When you visit the Missions of San Antonio, go alone; or go with a kindred spirit. Don't talk! Let the mysticism and wonder of it sink in your soul! Soak yourself in the traditions of the Past. Let the dead hand of the Past reach out and touch you. You will live over again the heroism of the Alamo, the heroism that preceded the Alamo--that of the Franciscans who tramped 300 leagues across the desert of Old Mexico to establish these Missions; the heroism that preceded the Franciscans--that of La Salle traveling thrice 300 leagues to establish the cross on the Gulf of Mexico, and perishing by assassin's hand as he turned on the backward march. You will see the iron cross to his memory at Levaca. It was because La Salle, the Frenchman, found his way to the Gulf, that Spain stirred up the viceroys of New Mexico to send sword and cross over the desert to establish forts in the country of the Tejas (Texans). Do you realize what that means? When I cross the arid hills of the Rio Grande, I travel in a car cooled by electric fans, with two or three iced drinks between meals. These men marched--most of them on foot, the cowled priests in sandals, the knights in armor plate from head to heel--over cactus sands. Do you wonder that they died on the way? Do you wonder that the marchers coming into the well-watered plains of the San Antonio with festooned live oaks overhanging the green waters, paused here and built their string of Missions of which the chief was the one now known as "The Alamo"--the Mission of the cottonwood trees? [Illustration: An excellent example of the entrance to an adobe house of the Southwest, embodying the best traditions of this kind of architecture] Six different flags have flown over the land of the Tejas: the French, the Spanish, the Mexican, the Republic of Texas, the Confederate, the Union. In such a struggle for ascendancy, needless to tell, much blood was shed righteously and unrighteously; but of the battle fought at the Alamo, no justification need be given. It is part of American history, but it is the kind of history that in other nations goes to make battle hymns. Details are in every school book. Santa Ana, the newly risen Mexican dictator, had ordered the 30,000 Americans who lived in Texas, to disarm. Sam Houston, Crockett, Bowie, Travis, had sprung to arms with a call that rings down to history yet: