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Show CHAPTER VI. THE RUNNERS OF THE SIERRA. If there be any state in the Eepublic of Mexico about which it is difficult to obtain accurate or exact statistics, it is Sonora. Populated largely by Indians and miners, scattered over the whole state and immune to the salu tary influence of law, it is difficult to take its census or bring its population under the restraining checks of civ ilization. Hermosillo, with its 25,000 people, is numeri cally and commercially the most important town in So nora. It is 110 miles north of Guaymas. The harbor of Guaymas is one of the best on the Pacific coast, it is four miles long, with an inner and outer bay, and will admit ships of the heaviest tonnage, and could, I think, float the commerce of America. The Yaqui river, of which I will have occasion to write at another time, en ters the Gulf of California, called the Gulf of Cortez by the Mexicans eighteen miles below Guaymas. The So nora flows through the Arizipa valley, which is known as the Garden of Sonora on account of its incomparable fer tility. Formerly it was dominated by the terrible Ya-quis, and a few years ago the depopulated villages and ranches were melancholy reminders of the ruthless ven geance of these ferocious men. The Sonora river valley, with its wealth of rich allu vial land, its facilities for irrigation and adaptation to semi- tropical and temperate fruits and cereals, will eventually support a great population. That the valley and adjacent lands were in ancient days occupied by a numerous and barbaric not savage |