After riding a few miles we struck the Timpa, a small affluent of the Arkansas, up which we travelled till the next day about noon, when, coming to an Indian trail
leading south-southwest to the de las Animas, we followed it and reached the latter stream on the 27th of March; continuing up the de las Animas, three days subsequently we arrived at our destination.
The country passed over at the commencement of our journey, for fifteen or twenty miles, was a slightly undulating prairie, of a sandy soil, with few indications of productiveness.
The Timpa is entirely destitute of timber, and its valley, though plentiful in absinthe, is scarcely superior to the surrounding prairie. Several miles previous to leaving it, our course lay between two ridges of forbidding and sterile hills, nearly destitute of vegetation, and affording only now and then a few scraggy cedars and shrubs. Indeed, but very little good land is found in this vicinity.
On diverging from the Timpa the trail crossed a high, arid prairie, which was furrowed by deep ravines, and ridged by long rolling hills, that were occasionally surmounted by cedars and pinions, until it struck the de las Animas.
The watercourses through this section are rare, and sparsely timbered, being for the most part shut in by high banks of earth or lofty walls of precipitous rock, varying in altitude, and presenting vast chasms, passable only at certain points. Their valleys are narrow, but possess a fertile soil which is to some extent susceptible of cultivation, while many parts of the adjacent prairies might answer for grazing purposes.
The prevailing rock, so far as my observation extended, was coarse-grained granite and limestone. I noticed at places along the creek valleys occasional spots of calcareous earth; and, in fact, their soils generally indicated the presence of calcium in their compound, to no inconsiderable extent.
The valley of the Rio de las Animas was by far the most interesting and romantic section of country we had as yet entered upon in the Mexican, or, as it is now claimed, Texan territory. This stream, in English, bears the name of Purgatory creek; in French, it is known as the Piquer l'eau, or Water of Suffering; in Indian, it is called the Wild River, and in Spanish, it is christened by the term above used, which means the River of Souls.
It rises in the Taos Mountains by two separate heads, a little south of the Spanish Peaks, and emerges from its rugged birth-place into the plains, where the two branches trace their way for some fifty miles and then unite to form one stream. These forks are passably well timbered, and are skirted at intervals with rich bottoms; but the circumjacent country is dry rolling, and generally barren.
A short distance below their confluence the river cuts its way through an expanse of high, barren table lands, for sixty or sixty-five miles, leaving abrupt walls of rock and earth on both sides, piled to a varied height of from fifty to three or four hundred feet, surmounted by groves of cedar and pinion, interspersed with broad
pavements of naked rock, nude wastes of stiff sun-baked clay, and occasional clusters of coarse grass.
