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Show 222 WESTERN WILDS. that Santa Fe was in a hot climate. For incipient pulmonary com-plaints it is most excellent ; those in an advanced stage of consump-tion die very suddenly here. Just north- east of the city, though thirty miles away, " Old Baldy," the noted mountain peak, rears its white head 12,000 feet high; east of us is the Rocky Range; on both sides of the city abrupt spurs put out westward toward the Rio Grande. The elevation is 7,000 feet, making this one of the highest cities in America; hence to the Rio Grande is all the way down hill, a descent of some twenty- two hundred feet. Santa Fe de San Francisco, (" Holy Faith of Saint Francis,") as the old Spaniards named this city, has been inhabited by white men for two hundred and fifty years; and long before that by Pueblos, one of their old towns having been partly on the same site. In the nar-row valley of Santa Fe Creek, walled in on all sides except the west, by abrupt mountains, it is measurely free from winter storms. On the other hand a suit of summer clothes is seldom seen in the streets ; there are not thirty days in the year when they are needed. The place looks a thousand years old; the dwellings are low, flat and un-inviting. I don't think there are twenty two- story houses in the city. The residences of some of the officials display a little taste ; two or three of the merchants have houses with pretty surroundings, and Bishop Lamy has a place which would almost be considered pretty in Ohio. I saw perhaps a dozen gardens; all the rest of the view is bare, gray and dried- mud color. But here are old withered Mexi-cans, whose fathers and grandfathers were born, lived and died in this valley ; for Santa Fe was an important place long before Wil-liam Penn laid out Philadelphia. Here are old records and Spanish manuscripts, with which an antiquarian might spend months of enjoy-ment. Yes, Santa Fe has one great merit it is rich in historic interest. The Mexicans are a strangely polite, lazy, hospitable, lascivious, kind, careless and unprogressive race. The town saw its best days many years ago, when the Santa Fe trade from St. Louis and Inde-pendence was of great importance. It is now but the shell of former greatness. The population is claimed to be 6,000 ; I do not see where they put them. The whites, not of Spanish origin, number about five hundred. The Federal officials are Americans, from the States; most of the Territorial officers, Mexicans. It is a wonder there is so little conflict of jurisdiction, with all these differences of race and religion; but New Mexico is politically the quietest of the Territories. Instead of the ever- recurring religious squabbles of Utah, or the internecine political strifes of Dakota, these people |