The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 34, July 1930 - April, 1931 Page: 147
359 p. : ill., maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Through Texas and Northern Mexico in 1846-1847 147
the great quantities of lime contained in it it sticks to your feet
with a tenacity the like of which, I have never elsewhere seen.
When dry, (and they will dry in three hours) you cannot step out,
without being blinded by the dust and lime. With the exception
of two houses, of recent construction, on the American plan, not a
house in the place, not even the govnors, nor the chapel has any
other than a dirt floor. There has been a few pews erected in the
chapel, I suppose for the convenience and comfort of American
citizens. But the Mexicans seat themselves on the floor, (the
ground I mean) somewhat to the prejudice of their apparel, which
is generally white, and always on Sunday, (with this exception
very neat).
In the rear of the Verymender [Veramendi] house now kept as
a hotell by a Virginian, but which was once the residence of the
govnor, and is yet the property of his decendants, I was shown a
window in the ell, which looked out on the court yard, and told
at this window, Col. Benj'n Milam, Brother to Cap't Milam of
my Reg't was killed in thirty eight,1 if mistake not, he is buryed
in the yard before the window, but the precise spot is unknown
and the grave of this brave man is hourly desecrated by the feet
of knaves, slaves and scullions - numberless heaps of ruins both
in the town & neighborhood marke the places where houses once
stood. Ruined walls, hedges, ditches, and artificial channels,
some of which are dry, but though many bright streams of watter
trickling along, with here and their smoe flowering shrub, or
wounded and dying fig or peach tree, standing on these borders,
tell us in language not to be mistaken of a once industrious,
wealthy, and to a great degree refined and civilized population.
I have often of an evening wondered out along the Almeda (or
public prominade) of which nothing now remains but a few old
cottonwood of all that once butifyed and shaded this once lovely
retreet, extending as it does from the town to the magazine a dis-
tance of a mile and a quarter. At such times [I] Inwardly fall
into a train of reveries and immagine what San Antonio was in
her palmyest days and shut my eyes to what it is now, or, like the
author of the last day of Pompei, if I might be allowed such a
companion, as that of my imaginings with those of Bulwer, I have
seen with my minds eye, San Antonio repeopled, in the suburbs
1December, 1835.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 34, July 1930 - April, 1931, periodical, 1931; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101091/m1/157/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.