Now that the automobile has become a common mode of travel even in the desert, you may reach the pueblos of the Hopi Indians quite comfortably from Gallup.[55] The distance is about 130 miles to the first of the villages. The road is via St. Michael’s (where the Franciscan Brothers maintain a Mission for the Navajos); Ganado, where Mr. J. L. Hubbell’s trading post stands; and Keam’s Cañon, where Mr. Lorenzo Hubbell, hospitable son of a hospitable father, has another trading post. As far as Ganado (70 miles) the way is identical with the first part of one road to the Cañon de Chelly. From Ganado westward there are 60 miles of pure wilderness, semi-desert, treeless, but in summer and autumn splendid in places with sheets of wild flowers in purple and yellow. On every hand—sometimes near, sometimes afar—are the characteristic mesa formations of the Southwest carved by the elements into curious shapes to which the fancy readily suggests names. One that you will pass is a strikingly good model of a battleship’s dismantled hull, and goes by the name of Steamboat Rock—a pleasant conceit for this desert, which, the geologists tell us, was once a sea bottom. Nowhere is sign of humanity, save perhaps, some wandering Navajos or a chance traveler like yourself. [Illustration] CASA BLANCA OR WHITE HOUSE A prehistoric Cliff dwelling set amidst the stupendous scenery of the Cañon de Chelly, Arizona—the reputed haunt of certain Navajo gods. [Illustration] EL MORRO OR INSCRIPTION ROCK, N. M. This remarkable cliff bears near its base a score or more of autographs carved in the stone by the Spanish conquerors during the 17th and 18th centuries.