There are several doors visible in A, as marked on the ground-plan. Those in the eastern and western wings open from east to west, those in the northern wing from north to south; therefore transversely to the length of each structure. But I have also seen longitudinal walls without passages. The tops of the doors are all gone; the rest is everywhere similar to the sample found in B, and already figured. In some cases even the sills are gone. Windows I could not find, nor trap-doors or ladders; there was no trace of steps, and, unfortunately, no clew to any chimney or vent. Of furniture I secured pieces of new hearth-stones; of other articles, broken "metates," part of a fine maul of stone, flint chips, celts, stone skin-scrapers, and, of course, painted pottery and obsidian. But not one specimen is entire; every striking implement, etc., has been carried off by amateurs, of whose presence besides, broken beer bottles, with the inscription "Anheuser-Busch Brewing Co., St. Louis, Mo.," give occasional notice.
Room I, in the S.W. corner of the north wing is very well preserved: so well, indeed, that it is nearly certain that there was no entrance to it from above. On the contrary, the entrance appears to have been from the front, as shown in Pl. VIII., where this room stands in full view. It is perfectly plain inside; eight posts of wood, round, and stripped of all bark, support the ceiling and roof, whose composition I have elsewhere described. These posts (which are also shown in Pl. VIII.) are so distributed as to have one in each corner, and two between, on each longer side of the room. In the S.E. quarter of the ceiling the splinters covering the rafters or poles are removed, and fresh straw (or rather very well preserved) protrudes, as having formed a layer with the brush. I was at first inclined to take it for wheat-straw, but other[p. 82] parties insisted that it was mountain grass. For the latter it appears to be very long, and it has a marked head. I have not, as yet, seen any wheat-plants grown at these elevations.[124]
Otherwise this chamber appears nearly perfect. In the middle of the north wall a hole is knocked out, but the two coats of plaster (dark and white) are almost everywhere preserved. Great interest attaches to this apartment, from the fact that, according to Sr. Mariano Ruiz, the sacred embers ("braza") were kept here until 1840, in which year the five last remaining families of Pecos Indians removed to their cognates at Jemez, and the "sacred fire" disappeared with them. Sr. Ruiz is good authority on that point, since, as a member of the tribe[125] ("hijo del pueblo"), he was asked to perform his duty by attending to the embers one year. He refused, for reasons which I shall hereafter state. The facts—that the fire was kept in a sort of closed oven, and that the front opening existed—made it unnecessary to search for any other conduit for smoke and ventilation. The fire was kept covered, and not permitted to flame.
I now come to one of the most interesting features of the court,—the three circular depressions marked P on the diagram. Two of them are in the N. E. corner,—the northern one close to the northern wing, and the other 2.65 m.—9 ft.—to the S. S. E. of it. Both are perfect circles, and each has a diameter of 7.70 m.—25 ft. In the S.W. corner, near to the passage N, is the third, with a diameter of only 6 m.—20 ft. They look like shallow basins, encased by a rim of stone-work piled up in the usual way, and forming a wall of nearly 0.35[p. 83] m.—14 in.—in thickness. This wall is sunk into the ground, but at the northern basin it certainly, as former excavations plainly show, did not reach the depth of 1 metre; and it appears that at about that depth there were flat stones laid, like a rough stone floor. These basins were the "Estufas," or council chambers, where, as late as 1840, the meetings of the poor remnants of the tribe were still held. Although an adopted son of Pecos, Sr. Ruiz was never permitted to enter the Estufa. Across the northern one a very large and very old tree, nearly 0.75 m.—2 ft. 6 in.—in diameter, is lying obliquely. Its thick end is towards the N.E. wall. It looks as if uprooted and fallen upon the ruins. But how could a tree of such dimensions ever have grown there? Again, for what purpose, and how, could the Indians of Pecos have carried it hither?
