No life
Can be pure in its purpose, and strong in its strife,
And all life not be purer and stronger thereby."
—Owen Meredith.
THE HERMIT PRIEST.
The tourist en route to the Pacific coast cannot fail observing on his right a huge, relatively isolated peak, cutting the incomparably clear mid-continent sky, almost immediately after the train emerges from the picturesque cañon of El Moro, and commences to descend the long gradual slope to the quaint old Mexican village of Las Vegas, New Mexico. Its scarred and verdureless front looms up grandly in the beautifully serrated landscape, of which it is the most conspicuous object. More prominently defined than any other individual elevation of the Taos Range visible from the point of observation, the shadow of its irregular contour reaches far out over the lesser mountains beneath, the moment the sun has crossed the meridian of its crest.
At its foot, grassy little valleys stretch eastwardly, which are cultivated by the primitive Mexicans under a system of irrigation as primitive as themselves—simple earth ditches, involving a very limited knowledge of engineering.
Foaming little torrents splash and sparkle in the sunshine, as they course through the fertile intervales. Their sources are cool mountain springs hidden in the dark recesses of the towering range, which were, until the restless "Gringo" invaded the solitude of the charming region at the advent of the iron trail to erect saw-mills, filled with that most epicurean and gamy of all the finny tribe, the speckled brook-trout. Now, the disciple of the revered Walton vainly essays the streams with elegant modern appliances for lazy methods of angling, retiring disgusted, as the listless native, answering his interrogatory of "Where have they all gone?" with a characteristic shrug, and his ever-ready "Quien sabe?" quietly opens his little ditch to let the tenantless water overflow his limited patch of corn, beans, and onions.
Maybe, in the sad and weird mythology of those strange people the Aztecs, this storm-beaten spur of the Rockies occupied an important place. Their Olympus, or Parnassus perhaps, for not many miles remote, on the bank of the classic Pecos, where lie the ruins of the once fortified Cicuye, referred to so graphically in the itinerary of the historian of Coronado's wonderful march in search of the "Seven Cities of Cibola," is the reputed birthplace of their culture-hero, Montezuma (not to be confounded with the dynasty of sovereigns of that name), who was the Christ of their faith, for whose second advent the Pueblos, the lineal descendants of the Aztecs, look for so hopefully with the rising of every morning's sun.