The above valuations of imports and exports do not represent all the capital invested in the New Mexico trade. In the transportation business, which it has created, millions are also employed, as will be shown under the appropriate head.

The Indian trade proper of the great Plains has, as remarked in a preceding portion of this article, fallen off, owing to the encroachments made by civilization upon that formerly undisputed dominion of the aborigines. The tens of thousands of half-civilized redskins, confined in so-called reserves in the Indian Territory and Eastern Kansas and Nebraska, have already learned too much to continue their former trading ways. Most of them have become familiar with the real value of mercantile wares, and, like their white neighbors, no longer limit their trading relations to certain places and parties, but trade wherever they can buy cheapest. Most of the permanently located tribes receive provisions, groceries, clothing, blankets, farming utensils, &c., from the government, as a portion of their annuities, which supplies naturally limit their purchases. Yet, after all, even the civilized Indian is an incorrigible spendthrift, and generally squanders his means in the most foolish and reckless manner. as he receives his cash annuities, he mounts his pony and is off to trade. Once about buying, Uncle Sam's eagles do not jingle long in his pocket. He is not satisfied until his last dollar is spent, and even after that is gone he will persist in buying, in case the merchant is willing to trust him until next pay day. Of the million and a half of dollars now annually distributed among the Indians settled on the border, most find their way into the tills of the frontier merchants.

As soon

The wares mostly in demand among the savages are arms, powder, lead, tobacco, sugar, coffee, candles, beads, calicoes, blankets, saddles, bridles, ribbons, and trinkets of every description. Flour and bacon are also readily disposed of, as agriculture is attempted on the smallest scale only by a few of the wild tribes. In exchange, the traders receive gold and silver, furs, dressed skins, beaded Indian garments, dried meats, poniesin short, anything of commercial currency the aborigines are willing to part with; and what is an Indian unwilling to give when an article pleases his primitive taste? Papooses and squaws are then as unhesitatingly bartered away as moccassins and buffalo robes.

The profits of the traders are enormous. A few pounds of flour or sugar are given for the most valuable furs. Rings, that cost a few cents in the East, bring as many dollars. Bacon is usually made to bring about half a dollar per pound, and all other articles are held at corresponding

rates.

The quantity of furs and dressed deer, elk, and antelope skins exchanged for goods by the traders is very great. Of the furs, buffalo robes constitute the bulk. The furs and skins obtained from the Indians of the Plains, nearly all find their way through various channels to St. Louis. Those from the Upper Missouri country are brought down that river every summer by the so-called "mountain fleet" of light draught steamboats, and those from the Platte, Kansas, Arkansas, Colorado, and Grande valleys by returning freight trains. The annual value of these exports is, of course, not uniform. It usually represents several hundred thousands of dollars.

Some of the Indian traders have stationary posts. Others lead a wandering life, visiting tribe after tribe. To the former class belong the wealthiest of the profession.

While many merchants, interested in the commerce of the Platte, trade exclusively with the Indians, a number of those located in New Mexico, Pike's Peak, and Salt Lake, likewise dispose of more or less goods. among them.

The Salt Lake trade, although more varied than that with the aborigines, is far less profitable. It is true imported wares always bring good prices when sold; but the heavy cost of freighting, the interest on the capital invested lost during the long time consumed by the overland transportation, &c., necessitates these, while the constant overstocking the Utah market has labored under during the last year rendered quick sales impossible. The Mormons, furthermore, are not a well-to-do people. Their means are so limited that, even if they desired, they could not well become extravagant purchasers. They dress and live poorly. The comforts and luxuries of Eastern life are known to but few of them.

Cheap dry goods and clothing, boots and shoes, groceries and liquors, and hardware, constitute the bulk of the imports into Utah. Of provisions, all that are wanted for home consumption, with the exception of pork, are produced in the Territory. Of wheat, a surplus has been raised more latterly, for which a market has been found this summer in the Pike's Peak settlements. But flour and some furs and skins are about the only articles exported from Mormondom. A manufacturing interest is gradually growing up among Young's people that promises to cause, Lefore long, a still farther decrease in the importation of certain Eastern goods.

It is doubtful whether the value of the imports of 1860 exceed half a million of dollars.

