After a long ride we reached a camping-ground at the head of a branch of the left-hand fork of Cliff CaÑon. Hurriedly unpacking, we hobbled the horses that were the most likely to stray far, and taking along our photographic kit, wended our way on foot toward that remarkable group of ruins of which I have already spoken, and which Richard has called "the Cliff-Palace." At about three o'clock we reached the brink of the caÑon opposite the wonderful structure. Surely its discoverer had not overstated the beauty and magnitude of this strange ruin. There it was, occupying a great oval space under a grand cliff wonderful to behold, appearing like an immense ruined castle with dismantled towers. The stones in front were broken away, but behind them rose the walls of a second story; and in the rear of these, in under the dark cavern, stood the third tier of masonry. Still farther back in the gloomy recess, little houses rested on upper ledges. A short distance down the caÑon are cosey buildings perched in utterly inaccessible nooks. The neighboring scenery is marvelous; the view down the caÑon to the Mancos is alone worth the journey to see. We stopped to take a few views, and then commenced the descent into the gulf below. What would otherwise have been a hazardous proceeding, was rendered easy by using the steps which had been cut in the wall by the builders of the fortress. There are fifteen of these scouped-out hollows in the rock, which covered perhaps half of the distance down the precipice. At that point the cliff had probably fallen away; but luckily for our purpose, a dead tree leaned against the wall, and descending into its branches we reached the base of the parapet. In the bed of the caÑon is a secondary gulch, which required care in descending. We hung a rope or lasso over some steep, smooth ledges, and let ourselves down by it. We left it hanging there and used it to ascend by on our return.

Nearer approach increased our interest in the marvel. From the south end of the ruin, which we first attained, trees hide the northern walls, yet the view is beautiful. We remained long, and ransacked the structure from one end to the other. According to Richard's measurements, the space covered by the building is 425 feet long, 80 feet high in front, and 80 feet deep in the centre. One hundred and twenty-four rooms have been traced on the ground floor, and a thousand people may have lived within its confines. So many walls have fallen that it is difficult to reconstruct the building in imagination; but the photographs show that there must have been many stories. There are towers and circular rooms, square and rectangular enclosures; yet all with a seeming symmetry, though in some places the walls look as if they were put up as additions in later periods. One of the towers is barrel-shaped; other circles are true. The diameter of one circular room, or estufa, is sixteen feet and six inches. There are six piers, which are well plastered. There are five recess-holes, which appear as if constructed for shelves. In several rooms we observed good fireplaces. In another room, where the outer walls have fallen away, we found that an attempt had been made at ornamentation: a broad band had been painted across the wall, and above it is a peculiar decoration which shows in one of our photographs. The lines are similar to embellishment on pottery which we found. We observed in one place corn-cobs imbedded in the plaster in the walls, showing that the cob is as old as that portion of the dwelling. The cobs, as well as kernels of corn which we found, are of small size, similar to what the Ute squaws raise now without irrigation. We found a large stone mortar, which may have been used to grind the corn. Broken pottery was everywhere; like specimens in the other cliff houses, it was similar in design to that which we picked up in the valley ruins near Wetherill's ranch, convincing us of the identity of the builders of the two classes of ruins. We also found parts of skulls and bones, fragments of weapons, and pieces of cloth. One nearly complete skeleton lies on a wall waiting for some future antiquarian. The burial-place of the clan was down under the rear of the cave.

Richard Wetherill discovered an unusually large group of buildings which he named "The Cliff Palace," in which the ground plan showed more than one hundred compartments, covering an area over four hundred feet in length and eighty feet in depth in the wider portion. Usually the buildings are continuous where the configuration of the cliffs permitted such construction.

