Escudero and Hardy report the existence of an aqueduct or canal which formerly brought water from a spring to the town. The following cut shows specimens of broken pottery found in connection with the ruins. The ornamentation is in black, red, or brown, on a white or reddish ground. The material is said to be superior in texture to any manufactured in later times by the natives of this region. The whole valley for miles around is strewn with such fragments. Unbroken specimens of pottery are not abundant, as is naturally the case in a country traversed continually by roving bands of natives to whom it is easier to pick up or dig out earthen utensils than to manufacture or buy them. Three specimens were however found by Mr Bartlett, and are shown in the cut. Mr Hardy also sketched a vase very similar to the first figure of the cut, and he speaks of "good specimens of earthen images in the Egyptian style, which are, to me at least, so perfectly uninteresting, that I was at no pains to procure any of them." According to the Album, some idols had been found by the inhabitants among other relics, and the women claimed to have discovered a monument of antiquity which was of practical utility to themselves, as well as of interest to archæologists—namely, a jar filled with bear's grease! The pipe shown in the cut, has a suspiciously modern look, although included in Bartlett's plate of Chihuahuan antiquities.
FORTRESS AT CASAS GRANDES.
The inhabitants pointed out to Bartlett, on the top of a high mountain, some ten miles south-west of the ruins described, what they said was a stone fortress of two or three stories. Escudero describes this monument, which he locates at a distance of only two leagues, as a watch-tower or sentry-station on the top of a high cliff; and says that the southern slope of the hill has many lines of stones at irregular intervals, with heaps of loose stones at their extremities. This is probably, in the absence of more definite information the more credible account. The Album represents this monument as a fortress built of great stones very perfectly joined, though without the aid of mortar. The wall is said to be eighteen or twenty feet thick, and a road cut in the rock leads to the summit. At this time, 1842, the works were being destroyed for the stone they contained. Clavigero speaks of the hill works as "a fortress defended on one side by a high mountain, and on other sides by a wall about seven feet thick, the foundations of which yet remain. There are seen in this fortress stones as large as millstones; the beams of the roofs are of pine, and well worked. In the centre of the vast edifice is a mound, built as it seems, for the purpose of keeping guard and watching the enemy." Clavigero evidently confounds the two groups of ruins, and from his error, and a similar one by others, come the accounts which represent the Casas Grandes as built of stone. He mentions obsidian mirrors among the relics dug up here, probably without any authority. The cut from Bartlett shows a stone metate found among the ruins.
Metate from Casas Grandes.
So far as any conclusions or comparisons suggested by this Chihuahuan ruin are concerned, they may best be deferred to the end of the following chapter. The Casas Grandes, and the ruins of the northern or New Mexican group, should be classed together. They were the work of the same people, at about the same epoch.
CHAPTER XI.
ANTIQUITIES OF ARIZONA AND NEW MEXICO.
Area enclosed by the Gila, Rio Grande del Norte, and Colorado—A Land of Mystery—Wonderful Reports and Adventures of Missionaries, Soldiers, Hunters, Miners, and Pioneers—Exploration—Railroad Surveys—Classification of Remains—Monuments of the Gila Valley—Boulder-Inscriptions—The Casa Grande of Arizona—Early Accounts and Modern Exploration—Adobe Buildings—View and Plans—Miscellaneous remains, Acequias, and Pottery—Other Ruins on the Gila—Valley of the Rio Salado—Rio Verde—Pueblo Creek—Upper Gila—Tributaries of the Colorado—Rock-Inscriptions, Bill Williams Fork—Ruined Cities of the Colorado Chiquito—Rio Puerco—Lithodendron Creek—Navarro Spring—Zuñi Valley—Arch Spring—Zuñi—Ojo del Pescado—Inscription Rock—Rio San Juan—Ruins of the Chelly and Chaco Cañons—Valley of the Rio Grande—Pueblo Towns, Inhabited and in Ruins—The Moqui Towns—The Seven Cities of Cíbola—Résumé, Comparisons, and Conclusions.
Crossing the boundary line between the northern and southern republics, and entering the territory of the Pacific United States, I shall present in the present chapter all that is known of antiquities in Arizona and New Mexico. An area approximating somewhat the form of a right-angle triangle, with a base of four hundred miles and a perpendicular of three hundred, includes all the remains in this region. The valley of the Rio Gila, with those of its tributary streams, is the southern boundary, or base, stretching along the thirty-third parallel of latitude; the Rio Grande del Norte, flowing southward between the one hundred and sixth and one hundred and seventh meridians, forms with its valley the eastern limit or perpendicular; while on the north and west the region is bounded by the Rio Colorado as a hypothenuse, albeit a very winding one. The latter river might, however, be straightened, thus improving materially the geometrical symmetry of my triangle, without interfering much with ancient remains, as will be seen when the relics of the Colorado section are described.