*-J^ 



PIXON NUT-HARYEST. 



129 



iinber, and cverpyliorc the j)it"Aon or nut-X)iiic [Plnus eduUs) 



^row in tKe greatest abundance. This species is said to hear 

 riiit only once every seven years. If such he the case, then 

 867 was the great harvest year^ for the nuts were most 

 Dundant. The cone of a piiion tree much resemhles that of 

 Iji ordinary fir ; but when ripe it opens, and discloses at the 

 ise of each scale a brown nut, about the si^e of a plum- 

 one, with a thin shell, and a plump delicious little kernel. 

 'he Mexicans believe the year of nut-harA^est to bo a very 

 licky one ; they expect an unusual increase to their flocks 

 ul their families, and consider that those who are married, 

 ^^ well as those who are born during nutting-time, will have 

 le best of good fortune in after life. 



We found the country studded hero and there with a 



-amber of Mexican villages, nineteen of which were within 



distance of twenty miles from the proposed line of railway. 



e largest are Anton Chico and San Miguel, each numbering 



out 1,000 inhabitants; the smallest is Cuesta, containmg 



[oout fifty families. The people raise sheep, horned cattle, 



ules, maize, beans, onions, red pepper, melons, &c.^' and in 



finy 



places the crops are grown without irrigation. 



For 



any years they have been but little troubled by Indians ; 

 it on the 3rd of ISTovember, 1865, the wild tribe, kno^m 

 the Mescalcro Apaches, who had been induced to settle on 

 reservation at Port Sumner, 100 miles south-east of 

 nton Chico, left in a body, and have continued from that 

 e to roam about in search of booty, spreading terror and 

 ^>nfusion amongst the unprotected Mexicans, robbing them 

 their flocks, and often mm-dering them if they resisted. 

 Early in the morning of the third day after our departm^o 

 rem Los Yegas we reached the Eio Pecos, at the Eilliam- 

 lante crossing. Here our ^^ outfit" stuck fast in the middle of 



VOL. I. 



K 



