My Native Land Part 18

The region also abounds with archaeological curiosities and remarkable hieroglyphics. Many of these are found in close proximity to the Grand Canon of the Colorado, and on the cliffs in which the far-famed cliff dwellers of old took up their abode. Hieroglyphics, marked upon rocks or other lasting substances, have been used by nearly all ancient races to perpetuate the history of certain events among them. Especially true is this of the ancient people who lived in Arizona. The remarkable picture rocks and boulders, with strange symbols upon them, left by the prehistoric races of Arizona, have been the cause of much discussion among those who have seen them, as to who these ancient hieroglyphic makers were. These rock records may be divided into three different kinds, which it is thought were made by two different races. The first, or very ancient race, left records on rocks, in some instances of symbols only, and in other instances of pictures and symbols combined.

The later race, which came after the first race had vanished, made only crude representations of animals, birds or reptiles, not using symbols or combinations of lines.

The age of the most ancient pictographs and hieroglyphics can only be conjectured, but all give certain indications that they are many centuries old, and the difference between the work of the ancient and the later race leads the observer to believe that the older hieroglyphics were made by a people far superior to those who came after them, and who left no record in symbols, as we have said, with the exception of crude representations of animals and reptiles.

In many instances it is quite evident that the same rock or cliff has been used by the two different races to put their markings upon, the later, or inferior, race often making their pictographs over or across the hieroglyphic writings of the first race. Of the superiority of the first people who left their writings on the rocks and boulders found in the ancient mounds, ruins and graves, there can be no doubt, for their writings show order and a well defined design in symbols, which were evidently intended to convey their history to others; and it is quite probable that those who made the great mounds, houses and ca.n.a.ls were the authors of these writings. It may be truthfully a.s.serted that the cliff dwellers of the rock houses in the deep canons of the mountains were of the same race as the mound builders of the valleys, for exactly the same cla.s.s of hieroglyphics found on boulders from the ancient ruins of the valleys, are found on the rocks near the houses of the cliff dwellers.

If this superior race were so distinctive from all other ancient races of Arizona--in their work being so far advanced as to solve what would be called, even at the present day, difficult engineering problems; to dig great ca.n.a.ls many miles in length, the remains of which can be seen at the present time, and to bring them to such perfection for irrigating purposes; to build such great houses and to live in cities--may it not have been, as many who have studied this subject now contend, that this superior race were white people instead of a copper colored race, as has generally been supposed?

The hieroglyphics of the more ancient race are often found on sheltered rocks on the slopes of the mountains leading up from the valleys.

Generally protected from the elements by overhanging cliffs, the dry climate has kept the writings from wearing away, and being in most instances picked into rocks which have a black, glistening surface, but of a lighter color underneath, the contrast is very noticeable, and when in prominent places these hieroglyphics can be seen several hundred feet away.

As no metal tools have ever been found in the mounds, ruins or cliff dwellings, the hieroglyphics were probably picked into the rock with a sharp-pointed stone much harder than the rock upon which the work was done. It is a singular fact that, although iron, copper, gold and silver abound in the mountains in Arizona, no tools, utensils or ornaments of these metals are found in the mounds or ruins. Yet furnace-like structures of ancient origin have been found, which appear to have been used for reducing ores, and in and around which can be found great quant.i.ties of an unknown kind of slag.

In many instances the hieroglyphic boulders have been found in great heaps, of several hundred in number, as if many different persons had contributed a piece of this strange writing to the collection. These etched boulders have been found buried in the ground with ollas containing the charred bones of human beings, and could the writings on the boulders be deciphered, we would undoubtedly learn of the virtues of the prehistoric deceased, just as we do of a person who dies in the present day, when we read the epitaph on a tombstone of the one who is buried beneath.

