to which Mr Sargent continually resorts is, to beat the top of the
carriage and kick the foot-board, which makes a noise, and gratifies the
mules quite as much as licking them. Mr Sargent accounts for his
humanity by saying, "It's the worst plan in the world licking niggers or
mules, because the more you licks 'em, the more they wants it."

We reached or "struck" water at 5.30 P.M.; but, in spite of its good
reputation, it was so salt as to be scarcely drinkable. A number of
cotton waggons, and three carriages belonging to Mr Ward, were also
encamped with us.

We have only made sixteen miles to-day.

* * * * *

_17th April_ (Friday).--Having spent last night in a Mexican saddle, our
bullock-rug in the sand appeared to me a most luxurious bed.

We hitched in at 5 A.M., and struck water at 9 A.M., which, though muddy
in appearance, was not so bad to drink.

I walked ahead with the Judge, who, when sober, is a well-informed and
sensible man. Mr Sargent and I are great friends, and, rough as he is,
we get on capitally together.

A Mr Ward, with three vehicles--a rival of Mr Sargent's--is travelling
in our company. He drove his buggy against a tree and knocked its top
off, to the intense delight of the latter.

We breakfasted under difficulties. The wind being high, it drove up the
sand in clouds and spoiled our food.

Our travelling companion, Mr ----, is a poor little weakly Israelite,
but very inoffensive, although he speaks with a horrible Yankee twang,
which Mr Sargent and the Judge are singularly free from.

We went on again at 2 P.M. I had a long talk with a big mulatto slave
woman, who was driving one of Ward's waggons. She told me she had been
raised in Tennessee, and that three years ago she had been taken from
her mistress for a bad debt, to their mutual sorrow. "Both," she said,
"cried bitterly at parting." She doesn't like San Antonio at all, "too
much hanging and murdering for me," she said. She had seen a man hanged
in the middle of the day, just in front of her door.

Mr Sargent bought two chickens and some eggs at a ranch, but one of the
chickens got up a tree, and was caught and eaten by the Ward faction.
Our camp to-night looks very pretty by the light of the fires.

* * * * *

_18th April_ (Saturday).--At daylight we discovered, to our horror, that
three of our mules were absent; but after an hour's search they were
brought back