f 



I 



I 



226 



NEW TEACKS IN NOETH AMEEICA. 



deyise means of protecting their settlements against surprise 



and their rich, corn-fields from pilla 



Thus they introduced 



the art of building houses of stone and adohe from Mexico 

 into their newly-acquired territory, and adopted that system 

 of communism in their fortified towns which best suited 

 their purpose. They chose commanding positions upon the 

 summits of the mesas overlooking large tracts of fertile bottom- 

 land, and added story to story in such a manner that a few 

 resolute defenders could keep almost any number of assailants, 

 similarly armed, at bay. The Apaches seem to have been at 

 last so successfully kept under, tliat Father Marco and 

 Yasqucz de Coronado were conducted by tlie Aztecs througli 

 tlie very centre of a country which is now entirely given over 

 to the savages, and across which no one at the present time 

 would dream of passing. Nor do we hear much about these 

 sons of plunder until nearly the middle of the eighteenth 

 century. 



The town-builders gradually pushed their way northward 

 to Pueblo Creek, the Aztec Mountains, and the San Francisco 

 Peaks: but on trying to penetrate fm^thcr, their progress was 



suddenly arrested by 



impassable barrier — the canons of 



the Colorado and Flax (Chiquito) rivers, which, united, form 

 a gulf three hundred miles at least in length, directly across 

 their course. 



Stopped more effectually by nature than by any barrier 

 could devise, they naturally rejected the worthless 



man 



regions lying to the 



westward, and turned their com' 



5 



towards the east, occupying the fine valleys of the Colorado 

 Chiqiiito above its canon, and following its branches to their 



HavinsT established the kino-dom of Cevola, of which 



source 



w 



Znili was the capital, and several other clusters of towns 



the 



ghbouring streams, they commenced to push still 



