A little place called Cimarron, (which in Spanish means mountain of sheep) or Maxwell's ranch was the next place of interest to me. This is some distance south of the Raton Range, maybe half way from Trinidad to Fort Union. It seemed that Maxwell married a high class Spanish woman whose family owned an immense estate in what was Mexico before it was ceded to the United States. In the division of the estate Maxwell's wife got a grant of many thousands of acres on the head waters of the Cimarron, a tributary of the Canadian, which I understand was very much reduced as a result of extended litigation with the government as to title. We traveled for miles on what was then called Maxwell's Ranch, where great herds of sheep, cattle and horses were to be seen, with an adobe house here and there, where herders lived. It was a great pleasure to stop even for one meal at such a place as Maxwell's. The house was commodious and handsomely furnished and everything was prosperous and home-like. Some years later I had the pleasure of acquaintance of a daughter of Mr. Maxwell's who married a lieutenant in the army and we were serving at the same post. We passed Fort Union in the night and I did not get to see much of it, but I understand it to be only a military post and base of supplies, for the Quarter-Master or Commissary Department of the army for the District of New Mexico. My first view of Las Vegas (The Meadows, in Spanish) was over a beautiful wide valley, some three or four miles across, through which a pretty little stream of water, the source of the Pecos river, was wending its way. The view was beautiful and the town looked to be a place of importance, but proved to be disappointing on a closer acquaintance. Not far from Las Vegas we passed what was called the old Pecos church. It was only a little distance from the road and said to have been built in the seventeenth century. It stood alone in its desolation and had partially fallen into decay. The roof was off, the walls partly broken down and it looked to be as old as reported. We arrived in Santa Fe late in the evening and stopped at the hotel or fonda, as it is called in Spanish. At first one feels that he is in a different country; something foreign and out of the usual, and this feeling grows with closer acquaintance. For instance you go direct from the street to your room if your wife is with you, or to a kind of a lobby or sitting room with a bar at one side if alone.