Often, inclosures are built of wooden fences for the domesticated animals and occupy the greater part of the cave.
The largest inhabited cave I have seen was nearly a hundred feet in width and from twenty to forty feet in depth.

If caves are at all deep, the Indians live near the mouth.

They never excavate caves, nor do they live in dug-outs.

I heard of one arroyo, where six inhabited caves, only thirty or fifty yards apart, can be seen at one time; but this is a rare case.

Generally they are farther apart, maybe a hundred yards to a mile, or more; and that suits the Tarahumares very well, each family preferring to live by itself.
In one place I saw a cave, or rather a shelter under a big boulder, utilised as a dwelling; and here a kind of parapet had been built of stone gravel, terrace fashion, to enlarge the area of the cave floor.
Inhabited caves are never found in inaccessible places, as is the case with cliff-dwellings in the southwestern part of the United States.