Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 Part 4

Our travelling companion, Mr ----, is a poor little weakly Israelite, but very inoffensive, although he speaks with a horrible Yankee tw.a.n.g, which Mr Sargent and the Judge are singularly free from.

We went on again at 2 P.M. I had a long talk with a big mulatto slave woman, who was driving one of Ward's waggons. She told me she had been raised in Tennessee, and that three years ago she had been taken from her mistress for a bad debt, to their mutual sorrow. "Both," she said, "cried bitterly at parting." She doesn't like San Antonio at all, "too much hanging and murdering for me," she said. She had seen a man hanged in the middle of the day, just in front of her door.

Mr Sargent bought two chickens and some eggs at a ranch, but one of the chickens got up a tree, and was caught and eaten by the Ward faction.

Our camp to-night looks very pretty by the light of the fires.

_18th April_ (Sat.u.r.day).--At daylight we discovered, to our horror, that three of our mules were absent; but after an hour's search they were brought back in triumph by the Judge.

This delayed our start till 6.30 A.M.

I walked ahead again with the Judge, who explained to me that he was a "senator," or member of the Upper House of Texas--"just like your House of Lords," he said. He gets $5 a-day whilst sitting, and is elected for four years.[8]

We struck water at 8.30 A.M., and bought a lamb for a dollar. We also bought some beef, which in this country is dried in strips by the sun, after being cut off the bullock, and it keeps good for any length of time. To cook it, the strips are thrown for a few minutes on hot embers.

One of our mules was kicked last night. Mr Sargent rubbed the wound with brandy, which did it much good.

Soon after leaving this well, Mr Sargent discovered that, by following the track of Mr Ward's waggons, he had lost the way. He swore dreadfully, and solaced himself with so much gin, that when we arrived at Sulphur Creek at 12.30, both he and the Judge were, by their own confession, _quite tight_.

We halted, ate some salt meat, and bathed in this creek, which is about forty yards broad and three feet deep.

Mr Sargent's extreme "tightness" caused him to fall asleep on the box when we started again, but the more seasoned Judge drove the mules.

The signs of getting out of the sands now began to be apparent; and at 5 P.M. we were able to halt at a very decent place with gra.s.s, but _no water_. We suffered here for want of water, our stock being very nearly expended.

Mr Sargent, who was now comparatively sober, killed the sheep most scientifically at 5.30 P.M.; and at 6.30 we were actually devouring it, and found it very good. Mr Sargent cooked it by the simple process of stewing junks of it in a frying-pan, but we had only just enough water to do this.

[8] I was afterwards told that the Judge's term of service had expired.

El Paso was his district.

_19th April_ (Sunday).--At 1 A.M. this morning, our slumbers on the bullock-rug were disturbed by a sudden and most violent thunderstorm.

M'Carthy and I had only just time to rush into the carriage, and hustle our traps underneath it, when the rain began to descend in torrents.

We got inside with the little Jew (who was much alarmed by the thunder); whilst Mr Sargent and the Judge crept underneath.

The rain lasted two hours; and at daylight we were able to refresh ourselves by drinking the water from the puddles, and effect a start.

But fate seemed adverse to our progress. No sooner had we escaped from the sand than we fell into the mud, which was still worse.

We toiled on till 11.30 A.M., at which hour we reached "_King's Ranch_," which for several days I had heard spoken of as a sort of Elysium, marking as it does the termination of the sands, and the commencement of comparative civilisation.

We halted in front of the house, and after cooking and eating, I walked up to the "ranch," which is a comfortable, well-furnished wooden building.

Mr and Mrs King had gone to Brownsville; but we were received by Mrs Bee, the wife of the Brownsville general, who had heard I was on the road.

She is a nice lively little woman, a red-hot Southerner, glorying in the facts that she has no Northern relations or friends, and that she is a member of the Church of England.

Mr King first came to Texas as a steamboat captain, but now owns an immense tract of country, with 16,000 head of cattle, situated, however, in a wild and almost uninhabited district. King's Ranch is distant from Brownsville only 125 miles, and we have been six days in reaching it.

After drying our clothes and our food after the rain of last night, we started again at 2.30 P.M.

We now entered a boundless and most fertile prairie, upon which, as far as the eye could reach, cattle were feeding.

Bulls and cows, horses and mares, came to stare at us as we pa.s.sed.

They all seemed sleek and in good condition, yet they get nothing but what they can pick up on the prairie.

I saw a man on horseback kill a rabbit with his revolver. I also saw a scorpion for the first time.

We halted at 5.30 P.M., and had to make our fire princ.i.p.ally of cow-dung, as wood is very scarce on this prairie.

We gave up the Judge's horse at King's Ranch. The lawgiver now rides on the box with Mr Sargent.

_20th April_ (Monday).--I slept well last night in spite of the numerous prairie-wolves which surrounded us, making a most dismal noise.

The Jew was ill again, but both Mr Sargent and the Judge were very kind to him; so also was M'Carthy, who declared that a person incapable of protecting himself, and sickly, such as this little Jew, is always sure of kind treatment and compa.s.sion, even from the wildest Texans.

We started at 5 A.M., and had to get through some dreadful mud--Mr Sargent in an awful bad humour, and using terrific language.

We were much delayed by this unfortunate rain, which had converted a good road into a quagmire. We detected a rattlesnake crawling along this morning but there are not nearly so many of them in this country as there used to be.

We halted at 9 A.M., and, to make a fire for cooking, we set a rat-ranch alight, which answered very well; but one big rat, annoyed by our proceedings, emerged hastily from his den, and very nearly jumped into the frying-pan.

Two Texan rangers, belonging to Taylor's regiment, rode up to us whilst we were at breakfast. These rangers all wear the most enormous spurs I ever saw.

We resumed our journey at 12.30, and reached a creek[9] called "Agua Dulce" at 2 P.M. M'Carthy and I got out before crossing to forage at some huts close by. We got two dozen eggs and some lard; but, on returning to the road, we found that Mr Sargent had pursued his usual plan of leaving us in the lurch.

I luckily was able to get hold of a Mexican boy, and rode across the creek _en croupe_. M'Carthy dismounted a negro, and so got over.

We halted at 5 P.M.

After dark M'Carthy crossed the prairie to visit some friends who were encamped half a mile distant. He lost his way in returning, and wandered about for several hours. The Judge, with great presence of mind, kept the fire up, and he found us at last.

The heat from nine to two is pretty severe; but in Texas there is generally a cool sea-breeze, which makes it bearable.

[9] All streams or rivers are called creeks, and p.r.o.nounced "criks."

_21st April_ (Tuesday).--We started at 5 A.M., and reached a hamlet called "Casa Blanca" at 6. We procured a kid, some Indian corn, and two fowls in this neighbourhood.

We had now quitted the flat country, and entered an undulating or "rolling" country, full of live oaks of very respectable size, and we had also got out of the mud.

Mr Sargent and the Judge got drunk again about 8 A.M., which, however, had a beneficial effect upon the speed. We descended the hills at a terrific pace--or, as Mr Sargent expressed it, "_Going like h----ll a-beating tan bark_."