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

THE APPEARANCE OF THE COUNTRY.
Crittenden undertaken the difficult task of making them
march at least, in some order. IIe so far succeeded, that an
enemy reconnoitering us from afar, would perhaps have supposed them to be a formidable body of Rangers. Among
those who solicited permission to accompany the train was
a Mr. IR-*, a genuine Yankee, who had long resided at
Durango, where he had been engaged in some manufacturing enterprise. Ils party consisted of his wife, two or three
children, and a friend who had been employed in the same
business with himself. It was represented to him that the
3Mexican troops were on the road, and would probably fight
a small force; and that he had better remain until the line
was re-opened. But as he had been detained at Saltillo during the battle of'Buena Vista,-much to the terror of his
family,-he was determined not to make another halt south
of " the little town of' Bosting;" and accepting the risk, concluded to march with us.
A poor account of the poor country between Monterey and
Camargo has been given in a previous chapter. Its appearance was now rather less attractive, if possible, from the
absence of water. During the six months that had elapsed
since we first marched over it, scarcely a cloud had floated in
the sky. Parched by the hot suns, the shrub-covered hills
and plains had assumed a brown and fading hue, the gaudy
flowers of the cactus and variegated convolvuli had disappeared from the valleys, and many of the streams which at
the period of our upward march had been both broad and
deep, were now " consumed out of their places."' But unlike
" the troops of Tema" and "the companies of Sheba," we
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