MiNDELEFF] TUSAYAN TRADITION. 189 



The White Mountain Apache have told me that they know a place in the south 

 where old houses surround a great rock, and the land in the vicinity is wet and 

 bof^gy. 



We traveled northward from Palat-kwabi and continued to travel just as loug as 

 any strength was left in the people — as loug as they had breath. During these 

 journeys we would halt only for one d:iy at a time. Then our chief planted corn 

 in the morniug and the pii-to-la-tci (dragon fly) came and hovered over the stalks 

 ana by noon the corn was ripe ; before sunset it was quite dry and the stalks fell 

 over, and whichever way they pointed in that direction we traveled. 



When anyone became ill, or when children fretted and cried, or the young people 

 became homesick, the Co-i-yal Katciua (a youth and a maiden) came and danced 

 before them; then the sick got well, children laughed, and sad ones became cheer- 

 ful. 



We would continue to travel until everyone was thoroughly worn out, then we 

 would halt and build houses and plant, remaining perhaps many years. 



One of these places where we lived is not far from San Carlos, in a valley, and 

 another is on a mesa near a spring called Coyote Water by the Apache. » * • 



When we came to the valley of the Little Colorado, south of wliere Wliislow now 

 is, we built houses and lived there; and then we crossed to the northern side of the 

 valley and built houses at Homolobi. This was a good place for a time, but a plague 

 of Hies came and bit the suckling children, causing many of them to die, so wo left 

 there and traveled to Ci-pa (ne;ir Kuma spring). 



Finally we found the Hopl, some going to each of the villages except Awatobi; 

 none went there. 



PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY. 



The Rio Verde is throughout its length a mountain stream. Rising 

 in the mountains and plateaus bounding two great connected valleys 

 northwest of Prescott, known as Big Chino valley and Williamson 

 valley, both over 4,000 feet above the sea, it discharges into Salt river 

 about 10 miles south of McDowell and about 25 miles east of Phcenix, 

 at an elevation of less than 1,800 feet above the sea. The fall from 

 Verde to McDowell, a distance of about Co miles, is about 1,500 feet. 

 The whole course of the river is bnt little over 150 miles. The small 

 streams which form the river unite on the eastern side of Big Chino 

 valley and flow thence in a southerly and easterly direction until some 

 12 nules north of Verde the waterway approaches tlie edge of the 

 volcanic formation known on the maps as the Colorado plateau, or Black 

 mesa, and locally as "the rim." Here the river is sharply deflected 

 southward, and flows thence in a direction almost due south to its 

 mouth. This part of the river is hemmed in on both sides by high 

 mountain chains and broken every few hundred yards by rapids and 

 "riffles." 



Its rapid fall would make the river valuable for irrigation if there 

 were tillable land to irrigate ; but on the west the river is hugged 

 closely by a mountain chain whose crest, rising over 0,000 feet above 

 the sea, is sometimes less than 2 miles from the river, and whose steep 

 and rugged sides descend in an almost unbroken slope to the river 

 bottom. The eastern side of the river is also closely confined, though 



