening of my arrival, when I received a special invitation to dine with him " the day before I left." ( People with weak stomachs may skip the next paragraph.) They breakfast early, and dine between 11 and 12. Besides Misi-amtewah, a sort of official interpreter, there is another Moqui, who speaks Spanish tolerably well, having been a year in Tucson and Pres-cott; and both were at dinner with us. We sat upon sheep- skins on the floor, in a circle around the earthen bowls, in which the food was placed. The staple was a thick corn mush, which to me was rather tasteless for the want of salt. The regular bread of the Moquis is a decided curiosity. The wheat is ground with mitats, as by the Nava- |
