Page:Memoir of a tour to northern Mexico.djvu/6

[ 26 ] that reason, we marched to-day but five miles on the Santa Fe road, and encamped in the prairie, with good grass and near water.

May 23.–We started in the morning for "Lone Elm-tree" or "Round Grove" (10 miles.) The, prairie over which we travelled looked more beautiful than I had ever seen it. The grass had all the freshness of spring, and the whole plain was so covered with flowers, principally with the blue-sky Tradescania Virginica, and the light-red Phlox aristata, that it resembled a vast carpet of green, interwoven with the most brilliant colors. The road was excellent. This long trail through the prairie, the Santa Fe road, made only by thousands of large wagons that have travelled over it, is really a better road than is met with in a great part of Missouri and Illinois. The higher elevation of the prairie, with a most gradual ascent and descent, and the facility of leading the road over the most favorable part of the ground, explains it sufficiently. At "Lone Elm-tree" we halted at noon: rather a poor camping place, with bad water, scanty grass, and a single elm-tree; some brushes growing along the water. How long the venerable elm-tree, that must have seen many ages, will yet be respected by the traveller, I am unable to say; but I fear that its days are numbered, and that the little valley will look then more desolate than ever. We started again in the afternoon, and camped, after five miles, near a water-pool in the prairie. At every camping place the wagons were formed into a "corrál;" that is, so as to embrace an oval space with but one opening. The animals were turned loose to graze, at the time of starting driven into the corral, and caught there in the Mexican fashion, with the lazo.

May 24.–This morning we passed the road to Oregon, that leaves, about eight miles from Round Grove, the Santa Fe road, and turns to the right towards the Kansas. A way post had been put there, marked: "Road to Oregon," (to Japan, China, the East Indies, etc., might have been added.) At noon we reached Black Jack Point, (12 miles.) In our camp, and still more to our right, we saw plenty of those dwarfish oak-trees, the so-called black jack, whose dark green leaves contrast strikingly with the livelier green of the prairie. The black jack grows rather on wet ground and poor soil, and the locality seemed to answer. In the afternoon we marched eight miles to Hickory Point, and four miles beyond to Wackarussi Point, a well wooded camp, with a fine spring, in the timber. Before reaching our night camp, going over high ground, we enjoyed a beautiful view over a valley towards the north, containing many hills resembling Indian mounds, aid with the distant bluffs of the Kansas in the background. I understood that it is a favorite hunting ground of the Kansas Indians.

May 25.–Noon halt, after five miles, near water; night camp, ten miles further on Rock creek. On the latter we found good grass, tolerable water, but no wood. For the first time since our start, I saw to-day limestone in the prairie, cropping out on the creek of our neon halt, as well as on Rock creek. At both places it was a yellow compact limestone, with encrinites and other fossils of the carboniferous limestone formation.

May 26.–We reached at noon 110-miles creek, (10 miles,) with fine timber, but no running water. The name of the creek refers to its distance from the old Fort Osage. Eight miles further, on Bridge creek, we found a beautiful night camp. A severe thunder storm came on in the night, during which some of our mules took it into their heads to run back to cultivated life; but our Mexican mule boys (the best set of men for that purpose) brought the prisoners to camp in the morning.