With the World's Great Travellers, Volume 2 — John Shaqi
With the World's Great Travellers, Volume 2
General
With the World's Great Travellers, Volume 2
Voyages and travels
Near the lower end of the canyon stands one of the most perfect of these
towers, rising sixteen feet above the mound on which it is built. It
was once attached to an oblong stone building which seems to have
been a strongly-fortified house. The rectangular walls, as usual, are
prostrate, and have left the tower standing as solitary and picturesque
and as full of mystery as the round towers of Ireland....
In the Montezuma Canyon, just beyond the Colorado State border, there are
some remains built after an unusual manner with stones of great size.
One building of many rooms, nearly covering a little solitary mesa, is
constructed of huge stone blocks not unlike the prehistoric masonry
of Southern Europe. In the same district there is a ruined line of
fortification from which the smaller stones have fallen away and
are crumbling to dust, leaving only certain enormous upright stones
standing. They rise to a height of seven feet above the soil, and the
lower part is buried to a considerable depth. Their resemblance to the
hoary Druidical stones of Carnac and Stonehenge is striking, and there
is nothing in their appearance to indicate that they belong to a much
later age than those primeval monuments of Europe.
All the certain knowledge that we have of the history and manners of
the Cliff-dwellers may be very briefly told, for there is no written
record of their existence, except their own rude picture-writing,
cut or painted on the canyon walls, and it is not likely that those
hieroglyphics will ever be deciphered. But much may be inferred from
their evident kinship to the Moquis of our time; and the resemblance of
the ancient architecture and ceramics to the arts as they are still
practised in the degenerate pueblos of Arizona gives us many intimations
in regard to the habits of the Cliff-dwellers.
[Illustration: GRAND CANON, ARIZONA
IN THE COUNTRY OF THE CLIFF-DWELLERS]
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