412 WATEKING-PLACES. Book II. 
tabular mountains. I will now bring forward what was 
most remarkable in the details of this journey. 
The first watering-place eastwards from the Rio Grande 
is called Los Alamos. We reached it in the morning after 
a night's journey, and found a spring surrounded by poplars, 
and thickly bordered with reeds, among barren hills covered 
with scanty grass, cacti, yuccas, lechuguilla agaves, dasy- 
liria, and a poor growth of bushes. The journey through 
the next night brought us into a well-watered valley of con- 
siderable extent and ramifications, opening towards the 
Rio Grande. It is bounded by hills of conglomerate, a few 
isolated and curiously formed mountains being only seen 
upon the horizon to the east. Where the road comes upon 
this spring, the place is called Punta del Agua. The 
road passes through this valley along a brook bordered 
with high reeds. The cuguar, called by the Mexicans, 
leon, abounds here. We passed the haunt of one of these 
wild beasts disturbed by our vanguard, — -the skeletons of 
several deer lay around. Riding on I saw several snakes 
among the reeds, probably the Mocassin snake, which is 
known to be very dangerous. This valley is broad, and 
fertile enough to make it a desirable place for future settle- 
ments, Willows and other shrubs grow along the stream. 
The hills are barren, and the grass upon them thin, but — 
like all mountain grass of this country — of good quality. 
On the horizon, beyond these hills, isolated mountain groups 
are seen, many of them of singular forms. On our road 
from the Presidio, to the left, an isolated hill, like a castle 
rock, was always in sight. It was called the Cerro de 
Jacinto. A few days' journey farther on w T e had the 
Picacho de la Cienaga de Valles before us, a rocky mass 
resembling a church with towers and cupolas. 
One of our next halting-places, where water and grass 
