many of them. A third
village, which was not far off from the other two, being
informed of what had passed, and not doubting but these
conquerors would attack them, laid an ambush into which
the Spaniards heedlessly fell. Others say that the savages,
having heard that the enemy were almost all drunk and
fast asleep, fell upon them in the night. However it was,
it is certain the greater part of them were killed.
There were in the party two almoners; one of them was
killed directly and the other got away to the Missouris,
who took him prisoner, but he escaped them very dexterously.
He had a very fine horse and the Missouris took pleasure
in seeing him ride it, which he did very skilfully. He took
advantage of their curiosity to get out of their hands.

One day as he was prancing and exercising his horse before
them, he got a little distance from them insensibly; then
suddenly clapping spurs to his horse he was soon out of sight.

The Missouri Indians once occupied all the territory near the junction
of the Kaw and Missouri rivers, but they were constantly decimated by
the continual depredations of their warlike and feudal enemies, the
Pawnees and Sioux, and at last fell a prey to that dreadful scourge, the
small-pox, which swept them off by thousands. The remnant of the once
powerful tribe then found shelter and a home with the Otoes, finally
becoming merged in that tribe.

CHAPTER I. UNDER THE SPANIARDS.

The Santa Fe of the purely Mexican occupation, long before the days
of New Mexico's acquisition by the United States, and the Santa Fe of
to-day are so widely in contrast that it is difficult to find language
in which to convey to the reader the story of the phenomenal change. To
those who are acquainted with the charming place as it is now, with its
refined and cultured society, I cannot do better, perhaps, in attempting
to show what it was under the old regime, than to quote what some
traveller in the early 30's wrote for a New York leading newspaper, in
regard to it. As far as my own observation of the place is concerned,
when I first visited it a great many years ago, the writer of the
communication whose views I now present was not incorrect in his
judgment. He said:--

To dignify such a collection of mud hovels with the name