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There were no names of white visitors anywhere on the walls of Palatki, which, so far as it goes, affords substantial support of my belief that we were the first white men to visit this ruin.
The second Palatki ruin is well preserved, and as a rule the rooms, especially those in front, have suffered more from vandalism and from the elements than have those of Ruin I. The arrangement of the rooms is somewhat different from that of the more exposed eastern ruin, to which it undoubtedly formerly belonged.
There is an entrance to F at the extreme left, and the whole room was lower than the floor of the lower stories of B, C, and D. The most conspicuous pictograph on the cliff above Ruin I of Palatki, is a circular white figure, seen in the accompanying illustration.
It was impossible for us to enter these works, even after we had clambered up the side of the precipice to their level, so inaccessible were they to our approach. These "forts" were probably for refuge, but they are ill adapted as points of observation on account of the configuration of the canyon. Their masonry, as examined at a distance with a field glass, resembles that of Palatki and Honanki.
There were several smoke-blackened caves without walls of masonry, but with floors strewn with charred wood, showing Apache occupancy. No cavate dwellings were found in the section of the Red-rocks visited by our party. The two largest of the Red-rock cliff houses to which I shall refer were named Honanki or Bear-house and Palatki or Red-house.
The two ruins, Honanki and Palatki, are not the only ones in the lone canyon where we encamped. Following the canyon a short distance from its entrance, there was found to open into it from the left a tributary, or so-called box canyon, the walls of which are very precipitous. Perched on ledges of the cliffs there are several rows of fortifications or walls of masonry extending for many yards.
While it can not be positively asserted that we were the original discoverers of this interesting building, there is no doubt that I was the first to describe it and to call attention to its highly characteristic architectural plan. The walls of Palatki are not so massive as those of the neighboring Honanki, and the number of rooms in both ruins which form Palatki is much smaller.
While Palatki and Honanki together had rooms sufficient to house 500 people, I doubt whether their aggregate population, ever exceeded 200. This estimate, of course, is based on the supposition that these villages were contemporaneously inhabited. The evidences all point to a belief, however, that they were both permanent dwelling places and not temporary resorts at certain seasons of the year.
The names of several persons scratched on the face of the cliff indicate that Americans had visited Honanki before me. The majority of the paleoglyphs at both Palatki and Honanki are of Apache origin, and are of comparatively modern date, as would naturally be expected.
Throughout this region I saw, as had been expected, no change in the character of the ruins great enough to indicate that they originally were inhabited by peoples racially different. Stopped from further advance by a barrier of rugged cliffs, I turned westward along their base until I found similar ruins, which were named Palatki and Honanki.
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