Note II'-25 — Chapter II · ITINERARY, CONTINUED: THROUGH OLD MEXICO, IN CHIHUAHUA, DURANGO, AND COAHUILA, TO THE PRESIDIO GRANDE, MARCH 22D-MAY 31ST, 1807.

Lettered "Maupeme" on the map, and so rendered in the text beyond; same word as that in Pike's legend "Bolson de Mapini"; now usually spelled Mapimi. Hughes writes Malpimi. The meaning of the word is unknown, as it probably would not be were it of Spanish derivation; its most frequent use is in the phrase Bolson de Mapimi, applied to very extensive tracts of low-lying ground encompassed with mountains, chiefly in the states of Chihuahua and Coahuila, but also overreaching into Durango. Bolson is a Spanish word which means various things, among them "purse," "pouch," or "pocket," and seems to be applied here in the same way that we use the word "hole" for several different valleys in our Rocky mts. Mapimi, as the designation of a particular place, is still the name of the town Pike comes to, now on the railroad, about 15 m. by rail from Peronal, and about 20 m. by the road he came from La Cadena Pass. It is thus the place where the highway and the railroad come together. The situation is the eastern part of an extensive valley some 20 m. wide and 35 m. long from N. to S., surrounded on all sides by mountains yielding silver mines. "Two springs, called Espiritu Santo and Agua de Leon, form here [at Mapimi] a creek, which runs through the town in an eastern direction," Wislizenus, l. c. This seems to be the stream that "formed a terrestrial paradise" for Pike—as well it might, with the Holy Ghost re-enforcing Ponce de Leon. Wislizenus found Mapimi "rather deserted," May 9th, 1847; but the artillery "fired a salute, in honor of the anniversary of the battle of Palo Alto" (fought May 8th, 1846). Pike's camp of the 11th of May, 3 m. E. of Mapimi, was snug under the eastern mountain chain, whence it was about 2 m. through a cañon into another valley forming a part of the series of the Bolson de Mapimi.