ity of position
as was indulged in would be repugnant to the refined rules of polite
society in the eastern cities; but with the New Mexicans, in those early
times, nothing was considered to be a greater accomplishment than that
of being able to go handsomely through all the mazes of their peculiar
dance.

There was one republican feature about the New Mexican fandango; it was
that all classes, rich and poor alike, met and intermingled, as did the
Romans at their Saturnalia, upon terms of equality. Sumptuous repasts
or collations were rarely ever prepared for those frolicsome gatherings,
but there was always an abundance of confectionery, sweetmeats,
and native wine. It cost very little for a man to attend one of the
fandangoes in Santa Fe, but not to get away decently and sober. In that
it resembled the descent of Aeneas to Pluto's realms; it was easy enough
to get there, but when it came to return, "revocare gradum, superasque
evadere ad auras, hic labor, hoc opus est."

CHAPTER II. LA LANDE AND PURSLEY.

In the beginning of the trade with New Mexico, the route across the
great plains was directly west from the Missouri River to the mountains,
thence south to Santa Fe by the circuitous trail from Taos. When the
traffic assumed an importance demanding a more easy line of way, the
road was changed, running along the left bank of the Arkansas until
that stream turned northwest, at which point it crossed the river, and
continued southwest to the Raton Pass.

The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad track substantially follows
the Trail through the mountains, which here afford the wildest and most
picturesquely beautiful scenery on the continent.

The Arkansas River at the fording of the Old Trail is not more than
knee-deep at an ordinary stage of water, and its bottom is well paved
with rounded pebbles of the primitive rock.

The overland trade between the United States and the northern provinces
of Mexico seems to have had no very definite origin; having been rather
the result of an accident than of any organized plan of commercial
establishment.

According to the best authorities, a French creole, named La Lande,
an agent of a merchant of Kaskaskia, Illinois, was the first American
adventurer to enter into the uncertain channels of trade with the people
of the ultramontane region of the centre of the continent. He began his
adventurous journey across the vast wilderness, with no companions but
the