MORGAN. CORONADO’S RELATION. 167 
other pueblos, suggest the probability that they were places for holding the 
councils of the gentes and phratries. 
This great ruin, with two others of smaller size, shown in Fig. 38 as 
No. 8 and No. 9, of which the first is one hundred and thirty-five feet long 
and one hundred feet deep, and the other seventy-cight by sixty-three feet, 
both of stone, complete the list of ruins in the canon. The pueblo of Pintado, 
is, however, at the upper end, and without the canon, and the Pueblo Alto, 
not yet described, is not in the cafon, but on the bluff. It is a remarkable 
display of ancient edifices; the most remarkable in New Mexico. With the 
bordering walls of the canon, rising vertically, in places, one hundred feet 
high, it presented long vistas in either direction, with natural and inclosing 
walls. Shut in from all view of the table lands at the summit of these 
walls, this valley, at the time its great houses were occupied, must have pre- 
sented a very striking picture of human life as it existed in the Middle 
Period of Barbarism. The greater part of the valley must have been 
covered with garden beds, from which the people derived their principal 
support, as the mesa lands without the canon were too dry for cultivation. 
It no doubt presented an interesting picture of industrious and contented 
life, with a corresponding advancement in the arts of this period. There is 
still some uncertainty concerning the time when these pueblos were last 
occupied, and the fate of their inhabitants. There are a number of circum- 
stances tending to show that they were the ‘Seven Cities of Cibola,” against 
which the expedition of Coronado was directed in 1540-1542. There are 
seven pueblos in ruins in the canon, without reckoning Nos. 8 and 9, the 
smallest in the valley. Some of the facts which point to these pueblos as 
the Towns of Cibola may here be noted. 
In his Relation to the Viceroy, which is dated from the province of Ci- 
bola, August 3, 1540, Coronado describes his conquest and intimates his 
disappointment in the following language: 
“Tt remaineth now to certify your Honor of the seven cities, and of 
the kingdoms and provinces whereof the Father Provincial made report 
unto your Lordship. And, to be brief, I can assure your Honor he said the 
truth in nothing that he reported, but all was quite contrary, saving only the 
names of the cities, and great houses of stone; for although they be not 
