272 THEIR BIG SNAKE. 



two days, each guard continued with the same 

 unbending severity of purpose until exliaus- 

 tion, and very frequently death, left their places 

 to he filled by others. A large portion of those 

 who came out alive were generally so com- 

 pletely prostrated by the want of repose and 

 the inhalation of carbonic gas that they very 

 soon died ; when, as the \Tilgar story asseve- 

 rates, their remains were carried to the den 

 of a monstrous serpent, which kept itself in 

 excellent condition by feeding upon these 

 dehcacies. This huge snake (invented no doubt 

 by the lovers of the marvellous to account for 

 the constant disappearance of the Indians) 

 was represented as the idol which they wor- 

 shipped, and as subsisting entirely upon the 

 flesh of his devotees : live infants, however, 

 seemed to suit his palate best. The story of 

 this wonderful serpent was so firmly beheved 

 in by many ignorant people, that on one oc- 

 casion I heard an honest ranchero assert, that 

 upon entering the village very early on a win- 

 ter's morning, he saw the huge trail of the 

 reptile in the snow, as large as that of a drag- 

 ging ox. 



This village, anciently so renowned, lies 

 twenty-five miles eastward of Santa Fe, and 

 near the Eio Pecos, to which it gave name. 

 Even so late as ten years ago, when it con- 

 tained a population of fifty to a hundred souls, 

 the traveller would oftentimes perceive but a 

 solitary Indian, a woman, or a child, standing 

 here and there hke so many statues upon the 

 roofs of their houses, A\dth their eyes fixed on 



