I never saw but two of these plants in bloom.  One was about fifty miles north of Sacramento and the other in Golden Gate Park, near San Francisco.  It was said they held their flowers four months.  These flowers are very beautiful, being four inches across and look as though they were made of wax.

But to return to my story.  These Indians had three days of worship, also three days of feasting.  On assembling at their place of worship, the chief chose four men from the audience, whom we would term preachers, but which they called abblers.  They never pray, but the abblers stand up and talk to the audience, during which time the Indians preserve the very best order.  The abblers tell them what they must do and what they must not do.  When ready to break up, all join in singing, but never sing before preaching.  Just how they learned this mode of worship was a mystery to me, and is yet, for that matter.  We attended service while in the village and after preaching was over many of them invited us home with them.

There were about five hundred men in this tribe, all of whom were apparently very industrious, raising corn, melons, red pepper and other vegetables in abundance.  They raised some very large melons, which were not excellent in flavor, however.

The Pimas were very kind to us while we were with them, often taking us out to their truck patches and pulling nice, large melons for us.  I asked a very aged Indian where they got their seed corn, but he did not know, saying they had raised it ever since he could remember.  They did their plowing with wooden plows, which they made themselves, being pulled by oxen that were hitched to the plows by a strong stick in front of their horns.  For harrows they used brush, and they had shovels made of wood to dig with.

Notwithstanding they were in one sense uncivilized, they showed us more hospitality during the time we were with them than most white people would have shown to strangers.

These Indians keep their age by taking a piece of horn, pressing it out flat and punching a hole in the center.  When a child is a certain age he has one of these tied about his neck, and every year the child is supposed to cut a notch in the piece of horn.  I did not learn how old they had to be before they were supposed to keep their own age.

We found the chief of the tribe to be very obliging.  He told us the Apaches were bad Indians, and that they had killed many white people—­men, women and children.

When we were ready to leave the village, the chief came out and bade us good-bye, and gave us a cordial invitation to call on him when passing through the country.

We crossed the Gila river near where Colville now stands.  Here was a tribe of very indolent Indians, that during this season of the year did not wear a stitch of clothing of any kind whatever.  They were known as the Yumas.

We both emptied our rifles before crossing the river, knowing that they would get wet in crossing.  I fired at a bird across the river and it fell to the ground.