"According to tradition the Mesa Encantada gains its romantic name from an event which centuries ago--declares the legend--destroyed the town, then a well-populated stronghold of the Acomas. As a prelude to this legend, let me state that the Pueblo cliff-dwellers often perched their habitations on lofty, sheer-walled, and not easily accessible mesas, a natural vantage-ground from which they might successfully resist their enemies, the nomadic and predatory tribes formerly over-running the country. "The steep wall of the Acoma Mesa, with its solitary trail, surmounted by means of hand and foot holes pecked in the solid rock, was so well defended that a single man might keep an army at bay. What fear, then, should these Acomas have of their enemies? "The Acomas, like other Pueblo Indians, have from time immemorial been tillers of the soil. "From the fertile sands of their valley and its tributaries they won by patient toil such harvests of corn, beans, squashes, and cotton as secured them a simple livelihood; and 'their granaries,' it is asserted, 'were always full enough to enable them, if need be, to withstand a twelvemonth's siege.' How long the top of Katzimo, the site of the Enchanted Mesa, had been inhabited when the catastrophe recorded in the legend befell, no man may say, not even the elders of the tribe; this much is, however, known,--the spring-time had come. The sun-priest had already proclaimed from the housetops that the season of planting was at hand. The seeds from last year's harvest had been gathered from the bins; planting-sticks had been sharpened, and all made ready for the auspicious day when the seer should further announce the time of repairing to the fields. On that day (so runs the tale), down the ragged trail, at early sunrise, clambered the busy natives; every one who was able to force a planting-stick into the compact soil, or lithe enough to drive away a robber crow, hurried to the planting. Only a few of the aged and ailing remained on the mesa. "While the planters worked in the hot glare of the valley below, the sun suddenly hid his face in angry clouds. The busy planters hastened their work, while the distant thunder muttered and rolled about them. Suddenly the black dome above them was rent as by a glittering sword, and down swept the torrent, until the entire valley became a sheet of flood. The planters sought shelter in the slight huts of boughs and sticks from which the crops are watched. "The elders bodingly shook their heads. Never before had the heavens given vent to such a cataract. "When the sudden clouds as suddenly dispersed, and the sun-lit crest of Katzimo emerged from the mist, the toilers trudged toward their mountain home. Reaching the base of the trail, they found their pathway of the morning blocked by huge, sharp-edged pieces of stone, giving mute testimony of the disaster to the ladder-trail above.