a i: ee, seated it a - —— ee a 
‘ | lee S i 
. * ‘ om 
35 Psa 
higher class dress like the American women, except, instead of 
the bonnet, they wear a scarf over the head. This they wear, 
asleep or awake, in the house or abroad. 
The dress of the lower class of women is a simple petticoat, with 
arms and shoulders bare, except what may chance to be covered by 
the reboso. . ; : : 
The men who have means to doso, dress after our fashion; but by 
far the greater number, when they dress at all, wear leather ° 
breeches, tight round the hips and open from the knee down; shirt 
and blanket take the place of our coat and vest. 
The city is dependant on the distant hills for wood, and at all — 
hours of the day may be seen jackasses passing laden with wood, 
which is sold at two bits (twenty-five cents) the load. T.ese are 
the most diminutive animals, and usually mounted. from behind, 
after tne fashion of leap-frog. The jackass is the only animal that 
can be subsisted in this barren neighborhood without great expense; 
our horses are all sent to a distance of twelve, fifteen, and thirty 
_ miles for grass. 
Grain was very high when we. first entered the town, selling | 
freely at five and six dollars the fanegas, (one hundred and forty 
pounds.) As olr wagons draw near, and the crops of wheat are 
_ being gathered, the price is falling gradually to four dollars the 
fanegas. . , 
Milk at six cents per pint, eggs three cents a piece, sugar thirty- 
~~ 
* 
five cents per pound, and coffeeseventy-five cents. The sugarused __ 
in the country is principally made from the cornstalk. NEELOL 
A great reduction must take place now in the price of dry goods © zi 
and groceries, twenty per cent. at least, for this was about the rate 
of duty charged by Armijo, which is now, of course, taken off. 
He collected fifty or sixty thousand dollars annually, plivelly, 
indeed, entirely, on goods imported overland from the United States. 
His charge was $500 the wagon load, without regard to the con- 
tents of the wagon or vaiue of the goods, and hence the duty wat 
very unjust and unequal. ~ ms . 
Mr. Alvarez informed me that the importations from the United 
States varied very much, but that he thought they would average 
about half a million of dollars yearly, and no more. Most of the 
wagons go on to Chihuahua without breaking their loads... 
Rese Mexico contains, according to the last census, made a few 
years since, 100,000 inhabitants. It is divided into three depart- e 
ments—the northern, middle, and southeastern. These are again 
sub-divided into counties, and the counties into townships. The 
lower or southern division is incomparably the richest, containing 
48,000 inhabitants, many of whom are wealthy and in possession 
of farms, stock, and gold dust. ; 
New Mexico, although its soil is barren, and its resources limit- 
Ls 
ed, unless the gold mines should, as is probable, be more extensively 
developed hereafter, and the culture of the grape enlarged, is, front 
its position, in a commercial and military aspect an ‘imp ortant | 
military possession for the United States. The road from Santa Fé” 
iD Té ac 
to Fort Leayenworth presents few obstacles for arai 
