We see rude implements of husbandry: the creaking carreta, with its block wheels; the primitive plough of the forking tree-branch, scarcely scoring the soil; the horn-yoked oxen; the goad; the clumsy hoe in the hands of the peon serf: these are all objects that are new and curious to our eyes, and that indicate the lowest order of agricultural knowledge. Along the roads we meet numerous atajos, in charge of their arrieros. We observe the mules, small, smooth, light-limbed, and vicious. We glance at the heavy alparejas and bright worsted apishamores. We notice the tight wiry mustangs, ridden by the arrieros; the high-peaked saddles and hair bridles; the swarth faces and pointed beards of the riders; the huge spurs that tinkle at every step; the exclamations, "Hola, mula! malraya! vaya!" We notice all these, and they tell us we are journeying in the land of the Hispano-American. Under other circumstances these objects would have interested me. At that time, they appeared to me like the pictures of a panorama, or the changing scenes of a continuous dream. As such have they left their impressions on my memory. I was under the incipient delirium of fever. It was as yet only incipient; nevertheless, it distorted the images around me, and rendered their impressions unnatural and wearisome. My wound began to pain me afresh, and the hot sun, and the dust, and the thirst, with the miserable accommodations of New Mexican posadas, vexed me to an excess of endurance. On the fifth day after leaving Santa Fe, we entered the wretched little pueblo of Parida. It was my intention to have remained there all night, but it proved a ruffian sort of place, with meagre chances of comfort, and I moved on to Socorro. This is the last inhabited spot in New Mexico, as you approach the terrible desert, the Jornada del Muerte. Gode had never made the journey, and at Parida I had obtained one thing that we stood in need of, a guide. He had volunteered; and as I learnt that it would be no easy task to procure one at Socorro, I was fain to take him along. He was a coarse, shaggy-looking customer, and I did not at all like his appearance; but I found, on reaching Socorro, that what I had heard was correct. No guide could be hired on any terms, so great was their dread of the Jornada and its occasional denizens, the Apaches. Socorro was alive with Indian rumours, "novedades." The Indians had fallen upon an atajo near the crossing of Fra Cristobal, and murdered the arrieros to a man. The village was full of consternation at the news. The people dreaded an attack, and thought me mad, when I made known my intention of crossing the Jornada. I began to fear they would frighten my guide from his engagement, but the fellow stood out staunchly, still expressing his willingness to accompany us. Without the prospect of meeting the Apache savages, I was but ill prepared for the Jornada. The pain of my wound had increased, and I was fatigued and burning with fever.