into his military glory, I would abolish in the army the extravagant use of chilé, and make it highly punishable for an officer to pack his bed or indulge in the siesta. These effeminate indulgences are more calculated to make women than soldiers. The extravagant use of chilé is as hurtful to energy as the too great use of ardent spirits. Before dinner, the slothful gait and languid countenance of the Mexican shows the absence of this stimulant, when, after dinner, its effects make the siesta indispensable. Santa Anna was enjoying the sweets of this evening sleep at San Jacinto [206] when "that mishap," as he calls it, befell him; and experience should have long since taught him the force of these observations. I would also reduce that officer to the ranks who would be guilty of the low accomplishment of throwing the lasso. It has been said that "the Texian is born with a rifle in his hand," and with equal truth it may be said that "the Mexican is born with a rope in his," for at every Mexican settlement we noticed the children, from knee high and upward, with little ropes, catching the ducks and chickens. It appeared to be their only amusement; and they would throw them with remarkable certainty. The old roosters and drakes, that had been often taken this way, seemed to know how useless it was to attempt escape, and would squat to receive the rope when they saw it coming. In Mexico the lasso is used for catching every animal, from a wild bull to the tamest dunghill fowl; nor is its use unknown in recruiting "their volunteers" for the army. Our comrades used to say that "these blanketed, pepper-eating fellows would not believe a thing was caught at all unless it was done with a rope."

This evening we were marched two leagues to Arroyo Saco, and jammed into a subterranean room, covered with trodden straw, from which, whenever stirred, the most suffocating dust would fill the room. Added to this, the pulgas, fleas - not by the count, for there are not numerals enough in mathematics to give an idea of their number, but in bushels - the [207] pulgas completely usurped the dominion of the piojos, lice; and the only advantage we experienced from them was, that their frisky activity made us for the time insensible to the slow, plodding operations of the latter. They acted as counter-irritants, for the same reason that a negro puts red pepper in his eye to cure the toothache.

What made this night the more insufferable was that, notwithstanding there were numerous unoccupied and comfortable apartments in this building, which we were not permitted to occupy, we were refused the privilege of sleeping in the open court upon the pavement. Colonel Fisher and myself addressed the following note to the colonel, from whom we received no reply: