274 TEXAS NATURE OBSERVATIONS AND REMINISCENCES. 



quite jungles close to the Cassin's 

 lake huntiiTg preserve. It was 

 in October, during the pecan 

 harvest season, when also Mexi- 

 cans are employed to watch the 

 owner's pecan groves from de- 

 predating pecan hunters. The 

 Mexican laborers under question 

 however, were employed, I was 

 told, to enlarge the large dam of 

 the Cassin's lake, which, at pres- 

 ent is some eighty feet high, but 

 is to be enlarged with an addi- 



tions the writer prepared for 

 .4hese sketches. One of the 

 photos, taken on a Sunday, dur- 

 ing cloudy weather, shows some 

 of the children gathered around 

 in front of the tents and chapar- 

 ral — a gay lot of little folks, and 

 future laborers to till the soil. 



An interesting scenery of an 

 olden times Indio-Mexican adobe 

 hut is also depicted on page 273 

 — ^having been encountered by 

 the writer years ago on the em- 



The Old Rockquarry Regions Near Laurel Heights, With the Excavated 

 Rotunda; Cement Factory in Rear 



tional ten foot high wall. The 

 employed Mexicans had selected 

 a hilly, well drained area south- 

 east of the lake to put up their 

 queer dwellings, consisting of 

 tin tents, or 

 mesquite logs, 

 tule, sugar cane, 

 etc., and usually 

 shed 

 and 



frame of 

 patched with 

 swamp grass, 

 with a high 

 cover m front of each, 

 as seen on the illusra- 



bankments of the Leona, west 

 of San Antonio. In olden times 

 such types of Mexican huts ex- 

 isted numerously around the sub- 

 urban parts of San Antonio, 

 and some are there today yet. 

 As seen on the illustration, these 

 huts usually were built with a 

 large, broad chimney in the rear 

 part (kitchen of the hut)— the 

 roof of the hut house and the ad- 



