It was Ácoma, now first seen by white men. The Crag was described as very high, and on three sides the ascent was perpendicular. The only way to reach the top was by a trail cut in the solid rock. The first flight was of two hundred steps, “which could be ascended without much difficulty, when a second flight of one hundred more commenced. These steps were narrower and more difficult than the first, and when surmounted, there remained twelve feet to the top which could only be ascended by putting hands and feet in the holes cut in the rocks.” It was evidently the difficult trail near the eastern limit of the village. On the top great piles of stones were kept, to hurl upon an approaching enemy. No better proof is needed of the importance to the sedentary Indians of self-defense against the roving tribes than such a fortress pueblo, difficult to reach and easily defended. In warlike mood the Indians came down to the plain to meet the Spaniards. Drawing a line in the sand, just as those at Tusayán had done, they forbade the strangers to cross it. Persuasion was first tried. This failing, Alvarado decided to attack. Seeing such preparations, the Indians showed willingness to make peace by “approaching the horses to take their perspiration and rub the whole body with it, and then to make a cross with the fingers.”[42] They also crossed their hands, an act considered inviolable. Castañeda mentions a cross at Ácuco, “near a fountain, two palms high and a finger in thickness. The wood was squared and around it were dried flowers, and little staves ornamented with feathers.” Alvarado reported to Coronado that, on his way eastward to the villages of Tiguex, he passed Ácuco. “It is one of the strongest places we have seen, because the city is on a very high rock with a rough ascent, so that we repented having gone up the place.” There is a curious conflict between the description by Castañeda of this first encounter with the Ácomas and that of another contemporary writer who apparently formed a different impression of the dwellers on the Peñol. In the anonymous “_Relación del Suceso_”[43] we read, that Alvarado “found a rock with a village on top, the strongest position that ever was seen in the world, which was called Ácuco in their language. They came out to meet us peacefully though it would have been easy to decline to do this and to have stayed on their rock, where we would not have been able to trouble them. They gave us cloaks of cotton, skins of deer and of cows, and turquoises, and fowls and other food which is the same as in Cíbola.” [Illustration: THE STAIRCASE TRAIL AND THE CHURCH _Bolton_]