604 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
Moorish towns of Estramadura three hundred years ago. The influence of the 
rest of Europe has greatly changed Spain since the days of Charles V, but that 
influence fell far short of New Mexico. In a few nooks of Spain a hundred years 
ago were remnants of these things which had already vanished from the more 
accessible localities. Cadalso, in his Cartas Marruecas, writing from one of these 
nooks, says: ‘‘ The somber costumes, the women secluded in the houses or appear- 
ing on the streets only with faces muffled in black shawls, the houses with their 
blank street walls jealously hiding the inner courts “3 * * * ** 
and many other things, have made me look into the almanac to see if it was really 
the year 1765, or the year 1500.” Many of these things, to be seen only inthe nooks 
of Spain a hundred years ago, can be seen in some New Mexican towns in the 
year 1880. 
The ancient architecture of New Mexico is decidedly Moorish—though in 
the matter of public buildings, in the palmy days of the Moors in Spain, the 
Moors built of marble where the Mexicans have built of mud, yet in their less 
pretentious buildings adobe formed the principal building materiel of both people. 
Lately I met a Frenchman who had spent twelve ycars in northern Africa 
and Arabia, and he said that for appearance of country, buildings, people, ani- 
mals, climate, etc., the Rio Grande valley might seem to be a slice taken out of 
Algiers or Arabia—at least if the Gringo were taken out and the camel put in. 
Had I space and access to books, to illustrate the resemblance of this country 
to orient lands I might quote from the writings of many observers, from the 
wonderful narrative of Moses, read by more than a hundred generations, to the 
pages of Bayard Taylor which, fresh from the writer’s hand, charmed me when a 
boy. ‘The Soil, the sky, the animals, the implements, the pursuits and the manu- 
factures — what a wonderful resemblance in those of the two regions. The rude 
Mexican cart with its ponderous wooden wheels and wicker boxes of cane or 
willow rods, drawn by oxen whose yoke is a straight stick lashed to their horns 
with rawhide thongs—just such carts are pictured in the most ancient bas-reliefs 
of the Orient —just such carts bore Jacob and his very numerous family from 
famine-stricken Canaan to meet his long-lost son, the viceroy of Egypt—just such 
carts bore the plunder of the Israelites on their long journey from the pastures of 
Goshen to the fords of Jordan—just such carts bore the baggage of Mohammed’s 
lieutenants, toiling and creaking through three thousand miles of desert sands, 
from the Red Sea coast of Arabia to the Atlantic coast of Morocco. 
The manner of threshing, cleaning and grinding grain, (and, it may be said, 
of growing and gathering it) in this region is the same as is described in the earliest 
records of the oriental nations. Moses wrote concerning ‘‘the ox that treadeth 
out the corn,” and the ox is yet used, along with the ass and the goat, for tread- 
ing out the grain of New Mexico. The Mexican threshing-floor is of the same 
description as that which David bought of Araunah the Jebusite, and the Mexican 
now winnows out his wheat in exactly the same manner as Boaz the Moabite was 
winnowing out barley the breezy evening that Ruth came acourting him. ‘‘ Two 
