188 NEW TRACKS IN NOETH AMERICA. 



entii-ely depopulated that country. Its ruin was almost com- 

 plete before tlie Treaty of 1854 liad finally settled tlie question 

 of boundary line between Mexico and tbe United States ; but 

 one of the chief stipulations of the treaty was that the latter 

 government should keep the Apaches in their own country, 

 and prevent them from making any more raids into Mexican 

 territory. Although this was promised, it could not be 

 accomplished; for the United "States military have, up to 

 the present time, been almost powerless in their attempts 

 either to " wipe out " or to restrain these marauding hordes. 

 They have, as we shall see in many of the incidents to be 

 related, neither protected their own subjects on their own 

 soil, nor sheltered the helpless Mexicans across the border. 



But the Apaches do not lay waste l^orthern Sonora as they 

 formerly did, chiefly because there is now nothing to plunder ; 

 all is desolation. Destiny, however, seems to be doing ^^'"i^ 

 the government has failed to do ; it is destroying the Apache 

 nation. Although very few are yearly killed in fight, and 

 the white man has not as yet penetrated into the heart of 

 their country, still they are dying out fast ; already the total 

 population, as far as it can be estimated, is so small as to 

 appear at first to be beneath our notice; but the scalp oi 

 many a brave settler will yet be taken before these blood- 

 thii^sty savages are crushed. 



In the region lying between the Eio Yerde, which is about 

 the limit of the Apache country and the Eio Colorado, two 

 tribes, few in number, and of the lowest type of humamty, 

 are met with. These are the Walapais (Hualpais) and the 

 Yampas. The latter chiefly inhabit little strips of marshy 

 land at the bottom of the deep canons, which debouch upon 

 the Colorado Canon. Both tribes were encountered by our 

 parties about the 35th parallel; they are comparatively 



