Here we entered a pine forest. Heat and dust stayed with us, and the
aches and pains likewise, but the worst of them lay behind. Every mile
grew shadier, clearer, cooler.
Nielsen happened to fall in and ride beside me for several miles,
as was often his wont. The drink of water stirred him to an Homeric
recital of one of his desert trips in Sonora, at the end of which,
almost dead of thirst, he had suddenly come upon such a stream as the
one we had just passed. Then he told me about his trips down the west
coast of Sonora, along the Gulf, where he traveled at night, at low
tide, so that by daytime his footprints would be washed out. This
was the land of the Seri Indians. Undoubtedly these Indians were
cannibals. I had read considerable about them, much of which ridiculed
the rumors of their cannibalistic traits. This of course had been of
exceeding interest to me, because some day I meant to go to the land
of the Seris. But not until 1918 did I get really authentic data
concerning them. Professor Bailey of the University of California told
me he had years before made two trips to the Gulf, and found the Seris
to be the lowest order of savages he knew of. He was positive that
under favorable circumstances they would practice cannibalism. Nielsen
made four trips down there. He claimed the Seris were an ugly tribe.
In winter they lived on Tiburon Island, off which boats anchored on
occasions, and crews and fishermen and adventurers went ashore to
barter with the Indians.
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