liv INTRODUCTION. 



water-parting, the Mexicans of the locality very commonly 

 call it the "Sierra Madro," or Mother Mountain; thus it 

 happens that there are several Sierra Madres, which belong 

 not only to the actual Eocky Mountain system, north of the 

 34th parallel, but also rise from the highest plateaux of Mexico 

 proper. And while referring to this distinction, I may add 

 that I have thought it desirable to carry the same idea fm-ther, 



Sierra in the name g 



of Southern N^ew 



simply 



Madre (or Mother) Plateau, because the continental divide 

 actually crosses it, although no range of mountains, or m 

 fact any perceptible inequality of sui'face, marks the water- 

 parting. 



:N'orth of the Hio Gila, the description of the Mogollon 

 mountain belt applies with equal truth to these ranges, except 

 that portions of country amongst the latter have been settled 

 up, partly by Mexicans, the remnant of the Spanish occupa- 

 tion of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and partly by 

 Americans, since the annexation in 1848. Extensive mining 

 districts have been discovered ; mines have been opened and 

 found to yield abundantly ; herd smcn have commenced raising 

 stock ; and farmers have found that crops could be grown, even 

 without irrigation, in many places around Prescott (the 

 capital), situated in the northern part of this belt of moun- 

 tains. But the wild Indians of these regions are waging, as 

 they have been waging for ages, unceasing war against the 

 cultivator of the soil, whether he be Aztec, Mexican, or 

 Anglo-Saxon; and, although vastly inferior beings in every 

 respect, these savages are even now successfully stamping ou 

 the efforts of the white men to inhabit the country. Tlie 

 Apaches, who have ever lived by the plunder of their neigh- 

 bours, are at this moment drivin": back the tide of eniigra- 



