The last adieus of our forces to their dreary winter quarter were by no means tearful, as with colors flying and music playing, they crossed the sandy hills that concealed it forever from their sight. The first day's march passed through alternate patches of prairies and timber to the Nueces; but, on the two next, these sad wastes were exchanged for splendid fields blossoming with flowers of every hue. A delicious fragrance filled the air, and the whole surface of the earth as far as the eye could reach, seemed covered with a beautiful carpet. The edge of the horizon, in every direction, was crowded with wild animals. On one side thousands of mustangs curvetted over the gentle elevations of the rolling prairie; on another herds of deer might be seen standing for a moment filled with wonder at the unwonted sight of human beings, and then bounding off until they were lost in the vast distance. Beautiful antelopes, nimble as the wind, were beheld in countless numbers, while pecarys and wild bulls rushed in droves across the path of our men. But, on the fourth day of the march, this scene of enchantment suddenly vanished. Uncultivated prairies and immense herds of savage beasts had already testified the abandoned state of the country; yet the region our forces now entered disclosed the frightful "nakedness of the land." The water became exceedingly bad, and there was scarcely fuel enough for culinary purposes. The blooming vegetation of the preceding days was exchanged for sands through which the weary men and cattle toiled with extreme difficulty. Salt lagunes spread out on every side. At each step the fatigued soldier plunged ankle-deep in the yielding soil, while a scorching sun shone over him and not a breath of air relieved his sufferings. At times, a verdant forest loomed up along the heated horizon, fringed by limpid lakes, and our wearied columns moved on gaily, cheated, again and again, by the hope of shade and water. Suddenly the beautiful groves dwindled into jagged clumps of thorns or aloes, and the fairy lakes changed to salt and turbid lagunes. "The wormwood star had fallen on every thing and turned the waters to bitterness." The plant whose piercing spines and sword-like leaves have entitled it to the name of the "Spanish bayonet," was the hermit shrub of this dreadful Zaharah. Around its roots the snakes lurked and crawled. Whenever the soldiers' path was unimpeded by these annoyances, scarifying his limbs as he advanced, the ground seemed heated and sinking like the _scoriæ_ of Vesuvius. Man and beast sank exhausted and panting on the earth. The want and value of delicious water are never known till we pass a day like this under the burning rays of a tropical sun, toiling on foot over a scorched and arid soil without refreshment! At length the word ran along the line that it was approaching a lake whose waters were not salt. "Under the excitement of hope the faint and exhausted infantry pressed onward with renewed life,