other pueblos, suggest the probability that they were places for holding the councils of the gentes and phratries.
This great ruin, with two others of smaller size, shown in Fig. 38 as No. 8 and No. 9, of which the first is one hundred and thirty-five feet long and one hundred feet deep, and the other seventy-eight by sixty-three feet, both of stone, complete the list of ruins in the canon. The pueblo of Pintado, is, however, at the upper end, and without the canon, and the Pueblo Alto, not yet described, is not in the canon, but on the bluff. It is a remarkable display of ancient edifices; the most remarkable in New Mexico. With the bordering walls of the cañon, rising vertically, in places, one hundred feet high, it presented long vistas in either direction, with natural and inclosing walls. Shut in from all view of the table lands at the summit of these walls, this valley, at the time its great houses were occupied, must have presented a very striking picture of human life as it existed in the Middle Period of Barbarism. The greater part of the valley must have been covered with garden beds, from which the people derived their principal support, as the mesa lands without the canon were too dry for cultivation. It no doubt presented an interesting picture of industrious and contented life, with a corresponding advancement in the arts of this period. There is still some uncertainty concerning the time when these pueblos were last occupied, and the fate of their inhabitants. There are a number of circumstances tending to show that they were the "Seven Cities of Cibola," against which the expedition of Coronado was directed in 1540-1542. There are seven pueblos in ruins in the cañon, without reckoning Nos. 8 and 9, the smallest in the valley. Some of the facts which point to these pueblos as the Towns of Cibola may here be noted.
In his Relation to the Viceroy, which is dated from the province of Cibola, August 3, 1540, Coronado describes his conquest and intimates his disappointment in the following language: "It remaineth now to certify" your Honor of the seven cities, and of
the kingdoms and provinces whereof the Father Provincial made report unto your Lordship. And, to be brief, I can assure your Honor he said the truth in nothing that he reported, but all was quite contrary, saving only the names of the cities, and great houses of stone; for although they be not
