We found their prediction, in the first instance, but too true.  Six miles from Austin we stopped at the farm of the Honourable Judge Webb, and asked leave to water our horses, as they had travelled forty miles under a hot sun without drawing bit.  The honourable judge flatly refused, although he had a good well, besides a pond, under fence, covering several acres; his wife, however, reflecting, perhaps, that her stores were rather short of coffee or salt, entered into a rapid discussion with her worse half, and by-and-bye that respectable couple of honourables agreed to sell water to us at twenty-five cents a bucket.

When we dismounted to take the bridles off our horses, the daughters arrived, and perceiving we had new silk sashes and neckerchiefs and some fine jewels, they devoured us with their eyes, and one of them, speaking to her papa, that most hospitable gentleman invited us to enter his house.  By that time we were once more upon our saddles and ready to start.  Roche felt indignant at the meanness of the fellow who had received our severity-five cents for the water before he invited us into the house.  We refused, and Roche told him that he was an old scoundrel to sell for money that which even a savage will never refuse to his most bitter enemy.

The rage of the honourable cannot be depicted:  “My rifle!” he vociferated, “my rifle! for God’s sake, Betsey—­Juliet, run for my rifle!”

The judge then went into the house; but, as three pistols were drawn from our holsters, neither he nor his rifle made their appearance, so we turned our horses’ heads and rode on leisurely to Austin.

In Austin we had a grand opportunity of seeing the Texans under their true colours.  There were three hotels in the town, and every evening, after five o’clock, almost all of them, not excluding the president of the republic, the secretaries, judges, ministers, and members of Congress, were more or less tipsy, and in the quarrels which ensued hardly a night passed without four or five men being stabbed or shot, and the riot was continued during the major portion of the night, so that at nine o’clock in the morning everybody was still in bed.  So buried in silence was the town, that one morning at eight o’clock, I killed a fine buck grazing quietly before the door of the Capitol.  It is strange that this capital of Texas should have been erected upon the very northern boundary of the state.  Indians have often entered it and taken scalps not ten steps from the Capitol.

While we were in Austin we made the acquaintance of old Castro, the chief of the Lepan Indians, an offset of the Comanche tribe.  He is one of the best-bred gentlemen in the world, having received a liberal and military education, first in Mexico, and subsequently in Spain.  He has travelled in France, Germany, England, and, in fact, all over Europe.  He speaks and writes five or six languages, and so conscious is he of his superiority over the Texans, that he never addresses them but with contempt.  He once said to them in the legislature-room of Matagorda—­