4 
72 ‘TOWNS WITHOUT HOUSES.’ 
tadero, and many others, and we could hear 
Aleman, Robledo, and a dozen such spoken of 
on the way, leading the stranger to imagine 
that the route was lined with flourishing vil- 
lages. The arriero will tell one to hasten— 
“we must reach San Diego before sleeping.” | 
We spur on perhaps with redoubled vigor, in 
hopes to rest at a town; but lo! upon arriv- 
ing, we find only a mere watering-place, with- 
out open ground enough to graze the ¢ 
da. Thus every point along these wilderness 
highways used as a camping-site, has received 
a distinctive name, well known to every mu- 
leteer who travels them. Many of these pa- 
rages, without the slightest vestige of human 
improvement, figure upon most of the current 
maps of the day as towns and villages. Yet 
there is not a single settlement (except of very 
recent establishment) from those before men- 
tioned to the vicinity of El Paso, a distance 
of near two hundred miles. 
We arrived at Fray Cristébal in the even- 
ing, but this being the threshold of the fa- 
mous Jornada del Muerto, we deemed it pru- 
dent to let our animals rest here until the 
following afternoon. The road over which 
we had hitherto been travelling, though it 
sometimes traverses upland ridges and undu- 
lating sections, runs generally near the border 
of the river, and for the most part in its im- 
mediate valley: but here it leaves the river 
and passes for nearly eighty miles over a 
table-plain to the eastward of a small ledge 
of mountains, whose western base is hugged 
