Here was an old Indian who was extremely inquisitive to know if we

were Spaniards; to which an old gentleman called Don Francisco, who

appeared to be an inmate of Father Rubi's, replied in the affirmative.

"But," said the Indian, "they do not speak Castillian." "True,"

replied the other; "but you are an Indian of the nation of Keres, are

you not?" "Yes." "Well, the Utahs are Indians also?" "Yes." "But still

you do not understand them, they speaking a different language."

"True," replied the Indian. "Well," said the old gentleman, "those

strangers are likewise Spaniards, but do not speak the same language

with us." This reasoning seemed to satisfy the poor savage; and I

could not but smile at the ingenuity displayed to make him believe

there was no other nation of whites but the Spaniards.

Whilst at dinner, Father Rubi was informed that one of his

parishioners was at the point of death, and wished his attendance to

receive his confession.

We took our departure, but were shortly after overtaken by our friend,

who, after giving me another hearty shake of the hand, left us.

Crossed the river and passed two small hamlets and houses on the road

to the village of St. Dies,[I'-15] opposite the mountain of the same

name, where we were received in a house of Father Rubi, this making

part of his domains.

_Mar. 7th._ Marched at nine o'clock through a country better

cultivated and inhabited than any I had yet seen. Arrived at

Albuquerque,[I'-16] a village on the east side of the Rio del Norte.

We were received by Father Ambrosio Guerra in a very flattering

manner, and led into his hall. From thence, after taking some

refreshments, we went into an inner apartment, where he ordered his

adopted children of the female sex to appear. They came in by

turns--Indians of various nations, Spanish, French, and finally two

young girls, whom from their complexion I conceived to be English. On

perceiving I noticed them, he ordered the rest to retire, many of whom

were beautiful, and directed those to sit down on the sofa beside me.

Thus situated, he told me that they had been taken to the east by the

Tetaus and passed from one nation to another, until he purchased them,

at that time infants; they could recollect neither their names nor

language, but, concluding they were my countrywomen, he ordered them

to embrace me as a mark of their friendship, to which they appeared

nothing loath. We then sat down to dinner, which consisted of various

dishes, excellent wines, and, to crown all, we were waited on by half

a dozen of those beautiful girls who, like Hebe at the feast of the

gods, converted our wine to nectar, and with their ambrosial breath

shed incense on our cups. After the cloth was removed some time, the

priest beckoned me to follow him, and led me into his sanctum

sanctorum, where he had the rich and majestic images of various

saints, and in the midst the crucified Jesus, crowned with thorns,

with rich rays of golden glory surrounding his head--in short, the

room being hung with black silk curtains, served but to augment the

gloom and majesty of the scene. When he conceived my imagination

sufficiently wrought up, he put on a black gown and miter, kneeled

before the cross, took hold of my hand, and endeavored gently to pull

me down beside him. On my refusal, he prayed fervently for a few

minutes and then rose, laid his hands on my shoulders, and, as I

conceived, blessed me. He then said to me, "You will not be a

Christian. Oh! what a pity! oh! what a pity!" He then threw off his

robes, took me by the hand and led me out of the company smiling; but

the scene I had gone through had made too serious an impression on my

mind to be eradicated until we took our departure, which was in an

hour after, having received great marks of friendship from the

father.

Both above and below Albuquerque, the citizens were beginning to open

canals, to let in the water of the river to fertilize the plains and

fields which border its banks on both sides; where we saw men, women,

and children, of all ages and sexes, at the joyful labor which was to

crown with rich abundance their future harvest and insure them plenty

for the ensuing year. Those scenes brought to my recollection the

bright descriptions given by Savary of the opening of the canals of

Egypt. The cultivation of the fields was commencing and everything

appeared to give life and gayety to the surrounding scenery.

We crossed the Rio del Norte [at Atrisco[I'-17]], a little below the

village of Albuquerque, where it was 400 yards wide, but not more than

three feet deep and excellent fording. At Father Ambrosio's was the

only chart we saw in the province that gave the near connection of

the sources of the Rio del Norte and the Rio Colorado of California,

with their ramifications.

On our arriving at the next village, a dependency of Father

Ambrosio's, we were invited into the house of the commandant. When I

entered, I saw a man sitting by the fire reading a book; with blooming

cheeks, fine complexion, and a genius-speaking eye, he arose from his

seat. It was Robinson! Not that Robinson who left my camp on the

headwaters of the Rio del Norte, pale, emaciated, with uncombed locks

and beard of eight months' growth, but with fire, unsubdued

enterprise, and fortitude. The change was indeed surprising. I started

back and exclaimed, "Robinson!" "Yes." "But I do not know you," I

replied. "But I know you," he exclaimed; "I would not be unknown to

you here, in this land of tyranny and oppression, to avoid all the

pains they dare to inflict. Yet, my friend, I grieve to see you here

and thus, for I presume you are a prisoner." I replied "No! I wear my

sword, you see; all my men have their arms, and the moment they dare

to ill-treat us we will surprise their guards in the night, carry off

some horses, make our way to Appaches, and then set them at defiance."

At this moment Captain D'Almansa entered, and I introduced Robinson to

him as my _companion de voyage_ and friend, he having before seen him

at Santa Fe. He did not appear much surprised, and received him with a

significant smile, as much as to say, "I knew this." We then marched

out to the place where the soldiers were encamped, not one of whom

would recognize him, agreeably to orders, until I gave them the sign.

Then it was a joyful meeting, as the whole party was enthusiastically

fond of him. He gave me the following relation of his adventures after

he left me:

"I marched the first day up the branch [Rio Conejos] on which we were

situated, as you know we had concluded it would be most proper to

follow it to its source and then cross the mountains [San Juan range]

west, where we had conceived we should find the Spanish settlements,

and at night encamped on its banks. The second day I left it a

little, bore more south, and was getting up the side of the mountain,

when I discovered two Indians, for whom I made. They were armed with

bows and arrows, and were extremely shy of my approach; but after some

time, confidence being somewhat restored, I signified a wish to go to

Santa Fe, when they pointed due south, down the river I left you on.

As I could not believe them, I reiterated the inquiry and received the

same reply. I then concluded that we had been deceived, and that you

were on the Rio del Norte, instead of the Red river. I was embarrassed

whether I should not immediately return to apprise you of it; but

concluded it to be too late, as I was discovered by the Indians, whom

if I had not met, or some others, I should have continued on, crossed

the mountains to the waters of the Colorado, and descended these,

until from their course I should have discovered my mistake. I

therefore offered them some presents to conduct me in; they agreed,

conducted me to the camp where their women were, and in about five

minutes we were on our march. That night we encamped in the woods; I

slept very little, owing to my distrust of my companions. The next

day, at three o'clock, we arrived at the village of Aqua Caliente,

where I was immediately taken into the house of the commandant, and

expresses were dispatched to Santa Fe. That night I was put to sleep

on a mattress on the floor. The next day we departed early, leaving my

arms and baggage at the commandant's, he promising to have them

forwarded to me at the city. On our arrival at Santa Fe, the governor

received me with great austerity at first, entered into an examination

of my business, and took possession of all my papers. After all this

was explained, he ordered me to a room where the officers were

confined when under an arrest, and a non-commissioned officer to

attend me when I walked out into the city, which I had free permission

to do. I was supplied with provisions from the governor's table, who

had promised he would write to Baptiste Lalande to come down and

answer to the claim I had against him; whose circumstance I had

apprised myself of. The second day the governor sent for me, and

informed me that he had made inquiry as to the abilities of Lalande to

discharge the debt, and found that he possessed no property; but that

at some future period he would secure the money for me. To this I made

a spirited remonstrance, as an infringement of our treaties and a

protection of a refugee citizen of the United States against his

creditors. But it had no other effect than to obtain me an invitation

to dinner, and rather more respectful treatment than I had hitherto

received from his Excellency; who, being slightly afflicted with

dropsy, requested my advice as to his case. For this I prescribed a

regimen and mode of treatment which happened to differ from the one

adopted by a monk and practicing physician of the place, and thus

brought on me his enmity and ill offices. The ensuing day I was

ordered by the governor to hold myself in readiness to proceed to the

internal parts of the country, to which I agreed; determining not to

leave the country in a clandestine manner, unless they attempted to

treat me with indignity or hardship; and conceiving it in my power to

join you on your retreat, or find Red river and descend it, should you

not be brought in; but, in that case, to share your destiny. Added to

this I felt a desire to see more of the country, for which purpose I

was willing to run the risk of future consequences. We marched the

ensuing day, I having been equipped by my friend with some small

articles of which I stood in need, such as I would receive out of the

numerous offers of his country. The fourth day I arrived at the

village of St. Fernandez, where I was received and taken charge of by

Lieutenant Don Faciendo Malgares, who commanded the expedition to the

Pawnees, and whom you will find a gentleman, a soldier, and one of the

most gallant men you ever knew. With him I could no longer keep up the

disguise, and when he informed me, two days since, that you were on

the way in, I confessed to him that I belonged to your party. We have

ever since been anticipating the pleasure we three will enjoy in our

journey to Chihuahua; for he is to command the escort, his dragoons

being now encamped in the field, awaiting your arrival. Since I have

been with him I have practiced physic in the country in order to have

an opportunity of examining the manners, customs, etc., of the people,

to endeavor to ascertain their political and religious feelings, and

to gain every other species of information which would be necessary to

our country or ourselves. I am now here, on a visit to this man's

wife, attended by a corporal of dragoons as a guard, who answers very

well as a waiter, guide, etc., in my excursions through the country;

but I will immediately return with you to Malgares."

Thus ended Robinson's relation, and I in return related what had

occurred to the party and myself. We agreed upon our future line of

conduct, and then joined my old captain in the house. He had been

persuaded to tarry all night, provided it was agreeable to me, as our

host wished Robinson to remain until the next day. With this

proposition I complied, in order that Robinson and myself might have a

further discussion before we joined Malgares, who I suspected would

watch us closely. The troops proceeded to the village of Tousac that

evening.

_Sunday, Mar. 8th._ Marched after taking breakfast and halted at a

little village, three miles distant, called Tousac,[I'-18] situated on

the west side of the Rio del Norte. The men informed me that, on their

arrival over night, they had all been furnished with an excellent

supper; and after supper, wine and a violin, with a collection of the

young people to a dance. When we left this village the priest sent a

cart down to carry us over, as the river was nearly four feet deep.

When we approached the village of St. Fernandez[I'-19] we were met by

Lieutenant Malgares, accompanied by two or three other officers; he

received with the most manly frankness and the politeness of a man of

the world. Yet my feelings were such as almost overpowered me, and

obliged me to ride by myself for a short period in order to recover

myself. Those sensations arose from my knowledge that he had been

absent from Chihuahua ten months, and it had cost the king of Spain

more than $10,000 to effect that [capture of myself and party] which a

mere accident and the deception of the governor had accomplished.

Malgares, finding I did not feel myself at ease, took every means in

his power to banish my reserve, which made it impossible on my part

not to endeavor to appear cheerful. We conversed as well as we could,

and in two hours were as well acquainted as some people would be in

the same number of months. Malgares possessed none of the haughty

Castillian pride, but much of the urbanity of a Frenchman; and I will

add my feeble testimony to his loyalty, by declaring that he was one

of the few officers or citizens whom I found who were loyal to their

king, who felt indignant at the degraded state of the Spanish

monarchy, and who deprecated a revolution or separation of Spanish

America from the mother country, unless France should usurp the

government of Spain. These are the men who possess the heads to plan,

the hearts to feel, and the hands to carry this great and important

work into execution. In the afternoon our friend wrote the following

notification to the alcaldes of several small villages around us:

"Send this evening six or eight of your handsomest young

girls to the village of St. Fernandez, where I propose

giving a fandango, for the entertainment of the American

officers arrived this day.

"[Signed] DON FACIENDO."

This order was punctually obeyed, and portrays more clearly than a

chapter of observations the degraded state of the common people. In

the evening, when the company arrived, the ball began after their

usual manner, and there was really a handsome display of beauty.

It will be proper to mention here, that when my small paper trunk was

brought in, Lt. Malgares struck his foot against it, and said: "The

governor informs me this is a prisoner of war, or that I have charge

of it; but, sir, only assure me that you will hold the papers therein

contained sacred, and I will have nothing to do with it." I bowed

assent; and I will only add that the condition was scrupulously

adhered to, as I was bound by every tie of military and national

honor, and, let me add, gratitude, not to abuse his high confidence in

the honor of a soldier. He further added that "Robinson being now

acknowledged as one of your party, I shall withdraw his guard and

consider him as under your parole of honor." Those various marks of

politeness and friendship caused me to endeavor to evince to my

brother soldier that we were capable of appreciating his honorable

conduct toward us.

_Mar. 9th._ The troops marched about ten o'clock. Lt. Malgares and

myself accompanied Captain D'Almansa about three miles back on his

route to Santa Fe, to the house of a citizen, where we dined; after

which we separated. I wrote by the captain to the governor in French,

and to Father Rubi in English. D'Almansa presented me with his cap and

whip, and gave me a letter of recommendation to an officer at

Chihuahua. We returned to our quarters and, being joined by our

waiters, commenced our route.

Passed a village called St. Thomas [San Tomas, or Tomé[I'-20]], one

mile distant from camp. The camp was formed in an ellipsis, the two

long sides presenting a breastwork formed of the saddles and heads of

the mules, each end of the ellipsis having a small opening to pass and

repass at; in the center was the commandant's tent. Thus, in case of

an attack on the camp, there were ready-formed works to fight from.

Malgares' mode of living was superior to anything we have an idea of

in our army; having eight mules loaded with his common camp equipage,

wines, confectionery, etc. But this only served to evince the

corruption of Spanish discipline; for, if a subaltern indulged himself

with such a quantity of baggage, what would be the cavalcade attending

an army? Dr. Robinson had been called over the river to a small

village to see a sick woman, and did not return that night. Distance

12 miles.

_Mar. 10th._ Marched at eight o'clock, and arrived at the village

Sibilleta; passed on the way the village of Sabinez on the west side,

and Naxales, on the same [W.] side, Sibilleta[I'-21] is situated on

the east side, and is a regular square, appearing like a large mud

wall on the outside, the doors, windows, etc., facing the square; it

is the neatest and most regular village I have yet seen, and is

governed by a sergeant, at whose quarters I put up.

