CHIHUAHUA WESTWARD. 
*43 
At noon we stopped at one of the 
numerous simple and dreary little vil¬ 
lages with which the country is studded. 
They appear far more desolate than the 
open, bare mesa lands. All are much 
alike, each having one or two streets of 
adobe houses, and a church of forbidding 
aspect, which fronts on a still more unin¬ 
viting looking plaza, about fifty or seventy- 
five feet square, and set with whitewashed 
adobe benches, a stripe of green about 
the latter being almost the only thing to 
remind one of the color of verdure. The 
plaza is the pleasure ground of the people, 
and a more cheerless-looking place one 
could not imagine. 
In investigating some of the resources 
of this country I ran across a (to me) new 
and interesting way of measuring wheat, 
and other products of the soil. I found 
