the vices and but few of the virtues of such a

contact.

To combat their ailments they have only the usual superstitious rites of a few ignorant "medicine-men," and occasionally make use of those heroic and barbarous treatments so common with savages. One of these I think may be interesting. A great hole, large enough to receive the body of the invalid in a recumbent position, is dug in the ground. In this excavation a fire is maintained until the ground is heated to its greatest possible extent, when the embers and ashes are scraped out. Several layers of damp mud are imme

adorned, and, as far as I casually noticed, there being no difference between the men and women. Paints and pigments of all characters are eagerly sought for temporary personal ornamentation, the Yumas and Mojaves even descending to stove-polish, boot-blacking, and mud. Undoubtedly the latter, in some of its applications, serves a more practical purpose than mere ornamentation. A thin coating of soft clay is matted through the hair and then plastered carefully down upon the skull, until it resembles, when dry, a shining bald head or an inverted earthen bowl. This is left on for two or three days, until it has subserved

diately used to plaster the walls of this fiery furnace, and the invalid is then placed within and covered up with mud, the head alone protruding. The escaping steam makes the torture endured by the poor wretch, for the thirty-six to forty-eight hours of misery in the prison of baked clay, oftentimes insupportable, and but few survive the severe ordeal. A Mojave squaw, with the Americanized name of " Polly," rallied from this terrible inquisition, but it took the kindest treatment for two months under the care of a white physician to save her life.

Nearly all the Apaches are addicted to tattooing, their faces and wrists being usually

its purposes of deadly destruction, when the earthy skull-cap is broken with a stick and the beating process continued until every particie of dust is thoroughly eradicated, when the hair is washed with the soft pulp of the root of the Yucca palm, which produces a soapy lather. After this the hair is energetically rinsed and then whipped in the open air until dry. From all this manipulation it emerges as glossy and as soft as silk.

This Yucca palm is commonly known as the Spanish bayonet and oftentimes as the soap-weed, the latter name being evidently derived from this peculiar use by the Indians and Mexicans. It is one of the most exten

APACHE SQUAW AND CHILD.

the entire village is summoned to the proceedings, which generally mean an execution. In carrying these on the victim is stripped to her waist and then tied up by her thumbs with strong thongs, her toes barely touching the ground. All of their devilish energies are now bent on extorting a confession from the wretch. Any of those who have had any misfortune, however remote, imaginary, or real, are at perfect liberty to flay the supposed witch with mezquite or willow switches until she faints from exhaustion, or terror and weakness forces a false confession in the vain hope of obtaining relief from her terrible condition. If she will not thus please them, the whipping is kept up until the executioners themselves are exhausted, when one by one they leave her to die, which results unless she be lucky enough to liberate herself from the thongs after the last one has departed. Should they wring a confession from her, she is beaten to death with stones and sticks, and all of her property burned, even to her rude house and ruder utensils.

On ordinary deaths, these Apaches mourn for a few days in wild plaintive cries that the uninitiated might mistake, at a distance, for the cooing of the turtle-dove. The nearest relatives cut off their hair as close as possible, and their mourning is kept up until the hair grows out. All these latter rites are denied the poor wretch executed for witchcraft, but she is still entitled to a burial at the hands of her relatives if they make no display to insult the superstitious dignity of the tribe.

have such disastrous results in their applications. It would almost seem that they had some supernatural dread of water, and this in a country where that fluid is conspicuously scarce. Fish never enters into their diet, although they are not hard to procure, and they repel them in a way that can only be based on superstition. Canoes are never used, although an occasional raft is made to transport effects. in one direction, and, in general, a river is of no more use to them than furnishing drinking water or establishing a flat valley in which they can travel more readily on foot or horseback. In this way all traveling is done, and all household effects are transported either on the backs. of horses or of squaws, the women generally predominating. Some of the muscular feats of the latter, while thus engaged, even rival the endurance and strength of the stronger (?) sex, as shown in their runners. A Yuma squaw has been known to carry over three hundred pounds of bulky hay between four and five miles over a mountain road and without stopping on the way. Not much was left to the imagination of the story-teller either, as the hay was weighed on tested scales and the route pursued was a well-known measured one. More marvelous cases are heard of occasionally, but they are not so authentic.

Birds are also rejected as food, although they are used in cases of distressing scarcity; especially the wild turkey, which stands better in their estimation. Other native articles of diet, on which they yet subsist to a certain extent, are baked mezcal, the bean of the mezquite tree, the fruit of the giant cactus, and the prickly pear. To furnish them with meat they find extensive variety in the black and white tailed deer, antelope, bear, ground-rats, rattlesnakes, and rabbits (hares). Nothing exists to show that the Apaches were ever cannibals. No part of a slain animal is unused, even the smallest bones being broken open in order to save the marrow.

