Part 4 (1/2)

Niel, p. 99, mentions five.

[71] Castaneda, i. cap. xxii. It is unmistakable. Compare Simpson, _Coronado's March_, p. 339. Vetancurt, _Cronica_, etc., p. 319. ”Este es el ultimo pueblo hacia el norte.” Jean Blaeu, _Geographie_, etc., p. 62.

[72] This is equally definite. Castaneda, ii. cap. v. p. 177. ”Between Cicuye and the province of Quirix, there exists a small very well fortified village which the Spaniards have named Ximera, and another one which appears to have been very large.” This shows that the Spaniards went from Pecos by the San Cristobal canon.

[73] To-day Tezuque, Nambe, Santa Clara, San Juan, San Ildefonso, Pojuaque, and, besides, Cuyamunque in ruins.

[74] The Piros were totally dispersed during the intertribal wars of 1680-89. Niel, p. 104. Senecu, near Mesilla, is a Piros pueblo, founded by Fray Antonio de Arteaga in 1630. Fray Balthasar de Medina, _Chronica de la Provincia de S. Diego de Mexico de Religiosos Descalzos de N. S.

P. S. Francisco de la Nueva-Espana_, Mexico, 1682, lib. iv. cap. vii.

fol. 168. Vetancurt, _Cronica_, p. 309. It is therefore a Spanish ”colony,” and not an original pueblo.

[75] Castaneda, i. cap. ix., ii. cap. iii. iv. p. 183, vii. p. 188. Fray Marcos de Niza, pp. 274-276, Jaramillo, pp. 368, 369.

[76] Antonio Espejo, _Viaje_, etc. Vetancurt, _Cronica_, etc., pp. 302, 303.

[77] Vetancurt, _Cronica_, etc., trat. iii. cap. iv. pp. 302, 303-305, cap. vi. pp. 324, 325.

[78] Espejo, _Viaje_, etc.

[79] _Coronado's March_, pp. 336-339. Don Jose Cortes, _Memorias sobre las Provincias del Norte de Nueva-Espana_, 1799. MSS. of the library of Congress, fol. 87.

[80] Coronado, Letter of Oct. 20, 1541, p. 354. Castaneda, ii. cap.

viii. p. 194, Jaramillo, pp. 376, 377.

[81] He went from Santa Fe N.E. and E.N.E., and struck the ”Escansaques:” might they have been the ”Kansas?” Geronimo de Zarate Salmeron, _Relacion_, etc., pp. 26, 27.

[82] Zarate Salmeron, p. 29.

[83] I append a valuable description of these ruins from the Surveyor-General's office at Santa Fe, communicated to me by Mr. D. J.

Miller. (See p. 30.)

[84] This is made probable through the statement of Father Jose Amando Niel (p. 108), to the effect that the Yutas warred against the Pananas and the Jumanas. The latter were about Socorro, therefore the Yutas must have descended east to below Pecos. Their arrival east of the Sierra Madre is placed, through the reports of the Pecos, about 1530.

Castaneda, ii. cap. v., p. 178.

[85] _Obediencia, etc., de S. Joan Baptista_, p. 113, ”todos los Apaches desde la Sierra Nevada hacia la parte del Norte y Poniento,” p. 114; speaking of the Jemez, ”y mas, todos los Apaches y cocoyes de sus sierras y comarcas.”

[86] In a subsequent paper, I hope to continue this ”Historical Introduction,” in the shape of a discussion of the various expeditions into New Mexico, and from it to other points north-west and north-east, up to the year 1605.

II.

A VISIT TO THE ABORIGINAL RUINS IN THE VALLEY OF THE RIO PECOS.

About thirty miles to the south-east of the city of Santa Fe, and in the western sections of the district of San Miguel (New Mexico), the upper course of the Rio Pecos traverses a broad valley, extending in width from east to west about six or eight miles, and in length from north-west to south-east from twenty to twenty-five. Its boundaries are,--on the north and north-east, the Sierra de Santa Fe, and the Sierra de Santa Barbara, or rather their southern spurs; on the west a high _mesa_ or table land, extending nearly parallel to the river until opposite or south of the peak of Bernal; on the east, the Sierra de Tecolote. The alt.i.tude of this valley is on an average not less than six thousand three hundred feet,[87] while the _mesa_ on the right bank of the river rises abruptly to nearly two thousand feet higher; the Tecolote chain is certainly not much lower, if any; and the summits of the high Sierras in the north rise to over ten thousand feet at least.[88]

The Rio Pecos (which empties into the Rio Grande fully five degrees more to the south, in the State of Texas) hugs, in the upper part of the valley, closely to the mountains of Tecolote, and thence runs almost directly north and south. The high _mesa_ opposite, known as the Mesa de Pecos, sweeps around in huge semicircles, but in a general direction from north-west to south-east. The upper part of the valley, therefore, forms a triangle, whose apex, at the south, would be near San Jose: whereas its base-line at the north might be indicated as from the Plaza de Pecos to Baughl's Sidings; or rather from the Rio Pecos, east of the town, to the foot of the _mesa_ on the west, a length of over six miles.

Nearly in the centre of this triangle, two miles west of the river, and one and a half miles from Baughl's, there rises a narrow, semicircular cliff or _mesilla_, over the bed of a stream known as the Arroyo de Pecos.[89] The southern end of this tabular cliff (its highest point as well as its most sunny slope) is covered with very extensive ruins, representing, as I shall hereafter explain, _three distinct kinds of occupation of the place by man_. These ruins are known under the name of the Old Pueblo of Pecos.

The tourist who, in order to reach Santa Fe from the north, takes the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad at La Junta, Colorado,--fascinated as he becomes by the beauty as well as by the novelty of the landscape, while running parallel with the great Sierra Madre, after he has traversed the Ratonis at daybreak,--enters a still more weird country in the afternoon. The Rio Pecos is crossed just beyond Bernal, and thence on he speeds towards the west and north: to the left, the towering Mesa de Pecos, dark pines clambering up its steep sides; to the right, the broad valley, scooped out, so to say, between the _mesa_ and the Tecolote ridge. It is dotted with green patches and black cl.u.s.ters of cedar and pine shooting out of the red and rocky soil. Scarcely a house is visible, for the _casitas_ of adobe and wood nestle mostly in sheltered nooks. Beyond Baughl's, the ruins first strike his view; the red walls of the church stand boldly out on the barren _mesilla_; and to the north of it there are two low brown ridges, the remnants of the Indian houses. The bleak summits of the high northern chain seem to rise in height as he advances; even the distant Trout mountains (Sierra de la Trucha) loom up solemnly towards the head-waters of the Pecos. About Glorieta the vale disappears, and through the s.h.a.ggy crests of the Canon del Apache, which overlooks the track in awful proximity, he sallies out upon the central plain of northern New Mexico, six thousand eight hundred feet above the sea-level. To the south-west the picturesque Sandia mountains;[90] to the west, far off, the Heights of Jemez and the Sierra del Valle, bound the level and apparently barren table-land. An hour more of fearfully rapid transit with astonis.h.i.+ng curves, and, at sunset, he lands at La Villa Real de Santa-Fe.