The Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet in California, Sonora, and Western Texas

by Frederick Marryat

  CHAPTER XXIV.

  During my convalescence, my tent, or I should say, the lawn before it,became a kind of general divan, where the warriors and elders of thetribe would assemble, to smoke and relate the strange stories of daysgone by. Some of them appeared to me particularly beautiful; I shall,therefore, narrate them to the reader. One old chief began as follows:--

  "I will tell ye of the Shkote-nah Pishkuan, or the boat of fire, when Isaw it for the first time. Since that, the grass has withered fifteentimes in the prairies, and I have grown weak and old. Then I was awarrior, and many scalps have I taken on the eastern shores of theSabine. Then, also, the Pale-faces living in the prairies were good; wefought them because we were enemies, but they never stole anything fromus, nor we from them.

  "Well, at that time, we were once in the spring hunting the buffalo. TheCaddoes, who are now a small tribe of starved dogs, were then a largepowerful nation, extending from the Cross Timbers to the waters of thegreat stream, in the East, but they were gamblers and drunkards; theywould sell all their furs for the; 'Shoba-wapo' (fire-water), and returnto their villages to poison their squaws, and make brutes of theirchildren. Soon they got nothing more to sell; and as they could not nowdo without the 'Shoba-wapo,' they began to steal. They would steal thehorses and oxen of the Pale-faces, and say 'The Comanches did it.' Whenthey killed trappers or travellers, they would go to the fort of theYankees and say to them, 'Go to the wigwams of the Comanches, and youwill see the scalps of your friends hanging upon long poles.' But we didnot care for we knew it was not true.

  "A long time passed away, when the evil spirit of the Cad does whisperedto them to come to the villages of the Comanches while they werehunting, and to take away with them all that they could. They did so,entering the war-path as foxes and owls, during night. When theyarrived, they found nothing but squaws, old women, and little children.Yet these fought well, and many of the Caddoes were killed before theyabandoned their lodges. They soon found us out in the hunting-ground;and our great chief ordered me to start with five hundred warriors, andnever return until the Caddoes should have no home, and wander like deerand starved wolves in the open prairie.

  "I followed the track. First, I burnt their great villages in the CrossTimbers, and then pursued them in the swamps and cane-brakes of theEast, where they concealed themselves among the long lizards of thewater (the alligators). We, however, came up with them again, and theycrossed the Sabine, to take shelter among the Yankees, where they hadanother village, which was their largest and their richest. We followed,and on the very shores of their river, although a thousand miles fromour own country, and where the waters are dyed with the red clay of thesoil, we encamped round their wigwams and prepared to conquer.

  "It was at the gloomy season, when it rains night and day; the river washigh, the earth damp, and our young braves shivering, even under theirblankets. It was evening, when, far to the south, above one of thewindings of the stream, I saw a thick black smoke rising as a tall pineamong the clouds, and I watched it closely. It came towards us; and asthe sky darkened and night came on, sparks of fire showed the progressof the strange sight. Soon noises were heard, like those of themountains when the evil spirits are shaking them; the sounds were awful,solemn, and regular, like the throbs of a warrior's heart; and now andthen a sharp, shrill scream would rend the air and awake other terriblevoices in the forest.

  "It came, and deer, bears, panthers were passing among us, madly flyingbefore the dreaded unknown. It came, it flew, nearer and nearer, till wesaw it plainly with its two big mouths, spitting fire like the burningmountains of the West. It rained very hard, and yet we saw all. It waslike a long fish, shaped like a canoe, and its sides had many eyes, fullof bright light as the stars above.

  "I saw no one with the monster; he was alone, breaking the waters andsplashing them with his arms, his legs, or his fins. On the top, and itwas very high, there was a square lodge. Once I thought I could see aman in it, but it was a fancy; or perhaps the soul of the thing,watching from its hiding-place for a prey which it might seize upon.Happily it was dark, very dark, and being in a hollow along the banks,we could not be perceived; and the dreadful thing passed.

