housands of dollars.

I ought to mention, however, that the class of mules on which this
experiment was tried were loose, leggy animals, such as I have
heretofore described as being almost unfit for any branch of Government
service. But, by all means, let the Government abandon the American
pack-saddle until some further improvements are made in it.

Now, as to the weight a mule can pack. I have seen the Delaware Indians,
with all their effects packed on mules, going out on a buffalo hunt. I
have seen the Potawatamies, the Kickapoos, the Pawnees, the Cheyennes,
Pi-Ute, Sioux, Arapahoes, and indeed almost every tribe that use mules,
pack them to the very extent of their strength, and never yet saw the
mule that could pack what Mr. Skinner asserts. More than that, I assert
here that you cannot find a mule that will pack even four hundred
pounds, and keep his condition sixty days. Eight hundred pounds, Mr.
Skinner, is a trying weight for a horse to drag any distance. What,
then, must we think of it on the back of a mule? The officers of our
quartermasters' department, who have been out on the plains, understand
this matter perfectly. Any of these gentlemen will tell you that there
is not a pack train of fifty mules in existence, that can pack on an
average for forty days, three hundred pounds to the animal.

I will now give you the experience of some of the best mule packers in
the country, in order to show that what has been written in regard to
the mule's strength is calculated to mislead the reader. In 1856,
William Anderson, a man whom I know well, packed from the City of Del
Norte to Chihuahua and Durango, in Mexico, a distance of five hundred
miles or thereabout. Anderson and a man of the name of Frank Roberts had
charge of the pack train. They had seventy-five mules, and used to pack
boxes of dry goods, bales, and even barrels. They had two Mexican
drivers, and travelled about fifteen miles a day, at most, though they
took the very best of care of their animals. Now, the very most it was
possible for any mule in this train to get along with was two hundred
and seventy-five pounds. More than this, they did not have over
twenty-five mules out of the whole number that could pack two hundred
and fifty pounds, the average weight to the whole train being a little
less than two hundred pounds. To make this fifteen miles a day, they had
to make two drives, letting the animals stop to feed whenever they had
made seven or e