In opening some of the mounds, the investigator finds they are made of the fallen walls of great adobe buildings, and as he digs deeper he finds rooms of various dimensions, and which, in many instances, have cemented walls and floors. In one instance there were found the impressions of a baby's feet and hands, made, presumably, as the child had crawled over the newly laid soft cement. In another mound the cemented walls of a room were found covered with hieroglyphics and rude drawings, which were thought to represent stellar constellations.

To a certain extent, some of the pictured rocks tell us of part of the daily life of this ancient race, for in a number of instances the pictures picked into the rocks, although rudely formed, are self-explanatory, and the ancient artist tells plainly by his work what is meant. On the edge of a little valley in the Superst.i.tion Mountains, there was found a great rock on which had been etched many small animals, apparently representing sheep, and at one side was the figure of a man, as if watching them. It may be the ancient herder himself, sitting in the shadow of the great rock, while his sheep were grazing in the valley below, has pa.s.sed away the time in making this rock picture.

The hardy wild sheep still found in the mountains of Arizona may be the remnants of great bands formerly domesticated by these people.

The skeleton of the prehistoric man dug from beneath the stalagmites in the cave of Mentone, France, and which set all the scientific men of the world talking and thinking, gives proof of no greater age than many of the skeletons, relics or bones of some of these ancient mound and ca.n.a.l builders.

An incident ill.u.s.trating the great antiquity of prehistoric man in Arizona, is the following: In digging a well on the desert north of Phoenix, at the depth of 115 feet from the surface a stone mortar, such as the ancients used, was found standing upright, and in it was found a stone pestle, showing the mortar had not been carried there by any underground current of water, and that it had not been disturbed from the position in which its ancient owner had left it with the pestle in it. There is only one way to account for this mortar and pestle. They had originally been left on what was at that time the surface of the ground, and the slow wash from the mountains had gradually, during unknown ages, raised the surface for miles on every side to the extent of 115 feet.

The question is often asked, Will this hieroglyphic writing ever be deciphered? The authors of the most ancient hieroglyphic writings or markings seem to have had well-defined forms or marks, which were in common use for this cla.s.s of writing. Is it not most reasonable that a race so far advanced in other ways would have perfected a method of transmitting by marks of some kind their records to those who might come after them? Again, where so much system is shown in the use of symbols, it may be presumed that the same mark, wherever used in the same position, carries with it a fixed meaning, alike at all times. Having such a settled system of marks, there must be a key to the thoughts concealed in writing, and quite likely the key for deciphering these hieroglyphics will sometime be found on one of the yet undiscovered hieroglyphic rocks in the high mountains or in the mounds not yet examined. On the other hand, there can be no key to the inferior cla.s.s of pictographs made by the people who came after the mound, ca.n.a.l and city builders had disappeared, for the crudely marked forms of reptiles, animals or similar things had a meaning, if any, varying with each individual maker.

Who were these people who formed a great nation here in the obscurity of the remote past? Were they the ancient Phoenicians, who were not only a maritime but a colonizing nation, and who, in their well-manned s.h.i.+ps, might have found their way to the southern coast of America ages since, and from thence journeyed north? Or were they some of the followers of Votan or Zamna, who had wandered north and founded a colony of the Aztecs? Whoever these people were, and whichever way they came from, the evidences of the great works they left behind them give ample proof that they were superior and different from other races around them, and these particular people may have been the "bearded white men," whom the Indians had traditions of when Coronado's followers first came through the Gila and Salt River valleys in 1526.

CHAPTER XIX.

OUR GREAT WATERWAYS

Importance of Rivers to Commerce a Generation Ago--The Ideal River Man--The Great Mississippi River and Its Importance to Our Native Land--The Treacherous Missouri--A First Mate Who Found a Cook's Disguise Very Convenient--How a Second Mate Got Over the Inconvenience of Temporary Financial Embarra.s.sment.

