THE DAILY HERALD

A wide valley extends on this side of the Colorado from its mouth about one hundred and fifty miles up.  Capt. Walker thinks the Mohave must empty into the Colorado near the head of this valley.  From Walker’s Pass to the Colorado, he says a railroad could be built without a foot of grading.  He struck the Colorado a little south of the mouth of the Rio Virgen, and travelled up the river until he came to the Virgen.  This last stream heads in the Sou Watch (Wasatch) mountains, runs a southerly course, and empties into the Colorado just below the Big Cañon (Grand Canyon).  Its mouth is a wide sandy bed, with very little water -- in fact, it shows much more water one hundred and fifty miles up stream ; this is owing to the fact that it frequently sinks and runs into the sand.  Sevier River drains the northern slope of the Sou Watch mountains, and runs north. 

Captain Walker met Carson near Archillette, Nevada May 1848

Capt. Walker, in one of his tramps, passed over from the head-waters of the Sevier to those of the Virgen (1848), -- he says the county between them is more cut up than any he ever met with on the Continent ;

-- to use his own expression, it is torn all to pieces with cañons!

On the upper Virgen are two very remarkable falls.  One of them, about two hundred miles from its mouth, is the most stupendous cataract in the world ; it falls in an almost unbroken sheet a distance of full one thousand feet!  The river some distance above, traverses a pretty timbered valley, and then runs through a close canon.  Here the current becomes rapid.  The mountain seems to run directly across the river.  At the fall the stream is narrowed to thirty or forty yards, while the cañon rises on either side in almost perpendicular cliffs to a height of two hundred feet. 

 The pent up stream rushes on to the brink of the precipice, leaps over and falls with scarce a break into the vast abyss beneath.  Capt. Walker describes the sight as grand beyond description.  About thirty miles above there is another magnificent fall.  Here the river plunges over the cliff, fall a distance of two or three hundred feet, and breaks into a myriad fragments upon a projecting ledge beneath. 

 Although the fall is not so great as in the other, it is more picturesque, from the multitude of smaller cataracts into which it is divided by the rocks.

The waters of the Virgen are beautifully clear. For sixty or eighty miles below the Big Falls, they run through lofty cañons.  Soon after they have emerged into the desert, they are absorbed in a great measure by the sand, and become a much smaller stream.  The county about the Upper Virgen is frightfully repulsive.  It is split up into innumerable rocky fissures and deep ravines.

Captain Walker travelled for a whole day down the bed of a steep canon. He turned off into a lateral cañon, which became so narrow that he could not get back again. 

 For two or three miles the rocks actually closed over his head, so that he could not see the sky.  It was like traversing an immense natural tunnel two hundred feet high.  It was undoubtedly the dry bed of a stream which emptied during the rainy season into the Virgen, as he saw drift logs piled sixty foot high in one part of the tunnel. 

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Office : : : : On Montgomery Street, near Sacramento.

WEDNESDAY MORNING, NOV. 30, 1853

 Notes of Capt.  Joe Walker’s Trip across the Great Basin - The Country between the Colorado and the Rio Grande.

Were Captain Walker a professional traveller, the story of his wanderings and adventures among the mountains and strange lands in the centre of our continent, would make his fortune.  For years before the Americans became masters of California -- while Missouri was yet but an infant State -- he left the settlements for the wilds in the interior.  Here he continued to trap the beaver from year to year, seeking the most unfrequented spots, and penetrating alone into solitudes never before trod by the white man.  His was not, however, the mere pursuit of a livelihood.  He was an enthusiast in the love for the mountains and woods, and with the true spirit of the traveller, often left his traps to follow the windings of some new river, or examine the ruins of some ancient city.  His mode of life made him close observer, while a singularly retentive memory enabled him to remember, with accuracy, the most minute details of what he had seen.  He was adventurous withal, and often crossed the most forbidding deserts, trusting to his ingenuity to find water, and boldly visited the most savage tribes, in his desire to clear up some doubt about the course of a stream or the direction of some mountain range.  His bold trip across the Great Basin in 1850, sprung from such a spirit.

