Their industries are few, but afford sufficient income to provide for their modest needs. They are primarily tillers of the soil, and as agriculturists succeed under circumstances that would wholly baffle and discourage an eastern farmer. Several years ago a man was sent out from Washington to teach the Moquis agriculture, but before a year had passed the teacher had to buy corn from the Indians. They make baskets and pottery, weave cloth and dress skins for their own use and to barter in trade with their neighbors. They like silver and have skilled workmen who make the white metal into beads and buttons and various trinkets for personal adornment. They care nothing for gold, and silver is their only money. Chalchihuitl is their favorite gem and to own a turquoise stone is regarded as an omen of good fortune to the happy possessor. Just how the Spaniards got the notion that the Moquis loved gold and possessed vast stores of that precious metal is not apparent unless it be, as Bandelier suggests, that it originated in the myth of the El Dorado, or Gilded Man.[2] The story started at Lake Guatanita in Bogota, and traveled north to Quivera, but the wealth that the Spaniards sought they never found. Their journey led them over deserts that gave them but little food and only a meager supply of water, and ended in disaster. The mesas are all rock and utterly barren, and their supplies are all brought from a distance over difficult trails. The water is carried in ollas by the women from springs at the foot of the mesa; wood is packed on burros from distant forests; and corn, melons and peaches are brought home by the men when they return from their work in the fields. A less active and industrious people, under similar circumstances, would soon starve to death, but the Moquis are self-supporting and have never asked nor received any help from Uncle Sam. In the early morning the public crier proclaims in stentorian tones from the housetop the program for the day, which sends everyone to his daily task. They are inured to labor and do not count work as a hardship. It is only by incessant toil that they succeed at all in earning a living with the scanty resources at their command, and the only surprise is that they succeed so well. There is scarcely an hour during the day or night that men and women are not either coming or going on some errand to provision the home. The men travel many miles every day going to and from their work in the fields. If a man owns a burro he sometimes rides, but usually prefers to walk. What the burro does not pack, the man carries on his back. He often sings at his work, just as the white man does in any farming community, and his song sounds good.