The Somerset herald and farmers' and mechanics' register. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 183?-1852, 1847-01-19
vol. 5.--N O. 10.
Correspondence OF the n. o. Mercury.
GEN. wOOL'S -ENCAMPMENT.

AI0A W nav III Il aAA0oF yin VI III
most considerable towns in Coahuila, and
long celebrated for its superior wines.-
We have encamped in Il beautiful valley
two miles from town. From this point a
very comprehensive view of the town is
obtained; YOU trace It's narrow and crook
ed streets, which appear to have been
planned without method and built with
out meaning; YOU see Its lat-rooled bull
dings, with the long lines of w-ater-gutters
projecting from each front, having the ap-
pearance of gun from a fertilization;
YOU see the hospital, now going as many
of It's inmates have gone before it; the
college, the lesser churches in ruins, and
the great cathedral towering above all.
$ =
The houses are, with few exceptions,
Of ADOBE, the walls generally plastered &
of great thickness. Rude attempts at
sculpture are common among the better
class of houses; the doors and windows
are frequently deliberately carved. There
seems to be no particular order of archi-
lecture adopted, but the houses bave a
general resemblance, strength and dura-
bility being the ends principally aimed at.
Each one is a castle of itself, and capable
of being strongly defended. ParapeIs to
the roofs are common, from behind which
the most effective fire could be poured up
on an enemy, without exposing the per-
son Of the defender.
The shops of Parras have been well
%patronized, and the people, perhaps, have
not seen such prosperous times since the
Viceroy of Spain rehearsed in their
streets the mock heroics of majesty
Our presence has been to them a jubilee
rather than a devastation, and we should
be hailed as %deliverers rather than be re-
garded as enemies. The cathedral of
MOnclova is a building of imposing mag
nitude, being nearly 100 feet in front, and
about IT'S feet in depth. The roof is
formed by six arches, and supported by
massive pillars, elaborately carved into an
architectural resemblance Of the compos-
ite order; a stone wall e%ncloses the front,
with several inches, in which crucifxes
are placed. The front is plain, the door
large and deliberately carved.
At mass this morning the building was
crowded with visitors from the camp,
officer and soldier, Protestant and Catho-
lie, realizing for once the equality of man
in the temple erected to the worship Of
his Creator. Here, too, the master and
PEoN kneel side by side, murmuring the
same prayers, bending their knees upon
the same ground, sprinkling themselves
with the same holy water, and figuring
the same crosses upon their PERSONS
The attitudes of the females when knecl-
ing, with eyes bent on the images Of the
Saviour, are strikingly beautiful. Some
of their dresses were rich; none wore
bonnets, but instead silk shawls or rebo-
zas, or tapOlos of various but not gaudy
eoloring. These were thrown over the
head and drawn down closely upon the
brow by the hand. What was most re-
markable among them, the bellies wore
bustles of no insignificant size, the first
| had seen since | left New Orleans
The costume of the males is simple and
picturesque, partaking of the oriental
character. 1t consists of white shirt and
pantaloons, the latter very large and flow
ing, over which leathern ones are drawn,
with the exterior seam open from the
knee down. Sandals are the most COM
mon protection to the feet, though shoes
are also worn.
The weather is extremely disagreeable
the mornings raw, bleak and chilly
the noontime hot and s~corching-the eve
ming cold and cherries. Winter creeps
not upon US with the slow and solemn
pace which precedes It's advent in more
northern chimes. There is nothing of
the m~elIowness of autumn, the dreary
hours which the dim and hazy atmos-
phere of an Indian summer always ere
ares; no foliage, rich in its green and gol-
den hues, picturing the struggles between
the reign of youth and the decreptitude of
old age. Nature, indeed, presents the
look of life, but it is life-worn and bag
gard.
The country through which we have
passed is a barren wild, immense noun
lains on every side, with vallies rich only
in a thousand varieties of cactus. These
plants are frequently seen bursting from
the same point. rearing their horrid forms
like the hydra from a single stem. Gus
tom cannot estate their infinite variety"
You here find every gradation-all with
borbs and needles for the torture and ter
ror of man and beast and creeping things.
Vet in the language Of fiction, OF poetry
and ignorance, "this is the land where
Nature has done so much and man so lit
tle: the land of golden suns and purple
skies; the land Of the olive and the vine;
the land where the sublime and beautiful
are ~eontending FOR the mastery, where the
plains are garnished with perpetual YER
dure and enammelled with flowers OF pc
RENAL loneliness, and the mountains arc
crowped with an eternal diadem of snow"