THE TANKS OF TINAJAS.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3136, 7 March 1879, Page 1

THE TANKS OF TINAJAS.

A wonderful place is " Tinajai," about thirty miles south-east of Mission Camp. The mouDtains hare one face of hard, smooth granite. All the water falling upon this basin has to flow through nine tanks, one above the other. The lower tanks are of easy access, and are often drained of their contents by nfen and animals travelling between Yuma and Sonora. The upper tanks are approached only by a circuitous and difficult elinbing over rooks. To one standing below they afford no indication of their existence, nor does climbing the smooth,' steep mountain side seem possible to one unacquainted with the way to do it In the upper tanks water *as never been known to fail. To this water comes game of all kinds in great numbers from the great waterless country around Tiaajas. Antelope, mountain sheep and deer of sevesal kinds come in herds. Babbits and hares are as plenty as anywhere, and are prey for many coyotes and beautiful little rock-foxes.: One would think that all this game would be thinned out by the Papago Indians who inhabit the country. But these Indiana are superstitious and avoid Tinajas with abject terror. Within two miles of this water are certainly 160 graves, and probably more; each marked by rows of stones laid in form of a cross. Scores of men famished for water have expended their last strength in reaching Tinajas j only to find tie. lower tanks dry, and, ignorant of the upper ones, have lain down in despair to die. Their remains have been buried by later travellers, and the graves marked, Mexican fashion, by a cross of stones. During the rush to the gold-fields of California cholera attacked adventurers on the road from Mexico, as it did American immigrants along the Flatte; pestilence combined with thirst to gather qprpses at Tinajas, Beeelleetion of bleaching bones and grinning skulls protects the game from Papago arrows and flintlocks. After passing through its usual fermentation the .water becomes clear and pure as any in the World; it comes from the clouds only, and flowing into the tanks over insoluble jnranite, it carries no mineral matter. Every heavy rain pours a whirling torrent through the tanks, washing them out to the very bottom—no organic matter stays behind; i The number and variety of birds here is marvellous; many of them appearing to be of new and undesoribed species. At morning and evening the din of their song, confined by sides of the mountain, is almost ; deafening. All around Tinajas is the remarkable vegetation- of the desert; near its tanks are mafay and curious" plants nourished by their moisture/; Theplaoe is one of muoh interest.—Arizona Sentinel.