To Captain Zebulon Pike, who afterwards was made a general, is due
the impetus which the trade with Santa Fe received shortly after
his return to the United States. The student of American history
will remember that the expedition commanded by this soldier was
inaugurated in 1806; his report of the route he had taken was the
incentive for commercial speculation in the direction of trade with
New Mexico, but it was so handicapped by restrictions imposed by the
Mexican government, that the adventurers into the precarious traffic
were not only subject to a complete confiscation of their wares,
but frequently imprisoned for months as spies. Under such a condition
of affairs, many of the earlier expeditions, prior to 1822, resulted
in disaster, and only a limited number met with an indifferent success.

It will not be inconsistent with my text if I herewith interpolate
an incident connected with Pursley, the second American to cross
the desert, for the purpose of trade with New Mexico, which I find in
the _Magazine of American History_:

When Zebulon M. Pike was in Mexico, in 1807, he met,
at Santa Fe, a carpenter, Pursley by name, from Bardstown,
Kentucky, who was working at his trade. He had in a
previous year, while out hunting on the Plains, met with
a series of misfortunes, and found himself near the
mountains. The hostile Sioux drove the party into the
high ground in the rear of Pike's Peak. Near the headwaters
of the Platte River, Pursley found some gold, which he
carried in his shot-pouch for months. He was finally sent
by his companions to Santa Fe, to see if they could trade
with the Mexicans, but he chose to remain in Santa Fe
in preference to returning to his comrades. He told the