Inasmuch as it has been our good fortune to recently spend a few days in the Republic of Mexico, and the fact that there are at this time many men in Greer County who have intentions of moving to that country to take up a permanent residence there and the further fact that we have been asked to give an account of such facts and observations as come to our knowledge while sojourning in that land, we submit this article in compliance to such request, hoping that it may possible serve to answer some of the questions that those interested are seeking to know.

On the fourth day of September our little company of six crossed the line that marks the boundary of our Uncle Samuel’s domain at Eagle Pass, Texas.  Of course, this was an important moment to us.  We had our doubts, misgivings, womanly curiosities, etc, as to how one would feel out from under the overshadowing protection of the great American eagle.  We all stood upon the car steps, if I mistake not, ready to take a desperate plunge into the turbid Rio Grande, which rolled much after the manner of Red river 30 feet below, in case the solemnity of the occasion and the strained feeling of the moment became too great for our nervous system.  Now, do not be so ungenerous as to ridicule our nervous strain at the point for it is but the common lot of all and altogether human to approach unusual and uncommon occurances with unusual and uncommon feelings.  For instance more men in these United States get married than go to Mexico, and who would think of heaping coals of derision upon the head of a bachelor of tender years for approaching the nuptial alter (sic) with the safety valve of his nervous system bumping hard against the giving way point.  If the answer in the latter case is that it is something unusual, it will equally apply in the former.  And for the benefit of those who would life to try the experiment we would prescribe only a little 24 cent bottle of smelling salts or a good three finger pull at same standard American brand of “nerve restorer” – sometimes called “snake medicine.”

Finding ourselves safely across without harm and unregenerated; that the sun was still shining and that the people walked on their hind legs much after the same manner as they on “our” side, we soon gained our mental equilibrium and when the train halted we climbed out and piled into the custom house where we were caused to expose our baggage to government inspection.  The old rusty specimen of the “better day” type who only grunted his acknowledgement upon beholding the sanctum sanctorium or inner apartment of our hand baggage seemed very much out of place in such a station where quick action and younger energy would so much more readily expedite the rush – for a rush it always is and it only happens once in twenty-four hours.  Our only conclusion when pondering the question as to why this old fossil of at least 75 winters was given a position where the most to be required was energy, was that he must have been at one time in the far past one of President Diaz’ political lieutenants or ward healers and a place had to be assigned him, as places are assigned incompetents in this country.  If such is true, Mexican latter day civilization is not as far behind ours as some of us might think.  However, the old gentleman treated us nicely, indeed – peace be to his ashes - - for in Mexico a second hand pair of socks and a fifty cent suit of underclothes is not classed in the tariff schedule as “dutyable goods.”

The twin town to Eagle Pass, on the American Side, is Cuidad Paroiroi (sic) Diaz, on the Mexican side.  And we want to apologize to the latter city in classing it as a twin to Eagle Pass.  We are almost at a loss to know why this stopping place on a branch of the Southern Pacific railroad was ever dignified with a name at all.  Eagle Pass has what some might call a poetic sound and the unsuspecting might think there was and air of importance attached to the name.  But to all we would say, be at once undeceived for outside of the fact that it is a port of entry and the home of a handful of Uncle Sam’s blue coats it is the dreariest spot on earth.

“C.P. Diaz,” as the Mexican town is called, has quite a different appearance.  Business, thrift and enterprise are seen on every hand.  It is a division point of the Mexican International Railway and that of itself may be one of the causes of its increased commercial advantages over its American opponent.  Cuidad Porifirio Diaz was named in honor of Mexico’s now ruling president.

We will now take up a description of the land seen along our route of travel and attempt to picture it as we saw it.  In the immediate vicinity of C.P. Diaz there are some evidences of agricultural energy.  A few watered streams are crossed in the neighborhood of that town which afford one of the driest, gloomiest and most abject pictures that can be imagined.   As to grass, there is none.  The trees are the scrubbiest of mesquite shrubs.   The streams were all barren and dry and the soil was of limestone formation and studded thick with cactus.  A light rain had recently fallen along the route of the railway and the water seen upon the ground had a milky coloring which spoke plainly of the chalky nature of the lands.  Few cattle were seen feeding upon the low limbs of the mesquite bushes.  No places of habitation were encountered save the customary section house with its small coterie of Indian shacks and peon lodges.  The country was, in short, an absolute wilderness and in our judgment fit only for coyotes and rattlesnakes – neither of which we saw.

In traveling over this dreary waste our thought turned back to childhood days when we, as a pupil in the public school of Texas, learned of the hard fought battles and daring military deeds of the illustrious Zachary Taylor.  It was here that he, with some six thousand compatriots, invaded the Mexican domain and for more than a year fought some of the hardest battles of recent ages.  How a family, a group, or a company could subsist for even a fortnight in this wilderness was beyond our conception, and for our army to march over such bleak wastes where its only rivers were streams of parched sand, its only grasses the thorny stems of the giant cactus and its only good products the scanty roots of the mesquite, fight the battles of a proud nation and win over such obstacles, forms a page of American bravery and valor of which every true American citizen should be distinctly proud.  Our musings further carried us to the thought that had some heartless fate set us down in such a land with the pitiless injunction to “root hog or die” we would have at once thrown up the whole “rooting” business as a fruitless waste of energy and settled ourself down to an inevitable result.  Why the creator made such a land and for what purpose will possibly be made known when we shake of this earthly coil, the mortal put on immortality, the finite become infinite or when Gabriel blows his horn. 

This dark picture has one redeeming spot.  Where it has been possible to obtain water with which to irrigate, no more luxuriant trees, greener gardens or fairer fields can be found.  At  Allende, a small town some fifty miles south of the Rio Grande and in the heart of this dismal waste, water is brought in a large aqueduct some thirty miles from a large mountain spring and possibly  more than a hundred acres of this dreary waste is made to bloom like a bed of roses.  This fully demonstrates that water – the greatest boon to mankind – is the only substance lacking with which to convert this wilderness into a habitable land.  This character of land and condition extends entirely to the historic city of Monterey some hundred and fifty miles from the Rio Grand frontier. 

In our next we will attempt a description of Monterey and the country to the coast – a different land to that of the Rio Grande valley.