great heaps of rushes and grass, and set them on fire; when reduced to coal and ashes, they threw over the mass a quantity of earth and water, and mixed the whole together. Of this compound they formed cakes which they used instead of stones. They plastered the outside of their buildings with the same mixture, so that the whole had the appearance of mason's work. This work was done by the women. The men brought the wood and did the carpentry." “Under ground there were subterranean rooms, called by the Spaniards Estufas, literally Stews, and which may be translated 'Air-baths.' In the middle of each was a fire, which was constantly fed with thyme or dried grass. These places were entered only by the men; women were forbidden to visit them. Some of them were round, others square; their upper floor, which was on a level with the ground, was supported by pine pillars, and they were paved with large smooth stones. Some were as large as a 'tennis court.' The Estufas at Braba were very large, and supported by twelve pine pillars, each of which was two fathoms in circumference and two fathoms high." From the circumstances that a constant fire was kept up in these Estufas, that they were forbidden to women, and that sacred dances and councils were held only in them, we are able to identify them as corresponding to the structures of the Floridian Indians, called "Hot Houses by the traders. In these also burned the eternal fire; they were temples and councilhouses, and were tabooed to the women. The correspondences here displayed, no doubt extended to the religions of the respective nations, but upon this point Castenada is silent. Coronado, however, states that the people of Cibola worshipped the water, for the reason that it caused their corn to grow and maintained their life, and because their fathers had worshipped it before them. In respect to the religion of the people on the Rio Grande, Espejo informs us that they "had many idols, which they worshipped, and particularly in every house an oratory (the Estufa) for the devil, whereunto they ordinarily carry him meat. And as it is the use among Christians to erect crosses upon the highways, so have this people certain high chapels, in which they say the devil useth to take ease, and recreate himself as he trav om one town to another,-which chapels are particularly well trimmed ar painted." The ruins of small circular and other enclosures, observed on eminent posi tions by Lieuts. Emory and Abert, an no doubt those of the sacred edifices mentioned by Espejo, and it is worthy of remark that the same ideas which led their erection, existed among the Aztecs who erected small temples on the hills and mountains, by the banks of streams ari lakes, and at the corners of streets, for the accommodation of the invisible divinit which, they believed, were constantly pres ent and moving amongst them. "All these people subsisted principally vegetable food. Maize, beans and pumpa are repeatedly mentioned as being universa cultivated, and to these mezquite bread was occasionally added. Accounts differ as to the abundance of the supply. At Cibola, enxer was raised to sustain the inhabitants, but at the other places mentioned, the soil was » fertile and easy of cultivation, that it was necessary to plough the ground in to sow, and the crops of one year would s ply the inhabitants with food for seven. A planting time the ground was open cod with the preceding crops, which it had been found necessary to take away. however, some antelopes and deer, bes.3 "Game was not plentiful. There w ducks, turkeys, and partridges in abundan Some of these fowls appear to have been ta as the Spaniards frequently speak of being > plied with poultry by the Indians." The articles of dress consisted of pre pared deer and buffalo skins, and t mantles of different sizes, but usualy & Spanish yard and a half in length. They had also ornamental feather dresses, pland on a network of thread. A most extraord nary fact is stated by Castenada, vir: al the unmarried women went perfectis ked, summer and winter; the reason a signed for which was, that any depKY from chastity would be at once revea We do not, however, find the stated A confirmed by other accounts. Castenada states that cotton was 3 grown in New Mexico, but Jar an tifies that it was cultivated. Mr. G observes that the black-seed or Anst cotton will grow as far north sh tude of Virginia, and it can handa doubted that it was cultivated by the dians on the Rio Grande, as it now s those on the Gila. Mr. Gallan tha however, that it could not have grown | Bows and arrows, clubs and bucklers, were the weapons of these Indians. They made fine pottery, and well varnished and highly ornamented vases are frequently mentioned as of common manufacture. In character they are represented by Castenada as sensible, industrious, honest, and peaceable, indulging in no excesses, and refraining from cannibalism and human sacrifices. They