ALONG OUR SIDE OF THE MEXICAN BORDER 



77 



haps, science will help the desert to fur- 

 nish us with plants good for food and 

 other purposes, even in areas where there 

 is no water for irrigation. 



Remnants of the low, filthy Cocopah 

 tribe of Indians still inhabit the mud flats 

 along the delta of the Colorado, catching 

 fish, growing watermelons, or killing 

 rabbits in the tides with clubs. 



These Indians are most indifferent to 

 whites, ignoring them utterly. Once I 

 was in the vicinity of Volcano Lake when 

 an aviator had been lost. Other planes 

 came seeking the missing man, roaring 

 and swooping over lagoons and mud 

 flats. Cocopah Indians, loitering near, 

 took only a casual glance at their first 

 aeroplane and went indifferently about 

 their simple tasks. 



THE YUMA MEDICINE MAN IS LOSING 

 HIS JOB 



If you wander off the beaten trail, say 

 down below the railroad bridge over the 

 Colorado at Yuma, you may see a group 

 of naked Yuma Indians sitting in the 

 water up to their necks, their heads cov- 

 ered with mud to keep cool, "looking like 

 a herd of seals," as one writer says. 



Up near Banning, in the Coahuila set- 

 tlement, thev still have a medicine man, 

 but he is about out of a job. Sugar- 

 coated pills from the traders' stores and 

 the free medicine the missionaries pass 

 out appeal more and more. 



Their houses are built of poles, arrow- 

 weed, palm leaves, and willows. Grana- 

 ries, too, looking like giant bird nests, are 

 woven from willows and arrow-weed in 

 dish-like shape. The basket-weavers, 

 making designs of birds, turtles, and 

 lizards, are dying out. 



A few old tattooed Coahuilas are seen ; 

 they used to employ the mesquite thorn 

 as a needle and rub the juice of mesquite 

 leaves into the cuts, thus making a green- 

 ish tattoo design. They eat the chuck- 

 walla lizard ; also mesquite and screw- 

 beans, first pounded fine into flour in a 

 crude wooden mortar. 



By far the most industrious, respecta- 

 ble Indians in these parts are the Pimas, 

 of southern Arizona. On their reserva- 

 tion southwest of Tucson these people 

 farm as successfully as the whites ; their 

 work animals are fat; their wagons are 

 new or freshly painted, and their harness 



is in repair. With characteristic Indian 

 reserve, they pretend to know no Spanish 

 or English, but under compelling emer- 

 gency many of them can converse in both 

 languages. 



Of our whole border, the California 

 section is best known to Americans be- 

 cause of denser population, excellent 

 motor trails, and proximity of cities like 

 San Diego, Los Angeles, El Centro, and 

 the below-the-sea border town of Calex- 

 ico, opposite Mexicali. These Imperial 

 Valley twin towns are really one city, 

 split by the international line and each 

 named by peculiar reverse arrangement 

 of the first syllables of the words [Mexico 

 and California. 



The incredibly fertile Imperial Valley 

 of California sweeps north from Calex- 

 ico to the Salton Sea, more than 200 feet 

 below sea-level. The oft-told tale of this 

 valley's fight against Colorado River 

 floods and the eventual rise of a thriving 

 community of 60,000 people, with farms 

 worth maybe a hundred millions, is one 

 of the romantic stories of this never-say- 

 quit West. 



From Calexico the line runs west past 

 Signal Mountain, up the Jacumba Pass 

 over the Lagunas. past the historic bor- 

 der town of Campo (once the stronghold 

 of hellward gentry, now mostly fled, 

 dead, or reformed), through the towns 

 of Tecate and Tia Juana (famous for 

 races and gambling casinos), and thence 

 to the Pacific. 



Motor highways parallel the line, one 

 on each side of it, from Calexico-Mexi- 

 cali to San Diego and Tia Juana. The 

 road on the Mexican side was built by 

 the Mexican Government as a military 

 highway. 



The San Diego and Arizona Railway 

 enters Lower California (Mexico) at 

 Tia Juana, rambles east through rocky 

 canyons and cattle-covered, brushy hills 

 for a few miles, and then reenters Cali- 

 fornia at the town of Tecate bv tunnel- 

 ing under the international line, thus 

 literally forming an underground trail 

 from Mexico into the Lnited States. 

 From here it runs east through Campo, 

 over the mountains and down into the 

 Imperial Valley. 



Another road, the International Rail- 

 way, enters Lower California at Mexi- 

 cali, winds east some 60 miles or more 



