Our first team consisted of four mules; we afterwards got horses.
My fellow-travellers were all either military men, or connected with the Government.
Only five out of nine chewed tobacco during the night; but they aimed at the windows with great accuracy, and didn't splash me. The amount of sleep I got, however, was naturally very trifling.
28th April (Tuesday).—We crossed the river Guadalupe at 5 a.m., and got a change of horses.
We got a very fair breakfast at Seguin at 7 a.m., which was beginning to be a well-to-do little place when the war dried it up.
It commenced to rain at Seguin, which made the road very woolly, and annoyed the outsiders a good deal.
The conversation turned a good deal upon military subjects, and all agreed that the system of election of officers had proved to be a great mistake. According to their own accounts, discipline must have been extremely lax at first, but was now improving. They were most anxious to hear what was thought of their cause in Europe; and none of them seemed aware of the great sympathy which their gallantry and determination had gained for them in England in spite of slavery.
We dined at a little wooden hamlet called Belmont, and changed horses again there.
The country through which we had been travelling was a good deal cultivated, and there were numerous farms. I saw cotton-fields for the first time.