The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1900-05-12
Correspondence of the New York sun.

Z
Of the recent floods ins Western and south
western Texas have been taken up mainly
with descriptions of the bursting of the
great dam two miles above Austin, and
little attention has been paid to the vagar-
les of the Rio Grande, which has been
upon most pronounced rampage. Not
since 1869 has the water been so high, or
continued in food for so long time. 1t
is popularity of the river that each time
ii overfows it materially alters the bound
arv line between the United States and
Mexico. In this way 1t not only affords
increased employment to Government en-
gineers, but also it causes endless disputes
among customs officials and other people
whose duty it is to collect taxes of one sort
or another. Now and then an American
deputy collector wakes in the morning to
find that some thousands of good land,
bearing fine flock of sheep and goats,
has been moved into the United States.
Naturally he tries to collect duty on the
animals and naturally the owner says that,
having been moved into Yankeeland by the
will of God, he is not responsible and de-
clines to pay. Sometimes this sort OF row
gets into the Federal courts and drags its
weary length along until it reaches the
highest court in Washington, where ire
meudously heavy decision is handed down
favoring one side or the other. Opposite
this town is strip of land which in 1865
belonged to the United States. The great
food of 1869 moved it into Mexico. Seven
wears ago it was moved back into this
country. Three years ago it was moved
back into Mexico. The present food has
moved it back into this country. This
strip contains 500 and odd acres. Its
owner is Antonio Jesus Maria CARA. He
Is A ranchman. born in the United States.
Seven years ago when the river moved his
ranch into Texas the deputy tried to make
him pay duty on his cows and things. He
carried the case to the Supreme Court and
got Judgment in his favor. Two months
after the decision was rendered, that Is to
say in about three years, he was moved
into Mexico and the collector over there
tried to make him pay He carried the
case into the Mexican Supreme Court and
won. Now he says that he is immune
against customs collectors and 1t doesn
make any sort of difference to him how
often he lives in Mexico or the United
States. He has copies of the two decis-
ions and pulls them on any man who looks
% if he wanted taxes
Certainly the Rio Gande is the most
mysterious river between Bafhn' : Bay and
the Gulf of Mexico Today there are
hundreds of miles of it in the aggregate
about which no positive information Is to
be had. Winding its sinuous length for
more than thousand miles from the New
Mexican hills to Brownsville and below, 1t
Is, for much the greater part of Its coarse,
unvisited. ever, save by an occasional
yaquero or cowboy riding the range for
straved stock. The canon Of the Rio
Grande. so-called, beginning eighty miles
below Ell Paso and ending hundred miles
above Eagle Pass. has never yet been sur
veyed. So far As Is known only one man
has been through t. He was a French
trapper who started through with two
companions and came out alone with one
boat, which contained 50, 200 worth of
beaver skins. He said that his friends
had been drowned, sold his skins aud i'm
mediately disappeared into Mexico Maybe
his friends were drowned and maybe they
were not. Anyhow, Antoine had the
skins. Il is that part of the river which
runs from Laredo TO the sea that Is most
lonely and probably least known For
eleven mouths in the year it is shallow
muddy looking stream, not more than 100
wards wide. with miles Of treaeherpus
auicksands and clothed to its lips in a tan
gle Of all sorts Of ehaparral In the other
month il is raging torrent, red a. blood
and foam crested, hurting itself toward salt
water and bearing with it vortex Of
wreck. sometimes dotted with corpses Of
men and always with corpses Of animals
Ordinarily Ms as quiet as any other slow
currented Southern stream, making scarce
ly a murmur as it slides along. but in food
the roar of it is steady aud ominous and
it sounds over the green tangle for two
miles upon either side
1t is impossible ever to obtain death sta
tistics of the Rio Grande in flood The
Mexican men and women and children who
live upon its banks in little jaeals at wide
intervals are swept to death and make no
sound that any one may hear. No one
knows their names; no one misses them
the places whereon their cabins stood are
green and overgrown with eatelaw in three
months time. They simply were and are
not. Ii has been stated that in the food Of
1869 the total loss Of life was 100 per
sons, but this is mere guess work. The
chances are that the loss was much in ex-
cess of that figure. There is no way 10
calculate it, save from the frequency with
which bodies drift past the little towns.
During the week just gone many have
been swept past Hidalgo always in the
centre of the current, hurrying toward the
sea.
An observer standing upon the bank,
which just here is high above the rush Of
the red water, counted twenty jacals in two
hours going down. Upon the comb of one
them black Spanish game rooster was
perehed and as he was whirled along he
crowed defantly at the waste which boiled
about him. As for cattle, horses, sheep
and goats their number has been uncount-
able, Many deer have been drowned,
having been cut off upon little points of
the valley lands which were first small is
lands and then became submerged, giving
the animal the choice of ten-mile swim
through the interlaeing tops of mesquite
trees, or else death. Peccaries have gone
under in droves and all feline fauna, which
hate the water-bobtails, leopard eats and
even an occasional puma-have met a sim
liar death Between Laredo and the mouth
of the river alligators have had feast and
cranes, herons and famingoes have stalkd
gravely along banks left moist by the re-
ceding tide and inspected critically some
body which was drifted in, with arms and
legs distraught, and interfered with the
fishing. As the water has fallen the mum
Der of dead things has increased until the
the line of wreckage has become prac-
tically continuous in places. 1t takes
the strange river almost as long to
empty itsef of its plumber as it does to
get another food on. In all previous rises
n has haan raeordad that FIR a month after