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quite so accurately outlined-as those of the Apollo Belvidere. The swallow-tail skirts of his coat were carefully "tucked up;" no fancy ornament was suffered to come within reach of the treacherous element; and thus "accoutred as he was, he plunged in." His trusty sword he grasps with a nervous clutch in his right hand, and with his left, like a performer on the rope, he strives to preserve the centre of gravity in such position as will enable him to maintain a stable equilibrium. As he creeps over the stones, the hand flies up and down, right and left, and by its rapid and irregular gyrations, you are almost able to take the soundings of the ford, to trace its tortuous course, and discover its ups and downs. With tremulous motions he thrusts the sword into the stream, and follows on with tottering and unsteady step. He falters, his pace slackens, he halts, and looks wildly and anxiously around. The shores are lined with spectators watching his precarious progress. He turns his eyes from one side to the other; he meets no sympathy, and the waters roll fiercely and pitilessly on: he looks forward, and the ripples are rising higher before him, yet there is no retreat. Again he nerves himself to renew his task, still stealthily advancing like a man groping his way in the dark. The march of those in the rear is suspended to mark his progress. Again he pauses; and shouts from front and rear assail his ears. 66 Forward!" says one; "right face!" shrieks another; "go it while you're young!' says a third; "to the rear open order!" exclaims a fourth; "halt!" roars a fifth; "mark time!" shouts a sixth. The poor man is in agony. Big drops of perspiration start from his brow, and trickle down his face. Unconscious of any distinct direction, his actions indicate a desire to obey them all. He trembles; he waves to and fro; he is not so much a bubble on the stream, as something between a snag and a sawyer. He makes another effort, as if to concentrate his energies for a final struggle. But the waters are around him, and he reels like a drunken man. The stones appear to glide from under him as easily as the ripples float before him; he sinks, he groans, he struggles; he throws out his right arm in frantic strokes, and with his left he brandishes

-a grasp of vapor. Once more he heaves himself like Samson among the columns of the Philistines, and with headlong desperation plants his foot upon dry land. The joy of Columbus when he beheld for the first time the shorès of the New World, or of Wellington when he heard

the wild cry of Waterloo, sauve qui peut, was tame compared with that which at that moment filled the breast of the hero of the Nueces. And as the great achievement was completed, a shout burst forth from the admiring crowd; the laughter that had hitherto been oozing out in broken doses and half-suppressed spasms could no longer be restrained, and both banks gave forth a tempest of acclamations.

We crossed the river, and entered upon the disputed territory about six o'clock. There was about thirty inches of water at the deepest point of the ford, and a hard, gravelly bottom. On leaving the river, the road passes at once into an extremely barren prairie, poor in soil, but rich in the diversity of stunted and noxious specimens of mezquit and chaparral. The growth is very dense, and where the ground is not cumbered with these excrescences, the prickly pear rears its horrid front, to the annoyance and terror of man and beast.

The Mina, or as it is sometimes called, the Espantosa, of which the Mina is properly a tributary, is about nine miles from the Nueces. The banks at the ford were steep and rugged, and the labors of the pioneers were again in requisition. The General remained here to observe the passage of the train, while the advance troops pushed on. The same barren and desolate waste presented itself, through which we threaded our weary way as we best could. The guide had reported water nine miles from the Mina, and we were on the visual stretch to discover it. At length a line of darker green rose before us, and we fancied the end attained; but on our arrival, it proved to be nothing but foliage which owed its growth to the water that once flowed through the bed below. Now there was not a drop remaining, to wet the parched lips of hundreds almost famished. This was the channel of the Esquipula-a name certainly pretentious enough to belong to a river-but alas! the "pitcher was broken at the fountain, and the bowl broken at the cistern." Our hearts well-nigh sank within us after a march of so many miles beneath a burning sun-at the grievous disappointment; but there was no alternative, and the word was still on. Every blade of grass, every drooping twig, was parched to crisp. Mile after mile of the thorny chaparral we traversed, and at length again emerged upon an open, sandy prairie. The dragoons were in advance of us, but were nowhere visible. We quickened our pace: a group of towering and aged oaks crowned the summit of an

