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Show WILD LIFE IN ARIZONA. 255 rolls somewhat smaller than the little finger. Having filled it, and transferred to a smaller stick, she runs it to the smaller spool in the form of a very coarse yarn, when it is ready for the " filling" in a blanket. Herding is the most laborious work the Navajo girls have to do. They have all the advantages of the healthful climate, without the fatigue of long expeditions, and are, as a rule, stronger and health-ier than the men. They are the only Indian girls I ever saw who even approximate to the Cooper ideal. Their dress is picturesque, con-sisting of separate waist and skirt; the former leaves the arms bare, and is made loose above and neat at the waist; the latter is of flowered calico, with a leaning to red and black, and terminates just below the knee in black border or frills. Neat moccasins complete the costume, the limbs being left bare generally in the summer. They are very shapely and graceful, and their strength is prodigious. This plateau, the ridges being of sandstone and the narrow valleys of mixed sand and black earth, is at least 7,000 feet above the sea. Thence we descended to a wooded hollow, again toiled up to the plateau level, and soon entered the most magnificent forest I have seen outside of California. A cold wind had chilled us on the ridges, but in the forest there was a dead calm, though we could hear the breeze sighing far above us. This splendid park continued for ten miles; then we descended to another valley, where the soil was evidently rich, though perfectly bare for want of water; but around the edges was a bordering meadow of good grass, spangled with Ved and yellow flow-ers. This valley is an oval some five miles long, opening northward, and lacks only water to become a little Eden. From this we rose to another forest, also of sugar- pines, but not so large or thrifty as the first. My guide informs me that these forests are as long as they are wide, and, as we traveled twelve or fifteen miles through them, they must cover some two hundred square miles. This will be a great source of wealth to the Navajoes, if they learn how to use it. The timber continued to the entrance of Bat Canon, by which we enter the De Chelley. There my guide points to a side - gulch, exclaim-ing, " Tohh klohh no mas," and we stop for the night. Hoppling the horse for a night's grazing, we sample our provisions, with satisfactory results, and retire. Navajo blankets will not admit the moisture of the ground, even if there had been any, which there was not ; and with two over me, and the saddle- blanket below me, I was comfortable till towards morning, when the cold was intense. We hasten to descend into the cafion before the sun is hot, and go down from the grove upon a sandy plain, dotted with scrubby hemlocks, and sometimes with tim- |