92 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



sipped, we thanked them for their hospitality, bade them 

 good-by, and took our compass course north-east for town. 

 As we turned away, the woman said, pleasantly, " If you 

 meet anyone who wants to buy an improved claim, send 

 them this way ; " and I received the impression that she 

 meant all she said, and a good deal more. 



During the two following days w^e are riding in different 

 directions oyer this much-boomed section of country, and 

 find farmers long distances apart, in out-of-the-way places ; 

 some in side-hill " dug-outs," some in turf shanties with 

 a single window and earth for a floor, and some establish- 

 ments of the kind abandoned and claim given up. Occasion- 

 ally we found a settler and his wife who appeared bright and 

 cheerful ; but most them, especially the wives, bore a sorrow- 

 ful countenance, as if the lioht of their lives had gone out. 

 We have not time to particularize and make comparisons 

 here ; and only stop to say we left the section with the im- 

 pression that the family interviewed during our first day's 

 ramble were country nabobs in that land ; and, if they did 

 not sell out, have probably finished their well, and have an 

 abundance of water. 



But now we are away across the continent to the south- 

 west ; have passed through the canons and gorges of the 

 Rockies ; have looked with awe at the snow-covered Spanish 

 Peaks ; have succeeded in the struggle up Pike's Peak trail 

 to the summit ; and have reached a dry, thirsty and barren, 

 though boomed, land, and stop to take breath at Las Vegas, 

 New Mexico. We cannot stop to describe its wonderful hot 

 soda and sulphur springs, or their boasted curative properties ; 

 but hasten to tell of a discoveri/ we thought we made here, 

 but afterwards found to be as common all over the Western 

 country as hay-seed. It was what might be called a profes- 

 sional emigrant. We saw a sturdy man with a pair of good 

 mules grading around the railroad hotel (the Montezuma). 

 He looked and talked like a Yankee ; not quite that, but 

 certainly he was not a foreigner. At noon, when roving 

 on the outskirts of the village, we noticed the same man 

 with the team put out, and feeding from the rear end of 

 the wagon. Himself, a woman and three children were 

 seated on the ground near by, eating their dinner from tin 



