arest to it, early in the morning, we found
a wagon and four horses waiting to receive us, and quickly started
for our destination over a natural road across the almost level
prairie. At the expiration of about two hours we saw before us, at a
distance of three miles, a _mesa_ of such perfect symmetry and
brilliant pinkish color, that it called forth a unanimous expression
of enthusiasm. Although the form of this "noblest single rock in
America" changes as one beholds it from different points of view, the
shape which it presented, as we approached it, was circular; and
this, together with its uniform height and perpendicular walls,
reminded me of the tomb of Caecilia Metella on the Appian Way,
magnified into majesty, as in a mirage. It was with added interest,
therefore, that we learned that this was the Enchanted Mesa, about
which there had been recently considerable scientific controversy.
Enchanting, if not enchanted, it certainly appeared that morning,
and, as we drew nearer, its imposing mass continued to suggest old
Roman architecture, from Hadrian's Mausoleum by the Tiber to the huge
circle of the Colosseum.

[Illustration: HOUSES AT LAGUNA.]

[Illustration: THE MESA FROM THE EAST.]

The Indian name of this remarkable cliff is _Katzimo_, and the title
_Haunted Mesa_ would be a more appropriate translation of the Spanish
name, _Mesa Encantada_, than _Enchanted;_ for the people of Acoma
believe its summit to be haunted by the spirits of their ancestors. A
sinister tradition exists among them that one day, many centuries
ago, when all the men of the village were at work upon the plain, a
mass of rock, detached by the slow action of the elements, or else
precipitated by an earthquake shock, fell into the narrow cleft by
which alone an ascent or descent of the _mesa_ was made, and
rendered it impassable. The women and children, left thus on the
summit of a cliff four hundred and thirty feet in height, and cut off
from communication with their relatives and friends, who were unable
to rejoin and rescue them, are said to have slowly perished by
starvation, and their bones, pulverized in the course of centuries,
are believed to have been, finally, blown or washed away. To test the
truth of this tradition, at least so far as traces of a previous
inhabitancy of the _mesa_ could confirm it, Mr. Frederick W. Hodge,
in 1895, made an attempt to reach the summit; but, though he climbed
to within sixty feet of the top, he co