No drink-loving old topers ever enjoyed their liquor so much as have the Apaches whenever they could procure it, a vice, however, that is rapidly subsiding as the tribes are concentrated at agencies more directly under the eyes of watchful authorities. Mezcal, made from that plant by the Mexicans, found its way in days gone by, when population was scattering and the laws lax, into Apache maws with

HEAD WAR-CHIEF OF CHIRICAHUA.

ing between the two races. From corn they make a fermented drink called tiz-win, which is not as strong as the corn-whisky of civilization, but their peculiar method of drinking it compensates for its lack of strength. For some three days before it has reached its highest point of fermentation not a single piece of food is swallowed. At the end of that period they fill themselves to their utmost capacity with the unclarified tiz-win. Although half starved, it takes but a few moments to make them feel as if they had had a major-general's rations for six months previous, while the most conspicuous effect is to swell their bump of combat

NAT-TZUCK-EI-EH.

iveness to an inordinate degree. If a large number have indulged in this liquor, serious outbreaks and disturbances are almost sure to ensue, especially if other bands of Indians or any whites are near enough for them to reach before this temporary, stimulated combativeness has worn away. In fact, after having, when sober, decided to go upon the war-path, by far the most important preliminary is the manufacture of huge quantities of tiz-win. Its peculiar composition, and the no less peculiar manner of taking the liquor, gives it a most lasting effect upon the system, and an Indian with his stomach distended with it is said to have ahead of him a six to eight days' "spree," and during all this time his warlike qualities are sure to be most conspicuous.

There is much evidence to show that alcoholic liquor made from corn is an ancient drink with these people, everything that was necessary to manufacture it being found in their old ruins, and under circumstances that make such a conjecture not unreasonable. Even in the caves of the old cliff-dwellers of Arizona there have been found cemented deposits of corn

so ancient that when disturbed the grains fell from the cob a mass of impalpable powder, leaving the cob, singularly enough, as fresh as if it had been gathered but the harvest before.

CHI-HUA-HUA.

To ramble for a moment from the main subject, in considering the ancient cliff-dwellers of Apache land,- I was not a little surprised to hear of many cliffvillages yet unexplored. An idea prevails that the cliffs and caves of Apache land have been nearly all included in the researches of archæologists and curiosity hunters. An old Apache of San Carlos agency, whose perfect confidence had been won by a government official, spoke of many that he knew had never been inspected and that were full of relics. He wished to conduct his confidant to a place not far distant. He added that only a small part of the remains known to the Apaches had ever been examined.

San Carlos agency, on the river of the same name, is the great central point where the Government has gathered from time to time the greater portion of almost all the Arizona bands of Apaches, who are slowly acquiring the arts of peace and will soon be a useful part of the agricultural population of that region. Here from the eastern boundary are bands of the Yumas and Mojaves, of the Tontos and San Carlos Apaches from the central districts, and of the Sierra Blanca tribe from the north-eastern corner. The only important Arizona band not directly represented are the warlike Chiricahuas, and they are quartered on the reservation of which this agency is the headquarters,-except the leaders, recently surrendered, who have been exiled to Florida.

Their partly civilized, partly barbaric agencylife is not uninteresting in some of its aspects, especially while the barbaric element yet predominates. The Government has cultivated their martial feelings, and at the same time turned them to its own account, by enlisting the most trusty warriors as soldiers in its own service, and using them as a police and detective force against one another, and especially one tribe against another. No less than three full military companies of these scouts were, until recently, distributed among the Indians of this great agency;

T'ZOE, OR "PEACHES."

ernment, and forming, in effect, a secret detective system more efficacious than the detective bureaus of civilization. While every crime was reported to the white chief-of-scouts, care was taken that the informer should never be known. But not long ago Ki-at-ti-na, the head war-chief of the Chiricahuas, tired of the monotonous restraint of the military, gathered around him a few of his belligerent band, still footsore from the war-path. They indulged in a preliminary war-dance, and, sending couriers to all likely to join them in an outbreak, impatiently awaited results. The chief's fleetest courier was a spy, who gave timely warning of all the concerted movements and intentions before an advance was really made. The chief's first intelligence of the result of his plot was his arrest by the scouts of his own tribe and his arraignment before the authorities at the agency.

An Indian accused of any crime is tried before a jury of Indians, and when Ki-at-ti-na

These Indian soldiers, in all that pertained to arms, ammunition, pay, and rations, were on exactly the same footing as other soldiers in the service, except that their term of enlistment might be variable. A calling of the muster-rolls sounds like that of Hungarian Hussars or Polish Lancers, a deception of the ear that an inspection of the written names would not confirm. Their savage passion for finery and display cropped to the surface in an inordinate desire for military parade and exhibition, even to the extreme of monotonous drill, but much has been denied them in those particulars, as on their primitive status rests much of their efficacy as scouts against other bands.

In one of the last and then one of the most important and decisive campaigns waged against the most warlike band of the Apaches, the Chiricahuas of south-eastern Arizona, all of the friendly Apache scouts were employed and but one company of white troops, and in the con