At Maricopa Wells, and thence up the Gila, we found a large settlement of the Maricopa and Pimo Indians. The Maricopas, it seems, are an offshoot of the Yumas, and number less than a thousand souls. The Pimos foot up five or six thousand, and from them are sprung the Papagos--a great tribe dominating all southern Arizona. The Maricopas and Pimos have a Reservation here together, some twenty-five miles long by four or five wide, embracing both sides of the Gila, and live in twelve different villages scattered over it. Two of these are occupied wholly by Maricopas--the rest, by Pimos. Both tribes are a healthy, athletic, vigorous-looking people, and they were decidedly the most well-to-do aborigines we had yet seen. Unlike most Indians elsewhere, these two tribes are steadily on the increase; and this is not to be wondered at, when one sees how they have abandoned a vagabond condition, and settled down to regular farming and grazing. They have constructed great acequias up and down the Gila, and by means of these take out and carry water for irrigating purposes, over thousands of acres of as fine land as anybody owns. Their fields were well fenced with willows, they had been scratched a little with rude plows, and already (March 9th) they were green with the fast springing wheat and barley. In addition, they raise corn, beans, melons, etc., and have horses and cattle in considerable numbers. One drove of their live stock, over two thousand head, passed down the road just ahead of us, subsequently when _en route_ to Tucson, and we were told they had many more. The year before, these Indians had raised and sold a surplus of wheat and corn, amounting to two millions of pounds, besides a large surplus of barley, beans, etc. The most of this was bought by Indian traders, located at Maricopa Wells and Pimo villages, at from one to two cents per pound, coin, in trade; and then resold to the government, for the use of troops in Arizona, at from six to seven cents per pound, coin, in cash. This is a specimen of the way in which the old Indian Ring fleeced both the Indians and the government, and I give it as a passing argument in favor of the new policy. These Indians, it appears, have practiced agriculture somewhat from time immemorial, and they should be encouraged in it, as there is no surer way of "pacifying" or civilizing them. During the rebellion, they furnished two companies to the Union volunteers in Arizona, and the most of these had just re-enlisted, to serve as scouts against the Apaches. These wore a mongrel uniform, half Indian, half soldier; but the rest, only the traditional breech-cloth.