estimated from the foundations, it would be
much greater, particularly of those of the
centre part of the building, where the fallen
walls and rubbish form a mound twenty
feet above the ground. If, therefore, the
highest walls now standing have their
foundations on the lowest level, their
probable height was from forty to fifty feet. I
conclude that the outer portions of the
building were the lowest, about one
story high, while the central ones, judging
from the height of the walls now
standing, and the accumulation of rubbish,
were probably from three to six stories.
Every portion of the building is made of
adobe, which differs from that now made
by the Mexicans in that the blocks are
very much larger, being fourteen or sixteen
inches long, twelve wide, and three or four
thick; the others are usually twenty-two
inches in thickness, and three feet or more
in length. Gravel was mixed with these large
adobes, which greatly increased their
hardness, but no straw was used. The building
consists of three masses, united by walls of
probably only one story, forming perhaps
only court yards; they are now weather-
beaten down to long lines of mounds.

"The entire edifice extends from north to
south eight hundred feet, from east to west
two hundred and fifty. The general
character is very similar to Casas Grandes,
near the Pima villages, and the ruins on
the Salinas. Not a fragment of wood
remains; many doorways are to be seen, but
the lintels have gone, and the top has in
most cases crumbled away and fallen in.

"Some of the apartments arranged along
the main walls are twenty feet by ten, and
connected by doorways, with a small
enclosure or pen in one corner, between three
and four feet high. Besides these, there
are many other exceedingly narrow
apartments, too contracted for dwelling-places
or sleeping-rooms, with connecting
doorways, and into which the light was
admitted by circular apertures in the upper
part of the wall. There are also large halls,
and some enclosures within the walls are so
extensive that they could never have been
covered with a roof. The lesser ranges of
buildings which surrounded the principal one
may have been occupied by the people at
large, whose property was deposited within
the great building for safe keeping.
Although there appears to be less order in the
tout ensemble of this great collection of
buildings than in those further north, the
number of small apartments, the several
stages or stories, the inner courts, and some
of the minor details, resemble in many
respects the large edifices of the semi-civilised
Indians of New Mexico."

The builders showed much sagacity in
their choice of so fine a region for agricultural
purposes. There is none equal to it
from the lowlands of Texas, near San
Antonio, to the fertile valleys of California,
near Los Angelos, and, with the exception
of the Rio Grande, there is not one valley
equal in size to that of the Casas Grandes,
between those of Eastern Texas and the
Colorado of the West. The water of the
Rio Casas Grandes, unlike that of the Rio
Grande, Pecos, and Colorado, is clear, sweet,
and sparkling.

Not more than a hundred yards distant
is another ruin, about fifteen feet square.
Garcia Conde says that these edifices were
known to have had three stories and a roof,
with steps outside, probably of wood. Healos
repeats the story of the Aztec emigration,
and states that this was the third stopping-
place of that people on their way from the
north to the valley of Mexico.

I met with no Indian ruins in Sonora,
nor have I heard of any other similar ones
either there or in Chihuahua.

THE TUDOR SLIP-KNOT.

IT was not delicate of Henry the Eighth to call
a lady whom he had induced to cross the sea,
and marry him, a Flanders mare. Old Harry
must have had experience in love-making before
he made an offer of his hand to Anne of Cleves;
yet he mismanaged, as his father's son should
not have done. For when Henry the Seventh
thought of taking a wife, whom he had not seen,
he went about the business systematically. He
sent envoys to Spain, where the young queen of
Naples lived, instructed them to get an audience
of her, and make full report to him, upon her
skin, her hair, her eyes, her nose, her teeth, her
lips, her hands, her fingers, and her breast.
They were to get hold of her slippers, that they
might judge of her real height, and see " the
fashion of her foot." They were to make
inquiries about her general health and diet. They
were also instructed to come as near her in
conversation as etiquette would permit, in order to
feel if her breath were sweet.

Delicacy was not a Tudor virtue, when wives
were in question. Of Henry the Eighth and his
six wives I say only let them rest in peace. But
King Henry's playful views of marriage were
not confined to himself; they belonged equally
to his friends and favourites, and tickled his two
sisters, whose domestic history contained facts
almost as peculiar in their way as any in the
life of their more noted brother. Margaret, the
elder, was first married to James the Fourth of
Scotland, and after that king's death at Flodden,
allowed herself to be wooed and won by Archibald,
Earl of Angus. This alliance brought her