no Recreations of a Sportsman 



In 1538 two friars, Pedro Madal and Juan 

 de la Asunsion, crossed the great delta of the 

 Kio Yaqui, and reached the Gila. Then Men- 

 doza sent Marcos de Xica, whose expedition was 

 followed by that of Coronado, and later that of 

 Fray Francisco Lopez, Don Antonio de Espejo, 

 Juan de Onate in 1595, and many more down to 

 Otermin, Cruzate, Vargas and those of more 

 recent years. All these leaders, and many more, 

 crossed a portion or the very heart of the giant 

 cactus forest of the Rio Yaqui. Among the 

 legends and folk-lore of the natives of to-day, 

 are suggestions and memories of the gallant men 

 who formed these extraordinary expeditions, 

 mounted on strange and unknown animals, be- 

 decked in armor, pressing north, walking over 

 or by, unsuspected, the richest mines in the world, 

 in their insatiate search for gold. One of these 

 expeditions, that of Guzman, said to number 

 four hundred Spaniards and twenty thousand 

 natives, reached no farther than the Rio Yaqui, 

 colonizing the province of Culiacan, which was 

 afterwards governed by Coronado, and old 

 Yaquis living near the Bacatete range to-day 

 have a legend that among this horde of natives 

 of the south were some who inscribed strange 

 pictures (petroglyphs) on rocks and stones, a 

 message, or a welcome, a notice of a rich and 

 promised land; a legend of no scientific value, 

 yet sufficient to throw about the Burnham dis- 