During the last quarter of the century in which we write the figures "1"

and "8" in every date line, the steam railroad has, to a very large extent, put out of joint the nose of the steamboat, just as, at the present time, we are threatened with so complete a revolution in travel and motive power as to warrant a prediction that, long before another quarter of a century has pa.s.sed, electricity will take the place of steam almost entirely. But even if this is so, old acquaintance should not be forgot, and every citizen of the United States should feel that the prosperity of the country is due, in very large measure, to the country's magnificent waterways, and to the enterprise of the men who equipped river fleets and operated them, with varying degrees of profit.

The true river man is not so conspicuous as he was in the days when St.

Louis, Cincinnati, Memphis and other important railroad centers of to-day were exclusively river towns. The river man was a king in those days. The captain walked the streets with as much dignity as he walked his own deck, and he was pointed to by landsmen as a person of dignity and repute. The mate was a great man in the estimation of all who knew him, and of a good many who did not know him. Ruling his crew with a rod of iron, and accustomed to be obeyed with considerable and commendable promptness, he adopted a tone of voice in general conversation considerably louder than the average, and every one acquired a habit of making way for him.

The levee in a river town, before the railroads came snorting and puffing across country and interfering with the monopoly so long enjoyed by the steamboat, was a scene of continuous turmoil and activity.

Sometimes, now, one sees on a levee a great deal of hurrying and noise.

But the busiest scenes of to-day sink into insignificance compared with those which are rapidly becoming little more than an indistinct memory.

The immense cargoes of freight of every description would be ranged along the river front, and little flags could be seen in every direction.

These flags were not, perhaps, exactly evidence of the activity of the schoolmaster, or of the prevalence of superior education. They were, rather, reminders of the fact that a great majority of the rank and file of river workers could read little, and write less. To tell a colored roustabout twenty or thirty years ago to fetch a certain cargo, labeled with the name of a particular boat or consignee, would have been to draw from the individual addressed a genuine old-time plantation grin, with some caustic observation about lack of school facilities in the days when the roustabout ought to have been studying the "three Rs," but was not. It was, however, comparatively easy to locate a cargo by means of a flag, and identification seldom failed, as the flags could be varied in color, shape and size, so as to provide distinction as well as difference.

Those who remember the busy levee scene, with the flag adornment referred to, will agree that there was something picturesque as well as noisy about the old river days, and will be inclined to regret, and almost deplore, the fact that things are not, from a river man's standpoint, what they were.

In no country in the world has railroad building been carried on with so much enterprise as in our native land. Prior to the enormous expenditure on track building and railroad equipment, advantage had to be taken of the extraordinary opportunities for navigation and transportation afforded by the great waterways of the country. As railroads were naturally built in the East before the West, the value of our Middle and Western waterways is naturally best understood by the average reader, because they continued to play an indispensable part in the transaction of business of every character until quite a recent period.

The Eastern rivers are less magnificent in extent and volume than those of the West, though many of them are picturesque and attractive in the extreme. The Hudson has often been spoken of as the "Thames of America,"

not because there is any resemblance between the length of the two rivers upon which are situated the two greatest cities of modern times.

The simile is the result rather of the immense number of costly family residences and summer resorts built along the banks of both rivers.

In another chapter we say something of a trip down the picturesque Hudson, whose banks are lined with historic landmarks and points of pressing interest. We give an ill.u.s.tration of a pleasure boat on the Hudson, which reminds one of many delightful river trips taken at various periods, and also of the events of national importance which centered around the river that is crowded, year after year, with pleasure-seekers from the overcrowded metropolis at its mouth.

The Mississippi River is the largest and grandest in North America. A few miles above St. Louis it is joined by the Missouri River, and if the distance from the source of the latter to the Gulf of Mexico be calculated, the longest river in the world is found. At a considerable distance from the source of the Father of Waters are the Falls of St.

Anthony, discovered more than two hundred years ago by enterprising pioneers, who thought they had discovered the headwaters of the great river. The scenery of the river at the falls and beyond them is very attractive, and in many cases so beautiful as to be beyond verbal description. In many other parts of the river the scenery is grand, though occasionally there are long stretches of flat country which are inclined to become monotonous and barren of poetic thought.

