After getting well under way, the keen air at 26 deg. Fahrenheit
made it most comfortable to walk. We travelled four miles along the
sand butte, in a southern direction; we mounted the buttes and found a
firmer footing covered with fragments of lava, rounded by water, and
many agates. We were now fairly on the desert.
"Our course now inclined a few degrees more to the north, and at 10,
A.M., we found a large patch of grama, where we halted for an hour, and
then pursued our way over the plains covered with fragments of lava,
traversed at intervals by sand buttes, until 4, P.M., when, after
travelling 24 miles, we reached the Alamo or cotton-wood. At this
point, the Spaniards informed us, that, failing to find water, they had
gone a league to the west, in pursuit of their horses, where they found
a running stream. We accordingly sent parties to search, but neither
the water nor their trail could be found. Neither was there any
cotton-wood at the Alamo, as its name would signify; but it was
nevertheless the place, the tree having probably been covered by the
encroachments of the sand, which here terminates in a bluff 40 feet
high, making the arc of a great circle convexing to the north.
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