THE NORTHERN MYSTERY 243 



muscles averse to toil, and ready at a moment's 

 notice to relax in slumber beneath the shade 

 of a cottonwood-tree, or to let their owners 

 flop in crumpled heaps against a sun-baked 

 wall. 



The old friars were wily, if not always 

 very wise. Above everything, they had the 

 courage of their opinions. They carried their 

 lives in their hands, and yielded them un- 

 complainingly should the mood of their flock 

 set that way. Betwixt Franciscans and Jesuits 

 there was, during Spanish rule, a perpetual 

 rivalry if rivalry it can be called, when one 

 side has distinctly the mastery ; but with the 

 importation by Bishop Lamy, in 1854, of 

 French priests and sisters, the Jesuits in their 

 turn won the ascendancy. 



When, in the course of years of inter- 

 mittent struggle and warfare, New Mexico 

 was at last conquered by Spain, and Onate, 

 the first Governor, was appointed, his route 

 lay from what is now the border-city of El 

 Paso up the fertile Valley of Mesilla and the 

 Rio Grande to Albuquerque, two hundred 

 miles distant. Paso del Norte, the Pass of 

 the North, was even then a settlement, and 



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