The Washington times., 1923-03-18
Ruins Of the WaIIs Or tIas
North Wing o. The Structure,
Showing the SurprisingIy
Coed Masonry VvOf.

her husband BY the simple eere-
nn0ny u sticking his shoes outside
their bedroom deer!
And not she nor her mother
naade The wedding trOussean, but
the bridegroom and his father
and brothers!
Unlike the modern apartment
house, there were no stairs ~
elevators. Entrance % the various
flats was gained BY means IL lad
ders. BY ladders, too, the oc-
cupants Of the place made their
way in and out over the protecting
wall. OF course, sitter the Lay'a
work was over, it was easy enough
To draw these ladders up and lay
them aside. Nobody in those days
cared to go roaming around the
country after dark. There were.
too few chances u ever getting
back alive. So the oldest apart
7nent house was closed for the
night by the simple expedient II
bringing inside the means Of get
ting into it.
But there must have been Some
special rules shout the ladders tp
The various fats. There was enc
Of these TO each Of the rooms. aia6
when each family went 70 bed It
night it drew It's own particular
ladder up and laid it fiat on the
roof. This was equivalent, 20, 900
years agO, to winding up the clock
and putting out the cat. And it
was al right for the people who
lived in the second stOry--they had
no farther up to 50.
But suppose, say, the occupant
Of No. 4SO, on the seventh floor.
had been paying late visit to No
6, on the first floor. Normally he
or she would have TO climb up six
ladders till they got to their own
coy little home. But if every
body on the second floor had gone
TO bed for the night and pulled up
their ladders, or if they hadn't, il
everyone on the third or fourth or
fifth or sixth floors had retired and
pulled up their ladders, why then
unfortunate No. $50 was out of
luck. How did he or she get 40
to his bedroom?
Was there 4 curfew hour, when
everybody was supposed to be in
their flats? And did those who
weren't have to take the conse-
quences? Or was there a commun-
ity ladder left open all night for
the night owls? Owing to the COM
parative insecurity of the times the
latter is not likely. Probably
there was curfew law.
Of course, in 1915, when the
ologists began to dig, only . few
walls, broken, ragged, snarled with
and brac..en, humming with the n,
the wild birds who had built thei
in the former habitatiOn of man, p
ed themselves above ground. j,
Koontz, in 1889, bought the farm
which the Aztec ruin was situate
suspected the value of the remain
reported them to the authorities.
same time he kept off vandals.
At length the excavations were s
pleted that the very life of the Va
people who had built the place was
structed, and the man who knew
races could almost imagine he saw
the lean Indians climbing the ladde
the court wall to get to their apart
see again the holy women of that HI
long ago who led the religious da
helped direct the tribes affairs, WI
old fathers, gray-haired. bent. weav
their looms, and the little red
babies played in the safety of
closed court of those five hundred
For when the scientists finally unt
enough of the ruins to enable them
into the rooms they easily rebuilt
of that day. The rooms were nine
feet generally. One family lived i
Behind this living room, built in
dark recesses of the dwelling, wer'
two smaller chambers, used to stol
n