We made every effort to celebrate Christmas in a manner worthy of our
surroundings. We could not procure fish for our banquet, but one of
the Mexicans had the good luck to shoot four turkeys; and Kee, our
Chinese cook, surprised us with a plum pudding the merits of which
baffle description. It consisted mainly of deer fat and the remnants
of dried peaches, raisins, and orange peel, and it was served with a
sauce of white sugar and mescal. The appreciation of this delicacy by
the Mexicans knew no bounds, and from now on they wanted plum pudding
every day.

On the upper Bavispe we again found numerous traces of a by-gone
race who had occupied these regions long before the Apaches had
made their unwelcome appearance. In fact, all along on our journey
across the sierra we were struck by the constant occurrence of rude
monuments of people now long vanished. They became less numerous in
the eastern part, where at last they were replaced by cave dwellings,
of which I will speak later.

More than ever since we entered the Sierra de Nacori, we noticed
everywhere low stone walls, similar to those we had seen in the
foot-hills, and evidently the remains of small cabins. The deeper we
penetrated into the mountains, the more common became these hut-walls,
which stood about three feet high, and were possibly once surmounted
by woodwork, or, perhaps, thatched roofs. All the houses were small,
generally only ten or twelve feet square, and they were found in
clusters scattered over the summit or down the slopes of a hill. On one
summit we found only two ground plans in close proximity to each other.

The stones composing the walls were laid with some dexterity. They