INDIAN TRADITION.—MANNER OF CULTIVATING LAND.—DRESS. 
9 
us; but soon recovering, told us he was interpreter to Juan Antonio Llunas, chief of the Pimos. 
We were taking some refreshments at the time, and invited him to taste of them. The effect 
was electric ; it made his bright, intelligent eye flash, and loosened his tongue. I asked him, 
among other things, the origin of the ruins of which we had seen so many. He said, all he 
knew was a tradition amongst them, “that in by-gone days a woman of surpassing beauty 
resided in a green spot in the mountains near the place where we were encamped. All the men 
admired and paid court to her. She received the tributes of their devotion—grain, skins, &c., 
hut gave no love or other favor in return. Her virtue and her determination to remain un¬ 
married were equally firm. There came a drought which threatened .the world with famine. 
In their distress people applied to her, and she gave corn from her stock, and the supply 
seemed to he endless. Her goodness was unbounded. One day as she was lying asleep with 
her body exposed, a drop of rain fell on her stomach, which produced conception. A son was 
the issue, who was the founder of a new i*ace, which built all these houses.” 
I told the interpreter repeatedly he must go and report to the general; hut his answer was, 
“Let me wait till I blow a little.” The attraction was the aguardiente. At length he was pre¬ 
vailed on to go to head-quarters, leaving at our camp his hows and arrows and other matters, 
saying he would return and pass the night with us. 
November 11.—Leaving the column, a few of us struck to the north side of the river, guided 
by my loquacious friend, the interpreter, to visit the ruins of another Casa Montezuma. In the 
course of the ride I asked him if he believed the fable he had related to me last night, which 
assigned an origin to these buildings. “No,” said, he, “but most of the Pimos do. We 
know, in truth, nothing of their origin. It is all enveloped in mystery.” 
The casa was in complete ruins, one pile of broken pottery and foundation-stone of the black 
basalt making a mound about ten feet above, the ground. The outline of the ground-plan was' 
distinct enough. 
We found the description of pottery the same as ever, and among the ruins the same sea-shell, 
one worked into ornaments; also a large bead, an inch and a quarter in length, of bluish mar¬ 
ble, exquisitely turned. 
We secured to-day our long-sought bird, the inhabitant of the mezquite, indigo-blue plu¬ 
mage, with top-knot and long tail; its wings, when spread, showing a white ellipse. 
Turning from the ruins towards the Pimos village, we urged our guide to go fast, as we 
wished to see as much of his people as the day would permit. He was on foot, but led at a 
pace which kept our mules in a trot. 
We came in at the back of the settlement of the Pimos Indians, and found our troops en¬ 
camped in a cornfield, from which the grain had been gathered. We were at once impressed 
with the beauty, order, and disposition of the arrangements for irrigating and draining the 
land. Corn, wheat, and cotton are the crops of this peaceful and intelligent race of people. 
All the crops have been gathered in, and the stubbles show they have been luxuriant. The 
cotton has been picked and stacked for drying on the tops of sheds. The fields are subdivided 
by ridges of earth into rectangles of about 200 X 100 feet, for the convenience of irrigating. 
The fences are of sticks, wattled with willow and mezquite, and, in this particular, set an 
example of economy in agriculture worthy to be followed by the Mexicans, who never use 
fences at all. The houses of the people are mere sheds, thatched with willow and corn-stalks. 
With the exception of the chief, Antonio Llunas, who was clad in cast-off Mexican toggery, 
the dress of the men consisted of a cotton serape of domestic manufacture, and a breech-cloth. 
Their hair was very long and clubbed up. The women wore nothing but the serape pinned 
about the loins, after the fashion of Persico’s Indian woman on the east side of the Capitol, 
though not quite so low. 
The camp was soon filled with men, women, and children, each with a basket of corn, 
frijoles, or meal, for traffic. Many had jars of the molasses expressed from the fruit of the 
pitahaya. Beads, red cloth, white domestic, and blankets, were the articles demanded 
