Traveller. A Queer City in the Air.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 2018, 13 June 1885, Page 6 (Supplement)

Traveller. A Queer City in the Air.

Tin. pueblo of Acoma, situated ninety milts west of Albuquerque, is one of the most remarkable communities in Now Mexico or the United Stated. In the middle of a vnllcy, hix miles in width, stands a butte, and on the top of this i» Alcoma. Eight hundred people are living there and they and their ancestors have gathered there the sum of their possessions for nearly three centuries. This butte is one of many that are the remnants of a mesa that

has been worn awiy by the erosion of the ayes and survives only in fiat-topped mountains here and there. The valleys between are fertile, and untold generations of men have seen them covered with grain and flocks of sheep. Some time in the seventeenth century the Laguno, or valley Indians, made war upon the Acomag for the possession of the country and the letter being the weaker occupied this butie as a defensive position, believed to be impregnable. Their judgment haa been abundantly indicated. It has proved a Gibralter of strength and eafety. The comparison is not inappiopriate, and in approaching it from the north I wa3 struck with the reaemblanca to the piotures I have seen of that grim fortress that frowns over tho strait of the Mediterranean. The height above tho v.iliey is nearly '100 feet and the walla in several place 3 neaily perpendicular. There are t.vo means of ascent, one by a flight of oteps cut in the facs of the wall and rising at an angle of foity-fivo degrees, and the other by a fissure in the rocks leading up into the heart of the mountain. Both way 3 have been trodden by human feet until the stops are hoJ lowed out liko shallow troughs. Either on" is esoocding7y difficult and neither is tolerable safe. This stairway is a precarious footing along the sides of a gash in a rn™rd mountain. With all the danger and fatigua, it i 3 a laughable sight to see a parson — some other person — make the ascent. One has to stride over the fissure, one foot on tha right hand side and the other on the left, and at the same lime press the hand alternately against the rock 3 for support. An Indian will throw a live sheep around his neck and po up quite rapidly without touching either hand to the lockr. An accident occurred on the stairway a few generations ago. Several men started up, each with a sheep on his buck. When nearly to the top the sheep carried by the forcmoat man became restless, and the shepherd ih trying to hold it fast lost his footing, and in falling swept his companions ovef the procipico, and they all fell on the recks at the foot in a lifeless heap. The Indians have carved a representation of the accident on a reck near where it occured, v/hich scarcely serves to steady tho nerves of those who go by that route.— Con cqwndcnct Lawrence (As.) Journal.