THE CANON OF CHURCHES. 3 6 9 
slight ladders or a turning of one of 
them, which to me seemed so likely, 
would send the climber two hundred to 
three hundred feet to the bottom of the 
canon, perhaps a mangled corpse. 
Had I wanted to visit them directly in 
their homes I doubt very much if I could 
have reached them, for I am sorry to 
say I am not a sailor, a tight-rope per¬ 
former, or an aeronaut. Beyond this 
place the people had fled to their houses, 
and could, by disarranging a single 
notched stick, have made our ascent im¬ 
possible. This, I think, was one of the 
methods of defense adopted by ancient 
cliff dwellers of Arizona, as shown at 
least by some which I have seen and 
which now, with the logs rotted away, 
are unapproachable. It is even possible, 
as I have more than hinted before, that 
