roded sides, 350 feet
above the plain, which is 7,000 feet above the sea. Anciently, according
to the traditions of the Queres, it stood upon the crest of the superb
Haunted Mesa, three miles away, and some 300 feet higher, but its only
approach was one day destroyed by the falling of a cliff, and three
unhappy women, who chanced to be the only occupants--the remainder of
the population being at work in the fields below--died of starvation, in
view of the homeless hundreds of their people who for many days
surrounded the unscalable mesa with upturned, agonized faces.

The present Acoma is the one discovered by the Spaniards; the original
pueblo on the Mesa Encantada being even then an ancient tradition. It is
1,000 feet in length and 40 feet high, and there is, besides, a church
of enormous proportions. Until lately, it was reached only by a
precipitous stairway in the rock, up which the inhabitants carried upon
their backs every particle of the materials of which the village is
constructed. The graveyard consumed forty years in building, by reason
of the necessity of bringing earth from the plain below; and the church
must have cost the labor of many generations, for its walls are 60 feet
high and 10 feet thick, and it has timbers 40 feet long and 14 inches
square.

The Acomas welcomed the soldiers of Coronado with deference, ascribing
to them celestial origin. Subsequently, upon learning the distinctly
human character of the Spaniards, they professed allegiance, but
afterwards wantonly slew a dozen of Zaldibar's men. By way of reprisal,
Zaldibar headed three-score soldiers and undertook to carry the
sky-citadel by assault. The incident has no parallel in American
history, short of the memorable and similar exploit of Cortez on the
great Aztec pyramid.

After a three days' hand to hand struggle, the Spaniards stood victors
upon that seemingly impregnable fortress, and received the submission of
the Queres, who for three-quarters of a century thereafter remained
tractable. In that interval, the priests came to Acoma and held footing
for fifty years, until the bloody uprisal of 1680 occurred, in which
priest, soldier and settler were massacred or driven from the land, and
every vestige of their occupation was extirpated. After the resubjection
of the natives by De Vargas, the present church was constructed, and the
Pueblos have not since rebelled against the contiguity of the white man.

All the numerous Mexican comm