This wound caused the maddened beast to spring backwards, and I dashed past him as he vainly endeavoured to gore and overthrow my horse.  The chase was now over, the buffalo stopped and soon rolled on the ground perfectly helpless.  I had just finished him with two other arrows, when, for the first time, I perceived that I was no longer alone.  Thirty or forty well-mounted Indians were quietly looking at me in an approving manner, as if congratulating me on my success.  They were the Comanches we had been so long seeking for.  I made myself known to them, and claimed the hospitality which a year before had been offered to me by their chief, “the white raven.”  They all surrounded me and welcomed me in the most kind manner.  Three of them started to fetch my rifle and to join my companions, who were some eight or nine miles eastward, while I followed my new friends to their encampment, which was but a few miles distant.  They had been buffalo hunting, and had just reached the top of the swell when they perceived me and my victim.  Of course, I and my two friends were well received in the wigwam, though the chief was absent upon an expedition, and when he returned a few days after, a great feast was given, during which some of the young men sang a little impromptu poem, on the subject of my recent chase.

The Comanches are a noble and most powerful nation.  They have hundreds of villages, between which they are wandering all the year round.  They are well armed, and always move in bodies of some hundreds, and even thousands; all active and skilful horsemen, living principally by the chase, and feeding occasionally, during their distant excursions, upon the flesh of the mustang, which, after all, is a delightful food, especially when fat and young.  A great council of the whole tribe is held once a year, besides which there are quarterly assemblies, where all important matters are discussed.  They have long been hostile to the Mexicans, but are less so now; their hatred having been concentrated upon the Yankees and Texans whom they consider as brigands.  They do not apply themselves to the culture of the ground as the Wakoes, yet they own innumerable herds of horses, cattle, and sheep, which graze in the northern prairies, and they are indubitably one of the wealthiest people in the world.  They have a great profusion of gold, which they obtain from the neighbourhood of the San Seba hills, and work it themselves into bracelets, armlets, diadems, as well as bits for their horses, and ornaments to their saddles.  Like all the Shoshones’ tribe, they are most elegant horsemen, and by dint of caresses and good treatment render the animals so familiar and attached to them, that I have often seen some of them following their masters like dogs, licking their hands and shoulders.  The Comanche young women are exquisitely clean, good-looking, and but slightly bronzed; indeed the Spaniards of Andalusia and the Calabrians are darker than they are.  Their voice is soft, their motions dignified and graceful:  their eyes dark and flashing, when excited, but otherwise mild, with a soft tinge of melancholy.  The only fault to be found in them is that they are inclined to be too stout, arising from their not taking exercise.