[72] We have used the full account given by Dr. Wislizenius, with but slight alterations of his language, because it is the most complete, consistent and satisfactory that we have encountered in our researches. We could neither improve its method or condense its matter. He is a close observer; an accurate thinker; an industrious traveller, and relates always from his personal observation.
[73] There are no negroes in New Mexico, and consequently neither mulattos nor zambos. The fatal epidemic fever of a typhoid character that ravaged the whole province from 1837 to 1839, and the small pox in 1840, carried off nearly ten per cent. of the population.
[74] See Gregg's Commerce of the Prairies, vol. i., p. 113.
[75] See Gregg, vol. i., chapter vii.
[76] Gregg, vol. ii., p. 160.
[77] The roads by Gen. Kearney's and by Brevet Lieut. Col. Cooke's routes leave the Rio Grande for California some fifteen or twenty miles below the ford at Valverde; the former just opposite, and the latter below a point on the left bank of the river known as San Diego.
[78] See vol. ii., page 137.
[79] Forbes's California, p. 202.
[80] Gwin, Frémont, Wright and Gilbert: Memorial to Congress accompanying the Constitution of California, 12 March, 1850.
[81] See the admirable "Paper upon California" read by that accomplished scholar J. Morrison Harris, before the Maryland Historical Society in March 1849. It has been published and forms, in the estimation of competant judges, the best resumé and most philosophical disquisition upon California that has been hitherto issued from the press.