IN NEW MEXICO. 343 



flocks of sheep. "If you wish to see," said the Mud old Hosta, ex-gov- 

 ernador of the town, "what a great people we once were (que gran pueblo 

 los Jemez eran), you must go upon the mesas and into the canons of the 

 vicinity, where ruins of our forefathers are numerous. Our people were a 

 warlike race, and had many fights not only with the Spaniards but also 

 with other Indian tribes, the Navajos and Taos for instance, and were thus 

 reduced to this pueblo of Jemez, which now forms the last remnant." 

 Hosta's son led me to some ruins in the vicinity. A ride of six miles up 

 the river brought us to the junction of the two great canons, Guadalupe 

 and San Diego. Where the mesa between these canons narrows itself to a 

 point are the ruins of two pueblos, one upon the lower prominence of the 

 mesa, named Batokvd, the other upon the mesa proper, called Ateyala-keokvd, 

 and only approachable by two narrow, steep trails, the mesa everywhere 

 else being nearly perpendicular and 750 feet high. The view from the 

 mesa is picturesque and imposing in the extreme; far beneath, to the right 

 and left, a stream makes its way between the colossal walls of sandstone, 

 which are penetrated by trachytic dikes; upon the narrow width of the 

 mesa, near frightful precipices, are the ruins of a town of eighty houses, 

 partly in parallel rows, partly in squares and partly perched between the 

 overhanging rocks, the rim and surfaces of which formed the walls of rooms, 

 the gaps and interstices being filled in artificial^. Nearly every house 

 had one story and two rooms; the building material was trachytic rock, as 

 found upon the mesa. Broken pottery, charred corn, and millstones for 

 grinding corn, were found in some of the rooms. The roofs had all fallen 

 in, and so also had many of the sidewalls, in the construction of which 

 wood was but little used. Pinon-trees have taken root within many of the 

 former rooms. Upon asking my Indian guide whether the former inhabi- 

 tants of this town were obliged to descend the steep and dangerous path- 

 way every day to the creek to procure water, he replied that there were 

 cisterns on the mesa, in which rain, formerly plentiful, was caught. He 

 then called my attention to some conical heaps of stone along the rim of 

 the precipice, which was the material for defense. Although the position 

 upon this mesa appears impregnable, ^he Spaniards succeeded in taking it, 

 probably forcing the inhabitants to surrender by cutting off water and 



