same time that we teach him to sow, in order that he may with his fellow man in the harvest field, behold, and his heart be made glad with the merciful bounty of his Creator, we raise him above the level of the beast, make him an useful member of society, and by creating sentiments of civilization, we produce wants as yet unknown to savages, and thus open new markets for British industry, and millions of people would become consumers of British labour.* By this extension of our commerce we strike at once at the true cause of the distress so loudly and justly complained of at home. But has not the policy of Great Britain towards the natives of all newly discovered and conquered countries from the earliest period down to the present, tended to the extermination of the natives? And what was the consequence of this in the onset? The introduction of slavery! A system whereby the African, with all his primitive barbarism, indolence, and physical defects, was to be kidnapped, (at the great risk of the lives of his captors,) torn from his kindred and country, and from thence transported, at a great expense, to supply the place of the slaughtered natives in the colonies of Christian countries.

The wisdom of exterminating the natives of newly discovered countries, and, above all, of the West Indies, and the United States of America,

Vide Appendix.

simply because they were, and are, merely supposed to be irreclaimable, and supplying their place with men who are said to be equally incorrigible, and indeed inferior, in every respect, to the natives of those regions, remains a mystery which I fear no one will attempt to explain. Whereas it can be demonstrated to proof, that the extermination of the natives of countries where the white man cannot labour, is the true origin of slavery and the slave trade; and if but one-tenth of the danger, expense, and trouble attending slavery, to say nothing of the 20,000,000%. sterling recently paid for its abolition, had been expended on the civilization of the aborigenes, wherever God had placed them, and the white man had found them, millions of souls would have been spared, instead of being hurried from this world, by their Christian discoverers and conquerors, as they came into it, alike strangers to their God and the blessings of civilization.

Trusting to my readers' forgiveness for this digression, I will now proceed to give a sketch of the manners, habits, customs, and institutions of the Texan Indian tribes, individually, namely,

The Comanches, Carancahuas, Tackankanies, Kankaways, Waccos, Caddos, and Lipans; these, with their fugitive tribes, have entered Texas from the west, and are supposed to be remnants of the various nations that formed the Mexican empire at the time of the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards.

The Cushatees are supposed, from one or two

customs still extant among them, to be the descendants of the original inhabitants of Texas, the Natchez.

The tribes that entered Texas from the north, and last, are the Cherokees, Creeks, Kickapoos, and Shawnees, with a few small fugitive tribes. The Indians here named are scattered all over the eastern and northern parts of Texas, from the Sabine to the Trinity river; from thence, taking a straight line to about twenty miles north of Milam on the Brazos, to the Colorado, about five miles above the city of Austin, in the west, for the southern frontier of their territory, to the Red River on the north; while the Comanches and the other western tribes possess the whole territory west of the Colorado, and south of the Nueces to the Rio Grande, as marked on the map, and following the latter river (on both sides) to its source in the Verde mountains; thus embracing within its known limits the rocky mountains of Chihuahua, New Mexico, and the fertile plains, called the Bolson Mapimi, and Parras.

The Comanches are by far the most warlike nation in Texas, and are also the most powerful tribe that has entered Texas from the west. They may be considered a settled people, though they do not cultivate the soil, but rely on the shore for subsistence, which is not at all times to be found in the same regions, therefore at stated seasons they are obliged to lead a wandering life, and live in tents. The men carry themselves remarkably

erect, and are tall, and beautifully proportioned; face oval, features bold, regular, and expressive; their hair fine, black, straight and long, except at the sides, where it is cut as close as possible, but growing from the forehead along the crown of the head as plaited, and hangs down upon the shoulder, and not unfrequently as low as the small of the back.

Their dress consists of deer-skin, which they tan themselves, and afterwards make into coats that reach half way down the thigh, somewhat after the fashion of a Spanish tunic; add to this the maccason, made of the same material, and that serves for shoe, stocking, and trowsers, and the Comanche Indian dress is complete. This style of dress was first introduced among the original inhabitants of Peru by the Incas, whose first appearance on that continent about the middle of the thirteenth century, is thus described by Garcillasso and other authors: "There appeared on the banks of the lake Titicaca, a man and woman of majestic form, and clothed in decent garments. They were persons of excellent shape and beauty, and the DRESSES THEY WORE were such as continued afterwards the usual habits of the Incas, by which title they described themselves." The Comanche women, or squaws, are short, (and with few exceptions particularly ugly,) but in war they are as courageous as the men, and, like them, most civil and hospitable in peace. Formerly they dressed like the men,

but of late years they have taken to wear coarse cotton garments, which they obtain from the American traders.

The chief town of the Comanche nation is situate at the foot of the San Saba hills, in Western Texas. It contains about two hundred houses. They are all built on an uniform scale, one hundred feet long, thirty wide, and six high. The walls are built of earth; the roofs flat, and covered with a whitish clay, which, when exposed to the atmosphere, becomes as hard as marble. Each house has its venerable patriarch, who, with his descendants for two and three generations, live within its walls in perfect harmony. Their detached villages, of which there are several, are always located in some fertile and remote spot, difficult of access in the mountain districts, where the buffalos range in immense woods during the winter months, and from whence they obtain, with little difficulty, an abundant supply of food; but in spring, when the water begins to recede from the prairies or swamps in the lower country, the buffalos leave their winter's range. At this season the villages are all bustle; the hunter and warrior prepare for, and simultaneously take the field, the former frequently carrying the chase from the mountains in the north, to the most distant plains in the south, whose confines are washed by the water of the gulf; while the latter hastens away to avenge a wrong, or to watch the movements of the white man, or some neighbouring Indian tribe. When

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