city builders had disappeared, for the crudely marked forms of reptiles,
animals or similar things had a meaning, if any, varying with each
individual maker.

Who were these people who formed a great nation here in the obscurity of
the remote past? Were they the ancient Phoenicians, who were not only a
maritime but a colonizing nation, and who, in their well-manned ships,
might have found their way to the southern coast of America ages since,
and from thence journeyed north? Or were they some of the followers of
Votan or Zamna, who had wandered north and founded a colony of the
Aztecs? Whoever these people were, and whichever way they came from, the
evidences of the great works they left behind them give ample proof that
they were superior and different from other races around them, and these
particular people may have been the "bearded white men," whom the
Indians had traditions of when Coronado's followers first came through
the Gila and Salt River valleys in 1526.





CHAPTER XIX.


OUR GREAT WATERWAYS

Importance of Rivers to Commerce a Generation Ago--The Ideal River
Man--The Great Mississippi River and Its Importance to Our Native
Land--The Treacherous Missouri--A First Mate Who Found a Cook's Disguise
Very Convenient--How a Second Mate Got Over the Inconvenience of