ALONG OUR SIDE OF THE MEXICAN BORDER 



65 



grown corral, reminding you of the slow, 

 tedious transportation of early days, 

 when it took a year to get freight from 

 New York to Durango. 



Now a branch of the Southern Pacific 

 strikes the border at Eagle Pass, and 

 from the Mexican town of Piedras Ne- 

 gras (Black Rocks), just opposite, a line 

 of the Mexican National runs south into 

 one of Mexico's most fertile regions. 

 This gives Eagle Pass a brisk trade. 



No spot on the whole border affords 

 more of impressive grandeur than the 

 region about the mouth of the Pecos. 

 This yellow, turbulent stream roars into 

 the Rio Grande near the town of Del Rio, 

 foaming along the bottom of a steep- 

 walled canyon worn hundreds of feet 

 deep in the solid rock. The Southern 

 Pacific Railway crosses this canyon, near 

 the border, on one of the greatest steel 

 trestles ever built. 



At the old Fort at Camp Verde, north 

 of Uvalde, is a relic of one of the oddest 

 experiments ever made by our govern- 

 ment. It is an Arab khan, in ruins now, 

 but in its time an exact replica of the 

 rectangular adobe caravansaries built 

 along such caravan trails as that from 

 Bagdad to Teheran. Back in 1856, when 

 Jefferson Davis was Secretary of War 

 and the famous experiment was made 

 with camels for army transport use be- 

 tween Texas and California, this khan 

 was built.* 



As you follow the border west, oaks, 

 pines, and underbrush decrease, aridity 

 increases, and cacti lift their thorny heads. 

 Cattle, goats, and sheep are pastured in 

 large numbers ; but, except for irrigated 

 areas along the river, the country is thinly 

 settled and undeveloped. Border counties 

 like Brewster, Presidio, and El Paso are 

 of amazing area — larger than some of 

 our small eastern States. Windmills are 

 everywhere — "big electric fans to keep 



* Camel transportation along the Mexican 

 border was undertaken by the government with 

 two herds, totaling about 75 animals, including 

 a few two-humped Bactrian males, imported for 

 breeding purposes. Six Arabs and a Bedouin 

 camel doctor came along, from Smyrna to 

 Texas. Lieutenant Edward F. Beale, under 

 orders to establish a military road from San 

 Antonio to California, used these camels in 

 transport work. The camels were given a 

 thorough test, and in Beale's reoort he spoke 

 in highest terms of their work; but army horses 



the cattle cool," a waggish cowboy once 

 explained to a London tenderfoot. 



El Paso ("The Pass";, great border 

 mart of west Texas, is set on the edge 

 of a rich stretch of the Rio Grande Val- 

 ley. It stands at the point of intersec- 

 tion of two old highways, the first chan- 

 nels of traffic established by white men 

 in America. 



A popular automobile trail to the Pa- 

 cific coast now runs this way. Coronado. 

 pathfinder for border tourists, blazed the 

 way in 1540, on his march to Santa Fe, 

 and long ago El Paso was the headquar- 

 ters for the Spanish Government in this 

 part of America. 



the only large; city between sax 

 antonio and eos angeles 



El Paso is the only large city from "San 

 Antone" to Los Angeles, a ride of 1,500 

 dry, dusty miles. It is well served by 

 both American and Mexican railways, 

 and its merchants buy and sell goods for 

 hundreds of miles below the Rio Grande. 

 Despite the arid country about it and its 

 occasional blinding dust-storms, its cli- 

 mate is exceptionally good, owing to high 

 elevation. 



Summer showers afford a rainfall of 

 about 10 inches. Soil is fertile in the 

 valleys cutting the adjacent plateau coun- 

 try, and good crops are grown wherever 

 ample irrigation is possible. 



The largest irrigation reservoir any- 

 where is the great Elephant Butte dam, 

 which stores more water than the world- 

 famous Assuan dam on the Nile. This 

 big dam, built in the Rio Grande above 

 El Paso, at a point in New Mexico, holds 

 water enough, we are told, "to fill a stand- 

 pipe 1 1 feet in diameter reaching from 

 El Paso to the moon, or to cover Massa- 

 chusetts to a depth of six inches!" 

 Enough water can be stored to last 

 through four dry seasons and to irrigate 



and pack-mules were stampeded : obstinate 

 mule-skinners refused to handle "circus ani- 

 mals"; so finally the camels were disposed of. 

 Most of them were sold to zoological parks, 

 but a few either got away or were turned loose 

 on the desert. Prospectors, enraged when 

 these ungainly brutes terrified their pack-mules, 

 used to shoot them on sight. Even now, once 

 in a while a desert rat drifts into Yuma or Gila 

 Bend and vows he's seen a wild camel on the 

 desert. Maybe he did, but nobody believes 

 him. 



