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Show TOLTECCAN. 247 most perfect command of their features. The few I saw had a uni-formly sad, mild expression of the eye, but were quick in motion, well- made, and rather graceful. Unfortunately I was compelled, for company's sake, to take a route north of Zuni; and did not know its value to the explorer till I had passed westward. A hundred miles north of Wingate are the great ruins on the De Chaco River, supposed to be those of the " Seven Cities of Cibola" ( See- vo- la) ; and north of those, on the San Juan in Colorado, the ruins, as supposed, of a fortified city of the Aztecs. One of the walls still stands, five hundred feet in length, with joinings as true and smooth as in any of our buildings. They were constructed of hard sandstone, and probably enclosed a city of several thousand inhabit-ants. Lieutenant McCormick, who explored all of them, thinks that at least a quarter, possibly half, of a million people devoted to agri-culture, once occupied. the system of valleys opening upon the San Juan. They are gone long ago, and their places are occupied by the nomadic races: Utes, Navajoes and Apaches. The streams upon which they depended dried up, and cultivators necessarily yielded to hunters and shepherds; just as we find wandering Arabs encamped in the ruins of Baalbec and Palmyra, or barbarous nomads wandering over the once populous and fertile Babylonia. Here, too, we find the Navajoes at home; a most interesting race of barbarians, friendly in peace but savage in war. These are the first Indians I have met who have not the stereotyped " Indian face" the face we have heard described so often, either overcast with a stern and melancholy gravity, or lively only with an uncertain mixture of cunning and ferocity. Their countenances are generally pleasing, even mild and benevolent. They have many young fellows whose faces show the born humorist. Wit, merriment, and practical jokes enliven all their gatherings, and, quite contrary to our ideas of Indian char-acter, they laugh loud and heartily at every thing amusing. They are quite inquisitive, too, and seem vastly pleased to either see or hear something new. Both men and women work, and are quite industri-ous until they have accumulated a fair share of property ; then they seem content to take things easy. But here, as elsewhere, only the worst class of Indians spend their time about the fort. Their women come and go in frequent groups, and may be found almost any pay-day in the adjacent woods; the result being that Dr. Vickery has a very extensive practice among the private soldiers. On the 6th of June, I set out for Fort Defiance, in company with Wm. Burgess, blacksmith for the Navajo Agency. The distance is |