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eminence we were approaching, and the sight restored our hopes. We reached the topmost point, not doubting that the promised stream would be in full view before us. Nothing was to be seen except the too familiar burning expanse of barrenness. Still advancing, we swept the horizon with our eyes, and far ahead we could once more distinctly trace the winding outline of a greener foliage, in broad contrast with the parched vegetation of the prairie. Our last hope was now before us, and we continued our march. A few miles further brought us to the trees, but we found no water. After beating about among the bushes for a while, we discovered the camp of the 1st Dragoons, and continued searching revealed a few ponds of water green and slimy upon the surface; but,

"As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish though they be,"

it was yet potable, after so long and so hot a march. Its foulness, however, was relieved somewhat by a brilliant display of lilies, resting on its bosom, like the iris athwart the clouds. It was now late in the afternoon. Steeds were unsaddled, and turned loose upon the prairie, knapsacks tumbled to the ground, with no great regard to their contents, and each man strove to get into a comfortable place, with as little delay as practicable, as a compensation for a day's march of twenty-two miles.

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It was determined late at night to proceed with the troops then in camp to the Picoso, distant about fifteen miles. The bugles of the dragoons sounded to horse at half-past six o'clock the next morning, and the squadron filed out of camp in rear of the infantry. We left the banks of the bitter Chaparrosa without regret, hoping to find an improvement in the fluids at our next stopping-place. General remained behind to await the arrival of Colonel Harney's command, while we pushed along, at first over a very bad specimen of the " "hog-wallow species, and then through the thorny path to which we had been so long accustomed, over a flat, sandy prairie, productive of nothing but noxious plants, the prickly pear being pre-eminent. This plant has now become such a nuisance, that it may with safety be affirmed, that no member of this army-however amiable or sentimental his temperament-can hereafter bestow a thought of admiration upon any woman, who to his knowledge shall cultivate a single variety of the cactus. The prickly pear has sins enough to answer for, to damn the whole family and consign its patrons

to a penitentiary or nunnery. It is worthy alone of the country which has emblazoned it upon its coat of arms, as the national plant. To caltivate such a monster, with hot-house delicacy and attention, is worse even than fondling a lap-dog, or making a pet of a snarling grimalkin. All who participate in the preservation or propagation of such a species, ought to be considered as voluntary accessories to a crime of the first magnitude, against the laws of taste and propriety, and ought to be condemned to a three days' march, barefoot, between the Nueces and Rio Grande.

At eight o'clock we reached the Salidito. This stream, as its name indicates, was represented as brackish; but travellers have libelled it, as the water is as good as any on the route. The engineers were called upon here to make such an application of "the more elevated branches," to wit, spades and pick-axes, as would enable the wagons to cross with facility. We then passed on through the dust, bound, as we supposed, to a halting-place ten miles distant, which, we understood, the topographical party ahead had reported as abounding in wood, water, and grazing. We had not gone many miles, however, before an irregular clatter or hollow rumbling was heard behind us, which was soon explained by the appearance of

mounted upon a black charger very much addicted to falling upon his knees at inopportune moments, and hence pretty generally known throughout camp as the "camel," or "hoofs." From him (the rider, not the horse) we learned that the order of march had been changed, that new information had been communicated to the commanding general, the effect of which was to prolong the march several miles. This was of course gratifying intelligence to those already wearied with the day's labors, and whose imaginations had been prematurely excited by visions of a not far distant cup of coffee and a blanket. The night's work, however, of Lieutenants Franklin and Bryan, was ef fectually extinguished, not unlike the snuffing out of a candle; and we passed the Picoso, then, like so many other streams in the country, a broken chain, of which a few stagnant pools were the separated links.

The sun's rays came down with the power of a steam engine, as we halted about three o'clock. Not a tree nor shrub was visible, as large as a rose-bush, beneath which one could crawl for protection.