In a long, but not very deep branch of Cliff CaÑon, a wild and gloomy gorge named Cliff Palace CaÑon, lies the largest of the ruins on the Mesa Verde, the Cliff Palace. Strange and indescribable is the impression on the traveller, when, after a long and tiring ride through the boundless, monotonous piÑon forest, he suddenly halts on the brink of the precipice, and in the opposite cliff beholds the ruins of the Cliff Palace, framed in the massive vault of rock above and in a bed of sunlit cedar and piÑon trees below (Pl. XII). This ruin well deserves its name, for with its round towers and high walls rising out of the heaps of stones deep in the mysterious twilight of the cavern, and defying in their sheltered site the ravages of time, it resembles at a distance an enchanted castle. It is not surprising that the Cliff Palace so long remained undiscovered. An attempt to follow Cliff Palace CaÑon upward from Cliff CaÑon meets with almost insurmountable obstacles in the shape of huge blocks of stone which have fallen from the cliffs and formed a barrier across the narrow water course, in most parts of the caÑon the only practicable path between the steep walls of rock. Through the piÑon forest, which renders the mesa a perfect labyrinth to the uninitiated, chance alone can guide the explorer to the exact spot from which a view of Cliff Palace is possible.

The descent to the ruin may be made from the mesa either on the opposite side of the caÑon, or on the same a few hundred paces north or south of the cliff-dwelling. The Cliff Palace is probably the largest ruin of its kind known in the United States. I here give a plan of the ruin (Pl. XI) together with a photograph thereof, taken from the south end of the cave (Pl. XII). In the plan, which represents the ground floor, over a hundred rooms are shown. About twenty of them are estufas. Among the rubbish and stones in front of the ruin a few more walls, not marked in the plan, may possibly be distinguished.

Plate XIII, as I have just mentioned, is a photograph of the Cliff Palace from the south. To the extreme left of the plate a number of much dilapidated walls may be seen. They correspond to rooms 1-12 in the plan. To the right of these walls lies a whole block of rooms (13-18), several stories high and built on a huge rock which has fallen from the roof of the cave. The outermost room (14 in the plan; to the left in Pl. XIII) is bounded on the outside by a high wall, the outlines of which stand off sharply from the dark background of the cave. The wall is built in a quadrant at the edge of the rock just mentioned, which has been carefully dressed, the wall thus forming apparently an immediate continuation of the rock. The latter is coursed by a fissure which also extends through the wall. This crevice must therefore have appeared subsequent to the building operation. To the right of this curved wall (still in Pl. XIII) lie four rooms (15-18 in the plan), and in front of them two terraces (21-22) connected by a step. One of the rooms is surrounded by walls three stories high and reaching up to the roof of the cave. The terraces are bounded to the north (the left in Pl. XIII) by a rather high wall, standing apart from the remainder of the building. Not far from the rooms just mentioned, but a little farther back, lie two cylindrical chambers (21 a, 23). The wall of 21 a is shown in Pl. XIII with a beam resting against it. The beam had been placed there by one of the Wetherills to assist him in climbing to an upper ledge, where low walls, resembling the fortress at Long House (p. 28), rise almost to the roof of the cave. The round room 23 is joined by a wall to a long series of chambers (26-41), which are very low, though their walls extend to the rock above them. They probably served as storerooms. These chambers front on a "street," on the opposite side of which lie a number of apartments[9] (42-50), among them a remarkable estufa (44) described at greater length below. In front of 44 lies another estufa (51), and not far from the latter a third (52).

The "street" leads to an open space. Here lie three estufas (54, 55, 56), partly sunk in the ground. Much lower down is situated another estufa (57) of the same type as 44. It is surrounded by high walls.[10] South of the open space lie a few large rooms (58-61). A tower (63 in the plan; the large tower to the right in Pl. XIII) is situated still farther south, beside a steep ledge. This ledge, north of the tower (to the left in the plate), once formed a free terrace (62), bounded on the outside by a low wall along the margin. South of the tower is an estufa (76) surrounded by an open space, southeast of which are a number of rooms (80-87). In most of them, even in the outermost ones, the walls are in an excellent state of preservation. The wall nearest to the talus slope is 6 metres high and built with great care and skill.[11] South of these rooms and close to the cliff lies a well-preserved estufa (88), and south of the latter four rooms are situated, two of them (90, 92) very small. The walls of the third (91) are very high and rise to the roof of the cave. At one corner the walls have fallen in. This room is figured in a subsequent chapter in order to show a painting found on one of its walls. Near the cliff lies the last estufa (93), in an excellent state of preservation. The rooms south of this estufa are bounded on the outer side by a high wall rising to the rock above it. An excellent defense was thus provided against attack in this quarter.

Two of the estufas in the Cliff Palace deviate from the normal type. This is the only instance where I have observed estufas differing in construction from the ordinary form described in Chapter III. The northern estufa (44 in the plan) is the better preserved of the two. To a height of 1 meter from the floor it is square in form (3×3 m.) with rounded corners (see figs. 35 and 36). Above it is wider and bounded by the walls of the surrounding rooms, a ledge (b, b) of irregular shape being thus formed a few feet from the floor. In two of the rounded corners on a level with this ledge (a little to the right in fig. 36) niches or hollows (d, d; breadth 48 cm., depth 45 cm.) have been constructed, and between them, at the middle of the south-east wall, a narrow passage (breadth 40 cm.), open at the top. At the bottom of one side of this passage a continuation thereof was found, corresponding probably to the tunnel in estufas of the ordinary type. At the north corner of the room the wall is broken by three small niches (e, e, e) quite close together, each of them occupying a space about equal to that left by the removal of two stones from the wall. The sandstone blocks of which the walls are built are carefully hewn, as in the ordinary cylindrical estufas. Whether the usual hearth, in form of a basin, and the wall beside it, had been constructed here I was unfortunately unable to determine, more than half of the room being filled with rubbish. I give the name of estufas to these square rooms with rounded corners, built as described above, because they are furnished with the passage characteristic of the round estufas in the cliff-dwellings. Perhaps they mark the transition to the rectangular estufa of the Moki Indians. Besides the estufas there are some other round rooms or towers (21 a, 23, 63), which evidently belonged to the fortifications of the village. They differ from the estufas in the absence of the characteristic passage and also of the six niches. Furthermore, they often contain several stories, and in every respect but the form resemble the rectangular rooms. The long wall just mentioned, built on a narrow ledge above the other ruins, and visible at the top of Pl. XIII was probably another part of the village fortifications. The ledge is situated so near the roof of the cave that the wall, though quite low, touches the latter, and the only way of advancing behind it is to creep on hands and knees.

A comparison between Pl. VIII and Pl. XIII shows at once that the inhabitants of the Cliff Palace were further advanced in architecture than their more western kinsfolk on the Mesa Verde. The stones are carefully dressed and often laid in regular courses; the walls are perpendicular, sometimes leaning slightly inwards at the same angle all round the room—this being part of the design. All the corners form almost perfect right angles, when the surroundings have permitted the builders to observe this rule. This remark also applies to the doorways, the sides of which are true and even. The lintel often consists of a large stone slab, extending right across the opening. On closer observation we find that in the Cliff Palace we may discriminate two slightly different methods of building. The lower walls, where the stones are only rough-hewn and laid without order, are often surmounted by walls of carefully dressed blocks in regular courses. This circumstance suggests that the cave was inhabited during two different periods. I shall have occasion below to return to this question.

The rooms of the Cliff Palace seem to have been better provided with light and air than the cliff-dwellings in general, small peep-holes appearing at several places in the walls. The doorways, as in other cliff-dwellings, are either rectangular or T-shaped. Some of the latter are of unusual size, in one instance 1.05 m. high and 0.81 m. broad at the top. The thickness of the walls is generally about 0.3 m., sometimes, in the outer walls, as much as 0.6 m. As a rule they are not painted, but in some rooms covered with a thin coat of yellow plaster. At the south end of the ruin lies an estufa (93) which is well-preserved (fig. 37). This estufa is entered by a doorway in the wall, one of the few instances where I have observed this arrangement. In most cases, as I have already mentioned, the entrance was probably constructed in the roof. The dimensions of this estufa were as follows: diameter 3.9 m., distance from the floor to the bottom of the niches 1.2 m., height of the niches 0.9 m., breadth of the same 1.3 m., depth of the same 0.5 to 1.3 m., height of the passage at its mouth 0.75 m., breadth of the same 0.45 m. Five small quadrangular holes or niches were scattered here and there in the lower part of the wall.

