Sketches of the campaign in northern Mexico : in eighteen hundred forty-six and seven / by an officer of the First Regiment of Ohio volunteers.

LA RINCONADA. 261
nardly to be expected from one who had such a dry and toilsome path before him. The traveler in Mexico soon learns
to estimate highly the precious element with which the
Creator has so bountifully blessed our own land, and to
appreciate fully the many beautiful allusions to floods, and
wells and water-brooks contained in the Bible.
At La Rinconadca, which is, as its name signifies, " a
little corner " or nook, we found a rapid stream of warm
water, strongly impregnated with sulphur. It issued from a
narrow glen, so gloomy and forbidding in its aspect, that,
with the hot brimstone flavor of the water on his tongue, the
spectator might readily suppose it the entrance to Hades.
In this sequestered spot and hemmed in on three sides by
towering mountains, is a single large rancho, built of
adobes, and designed, I presume, chiefly for the accommodation of travelers. Scattered over the few acres of arable
ground around the house, we saw, for the first time in perfection, that miracle of the vegetable kingdom, the aloe,
(cgave Americana;) and which was to the Aztecs, all that
the reindeer is to the Laplanders.~ Though the officers
and men generally were active and cheerful, and untiring,
throughout the march, in efforts to encourage and assist the
* The distinguished historian, Prescott, in his " Conquest of Mexico," gives the
following account of the various and important uses to which the maguey was
applied by the aborigines. To these, the modern Mexicans have added another,
by converting it into a hedge plant, for which it is very valuable in the great
scarcity of wood for fencing.
" Its bruised leaves afforded a paste from which paper was manufactured; its
juice was fermented into an intoxicating beverage, pulque; of which the natives to
this day, are exceedingly fond; its leaves further supplied an impenetrable thatch
for the more humble dwellings; thread, of which coarse stuffs were made, and
strong cords, were drawn from its tough and twisted fibres; pins and needles were
made of the thorns at the extremity of its leaves; and the root when properly