THE SANTA FE ROUTE. 83 
tuff rises in high cliffs, in which thousands of excavations were cut 
by the aborigines. These places afforded particularly favorable con- 
ditions for dwellings, owing to their inaccessibility to the enemy and 
comparative ease of defense. 
The cliff dwellings, of which there are many in New Mexico and 
Arizona, were occupied by Pueblo Indians and their ancestors, espe- 
cially in time of danger from hostile tribes. Some of them were 
located near streams and fields and it is likely that they were occu- 
pied as dwelling places and for storage of grain and other property 
at times when no danger threatened. In the edge of the Jemez 
Plateau, which faces the Rio Grande a few miles north of Santo 
Domingo, there are thousands of caves that were thus used. The 
early history of the Pueblo people affords many examples of their 
willingness to abandon an old home, or even a pueblo, when it suited 
their interests to do so. This, in some measure, accounts for the 
great number of ruins in the Southwest, and thus it must not be 
imagined that cliff dwellings were deserted only because of the exter- 
mination of the tribe that had occupied them. 
The Rio Grande, the east bank of which is followed by the railway 
from the mouth of Galisteo Creek to Albuquerque and beyond, is 
one of the longest streams in the United States, draining a wide area 
of the central Rocky Mountains in Colorado and northern New 
Mexico. Its valley was the natural route for all the exploring parties 
and the site of the settlements of many of their colonists. It was 
named by Hernando de Alvarado, of the Coronado expedition, Rio 
de Nuestra Sefiora (River of Our Lady). The bottom lands that 
extend along the river at most places have been utilized for many 
centuries for agriculture and there are almost continuous settlements 
and ranches along both sides. As early as 1680 there were 19 ranches 
of Spaniards in the general Albuquerque region. 
Many of the present ranches and villages are peopled by Mexicans, 
but there are also numerous settlements of Indians. One large Indian 
village is at Santo Domingo (see Pl. XI, B, p- 74), not far north of 
the railway, half a mile below the mouth of Galisteo Creek. ‘This 
pueblo, known to be the third one built on this site, was established 
as Gipuyi 200 years ago. Because of its proximity to the Rio Grande 
it has suffered disastrously in three great floods. There are at Santo 
Domingo now about 800 Indians living in fairly comfortable adobe 
houses and cultivating an extensive area of adjoining fields, largely 
irrigated from the Rio Grande. These Indians have for a long time 
been the chief traders in the turquoise from Los Cerrillos. Together 
with those at San Felipe (fay-lee’pay), Cochiti (co-chee’tee), and sev- 
eral other pueblos, they are remnants of the eastern division of the 
Keresan tribe, of which the Acoma and Laguna Indians form the 
western division. They have a language very different from that of 
