GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 1. 



MONTEZUMA'S CASTLE. 



Some ten or twelve miles from Camp Verde 

 there is an aggregation of clitf dwellings con- 

 taining one central block of dwellings, so exten- 

 sive that it has been named Montezuma's 

 Castle. We started out one morning to explore 

 ii; and when several miles away we caught a 

 glimpse of the cliff, and had a fair view of the 

 castle. When within perhaps half a mile of 

 the place— and it didn't really seem to be half a 

 mill — from a little eminence we had a very 

 good view of it. It was just over a little hill 

 that lay before us. Our road went around the 

 hill instead of going over it. Mr. Elvey, who 

 ha"* been ihi-re before, felt pretty snre we could 

 make a shorter cut by striking off across the 

 desert, anu to we ventured to try it, although 

 he and Mr. Carey both had told me several 

 times I had better not undertake going "cross- 

 lots" on my wheel where the road seemed un- 

 necessarily circuitous. You ought to have seen 

 the open luouthfd astonishment depicted on 

 our countenances when v,-e got over said hill, to 

 find thpre was a cliff, sure enough, but no castle 

 nor cliff dwellings in sight. Where had they 

 gone? There was still another hill before us, 

 and it seemed quite probable they were over 

 this hill. So we started again '"crosslois" 

 through the brush and desert herbage. Before 

 we knew it we came to the brink of a very steep 

 bank— too steep for any horse and wagon. 

 Then we spent some time going up and down 

 to see if we could not find a place to cross. I 

 made my wheel do service in this respect. 

 After considerable trouble in clearing away a 

 place for th(^ horseswe forded the creek and got 

 up on the opposite bank and into the traveled 

 road. Moral— beware how you leave the beaten 

 track, especially in a strange land. If we had 

 kept tho road the horses could have trotted 

 around to the place it had taken us toward two 

 hours to reach by our short (?) cut. 



Before we explored the castle, Bro. Elvey had 

 to cut a bee-tree where he saw bees going in 

 and out of a knot hole several months befoi^e. 

 As neither bi es nor honey appeared when he 

 got into the hollow, we bantered him consider- 

 ably about imagining he saw bees going into 

 the hole when it was probably nothing more 

 than mosquitoes buzzing around. Finally, how- 

 ever, he reached his hand in and pulled out a 

 sheet of dry honey comb This restored his 

 reputation for veracity. It seems that bees do 

 starve out, even in a country where blossoms 

 of some kind are to be found almost every day 

 in the year. 



I tried hard to g^t a picture of this castle, but 

 did not succeed. The cliff' is about 200 feet 

 high, the top projecting over so as to shield the 

 castle pretty well from the weather. As one 

 looks at the work away up under this over- 

 hanging cliff', he is again reminded of the swal- 

 lows' nests undor the eaves of the barn. The 

 castle is five stories high. There are perhaps 

 twenty or thirty rooms in it. The lowest one is 

 at least 7.5 feet above the stream below. Just 

 as we were gt^tting readv to esplorf^ our good 

 friend Rev. Mr. Healy joined us. Three of us 

 managed to creep up the sid^s of the rock by 

 means of a rude ladder; but Mr. Healy, who is 

 a rather heavy man to climb, discovered an 

 easier way by starting quite a distance away 

 and walking along a projecting ledee. 



The structure was evidently added to at dif- 



ferent times. The front wall runs straight up, 

 and the only thing to indicate where the differ- 

 ent floors are located are the projecting ends 

 of the timbers that support the floor. These 

 sticks of timber were probably cut off with 

 stone axes, or bu^-ned in two with fire, to judge 

 from the projecting ends. Round poles not un- 

 like what we use for bean-poles are laid across 

 these sills, and across the poles are spread wild 

 rushes, and over the rushes a layer of earth. 

 One is impressed again by the fact that these 

 people must have been small or else their rude 

 floors would have broken through; for with the 

 weight of a heavy man they spring down in a 

 way that makes it seem dangerous. I was the 

 only one in the party, in fact, that crawled up 

 to the very highest loft. There are no stair- 

 ways, and these people evidently carried lad- 

 ders to climb up from one story to another. 

 Some of the stories are so low that a tall, act- 

 ive boy could get up through the hole in the 

 floor from one story to another without the aid 

 of a ladder. The uppermost room is thp finest 

 of all. Back under the overhai ging cliff is a 

 i-ort of cave. This cave is so much larger than 

 tlie average cliff dwellings that I imagine it 

 mighi. have ht-av. used as a sort of council- 

 cham jer. This cave is walled in, like the rest, 

 but outside of the wall there is a sort of porch 

 or veranda running to the right and the left, 

 each way, perhaps twenty or thirty feet. On 

 the extreme edge of the porch the walls of the 

 cast'e below rise up so as to form a sort of par- 

 apet about waist-high. Here one can stand 

 and look over the valley below. In case of a 

 siege this would have been an excellent place 

 to cast rocks down 1.50 feet or more on the heads 

 of the enemy. The features of the separate 

 rooms in the castle are so much like the cliff 

 dwellings already described that I need not 

 mention them here. 



We found great quantities of corncobs, such 

 as I have before described, and Mr. Elvey found 

 a shell that was, without doubt, from some sort 

 of squash. In fact, it looked very much like 

 the hard shell on the outside of a Hubbard 

 squash. In an article that appeared a few 

 months ago in Harper's Monthly. I am told 

 they have actually found grains of corn and 

 other seeds in these cliff' dwellings. Why don't 

 some of our enterprising (?) seedsmen advertise 

 varieties of corn or vegetables, the seed of 

 which 'was obtained from the cliff dwellings— 

 that is. if it is a possible thing to make garden 

 seeds of any sort grow after they are toward a 

 thousand years old? Fragments of pottery 

 quaintly ornamented, both inside and out, are 

 found everywhere. These people must have 

 had muscle and energy or else they never would 

 have consented to live where they had to climb 

 these cliffs every day when they went home to 

 dinner. It seems a little strange that no such 

 thing as a chimney was ever invented, for the 

 smoky ceiling and rafters indicate that fire for 

 cooking or to gpt warm by was built on the 

 earthen floor, and the smoke got out as best it 

 could. After the ceiling got smoked over so as 

 to make the room dark and sooty they had a 

 plan of mixing up a sort of whitewash made of 

 the limestone rocks all about them, and white- 

 washing the room very nice and clean. This 

 thing has been gone over so many times that 

 some of the rocky ceilings contain ten or twelve 

 different coats of whitewash and soot alternat- 

 ing. Strangely enough, the rooms smell of the 

 soot and smoke even yet. although hundreds of 

 years have probably elapsed since any fire was 

 built there. 



In this vicinity several mummies have been 

 lately discovered, as I have mentioned before. 

 My companions, who were all heavy men, de- 