_Mar. 11th._ Marched at eleven o'clock; came 12 miles[I'-22] and

encamped, the troops having preceded us. Lieutenant Malgares, not

being well, took medicine. The village we stayed at last night being

the last, we entered the wilderness and the road became rough, small

hills running into the river, making valleys; but the bottoms appear

richer than those more to the north.

_Mar. 12th._ Marched at seven o'clock; passed, on the west side of the

river, the mountains of Magdalen, and the Black mountains on the

east.[I'-23] Passed the encampment of a caravan going out with about

15,000 sheep from the other provinces, from which they bring back

merchandise. This expedition consisted of about 300 men, chiefly

citizens, escorted by an officer and 35 or 40 troops; they are

collected at Sibilleta and separate there on their return. They go out

in February and return in March; a similar expedition goes out in the

autumn, but during the other parts of the year no citizen travels the

road, the couriers excepted. At the pass [El Paso] of the Rio del

Norte they meet and exchange packets, when both return to their own

provinces. Met a caravan of 50 men and probably 200 horses, loaded

with goods for New Mexico. Halted at twelve o'clock and marched at

three. Lt. Malgares showed me the place where he had been in two

affairs with the Appaches; one he commanded himself, and the other was

commanded by Captain D'Almansa; in the former there were one Spaniard

killed, eight wounded, and 10 Appaches made prisoners; in the latter

52 Appaches were wounded and 17 killed, they being surprised in the

night. Malgares killed two himself, and had two horses killed under

him.

_Mar. 13th._ Marched at seven o'clock; saw many deer. Halted at eleven

o'clock and marched at four o'clock.[I'-24]

This day one of our horses threw a young woman and ran off, as is the

habit of all Spanish horses, if by chance they throw their rider; many

of the dragoons and Malgares pursued him. Being mounted on an elegant

horse of Malgares', I joined in the chase, and notwithstanding their

superior horsemanship overtook the horse, caught his bridle, and

stopped him, when both of the horses were nearly at full speed. This

act procured me the applause of the Spanish dragoons, and it is

astonishing how much it operated on their good will.

_Mar. 14th._ Marched at ten o'clock, and halted at a mountain ["of the

Friar Christopher," p. 639, _i. e._, Fra Cristobal]; distance 10

miles.[I'-25] This is the point from which the road leaves the river

for two days' journey bearing due south, the river here taking a turn

southwest; by the river it is five days to where the roads meet. We

marched at four o'clock, and eight miles below crossed the river to

the west side; two mules fell in the water. Unfortunately, they

carried the stores of Lieutenant Malgares, by which means we lost all

our bread, an elegant assortment of biscuits, etc. Distance 18 miles.

_Sunday, Mar. 15th._ Marched at half past ten o'clock. Made 28 miles,

the route rough and stony; course S. 20° W.[I'-26]

_Mar. 16th._ Marched at seven o'clock, and halted at twelve. Passed on

the east side the Horse mountain, and the Mountain of the Dead.[I'-27]

Came on a trail of the appearance of 200 horses, supposed to be the

trail of an expedition from the province of Biscay, against the

Indians.

_Mar. 17th._ Marched at ten o'clock, and at four in the afternoon

crossed the river to the east side; saw several fresh Indian tracks;

also, the trail of a large party of horses, supposed to be Spanish

troops in pursuit of the Indians. Marched down the river 26

miles;[I'-28] fresh sign of Indians, also of a party of horses.

Country mountainous on both sides of the river.

_Mar. 18th._ Marched down the river 26 miles;[I'-29] fresh sign of

Indians, also of a party of horses. Country mountainous on both sides

of the river.

_Mar. 19th._ Struck out east about three miles and fell in with the main

road [continuing from the Jornada del Muerto], on a large flat prairie,

which we left at the mountain of the Friar Christopher.[I'-30]

_Mar. 20th._ Halted at ten o'clock, at a salt lake. Marched until two

o'clock; halted for the day.[I'-31] Vegetation began to be

discoverable on the 17th, and this day the weeds and grass were quite

high.

_Mar. 21st._ Marched in the morning and arrived at the passo [El

Paso[I'-32]] del Norte at eleven o'clock, the road leading through a

hilly and mountainous country. We put up at the house of Don

Francisco Garcia, who was a merchant and a planter; he possessed in

the vicinity of the town 20,000 sheep and 1,000 cows. We were

received in a most hospitable manner by Don Pedro Roderique Rey, the

lieutenant-governor, and Father Joseph Prado, the vicar of the place.

This was by far the most flourishing place we had been in. For a more

particular account of its situation, population, etc., see Appendix to

Part III. [now Chap. IV.].

FOOTNOTES:

[I'-1] The Mexican Tour trips at the start with misstatements which

must have puzzled many a reader, as they did the present editor.

Reference to p. 510 will show that yesterday, Feb. 26th, Pike "went up

the river about 12 miles." He does not say _what_ river; but as he

was on the Conejos, we naturally take that to be the one he ascended

that day--and we are right. But to-day he speaks of "ascending the Rio

del Norte five miles _more_," implying that yesterday's march was up

this river, as to-day's is said to be. Then we are confronted by the

statement that to-day's course is "S. 60° W."--a direction in which it

is impossible to ascend the Rio del Norte to any distance. The

difficulty vanishes at once, if for "Rio del Norte" we read _Rio

Conejos_. This emendation is confirmed by Pike's map, which

contradicts the above text, showing no détour up the Rio Grande; the

dotted trail goes from the stockade directly up Rio Conejos, to a

point on its N. or left bank marked "1st. Camp"--_i. e._, the "place

of deposit" to which the Spaniards took him on the 26th. This place,

where the Spaniards had established themselves when they sent for

Pike, was on the direct road by which they had come from Santa Fé, and

not far from the present town of Conejos, though probably somewhat

further down the river of that name. The road which now crosses the

river at the town holds the course of a trail which ran N. to the

Saguache mts. and through Cochetope Pass to the Gunnison and Grand

rivers, and so on. This was formerly much used by the Utes en route to

Santa Fé, and was no doubt in existence in 1807. Conejos, seat of the

county so named, is a very well-known place on the river, in the

plain between the San Luis hills on the E. and the foothills of the

San Juan range on the W.; it is directly under Prospect Peak (9,900

feet; air-line 8 m.). Roads concenter here from various directions;

that hence to Fort Garland, 35¼ m. N. E., crosses the place where Pike

had his stockade; that S. W. to old Fort Lowell is 49½ m. Some small

places in the vicinity of Conejos are called Guadalupe, Servilleta,

San Rafael, San José, and Brazos. The route pursued hence is the old

main road S. down the Rio Grande, but at a considerable distance W. of

that river for the present (along long. 106° W. nearly).

[I'-2] Soon after leaving Conejos the party crossed Rio San Antonio,

or San Antonio cr. (the main branch of Rio Conejos), below the

confluence of Los Pinos cr., past places of both these names, and at

lat. 37° N. went from the present State of Colorado into the present

Territory of New Mexico. This river heads E. of the Tierra Amarilla,

in the mountain range of which Brazos Peak, over 11,000 feet, is a

conspicuous elevation. The most notable feature of the day is Cerro

San Antonio, nearly 11,000 feet high, standing out from the range.

They skirted its E. base, among the hills of which Pike speaks,

between it and the Buffalo buttes, as the D. and R. G. R. R. now does,

and where is the station Volcano. S. W. of the peak are the Ortiz

hills. Camp was set at or near the present station Tres Piedras (Three

Rocks).

[I'-3] Or Rio Caliente, as the name of the stream is now usually

rendered. This is formed by various tributaries from the N. and N. W.

(Rita Servilleta, Vallecita, etc.), and joins the Rio Chama from the

W., about 5 m. above their common entrance into the Rio Grande opp.

San Juan. There are various other hot or warm springs than the one at

which Pike stopped, and this one is 10 m. or so W. of the railroad

station called Ojo Caliente. At various points near the Rio Grande,

at a considerable distance to Pike's left, are numerous isolated

elevations, some of which are Cerros Olla, Chifle, Montoso,

Cristobal, Taoses, and Orejas. Since Pike entered New Mexico, on

crossing lat. 37° on the 28th, his route has been practically along

the W. border of Taos Co., so named from the well-known Tañoan pueblo

or town of Taos, frequently mentioned by him as Tons, Tous, Toas,

etc., as his printer happened to fancy, while his engraver made it

"Yaos" on the map of New Spain. This is on a branch of Taos cr.; when

Pike passes its latitude to-day, he is about 20 m. W. of it. Some

places passed along Caliente cr., to his right, are Petaca,

Servilleta, and Cueva Springs. The name Taos has several different

implications: for a river, Rio de Taos; for the country through which

this river flows; for a town at the junction of its principal forks,

otherwise San Fernandez; for a place 3 m. S. E. of this, Rancho de

Taos; and for another place about the same distance N. E., Pueblo de

Taos. San Fernandez de Taos was a Mexican adobe town, which had some

600-800 pop. in 1846, and was the capital of the Department of Taos.

The old Indian pueblo of Taos, to which the insurgents had retreated

Jan. 7th, 1847, after the skirmishes of Cañada and Embuda, became

noted during the war as the scene of a bloody siege and capture: see

Ex. Doc. No. 41, 30th Cong., 1st Sess., pub. 1848, p. 457.

In approaching the subject of the New Mexican Pueblo Indians it is

necessary at the outset to free the mind from the traditional error

that because these live in towns known as "pueblos," therefore they

are one kind of Indians. I shall recur to the subject in a later

connection. Here I wish to cite an early instance of the recognition

of an all-important ethnological fact on the part of Lieutenant James

H. Simpson, U. S. T. E., whose interesting Journal of a Military

Reconnaissance from Santa Fé, New Mexico, to the Navajo country, etc.,

in 1849, was published in 1850 as one of the collection of papers

forming Ex. Doc. No. 64, 31st Congr., 1st Sess., 8vo, Washington, pp.

56-168, many pll. and maps. He speaks on p. 57 of "the singular and,

as I believe, the hitherto unknown fact ... that among the 10,000

(estimated) Pueblo Indians who inhabit New Mexico, as many as _six_

distinct dialects obtain, no one showing anything more than the

faintest, if any, indications of a cognate origin with the other." He

sharply but justly brings to book the English author Ruxton, for the

grossly erroneous statement (Mex. and the R. Mts., p. 194) that "the

Indians of northern Mexico, including the Pueblos, belong to the same

family--the Apache.... All these speak dialects of the same language,

more or less approximating to the Apache, and of all of which the

idiomatic structure is the the same." A statement more at variance

from the facts in the case could hardly be penned. Those Pueblo

Indians whom Pike now or presently meets represent two distinct

linguistic families, the Keresan and the Tañoan; and we shall have

several others to note in due course. The influence of the church upon

the pueblo system has of course not escaped well-informed

ethnographers, but I suspect they have not always given it full credit

for the hand it had in first founding, then maintaining in misery, and

finally fetching to grief, some of these sorry settlements of

inoffensive Indians, who had escaped the Apaches on one side and the

Navajos on the other, to be herded about some mud joss-house and

fleeced as fast as they acquired any substance worth stealing. The

business began early, and the way of it is something of a historical

curiosity. A man named Alessandro Farnese--the one who was pope

1534-49, and who undertook to regulate the morals of various persons,

besides Henry VIII., with indifferent success--once made a discovery

so astonishing that he must have been inspired. Papa Paulo III.

promptly published his find in a bull which was only saved from being

Irish by the fact that it was Latin: for this ethnological

pronunciamento a todos los fieles cristianos, que las presentes letras

vieren declared in due and solemn form que los indios son hombres y

capaces de sacramentos--_i. e._, told all the faithful to whom this

exquisite tomfoolery came that Indians were human and could be

humbugged. That was June 9th, 1537, and that settled it--the hint was

enough to set upon the savages the horde of corrupt, profligate, and

extortionate ecclesiastics who have cursed the country from that day

to this. The first business of these people was always to build a

church in which to brandish the crucifix at those who had escaped the

tomahawk, and pray for the souls of those whose superstitions were

thus played upon while their property was preyed upon--for churches

cannot be built and priests supported unless somebody sweats for it. I

hardly think that Indians thus huddled around a church, in abject

terror alike of their natural and their supernatural enemies, outside

and inside the pueblo, were any better off for self-defense than they

would have been had they been left to their natural resources--though

many have so fancied; for the numerical strength of such an

aggregation would have been just as effective without that edifice,

and tame Indians are no match for wild ones. The process of converting

an Indian to Christianity simply mixes his metaphors and muddles his

mind, by substituting for the superstitions he thinks he understands

other mysteries which the priests themselves declare to be

incomprehensible. The advantage of this to the Indian is not easily

discerned, and some of its disadvantages are obvious. For example, the

priests are responsible for a considerable amount of fornication and

foeticide--I do not mean so much by their personal habits as by their

keeping so many of their parishioners too poor to pay for marriages

and baptisms. By the year 1680, the papal plan and the church method

had worked so well that the converted Indians undertook to prove

themselves men, capable of the very real sacrament of manhood; for

they revolted against the intolerable yoke, killed a great many of

their oppressors, and drove these ill-omened birds of prey from their

repast for a while.

[I'-4] Pike joins Rio Caliente with the Chama (Conejos in the text, by

error) too near Ojo Caliente and too far from San Juan, but the sum of

his figures is about right. Rio Caliente does not seem to be as well

populated now as it was in his day; Los Gallegos is a present place on

this stream. The confluence of the two is at the point of a butte,

with the Black mesa immediately to the left or E.; some of the present

places thence to the Rio Grande are Cuchilla, Chili, and San José, all

on the W. side of Rio Chama, off his route, and not noted by him; the

site of Chama itself was on the other side, near the mouth. The St.

John's of the text, charted "S^n Juan 1000," is the Tañoan pueblo San

Juan, pop. now 400. He crosses to this place on the E. side of the Rio

Grande, where there was a ford or ferry; the railroad crosses there

now, at Española.

