FIRST IMPRESSIONS 1 1 



grow, vineyards with vines still banked up 

 and tied for better protection from the cold. 

 Here and there was yet to be seen a 

 hacienda, or fortified dwelling, built around 

 a patio, or courtyard, with windows few and 

 inconspicuous, and each hacienda possessing 

 one broad arched doorway for the admission 

 of loaded waggons in times when Indians 

 were a perpetual dread. There was a weird 

 attraction about the landscape which made 

 me, for one, declare that I should like to sit 

 on the mesa in the sunshine for hours every 

 day. This awful desolation those granite 

 peaks behind, the fertile vale before the 

 scene was unique. It appealed vividly to 

 the imagination ; anything might have hap- 

 pened in such a landscape. And verily 

 enough has happened to earn for the village 

 the name of Las Cruces (The Crosses). Here, 

 in days not so long past, cross after cross 

 dotted the soil, marking the spot where, 

 each in his turn, the white settler fell beneath 

 the tomahawk of the Indian savage ; and in 

 the village plaza one large wooden cross still 

 bears the inscription, 'To the Unknown Dead.' 

 The Indian savage has now, in this section at 



