United States or São Tomé and Príncipe ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The following laughable account of a race that he witnessed is given by Col. Dodge in his very entertaining book, "Our Wild Indians": "A band of Comanches once camped near Fort Chadbourne, in Texas. Some of the officers were decidedly 'horsey, owning blood horses whose relative speed was well known.
He had received a couple of flesh-wounds, which stung him for the moment without incapacitating him for effective service. Then, in as few words as possible, Avon told his story. He remembered that his uncle was wounded before his horse was killed, and it was self-evident to everyone that the poor man had been carried off by the Comanches.
The only fault to be found in them is that they are inclined to be too stout, arising from their not taking exercise. The Comanches, like all the tribes of the Shoshone breed, are generous and liberal to excess. You can take what you please from the wigwam horses, skins, rich furs, gold, anything, in fact, except their arms and their females, whom they love fondly.
Half a century ago they were, in point of numbers, the two most powerful nations in all the numerous aggregations of Indians in the West; the Comanches ruling almost supreme on the Eastern plains, while the Shos-shones were the dominant tribe in the country beyond the Rocky Mountains, and in the mountains themselves.
In spite of their disadvantages, the Texians repulsed the Comanches with considerable loss, till the morning, when the men were literally tired with killing and the prairie was covered with the corpses of two thousand savages; the Texians themselves having lost but thirty or forty men, and these people of little consequence, being emigrants recently arrived from the States.
American agents, in particular, civil as well as military, explore Europe much as their forebears 'prospected' the Far West, and they look upon the most ancient nations of Europe as Iroquois, Comanches, or Aztecs.
You must bear in mind that the train does not need an escort back to Bent's Fort, for there are no Comanches between here and there, and I do not see where there is anything to hinder the train in going back in perfect safety." The Col. then said, "Now Mr. Drannan, what do you expect for your trouble in piloting the train here?" I answered, "Col., I will leave that matter with you and Capt. McKee.
Then the music stopped, and with its silencing came the monk, the clown, the grandee, and others. In the insistent demand of the many the Arab had too few dances with the Spanish girl. There were Comanches, Samurai, policemen, Zulus and courtiers, who, seeing her dance, discovered that their immediate avocation was dancing with her.
They have nothing to do with the Government, and they make war on the whites whenever they feel like it. Just now, I don't know of any wild Injuns that are at war with Uncle Sam; but the Arapahoes, Comanches, and Cheyennes are all likely to break loose any time. I give 'm all a plenty of elbow room."
For he is a Mexican by birth; when a boy made prisoner by the Comanches, and long since matriculated into the mysteries of the redman's life its cunning, as its cruelties. Now a man, he is one of the chiefs of the tribe, in authority only less than the Horned Lizard himself, but equal to the latter in all the cruel instincts that distinguish the savage.
Word Of The Day