had chiefs, but vere usually governed by a council of ld men, after the manner of the semi-civilzed tribes of Florida. As observed by Mr. Fallatin," although perhaps as intelligent s the Mexicans, and certainly more huane, they are in most other respects, esecially in science and arts, very inferior > them." They were, and still are, rearkable for their conjugal fidelity, their espect for property, and for their integriy in all their dealings. Offences against ociety were efficiently punished by univeral contempt, rather than by penal enactents, which circumstance bespeaks a far igher standard of morality than any other merican nation possessed. Perfect equaly existed among them; there were no erfs or degraded castes; nor were they opressed by a coalition of hereditary asters leagued with an exacting priestod. They were thus exempt from many those evils which usually attend the rly progress of a people towards civiliza -11. They form, says the venerable instigator now quoted, "the only refreshepisode in the course of my researches o the early condition of the aboriginal ions of the continent. rating it from the great basin of the Salt lake. It seems to be a high plain, without verdure, and intersected by a few ranges of mountains, the general course of which is north-east and south-west, and which give the same direction to the streams by which the country is traversed. The valleys of these streams, as we gather from the early accounts-and we have no others-are narrow and fertile, and within them are found semi-civilized inhabitants, corresponding with those occupying the towns of Cibola. The people of the different valleys, and those of different parts of the same valley, as we gather from Coronado, Espejo and Garcias, were, and no doubt still are, independent of each, but maintain the most friendly relations, speak the same language, and have common institutions, habits and customs. The tribes or various communities known under the indefinite name of Moqui, were visited, as we have already seen, as early as 1583, by Espejo, and afterwards in 1773 by Father Garcias. The descriptions which they have left us, might answer for the people of Cibola or Tiguex. They have never been subjugated, and no doubt retain their primitive habits, impaired in no essential respect by the changes which have been going on in all other parts of North America during the past three hundred years. They therefore afford to the intelligent explorer an opportunity, never again to be enjoyed, of investigating aboriginal semicivilization under its original aspects. Included now within the territory of trading, land-absorbing America, it will not be long before their fastnesses will be penetrated by the "Surveyor of Public Lands," and the advantageous sites for mill seats and future cities, be duly displayed in lithographic splendor, upon the walls of the office of the " Moqui Universal Improvement and Land Investment Association, No. Wall street, New York!" Farewell then to the peace, simplicity, and the happiness of this Californian Arcadia! At the risk of protracting this notice to unreasonable length, we must be perted to add a few words more respecting In respect to the ruins on the Gila it "unexplored region" in which the may be observed, that although they difns of Cibola were situated, and which fer slightly in construction from the buildounded on the east by the Sierra Ana-ings which existed at Cibola, and which c and the Sierra Mimbres, on the south he Gila, on the west by the Colorado, north by the mountain chains sepa still exist in New Mexico, they fall palpably within the capabilities of the people we have described, and may with great plausibility, be attributed to them. If the account given by Captain Johnston on a previous page, of terraced and truncated pyramids, should be confirmed, the fact will certainly go far to prove that, if not erected by the Aztecs in their traditional migration from Aztalan, they were at least erected by a people having similar notions respecting the proper form for sacred edifices. We certainly have no account of the erection of such structures by the people of Cibola or New Mexico. NOTE 1.-Knowledge of New Merico In th Aztecs before the Conquest.