  He was anxious to discover whether a short and direct route could not be opened from New Mexico to California, to supersede the devious routes by the old Santa Fe [old Spanish] trail to the north, and the Gila River to the south.  He struck midway between them, almost due east from Walker’s Pass to Albuquerque, and accomplished his purpose.  We gave on Monday a description of the desert between the Sierra Nevada and the Colorado, over which the first part of his journey lay.  On this part of his route, water and grass were extremely scarce.  By dint of hard travelling, however, he always managed to find a stray patch of herbage for the camp.  Even on the Mohavè (River), these patches were few and far between.  Like seed thrown on bad ground, the river runs through the plains, scarce drawing from its barren soil a sprig of vegetation.  Capt. Walker travelled down the Mohavè for about two hundred miles, until its course inclined to the south; here he turned off [onto the Old Spanish Trail], and left the river to his right.  From this point to the Colorado, it was still more difficult to obtain grass and water, and his party suffered much in consequence; he reached the Colorado considerably worn out.  There is a beautiful valley extending on both sides of the river from the Gulf of California, about one hundred and fifty miles up.

Its width from mountain to mountain varies from twenty-five to forty miles, and in it may be found some most beautiful lands.  At one point on this side, the mountains run close up and project into the river; then, after a mile or two, they recede, and a pretty valley opens, known as the Mohavè valley (Arizona).  Here are the villages of the Mohaves, who cultivate the ground and raise corn, peas, melons, pumpkins, etc.  Capt. Walker saw among them the largest pumpkins he had ever met with. 

 The Cuchanos reside in another part of the valley of the Colorado, on both sides of the river.  They farm like the Mohaves, and speak the same language; in fact, the Cocopas, Maricopas, Cuchanos, and Mohaves were originally the same people.  Their language is the same, although they constantly carry on war with each other.  One hundred and fifty miles above the Gulf, this valley closes.  High mountains come down to the river on the west, and low hills on the east, forming a small cañon fifteen or twenty miles in length, through which the waters flow.  From the upper end of this cañon, the mountains continue on the east bank as far up as the mouth of the Virgen; below which, the banks are too abrupt to permit fording.  The Colorado is navigable - at no point from Fort Yuma to the to the mouth of the Virgen is the water less than ten feet deep; the shallowest part of the river is at its mouth, where it spreads out over a great surface and forms a number of sand bars.  In some parts, where the stream is hemmed in by the mountains which approach very close, the current is very swift, but there is not a rapid in it to prevent steamers from ascending as far as the Virgen. 

About thirty miles above the mouth of this stream, commences the Big Cañon [Grand Canyon], one of the most extraordinary natural features on the continent. 

 It extends uninterrupted for upwards of three hundred miles.  Its sides are lofty bluffs almost perpendicular, suggesting the idea that the river has cleft a path clear through the rocky mountains.  The waters wash up against these walls, leaving not a foot of slope between.  It is impossible therefore to travel up its bed, over a foot.  Capt. Walker has struck this canon at several places many miles apart, and always found it presenting the same appearance.  He has never travelled along its entire length, however. 

 The Moquis informed him that the cañon opened at some points, leaving most beautiful little valleys a little above the level of the river, but hundreds of feet below the tops of the cañon. Some of these valleys formed perfect amphitheaters, surrounded by natural walls of great height.  The chief difficulty in the way of a railroad by this Central Route, will be in crossing the Colorado.  This, Capt. Walker thinks, may be done about the mouth of the Virgen. At that point the mountains on this side of the Colorado run out, and the plains comes in from the east almost up to the river.  On the other side of the Colorado, however, the mountains still continue high, but are flattened into a table land.  The difficulty is in getting from the level of the plain on this side to that of the table land on the other.  At one point near the Virgen there is a gradual descent from the plain, which Capt. Walker thinks would permit the passage of the railroad.  After the road has once reached the summit level of the plateau on the east bank of the Colorado, the country is eminently favorable for its construction. The ascent is scarcely perceivable, and not a foot of grading would be necessary for hundreds of miles. Capt. Walker, however, thinks the road might pass the big Canon higher up by means of a bridge.  The cliffs would form natural abutments.  From this point the road could follow an almost direct route to the Rio Grande, without a mountain or hill to obstruct it.  There is a Pass in the Rocky Mountains on this side of the Rio Grande, almost opposite Albuquerque, along which the ascent is scarcely perceptible ; through this the road could run right up to the banks of the river.  The country between the Colorado and Rio Grande is a high plain on level with the top of the Big Cañon (Grand Canyon).  It is almost a desert, with little timber; grass and water very scarce.  Capt. Walker was obliged to swim his animals over the Colorado at the place where he crossed; the stream was narrow and rapid, and its bed very rocky. From the mouth of the river he struck across the table land nearly due east for the Rio Grande.  In his journey he followed the course of the Little Red River, or Rio Colorado Chiquito ( Little Colorado River) , which heads in the Rocky Mountains [White Mountains] that skirt the west bank of the Rio Grande, runs nearly west through a deep cañon in the table land and empties into the Colorado. On his route, he met with an entire mountain of salt, not sloping, but faced with abrupt cliffs.

