Note 49 — COMMENCEMENT OF THE EXPEDITION
Reading edition
The Rio Pecus is the largest branch of the Rio Grande. Rising in the Santa Fé mountains immediately east of Santa Fé, and following a south-southeast course for about eight hundred miles, it enters the Rio Grande in latitude 29° 41′. The name is derived from an old pueblo, situated on one of the mountain tributaries about twenty-five miles southeast of Santa Fé. In 1540 this was the largest Indian village in New Mexico, containing a population of about two thousand souls; but the United States troops in 1846 found it desolate and in ruins. A small modern village has grown up near the ancient site.—Ed.