flourished. The missions are now in a state of
decadence, their buildings fast falling into decay; while the red man,
disgusted at the attempt to enslave, under the clock of christianising
him, has returned to his idolatry, as to his savage life.

Several of these _misiones_ were established on the San Saba river; one
of which for a considerable period enjoyed a prosperous existence, and
numbered among its neophytes many Indians of the Lipan and Comanche
tribes.

But the tyranny of their monkish teachers by exactions of tenths and
almost continuous toil--themselves living in luxurious ease, and without
much regard to that continence they inculcated--at length provoked the
suffering serfs to revolt. In which they were aided by those Indians
who had remained unconverted, and still heretically roamed around the
environs. The consequence was that, on a certain day when the hunters
of the _mision_ were abroad, and the soldiers of the _presidio_ alike
absent on some expedition, a band of the outside idolaters, in league
with the discontented converts, entered the mission-building, with arms
concealed under their ample cloaks of buffalo skin. After prowling
about for a while in an insolent manner, they at length, at a given
signal from their chief, attacked the proselytising _padres_, with those
who adhered to them; tomahawked and scalped all who came in their way.

Only one monk escaped--a man of great repute in those early times of
Texas. Stealing off at the commencement of the massacre, he succeeded
in making his way down the valley of the San Saba, to its confluence
with the Colorado. But to reach an asylum of safety it was necessary
for him to cross the latter stream; in which unfortunately there was a
freshet, its current so swollen that neither man nor horse could ford
it.

The _padre_ stood upon its bank, looking covetously across, and
listening in terror to the sounds behind; these being the war-cries of
the pursuing Comanches.

For a moment the monk believed himself lost. But just then the arm of
God was stretched forth to save him. This done in a fashion somewhat
difficult to give credence to, though easy enough for believers in Holy
Faith. It was a mere miracle; not stranger, or more apocryphal, than we
hear of at this day in France, Spain, or Italy. The only singularity
about the Texan tale is the fact of its not being original; for it is a
pure piracy from Sacred Writ--that passage of it which rel