THE CLIFF-HOUSES OF CAÑON DE CHELLY.
The fourth and most southerly iron link of railway which will soon stretch across the North American continent from ocean to ocean is rapidly approaching completion along the thirty-fifth parallel; already it has reached the San Francisco mountains in its course to the Pacific. While avoiding the chances of blockade by snow, liable in higher latitudes, it has struck through a little explored region among the vast plains of Arizona and New Mexico. It is not easy at once to realise the extent of table-lands, greater in area than Great Britain and Ireland, upon which no soul has a settled habitation. The sun beats down with terrible force on these dry undulating plains, where at most times nothing relieves the eye, as it wanders away to the dim horizon, save a few cactus and sage-bush plants. But at seasons, heavy rains change dry gulches into roaring torrents, and parched lowlands into broad lakes, covering the country with a fine grass, on which millions of sheep, horses, and cattle are herded by wandering Navajo and Moqui Indians. To the periodical rains, as well as to geological convulsions, are traced the causes of those wondrous chasms, which in places break abruptly the rolling surface of the prairie, and extend in rocky gorges for many miles. They are called cañons. The grandeur of the scenery found in one of them, Cañon de Chelly, can scarcely be overstated.
Cañon de Chelly—pronounced Canyon de Shay—is in the north of Arizona. It takes its name from a Frenchman, who is said to have been the first white man to set foot within its walls; but except the record of a recent visit by the United States Geological Survey, no account of it seems to have hitherto appeared. The picturesque features of this magnificent ravine are unrivalled; and what lends a more fascinating interest, is the existence, among its rocky walls, of dwellings once occupied by a race of men, who, dropping into the ocean of the past with an unwritten history, are only known to us as cave-dwellers.
In October 1882, an exploring party, headed by Professor Stevenson of the Ethnological Bureau, Washington, and escorted by a number of soldiers and Indian guides, set out for this remarkable spot. One of the party, Lieutenant T. V. Keam, has furnished the following details of their investigations. After travelling one hundred and twenty miles out from the nearest military post, Fort Defiance, and crossing a desert some twenty miles broad, the entrance to Cañon de Chelly was reached. The bed of the ravine is entirely composed of sand, which is constantly being blown along it, with pitiless force, by sudden gusts of wind. The walls of the cañon are red sandstone; at first, but some fifty feet high, they increase gradually, until at eighteen miles they reach an elevation of twelve hundred feet, which is about the highest point, and continue without decreasing for at least thirty miles. The first night, Professor Stevenson’s party camped three miles from the mouth of the cañon, under a grove of cotton-wood trees, and near a clear flowing stream of water. Here the scene was an impressive one. A side ravine of great magnitude intersected the main cañon, and at the junction there stood out, like a sentinel, far from the rest of the cliff, one solemn brown stone shaft eight hundred feet high. In the morning, continuing the journey through the awful grandeur of the gorge, the walls still increased in height, some having a smooth and beautifully coloured surface reaching to one thousand feet; others, from the action of water, sand storms, and atmospheric effects, cut and broken into grand arches, battlements, and spires of every conceivable shape. At times would be seen an immense opening in the wall, stretching back a quarter of a mile, the sides covered with verdure of different shades, reaching to the summit, where tall firs with giant arms seemed dwarfed to the size of a puny gooseberry bush, and the lordly oak was only distinguished by the beautiful sheen of its leaves.
On the second night the camp was formed at the base of a cliff, in which were descried, planted along a niche at a height of nearly one hundred feet, some cliff-dwellings. Next morning, these were reached after a dangerous climb, by means of a rope thrown across a projecting stick, up the almost perpendicular sides of this stupendous natural fortress. The village was perched on its narrow ledge of rock, facing the south, and was overshadowed by an enormous arch, formed in the solid side of the cañon. Overlapping the ruins for at least fifty feet, at a height above them of sixty feet, it spread its protecting roof five hundred feet from end to end. No moisture ever penetrated beyond the edge of this red shield of nature; and to its shelter, combined with the dryness of the atmosphere and preserving nature of the sand, is to be attributed the remarkable state of preservation, after such a lapse of time, in which the houses of the cliff-dwellers were found. Some of them still stood three stories high, built in compact form, close together within the extremely limited space, the timber used to support the roof being in some cases perfectly sound. The white stone employed is gypsum, cut with stone implements, but having the outer edges smoothly dressed and evenly laid up; the stones of equal size placed parallel with each other presenting a uniform and pleasing appearance.
No remains of importance were found here, excepting a finely woven sandal, and some pieces of netting made from the fibre of the yucca plant. But on proceeding two miles farther up the cañon, another group of ruins was discovered, which contained relics of a very interesting character. The interior of some of the larger houses was painted with a series of red bands and squares, fresh in colour, and contained fragments of ornamented pottery, besides what appeared to be pieces of blankets made from birds’ feathers; these, perhaps, in ages past bedecked the shoulders of some red beauty, when the grim old walls echoed the fierce war-songs of a long-lost nation. But the most fortunate find at this spot, and the first of that description made in the country, was a cyst, constructed of timber smoothly plastered on the inside, containing remains of three of the ancient cliff-dwellers. One was in a sitting posture, the skin of the thighs and legs being in a perfect state of preservation. These ruins, as in the former case, were protected from the weather by an overhanging arch of rock.
At several points on the journey through Cañon de Chelly, hieroglyphics were traced, graven on the cliff wall. Most of the designs were unintelligible; but figures of animals, such as the bear and mountain sheep or goat, were prominent. Another cliff village was observed of a considerable size, but planted three hundred feet above the cañon bed, in such a position that it is likely to remain sacred from the foot of man for still further generations. The same elements which in geologic time fashioned the caves and recesses of the cañon walls, have in later times worn the approaches away, so that to-day they do not even furnish a footing for the bear or coyote. In what remote age and for how many generations the cliff-dwellers lived in these strange fastnesses, will probably never be determined. Faint traces of still older buildings are found here and there in the bed of Cañon de Chelly; and it is conjectured that this region was once densely populated along the watercourses, and that the tribes having been driven from their homes by a powerful foe, the remnant sought refuge in the caves of the cañon walls.
Of the great antiquity of these structures, there is no question. The Indian of to-day knows nothing of their history, has not even traditions concerning them. The Navajo, with a few poles plastered with a heavy deposit of earth, constructs his hogan or wigwam, and rarely remains in the same place winter and summer. He has no more idea of constructing a dwelling like those so perfectly preserved in the cliffs, than he has of baking specimens of pottery such as are found in fragments amongst the walls. In the fine quality of paste, in the animal handles—something like old Japanese ware—and in the general ornamentation, these exhibit a high order of excellence. Some specimens of what is called laminated ware are remarkable; threadlike layers of clay are laid one on each other with admirable delicacy and patience. In these fragments may yet be read something of the history of a vanished race. They illuminate a dark corner in the world’s history, and seem to indicate a people who once felt civilising influences higher than anything known by those uncouth figures whose camp-fires now glimmer at night across the silent starlit prairie.