292 FROM ARISPE BACK TO 
the Mexicans on the Rio Grande, who are too lazy to 
cultivate the soil and raise corn. The engineers 
attached to the Commission told me that the entire 
Mexican population at Presidio del Norte, consisting 
of a thousand souls, had no other food for more than 
six months,* 
June 9th. In camp at Fronteras. The people 
crowded around us as on the previous visit, some to 
see the doctor, and others the cook. The doctor 
found the bread he had cast upon the waters return- 
ing; bottles of aguardiente, cakes of sugar, and piles 
of tortillas, came to him at the hands of the seforas 
and seforitas in such profusion as to excite the envy 
of the young gentlemen of the party, many of whom 
applied for the office of hospital steward with the hope 
of sharing some of the perquisites. But how shocked 
were the good people when they saw to what base 
purposes their precious aguardiente was converted. 
The doctor, although he received the liquor readily 
enough, had no idea of applying it to the purposes 
intended by the donors, but used it for preserving his 
beloved lizards, frogs, fishes, and other specimens in 
natural history. As it would have been useless to 
attempt explaining to his patrons his object in collect- 
ing and preserving these ill-favored reptiles, they were 
permitted to rest in the belief that he was making of 
them some decoction for medicinal purposes. 
June 10th. In Fronteras. A wild bull was sent 
to us to-day by Captain Gomez, which furnished us 
* I afterwards saw the agave used as food by the Apaches, the 
Pimos, the Coco Maricopas, and the Diegenos, on the shores of the 
Pacific. 
