680 A HISTORY OP HEEEPORD CATTLE 



of the states of New Mexico and Arizona, was ob- 

 tained from Mexico in 1854. It embraced 45,535 

 square miles bounded on the north by the Gila Eiver, 

 on the east by the Eio Grande, and on the west by 

 the Colorado. It had an extreme breadth north to 

 south of 120 miles. The United States gave $10,- 

 000,000 for it, and Mexico agreed to cede claims 

 arising from Indian incursions. This land was pur- 

 chased to settle a dispute and to secure a route for 

 the Southern Pacific Railroad. The treaty was 

 negotiated with Santa Anna by James Gadsden, a 

 South Carolina soldier who was Minister to Mexico, 

 in December, 1853, and was finally ratified on Aug. 

 5, 1854. The sale caused the banishment of General 

 Santa Anna from Mexico. 



Throughout the vast interior regions comprised 

 within the lands acquired from Mexico but few at- 

 tempts had been made to invade the deserts, plains 

 and mountains that were the hunting grounds of 

 the aborigines. Along the Mexican gulf and the 

 Californian coasts hides had an established value, 

 but even near tidewater there was no market of any 

 consequence for fresh beef. 



The Spanish Longhom.— Cattle of Spanish deri- 

 vation have never been specially distinguished as 

 flesh-makers. A pair of horns well adapted for pur- 

 poses of offense or defense, as the case might be, 

 has always been accounted an important character- 

 istic, however, and the Mexican descendants of the 

 animals brought across the Atlantic by the Span- 

 iards neither gained in the one respect nor failed 

 in the other in their new environment. Nevertheless, 



