Arizona republican., 1920-09-02
BY FREDERIC J. HASkIN

RITO DE LOS FRIJOLES, N. M. Aug Sf - Long before Columbus crossed the Atlantic. and probably be- fore Christ was born, there was a city in this barren canyon.
 It was a city well worthy of the name with many stone houses, with churches and forts, arts and industries. and farm lands to feed it's people. of whom there were perhaps two thou sand
 The age of this city is a matter for speculation. It is known only that it was a ruin when the Spaniards came in the sixteenth century. There are many other thing about tt that puzzle archaelogiStS, But it's size and how it looked are apparent to every beholder. For half of it was built of masonry, some of which still stands, and the other half was excavated in the face of the tufa cliffs
 These rooms made by digging are almost unchanged. The soot of ancient fires Is still black on their roofs. ano on their floors lie the stone mortars and pestles with which grain was ground, the stone tools with which the rooms were made, bits of pottery. ar row heads and many other remnants of the life that was.
 For long time writers romanced about the men who made these cliff dwellings. Because the doors were low, so that man could enter only on hands and knees. it was assumed that they were a pigmy race. But Bande- Her, Loomis and other able investi- gators discredited this charming fairy tale. They showed that in all essen tials, as shown by it's remains, this civilization of the cliff dwellers was hike the civilization of the Pueblo h. dianS of today. They established the fact that the ancestors of the modern Pueblos lived in this cliff city in an when they thriUinsr race than they have been in historical times, and when they needed such refuge in order to escape the Apaehes and other nomad Indians.
 A Striking Site
 Never was a city built in a more pie turesque and inaccessible location. Here the Rio Grande blows way 2 thousand feet deep through a barren land of lava, iron hard and iron hot, frugally timbered with gnarled and hardy pinon and juniper. Down to the river come other streams-little clear streams from the pointed peaks to the north-through gorges as deep and sheer as that of the Rio Grande it. self. But these tributary canyons are not cut through lava. Their walls for the most part are of tufa, a volcanic deposit as soft and workable as chalk and yet solid as marble
 The Rito is one of these branch can yons. It is perhaps 700 feet deep and its walls are so abrupt that it's floor can be reached only by few steep and difficult trails.
 You must picture it then as a vast crack in the face of the earth with walls steep and sheer, sculptured into all sorts of forms by wind and rain and tinted in every shade of brown from the palest buff to the richest ot old meerchaum. These walls are bar ren and sterile. but at the bottom oi the canyon there are temple-ll11e groves of pine and thick shade of willow and box elder along the stream. and open level land where corn will grow. And the level mesas above are well tim bered with pine and juniper and sup port rich grass. Wild turkey and black tail deer are still abundant there as they must have been in the days oi the cliff dwellers. There are bear in the canyons and mountain lions anC coyotes are abundant.
 It is easy to imagine the charm which such a spot would have for . tribe of primitive men, sedentary bs habit, who longed for a place where they could be secure from plunderine bands of nomad Indians. They could raise corn in the canyons and perhaps on the mesas; game was abundant; the winters were mild, and the tufa cliffs made the building of homes ar