i 74 
CAVE AND CLIFF DWELLERS. 
have to rely on the estimates (really broad 
guesses) of those best informed, giving 
my readers the benefit of my own re¬ 
searches as a check, although not claim¬ 
ing they will make a very good one, to 
the wide range of estimates made by 
others. In a previous chapter I spoke of 
the number of these Indians, but really 
am inclined, from all I could learn of 
them, to estimate their number at twenty 
thousand or thereabouts. An Indian 
tribe of twenty thousand people in our 
own country would be heard of often 
enough in press and public to become a 
household word ; but the isolation of the 
Tarahumari Indians from the beaten lines 
of travel, and the little interest taken in 
them by local and governmental officials 
(especially the interest which would make 
their habitations, habits, and customs 
