The question will naturally present itself, what has become of the millions of civilized people who occupied New Mexico? I will ask, what has become of the millions of Yucatan, of Chiapas, and of Old Mexico? The reduction to slavery, their wars, and other causes, are not sufficient to account for the disappearance of the great nations of the west, or of the Atlantic slope. In looking for a cause, I have found one fully adequate, in that horrid plague and scourge, the small-pox. Let any one read the accounts of McKenzie, Carver, and Catlin, and I think he will seek no further for it. To the indian it is peculiarly fatal, not only from his want of skill in treating it, but from his physical organization; his skin is so remarkably thick that the pustules cannot break through it, and the disease is almost always fatal. When among the Arikaras, I was informed by them that they were but the remnant of seventeen towns lower down the river, and I traced their former abode for seven miles. The Arikaras and Mandans have since disappeared from the earth. After the greater part had been carried off by the small-pox, the survivors abandoned these towns and fled, covering their trails as they went, as if pursued by an enemy; but that mortal foe still followed them to annihilation. I have not been able to find any account of the nations of New Mexico from the year 1583 until 1698; and it is perhaps during that interval, that the rapid destruction of the American tribes and nations took place, while there was no one to record the desolation of the provinces of Cibola, or the country of the Buffaloe, which is the meaning of the word. The ruins, of cities on the Gila, and between it and the Colorado, remain to prove the fact that they once existed. Yet, there are some remnants of their former civilization in the Nabahoes, and the Pumas one on the Gila, the other on the heads of the Colorado, who still live in well-built houses, and manufacture their beautiful blankets. The suggestion I have made might be extended to the old world, and its ruined cities of Asia and Africa.