Incredible as it may appear, he cleared it by more than two feet; a cry
of admiration burst from the savages; but Overton was exhausted, and he
fell slowly backwards. They crouched upon their breasts to look
down--for the depth was so awful as to giddy the brain--and saw their
victim, his clothes still in flames, rolling down from rock to rock till
all was darkness.
Had he kept his footing on the other side of the chasm, he would have
been safe, for a bold deed always commands admiration from the savage,
and at that time they would have scorned to use their arrows.
Such was the fate of Colonel Overton!
CHAPTER XIII.
At last we passed the Rio Grande, and a few days more brought us to
Santa Fe. Much hath been written about this rich and romantic city,
where formerly, if we were to believe travellers, dollars and doubloons
were to be had merely for picking them up; but I suspect the writers had
never seen the place, for it is a miserable, dirty little hole,
containing about three thousand souls, almost all of them half-bred,
naked, and starved. Such is Santa Fe. You will there witness spectacles
of wretchedness and vice hardly to be found elsewhere--harsh despotism;
immorality carried to its highest degree, with drunkenness and filth.
The value of the Santa Fe trade has been very much exaggerated.
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