United States or Malawi ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Doors were made of puncheons, swung on wooden hinges and fastened with wooden latches operated by latch-strings. Our first day in camp was principally spent in making ourselves comfortable. The men were busy in filling bed-sacks from the hay-stacks, and in repairing the cabins and articles of furniture. Ten head of beef cattle had been turned over to me with the other property of the camp.

As it was, upon searching those trains, only one hundred and fifty pairs of boots and shoes and six hundred pairs of stockings were found provided for an army of two thousand men, and some of the soldiers already had nothing but moccasins to cover their feet, with the thermometer at 16 degrees below zero, while there were found one thousand leather neck-stocks and three thousand bed-sacks, articles totally useless.

They were not quite willing to sleep on the ground, so they had brought empty bed-sacks with them, and Pancho's first duty after his arrival had been to drive to a neighbouring ranch for a great load of straw. In a glorious tree near by was a 'sky parlour, arranged by a few boards nailed high up in the leafy branches, and reached from below by a primitive ladder.

I knew there was none to be obtained at Camp Apache, as most of the merchandise came in by pack-train to that isolated place. Mrs. Two iron cots from the hospital were brought over, and two bed-sacks filled with fresh, sweet straw, were laid upon them; over these were laid our mattresses. Woven-wire springs were then unheard of in that country.

'The tents, ropes, tool-boxes, bed-sacks, blankets, furniture, etc., all went down on Monday's steamer, and I have a telegram from Larry's Landing saying that they arrived in good order, and that a Mexican gentleman who owns a mammoth wood-cart will take them up to-morrow when we go ourselves. The procession will move at one P.M., wind and weather permitting, in the following order: