  If you take a map of North America, and trace the line of the Rocky Mountains downwards, you come to the State of Colorado, with New Mexico and Arizona lying below; and if you tried to explore this country you would find yourself in a perfect network of mountains. In Colorado there are magnificent snow-peaks, with richly wooded valleys lying between them, whilst in New Mexico and Arizona the land is much more bare, mountain ridges, Common to all three States are wonderful gorges, or splits in the cliffs, of immense depth. Sometimes from below one can hardly see the sky between the precipices; at other times the gorge may open out into quite a broad valley; but, whether narrow or wide, we may be quite sure that wherever there is a canyon (as these rock-splits are called in Western America) there will be a river running down it. One of these rivers, named the Colorado, travels for more than three hundred miles along a channel of its own cutting, never less than a mile below the level of the surrounding country. If we remember that we take from fifteen to twenty minutes to walk a mile, and then fancy that mile standing on end like a pole, we may get some idea of what the cliffs are like in these canyons. The currents of the mountain rivers, like those of all waters flowing from high lands, are very strong and swift; and when the snows are melting, or after heavy rainfalls, the force of the stream is enormous. The result is that the channel is worn deeper and deeper, whilst the cliffs at the side are eaten away in places. The hardest rocks remain in jagged points and ledges, and the softer parts are in time washed away, leaving caverns of all shapes and sizes. The kind of people who lived in this country of highlands and canyons were tribes of American Indians, whose food was chiefly found in hunting, and whose main interests lay in making war upon their neighbours. Some tribes were strong, and others weak, so that by degrees the powerful folk drove away the less warlike people from the rich hunting-grounds and wooded country into the barren rocks. Now, if these hunted tribes were to exist at all, it was clear they must find some means of protecting themselves; thus it may have happened that scrambling up the cliffs one day to avoid their foes, some fugitive Indian came into one of the dwelling-places hollowed out in bygone ages by the river which roared below. What joyful news he would carry home to his friends when he ventured to go back to them! Shelter from rain, and snow, and wind! Homes easily defended from marauding foes! What a new life of ease for the persecuted people! One by one families would climb the cliffs, until at last a great population looked down from their eyries in certain gorges of Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, where only eagles or mountain-goats might be supposed to dwell. The table-lands above the ravines were, as a rule, fairly fertile, and the Indians were able to grow maize, or Indian corn. When they were obliged to give up the roving life of hunters, animal food must have become a scarce luxury. Being an industrious race, they were not long content to live in the rugged caverns as nature made them, but with wonderful labour built walls, floors, and roofs, to make their homes more comfortable, and to keep out the icy winds which howled up the canyons. The marvel is how they reached their homes, which are often at great heights; and one shudders to think of how many stray babies, clambering children, and nervous folk of all ages, must have stumbled and fallen over the rocky platforms to certain death. Every drop of water, every bit of fuel, and all food of every kind, must have been carried up those awful precipices, usually on ladders placed from ledge to ledge, and drawn up after the climber. That any people should choose such dwelling-places shows how unsafe life down in the plains must have been, and later on we will try to see how far the Cave Indians contrived to secure peace and comfort in their cliff houses. Helena Heath. |
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