Many, both of these rock and cave dwellings, were 'Community houses,' in which a number of families lived, each owning one or more rooms, very much after the fashion in which people now-a-days occupy flats in London and New York. Probably the finest of these combinations of rock and masonry is that near Beaver Creek in New Mexico, known as Montezuma's Castle. The foundations of masonry let into the solid rock begin eighty feet above the valley, and the building is about fifty feet high. It is in the form of a crescent, and parts of it have five stories, though the top one cannot be seen from below, as it is close under the roof of the cavern.
The owners of these top rooms would have had a dull time but for the projecting roof of number four story, which served them for a balcony and general look-out. The building has twenty-five rooms of masonry, besides many rock chambers at the sides and below the castle. The timber of the houses is still sound, and the rafters which project outside the walls have the ends burnt off instead of sawn, whilst many of the roofs, both of mud and thatch, are still perfect.
The building overhangs the canyon, and to reach it ladders were placed from one shelf of rock to another, all sloping outwards—just the wrong way for safety; and yet up these giddy stairways not only all supplies of food, but the solid materials for building this immense structure, had to be carried.
Helena Heath.
AFLOAT ON THE DOGGER BANK.
A Story of Adventure on the North Sea and in China.
CHAPTER XV.
Ping Wang recovered fairly quickly, and it was early one morning, nearly a fortnight after he had been taken ill, when, having bidden farewell to their kind hosts, the three friends passed out of the town, and began their six-mile journey along the muddy track which led to Kwang-ngan.