[I'-5] I have not succeeded in identifying Baptiste Lalande. One

Alexis Lalande (his [Symbol: X] mark) appears among signers of a

document executed at St. Louis, Oct. 30th, 1819; and on Sept. 16th,

1809, the same was one of a jury that convicted John Long of murdering

one George Gordon the previous June 26th; and Alexis subsequently

swore he neither spoke nor knew English. The William Morrison of the

same paragraph is easily discovered. He was the oldest one of several

brothers who came from Doylestown, Bucks Co., Pa.; had been associated

with his uncle, Guy Bryan, in business in Philada.; came to Kaskaskia

about 1785, and became prominent as a merchant there, in Cahokia, and

in St. Louis; married (1) a lady of Illinois; (2) in 1813, a daughter

of General Daniel Bissell, U. S. A.; died 1837, at Kaskaskia; was

grandfather of Hon. William R. Morrison. (Billon's Annals, 1804-1821,

pub. 1888, p. 219.)

[I'-6] In the orig. ed. this paragraph appears as Doc. No. 7, p. 69,

of the App. to Pt. 3, to which Pike refers the reader by a footnote.

But as it is out of place there, and also so short, I simply run it

into the present and proper context.

[I'-7] The defective itinerary of Mar. 3d requires attention. We see

that Pike crossed the river to San Juan, whence he goes down the E.

side to Santa Fé. But first for the places he marks on the W. side

within the distance to Santa Fé, and which are: 1. Abicu, pop. 500; 2.

Cia, pop. 450; and 3. Gomez, pop. 500. 1. Abicu is marked as if it

stood near the mouth of Rio Chama, in the vicinity of present San

Antonio and San José; but its exact location is not difficult to

discover. For this is the town now called Abiquiu, 20 m. by the road

up the Rio Chama from the Rio Grande, on the S. side of the Chama, at

the mouth of Frijoles (Beans) cr. It is on the long and well-known

trail which led up the valley of the Chama and so on over the

mountains en route to Los Angeles, Cal. 2. Cia or Sia is a Keresan

pueblo, with a present pop. of about 100. 3. Gomez is the Tañoan

pueblo Jemez, misplaced too near the Rio Grande: see note beyond for

this and for Cia. The Jemez trail from San Ildefonso passes the ruins

of an old pueblo (called by the Spanish equivalent Pueblo Viejo), on

the edge of the mesa, say 1½ m. W. of the Rio Grande and 5 m. S. W. of

San Ildefonso. There is also within this distance the Tañoan pueblo of

Santa Clara, with a present pop. of over 200, on the W. side of the

Rio Grande, a mile below the mouth of Santa Clara cr. From San Juan to

Santa Fé there are or were two roads; a lower, which hugs the Rio

Grande for some distance before it turns away from the river, and an

upper, more direct course, probably that which Pike took. In either

case, he crossed the two small streams or arroyos now known as Cañada

and Nambe. Along his route he passed three villages, which are marked

on the map and mentioned without name in the text. 1. The first of

these, Santa Cruz, 5 or 6 m. from San Juan, is marked on the map

"Village 1200"; in 1846 it had only 300 or 400. It is situated on the

Cañada near its mouth; higher up on the same are the Chimayo

settlements and Potrero. 2. The next, 7¼ m. further, mapped as

"Village 600," is Pojoaque or Pojuaque, a Tañoan pueblo situated about

6 m. up Nambe cr. At the mouth of this stream stood and stands another

Tañoan pueblo, San Ildefonso; while Nambe, yet another village of the

same family, was located on the same creek about 3 m. above Pojoaque.

These have all declined during the century, the Indian pop. of

Pojoaque being lately given as 20, that of San Ildefonso 148, that of

Nambe 79. 3. The next village, "17 m." further, marked on the map

"Village 600," is Tesuque (Tesugue, Zesuqua, etc.), likewise a Tañoan

pueblo, now of less than 100 Indians. There appear to have been two

establishments of this name, 3 or 4 m. apart, both on a branch of

Nambe cr.; the furthest on, falling in best with Pike's 17 m. from

Pojoaque, is only some 6 m. from Santa Fé. Between Pojoaque and

Tesuque Pike passed by Cuyamanque or Cuyamunge: and he entered Santa

Fé from the N., by the site of old Fort Marcy.

It should be particularly observed in this place that Pike has _two_

maps of this part of the Rio Grande, which are discrepant in several

material respects. One is his Louisiana map, which he runs down to

take in the Rio Grande to Santa Fé. On this his trail is dotted as if

it were the lower one, hugging the Rio Grande from Santa Cruz past

Santa Clara (and Polvaredo) to San Ildefonso, before it turned off to

Santa Fé, and with the above three villages all on his left as he

passed; the above village of Abicu is lettered Abricu, and a certain

village of "Pino" is set at the mouth of Rio Santa Fé. I have here

gone by his New Spain map, which may be presumed to be his best

delineation of Rio Grande country, and which certainly fits in best

with the text which we here follow.

To finish reckoning the towns Pike maps north of Santa Fé, we must

note the following: 1. "Enbudo 500" on both maps. 2. "Tranpa 450" on

one map, and "Tramha 450" on the other. 3. "Pecucio 500" on one map,

and "Pecucis 500" on the other. These places all lie off to the N. E.,

in the direction of Taos. 1. Embudo or Embuda is a town on a creek of

the same name, which makes into the Rio Grande from the E., about 25

m. by the road from San Juan. The location is a couple of miles above

the mouth of the creek, which falls into the Rio Grande at a place

called Rinconada on account of its cornered or shut-in site among the

surrounding mesas. It is near the scene of an engagement in Jan.,

1847, when Captain John H. K. Burgwin of the 1st U. S. Dragoons

defeated the insurgents; he died Feb. 7th of wounds received Feb. 4th

in the assault on Taos. 2. Trampas is a town on the creek of that

name, a main tributary of the Embudo, 8 or 10 m. above the town of

Embudo. You pass Trampas about halfway on the main upper road from

Santa Fé to Taos, about 7 m. N. of Truchas. 3. Picuris is an old

Tañoan pueblo, on another branch of this same Embudo cr., with a

present pop. of 100.

All the foregoing places are under the shadow of the lofty mountains

to the E., whence the several streams named also make down into the

Rio Grande valley. Some of their peaks are: Lake, 12,400 feet; Baldy,

12,600 feet; the Cone, 12,700 feet; Truches, 13,100 feet; and the more

isolated "U. S." mountain, 10,700 feet. On the other side of this

range are the headwaters of Rio Cañada--that great fork of the

Arkansaw better known as the "Canadian" r., without the _tilde_: see

note 17, p. 558.

[I'-8] Santa Fé is not "on the Rio Grande," as often loosely said, but

at least 20 m. (direct) E. of that river, and considerably further

than this up from the mouth of the small stream on which it is

situated, in a rather out-of-the-way place. This creek, Rio de Santa

Fé, or Rio Chacito, comes down from the lofty Santa Fé mts. under

which the town nestles, and runs with a general S. W. course into the

Rio Grande between the town of Peña Blanca and the old pueblo of

Cochiti--places 3 m. apart. Cochiti is a Keresan pueblo on the W. bank

of the Rio Grande; present pop. perhaps 250. Peña Blanca, often called

Piña Blanca, on the E. bank, is a place where the Rio Grande can be

forded, to take the old road from Santa Fé to Fort Wingate.

Santa Fé was first entered and occupied by the Army of the West under

General Stephen Watts Kearny, Aug. 18th, 1846--his cowardly Excellency

Don Manuel Armijo having blustered and promptly evacuated the place on

the approach of our forces. The site of Fort Marcy was selected by

Lieutenants W. H. Emory and J. F. Gilmer, in a commanding position 600

yards from the plaza of the town, and the work began on the 23d. On

Sept. 22d General Kearny issued his manifesto for the government of

New Mexico, under the authority of the President of the United States;

appointing as governor Charles Bent (soon afterward cruelly massacred

at Taos), and as secretary Donaciano Vigil; other territorial officers

appointed were Richard Dallum, Francis P. Blair, Charles Blummer,

Eugene Lertensdorfer, Joab Houghton, Antonio José Otero, and Carl

Bavbien--the last three as judges of the supreme court. A copy of the

original document, in Spanish, is given in Lieutenant J. W. Abert's

report Ex. Doc. No. 41, 30th Cong., 1st Sess., pub. 1848, p. 453. The

population of Santa Fé at that time was somewhere about 3,000; it is

now only a little over 6,000. It was probably the site of a pueblo

before 1500; but the present town has no authentic history back of

1608, when it was founded by Juan de Oñate as a capital or seat of

government. The town may boast an unbroken record as such from that

day to this, in spite of changing hands several times.

[I'-9] Lieutenant J. W. Abert supposes that these were those long

known as the parroquia or parish church, and the capilla de los

soldados or military chapel: Ex. Doc. No. 41, 30th Cong., 1st Sess.,

pub. 1848, p. 454, where an account of them and services held in them,

as these were in 1846, may be read. A plate shows the parish church,

with "Fort Marez" (Marcy) in the distance.

[I'-10] The governor's certificate and Pike's remonstrance, here in

mention, were given in the App. to Pt. 3, of which they formed Docs.

Nos. 9 and 8, and will be found in due course, beyond.

[I'-11] Pike has the thing all right, but under a curious name I never

saw elsewhere, and might not have recognized, had I not happened to

hear _cojinillo_ myself in New Mexico. This word is probably

provincial or dialectal, as it is not found in ordinary Sp.

dictionaries; in form it is a diminutive of _cojin_, name of a certain

saddle-pad or cushion, precisely equivalent to E. "pillion." It turns

up now and then in books about Mexico, as for example: "The _corazas_

[covers] of travelling saddles are also provided with several pockets

called _coginillos_--a most excellent contrivance for carrying a lunch

or a bottle, or anything to which convenient access may be desired,"

Gregg, Comm. Pra., I. 1844, p. 214.

[I'-12] Marked "Vitior 200" on Pike's map. I do not recognize this

name, but it is easy to pick out Pike's road to San Domingo, which he

reaches to-morrow, and locate his Vitior at or within a mile of a

place on the Rio Santa Fé now called La Bajada, which is 7¾ m. from

San Domingo. In starting from Santa Fé for the Rio Grande at this

point, you do not follow down the creek (Rio de Santa Fé or Rio

Chacito), but bear away from it on higher ground between it and Arroyo

Hondo, pass a little place called Agua Fria, and then have a choice of

two roads. One of these bears off more to the left, and strikes the

creek at the hamlet of Cieneguilla, whence you follow the creek in the

cañon to La Bajada; but the straighter road keeps on S. W., crosses

the creek higher up, cuts across the mesa south of Tetilla Peak, and

suddenly pitches down into the creek at the mouth of the cañon, where

La Bajada is situated. This is what I suppose Pike means by saying he

ascended a hill and then descended a precipice. If he went that way,

he rode 15 m. from Santa Fé to "Vitior" or La Bajada. (See Vitior in

Index.)

[I'-13] Present Santo Domingo, or San Domingo, is at the mouth of

Galisteo cr., with the pueblo immediately below it, on the E. bank of

the Rio Grande, 4 or 5 m. below Peña Blanca. Pike charts it by name,

and lays down this creek. The plate opp. p. 462 of Lieutenant Abert's

report shows the pueblo as it was in 1846. Part of the road from Santa

Fé to San Domingo was bad, on account of the rocks in the cañon of the

little stream, and the sandy dunes near the pueblo. On getting out of

the cañon onto the plain, Pike had on his left the Sandia range, while

ahead, but somewhat to the right, rose the Jemez mts. The Galisteo was

probably quite dry. There were no trees to be seen till the cottonwood

fringe of the Rio Grande came into view. The pueblo did not vary much

for a century. It had about 800 pop. when I passed through in 1864; a

very recent census yielded 690. As Pike says, these Indians are "of

the nation of Keres," _i. e._, of the Keresan family. Had he taken the

ford across the Rio Grande, which was used here at times when the

water was not more than three or four feet deep, though 300 yards

wide, and gone westward about 26 m. to the Rio Jemez, he would have

come upon the Tañoan town of Jemez, a dead-alive little place, which

has held its population of 400 or 500 for many generations, and long

sustained its old adobe church. Twelve miles above Jemez, at a place

on the river called Ojos Calientes from its hot springs, were and may

still be seen the ruins of another church, a view of which, as they

appeared in 1849, is given on pl. 15 of Simpson's report already

cited. Jemez is the place Pike means by the "Gomez 300" which he

charts; only it is located too near the Rio Grande on his map. (See

Santo Domingo in Index.)

[I'-14] Marked "S^n. Philip de queres 1000" on the map, on the W. side

of the Rio Grande. This is the pueblo of San Felipe, situated 7 m. S.

of San Domingo, opp. the mouth of Tuerto cr., which falls in from the

E., a little below the gulch or ravine called Arroyo del Espinazo. The

town of Covero, or Cubero, is 5 m. above, on the same (W.) side of the

Rio Grande. The large stream which Pike lays down on that side, just

below his St. Philip's, is the Rio Jemez, which falls in between

Algodones and Bernalillo. The word "queres" of the map is the same as

Keres of the above text; _i. e._, San Felipe is a town of the Keresan

nation. The place is on the W. side of the Rio Grande, which here

straitens to 100 yards or so, about 6 m. above Algodones. Pike's town

was no doubt the _present_ San Felipe--the one at the foot of the

mesa, and not that commonly called old San Felipe, about a mile off,

upon the edge of the mesa; for this was in ruins half a century if not

a century ago, and the pueblos are all slow to change, either for

better or worse. It has taken nearly 100 years to reduce San Felipe

from the population which Pike estimated at 1000 to the 550 of a very

recent census. It has been more Mexicanized than some of the other

Indian towns. Lieutenant Abert, speaking of the bridge which Pike

mentions, says that when he was there, Oct. 10th, 1846, it had been

entirely swept away, and the people had to ford the Rio Grande. The

plate opp. p. 461 of his report shows some of them in the act. Another

view of San Felipe is given in the same volume, opp. p. 39, in the

report of Lieutenant W. H. Emory, who says that "the hardships,

trials, and perseverance of the gallant Pike" came forcibly to his

mind when he first caught sight of the Rio Grande, Sept. 2d, 1846, at

San Domingo, whose population he judged to be about 600.

