Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 June 1889 — SCHWATKA. THE EXPLORER. [ARTICLE]

SCHWATKA. THE EXPLORER.

Tka Intrepid Traveler Returns from a Profitable Expedition. Lieutenant Schwatka haa arrived at Doming, N. M. His party has been successful beyond all expectations in their explorations, and especially in Southern Chihuahua. Here living cliff and rave dwellers are found in great abundance, as wild as any of the Mexican tribes found at Cortez’s conquest The abodes they live in are exactly similar to the old abandoned cliff dwellings of Arizona and New Mexico, about which there haab&n so much speculation and so much money spent in investigation. It was almost impossible to get near them, so wild and timid are they. Upon the approach of white men they fly to their caves or cliffs, by notched sticks placed against the face of the cliffs if too steep, although they can ascend vertical Btone faces if there are the slightest crevices for their fingera and toes. These cliffdwellers are sun worshippers, throwing their new-born children out in the full rays of the sun the first day of their lives, and shoving many other forms of devotion to the great luminary. They are usually tall, lean and well formed, their skin being blackish-red, much nearer the color of the negro than the copper-colored Indian et the United States. JLeiutenant Schwatka savsthat nothing has heretofore been known about these people, except by the half-Indian mountain Mexicans, and thinks his investigation will be of immense anthrophologicai and arcbselogical value. He estimates the cave and cliff dwellers to be from three to twelve thousand in number, armed only with bows, arrows and stone hatchets, and they will furnish enough work for a year or two for a half-dozen expeditions.