THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 303 



name, and a small rivulet which, in running eastward to the open plains, 

 soon sinks into the ground. Several dams are constructed along this 

 rivulet, to collect and retain the water for purposes of irrigation. The 

 town is built partly of logs set on end jacal fashion, with the interstices 

 filled with mortar, and with roofs covered with earth, and partly of 

 adobes. It sports a very dilapidated church, erected, it would seem, 

 as a practical antithesis to the morals of the inhabitants ; for Manzana 

 enjoys pre-eminently the wide-spread notoriety of being the resort of 

 more murderers, robbers, common thieves, scoundrels, and vile aban- 

 doned women than can be found in any other town of the same size in 

 New Mexico, which is saying a good deal about Manzana. Fortunately 

 it contains but few inhabitants, not more than five or six hundred at 

 most. It is not an old town. When the first settlers came here they 

 found two groves of apple-trees, one just above the site now occupied 

 by the town, and one just below. Tradition says these trees were 

 planted at the time Abo and Qiiarrawere inhabited; and yet, tradition 

 has lost all trace of when that lime was. It is said the Catholic church 

 of New Mexico claims that they were planted by some priests, but 

 admits that it has no records or authentic traditions about the ruins 

 we have visited. Her claim, however, that some priests did this at 

 some period or other, is good enough to authorize her to farm out 

 these two orchards yearly, as we were informed, to the highest bidder. 

 Two of the largest trees in the lower grove were found to be respec- 

 tively eight feet and six feet in circumference. The largest was hollow 

 — a mere shell of an inch or two in thickness. These trees have a 

 venerable appearance. They have never been pruned, and have, 

 therefore, grown gnarled and scraggy. Many of them are much smaller 

 than those which were measured. They have grown, doubtless, from 

 seeds which have fallen from the older ones. How long this process of 

 self-planting has been kept up, of course, no one can know. Apple- 

 trees are not indigenous to New Mexico. Assuming it to be true, how- 

 ever, that the largest of these trees were planted at the period referred 

 to, then the ruins of Abo and Quarni are more than two centuries old. 



These two groves, or rather these two clumps of trees, are not stand- 

 ing regularly in rows and orchard-like; on the contrary, they are 

 crowded together in the most irregular and natural manner. 



The name of this town, and of the towering Sierra to the west of it, 

 was adopted from finding these orchards 'here ; Manzana being the 

 Spanish for apple, and Mavzano the botanical name m that language 

 for apple-tree. The nam.e of the town is spelt indiscriminately in both 

 ways throughout New Mexico. 



Immediately about Manzana, and up the slope towards the high 

 mountains west of the town, there is a pine forest many miles in extent, 

 of most excellent timber for boards and for building purposes. Some 

 twenty-five or thirty miles in an easterly direction there is a large salt 

 lake, which has no outlet. This lake, supplies nearly the whole of the 

 upper portion of the territory with salt. There are fine n^ads leading 

 towards it from different directions. We were informed that the bottom 

 of the lake is covered with a sheet of solid salt, which, in the dry 

 season, is some three or four inches in thickness. When the rainy 

 season sets in, filling the lake with fresh water drained from the sur- 



