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Show FROM MOQUI TO THE COLORADO. 289 We skirted the precipice before us till we found a crevice and sort of rocky stairway, by which we got down to the plain, and thence traveled nearly straight west till dark, camping on a ridge with abundant grass, but no water. After supper John made a large bon-fire to signal the other Navajoes, but we received no answer. We were off by moonlight next morning John being all impatience to overtake another party, he said was near; and in three hours reached them, but they proved to be part of a band of five families who had moved to a valley there. Here we find the only living spring and running stream on our route. The valley is bounded on the south by an abrupt cliff, not more than six hundred feet high, and on the north by gently sloping hills, rich in grass. This band are the wealthiest Navajoes I have yet seen, the five families having over a thousand sheep and goats, and at least two hundred horses. Men and women have each a good riding horse, rather elegantly caparisoned, with stylish bridles and spurs, and in their camp equipage I notice many handsome vessels and copper kettles. That they are of the aristocracy is further proved by the fact that they did not loaf about our. camp, or ask for any thing; but received our advances with civil dignity, and sold us half a gallon of milk for fifty cents, like so many Christians. Their herds were just coming in to water: their horses galloping down the cliffs, the mounted Indian boys after them on slopes where an American would scarcely venture his horse at a walk, and the sheep and goats filling the vale with their bleatings, presented a scene to delight the heart of a pastoral poet. Two horses excited my par-ticular admiration : a heavy- limbed dark bay mare, and a bright chestnut stallion, light and swift, who galloped around us a few times in provokingly showy style, his sleek coat glistening as if just from the hands of a skillful groom. The pair would have sold for six or seven hundred dollars in the States. Our horses needed recruiting before taking the desert, and we con-cluded to stop a day. Buying milk and dried antelope, we had quite a breakfast feast, after which the chief and family came and took a cup of coffee and a smoke with me. He was fluent in signs and ] Xa-vajo, a born egotist, and as inquisitive as the stage " Yankee." The sign- language proved insufficient for him to tell all he knew; so he went toward the ciiff and shouted for Espanol, and soon appeared a bright lad of about twenty, who saluted me in first- rate Spanish, act-ing thereafter as interpreter. He informed me he was captured in the beginning of the last war, and lived with the Mexicans six years 19 |