ars before made two trips to the Gulf, and found the Seris
to be the lowest order of savages he knew of. He was positive that
under favorable circumstances they would practice cannibalism. Nielsen
made four trips down there. He claimed the Seris were an ugly tribe.
In winter they lived on Tiburon Island, off which boats anchored on
occasions, and crews and fishermen and adventurers went ashore to
barter with the Indians. These travelers did not see the worst of the
Seris. In summer they range up the mainland, and they go naked. They
do not want gold discovered down there. They will fight prospectors.
They use arrows and attack at dawn. Also they poison the water-holes.

Nielsen told of some men who were massacred by Seris on the mainland
opposite Tiburon Island. One man, who had gone away from camp,
returned to hear the attack upon his companions. He escaped and made
his way to Gyamus. Procuring assistance this man returned to the scene
of the massacre, only to find stakes in the sand, with deep trails
tramped around them, and blackened remains of fires, and bones
everywhere. Nielsen went on to say that once from a hiding place he
had watched Seris tear up and devour a dead turtle that he afterward
ascertained was putrid. He said these Seris were the greatest runners
of all desert savages. The best of them could outrun a horse. One
Seri, a giant seven feet tall, could outrun a deer and break its neck
with his hands.

These statements of Nielsen's were remarkable, and personally I
believed them. Men of his stamp were honest and they had opportunities
to learn strange and terrible facts in nature. The great naturalist
Darwin made rather stronger claims for the barbarism of the savages of
Terra del Fuego. Nielsen, pursuing his theme, told me how he had
seen, with his own eyes--and they were certainly sharp and
intelligent--Yaqui Indians leap on the bare backs of wild horses
and locking their legs, stick there in spite of the mad plunges and
pitches. The Gauchos of the Patagonian Pampas were famous for that
feat of horsemanship. I asked Joe Isbel what he thought of such
riding. And he said: "Wal, I can ride a wild steer bare-back,
but excoose me from tacklin' a buckin' bronch without saddle an'
stirrups." This coming from the acknowledged champion horseman of the
southwest was assuredly significant.

At five o'clock we came to the end of the road. It led to a forest
glade, overlooking the stream we had followed, and that