After first sighting Cliff Palace from the opposite canyon rim, the two
cowboys decided to enter the great cliff dwelling. Again we go to the
words of Charles Mason for this part of the story.
“We rode around the head of the canyon and found a way down over the
cliffs to the level of the building. We spent several hours going from
room to room, and picked up several articles of interest, among them a
stone axe with the handle still on it. There were also parts of several
human skeletons scattered about.”
When archeologists excavated Cliff Palace twenty years later it was
impossible to visualize the ruin as it had been at the time of
discovery. Time after time it had been dug into by the early explorers
and no part was undisturbed. For a picture of the ruin as it was on the
day of discovery we must again refer to the story told by Charles Mason.
While some of his ideas would be hard to support his impressions as he
first walked through the greatest of all cliff dwellings are of
interest.
“The final tragedy of the cliff dwellers probably occurred at Cliff
Palace. There is scarcely room to doubt that the place withstood an
extended siege. In the entire building only two timbers were found by
us. All of the joists on which floors and roofs were laid had been
wrenched out. These timbers had been built into the walls and are
difficult to remove, even the little willows on which the mud roof and
upper floors were laid were carefully taken out. No plausible reason for
this has been advanced except that it was used for fuel.
“Another strange circumstance is that so many of their valuable
possessions were left in the rooms and covered with the clay of which
the roofs and upper floors were made.... It would seem that the
intention was to conceal their valuables so that their enemies might not
secure them.... There were many human bones scattered about, as though
several people had been killed and left unburied....
“It seems to me there can be no doubt that the cliff dwellers were
exterminated by their more savage and warlike neighbors, the men being
killed and the women being adopted into the tribe of the conquerors,
though in some cases migrations may have become necessary as a result of
drouth or pressure from outside tribes.”
Mr. Mason did not realize how near the truth he was when he suggested
that, “migrations may have become necessary as a result of drouth or
pressure from outside tribes.”
[Illustration: Cliff Palace
When the cowboys entered Cliff Palace on December 18, 1888, the great
ruin did not look as it does in this picture. This view, taken from the
south end of the ruin, shows its present condition. In 1888, the courts,
passageways and rooms were deep with the rubble of fallen walls and
collapsed roofs. This debris was removed in 1909, and only the standing
walls remain today.]