t occupied
by any savage tribe, and only a few white men within the last few years
have passed through it and told of its wonders; and yet its whole
length is but one series of houses and temples that were forsaken
centuries ago. I can hardly imagine a more exciting tour of exploration
than that which Mr. Jackson's party made on first entering this canyon in
1874.

Above the entrance of the canyon the evidences of prehistoric life begin.
On the bottom-land, concealed by shrubbery, are the half-obliterated
outlines of square and circular buildings. The houses were of large
size, and were plainly no temporary dwelling-places, for an accumulation
of decorated pottery fills the ground about them, indicating long
occupation. No doubt they were built of adobe,--masses of hard
clay dried in the sun,--which the wear of ages has reduced to
smoothly-rounded mounds. For some miles down the canyon remains of this
sort occur at short intervals, and at one point there stands a wall
built of squared sandstone blocks. Along the ledges of the cliffs on the
right bits of ruinous masonry are detected here and there, but for a
time there is nothing to excite close attention. At last a watchful eye
is arrested by a more interesting object perched at a tremendous height
on the western wall of the canyon. It is a house built upon a shelf of
rock between the precipices, but, standing seven hundred feet above the
stream and differing not at all in color from the crags about it, only
the sharpest eyesight can detect the unusual form of the building and
the windows marking the two stories.

The climb up to the house-platform is slow and fatiguing, but the
trouble is repaid by a sight of one of the most curious ruins on this
continent. Before the door of the house, part of the ledge has been
reserved for a little esplanade, and to make it broader three small
abutments of stone, which once supported a floor, are built on the
sloping edge of the rock. Beyond this the house is entered by a
small aperture which served as a door. It is the best specimen of a
Cliff-dweller's house that remains to our time. The walls are admirably
built of squared stones laid in a hard white mortar. The house is
divided into two stories of three rooms each. Behind it a semicircular
cistern nearly as high as the house is built against the side of it,
and a ladder is arranged for descending from an upper window to the
water-level. The floor of the second story was suppor