Of the entire river, Mr. L. U. Reavis writes enthusiastically:

"The more we consider the subject," says this author, "the more we are compelled to admit that the Mississippi is a wonderful river, and that no man can compute its importance to the American people. What the Nile is to Egypt, what the great Euphrates was to ancient a.s.syria, what the Danube is to Europe, what the Ganges is to India, what the Amazon is to Brazil--all this, and even more than this, the Mississippi River is to the North American Continent. In an earlier age men would have wors.h.i.+ped the Mississippi, but in this age we can do better, we can improve it. To this all our efforts should be directed, and we should continually bear in mind that no other improvement, ancient or modern, relating to the interests of commerce has ever commanded the attention of men equal in importance to that of the Mississippi River, so as to control its waters and afford ample and free navigation from St. Paul to the Gulf of Mexico."

During the last few years, the agitation in favor of river improvement has a.s.sumed very definite shape, and from time to time large appropriations have been made by Congress for the purpose of keeping the river navigable at all periods of the year. As long ago as 1873, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Transportation Routes censured the Government for neglecting to thoroughly improve the big rivers. A quarter of a century has nearly elapsed since then, and, in the opinion of many competent river men, there is still room for much improvement, not only in the river, but in the method of arrangements for designing and carrying out the improvements.

The Missouri River, the great tributary to the Mississippi, has often been described as one of the most treacherous and aggressive rivers in the universe. It seems to be actuated by a spirit of unrest and a desire for change, so much so that the center of the river bed frequently moves to the right or left so rapidly as to wipe out of existence prosperous farms and homes. Sometimes this erratic procedure threatens the very existence of cities and bridges, and tens of thousands of dollars have been spent from time to time in day and night work to check the aggression of the stream and to compel it to confine itself to its proper limits.

The Mississippi proper brings down from the lakes to its junction with the Missouri River clear water, in which the reflection is so vivid, that the verdure on the banks gives it quite a green appearance. The Missouri, on the other hand, is muddy and turbulent, bringing with it even at low water a large quant.i.ty of sand and sediment. At high water it brings with it trees and anything else that happens to come within its reach, but at all periods of the year its water is more or less muddy. At the junction of the two rivers the difference in color of the water is very apparent, and, strange to say, there is not a complete intermingling until several miles have been covered by the current.

Under ordinary conditions, the western portion of the current is very much darker in shade than the eastern, even twenty miles from what is generally spoken of as the mouth of the Missouri.

The Muddy Missouri rises in the Rocky Mountains. It is really formed by the junction of three rivers--the Jefferson, the Gallatin and the Madison. By a strange incongruity, the headwaters of the Missouri are within a mile of those of the Columbia, although the two rivers run in opposite directions, the Columbia entering the Pacific Ocean and the Missouri finding an inlet to the Gulf of Mexico via the Mississippi. At a distance of 441 miles from the extreme point of the navigation of the head branches of the Missouri, are what are denominated as the "Gates of the Rocky Mountains," which present an exceedingly grand and picturesque appearance. For a distance of about six miles the rocks rise perpendicularly from the margin of the river to the height of 1,200 feet. The river itself is compressed to the breadth of 150 yards, and for the first three miles there is but one spot, and that only of a few yards, on which a man can stand between the water and the perpendicular ascent of the mountain.

At a distance of 110 miles below this point, and 551 miles from the source, are the "Great Falls," nearly 2,600 miles from the egress of the Missouri into the Mississippi River. At this place the river descends by a succession of rapids, and falls a distance of 351 feet in sixteen and one-half miles. The lower and greater fall has a perpendicular pitch of 98 feet, the second of 19, the third of 47 and the fourth of 26 feet.

Between and below these falls there are continuous rapids of from 3 to 18 feet descent. The falls, next to those of Niagara, are the grandest on the continent.

