stranger and to command his respect. The females are chaste, reserved, extremely modest and rather shy, avoiding, when possible, the gaze of the stranger. Many of them are quite pretty, of fine figure and regular features. Their want of personal cleanliness, however, was apparent, and is certainly singular, in view of the neatness which pervades their dwellings.
One cannot but admire their regard for truth, their industry, unobtrusive disposition, hospitality and respect for strangers. Their hatred of the Mexican is intensely bitter, and is not concealed. On every favorable occasion they give vent to expressions indicative of outraged feelings by reason of the persecutions that have been inflicted upon them by their enemies; and these, together with the feeling manner in which they are made known, warrant the belief that the injuries they have suffered have been numerous and severe. Their love for and kindness toward the people of the States (or "Americans," as they call them) are in striking contrast with the hatred and revenge they bear the Mexican. Yet the benefits they have received from our Government have been neither many nor great.
Although perhaps these Indians, like all Pueblos, do not impress the stranger very favorably on first sight, on closer acquaintance one is forced to yield to the conviction that they are among Nature's noblemen—that they are the descendants of a race long freeholders of the soil of the North American Continent, and are every way worthy of confidence and respect. They are by no means to be compared to the nomadic tribes of red-skins, everywhere infesting the prairie, plain, and mountain of the far West, for murder and plunder. Like other Pueblo tribes, these people show marked and distinctive peculiarities, not that they differ essentially in type from the other branches of the great aboriginal families, but as regards their originality in costume, and their strong conservatism. Industrious and self-sustaining, they are temperate and quiet; though receiving but little aid from the General Government, they are well to do, and particularly in the line of farming.
As evening drew near, we prepared to bid adieu to Zuni town and its inhabitants. On leaving, the governor, with his cacique and the prominent men of his tribe, followed us to the outskirts of the village, when, with uplifted hands, he gave us his benediction, imploring the God of the Zuni to give us safe return to our camp, and, at the close of the field season, to our homes and kindred in the distant East.
A pleasant day with this isolated band of self-supporting, half-civilized people, was profitably spent, many facts being gained regarding themselves, their ancestors, their peculiar manners and customs, as well as respecting their language. These data, when properly discussed and elaborated, will constitute additional information of interest to the general reader, as well as of value to the student of ethnology and philology, and may, moreover, throw new light on the
