CHAPTER VII. 



r 



Geographical Position of New Mexico— Absence of navigable 

 Streams— The Rio del Norte— Romantic Chasm— Story of a 

 sunken River — Mr. Stanley's Excursion to a famous Lake 

 Santa Fe and its Localities— El Valle de Taos and its Fertility- 

 Soil of N. Mexico— The first Settler at Taos and his Contract 

 ■w'ith the Indians — Safubrity and Pleasantness of the Climate 

 of New_ Mexico — Population — State of Agriculture— Staple 

 Productions of the Country — Corn-fields and Fences — Irriga- 

 tion and Acequias — Tortillas and Tortilleras — Atole, Frijoles, 

 and Ckile — Singular Custom — Culinary and Table Affairs — 

 Flax and the Potato indigenous — Tobacco axiiPunche — Fruits 

 ^^Peculiar Mode of cultivating the Grape — Fore5t Growths — 

 Pinon and Mezquite — Mountain Cottonwood — Palmilla or 



Soap-plant— Pasturage. 



New Mexico possesses but few of those 

 natural advantages, which are necessary to 

 an}-tliing- Hke a rapid progress in ciiTUzation. 

 Though boimded north and east by the terri- 

 tory of the United States, south by that of 

 Texas and Chihuahua, and west by Upper 

 CaUfornia, it is surrounded by chains of moun- 

 tains and prairie wilds, extendhig to a distance 

 of 500 miles or more, except in the direction 

 of Chihuahua, from which its settlements are 

 separated by an unpeopled desert of nearly 

 two hundred miles — and without a^ single 

 means of communication by water with any 

 other part of the world. 



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