To the right of us are the extremities of the sandstone plateaus, of which the Hopi mesas are the thrust out fingers. Here and there are breaks in the plateau which seem like openings into rocky canyons. Before us, ten or more miles away, is the long wall of the first mesa, its falling precipices red and glaring in the sun. Immense rocks of irregular shape lie about on its summit as if tumbled to and fro in some long-ago-forgotten frolic of prehistoric giants. Right before us, and at about the mid distances of the "finger" from the main plateau, the mesa wall is broken down in the form of a U-shaped notch or gap,--from which Walpi, "the place of the gap," obtains its name; and it is on the extremity of the mesa, beyond this notch, that the houses of the Hopi towns can now clearly be discerned. Just beyond the notch a little heap of houses, apparently of the same color as the mesa itself, appears. Then a little vacant space and another small heap, followed by another vacancy with a larger heap at the extreme end of the mesa. These heaps, beginning at the notch, are respectively Tewa, Sichumavi, and Walpi. Dotting the slopes of the talus at the foot of the mesa precipices are corn-fields, peach orchards, and corrals for burros, sheep, and goats. As we approach nearer we see that the first mesa is rapidly losing its distinctively Indian character. The policy of the United States Government, in its treatment of these Indians, is to induce them, so far as possible, to leave their mesa homes and reside in the valley nearer to their corn-fields. As their enemies are no longer allowed to molest them, their community life on these mesa heights is no longer necessary, and the time lost and the energy wasted in climbing up and down the steep trails could far better be employed in working in the fields, caring for their orchards, or attending to their stock. But while all this sounds well in theory, and on paper appears perfectly reasonable, it fails to take into consideration the influence of heredity and the personal passions, desires, and feelings of volitional beings. As a result, the government plan is not altogether a success. The Indian agents, however, have induced certain of the Hopis, by building houses for them, to consent to a partial abandonment of their mesa homes. Accordingly, as one draws nearer, he sees the stone houses with their red-painted corrugated-iron roofs, the schoolhouse, the blacksmith's shop, and the houses of the teachers, all of which speak significantly of the change that is slowly hovering over the Indian's dream of solitude and desolation.