position to the traffic of the Old Santa Fe Trail ended, traders were
assured a profitable market and the people purchased at relatively low
prices.

What a wonderful change has taken place in the traffic with New Mexico
in less than three-quarters of a century! In 1825 it was all carried on
with one single annual caravan of prairie-schooners, and now there are
four railroads running through the Rio Grande Valley, and one daily
freight train of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe into the town
unloads more freight than was taken there in a whole year when the
"commerce of the prairies" was at its height!

Upon the arrival of a caravan in the days of the sleepy regime under
Mexican control, the people did everything in their power to make
the time pass pleasantly for every one connected with it during their
sojourn. Bailes, or fandangoes, as the dancing parties were called by
the natives, were given nightly, and many amusing anecdotes in regard to
them are related by the old-timers.

The New Mexicans, both men and women, had a great fondness for jewelry,
dress, and amusements; of the latter, the fandango was the principal,
which was held in the most fashionable place of resort, where every
belle and beauty in the town presented herself, attired in the most
costly manner, and displaying her jewelled ornaments to the best
advantage. To this place of recreation and pleasure, generally a large,
capacious saloon or interior court, all classes of persons were allowed
to come, without charge and without invitation. The festivities usually
commenced about nine o'clock in the evening, and the tolling of the
church bells was the signal for the ladies to make their entrance, which
they did almost simultaneously.

New Mexican ladies were famous for their gaudy dresses, but it must
be confessed they did not exercise good taste. Their robes were made
without bodies; a skirt only, and a long, loose, flowing scarf or reboso
dexterously thrown about the head and shoulders, so as to supersede both
the use of dress-bodies and bonnets.

There was very little order maintained at these fandangoes, and still
less attention paid to the rules of etiquette. A kind of swinging,
gallopade waltz was the favourite dance, the cotillion not being much in
vogue. Read Byron's graphic description of the waltz, and then stretch
your imagination to its utmost tension, and you will perhaps have some
faint conception of the Mexican fandango. Such familiar