The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1874-10-10
LAS ANIMALS, COLORADO.

From Granada to Las Animas is dis
lance of IS miles, and from Las Animas
to Pueblo, 80 miles, and the distance is
driven in two days by stage; the fare $25.
The stages plying between Granada and
Las Animas are stout, comfortable coaches,
with capacity for seating six persons
inside, with little crowding, and the
driver may take one or two outside with
him. Four mules are hitched to these
stages, and they move along at dog trot,
making the distance, Sc miles, including
three changes and twenty minutes for din,
ner, in about ten hours. l engaged and
paid my fair to Pueblo at the office at
Granada, prepayment which afterward
regretted.
At six o'clock on Monday morning, the
Gath of August, the stage pulled up at the
Perry House, in Granada, and l mounted
inside, and a few minutes after younglsh
girl also entered, while passenger, who
seemed to be an old stage driver, or ranch
man, mounted the box with the driver, and
we were off for Las Animas. The day was
fine as almost all days in this country are,
and towards noon little too warm for
comfort. The Arkansas river runs nearly
due east from the Rocky Mountains to the
Kansas line, and considerable distance
beyond; the road pursues the course OF the
river all the way to the mountains, seldom
diverging far enough from the stream to be
out of sight of the green fringe OF the
cottonwoods which line its banks, while all
the rest of the country rolls away bare and
brown, giving it look OF desolatlon to
Eastern eyes, accustomed to verdure ana
variegated landscape. The first IL miles
were soon made and the team changed,
and by twelve o'clock NJ. we pulled up
at the second relay ranch, 26 miles from
Granada, where we all took dinner. This
ranch was a one-story stone building rooted
with poles, covered with canvass, on which
was laid about five inches of adobe, or the
common soil of the country. In this dry
country this kind of roof is about as
serviceable as any. But in the matter OF
appearance it has little to recommend it.
Thousands of cattle pasture on the dry
buffalo grass which covers the plains in
short tufts, and considerable of wheat is
raised near the river where water can be
brought out in bitches to irrigate the land
under cultivation. The country along the
river is pretty we'll settled, if following up
the river or miles between nelghbors is
allowed to be termed settling country,
The vast areas of rolling plains devoid OF
water, must forever remain without habi-
tations, grazing ground for cattle as far
as they can roam and feed till thirst COM
pells them TO return to the streams, which
they do in long strings, following the mar
row buffalo paths which leads from inland
to all the water courses. In seasons OF
rain the stock range further inland and pro-
cure their supplies of water from sloughs
and ponds, while the rain water lasts. At
the ranch where we stopped for dinner
large quantities Of hay had been cut on the
river bottom, and ricked up in long stacks
for Winter use and for the mules and
stock-herding ponies.
In some places the rock crops out on the
low bluffs, a stratified, brown formation
which makes admirable building material,
but the principal material used by the set
tiers for building houses, is the common
soil of the country, dug up where it is free
from gravel, mixed into stiff mortar and
formed into blocks the shape of brick, but
each block is as large as half dozen
bricks. These mud, or adobe brick are
piled up and allowed to dry in the sun,
when they become as hard as our salmon
brick, and the workmen's trowel will ring
when breaking them as clear and sharp
as from our burned brick. Mortar is
sometimes used to lay adobes, but generally
they are piled up in thick wall without
mortar, the cracks being plastered or
pointed up after the wall is built. Four
black walls about eight feet to the caves,
built of adobes with low gables, and poles
to serve as rafters, covered with canvas,
or straw, or thin boards, and thick coat
Of the same material of which the walls
are composed, constitute an adobe ranch.
The house has but one story and generally
two rooms, the ground serving for floor to
one of the rooms and the other having
board floor, carpeted, which answers as
parlor, drawing room and bed chamber.
A bed occupies one corner. A bureau,
some chairs, stand, looking glass, ETC.,
complete the furniture. This is fair
description of all the ranches we stopped
at. The inhabitants of these homely dwell
lings are in many, indeed in most instances
people of refinement and education, and
books and papers are found on the tables,
and a piano or organ, perhaps, composes a
part of the furniture of the better room.
Lumber is scarce and dear here, and the
country dry, so the people use the most
convenient material they have at hand for
building purposes, and the adobe is the
main reliance of all dry, rainless countries.
The Americans found their Mexican pre-
decessors in this country, using the soil of
the plains for building purposes, and they
followed the example, and thus these brown
fronts of the prairies are the fashionable
abodes of the cattle arristocracy of the
great plains.
The lady passenger who left Granada in
the same stage was bound for Las Animas
to seek her fortune as laundry woman.
She and her sister had started laundry at
Granada about two months before, and
kept it running for month, clearing $75
the first month. This was at the beginning
of the Indian depredations, which so fright
ened her sister that she left for her home
in Kansas, and this broke up her business.
She stayed about Granada few weeks
longer and was now turning her face West
in search of fortune. The wages of women
in Colorado range from $50 to $40 month
for ordinary house work, while men, ordi.
nary laborers, command from $50 to $50 a
month.
Prairie dog towns were plenty along the
road, and the little animals would scamper
to their holes, and standing on their
launches peer at the stage a moment and
then dive out of sight. At the third
station, something of a farm was opened,
sod broken preparatory to sowing wheat,
while moving machines and other agricul-
tural implements were seen about, giving
the place civilized look. Good water
can be procured all along this route by
sinking wells Is or 20 feet. A good deal
of wheat is raised by irrigating the land,
and some corn also. The country improves
as Las Animas is approached, which is near
the site of old Fort Lyon, and has been
settled, after a fashion, for number of
years-20 or 30, perhaps longer. About 8
O'Clock in the afternoon, the present Fort
Lyon came in view from the high praries
with the U. S. flag floating from it's tall
flagstaff in the fresh prairie breeze, on the
opposite side of the river, one mile from
the old town of Las Animas. There are
four companies of soldiers stationed at
Fort Lyon, two of which were out on a
scout for Indians. The old town seems to
be putting on new airs, and veneering the
fronts of her adobe buildings with wood,
adding elaborate cornices, a story higher
than the homely mud walls which are hid in
the rear of this modern architectural pre-
tense. The new town or West Las Anlmas
is miles further up the river, and the
present terminus of the south branch of
the X. p Railroad, or as the ticket desig-
mated it, the Arkansas Valley r. R., which