204 THE FORESTS AND DESERTS OF ARIZONA 



to stud}'^ the conditions under which this resource could be ra- 

 tionally managed, so as to avoid as far as practicable the devas- 

 tation that has characterized our occupation of other sections, 

 and thus pave the way for a rational use of this important, yet 

 limited, resource? To be sure, this is hardly the way we are 

 Avont to do, for with regard to our resources, especially our for- 

 ests, we take a position somewhat similar to that of the old gen- 

 tleman from Arkansas : " When it was raining he could not 

 mend his roof, and when it was not he did not need a roof any- 

 way." 



Arizona, the unknown and maligned ; the land of thorns and 

 spines ; the province of apparently hopeless deserts and yet of 

 rich promise ; the land of dreary wastes and yet of infinite va- 

 riet}^ and contrasts ; the territory most picturesque and full of 

 interest to the geologist and botanist and ethnologist, even to the 

 mere sightseer, and 3'et the least visited ; the earliest discovered 

 of the western territories and 3^et the last to pass from the red- 

 man's dominion and the least developed ; the land of a high pre- 

 historic civilization, of cave-dwellers and cliff-dwellers, and of 

 the peaceful agricultural Hopi and Pima, and yet until a decade 

 ago terrorized by the most warlike of the Indians, the Apache — 

 Arizona is one of the most interesting of all our provinces. 



It is curious that the health-inspiring, rejuvenating quality of 

 Arizona's dry air did not impress itself upon the Spanish seekers 

 after the Fount of Eternal Youth, one of whom was destined, 

 while balked in his search for the latter, to first set foot on this 

 -part of the continen|. Alva Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, with two 

 Spaniards and one Negro as companions, all four fugitives bj"- 

 land from slavery among the Seminole Indians in Florida and 

 finding their way across the continent, were the first to see the 

 " Seven Cities of Cibola," the Hopi villages ; were the first to 

 pass under the shadows of San Francisco mountain and to share 

 the hospitalities of the Pima Indians just 360 years ago. Three 

 years later (in 1540) an exploring expedition under Vasquez de 

 Coronado visited the same country, and it was then that one of 

 .his lieutenants, Don Garcia Lopez de Cardenas, gazed — the first 

 white man — on the wonders of the Grand Canon of the Colorado. 

 Forty years later another of the conquistadors, Antonio de 

 EsjDejo, ventured forth and claimed and named the country for 

 Spain, Nuevo Mexico, under which name it came to the United 

 States ; the portion north of Gila river b}'' the treat}'^ of Guada- 

 lupe Hidalgo in 1848, the portion south of the Gila by the treat}^ 



