Some curious facts have come under my knowledge as to what the mule can endure.  These facts also illustrate what can be done with the animal by persons thoroughly acquainted with his character.  While on the plains, I have known Kiowa and Camanche Indians to break into our pickets during the night, and steal mules that had been pronounced completely broken down by white men.  And these mules they have ridden sixty and sixty-five miles of a single night.  How these Indians managed to do this, I never could tell.  I have repeatedly seen Mexicans mount mules that our men had pronounced unfit for further service, and ride them twenty and twenty-five miles without stopping.  I do not mention this to show that a Mexican can do more with the mule than an American.  He cannot.  And yet there seems to be some sort of fellow-feeling between these Mexicans and the mule.  One seems to understand the other completely; and in disposition there is very little difference.  And yet the Mexican is so brutish in dealing with animals, that I never allowed one of them to drive a Government team for me.  Indeed, a low Mexican does not seem disposed to work for a man who will not allow him full latitude in the abuse of animals.

Packing Mules.—­The Mexican is a better packer than the American.  He has had more experience, and understands all its details better than any other man.  Some of our United States officers have tried to improve on the experience of the Greaser, and have made what they called an improvement on the Mexican pack-saddle.  But all the attempts at improvement have been utter failures.  The ranchero, on the Pacific side of the Sierra Nevadas, is also a good packer; and he can beat the Mexican lassoing cattle.  But he is the only man in the United States who can.  The reason for this is, that they went into that country when very young, and improved on the Mexican, by having cattle, mules, and horses round them all the time, and being continually catching them for the purpose of branding and marking.

There is, in Old as well as New Mexico, a class of mules that are known to us as Spanish, or Mexican mules.  These mules are not large, but for endurance they are very superior, and, in my opinion, cannot be excelled.  I am not saying too much when I assert, that I have seen nothing in the United States that could compare with them.  They can, apparently, stand any amount of starvation and abuse.  I have had three Spanish mules in a train of twenty-five six-mule teams, and starting from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, on Colonel (since General) Sumner’s expedition, in 1857, have travelled to Walnut Creek, on the Santa Fe route, a distance of three hundred miles, in nine days.  And this in the month of August.  The usual effects of hard driving, I noticed, showed but very little on them.  I noticed also, along the march, that with a halt of less than three hours, feeding on grass that was only tolerably thick, they will fill up better and look in better condition