DRINKS, NARCOTICS, AND MEDICINES 8 1 



cannot, from comparative observation, say; but I am certain that 

 from any point of view the Coahuilla Indians are splendid types of 

 men and women. Physically they are handsome, often large of size, 

 many men six feet and over, with splendid shaggy heads, and faces 

 of much command and dignity. Their desert home has given them 

 great powers of endurance and enormous toleration of heat and thirst. 

 With rare exceptions, and those always young men who have fre- 

 quented the settlements, they are absolutely honest and trustworthy. 

 Unlike the Mojaves or Cocopahs they know neither beggary nor pros- 

 titution. Their homes and persons are orderly and clean. The fine 

 pools and springs of warm mineral waters which are common through- 

 out their habitat are most gratefully prized possessions. Probably not 

 less than two centuries ago the ancestors of these Indians entered the 

 great range of territory still occupied by their descendants. They 

 came from the deserts north of the San Bernadino range and the stock 

 to which they belong is a desert people, but the Colorado valleys and 

 surrounding mountains raised new difficulties and offered new oppor- 

 tunities. Their adaptations to these conditions, their utilization of 

 whatever was there to be secured, raised their standard of culture until, 

 as it seems to me, it will compare favorably with that of any Indians of 

 western United States, save the Pueblo builders. After having 

 explored with some completeness the various portions of their country 

 and realized the difficulties attending life in certain portions, and the 

 call upon courage and endurance that the desert always makes, the 

 knowledge gained by this people, the culture they attained, apparently 

 long before seen by white men, seem to me to be a remarkable triumph 

 for men of a low, barbarous inheritance. 



Their splendid wells, unique perhaps among the Indian tribes of 

 America, their laborious though rude irrigation of the maize, their set- 

 tled community life, with its well-built houses and basket granaries, 

 their effective pottery, their exquisite basketry, their complete and 

 successful exploitation of all the plant resources throughout hundreds 

 of square miles of mountains and plains, these are not insignificant nor 

 contemptible steps toward civilized life. Several of these arts, espe- 

 cially agriculture, doubtless were borrowed from the Colorado river 

 tribes, or from the New river dwellers ; but their utilization, under 

 physical conditions so much more difficult than the fertile irrigated 

 plains of the Colorado overflow, may be regarded as a step in 

 advance. 



These things suggest how decided is the influence of the desert 



