TO THE COPPER MINES. AT 
which border them, and rendering the valley impassa- 
ble. There does not seem sufficient space to carry a 
road over the hills, although there may be a practicable 
route within, which was not visible to us. At 11 
o'clock we reached a new settlement on the river's 
bank, called Santa Barbara, where, finding excellent 
grass, [ determined to encamp. The road had been 
quite sandy and rough the fourteen miles we had 
come, and as the next water at the mule spring was 
twenty miles distant, I thought it prudent to go no 
farther. The settlement consisted of a few jacal or 
stick houses, part of which were im the process of erec- 
tion. A deep acequia was already opened, and large 
_ fields of wheat and corn were now undergoing the 
process of immersion. Acres were covered with 
water; and the soil is of so spongy a nature that we 
found it impossible to cross these overflowed places 
with the wagons, so deeply did the wheels sink into it. 
- Herds of cattle and goats; half-naked Mexicans with 
their hoes, peons hooting and yelling as they urged 
on their oxen with their long-pointed poles; and the 
primitive wooden ploughs, turning up the virgin soil, 
exhibited a scene of industry, such as I had not before 
Witnessed in the valley of the Rio Grande. 
We pitched our tents in a thick grove of large 
cotton-woods, near which passed the aceguia; while 
On the opposite side was a pond or laguna, extending 
amile or more. As this body of water was not wider 
than the river, and presented many sinuosities, I think 
it must have been formerly the channel of the Rio 
' Grande; for, like the Mississippi and other rivers 
_ Which flow through an alluvial soil, it is continually 