The dimensions of the newly opened overland trade to the gold and silver mines of the eastern and western declines of the Rocky Mountains eclipse altogether those of the New Mexico, Indian, and Utah trade. It is already characterized by all the energy and enterprise of Anglo-American business life. Having to do with greater consumers, it is far ahead, both as to quantity and quality of imports. The truth that there are no better buyers anywhere on the globe than Anglo-Americans, is amply illustrated by the rapid and stupendous development of Pike's Peak commerce. They will enjoy all the bodily and intellectual well being they have been brought up to, no matter how difficult and expensive it may prove to secure it. Nor has the knowledge of this ingrained propensity, always to live as well as possible, failed to be duly acted upon by those that undertook to provide commercially for the various wants of the tens of thousands that so speedily congregated in the Dorado of the Rocky Mountains. Although hardly two years have elapsed since the first gold hunters made their appearance at their base, money will now buy not only all direct necessaries, but most of the comforts of Anglo-American life. In Denver City whole streets have been built up in less than twelve months with brick and frame edifices for business purposes, many stories high, and filled from roof to cellar with every production of Anglo-American industry that can possibly be demanded in that market. On the 1st of August last, goods, the first cost of which was over a million and a half of dollars, and whose real value, as retailed, represented at least four millions, were stored in that place alone, while in all the other towns of the gold regions, and throughout the mines, immense quantities of wares, imported directly from the States to the several localities, were likewise

offered for sale.

That trade in the Pike's Peak country was at once conducted on so broad a basis is doubtless attributable, in some degree, to the fact that thus far the recently invaded land of gold has, barring the yield of gold and a crop of vegetables, remained an absolutely unproductive country. Every pound of breadstuffs had to be imported, which necessity alone at once called a huge transportation business and provision trade into existence. Over one hundred and sixty thousand sacks of flour have indeed been hauled to the gold regions since the 1st of April last from the Missouri River towns, New Mexico, and Utah, which retail on an average at $12 per sack. The importations of groceries are equally enormous. These two branches form, in fact, the bulk of the Pike's Peak trade.

Although the Pike's Peak market is well stocked with every kind and grade of goods, all are not in good demand. Groceries, provisions, boots and shoes, clothing, cheap dry goods, building hardware, tobacco, liquors, saddlery, glass, and some few other articles have always sold well, while fancy dry goods, fine clothing, furnishing goods, costly furniture, and such like, were not very eagerly sought, nor will they be until the general anxiety to make money will have given way to a stronger disposition to enjoy it.

The above enumerated staple articles bring very satisfactory profits, although they are necessarily held high, because of the expensive overland transportation of nearly 700 miles.

It is estimated that, the winter stocks having now nearly all been imported, about two millions and five hundred thousand dollars' worth of merchandise has been carried to the gold regions from various points since the 1st of April last, all of which are expected to be sold previous to the return of the warm season at a profit of at least two millions. The cost of the machinery introduced in the towns and mines cannot be less than one million of dollars. To all this must be added the capital absorbed by the gigantic carrying trade, created by these mercantile and industrial wants. A series of facts and figures, bearing on this part of the subject, will follow further below.

The exports from the gold regions consist thus far of about three millions' worth of bullion and fifty thousand dollars' worth of furs and dressed skins.

Judging from present appearances, only one or two more seasons will elapse before the largest portion of the breadstuffs consumed by the Pike's Peak people will be produced in the South Platte and Upper Arkansas valleys. That their climate is favorable to the production of all cereals has been fully demonstrated by experimental patches of wheat, barley, and oats raised this summer.

OVERLAND TRANSPORTATION-ANNUAL PREPARATIONS FOR THE CARRYING

SEASON.

The navigation of the great prairies of the West is as much dependent upon meteorological contingencies as that of the sea, and even more 80. For while seafarers can bid defiance to the whims of the weather, they that propose to steer across the Plains have no alternative but to abide by its caprices, however provoking that may be. Should an early triumph crown the yearly struggle between the cold and warm seasons, the overland freighter will take a corresponding timely start upon his wearisome journey. But if, as it frequently happens, winter succeeds in

maintaining its sway long after the period assigned to the rule of spring commences, he must, nolens volens, continue in "port." The relative condition of the annual new growth of grass, regulated, as it is, by the more or less ready appearance of the season of herbal life, is the barometer that absolutely controls his movements. Wind and rain will not retard him. He will mind them no more than he that is tossed about on the uproarious ocean. Protracted frosts alone are terrors to him, as their unseasonable infliction always seriously interferes with the attiring of the Plains in their luxuriant summerly verdure.

But whether loathed delay or early embarkation be in store for the prairie travelers, their departure from their several winter quarters is always preceded by weeks of active preparations, so that they may be ready to start whenever the vegetation of the Plains is sufficiently resuscitated to warrant

it.

The overland traders appear in the Eastern markets as the earliest among spring buyers, in order to have their invoices on the frontier at the time of the reopening of the transportation season. The hotel keepers and wholesale dealers of the Western cities know exactly the time when they may expect the yearly visits of those well dressed individuals, with deeply bronzed countenances, that come from the far West, with "pockets full and spirits easy." They loom up as unfailingly as the migratory birds that winter in southerly climes.

