A considerable part of the New West of to-day was explored by the Spaniards more than three centuries ago. Before the English had landed at Plymouth Rock or made a settlement at Jamestown they had penetrated to the Rocky Mountains and given to peak and river their characteristic names. Southern Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona have been the theatres wherein were enacted deeds of daring and bravery perhaps unsurpassed by any people and any age; and that, too, centuries before they became a part of our American Union. The whole country is strewn over with the ruins of a civilization in comparison with which our own of to-day seems feeble. And he who journeys across the Plains till he reaches the Sangre del Cristo Mountains or the blue Sierra Mojadas enters a land made famous by the exploits of Coronado, De Vaca and perhaps of the great Montezuma himself. In the year 1540, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado was sent by the Spanish viceroy of Mexico to explore the regions to the north. Those mountain-peaks, dim and shadowy in the distance and seeming to recede as they were approached, had ever been an alluring sight to the gold-seeking Spaniards. But the coveted treasure did not reveal itself to their cursory search; and though they doubtless pushed as far north as the Arkansas River, they returned to the capital from what they considered an unsuccessful expedition. The way was opened, however, and in 1595 the Spaniards came to what is now the Territory of New Mexico and founded the city of Santa Fe. They had found, for the most part, a settled country, the inhabitants living in densely-populated villages, or _pueblos_, and evincing a rather high degree of civilization. Their dwellings of mud bricks, or _adobes_, were all built upon a single plan, and consisted of a square or rectangular fort-like structure enclosing an open space. Herds of sheep and goats grazed upon the hillsides, while the bottom-lands were planted with corn and barley. Thus lived and flourished the Pueblo Indians, a race the origin of which lies in obscurity, but connected with which are many legends of absorbing interest. All their traditions point to Montezuma as the founder and leader of their race, and likewise to their descent from the Aztecs. But their glory departed with the coming of Cortez, and their Spanish conquerors treated them as an inferior race. Revolting against their oppressors in 1680, they were reconquered thirteen years later, though subsequently allowed greater liberty. By the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848 they became citizens of the United States. From one extreme of government to another has drifted this remnant of a stately race, till now at last it finds itself safely sheltered in the arms of our great republic.