510 CASAS GRANDES DE MONTEZUMA. Book III. 
Mexicans of Tucson, as well as by the Indians along the 
Gila, when they could command so much Spanish, for the 
ruins in this region. By others they are called " Casas 
grandes de Montezuma." Bartlett is right in considering 
that the addition " de Montezuma " is not Indian, but a 
repetition from the Spaniards. On the other hand, M. 
Garcia, the commander at Tucson, maintained that the 
Pi mas had old traditions extending beyond the conquest 
of Mexico, when they belonged to the empire of the 
Aztecs. This, however, I doubt. The assertion of our 
muleteers from Tucson, that an old Indian ruin existed in 
one of the Pima villages may be incorrect, for I find no 
mention of one, in any of the accounts of this region with 
which I am acquainted. But I regret still on this account 
that we did not travel by day, and that I could not 
require our people to show me the supposed " white house 
of Montezuma." Bartlett visited and has described * the 
ruins near the Salinas, as also those higher up, near the 
Gila ; and although, like many others, he passed through 
the Pima villages, he mentions nothing corroborative of 
what these Tucson muleteers asserted. According to his 
description of the " casas grandes " which are found beyond 
the Gila lagoon, near the river, the Commander of Tucson 
is also in this respect wrong, for he told me that I should 
see these ruins from the road. With this object in view, 
I several times stood up on my horse in order to gain 
what height I could, and was afterwards convinced, from 
Bartlett's account of them, that I made this experiment 
uselessly. 
After a prolonged march through the night and part of 
the next morning, we reached an extensive space in the 
1 Bartlett's Personal Narrative, vol. ii., chaps, xxxi. and xxxii. 
