180 
NOTES ON AN AMERICAN TOUR. 
houses, as they are called, are scattered about over a large 
tract of the country ; the bricks are about eighteen inches 
long, nine inches wide, and three and a half inches thick, 
and are stuck together with mud for mortar, and plastered 
over with smooth mud, and the flat roofs are made with poles 
laid flat across the top of the walls and plastered over with 
mud. Many modern houses of this make are built with 
regular wood-framed doors and windows, and they are uni¬ 
versally preferred by the native population of mixed Mexican 
breed. A number of Indians were seen swarming about the 
train at the stations in the open country, bringing curiosities 
for sale. 
Then we stopped at Santa Fe, in New Mexico, the oldest 
town in the United States, where a fine collection was seen 
of interesting and unique Mexican relics, including an agate 
spearhead as large as 6J inches long and 4J inches wide, 
said to be the largest known, and stone axe-heads with three 
grooves round them for the binding on the handle, con¬ 
sidered to be unique. The place was most delightful from 
the soft clear air and brilliant sunshine, at an elevation of 
7,000 feet above the sea. 
From there the journey was all day across a great level 
plain, bounded by lovely blue mountains on each side at 
twenty to fifty miles distance, the plain being 4,000 feet high 
above the sea, in some parts green with shrubs and dwarf 
trees, but more generally bearing nothing but isolated cactus 
plants and tufts of the sharp-pointed “ Mexican dagger plant,” 
a kind of aloe (Yucca anyusti folia), the root of which is used 
as soap in the district. 
One long portion of the country was an absolute desert of 
sand, without any object visible but the distant mountains, 
and we saw there, in passing, a real desert mirage; the blue 
hills about fifty miles off at the extreme horizon appeared 
lifted up in the air, with an inverted reflection of them below 
and a narrow streak of apparent water in front. This had the 
exact appearance of a great lake, with the reflection of the 
hills in the water; the whole so perfectly natural when 
examined with an opera glass, that it seemed impossible for 
it not to be real. The scene remained visible without altera¬ 
tion for a long time whilst passing in the train. The sun 
was blazing hot, with an almost cloudless sky, but there was 
a delightful soft cool fresh air that made the weather perfectly 
delicious. 
Benson, in Arizona, on the Mexican frontier, was the 
most southerly point visited (about the latitude of Alexandria). 
The great charm of the country was the “ desert garden; ” 
