number, and either from necessity or shaken faith, they left some six years ago the home of their fathers, and joined another tribe.
From Pecos springs we went that afternoon six mill, over a very mountainous road, to Cottonwood branch, a small valley amidst high mountains, where oaks, maple (Negundo fraxinifolia,) common and bitter cottonwood, (Populus Canadensis and angustifolia) grow, surrounded by pine trees. This is the highest point on the Santa Fe road; according to my barometrical measurements, it is 7,250 feet above the level of the sea.
June 29.–Travelled in the forenoon eight miles over rough road; through a narrow valley, or rather a cañon with a ravine running through it. We halted at noon on a clear mountain stream. From Cotton branch to this camp, all the rocks around us consisted of sandstone in the most varied forms–of common, silicious, and calcareous sandstone, white, red, grayish, striped, and spottedsometimes looser and coarse grained; sometimes finer and very compact. The strata were generally horizontal, except near our noon camp, where they seemed to have been uplifted from southwest to northeast, in an angle of nearly 100 degrees. From our noon camp the caravan started through another cañon about six miles long, while I preferred, for better examination of the country, to ride over a mountain path, that cut off several miles. This mountain path was extremely steep, and strewed all over with blocks of granite and some gneiss. This is the first place on the Santa Fe road where I found the granite undoubtedly in situ. On Rio Pecos, and some other localities, the granite was always in a decomposed and conglomerate state, and was most likely transported there in the course of centuries by the yearly risings of the river. But here I stood upon firm granite ground, thrown up from the bowels of the earth in one of the grand revolutions which, in time immemorial, have changed the nature of our globe. This granitic formation extends without interruption from here to Santa Fe. At the highest point of the road is a small plain with good grass, and a fine view over the mountains. Many wooden crosses are here erected upon heaps of granite rocks–a sign that many travellers have met here with an untimely grave by the hand of robbers. Descending again, I reached the common wagon road on the other end of the cañon, and waited for the wagons, which soon afterwards arrived, and we encamped near some springs. Our night camp is the same spot where, some months after this narrative, Governor Armijo was encamped with his whole army, prepared for a battle with General Kearny. On a small eminence at the outlet of the cañon he had put his batteries, intending probably to molest the Americans through the whole length of the cañon, and to give here the decisive battle. The ground was easy enough to be defended. The whole mountain road, in fact, from las Vegas to Santa Fe, is by nature so fortified, that the Americans may congratulate themselves not to have encountered a more energetic enemy, who, without fighting any great battle, by mere skirmishing and harassing might have destroyed the whole army.
June 30.–In the morning we travelled six miles over a sandy and gravelly road, surrounded, as usual, by thick pine limber, and halted at a small creek. From here Santa Fe is but four miles distant. Riding ahead, I passed several hills, and overlooked then at once the beautiful wide valley, environed by nearer or more distant mountains, in which Santa Fe, the celebrated capital of New Mexico, lies. My expectations of seeing a fine city had already been cooled down by previous accounts of
