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Show ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF FIRST INHABITANTS = 21 probably a thousand feet from its western extremity, occupying a most commanding position and forming a natural citadel. As one advances, the caves on the sides of the mesa, created partly by erosion and partly by human labor, become more numerous; the To trail is worn in places fully one foot in depth in the solid rock. have accomplished this the wearing process must have been carried on for a long period by a population of hundreds, perhaps thousands; in fact, two of the most remarkable features connected with these ruins are the enormous number of the dwellings and the evidence of continuous occupation for a great period of time. Following this trail one comes to a great confusion of broken rocks, which appear to have been shaken from the sides of the upper mesa. Proceeding closer to the upper wall, the explorer is confronted by a large and most forbidding group of pictographs or petroglyphs, rock-cut pictures, representing human beings and animals in threatmacana ening attitudes, the principal figure having a substantial There can be no question that these rude carvings, in its hand. frighten cut to a depth of an inch or more, were 80 placed in order to a few only located is which passage narrow the from away enemies mesa. the of feet further on and which leads to the top charWhen one enters this passage-way the almost impregnable The acter of the natural citadel above becomes still more apparent. three and base the at wide opening is about ten feet high, two feet Immediately after entering the eleft, a slight turn feet at the top. and, is made to one side, then several more turns in quick succession, — there after a climb of perhaps twenty feet up a gradual incline mesa is reached. are no steps at this entrance — the top of the upper a better evithere is region Perhaps nowhere in the clift-dwelling persistent well-directed, for capacity people’s dence of this ancient hewn labor than is afforded by this very skilfully made passage-way, flint, granite, of axes — tools crude out of the solid rock with their or obsidian. view of the From the top of the upper mesa a most magnificent canyons, 1s and mountains, valleys, its great Pajarito plateau, with the appreciation of with impressed more still is one and afforded, nature the grand and beautiful, which seems to have been second dwelltheir for sites of selection the in with these primitive peoples of mountains; range Jemez blue dark the is west the To ing places. |