120 
DELAWARE CREEK 
Five or six miles, over a Filly though very hard 
road, brought us to the base of the mountain, where 
we noticed a grove of live-oaks and pines, with water 
near them ; but as it was too early to water our ani- 
mals, we did not stop. At this spring a train was 
attacked a few months before we passed, and four 
men killed. As we now began to descend, I got out 
of the carriage, preferring to go on foot. I could 
thus the more readily lock and unlock the wheels 
when necessary. The road here, after passing through 
long defiles, winds for some distance along the side 
of the mountain. Now it plunges down some deep 
abyss, and then it suddenly rises again upon some 
little castellated spur, so that one almost imagines 
himself to be in a veritable fortress. Again we pass 
along the brink of a deep gorge, whose bottom, 
filled with trees, is concealed from our view, while the 
evergreen cedar juts forth here and there from the 
chasms in its sides. Winding and turning in every 
direction, we followed the intricacies of the Guada- 
lupe Pass for at least six hours; and whenever the 
prospect opened before us, there stood the majestic 
bluff in all its grandeur, solitary and alone. In one place 
the road runs along the mountain on a bare rocky 
shelf not wide enough for two wagons to pass, and 
the next moment passes down through an immense 
gorge, walled by mountains of limestone, regularly 
terraced. As we were descending from this narrow 
ledge, the iron bolt which held the tongue of the car- 
riage broke and let it drop. Nothing but iron would 
do to repair the injury ; and after trying various 
expedients, a substitute for the broken bolt was 