  "The Caddoes uttered a loud scream of fear and agony, their hearts weremelted. We said nothing, for we were Comanches and warriors; and yet Ifelt strange, and was fixed to where I stood. A man is but a man, andeven a Red-skin cannot struggle with a spirit. The scream of theCaddoes, however, frightened the monster; its flanks opened anddischarged some tremendous Anim Tekis (thunders) on the village. I heardthe crashing of the logs, the splitting of the hides covering thelodges, and when the smoke was all gone, it left a smell of powder; themonster was far, far off and there was no trace of it left, except themoans of the wounded and the lamentation of the squaws amongthe Caddoes.

  "I and my young men soon recovered our senses; we entered the village,burnt everything, and killed the warriors. They would not fight; but asthey were thieves, we destroyed them. We returned to our own villages,every one of us with many scalps, and since that time the Caddoes havenever been a nation; they wander from north to south, and from east towest; they have huts made with the bark of trees, or they take shelterin the burrows of the prairie dogs, with the owls and the snakes; butthey have no lodges, no wigwams, no villages. Thus may it be with allthe foes of our great nation."

  This an historical fact. The steamboat "Beaver" made its firstexploration upon the Red River, some eighty miles above the Frenchsettlement of Nachitochy, just at the very time that the Comanches wereattacking the last Caddoe village upon the banks of the Red River. Thesepoor savages yelled with terror when the strange mass passed thus beforethem, and, either from wanton cruelty or from fear of an attack, theboat fired four guns, loaded with grape-shot, upon the village, fromwhich they were not a hundred yards distant.

  The following is a narrative of events which happened in the time ofMosh Kohta (buffalo), a great chief, hundreds of years ago, when theunfortunate "La Salle" was shipwrecked upon the coast of Texas, whileendeavouring to discover the mouth of the Mississippi. Such records arevery numerous among the great prairie tribes; they bear sometimes theOssianic type, and are related every evening during the month ofFebruary, when the "Divines" and the elders of the nation teach to theyoung men the traditions of former days.

  "It was in the time of a chief, a great chief, strong, cunning, andwise, a chief of many bold deeds. His name was Mosh Kohta.

  "It is a long while! No Pale-faces dwelt in the land of plenty (thetranslation of the Indian word 'Texas'); our grandfathers had justreceived it from the Great Spirit, and they had come from the setting ofthe sun across the big mountains to take possession. We were a greatnation--we are so now, we have always been so, and we will ever be. Atthat time, also, our tribe spread all along the western shores of thegreat stream Mississippi, for no Pale-face had yet settled upon it. Wewere a great people, ruled by a mighty chief; the earth, the trees, therivers, and the air know his name. Is there a place in the mountains orthe prairies where the name of Mosh Kohta has not been pronouncedand praised?

  "At that time a strange warlike people of the Pale-Faces broke their bigcanoes along our coasts of the South, and they all landed on the shore,well armed with big guns and long rifles, but they had nothing to eat.These were the 'Mahamate-kosh-ehoj' (the French); their chief was a goodman, a warrior, and a great traveller; he had started from the northernterritories of the Algonquins, to go across the salt water in fardistant lands, and bring back with him many good things which theRed-skins wanted:--warm blankets to sleep upon, flints to strike a fire,axes to cut the trees, and knives to skin the bear and the buffalo. Hewas a good man, and loved the Indians, for they also were good, and goodpeople will always love each other.

  "He met with Mosh Kohta; our warriors would not fight the strangers, forthey were hungry, and their voices were soft; they were also too few tobe feared, though their courage seemed great under misfortune, and theywould sing and laugh while they suffered.
We gave them food, we helpedthem to take from the waters the planks of their big canoe, and to buildthe first wigwam in which the Pale-faces ever dwelt in Texas. Two moonsthey remained hunting the buffalo with our young men, till at last theirchief and his bravest warriors started in some small canoes of ours, tosee if they could not enter the great stream, by following the coasttowards the sunrise. He was gone four moons, and when he returned, hehad lost half of his men, by sickness, hunger, and fatigue; yet MoshKohta bade him not despair; the great chief promised the Pale-faces toconduct them in the spring to the great stream, and for several moremoons we lived all together, as braves and brothers should. Then, forthe first time also, the Comanches got some of their rifles, and othersknives. Was it good--was it bad? Who knows? Yet the lance and arrowskilled as many buffaloes as lead and black dust (powder), and the squawscould take off the skin of a deer or a beaver without knives. How theydid it, no one knows now; but they did it, though they had not yet seenthe keen and sharp knives of the Pale-faces.

