After leaving the Pueblo settlements we came to a country occupied nearly altogether by Mexicans. The commercial interests were conducted by so-called foreigners: Americans, Germans and Jews, the latter predominating, but the population was principally Mexican. Stock raising and farming were the principal industries, the latter in a very primitive way. They had no modern farm implements, such as plows, harrows, wagons, etc., and only such improved tools as they could construct from the scant material at hand. I saw at one place a man driving a yoke of cattle attached to what appeared to be the limb of a tree with a projecting prong entering the ground, and at the other end, which bent up something like a handle, was another man holding it. They were going back and forth making little ditches or furrows but not turning the ground over as our plows do. It looked primitive indeed and reminded me of a picture I saw in an almanac when a kid, representing the Egyptian plowing. Stock business was more promising. A good many cattle were reported on the range and I was told the sheep numbered many thousands scattered all along the mountain range to the west. Soccorro was the principal town, typically Mexican, but a place of some business importance. There were small villages at frequent intervals all the way to Paraja, the last town near the river before crossing the Jornada del Muerto (or "Journey of Death" in Spanish) which extends from Paraja (pronounced Paraha, j having the sound of h in Spanish) to Fort Selden, nearly one hundred miles across, a desert properly named and that has some pitiful associations in my memory. It was what was known as the Apache Indian country and grewsome stories are related concerning it. Death by Indians, famishing for want of water, etc., etc. I must tell a legend concerning it and the desert country to the east and north. Near Paraja and rising bluff from the river's edge is a high bit of mountain, hardly worth the name of range, on the top of which lying in a recumbent position is as perfect profile of a face and bust as you could imagine. You get a fine view of it from Fort Craig and for a great distance to the northwest and northeast. The legend is that a friar, Christobal by name, and for whom the mountain or range was named, was traveling through the country on his work for the souls of men when he perished from thirst. Some supernatural agency brought his body to this mountain top where it hardened into stone and remains to this day a monument commemorating a tragedy, and a land mark and guide to the weary and thirsty traveler pointing the way to where he may find water.