Santa Fe is quite a town, stretching for a considerable distance along a terrace, but little elevated above the water level.

The houses are built of rather large, dark-brown, adobe bricks; the walls are usually white plastered; the roofs of all the houses are tiled, and the supporting rafters of the roof extend out far beyond the front wall of the house, so that the passer on the footpath is sheltered against rain and the noonday sun.

The outer ends of these rafters are cut to give an ornamental effect.

All the houses are surrounded by fruit trees--orange, lemon, lime, _ahuacate_ and _chirimoya_.

Each little property is surrounded by a stone wall of some height; the gate-way through this, giving entrance to the yard, is surmounted by a pretty little double-pitched roofing of thatch.
A crowd of pure indians had gathered at the landing, by the time we were unloaded.