The people of the Water clan dwelt at the western end of the cliffs which border the Tyuonyi on the north.  They occupied some twenty caves scooped out along the base of the rock, and an upper tier of a dozen more, separated from the lower by a thickness of rock averaging not over three feet.  This group of cave-dwellings—­and vestiges thereof are still visible at this day—­lay in a re-entering angle formed by the cliffs, which overhang in such a manner as to form a sheltered nook open to the south.  Ascent to their base is quite steep, and great heaps of debris cover the slope.  The gorge is narrow, a dense thicket interspersed with pine-trees lines the course of the brook, and the declivity forming the southern border of the Rito approaches the bottom in rocky steps, traversed laterally by ledges overgrown with scrubby vegetation.

Vestiges of former occupancy are still scattered about the caves.  Some of these furnish a clew to the manner in which the dwellings were formed by scraping and burrowing.  Splinters of obsidian and of basalt—­sharp fragments, resembling clumsy chisels or knives—­served to dig an oblong hole in the soft pumice or tufa of the cliff.  After this narrow cavity had penetrated a depth of one or two feet, the artisan began to enlarge it inside, until a room was formed for which the tunnelled entrance served as a doorway.  The room, or cell, was gradually finished in a quadrangular or polygonal shape, with a ceiling high enough to permit a person of average size to stand erect.  Not unfrequently side rooms were excavated connecting with the first by low apertures, to pass through which it was necessary to stoop, or even to creep on all fours.  These passages were too low for doorways, too short to deserve the name of tunnels.  Into the front apartment light and air were admitted through the entrance, and sometimes through small window-like apertures.  The side cells were utterly dark except where excavated parallel to the face of the rock, when sometimes another entrance was opened to the front, sometimes an air-hole only admitted light and air.

If on the afternoon of the day when Shyuote had his perilous adventure with the young people of the Corn clan, we had been able to peep into the third one of the ground-floor caves, counting from the west end of the group inhabited by the Water people, we should have found the apartment empty; that is, as far as human occupancy was concerned.  But not deserted; for while its owner was not there, ample signs of his presence only a short time before could be detected everywhere.  In the fireplace wood was smouldering, and a faint smoke rising from this found egress through a crude chimney.  This was built over the hearth, with two vertical side slabs of pumice supporting a perforated square flag, over which a primitive flue, made of rubble cemented by mud, led to a circular opening in the front wall of the cave.  In a corner stood the frame for the grinding-slabs, or metates,