Part 4 (1/2)

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.