Following _h_ there is an inclosure which originally may have been a
habitable room, as indicated by the well-constructed front wall, but
it is so filled with large stones that it is difficult to examine its
interior. On one side the wall, which is at right angles to the face
of the cliff, is 10 feet high, and the front wall follows the surface
of a huge bowlder which serves as its foundation.
Room _i_ is clearly defined, and is in part inclosed by a large rock,
on top of which there still remains a fragment of a portion of the
front wall. A spur of masonry connects this bowlder with the face of
the cliff, indicating all that remains of the former division between
rooms _i_ and _j_. An offshoot from this bowlder, in the form of a
wall 10 feet high, formerly inclosed one side of a room. In the rear
of chamber _j_ there are found two receptacles or spaces left between
the rear wall and the face of the cliff, while the remaining wall,
which is 10 feet high, is a good specimen of pueblo masonry.
The two side walls of room _k_ are well preserved, but the chamber
resembles the others of the series in the absence of a front wall. In
this room, however, there remains what may have been the fragment of a
rear wall parallel with the face of the cliff. This room has also a
small cist of masonry in one corner, which calls to mind certain
sealed cavities in the cavate dwellings.
The two side walls of _m_ and _n_ are respectively eight and ten feet
high. There is nothing exceptional in the standing walls of room _o_,
one of which, five feet in altitude, still remains erect. Room _p_ has
a remnant of a rear wall plastered to the face of the cliff.
Room _r_ (plate CIII) is a finely preserved chamber, with lateral
walls 20 feet high, of well-constructed masonry, that in the rear,
through which there is an opening leading into a dark chamber,
occupying the space between it and the cliff. It is braced by
connecting walls at right angles to the face of the solid rock.
At _s_, the face of the cliff forms a rear wall of the room, and one
of the side walls is fully 20 feet high. The points of insertion of
the flooring are well shown, about 10 feet from the ground, proving
that the ruin at this point was at least two stories high.
Two walled inclosures, one within the other, characterize room _u_. On
the cliff above it there is a series of simple pictographs, consisting
of short parallel lines pecked into the rock, and are probably of
Apache origin. This room closes the second series, along the whole
length of which, in front of the lateral walls which mark different
chambers, there are, at intervals, piles of débris, which enabled an
approximate determination of the situation of the former front wall,
fragments of the foundations of which are traceable in situ in several
places.
The hand of man and the erosion of the elements have dealt harshly
with this portion of Honanki, for not a fragment of timber now remains
in its walls. This destruction, so far as human agency is concerned,
could not have been due to white men, but probably to the Apache, or
possibly to the cliff villagers themselves at the time of or shortly
after the abandonment of the settlement.
From the second section of Honanki we pass to the third and
best-preserved portion of the ruins (figure 249), indicated in the
diagram from _a_ to _g_. To this section I have referred as the "main
ruin," for it was evidently the most populous quarter of the ancient
cliff dwelling. It is better preserved than the remainder of Honanki,
and is the only part in which all four walls of the chambers still
remain erect. Built at a higher level than the series of rooms already
considered, it must have towered above them, and possibly served as a
place of retreat when danger beset the more exposed quarters of the
village.
[Illustration: FIG. 249--The main ruin of Honanki]
Approaching the main ruin of Honanki (plate CIV) from the east, or
the parts already described, one passes between the buttress on which
the front wall of the rounded room _h_ is built and a fragment of
masonry on the left, by a natural gateway through which the trail is
very steep. On the right there towers above the visitor a
well-preserved wall of masonry, the front of room _a_, and he soon
passes abreast of the main portion of the ruin of Honanki. This
section is built in a huge cavern, the overhanging roof of which, is
formed by natural rock, arching far above the tops of the highest
walls of the pueblo and suggesting the surroundings of the "Cliff
Palace" of Mesa Verde, so well described by the late Baron G.
Nordenskiöld in his valuable monograph on the ruins of that section of
southern Colorado. The main ruin of Honanki is one of the largest and
best preserved architectural monuments of the former people of Verde
valley that has yet been described. Although somewhat resembling its
rival, the well-known "Casa Montezuma" of Beaver creek, its
architecture is dissimilar on account of the difference in the form of
the cavern in which it is built and the geological character of the
surrounding cliffs. Other Verde ruins may have accommodated more
people, when inhabited, but none of its type south of Canyon de Chelly
have yet been described which excel it in size and condition of
preservation. I soon found that our party were not the first whites
who had seen this lonely village, as the names scribbled on its walls
attested; but so far as I know it had not previously been visited by
archeologists.
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY