102 RETURN TO DURANGO. 
This affair is a pretty just sample of most 
of the successful battles of this ‘great general.’ 
The treacherous collusion of the principal 
Zacatecas officers was so apparent, that they 
deemed it prudent to fly the city for safety, 
lest the wrath of their incensed fellow-citizens 
should explode upon them. Meanwhile the 
soldiery amused themselves by sacking the 
city, and by perpetrating every species of out- 
rage that their mercenary and licentious ap- 
petites could devise. Their savage propensities 
were particularly exercised against the few 
foreigners that were found in the place. 
By this time [ was journeying very leisurely 
towards Durango, where I arrived on the 21st 
of April. As the main wagon road to the 
north does not pass through that city, it was 
. most convenient and still more prudent for 
me to leave my wagons at a distance: their 
entrance would have occasioned the confisca- 
tion of my goods, for the want of the ‘neces- 
sary documents,’ as already alluded to. But 
I now procured a giia without further diffi- 
culty; which was indeed a principal object 
of my present visit to that city. 
Before leaving Durango I witnessed one of 
those civil broils which are so common in 
Mexico, I was not even aware that any dif- 
ficulty had been brewing, till I was waked on 
the morning of the 25th by a report of fire- 
arms. Stepping out to ascertain what was 
the matter, I perceived the azotea of the paro- 
chial church oecupied by armed men, who 
seemed to be employed in amusing them- 
