CHAPTER II.

Western, or prairie region-boundaries and extent-general appearance-extent of the prairies--soil-bays-rivers-settlements-inhabitants-Red River lands—their character—the partially explored region of Northern Texas.

THE western division, or prairie region of Texas, extends from the La Baca west to the Bravo del Norte, the western boundary of the country, a distance of nearly two hundred miles. It presents a greater diversity of surface, soil, and climate, perhaps, than either of the others, but is alike in the feature by which we have chosen to characterise it, the general want of wood.

It is not to be understood that this whole region is entirely bald. The streams have often a narrow skirting of wood, especially in the level country, and small patches, few indeed and far between, are found on the uneven lands; but the wood bears so small a proportion to the whole area, as scarcely to be worthy of being taken into the account. Some stately trees of various species are occasionally scattered through the level lands, but in the undulating country, which here approaches within forty or fifty miles of the coast, but one kind is rarely found, and that is a species of locust called the musquite. The tracts where it is found are distinguished by the name of musquite prairies. In gazing from the summits of the higher swells, over the waving ocean of prairie, the eye sometimes rests upon these poor apologies for trees, but finds little relief from so wretched an object. Its dwarfish size, ugly form, and scanty foliage serving rather to increase than diminish the sense of surrounding desolation. The nopal, which is sometimes seen where it has been building up and spreading out its alternate stem and leaf, perhaps, for a century, presents a far more agreeable object, and seen as it sometimes is at a distance of several miles, might be easily mistaken for a hermit's hut or gipsy's cot.

The barrenness here extends to nothing but wood, which nature, in the whims in which she is sometimes found to indulge, seems to have denied to this otherwise interesting and valuable country. It is almost everywhere covered with a rich coat of grass, and generally of a species very fine and nutritious, which from its being uniformly found in the neighborhood of the tree of that name, is here called musquite grass.

Besides the fruit of the nopal, or prickly pear, there are several species of ground fruits or garden vegetables, growing sponta. ously here, which might sustain the life of man when lost in these almost boundless prairies, which are some of them several days journey in extent. His faithful rifle would avail him but little here, although surrounded by whole herds of buffaloe, deer, and mustangs, since there is no covert to conceal his approach; he would be only tantalized by the sight, and the sweet morsel would be forever beyond his reach.

Upon the eastern confines of this division, along the river Guadaloupe and its branches, and especially on its large eastern branch, the Saint Marks, there is perhaps a sufficient supply of wood and timber for any purpose for which it may be needed in that climate. The traveller might here be in some doubt whether he was not in the mixed, instead of having entered the prairie region, and the confines of the two might have been more properly placed here, perhaps, than upon the La Baca; yet the prairies greatly prevail here, and scarcely more than one tenth of the whole area in the Guadaloupe district is in wood.

The soil is excellent, both here and on the river San Antonio, still further west, and scarcely surpassed in fertility by the lands of the middle region. West of the San Antonio, the country is oftener visited by severe droughts, to the serious injury of vegetation. Early planted crops, however, seldom, fail there. The borders of the San Antonio river are favorable for very extensive irrigation from the waters of that river, and this is already prac tised to considerable extent; many of the farms and gardens in the neighborhood of the city of San Antonio or Bexar, are watered by numerous artificial rills supplied from the river; such rills are also conducted through many gardens within the city walls.

The whole of this division, with the exception of the valley of the Bravo del Norte, coast as well as interior, is more elevated than the middle region, less favored with rains, and with a soil in general of less depth and fertility, though abounding in various extensive tracts, perhaps equal to the former. All the productions which have been enumerated as adapted to the soil and climate of the former, may be produced here, but in less abundance.

The boundless extent of rich pasturage is even superior, and every square mile would enrich a farmer by its pasturage alone. The want of wood and timber presents a serious obstacle to the rapid settlement of this division, but means will be found to supply this want, and with the race of men now approaching and already upon its border, it may be safely predicted that this fertile region, which has lain waste during all past ages, will in that which is to succeed, be made to yield in abundance the rich and varied VOL. 1.

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agricultural treasures which nature has fitted it to produce, to tens of thousands of human beings who will then have found a happy abode on its broad and inviting surface.

The lower valley of the Bravo del Norte is the least valuable portion of this division, abounding in extensive marshes, not easiİy reclaimed; it offers neither health nor plenty, in a country which is elsewhere, over its whole surface, so liberal of both.

The Nueces, which falls into a bay of the same name, about midway between the Bravo del Norte and the San Antonio, is mostly bordered, for more than 200 miles, with extensive plains, covered with the deep black mould, which almost everywhere distinguishes the prairie, and promises a fertility unsurpassed even by the middle region.

