Austin, the elder, who, on learning my intention
of visiting the mines, offered every facility in his power to favor my
views. Mr. Austin was a gentleman of general information, easy and
polite manners, and enthusiastic character. He had, with his
connections, the Bates, I believe, been the founder of Herculaneum, and
was solicitous to secure it a share of the lead trade, which had been so
long and exclusively enjoyed by St. Genevieve. He was a man of very
decided enterprise, inclined to the manners of the old school gentlemen,
which had, I believe, narrowed his popularity, and exposed him to some
strong feuds in the interior, where his estates lay. He was a diligent
reader of the current things of the day, and watched closely the signs
of the times. He had lived in the capital of Virginia, where he married.
He had been engaged extensively as a merchant and miner in Wyeth county,
in the western part of that State. He had crossed the wilderness west of
the Ohio River, at an early day, to St. Louis, then a Spanish interior
capital. He had been received by the Spanish authorities with
attentions, and awarded a large grant of the mining lands. He had
remained under the French period of supremacy, and had been for about
sixteen years a resident of the region when it was transferred by
purchase to the United States. The family had been from an early day,
the first in point of civilization in the country. And as his position
seemed to wane, and clouds to hover over his estates, he seemed
restless, and desirous to transfer his influence to another theatre of
action. From my earliest conversations with him, he had fixed his mind
on Texas, and spoke with enthusiasm about it.

I left my baggage, consisting of two well-filled trunks, in charge of
Mr. Ellis, a worthy innkeeper of the town, and when I was ready to
continue my way on foot for St. Louis, I was joined in this journey by
Messrs. Kemp and Keen, my fellow-voyagers on the water from Louisville.
We set out on the 26th of the month. The weather was hot and the
atmosphere seemed to be lifeless and heavy. Our road lay over gentle
hills, in a state of nature. The grass had but in few places been
disturbed by the plough, or the trees by the axe. The red clay soil
seemed fitter for the miner than the farmer.

At the distance of seven miles, we came to a remarkable locality of
springs strongly impregnated with sulphur, which bubbled up from the
ground. They were remarkably clear a