There is a magnificent waterfall [Grand Falls] on the Little Red – the stream just above is about one hundred yards wide, and nearly on the level with the plateau ; at this point, the cañon suddenly commences, and the collected waters of the river leap over the precipice with a fall of two hundred feet, - the cañon is almost filled with the spray, upon which may be seen a myriad rainbows when the sun is shining.

 Capt. Walker crossed the Little Red about sixty miles south of the Moquis villages [possibly Black Falls Crossing], and continued his journey, without further adventure, through the Pass in the Rocky Mountains.  He struck the Rio Grande, as he had intended, at Albuquerque.  From close observation of the country, he is clearly of the opinion that the Central Route is most practicable, as it is the most direct, for the construction of the great Pacific Railroad.

Since Captain Walker’s memorable trip, this Basin has been crossed by Capt. F. X. Aubrey, who left this city in the latter part of June last.  The last mail from the east brought us a brief telegraphic despatch from the west, stating that he had reached Santa Fe on the 14th of September, after a most perilous trip across the continent.  He crossed the Sierra Nevada at the Tejon Pass on the 12th of July, and struck due east across the Desert for the Colorado.  At the crossing of the river, and in many other places , he found gold.  Silver and copper in abundance was met with.  He encountered numerous hostile Indians, who fought his party for thirty days, wounding nearly all of them.  Aubrey himself is reported to have received eight wounds.  The fighting was chiefly with a tribe called the “Garotes.” It is further said, though we are greatly inclined to consider it a fable, that they met a tribe of Indians two hundred miles west of the Zuni villages, near the centre of the plateau between the Colorado and the Rio Grande, who used gold bullets for their guns, thus implying the existence of immense deposits of the precious metal in the country.  Aubrey struck the Rio Grande at Liberatta, and confirms the report of Walker, that the route presents no obstacles to the construction either of a railroad or a wagon road.  We may expect a full report of his adventure by the next mail.

THE DAILY HERALD

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Office : : : : In Montgomery Street, near Sacramento

SUNDAY MORNING, OCT. 9, 1853

The Antiquities of America – More Ruins in the Desert - The Moquis

  A lively interest has been excited of date by the accounts we have published of ruined cities and lofty pyramids in the solitudes of the Great Basin.  In corroboration of Capt. Walker’s account of the implements he discovered in (1850) the ruined cities of the Desert.

MORE ANCIENT RUINS

A correspondent of the Placerville Herald, the same who originally communicated the particulars of the discovery of the Great Pyramid between the Sierra Nevada and the Colorado, writing from San Bernardino Valley, under date of September 10, gives the following account of an immense stone bridge said to have been found in the same vicinity: “I have received the Herald quite regularly, one number containing the account I sent you of the ancient pyramid in the Great Colorado Desert.  From one of the three adventures who made the discovery, by their hazardous trip across the Desert.  I gather the following some-what interesting account of their further discoveries, in the vicinity of the pyramid already described.  In a north-westerly direction, distant about three miles, they discovered the ruins of what appeared to have been a bridge, the foundations of which were of stone, and nearly six hundred feet from one of the other abutments to the other, while between the two are no less than seven distinct piers; they were all apparently of equal height though many of the tops stones are now dislodged.  These piers were apparently all of the same size, and at the top must have been about six feet by twenty.  In no place are they elevated more than eight feet above the present level of the sands and this can be said only of one of the piers. The two outer abutments are nearly perpendicular upon the sides facing inward, while the outer gradually slope to the level and even below the surface - how far below, was not ascertained.  It is conclusive, therefore, that the bridge was elevated to a considerable height above the surrounding country, and that the original foundations are now more or less submerged by the accumulated sands of centuries.  There is not the slightest appearance that a river ever had its course nearer to this ruin than the Colorado, but from the fact that this structure does not confront to either North, and South, or East and West, but rather lies in a Northeast and South-west direction, would lead to the belief that some ancient river from the Northwest once flowed between its walls and piers.

