shoulders. The colonel had a way of dangling his military boots on such occasions in the water, to let me see how excellently they were made; but one night, I observed, he could not get them off, and the next morning he could not get them on. All of one day we traversed the cañada, or gorge, of Cholitla, over a sandy bed of which the flood had not yet taken possession; another day, the Cañada del Zopilote. Our old friend of the North, the ailanthus, was common where other natural features were dreariest, and often filled the air insufferably with its odor. The three rivers crossing our way were swollen indeed, as had been predicted. When we came down to the wide Mescala it was opaque with red soil, and tearing past at twenty miles an hour. We were transported across it in a flat skiff guided by an oar. There was no plank to aid in the embarking of the horses, and one of them fell into such a panic as caused a terrific combat of well-nigh half an hour. He was finally thrown on board, more dead than alive, with lassoed legs.
"Ah, what a soul you have!" (Ah, que alma tienes!) cried Marcos fervently to his animal, which had well-nigh kicked us all into the river; and losing all policy in his rage, he begged to borrow my revolver, that he might despatch such a brute, of the ownership of which he was ashamed.
The Papagallo River succeeding, we crossed in a dugout, and the animals swam. I asked the colonel, in my simplicity, if this were not more or less like war, meaning the manner of travel, our foraging, half open-air way of sleeping, and the like. He smiled in disdain, and gave me a sketch of his campaigns in the day of the French usurpation. The rightful government had had at one time so little foothold in the country that it was called the Government of Paso del Norte, from the farthest `
