THE VALLEY. 7 
pletely covered with snow-white lamb-furs ; the ottomans, or 
ather the folding mattresses surrounding the room, would be 
ihc cased in beautifully-washed white cotton counterpanes, or 
J Mexican blankets striped with different colours, but equally 
gure and spotless as the counterpanes. They have also a 
eat way of covering the ceilings with canes similar to 
b amboo-canes, which are arranged in patterns very much like 
Bthose we often see lining the walls of an English summer- 
house. Although a frizzled-up mutton-bone, or some sun- 
dried meat swimming in fat, with tortillas (unfermented bread) 
pabout as thin, tough, and tasteless as buckskin leather, are 
generally all you can confidently look forward to, still you 
may feel quite certain that your host has done his best. The 
people are most courteous to their guests; but they seem 
quite ignorant of the existence of butter, bread, or vege- 
tables of any kind, except in a few of the larger towns. 
Chili Colorado (red pepper) beans, Indian corn, and mutton 
(mostly sun-dried) pretty well complete the list of their 
necessaries of life—not forgetting, of course, tobacco, and 
water-melons when in season. 
On the afternoon of October 6th, after an unusually long 
stretch (thirty miles) of uninhabited valley, we came in view 
of the flag which waved over Fort Craig,—a military post, 
placed on the top of some barren, sandy bluffs overlooking 
the stream. Between Albuquerque and this point (115 miles), 
the valley varies in width from five or six miles to a few 
hundred yards. When I say “ the valley,” I mean the level 
central trough between the bluffs or cliffs on either side. It 
is very seldom, in this distance, that these bluffs approach so 
close as to hem in the stream and obliterate the valley ; and . 
when they do it is only for a very short distance. Isleta is 
one of these points; San Felipe another; Fort Craig a third. 