“Evidences of other structures have existed in the vicinity, are apparent, in numerous detached portions of what were once unquestionably the walls of buildings, and as these extend for more than half a mile in every direction, except in the very direction and line that the position of the bridge would indicate to have been the bed of the river, it corroborates the supposition that these immense piers and abutments were the vertical supporters of an ancient bridge of wood, for there is not the slightest indication about them of their having been the support of arches.

WHO BUILT THE CALIFORNIA PYRAMID ! (Most likely Wupatki National Monument in Arizona)

In our summary of the California news received by the “Winfield Scott” we noticed the discovery of a antique pyramid in the California region, and in a subsequent number of our paper published a long article in relation to it, from the San Francisco Herald.  The whole subject must be a deeply interesting one to everyone; and from a gentleman now in this city, we have within a day or two derived additional information, which he has had the kindness to put on paper for us.  It is as follows:

“Your article on the antiquities of the Great Central Basin calls to recollection a conversation I had in 1852, near that region, that was of intense interest to me at the time.

“Far away beyond the South Pass, on the head waters of the Gila river, lives John Bridger, a trapper of the plains and mountains for more than forty years, and whose veracity cannot be questioned by any one acquainted with him.  It is admitted by all trappers, that he is better acquainted than any living man with the intricacies of all the hills, and the streams that lose themselves in the Great Basins

- I say Basins; because there are many of them.)  While trapping on the tributaries of the Colorado an Indian offered to guide Mr. Bridger and party to a people living far in the Desert, with whom they could barter.

“The proposition was accepted ; and after providing themselves with dried meats and water, they struck right into the heart of that Great Desert, where no white man before or has since trodden, and which the hardy mountaineers will only venture to skirt.  After five days travel the party arrived at three mountains or Buttes, rising in grandeur in that solitary waste.

These mountains were covered with a diversity of forest and fruit trees, with streams of purest water rippling down their declivities.  At their base was a numerous agricultural people, surrounded with waving fields of corn and a profusion of vegetables.  The people were dressed in leather, they knew nothing of fire-arms, using only the bow and arrow: and for mile after mile, circling these Buttes, were adobe houses, two and three stories high.  Mr. Bridger was not allowed to enter any of their towns or houses; and after remaining three days, bartering scarlet cloth and iron for their furs, he left them: not, however, without before being given to understand that they held no communication with any people beyond their desert home.  That these are the same people who once inhabited the banks of the Gila and the Colorado, and left those monuments of wonder, the “Casas Grande” which so deeply attracted the following of Fremont and Domphan, and then vanished as a dream, there can no longer be a doubt.

Their adobe houses attest it.

“Months after this conversation with Mr. Bridger, I had another with Mr. Papin, the agent of the American Fur Company.  He told me that another of the party, Mr. Walker, the mountaineer, after whom one of the mountain Passes is named, and who is known to be a man of truth, had given him the same description of these isolated people and in my mind there is not the shadow of a doubt of their existence.

“The subject is one replete with interest to the antique ruin, as well as to all others; and I am in strong hope that the recent discovery in the Colorado country will have the effect of speedily bringing to light; and to knowledge of the world, not only the existence of these people in their desert home, but also their origin and history.”

STRANGE PEOPLE IN THE WILDERNESS - WERE MOQUIS

The people here spoken of; we are inclined to believe are the Moquis, a race of people residing in the Great Basin, who answer in many particulars to the description given by Bridger and Papin.

The most implicit confidence may be placed in all his statements.  He is entirely free from that habit of romancing and exaggerating which we often find among great travellers.

