EL PASO DEL NORTE. 389 
A difficulty arises when the Indians, on being 
pursued, take refuge in Mexico, where our troops 
cannot follow them. Some arrangement should be 
entered into by which small bodies of U.S. soldiers 
may be permitted, on such occasions, to enter Mexican 
territory within prescribed hmits. This plan would 
be agreeable to the Mexican authorities, as they 
informed me. 
I have no doubt that much might yet be accom- 
plished by sending suitable agents among the Indians; 
men who are at heart philanthropists, and who will ear- 
nestly engage in the work of ameliorating their condi- 
tion. Much good could be done, too, by sending 
mechanics among them, particularly carpenters and 
blacksmiths, also a supply of implements of husbandry. 
Most of the tribes beyond the Rio Grande are more or 
less agriculturists; and an attempt should be made to 
bring the wild Apaches and Comanches into the same 
condition. The pursuit most immediately adapted to 
their nature and habits would be the raising of cattle 
and mules; a business which they could most profit- 
ably pursue, and which they fully understand already. 
The rising generation could be advanced a step 
further, and taught the first principles of agricul- 
ture. 
A plan has been proposed in California to drive 
all the tribes of that country to New Mexico. This is 
wrong ; and the project ought not, for a moment, to be 
entertained. As a writer on the subject remarks, 
it would be “turning New Mexico into an area for 
the mutual extermination of the Indians, or else driv- 
ing a portion of them from their old homes to join the 
