meet them.  He had camped on the spurs of the Rocky Mountains; he
had threaded the valleys of New Mexico; looked at the adobe
villages of the Pueblos, and among the race, neither Indian nor
Spaniard, with swarthy face and unkempt hair.  He had occasion to
moralize over those who had voluntarily become the slaves of
others even meaner than themselves, who spoke a jargon neither
Indian nor Spanish.  Catholics in name, who ate red pepper pies,
gambled like the fashionable frequenters of Baden, and swore like
troopers. 

It was late in the year 1842 that the wanderer, sick of a fever,
worn and weary, halted his ox-cart near San Fernandino, in
Northern Mexico.  Fate had willed that his work should die with
him.  But little of his labor was saved, and that not enough to aid
any one to develop his idea.  Bad nursing, exposure, and lack of
proper medical attendance finished the work.  He sleeps, not far
from the Rio Grande, the greatest of his race. 

At one time Congress contemplated having his remains removed and a
monument erected over them; it was postponed, however.