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Show 488 WESTERN WILDS. Arkansas are the finest bunch- grass pastures, on which feed vast herds of sheep and cattle. The valley of the Arkansas is fertile some distance eastward. But a little south the scene changes suddenly, and the extreme south- east-ern part of the Territory lies in that great desert which includes all the neighboring portions of Texas, New Mexico, Kansas and the In-dian Territory. There the water- holes are few and far between; the. thorny mezquit alone can be said to adorn the landscape, and the region can only be crossed at the risk of death from thirst. On the south-ern edge of this desert my friend, Thad. Buckman, took refuge in a mezquit thicket from the Arapahoes, and, though previously noted for his modesty, when he got out of there, with his skin hanging in ribands, he was the worst stuck- up man in the Rocky Mountains. Every bush has a thorn and every insect a sting ; all the Indians are hostile, and if one should meet a white man, the chances are even that he is an involuntary exile and a cattle thief. The principal pro-ductions are mezquit, tarantulas and centipedes. The Arkansas was formerly the northern boundary of Mexico, and across this desert marched, in 1843, from their rendezvous on that stream, one of the many Texan expeditions against Santa Fe. Its mem-bers are now glorified on annual San Jacinto days as noble and devoted patriots to whom dishonor were worse than death ; but I am afraid they would not know themselves in that character. They arrived almost dead from starvation at the Mexican settlements, and, having supplied themselves, found that Governor Armijo had warning of their ap-proach; accordingly they marched back and disbanded. After a brief rest a new party was organized, numbering a hundred and eighty, which found a little better route over the desert, and came up with the Mexican forces while in fighting condition. Texan histories, in florid, South- western rhetoric, describe the daring charge and furious onslaught of the little army, the fierce conflict and bloody victory, add-ing in confirmation that the Texans lost two men wounded ! 1 heard while in Texas that one of the two cut his fingers accidentally with a bowie- knife. Pity those historians had not taken a lesson from Ccesar's Commentaries that to praise the enemy's bravery is to exalt the victor. Turning back from the South- eastern desert to the foot of the mount-ains, fertility increases with every mile, until we are again among the rich pastures and mountain meadows along the heads of the streams. Thus it will be seen that Colorado is naturally divisible into four great sec-tions; twenty thousand square miles of complete barrenness, whether of mountain or desert; fifty thousand square miles of plain and valley, |