File:The American Museum journal (c1900-(1918)) (18133838786).jpg

Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo17amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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Our camps have ranged through all varieties of scene, from the flat, sandy, desert abomination, to the beautiful sheltered spot with towering cliffs of ^■aricolored sandstone overshadowing it. There have been springs and streams of water in places, and drought has been our lot in others. I am reminded of a time when we had more water than we needed. It was one evening when we wei'c moving camp. The day had been fine, l)ut as we were loading the last of our things on the wagon, there came up one of those sudden thunder storms common to the region in summer and fall. Soon the pitchy darkness was re- lieved only by the continual sheets of lightning. By the time \vc reached our destination, a rock-shelter camp, most of us were drenched to the skin. The usually dry arroyo between tlie rock shelter and the place where a careless driver had dumped our lieloiigings, had become an impassable torrent, so that we were obligred to huddU^ in the cave until midnight, before our bedding (fortunately protected by heavy can- vas) could be rescued. The first summer the work of the expedition was can-icMl on along lines that necessitated camps of a more or less permanent nature, as compared with those of the season just closed. The rock-shelter kitchen at San Cri.^to- bal—which Senator Pankey, the owner of the "81,000 acre ranch" on which it was situated, persisted somewhat to our confusion in dubbing "Honeymoon Camp"—became quite like home before it was finally abandoned. Our -work- men, all ^lexicans, soon became old friends and we found them waiting for our return the next season to resume ^vork for us. Most of them spoke no English and were a happy-go-lucky set, being quite content apparently with to- day's frijoles and black coffee, with no thought for the morrow. They no doubt had their opinion of folks who would spend so much time and money digging holes in the ground and collecting worthless bits of bone and pottery, but they were polite enough to keep it to themselves. Old "Socrates" was so named by the head of the expedition because of his great knowledge of every- thing on earth or in the heavens above. No question could be put to him that he was not prepared to answer, and he had a name and a use for every plant that grew in the vicinity. All this past summer we drank a wild tea recom- mended by him and found it good. He had stories of l)uriod treasure, supposed to be well guarded l)y the Indians: and he wanted a chance to dig in the old church ruin at San Marcos, but when there later on, his natural aversion to hard labor overcame his greed for gold. One young fellow brought into camp his wife (a mere girl of about fifteen 3'ears) and baby, with all tlieir personal 105

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