After the stream breaks from its long confinement out into the open plain of the San Juan Valley the traces of old life are still abundant, but they present no features very different from those above. At the cañon's mouth an Indian trail strikes away toward the north-west. It passes a remarkable group of ruins at a spot called Aztec Springs, and continues to the McElmo, the next arroya, or dry stream-bed, west of the Rio Mancos. Aztec Springs no longer deserve the name, for within a short time the last trace of water has disappeared from the spot, showing that the slow drying up of the great South-west country, which has been going forward for ages, and which starved out the old inhabitants, is still progressing. In the dry season there is no water within many miles of this spot, though it is strewn with the remains of stone buildings covering several acres and indicating a large population of industrious people who must have lived by agriculture. Until a long comparative study has been made of all the remains of this race it is mere guesswork to estimate the age of the ruins; but when the prostrate condition of these walls is compared with the state in which the Chaco ruins of New Mexico are found, and when we consider that the latter have no doubt been deserted for at least three hundred and fifty years, it is reasonable to suppose an age of a thousand years for these massive walls at Aztec Springs. Many other great structures of this region, which seem to be coeval with these, are situated many miles away from any perennial water, and the time which has elapsed since those sites were suitable for large farming-towns must be counted by centuries. In this group are two large quadrangular buildings with walls still fifteen feet high, two of the circular estufas, besides a multitude of half-distinguishable walls of dwellings. It is the largest group of ruins in Colorado.
CIRCULAR RUIN IN THE CAÑON OF THE MANCOS.
Not many miles beyond these so-called springs the trail leads into the dry bed of the McElmo near its head, and another long succession of antiquities is entered upon, but to enumerate them further would be tedious, for the ruins of the Mancos are good representatives of all those which are found along the courses of the Animas, La Plata, McElmo, Montezuma, Chelley and other tributary valleys of the San Juan. Nevertheless, there are a few buildings here and there of some unusual interest which cannot be passed by without mention. On the verge of a little side-cañon of the McElmo there is a curious instance of the keen ingenuity of this people in taking every advantage of the fantastic, castle-like shapes which Nature has formed out of the cañon-walls. High on the edge of the mesa appears the ragged outline of a ruinous watch-tower sharply drawn against the clear, unvarying blue of the sky. It seems to be a tower of unusual height, but a closer view shows it to be half of Nature's building. A tall fragment of rock, torn from its bed, has rolled down the slope to the edge of the steep descent. This rock the old builders have chosen to crown with a little round tower where a sentinel, guarding the village behind him from stealthy attacks, could command a wide sweep of country. The same thing on a larger scale is found at another point where the dry McElmo meets with the drier Hovenweep—a tributary without tribute. In this position stands an enormous rock nearly cubical in shape. Its high sides make it a natural fortress strong against an enemy without artillery, and to its natural strength the Cliff-dwellers have added a battlement of masonry. But among all the ruined strongholds of the region that which is called the Legendary Rock has a pre-eminent interest on account of the Moqui romance or tradition which clings to it. The rock is a grand and solitary crag standing on a plateau of sandstone from which the soil is washed away. It is far from water: a garrison must have been dependent wholly on the very precarious rain-supply. About it runs an outer rampart of stone, and on the rock itself is built a fortress. It is several years since an aged member of the Moqui tribe first confided to a white man versed in his language the legend of this rock. It has been widely published, and considered of much significance. The Moqui patriarch related how his people in the old time were many. Their tribe dwelt in the North-east. One year they were visited by strangers from the North, who came peaceably at first, but came again another year, and year by year encroached and grew more warlike. At last the Northern strangers gained the mastery and drove them from their homes. In a long, slow struggle the Moqui forefathers gradually lost their ground, till at last they made one final, desperate fight for their old homes at the fortress of the Legendary Rock. They conquered their besiegers, but with such fearful carnage that the rocks bear still the stains of the blood-streams that flowed in that battle, and the remnant of the besieged were glad to make an unmolested retreat to the mesas of Arizona, where they dwell to this day.
The story is an interesting one, and has been honored by the explorers with a place in their government report, for it shows a belief among the Moquis that those old builders were their kinsmen. But, considering the fact that the first Spanish discoverers found the Moqui tribe in nearly the same condition as we see it now, and that this story therefore must have been handed down for at least three hundred years among an unlettered people, I am as much disposed to distrust the other details of it as I am to doubt that the red iron-stains in the rock were caused by the blood of their ancestors.
In the neighboring Montezuma Cañon, just beyond the State border, there are some remains built after an unusual manner with stones of great size. One building of many rooms, nearly covering a little solitary mesa, is constructed of huge stone blocks not unlike the pre-historic masonry of Southern Europe. In the same district there is a ruined line of fortification from which the smaller stones have fallen away and are crumbling to dust, leaving only certain enormous upright stones standing. They rise to a height of seven feet above the soil, and the lower part is buried to a considerable depth. Their resemblance to the hoary Druidical stones of Carnac and Stonehenge is striking, and there is nothing in their appearance to indicate that they belong to a much later age than those primeval monuments of Europe.
All the certain knowledge that we have of the history and manners of the Cliff-dwellers may be very briefly told, for there is no written record of their existence except their own rude picture-writing cut or painted on the cañon-walls, and it is not likely that those hieroglyphics will ever be deciphered. But much may be inferred from their evident kinship to the Moquis of our time; and the resemblance of the ancient architecture and ceramics to the arts as they are still practised in the degenerate pueblos of Arizona gives us many intimations in regard to the habits of the Cliff-dwellers.
It was centuries ago—how long a time no one will ever know—when that old race was strong and numerous, filling the great region from the Rio Grande to the Colorado of the West, and from the San Juan Mountains far down into Northern Mexico. They must have numbered many hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions. It is not probable that they were combined under one government or that they were even closely leagued together, but that they were essentially one in blood and language is strongly indicated by the similarity of their remains. That they were sympathetic in a common hostility to the dangerous savage tribes about them can hardly be doubted. They were of peaceful habits and lived by agriculture, having under cultivation many thousands of acres in the rich river-bottoms, which they knew well how to irrigate from streams swollen in summer by the melting snows of the high mountain-ranges. We read of their dry canals in Arizona, so deep that a mounted horseman can hide in them. We know that they raised crops of corn and beans, and in the south cotton, which they skilfully wove. That they had commercial dealings across their whole country is shown by the quantity of shell-ornaments brought from the Pacific coast which are found in their Colorado dwellings. They did not understand the working of metals, but their implements of stone are of most excellent workmanship. Their weapons indicate the practice of hunting, and while the race was still numerous their forts and their sharp obsidian arrows made easy their resistance to the wandering savage hordes.
RUINS AT AZTEC SPRINGS.