434 A FIGHT, Book III. 
hand through his whole frame, and especially down his 
back. His abdomen swelled, his tongue was heavy. 
his consciousness became dimmed, and for a week the 
man was in imminent danger. I afterwards saw the 
little caterpillar in a collection of insects at San Antonio, 
where the patient recognised it. If he was right, it 
is a little worm covered with long yellowish hairs 
about a quarter of an inch long : it resembles a cater- 
pillar, but whether it really is one I cannot say. I 
afterwards heard of other examples of the extraordinary 
effects caused by this creature. In a garden at Indianola 
one of them dropped from a tree on to a child's arm, 
who immediately screamed with pain; the arm swelled, 
a violent fever came on, and the child's life was in great 
danger for several days. 
On our arrival this camp was immediately broken up. 
and the waggons sent down to the coast to join the new 
ones from Pittsburg, and to receive the cargo. The 
route lay through the town, where a quarrel ensued 
between the waggon-master and a Mexican muleteer. 
The latter had drunk a little too much, and stood 
holding a bottle of spirits, when the former attempted 
to knock it out of his hand. The Mexican defended 
himself, and the waggon-master gave him several sharp cuts 
with his whip ; then the former snatched up a stone and 
threw it at the waggon-master's head, which it laid open. 
The view taken of this affair by the Americans present 
is characteristic of the views of morality current in the 
United States : at first they shouted to the waggon- 
master to shoot the Mexican ; but the former, a German 
by birth, though hot-tempered was a humane man, and 
such an act was foreign to his nature, although he 
carried a revolver in his belt and was an excellent 
