RIO SANTA CRUZ. 99 
together—the Anglo-Saxon and the semi-civilised native 
American. 
How well these Indians must have worked under the 
Spanish missionaries to haye built such a church! I have 
Seen no other building made of furnace-baked bricks in the 
country ; all this they must have learned. Then there was 
the building of the roof of brick arches, the moulding of the 
ornaments for the towers and decorations, and a thousand 
other arts necessary for the successful completion of such an 
undertaking. I really know not which to admire most, the 
adaptability of the Papagos or the zeal of the priests. 
_ Leaving St. Xavier del Bac, we kept to the road along the 
valley, occasionally passing an uninhabited ranche, until, after 
travelling eighteen miles from the church, we found that an 
American had lately taken possession of a ruined house called 
“Roade’s Ranche ;” and here we got a shakedown for the 
night. 3 ' 
One word about the Rio Santa Cruz, the eccentric course of 
Which can be traced at a glance on the map. For the first 150 
miles from its source it is a perennial stream; but four miles 
south of Roade’s Ranche, at a spot called Canoa, it usually 
si nks below the surface; it then flows underground almost 
to St. Xavier (twenty miles), and again reappears at a spot 
called Punta de Aqua. The Papagos are thus supplied with 
water, and are enabled to raise what crops they er 
s*round their huts by means of irrigation. Beyond St. Xavier 
it usually again sinks, rising for a third time as a fine body 
of water near Tucson, enriching a broad piece of valley for 
about ten miles around that town, turning the wheel of a 
fair-sized flour mill, and then sinking for ever m the 
desert to the north-west. During some seasons it flows further 
thar others, so that the length of stream above ground is 
a nH 2 
