prospect of social intercourse between the camp and
town, there was much to gratify the eye of our fatigued soldiers in the
scenery that lay before them. On their long and toilsome march they had
been relieved from the dreary wastes of Texas as soon as they beheld the
blue haze hanging over the distant windings of the Rio Grande. The city
of Matamoros, as seen from the opposite side of the river, skirts the
stream for more than a mile with its neat and comfortable dwellings. As
the trade of this town is chiefly carried on with the interior, there
has been no need of encroaching with wharves and walls on the margin of
the river. Hence the city is somewhat removed from the banks, and
embowered amid extensive groves and gardens, from the midst of whose
luxuriant foliage its towers and dwellings rise in broken but graceful
lines. There is but little timber near the river, which traverses
beautiful prairies as it approaches the sea. The hand of culture has
taken these waving meadows under its protection; and, on all sides the
landscape is dotted with abundant vegetation. The grass covered banks
are screened by shrubbery or grazed by cattle; while the stream, winding
along in easy curves, is so narrow near the city that conversation may
be easily carried on from its opposite sides. "The rich verdure of the
shores,--the cultivated gardens scattered around,--the clustering fig
and pomegranate trees," contrasted with the desert through which our
troops had passed, converted this land into a scene of enchantment. The
fatigued soldiers were repaid for all their toils. Existence, alone, in
so beautiful a climate and with such delicious prospects, was sufficient
recompense for our men, and they gazed with delight at the hostile shore
as martial _don_ and gay _donzella_ poured out in crowds from the walls
of Matamoros to behold the foreign flag and the bold intruders clustered
beneath its folds.

FOOTNOTES:

[99] See Mexico as it was, &c., 4th ed. p. 407.

[100] Diario oficial--April 24.

[101] I desire it may be remembered that the important facts related by
me in regard to our military and diplomatic movements are all given upon
the authority of official papers published by congress. The reader who
wishes to verify them will do well to provide himself with the volumes
of executive documents, for I shall not deem it necessary to incumber
the margins of my pages with continual references. I have been
scrupulously accurate in all