The venerable pile of fairly well preserved ruins has already been
described by John Russell Bartlett, in 1854, and more recently
by A. F. Bandelier; a detailed description is therefore here
superfluous. Suffice it to say that the Casas Grandes, or Great Houses,
are a mass of ruined houses, huddled together on the western bank
of the river. Most of the buildings have fallen in and form six or
eight large mounds, the highest of which is about twenty feet above
the ground. Low mesquite bushes have taken root along the mounds
and between the ruins. The remaining walls are sufficiently well
preserved to give us an idea of the mode of building employed by the
ancients. At the outskirts of the ruined village the houses are lower
and have only one story, while in its central part they must have been
at one time at least four stories high. They were not palaces, but
simply dwellings, and the whole village, which probably once housed
3,000 or 4,000 people, resembles, in its general characteristics,
the pueblos in the Southwest, and, for that matter, the houses we
excavated from the mounds. The only features that distinguish these
from either of the other structures are the immense thickness of the
walls, which reaches as much as five feet, and the great height of the
buildings. The material, too, is different, consisting of enormous
bricks made of mud mixed with coarse gravel, and formed in baskets
or boxes.

A striking fact is that the houses apparently are not arranged in
accordance with any laid-out plan or regularity. Nevertheless they
looked extremely picturesque, viewed from the east as the sun was
setting. I camped for a few days on top of the highest mound, between
the ruined walls.