The recent discoveries in what is called the “Great Basin,” a tract of
table-land lying between the Rocky and the Pacific chain of mountains,
are exciting much interest, and awakening inquiry and speculation again
as to the origin of the people who evidently, in a former period,
inhabited these now desolate regions. Captain Walker, the mountaineer,
passed through the center of this basin in 1850, and made some
interesting revelations of what he saw. These statements have been
called in question, on account of their supposed improbability; but a
later trip of Lieutenant Beale gives a degree of confirmation to the
facts, which will make the credibility of the statements more readily
admitted. The whole country, from the Colorado to the Rio Grande,
between the Gila and San Juan, is full of ruined habitations and cities,
most of which are on this table-land. Captain Walker states that, in
traversing this desert, he had frequently met with crumbling masses of
masonry and numberless specimens of antique pottery.
In his last trip across, he saw the ruins of a city more than a mile in
extent, the streets of which ran at right angles. The houses had all
been built of stone, but all had been reduced to ruin by the action of
some great heat, which had evidently passed over the whole country. In
the center of the city rose abruptly a rock twenty or thirty feet high,
upon the top of which stood a portion of the walls of what had once been
an immense building. The outline of the building was still distinct,
although only the northern angle, with walls fifteen or eighteen feet
long, and ten feet high, was standing. These walls were constructed of
stone, well quarried and well built. Lieutenant Beale, on his first trip
across the continent, discovered in the midst of the wilderness of Gila,
what appeared to be a strong fort, the walls of great thickness, built
of stone. He traversed it, and found it contained forty-two rooms. A
correspondent of the Placerville Herald gives an account more wonderful
still, of a stone bridge, which had also been discovered, the
foundations of which were of stone, and nearly six hundred feet from one
of the outer abutments to the other, while between the two are no less
than seven distinct piers. This bridge has the appearance of a river
once flowing between its piers, though now there is not the slightest
appearance of such a river in that vicinity.
Next we have an account of a strange race of people, neither whites nor
Indians, called Moquis, lighter in color than the Indians of California.
The women are tolerably fair, not being so much exposed to the sun.
Among them Captain Walker saw three perfectly white, with white hair and
light eyes. They raise all kinds of grain, melons and vegetables. They
have also a number of orchards, filled with many kinds of fruit-trees.
The peaches they raise are particularly fine. They have large flocks of
sheep and goats, but very few beasts of burden or cattle. They are a
harmless, inoffensive race; kind and hospitable to strangers, and make
very little resistance when attacked. The warlike Navajos, 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 movable from their farms, and fly
for refuge to their mountain stronghold. Here their enemies dare not
follow them. When a stranger approaches, they appear on the top of the
rocks and houses, watching his movements. One of their villages, at
which Captain Walker stayed for several days, is over six hundred yards
long. The houses are mostly built of stone and mortar; some 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 in this
country, the women work within doors, the men performing all the farm
and out-door labor. These people, according to the accounts, have never
had any intercourse with the white race.