With the exception of a successful effort on the part of a topographical messenger to the commanding general, to make night hideous by rudely severing a nap ap

proaching to maturity, the interval of darkness passed quietly into the wallet of oblivion. The column passed out of camp at half-past seven o'clock. The aspect of nature was any thing but cheerful. There was a dull, heavy, ague-and-feverish sort of fog hanging over us, and when the sun lifted this curtain, in which for a few miles we were enveloped, we were able to perceive only a vast waste, presenting, at distant intervals, slight and irregular clevations and depressions. A barren, desert, sterile prairie was again before and around

us.

The prickly pear and the dwarf sunflower, worthy of their distinction, held almost unaccompanied possession of the soil, a single new and insignificant plant being assigned to the intervals, the name of which I could not learn. Like its predecessors and associates, it possessed a thorn wherever there was room, and the process of laceration lost nothing in its vicinity.

It having been determined to unite the troops of Colonel Harney's command with those under General Wool, before reaching the Rio Grande, the encampment survived the rising of the sun on the 7th of October.

The flag of the United States, or a very uncertain number of stars and stripes on a cotton ground, was, for the first time on the march, given to the breeze this morning, from a staff erected in front of the tent of the commanding general. Not a single cheer greeted it as it rose, not a gun was fired; and the only remark which the incident appeared to call forth was from one of the soldiers, who-probably glad that the job was over-very patriotically, and with an enthusiasm corresponding to the sentiment, exclaimed, "There goes the star-spangled blanket!" This, though not strictly true, was received with a due measure of applause, which in some sort atoned for the absence of a volley from the battery. The fact is, there was not a government flag in the entire command. The one just hoisted was the property of a volunteer company -whose members appeared not to think that our national flag ought not to be prostituted to such an expedition-and, though resembling a "blanket" in size if not in material, was quite as far from "bunting." It bore the emblems nevertheless, and though they were apportioned according to the taste of the maker, rather than in reference to the statute, and put together on very primitive principles, it was a good enough" flag for our present purposes.

There was also a pleasant little excite

ment in camp during the morning, from a report that we were already realizing our proximity to the enemy, as the Mexicans had driven off our beef cattle during the night, thus leaving us to the uninterrupted mercy of pork and bacon. This was a matter appealing directly to the stomach, in and through which every emotion of chivalry has its origin, and was therefore of the most absorbing interest for the time.

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Barren, sterile, desolate, and destitute as this position was, in reference to every species of vegetation, the noxious qualities of the soil vindicated themselves in the sustenance afforded to the venomous reptiles, which are there indigenous. black, bloated, hairy tarantula, of gigantic dimensions, was discovered near one of the tents, almost realizing the description in the Apocalypse of the monster with seven heads and ten horns." This poisonous and disgusting object had a small head, lighted up with two fiery little eyes, and from the mouth a pair of forked fangs projected, more deadly in their assault than the bite of the rattlesnake. Ten legs radiated from an odious and revolting body, covered with long black hair, the entire creature as unsightly and loathsome in all its parts, as any combination of animal life well can be. But this was not the only specimen of native society to which we were introduced. The centipedes were scattering their footprints wherever flesh and blood would let them; rattlesnakes were making their music in the grass; and the scorpions playing antics with their tails, and probing every surface on which they could

fasten themselves.

The day was one of uncompromising do-nothingness. At five o'clock P. M., the camp might have been thus daguerreotyped: Most of the men are engaged in idle and doubtless agreeable relaxation. The notes of a violin, not very tastefully extracted, are gushing forth from several tents, round which divers groups are gathered, eagerly absorbing the exhalations of catgut. Songs-or rather their fragments are being emitted in parenthetical snatches from a hundred sources, the intervals supplied with the hearty joke, the "rough and ready" repartee, and boisterous laughter. The anvil of the artillery battery is ringing with the heavy strokes of some military Cyclops, who has doubtless taken a day of restnot for him-to repair the wear and tear of the march. Tents are flapping softly in the wind; officers are in groups in search of, or fancying they have found,

positions which combine the two properties of breeze and shade, smoke rises fitfully from the camp fires, and an odor is occasionally wafted, strongly suggestive of bean soup, and the approach of the eating hour.

