The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 70, July 1966 - April, 1967 Page: 343

Book Reviews

and were equally at home on both sides of the Rio Grande. They
were indeed a family of two cultures.
Longest of the seventeen accounts is that of "Bagdad" where
the elder Neale operated a stage line to Matamoros for several
years. Shorter accounts concern individuals, Dofia Loreta Lojero,
Richard King, Jean Lafitte, and the woman who claimed to be his
wife. The account of "Paloma, the Indian" is especially inter-
esting as Neale depicts the Indians then living along the river
as he states " . by relating what I actually saw."
The illustrations and the seven map sketches add materially to
the value and the interest of the book. Some historians of the
area, however, would like to see a correction of the date of 1834
for the erection of the Neale home in Brownsville. Lieutenant W.
H. Chatfield in his booklet, Twin Cities of the Border (1893),
reported an interview with the older Neale, then 85 years old,
and quoted him (p. 12) as follows:
At that time (1838) there was not a habitation of any kind on the
present site of Brownsville, and when Gen. Taylor occupied this
point in 1846, there was not more than a dozen jacales (huts) scat-
tered about this vicinity, among the fields of cotton and corn.
The reviewer found pleasure and information in reading Cen-
tury of Conflict and considers it a valuable contribution of Texana
about a region little known generally. Appreciation is expressed
to Mrs. Ethel Neale Fry and Mrs. William (Elsie Neale) Krebs
of Brownsville and to Frederick Neale of San Antonio, the sur-
viving children of William A. Neale, who decided that the Neale
papers should be made available. VERNA J. MCKENNA
Harlingen, Texas
Eagle Pass or Life on the Border. By Mrs. William L. Cazneau
(Cora Montgomery). Edited, with an introduction, by Rob-
ert Crawford Cotner. Austin (The Pemberton Press), 1966.
Pp. vii+194. Index. $7.50.
One of the books which always appears in any bibliography of
the southwestern frontier is Cora Montgomery's Eagle Pass-a
strange combination of autobiography and journalistic propa-
ganda which provides priceless glimpses of life on the Mexican
border in the early 1850's and at the same time exasperates the

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