st 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 altitude 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,--f