The people, as a general thing, are quite poor, but, as they find a ready market through the military posts for their produce, they manage to realize some money, and thus live quite comfortably, in contrast with their former destitute condition under the government of Old Mexico.  Some of the inhabitants might be said to be rich, though but few of this class own ten thousand dollars’ worth of property.  It is with great labor that the people of Taos bring their crops to perfection, as it is necessary to irrigate the soil, unless the season, which is rarely the fact, is favorable in furnishing rains to them.  There are no fences to divide one man’s possessions from another’s; but, by common law, they furnish shepherds to guard their flocks and cattle and keep them from trespassing.  The climate is very severe during the winter season, but in the summer it is delightful.  The health of this community is wonderfully good.  Indeed, the only severe diseases they have to contend against are brought on by vices.  Excluding small pox, and the lesser complaints among young children, no epidemics are known.  The country is so elevated and inland, that the air is dry and salubrious, and the “dew point” is rarely reached so as to amount to anything.  It may be well to add here, that for the consumptive patient, in the early stages of the disease, there is no such climate in the world to visit, as that of New Mexico; but, as a matter of course, he must vary his location with the changes of temperature, being governed by the seasons.  The winter in Taos is too severe for him; then, he must go South, towards, or even to El Paso, where it is congenial to his disease.  I prophesy that some day our internal continent will be the “Mecca” for pilgrims with this disease.

The dress of the New Mexican is the same as in Old Mexico.  The peasant wears his sombrero and his everlasting blanket, which serves him as a coat, and a covering by night.  He rarely has but one suit of clothes, which are put on new and worn until they are of no further use.  By amalgamating with the Americans, they are gradually changing their style of dress.  The buckskin pants, which were characteristically cut and ornamented, are giving way to the ordinary cloth ones of his white companion.  It is so with the blanket, which is being shed for the coat; and, again, this is true with the moccasin, which is being replaced by the leathern shoe.  The dress of the female has undergone the same alteration.  From almost a state of nudity, they have been raised to a position from which they look upon silk and satin with a “connoisseur’s eye.”  When New Mexico was part and parcel of the domain of Old Mexico, Taos was the seat of much smuggling from the United States, and many an apparent pack of grain drawn into the town has been nothing less than packages of domestic goods, the duties upon which, when introduced in the legal way, were enormous; hence the white men engaged in this business, when successful,