Wild white currant bushes were growing inside of the fortress, breathing delicious fragrance.

But aside from the top, the mountain was all but barren of vegetation.
A few days afterward I went on an excursion up the Casas Grandes Valley, as far as the Mormon colony Dublan.

This valley, which is about fifteen miles long and equally as broad, is very fertile where properly irrigated, and maize and wheat fields delight the eye.

Naturally, the country is well populated, and the mounds which are met with everywhere prove that this was already the case in ancient times.

In fact, mounds, in groups or isolated, are numerous as far north as Ascension.
How richly the apparently poor soil repays the labour which man expends on it may be seen in the flourishing colony the Mormons have here.