The paucity of potable water and the remoteness of its sources naturally affect the habits of the folk; and the effect is intensified by a curious custom, not fully understood, though doubtless connected with militant instincts fixed (like the habits of primitive men generally) by abounding faith and persistent ritualistic practice—i. e., the avoidance of living waters in selecting sites for habitations or even temporary camps. Thus the principal rancherias on Tiburon island, about Rada Ballena, are some 4 miles from Tinaja Anita, the nearest aguaje; the extensive rancherias near Punta Narragansett measure 10 miles by trail from the same aguaje; the half dozen jacales about Campo Navidad are separated by some 15 miles of stony and hilly pathway from the alternative watering places of Tinaja Anita and Arroyo Carrizal;[268] and the huts crowning the great shell-heap of Punta Antigualla—one of the most striking records of immemorial occupancy in America—are nearly or quite 10 miles by trail from Pozo Escalante, and still further from Aguaje Parilla, the nearest sources of potable water. These are but typical instances; and while there are ruined huts (evidently regarded as temporales) near the dead waters of Barranca Salina and Pozo Escalante, they tell the tribal policy of locating habitations in places surprisingly remote from running water. Like other desert folk, the Seri have learned to economize in water-carrying by swigging incredible quantities on their occasional visits to the aguajes; it is probable, too, that their systems are inured, somewhat as are those of the desert animals that survive deprivation of water for days or months, to prolonged abstinence from liquid food; yet it seems safe to assume that at least half of the water required in their vital economy (say 2 or 3 pounds apiece daily, on an average) is consumed after transportation over distances ordinarily ranging from 4 to 12 miles. Under these conditions the Seri have naturally produced a highly developed water industry; they are essentially and primarily water-carriers, and all their other industries are subordinated to this function. [268] The preciousness of water in this hard province was impressed in the 1895 expedition, during which the cost of the commodity, reckoned on the basis of the time and labor involved in obtaining it, was estimated at, $10 or $12 per gallon, or about the wholesale price of the finest champagnes.