rved in the arched walls for the urns of meal and water;
and a sacred fireplace was regarded with somewhat the same veneration as
ancient Orientals preserved their altar fires. In one cave, some old
Spanish _padre_ has come and carved a huge cross, in rebuke to pagan
symbols. Other large arched caves have housed the wandering flocks of
goats and sheep in the days of the Spanish regime; and there are other
caves where horse thieves and outlaws, who infested the West after the
Civil War, hid secure from detection. In fact, if these caves could
speak they "would a tale unfold."

[Illustration: Looking down on the ruins of a prehistoric dwelling from
one of the upper caves in the Rito de las Frijoles, New Mexico]

The aim of the Archaeological Society is year by year to restore portions
till the whole Rito is restored; but at the present rate of financial
aid, complete restoration can hardly take place inside a century. When
you consider that the Rito is only one of many prehistoric areas of New
Mexico, of Utah, of Colorado, awaiting restoration, you are constrained
to wish that some philanthropist would place a million or two at the
disposal of the Archaeological Society. If this were done, no place on
earth could rival the Rito; for the funds would make possible not only
the restoration of the thousands of mounds buried under tons of debris,
but it would make the Canyon accessible to the general public by easier,
nearer roads. The inaccessibility of the Rito may be in harmony with its
ancient character; but that same inaccessibility drives thousands of
tourists to Egypt instead of the Jemez Forests.

There are other things to do in the Canyon besides explore the City of
the Dead. Wander down the bed of the stream. You are passing through
parks of stately yellow pine, and flowers which no botanist has yet
classified. There is the globe cactus high up on the black basalt
rocks, blood-red and fiery as if dyed in the very essence of the sun.
There is the mountain pink, compared to which our garden and greenhouse
beauties are pale as white woman compared to a Hopi. There is the
short-stemmed English field daisy, white above, rosy red below, of which
Tennyson sings in "Maud." Presently, you notice the stream banks
crushing together, the waters tumbling, the pumice changing to granite
and basalt; and you are looking over a fall sheer as a plummet, fine as
mist.

Follow farther down! The canyon is no longer a valley. It is a c