226 FREQUENCY OF HOMICIDES IN TEXAS. [1859. September 28.-At one o'clock, A. M., found the West Trinity river too much swollen for fording. The little station was full; so we slept refreshingly upon corn-husks in the barn, or in the western vernacular, the 'stable.' After breakfast we crossed the stream on foot by a slippery log, while drivers and conductor brought over heavy mail bags and trunks on the same precarious bridge. On the west bank another waiting coach was soon rolling us forward among mesquite groves. The long narrow leaves of this shrub are indeed 'tree-hajr.' The slender hanging pods contain beans which both raw and cooked are palatable and nutritious to man. Horses also thrive and fatten upon them. Indians convert them, pods and all, into bread. Mexicans extract sugar and beer from them. Short fine mesquite grass also abounds. Like the buffalo grass it is eagerly devoured by stock, and does not lose its nutriment in winter. Breakfasted in Jackson county where the Indians were so troublesome that settlers dared not enter their fields to cut their wheat. In one direction the nearest white neighbors were a mile distant; in another five; in another eight, and to the north (toward Kansas,) two hundred and fifty miles. Lumber for doors and floors of the log station had been hauled from the nearest saw-mill, a hundred and fifty miles. All which I learned from our landlord who nervously paced his porch, ravenously chewing tobacco, and casting uneasy glances at the navy revolver by his side. Three weeks before, he had killed an employee of the stage company in a sudden quarrel, upon the very spot where we now conversed. He was under three thousand dollars bail to appear for trial; but in this lawless region men were seldom convicted of homicide, and never punished. Within a month there had been three other fatal shooting affrays near by; and our driver enjoined us: 'If you want to obtain distinction in this country, kill somebody! At dusk we passed old Fort Belknap, the last outpost of civilization. Thence to the Rio Grande stretches a lonely desert for six hundred miles. Our horses were now exchanged for little Mexican mules. Four stout men were required to hold them while the driver mounted to his seat. Once loosed, after kicking, 1859.] THE QUAINT MEXICAN CART. 227 plunging and rearing, they ran wildly for two miles upon the road. They can never be fully tamed. When first used, the drivers lash the coach to a tree before harnessing them. When ready for starting, the ropes are cut and they sometimes run for a dozen miles. But on this smooth prairie they do not often over. turn a coach. Fording the Brazos, we passed a wretched log-cabin whose squatter, a frontier Monte Christo, had a hundred-acre cornfield, which here represented fabulous wealth. We were soon on the plains, where Indians claim exclusive domain, and every traveler is a moving arsenal. We met a train of Mexican carts loaded with corn for the mail stations. A rude, primitive invention is this vehicular ox-killer, which must have come in vogue soon after the flood. The enormous wheels are of huge logs, clumsily framed together and loosely revolving upon a rude axle. The frame, of slats covered with hide or canvas, resembles a gigantic hen-coop. No iron is used in its construction; and the lumbering cart creaks and rattles and sways along the road, apparently just about tumbling to pieces. It is drawn 228 STOPPED BY THE COLORADO RIVER. [1859. by oxen, with a straight strip of wood across their shoulders and strapped to their horns, serving for a yoke. Ropes are substituted for chains and bows. The poor animals are driven with long sharp poles, by dirty Mexicans, blanketed and bare-headed. All night our coach rolled noiseless over the soft road, while the wind trembling through the mesquite leaves swept after us a ceaseless lullaby. September 29.-Daylight found us at Phantom Hill, named from the white ghostly chimneys of a burned fort. Beyond were barren hills dotted with mesquite and cactus, and covered with cities of prairie-dogs which often live twenty miles from water. Some conjecture that they dig subterranean wells; others that they live without drinking. In winter they remain torpid, closely shut in their holes, and when they reappear it is an unfailing indication that the weather is about to moderate. All day upon the silent desert, stopping only to change mules at lonely little stations. Air delicious and exhilarating. In the evening passed Fort Chadbourne, sixteen hundred feet above sea level, a cluster of long low white barracks garrisoned by one company of infantry. But the Comanches regard our soldiers much as they would a company of children armed with pop-guns and penny whistles. After dark, finding the Colorado* impassable, we slept in the coach waiting for its waters to subside. The vehicle's roof was like a sieve, and cold pitiless rain deluged us all night. September 30.