: = 
road a very large black spider, reminding me of the bird-catching spider of 
South America; the Mexicans consider it poisonous. 
May 30.—We marched to-day through endless chaparral 30 miles, to 
Mier, celebrated by the Texan invasion in 1840. It is a town with from 
2,000 to 3,000 inhabitants, and has many stone buildings, while others are 
mere huts covered with straw. It lies on the right bank of the Alamo or 
Alcontre, a small river that runs, five miles below, inté the Rio Grande. On 
the Plaza, the corner house was shown to us where the Texans, in their 
memorable expedition, fought against the ten-fold number of Mexicans. 
road 
left bank of the Rio San Juan, opposite Camargo. The San Juan, whose 
headwaters we passed at Monterey, is here a broad and respectable stream 
that falls into the Rio Grande about nine miles below Camargo, near San 
Francisco. In high water, steamboats drawing five feet go from the mouth 
of the Rio Grande up to Camargo, and a large depot has therefore been es- 
tablished here by the War Department; but at present. the water was too 
low for such craft, and we were told that we would have to march, prob- 
the eyes; on both sides of the narrow road was thick chaparral. 
a pee 
; e, \ pon the good chance 
that the guerillas would have to put an end to my scie ae sect I 
was met by a return party of our regiment, reporting that one of our men, 
MiGweails wht dityed behind the troops, had just been killed by some 
