THE OLD IN NEW MEXICO. 505 
This old town is probable the oldest in the United States, having been a populous 
place when the Spaniards found it in 1542. Its citizens claim that it was then 
known as Cicuyé, but other authorities believe that the old Pecos village was the 
true site of Cicuyé. Schoolcraft makes no doubt of this, and gives, in his 
history of the North-American Indians, an engraving of the old church and 
surroundings under the title of ‘‘Cicuyé or Pecos.” 
The city lies on the edge of a basin of the mountains, and viewed from the 
summit of a neighboring peak, looks like a vast collection of brick kilns. The 
houses are mostly of adobe, one-storied, squarely built, and the smoke curling 
from their tops assists the appearance named. The Santa Fe river—called river 
by courtesy, for the stream is no wider than you can leap across—flows through 
its midst. 
Its early name was ‘‘the city of San Francisco Asis de Santa Fe,” Saint 
Francis being the patron saint. Later it was called ‘* La Ville Real de Santa Fe,” 
which has been reduced to simple Santa Fe, ‘‘ Holy Faith.” Its population now 
is about 6,000. Its latitude is 35 deg., 41 min., its longitude 106 deg., 10 min., 
and its altitude 7,000 feet. Its time is one hour, fifty-six minutes and four 
seconds slower than Washington time. 
Among the objects of interest is the Governor’s palace, which was erected 
previous to 1581, from the material of the old town, one story in height and some 
two hundred feet long, with a piazza along its whole front. It has the appear- 
ance of an adobe structure whitened with lime wash. It is nearly two hundred 
years older than Independence Hall in Philadelphia, and is to this time occupied 
by the Governor of the Territory. Another attractive object is the San Miguel 
church, also built of adobes, and more than two hundred and fifty years old. 
Across the street is the oldest dwelling house in Santa Fe, said to have been built 
before the visit of Coronado, in 1540. It is of adobe, 60 feet long, 12 high and 
15 wide, and is still occupied by several families. The Bishop’s Cathedral is now 
being constructed in modern style, and incloses the old adobe church which will 
be torn away when the Cathedral is finished. 
Guadalupe chapel is another relic of the past, being an adobe building with 
smooth walls, and surmounted by a diminishing tower formed of mud pillars and 
containing an antique bell. 
Everything about Santa Fe except the railroad and the plaza, which is 
planted with shade trees and inclosed by a neat fence, is antiquated and foreign. 
At Albuquerque we strike the Rio Grande, and along its narrow valley, by 
means of irrigating canals, the various cereals are raised, as well as apples, peaches 
and grapes, the last named being of very superior quality. 
Near Alamilla station, about fifty miles below Albuquerque, is a Pueblo 
village consisting of a hundred or more huts. Close by is an immense lava rock 
profusely decorated with rude drawings of animals, boats, etc., and in a cave 
near are paintings in black, red and yellow colors representing, among other 
