As Mr. Carson united the pursuits of farmer and hunter, and lived in a sort of block-house or fort, as a precaution against the attacks of the neighboring Indians, his son became accustomed to the presence of danger, and the necessity of earnest action and industry from his earliest childhood. At the age of fifteen, Kit Carson was apprenticed to Mr. Workman, a saddler. This trade requiring close confinement, was, of course, utterly distasteful to a boy already accustomed to the use of the rifle, and the stirring pleasures of the hunter's life, and at the end of two years, his apprenticeship was terminated, for Kit, who, with his experience as the son of a noted hunter, himself perfectly familiar with the rifle, and, young as he was, acknowledged to be one of the best and surest shots, even in that State, where such merit predominated at that time over almost every other, could not bear in patience the silent, sedentary monotony of his life, voluntarily abandoned the further pursuit of the trade, and sought the more active employment of a trader's life. His new pursuit was more congenial. He joined an armed band of traders in an expedition to Santa Fe, the capital of New Mexico. This, at that period, (1826,) was rather a perilous undertaking, on account of the Indian tribes who were ever ready to attack a trading caravan, when there was any prospect of overcoming it. No attack was made on the party, however, and no incident of importance occurred, if we except the accident to one of the teamsters who wounded himself by carelessly handling a loaded rifle, so as to render it necessary to amputate his arm. In this operation Carson assisted, the surgical instruments being a razor, an old saw, and an iron bolt, heated red hot, in order to apply the actual cautery. Notwithstanding this rough surgery, the man recovered.[A] In November (1826) the party arrived at Santa Fe, the capital, and the largest town in the then Mexican province of New Mexico. This place is situated on the Rio Chiuto, or Santa Fe river, an affluent of the Rio Grande, from which it is distant about 20 miles. It was then, as now, the great emporium of the overland trade, which, since 1822, has been carried on with the State of Missouri. The houses are chiefly built of _adobes_, or unburnt bricks, each dwelling forming a square, with a court in the centre upon which the apartments open. This mode of building, originally Moorish, prevails in all the colonies settled by the Spaniards, as well as in Old Spain, and the oriental countries. It makes each house a sort of fortress, as General Taylor's troops learned to their cost at the siege of Monterey. The front entrance of each house is large enough to admit animals with their packs.