[I'-15] Marked "S Dies 500" on the map, on the E. side of the Rio

Grande, to which Pike recrossed from San Felipe. The Spanish form

would be San Diaz, but the pueblo is best known as Sandia or Zandia, a

name also applied to the great mountain which rises on the E. As a

Spanish word, _sandia_ means "watermelon," and appeared in print as

the name of this village in 1626. The aboriginal name of the pueblo is

Nafiap, and its mission name was Nuestra Señora de los Dolores de

Sandia. This is a Tañoan town, with a present population of about 150.

The situation is 12 m. above Albuquerque. Pike speaks of two small

hamlets he passed to reach St. Dies. In 1864, when I passed over the

road, there was a mean place called Algodones, of 30 or 40 houses and

some 200 or 300 people, and 6 m. below this was a rather better one

named Bernalillo. This is doubtless what Pike charts as "S Bernilla

500." Bernalillo is present name of a station of the A., T., and S. F.

R. R. Simpson relates that when he passed Sandia in 1849 he noticed in

the space of a mile northward from the pueblo some 60 or 70 piles of

stones which were said to mark the places where as many Navajos had

fallen in battle with the Pueblonians some years before.

[I'-16] Old Albuquerque, to be distinguished from the present

contiguous or adjacent city of the same name, one of the best-known

places on the Rio Grande between Santa Fé and El Paso. In coming to

this town Pike passed sites of several places now named, though none

of any note--as Corrales (on the opposite or W. side of the river,

whence there is a road 18⅔ m. to pueblo of Cebolleta); Alameda

(where the river could be crossed to strike the Corrales-Cebolleta

road); Ranchos d'Albuquerque; Los Griegos; and finally Candelaria. The

word Albuquerque, or more properly Alboquerque, is the same as the

name of the very celebrated Portuguese son of Mars and soldier of

fortune, Affonso d'Alboquerque, who flourished in the latter part of

the fifteenth century and early in the sixteenth (b. 1453, d. Dec.

16th, 1515). It is commonly pronounced on the spot Albykirky, and

sometimes Albykirk. The old town was in existence about 1700, and now

has some 1,750 pop.; the new one is a thing of yesterday, so to speak,

but already a notable railroad center, capital of Bernalillo Co., with

nearly 4,000 pop., and scheduled as 58 m. from Santa Fé. Near

Albuquerque there was a ford to a place called Atrisco, whence the

road led westward to Fort Wingate; while eastward from Albuquerque a

road went to the Tijeras cañon, which marks off the Sandia range

proper from the elevation S. of this cañon called Monte Largo. Tijeras

cr., when it runs, falls into the Rio Grande about 8 m. below

Albuquerque. Sandival, a place that appears on various maps, was

Sandival's hacienda, a couple of miles S. of Albuquerque, on an upper

and dryer road than the one usually taken southward.

[I'-17] No crossing of the Rio Grande is indicated on Pike's map

anywhere along here, his trail being dotted continuously on the E.

side of the river. But it is quite certain that he crossed a little

below old Albuquerque to Atrisco. There was here a ford, regularly

used when the water was not too high. The railroad now crosses some

miles lower down, between Isleta station and Isleta. Atrisco was a

very well-known name, in consequence of the ford, before the days of

the railroads, but is hardly to be found on ordinary maps of to-day.

When I first crossed the Rio Grande, June 23d, 1864, our outfit was

ferried over some 20 m. below Albuquerque, between places called Los

Pinos on the E. and Las Lunas on the W. "Los Pinos" is short for

Bosque or Alamo de los Pinos, as they called the large fine grove of

cottonwoods there, but I do not think there were any pines. A couple

of miles below was the hacienda of Mariano Chavez, brother of the

unfortunate A. J. Chavez who was murdered near the Little Arkansaw:

see note 10, p. 424; M. Chavez was dead himself before 1847. The place

where Pike so joyfully met the blooming Robinson is left open to

question in the present text. If by the "next village" he means the

next one he came to after leaving Albuquerque, this was certainly at

or near the site of Atrisco. This is really the implication; otherwise

we should have to go a good ways down the W. bank of the Rio Grande,

to site of present Pajarito, or perhaps Isleta, at which latter place

is now the junction of the Atl. and Pac. with the A., T., and S. F. R.

R. The doubt is cleared away by the text of the 8th, where it appears

that Pike visited Tousac (see next note) 3 m. from the village where

Robinson was, and on the same (W.) side of the river, where the troops

had been sent over night; and was then carted back over to the E. side

of the river. He simply visited across the Rio Grande, as he had done

at San Felipe, and then returned to continue his regular journey down

the E. side. But neither of these two cases is put very clearly at

first blush in the narrative.

[I'-18] "Tousac 500" is marked nearly opposite Albuquerque, at or near

present site of Atrisco. What this can be, unless it is Atrisco

itself, or some old place close by. I do not know. The name reminds us

of Tesuque (see note 7, p. 605), but the place here meant is obviously

not that one. (See Tousac in Index.)

[I'-19] "S. Fernandez 500" is marked on the map as the first village

below Albuquerque on the E. side. I do not recognize the name, nor can

I find it on any one of several maps examined. No distance being given

for the 8th, I am left entirely at a loss. But in no event can Pike

have passed Peralta, a well-known place, and he is probably not far

short of it. We may therefore note some places between Albuquerque and

Peralta. Pajarito Arriba and Pajarito Bajo (Upper and Lower Pajarito)

are two towns 3 m. apart, 3 and 6 m. below Atrisco, on the W. side of

the river; and Tijeras or Tijera cr. or arroyo comes to the river from

the E. about a mile below Pajarito Bajo. Three m. beyond this last

town is Padillas, a Mexican town near the foot of the mesa, and three

beyond this is Isleta--both on the W. side. None of these places was

of importance; but Isleta is now a station on the A., T., and S. F. R.

R., which makes a crossing of the Rio Grande to it from Isleta station

on the E. side; and in the immediate vicinity of Isleta is the

junction of the A. and P. R. R. Below Isleta station, on the E., are

the Ranchitos d'Isleta; next is Los Pinos, already mentioned, then

Chavez, and a mile from this stands Peralta. The latter was known at

one time as Ontero's hacienda.

[I'-20] "S. Thomas 500" on Pike's map, a mile beyond which was camp of

the 9th. As 12 m. advance was made to-day, St. Thomas and St.

Fernandez were places 11 m. apart. Los Pinos, Peralta, and Valencia

are all places within 3 m. of one another, and more or less nearly

opposite Las Lunas, on the west, long a notable point of crossing of

the Rio Grande, and present seat of Valencia Co. It is situated in the

San Clemente tract, and near it are Las Lunas hills. Five miles below

Valencia, on the E. side of the Rio Grande, is Tomé hill, a

conspicuous butte on the edge of the mesa, in lat. 34° 45´. Tomé and

the Tomé ranches are 2 or 3 m. further south. These stretched along

the river for more than a mile, presenting at times well cultivated

and well irrigated grainfields.

[I'-21] "Sibilleta 1000," which Pike marks on his trail on the E. bank

of the Rio Grande, is otherwise Cibolleta, La Joya de Cibolleta, or

old La Joya, within the area of the Cevilleta or Joya Grant, and in

Socorro Co. (next county S. of Valencia). Present La Joya is across

the river, on the W. side; the railroad goes through it. Beyond old La

Joya is Joya cañon, on the E. All these places are a few miles S. of

the confluence of the Rio Puerco with the Rio Grande, on the W. The

Puerco is a sizable stream, or dry bed of one, on a general S. course,

crossed at 23 m. distance in going W. from Las Lunas along the old

road to Zuñi, Fort Wingate, etc. Where I crossed, it was a sluggish

thread of dirty yellow water which one could bestride; but it is some

75 m. long, and important in furnishing bounds to several of the land

grants in Valencia and Bernalillo cos. There is no trace of the Puerco

on Pike's map, though he lays down both Rio Chama and Rio Jemez.

Before coming to the confluence of the Puerco he passed a number of

places now named, which may be taken up thus: On the E. side are

Constancia, Casa Colorada, Vellita, and Las Nutrias, with several

others of less note. Casa Colorada ("Red House") gives name to the

grant next south of Tomé Grant; it is on the Rio Grande, 4 m. above

the mouth of that considerable stream, high up on which are the ruins

of Abo. On the W. side, where the railroad now runs, a principal place

is Belen, in the vicinity of which were others which were called

Ranchos de Belen, and Pueblitos de Belen; nearly opposite the last,

but directly on the W. bank of the river, is Jarales. Next above the

Belen pueblito, on the railroad, is Trejos, and next below it is San

José. Below the last named is a point of woods, called in Spanish

Punto del Bosque, and here is a place named Bosque. Rancho Sabinal,

Sabinal station, and a certain Pueblito succeed one another, bringing

us about opposite the above said Las Nutrias.

Along this whole stretch of the Rio Grande, from Peralta nearly to La

Joya, a range of mountains extends in the E. offing, say 15-20 m.

air-line to their summits. This is the Manzano range, running N. and

S.; some of its peaks, up to 10,000 feet, are called Mosca, Capilla,

Osha, and Manzano. The range continues S. under the name of Cerro

Montoso. Roads start from many places on the Rio Grande to go through

the cañons or passes in these mountains.

We have also to attend to Sabinez and Xaxales of the above text, and

with these may note several other pueblos Pike charts in this region.

1. Sabinez, or Sabinal, or Savinal, was a place near the W. bank of

the Rio Grande, in the vicinity of present Sabinal station on the

railroad, about 10 m. above new La Joya, and somewhat less above the

mouth of Rio Puerco.

2. "Xaxales 300" is marked a few miles S. of Sabinez, at or near the

place on the railroad now called Pueblito, 6 or 8 m. above new La

Joya. "Xaxales" is the same word as Jarales (otherwise Gerrales), but

does not seem to have denoted the place now called by the latter name.

3. Next W. of Sabinez and Xaxales, but well off the Rio Grande, Pike

marks "Seguna 250." This is the large, old, and still flourishing

Keresan pueblo of Laguna, with a present pop. of over 1,100. It is so

called from the little lake or laguna hard by, on a branch of the Rito

San José (a branch of the Rio Puerco). This pueblo is on the main road

from the Rio Grande to Zuñi and so on. An old Navajo trail takes or

took off N. from Laguna, up another branch of the same rito, in the

course of which latter is a cluster of small pueblos, as Povete,

Pojuate, or Paguate; Moquino; Cebolleta; and Cebolletita; there were

also various ruined pueblos here and there in the region watered by

the Rito San José and its several trickling affluents. Covero is a

pueblo not far W. N. W. of Laguna.

4. Pike marks "Cequimas 500" some distance S. W. of Laguna. This is

the old and well-known Keresan pueblo of Acoma, on another affluent of

the San José system, with a present pop. of about the same as it had

in his time. Plates of Acoma and various other towns illustrate Lieut.

J. W. Abert's report, Ex. Doc. 41, 30th Congr., 1st Sess., pub. 1848.

(See Cequimas in Index.)

5. "Zumi 300" is charted near both of the foregoing, and E. of the

continental divide. This is an error of location, for the pueblo meant

is that of Zuñi or Suinyi, one of the largest and on the whole the

best known of all the Indian towns in New Mexico. It is situated on

the Rio Zuñi, tributary to the Colorado river system, and, therefore,

on the Pacific slope. The place is famous as the very heart of the

region where the "Seven Cities of Cibola" stood at the dawn of the

historic period in Spanish invasion of this country; one of the seven

having furnished at least a part of the present site of Zuñi. The

Zuñian people, to the number of some 1,600, alone represent a distinct

nation of pueblonians, called the Zuñian family: see a note beyond.

6. West of his line of continental-divide mountains Pike locates two

pueblos, or rather Indian villages, by the names of "Cumpa" and

"Chacat." These are not far apart, and both approximate to the four

Moki villages he charts: see a note beyond for the Mokis. The

identification of Cumpa may be in question; but Chacat evidently

stands for what Pike learned of the old establishments in the Cañon de

Chaco, or de Chasco. This is in N. W. New Mexico, and in such extent

of the cañon as has running water is the Rio Chaco, tributary of Rio

San Juan, a branch of the Colorado Grande which enters above the mouth

of the Colorado Chiquito, in Utah. This cañon once harbored a large

population in several different establishments, all long since gone to

ruins; and the Chaco people have been the subjects of much disputed

history. An excellent account of the ruins is contained in Simpson's

Report, pp. 73-86; views of some of them are given on several plates.

On his map the names of 10 of the 12 he locates stand as Pintado,

Wejegi, Una Vida, Hungo Pavi, Chetho Kette, Bonito, Del Arroyo, Nos. 8

and 9 blank, Peñasca Blanca.

[I'-22] Past Joya cañon to the vicinity of La Joyita, near the S.

border of the Joya Grant. This is a small town near which some black

basaltic bluffs reach down close to the river. It is not to be

confounded with the village of similar name, La Joya, a few miles

further on.

[I'-23] The Black mts. of Pike's text, Sierra Obscura of his map, are

in the series of ranges along the E. side of the Rio Grande, at

varying but always considerable distances. These are in general but

not exact continuation of the San Diaz or Sandia mts., and take, in

different parts of their extent, other names, as Cerro Manzano, Cerro

Montoso, etc.; the name Sierra Oscura or Black range being now

restricted to a short chain between the Chupadera mesa on the N. and

the San Andreas chain on the S. Though there is of course no such

linear continuity of these ranges as Pike's Sierra Obscura seems to

represent, yet I think Pike hit off the mountains wonderfully well,

considering the stealthy circumstances under which he observed them.

All through "the captivity" in New Spain he had to make his notes

furtively, and then conceal them--in other words, he stole and hid

away his information. His Sierra Obscura is all the better delineated

by his marking certain southern portions of the chain with the names

"Sierra de el Sacramento" and "Sierra de Guadelupe"--these being

ranges which he was never near, if in fact he ever laid eyes on them.

