ALBURQUERQUE VALLEY OF TAOS. 363 



house, the custom house, barracks, calabozo, casa consistorial, the 

 military chapel, besides several private residences, as well as most 

 of the shops of the American traders. 



PARROQUIA DE SANTA F E, 



Alburquerque is a town as large as Santa Fe, stretched for 

 several miles along the left bank of the Rio Grande, and if not a 

 handsomer, is at least not a worse looking place than the capital. 



The population of New Mexico, owing to the insecure tenure of 

 life on a frontier which is constantly liable to the ravages of wild 

 Indians, has always clustered together in towns and villages. These 

 are scattered along the valley of the rivers, and are commonly known 

 as the "rio arriva" and " rio abajo" or " up stream" and "down 

 stream" settlements. Even individual ranchos and haciendas serve 

 as the nucleii of large neighborhoods, and finally become important 

 villages. All the principal locations of this character lie in the val- 

 ley between one hundred miles north and one hundred and forty 

 south of the capital. The most important of these next to the capital, 

 is El Valle de Taos, whose name is derived from the Taosa 

 tribe, a remnant of which still forms a Pueblo in the north of the 

 district. No part of New Mexico equals this spot in productiveness ; 

 and although the bottom lands of the valleys where irrigation may be 

 easily obtained have often produced over a hundred fold, yet the 



