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

Correspondence of the New York Sun.
HIDALdo, Texas, April 25.-Accounts
of the recent floods in 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 a most pronounced rampage. Not
since 1869 has the water been SO high, OF
continued in flood for so long time. 1t
is popularity of the river that each time
il oyerfows it materially alters the bound
ary line between the United States and
Mexico. IN this way 1T not only affords
increased employment to Government en-
uineers. 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,
hearing 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 ofrow
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 1868
belonged to the United States. The great
flood of 1863 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 flood 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 it doesn' t
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
as if he wanted taxes.
Certainly the Rio Grande is the most
mysterious river between Baffin's 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 fol
more than thousand miles from the New
Mexican hills to Brownsville and below, ii
is, for much the greater part of its course,
unvisited ever, save by an occasional
vaquero or cowboy riding the range for
strayed 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 it. 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 and i'm
mediately disappeared into Mexico Maybe
his friends were drowned and maybe they
were not. Anyhow, Antoine had the
skins. 1t is that part of the river which
runs from Laredo to the sea that is most
lonely and probably least known. Fol
eleven months in the year it is shallow
muddy-looking stream, not more than 400
yards wide, with miles of treacherous
quicksands and clothed to its lips in tan
Gle of all sorts of chaparral. In the Other
month it is raging torrent, red as blood
and foam crested, hurting itself toward salt
water and bearing with it a vortex ui
wreck, sometimes dotted with corpses Of
men and always with corpses of animals.
Ordinarily it is as quiet as any other slow
currented Southern stream, making scarce
ly murmur as it slides along, but in foot
the roar of it is steady and ominous anC
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 food. TIL
Mexican men and women and children VIII
live upon its banks in little jacals at wild
intervals are swept to death and make N
sound that any one may hear. No on
knows their names; no one misses them
the places whereon their cabins stood ar
green and oyergrown with catclaw in thre
months time They simply were and ar
not. 1t has been stated that in the food q
1869 the total loss of life was 100 per
SONS, but this is mere guess work. Th
chances are that the loss was much in ex
cess of that figure There is no way t
calculate it, save from the frequency wit
which bodies drift past the little towns
During the week just gone many hav
been swept past Hidalgo, always in tn
centre of the current, hurrying toward til
sea-
An observer standing upon the banl
which just here is high above the rush
the red water, counted twenty jacals in tv
hours going down. Upon the comb of OF
them black Spanish game rooster W;
perched aud as he was whirled along
crowed deiantly at the waste which boile
about him. As for cattle, horses, shee
and goats their number has been uncoun
able. Many deer have been browne,
having been cut off upon little points 4,
the valley lands which were first small !