-The hypothesis Mr. Gallatin that all agriculture in Anes originated between the tropics, implies interon munication, at some period, between the abong nal nations of New Mexico and those cultivates the soil to the southward. We must fit the period remotely back, or admit, upon the athypothesis, a knowledge on the part of the Antes of the existence of semi-civilized nations to th northward,—a knowledge which Mr. Gall a disposed wholly to deny to them. If we credit De Solis, living buffaloes were kept t zoological gardens of Montezuma at Mexi it was here that the Spaniards first saw ther De Solis' description is rather an amusing "One of the greatest ran and is subjoined: was the Mexican bull; a wonderful comp of various animals. It has crooked shee The general erection of tumuli over the dead, the construction of vast terraced pyramidal piles for sacred purposes, seem to have marked the steps of that primitive people, vaguely denominated the Toltecs, whose more imposing monuments still rear their spectral fronts among the dense tropical forests of Central America and Yucatan, but whose ruder, because earlier structures throng the fertile alluvions which border the great Mississippi river and its giant tributaries,-silent but most conclusive illustrations of the Grand Law of Development, the stages of which nature has graven in the imperishable rocks, and of the truth of which history as a whole is an example and a witness. The Aztecs seem to have been of the Toltecan stock, NOTE 2.-The Exploration of the Gulfet modified in their character from intermix-fornia and the Colorado river-The st ture or association with fiercer families. They undoubtedly derived their science and their elementary religious conceptions from their Toltecan kindred, and shared with them their not unmeaning nor yet unphilosophical predilections for pyra-pectation that he might assist Corona » midal altars and elevated temples.* with a bunch on its back like a camel; its f The following observations by Mr. Gallatin, upon the probable origin of the "Casas Grandes" or "Casas Montezuma," as they have been called, are worthy of attention : The traditions of the Mexicans say that they came from the north or northwest, and occasionally remaining several years in different places, arrived at about the end of one hundred and fifty years, in the valley of Mexico. The supposition that they came from the Rio Gila, or any country north of it, was a mere conjecture of the Spaniards, which does not appear to have been sustained by any other fact than that of the ruins above mentioned. It is indeed contradicted by the Mexican traditions, which placed Aztlan, not in some unknown remote country, but adjacent to Michoacan; and according to Fernando D'Alva, they were descendants of ancient Toltecs, who had fled to Aztlan, and who now returned to the country of their ancestors. If an identity of language Fernando Alarcon, alluded to in the text > ** thy of more than a passing remark. T joined condensed account of it, is from k sə latin's Notes: "Fernando Alarcon was sent by the Teas Mendoza up the gulf of California, un ler the p expedition. He sailed May, 1540, and unt; should hereafter be ascertained, it w Mr. Gallatin was not aware of th habited. The Indians appeared at first frightned, and disposed to interrupt the Spaniards; ut Alarcon avoided all hostilities, and they beFame pacified, even assisting in drawing the shalops up the stream, and supplying the Spaniards ith provisions. They raised maize, beans and umpkins, and on one occasion gave the Spanrds a loaf of mezquiqui. They worshipped the an; and Alarcon persuaded them that he was ie son of that luminary, and forbade them to go war. They said that when at war they ate le hearts of their enemies (?) and burnt some of eir prisoners. Alarcon returned to his vessels two days and a half; the ascent had occupied fteen days. He afterwards ascended the river a higher point, to the vicinity of a district lled Comana; met several tribes speaking difrent languages; heard of the country of the bola, which was variously represented to be n and forty days' journey to the eastward; tried vain to get letters transported across to Corodo, and finally returned to his vessels and sailed New Spain. Although the true geography of e gulf was thus early ascertained, the voyage Alarcon had been so much forgotten in Mexico, at the inhabitants one hundred and sixty years ter, in the eighteenth century, regarded it as estionable whether California was an island or peninsula."-Transactions of the American hnological Society, vol. ii., p. 50. NOTE 3.-Expedition to the Peninsula of Calinia.-In October, 1540, after the departure of e main body of Coronado's army from Sonora, | lchior Diaz, who was left as Governor of the nporary settlements made there, set off for the coast, in order to open a communication with arcon's vessels. At the computed distance of › hundred and fifty leagues, he arrived at or ir the mouth of the Colorado, which he named o del Tizon, because the Indians, in cold wear, carried a firebrand, for the sake of warmth. om indications given by the Indians, he found ree on the bank of the river, fifteeen miles from mouth, on which was written, Alarcon came e; there are letters at the foot of the tree." letters were found, stating that Alarcon had urned to New Spain, and that California was an island but part of the main. Diaz ascendthe river four days, crossed it on rafts, defeatthe Indians, who disputed his passage, and rched along the coast of the peninsula to the th-west. He accidentally wounded himself died, and his party returned to Senora.-16. xvi. OTE 4.