A CLIFF CITY IN ARIZONA.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXVI, Issue 9465, 14 July 1891, Page 2

A CLIFF CITY IN ARIZONA .

In the Verdi Valley of Arizona, still! almost unknown to scientific men, and never visited by tourists, are canyons of almost limitless extent—mountain* and ruins left by an ancient race about whom 1 absolutely nothing is known. Remote from railroads, difficult of access by trail' or waggon road, the beauties of the Verdi Valley probably will remain lost to the majority of sightseers for many generation* to come. The New Yorh World, acting in’ conjunction with the authorities of the' Smithsonian Institution, recently despatched a small expedition to explore the ruined cities of the cliff-dwellers of Verdi,; One of the members of the party furnishes the following account of their doing* AN AWFUL CANTON. South-west from Casino station, on 'the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, distant: about twelve miles, is the only place of; descent into the Verdi Cannon known at' present. Near the brink of the chasm, for,' the canyon is nearer one’s idea of a rift in; the earth than anything else I have ever, seen, the ground slopes upward abruptly, and for the last mile or more of the trip : the road is terribly rough and dangerous. The plain in which the canyon is found has ,an elevation of about 6600 ft above the sea. The vegetation is so dense about the brink; of the great crack in the earth that a -stranger might almost drive off a level; plateau into its very jaws before seeing it. I had visited this great canyon before, but nevertheless I was even more impressed with its grandeur than on the occasion of my first visit. Its awful depths, its sides, almost perpendicular, yet sufficiently sloping and full of little ledges to permit of a hazardous ascent or descent. It* crevasses, tearing deep into the face of the. white, dazzling cliffs, run horizontally for miles, and are full of the ruins of house* once occupied by human beings. THE OUTPOST. Prom the very table of rock upon which we stood, looking down into the depths of; the chasm beneath, starts a trail. It is a rough one, but admits of descent, with care; and underneath the table of rock; upon which we stood only for a moment before is the rained house of some ancient; chieftain or warrior, whose skill and' bravery had won for him a high post of honour in his village. To him it was left to guard the only approach from the plain into the cliff city. His house stands immediately across the narrow trail. When; it was intact it must have formed a gate-; way to the town below, and to enter tha cliff city the visitor had to pass through; this house. A doorway evidently had been made in the side of the building! nearer the tup of the hill, and another ,in the rear or lower wall, but in the middle of ) the building was a cross-wall, with a very) small doorway in it, through which no one; could pass without permission of the: guardian of the village. One strong man! armed with a club could have successfully fought off an army at that point. FRAGMENTS OF POTTEET. The house is unlike any other in this, canyon. The walls are very thick and' solid, and, while the mortar is similar toi that used in the houses in Cibola, the; stone is of a different sort; it is a soft; limestone shale rock, partially dressed on the outside face and very well and evenlylaid in the walls. In the debris upon tha walls we found a quantify o£ broken' pottery, the designs upon. which were; almost identical with those found at Cibola,; Zuni, Ojo, Caliente, and elsewhere in that region. A WONDERFUL HOUSE. There was one house in particular in which 1 was interested. The man who built it was an expert, for he had dressed the face of the stone, which showed upon the outer walls with unusual neatness, and the mortar was so well laid in that the masonry was as smooth as a dressed stone wall of to-day, though it probably was standing there when Columbus discovered' America. I examined the walls closely. There were two kinds of stone in them. The limestone 1 have mentioned above, dressed to perfection, predominated, but in one of the cross-walls between the zoom* of the house was a block of red mountain granite, 3ft thick, 4£ft high, and 9ft long. It must have weighed several tons. Yet there is no granite in the quarry where the builders of the cliff city got their material. How, then, came a quarried granite build-; ing stone of such size in a wall erected by; aborigines who were supposed to know, nothing of the art of stone-dressing, save, in a very primitive way? Granted that; this block was not quarried at all, but that, it was found somewhere near by the. builders. The house is '3ooft down from: the top of the canyon, and more than’ 1000 ft from the bottom. How did they! put the stone into place in the wall P How did they get it into the canyon P How did they handle it ? RELICS OF HOUSEKEEPING. Passing into the parlour of the now vacant house, the rooms we found to be large and well ventilated. The floor was the natural rock of the chasm, and the roof was of the same substantial material. Remains of a rude stone bed stood in one corner of tbe next room. The fires of the' cliff-dwellers had burned three ages ago, until every nook and cranny had been smutted up indelibly. The race had departed without leaving a sign of itself; but the smoke begrimed walls of the houses had never faded. BEGINNINGS OP ART. In the matter of decorations, geometrical, figures, straight lines with wavy one*' crossing them in red and black, seemed tobe the only ones known to these people. Wei went down into the depth of the canyon; another three or four hundred feet, and; found in the deeper fissures of the cliff ; some of the largest and best cliff houses, i None of these had ever been seen by the' Government representatives. INCONVENIENCE OP TRAVEL. There are no broad iron stairways in the, canyon. There are, however, sharp pro-; jections of brittle rock, liable to let go, their hold as soon as you put your foot on them and send you to the depths below, a mangled and bleeding mass. There axe rattlesnakes always just where the path ia the narrowest, and always just where you cannot get a rock to mash them with;; there is no lack of cactus to spur you on, you happen to slip and sit down on it, and there is a plentiful crop of poison oak, 1 wild ivy and other exotics, which tend' to add much to the interest of a climb in the canyon. In all, on the' sides of the canyon and in the several hundred crevices we found, there are upwards, of one thousand bouses.; Those almost midway between the top and; bottom of the canyon are almost perfectly preserved. ' .