TO EL PASO. 
139 
the Pacific, pursuing a westerly course along the 3 2d 
parallel, near El Paso del Norte, there is no stream of 
a higher grade than a small creek. I know of none 
but the San Pedro and the Santa Cruz, the latter but 
a rivulet losing itself in the sands near the Gila, 
the other but a diminutive stream scarcely reaching 
that river. At the head waters of the Concho, 
therefore, begins that great desert region, which, with 
no interruption save a limited valley or bottom land 
along the Eio Grande, and lesser ones near the small 
courses mentioned, extends over a district embracing 
sixteen degrees of longitude, or about a thousand 
miles, and is wholly unfit for agriculture. It is a deso- 
late barren waste, which can never be rendered useful 
for man or beast, save for a public highway. It is 
destitute of forests, except in the defiles and gorges of 
the higher mountains or on their summits. Along the 
valley of the Pio Grande, which is from one and a half 
to two miles in width, there grow large cotton wood 
trees and a few mezquit ; but between this river and 
the north fork of Brady’s Creek there is no timbered 
land. 
The country is well adapted for a wagon road, and 
equally so for a railway, as all desert regions are, unless 
they are sandy. From Fredericksburg, all the way to 
the Eio Grande, there is a natural road, which as a 
whole is better than half the roads in the United States 
west of the Mississippi. Yery little has been done to 
this road of nearly 600 miles to render it what it is ; 
and a little labor where the streams are crossed, with a 
bridge across the Pecos, which could be constructed 
with great ease and at a small expense, would make the 
