The Western United States Part 13

Long ago, when the rainfall was greater, Death Valley was a saline lake and received a number of streams, two of which were large enough to be called rivers. The Amargoza River, starting from Nevada and pursuing a roundabout way, entered the southern end of the valley.

The Mohave River, which rises in the San Bernardino Range, also emptied into the valley at one time, but now its waters, absorbed by the thirsty air and by the sands, disappear in the sink of the Mohave fifty miles to the south.

The summer is the dreaded season in Death Valley. A temperature of one hundred and thirty-seven degrees has been reported by the Pacific Coast Borax Company at the mouth of Furnace Creek. This temperature was recorded in the shade, and is the hottest ever experienced in the United States. In the sun it is of course much hotter. Many a person has lost his life in trying to cross the heated valley in the middle of a summer day instead of making the journey at night.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 73.--ENTERING DEATH VALLEY]

Dangerous as this region is, even now when we know so much about it, it was of course much more dangerous for the first white men who entered it. Only those who have had some experience upon the desert can realize the difficulties and dangers which beset the first emigrants who attempted to cross the deserts lying between Salt Lake City and the Sierra Nevada mountains. The story of the sufferings and final escape of that party which, by taking the wrong course, was lost in the great sink, is extremely interesting although sad. The valley received its name from the experiences of the members of this party.

In the latter part of 1849 many emigrants, who had reached Salt Lake City too late in the season to take the usual route through northern Nevada and over the Sierra Nevada mountains, decided that rather than remain in the town all winter, they would follow the south trail across southern Nevada to San Bernardino and Los Angeles.

A party of people finally collected with one hundred and seven wagons and about five hundred horses and cattle. The course led in a southwesterly direction past Sevier Lake and Mountain Meadows in southwestern Utah. In the latter locality the party divided, the larger number leaving the old trail and taking a more westerly direction. They thought in this way to shorten the distance, and hoped, by skirting the southern end of the Sierra Nevada mountains, to-gain the San Joaquin Valley in California.

Now trouble began. No one had ever been over the new route, and the location of the springs and the pa.s.ses through which the wagons could be taken had to be sought out in advance. Soon many of the party turned back to the known trail, but the others continued, though with no knowledge of the nature of the country which they must cross.

Day after day and week after week the slow ox-teams crawled across the broad deserts and over the low mountain ranges. From the top of each successive mountain ridge the men looked with longing eyes toward the west, hoping to get a sight of the snowy Sierras. Finally want of water and food began to weaken the cattle and the wagons were lightened as much as possible.

As the party approached the eastern boundary of California the mountains grew higher and the deserts more arid. In the clear air the snow-covered peaks of the Panamint Range began to be visible, although one hundred miles away. The weary emigrants believed that these peaks belonged to the Sierra Nevadas, and that beyond them lay the green valleys of California. How great was their mistake!

The Panamint Range looks down upon Death Valley with a bold and almost impa.s.sable front, while still other broad deserts lie between this range and the real Sierras.

Upon reaching the head of the Amargosa River the party began to separate, for by this time many thought only of saving their lives at any cost. Some followed Furnace Creek to its sink in Death Valley; others went over the Funeral range and came down upon the lower portion of the Amargosa River. In many cases the wagons were abandoned and the oxen were killed for food.

When they came into the sink we now know as Death Valley, the members of the different parties began to feel that they were really lost.

From the records that have come down to us we can see that they had not the slightest idea of the direction which they should take or of their distance from the settlements in California. Fortunately it was the winter season and the heat did not trouble them; moreover, the rains and snows furnished some water.

None of the wagons were taken beyond the camp at the western edge of the valley, under the towering peaks of the Panamint Range.

This place is now known as Bennett's Wells. Here the wagons were broken up and burned, and the loads, which were now very light, were either taken by the men themselves or placed upon the backs of the few remaining oxen. It was thought that the fair fields of California would be seen from the top of the Panamint Range; but when the travellers reached the summit other desert valleys appeared in the west, and beyond these, in the dim distance, another snowy range was visible.

The emigrants now divided into parties. One party reached Owens Lake, and turning south, finally pa.s.sed over the Sierras by the way of Walkers Pa.s.s and went down the valley of the Kern River.

