by Mr. Buckingham Smith, late American Secretary of Legation to Spain; and they are now studying that language with a view of holding more advantageous intercourse with the Papagoes, who are originally a branch of the Pimos, and speak the same language. The reverend fathers entertained us during our sojourn with an enthusiastic account of their plans for the restoration of the mission and the instruction and advancement of the Indian tribes, with whom they were destined to be associated for some years to

age. On one occasion, when the principal chiefs and braves were away gathering patayah in the desert, the old men and boys of the tribe kept at bay, and finally beat off, a band of over two hundred Apaches who made a descent upon the village. Frequently they pursue their hereditary enemies to the mountains, and in almost every engagement inflict upon them a severe chastisement.

ently sincere converts. The Jesuit missionaries | pursuits, the Papagoes are not deficient in courtaught them those simple forms which they retain to this day, though of late years they have been utterly neglected. The women sing in the church with a degree of sweetness and harmony that quite surprised me. At the time of our visit two padres from Santa Clara, California, who had come as far as Tucson with the command, had just taken up their quarters in the mission. From my acquaintance with them on the road, I judge them to be very sincere and estimable as well as intelligent men. We furnished them with a Pimo grammar, published

Leaving San Xavier, we followed the course of the Santa Cruz Valley for two days, making only one camp at Rhodes's Ranch.

I had sup

posed, previous to our entrance into this region, | Apaches within the past few years. Literally that Arizona was nearly a continuous desert, as the road-side was marked with the burial-places indeed it is from Fort Yuma to Tucson; but no- of these unfortunate settlers. There is not now thing can be a greater mistake than to form a a single living soul to enliven the solitude. All general opinion of the country from a journey is silent and death-like; yet strangely calm and up the Gila. The valley of the Santa Cruz is beautiful in its desolation. Here were fields one of the richest and most beautiful grazing with torn-down fences; houses burned or and agricultural regions I have ever seen. Oc- racked to pieces by violence, the walls cast Icasionally the river sinks, but even at these about in heaps over the once-pleasant homes; points the grass is abundant and luxuriant. We every where ruin, grim and ghastly with assotraveled, league after league, through waving ciations of sudden death. I have rarely travfields of grass, from two to four feet high, and eled through a country more richly favored, yet this at a season when cattle were dying of starv- more depressing in its associations with the ation all over the middle and southern parts of past. Day and night the common subject of California. Mesquit and cotton-wood are abund- conversation was murder; and wherever our ant, and there is no lack of water most of the attention was attracted by the beauty of the way to Santa Cruz. scenery or the richness of the soil a stone-covered grave marked the fore-ground.

Three years ago this beautiful valley was well settled by an enterprising set of frontiersmen as far up as the Calabasas Ranch, fifteen miles beyond Tubac. At the breaking out of the rebellion, when the Overland Stage Line was withdrawn, the whole Territory, as stated in a previous paper, went to ruin with a rapidity almost unparalleled. The Apaches supposing they had created a panic among the whites, became more bold and vigorous in their forays than ever. Ranch after ranch was desolated by fire, robbery, and murder. No white man's life was secure beyond Tucson; and even there the few inhabitants lived in a state of terror.

I saw on the road between San Xavier and Tubac, a distance of forty miles, almost as many graves of the white men murdered by the

The history of Bill Rhodes, at whose ranch we camped, was an example. In the full tide of success this daring frontiersman returned to his house one evening, and found his comrades murdered and himself surrounded by a large band of Apaches. By some means he managed to break through their lines; but his horse being jaded it soon became apparent that escape was impossible. Just as the pursuing Indians were upon him he flung himself into a willow thicket and there made battle. A circle was formed around him by the blood-stained and yelling devils, who numbered at least thirty; but he was too cool a man to be intimidated by their infernal demonstrations. For three hours he kept them at bay with his revolver; although

they poured into the thicket an almost continu- | style; and it may literally be said "the wilderous volley of rifle-shots and arrows. A ball ness blossomed as the rose." In 1858, '59, and struck him in the left arm, near the elbow, and '60, during which the mines were in progress nearly disabled him from loss of blood. He of development, Tubac might well be regarded buried the wounded part in the sand and con- as the head-quarters of civilization in the Territinued the fight till the Indians, exasperated at tory. Men of refinement and education conhis stubborn resistance, rushed up in a body, nected with the mines were here occasionally determined to put an end to him at once. He assembled, and even the fair sex was well rephad but two shots left. With one of these he resented. The gardens afforded a pleasant killed the first Indian that approached, when place of retreat in summer, with their shady the rest whirled about and stood off. They groves of acacias and peach-trees; and deep then addressed him in Spanish, calling him by pools in the river, overhung by willows, were name, and telling him he was a brave man, and cleared out and made into bathing-places, in if he would come out they would spare his life. which all who pleased might refresh themselves "No," said he, "d-n you! I'll kill the last with a luxurious bath. Poston used to sit in one of you before you shall take me!" He had the water, like the Englishman in Hyperion, given such good evidence of his ability in that and read the newspapers, by which means he way that they held a parley and concluded he kept his temper cool amidst the various disturbwas about right; so they retired and left him ing influences that surrounded him. master of the field. Bill Rhodes's Apache fight is now one of the standard incidents in the history of Arizona.

