On the counter of the bar-room lay Lieut. Browning; two or three persons were seated at his feet, and on stools around the room lounged, or sat, our little band, our saddles, blankets, etc., filling a corner of the room. General Porter was there listening to the close of a chorus. One of the party pushed a saddle over for me to sit on, and I began my little address: "How strange it is that the thought of home should, in one short day, so change your spirits; who would have thought that fifty such men would be turned back by the first difficulties? What will you say to your friends? Forget your homes for a time and go on like men." But the old answer came, "We won't go on under the present management," and "We won't go on with Col. Webb." I told them it was not possible for them to go on with Col. Webb, as an hour before I had received a communication from him saying his health would not permit him to go on with us, and appointing a time to have a business interview with him before he left on his return home. A silence followed this announcement, and then Lieut. Browning said "Let's go on with Mr. Audubon." Three cheers gave their answer, but I told the men not to decide then in a moment of excitement, to wait until morning and make up their minds in cool blood, as I wanted no more change, and this would be their last resolve. At ten next morning we met, and all but six agreed to go on, and we at once moved to a camping ground five miles back from the Rio Grande, out of the way of cholera, to feed up our weak, and make our arrangements to leave. I at once ordered from Alexander sixty mules, thirty to be first-class saddle mules, and thirty good, average pack mules. It took nearly a month to make all our preparations, wind up our business with Col. Webb and others, and to put our sick men in good travelling condition. When we had removed our provisions from Camp Ringgold, where we had stored them, our heaviest work was done, and we started for Mier, but found we had not mules enough and stopped at —— to get more, and here we also repaired the miserable wagons that had been bought at Cincinnati, arranging our guard and other matters. Henry Mallory and I counted our money, and allowed a hundred days as the time requisite for our journey, and our financial calculations gave sixty-six dollars and four cents for each man. How the responsibility of taking forty-eight men, most of them wholly ignorant of the life before us, through so strange and wild a country, weighed upon me, I cannot express, but we were too busy to have much time to think, and moved on twenty miles to Mier. Luckily our wagons broke down again, so we concluded to leave them, and lost another week disposing of them, and selling goods we were unable to take. At Mier I saw Col. Webb off, with his proportion of money and provisions.