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Show CHAPTER XVII. AMONG THE AZTECS. ARIZONA and the western half of New Mexico constitute a vast par-allelogram, down the center of which, as dividing water- shed, runs the Sierra Madre range. From its summit, varying from seven to ten thousand feet high, the country falls off' each way in a succession of plateaus to the two great rivers. The traveler proceeding west-ward from the Rio Grande, over an almost level mesa, sees rising be-fore him a range of rocky hills from a hundred to a thousand feet-high, and naturally looks for a corresponding descent on the western side. Instead, on reaching the summit, he finds again the level, bar-ren mesa spreading away before him, till its sandy and glistening sur-face fades into the blue horizon. Across this succession of terraced plateaus a few valleys put out eastward, and in the loAvest portions of these, where some running water is found, are the only cultivable lands. A series of such valleys, connected by singular natural passes, furnish a feasible route for the Thirty- fifth Parallel Road. Still, there is a sort of regularity on the New Mexican side; but far otherwise west of the summit. There the high plateaus are broken across by awful chasms ; gorges with perpendicular sides go winding tortuously through the formation ; all the streams run in great cafions from two to five thousand feet in depth, with bottoms from one to four thousand feet above the level of the sea. Here and there the barren plateau appears to drop suddenly to a level plain, and rocky ranges of hills inclose an oval valley, walled in on every side by inac-cessible mountains, and with passes out only up or down the beds of ancient streams, long since dry. It is the oldest country on earth, ex-cept perhaps the " back- bone " of Central Africa ; natural convulsions have slowly heaved it far above the region of abundant rains or dews, and the great Colorado, with its affluents, has for ages been slowly cutting deeper and deeper channels in the sandstone formation, tapping the sources of the springs at lower points, and steadily suck-ing the life out of its own basin. On the rocky hills are still some fine forests; on the slopes the Indians find abundant bunch- grass and wild sage for their hardy animals; and, at rare intervals, a hidden |