Tubac is now a city of ruins-ruin and desolation wherever the eye rests. Yet I can not but believe that the spirit of American enterprise will revisit this delightful region, and reestablish, on a more permanent footing, all that has been lost, and as much more as its enterprising American founder conceived in his most sanguine anticipations. The mines are proverbially rich; and rich mines will sooner or later secure the necessary protection for working them. A view of the Plaza, and especially the old tower upon which, amidst the cheers of our escort, we planted the glorious flag of our Union, will convey some idea of the general character of the town.

On reaching the old Pueblo of Tubac we found that we were the only inhabitants. There was not a living soul to be seen as we approached. The old Plaza was knee-deep with weeds and grass. All around were adobe houses, with the roofs fallen in and the walls crumbling to ruin. Door and windows were all gone, having been carried away by the Mexicans three years ago Old pieces of machinery belonging to the neighboring mines lay scattered about the main building, formerly the head-quarters of the Arizona Mining Company. Many of these are still valuable. At the time of the abandonment of the country in 1861, the Arizona Company had upward of $60,000 worth of machinery stored in the building attached to the old tower, every pound of which was hauled in wagons at great expense from Lavacca in Texas, a distance of twelve hundred miles. Two boilers, weighing 6000 pounds each, were hauled in the same way, one of which was taken to the Patagonia Mining Company. The other, at the time of our jour-drawn, the entire population retired to Santa ney, lay on the Sonora road a little beyond the Calabasas. Some Mexicans were hauling it away when they were attacked by a band of Apaches, who killed two of the party, took the teams, burned the wagon, and left the boiler on the road-side, where it lay when we passed.

As a matter of historical interest, characteristic of the vicissitudes suffered by these border towns of Arizona, a few incidents connected with the depopulation of Tubac will not be deemed out of place. In 1840, according to Valesquez, the post was garrisoned by thirty men, and the town contained a population of four hundred. After the boundary-line was established and the Mexican troops were with

Cruz, Imuriz, Magdalena, and other points within the Sonora line. Subsequently, when it became the head-quarters of the Arizona Mining Company, it contained a mixed population of four or five hundred, consisting of Americans, Germans, Mexican peons, and Indians. When the Federal troops were withdrawn to the Rio Grande Tubac was again partially abandoned, only twenty-five or thirty souls remaining. At this period (1861) the Apaches came down from the mountains in large force, and surrounded the town with a view of plundering it; but the few Americans left made a bold defense, and kept them at bay for several days, although it is estimated they numbered over two hundred. The beleaguered residents, finding they would ultimately be overwhelmed or starved out, sent an express to Tucson dur

Tubac was first settled by the Americans in 1856, when my friend Poston, the Arizona pioneer and late superintending agent of the silver mines in this vicinity, established it as his head-quarters. It lies on a pleasant slope in one of the most beautiful parts of the valley of the Santa Cruz, within twelve miles of the Santa Rita silver mines, and about twenty-two from the Heintzelman or Cerro Colorado, two of the richest mining districts within the limits of the Territory. Under the direction of Mr. Poston, Tubac was soon partially rebuilt. Good houses and store-rooms were erected, old build-ing the night, stating their condition and asking ings were repaired; a farm was fenced in and put under cultivation; a fine garden was started and irrigated by acequias in the Mexican

for assistance. A brave and generous American, Mr. Grant Ourey, got up a party of twenty-five men, and by rapid and skillful movements

came suddenly upon the Apaches, whom they attacked with such spirit that the whole band fled in a panic to the Santa Rita mountains. At the time of Mr. Ourey's arrival a party of seventy-five Mexicans, who had heard that the Government of the United States was broken up, came in from Sonora with the same purpose of plunder which the Apaches had just attempted to carry into effect. Seeing the preparations for defense they fell back upon Tumacacari, three miles distant, where an old American lived, whom even the Apaches had spared, killed him in cold blood, robbed the place of all it contained worth carrying away, and retired to Sonora. Thus harassed on both sides by Apaches and Mexicans, and without hope of future protection, the inhabitants of Tubac for the last time abandoned the town; and thus it has remained ever since, a melancholy spectacle of ruin and desolation.

We were exceedingly anxious to dis

cover some trace of our American friends who had re

cently suffered such a disastrous attack from the | a detachment of five men over to the Santa Indians-especially of Messrs. Kustel, Janin, Rita hacienda, with instructions to make a careand Higgins, who had crossed over from the Patagonia mines, and of whose safety we had no intelligence. There was abundant reason to suppose they had fallen into the hands of the same band of Apaches who had killed Mr. Mills and Mr. Stevens and robbed Mr. Butterworth. Our vaquero discovered fresh traces of a wagon on the Santa Rita road, which somewhat reassured us of their safety; but we were not yet satisfied. It was deemed advisable under the circumstances to send the vaquero with

ful examination of the premises, and Join us the next day at Calabasas. As an instance of the wonderful sagacity of the Mexicans in determining the number and movements of parties en| tirely unknown to them, from signs which to us would be quite unintelligible, the vaquero reported next day that he had found traces of our American friends. He stated the number exactly; gave many curious particulars in regard to their movements, and said we had missed them by eight days. Nor was there any mere