s in the Chaco valley.]

[Sidenote: The Moqui pueblos.]

[Sidenote: The cliff pueblos.]

From the pueblos still existing, whether inhabited or in ruins, we may
eventually get some sort of clue to the populations of ancient towns
visited by the Spanish discoverers.[93] The pueblo of Zuni seems to have
had at one time a population of 5,000, but it has dwindled to less than
2,000. Of the ruined pueblos, built of stone with adobe mortar, in the
valley of the Rio Chaco, the Pueblo Hungo Pavie contained 73 apartments
in the first story, 53 in the second, and 29 in the third, with an
average size of 18 feet by 13; and would have accommodated about 1,000
Indians. In the same valley Pueblo Bonito, with four stories, contained
not less than 640 apartments, with room enough for a population of
3,000; within a third of a mile from this huge structure stood Pueblo
Chettro Kettle, with 506 apartments. The most common variation from the
rectangular shape was that in which a terraced semicircle was
substituted for the three terraced sides, as in Pueblo Bonito, or the
whole rectangular design was converted into an ellipse, as in Pueblo
Penasca Blanca. There are indications that these fortresses were not in
all cases built at one time, but that, at least in some cases, they grew
by gradual accretions.[94] The smallness of the distances between those
in the Chaco valley suggests that their inhabitants must have been
united in a confederation; and one can easily see that an actual
juxtaposition or partial coalescence of such communities would have
made a city of very imposing appearance. The pueblos are always found
situated near a river, and their gardens, lying outside, are easily
accessible to sluices from neighbouring cliffs or mesas. But in some
cases, as the Wolpi pueblo of the Moquis, the whole stronghold is built
upon the summit of the cliff; there is a coalescence of communal
structures, each enclosing a courtyard, in which there is a spring for
the water-supply; and the irrigated gardens are built in terrace-form
just below on the bluff, and protected by solid walls. From this curious
pueblo another transition takes us to the extraordinary cliff-houses found
in the Chelly, Mancos, and McElmo canons, and elsewhere,--veritable
human eyries perched in crevices or clefts of the perpendicular rock,
accessible only by dint of a toilsome and perilous climb; places of
refuge, perhaps for fragments of tribes overwhelmed by more barbarou