179 



'photographs showed the peculiar character of the houses, 

 which consist of a number of rooms, placed side by side, 

 and one over the other in three or four receding stories, 

 the people living in the upper and outer rooms, while 

 those which are dark and covered by others are used as 

 storerooms. He showed how this plan of house-building 

 had evidently been adopted as a means of defence, and 

 how strongly fortified a town thus built was before the 

 days of powder and artillery. The method of entering 

 these houses was In' })lacing a ladder from the ground to 

 the roof, and so on from roof to roof. When the lad- 

 ders Avei-e drawn up, the people were in comparative 

 safety, and so long as provisions and Wiiter held out they 

 could easily defend themselves before the days of gun- 

 powder. These groups of houses often contained from 

 500 to 1,000 or more people; and while some, like the 

 Pueblo of Taos, were built on the lowland and sur- 

 rounded by an earth-wall, as a further means of pro- 

 tection, others, as the Pueblo of Acoma, were on high 

 table-lands, or mesas, several hundred feet above the sur- 

 rounding country, and could only be approached by nar- 

 row paths, which could I)e easily defended, when bows 

 and arrows were the principal weapons. Some of these 

 towns were, however, taken by the early Spanish leaders, 

 and we have accounts of them as far back as the time of 

 Coronado, about the middle of the sixteenth century. 

 The Puel)lo of Acoma, in particular, is interesting from 

 the fact that it stands to-day, apparently unchanged, as it 

 was first seen nearly tliree and a half centuries ago. The 

 Pueblo of Zuni is perha[)s the best known of the southern 

 towns in Xew Mexico, but as the present Pueblo, or New 

 Zuni, was built after old Zuiii had l)een taken by the 

 Spaniards, it is of comparativel}^ modern origin, although 

 the people have, to a consideral)le extent, retained the 