—Expedition to the Upper Colorado. the same year, 1540, after the capture of ayan, the Indians of that province gave inition of a great river to the north-west. Lole Cardenas, with twelve men, were immely sent by Coronado in that direction. After ty days' march across a desert, they arrived e river, which was the Colorado, but far e its mouth. The stream was there buried, rently more than a thousand fect, below the land on which the Spaniards stood. The -nt was so precipitous that they found it imle to reach the bed of the river. The counas altogether uninviting, the water scarce, he weather cold. They accordingly return ed to Cibola. The few Indians they met were peaceable and friendly.”—Ib. p. lxviii. NOTE 5.-The Pimos Indians.-The Pimos Indians found by Lieut. Emory on the Gila, although peaceable and agricultural, and in some other respects exhibiting a resemblance to the Indian families of New Mexico, and to the westward in the same latitude, nevertheless probably belong to a different family. The inhabitants of all the valleys through which the Spaniards passed, from the time they left Culican until they reached the Gila, seem to have cultivated the maize, beans, pumpkins, &c., and to have had fixed habits. The Coracones, mentioned by Coronado, the Tahues of Castenada, the inhabitants of Petatlan, and of the valleys of Senora and Suya, were all of this character. Their houses, like those of the Pimos, were made of dry rush, and were mere sheds. From his account we may infer that Coronado found Indians of like habits, etc., on the Gila. On the plains and in the desert regions intervening between the valleys above named, were found various barbarous families, among which, and most numerous, were the Acaxas, which were probably the Apaches. NOTE 6.-Account of Cibola, from Coronado's letter to the Viceroy Mendoza.-"In this town where I remain, there be some two hundred houses, all compassed with walls, and I think with the rest of the houses not so walled there may be five hundred. There is another town near this, which is one of the seven, which is somewhat bigger, another of the same bigness, and four somewhat less. I send them all painted herewith to your lordship, and the parchment whereon the picture was found here, with other parchments. The people seem of a reasonable stature and wittie, yet they seem not such as they should be, of that judgment and wit to build houses in the sort that they are. For the most part they go nearly naked, but they have painted mantles. They have no cotton wool growing, because of the cold of the country, but they have mantles thereof, and in their houses was found cotton yarn. They have divers precious stones and crystals. We found here Guinea cocks, but few. The Indians say they eat them not, but keep them for their feathers; but I believe them not, for they are excellent good, and greater than those of Mexico. The season which is in this country, and the temperature of the air is like that of Mexico; for sometimes it is hot and sometimes it raineth; but hitherto I never saw it rain. The snow and cold are wont to be great, for so say the inhabitants of the country, and it is very likely to be, both in respect to the manner of the country and by the fashion of their houses, and their furs and other things which the people have to defend them from the cold. There is no kind of fruit nor trees of fruit. The country is all plain and is on no side mountainous, albeit there are some hills and bad passages. There is small store of fowls, (birds?) the cause whereof is the cold, and because the mountains are not near. Here is no great store of wood, because they have wood for their fuel sufficient four leagues off, from a wood of small cedars. There is most excellent grass within a quarter league hence. The victuals which the people of the country have is maize, whereof they have great stock, and also small white pease, and venison, which by all likelihood they feed upon, although they say no, for we found many skins of deer, of hares, and conies. They eat the best cakes I ever saw, and everybody generally eateth of them. They have the finest order and way of grinding their grain we ever anywhere saw, and one Indian woman of this country will grind as much as seven women in Mexico. They have good salt in the kernel which they bring from a certain lake a day's journey hence. They have no knowledge among them of the North Sea, nor the Western Sea, neither can I tell your lordship which is the nearest. But in reason they should be nearest the Western Sea, and at least I think it is an hundred and A DAY IN OCTOBER. SPIRIT of Summer! thou art here, In this thy kindly visiting, That thou may'st see the fields, once more, Deep sadness is there in thy step, And fluttering round the scattered leaves, O leave thy kiss upon my cheek, For thou wilt soon be on thy way, Shall robe the earth in white array ; And take with thee thine own rich hues, The twilight's dim, enchanted hours; |