New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1866-02-20
Especial % the New Orleans Gre -,
FROM THE RIO rxnANnE
/. lRRovNsy1L,s n.y., .p,h 70,


FROM THE RIO CxRANnE
T--
hRowNsvILAE, TEXAS, Feb. s, 1866.
In my last closed with an account of our ar
rival at Brasos. Before leaving the steamer 1
asked one OF the officers If there was hotel in
brazos' ie briefly replied, . sortof q hotel9'
Upon ialaing, hired a United States colored cav
airy 80 " tote " my baggage to said hotel, and,
surfs enough, found that it was 'sort Of hotel ;"
Preseminent as the only two-story house on the
island, it promised well externally, its cupola es
peoially wooing the strangers better FEELINGS
But it is, internally, q mere homegrown OF I'M
j dressed plank whitewashed, it is true, the rooms
having bottom and four sides each, but no top
short of the roof 80 that when you are in your
room you can hear everything that is going on in
every other room all over the house. The dining,
baggage and sitting rooms, and the hotel office,
4 are all one and the same room. The room slept
/ in contained two cots with blankets, but not a
] thing else-not even . hook or nail--and that
night had to hang up my clothes on the floor.
4 Table decidedly rough, and charge four dollars a
/ day. ! cannot conscientiously recommend the
Rover, or Sort-ofaHotel, to the travelling public,
though it be the best in the city-being the only
| one. 4t3t 81 lsAatts tSfsG
Besides the hotel, there is shop or two, few
warehouses and . blaeksmith's shop these con-
sttute the city of Brazos proper. All the rest is
military encampment Of frame barracks and tents.
There is brigade of colored troops on the island,
and some Of these were about to be mustered out.
The paymaster arrived there on the same vessel
did, and he was 80 welcome that the brass band
turned ont and serenaded him nearly all night. t
Next morning I left the Sortofa Hotel, and took
the government railroad to Whites rancho on the
Rio Grande, twelve miles distant. Here, govern
ment stores are transferred to steamers for
Brownsville. There was stage for passengers,
and this I took. A ride of eighteen miles over d
fat and dismal country part prairie and part chap
paral, here and there skirting the Rio Grande,
brought US to the celebrated city of Brownsville,
the southwestern jumping-off place Of the United
States. hauled up 4 at the only hotel,
Miller's, where the accommodations are plain
and the table good, at three dollars day Browns.
vile is q decidedly lively and busting place IT'D
business center being half shops and the other
half whisky shops, with government office here
and there. Population decidedly mixed; United
States troops, black and white citizens of all
compilations and stylesof dress and swarns of
poems, or Mexican Indians, who fill all the subor-
dinate places and do all the drudgery and mental
work of the town. They are quiet, patient and
leisurely industrious set, and seem to make the
most tractable servants in the world. Their set
Elements in the suburbs are novel, and Igmay
describe them hereafter. =
Yesterday morning went over into the Empire
to take look at the city of II. Matamoros. The
initial H., which you will notice in the papers and
advertisements, as tits to be seen also on the signs
in that city, stands for Heroic Heroic Matamoros
because it has never been captured by any forces
since the days of lack Taylor Alphabetically,
the city disappointed me. Afterseeing the Cattle.
dral, shabby old affair, fronting the shabby old
plaza, and the new theater there is nothing to be
seen but numberless blocks of fiattopped one
story bricks nearly all alike, with twostory
brick here and there, and narrow crumbling side;
walks, and the suburban mud andstick domiciIs of
the. peon population The city covers much
ground, but makes small penetration of the upper
atmosphere. ,.
The day being Sunday, was present when the
Cathedral disgorged its multitude. few United
States ladies dressed a Ia New Orleans, with
cloaks, bonnets and hats, came out AlIthe rest,
lady Mexicans of sall shades of color, many ugly
and some very beautiful, wore the lnvariable
shawl, passed over the head and flung gracefully
around the waist. Nearly all were cheaply dressed,
rich dresses were rare. III
In Matamoros there are about three thousand
troops; consisting Of nativeinantry, badly dressed
and worse drilled; Austrian cavalry, in blazing uni
forms of red and blue and all other colors and an
American or cosmopolitan battalion |
of cavalry scouts, comfortably but slouchily uni
formed andgarnished with big spurs and revolvers !
These latter are paid sixty dollars per month in |
specie, or two dollars day. PAYABLE daily they
hnding or boarding themselves, which they are
do at about twenty dollars per month.
This leaves them forty dollars month clear and |
as their specie goes much further in Mexico than it
would in the United States, it may be judged that
they have luxurious time of it for private |
soldiers. ,z-l,yz |
But Of Matamoros and Mexico more hereafter |
. The present Provost Marshal of Bagdad, is |
Victor Duprat, formerly of New Orleans. |
L. Il. |