taining from 100 to 1,200 rooms, communal houses, of whose the walls still stand to a height of 30 feet, with remnants of the fifth story.

Of the 284,000 population of New Mexico, in 1904, 144,000 came from other States; 127,000 are natives of Spanish descent, while 13,000 are Indians. There are many tribesamong the best known are the Navajos, Zunis, Acoma, Laguna and Pueblos.

The Navajos, whose reservation is located in the northwest corner of New Mexico and the northeast corner of Arizona, being about equally divided

south is the Zuni reservation, covering over four hundred and twenty-seven square miles, with a population of 1,525. The principal pueblo is Zuni, one of the noted "seven cities of Cibola," and one of the most ancient and interesting pueblos of the southwest. Its famous annual ceremonial dances attract many tourists from all over the world. Here the United States Government has established an irrigation plant with a $250,000 reservoir, by which 6,000 acres of land is irrigated. The Zunis are industrious husbandmen, the majority having from ten to twenty acres under cultivation, some

kiti, on a high rock near the San Jose river. It original name was San Josef de la Laguna.

Several great battles were fought here by the Navajos and Apaches. The Laguna Indians also occupy tributary villages, such as Paquate, Negra, Encinal and Casa Blanca.

The most interesting and noted of all New Mexican pueblos is Acoma, the "sky city," so called, which is built on the summit of a table rock with eroded, precipitous sides, three hundred and fifty feet above the plain, 7,000 feet above the sea. The pueblo is 1,000 feet long by 40 high, and was formerly reached by a narrow stairway in the rock, up which the inhabitants carried on their backs not only every particle of material for the building of their adobe village, but the earth for the graveyard. Forty years were required for its construction.

At the pueblo of Taos, northeast of Santa Fe, is buried the historic pioneer scout, trapper and guide, Kit Carson, who died at Fort Lyon, Colorado, in 1868. His only daughter, Mrs. Allen, still lives in the city of Raton, New Mexico, located on the old Santa Fe trail at the foot of the Raton Range.

The ordinary Mexican of New Mexico seems content to live in a rather primitive manner, occupying small, adobe houses. Building material, other than this sun-dried brick, is very expensive in this old-new country. The long, narrow Mexican houses, one story high, with an outside door to each room may appear picturesque to the tourist who sees them for the first time, but the Americanos view them otherwise. A small cluster of these houses is called a Placita. The Mexican usually has a small vegetable garden, a few acres of some kind of grain, a few sheep or goats, and a handful of motley chickens. None are too poor to own a burro, that tiny, ill-used beast of burden, who forages his own living as best he can. Some natives own several of these inexpensive little animals costing from one to five dollars. If raised by the farmer, their cost is not reckoned at all. Many of the na

tives earn a little money by cutting pinon wood, a sort of hard pine scattered along the sides of the Rocky Mountains, and hauling it to town, often ten or more miles, the transportation being in rough carts drawn by four burros abreast. Sometimes the wood is cut into short lengths, deftly packed on the burros with ropes, and peddled from house to house along the streets of cities at 25 cents per load.

Occasionally a Mexican will hire out to tend stock on a ranch, getting as high as 75 cents per day and board.

The people live very simply: beans, chili and tortillas being their staple articles of food. A favorite dish is bean soup well seasoned with chili, a pepper made of dried long red bell-peppers ground coarsely and eaten with the tortilla, a cake made of flour and water, rolled as thin as pie crust, and baked on the floor of the adobe oven, or on the top of a stove, by the few so fortunate as to have one. Sandwiches are often made of two tortillas, with a filling of lard, in which plenty of chili has been mixed. Lard takes the place of butter, unless the family is in a position to keep a cow. Rarely is meat used, unless the householder owns a flock of sheep or goats. If goats, the family enjoys the unusual luxury of milk in the coffee; otherwise it is taken without milk or sugar, but always very strong, as coffee is considered one of the indispensable necessities of the table.

These Mexicans of New Mexico are a hospitable people, and take offense if a stranger happens along at mealtime and declines to join them. Some of those living in or near the cities are adopting the modern cook stove or range, but the majority use the out of door bake-oven for cooking. These primitive ovens are built of adobe, and near the house; often two are constructed, one large, the other small. Their shape is like an inverted bowl, Iwith a door in one side near the bottom and a smoke hole near the top. In use, they are heated very hot with a wood fire; then the coals and ashes are drawn, the floor swept with a sort

of mop, the breadstuffs laid inside. The door is closed, and the dough left till thoroughly baked.

One of their methods of preparing green corn is to fill a hot adobe oven with ears of corn in the husk, then pour over the heap a pail or two of cold water and close the oven door till the corn has been thoroughly cooked by the steam. It is then taken out and husked, leaving on sufficient to braid. into long traces, which are hung up to dry. When well dried, it is shelled and ready for use or for market. It is then called Chico, and commands a good price, the market apparently never being overstocked.

Mexican women still cling to the one piece covering for head and shoulders, the black shawl, without which, on street or train, they are never seen. Of late, the girls and young women in or near the cities have begun to adopt hats like their American sisters. Some of the women are extraordinary experts in the finest and most beautiful handmade Mexican work, such as table covers, bureau scarfs, pillow-shams, handkerchiefs and other articles, which not only adorn their homes, but command a good price in the art stores, where they find ready purchasers in the many tourists. The women also assist in the construction of their homes. After the walls of adobe brick are laid, they plaster the inside walls with adobe mortar, putting it on with their hands. The bricks are made of earth, spaded up loosely, sufficient water being poured on to make a thick paste or mud, and a small quantity of chopped straw added. The mixture is worked together by men who trample it with bare legs. The resulting mixture is molded into bricks eighteen inches long, eight inches wide, and four inches thick. These bricks are so heavy that only two can be molded at a time. They are laid in rows on the ground to dry in the sun, which requires six weeks if the weather is fine.

One of the peculiar ceremonies of a religious sect called "Penitenties" is at Easter: when a number of the men, stripped to the waist, start from a given

point and go to the "Place of the Cross," chanting a sort of song and cruelly lashing their bared backs all the way with thongs, or whips made from sword-grass, or grass made from the soap plant. The edges of these grasses are extremely sharp, and readily cut the flesh. Long before the procession reached the place where they set up the wooden cross, carried on the back of one of them in imitation of the Savior, the bodies of these penitentes are badly lacerated and covered with dripping blood.

After the ceremony of raising the cross, in the presence of other members of the sect; the wounded backs are bathed by women from bowls of medicine prepared of roots and herbs. Many days pass before the wounds are healed sufficiently for the men to resume labor. If, as sometimes happens, one of this sect dies, whose family is too poor to hire a priest to officiate at the funeral (a priest performs no funeral or wedding ceremony for less than fifteen dollars) the body is buried without any funeral service. At the end of the year, however, a special penance is conducted similar to that of the Cross. By so doing the penitentes believe they help their relative to pass through purgatory.

As a rule, the Mexicans develop young and age prematurely. A marriageable age for a girl is fourteen years; for a man nineteen years. Often both are even younger. Often a girl of fourteen years weds a man of forty-five. The courtship is peculiar to the people. When a young man fancies a young woman for marriage, he goes to her parents and asks their consent. Later the parents consult their daughter. If she is favorable, the parents send for the young man, who takes up his abode with the family till the marriage, which follows shortly. The engagement is announced by the parents of the young woman, who make a feast and invite the relatives of both.

The time intervening before the marriage is devoted to courting, or "sparking." The wedding, if solemnized at the bride's home, is on as grand a scale