_January 7._--This morning we left Fort Lancaster the second time. We had for company a party under escort to Fort Hudson. This evening we met the mail coach which left San Antonio December 24. It had been detained several days by high water in the Medina river at Castroville, being afterwards caught in the same snow storm that had delayed our coach; like us they were compelled to lie by and wait a day or two for the snow to disappear. As they had but commenced their journey to Birchville, they could not send their mail forward on pack animals as we did. Again, as the up mail contains newspapers it is much heavier than the down mail. Nothing of special interest occurred on the road to San Antonio differing from the usual routine which I have sketched from day to day. I staid at Fort Hudson and at Fort Clarke long enough to attend to the business of the line at each of those posts. I did this in the absence of any one to take my place, though I was yet in doubt as to my own position. _January 17._--Reached San Antonio to-night. _January 18._--Received to-day a revocation of my authority from Mrs. Birch, the revocation dated the 26th of last October; I ceased at once to act for the line and prepared to come north, giving the new local agent every information the limited time permitted. _January 19._--I left for Washington. The question is frequently asked as to whether we have a well defined road all the way from San Antonio to San Diego. To this I answer that it is as plain a road as any stage route over which a mail is carried in coaches for your department. An emigrant would find it as impossible to miss his way when once on our road either going to or returning from California, as he would if traveling in a country where guide posts marked every cross-road. An examination of my table of distances will show four military posts between San Antonio and Birchville; from Birchville to La Mesilla we have a settled country all the way; from La Mesilla to Tucson, we have not at present any military posts, but I am informed that the War Department contemplates placing two forts in this portion of Arizona, immediately on the completion of the Fort Yuma and El Paso wagon road. In the whole distance of 460 miles from Tucson to San Diego, one hundred and fifteen miles is the longest distance at present between any of our mail stations.