San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1890-08-01
ON THE WING.
For the Daily LIGHT.

For the Daily LIGHT.
Orders from Washington recently
required me to visit Brownsville, that
place of all others in Texas the most
difficult to reach, and the expenses
incurred in reaching it fully equal
the difficulties; moreover, the discom-
forts by the way discount both ex-
penses and difficulties. At present
there are two routes open to one who
is compelled to VISIT Brownsville.
One via Galveston and a Morgan
steamer to st. Isabel, "a hours on q
heaving sea. The heaving Is. usually
mutual. And, while the sea never
wearies IN its heavlng, the poor
fellow does, and always wishes
he had gone some other way. The
other route to Brownsville is by stage
or private conveyance, either from
Pena or Ellis, on the Texas Mexican
railroad, in the one case 12O miles,
and in the other $50. I have tried
both ways and long since decided
against paying further tribute to Nep.
tune. Give me a slow coach over
long roads through deep sand; but no
heaving upon q rolling sea.
So prefer the rail and the stage
when go to Brownsville and always
shall until Neptune folds away his
conquered banner.
take the I. and G. n. railroad for
Laredo on the 18th, and as the nice
comfortable cars fill up with passen-
gers for that point and all interme-
date stations one can not help con-
trastlng such a train, moving
at an average rate of twenty-five
miles per hour, with the old
two-horse hack in use ten and twelve
years ago, dragging through the Pleas
anton sands at the rate of three miles
an hour. Nor can he help noting the
fact that cotton and corn fields now
cheer his vision, as he hurries south
ence, such as Devine, Moore's station,
where one always gets first-class
meal, and Pearsall; cotton gins, grist
mills and churches measure the
march of progress. The occasional
jacal has gwen way to comforta BILE
houses, and the unfenced ranges have
been changed into we'll wired ranches,
inclosing far better grades of
stock, cattle, horses and sheep.
Then it was Wilderness of
chapparal. Now there are several
Edens in that wilderness. How easy
and simple is self-deception. Before
the days of Julius Caesar map makers
said: FALL north of Germany is sea-"
So, too, said map makers of Spain in
1890, "all west of Spain Is sea-"
When 1 was a boy my geography said
"all west of Missouri Is DESERT" and
when our Mexican war heroes re-
turned, one of chem, a Captain Blake,
said to me: "The whole country be-
tween San Antonio, Texas, and the
Rio Grande is God-torsaken desert,
covered with sand, rattlesnakes and
thorny brush" Time lifted the cur
tain beyond the North sea, beyond
the Atlantic; and time discovered a
rich empire beyond Missouri; and If
my friend Captain Blake could now
march from San Antonio to the Rio
Grande, he would wonder how this
could be the land he once deemed so
God. forsaken; dotted all along the
| road with pleasant homes, thrifty
herds and on much of the upper part
of the road blooming cotton fields.
And all this change in ten years. To
| see it then and now, one must believe
some woodworking magician had
gone over this. land.
Then Laredo, 1 was going to say
little, plucky Laredo; but she doesn't
like the term little. She Is like girl
in her early teens, that would be a
young lady. Well, at any rate, she
Is. plucky and has done more
to advertise Texas than any
other city in the state. Her improve
ment company deserves much at the
hands of the state. 1t has wrought
like Hercules and made brick with
out straw. 1t has borne heavy bur-
den in the heat of the day, and those
who have not seen its work cannot
( appreciate its labor. Its need is wat
or for the irrigation of the rich lands
that surround 1t for miles, deep, rich,
alluvial lands; water for manufactur-
ing. Laredo stands, like g picket.
looking over the border line, and as
such it AMI all others like it on the
Rio Grande must be places of import
ance where the traveller breathes the
air of home again, as he crosses to
this side of the Rio Grande, hence we
have only words of cheer for brave,
plucky Laredo. On with your work;
no rest for the wicked, and the right
eous never stop. r. NJ. NJ.
To Organize