58 



LOWER RIO BRAVO. 



tliat our soldiers are kept nine-tentlis of the time while watching and pursuing 



g incursions from the Mexican side into the buttlements o^ 



at certain stations great 

 nanv of these wells Trere 



Texas. While the country was in the military occu 



lution of 1825, they provided against this inconvei 



reservoirs of solid masonry to catch the rain-water. 



found, and they form one of the many external ohjects to he seen throughout the extent of the 



frontier which convey the Impression that the country has steadily gone backwards since the 



days of the Spanish rule. 



Having now given the general view of the country on the American side of the first section 

 of the boundary, I will ask the reader to ascend with me the Rio Bravo along the boundary, 

 where I will describe in detail all that is worth noting as high as the mouth of the Rio San 

 Pedro, or Devil's river, from which noint we wil 



take 



New 



Before ascending the Rio Bravo, it may be as well to state that the appointments for the 



m 



imi 



th 



of th e Coast Su 



hose operations I knew would eventually be extended to that local 



Under this arrangement, by which the boundary commission paid th 



of 



that the hydrography 



should be done by the Coast Survey, and the astronomy and topography by the bou 

 mission, Lieut. Wilkinson, in command of the brig Morris, repaired at the appointed 

 mouth of the river and made soundings, marked on sheet No. I, by winrh we were 

 trace the boundary, as the treaty required, " three leagues out to sea." 

 This survey was conducted in tlie summer of 1853, that in which 



th 



Gulf 



the disease had occurred on board the vessel, and but a single one among the land parties. In con- 



issage in the ''Morris," which was not entirely sea-worthy, 



formity with a promise made 



cola 



the loss of the surgeon. Dr. Bryan, whose high professional skill and many social virtues 

 endeared him to all who were honored with his friendship. Several others of the party, myself 

 among the number, were taken down and narrowly escaped the fate of Dr. Bryan. 



The voyage across the Gulf, which should have occupied five days, was, owing to adverse 

 winds, gales, and the condition of the ship, extended to eighteen days. I had an opportunity 

 on this voyage to watch narrowly the effect of the storms on the barometer, and observed for 

 the first time a fact which, I believe, has since been well established, that in the Gulf the fluc- 

 tuations of the barometer fall to give the usual indicatioujj of the ai>i.rnaoh or mibsidence of 



storms. 



the mouth of the Rio Bravo is over a bar of soft mud, varviniz fro 



six feet deep, and the river within a few hundred yards of its mouth is not more than one 

 thousand feet wide. The shore-line of the coast, scarcely broken by the action of the river, 

 is formed of a series of low shifting sand-hills, with a scanty herbage. Inside these hills are 

 numerous salt marshes and lagoons, separatod by low belts of calcareous clay but a few 

 feet above the level of the sea, and subject to overflow. The first high ground is Burrita, 



