of
balcony, leading to a small room above it. What it contained I know
not, though I suspect it is consecrated to the rites of the Wakoe
religion. Kind and hospitable as they were, they refused three or four
times to let us penetrate in this sanctum sanctorum, and of course we
would not press them further.

The Wakoes, or, to say better, their villages, are unknown, except to a
few trappers and hunters, who will never betray the kind hospitality
they have received by showing the road to them. There quiet and
happiness have reigned undisturbed for many centuries. The hunters and
warriors themselves will often wander in the distant settlements of the
Yankees and Mexicans to procure seeds, for they are very partial to
gardening; they cultivate tobacco; in fact, they are, I believe, the
only indians who seriously occupy themselves with agriculture, which
occupation does not prevent them from being a powerful and warlike
people.

As well as the Apaches and the Comanches, the Wakoes are always on
horseback; they are much taller and possess more bodily strength than
either of these two nations, whom they also surpass in ingenuity. A few
years ago, three hundred Texians, under the command of General Smith,
met an equal party of the Wakoes hunting to the east of the Cross
Timbers. As these last had many fine horses and an immense provision of
hides and cured meat, the Texians thought that nothing could be more
easy than routing the Indians and stealing their booty. They were,
however, sadly mistaken; when they made their attack they were almost
all cut to pieces, and the unburied bones of two hundred and forty
Texians remain blanching in the prairie, as a monument of their own
rascality and the prowess of the Wakoes.

Comfortable and well treated as we were by that kind people, we could
not remain longer with them; so we continued our toilsome and solitary
journey. The first day was extremely damp and foggy; a pack of sneaking
wolves were howling about, within a few yards of us, but the sun came
out about eight o'clock, dispersing the fog and also the wolves.

We still continued our former course, and found an excellent road for
fifteen miles, when we entered a singular tract of land unlike anything
we had ever before seen. North and south, as far as the eye could
reach, nothing could be seen but a sandy plain, covered with dwarf oaks
two and three feet high, and bearing innumerable acorns of a large size.
This des