loyalty of New Mexico loose and insecure.2 The governors, judiciary, and clergy of the Territory, naturally fostered this feeling among the people, and in many instances it was beneficial to the north of the Republic, especially in opposing the establishment of the tobacco monopoly and in resisting the introduction of the copper currency which elsewhere caused so much distress and ruin.
The principal town in New Mexico is Santa Fé, or, as it is often written by Spaniards and Mexicans, Santa Fé de San Francisco. It is one of the oldest Spanish settlements in the north, and lies at an elevation of 7047 feet above the sea, in 35° 41´ 6´´, north latitude, and 106° 2´ 30´´, longitude west from Greenwich, according to the observations of Lieutenant Colonel Emory of the United States Topographical Engineers, and of Doctors Gregg and Wislizenius. The town is situated in a wide plain surrounded by mountains, about fifteen miles east of the Rio Grande del Norte. Immediately west of the town a snow-capped mountain rises up to a lofty height, and a beautiful stream of small mill power size, ripples down its sides and joins the river about twenty miles to the south-westward.
Santa Fé is an irregular, scattered town, built of adobes or sun dried bricks, while most of its streets are common highways traversing settlements interspersed with extensive cornfields. The only attempt at any thing like architectural compactness and precision, says Dr. Gregg, consists in four tiers of buildings, whose fronts are shaded with a fringe of rude portales or corridors. They stand around the public square, and comprise the Palacio or Governor's house, the custom house, barracks, calabozo, casa consistorial, the military chapel, besides several private residences, as well as most of the shops of the American traders.