CAMP. 85 



passage of the advance wave, the water at my feet was at 

 least fifteen feet deep, and the stream nearly half a mile 

 wide. 



It was three days before this stream was fordable, 

 and fully a month before it returned to its normal 

 condition. This stream drains a section of the second 

 plain, about twenty miles long 'by ten wide. The rain 

 which furnished all this w r ater was a waterspout of 

 probably an hour's duration. Even supposing that the 

 rainfall extended over the whole section drained by the 

 tributaries of this stream, the quantity of water carried off 

 will give some idea of the fury of the storm. 



The portion of the second plain, known as the 

 Guadalupe Mountains of Texas, is peculiarly subject to 

 these waterspouts. The moisture from the Gulf of 

 Mexico, carried inland by the south-westerly winds, is 

 collected in dense clouds about these high lands, and the 

 streams which take their rise in them are notorious 

 for their sudden and tremendous overflows. Just after 

 the close of the Mexican war, and before the army had 

 learned, by sad experience, all the freaks of nature in 

 the plains, the 3rd Regiment of Infantry, then en 

 route for New Mexico, was encamped three miles from 

 San Antonio, on the Salado. 



This stream is a succession of waterholes, deep, 

 and from fifty to 200 yards long, connected by 

 a thread, of water over which it is easy to step. The 

 bed is a very crooked ditch from thirty to eighty feet 

 wide, with precipitous banks of eight or ten feet. Broad 

 level bottoms extend away on each side of this ditch to 

 the bordering hills, generally nearly three miles apart. 



The encampment was by the course of the stream, 

 more than fifty miles from the Guadalupe Mountains, in 

 which it takes its rise. One night, or rather morning, 

 for it was in the ' sma' hours ayont the twal,' while 

 the camp was buried in repose, a sentinel on one of the 

 posts nearest the stream found his coat covered with 



