re the mild climate and
bountiful soil suggested agriculture, and with a knowledge of this,
rude though it was, a beginning was made in a culture which subsequently
excited the admiration of the Spaniards. However that may be, we know
this section contains abundant ruins of former inhabitants. And yet
again we find in this same country the remnants of this former people,
doubtless living much the same sort of life as did their forefathers.
American scholars, with the best of reason, think this section affords
the best vantage ground from which to study the question of native
American culture. It presents us not only with ruins of past greatness,
but in the inhabited pueblos, gives us a picture of primitive times,
and invites us, by a careful study of their institutions, to become
acquainted with primitive society.

Travelers and explorers describe the scenery of the Pueblo country as
a very peculiar one. It is bleak without being absolutely barren. The
great mountain chains form picturesque profiles, which in a measure
compensate for the lack of vegetation. No country on the face of the
globe bears such testimony to the power of running water to wear away
the surface. The rivers commenced by wearing down great canyons. They
occur here on a grand scale. The canyon of the Colorado River, having
a length of two hundred miles, and through the whole, nearly vertical
walls of rock, three to six thousand feet in height. Nearly all the
tributary streams of the Colorado empty into it by means of gorges
nearly as profound. What is true of the Colorado is true, though in a
lesser degree of the Rio Grande and of the Pecos, as only portions of
these streams are canyon-born. But, besides digging out these canyons,
the entire surface of the country has in places been removed to the
depth of several hundred feet, leaving large extent of table-lands,
called mesas, with generally steep, or even precipitous, sides, standing
isolated here and there.

Though thus bearing evidence of more extended rainfall, and of the
action of water in the past, it is essentially an arid country now.
Most of the minor water-courses laid down on the map are dry half of
the year, or have but scattered pools of water; so a description of
the surface of the country would tell us of deep river valleys, in many
cases narrow and running through rocky beds, in which case we call them
canyons; in other cases very wide, but having generally precipitous
sides; the c