CHAPTER III 



MEXICO FROM THE RIO GRANDE TO THE MOUNTAINS 



April 28th, 184Q. The company started today, 

 and I expect to follow early tomorrow, and join 

 the men who are now fifteen miles ahead of me. 

 I am compelled to remain to attend to the property 

 of the ten men who have died of cholera in this 

 accursed place; it goes to New Orleans by boat in 

 the morning. Why Col. Webb, who had been in 

 this country before, selected this route instead of 

 a more northerly one, I cannot understand, but it 

 is now too late to change, and we must go forward 

 with courage. 



April 2gth. Canales Run. We are all on our 

 way, having come to Ceralvo, [Cerralvo]^ beauti- 

 ful for its old mission, and curious in its irrigating 

 canals, bridges and old church, still it has the 

 apathetic lassitude of everything Mexican. We 

 rode on to Robber's Rancho, over undulating 



^ The route from the Rio Grande to the Rio Florida is 

 described in Wislizenus's "Tour to Northern Mexico," 

 Washington, 1848 (Senate misc. doc. 26, ist session, 30th 

 Congress) and in Bartlett's Personal Narrative of Explorations 

 and Incidents in Texas^ New Mexico^ California^ Sonora and 

 Chihuahua (New York, 1854). Wislizenus was physician 

 in Doniphan's expedition, and Bartlett was United States 

 Mexican Boundary Commissioner. The Mexican Atlas of 

 Garcia y Cubas (Mexico City, 1859) furnishes maps that are 

 nearly contemporary and a list of haciendas. 



