ALAMO MUCHO. 111 
horse, which had been ridden across the country by 
Mr. Gray. All the other members of the Commission, 
as also the laborers, servants, cooks, and arrieros, were 
provided with mules, which experience had shown to 
be best for long journeys. They endure fatigue better 
than horses, will thrive where horses will starve, and 
in case of accident or emergency, may be used to carry 
burdens or be harnessed to a team. It was with con- 
siderable difficulty that I could procure good mules 
here; and for those that I obtained, I paid from seven- 
ty-five to one hundred dollars each. Nearly every 
thing we had, including the tents, was new, our former 
equipments having been to a great extent abandoned 
on the journey out, as the animals failed, or as they 
had become past restoring, from eighteen months’ use, 
and constant exposure to a dry heat, rain, or snow. 
On the 26th of May, I left San Diego, in company 
with Dr. Webb, in my small wagon, drawn by two 
mules. These excellent animals, I must observe, were 
the same that I started with from the coast of Texas in 
September, 1850. They had served me in my rapid 
journey to El Paso, and three times back and forth 
from that place to the Copper Mines. They had drawn 
my carriage in my first journey to Sonora, and subse- 
quently, with four others, broughta loaded wagon from 
the Copper Mines to San Diego. Notwithstanding 
these journeys and their constant use since we had been 
in California, they were in as fine condition as when 
they left the shores of the Atlantic. 
My wagon was pretty heavily laden; and ere we 
had got a mile beyond San Diego, in turning aside for 
a train, it ran into a gully with such force as to spring 
