Santa Fe is well supplied with cool water from springs within its limits, and from fountains above the city near the neighbouring mountain. The appearance of the place is inviting and imposing, as it stands on a plateau elevated more than 7000 feet above the sea, and near a snow capped mountain, which rises 5000 feet above the level of the town; but the population is said to be exceedingly depraved. The present population is about 5000; but at the time of Carson's first visit, it was comparatively a small town. Soon after their arrival at Santa Fe, Carson left the trading band, which he had joined when he abandoned the saddlery business, or trade, as the reader may choose to term it, and of which we have previously spoken, and proceeded to Fernandez de Taos. In this place Carson passed the winter of 1826-7, at the house of a retired mountaineer. And it was while residing there, that he acquired that thorough familiarity with the Spanish language, which, in after years, proved of such essential service to him. In the spring he joined a party bound for Missouri, but meeting another band of Santa Fe traders, he joined them and returned to that place. Here his services being no longer required by the traders, he was again thrown out of employment. He now engaged himself as teamster to a party bound to El Paso, a settlement, or more properly a line of settlements, embracing a population of about 5,000, situated in the rich, narrow valley which extends 9 or 10 miles along the right bank of the Rio Grande, in the Mexican State of Chihuahua, 350 miles S. by W. of Santa Fe. Here the grape is extensively cultivated, and considerable quantities of light wine and brandy, (called by the traders _Pass wine_ and _Pass brandy_,) are made. The houses are like those of Santa Fe, built of _adobes_ with earthen floors. With abundance of natural advantages, the people are content to live without those appliances of civilized life, considered indispensable by the poorest American citizens. Glazed windows, chairs, tables, knives and forks, and similar every day conveniences are unknown even to the rich among the people of El Paso. The place is the chief emporium of the trade between New Mexico and Chihuahua, and its name, "the passage" is derived from the passage of the river through a gorge or gap in the mountain just above the town. On his arrival at this place, young Carson might justly be considered in view of his age, (not yet 18,) more than an ordinary traveler. He had arrived at a spot where everything was strange to him. New people, new customs, a new climate, a wine country, a population of mixed breed, half Indian, half Spaniard--everything wearing a foreign aspect; everything totally different from his home in Missouri.