CHAPTER III. 
From the mouth of the Apishpa, via the Sanqre de Cristo , to Bouhideau's Pass.—Auqust 
2 to 25, 1853. 
Valley of the Apishpa.—Rocks and soil of the hills and valley.—Small canon —Examination of the canon.—Indian writings.— 
Cacti.—Small pines.—Route of the wagon train.—Rocks and grass.—Game.—Appearance of the mountains.—Fossils.— 
Flowers.—Wild horses.—Timber on the Arkansas in sight.—Rains, dews, winds.—Course of the Apishpa, and broken 
character of the country.—Discovered that we were not on the Huerfano.—Road to Raton Pass.—Cuchara river.—Fine 
view.—Trip to the Greenhorn settlement.—Clay and shale banks of the Cuchara.—Dog towns.—Wild horses.—Huerfano 
river and butte.—Huerfano canon —Apache creek.—Trail from Taos.—Trader’s camp.—Granaros.—Greenhorn settlement: 
its population and productions.—Massaliuo, the guide.—Sleeping apartments in Greenhorn.—Huerfano butte.—Direct line 
from the Arkansas to the upper Huerfano, leaving the former above the mouth of the Apishpa: its railroad character.— 
Size of the Huerfano river.—Soil—Building-stone.—Ascent of the Huerfano.—Taos trail, via El Sangre de Cristo Pass.— 
Approach to the Sangre de Cristo Pass.—Sand and limestone.—Railroad route.—Timber.—Flowers.—Game—Difficulties 
in the approach.—The passage of the Sangre de Cristo Pass.—Scenery.—Game.—Distances, altitudes, grades.—Railroad 
line through the pass and its western descent to Fort Massachusetts.—Examination of the mountains to the south of the Span¬ 
ish peaks.—Hunters from Taos.—Snow in and about the Sangre de Cristo Pass.—Trip to Taos.—San Luis valley: its streams 
and settlements.—Indian signals and robbery.—Red river of the Rio Grande del Norte.—Valley of Taos: its settlements and 
cultivation.—Return to Fort Massachusetts.—Antoine D&roux, guide.—Men discharged.—Mr. Taplin.—White Mountain 
spring.—Sage in San Luis valley.—Roubideau’s Pass: its rocks, character, grades, elevation.—San Luis valley, and mount¬ 
ain chains enclosing it. 
August 2.—Our route, following the creek, lay up a plain valley for five miles, ascending more 
rapidly than that of the Arkansas; then for 8-§- miles about the same, with a far wider and better 
grassed plain than on that river. There are no bottom lands on this stream, which flows in a 
deep, narrow passage, with precipitous banks, cut in the argillaceous soil of the plain. Such 
water channels, with steep earthy banks, are styled arroyos by the New Mexicans, in contra¬ 
distinction to canones, which are w r alled with rocks. At a few yards distance in the plain, one 
would not here expect to find water, even though acquainted with the character of the country, 
much less a cool mountain stream. The banks, twenty feet in depth, are green with grass, the 
arroyo at top being twenty-five or thirty feet in width; but we only found one point during the 
day’s march at which we could descend to the water, which is at a point where the plain is 
underlaid by a stratum of shale. This creek, in this part of its course, hugs the base of a line of 
hills sloping down from the east; the valley at our camp being about a mile in width, sweeping 
up gently to the west and southwest for several miles, where it appears terminated by elevated 
hills. Thermometer in the shade during the warmest part of the day, 104° Fahrenheit. 
August 3.—The survey was continued along the valley of the creek, rising gradually for 2J 
miles over a gentle swell, extending in towards the stream, to a nearly level prairie, from two to 
three miles in width, extending for nine miles in a course S. 23° W. We encamped at the 
mouth of a small cation on the creek at the foot of the hills terminating this plain. The party 
being without a guide, it was found necessary very often to make distant excursions to the 
summits of the most elevated bluffs and hills, from which extensive views could be obtained, 
and the courses of the streams and main depressions of the country followed by the eye. These 
bluffs and hills passed to-day, as also the banks of dry ravines and creeks, were sometimes com¬ 
posed of a red sandstone and of strata of shale, and at others of a sandstone of a yellowish shade, 
from the disintegrations of which the soil of the hills and valley is formed, being light and friable, 
in which the felloes of the wagon wheels sink deep and cast up clouds of dust, from the pun¬ 
gency of which we judged the cement of the sandstone to be carbonate of lime. 
