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Show JOURNEY TO THE RIO GRANDE. 229 At least five- sixths of the population of New Mexico lives in the Rio Grande Valley, or along its immediate tributaries; there are all the important towns, while one may cross the country from east to west, and travel for days without sight of a dwelling or green spot. In most towns one^ sees no shade trees, no rills of sparkling water coursing the streets as in Utah or Colorado ; even the Rio Grande is often exhausted in dry weather, and the many irrigating ditches it supplies leave its bed dry for miles. Albuquerque appears in the distance like a collection of brick- yards unbui- nt; but a nearer view shows many vineyards and gardens. Among the little farms near the city, the inhabitants are repairing their fences, as usual just before the summer drought. A box- frame, some two feet square and a foot deep, with no bottom, is placed upon the ground and filled with tough mud mingled with a little grass ; then, the frame being lifted, leaves a section of the wall in place to be hardened and whitened ( a little) by the sun. Successive blocks are stacked on this, till the mud wall is four or five feet high. Such are the only fences one can see for days of travel along the Rio Grande. Reaching Albuquerque my soldier decided that he had enough money left for a two days' spree ; we would therefore remain till Sunday morning. So I rested, wrote, and rambled in the queer, flat, old city, calling also on the padre, who is usually the most intelligent man in a Mexican town. All the acting padres are now French or Irish ; the native Mexican priests have been retired, whether on half-pay or not I did not learn. The padre gave me many facts : that the oasis of Albuquerque was some eighty miles long, and averaged four miles wide, and that it was now two hundred and fifty years since the Spanish Duke of Albuquerque encamped on this spot, though the city is not so old. His name in full was Don Alphonso Herrera Ponto Delgado de Albuquerque. I asked the padre " what was his front name," but he did not seem to know. His descendants now belong to the gente fina, that is to say, the first families before mentioned peo-ple who have the sangre azul in their veins. The city is some two hundred years old, contains about 2,000 people, and boasts of the finest church in New Mexico a stately pile of adobes, with two lofty and whitewashed towers. The people generally are poor, pious, and contented. A palacio of dried mud, a meal of corn and plmicnto, and a slip of corn- shuck filled with tobacco and rolled into a cigar-ette, is the height of a " Greaser's" ambition. |