At sunset a most amusing farce was performed,- -an experiment, for the first time on the march, of a general guard mounting. Regular and volunteer infantry; dragoons mounted and on foot; volunteer cavalry in full costume; and, in short, a representation from each variety of the force, were assembled upon the parade ground, where most of the parties made their début, in the operations of opening ranks, inspection of arms, saluting, passing in review, &c., under the direction of an experienced officer. Of course the adjutant-general had as much upon his hands, as, being a modest man, he could desire; having not only to give every command with detailed instructions as to the method of execution, but, in many instances, to go through the movement himself, before reaching the comprehension of his pupils. At the command "march," some would move to the right and left, and at the word "halt," perhaps half would just commence moving. Fast where they should be slow, and in "rear" when they should be at the "front;' facing to the "right" when the order was given to the "left," and wheeling one way when the command was another: these and a host of other operations of like character, gave to the ceremony the appearance of a satire on soldiering, and stripped the military to its cuticle, of all dignity or grandeur.

Great commotion ruled in the camp at an early hour the next morning. An order of march had been prescribed for the whole command, with a view to the production of the maximum effect upon the Mexicans, whom we might perchance encounter in the vicinity of the Rio Grande. Hence, as much labor had been bestowed in perfecting the arrangements for the day, the mules appeared a little more obstinate and contrary than usual, and the horrid profanity of the teamsters of course increased in a similar proportion. There was hurry among the dragoons and delay with the artillery; the infantry was in this position which was wrong, and the Arkansas cavalry in that which was far from being right. Wagons were just where they ought not to have been, and clerks, waiting boys, and supernumeraries, had usurped the position of the general staff. Orders and counter-orders in all quarters were given and countermanded

in a breath. Aides-de-camp, extra and real, were riding in all directions but the right ones, and as fast as they followed each other, perhaps undoing what each one's predecessor had effected. The General wondered why the Colonel did not move on, and the Colonel in his turn could not for the life of him perceive what detained somebody else. However, the confusion of tongues at Babel terminated with the dispersion of the talkers throughout the land of Shinar, and in spite of darkness and misapprehension, the great snake-to which the column might be compared-finally uncoiled itself, and began its winding course along the road at seven o'clock.

The country becomes more broken as the "Great River of the North" is approached; the road winds around numerous hills and traverses many deep ravines. The vegetable growth near the Cuevas, as has been already observed, is very slight: the prickly pear-that unmatched bane to prairie life and physical comfort—almost creeps along the ground at that point, but before reaching the river it again becomes a monster, and rears its hideous arms to the height of six or eight feet. A small bush called by the Mexicans chaparra ceniza, was seen for the first time to-day. It bears a beautiful violet-colored little flower, and deserves honorable mention, as growing in Texas or Mexico, and free from the deformity of thorns.

To enable the troops to keep in compact order, the column was frequently halted, and during one of these intervals, an incident occurred which excited deep interest throughout the entire command. At no great distance from the head of the line, a young fawn was bounding over the prairie, pursued by a mean, sneaking, vicious, ravenous-looking wolf. With eye dilated and swelling nostril, the deer glided along with almost the speed of the wind, while her ferocious enemy kept on the path with a determination which seemed to evince no fears of the loss of his intended prey. Now the fawn sweeps along like a bird, and now she bounds over the cactus and chaparral, as if she were an element of the air: forward she goes, leaping obstacles and threading mazes which would appear to defy her powers, yet as she touches the earth, it seems to our fancy and our fears, that she gains nothing in advance of her voracious foe. Her flight is directed towards a group of mezquit trees in the distance, as if there was the last citadel of her hopes. Her speed now becomes phantom-like. Terrified with the doom which she seems with human

