460 INDIAN FORTS AND DWELLINGS. 



gross, but sinewy, magnificent specimens of free and fighting savagery.. 

 On the other hand, the desiccation of body in old age, especially in the 

 women, is something i")henomenal. In a wigwam near Temecula I have 

 seen an aged man who certainly would not have weighed over 50 pounds, 

 so extraordinarily was he wasted and shrunken ; many others have 

 nearly equaled him. This fact accounts for the repulsively wrinkled 

 appearance of the aged, that which has made them so odions in the- 

 eye of superficial writers and fastidious tourists. There is probably 

 no other race so excessively fat in youth, and so wrinkled in old age. 



The California Indians are rapidly wasting away, and all, except 

 perhaps a few of the Mission Indians, are practically beggars and vag- 

 abonds on the face of the earth. They are not gypsies at all, for they 

 are attached to the place of their birth, and never willingly leave it except 

 for a brief period. By a great majority of the people they are looked: 

 upon as cumberers of the ground. They are allowed camping-grounds,, 

 it is true, but these are grudgingly given. The great ranchers of the 

 plains permit them to glean wheat in their harvest-fields ; but in the 

 mountains, where the farmers are poorer, they frequently forbid them 

 even from gathering the acorns which are their staff of life. The gen- 

 eral sentiment toward them is one of pity, mixed with one of impatient 

 tolerance or open disgust ; they are felt to be in the way. They ought 

 to be all gathered on the reservations, where they could be thoroughly 

 segregated from the whites and kindly cared for. It does not come 

 within my province to ma-ke recommendations as to the locality of these 

 reservations, or the best manner of collecting the Indians or providing 

 for them after collected ; but if it should be desired, I could give decided 

 opinions on these questions. 



INDIAN FORTS AND DWELirVGS. 



By Dr. W. E. Doyle. 



When in 1869 the present site of Fort Sill, Indian Territory, was se- 

 lected by Generals Sheridan, Hazeu, and Grierson as the best location: 

 for a military establishment in all this section, it was found occupied by 

 a number of earthworks of a circular form and about forty feet in diame- 

 ter. These were at once conjectured to be the remains of the village 

 last occupied by the Wichitas before they left the mountains which 

 bear their names. General R. B. Marcy, who explored the Red River of 

 Louisiana in 1852, says of this abandoned village of the Wichitas t 

 " Here they lived and planted corn for several years, and they have ex- 

 hibited much taste and judgment in the selection of the site for their 

 town. It is situated at the eastern extremity of the mountains, upon a 

 plateau directly along the south bank of the creek, and elevated about 

 one hundred feet above it, commanding an extended view of the country 

 towards the north, south, and east. From its commanding position it is 



