40 



distance above, plenty of water was found in the bed of the creek ; fine 

 large cotton woods bordered the stream, and the broad fertile valley 

 seemed a far more desirable place of residence than the forbidding des- 

 olation of the Chelly. 



About thirty miles from the San Juan we left Epsom Creek, and 

 stopped for a night at the head of the canons which run between it and 

 the Montezuma. We were in the midst of quite a thickly-settled, an- 

 cient population, the ruins of their habitations consisting almost entirely 

 of the kind just described — low, rectangular mounds, so completely de- 

 stroyed as not to leave one stone upon another, yet accompanied always 

 by an abundance of the same kind pf pottery we have found so univer- 

 sally distribnted over other localities. Kot the slightest difference can 

 be detected in its general quality, nor can any one style of manufacture 

 or ornamentation be said to be peculiar to any one district*or group of 

 ancient habitations. It is the same with arrow-points and like work, 

 and with the similarities in building ; although covering two different 

 periods of their existence, it carries the conviction to us that they were 

 all one and the same people, scattered in families and communities 

 throughout the valleys and cafions. 



After leaving this last group of ruins, all traces of them vsuddenly 

 ceased, and in the four or five days spent in the examination of the 

 country upon the southern, eastern, and northern flanks of the Sierra 

 Abajo, not a single vestige was found : and this in without exception, 

 the most pleasant spot we have touched since leaving La Plata. Clear 

 and cold mountain-streams ripple down through ravines overhung by 

 groves of willow, maple, and quaking-asp, with splendid oaks and 

 stately pines scattered over the uplands, and an abundance of rich, nu- 

 tritious grass everywhere, that our poor, half-starved animals knew 

 well how to appreciate. The black tail deer and grouse were in goodly 

 numbers, starting up from under our very noses, and leading our hunt- 

 ers many a long chase. 



Leaving half of our little party of six, and all the animals but those 

 we rode and the trusty Mex. with the apparatus, we made our way 

 down through the deej) and narrow caiions that lead from the plateau 

 country into the great basin that lies between the Sierra Abajo and the 

 Sierra La Sal, and spent two days in the examination of its arid sur- 

 face, covered with monumental rocks and ridges, but without coming 

 across so much as a piece of pottery or an arrow-point. 



Turning our backs upon the Abajo Peaks, we struck out northeasterly 

 over the plateau, but soon finding a trail bearing southeast, followed it 

 until we saw that it was likely to continue some time upon the plateau, 

 when we branched off to the left, and in a short distance came upon the 

 very brink of the deep caQon of the Montezuma, one of the far-reaching 

 arms of the main wash and valley farther east. Winding our way 

 among rocks and scrubby piiions, we almost literally tumbled down the 

 precipitous descent of 1,500 feet, to a narrow bottom, walled in first by 

 a broad belt of massive white sandstone, rising almost perpendicularly 

 from 20 to 50 feet above the valley; above that the dark red and shaly 

 sand-rocks rose up in receding benches 1,000 feet to a broad tablet of 

 white sandstone on top, so high up that it seemed to shut out all the world 

 and to leave us as engulfed in the bosom of the earth. A narrow but 

 deep "wash" meandered from side to side, containing just a few scat- 

 tered pools of stagnant water, while dense thickets of oak brush, thickly 

 interwoven with vines, rendered progress anything but pleasant. 



We had gone but a few rods before we commenced picking up pieces 

 of pottery and meeting other evidences of occupation; within three 