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instinct to apprehend as inevitable, she flies over bush and brier and from peak to peak, with an energy wrung from despair. But without some foreign aid all her agile powers must fail before the cool, calm and persevering efforts of her enemy. He wastes no strength in flying leaps; but with steady strides, his eye fixed on his victim, his scent sharpened and appetite quickened by the race, he pursues with untiring pace his object. The chase continued until the dust from the rear of the column had almost hidden the pursuer and pursued from view, when, in spite of orders, the rifle could no longer be restrained, and a whizzing bullet from a sympathizing volunteer, suddenly relieved the wolf and his intended victim. This incident, the starting of a hare, and the death of a rattlesnake, were the most marked features of the day's march.

As we approached within a few miles of the river, all were on the qui vive; every eye was strained to catch the first glimpse, but many a distant hill and jutting bluff disappeared before the object was attained. The road runs nearly parallel with the river for several miles, the heights on the opposite shore being a long time visible, without any apparent diminution of distance. A mile or two from the ford we caught a glimpse of a house, from which appeared to be streaming a white flag. This of course was far from being gratifying to those who wished the passage to be disputed, as it was death to immediate glory if not to the Mexicans, and those maiden swords must yet remain unfleshed. We came upon a full view of the river at eleven o'clock, and as we reached the bank, a man appeared on the Mexican side waving the emblem of peace. A short colloquy ensued between him and our interpreter. To an invitation to come over, he seemed at first to object, on account of "mucha agua," but soon consented, and, naked as the horse on which he rode, he entered the river, still bearing his pacific credential before him, which proved on his arrival to be a shirt-which had probably been washed for the occasion.

He bore a letter from the Alcalde of the Presidio, to the commanding general, couched in very humble terms, protesting that the people of that region bore no arms against the United States, were peacefully pursuing their usual occupations, and begging that General Wool would treat them with as much consideration as Colonel Harney had previously done, &c., &c. The General made an appropriate verbal reply, and desired that the Alcalde would present himself in per

son. The messenger then returned, and we began pitching our tents.

A few minutes before sunset, the Chief of the Presidio municipality made his appearance accompanied by a single individual, who was probably another official functionary, though his position was not very clearly defined. The Alcalde surprised us with the first intelligence of the fall of Monterey, having a Mexican copy of the articles of capitulation. The news of the event spread rapidly over camp, and created great exultation.

The Alcalde returned some time after dark, and a dragoon who assisted in reconveying him across the river, disappeared on his return, between ten and eleven o'clock, and it was feared might be drowned.

For the first time since we left San Antonio, there was a slight shower on the 9th, with indication of prolonged wet weather.

The 2d Dragoons under Colonel Harney were the first to cross the river. The water was about four feet and three inches deep, and quite as high as is safe or convenient for fording. Many of us contrived to elude official vigilance and steal off under cover of the cavalry, and entered the enemy's country with the troops. To accomplish the crossing with dry feet, it was necessary to take a most constrained and painful position on the horse, and one that would have been fatal to the deportment of Mr. Turvey drop. As we did not consult attitudes however, so much as prospective comfort, this was not considered an insuperable objection to the movement.

The village or city of the Presidio, is about five miles from the river, in a direction from the ford, a little west of south. About three hundred yards north of the town, stand the ruins of an old "mission"-another monument to the ubiquitous efforts of the Jesuits. Originally a mongrel mixture of stone and mortar, time has added nothing to its beauty or its symmetry, though it has curtailed somewhat its first proportions. The body of the edifice is, as usual, connected with a series of arched ways, cells, chambers, &c., for purposes doubtless well known to the occupants, but which at this time forbid speculation. The swelling notes of the organ are no longer heard within its stately walls, but the wind howls a mournful requiem through its falling arches, over the grandeur that has passed away. The imposing ceremonial-the pomp and circumstance of prayer; the morning and evening chimes; the whis

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