They are those called to-day the Sacramento and Guadalupe ranges,

trending S. E. toward the Rio Pecos, down to lat. 32° or thereabouts;

they are special southward extensions of the huge nest of mountains

which bound for a great distance the water-shed of the Pecos, and are

broken into many lesser ranges and peaks, as the White range (Sierra

Blanca), the Nogal, Capitan, Carrizo, Jicarilla, etc. In perhaps no

point is Pike's (qu: Humboldt's?) map clearer than where he runs his

"Montagnes de Salines" N. between his Sierra Obscura on the E. and the

Rio Grande on the W.; for this is the San Andreas range, which extends

continuously southward from the Sierra Oscura of present geography,

and whose southern portions now bear the names of the Organ and

Franklin mts., ending only near El Paso. The Organ mts. were better

and have been long known by the Spanish name of Sierra de los Organos,

exactly as lettered by Pike. This curious name originated in the

fancied resemblance of the columnar trap formations to the pipes of an

organ. Wislizenus and Hughes both call them the "Organic" mts. Their

fastnesses were favorite and habitual lurking-places of the Mescalero

Apaches--those murderous freebooters and desperadoes who used to

descend upon the peaceful pueblos and the Spanish settlements. "The

Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold," and so did the Apache,

not only from the Organ mts. and other parts of the San Andreas or

Salinas range, but also from all the mountains above mentioned as

lying further east. Observe that Pike thrice locates Apaches among

these mountains, lettering "Apaches Faraone," "Apaches Mescaleros,"

and "Apaches Mescalorez." He also locates what he calls "Indiens

Ietans"; these are the Comanches, usually given in his text as

"Tetaus," who played the part of Vandals to the Goths of the

Apaches--twin scourges during the whole historic period and down to

our own day, under the leadership of chiefs whose characters recall

the popular impressions of Attila the Hun. The only serious criticism

to be passed on this part of Pike's map is the way he runs a great

river in the country of his Ietans and Mescaleros, between his Sierra

Obscura and his Montagnes de Salines, _i. e._, in the deserts E. of

his San Andreas range and W. of the other mountains. But this is

simply his misapprehension of such information as he had of the course

of the Pecos; for his "Rio Puerto" is a mistake for Rio Puerco, and

this was a long current though mistaken name of the Pecos, to be found

on various maps and in different itineraries of comparatively recent

dates. It is hardly necessary to add that the Pecos lies eastward of

all the mountains now under consideration; there is no such river

where Pike lays down his "Rio Puerto." That region is a horrid desert,

where such waters as may start from the mountains on either hand soon

run out by evaporation and absorption, or lose themselves in those

salty sinks and alkaline wastes whence originated, in fact, the former

name of "Saline" or "Salinas" mts. for the San Andreas range.

As to the "Mountains of Magdalen" of Pike's text: We observe that he

maps two isolated elevations on his right, W. of the Rio Grande,

respectively lettered "Sierra Magillez" and "Sierra Christopher."

These clearly correspond to two of the most conspicuous elevations,

Mt. Magdalen and Old Baldy, of the range which continues to be known

as that of the Magdalen mts. or Sierra Magdalena. These are a short

but high range directly W. of the county town Socorro, whence a branch

of the railroad now runs into them to the place called Magdalena. This

range rises 20 m. and more from the river; in this interval a series

of lesser elevations stretches northward, taking at successive points

the names of Socorro, Limitar, Polvadero, and Ladron--the two last of

these being separated by the arroyo of the Rio Salado, coming to the

Rio Grande from the W. in the vicinity of the Joya cañon from the E.

The position of Pike's camp of the 12th is not easily determined, as

he gives no mileage and names no place. But it was not far below

Socorro, and perhaps in the close vicinity of Bosquecito. His _Sierra_

Christopher (W. of the river) is to be carefully distinguished from

what he further on calls the "mountain of the Friar Christopher,"

_i. e._, Fra Cristobal, on the E. of the river: see note 25, pp. 635,

636, and note 30, p. 639.

When Pike passed a couple of miles below Parida, on the E. side of the

Rio Grande, he had to climb a steep hill close to the river. From the

top of this there is a fine view to be had of various places. Nearly

opposite is Socorro, on the W. bank; Limitar is visible, 6 or 8 m.

higher up on that side; while about 4 m. below is the site of the

ruins of Las Huertas (the Orchards). Socorro was long one of the

largest and most important places on the Rio Grande. It had a

population of 2,000 about the middle of this century.

[I'-24] No mileage for to-day, nor even number of hours on the march;

no named point. In fact Pike's itinerary from Santa Fé thus far hardly

gives a natural feature--not even the mouth of the Rio Puerco; we have

to check it as best we can by a few names of towns now nearly a

century old, and not always indicating a present location, together

with what we may suppose to have been ordinary days' journeys. Camp of

the 13th may be set somewhere within the limits of the present Bosque

del Apache Grant, a good ways below Bosquecitos and San Pedro on the

E., or San José and San Antonio on the W. A view of the Bosque faces

p. 499 of Abert's report. The grant named is a small triangular area

whose N. base is the S. border of the Socorro Grant, whose W. side

adjoins the E. border of the Armendaris Grant, and whose apex is at or

near Mt. Pascal (Cerro San Pascual). Old Fort Conrad was built on the

W. side of the river, nearly opposite but a little above Valverde.

Valverde was inhabited during the first quarter of this century, but

the inhabitants were killed or driven off by the Apaches and Navajos,

and it showed nothing but its ruins in 1846, as delineated on the

plate of Abert's report, facing p. 506. Writing of 1839, Gregg says,

Comm. Pra. II. 1844, p. 71: "We passed the southernmost settlements of

New Mexico, and 20 or 30 miles further down the river we came to the

ruins of Valverde. This village was founded about 20 years ago, in one

of the most fertile valleys of the Rio del Norte. It increased rapidly

in population, until it was invaded by the Navajoes, when the

inhabitants were obliged to abandon the place after considerable loss,

and it has never since been repeopled." This locality, in a narrow,

sandy valley, some 15 m. by the road above Fra Cristobal mt., used to

be a point of departure in various directions from the Rio Grande, and

the name occurs continually in the history of scouts on

reconnoissances in this region before our Civil War; it was the

general rendezvous of Doniphan's forces, preparatory to his invasion

of Mexico and capture of Chihuahua; and it was the scene of a battle,

for gallant and meritorious services in which action a particular

friend of mine, Allen Latham Anderson, was brevetted major, Feb. 21st,

1862.

[I'-25] To-day's itinerary brings up a number of interesting and

important points, not evident at first sight. Below Valverde and San

Pascual mt. Pike comes to a section of the river which has made much

history. Along here, above and below Valverde, within a very few miles

of one another, are the sites of Fort Conrad and old Fort Craig, both

on the W. bank of the river; the position of the present places known

as Arny, San Marcia, and Plaza Grande on the W., with La Mesa and

Contadero on the E.; the present crossing of the railroad to the Mesa

Prieta, from points higher up on the W.; and below this the Rio Grande

crossing known as Paraje ferry, near the place of that name on the E.

But we are mainly concerned to discover Pike's "point from which the

road leaves the river"; and why at this point his escort should have

abandoned the main road due S., two days' journey, to take him across

the river and then S. W., by a rough and roundabout way for several

days till, bearing S. E., the route should strike the S. end of the

direct road which had been left at its N. end. If we should imagine

some dark Spanish mystery here, we should be mistaken; for Malgares

simply took Pike that way to avoid the terrible Jornada del

Muerto--that Macabresque march which too often proved to be literally

a "journey of the dead." It is now, as it was then, the great highway

directly N. and S.; but what is now bowled over at ease in a few hours

by rail, was then the toilsome, perilous, and sometimes fatal journey

through an awful desert. When I was in New Mexico, 30 years ago,

officers and others who had made this jornada were never weary of

descanting upon the terrors of that "ninety miles without, a drop of

water," as it was commonly said to be. The trip is not quite so far as

this, between the points where the river is usually left and regained;

but it is not much less, and lives often hung upon the uncertainty

whether any water could be found at a midway point known as Laguna del

Muerto, or Lake of the Dead. The route of the Jornada is like the

string of a bow whose arc is the Rio Grande, stretched straight up and

down the desert between the river on the W. and the San Andreas range

on the E., or rather between this range and those mountains on the W.

of itself which close in on the E. bank of the river, cause its

deflection, and render travel along its left (E.) bank difficult or

impossible. Hence the crossing of the river at a point above them, to

go along the right or W. bank, as Malgares did, was the alternative to

the Jornada del Muerto. The mountains in mention are a barren range

which begins to hug the river in the vicinity of Paraje, below

Contadero, and is known as the Fra Cristobal range; this, or rather

the northern end of it, is the "mountain of the Friar Christopher," of

which Pike speaks. The chain continues southward (with only partial

interruption, in the vicinity of Fort McRae), as the Sierra de los

Caballos, or Horse range. Pike lays down ranges at three separate

points, lettered "Las Pennuclas" (for Los Penáculos, the Pinnacles),

"Horse M^n." and "Death M^n."; the first of these being an elevation

of the Cristobal range, probably that now called Cristobal Peak, and

the second and third being parts of the Caballos range. Whatever the

exact point at which the main road left the river when Pike passed, it

was near if not at the same point whence the Jornada has begun for

half a century at least, and which took the name Fra Cristobal from

the mountain. Thus, we read in Gregg, Comm. Pra. II. 1844, pp. 71-72:

"Our next camping place deserving of mention was _Fray Cristóbal_,

which, like many others on the route, is neither town nor village, but

a simple isolated point on the river-bank--a mere _parage_, or

camping-ground ... thus being the threshold of the famous _Jornada del

Muerto_." The words of Dr. Wislizenus on this subject are to precisely

the same effect, Mem., 1848, p. 38: "This camping place is known as

_Fray Cristobal_; but as there is neither house nor settlement here,

and one may fix his camp close on or some distance from the river, the

limits of Fray Cristobal are not so distinctly defined as those of a

city, and generally the last camping place on or near the Rio del

Norte before entering the _Jornada del Muerto_ is understood by it."

Doniphan's troops were more than three days in making the jornada:

Hughes, Don. Exp., 1847, p. 95. Here the road left the river valley by

a contadero, and passed on to the desert. The first lap of the jornada

was 26 m. to the Laguna del Muerto, usually dry, sometimes holding

water after a rain. (Pike lays this down rather too far N., as the

"Lago del munto" by mistake of the engraver.) Thus when Gregg passed

in 1839, "there was not even a vestige of water," _l. c._, p. 73. "The

marshes," he continues, "said by some historians to be in the

vicinity, are nowhere to be found; nothing but the firmest and dryest

table land is to be seen in every direction. To procure water for our

thirsty animals, it is often necessary to make a halt here, and drive

them to the Ojo del Muerto (Dead Man's Spring), five or six miles to

the westward, in the very heart of the mountain ridge that lay between

us and the river. This region is one of the favorite resorts of the

Apaches, where many a poor arriero has met with an untimely end. The

route which leads to the spring winds for two or three miles down a

narrow cañon or gorge, overhung on either side by abrupt precipices,

while the various clefts and crags, which project their gloomy brows

over the abyss below, seem to move the murderous savage to deeds of

horror and blood." The second lap of the jornada was 28 m. to a place

called Perillo (qu: same as Barilla?), to be found on present maps as

Point of Rocks, where water may be found in holes. The third stage was

23 m., finishing the jornada in the vicinity of Fort Selden. This

total of 77 m.--easily becoming the "90" of tradition--could be made

in two days, as Pike says; the usual method being to cover the

distance in three marches of a night, next day, and the following

night. The road itself is not bad; only the possibility or probability

of 77 m. without water made it a terror. As may be seen even from the

map on the railroad folder, the jornada was nearly coincident with the

present line from Contadero due S.; but the track leaves the river a

little higher up, and strikes it again also higher up, at Rincon. The

first portion of the track runs through mal pais, as they call ground

strewn with rough and gritty fragments of lava, which makes traveling

bad; there is a station called Lava from this circumstance, and also a

certain Lava Butte, near the station Pope. The rails continue by

Crocker and Round mt. to the station Eagle, whence a road goes off W.

to the Fort McRae reservation; stations further along are Cutler,

Upham, and Granada, the last being near the Point of Rocks, formerly

called Perillo, near where the stage station used to be; whence the

run is into Rincon, at a point on the river opposite Angostura, where

Pike comes along on the 17th. A camping-ground on the river, at this

end of the jornada, was known as Robledo (Oaks).

[I'-26] The whole of this way is bad, being cut across by a series of

arroyos or gulches making down from the San Mateo and Mimbres ranges.

These mountains are a part of the general chain which Pike maps in

linear continuity as one which forms the "Dividing Ridge between the

Waters of Rio del Norte and those of the Gulf of California"--that is,

the Continental Divide. At one point in these ranges Pike legends very

conspicuously "Grand Copper Mines, worked." It is also shown on the

map of Lieut.-Col. Philip St. George Cooke, of his route from the Rio

Grande to the Gila, etc., in 1846-47, Ex. Doc. No. 41, 30th Cong., 1st

Sess., pub. 1848; and a "view of the copper mine" forms the subject of

the plate opp. p. 59 of the same volume, in Lieut. W. H. Emory's

report: see also _ibid._, A. R. Johnston's report, pp. 577, 578 fig.

The headwaters of the Rio Gila are across the divide of the Mimbres

range. As the party goes down the valley of the Rio Grande, say from

the Nogal arroyo or the site of the village now called San José,

opposite Fra Cristobal, 6,600 feet, they have the range of the latter

name on the left, or E., immediately across the river, while the San

Mateo peak, 10,200 feet, towers on the N. W.

[I'-27] Before coming to his Horse mt., Pike passed several points of

note. He crossed Rio Alamoso or Cañada Alamosa near camp (unless he

was already beyond it), and next Rio Cuchillo Negro. Between these

two, but off on the E. side of the river, was built Fort McRae, in the

southern foothills of the Fra Cristobal range (vicinity of Elephant

Butte and Ojo del Muerto). There is or was a crossing of the Rio

Grande from the fort, called Fest's ferry. Horse mt. of Pike is now

called Caballo Cone; it rises at the N. extremity of the range of the

Horse mts., usually known by the Spanish name of Sierra de los

Caballos. The Mt. of the Dead is another elevation of this range, but

which one is less easily determined. It was at or near the S. end of

this range; see the positions of "Horse M^n." and "Dead M^n." on the

map. Pike also marks a mountain close to his trail, on the W., by the

name of "Rabledillo." This I take to be Cerro Cuchillo Negro, opposite

Caballo Cone, between Rio Cuchillo Negro and Rio Palomo (Pigeon cr.).

