_July 29._--We enter a canyon to-day, with low, red walls. A short
distance below its head we discover the ruins of an old building on the
left wall. There is a narrow plain between the river and the wall just
here, and on the brink of a rock 200 feet high stands this old house.
Its walls are of stone, laid in mortar with much regularity. It was
probably built three stories high; the lower story is yet almost intact;
the second is much broken down, and scarcely anything is left of the
third. Great quantities of flint chips are found on the rocks near by,
and many arrowheads, some perfect, others broken; and fragments of
pottery are strewn about in great profusion. On the face of the cliff,
under the building and along down the river for 200 or 300 yards, there
are many etchings. Two hours are given to the examination of these
interesting ruins; then we run down fifteen miles farther, and discover
another group. The principal building was situated on the summit of the
hill.

A part of the walls are standing, to the height of eight or ten feet,
and the mortar yet remains in some places. The house was in the shape of
an L, with five rooms on the ground floor,--one in the angle and two in
each extension. In the space in the angle there is a deep excavation.
From what we know of the people in the Province of Tusayan, who are,
doubtless, of the same race as the former inhabitants of these ruins, we
conclude that this was a _kiva,_ or underground chamber in which their
religious ceremonies were performed.

We leave these ruins and run down two or three miles and go into camp
about mid-afternoon. And now I climb the wall and go out into the back
country for a walk.

The sandstone through which the canyon is cut is red and homogeneous,
being the same as that through which Labyrinth Canyon runs. The smooth,
naked rock stretches out on either side of the river for many miles, but
curiously carved mounds and cones are scattered everywhere and deep
holes are worn out. Many of these pockets are filled with water. In one
of these holes or wells, 20 feet deep, I find a tree growing. The
excavation is so narrow that I can step from its brink to a limb on the
tree and descend to the bottom of the well down a growing ladder. Many
of these pockets are potholes, being found in the courses of little
rills or brooks that run during the rains which occasionally fall in
this region; and often a few harder rocks, which evidently assisted i