SEVERAL geographers confound New Mexico with the Provincias internas; and they speak of it as a country rich in mines, and of vast extent. The celebrated author of the philosophic history of the European establishments in the two Indies has contributed to propagate this error. What he calls the empire of New Mexico is merely a coast inhabited by a few poor colonists. It is a fertile territory, but very thinly inhabited, and destitute, as is universally believed, of metallic wealth, extending along the Rio del Norte, from the 31° to the 38 of north latitude. This province is from south to north 175 leagues in length, and from east to west from 30 to 50 leagues in breadth; and its territorial extent, therefore, is much less than people of no great information in geographical matters are apt to suppose even in that country. The national vanity of the Spaniards loves to magnify the spaces, and to remove, if not in reality, at least in imagination, the limits of the country occupied by them to as great a distance as possible. In the memoirs which I

STATISTICALXIII. Province of Nuevo Mexico.

procured on the position of the Mexican mines, the distance from Arispe to the Rosario is esti mated at 300, and from Arispe to Copala at 400 marine leagues, without reflecting that the whole intendancy of Sonora is not 280 marine leagues in length. From the same cause, and especially for the sake of conciliating the favour of the court, the conquistadores, the missionary monks, and the first colonists, gave weighty names to small things. We have already described one kingdom, that of Leon, of which the whole population does not equal the number of Franciscan monks in Spain, Sometimes a few collected huts take the pompous title of villa. A cross planted in the forests of Guyana figures on the maps of the missions sent to Madrid and Rome, as a village inhabited by Indians. It is only after living long in the Spanish colonies, and after examining more nar rowly these fictions of kingdoms, towns, and villages, that the traveller can form a proper scale for the reduction of objects to their just value.

The Spanish conquerors shortly after the destruction of the Aztec empire set on foot solid establishments in the north of Anahuac. The town of Durango was founded under the administration of the second viceroy of New Spain, Velasco el Primero, in 1559. It was then a military post against the incursions of the Chichimec

STATISTICAL

ANALYSIS. XIII. Province of Nuevo Mexico.

Indians. Towards the end of the 16th century, the viceroy, count de Monterey, sent the valorous Juan de Onate to New Mexico. It was this general who, after driving off the wandering Indians, peopled the banks of the great Rio del Norte.

From the town of Chihuahua a carriage can go to Santa Fe of New Mexico. A sort of caleche is generally used, which the Catalonians call volantes. The road is beautiful and level; and it passes along the eastern bank of the great river (Rio grande), which is crossed at the Passo del Norte. The banks of the river are extremely picturesque, and are adorned with beautiful poplars, and other trees peculiar to the temperate

zone.

It is remarkable enough to see that, after the lapse of two centuries of colonization, the province of New Mexico does not yet join the intendancy of New Biscay. The two provinces are separated by a desert, in which travellers are sometimes attacked by the Cumanches Indians. This desert extends from the Passo del Norte towards the town of Albuquerque. Before 1680, in which year there was a general revolt among the Indians of New Mexico, this extent of uncultivated and uninhabited country was much less considerable than it is now. There were then three villages, San Pascual, Semillete, and Socorro,

STATISTICAL XIII. Province of Nuevo Mexico.

ANALYSIS.

which were situated between the marsh of the Muerto and the town of Santa Fe. Bishop Tamaron perceived the ruins of them in 1760; and he [found apricots growing wild in the fields, an indication of the former cultivation of the country. The two most dangerous points for travellers are the defile of Robledo, west from the Rio del Norte, opposite the Sierra de Doña Ana, and the desert of the Muerto, where many whites have been assassinated by wandering Indians.

The desert of the Muerto is a plain thirty leagues in length, destitute of water. The whole of this country is in general of an alarming state of aridity; for the mountains de los Mansos, situated to the east of the road from Durango to Santa Fe, do not give rise to a single brook. Notwithstanding the mildness of the climate, and the progress of industry, a great part of this country, as well as Old California, and several districts of New Biscay, and the intendancy of Guadalaxara, will never admit of any considerable population.

New Mexico, although under the same latitude with Syria and central Persia, has a remarkably cold climate. It freezes there in the middle of May. Near Santa Fe, and a little farther north (under the parallel of the Morea), the Rio del Norte is sometimes covered, for a succession of several years, with ice thick enough to admit the

STATISTICAL XIII. Province of Nuevo Mexico.

ANALYSIS.

passage of horses and carriages. We are ignorant of the elevation of the soil of the province of New Mexico; but I do not believe that, under the 37° of latitude, the bed of the river is more than 7 or 800 metres* of elevation above the level of the ocean. The mountains which bound the valley of the Rio del Norte, and even those at the foot of which the village of Taos is situated, lose their snow towards the beginning of the month of June.

The great river of the north, as we have already observed, rises in the Sierra Verde, which is the point of separation between the streams which flow into the gulph of Mexico, and those which flow into the South Sea. It has its periodical rises (crecientes) like the Orinoco, the Mississippi, and a great number of rivers of both continents. The waters of the Rio del Norte begin to swell in the month of April; they are at their height in the beginning of May; and they fall towards the end of June. The inhabitants can only ford the river on horses of an extraordinary size during the drought of summer, when the strength of the current is greatly diminished. These horses in Peru are called cavallos chimbadores. Several persons mount at once; and if the horse takes

* 2296 or 2624 feet. Trans.