THE GUADALUPE PEAK LOOMED up before us all day in the most aggravating manner. It fairly seemed to be further off the more we travelled, so that I almost gave up in despair all hopes of reaching it. Our last eight or ten miles were among the foothills of the range, and I now confidently believed we were within a mile or two, at the outside.

But the road wound and crooked over the interminable hills for miles yet and we seemed no nearer than before. I could see the outlines of the mountain plainly, and, as I eagerly asked how far it was, the captain laughingly told me it was just five miles yet, and we had better stop and give the animals a little rest or they never could finish it.

I should not have had the slightest hesitance in attempting to walk the distance in a few minutes, so near did it seem. - November 1858, New York Herald