On the following day we drove into Ascension,—a small place of recent date. When New Mexico was taken over by the Americans, a body of Mexicans emigrated thence and settled here. Ascension bears little resemblance, therefore, to the ordinary Mexican town; it has no ruins, its population is increasing, it is growing in size—an altogether unparalleled state of things.

Repairing to the Customs House, we gave bonds for the return of our horses and waggon, and submitted our baggage to be searched. A new agent, whom none of us knew as yet, having lately arrived from the City of Mexico, the search was rigid. However, we had nothing contraband, with the exception of a few cartridges, the duty on which was (as it is on most things taxed at all) fully equal to their value. Had it been levied to protect a home manufacture, it might have been comprehensible; but, unless imported, cartridges are not procurable at any rate in Northern Mexico. Pillage of this nature is apt to encourage evasions of the law; for any one resident in the country to smuggle, or countenance smuggling though, is extremely foolish, and in the long run inevitably leads to mischief. It is important at present to stand on good terms with the official class. Intrigue in the City of Mexico, and the jealousy of their neighbours, renders it impossible for the officers to wink at anything like systematic smuggling, although a little diplomatic hospitality soon serves with these degenerate, albeit still often chivalrously polite descendants of Old Spain, to secure the passage, unsearched, of such an "outfit" as ours. Moreover, the penalties incurred where smuggling has been detected have been rendered so severe lately, that the risk is not worth running. Yet there are men with a large stake in the country who, for the sake of saving a few dollars, live under perpetual suspicion and supervision, in an atmosphere of constant annoyance.

A good story was current about the Colonel's first visit to the Ascension Customs House. He was on his way with a large party to survey a ranch for which he was then in treaty. The Superintendent at that time in power was a ceremonious and pompous old gentleman, possessed of something of the pride of race characteristic of Spaniards of the old school. Reasoning from the number of Don Cabeza's companions that he was a man of great importance in his own country, he showed every disposition to treat him with consideration. Through the medium of the Colonel's interpreter conversation was established; sweet phrases flowed and compliments were bandied between the principals with courtier-like agility and address. The Customs Superintendent placed his house, his subordinates, his resources—in short, with Spanish figurative magnificence, placed even his country and fellow-countrymen at the disposal of his guest; and not to be surpassed in generosity, the Colonel magnanimously gave him the United States, and as many American citizens as he wanted. If the old hidalgo, or "son of somebody," were "bluffing," he had struck the very man to "see him and raise him back." Things were progressing swimmingly when, at Don Cabeza's suggestion, some bottles of champagne were produced from the waggons and uncorked. The Superintendent had never seen champagne before, and supposing its effervescence to be a rare and precious property appertaining only to the wines of the great, was more than ever convinced of the exalted rank of his new acquaintance. Unfortunately, it occurred to him to inquire at this juncture into the position of the other members of the party, and to save himself the trouble of a little explanation, the interpreter briefly described them as his master's peons. With his own hands the old fellow thereupon collected their glasses, and placed them all together in the middle of the table. "Since he did not drink with peons," he said, "it would only be necessary to fill two glasses." "That settled it." All the Colonel's tact and diplomacy were necessary to preserve peace now, for the Superintendent, having adopted the peon notion, clung to it, and the "boys," some of whom were friends of the Colonel's and gentlemen anywhere, and all of whom were gentlemen on the frontier, got the "big head," and displayed effervescence scarcely less remarkable than that of the champagne itself. The result was that the wine, intended to propitiate a dozen thirsty officials, was finished on the spot by the indignant "peons," and the interpreter, not permitted to drink with the Customs official and the Colonel, was not permitted either to partake with the rest of the party, and narrowly escaped receiving a far more severe expression than this of their displeasure.

Juan Carrion, an ex-presidente or mayor, with whom we lodged, and the avowed "amigo" of all Americans who frequented the road, was a delightful creature. He kept a little all-sorts shop, the stock in which ranged from pastry and sweet-stuff to pins and needles, from wine and native spirits to grain or fuel. His tinada in Ascension was what the coffeehouses were in old London—the rendezvous of wit and fashion. Here prospectors and cattle buyers, immigrant Mormons, rancheros, banished "rustlers," and Mexican horse thieves, with the local loafers and a bibulous local doctor, assembled, and seated on the counter, on benches, flour-sacks, inverted boxes, or in the grain-bin, interchanged gossip over copitas de mascal, and the eternal cigarette.

Little Juan—we apologise—Don Juan had a monkey-melancholy physiognomy, furnished with a radiant and an instantaneous smile—an inexhaustibly rich smile, which never for a moment slackened or lost its freshness. Behold him standing behind the counter, quiescent, for a wonder, and as dejected in appearance as a lost dog. "Don Juan!" "Si, SeÑor." In a second, as if it were the surface of still water into which a brick had been dropped, his face irradiates with a series of expanding rings of cheerful import. Amongst other faculties that he possessed, was one for seeming to understand an almost incredible amount of bad Spanish. His sympathy with the foreigner, whose incoherent ravings proved him to be labouring under the influence of "somebody's Spanish teacher," was without end. Don Juan's looks of intelligence and soothing "Si, SeÑor," cheered such as one in his darkest moments and most agonising paroxysms.