The latter is crossed at its mouth (Los Palomos); Rio Animas is

crossed (Brent's); and several arroyos or dry washes are passed, till

the party is well down on the W. side of the Horse range, within some

25 m. of where the Rio Grande will be crossed to-morrow. Camp is

apparently between the mouths of Rio Perchas and Cienega Apache, which

fall in near together on the W. Hillsborough, seat of Sierra Co.

(which Pike entered when he left Socorro Co. on the 15th), is situated

about 20 m. up Rio Perchas. Near this camp, and nearly opposite his

Dead mt., Pike marks an elevation by the name of "La Ranchero," which

appears to be that which approaches the Rio Grande most closely

between Cienega Apache and White Water cr. In any event, this is one

of the foothills of the Mimbres range, as are several others Pike maps

in this vicinity. See next note.

[I'-28] Not 26 m. after crossing the river, but from last camp, from

which it is about 26 m. to make the crossing. In this trip Pike turns

the W. and S. flank of the Sierra de los Caballos or Horse mts.,

having these first E. and then N. of his route (on his left all the

way). In so doing he passes from Sierra into Dona Ana Co., and goes by

a number of notable points, some of which he maps. On the W. side of

the river, in Dona Ana Co., at or near present Santa Barbara, was the

site of old Fort Thorn and the old Indian Agency; Beck's ferry was

also hereabouts. Pike sets four mountains on his right, at different

distances to the W. and S. These are lettered (1) "Esterolargo," (2)

"S. Jacomb," (3) "La Salmera," (4) "Piadro." These are some of the

most elevated points in the rugged and irregularly broken country to

the south of the Horse and Mimbres ranges; and their relative

positions as mapped by Pike agree so well with those of certain

well-known elevations that identifications may be attempted: (1)

Esterolargo seems to correspond to the Cerro Magdalen, between Fort

Selden on the E. and old Fort Cummings on the W. (2) is in the

position of the Good Sight mts., about half-way between the Magdalens

and Fort Cummings. A branch of the A., T., and S. F. R. R., from

Rincon on the Rio Grande to Deming, runs past the Magdalens (station

Sellers) and thence through the Good Sight mts. by Burr's Pass

(station Nutt), between Good Sight Peak and Sunday Cone. Fort Cummings

was built in that southern extension of the Mimbres range known as

Cooke's range: leave railroad for the fort at Cummings station, or

keep on past Coleman to Deming, etc. (3) is Cerro Robledo, on W. bank

of the Rio Grande, immediately S. of Fort Selden. (4) may be intended

for the Florida mts., on the boundary between Dona Ana and Grant cos.,

directly S. of Fort Cummings 20 and 30 m., not so far S. E. of Deming.

Pike crosses the Rio Grande from W. to E., at or near where the

railroad now crosses in passing between stations Hatch (Colorado) and

Rincon; camp at this place or in its immediate vicinity, about

opposite town of Angostura.

The practically identical language of Mar. 17th and 18th shows that

Pike has duplicated an entry, and consequently that one day's march

has been lost. This loss is irretrievable, so far as I can discover.

Furthermore, we have no mileages for the 19th and 20th. Under these

circumstances the best we can do is to march him into El Paso in three

laps, set three camps _ex hypothesi_, and note in due order the places

on the road over which we know he passed.

[I'-29] To camp at some point between Fort Selden and Dona Ana,

probably not far beyond the site of the former post. The Military

Reservation upon which this long noted fort was established includes a

tract a few miles square on both sides of the river, between the Cerro

Robledo on the S. and San Diego mt. on the N. and N. W.; eastward are

some elevations known as the Dona Ana hills; the Cerro Magdalen is due

W., but at a much greater distance. A few miles below Rincon and

Angostura the river enters the Selden cañon, where it is straitened

between Mt. San Diego on the E. and highlands on the W.; the railroad

traverses this cañon, with the stations Tonuco near its head and

Randall below; the position of the fort is between the latter and

Leasburg, on the E. bank of the river. Pike's map shows a marked bend

or loop of the dotted trail of the 18th, and I suppose this indicates

where he went around Mt. San Diego. There used to be a place called

San Diego here, about opposite the point where the old Cooke trail

left the river. Dona Ana was founded on the E. bank of the river, say

60 m. by road from El Paso. This town was started in or about 1839, by

settlers from El Paso, and 10 years later had a population of 300,

mostly Mexicans, who required the protection of the military from the

Apaches. The railroad passes by but not through the present town,

which has given name to the county, though the county seat is at Las

Cruces. Both of these places are included in the Dona Ana Bend Colony

tract.

The Cooke trail above mentioned is that made by Lieut.-Col. Philip St.

George Cooke, commanding the Mormon battalion of the Army of the West

on the march from Santa Fé, N. M., to San Diego, Cal., under the

guidance of Antoine Leroux, in the autumn of 1846. It will be found

very clearly traced, from the point of departure from the Rio Grande

to the Pima villages on the Gila, on the sketch-map accompanying that

officer's report to General Kearny, Ex. Doc. No. 41, 30th Congr., 1st

Sess., pub 1848, pp. 549-563. It is a roundabout way which loops far

S. and strikes the San Pedro several days' march above the confluence

of that stream with the Gila, follows the San Pedro down a piece

northward, then strikes westward to Tucson, and so on N. W. to the

Gila at the Pima villages. The distance is represented to have been

544 m.

[I'-30] Fra Cristobal, that is, but to be distinguished from Pike's

_Sierra_ Christopher: see note 23, p. 633, and note 25, p. 635.

The road which Pike thus struck was in direct continuation of the

Jornada del Muerto, on the way to El Paso, and led by Las Cruces,

present seat of Dona Ana Co. This has been for many years one of the

best-known places on the Rio Grande between Santa Fé and El Paso; it

is located a little off the river, on the E. side. In the vicinity of

Las Cruces, on the E. bank of the river, is Messilla, another

well-known town. The party proceeded past Tortugas and Bosquecito, to

a point somewhere beyond the site of old Fort Fillmore, and probably

within the present limits of the Brazito tract. This camp might be

fixed more exactly by one who could say how far short it was of a

certain salt lake likely to be reached at 10 a. m. next day. The route

along here, as indeed from Fort Selden, is practically coincident with

that of the railroad. Brazito became the famous name of a

battle-ground, after Christmas Day of 1846, when Colonel Doniphan's

regiment defeated and routed a superior force of Mexicans who attacked

him. A spirited account of this engagement is given by John T. Hughes,

Don. Exp. 1847, pp. 96-99, including a plan of the battle-ground. The

engagement lasted half an hour, about 3 p. m. The spot is given as "25

m." from El Paso, opposite a large island in the Rio Grande, and also

opposite a pass between the lower end of the Organ mts. and others

called the "White" mts. The Mexicans numbered about 1,300 men, of whom

71 were killed, 5 taken prisoners, and not less than 150 wounded,

including their general, Ponce de Leon; the American casualty was 8

wounded--none killed.

On Pike's left as he passes stand the Organ or Organon mts., as now so

called in strictness, being that southward continuation of the San

Andreas range which is marked off by a gap from the rest of the chain.

This gap is the San Augustin Pass; place there called Organ, 15 m. E.

by N. from Dona Ana. Pike charts these mountains: see note 23, p. 631.

They run about S., and as the river is here bearing S. S. E., the two

approach within 10 to 5 m. in the vicinity of the place where Fort

Fillmore stood. Pike's "Sierra de la Cola," as laid down close to the

river, but due E. of El Paso, appears to correspond with what is now

known as the Franklin range, around which the river finally turns E.

to escape from all confinement. Along the Rio Grande itself his map

marks nothing whatever from the vicinity of Fort Selden to El Paso.

But we are now approaching some of the most important points of the

whole route.

[I'-31] In the vicinity of Montoyo, Tex., in the extreme W. corner of

the State. Passing successively Mesquite, Herron, and Lyndon, on the

railroad, with San Miguel (Baca Grant), La Mesa, and Chamberino in

succession on the other side of the river, Pike comes to the station

Anthony and the parallel of 32° N.; on crossing which he goes from

Dona Ana Co., N. M., into El Paso Co., Tex., as he proceeds down the

left or E. bank of the river; had he been on the other side he would

have remained in New Mexico until he entered present Chihuahua at lat.

31° 47´ N. For the course of the Rio Grande itself makes the irregular

boundary of Texas for 15 or 20 m., from the point where the parallel

of 32° N. strikes the river from the E., to that where the parallel of

31° 47´ N. leaves the river on the W. This break or fault (as a miner

would say of a lead that acted so) of the straight border between

Texas and New Mexico, where the boundary slips 13´ S. down the Rio

Grande, is one of the politico-geographical curiosities of the

situation, which would only be fully understood upon mastering the

complicated history of the U. S. and Mexican Boundary Survey in all

the bitterness of its personal episodes. Some of these points are

considered in the following note. From lat. 31° 47´ N. on the Rio

Grande, in the immediate vicinity of El Paso, Tex., and of El Paso del

Norte (Ciudad Juarez), in Chihuahua, the river forms the boundary

between the United States and the Republic of Mexico--that is, between

Texas and the Mexican States of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, and

Tamaulipas--on a circuitous but in general S. E. course to the Gulf of

Mexico.

[I'-32] The celebrated place to which our friend has thus been

conducted by his friends, the enemy, must not be confounded with our

little town of El Paso, Tex. This grew up yesterday, so to speak; that

dates from about 1680, as a Spanish settlement begun after the great

Pueblo revolt, when Governor Otermin's people were driven out of Santa

Fé. Before Pike was welcomed by the civil and ecclesiastical

dignitaries of El Paso del Norte, he crossed the great river, and thus

passed from the State of Texas into that of Chihuahua, as these are

now bounded. He would have said that he simply went across the river

which flows in the province of North or New Mexico of the kingdom of

New Spain, and had not yet reached the province of New Biscay. But

aside from any of the political affairs which spoil the complexion of

the maps, El Paso is one of the most remarkable positions in North

America, unique in some respects. With regard to the tide of

emigration which set westward by southern lines of travel to the

California of the forty-niners, it is comparable with that place by

which, from time immemorial, the nations have passed from Asia into

Europe, along what has been fitly styled the "highway of the world."

But El Paso is not only a half-way house from the Gulf of Mexico to

that of California; it is the continental cross-roads. For the ebb and

flow of human tides set with conflicting currents, north and south,

long before the first page of American history was traced, and will

continue forever in motion by El Paso. There is the turning-point of

that great river which was Rio del Norte above this pass, and Rio

Grande or Rio Bravo below. "El Paso" is certainly, as it always has

been, the place of fording or crossing the river--Gregg says it was

called by Americans "The Pass," and speaks of "Pass wine" and "Pass

whiskey," as they named the liquors made there--but that is not the

implication of the name. "El Paso" is the mountain-pass--el paso del

Rio del Norte--the place where the river passes from the mountains to

the plains. We have traced it from Pike's stockade on the Conejos, in

the San Luis valley, almost due S., in an immense trough of several

hundred miles' length, during the whole of which distance it has been

seen to be closely confined to its mountain bed, hemmed in on the W.

by the continental divide or its several outliers, on the E. by

successive ranges of not less dignity and importance. In all this

course it receives no more than mere creeks from the eastern side;

while from the W. its tributaries are comparatively few and small

rivers. But at El Paso the river turns out of bed, so to say, with

hardly a figure of speech, to go all abroad in the open country,

drawing to itself large tributaries on its way to the sea. Yet it has

another strait-jacketing to suffer in forcing its way through the last

mountains that rise to obstruct its course. The struggle begins near

the entrance of the Rio Conchas and in the vicinity of Presidio del

Norte, one of the oldest establishments in northern Mexico; it

continues for many miles through a series of cañons in the Bofecillos,

San Carlos, and other mountains. During this passage the river makes a

sharp elbow from S. E. northward, and then with a bold sweep recovers

its former course; it receives its tribute from the Pecos, its largest

branch; then, freed from its last fetters and augmented in force, the

Rio Grande winds its way to the Gulf, having well won the title

"Bravo." Such action is the more to be applauded if we remember that

above the cañon-formations the river sometimes sinks exhausted into

the ground, and its bed may become for many miles a wagon-road. The

great flexures of the river lie within about a degree of latitude (29°

to 30° N.), and the series of cañons is between the 102d and 105th

meridians. Major Emory speaks of that great bend of the river as "one

of the most remarkable features on the face of the globe--that of a

river traversing at an oblique angle a chain of lofty mountains, and

making through these, on a gigantic scale, what is called in Spanish

America a cañon--that is, a river hemmed in by vertical walls," U. S.

and Mex. B. Surv. I. 1857, p. 42. With due deference, and no desire to

derogate from the dignity, either of the Rio Grande or of its

cañonation, I do not see that we have not several parallel cases in

this country, some of which are on a scale of not inferior magnitude.

The essential features of the case are those of a great river which

has once left its bed in mountains about its origin, traversed open

country, and then forced its way through cañon-formation in another

range or spur. The Arkansaw, heading in the continental divide, breaks

out upon the plain at Cañon City, through a chasm in another range.

The South Platte traverses South Park, and the North Platte, North

Park, to seek the plains through other mountains than those in which

they respectively head. The Yellowstone has its upper cañon and then

comes out at Livingston through a lower one. The Missouri itself

leaves its sources far remote from the range through which it finally

makes its exit from Lewis and Clark's Gates of the Rocky Mountains.

And just think of the Columbia!

