Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1889-10-20

The pastures of the far west are famous
because they are so big When the rage"
set in for ranching it was complacently cal
culated that lying just east of the Rocky
mountains was range some J, 800 miles from
north to south and 80 from east to west;
425, 600 square miles 26o 00O, 600 acres in round
numbers. which would fatten-well, / don't
know how many cattle. A few years later
an interested public was aStounded to learn
that the range was overstocked. How many
million sheep and cattle died during the hard
winters in which this information was ac-
uuired no one knows, but they do say that
Latham. of Laramie, one of the most elo-
queut upholders of the "iving out-all win
ter" theory, gathered his sad eyed and diSap
pointsi sheep round him and kept them alive
through the sleetstorms by reading aloud his
glowing articles III eastern papers. A poem
was written. about this touching fact, which
had quite run, but as the author was one
of those whose sheep had succumbed, said
poem was somewhat IN the minor key.
But this is DEPRESSION. | started 10 give
an account of a.little ride of 900 miles | once
took across that part of the AREA of CORFU
cation" as Maj. Powell calls it, which lies be-
twecn the thirtyfifth and thirtyeighth par
allels. The scheme was TO see what sort of &
country the then proposed thirty fifth parallel
road was TO run through and report the same
impartially TO my employers. and if my horse
had not died, and my sight become impaired
by the alkah dust, and my gizzard been revo-
lutioni8ed by the sandy and mineralized
water, should have eventually have COM
pleted the survey, for my heart was in the
Job. But there are things of which good
bite is as convincing as a full meal--Indian
turnip for instalce-and SO l found ii on the
desert.
From Vinita, /. T., then the terminus of
the road. TO the eastern base of the noun
tains the country is that so often described
as 1.-THE plains / thanked most of it by going
around through Colorado. From Las Vegas
10 Santa Fe there are the usual plateaus
canyons and mountain passes. and from
Santa Fe TO Fort Wingate there was good
military road on which one couh find drink
able water at least twice in days ride The
Mexicans west of the Rio Grande ara very
much mixed, at least two-thirds Indian. |
should Say, and one-thTd Spanish, and the
names they give to springs. peaks and other
prominent objects are far index Of the
woful want of harmony between their de-
scriprion and the fact.
e Rio { the river'1 is ankle deep IN June.
and Fl Rito c'httle rver'0, is, perhaps, navi-
gable for shingles in wet season. Big
springs" are SO called because they send off q
little rin which does not disappear in the
ssni for half q mile or 50, and FL Bosoue del
Santo Trinidad C'The Grove Of the Holy
Trinity. consists of a dozen scrubby little
trees with puddle in the center said puddle
diversified around the edges by the tracks of
Navajo goats and fringed by the skeletons of
dead mules. The same system runs through
all their nomenclature. At Albuquerque /
was waited on by Jesus they pronounce it
Eaysoos), and lodged in 'palacio- of adobes
that is, dried mud. The full English IF the
name of their capital city is Holy Faith Of
ST. Francis and a dirty little alkahed brook
is called the River of Souls." BY the same
process the Yankee John Bogss after locat-
ing in New Mexico and buying rancho, be-
comes Senior Juau de Palos and Tim Muir