Another, the Bennett party, including some women and children, remained at the springs in Death Valley, while two of the men started out alone, in the hope of reaching the settlements and returning with food. These men crossed the Panamint Range and struggled on for days in a southwesterly direction, over desert valleys and mountains. They were frequently on the point of giving up in despair for want of food and water.

At last, far to the south, the snowy crest of the San Gabriel Range came into sight. Continuing in a southwesterly direction through the Mohave Desert, the men reached a low pa.s.s in the mountains and followed a stream until they came upon a Mexican ranch, where the sight of green meadows, upon which horses and cattle were feeding, delighted their weary eyes.

Several animals were secured and loaded with food. Then the men turned back into the desert. They at last reached the desolate valley again, after an absence of about a month, and found most of the party alive, although nearly driven to despair. With the aid of a mule and several oxen, the party came safely to the fertile valleys near the coast.

Another party, known as the Jayhawkers, struggled on behind the two men who went for relief, and the most of its members also came safely out of the desert, though not without extreme suffering.

In all, fourteen people of this expedition perished.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 74.--SOUTHERN END OF DEATH VALLEY

Showing the white deposits of soda]

If you ever have an opportunity to travel over this region, you will wonder that any of the people escaped. The seemingly endless succession of deserts and mountains, the lack of food, and the scanty supply of water, often unfit to drink, would lead one to think that strangers to these wilds would be far more likely to perish than to find their way out.

THE CLIFF DWELLERS AND THEIR DESCENDANTS

The region of the high plateaus of the southwestern United States presents many strange and interesting aspects. Equipped with pack animals for the trails, and conducted by a guide who knows the position of the springs, one might wander for months over this rugged and semi-arid region without becoming weary of the wonderful sights which Nature has prepared.

In travelling over the plateau one has to consider that often for long distances the precipitous walls of the canons cannot be scaled, and that the springs are few and inaccessible. To one not acquainted with the plateau it appears incapable of supporting human life.

There is little wild game and scarcely any water to irrigate the dry soil.

However, if the country is examined closely, the discovery will be made that it was once inhabited, though by a people very different from the savage Indians who wandered over it when the white men first came. These early people had permanent homes and were much more civilized than the Indians. They lived chiefly by agriculture, cultivating little patches of land wherever water could be obtained.

Go in whatever way you will from the meeting point of the four states and territories, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico, and you will find the ruins of houses and forts. Upon the tops of precipitous cliffs, in the caves with which the canon walls abound, by the streams and springs, there are crumbling stone buildings, many of them of great extent, and once capable of sheltering hundreds of people. Scattered over the surface of the ground and buried in the soil about the ruins are fragments of pottery, stone implements, corn-cobs, and in protected spots the remains of corn and squash stems.

The people who once inhabited these ruins have been called Cliff Dwellers, because their homes are so frequently found clinging to the cliffs, like the nests of birds, in the caverns and recesses of the precipitous canon walls. The Cliff Dwellers have left no written records, but from a study of their buildings and of the materials found in them, and from the traces of irrigating ditches, we are sure that they were a peaceful, agricultural people.

The oldest ruins are probably those in the open and less protected valleys. It is evident that after these dwellings had been occupied for an indefinite time the more fierce and warlike Indians began to overrun the plateau region and make attacks upon the primitive inhabitants. These people, peacefully inclined and probably not strong in numbers, could find no protection in the valleys where they irrigated little patches of land and raised corn and squashes; so, retreating to the more inaccessible canons, they became cliff dwellers. Seeking out the caverns so abundant in these canons, they went to work with tireless energy to build for themselves impregnable homes and fortresses to which they could retreat when the savage Indians appeared.

The canon of Beaver Creek in central Arizona contains one of the most interesting of these fortresses, known as Montezuma's Castle.

Many small buildings nestle along the sides of the canon upon the ledges and under over-hanging rocks, but Montezuma's Castle is the most magnificent of them all, and must have given protection to a number of families.

Halfway up the face of a cliff two hundred feet in height, there is a large cavern with an upward sloping floor and jagged overhanging top. Here with infinite toil the Cliff Dwellers constructed a fortress, the front of which rose forty feet from the foundation and contained five stories. This front was not made straight, but concave, to correspond to the curve of the cliff.

