Along the whole extent of the table-lands, not an Indian tribe but was speedily visited by the preaching friars and monks; and in less than a century after the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards, these hardy and enthusiastic frayles had pushed their way into the inhospitable regions of New Mexico, nearly two thousand miles distant from the valley of Anahuac. How they succeeded in surmounting the natural obstacles presented by the wild and barren deserts they traversed--how they escaped the infinite peril they encountered at every step at the hands of the savage inhabitants of the country, with whose language they were totally unacquainted--is sufficient puzzle to those who, in the present day, have attempted a journey in the same regions. However, it is impossible not to admire the hardihood of these holy pioneers of civilization, who, totally unfitted by their former mode of life for undergoing such hardships as they must have anticipated, threw themselves into the wilderness with fearless and stubborn zeal. For the most part, however, they found the Indians exceedingly hospitable and well disposed; and it was not until some time after--when, receiving from the missionary monks glowing, and not always very truthful, accounts of the riches of the country in which they had located themselves, the governors of Mexico dispatched armed expeditions under adventurous desperadoes to take and retain possession of the said country, with orders to compel the submission of the native tribes, and enforce their obedience to the authority of the whites--that the simple and confiding Indians began to see the folly they had committed in permitting the residence amongst them of these superior beings, whom they had first looked upon as more than mortal; but who, when strong enough to do so, were not long in throwing off the mask, and proving to the simple savages that they were much "more human than divine."