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Show 288 WESTERN WILDS. returned from the plain half the population of the mesa were around my domo waiting to see us off. No " stirrup cup" this time; I divided my tobacco with Chino, and presented him the only linen shirt I had with me, for I had about as much use for it as a Highlander has for a knee- buckle. The Moquis do not use money in any form, that I could see, and the flowered calico I had taken along to pay expenses with was exhausted, . as the people had been most kind in furnishing goats' milk and eggs and carrying in blankets full of grass for my horse. Chino presented me in turn with a huge roll of mescal, and after a warm embrace Moqui good- bye from him and the interpreters, we mounted and were off, the whole population joining in a loud song that died a, way into a sort of wail as we descended the rock- hewn gallery. " We traveled north- north- west all day, through a somewhat better country than that east of Moqui; good bunch- grass was abundant, and on the ridges were considerable thickets of scrubby pine. In the mountains which border the oval valley about Moqui there are many peach trees; the Moquis dry the fruit, and also pound up the seeds and make a thick paste therefrom. Mescal, also one of their luxuries, looks when dried like a mass of soft sole- leather, and tastes much like ripe sugar- cane. It is slightly cathartic, and is a good change from dry bread and bacon. To our left all day was a considerable ridge, and by expressive pan-tomime and a few Navajo words John informed me that west of it there was a desert with neither grass nor water, which horses could not cross in a day, but we should go around the north end of it. About 4 P. M., we reached the first pool, and refilled our canteen and wicker- jug, as we must make a " dry camp" to- night. Turning to the left we reached the summit of the ridge in an hour's hard climbing, passed a dense thicket of pines, and came out upon a splendid pros-pect. The cliff we stand on slopes gently for a hundred yards, then drops suddenly by a rugged precipice, a thousand feet, to a plain which stretches north and west as far. asI can see. But to the north a dim, blue range appears, and this side of it a dark depression with overhanging mist, which may be due to the great distance or the pres-ence of water. John indicates that there is a great cliff there, three times as high as the one before us, at the bottom of which there is much water running very fast, and deeper than over my head three times ; but it is as far as we could travel from sun- up till the middle of the afternoon, and horses could not get up or down there for many days' travel cast and west. This, of course, is the Colorado. |
