JAN. 12, Monday.--Up and off before daylight, without breakfast. But Mrs. Benson has provided for us a grand lunch box that lasts us three for the two days through to Corpus. No place on the way, to put up; no chance to buy eatables. Our boss has planned to reach the half-way spot on the Popolota for camping. The day wears away, and it is 10 o'clock before we come to the halting-place. For the last three hours Brother Thompson had led the way lantern in hand, splashing through the mud and water. We turn under a live oak, take out and feed the jaded horses, and eat our snack, and commit ourselves to the Heavenly Father, and at 11 o'clock turn in for the night, Brother Thompson on the ground, _under_ the hack, and Brother Eding and I _in_ the hack, doubled like a couple of jackknives into our four feet square of space, being all of a color. By our side the ponies through the night crunch their corn; and, by turn, we jump up to drive off the cows from stealing their hay. But we sleep, and snore, and rest some. TUESDAY, Jan 13.--Up and off by daybreak. We camp for breakfast lunch. We camp for dinner lunch. As we consume the fragments, how we do bless Mrs. Benson. When, at her own table, we had praised her baking and cooking, she responded: "Oh, I learned that at Talladega College." Then I had to tell Dr. Strieby's story of the native preacher, who thanked him for the good wife who had been trained in one of the American Missionary Association schools, saying that he had gotten more than he had anticipated--a good cook and housekeeper. On, on we trudge through the heavy mud. Night has come, and we are yet seven miles from Corpus, and the cold, "wet norther" that has been drizzling upon us all day, as we had been fearing, has at last broken upon us. Again Brother Thompson is on the lead, with lantern in hand, through the slush, and he has walked more than half the way through the day. The black-waxy is heavy for the wheels, and slippery for the poor old freedman ponies that have no shoes. Pastor J. W. Strong, who for four years has manfully held this extreme southwestern outpost of Congregationalism, having learned of our approach from a dashing country rider, comes along in the dark, one mile out to meet us, in Oriental style. After our salaams, he gallops back to town to make the final arrangement for our entertainment. It is now 8.30 P. M., too late for the preaching; and, for once, the preacher is glad that the storm has kept the people away from the appointment. But the next night they make it up, and the preacher tries to make it up, too. When Mr. Thompson brought me down, six years ago, we came straight through by fording, belly-deep to the horses, across the reef, three miles long, that forms the nexus between the Nueces Bay and the Corpus Christi Bay. On either side was deep water or miring sand. Once, since that, he has had to _tote_ his passengers out on his back. The reef has been washed out in spots.