In delicate, almost feminine, characters is a modest inscription that reads, translated: “I am from the hand of Felipe de Avellano, 16 September, soldier.” There is something touching, I think, about that personified periphrase, and I am glad that, in spite of the omission of the year, historians have identified the writer. He was a common soldier of the garrison at Zuñi after the reconquest, and met death there in 1700. It is unfortunate that this noble and unique monument should be left exposed as it is to vandals. Almost every white visitor thinks it is his duty to scratch his name up alongside the historic ones and there is no guardian to forbid—only an unregarded sign of the Department of the Interior tacked on a nearby tree. A year ago the Department, in response to private representation, promised to put up a fence of protection, and perhaps this has been done; but a fence is a perfectly inadequate measure. If the East possessed one such autograph in stone (of Joliet, or La Salle, or Cartier), as El Morro bears by the half dozen, I wonder if the few hundred a year necessary to support a local guardian would not be forthcoming? When will our nation take seriously the colonial history of the Southwest as just as much its own as that of the Atlantic side of the Continental Divide? At the shortest, it is a matter of two days to achieve a visit to El Morro from the railway. Gallup is the best stop-off. There an automobile may be hired, and the night spent at Ramah, where accommodations may be had at the trader’s unless you prefer to camp at the Rock itself, which, if you like such adventure and are prepared, is a joyous thing to do. CHAPTER VIII THE STORIED LAND OF THE NAVAJO