Well may the ruffians quake to tell
How Travis and his hundred fell
Amid a thousand foemen slain.
They died the Spartan's death,
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
a