IN OLD SAN ANTONIO 



AFTER three days and four nights in a sleeping- 

 car it is good to breathe air again. Not that I 

 mean to speak ill of the modern necessity known 

 in railway offices as a " sleeper " ; it has done 

 me too many a service ; but, for all that, 

 though it is a bridge that has carried me over, 

 well, as I said, it is a luxury to breathe air 

 again. 



So I thought this January afternoon as I sat 

 upon the top rail (a pretty thin board) of a tall 

 fence at the summit of what I take to be one of 

 the highest elevations (it would be exceeding the 

 truth, perhaps, to call it a hill) in the immediate 

 neighborhood of this venerable but young and 

 vigorous Texas city, known in geographies and 

 gazetteers as San Antonio, but among railroad 

 men, with whom time and breath are precious, 

 as " San Antone." 



The city itself lay all before me, and an excel- 

 lent showing it made, with its many stately and 

 handsome buildings and its general air of pros- 

 perity ; but for the most part my eyes traveled 

 beyond it, or in other directions. The landscape 