  "However, it was not long time before many of the strangers tired ofremaining so far from their wigwams: their chief every morning wouldlook for hours towards the rising of the sun, as if the eyes of his soulcould see through the immensity of the prairies; he became gloomy as aman of dark deeds (a Medecin), and one day, with half of his men, hebegan a long inland trail across prairies, swamps, and rivers, so muchdid he dread to die far from his lodge. Yet he did die: not of sickness,not of hunger, but under the knife of another Pale-face; and he was thefirst one from strange countries whose bones blanched without burial inthe waste. Often the evening breeze whispers his name along the swellsof the southern plains, for he was a brave man, and no doubt he is nowsmoking with his great Manitou.

  "Well, he started. At that time the buffalo and the deer were plentiful,and the men went on their trail gaily till they reached the river ofmany forks (Trinity River), for they knew that every day brought themnearer and nearer to the forts of their people, though it was yet a longway--very long. The Pale-face chief had a son with him; a noble youth,fair to look upon, active and strong: the Comanches loved him. MoshKohta had advised him to distrust two of his own warriors; but he wasyoung and generous, incapable of wrong or cowardice; he would notsuspect it in others, especially among men of his own colour and nation,who had shared his toils, his dangers, his sorrows, and his joys.

  "Now these two warriors our great chief had spoken of were bad men andvery greedy; they were ambitious too, and believed that, by killingtheir chief and his son, they would themselves command the band. Oneevening, while they were all eating the meal of friendship, groans wereheard--a murder had been committed. The other warriors sprang up; theysaw their chief dead, and the two warriors coming towards them; theirrevenge was quick--quick as that of the panther: the two base warriorswere killed.

  "Then there was a great fight among the Pale-face band, in which manywere slain; but the young man and some other braves escaped from theirenemies, and, after two moons, reached the Arkansas, where they foundtheir friends and some Makota Conayas (priests--black-gowns). Theremainder of the band who left us, and who murdered their chief, ourancestors destroyed like reptiles, for they were venomous and bad. Theother half of the Pale-faces, who had remained behind in their woodwigwams, followed our tribe to our great villages, became Comanches, andtook squaws. Their children and grandchildren have formed a good andbrave nation; they are paler than the Comanches, but their heart is allthe same; and often in the hunting-grounds they join our hunters,partake of the same meals, and agree like brothers. These are the nationof the Wakoes, not far in the south, upon the trail of the CrossTimbers. But who knows not the Wakoes?--even children can go to theirhospitable lodges."

  This episode is historical. In the early months of 1684, four vesselsleft La Rochelle, in France, for the colonization of the Mississippi,bearing two hundred and eighty persons. The expedition was commanded byLa Salle, who brought with him his nephew, Moranget. After a delay atSanto Domingo, which lasted two years, the expedition, missing the mouthof the Mississippi, entered the Bay of Matagorda, where they wereshipwrecked. "There," says Bancroft in his History of America, "underthe suns of June, with timber felled in an inland grove, and dragged fora league over the prairie grass, the colonists prepared to build ashelter, La Salle being the architect, and himself making the beams, andtenons, and mortises."

