REACH CAMP. 178 
_ We crossed the Brazos and came to a very rough country, 
difficult to pass through, on account of briars and scrub oaks, 
and about one, P. m., reached our camp, ten miles from where 
we left it, the gentlemen in charge having moved to this 
point to get purer water, and were now encamped in a beau- 
tiful valley, surrounded by high bluffs, on one of which was a 
Camanche grave. 
We found several cases of sickness in camp, and among the 
rest a bad case of black typhoid fever—the first severe case of 
any kind we had had since we had been out. 
And now having finished our perilous trip into those unex- 
plored and inhospitable regions, and returned once more to 
enjoy the few comforts we left behind us, but one opinion pre- 
vailed with us, viz.: that the dangers we encountered and the 
privations we suffered had not been in vain, establishing as 
they did the fact, that for all purposes of human habitation 
—except it might be for a penal colony—those wilds are 
totally unfit. Destitute of soil, timber, water, game, and 
sonar else that can ‘Sustain or make life tolerable, eed 
at a ee See 
7 : 
Pickers some use may be made of the mineral resources, 
but that will have to be done under a load of peril to life, that 
few will be willing to encounter, none to endure for any length 
of time. Our party certainly, having left them without regret, 
will never return to them, except in memory, and then in 
reminiscences too painful far to be pleasant. 
August 7th--We moved camp at dawn of day to Flat 
