June 10th. We left for Pantilla at eight last night; it was eleven leagues distant; and being a deserted rancho no food could be had there, so we intended watering at the place, taking a short rest, then going seven leagues farther to La Zarca. Two hours after we started the moon rose behind us, and truly we presented a most picturesque appearance. Some in coats, some in blankets Mexican fashion, others in shooting jackets; we grew very tired and longed for sleep, but it was not to be taken except on horseback. Morning came and we stopped for an hour to graze our horses and mules, and rode past the deserted rancho without stopping to water, and came on to La Zarca, having had our poor animals under the saddle for twenty hours, during which we made sixty-four miles, ourselves only having to eat what we had expected for one meal. As we came up the mountains that overlooked this plain, we saw the first antelopes, and I was at one time within two hundred yards of three, but I did not shoot, and was never so near again. Many black-tailed hare have been seen and shot, and their variety of pelage would make twenty species.
June 12th. Today, Sunday, we are resting men and animals, and tranquillity is all about us. These long journeys are very injurious to our horses; one such long trip leaves them much more jaded and impoverished than two shorter ones, even though, as now, we always take a day's rest.
La Zarca is beautiful to look at, the centre of attraction being a fine clump of cotton-woods, letting the white walls of the hacienda shine through them. We bought a beef, killed it, and our meal was speedily cooked and eaten. Looking day after day on the same desolate scene, rendered so only by the want of rain, rarely camped in shade, this journey becomes wearisome beyond belief.
The broad plain on which this rancho is situated once grazed six thousand head of horse, all owned by one person, but when the Spanish government was given up for no government, which is the case now, Indians and Mexicans supplied themselves with stolen horses in abundance.
June 13th. From La Zarca to Cerro Gordo the country is flat and uninteresting, barren in most places of all but musquit bushes. Every mile or so for the first few leagues we crossed a beautiful little brook, which was, however, gradually absorbed by the thirsty sand, a water hole and bed of sand appearing alternately, until the water wholly disappeared. We made two days' journey of it, going the first day eighteen miles, where we found good grazing on partially dry grass, better for horses and mules than corn alone, which half the time has been all we could get for them. Our most serious trouble now is the sore backs of our mules produced by the pack saddles, which were made in our own country, and are too broad for the backs of the Mexican mules. Cerro Gordo is a miserable den of vagabonds, with nothing to support it but its petty garrison of a hundred and fifty cavalry mounted on mules. We were hooted and shouted at as we passed through, and called "Gringoes," etc., but that did not prevent us from enjoying their delicious spring water; it was cool and delightful. Our men rushed to it, and drank two pint cups full each, hardly breathing between times; it was the first good water we had had since leaving the Mississippi.
Here we were visited by a member of a Mexican travelling circus, who asked our protection as far as El Valle, which we promised them. The party consisted of five, one woman and four men. The lady rode as we used to say in Louisiana "leg of a side," on a small pacing pony; the two horses of the ring carried only their saddles, two pack mules, four small trunks, and four jaded horses the rest of the plunder. The four men went one on foot, driving the packs and continually refitting and repacking, the other three riding. One man had two Chihuahua dogs about six inches long, stuffed in his shirt bosom, another a size larger on the pommel of his saddle. A second man was in grand Spanish costume, on a small but blooded grey horse, with a large dragoon sword on his left, and a Mexican musket made about 1700, which would have added to an antiquary's armory. They told us they had everything they owned with them, so that if alone, and attacked by the Apaches, whom we hear of continually but never see, their loss would be a very serious one to them.
June 14th. We left Cerro Gordo at eight a. m. and ascended steadily up hill for about two miles, the country poor and uninteresting, and the miles seem to stretch out interminably. We are now camped at El Noria.
June 15th. Rio Florida. We are repaid for our tiresome journey by the shade and refreshment we find here; the old mission is the most commodious we have seen, built of nearly white marble, the four pillars next the church richly carved and almost perfect. When the old priests had this broad valley tilled and irrigated by the convert Indians it must indeed have been a scene of luxurious growth, and they, no doubt, lived in great comfort, if isolation. Still the place is inland, and indolence there as everywhere in Mexico reigns supreme. So fell Rio Florida.
June 17th. From Rio Florida to El Valle, ten leagues, our road in places has been most beautiful; undulating plains like those of Texas, and we saw the first streaks of iron mixed with the limestone which for weeks we have been traveling through. We shall be glad of any change, for our lips are cracked, and so sore as to give pain and discomfort all the time, while our hands are cracked and split as in mid-winter.
Here at El Valle, sometimes called Bia Valle, we are encamped in a grove of cotton-wood, which, I should say, had been planted forty or fifty years ago, and the gardens when irrigated must have been most luxuriant. We are now in an iron district, and the walls of the Jacals have changed from white to red. The hillsides, too, have changed in color; some are reddish and bare, others grey, from dead grass and lime underneath.