There is something singular about these Mexican towns or cities. You hear them spoken of as important places, where the law-givers and the dignitaries of the American _régime_ reside, and where renowned families of the Spanish period had their homes; where large commercial interests lie, and where things flourish generally. When you approach them, a collection of what seem only mud hovels lie scattered before you. You look for order and regularity of streets, and you find yourself running up against square mud-piles at every other step; you look for doors and windows in these structures, and find a narrow opening, reaching to the ground, on one side, and high up in the wall a little square hole without glass or shutter. This is the first impression. But you are compelled to remain at such a place; and as the eye grows to shrink less from the sight of the hard clay and cheerless sand, you discover the tips of the pomegranate tree peering curiously over the high mud wall enclosing a neat _adobe_ with well-cultivated garden. In astonishment you press your face to the railing of the rude gate, and directly the soft voice of a dark-faced woman calls to you from within: "Enter, _señora_; you are welcome!" When you leave the garden, where peaches, grapes, and pomegranates have been showered on you, together with assurances of the kindest feelings on the part of your hostess, the whole place somehow looks different. There are streets and lanes which you did not notice before, where the broad, double doors of the houses stand hospitably open, and the large square windows, if not provided with sash and glass, are latticed in fanciful designs, as we see them in old Spanish and Italian paintings. And there is such a dreamy languor in the air; such a soft tint in the blue of the heavens; such a wooing, balmy breeze, that seems to float down from the mountain yonder. There is no necessity for keeping one's eyes fixed on the sand-hill that hid Albuquerque from us at first. Look over again to the mountain. Could artist with brush and pencil create anything more perfect than the gentle rise away off there, over which houses and vineyards are scattered, and which climbs up steeper and higher, till the faintest shadow of a passing cloud seems resting on the blue-green peak? And winding its way slowly from the foot of the mountain, comes a train of black-eyed, barefooted Pueblo Indian women, bearing on their heads home-made baskets filled to overflowing with well-displayed fruit--melons, peaches, grapes--in such perfection, and with such rich, ripe coloring, as are seldom found away from Mexico.