It is a low-wheeled affair floored with slats, the springs under the seats so weak that at the least jolt they smite together with a horrible blow, which is the more emphatic when over-loaded, as when we crossed the line which bounds “the most desirable of all the Territories.” Our night was without a stop, except to change horses. Jolt, jolt; bang, bang; cold to the marrow, though huddled under buffalo robes and heavy blankets. How welcome the warmth of the sun on our stiffened limbs; and the early breeze, sweet and fresh as airs across Eden when the evening and the morning were the first day! It has a sustaining quality which almost serves for food and sleep. There journeyed with us in the white moonshine spectres, shadowy, ghost-like. Now the sun comes up, we see they are kingly mountains, wrapped in robes of royal purple and wearing crowns of gold. The atmosphere is so refined and clear, they appear close beside us; but the driver says they are forty miles away. Noon comes on, hot and still, with a desert scorch. We journey over a road surprisingly free of stones; across a blank and colorless plain, bounded by mountain-walls which stand grim and stark like bastions of stone. Another night and another long day. The driver is not on his high horse now. He has no funny stories of the grizzly and cinnamon bear, which he assures us can climb trees, sticking their claws in the bark, easily as the telegraph-mender, with clamps on his feet, goes up the pole. Along the roadside stretch beautiful park-like intervales, studded with dwarf pines, that appear planted at regular distances. Will the day never end? I have no voice nor spirit, and begin to think the wayside crosses mark graves of travelers, murdered, not by assassins, but by the buckboard; and feebly clutch my fellow-sufferer, and shake about in a limp, distracted way, pitying myself, as though I were somebody else. I can hold out no longer. But wake up! Wake up! This is the home-stretch. The horses know it and dash across a little brook which they tell me is the Rio Santa Fé.