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Show MOTOR TRAVEL ISJFRCULT Flanders Twenty Encounters Extremely Rough Roads in Mexico. ROUTE LEADS THROUGH TRACKLESS DESERT WASTE Unparalleled Desolation Fount by Durable Little ''"Under Three Flags" Car. SAN LOUIS POTOSI, S. L. P., Mexico, Mexi-co, July 30. That travel by motor car through the republic of Mexico presents far moro difficult problems than thoso encountered in even the most sparsely populated portions of the United States has been demonstrated during the last ten days ,to tho complete satisfaction of the crew of the Flanders "20" "Under Three Flaps''' car which is now on the second half o! its .-journey through tho country. The car left Laredo with an added oquipment of folding cots und blankets, blank-ets, a compact cooking outfit, provisions for three dayu two io.rgR eaucas bags, containing a reserve water supply, and a mattock, the increased weight of which raised the car's total, passengers included, to considerably more than, 2500 pounds a figure at which the .Flanders carried a cargo of nearly pound for pound of her own weight. The car mude 102 miles the first day and the oven ccnturj' to Monterey ou the second, with plenty of gasoline iu her tnn'k to havo continued another day, had it boon ncc- essaiy. The load was little more thun a cattle trail from ranch to ranch and nearly all the little Mexican ranches had been deserted, on account of the long-continued drought. The desolation worked on the nerves of both members of the crew. Wasto of Alkali. For mile after mile tho car- traversed a rolling waste of alakli, bristling with cactus, marked with an occasional dwarf palm, spotted with thorny mesmiite, seamed with urroyos and inhabited sparsely by .jackrabbits and coj'otes. Once iu twenty miles, perhaps, a dry water hole would be j)assea, strewn with iho bones of the cattle that had perished there. In some cases a few survivors, staggering with starvation and weak from thirst, would be seen, their mouths swollen open from the rc suits of their despernte effort to prolong thoir existence by menns of the prickly pear. Overhead' soared the vultures, awaiting the inevitable time when one more ot the poor brutes should succumb and becomo carrion. But this portion of the trip was comparatively com-paratively easy, compared to what awaited the travelers in the 100 miles between Monteroy and Saltillo. Undoubtedly "there once existed a road between these points. Had the trip been planned twent' years ago one day would have been ample. But the construction of three lines of railroad rail-road traversing the valleys of the mountains moun-tains which form the characteristic feature fea-ture of tho region, has completely abolished abol-ished all throueh traffic and. in some cases, all travel between villages. The j disastrous flood which wiped whole towns out of existence last September had completed the annihilation of the highways, cutting them up into a mere series of arroyos from one to forty feet in depth with steep sides and covered 1 with rolling rocks. Eoad Vanishes. The first "road" tackled was one which, according to legend, a regiment of Mexican soldiery had, in comparatively compara-tively recent years, made a forced march, dragging the colonel's carriage. After forty-fivo miles the road beenmo : a trail and then vanished altogether, on tho banks of the dry bed of a vanished Mississippi. The members of the crew separated and walked along the bank in opposite directions tho entire five miles to the mountains on either side. With 200 soldiers and unlimited ropes to keep his carriage right side up, the Mexican colonel would have required an elevator for that carriage, had ho been called on to repeat his trip. There was nothing to do but to turn back, taking advantage of a lucky mountain pass to strike the line of the Central Mexicano. Three days had boon lost in the first attempt. Three more were required for the remainder of the trip to Saltillo, vi:i Paredon. Here tho trail was discernible for more than half way. Then it ended at an arroyo so deep that only around the hour of noon was the bottom visible from the top. On tho bank was a camp whore the railroad wns raising tho grade and rcBtoriiiE the steel bridge, washed away in the flood through partially discernible dis-cernible a milo away, high against tho dry side of a mountain. Another camp contained a party of scientists, exhuming exhum-ing the bones of pre-historic animals laid bare by the flood. Ono Milo an Hour, A temporary bridgo was in use by tho railroad, guarded day and night by men whoso duty it was to report engineers attempting to make more' than ono mile an hour across the bridge which was only a slender framework of ties, and to prevent tho public from using it. Tho rnilrond officials refused to make an exception ex-ception of the "Under Three Flags" par. They would consent, however, to allow the use of a flat car as a ferry boat. In this way tho transit was made, materially assisted by a number of gratuitously loonerl peons from the camu. From Paredon tho car reached Saltillo by bumping tho railroad ties, pounding ovor the rocky bottom of the Saltillo canyon and following whatever trails thoro woro along tho gonernl lino of travel. The strnin of almost continual rontl-making rontl-making told materially on tho crew of tho car and Interpreter Applewhite, un-nccustotned un-nccustotned as wore the regulars to the rigors of the trip, succumbed to fever find was compelled to roturn to his homo in Laredo. |