  This is the settlement which made Texas a part of Louisiana. La Salleproposed to seek the Mississippi in the canoes of the Indians, who hadshowed themselves friendly, and, after an absence of about four months,and the loss of thirty men, he returned in rags, having failed to find"the fatal river." The eloquent American historian gives him a noblecharacter:--"On the return of La Salle," says he, "he learned that amutiny had broken out among his men, and they had destroyed a part ofthe colony's provisions. Heaven and man seemed his enemies, and, withthe giant energy of an indomitable will, having lost his hopes offortune, his hopes of fame, with his colony diminished to about onehundred, among whom discontent had given birth to plans of crime--withno European nearer than the river Pamuco, and no French nearer than thenorthern shores of the Mississippi, he resolved to travel on foot to hiscountrymen in the North, and renew his attempts at colonization."

  It appears that La Salle left sixty men behind him, and on the 20th ofMarch, 1686, after a buffalo-hunt, he was murdered by Duhaut andL'Archeveque, two adventurers, who had embarked their capital in theenterprise. They had long shown a spirit of mutiny, and the malignity ofdisappointed avarice so maddened them that they murdered theirunfortunate commander.

  I will borrow a page of Bancroft, who is more explicit than the Comanchechroniclers.

  "Leaving sixty men at Fort St. Louis, in January, 1687, La Salle, withthe other portion of his men, departed for Canada. Lading their baggageon the wild horses from the Cenis, which found their pasture everywherein the prairies, in shoes made of green buffalo-hides; for want of otherpaths, following the track of the buffalo, and using skins as the onlyshelter against rain, winning favour with the savages by the confidingcourage of their leader--they ascended the streams towards the firstridges of highlands, walking through beautiful plains and groves, amongdeer and buffaloes, now fording the clear rivulets, now building abridge by felling a giant tree across a stream, till they had passed thebasin of the Colorado, and in the upland country had reached a branch ofthe Trinity River.

  "In the little company of wanderers there were two men, Duhaut andL'Archeveque, who had embarked their capital in the enterprise. Ofthese, Duhaut had long shown a spirit of mutiny; the base malignity ofdisappointed avarice, maddened by sufferings and impatient of control,awakened the fiercest passions of ungovernable hatred. Inviting Morangetto take charge of the fruits of a buffalo-hunt, they quarrelled with himand murdered him.

  "Wondering at the delay of his nephew's return, La Salle, on the 20th ofMarch, went to seek him. At the brink of the river he observed eagleshovering, as if over carrion, and he fired an alarm-gun. Warned by thesound, Duhaut and L'Archeveque crossed the river; the former skulked inthe prairie grass; of the latter, La Salle asked, 'Where is my nephew?'At the moment of the answer, Duhaut fired; and, without uttering a word,La Salle fell dead. 'You are down now, grand bashaw! You are down now!'shouted one of the conspirators, as they despoiled his remains, whichwere left on the prairie, naked and without burial, to be devoured bywild beasts.

  "Such was the end of this daring adventurer. For force of will and vastconceptions; for various knowledge, and quick adaptation of his geniusto untried circumstances; for a sublime magnanimity, that resigneditself to the will of Heaven, and yet triumphed over affliction byenergy of purpose and unfaltering hope,--he had no superior among hiscountrymen. He had won the affection of the Governor of Canada, theesteem of Colbert, the confidence of Seignelay, the favour of Louis XIV.After beginning the colonization of Upper Canada, he perfected thediscovery of the Mississippi from the falls of St. Anthony to its mouth;and he will be remembered through all times as the father ofco
lonization in the great central valley of the West."

  Jontel, with the brother and son of La Salle, and others, but seven inall, obtained a guide from the Indians for the Arkansas, and, fordingtorrents, crossing ravines, making a ferry over rivers with rafts orboats of buffalo-hides, without meeting the cheering custom of thecalumet, till they reached the country above the Red River, and leavingan esteemed companion in a wilderness grave, on the 24th of July, cameupon a branch of the Mississippi. There they beheld on an island a largecross. Never did Christians gaze on that emblem with more deep-feltemotion. Near it stood a log hut, tenanted by two Frenchmen. Amissionary, of the name of Tonti, had descended that river, and full ofgrief at not finding La Salle, had established a post near the Arkansas.

  As the reader may perceive, there is not much difference between ourprinted records and the traditions of the Comanches.