This division is less favoured with interior facilities of navigation, than other parts of Texas. The great river which forms its western boundary, is obstructed by sand bars, or shallows at no great distance from its mouth, which are impassable for boats of any considerable size. The waters of Nueces have not been fully explored, no obstruction to the navigation of small steam boats have been discovered, and it is conjectured that such boats may ascend this river, a distance of 200 miles. The San Antonio and Guadaloupe may be ascended by the same class of boats, the former about 80, and the latter about 60 miles.

Aransaso bay, which receives the waters of the San Antonio and Guadaloupe, is an extensive sheet of water, extending some 30 miles into the country. It has several inlets from the gulf, which afford entrance for vessels of 100 tons burthen, and a good harbor within. Nueces bay is not inferior to the Aransaso.

The settlements in this division are as yet confined to very narrow limits. The American settlements in their progress westward, have entered upon its eastern confines; some thirty or forty families are, or were, located along the borders of the Guadaloupe. On this river also are a few Mexican settlements.

Victoria, a small town settled mostly by Mexicans, is situated upon this river a few miles above its mouth, and about sixty miles above was Gonzalos laid out and built by the colonists from the United States. It was burnt by the inhabitants, on the approach of the Mexican army. On the San Antonio river, are the most extensive Mexican settlements in Texas. More than a century has elapsed since the Spanish settlements were begun here, but so slow has been its progress, that the same ratio of increase would not cover a tract of a hundred miles square, allowing a family for every square mile, short of a thousand years.

The settlements upon the borders of this river were estimated before the present war, at about 6,000 souls, nearly half residing within the walls of the city of Bexar, and the residue, partly on

the ranches or small farms in the neighborhood, and partly at Goliad, situated eighty miles below, and thirty from the mouth of the river. An Irish settlement was begun near the mouth of the Nueces, but has been broken up by the war. A few Mexican vil. lages are found upon the Little Brazos, and perhaps upon the other small streams that fall into the gulf between the Nueces and the Bravo del Norte.

We come next to that part of Texas bordering the Red river; but of this we shall say little in a separate notice, not because it is deemed unworthy, but because it is a mere counterpart of the opposite border of the same river, which lies within the limits of the United States, and is therefore too well known to require a particular description.

A single fact may be adduced, affording sufficient evidence of the high character of the Red river lands, and that is, that wherever they have been brought into market by the United States, they have immediately advanced as high as twenty-five dollars and upwards per acre, while in an uncultivated state.

There is great uniformity in the character of these lands, along nearly the whole extent of the river. Its borders present almost every where, Louisiana in miniature, with its swamps, and sluggish bayous in the rear. Yet so fat and warm is the soil, and so high its reputation for cotton, that so soon as the raft is removed, and the lands in market, hundreds of miles now lying waste, will become rich plantations, visited weekly by numerous steamboats, which will then wend their way more than a thousand miles up the wave of this, the last, but not the least, of the great tributaries of the grande-monarch of rivers.

A few remarks upon a portion of the region which we have designated as only partially explored, shall close our separate notices of the different divisions of the country.

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The mountainous range mentioned as forming the northern boundary of the western and part of the middle division, covers but a narrow strip of country, and subsides on the north as on the south, into an undulating surface of mingled wood and prairie, extending to the level lands upon Red river. This large district, watered by the Brazos and Colorado, and their numerous branch. es north of the mountains, is yet entirely without settlements, unsurveyed and ungranted. It is found, so far as explored, not surpassed in beauty or fertility by the rolling lands below, and will soon become almost equally valuable.

Few interior regions are more highly favored with navigable waters, having the Red river at no great distance on the north, and the Brazos and Colorado, boatable through it for some hundreds of miles, the latter holding its course without rapids from its mouth far into this district.

Still west and north west of this district, lies another, far more extensive, now claimed by the government and people of Texas. It extends along the Bravo del Norte, and its great eastern branch, the Puerco, on the west, and still north along the former to the head waters of the Arkansaw, thence down that river to the north west corner of the territory of the same name, thence down the west line of said territory to the Red river. It is watered by the rivers which have been mentioned as mostly forming its outlines and their numerous tributaries. It is literally a region of head waters, having within its boundaries the sources of the Arkansaw, and its great southern branches, the Negracka, the Saline, and the two forks of the Canadian, and also those of the Red river, Brazos, Colorado, and Puerco.

These mostly take their rise in the great chain of mountains called Sierra Madre (mother ridge,) which ranges nearly parallel with the Bravo del Norte, from the sources of the Arkansaw, to the mouth of the Puerco, a distance of nearly one thousand miles.

The track of the trading caravans from Saint Louis to Santa Fe, crosses this district, and that lonely city which has long occupied a position so fearfully interior, stands on the east bank of the Bravo del Norte, and is therefore included in this part of Texas.