What an effort it must have been for these people, who had nothing but their hands to work with, to quarry the stone. To carry their materials from the bottom of the canon, by means of rude ladders, up the steep and rugged wall to the foot of the cavern, and then to lay the foundation securely upon the sloping floor, must have been a still harder task.

The stones were laid in mud, and in most cases were also plastered with it. Here and there little holes were left to let in light, but the rooms, with their low ceilings, would have seemed very dismal and dark to us. Beams were set in the walls to support the different floors. Smaller sticks were laid upon the beams, and then a layer of earth was placed over the top.

To pa.s.s through the openings between the different rooms the inhabitants had to crawl upon their hands and knees. The places where they built their fires are indicated by the dark stains which the smoke has left upon the walls. Broken pottery and corn-cobs are scattered profusely about the building. How safe these ancient people must have felt in this retreat, where they were protected, both from the storms and from their enemies!

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 75.--MONTEZUMA'S CASTLE, BEAVER CREEK CAnON, ARIZONA]

Near some of the ruined dwellings in this region there are remains of buildings which are supposed to have been watch-towers. We can picture to ourselves the sentinels' alarm given to the workers in the fields at the approach of the savage Apaches, and the hasty flight of the Cliff Dwellers to the castle far up the canon wall,--the pulling up of the ladders and the retreat to the upper rooms from which they could look down in perfect safety. They must have kept water and food stored in the cave houses. As long as these supplies held out no injury need be feared from the attacking party.

But apparently there came a time when the Cliff Dwellers either abandoned their gardens and fortresses or were killed. It is possible that the climate of the plateau region became more arid and that many of the springs dried up, for there is no water now within long distances of some of the ruins. It is, perhaps, more probable that the attacks of the savages became so frequent that the Cliff Dwellers were driven from their little farms and were no longer able to procure food.

Those who were not killed by enemies or by starvation retreated southward and gathered in a few large villages, or pueblos, where they were still resisting the attacks of their enemies at the time of the coming of the early Spanish explorers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 76.--PUEBLO OF TAOS, NEW MEXICO]

A careful study of the early inhabitants of America reveals the fact that the Pueblo Indians are the descendants of the race of Cliff Dwellers. Their houses, their pottery, and their religious ceremonies are, so far as can be determined, very similar to those of the Cliff Dwellers. If you travel through northwestern New Mexico and northeastern Arizona, you will find the villages situated upon commanding rocks which are often surrounded by almost inaccessible cliffs. To these elevated villages all the food and water has to be carried from the valleys below. The houses are solidly built of stone, and rise, terrace-fas.h.i.+on, several stories in height, each succeeding story standing a little back of the one below.

These houses can be entered only by a ladder from the outside. In time of danger the ladders are drawn up so that the walls cannot be easily scaled. There are a number of groups of the Pueblo Indians, but the Zuni and Moki are perhaps as interesting as any of them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 77.--GRINDING GRAIN, LAGUNA, NEW MEXICO]

Wonderful indeed are some of the pueblo villages which were still occupied at the time of the coming of the Spanish, more than three centuries and a half ago. As in the pueblos now occupied, there were no separate family houses. The people of an entire pueblo lived in one great building of many rooms. Some of the pueblos were semi-circular, with a vertical wall upon the outside, while upon the inside the successive stories formed a series of huge steps similar to the tiers of seats in an ancient amphitheatre.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 78.--THE ENCHANTED MESA

The summit was once the site of an Indian pueblo]

In the pueblo of Pecos were the largest buildings of this kind ever discovered. One had three hundred and seventeen rooms, and another five hundred and eighty-five. Taos is another of the large pueblos, and is especially interesting because it is still inhabited. This great building has from three to six stories with several hundred rooms. In the foreground of the photograph (Fig. 76) appears one of the ovens in which the baking is done. In some of these pueblos the women still grind their corn by hand in stone _matates_, just as their ancestors did for many hundreds and perhaps thousands of years.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 79.--POTTERY OF THE ACOMA INDIANS, NEW MEXICO]

In northwestern New Mexico there is a remarkable flat-topped rock known as the Enchanted Mesa, which rises with precipitous walls to a height of four hundred feet above the valley in which it stands.