564 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



Spain; Generals and Governors of Mexico; and even 

 bold Indian chieftains have held their official abode with- 

 in its walls four feet thick. From it in August, 1864, 

 General Armijo, representing the Mexican government, 

 set forth with bombastic proclamations to drive the 

 despised "Gringo" from New Mexico, then part of 

 Old Mexico, but six days later bluflf old General Stephen 

 Kearney stood in the self same place and took possession 

 of the country in the name of the United States. 



In 1862 the flag of the Confederacy flew from its staff 

 for a few days but its stay was brief and the stars and 

 stripes soon displaced it. Had we seen no more than 



and drops no, almost falls to the river over a steep 

 grade. The stream is bridged with a ramshackle affair 

 of logs that impresses one with the idea that it is likely at 

 almost any moment to drop the passerby into the emerald 

 green waters dancing beneath it. 



Here at an old sawmill town we leave the motor, 

 although it is a good auto road clear to the Canyon of the 

 Frijoles, and with our camp outfit packed on two mules 

 and ourselves on saddle horses climb the breast of the 

 mountain over a grade that winds and twists its way 

 upward like some great tawny snake, for the soil here is 

 as yellow as gold. Its a good three thousand feet from 



LOOKING DOWN ON THE REMARKABLE AMPHITHEATRE 



Almost directly beneath us is a large crescent-shaped object looking like a huge piece of honey comb and positioned like a great amphitheater. 

 Once a huge pile of rubbish, it has been excavated and exposed to view by the Santa Fe Archaeological Society. 



Santa Fe the trip would have been well worth while. 

 A paper ribbon flung into the air at carnival time 

 could not drop to the ground and form more fantastic 

 curls and loops than does the road that leads out from 

 Santa Fe towards the "Bandelier National Monument." 

 It rises and falls with the contour of the landscape, 

 winding and twisting across the semi-desert region as if 

 uncertain at which point it will break its way through the 

 grim ramparts of the Jemez mountains that loom against 

 the sky line, miles to the northwest. Occasionally to the 

 left and far down below one catches sight of a streak 

 of green water flecked with white; the historic Rio 

 Grande, and finally the road turns abruptly towards it 



the river to the top of the mountain and soon we meet 

 the first yellow pines, harbingers of the great unbroken 

 forest above. At the top we plunge into its very deeps 

 through which we ride for twelve miles, the air heavy 

 with its lige-giving odor, across lovely forest parks, their 

 grassy vales dotted with wild flowers of every hue, blue 

 bells, pestamon, Indian pinks, petunias, phlox and a 

 dozen more garden favorites, splashing through happy 

 little rivulets rushing madly towards the river far be- 

 low, the road ever climbing higher and higher. We turn 

 corners of the mountain where the cotuitry falls away 

 steeply and as far as the eye can reach is one great 

 sea of hills and valleys, distant peaks, flat topped mesa 



