THE HO PI INDIANS OF ARIZONA. 



735 



world. A community without a church, separated by a broad, deep 

 valley from its nearest neighbor, with but a single white man with- 

 in twenty miles, removed nearly thirty-five miles from a trading 

 post, isolated, proud, spurning the advances of the Government, 

 Oraibi could maintain its independence if every other community 

 on the earth were blotted out of existence. 



The journey from Winslow to Oraibi is not without great in- 

 terest. The beautiful snow-capped peaks of the San Francisco 

 Mountain are always in sight far away to the west, and when the 

 eye tires of the rigid and immovable desert their graceful outlines 



STREET SCENE, ORAIBI. 



check the often rising feeling of utter helplessness. Then there 

 is a sweep and barrenness of the plain which is impressive and often 

 awe-inspiring, and which at times produces a feeling similar to that 

 created by the sea. Save for the stunted cottonwoods along the 

 Little Colorado River, there is scant vegetation to relieve the bright 

 reds, yellows, and blues of the painted desert over which the sun's 

 heat quivers and dances, revealing here and there mirages of lakes 

 and forests of wonderfully deceptive vividness. Arising out of the 

 plain here and there are brief expanses of table-lands, with the soft 

 under strata crumbled away and the higher strata having fallen 

 down the sides, producing often the appearance of a ruined castle. 

 At the foot of the mesas are clumps of sagebrush and grease wood, 

 while the plain is dotted here and there with patches of cactus and 



