"On many of the tributaries of the Colorado I have heretofore examined their deserted dwellings.... Sometimes the mouths of caves have been walled across and there are many other evidences to show their anxiety to secure defensible positions. Probably the nomadic tribes were sweeping down upon them, and they resorted to these cliffs and canyons for safety.... Here I stand where these now lost people stood centuries ago, and look over this strange country."
The former chief of the Ethnological Bureau also says that at the mouth of the Colorado Chiquito he discovered some curious remains, such as ruins and pottery, also "etchings and hieroglyphics on the rocks."
Some of the cliff or cave dwellings are singularly impressive. Baron Nordenskiold, says of one, called the "Cliff Palace," that it well deserves its proud name, "for with its round towers and high walls ... deep in the mysterious twilight of the cavern, and defying in their sheltered site the ravages of time, it resembled at a distance an enchanted castle."
And Chapin exclaims: "Surely its discoverer had not overstated the beauty and magnitude of this strange ruin. There it was, occupying a great oval space under a grand cliff wonderful to behold, appearing like an immense ruined castle with dismantled towers" (n. 68).
And yet Dr. Fewkes very rationally refuses to regard it as a "palace"—occupied merely by a king and servants or else officers of state managing an empire. Of course some nook within sheltered its ruler. But it is merely a pueblo—set within a cave. One French visitor says: "Il est probable que Cliff-Palace n'abritait pas moins de 500 personnes" (n. 69).
At this rate it would have required forty such structures (or equivalent clusters of apartments) to shelter, say, 20,000 individuals.
There is mention of cave dwellings in connection with the Great Canyon; and as Sun people with a supreme ruler (although but a suckling) are represented as climbing within the chasm, with the aid of torches, we expect to find curious remains in connection with the caverns. Nor are we disappointed. Here are mouths of caves walled up for defensive purposes. Here are ramparts, towers, and fortified structures classed with castles.
We are informed that decrees were spread abroad in the Canyon; and searching for the ancient inscriptions, we find that they are cut into the cliffs. This shows that the former dwellers were able to cut and work stone; and abundant remains of masonry are at hand to sustain this deduction.
The personality of the ju, or suckling ruler, remains to be investigated, and should yield curious—most surprising—results; but, of course, reasonable, logical critics will not for an instant confound such an inquiry with that just finished. Even absolute failure to unearth the facts with regard to the Prince and his royal mother, can not shake the plain fact that we have actually found an account of the Grand Canyon, the Colorado River, and the Gulf of California, in an ancient Chinese book.