I cannot refrain from once more laying stress on the skill to which the walls of Cliff Palace in general bear witness, and the stability and strength which has been supplied to them by the careful dressing of the blocks and the chinking of the interstices with small chips of stone. A point remarked by Jackson in his description of the ruins of Southwestern Colorado, is that the finger marks of the mason may still be traced in the mortar, and that those marks are so small as to suggest that the work of building was performed by women. This conclusion seems too hasty, for within the range of my observations the size of the finger marks varies not a little.

Like Sprucetree House and other large ruins the Cliff Palace contains at the back of the cave extensive open spaces where tame turkeys were probably kept. In this part of the village three small rooms, isolated from the rest of the building, occupy a position close to the cliff; two of them (103, 104), built of large flat slabs of stones, lie close together, the third (105), of unhewn sandstone (fig. 38), is situated farther north. These rooms may serve as examples of the most primitive form of architecture among the cliff people.

In the Cliff Palace, the rooms lie on different levels, the ground occupied by them being very rough. In several places terraces have been constructed in order to procure a level foundation, and here as in their other architectural labours, the cliff-dwellers have displayed considerable skill.

One very remarkable circumstance in the Cliff Palace is that all the pieces of timber, all the large rafters, have disappeared. The holes where they passed into the walls may still be seen, but throughout the great block of ruins two or three large beams are all that remain. This is the reason why none of the rooms is completely closed. At Sprucetree House there were a number of rooms where the placing of the door stone in position was enough to throw the room into perfect darkness, no little aid to the execution of photographic work. It is difficult to explain the above state of things. I observed the same want of timber in parts of other ruins (at Long House for example). In several of the cliff-dwellings it appears as if the beams had purposely been removed from the walls to be applied to some other use. Seldom, however, have all the rafters disappeared, as in the Cliff Palace. There are no traces of the ravages of fire. Perhaps the inhabitants were forced, during the course of a siege, to use the timber as fuel; but in that case it is difficult to understand how a proportionate supply of provisions and water was obtained. This is one of the numerous circumstances which are probably connected with the extinction or migration of the former inhabitants, but from which our still scanty information of the cliff-dwellers cannot lift the veil of obscurity.

Il suffira de dÉcrire les traits principaux d'un seul groupement de ruines, et nous choisirons Cliff Palace, qui en est le spÉcimen le plus remarquable (pl. I b). Il est situÉ dans un bras de Ruin Canyon. La vue prÉsentÉe ici est prise d'un point plus ÉlevÉ, au sud, d'oÙ l'on contemple les ruines d'une ville ancienne, avec des tours rondes et carrÉes, des maisons, des entrepÔts pour le grain, des habitations et des lieux de culte. Le Cliff Palace remplit une immense caverne bien dÉfendue et À l'abri des ravages des ÉlÉments. Un sentier conduit aux ruines. Le plan (Fig. 2) reprÉsente les restes de 105 chambres au plain-pied. On ne sait combien il y en avait dans les 3 Étages supÉrieurs, mais il est probable que Cliff-Palace n'abritait pas moins de 500 personnes.

Nous remarquons À Cliff-Palace de grands progrÈs dans l'art de la construction. Les murs sont faits de grÈs gris, taillÉ avec des outils de pierre, dont on voit encore les traces. Lorsqu'on se servait de pierres irrÉguliÈres, les crevasses Étaient remplies avec des fragments ou des Éclats de grÈs, puis on plÂtrait les murs avec du mortier d'adobe. On prenait de grosses poutres pour les plafonds et les planchers, et l'on peut voir que ces poutres Étaient dÉgrossies avec des instruments peu tranchants.