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To me, the lament of the wood pewee brings to mind deep, moist places in the Pennsylvania backwoods; the crescendo of the oven bird awakens memories of the oaks of the Orange mountains; when a loon or an olive-sided flycatcher or a white-throat calls, the lakes and forests of Nova Scotia come vividly to mind; the cry of a sea-swallow makes real again the white beaches of Virginia; to me a cardinal has in its song the feathery lagoons of Florida's Indian River, while the shriek of a macaw and its antithesis, the silvery, interlacing melodies of the solitaire, spell the farthest barrancas of Mexico, with the vultures ever circling overhead, and the smoke clouds of the volcano in the distance.
This garrison, under two loyal young lieutenants, Slemmer and Gilman, occupied Barrancas Barracks in Pensacola Bay. This fort, though lying close beside the barracks, had always been unoccupied; so the Secessionists looked forward to an easy capture.
The bay ends down there in Pensacola bay, and there is Pensacola, about fifteen miles away. We came here, you know, to find out what is going on in Pensacola and its neighborhood, and my plan is to run down past the town, to some point four or five miles below, in the neighborhood of Fort Barrancas.
She flushed and looked straight ahead of her at the unfolding vistas that their passage revealed: at the undulating plains, green with bunch-grass that the rain of the night before had washed and reinvigorated; into gullies where weeds grew thick; peering into arroyos visible memories of washouts and cloudbursts; glimpsing barrancas as they flashed by; wondering at the depth of draws through which the trail led; shivering at the cacti a brilliant green after the rain for somehow they seemed to symbolize the spirit of the country they looked so grim, hardy, and mysterious with their ugly thorns that seemed to threaten and mock.
His road led across the valley of Caxas, a broad, uncultivated district, affording little sustenance for man or beast. Day after day, his troops held on their march through this dreary region, intersected with barrancas and rocky ravines that added incredibly to their toil.
So we went along, me on the rim-rock and around the barrancas, and Larry in the bottom carryin' of the kid. By and by we came to the ranch house, stopped to wait. The minute Larry hove in sight everybody was out to once, and in two winks the woman had that baby. They didn't see me at all, but I could hear, plain enough, what they said.
Here, on the contrary, were nothing but naked rocks, poor pasture, and savage, stone-strewn wastes. Gloomy defiles or barrancas intersected this wild country with mountain torrents dashing and foaming between their rugged sides. The clatter of waters, the scream of the eagle, and the howling of wolves the only sounds which broke upon the silence in that dreary and inhospitable region.
Descending on to the llano, we found it intersected by deep and narrow gorges; following along the level, narrow ridge, surrounded by ravines on every side, except the one from which we had approached, we presently descended, along its flank, the bank of the deepest of these barrancas.
Augustine, and lose yourself in the trenches of old Fort Barrancas at Pensacola, and wander at will in the old French town of New Orleans. Each place was once a pawn in the gambles of European statesmen. Each has heard the clang of armed knights, the sword in one hand, the cross in the other.
The flat was green; little clumps of cedar pushed out across it; the oaks had given place to cottonwoods; we had now to make acquaintance with new birds. But what particularly interested us was the fact that at this point the high cañon walls at either side broke into rounder hills that opened out widely, and that from among them descended many ravines, barrancas, and dry washes.
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