The old accounts being squared-although buying largely on credit they but seldom ask extensions-and the new purchases, mostly comprising stocks intended to last a whole season, being made, they seek the Missouri River towns to superintend the arrival, storage, and final shipment for the Plains of their several invoices.

Many of the freighters are in the habit of going into winter quarters on the western verge of the Plains, as the climatical relations of those regions render their natural pasturage more desirable during the cold season than that of more easterly latitudes. But whether they winter their stock and shelter their wagons in the glens and glades of the Rocky Mountains, and upon the table lands of the Upper Arkansas, Platte, and Grand rivers, or on the prairies and in the bottoms and groves of Western Missouri and Iowa, and Eastern Kansas and Nebraska, the month of March finds them all very busy in getting everything into the best possible order for the ensuing days of activity.

At that time their many starting points from Nebraska down to Missouri reveal a stir, noise, and bustle similar to that accompanying the vernal resumption of steamboating in the river cities of the West. Thousands of wagons that during the winter stood on elevations, in long rows, forming solid squares, and covering acres of ground, are now severally hauled forth, examined, and repaired. Wagon makers, blacksmiths, and saddlers are kept busy day and night. Thousands of draught animals are driven up from the prairies of the interior and herded on the outskirts of the towns. Crowds of teamsters, in dirty buckskin, corduroy, and flannel-tall, muscular Missourians, agile, talkative Frenchmen, and swarthy, sallow looking Mexicans -commence hanging about the street corners and groggeties. Towards the middle of June the public thoroughfares resound with the rumble of the clumsy, cumbersome, "prairie schooners," and the violent vociferations of drivers, that with loud cracks from mighty whips urge patient oxen and restive mules towards the warehouses on the levees, from which the cargoes

are to be procured. Wagon after wagon rolls up and receives its load and returns to the camping ground, (usually a few miles back of the towns, and convenient as to food, water, fuel,) until the train is completed. A few days are then devoted in camp to the last preparations for the trip. At last, the height attained by the new grass warranting a start, the order of march is given, and the caravan slowly emerges upon the seemingly boundless prairies it is to traverse.

ROUTES FOLLOWED BY FREIGHTERS TO NEW MEXICO, PIKE'S PEAK, AND UTAH.

The course pursued by overland freighters to the settled sections, both east and west of the Rocky Mountains, is no matter of choice. It is absolutely fixed by the necessity of having water, grass, and fuel steadily within reach. These three articles form, indeed, the conditions sine qua non of prairie traveling. All the highways of overland travel have been opened either in the immediate vicinity of water courses or as near to them as the character of the surface of the country would allow. Yet, although the greatest care was taken to make the several routes come up to the required standard, it was often found impracticable to trace them so as to place the temporary want of some of the above elements beyond all possibility.

The great Arkansas, or Santa Fé route-the first trail across the Plains ever followed by vehicles-is and has always been the sole channel through which all the carrying trade between New Mexico, the Indian trading posts of the Arkansas Valley, and the east passes. It begins on the Missouri line just west of the town of Westport, and, after bearing nearly due south for several metres, continues a little south of west at a gradually increasing distance from the Smoky Hill Fork of the Kansas River, through Council Grove, (115 miles from the Missouri,) towards the Arkansas, the great bend of which it reaches on its northern bank at about 250 miles from Kansas City. Keeping up the bend, the road crosses the river near Fort Atchison, and, bearing due southwest, runs to the Cirramon valley, which it follows up for a considerable distance. Crossing the Cirramon, and leaving it to the right, the road passes over to the valley of the Canadian River, crosses its head waters, and, after touching Fort Union, leads over one of the southern spurs of the Rocky Mountains into the Rio Grande Valley.

The entire distance from Westport to Santa Fé is about 750 miles, and is measured by freight trains in from forty to fifty days in going out, and in from thirty to forty in returning, provided no accidents interfere.

The road is broad-the wagon tracks extend hundreds of feet in width nearly all the way out-and tolerably smooth and dry, with the exception of some sandy stretches on the Cirramon River, and some heavy ascents just before passing into the Rio Grande Valley. Grass is plentiful and water likewise, barring the arid plains along the Cirramon and Canadian, the desert like character of which has brought many a fatal disaster upon New Mexico caravans.

The overland traffic with the Pike's Peak region is not, like that with New Mexico, confined to a single channel. It is finding its way both over the Southern or Santa Fé and Northern or Platte route. That portion of it that follows the former, instead of keeping the Santa Fé trail, after it turns off the Arkansas, continues up the northern bank of that river past the socalled Big-Timbers and Bent's Fort, to within a few miles of the base of the mountains, when, turning due north, it winds up to Boiling Spring Creek, a tributary of the Arkansas-to the town of Colorado at the base

VOL. XLIV.-NO. I.

3