Pike has nothing to say of any place on the Rio Grande opposite the

Mexican town of El Paso, at or near where El Paso stands in Texas. But

the valley has been settled and cultivated from remote antiquity, and

the clustering of the population at various points gave rise to towns

or pueblos, all of which, of course, had names, though several of

these have lapsed forever. Maps now nearly half a century old mark on

the Texan side several places by the names of Frontera, La Frontera,

or Las Fronteras; Isleta, a Tañoan pueblo (in what is now

Texas--distinguish from the other Tañoan pueblo, Isleta, in New

Mexico); Socorro; San Elceario, or Elizario; also, Franklin and Fort

Bliss--all these before there was any El Paso in Texas. Present maps

show, below Montoyo, Santa Teresa, Frontera, El Paso, Isleta, San

Elizario, and so on down the river along the railroad. As to the germ

of the American town of El Paso, we find that Captain S. G. French, in

1849, came up the Rio Grande "to the intersection of the Santa Fé road

at the rancho opposite El Paso"; and again: "El Paso is wholly

situated in Mexico--there being, excepting the three villages on the

island [San Elizario, Socorro, Isleta], but three houses on the

American side." French's mileages by odometer in coming up the river

on the Texan side, are: San Elizario to Socorro, 5.45 m.; Socorro to

Isleta, 3.10; Isleta to Upper Ford, 7.05; Upper Ford to Coon's

Hacienda, 7.09; total, 22.69, or 22⅔ m. from San Elizario to where

the Santa Fé road came to the river to cross to El Paso, Mex. (Reports

of Reconn., etc., 8vo, Washington, 1850, p. 53--not a book very easy

to find.) A table of distances in the reverse direction and bringing

in two more of the above names, is furnished by Major Emory, U. S. and

M. B. S., I. 1857, p. 135: Franklin (opposite El Paso) to Fort Bliss,

2 m.; Fort Bliss to Isleta, 12.14; Isleta to Socorro, 3.10; Socorro to

San Elceario, 5.45; total, 22.69, or 22⅔ m., as before. If these

were independent measurements, the odometers must have been good, as

well as the road; but I cite them both to show that Coon's Hacienda,

Franklin, and El Paso, Tex., were the same place, opposite El Paso,

Mex., and that Fort Bliss was built 2 m. lower down. Writing of the

early fifties, Emory also states, _op. cit._, p. 91: "From San

Elceario up to El Paso, a distance by the sinuosities of the river of

30 miles, but by air-line of only 20 miles, is almost one continuous

settlement of Mexicans and Pueblo Indians, with here and there an

American farmer and trader." His estimates of the population all

along, from El Paso, Mex., to San Elceario, are: El Paso (including

the very ancient Tañoan pueblo of Sinecu, supposed to have been built

before the Spaniards came), 4,000; Franklin (present El Paso, Tex.),

200; Socorro, 300; San Elceario, 1,200; with 1,300 at places still

further down, making a total of 7,000. Isleta does not figure in this

census. This population was mostly mixed, with little pure Spanish, or

Indian either. The commercial importance of El Paso as a port of entry

may be inferred from Emory's statement that, before the ports on the

lower Rio Bravo were opened, for some years as much as $2,000,000

worth of goods passed into Mexico this way; figures supposed to have

been reduced more than one-half at the time of which he wrote. He

describes the town of El Paso, Mex., as "one extended vineyard in the

hands of many proprietors." The little town of Frontera, above

mentioned, acquired some consequence in 1852 from the erection there

in 1851 of one of the astronomical stations at which Major Emory, U.

S. Commissioner, and Don José Salazar y Larregui, Comisionado

Mexicano, determined the initial point of the boundary W. of the Rio

Grande along the par. of 31° 47´ N. The position of Frontera, as

decided and agreed upon by the Joint Commission, was lat. 31° 48´

44.31´´ N., long. 106° 33´ 04.5´´ W. That of El Paso, Mex., or more

exactly, of the cathedral in that place, was lat. 31° 44´ 15.7´´ N.,

long. 166° 29´ 05.4´´ W. Frontera was thus about 4 minutes N. and W.

of El Paso, and the boundary started W. between these two places at a

point 3.41 m. about N. W. of El Paso, and 2.70 m. about S. E. of

Frontera; the total distance between these two places being 6.11 m. As

the Rio Grande itself was the natural boundary agreed upon from the

Gulf of Mexico to the point where the river should intersect the

parallel of 31° 47´, the various questions that were to be determined

concerned only the boundary thence W. across country to the Gulf of

California and so on to the Pacific. Two different boundaries were in

diplomatic agreement for some years before either of them was

ascertained on the ground. These were those provided for by the treaty

of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Feb. 2d, 1848, ratified Aug., 1848, and by the

Gadsden treaty of Dec. 30th, 1853, ratified June 30th, 1854. Under the

former of these, two abortive attempts were made to establish two

different lines W. of the Rio Grande; and it was fortunate for us that

neither of them succeeded. The old treaty was made in the dark, on our

part at least, being based upon the ignorance of geography which

Disturnell's map displayed in 1847. The old treaty line started on

paper from the Rio Grande at a point some miles above Frontera, went

W. on a certain parallel of latitude, hypothetical on the ground, for

about 180 m., through the Chiricahua mts., and then turned due N.

along a never-determined meridian till it struck Rio Gila, which was

thence the boundary W. to the Rio Colorado. The line agreed upon by U.

S. Commissioner John B. Weller and General Conde, the Comisionado

Mexicano, started W. from the Rio Grande at a point in the vicinity of

Dona Ana, ran along a parallel for the same distance as the other, and

then turned N. on a meridian to the Gila, striking the latter at a

point further down that river--further N. W., that is, owing to the

difference of longitude of the initial point on the Rio Grande. Both

of these were paper-lines, assumed when the two governments were

feeling for S. and W. borders of New Mexico as laid down on

Disturnell's map; for Article V. of the G. H. '48 treaty provided that

from the intersection of the Rio Grande with the S. border of New

Mexico (wherever that might be) the line should run W. along the whole

S. border of New Mexico, and then turn N. along the W. border of the

same to the Gila. This was decidedly a case of _obscurum per

obscurius_, so far as laying down an actual line was concerned, for

nobody knew where the S. and W. borders of New Mexico were, within

several minutes of latitude and longitude. The Weller-Conde line above

noted started from the Rio Grande at lat. 32° 22´, near Dona Ana, and

went due W. upon an assumed S. boundary of N. M. In 1851 such an

initial point had been agreed upon; a monument erected; and actual

survey begun by Col. J. D. Graham. The other assumed S. boundary of N.

M., along which a line was projected W. of the Rio Grande from an

initial point in the vicinity of Frontera, was very near 31° 47´. Both

luckily failed to go into effect. Such a comedy of errors, beginning

on a false basis, was conducted through a tissue of blunders to an

inevitable and fortunate fiasco. The work of the old boundary survey

was prosecuted under a series of commissioners--John B. Weller; John

C. Frémont, who accepted the appointment, but never got on the ground,

and did nothing but resign; John R. Bartlett; and Robert B. Campbell.

It wound up in 1853 as an ignominious and acrimonious failure, for

which net result Congress had appropriated $787,112. This was

expensive, but profitable in the end; for the event proved that a

different boundary would come cheap at that or almost any other price.

Almost down to 1848, the topography of the country between the Rio

Grande and the Colorado of the West was practically unknown to

Americans. But adventurers, traders, and emigrants had begun to set

their faces toward the west along our borders; and the question of the

most practicable southern route became one of great and growing

importance. The War Department put exploring parties in the field; and

through the labors of such officers as Emory, Abert, Parke, Marcy,

Sitgreaves, Simpson, Whipple, Michler, J. E. Johnston, S. G. French,

W. F. Smith, F. T. Bryan, and others, new light was thrown upon a vast

region, to much of which El Paso was the key. Among other things,

Emory developed the fact that there could be no thoroughfare through

U. S. territory in the vicinity of 32° N., the country being

practically impassable by any means of transportation then available

along the parallel of 32°, N. of the projected boundary. The G. H.

treaty '48, to use Emory's words, "fixed a line north of that parallel

which cut off entirely the communication by wagons between the rivers

[Rios Grande and Gila]; and leaving out of view the considerations

involved in securing railway routes to the Pacific, it was a line

which sooner or later must have been abandoned. No traveller could

pass, nor could a dispatch be sent, from a military post on the Rio

Bravo to one on the Gila, without passing through Mexican territory."

Our Mexican neighbors evidently knew their country, as well as what

they were about, much better than we did, until we learned to our cost

what the matter was. The already notorious errors of the Disturnell

map made any adjustment of the difficulty on that basis impossible,

and some different understanding between the two countries became an

obvious necessity. This was effected by the Gadsden treaty of 1853,

which provided for the reconstruction of the international line on

paper, and its determination on the ground. By the provisions of this

agreement, the line was to run up the Rio Grande, as already defined

by the G. H. treaty '48, to the point where the middle of the river

should intersect the parallel of 31° 47´ N.; thence due W. 100 m.;

thence due S. to the parallel of 31° 20´ N.; thence due W. to the

meridian of 111° W.; thence in a straight line to a point on the

Colorado r. 20 English miles below the confluence of the Gila; thence

up the Colorado r. to the intersection of the already existing U. S.

and Mexican line across California to the Pacific. The concessions

represented by these terms were all-important to us; they not only

secured the required practicable highway from the Rio Grande to the

Gila, but added 26,185 sq. m. to U. S. territory, as was discovered

when the line was run. This tract lies between the parallels of 31°

20´ and 33° 30´ N., and between the meridians of 106° 30´ and 114° W.;

it may be called, in a phrase, so much of the U. S. as lies S. of the

Gila, in New Mexico and mainly in Arizona. William Hensley Emory was

commissioned by President Pierce, Aug. 4th, '54, to carry out the

provisions of the treaty on the part of the U. S., and Don José

Salazar y Larregui was appointed to the same official functions on the

part of Mexico. Major Emory was required to meet the Mexican

commissioner at El Paso by Oct. 1st, 1854, and the commission took the

field without delay. Congress appropriated $168,130, Aug. 14th, '54,

and $71,450, Mar. 3d, '55; total, $239,580, for running and marking

the line. When the work had been done, Jan. 1st, 1856, Major Emory

reported an unexpended balance of $98,454.59. He had also to turn in,

as unexpended balance of certain appropriations for the old commission

(altogether $58,100), the sum of $37,345.53; total to his credit,

$135,800.12, remaining of the sum of $239,580 + $58,100 = $297,680, of

which he had the disbursement and was responsible. It thus appears

that his whole work cost the government only $161,879.87; it was

finished within the time estimated by the government for its

completion, and largely within the amounts appropriated for the

purpose. The boundary run by Emory and Salazar, respectively, agreed

upon by them jointly, and accepted by both governments, is at present

in effect. It starts from the Rio Grande between El Paso and Frontera,

at 31° 47´, and runs W. on that parallel 100 m., to a certain spot

commonly referred to by the name of Carrizalillo, as that of the

nearest named locality; thence it drops meridionally to the parallel

of 31° 20´, at a nameless place in the mountains; thence it runs due

W. to the intersection of the 111th meridian at a well-known place,

Los Nogales; whence it runs obliquely to the Colorado r., at a point

which is (roundly) 20 m. S. of Fort Yuma by the channel of the

river--Yuma being on the W. bank, and practically opposite the mouth

of the Gila. Aside from any question of the 25,185 sq. m. and the

desirable right of way thus secured, under the provisions of the

Gadsden treaty, the abrogation of the 11th article of the G. H. treaty

was all-important to the U. S. "This article," to use Major Emory's

words, "made it incumbent on the United States to keep the Indians

living within our own territory from committing depredations on the

Mexicans, and by implication imposed on the United States the

obligation of indemnity for all losses resulting from failure to carry

out the provisions of the treaty. No amount of force could have kept

the Indians from crossing the line to commit depredations, and I think

that one hundred millions would not pay the damages they have

inflicted. Whole sections of country have been depopulated and the

stock driven off and killed; and in entire States the ranches have

been deserted and the people driven into the towns. It is true, all

this has not been done since the war [with Mexico], and would form no

just claim against the United States; but those conversant with the

history of Mexican claims will at once admit that the United States

would have been fortunate if she could have escaped with paying real

claims for depredations, whether committed before or after the war. I

should not be true to history if I did not state what is within my own

personal knowledge--that companies were formed, and others forming,

composed of persons of wealth, influence, and adroitness, who

projected extensive schemes for the purchase of these claims, with the

view of extorting them from the Congress of the United States." Not

the least admirable feature of the present treaty, and one which was

of equal moment to all respectable citizens of both countries, was the

fullness of the powers it vested in the two commissioners. For Art. I.

has: "That line shall be alone established upon which the

commissioners may fix, their consent in this particular being

considered decisive and an integral part of this treaty, without

necessity of ulterior ratification or approval, and without room for

interpretation of any kind by either of the parties contracting." This

kept the dirty hands of professional politicians out of the affair,

and left it to be settled by two honorable and able men, free to act

at their best judgment and discretion, besides being competent to the

requisite scientific work in astronomy and geodesy. The joint

commission, in session on the spot, agreed upon the initial point of

31° 47´ N. on the W. bank of the Rio Grande, Jan. 10th, 1855; they

marked it and agreed to erect the monument there. The corner-stone was

laid Jan. 31st, in the presence of each other and of various civil and

military dignitaries. The commissioners reconvened at Fort Bliss, Aug.

14th-16th, 1855, to consider the operations which had meanwhile been

carried on by themselves and their respective assistants; whereupon

they agreed to declare and did declare the line surveyed, marked, and

established as far W. as the 111th meridian, and from the 111th

meridian to the Colorado r.; they further agreed, etc., that the whole

of the line should be declared fully established, etc., and the

field-work concluded, whenever each should notify the other that

certain topographical work then in progress had been completed by

Lieutenant Michler and Señor Jimenez; whereupon, having no further

business, the commission adjourned to meet in Washington, D. C., Apr.

1st, 1856. The required notifications were exchanged Oct. 15th and

Dec. 18th, 1855. The work had been done, and subsequent proceedings

were only in the nature of formalities between the two governments. My

authority for the facts embodied in this note is of course the U. S.

and M. B. S. Report unless otherwise stated. I have been led into this

sketch of affairs of 40 years ago, partly by their intrinsic interest,

but mainly because they show the state of things at a period of time

equidistant between Pike's and the present day.

CHAPTER II.

ITINERARY, CONTINUED: THROUGH OLD MEXICO, IN CHIHUAHUA, DURANGO, AND

COAHUILA, TO THE PRESIDIO GRANDE, MARCH 22D-MAY 31ST, 1807.

_Sunday, Mar. 22d._ Remained at the Passo.

