THE GRAND CANON 



ditches may still be traced. Some of these an- 

 cient gardens are still cultivated by Indians, 

 descendants of cliff-dwellers, who raise corn, 

 squashes, melons, potatoes, etc., to reinforce 

 the produce of the many wild food-furnishing 

 plants nuts, beans, berries, yucca and cactus 

 fruits, grass and sunflower seeds, etc. and the 

 flesh of animals deer, rabbits, lizards, etc. 

 The canon Indians I have met here seem to 

 be living much as did then* ancestors, though 

 not now driven into rock-dens. They are able, 

 erect men, with commanding eyes, which noth- 

 ing that they wish to see can escape. They 

 are never in a hurry, have a strikingly meas- 

 ured, deliberate, bearish manner of moving 

 the limbs and turning the head, are capable 

 of enduring weather, thirst, hunger, and over- 

 abundance, and are blessed with stomachs 

 which triumph over everything the wilderness 

 may offer. Evidently their lives are not bitter. 

 The largest of the canon animals one is 

 likely to see is the wild sheep, or Rocky Moun- 

 tain bighorn, a most admirable beast, with 

 limbs that never fail, at home on the most 

 nerve-trying precipices, acquainted with all 

 the springs and passes and broken-down jump- 

 able places in the sheer ribbon cliffs, bound- 

 ing from crag to crag in easy grace and con- 

 fidence of strength, his great horns held high 

 375 