-Awoke cold and rheumatic; but holding with Sancho Panza that a fat sorrow is better than a lean, break fasted heartily upon pork and mesquite beans; and dried our clothes before the fire of the adobe hut-station. The Colorado, usually an insignificant stream a hundred feet wide but now a fierce torrent, compelled us to spend the day here in the favorite range of the Comanches. These fierce untamed savages roam over an immense region, eating the raw flesh of the buffalo, drinking its warm blood, and plundering Mexicans Indians and whites with judicial impartiality. Arabs and Tartars * A head stream of the Arkansas, often confounded with the Colorado of Utah and California, and sometimes with the Minnesota Colorado or Red river of the North. 1859.] THE FIERCE, UNTAMED COMANCHES. 229 of the desert, they remove their villages (pitching their lodges in regular streets and squares) hundreds of miles at the shortest notice. The men are short and stout, with bright copper faces, and long hair which they ornament with glass beads and silver gew gaws. On foot slow and awkward, but on horseback graceful, they are the most expert and daring riders in the world. In battle they sweep down upon their enemies with terrific yells, and concealing the whole body, with the exception of one foot, behind their horses, discharge bullets or arrows over and under the animals' necks rapidly and accurately. Each has his favorite war horse which he regards with great affection, and only mounts when going to battle. With small arms they are familiar; but 'gun-carts' or cannons, they hold in superstitious fear, from the effects of one fired among them long ago by a Government expedition which they attacked upon the Missouri. Even the women are daring riders and hunters, lassoing antelope and shooting buffalo. They wear the hair short, tattoo their bodies hideously, have stolid faces, and are illshapen and bow-legged. When a Comanche would show special fondness for an Indian or white man he folds him in a pair of dirty arms and rubs a very greasy face against the suffering victim's. These modern Spartans are most expert and skillful thieves. An old brave boasted to Marcy that his four sons were the noblest youths in the tribe, and the chief A COMANCHE GREETING. comfort of his age, for they could steal more horses than any of their companions! They are patient and urtiring; sometimes absent upon war ex 230 ป SIGNAL CODE AMONG THE SAVAGES. [1859, peditions vo years, refusing to return until they can bring the spoils of battle. When organizing a war party, the chief decorates a long pole with eagle feathers and a flag, and then in fighting costume chants war songs through his village. He makes many raids upon white settlers, but his favorite victims are Mexicans. Like all barbarians he believes his tribe the most prosperous and powerful on earth; and whenever our Government supplies him with blankets sugar or money, attributes the gifts solely to fear of Comanche prowess. He is terrible in revenge; the slightest injury or affront will have blood. An American writer saw one chief punish the infidelity of his wife by placing the muzzle of his gun over her crossed feet and firing a bullet through them both. After death the warrior is buried on some high hill in sitting posture, with face to the east, his choicest buffalo robe about him and the rest of his wardrobe deposited by his side. His relatives mourn by lacerating themselves with knives or cropping their hair; and if he was killed in disastrous battle, by clipping the tails and manes of their horses and mules. On vast deserts the Comanches convey intelligence hundreds of miles in a few hours. By day, green pine, fir, or hemlock boughs piled upon burning wood produce a heavy black smoke which is seen far away; and at night they telegraph by bonfires. Their signals are as well defined and intelligible as those of civilized navies-smokes and fires with stated intervals between, indicating the approach of enemies or calling the roving bands together for any purpose whatever. They are inveterate smokers, mingling dried sumach leaves with tobacco; and they drink whisky to excess. When needful they easily abstain from food for days together, but afterward eat fresh meat in incredible quantities. Never tilling the soil, insensible alike to the comforts and wants of civilization, daring, treacherous, and bloodthirsty, they are the destroying angels of our frontier, the mortal terror of weaker Indians and of Mexicans. According to tradition their ancestors came from a far country in the West, where they expect to join them after death. October 1.—This morning the river had so far subsided that we |