190 TEXAS AND ARIZONA 



travel, even in an electric street-car, is liable to 

 complications. 



As for the river, it was practically dry. Pe- 

 destrians were crossing it — to save toU — on a 

 few small stepping-stones at a point where the 

 current could not have been ten feet wide nor 

 more than half of ten inches deep. My seatmate 

 explained that so much water was drawn off 

 above this point for irrigation purposes that the 

 river had little left for its own use ; and in fact, 

 more than once afterward I saw its bed abso- 

 lutely dry, so that even the stepping-stones had 

 for the day gone out of business. Yet it is a real 

 rio grande, for all that, and the life of a long, 

 long strip of Texas. 



Drought is the mark of this country. A 

 friendly citizen (of whom, in my ignorance, I 

 had inquired about " suburban trains " !) warned 

 me earnestly against wandering far out of the 

 town. If some Mexican did not kiU me "for 

 the sake of the clothes I had on " (an ignoble 

 death, surely), I might get lost (an easy matter, 

 by my adviser's tell), in which event, if nothing 

 more serious happened to me, I should infallibly 

 perish of thirst. 



The car took me through the compact little 

 ciudad (a five-minute passage, perhaps), and I 

 struck out for the country, along the line of the 



