sunset, he lands at La Villa Real de Santa-Fé. Starting back from Santa Fé towards Pecos on a dry, sandy wagon-road, we lose sight of the table-land and its environing mountain-chain, when turning into the ridges east of Manzanares. Vegetation, which has been remarkably stunted until now, improves in appearance. However rocky the slopes are, tall pines grow on them sparsely: the Encina appears in thickets; _Opuntia arborescens_ bristles dangerously as a large shrub; mammillary cactuses hide in the sand; even an occasional patch of Indian corn is found in the valleys. It is stunted in growth,[91] flowering as late as the last days of the month of August, and poorly cultivated. The few adobe buildings are mostly recent. Over a high granitic ridge, grown over with _piñon_ (all the trees inclined towards the north-east by the fierce winds that blow along its summit), and from which the Sierra de Sandia for the last time appears, we plunge into a deep valley, emptying into the Cañoncito, and thence follow the railroad track again through a deep gorge and pleasant bottom, overgrown with pines and cedars, past Glorieta to Baughl's.[92] It required all the skill and firmness of my friend and companion, Mr. J. D. C. Thurston, of the Indian Bureau at Santa Fé, to pilot our vehicle over the steep and rocky ledges. From Baughl's, where I took quarters at the temporary boarding-house of Mrs. Root (to whose kindness and motherly solicitude I owe a tribute of sincere gratitude), a good road leads to the east and south-east along the Arroyo de Pecos. In a direct line the distance to the ruins is but a mile and a half; but after nearing the banks of the stream (which there are grassy levels), one is kept at a distance from it by deep parallel gulches. So we have to follow the _arroyo_ downwards, keeping about a quarter of a mile to the west of it, till, south of the old church itself, the road at last crosses the wide and gravelly bed, in which a fillet of clear water is running. Then we ascend a gradual slope of sandy and micaceous soil, thinly covered by tufts of _grama_; a wide, circular depression strikes our eye; beyond it flat mounds of scarcely 0.50 m.--20 in.--elevation are covered extensively with scattered and broken stones. Further on distinct foundations appear, rectangles enclosed by, or founded originally upon, thick walls of stone, sunk into the ground and much worn,--sometimes divided into small compartments, again forming large enclosures. To the south a conspicuous, though small, mound is visible. Immediately before us, due north, are distinct though broken walls of stones; and above them, on a broad terrace of red earth, completely shutting off the _mesilla_ or tabulated cliff, on which the Indian houses stand, there arises the massive former Catholic temple of Pecos. [Illustration: PLATE VI VIEW OF CHURCH, FROM THE SOUTH.]