590 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



stranger and to command his respect. The females are chaste, re- 

 served, extremely modest and rather shy, avoiding, when possible, the 

 gaze of the stranger. Many of them are quite pretty, of fine figure 

 and regular features. Their want of personal cleanliness, however, 

 was apparent, and is certainly singular, in view of the neatness which 

 pervades their dwellings. 



One cannot but admire their regard for truth, their industry, unob- 

 trusive disposition, hospitality and respect for strangers. Their hatred 

 of the Mexican is intensely bitter, and is not concealed. On every 

 favorable occasion they give vent to expressions indicative of outraged 

 feelings by reason of the persecutions that have been inflicted upon 

 them by their enemies ; and these, together with the feeling manner 

 in which they are made known, warrant the belief that the injuries 

 they have suffered have been numerous and severe. Their love for 

 and kindness toward the people of the States (or " Americans," as they 

 call them) are in striking contrast with the hatred and revenge they 

 bear the Mexican. Yet the benefits they have received from our Gov- 

 ernment have been neither many nor great. 



Although perhaps these Indians, like all Pueblos, do not impress 

 the stranger very favorably on first sight, on closer acquaintance one 

 is forced to yield to the conviction that they are among Nature's no- 

 blemen — that they are the descendants of a race long freeholders of 

 the soil of the North American Continent, and are every way worthy 

 of confidence and respect. They are by no means to be compared to 

 the nomadic tribes of red-skins, everywhere infesting the prairie, plain, 

 and mountain of the far West, for murder and j^lunder. Like other 

 Pueblo tribes, these people show marked and distinctive peculiarities, 

 not that they difier essentially in type from the other branches of the 

 great aboriginal families, but as regards their originality in costume, 

 and their strong conservatism. Industrious and self-sustaining, they 

 are temperate and quiet ; though receiving but little aid from the 

 General Government, they are well to do, and particularly in the line 

 of farming. 



As evening drew near, we prepared to bid adieu to Zuni town and 

 its inhabitants. On leaving, the governor, with his cacique and the 

 prominent men of his tribe, followed us to the outskirts of the village, 

 when, with uplifted hands, he gave us his benediction, imploring the 

 God of the Zuni to give us safe return to our camp, and, at the close 

 of the field season, to our homes and kindred in the distant East. 



A pleasant day with this isolated band of self-supporting, half- 

 civilized people, was profitably spent, many facts being gained re- 

 garding themselves, their ancestors, their peculiar manners and cus- 

 toms, as well as respecting their language. These data, when properly 

 discussed and elaborated, will constitute additional information of in- 

 terest to the general reader, as well as of value to the student of eth- 

 nology and philology, and may, moreover, throw new light on the 



