The ruins of ancient buildings, thoroughly disintegrated, are scattered widely along these bottoms, and in some places there must certainly have been large cities. The rectilinear courses of the walls, and the dividing lines of the rooms, are all plainly visible still, though nothing remains but the cobble-stones and pebbles, out of which they seem to have been mainly constructed, and here and there a bit of cement or mortar. The ancient builders and occupiers of these could not have been our present Indians there, because they use different forms and materials. They could not have been Mexicans or Spaniards, because they invariably use brick or adobe. Who they were, where they came from, when they disappeared and _why_--these are knotty problems for the antiquarian, which it is to be hoped time will soon solve. One thing is certain, these ancient builders--Aztecs (as popularly believed) or whoever they were--were at least good architects and engineers, and they must have peopled much of Arizona with an industrious and dense population, such as it will not see again--I was going to say--for centuries to come. But the Salado, in those days, must have been a larger river than it is now, or probably ever will be again; because two or three of these old _acequias_ would carry off all its present waters, and leave none for the others, whose remains yet furrow the country there everywhere. However, the larger _acequias_ may have been used only as receiving reservoirs, to husband the spring freshets, and for this purpose they might soon be utilized again. However this may be, there are fine lands all along the bottoms of the Salado, and enough water flowing there yet to irrigate many thousands of acres. Indeed, the best lands we saw in Arizona are here in the heart of it, on the Gila and Salado, and in time no doubt there will be flourishing settlements there. What the region needs, is a railroad to connect it with "inside," or civilization; and this the "Texas and Pacific," it seems, will eventually furnish. Now, like so much of Arizona, it is inaccessible, or practically five hundred miles across a desert--from about everywhere. A railroad will remedy all this, and stimulate Arizona wonderfully in many ways. The whistle of the locomotive will end her Indian troubles, and many others, and may she hear it echoing and re-echoing among her mountains and cañons very soon! A railroad, indeed, is a great blessing everywhere; but in our western territories it means civilization as well, and without one Arizona will evidently continue to slumber on, as she has for so many years. CHAPTER XXV. PRESCOTT, THE APACHES, ETC.