Indians, and am acquainted with most of the tribes that inhabit the west country that stretches from Florida, by Texas and Cohahuila, to the Pacific. I have invariably found them kind and harmless, when well treated. The Apaches of the North are an extremely independent and high-minded people. They have very light complexions, and will not live in towns, or in a domesticated state, but subsist entirely by hunting. They are very brave, good horsemen, handle the lance remarkably well, and are good marksmen with the bow and arrow. The Governor of the State, Don Simon Elias, told me, that if an Apache leaves his hut for one minute, on his return he examines his bow, turns over every arrow, and looks at the point and feather, so that he is always prepared for enemies, or game. The continued wars carried on against them by the Spaniards for many years, and conducted by cruel and rapacious officers, gave them the greatest abhorrence of their conquerors, but they entertain no antipathy towards the Creoles born in the State; and frequently when the Spaniards were obliged to sue for a suspension of hostilities, they sent two brothers, called Geronimo and Leonardo Escalante, to treat. These men exercised so great an influence over the Indians by their mode of treating them, that they always succeeded.
In the part of Sonora last described, the climate is charming, the thermometer ranges betwixt 50 and 84; the atmosphere is always dry and clear. The inhabitants require no fires in the houses in winter, nor are they oppressed with the summer heat. In the mountains, the evenings and mornings are sometimes chilly. The natives live generally to a good old age: the women are prolific, and bear from eight to twenty children, and in some instances have exceeded that number. In Oposura many of the women have what are termed "buches" (wens), in their necks, like the Savoyards. Some few are very much disfigured with them; they attributed it to some peculiarity in the water, the effects of which are confined to this particular spot, for the inhabitants three leagues above and below it are free from any thing of the kind.
In this northern part of the State the curacies are of immense extent, many of them from thirty to forty leagues in length.