A busy man was Juan—an indispensable man, weighed down by his own, his American friends', his clients', his neighbours', and the State's affairs. Undoubtedly the conviction haunted him that, were he removed from this vale of tears, chaos would come again. To hear him sigh inspired a vague impression, not less significant of vast, troublous schemes, and ponderous businesses, than the faint rumbling of thunder is of the distant thunder-storm. Occasionally he remembered that he considered it incumbent upon him to make his importance felt, to "Assume the God, affect to nod," to be dignified in demeanour and choice in language. Animated by these sentiments, Juan behind his counter giving audience to a poor neighbour was a study equal in sublimity to a well-executed idol of Buddha. He always had some new long word running in his mind, culled from a legal document or newspaper, and under circumstances such as the above, would haul it into his conversation sideways, head first, anyhow, altogether regardless of how awkwardly or heavily it alighted. It was a treat to hear him sling it blindly around, prefixing adjective after adjective to it as he did so, until with accumulated weight and impetus, at last he brought the whole tautological string down "kerflop" full and fairly upon the devoted crown of his auditor, and raising his eyes inexorably from the destruction that he had caused, would purse his mobile under-lip severely, whilst the wretched victim of his eloquence crept mutely from the shop.

The Corralitos ranch[39] consisted of 820,000 acres of magnificent grazing land, lying, for the most part, in a great basin, through which a river of from one to two hundred feet broad flowed for a distance of over thirty miles. Besides this, there were several springs upon it, one of which gave birth to a stream of seven or eight miles in length, and which, with a little work and improvement, might have been made to flow much further. The Janos River traversed it for a distance of twelve miles in the north-west, and in all directions water was found at a depth of from ten to twenty-two feet, which, raised by windmills, would have supplied unlimited herds. These various waters gave the owners of the property control of at least another million acres of Government land for grazing purposes. The grass was of the finest kinds of gramma, and since the soil was mostly hard, was not likely to pull or trample out, however severely it might be grazed. In the Corralitos River bottom at least thirty thousand acres of land was susceptible of irrigation and cultivation. This principality, to which the Corralitos Company possessed a clear title, lay within only a hundred miles of the nearest point on the Southern Pacific Railway, the intervening country affording easy and well-watered trails by which cattle might be driven thither.

quoted the Colonel with mock solemnity, as we hove in sight of the Corralitos country.

"I don't know much about 'luxury,'" ejaculated Joe, "unless you're looking for fleas and chilies."

As we surveyed the glorious expanse of country before us I could not forbear saying: "Colonel, I thought that the Animas was the 'boss' ranch in the country."

"In another country; we're in Mexico now," he rejoined.

"You won't catch him," said Joe. "Years ago, when Frisco was blooming, and the stock market was alive there, a period of depression occurred once, and I asked Cabeza what he thought about it. 'Oh, things have reached bottom,' he said. A few days afterwards, when they had gone a durned sight lower, I showed him the stock list, and reminded him of what he had said. 'Well, well,' said he, 'I meant high bottom, of course; we're getting down to low bottom now.'"

The Colonel shook his head hopelessly. "Did Joe say he remembered that, or invented it? Well, Joe'll say anything; he don't care what he says. But this isn't a finer range than the Animas, anyhow—only, of course, they own every acre of it, and can put a ring-fence round it if they like, and that's an advantage."

We drove on and in due course reached the hacienda, which lay near the river, and was situated about the centre of the property. In former times over a thousand people had dwelt here, but the population had now dwindled to half that number, consisting principally of the wives and families of the workmen employed by the Corralitos Company on the San Pedro mines.

These old Spaniards did things on a grand scale; a ranch with them was a little principality of which the hacienda was the capital. Surrounded by rows of small adobe houses—like some old country alms-houses—there was a plaza here that would have made a magnificent drill-ground; a corral capable of holding 10,000 head of cattle; smaller corrals for branding, etc.; wool yards, stables where hundreds of horses might have been bestowed, yards for killing and drying meat, blacksmiths' forges, carpenters' shops, shops of every description, store-houses, a church, acres of long-neglected pleasure-grounds, and ruined quarters and premises of every description, besides those still in fair condition where a strong military force might have been comfortably housed at any time.

The prettiest feature of the hacienda was the Caille des Alamos, or street of cotton-woods, upon which the head-quarters, visitors' quarters, the offices, the laboratory, and store looked. When I was last there the trees were in full leaf, and, meeting above the road, formed a perfect archway which defied the penetration of the sun's most searching rays. "Here in cool grot," with unseen birds in the thick foliage filling the air "with their sweet jargoning," Lieut. Britton Davis, the manager (an old Indian fighter of wide reputation), Sheldon, Neil, Massey, Slocum, Wallace, McGrew, Don Cabeza, "Joe," Follansbee, Murray, Roberts, Posehl, Bunsen, and a few cow-boys, in variously mingled parties, spent many a bright half-hour, spun many a web of yarns, smoked many a score of cigarettes, and submitted to, or took a hand in many an attack of good-humoured chaff. The Caille des Alamos, at Corralitos, has grown, I find, into one of those memory pictures that form the pleasantest relics of travel, and many of which I have gathered up and down the world, from the Golden Horn to the Golden Gates, from the bays of Alaska to Table Bay, from the banks of the Rhine to the banks of the Meinam.

Since the vendors had agreed to deliver the steers in the Plyas Valley, only two men had accompanied Murray from the Animas to assist in branding and to watch the "round up," preparations for which were immediately commenced.