_Mar. 23d._ Mass performed; left the Passo at three o'clock, to Fort

Elisiaira [Elizario], accompanied by the lieutenant-governor, the

vicar, and Allencaster, a brother of the governor. Malgares, myself

and the doctor took up our quarters at the house of Capt. [Blank], who

was then at Chihuahua; but his lady and sister entertained us in a

very elegant and hospitable manner. They began playing cards and

continued until late the third day. Malgares, who won considerably,

would send frequently $15 or $20 from the table to the lady of the

house, her sister, and others, and beg their acceptance, in order that

the goddess of fortune might still continue propitious; in this manner

he distributed $500.

Around this fort were a great number of Appaches, who were on a treaty

with the Spaniards. These people appeared to be perfectly independent

in their manners, and were the only savages I saw in the Spanish

dominions whose spirit was not humbled--whose necks were not bowed to

the yoke of their invaders. With those people Malgares was extremely

popular. I believe he sought popularity with them and all the common

people, for there was no man so poor or so humble, under whose roof he

would not enter; when he walked out, I have seen him put a handful of

dollars in his pocket, and give them all to the old men, women, and

children before he returned to his quarters; but to equals he was

haughty and overbearing. This conduct he pursued through the whole

provinces of New Mexico and Biscay, when at a distance from the seat

of government; but I could plainly perceive that he was cautious of

his conduct as he approached the capital [city of Chihuahua]. I here

left a letter for my sergeant.

_Mar. 24th._ Very bad weather.

_Mar. 25th._ The troops marched, but Lt. Malgares and my men remained.

_Mar. 26th._ Divine service was performed in the morning, in the

garrison, at which all the troops attended under arms. At one part of

their mass, they present arms; at another, sink on one knee and rest

the muzzle of the gun on the ground, in signification of their

submission to their divine master. At one o'clock, we bid adieu to our

friendly hostess, who was one of the finest women I had seen in New

Spain. At dusk arrived at a small pond made by a spring which arose in

the center, called the Ogo mall a Ukap, and seemed formed by

providence to enable the human race to pass that route, as it was the

only water within 60 miles on the route. Here we overtook Sergeant

Belardie with the party of dragoons from Senora and Biscay, who had

left us at Fort Elisiaira, where we had received a new escort.

Distance 20 miles.[II'-1]

_Mar. 27th._ Arrived at Carracal [Carrizal], at twelve o'clock,[II'-2]

Distance 28 miles; the road well watered and the situation pleasant.

The father-in-law of our friend commanded six or seven years here.

When we arrived at fort, the commandant, Don Pedro Rues Saramende,

received Robinson and myself with a cold bow, and informed Malgares

that we could repair to the public quarters. To this Malgares

indignantly replied that he should accompany us, and turned to go,

when the commandant took him by the arm, made many apologies to him

and us, and we at length reluctantly entered his quarters. Here for

the first time I saw the gazettes of Mexico, which gave rumors of

Colonel [Aaron] Burr's conspiracies, the movements of our troops,

etc.; but which were stated in so vague and undefined a manner as only

to create our anxiety without throwing any light on the subject.

_Mar. 28th._ Marched at half past three o'clock, and arrived at the

Warm Springs [Ojos Calientes] at sundown; crossed one little fosse on

the route.[II'-3]

_Sunday, Mar. 29th._ Marched at ten o'clock, and continued our route,

with but a short halt, until sundown, when we encamped without water.

Distance 30 miles.[II'-4]

_Mar. 30th._ Marched before seven o'clock; the front arrived at water

at eleven o'clock; the mules, at twelve. The spring[II'-5] on the side

of the mountain, to the east of the road, is a beautiful situation. I

here saw the first ash timber I observed in the country. This water is

52 miles from the Warm Springs. Yesterday and to-day saw cabrie

[antelope, _Antilocapra americana_]. Marched 15 miles further and

encamped without wood or water; passed two other small springs to the

east of the road.

_Mar. 31st._ Marched early and arrived at an excellent spring at ten

o'clock. The roads from Senora, Tanos [qu: Yanos?], Buenaventura,

etc., join about 400 yards before you arrive at this spring.[II'-6]

Arrived at the village of [hiatus][II'-7] at night, a large and

elegant house, for the country; here were various labors carried on by

criminals in irons. We here met with a Catalonian, who was but a short

time from Spain, whose dialect was such that he could scarcely be

understood by Malgares, and whose manners were much more like those of

a citizen of our Western frontiers than of a subject of a despotic

prince.

_Apr. 1st._[II'-8] In the morning Malgares dispatched a courier with

a letter to the Commandant-general Salcedo, to inform him of our

approach, and also one to his father-in-law.

_Apr. 2d._ When we arrived at Chihuahua, we pursued our course through

the town to the house of the general. I was much astonished to see

with what anxiety Malgares anticipated the meeting with his military

chief. Having been on the most arduous and enterprising expedition

ever undertaken by any of his Majesty's officers from these provinces,

and having executed it with equal spirit and judgment, yet was he

fearful of his [Salcedo's] meeting him with an eye of displeasure. He

appeared to be much more agitated than ourselves, although we may be

supposed to have also had our sensations, as on the will of this man

depended our future destiny, at least until our country could

interfere in our behalf. On our arrival at the general's, we were

halted in the hall of the guard until word was sent to the general of

our arrival, when Malgares was first introduced. He remained some

time, during which a Frenchman came up and endeavored to enter into

conversation with us, but was soon frowned into silence, as we

conceived he was only some authorized spy. Malgares at last came out

and asked me to walk in. I found the general sitting at his desk; he

was a middle-sized man, apparently about 55 years of age, with a stern

countenance; but he received me graciously and beckoned to a seat.

He then observed, "You have given us and yourself a great deal of

trouble."

_Captain Pike._ On my part entirely unsought, and on that of the

Spanish government voluntary.

_General Salcedo._ Where are your papers?

_Captain Pike._ Under charge of Lieutenant Malgares.

Malgares was then ordered to have my small trunk brought in, which

being done, a Lieutenant Walker came in, who is a native of New

Orleans, his father an Englishman, his mother a French woman, and who

spoke both those languages equally well, also the Spanish. He was a

lieutenant of dragoons in the Spanish service, and master of the

military school at Chihuahua. This same young gentleman was employed

by Mr. Andrew Ellicott,[II'-9] as a deputy surveyor on the Florida

line between the United States and Spain, in the years 1797 and '98.

General Salcedo then desired him to assist me in taking out my papers,

and requested me to explain the nature of each; such as he conceived

were relevant to the expedition he caused to be laid on one side, and

those which were not of a public nature on the other; the whole

either passing through the hands of the general or of Walker, except a

few letters from my lady. On my taking these up, and saying they were

letters from a lady, the general gave a proof that, if the ancient

Spanish bravery had degenerated in the nation generally, their

gallantry still existed, by bowing; and I put them in my pocket. He

then informed me that he would examine the papers, but that in the

meanwhile he wished me to make out and present to him a short sketch

of my voyage,[II'-10] which might probably be satisfactory. This I

would have positively refused, had I had an idea that it was his

determination to keep the papers, which I could not at that time

conceive, from the urbanity and satisfaction which he appeared to

exhibit on the event of our interview. He then told me that I would

take up my quarters with Walker, in order, as he said, to be better

accommodated by having a person with me who spoke the English

language; but the object, as I suspected, was for him to be a spy on

our actions and on those who visited us.

Robinson all this time had been standing in the guardroom, boiling

with indignation at being so long detained there, subject to the

observations of the soldiery and gaping curiosity of the vulgar. He

was now introduced, by some mistake of one of the aides-de-camp. He

appeared and made a slight bow to the general, who demanded of

Malgares who he [Robinson] was. He replied, "A doctor who accompanied

the expedition." "Let him retire," said the governor; and he went out.

The general then invited me to return and dine with him, and we went

to the quarters of Walker, where we received several different

invitations to take quarters at houses where we might be better

accommodated; but, understanding that the general had designated our

quarters, we were silent.

We returned to dine at the palace, where we met Malgares, who, besides

ourselves, was the only guest. He had at the table the treasurer,

Truxillio [qu.: Trujillo?], and a priest called Father Rocus.

_Apr. 3d._ Employed in giving a sketch of our voyage for the general

and commandant of those provinces. Introduced to Don Bernardo

Villamil; Don Alberto Mayner, lieutenant-colonel, and father-in-law to

Malgares; and Don Manuel Zuloaga, a member of the secretary's office,

to whom I am under obligations of gratitude, and shall remember with

esteem. Visited his house in the evening.

_Apr. 4th._ Visited the hospital, where were two officers, who were

fine-looking men, and I was informed had been the gayest young men of

the province. They were moldering away by disease, and there was not a

physician in his Majesty's hospitals who was able to cure them; but

after repeated attempts, all had given them up to perish. This shows

the deplorable state of medical science in the provinces. I endeavored

to get Robinson to undertake the cure of these poor fellows, but the

jealousy and envy of the Spanish doctors made it impracticable.

_Sunday, Apr. 5th._ Visited by Lieutenant Malgares, with a very polite

message from his Excellency, delivered in the most impressive terms,

with offers of assistance, money, etc., for which I returned my

respectful thanks to the general. Accompanied Malgares to the public

walk, where we found the secretary, Captain Villamil, Zuloaga, and

other officers of distinction. We here likewise met the wife of my

friend Malgares, to whom he introduced us. She was, like all the other

ladies of New Spain, a little _en bon point_, but possessed the

national beauty of eye in a superior degree. There was a large

collection of ladies, amongst whom were two of the most celebrated in

the capital--Señora Maria Con. Caberairi, and Señora Margeurite

Vallois, the only two ladies who had spirit sufficient, and their

husbands generosity enough, to allow them to think themselves rational

beings, to be treated on an equality, to receive the visits of their

friends, and give way to the hospitality of their dispositions without

restraint. They were consequently the envy of other ladies, and the

subject of scandal to prudes; their houses were the rendezvous of all

the fashionable male society; and every man who was conspicuous for

science, arts, or arms, was sure to meet a welcome. We, as unfortunate

strangers, were consequently not forgotten. I returned with Malgares

to the house of his father-in-law, Lieutenant-Colonel Mayner, who was

originally from Cadiz, a man of good information.

_Apr. 6th._ Dined with the general. Writing, etc. In the evening

visited Malgares and the secretary. After dinner wine was set on the

table, and we were entertained with songs in the French, Italian,

Spanish, and English languages. Accustomed as I was to sitting some

time after dinner I forgot their _siesta_, or repose after dinner,

until Walker suggested the thing to me, when we retired.

_Apr. 7th._ Dined at Don Antonio Caberairi's, [qu.: Cabrera's?] in

company with Villamil, Zuloaga, Walker, etc. Sent in the sketch of my

voyage to the general. Spent the evening at Colonel Mayner's with

Malgares.

_Apr. 8th._ Visited the treasurer, who showed me the double-barreled

gun given by Governor [Wm. C. C.] Claiborne, and another formerly the

property of [Captain Philip] Nolan [see note 9, p. 657, and legend on

Pike's map].

_Apr. 9th._ In the evening I was informed that David Ferro[II'-11] was

in town and wished to speak to me. This man had formerly been my

father's ensign, and was taken with Nolan's party at the time the

latter was killed. He possessed a brave soul, and had withstood every

oppression, since being made prisoner, with astonishing fortitude.

Although his leaving the place of his confinement, the village of St.

Jeronimie [San Jeronimo], without the knowledge of the general, was in

some measure clandestine, yet a countryman, an acquaintance, and

formerly a brother soldier, in a strange land, in distress, had

ventured much to see me--could I deny him the interview from any

motives of delicacy? No; forbid it, humanity! forbid it, every

sentiment of my soul!

Our meeting was affecting, tears standing in his eyes. He informed me

of the particulars of their being taken, and many other circumstances

since they had been in the country. I promised to do all I could for

him consistently with my character and honor, and their having entered

the country without the authority of the United States. As he was

obliged to leave town before day, he called on me at my quarters, when

I bid him adieu, and gave him what my purse afforded, not what my

heart dictated.

_Apr. 10th._ In the evening at Colonel Maynor's. Captain Rodiriques

[Rodriguez] arrived from the province of Texas, where he had been

under arrest one year, for going to Natchitoches with the Marquis

Cassa Calvo [Marques de Casa Calva].

_Apr. 11th._ Rode out in the coach with Malgares; was hospitably

entertained at the house of one of the Vallois, where we drank London

porter. Visited Secretary Villamil.

_Sunday, Apr. 12th._ Dined with the doctor, at Don Antonio

Caberarie's, with our usual guests. In the evening at the public

walks.

_Apr. 13th._ Nothing extraordinary.

_Apr. 14th._ Spent the forenoon in writing; the afternoon at Don

Antonio Caberarie's.

_Apr.15th._ Spent the evening at Colonel Maynor's [qu.: Mayron's?]

with our friend Malgares. Wrote a letter to Governor Salcedo on the

subject of my papers.[II'-12]

_Apr. 16th._ Spent the evening at the secretary's, Don Villamil's.

_Apr. 17th._ Sent my letter to his Excellency. Spent the evening with

my friend Malgares.

_Apr. 18th._ Spent the evening at Caberarie's, etc. Wrote to Governor

Allencaster.

_Sunday, Apr. 19th._ In the evening at a fandango.

_Apr. 20th._ We this day learned that an American officer had gone on

to the city of Mexico. This was an enigma to us inexplicable, as we

conceived that the jealousy of the Spanish government would have

prevented any foreign officer from penetrating the country; and why

the United States could send an authorized agent to the viceroyalty,

when the Spanish government had at the seat of our government a chargé

d'affaires, served but to darken the conjectures. The person alluded

to was Mr. Burling, a citizen of Mississippi Territory, whose mission

is now well known to the government. We likewise received an account

of a commercial treaty having been entered into between Great Britain

and the United States, which by the Dons was only considered as the

preliminary step to an alliance offensive and defensive between the

two nations.

_Apr. 21st._ Presented the commanding general with a letter for

General Wilkinson, which he promised to have forwarded to the governor

of Texas.

_Apr. 22d._ Spent the day in reading and studying Spanish; the evening

at Captain Villamil's.

_Apr. 23d._ Dined at Don Pedro Vallois'; spent the evening with

Colonel Maynor; bade him adieu, as he was to march the next day. In

the evening received a letter from the commandant-general, informing

me my papers were to be detained, giving a certificate of their

numbers, contents, etc.[II'-13]