Among a series of reports to the Topographical Bureau, issued from the War Department at Washington, in 1850, is the journal of a military reconnaissance from Santa Fé, New Mexico, to the Navajo Country, by Lieutenant James K. Simpson of the Corps of Topographical Engineers. His narrative is accompanied with a map and illustrations of a remarkable series of inscriptions, engraved on the smooth surface of a rock called the Moro. They are of two classes, the native pictographs, and also numerous Spanish inscriptions and devices; one of which records the hasty visit of an old Spanish explorer to the Moro Rock in 1606. The route of Lieutenant Simpson lay up the valley of the Rio de Zuñi, where he met an old trader among the Navajos, who was waiting to offer his services as guide to a rock, upon the face of which were, according to his repeated assertions, “half an acre of inscriptions.” After travelling about eight miles, through a country diversified by cliffs of basalt and red and white sandstone, in every variety of bold and fantastic form, they came in sight of a quadrangular mass of white sandstone rock, from 200 feet to 250 feet in height. This was the Moro, or Inscription Rock, on ascending a low mound at the base of which, the journalist states, “sure enough here were inscriptions, and some of them very beautiful; and although, with those we afterwards examined on the south face of the rock, there could not be said to be half an acre of them, yet the hyperbole was not near so extravagant as I was prepared to find it.” The inscriptions, some in Spanish, and others in, Latin, apparently include examples nearly coeval with the conquest of this region, by Juan de Onate, in 1595; and from their historical interest they naturally received greater attention from the Topographical Corps than the Indian hieroglyphics. But the same locality was visited at a later date by surveyors appointed to ascertain the most practicable route for a railroad to the Pacific coast; and in a Report of explorations and surveys, published by the Senate of the United States in 1856, Lieutenant Whipple furnishes an interesting series of Indian hieroglyphics or pictographs seen on his route. “The first of the Indian hieroglyphics,” he remarks, “were at Rocky Dell Creek, between the edge of the Llano Estacado and the Canadian. The stream flows through a gorge, upon one side of which a shelving sandstone rock forms a sort of cave. The roof is covered with paintings, some evidently ancient; and beneath are innumerable carvings of footprints, animals, and symmetrical lines.”[100] Examples of these are given; but of one series, the sketches of which had been lost, Lieutenant Whipple remarks: “This series, more than the others, seems to represent a chain of historical events, being embraced by serpentine lines. First is a rude sketch, resembling a ship with sails; then comes a horse with gay trappings, a man with a long speaking-trumpet being mounted upon him, while a little bare-legged Indian stands in wonder behind. Below this group are several singular-looking figures: men with the horns of an ox, with arms, hands, and fingers extended as if in astonishment, and with clawed feet. Following the curved line we come to the circle, enclosing a Spanish caballero, who extends his hands in amity to the naked Indian standing without. Next appears a group with an officer, and a priest bearing the emblem of Christianity.” The Pueblo Indians, who still worship the sun, recognised in those picturings records of the thoughts and deeds of their ancestors. They pointed to representations of Montezuma, whom they still expect to return, and who is regarded as a divine power; and recognised in the horned men a representation of the buffalo-dance, from time immemorial a national festival, at which they crowned themselves with horns and corn-shucks. The drawing is in all probability an historical record executed at a date not long subsequent to the first intrusion of the Spaniards.