nish additional
details for labor when required I was charged with the duty of making
the road between Victoria and Tampico practicable for wagons. These
three companies left Victoria on the 13th.

The following extracts from my official report of the operations of the
Engineer Company for the month of January, 1847, illustrate, in part,
the difficulties met with.

"The first day, (out from Victoria,) we had three bad boggy brooks to
cross; besides a great deal of cutting to do with axes in order to open
the road; and many bad ravines and gullies to render passable. To make a
bridge, across a boggy stream, with no other material than the short,
knotty, hard and crooked chaparral bush, was no easy matter. The first
day's march was about ten miles--we encamped about sunset after a very
hard day's work."

In order to shorten the route and save the forces one day's march, we
were, for several days, working on a mule path "cut-off" from the main
road.

"January 14th. The mule path was infamous. No wagon had ever traveled
that road--the rancheros have a tradition of a bull cart that, it is
said, once passed that way. I believe, however, that the story is not
credited. We worked from dawn of day until dark and encamped about six
miles from where we started in the morning and about the same distance
from the camp we wished to reach that day."

"January 15th. Another day's tremendous hard work."

"January 16th. We had again a very severe day's work."

"January 17th. Road improved very decidedly, but still a good deal to
do. We managed, by getting a little ahead with our repairs after the
army encamped for the night, to get along without seriously delaying the
column."

We arrived at Tampico on the 23rd. The distance from Victoria to Tampico
is 120 miles; whole distance from Matamoros to Tampico, by way of
Victoria, is 354 miles.

Although the service was arduous, the men came through it in good
health, and were all the better soldiers for the practical schooling
acquired in that 350 miles of road making. After this experience,
ordinary marches and drills were to them, very light matters.

TAMPICO TO VERA CRUZ.

From Tampico we sailed for Lobos Island and Vera Cruz, on a small
schooner, the Captain of which was a brave little Frenchman, who was not
acquainted with the Mexican Gulf coast, and was not provided with
accurate instruments for taking observations. Late one afternoon the
clouds rolled away, and we disti