But not in hopeless strife;
Like brothers died—and their expiring breath
Was freedom's breath of life.
Among the many pleasant incidents of our stay in San Antonio was the meeting with some of the students of the West Texas Military Academy, of which my young friend the Rev. A. L. Burleson is the rector. They were splendid young fellows. It was a regret that I could not visit the school and pay my respects to one who bears the honored name of Burleson.
To look at those young students was a delight; and to know that the seed sown at Racine, under De Koven, where the Rev. Mr. Burleson graduated, was here, in this great Southwest, bearing such good fruitage, was a delightful memory to bring away from San Antonio.
VII
In Desolate Places. — Beauty Everywhere. — Railway Engineering. — Analogy in the Conduct of Life. — El Paso. — The Sand Storm. — Human Grasshoppers. — The Placid Night. — Rev. Dr. Higgins. — Juarez. — Rev. M. Cabell Martin. — Strangeness of our Mexican Glimpse. — The Post-Office. — The Old Church. — The Padre's Perquisites. — The Prison. — El Paso Again. — Cavalry Going East for the War.
After leaving San Antonio, the night soon shut out the landscape from our view, and the next morning revealed to us a rather forlorn region. This is how it impressed Mrs. Morgan. I quote from her diary: "We awoke to find ourselves in a desolate portion of country, bare prairie, stretching away towards craggy hills whose irregular outline is very picturesque, and the soft blue and purple shadowing on them is beautiful. Droves of cattle wandered about, feeding on the sparse dried grass, which is the only forage the poor beasts seem to have."
Even the most unpromising places have some compensation in them, for the beauty of the distant mountains was worth seeing, and the natural cured grass of the prairies has wonderful sustaining power. In fact, it is a hay crop wisely scattered everywhere, needing neither storehouse nor barn, always on hand—or at mouth, one might say—for the strolling droves. We passed during our morning's run some splendid pieces of railroad engineering. We were constantly rising above the sea level, every mile bringing us up to the mountain heights. This rapid ascent was managed by a most circuitous route among the foothills, winding in and out, and doubling again and again upon our track. A railway map gives one an idea of almost straight lines from place to place. How different is the reality! It seemed to me a symbol of theory and practice in real life. A proposition in business or in morals seems as simple and inevitable as that two and two make four; but many are the twists and turns that must be taken in all departments of life before the end in view can be attained.