The whole policy of the community is rapidly changing, for instead of the age-long custom of the men going to Acomita only for the seasons of planting and of harvest, more and more the bulk of the people live there the year round. Why, say the younger generation, should we climb those weary heights when there are no Apaches to fear? Hence many of them return to the pueblo on the Crag only for ceremonies at stated intervals. This makes the atmosphere more sacrosanct than ever, and consequently more difficult for white students to study and record the life story of the Peñol. Although James, rightly enough, calls the people who now live in the lofty eyrie “pleasant faced, soft voiced, gentle and hospitable,” the visitor is never likely to be unaware of an impenetrable aloofness of mind and manner, which holds him far from intimacy. Our hostess soon made evident that she was eager for us to leave early and she more than sped the parting guest, with inviolable dignity but also with very evident relief. We had, however, an appointment to keep with the governor, who had himself agreed to show us the interior of the great church which brave Fray Juan Ramírez had toiled to create in the early seventeenth century. Surely there are few memorials of the Spanish epoch in the Southwest that present such a picture of dauntless faith in spiritual ideals as does this fortress church silhouetted high against the sky above the bleak mesa. An impression prevails that the present edifice is not in any part the original one of Ramírez, but one built after the reconquest in 1699 or 1700.[17] In the letters of Vargas he tells of paying a visit to the church of St. Stephen in 1693, after he had received the submission of its inhabitants. In his own words, “the walls are a yard and a half thick and able to withstand the heavy rains that break windows and skylights.” [Illustration: GENERAL VIEW OF ÁCOMA PUEBLO CLOISTER IN FOREGROUND _Bolton_]