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We pass Fort Lyon lots of adobie houses limitless pasturage, appropriately fleck'd with those herds of cattle in due time the declining sun in the west a sky of limpid pearl over all and so evening on the great plains. Indeed through the whole of this journey, with all its shows and varieties, what most impress'd me, and will longest remain with me, are these same prairies.
"Pizie" or "adobie" is simply surface soil kneaded with water and either moulded between boards like concrete, to construct the walls, or made into large sun-dried bricks. Salt water should not be used, as it causes the wall to be affected by every change of weather.
Such persons fully deserve the ill health which sooner or later overtakes them. A little forethought and very moderate ingenuity would render their camp comparatively healthy and comfortable. In summer the tent is the hottest, and in winter the coldest of domiciles. The "pizie" or "adobie" hut, or, where practicable, the "dugout," are much to be preferred, especially the latter.
A properly constructed house of this material, where the walls are protected by overhanging eaves, are practically everlasting, and the former have been standing for centuries. There are buildings of pizie or adobie in Mexico, California and Australia which are as good as new, although the latter were built nearly a century ago.
Adobie dwellings are warm in winter and cool in summer, and can be kept clean and healthy by occasional coatings of lime whitewash. The dugout is even more simple in construction. A cutting, say ten feet wide, is put into the base of a hill for say twelve feet until the back wall is, say, ten feet high, the sides starting from nothing to that height.
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