362 CHARACTER OF PEOPLE AND GOVERNMENT SANTA f£. 



more or less in the veins of all classes. The men are homely, the 

 women pretty, and while the former are generally condemned for 

 their indolence, insincerity and treacherousness, the latter are praised 

 by all travellers for their frank, affectionate and gentle demeanor. 

 Very little was ever done for education in this remote Territory, 

 which was almost cut-off from the civilizing influences of the rest of 

 the world. Its governors, — either sent by the central authorities of the 

 Mexican Republic, or chosen by the people themselves, — were often 

 overthrown by bloody revolutions ; but, while in power, they used 

 their offices as a prolific means of enriching themselves. Their in- 

 tercourse with strangers from the north, and their facilities in fraud- 

 ulently collecting or compromising duties upon the trade of the 

 caravans, were constantly taken advantage of by the rapacious 

 chiefs ; nor could the national authorities attempt to control them, 

 for the distance of Santa Fe from the capital always made the loyalty 

 of New Mexico loose and insecure. 1 The governors, judiciary, 

 and clergy of the Territory, naturally fostered this feeling among 

 the people, and in many instances it was beneficial to the north of 

 the Republic, especially in opposing the establishment of the tobacco 

 monopoly and in resisting the introduction of the copper currency 

 which elsewhere caused so much distress and ruin. 



The principal town in New Mexico is Santa Fe, or, as it is often 

 written by Spaniards and Mexicans, Santa Fe de San Francisco. 

 It is one of the oldest Spanish settlements in the north, and lies at 

 an elevation of 7047 feet above the sea, in 35° 41' 6 n , north latitude, 

 and 106° 2' 30", longitude west from Greenwich, according to the 

 observations of Lieutenant Colonel Emory of the United States 

 Topographical Engineers, and of Doctors Gregg and Wislizenius. 

 The town is situated in a wide plain surrounded by mountains, 

 about fifteen miles east of the Rio Grande del Norte. Immediately 

 west of the town a snow-capped mountain rises up to a lofty height, 

 and a beautiful stream of small mill power size, ripples down its 

 sides and joins the river about twenty miles to the south-westward. 



Santa Fe is an irregular, scattered town, built of adobes or sun 

 dried bricks, while most of its streets are common highways tra- 

 versing settlements interspersed with extensive cornfields. The 

 only attempt at any thing like architectural compactness and preci- 

 sion, says Dr. Gregg, consists in four tiers of buildings, whose fronts 

 are shaded with a fringe of rude portales or corridors. They stand 

 around the public square, and comprise the Palacio or Governor's 



1 See Gregg's Commerce of the Prairies, vol. i., p. 113. 