Outside of the building A, the narrow ledge separating its rubbish from the eastern wall of circumvallation, a rim 150 m.—192 ft.—long by 32 m.—105 ft.—wide at the south, and 12 m.—40 ft.—at the north, shows the basins D and F, respectively 10 m.—33 ft.—and 8 m.—26 ft.—in diameter. They hug the rock of the mesilla very closely, and look completely like the estufas in the court. These buildings, according to Sr. Epifanio Vigil, of Santa Fé, were barns or store-houses (round towers 10 to 11 feet high), in which the Indians preserved their gathered crops, forage, etc. Still, it is not unlikely that they were tanks, built for collecting rain-water.
On the south side of the eastern wing, and so close to it that the heaps of rubbish touch, are two circular depressions surrounded by large masses of stones. They are marked S S on the plan. Their shape and size cannot be accurately determined, and their object is unknown.
Nearly the same must be said of a rectangular space, dotted [p. 84] and intersected with foundations and upright beams marked T T, and lying out in front of the south wing on the denuded and thinly soiled apron forming the southern spur of the "body" of the mesilla. Its eastern line, a double stone wall sunk 0.50 m.—20 in.—into the soil, is 8 m.—26 ft.—long from N. to S. From its southern extremity similar foundations run to the west 37 m.—120 ft.,—thence 8 m.—26 ft.—north, and 37 m.—120 ft.—east back to the first line. Thus a rectangle of 8 m. × 37 m.—26 ft. × 120 ft.—is formed, within whose area, especially in the western portion, upright beams start up in something like a semicircle, which would indicate that the structure was once a building. A metre and a half to the north, a foundation wall runs about 20 m.—66 ft.—E. and W.; and at both of its extremities a corridor ascends towards the south wing of A. The nature and object of these fabrics are equally a mystery to me.
Attached to the S.W. corner of the south wing is the annex of which I have already spoken. It is an elevated rectangle of 24 m. × 9 m.—80 ft. × 30 ft., and is clearly divided into compartments of 3½ m. × 3 m.—12 ft. × 11 ft. The whole is not much more than a stone mound of oblong shape, but it contained on its ground-plan 21 chambers. I presume, from the mass of débris, that it had an upper story. Its eastern row of cells is a direct continuation of the most westerly row of the S. wing. Due south of this annex, and almost touching it, there are two structures marked O O which are very remarkable. They are octagonal. The most easterly one is best preserved, and appears to be the largest. Its two lateral walls are each 4 m.—13 ft.—long, the transverse 5.34 m.—18 ft.,—and the corners are cut off sharply by intersections of 0.86 m.—3 ft.—in length, so as to give the whole eight sides. The walls are well defined; the corners sharp and still one metre high. They are of the usual thickness.[p. 85] The other structure is so ruined that it appears round. These buildings, according to Sr. Vigil, were store-houses also; and they favor the suspicion that those marked S S south of the east wing had the same shape. As they now appear, they look like the ruins of octagonal towers. The stone-work is like that of the estufas, but they are erected exclusively above the ground, and still cannot have been very high.
I have now reached the utmost south-westerly point of ruins on the "body," where its drainage leads us into the often-mentioned depression and to the broad gateway of the circumvallation. From this gate the enclosure-wall creeps up along the edge of the mesilla N.W. and N., in all 104 m.—340 ft.,—to a point 44 m.—144 ft.—due west of the S. W. corner of the annex; and here we find a distinct stone enclosure 27 m.—89 ft.—long from N. to S., and 15 m.—50 ft.—wide, with an entrance of 3 m.—10 ft. wide, and terminating at the circumvallation. North-east of this, and about 28 m.—92 ft.—west of i on the middle wall of western wing, another enclosure begins 20 m. × 8 m.—66 ft. × 26 ft.; and 3 m.—10 ft.—south of this a small ruin 10 m. × 8 m.—33 ft. x 26 ft. Adjacent to L L, etc., around from o to y, a curved enclosure of stone extends, 42 m.—140 ft.—long, and thence east 6 m.—20 ft.—back to the N.W. corner of K. It appears like a garden, or corral, and shows no partitions. These are, as far as I could see, all the remains west of the building A. The edge of the mesilla rounds into the north-western corner of the latter, almost closing up with it; the slope is very steep and covered with huge rocks, broken and tumbled down along the declivity.