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Show 38 municating door between, and a large door opening outward from the larger one. The upper floor appears to have been all in one room, with one large window facing outward, and much smaller ones in the side walls. Extensions existed upon either side, and also some kind of structure in front, probably a sort of platform- house, coveriug the lower door- way. To the right the ledge grows narrower, and gradually merges into the perpendicular bluff; 40 feet from the house, on this ledge, are the remains of a wall across it. About 20 rods above, at the foot of the bluff, there is a deep natural reservoir of water, formed by the accumulated rains upon the plateau above pouring over the rocks aud scooping out a basin 30 feet in diameter aud fully as deep, that seems to retaiu a perpetual supply of water. Near our camp, just at the juuction of the two canons, and on the flat surface of the sage- covered valley, were a row of small squares marked out by large stones set upright, such as have beeu already described. In this case they were of such careful construction and size as to encourage us to dig into them to a considerable depth. Beyond the scattered bits of charcoal, very sparingly deposited in this iustauce, however, nothing was found. Five miles above the canon Bonito, the Chelly" expands into a wide valley that extends, with slight interruptions, to the foot of the canon De Chelly, at the northern end of the Tuuicha Mountains. It is bordered by low but abrupt sandstone bluffs, which have been broken into isolated monuments in some places, and stand like huge sentinels upon either hand, as if to warn the traveler from the desolation surrounding him. Although the bluffs contain numerous great circular caves, favorite building- places of the ancient builders, yet we find only two or three ruins of that kind, and only in the lower end of the valley, the last we noticed being about eight miles above the canon- Bonito. This was the largest and most important one in this vicinity, occupying a large circular cave very similar to the one of the JSan Juan, divided into twelve or fifteen rooms, with a large corral or court, and an elevated bench to one side, with a low wall running around its front edge. This had been occupied by the Navajos for corraling their sheep. Over the broad, flat valley, sage- covered, sandy, and monotonous, and through which the wide shallow wash meandered from side to side, we found frequent indications of its former occupancy by the old people whom we have been following up, extending southward until lost in the cultivated region about the head of the valley. There were no more remains of stone- built houses, nor the slightest sign of one; all were probably of adobe, the only clew in many cases being simply a sligbt mound with considerable quantities of broken pottery surrounding it Eight miles up the canon De Chelly are the ruins of a cave- town very much like the one described, ( Plate II,) but much smaller, and with a ruined mass of houses at the foot of the bluffs below the cave- like bench.* About the head of the valley the Navajo Indians have several hundred acres, in the aggregate, of corn, pumpkins, and melons under cultivation, taking advantage of the water which comes down thus far from the mountains to the east. From here our trail to the Moqui settlements branched off in a southwesterly direction to a low divide under the southern end of the M6sa Vaca, where it turned nearly south and hardly deviated " from a bee- line for a distance of nearly 40 miles to Tegua, the nearest of the Moquis towns. We will not now stop to discuss the question as to what connection may have existed between the ancient builders of the San Juan and the * Simpson's report. |
