26 o 
CAVE AND CUFF DWELLERS. 
were other and more potent considera¬ 
tions, which I have given, that prevented 
our attempting this acrobatic performance 
with the cliffs and crags as spectators. 
We might say that we were now out of 
the land of the living cave dwellers and 
in the land of the living cliff dwellers, 
although the latter live in caves in the 
cliffs. But I make the distinction be¬ 
tween the two, of caves on the level of the 
ground in the valleys or the sides of 
mountains, and the caves in cliffs or walls. 
The latter are reached by notched sticks 
used as ladders, or, as I saw in a few 
cases, by natural steps in the strata of 
alternate hard and soft rock, and up 
which nothing but a monkey or a Sierra 
Madre cliff dweller could ascend. Many 
of these cliff houses in the caves and 
great indentations are one hundred to 