Through the very centre of the Great Basin runs the Rio Colorado Chiquito or Little Red River; it takes its rise in the mountains that shirt the right bank of the Rio Grande, flows almost due west, and empties into the Colorado at a point on the same parallel of latitude with Walker’s Pass.  About 100 miles north of this, and running almost parallel with it, is the river San Juan.  Each of these streams is about 250 miles long.  Between them stretches an immense table land, broken occasion- ally by Sierras of no great length, which shoot up above the general elevation. About half way between the two rivers, and midway in the wilderness between the Colorado and the Rio Grande, is the country of the Moquis.  From the midst of the plain rises abruptly on all sides a Butte of considerable elevation, the top of which is as flat as if some great power had sliced off the summit.  Away up here the Moquis have built three large villages, where they rest at night perfectly secure from the attacks of the fierce tribes who live in the north and east of them.  The sides of this table mountain are almost perpendicular cliffs, and the top can only be reached up a steep flight of steps cut in the solid rock.  Around its base is plain of arable land, which the Moquis cultivate with great assiduity.  Here they raise all kinds of grain, melons, and vegetables. They have also a number of orchards filled with many kinds of trees.  The peaches they raise, Capt. Walker says, are particularly fine.  They have large flocks of sheep and goats; but very few beasts of burden or cattle.  They are harmless, inoffensive race, kind and hospitable to strangers, and make very little resistance when attacked - The warlike Navajoes who dwell in the mountains to the North-east of them, are in the habit of sweeping down upon them every two or three years; and driving off their stock.  At such times they gather up all that is moveable from their farms, and fly for refuse to their mountain stronghold.  When a stranger approaches, they appear on the top of the rocks and houses watching his movements.  One of their villages at which Capt. Walker stayed for several days, is five or six hundred yards long.  The houses are generally built of stone and mortar - some of them of adobe.  They are very snug and comfortable, and many of them are two, and even three stories high.  The inhabitants are considerably advanced in some of the arts, and manufacture excellent woolen clothing, blankets, leather, basket work and pottery.

Unlike most of the Indian tribes of this country, the women work within doors, the men performing all the farm and out-door labor.  As a race they are lighter in color than the Digger Indians of California.  Indeed, the women are tolerably fair, in consequence of not being so much exposed to the sun.  Among them Capt. Walker saw three perfectly white, with white hair and light eyes.  He saw two others of the same kind at the Zuni villages nearer the Rio Grande.  They were no doubt Albinos, and probably gave rise to the rumors which have prevailed of the existence of white Indians in the Basin.

The Moquis have probably assisted nature in levelling the top of the mountain as a site for their villages.  They have cut down the rocks in many places, and have excavated out of the solid rocks a number of large rooms, for manufacturing woolen cloth.  Their only arms are bows and arrows, although they never war with any other tribe.  The Navajoes carry off their stock without opposition. But unlike almost every other tribe of Indians on the continent, they are scrupulously honest.  Capt. Walker says the most attractive and valuable articles may be left exposed, and they will not touch them.

Many of the women are beautiful, with forms of faultless symmetry.  They are very neat and clean, and dress in quite a picturesque costume of their own manufacture.  They wear a dark robe with red border, gracefully draped so as to leave their right arm and shoulder bare. They have most beautiful hair, which they arrange with great care.  The condition of a female may be known from her manner of dressing the hair.  The virgins part their hair in the middle behind, and twist each parcel around a hoop six or eight inches in diameter.  This is nicely smoothed and oiled and fastened to each side of the head, something like a large rosette.  The effect is very striking.  The married woman wear their hair twisted into a club behind.

The Moquis farm in the plain by day and retire to their villages on the mountain at night.  They irrigate their lands by means of the small streams running out of the sides of the mountain.  Sometimes when it fails to snow on the mountains in winter, their crops are bad.  For this reason they always keep two or three years provisions laid up, for fear of famine.  Altogether, they are a most extraordinary people, far in advance of any other aborigines yet discovered on this continent.  They have never had any inter-course with the whites, and of course their civilization originated with themselves.  What a field is here for the adventurous traveller !  We have rarely listened to anything more interesting than Capt. Walker’s plain unaffected story of his travels in the Great Basin.