The Santa Fé caravans have generally avoided every manner of trade with the wild Indians, for fear of being treacherously dealt with during the familiar intercourse which necessarily ensues. This I am convinced is an erroneous impression; for I have always found, that savages are much less hostile to those with whom they trade, than to any other people. They are emphatically fond of traffic, and, being anxious to encourage the whites to come among them, instead of committing depredations upon those with whom they trade, they are generally ready to defend them against every enemy.
Ponds and Buffalo Wallows -- Valley of the Canadian, and romantic Freaks of Nature -- Melancholy Adventure of a Party of Traders in 1832 -- Fears of being lost -- Arrival of a Party of _Comancheros_, and their wonderful Stories -- Their Peculiarities and Traffic -- Bitter Water, and the _Salitre_ of New Mexico -- Avant-couriers for Santa Fé -- Patent Fire-arms and their Virtues -- Ranchero Ideas of Distance, and their Mode of giving Directions -- The Angostura, and erroneous Notions of the Texans -- A new Route revealed -- Solitary Travel -- Supply of Provisions sent back -- Arrival at Santa Fé -- Gov. Armijo, etc. -- A 'Flare-up' with His Excellency.
The Comanches having all disappeared, we resumed our march, and soon emerged into an open plain or _mesa_ which was one of the most monotonous I had ever seen, there being not a break, not a hill nor valley, nor even a shrub to obstruct the view. The only thing which served to turn us from a direct course pursued by the compass, was the innumerable ponds which bespeckled the plain, and which kept us at least well supplied with water. Many of these ponds seem to have grown out of 'buffalo wallows,'--a term used on the Prairies to designate a sink made by the buffalo's pawing the earth for the purpose of obtaining a smooth dusty surface to roll upon.
{ 48} After three or four days of weary travel over this level plain, the picturesque valley of the Canadian burst once more upon our view, presenting one of the most magnificent sights I had ever beheld. Here rose a perpendicular cliff, in all the majesty and sublimity of its desolation;--there another sprang forward as in the very act of losing its balance and about to precipitate itself upon the vale below;--a little further on, a pillar with crevices and cornices so curiously formed as easily to be mistaken for the work of art; while a thousand other objects grotesquely and fantastically arranged, and all shaded in the sky-bound perspective by the blue ridge-like brow of the _mesa_ far beyond the Canadian, [Pg133] constituted a kind of chaotic space where nature seemed to have indulged in her wildest caprices. Such was the confusion of ground-swells and eccentric cavities, that it was altogether impossible to determine whereabouts the channel of the Canadian wound its way among them.