J 



174 NEW TRACKS IN NOETH AMERICA. 



pottery, form tlie great articles of excliange between this 

 people and other tribes, the Mexicans being about the best 



customers of all. 



Their only native weapons are bows and arrows, but they 



readily adopt all modern appliances either in the shape of fire- 

 arms or implements of agriculture. The United States 

 Government has, through its agents, supplied to them a con- 

 siderable quantity of the latter dui-ing the last few years, by 

 which means the annual produce of their farms has been 

 greatly increased. As the groimd is soft and friable, hoes, 

 spades, and shovels are more in vogue than ploughs; and 

 when any part of the valley shows signs of exhaustion, they 

 give it rest, repair the old acequias which had pre\dously 



been abandoned, and thus bring a reinvigorated patch of waste ; ^ 



^1 



T: 



'4 



■f 



^f 



'•'i 



I 



land again under cultivation. 



Altogether, I may safely say that the present state of this 

 industrious people is very satisfactory. Want is imknoT^Ti 

 amongst them ; they are happy and contented ; they are of l 

 great assistance to the colonists as well as to the government, 

 for they help to confine the Apaches to their mountain 

 retreats, and they supply the emigrants and troops with large 

 quantities of corn. Ey the table of population already given 

 it will be seen that the women and children fonn a very fair 

 proportion of the population; as for the latter, my friend 

 Colton tells me that the whole valley swarms with them, and 

 that these little monkeys are as full of fun as they can be. All 

 this is encouraging, and loads us to hope that this people may 

 escape the general destruction which, in Korth America 

 especially, has fallen upon the aboriginal tribes with the 

 advance of the Anglo-Saxon race. To attain so desirable a 

 consummation two things are absolutely necessary : 



First, that the government should make their lands by law 

 inalienable. 