Below the "Great Falls" there is no substantial obstruction to navigation, except that during the midsummer and fall months, after the July rise, there is frequently insufficient water for steamboating. This results from the fact that, although the Missouri River drains a large area of country and receives many tributaries, some of which are navigable for many hundreds of miles, it pa.s.ses for a great portion of its course through a dry and open country, where the process of evaporation is very rapid. The channel is rendered intricate by the great number of islands and sandbars, and in many cases it is made exceptionally hazardous by reason of countless snags.

Volumes have been written concerning the adventures of pioneers and gold hunters, who went up the Missouri in advance of railroads and even civilization, in order to trade with the Indians or to search for yellow metal in the great hills in the unexplored country, where so much in the way of easily acquired wealth is looked for. Some of the wealthiest men in the West to-day have a vivid recollection of the dangers they encountered on the voyage up this river, and of the enemies they had to either meet or avoid. Sometimes hostile Indians would attack a boat amid-stream from both sides of the river, and when an attempt was made to bring gold or costly merchandise down the river, daring attacks were often made by white robbers, whose ferocity and murderous designs were quite as conspicuous as those of the aboriginal tribes. Many a murder was committed, and the seeds were sown for countless mysteries and unexplained disappearances.

The Ohio River is another of the great tributaries of the Mississippi.

In years gone by the importance of this waterway was enormous. The Mississippi itself runs through Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana. The Ohio taps and drains a much older country than many of these States, and hence its importance in the days when Cincinnati was the great gateway of the West and a manufacturing city of first importance.

The Ohio is a great river for more than a thousand miles, and connects Pittsburg with Cairo, running through such important towns as Louisville and Cincinnati. On this river some of the most interesting events in river history have been enacted in the past. Many a tragedy and many a comedy are included in its annals, and even to-day, although paralleled, crossed and recrossed by railroads, it is a most important highway of commerce.

The Tennessee River is a tributary of the Ohio, which it enters so near the Mississippi as to have a very close connection with that great river. Entering the Ohio at Paducah, Kentucky, the Tennessee is one of the largest and most important rivers east of the Mississippi. It is formed by the union of two rivers which rise in the Allegheny Mountains and unite at Kingston, Tennessee. The river then runs southwest through Alabama, and turning northward, pa.s.ses through portions of Tennessee and Kentucky. In length the Tennessee exceeds 1,200 miles, and, with the exception of very dangerous places here and there, it is strictly a navigable river.

Running as it does, through a country not yet thoroughly supplied with railroad accommodation, the Tennessee forms an important connection between a number of small s.h.i.+pping points, which would otherwise be cut off from commercial intercourse with large centers. Hence the transportation facilities are good, and in many respects remind one of old days when river traffic was general. Boats run almost all the year around up this river as far as Alabama points, and not only is a large and lucrative freight business transacted, but pleasure and health-seekers are also carried in large numbers.

Everything was not prosaic in river life in the old days. All of us have heard of the great races on the Mississippi River between magnificent steamers, and of the excitement on deck as first one and then the other gained a slight advantage. Stories, more or less reliable, have been told again and again of the immense sums of money made and lost by speculators who backed their own boats against all comers. Tricks and jokes also prevailed and continue up to the present time. The pa.s.senger on a Tennessee River boat is almost sure to be told how a very popular first mate escaped arrest by disguising himself as a cook. The story is amusing enough to bear repet.i.tion, and bereft of corroborative detail, evidently designed to lend artistic verisimilitude to the narrative, it is as follows:

The boat was detained at a landing at a small Kentucky town where the laws against gambling were supposed to be very strict. Some of the officers of the boat were determined to kill time by staking a few dollars at poker, faro or something worse, and inquiries were made in consequence as to where a game could be found. These resulted satisfactorily from the gamblers' standpoint, and the crowd took themselves to the appointed spot, taking with them the very stout, good-natured, but not very speculative first mate. The game was played in a small room at the rear of an almost equally small restaurant.