HISTORICAL FOOTPRINTS IN AMERICA. 311 



inscriptions engraved on the smooth face of a rock of gigantic pro- 

 portions called the Moro.. The route of Lieutenant Simpson lay up 

 the valley of the Rio de Zuiii, and there, as he informs us, he met Mr. 

 Lewis who had been a trader among the Navajos, and was waiting to 

 offer his services as guide to a rock, upon the face of which were, 

 according to his repeated assertions, " half an acre of inscriptions." 

 After passing over a route of about eight miles, extending through a 

 country diversified by cliff's of basalt, and red and white sand-stone, in 

 every variety of bold and fantastic form, they came at length in sight 

 of a quadrangular mass of white sand-stone rock, from two hundred 

 to two hundred and fifty feet in height. This was the Moro, or In- 

 scription Rock, on ascending a low mound at the base of which, 

 the journalist states, "sure enough here were inscriptions, and some 

 of them very beautiful ; and 'although, with those we afterwards ex- 

 amined on the south face of the rock, there could not be said to be 

 half an acre of them, yet the hyperbole was not near as extravagant 

 as I was prepared to find it." On the summit of the cliff the ruins 

 of a pueblo ot bold native masonry formed a rectangle two hundred 

 and six by three hundred and seven feet ; around, which lay an im- 

 mense accumulation of broken pottery, of novel and curious patterns. 

 The inscriptions are of two classes : the native hieroglyphics, which 

 furnish no means of judging of the dates of the oldest of such syni- 

 bolic writings ; and the Spanish inscriptions and devices. The longer 

 examples of the latter class appear to be mostly imperfect, througt 

 the action of time and the defacement of later visitors. But they 

 have not been subjected to such careful study, by competent tran- 

 scribers, as to ensure their complete reproduction, or conjectural resto- 

 ration ; and it is probable that future explorers may be rewarded by 

 the discovery of many additional records of interest and historical 

 value. One apparently reads thus : — 



-}- Pasamos por aqui 

 el sarjente mayor 

 y el capitan Ju de Arechu- 

 seta y el viadante Biego Martin 

 Barba y el Alferes Guillen de Ynes 

 Josana A. 1636. 



Another, and apparently the oldest with a date affixed, a.d. 1606, 

 is given here in facsimile. . But others are in an earlier character. 



