i26 G. F. Ruxton, Esq., on the Migration 



Jongopai, and Gualpi. The fifth is doubtful. Some of the 

 villages of the Pueblo Indians are very curiously located 

 on the summits of almost inaccessible cliffs ; Acoma and 

 another, now in ruins, near the Pueblo of San Felipe, are 

 thus situated ; but the most extraordinary building is that 

 of the Pueblo of Taos, on the northern side of the valley of 

 that name. It is built on a small stream, which divides the 

 building into two equal portions, and is composed of seven 

 stories, decreasing in breadth as they ascend, so that the vast 

 hill has a pyramidal or telescopic appearance. The founda- 

 tion covers an extent of 370 feet in length, by 150 in width, 

 divided into several compartments, two rooms forming, as it 

 were, the thickness of the walls, the outer of which, in each 

 story, is generally inhabited, the other being used as a 

 granary. A small window lights the apartment, to which the 

 only communication is by a ladder through a trap-door in the 

 roof. 



In the centre of the building, on the ground-floor, is a large 

 council-hall, where, under the presidence of their cacique or 

 chief, they meet to transact the municipal affairs of the tribe, 

 and where, more than once, plots have been hatched and ma- 

 tured, which have subverted the government of the incapable 

 Mexicans. 



In the numerous insurrections, raised and conducted by 

 the Pueblo Indians, they have invariably considered it the 

 best stroke of policy to strike at once at the very head of the 

 obnoxious government ; and, in nearly every instance, have 

 carried out their plans by massacring the governor of the 

 province. 



But the other day, they rose against the Americans, who 

 had taken possession of New Mexico, without opposition, 

 and surprising the governor (a gentleman named Bent), 

 whilst in the village of Fernandez, a few miles from the 

 Pueblo of Taos, murdered him in the most savage manner. 



A few days after this, the American troops attacked the 

 Pueblos, and after killing several hundred of its Indian defen- 

 ders, levelled it to the ground. 



It has been said that the singular perpetuation of a holy 

 fire by which the ancient Mexicans watched for the return 



