Further on, when the Bright Angel was discovered (the beautiful stream and canyon on the north side of the Canyon directly opposite El Tovar), the story of which is told in a separate chapter, Major Powell went up a little gulch, just above Bright Angel Creek, about two hundred yards from their camp on the Colorado, and there he discovered the ruins of two or three old houses, which were originally of stone, laid in mortar. Only the foundations were left, but irregular blocks, of which the houses were constructed, were found lying scattered about. In one room he found an old mealing stone, deeply worn, as if it had been much used. A great deal of pottery was strewn around, and old trails, which in some places were deeply worn into the rocks, were seen.
Ruins of a Village. Between the foot of what is now the Bright Angel Trail and Bass's Cable Crossing, Major Powell discovered another group of ruins.
"There was evidently quite a village on this rock. Again we find the mealing stones, and much broken pottery, and up in a little natural shelf in the rock, back of the ruins, we find a globular basket, that would hold perhaps a third of a bushel. It is badly broken, and, as I attempt to take it up, it falls to pieces. There are many beautiful flint chips, as if this had been the home of an old arrow-maker."Old Gardens. Later, when white men began to go down the trail now known as the Bright Angel Trail (the one near to El Tovar), the remnants of gardens, with irrigating ditches, in which small pieces of Indian pottery were scattered about, were discovered. The place is known today as Indian Garden, and is seen from the upper porch of the hotel.
Stone Huts. In his account of Powell's second expedition, Dellenbaugh tells of ancient ruins found below Labyrinth Canyon. "Small huts for storage were found there in the cliffs, and on a promontory, about thirty feet above the water, were the ruins of stone buildings, one of which, twelve by twenty feet in dimensions, had walls still standing about six feet high. The Canyon here was some six hundred feet high, though the top of the plateau through which the Canyon is carved is at least fifteen hundred feet above the river. We discovered the trail by which the old Puebloans had made their way in and out. Where necessity called for it, poles and tree-trunks had been placed against the rocks to aid the climbers. Some of our party trusted themselves to these ancient ladders, and with the aid of a rope also, reached the summit." These Indians had tilled a small piece of arable land in an alcove near by.
An Old Indian Fortress. Hance found a number of cliff ruins and the remnants of old houses on and near his trail, and on the Red Canyon Trail.
It was the discovery of an old Indian lookout fortress, located on the very edge of the Canyon where Bass Camp now is, that led Bass to hunt for the trail into the Canyon. This fortress is about fifteen feet square, outside measurement, and consists of one room, twelve feet square, with a lookout in the eastern wall, which is still to be seen. Remnants of the walls still stand, and at one corner are fully ten feet high. About a mile below this fortress, were discovered two large native water-storage tanks or reservoirs, which, when cleaned out, were capable of holding many hundreds of gallons of water. Further down, on the plateaus beneath, several large pits for the cooking of mescal were discovered.
Cooking of Mescal. This mescal is the succulent and sweet inner leaf of the agave deserti, which is found in large quantities in this region. The Indians still prepare it in the same manner as did their forefathers. The larger thick leaves are taken from the plants when they are full of sap.
Great pits are dug and lined with rocks. Into these pits dry wood, roots, pine cones, etc., are thrown and set on fire, until the whole oven is thoroughly heated. On the hot rocks are then laid the pulpy stalks of the agave; over these is placed a layer of wet grass; then more agave or mescal leaves, more grass, and so on, until the pit is full. Then the oven and its contents are banked over with earth, and allowed to steam and cook for three or four days. The woman in charge is an expert in determining when her "bread is baked." She thrusts stalks of the agave into the heart of the pit before it is finally closed up, and when she deems "time up," she pulls forth one of these stalks. If it is not done to her liking, she allows the process to continue; otherwise the banked up earth is removed, and the contents of the pit withdrawn and placed upon adjacent rocks to dry. It now looks like large cakes of brownish fibres, thoroughly saturated in molasses. In taste it is sweet and fairly palatable, though the fibres render it a food that requires a large amount of mastication. It has great staying qualities, contains much nutrition, and will keep for months, even years. I have eaten pieces of it that were sweet and good over three years after it was made.
Unlimited Fragments of Pottery. In my own wanderings of nearly twenty years in the Grand and Havasu Canyons and their smaller tributary gorges, I have discovered scores of these cliff-dwellings. Ruins uncounted are to be found scattered along the rim, within five to ten miles of the Canyon, and thousands of pieces of pottery of old design have been picked up by the visitors of the past fifteen years.
On the Shinumo, opposite the Bass Trail, are several cliff-dwellings, and as late as the summer of 1908 a young couple camped there for a month on their wedding trip, excavated and discovered a fine stone axe, numbers of pieces of pottery of three different kinds, several pieces with holes bored with the primitive drill of flint or obsidian, a fine spearhead of flint, and a number of arrow points.
