ew 
If a fellow only had time and 
noney enough what a lot of wonders 
and strange tales he could dig up in 
this unknown part of America—the 
wonderland of the southwest. 
But when he has to count his 
money every night before he puts 
his pants under his pillow, and re- 
ount it every morning, to see if 
reams came true—well, then his- 
ory has to shorten up a bit. 
It costs six dollars a day and ex- 
penses to dig for forgotten history 
in the southwest. The expenses are 
a dollar and a half for the team, the 
same for a driver, and a little more 
for the digger. Eleven dollars at the 
least, and when you turn the driver 
back and relay to some interesting 
anknown spot, it costs at least $20 
per day. And what man outside of 
the Smithsonian, and doing business 
on his own account, can lay over for 
a week or two at places of interest 
and history ? 
{I have an idea that every fellow 
who ever came down here to review 
history was about as short as | am, 
and that he measured long ago 
events by how long his treasury 
cloth would pay livery rigs. (1’ll 
except one newspaper man from this 
elass—the late Frank Cushing—the 
newspaper writer who was adopted 
by the Zunis.) ; 
From Zuni back to Gallup there 
was nothing but sandhills, an occa- 
sional pine tree (called the forest re- 
serve on our maps) a lone trading 
ore, and a few scattered Navajo 
Indians. I had been over this lone- 
‘some waste once, and I didn’t fancy 
a return trip. From the trader at 
Zuni | learned that one could turn 
the driver back from Black Rock, 
relay at a ranch, and see records of 
our history of 370 years ago that 
but few white men have ever seen. 
So I sent the driver back and 
‘started for those sentinel rocks of 
‘our early history—the rocks where 
early explorers wrote their history— 
an autograph album that should be 
‘preserved by our country—a record 
written on eternal stone. 
Twenty miles east from Zuni these 
history rocks stand in the sunshine 
‘today—ancient as the sun. Wind, 
sand and erosian have tried to erase 
‘the records of these men who first 
‘made a path from Mexico to the Rio 
NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
HISTORY CUT IN ETERNAL STONE. 
A Wonderful Autograph Album in a Remote Corner of New 
. Mexico that Our Country Should Preserve. 
(By M. J. Brown, Eprror Lirrte Vay, N. Y., Hus) 
Grande, and who wrote their efforts 
on these rocks. But the climate of 
the southwest has dealt more kindly 
with them than has our country and 
they yet stand—to be seen and read 
by any man who ean stand the hard- 
ships and six dollars a day, expenses 
included. 
From the pueblo of Zuni to the 
Rio Grande runs an ancient trail, 
obliterated by years, and now a 
thoroughfare. Back in 1540 it was 
the only trail thru New Mexico to 
Sante Fe and the Rio Grande, and 
it would seem that almost every 
Spaniard left his card there—often 
a last message to history. 
El Morro is the great historic 
rock that rises from the prairie— 
two hundred feet high and _ thou- 
sands of feet long—a wedged-shaped 
mass of solid stone that will long re- 
main a monument to our first civi- 
lization, and on whose face is the 
brief record of many a_ pioneer, 
whose daring exploits opened New 
Mexico to the world. 
El Morro was the one common 
camping place for the venturesome 
Spaniards and each man registered 
at Nature’s great hotel, little think- 
ing the register would some day be- 
come a part of our country’s history. 
The inscriptions read little to me. 
They were all in Spanish (the old 
ones) and in abbreviated Spanish, 
that has taken years to translate. 
But I had read of this famous In- 
scription Rock, and while I could 
make neither A nor Z from the let- 
tering, I knew it was the inscriptions 
of men who never hoped to come 
back from the unknown, trackless, 
waterless, foodless country ahead, 
filled with savages, wild beasts and 
countless dangers. And I looked 
with awe at those old registers, at 
the writing of men who wrote their 
own epitaphs. 
Later I found a book at Santa Fe 
which translated these rock writ- 
ings, and they meant much more 
than I thought. One of the oldest, 
and one well preserved, is that of 
Onate, which translated reads: 
‘‘Passed by here the officer, Don 
Juan de Onate to the discovery of 
the sea of the south, on the 16th of 
April, 1605.’’ 
Another one is dated 1526, but it 
is claimed this was an error in regis- 
35 
tering, as no white man had ever set 
foot in New Mexico at this date. It 
reads: 
‘*By here passed the Ensign Don 
Joseph de Payba Basconzelos, the 
year that he brought the town-coun- 
cil of the kingdom (N. M.) at his 
own expense on the 18th day of 
February of 1526 years.’’ 
And here is one that has romance 
and tragedy: 
‘“‘They passed on the 23d of 
March, 1632 years to the avenging of 
the death of the Father Letrodo.’” 
Father Letrodo was the first mis- 
sionary to Zuni, sent to that lone 
parish and to his death. He worked 
hard with the sun worshipping sav- 
ages, but they did not want his re- 
ligion. He was brutually murdered, 
and terribly mutilated — literally 
hacked to pieces. And the expedi- 
tion of Letroda was to avenge his 
death. 
I had three hours at this wonder- 
ful stone register—only three hours, 
or sleep out—and count my money 
again. On top of this great rock 
they say are the ruins of a people 
who lived there many years before 
our history began—ruins of which 
there is not the remotest history or 
tradition. But the driver said ‘‘we 
must beat it,’’ to reach the railroad 
at Grant’s that day, so there was 
nothing to it but regrets, while the 
driver pounded the ponies on the 
back for fifty miles. 
The time will come, when van- 
dals have half destroyed the many 
wonders of the southwest, that our 
country will take notice and throw 
protection around what is left. 
I wish I could take a half dozen of 
our leading congressmen down into 
this country and show them around 
a bit. I wish I could make them feel 
what I feel, and see what I see— 
make them actually know something 
of the valuable history that will soon 
be lost to us unless protected. I'll 
bet they would favor cutting out a 
battleship once in a while, and es- 
tablishing a custodianship over some 
of the greatest wonders on earth— 
our country’s earliest history. 
When you look up at the inscrip- 
tions on the faces of these ancient 
cliffs, and see where ‘‘J. H. John- 
son”? or ‘‘C. L. Howard’’ -has 
scratched his name over that of a 
man who gave his life to discover this 
country; when you see ‘‘John Jones 
of Kansas City’’ crowd out an Onate 
and stick his name up beside a Cor- 
anodo—well, it makes one’s blood 
boil. Why I can see a picture of a 
commercial meat packer of 1911 
handing a penny weiner to the first 
