These pueblos, newly constructed and in their best condition, must have presented a commanding appearance. From the materials used in their construction, from their palatial size and unique design, and from the cultivated gardens by which they were doubtless surrounded, they were calculated to impress the beholder very favorably with the degree of culture to which the people had attained. It is a singular fact that none of the occupied pueblos in New Mexico at the present time are equal in materials or in construction with those found in ruins. It tends to show a decadence of art among them since the period of European discovery.
Westward of the Animas, the La Plata, and the Mancos Rivers, which run southwesterly into the San Juan, is the Montezuma Valley, a broad and level plain, so named by General Heffernan, of Animas City. It is about fifty miles in length, and apparently ten miles wide at the ranch of Mr. Henry L. Mitchell, which is situated at the commencement of the McElmo Canyon.
[Illustration: Fig. 44.—Pueblos at commencement of McElmo Canyon.]
It stretches southward thirty-six miles to the San Juan. In this valley, which has no flowing stream through it at present (and there is no certainty that it ever had), and which is without water, except in springs and pools, and has but a slight rainfall during the year, Mr. Mitchell was successfully cultivating, at the time of our visit, wheat, oats, maize, and the garden vegetables. The valley is uninhabited, except by the family of Mr. Mitchell, and a solitary man living four miles westward. Their nearest neighbors are on the Mancos River, twenty-five miles distant. The bluffs bordering the eastern side of the valley rise boldly about fifteen hundred feet, with table lands above, while on the west the valley is bordered with mountains. About ten miles southwest of Mr. Mitchell's ranch the Ute Mountain rises out of the plain, and from this point appears as a solitary and detached mountain. The McElmo Canyon passes along its north and westerly sides, while the main valley passes southward along its eastern base. This high and noble mountain is situated in the southwest corner of Colorado, near the intersection of the boundary lines of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. It is a conspicuous object from the La Plata Valley. The Montezuma Valley possesses features of remarkable natural beauty.
Near Mr. Mitchell's ranch, and within a space of less than a mile square are the ruins of nine pueblo houses of moderate size. They are built of sandstone intermixed with cobblestone and adobe mortar. They are now in a very ruinous condition, without standing walls in any part of them above the rubbish. The largest of the number is marked No. 1 in the plan Fig. 44, of which the outline of the original structure is still discernible. It is ninety-four feet in length and forty-seven feet in depth, and shows the remains of a stone wall in front inclosing a small court about fifteen feet wide. The mass of material over some parts of this structure is ten or twelve feet deep. There are, no doubt, rooms with a portion of the walls still standing covered with rubbish, the removal of which would reveal a considerable portion of the original ground-plan.
A short distance below the pueblos last named is another cluster of the same number of pueblos, and much in the same condition; and upon rising ground near the foot of the bluff, on the east side of the valley, there are, as Mr. Mitchell informed me, the ruins of several pueblos of stone. He also informed me that similar ruins were to be found here and there in the valley to the San Juan. Four miles westerly, near the ranch of Mr. Shirt, are the ruins of another large stone pueblo, together with an Indian cemetery, where each grave is marked by a border of flat stones set level with the ground in the form of a parallelogram eight feet by four feet. Near the cluster of nine pueblos shown in the figure are found strewn on the ground numerous fragments of pottery of high grade in the ornamentation, and small arrow-heads of flint, quartz, and chalcedony delicately formed, and small knife-blades with convex and serrated edges in considerable numbers.
[Illustration: Fig. 45.—Outline plan of a stone pueblo near the base of Ute Mountain.]
This is an immense ruin with small portions of the walls still standing, particularly of the round tower of stone of three concentric walls, incorporated in the structure, and a few chambers in the north end of the main building. The round tower is still standing nearly to the height of the first story. In its present condition it was impossible to make a ground-plan showing the several chambers, or to determine with certainty which side was the front of the structure, assuming that it was constructed in the terraced form. It is situated upon a vertical bluff of yellowish sandstone rock about twenty feet high and about four miles below Mr. Mitchell's ranch in the direction of the Ute Mountain and near its northeastern base. The bluff is broken through to the bottom in one place about twenty feet wide. Here there are some evidences that a spring of water was inclosed in a reservoir by means of masonry. The building is in two sections, separated by this break, of which the main one is five hundred and ten feet long, and the smallest one hundred and twenty feet, forming a nearly continuous front. They stand back ten or fifteen feet from the verge of the bluff, and are built of tabular pieces of sandstone and adobe mortar. Numerous pit-holes in each structure indicate the chambers and the line of the inclosing walls. The removal of the loose material would doubtless disclose the ground-plan, but it would involve immense labor. With the Ute Mountain rising majestically in the background, and the broad valley in front, the situation of the pueblo is remarkably fine.
The Round Tower is the most singular feature in this structure. While it resembles the ordinary estufa, common to all these structures, it differs from them in having three concentric walls. No doorways are visible in the portion still standing, consequently it must have been entered through the roof, in which respect it agrees with the ordinary estufa. The inner chamber is about twenty feet in diameter, and the spaces between the encircling walls are about two feet each; the walls are about two feet in thickness, and were laid up mainly with stones about four inches square, and, for the most part, in courses. There is a similar round tower, having but two concentric walls, at the head of the McElmo Canyon, and near the ranch of Mr. Mitchell. It is shown in Fig. 44, and stands entirely isolated. The diameter of the tower is thirty-four feet, of which the inner chamber is twenty-three feet; the space between the two walls is about six feet, and the thickness of the walls about two feet six inches. It is laid up in the same manner as the one last named, with stones about the same size, and the walls still standing are about five feet in height. Partition walls divide the outer space, one of which measured twenty inches in thickness.
Several hundred feet from the pueblo last named, further down the valley, is another pueblo of large extent, and in a very ruined condition.