s here being wholesale dealers for the vast
territory tributary. It is supposed that about $750,000
worth of goods will be brought to this place this year, and
there may be $250,000 worth imported directly from the
United States.

In the money market there is nothing less than a five-cent
piece. You cannot purchase anything for less than five cents.
In trade they reckon ten cents the eighth of a dollar.
If you purchase nominally a dollar's worth of an article,
you can pay for it in eight ten-cent pieces; and if you
give a dollar, you receive no change. In changing a dollar
for you, you would get but eight ten-cent pieces for it.

Yet, although dirty and unkempt, and swarming with hungry
dogs, it has the charm of foreign flavour, and like
San Antonio retains some portion of the grace which long
lingered about it, if indeed it ever forsakes the spot
where Spain held rule for centuries, and the soft syllables
of the Spanish language are yet heard.

Such was a description of the "drowsy old town" of Santa Fe, sixty-five
years ago. Fifteen years later Major W. H. Emory, of the United States
army, writes of it as follows:[6]

The population of Santa Fe is from two to four thousand,
and the inhabitants are, it is said, the poorest people
of any town in the Province. The houses are mud bricks,
in the Spanish style, generally of one story, and built
on a square. The interior of the square is an open court,
and the principal rooms open into it. They are forbidding
in appearance from the outside, but nothing can exceed
the comfort and convenience of the interior. The thick
walls make them cool in summer and warm in winter.

The better class of people are provided with excellent beds,
but the poorer class sleep on untanned skins. The women
here, as in many other parts of the world, appear to be
much before the men in refinements, intelligence, and
knowledge of the useful arts. The higher class dress like
the American women, except, instead of a bonnet, they wear
a scarf over their head, called a reboso. This they wear
asleep or awake, in the house or abroad. The dress of the