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Show 228 WESTERN WILDS. clining, waved me off with, " Buena Jornada, Seflor!" ( A good jour-ney, sir.) We pass the little pueblo of San Felipe, and from this vega rise to another desert for ten miles the same eye- wearying panorama of dry sand, dark- gray rock, and treeless, grassless mesa, the whole un-inhabited. About 3 P. M. we descend to another oasis of two or three square miles, where we spend the night at the town of Al-godones. All that I had previously seen of unsightly Mexican towns is eclipsed by this straggling row of unburnt brick- kilns walls, fences, houses, fields and corrals of dried mud. My companion had fortunately got sober enough to cook our supper, while I hunted for some additions to our fare, which consisted of army bread, pork, coffee and potatoes. I found three luxuries for sale : vino de pais ( na-tive wine), eggs and goat's milk. My soldier took the milk by choice, but I confined myself to the eggs and wine, with the regular fare. After supper I ran about town till I found one intelligent cit-izen, who gave me much information about the country, in a mixture of French and Spanish. " When will the thirty- fifth parallel road be built?" and " Will New Mexico be admitted soon as a State?" were the questions on which he earnestly desired information. He set forth the arguments for a State government at great length. The strongest, in his estimation, seemed to be, " The rich ( los ricos) are all in favor of it." As they must pay the expense, he thought they should have whatever they wanted. We were off at six next morning, and a few miles from Algodones entered the great oasis of Albuquerque, the largest body of good land in New Mexico. For nearly a hundred miles, with slight breaks, extends the fertile valley of the Rio Grande, varying from two to eight miles wide. In this portion an acecquia, taken out of the river above, runs along the bluffs, from which side- ditches, one every furlong or oftener, convey the water among the fields. There we see ridges of dirt thrown up, dividing the field into little squares of some five rods each, to hold the water. The labor of irrigating seems much greater than in Utah. In comparison with the sterile mesas we have crossed, this fertile strip seems a very Eden. Wheat, which at Santa Fe was just high enough to give a faint tinge of green, is here a foot high, rank and thrifty. We are twenty- two hundred feet lower than that city, and in a climate at least ten degrees warmer. Not more than one- tenth of the whole area of New Mexico is fit for cultivation. Even of that so fit, not more than half lies in a position to be irrigated, with the present system. But that which is fertile is exceedingly so. |