132 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 15. 



found only at certain points, unless there has 

 been rain recently ; and wood is so scarce near 

 these watering-places, because it has been so 

 carefully scraped up, that we once or twice paid 

 25 cts. for a very small armful. While the men 

 cared for the horses I usually built the fire and 

 cooked the oatmeal, toasted the bread, " set the 

 table," etc. Setting the table consisted in turn- 

 ing over the lid of the lunch-box and resting it 

 on a water pail turned upside down. Mr. Ca- 

 rey made the coffee, and 1 never drank such de- 

 licious coffee before, and never expect to again. 

 You may ask. " How about plain hot water you 

 have lauded so much?" Well, coffee seems spe- 

 cially made for camping out ; and if the water 

 is the least bit alkaline the coffee disguises the 

 taste. I did not use sugar, but did use concen- 

 tr.ated milk. Mr. Elvey cooked the quails and 

 beefsteak. The most nourishing and delicious 

 steak I ever ate we bought at Antelope. 2}4 lbs. 

 for 1.5 cts. The mountains of Arizona can pro- 

 duce beefsteak as cheaply as or cheaper than 

 any other country in the world; and one who 

 knows how can cook it over a camp-fire so as to 

 be nicer than any restaurant or hotel cook ever 

 thought of doing. I am not going to claim that 

 the mountain and desert air did not have some- 

 thing to do with it. I gained 11 lbs. in weight 

 during the two weeks' trip, as nearly as I can 

 make out, and now weigh as much, perhaps, as 

 I ever did in my life. 



Just a word more about the beef and cattle. 

 Where there is plenty of rain, cattle can be 

 grown on the mountains. I am told, at a cost 

 not exceeding one dollar per head. When these 

 cattle are of proper age they are driven down to 

 Salt River Valley, where they quickly become 

 fat on the wonderful alfalfa. Imagine a field of 

 forty acres in January, as green as a clover- 

 field in June, and the plant almost knee-high. 

 Stock enough is turned on to eat it down close 

 to the ground, then they are removed to anoth- 

 er field, water is turned on, and in a few weeks 

 the field is green with another crop. So valua- 

 ble is this alfalfa with its many crops in a sea- 

 son, that some fruit-ranches are being cleared 

 to make room for alfalfa, because the latter 

 pays better than the fruit. 



Let us go back to arid plains and mountains 

 again. During the whole of 1895, more rain fell 

 than for many years, and feed is now so plenti- 

 ful that there is not stock enough to consume it 

 all. Previous to 1895 there were two or three 

 years of deficient rainfall, and thousands of cat- 

 tle starved, and some of the owners became 

 bankrupt. Go where you will, the bleaching 

 skeletons of starved cattle are found. All along 

 the roadside they are common. A dead cow by 

 the wayside is too common to occasion remark, 

 and no care is taken to bury the carcass; for in 

 this arid clime it just dries up. emitting very 

 little or no smell at all. The bones are not col- 

 lected, as they are in Texas and other places, 

 for the reason that the cost of shipping is more 

 than their value at present. Around "Skull 

 Valley," bones are so plentiful as to suggest its 

 name. 



Alfalfa is made into hay in the spring and 

 summer — seldom in winter, on account of diffi- 

 culty in curing properly. It is pressed into 

 bales of about 100 lbs. each, and these are re- 

 tailed in Salt River Valley at 25 cts.; but after 

 we were out two days in the desert (at Antelope) 

 the price was $1.25 per bale. You see they 

 count it worth a dollar to haul 100 lbs. two 

 days. I am told that small farmers who find a 

 spring in some canyon, so as to irrigate a small 

 field in these localities where hav is so high, get 

 to be well to do in raising alfalfa alone. To 

 save hauling so much weight and bulk we tried 

 grain instead of alfalfa hay; but our horses 



greatly preferred the hay, and seemed to work 

 better on it; in fact, we found it hard to get 

 them to eat any kind of grain if they could get 

 their favorite alfalfa hay. 



MONTEZUMA'S WELL. 



Within twelveor fifteen miles of Camp Verde, 

 off toward Flagstaff, is the celebrated Monte- 

 zuma's Well. I started ahead of the team, on 

 my wheel. When I got pretty near the locali- 

 ty, I wanted to make some inquiries. I saw a 

 lot of little girls playing near a schoolhouse. 

 As it was a little off the road I turned my wheel 

 in that direction, proposing to ride up and 

 make inquiries. As soon as they saw that 

 strange-looking craft making toward the group 

 at pretty good speed, they with one accord put 

 for the open door of the schoolhouse, with a 

 speed equal to if not greater than what I could 

 make on the wheel. One of the older ones, 

 however, ventured to give me the desired in- 

 formation. A little later the team came near 

 enough so that Bro. Elvey informed me that, if 

 I would go to the top of the hill yonder, plainly 

 in sight, I could find Montezuma's Well. 



The team passed on to the place where we 

 were to stop over night, near by. I followed 

 the trail with my wheel until I was nearly at 

 the top of the hill; then I proceeded to go up 

 the rest of the way on foot. Was it the exer- 

 cise of riding or the excitement of the moment 

 in thinking that I was at last so near this cele- 

 brated freak of nature? And is it realjy pos- 

 sible that right on top of this hill here before 

 me I am to find this far-famed well of Monte- 

 zuma? I had almost reached the summit, and 

 began to think there was some mistake, when, 

 lo! at my very feet yawned a huge rocky cav- 

 ern or drop. From where I stood, straight 

 down, it was nearly a hundred feet to the water, 

 and the well is almost circular. I believe the 

 distance is about 200 feet across. I threw a 

 stone with all my might, but it came a good 

 way short of reaching the center of the pool. 

 Sure enough, as I had been told, air-bubbles 

 kept rising continuously where the stone went 

 down. The report is, that ropes tied together 

 have been let down 500 feet without striking 

 any bottom. By leaning over the edge of the 

 precipice I saw, perhaps a third of the way down, 

 the cliff dwellings that those queer people of 

 olden time built even into the sides of this well. 

 It made me think of the swallows' nests under 

 the eaves of a barn. It was so near night that 

 I did not undertake to explore the dwellings. 

 In fact, it is a dizzy piece of business any way, 

 with that bottomless pit of water to catch you 

 in case you should fall. On the opposite side 

 from where I stood, the rocky wall is a little 

 more broken. In fact, there is a trail made by 

 the feet of many visitors where they get down. 

 At the bottom of this trail is a little piece of 

 ground not covered by water; and a tree and 

 some bushes of some size grow here. Right 

 back of the tree there is a cave, or, rather, two 

 of them. One of these is occupied by more 

 cliff dwellings. In fact, they go back into the 

 rock a considerable distance. The other, the 

 right-hand branch, leads down through many 

 crooks and turns into a place where you may 

 hear running water. This is the water that 

 constantly overflows from the well, and passes 

 off through the rocky sides of the hill until it 

 finds an outlet in Beaver Creek; and some en- 

 terprising fruit-grower or farmer has caught 

 the stream, and carries it away in an irrigat- 

 ing-canal to his ranch. The volume of water 

 that goes out is perhaps large enough to fill a 

 good-sized stovepipe. By looking carefully 

 around the margin of the bottom of the well 

 you will find a place where the waters go 

 gurgling down through the broken rock. 



