74 
FREDERICKSBURG 
a distance of two or three miles, the ridge we were 
crossing terminated, and beyond it lay a broad and 
open prairie, extending to the river Concho, the 
course of which could be distinctly traced by a long 
line of dark foliage meandering through the plain. 
I would recommend future travellers who may 
follow my trail, or any other road passing this way, 
to leave the stony ridge we had been crossing to the 
south, and keep on the plain, where the soil is hard 
and smooth. The distance might be increased, a 
couple of miles, but it could be accomplished in less 
time, and with less fatigue to the mules, than the toil- 
some passage of six miles, over steep and rocky hills, 
endangering the wagons, and injuring the hoofs of the 
animals. 
Descending the range of hills, we passed the dry 
bed of a water-course, and reached a stream called 
Antelope Creek, one of the tributaries of the Concho 
River, at five o’clock, where we encamped. 
Our route to-day had been over a level prairie 
country, deficient in wood, save a few scattering mez- 
quit trees of diminutive size, and light grass, indicat- 
ing a poorer soil. We have noticed as we advanced 
westward, and ascended the high table-land of Texas, 
an inferior soil, and, as a necessary consequence, a 
more scanty herbage. The beautiful live-oak, which' 
abounds in eastern Texas, and which grows luxuriantly 
in the valleys as far as the north fork of Brady’s Creek, 
had now disappeared, save on the immediate banks 
of water-courses. The mezquit, too, which grew large 
and thrifty on good soil, had now either disappeared 
or dwindled into a diminutive tree or mere shrub. 
