ds and the creek-bank: in the morning, when
the people went out to work, or to carry drinking water from the spring
opposite; during the day, while they attended to their simple labor of
tillage.

The mound and tower _H_ performed a similar office towards the steep
ledge of rocks there descending, among whose fragments Indians could
hide for hours from the scouts on the house tops. Thus the great
enclosure with its details served a triple purpose. It was the reservoir
which held and conducted the waters precipitated on the _mesilla_ to the
useful purpose of irrigation. It was a preliminary defensive line,--a
first obstruction to a storming foe, and a shelter for its defenders.
But it was also in places an admirable post of observation. It formed
the necessary complement to the houses themselves,[190] and both
together composed a system of defences which, inadequate against the
military science of civilization, was still wonderfully adapted for
protection against the stealthy, lurking approach, the impetuous but
"short-winded" dash, of Indian warfare.

In conclusion of this lengthy report, I may be permitted to add a few
lines concerning the great houses themselves. Their mode and manner of
construction and occupation I have already discussed; it is their
abandonment and decay to which I wish to refer. This decay is the same
in both houses; the path of ruin from S.S.E. to N.N.W. indicates its
progress. It shows clearly that, as section after section had been
originally added as the tribe increased in number, so cell after cell
(or section after section) was successively vacated and left to ruin as
their numbers waned, till at last the northern end of the building alone
sheltered the poor survivors. They receded from south to north; for the
church, despoiled and partly destroyed in 1680, was no protection to
them. Its own ruin kept pace with that of the tribe.[191] The northern
extremity of the pueblo was their best stronghold, and thither they
retired step by step in the face of inevitable doom.

A. F. BANDELIER.

SANTA FE, Sept. 17, 1880.

To PROFESSOR C. E. NORTON, _President of the Archaeological Institute of
America, Cambridge, Mass._

GRANT OF 1689 TO THE PUEBLO OF PECOS.

* * * * *

The following is a literal copy of the original grant, now (Sept. 25,
1880) on file at the United States Surveyor-General's office at Santa
Fe, made to the inhabitants of the Indian pueblo